Ben Johnson is keeping the Green Bay Packers bit going into the offseason

Summary

Dan Bernstein Unfiltered

Episode: Ben Johnson is keeping the Green Bay Packers bit going into the offseason
Date: February 25, 2026
Host: Dan Bernstein
Producer/Co-Host: Matt Abbatacola
Podcast Network: 312 Sports

---

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into Bears coach Ben Johnson’s ongoing public "bit" stoking tension with the Green Bay Packers, as he continues to play up animosity between the two franchises even into the NFL offseason. Dan and Matt dissect whether Ben Johnson’s Packers-baiting is genuine or theatrical, what it means for the revitalized rivalry, and how it fits into broader Chicago sports culture. The episode also veers through various other sports topics, from oddities in MLB’s new automated strike zone measurements to Dan’s passion for lake houses, delivering the trademark mix of sharp analysis, humor, and unfiltered opinions.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Ben Johnson and the "Packers Bit"

[00:43 - 23:50]

• Setting the Scene: The main sports story is Ben Johnson—Bears coach—openly embracing and amplifying the Bears-Packers rivalry after his unprompted jab at his Packers counterpart, Matt LaFleur, in his inaugural press conference ("I would enjoy the opportunity of beating Matt LaFleur twice a year").
  • Dan: “It was Ben Johnson taking the job at the initial press conference, unprompted, offering that he would enjoy the opportunity of beating Matt LaFleur twice a year. I’m paraphrasing, but it was something like that that kind of came out of nowhere.” [01:31]
• Is it Real or a Bit?: Both Dan and Matt analyze Johnson’s now-established pattern of goading the Packers and its roots. They speculate this is less about personal animus and more about showmanship, building Bears fan investment, and maybe scoring points with team ownership.
  • Dan: “He’s playing a bit, and he’s doing it to gain the favor of and even more of George McCaskey...He’s dug too deep. There’s no crawling out of that hole now.” [08:28, 08:55]
  • Matt: “But to now do this, to take it into the offseason, he had an opportunity… But, he went too deep.” [08:52]
• Players vs. Old-School Rivalries: Modern NFL players usually don’t carry over-the-top hatred for rivals (“they’re all union brethren”), but Johnson is bringing back energy reminiscent of old-school, blue-collar NFL rivalries. The hosts agree last year's Bears-Packers games felt uniquely antagonistic thanks to this.
  • Dan: “Those three games last year were different. I mean, you had one guy say that God made it happen. You had another guy…God made him lose. That wasn’t a real win. We want the Bears and the Packers… He helped create the animosity.” [07:29]
• Is this WWE for Bears Fans?: Dan wonders if the "rivalry" is now more like professional wrestling—manufactured for entertainment—while Matt posits it doesn’t matter if it’s “kayfabe” (wrestling’s staged reality) or authentic, as long as it works.
  • Dan: "Are we now watching Ben Johnson and the Bears essentially do a pro wrestling bit, and that might be fine?" [10:08]
  • Dan: “You know, it’s WWE on the outside of the games because you can’t… You can’t do the WWE inside the game.” [13:48]
• LaFleur’s Awareness: Matt speculates whether Packers coach Matt LaFleur is in on the joke or playing dumb (“If LaFleur is not aware...it’s not a bit”), while Dan argues a bit can be one-sided. They riff on whether the “rivalry” narrative is mutually understood or simply a Bear-centric sideshow.
  • Matt: "If LaFleur is not aware of it being a bit, it’s not a bit.” [13:48]
  • Dan: "It’s a bit for Ben Johnson. 100%...You don’t have to have another party involved for it to be a bit. You don’t have to." [13:54; 14:05]
• T-Shirts and Slogans: Both gleefully joke “Who likes the Packers?”—Johnson’s answer in a recent interview—should be the Bears’ new rallying cry, imagining t-shirts and cheesily leaning into the bit.
  • Matt: "He gave 'em a tee that, like, immediately, bang. What's the deal? Who likes Packers? Hey buddy. T-shirts. Who likes the Packers?" [23:17-23:49]
  • Dan: "I'm making the t-shirts...[he] just gave away my million dollar idea." [23:33-23:38]
• Will the Rivalry Last?: For this drama to keep its juice, the Packers can't fade; the rivalry has to be narratively competitive. If the Bears dominate for a couple years, it loses its heat.
  • Dan: “The only way it continues to grow is if the Packers finish ahead of the Bears. If the Bears finish ahead and win the division again, it becomes less of a rivalry.” [20:33]

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Full Attribution and Timestamps:

• On Ben Johnson's motives:
  • Dan Bernstein [08:28]: “So, yeah. And Ben Johnson talked about himself to play up this bit, and I’m fine with it. And he did it initially to gain favor from his owner, and it just… It worked out really well, and it created even more drama.”
• On how a sports "bit" can work one-sided:
  • Dan Bernstein [13:54]: “It’s a bit for Ben Johnson. 100% is a bit. You don’t have to have another party involved in it for it to be a bit.”
• On who actually likes the Packers:
  • Co-Host (Matt) [06:34]: “A lot of people I know and like, like the Packers. They’ve got a lot of fans. They're a pretty popular team… Well, who likes the Pack? Well, obviously you don’t.”
• On Johnson keeping “the bit” going into the offseason:
  • Matt [08:52]: “...to now do this, to take it into the offseason, he had an opportunity… But he went too deep. He dug too deep. There’s no crawling out of that hole now.”
• On connecting the rivalry to pro wrestling:
  • Dan Bernstein [10:08]: “Are we now watching Ben Johnson and the Bears essentially do a pro wrestling bit, and that might be fine? Can it exist on multiple levels?”
• On the ambiguity of the rivalry being 'fun':
  • Matt [19:04]: “The ambiguity at the moment makes it fun.”

---

Secondary Segments

MLB’s Automated Strike Zone & Players' Height

[39:08 - 53:23]

• MLB is standardizing player height measurement for automated balls-and-strikes (ABS), with quirky side effects: players shrink during the day(!), strict measurement timing, and elaborate new ways to try and "game" the system for strike zone advantage.
  • Dan: “They have to know every hitter’s precise height for the system, down to the millimeter, really. They have been lining players up for measurements in every spring training facility…” [39:43]
  • Matt: “Among other rules...no shoes, no hats, no socks. Knees exposed, heels together, back against the wall, no slouching.” [43:00]
• Sidebar: Both recall & mock 1980s/90s World Basketball League, which featured strict height limits and front office shenanigans to skirt them.

Bulls, NBA, and the Art of Tanking

[27:20 - 34:22]

• Quick Bulls/Charlotte Hornets game recap: The game was bad, but revelatory about the Bulls’ young, developing roster. Discussion lauds Charlotte’s roster construction, coaching choices, and the thrilling prospect of landing a top draft pick by… doing worse.
  • Matt: “That’s how you do it. That, you know what that is? Development.” [29:46]

Dan’s Passion for Lake Houses

[55:44 - 61:16]

• Dan exults over the chance to rent the now-famous “Heated Rivalry” cottage on Lake Muskoka, riffing about fishing, rustic charm, and his wife’s total lack of interest in the North Woods—and the ridiculous indoor-vs-outdoor vacation habits of their friends.
  • Dan: “I am going through the cottage…The cottage is now available to be rented. Oh, wow. On Airbnb. 181 bucks a night, that’s it.” [55:44]

---

Additional Noteworthy Segments

• Whitney Houston’s National Anthem: Dan recommends ESPN’s “30 for 30: Whitney’s Anthem,” admiring both the musical performance and the geopolitical tension at the 1991 Super Bowl. [34:22 - 39:08]
• Vacation Fiascos & Passive-Aggressive Banter: The episode ends with extended playful arguments about camping, fishing, and vacationing styles, peppered with classic Chicago sarcasm.

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |----------------------------------------------------- |---------------| | Ben Johnson’s Packers Rivalry Bit Discussion | 00:43 – 23:50 | | “Who Likes the Packers?” Slogan & T-Shirts | 23:17 – 23:50 | | Bulls/Hornets Recap and NBA Roster Development | 27:20 – 34:22 | | Whitney Houston 30-for-30/National Anthem | 34:22 – 39:08 | | MLB Height & ABS Measurement, WBL Stories | 39:08 – 53:23 | | Dan’s Lake House Rant / “Heated Rivalry” Cottage | 55:44 – 61:16 |

---

Summary & Takeaway

• Main Theme: Ben Johnson’s commitment to Bears-Packers antagonism is mostly performance (“a bit”), but it's perfect for the times: building community, selling the narrative, and giving the rivalry—the oldest in the NFL—a new spark. Dan and Matt delight in watching the lines blur between “real” sports hatred and orchestrated drama.
• Sports are Theater: With tongue firmly in cheek, both hosts urge Chicago to enjoy it—whether it’s truly personal or a well-executed act.
• Wider Application: The episode’s broader message—rivalries, sports rules, and even vacation drama are all made richer through little doses of theater, whether we admit it or not.

---

Sample Quote for Social Sharing:
"Are we now watching Ben Johnson and the Bears essentially do a pro wrestling bit, and that might be fine? Can it exist on multiple levels?" – Dan Bernstein [10:08]

---

For longtime Chicago fans, it’s a classic episode blending unfiltered sports commentary with genuine laughs and cultural insight—well worth the listen, especially as the next Bears-Packers chapter looms.

Transcript

[Commercial Narrator]

Why choose a Sleep Number Smart Bed Can I make my site softer?

[Dan Bernstein]

Can I make my site firmer?

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Can we sleep cooler?

[Commercial Narrator]

Sleep Number does that cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side your Sleep number setting Enjoy personalized comfort for better sleep night after night. And now during our President's day sale, take 50% off our limited edition bed plus an extra $100 off all mattresses and Saturday only at a Sleep number store or sleepnumber.com

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

day or night. VRBoCare is here 247 to help make every part of your stay seamless. If anything comes up or you simply

[Commercial Narrator]

need a little guidance, support is ready

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

whenever you reach out from the moment you book to the moment you head home. We're here to help things run smoothly because a great trip starts with the right support. And hey, a good playlist doesn't hurt either. Dan Bernstein Unfiltered Unfiltered on 31 2Sports Dan Bernstein Unfiltered on 312Sports is brought to you in partnership with my bookie Bears brass making the rounds in indie and we played some of the sound on forward progress yesterday. Very, you know, Bears related and roster related. But that's not what I want to talk about today because I need to figure something out or at least to be more specific, decide if we want to figure something out because I'm not sure if we do. And it has to do with Ben Johnson's obvious decision, conscious decision to lead the Bears community in a new distaste for the Green Bay Packers. And I don't know if there's anything actually behind it. I don't know if any of it is real and I don't know if any of it matters if it's real or not. But it is very clear. And I was waiting to see this. I was waiting to know after last year, this has been We've got marking points here. It was Ben Johnson taking the job at the initial press conference, unprompted, offering that he would enjoy the opportunity of beating Matt LaFleur twice a year. I'm paraphrasing, but it was something like that that kind of came out of nowhere. We looked at each other. We thought, oh, okay, that's interesting. Wonder what the story is there.

[Dan Bernstein]

Because of course there is no story. There's no background.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Yeah, well, as far as we know, the natural instinct was, whoa, that was, that was an odd, spicy turn. Why, why would he say that? What's, what's the history? What don't we know, and we asked and we asked and we asked and enough people have examined this. There hasn't been an answer yet other than he's the head coach of the Packers. Even though Ben Johnson had just taken the job, I don't think he'd gotten some sort of internal cultural history lesson. Comes from the McCaskey family and comes from ancient actual personal animus that was real. The Hallis stuff, the Mike Ditka, Forrest Gregg stuff and Charles Martin. That a lot of that was real. When you had these rival clubs in a startup league represented by big, strong people who worked in the mills or the meatpacking industry in your various cities, and they represented these groups of people. I understand that. But the conscious decision last year, Bears were good, the games were great, and it comes down to that unforgettable playoff night. And there on the Amazon post game is Caleb Williams wearing a cheese grater hat, picking up a cheese grater and grating cheese gloatingly. And it was awesome. So they've bought in. And then just now, let's go to yesterday. I want to play this sound and Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk and the NFL and NBC. I think this was under the auspices of NFL and NBC, at least where I saw it. I'm going to play this with their courtesy to NBC. And he asked Ben Johnson about this. So let's just hear what the Bears coach had to say before we discuss further. What is the deal with the Packers? Who likes the Packers? How much of that is leaning fully into your job as Bears coach, but. And how much of it is how you truly feel? Yeah, I mean, the Bears and the packers, they should not like each other. I think it's as simple as that. And I think that's. That's going to make this rivalry, this game, something that people are going to watch here going forward. Have you talked to Matt LaFleur at all? Because I feel like he gets confused. Like, what did I do?

[Dan Bernstein]

Do you have any relationship with him?

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Have you heard from him? Has he called you up and he said, what's the deal? Like, anything like that? No, we don't talk. Okay. Do you want it that way? I'm good with it. Has he tried to reach out to you? No. Okay.

[Dan Bernstein]

All right.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

There was the weird handshake. We know that he ran away and Met LaFleur was like, okay. I thought when he asked, he answered the question, what's the deal with the Packers? And Florio set that up by doing kind of a Seinfeld. He said, do you watch Seinfeld, which the, the whole. What's the deal with. That's not the show Seinfeld. That's, that was old Jerry Seinfeld stand ups. What's the deal with airline food? That whole thing. His answer was a question. Ben Johnson's answer was, well, who likes the Packers? And Florio laughed at that, which I understand because it's sort of an unexpected response. But there's an answer. A lot of people like the Packers.

[Dan Bernstein]

A lot.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

A lot of people I know and like, like the Packers. They've got a lot of fans. They're, they're pretty popular team, but that's, it's just a weird way to. Well, who likes the Pack? Well, obviously you don't. It was a fascinating choice of a first response from Ben Johnson. So these are the questions that I, in general, I, I, I guess the, Are we really doing this?

[Dan Bernstein]

Well, I think though, Dan, the more important answer he gave is that he said the Bears and Packers shouldn't like each other.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

But he, he means the actual players, I guess. And even though we know the players do not dislike each other at any of these games, they don't. They want to win. They want to defeat their opponent because it's their opponent. But they've all played together. They all know each other. They're all union brethren. So it's not the way it used to be with some of that level.

[Dan Bernstein]

I don't know. That was in those three games last year were different than the way NFL players talk after games and talk about their opponents. It was different. I mean, you had one guy say that God made it happen. You had another guy, well, God made them lose. God made him lose. Right? God made it happen. Another guy that said that, you know, that we want the Bears because that win was, you know, what wasn't real. That wasn't a real win. We won that game. Even though the scoreboard said different when it finally ended that second game they played. We want the Bears and the packers. That was, that was different stuff. He, they, he helped create the animosity in that season last year. The games, of course, were a significant part of why that rivalry got so heated and so inflamed because The packers won 58 minutes of both those games.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Note that heated rivalry reference, by the way. We're going to get to that.

[Dan Bernstein]

It was deliberate.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

I know, I know. Thank you.

[Dan Bernstein]

So he, when he said that the Bears and Packers shouldn't like each other, he, dude, and I said this, I said this in season, that this, it's a bit he's playing a bit, and he's doing it to gain the favor of and even more of George McCaskey. I said to you, I bet you if we had a transcript of the interview that the word packers was one of the probably most used words in the interview.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

It's. But to now do this, to take it into the off season, he had an opportunity.

[Dan Bernstein]

Oh, dude, he went too deep. He dug too deep. There's no crawling out of that hole now.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Well, there is, you could easily say, because it is actually one of the refrains that we've been hearing from the Bears, and that is every season is its own entity. Every team is its own entity. You, you, you, you never. Even though you say run something back, you're never actually doing that. You always start over. No league teaches that lesson more starkly than the NFL does with the. The wild swings of good teams being bad and bad teams being good. That happens.

[Dan Bernstein]

And they stole that from me, by the way.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

They've been saying that. It's their way of talking about the Blob and. And the inevitable power of the dominion of the Blob. It's just the way that the executives talk about it. They don't use my term because they would owe me money if they called it the Blob. But then, well, who likes the Packers? All right, well, you want me to answer that? A lot of people do. It's just a thing. You don't. And why don't you? So, yes, they're now inextricably in on this, whatever you want to call it.

[Dan Bernstein]

And

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

I guess it's awesome, because why not? It's only sports at this point. As much. We don't have to go very far to get yelled at. We don't have to go very far for tribalism. You walk out the door and somebody calls you a piece of shit. That's just the way life is today, that we deal with that everywhere. And in sports, it's always made those. Those manufactured conflicts more fun, more investment, more skin in the game. You feel like there's something at stake in a professional game other than just, you know, what. What did Rob Manfred call a trophy? A piece of metal. You feel like this. There's really something civic, something shared on the line. I understand why the investment, but the question to me really is, is this wrestling? Are we now watching Ben Johnson and the Bears essentially do a pro wrestling bit, and that might be fine? Can it exist on multiple levels? Can we understand that this. And I think the answer is yes. And I think that's what my commitment is going to be, is to realize that this. That there may be ginned up hatred. Call it. I hate using that word in this case, because it's not actual hatred, but the animus, the distaste, and just say, we're going. We're gonna do this. And I wonder if somewhere through some back channel or even a text or a burner or something that he's told LaFleur, Hey, I'm gonna. I'm gonna kind of be a douchebag. And this is. This is just what we're doing here. No worries. I'll buy a beer. But just understand what we're doing here. And LaFleur is like, whatever, it's fine. That's cool. Don't worry about it. I'll play along. And I wanted that if there is this kind of thing where they can wink and keep doing the kayfabe, I don't know. My guess is probably not, but it might be understood.

[Dan Bernstein]

Well, I'm going to say that no. Without knowing, I'll say no. There has been no conversation. This is not a choreographed dance that they're doing. Ben Johnson took it upon himself to partake in this bit, and it's good, and I'm fine with it. I mean, I. If you ask me who I hate the most of the NFL season, it's the Packers. I always have. I always will. And he's just added fuel to the fire, and it's fine. And he has not included Mike LaFleur in on it. Those are Mike.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

That's right. Well, Mike's the brother.

[Dan Bernstein]

Oh, not Mike.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Matt. Okay. It wouldn't surprise me if he did include Mike now.

[Dan Bernstein]

Yeah, but Matt doesn't know. He didn't.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

He could invent a whole Chicago Cardinals thing.

[Dan Bernstein]

Right? He didn't.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

We ran him out of town. We'll do it again.

[Dan Bernstein]

He didn't include Matt in the. On the conversation. He just did it on his own. You know, that was a genuine look of surprise. And I think every time I've seen Matt LaFleur talk about it, his facial expression is genuine. Like, I. I don't get it. I don't.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

What's the deal with this guy?

[Dan Bernstein]

Yes.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Right.

[Dan Bernstein]

So, yeah. And. And Ben Johnson talked about himself to. To play up this bit, and I'm fine with it. And he did it initially to gain favor from his owner, and it just. It worked out really well, and it created even more drama. Again, had he not done any of this, the games themselves, if they played out the same way, would have Done enough. This is just an extra side bit to it. And it's fun and it's fun, and it is a bit. And you know, it's WWE on the outside of the games because you can't. You can't do the WWE inside the game.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

But here's the thing, though. If. If LaFleur is not aware of it being a bit, it's not a bit.

[Dan Bernstein]

It's a bit for Ben Johnson. 100% is a bit. It's a bit for Ben Johnson. You don't have to have another party involved in it for it to be a bit. You don't have to.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

It's just where my wrestling analogy would fall apart.

[Dan Bernstein]

Right? That's correct for your wrestling thing. It does not work for your wrestling analogy.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Right, because that is somebody saying that, you know, you're the white hat, you're the black hat, you're. This is the face and the heel.

[Dan Bernstein]

It's not a wrestling. It's not like wrestling because, yeah, you have to have both parties involved. I can do a bit. I do bits on you all the time and I irritate you with it. I know exactly what I'm doing. Right. And you're not part of it. So, like, you can do that. And that's what Ben Johnson is doing. He's.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

You did it yesterday and I didn't even acknowledge it.

[Dan Bernstein]

Why did I do it yesterday?

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

What?

[Dan Bernstein]

Oh, well, what now? What do you. Okay, look. What more lies are you gonna make now?

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Okay, ready? And you.

[Dan Bernstein]

Come on. You're going to spurts, right? You want. You want to.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

I do have to.

[Dan Bernstein]

Okay.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

I will find the text. You did it to me yesterday.

[Dan Bernstein]

I don't. I don't believe you. Find it. Okay. Oh, now it's in writing. I don't believe you.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

It's in text. Hold on.

[Dan Bernstein]

Yep. I didn't say anything.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Ah, here it is.

[Dan Bernstein]

So this is not.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Oh, yes, it is. Oh, you know.

[Dan Bernstein]

You know, this is not.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Oh, no, I totally. I totally could just tell the moment when you realized I was right. Okay, this is 1104 in between shows, right. We had just finished DBU and we're getting ready to do forward progress. 1104. Okay. And I texted. I said, polls spoke, good stuff. And you said, anything specific you want. Pulling some cuts to use. My text was the LT stuff. DJ Moore, Bagent, Caleb's next contract. So much is good. Separate text compensation for Ian Cunningham. Okay. And your next text just says, lawrence Taylor with a question mark. Now, I had said the LT stuff. You know perfectly well. What I meant.

[Dan Bernstein]

I did not.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Don't you even. You knew perfectly well I meant left tackle. There is. And so I even had to look like Lawrence to, like, when the. Is he seeing Lord. So I. I'm like, fine. I'm not. I mean, so I wasn't going to call it out right there. And then I said, now, here's. Here's. Here is the. Let me bring this home. I said, left tackle. And then your text was. Oh, okay. Yes.

[Dan Bernstein]

Because I. I didn't know for sure.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

My man.

[Dan Bernstein]

You're.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Mm, mm, mm, mm. No, no, no, no, no. It's okay.

[Dan Bernstein]

All right, listen. When you identify it in the moment, you have to call it out. You have to.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

No, I don't. I spent all day doing it.

[Dan Bernstein]

It's more fun for me. This isn't fun for me now.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Okay, okay. All right. So you're saying if I Just give me an emoji to use eye roll.

[Dan Bernstein]

Fine, whatever.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Just don't.

[Dan Bernstein]

Don't let it linger. Just call it out in the moment. It's not as fun.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

That's not how I want it.

[Dan Bernstein]

I want to know that I got the reaction that I was looking for.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Oh, no, you got it now. You got it right. Damn. Now is when you got it. Come on.

[Dan Bernstein]

Whatever.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

I'm not an idiot.

[Dan Bernstein]

Well,

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

I'll run the ball. I'm not an idiot. Kind of a little bit.

[Commercial Narrator]

All right.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Okay. So, yes, the other side, it's. If it's more entertaining or less entertaining, when the other side knows or doesn't or lets on that they know, it may be. Aha. I think maybe we've figured it out now. Matt LaFleur is completely aware of what's

[Dan Bernstein]

going on, even though he wasn't included. He's aware. Yeah, but he's not giving Ben the satisfaction by acknowledging it. He's playing dumb to say, I'm going to play my bit back on you.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Or maybe he thinks it helps his team. Why does any coach make any decision a coach makes? It's all based in what helps my team, what helps me win, what helps me. It didn't, but maybe. But maybe in the long game, he thinks it does. Maybe he thinks, oh, they want. They want to play this whole thing, and they. They want to. Maybe his belief is, okay, well, if they're going to expend all this energy on these games being more important, we're going to take every game just as seriously, and we're going to. We're not going to do this. We're not going to ride the Emotional roller coaster. We're not going to make some of these games more important than any divisional game would otherwise be. And we're not going to pretend we don't like anybody. Life's too short for that.

[Dan Bernstein]

Or maybe that is what Ben Johnson wants him to do.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Oh, now, now it's like, now he's trapped him. It was an elaborate setup to make him to, to pull him in.

[Dan Bernstein]

Pull him in and to make him claim that, hey, we're not going to play your game. We're not part of it. Even though he's won mentally already.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Mm.

[Dan Bernstein]

That's it.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Maybe. That's it.

[Dan Bernstein]

Maybe.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

And maybe George has been pulling the strings on all of this.

[Dan Bernstein]

Right? He's the puppet master.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

There it is. Okay. Well, I just think is, Is it. The ambiguity at the moment makes it fun.

[Dan Bernstein]

Yes.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

So I did.

[Dan Bernstein]

I did not expect that yesterday. I did. I did not expect it to be a thing. Right. It's now still a thing.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

If it gets more personal, like if he decides to keep escalating. I have. I have Pictures of Matt LaFleur doing horrible things with farm animals. What? What? I didn't say that. What? I don't know. I didn't say it. I don't know. You have to run the tape.

[Dan Bernstein]

Yeah, I think, I think. I think Ben is.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

He's.

[Dan Bernstein]

He's put it out there enough now that other people will engage with it and it's going to be a huge thing of the first time they play.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Oh, before.

[Dan Bernstein]

It's going to be.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Well, before.

[Dan Bernstein]

Well, well, well before it's going to. It's going to just. It's going to saturate the entire broadcast more so than the actual football game itself.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

It is great for us.

[Dan Bernstein]

Yeah. No, I love it. I love it. And I said. I said the first time it happened that it was a bit. And he's playing a bit. And he's doing it for George now. He's now. And now he's in too deep. He's like. He's deep into act number two. He can't get out of it now and it's got to continue.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

But we need a conflict if we're in act number two.

[Dan Bernstein]

Well, the conflict's the game itself. The game.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

That's right. We have the built in conflicts and then we'll need some sort of. Because if last year wasn't the climactic moment, that would lead to some sort of resolution. I don't know if he, if he's the showrunner for this. If George is the showrunner. Or Ben Johnson's the showrunner for whatever Bears, packers is going to be. It certainly adds another layer.

[Dan Bernstein]

The only way it continues to grow is if the packers finish ahead of the Bears. If the, if the Bears finish ahead and win the division again, it becomes less of a rivalry, it's more of a domination. And depends how the Bears play too.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

And it also depends how, to the extent to which the Bears would want to rub it in.

[Dan Bernstein]

Right. If they, if they play for 58 minutes instead of just two, we'll see.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

That'd be nice.

[Dan Bernstein]

I would like that. I'd prefer that they play in the first half. Would be, would be valuable to me as a fan.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

It really would. I agree with that wholeheartedly. But this is going to be an open topic of discussion throughout the Bears season. Certainly. But as far as my personal policy, it's at least half a bit. I don't know if it's one sided or two sided, but I'm, I'm conditionally in, I think, I think there's no reason why this shouldn't be fun to watch. I just, my, my journalistic sense has to be overridden by my dramatic sense. Does that make, yes. Does that make sense to you? It does make sense in that journalistically, do you really like, you know, what's the truth, who liked it, what and why? But then there's also suspending that, that disbelief. I mean, okay, well, I guess we'll just ride along with it and I have an internal conflict over the enjoyment of it and then being like, what are we, what are we enjoying? What is this? What are we doing here? Why is he choosing to do this? What's going on? So I'm, I, I, I don't want to spend too much time with my issue on it, but I don't know if anybody else sort of feels the same way. But like, what the hell? Might, might as well. We might, might as well embrace it. And all that matters is that the Bears are good. And if this is just an ancillary thing, that makes it more entertaining. Fine. I just years from now, years from now, I would love to talk to Ben Johnson about this. Yeah.

[Dan Bernstein]

Because you won't know until after it's, it's said and done, his career and

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

then to decide to use his first combine. Yeah. His first real, you know, full fledged. He's coached games before. He's not on the fly, trying to put a staff together.

[Dan Bernstein]

Yeah. I mean, he could have answered that question from Florio. There's a myriad of ways. And you Know, and ended this thing, put a kibosh to it. You know, he could have, yeah, he could have just said, yeah, you know what that was, that was last season and it was all fun and you know, you know, getting, getting part of the, you know, getting acclimated to this rivalry and understanding what it means to the fans. It was a good time. And yeah, you know, Matt LaFleur is a great coach and I respect he's doing over there, but. No, he, he said, who likes the Packers?

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

He gave him a T shirt. He gave them a T shirt. They could open training camp all taking the field. Who likes the Packers? That can be their slogan.

[Dan Bernstein]

Oh, stop right there because I already have it written down in my, my notes here.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

What?

[Dan Bernstein]

I'm making the T shirts.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Oh, you are?

[Dan Bernstein]

Yes.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Okay.

[Dan Bernstein]

He just gave away my million dollar idea.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Sorry. But he gave him a tea that his like immediately bang. What's the deal? Who likes Packers? Hey buddy.

[Dan Bernstein]

T shirts. Who likes the Packers?

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

There it is. Yeah, he gave. They've, they've got their opening day of training camp. They take the bikes from the little kids and these giant men ride the tiny little bikes across the street. Do they still do that? I love that.

[Dan Bernstein]

I'm sure some teams do or they,

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

they probably don't let the packers do it now because of injury possibility. Right, because it used to be the kids would bring their bikes up and some 400 pound packer would get on a tricycle.

[Dan Bernstein]

Well, it wasn't even the kids bringing the bikes up. They would take them from the kid, they'd smack them and take the bike. It was rude.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Yeah, I guess that's still.

[Dan Bernstein]

Parents just stood by, watched.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Oh, that's so sweet. You just smacked my child. Thank you. March is around the corner, like really around the corner. And college basketball is heating up. It is time to get in on the action with my bookie. You watch that Duke Notre Dame thing last night?

[Dan Bernstein]

Geez, it wasn't even a game.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

No, neither was the Bulls game. We'll get to that in a second. Conference races are tightening bubble. Teams are fighting for their lives. Every game matters now. Every possession feels bigger because things are starting to really get fun. It is not just about picking winners. The prop board, you know, I enjoy it. The prop board's loaded with player points, team totals, futures tournament odds. You can bet those. Now, there are probably some advantages you can get right now before the conference tournaments. There's value everywhere if you're paying close attention. So now's the time to jump in. It's one Account. It's one wallet. You can bet the spread you want to live, bet the second half. You want to go to the casino between games. Everything's in the same place. One place, just MyBookie AG. And when you get in now you register, you deposit and boom, you've got the code DBU. And that will cover your first bet up to 500 bucks. And what does it mean that it's covered? Well, it means it's covered. If it doesn't hit. You then have a bet back bonus token and you can run it back so you don't just watch all the madness build right now. You can make it pay. Go to MyBookie AG, use the code DBU for Dan Bernstein unfiltered. And then you're set. And you can do all of this with my bookie. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

[Dan Bernstein]

Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with a name your price tool

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

from Progressive you can find options that

[Dan Bernstein]

fit your budget and potentially lower your bills.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and

[Dan Bernstein]

affiliates Price and coverage match Limited by state law not available in all states.

[Commercial Narrator]

Most people know American Express for our iconic personal cards. Some know us for our business cards to help entrepreneurs grow. But American Express also offers something built for companies at scale. The American Express corporate program. With the corporate program, you can apply for employee cards tailored to the their needs. Issue virtual cards to your team and suppliers and even automate accounts payable with American Express. 1 AP along the way, your company can earn rewards or cash back as a statement credit to reinvest where it matters most. And because it's all backed by American Express, you get the service insights and flexibility to help keep your business moving forward. The American Express corporate Program designed to help companies grow with confidence. Terms apply, enrollment required and fees may apply including an auto renewing monthly platform access fee. Suppliers must be enrolled and located in the United States.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

I had the Bulls game on and I was watching them play and I was enjoying and I mentioned yesterday that even though the team just, you know, sucks out loud and that's good, that it's a really good time to scout the roster and to see how some of these players are being used and how they might fit. I am. I wish I could tell you I'm learning a lot. I have some opinions that are starting to form based on a larger sample size every game. But when we'll talk about this later today where this is going to be the thrust of the episode on Organizations win championships trying to figure out what, what we're watching and, and, and what we're learning as all of this goes. The. What I realized yesterday there were the. And there were a couple comments as you're listening to the Adam and Stacy show because. And, and they. It's a talk show now at the moment.

[Dan Bernstein]

It's podcast and I listen to it that in that regard now. And it. And it is. And it reminds me of the old Pat and Ron show.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

No, it's not as dumb.

[Dan Bernstein]

Well no, it's not as dumb but I mean as far as like the game itself isn't important anymore.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Yeah. And. But they've got thoughts and I've said this before. Like, like yeah, I didn't, I didn't.

[Dan Bernstein]

I didn't mean to say that it wasn't informative or intelligent. It just where the actual talking between the two radio guys.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Right.

[Dan Bernstein]

Was. Was more of the show than the actual game itself. That's. That's all I meant with it.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

They actually did the, the nationwide read during play, not during a break.

[Dan Bernstein]

Oh wow.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Like that's how out of hand the game was.

[Dan Bernstein]

I'll tell you. I. So I saw it halftime and it was like a one point lead for the Hornets. And I said all Bulls will blow this in the fourth. What I didn't know is that they would give it up in the third. That third quarter was man oh man

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

that you want to see as bad a quarter of NBA basketball as that

[Dan Bernstein]

was it right there.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Man, that, that was like kicking the ball all over the place, not guarding people and Charlotte was hitting some ridiculous shots and but boy they're. They're tight operation and the most significant thing that I thought Stacy King said and as he was watching it was like a slow realization when he said boy this is such a young roster. And then he realized he goes guys like Lamelo Ball and Miles Bridges, they're the old guys on this team.

[Dan Bernstein]

Yep.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

That's how you do it. That you know what that is development. And this guy Charles Lee can raise really coach. He can really go. I didn't know he was a Bucknell guy and apparently had a reputation. He was. I think it was Patriot League player of the year, something like that. And never had more than a partial scholarship and has always been viewed as a head coaching prospect like several guy worked on Wall street for a little while. Billy Donovan did too. But that is a. That's an interesting team with a ton of talent and God, Con Knipple is a wonderful player. And Adam Amin said it yesterday. He said Con Knipple would have my vote for rookie of the year over Cooper Flag. And I don't really think it's that controversial. I don't think it's a big deal at all. Like what Knipple can, can do pretty much everything. He's terrific passer and Adam was even coaching last night that there was that, that side out of bounds play and he said here he is as the inbounder, which probably means he's going to use a screen and try to get free for the, the end a quarter shot. And he did. That's good coaching right there. You know, keep, keep it touches. Stacy was doing some coaching out there, but, but Charlotte is how you do it and you, you make sure that you value draft assets and you use those draft assets to find these players who. And God, Brandon Miller is just Smoot smoke, man. He's. He is something. So let them blow by the Bulls. Let the Bulls just keep on dropping like a stone. Or if you're watching Tankathon rising like a buoy to the top, if they can just bubble up there and get a shot at one of these top four. You saw Boozer doing some stuff last night. You've been watching AJ Debons. If you've been staying up late seeing what he can do, Darren Peterson haven't really seen enough to know. But keep an eye on that. Keep a close watch. When you are watching the outside from home, you are looking through your windows and sometimes you look at your old windows and you think, you know, eventually I've got to do this. I got to listen to Bernstein. And as tough as that might be for you, I know that's hard. Believe me, I know that's really the toughest thing is when you actually decide, oh, I'm going to, I'm going to actually take Bernstein's advice on something because this many people can't be wrong about Ross Armstrong. Ross Armstrong of Chicago. Window guys can make it so simple to get improved windows on your house that make such a difference whether it's hot out or whether it's cold out, whether it comes down to how you clean the windows, how you maintain them, just the quality qual their, their quality. Get better windows, they matter. And you're always hearing advertisements for windows and you're hearing a lot of gimmicks and a lot of come on and a lot of loss leaders and a lot of these fake things. Oh, buy one, get one free or buy one get one half off. Buy two, get one listen to Russ when he sits at your kitchen table and explains to you what windows cost, what you are paying for, what you get, what matters in what you pay. And it's not the same for everybody. He may say, you want this kind of window and I'll make this one custom made at my factory for you. Just call him and find out. 847-302-9171. Check out his five star [e-mail] and also what, what I've been learning too from in our neighborhood, putting new, fully new windows on your home. The good stuff does help resale value. It really does. It really does help to say like oh, these are the initial builders windows are in here. No, we got special low emissivity windows from Chicago window guys. The entire house resealed, redone, et cetera. It's nice to have done that. So you end up in certain cases making all that money right back. Not even to mention how much you save in heating and cooling. Russ doesn't use subcontracted labor. It's all his people around the house. The same people that installed my windows are going to install yours. So ask him, ask him about all these bad deals. Ask him about who's installing the windows. Ask anything you can write down. Ask him and he will answer and he'll make sure that you got the best deal for you. 847-302-9171 and you can check out his five star reviews at ChicagoNow. Guys,

[Dan Bernstein]

hey, before you get on to your next thing, can I just mention something real quick?

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Absolutely.

[Dan Bernstein]

The I, I watched an old 30 for 30 that I hadn't watched in quite some time. I was going, I, I was, I turned it on espen to go find the 30 for 30 on the 1980 gold medal or the 1980 Russia. Yeah, the one that you, you'd mentioned. Because I, I hadn't seen the one from the Russian perspective.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

It's incredible.

[Dan Bernstein]

So I wanted to watch that and instead I watched the one about the Whitney Houston national anthem.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Okay.

[Dan Bernstein]

Have you seen that?

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

That's from 95.

[Dan Bernstein]

No, no, no. 1990. It's 1990. 90. Bill's Giants.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Okay. That's. That was the start of operation Iraqi the 90 season.

[Dan Bernstein]

1991 Super Bowl, Bills, Giants. It's a quick one. It goes by really fast, but boy, oh boy, was it good. Okay. Yeah, it was, it was. I forgot how much I, much I enjoyed it. So it's interesting. They were close in 1987. They were close to getting Whitney to sing the anthem for the 87 Super bowl in San Diego, the guy who runs the events, like head of events for the NFL, this is his thing to take care of. And he's in Whitney's manager's office and getting the names of the people in her group that are going to fly down to San Diego and they're getting the plane tickets in order to. About a week and a half later, that manager got fired for whatever reason, and so the whole thing went kaput. So even though she was going to

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

sing, she didn't sing just because the manager got fired. Yeah.

[Dan Bernstein]

So who knows what it was? I'm not sure they didn't give you more detail of it. It's just the manager got fired. The relationship ended there. So then she didn't end up singing the anthem on a different direction. But fast forward to, you know, four years later, she's even more popular and she's a bigger name. And then they, you know, they get her to sing the anthem and of course we know what the outcome of it was. Her musical director didn't like the way that anthem is set up in like a waltz. It's like a three beat waltz. So he changed it to a like four beats.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Okay.

[Dan Bernstein]

So she could extend out the notes, carry the notes out longer. And they go for the very first rehearsal. And she's late getting to the rehearsal. He's like, hey, I sent you a version of the music. Did you listen to it? She's like, oh, no, I didn't. I was too busy doing this film thing with Kevin Costner.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Right.

[Dan Bernstein]

So she doesn't hear it at all. She puts headphones on, they play it, she listens to it, they play it again. She sings it and nails it the first time through. And her director, the music director was like, this is going to be something special. So then of course we know how it all comes out. And the performance was just insane. Sings it with the, the Florida orchestra backing her up. And it's the only national anthem to ever break Billboard's top 10. I mean, it's just, it's. And it sold a million copies, million hard copies. It's just, it's a really good, it's a really good documentary. So it's. Again, it's a quick one. I think you'd enjoy it. You get, you get information from guys in the military at the time. They follow this one staff sergeant who was in Iraq and what it meant to him to hear it. And you see him today, you see him back then they get a couple of the bills and Giants players talking about going into it because, of course, the security going into that game. Al Michaels is featured in it. He says the night before the broadcast, they sit down with, like, a US SWAT team, and it's like, here's what happens. Here's what you do in case you get kidnapped. Like, that's part of the conversation they had. Like, someone's going to want to kidnap Al Michaels and the broadcast team. But, like, that's the stuff that they were dealing with is really interesting. And then, of course, my mind went into seeing all the extra barricades and the fences they put up. I just went back to that extortion letter that the NFL gives out. Cities.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Yes, you have to pay for this.

[Dan Bernstein]

You have to do.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Yes.

[Dan Bernstein]

Yeah. Just because of the nature of.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

What's the name of it?

[Dan Bernstein]

Yes, that's exactly what it's called.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

So just look up Whitney Houston anthem documentary. I would think if you're presenting this very compelling case for taking time to watch this, you'd have, you know, like the title.

[Dan Bernstein]

Yes. The Whitney's anthem. It's a really hard one to remember.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Okay. I'm surprised that slipped your mind.

[Dan Bernstein]

Yes. I'm not even sure what. I didn't even know what the title was, to be honest with you. I just saw Whitney and I was like, yeah, I'll listen to it.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Watch that, Antha. I want to know why the guy got fired that late in the game.

[Dan Bernstein]

The manager?

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Yeah.

[Dan Bernstein]

Who knows? Who knows?

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Well, they. It's a documentary.

[Dan Bernstein]

Yeah, but they didn't. That wasn't the reason why they were doing the documentary. So her father eventually became her manager. So maybe. Maybe that's what it was because he was their manager in 1990, 91 when this happened. So maybe he just. Maybe he launched him and took over the gig.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Have you. Have you heard about baseball players shrinking?

[Dan Bernstein]

I have not. Are they getting shorter?

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Yes, apparently they are. All of them.

[Dan Bernstein]

Well, you know, what I learned now is that I'm. I'm no longer tall at six two.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

There you are.

[Dan Bernstein]

I'm not. Hey, what I am now is I'm just. I'm not. I. I'm not short.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Okay. More often you need to be.

[Dan Bernstein]

Oh, no, I don't care. It's just like the way they classify height now. Like, you need to be six three to, like six six to be tall.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Okay, well, let me. Here's the thing. All major leaguers are shrinking every day, and I did not know that until I read this [e-mail] about ABS and the challenge system, that what's going on with automated ball. Strike. Maybe you've been watching some of the spring training games and maybe you've seen the way it's done. I definitely think that there's going to be some best practices figured out where MLB managers are going to talk to their Triple A counterparts and who've been dealing with this and just say, like, do it here, don't do it here. Don't let your players make the decision or always let the catcher decide, not the pitcher. You've got to have a system in place that I'm sure is being worked on to figure out when it's worth it, when. It's not until we replace the human umpire's decision making completely, which I think is a matter of when and not if at this point. So they have to know every hitter's precise height for the system, down to the millimeter, really. They have been lining players up for measurements in every spring training facility, and this is According to Adam McKelvey of MLB.com do they do it like youth

[Dan Bernstein]

baseball, where they make the kids line

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

up on their own?

[Dan Bernstein]

Just let's go shortest to tallest kids, and then guys are fighting and pushing each other?

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Or would, as what was once said by Yogi Berra, line up alphabetically by height? Major leaguers have been weighed and measured and found wanting since the sport's beginnings. But starting this year, it is a seriously standardized process, right down to the hour. Teams are mandated by MLB to take These measurements between 10am and noon local time on their appointed day. So everyone has to be weighed at the same time of day. Why do you think that is?

[Dan Bernstein]

Well, eating habits.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

According to brewers assistant GM Will Hudgens, the club's point man on abs, he says it is because people shrink over the course of a day.

[Dan Bernstein]

Okay, you said they get weighed.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

They get weighed and measured, but people shrink over the course of a day. Okay, I guess whatever it is, maybe

[Dan Bernstein]

it is over more as the day goes on.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

It may just be overall, you settle. Gravity tends to settle you. And I'll tell a quick story about some of the things this is reminding me of. Some things that I've heard from back in the day. Yeah.

[Dan Bernstein]

When we had the road and we. We'd wake up in the morning and we'd roll over, I'd wake you up, and then you'd get out of bed, you'd be like six, five.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

I know. But then all of a sudden, like. Like an hour later, I was back down to five. Eight.

[Dan Bernstein]

Yeah.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Among the other rules set forth by MLB for measurements, no shoes, no hats, no socks. Wait, hold on. Knees exposed, heels together, back against the wall, no slouching.

[Dan Bernstein]

Okay.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

And I don't know if you're allowed to have your, you know, spin your wiener around, either clockwise or counterclockwise.

[Dan Bernstein]

Well, I think he had pants on. I would hope he just had knees.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Exposed balls, I think, I think everything should be exposed. And I do think you should be able, without your hands, to spin that thing around both clockwise and counterclockwise with just body movement while you're being measured. Otherwise. Yeah, right. Otherwise, what are you even doing? So Hudgens said it was very detailed. You can tell they've done this in the minor leagues and they've thought about every part of this. Every detail matters because calls can come down to one stitch of the baseball. Former brewers shortstop Willie Adamus, for example, won a challenge during opening weekend of the Cactus League on a pitch that missed his personal strike zone by less than 1/10 of 1 inch. Determining the width of the zone is straightforward. It's the same as home plate 17 inches. As for depth, measurements occur at the point the baseball crosses the midpoint of home plate, eight and a half inches from the front and eight and a half inches from the back. They did test a three dimensional version, but it allowed breaking balls to nick the edges of the zone, leading to inconsistency in strike calls. Which I find interesting because I do know pitchers have been told in the past that that is a. That's a block. It is not a plate. It's a block. So have your curveball shave off the back end of that block. I guess apparently you can't do that anymore. Setting the strike zone from top to bottom required more testing and discussion. MLB studied this for multiple years, including trials in the Arizona Fall League and in the minors, before settling on the top end of the zone at 53.5% of a hitter's height and the bottom at 27% of the player's height. That way you can't have somebody with oddly highly positioned knees, for example. The brewers and the A's are the last two teams to be measured. So look, it could affect the playoffs and the World Series. So they were very methodical. The MLB vice president of on field strategy, Joe Martinez, officials from the league were led by him in measuring each player twice, cut once with a device similar to the one you'd see in a doctor's office. With that little arm, they took at least two measurements. If there was a discrepancy of more than a couple of millimeters a third, then they Figure the average of the three. Now, I know you're going to ask this question. What about in season call ups? What about free agents who weren't measured? Well, there's a plan for that. Every ballpark will be equipped with a measuring device. A member of the home team's medical staff will be a certified measurer. Players can ask for the final result. The answer comes in fractions of centimeters. And Hudgins here said you saw a lot of guys trying to do centimeters to feet conversion in their heads. Yeah, that's no fun. And the MLB officials helped make that calculation more than once. Players took some razzing from waiting teammates when the result came in under expectations. So this is very interesting. This is really. And this is get used to it because we're going to find out. We don't have enough data yet to know effectiveness, to know trends, to know where this system is going to have loopholes. We don't know yet. So I just found it interesting that because everybody shrinks. And it reminded me years ago there was a basketball league. I think they called it the. Was it WBL World Basketball League. And it was a. For. It started as a 6ft and under league and then it. Eventually they kept moving it a little bit and they said, well, it's a 6, 5 and under league or you can have two players above 6, 5, but under 6 8. And they kept expanding, but they had very specific height slots and height restrictions. And I knew people who worked in front offices in this league and the stories, you know, actually one of the. I think David Kaplan at the time was working years ago with one of the Chicago team. Who were they? I forgot the name of the team. Chicago Express, Chocolate Express, I think. Or he was scouting for somebody. Ask, Ask Cap about some of these stories because I talked to players who played in that league and before their measurement they would shrink themselves. And there were teams that were better at it than others who told me, was it Nikita Wilson out of lsu who is a legit six, six and a half. Like they made him under six, five. They had him walk up and down stairs with like one of the assistant coaches on his shoulders.

[Dan Bernstein]

Oh wow.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

To compress his vertebrae. And they like ran him right up to the measurement after they're like, make yourself. You know, they had stuff on his shoulders and they had him smushing himself down. Like you can do this. It's like memory foam when it comes to your, the little pads of cartilage in between your vertebrae, your discs and your knee cartilage, whatever it Is they had everybody sort of push themselves down to try to get past some of these. Now, I don't think baseball's doing that, but I just do know in sports, when you do have any kind of height restriction or height limitation or an advantage to be gained, people will do things to find an advantage. So I don't know if they. They spring the measurements on them or do you have guys. You could have them lying on cots or lying on the floor on the day of the measurement. There's stuff you can do.

[Dan Bernstein]

So they had players over 6 foot 5 were not allowed. That was raised to 6, 7 in 1991.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

So I was right. Okay.

[Dan Bernstein]

Your teams were the Calgary eighty Eights, the Chicago Express, which after one year moved to Springfield. They played in the Rosemont Horizon. First they moved to Springfield, became the Illinois Express, the Dayton Wings, the Erie Wave, Florida Jades, the Fresno Flames, the Halifax Windjammers, Hamilton Skyhawks, the Jacksonville Stingrays, the Las Vegas Silver Streaks, Memphis Rockers, Nashville Stars, the Saskatchewan Storm, Vancouver Nighthawks, Winnipeg Thunder, Worcester Courts.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

I probably. And this is. No.

[Dan Bernstein]

And the Youngstown Pride.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

I probably counts.

[Dan Bernstein]

Sorry.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

I would guess if you. If you went through those rosters and those coaching staffs and probably the broadcast teams, I would know at least half the league personally, because everybody got recycled in the CBA and the GBA on their way either to the NBA or beyond. That Calgary 88s team. I know who played for that chip. England. Wow.

[Dan Bernstein]

They had international teams, too.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Well, that's why it was called the. And the ball.

[Dan Bernstein]

So All Stars, the Bahamas Nationals, Estonian Nationals.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

The ball had a globe on it. Wow. Yeah, the ball had a globe on it, but for a while, it started out six feet and under, and then

[Dan Bernstein]

they're like, your heart was the commissioner.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Look at some of those coaches and I. And look at some of the play that's. I may rabbit hole that a little bit later.

[Dan Bernstein]

Players that played at least one game in the NBA. Vincent Askew.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Vincent Askew. Yes.

[Dan Bernstein]

Dudley Bradley Brooks, Carlos Clark, Fred Cofield, Freddie Mario Ellie. Mario Ellie. Yeah.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

But Freddie Cofield's Rockford's own, baby. That was. That was Rockford Lightning through and through there.

[Dan Bernstein]

Freddie Koe, Tim Legler, Sydney Lowe.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Mm.

[Dan Bernstein]

Keith Smart.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Mm.

[Dan Bernstein]

Milt Wagner, Jamie Waller, Perry Young, Milt

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Wagner, the high scorer in the first game I ever called.

[Dan Bernstein]

Wow.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Yep.

[Dan Bernstein]

That was something right there.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Yeah. I'm telling you. So you can. You can get around all of this height stuff with all sorts of chicanery, skullduggery and shenanigans.

[Dan Bernstein]

So if they come out and they say that Aaron Judge is like 511, we're going to know they did something weird. Something's not right with that. Exactly.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Hold on a second, Aaron.

[Dan Bernstein]

Judging.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

It's the opposite. No, they won. No, no, but they want to do the opposite. They want to do the opposite.

[Dan Bernstein]

They want to stretch them.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Yes. They want to take Moises by a steros and make him 6:2. Okay. That's what they want to do.

[Dan Bernstein]

So they come out and they say he's like 6 7. They're going to say something's up.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

No, you just hate.

[Dan Bernstein]

They have. So the Cubs players are all hanging from bars.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

What you want. No, you want your tiny, tiny strike zone is what you want. Want. Okay. The pitchers. The pitchers want everybody taller. The hitters want to be smaller. So what where you could game it. I'm trying to think is. I'm just trying to think what, what the loopholes would be if you, if you know you've got really good strikeout pitchers. Yeah. There's nothing you can do because you're just going to make.

[Dan Bernstein]

Well, I just tell you right now that some, some people are going to react to this and say that it's. They're ruining baseball. You're ruining the game.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

How?

[Dan Bernstein]

By adding all this technology to it.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Get used to it.

[Dan Bernstein]

Yeah, yeah.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

If you could squeeze Aaron Judge down to 510 and give him the strike zone of a 510 person, you'd be in deep shit. That's like 250 walks. Every at bat would be a walk or a homer.

[Dan Bernstein]

Well, I think the Yankees should try to figure that out.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Anything you could almost is already, but anything you could put in a. In a rejiggered or an untruthful managed strike zone. If you could say. What did you say? 610 to 511 or 67 to 5 11, you could squeeze that down into the old proverbial teacup.

[Dan Bernstein]

Or even if they can somehow make him 6 5, that would be beneficial.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Hell yeah. Because of the percentages of height that constitute your strike zone. Yeah.

[Dan Bernstein]

So who's the fattest guy on the Yankees? They can just put him on top of Aaron Judge's shoulders for a bit.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

There's no fat guys in baseball anymore. There's a couple here. Oh, no, there's Josh Naylor.

[Dan Bernstein]

Isn't Vogelbach he's a big boy?

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

No, he's a hitting coach somewhere now.

[Dan Bernstein]

Oh, he doesn't play anymore?

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

No.

[Dan Bernstein]

Thought he played.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Didn't he get a job as a hitting coach?

[Commercial Narrator]

I Don't know.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

I thought he.

[Dan Bernstein]

Thought he was still playing. Well, find him. Hire him.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

I saw his name.

[Dan Bernstein]

Hire him as you should.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Assistant hitting coach for the Brewers.

[Dan Bernstein]

Could hire him as the shoulder guy.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Daniel Vogelbach. And now that he's a coach, he's going to get huge.

[Dan Bernstein]

Yeah, he'll let himself go.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

He. Oh, yeah. He was listed at 270 when he played, which was 70. Oh, that wasn't right. No, he's. He's. He's going to embrace his genetics, I think, now that he's done with baseball. Good for him. I think so, too. But, yeah, if you could. If you could shrink everybody's zone, or if the pitchers could find a way to somehow manage and get false data in there to stretch people's zones. I don't know.

[Dan Bernstein]

Is it going to help more home runs?

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

I don't know. We'll have to see. But I just thought it was kind of cool. I've got another little note here, and I'm going to test your memory. When we talked about heated rivalry, my wife's obsession and the obsession of many. She was watching that last night, too. I said, what are you watching? She goes, I'm watching heated rap Again. Yeah. Wow. All six episodes she's watched maybe 20 times.

[Dan Bernstein]

Okay, that's like, Olympic medal status.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

No, but she. And she's done, like, rewatching and not to mention the fan fiction and following. Now there's some huge schism about, like. Of course it's devolved into the various groups of the fandom consuming each other and yelling each other. It's like everything else. I'm just worried that there's going to be some sort of, like, Gamergate thing that comes out of this. But. But you can never win for losing because it's just such a huge thing. And now even, like, the stars of it are being besieged. And what did I say when I. And I. I watched it. I liked it. And. But I've only watched it once. What did I say for me was the star of that series?

[Dan Bernstein]

You said it was some. Some house on the show.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

The cottage.

[Dan Bernstein]

Lake house or something.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Yeah, the lake. I am going through the cottage, which is one of the climactic moments of the series. Spoiler alert. The cottage is now available to be rented. Oh, wow. On Airbnb. And I was so blown away by that little lake house. And it looks much smaller than the show made it Look. It's also 181 bucks a night. That's it. That's it. Like, what, are you kidding? 248Canadian. That's 181us and the host is listed as being named Jane, which is hilarious.

[Dan Bernstein]

Where's it at? The cottage? I'm looking my app.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

The cottage is on Lake Muskoka in Ontario. It's about 90 minutes from the Toronto airport. So it's not like you gotta fly in on, you know, on a pontoon plane to land on the lake. You can get there via car. And it's. I also, you know, me. I looked up Lake Muskoka. Northern pike, walleye, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, lake trout. And there's fishing all over the lake. This comes with. And I looked at the Airbnb listing. There's three kayaks. There's two canoes. It's obviously, you know, WI fi and everything. And all you need. And this starts on March 3rd at noon Eastern is when you can begin booking this cottage. So you're gonna do it? Why not? Why not? What bedrooms is.

[Dan Bernstein]

Is gonna make sure you and Beth have enough good places to sleep, Right?

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

What do we need? We don't need much.

[Dan Bernstein]

No, we need at least two rooms, I think.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

I think it's three bedrooms.

[Dan Bernstein]

Okay.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Yeah. Well, we can. I can use them all in a night. It depends if she's. If she kicks me somewhere. If I say, hey, get out of here, you're snoring. But here's the thing. She will not go on this kind of vacation with me. She won't. We did it, like, one.

[Dan Bernstein]

Because. Because. Because of the show thing or what? Or like, she want to go with her show friends? No. What do you mean, no?

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

I'm saying.

[Dan Bernstein]

Oh, because. Because you just want to fish.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

She hates lake houses.

[Dan Bernstein]

Oh.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

She doesn't like the North Woods. For her, the concept of. Of a roughing it. Like, I would go camping, that wouldn't bother me. I wouldn't mind. I'd sleep in a tent. I love waking up cold in a. In a tent and going to that whole thing and then having your hot coffee by the fire and, you know, making breakfast on an open fire. I could do that even at my advanced age. But she will not for her, like, roughing it. Like, camping would be a Marriott courtyard.

[Dan Bernstein]

Okay, so we're similar that way. So my. My wife's family, they camp. And so I. I went camping with her and her family, like, a few years back. Like, slept in a tent, did it two years in a row. Like, one night, then two nights, and then, like, the. I. I just. I couldn't. I just. I can't do it. It's just, it's not my thing. I don't like it. I don't like feeling dirty all the time. Yeah. I'm more like, give me a, give me like a Motel 8. That's like roughing it. That's camping.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Yeah.

[Dan Bernstein]

I'm so, like, an old score trip would be like roughing it.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Yeah. I'm saying for her, like, like Marriott Courtyard or like a recently redone Hampton Inn by Hilton is the equivalent for her of staying in a tent. Yeah. And so we did it once when we went up to visit Jason at Northstar in Hayward. We stayed in Cable at the, at the Lakewoods Resort. And I was great. I had a little fishing boat I would take out in the morning. She, she was miserable. She's miserable. Like, I, I, I get nostalgic if you open the screen and there's like dead moths in the screens. That, that to me is like old home week. I, I don't mind that at all. Yeah.

[Dan Bernstein]

Why doesn't she like lake houses? She doesn't, she doesn't like a really nice lake house.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Oh, it's the best. I know it's the best. But it's, it's the idea of the. She likes the house, just not the lake.

[Dan Bernstein]

Yeah. Okay, well, she has to go outside. Just stay in the house.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

I took her, I said, let's go canoeing. I love canoeing. I'm an experienced canoeer. And she, I said, just sit in the front and paddle and I'll figure everything else out. And she refused to paddle. And she's like, okay, I'm tired of this. And then she just set the paddle across the gunnels, threw it in the water. No, she just is like, I don't, I'm done. I'm done. I said, what do you mean you're done? She's like, I'm done.

[Dan Bernstein]

That's it.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

I'm done paddling. This isn't, I'm not entertained.

[Dan Bernstein]

Well, she could take the trip with you and just stay inside the cabin.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

That's what I said. But the fact, so what I'm saying, oh, there's mall. I think there's two fireplaces fire up. And she said, the kitchen is unbelievable. We can make tuna books and drink

[Dan Bernstein]

red wine and enjoy the time alone.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Yes, Yes. I said, you can have your whole day, hun. We wake up in the morning, we have a breakfast, we have coffee. You can do your little New York Times word puzzle thing. And then I could say, give me the letters for the pangram. And you can refuse because you know I get the pangram immediately. And you. That's why you won't give me the letters.

[Dan Bernstein]

Then you could leave and go fishing and she could have the day to herself.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Huh.

[Dan Bernstein]

Sounds like a great trip.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

So I think she's gonna try okay with you, as far as I know. Okay.

[Dan Bernstein]

Or is she booking this for, like, her and her heated rivalry friends?

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Like, that's a different group.

[Dan Bernstein]

That's what I think should happen for her because that's. She would have more fun then.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Because. Well, she would, because we went with that group, the heated rivalry fan club. That's who we went to Pride Night with.

[Dan Bernstein]

Oh, hey. How did the murder orgy thing go?

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

It was good. Did I share the video they did? The Mannequin Challenge?

[Dan Bernstein]

Yeah. No, you sent that to me. That's when I said, all right, definitely no orgy, but there's definitely murder happening.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Yeah. I thought it was someone was murdered. It was. No, as far as I know, nobody was murdered. And they said they did. They did jigsaw puzzles and they played charades. And she told me that there's something you can. You can play Pictionary on your phone via, like, Netflix or something. Did you know this?

[Dan Bernstein]

Oh, yeah, I saw. I haven't looked into it, but I see when you go through Netflix now, there's a category of games.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Yes. And you can actually. You can draw on your phone and it shows up on your screen. Oh, it's so cool. I had no idea. Yeah, so she did that. And they. They ate, like, three meals a day and snacked all the time.

[Dan Bernstein]

Oh, so it's like prison.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

But it was. Here's the thing, though. Typical. They were in a gorgeous area right at the New York and Pennsylvania border.

[Dan Bernstein]

Yeah. The house looked nice.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

The house in the mountains. And they were by a lake in the mountains. They didn't even step outside. Like, I would have been hiking and nothing. Say. Well, it was snowing. You have boots. Put boots on.

[Dan Bernstein]

Go take a walk. Why don't they just go to a nice hotel then in the city somewhere if they're not going to go outside and experience? Because the area they're in.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Because it was. It was Jose's 50th birthday. He and his husband and their three kids live in Brooklyn. Okay. And he chose this place. He wanted to go someplace in the middle of nowhere and just invite his friends to celebrate him turning 50. And that's what they did.

[Dan Bernstein]

Well, did he go outside at all? Or did he. I mean, did he pick this place and not enjoy it?

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

I don't know what anybody else did. I don't know because she was watching hockey most of the time.

[Dan Bernstein]

All right, well, that's.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

She was doing every time I asked. What are you doing? Watching hockey.

[Dan Bernstein]

Yeah. Knowing that he deliberately picked a place in the middle of nowhere. Someone was murdered. You just don't know who yet in the group.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Or maybe it is a delayed. It's like the five finger death punch. The five point death punch where it just takes a while to take a.

[Dan Bernstein]

Oh, and then someone collapses.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Yes. Somebody's gonna walk out. It just. It was a long delay and then they're just gonna fall down. So. Possibility. They're interesting.

[Dan Bernstein]

Well, I think you guys should get it, get the house, get the cottage and see, you know, let me know how it goes. Okay. Sounds delightful.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

We're going to try it. I think she. There's. There's not a chance in hell that she's going to end up getting it, but we'll see. Maybe I can.

[Dan Bernstein]

I'm telling you, she's going to. Just not with you.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

It's going to happen. No, I didn't get it. Where are you going this weekend? Oh, industry thing. Yeah, I got. It's a work trip. Where are you going? Toronto.

[Dan Bernstein]

And then there's still binge watch heated rivalry multiple times and enjoy good food and.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Yeah, yeah, probably. Yeah. Now you're making me feel bad about it. I hope I get. Get the chance.

[Dan Bernstein]

Maybe when she goes there for that weekend you can go like to the North Star and like council for a weekend.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

No, I don't. They don't want me there. They don't. Wandering around like a creep. I'll just. I'll just walk around and fish down here. All I need. I go down the planetarium and fish. I'm happy. I don't.

[Dan Bernstein]

I don't need fishing for stars.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

No fishing for fish. There's a lot off of there. Big rocks. I don't know.

[Dan Bernstein]

They fished the planetarium. You mean the Shedd Aquarium? You can't fish at the planetarium. You have to go fishing at the Shedd Aquarium. The shedding crime is where they have

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

the actual fish outside.

[Dan Bernstein]

Planetarium is like a sky star thing.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

There is outstanding fishing.

[Dan Bernstein]

Planetary like planets.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Planets right behind the planetarium on that little back walkway. If you cast out over the rocks and big fish on the rocks, that's not really fishing. All right.

[Dan Bernstein]

They kind of like. They kind of like.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

You asked me to point out passive aggressive behavior in the moment.

[Dan Bernstein]

I'm not. That's. This is not being passive aggressive.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

I'M pointing it out it's not.

[Dan Bernstein]

But I'm not being passive.

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

I am doing what you said.

[Dan Bernstein]

There's fish on the rocks and I'm just asking why would there be fish in the do they wash up and die and then you pick them up and then claim to have caught them?

[Co-host or Guest Analyst]

Going to do it for Dan Bernstein, Unfiltered Boy I want to mention before we close that when the stakes are high, my bookie is where you turn bets into bankroll the big matchups on the schedule. They have everybody watching every take, no matter the sport. Get on those props because there's some advantages there and a lot of entertainment. As much fun as the final score. My bookie is what you should use because my bookies prop board is deep. It's fun to play. Player performances, game milestones, everything in between. Keeps things interesting all game long. So get in now before the tournament starts. One account, one wallet. You can bet whatever you like. You like spreads, you like money lines, you like parlays. You like live betting, where you can get some immediate advantages that other people may not be on as fast as you are. It's all at MyBookie AG with the code DBU that gets your first bet covered up to 500 bucks. If it doesn't hit, you've got a bet back bonus token. You can run it back so you're not just watching the action, you're making it pay with the code DBU at MyBookie AG. MyBookie AG. And this has been brought to you by Chicago Window Guys, our guy, Russ Armstrong, who you can call at 847-302-9171 and in partnership with my bookie, Dan Bernstein. Unfiltered. Unfiltered on 31 2-2-Sports.