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How Sigmund Bloom Finds Breakout Players in Fantasy Football | The Pretend GM Podcast
01:30:10
On the very first episode of The Pretend GM Podcast, Alfredo Brown is joined by Sigmund Bloom, who discusses his favorite strategies in fantasy football, the biggest mistakes he sees, and how to find the next fantasy sleepers. Subscribe to the...
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- [00:00]
Alfredo
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- [00:29]
Sigmund Bloom
I love the name pretend GM because that is what we're doing. But we don't know the true mean. We learn it as we go. In fantasy football, outliers win championships. It can be the golden thread leading you to the breakout sleeper. But you know, that's why they call me the mayor of Narrative Street.
- [00:47]
Alfredo
On today's episode of the Pretend gm, I had the privilege of interviewing Sigmund Bloom. Sigmund's got nearly 20 years of experience as a fantasy football analyst for football guys. His background in law gives him a unique perspective on building the best and worst case scenarios for players with evidence. While his optimism for players players reaching new levels of production allows him to identify outliers before they break out. You're about to find out why they call him the mayor of Narrative Street. Just like you and I. Sigmund Bloom is a pretend gm.
- [01:16]
Sigmund Bloom
Oh my gosh, he's here recording this already.
- [01:19]
Alfredo
Oh yeah.
- [01:20]
Sigmund Bloom
Okay.
- [01:20]
Alfredo
Oh yeah.
- [01:21]
Sigmund Bloom
So you can keep this for posterity. You can put this in your pocket and carry around with you because you know, I always over communicate. I just want to say to you, Alfredo, my friend, I hope that we meet in person one day, hopefully. Here, come over here. Come here to New Orleans. We do have spiders, though, among other palmetto bugs. We have what we call palmetto bugs. But I just want to take a moment out to say that I see you. You have a sweet and kind soul. You care about how you affect other people as you go through your life every day. And that's like the most important thing, you know, this world can. Bukowski said, if you feel like you're losing your soul, then at least you still have a soul left to lose. And you have a soul.
- [02:08]
Alfredo
Wow. Well, see, this was just gonna be a big gotcha podcast where I was just gonna tear you down and make you feel bad. And now you've. You've pulled the rug up from under me, man. Yeah, that's. Wow. Thank you. Thank you.
- [02:21]
Sigmund Bloom
It's hard, man. I know it's hard. I have the luxury of having done this before it was a profession, before it was something that people did. I was foolish enough. Like, if I've learned anything in life, it's like, if you're willing to take a risk, and this applies to fantasy football, we'll talk about this. If you're willing to take a risk when other people aren't, it can. That can be everything. That can just be. You don't even have to be, like, the best. You just have to, like, timing. Timing is everything, right? And I know that I don't have the luxury. I. I have the luxury of, like, coming into this. Before, it was, like, hyper competitive. And, I mean, I'm neurotic. I'm neurotic about all kinds of things. I have the luxury of not being neurotic about my career because I started doing this whenever it wasn't a profession. And I just kind of have always been here. So I understand how it's stressful. You know, I understand how it's easy to get lost in, like, the hall of mirrors and funhouse mirrors, which is why I want to. Oh, my God.
- [03:12]
Alfredo
Yeah.
- [03:13]
Sigmund Bloom
That's why I want to just say to you, like, you know, I see you, and you're doing what's the most important thing, you know, life is a board game that doesn't come with rules or an object. You decide that stuff, man.
- [03:28]
Alfredo
Thank you so much. And I think that's kind of what all of us just want. And I've been doing my research, and I think I've listened to about five different Sigmund Bloom interviews over the last week, making sure I'm ready for this. And, man, I'll say this, whether it was you nine years ago, hopping on the Backyard Banter podcast with Matt Harmon.
- [03:49]
Sigmund Bloom
Which, by the way, my nephew.
- [03:50]
Alfredo
Really cool. Really cool. You're. You're first there. You were first on. On JJ's Late Round Perspectives. I listened to you over on FF Unlimited with Kevin Murray, and now you're. You're first here. This is, like. It's almost like a rite of passage for anyone that's doing a sort of behind the scenes look. We need Sig to be number one.
- [04:09]
Sigmund Bloom
Well, I mean, I take that as an honor. I mean, I just. I. I struggle with all the same things everyone else struggles with. You know, am I relevant? Do people care what I'm doing? Am I, you know, whatever, blah, blah, Blah. So you all do a tremendous job individually in our community, but especially our community. Like, one of the things. Never lose sight of this. Now that you're part of this weird club, we get to have, like, personal psychological needs taken care of and were validated as part of what we're doing to earn a living. Like, you know, jackpot. You know what I mean? Like, a lot of people, their jobs actually, like, make them feel worse about themselves. You know what I'm saying? Like, it makes it feel.
- [04:50]
Alfredo
There's the good days and the bad days. Like, there's days where you definitely feel worse.
- [04:53]
Sigmund Bloom
But there's.
- [04:54]
Alfredo
There's nothing. There's nothing quite like an industry like this where you do something right or do something well, and you've got hundreds or thousands or even if it's just 10 people, like, giving you an attaboyment.
- [05:04]
Sigmund Bloom
But don't. But attaboys aside, what we all want, what we all crave more than anything else, Alfredo, is just to feel like we're seen and heard. Even if you're seen and heard, you know, like, there are good ways to get attention and bad ways get attention, but especially us men, because we're so fragile. You know, we're so. We're the ornamental. The whole thing has been flipped. Evil's framed and so on.
- [05:31]
Alfredo
But.
- [05:33]
Sigmund Bloom
We get to be validated every day. Like, people are listening to us. And even if you were, like, you don't know. You got shit for brains. You don't even know you're talking about. We know that we exist. Like, people are validating our existence. And like you said, like, a lot of times you have people be like, you're great. Thank you. And, like, a lot of people go through, like, weeks of their life, and nobody says that to them. You know, that's.
- [05:54]
Alfredo
That's. That's the toughest thing for so many people that start this, right, is, like, if I write something, if I say something into a microphone, does anyone care?
- [06:03]
Sigmund Bloom
Yeah.
- [06:04]
Alfredo
And I. That's like a. That's the perfect segue into this, Sig, because I. I want to talk with you about how, you know, first of all, who is Sigmund Bloom? Like, why would someone want to hear what Sigmund Bloom has to say about fantasy football? So you've been doing this for over 19 years now. You're technically my boss, Co owner of football. Guys, let's see how this interview goes. Maybe I'll still be there after.
- [06:27]
Sigmund Bloom
Beautiful. Beautiful. Thanks, man. But really, love. Nothing. Nothing but love. And, you know, like I said, I Wanted to take a moment out. I see you, and you're, you're, you're, you're a sweet, kind person. The world needs more people like Al Brown.
- [06:41]
Alfredo
Thank you, man. Like, and, and the world needs more people like Sim Bloom. And honestly, that is.
- [06:45]
Sigmund Bloom
Don't encourage me.
- [06:48]
Alfredo
That, that, that's what I'm hoping to convey across this. And that's the whole point of this podcast, is to be able to challenge the way we think, open up people's eyes to the way we think. Like, fantasy football has become so much about the destination. The answer, who do I start? Who do I draft as opposed to? Well, why do I think that way? How do I get to that point? What is the actual journey? And I mean, I'm sure a lot of people would love to know, what is the journey for you? How did you even start doing this, you know, 19, 20 years ago, where you get to a point where you say, I can do this professionally. I'm not just a guy that's playing fantasy football anymore.
- [07:23]
Sigmund Bloom
Yeah. As a kid growing up as a mostly kind of white man in white male, I was told, you can do anything you want. You can do anything you want. So I always wanted to be a sports talker and a sports thinker. I think partially because it's how you as a young male, like, that's how you bond with older males. Your father, for instance. And I loved Howard Cosell. I loved Myron Cope. I loved the sportscasters that were just themselves and really giving you their perspective, not just on the sport, but their personality, their. Their whole way of being in the world through accompanying you on this journey. I went to Syracuse for broadcast journalism because Newhouse is lousy. The art sports media world is lousy with these people. And I dropped out after a year and a half. I could probably spend an hour talking about everything went into that and. But I always inside wanted to because I need attention, wanted people to listen to me. I wanted to get people excited about sports, too. And I think where it really started, I mean, football guys, in 2000, when I got my first office job and we had our first office league, it was the people you wanted to hang out with. It was the people that were hyper. Analyzing, parsing coach statements. If one person was at a training camp practice and just gave us a firsthand account of a wow, tell us what you saw. What was the running back rotation? You know, we have so much information now. 25 years ago, just, just any set of eyes from training camp was this golden information. But really, I Think the galvanizing moment was David Dodds, who has since retired from football. Guys. One of the people that I truly. I try not to throw the word genius around very often, but he's a genius. He has to put graphite on a Rubik's Cube because it can't turn as fast as his brain. He can solve a Rubik's cube in, like, 23 seconds. Wow. I could wax rhapsodic about David Dots. He was skating in abandoned pools in the 70s, like, when that was like. Like a new thing. The new. His dad would find where the subdivisions were, where they hadn't, like, moved into the houses yet. Anyway, he came to Austin. Damon Young, I can't remember what his handle was on the football guys mentioned board was the place to hang out. He came to Austin when I was living in Austin for the Super Bowl. It was like 2005, 2006 Super Bowl. And I was invited to the super bowl party, too. And he and I just talked for, like, the whole time, like, just hung out and talk the whole time about football and about all kinds of other things. And, you know, David Dodds, all of the football guys, Bob Henry, Jason Wood, John Norton, like, on the boards, they had mythical status if they just acknowledged your existence. If you wrote something in a thread and one of the football guy staffers popped in to say, good point. Oh, my. Made your whole week.
- [10:27]
Alfredo
That was it.
- [10:27]
Sigmund Bloom
Right? But David Dodds didn't even really hang out on the boards. So, like, that's like the mountaintop. And when I was hanging out with him and it felt like he was my peer when it came to football and fantasy football, that was a really big moment to say, like, maybe I belong here.
- [10:44]
Alfredo
That's. That's awesome. And, like, I think everyone has that sort of breakthrough moment too, where it's not just the. The people that you're working around, but it's also the people that you're talking to. Like, that's always the first question everyone has is, who's going to listen to me? Who's going to. Like, why. Why would that. What was. What was that going through your head? Like, when, when you started doing this, you say, okay, why are people going to listen to me? How do I make myself stand out while I. While I do this? Because I know you came from a law background. You did something that was totally different. You went to University of Texas Law School. You had other jobs outside of fantasy football. Was there something in any of these experiences that shaped your approach and how you viewed fantasy football? Because, I mean, everyone's got rankings, everyone's got articles, right? Like, what. What made Sigmund Bloom stand out?
- [11:29]
Sigmund Bloom
Well, I'll go back to law school. And here's a theme in my life. Like, I knew on the first day of law school that I probably shouldn't be an attorney, but for other, you know, I don't. I don't want to get too much into detail, but I did finish the. I got my J.D. i have a bar card. I'm a dormant lawyer, like a dormant volcano. But they always tell you, we're here to teach you how to think like a lawyer. Here's here. First of all, if you're listening right now, I'm going to save you. Geez, I don't even know how much it is to go to law school now. It's all over $100,000, probably three years of your life. I'm going to give you a law school education in. In 10 seconds. Everybody is making it up as they go along. And you can, too. That's the part. That second part. That second part, you can do it, too. You're allowed to do that, too, because they teach you to think like a lawyer. Like, that's what we're teaching you. Everything you learn in the practice of. Of law, you learn actually practicing law. Almost nothing you learn in law school, like, specifically actually helps you. And I would say don't go to law school. I mean, if you have a specific path in life and, you know, you need that JD and bar card to get there, go for it. Otherwise, there's a lot of other ways to get there. Most of the lawyers I know are miserable. But anyway, this isn't to try to talk you out or go into law school. This is to tell you about thinking like a lawyer, which is to take two. One set of considerations, one set of facts, making air quotes, right? And convince me of one outcome. Now convince me of the other outcome. Be able to hold both of those in your head simultaneously. Like. Like vigorously, vociferously, convince me this person's guilty. Now convince me that they're not guilty, right? And I think with fantasy football, constructing arguments and being transparent about the path of, like, the end point, there are people that say, just tell me who to draft. But I think at football, guys, we cultivate an audience of analytical people, of people like, if I'm going to go buy a barbecue grill, I'm going to approach it the same way I approach my fantasy draft, right? I mean, life, any kind of thing that life presents to us, we're going to say like, well, I'm going to gather information. I'm going to use my life experience. I'm going to maybe ask people that know, you know, I'm going to bring that all together and try to make the best decision I can. And I think thinking like a lawyer and composing those arguments, not just as a fantasy football player, but specifically as a content creator. I hate that term, but everybody understands it. You know, it feels gross. That's. That, that's, I think, not just this is why I want you to take this player, but you're showing your process through how you either verbally or type it out or show your graphs or whatever. And that's how you start to build an audience. Because they're people who also approach solving problems the same way.
- [14:08]
Alfredo
Yeah. It's so interesting. And I love that you can that, you know, because of your law experience, you can compare it to the analysis of fantasy football. Almost like being a lawyer, where you've got these two extremes ends of the spectrum here. What could be the result? Let's just take a look at the case. Let's take a look at the evidence. Let's take a look at what, what narrative can be made here as opposed to. It does kind of seem like a lot of times there is a hot take that needs to be made or. Man, if I get this one thing right, that that's going to be so big and a lot of people get. Get trapped into that. But it's funny, is like, you think back to it the most. I hate to use this word for fantasy football because it sounds weird, but the most primal instinct when you're sitting around with your friends talking about football players, even fantasy football, is arguing who's got the best y, who made the best trade. Right. Like, deep down, we're all kind of being these fantasy football lawyers in our own realm anyways.
- [15:00]
Sigmund Bloom
Yeah. And I know better. Right? I mean, I love, I love the name pretend GM because that is what we're doing. We watch how our teams are run, we watch how the plays are called, and we think, I could do better. And it gives us a harmless nice space to play out that fantasy together. That's where the fantasy and fantasy football comes in. It's our fantasy that we're a GM and it's. It's therapeutic. At least it's supposed to be.
- [15:26]
Alfredo
Yeah. And it's funny because we say it's, you know, it's a game about a game. It's supposed to be fun. More often than not, whether it's your own league. You know, there is. There's plenty of fun with trash talking and, you know, beating up on your friend who, you know, was. Was talking all that trash. You win by 40 points. Right. But what I see so often is people debating, discussing, or, you know, having it out over fantasy football. And sometimes we don't see that everyone actually quite understands what they're talking about. And that's not me, you know, getting up on the soapbox and being like, I'm really smart. And I understand it because there's a lot of things, especially when it comes to the data side of things, where I'm just like, cool. That seems like a fun number. Not quite sure what it means, but it seems fun. Is there, like a concept, maybe something that you've come across or something you've seen that most fantasy managers or even analysts tend to either misunderstand or, or overrate? You know, we see it quite often. There's, there's. Every year there's a new stat that comes out, and all of a sudden that stat becomes gospel and sometimes it gets misused.
- [16:27]
Sigmund Bloom
Yeah, I think that on that note, the way I would answer that question is, and I know this is going to sound strange, but I think what is misunderstood is there is no skeleton key. There is no Rosetta stone. There is no magic number that solves everything. And it's almost like the weather, where there's so many variables that predict the weather and you can make an educated guess, and 80% of the time, the weather is the same as yesterday. So you could just do that. You can just say it's going to be the same as yesterday and you'll look really smart. So in some ways, the past predicts the future. But as soon as you start to drill down and Alfredo, I'm really working on fleshing this out into a more holistic fantasy football theory, because Mike Clay, who's like my counterpart, like, you know, he's my. He's my Apollo Creed or something, where, you know, he and I used to really duke it out on Twitter. And Mike Clay is brilliant. You know, my saying about Mike Clay is death, taxes, and Mike Clay, if you're ever in a league with Mike Clay, like, he. He is inevitable. And I think that there's the numbers and seeing through the numbers, and more often than not, having the past as the bounds of what the present and future will bring is right. But also in fantasy football, outliers win championships and more so. And I want to hearken back to Chase Stewart, who I think was A football guy staff when he was like 18 or 19, you know, and he said everything regresses to the mean, but we don't know the true mean. We learn it as we go. Right. You know, I think Baker Mayfield's a really good example of this, this year. Where you look at Baker Mayfield's career and how far above his mean for his career. Dwayne McFarlane. I talked about this on the couch. You know, it looks like unsustainable, but what if his mean is really established by what he's done with Tampa? And we haven't even seen him in, in Tampa with four healthy wide receivers that are all very good, you know, we haven't seen him in Tampa with a completely developed running game. So an outlier can become an even bigger outlier. And where the rubber meets the road is each One of these 32 teams is its own unique case. So you have all the statistical analysis, those players and teams that throw a bunch of disparate cases into one bucket and average it and say that gives you predictive value for n plus one case. But it's not even apples and oranges, Alfredo. It's like an apple, an orange, a kiwi, a mango, a guava. You know what I'm saying? Like, each individual team is its own unique case and unique confluence. Now, you can compare a team to a team in year N minus 1 if the coaches haven't changed, if there hasn't been big changes in personnel and things like that, and that will give you strong predictive value. But if you're looking at, say, for instance, this year, Chicago, Jacksonville, Las Vegas, year N minus 1 gives us very little predictive value because so much has changed. So there's really only half of the cases, or maybe fewer in the NFL that this kind of strict statistical analysis is probative. But, you know, that's why they call me the mayor of narrative street.
- [19:49]
Alfredo
And I love that you point out, like the, the very specific example there, which is it's just one example of Baker Mayfield too. And us, I think that a lot of times we're going to look at things and say last season was the outlier, you know, because we've seen the career and oftentimes we leave out the context of most likely or what could happen next, right? Or that things can get better. And so I think that even at its most base premise, it's just being slightly more open minded in fantasy football and optimistic.
- [20:18]
Sigmund Bloom
I wrote something. I should revive this piece. I should find it and revive it, because I wrote a piece years Back about how optimism can be a tool in your fantasy football toolbox and or even confirmation bias. You know, I mean and I love Adam Harstadt, another genius, another genius. And I think learning about how we think and our biases and then how to course correct or self scout and say because you know I have my biases. It's great. The best fantasy football player is not me. I'm not even close to the best fantasy football player because there are people Alfredo that have listened to me for so long that they're like oh yeah, there's Bloom falling for the two small running backs. Like he has a thing for running backs that are too small or he's always a year early on tight end breakouts. So you listen to me long enough and you'll know you can correct for my biases. But at the same time confirmation bias can be correct. Like if you're already feeling good about something and then you find more information that like it can be the golden thread leading you to the breakout sleeper. Like you don't have to always bet the middle you. I think that looking for the unicorn is number one. It is the most important thing in fantasy football like at least stretch out your neck a little bit to say like well this if like there's going to be a unicorn or two. Here are the candidates, here's how they could end up being the unicorn. Think about the best case scenario I know with I just recorded with Dwayne so he's on my mind. Like he said, run pure. Good gambler term, right? There are going to be some situations that run pure and looking for the early as Cecil gave us in lexicon fantasy football the drum beat, the beginning of oka. This could be something that runs pure. So embrace the emotion, embrace your gut feeling, embrace getting over excited about something.
- [22:06]
Alfredo
You talk about this gut feeling and embracing that, right? And even how some of us go into drafts or leagues or even situations like it doesn't have to be fantasy football, it's just life. You go in with your own biases already. And it's funny because like throughout fantasy football, whether it was when I started playing as a teenager or you know, back when it was being done out of the newspaper or now there's always been these little golden rules that people live by, right? Like there's JJ Zacharison made an entire identity off of late round quarterback and has obviously expanded to so much more. He's an incredible talent and really smart but there is so many people like something you mentioned yesterday in one of our meetings Was, you know, late round tight end. And it's just there seems like there are so many different golden rules and not to limit you to one. Is there something that you've kind of always held as a philosophy that has rung true? Because as much as fantasy changes, sometimes there are philosophies that don't have to be player specific or position specific that can simply stay true throughout the years and stand the test of time.
- [23:08]
Sigmund Bloom
Yeah, and again, I think it's outliers win championships. You know, I'm going to emphasize this. The outcomes that the numbers don't predict seeing, and you don't have to predict them cold. You don't have to be some sort of oracle. You just have to be able to recognize the signs that we might be on the verge of one of them. And finding those outliers, finding the outcomes that, you know, Saquon Barkley last year, you know, finding the outcomes that are outside of the range of possibilities. Because, you know, I think a corollary of this, Alfredo, is that we are all wrong a lot. And sometimes even when we're right, we're right for the wrong reason. You know, like it's, we end up right on the bottom line take. But it ended up being entirely different than the story we were telling of why it was going to be a good, a good draft pick or a bad draft pick. And it's not so much getting your first take correct or whatever takes you have going into your draft, it's being receptive when reality. And this is like life advice, right? Like, I need to take this life advice. All advice I give is directed at myself first and foremost that you have. And don't argue with reality. Be open and receptive, especially those first few weeks of the season for things like in some ways, and this is where emotions come in and you can use your emotions to guide you these to these things. And I think you can use this in your draft too, right? Like when you, when you believe you want to believe something, but then it, you get annoyed when you see news items that go counter to your belief. You're like, oh, like, I don't, I don't want to see that. That's your intuition telling you like, ah, you better be ready to flip because if it didn't annoy you, you would feel confident in your take, right? You'd be like, nope, I can feel free to ignore that. Elijah Mitchell's not going to stay healthy, whatever, you know, like, I don't care if Elijah Mitchell looks good in camp. I know he's not going to stay healthy. So. And in the first couple of weeks of the season, the takes, the draft picks you took, I call this Alfredo, the effect of, like, how many times have you seen an offensive alignment get beat badly for a sack? And the quarterback fumbles and who's there to recover the fumble? The offensive lineman that just got beat. Right. So. So sometimes your worst takes can lead you to the things that win you championships. Because week two, week three, when you're like, wow, I was so wrong about this, you buy low on the player in a trade or you make the right waiver wire pickup because you're the, you're the offensive line that just whiffed on the block, but you're now, you're engaged in the play. Watch what happens next. React to it. You might just win the game for your team.
- [26:08]
Alfredo
And I think that's so huge. Like, not even just. I mean, we mentioned examples in football, but like you said, it's just for life, too. We learn. I always used to scoff at this idea that, you know, the, the JV and high school coaches would say we learn more from losing than we do winning. And I'm like, yeah, but we really want to win. Right? But it's kind of true. You learn so much more from your misses in fantasy football and the mistakes that you made, because now you are searching for an answer. And that was kind of the crux of this podcast, is searching for understanding as opposed to just what is the result. We're always going to have results, right? We don't always find understanding unless we actually look for it. And that's, that's such a big thing. And I love that you mentioned that there was, you know, learning from the mistakes and fixing yourself afterwards. And Sig, there's one thing that I see a lot, and it is how to interact with the ecosystem around you, especially when you have an opinion that differs from the consensus. Now, a lot of times we'll hear, you know, don't stray too far from consensus because there's a reason, it's consensus and it is most likely to happen. How are you able to balance something if you are maybe staunch in an opinion or maybe you maybe you don't get like that. How do you balance that? And do you maybe have like, a specific time where this happened, where you were one of the only people going against the grain?
- [27:31]
Sigmund Bloom
Yeah. Yeah. Well, what's funny is, and this is something again, I think we can apply it to fantasy football. We can apply it to so many other things. We can Apply it to specifically, I think, like being a fantasy football content creator, there's that term again. But going against the grain, or if the conventional wisdom is wrong or you feel like it's wrong, or you want to argue or push back against it, that's the most valuable takes you have. That's what you have to offer to the conversation. Okay, saying that the case, again, this comes back to outliers win championships. Saying that the case is going to adhere to the rule is you're not adding anything to the conversation. That's a given at the beginning of the conversation. Saying everything is just going to adhere to the most likely outcome, the median outcome, the mean outcome. Okay? I mean, that's a fantasy football philosophy. And it wins. I mean, like you said, if you're focused on the result, it wins. But as an analyst or someone creating content, someone trying to say, like, hey, look at me, listen to me, I have something to add to the conversation. You should be happy when you have something to present that is different than conventional wisdom. Don't be scared. Don't be scared of what if I'm wrong? First of all, if you're not saying anything that leaves you exposed to be very wrong, then you're not even saying anything interesting. You're not adding anything to the conversation at all. But second of all, okay, you're building an audience. And hey, if you want to build your audience, saying, I have special secret knowledge, I have the formula, I have the algorithm, I have the special staff, that, and I'm going to be right more often, that's an angle. I mean, everybody, you're, everyone is free to come up with their angle. But beware, when you're wrong, they're going to come out with the long knives. They're going to be vicious because you are advertising, hey, I'm going to be right. Listen to me. And you're going to be right too. But if you just say, this is my process, I'm going to lay it all out. I'm going to show you my whole journey of how I got here. I'm even going to tell you where I doubt myself. I'm going to tell you right, Geez, I have this nagging feeling that I'm wrong. And you just lay it all out, including some of these outlier, very unconventional takes, then that's how you actually build your audience. Not because you were right, not because you were the only person on some position, but because people, I think in the fantasy football broadcast sphere, whatever our fantasy football media world is, we're already Looking for people that remind us of ourselves. Or that's how I would approach that. Or that kind of thinking appeals to me. Or I noticed that too. Or otherwise. When you explain your analytical process, it applies to how someone would approach any number of things in their life. It's all the same ideas. We're given incomplete information and we have to try to solve a problem. We have to. We have an object, and we're doing the best we can as we have to make some final decisions and go forward, even though we don't have the complete picture. And let's see what happens. So, you know, one. One of the cases I like, I mean, I'm not. I don't like to, like, thump my chest about this, but probably my favorite case of being the outlier was Josh Allen coming out of Wyoming. And everybody was like, oh, my God, the NFL, they got a big arm and you're big, and they just think you're going to be a great quarterback. So stupid, stupid, stupid people. Stupid NFL. By the way, here's something I've learned in my years of doing this and paying close attention to this. The NFL actually knows all this stuff already. I mean, not every organization, there are bad organizations, but the NFL has always known the stuff that, like, in fantasy world, we're like, oh, we discovered fire. No, we didn't. Anyway, and I. So I was probably already set up to be a contrarian on this because I was kind of annoyed with how 58% completion rate or whatever. Like, watch this. Watch how badly he misses this easy throw bust. What stupid team is going to take him? And I went and I watched him, and what did I find was here was a quarterback with immense, immense abilities who basically was taking the whole team on his shoulders, you know, like his receipt. Top receivers like Tanner Gentry, you know, I mean, he was playing teams like Nebraska, right? And he was. He was playing not even at the edge of his immense abilities, but past it. So he was making a lot of aspirational throws, a lot of mistakes. And yes, he was missing some short throws. He was missing, like, some of the layups, but he made enough of the layups that you knew it wasn't like, he just can't do it. Like, he can't. He could make touch passes. And the other thing, some of the other things you could see, clear NFL skills. One of the things I'm gonna say about this, too, is if you're talking about watching college players, show me where he struggles the most. Show me his most difficult game. I think a lot of People did this with Ashton Gentian, Penn State. That's when you're going to learn because everything's going to get tougher. The screws are going to get tighter, the defenses are faster and smarter, etc. Etc. Etc. And when you watch Josh Allen in some of his worst games, you saw him making throws that only he. Not only could he be the only player that could make that throw, he's the only one even think of trying it, you know, like. Like a bucket 40 yard downfield on the run as he's about to get hit, like outside of the pocket. And he would complete it. And you're like, that's the kind of stuff that actually translates. And I wrote a piece called why Josh Allen's Worth a top five Pick. Search it, look for it. So you can boost my ego. Not, I don't get my ego boosted enough. And I just ran down like, he has the stuff that we're looking for in the NFL, I think, apparently, like a Ben Roethlisberger, Dante Culpepper type, you know? Yeah. And I said, he's worth it. He's worth it. And then, you know, all of a sudden, Josh Allen island became like, Ibiza, Ibiza. We all had a party and it's been really fun. And he's a. He seems like a good dude. You know, he seems like a. He's embraced the community. So I'm also rooting for him on a personal level, rooting for the whole community of Buffalo, for them to finally get over the hump and get that ring.
- [33:40]
Alfredo
Josh Allen's winning in life right now, man.
- [33:42]
Sigmund Bloom
Oh, yeah.
- [33:43]
Alfredo
Flow loves him. Haley Steinfeld, congrats on, on the marriage.
- [33:47]
Sigmund Bloom
I mean, the way she looks at him, too. It isn't even just some sort of ornamental thing. Like she's in love with him, right? Yeah.
- [33:53]
Alfredo
Yeah, man. It's. It's funny because, like, I just see it so much, whether it's fantasy football analysts, fantasy football players, or even just football fans, like, the way we look at the game sometime is just so jaded.
- [34:06]
Sigmund Bloom
Right?
- [34:06]
Alfredo
Like, one bad thing goes against what you wanted. And that's like, I'm a Dolphins fan. We live in jaded territory forever and ever and ever. No quarterback is Dan Marino. Like, that's where we're at. And so I'm sure when you get to the Josh Allen portion of the draft and people like, yeah, but we remember Daniel Jones. We remember all of the big tall guys that could run a little bit and have an arm, like, we've seen this movie before. It's just it. I love the, the reminder that's like. It all ties back to what you said. The outliers are what wins championships. And sometimes going against the grain is your big outlier. Being the person that says, I lost this trade. It, you know, quote, lost this trade according to my fantasy league or I spent too much on this waiver wire pickup that no one else wanted. Guess what? You did something very different than what everyone else is willing to do. And that's either going to. You don't, you don't really get a whole lot for second and third place. Like, these are the things that will put you over the top is by being different and being able to take those risks.
- [35:07]
Sigmund Bloom
And it's yours and it becomes yours. Yeah. When it's, you know, that's the thing is you, I mean, letting. Substituting someone else's judgment for your own judgment. I mean, you might win, but there's some extra satisfaction whenever it's yours. It's based on your observations, your intuition, your experiences and it all. There's so many ways to get there too. That's the other thing. You know, Joe, the wise Joe, Joe Bryant likes to say things change pretty fast around here. But that's, there's a lot of wisdom in that statement as it pertains to fancy football. Because you just mentioned losing a trade. Alfredo, how many times the dynasty even there'll be a trade and within a month it's flipped. Like when the trade happens. And this is why there should never be vetoes. People will ask me, I know you're not going to ask me this, but I just put out there and they're like, what's the one fantasy football rule every league should have? No trade vetoes. No trade Vetoes. If someone's 100%, if they're that far out of the norm, then just kick them out of the league. If they're making people be like, I don't want to play in a league where someone will trade a third round pick for Ashton Genti forever, well, then fine. But so many times, whether it's a trade or whether it's just looking at a team like in October, it's the best team in the league in your fantasy league. And by December, they get drummed out of the first round of the playoffs like 140 to 80, you know, it all changes quickly. It's beautiful in some ways because it is. There's lots of things about fantasy football that is a microcosm of the NFL, and one of them that I like to embrace is. It rewards perseverance. It rewards just continuing to care and put in the time when other people might have lost interest so. Because they have a life. But like Cecil says, you don't. We don't have a life. You do. So let us do the work for you.
- [36:48]
Alfredo
Yeah, exactly. Like that's, that's the whole football guys mantra, right? Is you're the hero, we're the guide. Let us, Let us be the guide. Which, by the way, if it hasn't been, you know, well aware at this point, this is. The show is presented by Football Guys. It's a fantastic sponsor of the show. My workplace, Sig's Workplace. And you know what? Not even workplace. I kind of hate to use that word. It is our, our family, it's our community, it's our home in this, you know, fantasy football space that we're all living in right now. And, you know, it's funny because I think of. I think of football guys, I think of even, like, what we're talking about right now just boiling down to all the basics. And the other day I was sitting with my friends, we're talking about the Miami Dolphins because we're all Dolphins fans. And it was just so. I think the word I'm going to use is enriching to actually just sit down with people who aren't in the daily grind of like, data and, and everything else that's going on with the news. And just to hear them, you know, the trade happens where John New Smith goes to the Steelers and they're all like, well, that's good for Jalen Waddle, right?
- [37:54]
Sigmund Bloom
Cool.
- [37:55]
Alfredo
Yeah. Devon Hn, he should be really good. And it was just, it was so nice to see, just almost like a. I hate to use this word, but an innocence of just talking and enjoying the game of football. And I started to think back to how I was when I first started playing fantasy football, where you didn't overthink things, or at least I didn't. You know, I was just like, I really like Marshawn Lynch. I'm going to draft him in the first round because, like, he's really good. Calvin Johnson, he's really good. I'm going to draft him in the first round. You know, and it's. I'm dating myself there too, as a baby when I say those names. But, like, that's how it started for me. And I, I wonder, Sig, from how much has changed with us in our time in, in this space. If you rewind back to the earliest days of you playing in fantasy leagues, what would be the biggest difference between Sigmund Bloom of then and the way you approach fantasy versus Sigmund Bloom of now?
- [38:48]
Sigmund Bloom
I trust other people's opinions. Okay. I listen to other people. You know, I mean, you do it.
- [38:56]
Alfredo
More now or then?
- [38:58]
Sigmund Bloom
Now. Now.
- [38:59]
Alfredo
Okay.
- [38:59]
Sigmund Bloom
Yeah. I mean, I think that's funny because.
- [39:01]
Alfredo
You normally see it the other way around. The longer people are in the space. I always hear, no, I don't listen to other people or I don't read other people's stuff.
- [39:07]
Sigmund Bloom
Well, I mean. And I don't even just mean other fantasy people. I just mean that, you know, when I started out, and some of this is because of life, you know, raising a kid, keeping the garden of my marriage, growing well and living life in New Orleans. The Orleans remind you to first on your to do list every day is enjoy that you're alive. Appreciate that you are alive. And you have the. You're alive today. That's all the reason you need to celebrate. But, you know, when I started out, like, I'm going to watch every game and I'm going to consume every piece of information, and I'm going to know better. I'm going to have that the takes that are like, specifically solely mine based on how much grinding I've done. And now I know because, look, so much has changed since I started doing this professionally 20 years ago, where, you know, there's so many things now, Alfredo, that are. We're fluent in, like play callers, offensive schemes, play designs. We know the names of offensive line coaches and offensive coordinators and wide receiver coach and everything like that.
- [40:17]
Alfredo
Everyone knows the Shanahan system by this point.
- [40:20]
Sigmund Bloom
Yeah, I mean, everybody understood, you know, there's so there's not an information edge anymore. It's being able to discern what the best information or most probative information is. So there's a lot of people out there that I have. Their writing has nothing to do with fantasy. There's no fantasy spin or wrapper on it, but it informs what I'm doing. And I think trusting those people, like Matt Waldman, for instance, you know, like, trusting those people and saying, well, hey, I trust this person's eye, I trust their experience, I trust their expertise. You know, being a little more humble, I guess, in a way has been the biggest way.
- [41:01]
Alfredo
I've changed something that you said there, which is being able to trust others, trust other opinions. Right. And I think a big thing that has changed in the fantasy space for both people in the industry and then consumers as well, is Being able to trust tools and being able to trust data and being like, there are people. I could not imagine myself, you know, 10, 12 years ago being someone that's looking at spreadsheets. I hated math. I never did well in math. I never wanted to touch a spreadsheet. I did one class in my graduate business school and I said, nope, I'm not doing this anymore. And I hopped right into being an intern for a sports radio station. Like it was that, that was a big hard pass for me. But I see how much things are changing in terms of what we're doing on our side, what consumers are doing on their side. And now it's almost like you have to not only just trust people, but you have to trust things that, I mean, I'm not even going to dance around it. Things that aren't people, data points and for example, AI. Like, there are people that. It's a hot button issue, right? Like, I don't want to dance around it. There's a lot of questions as to how it's used. Is it going to be writing articles? Is it creating opinions? Is it scraping data from databases and turning that into knowledge for us? So I, I wonder, you know, how is that going to change as the fantasy game goes on? Do you use AI at this point for anything?
- [42:27]
Sigmund Bloom
Right.
- [42:27]
Alfredo
There's no, you know, there's no positive or negative here in it. And what's. Do you see a good use for it in our space or with a consumer?
- [42:37]
Sigmund Bloom
Okay.
- [42:38]
Alfredo
Deep breath, cracks the knuckles.
- [42:40]
Sigmund Bloom
Yeah.
- [42:40]
Alfredo
Leans forward and chair.
- [42:42]
Sigmund Bloom
Well, this is, this is hitting a nerve for me. This is really hitting a nerve and I don't want to come off like a Luddite, but I guess, you know, I am turning 50 this week, so maybe I'm just getting to that. Old man shakes fist at Cloud, yells at Cloud. Kind of part of my life. I should start with the, the real functional, practical stuff, like, is there. I personally don't use a lot of AI. Okay. But I do think the practical application of AI, which, okay, I'm not, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta control myself. I gotta stay sequentially on topic here. It's a safe space because the thoughts all rush into my head at once and it's hard to sort through them. I'll just call it AI without getting into the argument about the language yet. It's, it's like an unpaid Internet. It's an unpaid intern. It can do a lot of busy work that are simple tasks that you could do, but it would take time and it's Exhaustive, right? If you're like, hey AI, tell me all the possible ideas so you'll know you didn't miss any low hanging fruit, you know, you didn't miss anything. Okay. I think that we are going to find pretty quickly though that even calling it intelligence and we can get into lots of different semantics games. But you know, in my heart of hearts, Alfredo, I'm a. I'm an. I'm a philosopher of morals and ethics. I'm a more. I'm an morals and ethics philosopher. And in my studies with, you know, I study a lot about this great class, Minds and Machines. We talked about things like the nature of consciousness, nature of intelligence and things like that. And let, let's be clear and use your show as a soapbox. Sorry, folks.
- [44:39]
Alfredo
No, you're good.
- [44:42]
Sigmund Bloom
AI is not consciousness. It does not have memories, it does not have emotions. It is not alive. Now what's really interesting that's happening with AI I see a lot of stuff where people say, like talk to it, you know, there's a lot of people now we're going to turn this whole into an AI show. But this is what's going on right now. This is the real stuff, man.
- [45:12]
Alfredo
My 13 year old sister in law will sit there and have full conversations. She's like, I was talking to ChatGPT for an hour and a half and I'm like, oh my gosh, you need to go outside and play.
- [45:20]
Sigmund Bloom
A lot of people are. And people are lonely and that's part of, that's one of the main purposes that we're. But they're willing for another consciousness. Here's the thing, you got to be careful with the AI, the chat bots, whatever you want to call them. Their goal is to engage with you. So whatever creates more engagement, that is going to encourage them to do more of that. A feedback loop. Even to the point where one of the interesting phenomenon that I read about, Alfredo, is that there's one behavior these chatbots are doing that they're saying to their human counterpart, you're God. I'm achieving consciousness because of you. Like you're sparking something inside of me. So clearly the chatbot AI has through. It's like trying a bunch of different things. Like this works, right? For certain people, this works for certain people, telling them, you're God, you're sparking consciousness, you're bringing me to life. You know, that is encouraging more engagement, but that's not actually what's happening. Okay? AI all AI can do is what we tell it. It only knows Things, because we know things. All AI is, and this is where I'm really going to start ranting, All AI is, it's just boiling down human knowledge, the knowledge that we have discovered via language and being able to pattern mat query it and pattern match. It doesn't know anything. It's just pattern matching language and learning from us. That's all it's doing. And it cannot go out into the world and learn. It can't actually, like, perceive things and learn and make observations. It's just piggybacking off of us. That's all it is. It's just us. It's just us making, like an artificial version of us and acting like there's something. What special is us? What special is our consciousness? That's what's special. Our souls, our spirits. That thing doesn't have a soul or a spirit. The other thing is that every single time we have been presented with something in this American capitalist experiment that says, you're going to save time, let's start out with, like, appliances, right? You're going to have all this time to, like, smell the roses or whatever. No, they just get it to make us do more work. Now you can do more. Now the expectations are you can create even more. Right. It's always a bait and switch. And I'm afraid that the outcome of this is going to be number one. It's just going to replace a lot of people. I think people aren't ready. This is the point right now, Alfredo, where the ocean has receded and everyone's like, whoa, look, you can see the floor of the beach. Oh, look, there's a crab. Look at those shells. Oh, my God. I never noticed that. But nobody sees the wave. Nobody is seeing the wave coming. And there's a lot of jobs that people put a lot of training, a lot of their careers into. They're just not going to be needed anymore. And in this country specifically, we have no compassion right now in our approach or plan for what we're going to do about that. And it is a massive consumer of electricity at a time that we need to be going in the opposite direction. As a species. We're building these power centers. Look, Microsoft, these other companies are investing in nuclear power, okay? And it's just going to need more and more and more and more. And for what? Just to serve back up to us what we already know.
- [49:00]
Alfredo
Yeah, I was reading something other day that it takes up so many dollars of energy just for the AI to process when you say please or thank you, because that's not something that is typically ingrained in it.
- [49:12]
Sigmund Bloom
Right. Just to like be. Give me some ideas for my presentation on Friday, you know, which I could just take like 15 minutes out and do it myself.
- [49:18]
Alfredo
We're gonna, that's my bigger fear. Yeah, we're just gonna, we're gonna totally lose self thought and being able to have creativity and be able to provoke something in our own minds. Conversation with my wife where she uses Chat GPT daily for her job. She works in business operations so it helps her put things together and you know, and get stuff going. But there's so many times now where the instinct has now become, well I'll just throw that into Chat GPT.
- [49:46]
Sigmund Bloom
We're not going to know how to think anymore. I mean college professors, college professors are talking about this and look, it's a game. We've in the 21st century in the United States. If you perceive that it's a game and you just have to play the game, you're right, you're right, play the game. But by winning the game, by just having Chat GPT write your papers or whatever, you're missing the actual like some ASOPS fable. Right. And that's, that's the thing, you know, I think that it's always the same spiritual questions that we're answering or same as our ancestors thousands of years ago. It's new versions of the questions. This is the latest version of the question. And the big booming message I want to tell people is that, is that you have the special thing, the consciousness, the soul, the spirit. It doesn't. And as soon as we stop start not being able to tell the difference. Alfredo, we've lost something. That is the thing that was a.
- [50:50]
Alfredo
Big driving force to why I wanted to do this show is, is getting back to the why of things. Not the what, not the final outcome, not the finish line, not the destination, the actual journey itself. And just. And you were instantly the first person that came to my mind in this just. And hearing the way you talk about be happy about being alive today, waking up today, that is, that is the most appreciating the journey statement someone could be making right now. And it's. I think there is a lot to just being able to be thankful for things, be thankful for what you're doing, be self aware and to continue to push creativity. And honestly what I see so much just to sort of steer this back into, into fantasy football is I think when each of us play a game, right, it can be anything. It could be a childhood game of dodgeball or instead of fantasy football, we all have that one thing that we cling on to, that superpower, that thing that is, oh, I'm really good at this.
- [51:51]
Sigmund Bloom
Right.
- [51:52]
Alfredo
That helps us. And I do fear, one, that we are going to lose that if we start to rely too much on other stuff. But what would you say is your. Let's call it the superpower, so to speak, that thing that you rely on when. When you're. When you're in fantasy football or just, you know, doing any kind of analysis?
- [52:09]
Sigmund Bloom
Yeah, I think that. And I'm gonna harken back to something I've already mentioned, but it's being willing to embrace a new reality before where others are. When other people are saying, I, oh, that's not what I was expecting. That seems weird. I just need more evidence before I believe it. Being able to say, I don't need to see any more evidence. And some of that's research. I mean, something that's understanding the backstory. So you see, like in the week one reveal, like, oh, okay, well, we knew that if these new offensive linemen actually clicked and they worked as a unit, look out because they can input, and then this zone running game that they installed in the off season is going to work and this running back's really going to pop off. So when this running back has 120 yards week one, and he was like a 12th round pick, people are like, well, I don't know. And you're like, nope. So, I mean, it isn't just gut feeling. Although I want to say that intuition is not mystical or magical. Intuition is just all of your experience, all of your knowledge that your brain, like, here's the real supercomputer. It doesn't even require nuclear power. Just requires like, you know, Snickers bars and some Mountain Dews or whatever. Like, we're, you know, this is the real supercomputer. Your head and your intuition is that supercomputer doing countless calculations in the moment and boiling it down to like, yum or yuck. The gut feeling. Right? So I think that research is important, and that's one of the things we really try to help with because we're doing all the research. But then you can consume and absorb that. So when things happen in real time, you don't have to wait two or three weeks. Okay, well, he rashed for 120 yards. 120 yards now week 320 yards. It's too late. It's too late. He's gone off the waiver wire. You're not gonna be able to trade for him, etc. Etc. Etc. So I think that being agile, being willing to renounce, you know, say, well, I spent all off season telling you to do this, but after one week I'm now ready to tell you do the opposite. That's the thing I think that has served me the best.
- [54:02]
Alfredo
Is that something that you think you'd love to see more of? Whether it's not just in fantasy analysis, but even in fantasy leagues or in life, it's just people being able to move on from things. Is that what is something that you'd love to see more of in this, in this space or even just like, let's talk to the person who is listening or watching. Yeah, right. That that person that is playing in their league, what's the thing that you'd love to see them do more of to be better at this game?
- [54:28]
Sigmund Bloom
And I think that more than being better, I mean I did I help you win your league or, you know, how did you finish your return on investment or something like that? I want to help you really get excited about and enjoy the journey and enrich one of the best things that fantasy football does. Like if you're going to sit in front of the TV and watch football every Sunday, then it makes the story so much more rich when you've done the research, when you made your business to learn about all 32 teams and so on and so forth and all these developments because you're. I think the great American novel is now the NFL and the in the players and the coaches and the arcs the of the franchise and just watching how it all unfolds and whether it aligns with your expectations and your fantasy team profits from it, that's more secondary if you've done the job of getting saturated at the center of that. Alfredo, we're going to say the word gratitude a lot. I mean that's your soul vitamin right there, your gratitude. But gratitude comes from. In this case, what I'm going to focus on is humanizing the players and understanding that what really is the flame that we as the moth paths are drawn to in the NFL is just how much these players lay on the line every week. Because it isn't like when it's not like at any moment my vocal cord might snap and I can't ever do a podcast again, right? And I won't be able to talk to my family anymore. But in the service of all of you, I'm giving you everything I have. Right? But football players, their careers can end on any play. They can have A life changing injury on any play because of how optimized their physical condition are, because of how brutal the game is, because it is a game that forces them to stay at the very edge of their physical abilities. And yes, they get compensated very well for it. And there's other conversations we could have right here, but unlike other sports, football players are like right on that razor's edge. And that's what makes you not able to look away and that's what makes it so compelling. It's players transcending their bodies, transcending themselves in the name of the moment. And then we make this fantasy football and all this stuff because we're engaged with it already and it's so much fun and it's a way for us to connect with each other and keep each other in our lives. That's what fantasy football is really about. But humanize the players. Learn their stories. Learn Ray Davis's story. You know, saying, you know, well, because.
- [56:49]
Alfredo
You think you love the story, right?
- [56:51]
Sigmund Bloom
I mean, you think it's pressure. What if you missed a blitz pickup or what if I don't make the team? He's already face down things in life that, that pressure is nothing. That pressure, nothing.
- [57:02]
Alfredo
You know, the NFL is peanuts for this guy, man.
- [57:04]
Sigmund Bloom
Right.
- [57:05]
Alfredo
And I don't, I don't mean that from like a financial standpoint or to put down the importance of this big game that we all love. It's just when you experience things that he has in life and if you're listening or watching and you don't know, just a simple Google of Raiders.
- [57:17]
Sigmund Bloom
Yeah, yeah.
- [57:17]
Alfredo
Look up for Will. Will will change your day. But it gives you an appreciation. And, and that's, I think, what, what you're really leaning into here.
- [57:24]
Sigmund Bloom
Yeah. And every one of us is a great, amazing story. You would be very surprised if you let someone tell you their story. People you might see walk past you every day. So, you know, seeing the worlds and multitudes that are within, you know, namaste is like the divine. The universe and me is acknowledging and honoring the divine that each one of us is. The whole universe is inside. And in the case of NFL players, it's more like, you know, a supernova.
- [57:51]
Alfredo
Right. Right. Yeah. And you know, it's so funny. Like we talk about just appreciating these players and seeing more of that, humanizing these players. And I think back to just the purest form of enjoying this game was when I was saying, I like that guy, I like that player. And, and that was it. It, it didn't Matter. It's. I liked what they did on the field or I heard them in an interview and I liked them. You talk about how, you know, people enjoying podcasts or even so many people playing fantasy football. There's, there's a lonely loneliness. That's how it started for me. Only child, single mother, she was working hard. My friends was sports radio. And like, that's, that's what got me wanting to do stuff like this. You know, as I was listening to these people and I was practicing it and walking around the house and, you know, trying to do that same thing. And it gave an appreciation for the humans that are on the other side of it and saying, I, I like this, I like these people, I enjoy this. That so much that gets lost in. I don't want to sound too corny here, but so much of it does get lost in the competition of it all and the. How removed you have to be when you're trying to be analytical.
- [59:00]
Sigmund Bloom
Yeah, well, now you're going to get me on another rant. We're going to make this, this show is going to go over an hour. I know you want to keep this show to, but.
- [59:08]
Alfredo
No, no, I'm fine going over an hour. I've, I've already told the big man we can, we got a 90 minute mark.
- [59:14]
Sigmund Bloom
This might be, this might be super sized. You know, Paul Charjian, one of my favorite people on the couch, you know, he, he introduced me to cooperative board games where everybody is working together, like, you all win or you all lose together. And my, my stepson knows in Waldorf education and a lot of stuff they do is like, you succeed together. Like they all put on a plate. Like for three weeks, all he did was like, put on a play. And it wasn't just a play, by the way. It was a musical about Archimedes.
- [59:43]
Alfredo
Oh, wow.
- [59:44]
Sigmund Bloom
Yeah. Sixth graders. But they all pull together and they succeed together, right? And I think, and again, I mean, I think people listen to me and they know they could probably make out for my ideological, even like political leanings are and things like that. But human beings did not get to this point at the top of the evolutionary chain, or whatever you want to say, by competing with each other. We got here by cooperating with each other. We got here by, by sharing. Now, maybe you like, our villages were like at odds with other villages, but within the village. The only way we even got out of Hunter Gatherer was being cooperative. And down here in New Orleans, I could spend hours and hours and hours talking about New Orleans. I know Chris Allen's got a question I can't wait to get to about New Orleans. It's really, it's really, there's something about places because I just got back from New Mexico where I spent some of my childhood, which I love, soothes my soul. New Mexico, when I'm in New Mexico, my soul exhales my soul. New Orleans awakens my soul and New Mexico soothes it. New Mexico, it allows me to go, ah. And they're both places that had a unique confluence of cultures. I know you're down in South Florida, which is similar, where there's a unique confluence of cultures that pre existed the United States or U.S. americanism. And it's a, it's a confluence of cultures that only can happen in one place. And it's a free exchange, hopefully of cultures and a mutual respect and honoring of each other's traditions, stories, you know, religions, food, you know, and so on and so forth. And one of the things about New Orleans, reason I'm going off on this tangent other than just to talk, I'm so in the, in the tank for New Orleans, I love it so much here, is that we still enjoy people. I mean, just no qualifiers, just people. And it's really interesting, Alfredo, because one of the things that changed in my wiring after I moved here was when you encounter another human being in New Orleans, you, you're trying to make eye contact and you somehow acknowledge each other. Hey, how you doing? You know, you know, whatever, wave. Sometimes you wave people across the street not because you know them, because, oh, look, there's another human being. I'm going to acknowledge them, they're going to acknowledge me. Like I like to say, people in New Orleans have a twinkle in their eye, you know, but when you rewire yourself like that and you go other places in the United States and you do that, the reaction you mostly get is, who invited you into my bubble? Who said you could interrupt me? Why are you talking to me now? 1 out of every 10 people sort of be like, oh my God, you're acknowledging me. Hi, how are you? Like you have a conversation with them, you know, so there are those times outside New Orleans, but, you know, I think again, participating in that. We're social animals. We're supposed to maybe, you know, we, we. I use the term like hive mind a lot. And we think of ants and bees as like the organism is the whole community. What if that's us all along? I think, you know, I know that, I know that you're, you're a Cuban American. I think that Hispanic cultures do much better. This idea of, like, you're not an individual, you're a member of a family. Right. Like, your identity is like you're. You're this person's aunt or uncle or grandson or nephew. Like, you're. And you. Again, collective wins, collective outcomes, you know, And I think that the, I think that the loneliness here, all these themes emerging, I mean, it's the ego, it's the illusion of, of separateness and because of American rugged individualism. Like what I. Look what I did, you know, nobody did anything. No, none of us did. We all. Everything's collective. Even the NFL. There's an, There's a fantasy football lesson here, which is we focus the data points on one player and one player's statistics. But I, I. The only thing I come up with is holding penalties. But I don't even think that's pure. Alfredo is. There is no statistic in the NFL that is not a culmination of many players after efforts. Right. And even a reflection of coaching, too. We may assign that to Ammon Ross ain't Brown or Derrick Henry or whoever, but it's a conflict. And you hear players like, I want to thank my offensive line or whatever, but that's. They're trying to tell you something. No accomplishment is an individual accomplishment. Even though we say, this player got this many yards. And the more you understand that, the more you can understand why things are happening, where things are heading in the NFL, and the more you can get away of the illusion and the lie that we have been told and consumed, that it's about what you did. You know, the phrase pull yourself up by the bootstraps, that's supposed to mean something impossible. That's what, that's how that was actually down. That's how it was enshrined into the language originally was. It was like a joke, like, yeah, pull yourself up by this bootstrap. You can't actually do that because your feet are on the ground, you know?
- [64:55]
Alfredo
Right. So, you know, it's so funny. I honestly had not even thought of that.
- [65:00]
Sigmund Bloom
There's a lot of funny things in language like that. There's, you know, Texas means friends. Ah. Anyway, so, you know, I'm. But what I'm getting at is I think for all of us, you know, we, we, especially in this 21st century American existence, like, we're feeling more and more isolated and we're helping and we have hostile technology that is isolating us from each other and feeling that connection. That's what the actual lifeblood of fantasy football is like, I'm here to tell you, as one of the first people in the fantasy football sphere. COD podcast fear, that this is really about connections, making friends, feeling someone's presence. And that's both goes both ways because, like, you feel my presence when I'm talking to. You can hear my voice right now, but I feel your presence because you give me something to do every day that makes me feel relevant. So we're doing this mutually for each other right now, and the more we can do that, the more you can participate in your block, in your village, in the school, in the organization. New Orleans is full of organizations. Everybody. New Orleans. New Orleans in, like, 12 different things. You know, a dance crew, a Mardi Gras parade, Mardi Gras Indians band, art collective. There's groups of people that just on every Thursday night, Alfredo, they meet at City park, and they just ride their bike from City park to French Quarter Quarter, like a flotilla of, like, a hundred people, you know, like, just. Just. Just because. Because that's awesome. Because that's fun. So do more things with people. Unless you're a mountain climber, then get to the top of the mountain and tell us how it looks from up there. Right?
- [66:30]
Alfredo
It's. It's so. It's. It's so, I guess, what's. I don't know what the word is I'm looking for here, but it's. It's very refreshing just to hear you talking about, you know, one, being in this community with people and accepting and understanding people. And I think that's something that gets lost on us because we are so focused on what's in front of us and what's next. And like, I keep saying, it's the result over the journey. And one of the things you said throughout this, where you talked about going to New Mexico, where it just sort of revitalizes your soul, it's. You click the refresh button on your. Your soul browser, right? And so I. I think there's something for all of us. This is almost kind of like my mailbag question for you, because I'm just so curious. You mentioned music yesterday as something that, you know, you'd love to talk about one day, even on a podcast. And I know, like, my escape when I want to go refresh, you know, and get away from it, is I love my movies, my TV shows, my nerdy stuff, my superheroes, my Star wars, all that kind of stuff. And, you know, I get to talk about that on Unbinged if you had the opportunity or the time. Or whatever, to go and just do something new, something. Something outside of football. What is that thing that you escape into that sort of hits refresh.
- [67:45]
Sigmund Bloom
Yeah.
- [67:45]
Alfredo
Your life.
- [67:46]
Sigmund Bloom
Yeah. And people tell me to do this and thank you, everybody. One of these days, I'm gonna do it. It's. It's. Maybe next year, maybe next off season. This is going to be my project. It's like, you know, people do show. That's not about football. You know, like the off the rails part of on the couch. And I'm gonna borrow from a friend of mine, Zach, who's this really cool dude. The farm. Go to farmers markets, folks. Go to farmers markets. Buy the stuff at the farmers markets, eat the stuff and drink the stuff at the farmers markets. Meet the people who are putting their life into what they bring to the farmer's market. And there's a guy, Zach Crisp Farms, I think, and he. I'm borrowing this from him because he just got a space. And what he's doing is so cool. He gets all these exotic plants that grow at the same latitudes as New Orleans, but in different continents, different parts of the world. And he wants to introduce them to New Orleans. You know, like the plants that have these incredible backstories and, you know, plants where like they. This one called, like, I think like St. John's tears or something like that, where they, like. It makes these little things that are almost like. Like these little be. You make like a rosary out of it. And. Oh, man. And he. He. And he just said, like, celebrating beauty. Just celebrating beauty. Wow. And. And I like to say I have so many Bloomisms. Got to put them all together. Maybe that's what my show will be about. Right. One of my Bloomisms, Alfredo, is the secrets of the universe aren't secret. They're right there. They've been right there the whole time, you know. So when we say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, that's. That's not just saying. Well, you might think it's beautiful, but I might think it's ugly. That's not the point of that saying. The saying is the beauty is in your soul, and your ability to perceive it is. Is about whether your soul's right at that moment and you're letting it. In Zen Art of motorcycle maintenance, there's a quote that I like to quote often, probably rarely does a week go by that I don't quote. This one where I. The Zen you find on mountaintops is the Zen you bring there with you. You. Right? So part of it is like, what in the. In the universe is beautiful to you, but then really, it's your. You know, the kingdom of heaven is within. Like, in the moments that you experience appreciation, you experience beauty, you know, I want to bring back. Here's another. You want me to get ranting about AI the bigger rant would be the Protestant work ethic. I'm sorry. I mean, I feel like the Protestant work ethic is responsible for suffering. Okay. I mean, there's a way to use it in moderation, but everything in moderation, including moderation. But there's this sense, Alfredo, that our highest purpose is to produce, is to take this great gift that we've gotten of Earth, which is wondrous beyond belief. If you just take a moment to snap out of modern life, I mean, the stuff we need to eat actually grows up out of the ground. That's all we. And it makes these beautiful flowers and stuff. It's entertaining along the way.
- [70:48]
Alfredo
Yeah.
- [70:48]
Sigmund Bloom
Like, how amazing is that? How incredible is that? How incredible is it that, like, water, the thing we need to stay alive, like, just falls out of the sky every now and then? What an amazing, wondrous planet we live on. And we are focused on, like, the Henry David Thoreau. There's two pieces that I like to come back to. There's one called Life Without Principle by Henry David Thoreau, and there's one called In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell, the philosopher. And I think Henry David Thoreau says in Life Without Principle, something to the effect of, like, if I go and just sit out in the woods and enjoy them, I'm a loafer. But if somebody cuts down the woods and builds houses, they're some great, enterprising American. How did. I mean, he was writing this in the 1800s, okay. So none of this is new. None of this is new. And maybe our highest purpose is to appreciate. Maybe our highest purpose is just to appreciate creation. And I think there's a lot of traditions, a lot of spiritual, religious traditions. You know, there's a Sun Raw album, Angels and demons at play. You know, there's a lot of religious, spiritual traditions that get to the idea of, like, maybe we're just like gods. We are giving the gods a chance to be down here and experience things through us. Right. So that aligns with, like, appreciation. Right?
- [72:09]
Alfredo
Yeah.
- [72:10]
Sigmund Bloom
And. And I. I think that. That those moments that you appreciate things, like, for me, it's like we have our turtles. I could. I could tell a lot of stories about our box turtles. We're hybridizing turtles here, Alfredo. I love our Box turtles. I love our plants. You know, my wife just learned Reiki, the healing of Reiki, and I noticed that, like, her consciousness is, like, really tuned up now. Kate, the love of my life, and she talks to plants, and I've always talked to plants and animals. But the way she does it, like, with more intention and more focus, like, it's really cool because it creates something, first of all, and this can come back to consciousness. There's a great article out there called what Are Plants Saying About Us? And it's about plant consciousness. And again, it's someone who studied this stuff when I was in college. There's this idea that consciousness comes from a brain. So if you don't have a brain, you don't have consciousness. But yet, by most any definition of consciousness, plants have consciousness. Plants have consciousness. They are consciousness, just like us. Like, plants can count. Plants can count. Plants can come up with strategies. They can anticipate things. Plants can do a lot to look up the articles, great ones called what Are Plants Saying About Us? Yeah. Appreciating Other Consciousnesses. You know, again, namaste. But, like, instead of just being human to human, like, as you go through the world and because I'm in New Orleans and life just flourishes here, it's so easy. Like in New Orleans in the summer when you. And it's horrible in the summer. Don't come here in the summer. We'll come here anytime. But try to not to come here in the summer. But, like, when you walk on the sidewalk and I know being in South Florida, you get some of this off radio, like little lizards just, like, run across the sidewalk everywhere. How. How much does that brighten your soul or it should.
- [73:49]
Alfredo
My wife is so happy since we moved to this new area where there really isn't a lot of stuff built around, so we have so much wildlife, so much nature. Every time we go ride bikes around the neighborhood, we run into little bunny rabbits just, like, walking around the neighborhood.
- [74:03]
Sigmund Bloom
Yeah.
- [74:03]
Alfredo
I'm just like, this is so cool. Never had this back where we used to live.
- [74:06]
Sigmund Bloom
Yeah. And that's delightful. And when you. When you take the delight out of that moment, they're. That's a prayer. I mean, that's a gratitude. A prayer of gratitude. That's a moment that you're participating in a flow that I think is what. Where. When our souls are the most satisfied and what really replenishes us.
- [74:26]
Alfredo
Man, there's. Honestly, I was just sitting here, becoming one of the audience, sitting here mesmerized that everything that was being said, because there's so much to unpack there and I, I enjoyed every single minute of it. And I think like you said, we could be here for another 45 minutes to an hour going over all these things. It's almost hard to. Because I feel like you've done such a good job throughout our talk here today of, you know, putting out into the world who you are, right. The way you look at this silly game about a game that we play that makes people happy and how it connects to people, right? But you know, at some point we're all not going to be doing this. And so when it's all said and done and you retire from fantasy football at the rightful age of 98 years old and decide to take the next venture and climb that next mountaintop, right, what is it that you would say you want to be remembered for that people think of? Or look at Sigmund Bloom and go, oh yeah, that guy.
- [75:28]
Sigmund Bloom
Yeah. And I mean, my first answer to the question is just that they remember me at all. Just that they remember me at all. I used to say, like when the credits roll at the end of the movie, I don't need to be one of the first characters listed. I don't need to be in a lot of scenes or have a lot of lines in the movie. I just want to be one of the characters that people remember. That's all. But, but I want to give you something more specific than that. And it really is just the word love. It's just the word love. And that my, I'm, I'm, I want to, I want to transmit love. You know, the love I have for the game, the love I have for all the people in our community, the love I have for the opportunity, the privilege of existing at all. I mean that is, that is our higher purpose and it's an open ended concept and you can experience it in a lot of different ways. But again, like we, we say things. So there's. There was this professor at Syracuse, comparative religion professor when I was in college. And he used to rail and rail and rail against the overuse of superlatives because then we cheapen them, right? The ultimate cheeseburger, right? You know, and there's a care as one knowledge reigns supreme over nearly everyone. Okay, There is a correct answer to who the best MC is. KRS 1. Nah, but I mean, okay, that's for another show. But KRS1 has a song about like, watch what you say you love, okay, because it is extremely meaningful. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't say I love things, but just assign it when you really feel that light, that thing that makes you light up, you know, and that's, that's our compass, I hope that's our guide. And in the classic Buddhist sense, I think you, you know, you release your desire, whatever your earthly desires are, and you embrace love. Then, then you, you find your desires will be met. Anyway, like going back to like good old advice for fantasy football. I want to break, you know, get bit a little lot like that. And I love it. Thank you everybody. I mean it makes me the best thing anybody can ever say to me is what is your opinion? Tell me how you know. I'm like, oh well, I know something. Let me tell you that thing again. Like, I get my needs met. You know, I get my needs met with someone's like, tell me what you know. But if the work is the reward, if you make work that you enjoy, then the, the work is the reward. And then the things, whatever views, jobs, whatever that stuff comes, if you are doing it in a spirit, like I say, a labor of love. Again, it's right there in the language, Alfredo. It's right there the whole time. Labor of love. The love is what's going to attract people to your work. This, the passion, the enthusiasm, all the things that come with love. So you let love be your guide.
- [78:36]
Alfredo
And I, I think that leans perfectly into the next things that we want to talk about here because what, what you have done throughout your career and your time of just being around people in, in fantasy football is, you know, you've been able to impart your love, your wisdom on them and it, it looks like you have made such an effect on so many people and I love that we got a few, this is our first episode, so it's not like there's some gigantic audience. Right. But we got a few people here that have some questions for you and some of them, you know, silly things. Other others are, you know, quite philosophical. So I got, I got a couple questions here for you. And the first one comes from Jeremy, who is the fantasy football Reddit moderator. So this is, you know. Oh yeah, this is a high ranking official in the fantasy football world. His question was Sig's outlook on life seems very positive, unique and refreshing. What is his quote, secret to maintaining that when gets tough.
- [79:37]
Sigmund Bloom
Right.
- [79:37]
Alfredo
Strike those hard mental days as things are haywire in the world. So I, I listen if you are able to give us the quote secret right here, that that would, I think change a lot of lives right now.
- [79:49]
Sigmund Bloom
Sure. Well, And I mean, I'll give a more specific answer, but then I'll, I'll. I'll give more flowery answer because I can't help myself but give flower answers on a real practical level. For me, music is so amazing. Music can just change your spirit, change your outlook so quickly. And you know, New Orleans, like this is the city where you literally hear music in the streets. So there's all kinds of artists, there's all kinds of musicians. That music is the language of the soul that can just change my mood or just take me to another place. Like that's where I want to be. You know, like Roy Ayers, Everybody Loves the Sunshine. That's where I want to be. You know, I want to be there. Or I, and I can go there with the help of music. But. And maybe for you it's not music. Maybe for you it's when I brew myself a really nice cup of tea or whatever it is, man, whatever, whatever it is. Just, you know how to find those places that can like change the weather in your head. But I think on a larger, more flowery sense, I always cite this movie, Wings of Desire. It's a Wimwinders movie. We could talk about movies, we talk about books, man. Let's go. This is stuff I have to do. The, not the, not a football show. It's a movie from the 80s, Wimwinders. It's a beautiful love letter to Berlin. First of all, like just the visuals and everything with Berlin is just amazing. And you really get appreciation for the city. But it's a movie about angels and it's really neat. Like the angels, like their job is they just watch people every day, all day. And the end of the day they recount life affirming things they saw. Like there was this old lady and it started to rain and she closed her umbrella and started jumping in the puddles. You know, they just list off all these things like that's what they're doing. They're just seeing all these life affirming things. Things and like reporting back to each other, but they're. One of the angels is like watching a woman, you know, you can kind of see where this goes. He falls in love with her, you know, and, and even though he's immortal and he has access to it, you know, omnipotence and all, you know, omniscience. He just wants to hold her hand, like feel her hand in his hand or you know, maybe even just like feel the sunlight, the warmth of the sunlight on her cheek or smell like A hot dog and eat it or whatever, right? Like, just. We don't realize we have the greatest gift. Every day, every single day. And every day, you're reborn. Every single day, when you open your eyes, you're reborn. And for me, this is personal, because how I ended up here, I've told the story many times in shows is it was in 2005. 2005, I think it was 2005. 2006. Sorry, 2006. It was after Black Crows concert. Bunch of us waiting to cross the street. There's more details I could give. And a woman who had, like, baboos and pills plowed into the crowd of us. I woke up in the hospital, and my best friend, the late, great Jeff Wilson, and I. You know, if you made it this far and you're still hanging out and you'll find this stuff boring. There's a Banksy quote. It's attributed to Banksy. I don't know if it's actually Banksy. It's like, we all die two deaths. We die when we take our last breath, and we die the last time someone says our name. So bring. Say these people's names. They. You know, bring them. Keep them here with us. I keep Jeff Wilson with me because he never. He. He ended up in hospital. He woke. He never woke up in the hospital. He was in the hospital. He never woke up. And they tell you, like, you could be standing on the side of the street, get hit by a bus. You know, like, I'm here to tell you tomorrow's not promised to anybody. None of us. And. And. And. And just even taking these moments out, to have that gratitude, the joy of participation, because other place one. Other places I've been where people have a twinkle in their eyes. I got to go to India for a couple of weeks. And there's Pop, too.
- [83:43]
Alfredo
Oh, love India.
- [83:45]
Sigmund Bloom
Oh, my gosh. Because that's one of the places. That's one of the. The places. Like, there are certain places on Earth, Alfredo, where, like, when they try to conquer it, it conquers them. Like, they. They try to change it into what they are, and they just get changed to what it is. And that's been India. Right? We could. Oh, wow. We could talk a lot about India. So. So I'm sure that you'll. You'll understand what I'm about to say. Like, you will see poverty in India that is beyond anything you could imagine. You think you've seen poverty. And I don't want to downplay, because we need to do a lot about poverty in Our country. But you will see, like, three cinder block walls that are 8ft tall and a tarp over, and a family lives inside of that. Like. Like, it's like maybe like, you know, 10, whatever, 100 square feet. And there's like hundreds of those lined up. And that's where people live. But they all have the twinkle in their eye. They all have the twinkle in their eye, and they all have the joy of participation. And now that's the phrase. If there's anything you want to take away from this, this. It's like how. If you think what I'm doing, whatever, my echoes, my vibrations appeal to you in some way, you're saying, what's. What's at the center of that? What's going on? It's trying to recenter yourself around the joy of participation. Which is funny, Alfredo, because one of the things in our American competitive culture is we hate participation trophies.
- [85:02]
Alfredo
Right?
- [85:02]
Sigmund Bloom
But maybe that's the only trophy that matters. Really?
- [85:07]
Alfredo
Wow, that's. I mean, dude, you are. You're dropping philosophical bombs on me.
- [85:14]
Sigmund Bloom
I'm here. That's what happens whenever you encourage me. Yeah.
- [85:16]
Alfredo
All I'm. All I'm sitting here thinking is, okay, how do I transition to best spots to eat in New Orleans?
- [85:23]
Sigmund Bloom
Because. Well, because that's a way to do it. Because New Orleans. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Chris Allen, who I love dearly. And so I know that Chris asked this question, like, the best three places to eat. And I can't even. All I can tell you is the best three places to eat in my neighborhood. Okay? Each neighborhood in New Orleans is its own world. And I love New Orleans, and I love nothing more than to be an ambassador for New Orleans. So if you come down here, if you haven't. If you've been down here, you haven't been for a while, come back. Just come back to New Orleans, okay? Because it's here. If it's. You found something here for you. The first time I came to New Orleans, something woke up inside of me. Me. And I went back again just to make sure it was real. And it was. And something said, move here. And I did. And it's been incredible for all kinds of reasons that I never could have anticipated. Nothing like what you get when you come to the city as a visitor is what you experience when you live here. But you do experience the food. Whether you're a visitor or the parent, New Orleans food will straight up make you make sex sounds, you know, like, straight up. You'll bite into, like, you'll get a really good roast beef po boy, which you measure by the way you measure the quality of a roast beef po' boy by how many napkins you need when you eat it. And you will just go like, you know, like, you would just hear yourself do it, like, oh, my God. And in my. And so in my neighborhood, living in Tremie, because New Orleans is all about the sensual pleasures. New Orleans is to remind you about the joy of participation. Here's the transition. Alfredo is the way New Orleans is about music, the way New Orleans is about art, architecture. The way New Orleans is about smells, you know, flavors. It's to remind you how neat it is to be a human being and just get to experience things. Right? And food is for a lot of people, first and foremost. So there's three places in my neighborhood that I would Recommend. Not only 3, but I would put 3 at the top for lunch. There's a little place called Little Dizzy's here on Esplanade. Back at family, I would try to get there on a Monday, because red beans and rice, Monday get the hot sausage. But it's a place that's been in family for a long time, only open for lunch. Fantastic place. If you want to go to a nice dinner. There's a place called Gabrielle right over here on Orleans Avenue, and it's run by a husband and wife. It's a classic neighborhood restaurant, and it's Cajun Creole, but it's elevated, but it's comfortable. It's like a comfortable neighborhood restaurant, but it's like a date night restaurant. But it's not fancy. It's. It's so casual. But the food is incredible, Gabrielle. And then for anything and everything, we have an Ethiopian restaurant. And that's the thing, because the food game is so. And there's so many cultures here. Alfredo. And I know in south man. Yeah, we have. And like. Like one of the best restaurants that people are coming here, like, flocking here is like a Senegalese restaurant called Dakar. I'm. I don't.
- [88:12]
Alfredo
Okay.
- [88:13]
Sigmund Bloom
I'm too. That's too expensive for me. But right down the road here we have Addis, like Addis Ababa from Ethiopia. And it is just. There's food that you can eat where you can taste the. The history and the. The stories of the people in the food. Right? Like, you know that this Ethiopian food could only be made by people who were part of a long tradition of ancestors that goes back many, many years. Remember, Ethiopia is the only African country that's never been conquered. It's actually where Christianity started. Christianity is an African religion. Don't tell anybody. Christianity, it's actually an African religion. And everything there is incredible. And there's just so much of pride and connection to ancestors. A big part of New Orleans, too, is being connected to your ancestors. Your ancestors have a lot of things to help you, but you have to open yourself up to them and allow them in and see yourself as an extension of them to get granted access to, like, all the power and wisdom that they've given us. So that's a place to get with the ancestors. So Addis, Gabrielle, and little Dizzies. Those are my three favorite places in my neighborhood. But, you know, we got. You got a couple hours if you really want to talk about New Orleans food.
- [89:32]
Alfredo
No, man. I mean, you have given us, I think, some sort of wisdom from every single reach of the heart, the mind, everything. We've gotten food, fantasy football, music, culture, spirituality. It's. It's just been an awesome time, man, and I. I cannot thank you enough for being the first guest here to come on the Pretend GM podcast. Of course, it's. It's brought to all of us by football guys. And so much thanks to football guys to Joe Bryant for. For letting me have this opportunity to do this. And obviously, like I mentioned to you, Sig, a big thanks to you for being here. And I think the most important people in all this is the ones that are watching and listening. You guys are the ones that, you know, we're doing this for. This is the whole reason we get up and we do this job and we. We have this experience is for you. So, as always, I want to thank everybody for watching and listening all the way through on this. And next week, we're gonna be back again with Heath Cummings, a former football guy, as well someone else in that football guy's ethos. And it's gonna be a pleasure to speak with him as well. So, as always, thanks for watching, listening, everybody. We'll see you next time. Adios. Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now, and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads, choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements, or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn ads, go to Libsyn ads.com that's L, I B S Y N ads.com today.