PMS 2.0 1321 - Shams Charania, Ian Rapoport, Jay Williams, Field Yates LIVE From Colorado's "Showcase," & AJ Hawk

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Pat McAfee Show – Episode PMS 2.0 1321

Release Date: April 4, 2025
Hosts: Pat McAfee, AJ Hawk, the Toxic Table, and Tone Digs
Special Guests: Shams Charania, Ian Rapoport, Jay Williams, Field Yates

---

1. Introduction

Pat McAfee kicks off the episode on a high note, expressing gratitude to listeners and setting the stage for a jam-packed discussion covering the Final Four, NBA controversies, NFL contracts, and more. He highlights the excitement surrounding the upcoming Final Four featuring SEC teams Auburn and Florida against Houston and Duke.

Pat McAfee [00:00]: "Hello beautiful people and welcome to our humble abode, the Thunderdome on this feel good Friday..."

2. College Basketball Final Four Preview

The conversation delves into the anticipation for the Final Four, emphasizing the clash between SEC powerhouses and traditional basketball giants like Duke and Houston. Jay Williams joins later to provide his insights.

Pat McAfee [02:43]: "How about the NBA? Big news in the NBA..."

3. NBA News and Ja Morant Controversy

A significant portion of the episode focuses on Ja Morant's recent fine by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver for multiple "finger gun" gestures during games. Shams Charania provides an in-depth analysis of the situation, discussing the league's stance on promoting or discouraging such gestures.

Shams Charania [17:53]: "They warned Ja Morant. They weren't also Buddy Hill. They warned the Grizzlies..."

Pat and the team express support for Morant, urging him to continue his stellar performance while adhering to league guidelines.

Pat McAfee [20:37]: "We need you in the NBA. We need you in the sports world."

4. NFL Contracts and Geno Smith's Extension

The discussion shifts to NFL news, highlighting Geno Smith's massive two-year extension with the Las Vegas Raiders worth $75 million, potentially rising to $85.5 million. The team applauds Smith's resilience and leadership.

Pat McAfee [09:39]: "Massive extension sign for West Virginia legend Geno Smith in the Las Vegas Raiders..."

AJ Hawk and Ty Schmidt further analyze the implications of this contract, noting its significance in stabilizing the Raiders' quarterback position.

AJ Hawk [12:18]: "Without a doubt... there's a chance that Gino reaches even higher heights."

5. Playoff Format Changes and Division Winners

Pat and the team explore recent NFL league meetings, particularly the proposal to adjust playoff seeding rules. One key topic is whether division winners with losing records should retain home playoff games.

Ty Schmidt [54:08]: "It feels like that feels like that's a possibility in Mayo as well."

The consensus is that while controversial, such changes aim to enhance competitive balance, though they may face resistance from teams accustomed to traditional formats.

6. Mock Drafts and Quarterback Prospects

A substantial segment is dedicated to NFL mock drafts, focusing on quarterback prospects like Shador Sanders and Travis Hunter. Ian Rapoport provides insights into team strategies, team needs, and how top teams like the Cleveland Browns and New York Giants might approach drafting these quarterbacks.

Ian Rapoport [105:09]: "The Browns are leaving no stone unturned in terms of their preparation."

The team discusses the dynamic nature of mock drafts during "smoke screen season," where team decisions can rapidly evolve based on emerging information.

7. Baseball Highlights: Pittsburgh Pirates vs. New York Yankees

Pat shifts gears to baseball, discussing the Pittsburgh Pirates' home opener against the Yankees. The conversation highlights PNC Park's vibrant atmosphere and the expectations surrounding the Pirates' performance against a historically strong Yankees lineup.

Pat McAfee [66:18]: "And then you look down, it's like eight still six still, you know..."

AJ Hawk and Ty Schmidt weigh in on the Pirates' prospects, noting the challenges of facing veteran teams like the Yankees.

AJ Hawk [85:11]: "It's an exciting game to watch... but the score wasn't always as tight."

8. Soccer and Global Sports Popularity

The episode touches on global sports figures, debating the popularity of soccer legends like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo versus MLB star Shohei Ohtani. The discussion also covers recent attempts by Saudi Arabia's PIF to collaborate with the PGA Tour, highlighting the complexities of international sports investments.

Pat McAfee [120:36]: "Saudi Arabia's public investment fund failed in its attempt to persuade the PGA Tour to deliver serious concessions..."

Shams Charania and Ian Rapoport comment on the differing levels of global recognition among athletes and the impact of international relations on sports collaborations.

9. Closing Remarks and Upcoming Events

As the show wraps up, Pat emphasizes the importance of positivity and community, thanking listeners for their support. He previews upcoming events, including the Final Four festivities and special segments on platforms like Hulu.

Pat McAfee [147:53]: "Good luck to all the ladies tonight and shout to basketball carrying us through."

Jay Williams joins for the final moments, discussing strategies for teams and reinforcing the show's supportive stance towards athletes like Ja Morant.

Jay Williams [89:14]: "It's a puzzle. We need Ja... just keep watching, keep supporting."

---

Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Pat McAfee [00:00]: Introduction and welcome.
• Shams Charania [17:53]: "They warned Ja Morant..."
• Pat McAfee [20:37]: Support for Ja Morant.
• Pat McAfee [09:39]: Geno Smith's contract details.
• Ty Schmidt [54:08]: Playoff format possibilities.
• Ian Rapoport [105:09]: Browns' preparation for quarterback selection.
• Pat McAfee [66:18]: Baseball game expectations.
• Pat McAfee [120:36]: Saudi-PGA negotiations.
• Pat McAfee [147:53]: Closing remarks and Final Four encouragement.

---

This episode of "The Pat McAfee Show" offers a comprehensive overview of current sports events across multiple leagues, providing insightful analysis and fostering a supportive community atmosphere. From high-stakes NFL contracts and draft strategies to the excitement of the Final Four and global sports dynamics, Pat and his team deliver engaging content for sports enthusiasts.

Transcript

[Pat McAfee]

Hello beautiful people and welcome to our humble abode, the Thunderdome on this feel good. Friday, April 4, 2025 this program begins now. Sports are wonderful and we can't thank you enough for allowing us to do this every single day. There's a lot going on in the sports world, including the Final Four tomorrow. Shout out to two SEC teams battling in Auburn and Florida and Houston and duke. That begins at 6:09 tomor. We will have J Will joining us in the next hour, about 1:10 or so. He's obviously going to be covering it with college game day and obviously he's one of the greatest college basketball players of all time, especially at Duke. But we won't just talk about the Final Four, which is obviously going to be electrifying. And we're almost at the crescendo of one shining moment of this particular March Madness. So we'll certainly have to chit chat about that. But also, how about the NBA? Big news in the NBA. We'll have Shams joining us here in about 10 to 15 minutes or so because there has been a fine by Adam Silver against one of the NBA's young stars. Ja Morant has been fined $75,000 for multiple finger gun gestures. I think the most recent one, if you read this, is they told him about an hour before the game, listen, okay, this was the whole thing, can't be doing it. And then he hits a shot. He can't help himself. He's like, I'm a sniper, baby. You see that? This is the first quarter. This is the first quarter of the game. Probably 20 minutes after they talked to him, he just natural instinct. Pavlov's dogs, you know, ring the bell, slobber, give a treat, keep it moving. John Moran says, I'll make a big time shot. It doesn't matter when it is immediately who's the shooter. I am. You know, and this is obviously a story from a couple years back. Whenever he was on Instagram Lives and every time he seemingly went on Instagram live, he had to find a gun. And then it was obviously a big scene and he was the next big star. He had a Powerade deal. He was going to be the guy that was not only going to lead Memphis, but the NBA in 2008. Next generation. He was going to be the next face of the NBA because this guy is electrifying to watch play basketball. I think in this particular game, he want bananas. I think he had a game winner maybe two nights ago. Whatever the case is, Ja is a great basketball player. The Gun thing, though, I think the NBA has been saying, yes, we understand that other people might have a gun celebration. You know, this thing is technically what is a gun, what is not a gun. But if you follow along with what the NFL has been trying to do with the NBA is trying to do, they're trying not to promote the gun thing. So John Morant is obviously synonymous with that because of his lives and everything that's taking place. So I think they're probably gonna judge him a little harsher than everybody else. Josh just needs to know that that's reality of the business for him. And if his body just can't.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

What if he shoots and then somebody comes and holds his arms down? You know, like teammate needs to come in and holds. Maybe his dad. His dad's always courtside, right? I mean, the other night he hit a layup. I think 10 seconds left, he was dribbling down the court so casual. Shook somebody shit out of him, does the layup, wins the game. And then he immediately was against Miami. It was unbelievable. Just so casual. 3 seconds left. No big deal. Step back, hit that. Sprints on the other end, daps up his dad. I believe his dad is on the other end. Just runs down. How you doing? Keep it moving. There's dad. How you. Maybe dad comes out after a big time shot and like that hug. Just holds his arm.

[Ty Schmidt]

Sure.

[Pat McAfee]

You know, just holds his arms down in the entirety. Because we need you. Ja. Hey, ja. We need you in the sports world. Okay. We need you to continue to play not only for Memphis, but for whoever. We just need you doing your shit because you are awesome. We'll talk to Shams about what the next steps are in the entirety of that. And then there's football news. Obviously there's some new contracts that have been announced. So we'll chit chat about all that and wrap up the week. That was the talk. Table is here at Boss Connor at Tai Schmidt Sweetshirt.

[Ty Schmidt]

Hey, thank you very much. I appreciate that. You know, the gone conversation, it feels almost American. And I figured I'd bring the shirt into it a little bit.

[Pat McAfee]

You're talking about second amendment right there, bro.

[Ty Schmidt]

Exactly. Amendments are a big conversation right now. T. Moran is actually there with his girlfriend as well. Don't know if you saw that. That was cool to see, but it's kind of like the Papa John situation where he just. He couldn't help. He's been trying for months and months to stop this type of thing. And I mean, this is a quote from Papa.

[Pat McAfee]

From Papa we did not create this quote.

[Ty Schmidt]

No, not at all.

[Pat McAfee]

People following along and you can do your own research.

[Ty Schmidt]

Probably should always. I mean, we did ours on the giants of yesteryear. But, I mean, with Jahi is so good. But this goes all the way back to last year, and their entire, you know, team has kind of crumbled. Maybe not crumbled, but changed in the last two weeks here. What they don't show is Buddy healed very smartly. Kind of sneaks a little gun at jaw maybe to kind of bait him. Bait him into it.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

Snitching on him a bit.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah. Draymond says, look at him.

[Pat McAfee]

I don't think he was snitching. I think Draymond. What are we to.

[Ty Schmidt]

This is.

[Pat McAfee]

Draymond and LeBron were getting after it last night.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

You know, Draymond, LeBron obviously very close friends. Draymond still got the Draymond. But whenever we talk about to shams, it's like, I appreciate that Adam Silver done immediately. Just suspend job for this. Okay. $75,000 fine is a lot of money. Okay. I understand he's getting paid millions of dollars. Basketball players get compensated very well. 75,000 still a good. I mean, that's a. That's a lot of. That's a good amount of cash. Not nearly as much as it could be. And also, I assume that there's some conversation about him potentially being suspended for something like this, which has certainly happened in the past. So we're happy that that's not the case. John. We hope you can get through it. We hope you can get through a game and just, you know, take out a sword.

[AJ Hawk]

There you go.

[Pat McAfee]

Take out a sword.

[Boston Connor]

Can you do the bow and arrow?

[Pat McAfee]

Bow and arrow, yeah. Porter, I don't know if you can.

[Ty Schmidt]

Do that one there.

[AJ Hawk]

I think the sword is the play.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Is he doing a crossbow?

[Boston Connor]

Is that why we always ask this?

[Pat McAfee]

Or you think it's a handheld crossbow?

[Ty Schmidt]

Because now he's down here.

[Boston Connor]

It is kind of.

[Ty Schmidt]

Before he was bang, bang, bang, bang, like, this is the end.

[Pat McAfee]

But now crossbow you can use during bow season two. So, yeah, I think, like, if you were to talk to gun experts, they would say that is bow and arrow.

[Ty Schmidt]

Because he's here now. I don't know. I mean, I'm not too familiar with Adam.

[Pat McAfee]

Adam Silversay. Our gun. People have talked about that maybe being a heavy barrel.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah. Combat shotgun.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Sawed off one. Oh, yeah. Maybe even. Hell, he might be a sniper. Might be a 50. You know, you shouldn't put Your hands up there.

[Ty Schmidt]

But three point.

[Pat McAfee]

I mean, a lot of this we'll talk. Shams has had to learn probably a lot about the Second Amendment and everything through it all. But, Ja, what we want you to know is we need you, okay? We all like watching you play basketball. If you think it's unfair, you're not allowed to do that, okay? Just go about your life thinking that it's unfair. That is just how. Just can't be get. And I saw his tweet, Ja this, Ja that a couple nights ago. And it's like, ja, man. Yeah. We need you, brother. We need you out here. That's all we want to see is how great you can be. Let's go to one half of the Hammer, Don. Ball cap, boys. See you decked out in some Pittsburgh stuff. What's going on, pal?

[Boston Connor]

It's opening day and home opener for the Buckos say they're facing the Yankees at 4:12pm and if people aren't aware, 412-412-that's the area code of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Allegheny County. So great start time there. Just going to blow the doors off the Yankees. Yank say Mitch Keller is on the mound. Who's the Pirates number two behind Paul SK it should be an easy w. Easy opponent. It's going to be a great day in Pittsburgh.

[Pat McAfee]

Nothing really happened in baseball last night, right? Or yesterday.

[AJ Hawk]

Well, you know, it's funny he mentioned that easy opponent blowing the doors off. The Yankees set the record for most home runs through six games in the history of baseball. So I don't know if that's necessarily accurate. They're hitting the baseball out of the park at a record pace in which no one's ever done it before. So we'll see. But very, very few baseball games last night. Only like five. We got a full slate today. Lot of games, but. But we'll see. It should be. Should be a good series in Pittsburgh.

[Pat McAfee]

Basketball stole the show last night. Giannis goes absolutely bonkers against the Philadelphia 76ers. Philadelphia 76ers, obviously, team that is supposed to be successful, but never is for some reason, as giannis goes bananas. 35 points, 20 assists. Okay, that's a lot of it. So he goes 35, 20 and 17. Don't know why we did 35, 17, 20. Whatever the case. Classic debone here on the graphic. I just wanted to put him in the proper order of what a rebound is versus an assist. Whatever the case, 35, 20 and 17 is absurd. This guy is the guy that was said to potentially be able to Score a couple hundred points in a 1970s NBA game since coming to United States of America. Didn't even really have a backup when he got here. Was just so athletic and understood kind of the basics of it. All he's done is get better and better and better and stronger and stronger and stronger. Last night he goes bananas and absurd. This follows a 61 point game triple double that Jokic had. A 52 point game that Steph had. The NBA is hot right now. Giannis, obviously the most recent.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, he's ridiculous. And I believe the first ever 30, 20, 20 game happened this year with Jokic. So he was very close to that. This is going to be basically the Milwaukee Bucks for the foreseeable future. We talked about yesterday or the day before about Damian Lillard having those blood clots and him being out for a little bit now. And so it's basically just going to be, hey, let's give the ball to Giannis. Let's see what happens. And you know, everyone just play off of him. I believe Doc Rivers also was out with an illness, so Darvin Ham kind of returned to the sideline yesterday. A lot of people saying he looked like a deer in headlights, but that is, that's irrelevant because they beat the Sixers. And to your point, yes, the Sixers, Embiid Maxey and Paul George, big three coming into the year. Oh, look out for the Sixers. Look out for the Sixers. Same thing happened to the Sixers, as it always does. They stink. Actually, they are kind of one of those bottom five teams who might be in it for the top top five. That number one pick because of the NBA lottery. So we'll see what happens. But yeah, expect a lot of this from Giannis going forward and in the playoffs.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. And we have some NFL News. Massive extension sign for West Virginia legend Geno Smith in the Las Vegas Raiders. If you do recall, there was a situation with, with the Seattle Seahawks and Geno Smith where allegedly they offered Geno Smith a contract that was comparable to what Sam Darnold ended up receiving, which was three years, $150 million. So you go about 33 million per, if that is an accurate statement on what Sam Darnold's deal was. Obviously, public numbers versus actual numbers have been a little bit different here whenever it comes to NFL contracts since the beginning of time. This one's two years, $75 million. That could go up to 85 and a half million dollars. Congratulations on 66 and a half million dollars guaranteed at this stage. Brand new home in Las Vegas and G, you're the guy to lead this next era in Las Vegas. Congratulations. Obviously he led like the number one offense in the NFL like two years ago, three years ago. Seattle then obviously one underwent a lot of change, a lot of turnover. There's trying to start brand new. Sam Darnold will be the quarterback for that in the Schneider McDonald era as opposed to the Schneider Carroll era. Pete Carroll, now the head coach at Las Vegas, Geno Smith follows him over there after turning down a deal for 33 and a half million to get 37 and a half million, it appears. So. Congratulations to Gino. I'm happy for him. And Tom Brady really, really likes and I think that could maybe be the best compliment that Geno Smith has ever got. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

And it's multiple years, like you just mentioned it.

[Pat McAfee]

The first quarterback that Tom Brady has paid.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, first one. And traded for like actually gave stuff up to get him. Not just like a free agent, but the Darnold contract. The entire thing was, hey, this is actually just a one year deal. You know, the conversation around it was, oh, wow, Gino said no to this deal and he's basically signing the same one. No, because the Darnold deal essentially is a one year, $35 million deal. Whatever. That's the only thing that's guaranteed. So good on Gino. Gino getting 66 million. That's absurd.

[Boston Connor]

And this basically like obviously Pete's familiar with Gino and Pete has a three year contract and with this two year extension, this is basically tying Pete and Geno together. I mean, well, could Pete be there past three years? Who knows? He could be. But for these three years where the Raiders are trying to flip their culture and everything around and kind of get just like the base, the base layer of what this organization is going to be moving forward and changing that culture from what it has been. So it feels like Geno and Pete, the next three years are going to be that and then they'll probably move on after that and see what's going on.

[Pat McAfee]

On Ty. Gino's professional football story arc is a crazy one. You know, obviously high school, highly regarded, comes to West Virginia, lights it up with Tavon Austin, Stedman Bailey and the boys. He has great success, gets drafted to New York, obviously highly sought after. This is going to go well. Doesn't go well, ends up going not well at all. Has to bounce around, become a backup, and then he finally gets his time to back in the light and he's taking advantage of it. Gino has.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, like, I don't think he really needs to revitalize his career because he already did that in Seattle pretty much. But we've seen what Chip Kelly does with a lot of these quarterbacks in their first year together in his offensive system. So, I mean, really, like, there's a chance that Gino reaches, you know, even higher heights that he hasn't really reached yet in Seattle with Chip Kelly. So I think everyone in Vegas is pretty excited to have this in the past and know that Geno is going to be their guy for the foreseeable future.

[Pat McAfee]

Gino can spin it. Chip Kelly just needs somebody that can spin it, you know, And I don't want to say like, you know, Kevin O'Connell obviously gets a lot of as we burn some sage here on this feel good Friday to get the bad vibes out of this place. Chip Kelly, Kevin O'Connell gets a lot of love on what he can do on an offense, what Chip Kelly can do with an offense, just an offense. Not having to worry about anything else. We saw whenever he goes to Ohio State, obviously college ball different than the NFL. He has experience in the NFL. He obviously has experience in college as well. It has massive success. Fresh out of The Will Howard 3rd and 11 call to Jeremiah Smith. They have more talent than everybody. Okay, look up the plays. Look how wide open everybody is. Chip Kelly was what they like to call in his bag during the playoff run. And I don't want to say it seemed like there was levels to this shit, but it did feel like, like obviously they had great players, but the way they were setting things up and how they were working and manipulating the defense, it's like Chip Kelly's brain is a very good one when it comes to offensive football. People would judge him as a head coach for the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFL. It didn't work out there. It's like, okay, still got a head coaching job in Philadelphia because of how great he was in Oregon and he goes to ucla. I don't think he has a lot of, like, help, support, support. I think from a lot of different, you know, avenues that you need support in, in the current landscape. Not saying that that hasn't changed. We're feels like that was probably the case with Chip. Then he goes over to Ohio State, wins the national championship. Now he's back with the Raiders. I think he's on a point to prove himself as well. So if he gets a quarterback that can spin it with Gino definitely can. If he gets quarterback that understands defenses with Gino Certainly has for how long he's been around the NFL. And you also have Brock Bowers over there still. I mean, there is a chance that what Chip Kelly is able to cook up with this offense with Geno, to your point, we do see maybe the best Gino that we've seen. And that has to be awesome for Geno to think he gets more money than he was going to get in Seattle. He gets a chance to go back with Pete Carroll, and also he gets an offensive, like, genius to be his offense. Not that not every offense coordinator is an offensive genius, but Chip Kelly's been around a long time, had a lot of success. He feels revitalized as well. Great play by Geno. This works out very, very well for him, I think. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Also have Jacoby Myers on the outside at wide receiver, who I believe was one of the only guys who had a 0% drop rate last year. But then just looking at it, too, you talk about Chip Kelly, you know, Geno tied to Pete Carroll for three years, and then you just think of what Brady has said. Quarterbacks, Chip Kelly, Will Howard. I mean, that's been a connection this entire time. But this deal kind of takes the Raiders off the board seemingly for that, you know, early quarterback with that number six overall pick. Now it does kind of seem as though, okay, they'll probably take one in the second or third round, which a lot of guys, I mean, Will Howard, Quinn Ewers, a few dudes that might be kind of projected around then. And, you know, Will Howard kind of fits. Not the exact same. And I'm. By no means am I calling Will Howard Tom Brady, but Will Howard has the size of Brady, and he played kind of a similar college football role as Tom Brady. I mean, Will Howard played a lot more, started a lot more games, but he was, you know, he was there till his senior year. He played in big games just like Brady, at a big school, just like Brady. And like, that would kind of fit the bill. And Tom has been so steadfast in the. In the thought of, hey, the most important thing for these young guys isn't rushing them, for them to sit behind and for them to kind of learn behind someone. And now Vegas kind of does turn into one of those places that becomes a perfect place for a younger guy to come in, not have to start right away, can learn behind Geno, no pressure to be the guy right off the bat. And, you know, you mentioned Brock Bowers. Any quarterback, whether they're young or old, having a Brock Bowers, who is, what, 120cat a year guy. Now right off the bat as a rookie, like he's going to be. Be good for so long. So that would be one of those spots. Now you kind of circle for a perfect situation for a younger guy.

[Pat McAfee]

Every decision that is made by the Raiders at this point, I'm viewing as like, good decision.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

You know, because Tom Brady's involved. Tom Brady wasn't involved. We'd be like the Raiders legitimately. What a culture shifter. At least from the outside looking in. And Pete and. And Pete Carroll as well. Yeah. Because Pete is distinguished. Pete, Chip, Tom, like people that have all had success are kind of in the building now. So the way we view their decisions is vastly different than it was just a couple years ago. Like a couple years ago, they make this move, we go, okay, is that going to help you anything?

[Ty Schmidt]

Sweet.

[Pat McAfee]

Now it's like, like what they're doing, Love what they're doing, is good for the Raiders fans. I know you guys have been sitting through it for a long, long time, so good for you guys. It feels like the rest of the world is catching up in respect level to the rest of the NFL, but also the AFC west is tough. So good luck out there. We're pulling for you. Now let's pivot away from the NFL. Congrats to Trey McBride as well. Four years, $43 million guaranteed tight end out there. Kyler Murray, celebrated as he should. McBride has been a dog since he got there. He gets paid out in Arizona as Gannon and the boys are trying to turn that team into a contender. Seemingly have all the pieces. Will they be able to figure it out? We shall see. Congrats to Trey McBride on getting a monster deal at a tight end position. Now let's pivot away from the NFL. Let's go to the NBA. Ladies and gentlemen, joining us now, senior insider for the NBA at espn, friend of the program, super handsome sham Sharan.

[Shams Charania]

Yeah, we're back, we're back, we're back. Not, not, not great news. Not great news for John Moran.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, so let's talk about this. We actually kind of see it as good news. We don't know the ins and outs of the entire situation. Feels like Adam Silver in the NBA could have suspended him for this. Instead, they opt for a $75,000 fine, which people will say is nothing to him. $75,000. Still a lot of money is. Is there. And I think what you reported there is like, they talked to him before the game about like, hey, this cannot become like the now, even if Ja thinks it's unfair and he's getting treated differently than everybody else. What he has done leading up to this point, and I know he was young, and I know we're kind of watching him mature in the public eye and everything like that, but he's going to be viewed differently whenever it comes to guns than everybody else in the NBA. Is he ever going to understand that? Is that going to be something that, like, we would like to see Jock continue to play basketball. Where are we at with the NBA talking to Ja about this and how does it get resolved, you think? Ultimately, yeah.

[Shams Charania]

I mean, on Thursday, the league came out, you know, through, you know, I reported it. They warned Ja Morant. They weren't also Buddy Hill. They warned the Grizzlies. They warned the warriors as well, like, like, knock it off, knock it off with the gun gestures. But of course, a lot of the messaging was around John Morant. He had the one right there that was a lot more blatant, a lot more forward than, than Buddy Heels was. And we know the context with John Morant. Morant. Clearly the league is watching it. The sentiment around John Morant is, is like he's been doing these gestures really all year, possibly in games that are not seen as much as the ones we saw national TV yesterday. The game against the Warriors. Every warriors game is big. So the, the league, league officials, they spoke to John Morant, they spoke to Buddy, they spoke to everyone with the Grizzlies, everyone with the warriors over the last 48 hours, and basically said, don't do it again. It's inappropriate, and refrain from doing, doing it. And then John Moran, hours later, goes out and does it.

[Pat McAfee]

First quarter.

[Shams Charania]

Said first quarter. Four minutes into the game, John Moran right there again. Great three pointer.

[Boston Connor]

Great.

[Shams Charania]

I think it might be time to find another celebration. I, I, the word, the word that I'm getting today is that, like, I think, I think there's an understanding here. And, and, you know, I think there would be some surprise if he does this again moving forward. There's a lot of other celebrations that can be possible, but guys around the league have been doing this. Like, this is just a John Morant thing.

[Pat McAfee]

We agree in the context of it.

[Shams Charania]

Exactly. The context around it is different. And, and the league is clearly watching this now.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. We would like to let John Moran know we are massive fans, massive fans of John Morant.

[Shams Charania]

The league is better when John Morant's on the floor thriving.

[Pat McAfee]

Bingo.

[Shams Charania]

100%.

[Pat McAfee]

And we said this earlier, it's like, hey, John, you might view it as unfair because they're going to judge you differently than everybody else, then, yeah, it's unfair. Then just move forward. We need you just to continue to play. We need you. You in the NBA. We need you in the sports world. And like we said earlier, sword. Take a sword out, bro. And even cut somebody's head off.

[Ty Schmidt]

Or Yakuza.

[Shams Charania]

Yeah, maybe that would have been a nice play on it. Maybe holster. Like, it's done.

[Ian Rapoport]

It's. It's over.

[Shams Charania]

Like, I'm. I'm not showing it.

[Ian Rapoport]

It's.

[Shams Charania]

It's in the holster.

[Pat McAfee]

Maybe hit a game.

[Boston Connor]

Hold on.

[Pat McAfee]

Charms. If we're in a brainstorming idea, let's definitely do that. Maybe it's a game winner. And then he says, like. And then he puts it away forever.

[Shams Charania]

That's what I'm saying. That would be.

[Jay Williams]

That.

[Shams Charania]

That would be tied to. Given the context of everything. Like, you guys are going to warn me for bringing. For bringing it out. I'm putting it in the holster now.

[Ty Schmidt]

He doesn't have holsters.

[Pat McAfee]

Huh?

[Shams Charania]

We all. Come on now. We can always get holsters. I can't report this past the league. Did speak to John Moran today.

[Pat McAfee]

And.

[Shams Charania]

And they said you said, listen, you're given a warning. The next step is a fine. There was not a threat of a suspension on the next one. But I think there's. There's clear levels to this, right? There was a warning given. Then there's a fine. Now listen, if it does happen again, maybe it's an increased fine. They didn't get there with him on it. But they told him. Listen, we told you already, you know, don't do it. And you did it.

[Pat McAfee]

He needs to take a sword.

[Shams Charania]

This is the consequence.

[Pat McAfee]

He needs to just take a sword out next time. Maybe even have a shield.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

You know, doing the entire thing. So. And then just don't, you know, just keep it moving. Jon, what we're saying is this is not worth. Like, this is. We get it. You're. Because of things that have happened in the past, you might be judged differently than everybody else. You might feel offended by it. That's okay. You're allowed to feel that way. Just fucking come on. You know? Like, we don't. This doesn't need to be something that takes your basketball away from our world, your money away from your pocket. And then whenever you're done, guess what's going to happen. There's going to be so many gun ranges, even in the backyard you can set up probably a shooting range down here in Tennessee. See Somewhere you could. You could pop, you can. You can do whatever you want with all these guns. Just don't shoot anybody else but you. And make sure license and sure you have a permanent warrant. I'm sorry, papers and everything. And then when you're done, you can do that Just now because of things that happen. You see, back in the day, there was a time where anytime somebody went live around you, you're, where's a gun? You know? And that's. That is why you're being judged differently. You don't deserve it, we're saying.

[Shams Charania]

And now. And now he has fans, other players, people in the audience, they're provoking this too, in a lot of ways. That's another thing I've heard in the last 24 hours. Like John Ray has also seen. Yeah, exactly.

[Boston Connor]

Buddy did one of these.

[Pat McAfee]

You don't have a gun, do you? Where's that at, bud? You got one? Show me.

[AJ Hawk]

There you go.

[Pat McAfee]

Let me see it. John. You gotta beat all these things, John. They're trying to take you down. Jeff, don't let any of these people beat you, okay? Because we need you out there. And also, also the NFL put in an initiative to get rid of the gun stuff. I like that the NBA is doing it as well because it's not something like. And I have guns, so it's not like. But it is something I think that the sports world is trying to be like, hey, this is not necessarily how we should roll. Especially with all the news coming out with all these killings that are happening in the world that we live in now. Let's move forward. I hear there's a chance maybe some breaking news. Did that happen or did that not happen? Zito told me Shams might have of breaking news. Was it on Jaw or was it.

[Shams Charania]

On life There there's always potential of breaking news. Nothing as of yet has hit my phone. But you know, when it does. Okay, when it does. Yeah, we're on standby.

[Pat McAfee]

All right, last question. Last question here. Connor has one for you.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, Sean's obviously final four this weekend. Cooper Flag projected number one overall pick. Are all the NBA teams going to be there? Is Cooper Flag con caniple, you know, Johnny Brum. Are all those guys being looked at as lottery picks? And how many scouts would you say are there? And also how many guys aside from, you know, the household names are going to be playing this weekend that will probably get drafted in the first or.

[Shams Charania]

Second round BC if scouts are doing their final or if their scouts doing their main discovery of Cooper Flag Their main scouting. It's probably not going to be a Final Four weekend. I think a lot of scouts, a lot of executives happened was the NCAA tournament. But I do think there will be some high level executives there. Not sure how many scouts will be there, but definitely there's going to be GMs in the building. GMs in San Antonio this weekend. There's a lot going on around San Antonio this weekend. There's a lot of NBA related things. There's the NBA events, there's the Nation Basketball hall of Fame enshrinement on Saturday, tomorrow as well in San Antonio. So a lot going on around weekend in San Antonio beyond just the games. But Cooper Flag has clearly emerged the number one potential pick this year in the draft. But the biggest thing that I see from him is you see the it factor, you see the intangible, you see this level of toughness drive. The guy had a nasty ankle sprain. You saw him being taken out in a wheelchair. His, you know, he had swelling size of a tennis ball and a week later he's back on the court. Maybe that's him being 18 years old, but maybe, maybe he just is that tough.

[Pat McAfee]

He's got a good kid, good family. He's good kid, he's got good fam. Heard that from Joe in Maine, you know, because Cooper Flag is the main event. When I flew back from London, did customs in Maine, Bangor, Maine, because Indianapolis doesn't have 24 hour customs. So fly back middle of the night, land in Bangor, Maine, gentleman, I believe his name was Joe comes on and I'm just waking up, you know, just like kind of waking up in the middle of the plane. And my first question obviously is about the main event. I'm like is am I near where Cooper Flag's from? The glowing things that this guy had to say about Cooper Flag, his family, the boy that he is, just immediately on cue it's like I'm happy to hear that the entire state is proud of him. But also he's lived up to the hype immediately upon going down to Duke. They're a fun team to watch. Got a great four teams. Hey, you just mentioned how everything's going on down in San Antonio around Final Four. I think what I learned from like All Star weekend here in Indianapolis is because you guys are a series driven sport. There isn't like a Super bowl event where everybody's at. So like some of these different events are utilized as that. Whether it's meetings or like corporate events or things. Is the final Four one of Those for NBA as well, or just basketball as a whole.

[Shams Charania]

Final Four is definitely one of those types of events.

[Pat McAfee]

Honestly, Pat.

[Shams Charania]

Summer league. Summer league in Las Vegas, that is kind of the. Like, everyone is there there. Everyone's talking shop. I don't know if it's winter meetings, maybe the G League showcase that's usually held in December. That's the closest thing to like the NBA's version of winter meetings where like all the executives will be in one setting for two or three day period about a couple of months before the NBA trade deadline. And essentially a lot of the early conversations end up happening there. What we see in the summer is a lot of catch up, a lot of like, you know, let's talk after free agency, you know, let's talk after the draft. But there are sometimes still some very outstanding issues that are still there in mid July. I remember one year I went to Vegas and the whole conversation was about Kawhi Leonard. And I found out near the end of summer league that he was probably going to go to the Toronto Raptors. A week later, he ends up being traded from the spurs to the Toronto Raptors. I think it was 2018. So a lot of business happens at the Las Vegas NBA Summer League.

[Pat McAfee]

I've been doing this. We appreciate the hell out of you. Have a great weekend, brother.

[Shams Charania]

Appreciate y'all. Thank you.

[Pat McAfee]

Ladies and gentlemen, Sham. Sharon.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, there's breaking news coming.

[Ty Schmidt]

It's always coming down the pipeline.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, it's always just coming and commenting.

[Ty Schmidt]

My name's not Sean Sharanya.

[Pat McAfee]

No, it's news is coming and coming and coming. Sean Sharan. Yep.

[Boston Connor]

Bingo.

[Pat McAfee]

How about him dropping like, I think 2018, I learned, Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's like seven, seven years ago. Obviously, at this point, him. It's just like shrags, them getting dropped into the roles at the rd, espn. And a lot of these suits at ESPN have never seen anybody that isn't on espn. Right. Because that's like literally all they watch. So then Shams gets dropped in. I think he's met with some resistance, you know. Sure. Because in that world insider game, especially with Woj and how many, you know, and the way Woj and Choms, you know, the way that whole thing kind of went down, you know, pretty competitive, I think, is the way it would be said. And then Shams just drops in there and just gets to work and continues to do what he's been doing for like the last 10 years or whatever. It's like, I feel like he is such an asset for ESPN at this point and for the next 30 years. That dude's so young. I mean, obviously he looks younger than he actually is. It's like, we're lucky that Sean's been in our orbit and I'm thankful that he's doing what he's doing for espn. Same thing with Shreks. It's like, I know Good Morning Football was seen by a lot of execs. I know a lot of suits watched it. I know that was one of the shows that like NFL Network obviously on every single building. But a lot of TV people watched it because it was what I critically acclaimed, I guess, and award winning and all that stuff. It changed, you know, morning television. Kyle, Nate, K. Pete, like, that was a hell of a run. Award winning. But I don't know how many people, like, know shrags at ESPN because he's Fox NFL Network guy. Then he comes in his first couple days, just absolutely crushes it. They're like, oh, these guys are like, professional and charming. It's been cool to kind of watch like the reaction. Reaction, I think. And also, I assume internally we're not up in Connecticut much, thank God. But good people up there. Good people. Well, by listening to them potentially be questioning what's going on. Obviously thinking they're smarter than everybody in the situation. Oh, I deserve this. I deserve. And then Shams and like, Shregs coming in. Like, I don't want to say earning it, but like, you get it. Like, proving that it was right decision. I'm happy for him.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah. Especially with the NBA. With Shams, it felt like, you know, obviously he had news since he's gotten there, but then having like, the Luca AD trade, it felt like that was kind of like the crowning moment of this NBA season as far as, you know, breaking news goes. Because the jaw stuff and all that, like, sure, that is absolutely breaking easy stuff.

[Pat McAfee]

You're reading a memo.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, but the level of being the one that finds out about Luca and AD and then hearing, you know, Shams talk about. I mean, we show the tweet, it had over 100 million views on the tweet. Like, it was the biggest thing that's ever happened. And that was also at, you know, what, 1:00am so it wasn't as if it was middle of the day. Like, Sean's is a worker and it feels like it has showed.

[Pat McAfee]

We love them. And speaking of insiders that have to work their asses off, Ladies and gentlemen, senior insider at NFL Network for the NFL, friend of the program with his weekly Wrap up with Rap Sheet and Friends. Us being the friends, he being Rap Sheet. Ladies and gentlemen, Ian Rap the pool. Rap. We were just singing the praises of Shams, you know, going into a new place that maybe a lot of people are questioning why he got his role. And then him just since then, kind of crushing it for all of us and being proud of him just like we are of you. Rap.

[Boston Connor]

Proud of you, buddy.

[Field Yates]

Thanks. I'm proud of Shams too.

[Pat McAfee]

You've been great. You've been great to us, as has Shams over the years. Let's talk about some NFL stuff that has happened thus far. Let's start with today. It's not a pro day. It's a showcase. I love that. I love that Deion is like, this ain't a pro day. This is a showcase of our guys. And I think that's a much better name, much better term and a much better description of what these workouts have become. I believe James Palmer just reported that Travis Hunter will be running routes at this for Shador and everything. What should we be expecting out of this? And I know that the entire Cleveland Browns brass is there. The entire Giants brass is there. Is that for Travis? Is that for Chador? Is that just to go out to beautiful Colorado? What are your thoughts on today and what's the big takeaway you think out of this show?

[Field Yates]

Kevin Case, Colorado is beautiful. I've never been to Boulder, but I've been to Denver.

[Pat McAfee]

It's beautiful, man. Beautiful place.

[Field Yates]

It seems like, I mean, seems like it would be an awesome place to go to college. So you mentioned a lot of Browns personnel, a lot of Giants personnel, not a ton of Titans personnel, just I add them because obviously they have the number one overall pick and are going to be doing all the homework for the truly elite prospects of which, you know, Shador and Travis Hunter are two of them. The Titans are going to have their own workout for these two guys on April 9th, which is sometime Wednesday.

[Pat McAfee]

Wednesday, April 9th. Yes. Big night. Wednesday, April 9th, live on YouTube, TikTok and X.

[Field Yates]

There's something else that night.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, all right, just go on. Ready? Please just go on.

[Field Yates]

So anyway, so Titans brass will be at the private workout. So the, the some of the sort of more high profile people, including Brian Callahan, will not be at the Colorado workout. So that's sort of the housekeeping part of it. As far as what we will see. We will see Shador Sanders throw and go through a throwing workout. Like we've seen some of the other top quarterbacks didn't do it at the combine. Wanted to save it for here in part because, you know, not only wanted to throw with some of his guys and several of them will be NFL caliber receivers, but I think also wanted to bring attention to those guys as well. Like if you save everything for your not pro day but for your showcase, everyone will be there and we might air it live in NFL Network, which is exactly what's going to happen. So not only will Shadora get the shine, but his receivers role as well. And then there was a discussion of like, what will Travis Hunter do? Initially the word was he's not going to work out, he's not going to do drills, he's not going to run, which is kind of a bummer, only selfishly because he is a truly elite athlete and it's fun to watch those guys do their thing. And now we find out that he's expected to run routes for Shador. So it doesn't sound like DB drills, but we do get to see some if him at receiver. So should be a really fun day in Boulder.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, so it's a big day, obviously. Is there some draft implications potentially? Do teams already know what they want to do and they're just trying to solidify that potentially. You never know what's going to happen. And shout out to Shador and Travis having all these teams come watch all the other guys that are going to be a part of the showcase as well. And no offense to just saying other guys, but you get it. That's a big deal. Like, whenever Pat White, Steve Slayton and the boys were coming out, the amount of people that came to our pro day at West Virginia versus years past was vastly different. That's interesting. Putting on for everybody, you know, that's a. That's a really cool thing and obviously we'll see how it all shakes up. And that guy right there catching touchdowns in the NFL is going to be awesome to watch. I mean, and then the next series, him coming in and locking somebody down is going to be awesome to watch. Crazy cannot wait for him in the league.

[Field Yates]

There's like, there's not a lot of guys. I mean, I've been looking and trying to talk to people like, who does he remind you of? And I don't. It's just really hard.

[Pat McAfee]

Like he's on defenses like Richard Sherman and Revis kind of combined, but with speed.

[Field Yates]

I mean, faster than probably both of those guys.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, that's on defense and then on offense, like what you're saying he has a speed of like a Randy. If he really wants to. Doesn't have. It has the. Yeah. It's like. It's an insane. It's an insane comp. All of it in two different positions, let alone if he was to go return kicks. Yeah. Which I assume he could if he had to. So good for Travis Hunter and all those team brass being at those. You would normally assume that'd be for a quarterback. It's like, that could very much be there for this particular guy. So congrats to prime. Congrats to Colorado being, you know, the epicenter of the NFL draft prospects today in a showcase. I like the name Showcase a lot better than pro day as well, going forward.

[Field Yates]

Yeah, I agree.

[Pat McAfee]

I like. It's a show. I report on a show because we've seen these choreographed exhibition workouts, and it's like, this is a show here. This is. Obviously, we're doing it. This is not real football. It's a program. This is a program. Yeah. Okay, we're gonna start out with a little loop de loo. Okay. And let's get them excited a little bit. Let's do a deep shot over here. Oh, let's roll out over here. Need a drag route. Under. Oh, underhand.

[Ty Schmidt]

Going for a pet.

[Pat McAfee]

Now let's run it for one. Maybe shake somebody. It's like a show. It is a show. So I appreciate that. Go ahead.

[Field Yates]

No, I was gonna say, like, you sort of really captured it, because it used to be, like, well, obviously you have to work out for NFL teams, otherwise, how are they going to know whether or not they should draft you? And that was sort of like, you have to do the combine, and then you have to do pro Day. And that was always the way it was. And then over the last, like, five years or so, I mean, kind of going along with the movement in the country in college football, and really just sort of in general, being in charge of your own brand and your own person and everything. It's been more players being like. Like, when Lamont didn't run, I remember being stunned. Like, how could he not run? And then it was like, what does he need to run for? You see how fast he is. And it was like, to me, just as someone who does this year after year, it was kind of an awakening. Like, I think Lamar's right. Like, he's running for who? And like, these. I mean, look, you want to draft Travis Hunter, put the tape on. Like, you will see many reasons to draft him in the top five. Chador's a little different because, you know, teams might want to see more specific things as a quarterback, but, like, player empowerment is clearly upon us, and this is another good example of it.

[Pat McAfee]

I think the reason why, to your point about player empowerment and understanding, brand and value and risks and pros, like, there's so many of those things at a younger age now. But I think coaches and scouting people have maybe let too much information out. So, like, whenever coaches just say, I'm not going to the club. I don't need to go to combine. I'll just watch. And whenever scouts are like, well, the top 30 visits are actually much more important than what's going on at the combine. What's going on at pro day. I think agents, players all hear that and they're like, well, if that's how they're viewing it, like, how important should it be for us in this entire thing, you know? So I think it is like a, I guess, kind of a state of the world that we're in. State of football that we're in. But I do think there's a benefit for all the other guys, too. Medical. If. If you weren't invited to the combine, you could do medical. Height, weight, guys are still going to run 40s, which once again is a show that is watching guys run, which the NFL Network obviously has captured and captivated the masses with the combine workout as a whole. So I. I think it's just where we're at. I don't know what it ends up becoming, though. You know, I don't think any of us know what ends up happening. Now let's talk about some of those top 30 visits and everything like that. AP Tone has a question for you. Rap.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, Ian, Speaking of show showcases and quarterback showcasing at pro days, I heard, I was listening to Bucky Brooks and Daniel Jeremiah this morning. They were saying that Jackson Dart put on a showcase at his. He was running it all himself. He was holding court, asking NFL coaches, what do you guys want to see now? I could do it. I'll show you. And then you just tweeted out that it was interesting that Jackson Dart was a top 30 visit for the Pittsburgh Steelers today. Why is that interesting? What do you know?

[Field Yates]

Yeah, you know, it's. It is interesting to me. First of all, it sounded like his pro day did go exceptionally well. Definitely in the conversation to be the number three quarterback taken. And if you say to me right now, what is my guess? Just guess where he goes. I would say first round is very much, very much a possibility for. For Jackson Dart.

[Ty Schmidt]

Wow.

[Field Yates]

You know, maybe mid to late first round, but I Mean, I probably would have said the same thing for Bonix last year and he went 12. So like quarterbacks are, you know, hard to. Hard to predict. The Steelers one is interesting. Interesting because, you know, he is obviously very talented. If he goes middle to back of first round and he goes to a team that may or may not soon have Aaron Rodgers, like, that's not a long term answer. He would love a long term answer. Jackson Dart has been the guy where people, I mean, if you look kind of like the back half of the draft, there's not a ton of teams, there's some, but not a ton of teams that need a quarterback like, you know, as their franchise guy. The Steelers are one. One that would be one that makes some sense to me if that's someone that they view that they could take there.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, Rap, as you were talking there and you said he's going to back up Aaron Rodgers, I think you put out a tweet saying the word futile. Is that how you pronounce the word about him? Potentially what Ben Roethlisberger said? I think you said it on the Insider.

[Field Yates]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. Yeah, so let's. Hold on, let me set. So people that don't necessarily know the situation might be Ben Roethlisberger on Footballing with Ben Roethlisberger brought to you by John Eagle, who Shout out is one of the greatest places, market, district, literally on earth. Miss it out here in Indianapolis. It's a Pittsburgh place. John Ogle, he said that he thought that Aaron was waiting out for Minnesota. Now that's just Ben thinking. I don't think Ben has any sources anywhere. I don't think Ben's talking to the Steelers. I don't think the Steelers are giving Ben information. I think that's literally just Ben kind of pontificating on the situation. So when he says that you then I believe on the insiders say that you think Big Ben isn't wrong here, that he's potentially doing that. And then you said, even Rogers knows now that weight would be futile. That weight would be futile. So what do you mean by that? What are you hearing? And because, because Minnesota was a pipe dream that we were just kind of conceptualizing then it was like seemingly a potential thing. Then it was, now we're moving forward without him, but didn't close the door completely. Now you're basically saying that from what you've heard, Minnesota is out on Aaron Rodgers because futile, I had to look it up basically means worthless. The weight would be worthless. Right?

[Field Yates]

Yeah. I actually went through a couple different Word choices there. I didn't want to come out too strong and I did the thesaurus.com, you know, took like, oh, yeah. And then that was a word I, I settled on, which I is a good one. I think it's a really good one.

[Pat McAfee]

Way to go, Ralph. Way to go, Ralph. Thank you. Thank you.

[Field Yates]

It took me a while to craft that, to craft that tweet. So I don't think the Vikings were a pipe dream for Aaron Rodgers. I think it was at one point real enough to where I know he considered it and I know the Vikings considered it because reality is if you're Aaron, if you're, if you're any team that needs a quarterback and you have a four time mvp, future hall of Famer saying like, hey, you're someone I'd like to play for, you have to consider it is your job to consider it, whoever your quarterback is. And I think J.J. mcCarthy is really talented. More importantly, the Vikings think. Vikings think J.J. mcCarthy is very talented, but at least they had to consider it. Based on my conversations with Vikings people in Palm beach, based on what Kwesi Dofo Mentzed told colleague Tom Pelissero on air there, they're. They're all in on J.J. mcCarthy. And, you know, I've had to think, like, what would have to happen for them to say, all right, we are now not in and let's go sign Aaron Rodgers. Let's just say Rodgers waits, which I don't think he would, but let's say he does. It would have to be like through training camp for them to be like, all right, JJ's not what we thought. We need a veteran. Let's go sign Roger. Like, he's not going to wait that long. I don't even think that's going to happen because I would bet JJ is going to be really, really good. So what I meant by Rogers realized that wait is futile is he realized that if he waited, it probably still wouldn't happen. And you know, him signing with the Steelers, I'm not going to say it's a fait accompli, but it certainly seems like the most likely thing to happen.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. Makes you feel real smart. Smart all of a sudden.

[Field Yates]

I mean, yeah, that was the, that was the, the antonym.com.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay.

[Field Yates]

You know, feudal and.

[Pat McAfee]

But anyway, yeah, feudal. We just had it pulled. Is it futile or futile?

[Ty Schmidt]

I like to sound a futile.

[Boston Connor]

I believe it's futile.

[Field Yates]

Of course you do.

[Ty Schmidt]

Mobile, hostile.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, it takes a while to get used to hearing somebody say feudal, especially if you Know that the proper pronunciation has got to be feudal. Yeah. I don't understand what fy o O D O. That. That is. That's feudal for sure. That is certainly feudal right underneath there.

[Ty Schmidt]

It makes it sound so much.

[AJ Hawk]

That's so terrible word.

[Pat McAfee]

That dumb word you use. But nonetheless incapable of producing any useful result.

[Boston Connor]

Oxford's wrong again.

[Pat McAfee]

Would be pointless. It would be futile is what he's saying. If he. Aaron, continues to wait. Okay, let's continue to some more news from the NFL. Yeah, we get it. Okay.

[Ty Schmidt]

Word sucks.

[Pat McAfee]

All right. We. We rap. She okay? Yeah. All right. I'm about that one. Anyways, let's talk about other shit that came out this week that we find notable that we don't know all the answers to. Go ahead, Connor.

[Ty Schmidt]

Rap sheet. Huge news from the league meetings this week is that there'll be three Christmas games this year. I think everybody can agree this Christmas in 2024, it kind of stunk after, you know, know, the clock hit seven and there were no more football games. So now there will be a night game. It's on Thursday Night Football on Prime. Is that only because it's Thursday night that there will be three games, or can we expect there to be three games on Christmas just going forward and that will be the new norm? And will that also become like a bidding game where, you know, different networks can kind of try and pay for that night game on Christmas because Netflix has the 1:00 and 4:30 game.

[Field Yates]

Well, first of all, it is Thursday this week or it is three games this week because it's on Thursday. But I know enough about the NFL and I've seen this enough to where, like, if it works and it's going to work, I mean, it worked last year when the whole world watched Netflix on Christmas. Hopefully the pregame show just because of, I don't know, some people are on the pregame show. Did a great job. Wore my new green blanket.

[Pat McAfee]

Brigazzi was on there. CM Punk was on there.

[Ty Schmidt]

JJ Watt did great.

[Field Yates]

There was a couple good ones.

[Ty Schmidt]

Laura was Kurt Kreischer outside going, okay.

[Pat McAfee]

Mina was on there.

[Boston Connor]

It was fun.

[Field Yates]

RG3 was on there. Did a great job. Anyway, it was a good cast.

[Pat McAfee]

A good cast.

[Ty Schmidt]

For the most part.

[Pat McAfee]

It was good Christmas experience. But to Connor's point, games ended. That's when everybody's getting like their second. They've just taken like the nap and now there's like a Christmas night. So I apologize. We cut you off.

[Field Yates]

No, I mean, I just, I. I feel the same as you guys that, like, if three games works, which it probably will, because it always does.

[Pat McAfee]

Super wild card weekend, brother. You know?

[Field Yates]

Yeah, just like, keep putting it on and I'm gonna keep watching. And like, the way holidays are now, I'm so, like, I think we're all kind of messed up where it's like, all right, holiday, get the presents, do the meal. Like, what game? Amazon. Right. Like, that's just. We're sort of in condition to do that, and I'm here for all of it. So my guess is that it's probably something we're going to see in the future. But doing it on Thursday, having it on Thursday, having a Thursday night Amazon game anyway, probably a good way to kind of open the door for just more football at a time where we're all going to want to watch it.

[Pat McAfee]

I'll be intrigued because I don't know how the Roman calendar works. So I don't know what day Christmas will be on next year, but will that continue to be a Bezos night game? You know, like, if they have Christmas night the first time, because it's Thursday night game, you know. Right. Well, they. If it's next time on Friday, Saturday, will Amazon still try to get that? It's on Friday.

[Field Yates]

I mean, that's a big, big showcase. I mean, that's a, you know, that's a massive showcase. I mean.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, yeah. Netflix is going to want that, though. Like, if that's going to continue to be a thing, Netflix will definitely want that. Right. Because it'll be main event. You can assume. If any other streaming platforms are trying to get in the game, Peacock might try to get in there. Who knows if NBC will have enough money. No offense to NBC. We're just talking about the reality of the situation with Peacock vs Amazon and Netflix at this stage of the game. But it's like, that's a massive money maker for the NFL. Massive. And they have a lot of those opportunities going forward for, like, special games here especially Black Friday became a game all of a sudden. You can put two on that particular day. You can really start running. You can start running, running up the scoreboard with the money. And that obviously helps out the salary cap. That obviously helps out the future. I mean, it's like the NFL is still sitting on a gold mine with a lot of growth still in front of him. At some point, it's going to slow down, but right now it's definitely not, as these platforms are trying to only get more advanced.

[Boston Connor]

Ian, I saw a report, kind of like the Lions and Cowboys have Thanksgiving. Is it true the Chiefs won Christmas Day every year?

[Ty Schmidt]

Is that.

[Boston Connor]

I saw a report about that. Is that true? Have you heard that?

[Field Yates]

Yeah, I mean I have also heard that and I would too if I were them. It's. You know, I don't want to say everyone's jealous of the Lions and Cowboys, but it sort of feels like they. Because like that's a huge platform and when the Lions were bad it was kind of weird because it's like we all had to watch them on Thanksgiving even though like still an event now they're not bad. Now they're actually good. And the whole country gets to watch like some of the best players.

[Pat McAfee]

The whole country went through a lot with this Lions Thanksgiving tradition was to watch the Lions lose every year. He's.

[Field Yates]

We got to watch Barry Sanders for years. And for those of us who didn't get to watch on a regular basis even though the teams were bad, that was a cool.

[Pat McAfee]

Calvin Johnson. Matthew Stafford had a run.

[AJ Hawk]

John Kitna Cooper.

[Pat McAfee]

No. Who was your guys back? Yeah, was that. Who was the backup quarterback for Matthew Stafford that played that one year? Do you remember this?

[AJ Hawk]

Oh, David.

[Pat McAfee]

Wow. We spent Thanksgiving Purdue.

[Boston Connor]

Great.

[Pat McAfee]

That was good time. Yeah, you're right. We.

[Field Yates]

I thought you were talking about another Stafford backup who may or may not have been on your show yesterday.

[Ty Schmidt]

Nah, that guy sucks.

[Pat McAfee]

Soski N. Orlowski. Did he play on thing? He had to have, I guess.

[Ty Schmidt]

I hope not. I assume he did at some point for everyone's sake.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, I remember throwing up.

[Pat McAfee]

All right. Yeah, that's cuz you ate too much, you fat. So yeah, it's not because Dan Orlovsky playing football. Gez Louis. It's been a big week for the Orlovskies.

[Boston Connor]

I had to eat. Yeah, it was a concussion after a.

[Pat McAfee]

Turkey bowl, of course. Hey, you were a thought dog in those turkey bowls too from what I heard. Okay. Other things happening this week. Ty has a question for you.

[AJ Hawk]

Rap sheet it's been reported that James Cook put his house up for sale in Buffalo. And then earlier this year we heard that Brandon Bean said like, hey, we kind of talked about an extension but nothing ever really happened so we kind of just tabled it. Is there anything going on here? We know that he wants to be paid with the top guys in the league, but it's not quite there yet. I think it was like a couple weeks ago, maybe a month ago. He took all of like the bill stuff out of his social media. What's going on with this whole situation?

[Field Yates]

It's not great. I would not describe it as great right now. I mean, he's going to, you know, he'll play for the Bills next year. The house for sale is sort of something that always catches my eye because, like, first of all, it doesn't necessarily mean anything, but players know it gets reported. So when you do that, it's like, if you're going to do that, that's like a pretty big statement. That's as big as is like taking your team out of your social media where it's like, you don't need to do it. Does it really affect things? I don't know, but everyone notices. Like, it is like, I know enough now. I followed this world enough, this new world enough where like, when a player takes a team out of social media or like, like unfollows, like stuff's about to go down, like something is not right. I know the negotiations didn't go great. I do know he's a player of the bill would like to have in their future because he's young and he's awesome on the field. I'm not sure him coming out and saying that he wanted to make $15 million was really like the most welcome thing in the organization. I think they can get back together and maybe get on the same page and somehow do a deal. Theoretically, it's not going to be anytime soon, and I think they'll have to be a sort of conversation to get everyone back on the same page and maybe reel back some of what's been published public. But as of right now, like, this is not in the greatest place of all time.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. I mean, he might hate his neighbor, too. We don't know what the neighbor. Yeah, yeah.

[Field Yates]

Also could be like, that'll happen. May just want to move closer to like, you know, Bar Bill or one of the other good wing plate. There could be other reasons.

[Pat McAfee]

Yes. But yeah, I mean, I have certainly wanted to move immediately upon entering. Entering a house or somebody entering a house in my neighborhood and saying, I would like to get out of here. You know, I don't like the way this is going right here. Soon get me out of town. So maybe that's the case and maybe they come back to good graces because remember, whenever they let James Cook see what we did there, a lot of magic started happening, you know, so hopefully they're able to continue that. Will James be able to get paid in Buffalo or will he go somewhere else? It may be Saquon Barkley. Okay. As we're coming up on a hard out here, at the end of hour one here on this feel good Friday weekly wrap up with rap sheet friends. The big wrap up of this week would be league meetings. Big conversation coming out of that is they've tabled the tush push convo until a later date. Now, there has been a lot of chatter around this. Whenever they table something to move it to a later date, does that mean that they're trying to make people forget about and we'll talk about this later, we'll talk about this later, or does that mean that there's going to be actual movement from now until the actual later date and we should potentially see something?

[Field Yates]

It feels like there will be. The second thing feels like there will be movement. And a lot of times what tabling is, is. Is get away from the meetings and you start to sort of collect your people. You start to recruit and like, kind of get people on the same page or step away from the lobby. Lobbying lobby, yes, lobby. You start to, like, say, all right, what if we went back to this language? And also, you know, I think the Eagles sound like they made a very impassioned plea to keep it. Those conversations with other people, not the Eagles, are probably easier when the Eagles aren't a ground. Right. So you can do all these things kind of like in a separate room, you know, and just. Just kind of get everyone to a point where I think the language potentially could change. And if you say to me, like, what's the likely scenario? I would say maybe go back to the 2004 language where, like, you couldn't pull, push, or pull anyone that way. It might be the most fairest possible possible. Yeah, but still a little ways to go.

[Pat McAfee]

And then there's also a possibility where it can only be one person pushing to. Right. They. You think that there is going to be some sort of change made, is what you're saying.

[Field Yates]

It feels like it just because usually, like, if something's going to get voted down, like we saw things get voted down, but if something's going to be voted down, they usually do it. If they think it has a chance to pass, they usually table it and sort of collect themselves. That's where it feels like this is going.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, Philly fans, we're all on your side. You know, in Philadelphia, Eagles people, whenever they say, oh, we can do it better than everybody else, is that not a talent? You're saying, this is not a thing. You want to take it away from us? Of course, they're the super bowl champs, you know, so it's hard to just do A complete woe is me type situation for you guys, because you're on top of the league right now and your roster seemingly is only going to continue to go that way. But if I was an Eagles fan, I'd be shouting that, oh, we're too tough. That's why everybody's trying to stop us. Certainly use that as a chip on the shoulder going forward. Which Philadelphia people. People definitely will. Hey, you remember in 2025 when Eagles were tougher than everybody else, like that you'll be able to say that forever, no matter what takes place. Last thing here. We got two minutes. And you said if it gets tabled, that means there's certainly going to be a conversation follow up as opposed to just trying to kind of wish it away. Roger Goodell talked about the Lions proposal about seeding for the playoff, and I think there was a couple different conversations around that. Like if maybe the team from the division has a losing record record, maybe then they get docked as opposed to everybody that has this situation. We think it's going to be very difficult to get owners to agree to not letting the division champs have a home playoff game, because every year that is kind of the conversation. What do you think it's going to end up being? And do you think there's real consideration to changing the way the playoffs are, even with how successful the playoffs currently are?

[Field Yates]

Yeah, I was. I have to say I was really surprised. I assume this would get voted down, like it always has been in and kind of just move forward. And then you started to hear like, pretty good debate. Maybe it gets tabled. And I was like, I was just surprised. I was sort of like you. Where it's like, no division winner would ever not want to have a home game. That's what you play for. But it does seem like there's a little momentum toward if a division winner has a losing record, maybe they don't host a playoff game. Which, like, even if you're the division winner, you could sort of like, understand. Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Because you're just pumped to be in the playoffs, I think, at that point. So even your favorite.

[Field Yates]

And you know that like you didn't. Right. It's not like, you know, do you deserve a home game, winning a division with a losing record, like, ah. And it doesn't happen that often. So I would say yeah, that to me that feels like that's a possibility in Mayo as well.

[Pat McAfee]

That's awesome. We appreciate you have an incredible weekend. We'll talk to you next week. Ladies and gentlemen, from the NFL Network, Ian Rapaport okay, so maybe they don't change it. Like yeah, if you have a losing record and you win your division and we have a division has three teams that are in there, you're not getting seated above them. Okay, Vikings deserve a home playoff game is basically what they said last year.

[Ian Rapoport]

TaxAct can think of a million things.

[Pat McAfee]

More fun than filing taxes. TaxAct is going to name some now. Sitting in traffic folding a fitted bedsheet, listening to your co worker talk about.

[Ian Rapoport]

His fantasies team digging a hole. Digging an even larger hole next to that original hole.

[Pat McAfee]

Unfortunately, TaxAct's filing software can't make taxes fun, but TaxAct can help you get them done.

[Ian Rapoport]

TaxAct let's get them over with Ever.

[Gumpy]

Had your deposit blocked by your bank right before a big bet? Ever needed cash at 2am for another shot at the tables but hit your ATM limit? Edge boost has your beta. Edge Boost is the first ever bank account built for betters. With Edge Boost, all your gambling related transactions will always be approved. No more headaches for you high rollers. You can move up to $250,000 a day on your Edge Boost Visa debit card with unlimited withdrawals. This works 24,7 for instant deposits. Never wait for a wire to clear again. It gets better Every time you deposit into a qualified gambling account you earn cash back rewards up to 0.5%. All this for no usage fees and no minimum balance. This is a bank account, not a credit card so there is no approval required or credit checks. Finally, Edge Boost has a suite of responsible gambling tools to help you manage your bankroll and make informed decisions. What are you waiting for? Go to edgeboost Bet. That's edgeboost bet.

[Pat McAfee]

Sports are happening all around us and we're incredibly lucky that that we get a chance to chat about it every single day. Especially on this feel good Friday Final Four weekend tomorrow we can't wait to celebrate college basketball in its highest form with four teams left, two from the sec, Houston and Duke on the other side who will end up continuing their chase of their one shining moment this March madness that has been littered with favorites. Don't dominating four ones for the first time. Long time represented down in San Antonio. We will certainly watch and follow along as a school changes its trajectory. Will Duke be able to win with a new head coach in Shire? How about Kelvin Sampson and the boys down in Houston? Are they going to be cutting down nuts again? How about Auburn? Bruce Pearl welcome back to the Star. Welcome back to the spotlight. Welcome back to Bruce Bruce Pearl who's an absolute dog and was able to get the War Eagle boys rolling. And then Seth Greenberg's Florida team. He has been talking about them since before this tournament started. He was in love with the SEC as a whole, which ended up being a pretty accurate depiction of how the tournament would unfold. Seven SEC teams would be in the Sweet 16, but this Florida team and this Clayton Jr. Fella who makes every big time shot in this Florida team that is wide open and taking on Auburn's a wonderful way to start the Final Four. Congrats to college basketball. Yeah, we'll be celebrating you all weekend. The talks and tables here at Boston. Connor and that Ty Schmidt one half of the Hammer Ball Ballcat boys. AP Tones here. Tone. Pirates take on the Yankees and Pittsburgh Pirates home opener. We assume that the North Shore Diner is pretty lit right now. We assume it's pretty excited. We assume that the pitcher that's pitching for the Pittsburgh Pirates today is a guy that's really, really good. And we assume that the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Buckos are going to be raising a Jolly Roger after this game ever is Ambelli. Fireworks kind of captivate the night sky in the lovely city of Pittsburgh after they beat the New York Yankees ass today.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, Pittsburgh is one of those cities that normally loves opening day. It's. It kind of sucks that it's more than a week into the season and their home opener is there because their record is already, you know, not great. So I hope that doesn't stop people from coming out today. It's. It's not bad. Little day down in Pittsburgh. 58, I believe, is the perfect. And, and also when you have the Yankees in town, the Yankees are a huge draw. So I would expect a big crowd for Mitch.

[Pat McAfee]

Yankees can't fill up PNC park on opening day. Okay. We need Pirates fans in there, not Yankees fans. Do Yankees fans travel?

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, I mean, there's Yankees fans everywhere. You know, you, I mean, you obviously in the picture of you wearing the Yankees hat, you know, so kind of one of those things. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I believe you're at some, some sort of event with Pierre Garcon maybe, and you had a Yankees ball cap on. So, I mean, that didn't happen.

[Pat McAfee]

I liked whenever the old guy, I don't know what his name is.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, the boss.

[Pat McAfee]

The boss.

[Boston Connor]

George.

[Pat McAfee]

He spent more money, everybody. I was like, I like the guy that there is no restrictions on the amount of money that he would spend to win. And he would say, it's not my fault. He'd actually say, it ain't my fault. And then he would just give everybody the most amount of money and I'm like, hey, I don't play baseball. I'm not a big baseball player, guy. But if I'm pulling for a team, I wish the Pirates would do what the Yankees are doing right now. So, yeah, maybe I bought a ball cap to support that.

[Ty Schmidt]

Sure, I get it.

[Pat McAfee]

Maybe I had eyes on the pinstripes, you know, a couple different times, more so than other teams. But don't get it twisted. Paul Skeens, Pirates. Yeah, I'm a bucko buddy.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, no, I get it.

[Ty Schmidt]

That's what's funny. Why Paul Skeens, Pirates, Typical Pirates fashion, you not know there's a rotation and all that. How's he pitched yesterday and then the home openers today? He can't just, he can't just pitch the home opener.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, this guy didn't know baseball. Please explain.

[Ty Schmidt]

I. I just said I get the rotation.

[AJ Hawk]

I mean, it's early in the season. You really don't want to be, you know, mixing stuff up like that. It kind of just. That's the way it falls sometimes. And there's part. Part of that might be, hey, we don't want to agree. We don't want to drop Paul Skeens out there and have him give up eight earned runs on the home opener.

[Pat McAfee]

What are you talking about?

[AJ Hawk]

I'm just saying there's a chance.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, Paul Steenz is who we're talking about here. Let's make sure we have a little bit of a. Let's let Yankee at some point if everything.

[AJ Hawk]

I know, but, you know, let's let him pitch down in Tampa where it's warm against the Rays. Let him really pump that splinter and that fast ball. Let him kind of just deal with their Mickey Mouse lineup in the Yankees spring training park. We don't need him. We don't need him facing the Bronx Bombers on the home opener because I'm not saying it would happen, but there's all this excitement for the Pirates this year. And if Paul Skeens gives up, you know, by some, some, you know, stretch of the imagination, he gives up three homers in the first inning or something.

[Pat McAfee]

You think somebody's getting three hits on Paul SK in an inning, let alone home runs? You need to relax out there. Nonetheless, hottest team in baseball right now, the New York Yankees. Right. The bats. I guess the Dodgers would be considered the hottest team.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, for sure.

[Pat McAfee]

But what you guys have done, hitting.

[AJ Hawk]

Wise, is in terms of just like, you know, and this is kind of the Yankees, they're kind of boomer bust. Like they hit. They hit home runs. It's kind of like their only form form of scoring runs.

[Pat McAfee]

They don't really see is a good park to hit.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, they don't really play. They don't really play small ball at all.

[Pat McAfee]

But.

[AJ Hawk]

But the thing with that is, like when they're playing a guy like skiings or. Because they're kind of so boomer bust, like if they're not hitting home runs, like they had 16. They struck out 16 times the other night. So it is kind of like feast or famine.

[Boston Connor]

Mitchell, knock them down.

[Pat McAfee]

That's an exciting brand.

[AJ Hawk]

It is, it is. That's why they're so fun to watch. You know, when people want to and complain about like the short porch and stuff, like, it is what it is. You kind of play to your advantage. And when you got Aaron Judge, you know, like, he's not exactly hitting too many short porch bombs. I mean, this guy's hitting 420 plus foot homers every single time.

[Pat McAfee]

Just.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, I mean, they might not be.

[Pat McAfee]

Able to catch their breath, though. Zito just pulled up a photo of what PNC park looks like today.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, it looks great. That's unbelievable.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, my God.

[Ty Schmidt]

That is so awesome. Yeah, it really. It sucks at the Pirates, bro.

[Pat McAfee]

Think about, about the. Think about Zambelli's popping out on that river right there and that thing just going up. But you're looking out in the lighting and the. Obviously the grounds.

[AJ Hawk]

I was going to say people don't give enough credit to the grounds crew. Like, that is just. God, I mean, that makes me.

[Boston Connor]

The Clementi bridge is glowing.

[AJ Hawk]

It just looks. The field looks great.

[Pat McAfee]

I think, I think we. I think we do one of these. Yeah, the ground screw. Truly really good work there. It's great.

[Ty Schmidt]

Do people watch like the Barry Bonds in San Fran, like out on the river?

[Pat McAfee]

So I think yes, boats will pull up for sure. People get hit. Like, people have put it into the river. That was. That was a real thing. Like whenever Paul Skin was talking the other day about how Pittsburgh responded to a wild card game, let alone how they would respond to a World Series, that that entire river would just be boats. It would be. It would be a regatta happening out there. It's tough though, because there's so many good seats available in the park. You just pay 10 bucks and you go get a good seat sometimes. Sometimes you go to our friends at se. You can get those for like three, four bucks. You really time it out. Right. Back in the day. Not Paul Skeen's day. Obviously not this modern Pirates. But yeah. I think Corey Graves lives in a building across. He can see into the stadium.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Like cuz he's a big Pirates fan. I think he lives in an apartment building across the river and actually can see into the. Into the stadium and watch it. Or you're just.

[AJ Hawk]

I'm interested to see what. How many tickets are available today and how expensive that is.

[Boston Connor]

Question.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. Our friends at SEA Geek will obviously give you the best ticket price.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah. They won't be too expensive.

[Pat McAfee]

At SE you use PMS 2025, you'll get $30 off your order. Doesn't matter if you're a returning customer or a new customer.

[AJ Hawk]

Lowest ticket available starting at 24 today.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, boom.

[Ty Schmidt]

Okay, boom.

[Pat McAfee]

We're doing baseball. We're doing baseball. We're doing baseball. A sport we love.

[Boston Connor]

Hey, lower levels, like anywhere between 70, 80, 100 bucks and then. Yeah, upper level you get lower PMS.

[Pat McAfee]

2025, you can get $30 off some of those tickets. 2024 are the $24 ones you kick. There's. You can't.

[Ty Schmidt]

Sure.

[Pat McAfee]

That's not how that works. Get out to a ball game. Get out to a live event. Shout out to our friends at sea. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is a baseball legend. He's a college football national champion, a Super bowl champion and Rider cup winner. But on General Bobby Carpenter show, this guy breaks down baseball better than anybody else. Ladies and gentlemen, AJ Hulk. How you doing, H?

[Connor]

I'm doing great. Unfortunately, my reds are. We're on a three game slide right now, but you know, we got plenty of ball left ahead of us, so we're gonna be okay.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. It's opening day in some places. You know, so is that one.

[Boston Connor]

Oh, each game they lost.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah. The first team since 1960 to lose three consecutive games. 1 0.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, so you guys like suck the watch too? Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Nightmare.

[Connor]

Well, you know, we're just. We're rounded into form. We're starting.

[Boston Connor]

You know, we hit a beach ball right now.

[Pat McAfee]

It's all right. You guys will figure it out. Ever since. That's what. Since I does.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, they figure it out.

[Pat McAfee]

They figure it out. Especially with Trey Hendrickson. Hopefully, you know that. Yeah. Kind of get that entire thing done. Hey, we just had rap sheet on AJ and obviously this week was the league meetings and there was a couple things that came out. Big conversation. Tush push. He said that he thinks something's going to change there. Philadelphia Eagles fans are going to Be able to talk about that for the rest of their lives. Congratulations. Congratulations on having that. And sorry you're losing out on a play seemingly that you were able to do anytime at will, ad nauseam. But the other thing that was coming out of it was this playoff seating change. Did you hear what Rap Sheet just said? He said he thinks there is going to be a little bit of a change to that. I'll be interested to see what owners vote against that and what owners vote for that, because that feels like bad owners right now do not want that at all. Good team owners would be like, yeah, absolutely. So I don't know, like the lobbying process of these rules, the rap she talked about, the changing of the playoff seatings would be very, very interesting because I think networks are probably for it. Yeah, networks are probably for like the better teams having home field advantage and having better opportunity. I would assume that that's a lot of money that's around it. Roger Goodell, I think he could probably be swayed into a way being like, yeah, yeah, we should have our best team set up in the best possible ways. And then, you know, the only people that you would think would be against it would be the teams that have bad teams. Yeah. And they would want an opportunity. Every year, if we win our division, we should have something. How do you feel about it, AJ and did you expect him to say that? It feels like there's some maybe actual change. Because I think that surprised all of us.

[Connor]

Yeah, that definitely surprised me. I did. I. I like his idea of saying, what if you win your division but you have a losing record. Record that you probably should not host a home playoff game. I could. I could see that happening. But I mean, is it going to give us better matchups? All that matters is that we have like the best matchups for people to watch. Because that's what drives all these big time money deals. Is it going to give us better matchups? Like, what will it do?

[Ty Schmidt]

I think in some situations it would just. Because, like, I mean, even just looking at the NFC this year, like if this rule was in place with. The Eagles have had to play all their guys week 18 because if they were to have lost that game, then all of a sudden, you know, the Vikings move to the two seed. If we were just going off of. Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Would they be. Would they count as the fourth seed then? Cause they would take the fourth division winner.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Spot. Like, is that. Because then you have to figure that one out. Like, okay, so the lowest division winner would have a home playoff game. But if they're under.500, does the number two seed actually from a division. Division, does that take over the fourth overall seed or does it actually get seeded how. Yeah, the record should be in that entire.

[Ty Schmidt]

Because then all of a sudden what. The commanders, they also move up.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Because they, they had a better record.

[Pat McAfee]

But nobody was under.500. Right. In the NFC. No.

[Ty Schmidt]

The Bucks were the lowest at 9 and 8, I think.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Unless they went 10 and 7. I forget what their exact record was.

[Pat McAfee]

But you mentioned something during the break there about that Seattle Seahawks.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, exactly. Like there are some situations where I think they should either just do it or don't. Don't do the stipulation. Like if there's a losing record, then they lose their home playoff game. Because I think that stinks. I think the stipulations of a rule usually sometimes can ruin it. And yeah, the environment of the entire thing. The Beast Quake, you know, Marshawn Lynch.

[Pat McAfee]

Seattle, I think they had a losing record right now.

[Ty Schmidt]

They were seven and nine. The Saints were really good that year. Saints come to town and then all of a sudden, you know, Hasselback and Marshawn lynch, they end up pulling off a massive upset at home. I mean, that is a moment that still gets talked about. It feels like every single year when it's, you know, the wild card round, those throwback accounts or the NFL will put out, like, remember the Beast Quake from whatever year it was? Like, I think those environments can turn into some of the best moments of the playoffs. And then other times it sucks. I mean, Brady's last year with the Bucks, you know, they were eight and nine and they ended up being the four seed. And then they lost to the Cowboys and Dalton Schultz or. Yeah, Dalton Schultz was still on the team. I remember him scoring touchdown. That was a random poll, but. Yeah, but sometimes it does.

[Boston Connor]

It's a Beautiful Mind.

[Ty Schmidt]

But that was the Monday Night Football game. That was the. The only game on the wild card weekend was Bucks Cowboys. And the Cowboys killed the Bucks because the Bucks, they weren't that good. Obviously. They went 8 and 9.

[Pat McAfee]

That'd be a huge change for the NFL, especially with the amount of money they're making now for everything and the ratings for everything that they're doing. Other note that Rapaport had there. Before we pivot over to basketball again, he talked about the three Christmas games. Let's assume that's going to happen forever. Even though it's happening because it's Thursday night and Thursday night Football. Amazon prime have it, you know, that's Christmas is on a Thursday. Let's assume next year, whenever that's on a Friday, that somebody is going to be bidding for that night game. Whether it's Amazon or it's Netflix or maybe Apple gets in, like, you know, maybe they view this as. Or YouTube. You know, like, there is so many different ways that this could go. The NFL is sitting on so many opportunities, AJ to make hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars still, you know that Black Friday only had one game. It's like they can put two there, put three there if you really wanted.

[Connor]

They're going to find a way. They're going to invent new prime time situations. They're going to figure out when, like every single possible window that you can maximize. The NFL is going to find a way to do that.

[Pat McAfee]

We would assume that's the case going forward. Even like we are at the direct center of the season on this particular day. So we'll call it Midway prime time. Yeah. NFL special.

[Boston Connor]

I can't wait for Halloween night prime time. Oh, the players gonna wear spooky costumes while they play.

[Pat McAfee]

So I think the Steelers would be a good team for Halloween. Agreed. Just like I think the Chiefs in Rap port said he heard the same thing that we were reading on the Internet. The Chiefs would like Christmas Day. You know, and it's like color red. Like that is. That is a pretty good Christmas colors.

[AJ Hawk]

Everybody.

[Pat McAfee]

Every year. Yeah. Yeah. Packers wanted to every. Every single.

[AJ Hawk]

I would assume so.

[Pat McAfee]

Andy Reid, packers wouldn't be a bad team. Always fill up and it would be snowy. Yeah. Everything you'd want.

[Boston Connor]

All right, let's get the basketball.

[Pat McAfee]

Ladies and gentlemen, a national champion. You're saying he's.

[Ty Schmidt]

I said any Reed. Because he, you know, jolly.

[Pat McAfee]

Santa Claus.

[Ty Schmidt]

Santa Claus.

[Pat McAfee]

Which he did afterwards. Yeah. Remember I had to wait for Travis and Patrick to come in those massive jackets and then he was like, are they out here yet? Jesus, I've been wearing this. And then he comes flying out of Santa. Santa Claus. How about them? Chief says Santa Claus was a magical moment.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah. A lot of kids were like, okay, so that's what Santa does after he drops off the presents. He goes and watches the Chiefs.

[Pat McAfee]

I think there are some places that were like, wait, it's our morning right now.

[Ty Schmidt]

That was quick.

[Pat McAfee]

What is he doing?

[Ty Schmidt]

I mean, we all saw a red one. We know.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Connor]

Watch Dwayne Johnson's movie. You'll figure it out.

[Pat McAfee]

Agreed. Largest Christmas launch.

[Ty Schmidt]

On a Tuesday.

[Pat McAfee]

No, there was some. There was some movie.

[Boston Connor]

Largest launch ever.

[Pat McAfee]

Was it on Amazon? What Was it on? I think it was on theaters first. It was on Prime. I think it had some prime record.

[AJ Hawk]

I believe Amazon record most hours watched.

[Pat McAfee]

You need to watch Krampus. That son of a. I think too many people were just saying, dwayne, we don't need a Christmas movie. And they refuse to watch the movie. You get through it, you're like, okay, this is Dwayne Johnson's take on a Christmas movie. It is a.

[Ty Schmidt]

Hoping for a red too.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, it can live. That one will live on. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is a man whose name will live on forever. National champion, one of the greatest college hoopers of all time. Obviously now he's on espn spreading that good, making half court shots basically every single weekend throughout the entire college basketball season. Ladies and gentlemen, Jay Williams.

[Jay Williams]

What's up boys? Hey, why pm? Why do you guys keep kicking our ass? I mean it's like the day before Christmas, Christmas Day. And if NFL, it's just like this major takeover. I don't know what to do anymore.

[Pat McAfee]

Now you guys can get Christmas Eve. I think that was the end of what we figured out this year. This year we figured out you guys should take Christmas Eve. Now I understand NBA was Christmas, that we all spent Christmas with the NBA for a long time. Thank you for everything you guys did for Christmas. But then, you know, no Grinch Roger Goodell came in and said, this is ours now. So I, I think it's a, we'll actually ask out of Silver about. I think Adam Silver is going to be joining us here next week or the week afterwards. Like you gotta, hey, you gotta dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge. Right now the NFL is a wagon. You got to figure it out. Christmas Eve might be the way to go because I think we were bored on Christmas Eve. Oh yeah, that could be the time nonetheless.

[Jay Williams]

Great, great. We'll take the boring day and I'll take off Christmas day and watch football. That sounds fine with me. I'll take that.

[Pat McAfee]

Exactly. And it's, it's no longer boring because you guys are absolutely crushing it for us. Now let's talk about this weekend. College, college hoops obviously in the spotlight. We talked to Seth Greenberg a little bit. We didn't follow the season as well, but obviously the SEC SPN conversation got loud because everybody's talking about, you know, ESPN wants the SEC in there because the relationship with the SEC is the greatest conference in the history of basketball. They had seven of the top 16. Now obviously two of the final four are competing against each other from the SEC in Florida and Auburn. Seth Greenberg loves this Florida team has for a long, long time. Obviously loves Clayton Jr. Loves the way they play ball. What are your thoughts on the opener tomorrow and what is kind of a storyline that we should look at other than it's an SEC battle and SEC team is going to be in the national championship.

[Jay Williams]

Well, I always start off with the fact that SEC, what, made $70 million in units because each team got $2 million per game that they play. So that conference is crushing it, not only in football, but now also in basketball. So kudos to them for that. But I think as it relates to the matchup, like, look, look, Auburn is one of those teams that it feels like they have a bunch of young guys. A lot of people don't know who they are. Janai Broom up for national player of the year. But like Chad Baker, Mazara plays like Draymond Green. Like, I think he's critical to their team going against probably, you know, the most prolific scorer we have in the game of college basketball. I call him a young baby. Steph Curry with Walter Clayton Jr. Like, he's the one guy that can put this team on his back back and carry the low. So I think you're going to get a game literally that we've seen once already, twice actually, in sec. It. It might be the mo. The more fast paced game of the final four with high scoring traits at sig.

[Pat McAfee]

I can't wait for 609 as these two sec schools. And this morning, I believe Seth was on first take talking about, do you trust Cooper flag or Clayton Jr. More? Yeah. So now we got to pin one against the other, you know, even though they're not playing against each other.

[Connor]

I know.

[Jay Williams]

Because that's what we do. That's what we do.

[Pat McAfee]

Exactly. AJ Has a question for you, Jay.

[Connor]

Yeah, Jay, obviously Houston takes on, you know, your own squad in Duke, and Duke has been absolutely rolling. People, you know, pick them to be the favorite to win at all. What's that game going to look like? We continue to hear about this Houston defense and how physical they are and how they're going to try to take it to Duke. Like, what do you think this game looks like and how does it turn out?

[Jay Williams]

So, A.J. one of my. One of my boys who plays football told me this, and I think it kind of sits right with how I look at Houston and how I would talk to Duke if I were in that locker room with John Shire before the game. If your arms aren't broken or your fingers aren't broken, it's not a foul. Like, that's how Houston plays. Like, if you watch them train, they're a bunch of Navy Seals. Like, they go on runs in the morning. Kelvin Sampson has these dudes in the best condition of their life. There's nobody on this team that's a projected first round pick, right? So there's a whole bunch of people that have transferred multiple times that feel like they have a huge chip on their shoulder. So I, I, it's going to be one of those games with how is it officiated as well, right? Like, are the refs going to call it tight or are they going to let them play? If they let them play, I think that favors Houston. If they call it somewhat tight, then that takes away the physicality of how Houston likes to play and that could ruffle the feathers of some of the younger players. On Duke, the Cooper flags, the con nipples, the, the Malaw watches. If they call tight, that can go against Duke. So how this game is going to be officiated in the first four minutes is going to tell you about how this game is going to translate.

[Pat McAfee]

I feel like on that note, about this Houston team, you know, obviously everybody chats about them being tough and everything. There was a clip put on the Internet, I believe, yesterday, of their defenses. And I, I think like a lot of the conversation around it was like, can you teach toughness and grit and everything like, like that? I think he actually does. He does like dive on the ball drills in practice. And I respect the fact that he's got the boys doing that. I respect that the boys do that. And I assume whenever they get into a game, it just becomes second instinct. Has Kevin Sampson always been like this? Is that always been his style? And how many guys does it take a special person to be on that team? I don't know if that's like the basketball world normally.

[Jay Williams]

I mean, PM everybody wants to score, right? They do this drill where they put a piece of wood on top of the rim and the only way you get points is off of rebounds and they play the game to 21. So like, it takes a different type of cat to go to Houston if you're doing drills like that for 35, 40 minutes a day, right?

[Pat McAfee]

Yes, I think so. But everybody knows what they're signing up for whenever they go there.

[Jay Williams]

For him, I he gets you, he's look, he's the oldest coach in the final four. He's one of those guys that is, he gets you to buy into something different than what you expect Expect if you think you're going to Houston to drop 30 points a game, you can get lost. Like, you're all playing on the same level. Your condition is going to be at the highest level can be. And, like, he has some. He got a little bit of that to him, man. Like, Kelvin carries that to him all the time. And the players, it trickles down because they all feel like they come from nothing, and that's what they expect to.

[Pat McAfee]

Play like, dude's got hard edge downer. As soon as I saw this drill, I just thought to myself, like, I didn't know basketball had this in them, you know, I did not, I think. Who told us they put pads on? Michigan State. Michigan State. Tom Mizzo said back in the day, he had the boys put pads on and they just did a football, basically practice. He said, if I did that now, I'd get sued, obviously. And I see these Kelvin Sampson videos coming out and people are talking positive about it. I thought after watching, because I was just captivated by the video and I saw guys diving on each other and running into the wall. I'm like, oh, they got to be killing him in 2025. Instead, the basketball community is like, this is how you teach toughness. This is how you teach grit. It was like, I respected the fact that, A, he still does it and B, his team buys in. C, the people seemingly are like, yeah, that's Kelvin Sampson basketball. Good luck to Duke dealing with that. Cooper flag needs to know these boys are putting their heads into the wall in practice. I hope he knows. What are your thoughts on him? What a special talent, huh?

[Jay Williams]

You know, it's just like we were talking about it earlier today, he's going to be the number one pick. He does so many things well, but he doesn't jump off the page like a Zion Williamson or like a kd. So I don't think he gets that type of attention, but, like, he's going to be a franchise player with any. Any team he goes to because he's that guy that all of a sudden you look at the stat, the stat sheet, you're like, damn, he had. He had 23, 14 and 9. 9 on 60% shooting. It's like a lot of those dudes in the league that you just. You don't. He's going to fit in well with the next superstars of the league, the K, Cunningham, Zalukas, all those guys, because he just. He fits it. And you know what? PM he doesn't say to anybody ever. Like, ever. It's just like He's. I've never met a Duke guy. Like, I be honest. Like, we talk about Grayson, J.J. all these guys are my boys, but for some reason, they got. They were always hating. I feel like Cooper is more liked than all those other guys that kind of fit that look, you know what I mean?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. The whites, the successful whites down there at Duke. I understand exactly what you're saying. It's real. On that.

[Jay Williams]

Real thing.

[Pat McAfee]

On that note, like, AJ Liked Duke up there. He's from Centerville. Like, Duke had a national reach since the very beginning in basketball. And it's like you either hated him or loved him if you weren't down there, let alone North Carolina, Duke, ha. And everything like that. But in the basketball world, the Duke brand was very polarizing. And I think it was because, you know, some of the players are maybe punchable, is how people kind of viewed it, especially at Duke. It's like this Duke team feels different. We've been talking about all year, and I think it might be the coach. Connor has a question for you.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, Jay.

[Pat McAfee]

Will.

[Ty Schmidt]

It sounds like John Shire, while he was playing, was just an absolute dog. Pat Bev told a story about him when he was, you know, Mr. Illinois in high school and everything like that. And obviously, obviously, he was a little after your time, but after you graduated from Duke and, you know, all their merch now is the brotherhood. The brotherhood, the brotherhood. Did you ever hear a story of when he was at Duke that kind of changed your perception around John Scheyer? Because, you know, Pat Bev's story, it goes that everyone in Illinois was calling him White Mike. Kids were walking from the projects to watch his high school games. He would always go play against anyone. He didn't care about any. Anything. He was just a baller. Hooper, was there anything like that while you were at Duke that or while he was at Duke that you heard and you were like, oh, shit, okay, Maybe this Duke team would end up, you know, go on to win the national championship.

[Jay Williams]

Connor, I don't know if there was a story I heard of him before, but I will tell you this, and you can feel this in certain areas, especially when you go into, like, you know, areas where I play basketball. There were certain people, you know, from the suburbs, regardless of whether you're white or black, that looked uncomfortable, comfortable. You could tell, oh, like, you don't really want to be here. I don't know if you got it in you to play here right now. Right. And John. John just never changed. He's always there was like this confidence about him whenever he was in. John could be in an all black gym with Hooper talking trash to him. And he's going to be Jon. Like there's going to be no code switching. There's going to be no being small. He's going to be John because he had confidence in the way he, he actually hooped. And I think that's why Pat Bev told that story. You don't meet real Hoopers like that that have that to them 24 7, 365. And I think that's how you see Jon coach. And he's not afraid to meet you where you're at and tell you the truth to your face regardless of the outcomes. And for me, I've always respected that. That's like that he has that stuff to him, man. That's what's always made him different. And he's like a young basketball Bratz Stevens. He has a high iq.

[Pat McAfee]

How about Coach K did it his way obviously. And then he comes in there afterwards, massive shoes to fill. And he's doing it in his own way. And the team is more liked I think nationally. Yeah, I think it's more like more relatable of a team. Like, I think he's done a great job. He came on our show and did fantastic. Okay, let's pivot to the NBA. J will. Good luck to all college Hoopers this weekend.

[Ty Schmidt]

Go get it.

[Pat McAfee]

Let's pivot to the NBA. Tone has a question for you. Jay.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, Jay. Well, one of the reasons why we love you and respect you so much is that you're just always so level headed and there was a lot.

[Jay Williams]

What you say, Tone? I can't hear you, shooter McGavin. What you say?

[Pat McAfee]

Well, well, well. It's not John Morantis thing. Sorry, sorry. Everybody relax.

[Boston Connor]

But there was a lot of. I want to know if it's overreaction this morning to, you know, Luca's performance last night. He didn't shoot well and a lot of people are saying that he's, they're, they're taking advantage of him on the defensive end. Is that overreaction from the talk heads this morning? Is there anything to worry about with the Lakers on that?

[Jay Williams]

It's always overreaction, man. It's like every game. Is this the end of the Lakers? I'm like, it was one game. Like, I mean, and by the way, like, look, does Luca have some matador defense issues? Olay, yes. Right. But when you're prolific offensively like, like that, it covers all those mistakes. And last night the narrative could have easily been Luka made four out of six threes. And those passes that he made to Gabe Vincent or to Dorian Finney Smith, they didn't go 1 of 10. They went 6 of 10. And the Lakers win this game. It's literally that easy. And the one thing I always like about jj, you know, JJ doesn't give a shit who you are. He's always going to tell you exactly how he feels. And he's like, yo, it just wasn't his night. But tonight could be his night. The next night could be his night. All he needs to do is find his rhythm. Now, Golden State has something to do with that. That would be a matchup we would love to see. But, like, don't get it twisted, man.

[Pat McAfee]

Luca.

[Jay Williams]

If Luca's playing at a high level and Braun is playing the way he played last night, they could easily be in the Western Conference finals, and it could easily be an NBA championship.

[Pat McAfee]

Braun on the way to the game, you know, seemingly very confident. Put up the IG storyboard him. You know, it's like, okay, Braun's about to have a big time night, especially against Golden State. He did. Luke obviously doesn't shoot as well. And then he had to guard Steph on numerous OCC occasions. And Steph can cook with the ball in his hands, not just shooting, which I think people forget that, like, because Kyrie gets a lot of attention for the handles, which he certainly should. Like Kyrie certainly should. Steph is nasty with a basketball. Like, absolutely filthy with a basketball. Which kind of goes to the conversation about, like, the era talk, you know, it's like the ERA talk. Because I think Steph on a basketball court, obviously he looks undersound. I still think he's what, 6, 2? I think we saw him 6, 4, 6, 3.

[Jay Williams]

6, 4, 6, 4. 6, 4, 6, four.

[Pat McAfee]

So he's still large on a basketball court. He looks small, but he's still large. And his hand, everybody talks about his shot. His handles are nasty. Last night, it was obviously on full display. I think he's a lot more comfortable, maybe healthy and with Jimmy Butler on the team, maybe empowered alongside Draymond. But I appreciated you kind of sticking up for him, being like, come on, let's not. This guy changed all basketball for a reason. And if he had to have, he would have been able to do it back then. Not saying everybody in this generation is better than everybody in last generation, but this is like goat talk here with Steph. And I think you try to put a little bit more respect on Said name and generation. Is that accurate, Jay?

[Jay Williams]

Yeah, p.m. i'm just like, yo, Stephen, A. Put a name on it. Like, tell me. Tell me who the old fella is that said he would drop 17 so we can have a real conversation about it. And why do. Why do we need to use ghosts from the past to diminish the greatness of today? Like, why do we need to keep doing that? Isn't that. Isn't that shit old? Like, we can't just appreciate what's right in front of us. Like this. Dude, you'll never hear this comp before. He reminds me of White Chocolate because White Chocolate would do this type of stuff where he would just try shit in the game. Steph just tries shit. He's like, you just tried that. And it worked. Like, the whole move against CP3 where he made him fall, he just tried it. And I think it's the fact that he has this wizard, like, feel to his game. Game is so special. We don't need to diminish it. We don't need to do that.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, I concur. And Jay will. The other J will, you know, White Chocolate, absolute dog legend.

[Jay Williams]

He might be the real one. He might be the real one. He's the real one.

[Pat McAfee]

I'm okay to say that your Duke run was basically at the same time, like, you know, the kind of similar time frames of the J. Yeah.

[Jay Williams]

PM There. There was. He was bringing the ball down the court when he was in Memphis, and he had this play where they said wide out, and it was. He definitely yanked me from right to left. It was embarrassing. And then literally the next play, he called the same shit. Wide out. And if you could have seen me slide back and look to my left. Look to my right. Like, slide in. Help. And I was on the island by myself for, like, seven possessions, and I walked away saying, I'm happy. I changed my name to Jay. I changed it to Jesus. Jason. I got it. Got it.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, you did one of these, brother. You did one of these. You. You tapped out of there. You. You went ahead and hit the bench quickly.

[Jay Williams]

I wanted to be on the bench faster than anybody.

[Pat McAfee]

All right, let's get back to our defensive side. Come on. Again. I'm out. Get me out. Give me out. You're not the only one. And you should see him play football, I think, too. I think he's a quarterback, and then now he's telling stories. What a legend, dude. Fun to watch him. Just like it is fun to catch up with you every single time we get a Chance to chat. Ty has a question for you, Jay.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, Jay, Will, I understand that it's like the small market deal, but why do you think there is such little respect for teams like the Thunder and the Cavs in the national media? You know, like, I mean, the Thunder this year are unbelievable. Especially when you look at the standings in the Western Conference. Do you think it's valid because neither one of those teams, at the end of the day, day people think they can win a championship this year or is it just because they're in places like OKC in Cleveland and places like Boston and LA and you know, whatever what they're doing in Golden State and like, you know, the Knicks, is it just more fun and more people care to talk about that kind of stuff?

[Jay Williams]

I mean, Ty doesn't pay the bills. I mean, it doesn't pay the bills, right? Like it. What pays the bills is when you talk about Braun and the Lakers. What pays the bills. Bills is when you talk about Golden State and Steph Curry's legacy and where he'll be, right? Like, OKC don't pay the bills. It's. And I try to push it daily. I'm like, yo, SGA is having one of the best years we've ever seen. And by the way, this team is such a low hanging fruit. When people are like, oh, this team is better than the 2012 team with Katie, I'm like, why does it need to be? It's like when I do the draft, it's like, if I saw Austin Reeves in college, why do I need to come compare them to another white player? Like, why? Why do I need to do that? Like, this team actually reminds me a little bit of the 2014 spurs team because they're top to bottom, really good, they have depth, right? And they can easily win the NBA Finals. They've been. It's not been about the MVP for Shea. It's been about, yo, I want to win. But it doesn't serve the masses because ratings tell you that people care about the Lakers, which is why every day there's a different narrative about the Lakers. There's a spin on it. So real basketball heads know that OKC is them. But it takes real basketball heads to break these platforms and to say, no. Like, we're actually going to discuss a team that we actually think deserves the praise. But like I said before, Ty, I don't pay the bills, man.

[Pat McAfee]

If SGA WINS A couple MVPs and everything like that, you know, maybe his stardom will carry OKC into the conversation. When LeBron was with Cleveland, obviously, obviously all anybody was talking about was Cleveland. Cleveland obviously in a position to go on and win it all this year as well. But if you just do math and you do the ratings conversation, it's like, think about how many people are in LA versus how many people. You know, like the reach could potentially be just of their fan base, triple, maybe even quadruple what it would be in okc. So that's a tough balance there when you're like, well, there's more people that are definitely going to listen to this, so we shouldn't talk about this. It's like, what about the least league? What's good for the. Ah, sports me is an interesting place.

[Ty Schmidt]

Tough.

[Pat McAfee]

That's an interesting. That's an interesting place. Certainly. Just like the New York coverage and the LA coverage and the NFL has this issue. You'll see the jets and Giants on probably five straight primetime games and they're going to be ass more than likely the whole time. And that's just because there's so many that live in that area that are going to watch. Guaranteed. So if you want a guaranteed number, here's the way you do it. It's an interesting world, but the league is in a great spot. We think both the NFL and the NBA. You feel that as well? I feel like there is a little bit of a swell of positivity around the NBA right now.

[Jay Williams]

I think there is. I got, I got a little bit. I got on one today. Pm I got on one today about the whole John Moran and I get it. Look, you can't mock the commissioner, you know, especially after you got a warning. But like, you know how many NBA Finals I watch where dudes go boom? Like I, I see it all the time. Every game I go to, I see all that and it's.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, because it's a shot, you know.

[Jay Williams]

So it's a three, by the way. And this, this means three.

[Pat McAfee]

One, two, three. Yeah.

[Jay Williams]

Hoopers, right? We like. It's. It's that way and it, it's just like I see it and I, I get it. I'm not sitting up here saying that John Morant should not have done it, but like everybody does it. So I went on a burner this morning, like, all right, if that's a really big thing, then draw the line and just ban all of it. Ban all gun gestures. Just do it so nobody. So everybody can stop because he ain't the only one doing it.

[Pat McAfee]

Agreed. With everything you said and we said earlier, like, hey, Jai, if they're being unfair towards you. Like you just gotta swallow that and just. Exactly. It sucks that you. You're being treated unfairly because of things that, that have happened in the past. And you were very young and we're watching you mature in the spotlight in real time. But it's like we need Ja. Like I think we all agree as sports fans need Ja on the court. And if this is going to be something that's going to take away from that in future, inevitably we would like that to disappear. The NFL banned basically all gun references. We were wondering if you could relay the message to ja. He needs to. He needs a sword, you know? Yeah. He can even do one of these. Yeah. Yeah, I like that.

[Ty Schmidt]

Lights.

[Jay Williams]

I like that.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Maybe a guillotine. Yeah, yeah, guillotine.

[Connor]

Yeah, guillotine.

[Ty Schmidt]

Set it up.

[Connor]

Get someone to set it up.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, ninja stars.

[Pat McAfee]

I like that. Yeah. Yeah, maybe ninja stars pull him out of his back pocket. Yeah, there's other ways. Yeah, I like that.

[Boston Connor]

Maybe he has a gun and he just discharges around and he catches it and puts it in his pocket.

[AJ Hawk]

That's not bad.

[Jay Williams]

Well, just take a grenade.

[Pat McAfee]

Just catches it.

[Jay Williams]

Take it out it up.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Edie catches it, swallows it.

[Pat McAfee]

Bang. Ed one hands it, grabs it, swallows it, saves the world. Now we're sick. Be so John, we could get creative with this. I didn't even think about this being three, you know, Cuz could you imagine a four point play being like boom. That's amazing. Amazing, dude. All right, shout out to basketball. We appreciate you, J. College game day tomorrow.

[Jay Williams]

It's tomorrow, baby. We're on all day long.

[Pat McAfee]

What time? Yeah, what time?

[Jay Williams]

What time is game? What time is game day tomorrow, Chris? 2 Eastern.

[Pat McAfee]

2 Eastern. Thank you, Chris. All right, have a good one, brother. We appreciate you. Ladies and gentlemen, J Will two eastern leading into the final four. Final four is like one of those ones I could just watch.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yes, the Aperture woman's final four tonight as well.

[Pat McAfee]

Bingo. These are like things you just kind of like watch. They feel like bigger moments even if you're not watching all March Madness and all of the tournament, it's like whenever you get to the final four, if anything it's like, all right, here's semi finals. Let's who's gonna be a national champion? UCLA. UConn, South Carolina, Texas. Dawn Staley back in the dance, obviously. UConn, how you doing representing the men? Couldn't do it. Maybe UConn goes on the run. UCLA feels like a staple in the basketball world. And then Texas. I Was down in their practice facility down there.

[Ty Schmidt]

Nice.

[Pat McAfee]

That is an operation. They are ready. Good luck, ladies.

[Ty Schmidt]

Go get them. Get them, ladies.

[Pat McAfee]

Steph Curry couldn't play back then. It's like he would you and are people.

[Connor]

No one's actually saying that, are they?

[Pat McAfee]

I don't know about.

[Boston Connor]

Guy told somebody he'd only score 17 if he was lucky.

[AJ Hawk]

What the guy said is he, he would have only scored 17 because we would have injured his ass. We would have went at his ankles. We would like that's, that was what he basically said.

[Pat McAfee]

We're going to body stuff. Yeah, okay. That's I, I watching Steph kind of do his thing last night in this game. This was a good game to watch. There was like back to backs there. Now granted the Golden State team was up like 12, 8 to 12. Yeah, most of the game. But there'll be little runs by LA and obviously they're in the crypto there in Los Angeles in the la. Fans get behind it, feel they get a game. Then you look down, it's like eight still six still, you know, nonetheless, there was big moments from Braun, big moments from Steph. Luka had some entertaining situations. You know, he draw, he drew a foul on a three point shot like immediately after Steph did like the last time down. Steph kicked his legs out at Luca. Hip hits him. Okay, so he shoots a free throw. Then I think there was technical given. So then Steph even had a free throw in the middle of his three shots. So he shot four straight free throws, only made three of them. Luka's bitching the entire time. Then the next time down, Luka has a three and the guy nears, kicks his feet at the guy, gets the call, he's on a foul line. It was like, that was like a funny moment there. And Luca said like, okay, if this is what we're calling, I'm just going to kick everybody. And it was, it was an electrifying game for a bit. Even though the score wasn't always as tight.

[Boston Connor]

The sequence we're watching right now, it was, it was a Reeves 3, it was a LeBron 3, it was a Curry 3. And oh, what's his name?

[Ty Schmidt]

Pod.

[Boston Connor]

Pod Zemsky 3, who had 28 last night, like it was four back to back threes at the end of the game. That was awesome.

[Pat McAfee]

Did you see who sits right next to the Lakers bench every single game?

[Ty Schmidt]

Who's that?

[Boston Connor]

Still Jack?

[Pat McAfee]

Some guy. Some guy did.

[Boston Connor]

Not Jack anymore.

[Pat McAfee]

I think he represented Vince. You know, I think you've read Vinnie Chase. Okay. I paid three grand for these seats. I can shoot a three if I want to, guys. Still.

[Ty Schmidt]

Still bringing it.

[Pat McAfee]

Still there because LeBron was in the middle of it with somebody, too. LeBron after Draymond Green got a foul. I think he wanted a tech or something like that or an intentional. And LeBron was getting into it with a ref, and there was just one guy sitting right there underneath laughing, laughing at the whole time. And I think he's had those seats for probably 30 years or whatever. Yeah, he does need to put up a three, by the way.

[AJ Hawk]

Yes.

[Pat McAfee]

We would like to let him know you get a ball ball, and you put that thing up at any time.

[AJ Hawk]

Doesn't need to be a dead ball. Doesn't mean, like on the corner, one registered steel.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, punch that thing out. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, live from the showcase happening in Boulder, Colorado, Shador Travis Hunter and the other Colorado Buffaloes who are looking to make it to the NFL are putting together a workout in beautiful Colorado. There is a man that is booted boots on the ground, ladies and gentlemen, former draft spectacular pundit, a man who's a mock drafters, mock drafter. He's got a new haircut. Ladies and gentlemen, Field Yates. Yeah.

[Ian Rapoport]

Let's go. Hey. Three months since Christmas was the last time I got this haircut, and there's no sign of slowing down right now, boys.

[Pat McAfee]

I mean, it's very strong. You got a good hair there. But there's a lot of people saying Field is trying to. Trying transform into Mel Piper. Is that what it is? Is that what we're. Is that what you got to do at the position there or what?

[Ian Rapoport]

I got a lot. I got a lot of respect for Mel. So we're still workshopping this, and you guys can weigh in, because I. Maybe I am. It's actually very possible that I'm going for the Mel Kuiper look. The question is, is it Mel Kuiper Jr Jr or Mel Kuiper III? A lot of debate over the past few days about which nickname works better. So I'm open to what you guys think on it. But the third.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, anytime you can drop a third on there, you definitely do that.

[Ian Rapoport]

It feels powerful.

[Pat McAfee]

And right now you got that thing swooping a little bit to the side. Really powerful, you know, mad. Many like that thing looks. Yeah, that thing looks good. There was a time you were on tv, your team on yesterday, it went straight back and I. That was the look. That was the Melka. If you're trying to be the third I think that's what you need to do with this one. You just look like a man who has a healthy head of hair.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

And you should be showcasing that. Okay, let's talk about what's happening out at the showcase. Obviously, the Giants entire brass is there. I believe Cleveland Browns entire brass is there. I assume every single team is represented in this thing. We talked to Ian Rapoport earlier. He said the Tennessee Titans, not as many people there, but they also have a visit happening later. What do you think of the conversation here? Because that guy, if you listen to Dan Orlovsky, should maybe go two to the Cleveland Browns, especially if they're bringing in Kirk Cousins when at the beginning of this entire process, Cleveland Browns were definitely taking a quarterback and it was probably going to be Chador, who's obviously also there. What are your thoughts, Field Yates, at this moment on those two guys? And how big of a day is this out there in Colorado?

[Ian Rapoport]

This is a huge day now. This is a big testament to what Coach prime has assembled out here. There is, I mean, dozens upon dozens of media here. They're actually over right now talking to Coach prime and this, this swarm of people looks like when you're at the combine and the number one prospect, does his media appear, appearance. And you can just see bodies upon bodies upon bodies. But the scenes here from the various teams, and they're all 32 are here, by the way. I did hear that is confirmed, which is no surprise when you've got, you know, two of the most notable players in the draft. But it's the people specifically from the teams that caught my attention. You've got, as you mentioned, a ton of the Browns brassier. But how about this? I've been to a good number of pro days in my life, but talking to a bunch of scouts here, something that they had never seen previous. Obviously there's an owner here, Jimmy Haslam from the Browns is here right now at the Colorado Pro day, which you can interpret that however you want to, but it's a sign that the Browns probably have one of, if not both, Shador Sanders and Travis Hunter on their radar when they pick number two overall. So the Browns are leaving no stone unturned in terms of their preparation. The Titans will be here. The Giants are en route as well. I believe both of the larger contingents from those teams are actually scheduled to fly out this morning in a row, arrive any minute now because we're about 50 or so minutes from when Shador first throws. So a lot of energy in this building right now tons of people are pumped to be here.

[Pat McAfee]

Go ahead, A.J.

[Connor]

Yeah, when you watch the dirt throw we had, we had Dan Orlovsky on the other day and he said he wants to see him. What do you say, Pat? Like, really step into it and really get on top of a throw or something. Make those.

[Pat McAfee]

See the ball pop out of his hands. He said once you see the pop out of his hand.

[Connor]

Do you agree with Dan on that one field, like, and what are you looking for when you see Shadur working, work out today?

[Ian Rapoport]

Yeah. So Dan mentioned this. Like the offense they played in Colorado, like, the variance of throws wasn't great. It wasn't like a ton of different things. You see, it's a lot of stuff at or near the line of scrimmage because I know we know how great Travis Hunter is. But they've got two or three other receivers who might get drafted like late in the draft. So they basically had a bunch of guys who are electric with the football in their hands. Why bother not letting those guys do what they can do best, best when it was working to great effect? I mean, they were certainly a good offensive team these past couple of seasons. So I think we'll see more variants of what kind of throws Shador actually throws in the next hour or so here. You know, Shador is not one of those guys that's going to win at the NFL level because he's got this overwhelming arm strength. It's going to be because I still believe he is the most refined pocket passer in this year's class. The best combination of accuracy and touch. And there are. There are quarterbacks in the NFL right now that, you know, if you asked him to throw a football next to Josh Allen, it would look not that impressive. But they win because they're surgical, they're accurate. You know, they win pre snap and they win post snap as well. So not having elite arm strength is not going to be the kind of thing that's going to prevent your Door Sanders from being a successful quarterback.

[Pat McAfee]

He's been able to make every throw thus far and 55% of his throws are within five yards of the line of scrimmage or less. We found that stat out yesterday from the great Hembo. But he has those deep shots. And obviously there's other questions. I'll be excited to see what ends up happening because Dan called it the toughest prospect to scout or something like that because of all those things. But also family, how greatness has kind of been shown to him his entire life. Like, there's so much that goes into it. Which team falls in love with Shador will certainly be a draft night storyline. Now Connor has a question about your latest mock.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, field. You had your newest mock this weekend. Obviously. As a Patriots fan, I have to say, you know, at number four you do have Travis Hunter going there. Now it feels as though after you release this mock draft, there started to be reports that, hey, the, you know, Giants and the Browns aren't going to take Shador. That most likely Shador is dropping a little bit. Now it is early April. It is smoke screen season. If there are ever a time for teams to kind of get away from a player, it would be right now. Do you feel like you still still feel good about Shador at 2 or 3? Does the fact that Haslam is there for the Browns make you think that he's more so there to see a franchise quarterback versus a franchise player like Carter or Hunter? And has anything really changed for you since releasing this mock?

[Ian Rapoport]

Yeah. Not a great feeling when like hours after your mock goes live, Schefter is talking about with Ty about how, you know, maybe Shador is more likely to go to the Saints at 9 or the Steelers at 21 as opposed to 3 where I had them. That being said, you know, I'll just sort of input. What I have from here is, you know, I do think that the Giants need to consider a quarterback. On top of that, you know, talking to some scouts here on the field, they're like, I tell you, if the Giants aren't interested in Shador, it's not going to be because of lack of effort because people then have been either in Boulder or at games that they were playing on the road this year have noticed the Giants are always well represented. So they have certainly done their homework on Chador. Maybe their conclusion by the time we get to April 24 is that he is not the quarterback that they believe is worth that number three overall pick. But I haven't ruled it out entirely. You know, I think the NFL has shown us time and again that, you know, really the only chance you have for sustained success is to find a quarterback. And even if that percentage is lower in your eyes on Shador Sanders compared to what Cam Ward's potential hit rate is, I mean, the NFL's we've seen plenty of quarterbacks that have probably slid through the cracks unnecessarily and gone on to become really good players. So it's three more weeks. Maybe the Giants really are set on not taking a quarterback, but it also wouldn't totally stun me if that conversation continues until April 24th. And at the very least the Browns and the Giants have another player is the best player, at least in my opinion in the class. And Travis Hunter to make this trip worth every bit of it because while he is not running or jumping or anything and the work prior to the on field stuff, it does sound like Travis Hunter is going to run routes for Shador standards. That'd be a cool thing to see those two guys connecting for probably the last time as teammates before they go their separate ways in the NFL.

[Pat McAfee]

Shot to Shador, by the way has to be loved by Travis for Travis come do this. Travis could probably sit out of this and nothing change. So he's showing up for his quarterback, which is good. Obviously whenever it comes to a leadership role, whenever we're in a season. What season are we in right now?

[Ty Schmidt]

We are currently in smoke screen season and during the draft that more so means like, hey, if you hear a team hates a player, that means they love a player.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay? So on that note, there's one particular player being slotted to a city basically by everybody. AP Tone has a question for you.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, there is new you did it as well field and Dan Arlovski was just talking glowingly about Jackson Dart. You're talking. You and Mel are talking glowing about Jackson Dart. I heard his pro day was awesome. 10 out of 10 off the charts. So when you guys are doing that at 21, is that because the Steelers don't have a quarterback and you're like, oh, this makes sense? Or is that actually stuff that you're hearing from scouts within the league or people within the league that think that it could be a potential.

[Ian Rapoport]

Yeah, I mean, I sort of felt like when I was doing it on Wednesday, at the very least I could say, I mean, they don't have a quarterback other than Mason Rudolph and Skyler Thompson on the roster. I know that they're comfortable. They say they're comfortable with Mason as their starter for the season. At least at the beginning. I just, I don't know that I buy that that idea at all. You know, this is a team that I hate to remind, as you know, obviously, five straight losses in the playoffs. Like at some point, if you're Pittsburgh, you got to aim a little bit higher at the quarterback hierarchy. And while some people say they tried that a few years ago with Kenny Pickett and it didn't work out, that's fair. But you got to keep swinging at quarterback because clearly it's a position that influences Everything more than, you know, any. There's. There was no other position in team sports that influences winning more than a quarterback, so it wouldn't stun me. You know, a lot of people here that are boots on the ground in Colorado think that, you know, Pittsburgh would be a natural fit for one of these quarterbacks. And, you know, Jackson, IBM is the third quarterback in the draft. Some people might see it a little bit closer between him and Chador, but I think he's probably sort of that. That fringe round one type prospect that because of the position he plays, could end up going more like 2135, where I have him ranked on the big board.

[Pat McAfee]

All right, field, we know you got to go. So last question here from AJ about quarterbacks.

[Connor]

Yeah, Field, what's your thoughts on Will Howard? Where do you think he's going to end up going?

[Ian Rapoport]

Yeah, I had Will in the second round of the mock on. On Wednesday of this past week. You know, Will had this unbelievable playoff run. And last year we saw, obviously Jaden Daniels and Bo Nicks have a ton of success. And one of the things they had in common was five years of playing in Kyle College. Will's in that same boat, right? Four years at K State, and obviously this past year at Ohio State played awesome. What it mattered most, got big arm, good athlete. They didn't need to run him as much as, you know, AJ At Ohio State because of that one, two punch running back, but he can impact the game with his legs as well. So we're in business. Okay, I'm getting called over right now, guys. I gotta roll.

[Pat McAfee]

You're the man, Ladies.

[Ty Schmidt]

Hey, guys.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey. Hey, Coach Prime. Have a good one.

[Ian Rapoport]

Tell Coach Prime I say hello. Yeah, will do. All right, guys.

[Pat McAfee]

God bless America, ladies and gentlemen. Feel. Yeah.

[Gumpy]

When you think about businesses that are selling through the roof, like aloe or Allbirds or skims, sure, you think about a great product, a cool brand, and brilliant marketing. But an often overlooked secret is actually the businesses behind the business making, selling, and for shoppers, buying simple. For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify. Home of the number one checkout on the platform. And the not so secret secret with shop pay that boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning way less carts going abandoned and way more sales going. So if you're into growing your business, your commerce platform better be ready to sell wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling on the web, in your store, in their feed, and everywhere in between. The secret's out. Businesses that want to grow Grow with shopify. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout untucket uses. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at Shopify. Do all lowercase go to shopify.comnetwork to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.comnetwork if you want tools that stand the test of time without testing your wallet, harbor freight is the place for you. Expert engineers design and rigorously test harbor freight tools to bring you top quality. Whether your next project is big or small. Harbor freight carries a wide selection from hand tools to power tools to automotive tools and welding equipment. And with prices lower than other top brands but with the same top quality, you're getting more for your money at harbor freight. There are over 1,500 Harbor Freight stores in the U. S. So come see for yourself. Whatever you do, do it for less at harbor freight.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, here we'll go into the saints in round two.

[Pat McAfee]

Ooh, I wouldn't mind that.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, that'd be nice.

[Boston Connor]

Makes sense.

[Pat McAfee]

I mean, nobody has a clue.

[Ty Schmidt]

No one has any idea.

[Pat McAfee]

And they're awesome. Abdul carter's going to the browns. Yep. Abdul Carter's going to browns. Pair him. Miles Garrett, bring in Kirk Cousins. What are you going to do? You're not going to be able to do anything. Then Dan Orlovsky, who has his own sources and has done his own thing. Do you pass on Travis Hunter if he's there, too? It's like, well, is Dan just saying that because of film? Is Dan just saying that to start conversation or is Dan saying. Saying that because he potentially talked to people and that's kind of the. Yeah, that's kind of the game that we're in the middle of. Who's saying what because of who said what, you know, and that is a real. To your. Your point. Smokescreen season. Who's telling the truth? Who's lying? What's real, what isn't? This year more question marks than ever feels. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Hearing that Haslam is there at the pro day, obviously Travis Hunter can be a reason, but with. With what Haslam just said about deshaun Watson, everything. Does that make you think hasm's there to watch? Watch the door more so so they don't get it wrong again.

[Pat McAfee]

I mean, who knows? And then he. He said that the giants were well represented. All these games. It's like, what if that was for Travis Hunter? Yeah. You know, there's so many. So many questions. Have a great weekend. We hope you enjoy the final four. We'll be back live on Monday, you know, because magic will be taking place on a national championship next Wednesday. Big night out next week. Should be big for us. We hope you'll join us. We'll see you then. Goodbye, guy.

[Boston Connor]

Hell yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Not the best sign off, but it's pretty good. We're in the middle of a good conversation there. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Ex. That's what I was going to say.

[Pat McAfee]

Because whenever, like when Field says that, that the locals and the people that are at the games are like, the Giants have learned a lot about Shador. Okay, maybe they have legitimately. Maybe they have. And I think Shador had giant shoes on. I think at one point, like cleats. So, like, that has been a convo this entire time. But I think the Giant people could say, look, you're also learning about the other guy, the one of one over here. Not that Shador isn't that. And I'll be excited to see what Shador is in the NFL. But the way everybody is kind of talking about Travis right now, ex players, scouts, mock drafters, coaches, media, everybody's like, this dude's different. This isn't just. This isn't just, oh, he was good in college type conversation. This seems to be an actual generation, Generational athlete AJ in front of our eyes.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Connor]

And the thing about it is, like, yeah, nobody really knows what anybody's going to do. But also once you get past the first couple picks, even the first couple picks, like, everyone after them, they're. They're reacting to what has happened around them, who's trying to trade up. Like, yeah, you can have an idea of who you're taking, who you want to take, but that can all change with one weird trade up top that you didn't see coming or a team jumps out and takes somebody that you didn't think they were going to take early. Like, all of that can change the first round drastically.

[AJ Hawk]

Well, in the Giants, like, they, they may have done all their work on Chador and fallen in love with him, but everything they've done in the off season, like, we saw how aggressively they went after Stafford and then what they were reportedly like, willing to give Rogers money wise. Like, they wanted a veteran quarterback. So that doesn't mean that they weren't willing to take, you know, a guy like Shador at three. But that would make sense if they were all in on Stafford and then all in on Rogers. It's like maybe they wanted Travis Hunter.

[Boston Connor]

Well, and don't Shane and I mean Shane and Dabo have to win now? And does Shadow drafting you? Right. Does taking shader this year when you have Russell Wilson and Jameis on the on the roster help you winning this year. Like to keep your jobs.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. But if you and we know how day ball. Right after watching Hard Knocks off season, I feel like I know a lot about day ball too. Loves dogs. Oh yeah. Loves Malik neighbors. Loved everything about like the way Dable talks to the players that we got to watch. He's like he just wants to find out if a guy's a dog or not. It's like Travis Hunter dog. Like that is. That is. So how much is day ball getting a chance to be like we. Yeah. Package on off deep. We got this pair, this guy. We can do whatever. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

That's why it feels like the Giants there for Hunter and it just with Haslam being there for the Browns and I get Travis Hunter is one of one. How often would you see an owner go somewhere to watch a player that's.

[Pat McAfee]

Not a quarterback, a wide receiver.

[Ty Schmidt]

Like how. How often does that second overall pick still high. No doubt about it. But coming off of what he said at the league meetings, hey, the desean was a huge swing and a miss and that's on me and that's on D. Like he basically said like we screwed up with the quarterback and looking from the outside in. Yeah. Like Abdul Carter and Myles Garrett would be so cool. Obviously they would dominate maybe even though no matter what, Miles Garrett has dominated on his own. So you assume as adding the blue. One of the few blue chip players of what the mock drafters have said and the scouts have said with Abdul Carter would be cool. But like if you truly are going to give Andrew Barry and Stefanski like a clean slate, wouldn't that start with a rookie quarterback who you know, can handle a lot of pressure, which Cleveland does get, even though they're a smaller market. Maybe Cleveland gets shit on for being the, you know, the bottom team in the AFC North. That is all always so good and especially with, you know, maybe not the Steelers, but the Steelers are always good with the division looking like it is with a young Lamar Young burrow. Maybe the Steelers do get a quarterback at 21 or later in the draft. Like if you do love Shador and you know, Mary Kay Cabot, she reported, you know, a few weeks ago about how much the Browns loved Shador. And I forget what the exact line was, but it was like one man's, you know, boastfulness or brash is another man's confidence or something.

[Field Yates]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, it's another man, Treasure.

[Pat McAfee]

Allegedly, some teams reported that they found Shador to be brash and arrogant.

[Ty Schmidt]

There it is.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. And he. Like, they did Mary Kay Cabot said the Browns see that. Not that way. No.

[Ty Schmidt]

It's like a great thing.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. So maybe Shador, too. Which would be awesome for Shador. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Which would be sweet. And, you know, Schefter saying, you know, he doesn't see a quarterback going, throwing two or three. Absolutely. But again, it's that time.

[Pat McAfee]

The original. Remember, we got to remember this because Smokescreen season.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yes.

[Pat McAfee]

The original thing for the Browns was they're taking a quarterback at number two. That was the original. Said that. Yeah. Yeah. The Cleveland Browns, you can basically guarantee they're going to take quarterback, and then now it's basically gone. Wait a second. Maybe they pair Abdul Carter. They paid more money to people. They have less money. Okay. Because they just paid Miles G. Garrett. Yeah. Maybe they do want to bring in a veteran quarterback. It costs more and not get a quarterback. Maybe they want to, you know, pair him with Travis Hunter. Get a Travis Hunter in there. Then you get Kirk Cousins come in and play quarterback. How much will the Atlanta Falcons pay of his salary versus how much will the Browns pay of his salary? Kirk Cousins knows the offense, knows the system. They can win right now, as opposed to Deshaun Watson that didn't know the offense, didn't know the system. It's like there's so many arguments, so many different ways.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

[Pat McAfee]

There's so many arguments, so many different ways. But Shador to the Browns, I think at the beginning, that was kind of expected. Yeah. And then now, because everything's kind of got muddied, it's like, is it still. Maybe.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, maybe.

[Pat McAfee]

What is it, four thighs odds? Is that what I saw?

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah. Plus 550 or something to look like for Shador. Yeah, plus 550. But that's the other thing, too, is that, you know, with Kirk, of course, when you take a quarterback in the top three, top five, you know, he's expected to play.

[Pat McAfee]

You need.

[Ty Schmidt]

You want him to play. You want. Want him to kind of be that guy for your team. But, like, who says they draft Shadur? Like, do you think they could take Shador at 2 and bring in Kirk? Because we're acting like Kenny Pickett is, you know, gonna definitely be on the team because they traded for him. And, you know, it's interesting. For sure. For sure. Kenny could be the third quarterback. But, like, who says they don't get Shador and bring in Kirk because Kirk does know the offense. So who would be a great guy to teach Shador the Offense probably Kirk Cousins.

[Pat McAfee]

It would be awesome if teams start to do the draft young quarterback have veteran quarterback and then kind of do the. You know, A.J. haven't we kind of. You know Aaron got it obviously with Brett that relationship was what it was. It is what it is now much differently. And then Jordan Love does it. Tom Brady had a chance to do it. It's like you know Peyton got dropped in game one day one had the most interception in the history of any quarterback's rookie year because he has un. Unflappable confidence. So that's why you could drop them in there. But like if it does become a forward thinking a Green Bay Packer thinking like we're going to. If we like a quarterback we're still going to take them and then we're going to have a veteran quarterback on the roster and then kind of watch how it goes. I think that'd be good for the league as a whole. If that becomes a trend. Personally be boring on draft night but it would be really cool for the league. I think it'd be good. Beneficial for the league as a whole. AJ Yeah.

[Connor]

I mean that's interesting con man saying that, you know could you take Shador and still bring in Kirk Cousins? I mean how much money would you have in the quarterback position? When you're talk about money you have out to Deshaun Watson and Kirk.

[Pat McAfee]

So then Atlanta would have to pick up a lot of the.

[Connor]

You have to negotiate.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Connor]

To where Atlanta pays the majority of his salary that you owe him.

[Pat McAfee]

Russell. The Russell thing with Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh only had to pay him one million bucks or whatever.

[Boston Connor]

The thing with Atlanta though is like Denver didn't want Russ. Like they didn't. They wanted him out like for short. In Atlanta they are saying they are cool with Kirk being the backup and keeping there. So why would they take on his contract? That's unless Kirk makes a stink now as Kirk demands a trade.

[Pat McAfee]

In business wise though if you're trying not to pay for somebody's contract I think a good position would be we're okay keeping this guy. You know like you're going to have like that is a leverage play. Not saying that they're not okay keeping Kirk. They might be because who Penix. We only saw him for half season or whatever. We don't know what it's going to be. Full time injuries happen at quarterback position. Not wishing that upon anybody but that's real. We paid Kirk, we liked Kirk, we still like Kirk. There is a chance that that is the case at 37 million or whatever they added to it a couple weeks back. But there is also a case that if you were trying to negotiate starting quarterback to get out of your building and go somewhere else, you would certainly want everybody to think that you want him in the building still. Like, that would certainly be your position. Which once again leads to. We don't know shit at this stage of the NFL season about it. Anything.

[AJ Hawk]

No. And we'll see what they value more. Like whether or not they would want a team to take on some of his salary or whether they want some draft compensation for him. Because if he doesn't get traded before the draft, and obviously they're okay with, you know, trying to get something done after the fact, because teams will probably get, you know, they might panic a little bit if they don't get one of the guys that they kind of had circled going into the draft. But. But yeah, I mean, like, I don't know if it's one of those things where we're expecting. Curse Kirk Cousins to get traded to the Browns like, before the draft and then we get some clarity on the situation.

[Pat McAfee]

Let's pivot to some other sports before we enjoy the hell out of this weekend on this feel good Friday, soccer. I don't know if you guys saw Jose Maria try to rip a guy's nose off.

[Ty Schmidt]

That was nuts.

[Pat McAfee]

Let's go to Concave pod host Bubba Gumpino. What the hell's happening in soccer, Gumpy?

[Boston Connor]

Just a classic dust up in the Turkish League. Mourinho had enough of this guy's and gave him the old fish hook and the guy dropped like a sack of pats.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. Jose Mourinho used to coach for.

[Boston Connor]

He coached Chelsea, coached Tottenham, coach Roma. Now he's coaching the Turkish League for Fenerbache.

[Pat McAfee]

And this other coach, do we know who he is?

[Boston Connor]

He coaches for Galatasara. I've never seen this man before.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. And he just couldn't take him anymore.

[Boston Connor]

Marino doesn't put up with much. He's kind of had a tough go this year in the Turkish League.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, he'll find his foot cutting, obviously. And his hands. Yeah, he'll find his hands.

[Boston Connor]

Actually, rumors of him maybe taking the Brazil national team job. It's open right now. We got parts. His parts is gone.

[AJ Hawk]

He sucks.

[Pat McAfee]

He's at the. No, he doesn't.

[Ty Schmidt]

How do we do against Panama?

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, we got killed.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, okay. So Punch is great.

[Pat McAfee]

Awesome.

[Boston Connor]

With Burhalter at the wheel, too.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, we lost the Panama.

[Boston Connor]

Listen, Pach is doing it with Burhalter's.

[Pat McAfee]

Guys.

[Boston Connor]

Okay. He needs to get his guys in there.

[Ty Schmidt]

Panama was becoming the 51st state. Now we're losing to him in soccer.

[Pat McAfee]

They said Panama was. No, we did lose to Canada, too, which was very loud there for a while. I didn't help.

[AJ Hawk]

If he doesn't get written confirmation from Lionel Messi that he is going to change his name to Lou Messi, if he's going to play for us in the next World cup by, let's say, July 8th of this year, then I want him out.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, Give the Gold Cup.

[Boston Connor]

After the Gold Cup. If there's shit in the Gold cup, then you can say.

[Pat McAfee]

And we know when a Gold cup is in the summer, it's, you know. Now, speaking of Lou Messi, hopefully that is capable of happening. And I don't know if the Argentinian people will be as thrilled as we would be, but Boyn d'or plays and calls America home at this point. With that being said, Carl Ravitch yesterday certainly caused quite a stir on the Internet. He said, shohei Otani is the most popular athlete in the world. Boy, in the moment, I automatically went to soccer players in my head because those are notoriously the biggest numbers. But I don't know Shohei's game. I don't know Shohei's game as much. So if you would have told me Shohei is the most popular person on Earth, I think without following on, be like that makes sense. Because of what he's done for baseball, the soccer people are not happy about that at all. At all. Gumpy, is Messi the most famous athlete on Earth? And how long has it been that way? Ronaldo too, right?

[Boston Connor]

Messi and cristiano for like, 10, 15 years now. Like, they are. They are legends of the game. Everybody wants to have the debate, like LeBron Jordan, but they played in the same era. I think you just got to enjoy that both those guys are doing it. Like they're both. Both been unbelievable for so long. Gone to different teams, won at different teams.

[Pat McAfee]

Guys. Gumpy would say Tony's smiling like a butcher's dog.

[Boston Connor]

Guess how many followers Cristiano has on IG?

[Ty Schmidt]

I think I know this.

[Boston Connor]

535 million, 650 million.

[Jay Williams]

Wow.

[Pat McAfee]

Who does Ronaldo? That's the question. Are those real?

[Boston Connor]

500.

[Pat McAfee]

500 million?

[Shams Charania]

Got nine.

[Field Yates]

Wow.

[Pat McAfee]

What 900 million?

[Boston Connor]

Just nine? Just a nine.

[Shams Charania]

Or Carl.

[Boston Connor]

Carl was talking reckless yesterday.

[Pat McAfee]

Nine million reckless, nude.

[Ty Schmidt]

IG. How many does Taylor Swift have?

[Boston Connor]

Six or seven, I think.

[Pat McAfee]

What about the Rock?

[Ty Schmidt]

How many people are in the world?

[Pat McAfee]

Selena Gomez is up there. The rock's at 394. 394 million's got 282. Who so many?

[Ty Schmidt]

Check Selena Gomez.

[Pat McAfee]

I think she had the most at one point.

[Ty Schmidt]

At one point she did.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. But her and Benny Blanco.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

She got a new album.421.421 million people.

[Boston Connor]

Think about Messi and Ronaldo though. Like, Messi's gone. Argentina was in Spain, now He's in the U.S. cristiano gone to Spain, was in England.

[Ian Rapoport]

Now.

[Boston Connor]

Now he's in Saudi, like Portugal.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Ronaldo, you want to grow, get your ass to America.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, he's in Saudi getting like a billion a year.

[Ty Schmidt]

The New England revolution are calling his name.

[Pat McAfee]

Columbus Crew, ladies and gentlemen, the newest member of the United States men's national team. He, Lou Messner. There he is.

[Shams Charania]

Wow.

[Ty Schmidt]

See at a ball game again.

[Boston Connor]

No, he's celebrating fourth of July with a good ballpark.

[Pat McAfee]

We would like to say. We do not know if this is real photo. Jesus.

[AJ Hawk]

Very real.

[Ty Schmidt]

Back again, enjoyed his favorite dog.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oscar Meyer.

[Connor]

That's kind of sloppy with the mustard and ketchup.

[Ty Schmidt]

He slops it up.

[Pat McAfee]

I didn't expect him to be this style of mustarder and condimenter. I'll tell you what, as a dog kid growing up on hot dogs, it wasn't until maybe my 9th birthday, 10th birthday, I saw Kenny run a hot dog stand at the Palm Community Days. And this guy, he would get the buns out. He'd flip the metal thing, grab the bun, they're being steamed, flop it down, make that thing flat. He'd get a brush, okay. Oh, yeah. Grabs the ketchup, puts it on one side of the bun, grabs another brush like a painter, like he's Bob Ross. Goes into the mustard pom pom, you want some onions? Flips open the. Then puts dog on top. Then, then closes. And I'm like, genius. Why are we putting the on top? We should be putting it on the bottom. And for everybody that does is a hot hot dog, a. A sandwich. Or. Or not. It's a sub, okay? It's the smallest sub hoagie. Wherever you're from, that is what it is. And it looks great in Lou Messi.

[AJ Hawk]

It does.

[Pat McAfee]

It does.

[Ty Schmidt]

Delicious.

[Pat McAfee]

That might be the Lou Messi and.

[AJ Hawk]

You can't see it, but I'm almost positive. Not this one, the previous one. He's wearing a camo us.

[Boston Connor]

Is he double dogging in that photo?

[Pat McAfee]

Two dogs, one bun. Think about it. Lou Messi.

[AJ Hawk]

Okay. Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, baby. L. Thank You Lou boy. Lou. All right, Lou. We need him.

[AJ Hawk]

Sweet.

[Pat McAfee]

L. Wow. And Ponch speaks Spanish, right?

[Boston Connor]

Yes, sir.

[Connor]

Now we get.

[Pat McAfee]

So does Lou.

[Jay Williams]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Two buns, one pooches out. Bring in Mourinho.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, especially if he's going to be hawking people in. In games.

[Connor]

Why did the coach have to flop, too? Why did that coach have to flop?

[Pat McAfee]

Soccer football, baby. That's soccer football.

[Boston Connor]

In quite a while.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay? So we would like to say congrats to sh on being very popular. Okay? Very, very popular. But I guess there is levels to this entire thing, and the soccer people are way up there. I saw one comment, because obviously I. That was in the post. ESPN put it out, I think. Or SportsCenter put it out. Hey, listen, what this guy said is basically what they said in the caption. The comments responded as such. And the one thing was like, everybody in Japan knows Shohei. Everybody in Japan knows Lionel Messi. Everybody in Argentina knows Lionel Messi. Nobody in Argentina knows Shohei Ohtani. And then he said, that's just two countries, their home countries. Countries load on everything else. I guess the numbers would prove it. But I think Shohei here early in his run. You know, let's check back five years from now. Let's check back 10 years from now and see where it's at. But at the moment, I think Ravi was, you know, predicted.

[AJ Hawk]

He was excited. I mean, not too long later, listen, I love Michael King. He said Michael King. He's got the best stuff in the big leagues right now. He doesn't. He's a great.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, yeah. He was jacked up, but he was very top 10.

[AJ Hawk]

He was very excited. And that's why I love Rav.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, we. And he had that. He had AirPod in sitting a room. Button down.

[Ty Schmidt]

Good.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. I mean, he was selling baseball.

[AJ Hawk]

Exactly what you got to do.

[Pat McAfee]

The thing about the soccer is 600 million followers is that. Is that Ronaldo?

[Boston Connor]

He's the most on Instagram, behind Instagram.

[AJ Hawk]

There's no way those are all real. There's just no way. That's so many people.

[Pat McAfee]

100 million aren't real. Okay. 100 million million of them aren't real. 500 million.

[AJ Hawk]

That's still a lot.

[Pat McAfee]

That's so many people. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

That's why people think he's the goat.

[Pat McAfee]

True that.

[Ty Schmidt]

And you could see Bingo. Not Trudeau. True dad.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, not getting into that. We need to see Tiger bigger. I think he would have been, but it's not like social media era.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, he didn't.

[Connor]

No, it wasn't But I mean, on all continents, Tiger was. Is very well known.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. And I think Michael Jordan obviously also very well. Very, very well known. LeBron, very, very well known on all continents. I guess the soccer guys, just more countries. It's the world's game. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

More countries. They have world tournaments. That's the only.

[Pat McAfee]

A lot more of those exposure to the rest.

[Ty Schmidt]

Exposure. Yeah. They don't really stop. I saw something with Tiger and Jack. Nick. Nicholas. Boy, Jack. Nicholas is. Is actually the goat. I think we.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, you're talking about the 15. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

The check mark thing.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

And then you think about it, it's like, well, different. I think golf is what, the only sport where you can't really argue errors because it's the.

[Pat McAfee]

Everybody had the same tools. Well.

[Ty Schmidt]

And it's the course they do, though.

[Connor]

The tools are way better now, though. They. They blame.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. But you're competing against your peers still, you know, so that is kind of how it is. Speaking of that big rolling, I guess this morning I saw, I remember the Saudi Arabian PIF private investment fund was going to team up with the PGA Tour. Now, obviously, that comes after a lot of loud grandstanding and attacking from the PGA Tour side. And then inevitably, a couple years later, a meeting in Italy, I think for cop coffee, led to the thought that Saudi Arabia and the PGA Tour might actually start working together. Saudi Arabia loves golf, would like to invest more in golf, would like the best for golf, was their messaging. And the PGA Tour was doing the same thing. How can we end up working out together? So allegedly they were trying to get this done for what, the last year or so, there's been like five different occasions where we thought that Saudi Arabia and the PGA were working together. Then we found out that they weren't working together. Now they're saying that it's not going to happen. Because what the PIFF wanted, allegedly from what I read, was they wanted live to continue and they wanted Yasir Al Rumayan, who I believe is the sports. I don't know the proper term. Sports. Yeah. The one making a decision. They would like a seat on the board of the pgat, which is the next version, the PGA Tour board, or whatever. So. And they were saying that was concessions that they weren't willing to make or whatever in the pg, I would assume. Okay. Just as somebody that has done tiny bit of business. Tiny bit of business might get into more business later with companies that have boards. If somebody puts 1.5 billion into it, I think normally they would get a. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Board seat.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Connor]

You're getting a board seat for that.

[Pat McAfee]

Normally, you know, normally I don't know business as well as others. Obviously, I think I do okay in it, but I am still in evolving, especially whenever it comes to boards, public companies, trade shares, all that shit. I mean there's a lot into that. I think that is why there's business courses and shit like that. But just as I've kind of recreationally now I've gotten a chance to like see how some of it works. It's like that what I think that would be an expected thing in that particular business. The live golf still continuing. Probably what's PGA Tour is like, no, we're not going to do the team Mickey Mouse house stuff. If we're going to continue to do our stuff. Maybe they don't want their guys that haven't been able to do it yet or haven't done it yet to do it. I don't know. There had to be more than just those two. But I thought they were going to come together. I thought we're going to see all of the peers get a chance to play together again, which I think we're all yearning for. That's why these majors are so important. That's why like the Masters is going to be so highly regarded forever. More specifically in this particular time, because it is live golfer taking on PGA Tour golfers. But then on the weekends that fill in between the majors, it's not the case. So I was hopeful that something was going to happen and seems like that is not the case.

[Connor]

AJ No, I mean, think about. They're willing to give what, 1.5 billion?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Connor]

There's got to be a bunch of different little things that they're working on they're haggling over. But yeah, if they really. I mean, that could be a sticking point. Hey, we want. We need a board seat. And they're saying, you're absolutely not getting a board seat. Okay, what if we give you 10 billion and they can. You think they continue to say no?

[Pat McAfee]

I think yeah, exactly. In the wording here from Sports Business Journal. And I'm not saying media would ever word things in a way.

[Boston Connor]

Sure.

[Pat McAfee]

To build a narrative potentially. But Saudi Arabia's public investment fund failed in its attempt to persuade the PGA Tour to deliver serious concessions in exchange for a $1.5 billion investment. This leaves elite golf no closer to reconciliation that just days from the Masters via the Guardian, and I assume the Guardian worded it the same way. And it's like, I assume if you ask the other half of this negotiation, they say standard. These are standard concessions that we are looking for in business. So hopefully they'll be able to put their swords aside. And there's probably a lot of public leveraging happening as well. But to your point, if that 1.5 billion becomes 5 billion, you know, how, how, how. Nah. Is the PGA Tour either way, it's.

[Boston Connor]

Frustrating because we were actually having this conversation yesterday. Yesterday in the think tank. We're like, does John Rom still play golf? Like, is he. Like, we have the Masters next week. Is he playing golf well? Should we bet on, like, we just Brooks. Like, Brooks still good people that have gone over there. We, like, we don't know. You don't hear anything about him anymore. It's like they went into this place where you just don't see them anymore. It sucks.

[Pat McAfee]

Does that make them more dangerous?

[Boston Connor]

It could, but it sucks for the.

[Pat McAfee]

Does that make them more dangerous? Nobody knows what they're doing.

[Boston Connor]

Like, what if. Love to have seen that a couple weeks ago. Like, you know, when. When Rory's coming down the stretch. Like, in my head, actually, while that was happening, I was like, one of these other big golfers who are on the lift tour could have been in it, and it could have been back and forth, but we're all getting robbed.

[Pat McAfee]

Could have been cool for Koepka to be stalking on Saturday or Sunday because of how cool he always looks, you know, and the way his presence is. Is different than any other golfer. Rombo, with how hot he was getting. Now, granted, they got hundreds of millions of dollars.

[Gumpy]

Oh, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Hundreds of millions. And they still get to play in the majors.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Which they're probably like, what are we even talking about here? But week in, week out, it does feel like we're missing out. And I like watching golf on tv. Great background stuff. And I thought we were going to get back to everybody playing.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah. I thought it was simple fix here.

[Pat McAfee]

Right. Like three, four different times. Didn't we think that was the case? Literally since that coffee meeting in Italy through now, like, I've thought there's been numerous times where it's like, everybody's getting back together. Everybody's getting back together.

[Ty Schmidt]

It's like a victory lap from the live golfers. Like, that's actually what it felt like if, like, there's the photo of Phil at the Masters. I don't know if it was last year or the year before, but it was the one year difference photo. And Phil was like, jovial, happy, and it legitimately felt as though Liv was all the way back.

[Pat McAfee]

Josh Carpenter's tweet here says that the tour replied Monday to those two requests. Neither were deemed extended acceptable for a board seat or that live would continue. It's like, okay, so now outside people who are potentially looking at it is like, are you negotiating good faith? If somebody gives you $1.5 billion and you have a board, that person probably gets a board seat. But how many other things are. Just kidding. Hey, we have to figure it out.

[AJ Hawk]

Let them have the board seat and then I can get the. Hey, the live part of it's done. Like we need everyone playing on the PGA Tour, but then give them the board seat and then let them feel like they're a part of it as well because they're given a bunch of money. Like it seems like a no brainer to do that.

[Pat McAfee]

And we are outside looking in on billion dollar negotiation here. So obviously we don't know all of the concessions that have taken place. But the board see one that, when I read that that didn't. That's not, that's not acceptable because I.

[AJ Hawk]

Understand them not wanting live. The live tour to continue.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Because the live continuing would be a dance. Almost like, hey, we. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

You know, music shorts, no collared shirt. It's like, that makes sense.

[Pat McAfee]

Like, but not wanting that to represent golf.

[AJ Hawk]

54 holes.

[Pat McAfee]

Yes. All of that. Yeah. We would understand. I think. So we'll see what's actually. Yeah. All playing at the same time. Yeah. There's nobody chasing anybody throughout the day. There's nobody having to wait. I mean there's a lot of decisions that have been made over there that, I mean, the music.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah. Bert Kreischer doing a stand up set on the 18th green.

[Pat McAfee]

You know, I didn't mind that over there in Australia, Adelaide, they still should do.

[Ty Schmidt]

Do the. That's the thing. They still should do some of the live courses. Like maybe that was one of the things that they were held up on. Because I wonder if Liv has deal with Adelaide in some of these places and then PGA saying like, okay, well your tournaments are done. But then they're saying, well, we signed these deals with some of these courses that were for, I don't know, seven years or something like that. And they have to play a couple.

[Pat McAfee]

More because some of those places internationally when Liv showed up, it was like the waste management.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

And that's good for golf. I think on a weekend out of nowhere, especially if Saudi Arabia is going to get involved. Let's assume that money for the wins.

[Ty Schmidt]

Maybe a lot of it might be.

[Pat McAfee]

A Lot more enticing for guys to play more of these tournaments, you know, because every once in a while the leaderboard will be like 10 people we've never heard of before. Great golfers. Holy. I appreciate you doing that, but that's tough for me to want to. And then you look through who all played in this tournament. It's like. Like a lot of opt outs in this particular tournament, you know, a lot of opt outs for good reason. Golfer schedule is horrendous, ridiculous. We saw that in full swing. They're there from like Tuesday to Sunday. If everything works out well, if they don't make the cut, you get to sleep at home for two days. And then that you're moving into another house at a new place on Tuesday. It's like their schedule is absurd. So whenever guys opt out, we understand. But if a lot of guys opt out of the same tournament, it's like this crop. This is shit. Shite. But if there's more money and more enticing for those tournaments, maybe we get more people show up. Maybe every single weekend. Golf is great. Speaking of weekends being great, let's have one.

[Ty Schmidt]

Hell yeah.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Spot a four weekend, A.J.

[Connor]

I know what the second game tips off of.

[Pat McAfee]

What?

[Connor]

10:35 Eastern.

[Ty Schmidt]

No, 6:00 and it is 8:50. Yeah.

[Connor]

Okay, good.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, that's.

[Pat McAfee]

That's fine.

[Connor]

I can handle that.

[Pat McAfee]

Remember, 412 opening pitch today. Today. Oh, boy. 6:09, 8:49. Now that is scheduled to change and move that 849 depending upon how the first game goes. Coverage starts at 2pm Eastern on ESPN for college game day. Women's Final four tonight. Good luck.

[Ty Schmidt]

Here we go.

[Pat McAfee]

Good luck to all the ladies tonight and shout to basketball carrying us through. NHL. The great chase happening this evening. Still chasing tonight.

[Boston Connor]

Three goals away.

[Pat McAfee]

Way he sits at 892.

[Boston Connor]

I believe he has seven games left to do it.

[Pat McAfee]

Pretty good odds. Plays the Blackhawks tonight out of Chicago. Alexander Ovechkin can certainly score a hatrick against the Blackhawks tonight. This game is sweet. This game is in Washington?

[Boston Connor]

Yes, sir.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, so in Washington against a shite poopy.

[Boston Connor]

Capitals are minus 380.

[Pat McAfee]

Minus 380 Hatrick to break the record would be. Would be sick. Could happen. Well, certainly watch as Alexander the Great continues to do something that none of us could have expected at this age for as long as he's been doing it. Gretzky going to every game?

[Ian Rapoport]

Certainly not.

[Pat McAfee]

I don't know. Does he have to be there? It's like a whole Thing or no, Is he like passing a jacket over? Yeah, right there's J. Yeah, like masters. You gotta hand over grease jacket. I mean, maybe there's a stick that he's held on to. Yeah, forever. That's a handshake. Maybe the NHL gave it to him and, and said, hey, golden stick. Hey, here's your stick. Because you're the greatest goal scorer of all time, you will be responsible for turning this over to the next one. And maybe it's like a 10 million dollar should be golden stick.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, that'd be awesome.

[Pat McAfee]

And Wayno has to skate out there with it. And he scores one last goal with the golden stick.

[Ty Schmidt]

Ovechkin lines him up, up.

[Pat McAfee]

The yard.

[Boston Connor]

It's a yard sale out there. Picks up a stick.

[Pat McAfee]

Is soccer happening this weekend?

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, we're all the way back. All the leagues are buzzing. Inter Miami plays Sunday night against Toronto.

[Pat McAfee]

What time, when do they play lafc? I thought they just played lafc.

[Boston Connor]

So lafc Concaf Champions Cup. This is league second leg of the Conc Champions Cup.

[Jay Williams]

Here's.

[Boston Connor]

I'll just. I'm gonna say this one more time. If it's. If it's during the week, it's more than likely cup play. And remember, if it's on the weekend, it's more than likely league.

[Ty Schmidt]

Conor Calf Cup 5.

[Connor]

But not 100%.

[Boston Connor]

It could change at any moment.

[Pat McAfee]

When do they play LAFC again?

[Boston Connor]

Next week.

[Pat McAfee]

What day?

[Boston Connor]

Tuesday or Wednesday.

[Connor]

So it's week.

[Boston Connor]

But Messi wasn't training today, so hopefully he's good to go. They're mine is 250 Sunday night.

[Pat McAfee]

Can't have that. Cannot need Lou. If L's not playing, we're not watching. Boys. Great work this week, boys. Great work. Great work, brother. This a long week. A lot happened in the back. Great work, boys. Work, boys.

[Boston Connor]

Work, boys.

[Pat McAfee]

Aj, great work, buddy. We have some breaking news here. Big night, aj. I hate that. You never do that. You know, it's trying to build a brand here. Trying to build a. An entire delayed. I understand, I understand. By the time we're done saying ah, you're thinking about saying it, but you don't want to step on anybody. I, I do respect and appreciate that. Wednesday night, 8pm Eastern. PPG paints arena of next week. It'll be streamed live on YouTube X and TikTok live. The show is going to be outrageous. I think it's going to be outrageous. I am very pleased. Pumped for the world to see it. We're going to be giving away a shit ton of money. That evening we're going to have some surprise performances from folks, hopefully some sing alongs, hopefully some laughs and hopefully a night that people will talk about forever. That will be live on YouTube X and TikTok live Wednesday, 8 o'clock. Now there will be a re air on Thursday of the full show on Hulu at 8pm Eastern. Now that will also include behind the scenes footage. So Hulu was interested in getting the re air okay because they were presented, they didn't really know this was happening until very recently. They said can we get the re air, have it live on our platform. I said sounds good. But I didn't think like the right thing to do would be to just run the same exact show on back to back nights. Especially because the show is going to be very active for people watching at home live. So it won't be the same experience whenever it's RE air. So we're going to kind of make this a documentary slash re air on Thursday night. Quick turnaround. Going to be a lot of quick editing. Going to be a long ass night for Evan Fox. But I think on Thursday, 8pm you watch the Masters during the day obviously. And then whenever you get to eight, we're going to have some behind the scenes and kind of look at how the sausage was made for Big night which has been, you know, I don't say a passion project, but I think that's probably an accurate way to kind of describe it. And the people that are going to be a part of the show I'm so incredibly thankful for and kind of watching how it all came together will be a part of the Thursday night special on Hulu which will be available I believe for 10 years.

[Ty Schmidt]

Okay, okay.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. So if you miss on Thursday at 8:00 there will, it will be up. You will have some time. You have some time. Shout out to everybody. AJ Great work this week, boys in the back. Great work. To the graphic design boys. Way to go. Hey baby, way to go. And to everybody that watches this show, I can't thank you enough. To everybody that has said something positive about me this week, I can't thank you enough legitimately. There are moments obviously in your life where you have doubt about everything, you know, and I feel like we try to be part positive and an additive to society as much as possible. I try my absolute best to do that every single day. With everything I've ever done. I try to bring good energy. I try to be optimistic. I try my best to lift up the rooms that I am in I know there's a lot of people that don't necessarily like me or understand me, but I think if you talk to anybody that's ever worked with me, they appreciate that I'm basically the same person every single day. I try to stay as positive as possible, as confident as possible, and try to make the world a better place legitimately. That doesn't always happen. That is something I missed the mark. And there are some days where I wake up and I don't want to be in public at all because of either. What I have done, what I put myself in, how I feel, what's being said, what's being portrayed, what's the narrative, everything like that. So the people that have shown me love this week, both privately in text messages and also on the Internet, I appreciate it and I understand that life is going to be like this and I hope that we can continue to be additives. And I think as we watch everything unfold over the next couple weeks, I think we'll continue to try to do that. And we appreciate everybody's patience. I appreciate everybody's fandom, I appreciate everybody following along and I appreciate the fact that we get to do this for a living every single day. We will see you on Overreaction Monday. You're the greatest people on earth. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice. It might change their life. Awareness, things together. Team on me. Team on three. One, two, three. Goodbye.

[Gumpy]

Ever had your deposit blocked by your bank right before a big bet? Ever needed cash at 2am for another shot at the tables but hit your ATM limit? Edge boost has your back. Edge Boost is the first ever bank account built for betters. With Edge Boost, all your gambling related transactions will always be approved. No more headaches for you high rollers. You can move up to $250,000 a day on your Edge Boost Visa debit card with unlimited withdrawals. This works 24,7 for instant deposits. Never wait for a wire to clear again. It gets better Every time you deposit into a qualified gambling account, you earn cash back rewards up to 0.5%. All this for no usage fees and no minimum balance. This is a bank account, not a credit card so there is no approval required or credit check. Finally, edgeboost has a suite of responsible gambling tools to help you manage your bankroll and make informed decisions. What are you waiting for? Go to edgeboost bet. That's edgeboost bet.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, I'm Brad Milkey. You may know me as the host of ABC Audio's daily news podcast. Start here.

[Boston Connor]

But I'd like to add aspiring true.

[Pat McAfee]

Crime expert to my resume. And here's how I'm going to make it happen.

[Boston Connor]

Every week, I'm going to unpack the biggest true crime story that everyone is talking about.

[Pat McAfee]

ABC's got some unique access here, so.

[Boston Connor]

I'll talk to the reporters and producers.

[Pat McAfee]

Who have followed these cases for months, sometimes years. We'll bring you the latest developments and.

[Boston Connor]

The larger context on the true crime stories you've been hearing about.

[Pat McAfee]

Follow the crime scene for special access to the people who know these stories best.