PMS 2.0 1430 - Watt Wednesday, In the Trenches with AQ Shipley, Everything DB with Darius Butler, Stanford Steve, & AJ Hawk

Summary

The Pat McAfee Show 2.0 | Episode 1430 (October 15, 2025)

"Watt Wednesday" | In the Trenches with AQ Shipley, Everything DB with Darius Butler, Stanford Steve, & AJ Hawk

---

Episode Overview

In this lively "Watt Wednesday" episode, Pat McAfee and his usual crew—AJ Hawk, Darius Butler, AQ Shipley, Tone Diggs, Ty Schmidt, and Boston Connor—tackle the latest and biggest stories in football and sports culture. J.J. Watt joins for his regular guest spot, and the team gets into an animated debate about Pro Football Focus (PFF) player grades, the ongoing war between analytics and "football guys," on-field performances from Week 6, and college football playoff predictions. Special segments include "In the Trenches" breakdowns of O-lines, "Everything DB," and a deep dive with Stanford Steve into the biggest college football matchups this week.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

---

The Analytics Debate: PFF vs. Football People

[04:14–26:58]

• Pat opens up about the growing backlash against PFF's (Pro Football Focus) player grading system.

  • Players and coaches have become increasingly vocal, with McAfee citing his own experience being "badly rated" in Madden and how outsider stats can affect player reputation, negotiations, and legacies.
  • Quote (Pat, 05:23): "A lot of ex-players and current players hate these things... Think about all the other stories in which these PFF grades have changed ways people’s lives have gone."

• Chris Long’s Take on PFF Graphics:

  • Tone Diggs relays Chris Long’s analogy: PFF grades are as toxic as political ads on TV, bemoaning Patrick Mahomes being ranked middle of the pack.
  • Quote (Tone, 07:12): "I want the PFF scores off the TV as bad as I want political ads off the television..."

• Fundamental Issue with PFF Grading:

  • McAfee, Darius Butler, Shipley, and others explain how outsiders cannot understand player assignments, strategies, or context, making public grades misleading.
  • J.J. Watt joins and shares how he "broke" the PFF system (earning a 100+ grade) but still detests the public grades:
    • Quote (J.J. Watt, 22:36): "I was their number one rated player... I still hate it. The number one issue...is their player grading system and the fact that they project it everywhere, including nationally televised games...completely made up number."

• Players, Coaches Interpretations & The Real Impact:

  • AQ describes how even coaches sometimes justify their decisions using PFF scores, regardless of whether they align with on-field reality.
  • Darius Butler notes that only players/coaches really know assignments, coverages, or blown plays:
    • Quote (Butler, 19:09): "Things change so much. Even the coverages that we know can be massaged between fucking series. So whenever anyone can get on TV and say, 'this is what it is,'...99% of the time, they’re probably wrong."

---

On-Field Football Talk: Trench Play, Injuries & Returners

[31:07–53:20]

• Turf & Field Quality in the NFL:

  • Steelers’ field conditions slam (Acresure Stadium): Kickers and players at risk because turf rolls up during big moments. Debate over turf vs. natural grass and its real safety.
    • Quote (J.J. Watt, 28:35): "That field was really, really bad. And it's very rare you see players like Aaron Rodgers and Cam Heyward come out and just blast their own home field..."
  • Sub-debate: Should University of Pittsburgh get its own stadium? Who gets priority?

• Pre-Game Routines and Accidental Injuries:

  • Colts player injures himself in pre-game warmups; panel trades stories on NFL pre-game chaos. J.J. Watt describes his catch-with-fans routine and its positive spirit.
  • Pat and Darius Butler reminisce about how Pat once broke Darius’ finger with a pre-game punt:
    • Quote (Butler, 41:42): "You actually broke my finger pregame. That’s you."
    • Pat, Defensively: "That ball was coming down from the clouds."

---

Around the League: QB Rankings, Running Backs, and Defensive Stats

[83:19–91:28]

• Colts & Bucs at the Top:

  • Colts and Buccaneers both at 5–1 early, with the run game and O-line play as key drivers. Indianapolis' offense under Danny Dimes (Daniel Jones) surprises many.
  • Taylor leads league in rushing, Bucs' Baker Mayfield praised for his "never dead in a game" attitude.
    • Quote (J.J. Watt, 52:38): "There's just that…is very, very real. And I think it's such a cool aspect to [Baker’s] story..."

• Receiver & Quarterback Ranks:

  • New guard: Jackson Smith-Njigba, Puka Nacua among top wide receivers. Dak Prescott, Sam Darnold, Baker Mayfield, and Drake May headline QBs.

• Defensive Leaders:

  • Top pass rushers benefit from strong D-line groups.
  • Darius Butler highlights how defensive stats can be misleading—especially for tackles and picks if defenses are always on the field.

---

In the Trenches: AQ Shipley’s O-Line Rankings (Week 6)

[123:04–133:32]

• Top 5 Offensive Lines (Week 6):

  1. Carolina Panthers
  2. Atlanta Falcons
  3. Indianapolis Colts (best cumulative on the year)
  4. LA Chargers
  5. Chicago Bears

• Why Carolina? Panthers' O-line is dominant, especially in the run game. Key plays and combos shown on film with physicality at the point of attack.

  • Quote (AQ Shipley, 131:38): "[Left tackle, left guard] just took [Kenny Clark] 12 yards and put him on the ground."

---

Everything DB: Good D/Bad D Segment (with Darius Butler)

[168:10–180:31]

• Good D:

  • Atlanta’s D’Alford big INT sets up scoring chances.
  • Bears’ secondary making plays (Brisker INT).
  • Giants’ Flott with a critical pick in red zone situations.
  • Bucs’ Jamel Dean: Lowest passer rating allowed when targeted (20.8)—named NFC Defensive Player of the Week.

• Bad D:

  • Tampa gives up big plays due to misalignment.
  • Panthers exploit cover tendencies with classic high-low concepts leading to touchdowns—“double moves off tendency.”
  • Darius Butler emphasizes: at DB, one mistake erases 55 good plays on tape.

---

College Football: Playoff Bracketology & Major Matchups

[62:18–165:48]

• Stanford Steve’s Segment:

  • Georgia-Ole Miss preview: Georgia is vulnerable early in games, Ole Miss must prove it. Both teams not strong in creating defensive havoc, which could lead to shootout ([144:01]).
  • Bama-Tennessee: Alabama dubbed “hottest team in the country,” Ty Simpson praised for breakout, Bama’s D solid against run ([145:35]).
  • "Holy War" BYU-Utah under the lights: Both head coaches are BYU alums; rare matchup with both teams ranked; Kyle Whittingham’s dominance discussed ([151:19]).
  • Discussion of playoff bracket—SEC projected to send 4–5 teams, Big Ten 3–4. Elko’s Texas Tech and Miami highlighted as playoff dark horses.

• Penn State Segment:

  • Empty seats after tough losses. AQ reflects on coach James Franklin’s tenure and next steps for the program ([154:02]).

---

Podcast Culture & Inside Jokes

• "U Ball" Recap:
  • Running joke about the crew's competitive in-studio game ("U Ball"), complete with rivalries, banter, and self-deprecating PFF-style grading.
  • Quote (Bruce, 181:56): "My PFF grade…I probably give myself like a 36."

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• AJ Hawk’s Take on PFF:

  • [71:02]: "We don’t know…I just remember…even players on their own team don’t know whose responsibility certain things are at times."

• JJ Watt’s Blistering Rant:

  • [24:25]: "You can’t break down a person’s grade and know what they’re supposed to do if you don’t know their exact assignments..."

• AQ Shipley’s Trench Wisdom:

  • [19:33]: "If I don’t have a double team on the backside…I want to lose with this guy getting up the field away from the play. But PFF might look at that and say, 'oh, he got beat.' Well, good, I took him out of the play."

• Pat on Public Stats:

  • [73:01]: "I think we’re at the point now where PFF doesn’t have to do this anymore…all this does is undercut everything else you do. Because the people in the football world don’t take you serious, and the people that do…don’t know football, but they don’t know they don’t know football."

• On Field Quality:

  • [28:35]: "We got super scientists…somehow we can’t get good turf in these NFL stadiums…"

• On Coaching in College:

  • JJ Watt [56:07]: "The life of a college football coach has absolutely no appeal whatsoever to me…you could pay me $50 million and I don’t want to go do that."

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

| Segment | Time (MM:SS) | |---------|--------------| | 🟩 Opening, show theme | 00:00–03:44 | | 🔥 PFF Debate | 04:14–26:58 | | 🚑 Turf/injury/field quality | 28:35–38:10 | | ⚡ Pre-game injury stories | 35:03–43:46 | | 📢 Defensive/Offensive Rankings & Stats | 83:19–91:28 | | 🦍 In the Trenches w/AQ Shipley | 123:04–133:32 | | 🦾 Everything DB (Good D/Bad D) | 168:10–183:12 | | 🎓 CFB Playoff Talk & Stanford Steve | 140:20–165:48 |

---

Tone, Style, and Vibe

• Playful, authentic, and semi-chaotic—with deep football analysis, irreverent jokes, and unfiltered rants.
• Unique panel dynamic: Former players and coaches sparring with "stat nerd" culture.
• Frequent asides and inside jokes (both NFL stories and in-studio games).
• Language stays casual and on-brand (“You broke my finger, that’s on you, brother!”).

---

For Listeners Who Missed the Episode

This episode centers on the emerging battle between analytics companies like PFF and the traditional “football guy” perspective—using colorful real-life examples—and pivots through the real football world: field failures, critical matchups, inside-the-game strategy, and up-to-the-minute standings. There’s a heavy focus on how public stats impact lives, careers, and legacies, all wrapped in humor and perspective only actual pros can provide. The recurring theme: football is about context—stats alone just don’t tell the whole story.

---

(Tune in next week for: more Watt wisdom, U Ball drama, and the latest sports news “in the Thunderdome.”)

Transcript

[Pat McAfee]

Hello, beautiful people, and welcome to our humble abode, the Thunderdome on this waft. Wednesday, October 15, 2025. This program begins now.

[Ty Schmidt]

Football.

[Pat McAfee]

It's magical and we're obviously going to get a chance to chat about it today for the next few hours. And we can't thank you enough for allowing us to do that for a living. You're the greatest people on earth. We can't thank you enough. And hopefully today we give you at least a reason to say, I spent some time with the boys over there in the Thunderdome. We got some great sags today.

[AQ Shipley]

Oh, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, a lot of segs today. Okay? We got, you know, that seg that really makes you feel tough and gritty. We're going in the trenches with 12 year NFL vet, Super bowl champion player, coach for the Tampa Buccaneers, AQ Shipley. Top boys can't wait to go in the trenches. Aq, who are the top five performing offensive lines coming out of week six? Who are the teams that have the big guys that are moving at a good pace? Who are the big guys that could maybe lead their team to another super bowl? Just like the offensive line of the Philadelphia Eagles did last year? Who has the best offensive line in, in the league? Are they the best team in the league? Because that's what, you know, we've learned from last year's study is if you have the best offensive line in the league, you win the Super Bowl. That's modern football. You know, it used to be punch them in a mock around and pound rugby style football. You know, we grew up on, I'm 38 years old, especially in the city of Pittsburgh. We all ought to ground and pound back and you know, steel curtain comes around. You think about that old school day. Then there was an innovation in offensive football where somebody was like, holy. I believe his name was Hal Mummy. Actually he said, we got everybody in here running faces into each other. We need a separate everybody and make them smaller and just make everybody fast. Then it started kind of spreading everything out. Football started becoming a fast man sport. Football started becoming less 250, 245 pound linebacker, more 225, 215 pound linebacker because they got to go sideline to sideline, you see. And that captivated football, that captivated fantasy football. That changed rules of games. You started seeing tight ends become more and more dominant because the bodies were getting smaller in the middle of the field. Wow. They were changing rules so that there'd be more offensive explosion because we want to see points. But now it feels like with all the small balls, parties on the defense, some offensive geniuses around the league. You say, listen, it's time to punch these little dudes in the mouth. Hell yeah. And ground and pound. Football is coming back with some wrinkles of the explosive football that we love from yesteryear. So football is in a great spot, but it feels like the trenches are more important than they've ever been in the outcome of games. And no offense can really go without a great offensive line. So we learn every single week about the top five from AKU Shipley, and this is the definitive top five. This is no bullshit. Nobody's arguing. No, this is what it is. Ain't that right, aq? That's what you're hearing from the offensive line community, I'm sure.

[AQ Shipley]

Absolutely. They love it.

[Stanford Steve]

And listen.

[AQ Shipley]

Yeah, I just go by the tape. I just go by the tape.

[Pat McAfee]

He's pretty biased too. If he'll get a text from some team or a player. I love what you're doing on trenches. Oh, maybe give them a shot, guys.

[Ty Schmidt]

You guys were good last.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, you guys, five. I mean, it's not going to be in there.

[AQ Shipley]

Check these DMS real quick. Yep, Raiders are in it this week.

[Pat McAfee]

That can't be what this becomes. This is a vital piece of information whenever we're gambling on games. Nine year NFL vet Darius J. Butler is here. Everything db, good D, bad D, obviously cannot wait to watch. I didn't pay attention enough to the defenses, and I think that's kind of a common issue whenever football fans watch games is we're following the ball. Let's go to the next one handoff. Where to go? Is he in the ball? Oh, he's out there. We're following the ball. We don't really know what the hell's going on the other side. You breaking them down for us has been a true gift to football brains and lovers. I think, personally today. Do we have any, like, embarrassing defense that we're gonna display? How many good Ds do we have and how many of that bad, limp ass, badass?

[Darius J. Butler]

We got four. Four good Ds and two bad Ds. You always gotta have two, but, you know, you gotta take your medicine, see what happened, you know, we all did it in the film room and then you go move forward.

[Pat McAfee]

You learn from it. How are defenses performing this year?

[Darius J. Butler]

Oh, it's hard to say. It's kind of a week to week, just like with the matchups week to weekly. Sometimes it's damn near 30 interceptions, sometimes it's 15. You have forced fumbles, you have all type of different things that you can grade them by. But once I put a grade out, I'm not. Once I put a grade out and watch the tape, I move on.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay.

[Darius J. Butler]

I don't go back and you know.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Darius J. Butler]

Oh you know what, there's a little.

[Pat McAfee]

Slight shot from 9 year NFL vet right there to certain maybe grading systems out there. And that leads right into what I would like to talk about today because boy it is a hot topic, is it not? The talks to table at Boston Connor and at Ty Schmidt. Stats from one particular company are coming under fire rate.

[AQ Shipley]

Oh man.

[Pat McAfee]

Ty. Now there's been a select community that has been anti PFF for a very long time. Okay. Very vocal. Since the beginning of PFF there's been people that say nope, hate it, hate it. Me see a denominator. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Okay. Stats kind of taking over football was something that a lot of people hate. PFF became like the commercial face of stats taking over football because Collinsworth's. Yeah, they're Jordan. Yeah, they the Jordan brand of stats pf.

[Darius J. Butler]

The authority.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh you're saying the authority.

[Darius J. Butler]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. I would say also the Jordan brand. I think BFF kind of became the Jordan and the authority brand of like stats commercial companies. Chris Collinsworth tie in obviously and I assume it's a negotiated deal with NBC certainly that they will be used during Sunday Night Football which is obviously the most watched game every single week. So these PFF things become like the authority on the stats world. And there's been people that have hated that since very, very beginning.

[Ty Schmidt]

Sure.

[Pat McAfee]

A lot of ex players and current players hate these things. Now this isn't the first time or first era of players hating ranking systems. I have been very open about my feelings with the Madden folks when I debuted on that particular game. And although I was not a Madden player, everybody around me were Madden players and they couldn't wait to punt with me their first time. And then all I heard from everybody is how ass I was as a punter in Madden and in life. That's how people felt. And I said I never met a Madden guy. Has this guy ever watched me kick? Has this guy ever watched me lift? My strength was like 14. Yeah, I was, I was getting, I was watching myself just get my ass beat by people on this feel. I try to throw football strength, arm strength went to nothing. I'm like these bad people have never seen me throw football. I've been all time quarterback in my neighborhood since I'm 8 years old because I can go telephone pole to telephone pole. I'm pumped. Passing kick world champion. I could spin this thing. You got my arm strength at 13. What the fuck do you know, Madden? People make me look bad to my family. That's just my story and friend. That's just my story. I'm a punter. Low level punter. Think about all the other stories in which these PFF grades have changed ways. People's lives have gone, Madden has gone. Let alone playing with yourself. Yeah, getting bombed on by 14 year old in headset. Right on, you bum ass, trash ass. Okay. In real life though, you literally just lock this person down. So the rating and the number next to somebody, okay? Always been a talking point. Whenever one becomes the authority over others and one becomes like a bible or like a most definite factoid for people, there is always going to be detractors and ex. Players have been attacking and coaches have been attacking. Spagnola, defense coordinator for the Chiefs, I think two weeks ago came out and said I know PFF is going to say. And then buried it.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Chris Long, super bowl champion, hit a dinger of a. I'll say. A PFF take on his most recent podcast.

[Tone Diggs]

Get Mahomes, quarterback, 13 or 32 off my television screen. We're talking about legislation. What our kids shouldn't see at school, what they shouldn't be learning about. Like, should we have political ads on television? I want the PFF scores off the TV as bad as I want political ads off the television. Because like God forbid there's somebody watching the game who doesn't know who fucking Patrick Mahomes is, right? They're going to be badly misguided brother. 13th best quarterback in the league. I mean if I was not 90 and maybe he earned it this year, but I would fucking sue. I'd be in Chris Collinsworth backyard, dude.

[Pat McAfee]

You know what I'm saying?

[Tone Diggs]

I'd be at the window like, what the fuck? You can't do that, dude.

[Pat McAfee]

You can't do that. That's at the very beginning too. Like at the very beginning, they're scre. Hey, let's introduce you to these characters, okay? Here's Nandi119judged. He's the worst, okay? And it's not like golf. You don't want to be the lowest, okay? This is. He is by far the worst. Patrick Mahomes, middle of the pack, kind of middle of the backyard. Go around. Then there's people that somehow there's like more than 32 starters and they'll somehow put you in there, and it'll be like, ranked 27th out of 33 or something like that, or 33rd out of 30. It's like you're really burying these people on things that you might not know all the information. And I think that is why players hate it so bad. And coaches say, hey, I'm actually the one that told this one player on this one particular look to leave his person and go. It was our decision to do that strategy. You know, we're trying to mix it up a little bit. You can't imagine PFF trying to judge Troy Palmalu.

[AQ Shipley]

Yeah, okay.

[Pat McAfee]

Troy Palmalu had no rules. He's everywhere all the time. So PFF would just have to say, well, well, he's actually cover three here. So he's supposed to get this deep third. And he left his deep third. So that's actually a downfall. He does get the sack where he jumps over an offensive lineman, but his actual job on the play was to be deep third. So he kind of. They could have got bombed on if he didn't jump up. It's like those types of conversations being able to exist just completely defeat your argument that your rankings are definitive and the fact that it gets showed in a biggest game. I like the players, and everybody's starting to kind of stick up for it. And there's always been a little anti PFF out there. Oh, yeah, there's always been. And I was PFF punter of the decade.

[Ty Schmidt]

That's right.

[Darius J. Butler]

Congratulations.

[Pat McAfee]

We celebrated that. I still got the sweatshirt they sent us.

[Tone Diggs]

Hoodies.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, I put the hoodie on. I was pumped about it. Now, I would argue in PFF's case, punting is probably a pretty straightforward one on who's doing good, who's not doing good. So let's make sure we take PFF serious whenever it comes to punting, because that benefits me now, not benefiting anybody else in this particular world. Then there's situations that brew, like, you know, T.J. watt and Myles Garrett this weekend. So obviously, T.J. watt, Myles Garrett, defensive MVP, battles kick AFC North. There is real tension here between the two of them on who's the goat, not only in the NFL, but just the AFC north and Cleveland and Pittsburgh, obviously. Historic rivalry of cities and towns, and this is AFC north football getting to the quarterback. Big tough guys that lead their team. One guy sets the market for the other guy. One guy sets the pace for the other guy. These two have been battling, and PFF has seemingly always kind of leaned towards Miles Garrett.

[J.J. Watt]

Certainly.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, T.J. watt has a Lot of stats, okay. Which we thought they loved. With stats that would indicate that TJ Watt is on a historic run and we should maybe give this guy a little bit more credit. But what PFF says is we're not just looking at stats, even though we are stats people. We're looking at the game. We're not looking at the outcome of the play. We're looking at what's actually happening on the field. You guys watch highlights, we watch film. Here's PFF explaining how Myles Garrett obviously lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers Cleveland Browns, who seemingly statistically wise, had much less of a performance than TJ Watt did, but still outperformed TJ Watt. And then they dropped the points later after second eval. But here's PFF guy on the right describing everything about how they got to that score.

[Trevor Sikoma]

And they saw that Myles Garrett's grade was ahead of TJ Watt and they weren't very happy about it. And they wondered how Miles Garrett was able to get that high of a grade while only having one pressure. Those are the preliminary grades. And, and we, we go over the grades, we comb over it, we have our rechecks and everything. And so those are the final grades that we showed you right there. But I do want to say, like, Garrett still had a really good game in this game. His pastor's win percentage was still pretty dang high. He was still a force to be reckoned with in this game. The fact of the matter is, the Steelers had a fantastic game plan for him. They constantly had different looks with tight ends. Being able to be on his side of the line of scrimmage and chip him and all that kinds of stuff. The offensive line, I thought, played really well in mitigating exactly where Myles Garrett could go and how he could impact the game. If they were running the football, a lot of times they weren't running it at Miles Garrett. They were making him get beyond a chip or beyond the offensive tackle just to chase the running back from behind. And a lot of times he couldn't do it. And to be honest with you, part of this great Aaron Rodgers game, which I'm going to get to more in a second.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yes, please.

[Trevor Sikoma]

Rodgers is the perfect quarterback to mitigate a guy.

[Pat McAfee]

Take my ears out.

[Trevor Sikoma]

He's getting the ball out of his hands quickly. He's not dumb. He knows Myles Garrett is to his blind side and he knows how to just get around that. And so I thought it was an excellent job from the Pittsburgh Steelers game planning around Myles Garrett to make, make him a non factor in this game, that didn't mean that Miles Garrett did not have a good game. I thought he was a presence. He was impactful. He was still winning a lot of his assignments. But by the time he was able to win versus a tight end and versus an offensive tackle, that ball's gone.

[J.J. Watt]

Yep.

[Trevor Sikoma]

And Aaron Rodgers knew that. And so it was just a hat tip to what the Steelers were able to do, I think from a philosophical standpoint going into this game to neutralize a great talent like Miles Garrett. So hats off to what Pittsburgh was able to do.

[Pat McAfee]

BFF guy on the right says this was actually a compliment to the Pittsburgh Steelers because of how good of a game Myles Garrett had and he didn't have much of an impact. Now, if that's going to be the story for all of your rankings in the ratings, that needs to be explained on the PFF rankings on Sunday Night Football. Certainly. Hey, these are actually rankings off of thinking how good of another team actually did against how you actually did for your assignment. Now what is your assignment? We're kind of guessing here. We think that your assignment is to do this on every single play. I appreciate the fact that he said Myles Garrett had a good game. Pittsburgh Steelers just out schemed this guy. Now granted, there's swats and jumps and other ways you can affect if you're not getting home because of how quick it is. And there's different ways to affect the game. And getting to the quarterback is a part of it. Stopping the run is obviously a part of it. But it's like all these little qualifiers that they have, I don't think the general public knows. So whenever you're putting the ranking system up, I think maybe we should put a follow up graphic that also explains everything he just said there. Okay. PFF got in, right? I think he nailed it. Okay. And it does make sense with what he said. Whenever you hear him say how he said it, it just doesn't make sense that you guys are giving actual rankings without everybody understanding it. This is a compliment to the offense as opposed to a slight against T.J. watt.

[Darius J. Butler]

Yeah, I mean, it's just tough whenever you put a grade, like you said, whenever you put a grade on something, it's tough. The only people that can truly grade it are like the coaches and the players, like position coaches, coordinators, because they know exactly what's going into it. And I kind of understood what he was saying. It's kind of like a Reavis type guy. If he just locks down one side of the film, you can say oh, he didn't have any PBUs or any tackles or any interceptions. He didn't impact. Oh, this guy had one interception and you could say, okay, this guy impacted the game more. But it's. Yeah, it kind of put my mind in the pretzels where I mean, great job. Keep doing your thing. Pff. I think it is a good tool. I think it is a good tool. You could definitely use it along with watching the tape and watching the games and doing shit like this. But it's a time and a place for it. Sunday Night Football. I understand the business relationship there with Chris Collinsworth, but yeah, that's. You can't have. I agree with Chris Long with his, with his sentiment. Take it off my screen.

[Pat McAfee]

That was awesome. Chris Long really laid it out perfectly. God forbid somebody's never seen the game before. Patrick Mahomes. This is the best player and this is our guy right now. Hey, the guy who eats ketchup in the middle of Kansas City. Seemingly nice to everybody. Everybody. He's a hardworking guy and oh yeah, he's already in the goat conversation. He's not even 30 years old. Let's. Let's try to make him look good at the beginning of our biggest show every single weekend. Instead, somebody seeing that he's just middle of the pack in the NFL. That's a funny way for Chris Long. Chris Long saw that and was just disgusted. These mother. I would, I would like to know what they did to Chris Long. I assume there is a. I assume there is a deep CD with Chris Long story of a ranking or somebody that's very close to him. Right? Yeah, I mean, comes from a football family, obviously the Long football dynasty. But I appreciate that everybody's kind of spinning against it right now.

[Ty Schmidt]

Well, and I think a big issue like whether people wanted like stats is such a big part of like the NFL and people who aren't in the NFL that want to talk about it now that Maybe it wasn't 10 years ago, but think of like all the. How this affects like legacies. Like we were talking about, you know, an agent or like a team bringing this up in, you know, like a negotiation. It's like, well, you know, pff. Has you as the 119th of 119th tackle. But in terms of like MVP votes and stuff like that, like, there are a lot of people out there who are very like analytics driven and you know, the NFL is kind of already co signed on this stuff. It's on Sunday Night Football. So like, there are definitely people who look at this stuff, and it's like, okay, well, you know, defensive player of the year, like, look how many weeks, you know, Miles Garrett had a 92 rating or higher. So it's like, whether you like it or not, like, this stuff is absolutely also influencing all powers.

[Darius J. Butler]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Like contracts, you name everything, legacies, life, day to day life for people. I mean, it does affect a lot of things. Once again, for the punting rankings, I think they're pretty spot on. Just if I had to guess, they watch every straightforward. It used to be. I thought the angle was too. It used to be scouts, like old scouts watching film, that didn't want to wait to either become general managers. They found something that was good for them in the media lane, which is like how you would evaluate and how you would judge tape and score tape and things like that. It's like, pff. Guy on the right there, was he. Because guy on the left, I don't think I knew him either.

[Ty Schmidt]

Is it Trevor Sikama? Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. Was he. Was he a scout or something? I'm not sure.

[Ty Schmidt]

I don't believe so.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, so that used to be the thing, right? BFF had old scouts that would come in there. I think that was like the big selling point. So I think for a lot of football fans, NFL fans, it's like, hey, these are the actual people that were doing the judging of things. So if this is how this is going to go, this is how it's going to go. And AJ Hawk has texted us. You don't win assignments in football. That's what he just said. So he's picking apart that particular answer. But that's always going to have those stats people and football people. Q. Offensive line. I couldn't even imagine what a winning assignment looks like and what a losing assignment looks like. And I would assume, pff, had you as a loser a lot.

[AQ Shipley]

If I had to guess, surprisingly, they actually had me winning quite often.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, so they're pretty good at judging centers.

[AQ Shipley]

I was a technique guy, so it was kind of easy. But to go to your point, if anybody's using that as a tool while they're watching film, they're a. I don't know what else to say, but here's what I will say.

[Pat McAfee]

There's a lot of those people.

[AQ Shipley]

There is a lot of those people. And then coaches also use this to justify their job. I'm telling you, I've seen it. What a coach will do that will come in after the game and be like, hey, the tackle's just getting. I mean, he's getting run around all game. He's giving up pressures, giving up sacks. And then they'll be like, hey, this is how I can justify my job. Well, PFF had him at a 85 pass protection rate.

[Pat McAfee]

See, that's what we're talking about. It's infiltrated, but that's where you go.

[Darius J. Butler]

So like, say like, hey, I want to go and watch all the. Just like we used to cut ups, cover three single high or match zones or split safety fire zones. And I could just watch that. Like that'll help me. I don't have to go and watch every platform. Hey, I just watched these two zones. I just watch simulated pressure. I just watched that. And that can help you from that standpoint or like a quarterback, where's his heat map? Where does he like to throw the ball? Does he like to between the seams? Is he staying away from the middle of the field? Does he like the sidelines? So, like, it can help you kind of cut down the time part of it. But you gotta still be able to watch the film. And the stuff we do, like the breakdown stuff. Well, it's probably a little different with O line, but as far as secondaries, like, it's only so many coverages. And based off, you know, my experience. Okay, it's a cover for. They're trying to do it here.

[Pat McAfee]

You say that every time you break my.

[Darius J. Butler]

Yeah, but I can't say 1,000% unless, you know, I shoot a text or I call somebody, hey, you have that conversation and you know, you go back and forth. But things change so much. And even the coverages that we know or the past protections that, you know, inside and out can be massaged between fucking series. So it's always moving parts. So whenever you. Whenever anyone can get on TV and say, this is what it is without a shadow of a doubt, blah, blah, blah. 99 of the time, they're probably wrong.

[AQ Shipley]

Well, the duo play that we talk about, I talk about it all the time. It's double team, double team, double team. Well, if I don't have a double team on the backside and I have a backside nose guard, but the plays being run to the right, I want to lose with this guy getting up the field away from the play. But PFF might look at that and say, oh, he got beat. His guy's five yards in the backfield. Well, good, I took him out of the play. I want to ride him five yards up the field, right? Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

So that's where like the ex scouts being in there would allegedly make up for that. And I don't know if that's still the thing.

[AQ Shipley]

I don't think.

[Ty Schmidt]

I don't think it is.

[Darius J. Butler]

And even with them in there, like for quarters, for example, if we play quarters, we say, all right, we're going to trap this one like third and eight. They like to run a out from number two and over the top. So, hey, I'm in the trap too. So I'm a jump too. If you're a pff, you just watch me jump to him. I drop number one, but my safety is not on the same page. He doesn't get over top of number one. That's a blown assignment for the cornerback. When in reality they go to the sideline. The DB coach go black. Hey, what happened? This is the conversation that was had. This is what actually happened. So it's just so much that goes on. You never really know unless you know, you watch the tape. And a lot of times people reach out and say, this is what happened or this is what the coach told me. So being, you know, plugged in, I'm sure these guys are plugged in somewhat to people in the buildings as well. I know how much the players, I'm sure they can make these people, these people are infiltrating the buildings in the system. All right.

[Pat McAfee]

Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is a man who's a huge fan and I think he uses it every single day as well to grow his brain and maybe even his brand as a football analysis giver. He's obviously got the brute strength and the ball and he's obviously very handsome, but with the help of pff, he's built his stats game to a level where now he's calling games every Sunday.

[AQ Shipley]

Nice.

[Pat McAfee]

Ladies and gentlemen, future first ballot hall of Famer, one of the only members of the Bull Ring of Honor down there for the Houston Texans, former Walter Payton man of the Year whenever he raised all the money for the city of Houston. Burnley owner Espanol owner JJ Walk, if you could please elaborate on your PFF usage and thoughts, especially fresh out of a week where your brother got a lower ranking than Miles Garrett in a battle, you know, in which there's a lot of legacy, a lot of conversation, a lot of tension, a lot of rivalry, a lot of everything between those two. So if you could break it down, your angle now, we, we haven't left a lot of meat on the bone with the things that we have said about PFF from a player's perspective. Now, jj, I'm sure you have some ideas on what Maybe hasn't been mentioned in this entire argument, but you have been in open. Hey, we can't be putting the rankings on tv. This is not how this goes, guy. For a while now, many other people are feeling empowered to maybe say it as well. Or why do you think there is a little bit of a groundswell right now where people are going, we got to change how this goes. If this is how it's going to continue to go.

[J.J. Watt]

Well, I think first things first, that that conversation, the T.J. miles conversation, people want to take that and turn into something different. This is. I've had my issues with BFF for a very long time.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, yeah.

[J.J. Watt]

I was their number one rated player. I had over 100 score while I was playing. They had to change the system. They literally came to me and told me we had to change our system because of how you did it. So this isn't a guy who had bad grades who's disgruntled. I literally was their number one guy and I still hate it. I have to start with this. PFF has a lot of very beneficial tools. They have things. Debug was just talking about it. They have things where you can break down plays by coverages where you can cut down the film to. I just want to see runs to the right side under five yards. They have all this really good stuff that you can use. The number one issue with PFF, by far, bar none, hands down, is their player grading system and the fact that they project it everywhere, including nationally televised games on Sunday night where everybody's watching and they make it underneath the rankings where it states as fact. 91st out of 97th defensive tackles, 117 out of 117 offensive guard. And that is a completely made up number. That is not like the coaches around the league and the players around the league. That is a guy or guys in the back room. I'm getting hot. I'm getting hot.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, I like. That's how you summon some change.

[Ty Schmidt]

Change, exactly.

[J.J. Watt]

Personal stories of Uber drivers telling NFL passengers that they break down film for PFF and that they watch the TV copy only and put a grade out after the game.

[Pat McAfee]

That Uber drivers, you can't watch film.

[J.J. Watt]

On the TV copy and create a grade. You can't break down a person's grade and know what they're supposed to do. If you don't know their exact assignments, like D. But just said, I know defensive line play unbelievably well. I could not go and grade a game for a player and give him a definitive Grade without speaking to him, his coach, the scheme, everything. It's just a fact. PFF has a ton of great stuff. Player grading sucks. Stop putting it out.

[Pat McAfee]

Hell yeah. And a boy, J.

[Darius J. Butler]

Well done, J.

[Pat McAfee]

He broke the system. This guy broke the system, and now he's raging against it, you know, and he's saying, hey, this ain't right. You. You guys might have liked me, but I got teammates that you were misjudging in this entire thing. And J, I think that's right. We talked about this too. Like when PFF was trying to make, like a name for itself in the stats world, because there's a lot of stats coming. Stats stat. Stats, stats, stats everywhere. They were coming. We're coming for your sport, bro. We got a whole new area to do it. And I think I would like to say, as football guys and football people, we're pretty open to it. I think, you know, I think we were pretty open to the stats at the beginning. We're saying a lot of it was bullshit. But listen, there's some very beneficial things. I think this is good stuff. Whenever the coaches started making only their decisions for this entire thing and changing it all, I think we, you know, kind of started judging them a little bit more harshly for not having a feel or a gut feel or an instinct or anything like that. But pff Bec, the one. Because of the. I don't want to say the hot takes, but basically the hot takes, I think they're at the stage now where they don't have to do that anymore. Right. Which is kind of what you're saying. Like, hey, you got a lot of other good shit that would be a sustainable business, I think, for a lot of football people. I think you guys have found what you guys could be and could be a real asset for. So just doing the trolling, holier than thou, we know everything shit is just stupid at this stage, I think is what you're saying. A lot of us are saying. Right. I think you were even saying earlier. It's like you have actual. You have great benefits for the football world within what you guys have, especially with all the information that you've garnered with the platform that you have with where you're at. So it's like, let's go ahead and utilize that. Let's make football better team on me.

[J.J. Watt]

Yes.

[Pat McAfee]

Jj, any final thoughts here? This is kind of your thing here. This is kind of your. Your run.

[J.J. Watt]

I. I'll hold my tongue.

[Pat McAfee]

No, you do good stuff.

[J.J. Watt]

Just stop doing your player grades, man.

[Pat McAfee]

Team on three One, two, three. All right, let's move along. Other things that need to stop. We need to have great turf everywhere. Football's happening, okay? I can't take it anymore. We're in 20, 25. We got super scientists. I watch how high, how long ago they were growing tree in their dorm room. This one make you smarter. This one make you you happier. This won't do this. The green thumbs of people these days, okay. Higher than it's ever been. They're growing everything everywhere. And somehow we can't get good turf in these NFL stadiums. Now, obviously there are some places that are fantastic. Pittsburgh. The artist formerly known as Hines Field, now Ackershire, has been notoriously terrible with obviously stories of them spray painting dirt and mud green so that on TV it appears as if it is grass. But it's even worse then a situation like this happens with one of the best kickers in the history of the NFL. One of the most sure fire kickers in the NFL. He's on your team and obviously the entire turf rolls up on top of his foot. Could have rolled his ankle, could have sprained it. Instead, acresher field said, don't worry about it, you won't roll it because you have to get stuck. We're just gonna slide right underneath the ball. Obviously he doesn't hit a clean ball there. So whenever you see this type of shit, Jage, what are your thoughts? I don't know where you were on the hashtag changethe turf. Is that what it was? I don't remember what the hashtag was. Whenever it was like turf versus grass. You've been on the record of saying to us, like, hey, I've gone to some of these soccer games where they put the grass on top of the turf. That shit's not the greatest either. What are your thoughts on what's going on in Pittsburgh and what are your thoughts on the turf thing kind of as a whole in the NFL that kind of. We revisit every, I don't know, 15 months or so.

[J.J. Watt]

Yeah, I mean, my first thought, because you could tell that this field was deteriorating throughout the course of the game. We were there, we were calling the game and you could tell and we had stuff ready because we thought that something might happen like this, just witnessing it. And my first thought was, well, this is an anti turf or anti natural grass argument because you obviously have the whole turf argument going. But I also know that the Steelers, they had already planned to switch the field out after this game. I think they switch it out three times throughout the season. But I think Tones touched on it before. Many people have. This is what happens when you have natural grass that far north and you have Pit playing on it in addition to the Steelers playing on it. And I completely understand that the Steelers don't own the field and everything, but like this is a multi, multi billion dollar business here and these are the assets of the business. And I, I understand everything that goes into everything, but that had a chance to hyper extend his knee in a very bad way. We saw Miles kill Boo go down earlier. You don't know if that's directly correlated to that or not, but. But at the end of the day, I think players still would prefer that their foot slide like that to give them a chance versus the turf where it gets stuck. But that that field was really, really bad. And it's very rare you see players like Aaron Rodgers and Cam Heyward come out and just blast their own home field the way that they did after the game.

[Pat McAfee]

See Aaron Rodgers obviously new there, thinking to himself probably with how high he has held the Pittsburgh Steelers in his mind. So the way Aaron has always talked about the Steelers, Pittsburgh, everything has always been like, in very high regards like, like McCarthy being his coach in Green Bay and McCarthy still, you know, he's got pictures of Greenfield behind him in his office. Like Aaron knows Pittsburgh has been around. Pittsburgh has always held the Steelers in a high regard. It's afc, Green Bay packers is basically how he's always talked about the Steelers. So I assume whenever he gets on that field and it's like that he's like, this is not. Yeah, this is not like what?

[Ty Schmidt]

Lambo's immaculate.

[Pat McAfee]

Everybody. Yeah, yeah. Like he's probably mind blown, I think. But also saying like this is not how it's supposed to be. You guys are like the, this is the franchise. This is not how this is supposed to go. And I saw a lot of people, Tone Diggs included, talk about the Pitfield and Ben Roethlisberger said on football and the same exact thing he said they need to build like a 35,000 stadium person stadium in Oakland a little bit. Gonna be tough to find that room. I think in the city it's gonna be difficult to do that. But a lot of people have been saying get pit their own stadium even though the city owns it. And then a lot of pit people are saying we didn't have a game for like eight days before that. So why are we, what are we? What are we?

[A.J. Hawk]

What are we?

[Pat McAfee]

We weren't even playing there. Let's go to Hammer Tone You've been taking it on the shins pretty good. I think a 48 year old in Robinson went after you pretty good. And then obviously that spurred some other conversations around Pittsburgh, but then Ben Roethlisberger comes out and kind of echoes your sentiment. You're not the only one. How do you feel right now about what is possible for the future of the city of Pittsburgh with their stadium set up? And how are the shins after the 15,000, 20,000 people that go to every game took out their broomsticks and hit you on the shins?

[Tone Diggs]

Yeah, I fired off that original tweet that Foxy put up in the moment there. And Pitt has always been the easy target as far as firing shots at the field. Yes, I know they lease it with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Neither of those places own it. And then I did fire off some other tweets after that, after I started getting attacked because I am not really good at, you know, just letting it go and not going cutthroat at places. So, yeah, they got upset. The shins took it quite a bit. That's fine. That's gonna happen or whatever. All I want is like, yes, I know it's north of the Mason Dixon line and they share it together. But like, there's other places that share fields with college football teams. I believe the Eagles do it and others and their grass is fine. I'm really just frustrated. Like, figure it out because if Boz would have got hurt there, that's, that's an absolute like disaster. And in that city, I just hope everyone realizes what the pecking order is and it's Pittsburgh Steelers and it's everybody else. So if it's going to help Pittsburgh Steelers. Yeah, I think you should only play Steelers games.

[Pat McAfee]

On that note, I think some pit fans really turned heel thinking that they were more important than the Steelers. On the Internet, I, I saw, I saw some of that. So they kind of worked themselves into a shoot, brother. So they, they kind of went into a circle. But I think all we all, all want is just a perfect setting and environment for great football. Is this not the NFL this? Is this not the highest level?

[Darius J. Butler]

It's pinnacle.

[Pat McAfee]

You're talking about boswell getting hurt. TJ's making 40 something million a year. Miles Garrett's making 40 something million dollars a year. Aaron Rodgers, first ballot hall of Famer. If any of those guys get hurt because of the. That story is. Oh yeah, obviously magnified. Boswell having that happen, it's a kicker. That's one of the greatest of all time. Right there. Like that kicker Boswell is one of the greatest.

[J.J. Watt]

There weren't people, people putting pit up ahead of the Steelers.

[Pat McAfee]

They were acting like it, bro. They were acting like it.

[J.J. Watt]

I mean, I've turned down a few pit games in my day and seen those yellow seats, all right?

[Pat McAfee]

Screaming. They're screaming at you through the screen.

[J.J. Watt]

You know, nothing wrong with the good program. Good program, great history. I've turned on those games and I've seen the yellow seats.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, you can hear the yellow seats with your eyes because it's in the quad box and it's just like the whole thing. I've heard people even describe it as those yellow seats are spitting through the screen because you see, because they're so loud. Like if it was, if it was black seats or something like that, or blue seats, I think it would just kind of blend in. The fact that it's yellow, it's like we see everyone. Like we, we see it all. And I'm not saying that Pitt doesn't have their die hard fans of the University of Pittsburgh. I think people would die for the University of Pittsburgh. There is Big Gotham, there is Pitt. There are those types of people. Now, I do think not a lot of them have the opportunity to go to the football game still, because we all just like J said, we all have eyes. We watch the game. But now if that field's perfect, nobody cares about anything. So let's figure out the grass.

[AQ Shipley]

Exactly.

[Pat McAfee]

Let's figure out the grass. Why doesn't your dad go down there and figure out the grass? How's he on a lawnmower? He's got a Z turn down there. We got to make this thing go ahead and tie in.

[AQ Shipley]

He should, because he hates Pitt as much as he loves the Steelers.

[Pat McAfee]

Let's go to the next conversation. Speaking of injuries, I don't know what I'm talking about. We had four very serious injuries in the Indianapolis Colts game, including a neck on a special teams return where I believe the guy got released from the hospital later in the night. So we're very thankful for that. It was scary in real time, but obviously Mooney getting hurt in a pregame warmup. Anthony Richardson gets hurt doing a band exercise, and then Marvin Harrison got concussed right in front. I mean, it was. There's a lot of injuries.

[J.J. Watt]

What are you guys doing pre game in Indianapolis? What is going on pre game in Indianapolis?

[Pat McAfee]

Of course, we don't know we're winning. I know that, but I. I think we should dial it back a little bit because we can still win without losing. Guys in the pregame warm up as they're running. Little snake.

[J.J. Watt]

Oh my.

[AQ Shipley]

It looked like he put a shoulder into him. Like, I don't. I don't really understand that right there.

[Pat McAfee]

No, he was in the middle of doing his thing, kind of. Yeah.

[Darius J. Butler]

Try to avoid him last.

[Pat McAfee]

Come on. He's doing his thing.

[AQ Shipley]

No shoulder.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, right. Our team's tight, bro. Don't think about that. Don't talk about that. He was. He felt terrible about his will, you know. So what's that? He's moving.

[J.J. Watt]

He tried to scoot out of the way. He slid his butt a little bit out to the side. I got the Colts this weekend. I'll be watching those pre game warm ups close.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay.

[J.J. Watt]

Gonna see what's going on.

[Pat McAfee]

Thanks for keeping an eye on it. Jh we need you to do that. We need you to keep an eye.

[J.J. Watt]

On the pre game warmups for you.

[Pat McAfee]

On that note, what was your routine? Did you do pre. Pre workout?

[J.J. Watt]

Yeah, I did the pre. Pre. But I kept it. I did it way too hard early in my career. So I learned to. To back the pre. Pre down and ramp up the pre.

[Pat McAfee]

You were doing.

[A.J. Hawk]

You do the pre.

[Stanford Steve]

Pre.

[J.J. Watt]

You get too excited.

[Pat McAfee]

Do you remember what he became in the pre. Pre JJ Watts playing catch with every kid in the city?

[Ty Schmidt]

Yep.

[Pat McAfee]

You remember that? When did you start doing it? Did you do that to save yourself from running all over the field so you didn't wear yourself out there? Like, I need to do something, but I can't just run my life away here on the field. Is that how that started? How did you start that?

[J.J. Watt]

It actually was a nice little. But no, I started it because. So I grew up in Wisconsin. Green Bay packers fan growing up. And I went to training camp one time. Literally one time. They have open training camp. And I remember going to the players parking lot after and standing outside the fence and I had literally a white T shirt and I threw it over and hoping somebody signed it. Didn't even know who it was. Probably a practice squad guy or somebody signed it and threw it back to me and I was like, that was the coolest thing of all time. And so in the NFL, I've always tried to find like that thing where some kid is going to a game for the first time ever and is going to have a memory of that day. How can you make that memory a special one? But you have to keep it rolling. I couldn't sign autographs for everybody before the game, so I was like, I'll Play catch. Like, it takes one second for each person. And I can hit a shitload of people as I go around the stadium. So I just make one quick lap before I went in and played catch with as many kids as possible.

[Pat McAfee]

I thought it was good for the game, what you did. I thought it was good for the game. And I like the fact that in every city, they were catching it and throwing it back to you. You know, like some of those places you throw it into the stands and they hate you. They're taking that thing, throwing it backwards, backwards, backwards, you know. So the fact that they didn't do that, I think that was the tip of the cap to you as a person. But that pre. Pre workout that you were talking about losing your mind during. It's organized chaos out there. I don't know how more injuries don't happen after seeing this. And it was right. My mom actually had eyes on it. My mom was already at the game and she sent a text to the group and then. Or to me. And then D Bone was at the game as well, sent a picture. And my mom was like, somebody just got really hurt, like, really hurt in warmups or whatever. And it was like, how it's two hours. How is there anything happening? And we learned it's one of our guys. And guess what happened?

[J.J. Watt]

Dbs, because you're going backwards. And those like the punt, returners, where they're like, you don't know where that ball's going. You don't know what's on, going, going on. Like, those are the two, to me, that are the ones that have the biggest chance of getting hurt. And clearly here was one of them. D. But did you. Did you participate in this? Did you have to, like, clear out 30 yards of space?

[Darius J. Butler]

Yeah, you just kind of know. And the person throwing the ball to you is kind of responsible too, in my opinion, because they're leading you either right or left. But you usually take a peek back. You're not just out there, just blind. Depending on what time, you know, depending on if it's home or way, you will have, you know, the time. And you would go out there and warm up, but you knew your kind of area of the field that would be safe. This is. It looks like Ogletree was kind of coming kind of out of nowhere off the sideline. But once again, like, those. I don't know if they're coaches or trainers or what they were, but they are. They gotta be responsible too. Cause you don't want guys getting hurt and warm up just like in practice, practice when shit's on the sidelines, like, you know, that one time, you know, first, second day of training camp is maybe a loose helmet or loose pad on the sideline and everybody just kind of stops. Like, like is going on now. So it's the same thing with pregame. You can't let you know your big time corner get hurt pregame.

[Pat McAfee]

And there's no like designated places for people. But there is like unwritten rules. It's like an interesting, it's a very, it's a very interesting dynamic. And all I know is kickers and punters, we are lowest on the pecking order. So if we find some space, we definitely use it. Okay. If you're Justin Tucker and Travis Kelsey and Patrick Mahomes coming around, you just go ahead and get those balls away from their feet because guess what? Good for the entire league here not to have these guys get hurt on your kicking balls beforehand. I, I just like that to be known. Like that's where kickers, punters stand from. But we need that, that's when we need that field. Because for punters.

[J.J. Watt]

Were you ever the guy that went out in like, in between the cheerleaders was practicing, like right before the kickoff or after halftime?

[Pat McAfee]

No, I, I, I thought if you got in the middle of there. Okay, you're really trying to work on something for me. I thought mentally we could get some work done. I, on the side, definitely hitting. While things are happening, though, at the halftime show, there was some preseason game where it had to be. I was punting in it. I forget what year it was. But the other team's backup punter. Okay, so because he got preseason, got backup punters.

[J.J. Watt]

Oh, yeah, Yeah, I guess, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Guy, I think he hit somebody that was in the, in the, in the thing. In the thing. Yeah, I got called in, asked about if I saw what happened, happened, yada, yada, yada. Oh, no, I was like, I did see what happened. Yeah.

[J.J. Watt]

Who called you in?

[Pat McAfee]

Because it was at our, it was at our stadium. And the email that got sent was from a parent. It was like a band contest or something happening in the city or something.

[Ty Schmidt]

High school band deal.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, it was like a big deal. And the person that sent in the email was like, talked about how hard everybody on that band field worked to get to that moment. And the, everything that was put into that in the sacrifice, like really laid it in. I mean, it was, you know, I was, I was told to read it. Why did I get this is what I was told. And I was like, Oh, I saw it. Yeah. It was not good. Yeah, it was. It was a shank completely, like. Because in those moments, can't be shanking into the kicking, you know, Like, I've done a punt, you know, halftime show, big halftime show, and it's like you're really rolling the dice every time, you know? It's like. That's real pressure there. Let's see if we got. Just got out of the locker room. Little chilly here. Gallery got a $100 million artist right here. Okay, let's not hit a shank left right now and just take somebody off the thing. But you got to get your work in, too. Like, I'm trying to do my job, too. Like, I got to do my.

[Darius J. Butler]

You actually broke my finger pregame. I just remember.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, that's on you, brother. That ball was coming down from the clouds.

[Darius J. Butler]

Zoom in right there. Just.

[Pat McAfee]

What? That's me?

[J.J. Watt]

Oh, no.

[Darius J. Butler]

That's you.

[Pat McAfee]

No. What happened? Middle finger, too.

[A.J. Hawk]

That's a good one.

[Pat McAfee]

If I was getting any of them, I'm happy.

[Darius J. Butler]

Middle finger, back up. Punt return either went down or was inactive. So Mitt's dad came up to me and was like, hey, gonna need you today. Just back up. Punt return, you know. Have you done it? No, Never kick returning, but sure, I got out there and catch a couple. Yeah, go catch a couple from Pat.

[Pat McAfee]

My God.

[Darius J. Butler]

They went in there. Had to just splint it before the game. It's tough, man. I think it was before Rams, the.

[Pat McAfee]

Game that killed us.

[Darius J. Butler]

Yeah. Oh, man, that might have been. Did you have the halftime, like, military?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Stanford Steve]

Yeah.

[Darius J. Butler]

That was a rough one.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, that was a rough day. Yeah.

[Darius J. Butler]

Chris Long.

[Pat McAfee]

I was bombing the ball, though, man. That one. Tavon Austin took one back 98 that game. That was perfect. Punt. Just. Tavon Austin takes it to the crib.

[Darius J. Butler]

I bet karma for breaking my finger.

[Pat McAfee]

You broke your finger? I didn't break your finger. That's on you, bro.

[Darius J. Butler]

That's you.

[Pat McAfee]

What? What you think you were top six? Probably right. Hands on the team.

[Darius J. Butler]

I was two. Between two, two and three.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Darius J. Butler]

Edgy. Go on, then. Probably me and Ty. Probably not coming. Then you were probably four, five.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, J. You know what? That's J.J. okay. Shane Lechler, hands on the team. What do you think his hands were? You think they were top three, top five?

[J.J. Watt]

No, no, no.

[Pat McAfee]

Catches the ball every time he goes on the field. Every single time he goes on the field, he catches the ball.

[J.J. Watt]

Yeah, it's put. We had John Weeks tossing it back there. It was put exactly where he wanted it. The lace was right where he wanted every single time.

[Pat McAfee]

Weeks, he was an animal. Weeks, he's this tall. Weeks.

[AQ Shipley]

He is still playing San Fran.

[J.J. Watt]

Still doing it?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[J.J. Watt]

Out there in San Fran.

[Pat McAfee]

Maybe what, 20? How many years is this? It's got to be.

[J.J. Watt]

It's a lot.

[Pat McAfee]

He was unbelievable.

[Ty Schmidt]

Incredible.

[Pat McAfee]

So small.

[J.J. Watt]

I cannot believe that those guys can snap the ball 14 yards and still decide how many rotations to get the laces up. That blows my mind.

[Pat McAfee]

That's unbelievable. If Weeks can do that, I don't think there's a lot of people that. I mean, your guy could. I had a couple of different snappers that were very good. Matt Overton snapped for a very long time. He was incredible. He was good with laces on field going before Justin Snow was his name. So he actually named his kid Hunter. Okay. The punter that was here for 11 years before me, his name, Hunter. So the longstepper and the previous punter, besties, we're talking best, best friends. And Hunter, the punter was beloved in Indianapolis. He was a very good man. He's a. I believe he's a religious singer.

[Ty Schmidt]

He has a Christian rock.

[Pat McAfee]

He's a Christian rock band singer. Very athletic. Went to Notre Dame, I believe. I mean, you're talking about be loved here in town. And then this dumbass gets drafted in here. Just complete opposite of this guy. I mean, it's just complete opposite of this human being. I get a public intoxication, obviously, my second year. Hunter, the punter. Yeah, right. This guy, literally Notre Dame, Christian singer, be loved in the community. We're talking about going to hospitals every single day. Like Mount Teresa, like Mother Teresa type stuff. This guy, long sniper, names his kid after him. And then I get draft to come in here, just animal justice. Don't even talk to me for, like six weeks. The only time he talked to me, he's like, where was the snap? And I'm like, I blacked out. I don't know.

[Darius J. Butler]

He's like.

[Pat McAfee]

He's like, what's that? I'm like, I don't know. I don't know where it's. I don't remember. Sorry. I just kind of go out there and do my thing. It must have been good, I guess, because it was a good pun. I don't even know. So that guy hated me for a while, but then we became best friends. He was really good. Strong, handsome guy. Long snappers are an interesting job. Two mistakes, you're fired. Yeah, all the time, just looming. Two mistakes, you're fired. Weeks still doing it is incredible. Speaking of still doing it, two old guys are battling in the AFC North. Kind of unexpected matchup here, but obviously going to be a great one. Go ahead, con man. Yeah, Jay's 2025. It feels like 2015. What are you thinking about the Rogers Flaccos? I believe someone might have been. Cam Hayward dubbed it the Icy Hot bowl during Rogers press conference yesterday. What are you thinking about tomorrow night?

[J.J. Watt]

All right, Harry Potter over there asking questions. I think this is. It's going to be interesting short week. You know, last week we had the Steelers and coming off a buy, Mike Tomlins 14 and four against rookie quarterbacks Mike Tomlins 26 and six. I believe if I'm not mistaken, his Thursday night record specifically against divisional opponents is not very strong. Is it really? 06?

[Tone Diggs]

Yeah, 06.

[Pat McAfee]

Not very strong in the division.

[J.J. Watt]

Yeah, that fits that category. But I know Trey Hendrickson's possibly out here. Broderick Jones played a really good game this past week with a very difficult assignment in Miles Garrett. The Steelers just know who they are right now. You can tell that they know how they have to play these games and win these games. They're going with this excel personnel on offense with Spencer Anderson stepping in, Darnell Washington and they just block well, run the ball and then set up these throws where Aaron's taken a ton of underneath throws. And then every couple times throughout the game he takes those deep shots. That throw to Connor Hayward was vintage Aaron Rodgers. He's got the DK throws. He missed one super deep one to DK where DK had burned the corner. So they just know who they are and how they have to win games right now. And their defense has finally started to figure it out after the first two games where they struggled. But we all know how it is going on. The road is tough on Thursday night, even if it is close.

[Pat McAfee]

Like Cincinnati, the Cincinnati offensive line, you know, it feels like this is a short week and you're not sleeping much knowing what's coming on the other side and how you have performed thus far. Joey Flacco, though, can get that ball out quick. You know, BFF said it, you know, sometimes quarterback can have a scheme that's so much better than everybody on defense. Even if they're winning their assignments. Yeah, you know, because their assignment could be go left and that's assignment. Check the box. 100 on assignment. Ain't that right?

[J.J. Watt]

I mean, Joey, Joey Flacco, he. The Browns have not scored over 17 points 11 straight games. Joey Flacco goes to The Cincinnati Bengals scores 18 points in the first game. Like, he is, like the throwing of the. We're calling that game. And going into the game, both teams all week long had said win. Sean Judkins is the key to this game. He's a dynamic runner, really can do everything. Explosive will run people over, and then they throw the ball 58 times. I think they got sacked on six of them, so it looked like 52, but they just didn't get the run game going. At any point, you have to. You can't abandon the run. This game wasn't really out of, out of reach until, like, the fourth quarter. I mean, maybe end of the third, but they just were chucking the ball over the yard. And yes, I know there wasn't a lot of success, the run game early, but for them to be successful, specifically with a rookie quarterback, you have to try and get that run game going. And they just, they could not do it.

[Pat McAfee]

It feels like everybody has to get the run game going. It's 20, 25 football in the NFL. There's two teams at the top, though, right now. Okay. I don't know if you know this, J.J. there's two teams that are 5 and 1. Pittsburgh Steelers, 4 and 1. Early bye week. They might become 5 and 1, but there's currently two teams 5 and 1 representing the AFC. The Indianapolis Colts, of course. Okay. Everybody knew that's how that was going to be. Whenever you forecasted the season and training camp after week six, the Indianapolis Colts could be your number one seed in the the afc. You know, give us the hunt trophy. Go ahead and just give us the hunt trophy. It's great to be here, J. By the way. Thank you for asking. Indianapolis fans are very happy about how we're playing in every mic'd up thing that gets released. We're a cool team, too. So, I mean, everything's going good here.

[J.J. Watt]

I love, I love the Daniel Jones mic'd up. That was great.

[Pat McAfee]

Which one? The one where he's talking.

[Darius J. Butler]

Which one do you like better?

[J.J. Watt]

I like, I like both. At first, I saw the one where he wasn't talking. That was great. And then I saw the one where he's talking. He just. I, I, we have them this week. I'm very excited. I haven't been able to watch much of them. So this week, watching the film, I was really looking forward to seeing what the Colts look like. And I've had this thing in my head where it's like Danny Dimes is managing the game. He's just taking what's given to him. And then I flip on the film.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, right.

[J.J. Watt]

He fires this dart into Alec Pierce in the red zone between three dudes and I'm like, oh, he is not just managing the game, he is firing brother.

[Pat McAfee]

Watch that Broncos game, dude. They blitz him like 73% of the time or something like that. You're talking about moving into Paul pocket, eyes downfield and throwing seeds. Every ball is a good ball. Every ball is the right decision. It's like, remember, they're a string that they want on at the beginning of the season when no turnovers and just touchdowns, basically they didn't punt for like three weeks. I mean, it has been very good very early with Shane Steichen's offense and Danny Dimes in. My source says, tell me that Danny Dimes lives in the building. He is in the building. He's a 5Amer. So he's in there 5am and then he stays till the end. He's trying to build relationships with everybody. Obviously he's only on a one year deal with us, but everything you want from a lead quarterback, he has been. And I think if you ask the people in Indianapolis, they're like, we got to go back and watch the film of him at the Giants. We need to see if there was. Is this the same guy that was at the Giants because they believe that he is the perfect guy. Like they. Everything that was said about him, there were people on his side coming out of the draft. Like, hey, this guy worked with Mannings. People, people. He's more athletic, he's smarter, he's tougher, he can run faster. Yellow. Those things he's doing right now at his highest level. And I think the Colts people are like, we got so lucky that it did not work at the other places and we're riding that wave. On that note, there's a team down in Florida that's riding a wave of a guy who didn't work in a couple other places as well. Go ahead, AQ. Yeah.

[AQ Shipley]

Tampa Bay is 5 and 1. They started the season without Tristan Wurfs and Cody Mock the right guard. Then they lose Goodecky, then they lose all of their receivers. Chris Bucky Irving's out. Chris Godwin comes back. Then he's back out. Right? Baker Mayfield has been incredible. How is he able to keep this team afloat?

[Pat McAfee]

I love that.

[J.J. Watt]

I mean, like a. A his skills are underrated. Like, like, like we. I think we put so much on his moxie and his Persona and everything that he has from that standpoint that His. His arm is great, obviously, his ability to read the defense, break him down, but his ability to escape and to run and to just do whatever it takes. And then once you add on the fact that he's just never dead at any point in any game and he has this, like, standing in the tunnel against Seattle, it's such a great visual of him and who he is. And when you have a guy like that slinging it in your backfield, you just believe in yourself more. The defense believes in themselves more. Where they say, if we get one stop here and give it to him, he's going to take us down the field and win the game. The receivers are catching balls that they might not have caught before. Oh, linemen are blocking a little bit longer and getting that extra little push. There's just that that is very, very real. And I think it's such a cool aspect to his story, what he had to go through in the middle. And obviously you wouldn't want to have to go through those Panthers years and all that stuff again. But to see what he's playing like now after people wrote him off a few times. Guy's a baller. It's awesome.

[Pat McAfee]

You think he's pre workout guy before getting in halftime?

[J.J. Watt]

It does seem like he could be. But then if you also told me like, no, he's just like a pre workout guy. Yeah, Yeah, I could see that.

[Ty Schmidt]

Salt's big time. He's definitely playing with Zen in too.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay.

[Darius J. Butler]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Which has to. That. That's Baker Mayfield experience.

[J.J. Watt]

Like, he feels like he's drinking beer in the parking lot with the old line. Like, that's the type of guy he feels like.

[Pat McAfee]

He feels like Gus Swayze, the video that the Buccaneers re put out of him being dressed up as a super fan at one of the workouts fantasy camps and throwing it. That is how he plays, which I think is why he's so beloved down there. I'm so happy it is working for them. I can't wait until they have their full fleet. Now, you aren't a full season into it yet, but you've been doing a great job calling games. DBOT has a question for you. Jj.

[Darius J. Butler]

Yeah, jj, going into week seven, now, your new gig in the booth every week, like how. How's it been? What's kind of been the biggest, I guess, challenges, biggest surprises so far in the year for you?

[J.J. Watt]

Yeah, it's.

[AQ Shipley]

It's.

[J.J. Watt]

I love it, man. It's so much fun because you're in the stadium, you get the adrenaline. You have no idea what's going to happen on the field and you're just reacting live. Probably the biggest changes for me have been preparation during the week, just learning what I need to know and what I don't need to know. Early on, I just. It was an unbelievable amount of information on my boards and I learned that, like, some of the stuff was not relevant and I didn't need it. And I've transitioned to adding more stuff that is actually useful during the game, but smart. Being able to see trends, being able to see how teams attack certain things. And as a player, you attack the week and you're watching one side of one opponent. I'm only watching the offense of the other team, generally, mainly the offensive line, and just figuring out how I have to attack them. For this, I have to watch both sides of both teams. So it's more. It's a lot more global view of the game and trying to figure out all these different aspects and how they play together and then making sure you explain to the viewers in a way that's comprehendable to them. This last game, there were some really good examples. Dylan Gabriel had thrown a couple balls over the middle that were caught, but his guys took big hits. And then they started to be looking at the safety instead of looking back at the ball, and they dropped a couple because of that. And we had some really good shots. And I thought that was. Was a really cool thing to kind of be able to show and talk about on the broadcast.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, that's great. Anything that, you know, you can show that people don't normally see is a good thing. But also you got to talk about what we're seeing. You know, some of these booths become super experts and talk about stuff that's like super niche. And it's like how many people understand what the hell you're talking about. I think you do a great job of dumbing it down while making it great. And it might be because of just who you are and where you come from. On that note, Ty has the last question for you.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, J.J. lynch, look, I know you're a big time entrepreneur, okay? You know, you own multiple soccer teams. I saw a report on the Internet. I don't know if this is true, but it basically just said, hey, if Luke Fickle is to get fired at Wisconsin, J.J. watt has already said, I will throw my hat in the ring, I will go back to Madison and I will help restore the Badgers to glory. Is there any truth to that? And can we be expecting that? Because AQ already said, hey, listen, I Want to go coach at Penn State?

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, did he?

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, this morning.

[J.J. Watt]

Did he?

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, this morning he said that?

[Darius J. Butler]

Yep. Summertime.

[AQ Shipley]

I mean, what James Franklin was getting paid, I think anyone would take that job.

[Pat McAfee]

That's not the. We wish James Franklin his best. On that note, J own Burnley, you own Espanol. College is like professional sports now. Have you thought about dabbling? Maybe, maybe Penn State?

[J.J. Watt]

The life of a college football coach has absolutely no appeal whatsoever to me. I like coaching football like just the pure on the field, helping guys be better at what they do and create the best they can. But then you add in all the meetings, you add in all the hours and you add in recruiting, in the traveling and having to go to these 17 year old kids and be like, hey, you're the greatest in the world. Come to our university. Then you add in the nil and the boosters and people coming at you after the game. You didn't cover the spread. What's going on? Like I don't want to deal with.

[Pat McAfee]

Any of that, man.

[J.J. Watt]

You could pay me $50 million and I don't want to go and do that.

[Pat McAfee]

That's J.J. watts, living legend saying, there's no dollar amount on freedom and happiness, so go ahead and find yours. Our happiness comes from talking to you every week. You're the man. We'll be back on the other side. Goodbye. This Marshan Beast Mode Lynch Prize pick is making sports season even more fun on Prize Picks. Whether you a football fan, a basketball.

[J.J. Watt]

Fan, it always feel good to be right. And right now, new users get $50 instantly in lineups.

[Pat McAfee]

When you play your first $5, the app is simple to use.

[J.J. Watt]

Pick two or more players, pick more or less on their stat projections, anything from touchdown to threes. And if you right you can win big. Mix and match players from any sport on prize picks. America's number one daily fantasy sports app.

[Pat McAfee]

Prizepix is a is available in 40.

[J.J. Watt]

Plus states including California, Texas, Florida and Georgia. Most importantly, all the transactions on the.

[Pat McAfee]

App are fast, safe and secure. Download the prospects app today and use code TPMS to get 50 instantly in site credits after you play your first $5.

[Darius J. Butler]

That's code TPMS to get 50 in.

[Pat McAfee]

Site credits after you play your 1st $5. Prize picks. It's good to be right.

[Darius J. Butler]

Must be present in certain states.

[AQ Shipley]

Visit prize picks.com for restrictions and details.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey fans, welcome back to Fansville's cheers and tears. Okay, so like everybody deals with losing right to a rival and a last second field goal, whatever it's Fine. I'm totally fine. But I cope with losing with an ice cold Dr. Pepper. Mmm. Those 23 flavors are, like, so delicious. They totally wash away the pain of.

[Ty Schmidt]

Your college football team taking a big.

[Pat McAfee]

Fat L. College football. It's a pepper thing. Football is magical. I like that we had a little delayed cadence there. The boys are here at the toxic table at Boston Connor and at Ty Schmidt. Glasses are awesome. Con man.

[A.J. Hawk]

Thank you.

[Pat McAfee]

Appreciate it. You need to know that you look very cool with those blue light. No more blue light in the brain. Get it out. Okay. I like that play. I like that move. Because it does affect you, I think. You know, definitely there's. There's nights because we live on our phones. We all have to, basically, because in the Daily show world, we have to know what's going on everywhere. Yep. Okay. Try to at least. And whenever we get it wrong, we're right in the fire because we're wrong. So we try our best not to be. So to do that, you have to be on your phone a lot. You have to be scanning a lot. You have to be scouring a lot. You have to be seeing a lot. You have to be doing all that. There are some nights where I put it down, I'm about to pass out, and my entire head just feels like there is, like an orb inside of it. Just like. That's gonna affect us long term, I assume at some point. Because the blue light glasses, they had their quick run, remember?

[Ty Schmidt]

Yep.

[Pat McAfee]

Because they were. It was almost like those little wristbands that they sold back in the day that Puka brought up to us.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

T's a P's, but. But the wristbands back in the day, a little bit of a hustle. That's what it felt like. Hey, you need to wear these. You need to wear these blue light glasses. You need to wear these blue light glasses. You're gonna go blind. You're gonna go blind. And everybody just stopped doing it. I still think they serve a pretty vital purpose.

[AQ Shipley]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

And if that's what those are, you look very cool in those glasses. They got good shapes in them.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

It was more so just like 12 years of one a day contacts. Like, I was just done with it. And then I thought about. You were doing one a day contact for 12 years. Yeah. So I. I was at the point where I just. I. I couldn't do it anymore. And then, you know, I went to the eye doctor. They, you know, I asked, I inquired about some glasses, and they. They told me, hey, the five star treatment they got blue light, they got the whole. The whole nine, the whole kitten caboodle. Never actually had a fitted pair of glasses, so. So, yeah, it's nice. I think they look cool. I think it's a good pair of glasses. I assume you feel better too, because you have to do it sleeping. Much better. Like my whole life is better. I can imagine. It's stabbing yourself in the eye every single day with the contacts is crazy. I never did that when I had contacts. I left them in, I don't know, two years or so. Turns out your eyes get real swollen and they get really worried about. You have to do certain pressure. I would not recommend. I would not recommend that to anybody. Nine year NFL vet Darius J. Butler's here. Can't wait for everything. DB, good D, bad D and 12 year NFL vet, Super bowl champion and player coach AQ Shipley. We're gonna go into trenches and maybe get some takeaways here in a matter of moments, but we need to head to an attic in Ohio. College football national champion, super bowl champion, Ryder cup winner, ladies and gentlemen, A.J. hawk.

[AQ Shipley]

Yeah, Hawker.

[Pat McAfee]

How you doing, pal?

[A.J. Hawk]

I'm good.

[Pat McAfee]

I didn't.

[A.J. Hawk]

I thought the blue light glass were out. Didn't they prove that those things don't do anything?

[Pat McAfee]

Well, that's what I'm saying. It was kind of like the wristband. It kind of came through gonna save your life. And then it keeps it moving. Now, I don't know if the blue light glasses will stop my head from feeling the way it does when I say stare at my phone for too long, especially in the dark at night. But it feels like it's part of the five star package that's currently sitting on Connor's face.

[Darius J. Butler]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Who proved it? Was it the FDA or the WHO or is it one of those companies we definitely question there's going to be stats from both sides on that. Which is once again another thing that we have to try to figure out is we're a daily show. Lucky to do it, thankful to do it. Speaking of daily shows, we could kind of sense that maybe the PFF wave was rolling in a certain direction. Now, it's always had its detractors. I mentioned this a couple different times. Always had people against it, most notably the people that have played at the highest level or coached at the highest level, seemingly the most against it on a regular basis because you're making up a definitive number about things that are not definitive. You have no idea what actual rankings could be. But pff, saying no, we're Just trying to give general audience a general idea of what it is. Well, it's like you're changing lives. Chris Long's take was hysterical. We're talking about legislation about what kids need to be seeing in school. We don't need kids seeing that. Patrick Mahomes 13 out of 32 as you're incredibly blurry, maybe you need to get some five star package over there on your screen or on your camera. We need to call you back. We'll certainly call you back. You're not to reset that thing. AJ I was excited to get his take on. AJ sent a text in.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

In the middle of our argument and says you can't win an assignment. He feels the exact same way as everybody else does. We'll get back to that with AJ let's head over to hammer Don Don AP Town Listen, college ball is heating up and it feels like we had the biggest road win of the season. AP put out their top 25 on Sunday. Stanford Steve put out his top 15, I believe, yesterday. And you now officially going to be putting out your college football playoff prediction as we sit after week seven of college football. Is that accurate? Tone?

[Tone Diggs]

Yeah, I figured at the halfway point this was probably a good time to do this. I saw that everyone was putting out their, you know, top 25s and stuff like that. That's all fun and good. This is what really matters, the playoff in the playoff bracket. And what's going to happen here is what really matters at the end of the day. So yeah, I wanted to put one out.

[Pat McAfee]

And how do you feel? What is the storyline of yours? Obviously your number one team is Ohio State, number two team, ACC champion, Miami SEC champion, number three seed in Alabama, number four seeds, the Big Ten runner up.

[Ty Schmidt]

Exactly.

[Pat McAfee]

Yep. They make it to the Big Ten finals and lose and still get a buy because they're ranked in the top four.

[Tone Diggs]

Yeah, I Ohio State is clearly looks like the best team in the country and they're defending national champions. So at this point it's hard to predict any losses for them. And then iu, if you look at the schedule, there's a real good chance that they went out as well. So I figured if they both get to the Big Ten championship game as undefeated, obviously the winner would be number one. And then I have a hard time dropping the loser, an undefeated regular season loser, and punishing them for losing the Big Ten championship game out of getting a buy. So that's why IU would go from they'd probably be 2 or 3 before the game and then drop to that 4 seed.

[Pat McAfee]

Congrats to Texas Tech with a huge win in their conference. USF is the Power 5 that makes it in at 12. Notre Dame sneaks in. But much debate though you in your midseason College Football playoff prediction here, you didn't put what conversations led to Notre Dame making it in. Was it massive debate? How loud did it get before they made it in?

[Tone Diggs]

Well, obviously there is a huge one this weekend between Notre Dame and usc, which is an absolute must win for Notre Dame because after this the schedule is not super tough. So if you win this weekend against USC and win out, it's very, very hard to leave out. Notre Dame with their two losses would be to Miami, who's potentially undefeated at that point in the season, and then A and M who I put at 6 instead of 3 because in this situation I had them losing to Alabama in the SEC championship. So if you lose, if your only losses are to Miami and A and M, obviously a big one this weekend for them in sc. I have a hard time leaving Notre Dame out.

[Pat McAfee]

Notre Dame, the road looks clearer and clearer every single day. Obviously that road can become a fast pass to the playoffs if they beat usc. I was not a believer. I thought they were going to be dead whenever it started the way it did. But now with how we see A and M doing, to your point and how Miami's doing, those are not bad losses to actually have on the old resume. They just so happen to happen early. Congrats to Ole Miss and Georgia where we're heading this morning, this weekend. Making it in there. Obviously you're not giving anything away there. Tennessee Hypo's team rolling. Congrats to them. Oregon out of the Big Ten makes it in in the final spot in your eyes. Well, the final spot's usf, but you get it in the bracket. And then in the hunt there, I can't help but notice a few teams. You know, I see Utah there, don't see BYU in the hunt. BYU plays Utah this weekend. BYU undefeated. Currently, Utah has one loss says Utah's in. So it sounds like tone doesn't think BYU's winning a holy war. That's what I noticed from your college football playoff prediction here, Tony. Yeah, I might have showed my hand.

[Tone Diggs]

A little bit on that one for this weekend. I do like the Utes over BYU. I just, you know, I like damp here in Utah and Whittingham over a freshman quarterback in BYU in his first holy war. In that situation, then Utah would have to then win out because there's not going to be a lot of Big 12 games in there or Big 12 teams in there, I should say. And then the other ones, you know, when I like went through and I looked at the schedules, it's like lsu, Oklahoma, Mizzou, Texas, Vandy, those SEC teams, like they're, they got them around 9 and 3. Like, are they going to get in at 9 and 3? There's a question mark. Georgia Tech is undefeated, so. But Georgia Tech is a dog at Duke this weekend. So like, is Georgia Tech going to slip up? They still have Georgia on their schedule. They have an ACC championship on their schedule, but obviously if they keep winning and win out, they're going to be in. There's just a lot of those SEC teams in the hunt. They have a far tougher schedule than Tennessee and Georgia and Ole Miss. That's why I had those SEC teams sneaking in. The other SEC teams that have to play five ranked game in a row, I have those ones out strictly because of. It's going to be hard to navigate those waters.

[Pat McAfee]

Five SEC teams is what, tone cheese?

[AQ Shipley]

Yeah, I did.

[Pat McAfee]

One ACC team, one Big 12 team, one independent, one Power 5. Which leaves what, what, three left there for the Big Ten. And I think the Big Ten people would say our top three, we feel good about running any of them. Is that right with the Big Ten? Feels?

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, I would assume so. You're thinking that, I mean, especially with Indiana now, it's like, hey, who's to say that Indiana might not be in the championship with a good shot to win it? And then I think everyone thinks Ohio State is the best team in the country right now. And then if Oregon is kind of just like your throwaway, you know, hey, Oregon's there, they might win, might win too. Like, it doesn't matter if they get four teams in because they have a very good chance of potentially winning a national championship with any of those three teams that, you know, could potentially get in.

[Pat McAfee]

Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, from an attic in Ohio is a Ohio State representative has a tree on their campus. He's a college football national champion, a Super bowl champion, a Rocket cup winner, and maybe he's in. Focus, ladies and gentlemen, focus on this man, A.J. hye. Oh, look at that focus. So fresh and so clear. Clear. I appreciate you doing that for us. A nice little reset tones mid season College Football playoff predictor here has the Ohio State Buckeyes sitting in number one. Congrats on another Big Ten, A.J. congrats on another Big Ten championship over there.

[A.J. Hawk]

Yeah, we've, we appreciate being number one. We know it doesn't matter right now, but just everyone just get into the dance. It's all that matters. Let's get into the dance and everybody's got a shot.

[Pat McAfee]

Five SEC teams, three Big Ten teams. Obviously Power 5, Big 12 and ACC represented at as well. Your thoughts on that, AJ and how loud that's going to be at the end of the year because the back to back national champions are Big Ten teams. I assume there's going to be some record that is going to be talked about as Big Ten teams, but whenever Penn State, no offense, aq. Okay, thanks.

[AQ Shipley]

None taken.

[Pat McAfee]

When Penn State does what they do, they're supposed to be a good game, not good. Michigan, they're supposed to be a big game that's supposed to be a ranked game. A lot of these Big Ten teams were supposed to have actual ranked games down the stretch. Now there's like none of them. So we're going to learn nothing really about the top teams in the Big Ten until Ohio State, Michigan obviously going to matter. But the sec, they're going to beat each other up, AJ they're about to beat each other up pretty good. I mean they're all playing each other. So the debate before this comes out, whenever the actual one comes out, it's going to be gruesome. I mean it is going to be very, very loud and toxic. A.J.

[A.J. Hawk]

Oh, it is. We. I mean, hey, Coach Saban came on here and said like he was talking about how deep the SEC is. I agree. The SEC is very deep, deep. Well, let's see what happens once the playoffs start. Let's see if when they go head to head, what happens? Can the Big Ten prevail again? When it comes to, when you do have to play in some elements and everything, it all changes, I think towards the end of the year.

[Pat McAfee]

What's the weather going to be like for college football? February in Oregon. In Oregon. Is that the only cold game that's on tones graphic here?

[Tone Diggs]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Eugene get really cold. Gumps. I assume that gets very cold up there. Is that accurate? You're from Pacific Northwest area.

[Tone Diggs]

Well, cold, but not as cold as it was in Ohio State that night.

[Pat McAfee]

It won't get that cold on the west coast, so it's closer to Alaska. It's more north. More, more rain though than snow over there. I don't think I understand why it's not more rain than snow.

[Tone Diggs]

January, it's Normally highs of 48 and lows of 34.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, that's perfect football.

[AQ Shipley]

Wow.

[Pat McAfee]

That's perfect. Tennessee learned from last year.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

And that's going to feel like a cakewalk compared to what it was last year. Tony, we appreciate the time and the effort. Thank you. Let's go back to what we were chatting about before you were getting throttled over there potentially by the Ohio based company that was in, you know, kind of question pff. What are your thoughts on the reaction currently? There's always been a little bit of a negative narrative by players and coaches and people that really, really know ball about pff. Kind of giving a broad, not so accurate potential ranking on people and humans and changing their lives and maybe value. But then there's also the point being made. There's people in rooms that are making decisions that are using this PFF stuff as well. AJ how do you feel about it all and how do you feel about the chatter that's taking place around it right now?

[A.J. Hawk]

Yeah, I mean, I think it's two different things. First of all, pff, what they do with stats and all of that, that's great. Like, that's awesome. That's a resource for people to look at. When you're grading players, though, that's a different story. I mean, I just think. We don't know. Obviously, Chris long nailed it 100%. He's spot on. Everything he said is true. I'm like, yeah, it just, it makes so much sense when you hear it, but I just remember it makes me think of a place. So Champ Bailey was playing for Denver. One of our defensive coaches showed the whole defense this play. I believe it was like a national televised night game. And it shows. It looks like Champ Bailey is getting beat deep. He's like trailing three or four yards behind a dude on a deep ball. Guy scores, whatever. And people think Champ Bailey's lost a step. He's done, he should retire. And my coach was showing us and he was explaining the coverage to us because I think he even called and talked to their defensive coordinator about what coverage they were in. And Champ was being a great teammate and trying to slough off and help his buddy. Like, I think the safety dropped a dude or jumped down on a, on a 12 yard dig or something when he had to cover him deep. Champ decides, sees it happening, comes over the top and it looks like Champ gets beat deep. And I think even the commentators on TV are talking about it. And our coach was telling us like, hey, like Champ was being a good teammate, trying to cover up for another guy and he get. And now people think the guy can't even play football and anymore because we don't know what the responsibilities are. We don't know the assignments. And it's true. Like if I was on the packers, if someone on offense ran a wrong route or did something, I have no idea. I had no idea what he was supposed to do that time. Unless I come over and I talk to him after he gets off the field. Like even players on their own team don't know whose responsibility certain things are at times.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, I have no idea what anybody's doing out there. I was in the meetings listening to it. Just to put kind of a bow on this entire thing because we've certainly attacked it from all angles and maybe we were seizing the opportunity to do as such because we've kind of been on this for a few years now because it's mostly player driven show. So a lot of players seemingly have the same exact feels about this. J.J. watt, who's the best player in the history of PFF, has the same exact feeling as we do.

[Darius J. Butler]

Like, hey, broke the system.

[Pat McAfee]

Enough of this stuff. Your system wasn't even good enough to be able to track how great I am. Okay, so how are you going to be able to track how good anybody is in this entirety? I think we're at the point now where PFF doesn't have to do this anymore is kind of what we're saying. Congrats, pff. You got into a great spot. Just like they said. The Miles Garrett ranking was a compliment to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Everything we've said to you here has been a compliment to you. You've gotten to a point where you don't have to do this shit anymore because all this does is just kind of undercut everything else you do. Because the people in the football world don't take you serious. And the people that do take you serious don't know football, but they don't know that they don't know football. And sometimes they're in football positions and we need you not to ruin that kpff. That's a powerful tool you have. So please take care of it and we appreciate you compliments.

[A.J. Hawk]

Imagine if they do it in other sports. Imagine if like prime time NBA games and they pop up the starting lineup and it gives you their rankings in the NBA from like, or say the NHL. I don't know a whole lot about hockey and if I see a guy is, you know, 88th out of 100, like, oh, this guy stinks. And then you talk to a hockey person, actually that guy's a Stud like that. I can see how people get swayed by that.

[Pat McAfee]

I believe it's called NBA Twitter now. NBA Twitter would be awesome if there was rankings for every player up there. Look at Halliburton ass ranked 55th in this entire thing. And then he hits game winner at the end of it, you know, because rankings and stats can kind of go however they want. Baseball, what would be, hey, there's baseball happening right now, right?

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Last night was a huge night in baseball with a player that we certainly know west from around the program because we had a holiday party, a Christmas party a few years back where his name was certainly mentioned and then trending worldwide because of something that was said from our, our Christmas party. But baseball doing it last night.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, big time Dodgers and Brewers and the. The guy you're talking about. Yeah, I unfortunately a couple years ago at the holiday party got a little boozed up, as we all did, and I basically said, hey, listen, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, he's. It's a done deal. He is signing with the Yankees. He is leaving Japan. He is the golden goose right now. And he will be. It's done. Nine years, $326 million. And the terms I had, the terms I had sources telling me that actually Godzilla Matsui, one of the greatest Yankees of all time, who is also Japanese, helped push it over the goal line and just kind of the cherry on top that Yoshi would be keeping the number eight readers.

[Pat McAfee]

Added context. Just want to let you know.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah. So I put this out there and boy, I don't know, maybe 45 minutes, hour later, he signed with the Dodgers. He. He signed with the guys.

[Pat McAfee]

Community noted. Not until after the signing with the Dodgers though. There was a 30 minute period where Ty Schmidt was the biggest baseball insider on earth. And I'll tell you what, there might be some benefits to that. There were certainly a lot of negative as well, including Jeff Pass and calling our Christmas party, FaceTiming, me answering, and Ty in the back and Jeff going, what are you doing? And Ty go, that was literally what he did over my shoulder. Literally. As I'm FaceTime, he goes like this. He goes, you don't know, maybe is what Ty said. Yeah, I mean, and Jeff goes, no, I do know. That's not what happened. Ty goes, you don't know. And then Ty just walks away. And Jeff is like, hey, he's wrong. You know that. And I'm like, yes. I mean, I didn't know he sent that out. We're all pretty boozed up here. And boy, the Action that, that got. I mean you were.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, that thing spread like wildfire.

[Pat McAfee]

You were around the world of baseball pretty quickly. I mean, you took a jet engine around the world. Baseball people are heralding you. This guy, the new guy.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

This is a new insider.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah. Yankees fans really wanted him. I really wanted him, which was, you know, partially part of the reason. But he did end up signing 12 years, $325 million with the Dodgers. So I had the numbers.

[Pat McAfee]

You were three years off.

[Ty Schmidt]

I had the contract, but I had the. I had the total value, which is really all you're looking for because you.

[Pat McAfee]

Know, I want you to use. Pulled that from your head. Drunk head.

[Ty Schmidt]

Pretty much, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

And we learned a lesson that day. We can't be doing it. People take us serious.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, Exactly. You know, about 5, 000 retweets later, you know, people, they, they will see it and they will let you know.

[Pat McAfee]

Even Ravi Carl Ravage sent a text. Like, what does Ty actually know? It's like, no.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh no. Yeah. I mean Jet said, you know, like somebody from the Yankees called, like who the is who?

[Pat McAfee]

So, you know, I mean, sometimes it gets.

[Ty Schmidt]

Gets away from you.

[Pat McAfee]

And we like that. We try to learn from all these things.

[Ty Schmidt]

Exactly.

[Pat McAfee]

At one point in our shows lives we could do that. And everybody. Ha ha ha ha. Obviously this is not true.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

We have learned over the years through a lot of trial and error, a lot of error, that there are things that we need to navigate much better. Okay, we apologize for that. But we are trying our absolute best. Being the biggest baseball insider on Earth for one night, for one 30 minute period was a fun little trip though.

[Ty Schmidt]

I had to do it. And hey, listen, they're going to be a couple pretty good Japanese players posted this off season. I might have to do it again.

[Pat McAfee]

No, it didn't work out.

[Ty Schmidt]

I know it didn't, but it might work out this time. That's kind of the.

[Pat McAfee]

Did you know this, AJ? Baseball in Japan started in 1872 when Horace Wilson, an English teacher, went over there. I assume there was some sort of religious reason to travel to Japan. 1872. I don't even know how you get over there. I don't know when the Wright brothers did the thing. Yeah, I don't know.

[Ty Schmidt]

Wow.

[Pat McAfee]

I don't know. It's so far away. I don't even know how he takes the game over there. And then obviously they become massive fans of the sport. And I think in 1936 or something like that, they started a professional league. So Japan and Baseball have a very, very deep history. But obviously with Shohei doing his thing and more superstars coming over here, that's only going to grow, I imagine. And what happened last night, night, I think, is even building the game and the team in Japan, I think, tenfold after a performance like last night. Right.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah. We can assume that that teacher went directly to Bison Okayama, Japan, which is where Yoshinobu Yamamoto is from, because it seems like a lot of good players are coming from that region. Yeah, exactly. A real hotbed. When this guy, Florida of Japan.

[A.J. Hawk]

Right.

[Ty Schmidt]

That is what a lot of people say. Yeah. And at the time when he got signed, it was like, hey, this guy is going to be one of the. That, you know, he's. He's going to be one of the next aces and he's been good. But then last night was really kind of his coming out party for the Dodgers. So, you know, I mean, if you want to roll the clip, Foxy here, and then we'll just kind of, you know, real quick. So Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and there he is. I mean, we. We can show everything else. Dodgers hit a couple homers. This guy threw a complete game last night. Yeah. I mean, there's Tay. Oscar Hernandez hitting one out early, but you can really stop it there, Foxy, and kind of just go back to the strikeout, to the. To end the game. Yoshinobu Yamamoto threw 111 pitches. He gave up a homer, his first batter of the game, and then basically just mowed the brewers down. He's the first Dodger to throw a complete game in the playoffs. There you go. Since 2004. So, like, we've been talking about this throughout the playoffs. This stuff doesn't happen anymore. And that's why you pay a guy from Japan $325 million, because in the biggest moment, he goes out and kind of just mows guys down. So we said it a couple days ago, unfortunately, brewers are going to need an absolute miracle. Dodgers are the best team in baseball. I mean, you know, this guy is kind of just like an afterthought. And they're paying him $325 million, and any fifth day he can go out there and have a performance like that. So I tell you what, if you're a Dodgers fan or you're a Mariners fan, you're pretty jacked up. You're pretty ecstatic today because, boy, it feels like, you know, in the biggest moments right now, both these series are kind of over both road teams. One boat took 2o leads the Mariners and the Dodgers, respectively. So, yeah, I mean, we still have baseball. Lefties are best of seven series, but.

[Pat McAfee]

Boy, looking real west coast, huh?

[Ty Schmidt]

Looking real west coast right now.

[Pat McAfee]

I hope Big Dumper is able to finish the story in the note. Obviously, Shohei and the boys being able to do their thing, especially in Kershaw's last year.

[AQ Shipley]

Right?

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, Kershaw's last year playing, he hasn't been great at the plate. I believe he's batting like 143 right now. But I mean, it doesn't matter. You know, last night he. He gets an RBI single to kind of pad the lead a little bit. But that's the thing about the Dodgers. Like when you spend, you know, like $8 billion on your roster, like, yeah, you'd like the MVP to come through, but guess what? You got another MVP behind him and another MVP behind that guy and then an all star behind.

[Pat McAfee]

So that's why I like the Pirates. Next year we have a chance big time.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah. If. Let you know what if you can either walk back to Japan, maybe with Horace Wilson. Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Like it's 1872.

[Ty Schmidt]

Some of these posting fees, they're gonna need to spend a little money. And you expect. You hope Skeens is the same guy. And then you basically go into the clubhouse and you say, all right, you seven guys need you guys to take steroids, and I need you guys to take steroids right now and get on multiple cycles over the next top six to eight months.

[Pat McAfee]

That'd be awesome.

[Ty Schmidt]

And then you guys will be different players come opening day next year. So you, you batted.198 next year. You start taking steroids right now and you get on a cycle and you just keep doing that. And then guess what? We. We flipped a 196. This is not a real.

[Pat McAfee]

This is. Is not. We just talked about this with Yamamoto.

[Ty Schmidt]

No, I know, but unfortunately, that is. That is the only way the Pirates will be able to win. It's the only way because they're not going to spend a bunch of money and they just, you know, they're just kind of always going to stink. So that, that is basically what you're looking at.

[Pat McAfee]

You.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, you seven guys, all you guys, a lot cheaper.

[A.J. Hawk]

Lot cheaper, right?

[Ty Schmidt]

It is a lot cheaper. It is a lot cheaper.

[Tone Diggs]

If you get suspended, there's going to be a lockout in 2027 anyway.

[Pat McAfee]

Hold on. We're just getting good. So we got barbarians stepping into the batters. That's not a bad idea. And I'm sure our guys. It's Pittsburgh. We'll be able to get around the test. Hey, just kind of wrap up the Dodgers and Yamamoto pitching the entirety of the game. Dodger. Starting pitchers in postseason. This is From Hembo in 2024, they obviously won the World Series. 5.25 ERA for the starting pitchers. They pitched 42% of the innings. Starting pitchers in 2025, 1.54 ERA. They're pitching 71% of the inning. So they're going longer and throwing better this year than they were last year.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, correct. And that's a big deal because that if you wanted to nitpick the Dodgers going into the playoffs, it was like, hey, you get to the bullpen. If they can get these starting pitchers out. Their bullpen is kind of influx right now and not as good, but that's why they went out. And you know North Carolina legend Blake Snell, that's why they paid him a bunch of money. Because when you can have starting pitchers throw eight to nine innings in the playoff and you have the kind of lineup that they have, it's going to be virtually impossible to beat a team like that in a seven game series.

[Pat McAfee]

@ between the numbs. Greg Harvey with some great stats literally after every single sporting event. I love the cut of his jib. Hembo, obviously, keeping us stocked and loaded every day with numbers. We appreciate the hell out of, you know, commentating on the history of the sporting events that we chat about. Let's go back to the NFL now. After week six of the NFL season had a lot of magic happen. Two teams really seemingly separated themselves. Two teams really said that we're the best in the whole damn league. Two teams said, we're doing this from the beginning to the end. That'd be the Bucs, the Colts. Now we don't have to just talk about them forever. That'd be too much for us to do. That'd be a little biased, wouldn't it, AJ if we talked about the Colts all the time, number one seed in the AFC by all counts and maybe most complete team in the NFL right now. Okay, so we could talk about them all day, right, A.J.

[A.J. Hawk]

Yeah, we could.

[Pat McAfee]

We don't want to do that though. We don't want to talk about them all day because then we'd have to say things like going in and sees Nova thought they're going to be good. Everybody thought they were going to be ass. Colts fans online actually said his team's going to be ass. Danny Dimes being a starting quarterback ever again was something that people would have Spit in your face of your take if you were to say Danny Dimes might be in the MVP conversation in 2025 with the Indianapolis Colts. Because we had the opportunity obviously with AR and once again we were believe ours coming into the season and we can't believe our eyes whenever we read things about what's happening to ar. Whenever he's working out, trying to get better and the building actually attacks his face like that is obviously unfortunate. This guy's been incredible. We could talk about that all day. Michael Pittman Jr. Gets into a fight. Danny Dimes actually jumps in to fight with him, goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we're not doing that. Danny Dimes on the sideline.

[Ty Schmidt]

High five.

[Pat McAfee]

Quinton Nelson, playing better football than he's played in a long time, might just make an appearance in there. Jonathan Taylor is the best running back in the damn league. Let's go to the leaders actually of this entire NFL season thus far. Here's the rushers. Okay, here's the rushers. Jonathan Taylor right now leading the league in rushing. And we just had the year where Saquon Barkley had what he had with the Philadelphia Eagles. Wins Bowl. Top five rushers at this point. Jonathan Taylor, 603 yards. James Cook, 537 yards. Bijon Robinson, who's ranked number 19th or something like that, or 13th in running back position in the entire NFL from PFF.

[Ty Schmidt]

That is correct. He's getting really dinged up for fumbling but not losing fumbles. But he's. But he's fumbling, or at least he did on Sunday night. So he.

[Pat McAfee]

They're calling this guy the mvp. They're saying he's the best football player in the entire league. Our entire offense runs through him. PFF says middle of the pack whenever it comes to running back acts in its entirety. Javante and then Rico Dowdell. The Rico act has been tossed a couple different times. I don't even think he's ranked by bff. I. I think Rico, he was not.

[Ty Schmidt]

In their top 16 from Sunday and he once again had like 200.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, yeah, he was not top 16. Yeah, there's a lot of things happening with PFF right now.

[AQ Shipley]

They actually had him listed as a tight end, I think on pf.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, so we don't know if that's true or not, but top five rushers right there could be. Hey, Q, what are you seeing there? And obviously we'll do your in the trenches top five offensive line here in a little bit. What do you see from this? And do you think this is the way to win football game.

[AQ Shipley]

That's a pretty accurate list right there. Jonathan Taylor's been fantastic. James Cook didn't get a touch in the fourth quarter. Probably need to go a little bit more through him. Bijon, as we've talked about, maybe the MVP electric player, Javante Williams. They've done a fantastic job revamping their offensive line and run game. I know they lost this last week. Rico Dowdle has really come on. He's got 200 yards rushed in the last two weeks.

[Darius J. Butler]

Incredible.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, it's been fun to watch Rico and he's. Hey, they weren't buckled up though. Like, I love the way everybody for the Carolina Panthers seemingly speaks and Bryce Young included. Yeah, they had a mic'd up about Bryce Young whenever they were down 17. He sounded like a 45 year old pro in there in his calmness and his matter of factness, in his, like, I want to say, his empathy for his teammates for the moment. While also right here's Bryce Young while they're down 17 this past weekend. Stay with me.

[Darius J. Butler]

Just stay with me.

[AQ Shipley]

It's a long game.

[Pat McAfee]

Just stay with me. Stay with me today.

[Darius J. Butler]

I got your back, bro.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, keep going with me.

[AQ Shipley]

I promise we in a good spot. Keep going with me. Here we go. Oh, here we go.

[A.J. Hawk]

Music help.

[Pat McAfee]

Let's get it now. One at a time. NFL scoring.

[Darius J. Butler]

This here's where we finish.

[Pat McAfee]

This always ours.

[Darius J. Butler]

This is where we finish.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, it is. Let's go. Fourth quarter.

[Darius J. Butler]

This is where we finish.

[Pat McAfee]

Stay with it.

[AQ Shipley]

We're right where we need to be.

[Pat McAfee]

Right where we need to be. Anthony am zone for a touchdown. And he gives Carolina the lead. Great calls, coach. Hey, hey. Ball. Great job.

[Darius J. Butler]

Got your back. Finish us all.

[AQ Shipley]

Your ball.

[J.J. Watt]

Carolina.

[Pat McAfee]

Let's go. Hey. Four minutes. Four minutes, let's go.

[AQ Shipley]

Four minutes.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, we finished right here. They don't touch the ball.

[AQ Shipley]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Let's go.

[Darius J. Butler]

Let's go.

[Pat McAfee]

It's a pass interference and the Panthers just have to kneel it. Let's go.

[Tone Diggs]

Hell yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

The best player in football y takes the knee and the Panthers make a statement. That's what I'm talking about.

[AQ Shipley]

Yes, sir.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey. That's what I'm talking about.

[Tone Diggs]

Hey.

[Pat McAfee]

Love you, bro. Hey, maybe they got something down there. Maybe they got something down there. Especially with the run and what their offensive line has been able to do. Let's go to the top wide receivers thus far as we are week six into the season. Number one, Jackson Smith. And Jigba, he's been special. Puka Nakua. Obviously we heard him give a speech to the team on the sideline. That was incredible. His mic'd up Stuff inside the NFL on X has been phenomenal. I like that they're getting stuff out there now. There's a lot of other people saying, we've been stealing foots for so long, feel bad for us. George Pickens, obviously a whole new world out there in Dallas without CD and Mecca. Buka got hurt early for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who obviously monitor that situation. And Jamar Chase, who now has his third quarterback of the season, is at 468. D Butts, what do you see from the top five receivers in the league?

[Darius J. Butler]

Leagues in good hands when it comes to pass catchers? Seattle, they moved on from dk, Jackson, Smith and Jigoba, he's been unbelievable since coming into the league. Same thing with Puka moving on from Cooper cup gave him the mantle. You got to have all these are getting great quarterbacks throwing the ball as well. So you're going from Sam Darnold, you got Matt Stafford and Dak getting it to George Pickens. He's been a great pickup so far. Ibuka, you heard BA talking about, hey, if my rookies are ready by Thanksgiving is great. He came in. Hopefully we get him healthy soon. And Jamar Chase been up here in his top five with what's been going on at the quarterback position over there is absolutely tremendous. He'll kill produce regardless of who throwing him the ball. So great. Great list right here.

[Pat McAfee]

Let's go to the top five quarterbacks. We want to talk about the leagues in good hands. Speaking of the ball in hands, Matthew Stafford leading the league, Dak Prescott in number two, Sam Darnold with the Seattle Seahawks. Crazy what's happened for Sam Darnold. Last year with Minnesota, now with Seattle, Baker Mayfield down in Tampa Bay. Obviously the picture of picking yourself up up and become the face of a franchise, both him and Sam Darnold both. And Matthew Stafford, I guess whenever he goes over to LA and just becomes the face of that Rams team. And then Drake May, the man out of North Carolina who's already on his second head coach and into his second offensive coordinator and a guy who since the day he got into a Patriots uniform had Patriots fans. At least the guy that we know is a Patriot fan saying, we got a guy. He's big, he's strong, he's fast, he rounds out a top five. AJ what do you see from the top five passers in the NFL thus far this NFL season?

[A.J. Hawk]

I think it's cool to see Young, Drake may crack into this top five and Matthew Stafford with the longevity that dude has had and how long he has been doing it. But I mean, could we get Dak some help on defense, man? Like Dak is playing very, very good football at a high level and they just can't seem to stop anybody. And it's. It's like a feel good story. I feel like to see Darnold and Baker on there playing so well for whatever reason, it's easy to root for those guys.

[Pat McAfee]

I concur completely. Let's go to getting to the quarterback. Let's go to sacks. Top five sacks in the league. You have Benito on that Denver Broncos defense that made the jets look horrendous in London. Byron Young, number 06, same with Brian Burns, Aiden Hutchinson and Durant Armstrong. Now whenever I see these five guys aq, you think nightmare or what are the thoughts on what's happening on the defensive line? Pass rush side of football?

[AQ Shipley]

They are nightmares. But I think when you look at Benito and you look at Byron Young, both of those guys benefit from having a good defensive line line all the way across. When you look at Benito, he's got Cooper, he's got Zach Allen, he's got all these guys, right? Byron Young has Fisk, he's got Verse. I mean they got players everywhere, obviously. Brian Burns got Dexter Lawrence, he's got Abdul Cart, right? Like all these guys are benefiting from the entire group. They're just the ones making the plays.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, now let's talk about it more on the defensive side in the back end. Let's go. Top five picks. Top five picks. You got Lloyd with four, Byard with three, Joseph with three, Petrie with three, and then 18p people with two. Okay, now I don't see all the names on her. I see Bynum pretty good and Makai Blackman. All the other names kind of Laatu Latu is also in there. He's a defensive end. So feels like those names are a little bit bigger than all the other ones. But what does this mean, D. Bu is this a good start, you think to the defense on getting their hands on the ball or a bad start.

[Darius J. Butler]

Kind of coming from all over the place? You got a linebacker right now leading the league in interceptions with Devin Lloyd and then two kind of free safeties, deep field safeties getting their hands on the ball. And Jalen, Jalen Petrie, who kind of plays all over but mostly in the slot. And then obviously a bunch of guys tied at five, so getting their hands on the ball from all over the defense.

[Pat McAfee]

I like that. I appreciate where we're at. And congrats to all these guys being top five.

[AQ Shipley]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

A lot of guys top five here.

[AQ Shipley]

That's right.

[Pat McAfee]

A lot of guys top five. They're intercepting top fives even though they're top 30 in this particular list. And then let's go to tackles, AJ Total tackles. Now we got dogs all over to play. 66 tackles down there. Miami, there is an upside down there. Bobby Wagner still doing it in Washington. 65. Cedric Gray, Jamie and Nate Landman. Great name out of Landman. And obviously it's been fun to watch him play this year. Feels like we're just learning his story. AJ what are your thoughts on Bobby Wagner's old ass still doing it?

[A.J. Hawk]

That's so awesome to see Bobby out there and Bobby's still playing. That's the problem. People, when they know that somebody's been around forever, they know what age they are. They like, they. You watch it with these weird, like filtered look like, oh, yeah, he's still pretty good for how old he is. No, he's pretty damn good for a football player. He's an awesome linebacker in the NFL no matter what age he is. And I'll tell you what, Landman, he's quietly just racking up the stats over there in la.

[Pat McAfee]

Jordan Brooks, let's go to one half of the Hammer, Dad. Cowboys, Bubba Gumpino, Jordan Brooks all over the place. Got a nose for a ball. Absolute leader on the defensive side of the football.

[Tone Diggs]

Probably the whole leader on the entire team. He makes tackle every time he gets near a guy.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, the leaders need to get it right because I've heard there's people being late to things that the leaders are putting together.

[Ty Schmidt]

Not.

[Pat McAfee]

He'll be taking the podium today, actually. Okay. I'm excited to hear what he is.

[Darius J. Butler]

You know, lot of.

[J.J. Watt]

Lot of.

[Darius J. Butler]

They're facing a lot of offensive snaps. If you pop that list up again, it's the one list I think stands out from the other ones where you see three teams on here, the Dolphins, the Titans, jets, where it's like.

[Tone Diggs]

Yeah, so, yes, teams are only scoring.

[Pat McAfee]

You're saying stats are a little misleading.

[Darius J. Butler]

No, no, no, I'm not saying it's misleading.

[Pat McAfee]

But you're saying, well, it's easy to get 66. That was whenever you're on the field. 4000x the other team.

[Darius J. Butler]

No, not saying it's easy, but it's just one of those lists that sometimes you don't want to be on. And Then even with the passing, you don't necessarily want to be, you know, you have a great passer obviously, but you don't want to be on that list. A lot of times you want to be running that ball out, winning the game. Four minute drives, but can be misleading.

[Pat McAfee]

You okay, and last stat, this might be misleading as well because it's our first time really giving it kickoffs and punts only, not turnovers. Drive start average, basically after a turn is when the offense gets the ball. The Washington Commanders average the 32.2 yard line after every single time they get the ball.

[Ty Schmidt]

Okay, good.

[Pat McAfee]

So if it's a kick or a punt, a kickoff or a punt, their return averaging getting them to the 32.2 yard line, that's a great drive start. And then after the kick, you know, which would be the defensive dry start when the defense takes the field. The New York Giants defense currently jogging onto the field. Average 24 yard line start, which is, that's less than a touchback. Used to be last year, whenever it was at the 25 or two years ago, whenever it was at the 25, that's incredible stuff. You know, the kickoff's a big deal now, okay? They're a big deal now. You either got somebody that can do them or you don't. And if you don't, you can get punished. You kick it out of bounds, it's 40 touchbacks, 35, you kind of have to cover. These teams have been doing well in special teams and some of these teams haven't been doing well the rest of the way. So maybe they need to lift up and play to the level their special teams. Joining us now is a man who's coaching a special team in a special place that hasn't been known for the sport that they are currently playing great at in a long, long, long time, maybe ever. Ladies and gentlemen, head coach of the number three ranked team in the United States of America, the Indiana Hoosier football team, Kurt Signetti.

[A.J. Hawk]

Coach.

[Pat McAfee]

How you doing? Pyon, thank you for joining us today. I know you got a lot going on. I know you have a lot on your plate. Obviously whenever you win, you know the expectations grow and it's your job to make sure everybody knows that. We're just on to the next week. Now on that note, that win in Oregon felt good for you and the boys. I mean, obviously with the conversation last year about Ohio State and Notre Dame, you had to face it head on multiple times. That win in Oregon was something like a weight off your guys shoulders. You think or was there a sense of excitement about we know we can do this and we finally did. Is that a. Is that a true statement or no? Well, I think it was a challenge, you know, that we prepared mindset to the game and great. I mean, Oregon team does a great job, you know, to play veteran ship played football and. Oh, it was a football game. It was. Hey, coach, we have to call you back. We have to call you back with Reconnect because the audio was dropping out on our side. Not on your side. It's our fault, not yours. We apologize for that. What happened there. I mean, that was. We didn't even get half drop. Normally that. That thing kind of corrects its course. You know, that kind of starts doing itself and it starts figuring it out. It got worse almost as he was talking.

[AQ Shipley]

Did.

[Pat McAfee]

He was in his bag. Do you see the hair?

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, yeah. There was good light. It was really. That was phenomenal. Now I do believe there was a connection thing at the beginning. And then obviously we see him and we want to get started. So that's on us for maybe rushing it before the audio was completely put together. But what their team has been doing. AJ you could see how maybe the boys on that flight back, four hours, five hour flight back. There's probably some shit talking happen amongst the boys about we knew this was possible and I think they did. And I think I did as well because I've seen them because I'm here in Indianapolis. I don't know if a lot of people know this Indiana team, AJ Legit. I don't think that's the case.

[A.J. Hawk]

No, they don't. And you're right, like you're. I mean, you picked them. You definitely. You definitely felt this before the game. But yeah, it's like anything else. Like team, like people, casual fans want. You got to prove it over and over and over again that you are that team that deserves to be in this kind of situation. I think winning the game on the road like this and Oregon, that puts you on the map and people need to know you're legit.

[Pat McAfee]

Longest home winning streak because of Georgia and Washington losing at home in the weeks before that. And Austin supposed to be impossible place to play. It is an impossible place to play. The travel, the sound, everything about it is a real home field advantage. I thought it not being a night game a little bit different. I thought that potentially a little bit different. But I think they have to play in a lot of these games because obviously west coast three hours ahead. So did they get the best of Austin? I think so. And did they get the best team inversions of themselves? I think so. For them, in the biggest moment, they showed up and played their best ball. I think that's huge for a team's confidence.

[Darius J. Butler]

Huge. You go into a hostile environment like that because everybody outside of the building, nobody believed in them. We saw obviously the panel who picked the games, but that was pretty much consensus outside watching the game. So to go in there and make plays and it comes, it starts with your big time players. Sometimes in these type of games, just your top dog or one of your dogs, just need to make a bet, a big time play and everybody else knows, all right, we're here and we're here to win it. And then it's nothing like that. Those are probably one of the top two or three things you miss as a former player. Like those trips back home, you know, going into somebody else's place, kicking their ass, getting on the plane and having that trip. The vibes are just unmatched.

[Pat McAfee]

So I don't know if there's a connection issue still. If Coach Signetti joins us again, we will certainly bring him back in. We can't wait to catch up with him. We believe in him, we love him. And also this state loves him. This is a football state. You know, when Peyton got here, I've been sitting there.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[AQ Shipley]

Allergy season.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. But I've been seeing up.

[AQ Shipley]

You have got to do both, unfortunately.

[Pat McAfee]

What? The allergy. Claridin type thing. See?

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, yeah. See every day. Can't. Can't miss days either.

[Darius J. Butler]

Yeah, I've been half assed.

[Pat McAfee]

Me too. I've been seeing the sh. We got C in here. We got vitamin C. I get about.

[A.J. Hawk]

I take about 10 of them every time I come in on Friday.

[Pat McAfee]

Boom. So you're once a week in it. Try to make up for the rest of the weeks. I'm every day in here, walking in.

[A.J. Hawk]

See?

[Pat McAfee]

See? And I'm doing it. So I feel like I'm putting up a good defense system. You know, I'm putting up a good battle for. This happens to everybody that's in this world every single fall. And. And I assume it happens to everybody in on earth as well. I'm just talking about the TV world. So whenever you see people on TV or you hear them talking, you can hear it. Just know that they're going through it right now and they are very excited for that to be done.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yes.

[Pat McAfee]

And when it's done, it's clear sailing for the rest of the season. So it's like, when's it going to get you? When's it not going to get you? And then we start reading about these vitamin C gummies. It's like, hold the phone. We don't have. We don't have to yet. Sounds like we don't. We don't have to get it. We can just battle every single day with these gummies instead. What it sounds like is I didn't know there was another tag team partner to this entire thing.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, I mean, we were getting in the point now where we're going to start, these 75s are going to go away and we're going to be start. You know, we're going to wake up and it's going to. There's going to be frost on the ground and the high is going to only be 55, 60. You got. Whether you have allergies or not, you got to take them because that ragweed does not quit and that pollen does not quit. And it's coming.

[Pat McAfee]

This is me getting old though too. I never would have worried about this ever in my life. But now I'm an old man.

[Darius J. Butler]

Part of it. Just wait till you start sending McKenzie back and forth from school.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh yeah, it's coming.

[AQ Shipley]

Oh yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Okay. Non stop.

[A.J. Hawk]

Everybody's immune system. Everybody's immune system gets better then herd immunity.

[Darius J. Butler]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

I did hear some stuff about it and it was kind of quickly. But I do remember herd immunity is a strong. Because I like to be a part of a hurt, you know, like.

[J.J. Watt]

Yeah, we all do.

[Pat McAfee]

Like we just want a Stanley cup down there.

[Darius J. Butler]

Hell yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Right before the thing. We. We are going to get through this together. We need to see up and we need to. I didn't know. We need the other thing. We need the other thing to be as readily available as the seas are. Yep. Let's go and get on it. Can we buy that over the counter?

[Ty Schmidt]

No. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

I thought, I thought you could only buy one per day.

[Ty Schmidt]

Well, that might be it because you know, you get so many scumbags out there and cook meth with it. But your Allegras, your Claridin, you know, that kind of stuff, you. You get on it.

[Pat McAfee]

Those things go boom, boom.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, they go boom, boom. Big time. That's why you got to have your ID readily available when you go to your local. Local CVS or when DoorDash arrives. Exactly.

[Pat McAfee]

We need to check your id.

[Ty Schmidt]

Hey, you scumbaging to cook mouth with this? No. Okay, let me see your id. Let me scan that. You'll be good.

[Pat McAfee]

It's pretty wild what they. These chemists, these meth chemists have been able to create into things.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Like, there's just the weirdest things you go to buy at a store and they'll be like, you need an idea. I'm like, what are we talking about? They're like some of these psychos.

[A.J. Hawk]

Sudafed is locked up now. You can barely get Sudafed, huh?

[Pat McAfee]

Man, that's meth breaking. Have you ever been obviously out here in Indiana? Yeah. Bingo. Out here in Indiana. You know, I don't know. In Pittsburgh there's a lot of meth. I don't think there's a lot of meth in Pittsburgh, at least from my understanding. I don't. I think it was other drugs of choices that were kind of being used. Out here in Indiana, though, there is, you know, country a little bit more methy.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

You know, so my first couple years out here, you just hear about something just blowing up.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yep.

[Pat McAfee]

And it's like, what, what was it, like a gas leak or something? Like. Well, kinda, I guess. Yes. Guy named Jackson, rest in peace. He was cooking up some real. He had all this stuff and that thing just blew up. And it's like right in the middle of like a town.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Like, they turn these houses into these entire kind of meth shops and they're just kind of chasing it for a bit. That's scary stuff. So we need the meth. We need the ingredients to meth, but need not make meth.

[Ty Schmidt]

Correct. Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

A lot of id and we're going.

[Ty Schmidt]

To have to do a lot of ID checking.

[Pat McAfee]

We're going to get through football season though. Perfect. Voices.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

I mean, I already started to have it, so I guess I'm already being defeated potentially.

[Ty Schmidt]

We are back though, though. Look at that. You just a quick. And you're back.

[Pat McAfee]

You're right. So, you know, how about Saturday morning in Eugene? I woke up and it was not there. And I was like, whoa, what? Why is this happening? Out of nowhere I got in. I watched Kenny Chesney before one of his shows. He had like. Like one of those nyquil steamers.

[A.J. Hawk]

Vaporizer thing.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, like a vaporizer. And he like was like breathing that air in, you know, and I was like, oh, this is a good idea. Because that's probably. He goes, I have no idea if it works. I've just been doing it for like 20 years or whatever. I'm like, sounds like a good idea. So I remember that from that moment. Saturday morning, I wake up in Eugene. Nothing. I'm like, whoa, I don't have a cough. I don't have any. I don't feel sick. Where did you go? Like, where have you been? I've just been talking to regular mountain. I turned on that vaporizer thing, and I was just huffing that thing for like an hour and a half straight. Just down in this stuff. Water dripping off, face on to close. Sitting there doing notes, shooting myself in the face with it. Still lost my voice. I don't know if it works 100% of the time. That's kind of the worry. We got to beat this fall, though. We will beat this fall. Oh, yeah? Did we beat the technical problems? Never did, no. Hey, I'll tell you what. Signetti is too electric. You can't just put a fucking microphone in front of him. Expect it not to pop out. On that note, let's move along some takeaways. Takeaways. Can't have Signetti next to any electronics equipment because he's too damn electric. He'll pop out all the systems. That's what we just learned. Bingo. I'll tell you, I've never been more sure of an Indiana Hoosier football run than I am now. Tech. Modern technology can't handle Signetti. That sounds like a problem for everybody on the football field. Let's do some takeaways, shall we? From week six of the NFL season, A joins us every single Wednesday. And we're thankful for him. What day is it? Aq?

[AQ Shipley]

It's Wednesday.

[Pat McAfee]

It's hump day. Hump day, baby. Guy Torres. Meniscus standing up off the couch yesterday. Today he will tell us his top takeaways from Week 6 of the NFL season.

[AQ Shipley]

Mile high mers. Let's talk about this Broncos defense. Nine sacks from this last week. Net negative passing yards and pressured on 50% of the rush. Let's watch Zach Allen.

[Darius J. Butler]

Wow.

[AQ Shipley]

Just push. Pull gets a pressure. By the way, the more I watch the film, Zach Allen's the guy that's popping off this tape, making this whole thing go. Let's watch this one right here. He's gonna slant inside. Take two. Franklin Myers comes around, causes the pressure. He doesn't make the play, but guess who does? Cooper. Jonathan Cooper. Off the edge.

[Pat McAfee]

Wow, that's a good name. Hey, I'm happy you pulled that because you said, guess who it was. We did not know. I looked around the room. I saw a lot of people that did not know. AJ Buckeyes.

[A.J. Hawk]

I was waiting for it.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. I like that.

[AQ Shipley]

Hey, A.J. you'll like this. Check out this coffee House stunt right here. What's a coffee house? Number 40 fakes like he doesn't comes around, causes the pressure. Look at Zach Allen again, gets his hands on the football. Big Zach Allen's having a monster year. And then. Oh, Olu Fashano. Hey, let's try and block this freak off the edge. Nick Bonito. Guess what? Get out of your stance. Nope. Here he goes.

[Pat McAfee]

Look at that.

[AQ Shipley]

Get off right around the corner. I mean these guys were just getting, I mean causing havoc all game long.

[Pat McAfee]

Vance, Joseph D coordinator, been a head coach before. A lot of people assume he's going to be a head coach again. He's been around a long, long time. Now he's getting taken care of by the Walton family that owns the Broncos. And we thought that could have been an advantage for Sean Payton. And maybe why he chose to go to Denver is because there is no salary cap for how much you can pay the coaches. So you can keep a great staff around if they don't want to go on to be head coaches. Vance has been there for a while now and they've been great for a long time. I don't think they are the team we need to be putting in London games. Okay to introduce our sport to another group, but they have been dominant for a long time with Vance Pack there. What is it about it? Obviously the players are great. What is it about that scheme that makes it so damn good?

[Darius J. Butler]

I mean in my opinion, coaches are great, but you got to it start. It always starts with the players because you have the scheme. But these guys being pros, being able to go out there and execute it and adjust on the fly and get that done. And on the flip side of that, like just watching Justin Fields and I know this was his worst game by far. Could anybody have played quarterback behind like was it more the defense or the offensive line just in the bed as well.

[AQ Shipley]

Their all lines actually been decent this year but I mean just look what they're doing. I mean that push pull on the first play by Zach, he was dominant in this game. He jumped off the tape. I actually called jj. I'm like why? Why did the Cardinals not resign him? He was like a couple injuries, couple things didn't happen. But of course then Vance gets him. But here's what's interesting about Vance is he's always been known as a pressure guy. He's sending cover zero from anywhere on the field and now he has four really good pass rushers and he doesn't need to do that.

[Darius J. Butler]

You if every play good cover Guys, too.

[Pat McAfee]

What's the second takeaway from week six?

[AQ Shipley]

A Nick Herbig wreaks havoc.

[Pat McAfee]

What up, Ooze? Herbig's a weapon. His hands, too, look spectacular. From the highlights we saw, really good.

[AQ Shipley]

We got a couple of those highlights. Let's take a look here. This is the first time you've had all three pass rushers together. Watt, Highsmith, and Herbic. And they lined him up over the center right there. And let's go to the next one now.

[Pat McAfee]

Should have been a first down. Hold on. So you're saying bff, that was good play by him. Actually won his assignment. Watch him.

[AQ Shipley]

Watch him beat the center here. Watch this. Boom. Over top of center. He's gone. Hit. Hit on the quarterback.

[Darius J. Butler]

G. Just got out quick.

[Ty Schmidt]

I was going to say football's gone, too.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Good scheme.

[AQ Shipley]

Next. Next play lines up over the guard. So they're lining him up all over the place. What they're not doing with the other end. Over the guard. Boom. Quick beat outside again. Hit on the quarterback again. It's a pass completed, but he's doing his job. First time showing. I'm showing the versatility here.

[Pat McAfee]

Now pff of you. Yeah.

[AQ Shipley]

Well, now let's show him on the edge here. Let's get to the edge. Watch this inside move. Watch him lift with his inside hand. Boom. Lift up underneath.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, there it is.

[Stanford Steve]

There it is.

[Pat McAfee]

That's good play.

[AQ Shipley]

Big one.

[Pat McAfee]

That's good. But he had a lot of good plays. He did not to show him.

[AQ Shipley]

We got another one. We got another one. Let's watch him here. Outside. Not go inside.

[Pat McAfee]

Go outside.

[AQ Shipley]

Run around another sack. Herbig is a dog.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, what you just did was lay out the argument exactly for pff. Okay, so let me get this straight. We're showing highlights, players, but they're still. The pass is getting off. It is dropping. Everything's happened about that. I know. That was the impossible. Pff. Guy on the right says, well, okay. Then he follows up with saying, well, yeah, that's why we gave herbig 94.8 BFF rating he had this weekend. Because everything you just said. And you can win an assignment. You can win an assignment.

[J.J. Watt]

Right.

[AQ Shipley]

And then the difference is he's getting a stat that's still a hit on the quarterback. Miles Garrett was nowhere near the quarterback. They literally kept him out of the game plan. He was three guys to him. Chipping, sliding.

[Ty Schmidt]

2.

[AQ Shipley]

He wasn't even getting. Getting near the quarterback.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, but you know, it's because he was winning his assignment.

[Tone Diggs]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Since we're Here, do you know what his pass rush win rate percentage was or no.

[AQ Shipley]

Is it ESPN or pff. Which one we asking?

[Pat McAfee]

Both of them use shitty stats. So, I mean, whoa. These stats matter. These stats matter.

[A.J. Hawk]

30 points.

[Pat McAfee]

Thank you, Holy man. I would like to say this Hembo stats are. Are amazing. We love them. We think stats do have a good purpose.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[AQ Shipley]

And Hembo still does send us some.

[Pat McAfee]

Some stuff sometimes. Like, okay, dude, that's not real. Yeah. And we don't tell him that, but we should maybe let him know more often that, hey, some of these, like, we can't be doing it.

[Ty Schmidt]

The kid knows.

[Pat McAfee]

Yesterday I started thinking about this because some of the stats came over and Hembo's phenomenal. He's won awards for everything he's done. He's incredible for us, very nice to us. And he sends us stats that make us much better. It's not just us. He makes a lot of people better on tv. But like, stats people have become like. Like lawyers. Like, lawyers do stuff that you have to hire a lawyer to read what the other lawyer. They keep each other employed. Okay. They might be against each other in this particular case, but you're going to have to hire a lawyer to read what this lawyer said. It's like kind of ruining this game. Stats people. It's getting to the point where you're going to have to hire a stats person to break down what stat is being said by the stat person. So now stat people are keeping stat people employed because it's both ends giving them and breaking them down. And I respect the hustle. I certainly do. But any of the ones that I don't understand, I'm out on.

[AQ Shipley]

Sure.

[Darius J. Butler]

Just immediately acronyms, get me.

[Pat McAfee]

The epa. One is just. I. I don't fully.

[A.J. Hawk]

Everyone just assumes they know what they're talking about too. I feel like no one wants to say, hey, I don't want to sound dumb, but what does that mean? And I think people just act like they know what it is. And not many people know what they're talking about.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. And we would like to say, once again, the stats community, there's a lot of positives that have come to our sport via the stats community. We are very thankful. But sometimes just like we. Sometimes just like us, do a little bit too. You go a little bit too far.

[Ty Schmidt]

Sure.

[Pat McAfee]

And we just need to abuse leads a restriction. You're getting the public restriction done now. Chris Long is going in. J.J. watt very passionately doing his thing. AJ Hawk, even Guy on the right, I think made a good he tweeted. He tweeted us. I don't know if he's a former scout. His name is Trevor Sycamore. Okay. Trevor Sikoma. He's Tampa Bay Trey. So he's down there in a bay. We got a lot of respect for Tampa Bay Trey. He said Pat first. Love the show. Y' all changed the game. Okay. Appreciate the guy showing a full clip of our show for context. Happy to come on anytime y' all want to have me talk grades, process transparency got on right, we might do that, actually. That would be a fun little game. It's good, and it feels like Tampa Bay Trae guy on right. Probably the right guy to do it because at least he gave a full, actual, coherent answer. Like, hey, this was actually a compliment to the Steelers offense as opposed to a shot at TJ Watt or anything like that. So I respect it now. I think it was wrong, but we still. We still agree to disagree. All right, what's the last takeaway? Is that what it is? Stats are coming under fire right now. No, it's Scatter Boom.

[AQ Shipley]

Favorite one of the week, and that's this guy right here. You don't need stats.

[Pat McAfee]

Stats.

[AQ Shipley]

You don't need stats for this guy. You know why? All you gotta do is watch this tape. Let's take a look at him. Take this inside handoff downhill. Look at Cooper DeJean come over to.

[Pat McAfee]

Boom.

[AQ Shipley]

Fall down. Every single person that runs into him hits the ground on their back. Let's look at the next one. All Pro Zach Bond. You see him in the middle of field, over the top. Take the pitch, get downhill. Don't go out of bounds. Find somebody, throw his ass on the ground. And then the last one. Yeah. You can't measure hard. Gets hit behind the line of scrimmage, down on the goal line. Keep your feet moving. Strain, get in the end zone. Never goes down, never die attitude.

[Pat McAfee]

AJ what are your thoughts on Scatter Boom?

[A.J. Hawk]

I mean, I love the dude. I absolutely love why he's a true. Like, he. Show that to kids. Show that to every kid. Hey, you think you're playing hard? You think you're running hard? This is what running hard is. This guy is getting the most out of every single time he touches the ball. And what's awesome, when he doesn't have the ball, he's blasting dudes. He's a great blocker as well. And obviously, he's. He's gotta. Been a real, like, spark plug for that whole organization, I feel like.

[Pat McAfee]

Right? And we're all interested to see if he can maintain this, you know, like in college, it was spectacular. Yeah, Juco awesome. High school, incredible. Then the question was, can he do this in the NFL? We, after seeing the size of his head and the way he operates and getting a chance to learn about him, we assumed it would have success. He is having massive success and he's playing the exact same way he has played on every football field his entire life. Guys might be bigger, guys might be faster. There might be more lights on him right now, but he is playing the same exact way. Does it last? Can it last? We hope so. We fucking hope so. It is awesome football. Debuff.

[Darius J. Butler]

Low man wins in football. He's built, you know, like, I forget which running back it was maybe yesterday AJ was talking about. But like those Mike Turner type built running back, those are the worst backs to try to tackle because they have built their leverage. He is like a Mike Allstock and one of our former teammates, Ahmad Bradshaw, just hybrid right in the one and he, he plays his ass off. But yeah, I, I'm a little concerned about his longevity.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, also Jackson Dart too is getting in on the action. He's just, he's just dolphining. He just did a dolphin. Just starting quarterback in the NFL run, send it head first into another guy's head. And then him and Scatter Boo headbutt each other all the time. Helmets on and helmets off. It's like what a perfect duo for day ball. We're excited about it. And that was Scatter Boom. Thank you for your takeaways. Hour three will be on the other side digitally. We can't thank you enough for allowing us to do this for a living. We'll see you tomorrow. Tomorrow. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice. It might change your life. Goodbye. I think we really hit it.

[Ty Schmidt]

Boom.

[AQ Shipley]

Nailed it.

[Pat McAfee]

Those are good takeaways.

[AQ Shipley]

Great takeaway. Thank you.

[Pat McAfee]

Thank you. Takeaways. Did you guys see Chuck Pagana was chucking in the media? Certainly I didn't get a chance to hear it all or listen to it all, but I'm sure there's.

[AQ Shipley]

What is he moving up?

[Pat McAfee]

What do you mean moving up?

[AQ Shipley]

Is he taking over the defense?

[Pat McAfee]

Geez. Calling for guys we don't know, but there's a lot of people talking about that in this Thunderdome over the last couple of weeks. Just like, holy shit, what if Chuck Pagano is fucking calling place in just a matter of time, he goes from sitting on our show, you know, talking about waffling a little bit, what happens whenever he goes home. Sweet miss Tina. And then all of a sudden he's calling defense for the Baltimore Ravens, who are still in it. Okay. They have been absolute ass terrible coming out of the bye week, though. There's a chance they can still go on a run and they're going to need their defense to get a lot better. Last year, week 10, I think they had one of the worst defenses in the league. Then they were able to turn around, down the long. Down the long haul there. And it's like, is this the team that's going to be able to do the same thing or the Baltimore Ravens just wasting a year here? You know, that's kind of the. Is this just a wasted year like the Niners last year? Wasted year Just because of injuries and things that don't go your way. The Ravens had their top seven highest paid guys not playing in one game in the first five weeks of the season. That sucks. I mean, that's fucking sucks. That's six or seven guys. What do we. Seven top seven highest paid guys. This is how our team's going to be built. We're going to. We're going to. Geez, that thing really came on. Nice. How you doing, Love? Love. Here's our. Here's how we're going to build our team. Okay. Here's our highest paid guy. Obviously we want him to have success. Here's our second highest paid guy. We want him to feed into this. We want to take it. 7 highest paid paid guys, the most important guys to your roster. Literally that decision has been made financially that this is what you're going to focus on. All of them out. So now you just move this up. It's like this early to have that much bad luck. Whenever it comes in, you lose five out of the top seven highest paid guys. It's a story. You lose four out of the top seven highest paid guys. Three. It's a huge story. Seven guys all out at the same time. It's like football. God. Just seemingly not on the raven side.

[A.J. Hawk]

Side this year, AJ they got time though. They are. I mean, they don't have much time, but they have time. They could turn around for sure.

[Pat McAfee]

Especially if Chuck Shots are giving it. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Bingo.

[Pat McAfee]

Belgian prattle. They only have five AFC North Carolinas left. They're gonna need Steelers to do something. Joe Flacco better not get hot.

[A.J. Hawk]

No.

[Pat McAfee]

Let's get a hammer. Tomlin seems real worried about Flacco.

[Tone Diggs]

I don't love that, do you?

[Pat McAfee]

He was real worried about him last year too. I think you guys won, right?

[Tone Diggs]

Or no, Did We, I mean, that was the first time Colts won in 13 years against Steelers, I believe.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, that was last year. He was a little worried last year about it, and now he's. All of a sudden he was right.

[Tone Diggs]

He's a smart coach. He's a smart guy. But I don't like him acting like we haven't beat Joe Flacco in the playoffs like six times and stuff.

[Pat McAfee]

Like, I mean, come on, let's just go.

[A.J. Hawk]

Bill Belichick, though, he just pumping up the opposite.

[Tone Diggs]

We are on Cincinnati. That is correct.

[AQ Shipley]

So, yeah, playoff Wins weren't on Thursday.

[Pat McAfee]

06 against the division on Thursday night. Is that what you said?

[Tone Diggs]

Yeah, that is correct. And it's. All it tells me is we shouldn't be playing football games on Thursdays.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, certainly if you're the Pittsburgh Steelers, you're thinking that if you're the Cincinnati Bengals, you go, hey, these guys suck on Thursdays.

[J.J. Watt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

But is this a different year because Aaron's there.

[Darius J. Butler]

Yeah.

[Tone Diggs]

Yes.

[Pat McAfee]

Jalen's there on the other side. Remember, Jalen on the pivot said, hey, once I learned why Aaron doing all this, I was all in. I was a boy. Because we're kind of seeing it the same way. It's like they got a lot of spite seemingly on that team over there. Thursday night, Sunday, pretty quiet too, hasn't it? It's been pretty quiet out of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

[A.J. Hawk]

It has, it has very much, I think. Don't you think? Nationally especially, like, it's definitely been quiet with them, how they've started off and how well they've played.

[Pat McAfee]

Kind of locked in, you know, in these games that they're playing very well. Obviously we're talking about Thursday night primetime game. They put a drumming on the Cincinnati Bengals. Everybody starts talking about the Steelers. They moved to 5 and 1. If that's the case.

[AQ Shipley]

Steelers are really good football team and they just have not gotten the attention because it doesn't look pretty. It's muddied up, it's gritty, it's extra O line package. It's. Nothing's pretty. And then they're hitting short pass, short pass, short pass. Every once in a while he hits the little chunk play, but because it's not pretty, it's not getting the national attention. And Aaron Rodgers is also ranked like the 38th quarterback, too. So I think that's.

[Pat McAfee]

Wait, you're signing. Pff. Come on.

[Tone Diggs]

39Th, actually.

[Ty Schmidt]

39Th.

[Pat McAfee]

How many teams. What, what leagues they. They brought in? The UX.

[Darius J. Butler]

Real 39, UXFL.

[Pat McAfee]

That should be the Name, bro? I saw Rapine. What? What's his name? Oh, Repole. There it is. I saw Rapole. I'm gonna say Rapino. World champion.

[Ty Schmidt]

She may be an investor. We don't know.

[Pat McAfee]

We don't know. We're 100. Rapole.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah. Mike Rapoli.

[Pat McAfee]

Rapole said, hey, we're gonna work on a Brandon and whatever driver. We helped you, brother. It should be uxfl.

[Tone Diggs]

Boom.

[Ty Schmidt]

Done.

[Pat McAfee]

You put the ox in football, bro. That's what we need. We need the UXFL to do a thing. 39th you said is Aaron Rodgers.

[Tone Diggs]

Yeah, I looked it up this morning.

[A.J. Hawk]

What?

[Tone Diggs]

He has been absolutely perfect though, for this team. Like, has it been flashy? No, but he's been so smart and does the right thing with the ball almost every single time.

[AQ Shipley]

And then.

[Tone Diggs]

Yes. When you need those three step shot plays. He's been perfect on it. He has been the absolute, absolute perfect quarterback so far.

[A.J. Hawk]

Who's behind him? Who's ranked behind him then?

[Tone Diggs]

The guy right behind him was Mason Rudolph.

[Pat McAfee]

How many were second qualifiers?

[Tone Diggs]

Yeah, I don't know how many qualifiers there were.

[Pat McAfee]

So like 39 out. What's the denominator? You know, I'll pull it up.

[Darius J. Butler]

How many backup quarterbacks have we even had?

[Pat McAfee]

So Browning, Carson, Wentz. That so?

[Tone Diggs]

Yeah, Browning was ahead of him at.

[Pat McAfee]

One point in their rankings. Jacoby's definitely ahead of him.

[Darius J. Butler]

I bet.

[Pat McAfee]

Good game. If Cooper Kush is in front of him, then someone.

[Ty Schmidt]

He had a pretty good game on Sunday. He's like 15 for 40. Something with snoop.

[Pat McAfee]

Assignment.

[Ty Schmidt]

No, you're right.

[Pat McAfee]

He's just right hurt. Three step.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Did Dylan Gabriel have a higher rating than he did on Sunday? I mean, there's a chance once again because he, you know. Yeah. Right here. And then ball elevated above Sean shoulder.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yep.

[Pat McAfee]

Wasn't sloppy.

[Ty Schmidt]

That's two points.

[Pat McAfee]

It was up here. No interceptions. And then as he scanned, he seemingly went from his proper progressions, which once again, pff. Would not know.

[Darius J. Butler]

Two points. Two points.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yep.

[Darius J. Butler]

Exactly 2.2.

[Pat McAfee]

And then actually got to the 4 one time, which is bonus ball.

[Darius J. Butler]

Yep.

[Pat McAfee]

You know, that.

[Ty Schmidt]

That.

[Pat McAfee]

I think it was five. And then his motion was good. Transfer of weight.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yep.

[Pat McAfee]

So he made. He went to his fourth progression. Bonus ball, good transfer weight, good form. It was. It was an incomplete, but it could.

[Ty Schmidt]

Have been caught because if it's a completion, it's a two times multiplier.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, it was an incompletion, so they missed out on that and actually made a sound whenever the ball was dropped because the ball Was actually on fire after all those things. Yeah. And then the ball drops and hits the ground. So his assignment actually we saw.

[Ty Schmidt]

Nailed it.

[Pat McAfee]

All of it.

[Tone Diggs]

Dylan Gabriel is actually 44th.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, so maybe what I just said wasn't about Dylan Gabriel. Another. That was about another quarter.

[Tone Diggs]

But you know, there. I mean, there are a lot of quarterbacks.

[A.J. Hawk]

Who's one? Who's number one?

[AQ Shipley]

Who's number one?

[Tone Diggs]

Sam Dorm.

[Pat McAfee]

Who's number 50? Cam Ward.

[Tone Diggs]

Cam or.

[Pat McAfee]

Yes.

[Ty Schmidt]

Where's Flacco?

[Pat McAfee]

Joey Flacco is currently 32nd.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, so he's out playing Rogers.

[Pat McAfee]

Anthony Richardson, 31. Mitch.

[Ty Schmidt]

Those knees when he.

[Pat McAfee]

When he came in the game and took those knees. Well, he threw a completion to himself.

[Stanford Steve]

Yeah.

[Darius J. Butler]

See, should be one qualify.

[Pat McAfee]

C.J. stroud is 30th.

[Darius J. Butler]

Where's Drake?

[Pat McAfee]

May I hope. He better not be on this list.

[Tone Diggs]

Drake's on. Drake's number five.

[Pat McAfee]

Get him off. Should we scroll up or.

[Tone Diggs]

No, it's two screenshots. Two separate screenshots.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, there it is. Sam Donald is number one. Here we go. Here's the tops. Sam Donald, number one. Marcus Mariota.

[Ty Schmidt]

He played well.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay.

[Darius J. Butler]

Holy.

[Pat McAfee]

What is ranked number five overall? Dude. Yeah, get him off. Because, I mean, Davis Mills is better than him. I don't know why he's ahead of him. Doggy Mills is a player. Obviously he's better than Josh.

[Tone Diggs]

Is this real?

[Pat McAfee]

Like, are we really? Yeah, whatever.

[AQ Shipley]

What's that?

[A.J. Hawk]

What do you mean?

[Pat McAfee]

These are rankings, bro. You got number five. I'm a huge fan.

[A.J. Hawk]

I am btt.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, no, I'm a big btt.

[Darius J. Butler]

Percentage.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, no, I like it. All right.

[Tone Diggs]

Those are big time throws.

[Pat McAfee]

Good luck to everybody. Good luck to everybody being better. And hopefully the PFF Overlords will see you as a success story in your assignments as opposed to a failure in your assignments. J.J. watt was the best of all time, they said. And he hates him. That was crazy. He got real upset.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, yeah, big time.

[Pat McAfee]

He got super duper upset.

[AQ Shipley]

I mean, Davis Mills, if he doesn't get a 250 million dollar contract, should sue the NFL.

[Darius J. Butler]

So.

[Pat McAfee]

All right, let's go. Let's do our top five offensive line, shall we? See, we don't know what PFF's saying, but we do know what's coming from the mind of the man behind in the trenches with AQ Shipley. Top five performing offensive lines out of week six. Number five. Wow.

[AQ Shipley]

The Chicago Bears.

[Pat McAfee]

Whoa. What did they do?

[AQ Shipley]

Let's take a look at Darnell Wright, their big right tackle, if you remember. A Couple years ago when we did the draft special, I was demonstrating Darnell right, right there.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, yeah.

[AQ Shipley]

Top 10 pickups of Tennessee pulls around. But check it out. Zakas misses his pin block right there. Now watch Darnell put it back on. Zakia's back up underneath. Darnell still gets the block. And this was big time to get the big run in the fourth quarter to seal it to get down, run the clock down, kick the game winner.

[Pat McAfee]

So left handed, stiff arm to a guy's chest just to make up for a buddy who missed a block. And then let me get downfield a little bit. Let me slow you down and then let me bury you out of the play with a little bit of a hold. But they're not going to call it. So it's a touchdown.

[AQ Shipley]

That's exactly right.

[Pat McAfee]

Not a touchdown, but success.

[AQ Shipley]

Successful play. He's fantastic. And he was fantastic this whole game. They have been waiting for him to show up like this. And he really did this week.

[Pat McAfee]

All right, who's number four performing? Offensive line coming out of week six. Whoa.

[AQ Shipley]

Los Angeles Chargers ran for 124 yards at 6.9 yards per clip. Let's take a look at the left side. See this little tight end weight formation. Then that's a wide receiver Trey Harris out there. And they are setting it up like they're running downhill. You get a 61 defense. Everyone piled inside. They think it's downhill run. Nope. Let's toss it. Is that is that whole thing?

[Pat McAfee]

Ah, that's a big gaping. Oh, that's a lot of meat out there, A.J. what are you gonna do?

[A.J. Hawk]

It is if you run that back. AQ have. They've had to practice. Look at this left tackle. How does he not step on the tight right there? Like they've had to get stepped on and stomped on and that would ruin the whole play. Like they have such tight splits in their. Look at that footwork.

[AQ Shipley]

So they motioned Trey Harris down because they had run duo. Duo. Duo. They made it look like they were just going to Z peel. That's what that's called. The zeal run duo. And then super tight splits. All you have to do. They call this a gang on the outside. Everybody's working poetry in motion with those three guys.

[Pat McAfee]

On all four guys. What are you doing?

[A.J. Hawk]

Unfortunately though, they take. They took a lot of our power and they don't like deep. We need a quarter to go on their outside in and chop all of that down and take three people out and create a pile and they can't do it anymore.

[Darius J. Butler]

Yeah, if you run it back to the beginning and show you exactly what AJ is talking about. 26 out here, why he needs to run right at nines, outside knee and just create a pile right there and then let everybody run inside. I mean, I don't know if it would have helped on this play with how. What was this? Third and short.

[AQ Shipley]

Third one.

[Darius J. Butler]

Third one. Third one. So like you said, thinking it's going to be a short inside play getting out to the edge. But yeah, with no power like that, we just will extend those holes wider and wider.

[Pat McAfee]

What do you want for a 142 or something? Vidal?

[AQ Shipley]

124. 18 for 124. 6.9 per clip.

[Pat McAfee]

Hell of a. They got it set up over there. They got injuries. They're just continuing to roll. Is hardball finding it there.

[AQ Shipley]

You know what they did?

[Pat McAfee]

What's that?

[AQ Shipley]

They went fullback again this week. Remember, early in the year it was all, hey, let's, let's showcase Herbert. Let's pass, pass, pass. They got back playing fullback, tight end, all the stuff this week they played the Dolphins too.

[Ty Schmidt]

That didn't hurt.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, Dolphins are certainly making superstars out of other players and we appreciate that. The number three offense, offensive line. I don't know how this works.

[AQ Shipley]

The Indianapolis Colts are the best offensive line cumulative for the year. But for this week, number three.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. Still best offense. I like that. So come out of another big time win. Obviously a shootout against the Arizona Cardinals, which you were on the call for. You have the number three, not number one. I'm intrigued to see why they're doing so well and why they're not one.

[AQ Shipley]

They got one guy in this group that's a little bit below par amongst the rest of the group. The other four have been playing fantastic. Let's take a look at the left side. These guys are fantastic. Raymond, let's watch his down block. The footwork is impeccable. Watch him keep the edge. And look at Quentin Nelson out in space. Rumbling, bumbling, boom. Jonathan Taylor is fantastic.

[Pat McAfee]

He leads the league in rushing. Obviously the Colts offensive line is doing well. Danny Dimes putting him in the right positions. And Quentin Nelson's been moving a lot more. Isn't that kind of what you've been noticing?

[AQ Shipley]

A lot more pools? He's pulling across the formation in your power schemes, your counter schemes and all that stuff. And they're getting a lot more of this stuff right now. Now pin and pull. And they love what Tyler Warren's doing on the edge.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, Tyler Warren's special. They got him lined up absolutely everywhere. So obviously like this plays there any other great plays of this offensive line.

[AQ Shipley]

That we need to see Indianapolis goals?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, yeah.

[AQ Shipley]

I think I put one on my Twitter.

[Pat McAfee]

Did you? Oh, wow.

[AQ Shipley]

Let's take a look at Quentin Nelson. If we can pull this up somehow in the back there.

[Pat McAfee]

What, on your Twitter?

[AQ Shipley]

Yeah, off my ass.

[Pat McAfee]

We're searching. Okay. You need to watch posting football clips on your X Men.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

I don't know know how much you think this umbrella don't shut me down.

[AQ Shipley]

Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it.

[Pat McAfee]

I don't know if.

[AQ Shipley]

Let's not do it. Let's not do it.

[Pat McAfee]

I don't know how far the licensee kind of goes to remember what we.

[AQ Shipley]

Used to talk about when we Target lock right there. Target locked. Don't spin.

[Darius J. Butler]

Yeah, I got.

[Tone Diggs]

That.

[Darius J. Butler]

Should be illegal safety.

[Pat McAfee]

Who's that?

[AQ Shipley]

Quint Nelson again.

[Pat McAfee]

Against who?

[AQ Shipley]

Baron Browning. Pretty good defensive end.

[Darius J. Butler]

Boom.

[Pat McAfee]

He was so happy there.

[AQ Shipley]

I assume he got another one.

[A.J. Hawk]

Time to spin.

[AQ Shipley]

He had one going outside and then he has another one later in the game where he goes inside and gets a nose guard. I mean, he is just wrecking ball.

[Pat McAfee]

I'll talk about this with Quentin Nelson. I've said it before, but it's noted at least should be noted again. Ryan Kelly was the OG in the offensive line room. He was the center. Center. Normally the leader of the group anyway. So facts that he was around the longest and he was the center, I think he was ipso facto the leader of the group. He leaves go to the Vikings. We love Ryan Kelly. Very thankful for everything Ryan Kelly did to Indianapolis. His family is incredible. I think Quentin Nelson felt a little bit more honest to be a leader and a vocal leader. It's been fun watching him take on that role. They've released a lot of mic'd ups and I think it's getting him back into enjoying ball again. Now, is it the fact that he has a quarterback that understands what the hell he's doing for maybe the first time in a long time in his career? Definitely. But he's chasing the ball down again. That was like earlier in his career. He's the first person with everybody. His first person with everybody. He's all over the place. He's special. Clay Nelson is special talent.

[AQ Shipley]

Let's also mention he was the number one rated guard by PFF this week. And Tanner Bornellini, see, the center was the number one.

[Pat McAfee]

This is part of the.

[Tone Diggs]

I just.

[AQ Shipley]

I just saw Somebody sent me a picture of it and I saw it, so I had to bring it up.

[Pat McAfee]

And that was a scout or a gm. You see? Ish. We're thinking about that. We got to continue to have these conversations. Listen. Sometimes you got to have awkward conversations with people.

[AQ Shipley]

That's right.

[Pat McAfee]

Uncomfortable. If you're right him, there it is. Sometimes you got to have uncomfortable conversations with people who maybe don't want to listen. Maybe whenever they hear it, they'll be better for it. That's what's happening with PFF. As we speak.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Let's go to the number two offensive line coming out of week six, Atlanta Falcons.

[AQ Shipley]

I've been talking about these guys for a long time.

[Pat McAfee]

You really have. You have loved the Atlanta Falcons. Why are they on this week?

[AQ Shipley]

First of all, Chris Lindstrom might be the best right guard in football. He's fantastic. Elijah Wilkinson filling in at right tackle for Caleb McGarry. He handled Joey Bosa all game long. Let's watch these three in the middle. Poetry in motion combo up to the second level. See you later, boys. 81 yards. Bijon Robinson had 19 for 170 at 8.9 and a touchdown. The Falcons had 210 yards rushing.

[Pat McAfee]

Guy almost takes him out of bounds. Normally that you go out of bounds there, him keeping his balance, staying in is outrageous.

[Darius J. Butler]

That. That was unbelievable. I wish Bishop would have just dived and just pushed him out of bounds. But you can see Bijan keeping his balance, kind of going strong. Bijan. Bijan. However, we're going to call it aq. I'm not sure if you noticed, but we actually call this 28. Blunt is a weak side. I was on here.

[Pat McAfee]

Did you know that, Ed?

[Darius J. Butler]

What you call it from your tree?

[AQ Shipley]

We called it blunt as well.

[Ty Schmidt]

Okay.

[AQ Shipley]

Yeah. And if it's further inside, we call it 24 blunt. Yeah.

[Darius J. Butler]

Yeah, exactly.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Because the way the holes go, obviously fingers inside out, outside. Yeah, we're talking about weak side, outside zone here.

[AQ Shipley]

That thing. You nailed it.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, well, we nailed it.

[AQ Shipley]

You see the single block on the front side?

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, I certainly did. So I'm.

[AQ Shipley]

You see the slip block on the back side? You see what I'm saying?

[Pat McAfee]

There was a little slippy woody there. We saw it all, didn't we, Debo? We'll talk about this for two days. Days. Now you're kind of slow, a little. A little late to the party almost on this 28.

[AQ Shipley]

And I see how you're using my man Bruce Arian's term, so that's where we got it. From that. That's where we got it from.

[Darius J. Butler]

Bruce who? Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe.

[Pat McAfee]

Who's the number one performing offensive line coming out of week six of the NFL season?

[AQ Shipley]

Carolina Panthers. So I love this play. This is called jab duo. You are going to run a play to the left, but you are going to sell like you're running it to the right. So watch the quarterback open up to the right. Over the top ball handling. We're going to bring 87 back across as a fullback, essentially. Let's watch this combo between left tackle, left guard. That's Kenny Clark they're going against. They just took him 12 yards and put them on the ground. We can run that back one more time. Let's watch left tackle, left guard, Damian Lewis and Big Icky, their former first round pick at tackle. Let's watch this, watch this. Wait, wait for the motion here. Look at that car. That's Kenny Car Clark.

[Tone Diggs]

Jerry brought him in to stop the run.

[AQ Shipley]

Can you guys run through that no longer.

[Pat McAfee]

I like the guys that we got up there. We had Maka. We don't have Maka. We tie, we don't win. So what the. Okay, Jerry Jones would say, but what the to the Carolina Panthers. Are they a real team?

[AQ Shipley]

They're a real team. Their offensive line is playing really good and they're calling the runs. I think early in the season they weren't calling the runs because they were playing from behind a lot. Now they are calling runs and it is marrying up with the pass game. They're getting some good stuff from left tackle, left guard. All season long. They've been great.

[Pat McAfee]

The Carolina Panthers are a real team. Let's go. You guys deserve it. Hell, yeah.

[Darius J. Butler]

One of the best compliments I heard from Luke Keakley and Jake Delhome, two Panthers legends, obviously. I guess they do a radio, do some type of show together, and usually Luke Keakley's up there kind of calling plays out before they happen. Like, you know Luke Keakley football, and he like took the headset off. I guess this week they're confused me. I don't know what they're running. So he was like Dave Canales. That was a big hat tip to him. That was one of Jake Del Holmes takeaways. Yeah. So if they're confusing Luke up in.

[Pat McAfee]

The box, think about that, though. You're the head coach and the offensive coordinator. The guy that's talking to your crowd, your fans is Lou Keakley, who is known for just understanding and dissecting everything everybody's doing. Yes, you're being judged as predictable because Lou Keakley is focusing solely on your play call to figure out what you're doing. That's a tough task just to beat the guy in the booth. Yeah, you're beating the guy in the. But let alone the other team. Luke Keakley was like, known for the. Isn't that like. What he's known for is he dissected a play quicker than anybody else and knew exactly what was happening at all times and can memorize every single player and their family's name in one week as he's playing him. He's a special talent. But how about that? The Carolina Panthers, completely different vibes all of a sudden.

[A.J. Hawk]

AJ yeah, it is different. I mean, if you're the head coach, you're canal. You're saying, hey, guys, I understand we have these great legends working. I would assume the radio call. Why don't you guys watch the TV copy where they're not predicting everything we're doing. It makes us look a little different.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, why don't you. Let's, let's maybe not bury the guy. Could you not bury me, Luke? I'd appreciate that. They're doing special things. Here's the top five in the trenches with AQ Shipley of performing offensive lines coming out of week six, the Chicago Bears. Congrats to them Chargers back Colts. Okay, okay.

[A.J. Hawk]

They're in there.

[Darius J. Butler]

Cumulative.

[Pat McAfee]

Cumulative. Yeah, you're right. And then you'd mention in there one guy needs to go ahead and play at the level of everybody else. He's gonna do that. My source says have told me that's the case. So maybe number one outright throughout the rest of the year. Falcons are number two, Carolina Panthers number one. Congrats all them. Thank you, aq. All right, let's take a break. On the other side. We got Stanford Steve joining us to talk a little bit about college ball. And then we got Darius Butler, everything. Db, good D, bad D. A lot of great shit left, A.J.

[A.J. Hawk]

Can'T wait, buddy. I know Stanford Steve, he's. I know he's got some. Some game like big matchups, right, that he thinks he knows what's going to happen. Coming up.

[Pat McAfee]

Nailed it. That is exactly. That is exactly what. Well, I mean, I couldn't have. I couldn't have said it better. I actually couldn't have said it better.

[Ty Schmidt]

Poetry in motion.

[Pat McAfee]

I appreciate you doing that. And if this goes in to that hoop right there, it's going to be the greatest finish to an hour three that we've ever had. Oh, I. That went. I think that one is. Yeah, the net. The net's broken, so.

[A.J. Hawk]

Yeah, it looked like on that one, right?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, it didn't go in, but it won in.

[AQ Shipley]

Yeah, Drilled it.

[Pat McAfee]

You ball's been good.

[Ty Schmidt]

You guys.

[A.J. Hawk]

You guys took back the crown.

[Darius J. Butler]

Congratulations.

[Pat McAfee]

Congratulations to you guys. They can never take away that first day from you.

[Darius J. Butler]

Never.

[Pat McAfee]

Good run, Team D Bone and Butt certainly held it down for one day, the first day of the game. And then me and Foxy went to work on day two. We went to bed understanding that we can't have what happened happen again. Debound. Can't be. He was so happy. Just glee would be the term. Shorts and a T shirt ready to go yesterday Laced up.

[Darius J. Butler]

Ready that was.

[A.J. Hawk]

Was he not as. Was he sore today or not as springy, maybe?

[Pat McAfee]

So I think his Hail Marys just weren't falling as much as they were. He's going to have to find a consistent, fundamentally sound game, and I think everybody's on their journey of doing that right now with a brand new game. But, boy, D Bone appeared to be the Wayne Gretzky of the game after day one.

[AQ Shipley]

Wow.

[Pat McAfee]

The Great One. I mean, it really felt that way, and I honestly didn't know how we were all going to handle it. I assumed that the game was going to get banned if that would continue from the Thunderdome just because of how it was going. And then day two, water found its level, and now he's gonna have to, you know, battle back. It's a good game, AJ we got a good game over here right now. This is enjoyable.

[A.J. Hawk]

Do you have to throw it one handed or can you shoot it?

[Pat McAfee]

You can definitely shoot it and. Oh, okay. I'll tell you, though, I did some throwing with Debone after the games because yesterday I was like, hey, you're gonna have to start shooting it, dude. Like, the throwing, it just bends so much. You have no idea where it's gonna go. And air balls minus points are, like, detrimental. It's absolute killer. So having a good miss is better than an almost airball legit. Like, you don't want that at all in this game. So you're gonna. Because he has a good jumper. Debone has a good, like, a pretty good jumper. So we told him that, and then he just kept throwing and, like, it was hitting the rim. And then I started throwing hits the rim. I'm like, wait a minute, you might be onto something here. And then I threw one and hooked and I missed the entire backboard. I'm like, that's. We can't have that T Bone's like we're getting those out of the game. So today he will battle again, I assume. But the mountaintop has the goats at it. And that'd be me and Foxy. I mean Foxy. Here we go. Foxy hit one. Last shot of the inning. Two pointer. The games have been close. Like it's a great game, T. But do you like the game still or.

[Darius J. Butler]

Love. Love the game. I think we walked away yesterday still with a better pff grade, even though we didn't.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, wow.

[Darius J. Butler]

Offensively, we brought it.

[Pat McAfee]

There's no YFF here. Okay. There's no U ball fantasy football static.

[AQ Shipley]

I'm gonna sit up here and grade it today.

[Pat McAfee]

You don't even know what the our jobs are. So you don't even know the game.

[Darius J. Butler]

Perfect.

[AQ Shipley]

Perfect for the job.

[Pat McAfee]

You don't even know the game. You can't be doing the judgment. Cuz me and Foxy might be trying to do a little something out. We might be setting up a defensive play. Exactly. So we might miss a tip, but that's actually a setup for later. Know that. That's why I'm perfect. What if you step on a line though? We need people looking at the line stepping because Debone's feet, I think. Oh yeah, he's touching the pain a lot. And I don't want to be like, hey, you're cheating every time because he's not making it anyway. So. You know, also his feet on defense, I mean, he's on the ground almost every single tip needs to be in the sky.

[AQ Shipley]

We've been working on that.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, well, not. Well, maybe you shouldn't be coaching Penn State. Get to a break, Kai. Gotta be fired up thinking about you not knowing the fucking rules of the game, judging this game, giving out official scores. And then that is actually that's what's going on. We gotta get to a break. I gotta cool off a little bit. That's too real. Everything just got a little bit too real.

[Darius J. Butler]

You ever show up late to the.

[Pat McAfee]

Game and your friends already saved your.

[Darius J. Butler]

Seat, your drink, even a plate that's.

[Pat McAfee]

Looking out, that's having your back. And that's exactly what AT&T does with the ATT guarantee. They know staying connected matters. That's why AT&T has connectivity you depend on guaranteed.

[Darius J. Butler]

Or they'll proactively make it right.

[Pat McAfee]

Just like that friend who takes care of things before you even ask. AT&T connecting changes everything. Terms and conditions apply.

[J.J. Watt]

Visit att.comguarantee for details.

[Pat McAfee]

Eight years ago, I blew my football career. He dropped it at the one yard line. Chad Powers has arrived on Hulu.

[J.J. Watt]

If I can't play as Russ, I'll.

[Pat McAfee]

Play as someone else. My name's Chad and last name from executive producers Eli and Peyton Manning. Remember, you're wearing a prosthetic mask. This is acting and starring Glen Powell. He thinks you're a rubber chew toy. Not rubber. I'm a man made of flesh. The Hulu Original series Chad Powers is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney plus for bundled subscribers. Terms apply. New episodes Tuesdays Football is a special thing. That's a college football national champion Super bowl champion A.J. hawk the toxic tables here at Boston Connor and at Ty Schmidt, 9 year NFL event host of Everything DB good D bad D which we'll see here in about 20 minutes or so. Darius J. Butler, super bowl champion the man who just crowned the Carolina Panthers is the best performing offensive defensive line coming out of week six of the NFL season. AQ Shipley is here and joining us now live from Hammer, Don Todd. Tone Digs, Good to see you. We got a big thing about to happen. As you know, it's, it's time to dive into another week of college football convo with Stanford. Steve oh, we appreciate you taking time. We understand you've been waiting for us. That's 100% on us and we got it behind Scott schedule. But we're thankful for you joining us and we've enjoyed this every single week. Getting a chance to catch up about ball but also just catch up with you in general. How you doing? Steve we're big fans.

[Stanford Steve]

I'm great. I just got educated for a whole hour. Felt like hearing aq, hearing you guys talk. I'm, I am locked in. I'm usually behind in the NFL prep by this time this week. But here in aq, hearing the excitement level and what he's ready to go. You bitching about the Colts screen too low. I'm all in for that.

[Pat McAfee]

Thank you, Stanford. Steve he seems like he also agrees with me which is why he remembers that. So we need to take that in going forward. They're 5 and 1, let's never forget it. And they're healthy and they're dominant and we'll dive into that at another time. Steve let's talk about college football coming in. Yeah, we got a huge one happening down there in Georgia. Obviously we're going down to Athens. There could have been a couple other places but you got Ole Miss rolling in to a very, very dominated, dominating dogs of Georgia Steve, what are the thoughts on this game?

[Stanford Steve]

Yeah, the issue is the Dogs haven't been dominating Pat early in these games. You go back last week, down 10 nothing, almost 16 nothing with that fumble. And chaos at Auburn, you know, falling behind 14 nothing and 21 seven to Alabama at home. They lose that game. First time in about 33 home games. You go back, we were at Tennessee, it was 21 7. That played is as loud as any building. George has got to figure out how to start these games better. We're having Kirby on the show. I hope somebody figures out how to or you know, he explains what's been going on and how he's tried to address it because they've been incredible in these second half. Last week the, the guy, the drive to clinch it by Gunner Stockton was just textbook. I thought Bobo was great. We know outside runs, third down conversions using, you know, their go to Guy Branch as a decoy on a big third down and then they get the, the brutal touchdown to cover for all those Auburn backers. Georgia is 40 as a seven point favorite against all top five teams under Kirby. So it's up against Ole Miss who slept walked out of a buy against Washington State watching that game last week and Trinidad made some plays in the second half or else they were going to lose that game. So Ole Miss has got to prove it. They gave it to him last year, uh, at home in Oxford with a great, you know, you saw how many guys go to the draft from Ole Miss, his team. But this is a different test and I, I like Georgia's offense when you look at it in its totality. So awesome matchup coming up.

[Pat McAfee]

Georgia's offense is there whenever they've needed it and obviously we go back to Tennessee whenever we talk about that because what they did at the end of that game was awesome. What Gunner did on that fourth down was spectacular. Then they lose. Bam. Obviously they had a 33 game win streak at home that obviously gets snapped this season. And then the timeout clapping extravaganza last week is obviously fantastic. Let's talk about that Ole Miss team a little bit. Lane Kiffin has another top five team. Let's go to Hammer. Tom, what do we need to be thinking about this game and Lane Kiffin's boys?

[Tone Diggs]

Yeah. To be honest, I don't know if the numbers next to either of these teams are correct. They, they might be a little too high. I don't think either of these teams have been super aggressive. Yeah, the records are good but you know, this might be a little SEC by some than where they were ranked early in the year to where they are now. But no, I mean Georgia back between the hedges. They just had their 33 game home win streak snapped. Both these teams are top 25 in rush attempts per game now yards per rush. Georgia is a better team and they also have the better rush defense. So I think Georgia has the advantage there. But I think overall both offenses have the advantage and I want to get this right here. So Georgia's 100, 115th in sacks and 109th in tackles for loss. That's on defense. And then ole miss is 100th in sacks and 121st in TFLs, both on defense. So neither one of these defenses are causing havoc up front. So I think offenses are going to have their way in this one.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, so that's exciting. Shootout, you know, between Trin led and gunner. Georgia against the spread the last two seasons. Here's Hambo stats overall 6 and 14 favorites 4 and 13. At home they're 2 and 8. This is against the spread, not straight up. This is just whatever they have to cover. You said whenever they're favorites of seven or more, they win or whatever. They don't win for the betters though. It sounds like they don't win against for the betters. What other game were you looking at this weekend, brother Steve?

[Stanford Steve]

The Seagar game. Bama and Tennessee. Tennessee since we've been there has won every game by one possession. Overtime in Starkville. You know they, they let Arkansas come in the back door last week at home off of a buy. And Alabama's the hottest team in the country. Ty Simpson has been spectacular. Go. You know, I think Grub and, and Kalin go for it. On third and longs, fourth and longs. Uh, the defense steps up and holds Ahmad, uh, to 52 yards rushing I believe. So that was really good to see in a, in a tricky spot in 11am kick. Their defense showing out and, and shutting down the nation's leading rusher. Tennessee has really fallen off defensively, giving up a ton of points lately. And that Alabama offense matches up really well. Tennessee, I know. Not sure if they're going to get those corners back. They were talking about them when we were there. They're still not back. One of them is an NFL player in McCoy. So I think this leans Alabama night, game night show, fireworks, the whole thing. Plenty of points scored in this game.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, we have another stat from Hembo and Bruce just pointed out some mean stats here from Hembo. Hypo is a 3 plus point road dog. 0 and 6 win loss straight up. 0 and 6. Obviously against the spread average score, 37 18. Yikes. Every loss buys 14 plus points. So if they're supposed to lose by more than three, it's going to happen is what. Is what these stats are saying. Don't love that Hembo saying that. That could change this year, though. Let's go to Hammer. Tony, what's up with these Hembo stats and how much are you looking into them?

[Tone Diggs]

Yeah, I mean, hey, I like these. They're trends and once trends happen, they're hard to kick. We've seen that all season long. And Hypo. Yes. Away from Tennessee has been. You know, it's kind of been the story of Tennessee. They haven't really been able to win the big one yet under hypo. They got Bama a couple years ago, but that was at Tennessee. Tennessee. As Steve said, I think the Bama offense is going to be able to do whatever they want, especially Ty Simpson in the passing game. I believe Tennessee's like 120th or something like that as far as against the pass. So I don't think that Bama offense is going to have any issue. And then on the other side of.

[Ty Schmidt]

The ball if they.

[Tone Diggs]

If Bama is going to have an issue. Tennessee runs for over 200 yards a game. If there has been a question mark with the Bama defense, it's been the run game game. We've said that the last three weeks, but they've. They've handled it pretty well, especially last week against Hardy and Mizzou. So I. Yeah, Bama could potentially roll.

[Darius J. Butler]

Steve, what the hell is going on? Ryan Williams, what are you. Where is he?

[Stanford Steve]

I don't know if he's as motivated as he used to be.

[Pat McAfee]

We all know it's. Pff.

[Stanford Steve]

I keep hearing about how much money he's making. That's all.

[Pat McAfee]

He's got a real nice house and set up. He's earned that with his abilities and we appreciate him and obviously we hope he continues to live up to all the talent that he has any expectations. But you're right. Ty Simpson's become the story, not the young wide receiver who's insane. And they got a. Who's number one for them.

[A.J. Hawk]

Orton.

[Stanford Steve]

Miami.

[Pat McAfee]

Isaiah Orton.

[Tone Diggs]

Yeah, he was him and Jeremy.

[Stanford Steve]

Look at that ball placement right there.

[A.J. Hawk]

Come on.

[Stanford Steve]

That's unguardable.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. You call them the hottest team in the country. Indiana would say really? Not so fast, huh, Steve?

[Stanford Steve]

Maybe I didn't say best. I didn't say best. Indiana's the best.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, and also the hottest then, right? Wouldn't they be the hottest team as well?

[Stanford Steve]

They had a long flight home, you know, a lot of time to cool down.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, there's a timeout. Yeah, they passed the ball away. Okay, check ball, check ball. Gotta move to the next one. That's awesome. Let's go to the next game, Stanford. See if we need to be paying attention to. Oh, old rivalry.

[Stanford Steve]

Yeah. We just touched on the SEC where it means more. I think this game means the most this weekend. In week eight, Notre Dame's last stand for a ranked win. They don't have anybody on the schedule that resembles a ranked team the rest of the way. Maybe Pittsburgh. But we don't like talking about PIT on this show. So USC comes in red hot. Red hot and very dangerous.

[Pat McAfee]

We were talking about Pitt a little bit earlier. It was about them getting a new stadium.

[Tone Diggs]

They had a great win this weekend. Florida State.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, hey, way to go, pit. And if that would have been on the slate, I would like to let you know I would have picked PIT to win that game because that does feel like a Nardo win type thing. You know, gritty pitch. We just think, you know, stadium setup needs to change.

[Stanford Steve]

Maybe we could go to Pittsburgh for Notre Dame when they go there, you never know. I don't know, Steve.

[Pat McAfee]

Maybe. That would be awesome. Actually won't go to the Holy War, but yeah, let's go to pit. I'll tell you what, this would have been a game. I think a lot of people thought maybe game day would head to him. Once again, I can't stress this enough. The fact that I am lucky enough, and I assume Steve says the same thing, to be a part of a show that people like, would like to see at their events. You know, that is a very cool thing. We are very lucky to be a part of that. So anytime there is anger from anybody, that our show doesn't go somewhere or that game day goes somewhere, we understand the magnitude of how cool it is to be a part of something that has that effect on people. Obviously, it's been this way long before I got there and Steve got there. It'll be a long after I and Steve leave, this will be a thing. This is. We're very lucky to be a part of game day. This game everybody thought could potentially have it. And I assume the next game we're going to talk about the holy War out there in byu. This could have been an epic college game. Not that Georgia Ole Miss won't be okay. Obviously. Huge implications 9 verse 5 honored lucky to be down there. Used to have the longest home winning stretch in 33 games. Tough play to play obviously A lot of history and in the middle of a dynasty still if they were to go on to win, people would lump this all together for Kirby. Smart. Lucky to be going down there. This place though, I think would have shut down the whole state if we would have went out there. This it means something too this year. 605 and 1. I mean you got real playoff implications and this is big. I love that we got Bear versus Dampier. I love the storylines that are coming and I like how good both these teams are. Steve.

[Stanford Steve]

Yeah, Utah has proved it 30 against the spread as a road favorite which is tough to do in this day and age college football. And BYU came back from the dead last week. Late night in Tucson goes to comes back goes to overtime wins it. Bear Bachmire the Mormon stolen from Stanford. Still tough to watch him play for byu but we're moving on and plenty at stake. What do we got? 4th time both teams teams in this rivalry are ranked in all since 1994 so there's not a lot of times this game has meant this much. We know how much they hate each other. Both head coaches went to byu. Whittingham won a national championship when he was at BYU and now he's the head coach of Utah and had a serious run in that state. So the hatred is real. I love genuine hatred. There's nothing better. But Utah feels verified being a road favorite here, seeing what they're to up up against.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. And that's potentially because of what BYU looked like for most of that game last week. Obviously you got to take everything into account. Kyle Whittingham's career record versus byu. I don't know if you saw these numbers. Obviously Whittingham, BYU alum.

[J.J. Watt]

Oh yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Kyle Whittingham showed up at our show whenever we were out there on a motorcycle and sleevel so it was cool.

[Ty Schmidt]

Pretty sweet.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, it was pretty sick. Cal whitting him he's 115 win loss record against BYU which also 11 to 5 against the spread. 5 and 1 against the spread versus a ranked BYU team and 13 of 16 games have been decided by single digits. So it's good battle. It's going to mean something and that would have been. That could have been what they call scenes.

[A.J. Hawk]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Biblical. I think that actually Holy war. Yeah, I guess it could have been pretty biblical out there. Tone, anything we're missing on the holy War? No.

[Tone Diggs]

You guys Touch on it.

[Stanford Steve]

West Virginia head coach, he played both teams. We get his pick.

[AQ Shipley]

That's true.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, we play a lot of tough teams.

[Stanford Steve]

Yeah, they're both good football teams.

[Pat McAfee]

Good football. Ohio University with Navarro. That's a good football team. Pitt is a good football team.

[Ty Schmidt]

Sure.

[Pat McAfee]

A lot of good football teams. West Virginia knows the ins and outs about. You know what I mean? I don't need to hear anything from you.

[AQ Shipley]

Northwestern and ucla, great team, Great football teams.

[Pat McAfee]

Great football teams. Tough to play Northwestern at home, tough to travel, Tough to play Northwestern at home because they come in there and you just think to yourself, it's Northwest.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, here come the wild cats are big.

[Pat McAfee]

And I don't even know if. Did you guys fill up for Northwestern at home?

[AQ Shipley]

Did you see this pictures of the stadium?

[Pat McAfee]

No, I didn't see. Would you guys not go?

[AQ Shipley]

You were at the White House. There might have been about half that.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh no. Oh really?

[A.J. Hawk]

No.

[AQ Shipley]

I mean I bet it was 75 000, 80 000.

[A.J. Hawk]

When's the last time that happened? Has that ever happened before?

[AQ Shipley]

I don't know if that's ever happened. Really.

[Pat McAfee]

What? Hold on, I didn't know. I just opened a story that I should definitely known about. So. So you guys didn't fill that thing up for that game?

[AQ Shipley]

Not even close.

[A.J. Hawk]

I've never heard of that at Penn State.

[Pat McAfee]

Really?

[AQ Shipley]

Someone put a still shot of like before the whiteout and then like right before this. Okay, so here's this might be it.

[A.J. Hawk]

This is during the game.

[AQ Shipley]

No, this was.

[A.J. Hawk]

Yeah, right as it's ending.

[Pat McAfee]

What's the score? Is this end of game?

[Stanford Steve]

Yeah, it's when they're taking a knee.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, so end of game's tough because 100 some thousand potentially want to get out of there. Hard to get out of there. Can we get one from early?

[AQ Shipley]

Yeah, there was one like before the game. There was one right before the white out against Oregon and then one right before the Northwestern and it was night and day. Well, no pun intended.

[Pat McAfee]

It's because you lose the UCLA the week before or because you lose the Oregon a week before that or two in a row.

[AQ Shipley]

Early game. But it wasn't no.

[Pat McAfee]

3, 33, 33, 30.

[AQ Shipley]

Yeah, plenty of time. It's bad. So they were done.

[Pat McAfee]

The fans may the decision on.

[AQ Shipley]

I think the UCLA thing really sent the fans over the edge.

[Pat McAfee]

How about that, Steve? Penn State. Franklin walked out there, saw an empty stadium and go, no, that's not good. Right? I mean that is. That is not.

[AQ Shipley]

He made comments before the game. He's like we've prepared the team for booze and a hostile environment for a home game.

[Pat McAfee]

I would like to reiterate this 100 times. James Franklin has been very good to us and always had great energy with us.

[AQ Shipley]

He was great to them, program, great. Turned you guys around, turned us around, kept us there when it was in the depths of hell.

[Pat McAfee]

And he'll be remembered as that guy for sure. But it's not.

[AQ Shipley]

It's a results driven business period.

[Pat McAfee]

In the moment though, it's not thinking like that.

[AQ Shipley]

Correct.

[Pat McAfee]

But five years from now, looking back, James Franklin had a vital piece in the Penn State story.

[AQ Shipley]

There's going to be a lot of gratitude towards him and without question.

[Pat McAfee]

And he'll say thank you to 49 million bucks I've got since I've been there. And also, I agree we did some good things things there. It's not just negative. That'll be a good time for Coach Franklin.

[AQ Shipley]

Absolutely. I mean, I think he's third over the last 10 years in most wins across college football.

[J.J. Watt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Gosh, it's a tough game.

[Tone Diggs]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

I think that's why I got fired. Right. Because he's third and wins, but he's never.

[AQ Shipley]

Yeah, I bet those coaches on that.

[Pat McAfee]

List have national championships. Well, not only national championship, it's like a big win conference. Signetti going into Oregon and winning that game for sure. On the same. At the same.

[Ty Schmidt]

This guy's beating Oregon and you can't beat Northwestern. Hit the bricks, pal.

[Pat McAfee]

That is based. I think that is potentially what happened.

[AQ Shipley]

And they had to travel and he was blaming travel the week before. Tough.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh my God. There's a lot. It is a lot. All right. Stanford. Steve. Anything else?

[Stanford Steve]

No, I was just saying you were doing your show from his office like 20 days ago.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, like.

[Stanford Steve]

And they were on top of the world, up seven in overtime. Coach Saban puts a white suit on and goes and gives their. Gives that fan base a funeral for their season.

[Pat McAfee]

I don't know, say. Well, maybe landing a little offspring, I guess from Saban. There were certainly some seeds of success there that were planted for landing maybe in that Oregon team. But yeah, we were just feet away from jj. Yeah, that's right. Jj Coach Franklin's friend from high school. He's right in the glass window right.

[Ty Schmidt]

There on the show.

[Pat McAfee]

It was great. It was a perfect setup. Everything was great. James Franklin obviously has done great things. I'll be excited to see what he does next. I wonder when we'll see him next. That's a good question. Probably not for a long, long, long, long, long time. No, I'm thinking you're wrong. I'm thinking we're seeing them real, real, real, real, real soon. That's what I'm thinking.

[Darius J. Butler]

Where you gotta look for a job in sports, right?

[Pat McAfee]

That's what they said. Sports. Me or sports. But we talked about this yesterday, how those interviews could go. You know, when push comes to shove on whether or not you want spot or if he is a ball lover and wants to get back in there. I assume that is the case. His energy feels like he is a football guy.

[Darius J. Butler]

I agree. I think we'll see him soon.

[Pat McAfee]

Steve, I don't know if you saw. We saw your top 15. Yeah, I don't know if you saw Tones predicted college football playoff bracket at this point.

[Stanford Steve]

That's sexy graphic.

[Pat McAfee]

He's got five SEC schools, three Big Ten schools, obviously Big 12 Power 5 ACC in there as well, and independent with Notre Dame making it. Congrats to them beating USC and then continuing to go on a run for the rest of the, of the year, is what Tone Diggs is saying. Also congrats to Utah beating BYU because Utah is still on the hunt. BYU is not big news. Texas Tech does its thing in Miami, wins the ACC outright. So congrats to them making a win is what tone saying anything you see here, Stanford. Stephen, how accurate do you think these projections are as we sit Week seven versus what the end of the season actually is?

[Stanford Steve]

Well, that's, that's what it's going to come down to. I mean, everybody wants to know the numbers. We changed format. So, so the, it doesn't, you know, the buys don't go to league winners. I saw the analytics. I'm not an analytics guy. I just read it and I wrote it down because I thought I could comprehend it. So hopefully other people can. Right now, the SEC is 90% to send four teams to the playoff. Tone has five. So he's on point there. And the Big Ten is 89% to send three teams, 42% to send four. So yeah, it's, it's pretty top. Everybody's talking about the depth and, and what it is, you know, SEC versus the field, whatever. The Big Ten's pretty top heavy right now with Michigan getting, getting beat last week by SC&, and Penn State not being what they have been and the sec. I, I don't know if they have a team that can win the national title, but they're going to have the most teams in the playoff. I, I think we could guarantee that just Seeing what those teams have to play and the resumes are just going to look tougher because of all the games you, you still have to go through. I mean, Alabama, this is what, six straight against ranked opponent. This is the first team that Alabama hasn't played that hasn't been undefeated this year. So their resume is as strong as anyone's. Even with a loss to Florida State because of the wins they've attained on the road. And now coming back home against Tennessee, A and M's the, the, the outlier to me because they're good. You know, it's probably the second best win in the country after Indiana went to Oregon last week, which was the best. A and M going to Notre Dame is pretty damn good. And they, they don't play a home game until November 15th. They got three road games in a buy. So we're going to know everything we need to know by November with Elko's team, which I, I know you like Pat, and I love him. What he, what he's doing on third downs is just gross with dialing stuff up. So that, that looks pretty good. And Texas Tech is an awesome story. I really hope we could get to a Texas Tech home game during this run because that place I was there for, the Crabtree catch, it's the greatest night in Lubbock, Texas, and if we go back there, it'll be absolutely awesome.

[Pat McAfee]

I love that. And I also appreciate the fact that they're going all in and it's working. You know, like, I like anytime somebody goes all in and it works because that is hopefully, you know, an example for others to follow. Like, hey, if you go all in, you also have successful. When people go all in and they fail, okay, that gives other people say, see, they're doing all this and they don't even win. So, like, we need the people that go all in and are doing it to win so that other people look at that and say, that's the model that we need to follow. We don't need people going all, all, all, all the way in and then not having success because then the cheapskates out there go. See, See, Just like we said.

[AQ Shipley]

Okay, I'm 17 years removed from that program. Point another direction.

[Pat McAfee]

This guy doesn't want to be a part of it.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, God. Say it.

[AQ Shipley]

I'll be back next.

[Pat McAfee]

They are Penn State. That's what you wanted to say right there.

[Darius J. Butler]

Say it.

[AQ Shipley]

I'll be back next year.

[Pat McAfee]

Terry Smith, Western Pennsylvania.

[AQ Shipley]

Love Terry Smith.

[Pat McAfee]

He's the interim head coach. He needs you.

[AQ Shipley]

Gateway High school WPIL hall of Fame class Same. Same year I went in.

[Pat McAfee]

See? Wow. And you're turning your back now?

[AQ Shipley]

I love Terry Smith.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, so maybe give a little bit of respect to the man.

[AQ Shipley]

He's gonna get him fired up, I'm telling you.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, then stop saying they are Penn State. Start saying we are Penn State.

[AQ Shipley]

We got a lot of tough games coming up.

[Stanford Steve]

They better buckle up this week.

[Ty Schmidt]

Bingo.

[Darius J. Butler]

Who's the quarterback? Well, not a starting quarterback.

[A.J. Hawk]

He's a high.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, yeah. Drunken Meyer.

[Ty Schmidt]

Gronken Meyer.

[J.J. Watt]

Drunk.

[A.J. Hawk]

Drunkenmeyer.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay.

[Darius J. Butler]

Yeah.

[A.J. Hawk]

Columbus area. Columbus kid.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, he's legit.

[A.J. Hawk]

He can play.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, Drew out was Ohio guy too. That's right, Drew. I was a hot guy.

[Stanford Steve]

I hope he's gonna be going back to Columbus in a couple weeks.

[Pat McAfee]

Godspeed. The surgery.

[J.J. Watt]

No, no.

[A.J. Hawk]

November 1st.

[AQ Shipley]

They play.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, you're talking about Drunkenmeyer. Okay. That Drew Aller out for the season, right?

[AQ Shipley]

Gronken Meyer no end.

[Pat McAfee]

Correct.

[AQ Shipley]

Gronka Meyer. No.

[Pat McAfee]

Gronkermeyer.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[AQ Shipley]

Yeah.

[Trevor Sikoma]

You are.

[AQ Shipley]

U N K E. That's my sports.

[Pat McAfee]

Hold on. Bear or something. What's Bear's name out there? Bachmar.

[Stanford Steve]

Bachmark.

[Pat McAfee]

That's a good name. That's a really good name.

[Tone Diggs]

Thanks, brother.

[Pat McAfee]

There's a lot of really good names. I mean, Tigers. Fernando Mendoza is a great name. And the Mendoza brothers being on the same team, they're not twins. A couple of years. So it's not the Mendoza twins, but the Mendoza brothers taking the world by storm down here in Bloomington. College football is great. We're having a great season. I'll see you down there in Athens, brother. Can't wait to get down there.

[Stanford Steve]

All right, Finn's up for Gumpy.

[Pat McAfee]

They actually have a guy who's a leading tackler in the NFL right now. He. Now he is 55 more snaps than everybody else, because defense on field level, he's tackling a lot of people. Ain't that right, Gumps?

[J.J. Watt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

The offense is only scoring 60 of.

[Stanford Steve]

The time against the defense.

[Pat McAfee]

What do you want them to do? The leaders need to start taking charge down here. They. They need to start saying we are instead of. They are one in particular. Right? I don't like the way you've been talking about some of those dolphin stuff down there. I stood up for that man for a long time.

[J.J. Watt]

All right?

[Stanford Steve]

We deserve better.

[Pat McAfee]

See, everybody right now doesn't know which man you're talking about. There's two men that you've been standing up for for a long time. Has. Hasn't there been.

[AQ Shipley]

Oh, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

So why don't we just go ahead and leave that a mystery on who you're talking about. Good for you, Gumps. Who are you talking about?

[Stanford Steve]

Our quarterback.

[Tone Diggs]

Okay.

[Ty Schmidt]

Okay.

[Stanford Steve]

Number one.

[Tone Diggs]

Uno.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. Yeah. All right. Tua. Got it. All right. He takes the podium today. Who does?

[Darius J. Butler]

Two.

[Pat McAfee]

The of. Yes.

[Stanford Steve]

Better have a muzzle.

[Pat McAfee]

I'm excited. No, that's what I'm talking about. We need more questions. We need more out of that two as a lead by example guy. Okay? Now, obviously his quarterback's got to speak. He likes to disappear from his life. He doesn't like to do all the spotlight stuff. He's been very open about that. So I think we got to take that with a grain of salt with everything he's saying. He's trying to not give to anybody while us are not enjoying what he's doing.

[Ty Schmidt]

Sure.

[Pat McAfee]

And on that note, we enjoy what you're doing. Ladies and gentlemen, the man, Stanford. Safe.

[Darius J. Butler]

Thank you, buddy.

[Pat McAfee]

I enjoy. Hey, how'd you do on your picks?

[Stanford Steve]

One and two.

[Pat McAfee]

That's back to back weeks. One and two, brother Steven. All of a sudden, that 66 hit rate's about to become a 50 hit rate. And then all of a sudden now somewhere, 33 net, just a quick slide in it from the house to the outhouse. Holy.

[Tone Diggs]

The first half Penn's date didn't hit Steve.

[Stanford Steve]

Yeah, exactly.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, I forgot.

[Stanford Steve]

That was one that set the tone.

[Pat McAfee]

That was an interesting.

[Stanford Steve]

We got there. We got Coach Saban's Kent State.

[Pat McAfee]

Did they win?

[Stanford Steve]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

He really doesn't like him. What happened? He doesn't really support them much. Doesn't he? He's not really. You never hear him going to bat for Kent. If you. He said he didn't get the job there, maybe. Is that what happened?

[Stanford Steve]

Yeah, well, he was at Toledo, so I think he gave them the business when he was coaching at Toledo. And I mean, you're not. No offense, but like, Kent State's down at the bottom and you know, Saban is going up. He's not going back to go up. He's keep going up.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, I understand. He's moved on. But, you know, there is a moment a couple times, like once every four shows where Kent State gets brought up and everybody's like, coach Saban, you're a golden flash. He goes, they got terrible players. And that's like the tank. And then it just moves on to the next one. And I'm sitting next to him. I'm like, jesus Christ. They do. I mean, I can't get anybody what doing Are you. I couldn't coach here. I don't think he's the best. You're the man. Stand for Steve Laser. All right, boys. Saban's the greatest. He's getting so comfortable up there. I told the boys, there's like, you know, the way the conversation is structured. It's vastly different than how this show is, obviously, because there's so many things you got to hit, like obligation to hit, because this is college football. We were covering college football. So there's like, things, you know, like, hey, we're going to hit this. We're going to talk about this. You got this. You got this. And then Saban will hear something that somebody else says, and he's a. Well, I need to say something to that. Excuse me. So he taps his finger on the desk, right? Taps his finger on the desk. And it's like his way of showing that he would like to say something. And I'm right next to him, so I see him tapping it first normally, and I look at him, I'm like, yeah, yeah, you're good. I have no say over that. I have no say over that. So then I. Then I try to go to Reese. Yeah, exactly. I have no say over that. So then I go to Reese, I tell him, get him like, hey, Saban's ready to go. Then you talk to the truck. And then all of a sudden it gets back to it. And then Saban says something. It's like, yeah, hey, also, you should not. You should just whatever you want to. If I'm talking. You want to let it fly, Just fucking go ahead. Dude, you're. He's the best. Yeah, he is so good up there.

[AQ Shipley]

So good.

[Pat McAfee]

Legitimately. I don't know what his picking is, though. I don't know what his picking is.

[Darius J. Butler]

Just a goat.

[Pat McAfee]

That's tough, dude. Picking games is wild. It's really nice that I'm getting really lucky with these right now, but obviously I know what's happening, so that's why it's a difference. You know, there's a talent in this, obviously. You know, 18 to 23 year olds just on any given day showing up and all doing the same thing is certainly easily predictable. You know, that's the. That's the thing that gets most seen, though. The end of the show is the mix. You have one bad day on there. Boy, the year that's tough. It's been nice to have a couple good day, good weeks, but I know what's around the corner. You know, it's been getting a little loud We've been taking a little more good days.

[A.J. Hawk]

More good days. More good days.

[Pat McAfee]

Yep, that's what I was thinking. Yeah, you're right. I'm never gonna miss. No, why would you? How much fun is that? Think about how cool that is. I'm never gonna get one wrong. I'm so. If this goes in all right.

[Ty Schmidt]

No, no, don't even leave this to chance. You're riding a hot streak right now. You don't. You don't even. You don't need to introduce anything.

[Pat McAfee]

True. Yeah. No.

[Darius J. Butler]

This is it.

[Pat McAfee]

This is what the universe we need to know. I would like to know right now. I think it's going to change my vibes, change my mood. Cuz all I'm thinking about is right around the corner. Well, you know, going 8 to 10. 8 to 10, 8 to 10, every single week. That's certainly a time. That's a good time. Because all the people that you picked against can't really say much because the team was right, you were wrong. But boy, you pick against the team and you were wrong and their team wins. That opens the floodgates in their eyes to say whatever they want about you. You don't get anything that Carolina. Anything they've wanted to say. No, no. Yeah, exactly. That's a good one. Out of nowhere, just an enemy all of a sudden, quickly comes and bang. You know, so when you're winning, it's good. When you lose, it gets loud. This ball right here will say whether or not it's going to get loud for me.

[Darius J. Butler]

Are you sure, you sure you want to do that? You. You like a face up on the blackjack table? You like face down?

[Pat McAfee]

Face down.

[Darius J. Butler]

Okay.

[Pat McAfee]

That's opposite of what I'm doing right now. Yeah, yeah, that. Yeah, right. I'm not doing that.

[A.J. Hawk]

Okay.

[Pat McAfee]

No way.

[Ty Schmidt]

No.

[Pat McAfee]

Why would I even want that to be your right?

[Ty Schmidt]

How you do that?

[Pat McAfee]

Blackjack was a good call.

[Ty Schmidt]

If you miss that, I know you're going to get every game wrong.

[Pat McAfee]

I'm going start fading myself. Yeah, I will, I will start walking. I need clear eyes.

[Darius J. Butler]

Yeah, exactly.

[Pat McAfee]

Few screens. Yeah, that's what I need right now. All right, let's learn football on the way up.

[Darius J. Butler]

Let's go.

[Pat McAfee]

It's a great way to wrap up a show whenever you learn at a level that you never thought was possible. Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to go inside the mind of one of the greatest football minds there has been. It's time to go everything db, Good D, bad db.

[Darius J. Butler]

Let's start with good D. One of the best defenses in the National Football League coming off a hotel prime time win. This is a big, big interception from D. Offer who also had a big sack in this game as well. So second, I'm sorry, first and 10, 15 seconds left in the second quarter. Big time. Everybody here is outside leverage. Start running back from beginning real quick, please. Sorry. Man to man across the board. You got split safety. Look at then after the snap that top safety up of the right has, she's going to rotate down and kind of be like a deep robber. The Bills are just trying to get in the field, field goal range, get a chunk play and nope. Undercuts him using his outside leverage. Big time play and this sets up an opportunity for the offense to get points before the half. Obviously we know the Drake London almost touchdown did get it in there, but this set him up and gave him a chance. So you talk about complimentary football, this is it. Offer having a big, big year. This defense as a whole allowing under 160 yards per game. When it comes to, to passing. Coach BA mentioned a couple times yesterday, number one scoring defense. So you talk about a huge turnaround. Got a lot of rookies out there playing in some premier spots playing big time ball. So shout out to Brick and the boys over there in Atlanta turning things around and getting a big time win against the reigning mvp.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, so Carolina game just didn't happen. Like Carolina may be a better football team than any of us could imagine. So when it happens, maybe we didn't show enough respect to the Carolina Panthers. Nonetheless, they shit the bed that day as well.

[Darius J. Butler]

Yeah, I mean it's such a week to week league. Sometimes you just wait. Sometime the game plan is shitty. Sometimes the quarterback's just not seeing it. Young quarterback too. So it's young quarterbacks. You're going to have your, your ups and downs. But he's playing well, the offense is playing well and the defense is playing even better. So hopefully they continue to ride that wave over there in Atlanta.

[J.J. Watt]

Wow.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, I'm just seeing the next team that's on good D here. They were also on in the trenches just a few weeks, weeks back. They were going to be in some trenches as a team that was dead. Now they're all the way alive it appears.

[Darius J. Butler]

Yes, absolutely. And on the back end, banged up on the back end. Brisker, who missed a ton of time last year, he's back in the lineup. He's playing some good ball. Dennis Allen have these boys, have these boys playing some good ball. Second in the NFL with interceptions with Eight. This is brisker, cover three. And now there are different variations of COVID three. Sometimes this guy is covered right here. We keep it paused for a second. A talking point. I think Dano mentioned it with this game, with the Monday night game four. Strong is something that Cliff loves this offense. He likes to overload the zone coverages. On defense, the Bears do a good job of covering their guys up and in cover three. As that slot defender, you either drop to a spot or you carry that vertical, you carry that seam route. So if you let it run, he carries Deebo Samuel here. And when you're running out of real estate deep and you're not worried about getting beat by a deep ball, you can undercut this and play the quarterback. And that's what the veteran Brisker does there. Just a very, very smooth interception right here, keeping him from scoring points and preserving that 30 lead at this point in the game.

[Pat McAfee]

You know, the last time we saw this Bears defense play against his commander's team in this type of setting saw the worst defense of all time.

[Darius J. Butler]

Yeah, it's true. Tyreek Stevenson, he's been playing some good ball this year.

[Pat McAfee]

Yes, he has.

[AQ Shipley]

Oh, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Think about that team till now. Yeah, think about it. Laughing stock, fire, everything. Hell, now where they're at, winning three games straight and looking like a real team.

[Darius J. Butler]

And that's the NFL kind of kind of wrapped up. This team started off 02. There were moments in this game where they could have just folded. In years past, that team would have definitely folded and just pissed down their leg. But it's a lot. These are long games and it's a long, long season. You can get in a rut, you can drop a couple games, but you got to be able to battle. So it just shows you the leadership now. The only on the sideline with the coaches, but in the locker room. The Eagles right now, the next team on the opposite side. Obviously here they're dealing with a little rut here. Dropping two games. Big time, big time play here by flop now keep it paused. We got pressure, so it's going to be a zero look from the New York Giants. And as a corner kind of similar to Brisker, when you get to this area of the field, you get inside the 20, the field now becomes wider than it is longer. So you're not necessarily worried about getting, getting ran by. And then we talked a couple weeks ago about leverage. So right here with that cut split of the wide receiver, he's about a yard inside. The numbers fly. Does a good job starting out with outside leverage, foot up and he knows we got more guys than they can block. So this ball is going to be coming out quick. So hurts has to be absolutely perfect. This ball has to be out in front where his receiver catches it or it goes out of bounds. If it's not, it's going to be in trouble. When you throw these picks, when you throw these, these balls out to the flat and you're late or if you're off target, they can go back to the house. Saquon does a good job here running them down and getting them out of bounds, giving his defense the chance to just line up and play defense. But big time play right here by fly. How's he been playing this year, Bruce? How you guys feel about 2 8?

[Pat McAfee]

He's good. You know, it's his fourth year in the league.

[Stanford Steve]

He's been rotating with Deontay Banks, who's.

[Pat McAfee]

In his third year.

[Stanford Steve]

This was actually the first game game.

[Pat McAfee]

This year where Flot just played the whole time. And obviously it pays off here. Young secondary been on bad D a bit, but obviously this is an encouraging, you know, on the other side of the coin, I'll tell you what, we've been a lot of bad givers around here at the Giants. Everything's turning up Giants right now. Yeah, everything's turning up Giants saw scatter boom out there as a big takeaway.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Now the defense flots getting a pick. That looked easy for him, A.J. that looked easy for flot right there.

[A.J. Hawk]

Yeah, did zero D but say zero coverage. You know, he doesn't have to bail. He knows like, hey, man, where they are on the field. I mean. Yeah, just something that for Jalen hurts in this Eagles offense. Just absolutely killer can't happen. But it was a great play.

[Darius J. Butler]

And timely. Timely to 2717 right here, fourth quarter. So if they go in and score a touchdown right here, it's a three point game, obviously. And now not only do you get the interception, but you set up your offense that's led by a young quarterback in a great position to. To be able to continue to run this ball and tick clock off the clock. Take time off the clock. I'm sorry.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, tick tock. No worries. Time off the clock. Now. Speaking of time off the clock, as it came gets later. It seems like this team only gets better.

[Darius J. Butler]

Yes, they do. Now, Mac Jones threw for a ton of yards here. Jamel Dean actually just won NFC defensive player of the week. It's his birthday as well. Happy birthday.

[Pat McAfee]

Happy birthday. Happy birthday.

[Darius J. Butler]

He's missed some Sometime but he's played well this year, has made big time time. This another one here. Now run it back a little bit starting here for Mac Jones. This looks like what kind of defense this look like aq Single high, single high defense. So probably man to man, maybe cover three. But post snap, once the ball is snapped it's going to rotate, become cover two. So that safety is going to get vertical to corner to bottom. He's going to become the deep half player. You have your run through and Jamel Dean does a good job playing it high to low. So you play the high route to force the quarterback to either put enough air on it so it gives my safety enough time to get over the top and if not I go up and make a big time play. And that's what Jamel Dean did here. Had a strip sack as well this game. So a big time game for Dean and a big time interception. Once again a timely interception. They're up 8 right now in the fourth quarter. Big time play right here. Mack Jones, I wouldn't necessarily say he was fooled because he saw him, but he thought he could get that ball and layer it over him. But he went up there high, pointed, made a big time.

[Pat McAfee]

He made a butter there. Jamel Dean named NFC Defensive Player of the Week for Week 6. Dean currently leads the NFL and lowest passer rating when targeted at 20.8, is tied for second and lowest completion rate when targeted 42.1% and ranks tied fifth in interceptions. Full release here from Buckers Buccaneers communication. He's a player a lot of stats saying he's great and it turns out good. D is also saying he's great and it appears if he baited butter right into that particular throw. I love the disguise from one high to two rolling into that thing. Talk got you confused.

[AQ Shipley]

It did.

[Pat McAfee]

AQ had no idea what the hell was going on.

[Tone Diggs]

No.

[AQ Shipley]

And I was kind of blown away on how they got to two.

[Darius J. Butler]

Yeah.

[AQ Shipley]

Kind of wild cuz they sent the corner.

[Darius J. Butler]

When you're seeing that kind of live you see down here at the bottom. If you run it from back to the beginning 22, you'll see he starts to get back early. So. So that's the thing about disguise. I talk about disguise a lot. It's obviously great when it works, but you never want to put yourself or your teammates in a position where you can't be where they expect you to be. So it's one thing to be in a good disguise pre snap, but post snap just have your ass wherever you need to Be you'll actually see a perfect example of a team not doing that on the flip side.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, we got bad D. We flip.

[Darius J. Butler]

Over to the bad D with Tampa. Tampa on.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, they got two for here.

[Tone Diggs]

Fred Warner got hurt.

[Pat McAfee]

This isn't fair.

[Darius J. Butler]

Look, obviously Fred Warner being hurt is a big thing. Bosa being out is well shot at. Teasing P's of Fred Warner. He is my favorite linebacker to watch play football for sure. I don't know if he would have helped him on this play. Disguise, if you keep it paused here, that cornerback all the way up top. This is some variation, in my opinion of COVID 3. You'll get the late motion with the back going out there. That kind of gives you a little eye candy. But that corner, he is responsible for the deepest of the deepest on his side of the field in that third. And obviously the post safety, he has the same responsibility. And you have a corner down here with the same responsibility. So right now, he's only one yard deep, and he's responsible for the deep third part of the field. So Tez Johnson, we saw this play yesterday, let it roll here. He sees. He sees the vacated area, and he just throws the hand up and run it down. And Baker does a great job getting. Getting the ball, seeing it. BA said this probably wasn't even his route. He just saw the open area and just ran to it. But that corner, you're never going to get to where you need to be with that alignment. You can see him kind of, you know, we all slap your hands or slap yourself in the past, you know. You know, you fucked this one up. And they just started with alignment. If he's aligned, if he's off, who knows what route Tez actually runs, if the coverage is played properly. But whenever you do this, that's the thing about cornerback. Like, you can have, you know, 55 great plays and you mess up once or twice, and it becomes a play like this.

[Pat McAfee]

Mvp. Mvp. Mvp. Tez is special.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

He said, you know, I'm slow sometimes. It's gonna take me a little bit to catch up. And the boys hyping him up, saying, now you got your confidence. Now you're gonna be you. If they continue to add weapons down there, I mean, they're a problem.

[Darius J. Butler]

He's got to get healthy.

[Pat McAfee]

Exactly.

[A.J. Hawk]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

If they continue to imagine guys just coming back healthy, like week 13, just dropping in, oh, we got an all pro dropping. We got another one dropping it. It's like they're only going to get better and stronger, and somehow they're still leading the nfc. Oh, another nice.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Cowboys bad day and Big D. I.

[Darius J. Butler]

Mean, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. 20 yard line. We got some variation of too high down here. So you got a. Of cloud corner and then you have a deep half safety. Once again, not worried about necessarily the deep ball. But you're playing concepts down here because things happen so tightly. And a very common concept around the National Football League is like a high, low, like a stick dig route. So if you run it, let it run a couple clicks here, you pause it here. You see league get about five yards from the line of scrimmage just sitting up, curling up. So that lets that safety know this. I'm sure this is a concept. The Panthers run a ton because it's ran across the NFL. You sit there and then you have a dig or post route from T. Mac down here, number four. But he goes boom. Gives him a little E. E baited butter, went vertical, dig and go. Great job by Canales calling it. Great job by Young seeing it and throwing it. A little cue here. Run it back a little bit, which once again is much easier sitting here looking at the screen. But the receiver never looks back, right? So if you're running the dig, if you're running a post, you're going to snap that your head back and get it back to the quarterback the entire time. Him running his route, he's looking at the safety. Once again, a lot easier to see here than it is on the field because you're anticipating that you want to jump that and beat him to the spot. So a great job. Having tendencies as an offense and then using a double move off of those tendencies. So he had two touchdowns in this game. T. Mac did for. In this big comeback that we kind of saw kind of a little bit behind the scenes with Bryce Young miked up.

[Pat McAfee]

Irish juice is special, huh? They're saying tmax. Real deal.

[AQ Shipley]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, I. I like that.

[Darius J. Butler]

He's got all the tools. He's got all, all the tools. He's big, he's fast, he's agile, which you don't really see that combination much. And then as long as they can continue running the ball like they have.

[Pat McAfee]

Number one offensive line in.

[Darius J. Butler]

In the league.

[Pat McAfee]

That's what he said.

[Darius J. Butler]

Back to back. What, 200, 225 for Rico.

[AQ Shipley]

Isn't that weird when you run the ball, how it opens everything up? Isn't that crazy? Isn't that a crazy thought? Maybe Cleveland should throw it 70 times next week.

[Stanford Steve]

Jeez.

[Pat McAfee]

Thank you. Great show. We appreciate you we start out with a little pff. Heat. We ended with a little play calling. Heat. That's. That's a nice little Wednesday. Great work this week. Debug. Great work on aq. Thank you for traveling out here, brother. Great work today. We appreciate you. I'll be excited to see how you do a U ball.

[AQ Shipley]

I'm excited too.

[Pat McAfee]

Find a partner. Yeah, you do. You need a partner. Isn't that. Yeah.

[AQ Shipley]

Tony, right?

[Pat McAfee]

Tony in the.

[Ty Schmidt]

Tony did drop Bruce.

[AQ Shipley]

Yeah, I did not drop Bruce, but.

[Tone Diggs]

It would be an honor to play.

[Pat McAfee]

With aq, but I would certainly drop him again because I did drop him the other day. I said, I'm looking for a new teammate. And then if you want to be that new teammate, I will certainly drop Bruce.

[Tone Diggs]

I love Bruce. He just got so down in the dump so quickly.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, he doesn't do that.

[A.J. Hawk]

You gotta pick him up, Tone. You gotta pick him up.

[Tone Diggs]

Nah, that's not much job.

[Pat McAfee]

No, that's you ball. It's your job.

[Darius J. Butler]

Be like Bryce Young. Stay with me.

[Tone Diggs]

Stay with you ball.

[A.J. Hawk]

It's not we ball, but you're a team.

[Pat McAfee]

That's good. And it's on.

[Ty Schmidt]

You kind of need ball, though.

[Pat McAfee]

Bruce, how do you feel about just kind of getting buried here publicly without really saying anything? Yeah, no, I mean, the. Tony was Dennis Rodman out there. He was grabbing every rebound, throwing it down. So it. It was completely on me. My PFF grade.

[Stanford Steve]

I probably give myself like a 36.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, you're missing assignments.

[Stanford Steve]

Out of 36.

[Tone Diggs]

Not a defensive player.

[A.J. Hawk]

I. I got a little caught up.

[Pat McAfee]

In trying to catch the ones that.

[A.J. Hawk]

Just hit the backboard and drop right away.

[Pat McAfee]

Bad strategy.

[Ty Schmidt]

Then I was letting up all the.

[A.J. Hawk]

Easy ones and read the rebound.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, no, I was trying to re. Reinvent the wheel, and I should have.

[Ty Schmidt]

Just been focused on my fundamentals.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, that. Okay, that's good ownership.

[Darius J. Butler]

Great ownership.

[Pat McAfee]

That's good accountability right there. There. Tone, I ask you, do you have any regrets on maybe moving on from Bruce twice after hearing the accountability he was doing? A lot of this one's on me. All fingers pointing back at Bruce there. You gotta like that as a teammate. Are you guys still splitting?

[Tone Diggs]

Yeah, I mean, it's great. He's saying all the right things right now. After the game, after the locker room, after the shower, after things calmed down. But during the game, he was, you know, kicking dust up and popped, and.

[AQ Shipley]

I just didn't love that.

[Stanford Steve]

A lot of passion.

[Pat McAfee]

A lot of passion. Tony. I'm not gonna apologize for that. You're saying when bullets are flying, boy, there's somebody heading for the hills and we don't need that.

[Tone Diggs]

Me, I'm a positive guy. I need some positive reciprocation.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Especially in the middle of this game. Because this game will knock you down.

[Tone Diggs]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Cuz you're going to fail a lot. I want to be down thumbs.

[AQ Shipley]

He's getting a partner. The most positive guy on earth.

[Pat McAfee]

You.

[Darius J. Butler]

Me?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. I can't wait to watch Tone and Q do their thing and then the team of the D's. Are you guys giving up or are you guys back?

[Darius J. Butler]

No, hell no.

[Pat McAfee]

You guys are still a team.

[Darius J. Butler]

I mean he's wearing. Because I hope he's.

[Ty Schmidt]

He brought his Duke hat today. He means business.

[Darius J. Butler]

Okay.

[Pat McAfee]

And I think he's got a hoodie. A thin. A thin like athletic hoodie on like one of those. You know what I'm talking about? Oh, he said he's going tarps off for this.

[Ty Schmidt]

For this game.

[Pat McAfee]

I'll tell you what, I wouldn't be surprised. Yesterday AJ what were you saying about D bone and D Butt?

[A.J. Hawk]

No team Bone and butts. I didn't think they were splitting up already.

[J.J. Watt]

Right.

[Pat McAfee]

Well that's not the team Bones are meant to be.

[Darius J. Butler]

That's not the team. Name your names.

[Pat McAfee]

I mean you guys are team.

[A.J. Hawk]

You're Bone and Butts.

[Pat McAfee]

Bone and Butts. Bones.

[A.J. Hawk]

Didn't hear. Stanford Steve said some team came in the back door.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, Stanford Steve does a common one a lot. You know, it's hard not to. Whenever you see a team just climbing, it's like oh, look who's coming all over the place. And whenever two guys are teammates in D is the first name of both of their nicknames. So hard. Not just kind of put that together like they do with those headlines. How they put like one big D. Sure. Yep. And then they put bone and butt right there next to it. Just one D Bone. And but to mention the coach who D. Oh yeah, Coach D. And also Kirk the driver.

[AQ Shipley]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Yes, that. Yeah, yeah. D. Is that who you're talking? Yeah, he's their coach. I didn't know he was saying they went over the game plan last night.

[Darius J. Butler]

He should be our referee though.

[Pat McAfee]

He's a great referee. He does not know the rules. But if he learned the rules, he would be good for me. He would also make good signals.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

What are you doing?

[AQ Shipley]

Is it a one hand game? Cuz it's a small ball.

[Pat McAfee]

You're going to have to figure that itself. That's on you. It's you ball. All Right.

[AQ Shipley]

I'm good at adjusting. I'll figure it.

[A.J. Hawk]

AQ is going to be good. I. I predict AQ does very well.

[AQ Shipley]

Thanks, aj.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, for real, this could be an AQ game, to be clear. But he might also get stuck by the rim. I had one yesterday where I did not put it high enough and got stuck by the rim. 8 foot rim seems very attainable. Seems very easy to get to. But you do got to put a little bit of effort, you know, unless you're deboned, who's taller than everybody, he doesn't jump at all. Okay. So that's part of the problem because it is tips, you know, so you have to jump.

[A.J. Hawk]

Do you have to dunk, tip it or can you lay it in?

[Pat McAfee]

You can lay it in, but it's much easier with the size of the ball to AQ's thing to dunk it it because like, it's hard to get a good. You're like Shaq with the. With a basket. It's hard.

[AQ Shipley]

It's gonna be tough. It's gonna be tough with the meniscus.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, yeah.

[A.J. Hawk]

Yesterday. Just yesterday.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[AQ Shipley]

Tough day for me. Stood up off the couch. I just sat up. Stood up.

[Pat McAfee]

And.

[AQ Shipley]

That doesn't feel right. And it hasn't felt right since. I think it's done.

[Pat McAfee]

And it's. It feels like a little gravelly in there or what's it feel like?

[AQ Shipley]

Yeah, it feels like something stuck on the outside.

[Pat McAfee]

He is just rubbing. Does it feel like the rubbing? Do you feel that or. No, Just a stab?

[AQ Shipley]

No, just stuck.

[Pat McAfee]

Like.

[AQ Shipley]

I can't.

[A.J. Hawk]

Can you squat? Can you squat still?

[AQ Shipley]

I can squat, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Up steps.

[AQ Shipley]

I don't have steps.

[A.J. Hawk]

Steps do hurt. Meniscus terror.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, that's how you find out. All right, give. Yeah.

[AQ Shipley]

You have steps.

[Pat McAfee]

I'll give up, obviously is the issue, cuz going down, you can kind of do the half step. All right, we're going to get out of here. We're going to go play some U ball. We'll give you some updates. I'm sure you guys are really riveted by this. You have no idea what the game is and obviously you've never seen it before. But this whole conversation is just for us and we apologize for that. What do you do, Foxy? Good to see you, champ. Yeah, it's nice. It's nice to be champ again. If this ball goes in. Yes, AQ and Tone, we'll win a game today. Okay.

[AQ Shipley]

God damn it.

[Pat McAfee]

That didn't mean you're gonna be champs. That's probably in that other game is what I was talking about. But I wasn't gonna give that up ever. But looks like you guys got no shot. I think it's gonna take you about three quarters of the game to figure out how to get the ball to the hoop. And by that point, we're already winning the game. So welcome to the Thunderdome, brother.

[J.J. Watt]

Hey.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, Ton. Why don't you come on out here, bub? On my way. Gave out your bracket today. Also got some good callus of shin. You know, it had feel good whenever seven came out on your side in the entire thing in Pittsburgh. That's a good voice to have on your side. It was good to have Ben come out on your side. Seven. Yeah.

[Tone Diggs]

My lord and savior.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

You're not the only one that calls me lord and savior. Good to see you. Be your friend. Tell a friend something nice. It might change your life. We're in this thing together. We can't thank you all enough for allowing us to do this for a living. That's real. We're incredibly lucky. We're incredibly thankful. And every like few months, we get a heads up on how many people are watching and how many people are seeing and how many people are spending their life with us. And it's mind blowing every time. We're forever grateful. We have no idea why you choose to do so, but for as long as you choose to do so, we'll continue to do this. Thank you all so much. We're in this thing together. Never forget it. Team on me. Team on three. One, two, three. Team. Bye.

[Darius J. Butler]

Bye.

[Pat McAfee]

Talk about stepping up.

[Darius J. Butler]

It's time to level up your introducing the all new ESPN app. All of ESPN all in one place. Your home for the most live sports and the best championship moments.

[Ty Schmidt]

The electricity is palpable.

[Darius J. Butler]

Step up your game with no annual contract required. It's the ultimate fan experience.

[Stanford Steve]

Level up.

[Darius J. Butler]

For more on the ESPN app or at stream.espn.com sign up now.

[Pat McAfee]

Eight years ago, I blew my football career. He dropped it at the one yard line. Chad Powers has arrived on Hulu.

[J.J. Watt]

If I can't play as Russ, I'll.

[Pat McAfee]

Play as someone else. My name's Chad and last name Lieutenant. From executive producers Eli and Peyton Manning. Remember, you're wearing a prosthetic mask. This is acting and starring Glen Powell. He thinks you're a rubber chew toy. Not rubber. I'm a man made of flesh. The Hulu original series Chad Powers is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney plus for bundled subscribers. Terms apply. New episodes Tuesdays.