#4658 Zorn To Be Wild

Summary

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TBTL #4658: Zorn To Be Wild

Date: February 6, 2026
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh

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Episode Overview

This Friday edition of TBTL bounces from the trivial to the obscure, delivering signature “important topics of the day”—from the logistics of Wordle strategies to Seattle football lore and the highly niche world of NFL referee positions. Luke is broadcasting from Portland’s sunny waterfront and sharing his day crowded with content creation, feline chaos, and anticipation for the Super Bowl featuring his beloved Seahawks. Andrew is prepping for a relaxing, football-filled weekend and brings tales of cat-and-printer intrigue, deep dives into mall aroma hierarchies, and baseball nostalgia. The episode’s central thread is the looming Super Bowl and a “hardest-ever” Seahawks quiz—plus a 101 on the esoteric universe of NFL officiating.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Friday Vibes, Cat Mayhem, and “Beautiful” Weather

Timestamps: 02:09–03:14

• Luke describes his jam-packed day in Portland’s unexpectedly warm weather, the joy of rolling down car windows, and current battle with “very pesky” cat Bubbles, who’s intent on sabotaging his Zoom setup.
• Andrew celebrates the Northwest sunshine and shares his own escapades with his cat Bingo’s obsession with printers, likening Bingo’s intense focus to a “submarine operator looking through a periscope.”
  Quote: “As soon as it starts to hear that, even when it’s just cleaning…it comes running in. Then he sits properly, two feet in front, looking right into it…” (Andrew, 10:27)

2. Wordle Rivalries and Communication Styles

Timestamps: 04:30–07:02

• A deeply TBTL segment: Andrew brags (modestly) about conquering Wordle in two tries, pushing Becca (Luke’s partner) for her score via off-mic relay.
• Andrew and Becca diverge on starting words, but confirm “aired” and “pages” haven’t yet appeared.
• The hosts joke about how the show’s recurring Wordle conversations are becoming slowly—but only slightly—more entertaining.

3. Super Bowl Anticipation vs. Wordle-Only Podcasting

Timestamps: 07:02–08:35

• Luke is “so excited” for the Seahawks’ Super Bowl berth, joking that 30% of TBTL listeners want sports talk, 30% want Wordle, and “40% are not interested in either” and would prefer cat stories.
• Bubbles the cat’s laptop curiosity continues to threaten the recording.

4. Childhood Football Memories

Timestamps: 12:46–15:10

• Luke reminisces fondly about his own schoolyard football games, inventing three-person variants to maximize play.
• He’s delighted to see local kids playing touch football in the park, which leads to Andrew’s mock-concern about the “illegality” of non-digital kids’ play.
• Quote: “This was our greatest joy…we could do this for like six hours at a time.” (Luke, 14:13)

5. NFL Officials: Roles, Jerseys & Trivia

Timestamps: 16:00–27:47

• A deep (and intentionally niche) dive into NFL officiating, debating the meaning of the letter codes on officials’ jerseys (“BJ” for Back Judge, “SJ” for Side Judge), how calls are announced, and mnemonic devices for recalling complicated penalties.
• Luke expresses awe at the referees’ ability to remember and articulate complex numbers and calls live on TV without notes.
• Quote: “They don’t write down any of these numbers; they just have to remember it and say it, in a specific order…” (Luke, 17:06)

6. The Mall: Scent Contests and Nostalgia

Timestamps: 29:59–32:07

• Luke and Andrew wax nostalgic on mall culture. Luke wonders “who wins the battle of the smells”—the pretzel stands, the leather shops, or Bath & Body Works.
• Andrew fondly recalls “Daddy Loves Leather” and the mishmash of aromas as the quintessential mall experience.

7. Weather and the Narrow Window Between MLB & NFL

Timestamps: 32:52–34:23

• The two reflect on rare good weather in the Northwest and how the Super Bowl narrows the gap between football’s end and baseball’s start—the “perfect” window for fans.

8. What Will We Watch? The Ritual of Sports vs. On-Demand Overchoice

Timestamps: 34:23–37:39

• Both hosts describe their media habits—which are shaped by sports as approachable, uncommitted viewing. Luke contrasts “the ask” of a movie or new show with the comfort and background engagement of live sports.
• Andrew echoes his difficulty choosing from on-demand media; sports offers relief: “Just give me something.”

9. A Digression into Listener-Supported Podcasting & Donor Shoutouts

Timestamps: 39:31–46:07

• Classic TBTL: gracious and delightful thanks to individual donors, replete with in-jokes, Andrew’s possible mother-in-law (Meg Has) supporting the show, cities’ roles as “the big city,” and a wild tangent about whether Brunswick bowling balls are from Brunswick, Ohio.
• Quote: “She literally feeds you during the holidays. She’s putting food on my table here!” (Luke on Meg Has, 42:49)

10. “Seattle’s Hardest” Seahawks Quiz (Seattle Times)

Timestamps: 50:45–76:16

• Luke introduces a 12-question “hardest-ever” Seahawks quiz from the Seattle Times. Both hosts expect lightweight trivia—are instead blindsided by obscure and esoteric questions.
• Standout moments:
  • Andrew often outperforms Luke, partly by lucky deduction and partly by football-adjacent knowledge.
  • Both hosts grumble about ambiguous copy (“wtiH” instead of “with,” inconsistent answer numbers).
  • Trivia ranges from Steve Largent’s record to NFL training camp locations, best passing yards against Seahawks, and the origins of “Legion of Boom.”
  • Memorable exchange:
    • “You, so and so, you son of a squirrel—Squirrels is absolutely right!” (Luke, 65:09)
  • The quiz prompts nostalgia: Tecmo Bowl rosters, the existence of Ron Heller, and Sam Adkins, the only Seahawk to wear #12 before it was “retired for the fans.”
• TBTL Core: The spirit is gentle competition, rabbit holes aplenty, and mutual respect for guesses and tangents.
  • “I think these are just our journeys.” (Andrew, 61:12)

11. The Origins of “Legion of Boom”

Timestamps: 76:14–77:14

• Andrew nails a unique bit of Seahawks lore: that “Legion of Boom” came from a text-in suggestion to Seattle’s 710 ESPN, proving how fan-driven the nickname really is.

12. Famous NFL Defenses, Broadcasting Details, Monday Plans

Timestamps: 79:06–81:46

• The Bears’ “Monsters of the Midway,” other famous defense nicknames, and complaints about the AI’s knowledge.
• Planning for post-Super Bowl podcasting logistics, with Andrew debating whether to watch at home or with friends (and risk missing out on commercial analysis).

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “It is so wholesome, what I am watching here. I am loving it so much; I believe the children are the future.” (Luke, 12:46)
• “They don’t write down any of these numbers; they just have to remember it and say it, in a specific order.” (Luke, 17:06)
• “This is the Zinger, where we break down umpiring positions.” (Luke, 23:06)
• “I love that this is our Super Bowl coverage: getting into the details of what the different referees do—nobody else is doing this.” (Andrew, 25:39)
• “The show is slowly improving. Emphasis on the slow.” (Luke, 06:39)
• “I’m pretty excited about this weekend and about the Super Bowl…but it would be funny if we totally…talk[ed] only Wordle the entire time.” (Andrew, 07:04)
• “If it was you and you got that question wrong on the quiz—that’s on you.” (Andrew, 78:52)
• “This is our greatest joy…We could do this for 6 hours at a time.” (Luke, 14:13)
• “Steve Largent…I think, arguably the greatest Seahawk player ever, was also their most durable.” (Luke, 54:13)

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Important Segments (Timestamps)

• Cat & Weather Antics: 02:09–03:14
• Wordle, Weekend Plans: 04:30–08:35
• NFL Referee Deep Dive: 16:00–27:47
• Childhood Football / Kid Nostalgia: 12:46–15:10
• Mall Smells & Urban Anthropology: 29:59–32:07
• Listener Donor Shoutouts: 39:31–46:07
• Obscure Seahawks Quiz: 50:45–76:16
• Origin of “Legion of Boom”: 76:14–77:14

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Episode Style & Vibe

• Lighthearted, Digressive, Nostalgic: The episode weaves in and out of story, trivia, and gentle self-mockery.
• Affectionately Esoteric: The conversation caters to TBTL’s audience—those who appreciate both hyper-detailed football nerdery and meandering “cat tries to destroy podcast” stories.
• Warm and Bantering: The hosts' camaraderie is palpable, with exchanges that are high on friendship and low on toxic competition.

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For New Listeners

This episode exemplifies TBTL’s essence: a smart, funny, and delightfully rambling ride through oddly specific interests—from NFL officiating arcana to Wordle brags, Seattle sports heartbreak and joy, and tangents about mall culture and cat shenanigans. You’ll finish knowing more about the Seahawks, remembering the smell of Auntie Anne's, and ready to defend your own Wordle starting word with vigor.

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Power out!

Transcript

[Andrew]

Is that it? Just that one word? Yeah.

[Luke]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Yes. Hey, Stephen, that was really good. Feeling is here that you could be a bit more positive. More positive? Yeah. You know, really go for it. You want me to go for it?

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

All right.

[Luke]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Very, very good. Let's just try without the script. Might just loosen you up a little bit. Yeah, I mean, it's. What is it?

[Luke]

One word.

[Andrew]

You don't really need it, do you? I probably don't need the script. It's just a word.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Okay, let's do it again. Yes. Is that it? Yes. Right.

[Luke]

Hi, Steven.

[Andrew]

Yes. This is Clem Fandango. Yes. Can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you, Clem Fandango.

[Luke]

Honestly, this is going so great, but I just think there was a little loss of energy in that last take. Maybe try one more.

[Andrew]

Are you ready to go? Yep. What? Yes. TBTL Guess what day it is. Guess what day it is. It's Friday.

[Luke]

Gonna get down on Friday.

[Andrew]

Everybody's looking forward to the weekend you.

[Luke]

Negligently ruined her iPhone. You have to pay for that. Simple as that. Isn't that rocket science? What is rocket science?

[Andrew]

Rocket science is when the scientists find out things about space.

[Luke]

Mm. Ah. Gazpacho soup just burned my lips.

[Andrew]

The gazpacho? Yeah, it's been sitting out.

[Luke]

It warmed up.

[Andrew]

It warmed up so much that it burned your lip. Let me explain something to you. If you're expecting something ice cold and.

[Luke]

You bring it up to your lips and it's room temp, it's going to feel like your mouth's on. Like your body's on fire.

[Andrew]

And boom goes the dynamite.

[Luke]

Well, all right. Good afternoon and welcome, everybody, to a Friday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

[Andrew]

I got the time if you got the diapers.

[Luke]

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. I'm so excited about this show coming to you from the beautiful. And I mean that beautiful. Oh, my God.

[Andrew]

Pa.

[Luke]

It's just beautiful. South waterfront of Portland, Oregon, where it's a genuinely warm day today on this Friday.

[Andrew]

I feel warm and I'm levitating like.

[Luke]

I got into the car. I have been on a content creation sort of palooza today. I was. I won't trash talk. I won't be out there blow hardening. I was helping out with an event for the Portland Chamber of Commerce this morning, and then I was on Shawn Jordan's podcast. It's nice to be nice. And now I zipped over here to the south waterfront to record Today's tbt and I've still got Livewire's fancy pants fundraiser tonight. I got in the car today, it was like legitimately warm. Like kind of almost like, oh, I gotta roll the windows down. It's too warm to sit in this car.

[Andrew]

I feel warm and I'm levitating.

[Luke]

Such a nice little treat here. I know we're gonna go back to cold, gloomy weather in the northwest, but this is a beautiful day. I hope I don't sound too distracted. I am currently doing battle with a very pesky, I don't know how old, four year old Bengal kitten. By that I mean Bubbles Burbank. Since I'm here at Becca's and this is where Bubbles lives now, she's in the room and she is making her presence known. She's extremely obsessed with my broadcast setup here, so we'll see if we can get through that. Okay. I am, in the words of Sarah Koenig, I am so excited about this show because it is the Friday before the super bowl and I mean, I figured he had to be in sport, but he wasn't in sport. Like the Seattle. I don't know if you know this, the Seattle Seahawks are playing in the super bowl this Sunday and it's got me real fired up. So I'm sure we're gonna probably end up talking about that.

[Andrew]

Oh my God, I'm freaking out.

[Luke]

And we'll also, if we have time, we'll indulge in what I think is maybe one of the hardest Seahawks related sports quizzes I've ever seen. I've taken the quiz. We may subject my friend Andrew to it to see how he does. Speaking of my good friend Andrew, the longest running cobra of the show may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships.

[Andrew]

Two bros.

[Luke]

He's joining me right now. Good afternoon, my friend.

[Andrew]

Hey, Luke. Is Becca in earshot or are you just using her apartment while she is out?

[Luke]

She is in earshot. Well, I mean, I'm in the bedroom, she's in the other room. Do you want me to holler something?

[Andrew]

Could you holler at her? Could you just say. Could you just tell her that I got wordle in two today and I was feeling pretty good about myself.

[Luke]

Andrew got wordle in two and he's feeling pretty good about himself.

[Andrew]

How many did it take you?

[Luke]

She's checking. Please hold.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Luke]

Three. Three. So I guess Andrew takes this one.

[Andrew]

I'm, you know, I, I wasn't meaning that like I. I hope she understands. I wasn't making it Like a competition with her specifically. I was just proud of my performance. I wasn't trying to stack it up against anybody else. I don't think it was a particularly hard one, but it was just a weird word that I tried on the second turn, and it. And it. It worked out all right. And since you happen to.

[Luke]

Of our wordle, of a recognized wordle master in this family, she wanted to know what your starting word is. But what she forgot is that no one can know your starting word.

[Andrew]

No, you can know my starting word. I try not to tell Genevieve my starting word because I was gonna. Because then she'll use it to strategically.

[Luke]

Right, to get a strategic advantage.

[Andrew]

Yeah, exactly. But I've been using the word aired, A, I, R, E, D because it's a combination of a lot of vowels that I like. But it's one of the rare words that has not been used by a wordle.

[Luke]

He's using Becca. He's using aird as an A, I, R, E, D because it has vowels but has not been the word yet. How about you? What did you start with today? Pages. She started with pages.

[Andrew]

Oh, that's fun. Oh, okay. Yeah, And I can see how that would set her up for success as well.

[Luke]

So anyway, this is slightly improving the wordle conversation on the show. It went from last week where I was just reading. I was a text message, like, exchange. I was just reading text messages between the two of you about wordle to today. We just have Becca very far off mic, and I'm just repeating.

[Andrew]

It's getting better and better.

[Luke]

The segment is slowly improving. Emphasis on the slow.

[Andrew]

I mean, eventually it's going to be her and me doing this podcast, and it's all going to be about our wordle scores. In fact, I think it's sort of funny. You're kind of, as you mentioned in your intro, pretty excited about this weekend and about the Super Bowl. In fact, maybe. Can I just go ahead and just transition this big weekend.

[Luke]

Hey, Andrew. Do you have big weekend plans?

[Andrew]

Not much going on over here, but I gotta say, it would be funny if instead of talking at all about the super bowl, because there are. There might be some listeners. I don't know. Like, it's a pretty big deal, but there might be some listeners who are concerned about. Oh, no, are we gonna get into football talk today or something? It'd be funny if we totally.

[Luke]

There are probably a lot of listeners, honestly.

[Andrew]

And then just talk wordle, only wordle the entire time. That would.

[Luke]

That would please me, to be totally honest with You. I bet you that would be about a 50. 50 for. For our listeners. I bet you about 50% of our listeners are probably really intrigued and excited about the Super Bowl. Actually, that sounds high. I bet you about 30% of our listeners are really looking forward to hearing some super bowl talk. And I'd say 30% would be much more excited about Wordle. And then what does that leave? 40% are not interested in either topic. They just want to hear more about Bubbles. Trying to hang up my laptop. Right now, she's where she wants to be. She's trying to understand what this laptop is and why I'm yelling at it into a microphone. So she keeps going behind the laptop, trying to understand it, and then popping. I sent you a photo of what she's doing popping her head up above the laptop adorably and then almost pushing it down to where it closes, which would totally take our broadcast off the air. And then she goes around to the front of it where the keyboard is to see if that is giving her any new information. And she just obsessively going between those two points.

[Andrew]

Bingo. I don't know if this is something that you experienced with Bubbles. I don't remember how. Well, your place was set up with a printer. Well, of course, you're a big printer guy. That's right. When you were living in your apartment, you were living with Bubbles. And so you would have had both a printer and a Bubbles. And so I don't know her relationship with the printer, but boy, that is one of Bingo's favorite, favorite things. I have a printer that's kind of really tucked away here in my office. I don't like the looks of printers. It's amazing. I'm so happy that I have this place to put my printer where it's tucked out of the way, but it is such a pain in the ass to use because it's so far out of the way. And yesterday I was trying to fix something on it, having some issues with one of the color cartridges. So I'm. I'm underneath my desk fiddling around with my printer. It's not that I'm out of anything for some reason. The printer just. I've changed the cartridge a couple of times. It's cyan. The yellow one.

[Luke]

I don't even know. I just. Whichever one, you know, I switched over a few years ago to just like. I guess it's just toner. So I can't even print cyan. I can't print any color. All I really need for is just the Scripts because it kept telling me I'd be out of some. Some bunk color that I don't even. I was like, is that even a real cyan? Even a real thing?

[Andrew]

Yes, it's blue. I don't know why they call anyway. I guess they just call yellow Yellow Now. I thought they used to have a funny name for yellow too, but I guess not. But for some reason my yell. I have several cartridges. They're all full. I would change them out. Like there's something going on with the printer. There's something with that tube or something. I tried cleaning it with a pin. I was messing around. Then eventually it occurred to me, it doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. Like it was one of those things where I was kind of going a little bit batty about it. And then I was like, wait, I just usually print in black and white anyway. And I was looking up, like kits I could buy to. To like flush the hoses and everything. I was like, what?

[Luke]

Why?

[Andrew]

Just if you have something you really need to look nice, just go find a Kinko, build a time machine. Go back to a time when there were Kinkos. All of that is to say bingo the cat over here. It's probably his number one fascination are printers. Like, he's fascinated by a lot of things, but as soon as he starts to hear that, even when it's just cleaning, it does a self cleaning mode. As something is coursing back and forth on the thing, he comes running in. And then he sits. He just positions himself right where the paper comes out. And he just sits properly, right haunches on the ground, two feet in front of him. And he just waits. And he looks right into it like he's a submarine operator looking through a periscope. He's just waiting for it to come out.

[Luke]

And then like he's in das boot.

[Andrew]

But what made me think of this was you were talking about how Bubbles doesn't know what's good. Like she thinks something's happening behind the computer. Cause you're talking into it. And that's what he. He jumps up on the printer and he's like, where's the paper coming from? And he's like looking at the back of the printer. Cause he can't figure out where he's at.

[Luke]

He thinks, you are the world's greatest magician.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I know the way he looks. Looks at me.

[Luke]

How is this guy materializing this painting?

[Andrew]

The fact that I put on a top hat and I have like a magic wand. I mean, I. I kind of play into it.

[Luke]

I'll admit I can't tell you, Andrew, what the beautiful day it is here in Portland. I'm sure it's also pretty nice up in Seattle, but from this vantage point, I'm looking out on this local park now. I'll mention that we are just like, you know, steps from the ice facility in Portland. So this park is actually where a lot of people that are going to go down to protest. Like a bunch of labor folks were up here like a week or so ago, and it's. It's oftentimes now a staging area for folks that are gonna go protest ice. But as of right now, it's a Friday afternoon. It's. The sun is shining, and there is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. There are six kids that are playing touch football. I thought that that was outlawed. You got six kids. You got some. Looks like a couple of. Maybe they're in about sixth grade or something, seventh grade, some boys, some girls, and they are just having a wonderful time in the grass, just running around and tossing the football. And it is so. It is so wholesome, what I am watching here. I am loving it so much. I believe the children are the future and they're enjoying a little touch football game, and it makes me very happy.

[Andrew]

I'm worried I'm going to emphasize just a side comment that I'm misinterpreting, but what do you mean you thought it was illegal?

[Luke]

I just meant how we hear so much about kids being on their devices.

[Andrew]

Sure, yeah.

[Luke]

You know, just. Just kind of being indoor kids. And not that there's anything wrong with that, but, like, just something about seeing some. Some kids just literally throw. Tossing around the old pig skin.

[Andrew]

Oh, I thought you meant they were playing football on their. I thought they were playing retro bowl on their phones.

[Luke]

I mean, Andrew, I'm talking brick and mortar.

[Andrew]

They're throwing their phones at each other.

[Luke]

I'm watching. Yes. There's an app that you can download a football shape onto your phone. And they're throwing their phones.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Luke]

At each other.

[Andrew]

That makes. I can see that.

[Luke]

Okay, now they're going back for the kickoff. I'm not kidding. I'm just going to narrate this game. Andrew, this is. Now maybe this speaks to my. The privilege that I had growing up in the city of Seattle where there was a lot of other people my age. But this was our greatest joy, by the way, they have not adopted the new NFL kickoff style. So there's not a landing zone for the ball. This kid that just kicked it that definitely would be a touchback and probably be on maybe the 35 or 45 yard line. When I was a kid, about the age of these kids, we had invented a version of football that you only needed three people to play. So one person was all time quarterback. So that would be the same person who quarterback for both teams. And the team would just be like me, I'd be one team and then like my buddy Micah or my buddy Peter would be the other team and then like James would be all time quarterback. So you would set up, you basically just be running. You'd the, the person who was the quarterback. There was no rush on them obviously and they were not allowed to cross the line of scrimmage, but it just turned into a drill. Well, where if I was on offense, it meant I was just running a pattern and you know, Micah was trying to cover me and Peter was throwing it to me or whatever. And we would play this on the front lawn of Daniel Bagley Elementary School because it had these three sections that basically had these three sort of sidewalks that were interrupting the grass, but they made a perfect end zone, midfield and then end zone. And when I tell you that we could do this for like 6 hours at a time, it was a really, really, really fun way to while away an afternoon. And so all that is to say watching these kids doing some version of that, it's, it's, it's making me, as you can tell, feel very happy.

[Andrew]

On this Friday, when I was in Valley City, Ohio, my friend, friends, it would be me, Tony and my friend Tim and we would do something similar. And again, that's an awkward number of people to play football. But Tim and I would both be referees and Tony would be a left tackle.

[Luke]

Sure, sure. Sometimes you'd have to conference like, like Tim would throw a flag and then you'd be running out to announce it to the crowd. But you'd have to kind of get Tim over there and be like, okay, who is it on? You have to turn your microphone pack off.

[Andrew]

Exactly. In fact, I was about to make a joke about like the letters on the backs of the jerseys of a referee. And I think I picture him correctly. And do those letters signify something specific to the game or is it like to their position?

[Luke]

So I think there's maybe L is one of them, which it probably means like linesman.

[Andrew]

Okay, so you're.

[Luke]

And then there's a back judge. I don't know if they put.

[Andrew]

They do put BJ on there. I think they do because I was going To. I was about to say that. I was going to say I wear a jersey that says bj but then I just thought it would be like misinterpreted.

[Luke]

Yeah. So that'd probably be back judge. That's the. My sense was that's the furthest back official. So you get a, you know, a pass interference down the field or I mean the back judge can throw the, the. Actually they might also be behind the play. This is where. What were we talking about? This is like yesterday on the show. Much like the AI. How wrong I am, Andrew has absolutely no bearing on how confidently I'm going.

[Andrew]

To say sure, yeah, yeah.

[Luke]

When I'm talking about a too bad they're late card or something of the like. But, but yeah, like there would be. What are the different positions? There's the referee.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke]

There's the line. There's the, the back judge. There's the lineman. And then what's is the ref. That's the head official is the ref. I think that's the person who gets to say, you know what I'm always impressed by. And there must be some trick to this that I don't understand. Imagine that you are, you know, like Ed Hockey. Right. Or one of these, one of these kind of now quasi famous NFL head referees. In other words, the person who gets to say what the penalty was.

[Andrew]

Okay, yeah, I wouldn't have known that name but like.

[Luke]

Well, I'll tell you what, Ed Hockley's son, I believe Sean Hockley is also in the league and they both just got like tremendous guns. That's the hockey.

[Andrew]

Oh, I know, I do know. I do know. I know. At least one of those. I can picture it. They have the short sleeves on the jersey are really hugging me. Yeah.

[Luke]

And that's not an accident. That's not an accident. You'll never catch me wearing a shirt cut that tight in the biceps. Thank you very much. But what I always find and watch for this on Sunday in the super bowl. If you are looking for a way into the game, if you're not a sports fan or not a football fan or just don't care, watch to see this impressive move. Now let's say that there is a penalty, it's a holding penalty. That would mean it's on the offense. Typically let's say it's on the a guard whose number is 74. Holding offense number 74. That's a 10 yard penalty, a first down. Actually I've given you a fairly straightforward example. But you never see the guy or the woman Someday, I hope, because we do have, you know, we have female refs now. I don't think we've had a female head official yet for the super bowl, but I hope that day comes soon. But the person who's going to make the announcement about what happened on the play, they don't write down any of these numbers. They don't write down the number of the player who did it. They just have to remember it and they've got to say it in a very specific order. They got to say the penalty, the player who is accused of the penalty, the down and like the number of yards. And sometimes it'll be like, you know, illegal contact on the defense, number 27. That's because it'll probably be Requill. And let's be honest, that is a spot penalty. It'll be first down from the 52 yard line. To me, that's so many numbers that you've got to remember in a matter, you know, and the game's got to keep moving. Right.

[Andrew]

Like, and they might not be a great public speaker, honestly, like, for real, like, like a lot of, A lot of the calls, you can just, you know, make gestures with your hands for various things. You know, like it was cost or whatever, false start, whatever. But when they have to turn on those mics now, they've gotten a lot better at it. But you know, you and used to watch football during a time when they didn't have those microphones. And so when they started using them, they were often very awkward. The microphones wouldn't work right. It was just like. And it's a lot of pressure. You talk about the pressure of giving a verbal yes. When you're sitting in the exit row of an airplane. You're just somebody who's good at calling football games or like, kind of like refereeing.

[Luke]

And you, by the way, you have a day job.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And now you have to talk to like America. You have to talk how about the.

[Luke]

World, the, the Globe on Sunday? Like, that's a lot of pressure. And the fact that they, it's very rare that you see them stumble around the number again. The particular uniform number of the player or the, the, you know, the, the where the ball is now going to be played from based on the, like, you're, sometimes you're doing math on the fly because you're minusing the number of yards at the penalty. Took the playback. You have to figure out where the new line of scrimmage is. Again, you've got to remember the number of the person who did it like. And they don't. They seem to have created some mnemonic device for this where you see them usually get it right. So, you know, Andrew, what we're in right now is the before period, where I don't. I'm not trying to look up where the referees live on Google Street View and consider egging their homes because the super bowl hasn't happened yet. So I'm not mad at them. They haven't done anything to hurt my Seahawks. So let's all enjoy this time of comity where we're just enjoying the skills that these, these, these officials and referees have. Have developed over the years.

[Andrew]

That's the TBTL promise. More comity, less comedy.

[Luke]

So almost no comedy.

[Andrew]

I know that you're going to be giving me a quiz and a little bit or potentially we got to talk about this quiz and how we ended up where we are with it because you started to talk to me about it before the show yesterday. I think I literally said, shut up. Shut up your face. You really. Save it for the. Let's save it for the show.

[Luke]

Shut up, little man.

[Andrew]

Shut up, little man is what I said. But what can you. Not to put you on the spot, but I now have it in front of me via Yahoo Sports, an article that was published, I believe, a few years ago that says, why do NFL referees have jersey numbers? And it goes into the. Oh, this was from just last year, but. Or 2024. But anyway, I do also have the letters down here. So what did you. You said you have the judge. That's the BJ lettering of a jersey. So.

[Luke]

Yeah, that's the lettering. Or does it. So it says B and then J like back.

[Andrew]

Yeah, and I think I've seen that before. That's why when you said. And that's what I would have remembered that my guy. And then what you did you, you did say side judge, right? Sj, I think.

[Luke]

I don't know if I, I don't know if I said side judge. I think I might have said line. Like.

[Andrew]

Oh, yeah, okay. But side judge is what you're looking for.

[Luke]

Side judge is what is. Is the person that's along the sidelines.

[Andrew]

I was assuming. Yeah, I was wrong about briefly here. And then umpire is you and down, which is weird. Judge is D.J. d.J. Tanner.

[Luke]

Judge.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke]

So wait, but that is the down judge. Is the down judge behind the quarterback or is that actually the back judge and the down judge is downfield, like back.

[Andrew]

That would make more sense, huh? Down judge, referee.

[Luke]

But like, how did the One. How did the one word. The one name that got used in both sports was umpire.

[Andrew]

Right? Yeah. Okay, here we go. Oh, now I'm on the. Oh, now I'm on the official NFL page. And by the way, I would just like to say I love this for us. I love that this is our NFL. I'm sorry. That this is our super bowl coverage. Is getting into the details of what the different referees do. Like, nobody is doing this. We are owning this space. Take that, Bill Simmons.

[Luke]

Yeah, the ringer. No, thank you. This is the Zinger, where we break down umpiring positions.

[Andrew]

I've been listening to that podcast lately, by the way. It's good.

[Luke]

It's good.

[Andrew]

Turns out. Turns out the guy who's in charge of podcasting at the biggest platform for podcasts is pretty good at podcasting.

[Luke]

Yeah, it's a good show. It's a good show. I was a little starstruck when I met him, Bill Simmons. I was at that UFC thing in Las Vegas we were filming at, and he walked in, and I didn't really go out of my way to say hi to anybody except him. I just said, hey, man, big fan. He said it was that thing where he didn't know what I was going to say to him when I. When I approached him. Actually, this is what was probably weird for him. What? He was seated in the very, very front row of this whole deal. He was with his. His teenage kids and, I assume, his wife. And then I was, like, interviewing Dana White up on the actual. Like, the literal ring side where they had cameras and stuff, and we're watching this fight together, and he's telling me things about it. And so then that ends. And that was the closest I was going to get to Bill Simmons. So I needed to take the opportunity to say, hey, man, I'm a big fan. But I guess what happened in his mind was there's this guy. This is some TV dude. He's talking to Dana White. They're filming him. They turn the lights off. That TV dude turns around and starts coming at Bill Simmons menacingly and quickly. And you kind of look like, what's this guy's deal going to be?

[Andrew]

Imagine the stuff that he gets. You know, sorry to cut you off, but, like, you could be somebody who is remembering some take of his from five years ago.

[Luke]

Absolutely. So I could see him kind of doing the quick calculation of, does this person seem dangerous? And then to me, saying, really big fan. Big fan of the show. Really, what I meant was, big fan of page two, which was like the first sports blog that I ever saw, which was Bill Simmons writing for espn. And it brought together for me all the stuff I kind of cared about in the world, which was sports and pop culture and whatever. All that is to say that show the Ringer is very good. But what we're doing here is also important. We're talking about back judges.

[Andrew]

Yes. Now, I don't know, and this is showing a lot of restraint on my part on the show, some unusual restraint. I honestly don't know if I want to continue this conversation on the podcast. It really might bore people back to death. But there is a really cool. On the Official NFL page, operations.NFL.com the only NF, the only part of the NFL website that is not getting hits this week. I'm on it is the operations page.

[Luke]

Well, this is the time to use it.

[Andrew]

That's right.

[Luke]

Go to the beach in the winter.

[Andrew]

There are no lines like going to Cedar Point in December. So anyway. But you can kind of. You see the position of all of the referees on the field and in a little clickable graphic. And you can click on them. And I'm clicking on the one guy, he's along the side and he is called a side judge, but there's another guy who's along and he's kind of. What do you call the area? It's like the backfield of the defense. So in other words, he's the secondary. So he's standing. Yeah, I guess in the secondary, but along the line.

[Luke]

Is that the back judge or the down judge?

[Andrew]

That's a side judge. So he's in the secondary, but. But he's along the side. He's along the sidelines, though. But he's back there. Like the quarterback can see him out of the. Out of his left eye, sort of downfield. Then you do have a back judge who's like, in the middle of the field and he's way back in the secondary, like you say. Okay, so you're right there. And then on the right sideline, you have a field judge, and he's on the right sideline. He's kind of across from the side judge, who's on the other side of the field. And the. He's in the defensive backfield 20 yards behind the line of scrimmage. Then at the line of scrimmage, you have another line judge on the right.

[Luke]

And going to call, like, offsides and.

[Andrew]

False starts and down judge on the left. And those guys are both on the sidelines as well. Then kind of behind the quarterback, you have the umpire, primarily the offensive backfield, opposite the referee. His responsibility is he reviews players, equipment. Ooh, that sounds fun. Maintains control of the game. And then you have an umpire who's also behind the quarterback kind of on the other side. He wears the white cap. Known as the crew chief and leader.

[Luke]

Of the officiating crew known as the Rob Lowe.

[Andrew]

So he. Exactly. So he's the referee and there's also an umpire. And they're both hanging out behind the quarterback. Kind of creeping them out. Kind of hanging out. Kind of like saying like, you know.

[Luke]

Standing a little too close.

[Andrew]

Exactly. Genevieve would hate being a quarterback because she hates it when people stand over her shoulder.

[Luke]

You know what I really hate is when like Becca and I are on a walk and somebody is walking behind us, but not faster than us, but not slower than us. Keeping pace. And. And I will. Keeping pace, but just like three steps behind us. And I will always. And she's the same way. This is why the relationship works, because she is also annoyed by that. So we just will step to the side and let the person go past. Like there's something about someone walking at almost exactly the same pace but just three steps back that just like is. And I try to not do it. I try to not be that person either. So we'll, we'll either walk much more slowly than people in front of us or we'll just full on speed walk past them. Yeah, we'll do whatever it takes to not create that awkward. We're all walking at the same pace but a little bit separated.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I don't like that. How many steps do you put between yourself and the person involved front of you on the escalator? Because that's something I've been thinking a lot about lately. Because you want to, you want to kind of pack in. You don't want to be, you know, take up too much space. But also you don't want to be sticking your nose in. In somebody's back.

[Luke]

No, definitely. I mean, I'm giving it two at a minimum too.

[Andrew]

I'm usually two, I think.

[Luke]

And that doesn't feel like. Unless you're, I don't know, maybe you're in the airport and there's like a bunch of people. I don't feel like that's being irresponsible with resources. No, let's say you're just in one of the many dying malls of America and someone's on the escalator. Let's give them four steps. Sure. Let's give them plenty of room.

[Andrew]

Yeah. It really depends. I mean the, the context here is, I mean, kind of in a busy situation, I think, like, because when I'm taking an escalator, most of the time it's coming and going from the train station. Right. And so usually it's, you're going to have like, you've probably come off the train with a whole bunch of other people who are all going to the escalator as well. So it's a, you know, it's a bunch of people. And so you want to, you do want to like not like put five, it wouldn't make sense to put five stairs between you and the person. And a slow day at the mall. Absolutely. Give them, give them an hour, give them a 15 minute run and then get on the escalator. Why not just leave the afternoon and then come back, go get a pretzel. Go get one of those really tasty, sweet pretzels.

[Luke]

Well, we were at the mall this last weekend, which by the way, was a lovely experience. Like, I haven't, I don't feel like I've been to a mall in a while. It was a Sunday and there was lots of folks there. And one of the things I was like, who wins? Who wins the battle of the smells at the mall? Is it the, is it the Bath and Body Works or is it the Wetzels Pretzels or the Annie's or the whatever. Yeah, because those are both, those are, those are both really, really throwing down in the, like, we are the most dominant smell in this mall kind of battle.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And also the thing I miss about indoor malls, and I really do miss indoor malls, sort of like if I had to go there a lot, I would probably complain about them because they weren't my favorite places in the world. But I mean, actually in high school I spent a lot of time just, just like a high school teen, like hanging out in the mall. And what I like about malls is the combination of the smells. I love that you can get a little bit of the. Little bit of the leather shop. The Daddy Loves Leather, I think is the one that I used to go to. Combined with the wafting smell of the pretzels.

[Luke]

You know, that's a good point. You've got a little, maybe back in the day, little Orange Julius.

[Andrew]

Yes, yes.

[Luke]

And then maybe a See's candies. Just you're. Maybe that is the appeal of it is just like the getting hit with a kind of a different, a different smell as, you know, saunter through. I will definitely say that, like it was Fun to be there. And. And it reminded me of, like, yeah, why it's kind of fun to be in a mall on a. You know, it actually turned out to be a pretty nice afternoon, which is the weather. I know I'm. I couldn't be talking about anything less interesting for whoever's, like, tuning into this, not only today, but let's say in three months. But, like, the weather has been pretty wild around here just in terms of how nice it's been, including that day that we went to the mall. I was. We were going to go see a movie, and I was like, we can't. We. We're legally prohibited from seeing a movie on a Sunday in the Northwest when it's actually blue skies and sunny in the wintertime. Like, I cannot agree to that because it's so rare that that happens. And here I am talking to you on this Friday, and we got another one of those days going.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it's been really, really, really nice lately. I remember last year, I was saying to Vee's, and I remember this because it was a day that I had to take photos of my garbage bins to make sure that they were properly set up outside and I wasn't. Any extra fees. You know, I take the photos to show that, like, look, I'm following all the rules and I posted the social media, but I remember it was a January day and it was so nice out that I also took a picture of my grill because I was grilling as well. Like you get these days every now and then. And like you mentioned at the beginning of the show, like, yeah, we probably have, you know, we'll probably have a spell of, you know, another stretch of winter or something like that. But, I mean, we're definitely on the. We're definitely on the upswing here. Like, this is great. Like, I'm very excited. And marches right around the corner.

[Luke]

You. I didn't even realize this till you, I think, were maybe repeating something that you and Hannah Brooks Olson were talking about. But this idea that, like, if your team, if your football men's, if they manage to get to the super bowl, they have then created a very, very kind of narrow distance, if you will, between the end of your football interests and the beginning of your baseball interests. And that's really where we are this year because, you know, we're always pretty interested in the Mariners, but we have particular reason, I think, to be excited this year. And so the Seahawks have done so much for us as a community, not the least of which has made it so there's only two weeks where I have to talk to people or in any way interact or have my own thoughts.

[Andrew]

Yes, exactly.

[Luke]

We've got it down to about 14 days between the end of the super bowl and the beginning of the first minor, or I should say spring training game.

[Andrew]

It will be interesting to see what my media habits are in the next couple of weeks because even like my Sunday ritual of making coffee and hot chocolate in the mid morning to take it to my volunteering gig, you know, I'm just basically kind of puttering around in the kitchen for, let's say two hours every, every Sunday. And there's always baseball. And then when baseball turns into football season, I, I'm usually listening to baseball on the radio. But then when it's football, I'll bring up a laptop and I'll just have that like, you know, pitter pattering away in the corner while I'm doing things. But then for these two weeks before the spring training game start, what will I be listening to? I'm not. Maybe a wordle podcast.

[Luke]

Well, I mean, it's, it's sad how, how much what you're describing is really a thought that I have even been having during the period of time that we've been getting excited about the Super Bowl. And by that I mean we go from like, towards the end of the regular football season. There's almost, there's pro football on almost every night. There's Sunday Night Football, Monday Night Football, Thursday Night Football. When we get into the playoffs, there's some Saturday games, and all of a sudden then it goes to, okay, the Seahawks won the NFC championship game and now we have 14 whole days or whatever it is. 13 whole days of no football happening ever. And I found myself reflexively picking up my remote control being like, what are my eyes supposed to look at?

[Andrew]

That's what Genevieve was quote, what were we talking about yesterday? I'm not sure, but she quoted a line from 30 Rock. And then she muttered, sometimes people don't know that I'm quoting 30 Rock. I just quote 30 Rock all the time. But she said something like, you don't have a tv, but what do you sit and stare at? Or something that Liz Lemon says to a guy she's on a date with. What do you sit? No, I think the line is because it's funny or something. What do you sit and look at?

[Luke]

Yeah, I mean, here's the thing. I have a tv. It's full of content, and none of it is the content that I want to look at, which is, I don't know, I guess football. Like, you know, or baseball maybe. What it is too is my obsession with, like, watching or listening, but mostly watching these sports is I'm at the point where committing to watch a full movie or even maybe a new TV series just feels overwhelming. And that's because I've fried my brain on TikTok. And so sports, in a weird way, it feels very non committal to me and very highly engaging. So it's like I'm never like, oh, my God, the Seahawks game is on. Am I going to be interested in this for two to three to four hours? It's like, it's sort of. It asks nothing of me and it offers everything to me as a viewing experience. You know, it feels like, of course I'm going to the Mariners are playing. Of course I'm putting that game on. And of course I'm riveted throughout. Like, it somehow fits into this perfect, like, little pocket of what I need in entertainment because I'll scroll down through Netflix and I will start and then bail out of like, three shows and then just end up looking at TikTok on my phone or something. There's something about, about sports, live sports for me that, that again, it doesn't feel like I'm committing to anything. But let me tell you, when I'm watching it, I am 100% engaged.

[Andrew]

Yes, absolutely. And you don't have to think about it. I mean, that's my whole thing with on Demand media these days, which I, you know, I'm not just, I'm not cranky about on demand media. It pays the bills, as you know, which might actually be a decent segue into thanking our donors for the day. But. Yeah, but it is really, really hard to choose something. And I hate choosing. Just give me something. And during baseball season, especially because you say, you know football, too, like, any football games on, you can watch it. But during baseball season, almost any time of day you can find. Not anytime, but, you know, almost any time of day, every day of the week, you can find some baseball game going on somewhere. I've got the calendar circled for the World Baseball Classic, like, my buddies have been sending me.

[Luke]

You know, the Mariners have more players than any other team.

[Andrew]

I didn't know that. But looking at the lineups, it makes sense. People have been sending me, like, the lineups of the doctor versus the US Team, and I'm like, already, like, salivating looking at these rosters.

[Luke]

I'm still, I'm still in mourning about the last, the ending of the last World Baseball Classic. This is what we've done today, Andrew, by the way, on the Friday before the super bowl. We've discussed the specific positions of the officials and we're going to re litigate the last pitch of the WBC from like last time around because didn't it end up being Shohei Ohtani versus Trout? I think it was Trout. So Trout was pitching? No. Was it like. It's like Ohtani striking out Mike Trout to. For Japan to beat the US in the World Baseball Classic or something?

[Andrew]

I couldn't think so. Something very. I can't totally confirm that, but it's something very. No, no, I'm pretty sure it was Trout. I do know it was Trout. I just can't remember the outcome.

[Luke]

The outcome was I. Otani's truck came out in Japan one. But it was like, it was like something out of a, like a 1980. It was something out of Rocky Uhhuh. Where it's like you've got, you know, you've just got like these two superpowers and it comes down to the final thing. And, and of course it's not just like a random J Team Japan reliever. It's. It's freaking Shohei Ohtani. And it's not just a random Team USA guy that we kind of don't know because he's a Kansas City royal. Peace and love to the Royals fans. It's like Mike Trout against Shohei Ohtani. With the game on the line and the whole tournament on the line, it was very cinematic. Except in this case, Mike Trout did not win.

[Andrew]

I will not have Vinnie Pasquatino erasure on this show. Let's thank the Don.

[Luke]

Thank you, baby. All right, let's go ahead and thank those donors. These folks are supporting TBTL financially. It's how this whole thing's worked. This whole thing works, I should say. This is 100 listener supported podcasting right here. I was just on another podcast earlier today, Andrew, and was talking about our fine TBTL show and telling the story of it and saying how today we were going to be like our 4,000th and 600 and something episode. And I was talking to two guys, Sean and Randy, who make their own podcast called It's Nice to Be Nice. And they were frankly shocked they had never heard a number as high as 4658.

[Andrew]

In any context.

[Luke]

In any context.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke]

And. And it's only because of the donations of like, Joel Johnson, who's in Vancouver, Washington.

[Andrew]

Hey.

[Luke]

Hey.

[Andrew]

Thank you, Joel.

[Luke]

Vancouver, Washington.

[Andrew]

I don't know if I do. I don't know if I've been there. I mean, I don't know if I know it. Know it well.

[Luke]

It's kind of based on where I live now. It's kind of the big city. I mean, it's right across the river from Portland. There's a certain argument that it's, you know, Vancouver and Portland are almost kind of one sort of entity. Although I don't know if people in Vancouver would sign off on that. But coming from my place, it's the first major city that you will hit. Sometimes if I need something and I'm like, where can I get that this? It's like, oh, well, they've got it in Vancouver.

[Andrew]

Go. You go into the city. You were mentioning that the other day that you taught. When I was growing up in Valley City, Ohio, my grandma, who would be visiting from, like, the suburbs of Cleveland, if she was, like, watching us for the weekend or something, she would say, like, well, I got to go in. I had to go into the city to get bread. And the. The city in this case, I believe, was Brunswick, Ohio, which is just a small little hamlet of its own.

[Luke]

Is that where they do the bowling balls?

[Andrew]

I don't think so. I'm guessing that the bowling balls. Could that be. That feels like a. Do they bowl in Britain? I was going to say a British thing, but I don't even know if they do big ball bowling in Britain.

[Luke]

But, like, yeah, but Brunswick. I always assumed that Brunswick, Ohio, is where they made the Brunswick bowling ball.

[Andrew]

I don't think it's Brunswick, Ohio, because I feel like I would have known that. But I'll look.

[Luke]

That would be on the sign.

[Andrew]

And I feel like Brunswick would just be bigger to support that industry and rounder.

[Luke]

And with, like, about three holes in it.

[Andrew]

You know what? Fair enough. Fair enough. I'm looking it up. I'm. Look, I can't figure this out, but we'll think more donors, and then I'll get you something.

[Luke]

Thanks, Joel. Thanks also to Meg has or has.

[Andrew]

Look at this. Meg has.

[Luke]

Has. Meg has out there in Atlanta, Georgia.

[Andrew]

Now, who might that be? That name rings a bell. I know that.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

My girlfriend's name is Genevieve Has. We know that.

[Luke]

So that's like. Like, that's got to be a coincidence, though, right? Where was Genevieve raised?

[Andrew]

Atlanta, Georgia. Where's this Meg Crazy. What are the chances here? Well, now I will say this. I'm wearing a pair of shoes right now that were gifted to me by somebody named Meg has this Christmas via a DSW gift card. So could it be the same Meg has my. My very own mother in law, as I colloquially call Meg. Thank you so much, by the way.

[Luke]

That's so generous. And also, like, what hasn't this woman done for you, Andrew?

[Andrew]

She loathed you.

[Luke]

Literally feeding you during the holidays. She's putting food on my table here with this donation, Meg. Thank you.

[Andrew]

Yes, thank you. She gave me the world's tiniest penguin many years ago. Thank you.

[Luke]

We just heard about that the other day. Making its second appearance. Thanks also to Gail Schreibers of Edmonds, Washington.

[Andrew]

Hey, that's another familiar name. Thank you so much, Gail. A long, long time donor and friend.

[Luke]

Of the show and a familiar place. Beautiful Edmonds, Washington. Don't get me into the culture. Don't get me into the Arby's. We'll be here till sunup.

[Andrew]

You know what? Edmonds has, speaking of a wonderful bowling alley that I go to sometimes, and they probably have Brunswick bowling balls from Brunswick, Ohio.

[Luke]

Thanks. Ian Webster, who's in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Beautiful Virginia Beach, Virginia. I've spent. I spent a week there once, long ago. Was absolutely lovely.

[Andrew]

Ian.

[Luke]

I didn't.

[Andrew]

I didn't not. Thank you there because I don't appreciate your donation. It's just because I'm trying to figure out where Brunswick. It looks like Medawa, Illinois, is the headquarters of Brunswick Bowling. Hmm.

[Luke]

Interesting. Now, what about the fact that Ian is. Ian's last name is Webster. Is that a. Beyond the dictionary? Isn't. Is Webster? Am I losing my damn mind on a Friday? Is Webster also a. Some kind of a. Sporting some kind of athletic equipment, a Webster?

[Andrew]

Let me think.

[Luke]

Thinking of a Weber barbecue. Maybe I'm thinking of Daniel Webster. Maybe. Maybe I need to stop making content for the day, Andrew. Maybe it's been enough already.

[Andrew]

Let's see, there's Webster University athletics. No, when you said that, I was like, oh, yeah, what is it? Is it like a. Does Webster make volleyballs or something? But I'm not seeing anything. No.

[Luke]

Okay. Well, Ian, we appreciate you nonetheless. We also really appreciate Jennifer Evanoff, who's in Chicago, Illinois. I just read this article in the New York Times the other day about an architect in. There's a big show of his in Chicago at the. I think the Chicago Art Museum. Maybe he is no longer with us, but he. His last name was Gough and he was kind of a really talented but also kind of quirky architect who was very polarizing to people. But they were showing all of these. These different homes and businesses and things that he had designed over the years. And somewhere in the heart of the article was a hyperlink to a British, Like a documentary made about him probably in the 1970s. And, Andrew, you talk about how much you love, like, digging out those VHS tapes and digitizing and just seeing these things that are total unintentional time capsules. But this documentary about this architect, he's just this. At this point, he's pretty elderly. He's probably in his upper 80s. He's got a little bolo tie on, and he's just got the most plain smoke in Midwest, unassuming kind of nature about him, talking about these little houses that he designed and things. And I was just. I was absolutely in love with this guy and in love with his work and very excited to go visit this. This, you know, what do you call it? Not a display, but this exhibition in Chicago is up through March. So I'm gonna go see that when I do. Wait, wait. Next time. Fantastic. Thanks. Also. Thanks, Jennifer. Thanks, Julie Brown of Renton, Washington.

[Andrew]

Thank you, Julie.

[Luke]

Near the vmac. Pretty near the vmac. Andrew, all things come back to the Seahawks today.

[Andrew]

Indeed do. Thank you, Julie. Hello and welcome to Top Story.

[Luke]

All right, we've been dancing around it all day, Andrew. There's one more NFL officiating position that we're not talking about. That's Gene Steritour. That's. No, wait. I think we've actually fully covered officiating.

[Andrew]

I was waiting for his name. His name was right on the tip of my tongue before I was trying. I was trying to pull a Sarah Tor reference. It's always a good one.

[Luke]

I mean, here's what I will say. Okay, fine. I've got. I got a tight five on Gene. The thing about, you know, this is because replay is such a big deal in the NFL now, that is. It's not an official role in terms of the officiating crew, but it's an official role as part of the broadcast crew. But this is the problem. I want to think of an analogy. The first analogy I'm thinking of, Andrew, is far too dark for the circumstances. Trying to think of a less dark analogy. Basically, generally speaking, the replay. The replay. Official broadcaster, the Gene Steritour, who they're going, well, what do you think of this call, Gene? I feel like when the game is over, they go down to the same, like, official locker room. There's, like, a sauna that all the refs and officials are going back to. They've got their own locker room. It's not where the players play. They go to a separate restaurant. It's kind of the same, but not as nice, not as high paying. And then they've all got to, like, hang out. And then those officials. There's a fraternity, and to the degree that they have women, there's a, there's a, a, there's an association of these officials that I think makes it so when Gene Stereotor is talking about, about if the officials on the field got it right or not, he's always going to side with them, almost always, because these are his people. He's like, I feel like they go way too soft on the officials.

[Andrew]

It's like when you get a cop commentating on a cable news show.

[Luke]

And this is literally the darker analogy that I was avoiding. Literally, it was, I was literally like, it's like having a co. It's like having a cop weigh in on cop behavior. Like, that was exactly what I was going to say and then decided not to.

[Andrew]

Well, you know what? I'm, I'm the one who will be bold for both of us today. But, yeah, I know what you mean. Although there are times, There are times they say, I'm not sure about that call, but I do feel like it's.

[Luke]

That does happen.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that does happen.

[Luke]

But I feel like they're, it's, you know, Andrew, it's like, it's got to be pretty egregious. It's got to be pretty egregious to me for them to want to, like, throw one of the officials under the bus because of course they've been down there. They know that. It's, I mean, it's an incredibly hard thing to do to try to, you know, figure out if, if a cleat was inbounds or out of bounds or a ball moved when it hit the ground or, I mean, it's, it's remarkable they get as much of it right as they do, honestly. So. All right. I do want to talk a bit about the super bowl, but through the lens of this Seahawks quiz that you sent me the other day, you said, hey, you know, know, might be kind of fun to take this quiz. And I believe the way you set it up to me was it might be fun if you, If I administered the quiz to you and you said, but it'll, you'll be surprised at how poorly I do on it.

[Andrew]

Now, you should be very clear that, like, yes, I sent this to you, but I did not look at anything. All I saw on my phone while I was waiting in line at the Post office was a pop up from the Seattle Times that said something like, are you ready for the Super Bowl? Take this Seahawks quiz from the Seattle Times. I just hit clear on it and I texted you from my car when I got outside. I don't know if you could tell it was text to speech or speech to text, I should say. It might have came off a little bit weird, but I just said, I just saw that there's a quiz. I haven't looked at it. I don't know what's in it. My assumption at the time was because Seattle Times mostly, you know, I would guess caters to casual Seattle Seahawks fans, especially since you might get some hop ons. And since we're going to the Super Bowl, I figured that the quiz would be a 10 question, super, super easy quiz, but that I would still embarrass myself on it because I think even though I enjoy watching football, I think you're going to be pretty shocked at how little I know about like, let's say the personnel or naming defensive players or specifically what their roles are. So I thought, this will be fun. You give me a simple quiz and I'll embarrass myself. I'll just throw myself on that embarrassment cringe. But now you looked at the quiz.

[Luke]

Yeah. Well, that's what I also assumed would happen. And then because I needed a pick me up the other day, I thought, well, why don't I go through and take this, why don't I go through and ace this quiz and so I can feel good about my Seahawks knowledge. Because I think of myself as a, as a seahawk knower about 40 years into following this team. And so I, I did. I thought, it's going to be really easy. I'm going to dunk all over this. Which is one of the main things they do in football. Yeah. Is dunking.

[Andrew]

Clearly. Clearly you're not a golf ball.

[Luke]

That was the first question I missed. How many slam dunks did Dave Craig do? But then I took the quiz, Andrew, and I became filled with anger, filled with rage because A, I did really bad at it. I think it's 12 questions, by the way. I got absolutely creamed. And then I became mad at whoever this is like. Also, I feel like this is some weird new thing that the Seattle Times is doing. I don't like it. It's not like SeattleTimes.com Quizzes, it's projects.seattletimes.com what does that mean? Is this some new thing? They're rolling out the projects?

[Andrew]

I have no idea I almost thought.

[Luke]

It was like some kind of like a weird zergnet website at first when I went to it because I've never seen projects.seattletimes.com but anyway, I'm going to give you this quiz and I actually think you randomly throwing a dart on each question, you will probably. I think I got four out of the 12. I have a. I feel like you completely guessing will get you four out of the 12 because the questions I think are not even really Seahawk questions. That's why I'm mad about the quiz. They are like crazy statistical things that nobody would know. Not just kind of like who had the most touchdowns, but, like, how many. Like, let's just get into it. Okay?

[Andrew]

Okay. All right. I'm very. I'm intrigued. I mean, I guess in a certain way I'm more nervous than I was, but that's.

[Luke]

No, you should not be nervous at all.

[Andrew]

You're saying it's impossible and if you did terribly, then nobody expects anything of me. And that's where I. Like, that's my sweet spot.

[Luke]

Yes. Expectations.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Luke]

There's. And you know what? I'll be honest with you. There was one answer in here that I found thoroughly fascinating, and it was a thing I didn't know. And so that almost justifies the whole thing.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Luke]

Okay. So question number one, and feel free to play along at home, everybody. Which player holds the record for most games started as a Seahawk?

[Andrew]

Which player holds.

[Luke]

I'm going to give you some names here. It's a multiple choice. You got Matt Hasselback, the quarterback. You got Max Strong, the longtime fullback for the Seahawks. You got Steve Largent. Steve Largent, legendary receiver for the Seahawks. And then you've got Walter Jones. Walter Jones was a law. He's a Hall of Famer, I believe, and a long, long time offensive lineman for the Seahawks. Matt Hasselback, Max Strong, Steve Large and. Or Walter Jones. Most games started as a Seahawk.

[Andrew]

You know, the only player I know or that I think I watched on that list is Hasselback. I. It doesn't make sense, I don't think. But I'm going to go with it. I'll just go with Hasselback because that's a name I believe.

[Luke]

I went with Walter. I think I thought that was, you know, some of these offensive linemen, if they figure out how to keep their bodies working, they can be in the league for a long, long time. I put in Walter Jones, you put in Matt Hasselbeck, and we were both wrong. It's Steve Largent.

[Andrew]

Steve Largent.

[Luke]

Okay, Steve Largent, arguably the greatest Seahawk player ever, was also their most durable, Steve large and started 197 games for the Seahawks, followed by Walter Jones at 180.

[Andrew]

Okay, can I tell you something that you might find interesting or maybe some non football people might find interest? This. As we're taking this quiz, I'm kind of score. I'm taking some notes as you give me the multiple choice answers or options, but I'm also sort of keeping score and I'm doing it with a brand new pen that I got. Luke, that is one of those four colored pens that we.

[Luke]

Oh yeah, those ones, yes.

[Andrew]

Because I'm learning how to score baseball games and so I printed out your scoring sheets and I went to Office Depot. Yes, they still have Office we exist. And I bought three of and it's exactly like the kind I grew up with. So I'm using green, blue and red to keep track here.

[Luke]

I've told you that when I used to live across the river from here in Portland, down the street from me was an Office Depot next to a Taboo video. Two places that you would really thought the Internet would have kind of rendered like kind of irrelevant. And they're like they were just in the irrelevance district. Like hey, we're both still here doing this if you want to come by.

[Andrew]

I wonder if like so to speak, like after hours at the, at the Office Depot. If they're just sick of all these like horned up guys coming in to buy white out.

[Luke]

Yeah. Invented by one of the monkey's moms, as we've learned and repeatedly talked about. Question number two. On which college campus did the Seahawks first hold training camp? This was I believe, one of the ones that I actually knew. Washington State University, Eastern Washington University, Northwest College. These was a college campus where the Seahawks had their initial training camp.

[Andrew]

Hold on a second, Luke. I don't know if we leave it in or not, but you've added another level of difficulty in that we literally couldn't hear what the last two choices were because you just went into robot mode because of the connection. The last I heard was Eastern Washington University.

[Luke]

The last two are Northwest College, which is a Christian college over on the east side near Kirkland, or the University of Washington. So Washington State University, Eastern Washington University, Northwest College or the University of Washington. Which one was the first place they held training camp?

[Andrew]

Eastern Washington University.

[Luke]

I think that's a strong guess. I think that's what I put down. Let's see. And that's right Ding, ding.

[Andrew]

Oh, my goodness.

[Luke]

Eastern Washington. You've already tied with me.

[Andrew]

I said that with confidence, but I didn't have any. I just liked the sound of it. I thought it would. I thought I would have heard if it was W. WSU or the U Dub. And so that left the other two.

[Luke]

That was very smart of you. When I was a kid in the early days of. Of following the Seahawks, I remember when they would talk about training camp, would be in Cheney, Washington, and it would be really hot over there because it's even hotter in eastern Washington than western Washington and it being August, and that just made a real. I remember when we would go visit people in Spokane, we would see the exit for Cheney, Washington, and I would think that's where the Seahawks go sometimes. They also did. They did practice at Northwest College in Kirkland as well for. Or, you know, trained there for some number of years and then of course, eventually built the vmac. Okay, good. You are one right, one wrong again. You are on pace to, at a minimum timey, maybe even beat me. Okay, this, to me again, feels like maybe just because I got it wrong, I don't. I find this question to be annoying. Question 3 out of 12. John Elway passed for 432 yards against the Seahawks in 1985. But that's not the most ever. Who holds the record for most passing yards against Seattle? Is it Andrew? Peyton Manning, Joe Montana, Tony Montana? Wait, no. Ben Roethlisberger, Tom Brady, or Dan Marino?

[Andrew]

Wait, suddenly we have five options?

[Luke]

That's what they're doing here.

[Andrew]

Peyton Manning, Montana, Ben Roethlisberger, two writing quizzes. And I think you're right. Like, I don't know if this person. I don't. I don't know if they have.

[Luke]

Well, the problem is, Andrew, there are too many cooks in the kitchen. This quiz was made by Sean Quinton and Ed Guzman. Well, I guess it was two cooks. Maybe that's the right amount of cooks. The sources were Seahawks.com ProFootball Reference.com and Field Goals.com.

[Andrew]

So we want to know who L L S. Is that the one field?

[Luke]

Yeah, that's actually. That's actually a. That's a pretty decent kind of Seahawks blog.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Okay, so this is the most ever yard yards against the Seahawks. Against the Seahawks. Not during a Super bowl, but just during the. During all time or in a single game?

[Luke]

Single game.

[Andrew]

Oh, okay. I was thinking all time in a single game?

[Luke]

Well, actually, yes. This is the question is it isn't a single game, but it is in a single Game. But the question is not written very well. John elway passed for 432 yards against the Seahawks in 1985, but it's not the most ever. Who holds the record for most passing yards versus Seattle? Seattle. What they've left out of there is in a single game.

[Andrew]

Yeah, they must. I mean, I guess when you reread the question, it's like, okay, we're talking about 400 yards, then that's. That's a game. Yeah, that's not.

[Luke]

But the fact you've got to kind of do that, do that. That math yourself, you should say in the game.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Okay, so let's see about Montana. I don't think it's Joe Montana. I don't know that.

[Luke]

Is it. Joe Montana is Joe Montana.

[Andrew]

It could be. It could be Roethlisberger with. Let's see here. Yeah, because he didn't really move much. He just threw it right. So Manning, Brady Marino in a single game. I'm going to go Roethlisberger. I don't know why.

[Luke]

Andrew Walsh, you're going to be absolutely right.

[Andrew]

All right. Look at this. I hate. I hate that I have to get my points off the back of that jerk, but so be it.

[Luke]

He threw for 456 yards against the Seahawks once. The previous record was in 2010 when Philip Rivers threw for 455 yards as a charger against the Seattle Seahawks.

[Andrew]

They should have put Rivers. They should have put Rivers on the list. That would have been a fun one that nobody would have got. I mean, it's. Even as a wrong answer. I think it's a fun option.

[Luke]

So, Andrew, I want to be very clear. You. I got that one wrong, by the way. I thought maybe it was Peyton Manning or something. So right now you've got two correct answers. Long before I had gotten two correct answers. So you are. You. You're pulling ahead of me here. Hopefully. You're like the hydro that looks like it's winning, but then you're gonna. It's gonna flip out and crash, and then I'm gonna zoom on in there at the very end.

[Andrew]

Well, I don't like us. I don't see this as can. When I was talking about Wordle before, I didn't mean it as like pitting me against Becca. And I'm not trying to pit you against me here. I think these are just our journeys.

[Luke]

Andrew, it's Seattle against the world.

[Andrew]

Okay?

[Luke]

Yeah. Seattle against everyone. Have you seen those shirts? Oh, my gosh. And everybody has like. It's like. It's Like Boston versus everybody. It's like, calm down. Calm down, everybody.

[Andrew]

What's going on in the world?

[Luke]

Every city is like, it's us versus the world. Maybe not.

[Andrew]

No, it's not.

[Luke]

Okay, question four. In 1975, Seattleites were asked to submit suggestions for the team name, receiving 20,000 entries and ultimately ending in Seahawks, the team name we now know and love. Which of the following names was not one of the 20,000 entries?

[Andrew]

Can I take issue with the fact that know and love.

[Luke]

I.

[Andrew]

Actually, while I root for the Seahawks, I do not love the name the Seahawks. I don't like the team names that are either too broad. Like Wildcats. I think you should pick a Wildcat.

[Luke]

Well, then Minnesota Wild has got to be really low on.

[Andrew]

I kind of like wild because it's.

[Luke]

Not the most general thing it could be.

[Andrew]

Well. But I like wild because it's almost like an idea. I like names that are concepts. Like wild. Like that. That's an. That's an adjective as well. You know what I mean? I think that's pretty clever. But, like, wildcat, like, just say Tiger. Like, choose one anyway. And I think Seahawks is kind of similar. Like, it's not a. Just, oh, in the way the New Hampshire Fisher Cats came up with the name Fisher Cats. That's not even an animal. A fisher is an animal, and there's nothing that's a Seahawk. I don't like the name Seahawks, and I'm sorry to be saying that two days before the Super Bowl.

[Luke]

So what I'm going to read you are a list of. Apparently a list of. Of things that were submitted as possible names for this football team before it had a name. Except one of them is made up. And this is like seven names. Seven potential names for the football team. One of them is not real. The rest of them are apparently real.

[Andrew]

Okay. Okay. Only one. Okay.

[Luke]

Out of the 2365 entries. Puddle jumpers. Was that real or not real? Squids, Cool Dudes, Anchovies, Traffic jammers, the Go E. Ducks. So, like, sort of like Gooey Duck, but Go E. Ducks. Or the Squirrels. One of these was not an actual suggestion. The Puddle Jumpers, the Squids, the Cool Dudes, the Anchovies, the Traffic Jammers, the Go E. Ducks, and the Squirrels.

[Andrew]

I'm thinking. Okay, I need you to remind me of a couple. I got Puddle Jumpers, Gooey Ducks. I know it's not spelled that way. Squids, Squirrels, Cool dudes. Cool Dudes.

[Luke]

Just think about me. Just picture Luke and then that'll help you remember. Cool Dudes.

[Andrew]

You know what I'm picturing is I'm picturing you and now I'm picturing those digital sunglasses dropping down onto your face.

[Luke]

Exactly. You'll never forget it when you picture it that way.

[Andrew]

Puddle jumpers. Gooey ducks. Squids. Squirrels. Traffic jammers. Cool dudes. Or what's the one I'm missing?

[Luke]

Anchovies.

[Andrew]

Oh, yeah, anchovies. Let's see here. Anchovies seems like maybe a easy one. But I do think that because you said there were like, thousands of submissions, right?

[Luke]

20,365.

[Andrew]

So, yeah, tens of thousands. And I could see somebody in Ballard like, thinking, well, we connect to the fishing community. Cool dudes is obviously terrible, but kids would have been entering this contest, right? And they would probably do that. That's how we end up with boats Named boat McBoats Face or whatever that hilarious thing. Traffic jammers. I could see somebody having a thinking that back then that Seattle was overcrowded, which is hilarious. Was it the flying squirrels or just the squirrels?

[Luke]

No, just squirrels.

[Andrew]

I'm gonna go with squirrels.

[Luke]

Okay, I forget the real answer to this, so I'm gonna plug in squirrels. I'm gonna hit submit. Andrew Walsh. You. You so and so, you son of a squirrel. Squirrels is absolutely right. Right.

[Andrew]

Because it has literally nothing to do, like, every. A lot of the other ones are somewhat like about, you know, ocean life or something. Puddle jumping.

[Luke]

Right. And also just think about this. Although anchovies. This would also apply to. Is anybody concerned about the squirrels? Is anybody intimidated by the squirrel? Like, you mean football. You're going to try to do something sort of majestic, sort of, you know, I don't know if menacing is the word, but. But something. Not a squirrel. You're not going to go for the squirrel. So you're absolutely right. That was not a real suggestion.

[Andrew]

Let me ask you a question about this quiz, too. And I know that we don't have time to do the quiz and get into all the details of the answers, but is the fun of this quiz, when you submit an answer, it gives you some background on it? Like the New York Times news quiz. Like, oh, out of all of the suggestions Timmy Dunquith suggested cool dudes. Like, is there any historical context that is offered?

[Luke]

Not really. It said, I've now scrolled to the next page and it won't let me go back. But the. The answer was squirrels. And then it said something like, we're just lucky they're not called the Seattle Squids.

[Andrew]

Okay, wait, this is.

[Luke]

You know what I mean?

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's this is. I could maybe.

[Luke]

I'm also realizing that the first. I'm also. I'm realizing. Andrew, Andrew. When you go to this quiz, it says, test your knowledge of the team. And then below it it says W. It's supposed to say, with the Seahawks in the thick of a fifth straight playoff trip, but that word with is spelled W T, I H. There was like a copy. There's a copy edit issue. The first. Practically one of the first words I'm gonna see is spelled witahe instead of with, Which, I mean, who am I to nitpick on these things? I mean, if anybody listened back to our show and. And nitpicked my mistakes, I would. I would. You know, I would be embarrassed even more so than I am normally.

[Andrew]

So they do.

[Luke]

I regret even bringing that up. I don't want to pile on here. Let's just.

[Andrew]

Okay, let's go.

[Luke]

I mean, mostly I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm just. I'm amazed at how well you're doing. Andrew. Let's not bury the lead, okay? You're doing really well here.

[Andrew]

It's pretty good.

[Luke]

I'm one.

[Andrew]

I'm three out of four correct so far.

[Luke]

I mean, that's pretty incredible. All right, question number five. Brian Bosworth and Steve Largent retired in the same year. What year was it? Oh, is it 19? 1980. Okay, 1987. When they say in the. See, that's also the wording of that. That sounds like they retired in season. I would say Brian Boswell and Steve Largent retired, I guess in the same year.

[Andrew]

I would just say the same year, not in the same year, but yeah.

[Luke]

Okay, what year was it? Was it 1987? Was it 1991? Was it 1989 or was it 1993?

[Andrew]

Is there in all of the above?

[Luke]

There is not.

[Andrew]

Huh. Interesting.

[Luke]

There is anchovies for some reason. Don't know why that's there.

[Andrew]

And the cool dudes. 8791. Brian Bosworth. All I'm trying to do here is Bosworth and who. Whom.

[Luke]

Largent.

[Andrew]

Largent.

[Luke]

Remember?

[Andrew]

So Largent was. Most games started ever so Largent. Largent. I would know from the. From the Techmo bowl game because I played that game and I didn't really have much of an understanding of the league, but I got to know some players names because of techno bow.89 is the version that I played.

[Luke]

Okay, well, that's interesting.

[Andrew]

So that's going to help. So it's either going to be 91 or 93.

[Luke]

And.

[Andrew]

I'm going to go 91.

[Luke]

I Andrew, I'm going to put 91 in and if I remember right.

[Andrew]

Oh, damn it. I was getting so excited.

[Luke]

Sorry, you are wrong. I was 1989. I think I also put in 1989.

[Andrew]

It was 89. So it must have been after the 89 season because I swear. Can I just look it up? Because I feel like this might be more fun. Anyway. Can I look up. First of all, did you hear that they're making a Tecmo bowl movie? This is a true story. I just saw it the other day.

[Luke]

Oh, I believe it.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke]

Hey Andrew, if the eye has been peed, there is. There is somebody who is going to. I mean they made a new he man movie.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it's like. But at least that is a storyline. Like Tech Mobile was just blips on the screen. And I love it by the way. I was playing. I was playing.

[Luke]

Are you acting like the emoji movie didn't have a storyline, my friend.

[Andrew]

That's right. Or even Minecraft, I guess. Okay, tecmo Bowl Lineups, 1989. Oh, I should just look up Seahawks and then because I thought, I mean, I swear I remember large and that's how I knew that name as a kid. I wouldn't have known it otherwise. Here was the lineup. Here we go. The Kelly Stufer James.

[Luke]

Kelly Stauffer Bear.

[Andrew]

Okay. Okay. See I don't feel. Maybe I played a 1990 game or something. I don't know.

[Luke]

Can we play a fun. Can we play a quick in game game? That'll be fun for me. Like Mr. Collard used to say, fun times. Make somebody pitch underhand softballs and he would rock it into the outfield, much to our terror. So does this give you the first and last name of the players on the 1989 Techmo bowl game?

[Andrew]

It does. Although this is definitely not the version I played which is bothering me. This. I don't remember any.

[Luke]

Okay, well this isn't about you. This is my fun time now, sir. Okay, focus in. You've already beaten me on the real game. Now I need to get some of my shine back.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Luke]

Okay, so can you give me the last name of some of these players and see if I can remember what their first name was?

[Andrew]

Yes, I'm scrolling here. Okay, some of these look familiar. So for I give you first, I give you last name.

[Luke]

You give me last name. I try to guess the first.

[Andrew]

Krieg. Craig.

[Luke]

Dave Craig.

[Andrew]

Craig. Dave Craig. Okay, that's. Oh, that was the goatly yeah. Okay, Krieger, see, I'm a little bit confused here. Okay. Okay. I don't know what. Okay, I think I see this. How about Fenner?

[Luke]

Oh, Chris. Or Derek Fenner?

[Andrew]

Derek Fenner. What about Williams?

[Luke]

Williams. Probably John L. Williams.

[Andrew]

Yes. Blades.

[Luke]

Oh, Brian Blades.

[Andrew]

Of course. Kane.

[Luke]

His brother, Benny Blades, was also in the league.

[Andrew]

Kane.

[Luke]

That one. How do you spell that one?

[Andrew]

K, A, N, E. Huh.

[Luke]

That one. I. Does not ring a bell. Who was Kane?

[Andrew]

Raisin? No, Tommy. Tommy Kane. Wide receiver.

[Luke]

Oh, okay. That guy. I don't remember.

[Andrew]

And Heller, Last but not least. We didn't do Heller, did we?

[Luke]

No, we didn't. I. I don't know who Heller was either.

[Andrew]

Tight end ron Heller. Number 85 was the start.

[Luke]

Yeah, well, I started, and then I kind of fell apart.

[Andrew]

Well, here. You want me to try to. Here, I can build you back up. I can build you back up real well.

[Luke]

Don't give me a complete.

[Andrew]

No, no. I'm giving you. Don't tell me what to do. It's my fun times, too. Kennedy.

[Luke]

Oh, Cortez Kennedy, of course.

[Andrew]

You'll never get.

[Luke]

He was dating. He was dating a UW volleyball player when I lived in the dorms, or at least I don't. Let's. I don't know the nature of. No, that's not true. That wasn't Cortez Kennedy. That was Sam Adams. Actually. Actually, Sam Adams, who was a. A different Seahawks lineman. And I remember I'd come out of the dorms, and I would just see Sam Adams sitting in his. In his, like, very expensive car, waiting for this particular volleyball player to get done with class or whatever it was.

[Andrew]

What about Wyman, number 92. Dave Wyman. That's right. Okay, should we get back to this? I'm kind of bummed that I didn't get that right. I'm also very confused as to what version of Technoblade I played, because I swore large. And I remember. I remember him going into the. Into the end zone, and then it would say largent across the top of the screen or maybe the bottom of the screen. I don't know. You didn't play Techmo bowl as much as I did, did you? Okay. Anyway.

[Luke]

All right, we. I. I'm gonna have to bounce in about five minutes, so we're gonna. I really want to get to this. I want to. I'm gonna do this next question because it's. It's interesting, and then I want to get to the question that I thought. Thought was particularly interesting and interesting to you as well, Andrew, so who was the only Seahawk to ever wear the number 12? Think about this. They retired the number 12 not because of the great accomplishments of somebody who WORE the number 12, but because that's, you know, designated for the fans. Now, in Seattle, the 12s. But there, before they thought that whole thing up, there was a guy wearing the number 12. Was it.

[Andrew]

Okay, good. There's multiple choice.

[Luke]

Yeah. Was it Dave Craig? Was it Sam Atkins? Was it Jim Zorn? Was it Rick Meyer? Or was it Warren Moon? These are all quarterbacks. All quarterbacks for the Seahawks. 12 would be a quarterback number. Dave Craig, Sam Atkins, Jim Zorn, Rick Meyer, or Warren Moon?

[Andrew]

Well, I feel like if it was Warren Moon, they might have retired it because he's Warren Moon. Right. And maybe the same Craig.

[Luke]

You don't give yourself enough credit, my friend. This is. This is. That's. That's very deductive reasoning. And you're right, it's not Warren Moon. But that's. That's. I think I like how your brain's working.

[Andrew]

I get him a little bit confused. The only way, because I think of him as an Oiler, though, because I think again from Techmobile. And by the way, I did find the Techmobile that has the lineup that I remember.

[Luke]

Was it 88 or something?

[Andrew]

I'm trying to figure out that. What I. What I was looking at before, what year that was. But this one has Dave Craig, Kurt Warner, Daryl Turner, Steve Largent, John L. Williams, again, hometown Darryl Turner. Let's see. Here is some. I'll skip to Joe Nash, Jeff Bryant, Brian Bosworth. Yeah. And the Legend. So anyway. All right, so. But that team that I just read to you, would you open it off the top of your head if that is before or after the team we were. I was just quizzing you on about last night. Names and first names. Like, would Wyman have come before, after these guys? Okay. It doesn't matter.

[Luke]

I think Wyman would have come after them.

[Andrew]

So he said it's definitely not Moon. And I was sort of thinking that Zorn maybe kind of similar situation. I. I don't know.

[Luke]

Zorn was kind of a Seattle legend.

[Andrew]

Yeah, you would think that, like, there'd be more celebration around it. So I'm gonna say it's Adkins or Meyer. Is it Meyer or Meyers? I don't even know.

[Luke]

It's confusing because it's M I R, E R. But I'm gonna lock you in on Sam Adkins because Andrew is absolutely right.

[Andrew]

I'll take it. I narrowed it down. To two. But I'll get a half point for that one. How about that? And I know you gotta go.

[Luke]

So Sam Adkins, who was the. He was the Dave Wyman of the broadcast for many, many years. Really? Tony Ventrella and Sam Adkins, I think maybe calling it, or maybe Sam Atkins was a big part of the broadcast. And his. Always not. I wouldn't say Bobby Eucharist in that. Bob Euchre's entire shtick was like, I wasn't very good at football, but Sam Atkins was a perennial. Baseball. Excuse me. He was. Sam Atkins was kind of a perennial backup. He didn't actually. Because he was behind maybe Zorn and Craig. He didn't ever get to. He didn't play a whole ton, although he wasn't bad when he played. But he was the number 12. And that was kind of always a sort of running joke that, like, you know, he. He had his number retired, even though he was not a particularly accomplished player. And he was one of the. One of the. The play, like the color commentary guys.

[Andrew]

Nice. All right, well, I'll tell you what.

[Luke]

Here's the big question.

[Andrew]

Oh, you have another one. I'm concerned about your time here.

[Luke]

Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. Here's the big question, the one that I found the most interesting. How did the Seahawks secondary get its nickname, Legion of Boom? Is it because. Did it come about when members of the secondary started knocking helmets and saying boom in the locker room before games? Is it because Richard Sherman is a comic book fan and decided on the name? Did it come from a sports radio show caller who suggested the nickname? Or did it start the night the Seahawks shut down the 49ers during a thunderstorm?

[Andrew]

What was the last one? I think I know the answer, but what was the last one?

[Luke]

Did it start the night the Seahawks shut down the 49ers during a thunderstorm?

[Andrew]

No, I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that they claim on 7 10, ESPN, I think on the Bob and Dave show or whatever they call it, Wyman Show, I think they claim it was one of listeners who coined it.

[Luke]

Andrew. You're absolutely right.

[Andrew]

That one. I knew. That one is the only one that I like, knew, knew.

[Luke]

I had no idea about this, and I found it totally fascinating. It's now one of the most popular nicknames in sports, the Legion of Boom. Well, I don't know how you quantify that, but okay. It originated before the 2012 season. Cam Chancellor was being interviewed by Bob and Groz.

[Andrew]

Oh, Bob and Groz. Before wyman okay.

[Luke]

On 710 ESPN Seattle, when he told the hosts he wanted to bring the boom. This is what Cam Chancellor said. A caller then texted the name as part of a poll, and after the approval of Richard Sherman, the name was cemented. Could you imagine being some rando710 ESPN listener and firing something off on the text line? We should call him a Legion of Blue Boom. And it's like they actually said, yeah, that's pretty good. We'll use it. It becomes like the Fearsome Foursome or, you know, whatever. You know, just like the Purple People leaders. Like, just like an iconic defensive nickname in the NFL. Like, that's pretty cool.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it is. And I'm kind of surprised that there isn't more. Like I said, I had heard that, but I heard that because I listened to that station a lot, and I think I hear Bob reference it from time to time, but not even in a especially goading way or like an especially boastful way, but just, I kind of like, every now and then he'll just sort of like, yeah, isn't that interesting? But I'm kind of surprised that there isn't more made of it when, you know, newspaper writers and just, you know, blogs and everybody are trying to fill super bowl week. Like, why not interview the person who texted that in, you know?

[Luke]

Well, because it's probably impossible to know, like, you.

[Andrew]

If they. Somebody would. Somebody would claim it, though.

[Luke]

You would think, well, right, but I mean, I would claim it if I could get away with it.

[Andrew]

Try it. I don't know. Wasn't you.

[Luke]

Well, we've already recorded this whole segment.

[Andrew]

If you. If it was you and you got that question wrong on the quiz that's on you.

[Luke]

Well, have you noticed my memory is going lately? Dude.

[Andrew]

Well, what was the famous. Didn't the bear. I was. I'm just. This is not important. I'm going to start the music now. But when you were listing famous defenses, didn't the Bears have a famous defense? Or am I. Am I just making that up? Maybe they just had Monsters of the Midway.

[Luke]

Maybe.

[Andrew]

Yeah, maybe.

[Luke]

Okay, was that them or was that a New York team? You had the Fearsome Foursome. I think that was a Rams defense. You had the Purple People leaders. Was that a Vikings defense? You had. You had the. The Monsters of the Midway. I don't even know if that's specific to the defense or just a team.

[Andrew]

Chicago Bears defense, mon. Monsters of the Midway, according to AI, which I don't trust at all. It also said that Blurs days is too Bad.

[Luke]

They're late.

[Andrew]

Yes, exactly.

[Luke]

That.

[Andrew]

The marsupial gurgle is something that Seahawks fans do to cheer on their team.

[Luke]

We're all going to be marsupial gurgling like crazy on Sunday, I'll tell you that.

[Andrew]

I'm worried about Monday, by the way. Should we do a late dialogue? No, you can't. You have a busy Monday, probably.

[Luke]

No, we need to, because I'm going to be. I didn't even tell you this. I got to fly to LA really early on Monday morning. I'm going to be trying to break into the hotel Monday in order for us to record the show before I go out and do some TV stuff, so. Yeah, we might. We might. You mean you're worried because you think it's going to go so late on. On Sunday that you're going to need a late start on Monday?

[Andrew]

Well, I know it's not going to go late. We never really talked about my super bowl viewing plans. We don't have time to get into it now, but I've been very anxious about it because for the past, I don't know, eight Super Bowls or whenever the, you know, however long and Viva and I have been doing this podcast, 10 years or something, I've been at home with a notebook, like, with nobody else here paying very close attention to the commercials so that I can be ready for both TBTL on Monday morning and after these messages, to talk commercials. And I don't think I'm going to do that this year because I kind of want to be with friends and. And watch the game. But I also know what's going to happen is I'm going to be very quickly not paying attention to the work I'm supposed to be doing and just probably having side sippers with Kevin. And then the next thing you know, I'm going to be. I'm going to have no idea what happened in the game or the commercials.

[Luke]

So win. Win.

[Andrew]

Yeah, exactly. So. Well, I don't know. Be prepared for that. Don't ask me any questions on Monday.

[Luke]

I will have. I will have memorized all of it for both of us, I think. And if not, I'll rewatch the Soup. If they win, I might just rewatch it on the flight down to la just. Just for the funsies. But anyway. Okay, well, you and I will. We'll coordinate over the weekend about what Monday looks like, but certainly much to discuss one way or the other come Monday. In the meantime, that's going to bring us to the end of our broadcast week. Thank you. So much for spending the time with us. We really appreciate it. We'll be back here on Monday. Monday. With more imaginary radio. In the meantime, have a great weekend, everybody. Stay safe, stay warm. Go Seahawks. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Andrew]

And good luck to all. Power out.