PMS 2.0 1274 - LIVE From the Orange Bowl, CFP Semifinals & Super Wildcard Weekend Preview, Drew Rosenhaus, Michael Lombardi, Pete Thamel, Stanford Steve, Darius Butler & AJ Hawk

Summary

Detailed Summary of "The Pat McAfee Show" Episode PMS 2.0 1274

Release Date: January 9, 2025
Location: Hard Rock Stadium, Miami, Florida – Home of the Orange Bowl
Format: LIVE simulcast on ESPN2

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1. Introduction and Setting the Scene

Pat McAfee kicks off the show from the iconic Hard Rock Stadium, setting the stage for a lively discussion centered around the imminent College Football Playoff (CFP) semifinal game between Notre Dame and Penn State. He highlights the unique Bermuda grass installed specifically for the game, anticipating an electrifying atmosphere with a 50-50 split of fans supporting each team.

Pat McAfee [00:00]:
"Tonight should be absolutely fantastic. We're being told from our source says it's gonna be about 50, 50 tonight in this stadium."

2. Special Guest: Drew Rosenhaus

Pat introduces Drew Rosenhaus, a renowned NFL agent with 36 years of experience, who joins the show to provide insights into both NFL and college football dynamics. Drew's presence underscores the episode’s focus on high-level football discussions.

Pat McAfee [02:48]:
"Obviously, Drew Rosenhaus is plugged in everywhere, not only in Miami and the NFL but he's a pretty big focal point of a lot of conversations."

3. Miami Dolphins and Tyreek Hill’s Commitment

A significant portion of the conversation revolves around Tyreek Hill, the star wide receiver for the Miami Dolphins. Drew discusses Hill’s unwavering commitment to the team despite a wrist injury, emphasizing his dedication and toughness.

Drew Rosenhaus [20:51]:
"Tyreek is very passionate. Anyone I've ever represented that was great was passionate. He shows up for every game."

Pat McAfee [20:59]:
"He’s gonna give it his all for Penn State. His teammates deserve that."

4. College Football Playoff (CFP) and New 12-Team Format

Pat delves into the new 12-team CFP structure, expressing excitement over the distinct styles of football each semifinal promises. The discussion highlights the evolving landscape of college football and its increasing competitiveness.

Pat McAfee [07:30]:
"This is going to have a style of football and tomorrow night's is going to have a style of football. Very different."

5. Addressing Current Events: California Fires

Pat takes a moment to acknowledge the devastating fires in California, offering sympathy and positioning the show as a source of positivity amidst the crisis.

Pat McAfee [08:30]:
"We are so sorry you're going through what you're going through right now. And we hope that sports and us being dumbasses can be a little bit of an escape."

6. NIL Deals and Their Impact on College Football

A major segment features a deep dive into Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals in college football. Drew Rosenhaus provides expert commentary on how NIL is transforming player representation, contract negotiations, and the overall business landscape of college sports.

Drew Rosenhaus [27:13]:
"We are trying to get contracts for our clients with their colleges at the top of the market for them. We're using other players as examples. We're pushing hard."

Pat McAfee [27:40]:
"Prize Picks is the best place to win cash while watching the playoffs."

7. Insights from Michael Lombardi, GM of North Carolina Tar Heels

Michael Lombardi joins the show to discuss his role as the General Manager of the North Carolina Tar Heels football team. He addresses rumors about Bill Belichick’s potential return to the NFL, clarifying misconceptions and emphasizing their commitment to building a strong football program.

Michael Lombardi [84:56]:
"Coach Belichick committed North Carolina to me and the university. There have been no conversations about anything else."

Pat McAfee [88:55]:
"You're the man to see you soon, Pat."

8. NFL Super Wildcard Weekend Preview and Picks

The panel shifts focus to the upcoming Super Wildcard Weekend in the NFL, discussing key matchups and making predictions. The featured games include:

• Chargers vs. Texans: Chargers favored by three. The panel leans towards the Chargers given their hot performance.

• Ravens vs. Steelers: Ravens favored by nine and a half. The panel predicts a Ravens victory due to their dominance over playoff teams.

• Bills vs. Broncos: Bills favored by eight and a half. The panel favors the Bills, highlighting Josh Allen’s impressive season.

• Buccaneers vs. Commanders: Buccaneers favored by three. Mixed opinions with a slight preference for the Commanders based on recent performances.

Stanford Steve [147:07]:
"I'm going to expect that Marshawn Lattimore shows up, and he is Mike Evans' arch nemesis."

9. Banter and Stadium Interactions

Throughout the live broadcast, Pat engages in light-hearted banter with co-hosts and guests about stadium logistics, food, and behind-the-scenes antics, adding entertainment and personality to the discussion.

Pat McAfee [75:54]:
"Your appeal is the best, by the way. Yeah, thank you."

10. Concluding Remarks

As the episode winds down, Pat recaps the major discussion points, thanks guests Drew Rosenhaus and Michael Lombardi for their invaluable insights, and reiterates the excitement for the CFP semifinal and NFL Super Wildcard Weekend. He encourages listeners to stay engaged and look forward to future episodes.

Pat McAfee [172:58]:
"This is a great way to done it. Nothing is secure. You gotta fight hard every day for your clients."

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Tyreek Hill’s Commitment:

  “Tyreek is a game changer, game wrecker for the Penn State Nittany Lions.”
  — AJ Hawk [06:45]

• NIL Deals Impact:

  “Let's have transparency. Let's know what guys are getting paid, what the schools are working with.”
  — AJ Hawk [05:36]

• Coaching and Leadership:

  “Leadership is about holding players accountable. If you don't like confrontation, get out of coaching.”
  — Michael Lombardi [103:06]

Timestamps Highlights

• 00:00 – Introduction from Hard Rock Stadium
• 02:48 – Introduction of Drew Rosenhaus
• 20:51 – Discussion on Tyreek Hill’s commitment
• 27:13 – NIL deals discussion
• 84:56 – Michael Lombardi joins
• 147:07 – NFL Super Wildcard Weekend Picks

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This episode of "The Pat McAfee Show" offers a comprehensive exploration of both college and NFL football landscapes, enriched by expert insights from influential figures like Drew Rosenhaus and Michael Lombardi. The live setting from the Orange Bowl adds a dynamic and authentic flavor to the discussions, making it a must-listen for football enthusiasts seeking in-depth analysis and engaging conversations.

Transcript

[Pat McAfee]

Hello, beautiful people, and welcome to the Hard Rock Stadium in beautiful Miami, Florida, the home of the Orange Bowl. Tonight, football is the topic of conversation on this particular show damn near every single day. Because football never stops. And you want to talk about football never stopping, how can you not talk about what's happening tonight? The semifinals of the College Football Playoff kick off on this beautiful Bermuda grass right here behind me. Now, I was told that this grass was laid specifically for this game. So tonight should be absolutely fantastic. We're being told from our source says it's gonna be about 50, 50 tonight in this stadium. We're gonna have half Notre Dame, half Penn State. And this place is gonna be electrifying as two heavyweights will slug it out. The trenches will probably win this game or the quarterbacks win this particular game. We'll talk about that and so much more. We got Drew Rosenhaus, who I think actually owns a piece of Miami, stopping by in about 20 minutes. Called him about an hour and a half ago, and he was actually taking his jet ski to get service right now, actually, Pat. And we asked if he could swing by to come chit chat with us and he said absolutely. Obviously, Drew Rosenhaus is plugged in everywhere, not only in Miami and the NFL, but he's a pretty big focal point of a lot of conversations. Obviously, Tyreek Hill, everything going on down in Miami. Drew's a Miami guy, very connected to the Dolphins. How's that unfolding? We shall see. But also tonight's game, Abdul Carter, okay, pass rusher from Penn state. He's about 6 foot 14. He's probably going to run a four two. He's got an elite bend and power. He's a game changer, game wrecker for the Penn State Nittany Lions. He's repped by Drew Rosenhaus. Will he be playing tonight? How much will he be playing tonight? What is he expecting? And is there any business thoughts behind a lot of these decisions? And then obviously the entire NFL slate will have to be picked because. Because we're off tomorrow and we're gonna have a blast. We can't thank the ESPN people enough for the setup here on the field in the. I mean, in Hard Rock Stadium at the Orange Bowl. We're gonna be doing a simulcast live tonight on ESPN2. We're living the dumbest lives of all time. And obviously I'm very lucky to be doing it alongside a great cast of characters. The talks to tables here at Boss Connor and at Ty Schmidt, con man. Only one up here not wearing a hood. Yeah, you Know, I felt like you are muted. You are muted still. So I believe. Let's go back to the truck there, Foxy. Can you tell Nick that Connor is on Darius microphone, which is the guest microphone. I do believe there was, from what I was told, a little bit of chaos in a truck behind the scenes. And I think that's potentially because we have forced people to travel down here early that normally don't have to set up until college game day to do this entire thing. So we appreciate the amount of work that has been taking place. They're working on it. They're working on it.

[Boston Connor]

Nice. Oh, there it is.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, yeah.

[Boston Connor]

No, no hoodie. You know, I felt like as a New England guy to come down here to Miami at Soft Rock Stadium and just kind of. You heard me. We've a lot, a lot has been coming out. I'm sure it'll come up at some point. But this isn't a hard rock stadium. This is a very soft rock stadium.

[Ty Schmidt]

And they're not.

[Boston Connor]

And they're rocking softs when they're too, by the way. Yeah, not. Not much. Full chubs.

[Pat McAfee]

We got the Eagles down here.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, yeah, I'd say, but it's great to be down here. It really is. It's crazy. And we were looking at the layout before, you know, last game at the Rose Bow, maybe we're standing in front of some people that were pretty pissed off about it. You know, front row, you're paying a lot of money.

[Pat McAfee]

Good call.

[Boston Connor]

When you look around here, NFL stadiums, boom, little raised. So we're gonna have no, no issues whatsoever. We're not gonna annoy anybody, get in anybody's way. I'm sure we'll annoy people with the things that we say, but it's still gonna be awesome. And hopefully it's a great game.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, I hope it's a great game. Ty Schmidt, you're in a hoodie right now. Green Bay packers fan from Iowa. I saw you on the plane ride in here, boy, you were zonked.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah. Snoozing.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Was it the real American beer, brother, or was it the three month old that's potentially catching up to the schedule that's currently taking.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah, more so that didn't get to bed last night until about 11 when she went to bed. I put her down about 6:45. So that's about, you know, five hours of checking her every two, two minutes and having to pick her up and hold her, try to shush her. So, yeah, you know, I mean, I'll be honest. I Wore the sweatshirt, thinking, hey, I'm going to pop, I'm going to pop the top right when I get down here. We're going to Miami. We're going to the Caribbean.

[Pat McAfee]

It's going to be, oh, man, beautiful to get, especially with what we're going through. Exact. We got cold now, obviously nothing in comparison, but it's still cold. Bitter cold as hell.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah, but you get down here, it's 40 degrees and, and listen, you know, you start to get a little bit older, you get a little bit softer. Okay. It's just the way it is. We're all from cold weather cities. We've, we've put in our time, we've done that. So it's a real treat when you get to come down to a place like Miami because you're expecting 75, you're expecting sun and it's sunny, but boy, I tell you what, 40, it, it might as well be 25.

[Pat McAfee]

This is, this is March 15th. March 16th.

[Darius Butler]

Yes.

[Pat McAfee]

You know, that's a little bit of a hello, you know, from the spring, but it's certainly better than what the bitter cold was. Didn't expect it for sure, but obviously Notre Dame and Penn State would be very comfortable in these particular conditions, especially with how the grass is going to be. Let's go to one half of the Hammer Cowboys AP town you had to put your votes in for all your AP awards. Did you get it right?

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, I got it right.

[Pat McAfee]

Really? I heard there was a little bit of waffling. What? I heard there was some waffle.

[AJ Hawk]

I was 100% conviction.

[Michael Lombardi]

What I.

[Stanford Steve]

Go ahead.

[Pat McAfee]

Nine year NFL vet, host of Everything DB Good D, Bad D. The man who launched yesterday. His all Everything DB team where there was some arguments to be made on the Internet about who got left off the team there. What were you saying there? A little bit.

[Stanford Steve]

Oh, you know, his picks. We talked about him putting his picks in and I don't know if you can say them publicly.

[AJ Hawk]

I cannot.

[Stanford Steve]

Okay. I don't.

[AJ Hawk]

They will be fielding NFL honors.

[Stanford Steve]

They'll probably shift the sports books. But I didn't, I didn't love some of them. But hey, these, these picks are tough and all these.

[Pat McAfee]

A lot of you found out what is. You found out what.

[AJ Hawk]

I don't know what's happened right here.

[Pat McAfee]

But it's, that's what you signed up for, pal.

[Darius Butler]

That's right.

[Pat McAfee]

You got AP vote. Look at me AP tone. That's what it was.

[Stanford Steve]

Peing over shoulders.

[AJ Hawk]

Listen, I, I, I did, I watched my own film. I watched My all, too. I did my stat research, NFL Plus Premium, NFL Pro. But for like, all the posit. Like, I would have been dumb not to consult you. Pat first for this special.

[Pat McAfee]

I know who he picked, too.

[AJ Hawk]

Yep. I would have been dumb not to consult Darius Butler for. For the secondary. Joy Sly, AQ for the offensive line position. I didn't consult AJ for linebacker. I don't respect him as a player or a person.

[Pat McAfee]

Whoa. What? Ladies and gentlemen, that's college football national champion, super bowl champion Rocker cup winner, A.J. hawk. Why don't you respect A.J. hawk? That's unbelievable.

[AJ Hawk]

No, I do. I just like to jack him off, take a couple shots.

[Boston Connor]

You're just jagging them off all night.

[AJ Hawk]

With a G. That was with a G, not with a ck. But, no, I submitted those yesterday. I feel good. All of them. I'll be honest. Defensive player this year was the most difficult one. But, you know, I feel good about it.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, that's good, A.J. you're a college football national champion. The college football semifinals will be kicking off this evening here, 7:30, Hard Rock Stadium. Some people saying so far, good start time. Great, great start time now for the West Coast. Obviously, we would like to send, before we go any further, that the happening in California right now with those fires is straight out of, like, maybe the most scary, nightmare situation that I could fathom. It feels like just from what we have been able to see on the Internet and whatever, the algorithm is kind of popping in front of us as we're all witnessing this live in real time together, it's like. Feels like these fires are obviously very devastating, but then with the winds, they're just going anywhere. So I think everybody is kind of either on guard or trying to evacuate or there's. I mean. And then the water thing that's happening. It is. We would just like to say, I know this doesn't probably mean anything, but, like, we will try to be the dipshits on your phone screen right now if you're evacuated or in a hotel somewhere and try to make those decisions. We are so sorry you're going through what you're going through right now. And we hope that sports and us being dumbasses can be a little bit of an escape that that is what we hope for. And I don't even know how the hell that all goes and gets fit. I don't even. That is devastation on another level. We are so sorry you're going through it from all of us. All right, now, with that being said tonight here at Hard Rock Stadium, the Orange bowl was obviously a very coveted BCS championship. It's been big for a long time. Tonight it's kicking off the semifinal of the first ever 12 team playoff. AJ is it the right four teams and how do you feel about this particular game kicking off the semifinals? Because this is going to have a style of football and tomorrow night's going to have a style of football. Very different. I think personally, A.J.

[Ty Schmidt]

Ye. I think the right four teams are here, but that's such a subjective thing. Whoever you ask will have their own opinion on that, I guess. But I don't know if you guys noticed. This is a fast track tonight and tonight is going to be.

[Pat McAfee]

How do you know you got kicked off it earlier? It did.

[Ty Schmidt]

I want to get a feel for it though. Like you could play with turf shoes out here and be okay. The grass is so nice. So I know this game is going to be a physical pound them game, old school throwback type football. But on this nice little fast track. Look for a couple shots over.

[Pat McAfee]

It's going down.

[Boston Connor]

Stronger tape.

[Pat McAfee]

Roman's got it. No problem at all. Roman's got it. He's an absolute beast.

[Boston Connor]

Hold it in.

[Pat McAfee]

That guy works on the road like eight days a week, non stop. Yeah, just new cage stuff.

[AJ Hawk]

He just told me he's supposed to be here today, Texas tomorrow, and then wherever the Monday night NFL playoff game is going to be, he'll be, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Put that on all season. And then I think college game day during basketball as well. He's doing the whole thing and he'll, he will mop this stage right here in between every single set, like for a game. He is absolute weapon over there. And I called him Matt on my Instagram because I called him Rule, actually because that's how I was introduced to him. And his actual name is Rule. Men. And then I just kind of pieced together, I think Nebraska head coach and I said shout out to Matt Rule. And then all of a sudden it became a full talking point, obviously. So now I do call him Matt.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah, have to.

[Pat McAfee]

Have to at this point. I've said nickname, but his name is Mike. That is certainly what his name is. Great. He's a weapon. I think he.

[Boston Connor]

He's gonna need more tape. That thing's coming down and I wouldn't be surprised if that one comes out.

[Pat McAfee]

No, I think the breeze is coming this way. It feels like it is a. So whenever. What is it called? Whenever it's the same on one side and the other mirrored.

[Ty Schmidt]

Synchronicity perpendicular.

[Pat McAfee]

I'm not Talking about being parallel either. You're not talking about. I'm talking about things symmetrical. Symmetrical. There it is. Symmetrical is the right answer. Shut up. I don't know if. Is that arithmetic? No, that is. That's math. That's some sort of math. I don't think.

[AJ Hawk]

Geometry, maybe.

[Boston Connor]

There it is.

[Pat McAfee]

The geometry. Yeah, the plus minus. Yeah. But since it is symmetrical, normally whatever it's doing up top, it's doing the opposite on the bottom, you know, so then whenever there's something that's kind of. Yeah. So if it's. If it's going this way, it's going this way. If it's going this way, it's going this way. You see, if it's symmetrical, then whenever something is opened up on one side, that's whenever you start getting the.

[AJ Hawk]

This place is swirl.

[Pat McAfee]

A swirlers. This is a beautiful.

[AJ Hawk]

You guys like new saw. Did you like playing on new side? Because I know sometimes it could get a little. A little slippery. I don't know if the sod father who or the sod son who messed up the Super Bowl a couple years back did this or not. But I mean, it looks nice.

[Stanford Steve]

It does look great. I'm not a fan of like brand new side just because I feel like you always get those lines and those little grooves in between. You want to be a smooth.

[Pat McAfee]

I was checking. I was trying because they were explaining to me as I was walking on one of the security guards over here, who kicked AJ off the field immediately. As soon as AJ Got here, he just. He went right to the thing and even did like a little cut thing. And he's wearing these boots and he won't lift them up because we'll ask him to do it. But they got little tiny studs on them. They're kind of like Nike Air Force One high top boots that he's wearing. Always wears them, literally every color, whatever. And he went up there and he checked it a little bit. And that's why his first takeaway was fast track here. AJ Put the helmet back on for a second. He's like, God damn, I can fuck. I can fly around down here tonight. D. But you said you would like it a little bit broken in. Maybe like a shoe or like a. A ball or something. Maybe a little bit more give, a little bit more take, and you know what's there.

[Stanford Steve]

Exactly. But, hey, these guys are pros. I'm sure they've done a great job.

[Pat McAfee]

Whoa. You saying that they're student, human paid athletes?

[Darius Butler]

Not yet.

[Ty Schmidt]

It's the grounds crew.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, yeah, we saw them.

[Stanford Steve]

Stephen Ross not running a Mickey Mouse organization here. No offense.

[Boston Connor]

Are you sure?

[Pat McAfee]

But on that note, let's talk about Miami.

[Stanford Steve]

Come on now. Yeah. Ice skating weather down.

[Boston Connor]

You feel like lacing them up?

[Pat McAfee]

I want to talk about you being back home here. First of all, pumped that you traveled.

[Stanford Steve]

With us to be here.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, it was good. Like coming back down to Miami, too. I. I thought it was gonna be much warmer.

[Boston Connor]

Yes, no doubt.

[Pat McAfee]

I really did.

[AJ Hawk]

You wear the tank top you got the Miami.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, I didn't even pack anything else because we gotta go here to Dallas. So I got one bag. We got to fit a couple sport coats in there because we're trying to be professional. College game days on obviously in there. So not. Let's be. Then there's no other option.

[Stanford Steve]

This is bad as it gets. This is bad. Like, it would be hilarious. You guys all from cold weather places. If you can see how we send our kids to school when it's cold outside. The jackets and the north faces and the gloves. We saw the security had gloves on coming in here. So this is as bad as it gets. You saw yesterday it was announced, I believe the Panthers and the Rangers have the winter classic because, you know, it gets a little chilly down here now. It is hockey town down here. We are the. Still the champs, right?

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. Stanley cup champs. Yeah. One more though.

[Stanford Steve]

You all know that. So it's as bad as it gets, though. It's still beautiful.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. It is beautiful. It's much nicer than what we came from. But this is winter storm. What. What's her. What's her? Huh?

[Darius Butler]

Cora. And she is a devilish.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, she is, isn't she? She's so cold. Yeah, she's so cold.

[AJ Hawk]

Yes.

[Pat McAfee]

What is her problem?

[Darius Butler]

I don't know. You know, I thought we were out of it. We get 12 inches of snow. It's like, okay, finally we're. We're good. Opened my phone this morning, hey, guess what, Indianapolis. You're getting four to five more inches come Friday. And this is all over the Midwest. Dallas.

[Stanford Steve]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Dallas is getting in comparison. Absolutely nothing. But it is cold in Miami. It's also very cold in Dallas. They're getting a snowstorm the night before the Cotton bowl down there. And I think everybody immediately thinks back to the super bowl that took place down there between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers. Who won that Super Bowl?

[Boston Connor]

Oh, here we go.

[Pat McAfee]

Steelers. Here we go.

[Darius Butler]

Pittsburgh lost the super bowl loss.

[AJ Hawk]

No, we won. 27, 21. Aaron had a chance to drive down at the end to win it. He threw an interception, I believe, and Steelers won.

[Stanford Steve]

Who intercepted it?

[Boston Connor]

Brian Clark?

[AJ Hawk]

Ike.

[Pat McAfee]

Ike Ryan. I think they both did actually together. They had their hands on four hands.

[Stanford Steve]

Oh, that's why you don't respect. That's okay. I get it now. What I get now, I get where it come from.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, did you win it?

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, I believe the packers won that one. Right.

[Pat McAfee]

How was that in Dallas? Whenever there was a snowstorm everywhere, legitimately.

[Ty Schmidt]

It shut it down. I've been to Texas two different times in a snowstorm. My buddy Anthony Schlegel got married there my junior year in college. He said, oh, it's always warm. It never snows. And we got there, boom, snowstorm for that. His wedding. And then I came back for the super bowl, and we got there on Sunday, the week before Monday, and there was, you know, they're putting sand down on the. The roads now. We heard they're brining the road, so that should be good.

[Pat McAfee]

They did that up in Michigan. I saw somebody sent me a picture of one of these things brining, and it's like, I think we're at the point, hopefully, where we're able to create something to stop this stuff.

[Boston Connor]

I hope heat the roads. I thought we figured it out.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. I don't know if we're ever gonna be able to do that. Let's talk about. Let's get back to the story of Miami, because I just saw a Miami legend kind of walk by here. There's a press conference that happened with McDaniel and Greer where something was said. D. Buch. And is this just becoming, like, a trend now? I do wonder. Right. It feels like there's a lot more openly criticizing of, like, a culture. Pretty much, here's Coach McDaniel talking about what's going on here in Miami. I can find people till they're blue in the face. I can take their money. I can yell at them. But until they understand that part of the reason that we're in the position is controllable, and we have to. With absolute certainty and zero tolerance for anything else, we have to clean the controllables up, and we can have a.

[AJ Hawk]

Chance to have success together.

[Pat McAfee]

So certain specific individuals that, you know, I don't think it was across the board.

[AJ Hawk]

There's a lot of guys that, you.

[Pat McAfee]

Know, had certain fines before that didn't have any. There are some people that had multiple.

[AJ Hawk]

That, you know, I think there's different.

[Pat McAfee]

Ways to kind of counteract that.

[AJ Hawk]

Bringing it up as a team and.

[Pat McAfee]

Continuing to find guys Wasn't enough. So I'm not going to continue to just place all blame on even some of the smallest of individuals that will multiple offenders. I'm going to adjust my process and make sure that it's team wide knowledge anytime that things are done that aren't in the best interest of winning football games. Okay. So he said a lot there. I think to anybody that, you know, is a fan of the Dolphins or just somebody that follows the NFL very closely, he's basically saying, yeah, I find people, but they just don't care. Just paid a fine. These guys get making so much money. The fine schedule is nowhere near enough to actually change how people are acting. So joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is a man who will not only be able to speak about this particular situation because I feel like he is synonymous with this entire city and certainly this football team, but not just this football team, the entire NFL and now college. Because of his business acumen being so damn impressive. Billions and billions of dollars negotiated. Ladies and gentlemen, Drew Rosen. Great to be here.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Sorry, my hair's messed up. I had to jog through security to get here. The stadium's not open yet. So we pulled this off.

[Pat McAfee]

I had no idea if you were going to be able to. If anybody was, it would have been you. Because of our experience getting in here. Listen, I mean, us getting in here was damn near impossible. We were on the G1 track. Okay. We were going around turn four twice.

[Stanford Steve]

Turn four, took a couple hot laps.

[Pat McAfee]

And there's a barrier on the other side. You go from turn four. Now you're going in turn five. Now you see turn six and then bang, shut you down. Do I want to go through the walk bridge to get to the other side where there might be a barrier or do I not that we turn back around, that we couldn't get in, that we had to find an entrance. Shout out to the people here at Hard Rock Stadium, making it happen. Because I don't think they were expecting to have to let us in. They certainly did. And thank you for joining us.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

I'm glad I still have hair Pat in this job representing. It's tough, man. I've been doing this 36 years. So we just talked about, you know, you're dealing with a lot of different personalities and the three of you can relate. You've been on teams and as an agent you absorb a lot of chaos and help to try and create some order. But it is stressful.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. You're a solution finder. I think dealmakers are that in business. This all the best business people that I know are dealmakers. Deal makers are able to look at one side and say, hey, is this worth it to you? And then to this person, this is the only thing holding this up. Can you make it happen? Dealmakers are not everywhere. Deal makers are a talent. Dealmakers are very slim. To be at a very elite level. You're one of them. So let's talk about a couple of situations happening with the Dolphins and with your people. You and Tyree Kill, obviously have a very deep relationship. You and the Miami Dolphins have a very deep relationship. When McDaniel says that type of thing, after hearing all the rumors about what was happening with Tyreek down here in Miami, whether he didn't feel appreciated or he felt like his career was wasting away, or he was not as sick, but he's promoting a store. All these rumors that were hitting the Internet about Tyreek and then him not playing, then him saying, I'm out after the game. Where do we. Where should we be viewing the entire situation at, you think? How should we be viewing the entire situation down here?

[Drew Rosenhaus]

So let's back up to training camp. Tyreek's scrimmaging with the Washington commanders, and he breaks his wrist. We have top risk doctors saying to Tyrique, you need to get this operated on. You're going to miss the season. Tyreek says to me and the Dolphins, I'm not going to miss the season. I'm going to play. I want to be here for my team. The doctors all said it's going to be painful. It could impact your entire career. If you don't get it done now, you may not be able to fix it all the way. Tyreek said, hey, the heck with it. I'm a team guy. I'm going for it. This hampered him all year long. He deserves a lot of credit. Tyreek is very passionate. Anyone I've ever represented that was great was passionate. They cared. What you see with Tyreek is very genuine. He wants to win. It's not good enough for him not to make the playoffs. He's very passionate. I think at the end of the day, he's committed to this Dolphin football team. He had an excellent meeting with Chris Greer and Mike McDaniel. I believe that Tyreek is a great asset to the Dolphins, and I think he's the least guy that people should be worried about for this organization. They have many more worries. Tyreek Hill's not one of them.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, so that was heat of the moment. You think postgame, Tyreek Hill understand what the Gravity of the situation is with the team that he's on. Which immediately led to people saying when you took the big check to go to Miami instead of staying at Kansas City, you kind of said that you didn't want to win, you wanted the biggest paycheck is what people started saying. But I don't think that stops you from still wanting to put up massive legendary numbers and being historic and everything like that. Especially with the 2 led McDaniel offense. I assume that's how you feel. So in the heat of the emotion, when he feels like he wasted a season, he says that answer after not wasn't the story.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah, he didn't want to do the interview initially.

[Pat McAfee]

He didn't want to talk to anybody. And then they're like, no, you kind of have to almost. And then he went out there and you think Chris Greer and McDaniel are able to get over that and teammates are able to get over that particular moment.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

So let's back up a little bit. Tyreek's first two years with the Dolphins were epic. The best back to back seasons in NFL history.

[Pat McAfee]

Hung 70 under number one player, top player.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Tyreek was the NFL player of the year last year. So I think he made a very good decision to go to the Dolphins. He was historical the last two years. Look, two of missed six and a half games. This year Tyreek's playing with an injured wrist. He still was 40 yards away from 1,000 yards. He was the second alternate to the Pro bowl. Did a lot of great things under the circumstance. Eclipsed 11,000 yards. I'm proud of the toughness. He showed up for every game. There are a lot of guys that didn't play for this football team. He showed up. Throw out the comments after the game. You're emotional. The guys on the team know Tyreek is a competitor. He's there for them. We represent 13 guys on the team. Not one of them has a complaint about Tyreek.

[Stanford Steve]

Okay, so still wants to be a Dolphin. That's the most important thing.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

So let me just say this. I've got to have that conversation with Tyreek. I'm not going to speak for him. We'll discuss that. That's going to be really something that we work out over the. I'm not going to say he does. He doesn't.

[Stanford Steve]

Gotcha.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

That's a discussion I'm going to have to have with him that I haven't had yet.

[Stanford Steve]

Okay. Okay. So future pro, I want to ask you about because now you represent college guys. One of the top pass Rushers in the league. Well, coming into the league this year, hopefully we see him tonight. We'll see. With Abdul Carter, how do you balance, you know, obviously you're, you're in charge of their business, but guys wanting to play, wanting to finish the season with the game, you get to this point, we saw Cam Ward play a half and sit out a half. How do you balance that? You know, giving them that best advice and obviously letting them make their own decision.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Well, this is, this is a straightforward situation. Abdul Carter is an nil client of ours. We, we hopefully will represent him in the upcoming draft, but that, that won't happen until he's not guaranteed.

[Stanford Steve]

Those are two completely different.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Exactly. Two different. But from an nil capacity.

[Pat McAfee]

That's smart. From the athlete's standpoint, I think absolutely.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Nil does not carry into the NFL, so Abdul's still going to have to make that decision. But we would obviously be honored to represent him because I believe he's going to be one of the first picks of the draft. But to your question, D butt relative to tonight's game, if this guy can play physically, if there's a chance he will do it. I've been an NFL agent for 36 years. This is absolutely one of the toughest human beings I've ever been affiliated with. Just watch this guy play. He plays so hard every snap. If he can go, he'll go. But he has a legitimate shoulder injury. And Franklin came out and said, hey, it's a game time decision. It really is. You guys played a long time in the NFL. You know, there are game time decisions where you got to go out there, you got to warm up, you got to feel it. You don't know whether or not you can do it. That is going to be something that will happen in a couple hours.

[Pat McAfee]

That's a potential game changing workout before the game. Obviously, with Abdul Carter, he's. And he can. Oh yeah, and he can.

[Ty Schmidt]

Big Ten defensive player of the year.

[Pat McAfee]

He's unbelievable. Special. AJ Has a question for you, Drew.

[Ty Schmidt]

Sure. How different is it now with this. And you say you're representing these guys as nil clients. Obviously you want them to stick around, you want to represent them in the league, but how early are you recruiting players now into different. By state, by state. Also coming out of high school, how does it all work now compared to maybe eight years ago?

[Drew Rosenhaus]

So it's so different when, when, you know, we recruited you guys, you know, we started recruiting guys out of college, you know, their junior year, their senior year. Now we got to start with high school guys. Okay. Mason Graham is a great football player that we signed this year. We started representing Mason as a freshman at the University of Michigan.

[Pat McAfee]

So good game record.

[Ty Schmidt]

He's amazing.

[Pat McAfee]

He'll be a top guy.

[Ty Schmidt]

Just nil.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Just nil. We started and when his season ended, he hired us to represent him for the draft.

[Pat McAfee]

So it's year to year contract or until you become a pro.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

It.

[Pat McAfee]

Everybody says these nil contracts are shite right now. Is that. Do you agree with that?

[Drew Rosenhaus]

If you're asking me, they are year to year. Okay. So players right now are professional football players. In college. They get a new contract every year. There is free agency every year. There is no salary cap. There are no rules. There are. The ability to transfer is almost unlimited. Guys getting paid coming out of high school. I love it. I'm for the players.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Making money. I love it. But there has to be some sort of system.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Absolutely. In any system, we need structure.

[Stanford Steve]

Yes.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Every other professional league has rules. We have a cap, we have a structure, we have a draft order, we have waivers, we have trade deadlines. This doesn't exist in college football, so it is very chaotic. But to get back to your question, a guy like Mason Grant, we started recruiting him as a freshman and we were fortunate to sign him when his eligibility was up. But it doesn't always work out that way. We've signed some guys that we represented for Nil and they went another direction with their agents when they got to the draft. You know, that's. It's kill or be killed. You know, we've got to earn our business every day.

[Pat McAfee]

Are you setting those up as the same type of contracts you would do for professional guys? Is that just kind of your model? Like, are you doing what Bill Belichick's doing at unc, saying, hey, this is how it works in the NFL. This is how it works with you? Or how do those kind of deals set up between you and the guy, the student, human athlete?

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Yeah, we are. On a year to year basis, we are trying to get contracts for our clients with their colleges at the top of the market for them. We're using other players as examples. We're pushing hard.

[Pat McAfee]

So this Rev Share thing coming on April 8, 2025 is good news for you, you think? Yes, because you've had to battle within a salary cap and comps at positions. Because I think some of these deals, if we're listening to how you're talking about it and how some people are chatting about it, like one running back will Be making like, let's say $2.3 million and then a very good running back is making a $400,000 because they don't know that that is potentially taking place now. There's going to be a market in comps and everything. Right.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

I love that.

[Pat McAfee]

So you feel good about that because now you get to showcase that you're. Hey, we need. I can get a little bit more than everybody else, right in that.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Absolutely. You know, it's huge that you guys played in the NFL for a long time. We can go on the NFLPA website at any moment and know what every player's making when we negotiate contracts. It's predicated on comps, comparables. Right. It would be very valuable to have that for nil. And also let's have transparency.

[Pat McAfee]

Yes.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Let's know what guys are getting paid, what the schools are working with. I think transparency is huge. And sharing information is a big deal.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. And also having legitimate contracts too, because there's a lot. I'm not saying your clients.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

I'm with you.

[Pat McAfee]

But I'm saying there's a lot of.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

There's a lot of issues.

[Boston Connor]

Shite.

[Pat McAfee]

A lot of shite. Allegedly. You know, and there's like a lawsuit for 16 million or 10 million. Oh, yeah.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Let's do it the right way, Pat. Let's have legit contracts. Let's know what everybody's making and let's work for the players and the colleges and make it a good system for everyone.

[Pat McAfee]

Because college football is at an all time high right now. So let's just continue to save. Not save it, but curated into what it can possibly become, which is an unstoppable wagon.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

College football is a very untapped market with a lot of football fans. If you look at the differences in ratings once again, what are those? We don't know. We're benefiting from them now. People are saying, oh, look, the ratings are up. But like, who knows how those are even monitored at this stage of life. Congrats, everybody. That is monitoring though. We appreciate what you're doing. But NFL ratings, what they are in college ratings, what they are, there is still a lot of people that love football that have yet to really dive into college ball for one reason or another. And with what it presents from an environment, an atmosphere, a buzz, a chaos, anything can happen any week, legitimately. It's like college football is just. I know it's been huge for a long time. I'm not saying that is not the case, but I think it is in the middle Of a massive, like, here we go. And the business side of it is going to have to be tight so that shit can continue to go.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Absolutely. You know, when you go to college games and I go to a college game every week, I go to NFL games every week. I am blown away by the passion.

[Pat McAfee]

Yes.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Going to your. Your alma mater. I went to the West Virginia, Penn State game. Oh, man. You know, the atmosphere at Ohio State, Yukon, it's still special. I mean, the Orange bowl, where I grew up. Who are your colleges? Guys.

[Pat McAfee]

All right.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

I was amazing. That stadium's incredible.

[Michael Lombardi]

Right?

[Pat McAfee]

They do the wave.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

There's so much passion. You go to Wisconsin, game at night. Virginia Tech. College football is a beautiful thing. The fans, the commitment, the love, the purity of it, the sheer emotion. You can't beat it. Let's keep taking care of it. Let's love it. Let's do right by the players, the coaches, the administrators, and keep that thing going.

[Pat McAfee]

Your business literally depends upon it. And how long have you been an NFL agent now?

[Drew Rosenhaus]

This will be my 37th draft.

[Boston Connor]

Damn.

[Stanford Steve]

Wow.

[Pat McAfee]

So you've been doing college football stuff for 37 years. You know, that's kind of the. That is the price.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

I go back to the late 80s. My first year as an agent was 1988, so. Represent a lot of the great Hurricanes at the old Orange Bowl. I mean, it's just beautiful college football, and I want to help it as much as I can.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. Who are some of the young guns? You respect Mulaguetta? You respect him?

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Oh, yeah. You know, as far as other agents. Absolutely. You know, this is such a competitive business, you know, and I'm a good competitor, so I'm not gonna hype up guys that I have to recruit against.

[Pat McAfee]

But respect, respect. Mulaguetta probably doing the same thing. But you're 30.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Like, you are known as the guy. Like Rosenhaus is the guy. You know, like, that's. That's cemented. You should feel very good. Hey, congratulations.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Thank you, man. But you know what? Nothing. Nothing is secure. You gotta fight hard every day for your clients. You gotta produce. You gotta get the best deals. You gotta outwork the competition. The past means nothing.

[Pat McAfee]

Nothing. Yesterday means nothing.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

We gotta battle every day to stay on top.

[Ty Schmidt]

That's what every player needs to feel.

[Pat McAfee]

Yes, absolutely.

[Ty Schmidt]

Every player on every team should feel that way.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

AJ as an agent, I have to be as competitive as my clients. Fight for them every day. These guys work so hard. The three of you know it. To get out on that field, I owe it to them. To battle for these guys to get everything I can.

[Pat McAfee]

Hell yeah.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

And you guys can feel my passion in my energy.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, yeah, I think so. I think so. If you're another agent, good luck. Year 37 in the middle of his prime. Con man has a question. Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

Sean Stalato, mixing meatballs. Not loving this from you, Drew. You got the juice. It's awesome. With all that being said with college, we saw last year with the packers, like, you know, Jeff Halfley, he went from college to the pros. And then we see this year with Belichick going from, you know, the pros taking a year off but then going to college. Do you think more guys will make that jump? Where? Because colleges run more like a professional outfit. And it's heading that way with, you know, the structure to everything, that there will be more NFL coaches going down and vice versa, more guys from college going up.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

You know what? I think it depends on the individual. Okay. So if you want to succeed in college football, you have to be able to recruit. Okay. If you are a coach that's an X's and O's guy and really good calling plays and a good teacher, hey, that, that's awesome. But if you can't recruit, you're not going to succeed in college football as a head coach in the nilr. You need money as well. So you better go to a program that's got deep pockets to pay guys. I'm guessing a guy like Jeff Hafley decided, look, Boston College, maybe we don't have the collective that we need there. Maybe I'm better served being a coordinator making a couple million bucks and the X's and O's is my strength. I can't speak for him. A guy like Belichick, he'll be successful anywhere he goes. The guy's a beast. He can make it at the NFL. He can kill it in high school, he can kill it in college. He's an all time great. He can basically do what he wants. Look, your cohort, Nick Saban, he dominated college football.

[Pat McAfee]

He is my cohort.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

But obviously he was not a guy that loved this new system. He has said that. So that I think had something to do with him stepping aside and doing media. It's made for some people, it's not for others.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, and you got like Dan Lanning and the young crew that's like the next generation of coaches coming through that are born in it, you know, so they have to kind of buy in and work the extra hour. What are you. What's your screen time?

[Drew Rosenhaus]

On a daily basis, what, 20 hours?

[Pat McAfee]

Honestly, how do you have the juice? What have you? 37 years into this thing, you still got the juice.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

This is, this is why I walk around with this, this big backup battery here, right?

[Pat McAfee]

Just non stop, all day, every day.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

All day, man. You know, we have, we're recruiting, we're.

[Pat McAfee]

Recruiting, we're pitching, we're checking in on your clients.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

You're dealing with injuries, you're dealing with playing time, you're dealing with the playoffs right now. You're recruiting guys, you're dealing with nil. You're helping guys deal with their futures. Where are they going to be? Families off the field stuff. You got to be a rock for your clients.

[Pat McAfee]

And you got 12 Pro Bowlers this year.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Yes. And I've got four little kids, so I mean, how many of us are dads here? Okay, so you guys can all appreciate that's actually made me a better agent. Having four kids has softened me as a human being, but made me even a better businessman. I have an even greater energy and passion. You ask me why I do it. I have a one year old at home, we live in South Beach. I have a three year old, a one year old, a five, five year old, a nine year old. I gotta dominate for these guys, right. I gotta pay the bills down in south beach, you know, it's expensive.

[Pat McAfee]

Absolutely. Yeah.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

So I'm serious. My family motivates me. I wanna make them proud. I want my 3 year old son Conan to grow up. My 1 year old.

[Pat McAfee]

Conan is a great name.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

I gotta keep it going. It is. I named him after Conan the Barbarians.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Conquer. Yeah. I love, I love everything, but I.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Gotta stick around for these guys, right? You want your kids to see you succeed and set a great example for them. So that's a big motivation. Where does my energy come from? The love of my clients, the respect and the admiration for what they've overcome to get to this point. The commitment, the passion, the energy, the toughness, their discipline, their ability. If I've got the blessing, the opportunity to help these guys, I gotta give it my all.

[Pat McAfee]

I wanna let you know, this is awesome. I wanna let you, what you're doing right here is awesome. Yeah. Cause when a coach comes on, on the show and we ask them a question and they give just a coach answer every single time, it's like, oh, this is this person's natural way of thinking. So like, perfect job. I feel like your natural way of thinking is just like this guy or These people are the best of all time at all times. Like you're pitching. With that being said, you rep Van Ginke, right?

[Drew Rosenhaus]

I do.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, he's potential. He's potential. Defensive Player of the year. Conversation.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

J.J. watt on your show yesterday. He's a unique player, guys. He can rush the quarterback, he can cover, he can make interceptions, he can hit. He's sideline to sideline. He is a Viking, right? If there was ever a Viking. This dude with the long hair, the way he plays, I mean, look, it's this Van Ginkel. He tore his Liz Frank in the last game of the season last year. People wrote him off the Vikings. Oh, my God. He's ready for the first game and he's put together a great year. We also represent Gruinard and the other two on the other side. Aaron Jones, the running back. Those three guys, they added him this offseason. What additions?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, Kevin O'Connell is a dog, too. Here's a video, actually, of Kevin O'Connell doing some coaching in a locker room, I believe, after a loss. I mean, from what he's saying and how he's acting versus how we maybe view, like some other coaches and how it operates. Listen to Kevin O'Connell here. We're 0 2. We've lost by a combined nine points, and we've lost the turnover battle seven to one. When we talk about. It's all about the ball, it's gotta fucking mean something to you. Everything inside you that's just purely holding the organization in your hands and not caring enough. We've got the leadership in this room to fix it, and we're gonna get.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

This shit right, and we're gonna start.

[Pat McAfee]

Rolling like a freight train. You guys with me?

[Stanford Steve]

Yes, sir.

[Pat McAfee]

I believe that was last season. And then obviously they come into this season and just absolutely dominate. You have a great relationship with the Vikings, it appears.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

I'll tell you a story. I'm at the combine in your great city of Indianapolis.

[Pat McAfee]

Beautiful city.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Hell, yeah. And I meet with teams at the combine. O, of course, you're talking about, you know, business with them.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, you guys are tampering. We get it.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

I won't deny that. The one. One of the head coaches who sits in on the meeting for the Vikings, Kevin O'Connell. And I'm not going to put him in a bad spot, but he blew me away. The guy is more than a coach. He's in the way that Belichick understands personnel on top of coaching and how everything comes together with signing players and getting new guys and the salary cap. OConnell's special. He's going to be one of the greats guys. He is really impressive at that combine.

[Pat McAfee]

We also got to see him, and he came up to me, and we got a chance to chat. Before he went live with Rich Eisen, I think I was in there. We had Mad Mel Kuiper walking around, and Kevin O'Connell walks in, and he daps me up or whatever. We have a conversation, and then he says, what's the story with Grigson? Because they had Grigson in their building, you know, and he said, what's the story? And I basically, you know, laid out my feelings on it all. And he goes, you should talk to him. And I was like, yeah, I'm not going out of my way to do that. Like, that is not how this is gonna go. And then I walk down later, and then Grigson's there, and we have a brief conversation, like four to five minutes. I think we aired our grievances. I think it was a very, very good, from my perspective, a good conversation for us to have. And I think he's a guy that had learned from how he operated the first time he was a general manager, had a lot of success. I think. I think the vision that he would want to have for his team and what he wanted to have for our team is one that would be very, very successful. I think the way he went about doing it was not just. Was not good. Like, you have to be able to deal with people, like, whenever you're in that particular position. And I think it wasn't his strength at that time, but after talking to him and him even having that conversation with me, I think. And then hearing people around him feels like he has learned from. Just like we talk about these head coaches who get a second opportunity at it. It's like whenever you get an opportunity and you're too young, maybe, and we're gonna talk to Michael Lombardi in the next hour. I think he'll probably have something to say about this. But when you get an opportunity and you're young, you have this vision on how it's gonna go. And then whenever it just all crashes out from under underneath you, Just absolutely underneath you. And then you have to, like, rebuild yourself back up, there's probably a way to go about doing things differently. And in my eyes, I think with the style of team that he would want, if he was able to get those things proper, which are definitely fixable, I think it'd be a great GM. He's a stud. How many GMs do you represent and do you.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

I don't represent coaches or players or GMs because it's a. I represent players, but not coaches and GMs.

[Pat McAfee]

Got it.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Executives. Because it can be a conflict of interest. You know, for example, one of our great clients over the years was Dan Morgan. And we have to now negotiate with Dan as the GM of the Panthers. I like Ryan Grigson. I dealt with Ryan Grigson when he was with the Colts. We got deals done for guys like Ty Hilton at the time, which was his first extension. I've seen him work with the Vikings as their assistant gm. Working with Kwezy, the general manager. The Vikings brought in Aaron Jones, Andrew Van Genkle, Jonathan Grinard. They extended our guy, Josh Mattelis. They extended Christian Derrisov. They brought back Dalton, Risner, Reisner. We like dealing with the Vikings. And the reason for that is Coach Flores. Coach Flores is a stud. If someone can get Grigson and Flores.

[Pat McAfee]

As a package, I think that's being pitched right now, isn't it?

[Drew Rosenhaus]

You're going to win.

[Pat McAfee]

That's being talked about. I don't know about it being pitched, but I think that's being talked about. Grigson's a stud and they both are coming off of first time Mako and how they wanted to. What did we learn? Top. Both of them.

[Stanford Steve]

Hard edge. I got a question for you on that note. You obviously been in the game since you said the late 80s, and I know from the outside looking in, it may just be more cameras, more microphones, more people talking about it. But from your perspective, do you feel like the players are as like accountable or as tough or as. As they've always been? Because I seem. I feel like even with the Mike McDaniels pressure, what's been kind of coming out of the locker rooms of Indianapolis in some of the years and some of the things being late being, you know, things that weren't really accepted. How are the players now in this generation compared to generations in the past?

[Drew Rosenhaus]

I. I don't think a lot has changed in that capacity.

[Stanford Steve]

Okay.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

I still believe the great players, the good players, the successful players, work at it, play through injuries, bust their tails in the off season, have leadership, are part of a family. I don't think that's changed.

[Stanford Steve]

Okay.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

If you want to make it in this league, it takes more than talent.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, yeah. That's what I'm saying. You're saying the successful people. We're saying, does it feel like there's more people that aren't setting themselves up for success because of their kind of guys.

[Ty Schmidt]

You don't represent.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Not your guys.

[Pat McAfee]

Not your. Never your guys.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

I know what you guys are asking. I don't see it, man. To get to this level, period, you've got to be a bad. Can I say badass?

[Pat McAfee]

No.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Okay.

[AJ Hawk]

Geez.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

You got to be tough. You got to really want it.

[Pat McAfee]

Is that the farthest you'll go? Ass.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

I'll go. I can go further than that.

[Pat McAfee]

No. But I didn't know how you operate. Like, are you a. When you're doing business, do we drop?

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Oh, I keep my poise when I deal with players and coaches and executives. Because you got to contain your temper.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. The best business people do that. I'm terrible at it.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

I really don't.

[Pat McAfee]

One person says something, I don't lose my temper, man.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

I don't get confrontational.

[Pat McAfee]

One person says something dumb. I'm done with it. But it's not good. It's not a good thing. But it is. It is a different style.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

I mean, obviously, there are guys that make a ton of money. There are different individuals that, you know, maybe are not as dedicated as others, but overall, I have the same admiration collectively for the players that I did in the late 80s that I do today.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. Ty has a question for you, Drew.

[Darius Butler]

When it comes to the draft, a couple years ago, when Jalen Carter was the consensus number one pick and then, you know, there was some of the off the field stuff that made him fall, you came on our show because he wasn't taking any visits after 10, because you said, like, hey, there's no need to do this. He's not going past that.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, yeah.

[Darius Butler]

When it gets to, like, this point of the offseason, you have these clients. When are you starting to get, like, an accurate consensus on where guys are going? And because you've been doing this for 36 years going into your 37th, how much bullshit do you still have to sift through when it comes to your clients and where they might go in the draft?

[Drew Rosenhaus]

So. So about Jalen Carter, obviously. Look at him. He made the Pro Bowl.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

He made the NFL PA all pro team in years. Look, after two years, this guy could be the best defensive tackle in football. So proud of him. And congratulations.

[Pat McAfee]

And a motor, too. Oh, my God.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

More snaps this year than any other defensive lineman. I think he and Zach Allen. Unbelievable. Unbelievable pick by the. By the Eagles. And Howie Roseman and Nick Sirianni deserve credit. Backing up to your question, the draft is all about dependability. You can watch the tape and see how these guys play. Any good evaluator can do that. The key to getting it right is being able to draft players that you can trust, that are going to play through an injury, that are going to be coachable, that are going to learn, that are going to fight through adversity, that are not going to get in trouble off the field, that are going to be accountable. That is very important. That's what teams are doing right now. They're trying to do their homework. What you do on the field is huge. Just as important is your character, your work ethic, your dependability and your commitment. You got to love football. You've got to want to win. It's got to be about team. And the clubs are trying to find these guys.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. This started with you talking about Tyree Kill, his wrist having an injury since the commander's game and him playing through it and then having, you know, a little bit of an emotional meeting with the press after the last loss and that everything. And then you just talked about playing through pain and showing who you are is a big deal. The Abdul Carter story tonight is a big one. And everybody's thinking that, like, well, he's not gonna play because there's a chance. Nobody has talked to him. Just speculating on situation. There's a chance maybe you don't play because there's a business decision. And then the person who's not necessarily repping him for the NFL, but certainly repping him now says playing through injury is a. That's a positive. Whenever NFL evaluators are looking at it, not a negative. Where a lot of people view it that way, though, you know, a lot of people think if they put bad tape out there, there's nobody's going to care. But if you're playing through injury, I think personally, if I was a GM or a team builder, I'd be like, give me the dog. Give me the guy that is willing to fight. Do you tell your clients that? Because I think there is a narrative potentially, that agents tell their players the complete opposite.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Jalen Carter, we brought him up. The guy was one of the top picks. He played all the way through to the championship game. No opt out. Helped the Bulldogs win two championships. A guy like Abdul, I would never insult him him by talking about a business decision. This guy is a warrior. He loves his coaches and his team. He would fight to win the championship no matter how much was at risk. Yeah, I was at the last game when he hurt his shoulder. This guy went Back out there, tried to play. He was. He had one arm. If he can play tonight, he will. There is no discussion about. Don't put out bad tape, no thought about a risk of injury. He's gonna give it his all for Penn State. His teammates deserve that. That's who he is. That's how he was raised by his parents, and that's the type of guy that makes him great.

[Pat McAfee]

That's awesome. Hey, Drew, from beginning the end, here you are agenting your ass off. And that's why you are who you are, brother. 37 years in the NFL, billions and billions and billions of dollars negotiated for your clients and probably hundreds of millions negotiated for yourself, if not even more. You're the absolute man. Ladies and gentlemen, Drew Rosenhaus. Thank you, Drew. Thanks, man. No problem, dude. How are you? Hey, great work.

[Boston Connor]

We're still still on Bros Pro.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

You want to hang out tonight, let me know, okay?

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. Okay.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

For all you guys.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, sounds good.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

I know where to go.

[Pat McAfee]

We have a stair. I don't know which way I'll jump off like you.

[Darius Butler]

He's a dog dog. He was jet skiing earlier.

[Pat McAfee]

There we go.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

I should have done it, kid. Have fun.

[Pat McAfee]

See you. Take care.

[Boston Connor]

Stay off the grass. Be careful now.

[Pat McAfee]

Rosenhaus can walk right to the middle of that field if he wants. Got a heads up from the Miami Dolphins. It's the only stadium that actually grows their own grass.

[Darius Butler]

Oh, really?

[Stanford Steve]

Really?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. To grow their own grass. It's these greenskeepers and groundskeepers here that are mixing up the soil and the seeding and the watering and the sunning and the, you know, the covering and the non covering. And how about the 40 degrees hitting this grass? I wonder if that's a little bit of a worry for the groundskeepers. I don't think so. They are absolute pros. Zito just said he sent over more information that was sent to us. Steven Ross bought a bunch of land about 80 miles north and created the South Florida Sod Farm. Farm. We control the whole process. The growing, the trucking it down and then installing it at stadium and the Dolphins practice fields across the street. We changed the field eight to ten times a year. He did this because we had so many vents all year long. So it allows us to quality control the whole process and not depend on other people providing enough sod for the amount of vents and things we got going on down here. Okay, G1's coming down, and we're bringing $350 million to the city. Yeah, probably 50 to $60 million in a Steven Ross's pocket. We drove that course early. It's a nice course.

[Stanford Steve]

It is great.

[Pat McAfee]

Rossio was starting to hit the apex of those turns. About turn seven.

[Boston Connor]

Lando.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. And he was in a really interesting bus or van. Like, it's one of those vans.

[AJ Hawk]

Huh.

[Boston Connor]

It's like when you see it and you're driving, you're like, oh, something illegal's going on in there and it's not good.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Or like a church.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah. Church shuttle.

[Ty Schmidt]

Or a big cult. Maybe a big national.

[Pat McAfee]

That's what it feels.

[AJ Hawk]

An old home.

[Pat McAfee]

What's that?

[AJ Hawk]

When you take the old home people on a field trip or something.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, yeah. And I guess you could even say prisoners going down.

[AJ Hawk]

Yes.

[Pat McAfee]

You know, down the street to maybe clean up the side or whatever this weekend. It's always give them a nice little, you know, just, hey, boys, gonna see out the bat, you know, I assume this is thank you for your service or not. Well, we don't. In a sense. If they're out there doing the thing, cleaning up, we assume that, you know, that's not volunteer. Yeah. They got somebody watching, too. All the time.

[Boston Connor]

It's a short list.

[Darius Butler]

I've seen enough movies. Those guys are always getting away. They're killing the guy who drove them down there. They're busting their shackles, and then they're getting out of town.

[Pat McAfee]

Speaking of getting out of town, is Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles gonna go this weekend? All signs say yes. All signs say Jalen Hurts is back out of concussion protocol. He had a light practice yesterday, didn't he, boys? I saw him going over some bags. I saw he had a helmet on, which I think is a big deal. So he had pads on. Saw he was throwing. I think this is all systems go for a Jalen Hurts return. Unless he woke up this morning and said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's kind of the. I think the extent of it, if we were reading right, which could happen.

[Stanford Steve]

You know, injuries are obviously situational. Concussions are definitely a situational injury, and people have suspected that he had some earlier this season. I think this is the first and only documented one on the books. But I think south, pal, he always got, you know, he's got. He's got the beat. Yeah, he's got to beat Philly. And he said he's. He's trending in the right direction. I believe he's in between four and five, and you got to get the five tops to clear protocol. So they need him. He's going to be a big. He's a huge part of the team. Obviously he's a starting quarterback making a ton of money, but in the run game, in the past game, he's a huge factor.

[Pat McAfee]

So right now he's in stage or phase four there. As you see, the player continues cardiovascular strength and balance training. Is he on one of those boards that they got.

[Darius Butler]

Oh, charge.

[Pat McAfee]

What does that thing? Stick. Balance stick, step stick. This thing had like a. A solid plastic, thick plastic on top. And then it had like this little.

[AJ Hawk]

Foam kind of like if you take the stick off of a broomhead.

[Darius Butler]

Yes.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. And then you put that on, like, sand and then it's able to stand. And then you. They stand on one foot on these things and like, bend over and like, grab. Pick up popcorn kernels and bottle caps. They have to stack three bottle caps on each other. So they're doing this balance exercise.

[Ty Schmidt]

It measures how, like their movement, I guess, somehow.

[Pat McAfee]

No, they just have to be able to. It's like a workout. It's like Pilates and yoga basically put together. Yeah, they're staying on. It's one of their exercises.

[Stanford Steve]

Like a lot of.

[Pat McAfee]

Like a Bosu ball with a. Oh.

[Ty Schmidt]

This is not part of the protocol. This is part of the Chargers workout.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Okay, gotcha.

[Pat McAfee]

That's. Well, when I saw balance, when I was doing a balance thing.

[Ty Schmidt]

How's it work for quarterbacks? Because usually don' you. If you're a position player and you're going through the protocol, you're gonna. You're gonna pop some pads before you go back out there for the game. But a quarterback, he's not doing that, is he? So his first contact will be the first time he gets hit in the game.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, they would never let him hit. No, never. Especially not.

[Ty Schmidt]

He's gonna bang his head off the wall a few times.

[AJ Hawk]

Trainer or something.

[Pat McAfee]

Cuz like Abdul Carter tonight, for instance, he's got a shoulder.

[Ty Schmidt]

He's gonna get a few shots in, so he's.

[Pat McAfee]

There's gonna be a bag. There's gonna be some guys like, we're doing tackling drills in this entire thing. You're gonna be able to see, but he's gonna be in full pads earlier than everybody else because he's gonna have to test to see if he can go for Jalen. How do they.

[Boston Connor]

Howie might just bop him a couple times.

[Pat McAfee]

Maybe he puts a helmet on. Yeah. Or actually Reuben. Sure. Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

He's a Philly guy.

[Ty Schmidt]

Throws a ball at him. Maybe he throws the ball at him because we know he throws 100 mile an hour fast yeah, we don't know.

[Pat McAfee]

How he is with a football. We've only seen him with a baseball. I assume he's throwing knives on the beach, but if he goes in full pads, maybe even drew skin as well, like they were. And I think. And then they just run into Jalen. Maybe not professional football players, but close.

[Darius Butler]

I don't know. I think you maybe line them up and have him do the tush push 50 to 60 times today just to see if he can go. Make sure, you know, offensive line is.

[Pat McAfee]

Going to be so happy to do that.

[Stanford Steve]

Well, that's apocrypha.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, yeah, that's what I'm saying, too. Now, if Jalen plays, I think, obviously Eagles fans are much more comfortable with the entire situation. No offense, Tanner McKee or Kenny Pickett. Okay. That is. No. No disrespect meant, but Jalen hurts in that offense is obviously what we expect out of the Eagles to perform at the level in which we think the Eagles are able to play. Now, the Eagles have been winning games this year, and the Johns over here are not happy. John's over here. Still not happy with how it was going. Sirianni obviously put himself in some situations for a lot of people to throw darts at them. They're still sitting in a beautiful spot with a home playoff game favored by.

[AJ Hawk]

Four and a half.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah, four and a half.

[Pat McAfee]

Right now, Ty Jalen plays. You guys are scared or what?

[Darius Butler]

No. No.

[Pat McAfee]

What?

[Darius Butler]

Not scared. Well, I think. I mean, he's. No matter what, he's not going to be 100%. You know, he hasn't played in, what, two weeks now? And obviously, I think. I mean, he's got to pass the protocol. But going into the game, even if he was only at, what, 60%? Like, they're still starting him. It's not like. Like, if he can go, he's playing over Kenny Pickett. And I think that's what all packers fans expected going in.

[Pat McAfee]

What's that tone?

[Darius Butler]

Nothing.

[AJ Hawk]

Just an orange walked in.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, that's Obi. Really distracted. Does that say Obi? I think I saw a name tag there. Obi. Obi.

[AJ Hawk]

Obi the Orange. Yeah. Everybody knows Obi the Orange.

[Pat McAfee]

I said the Orange Bowl's been around a long time. Should do a little bit more research on that before we do the simulcast tonight. Orange Bowl's always been held in, like, very high. Oh, yeah.

[Darius Butler]

Yes.

[Pat McAfee]

Always feels like it's one of the.

[AJ Hawk]

New Year Six rotating.

[Stanford Steve]

Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

It won't be like this forever.

[Stanford Steve]

Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

Quarterfinals. New Year six Bulls on a rotating. Rotating Basis.

[Pat McAfee]

This is the national championship next year. Oh, wow.

[Boston Connor]

Okay.

[Pat McAfee]

I believe. I'm not 100. Sure. But I. I believe that was. I don't know if that's.

[Boston Connor]

Cotton bowl was not in it last year. I granted their only.

[AJ Hawk]

No, that was Ohio State and Missouri.

[Pat McAfee]

You guys, how do you feel about Texas having a little bit of a home game there and snowstorm for travel?

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, I guess it may be something, but. Yeah, we know they know Ohio State fans travel.

[Pat McAfee]

They're saying 50. 50 here tonight. 50, 50 here.

[AJ Hawk]

Which makes sense.

[Boston Connor]

All right, 70.

[Ty Schmidt]

How much corporate. What kind of corporate setting is it? You know, a lot of these games are out of corporate people.

[Pat McAfee]

So if I was. If my research was correct, there's about 30,000, I think, that are dealt out.

[Ty Schmidt]

To Ayos all you others. You never heard that?

[Stanford Steve]

That's what it's called.

[Ty Schmidt]

Like 15 each team and then 30,000 ayos all you.

[Pat McAfee]

I. I don't. I don't know if that what I was told. Those three letters were never said AO. None of that was. There's no AOs.

[Ty Schmidt]

That's what we call the hangar honors when we were in college. Like the people. Hey, who's that guy? Why is that guy on the field? Why is he on the team playing ao? Ayo.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, yo.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, they're not saying that about Barbie Carpenter, though.

[Pat McAfee]

No, I think. But I think there was like 30,000 offered up at a pretty good. Okay, pretty good clip for like, the teams. And then everything else is like Sea Geek. What was the price? Do we remember what the price was that Sea Geek sent over for the average resale?

[Boston Connor]

Here, here, 700, and then over there was 1200.

[Pat McAfee]

And then the national championship was what, 2700? Yeah, but that'll go down, we assume. Or maybe it goes up. Who knows? The college football playoffs have been fantastic. The games haven't necessarily been close, but the environments have been electrifying. Well, tonight, continue that trend. I believe it's playoff time, and it's now or never. Don't miss out on the last few weeks of football action with prize picks the best place to win cash while watching the playoffs. 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.

[Stanford Steve]

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[Pat McAfee]

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[Stanford Steve]

You don't even need to win to.

[Pat McAfee]

Receive the $50 bonus. It's guaranteed prizepix run. Your game must be present in certain states. Visit prizepix.com for restrictions and details. This episode is brought to you by Amazon.

[Ty Schmidt]

Sometimes the most painful part of getting.

[Pat McAfee]

Sick is the getting better part. Waiting on hold for an appointment, sitting in crowded waiting rooms, standing in line at the pharmacy. That's painful. Amazon one Medical and Amazon Pharmacy remove.

[Ty Schmidt]

Those painful parts of getting better with things like 24.

[Pat McAfee]

7 virtual visits and prescriptions delivered to your door. Thanks to Amazon Pharmacy and Amazon one Medical Healthcare just got less painful Football is why we're here and obviously the first hour we had a chance to chit chat with Drew Rosenhaus and cover all the hot topics of the news world today. I'm not alone. Obviously. I am very fortunate to have a conversation right now with these boys and also share the field with them tonight as we do a simulcast on ESPN two of the Orange nine year NFL vet who looks super cool back in his home. He's actually a Broward County High School hall of Famer. Down here, ladies and gentlemen, Darius J. Baller.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah D. Bunch.

[Stanford Steve]

Glad to be home. Glad to be home.

[Pat McAfee]

It is nice to be home. Big time game here. Penn State, Notre Dame are two massive fan bases, historical brands battling it out with two teams that have fan bases that are desperate to get to a national championship. Are you kidding me? Penn State International championship. Notre Dame in a national championship. That sounds out of a good old days movie. And now we're here tonight. Tonight. I mean D. But it's a big night down in Miami.

[Stanford Steve]

Huge night. You talk about the good old days. It's been a while since these two teams have been to a national championship, been on this type of big stage. So huge moment for both of these programs, both of these coaches and obviously all these dynamic players will get a chance to watch tonight.

[Pat McAfee]

A lot of people are bringing up James Franklin's stats.

[Darius Butler]

Yep.

[Pat McAfee]

Well that's different. I think they're a different team right now. I think he's a different guy. I think it's a different school. I've chit chatted about a Few times on college game day, but I haven't really hammered it home as much. Penn State's all in, dude. Yeah, they are all in. And, you know, anytime we talk about this, you see AQ get a little gleam in his eye. You know, AQ gets a little jagged. We are. You know, he does that entire thing. They are. Whenever everybody was chit chatting about Ohio State at the beginning of the season, having a $20 million contract or whatever, it was like, we thought maybe that was abnormal. You know, I think because we're in a very new world. I think we thought that that was a little bit different than maybe what was going on in some other places. And there was like, you know, seven to eight places, it feels like. I don't. I don't know, 100% the numbers, because there might be people working in, you know, shadows a little bit that came up out of nowhere that were spending a lot of money. But I'm just saying, this year at the top, there was like, seven teams that, like, were spending more than most. And Penn State is certainly one of them. Penn State is all in. They are desperate for a national championship. And it's not just football. You look around a lot of their teams, I think, like, you start doing this at the basketball team. The volleyball team just won another national champion. It's like Penn State wrestling. They dominate. They don't even lose. Penn State is. Their athletic department is sick of not being talked about, I think, in like, the Big Ten conversation. And they're going all in. Ty Schmidt.

[Darius Butler]

Well, and you have to, because now with Oregon coming in too, in Ohio State and Michigan, like, if you want to compete in the Big Ten, you have to. To do that. You really can't. Like, otherwise you're just going to be, you know, I love them, but like, a school like Iowa can't compete financially and like, they'll have a year every once in a while where, like, they're great. Exactly. And they're guy a bunch of guys going, you know, to the NFL or whatever. But it's going to be very difficult to compete for Big Ten championships and national championships when you don't have that massive influx of money behind you, like those four programs at the top of the Big Ten do.

[Pat McAfee]

Isn't it crazy that your alumni is now a distinct advantage? People always say that your network after college is going to be something that is a benefit to getting a scholarship to a school. You're going to get obviously college educated. You're going to be able to do that. But then you're going to be able to network amongst alums and everything like that. Now, your alumni is legit for shoot brother. Like an actual advantage in some places.

[Stanford Steve]

Oh, yeah, you know, they're out of the shadows.

[Ty Schmidt]

Now.

[Stanford Steve]

You mentioned shadows. Alumni has always been an advantage, brother.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Stanford Steve]

Ask A.J. what do you mean handshakes you got.

[Pat McAfee]

You're talking about Mr. Ohio.

[AJ Hawk]

What about down here? I mean, there was a guy who I believe. I think he's out of jail. I think he's important.

[Pat McAfee]

Right. Shapiro UN might be back, baby. Yeah, legit. If he got out, maybe he's able to generate another scheme to make enough money. Guy was a phenomenal hustler. I think if he gets out of jail, he'll figure out a way to make more money. I think that is something that hustlers do. Who knows if it'll be all the way back to the yachts and thoughts. The two hots and a cot, which is what his life became because he was basically funding an entire operation down here in Miami. And they were just like open about it. You know, it wasn't just like, we're quietly celebrating, we're having a great time. But Miami certainly wasn't the only team that was doing that. No doubt. And I think that's what Shane Gillis was saying. Boston, Connor. But now Notre Dame's no slouch either. Notre Dame's got a lot of alumni with a lot of money. It's an institution behind it. And I think that was the conversation that we were trying to have there when I started making mentioned the Penn State. And by the we me, it's like the four teams that are left are very invested in their football game. Notre Dame certainly since the beginning of time, seemingly.

[Boston Connor]

Well, in Notre Dame, I got it right with Marcus Freeman, you know, like they're a tough bunch of dogs at Notre Dame. I don't know if you think. Yeah, I don't know if you're thinking, you know, of that when you think of Notre Dame especially, you know, you mentioned Shane Gillis. That guy went awol. You know, he left his post. So I don't know if you're thinking of that immediately when you go to Notre Dame, but now I feel like you do. Like, they play defense and they run the rock and Riley Leonard, like, sure. Coming in to the season, everyone kind of thought, you know, can this guy throw the ball? And who knows if that if he can. But they almost don't have to because they're o line. I mean, they're breaking down their huddles before the game, their chant, it's one, two, fuck. That's how they break down their huddle as an offensive line. And that's kind of an offensive line.

[Pat McAfee]

You want country Notre Dame football. And then one, two. Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

Yes.

[Pat McAfee]

That's what he said.

[Boston Connor]

It's awesome.

[Pat McAfee]

I've watched it. Every single time it's come out. Same guy, same energy, same delivery, same reaction from the rest of the boys. That offensive line is like, that's. That's what we're talking about with AQ yesterday. Exactly when it was like, hey, what's more important pretty much, is it the dudes that are in there, which are obviously important, have to have the ability, or is it the. And it feels like every time that guy breaks that offensive line huddle down, it's like, I think this is a nasty group of dogs right here. I think they are all in. They are bought in with themselves, in each other. And then Riley Leonard, the guy behind him, this dude put the team on his back last night. Legit against Georgia. Front flip at the end of this thing after already winning it, running everywhere. Only threw for like 90 yards or something like that, I think was the stat. But he made the throws whenever he had to, which we talked about in that RPO thing where he has to hit somebody in the scene. He's been able to do that in Paisan Faison. He gets the ball. Jordan in space. Just like the extension of the run game. He's. He's got enough wiggle. He can create yak for him, too. I really wonder. Everybody talks about their power in the run game. I think Riley has showcased a much better throwing than I expected, I think, in the whole world almost.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah. In our source, Siz at Notre Dame did tell us about the offensive line. Great bunch of dudes, you know, guys that you want to be around, guys that you want to hang out with. They like to have a good time. And they're not all about themselves, of course, as Lyman. They're about.

[Pat McAfee]

That's for God.

[Boston Connor]

They're about God.

[Pat McAfee]

They're about their country.

[Boston Connor]

They're about their country.

[Pat McAfee]

Anybody not in football, boom.

[Boston Connor]

And that's it.

[AJ Hawk]

Remember, beginning of the year, the whole. The whole theme, the whole story going into Texas A M week one was that those five guys had never played together because, you know, all the. They had three seniors last year who left. So this was like an offensive line at the beginning of the season that had a bunch of questions. And now they have gelled and they are one of the best running football teams. In the country.

[Pat McAfee]

Fun to watch, obviously. That'll kick off the College Football Playoff semifinals tonight here at the Orange Bowl. Tomorrow, the Cotton bowl, as Texas takes on the mighty Ohio State Buckeyes. How the Buckeyes feel? Fans feel good.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, Everybody's healthy. I feel like everyone feels pretty good. Optimistic.

[Pat McAfee]

How do fans feel? How the Buckeyes. How the Ohioans brother feel?

[Ty Schmidt]

I think. You know what? I would imagine. I don't know for sure, but I would imagine there's a chunk of fans that the more they win, the more they, you know, they might tighten up a little bit because now there's expectations.

[AJ Hawk]

It's all about managing good.

[Ty Schmidt]

No, no, I'm saying fans. I'm saying fans, players know when you can control what is going on. I think you guys could relate if I. If I'm playing in a game and I have some control over it. Sure, you're not really nervous or anything, but when you're people like us and you're watching from the outside and you're a fan, you really want them to win. I think that's when people start getting nervous, when they start thinking, okay, can we continue to play at such a high level? And I think the answer is yes.

[Pat McAfee]

I mean, that was the question going into the last game against Oregon that I had. And I picked Oregon, you know, because they were undefeated and sure, their videos are sweet. Yeah, Scoot dogs, too. And damn green and everything like that.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

What I didn't take into account for is, you know, which I normally only fit about is the. That guy in between the years. Yeah. That guy is the only thing to really think about when it comes to the offense, because if you can handle him, which you can't, you can probably take care of the offense because he frees everything else up. But that loss to Michigan, man. And I think Coach Saban might have said it immediately upon it happening, or maybe he said it about Alabama having it happen early. Like a loss can really be the best thing that ever happens for a team in their mission in which they're trying to accomplish. Obviously need to be Michigan, but every team is trying to win national championship. This team was a national championship or bus team going into the season. That was the conversation loss to Michigan made everybody think. It wasn't gonna. Wasn't it? The season's over. We've lost everything. But inside that building, it feels like that we got to be inside of, which is very nice.

[Boston Connor]

So nice.

[Pat McAfee]

So many different flavors of uncrustables.

[Darius Butler]

Oh, man.

[Pat McAfee]

So many different flavors. Boy, what A bunker mentality that was created by those boys knowing that it's their. Hey, we still got everything in front of us. What's rock bottom, a loss to Michigan aren't not our entire fan base, but a lot of our fans being like, what the hell is going on? This is all mismanaged. And it's like instead they play their best football since then by far. And they're, they're just. They're road grading people. Oh, yeah. I mean, I mean, it is a methodical ass beating since that game that we have watched out of the Ohio State finals.

[AJ Hawk]

And also let's. What is Ryan day's right or 60 something and 6. Is it 6?

[Pat McAfee]

No, 68 and 10 or 11, 67.

[AJ Hawk]

Four of those are to Michigan. You know, there's the Oregon one, There's the Georgia national champions who they took to the last second, who won a national championship by 70 points. And we talked, we kind of talked about it before the Tennessee game. If you're not wearing maize and blue on the opposite sideline. Ohio State has been dominant and they've proven it the first two rounds of the playoffs.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, and Texas is just like poor old us, huh? I guess everybody's talking about Ohio State undertakers, you know, sending me to hook em signs while he's on a damn steel pony making his debut on Netflix Raw. It was. He literally parks in front of me, horns up, brother, hook him and then just pulls off. He was not happy that I picked against Texas. He's not enjoyed.

[Stanford Steve]

Yeah, it's not a good person.

[Boston Connor]

Talk about a cold, dude.

[Pat McAfee]

We're just walking through me and Gumps. Gumps, you back there? I don't know if Gumpy has a microphone and. Or a camera back there. Yes, sir.

[AJ Hawk]

We got a mic.

[Pat McAfee]

How about whenever we were walking just through the backstage there of the arena and the way WWE arenas are, there's like little pockets of things, you know, and they could be filming things in between. So you kind of got to like stay in your pockets. We turn a corner heading over to catering and there's the dead man.

[Boston Connor]

Turn the other way now he's wearing.

[Pat McAfee]

A big purple flannel. He's got this like do rag on his hair's out the back. He's with his wife or whatever. And I go, Mr. Take, good to see you. And he goes, why you do that to Texas, man? Pissed so bad. So mad eyed. Eye contact didn't even break. Why'd you do that to Texas, man? I said what I said. I go. And he goes, yeah, and then what? He says, don't do it. He looks at me, he goes, don't do it. Don't do it. I go, oh, you talking about this? And he goes, don't you do that. And Michelle McCool, who's his wife, was like, he was pissed at you. Whatever you did, like, actually force shoot pissed off or whatever. And I'm like, take. I don't ever want to make you mad.

[AJ Hawk]

You weren't wrong either.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, yeah. Georgia's been very good. Georgia loses to Notre Dame. Does that mean Notre Dame's best team in the country? Well, they're not saying that. Everybody's saying Ohio State is the best team in the country. And then Texas with two losses in the Final Four. Right now, Quinn Ewers makes his best play that he's ever made in the history of his career, basically, to win that game. Calls out a blitz, checks to something else, makes an audible, throws an absolute dime. Quinn Ewer shows up in the biggest moment whenever he had to. And if you recall, he went to Ohio State straight out of high school. And what was that thing I saw this morning? Yeah, what was that? You would know, not me. Who's Ricky Reichardt?

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, Reichardt. It's a big. Reichardt's a big car dealership in Columbus, Ohio. So I believe Quinn must have had a, you know, nil deal. I don't know if he got cash or anything, but maybe because, remember, remember.

[Pat McAfee]

He went to Ohio State because he wasn't allowed to take the money in the state of Texas that was being offered at the time because of their laws versus Ohio's laws. So he went to Ohio State literally just for millions of dollars, reclassed. That was like the story. Sick mullet, Sick mullet. The highlights were absurd. Quinn, yours. This Texas bowler can spin it. We loved him immediately watching the highlights. We also love the fact he was becoming a millionaire out of high school and had to go to another state to do it. Was Ricky Rykart the guy that made him a millionaire? Is that the truth?

[Ty Schmidt]

I don't know. I mean, he got it. He definitely got. Gives cars to the guys. They do. I see commercials all the time. Current players with him.

[Pat McAfee]

They were telling. I saw the. The post that I saw. And once again, I apologize for not knowing who posted it. You should get credit for this because it was great Internet. It was a picture of Quinn and Ricky Rykhart and said, do it for Ricky tonight, and that is our tomorrow night. That's what Ohio State can do. You know, Ricky Was hoping Queers be a great Ohio State Buckeye quarterback. Think about how many quarterbacks were Buckeye quarterbacks. And then they were. Then they go other places and have massive success. Fields. Fields is at Georgia. Goes up there. Burrow. Who else?

[Ty Schmidt]

McCord to Syracuse.

[Pat McAfee]

Yes. Yeah.

[Stanford Steve]

This year set a new record in the acc.

[Pat McAfee]

And the quarterback rooms are always just like NFL guys. Yeah. Will Howard, NFL guy.

[Stanford Steve]

I mean, what we've been seeing as of late.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. They're not even talking about him. Right. At all. Shador Cam Ward, Drew Aller of Penn State's game, a little bit of a rub, saying, hey, if Drew out was to come out now, he might go back to Penn State and he's making millions of dollars. I would assume he's starting quarterback up there. So he might stick around to, you know, continue to develop and maybe take another payday from Penn State, try to finish with the boys, depending upon how this season ends up for Penn State. But nobody's really bringing up Will Howard being a quarterback in the NFL at all. No.

[Darius Butler]

And that was kind of the. I mean, the offensive line and him going into the playoff was kind of like, hey, this is why Ohio State's not going to win. Because Will Howard has looked like absolute shite, you know, leading or at least from the Michigan game, you know, so that left the sour taste in people's mouth. But having watched him the last two weeks, recency bias. Like, I think everyone's given all the credit to Jeremiah Smith, and rightfully so, because he's probably the best player in college football. But we saw a couple of those. A couple of these balls that Howard thrown.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah.

[Darius Butler]

Like. And Sunday throws for sure.

[Pat McAfee]

And you see the little skip down the tunnel in the second half.

[Darius Butler]

Moxie.

[Pat McAfee]

Lot of moxie. He can run.

[Darius Butler]

He's a big son of a bitch.

[Stanford Steve]

Big boy. Bigger than I. Than I expected. You mentioned as of late, these biggest. The biggest games of his career up to this point. The throws he's been making in the offensive line. There's been a lot of shuffling there with Ohio State offensive line. So for him to be able to do that in the past game, obviously what they're doing in the run game as well. He's making big plays. Quinn, it was better make some plays early tonight. Tomorrow night, they better make plays early.

[Pat McAfee]

Why? You're saying Ohio State's been coming out and just smacking. I mean. Yeah, yeah.

[Stanford Steve]

We're talking about AJ Kind of mentioned, you know, being tight. Maybe not as players, because Ohio State, they feel like we're the Most talented team. If we come out here and we play our brand of football, nobody can beat us. Texas, it may be some doubt that has kind of crept in to that locker room. You just got taken to the wire at Arizona State. I know, great, great teams, you're in the playoffs, big time teams. But now you're going and you're facing, you know, this wagon right now that Ohio State is. It may be some doubt creeping in there, but you know, you make that play early in the game. All right, here we go. Here we go, boys.

[Pat McAfee]

That's tomorrow night. We'll be on the field for that tonight. We'll be. Yeah. I can't wait for Jack Sawyer and JTT to do their thing.

[AJ Hawk]

Kelvin Banks are really good.

[Pat McAfee]

So much talent on this, these teams. So much talent on these teams. Everywhere.

[Boston Connor]

Tackle and matchup. You mentioned like Kelvin Banks as a Patriots fan. That's the tackle you want. So, like they have legit dudes on the outside. Connor, I think is their, their right tackle. He's got that sweet little caller. I, I don't even know what that one's called because it looks so. But Necro, I don't think whatever it is, that matchup's going to be sweet, let alone Jeremiah and the four dudes.

[Pat McAfee]

Covering him, Matt Miller and at NFL Draft, Scout says Ohio State first. Texas has 21 players ranked in the top three rounds. 11 for Ohio State and then quick math boys, 10 for Texas.

[Darius Butler]

A lot.

[Boston Connor]

And Kayla, I mean, that's not even counting Kayla. The, the two best players, Caleb Downs and Jeremiah Smith.

[Pat McAfee]

Because yeah, they're not even, you know.

[AJ Hawk]

Also Texas is two best players, not two best players on defense, but Anthony Hill Jr. And then Simmons, they are number one two in the team in sacks. So they are a true freshman and a true sophomore. That's not counting them either.

[Stanford Steve]

Freshman of the year.

[Pat McAfee]

They're gonna have to re recruit him after the season ends and they'll be able to. Tonight we'll be here at the Orange bowl and Obi the Orange has stopped by. Wow, great work. How do you feel about orange juice? Don't like it, right? Nope. We don't like orange juice.

[Stanford Steve]

Thumbs up.

[Pat McAfee]

We like orange juice.

[AJ Hawk]

All right.

[Darius Butler]

Okay.

[Pat McAfee]

It's not like an eat more chicken type thing with the cows, right? Yeah, it's a little bit different.

[AJ Hawk]

Just love, pain.

[Boston Connor]

Wants to be the only orange. Kind of selfish.

[Pat McAfee]

So my daughter, almost 2 years old, loves oranges. Gotta peel it all the time. How come some of the peels are like good peeling ones?

[Darius Butler]

Oh, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

I can get like a big old piece and then some. It's just, like, tearing away quickly. It's like when there's bad snow for snowballs and then good snow for snowballs. Why are these peels so different?

[Darius Butler]

You don't know.

[Pat McAfee]

Your appeal is the best, by the way. Yeah, thank you.

[Boston Connor]

Obi's a goofball.

[Pat McAfee]

Obi, how old are you, Obi? Obi's been with the Orange bowl since forever.

[Stanford Steve]

Oh, you've seen some good ball club.

[Pat McAfee]

Really? You've seen a lot. How do you feel about tonight's game? You think it's gonna be a good game? Good game.

[Darius Butler]

Obi loves the match.

[Boston Connor]

I do think I know how to do the orange thing. You have to roll them sometimes.

[Pat McAfee]

That's an egg.

[AJ Hawk]

Those are hard boiled eggs?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, that's an egg.

[Boston Connor]

I'm telling you. I'm telling. Clementines. It works for clementine.

[Pat McAfee]

All right. Okay. Anyways, maybe I will give it a go. Who knows? Hard boiled eggs, it definitely helps as well. You should dive in.

[Boston Connor]

I don't like hard boiled eggs.

[Pat McAfee]

Come on. Give him protein, dog. Here we go. Protein diet. Obi, I guess, brought some food. Did you bring some food, Obi, for us? We appreciate you.

[Boston Connor]

Confusing.

[Pat McAfee]

Why Obi's an orange. We're like, opie, Obi, Sodexo. Here we go. Sodexo Live. We can't. Thank you, John. How you doing, John? Oh, jeez. Wow. Hey, so, John. Obi, can you let John sleep slip by there? Obi, Sorry about it.

[Stanford Steve]

Thank you.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, thank you so much. John, you're the executive chef for. Can you get a little closer live? Yep, yep. Absolutely.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

For Sodexo Live, obviously, we're doing the game today.

[Pat McAfee]

Orange bowl is a big game. Playoffs. Let's see what happens. So Sodexo is the company that provides the food for a lot of NFL stadiums and College of Race arenas.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Exactly.

[Pat McAfee]

And they happen to have Hard Rock Stadium. Or are you contracted in by Orange Bowl?

[Drew Rosenhaus]

No, we're doing.

[Pat McAfee]

We're contracted in Hard Rock. So you guys do work with Hard Rock Stadium all season? All season. Yep, we do.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

F1.

[Pat McAfee]

We do. Miami Open.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

We do.

[Ty Schmidt]

How are the fans at F1?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

How are the fans different than football fans?

[Stanford Steve]

They're pallets.

[AJ Hawk]

They're goofballs.

[Pat McAfee]

Different crowd. Yeah. So do you. Do you shape what you guys are serving on the menu by the crowds that are coming in? For instance, is tonight similar to a Miami Dolphins home game?

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Exactly. Same thing.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. When the F1 comes in, you got to make the stuff that tastes terrible. The Europeans duck, Lauren.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

You say tiny portions.

[Boston Connor]

No one likes.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Different crowd, right?

[Pat McAfee]

Obviously a little bit more tedious and.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

A little bit different small bites.

[Pat McAfee]

How many plates or meals do you think tonight you guys are gonna have to serve? And how many do you have to serve for one Miami Dolphins home game.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

For a home game, you know, definitely sold out.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, but how many meals is it in number? Like, how much are you cooking? Do you have, like, pounds?

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Pounds. I could that exactly.

[Darius Butler]

£15,000.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

How many, like, bags of shrimp are you opening up on a daily basis?

[Pat McAfee]

2,000. £2,000. That was easy. Exactly. £2,000 of shrimp. Yeah. How much beef in one game? Yeah, of course. Two thousand pounds of shrimp.

[Boston Connor]

I mean, not the last home game.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, that's a.

[AJ Hawk]

That's a ton.

[Pat McAfee]

How much can you eat? I would enjoy eating this thing right here. This looks amazing. Is everybody, every sweets getting one of these, or is this specially made here? It's only for you guys, right?

[Stanford Steve]

Wow.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Some sweets that are getting that as well.

[Pat McAfee]

We appreciate you, man. How many people are on your team?

[Drew Rosenhaus]

A lot.

[Pat McAfee]

Around a thousand. Damn. Geez Louise. 1000. Aaron. That's a different Aaron than I've ever seen. A H R E N. Aaron. Beers love it. That's a great name. You got a great name. Aaron.

[Boston Connor]

Is that a code name?

[Pat McAfee]

And a great goatee. Holy shit. All right, you guys are doing a great job. Hey, we appreciate you for bringing this out.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

So Aaron's my right hand man, right.

[Pat McAfee]

As well, you know, sous chef. Does he say, yes, Chef? No, Chef.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

He does.

[Pat McAfee]

Absolutely. All the time. He calls me all the time. So, like, when you call him, you say, what's up, Chef? Is that how it works?

[Darius Butler]

What's up, Chef? This is where we're at. This is what we're doing. Keep the place moving, keep the building going.

[Pat McAfee]

Behind, behind, behind. A lot of that stuff. I love it. All right, we appreciate you guys. Thank you for the food. One of these tomahawks, like a turkey leg I brought you. Okay. I appreciate you, man.

[Michael Lombardi]

Enjoy it.

[AJ Hawk]

Michael, nice to meet you back.

[Pat McAfee]

Very nice to meet you, Michael. Appreciate you guys.

[AJ Hawk]

Thank you.

[Pat McAfee]

Thank you, guys. Yeah. Phenomenal hair. Seriously. Really, really good hair. They had the good hair and the glasses, too.

[AJ Hawk]

Was that tomahawk?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. See, I think they cut all meat off. They did.

[Boston Connor]

That's a good bone.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, wait, wait, wait. Hold the phone.

[Boston Connor]

Oh, there he goes.

[Pat McAfee]

Hold the phone. Sinexo live.

[AJ Hawk]

Oh, so juicy.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, wow. Oh, wow.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah, like, there's a lot of. Yeah, there's a lot of gristle on that piece.

[Boston Connor]

That look great.

[Stanford Steve]

Looks good.

[Ty Schmidt]

Glad you did it. That looks good, though.

[Darius Butler]

You'll be chewing that for three hours.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

Con man, what do you got?

[Pat McAfee]

Cornbread. Yeah. You know what?

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, he took a bite.

[Boston Connor]

I said, why don't you hold on right there.

[Ty Schmidt]

Let me.

[Boston Connor]

Let me see what that is. To be honest, I thought it was not cornbread. That was, like, not. Not plantain, but the other stuff they serve at Fogo.

[Stanford Steve]

Did you taste it?

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, it's pretty good.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, I've been.

[Darius Butler]

Garlic bread.

[Pat McAfee]

You guys should grab whatever you want. That's pretty good. That was good. Just.

[Boston Connor]

Just give that tomahawk one of these, and that. That thing's gonna just slide right off. Here you go. Just throw it right in my mouth.

[Pat McAfee]

There you go.

[Boston Connor]

Just throw me right in my mouth.

[Stanford Steve]

Hey, yo.

[Pat McAfee]

Thank you.

[Boston Connor]

I mean, if it wasn't sideways, I probably would have got it.

[Pat McAfee]

All right. You need a nap? You should use a napkin.

[Boston Connor]

I got one right here.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, yeah, you should certainly. Geez Louise. Aj, eat. Eat your skin and bones.

[Ty Schmidt]

It's the best part about, like, you.

[Boston Connor]

Know, shows usually go to.

[Ty Schmidt]

Go to break right now when people start eating.

[Pat McAfee]

We're right. We're doing it live. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, watching us eat is a Italian legend.

[Darius Butler]

Some beef on there.

[Pat McAfee]

This is really good food. Toss me another.

[AJ Hawk]

Thanks.

[Pat McAfee]

Sorry, Pat, go ahead. Okay. Never mind. The person I was about to introduce can potentially not hear a word we're saying right now, but he's watching. Oh, hey. Hey, paisan. It's good to see you.

[Ty Schmidt]

There we go.

[Pat McAfee]

We can't hear you.

[Boston Connor]

Muted.

[Pat McAfee]

We can't. Hey, it's good to. Hey, how we doing? How we doing? You see this thing? Look at this thing, huh?

[Stanford Steve]

No gabagool, huh?

[Pat McAfee]

You see all this meat? We gotta. You got any?

[Ty Schmidt]

Hello?

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, can you hear us?

[Michael Lombardi]

I can't hear.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, no.

[Pat McAfee]

What?

[Michael Lombardi]

No sound.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, no. This is not good.

[Ty Schmidt]

He's actually doing it to us.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, I can't hear you. I can't hear you.

[Boston Connor]

Oh, don't.

[Pat McAfee]

What if he does just dunk on us completely? What are the little football pops there? Is that little cake pop, you think?

[Darius Butler]

Did you get one?

[AJ Hawk]

That's.

[Darius Butler]

That's cut.

[AJ Hawk]

You got a fork, knife, right now.

[Darius Butler]

Get one plate to shovel.

[Ty Schmidt]

You got a knife?

[Darius Butler]

That's easier, is what I'm saying.

[Boston Connor]

Not even close, right?

[Pat McAfee]

Ladies and gentlemen, joining us now, watching us have our.

[Ty Schmidt]

Make some tomatoes.

[Pat McAfee]

Our last meal before the Orange Bowl. Thank you to Zexo Live. They can't hear us. Good.

[Darius Butler]

What's going on?

[Pat McAfee]

That meat's good, isn't it?

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, good meat.

[Pat McAfee]

We should have had it later in the hour.

[Boston Connor]

I don't know. I think this is perfect.

[Pat McAfee]

I think this is a bad time to bring it in. If you're coming to the Orange bowl tonight, just know that John and Aaron Biggers have got it figured out. Thousand people team. So, like, the only reason why I know about them is because it was an obvious upgrade whenever they were starting to do, like, the sweets. The sweets. Food. Because normally when you do, like, these large commercial, you got so much food, so normally the quality of it's dropped and then there isn't as much and then the way the service is. So when they came in, it was like an immediate obvious, like, upgrade. And they have to make so much for 2,000 pounds of shrimp is what he said.

[Boston Connor]

That's crazy.

[Pat McAfee]

I don't know how. He doesn't know how many meals he's got to make, though. That feels like a number that he should have known.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

It's all about the poundage.

[Boston Connor]

How do you measure in bulk?

[Pat McAfee]

Well, because you got a certain. Every suite has a certain amount of people, right? So it's like this suite has 21 meals, 21 people that have to be fed, I assume.

[Boston Connor]

But then are they. They're doing every concession, too. Like, are they doing all the fries and.

[Pat McAfee]

Holy, what an operation. I don't even know how you do that. Then the security outside, there were so many people. Yeah, so many people. I wonder how many people are working just for this event.

[Boston Connor]

I wonder if people, when they were sneaking into the stadium during that song, went through the kitchen.

[Pat McAfee]

The. The finals of Conceifa.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, The Argentina, United States game.

[Stanford Steve]

No, I think it was Argentine, United States. Okay.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

Everyone want to see Pulisic, Colombia.

[Stanford Steve]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

They weren't in it.

[Pat McAfee]

United States were in it.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, they won the whole thing, remember?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, yeah. Because Messi was out there representing our country.

[Boston Connor]

Exactly. Pig slips.

[Pat McAfee]

He wrote his ankle, didn't he?

[Boston Connor]

Bad, bad, sad.

[Pat McAfee]

Did not like that at all. Came back. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is a man who is back on the program after becoming the general manager of the North Carolina Tar Heel football team. Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Lombardi.

[Michael Lombardi]

So good to see you guys. Look, it's awesome. We got great football. College football. It's awesome.

[Pat McAfee]

It is awesome. Everything's awesome. Let's talk about your life. How has it been being a college general manager? I saw you at a high school taking some photos with Coach Belichick, I know you're trying to kind of get a lay of the land down there. How's it been in these first couple weeks?

[Michael Lombardi]

It's been really good. Obviously, the reception here in the state of North Carolina has been unbelievable. This is such a great state for high school football. Got some incredibly gifted players coming out in the 26th class. So we're trying to make sure we see all of them. And it's been really wonderful. I mean, everybody here at the University of North Carolina, from the chancellor, Lee Roberts, down to Bubba Cunningham, the athletic director, everybody's been supportive, and they want football to be great here. And when you hire the greatest coach of all time, I think you're heading in the right direction. So we're looking forward to it. I think the biggest thing we have to do, Pat, here at North Carolina, is bring back all the great players that have played here, whether it's Julius Peppers, Lawrence Taylors, Jeff Saturday, who you worked with. There's been so many Algae Crumpler, I can name them. Dre Bly. This school has got great tradition, and it's our job to honor that tradition and to bring back those alumni onto this field to show that we belong in the conversation about the top teams in college football.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, so you guys are loving it, fully committed down there, because there were some reports here now over the last couple days, a lot of assumption and fodder, if you will, about Tom Brady, who is a part of. Of the coaching hiring process out there for the Las Vegas Raiders, reaching out to Coach Belichick. And then there was a potential alluding to immediately about, oh, is Bill Belichick getting tempted into coming back into the NFL? The way he structured his contract with a $10 million buyout or a $1 million buyout, depending upon what it was, is certainly something that would make it feasible for him to head to the NFL if the opportunity was to arise. Tom Brady is in the conversation to hire a head coach he calls his old head coach. Is he just talking to him about good old days? Is he asking him if he wants to come to the NFL? What do you know about the entirety and how do you feel about your time at North Carolina thus far and how long and how committed are you guys down there?

[Michael Lombardi]

Completely committed, 1000% committed. I know for Coach Belichick and myself, those conversations, you know, look, guys that do the insider stuff for the NFL, they've got to put stories out there. That one was a complete falsehood. Coach Belichick, when that story came out, was recruiting South Jersey, you know, and today he was at Bergen Catholic, one of the teams we watched play at Ocean City, you know, and he's gone to the Hun School to recruit kids in Princeton. I mean, that story just had no legs. I think what often happens in rumoring, and I know this from doing it in the league, is people try to make a connection. A to B equals C. Well, that's not always the case. Yes, Tom Brady is. Is being involved with any interviews. Yes, Tom Brady is doing research on head coaching candidates. Yes, Tom Brady is calling people up for advice and counsel because that's why he's so great at what he does, because he's listening for advice. But don't assume that that's. Because he's doing that. He wants Bill Belichick. Bill Belichick committed North Carolina. He committed it to me. He committed it to the university. There's been no conversation about anything. And we drive from this office here is this football field behind me to where we're staying. We commute each day together, and we both talk about how messed up the NFL is and how thankful we're in college football.

[Pat McAfee]

Is that real?

[Michael Lombardi]

We're shaking our heads.

[Pat McAfee]

Is that real?

[Michael Lombardi]

Yeah, because we. Yeah, that's the real con. I mean, this is the best job we could have at the time of our lives, and we're going to really embrace it and we're going to work hard to make North Carolina proud.

[Pat McAfee]

Coach because our. I'm sorry, Mr. Manager, General Manager of North Carolina and Ted Talker and podcast host, live show host, multiple time super bowl champion, author. Email Daily Newsletter Entrepreneur, you name it. A lot of people that are old school in the college world are bailing to get to the NFL because they said his college is a nightmare. And you just said that. You guys are talking here very early in the process. Obviously, you're in the meat of recruiting and trying to put together your roster and try to figure out and implement your culture down there. But you're saying at this time of your life, this is perfect for you guys. Why do you think that is? Why do you think Bill and you are at the perfect time to be at North Carolina?

[Michael Lombardi]

Because we've been in pro football. We've heard no from players before. We've known that players go for money at certain places. We know that players get lured. But the difference between college football and pro football is there's really only two avenues. There's the draft and there's free agency. In college football, it's unlimited. We have high school. We have High school, we have the portal. The portal reopens again. And so for all the. It's. It's like when you go to the boardwalk in Ocean city and you're 14 years old and you see a pretty girl and, oh, you can't get a pretty girl to talk to you go to the next pretty girl. There's somebody else coming down the boardwalk.

[Pat McAfee]

And so there's always somebody else coming down the boardwalk.

[Michael Lombardi]

That. That the best thing about it. I've heard no more than I've heard, yes, But I embrace no because I know there's somebody else out there. You know, well, we're going to go to this school. Okay, great. We'll just sign this receiver as opposed to you. I don't take it personally. I think to me, that's what in pro football, you get lied to. In high school football recruiting with the agents that are doing it now, they lie to you. I'm used to being lied to. I'm immune to it. But I think to me, there's more chances to improve your roster here than it was in pro football.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, so obviously anybody's a free agent at any time. We had Drew Rosenhaus on earlier. How often are you negotiating with NFL agents that you've known from the past? And how big of a benefit is that for you guys? Because I assume, and I think Bill maybe alluded to it, or you did, or I forget somebody did, there's going to be agents that are telling their clients, like, hey, you should probably go to Bill Belichick. You're like a Bill Belichick type guy. Has that been happening for you guys? And how has it been?

[Michael Lombardi]

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, look, let's face it, okay? What I've said on your show many times is the college draft now has become a senior draft, and that's because of nil. And so if you're a young man and you're thinking about entering the draft and you've graduated from your school, you're a grad transfer, and now you're deciding, do I go in the draft or do I stay? Well, let's say you're a fourth round pick in the draft, fifth round pick, you can get more money in nil than you can in the NFL draft, so why not come back for another year and improve your stock? And what's the best way to improve your stock? Play for a pro coach, learn the pro system, understand a pro program, have pro training, have pro nutrition, have pro, you know, therapy and all the things that we're trying to do. Here at North Carolina, I think this is, and I've said this many times on your show, that the college draft, when I first started in 1980 and we had 16, 17 rounds, it was all college seniors. Now you have a chance to make money and stay in school. Why not do it? I think it's a great opportunity and we're going to benefit from that because the agents know if you want to play pro football, North Carolina is a place that's going to teach you how to play there.

[Pat McAfee]

Beautiful place from all accounts. I've never been, but I've heard it is a wonderful.

[Michael Lombardi]

We're coming. We're getting you here. We're going to get you here. There's no question.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, you got it. I can't wait to come down and see the place. Ain't that boy, the unis and the merch. Come on, swag. Enjoy. I mean, it is. It's wonderful. I. I hope you guys get it going. I'm excited to hear that you're excited about it. I'm also pumped to hear that Bill is committed to the North Carolina Tar Heels. Let's talk about the NFL a little bit here. D Butt has a question for you.

[Stanford Steve]

Yeah, Mike, good to see you. First of all, we got super wild card weekend coming up.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

Hey.

[Stanford Steve]

Yeah, we're still calling, dude.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we are.

[Stanford Steve]

So super wild car weekend.

[AJ Hawk]

I ever call you back?

[Pat McAfee]

No. He knew. I left a voicemail on somebody's phone in 2025, I left a voicemail on somebody's office phone saying, hey, enough.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, it was called.

[AJ Hawk]

It's called super wild car.

[Pat McAfee]

Super wild car weekend. Because you know why? It is super. You acknowledged it's super. It's super wild car weekend. The NFL said we just. The reason why we added the super to the beginning of wild card weekend, because we added two more teams. You see, we made it super. It was wild card. Now it's super wild card. Well, let's keep it. Okay. And then you can go to stupendous wild card weekend if you want to take it to the next step of that team anyway, so I appreciate you bringing it up.

[Stanford Steve]

And speaking of super wild card weekend, who should be on upset alert this weekend in NFL?

[Michael Lombardi]

Well, look, I think the Eagles have a challenge. I know Green Bay losing Watson is a problem, but Green Bay has this unique ability to score with Philly. Now, Philly can control the line of scrimmage and run the ball and do what they typically do, which is keep the ball for 36 minutes and run it Remember there was a period in the NFL that the Eagles were gaining more yards on the ground than through the air, which is a rarity. I mean, that's service academy like qualities that the Eagles had. I think that's going to be a challenge. I mean, look, the north we know is. I mean, Minnesota lost twice to Detroit, they lost to the Rams, but we know they're a good team. We know Green Bay is a good team and they can pull an upset and they can go on the road. Bill Walsh used to say this all the time. How do you quiet a crowd, get first downs, right? How do you make the crowd stop cheering? Get first downs offensively is how you went on the road. That's why Coach Walsh had a better road record than he did home record in San Francisco. Because of the west coast and his ability to get first downs. I think Green Bay has a chance. Obviously the Rams have already beat Minnesota. Hopefully they can play that game with all the devastation going out in Southern California right now. But I look at that Green Bay game and say, wow, I don't know if I want to draw that one right up there. I think the Chargers are playing better than the Texans currently. And then the other game, and it was last year with Russell Wilson. The Broncos, the way they pushed around Buffalo, the way they ran the ball, slowed the game down, made it very difficult on the Buffalo Bills. They beat them last year when Buffalo was in that slump. Can they do it again? I don't think they can, but I think it'll be a hell of a game to watch.

[Pat McAfee]

Broncos have been incredibly hot as of late, and hot teams towards the end of the season are normally teams that will do best in to the playoffs. But Chiefs get their asses beat in the last game of the season. Then obviously the Philadelphia Eagles situation with the benching, it's like Detroit Lions just continue to buzz saw. You know, they keep going. It just makes me feel better whenever you're playing great at the end of the year going into the playoffs. But what happens on the field, who knows? Same thing for the Chargers. We talked to Jim Harbaugh and obviously their favorite there so it wouldn't be an upset. Although they're playing in Houston and Lambo. The way that Harbaugh like kind of shaped his mindset around that Week 18 game against the Raiders was that he was telling the team that we're about one more game away from our maximum toughness. Like we need to, we need to get, we need to sharpen a little bit, a little bit more and that's why they, that's how they were attacking the last game against the Raiders and it's like they just beat the hell and then now it's like they're completely rolling. I like the teams that are hot coding in the playoffs. And then to your point about the Vikings Rams out there in la, just like we, you know, said in the first hour and we'd like to echo until it's all figured out, which who knows when that'll ever be. Without looks. We are incredibly sorry and send nothing but positive thoughts, even though I know it doesn't mean for a lot of cases to people in Los Angeles. It's crazy. Brian McCarthy, who is potentially a part of his super, you know, the conversation dropping a super wild card thing, which we like. McCarthy, McCarthy there, McCarthy here, McCarthy everywhere. We do like McCarthy, McCarthy in this entire thing. But he said if the game was to be moved out of Los Angeles because of either air quality index or if the fires were able to make their way over to where SOFI is, which I think is very far from where it currently is, but these winds have been gusting at like 100 miles an hour, something. They'd be playing in Phoenix. Yep, they'd be playing in Phoenix, Arizona. So they do have contingency plans in place. Obviously that's not great for any party. Obviously, if that's happening. Things are still not good in Los Angeles with none of us are hoping for. But the NFL is looking into a relocation if it has to happen. And once again, nothing but positive thoughts and prayers for everybody over there with an insane catastrophe disaster taking place right in front of us. AJ Has a question for you. Lambo.

[Ty Schmidt]

Lambo. Obviously we have two great games, you know, tonight and then tomorrow night in the college ranks and then the NFL, the super wild card weekend. What have like the, the best teams done that you have been around when these games matter, these elimination games to where, yeah, you've done what you've done all season, but hey, this is when it truly matters. One or two plays can, can make up the whole game. What are the best coaches do to make their teams go out there and play free and actually, you know, get the best out of them?

[Michael Lombardi]

I think we, you know, we did a huge study when I was in New England. These games are often decided by who converts third and short, who can control third and short. Everybody gets so focused on one element, but to control the football, to keep the ball and who wins the. The middle eight, who's able to control the ball at the end of the first half and win the second half. Those two areas really resonate. Obviously, we're going to hear from everybody, well, turnovers matter, but missed field goals are turnovers. So you've got to be very good. Look, the Cincinnati Bengals went to the Super Bowl. They played a bunch of backup offensive linemen. They weren't very good, but their kicker, McPherson that year was dynamic. Money was that. He was unbelievable. You need a hot kicker come playoff time. You really do, because you can't pass up points in these games. You can't be so cavalier to think that, oh, we've got to do this, and you've got to control the third down the third and shorts. It's not the third and five or sixes, because that's just goes part of it. But you've got to be able to convert the easier downs when you have to. And it requires being physical up front with your offensive line. Look, we just saw college football. All the teams that had buys lost, right? I think with Jim Harbaugh's approach is the right one. To be good at football, you got to practice football. To be great at football, you got to practice great. And I think that's why he was taking that last game of the year seriously. Look, remember Kansas City at this time of the year last year, no one thought that they were going to win a game. I was told by a lot of people after they lost to the Raiders on Christmas Day, they'll never win again. And they got their mojo back. And I think the teams that can do that this time of the year with a hot kicker are always deadly.

[Pat McAfee]

And dicker to kicker, obviously up for all pro nods and Pro bowl nods and everything like that out there in Los Angeles. That building. Lambo, we haven't got a chance to chat with you since going out there. Whole building, all in, whole building. Every single person in the building. Even a person making a damn pizza out of the helmet. Pizza maker.

[Darius Butler]

Now, no one, and we mean no.

[Pat McAfee]

One, our Pizza Hut. But that guy was a very close second. That guy was a very close second. He was, like, very proud of it, too. Like, he was very proud. Like everybody in there. It's a happy mission, I believe is how Jim Harbaugh phrased it. And it's real. And they got guys in there. Go ahead.

[Michael Lombardi]

He's great at building culture. Look, he is. That's what he does. And everybody his team. What you see with the Colts and as we're in this NFL hiring season, if you're an NFL owner, what you want is your team to adapt the personality of the head coach.

[Pat McAfee]

I'm like, I'll be the Orange.

[Boston Connor]

Amen.

[Pat McAfee]

Like, I'll be the Orange. What was that all about? He's brought the Colts out of nowhere. I mean, we could have just powered right through that. We could have just powered right through the Colts situation, Coach.

[Michael Lombardi]

Yeah. I mean, same thing. Look, the Raiders are sitting there looking for a coach again. They could have had Jim Harbaugh last year. To me, it's about understanding what fits, what you need. And it's hard to find great leaders. It's hard to find guys that do that.

[AJ Hawk]

Right.

[Pat McAfee]

Jim Harbaugh is in the ring of honor for the Indianapolis Colts.

[Michael Lombardi]

It's painful to think about.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, he said it's painful. I hadn't thought about it until right now. It is.

[Michael Lombardi]

I'm sorry, Pat. I apologize. But that. That. See, once in a lifetime comes once in a lifetime. And you got to be able to recognize it.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Because when it's there.

[Michael Lombardi]

Once in a lifetime opportunity to hire Jim Harbaugh last year and they turned.

[Pat McAfee]

It down, you only get one shot. Don't miss your chance to blow. Because opportunity comes once in a lifetime. Yo, you know, that's Eminem, that's Marshall Mathers. That's 100 accurate. We stuck it. Okay. Since we brought the Colts. I'll ask you, you've been around football a long time. Eight years. 90. Going on nine years now. Chris Broward's a good man.

[Darius Butler]

Great man.

[Pat McAfee]

Great love.

[Boston Connor]

Chris Ballard, great Southern driver.

[Pat McAfee]

Would like to let everybody know we love Chris Ballard, the human. But with what the culture has seemingly become, with a lot of people speaking out and also happening down here in Miami, and it's not as deep into a culture being built and cemented in. Yeah. As the Colts are, but same things are being said out of this building. And I think it's going to come out of a lot of different buildings. About, like, the accountability is pretty. Can you just put the toothpaste back in to the tube? Especially when it's been cemented in for almost a decade. Eight years is a long. Guys are getting their second contracts and playing through them as Indianapolis Colts. In this culture, have you ever seen it just flip around because there is a chance. No. No. Okay.

[Michael Lombardi]

It only flips around when you flip the leadership because it's a little bit like you can't. All of a sudden, you can't become tougher when you haven't been tough. Right. Like, let's face it, Cincinnati, you can fire Lew and hire new defensive coaches. But the problem in Cincinnati is Zachary Taylor going to be tough enough and coach an offense that helps the defensive coordinator. They throw the ball every play. You become a defensive coordinator in Cincinnati, see how you like it, right? It's a culture thing. And I think it's the same thing. You can't have guys. I mean, Everybody loves Mike McDaniel.

[Ty Schmidt]

Love.

[Michael Lombardi]

Oh, he's great. Press conference. Wears his high up pants up high.

[Pat McAfee]

He does look cool.

[Michael Lombardi]

He's fun.

[Pat McAfee]

He does.

[Michael Lombardi]

But you got to be. You got to look accountability. Bill Parcell says this on all the time. He told it to me relentlessly. If you don't like confrontation, get your butt out of coaching. If you don't like confrontation, get out of coaching. And so you got to hold players accountable. This whole generation of, oh, everybody sings along. Let's be nice. Let's go to Dairy Queen after the game.

[Pat McAfee]

You take me to get an Oreo Blizzard. Extra, extra, extra Oreo. You might. You might give me a pun of ball. A further.

[Boston Connor]

Leave DQ alone.

[Pat McAfee]

Can't be every day.

[Michael Lombardi]

You have Nick on every week. Nick will tell you that you can't be. You got to put. Look, leadership's about pushing people when they go too slow. And if you don't have players that want accountability, then they don't belong on your team. And it's the job of Shane Steichen. It's the job of Mike. They're the head coach. They getting paid 8, 9, $10 million a year. They're not getting paid that to draw plays up. They're getting paid at the lead the team.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay?

[Michael Lombardi]

That's what you got to do. You got to lead the team. And leadership is about accountability.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay? So I love everything you're saying. And the boys have more questions for you. I'm going to drift away from the NFL real quick because I heard the most ridiculous head coach press conference of all time, I think, coming out of UCLA basketball, Mick Cronin. Did you see this clip yet?

[Michael Lombardi]

I saw it.

[Pat McAfee]

Let's run this for the people that didn't. This is a head coach of a team, but we don't play. We're soft. So don't tell me you want to win. Like, just don't tell me you want to win. So don't. Just don't tell me you want to win. It's crazy, you know? And it's every day. I'm tired of it. It's every day. I have the most energy of all the. Of anybody at practice every day. I have. I'm upset with everybody. In that locker room, my assistant coaches and my players. I mean, I don't need to do anything else. I almost got 500 wins. I'm only 53. I mean, it's a joke. It's a joke. But yet I come in and I have more passion and energy and pride than everybody. And that's the problem. So what the truth of it is, it's really hard to coach people that are delusional. The hungry dog gets the bone. We got guys that think they're way better than they are. They're nice kids. They're completely delusional about who they are. They're good boys. We got some good kids. We got some nice kids. I've never heard that out of a head coach before.

[Michael Lombardi]

And I think he's going to regret what he said. I think, to me, leadership's about standing in front of people. Look, those players just didn't come to UCLA because they liked Westwood or they liked Santa Monica Boulevard. They came there because he recruited them. Your team's a reflection of who you recruit. And if you don't like who you recruit, you got to change that. And that goes for pro football. Like, you can't stand in front of the team and say, you guys are soft. You guys. It's all about the program. It's all about what we're asking you to do. You got to take accountability for it. Leadership's about standing in front of players when things go bad. You stand behind them when things go well. And so when you're talking about what he talked about, that's a great conversation to have with the team in the locker room behind closed doors. It's not a conversation to have in America because those players. Now he got called out. You don't do that now. They don't trust you, lose trust in that situation. It's behind closed doors. Look, if you think your team's not executing the way you want it, that falls on you. Remember this, and I've said this many times on your show. You're either coaching it or allowing it to happen.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, that's like an old sage. Basically, the reality of the situation. Let's talk about calling out your team publicly and then how they respond. Coach Mayo up in New England, Jarod Mayo fired after one season, and now Lombo. We're learning all these stories. We're learning. A lot of. A lot of stories are getting projected out there. And you don't have to throw anybody under the bus or anything like that. Okay? I don't want you to do that. We know, you and Bill are allies in this entire thing, in this situation is obviously what it is. But whenever all these stories start coming out, those stories are coming out for a reason, right? People are trying to be like, hey, this is why a decision was made. And how do you feel about the decision that was made in that particular case or just in general? One year into a head coaching run.

[Michael Lombardi]

I think it's a universal problem in the National Football League. What happened to Mayo is these owners hand the keys to the store, and then they don't give them any toolbox to help them work their craft. I mean, Mayo was ready to be a head coach. He wasn't. It's not fair to him to judge him on what happened after a year. He wasn't prepared. But the reality of it is, is there's no coach prepared to be a head coach. It's a very tough job. It's a terrain. There was an old saying we had at the Raiders with Al Davis, dealing with him is, the jungle's never dangerous if you know the trails. And so one thing about being a head coach, you don't know the trails. You're learning them. And so you're asking these coaches to do a job, and you're giving them no help. And it's not, let's hire a search firm to help us. That's crap. They're not helping you. They're helping you pick the guy. They get paid, and they leave town. This is about helping the coach develop his leadership skills. I've said this since I've written Gridiron genius. I think the league has done a disservice to a lot of minority candidates not having a leadership center. We have one here at the University of North Carolina that we're going to integrate into all the things we do with the daily coach. We want to create leaders, and leadership is coaching. And I think some of these young coaches who are getting these head jobs, who are. They're not prepared for them. They know the plays. They don't know leadership. And I think ultimately, when you look at what happened to Mayo, when you look at what happened to some of these other coaches in the league, that's ultimately where it falls short.

[Pat McAfee]

Being a coach is really hard. I think that is. Being a head coach is very, very difficult. I think that is what we learn every single firing cycle and every single hiring cycle. We all have hope. Normally, a headline will win over a fan base, and then you kind of watch it unfold. You're like, damn, this guy was this guy or this Woman isn't the woman, which I think is projected to be happening here in the next decade or so, potentially even in GM position in the next couple years. I think there is a potential opportunities popping up there, but it's really hard. I think it's really, really hard in finding a great leader who can also handle itineraries and logistics and coaching and motivating and emotions and have empathy while also having an authoritarian inside of them. It's like, that's not. You know, those don't just fall out of trees. You know, that isn't. That isn't something that's everywhere. So if you stick with somebody that doesn't got it, you're an asshole. And if you get rid of somebody too quick and they have it, you're an asshole. It is hard to find a head coach, which is why I think. I think some teams are choosing not to make any changes. Yeah, they don't want to make any changes. You know, they don't want to make any changes. Tone has a question for you. Lambo.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, I kind of have a question based off of that. Paizon. Sorry, excuse me. They're speaking of the head coaches. There are a lot of head coach candidates out there that are being interviewed right now, and they. And they come from every background. Like, you have Spags, Flores and Sala. They come from the DC and they used to be a head coach. Street, you got Ben Johnson, who's an offensive coordinator. Cliff and Nagy, who were head coaches, but also on the offensive side. And you have a guy like, you know, Vrabel or Pete Carroll, who are more of, like, culture, guys who were head coaches that were out last year. Do you have a favorite or do you have a favorite, like, avenue of where the coach comes from?

[Michael Lombardi]

Yeah, I want somebody who's a leader. I want somebody to stand in front of the man who wants. Who's willing to take on confrontation however you do it. You know, Pete Carroll's way of taking. Taking on confrontation is completely different than Bill Belichick's or Mike Vrabel. But I think you have to have somebody who understands the job, who's got a hunger to keep performing at the job. It's an exhausting job, and you don't want. Look, the problem is when you interview these guys, if you're interviewing Ben Johnson, you've got to ask Ben Johnson, hey, Ben, when your special teams aren't playing well, how do you fix it? And he can't come back to you and say, well, I'm just going to Rely on my coach, because now he voids of leadership. You got to have answers for every problem that comes up, and Mike Vrabel certainly does. Pete Carroll certainly does. But some of these young coaches, they got to learn that. I mean, it's one of the. How long have we been talking about the Indianapolis defense on your show? On my podcast? I mean. I mean, we. You know, now we're surprised. Now we're surprised. I mean, we've been saying it for three years, but somebody in the building has to say, this isn't working. This isn't what we can do. Now, that's called disloyalty in the NFL. But to me, doing it the other way is devotion, because you're telling people what they want to hear. Loyalty is telling the truth. And I think that's part of what you want from a head coach is you want somebody who can recognize those problems.

[Pat McAfee]

Lambo, we appreciate you so much, brother. It was great chatting with you again. Good luck getting the recruits. Good luck handling the roster.

[Michael Lombardi]

Get him in here.

[Pat McAfee]

You're the man to see you soon, Pat.

[Michael Lombardi]

We're gonna get you down. We're getting the whole crew down. We need the whole crew down.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, you got it. You got it. We'll Airbnb down there, wear all our.

[Boston Connor]

Jordans, play some gas.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, we'll play some gaff at that country club you guys got.

[Michael Lombardi]

We got the greatest. If you think there's a sneaker collection better than ours, I promise you, we'll.

[AJ Hawk]

We'll.

[Pat McAfee]

There isn't. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm a 12. 12 and a half. Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Lombardi. All right. Our show will continue digitally on YouTube, ESPN, Disney plus and TikTok Live. Seemingly. Yeah, for the long haul, we'll make all our picks. We'll be off tomorrow. College game day tonight, 6 to 7:30 on this set. Thank you to everybody at ESPN that set this up for us today. Then, obviously, the orange bow this evening, the cotton bow tomorrow, with a game day at 6:00 Eastern as well. We can't thank you enough for allowing us to do this for a living. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice. It might change their life. Take care. I feel like we really got. Really. Got it. Okay, let's take a break. And on the other side, we gotta pick all the games, okay? Okay. We gotta pick all the games. We gotta pick the entire NFL slate against the spread. Let's remember AJ Hawk is seeing the board. He went 11, 4 last week. Wow. Week 18.

[Stanford Steve]

Hawker finished the regular season hot.

[Pat McAfee]

Very Hot.

[Stanford Steve]

Okay.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. He's been way over.500 the last like four weeks. He just dug himself into such a early in the year too much like the Bengals.

[Boston Connor]

Bingo.

[Pat McAfee]

I did bingo. You started out a little slow, but then guess what you started doing? Got hot Seeing it. You got in the playoffs, you start seeing it. Well, look at this guy. Let was do.

[Ty Schmidt]

I know. It took me about 10 weeks to get there.

[AJ Hawk]

You guys only got six weeks.

[Ty Schmidt]

Well, 14 weeks maybe.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, it's a lot easier cuz we know all the teams so well.

[AJ Hawk]

Bingo.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. We know exactly how everybody's going to look. We know that the Pittsburgh Steelers are not gonna let five straight.

[Stanford Steve]

No, I mean, not after what I've been seeing on the Internet.

[Pat McAfee]

What do you mean what you see?

[Stanford Steve]

Seeing some terrible top. I mean they are.

[Boston Connor]

Going.

[Pat McAfee]

Pause the music, Nick, please.

[Stanford Steve]

No way. They lose.

[Pat McAfee]

Ladies and gentlemen, if you think the Pittsburgh Steelers aren't going to cover nine and a half after the whole locker room, watch this video. Good set, good set.

[Stanford Steve]

Here we go, Steelers.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

Here we go.

[Pat McAfee]

That's good. Here we go Steelers. That was good.

[Boston Connor]

Why we cut it.

[Pat McAfee]

Wait, hold on.

[Boston Connor]

Why don't we cut it off?

[Pat McAfee]

There's a full. They go on. Cut it off. They go on for five minutes straight right there. That's what you don't see, that's the unedited version is 5 straight minutes grit. Nick was actually going the opposite direction.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, I didn't love that.

[Stanford Steve]

That was weird.

[Pat McAfee]

I didn't know how he was doing it. He said he was trying to do it to get it out of the way of the. The rack or whatever. How do you feel your performance was? Pretty good. Very passionate. All in?

[Stanford Steve]

Oh yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

I had to work up a work of a lather. I don't know how much was on the bar because I don't count plates. I just put as many as fit on the bar. And then you go at it and you support your boys with your whole heart because you bleed black and gold.

[Pat McAfee]

That's right. Yeah, you too.

[AJ Hawk]

And I hope the locker room saw that because if they did, they'll know the passion that they need to win.

[Pat McAfee]

Nick, I don't know if you're near a microphone. How do you think your performance was? I assume I have not checked the reaction. A lot of people were just as startled as we were with the way you were spinning that particular towel.

[AJ Hawk]

A handful of comments. Turns out not everyone is super particular about how you spin the terrible towel. Like I said, I didn't want to bang it off the pole. There. The rack. Cuz then you just look like a big dumb idiot if you're just banging it against.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. True. No self awareness. Yeah. Here's the unedited version. Nick's just going it down and you just put this on repeat for four minutes and they'll just swing the out of it. That's right, boys. I like the passion. Thank you. Whenever you were asked to do this, I know you guys were excited. Yeah. Thrilled. I know you thought maybe, you know, we can help. Help the boys get a big time super wild card weekend win over the Baltimore Ravens. They hated Baltimore Ravens. Personal while haven't won a month. Forever.

[Boston Connor]

A playoff game in years.

[Ty Schmidt]

They're due.

[Pat McAfee]

You said thank you for the opportunity. Yeah. And I saw a little bit of a buzz from you and Nick that I haven't seen a long time.

[Boston Connor]

A glimmer if you will.

[Pat McAfee]

There was some real hope. You went, got your Ike Clark jersey out. Looked like it was in two balls. Maybe. Maybe two separate balls. The one jersey was. I don't know how that happens, but it looked like there was two different distinct wrinkle starters on that particular tie dye T shirt. Yeah, exactly.

[Stanford Steve]

Ike Taylor and Brian Clark.

[AJ Hawk]

No, no, no.

[Pat McAfee]

I. Clark. Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

Just. Just the Ike jersey. I did not have a 2, 5 jersey.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, I thought it was a split jersey.

[AJ Hawk]

No.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. No, no.

[AJ Hawk]

That's all would have been sweet though. No, you only pull out the Ike jersey for special occasions. And I did have a bit of a glimmer, a bit of a. Bit of a jolt in my body because as AJ Said earlier, you know, you're nervous if you can't contribute, if you can't control the outcome. We helped. We. We helped to control the outcome in that situation. So now.

[Pat McAfee]

Now I feel great. Yeah. And I'll tell you what. Whenever you guys performed the way you did, we were watching live from around the corner. We try to stay out of the mirror. I was really intrigued because you guys didn't know where that was going, how they were going to use it. You had no idea because we had seen another video where there was like seven Steelers legends and they were kind of like mixed together. I want think Lynn Swan has a clue what the everybody's saying. Well, I don't think he does. Let's go Steelers. There we go.

[Stanford Steve]

Too busy out there making plays.

[Pat McAfee]

He had great footwork.

[AJ Hawk]

No, you guys were staying around because it was Max day in the Hawk house. Everyone you know, hit good. Max is a new person.

[Boston Connor]

PR Day.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, PR Day yesterday in the Hawk house. And you know, got the text so. Hey, boys, throw me my towel. I already wearing the jersey.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, she didn't prepare playing anything. You said I need to sing. You got it, boys. Girl. Boys need it. Boys need it. Yeah. And he said you got it. Thank you for doing that. Maybe Roger Wood needs to reach out and get you guys on the next track.

[Darius Butler]

I think he does well.

[Pat McAfee]

Lift 5 Honda with the Nick and Tone.

[Boston Connor]

Here we go.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, I think Raj could do that.

[AJ Hawk]

He's alive.

[Pat McAfee]

Let's get to a break.

[Boston Connor]

I hope so.

[Pat McAfee]

Rest in peace, Rogue.

[AJ Hawk]

You song's been around.

[Boston Connor]

You're the best, Ross.

[Pat McAfee]

But you said this guy's song stunk.

[Stanford Steve]

I mean it's stunk. I think he's. Because it was so new. You name current players? You know, what's the song for the Dolphins?

[AJ Hawk]

They don't have one.

[Stanford Steve]

Miami Dolphins. Miami Dolphins. Miami Dolphins number one.

[AJ Hawk]

They do have this.

[Boston Connor]

Miami Dolphins never won number one.

[Stanford Steve]

Don't you in the only.

[Pat McAfee]

Look at this. This thing back onto and still the.

[Stanford Steve]

Only undefeated so boat trip. Shout out recipes. T's and peas. Mercury Moore's the only. Have some respect.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah. You guys are too low back then.

[Pat McAfee]

You guys are too low. We can't. There's a camera on top here. There's like three Dolphins fans.

[AJ Hawk]

Oh, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

They're right under there. Right under there.

[Stanford Steve]

It's more it probably they're just working right. Every professional right now.

[Pat McAfee]

Every.

[Stanford Steve]

It's more Dolphins.

[Pat McAfee]

Every Dolphin. Dolphins. No, they're going. They're going up. They're going up. They're going up. They're going. Oh, they're just stepping right over stairs. No respect.

[Stanford Steve]

Hey, that's what Dolphins do.

[Pat McAfee]

There they go.

[Stanford Steve]

They answer the call. We are a little bummed out right now.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Hey, what's the song again?

[Stanford Steve]

Miami Dolphins. Miami Dolphins number one.

[Pat McAfee]

All right. That's not a bad. That's not a bad jingle. I'll tell you what. I've heard that a while. That's not a bad jingle. Let's stop the music. We're not jingling anymore.

[Stanford Steve]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, there's no more jingling boys. There's no more jingling boys. Somebody just got their asses fired. Tom Telesco, the man personally responsible for getting me into the NFL with his brain thinking that I could be a guy, that could be a punter who pitched Bill Polian on the idea and got me drafted to the Indianapolis Colts at pick number 222, who would then go on to become the Chargers GM and then he would become the Raiders GM. He is now nobody's GM. Fired by the Las Vegas Raiders. Now this is a fascinating situation. You got to wonder how much does Tom Brady have to do with this? Tom got in there, started peppering Tom to let's go and say, I don't like anything about this. Let's go ahead and move on. Or is there a couple coaches that they talked about or maybe tied to the hip with the general manager and saying, hey, it's time to hit a reset button here in Las Vegas. D butts. First response, first thoughts.

[Stanford Steve]

Whenever you read this, not shop, you know what happened with Antonio Pierce. You know, usually it's a marriage. They come and go. So it's, it's who's the lame Karthon just got fired.

[Pat McAfee]

Yep. From Tennessee.

[Stanford Steve]

But Callahan's still there, sort of kept him. But you, you don't see that much. So not shocked. Especially with the reports coming out that Tom Brady's going to be very hands on with the next hire and kind of the next where the vision for the team is going forward. So not, not shocked by Tom and I think Tom will land on his feet.

[Pat McAfee]

Tom Telesco is a goal by, he's a good man. He was good to us. But what that Raiders team had become is just, you know, I don't say laugh, but not good. It was never talked about in like a super positive show. Yeah, there we go. I think that's a cluster, a shit show. All those things last year whenever Antonio Pierce was the interim and had good vibes. They're smoking cigars in the locker room, they're doing the whole thing. It's like, here we go, here we go. This year has just been the complete opposite of that. They didn't ride a quarterback, so that's potentially on Tom Telesco, I guess is what they're thinking in the entirety of this. But that's definitely just a Raiders situation seemingly as a whole. A.J. hawk, how do you feel about the Tom Telesco and what do you think this means for the Las Vegas Raiders?

[Ty Schmidt]

I mean, Raiders obviously queen in house. It does.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Unless the GM is part of the head coaching search. It doesn't really happen too often. I believe was it was John or the Seattle Seahawks. They brought in John Schneider to pair him up with, with, with Pete Carroll back in the day. I believe Pete kind of had a choice in that.

[Pat McAfee]

I believe I, I, I don't know.

[Ty Schmidt]

I don't know about that. But like I, I know you have to have a good pairing. What is it called? Organizational. What Are they. What's that word? Organizational synergy or whatever word from the alignment. Alignment that is organized organizational alignment. It's a big thing. Like, there's a lot of coaches in the NFL. I don't want to say a lot. Maybe a handful that don't have a chance of hell at winning, because the front. The. The owners, the gm, like the front office. If that's not right, the head coach has no chance. And I think we're seeing that. And I think you get those two. The gm, head coach especially, and owner, they have to. They have to have the singular vision of where the team is going.

[Pat McAfee]

They're also in the AFC west, so that's going to be tough.

[Boston Connor]

Very.

[Pat McAfee]

For a long time.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yep.

[Pat McAfee]

Chargers just got real good, real quick with the introduction of Jim Harbaugh in the exit of Tesco and Staley almost, you know, and I'm not saying that that is exactly the case, but. But if Tom Telesco would have hired Jim Harbaugh, maybe a little different story at the Chargers. Obviously couldn't do that because he's with Michigan at the time. But it's like, you got to have success, and if you don't, you're going to lose your job.

[Darius Butler]

Broncos, too.

[Pat McAfee]

What's that?

[Darius Butler]

Same division, you know, it's like, oh, yes.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. They're in the playoffs as well.

[Darius Butler]

You got three playoff teams in that division.

[Pat McAfee]

So, you know, and the Chiefs and the Broncos are only going to get better. You know, they're going to get access to more money as the seasons roll on here because they're still paying a Russell Wilson.

[AJ Hawk]

Brady said, there's only one Tom in this building.

[Pat McAfee]

You think that was. Yeah, two Toms.

[AJ Hawk]

Can't have two Toms.

[Pat McAfee]

I mean, you go by Thomas, maybe. And then Tom Tesco was like, never.

[Boston Connor]

They named me Tongham.

[Pat McAfee]

Actual Thomas.

[Boston Connor]

My name is Thomas.

[Pat McAfee]

Aren't you actually Thomas? Maybe you go with Thomas. And Tom Brady was like, I own the team. Yeah. And Tom Telesco was, I'm general manager. And Thompson I. Moore.

[AJ Hawk]

Or maybe. Maybe Tesco. Tom Brady walked into Telesco's office and he was doing Muay Thai and he said, we're not doing this.

[Pat McAfee]

This is not good news. I was just reminded Mitt's dad's name is Tom McMahon.

[Darius Butler]

Oh, no.

[Pat McAfee]

So many Toms over there. There can only be one, I assume.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah. But when it got too confusing, Tom McMahon. I think there's other names for him.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, yeah. Middle gentleman.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah. So it's like, you're fine.

[Pat McAfee]

You can stay let's get to a break. We'll be back on the other side picking all the games and then wrapping up here from the Orange Bowl. We can't thank you enough for joining us. It's a beautiful Thursday down here in Miami. Beautiful. Also, just found out it was Thursday last night. Late last night. Found out that today was Thursday. So I've been talking about the Notre Dame, Penn State game as if it was at least 3, 4 days away. Even said it yesterday. Said, man, Notre Dame, Penn State on Thursday is going to be wild. And I was reminded that's tomorrow.

[AJ Hawk]

Here we are.

[Pat McAfee]

Tomorrow is now today. Yep. And holy hell, we got a big one here in Miami. Me. All right. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice. It might change your life. And if I were you, I would try the cornbread. If you're ever in a Sodexo live stadium, I would also try these football pops.

[Darius Butler]

Oh, my cake pops.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, we're, you know, we like to boom out a building. Yeah.

[Stanford Steve]

Okay.

[Pat McAfee]

Those football pops. Five big ones, maybe even six big booms. I'm telling you, the texture, the taste, the. The convenience. Yeah. The moisture, but the convenience on eating it. Usually kebab, like, is a little bit uncomfortable or awkward to eat. Football pops, very easy to eat. The meat also. Yeah, that's a good meat. Had some good meat.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

The cake pops stole the show.

[Darius Butler]

They did.

[Boston Connor]

And you had to expect that because AJ And Big justice, this is their home stadium. They're not coming through here eating shitty cake pops. I mean, what are we talking about?

[Pat McAfee]

They did not like Texas Roadhouse as much as I thought they were going to.

[Stanford Steve]

I don't know.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, no. Normally we like to boom out of building. Yeah. That's a one boomer. Yeah. Boom. Love that. Move on to a salad. Big justice likes this out a lot more than me. Okay. Four booms. Okay. I'm giving it two and a half booms.

[Darius Butler]

Jeez, the steak's charred. I mean, it's not even.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

It's.

[Darius Butler]

There's a lot of fat.

[Pat McAfee]

I don't. I'd love to give it five.

[Darius Butler]

It's one boom. I'm sorry.

[Pat McAfee]

Boom.

[Stanford Steve]

Where the they think they were going?

[Darius Butler]

That's what I said.

[Pat McAfee]

What are you talking about? What are you talking about?

[Stanford Steve]

Look, I love Texas Royal.

[Pat McAfee]

Me, too.

[Boston Connor]

Do they do the roles? Do they give.

[Pat McAfee]

They didn't. They did it.

[Boston Connor]

Okay, so that's the only thing from Texas Roadhouse that's, like, known.

[Pat McAfee]

What is the roles, everything. That Texas Roadhouse is good.

[Boston Connor]

Not anymore.

[Pat McAfee]

You like Texas Roadhouse love. What was up with Big Costco? No, he was. He was. He was not throwing out Booms.

[Darius Butler]

Here's the issue I had as well. Not only, yeah, you're not going to a Michelin radio steakhouse, okay? It's a fucking Texas roadhouse. There's a chance of high school kids cooking your steak. That's. That's bound to happen.

[Pat McAfee]

But with a great work ethic, without a doubt.

[Darius Butler]

And they did mention that he said staff friendliness, cleanliness.

[Pat McAfee]

That's five Booms. Boom, boom, boom, boom.

[Darius Butler]

I'll give another one boom. You know, so they. They did. But maybe next time you go to a restaurant, don't let your 11 year old kid order everything, huh? Maybe be the adult and say, no, we don't need the salad.

[Pat McAfee]

What?

[Darius Butler]

And we don't need the.

[Pat McAfee]

The salad. We want to keep the salad.

[Darius Butler]

Sure, but that's out.

[AJ Hawk]

Ice on an ice cold plate.

[Pat McAfee]

It's just one of the treats.

[Darius Butler]

Besides, I mean, getting fries with cheese and bacon on it. And then the Blooming onion.

[Pat McAfee]

So good. The blooming onion. You go. You go to the outback for the blooming onion. The blooming onion is not a Texas roadhouse thing. I didn't even. I didn't even think of the blooming onion whenever they were at Texas. The fries with cheese are loaded. That is.

[AJ Hawk]

It says ribeye has a lot of fat. Yeah, that's a ribeye.

[Pat McAfee]

The reason wasn't there. It was just Big Justice, Little Justice.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah. And Mama Justice.

[Pat McAfee]

Mama justice gave four big booms for something. She was. It's not bad.

[Darius Butler]

She said the shrimp was shite. She said you can taste the ocean. Ocean on it. It's too salty.

[Pat McAfee]

Too much brine. Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

Grizzler might be kind of.

[Pat McAfee]

No.

[Boston Connor]

Reading the room a little bit.

[Pat McAfee]

No, I need to do.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah.

[Stanford Steve]

Okay.

[Boston Connor]

This is Justin Timberlake, Backstreet Boys in sync situation.

[Pat McAfee]

No, Justin Timberlake was his in sync. If we're gonna make the references.

[Boston Connor]

That's why I said in sync.

[Pat McAfee]

Second.

[Boston Connor]

I just couldn't remember which one Nick Lachey was Backstreet Boys.

[Pat McAfee]

No.

[AJ Hawk]

98 degrees.

[Stanford Steve]

Nick still brings it.

[Pat McAfee]

Hell yeah. Nick.

[Darius Butler]

Nick.

[Boston Connor]

That's who I'm thinking of. Guys.

[Pat McAfee]

That's on me.

[Boston Connor]

My boy bands. The history in my brain gets, you know, confused.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, you don't even remember. What is it?

[Ty Schmidt]

O town.

[Pat McAfee]

Ohtown.

[Stanford Steve]

B2K.

[Pat McAfee]

You plus me equals us.

[Darius Butler]

Yep. Liquid dreams.

[Pat McAfee]

B2K. I remember B2K.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah.

[Stanford Steve]

You sure?

[Ty Schmidt]

BTK.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah.

[Stanford Steve]

Wow.

[Ty Schmidt]

BTK killer.

[Pat McAfee]

Let me hear a song. Let me hear a song. Song.

[Boston Connor]

That's your favorite one, right?

[Pat McAfee]

And baby, turn around and let me see that. Anybody go? Yeah, I remember.

[Darius Butler]

Omarion.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

Let's go.

[Pat McAfee]

What about the direction, boys one. Yeah. Whoa.

[Boston Connor]

I don't know. I don't know. Lately, they're down in the dumps.

[AJ Hawk]

They were.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, yeah. Because old buddy, one of them died. Yeah. That's sad. Damn, that's sad. Those kids. The kids. Britney Spears.

[Darius Butler]

She's doing okay.

[Ty Schmidt]

She's doing great.

[Pat McAfee]

Get to a break.

[Boston Connor]

Seven years old now.

[Pat McAfee]

I'm so confused. My wife is, too.

[Boston Connor]

She's graduated kindergarten.

[Ty Schmidt]

Follows her and shows me.

[Pat McAfee]

I don't know. I don't know if my wife follows her or if she pops up into her algorithm seemingly every day doing something new, but there's a Britney Spears update in my house more often than I could have ever imagined. In 2025. Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

Dad was painted as a really bad guy. Turns out.

[Pat McAfee]

Up, maybe. No. We don't know. It might have been maybe.

[Boston Connor]

Not that bad of a guy.

[Pat McAfee]

I don't know how we got here, brother.

[AJ Hawk]

Well, true.

[Pat McAfee]

Or have we always been here?

[Ty Schmidt]

You know, she got her life back.

[Boston Connor]

Oh, now she's in kindergarten.

[Ty Schmidt]

Madison.

[Pat McAfee]

All right. This shirt's from. All right, I'll be back. So are the boys. We'll be making our picks. It's colder in Miami than we could have imagined.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Seemingly getting colder.

[Boston Connor]

It will be colder tonight. Yeah, I already checked.

[Pat McAfee]

Great. What's the best time of day to get a deal?

[AJ Hawk]

All day with Jack in the Box's.

[Pat McAfee]

All day big deal meal.

[Darius Butler]

You get to choose from four entrees like the supreme croissant and five tasty sides, plus a drink starting at $5. So hurry in or take your time. You've got all day at Jack.

[Pat McAfee]

Every bite's a big deal.

[Ty Schmidt]

Hey, ESPN subscribers, get even more of the sports and teams you love. You can now stream six months of SiriusXM on us for even more. Live games, sports talk, music and podcasts all at your fingertips wherever you go. Score Even more with ESPN and get six months of the SiriusXM app today. You just need an active ESPN subscription. Get all the [e-mail] SiriusXM eligibility and offer details apply.

[Pat McAfee]

Is magnificent. And they're moving the heated benches into the stadium as we speak. Penn State did it first. Now Notre Dame is putting their heated benches in here. Yes, that is the temperature that people are feeling. They're moving heated benches in to the Orange bowl now. I am incredibly proud of these teams not only being ready for this but also being prepared and in the moment to have this. Because this is not something I'd be thinking of if you're coming down to the Orange bowl in Miami. There's a little briskness in the air, there is maybe a little bit of exhaustion. And also there's a report now coming out of on three, which is obviously on it. Whenever it comes to college ball, the Notre Dame team might be battling a little bit of a flu. Oh, no. Penn State fans obviously can see this and think to themselves, well, who all has it? Tyler Horka, let us know who's battling. Well, they're saying it's mostly backups and special teams players, which is obviously goes hand in hand, but certainly something to monitor if we know anything about the flu. Because the flu, that'll go from one person to the next quickly. Need to keep somebody isolated. They got the flu, especially if it's on Orange bowl day. Darius J. Butler, 9 year NFL vet How do you feel about a little bit of a bug hitting an Notre Dame locker room?

[Stanford Steve]

That's a little concerned. We got a few hours until kickoff. Like definitely concerning. They said backup special teams. We know how critical special teams can be in backups, you know, you never know. You're always one play away. So definitely concerning what's going on.

[Pat McAfee]

That locker room right now, especially Notre Dame special teams has been very, very vital to their success thus far all season. But in the college football playoffs, for sure. A.J. hawk, have you ever played a game with a flu? And how do you feel about how they monitor and manage it until game time time? Let's put those dudes into a vacuum and keep them away from everybody else. Is the mindset, I would assume.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, I don't know. Have any of you guys ever, at any level, sat out of a game for an illness or being sick? No, it's not a possibility.

[Stanford Steve]

I've had a team. No, I have a teammate.

[Ty Schmidt]

I've had some.

[Stanford Steve]

They were like super shivering, losing money.

[Pat McAfee]

Matt Hasselbeck was a dead body. Oh, he played. He had. What do you get from bad luck? E Coli or chicken.

[Ty Schmidt]

I remember when that happened.

[Pat McAfee]

He had E. Coli. Was in the hospital the night before until like 4am Got to the stadium in Houston and it looked like Kenny with a hoodie over his head on the floor, bag of bones on the ground. Didn't know who it was. Thought somebody from Houston maybe snuck in, was passed out, hungover. Let's tell an epic story. We're gonna break into the Colts locker room, kick the thing on the ground in the hoodie a couple times. Hoodies revealed. Who is it starting quarterback for tonight? Matt Hasselbeck. That's great. I didn't know that was gonna happen. It was attic and basement type situation as the security people kind of roll through and the setup committee continues here at the Orange Bowl. But he played.

[Stanford Steve]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

And he had lost, I think somewhere near like 14, 15 pounds from everything that had been taking place that was exiting out of his body. I guess it all depends the timing of it. Getting it right now means the worst of it's hit coming, right? Yeah. If it's happening today.

[Ty Schmidt]

Couple bags of IVs definitely helps. This temperature not being too hot would also help as well, I think. Can you imagine being super duper sick playing in an 85 degree humid.

[Pat McAfee]

Game over heat. Let's go back to the truck with our Canadian Internet splunker. Gumpy. Gumpy. What's that shot you get once a week or whatever it is? What's that thing you get done?

[AJ Hawk]

NAD plus. It's more of a anti aging, but it would help in this situation too.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, so if everybody was getting NAD plus dumped in their bodies in the Notre Dame locker room, would that help kick the flu out of their body or what? What do you think?

[AJ Hawk]

They'll probably do that. And then they'll have another bag with the B12 and all the vitamins as well. You can double up on it.

[Pat McAfee]

When did we start doing it? We started doing that down in Cary, North Carolina. That was a real life changer. You know, it's, it's. Obviously you have to deal with needles going into your nivs and everything, but they have the capability nowadays with modern science to really get you replenished. Whenever in the past you just had to deal with it for a couple days, there's now an instant kind of re. I wonder if that helps with flus. I do.

[Stanford Steve]

I mean, he's a young, healthy man. Young, healthy lad.

[Pat McAfee]

So I, I, I expect special teams guys, dogs too.

[Boston Connor]

It's College Football Playoff. I mean, we started with 12. We're counting down to one.

[AJ Hawk]

Bingo.

[Pat McAfee]

Like, where are we at right now?

[Boston Connor]

We're at four. It's. Come on now, boys.

[Pat McAfee]

You know, north schools get a shot to shine.

[Boston Connor]

Exactly.

[Pat McAfee]

The other day in Penn State, Texas, Ohio State, new schools get a shot to shine.

[Darius Butler]

You're right.

[Boston Connor]

Is their shot now?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

The line hasn't moved at all.

[Pat McAfee]

So sportsbooks aren't taking a flu serious. Okay. You think everybody's gonna be Michael Jordan.

[Ty Schmidt]

It's big flu.

[AJ Hawk]

Probably trying to get money line has moved a bit.

[Pat McAfee]

Problem?

[AJ Hawk]

It was minus 118 Notre Dame earlier. I just checked his mile. Minus 110.

[Pat McAfee]

I don't think they're hungover, either of these.

[Stanford Steve]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

No way. Might be a little tired from being up all night playing a video game. Yeah.

[Darius Butler]

Bingo.

[Boston Connor]

They're gaming devices, if you will.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Maybe too many energy drinks. Bailey McComas didn't make the trip this time because we didn't have enough seats actually on a plane. It was nice to have him around. This would be something he would know. Can you get sick from drinking too many of those energy drinks while you're gaming? Remember, that was a good thing. Yeah.

[Michael Lombardi]

You die.

[Pat McAfee]

Gumpy houses. Celsius 6:15am I don't know how it does it every day with the nad.

[Boston Connor]

Nad plus scared of those days actually.

[Pat McAfee]

Me too. I had a real problem. I was drinking the diesels.

[Darius Butler]

Oh yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Those are the one things that actually affect me in a negative way.

[Pat McAfee]

Me too.

[Ty Schmidt]

Celsius.

[AJ Hawk]

The ooze juice at Monday Night Raw was delicious.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Zoas, what was? The white peach was the one that we had.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, white peach was delicious.

[Pat McAfee]

It was very good. It was. It was in a couple offices. Obviously. Got some moose juice here. Is this for everybody or who's this? You can certainly have some moose juice. Sweet. There was a tropical punch, there was a berry and then there was a white peach. The white peach can was the coolest looking one. Sure. So I grabbed those.

[Stanford Steve]

Did you get it directly from the high chief?

[Pat McAfee]

Talking about High Chief Seouli? Yes, I do believe it was. Was that his name?

[Stanford Steve]

Wow.

[Boston Connor]

I thought Holster said something else.

[Pat McAfee]

No, that was from the press conference. I think Holster was in the moment.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

A little emotional. He was a little zeked up out there. That's gonna happen. Obviously. The Hulkster said a lot. Think. Have you. Yeah. Have you wrestled against Hulkster and a.

[Stanford Steve]

Couple nights ago I have. But somebody just literally during the break I saw tag me on another video with the Hulkster kind of two on one and Kofi Kingston.

[Pat McAfee]

Xavier woods folks are what?

[Darius Butler]

Just hitting a couple.

[Pat McAfee]

That's because the press conference. Probably because Farouka Farouk making appearance.

[Boston Connor]

I didn't see Oakster just beating ass.

[Pat McAfee]

Heatham just had a report about the Georgia Bulldogs. Carson Beck has hit the transfer portal.

[AJ Hawk]

Whoa.

[Pat McAfee]

ESPN source. Beck originally stated that he planned to enter the NFL Draft on 3. Now first reported that Beck's intentions have also gone to the transfer portal. Can you do both?

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, do whatever you want.

[Ty Schmidt]

Did he get Tommy John on his elbow?

[Pat McAfee]

Yes. You Know, it's definitely. Yes, yes, absolutely. Calling up Pete right now.

[Darius Butler]

Good move.

[Stanford Steve]

He probably got some information back, some grays back. Maybe didn't like it. Didn't love where he was projected.

[Pat McAfee]

So, you know, especially with the injury that he got to his elbow, maybe another year to build, plus another massive check coming. Guys won a national championship or two, so been on a roster for a couple. So, I mean, he's gonna get a massive check for.

[Boston Connor]

Oh, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Does he like football? I think he needs to prove that. I think if I was a team that was thinking about paying Carson Beck to go either in the NFL or in the transfer portal, I've seen too many photos that shouldn't be leaked. I don't like that his privacy is getting exposed in this thing and it might all be AI. And then he should address it if that's the case. All of it might be fake, but it's like, there's a real question on whether or not the guy is, like, obsessed with football. Some of the things he said, you have to wonder, like, okay, is this. He played good whenever he played good. Lost brock Bowers, lost lad McConkey. That's going to do damage to anybody. Gunner Stockton, I guess, is the guy going forward down there in Georgia or somebody else that they bring into the Georgia Bulldogs? Because obviously they didn't appreciate an early exit, but that Notre Dame team just beat the hell out of all of them. Yep. Carson Beck, transfer portal. He could be your quarterback. He'll be a hot commodity coming to a town near you. Definitely.

[Ty Schmidt]

How much will he get? He'll get 2, 3, 5 mil. Like, is that. What's the going rate? I don't. I don't know.

[Pat McAfee]

I. With the salary cap thing, too, I have no idea, because I think there's a lot of. April 8th, there's a chance that a lot of these deals are going to not be null. Yeah. Yeah. So I think a lot of people know that. So they're saying, hey, all this needs to come before April. So now there's an even more wild, wild west with a sense of urgency about, like, hey, these deals now need to look like this. Joining us, ladies and gentlemen, a man whose tweet we just read and also the authority on college football. Ladies and gentlemen, Pete Dammel. Yeah. How you doing, Pete?

[Pete Thamel]

I'm right around the corner in the bowels of this fine stadium, Pat.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, welcome to stadium. We've been here since this morning. It's been honored to open this place up today.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Happy Orange Bowl Thursday. Pete, to you there's some news coming out of the college Football World on 3 reported. I believe that there's a potential flu situation with Notre Dame. Is that true?

[Pete Thamel]

I've been told the flu, which had been lingering around there and impacted Bo Collins in the last game, Pat is not going to have an impact on the game tonight.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay.

[Pete Thamel]

I got hard, hard pushback from sources at Notre Dame when I, when I ran that by. You know, I don't think we will see anyone of significance miss this game tonight or have an impact on the game at all.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. The sportsbooks feel the same way as you. Not much movement other than on moneyline goes from minus 118Aminus 110 I believe even though Notre Dame remains favored by one. And then what we were just talking about there, Carson Beck who initially stated that he was going to the NFL now entering the transfer portal. Are you allowed to do both? How's this work and what do you expect out of the Carson Beck decision?

[Pete Thamel]

Well, if you remember, Cam Ward did this last year, Pat, remember he declared for the NFL draft and then did a U turn and went to Miami. And Mike, my quick brush on, on making some calls on this today is that Miami would loom as the favorite for Carson Beck. They right now don't have an incumbent starter at quarterback. Mario Crystal Ball has shown an affinity from the success that Cam Ward has had to have an established guy come in. There obviously is going to be the lingering issue of Beck's elbow which would probably cause him to miss part of spring. We might have to adjust spring around him. So again that's not confirmed or done but I think if you're handicapping where he could go, that would certainly be one of the options Texas Tech has been pushing hard for for a starting quarterback as well. So I think they could loom in the background here too. But look, Carson Beck is going to be, he's going to A healthy Carson back would be a top of market quarterback. He's a frontline starter who did not obviously play great this year, but he has first round talent. There's a lot of belief in him. Remember the poll we did at Cal that morning had I think five of the 20 NFL scouts that I talked to thought Carson Beck was the best quarterback in this draft on October 5th.

[Pat McAfee]

I believe it was.

[Pete Thamel]

So there is that there is a strong talent base there and there will be a, there will be a market for Carson back. Especially when you funnel it through the fact that the quarterback needy places really need them now because there won't Be, you know, there just won't be a lot of high end quarterbacks left in the market.

[Pat McAfee]

We talked at Lombardi earlier, the general manager of North Carolina. He said the draft is becoming a senior draft because of how much money you can make through the nil and through the revenue sharing that's coming in college. So might keep people in college longer at these high profile positions, especially if they're not projected to be top 10 anymore or something like that. What is a market for a quarterback like Carson Beck? How much money is that? Millions. Like what is the number you think in most cases?

[Pete Thamel]

Yeah, I would say that just to give people context, an average power conference starter is in the 700,000 to a million range at this point. And your high, high end guys, I've heard numbers eclipsing 3 million this year in this market. We're at a ty is going to get excited to me some big words here. Right. Odd confluence in the market, Pat, where the places that had large nil stashes. Now basically these guys can double dip. You can unload all the nil money you had because you have rev share money coming. You'd mentioned the date where that's supposed to be formalized by Judge Wilkins. So right now it's almost like the market is flooded and guys are getting overpaid. And so I would think that you know, CARSON BECK Over $2 million would just be my general estimate would be about the market where he has and it's just exponentially bigger than it was a year ago.

[Pat McAfee]

That's awesome. I hope Carson Beck gets his money. Good luck to him and thank you so much, Pete. Can't wait to watch you tonight on College game day, 6pm Eastern, live from the Orange Bowl.

[Darius Butler]

Thanks, Pat.

[Pat McAfee]

See you soon. All right, see you, Pete. That's the authority. So the flu is not a big deal.

[Darius Butler]

No, no.

[Pat McAfee]

Couple guys pooped, couple guys puked. That's all. Let's play off football to might be nervous.

[AJ Hawk]

Pete's point about the guys getting kind of double dipping. Now I also can't remember who I was listening to, but there was a lot of talk of these schools front loading contract and giving the guys a bunch of money now kind of like NFL teams do so that when the the the con or the decision is made on April 8 or whatever it is that that money's already already been given them so it won't go against their cap next year.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh yeah, yeah. I've had a little bit of a, you know, an eye on the portal.

[AJ Hawk]

Sure.

[Pat McAfee]

And how these deals Are going with all what West Virginia is doing. Don't look now. Thanks.

[Ty Schmidt]

Running back coming to Ohio State.

[Stanford Steve]

You guys made it.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, that's all right.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Cj. Good luck out there. Good luck out there. Cj. Donald, he'd be good. He'll be a good Buckeye.

[AJ Hawk]

The other one staying in Morgantown.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, he'll be a good Buckeye. Yeah. Sticking around. Why are you coming? Sticking around. Nico Mozzarella coming. You know, sticking around. We got some transfer wide receiver, got some transfer linebacker. I don't know.

[Boston Connor]

Nico's playing with the guy they're bringing in.

[Pat McAfee]

Agreed. And there's also a freshman that is on the team still. That is a guy. Bring the old ball club back. Yeah. Old DC's coaching to get.

[Stanford Steve]

Okay.

[Pat McAfee]

We're bringing. I mean, it is.

[AJ Hawk]

Uhhuh.

[Pat McAfee]

Western is going to win. Neil Brown. Good guy.

[Darius Butler]

Great guy.

[Pat McAfee]

Good guy. He was able to win six games a year.

[AJ Hawk]

Big go.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. So I. I will assume, think about that, that we will get some wins in the Big 12. Now there's some teams that have come out of nowhere, certainly byu. Holy hell. Arizona State. What is that out of nowhere? Iowa State. Is he going to be there?

[Darius Butler]

I don't know. Sounds like it's kind of a done deal to the Bears. So. Hate that for everybody in Ames.

[Pat McAfee]

Why is that always. It always.

[Darius Butler]

He's an unbelievable. Like, he's a great coach. He is a great coach. A couple years ago they were talking. He almost got the. They were talking about him as a finalist for the Lions job before Dan Campbell got it. And several years ago he was also like a finalist for the jets job. So he's. His name has been up there, but I think it's one of those things, like, he is the best coach that Iowa State has ever had. So I think he knows like. Like he has that job forever. He is like, it doesn't matter what he does. It just. He's coming off their most successful season ever. So it's kind of one of those things. Where do you want to go to a situation where you're gonna go to potentially like a shitty NFL team and just flame out in a couple years? And I'm sure Iowa State would take him back, but like, he's. He's the toast of the town and names. So I don't know why he'd want to leave.

[Pat McAfee]

Interesting. Big 12, West Virginia's West James coming. Everybody needs to that. I think a lot of teams are also scared to pay people right now because there is another transfer portal coming after Spring ball. So like, you pay somebody now, they come in for spring ball. They hate it. They're back in the transportal.

[AJ Hawk]

It happened a bunch last year and.

[Pat McAfee]

They haven't wasted a season yet either because it's just spring ball. So like, I think there is a lot of people that are a little bit scared on when they spend their money. All right, speaking of money, let's go and pour them while you wear a mouth. Is. Let's pick the entire spreadshot. Go. Super Wild Car Week. I cannot believe that they're trying to take Super.

[AJ Hawk]

So dumb.

[Pat McAfee]

We got a Super bowl and we got Super Wild Car Weekend. They're bookending the NFL postseason for a reason. Because the postseason's super. What are they doing? Why are they doing it? I don't like it one bit. AJ I heard you like it that they're getting rid of the Super Wild Card weekend. No, I heard that you love the fact that they're not going to be doing any more stupid marketing for a weekend that's already gigantic. I heard you want it just to be Wild Card weekend.

[Ty Schmidt]

Whose decision was this? Do we. Do we ever nail it down on who did this?

[Pat McAfee]

I assume there was a room full of brilliant people who had a nine.

[Ty Schmidt]

Hour meeting to talk about it over three different days.

[Pat McAfee]

How to get approved by three different SVPs. I assume before it gets to somebody who maybe can have some sort of in it might not even make it to somebody that actually makes good decision. It might just be. This might have been a decision that was made here and then. Right, Howard, Donald.

[Ty Schmidt]

Why do they. I don't like that. They said they are quietly moving away from it. If you're going to do it, do it, own it. Just say, no, we're not doing it anymore.

[Pat McAfee]

Wild Card's no longer super. Deal with it. Yeah, I can.

[Ty Schmidt]

At least I can disagree. But I respect.

[AJ Hawk]

But it is super. They said it's still super but not named Super. So dumb.

[Pat McAfee]

You think it's right there.

[Ty Schmidt]

Spectacular.

[Stanford Steve]

They'll change it back.

[AJ Hawk]

No, they won't.

[Pat McAfee]

Don't take Spectacular. It's our draft show.

[Darius Butler]

That's a good point.

[Pat McAfee]

Draft Spectacular.

[Boston Connor]

It's Super Wild Car.

[AJ Hawk]

I mean, they had a winner and don't do suspenders.

[Pat McAfee]

That's it.

[AJ Hawk]

Last time somebody got Sensational.

[Ty Schmidt]

That works.

[Pat McAfee]

Sensational Wild Card Weekend.

[Darius Butler]

No, it's Super Wild Car Weekend.

[Pat McAfee]

I'm just spitballing ideas, but it could be Sensational. Divisional.

[Ty Schmidt]

Ron with S words.

[Pat McAfee]

So wow.

[Boston Connor]

Wild Card.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Wow. Wild Card. Yeah.

[Darius Butler]

That's not bad.

[Pat McAfee]

That's not bad. If they're gonna roll out something else, then maybe we'll appreciate. Once again, remember this Turf was grown 80 miles north of here. Steven Ross said, I don't want to be dependent on other people's sod. We'll make our own Bermuda grass. We will change this eight to ten times a year. And this Bermuda grass is getting rolled over. Since there isn't a lot of slick stuff happening.

[Stanford Steve]

They're fixing it right now. They're fixing it right now. So I take back everything I said earlier. I should have known better.

[Pat McAfee]

Tell you what, I earned a T shirt. Okay. I enjoyed doing that. Pretty good with iron. Hit that steam thing on it.

[Darius Butler]

Oh, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

That's what they're doing in this field right now. They're ironing the field.

[AJ Hawk]

That's smart.

[Stanford Steve]

Fast track.

[Ty Schmidt]

It looks amazing. Looks like turf. Field turf.

[AJ Hawk]

If they do it eight, ten times a year, they know what they're doing. It's going to be great.

[Boston Connor]

It's the only thing they do know how to do.

[Stanford Steve]

Grow your own grass.

[Pat McAfee]

What?

[Ty Schmidt]

What do you mean they don't know.

[AJ Hawk]

How to win playoff games?

[Pat McAfee]

They know how to put people in motion on offense.

[Darius Butler]

They do.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

And confused quarterback.

[Stanford Steve]

That looks cool.

[Pat McAfee]

Which quarterback?

[Boston Connor]

Whoever's playing that day.

[Pat McAfee]

Not super tua.

[Boston Connor]

I know from. From what we heard from tua, sounds like it was a little bit much.

[AJ Hawk]

I heard he hurt his hip because he was sending too many people in motion.

[Pat McAfee]

Too much has been talked about. Maybe Gumpy should mention it. Everyone. So let's pick every game on super wild card weekend. First one, Chargers traveling to take on the Houston Texans. The AFC south champions take on wild card Los Angeles Chargers. Chargers favored by three, have certainly played great football as of late. The Houston Texans get Aziz Al Shayer back on the defensive side. Remember, he was suspended for three games for numerous violations.

[Ty Schmidt]

Too physical.

[Stanford Steve]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

The NFL team. And once again, ladies and gentlemen, the Grass Ironers are back. Seem to have a little bit of a power to it. I don't know if that's steam like I like to use when I'm on the iron or if that's potentially.

[Darius Butler]

Sounds like you might have chewed up a chain link or something.

[Stanford Steve]

That's diesel.

[AJ Hawk]

Good bit of P. I like how.

[Boston Connor]

They'Re doing it numerically. You know, starting at the 10, counting.

[Stanford Steve]

Down, down to one.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah. Bingo.

[Pat McAfee]

What?

[Boston Connor]

I was just going to say they could have started on that side, but I'm glad they started down here.

[Pat McAfee]

No, this is their side. Yeah. Yeah, this is their side.

[Boston Connor]

Who's on that side?

[AJ Hawk]

They'll get down there.

[Pat McAfee]

That's Penn State down there. Oh, that's Penn State.

[AJ Hawk]

Those are Notre Dame's guys.

[Ty Schmidt]

We got fans behind the heat.

[Darius Butler]

Three other guys. Come on.

[Pat McAfee]

All right, let's pick super wild card weekend. Chargers favored by three hot. Houston Texans obviously beat the hell out of Titans last week, but haven't been playing their best ball. CJ Stroud says he likes being the underdog. Those are. Those are the type of dogs that everybody likes.

[Darius Butler]

What, the underdogs?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Other than the overdogs.

[Darius Butler]

The underdogs. The other guys?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Or the. Those are the underdogs.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah. Well, yeah, in this situation, Texas are the underdogs even though they're at home. But, I don't know, you look at those other guys. I wouldn't want to be playing those other guys this weekend.

[Pat McAfee]

Do you like those guys or no?

[Darius Butler]

Who, the Chargers?

[Pat McAfee]

No, the.

[Darius Butler]

Oh, the under guys. The under. The. The underdogs or the other guys?

[Pat McAfee]

The other. The other guys.

[Darius Butler]

I like the other guys a lot in this game, especially because we love C.J. stroud. He's kind of potting a bit in that press.

[Pat McAfee]

Not the under guys, though. You don't like the under guys?

[Darius Butler]

No, no. You want my favorite movie is, though?

[Pat McAfee]

What is it?

[Darius Butler]

The Otter Guys.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, yeah. It's a good one.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Desk Pops, sir. Yeah.

[Darius Butler]

Yep.

[Pat McAfee]

Yes. You're doing a great job. What movie is that?

[Darius Butler]

The Otter Guys.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, I thought it was the. I thought it was a. A different movie. I thought it was the. The utter movie. Stanford Steve is here, right over there as Ty Schmidt. He's very happy to have a Stanford Steve.

[AJ Hawk]

That's a new one.

[Pat McAfee]

That's a. Yeah, that is very. That is within the last three weeks.

[Boston Connor]

Great one.

[Stanford Steve]

I enjoy.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Yeah, I really enjoy, too, because how much we enjoy Stanford Steve. The standard is standard. He's wearing a Tallman T shirt.

[AJ Hawk]

He knows.

[Pat McAfee]

He knows the deal. Hey. Hey. You want to come up here? I don't know if we have a microphone, but if you want to just.

[Ty Schmidt]

Share, you can share with.

[Pat McAfee]

We're picking games right now. We're picking the. The wild card. Hey, why don't you sit on the.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah, the other side over here. Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

AP tone.

[Pat McAfee]

What's up, boys? Hey, do you have an AP vote? No. No, the Scott. No. No, he doesn't. Did he ever get offered one? Do you turn it down? I don't know. Okay, I'll confirm it, though. I did not want one, and I would have taken one if that would have. Would have taken to get Tone one. But whenever we were both offered up one, I was very happy that I did not have to decide anything. And Tone has to do it all. And I think Tone is kind of regretting it after having actually do the entire process. Let's pick the super wild card week. Is Scott, are you guys still calling it super wild card weekend or no? I believe so.

[AJ Hawk]

Should you should.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay.

[Boston Connor]

I hope so.

[Pat McAfee]

Don't let the NFL stop you from. See the official scorekeeper here. Yeah. Just a little reminders. Little reminders. Chargers at Texans. Chargers favored by three, playing very hot. How do you see this one going? Stanford, Steve, you like the other guys or the under guys? The underdogs. Home dog. Dog.

[AJ Hawk]

I know Texans.

[Pat McAfee]

Everybody's wanted more from them all year, and it takes the tractor. Another round, another round, another round, another. Not missing one spot. No, they are not. It's unreal. And once they hit one spot, they hit another spot.

[Darius Butler]

And then another and another and another.

[AJ Hawk]

I like the Texans.

[Pat McAfee]

Win the game. Oh, money line. Don't need to pull. Okay. A D butt. Who do you like? How do you like it?

[Stanford Steve]

You know how much I love the Chargers. Justin Herbert and the Chargers. I think they go win, and I think they win big. You talked about teams being hot, playing hot. He's had his best game of the season going into a hostile environment, but they pull out the win.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, A.J. who you like?

[Ty Schmidt]

I'm with Stanford Steve here. I like the. The home dogs, I think. I think giving. Getting Al Shayer back on defense. I love what they're doing. Give me the Texans.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. Nico's back too, right? That's a big deal. He's playing great. They don't have. Obviously they have injuries across the board. Three points feels like a lot, doesn't it? That feels like a. This feels like it's gonna be a close one. Giving it Chargers minus three Steelers. I don't like that at all.

[Darius Butler]

Why not just talk to Harpaw?

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, yeah, toughest. Then we talked to the.

[Darius Butler]

The other guy and then the other guy too.

[Pat McAfee]

And then we went into the kitchen and talked to.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah, the other chef.

[Pat McAfee]

And then we went in the equipment room and we talked to the other equipment guys. And then we talked all the other players too. In the locker room and training staff. We saw all them other guys as well. Give me the Chargers.

[Stanford Steve]

Oh, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Let's go to the next game here. Pittsburgh.

[AJ Hawk]

If it was in Houston, they would have. They would have hosted us as well. They. They're a very great organization that loves us as well.

[Pat McAfee]

Who's that the Texans? Yeah. Eleven deep. You think they would have let us just walk around that building?

[AJ Hawk]

I do.

[Pat McAfee]

All access.

[AJ Hawk]

Anytime we ask them for anybody, they give them after.

[Boston Connor]

I mean, with Raw and Netflix coming up, Kasario is a big mark. He would have. He would have been hoping you to come.

[Pat McAfee]

You're right. I love the Texans down there. I'm a big fan of the Texans. You got Strangler in the AFC south, which is the hardest division in football. I'll take the Houston Texans, representing the AFC South.

[Boston Connor]

There we go.

[Pat McAfee]

Steelers, Ravens. I should have took the other guys. Steelers, Ravens. Ravens favored by nine and a half at home. This is absurd. This is going to be awesome for Hard Knocks on Tuesdays inside the AFC North. Russell Wilson and T.J. watt have lost four straight to end the season. Will they make it five in Baltimore? With the Baltimore Ravens playing better than any other team in the NFL, there is a point differential that Adam Schefter tweeted out that he got a stat from Hembo. And against teams that are good team teams, the Baltimore Ravens have the Highest point, like + 138 or something like that. And then the next closest team is Detroit. I think it's like plus 60. Yeah, 36. There it is. Baltimore plus 112. Detroit plus 36. Philly plus 29. These are against playoff teams. Baltimore has pummeled the good football teams. Now, will that remain? Will that continue? Pittsburgh has gotten their asses beat by playoff teams thus far. Minus 30, Stanford. Steve, how do you see this AFC north rivalry matchup playing out?

[Ty Schmidt]

Familiarity.

[Pat McAfee]

As much as the Ravens have played lights out lately, that stretch of, you know, three games in 11 days, they were awesome. Going undefeated, plenty was made of it. Pittsburgh keeps it close. Give me the points. Okay. Steelers plus nine and a half. I'm sure there's some sort of stat about the Ravens and Steelers +5. I think because we talked about it earlier in the season. Three plus three.

[AJ Hawk]

It was the dog. A dog of three or more was, I don't know, 17 and 18 and one. Tomlin was 13. Zero.

[Pat McAfee]

In that situation, how do you feel about your Steelers covering Moneyline?

[Darius Butler]

Whoa, Tony. Dogs.

[Pat McAfee]

Exactly. Here we go. Steelers. Here we go. Pittsburgh's going to the Super Bowl.

[Boston Connor]

Here we go.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, when you twirl a towel, Steve, if you were to. I'm not saying you do it on a regular basis. Right hand. You're holding like this here. Yeah. If you're a twirl, how would you twirl that thing if you had to? Okay. Yep. Yeah, that's a good twirl.

[Ty Schmidt]

What else do you do?

[Darius Butler]

We had a guy twirling it the other way.

[Pat McAfee]

The other way? Yeah. I was hoping to get that out. Here he is, look. He's twirling it the other way. Look in the back. I don't even know how it's possible. It is going the other way though. You know that's like. That's like hitting the head. Rubbing his stomach though. You've been doing it the opposite directions there. It's really impressive.

[AJ Hawk]

You guys aren't coordinated enough. Hard to do.

[Pat McAfee]

I apologize.

[Ty Schmidt]

Very athletic.

[Pat McAfee]

It is because you got to get the wrist involved.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, it's good wrist move.

[Pat McAfee]

You gotta do that. Here we go. D bu. Here we go. You like Tone Moneyline? Pittsburgh Steelers. You like Sanford Steve Steelers plus nine and a half.

[Stanford Steve]

You know what the trend is. Typically your friend and you talked about the plus five in this game. It's always a battle. They're so familiar with each other.

[Pat McAfee]

But trend is your friend.

[Stanford Steve]

The two time MVP is on an absolute mission this year. He will be missing his top receiver. He hasn't practiced a flowers but I'm going Lamar Jackson and the Ravens and our guy Kyle Van Noy to win and to cover a nine and a half point spread on super wild card weekend.

[AJ Hawk]

Mars first playoff win.

[Pat McAfee]

That'd be fun. But he's won a playoff game four. Yeah. Has he? Yeah, he has.

[Boston Connor]

He's been a couple.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, he has.

[Boston Connor]

He always.

[Stanford Steve]

Van Noy.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, a few of them. Van Noise won a lot over there.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

And Harbaugh, he's going want to know that's the only thing he's worried about. Do you ever read the Bible what it said about vengeance?

[AJ Hawk]

No.

[Pat McAfee]

Should watch Hard Knocks. Harbaugh had the boys buzzing because a.

[AJ Hawk]

Little bit I mute it when they come on.

[Boston Connor]

Vengeance is yours.

[Pat McAfee]

That's right. Well, I think he was comparing a situation to be invention full.

[Darius Butler]

It's also a dish best served cold. And it's going to be cold in Baltimore.

[Pat McAfee]

How are their crab cakes going to be?

[Darius Butler]

Top notch. I mean Jimmy's never takes the day off.

[Pat McAfee]

What did they start? They didn't start co. They did. They did.

[Darius Butler]

They definitely started the cicada outbreak.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh yeah, I forgot they had the cicada parade.

[Darius Butler]

Yep.

[Boston Connor]

They started co too. They were over there in China.

[Pat McAfee]

I don't think that's true.

[AJ Hawk]

Those goofballs world where they get their crap from.

[Pat McAfee]

Did you say goofballs Gump? You're calling the Jimmy Sifu guys goofballs?

[AJ Hawk]

When they were over in China, when they were doing that, they were goofball.

[Pat McAfee]

I think they're gonna be so mad that you just said what you just said. I think they're gonna legit be like, hey, we say a lot of stuff about each other that ain't. That's too far.

[AJ Hawk]

They sent me a package for Christmas, and I DM John Mockadakas.

[Pat McAfee]

That's not his name.

[Boston Connor]

Spaghetti Dakis.

[AJ Hawk]

A video. I threw that package right in the garbage. I said, it's playoff time, brother. See you after.

[Pat McAfee]

Now what they piece together for Christmas was awesome.

[Boston Connor]

Oh, you guys got. Oh, okay.

[Pat McAfee]

There's a full package. Sent it to the office. He sent it to you.

[Boston Connor]

Okay.

[Pat McAfee]

It was to you as well. Okay.

[Boston Connor]

They were definitely over there, then.

[Pat McAfee]

No, it was. It was. I know.

[Boston Connor]

I didn't get anything.

[Pat McAfee]

They made it out to you, and. And I think Ty's name was on there as well. Everybody's name was on there. DBOT was on there. AJ was on there. Even all the.

[Darius Butler]

All the other guys, too.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, we're. We're on there.

[Boston Connor]

Makis can go to hell then.

[Pat McAfee]

I think you guys are saying his name right. You like Baltimore?

[Stanford Steve]

Yep.

[Pat McAfee]

You like the Steelers plus nine and a half. AJ who do you like?

[Ty Schmidt]

I like Baltimore. Minus nine and a half. I guess it is. Yeah, man. I think, like. Like D. Bud said, look at. I mean, that the stats don't really lie too much. I kind of like that stat. They're beating up on playoff teams. They're the only team in the league beating up on playoff teams.

[Pat McAfee]

Trend is your friend. This trend right here, certainly a trend we should be paying attention to, you know, plus 112 by a huge margin.

[Boston Connor]

They beat the bills by, like, 14.

[Pat McAfee]

All right, how about this? Because I didn't think you guys gave maximum effort during the. Here we go. Oh.

[AJ Hawk]

Talking to you in the video.

[Pat McAfee]

I didn't say I Wait. Move at all, did you?

[Boston Connor]

No.

[Drew Rosenhaus]

He couldn't roll it.

[Pat McAfee]

I didn't even see it spin. I couldn't even move it like this.

[Boston Connor]

Oh, rolling before.

[Stanford Steve]

I saw.

[AJ Hawk]

I didn't want to be a harder one. The Internet showing off.

[Stanford Steve]

Yeah. He wrapped it, like, five times with the terrible tower in his hand.

[Pat McAfee]

Where was I? I was there. The other side.

[Stanford Steve]

You were just. Just walking up.

[Darius Butler]

I was on other side of the office.

[Stanford Steve]

Yeah. So I'm rapid.

[Pat McAfee]

I didn't see that.

[Stanford Steve]

Didn't even need Nick to spot him, honestly.

[AJ Hawk]

Bingo.

[Pat McAfee]

The guy that was doing the other way. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

He didn't need how many Reps. You get five.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, I'll take the Ravens.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, minus nine and a half.

[Pat McAfee]

I don't like it at all.

[Stanford Steve]

It's a lot of points. So many points.

[Pat McAfee]

Especially in this rivalry. They know each other so well. Why did Steelers go to the stadium to practice?

[AJ Hawk]

I thought I saw a tweet that the outdoor fields at their facility are too warm.

[Pat McAfee]

So they don't have outdoor fields and.

[AJ Hawk]

They wanted to be in condition.

[Pat McAfee]

Cincinnati Bengals didn't have indoor facility and the Steelers don't have an outdoor facility.

[AJ Hawk]

Bingo. Russ used to do that with the Seahawks too.

[Pat McAfee]

What? Go practice at the stadium before they.

[AJ Hawk]

Won the Super Bowl.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, remember he did that full practice by himself too whenever he had his thumb finger thing. The hammer finger. The hammer. Is that what it's called?

[Darius Butler]

Yeah, something like that.

[Pat McAfee]

He busted his middle finger. Remember that? And he did the full walkthrough at the Calling out the things. Maybe that is what it was. Maybe it was bringing team together. Give me the Steelers plus nine and a half.

[Stanford Steve]

Does George Pickens have a hammer finger when he plays in the Cole?

[Pat McAfee]

What are you talking about?

[Boston Connor]

Hammer brain?

[Pat McAfee]

What are you. What are you talking about? You think he hasn't shown up in a bit here?

[Stanford Steve]

Saw a lot of drops. He's last week.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, but it's playoff football. He'll be back. Give me the Raven minus nine and a half. Give me the Ravens minus nine and a half. Then let's go to Sunday. Shall we have super wild card weekend? Broncos, Bills. Bills favored by eight and a half at home. Stanford. Steve, how do you feel about Bo Nix, Sean Payton, Josh Allen? I absolutely love Denver here.

[AJ Hawk]

All the pressure now is on Buffalo.

[Pat McAfee]

Saw Sean Payton. Talk about the youth is dangerous when you get to the playoffs. Inexperienced. I haven't been there.

[AJ Hawk]

I think they're a capable football team. Secondary's back healthy, right db.

[Stanford Steve]

Yep.

[Pat McAfee]

Riley Moss back up Denver plus the points debut.

[Stanford Steve]

You know what? Denver's a feisty ball club. They've had a great year. I actually like them to cover. It's eight and a half points. I like them to cover. They'll keep it close. They're going to play a lot of man to man coverage. So I am interested to see how Josh Allen will will dice them up. But I think they keep it close with Bo Nixon this offense. So give me the Broncos plus eight and a half.

[Pat McAfee]

What's the weather up there?

[AJ Hawk]

It's cold with a little bit of wind. But no, not like any snowy.

[Pat McAfee]

No crazy snow. And I don't even know who that Would that would benefit Josh? I think yes, obviously, if it was insane. But Bo's not, you know, scared to play a little weather. Neither are the Denver Broncos. A.J. hawk, who do you like?

[Ty Schmidt]

I like the Denver Broncos here. I, I think they, I think the Bills win, but I think the Broncos will cover. I love what this Broncos defense can do.

[Pat McAfee]

Everything that you guys are saying means we got a great game here, 1:00 on Sunday. I like that. I'll continue to try and give me the Broncos. Wow. What? I would do that as well. Yeah. I was going to pick the Bills, of course.

[Boston Connor]

Josh Allen just got engaged. This is the best Josh Allen we've ever seen.

[Ty Schmidt]

He's going to play great. He's going to play great.

[Boston Connor]

He's going to win. I think I'm not even a bills guy.

[AJ Hawk]

32 five to seven hour wins.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, that's beautiful. What are you saying? You're saying we need to, we need to think about the other.

[Boston Connor]

I mean they beat the. Out of so many teams this year. They, he. They didn't even play last week. It was a bye week class.

[Pat McAfee]

I'll take the Buffalo Bills. I'll take the Buffalo Bills. He's engaged, guys. Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

He's in love.

[Pat McAfee]

I'll take everyone crossed out. Green Bay Packers, Philadelphia Eagles. Pack going in without Christian Watson obviously tears his ACL without, you know, full confidence in what they can be. But certainly have had glimpses of greatness both on the offensive side and on the defensive side, including against this Eagles team so long ago. Saquon Barkley and the boys rest the final game of the season instead of going for the rushing king title, which is certainly something everybody would love. A lot of heat on Sirianni all damn year. If they were to lose at home as four and a half point favorites, it would obviously get to a fever pitch. How do you see this Sunday afternoon game going? Stanford, Steve, you know, every super wild card weekend you got to find the blowout. I believe this is the blowout. Wow. Give me the Eagles minus the points. Oh, I thought I was going to say pack packers there. Ty. I thought he was gonna say it was the Packers. You, you knew he was going the other way.

[Darius Butler]

No, I'm just saying I'm taking the other side. All the, all the pressures on the Eagles we're getting hurts. Who knows how healthy he's gonna be, guys and played in two weeks.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Darius Butler]

I mean the packers are limping in. They've looked like absolute shite.

[Pat McAfee]

You could argue wow, wow.

[AJ Hawk]

But hammered dog shite.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Darius Butler]

Hammered dog shite. You could argue that, but this is a better team than last year's team. Last year's team got in the playoffs and they beat the out of the Cowboys on the road.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, Eagles just won. Did they just win? No, Lane Johnson won.

[Boston Connor]

He won a trench. And the Eagles won the trenchy.

[Pat McAfee]

They won the trenchy. Right. They won the offensive line of the year. They did.

[Darius Butler]

I mean packers had a guy who rushed for 1400 yards as well. It's not like they're, you know, know their offensive line's not hammered dog shite. I understand the Eagles is very good. I get Saquons trenchy.

[Pat McAfee]

They want a damn trench.

[Darius Butler]

I know.

[Pat McAfee]

They want a trenchy with long hair, brother.

[Darius Butler]

I know, I know. I'm siding with Lambo. I'm taking the Packers. What are we talking about?

[Pat McAfee]

D Botch. Who do you like?

[Stanford Steve]

Hey, speaking of the trenchy and the trenches, Eagles got the edge. Give me the Eagles to win, the Eagles to cover. Yeah, they went by at least, at least a touchdown.

[Pat McAfee]

Go ahead, A.J.

[Ty Schmidt]

I'M gonna take the Packers. I think the packers either win this game or they lose by double digits.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. Just like it's one of those games, it's either going one way or the other way. I'll take the Eagles in this one. Nick Sirianni obviously coaching for a lot there. Washington Commanders, Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That situation with Mike Evans at the end of last week's game was awesome. As a one score game could have certainly been a pick six. But instead the entire team said this guy needs to get 11 straight seasons with a thousand yards. This guy needs to tie Jerry Rice. This guy also is going to get a 3 million dollar bonus because this team loves him. They celebrated so hard for him. Vibes can't be anything other than immaculate. And then for the Washington Commanders, what a year. What a turnaround. What a time. The Buccaneers are favored by three at home. Gonna be hot there in Tampa. Or is it gonna be the same shit as here? What is the weather in Tampa? Is it gonna be colder? Come on, weather man. Well, where's Cantore? Where's Jim K And to probably Texas or he might be maybe with the fires. Yeah, it might be.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Commanders won 12 games this year. You know how many teams they beat there in the playoffs? How many?

[Ty Schmidt]

One.

[Pat McAfee]

And that was with Kenny Pickett. Chargers also beat one team.

[Ty Schmidt]

That's playoffs.

[Pat McAfee]

They beat Denver twice. Does that stuff matter? I don't think so. When you have Daniels. I like, I like Washington. Plus the points. Wow. No, that went One way and then another, didn't. It kind of took us on a walk there. It was like we were on the F1 track outside. We're zigging and zagging and we're going all over the place. Go ahead, Tom.

[AJ Hawk]

65 and sunny.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, it's perfect.

[Boston Connor]

Okay.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, it sounds perfect. I thought that's what it was going to be down here. Instead, that's up there in Tampa. And that's where the Hulkster is, right?

[Darius Butler]

That is where the Hulkster is.

[Pat McAfee]

And that and the other guy, Jimmy Hart.

[Darius Butler]

Oh, yeah, you're right.

[Pat McAfee]

Isn't he up there as well? Yeah, I think so. D Butch, who do you like? How do you like it?

[Stanford Steve]

I loved what I saw last week, just like you did with Mike Evans and his team. And they got a run game. I think AQ talked about him when he was on the show yesterday at the run game. The juice that Bucky Irving has brought, I am concerned about that defensive side of the ball, and I'm going to expect that Marshawn Lattimore shows up, and he is Mike Evans, arch nemesis. So give me the commies to win this one. Straight up.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, call me straight up. He said, doesn't need the points. AJ Hawk, how do you feel, man?

[Ty Schmidt]

Debut got me thinking on this one.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, now he's waffling.

[Ty Schmidt]

Because I love what Baker and what Tampa Bay does, but I also love what they're doing in Washington. Give me Washington.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, I'll take the Bucks. I'll take the Bucks. Favored by three of them. Just that Mike Evans football God thing, you know, I think football.

[Ty Schmidt]

Lattimore have had some battles.

[Stanford Steve]

Battles.

[Ty Schmidt]

That's going to be fun to watch.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. And Baker knows. Baker's going to be doing his whole big. Yeah, his whole way up.

[Boston Connor]

They beat the Eagles last year.

[AJ Hawk]

What is he doing?

[Pat McAfee]

He goes, what up? He. He ran a guy over. They were down in the fourth quarter. I saw the video and they said this.

[Stanford Steve]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

And they stepped on top of the guy on the Saints and just walked over top of him. And then there was a big fight that started. It was like a hockey player starting a fight to kind of rally the boys whenever you're down. Baker Mayfield's a player. I. I don't think we appreciate and respect the competitive spirit of Baker Mayfield enough. He's just a. He's just a gamer. The guy is just. I assume it's in everything. I assume it's in everything that he does. Competitive. He's got juice. Always going to fight. I like the Buccaneers. Not that Jaden Daniels isn't, but I like the Buccaneers. And then Monday Night Football, will it be played in Los Angeles or will it be played in Phoenix, Arizona? We are not 100% sure. We obviously all watch with bated breath about what's going on in Los Angeles. We can't help but say sorry to everybody that's going through that. That has to be catastrophic and horrific and scary as hell. So obviously positive T's and P's over there for Los Angeles, Matthew Stafford, Puka Nakua and the boys host the Minnesota Vikings, who have been a absolute wagon, except for against the Detroit Lions. A lot of Minnesota Vikings fans said, oh, no, here we go again. After losing to the Lions for the number one seed in the nfc, they are in it for being the best team in the National Football Conference in the nfc. They lose to the Lions and Vikings fans can't help but say, food, gays, we're not going to do it. I think it's because they've been punished so much. I think it's different this year. What do you say, Stanford? Steve, was it one? Rams minus one. I'm absolute tough. Oh, Vikings.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh.

[Pat McAfee]

I still think the world of McVay.

[Ty Schmidt]

As a play caller.

[Pat McAfee]

I think it's huge that Sam Darnold got that bad game out of his system. I expect to be high scoring. I'm gonna go Rams. Okay, Rams. Whether it's in Phoenix or in la, does it matter? No. Okay. Darius J. Butler.

[Boston Connor]

Do you want to pick this now? Pick it Monday, too, just in case he gets moved.

[Pat McAfee]

That's right. Stanford. Steve. Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

We got Steve's pick, though.

[Pat McAfee]

I'm in.

[Ty Schmidt]

Good pick.

[Pat McAfee]

Thank you, Steve.

[AJ Hawk]

I'm not waffling.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, that was great work out of you.

[AJ Hawk]

Thank you.

[Boston Connor]

Thank you, Steve.

[Pat McAfee]

Steve, you're a lot better than the. Yeah.

[Darius Butler]

That other guy shows up sometimes.

[Pat McAfee]

How many hunters did we get in there with him? Oh, man.

[Boston Connor]

20 plus 25 was my guess. Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

We've been told that they're going to be rehearsing the national anthem here in a couple moments. We want to stick around until that so we showcase it. Okay. Didn't we, didn't we? Didn't we?

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah. If it's happening, you have to show it.

[Ty Schmidt]

Who's singing? Do we know Beyonce, Steve?

[Pat McAfee]

I think it sticks. There's a little plane up top, says we are Penn State. Obviously, they're all in on the sky and on the field. I don't even know if we're allowed to show the rehearsal. We would, though.

[Boston Connor]

I assume they're gonna wait until we're done.

[Pat McAfee]

We would. We would like. All right. Yeah. I was just giving information that. That is not how this goes. Just know that we. We. We wanted to. And we would have stood and we would have even done this, even though we're not in the military. And they say that you. You shouldn't if you're not, but.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, I probably wouldn't have.

[Pat McAfee]

You would. But I'm saying, remember.

[Boston Connor]

I remember. I'll sing it.

[Pat McAfee]

I'll. I'll mouth it straight. Families in the military, right? Like, grew up in. Correct.

[Stanford Steve]

Those are goofballs.

[Darius Butler]

Guys are goofballs.

[Pat McAfee]

So many goofballs these days. Yeah. Just like us. Yeah. All right, let's get out of here, boys. In the truck. Great work back there, boys. Foxy. Really good work in the truck. Fosso. He's got a good tan, don't he? Check that. Check that back shot out there. Faso. That guy essentially runs the show. Never forget it, you know. You got a good. Thank you, Foss. College game day, 6 o'clock. The wonderful people that set up this set will obviously be transitioning it over to game day, where we kick off the semifinals of the College Football Playoff. Boys, great work. Great work.

[Boston Connor]

Oh, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Can't wait to call it. Game night on Saturday.

[Stanford Steve]

Wait.

[Pat McAfee]

It's gonna be a good one. It's gonna be heavyweight. Do you guys want to predict what happens in tomorrow's game? Because they're not gonna be here now. We're calling it. We don't pick these games.

[AJ Hawk]

Bingo.

[Pat McAfee]

Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice. It might change your life. We are back on Monday, and for this show, there's gonna be so much that has happened by Monday. Yeah. So much that has happened. So overreaction. Monday should be absolutely absurd. We can't thank you enough for allowing us to do this for a living. And we're gonna continue to try to bring it every day except for tomorrow and any other day. We're not.

[AJ Hawk]

Tomorrow night.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, tomorrow night.

[Stanford Steve]

Bring tomorrow night.

[Boston Connor]

Still bring it.

[Pat McAfee]

We like to bring the booms out of the building.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

I didn't know they're doing Yelp reviews.

[Darius Butler]

Me neither.

[Boston Connor]

They do it all, you know.

[Pat McAfee]

We like to boom out the place. There's only one kind of a shame. They were bummed out.

[Darius Butler]

They were bummed out big time.

[Pat McAfee]

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That's how many booms tonight's gonna be. Yeah, we'll try to count them. Did you guys keep up those 74? 78. 78, yeah. Boom, boom. There you go. 80 big booms for tonight. Obviously how this is gonna go. You are the greatest people on earth. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice. It might change your life. Winners thing together. Team on me. Team on three. 1, 2, 3.

[Ty Schmidt]

From ESPN Podcast and Omaha Productions, Coach is a new, groundbreaking educational football podcast hosted by NFL legends Bill Belichick, 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 night knowledge created by football legends for football fans. New episodes of Coach Drop weekly. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Pat McAfee]

Goodbye.