PMS 2.0 1265 - TNF Preview, NFL Week 16 Preview/Picks, College Football Playoff Preview, Nick Saban, NCAA President Charlie Baker, Chuck Pagano, & AJ Hawk

Summary

The Pat McAfee Show - Episode PMS 2.0 1265 Summary

Release Date: December 19, 2024

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1. Introduction and Episode Overview

Pat McAfee kicks off the episode with enthusiasm, highlighting the significance of NFL Week 16 and expressing gratitude to listeners for their support. He previews the episode's key topics, including a special appearance by college football legend Nick Saban and a major College Football Playoff (CFP) game between Indiana University (IU) and Notre Dame.

Notable Quote:

Pat McAfee: "Football. It's wonderful and we're so incredibly lucky that we get to talk about it every single day." [00:00]

2. College Football Playoff Preview: IU vs Notre Dame

Pat dives into the excitement surrounding the CFP matchup between IU Hoosiers and Notre Dame. He emphasizes the historic nature of Notre Dame playing a Friday night game on ESPN for the first time since the 1960s. The promotional efforts, including a highlight reel featuring rapper Jeezy, aim to create an electrifying atmosphere for the game.

Notable Quote:

Pat McAfee: "It's going to be historic. It's going to be legendary. It's going to be movie quality up there in front of Touchdown Jesus in South Bend." [00:45]

3. Controversy: Brick Johnson and the New York Jets

A significant portion of the episode addresses alarming reports about the New York Jets' organizational structure. Sources like The Athletic and ESPN’s Joe Douglas suggest that Woody Johnson's 17-year-old son, Brick Johnson, is involved in key team decisions, leading to concerns about team dynamics and player relations.

Notable Quotes:

Pat McAfee: "A 17 year old boy, I guess, just making decisions, giving speeches on the phones on draft day for the undrafted free agents." [05:23]

Chuck Pagano: "Brick's kind of a prodigy. I think we actually have Brick with us." [07:05]

The panel, including Chuck Pagano and AJ Hawk, express unease over the potential lack of respect and entitlement issues stemming from Brick's unusual role within the team.

4. NFL Week 16 Preview and Picks: Chargers vs Broncos

Shifting focus to the NFL, Pat and his guests analyze the upcoming clash between the Los Angeles Chargers and the Denver Broncos. Both teams boast formidable defenses, with Chuck Pagano highlighting Denver's ability to pressure opponents consistently. The discussion leans towards a low-scoring, defensive battle.

Notable Quote:

Chuck Pagano: "I think this will be a low scoring defensive battle. Who doesn't turn the ball over?" [26:00]

5. NCAA Updates: Conversation with President Charlie Baker

NCAA President Charlie Baker joins the show to discuss recent developments, including the settlement allowing institutional Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals and the opening of the transfer portal window. Baker emphasizes the importance of transparency and accountability in these new arrangements to benefit both schools and student-athletes.

Notable Quotes:

Charlie Baker: "The number one reason there's such a failure rate with quarterbacks is they come in with great expectations and they really don't know all the things they need to do to play in the NFL." [38:09]

Pat McAfee: "Once the thing is approved, there's no more debate about what it is or what it says or what it does." [80:21]

Baker also touches on the broader impact of these changes on college sports, advocating for a balanced approach that maintains academic integrity while adapting to new financial realities.

6. Coaching Strategies and Player Development

The conversation delves into the significance of quarterback mentorship, referencing quarterbacks like Aaron Rodgers and the necessity for young players to learn professionalism and game intelligence from veterans. The panel underscores the potential pitfalls of entrusting young athletes with early leadership roles, as seen in the Jets' situation.

Notable Quote:

Charlie Baker: "I think there's a lot to be said about guys that learn how to be professionals and have respect for development." [38:09]

7. 'Ram Trucked' Contest Highlights

In a lighter segment, the show features the 'Ram Trucked' contest, awarding a 2500 Heavy Duty Rebel Ram Truck to college football players who deliver standout on-field hits. Running back Weston Arthur of Mount Union wins for his impactful play, "Boom, dummy," showcasing the blend of sports and entertainment that defines the show.

Notable Quote:

Pat McAfee: "Congratulations to Weston Arthur of Mount Union with his Mount Boom hit. You are the official winner of the 2500 Heavy Duty Rebel Ram Truck." [126:04]

8. Season Predictions and Final Thoughts

As the episode wraps up, the panel shares their predictions for remaining NFL games, emphasizing defensive strengths and strategic coaching. Discussions include the performance of quarterbacks, team dynamics, and the overall trajectory of teams as the playoffs approach.

Notable Quotes:

Tony Khan: "I'm taking the Broncos minus three and a half." [159:25]

Chuck Pagano: "I think this will be a low scoring defensive battle." [26:00]

Pat concludes by expressing excitement for the upcoming games, gratitude towards guests, and anticipation for future episodes filled with insightful analysis and entertaining segments.

Notable Quote:

Pat McAfee: "Have a phenomenal holiday season. We're back on Monday. Then we're off." [211:30]

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the episode's major discussions, challenges, and entertainment segments, providing listeners with a clear overview of all key points covered during the show.

Transcript

[Pat McAfee]

People. And welcome to our Holly jolly humble the boat the Thunderdome on this Week 16 kickoff Thursday, December 19, 2024. This program starts now. Football. It's wonderful and we're so incredibly lucky that we get to talk about it every single day. We appreciate you for allowing us to be a part of your lives. No matter where the hell you're watching from or listening. You are the greatest people on earth and so are sports. Today is a big one. We got the greatest of all time when it comes to college coaching. And Nick Saban joining us in about 35 minutes. Normally stops by on Friday. We'll be off tomorrow because there's a bowl game kicking off at noon and then immediately following that Noon kickoff on ESPN. College game day. Rolling all the way into the IU Notre Dame kickoff to kick off the 12 team playoff. I believe it's the first time since like 1960 that Notre Dame's playing on ESPN and on a Friday night or whatever the case. It should be electrifying as the who, who, who, who Hoosiers travel up to. It's going to be a chilly evening, but both these teams are obviously built for that and the College Football Playoff is going to be electrifying. I'm going to be honest, I was going a certain way, I was leaning a certain way because of our personal relationships and getting a chance to watch and watching some film and being like, hey, what they got? Could be good matchup. Could be a good matchup. And then I watched highlight reel this morning that was put out by Notre Dame's digital team. They put Jeezy on the track. Whoa, listen, it was sick. Obviously he's a snowman. They started with the snow all over Notre Dame and this LA into the calendar. A game happening there. It's going to be chilly. It's going to be historic. It's going to be legendary. It's going to be movie quality up there in front of Touchdown Jesus in South Bend. I did not know that Notre Dame had this in them. I'll be honest, I had no idea that they even knew. Jeezy had a thought of what Jeezy was and then put Jeezy on the hut. I mean, that is. I'll tell you what, after I say, I said hold the phone now. Yeah. What do we got going on tomorrow night, which is going to be a great game to celebrate this college football season and then obviously kick off something that's going to be remembered forever. This is going to set precedent now for the future 12 team playoffs which are going to lead in the 14 team playoffs. What decisions are going to be made? What are these first round games going to look like? You know, because the big battle, the big conversation was should it be Alabama getting in, South Carolina getting in, Ole Miss getting in or is the second team from the ACC going to get in because of their record and everything like that? We shall see how these games play out and we shall see how the future looks. We're lucky to be a part of it. On Saturday we'll be field side for the Tennessee Ohio State game for our simulcast on ESPN. Main broadcast will be on ABC and on ESPN. We'll be on the sideline on ESPN2 live from Columbus, Ohio and Hypo and the boys, Nico I. Amaliava, Dylan Sampson traveling up to Columbus where it's going to be cold as shit. Cold and breezy. In Ohio, Ryan Day, Will Howard and an entire team of superstars are trying to avenge a loss to Michigan in front of their home crowd. Tickets for this particular game expensive but people are saying that Tennessee fans are invading Ohio. Going to tough to believe. And I echo the sentiment that Kirk Herbstreet was trying to make. Whether it was taken out of context or he didn't deliver it exactly how he wanted to, it's like Ohio State fans love that team. So if they're giving up tickets and selling tickets and Tennessee gets that orange in there and that becomes a little bit of a scene, then the chatter about Ryan Day is going to get even louder. It's going to get even louder. He knows he has to win this game. I assume he very much wants, everybody wants to win this game. But Tennessee is a tough one coming out of the SEC to take on the Big Ten packed weekend of football and we're lucky that we're in the middle of this time of year. Every game matters. Well every game most there's a couple of crop games sure but I guess those games depend upon potential draft status which leads to a team over there in New York, New Jersey area. It's not just me that gets a chance to talk every day about all these incredible situations that pop up from the NFL. It's also the talks table at Boston Connor and that ty Schmidt. It's one half of the hammer done Cowboys AP Tone it's a man who coached football for 36 years. 18 in college, 18. The NFL cannot wait to get all of his thoughts today on everything happening and also his pick against spread which he is currently batting.500. Ladies and gentlemen, Chuck Pagano is here and coach a lot of football experience. Okay. You've been around a game, been around the league, been around a lot of things. I feel like I have been very lucky to follow football my whole life. Grew up in a football town. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The happiness of the entire city depends upon how the Pittsburgh Steelers do. So that made me a lifelong fan immediately of the game, of the sport, because I knew that it could take people away. So I feel like I've paid attention. I' tried to learn a lot of storylines. Obviously was very lucky to be the bottom person on totem pole. But I think that's actually the most important part of the totem pole. So for the sake of the metaphor, I'll say bottom of the totem pole. But in actual reality, Tippy, top of the totem pole is a punter in a professional athlete premise. I've seen a lot. I feel like we've covered a lot on this show and the NFL never stops giving us shit that, you know, is absurd. You know, and we certainly talk about it. What is happening in the jets building, I think we are really starting to learn about. For the first time, there's been rumors about how it operates over there. And people go, like, place stinks. Always will stink. What's the curse? Woody. Woody's the curse. Well, it turns out from an article that we read written by.

[AJ Hawk]

Is it Diana Rossini?

[Pat McAfee]

And I think it was the entire crew over there.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, Zach.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, I think it was. And Mike Silver, I think it was a slew of insiders writing for the Athletic. Obviously New York Times owns the athletic. So this is high level journalism, obviously. High level sourcing. The stories that we are hearing, not about Woody Johnson, okay, certainly maybe a problem, but about Woody Johnson's boy. What? Brick Johnson.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, Brick.

[Pat McAfee]

Brick. Do you know who Brick. Have you heard about? I didn't know Brick Johnson existed. I learned today. 17 year old boy. 17, he's a Harvard tennis player.

[AJ Hawk]

Damn.

[Pat McAfee]

He went to Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts, which Connor, you know. Well, I think it's 75 grand a year, right? 75, yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

Very expensive. The prep schools in New England are definitely illustrious schools in the region. And they've been around since, you know, we looked it up. 1790, I believe. Some of these schools.

[Pat McAfee]

1796, I think. Founded by Samuel Adams. I believe. Yes. That Samuel Adams founded Deerfield Academy. So we're talking old money. We're talking old money, but we're talking about, I guess, a very mature boy. Okay. Yes, because Woody Johnson, his father, who owns a franchise. There's only 32 of them owns an NFL team that everybody on earth is looking to buy, looking to own. He has a 17 year old boy, I guess, just making decisions, giving speeches on the phones on draft day for the undrafted free agents.

[Chuck Pagano]

This a younger Kahn type deal.

[Pat McAfee]

Tony Khan is the director of football strategies down there in chief. Football strategies.

[Chuck Pagano]

I remember him starting at 17, making the decision.

[Pat McAfee]

Prodigy. Brick's kind of a prodigy. I think we actually have Brick with us. Brick, when did this all start for you, running the New York Jets?

[Ty Schmidt]

Pretty much whenever I wanted it to start. My dad doesn't know shit about football.

[Pat McAfee]

I do.

[Ty Schmidt]

That's kind of why he put me in the position that I'm in. A lot of stuff going around, but, yeah, I mean, big deal, you know, draft night, we get someone on the phone who's the first one saying, welcome to New York, bro. Me.

[Pat McAfee]

Really?

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Pat McAfee]

You're not giving, like post game speeches or anything, are you, though?

[Ty Schmidt]

When it's necessary, you know, a lot of people are, you know, kind of making waves about that. Yeah, big deal. You know, get a big win on a Thursday night. Coach Brick. Not I'm Brick, that. Which is honestly maybe a little bit of part of the problem that no one's talking about. There's one fucking brick in that building, and it's me, not Coach Ulbricht. Okay, but he gets his first win. You know, Rogers is kind of. Which we talk about him later.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, you tried it for him, didn't you?

[Ty Schmidt]

Well, you know, I told my dad. Yeah, you're 15 at the time. Yeah. I said, hey, I've been grinding the tape. I've been watching the tape. This guy's still pretty good. Okay, so let's maybe get him now. Did I also have hands in drafting Zach Wilson? Maybe.

[Pat McAfee]

You would have been like, what, 12 years old?

[Ty Schmidt]

Kind of a wonder kid. Kind of a wonderkind, if you will, though. You know, age is just a number when you got a. You got a fucking brain, like I do, to be quite frank with you.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

You know, 1747, I. I've crammed more football knowledge in the last five years than, for instance, Chuck has in his entire life.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. You know, dedicated his entire life. It does feel like you have a lack of respect for, like, really anything other than, like, just how you personally feel in the moment. Because I think what you were talking about there with Coach Brick all bricked. Well, no, let me do it for you, Brick.

[Charlie Baker]

Okay?

[Pat McAfee]

These are things, you know, that you. As you grow older, you'll. You'll kind of fit into. You're somehow going to get smarter, which none of us really know how. Harvard. That's right.

[AJ Hawk]

Welcome to the show.

[Pat McAfee]

I forgot about that. So how's your tennis game? We go. We checking to watch or what?

[Ty Schmidt]

Well, actually, I'm 1 and 3 in singles and.03 in doubles, so. But it doesn't matter because I'm going to be running the jets here shortly, so my tennis career may be short lived.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, you're watching too much film. You're not focusing on forehands and backhands and jump shots and drop shots against all the other Ivy Leaguers who've been playing and they're just doing tennis. I get it, Brick. But I guess after Coach Ulbricht's first win as the head coach, the Halloween night Aaron Rodgers, as customary, gets the game ball, goes into the locker room and basically your is coach. Coach Brick is going to get kind of handed as the game ball for his first ever NFL win. It's a big moment. Huge big moment. That's like a massive moment in the entire interim coaching thing, especially as a former player with how that team has been treated, how that season has gone, that was going to be a massive moment. Then, allegedly, what's being reported with sources anonymously through New York Times, the Athletic, is that you actually snagged another game ball from an equipment manager. And before all that could happen, you just said game ball. Garrett Wilson, this guy. And then he started swearing and talking.

[Ty Schmidt]

About how he went mad dummy. Give it up for Garrett Wilson. Let's go, boys. This is what it's all about.

[Pat McAfee]

Was that.

[Ty Schmidt]

I don't remember exactly because it was a very, you know, obviously very emotional big win. So, yeah, I don't, I, I don't. But I do remember, like I said, he did go mad dummy, bro.

[AJ Hawk]

Catch.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, exactly.

[AJ Hawk]

What'd you do when he got that catch brick one handed in the end zone like Jordan?

[Ty Schmidt]

Well, I was just, you know, I mean, it was actually kind of before the time too, but I was just bringing the boom to anyone who would listen.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, so you started doing the boom.

[Ty Schmidt]

You know, just a little bit of that.

[Pat McAfee]

A lot of people aren't believing that a 17 year old's making decisions. Why? Why Joe Douglas. Oh, I'm sorry.

[Ty Schmidt]

Anonymous.

[Pat McAfee]

Anonymous sources around an executive around Joe Douglas, the fired general manager in the middle of season here. Why did he say allegedly that he was reporting to a teenager? Was Joe. Was Jodi reporting to.

[Ty Schmidt]

Because he was one of his first days on the job. I told him. Football decisions run through me, pal. And Then this came out and I said, yeah, you're right, fatso. You are reporting to a teenager.

[Pat McAfee]

Jesus. Say it to him. And you didn't say that I'm on day date. Because I heard also that you go into a locker room, potentially post game, whenever I want critiques and stuff to people.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, yeah, I got no problem going up to a lineman. You suck. You're too fat. You stink.

[Pat McAfee]

What? Why? Why do you think you could do that? You're one in three as a Harvard tennis player. What are you.

[Ty Schmidt]

Because I have absolutely no repercussions. What are you talking about? I don't have to answer for anything. I mean, this is just coming out. I've been doing this since I'm 15 years old. This is just coming out right now. Everyone just say, hey, your dad's a. Which I'd like to kind of get something off my ch. Yeah, we were going to trade for Jerry Judy.

[Pat McAfee]

We were? Yeah. And I heard Matt.

[Ty Schmidt]

Well, I told my dad, I said that he's mid in Madden bruh. He's like a 77.

[Pat McAfee]

And did your dad know what that meant when you said he's mid and Madden bruh?

[Ty Schmidt]

He did. I had to kind of, you know, school him on him a little bit. But my dad watches me play Madden all the time. How do you think he knows who we're going after in the trade deadline? How do you think he knows who to, you know, look around the league for a couple. A couple of these different guys. I mean, I again, I grind the tape, you know, on a very, very nice, you know, theater that we have in our home.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, you got a specific theater to watch film?

[Ty Schmidt]

Absolutely.

[Pat McAfee]

How much did that cost to build?

[Ty Schmidt]

I mean, I don't. I don't ask these questions. I just say, hey, dad, stop being a bitch, get out the checkbook.

[Pat McAfee]

Let's go. All right. Okay. Coach Pagano, everything we just mentioned, I don't know if it went exactly how Brick was reinterpreting there. And obviously I think he's a be where you feed our person and he just kind of operates in the moment. All those things are being reported. Have you ever heard anything like this? A teenager. Okay. And I assume he's a good boy.

[Boston Connor]

Sweet.

[Ty Schmidt]

I doubt it.

[AJ Hawk]

There's a chance.

[Pat McAfee]

There's a chance he's a good boy.

[Chuck Pagano]

He looks like.

[Ty Schmidt]

I suppose there's a chance. You're right.

[Pat McAfee]

There's a chance he's a good boy.

[Chuck Pagano]

There's a chance he's some entitlement there.

[Pat McAfee]

It seems like, yeah. Lack of awareness too, it seems like, but once again, teenager. So he's gonna have to grow up. And there's a lot of these things happening. But could you fathom being a general manager in the NFL, a coach in the NFL, a player in the NFL, and a 17 year old who has accomplished nothing other than being born into the family, was to come up and say something to you about your profession. This is what's being reported. We have no idea what's real and what's not real. This is just from New York Times, the athletic, high level journalism happening, they're saying it's taking place. That's bananas to think about. And whenever you see, you know, people say like the jets aren't going to win. And it's like, if you haven't been in the building, I don't think you would have ever, ever guessed that that was. I don't think I would have ever guessed that that was happening. Did you know about any of this and how do you feel about this particular operation that's taking place over there?

[Chuck Pagano]

Obviously I just heard about it, but all the buildings that I've been in, starting in Cleveland, early 2000s, to the Raiders, you know, to the Ravens, to the, to the Colts, Bears, there's a lot of coaches, there's a lot of ownership, there's front office, there's a lot of people after games. There's, there's sons and kids, people come in, right? But never like, have I ever seen you. You'd never heard a word, right? Like my grandpa, my grandfather's rules was, you know, children will be seen and not heard in the law. That's how we grew up everywhere.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, okay.

[AJ Hawk]

Love that.

[Chuck Pagano]

You know, and if you're, if somebody addresses you and they ask you a question, then you could, you can speak, but otherwise no. But just fascinating to read that, that you finally get this win, right, after everything that's been going on. Big moment and we're going to celebrate, you know, the guy that's, you know, taken, taken on this responsibility and Jeff Obrich, right, Interim head coach. And we're going to celebrate him and the team and they're fired up and then all of a sudden out of.

[Pat McAfee]

Nowhere, 17 year old kid comes in.

[Chuck Pagano]

Hey, bro. I can't even imagine the looks on the faces of those players. Like, can you imagine? Like, hey, where are you? And then here comes. What'd you call him?

[Ty Schmidt]

What?

[AJ Hawk]

The one.

[Ty Schmidt]

He's a wonderkin for sure. But Garrett went mad, dummy. That's why. So Jack.

[Chuck Pagano]

Okay, dad, see him come out of left field. No, no, no. Like, here we go.

[Pat McAfee]

Obviously, we see. We know what he wears. He has a sport coat on.

[Boston Connor]

Blue blazer, gold.

[Pat McAfee]

Not all the way, but no tie on. We got that thing tucked in. Probably some khakis. You got some loafers on. We just came. Hair is obviously perfectly quaffed. Kid looks good coming in there. So jacked about a first win a long time. So jacked. Just need to like Garrett Wilson. And he went.

[Ty Schmidt]

He went mad, dummy. Bruh.

[Chuck Pagano]

That's what I was referencing.

[Pat McAfee]

Game ball. And then I guess Woody took the game ball out of Aaron Rodgers. Thank you. Shut up. Coach Brett, congrats on your first year win. Wake him up. Yeah. Get out of here.

[Chuck Pagano]

But all those. All those people being around Jim. Jim was in all those locker rooms. The sink, the. The respect that they understand between players and coaches and what just transpired on the. They never. When it was. When it was time and there was a moment or whatever and you had it, but it wasn't certainly on top of like a. Your quarterback or your head coach or anything like that.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, I. I appreciate every time we learn something new that I didn't know was even possible. It's the highest level. Yeah. It's the NFL. You know, let's remember that there's a lot of kids. You mentioned a lot of teams that have a lot of kids pass down to get the team. And some kids, I think, do good. Some kids, though, having this potential life that has shown them that they have zero accountability. They have it all figured out. And I'm not saying this about Brick. He's from. It sounds like, though. Shut up. Like there is a chance that he grows into this. He wants to be around so he can learn. Like, Jim Hersay tells stories about working in the equipment room whenever he was like a young teenager so that he could kind of get the feel, the lay of the land of what a football team's like. I was in the locker room whenever Ba Ba Ba broke his ankle and this whole thing, like, he tells those stories. And then he was the youngest general manager ever hired, I think, in the history of the NFL. Jim Ursay. He was like 31 or something like that. His dad hired him. Then he bought the team when he's like 36 years old or something like that for a million bucks from his dad. So it's like Jim certainly was around when he was young, but I think, like, he had this sense of like, I'm a play. He. I think he wanted to view himself as a football player as Opposed to. Brick wants to view himself as an owner. Like I'm an owner of a team because his dad is an owner of a team. And it's like, man, you're very lucky that you're born into that position. Just have a little sense of gratitude for it and awareness. And then when your time comes to actually run the team, you're going to be. You have an advantage over everybody else. That's new money into the NFL. As opposed to having a disadvantage because you've been acting like an entitled brat your entire life. Like, that is a. If I'm a Jets fan and I'm hearing this, I'm really bummed out because it's not just right now.

[Ty Schmidt]

No, no.

[Pat McAfee]

Everybody's like, woody, Woody, Woody's a problem. It's like, don't worry, there's more. There's actually a littler one that's almost sounds like he'll be around. He'll somehow find a way to live forever too. And he's not. It sounds like his dream is to run the jets forever. Gary Vee said, you know, I want to buy the Jets. I want to. Yeah, no shot.

[AJ Hawk]

He's the owner.

[Pat McAfee]

As a 17 year old brother, that ain't never happening.

[Ty Schmidt]

Well, again, we have no idea how true this is or how accurate it is because. Sorry, excuse me. Obviously a story like.

[Pat McAfee]

Sorry, you're all choked up. Yeah, talk about young man.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, exactly. Obviously a story like this is gonna like, people are gonna talk and it's gonna get. They're gonna be clicked. What are you at the still breaking it stage yet or what?

[Pat McAfee]

So what? Incredibly noisy. What are you talking about?

[Ty Schmidt]

Hey guys, trying to get. Stay. Sorry, sorry.

[Pat McAfee]

Wiz Khalifa sent me a thing for me to drink out, so I'm super healthy. Taylor gang, dude. Boom.

[AJ Hawk]

Tgod.

[Boston Connor]

What does it say? What's those side?

[Pat McAfee]

Well, you start 11am roll something. Get the day started. Okay. I don't know if that has anything to do with hydration, but I do appreciate that we're starting day 11am Wake and bake, baby. Let's keep it moving then. Obviously no time like right now. Hell yeah. Nice little reminder. 1pm no time like now. Then we go down. You'll be good. Okay. You get a little self doubt. Don't worry about it. It's about 3pm we gotta make to the end of the afternoon. What's happening tonight? You'll be good. Don't worry about it. Stay hydrated. Then 5pm let's get it dog. Let's get it here. 5pm 7pm Concentration is key. Oh, lock it in. You might be a little tired right now. Let's lock it in. Okay. 7:00pm we're nowhere near done. 9:00pm Impress yourself.

[Chuck Pagano]

Oh, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

You know, you didn't even know you could do this. Impress yourself. And then you keep going. Yeah. Yup.

[AJ Hawk]

Love that.

[Boston Connor]

What time is. Yeah, Yup.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, yup. 11:00pm okay. Yeah, yup. And then 1:00am about to level up again. Okay.

[Ty Schmidt]

Boom.

[Pat McAfee]

Cheers. Taylor gang. Taylor gang. Now, to be clear, I did not fill it all the way up because that would have been like five bottles of water.

[Ty Schmidt]

Sure.

[AJ Hawk]

It's gonna say we had to turn.

[Pat McAfee]

On an ice machine over here that was very loud and we didn't know if it would work. But I appreciate Wiz and Will looking out for my hydration levels. Will this ever happen again? I'm guessing no. I'm guessing. I don't know.

[AJ Hawk]

That's a cool.

[Pat McAfee]

Seem pretty healthy.

[Boston Connor]

You're glowing.

[Ty Schmidt]

Boom.

[AJ Hawk]

Keep going.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, I just caress myself. Yeah, I just impressed myself. This thing's 25 bucks if you want to impress yourself.

[Ty Schmidt]

That's not bad.

[Pat McAfee]

1Am about to level up again.

[AJ Hawk]

Let me grab one.

[Boston Connor]

Can we adjust the hours or just. Do you have to.

[Pat McAfee]

And nobody's really talking about. Because you guys kind of talking. Look at this thing. No one's talking.

[Ty Schmidt]

Put that on.

[Pat McAfee]

Hydrate. I'm super hydrate. Super hydrate.

[Chuck Pagano]

Hey.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Yup. Yeah. Yup. Anyways, this Brick Johnson kid, it reads.

[Ty Schmidt]

Like an Onion article. That's what I was gonna say. Like, it. It seems like it's satire. It seems incredibly fake. There's no way you would believe this. But also to kind of defend him a little bit, you could see how he gets into this position when him and I think it was his brother are reading stuff on the Internet and, like, reading in the tabloids and they take it to their dad and he instead of like vetting it or talking to someone, he takes it directly to the locker room or to the GM or to the coaches and say, hey, what's this about? What's it. Why is this the case? Or like the Madden stuff? He takes that as gospel and it's like, okay, well, we're not going to trade for Jerry Judy then, because my son's playing Madden and he said he's a 77 overall and we can't trade for that guy.

[Pat McAfee]

I'm not paying a 77 overall. He was an 84. And Jerry Judy has responded. He's come out and said that he blames Ochocinko. Because Ochocinco is the Raider for Madden wide receivers. So there's a chance that Jerry Judy could have been a Jet, but Ochocinko didn't like his break or his awareness, I guess out of his routes is what was potentially reported. Nonetheless, this happened at the highest level. And do you, jets fans, we didn't know that this was even possible.

[AJ Hawk]

No cheer for the Giants. Well, yeah, it would stake more, but at least there is.

[Pat McAfee]

But Mara at least was kind of on the right track.

[Ty Schmidt]

He was.

[AJ Hawk]

He wanted Saquon.

[Pat McAfee]

If we watch Hard Knocks.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Anyways, jets fans, it's good. It's never going to get.

[Ty Schmidt]

I mean, you look at the replies to this, the amount of people that like legit have been like, I'm jumping off. I'm done. I'm not doing this anymore.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, it's because he loves owning a team, that kid, 17 years old. And, you know, I think this happens with probably a lot of different businesses where the owner, super successful kid kind of thinks they wield power and nobody ever checks the kid, you know, ever. So then one thing leads to another, bang, bang, bang. Probably a lot of red flag moments where it's like, hey, this isn't reality. This isn't this. Boom. Nope. Boom. Because I'm thinking about this a lot for my baby girl, Mackenzie, and I assume you guys are as well. Vastly different life for my daughter than me growing up. Everything. So I'm trying to figure out, like, how do I enjoy it all while also making sure she understands, like, this is not normal for a lot of people. And it sounds like if you're a parent, you can just check out and be like, yeah, you're me reincarnated. Just act like me. Don't worry about it. Feels like that's what has happened here. And Brick can still learn, you know, this is something where he can learn from because he does pay attention to everything. I don't know if he watches our show, but if he does, like, hey, Brick, if this shit's real, you're gonna walk around someday and the kid's gonna punch you right in the face. And might not be at Harvard, but it's probably gonna, you know, like, you need. The reality needs to set in at some point and you stink. As a gm, your team is stunk since you've been kind of around. So if you want to act like an owner and a gm, let's go off a results business. Your team sucks. So maybe back off a little bit, learn and then get back into the saddle. If what is being reported is true. Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

And if it's not athletic in New York Times, like what the hell are we doing? Yeah. Like a story like this. This is absurd. And for it to be published if it's not true is just as big of a problem as if it is true.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. And we've tried to call our source to legitimize the story but work is happening so we weren't able to get a hold of anybody. We shall see tonight. Massive game. Huge. Huge AFC West. Now you want to talk about family ownership situations. Chargers had that for a little bit. That has seemingly disappeared. They bring in Jim Harbaugh. Chargers certainly have. What happened to them against the Bucks just a few days ago. Now they're taking on a red hot Broncos team who just put up 24 zip, I think in the second or 21 zip in the second half. 24 zip in the second half to the Indianapolis Colts after they were able to figure them out. And Bo Nix has obviously played better in the second half of the season than he has in the first half of the season. People are talking about him maybe being offensive rookie of the year. Nick Bonito is an absolute superstar on a defense littered with superstars because you got Patrick's return from playing out there as well. Then whenever you talk about the Los Angeles Chargers is not gone as well as off late. They were our team.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

Loved them.

[Pat McAfee]

We love that team. Still love that team going forward. But we wondered how it was going to go. They get a couple injuries. Things change. Chuck Pagano, Chargers favored by three at home on Amazon Prime. Shots per Curb Street, Al Michaels, Kaylee Harle, Carissa Thompson, Gonzalez, Fitz Witt, Sherm. What did we say? Marshawn, in your city, is he still doing those? I haven't seen those over the last couple weeks, have we?

[Ty Schmidt]

Me neither.

[Chuck Pagano]

He's been missing.

[Pat McAfee]

He has been missing.

[Chuck Pagano]

He always done a deal where he's in that city doing something.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, he's in yellow city.

[Chuck Pagano]

I couldn't turn the fridge off and you expect me to know what city is.

[Pat McAfee]

You're right. Anyways. Chargers favored by three against a Denver Broncos team. Do you think this line is because they think the Chargers got their ass beat and they're going to bounce back because they're a Jim Harbaugh person. What do you think this line is like this for? And what are you looking at this evening?

[Chuck Pagano]

I don't understand the line. When you just to your point, you look at one team last four games, Denver's four. No, these guys are one in Three, Tampa just went into their backyard and just absolutely they put 500 yards. Jesse, Minnesota, defense coordinator for the, for the Chargers. He's done a great job. This is a really good defense. Both these teams defensively only give up 17.5 points a game, which is tied for first in the NFL. But again, like I said, one and three the last four games. Denver's four zero. Denver's covered the has best against the spread ats 11 and three in the National Football League.

[Pat McAfee]

Thank you, Sean.

[Chuck Pagano]

Five, five straight you lose Dobbins. Offensively they've struggled. Chargers, Chargers have gave up 200 yards on the ground. AQ yesterday showed the run. Bucky Irvin the run. So they ran up and down the field. Mike Evans had a field day. I think it's going to be a really good defensive battle. Bo Nix, you mentioned Bo Nix, right? He's been playing better of late. Early in the year he's terrible. Then there was like a 13 game stretch where he was like 13, 14 touchdowns, only a couple interceptions. And then he's thrown five in the last two games. Bo has. So he's kind of reverted back a little bit. Colts got three interceptions off him. So a lot of. Yeah, a lot of game records in this. A lot of good defensive players. I think this will be low scoring defensive battle. Who doesn't turn the ball over?

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, is it Herbert or is it Bo Nix or is it the fumble?

[Chuck Pagano]

Herbert's only had two interceptions all year. They're first when it comes to that category.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, so you turn ball over. Seems like Herbert just obviously AFC west battle. They know each other, both teams.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, this is one of those games where if you didn't know the line, like if you had no idea whether it was Broncos or favorite or Chargers or favorite, you would just say Broncos definitely favor because they've been hotter and the Chargers have been going down. But because the line is minus three Chargers, what do you think it has to be Chargers? I forget what question Tony asked you the other day, but because of the way he asked you the question, it was like, okay, well obviously it's way more than you would think in your brain. So it's one of those situations where. All right, well it has to be Chargers then because they shouldn't be favored. Just looking at it from a 30,000 foot view, if you will.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, I think it was a spread. And he said what do you think is spread? Lions, Bears? And I said eight and a half. And he said actually it's 12 and a half or something like that.

[Boston Connor]

No seven. But you would have thought it was 12 and a half.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. I remember that. Give and take. Yeah. Because we have a little bit of a feel that these sportsbooks people are maybe time travelers maybe, you know, they can kind of give away a game. So whenever they make a massive one, it's like, okay, even they know that this game is potentially going to be bananas. And I'm not saying it always covers or it ends up exactly how they're predicting it, but them going that way. This is the classic Coach Corso. Somebody knows something and I'm with somebody and he always makes that pick. Whenever a line is a little bit strange, we shall see how it plays out. Can't wait to see who you're picking. Speaking of picking, everybody was picking off Kirk Cousins.

[Chuck Pagano]

Cool.

[Pat McAfee]

And then everybody in Atlanta was picking on Kirk Cousins. So much so that the Atlanta Falcons made a shift from a $180 million quarterback to a number eight overall pick quarterback in Michael Penck. The Atlanta Falcons still very much in this thing in the NFC South. Now, we just talked about what the Tampa Bay Buccaneers just did. The Chargers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, very hot right now. That is a very good team with a great offensive line, which is a huge piece of the whole puzzle as we get into this late season football where it matters. But in Atlanta, they're making a quarterback change and we wondered how it was going to go, you know, like, is Kirk Cousins going to go the Daniel Jones route where he's going to ask for his release even though they're paying him $130 million guaranteed over a. Allegedly with the dead cap and salary and everything like that. Listen to Michael Penix talk about Kirk Cousins and what he means to him and then think to yourself, wow, they handled this all perfectly in that quarterback room.

[Jim Irsay]

A lot like Kirk, just the way he processed, the way he speaks to the team, you know, in meetings on the field, you know, just the. The command he has, you know, to the offense, you know, getting things the way that he wanted so that, you know, he could play fast. And, you know, it's just the things he said on the huddle. You know, I was in the huddle today and walked through and like, just remember some of the stuff he did and just saying it the way he said it, you know, because, like, man, I look up to Kirk, you know, and like, Kirk, to be honest, Kirk couldn't do no wrong in my eyes. So it was like, dang when I saw him in camp, you know, leading all the way up through the season it's like he's special, like, he's doing that at this age. And he did a great job, you know, And I'm talking about getting through his progressions, making a pass to the fifth read, our fifth read, like, you don't see that a lot. You know, scoring touchdowns and doing stuff like that. It's like, dang, how's he processing the game so quickly to get to that fifth read, to make that play? You know, you're just trying to learn stuff like that and just seeing how he cancel out certain routes and stuff like that based on coverages, you know, I feel like I learned a lot of that and, you know, I'm ready to showcase it.

[Pat McAfee]

I love that that that's the way he handled that question. I also love that this tells me. And I know Michael Panick's good dude, right? Everybody watching loved him. Indiana loved him. Everybody that's ever played or met him loves him as a leader and everything like that. But I assume that whenever he was drafted number eight overall, they said, hey, you're going to the Kirk Cousins NFL quarterback University. Everything he does watch. I think you were the one that said, if you find a vet at your position, be in his back pocket. Just follow him around and see why that person has been in the NFL for that long. Even if they don't play the same style you do, see what they do that has made them play this long in the NFL. I was very lucky to do it with Adam Vitari. I was very lucky to see how he operated, how he handled his body, how he talked to people, how he handled situations, how he handled the ebbs and flows of a season, wins, losses, all those things. So whenever we talk about young quarterbacks being behind a vet, it's not just on the field if they're better than them. It's also like an ability to learn how to be a professional ball player. How do you be a franchise quarterback? Which is why, once again, Anthony Richardson getting a chance to watch Joe Flacco, we thought, could have been a nice benefit. I've always said that I wish Andrew Luck had a chance to watch Peyton Manning for one year, if Andrew Luck could have watched Peyton Manning for one year. Not that Andrew Luck wasn't ready to play quarterback his rookie year. Not that Andrew Luck wasn't phenomenal on the football field. Not that Andrew Luck wasn't a good leader. He was certainly that. But if he could have watched Peyton Manning, the way he talks in the huddle, the way he talks to his team, the way he Talks to coaches the way he talks to general managers, the way he talks to the equipment staff, the way he operates behind the scenes. How he has, like hang out in gatherings with the wide receivers in offensive line, making sure everybody feels like they're a part of it. Almost being like a politician in the locker room while also saying, I don't like this play. I would rather run this play. Like, that's the difference between college ball in professional. And you see what Patrick Mahomes got to do with Alex Smith. You see what Aaron Rodgers got to do with Brett Favre. You're seeing what Jordan Love got to do with Aaron Rodgers. You saw what Tom Brady got to do with Drew Bledsoe. Whenever you get to watch a vet operate, it's not just about on the field. I think it's off the field. And I love the. Pennix took that all in. And you know, everybody's questioning Atlanta when they made the draft pick and certainly because they made the draft pick, they had to make this move off $180 million quarterback. But it feels like it was handled in a proper way for a quarterback to mature and become a professional quarterback. I loved what Pennix just said there.

[Chuck Pagano]

Yeah, that was incredible. I mean, that's Raheem Morris credit to him and the culture that he's built down there in Atlanta at this point. Obviously it was, it was. We've seen so many players. It just blows me away. How many guys came through our building and we had those conversations early on, just to your point about, hey, find a dude. And we'd say, you're in this, you're in the lineback room, you're in the DB room. Let's go in the DB room. Darius Butler. Okay, I'm going to implore you to say, okay, just do exactly what he does on the day to day. Get a calendar out and ask him, okay, what time do you get up? Time do you go to bed, what do you do in between? How much tape, body treatment, rehab, everything. And I'm blown away. How many guys. Because this is going to help you. All right, We've got guys that are college free agents that have been in league for 10 and 12 years that weren't drafted because they followed this model and they found a dude and they figured it out. And I can give you a laundry list of dudes that we told that do that and they don't listen.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Because they have too much pride because they're, they're better than him.

[Chuck Pagano]

All the pride, all the entitlement. Yeah, I got This. I got this. I remember we used to try to go get Johnny Newsome. Could have been unbelievable. You remember him?

[Pat McAfee]

I remember Johnny. Yeah.

[Chuck Pagano]

Love Johnny Ball State, kid.

[Pat McAfee]

Right, stud.

[Chuck Pagano]

Right, stud. We're. Hey, Dequel. We're. We're good. Watching film after practice, Right? He's in the locker room. Okay, go get him.

[Pat McAfee]

Go.

[Chuck Pagano]

Tries to get him. He won't come. He's got to get a shower first. Whatever. Right. John. John Newsom could have played 10, 12 years. Cup of coffee.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Chuck Pagano]

Because he wouldn't listen.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Chuck Pagano]

But this, this is phenomenal. Raheem and his plan, they didn't want to play this kid. But out of necessity and everything else, they're sitting there at 7. 7. They're a game back. They've got the tiebreaker on the Bucs. Right. They beat him twice already. Atlanta, right?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Chuck Pagano]

So Kirk struggling like heck. Who knows why? I mean, 16 interceptions. He's had a pot full of fumbles already. He just doesn't look the same.

[Pat McAfee]

So and so, what's your point? Even bringing up Johnny Newsom? Because I've kept up with Johnny Newsom. I think whenever he gets, like, exited from the NFL because of everything you're saying, I think he locks in. He goes up to Canada and has, like, a great career. Which is why we, like, reiterate to all these young guys, like, hey, don't change when it's already. I think that's why I was so adamant about the Anthony Richardson stuff this season, because it's like, hey, bub, like, you have an opportunity. And I wasn't the only one. DeForest Buckner actually came out and he said whenever Anthony Richardson got benched, he went over and talked to him. You know, DeForest Buckner, obviously former first rounder, he doesn't have the pressure of being a franchise quarterback. He said. So I can't relate to him there, but I can relate to him about the high expectations. And then he laid out to him about, hey, not everything off the field's being met. This is what you need to do. And he said, Anthony Richardson has bought in completely. He didn't take any negativity from it, and he's kind of did it. But that's what happens whenever you get bench, and there's a little bit of perspective. Not everybody gets that opportunity. Some guys just get cut and then it's over. And then it's like, I wish I would have done that earlier. So hearing Penix do that is wonderful. Joining us now is a guy who probably has a lot of Thoughts on all of this. He's former NFL coach, down with the Dolphins. But then, then, you know, he goes to Alabama afterwards and cements his legacy as the greatest college football coach of all time. And also a man who's becoming a TV megastar through three months of television. Ladies and gentlemen, Coach Nick Saban. Yeah, Coach. Coach, I don't know if you heard.

[Charlie Baker]

You are unbelievable in your introduction.

[Pat McAfee]

No, I ain't. Shit, I don't know if you. We just had to. Hey. Highest ratings in the history of college game day. Thank you, jolly old Saint Nick Saban. Thank you, jolly old Nick Saban. And it's not just because your name, brother. You know, people show up one or two times off a name. You got to have ability and talent and you have that in spades and everything that you touch. Which is why I appreciate your friendship. Now let's get back to this. Michael Penix. I don't know if you saw the video where he laid out how he kind of watched Kirk Cousins and just said like, thank you to Kirk Cousins and now he's going to take everything he learned from him, him and he's going to try to put it on the field. Still a rookie, I assume he's going to struggle. There's going to be situations like that. But the off the field shit just as important as the on the field shit in the NFL. Do you think we're going to lose? Is there going to be a common generation with this nil stuff and everybody being superstars since they're like in high school and paid, enriched and everything? Do we think we're going to lose that, like, ability to like kind of put ego aside and be like, hey, how do I do this? Actually, I'm almost worried about that, Coach. You would know a lot better than me, I guess. Frozen gone. He don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it either. Coach, you there?

[Charlie Baker]

I'm here.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, we lost you there for a second. That's on us. Do you think there's a chance that that is going to become much less common, where people are going to be okay, kind of putting the ego aside in learning from a vet and trying to like understand that it's a different world in the NFL than maybe anywhere else that you've ever, ever been?

[Charlie Baker]

Well, I think first of all, the number one reason there's such a failure rate with quarterbacks, even guys that are very high draft picks, is they come in with great expectations. They really don't know for sure all the Things they need to do to be able to play in the National Football League, they go out there and play before they're ready, they lose their confidence, and then bad things happen. And on the other hand, when you have all the situations that you just discussed, you know, whether it was, you know, Aaron Rodgers behind Brett Favre, whatever, and these guys have a chance to learn and develop, I think they have a much better chance of being successful. And even in Michael Pennington, you know, opportunity to just spend, you know, three quarters of the season as a backup, no pressure, just learn. Learn how to be a professional, I think he has a much better chance to succeed. The guy has great ability. He's got the right mindset. He's a good guy. He's going to be a good leader in the league. So I think he has a better chance to be successful now. Is he going to be. Is it going to be instant? Maybe not, but I think a much better chance than he would have had if he'd had to come in and start right off. And, you know, you get a lot of pressure from the owners and everybody else. If you pick a guy one, two or three, you know, at quarterback, we got to play the guy well, he's not ready to play, and then bad things happen. Sometimes some guys can handle it, some guys can't. So I think there's a lot to be said about guys that learn how to be professionals and have respect for development. You know, you. You mentioned it in your case, but. And that's the one thing we're losing right now, you know, in college football, is the mindset that if I don't play right off the bat, I'm a failure, and then I want to transfer and leave. So there's never a commitment to, you know, doing the things you need to do to improve, to develop as a player. And I think that's going to carry over in the NFL as well.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, the ripple effect of not having to stare down adversity and beat it, as opposed to just run from it, is certainly going to have lasting impressions, I think, on a lot of things. Hopefully the dogs survive. You know, that that is kind of. And I'm not talking about Georgia Bulldogs, although I do believe their program is built with a lot of dogs. I'm just talking about the dogs will survive through it all, even in the new era. I believe that wholeheartedly. Rhett Lashley actually said to us yesterday, he said the days of what Nick Saban was able to do, and he complimented you. He's saying, this is A good thing where you just stack up five star recruiting class and you have a pipeline almost, which you had, obviously. And we've heard a lot of guys that have gone to Alabama come out and say that when you were recruiting them, you actually told them, like, not sure if you're going to play your first two years, but every day of practice you're going to be playing against the best people at their position in the country. So you're going to get better, you're going to get better, then when your time comes, you're going to be ready for the moment and then bang, you're going to be in the NFL. He doesn't think that's possible anymore. Because these five stars or these recruiting classes, they're not going to sit for a year or two because if they just put their name in a portal, there's a chance they're going to get $800,000, a million dollars and playing time immediately. Do you agree with that and did you think about that whenever you were thinking about retirement from coaching?

[Charlie Baker]

Well, I think it's obviously good for the players if they can make that kind of money, you know, as college players, which was, you know, never allowed. We weren't allowed to have anything prior to five years ago. But I do think on the development side of it, it is not beneficial to players. I think that when you have to go out and compete and I don't think you can be a good competitor. You mentioned it.

[Boston Connor]

It.

[Charlie Baker]

If you can't overcome adversity, I mean, that's a part of being a good competitor. I mean, I don't care what sports you're playing or when you're playing. If it's golf, if it's tennis, if it's soccer, I don't care what it is. There's going to be times when, you know you have a bad play. There's something that you have to overcome. And I think people learn to do that in the process of development and what they have to do to get better so they can compete. And you're absolutely right. You know, all I ever promised a guy was an opportunity. And I said, you're going to have an opportunity. I told Jonathan Allen, you're going to practice every day against Cam Robinson, all right? He's going to win the Outland Trophy, you're going to win the Outland Trophy, all right? But that, that's how you're going to get better. And guys bought into that because they were looking to the future. How can I develop value for my future now? Guys are looking to where can I develop value right now, today, what can I get today? So it's less about playing and being a great player and more about what can I get instantly, you know, in terms of getting in the portal or going to another school. And, you know, nobody talks about the college experience anymore. Nobody talks about graduation. You know, all these things are probably important to the future. And, you know, I actually coached 25 years ago when not very many guys graduated and there were a lot of stories, stories out there about, you know, guys that didn't do very well when they, you know, got out in the real world and they couldn't play anymore. And so I know there are people like yourself who have done extremely well and there always be cases like that. But there's going to be a lot of people that they should use their football playing opportunities to, you know, develop a career outside the game so they can have success when they can't play.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, backup plan is always good, even in post retirement. I think the these guys now are much more entrepreneurial, savvy, you know, if at least whenever it comes to like digital currency and social media and everything like that. But the whole everything else of what college ball used to be about, I think is obviously out the window. We'll talk to Charlie Baker in the next hour, actually, because I think that April 8 ruling will at least put some answers, but it's going to remain a lot more questions. You obviously heard the athletic director at Alabama when it, whenever you promise an opportunity and then said, guys are going to go to work, I guess, I guess you didn't have to spend as much money is what people are saying now. It's a little different world. They'll figure it out. They'll roll, Tad. Roll, Tad. Roll, Tad. Let's talk about the. Go ahead.

[Charlie Baker]

You know, Pat, each year it's gotten a little worse. Like, you know, the first year we had name, image and likeness four or five years ago we had a $3 million and everybody was happy. Then the next year it was 7. Then the next year it's 10. Then this year it's 13. Now they're looking at 20. I mean, where does it end? And the people who are supporting this, they really get no benefit for it. And I'm sure that there's going to be some instances in the future where those people don't want to continue to support players that aren't there. I mean, how would you feel if you gave them $500,000 to your program and it was to pay certain players and Those players all left after one year. You would say, I don't know if I'm going to continue to do this.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, it seems like a poor investment there. Whenever these people have a lot of money, they can invest in a lot of things and their money can make money. They're investing to support their school. But then whenever that money just vanishes and there's nothing, it's like, what am I even doing? I don't even go to a parking spot. I don't even get a parking spot in this entire thing. Wild, wild west. Hopefully it'll get settled. We'll talk to Charlie Baker about that. Let's move to these games tomorrow night. IU Notre Dame kicking off the 12 team playoff up in freezing ass cold South Bend, Indiana. Now, both these teams will obviously be prepared for the weather because they both live in it, practice in it every single day. So I don't think that's a storyline for this particular game. What is the storyline for this particular game, Coach, in your eyes?

[Charlie Baker]

Well, I think number one is, you know, Notre Dame has to play really good complimentary football. That's what they've done all year. They really don't blow people out. I think from Indiana standpoint is they're going to be able to have to handle the pressure that Notre Dame's defense, they pressure 46% of the time. First down, second down, third down, it doesn't matter. And they want to try to create a lot of negative plays, a lot of positive down and distance situations for the defense and then take advantage of pressuring. You're on third down. So if Indiana can't handle that, that's going to be a problem. But when people have handled it like USC did, Notre Dame struggled a little bit on defense and had to count on turnovers to be able to survive. So I think Indiana is probably better than most people think. And I think that, you know, they got a really good opportunity if they can handle the pressure on offense and keep the wet ball away from Notre Dame, who can run it probably better than they can throw it.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, I think that's a matter of fact. Riley Leonard's legs are a real threat. I mean, a real weapon. And they've kind of experienced that throughout the season. I think early in the year, all of them didn't really know what they were, including that big win over Texas A and M. I don't think Notre Dame really knew who they were. I don't think Texas A and M knew who they were. So I think they get that big win it's obviously a big deal. Then a Northern Illinois loss hits them. And if you read the Players Tribune from Riley Leonard, that was a pivotal point in his entire year. He wrote to the Notre Dame faithful. I think both these teams feel like they got a good draw, and that's why. And that's why we love it. Let's talk to this Indiana coach who is obviously a man that you and I both know very well. Go ahead, con man.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, Coach. Something Signetti said yesterday on the program was that when Indiana played Ohio State, they had to go to the silent count. And he said he's never doing that again because as soon as they found the signal for the snap, that they're basically cooked on offense. Is there a way for IU to kind of combat the noise at Notre Dame if they do have to go silent count, but. But without using the silent cow, per se? Like, how do you snap the football if they can't hear what you're saying as the quarterback and you can't use the silent count because they know what the tell is?

[Charlie Baker]

Yeah, well, you know, to me, most of these teams in the gun don't use a verbal cadence anymore. They all go on the clap. And when you get used to going on the clap and then you have to go silent where a lot of NFL teams, you know, they go silent a lot of the time, so it's not anything different for them. And they can actually go on two or leg kick and go on two. But most college teams are not adept at that. So when you try to do it, it can create huge problems. I remember when, you know, two was playing for us when we played at lsu, we went right down the field, man, right down the field. We got down there by the student section, we got like four false starts in a row because we tried to go on silent instead of clapping. And it was a damn. I mean, it was where the coach breaks his headset like that. All right. So I think if Indiana can clap in the game and they'll be much, much better off than trying to go silent just because they're not used to going silent. And it does help the defense. I mean, it's. It's. They can get off on a snap count big time. Put you to a huge disadvantage on offense.

[Pat McAfee]

Don't you love, though, my favorite thing, because Pat White used to go on clap. We used to go on clap, and then we went on a point in this whole thing. The fake clap is my favorite. Yeah, we're doing a fake clap, you know, because you're watching on tv, you're like, ah, that was a very poor fake clap. That was not. Nobody's falling for that fake clap right there. You need to go ahead and sell that a little bit more. In the NFL, they care about it a lot. Like cadence count is everything in the NFL. In college, I didn't even think about it not being a high priority. But then if you could get caught in a situation that not everybody's on the same page, you could see how that could hurt you. Sig was like, we're never, we don't have to do that.

[AJ Hawk]

Not doing it.

[Pat McAfee]

We don't have to. We're never doing that again. That's what he said yesterday. And I laughed. But I think he was being dead ass serious. I don't think he was joking around at all about it. Very important. Ty has a question for you. Coach.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, coach. Coach. When you look at a lot of these teams and this kind of goes back to what you're talking about in terms of development, but when you look at a lot of the teams in the College Football playoff, their quarterbacks are just one year guys that transferred in. And with the transfer portal now, we're seeing a lot of these teams who kind of year over year, they just go for one of these quarterbacks. And while they're still, you know, recruiting like five star guys or whatever, they're just grabbing, you know, transfer quarterbacks year after year. And the young guys are never really getting an opportunity. Do you think that's for a lot of these, like marquee blue blood teams? Do you think that's going to be the formula moving forward? Because we've seen so many of these teams in the playoff be successful kind of just getting the gun for hire year after year after year.

[Charlie Baker]

Well, it seems to be the trend right now. And I think the more people like Oregon who had success doing that with their quarterback, I think other people try to follow suit. But you can look at other programs who did that, like Florida State this year, and it didn't work out so well and you really got a problem on your hands. And, you know, I think the big thing in all this that people have to understand is where this is going to have a little bit of an effect on, you know, parity is the fact that just like in Alabama at Georgia, I think Kirby's going through the same thing. You don't usually lose your frontline players. You recruit a five star guy and you're able to recruit really, really well, which Georgia done. Alabama did the whole time. I Was there. We always had really good luck in recruiting. Yeah, luck. You lose the next guy. Okay, so you have this five star guy who thinks he should be playing. He doesn't play that much when he's a freshman. Like Marlon Humphrey didn't play when he was a freshman, but he was glad to develop and then become a great player. Playing on special teams as a freshman, learn how to play on special teams. Now became a great corner. That doesn't happen anymore in this day and age. Marlon Humphreys TRANSFER and so you don't have that next next best guy to come in and you have all these holes on your roster and the lack of depth, which I think is something that people really don't look at or understand because you don't lose your frontline guys, you lose the next guys, which affects the depth of your team. And if you're really going to play in a tough conference, you got to play a lot of tough games. Even though I think, you know, we talked about teams that had great schedules not getting in the playoffs, but the teams that played the best schedules are going to have the best chance to be successful in the playoffs because they're used to playing against good competition.

[Pat McAfee]

You talked about, you know, the depth of a team. That is where special teams comes into play, you know, so you think about what happened with Indiana, Ohio State in that particular game. Now punter obviously drop snap, that can happen to anybody. Obviously just a lack of concentration that'll get fixed going forward. But then a punt return. You got Caleb Downs returning against your second third string linebacker at Indiana when they had to bring in and how many transfer portal guys into this year. Like that's where it kind of gets exposed to. So in these college football playoffs that can certainly be a pivotal point in all of it. The depth of a team. The depth of a team. Let's talk about a game happening up there in Happy Valley. Go ahead, Tone.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, coach. We all know that you love defending the athletic quarterbacks who love to scramble and make plays. Penn State hasn't really had to play an athletic quarterback like they're going to face in Kevin Jennings of SMU this weekend. How do you think Penn State prepares for that if they haven't seen it yet this year? Because I mean, I know you can put a wide out there in practice and stuff like that, but obviously that's not the quarterback. How, how do you do go about it?

[Charlie Baker]

Well, I think first of all, it depends on style of play. You know, one of the reasons that we always had difficulty is we Played a lot of match coverage. All right. So we had more people turning. Even when we played zone, we matched up zone. So you have people matching patterns all the time, so they're not always looking at the quarterback and then the guy scrambles and you don't get that immediate, you know, sort of break on the ball. I think Penn State plays a lot of zone. I think the big thing that they're probably emphasizing with their players. I love Kevin Jennings as a player, but his ball security is not what it needs to be, you know, and he's turned the ball over, and when he turns the ball over, they have issues and problems. And I'll bet you that Penn State is saying, we're going to knock the ball off this guy. We're going to knock the ball out of his hand when he has one hand on the ball, even when he runs it. So I don't think you stop a guy like that. I think you got. You got to make this guy beat you throwing it, which I think he's a good thrower. I think the conditions probably will affect SMU a lot more than they're going to affect Penn State. I mean, throwing a cold ball, catching a ball, holding on to a ball when it's cold and you're not used to it is a lot different. So I think Penn State's going to try to knock the ball off this guy and create a lot of turnovers in the game.

[Pat McAfee]

How do you feel like the cold is going to affect you tomorrow? You got a face warmer? You ready for this?

[Charlie Baker]

I'm concerned. I was actually going to get some coaching points from you.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, just comment.

[Charlie Baker]

That one comment that I wanted to make about what you were talking about depth on a team and special teams.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Charlie Baker]

You know, Don James, who I'm sure Chuck remembers, maybe some of you young bucks don't. Was my college coach, great coach at Washington. He used to always tell us, your team is going to be as good as the last 40 guys on the roster because of exactly what you're talking about and how it affects special teams and how it affects depth on your team.

[Pat McAfee]

I mean, Caleb Downs, run that punt back for Ohio State. You just think like, oh, this is. Is the most expensive guy on the field in the modern world that we're in. The most athletic guy on this field, the highest football IQ guy on this field, and probably the guy with the best burst. And then you're just watching run around. It's like, no shit. Ryan Day was like, yup, let's go ahead and do that especially for Indiana team that is literally trying to build right now. So the second half of that roster is still Indiana football team that didn't exist in the state of Indiana. And Ryan, that was good, Coach. Nobody talks about that out of Ryan Day. Oh, no, that was a good coaching move. That was a good. We could take advantage of this situation right here. And he certainly did it. My advice to you, coaching tips, feet and hands. Let's not get do super fashionable boot shit on the feet. Let's keep the feet warm. It's under that desk anyways. You don't need the good looking boots. Just keep that shit warm. That is the biggest thing.

[Charlie Baker]

All right, coach, I got you. I got you.

[Pat McAfee]

If I see some high fashion on your feet tomorrow, I'm gonna tell you, you deserve whatever's coming because that's where it gets you. It starts in your toes and then it works its way up your soul and then all of a sudden it's over.

[AJ Hawk]

Gotcha.

[Pat McAfee]

That's what you need. That's what you need, coach.

[Charlie Baker]

Well, when I coached at the Cleveland Browns in that stadium, the old stadium was right on Lake Erie and that wind used to blow through there. I know another place where it can hit you and go right through your soul, too.

[Pat McAfee]

I can't wait to see you tomorrow. You're the man, ladies and gentlemen, the goat. Coach, statement. Thank you. He's right. He's right. Yeah. Four hours tomorrow in South Bend. Three hours in Columbus on Saturday morning. Gonna be cold.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, gonna be cold.

[Pat McAfee]

That's what we live for, though. That's football weather. It's the most meaningful football all season. What's up, y'all? It's Joe Button here to talk about prize picks. Football season is heating up and Prizepix is the best place to get real money sports action while watching football. With over 10 million members and billions of dollars in awarded winnings, Prizepix has made daily fantasy sports accessible to all. The app is really simple to use. Pick two or more players across any sport, pick more or less on their projections, and you could win real cash on your lineup. Prizepix even invented the Flex play so you can still cash out if one of your picks doesn't hit. On Prizepix, you can mix and match players from different sports. Real money sports action while watching football. Download the Prizepix daily fantasy app today and use code TPMS and get $50 instantly when you play $5. That's code TPMS on prizepix to get $50 instantly when you play$5. You don't even need to win to receive the 50 bonus. It's guaranteed. Prize picks run. Your game must be present in certain states. Visit prizepix.com for restrictions and details. Some people are just really good at gift giving. Those people use Omaha steaks. Hey, it's ESPN's Jen Latta. Even the person who has everything still needs to eat. That's why a gift from Omaha Steaks is a great option this giving season. Omaha Steaks delivers comfort and joy with perfection in every bite. And you can save 50% site wide plus an extra $30 off with the promo code TPMS. When you go to Omaha steaks.com they bring more than a century of family owned experience to your table and mine and right to your door and your loved ones doors. It couldn't be easier. From legendary steaks to mouth watering desserts and more, you can save 50% off site wide for a limited time at Omaha Steaks.com plus our listeners get an extra $30 off with the promo code TPMS. That's 50% off at OmahaSteaks.com and an extra $30 off with the Promo Code TPMS. Minimum purchase may apply. Omaha Steaks has you covered this holiday season. Football is launching its 6 16th weekend of the NFL season this evening as the Chargers in Broncos battle in an AFC west clash that'll be on Amazon prime that we will certainly be paying attention to in about 15 minutes or so. The president of the NCAA, only the sixth president in the history of the NCAA will be joining us for a conversation about everything happening sports. I've had the opportunity to listen to this man speak up at ESPN during the college football conference. There was a lot of speakers, a lot them monotonous.

[AJ Hawk]

Sure can see that.

[Pat McAfee]

But had to get all the information out. I think everybody had to cover their ass. Had to make sure they knew that this is how we feel. When he sat down I thought he was fantastic. I think he acknowledged all the situations that the NCAA is currently in. I think he understands what college football and other college sports are currently in the middle of in his transition era. I think he was over in D.C. just a couple days answering some questions about gambling for college ball, also sports in general and then everything taking place with this April 8th ruling. So I cannot wait to talk to him. And I, I think Charlie Baker, he's former governor I believe.

[AJ Hawk]

Oh yeah, one of the best in Massachusetts history.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, so I assume there's a bunch of people that don't believe that because that's how politics Is sure I will say as a guy who is a sports guy, I think his kids both play ball. I think so he's grown up in sports and a politician, you think, well, this guy could probably talk. Not all politicians can anymore. Which I thought was requiring for the job. That's wild to me that that is kind of taking place in your guys world. I don't pay attention enough. People will pop into my algorithm as a politician and speak and I'm like this person can't even talk. What do we. I thought that was all politicians do. I thought that is kind of what you were a part of. This guy. Good. Cannot wait. Seemed to be very transparent as well. Whenever he was at the ESPN thing, I paid attention to it. I was taking notes on my phone. I don't know if he thought I was on my phone or if I was paying attention. But I'm excited to get him in here so he has to, you know, answer questions from just sports stooges and hopefully we'll get some good stuff. The talks to tables here at Boston Connor and at Ty Schmidt. One half of the hammer done Cowboys AP. Tony's here. 36 year coach in football, 18 in college, 18 in the NFL. Chuck Pagola this year. How you doing, coach?

[Chuck Pagano]

Doing great.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, you got a bobblehead in front of you. Mcdc, are you worried about this Lions team? How do you feel about the Lions team?

[Chuck Pagano]

You know, after him coming out and listening to his last, last deal. I mean you gotta, you gotta love that. I think we'd all take that same approach and. But yeah, I mean you look at that list and you'd say, okay, we're just gonna outscore, right? But then you lose David Montgomery and you take a hit on offense. God, if they can, if they can overcome all this, my God.

[Pat McAfee]

Coach of the year. No questions.

[Chuck Pagano]

Give it to him for the next five years.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, just let it carry over. Hey, we're giving MCDC the coach of the year because remember two years ago, 20, 24 season, he had nobody on his team and they won. Somehow I think the Detroit Lions fans are kind of coming back down to reality on what this season might be. Yeah, definitely on Monday. I was really bummed out. But to coach's point, when I heard mcdc talk about moldy bread and steaks, I thought, yeah, we can win a Super bowl again. I was all the way back. But then it's just so much. It's. It's going to be really tough. So this is what we learned from the hard knocks. Whenever we hear Mike Thompson and we hear these coaches talk. It's like, how does the coach get everybody's mind going in the right direction no matter how the season's going? I think Stefanski was like, you want to make the playoffs? Congrats. The next four games are all playoff teams. We are in the playoffs. Like to get your team to buy into a message, even if it's after a very, very bad time. That is the job of a head coach. Mcdc obviously has that ability, and all the great ones do, and some of the crop coaches don't. That's why whenever the grit chip and then the Belgian pretzel or the German pretzel and all these other things, it's because Chuck digs deep to get his message across, which is what all these guys do. A lot of people read books, motivation, inspiration, watch movies. How do we get our message across to get everybody to keep going? Mcdc is clearly great at it, and the boys show up for him no matter who it is.

[Chuck Pagano]

No doubt. No doubt. That was.

[Pat McAfee]

Your messaging. Was awesome. Always. Well, appreciate you were worthy of a watch.

[Chuck Pagano]

I. That means a lot.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Chuck Pagano]

Appreciate that.

[Pat McAfee]

And I did watch. You know that. And I paid attention. Yeah. I enjoy watching people public speak. You know, I like, no matter what it is, if somebody's public speaking or publicly doing something and they're trying to, you know, kind of get something across, how they go about doing it, I'm intrigued by. I always have been. And so I.

[Chuck Pagano]

You were one of the guys that I knew was listening.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Chuck Pagano]

And watching.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jim Irsay]

And.

[Chuck Pagano]

And as a coach, you get deathly afraid of coming in there with some bullshit because you know that that dude right there wears jersey number one is gonna call you out on that. And coach, one second, please. Just based on what you just. I'm not sure.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. So I. I think. I think you need that.

[Chuck Pagano]

But I was scared to death of that with.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, good.

[Chuck Pagano]

Because we had guys that cared in there that were smart dudes, and. And you can't bullshit them and is another guy.

[Pat McAfee]

Debut is another guy. I mean.

[Chuck Pagano]

No, you could. I mean, all you got to do is start talking. Right. And then you just start reading that room just like we're doing on Hard Knocks right now in season. And you're looking at the coach and then they're spanning the room. Right. And you can tell who's in. Just body language.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Chuck Pagano]

Like, if they're picking up what they're putting down, if they're engaged, if they're listening. If, like. Okay. Like. Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

And that's why Rich Rodriguez said, sit your ass up, McAfee. And with that being said, I did. I do. I like to pay attention and learn. I'm a listener because I'm not that good of a reader. So if I hear it normally, it's going to stick and stay. A lot of your messages stick and stay to this day. So I think you've done a fantastic job, although not all coaches have. Joining us now is another man I think was listening in those meetings.

[AJ Hawk]

Yep.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Thoroughly.

[Chuck Pagano]

Yes.

[Pat McAfee]

Did you hear what Big Mike. Blood ball. No, what is it?

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Blood ball. Yeah. Obviously that is why that even exists in the Aaron and AJ World. He's college football national champion, super bowl champion, Ryder cup winner. Ladies and gentlemen, A.J. hawk. Hey, that felt pretty good right there. To hear a coach say, hey, I was scared to death walking into those rooms knowing that you were listening. I appreciate it.

[Tony Khan]

Yeah, I never thought of that. Yeah. When I was sitting there as a player, you think, hey, it's a coach. It's like a teacher in school. Like, whatever they say, they know what's going on, they know what's right. Like, I definitely, when I was young, I thought that all the time. And then as I got older, I started paying a little bit more of attention and tried to say, are they trying to slide something past us here and try to fool us a little bit?

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, it's the same message as four weeks ago. All right, all right, back to the fucking drawing board, Bob. Come on. Going to need a little bit more sauce there. I enjoy how, you know, motivators go about doing what they do because it's not easy giving a speech. Not easy how to get everybody to listen. Not easy. Especially with how diverse a locker room is. You got to be able to reach the richest of rich kids, which we're going to talk about in a moment. And then you're talking about kids that are coming from areas of absolutely nothing. And you have to be able to reach everybody and get everybody going on the same page. That's why it's so hard to be a head coach. Could you imagine how hard it would be to be a head Coach if a 17 year old son of your owner was walking in handing out game balls before you even get a chance to speak and, and criticizing and chastising professional athletes? Because obviously he knows best. This report out of the Athletic. And once again, I think we should commend. You know, everybody talks about Aaron Rodgers coming on the show. We knew nothing about any of this.

[AJ Hawk]

No, nothing.

[Pat McAfee]

And Aaron Would never want this out because he wants the best for the team. But if these reports are true, aj, this is baffling. And I would have loved to be on a Jets team one time. I would have absolutely. What Chuck just said about the way that whole thing. I would have loved to be able to stir the pot. Attababy, Brick. You know, Brick crushing it. Brick. Attababy, Brick. The amount of those that I would have been sending in from the back of the locker room would have been next level. But this is a wild thing. And this is the highest level. Age. This is the highest level.

[Tony Khan]

Yeah, Yeah. I think we. You start to understand why it might be so tough to be a head coach there at the moment. Like, what do you. If you're Robert Sala and he's dealing with all this stuff from the top, and then all of a sudden you're Jeff Albrick and you're the interim head coach, like, how do you. You can't tell the owner's son, hey, man, now, like, I got to speak to the team before you give a game ball out. When it says a profanity laced situation. Like, I was. I mean, I know he wasn't in the studio for a little bit.

[Pat McAfee]

And then how did Brick describe Garrett Wilson's game?

[Ty Schmidt]

Garrett went mad. Dummy. Yeah.

[Tony Khan]

Unfortunately, Ty is probably very close.

[Pat McAfee]

Yes, we know. That's why we did it, you know, because up in that area, Deerfield Academy, obviously, Connor knows the area, Know that world. Ty went to a private school or a Catholic school, I believe, so he knows that world. And then we've all seen these types of characters on movies, and we hope it's not actually real. Like, hey, the entitled kid who died has no idea. He thinks that he actually hit the triple, you know, had no idea that he was literally born there. Nobody's ever told him, hey, shut up. Nobody in the history of anything. So he could just waltz around and run a team. It's like, that's not his fault, I guess, because he's been able to get away with it. But if I was just brought into that team and I saw it happening, that'd be hard to take serious.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

And it'd be hard to stay committed to wanting to win for that particular particular team. It'd be hard to want to do extra stuff. It's like, so whenever you start piecing these little things together, it's like, well, why does this team ever win? It's like, I think there's a lot of people that think your team's a joke. That are probably in the team. And that's never a good thing for people to feel like if they're on a team. I'm working for a joke. This is a joke. I report to a teenager.

[Ty Schmidt]

The last line of that paragraph said one of the players said, like it was one of the most brutal, cringe worthy experiences ever.

[Chuck Pagano]

Can you imagine how I mean, awkward, uncomfortable, like.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, but see, that's why I wish that I was in that would. And not just me. There's a lot of people like me that are listeners and can have a pretty good sense of room. Have a pretty good sense of room and when and how. Yeah, like somebody needs. But then you're cut probably the next day.

[Ty Schmidt]

You can't say anything.

[Pat McAfee]

And then Madden score is dropped immediately afterwards is what he's getting a call. This guy's awareness is zero. Yell at my kid. Guy owns a team next 20 years. Why you think this guy's awareness is high? I don't think so. I. I can't wait to ask Aaron about this. And granted, no, we don't have a show next Tuesday. And I told him on Tuesday. I'll see you next week. We will not see him next week.

[AJ Hawk]

Not Monday.

[Pat McAfee]

Maybe Monday.

[AJ Hawk]

I mean, maybe Monday.

[Pat McAfee]

Maybe we'll try to slide that over to Monday.

[AJ Hawk]

You can see in the photo that Brick did post, though, two players in the background. And you can kind of. You can kind of get a read on what the feeling was. If we can pull that back up.

[Pat McAfee]

75,000 a year, Deerfield Academy, right? If we.

[AJ Hawk]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Boston Connor]

He hit those two with the door when he kicked in the locker room door and said, game ball, y'all.

[AJ Hawk]

I mean, like, you can see Brick. You can see back left. I mean, front, middle.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, my God. I did not see this photo before we went live. Nailed the costume. Oh, yeah, we knew. Rich white kid, fine, nominess, entitled, white kid, hair, perfect.

[Ty Schmidt]

Perfectly qualified.

[Pat McAfee]

I mean, we knew exactly what this was gonna look like. What? He's standing in front of Brick. Brick's traps are like. Like, the hell is this kid about to give me the game ball? I. I think that is what Coach Brick is probably wondering. Like, this is very kind. My first ever win. I'm getting it from a teenager. This is. This is a really cool thing. This is the future. You know, maybe I do have a head coaching job here. And then he says, Garrett went mad. Dummy.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yo, let's go. Clap it up.

[Pat McAfee]

Man.

[Tony Khan]

I hope there's footage.

[Boston Connor]

There's gotta be footage.

[Pat McAfee]

One jets drive. Put it out and remember, they're very good at putting out stuff because remember when Robert Sala and Aaron Rodgers had that interaction, and the whole world was speculating that they hated each other and everything. And then there was a hug, literally 20, 30 minutes after that in a tunnel that nobody could see but the jets social media team, but the jets digital media team. And they had it in 8K. Perfect. And they could have just put that out, you know, to kind of put the fire out of what everybody's saying. They chose to hold that thing on and say, wait till we release this two weeks from now. Yeah, it's going to be a big thing. So there has to be footage of this team celebration in the locker room, and Brick Johnson just walking right in.

[AJ Hawk]

The middle, just like me.

[Tony Khan]

Respect the confidence.

[Pat McAfee]

He standing right in front of Coach Brick with a ball right in front of him. Hey, shut the up. You want to be the head coach full time or not? I'm making. That's what I thought. Oh, geez Louise. This kid's gonna get punched in the face someday. Don't think it has ever happened. No. Very evident. But, like, this could be a turning point.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

You know, this could be a turning point.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, that's normally how it works.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, maybe.

[Pat McAfee]

Yep.

[AJ Hawk]

Or he'll just be the owner of.

[Pat McAfee]

The jets for 50, 60 years, till he's 77, and then guess what? Little brick two.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, brick. Brick the second.

[Pat McAfee]

Definitely be brick squared. Yeah.

[Chuck Pagano]

What if you're one of the guys that they're interviewing? You know, future gm, future head coach there. I mean, this comes out. Now are these questions like, okay, where do. Where do I fall in line?

[Pat McAfee]

Where does that thing. What is that thing doing?

[Ty Schmidt]

I mean, he's leading.

[Tony Khan]

Moving forward.

[Chuck Pagano]

In the interview, can I expect.

[Pat McAfee]

Break.

[Chuck Pagano]

What can I expect?

[Boston Connor]

Rabel flicks his cigarette and then puts it out on his forehead and says, that's how that's gonna go.

[Pat McAfee]

I mean, let me tell you a little story. You can't even buy me Zins, kid. Get the hell out of my face.

[AJ Hawk]

If Brick wins his fantasy football league, he's going to be the gm.

[Boston Connor]

Oh, win.

[Pat McAfee]

He's gonna actually get a little. They're gonna. They're gonna make him one of them rings. The super bowl ring. Woody is gonna make a Super bowl ring for Brick if he wins his fantasy football. But he doesn't do fantasy football. He does actual football.

[AJ Hawk]

That's true.

[Pat McAfee]

That's kind of what the report was saying. Wow.

[Tony Khan]

Do you think we didn't know how players feel? Like, did players feel like, like, like you naturally would do. You would gas him up if you saw this happening in the locker room. But did players feel like, hey, I can't do this because this dude legit has the power to get me cut right away.

[Pat McAfee]

Definitely. And this is the thing where you have the power and then you abuse it in front of people and then nobody can really do anything. And it's just a different fashion of doing that. You're stealing a moment. Yada, yada, yada. You can, because you're the owner's kid and nobody's ever told you shut the fuck up. Which should have happened a lot of times in your life. It appears so. So. No, but I would like to say, and this is, you know, I wish I would have reacted the same way in a situation. Situation. If I was in there. It would have been impossible for me to keep my mouth shut if that kid's talking. Impossible. There would have been something coming and a baby and then probably a brick, brick, brick, brick. I probably would have started a full on.

[Boston Connor]

He would have thought that was J.

[Pat McAfee]

For sure. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. But we would have have all been having our moment, you know, on with this. Yeah. I mean, it would have been impossible not to do. Yeah, he would have been. Yeah. Yeah. Me, me, me, me. All right, Big game tonight. Chargers, Broncos. AJ and once we get your thought on how this game is going to go, we're about to have a conversation with a. A president of the NCAA that I think a lot of people are going to be listening closely to to, because there's a lot going on in the college world. What do you think happens tonight? Broncos Chargers. Age.

[Tony Khan]

Well, I heard Chuck talking about it earlier. Chuck thinks it's going to be a low scoring. I tend to think that as well. The over. Under 41 and a half. I don't, I don't like taking unders, but that might be a safe bet on this guy. But yeah, man, I, I like this, this Broncos defense a lot. So I hope for. I look for them too. I know Herbert doesn't throw many interceptions at all, but this Broncos team does a good job trying to get the ball. So I want them to. I think they're going to get after Herbert pretty, pretty good.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. And obviously Nick Bonito is like Ed Reed out here. Came out of nowhere. AD Mitchell said afterwards, I executed the play and then 15 became Ed Reed. I don't know what you want from me, all right? I. He told me if I didn't. Didn't like it, I could throw it away. But did you see him from my perspective? Loved it. Couldn't have seen. And if you do look at it back from his perspective. There's guy in face and also Benito is kind of, you know, Ed Reed and Ryan you know, kind of of disguise and hiding in the crowd and then boom, out of nowhere. That's a pick six. But it's called a fumble. And speaking of fumble, this all came after Jonathan Taylor dropped the ball half yard before he got in the end zone after a 40 yard run. Just remember this, this could be a moment all the Colts learned from Colts are still in it.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, they are lurking.

[AJ Hawk]

They're lurking.

[Pat McAfee]

Colts are still lurking. All right, ladies and gentlemen, it is time for us to do something that is very important for the sport sports world. Not often do we get to say this. This guy is phenomenal at his job. He holds a lot of power. The sixth president of the ncaa, Charlie Baker.

[AJ Hawk]

House.

[Ty Schmidt]

Is that a replica?

[Pat McAfee]

Six five, six five right now.

[Charlie Baker]

Hey, how are you?

[AJ Hawk]

Nice to see you.

[Ty Schmidt]

How you doing?

[Pat McAfee]

We won, boys.

[Boston Connor]

Pleasure.

[Pat McAfee]

Is that age? We did it. Age. We did it.

[Tony Khan]

What is it?

[Boston Connor]

Oh, we won it's championship.

[AJ Hawk]

Holy, look at us.

[Tony Khan]

We've arrived.

[AJ Hawk]

Only one, huh?

[Pat McAfee]

And we thought it was a team. Mr. Baker, thank you.

[Darius Butler]

We'll take care of that.

[Pat McAfee]

All right. Okay.

[Darius Butler]

We got, we got seven trophies guy there. We'll take care of it.

[Pat McAfee]

Make a bunch of fake Fugaz trophies for you anytime you need. Great. Mr. Baker, thank you so much.

[AJ Hawk]

Oh yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Chuck. No. Anybody ever call you Chuck?

[Darius Butler]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Friends, family, friends. All right, so Chuck, I consider us friends. We appreciate you stopping by. Obviously the NCAA headquarters are here in Indianapolis, Indiana. But you go a lot of work. How do you feel about the current state of the ncaa if we watch that men's soccer national championship the other night, Vermont scores a golden goal game winner. Place goes crazy. Feels like college sports is alive and well right now. Do you agree with that?

[Darius Butler]

I think college sports on the field of play is. And, and obviously part of the reason I took the job was because I played. My wife played. My wife was the best athlete in the family. She was a gymnast at Northwestern.

[Pat McAfee]

She does the triple whoopty woosh. Wow.

[Darius Butler]

Well, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

And you run and do though.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yep.

[Pat McAfee]

That'S what they do. Those are impossible.

[Darius Butler]

Pretty much the same way she described it to me too.

[Pat McAfee]

You should give it a go.

[Darius Butler]

The, the boys played football. I mean I, I love, I love what college sports does for people. I really do. And does for kids, does for fans and, and the game on the field is, I think, as enjoyable and as exciting as it's ever been. And I've been to D3 championships, D2 championships, FCS football championships, obviously tons of basketball. And I think it's incredibly exciting on the field. And I think the state of the game there is actually quite high. But there's a ton of other stuff going on that I knew walking in the door was going to be a challenge. And we're basically in the process of trying to put a new set of pieces together is the way I would describe it.

[Pat McAfee]

I want to get into that, but at first, I think we got to explain why you're kind of unique, uniquely qualified to be the guy in the role that you're in right now. You come from the political world, right? You were.

[Darius Butler]

I was a healthcare guy and a government guy.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. So in sports guy, obviously, playing sports guy, sports guy, growing up your entire life. But your political, I think, is the most important part of this because we got a ruling coming from a judge. But then we also got a lot of different things that need to get figured out and worked almost right. There's yes votes, no votes for everything. What do you think is the biggest issue in, obviously, in the college football world right now? The chaos is around the transfer portal, then College Football Playoff, and then there's no calendar. Really. When can you do what. What do you think is the biggest issue that's going to get settled first? And then what are the outliers, you think that are going to remain?

[Darius Butler]

Well, I'm obviously going to go with the settlement, because the settlement.

[Pat McAfee]

April 8, right?

[Darius Butler]

April 8. We got preliminary approval in October from Judge Wilcox that is going to make it possible for what we call institutional nil to begin at the start of the next calendar year, which is 7:1 for academics and sports. And I think that is going to be the first time schools will be given the opportunity to own the relationship academically, athletically, and financially with their student athletes. And I think part of the chaos of the last few years is schools have sort of been cut out of that. The collectives, for the most part, drive the train there and from where I sit, until you give the schools back their primary relationship with student athletes so the kids can make an investment in schools and schools can make an investment in them. I think it's going to be really hard to control some of the chaos that people talk about and see that's going on out there.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. And obviously the chaos is the poaching and people reaching out to players, agents and saying hey, if you get in the transfer portal, we'll pay you 750,000. So kids who weren't thinking about getting the transfer portal, hop in there. Now that was a collective. Is that a real contract or not? How often have you heard about guys maybe agreeing to deals and them not getting paid? And these school deals that are going to come, are those going to be like multiple year guarantee guarantee deals, like ironclad, like can't get out if it happens. Like, well, how do you make the deals kind of become real for both sides?

[Darius Butler]

Well, first of all, the way the settlement works, remember this is being driven through a court process. So there's kind of an overhang on this that's called a court monitor who will be appointed by the judge, the plaintiff attorneys will continue to be involved to make sure the thing works the way it's supposed to. And because of the way the institutional nil piece will be set up, you know, a deal won't be a deal until it actually gets approved. And the first thing I thought of when I thought of the settlement was the debate argument, conflict between the quarterback at Nevada and Nevada over what happened. And there was a whole bunch of back. Was he promised something? Was he what promised something? What was the story there? Because of the fact that this was third parties. The difference here is you're going to have process transparency and accountability which you don't have now. And a deal won't be real until it actually goes through the cap calculator and gets signed. Same thing with respect to the. Any third party deal is going to have to go through a clearinghouse and get approved. And until that happens, it's not real.

[Pat McAfee]

No offense to people that have been in, in politics or in any bureaucracy.

[Darius Butler]

I've been in a few of those.

[Pat McAfee]

Yes. Uniquely qualified. So these deals getting approved, how does that, how long does that. That's a massive.

[Darius Butler]

That's going to be one of these. It's going to be one of these.

[Chuck Pagano]

It will be.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Because then, you know, because if there's a hold up on that, then obviously there's ways for everything else. And then the nil piece.

[Darius Butler]

Yep.

[Pat McAfee]

It has to get approved the deals and then they have to be what, comp prices too. So people can't just be throwing ridiculous numbers out. So are we going to get a market we think too, that comes alongside of this rev share?

[Darius Butler]

I think we will get a market that goes alongside the rev share. Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay.

[Darius Butler]

And that's going to be important.

[Pat McAfee]

Very important. Yeah. Because one school offers this. They have no Idea that this school is offering this and then they're making up numbers that are getting offered.

[Darius Butler]

The question you're asking right now, which is a great question, is currently being discussed, which is how do you figure out what information is available to who, when? But the most important thing here is there's a general acceptance and understanding across D1, which is where this activity is going to take place. That there's going to be a mechanism you have to submit your contract into.

[Pat McAfee]

And get it approved, legit, legitimizes everything.

[Darius Butler]

Like that's overseen by a court process.

[Pat McAfee]

Now are those one year deals, two year deals?

[Darius Butler]

I think it's going to be a little bit abundant. I think it's going to depend to some extent on what the young person's looking for, what the school's looking for. And at least again, once the thing, for the thing to get through, they'll both have to agree to it. And then when it gets approved, there's no more debate about what it is or what it says or what it does. And I think part of what the biggest problem we have now is so much of this is happening through multiple parties. You know, when people talk about third parties, you have a lot of situations that I've been made aware of where there are multiple people who are involved. There are family members, there are friends, there are agents, sometimes real agents, sometimes people who are playing the role of an agent. Maybe watch Entourage first time. Entourage, yeah, got it, got it, got it. Turtle E. This is going to be a lot cleaner than that and a lot more, I think, systemic and, and I think the schools, generally speaking, are going to want to do this in what I would describe as a, as a way that ensures that the word that gets out there on the market, the fields of, you know, kids in high schools and, and programs all over the place that the school, these schools, the school is doing it the right way.

[Pat McAfee]

Got it. Okay, so. So another big question that's happening and I'm happy that's all getting taken place.

[Darius Butler]

That, by the way, is all theoretically effective. If we get the approval on April 8, starts with the academic calendar on 7:1.

[Pat McAfee]

And you said pre approval on October.

[Darius Butler]

We got that already.

[Pat McAfee]

So what does that mean? The judge said, you know what, first glance, like it, don't love it yet.

[Darius Butler]

But actually the second glance, didn't like it so much on the first glance. Sent us back to the drawing board and we came back with a second submission and, and she on the second glance said, by the way, this judge has been involved in these cases for a decade. She is considered to be kind of the. This is like her issue. And that to some extent, having her as the. As the final arbiter here is, from the point of view of a lot of people, a really good thing.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. So she gets a second look at it and says, in theory, I like this. So then you're able to basically tell your constituents it's all.

[Darius Butler]

It's all contingent, which is kind of a drag. Right. People are.

[Pat McAfee]

We're.

[Darius Butler]

We're busy building infrastructure to deal with this. The schools are busy doing it because we're all assuming it's going to get approved.

[Pat McAfee]

Got it. But what if she just wakes up on April 8 and reads the finer details and says, you thought I was going to pass this? No way. Then obviously we remain in the KOS and we'll try to get another bill passed or another thing to get approved.

[Darius Butler]

That's. That's theoretically possible. But I kind of hope that she wouldn't have given us the approval if she wasn't planning to.

[Pat McAfee]

Your honor, we appreciate you. We appreciate you, your honor, all your hard work and your pre approval in October, because everybody's preparing for it. Okay, so we'll have a market for nil. The schools will be dealing with. It feels like it'll be real deals, and there'll be a relationship back between coaches, school and players, as opposed to the coach saying, I like this player. Then an nil collective saying, this is how much we value. And then the coach having. Having to hear about it and then this person going out. So that feels like that settles some of the situations. Now let's talk about the other one that's happening right now. This transfer portal window. We have a. We have a graphic, a timeline. Basically, you know, the start of football season is in August. Conference championships are in December 16th. So obviously we find out who goes in a College Football Playoff. December 9th is during bowl game season. Here. December 9th is when the transfer portal opens. Then transfer reportal closes this first one on the 28th. The CFP teams are currently in the middle of preparing for the biggest game of their lives, while their players are also having to figure out whether or not they're going to be on the team next year, negotiate deals. Coaches are having to re recruit their team before having to play in a playoff game, which is. I thought we were all about. And then there's a chance potentially, guys sign and pay a new deal during this transfer portal window. And then guys go through the spring, and then in the second transfer portal window, April 16 through April 25, they decide to bail. So is there any possibility of moving the transfer portal windows? Because I know that academics matter and enrolling in semesters is a massive piece, I think you have said, and maybe others have said of why these transfer portal windows are when they are. Is there a thought of putting together a calendar like the NFL has, like, hey, this is draft season. This is free agency. This is spring. This is this. Is there a thought to doing that for football? Or is it even possible to do that because of the academics that come alongside?

[Darius Butler]

I mean, the one * I would put to your chart is if you're playing in a bowl game or you're playing in the cfp, the window doesn't close for you until you finish. You have five days after your bowl game ends or your, or you, or your team loses. The transfer portal is available to you then part of, you know, the leftovers.

[Pat McAfee]

I'm not saying that.

[Darius Butler]

No, that.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, I did just say that.

[Darius Butler]

Think about the fact why these kids play on really good teams. I'm not really sure anybody would think of them that way. But the, no, no. The kids in the pressure that's coming is the, the window is part of it. But what's really driving it is the stuff you were talking about, which is the other folks trying to get kids early and the kids being told basically, if you don't come early, there's not going to be a spot for you. And you know, people have worked really, you know, the NCAA, colleges, big time college sports, got absolutely crucified about 20 years ago for having abysmal graduation rates, abysmal test scores, and failing the 99% of the kids who played big time college sports and college sports generally who were never going to play professionally. And, and even today, you know, the number I've talked to, I talked to Nick Saban about this once and he went, who is, by the way, appropriately the goat. No question.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, yeah. He actually just talked about what you just talked about 20 years ago, having everybody fail and then haven't changed it.

[Darius Butler]

All literally in the last hour. So people have worked really hard to sort of clean that up. And at this point, you know, student athletes graduate at higher percentages across all three divisions than any other group that's in college. And they, you know, and, and for all the talk of the transfer portal.

[Pat McAfee]

Band and choir.

[Darius Butler]

Yes.

[Pat McAfee]

Like those types of groups.

[Darius Butler]

Well, I don't know if you divide it by band and choir, but if you say student athletes, non student athletes, you go by race, class, Division, it doesn't matter. Student athletes graduate at a higher rate.

[Pat McAfee]

That's what I thought. Nice. That's what I thought. That's what I thought.

[Darius Butler]

That got him up out of his chair.

[Pat McAfee]

To be clear, I did not graduate, but I. I am proud of the student athletes beating the non student athletes. I like that. We take that grit into the classroom.

[Darius Butler]

Correct.

[Pat McAfee]

That's what we do. But the academic part is why the transfer portal is what it is. Because they have to enroll in classes, right?

[Darius Butler]

Correct.

[Pat McAfee]

So then some people bring up in this future of professional college.

[Darius Butler]

But I do think if you get to the point where you have institutional agreements between the schools and the kids, some of this will soften a little bit. And the other thing that's important to remember here is we live in a really different world than we used to live in because of the availability of information and social media. I mean, I say all the time that one of the reasons I took the job at the NCAA was because the basketball program at Harvard was literally. It was probably the only part of Harvard that, you know, when I look back on, I look back on with an enormous amount of gratitude because that is where I learned most of the things that I learned when I was in school. But I had no idea what was going on on any other campus. I mean, like, none. You write letters, maybe you get to make a phone call on the dorm phone once a week if you saved your lunch money. And the thing that is different now is. And kids transfer a lot more in high school and college than they used to, because I can learn everything there is to know about every school in an hour opportunity on my phone. And I can probably find people there who I can engage with either through text messaging or social media or some other vehicle. So the connectivity that they have and the knowledge that they have about what's going on on another campus, which was just turbocharged by the pandemic when every school went out and developed huge resources that they could virtually make available to people so folks could see what the schools were like and all the rest. So, you know, almost 40% of all the kids who go to college now transfer at least once. Now here too, student athletes transfer a lot less than non student athletes.

[Pat McAfee]

We're more loyal than you.

[Darius Butler]

I thought so.

[Pat McAfee]

I thought so. Because everybody's talking about these players. You got guys playing eight years, three different schools. Now that needs to stop.

[Darius Butler]

But that's, but don't disagree. But that is a. In some respects, what I would describe it, you're. You're playing at the end of the.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, these are the curve exaggerations.

[Darius Butler]

Yes, these are the exaggerations, but they are definitely the outliers.

[Pat McAfee]

Got it. Yeah. I didn't know we were going to do stats today, but certainly the bell curve on this entire son of a. Is certainly heating up in the entirety of it all. But we are talking about the outliers of it all. Okay, so transfer portal window not really movable because we got enrolling classes.

[Darius Butler]

There's, there's a, there's always an ongoing conversation about the transfer portal. There is between the, the membership talks about this all the time. And so what I would say to you is if there's going to be some change in that to accommodate some of the issues you just described, we got to figure out how to make sure we don't screw up kids ability to actually go to college because again, you know, 99% of them aren't playing professionally.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, so let's.

[Darius Butler]

And I'm all in on nil. I was the first guy higher ed to say literally like a year ago schools should be able to do nil with their student athletes.

[Pat McAfee]

I think that was a big takeaway whenever we all learned that it wasn't the schools doing it and the schools weren't even allowed to be a part of the conversation. Like I think Coach Rule told us that whenever he came in, got the job in Nebraska after leaving the Carolina Panthers. He said, hey, a lot has changed. Like I'm talking to guys, recruiting guys, but I'm not allowed to talk about the money. The money's coming from somebody that I've met once. I don't even think is even in our building. They're the ones handing the cash and then we're handling the who we want. He said that has to get fixed. Sounds like that's being fixed with the university, which will hopefully fix the transfer portal poaching too because there will be at least some honor amongst the thieves about, hey, we won't do this to a team that's going through it. The College Football Playoff teams, I think they're going to continue to be a little bit behind on the ability to study the players that are in the transfer portal. Get the first wave of transfer portal guys out of there and then having to catch up. But the five days at the end obviously will help the players who are potentially trying to transfer out of there.

[Darius Butler]

This is not just true in football. And I'll give you an example of what I mean about trying to fine tune this. The window in basketball opened March Last year, right around the time the tournament started. Right.

[Pat McAfee]

What are you guys doing?

[Darius Butler]

We moved it.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. There you go. All right. So we moved it. We moved it.

[Darius Butler]

Two weeks.

[Pat McAfee]

Nice. Okay, Charlie, that's a good move.

[Darius Butler]

The time you get two weeks into the tournament, you basically have a huge number of the games already played. And the number of teams that are left at that point is much, much smaller for just that reason. Okay, so people do adjust changes.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Because we just thought for a long time before you got in there is the NCAA does adjust. They just get dumber somehow. Ain't that right, H. Isn't that kind of how we kind of. That's usually.

[Tony Khan]

That was the sentiment for a little bit. Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. That was kind of the NCAA sentiment is. Wow. I don't know how you could get dumber. And then all of a sudden the NCAA will be like, just wait.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Darius Butler]

I did not know that AJ had won a golf tournament.

[Pat McAfee]

He didn't.

[Darius Butler]

So he said he was a matchup winner.

[Pat McAfee]

He was a celebrity against myself and Rob Riggle.

[Tony Khan]

Rob Riggle, he was a great partner.

[Pat McAfee]

But USA lost the Ryder cup as a whole.

[Darius Butler]

Oh, I see. Okay.

[Pat McAfee]

So he won his match. He contributed.

[Darius Butler]

He did his job.

[Pat McAfee]

Bingo. Yeah. But the US not enough. Agreed. You could have done a little bit better. And then maybe you're coming home with a Ryer cup jacket in the entirety of it all. You a golfer?

[Darius Butler]

I am not a golfer. I'm a politician. I know. Not a golfer that big, you could probably first of all come out of the pocket. I'm just going to say this because I have to. I would rather spend time with my wife and my kids.

[Pat McAfee]

A lot of commitment to golf. People spend a lot of time. There's that ball. Tissy weren't buying that at all.

[Darius Butler]

Oh, I have three blank faces over there.

[Pat McAfee]

Connor has a question for you. Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

I don't play for kids.

[Darius Butler]

One quick thing about golf, you have to be willing to be bad at it for quite a while to get good. And I couldn't do it.

[Pat McAfee]

I quit it.

[Ty Schmidt]

Your whole life.

[AJ Hawk]

Bingo.

[Pat McAfee]

I quit.

[Darius Butler]

Really?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

There we go.

[Pat McAfee]

Who has the time you just mentioned?

[Darius Butler]

Exactly.

[Pat McAfee]

And hopefully one day in my life, I will have the time. But I spent time on it last year going in championship. I spent a lot of time on this. I thought I had it figured out. Got worse. I got worse. Yeah. I said this, boy. I'm not doing it, Chuck. That's what I said. Just like you have said before. Go ahead, con man.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah. So, Charlie, back to the eligibility thing. Obviously, you know, some guys do spend a lot of time and, you know, they get injured and they need more time. The ruling with Diego Pavia just came out where the two years in juco that he had don't really count towards his eligibility so he can continue to play. What do you think about, you know, something like that? And then how do you. You fix an eligibility problem just because, you know, with the COVID year, they people got extra years, and that's coming to an end here soon. But there are still situations where dudes are playing for eight, nine years in college right now.

[Darius Butler]

The COVID thing, the big issue with COVID and the reason for this. There are a lot of big issues, but bottom line is, the big issue with COVID for sports was it applied to everybody, basically, so you could grant the extra time and the extra eligibility because you're basically basically just doing it across the board. I think the. I mean, we said yesterday we thought the decision that the judge made in the. In the Pavia case. And by the way, I love watching him play. I really do.

[Pat McAfee]

Change Vandy. Yeah, change Vandy completely.

[Darius Butler]

So much fun to watch those wing T and sort of run first offenses well.

[Pat McAfee]

And also teams that are completely out of it. Mocked, ridiculed, transfer portal nil, which everybody's bearing because there is chaos. A lot of good came from it, too. A lot of parody. Indiana in college ball. And Vandy goes, look at Indiana bingo.

[Darius Butler]

I mean, that's as good an example. You have a great game. You were talking about this earlier. I mean, most of the people I've met in Indiana who were Indiana grads, they're Notre Dame fans of football because.

[Pat McAfee]

We didn't have a team.

[Darius Butler]

Now all they know is, whoever wins on Friday night, we got a winner. They're pretty excited.

[Pat McAfee]

Diego Pavita.

[Darius Butler]

Yes. Here's the irony to this. The more you know about a legal question that's currently outstanding, especially if you're involved in it, the less you're allowed to say about it. There's a politician, but that's. I mean, that's just.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, lawyers. Yeah, politicians.

[Darius Butler]

I'm not a lawyer. The lawyers can say lots of things that principally, thank God you're not a lawyer.

[Pat McAfee]

Too many of them, they do a great job.

[Darius Butler]

But what I would say is that my big worry with this thing. All right? And again. And it's very fresh. It just came out last night. My big worry about it is there's a rhythm to college sports and the rules associated with this four years of eligibility, except for injuries and Red shirts and all the rest has been with us forever. And it's been how we make it possible to sort of line up academic performance with athletic performance and opportunity and to make sure that the next generation of kids have a place to go. I mean, if you writ large this decision across the Jucos and then maybe somebody says, well, hell, if Jucos get two years plus four, why shouldn't anybody who goes to college get six? You're going to create a freight train.

[Pat McAfee]

You're worried about precedent here? You're worried about precedent?

[Darius Butler]

Well, I'm just worried about the collision with all the high school kids. So we're have no place to go.

[Pat McAfee]

Darius J. Butler Broward County South Florida Sports hall of Famer he said when he was down there for the induction, I guess scholarships amongst South Florida seniors down 40% for football. Because really? Yeah, that's what he, that's what he said the stat was. And that's what you're talking about though, these guys playing extra long, taking up entire recruiting classes, transfer portal people saving money or saving scholarships or transfer portal and everything like that.

[Darius Butler]

No, that's a. And that is, look, the beauty of one of the big beauties of college sports generally is, and this is true outside of the big time schools and the nil stuff and all the rest is it's still $4 billion in scholarships, right? And those scholarships, I mean, you talk to a lot of kids who don't play at the big time schools. It's the scholarship that made it possible for them to go to college in the first place because their families weren't in a position to pay for it. It gave him this huge, really great base of support and teammates to help them through the tough times. And God, I would hate to end up in a situation. There's 120, 130,000 kids a year who actually go from high school to College. There are 8 million kids that play high school sports. 7, 6, 7% of them actually make it and play in College. It's 120,000, 125,000.

[Pat McAfee]

Good math.

[Darius Butler]

It would be awful if there's just no place for them to go because we have. There are 510,000 college athletes. It's like 125,000 a class. Right? That's the way to think about it. It's not like we're suddenly going to grow a whole bunch of new teams. We'll grow some new teams in new sports, but it'll be on the margin. But if you suddenly take that four years and you turn it into six for some, some huge percentage of the kids who were there. There's really no place for them coming out of high school to go.

[Pat McAfee]

Understandable. And I think there's a lot of people that feel the same way you do. You know, I think a couple years ago it was maybe like, oh, these guys deserve an opportunity. These guys deserve an opportunity because in the kicking and punting world, more so the punting world, there's been a lot of Australians that have come over and the Australians are incredibly cool people. I do not blame the Aussies for taking advantage of this situation. But like 26 year old, 27 year old Aussies coming over after an Aussie football career, already have a full family, but they haven't been to college or to university. So they still have their shot clock of time that they can do college sports. So they were getting all the scholarships basically. And 17 year old American kids had basically no chance there for a while. That was kind of a run that kind of took place. I think it's kind of balancing out. And the Aussies once again, no, nothing.

[Darius Butler]

Against really good battle basketball programs too.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Who? Aussies.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. I think the Aussie basketball, pro basketball thing has a bunch of studs down there. Yeah. Love the country, love everything about it. But that created a situation where there's a lot of high schoolers losing out on scholarships. Now that was after me, so I'm thankful and lucky for that. But then now that the COVID years are starting to hit, and then there's.

[Darius Butler]

Covid years are done.

[Pat McAfee]

Those are.

[Darius Butler]

They're done.

[Pat McAfee]

Officially over.

[Darius Butler]

This, this was the last year for Covid.

[Pat McAfee]

So we beat it. We beat it. We beat Covid. Good run. Holy shit. I can't believe we finally pinned it. All right. I can't believe we did that. I didn't know if that was ever gonna happen. We. We did it though. AJ's in Ohio. Ryder cup winner, but not a champion. Has a question for you.

[Tony Khan]

Yeah, Mr. Baker, when I think we kind of live. Yeah, Chuck, I'm sorry, we kind of live in this bubble, this football bubble. I think sometimes, and I know you run the ncaa, every decision you make, you have to think about like every sport. Can you tell us like what it's like when you have to think about not only football, which is kind of takes the headlines, especially with us, but when you have to think about every single sport all over the place. How does that change and you know, your decision making?

[Darius Butler]

Well, the biggest, I mean, the most interesting thing about the NCAA, it's 90 championships across three divisions. So you're basically talking 24, 25 sports, maybe as many as 30 in each division, all of which provide competitive opportunities for kids.

[Tony Khan]

You don't have to look up at me. I'm sorry? You don't have to look up at me. You can look at the other screens.

[Darius Butler]

The Vermont soccer men winning the soccer championship. The UNC Wake Forest women's soccer championship was terrific.

[Pat McAfee]

Donna Carey, right, Was that same place.

[Darius Butler]

Field hockey championships, I've been to those. Went to the men's swimming and diving championships in Indianapolis last year.

[Pat McAfee]

Awesome.

[Darius Butler]

And guess what? Everybody who was winning medals at the Olympics, we're swimming at that. I think the biggest challenge that we have is to stop thinking about the sports other than football and men's basketball. Women's basketball has proven this as non revenue sports. I think it's less about non revenue and maybe more about. Maybe we weren't as focused on them as maybe we should be. We're busy growing a fan database. It's one of the first things I started doing when I got to the NCAA. We have 13 million people in it, and we're going to keep growing it to try to get to 25 million and then fill in some of the gaps with respect to where people went to school, what sports they follow, what teams they're interested in. And we've used it a couple times to try to drive traffic to some of these so called underrepresented non revenue sport championships. And it's goosed the numbers up in a pretty big way, I think. Look, people love college sports. They love football, they love basketball. I, I do too. My kids played, I played. But there's tons of other sports that people love too. And what we have to do is love them back. And the people in institutional positions like mine have to figure out ways to create fan base, to create content, to take advantage of the fact that digital means you can talk to anybody, anywhere, anytime, and drive people to those events and then use that to create advertising opportunity and sponsorship and grow the game. The growth of the women's game, which a lot of basketball, which a lot of people have invested in, has been huge. I'll give you another one. Women's volleyball, the semifinals are tonight. The finals are on Sunday. Their ratings were up last year by 100%. Okay. TV ratings, attendance, all the rest. The ratings this year grew a little too, by another hundred percent.

[Pat McAfee]

People love the sports.

[Darius Butler]

People love competition. People love to see young people compete. And we got to stop talking about sports other than football and basketball. As quote unquote non revenue and start talking about them as sports where there are opportunities to grow them. That's the way you got to think about it.

[Pat McAfee]

I like that you have that mindset. We'll continue to classify them as non revenue generating and then revenue generating because you know, we're in a world where certainly money matters.

[Darius Butler]

Yes, I'm not disputing certainly money matters.

[Pat McAfee]

But that leads to a question of is there a chance of like people have thought football maybe breaks off from this entire thing and everything's kind of operated differently. Has that come across your desk? Is that a real conversation and how do you feel about that potential?

[Darius Butler]

A lot. First of all, it's a campus that, that is 100% a campus decision. That's not an NCAA decision. Because the, the real impact of that would be, would be felt on campus more so than it would be in, in our organization. I, I think, I think there.

[Pat McAfee]

Because wouldn't that make it a lot easier if there's just rules like hey, it is different and then everything else can live by their own set of rules. Would that make it easier for you if that was the case in the NCAA or.

[Darius Butler]

I don't know. I mean I love FCS football and.

[Pat McAfee]

Shots of Male Union.

[AJ Hawk]

Yep.

[Darius Butler]

I mean Adam Vinateri, South Dakota State.

[Pat McAfee]

Go Big. Go Blue. Go Jack.

[Darius Butler]

One of my all time favorite professional New England Patriots, Rodney Harrison.

[AJ Hawk]

Amen.

[Darius Butler]

Also an FCS football player. I mean there the list, Michael Strahan. The list is Jerry Rice, greatest receiver of all time, Mississippi Valley State. There are a lot of really terrific games that get played outside of just the big time FBS programs. But what I would say about that is in the end that's a, that's, that's something the school's got to figure out. I mean the brands that, that are represented by the schools and the financial support and the donors that invest heart, soul and money into those programs. I don't know if you pull them completely out and fund them through third party money. I don't know what that does to the zeitgeist or even maybe to people's willingness to sort of write checks to refurbish the stadium or whatever it might be. But I certainly think it's a conversation that's worth having. I know people are having it and I'm not, you know, I'm not unaware of the fact that the college football generally and especially big time college football, which is maybe 5% of all of it, all college football generates, you know, 95% of the eyeballs and is a big machine. It is.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, I think people love it. I think you're doing a good job of juggling it all. And I appreciate your take. Even though ours is non revenue generating. And then revenue generating. You're saying he, hey, people just need to learn more about these sports. We need to do a better job marketing it because then everything.

[Darius Butler]

Well, if you just say non revenue generating, then you're never gonna sit around and say, let's build a fan database, put 25 million fans in it and start to drive traffic based on what people.

[Pat McAfee]

We'll start saying sports that people haven't got to love yet.

[Darius Butler]

But women's basketball was non revenue generating too, three or four years ago.

[Pat McAfee]

And Caitlin Clark came through.

[Darius Butler]

Caitlin Clark, a lot of other players too. I love Caitlin Clark. Love Caitlin Clark.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, I agree, I agree. You needed all. All sides. Angel Reese and LSU team was needed in the entire thing. South Carolina, obviously, a massive part.

[Darius Butler]

An absolute machine.

[Pat McAfee]

They had. They had. I agree. They're at the top. That was a class. I think that was a class, though, that potentially got. Now, how do you continue to carry that now? Have you been.

[Darius Butler]

Have you been to a Pacer game or a. A Fever game?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Season tick.

[Darius Butler]

I went to Fever games last year.

[Ty Schmidt]

Little different.

[Darius Butler]

A little different.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, yeah.

[Darius Butler]

Great time this year. It's absolutely nothing.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Professional college, obviously, everything's different. But let's stay on that note, because you mentioned the women's volleyball and you mentioned other women's sports. I have a daughter.

[Darius Butler]

So do I.

[Pat McAfee]

He has a daughter. He has two daughters. AJ Has a daughter. I believe Chuck Pagano out here has granddaughters and daughters. The future of women's sports. Big conversation. I know you were just in Congress kind of getting peppered with it. Where do you stand in all that and like, how should we view it? As fathers of a 19 month old girl in her future of sports? Because she's definitely gonna play sports because sports are the best life teacher I think that you can have growing up. How do you stand on that and how do you feel about that whole conversation that's kind of taking place?

[Darius Butler]

Well, there are 510,000 college athletes playing in the NCAA. There are less than 10 transgender athletes. So it's a small community to begin with. There is no clarity at this point in time in the legal environment. And let's face it, the legal environment to us is important because you win and lose cases and you set precedents.

[Pat McAfee]

We just talked about Diego Pavila. We just talked about the Whole thing that is literally.

[Darius Butler]

So there have been five. There have been five court cases in the past, call it 15 months that involved the right of a transgender student athlete, not just at the collegiate level, but also at the high school level to play. All five cases, federal judges ruled in favor of participation and play. And what I said when I was in Washington is I would love to work with people in Washington to create a federal standard around this issue, because right now we don't have one. And it's a problem. And I accept that it's an enormously controversial and challenging issue. But right now, if you look at the way these issues are getting decided in court, the courts are deciding in favor of participation. And so we are abiding by legal the way they're deciding this.

[Pat McAfee]

Got it. And I saw a lot of people get pissed off at you for that.

[Darius Butler]

No, I know. And I accept that.

[Pat McAfee]

And you're a sports person, so I think a lot of people that aren't in sports are saying.

[Darius Butler]

But what I also said to them was, we would love to work with people to deal with this issue.

[Pat McAfee]

Agree.

[Darius Butler]

And I would love to have regulatory clarity from the Department of Education or legislation, clarity from Congress. And we abide by state laws, so in the many states where they have very restrictive standards on this. And some of the court cases at the federal level have been state laws that have been challenged and have been either stayed or overturned. About this issue associated with participation, I.

[Pat McAfee]

Think you'll get it right. Charlie, I think you have done a fantastic job since taking over the helm. I think you've been phenomenally transparent through it all. And I can't thank you enough for coming in here and making us sports stooges a little bit smarter. Literally, a little bit. Much more smart.

[Darius Butler]

Actually, I. Actually, you guys, a while back, were talking about. And A.J. you were involved in this conversation. You were talking about one of the Watt brothers, the one that plays for the Steelers.

[Pat McAfee]

Dj.

[Darius Butler]

And you put up a set of stats on him. And I think I screenshot it and sent it to you.

[Pat McAfee]

Yes, you did.

[Darius Butler]

And said, basically, I had no idea. And my. My oldest was a DN in college, and so I took it and I sent it to him, and he basically said back, dad, you're such an idiot. You don't already know this, but. But thank you for continuing to learn and to grow and to appreciate the fact that DNS are the most important football players on our defense. Easy. But there is a tremendous. I mean, yes, you guys are fun and you're entertaining and all the rest. But if you're interested in sports, you also, and this is no joke, you also give people an opportunity to learn. I can't believe the Patriots.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, yeah. Hey, Stank, bro.

[AJ Hawk]

We'll be back, don't worry.

[Darius Butler]

Do you have time for a two minute story?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, sure, absolutely.

[Darius Butler]

So I went to the. I went to the Glendale super bowl against the Giants. We're 180 going in. We're going to win the super bowl or. And we're going to be 19 0. First team to ever be 190 here in Indy. No, no, no, that was in. That was in Arizona. Phoenix.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, okay.

[Darius Butler]

And that was before that whole area around the stadium been built out. This is 2007, I think, and 2000.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, it's all right.

[AJ Hawk]

2007 season. 2008, February.

[Pat McAfee]

Right? Yeah.

[Darius Butler]

So everybody's parking a million miles away and we all have to walk like forever to get to the stadium, watch the game back and forth. Really tough battle with the Giants. We played in the last game of the regular season that year. We. I say we. That's what we do. Exactly. And we beat him 35 to 28 on a bomb from Tom Brady to Randy Moss at the end of the game. So things go on. We eventually get ahead and I'm like, okay, looks like we're going to win this. And then Asante Samuel misses the interception. That's right in his hands. And you know, these are moments when, if you're a sports fan and you see that happen in real time, you know, your first reaction to that is that's real. Really bad sign.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, yeah.

[Darius Butler]

Because that means there's something going on here.

[Pat McAfee]

Yep.

[Darius Butler]

And then, you know, Eli Manning somehow gets out of the grasp of what should have been within the grasp call.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, you're talking forward proper. This is over.

[Darius Butler]

He throws his football halfway down the field and this guy catches it on his helmet. With Rodney Harrison, probably the NFL defensive player the year should have been that year, defending him. Definitely now we were like, oh, my God, we are doomed. And. And then sure enough, we were down by that end zone. You know, they scored down there. And then on the, on the next series, I'm like, well, the only shot we have here is the same thing we beat him with in the last game of the regular season, which is a long bomb to Randy Moss. So Brady is literally like right in front of me. Okay. Takes the snap, drops back, takes like three steps over here to the right. And I'm thinking, oh, my God, he's going to tee off on this. And I look down the field, and there's Randy Moss on the other side of the field behind the secondary.

[Pat McAfee]

Here we go.

[Darius Butler]

And he throws it, and it misses Moss's hands by less than a foot. And I'm literally like, okay, so this is just the way life is. We trudge out, we walk like a mile and a half back to our car, get there, and realize that we don't have the keys to the car. It's a rental car.

[Pat McAfee]

Right.

[Darius Butler]

But for some crazy reason, I actually put the rental car agreement in my pocket. So I take it out. It has a 1-800-number on it. I call the 1-800-number, and somebody answers the phone, and I say, I'm a customer. This is my contract number. And I lost my keys. And the woman goes, just a minute. And she goes like this. This is a long time ago. Very different kind of technology.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, world.

[Darius Butler]

And she goes, the people at the customer service center at the stadium have your. Have your keys. So somebody actually found my keys and handed them in to the customer service people.

[Pat McAfee]

So things aren't too bad.

[Darius Butler]

So now I'm walking back. All right, now what happens at the end of a Super Bowl? All the people on the team that win leave late. All the people who are on the team that. Excuse me.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Darius Butler]

All the people who are on the team that lose leave. All the people who. Who stay, they stay. So the Giants fans have all been staying. They are now starting to come out as I am walking back with my friends. All of us dressed in patriot gear and all the rest. And it's literally like this. People are throwing stuff at us, Throwing the beers and talking 18:1 all the way back in.

[Pat McAfee]

It was worst night of your life.

[Darius Butler]

Pretty humiliating. No, I was just Joe Q. Citizen, Sad fan.

[Pat McAfee]

When did you decide to be the governor?

[Darius Butler]

I ran in 2010 and lost and. And my. And I. I learned a lot from that experience.

[Pat McAfee]

That's humbling. Right? When the public says, nah, that's why I would never.

[Darius Butler]

In a race, people thought I should have been able to win. And I went around and talked to all the reporters that covered the race. I talked to a whole bunch of the smart talking heads, and I basically. Basically said to all of them, what did I do wrong? And they had no trouble telling me everything I did wrong. Humiliating and embarrassing and informative. And one guy in particular said to me, you spent too much time talking to your customers and not enough time talking to your prospects, which is his way of saying, you're spending too much time with people whose votes you Already had and not enough time with people whose votes you didn't have. And my wife Lauren and I talked about running a second time in 14. And what it really came down to was, was I okay with my, you know, obituary saying Charlie Baker, who, you know, did this and did that and ran for governor twice in Massachusetts and lost both times is kind of the opening paragraph. Was I willing to go there?

[Pat McAfee]

I didn't even think about that. The double loss.

[Darius Butler]

The double loss. And you know, loser.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, yeah.

[Darius Butler]

And twice. Twice.

[Pat McAfee]

But it didn't happen.

[Darius Butler]

Once we got over that, we basically, basically said, eh, what the hell, let's go for it. And so second time we ran, I campaigned in all kinds of places where I knew I was going to lose. All right? And the media actually wrote some pretty sort of snarky stories about, you know, this guy clearly doesn't know what he's doing. And what ended up happening in the end was I lost those. First of all, talking to those folks who had never seen a Republican before, never talked to a Republican, never voted for Republican, it made me a better candidate to hear their life stories. And I think it helped them a little bit to understand where I was coming from and why. And, and I lost those places by less than I lost the race the last time. I still lost, but I w. I lost them by a small enough margin that I won the rest of the places I was supposed to win. And that's how we got it over the top. And then the next time we ran, we got the largest number of votes in state history.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, that story. This guy could have been a big, dumb two time loser.

[Darius Butler]

Right, Exactly.

[Pat McAfee]

Steady.

[Darius Butler]

But if you, Brandon Pound hits the.

[Pat McAfee]

Locker room, understands everything he needs to do, gets out and reaches people, which more politicians need to do. Talk to people you don't agree with, talk to people that don't know you. I think that's what politics is. I love that it ended up working out for you. That's how it's supposed to work, you know, and now you're in charge of taking care of the quagmire that is the NCAA in the middle of the wildest time in the history of college sports. And I said this the first time I heard you speak, and I'll say it now, I think you're the right guy for the job. I think you're uniquely qualified for the job because there's so many people that could be maybe the right people for the president of the ncaa, but there's no way in hell they would want to do it because the amount of shins shots that you're going to take, but hell, you were walking right into people that didn't like you. Yeah. That is why the politician politics thing helps because you got to be able to stand in the face of people and know that they're not going to love it and be able to deliver news and make a decision for the future. I. I have respect for you, brother. A lot of them, and I think we all do. And we appreciate your time and good luck.

[Darius Butler]

Love the show and like I said, learn a lot.

[AJ Hawk]

Hell yeah.

[Boston Connor]

Not from this.

[Pat McAfee]

You need to stop watching this shit. We need you to make good decisions. Okay? Right. Age. Isn't that what you were thinking the whole time? Time?

[Tony Khan]

Yeah, pretty much. He doesn't need to watch this show.

[Pat McAfee]

Bingo. We make people worse.

[AJ Hawk]

And dumber knows how to unclog a toilet.

[Darius Butler]

By the way, I really enjoyed watching you play. Oh, no kidding.

[Tony Khan]

Appreciate it. Appreciate it. How tall are you, sir?

[Darius Butler]

You were. You were. You and your Ohio State teammates were the 12 noon must see TV in our household.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, that's awesome.

[Tony Khan]

That's awesome.

[Pat McAfee]

Appreciate it. How tall are you?

[Darius Butler]

I'm six.

[Jim Irsay]

Six.

[Tony Khan]

Can you still dunk?

[AJ Hawk]

Holy it.

[Darius Butler]

I'm 68 years old. The answer to that is.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, you got no H. You look good. I'm about to do a 50 people $500. He asked.

[Darius Butler]

He asked me if I could still dunk. Can you shoot sometimes?

[Pat McAfee]

Like free throw?

[Darius Butler]

Probably.

[Tony Khan]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay.

[AJ Hawk]

I mean, look at the shoes.

[Pat McAfee]

I saw the Chucks Converses on doesn't. Isn't there a Larry Bird ones? Isn't there a Converse museum?

[Darius Butler]

Yes.

[Pat McAfee]

In Indiana. I think there is.

[Darius Butler]

Yes, there is.

[Pat McAfee]

We were talking about Chuck Taylor's the other day and my dad sent me a picture. He was like, I want to a Converse museum here in Indianapolis, Indiana. Here's the young lad. Look at that. Here's the young lad. Did you ever stop by the Harvard tennis team?

[Darius Butler]

No.

[Pat McAfee]

That's Brick Johnson. He runs the jets. He's 17. Okay, Charlie. Smart.

[Chuck Pagano]

Pleasure.

[Pat McAfee]

Smart dude. That very good guy.

[AJ Hawk]

All right.

[Boston Connor]

That's how. That's how you become the highest vote getter of all time.

[AJ Hawk]

Get it done.

[Chuck Pagano]

It's good to see.

[Pat McAfee]

Will you make a free throw?

[Chuck Pagano]

I don't know.

[Boston Connor]

I'm gonna shake his head again.

[Pat McAfee]

Here we go. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, if the president of the ncaa, Charlie Baker, former Harvard basketball player, former governor of Massachusetts, can make this free throw, we will give 50 people $500 who repost this post. Say something nice to somebody and put the easiest way to be paid digitally. Just go back to that Harvard gym, brother. You can do this with your eyes closed.

[Tony Khan]

We got another one, Bill.

[Ty Schmidt]

Get down there and rebound.

[Pat McAfee]

Come on, Bill. No, it's all right. It's all right, Bill. No, no, no. We'll give you another one. Nobody will see that. All right, all right, all right. Take the lid off. Take.

[AJ Hawk]

Charlie, lock it.

[Pat McAfee]

All right, I took the lid off. All right, here we go, ladies and gentlemen.

[Tony Khan]

Lock in.

[Pat McAfee]

There it is. Okay, he's finding it. He's fine. He's finding the stroke. Charlie, we want to let you know tyrese Halliburton took 30 shots one time in here, and he is a professional nobody. And it potentially did ruin his offensive performance.

[Tony Khan]

Get in.

[Pat McAfee]

All right, Charlie, whenever you're ready for the next free throw attempt, you let us know. 68 years old, getting loose a lot of bricks over there. This guy's building something special. Jesus. Put the ball in the hook. 68.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Loose it up. 68. What do you want? Stay down for an hour. He's a swing loop. Okay, okay. He's finding it. Okay, all right. Hey, listen. He was walking to the sunroof. All right, all right.

[Ty Schmidt]

Say miss. Say miss.

[Pat McAfee]

All right. Ladies and gentlemen, Charlie Baker is the president of the United. No, President of the ncaa. He's the sixth president in the history of the association. He is being tasked with making college sports right in the middle of full chaos. He just did a. Ladies and gentlemen. Aren't you. I don't know if that one counts.

[Boston Connor]

I mean, it was so smooth that it had.

[AJ Hawk]

How could it not?

[Tony Khan]

It looked good.

[Pat McAfee]

Ladies and gentlemen, if Charlie Baker can make this free throw, 50 people will win 500.

[Ty Schmidt]

Say this.

[Pat McAfee]

That's on me, Charlie. Loop it. Loop the other way. Ladies and gentlemen, if Charlie Baker, president of the ncaa. Oh, Charlie, come on.

[Ty Schmidt]

Short, right Every time.

[Pat McAfee]

Charlie, we need to put it in. You got it.

[Tony Khan]

Just go dunk.

[AJ Hawk]

Come on.

[Pat McAfee]

Ladies and gentlemen, Charlie Baker, the President of the NA can win 50 people. His first shot here in a Thunderdome. Ladies and gentlemen, if Charlie Baker, the president of the NCAA, can make. Yeah, 50 people, $500, all you got to do is repost this post, say something nice to somebody, and put the easiest way to pay you. Thank you, Charler. We wrap up. Hour two. Hour three will be on the other side. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice. Thank you for that. It might change their life. That was awesome. Yeah. Happy holidays from Charlie Baker.

[Ty Schmidt]

That's right.

[Pat McAfee]

Merry Christmas. Happy New Year.

[Boston Connor]

This episode is brought to you by Lifelock, the holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online and more personal info in places that could expose you to identity theft. That's why LifeLock monitors millions of data points every second. If your identity is stolen, their US based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with Lifelok. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast terms apply.

[AJ Hawk]

When it.

[Pat McAfee]

Comes to towing, seeing is believing.

[AJ Hawk]

That's why Chevy Trucks advanced camera technology.

[Pat McAfee]

Offers up to eight available cameras for 14 unique views. So you can focus on the view that really matters. Chevrolet together. Let's drive.

[AJ Hawk]

Learn more about chevy [e-mail] safety or driver assistance features are no substitute for the driver's responsibility to operate the vehicle in a safe manner. Read the vehicle owner's manual for important feature limitations and information.

[Darius Butler]

Football.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, it's wonderful. We're so lucky. We get to talk about it all the time. That's A.J. hawk. The talks. The table is here at Boston Connor and at Ty Schmidt. One after the hammer done Cowboys AP Tone is here. And a man who has coach football for 36 years. 18 and 20 College 18 the NFL Chuck Begoya is here. Chuck, do you know what we're about to do right now?

[Chuck Pagano]

What's that, Pat?

[Pat McAfee]

We're gonna give away a 2500 heavy duty rebel Ram truck. Now when you see this truck outside the Thunderdome, you think to yourself, wow, that's a fine piece of machinery right there. Gorgeous. It's way too nice. That thing can't be like actually usable. It's got more power than whatever you're driving, whatever you see. It's got more power then it's got more technology than you could ever fathom. But it's easier to use than any of the other bullshit. And you know that hitch on the back and tow whatever you need. If anybody gets stuck, you can go ahead and run up in the muck and get that done. Yep, yep, yep, Yep. And that 2500 heavy duty diesel powered engine, I mean you hit the gas pedal, that thing sounds like this ram truck rides like you're on top of the clouds. It's phenomenal. And it is going to one college football player that was able to deliver a hit in a legal fashion in a college football game that was so destructive, so violent that it made us all say, wow, that was a Ram truck play. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to announce the official season long winner of the hashtag Ram trucked contest. Running back Noah Whittington It's a fullback. Didn't score a touchdown. But what'd he do? He Ram Truck Bryquiest Bryan saws him in half. DB Weston Arthur Boom loses his helmet. But this does not count because it wasn't a player. You see, it was a the Georgia Ram Dog. Listen to that sound. That's not us adding sound. Those are pads crashing the quarterback. The Ram Truck stick, Eric Phoenix. Boom Arthur will carry over over from last week. Mason Fletcher goes for the safety. Lathan Ransom. More like Ransom Ransom. Kobe Savage. The Doc Truck. Toot toot. Legal play. Where'd your helmet go? Wow. Jonathan Allen. More like Ramon Allen. A little bit of a low punt, but players can make play. Let me throw my body. There is a flag on the play, but not on the punter. San Jose State. More like Ram Jose State. Weston Arthur. Mount Boo. Florida Ole Miss Gator. Ram troll Bryce Cohen. Two people, one Ram troll. Trevor from California. Equipment manager sees a guy steal a ball, tracks him down through the crowd and boom. Belly to back suplex. Bitch. They showed the clip to the team in a team meeting the next day. This is the reaction about Boom play that has been seen by millions. Hey, Millions. Close. We have Ram pain on the campaign. Ladies and gentlemen, running back Jordan James. Damn. John Kuhn. Do you love seeing a running back do something like that? I do. And I think it's more impressive than a tackle, to be honest. You can't use your hands, you can't scoop the legs. And if you're knocking him ass over Teacups. I like to run better than the tackle. Shiloh. Slam dun. A nuke. I love Dan Jackson. More like Ram Jackson. Gunner Stockton. Gonzo Cam Scatterburn. More like like Ram Scatter Boom. More like you can't tackle me. Rumbling, stumbling Our reigning champion of this Ram Truck segment since Jump has been from Mount Union with a Mount Boom. Weston Arthur Boom. I mean, if you're talking about a Ram Truck segment that epitomizes it, look at that thing.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, hell yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Congratulations to Weston Arthur of Mount Union with his Mount Boom hit. You are the official winner of the 2500 Heavy Duty Rebel Ram Truck. And thank you for playing football in a way that we are love. Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

What's Dude, Mount Union has made it.

[Pat McAfee]

To the semifinals of the FCS Championship D3D3 Championship in its entirety. And he's still playing. They have a game on Saturday at noon. Actually, I believe they are hosting. And Mount Union is in Alliance Ohio, which is four hours and 45 minutes from here. And Drop off of the rebel Ram truck is certainly gonna have to get figured out.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

Tbd.

[Pat McAfee]

Certainly gonna get figured out. Weston. We're gonna get that to. Yeah, you got to figure out how there's gonna be insurance that's gonna have to take place.

[Boston Connor]

No, I don't think Mitch should do that. It'll never make it.

[AJ Hawk]

I want the car to get there.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. This was talking. You're not in the Thunderdome, but you literally were a part that what you just did right there exactly happened, like, three days ago. The exact conversation right there. Oh, maybe Mitra. I don't think so. He's got the worst driver of all time. Yeah. You can't even park cars without getting them absolutely crushed. Congrats, Weston.

[AJ Hawk]

Hell, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

That was a fun segment. Shout out to Ram truck. That's awesome. Shout out to that 2500 heavy duty. It is a beautiful truck. Yes, it is wire to wire, too.

[Tony Khan]

Weston's wire to wire champ from day one.

[Pat McAfee]

And also Mount Union and their fans got behind it, which we're very grateful for. That was fun to watch on his.

[Boston Connor]

Bio on the team website.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, you go to the team website. 20, 22. Eight tackles or something. 20, 23. 20 tackles. 20, 20, 24. First thing finalists for the Pat McAfee shows Ram trucked segment. And then they have a tweet in there, and then they're like, 48 tackles also right below there on the season. They're going on a run. Weston's we. At one point throughout the season, an email came through to the office, and it was from Wesson's dad, and he was like, thank you for highlighting my boy. And he would be very pissed if he knew that I sent this email. But I want to let you know, as a father, I'm incredibly proud that he plays football the way he plays it, and he's getting recognized for it and everything like that. So I think this is going to a great person, great family, and obviously, very, very deserving coach. Wins every single week. The Calgorithm almost caught up to the mountain fans, though. There was a lot of chitter chatter about that particular poll. Obviously, we don't run X for the platform. That is just where the poll was taking place. That equipment manager with the belly to back with the whole team going crazy.

[Chuck Pagano]

That was.

[Pat McAfee]

The segment was awesome all year.

[Chuck Pagano]

It was incredible watching all that. I mean, it take you right back to your. To your playing days, but. And a bunch of guys playing ball. Like, we like to see him play ball. Right.

[Pat McAfee]

Would you have been a Guy that would have been on the Ram truck segment. I think you would have. Yeah.

[Chuck Pagano]

Well, we have some clips.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, you're right.

[Chuck Pagano]

They're in the archive somewhere. If you remember, that's the only way I survived. That's the only way. The only way I could get on the field. H. I couldn't cover nobody.

[Pat McAfee]

We're talking right here. He's hitting with. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Tony Khan]

Chuck, how many times did you knock yourself out or knock your teammates out with friendly?

[Pat McAfee]

So many.

[Tony Khan]

Those are the best. Those are the best guys. Best DBs to play with.

[Pat McAfee]

I didn't even know that those three letters were allowed to be next to each other. When they said cte, I was like, that isn't it D in there. A, B, C, D. So you can't.

[Chuck Pagano]

Get mad at me for like, I can't turn the fridge off. I mean, you've.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Chuck Pagano]

Figure it out. It's all coming together.

[Tony Khan]

Turn the fridge off.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, we made an ice machine so I could keep my speaking.

[Tony Khan]

I saw this.

[Charlie Baker]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

I'm not gonna lie.

[Tony Khan]

When you went through that and you went through what? Each first off, the 11am Wake up's beautiful. But when you went through each hour, that was a great little seg.

[Pat McAfee]

Thank you. It's. I appreciate Taylor looking out for me. We've obviously, we missed the morning. We woke up around. Let's get it, you know, 5pm, which makes sense. Let's get it. Let's get it.

[Boston Connor]

We show last night.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, let's get it. Okay. Let's get it. And then once I pass. Yeah. Yup. I knew that, you know, I was on a good pace for the day and we're already past about to level up again. So thank you, Whiz and Will for looking out for my hydration. And I'll tell you, it has been pretty convenient having this much water sit next to me.

[Ty Schmidt]

Absolutely.

[Pat McAfee]

Now, without how big it is, I haven't figured out yet the how you go about doing it without it getting in the way of everything.

[AJ Hawk]

Got the strap. You got the strap.

[Chuck Pagano]

I love when you.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

Strap up, dude.

[Pat McAfee]

It's a real opportunity for me, you know, if we get excited about something, we can say, hey.

[Tony Khan]

You gotta put that on the desk. Game day. I'm sorry.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Right here in front of me.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, you should bring that right there tomorrow.

[Pat McAfee]

That would be.

[Tony Khan]

Then you look at the time. Hey, Kirk, what time is it?

[Ty Schmidt]

And Kirk tells, just load that thing with ice. And every time someone pick it up and just try and move some ice around. Two ice during it maybe.

[Pat McAfee]

So Saturday morning shows, 9 to 12. What if I don't start until 11? What time is it? Reese? Reese, what time is it? 11am okay.

[Jim Irsay]

Gotta go.

[Tony Khan]

Gotta go.

[Pat McAfee]

I'm allowed to drink. And then Reese obviously has a phenomenal response to that. I couldn't even imagine how condescendingly he would have addressed that entire thing. It's absurd that people do this every day, but I do appreciate the thought. Yeah, you know, it's not my hydrated, but I appreciate the thought. And shout out to David Allen. He sent me a hoodie today. I mean, things are just coming in the mail here.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, still bringing it.

[Pat McAfee]

Still bringing it, right?

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tony Khan]

I can't see it from here.

[Pat McAfee]

Can you read that?

[Tony Khan]

Oh, be kind.

[Pat McAfee]

Wow.

[AJ Hawk]

You can read that.

[Tony Khan]

Oh, that's nice.

[Pat McAfee]

It is. It's really nice. And it's. It's a very. David Allen only does good stuff.

[Chuck Pagano]

Only.

[Pat McAfee]

I mean, that's.

[Chuck Pagano]

That's comfortable.

[Pat McAfee]

Pittsburgh Taylor, obviously. Taylor gay.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Yup. Yeah.

[Chuck Pagano]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Yup. About to level up again. Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

Yup.

[Boston Connor]

Taylor gang.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

Yup.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Yup.

[Chuck Pagano]

Star power.

[Pat McAfee]

The star power. Yeah. Star year, bro. Yeah. All right, it is time now to do something. Something we do every single week with a football mind that is incredibly Italian and been around. Now. We just learned that he's had too many concussions, in his own words, in his football playing career because he was taught chin to chest, torpedo, dolphin to tackle people. But doing that, there was a love for a sport that was founded, that would stick with him for the rest of his life. He's a guy that knows the ins and outs of all the X's and O's in buildings and winning and losing and. And he happens to at one point in his life be very good at predicting how games are going to go on Thursday nights. Fell into a little bit of a schneid this year. Then he got a half a point, started celebrating. We was thawing all on. All of a sudden we're back to 500 and it's getting cold again. He's putting his jacket back on. He's trying to warm up. You know, he's. He's lost I. I think seven of the last eight, maybe. Yeah, I mean, that, that is. That is actual stats there. He's cold. He looks miserable as he should. But nobody could have expected that game. Shouldn't count or the Rams to play the way that they play. Especially after what happened with the Buffalo Bills just right before that. This week is the week that you get it right and then guess what, you don't miss a. Another one for the rest of the year.

[AJ Hawk]

Clean sweep.

[Pat McAfee]

That's what we're doing right through the rest of the year. And when you do that, we got what, three more weeks of the regular season. Then there's what, four weeks. Playoffs.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yep.

[Pat McAfee]

So that's seven. Then there's Super bowl, that's eight. All of a sudden you're 15 and seven. Is that good? I think so.

[Chuck Pagano]

So take it.

[Pat McAfee]

The path to greatness is still available. Let's take it. And what do we need to talk about whenever we're picking tonight's games?

[Chuck Pagano]

Coach Division, obviously on the line. Well, not the division. Kansas City's already locked that up. But currently Denver, six seed, right. In the conference, afc, conference playoff deal. Chargers are seventh. Nobody. Like, if you're the seventh seed, who wants to go to Buffalo? Because you probably Kansas City. Unless. Looks like Mahomes going to play, right?

[Boston Connor]

Oh, yeah.

[Chuck Pagano]

He's going to play just like Kansas City. And Buffalo's a wack, but Kansas City's probably going to be the one seed. Buffalo is going to be the two. So if you're the seventh seed, one gets a buy. One gets a buy. If you're the seventh, you're going to go to Buffalo.

[Boston Connor]

You don't want to go to first.

[Chuck Pagano]

Round of the playoffs. So obviously 8 and 5, 8 and 6. The Chargers 8 and 6. They want to win this game getting, you know, get to nine and six. Denver's got a game up on them right now.

[Pat McAfee]

Colts are lurking.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, there's a lot of people saying.

[Chuck Pagano]

You got three teams at six and eight. You got Indy, you got Miami. Miami's dead, right, Gumps?

[Pat McAfee]

No, they're lurking. No, we're cooked. We don't. You don't need to put them on there. We're no longer lurking.

[Chuck Pagano]

We are Cooks brother, since he's probably gonna, you know, try to make a little. Little bit of a run. But. But anyway, this one, two great defenses like we talked about. Two great defenses. One, you know, last week kind of Tampa had their way with them.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

A lot of poop.

[Chuck Pagano]

And you know, we're going to look at some. We're going to look at some numbers. Two really good coaches. We love Sean Payton, Jim Harbaugh. Here's the regular season. I've got two tails. Tape. This is the whole season. So you can see against the spread, who's the best in the NFL against the spread this year, number one, Sean Payton. Denver Broncos 11 and three. People love that Vance Joseph running that.

[Pat McAfee]

Deep they wanted to run them out of town last year, remember? And by they, I mean we were even being told, hey, they give up 70.

[Chuck Pagano]

Nobody. Like, when you do really good, you forget about thing they get. Remember, they gave us 70 to Gumpies dolphins.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. It seems like so long ago for both of these teams.

[AJ Hawk]

I hated the quarterback, though.

[Chuck Pagano]

Long, long time ago.

[Pat McAfee]

Allegedly.

[Chuck Pagano]

Yeah, I didn't like him.

[Pat McAfee]

Allegedly. I hated him. Allegedly. They did pay $83 million to not have him on the team. Sounds like what you're saying is potentially adding up. But all these things have not been said publicly on the record by anybody. But it's certainly a different team this year than last year. And that means they don't have anywhere near the amount of money that every other team's allowed to have. But they're still covering for people. Anytime anybody's making money off of you, they love your team. That's right. 11 and three, the Broncos. That might be why everybody's talking about, hey, look out for this Broncos team.

[Chuck Pagano]

Five straight covers.

[Pat McAfee]

Yes, that's exactly why people are like, this team's over performing five straight every single week.

[Chuck Pagano]

And the Chargers have lost their last eight at home versus teams with record over 508 their last eight. So let's keep going. Those are just a little nuggets we're going to throw in there from time to time. All right, little nugget for you.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Chuck Pagano]

24 points. I. 21. 10th and 20th points allowed. We talked about how good These defenses are. 17.6 points. That's really good.

[Pat McAfee]

Tied for first at 17.6. Week 16. That's crazy.

[Chuck Pagano]

That is outstanding. Let's keep in mind that they gave up 40 last week to Tampa. Chargers dead. Total offense, virtually the same. Total defense. Denver's eighth. All right, Chargers are 15th. Sacks allowed. Let's pay attention to this.

[Pat McAfee]

Yep.

[Chuck Pagano]

Okay. Third in the national Football League. Bo. Nick's only been sacked 20 times. Herbert, not so fortunate.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, that's low. 27.

[Chuck Pagano]

27Th in the league. 40, 41.

[Pat McAfee]

Especially because we're focusing on offensive line. We're protecting our prize possession, our golden goose.

[Chuck Pagano]

One thing that Herbert doesn't do, he doesn't give the ball away. I mean, Harbaugh ball right is. Run it right, Run it. Run it some more. Getting big people. Run it some more. Greg Roman, that. That whole deal, they're gonna. They're gonna try to pound you. They're gonna take care of. They're gonna play good.

[Pat McAfee]

I thought you didn't know what Coach Harbaugh did.

[AJ Hawk]

We didn't know that was a lie.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, it was. That's big bit. Yeah.

[Chuck Pagano]

We talked about. I mean, that's gonna be.

[Pat McAfee]

Think about how thick this guy's bones are. Look at that head.

[Darius Butler]

Real thick.

[Pat McAfee]

Think about everything else.

[Tony Khan]

Yeah.

[Chuck Pagano]

Can you imagine getting hit by that?

[Pat McAfee]

No, wouldn't want to.

[Chuck Pagano]

I mean, helmet or no helmet, Every.

[Pat McAfee]

Once in a while, though, Every once in a while, though, I'll see like he's kind of off balance or not paying attention. I will give him like a good shot. He'll stumble and I'll go, whoa. Kind of lost it a little bit.

[AJ Hawk]

You know, I've got him once when he's coming into the Thunderdome, push him.

[Tony Khan]

Just knock me down like I fell down. Like talk over the windows.

[Pat McAfee]

How about. Yeah, I remember when talk did that. Trying to avoid the chair. Obviously. Couldn't touch the chair with his coffee in his hand. I wish I would have been there for that. What a moment he is Tim Robinson. Yes. That is who talk reels is. Agent jmu. I almost got you.

[AJ Hawk]

Oh, yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

I think I took a big time shot.

[Tony Khan]

You gave me a shiver from behind it.

[Pat McAfee]

I did.

[Tony Khan]

I took a little. A little crow hop after that.

[Pat McAfee]

And then there was a moment where it was. That's never happened again. That's like. It's the best. But yes. Hardballs and AJ Hawkins, hawk style football coach, you know, we're running the ball, we're pounding the rock. That's why he's not throwing interceptions. We can't be giving the ball the other team.

[Chuck Pagano]

No, they're going to take care of it. Bo. We talked about Bo Nix. 5. Five interceptions thrown in the last two weeks. That's not good. He started the season bad. Had a really good stretch for the next 13 games. All right, here's the last four games.

[Pat McAfee]

Here we go. This one matters, okay.

[Chuck Pagano]

Against the spread, Denver's 4. 0. We talked about that. 2 and 2 for the Chargers. Look at points scored.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, no.

[Chuck Pagano]

Last four weeks, juggernaut. Almost 35 points for Denver. 18 and a half for the Chargers. Not having Dobbins. That makes it. That's a different. That's a deal. And they're also out one of their top targets tonight, Disley. Tight end Bill, he loves that dude. There's another tight end that plays for the Chargers though, is, I think his Last name Smart. Number 84. The guy is athletic and he gets behind defenses. And Herbert can throw this layered, nice little layered touch pass on these over routes. Keep an eye on him.

[AJ Hawk]

Hayden Hurst. Is he at.

[Chuck Pagano]

He's you know what, designated for return, but I don't think he's going to play. Okay, keep an eye on it though, all right?

[Pat McAfee]

He will.

[Chuck Pagano]

That's a good one. All right. Points allowed. You can see the difference. Denver's virtually at where they've been all year. Few more these last four games. For the Chargers, total offense not so good for la. Total defense, they both struggle a little bit and then turnover margin, plus 6 and plus 3.

[Boston Connor]

Thank you, James.

[Chuck Pagano]

You know, this, this Denver defense, they can, they can, they can both take the ball away. They both intercept the ball. There's this corner for Chargers. His name D. Butts has highlighted him on the show before. Still is Tarheeb Steele, number 29.

[Pat McAfee]

Got it.

[Chuck Pagano]

Derwin James, who we can see.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, some game records up here.

[Chuck Pagano]

Mack and Bosa, they only got like four or five sacks each on the year, which is low for those two guys. But this Tui Apalopatuta, he's game record.

[Pat McAfee]

I think he got it. He started it and I think he got all of the pronunciations of their. Added a couple.

[Chuck Pagano]

You want to give it a Tui polotui pilotu.

[Ty Schmidt]

Tui apolo to tota.

[Pat McAfee]

As Chuck Pagano says, two below two big goose, big ooze. Yeah, great name, too.

[Chuck Pagano]

He's got seven and a half sacks. His numbers, number 45, he's going to roll past rush. And then this, this Denver defense, they're out. One of their starting corner corners, Riley Moss is still out.

[Pat McAfee]

He's white.

[Boston Connor]

He's a white.

[Pat McAfee]

That's a white boy.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yes, he is a white boy.

[Chuck Pagano]

Pretty good. Pretty good, Sir Tan, we know he can roll those two guys. But Benito and Cooper, the two edge guys. Zach Allen on the D line. John Franklin Myers on the D line. Barton, middle linebacker for Denver. They. They've got a really good. You knowski, our boy Manuska is there, remember, at Denver.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, legend. Yeah, legend been around football his whole life. Obviously. A dog teaches a Ram truck style of play. I think because he was that style of player. They, their defense just flip switch on the Colts offense last week. Yeah. Jay just said, nope, not going to be doing that anymore now, is it? Because the fumble and then football God said, nah, you guys can't do anything else anymore or whatever.

[Chuck Pagano]

4 nothing since that fumble.

[Pat McAfee]

That's what I'm saying. They flipped the script against the Colts defense. It's almost like Vance either figured it out or the Colts lost all their confidence after the fumble.

[Chuck Pagano]

And this guy, we saw him do this to Jameis Winston, right. James throwing late across the. You know, he took it back to. He is so athletic and so fast. He's like Gumby. He can bend that freaking corner and come around the edge.

[AJ Hawk]

Like Gumby.

[Chuck Pagano]

Yeah. This. Oh, give him.

[Pat McAfee]

I don't know. He said.

[Chuck Pagano]

Yeah, that cost him.

[Pat McAfee]

How much?

[Chuck Pagano]

A lot.

[Pat McAfee]

How much? Was it the Ds? How much was the Ds?

[AJ Hawk]

Oh, I don't know.

[Pat McAfee]

Old Ds.

[AJ Hawk]

Have they released yet? Because it's been Friday afternoon as of late.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Do you know what it is?

[Chuck Pagano]

20, 30. So. Yeah. Crazy.

[Pat McAfee]

I mean, he would say, especially if he gets that thing framed and.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, exactly.

[Pat McAfee]

Maybe puts it next to Marshawn's. Are you probably never catching an interception like that in his career again, either like that or anybody. All right. Like that one. Okay, well, there's probably not another white.

[Chuck Pagano]

Out on the planet that's absolutely actually going to try to throw it.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. All right, listen.

[Boston Connor]

That's how they drew it up.

[Pat McAfee]

He was looking them off. He was looking down the field, and he didn't get a chance to see. Hey, Ed Reed, Nick Bonito.

[Chuck Pagano]

What he said.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, yeah. 15 turning Ed Reed out there. I don't know what you want from me. Executed play. He's right. Every one of them needs to just figure out how to say things publicly. Okay. In that building. The whole building.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Just learn how to say stuff.

[Tony Khan]

How do you do that as a coach, Chuck?

[Darius Butler]

For real, Pat.

[Tony Khan]

Like, what would you do if you're. You felt like your team would. When they speak to the media, they're not really portraying the message you want.

[Chuck Pagano]

You sit them down. You sit them down. Yeah, I got you. I'm can. Hey, you okay?

[Pat McAfee]

He can't hear. Sorry.

[Chuck Pagano]

I can turn up his ear, everything.

[Pat McAfee]

Can we turn up this guy's actual ears and we'll turn off the headset that's in there right now. Geez Louise.

[Chuck Pagano]

Nobody expect this from him.

[Pat McAfee]

No, no, that's what Connor's. He was in my ear saying, I.

[AJ Hawk]

Haven'T said you're a good guy.

[Pat McAfee]

Yep. Guess how much he went up. A hundred percent.

[AJ Hawk]

Oh, and then another hundred percent. Charlie Baker, absolute dog, favorite guest of all time forever.

[Pat McAfee]

Anyways, he was talking about the messaging because remember ar. After he tapped out of the game, he said, I'm not gonna lie. I was tired. And I appreciate him being transparent and telling the truth, but, like. But that moment, that kills you. That literally kills you with a lot of people because you're the quarterback. So, like, how's that happen? Well, then we know the people. People in the building, they're probably telling him he can't say that, but they probably think they got it figured out. Like, AD Was like, I'm going to tell the truth. I'm going to tell the truth. And like, his version of telling the truth is one where people are going to look at him and go, why is this guy. Why is this guy even throwing a ball?

[Chuck Pagano]

You know, I know for.

[Pat McAfee]

Colts have a lot of that. Colts have a lot of that app.

[Chuck Pagano]

Coming out of these things. Avis Roper was the. Was the guy in charge when I was there, right. Matt Conti was assistant. Conti's that guy. Conte and Avis were in my office right after a game. We'd address the team, right? Good or bad. All right, Win or lose, address the team. And then players. I'd go to my office, those guys would come in, and they had on the phone, okay, what's trending? What am I going to get hit with? You know, what are they going to ask, man, what is the messaging? What do we want to say? Because this is huge. All right, take a deep breath. So I know for a fact that Conti gets with these guys after the fact and says he knows. Okay, this is going to come up. AD this is going to come up.

[Pat McAfee]

All right, here's an angle here. Here's an angle if you want to.

[Chuck Pagano]

You know, this thing worked. We practice it over and over and over. These specialty plays, these trick plays. AJ Know you know this.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, we know this every week. We know this stuff every week.

[Chuck Pagano]

Every Friday, every Saturday. We had the three throwbacks, the end around, whatever that was. Yeah, we practice and practice. So look, I should have seen that guy. It wasn't there.

[Pat McAfee]

He made a hell of a play. You can still say, turned in Ed Reed.

[Chuck Pagano]

Turn in Ed Reed. We know that. Right? But I could have made a better decision on that.

[Pat McAfee]

Boom, then it's over.

[Chuck Pagano]

That's it.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, it's. And to your credit, I will say, and I think Bill Belichick obviously did this with the Patriots. You would come into a meeting and say, hey, gonna get it. I think every coach probably does this. If I had to guess, and I would assume Shane. I hope Coach Shane Steichen is doing this. I hope saying like, hey, here's the things. They're gonna get talked about, whether it's somebody's injury, like, on our team. Here's how this. This is what we're saying, you know, now you're never saying, like, hey, these are the exact words that you guys need to be saying. But you were giving like, hey, this is gonna come up. This is what we're saying. This is how. This is. This what we're saying. So, like, nobody's. At least on the same. Same page.

[Chuck Pagano]

And a lot of times I told you guys, just say, hey, look. That's a question for Coach Bingo. And takes it totally off the players and puts it on the head. Coach.

[Pat McAfee]

Players look like in the moment, but there's no moment to kind of, you know. And then something very serious would happen, and then you guys would roll my ass out there and be like, good luck.

[Ty Schmidt]

We'll address it.

[Pat McAfee]

All right, thanks. I'm gonna try it. I enjoy.

[Chuck Pagano]

Were you there for paintball when we went paintballed that year? Was that after your tenure?

[Pat McAfee]

That was after.

[Chuck Pagano]

It was during. During the spring.

[Pat McAfee]

It would have been real nice. Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

Paintball sounds fun.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, it sounds like a blast.

[Chuck Pagano]

I did a. I did a fake. You know, we'd fabricate stuff. I did that fake deal because we always talked about. You never talk about injuries. Never talk. So we put a deal up. You know, something about luck and his shoulder and stuff. Like, where did this come from? And I had already pimped D bus to be the fall guy.

[Pat McAfee]

Smart.

[Chuck Pagano]

And so we're going. It's dead quiet in there. Everybody thinks, oh, my God, who in the hell talked to? And then D butts, you know, I sat lower, bottom left, front row. Coach, it was me.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, no. Oh, no.

[Chuck Pagano]

And all the guys in the back are like. They're all. I go, what do you. What do you mean it was you? Well, I was just having a conversation with Steve because it was Stephen Holder we had on the deal. Just having a conversation. He told me it was off the record. Oh, we hadn't talked long and hard about off the record. You know, there's no off the record.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, you're just acting a little bit here.

[Chuck Pagano]

Oh, no, I was. No, it's. And everybody's waiting for, like, hey, he. And we just kept it together.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, my God.

[Chuck Pagano]

Kept it together.

[Pat McAfee]

Uncomfortable.

[Chuck Pagano]

And I threw him out. Well, I didn't throw him out. I said, you better go see Ballard right now.

[Pat McAfee]

Jesus.

[Chuck Pagano]

Because this isn't gonna.

[Pat McAfee]

Could you imagine?

[Chuck Pagano]

This is. And so, like, me hort. I'm looking in the back, right? And these poor offense, they're like. You gotta. Not, like, deep butts. Not deep. So he walked out of the team meeting, and he goes away for a minute, right? Know what's happening. So then he comes back in, and they say, Kind of a formal apology. Blah, blah, blah. I'm not going to be able to play this last game. I just. Can I say sorry to the team? So he's apologized to the team and all the, all this other stuff and you know, can I just, can I just hang out, you know, for, for one more day?

[Pat McAfee]

And you guys are so holy.

[AJ Hawk]

What the hell?

[Chuck Pagano]

No, we. We kept going and going and going and then what do you, what do you. You think? Should we, should we let him stick around and go play paintball with us today?

[Darius Butler]

And they're like, no way.

[Pat McAfee]

You gotta be. Did you change this picture in the back too? To a paintball? The guy.

[Chuck Pagano]

So I had the teams, I had the buses. We're leaving in 15 minutes. Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

What a ruse.

[AJ Hawk]

That's awesome.

[Pat McAfee]

That is amazing. So debut. Let's just talk about this whole thing. Watch debuts with the patience.

[AJ Hawk]

They know he had it in him, right?

[Pat McAfee]

Ask around who did it. Debut delivers the line in front of the whole team. Thought was off the record. Off. Leaves the room that's steps past team. Everybody's uncomfortable. Then he goes outside, went to talk to Ballard, comes back in, apologizes. And then you guys still.

[Chuck Pagano]

He got emotional. He got teary eyed.

[Pat McAfee]

No way.

[Chuck Pagano]

He worked up, you know where. Those stairs where I used to come in by the Telestrators and stuff. Come down and work. He got on those stairs and he's in front of the team and he's. He got teary eyed. He got misty eyed. Oh, no way. I was even like, this guy's good. He went above him.

[Pat McAfee]

When you guys plan this, when you guys are planning this and you tip him off to what's about to happen, do you guys both say like, let's really do it? Or did you expect what was happening? Or was there an end sign I had?

[Chuck Pagano]

It was just a matter once. I conjured the surprise thing up because it's last ota.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Chuck Pagano]

You know how we usually go outside and we let a guy kick. Kick a field goal. You do whatever guy catch a punt on the jugs and we're canceling this thing and we're going to go, you know, do paintball or go to top golf or whatever.

[Pat McAfee]

Yes.

[Chuck Pagano]

Team building stuff. You it up. And then it was just like, yeah, it's got to be debuts.

[Pat McAfee]

He'll. Yeah, debuts. I need you.

[Chuck Pagano]

And then he came in, told Andrew, obviously, because Andrew was in a meeting.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, no.

[Chuck Pagano]

So he was, hey, this is all. And Andrew hated it because, you know, he don't want to lie ever. He didn't want to play long.

[Pat McAfee]

That was killing somebody say it. I don't know. Somebody say it.

[Boston Connor]

Turns out it was.

[Pat McAfee]

I didn't see that. Could you imagine if Andrew Butch. What if he would have took on Wade? Deep but out. Yeah. Stay out. What if luck. What if Lock kicked his entire ass out? All right, let's get back on track here. The Denver Broncos defense is phenomenal. Yep. Okay. And whenever you address the media, it matters. And Budge Cooper. Yeah. Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

This guy's a thespian.

[Pat McAfee]

Full on.

[AJ Hawk]

Holy shit.

[Pat McAfee]

Worked up. So he goes around the corner, starts thinking of something terrible. I guess. Yeah. Going back in there. Hand up. So sorry.

[AJ Hawk]

I screwed up.

[Pat McAfee]

Everybody had to be so uncomfortable in there. Everybody.

[Chuck Pagano]

Because he's beloved.

[Pat McAfee]

Yes.

[Chuck Pagano]

By.

[Pat McAfee]

And also very important piece of the team.

[Chuck Pagano]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

What are we doing? We're just sending the hook. We're just sending this guy out of here. All right. Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

That's what I wish he said.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey. It was off the record, Chuck. Could you imagine somebody being. He didn't know Stephen hall kicked him out of here? Somebody would have. That would have been awesome. All right, let's get back to the pitch. Denver Broncos defense has created quite a situation for a lot of teams. The Colts most recently this past week. Colts still in the hunt, by the way. But in the hunt is a massive convo about this game tonight. We saw the game records. We saw the tale of the full season tape. We saw also the tale of the last four games. Feels like we know which way you're headed. Right. Doesn't it, boy?

[Ty Schmidt]

Yes.

[Pat McAfee]

Yes. Where was he born and raised, do you know?

[Ty Schmidt]

Boulder, Colorado.

[Pat McAfee]

What's the closest team to that? You would think.

[Ty Schmidt]

I assume it's the Broncos.

[Pat McAfee]

I would assume, too. Is that the closest team?

[Chuck Pagano]

You assumed Right.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. Yeah. And you're out there in one of those states that the Denver Broncos are their team right now in Idaho. Right.

[Chuck Pagano]

Boise State Broncos.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. So. Okay. And everything that you've kind of been leading into here kind of leans one particular way, but we will let you kind of be the one that says it. Chargers favored by three at home. Broncos coming to town. Chuck, who do you like? How do you like it?

[Chuck Pagano]

Yeah, I'm going Denver. Give me the three points.

[Pat McAfee]

Easy as that.

[Chuck Pagano]

I just. Yeah, I just.

[Pat McAfee]

41 and a half over. Under.

[Chuck Pagano]

Under. Chargers beat him in week six. They got up on him 23. Nothing. You know, Bo. Bo had a. Had one of those high overthrows, tip and overthrow, and things got kind of. And then he made a little, you know, a little late charge But I'm going with the Broncos. The, the line seems stinky, you know, to me for like, how could they based on those numbers and where these two teams are at right now?

[Pat McAfee]

Maybe it's a layup.

[AJ Hawk]

Maybe they're just giving us that is happening on Thursday.

[Pat McAfee]

Maybe they're just giving us one.

[Boston Connor]

My guess is Vegas has empowered similarly. And then what's the three for home?

[Chuck Pagano]

I haven't even asked where's the money?

[Boston Connor]

68 on the Broncos percent.

[Pat McAfee]

That's not 88. It's not gamble in Cali. Not that means anything. But it does account for still home.

[Chuck Pagano]

Local won't see McLaughlin running back. Running back. The other guy that goes with Javante Williams for the Broncos. Good little back.

[Ty Schmidt]

Jalil.

[Chuck Pagano]

He's a good back. He, he's out. He's not going to play.

[Pat McAfee]

So you're with the 68%.

[Chuck Pagano]

I'm going Denver. Yep.

[Pat McAfee]

A.J. hawk, how do you feel? Do you think it's a stinky line? Does this thing smell a little bit like your ass after 99 wipes that we learned yesterday. Age. Yeah, that was that might have been.

[Tony Khan]

Bowing out of proportion a little bit, but. Well, I was asked a question. I answered a question.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Out of proportion.

[Tony Khan]

Well, I, I, I stepped it down a little bit as we went. But as far as this game goes tonight, Broncos that if this was a neutral site, it would be a. It would be nothing.

[Pat McAfee]

Right.

[Tony Khan]

Pick them.

[Pat McAfee]

Yep.

[Tony Khan]

They're getting three because the Chargers are at home, which I don't know how much of a home field advantage they have.

[Boston Connor]

I don't know if Chargers get a full three at home, but yeah, that's.

[Chuck Pagano]

A, that's a neutral.

[Boston Connor]

Neutral Broncos probably or two.

[Chuck Pagano]

The way people.

[Pat McAfee]

Broncos fans. Yeah.

[Chuck Pagano]

The way sofa like they are.

[Pat McAfee]

Broncos fans like that.

[Ty Schmidt]

That's an easy flight from Denver to la.

[Pat McAfee]

Broncos fans are like that. They travel very well, especially if the team's good, obviously. So they'll take that place over tonight.

[Chuck Pagano]

You think it'll be loud?

[Pat McAfee]

It will be loud. Hey, that's Thursday night, baby. That's right. Age. Who you taking?

[Tony Khan]

I'm gonna ride with Chuck here. I'm taking the Broncos minus three. And I would take the U.N. well, yeah. You know what I mean. Broncos plus three. I'm sorry about that. Yep. That obviously is a big deal.

[AJ Hawk]

Bronco, you said minus.

[Pat McAfee]

You said minus three.

[Tony Khan]

I think the Broncos are going to win, but I'm taking the Broncos and I want the points as well as this graphic show.

[Pat McAfee]

I will take the Broncos and the points as well, clean sweep for us. Feels like this one's a little too easy, but I just watched the Broncos play the Colts in that second half early. Anthony Richardson did his thing.

[Chuck Pagano]

We got an ankle. We got. Herbert ain't running around like a ar, so we ain't got to worry about that.

[Pat McAfee]

All right.

[Ty Schmidt]

Boom.

[Pat McAfee]

Broncos locking in. I don't know if Harbaugh is dialing up any trick plays.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, I also don't think Baker, man, whatever, you know, let's go, Broncos.

[Pat McAfee]

What?

[AJ Hawk]

I want Chuck to get away.

[Pat McAfee]

What'd you say you're about to say, Baker Mayfield?

[AJ Hawk]

I just, you know, Broncos beat the. Beat the Colts and the Chargers got shit kicked. But the Bucks are very good.

[Pat McAfee]

Right? Right. Bucks are very good. Do we have that graphic that was.

[AJ Hawk]

I think so. From picking them?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. From the Ravens Reddit. I do believe this is maybe the best graphic I've seen. And I. We don't know. Picking them. We think is on there.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, no, it is. We. We found the original one. It was from the.

[Tony Khan]

Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

IG account. Picking them.

[Pat McAfee]

This is a fantastic graphic. Looks like a lot of numbers can intimidate you early, but then just know this. If all three columns are green for your team, that's good news, because the first two are about whether you win against teams that are good or lose against teams that are good. And then the second column is how do you fare against the crop teams? So first column being green means you're good. Second column means you're good. Third column means those two combined. The teams are all red. Absolute.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Crop teams that are all green, those are the ones that are going to make it. And once you start looking at how people fare against the top half of the league on this particular graphic, you can really start to judge some people. Now, Chargers and Broncos damn near the same. They're in a similar position, if my memory serves me correctly. But look at what the Ravens. Look at the Buffalo Beals. How about the Minnesota Vikings, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers. That's Steelers football. Low scoring. Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Kansas City Chiefs. Everybody's talking about, you know, they don't look good. They don't look good. They don't look good. Still beat everybody.

[Charlie Baker]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Even good teams.

[Chuck Pagano]

You know, that Rams. That's got to be because early. Right. You start own four, whatever they did, and they just got hot. Those numbers are probably coming down, but they're a little. That could be deceiving. They're all red, but they're hot.

[AJ Hawk]

I think a really glaring run is actually the commanders, because the commanders have not done well against teams above.500. But they kill the teams that they're supposed to.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. And I guess you could look at the Chargers there too. Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

Yep.

[Tony Khan]

Niners, a little bit like Broncos, Philly.

[Chuck Pagano]

Phillies at Washington this week. Right.

[Pat McAfee]

Eagles, Texans have the similar red, green. Green is like good against not good teams. Bengals, red, green, green. Haven't been able to beat somebody you know. Yes.

[Tony Khan]

This is a valuable. It's a valuable graphic. You're right.

[Pat McAfee]

It's a great graphic. The Cardinals. I mean, look at the Cardinals. Yep. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Seahawks.

[AJ Hawk]

It's really just a green. In that first column are the teams I feel like we all think could win.

[Pat McAfee]

And then everybody else know, hey, picking them. Still doing it.

[AJ Hawk]

Still picking them.

[Pat McAfee]

Still picking. It. Still picks up. Picking them. That was. That was fantastic. Great. All right, let's get the hell out of here. What a day. Tomorrow we're off. What's that?

[AJ Hawk]

You want to do all games or.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, shit, yeah. Because we have. We're off. Yeah, let's do it. I forgot, kids. I was literally just saying we're off. Yeah. Yeah, we're off tomorrow. College game day though will be live after the noon college game ends all the way up until kickoff of IU in Notre Dame to launch the 12 team playoff into the stratosphere. Yeah, let's pick every game. Chuck, happy that you're here. Let's start with we both all are on the Broncos plus three. Saturday one o'clock. The Candy Cane games. The NFL holiday remix begins. Texans getting three and a half in the home of the Chief. Chuck Pagano. We'll start with you, brother.

[Chuck Pagano]

Oh, that's an easy one. My homies playing. Now, I will say this, that pass rush for Houston is real. That's legit. And these offensive tackles, this offensive line for Kansas City stinks right now, but they're going to find a way. I'll give me the Chiefs minus three and a half.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, A.J.

[Tony Khan]

Chuck almost talked me out of the Chiefs and thinking of AQ showing some of their O line woes. Made me think about it. But I'm. I'm right with the Chiefs here.

[Pat McAfee]

Give me the Texans plus three and a half. Okay, give me the Texans plus three and a half. Chiefs might win. I mean, that is three point game.

[Tony Khan]

Carson Wentz might get thrown in there. Then they'll definitely win, right?

[Pat McAfee]

No, I don't know. No, that is not. Not a guarantee.

[AJ Hawk]

Definitely.

[Pat McAfee]

D'Amico. Ryan's is down there right now trying to prepare for Patrick Mahomes, obviously because he's full participant, I think in practice today and plans on playing. But also he's got to prepare for if Carson Wentz does get in there. And it's impossible to prepare for that guy.

[Ty Schmidt]

He is praying to God Carson Wentz doesn't get in there.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. No way. Like a bucking bull being let loose. Exactly. I mean, that is, you know that.

[Chuck Pagano]

I mean, two springs right on, right on inside. Running on the inside of his ankles.

[Pat McAfee]

He'll do anything.

[AJ Hawk]

There is no game plan for Carson Wentz.

[Ty Schmidt]

He's also hot right now. Have you seen how many ducks he.

[Tony Khan]

Just killed on his last like 150.

[Pat McAfee]

So many have I. Has anybody ever gone duck hunting and not one?

[Ty Schmidt]

No, no.

[Tony Khan]

They've had two. We just don't see the picture of nothing.

[Pat McAfee]

I don't know. I, I, I feel like anytime somebody goes duck hunting, we know about it.

[Tony Khan]

They get 100 of them.

[Pat McAfee]

They always.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, but always I'm also really good.

[Ty Schmidt]

Well, yeah, but I'm not so sure that they don't bring out like Uzis and machine guns and then just like take pictures with like rifles.

[Pat McAfee]

Shotguns.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah. Shotguns.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. A little bird shot out there. Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

We should go hog hunt.

[Pat McAfee]

Hog hunting with bay dogs.

[Tony Khan]

With a knife?

[AJ Hawk]

No, with a, With a copper.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

From a helicopter. Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

Oh, get in a copter.

[Pat McAfee]

That sounds pretty wild right now. Watch a video right now. I'm hoping nothing that's flying in our skies has any guns on them. You know what I mean?

[Tony Khan]

We need ours to have guns, certainly.

[Pat McAfee]

But I'm just hoping, you know, they.

[Boston Connor]

Are still going on.

[Pat McAfee]

I don't know. Every.

[Boston Connor]

I figured, I thought it was over.

[AJ Hawk]

They have disintegrating lasers, my brother. They don't have guns. They hit you once in your whole body.

[Pat McAfee]

Like red light therapy.

[AJ Hawk]

Your whole body goes liquid hot.

[Pat McAfee]

Lasers. Yeah, like lava.

[AJ Hawk]

They touch it magma and you disintegrate into dust.

[Pat McAfee]

Who's they?

[Chuck Pagano]

You know, we got a hog guy too in Alabama, if you guys are serious.

[Pat McAfee]

Sounds like we can't take to the sky.

[Boston Connor]

Helicopter.

[Pat McAfee]

Those, those hogs are a nuisance. They're rotting up all the farm. They're a problem. They are probably like rats out there in the land. Tim McAfee went into the woods with a rifle in Pennsylvania at about 4am deep into these hills, freezing cold after sleeping in a trailer night before. Came out charcuterie board. He brought right over here, made some jalapeno venison with some cheddar venison and some plain in there with some cheeses and A couple Ritz crackers. He'll bring in some sausage links, some venison sausage. The other day, he walks in there with a gun. He walks out with a charcuterie board. That's right. And we're very thankful for that.

[Chuck Pagano]

That thing was big time.

[Pat McAfee]

It was so good, too.

[Chuck Pagano]

I mean, laid out, too, like.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, he's very proud of it.

[Chuck Pagano]

Martha Stewart couldn't put it together.

[Pat McAfee]

All right, boys. And then even did, like a. One of these.

[AJ Hawk]

Got some stuff.

[Chuck Pagano]

It was awesome.

[Pat McAfee]

Anyway, that's why you. That's why you walk all them hills.

[Ty Schmidt]

Exactly.

[Pat McAfee]

That's why you sleep in that trailer. Yeah. That's why you put your hunting gear into a gas or garbage bag that has deer piss in it for two weeks. That's right. So they don't know you're coming and they can't smell you. You put the orange on because the dumb deer are colorblind. They ain't gonna see anyways. Let's make sure we're not getting shot by anybody else. The only thing that's getting shot is some deer. It's turning into a charcuterie board.

[Ty Schmidt]

That's right.

[Pat McAfee]

That was delightful.

[AJ Hawk]

So good.

[Pat McAfee]

Tim used up all his tags this year in Indiana and in Pennsylvania.

[Darius Butler]

Worth it.

[Pat McAfee]

We got a lot of shortcuts coming.

[Chuck Pagano]

What do you get? A couple each state?

[Pat McAfee]

Dough, buck, dough buck, Tax dough, buck.

[Chuck Pagano]

Dough buck, whatever that is.

[Ty Schmidt]

Doe and a buck.

[Pat McAfee]

Dough, buck, doe, buck.

[Chuck Pagano]

Oh, like do, re, me, fossil.

[Pat McAfee]

No, a deer. A female deer. Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

Buck.

[Pat McAfee]

A buck. A male deer. Buck. Yeah, a donor buck. Each state.

[Ty Schmidt]

This guy's losing it.

[Pat McAfee]

Has this guy ever been outside before?

[Ty Schmidt]

I mean, it's that. It's, you know, you ask him a question, and he just stares into the distance for, you know, 15 seconds. And then.

[Pat McAfee]

I did wonder a couple times.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, exactly. Hey, hey, you know, you shouldn't have to.

[Pat McAfee]

Come on. It was Ty's birthday yesterday, Chuck. He's trying to catch up. Let's go to Pittsburgh Steelers, Baltimore Ravens. Ravens favored by six and a half at home. Tone, what's this all about?

[Boston Connor]

I don't know, because, you know, everybody loves talking about the Ravens. They're going Super Bowl. Lamar Jackson is going to win the MVP, but they're 8 and 2 in the last 10 against Steelers. Lamar's 1 and 4 against the Steelers, 8 and 2.

[Pat McAfee]

Wait, what?

[AJ Hawk]

Steelers are 8 and 2?

[Boston Connor]

Steelers are 8 and 2. Yeah, okay, but you know, everybody loves talking about the Ravens. Dog in this series between Harbaugh and Tomlin is 25, 6 and 3. Against the spread.

[Ty Schmidt]

So.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, I don't know. He told me.

[Pat McAfee]

All right.

[Chuck Pagano]

God, those are compelling numbers for sure.

[Pat McAfee]

Certainly need to know them.

[Chuck Pagano]

Playing, huh? Is Pickens playing?

[Boston Connor]

I don't think so.

[Chuck Pagano]

Give me the Ravens.

[Pat McAfee]

Minus six.

[Chuck Pagano]

Yep.

[Pat McAfee]

You're employed by him.

[Chuck Pagano]

Has to say that I don't have to look better. Jackson, so good, is going to die before he loses to this team.

[Boston Connor]

Rest in peace, brother.

[Chuck Pagano]

Get the caskets ready.

[Pat McAfee]

Is he gonna win behind? We hope that's not the case. He's having a great year. I mean, so much fun to watch. I, I, we all just, myself included, like what Josh Allen's been doing, and he's never won the mvp. It's like, oh, this is the year Josh Allen's gonna get the mvp. Because it's almost, like, ceremonial. We think about. He had six touchdowns to himself. Yeah. Three rushing, three throw. And first time any quarterback's ever done that two weeks ago. And then he backs it up yet again with another Aspen performance against the Detroit Lions. It's like, this guy's the guy. Lamar Jackson had a bye week when the MVP conversation really was heating up and everything. Then he comes back and he has more touchdowns than incompletions. Lamar Jackson's like, hold the phone real quick. Now, the records are obviously different, but Lamar Jackson's been special this year, and we've been a part of the problem not promoting him enough. Even though Tone Diggs thinks everybody loves the Raven. The Ravens are really good.

[Chuck Pagano]

Yeah, they played the Giants. They are really good.

[Pat McAfee]

They. They. They did play the Giants. So can you put that win graphic back up for picking them from the figure?

[Chuck Pagano]

It's green. Green, green.

[Pat McAfee]

The Giants of them. For the Giants.

[Chuck Pagano]

Oh, no.

[Ty Schmidt]

Giants surprisingly pretty good.

[Pat McAfee]

The Giants, not bad at all. Minus 120. That is third. Four. Third worst.

[Ty Schmidt]

Third worst.

[Pat McAfee]

Fourth worst. Raiders.

[AJ Hawk]

Oh, my God.

[Pat McAfee]

Holy Titans. Fourth worst.

[AJ Hawk]

171.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

Top of your.

[Pat McAfee]

Top of your.

[Ty Schmidt]

Only 22 to the under 500 right there.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, not too bad. Not a bad team. Not a bad team. Lamar Jackson obviously made it look pretty simple over there.

[Chuck Pagano]

How many plays? Excuse me? How many defensive snaps did the Steelers play last week?

[Charlie Baker]

Six?

[Boston Connor]

Seven.

[Pat McAfee]

No, it was 60. That's a lot. Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

You mean they're warm? They're ready to go.

[AJ Hawk]

Is TJ playing?

[Chuck Pagano]

I got three games in 11 days.

[Pat McAfee]

He's gonna test it. He said he's gonna play, and we'll see how it goes.

[Chuck Pagano]

Outside leg, and he's gonna have to play on the right side if he's gonna play and he wants to run the corner and bend it like he does. He's not gonna be able to do that off his left.

[Boston Connor]

Okay, you tell TJ well, what he could do.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay.

[Tony Khan]

H. I'm gonna go with Chuck here. Teej is teachers ankle injury does worry me, even though I know he's a savage and he's going to go. But yeah, I like the Ravens here.

[Pat McAfee]

All right, give him the Steelers plus six and a half. Even though the Ravens might win. I got massive respect for everything Lamar Jackson's doing. How about Rams, jets? Rams favored by three going into MetLife. Brick Johnson actually putting fireman Ed's helmet on to prove he is a blue collar guy. That's what he's doing. And he's actually making sure Fireman Ed is not in the stadium. So he's actually gonna pop up and go, what's up? Yeah, what's up? He's gonna go, that's how you do it. Hey, what team do I own?

[Chuck Pagano]

J, E, T S, J, J.

[Pat McAfee]

Is this what you want to see? Blue collar? What team's gonna be constantly cursed because I run it? J, E, T, F. Jeff, Jeff. Jeff. I'm 17. I'm a super genius. What team is my team? That's what's going to happen.

[AJ Hawk]

There's a good chance that's the. That's why Fireman was off the jumbotron for those couple weeks. Now we know. Yep.

[Pat McAfee]

Holy Brick was absolutely sick of it. I didn't even. That could be the case.

[AJ Hawk]

100%.

[Pat McAfee]

I'm tired of this guy. Why does he get all his shine? Is there any isos on old Brick Fireman? Brick?

[Ty Schmidt]

No.

[AJ Hawk]

There will be.

[Pat McAfee]

What if he spells out B R I C K O W N S, J E, T S? Jets. Jets, Jets. Rick owns Jets. That's how he acts. Just walking around.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

South park in the middle of the season right now. No, no, South Park. We need you to pick up on this Brick Johnson guy. We need it. That. That is right.

[AJ Hawk]

Right up their alley.

[Pat McAfee]

Society used to kind of be. I don't say kept in check.

[Ty Schmidt]

It was. It was the checks and balances.

[Pat McAfee]

If south park had learned that a Brick Johnson was operating as a 17 year old, 18 year old, the way it's going. Oh, my God. We love you. We love you, South Park. Thank you.

[Ty Schmidt]

Love you, South Park.

[AJ Hawk]

Oh, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Let's get back to picking games. We don't know if Brick will fire Fireman head, but it is possible.

[Ty Schmidt]

Certainly possible.

[Pat McAfee]

Chuck, how do you like the Rams jets game? Who do you see Winning and covering.

[Chuck Pagano]

Rams are hot right now. And they played. It's been. Has it been 10 days?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

Thursday.

[Chuck Pagano]

Yeah, it's been 10 days since they played. Right?

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, baby. Bye.

[Chuck Pagano]

Yeah, little baby. Long way to go, though. Give me the Jets. Come here and give me the Jets. Give me that defense. Give me, give me. Give me our boy. Boy a. Oh.

[Pat McAfee]

After the season, because I want to.

[Chuck Pagano]

See our boy give another game ball.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, we need.

[Chuck Pagano]

Hell, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

We haven't utilized that particular guy. We don't want to put him in a compromised position ever. And Bram Boyer. But Brant Boyer, the special teams coordinator over there, he has thoughts about Brick Johnson. Obviously, for what we are learning right now, I would love to hear that. That guy Brick over. Old Brick over there. Brant Boyer over there. Solo. I mean, there has to be some thoughts. I would assume, I don't know, maybe one day. Maybe one day. Or maybe. Maybe it'll never be talked about again. Aj, who do you like? How do you like it in this Rams? Brick Johnson, jets game?

[Tony Khan]

Honestly, I like the jets here. I feel like obviously they're playing loose. They don't have anything really to lose. And Aaron seems to be healthy, so, yeah, I feel like he and Devonte and Garrett gonna get to continue the dominance and play well and hopefully get game balls after the game.

[Pat McAfee]

All right. Yep.

[Ty Schmidt]

You can do it.

[AJ Hawk]

I mean, come on.

[Ty Schmidt]

You can do it.

[AJ Hawk]

What are we talking?

[Tony Khan]

Do whatever.

[Pat McAfee]

I'm never picking anything that Brick Johnson's a part of.

[AJ Hawk]

No chance.

[Pat McAfee]

I think Harvard tennis is going to lose every single match that they have going forward. That's what I. That's. That's how I view the current situation now. Was reporting false? I don't know. Maybe. Well, we learn more about this, but I think I'm picking against Brick every single time I can for the good of society.

[Ty Schmidt]

Rightfully so.

[AJ Hawk]

Reporting might be false, but the photos weren't.

[Pat McAfee]

Rainfront.

[AJ Hawk]

Brick, we saw.

[Tony Khan]

Something's got to be part of it. Something's got to be true.

[Pat McAfee]

I will take the Rams. I don't like that.

[Tony Khan]

Rams are good.

[Pat McAfee]

What? I just don't. Aaron said we're playing Spoiler.

[AJ Hawk]

Mac Jones scored 25 points last week.

[Pat McAfee]

I just said nobody cares about that team because how big of a joke it is because there's a 17 year old coming in talking. Why would they ever. Rams. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah. Don't overthink it.

[Pat McAfee]

Don't it. Don't do it.

[Ty Schmidt]

Don't overthink it.

[Pat McAfee]

I got a lot of different opinions than these guys. AJ was 113 last week, remember? Yeah, he's seen the field. He's ice cold, this guy. Ice, ice cold. He's as cold as ice. Every pick, he's willing to sacrifice our love. Eagles commanders. Eagles favored by 3 1/2 in Washington. New stadium, I heard, has been talked about by the political world. Stuck that one in the back door, allegedly.

[AJ Hawk]

Yep.

[Pat McAfee]

Doesn't matter how it gets in. If there's a new stadium, obviously we're pumping for that particular NFL program that has it landed on its official name. For the long term, we are not sure. Eagles, obviously. Awesome. Fresh off the Pennsylvania State Championship, the Keystone Bowl. They beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, a very good football team. They're flying high. Had a little bit of a thing on the sideline. All settled and addressed. Jalen hurts A.J. brown. Kid in play. Keep it moving. Chuck Pagana. Who do you like? How do you like it in this NFC east matchup?

[Chuck Pagano]

Boy, it'd be hard to bet against the Eagles right now.

[Pat McAfee]

It would be. Oh, you gonna do it top to bottom.

[Chuck Pagano]

I mean, whoa. Run the ball. They obviously can pass the ball again. And the defense is number one in the league right now.

[Pat McAfee]

Whoa.

[Chuck Pagano]

Those two young players. Quinon, Mitchell, Cooper, Dean, Slay. Slay. I watched the whole game. That guy. That guy's even playing really good right now.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. What do you mean even? Yeah, there's. Slay is a dog. And also he got blocked 45 yards by holding Darnell. Great block. And he. He threw a big time right. He did. Still bring it.

[AJ Hawk]

Still bringing him.

[Boston Connor]

He was just trying to get his arms off.

[Chuck Pagano]

Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis, Sweat. Nolan Smith.

[Boston Connor]

I would say that's all those.

[Chuck Pagano]

Georgia, Give me the. Give me the Eagles.

[Pat McAfee]

All right. Eagles minus three and a half in Washington. AJ do you agree with Chuck?

[Tony Khan]

I do agree with Chuck on this one. Jalen Carter. You watch some of the clips floating around the Internet of that guy. Like when he goes. He is an absolute monster.

[Pat McAfee]

Is he the one? Is he with the Rhino?

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, Baby Rhino.

[Pat McAfee]

Baby Rhino. Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

Rosenhaus told him. Yeah, he ain't falling out of the top 10.

[Pat McAfee]

So you don't have to take any more visits. Yeah, yeah. There's running your rag drive. Don't do that. You're. You're in the top 10. How do you know that? 10's taking it. Yeah, don't you worry about it. There's some people that. Saying that already about the draft. Dion told Pac man on the Pac Man Jones show, like, Shor's got one of the Giants. And if we look at the thing, maybe the Giants don't earn the number one overall pick. There's some real crop teams out there. There's some real crop teams out there.

[Chuck Pagano]

There's. There's one out in Vegas.

[AJ Hawk]

Those two.

[Pat McAfee]

Right.

[Ty Schmidt]

They both lose out. I think. Raiders strength of schedule.

[Charlie Baker]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

The Raiders will get the pick.

[Pat McAfee]

They need a qb.

[Ty Schmidt]

They do.

[Pat McAfee]

Cardinals. Panthers. Cardinals favored by five in Carolina. We know that. That house is going to be packed. Chuck. Who do you like?

[Chuck Pagano]

They're seven and seven. They got to have this. That NFC west is still in a dogfight out there. And Carolina. I was starting to believe in them. Joey Gilbert doing a hell of a job with that offensive line down there. Bryce Young. And then last week against Dallas.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Chuck Pagano]

I didn't.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Chuck Pagano]

Give me Arizona.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. Minus five. You know these points. It's not just who wins the game. There's a spread part of the whole entire thing against the spread.

[Boston Connor]

He's talking to you, Chuck.

[Chuck Pagano]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

They're going to win by a lot. Five's a lot. Yeah.

[Chuck Pagano]

You got three. You get three for home. So neutral side three.

[Pat McAfee]

That's not real. It's more like 2.1 depending upon the home field advantage.

[Boston Connor]

For sure.

[Pat McAfee]

That's the whole thing.

[Chuck Pagano]

Carolina's pounding. You don't get any down there, huh?

[Pat McAfee]

They might be back because of tepper Luke Coms and everybody taking care of the town. They got.

[Chuck Pagano]

Got that fake Panther running around.

[Pat McAfee]

I never understood that.

[AJ Hawk]

It's not fake.

[Tony Khan]

It's not fake.

[AJ Hawk]

They showed on the big board and it looks really cool.

[Pat McAfee]

So they made a graphic. I don't think they made an edited video. I don't think I understand what.

[Boston Connor]

That the Europe one was weird.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, it was cool. All of them were. Why would.

[AJ Hawk]

Because it's cool.

[Pat McAfee]

But why did anybody care that they made a video with a panther hopping around a stadium? Like. Like.

[Ty Schmidt]

Because nobody else is doing it.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, but reels can do that.

[AJ Hawk]

Not like any.

[Pat McAfee]

You put that right on reels plate.

[Boston Connor]

I've never seen him.

[Pat McAfee]

He'll put a panther bouncing around a Thunderdome. Not like that.

[AJ Hawk]

I'd like to see that.

[Pat McAfee]

They got it. They got technology now. I just. You put a thing in there, it makes it look alive. Here it goes. They were promoting that as if they like split the atom. Because everybody loves Sir Purr so much.

[Boston Connor]

Reels can do that.

[AJ Hawk]

Reels can't do that.

[Pat McAfee]

Do you see his week in review this week?

[Boston Connor]

I did.

[Pat McAfee]

They made it seem like if you're in stadium, you actually saw that happening.

[AJ Hawk]

And it was shake.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, it did.

[Pat McAfee]

It was a Social media video that they put on the jumbo truck.

[AJ Hawk]

And it was sick.

[Pat McAfee]

It was there.

[Tony Khan]

We don't know.

[Pat McAfee]

And then remember their schedule release videos are the best.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, the throwback.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. And they dropped the bike off at the front yard.

[Ty Schmidt]

Exactly.

[Pat McAfee]

Hopped inside playing computer games. Oh, good old days. That's what Carolina's dreaming about. Yeah. Those days might be back.

[Boston Connor]

I'm watching it right now. It was awesome.

[Pat McAfee]

The schedule release. No, the band. It was just a. I don't.

[Chuck Pagano]

No, it was. It's real, it's cool.

[Pat McAfee]

How about the moon? What do you think about that?

[Chuck Pagano]

The what?

[Pat McAfee]

The moon.

[Chuck Pagano]

The moon.

[Pat McAfee]

The one that's up in this. Yeah. What about when the moon hit your eyes? Like that's what I'm talking about, the moon. What do you think about it?

[Chuck Pagano]

Love it.

[Pat McAfee]

I do too. It's a good thing to see every night, you know, Whenever it's not cloudy, you get a chance to see.

[AJ Hawk]

Still bringing it.

[Pat McAfee]

It is still bringing it. The. The moon is one big moon. That's what it. Do it through the moon.

[AJ Hawk]

For you.

[Chuck Pagano]

It dude up move.

[Pat McAfee]

Not every night though. The cloudy.

[Boston Connor]

Actually, it doesn't shine either.

[Pat McAfee]

It's the sun that's reflecting off of it.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, don't. Don't explain that to him. It'll break his brain.

[Pat McAfee]

Who Trucks Chuck knows that. You know, the moon is not actually lit. It's the light from the sun shining off the moon in the sky. So when your eyes see, it's lit up.

[AJ Hawk]

Do you know that?

[Pat McAfee]

Did we get a moonshot?

[Chuck Pagano]

Yes.

[Ty Schmidt]

Thank you.

[Chuck Pagano]

Lovell.

[Ty Schmidt]

Jim Lovell, Tom Hanks and Paul 13.

[Pat McAfee]

I'm not talking about the movie. I'm talking real life. Lovel I'm talking about Cold War.

[Chuck Pagano]

I'm talking about the cold 7. 1968. I was 8 years old.

[Tony Khan]

Did you watch?

[Chuck Pagano]

They were circling that. Heck yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

You went down, didn't you?

[Pat McAfee]

Was it a live stream to Houston.

[Chuck Pagano]

The two channels that we got, or the three? Whatever it was, it was on one.

[Pat McAfee]

Of them live, though. It was happening live. You. As Neil touched the moon. You saw it live or was it recorded? You think it was live?

[Chuck Pagano]

Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

Played a lot of football since then.

[Pat McAfee]

That's amazing that they were able to stream live.

[Ty Schmidt]

Crazy. Crazy what we can do when we put our mind to something.

[Pat McAfee]

We need to start doing it more.

[Ty Schmidt]

I agree.

[Boston Connor]

That's America.

[Pat McAfee]

Everybody's on the same page. We got to be the first one to get up there. Then we got to stream it perfectly.

[Ty Schmidt]

Uhhuh.

[Pat McAfee]

I love that we did that. Usa.

[AJ Hawk]

Usa.

[Pat McAfee]

Usa. We beat him.

[Ty Schmidt]

Still beating. Damn right. Still beating them.

[Pat McAfee]

Does Buzz know It does. Does Buzz.

[Ty Schmidt]

I told you. They can make anybody say anything with AI these days. A couple years ago, you remember. Remember that guy tried to get in Buzz's face? Why are you a liar? Why are you a liar? We didn't go to the moon. What Buzz do? Hit him right in the mouth. Drop the guy. Shut up the. Out of my face.

[Pat McAfee]

He did do that. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Buzz still bringing it.

[Pat McAfee]

Still bright, so. Yes. All right, cool. We're all on the same page here, right?

[Ty Schmidt]

Arizona.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Age, you like Arizona?

[Tony Khan]

Now give me Carolina here.

[Pat McAfee]

After all this talk, Pat, did you take the Eagles? Still bringing it.

[Ty Schmidt]

I slotted you for the Eagles.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay, good. Yeah. All right.

[Boston Connor]

Kyler did say super excited to play in the cold in Carolina.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. He said, how cold is it going to be? And they say 35. He goes, yeah, they left. He beat West Virginia one night night real cold in Morgantown. He went bananas. Hollywood went crazy. Oh yeah.

[Boston Connor]

That was a very high scoring game.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. I mean they. They got after it in that particular game. Give me the Cardinals. Oh, I don't like it. Give me the Panthers plus five. Okay, Cardinals win. Panthers plus me too. Do you see the Cardinals like win by 10 ever?

[AJ Hawk]

No, just against the Patriots last one week.

[Pat McAfee]

True. Give me the Cardinals.

[AJ Hawk]

Who's at home?

[Pat McAfee]

Give me the Cardinals. I'm happy they fixed that parking situation out there too. So Charlie Baker doesn't have to get.

[Ty Schmidt]

Bottles turn his face at least.

[AJ Hawk]

I mean. But thank God for the number picking up. Cuz at that time I would not expect Super Bowl Sunday A1,800 number to pick up. No at all.

[Pat McAfee]

That was a good little added piece. I call a 1, 800 number. Somebody answered. It was like he was very baffled by that. Stunned him walking back in. That man would go on to become the governor of Massachusetts, the great state of Massachusetts. 2 times most votes all the time. Most votes all. It's still to this day. Still bringing it.

[Boston Connor]

I mean he kind of said it.

[AJ Hawk]

Ah yeah, he's still bringing it.

[Pat McAfee]

Cleveland Browns, Cincinnati Bengals. Browns plus seven and a half. Cincy favored by a touchdown in a Hawk DTR. DTR's D debut this season. No. Has he played? He's already played.

[AJ Hawk]

He's played, but not started, I don't think.

[Pat McAfee]

How's he done? I don't remember. I don't think they made him starter ever. Right?

[Boston Connor]

No, there was a good tweet because you know all the quarterbacks on that roster have very short Leases.

[Charlie Baker]

Except for one.

[Pat McAfee]

Who's that?

[Boston Connor]

The one that was paid $230 million.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, yeah, that's. Welcome to reality, kid.

[Ty Schmidt]

That works.

[Pat McAfee]

Give me the Bengals favored by a touchdown and a hook. Chuck, who do you like? Same. Same age, same. Giants getting eight and a half heading down to Michael Penix Jr's debut with the Atlantic Atlanta Falcons. Anything we need to know about this one? Other than Pennix Jr starting?

[AJ Hawk]

I believe that's it. Who started for the Giants?

[Boston Connor]

Is it Timmy Boyle?

[AJ Hawk]

Is it Timmy Boyle?

[Chuck Pagano]

Lefty. Whoever it is, they said this is the first time in a long time that two lefties were starting in the whole league.

[AJ Hawk]

Not against each other.

[Ty Schmidt]

Drew Locke.

[Boston Connor]

Oh, he's back.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, we got secondary players back, but.

[Tony Khan]

I mean who cares?

[Pat McAfee]

Drew Locke in Atlanta.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, he might be drawing, I don't.

[Pat McAfee]

Know, might be stopping by Cheetahs, you know. Yeah, I don't know what Drew. Drew Locke has a good time, you know, you never know. Drew Locke. Call that my bodyguard? Yeah, that's my body.

[Charlie Baker]

Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

Your season's going well when we don't know. Who's your starting for?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, give me Michael Penix Jr. Winning big in his debut. What an awesome moment for him too. He wins Giants perfect team. Yeah, perfect team to kind of start against. Start your entire career at this stage. Got a lot of teammates are saying hey, we'll make you look good. Offense coordinators say we're going to give you some easy ones here working into this and then what if Michael Pennix just goes fucking ape shit and this is the beginning of the entire era down there could happen. I like the Falcons. I like them. Chuck, have you made a pick in this game?

[Chuck Pagano]

No, but I'm taking. Taking them as well.

[Tony Khan]

Falcons age give me Michael Penix and the Falcons.

[Pat McAfee]

All right, Titans, Colts, colts favored by 3 1/2 at home. I believe Santa Claus is going to be a lot house. No, thank you. Stopping by.

[Boston Connor]

Of all the games he's going that.

[Pat McAfee]

One, I think he's stopping by. Well, he's currently about to work. You know, he's. He's getting shining up the sleigh. He's getting all the masher and dancer comedy Cupid and Thawner and Blitzen. Turns out I know Rudolph because he was in the same hills as Tim McAfee last.

[Boston Connor]

Oh no.

[Pat McAfee]

Damn. We just had Rudolph Charcuterie delicious, nice. A little jalapeno in him.

[Boston Connor]

Actually it's Mason Rudolph who will be in this one.

[AJ Hawk]

Oh, cuz he's playing.

[Pat McAfee]

You lose one, you eat it. You Gain another.

[Boston Connor]

Bingo.

[Pat McAfee]

Colts favored by three and a half at home. Still lurking.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, still bringing it.

[Pat McAfee]

Still going.

[Tony Khan]

I'm taking Colts here. I got the Colts here, Pat.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. Age. I like to hear that, Chuck.

[Chuck Pagano]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay.

[Boston Connor]

I really like Callahan, by the way. Every time I hear him talk, I like that guy.

[Pat McAfee]

Forget he's the head coach of the team though. It's going to take a few years, I think. Especially if they're going to maybe don't.

[Chuck Pagano]

Call his team soft.

[Pat McAfee]

New. I like that speech.

[Chuck Pagano]

It was great.

[Pat McAfee]

I like that speech. Whoever saying as was Phil. Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

They might get.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, I like Gan. Give me the Colts minus three and a half at home. Lothouse should be good. O might be Titans fans here. Close drive, but Titans aren't really playing for money.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, they're done with players of any fans.

[Pat McAfee]

Thanks. What's that?

[Boston Connor]

What? Oh, yeah. They're still in the hunt. They're still in the hunt. You're right.

[Pat McAfee]

Lurking, lurking, lurking. Lions. Bears. Lions favored by six and a half in Chicago. Can they play the cold 100%. They can play in the cold. They played in Lambeau and kicked the packers ass.

[Ty Schmidt]

It was rainy.

[Chuck Pagano]

It wasn't that cold. Their guys.

[Pat McAfee]

What's that?

[Chuck Pagano]

Did they have most of those injured guys or. No.

[Pat McAfee]

The Lions. Yeah, they did. They had. They were pretty healthy that game. What do you like?

[Chuck Pagano]

I Lions are going to win, but not by six and a half. Give me the Bears.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, former coach of the Chicago Bears, Chuck Pagano.

[AJ Hawk]

23. 20 on Thanksgiving.

[Pat McAfee]

Age. Who do you like?

[Tony Khan]

Give me the Lions. Minus six and a half. I think they figured out.

[Pat McAfee]

I'll take the Bears. Plus. What am I doing?

[Ty Schmidt]

Don't do it.

[Pat McAfee]

You never know. Minus six and a half. Geez. I can. I can live on myself. I can't live myself. I do that.

[AJ Hawk]

Exactly.

[Chuck Pagano]

You know what?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Chuck Pagano]

No, give me the line.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Chuck Pagano]

You're exactly right.

[Pat McAfee]

Because there's a chance the Bears do.

[Chuck Pagano]

Can't see another one of the. You know.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. The whole thing. The whole thing. Yeah. Mcdc just gave his greatest speech he's ever given on Tuesday. They're gonna kick their ass. So even if we all lose this one, I think we're okay with it.

[Ty Schmidt]

You gotta be okay.

[Pat McAfee]

Viking Seahawks in Seattle. Does that matter?

[Chuck Pagano]

Oh, no.

[Ty Schmidt]

I don't know. This week.

[Chuck Pagano]

Status.

[Ty Schmidt]

He was full participant practice.

[Pat McAfee]

Good to go. What's Sam Darnold status?

[AJ Hawk]

You know what it is? Dog still bringing it.

[Pat McAfee]

Damn right. Sam. Boom. Barnold.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Age. Who do you like? How do you like it?

[Tony Khan]

I like the Vikings here. They win and they cover on the road.

[Pat McAfee]

Chuck.

[Chuck Pagano]

Wow.

[Pat McAfee]

Wow.

[Chuck Pagano]

I'll give me the Seahawks.

[Pat McAfee]

Wow. Okay. Wow.

[Chuck Pagano]

Wow. Wow. They're top of the NFC west right now. Right?

[Ty Schmidt]

Wow. Technically, the Rams moved ahead of them.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah. Seattle's out right now.

[Pat McAfee]

Wow.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh.

[Pat McAfee]

Out. So they gotta win.

[Chuck Pagano]

So even more reason to take them.

[Pat McAfee]

All right. I'll take the Vikings because they're looking for home field advantage through playoffs. Though at this point. Jaguars. Raiders.

[Boston Connor]

You guys shouldn't have to pick this one.

[Pat McAfee]

This game sucks.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

Under.

[Pat McAfee]

I like that. The NFL did this, though. Put these two together. Kind of like you guys kind of just kind of go to the island of a roll. Relevance. The shite bull. It is a shite bull, if you will.

[Ty Schmidt]

It is.

[AJ Hawk]

Truly.

[Pat McAfee]

Chief football strategist Tony Khan and the Jacksonville Jaguars taking on Mark Davis in the Las Vegas Raiders. Chuck. Who do you like?

[Chuck Pagano]

Jags.

[Pat McAfee]

Age. Who?

[Tony Khan]

What are the starting quarterbacks in this game?

[Chuck Pagano]

Who gives a. I think.

[Boston Connor]

I think Purdue. Guys back for?

[Pat McAfee]

Ain't no Connell.

[Boston Connor]

Donald's back for the Raiders.

[Pat McAfee]

Give me the Raiders. You like the Raiders? Yeah.

[Tony Khan]

I'm taking them.

[Pat McAfee]

Still taking them. I'll take the Jacksonville Jaguars. There.

[Tony Khan]

Big boom.

[AJ Hawk]

AJ Might be in the building.

[Pat McAfee]

I didn't think about that. He's been traveling around game to game. He wasn't at the Boca Raton Bowl. What's going on? That's because they didn't ask for the Boca Beach Boys.

[Boston Connor]

They should have been there no matter what.

[Ty Schmidt]

Wait. Beneath them.

[Chuck Pagano]

Should have wrote a check.

[Pat McAfee]

Bingo. Nick. Thank you. Patriots. Bills. AFC East. Old school rivalry.

[Boston Connor]

I didn't want to get hit with an arrow.

[Tony Khan]

14.

[Chuck Pagano]

God.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

Dude. What you mean?

[Pat McAfee]

I'll take the Buffalo Bills. If we're. If we're asking and dancing around. Me too.

[Tony Khan]

Me too.

[Pat McAfee]

Door dash me some Pizza Hut. What? As I watch the Buffalo Bills and Josh Allen, who's up for the Art Rooney Sportsmanship Award, and the Buffalo Bills social media team put out the greatest campaign video I've ever seen. I was in Green Bay. He was always giving me words of encouragement. You suck.

[Jim Irsay]

You suck. He just loves to give people compliments.

[Pat McAfee]

You're so tough. You're so tough.

[Ty Schmidt]

You're so tough.

[Pat McAfee]

He just really does a great job of making sure the other team doesn't.

[AJ Hawk]

Have a uniform violation.

[Pat McAfee]

He makes sure the other players don't fall over. Comes over. Oh, yeah. Wilkins. Really good job.

[AJ Hawk]

He just wants what's best for everyone on the field.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. Hopefully he wins the R. Rooney Sportsmanship Award because Wilkins. I didn't Even think about him falling there. And because of how big he is, Josh really had to, you know, get after it and make sure he stayed up. All those compliments he gives to the tough one. That was Jenny with. It was cool. That was genuine. And then the uniform is this guy. Do you even have a name? Oh, you do. I didn't even think about it that way. He is super high sportsmanship guy.

[Ty Schmidt]

He's a great guy.

[Pat McAfee]

I bet you he loves Pizza Hut. Oh, my God.

[Ty Schmidt]

Without a doubt.

[Pat McAfee]

Gets it. How about the. How about the jackets? We got wingman home slice.

[Ty Schmidt]

So sick.

[Pat McAfee]

Are you a wings person or a pizza person or both? Yeah, that's Pizza Hut football. Best of both worlds, Wing Street. Best wings that you can get delivered to your house, bar none.

[Ty Schmidt]

Bar none.

[Pat McAfee]

Bar none. Never get sucked. But now these are the boneless ones.

[Jim Irsay]

You get it?

[Ty Schmidt]

Okay.

[Pat McAfee]

We have told the Pizza Hut people that we are bone in people at Pizza Huts because nobody else talks about them. They ran those Wing street commercials for like a month and then they kind of stopped. Those wings are delightful. They have fryers in Pizza Hut so those wings come out nice and crisp. Crispy. And the sauces are very delightful. Yes, they got all the ranges. They even got some spice if you want it. Oh, yeah, they got some good buffalo Wing Street.

[Boston Connor]

Might as well be King Street.

[Pat McAfee]

Well said Royalty where they're located then. Pizza. We don't have to talk about it. No, no one. No one.

[Ty Schmidt]

And we mean no one.

[Pat McAfee]

No one.

[Ty Schmidt]

And we mean no one.

[Pat McAfee]

No one out beats his dud. Period. End of sentence, end of chapter, end of story, end of paragraph. The pizza's so good. So best every week we have it. It's so good.

[Ty Schmidt]

I got it the other night, too.

[Pat McAfee]

Yes. I had debunked. Debunk. Didn't get the personal. He got two extra large.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, I thought those. He was getting electrocuted.

[Boston Connor]

Those were three big New Yorkers that.

[Chuck Pagano]

He had that little Pizza Hut bus they got in the airport. Sick.

[Darius Butler]

What?

[Chuck Pagano]

That photo I sent you to himself.

[Pat McAfee]

Yep, yep. Debone is not rest in peace. Up for the death penalty. Oh, he's not. No, he's not getting electrocuted. That was not his last meal.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, okay. Call her. Me shocked was he feeding his whole.

[Pat McAfee]

He got two xls, two massive sauce for the whole weekend.

[AJ Hawk]

It's from yesterday till.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, yeah, because pizza pizza tomorrow morning.

[Boston Connor]

Sure.

[Pat McAfee]

Good.

[Ty Schmidt]

I actually did have it three nights in a row. I got a large pizza.

[Pat McAfee]

Now to your point.

[AJ Hawk]

Shout out, dude wipes.

[Pat McAfee]

Shout out to us. Tangle Bells, dangle bells. Bingo all the way. Only one per flush. The bus that you talked about, the pizza bus. Yeah. They're getting really innovative with their. What was the little. They had the little onesie. The little. It was like a hut. A Pizza Hut that they. It was one person.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

And they had the pizza getting heated up and stuff there. Yeah, they're. They're all the way back. You like Pizza Hut? That's what D. Ben ordered for himself the other day. What?

[Ty Schmidt]

Exactly.

[Pat McAfee]

So you can see how I was.

[Ty Schmidt]

Led to believe he was getting elected electrocuted today.

[Chuck Pagano]

McDonald's they called Dr. That sausage pizza looks.

[Boston Connor]

All of them looks unbelievable.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. It was McDonald's that said he knew he had Dr. Pepper coach. Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

His diet is really good.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. We need to watch out for a debo here. It's getting late to football season. Let's lock it in. It can't be ordering two extra large pizza pizzas for yourself now.

[AJ Hawk]

Sausage in the morning.

[Pat McAfee]

In his defense, he didn't have a do at 8am instead of a Dr. Pepper.

[Boston Connor]

Washington it down eight donuts today.

[Ty Schmidt]

I also know for a fact you are not getting that many marinares. So he's. He is. He's going. He's kind of making his own Chicago style. He's dousing marinara over the top of both pizzas as well.

[Pat McAfee]

My God. D. And we can't blame you. Pizza is so good.

[Ty Schmidt]

Can't blame him at all. Still bringing it.

[Pat McAfee]

Looks like stuffed crust too.

[Ty Schmidt]

It is. Which he actually said the other. Either he hadn't had it or he wasn't a big fan of it. Will and behold. Couple days days later.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Shoving it down.

[Pat McAfee]

Put more cheese. Holy. So they got. Did you take a bite out of the crust? Got cheese in it. It's like a cheesesteak. I don't know what's stuff a stuffed crust debone. Why?

[AJ Hawk]

Huh?

[Pat McAfee]

Because you know, he likes cheese but he doesn't like it with things normally.

[Boston Connor]

No, he doesn't.

[Pat McAfee]

No. Like he'll have a burger but not a cheeseburger. He's not a big eater, but.

[Tony Khan]

What do you mean? It looks like it. From that picture maybe.

[Ty Schmidt]

No, this was just a light snack anyways.

[Pat McAfee]

D. Bone, you're doing great. Shout out to Pizza Hut. Love you, Bone. Let's get back to the picks. We're all on the jags except for AJ's on the Raiders. I'm on the Buffalo Beals.

[Chuck Pagano]

Put me on them.

[Pat McAfee]

So is Chuck.

[AJ Hawk]

AJ too. Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Aj. You like the Beals?

[Tony Khan]

Oh yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. Niners. Dolphins. Dolphins favored by one at home. What? That has flipped. They're now getting one. Okay, so this is a pick them, seemingly. If this is flipping back and forth between who's favored. Now the Dolphins are getting a point. Chuck Pagano, do you like the Dolphins home dogs or do you like the niners traveling down to 305?

[Chuck Pagano]

They're dead. They're dead. Give me the Niners.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. Age.

[Tony Khan]

Yeah. If Gump gave up on him, I can't pick them. So, yeah, give me the nine.

[Pat McAfee]

Me too. And Sunday Night Football. The red hot Tampa Bay Buccaneers taking on the absolute crop. Dallas Cowboys. Bucks favored by four and a half in Jerry World. Baker Mayfield going back into Texas. Obviously, he's a Texas boy who ended up at Oklahoma and loves putting on a show whenever he's playing or in Texas. Give me Baker Mayfield, favored by four and a half against the Dallas Cowboys. Cowboys. A.J. hawk. You.

[Tony Khan]

Yep. I will ride with you in the Tip Bay Bucks.

[Pat McAfee]

Chuck.

[Chuck Pagano]

Yeah. Liam Cones doing a great job. He will not let number 11 wreck the game. They will take care of him. Todd Bowles will get after Cooper Rush and like he's never seen. So, yeah, I'll take the box.

[Pat McAfee]

All right, that's the pitch. Go work, everybody. We're off tomorrow. Game days live after the noon game ends. We can't thank you enough for allowing us to do this for a living. Have a phenomenal holiday season. We're back on Monday. Then we're off. Christmas Eve and Christmas. And we'll be back Thursday. Friday. Life goes on. Yep. It's a great time to be alive.

[Ty Schmidt]

It is.

[Tony Khan]

That game's going to be awesome Tomorrow night. Obviously the whole weekend. But I love that that game is kicking it off.

[AJ Hawk]

Oh, so pumped.

[Pat McAfee]

Just a quick little. Oh, you thought I was. And then boom. Oh, that's right.

[Ty Schmidt]

I'm not going anywhere.

[Pat McAfee]

PT Hut.

[AJ Hawk]

Ever.

[Pat McAfee]

I think I'll eat a Pizza Hut tomorrow up there in South Bend.

[Ty Schmidt]

Why wouldn't you?

[AJ Hawk]

And you know what?

[Pat McAfee]

Maybe on Saturday over there in Columbus.

[AJ Hawk]

Might as well try it out over there.

[Pat McAfee]

And on Sunday we're watching games. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

What goes good with games?

[Pat McAfee]

Pizza Hut. And then Monday night, is there games?

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

Really good.

[AJ Hawk]

A big one.

[Ty Schmidt]

Not a really good one.

[Boston Connor]

No, I know.

[Pat McAfee]

Pizza Hut. And then Wednesdays are getting.

[Darius Butler]

Oh, yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

It's Christmas. And what's the best Christmas meal of all time?

[Pat McAfee]

Pizza Hut.

[Ty Schmidt]

Pizza Hut.

[Darius Butler]

The Hut.

[AJ Hawk]

And then Thursday, is there a game? It's Pizza Hut.

[Pat McAfee]

Thursday looks like we're having Pizza Hut six out of the next seven days boys. You're gonna be wiping more than A.J. hogg.

[AJ Hawk]

Not with dude wipes.

[Ty Schmidt]

Easy.

[Pat McAfee]

Dingle bells, dingle bells, dingle all the way. H. Can we get a realistic number for times you.

[Tony Khan]

So people try to. They think that I may have a problem or something. That none of this was anything current. I'm saying probably growing up I was trying to envision what was the most wipes that could have happened. So that's where I came upon 40. This was probably when I if like it was probably when I was. Before I moved out of the house to go to college.

[Pat McAfee]

When you were just a baby hawk. A.

[Tony Khan]

That's why I said like you gotta hose you down sometimes.

[AJ Hawk]

Right before I moved out of the house to go to college. So this sounds like senior year.

[Pat McAfee]

So young adult. Yeah. Not fully grown bird yet, but right there. Knows enough to know but not enough that he's going to wipes his ass 40 times. Did pistol ever say, hey, enough with the toilet.

[AJ Hawk]

It's just Freakaz.

[Ty Schmidt]

You're not done shitting.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay? Jesus Christ. We got bills to pay by UTP every other day because you got what? Peanut butter poops that you can't find the end of age. I think what I learned from listening to you guys talk about it yesterday. You and you and Jage.

[Ty Schmidt]

I think as well.

[Pat McAfee]

You guys are pooping in your hands. You need to finish your poops before you wipe your ass. You know the old adage that's like wiping before you poop. It makes no sense. No, you guys are wiping while you poop. It makes no sense. Need to stop.

[Boston Connor]

I understand how that's how logically you would think it goes, but it's just.

[Pat McAfee]

Not 40 wipes you any Rikishi could have wiped the whole surface area. Okay.

[Tony Khan]

I got a vision of Rikishi.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Whole surface area of ass can be wiped nowhere near where a poop hole is. 40 wipes could wipe the ass entire thing. So that's what I'm saying. I don't know how you guys get to that. I don't know how you get to 40. I don't know how you get to 50. I feel terrible for your cheeks, but thank God for dude wipes. You don't have to do it. Hell yeah. All right, Age. We'll see you on Saturday. Can't wait to see you, buddy.

[Chuck Pagano]

Sir.

[Tony Khan]

Gonna be awesome, man. Can't wait. Can't wait to see how game day goes too tomorrow. Leading right into the game, right?

[Pat McAfee]

Yes. On the sideline. We'll be outside. Come see Us and then going inside for the kickoff should be great. That place, they showed what it's like in a night game in there. I don't think I've been fully. That's going recognized of that and the pregame. It's gonna be sick. And they're putting Jeezy on their highlight.

[Boston Connor]

The cool thing is for all these games, both schools get their intros. So I. I think like IU might be able to use those lights as well.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Because CFP is running these stadiums.

[Chuck Pagano]

See.

[Pat McAfee]

So the in game atmosphere will be different than what it is for normal home games, which I will say we hate. Because the entire purpose of the home game is so that people can see the pageantry and you have an advantage. But now it's CFP running it. So I think they're trying to think of it as a neutral site. It's not a neutral site. It's a home field advantage. So if CFP wants to take the money from it, which I think is. They do happening at least let's. Oh, let it happen. Yeah. Let it all happen over there at the horseshoe. Let it all happen. Yeah. It's a home field. Let them do their.

[AJ Hawk]

Yes, it's a home game.

[Pat McAfee]

Let the world see what their is. That's the purpose of this.

[Chuck Pagano]

You've earned that.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, you have. You've earned it. The whole. The whole stadium crew, the production crew, the idea crew.

[Boston Connor]

I thought they do still get to. I was just talking about the entry entrance.

[Pat McAfee]

No, but I think James Franklin said the game is being controlled by the cfp. So the normal in game is going to be different.

[Boston Connor]

Well, what does he do?

[AJ Hawk]

And like.

[Pat McAfee]

But that.

[AJ Hawk]

But that's what I'm saying though. If IU gets their like cool entrance with the lights, like that's not how. That wouldn't be like a normal.

[Chuck Pagano]

Yeah, because how many IU are they expecting fans? How many numbers?

[Pat McAfee]

So that's the thing. I think a lot of Notre Dame fans are in their soul. IU fans who. Who picked up Notre Dame football. Just like Charlie Baker said, that's a very real thing. A lot of Hoosier basketball fans in Hoosiers as a whole picked up the Notre Dame football team like what, 30 years ago. The Traditions family. But now IU is good. So it's like. Well, it's been fun. But also you win. We're still.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Notre Dame fans.

[Ty Schmidt]

A lot of Notre Dame fans.

[Pat McAfee]

Yes, I think so. That's why the price is so high too. Notre Dame people aren't selling alumni from.

[Ty Schmidt]

Notre Dame flocking from everywhere together and.

[Pat McAfee]

They'Re not selling their.

[Ty Schmidt]

Absolutely.

[Pat McAfee]

They're not selling their tickets. Which is why the price is so much.

[Tony Khan]

Big money. Notre Dame fans all over the world.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yes.

[Tony Khan]

That are coming in.

[Chuck Pagano]

No question.

[Pat McAfee]

I can't wait. It's awesome. It's going to be electrifying up there. Brady going?

[Tony Khan]

I do not know. He's going to Ohio State game. I know that for sure.

[Ty Schmidt]

Interesting.

[Tony Khan]

He's going as a. He's going as a fan.

[Pat McAfee]

What about Lou Holtz? Lou Holt's gonna be up there.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, I hope best your ass is gonna be up there. He's leading the boys out.

[Pat McAfee]

Really?

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Play like a champion today.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yep. They're all going to smack Lou in the face. Instead of the play like a champion sign, he's going to stand right there in the locker room and they're just all going to smack him one side of the face, Next side of the face. One side of the face, next side of the face.

[Pat McAfee]

What do you think Lou Holtz thinks of the IU football team? And Kurt Signetti?

[Ty Schmidt]

Listen, he could talk his tough talk and say whatever the he wants. When you talk about the Indiana Hooch losers here, okay? They are the. Until they prove they're not, they're the skid mark of college football. Okay? Notre Dame royalty. Okay, we're talking royalty here.

[Pat McAfee]

What are. What are we talking royalty?

[Ty Schmidt]

Okay. Can you. Who, who's the last big time IU grad that went and played in the NFL? That Ty Frey Fogel or whatever the his name was.

[Tony Khan]

That's one.

[Pat McAfee]

Randall Antoine, right away quarterback, wide receiver, quarterback again in the Super Bowl.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, I remember him.

[AJ Hawk]

He was good.

[Ty Schmidt]

How long ago was that?

[Pat McAfee]

2006.

[Ty Schmidt]

Long fucking time ago. None of these fucking kids on the roster were bored when he went there. How many guys did you think Notre Dame's had played in the NFL?

[Pat McAfee]

Exactly.

[Ty Schmidt]

You can't even fucking count that high, okay? We're talking tradition, we're talking excellence, we're talking toughness. We're talking about the one true football team in the state and it's sure as shit ain't fuckin Indiana. No matter how much cursing that he wants to bump his gums and say, hey, we'll play anybody, we're not afraid. Anybody. I respect it. I like it. But boy, you're gonna have to come pay your piper at some point. And that just might be Friday night.

[Pat McAfee]

Amen.

[Ty Schmidt]

I'd also like to know what's Ryan.

[Pat McAfee]

Day doing right now.

[Ty Schmidt]

I think we all remember what happened a couple Years, years ago.

[Pat McAfee]

We do.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah. I hope they win on Saturday, cuz he's going to have to answer some questions. No, no pressure, Ryan. Okay, no pressure.

[Pat McAfee]

All right. Obviously we're talking about an interview between a Lou Holtz impersonator and Lou Holtz and then a clip making its way to Ryan Day's desk and then Ryan getting real worked up about it. Real worked up about it all. And that's the passion you need. And that's why we're thankful coach Lou Holtz is going to be around for Notre Dame because he certainly loves that.

[Ty Schmidt]

I would assume he will be there, correct?

[Pat McAfee]

I would assume.

[Chuck Pagano]

Oh, yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

I mean, it's going to be cold.

[Pat McAfee]

But it's like his university.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yes.

[Boston Connor]

I think these, they have him like in a drone actually hovering above the 50 yard line.

[Pat McAfee]

I don't know if he's on the drone yet, but I think he is currently putting another level, a layer of paint on Touchdown. Jesus.

[Ty Schmidt]

I wouldn't be surprised by doing it right now.

[Pat McAfee]

Blue Holtz still Brent porgamit. All right, everybody, have a fantastic weekend. Massive football weekend, obviously, starting tonight in the AFC West. Chuck likes the Broncos. Broncos getting three points in Los Angeles. And yeah, I think we're all riding with him. Boys, great work this week. Can't wait to see you guys on the road. Hell yeah. Should be fun. Hopefully you guys will watch on Saturday night as we do the simulcast at the Tennessee Ohio Stadium. That's be fun.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yes.

[Pat McAfee]

That should be a lot of fun. I don't know how we get access to that. Just pop in, hang out with us for a bit, then you can go back to the regular. Sure. We understand. We understand because we can't really see from the field.

[Ty Schmidt]

No.

[Pat McAfee]

You know, it's really hard. It is not easy to.

[Tony Khan]

I wonder how many people they're going to have around the field on game day. Like, I wonder what the CFP people do because usually at Ohio State there's not a ton of people on the sidelines.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, usually there's a lot of good space actually down at the end in front of the Safelight repair fuel go net. Probably be right there and then boom. On the other side in front of the band or on the.

[Tony Khan]

I think there's the open end is the blocko, the student section and then the closed is where the band comes out of that tunnel.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. So I think there's one side that isn't directly in front of the band on that end. And then there's a Safelight repair Safelight replace field goal net we'll be there. We got. We're perfect. We're in a good spot. Go. Honored to be there. Legitimately lucky to be a part of it. We hope you all will enjoy the out of the weekend. And then obviously overreaction Monday. We'll go bananas. All right. Be a friend, Tell a friend. Great work today, Chuck.

[AJ Hawk]

Hey, baby.

[Pat McAfee]

Coach Chuck, be a friend. Tell a friend something nice. It might change. Merry Christmas, Chuck, because we won't see you.

[Chuck Pagano]

Merry Christmas.

[Pat McAfee]

Merry Christmas. No, we will see you, right? Merry Christmas.

[AJ Hawk]

See them Thursday, but after Christmas.

[Pat McAfee]

It'll be after Christmas. Tell Ms. Chino we'll be here. Merry Christmas.

[Ty Schmidt]

Happy holidays.

[Pat McAfee]

Happy New Year's. Happy. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice. It might change your life or anything. Together. Team on me. Team on three. 1, 2, 3. Goodbye. From ESPN podcast and Omaha Productions, Coach is a new, groundbreaking educational football podcast hosted by NFL legends Bill Belichick. Matt Matt, Patricia and Michael Lombardi. In each episode, the coaches break down game changing situations and front office management tactics, sharing insights from decades of coaching experience and opening up the Bill Belichick encyclopedia of football knowledge created by football legends for football fans. New episodes of Coach Drop weekly. Listen wherever you get your podcast.