Brown-Tatum Showdown, NFL Trade Deadline w/ Kevin Clark & CFB Playoff Rankings w/ Chris Fallica

Hey, it's Russillo, fans of the Ryan Russillo Show from Barstool Sports. You can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or Netflix. This football season, it's game on with RYOBI. Whether you're getting the yard ready for kickoff, clearing leaves before guests arrive, or powering your tailgate, RYOBI's 40-volt outdoor lineup has you covered. With over 85 products powered by the same 40-volt battery, you'll get peak performance across leaf blowers, chainsaws, trimmers, and more. When it's time to take the party beyond the yard, RYOBI's portable power solutions keep your tailgate running strong. RYOBI, the number one cordless outdoor power brand. Visit ryobitools.com slash tailgate. RYOBI, only available at The Home Depot. The Ryan Russillo Show. Spent it by DraftKings. All of our episodes available on Netflix. On today's show, we have my thoughts on the Jalen Brown-Jason Tatum showdown. I'll recap the game, but also recap some Jalen Brown quotes that maybe help us better understand why this is so confusing. We're talking football, the trade deadline, not winners or losers. Hardcore, in-depth, the real stuff with Kevin Clark. And we're talking college football, the top 12. They're out. The committee's new rankings last night. We'll go. We'll go through it with Felika, who's a nerd about this stuff, just like I am. And we've got life advice. Football has a way of turning one game into a full week of conversation. And DraftKings keeps you close to all of it. The DraftKings Sports app is now live in all 50 states. That means from Texas to California to Florida. Every fan is in on the excitement. Follow the teams you love. Keep up with the biggest games. And experience the excitement of football all week long. No matter which game you're watching, you're always connected with one app. One app, every sport, all 50 states. New DraftKings customers. 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One of the most anticipated matchups of the early NBA season. And I love this stuff. I think all of us should love this stuff because it's not just a matchup. It's a matchup of two teams that are going to be battling out in the East. Philadelphia's been terrific. Boston as well. You know, people looking at Philly, that one through five. Like, I watch them some nights and I'm like, man, they don't even have to be perfect. They can just kind of out-talent you with these five guys. But it was going to be the first face-off between Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum. And that adds stuff that we should all be excited about sports because of all the back and forth with obviously Jalen being traded from Boston and what you believe or what you don't believe about this saga. So from the game, we'll just break. Break down the game a little bit. Obviously, a very good win for the Celtics beating Philly at their place. I don't know if there was any result that would change my mind on how I think it would go in the playoffs. I'm still not even sure how I feel about these teams in the playoffs. Before the game, Jalen Brown had said nothing to talk about. Before the tip, Tatum kind of goes over to bump Jalen Brown to say hello to him. Jalen just ignores him. He said after the fact, he was like too caught up in the moment. It was very clear that he was trying to make some sort of statement. The funniest thing about the pre-tip interactions is that right after, after Brown ignores Tatum, LeBron comes over and like hugs the shit out of Tatum and dabs him up. It was actually kind of funny. The game starts. Jalen is all over Tatum, just right up in him. And I'm thinking like, is he really going to do this for the entire game? Like, because this is like he's making this personal. Jalen Brown's trying to make some kind of statement about this history here. Right. And Tatum isn't really assigned to him. And honestly, through the movement of the way the offenses work, there weren't actually, a ton of matchups, even though it felt like whenever Jalen was assigned to Tatum, which he was, you know, he was going to make it a physical confrontation. About three and a half minutes into the game, Brown gets Tatum on him defensively. Brown gets way too excited. He starts dribbling and, you know, Tatum's reaching a bit. It's kind of like a physical deal. But Tatum like is ready because he knows like Jalen had no interest in passing the ball to anybody. It felt like at the beginning of this game. And Jalen's going to try to get him. And he dribbles it off of his foot. It goes out of bounds. And it's a turnover. And it was clearly a turnover. And it was a little physical. So Jalen's still complaining. And then they come down to the other side. And Tatum's coming around the screen. And Brown just grabs his arm. And it's a pretty nasty, clear foul. And Jalen's still complaining about the turnover. And Tatum's not doing anything. Which is kind of the theme of like Tatum was not going to turn this into what Jalen Brown was doing last night. So that's kind of Tatum's personality, too. In the second quarter, Jalen played 9-2. 9-36. But I noticed, I don't know if it was real or not, but I noticed it almost felt like LeBron was like, I need to kind of settle this down and not have Jalen Brown turn this into his shootout, right? And he wasn't shooting as much. And it felt like LeBron was trying to make sure everybody got kind of involved. And look, I get it. I get what Jalen Brown was trying to do. And he did a bad job. For a night, he tried. He's a terrific player. He had a bad night. And he was probably in his own head a little bit about what he was trying to prove. In the third quarter, he plays about two and a half minutes. Three minutes. And he picks up his fourth foul. And he sits. Yeah, so it was the 8-39. He sits for the last 8-39. Philly goes on an 18-10 run. You can't just make it just about Jalen. But then the three barrage, Paul George's 36 points. The Celtics ran away with this game. And they could not miss a shot for what felt like a good 30 minutes of real time. And they run away. And it's a blowout. Again, I don't know that there was any result that was going to make me say, well, now, you know, Philly doesn't match up really well with Boston. None of that stuff was really going to happen. And it was probably good for Jalen Brown. It was probably good for the Sixers to just get this one out of their system. Even though when they meet in Boston for the first time, we're going to do this all over again. Jalen finished with 13-5 and 2-4-9, four turnovers. And he had a game worst, minus 27. So I thought maybe he would chase the box score a little bit to try to make it look better with some late shots. But he just had an awful game. Doesn't mean he's an awful player. Doesn't mean that this means the Celtics were right and Tatum was right and all this kind of stuff. Again, I don't know how any single result of Jalen Brown had gotten 50. I know it would have happened. But it really was Jalen Brown chasing a moment, a moment, again, to prove that he was right. Because that's kind of what this comes down to, right? Like the bigger picture stuff, the backstory of all this is how Jalen Brown sees himself as a basketball player. And I have admitted numerous times throughout his career is that I would put limitations on him and he would smash through those limitations. But a lot of this stuff kind of becomes like, who do you believe? Who's saying it? You know, some of you believe me and trust me. Others of you will not believe me when you see this stuff. I saw an ESPN report right before the game tipped off talking about how Jalen had gone back to the Celtics after the Milwaukee trade didn't happen, which clearly he was involved in if they were going to get Giannis. And I could understand him being upset about that. I could understand him being upset about other rumors in the past. But the report I found was interesting because of the timing and that it was kind of trying a way to make peace. And it felt like it was definitely coming from Jalen Brown's side. And I've been doing this long enough where I can read a report and then I can usually kind of figure out, you know, where it's coming from because it was like, well, Jalen was notified of the trade like while he was on vacation. It's like, OK, well, that's somebody on his side of things that's doing that because you're always trying to make things like a little bit worse. It was like, well, you know, he was he was on vacation when this happened. So, you know, it's been reported he demanded a trade. It's been reported that he didn't demand a trade. A lot of it is, again, who you believe. Here's what I believe. Here's my educated summary of this is that Jalen was never happy being the number two. To Jason Tatum's number one. I don't really think there's much debate about that. And if Jalen Brown were going to come back, considering what he did last season, MVP votes, you know, Tatum out most of the year, the season that felt like it was going to be a lost season. And he's incredible. And the team completely outperforms all these expectations that he felt empowered to say, hey, I don't think I should have to defer to anybody here. And, you know, basketball is really about sacrifice. And Jeff, Van Gundy, you know, Jeff Van Gundy had like a really interesting line about winning. He says, all players say that they want to win, but what they really mean is that they want to win, but they want to win on their terms. And in basketball, there always has to be a number one and there always has to be a number two. And hopefully they compliment each other in a basketball sense. And throughout this entire run, I mean, that's what's so frustrating about this breakup is that it worked. It worked numerous seasons. It doesn't mean it just worked in the one year they won a championship, but it worked. They complimented. Themselves really well, but the basketball was always better in Tatum's hands as far as the decision-making goes. If you don't believe me, that's fine. The NBA world told us when this trade happened, when it was Jalen Brown for 36 year old Paul George, who was still owed $110 million, who's just coming off two of the worst seasons he's ever had. If that's what you're doing, the Sixers a favor, taking that contract off their hands, it would have probably taken the Sixers to first round picks to get off of that policy. George contract and instead The Sixers are moving Paul George, the two first rounders, and they're getting Jalen Brown. So like, fine, if you have heard me or we disagree about basketball stuff, that's totally fine. I'm not trying to tell you I'm right about everything. I'm right about this one. And 30 NBA teams decided that this is who Jalen Brown was or who he is. And that's what the market was for him. You know, it's the same thing that I say about Trey Young. All the years of all these Atlanta fans argue about Trey Young. You're like, dude, he got traded for CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert. That's it. So not to say that every GM makes the right move on every decision, but when collectively the entire league tells you that's the going rate for Jalen Brown, then he is the one that is supposed to sacrifice to Jason Tatum. But this is a pattern whenever you're going through the Jalen Brown timeline. You know, whether it was, well, Tatum gets this when it comes to tickets and I get this. Jason Tatum bought the tickets. Jalen Brown decided to buy different tickets. You don't believe me? Okay, fine. The trainer thing. I'm not quite sure. Again, some of this stuff becomes semantics. Like, was Tatum allowed to hire whoever he wanted and Jalen couldn't have anybody that was hired? You know, I don't believe that that's true. I don't believe that the favoritism that's been reported. I think Mark Spears said something about it this summer. I don't believe that's necessarily true. Again, it can become a semantics debate. But if you don't want to believe me, fine. You don't have to believe me. A lot of this stuff is like gray area stuff. You know, who do you trust? Who do you want to believe? You can probably find some version of a quote or whatever. You'd be like, well, this proves that I'm right about this or that Jalen was right or that Tatum was wrong and all this different stuff. Let's point out two things that Jalen Brown said on State of the Game in May of this year. Okay. Now, he talks about getting benched. And for those that have forgotten, this 2018-19 is one of the most unlikable basketball teams because the way they talked about themselves and they weren't collectively like the entire team had never done anything together. That's why they got bounced so early in the playoffs. And a big, big sticking point was, well, Brad Stevens gave Gordon Hayward a chance to get a starting job back, which was always going to happen with Hayward's resume and the contract. They were going to give him that chance to get a starting job back. And, you know, they would talk about it. I remember his first take. It was months after. He'd already been benched. I'm like, so this guy starts 13 games at the beginning of the year and this team is still like shook by it. Like, how soft is this team? And clearly they just were not of the mindset of like being competitive. But Brown references. And in May of 26, Hayward starting. Here's the problem. Both Hayward and Brown start at the beginning of the season for 16 games or so. Then game 17 against Charlotte, they sit Hayward, start Brown and start Aaron Baines. So. It's just it's not what happened. Do you want more evidence? Brown misses a few games. They go 3-0. The offense kind of clicks. Brown comes back. He's healthy. He's ready to go. They have a game against the Knicks a few weeks later. And Hayward and Brown are both coming off the bench for Marcus Morris and Marcus Smart. OK, Smart and Morris were the starters on this team from December until the end of the regular season. So. Hayward never took Brown's job. Hayward was already benched before Brown was. And it was a really frustrating season. And that's why they felt like, hey, we've got a little spark here. This is what we're going to do. I was reading Brad Stevens quotes about like we needed a little grit. You know, this is something we want to do. I understand Jalen Brown not being thrilled with that. But Gordon Hayward had already lost his starting job before Jalen did. And Jalen didn't lose his to Gordon Hayward. There's another quote in here. Where he talks about. Getting his job back. Here's the quote. What I did was like, how do you win? Over the fans? Brown said of his attitude after the demotion. Any time I'm on the floor, I'm the best defender on the floor. I'm also creating highlights. When I get a fast break, I'm windmilling it. So now the fans start to be like, why is this kid not playing more? Why isn't he playing more consistently? They start to ask those questions in Boston. What ended up happening? And he says this. This is like a forgotten moment in time. But they ended up having a petition. The fans, they sent a petition to put Jalen back in the starting lineup that eventually made the Celtics put me back in the starting lineup. Not because I feel like they wanted to. You're right. You want to know why it's forgotten? Because it didn't happen. Game 81 against Orlando. Marcus Smart leaves the game with an injury. He misses the first seven games of the playoffs. Guess who starts? Jalen Brown. He didn't get his job back because of a petition. He got his job back because of a strained oblique. Can you imagine? Like, it's forgotten because it didn't happen. Can you imagine? That actually happened? How many of us on the air would lose our minds? Like, man, this petition has a lot of juice. Brad Stevens didn't even want to start the guy. But the front office, the ownership, they were like, look at this petition. We have to do something we don't want to do and play the other guy. It's not true. So there's some stuff that we can debate. This can't be debated. And it's kind of part. It's part of the storytelling of, like, I don't know. This stuff isn't that hard to keep track of. I mean, after the last thing with Scalabrini, where he talked about, like, demanding a trade, Jalen Brown demanding a trade, and then kind of walking it back a little bit, saying, well, maybe not necessarily demanding a trade. Jalen Brown sat out a game earlier this season, and he wore a hoodie that said, state your source, right? He's ready to go. State your source. Everybody's talking about me. My source is fucking basketball reference. You can look up all of this stuff. And you can choose. Choose to believe, not believe. Plenty of the stuff about this saga. But this stuff is indisputable. Most food decisions come with compromise. There are lots of voices telling us that eating better has to be complicated. Subway gave that inner voice and face a name. Your subconscious. They show up when you're questioning your meal and help you pick what you really want. Subway. It's the easiest decision to make. Great price. Freshly prepared per order. Fills you up. Feed your subconscious at Subway. Eat fresh. The NFL trade deadline is cranking. And to join us from ESPN. And this is football. A new father. I don't know if you're allowed to say it on the next one, but we got double fatherless. Yeah. He's got a look going. He looks like Lumber Jones, who's like making out with somebody's daughter in an episode of Landman. I want to market this game of Landman character. Or tight end. Oh, so I've only watched one episode of Landman. I'm watching Mobland at the moment, and I literally want to do nothing else in this world other than watch Mobland. It is phenomenal. Yeah, it's fun. Maybe it's a little annoying, but you'll see. Tom Hardy is just cool and everything. Tom Hardy is really cool. The one thing is I saw that he was off the show like a year ago before I started watching the show, and people were freaking out about it. And then when I watched the show, I was like, oh, I understand why they were freaking out about it. He's amazing in this show. Thank God it got resolved before I knew how big of a deal it was. Thank God he's back. They couldn't do the show without him. I mean, it's got me hooked on it. And there's even some stuff that he says that I'd like to work in in my every day, but I just don't. Like in the middle of absolute chaos, and you just be on the phone with somebody and be like, right. Okay. All right. Good then. Yeah. He's just, he's calm. I mean, Pierce Bros is really good in it. But yeah, Maeve, I know that she's written that way, but well, I don't want to do it. That's the point. It's kind of, it's kind of the point, right? So I should shut up. All right. Let's talk some football. Yeah. Kirk Cousins. I love it. And this is, this is why I was so passionate about this argument was, you know, there's a lot of things that I want to spend some time on here with like, what's the value of a season and considering how special this defense is. And it almost took, and look, I don't know if it would have happened without Monday night's performance, but to watch it again with Wentz in there, as bad as it's been with Murray and to have it be the Monday night football game where you just go, well, you guys can't continue to do this. And there was still a chance that maybe they would, uh, I don't know how anybody could have an issue with moving a third round or to try to salvage what is a special defensive season. A hundred percent agreement. And a lot of times, so over the past year or so, there's been this push. And I've, I've been guilty of it of saying, okay, well, if you have one side of the ball, that's elite, all you need to be on the other side is average. We said this with the Cowboys says with the Bengals average is hard to get to if you're starting from nothing. And at the quarterback position, average 15th, 16th best is really expensive and it's Kirk cousins. And, and, and that's what you're going to get. And he's a little bit worse than he was in his last year in Minnesota, which by the way, his last full season, I started, they went 13 and four. But he doesn't turn the ball over that, that much, especially this year. Like if you look at his PFF, like, you know, he doesn't throw many, whatever you call big time throws, but he also doesn't throw many turnover, turnover worthy plays and he can run the offense. That whole, whole tree loves Kirk cousins. And I remember, do you remember when the Vikings GM quasi said like, he's not, oh, we're building without an elite quarterback, whatever. I was on my training camp tour when that happened and I was with a lot of guys who were Shanahan, McVay. the Fleur type tree guys. and it was i mean it was almost like this tony soprano christopher columbus meme it was like kirk cousins is a hero in this house like they were so protective of kirk cousins they couldn't believe the vikings were talking like that and it's because he runs the offense he does these things in the offense like the blind throw stuff where he just fires the ball in there in the way that a lot of quarterbacks are uncomfortable doing and in a lot of ways i know people are going to laugh at this in a lot of ways he for some of those guys he's like the guy that they compare everybody to and the fact that they let him walk um obviously i mean there was a monetary part of it the falcons were going to overpay um all that stuff but this this just makes sense for everybody and the job description is not complicated get the ball into justin jefferson's hand and like i was looking at some of the metrics last night they're top five in starting field position because the defense gives them the ball back whether that's via turnover or just via three and out and punt so you don't have to do much get them into field goal range score 18 points a game and go from there guys i mean obviously a little more than that but like there's some games where that's you're gonna if you score one touchdown you might be uh that might be it you might add three field goals so let's get the hell out of here so uh it it's it's not complicated um and i i i thought that you know i dominic foxworth on this morning you can't overpay now you know we were joking but like if if the raiders demanded a first round pick wouldn't say yes but we'd listen like you're trying the point of this whole thing is to win the super bowl and if you have one side of the ball that can win the super bowl and as proof of concept there you can't overpay and i keep using this line but the dodgers gm said it a couple years ago and i thought about it yesterday with the trade deadline i thought about the jaguars too where andrew friedman said basically if you're rational about every player acquisition you'll finish third in every negotiation and i thought about it yesterday with the trade deadline i and and i think that we saw on the with the trade deadline a couple teams say hey we can win the super bowl right now so let's just try instead of making podcasters happy yeah that is an incredible line i love that because the nfl market fascinates me because you know we had nate tice we have him every monday right we have him on the show and uh it was interesting now with the way the deal went down that went down for a third because a few weeks ago tice is like would you do a third and makes me think that he had a kind of an understanding of what the market would take and we're almost conditioned as nfl fans to be like a third no way no a third i'll do a fourth maybe maybe a conditional third or maybe like i'll do a fourth if i'm getting a sixth back and you just go like jesus like you're willing to and again i understand the history of the nfl draft we have hall of famers coming out of these middle rounds all right um obviously we have examples of even later round right but when i'm thinking about like a team's draft board i'm going okay are you valuing like the not elite linebacker that you can take are you going for the hey he was the number one option at receiver at smu but he's not like the elite ohio state guy he's not the elite bama guy like we could add that we're gonna have a contract is that actually more valuable than the 26th season because i remember like and this is why i bring up that denver team post manning so much that defense was in the game and i think that's why i bring up that denver team post manning so insane and they couldn't do anything on offense they tried every single quarterback and guess what happens to the defense it just starts to get worse and i think this minnesota defense would have gotten worse because those guys it's the human element of this of going into every week going we're doing everything we can and it's just we don't have a chance so now to make this move for a third and now this minnesota team that we've kind of laughed about going like if you're like i was like i can't believe i'm actually okay with putting minnesota fourth and it also speaks to the division and i went from like second to third and fourth as the offense continued to struggle this much i i just think for 26 to your point of hey we still have a chance we still have a chance especially with the familiarity of cousins and this offense and you're right like he's not he's not what he was and he was in minnesota the atlanta thing was a setback physically there's stuff that i'm impressed with him his competitiveness how he's been he's figured out his own physical limitations on some of these throws so i kind of love this deal and it felt like i'd say the last few days it's felt like the nfl is taking the deadline more seriously and looking at as more of an opportunity instead of this just being married to these mid-round picks and going well i can't give up a third or fourth even if it changes who we are the rest of the year so james glaser on the jaguars gm who who let's be clear overpaid for jordan davis but that's that's the market then if they thought they were a jordan davis away and a jesse bates away from winning the super bowl if the coaching staff came to them then your job as a gm unless it's a dramatic overpay um which some people thought it was but your job is to get the player's head coach once i think that's the gm's job it's not this isn't baseball i think a football gm's job is to make the head coach happy and get him the 22 starters he needs now last time i quote yesterday i thought was interesting which which was we value draft picks we just don't think that they're comfortable confined to the three days that exist in april that was what he said and i kind of think that that's a that's a good way to put it is like if you value draft picks and how important they are you should also understand what they can get you and it's currency and and and what that value is and jordan davis is listen he's not a great pass rusher there's defensive tackles who will get in the backfield more but he stops the run they also got godshaw who also stops the run um and then they think that they have you know they have a great dc who probably should be in the backfield be the next jets coach he came up through new jersey high school football um liam cohen has changed the entire culture of that team so the point again is to win the super bowl and and i again i say this all the time but like i still have people say to me well the lions won the jared goff matthew stafford trade no they didn't because the rams won the freaking super bowl now it's open-ended and maybe maybe the lions are gonna be winning three super bowls and then they're gonna win the trade but the point of all of this is to win the super bowl there is nothing else above it it's not about winning process of the year it's not about uh you know hey we got value on this this is it's about winning the super bowl and if you think you can do it with these moves i approve the jags part of this is is really interesting too because they lose devon defensive tackle devon hamilton yeah and the way that jags staff talked about him i was like god like i wish i'd talked more about um to add the two pieces of the defensive line and look i think jordan davis is overrated i think we all saw him before the draft we're like oh my god this guy's so big looking to move this is hilarious like whenever i watch the eagles defensive front i feel like the non-name brands are the guys that make more plays than unless you're telling me like hey everybody's kind of living off of jaylen carter when jaylen carter's like fully invested so i'm not sitting here like i just wish jaylen carter were better i i barely noticed davis when i watch these games so now i kind of sound like inconsistent i would say you know i don't know i don't know i don't know if you're talking about jaylen carter yeah and i again like i said i don't notice him and then when i feel like there's eagles defensive like that front seven obviously zach bond's still really good but there's there's some names there where i'm like okay well this guy feels like he's making more plays than some of the other guys that were hired or highly touted um but i don't blame jacksonville kind of do your overall point is they it was pretty clear that hamilton was so important to them that they're like we need to find a way to stay stout in that part of our defense because it kind of sets the tone for all the stuff that we've been able to do this year yeah exactly and i i don't know one thing i've thought about is trevor lawrence is playing really well but josh allen's better joe burrow's better patch mahomes is better when he's healthy lamar jackson's better and i've been thinking about this since the summer when the bronco has made the jaylen waddle trade kind of a similar signal i wonder if part of afc team's thinking is that those quarterbacks are going to be the ones that are going to be the ones that are going to be the ones that are going to their rosters and their situations are just about as as bad as they're going to be now burrow's defense is coming on his offensive line is good but what i mean is if mahomes has an elite roster around him the conference is over if josh allen had three all pros on defense the conference is over lamar jackson if joe burrow's defense becomes top eight instead of top 14 the conference is over so i wonder if they're looking at and saying yo this is the year right now this is the year and you know i think that there's i i just think there's there's a lot that goes into that and i think again i think liam cohen and trevor lawrence are going to be amazing duo i think they're probably going to win a lot of playoff games and all that stuff but again i don't think lawrence is going to hit the heights of of the the four guys that i just mentioned even though he should be in the mvp conversation this year um i think jordan love obviously should be in the conversation with joe burrow as soon as i probably with josh allen i think he'll probably hit the eject button on sunday night but you know the problem right now with lauren seriously with the mvp is that they're winning by so much that he's not playing in the game for fourth quarter but leaving that aside um i just love everything about the way they're building this team right now and i think that when you have the opportunity you should go for it so i'm with you and the jordan davis is not franchise changing guy but i say this all the time if you if you solve your problems it's not an overpay and i'll i'll say this because you know saruti's on the call but like steven gundy said this one time maybe five five or six years ago, think about it all the time, the Richard Lewis deal in Orlando because they thought it was an overpay. Well, we were giving a max contract to solve all of our spacing issues and we made the finals because of it. That was what it was. And was Richard Lewis worth that if you're just ranking the most valuable contracts? Probably not. But was he worth it to the Orlando Magic? Did they get a finals appearance out of it because they had Hito Turkoglu, Richard Lewis as mismatches, then Dwight Howard in the middle? Yes. And so that's how I look at it. We all cosplay GM and we want to look at it and we say, what's the value? What's the positional market? Who's moving the market? $5 million ahead, whatever. It's not an overpay if it solves your problem. Am I saying the Jaguars win the Super Bowl? No, I am not. It is too deep of a conference for me to say that. But what I am saying is if the coaching staff came to you and said, this solves our problem, not an overpay. Another need-based problem-solving acquisition is Amani Hooker, who had a huge, huge weekend against Cincinnati with three picks a couple weeks ago. So this point about the AFC feeling like, okay, when is Allen going to have this bad of a defense with him? When is this receiving core, even though down is now acquired by the Chiefs, which we'll get to here in a little bit. It's a bigger Jags kind of thing, but I love the point that you're making in that, do you think when it comes to playoff time, if the Jags are playing the Bills, it'll depend on location of the game, obviously. But if you were sitting there looking at a neutral site, do you go, well, I'm just going to pick Josh Allen again? Because that feels like the wrong move. So they could have won. Jacksonville could have won that game last year. I felt like they abandoned the run too much. Buffalo was really vulnerable on outside runs and it felt like they, whatever. I mean, let's not relitigate that, but I felt like that game was very, very winnable. Obviously. Right now, the Jags are a more complete team and have a much better defense. Hooker really helps. You mentioned the turnovers. You know, it's disappointing that Arizona didn't want to, apart with Buda Baker, because he would be, that would be a defense-changing guy if he were available. I think Greg Russo is playing really well. We've seen Deion Walker flash this year. But the Jaguars' defense is just flat better. So right now, if you're saying complete team, because Trevor Lawrence can put up points and they've had, you know, skill guys are flashing there. Parker Washington's flashing there. And so right now, I would probably agree with what you said. Wherever the game is, I would go, I would pick that way. But yeah, it's closer, probably closer than it ever has been. Now, I still think Josh Allen is the best, probably the best quarterback in football right now. But circumstances are pretty, are important. And I think that with, I would say right now that, you know, kind of one through, however many players you need, whatever you say, we'll say 35 players, top 35 guys that are real contributors, I'd go Jags. Pretty convincingly right now. So I've spent some time on Bo Nix. I'm not going to do that right now. But whenever I search like Bo Nix stats, where I go, oh my God, that's even worse than I thought. Like this, there's all these passing analytics that are out there. And there's a lot of stuff too, that I can look at going, well, hey, I like that guy, but I don't like that guy. And they're right next to each other. And I'm bringing up like even average depth of target, right? Because that's kind of the knocks on Nix. He doesn't let the play bake whatsoever. And then I'll look at like, oh my God, look how bad Nix is. With average depth of target. Then I'm like, oh, and he's right next to my favorite guy. Patrick Mahomes. Because he's down there on all of these metrics. I think he's done enough to prove that he's not Bo Nix. But this has been a real problem. And whether it's not getting that true number one form all the years, look, we've covered a lot of this stuff, but how much does downs impact a part of the field they have not been able to throw to, especially with Thornton going down with the ankle injury? Yeah. So you mentioned Thornton. That's the big one. So they have not had a 20 yard completion in the air, 20 yards in the air since the play Thornton got hurt on, which was in week four. I think the number, I don't know if it's five or seven games where the top receiver has not been a wide receiver. Maybe seven of the eight games. Yeah. And Josh Downs has a really, really low average depth of target for a receiver. Now he led the league, sorry, read the, led the Colts in downfield passing yards because the Colts are bad. Like that's just the way it is. I believe I saw next gen stats saying that, that he led the Colts in downfield passing yards, but that was like the second lowest number of anybody who led their team. I think the Dolphins had had a guy who, who was worse, but it's going to be more of the same. Probably. I don't think this solves the problem. I mean, the issue is if there, was a guy who could get you reliable downfield targets and downfield threat, he probably wouldn't be available for a mid-round pick on November 10th. Like that, that's just the way it goes. Okay. Those, those guys, SPP makes the joke all the time. Where are you going to go? The deep threat store. Like it doesn't, it doesn't exist. And so they had to do something. It'll help them. They'll just be playing the same style and it's going to be run game, short passes. You know, the deep, the deep ball passing, they've won the super bowl with a lack of, of a deep, and, and that's kind of the counterfactual and chiefs fans get really mad at me. When I say the deep passing needs to, in order for that chiefs offense to have the ceiling and had a few years ago, there has to be a deep threat. Like the coolest thing I've ever seen in football was all those screen grabs. We're solo of like, you know, you know, my homes, he's going to be sacked. Tyree kill. It looks like he's covered by five guys. And people say, Oh, by the way, in three seconds, this is a 65 yard completion. And, and, and we, we haven't seen that since Tyree kill left the building and they were able to get away with it with, you know, Travis Kelsey option routes for long stretches of time to sit down in the zone. Don't even like, I remember how the coach told me one time that he, what he would love to see is like how they even draw up those Kelsey plays. Is it just like, yo, go out and just find a place to catch the ball and sit down. Like it's, it's incredible. It's like basketball and grass pitch and catch. But in the AFC is really deep. The defense, it would need to be incredibly elite for them to win the super bowl with that, without the deep passing homes is my homes. I love him. I love, I mean, he knows just where the ball should go all the time. He's smart. He's tough. I mean, how many times have we seen an injury where we go, we text your buddy? Oh, my home's is really hurt. And then he's doesn't miss a snap. It happened on Sunday. Like it looks like he got the Julian saying Carson Beck injury and oops, he's back. So he's an amazing quarterback, but without a deep threat, the ceiling is lower. That's just, that's just the way it goes. And I don't think down solves that many problems. Okay. Yeah. The average depth of target number of like, you know, you sat there and said, Hey, chiefs fans get mad about it. It's like, okay, no one is ever arguing like anything is necessarily impossible. But if you were a basketball team where you said, I really liked this team and there are one or two seed, but this is a historically bad defense. And then they were to win an NBA championship. It doesn't mean the next year you're like, you know what? Let's, let's have a bad defense. Look at what those guys just did. You know? So, I mean, this is pretty much common sense. Yeah. Let's spend all of our money on offense. Wait a minute. The same guys play. No, no, no. I saw this thing on football about like a lot in cap to one side of. Yeah. What are you talking about? Let's talk about some of the nose, the Colts. Yeah. I don't know how to do the Jonathan Taylor segment. Cause one side of me is like, well, what are the Colts supposed to have? No one, you know, like to be fair to the Colts, be like, we're just supposed to trade all of the guys because we traded somebody else. And we waved the white flag on this entire season. So that doesn't seem like fair to the Colts, but on the other side, it's like, if you could recoup some of the draft capital that you spent on sauce Gardner, which has been a disastrous acquisition and you know, it's a 27 year old running back. Like what's, what's the problem? So he, they were offered multiple second round picks, not, not multiple, like, like from multiple teams, second round picks, multiple teams. They were looking for a blockbuster trade. It's simply not going to happen in the running back position in November. I wonder, and I saw a couple of quotes on the ESPN shows yesterday that I broadly agree with, which is like, aren't you pissed if you're Jonathan Taylor that you, you kind of have to be on this ghost ship and the team's getting worse. The offense is getting worse. I think he had his two worst performances the last two weeks, probably because everybody around him is, is leaving or is checked out and the coach might get fired. And they're the GM's interim GM. Like wouldn't you want to be dropped into a competitive environment where you're chasing after a Superbowl? It sounds pretty good to me. And I understand the impulse like Jonathan Taylor. Again, they said this with, with Buddha Baker in Arizona, he's a franchise icon. He sells tickets. Like you said, they're going to need somebody on the billboard. And I think a lot of times if you ask GM's probably they go, no, no, no, we don't think about this stuff. Owners think about this stuff. Owners think about it over and over and over again. And they want guys on the billboards. They want guys on the, you know, lamppost signs there throughout town. And Jonathan Taylor is kind of it. Daniel Jones is, you can't put Daniel Jones in a billboard. You can't remind people. But I, I would have traded him for a second round pick. You're in a build. You're not very good. I think you're probably gonna make coaching change. The Daniel Jones contract is going to end up being a zero, but we kind of knew that already. And I just think you need as much draft capital as possible because your strategy didn't work. Sorry. That's exactly what it is. And plenty of owners have done it. I think it's a big reason why the Rams, when they were moving, they were like, we need something like a Jared Goff. And in a sense it worked out, right? But at the time it felt like, wow, you guys are moving all the way up number one for that. And then there was all sorts of stories like after the fact of like, well, this is why this was kind of happening, all these different things. And like, this isn't about golf. But there's part of me, like I said, it doesn't necessarily blame them because they feel like they need that one attraction. I've heard it too many times. I was listening. I can't even bring up the name. I can't even tell the story. There was an NBA team that was talking to me this summer and I was like, why did you do this? And then it was like, well, we needed an attraction. And I was like, what the fuck? Like, you know, it wasn't even really that significant of a thing, to be honest with you. So the one thing, the one thing about Moneyball, that scene where, where one of the old scouts is like, David Justice, he'll sell you lots of tickets in the dog days of August. That is the only thing from that, that, that scouting meeting that still exists. It really ownership scouts don't say it, but ownership really cares about that stuff. Ownerships in the, in the business of making money, first of all, but also like ownership, it's only human nature. Like I'm, I live in New York Giants country and I walk around and, and Yankees country and everybody has, you know, Eli Manning jersey still on, like everybody's still wearing or like Aaron Judge jerseys. There's some guys that you just completely untouchable in the area. And if, if an Ursa is walking around Halloween and everybody's Jonathan Taylor, you can't trade the guy two weeks later. I would have for a second. Yeah. I wouldn't too. I'm just saying ownership is human. That's how it goes. They don't like being bullied by their, their rich friends. I think we did a good job of explaining it at least any other like knows any other things that were close or maybe that were surprising that happened yesterday. Yeah. So the Bengals pulled out of a trade because they didn't know about the comp pick formula. Was that, did that cross your desk at all? Basically the, um, the Bengals traded for, for, uh, an Eagles, uh, player. And, and by the way, the Bengals fans are really pissed. Off. They didn't get Jesse Bates and, and they let Jesse Bates walk a couple of years ago. He could have helped. Um, but that's not the Bengals way that they, that they operate. Um, and then they go out and they trade for an Eagles guy and it turns out they didn't understand the comp pick formula. Somebody tweeted about it. They pulled out of the deal. So that's, that's the Bengals for you right now. Um, but I'm, yeah, I'm surprised a couple of teams didn't help themselves. Uh, again, I shouldn't be, but I, I was, I am surprised. I don't know what's going on with Arizona and, and Buddha Baker. Carson Beck is going to start this weekend. He's got no help. Jeremiah Love has not played well. I just don't know what division is. Does Michael Furr just want to keep a guy like Buddha Baker pillar of the community? I golfed behind him in Arizona in March and these, the cart guys love them. So shout out Buddha Baker. Um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's more, it's more of that. Um, is a couple of teams didn't help themselves. And, and I just, if you can get a second round pick and you're a bad team, I would probably try to do it. But, uh, no, no other huge surprises on my, on my end. What do you believe we're halfway through the season? Like, what do you sit here thinking? Okay. I granted things can change with injuries, but you know, Minnesota was a great topic. Cause it's like, as much as I believe in this defense, I do not believe this team wins a playoff game. I mean, maybe they get a couple of turnovers and they win a wildcard game or whatever, but is there a scenario of like one or two things you're like, you know what? I believe this today. I believe the bears are going to win the NFC. I believe that pretty strongly. Um, I know Caleb Williams with the ball in harm's way on Sunday night, but that was a couple of things that was bucks. Todd Bowles is still pretty good at, at blitzing and all that stuff. And I think he felt uncomfortable, but put the ball up there too much and it happens. But the Jeffrey Simmons trade, I mean, I, when you talk about going all in, it was beautiful and we already saw how good he was. And there were two types. There are two types of people, people who, who knew how impactful the trade was and people who don't watch the Titans. And I watch the Titans because I have to justify my Kim Ward obsession. But like, uh, Simmons, when he's double team, this is to me, there are certain stats that are really sticky. And one of them is how well do you play when you're double teamed and how often are you double teamed? Because the offensive linemen are not stupid. Often offensive coordinator is not stupid. Offensive line coach is not stupid. They know who the demons are. Jeffrey Simmons is a demon. Dexter Lawrence is a demon. Both of those guys still get to the quarterback, even when they're double team. That to me is, is a true mark of, uh, dominance. And the way he's able to just make Simmons is to make NFL linemen look amateurish is special. And what, what, what I think is interesting about the bears here is that they can't, again, we talk about the, you know, you can't go to the cornerback store and get an all new secondary. Okay. You can't do it. They have one guy, one guy. It's going to be a dominant defensive tackle. If you look at it last year, the top four, the last four, uh, teams, the two, the four teams in the conference championship games led the league one through four in pressure up the middle. Okay. From their defensive tackles, we saw you, that is the barrier for entry in football is to have defensive tackles. You can rush the passer and get in the backfield and dominate because by the way, it's not, listen, you don't, you certainly don't want to go against Miles Garrett. That's not, that's not a great afternoon for anybody, but ends. If they're out there, you can move the other way and move the pocket, whatever the belief is that tackles are in your face immediately, quick pressures and reps like that. That's it. Quick pressures and reps. And it's harder to get there from the edge and it is the interior. So Jeffrey Simmons is going to end up being the move of the year. Uh, if I had to guess, and it's going to be the reason that the bears win the NFC. I wonder if more GMs were motivated. Motivated watching Simmons do what he did against Tampa and to see the energy and the buildup and then for Simmons to deliver and the way it's raising everyone around him, seeing linebackers make plays that we haven't heard their names called, you know, in a bears defense has been up and down all season long. I wonder how many guys are sitting at home going. I still have a few hours to do something because Jesus look at this. And it's funny. I was watching the mic'd up stuff. Cause I'm with you. I love Simmons. He's been one of my favorite players. He plays fucking well, which is what I love in this game. And he's mean the whole three hours. And they had some mic'd up stuff from him where he was like yelling. I think he was saying 69, 69. He's like, look at me. And then he was saying like, if they don't look in my eyes, I know they're, I, I saw that. I was like, even if I were the weakest offensive lineman, I would just do performative stuff and be like, point at 'em, stare 'em right now and be like, I'm ready. Cuz it's like, it's still gonna go bad. And I'm probably gonna have help all night long. So why would I ever even give him the chance of like, not looking at 'em? Just there's a message of the offensive lineman. Just look at 'em because it's, it's not really gonna change. Did you, did you see the clip yesterday of the 125 pound sumo wrestler? I didn't, I missed that. Okay. Yes. Sorry. So there's 125 pound sumo wrestler in Japan and he's going against the big boys. And apparently this never happens. He's getting further than other guys ever have, but he, I guess he got to some elite level. They took, but they took a, they, they clipped it and it's, it's all over the place. But what's funny about it is in the warmups and like getting down in position, the 125 pound guy who's, who's 150 pounds lighter than the guy across from him is so confident and into it, that when you're watching it, you're like, he's about to, he's about to do this. And then immediately he gets shit pumped immediately, just destroyed. The 125 pound guy just gets thrown out of the circle immediately. But for like 10 seconds before you're like, he's so confident and he's outgunned by 150 pounds that I think he's gonna do this. And I wonder if the other guy thinks that too, until he's like, oh, this is actually incredibly easy. Yeah, this is, I've never, I've never like, I knew I, I won the fight at the weigh-in like, who could not figure out like maybe the Tyson peak Tyson stuff was like, this is gonna suck. And Tyson could just smell it on you. Um, check out this as football. Are you closing in on a million subs here, buddy? What? I haven't heard that, but sure. I can get that. That's ESPN. Oh yeah. They would, they would probably have a million subs by now. Yes. They've been around a while on the ESPN YouTube page. If you wanna give me credit for that, that's fine. I was trying to, uh, the great Kevin Clark. Thanks man. Anytime. I'm gonna be honest. I don't usually get excited about loyalty programs. They promise big rewards. Then it's like, you actually have to eat 48 pizzas to get one, free. So when I heard about the shell fuel rewards program, I was skeptical, shocking. I know me skeptical, but here's the thing. It's actually kind of annoyingly practical. You're already getting gas. You're already grabbing takeout. You're already buying snacks. You definitely didn't need, but absolutely deserve with shell fuel rewards. You just get rewarded for that. And not in a fake point. You'll never use way. It's actual savings on gas. And the part that got me the savings stack. So it's not like one sad little discount. It's your Fill up, you eat, you shop, and it all piles up into real savings at the pump. Joining takes less than three minutes in the Shell app, and you'll save on every fill after that. Literally every single one. So, if you want my rec, join the Shell Fuel Rewards Program and save. College Football Committee rankings out last night. We're going to break it down with one of our favorites, Chris Felica, Fox Sports, and Stu Gatz in the bear. You should check that one out as well. Okay, before we get to the rankings, was it a catch? So, whatever the rule is, the interpretation of ball in hands, two feet down, step out of bounds, and then a knockout, whatever the definition of that is, that's what it was. So, when we were growing up, that was a catch, but now it's not apparently. It is what it is. There's no guarantee Miami wins that game or survives. Notre Dame would have had three, three and a half minutes to go down the field, score a touchdown. They would have had to kick a field goal to win. So, they lost the game well before that. They lost the game in the first half when they started slow, when they weren't able to punch it in for a touchdown from the one-yard line. That being said, they had every opportunity. So, like, as a Miami guy, I feel much better now than I did going into the game because everything is still right there in front of them. But disappointed. More aggravated than anything else in how they started. Yeah, I think that… I said this on Monday's podcast. I don't know that it'll matter, right, because of the rest of the path and where the ACC has been or where we feel like the ACC is currently positioned as the fourth of the Power Four conferences. But it would have been interesting if it were, like, a little tighter and maybe it led to seeding. Just the cosmetic look of how that score will look as opposed to how the first half looked. So, clearly, no one on the Miami side of this should be like, oh, well, hey, we had a nice loss. It was a competitive loss there at the end. But even back in the day, like, if it… If it had been four teams, that second half would have meant a ton for Miami in sifting through how this was all going to shake out after conference championship weekend. And next year, it means nothing. Man, it means nothing. They could lose two more. It's going to be awesome. All right. The college football rankings, like we said, came out last night. I'll run through it real quick for the audience in case they didn't catch it. Georgia won. Utah, two. Alabama, number three. Then UCLA, four. Number five, Notre Dame. Number six, Texas. Number seven, the U, dropping six spots. Tennessee at eight. Indiana at nine, dropping five spots. BYU, 10. Kentucky, 11. Texas Tech, 12. And that puts kind of Wake and Houston there at 13, 14. Don't need to go through all of their 25. Your biggest reaction? My biggest reaction was I don't know why people were so surprised or outraged at, like, the wild swings with Miami and Indiana and some of the other teams. We had a week where we had seven ranked matchups. Of course this was going to happen. And it's going to happen this week. And it's going to happen the week after that. And the week after that. And the week after that until we get to Selection Day. I was a little surprised Bama was three ahead of both Notre Dame and UCLA has no losses. I don't think UCLA is better than Bama. I enjoyed that they made some wild changes. And I think if I'm taking one thing away, like, I know people will say, oh, the only ranking that matters is the last one. But there are some things that aren't, like, immediately correctable in the case of a specific result. Like, last week if Notre Dame would have lost to Miami, the committee was telling you they were out. This week it is if Indiana loses to USC and doesn't win the Big Ten championship, they're out. There was a big reassessment, readjustment on Indiana. And I was very vocal last week. Like, how is Indiana four? Like, you're supposed to reward strength of schedule. They didn't play anybody in the non-conference. Okay, reward a good win. Well, they don't have any good wins. Football judgment three. Well, what have you seen from them? The last month, which is a miracle 60-yard field goal to go to overtime against Minnesota. A Michigan win in overtime in a game you probably should have lost. A loss to Ohio State where you scored, what, 12 points. And a fourth-quarter comeback in Nebraska who just can't get out of their own way right now. So, like, everything was there to indicate that Indiana was overranked. So, but if they were to lose this week, like, you're looking at a 10-2 Indiana. Like, if they don't get to the Big Ten championship game, it's going to be a very uneasy, very uneasy selection day, I think, for the Hoosiers. Well, you nailed it, and you've done this for years, and you have common sense, so we've sat in on these mock committees. But it was, it was, what was going to happen? First of all, they were ranked too high. And if you want to tell me Bama was ranked too high last week, I would have agreed with you as well. We're going to do Bama here, all right? This is a very strange year, so you're going to have some stuff that happens. But Indiana, that's why I kind of lost it on Cignetti again, because despite, like, what this guy is, and he's an awesome coach, he just has the dumbest observations on this shit. Like, he actually has the balls to make fun of the SEC out of conference when he doesn't ever play anybody out of conference. And you're like, do you not realize we all have internet, man? We all have TVs. And so, if you factor in Miami dropping, which was a team that should have been ahead of Indiana, you have Notre Dame winning against the number one team in the country, so they're going to jump Indiana. You have Bama winning at LSU, which we'll try to sift through, if that even means anything. UCLA, honestly, like, there's not a lot to pick from to be impressed, but I don't think Minnesota's some pushover. And to break that game open in the fourth quarter, on the road for what has been a very favorable schedule, both opponents-wise and topography, like, this has been a really favorable UCLA schedule based on the limited travel. Then you have Texas winning at Mizzou, and Tennessee beats Kentucky, which is a top-ten team. So, there were all of these things kind of in place, and I don't know that that was the committee going, wait a minute, did we get this wrong with Indiana last week? We just covered it with all that different stuff that happened. All right, so, let's talk Bama. Because this is where the person who doesn't like, like, I'm willing to hear this of the SEC hater that goes, well, if you're just going to rank all the teams in the preseason, have nine or ten of them in the top 25, and then everything is imagined, it's just hard for me to be like, okay, so I'm going to wipe out all that stuff that I believe in, and I have to choose something else to believe in, especially in 26. That's kind of a hard thing to do. But, I don't, I'm open to suggestions that they're comically overrated as well, but at least there's some stuff to pick from there that I think, again, maybe I'm assuming, I think is good. As is usually the case in situations like this, surrounding the rank, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Like, I, yes, I think at three, they are overrated. And I think even if you look at that game last week, they were out gained, by what, almost 200 yards. And they just happened to make every high leverage play in the red zone, or every high leverage play that they needed on offensive defense throughout the game to ultimately win the game. But the yardage discrepancy was massive. But you got to give them credit for the wins that they have now. And the losses, yeah, you go to Tennessee. I think that's the biggest outright, I think that's why people are really pissed off and upset about Badman's ranking. Because of the head-to-head and what we went through, went through last year with Miami-Notre Dame. Like, how can Alabama and Tennessee not be in the same pod to have that head-to-head matter? So I think that is like the number one genesis of like the issues that people have with Alabama. And I think, again, you look at the game against Tennessee. They were manhandled up front. They didn't play well at all. It got blown out. Just a non-factor. The game against Georgia was a coin flip, though. Non-PI call at the end of the game clearly flipped maybe the result of that game. So I think they're good. Do I think? They're number three in the country. Good. Do I understand why they're there? They're getting credit for a schedule. They're getting credit for wins. And in a sense, like the good losses that they have. So yeah, I get the angst. And unlike last week where I could say, well, who are you going to rank ahead of them? I do think you could rank a team like Notre Dame ahead of them. And that would solve a lot of problems. I would rank Notre Dame ahead of them. I rank Notre Dame ahead of them. I think I, I ended up having them five. And again, the committee has them three here. But, you know, again, if you're a Bama fan and you're going, okay, so let me just get this straight. Like, you're still not sure about us. And then you want to run through Notre Dame's thing? Up until this, you know, the only other game they had was the BYU win. Or excuse me, the win by BYU. Losing up there in Provo. Lost last play of the game. Yeah. So, okay. LSU. If they win, I mean, some other stuff factors in here. But based on where they are in the ranking and what the committee thinks about these other teams, because clearly they favor the SEC in a big way, maybe even more so than I would have expected here. They're still alive. Yeah. You can look at this schedule as a massive challenge. And now it's a massive opportunity because they've got Texas at home. They're at Tennessee. I think Texas might still get in if they were to win the rest of the games around the LSU game. And that might, that might mean that LSU's replacing Tennessee, which then leaves a Kentucky conversation. So maybe, maybe it just starts with whether or not we think LSU's actually a good football team. That, that is a, that's the million dollar question right there, man. Like I remember a few weeks back at big noon, like we were doing our playoff draft and I took LSU with like the last pick, just like you look at, you look at the power ratings, you look at computer numbers, you look at everything in the efficiency ratings. And like, they're all great for the Rupa. Like are the, is this just bad math? with LSU Cassandra. you watch them play and there are times that they just look awful and you and i have both followed the sport long enough to know that they're winning saturday half of last week it just feels so automatic win i like it is an absolute lock that lsu is going to win this game and then they're going to go to tennessee and they're going to be in the top 15 or whatever it is next week after the win this week and there they have an opportunity to get in but it it's baffling because i i think the angst there is just like okay we paid blaine million lane million lane lane kiffin this money uh to come here to win these type of games and there he is again losing obama you'll you'll lose to kentucky in a weird game like everyone good that you've played yet you haven't won so like i get looking looking for him but again despite all of that because of the conference that they play in because of having two top 10 teams up in the schedule everything's kind of still in front of them like we're getting a nine and three at large for sure texas is absolutely a texas loses and wins out there and you got to win over real ohio state you got to win over over tennessee at tennessee you got to win over ole miss like you got to win him you're you're in like it's just going to be the question of what ultimately happens uh if you get another uh potential three loss team and how many secms you ultimately get in okay so we're in agreement here we're basically you're looking at lsu going if they get this one against texas they get this one against tennessee it feels like that nine and three team is in there because of how the committee will feel about those two wins that will then also put texas at nine and three if after an lsu loss they take care of arkansas and then win at a&m which feels incredibly doable so that would be texas i think with the wins against ohio state with a win against ole miss with the win against mizzou like i think both of those teams in those scenarios would be in replacing tennessee and then ultimately like looking at kentucky who finishing with florida and mizzou would that be enough for them with one less loss being don't don't ignore that game against louisville either like i could easily see kentucky lose out like i viewed kind of ucla and kentucky as placeholders but like last week and now you see kentucky lose out and then ultimately kentucky lose out and then ultimately kentucky i don't know if they're a placeholder anymore they're probably in really good shape uh with where they're ranked even if they were to lose uh their final two games at michigan and usc um but i i could see a world here where where kentucky winds up finishing seven and five losing each of these final three games yeah um there's some numbers and i think that those numbers like a lot of us that were looking at that tennessee game like that feels like a massive wake-up call for kentucky on that one it'll just be interesting though if they were able to go through florida missouri louisville finish up those three games it's like would they actually prefer nine and they prefer nine and three texas over kentucky would they prefer nine and three lsu over kentucky went the head-to-head and one extra loss like that's going to be a tough one to sell yeah yeah it would be i just i just thought the correction's going to come with uh with kentucky and then you have to worry about like how will the committee view like we're just talking sec bubble what happens in the big 12 like well let's do it because i wanted to get there so go ahead just go wherever you want with the big 12 because i want to make sure we give it some love here but like you utah utah is clearly in a byu i think like if they went out and your your losses are i mean in overtime in a weird game at ucf coming off of the notre dame win and you lose to utah on a one possession game like and you got that win over notre that's like and you beat arizona like that hard to keep them out uh at 10 and 2. uh texas tech i think this week is up against it and still water i think they're going to pick up uh another loss there houston is the interesting team to me because i've had this conversation with some people uh in in the big noon family when they're trying to make a case for iowa at 10 and 2 and i said i i have houston ahead in the pecking order compared to iowa because houston drew the short end of the stick in the big 12 you had to play utah on the road and they led in the fourth quarter a couple of weeks ago at rice heckles had every chance to win the game uh they lost to texas tech early in the year on a two-point conversion that would have been over time like and the win over oklahoma state's probably better than anything iowa has now they're not going to have any great wins but their 10 and 2 is going to look a hell of a lot better than say a team like iowa if it's coming down to them for like the final spot because iowa got drilled by real ohio state uh lost a bit of time to win the game they lost to minnesota and they don't have a win to that that matches up with with uh houston oklahoma state so like i i think the big 12 is going to wind up being a a multi-bid league i think they're going to get their champ and i do think they're going to get one other at large whether that happens to be byu houston uh texas tech whomever yeah tech really lucked out with the schedule this year um but if you're if you're talking i mean again just a reminder everybody didn't play byu or utah um but you think if they lose to oklahoma state they're still in at 10 and 2 no no i don't know what the tie break would be in terms of getting them to the big 12 championship game at 10 and 2 i i think that they get either 11 and 1 like god even at 11 and 1 i don't think they're one of the best 12 teams this year i really don't but they'll probably get put in like but but 10 and 10 and 2 they're going to have to somehow fin a figure out the tie break and win the big 12 conference i think to get in because they they just not only do they not have the wins like they did at least they had the blowout win over byu in the regular season last year like they don't have like they don't pass the quote unquote eye test that everybody talks about offensively they are not the same team defensively they are light years away from the same team that had all those nfl players last year so if you're watching the games i mean they're not the same team they're not the same team they're not the same team i mean it's pretty apparent that tech is nowhere near the team that they were last year how many teams like if utah were in the national championship and we're running through it who would you pick them against would you i'm assuming you would pick georgia yep pick alabama you pick alabama i'd pick them against ucla you pick them against ucla i pick i pick notre dame i pick texas i pick miami uh tennessee might have to see the line indiana i'd have to see the line like but all of the like the logical contenders like they're going to be a significant underdog against any of those teams okay but that doesn't seem like you're i mean it seems a little dismissive it feels like you kind of have them seventh or eighth if you're just going eye test of like who i think would be favored ahead of you um but what do you like about utah i think they do a little shit on offense uh but throwing a couple quarterbacks on the field at the same time kind of creative damp here clearly has been more effective this year uh ever since uh kyle and jason beck moved on and you can't imagine why i i think that has been been their best attribute um they've been timely in terms of uh defensive plays as well and the biggest attribute they have is they've been playing from the head all year they've like scored an opening draft touchdown in every game except for one this year so they've gotten off to good starts and put themselves in a position to not have to kind of press and come from behind even though byu ultimately did lead at halftime last week so i think the game flow has been really good for them and it'll be curious to see uh when they get to the college football playoff or even this week on the road at arizona like i don't know how good arizona is either like it's a short number but like you you look you look at utah's wins and yeah you like i said you beat houston you beat byu both at home now going on the road this is going to be a big test for them like their schedule strength is very very weak and their efficiency ratings are like borderline top 12 ish so we'll see but again uh go on the road i like what what they did on the road at cincinnati was what i thought texas tech would have done on the road the previous week to that to get that win in the fashion that they did was great they're they're a good team they're not a national title contender um they're going to go out there and i don't think they'll embarrass themselves but i do not expect them to be able to beat one of the real national title contenders come playoff time i always use that iowa wisconsin game when iowa was undefeated that season and everybody was talking about iowa national championship right and that was an example of watching so much hurt me because i remember watching that iowa wisconsin game going don't ever forget how bad this looked right and that ended up being kind of like wrong you know it was it was real data it was a real experience and again we've seen it enough one week you catch somebody on the wrong week and i couldn't unsee it and there was definitely that moment with utah and that colorado game where i was like what the fuck yeah like what like i'm supposed to be serious about this um they come back and then i think the cincinnati thing like you could play it out and go hey they got cincinnati in the best spot imaginable because cincinnati i mean they dominated tech in that game i thought they tech since i was still making some mistakes to get tech back into it and i mean that was like looking like it could be a 30 point game at one point and maybe that tells us more about tech so you could make the argument well utah is getting tech off of this emotional big upset because of who Tech has been in the perception not only last year, but going into this year, which I looked at their schedule. I just was like, how do they not win the Big 12? And now they're not going to win the Big 12. So I think that's one way of putting it out there with Utah. But Dampier's been better, you know, and they responded really well in a game where, you know, maybe you could just say, hey, Bear Bachmeier, three picks, three real picks, the fourth one at the end. Just, you know, keeping it up there. So I try not to count those or anything. But I'm kind of with you. I mean, it feels just us being guilty of the kind of the name brand thing, but they're 59th in opponents yards per play allowed. So what the fuck am I supposed to do with that? Am I supposed to look at that and say, hey, I think you're better than every other team in college football. There's no way I could get there with that kind of number. And that's what people people I think are still like so have a hard time processing, like looking at like actual indicators of team strength, whether it's yards per play or havoc rate or success rate, like things that really kind of dive into the box score as what teams are. You just see 9-0 or 10-0 or whatever these teams are. That goes back to the conversation we've had for eons about the playoff dating back to 14-2 team, whatever, like best versus most deserving. Do they deserve to be in the playoff? Yes, because they've won all their games. Do we think they're among the best? No. Are we really looking at a possible situation where the Big Ten only gets one? That can't be real, right? They're going to get two, right? Well, they're already done with Ohio State, which is understandable. Okay? I mean, look, it happens to even the great ones. Amazing. If we're playing, you know, I don't know if they lose that Oregon game, but it's this Ohio State defense, what we saw in the SC game. Like, I thought Fahey was worse than maybe he was talked about in the SC game, but it was completely understandable. Okay, watching that game, and then I was reading recaps of it, I'm going, Jesus, I watched an entirely different game. But a kid of his status and everything that we talked about, Reign, SC, all that kind of stuff, like, I wasn't shocked he didn't play well. I was kind of shocked how much there was talk of, like, him playing. But the defense for Ohio State has clearly been the issue to see. They didn't get gashed like Oregon. That was an astonishing because, like, Oregon, we'd already written off, right, even though it is a supremely talented, especially offensive team. Rayola, you never know what you're going to get, but you're like, oh, wow, I guess Ohio State. So, like, they've kind of eliminated themselves from the conversation here, not just because of the losses, but I just don't think they're that good. I thought before, like, before the year that this might be, like, the least talented or the worst Ohio State team in a long time. And that being said, I did not think they're we'd be sitting here in first week, second week of November, and they're not going to be a playoff team. But I was shocked. It looked like their defense just lied down in the second half last week. And I don't know if that was a byproduct of realizing the offense had no chance of scoring, because we've seen that with teams that have extreme units on one side or the other, where it's finally like, I give. I mean, what are we going to do? You can't score. It doesn't matter if we stop them or not. So it looked really bad. Like, it would not be beyond the realm of like, possibility that Northwestern goes there and wins this week. Like, you know, Chip is going to, I mean, I don't know if Charles is going to play, but if he plays and they get going downhill with that running game the way they did, like, there could be a little bit of quit again in that defense. But I'm glad you said that about Fahey, because like, to hear, like, after that essay, like, people are like, oh, no. I'm like, really? Like, he was okay? I guess. But and then, obviously, Jeremiah Smith is not happy. That was an amazing game. To see where it was from 14-0 up, running backs playing well again, to Lanning with the fake punt, and then this TD right before the half, TD right after half, and that was ballgame. Like, Oregon's another team. Like, how do we handle them? Like, if they went out, they're 9-3, and you're playing your best ball of the year, you've got a win over Boise, who's probably going to be the group of six representative. You've got a double-digit win at SC with your backup quarterback in there for two and a half quarters of the game. You blew out Ohio State and Barristan. Granted, it wasn't real Ohio State. And your losses are, like, on the road, an early kick, first road game of the year against a powerful opponent, who's probably going to be like an 8-4 type team. You lost with seven turnovers, having to juggle backup quarterbacks in Illinois, who you suspended and had your entire wide receiver room out in Illinois. So, like, Oregon is, like, a really hard team for me to kind of, like, power rate and look at, like, is the UCLA win over Oregon good or is it not good? Should they have beaten them by more? Like, I don't know what to do, but I think you can make a really pretty good case for a 9-3 Oregon against some of the other teams, and they're going to come into play whether it's a 9-3 LSU or Kentucky or some of those SEC teams as well. Yeah, because when I was looking at it this morning, I'm like, okay, so if UCLA loses two of their next three, which is totally possible, okay, I don't know what the committee's my guess is the committee's going to be like, I hope you had fun, and then we go to look at the Big Ten championship game, you know, right? Because then, if they're going up against, like, Indiana's still positioned really well here, they get to the, they get through USC, which, you know, who knows, they get the bye week and everything, like, I'd probably still trust Indiana's front more to disrupt this game, and I'm never going to trust USC's defense. You know, you know, after what Bama did last week, after everybody motherfucking them the previous week, oh, they're overrated, go to LSU, how you like this now? You know Indiana's coming out double bird this week, and absolutely to expecting Lincoln Riley and SC to win a road game against, they scored seven points on the road in Wisconsin a couple weeks back. It's a completely different team. No, it's the best thing that's happened to Indiana football. Like, their fans are mad, Sknetty will have something to say, that's fine, I get it. Like, it's about his program and all that kind of stuff. This is the best thing that could have happened to them, because they were overrated in the other one. We justified the drop in the rankings. It makes all the sense that it's what was supposed to happen based on all the movement around them. It's an awesome thing, because the kids aren't paying attention to it, the coaches don't want to pay attention to it, the messaging is to be like, hey, this is what they think about you. So the SEC, or excuse me, the USC game in this matchup lines up perfectly with the entire thing. But, if UCLA is 10-2, they're going to be behind those 9-3 SEC teams in those scenarios that we just went through. Right. So then you start to go, okay, who would that second Big Ten be if it's Indiana, UCLA, and the Big Ten Championship, Indiana, or win it? Like, does somebody sneak back in there if they all stay at only two conference losses? So, you know, you were mentioning some of the efficiency stuff with Wake, or excuse me, not Wake, with Utah, which led me to ask a question about Wake, because if you run through the Wake stuff, granted, the two ranked games, you know, in the beginning, you were like, what's wrong with Miami in a competitive Wake game? And you go, well, this is more about who Wake is. They beat Louisville. Those are going to be their only two matchups that are ranked, unless SMU somehow gets back to the rankings, which you could argue there's an SMU conversation about them. But is Wake actually doing a little bit more with the eye test and the metrics than it seems the committee wants to give them credit for having them at fourth? Yeah, I think so. Like, offensively, you look at, like, points per possession, points per play, in terms of, like, what they've done against the power forward teams that they've played, it's tops in the country, like, by far. So, like, offensively, the job that they have done, I mean, clearly, Gio Lopez was not the problem at North Carolina last year, and he's gone on and had an unbelievable year here. I think it's kind of like the name recognition. Like, people have a hard time. Wake Forest picked wherever the hell they were in the ACC, and you come out, and, yeah, the Miami game was probably a little bit closer. It was not as close as the final score indicated. I think it was 33-7. 31-7. Yeah, it's at some point in the game, so the score was a little bit cosmetic at the end. But they've just been blowing people out lately. So, like, you do need to give them a little bit of credit for that. Now, again, the schedule has been not very good, but the offensive numbers do tell a different story. I'm really curious this week. I think they opened up as a favorite against SMU. And now the number's kind of flipped. So, usually, I like playing against the move there, and Wake would probably be a side that I might be appealed to here. Yeah, it did flip. It's now plus one and a half at SMU after opening minus one and a half. The cosmetic look on Miami is good. It's just that with Miami at that point of the season, you expected every game like that to be 50-10. Right. But it was 31-7. Okay. There's also a version of this, where you could go, okay, they beat Louisville, which has been, you know, they've been kind of classic Louisville. Like, slotted exactly. Hey, that's a good team. Like, you've got to show up. But we don't really have, like, you're not going to be worrying about it at the end of the year, other than maybe them spoiling it for other people. Then you've got Stanford, which I'm shocked that they're 4-5 this season. NC State, who fired their coach. Cal, who's been a mess. Virginia, who's 2-4 in the conference. And then they just got done with my boys up there at Merrimack. That's all right. There is a if which is what every single corner of this country is doing whenever we're talking about a team outside of their conference if wake had more recognition there'd be more people going like if somebody's going hey who did bama really beat this year you want to fucking do that with wake so but nobody cares enough to actually do that exercise but i am giving the demon deacon some credit here and that there's some offensive eye test and there are some offensive defense even special teams metrics that tell you they're one of the most complete teams in college football this season yeah i think if they get the win at smu this week i think that's gonna because i think i think smu still has a little bit of name cachet to it too close losses they're good they're good you know yeah whatever they are they're good yeah they they are they are a borderline playoff team next year when we go to 24. they're a fringe top 25 team that on any given day under the right circumstances i mean we saw it last year when they would they be miami down there like they went to florida state should have won that game by a hell of a lot more than what they did they absolutely dominated the game and they've had some had some hiccups some bad performances but like i think he's lost kills him he's lost kills oh yeah without a doubt but if wake goes there and wins i think that'll be like all right okay that that they bear a fringe top 25 team that's a that's a really good win i know i know louisville's not right i know that but that's that that's better than maybe say what a bunch of other i mean that that resume will be a hell of a lot better than than what indiana has they beat smu um when it's all said and done will it be better no if they beat smu so it's louisville and smu is their wins and then their last games well duke's been good this year too duke duke's gonna give miami problems this week i think like they do the things well on offense that miami does not do well on defense shepherd catches the ball out of the backfield i think all of miami fans have seen enough of motore and and chase smith trying to cover a running back or a tight end like it's bad uh he doesn't really get sacked you know manny is going to treat that game as a florida state job audition whether he's in the mix for it uh or not like miami coming off of that like i don't think this is going to be a blowout band i think miami will win but but i i think it could be a little bit of a uh a hangover as well and i think you could see duke kind of hang around here 14 14 seems like a a few too many points here look at that we get another pick from our guy on the way out that's chris felica the bear stew gots the bear check that one out and you can see him all the time with fox sports thanks man you got it my man we'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsors think draft kings isn't available where you live think again draft kings an official partner of the nba is now available in all 50 states 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ferrari you want details bye i drive a ferrari you want details bye i drive a ferrari 355 cabriolet what's up 355 cabriolet what's up 355 cabriolet what's up i have a ridiculous house in the south i have a ridiculous house in the south i have a ridiculous house in the south fork i have every toy you could possibly fork i have every toy you could possibly fork i have every toy you could possibly imagine imagine imagine and best of all kids i am liquid and best of all kids i am liquid and best of all kids i am liquid so now you know what's possible let me so now you know what's possible let me so now you know what's possible let me tell you what's required life advice the tell you what's required life advice the tell you what's required life advice the email address is life advice rr gmail.com email address is life advice rr gmail.com email address is life advice rr gmail.com what are my hobbies thanks for asking uh what are my hobbies thanks for asking uh what are my hobbies thanks for asking uh just want to let everybody know that just want to let everybody know that just want to let everybody know that fresh off the baton rouge trip elite fresh off the baton rouge trip elite fresh off the baton rouge trip elite training academy in baton rouge my guy training academy in baton rouge my guy training academy in baton rouge my guy greg string pillow aka string hooked me greg string pillow aka string hooked me greg string pillow aka string hooked me up with the uh the workout and the up with the uh the workout and the up with the uh the workout and the hoodie hoodie hoodie so nice little facility over there i so nice little facility over there i so nice little facility over there i thought about running some 10 yards and thought about running some 10 yards and thought about running some 10 yards and 40 yards 40 yards 40 yards decided to do back instead uh before i decided to do back instead uh before i decided to do back instead uh before i got on my flight which got on my flight which got on my flight which i think was a bad idea i think was a bad idea i think was a bad idea i think it was cross-country flight you i think it was cross-country flight you i think it was cross-country flight you doing cardio a lot these days doing cardio a lot these days doing cardio a lot these days uh well you guys saw some footage uh well you guys saw some footage uh well you guys saw some footage it's true i don't know i don't know why it's true i don't know i don't know why it's true i don't know i don't know why you guys are you guys are you guys are we're in the know yeah yeah no i we're in the know yeah yeah no i we're in the know yeah yeah no i sweat out a few lbs sweat out a few lbs sweat out a few lbs yesterday um sprinting no but i'm going yesterday um sprinting no but i'm going yesterday um sprinting no but i'm going to start doing it again because i don't to start doing it again because i don't to start doing it again because i don't want to lose it i can't lose the want to lose it i can't lose the want to lose it i can't lose the straight line speed straight line speed straight line speed so but that's probably probably won't so but that's probably probably won't so but that's probably probably won't get to that on the show today get to that on the show today get to that on the show today anything to check in with you guys it anything to check in with you guys it anything to check in with you guys it looks like are you guys going double looks like are you guys going double looks like are you guys going double row back today row back today row back today i guess so big johnny's game tonight i guess so big johnny's game tonight i guess so big johnny's game tonight colgate colgate colgate throw the records out yeah throw the records out yeah throw the records out yeah let's go i'll be at the watering hole i let's go i'll be at the watering hole i let's go i'll be at the watering hole i got my uh the owner of that bar that i got my uh the owner of that bar that i got my uh the owner of that bar that i go to as a johnny's guy sort of i kind go to as a johnny's guy sort of i kind go to as a johnny's guy sort of i kind of pull them back into it so now like of pull them back into it so now like Like, heads up, download Peacock. Tonight's Johnny's night. So wait a minute. You were telling him you have to download Peacock because you're coming in. Yeah. I don't think DirecTV gets it. So I'm just making sure we're all set by the time I get there. What, um, the Johnny's thing started with what? Kind of Patino. It was Patino, honestly. Just like I didn't have a team. I went to, like, a D3 basketball school. I always told myself to make sure I check for Marist before that, and I kind of haven't. Although I am probably going to hit a couple of Marist games this year. I was just talking to my wife about it. And I was just like, I think I need to pick a college basketball team. I was doing one shiny podcast for years, and it's like, you know, Titus had his team, Tate has. I was like, I got to fucking pick a team here. And I followed Patino when he went to Greece, and he worked for, I still follow the insane owner. Why did you follow him when he went to Greece? Because I just loved Patino. I loved the comeback story, no pun intended. And I just think that, like, you know, he won the Greek League. He's a straight shooter. You know what I mean? You know, he's a straight shooter. He's insane. I think all of his players like him, even though they were like, those were some of the worst days of my life. But also, I wouldn't trade him forever. Like, that's like, that's what you get out of all his former players. I think his resume is fucking awesome. I love that everybody counted him out. And then, you know, I was just kind of feeling like pretty New York before he even got here. Now I'm so glad that me and the Johnnies are together. That's a good answer, though. It's a really good. We love having you. I didn't mean to do a gotcha thing, but you actually had a good little response there. I still followed. I mean, some of the Greek stuff was so funny. Like, Tate was like, dude, you have to follow the owner of this Greek team, Panathinaikos. I still follow him. He's fucking nuts. I guess I'll. Yeah, we really should. I mean, he's crazy. Anyway, but yeah. Good week. Johnny's coming up. I could watch the Johnnies beat, you know, Iona by 50 points. I didn't realize how much I still enjoyed that, especially after my Patriots beat. It really set us off on a good week here. Now, this happened to me with college football, where I would start to like a coach, you know, because I didn't have a team, right? Went to Vermont, didn't have a team. And then it's like, you know, Stanford City would make fun of me a little bit, be like, oh, who do you like this year? Oregon or Texas or whatever. And then it was like, oh, I guess you're an LSU fan, you know? So I think the LSU thing's going to stick. It's been 18 years. With you, Kyle, is there any scenario where all of a sudden you're just completely in on Seton Hall? No. No. I don't think so. I think I'm super happy I landed in the Big East. I think it's probably. No, no. I'm going to be stuck with the Johnnies in, you know, what, a few years? And he bounces, and I'll just, I'll ride with them, and maybe we'll just slide back into. Well, you're in Johnnies' country now. They let Tate and Titus call a Johnnies game fucking four years ago. That's how bad they were. They let Tate and Titus, like, sit on the sidelines and call the Johnnies game for fun with Fox. Like, that's how bad they were. They were just like, we'll let these guys do a game. So, you know, I'm totally prepared for it to go. What if Titus were, like, the head coach at. Chicago State was always his dream. Chicago State. I'd have to go a little higher profile because they didn't really run into each other. What if. Yeah. DePaul. What if out of conference, though? Out of conference, it'd be easier for me to rep, but, I mean, I don't know. I'm pretty heavy into this Big East drama shit, so I don't think I could really. What if you got the Georgetown job? Hmm. I will say, back in the day when Georgetown was, like, murdering people and they were awesome, Kyle would be all in, two feet on the Georgetown bandwagon. No doubt about it. I made one choice. I made one choice. It's not like I'd jump around. No, I'm just saying you would. I feel like you would love the old-school Georgetown vibes. Oh, okay, sure. Victor Page. I think there's a straight line to high school guys that love 50 Cent that also would have loved Georgetown Hoops. Right, that's the connection I'm trying to make. That makes a lot of sense to me. Speaking of college hoops, though, by the way, I sent you this video. Rico Bosco just once again taking shots at Quinnipiac. I don't know, he hates Quinnipiac, he hates the coach. Every single second he gets, he was taking a shot at you, but not really saying that he didn't know if you needed X's and O's. He called you a nerd, but then said he didn't mean it. No, he was saying he didn't know if Ryan knew X's and O's enough to text you about a set or something, and then he just on the way out was like, by the way, it's Rudy Quinnipiac, not making the tournament. I was like, all right. I don't know enough for him to text me, and if that also prevents him from texting me during games, then that's a win. He has your number? I don't think so. You can get it. I'm sure it's not going to be hard to find. Rico's actually a nice guy, though. We've exchanged it. I am changing it. Oh, I plan on changing it. Third time? Yeah, it should have been changed a while. You're going to mix it up every now and then. All right. This isn't even, I don't even know if this is life advice, but this guy put so much work into it that I think we're going to do it. 6'1". Look, I love Bo Nix, and I'm not afraid to say it as the start of this. 6'1", 175, bench 305, squat. Not as much as I bench. Okay. Usually it's the other way around. Player comp, Russell Westbrook. Give Russell Westbrook. Thought he was Kyrie Irving. I've used this before, but it's a perfect encapsulation. This is not Friday feedback because I don't hate you. I love you. I love you unconditionally like a family member. It's just that this football season, Ryan has been like a puberty-stricken 13-year-old fat mean cousin. Think Anthony Soprano Jr. in season six. Like, I love you, but goddamn, you're making it difficult. Just like the pimple-faced 13-year-old prick asshole son that you're societally obligated to love. I know I'll love you like I did again someday, but when this rough period is over, but what do I do in the meantime? Because here I am three times a week getting my teeth kicked in about Bo Nix. You could be talking about MLB playoffs with Passon and then, boom, Bo Nix sucks reference. Did Jesse Armstrong create a modern-day masterpiece in succession? I don't know, but Bo Nix sucks. Hey, my brother and my son have the same name. Cool, but did you know that Bo Nix is last in average air yards? I mean, where do I draw the line? Truth be told, I'm a Bo Nix fan. I love Bo. Do I think he's the greatest football player ever? No. Hey, can we stop doing that as some sort of concession that you make for the argument in general? He's not better than Tom Brady. Yeah, right. I've been in a meeting about this email, but we're doing this way too much where you just go like, you know, hey, I know Hartford isn't exactly Milan, but, well, no one, they're not in the fucking same pod. It's good for them, though. People are saying that, though. Although, yeah, Hartford was a bad example because it's just on fire right now. Yeah. Okay. No. Am I so? Happy that I don't have to watch Russell Wilson, Teddy Bridgewater, or Jared Stidham? Absolutely. I'm not a sophisticated ball knower. Aside, I think your average air yards is skewed. You know, one yard pass, one yard pass, 30 yard pass. That's 11 yards per temp. Six stat. Dude. Which, feel free to offer up the one that shows that he's challenging defenses. Wins, dear. I've loved it. I've loved it because I, the guy who I went to his bachelor party in Scottsdale, he's a LeBron and Peyton Manning fan, so he had to. Yeah. He had to stop with the Broncos. And so he basically, he jumped from the Colts to the Broncos and he stopped there. So now he's a Broncos guy. And I mean, he's just, he'll just ride with them. He's the biggest Sixers fan ever right now. Super aggressive about it. So I've loved hearing, and they kept winning. So he hits the group chat like, and we did it again. And I've loved every time you said Boatadex is bad. So for me, it's been therapeutic. It's been the opposite for this guy, but I'm just here to tell you, keep it up. Still good about it. I've been enjoying it. 10 more sentences here. Sorry. But I'm not going to argue. You advance analytics are all 22. I'm not grinding extra tape just for the love of the game or for the ammo to debate with my friends because that's what virgins do. And I have had sex twice on record, two kids. I'm not here to debate, but I was born with two eyes and one brain and combined. They don't view Boatanex as dog shit. There's no way I'm watching on Sundays. There's no way what I'm watching on Sundays is dog shit. I know dog shit. It doesn't take a genius to know dog shit. There are times Bo completely bailed out the team and the defense. He's won this team. He's won this team hard games. He's allowed to improve, regress, improve and make mistakes. So can you help a brother out? Can you help this Broncos fan out? Can you do one of two things? One, can you give me a quarterback ranking? So I know when you're talking shit on Bo Nix, is he ranked 15th or do you think he's the 34th best quarterback in the NFL? I don't think he's 34th. I would love to know where he ranks. Are you holding him to a higher standard? No, I think it's a pretty straightforward standard. Or two, can you give me any advice to get through this tough time? Bo is my favorite player and the Broncos are my favorite team. I'm 28 years old, writing like a triggered 10-year-old, but enough is enough. You just called him Tebow like yesterday. That's tough. That's about as low as it gets. When did he send this email? Was it before or after you Tebowed him? He said it was, he also put in parentheses, this is supposed to be fun and comedy. He's not super mad, but I don't know. Is there a piece of advice that you can give in here? If like one of your favorite content creators, like what if you're a food review guy and then all of a sudden, you know, his mom, mom is in the videos, all of a sudden she's annoying, you know, like, I don't know if that doesn't really work because I don't have the annoying mom analogy to put into this one. That was a disaster of an analogy. Sorry, guys, feel free. Hey, you know. Maybe just for this guy, we should just every week just do a running. Where is Bo Nix in the top, you know, 32 quarterback rankings? Like, oh, we got him up one spot this week. He threw one touchdown, two picks. Bo Nix specific rankings. And we do it in the DraftKings read. Ryan Russillo. The show is presented by DraftKings. We have Bo Nix 27 moving up one spot. All of our shows. Yeah, that might not be a terrible idea. It can be tough when you're like outlet of choice doesn't believe in your in your thing, like your quarterback for him. But for me, it's like, I don't think you felt good about the Patriots really at all until they got to the Super Bowl. And you were like, it's amazing what they've done, but you definitely didn't pick them. Right. So I felt like coming to work every week. It's like whenever you talked about the Patriots, you're kind of like a little broad. You're like, well, he did it again. This schedule, though. My God. And then playoffs, you were like, they're not going to, you know, so I get what it's like to feel that way. But that's kind of part of it. Yeah, but I picked them in the playoffs, I think. Did you? Against. Well, there's no way I picked the Chargers. I think I picked them against the Texans. And then I think you were. Maybe I picked the Texans. But with Stidham playing, I definitely picked them against the Broncos. Yeah, that's fair. So the. Yeah, well. I think I said to you, like, a couple weeks ago, Ryan, I don't think in recent memory, I've lost more money betting against the team than I have against the Broncos. So, like, I am financially in this hole on this. Oh, next thing as well. Like, he just like that. That game. What was it? The Seahawks game when they, like, didn't trust him to do literally anything in the entire second half of the game. And they still won. That wasn't probably fun for our guy here. Like, you know, like, I don't know how much fun that game was. And, like, I had Bo Nix on my fantasy team his rookie year, and he was. Like, I think a top five quarterback. And, like, I kind of was all in on the Bo Nix train. And then you start digging deeper. You're like, wait, this guy, this is kind of all smoke and mirrors. So I am both finance. I'm financially in the hole because of this Broncos Bo Nix thing, too, because I keep doubting them and then they keep winning. So I guess that's a W in our guy's book. Yeah, I mean, you're winning the games. So whatever content you don't like, you can just go, hey, we're winning the games. But there's a lot of fan comment even. Yeah, that have, you know, that have sat there. Like, think about Minnesota fans when they were 6-0, being mad that people weren't like, hey, this is the best team in the NFC North the entire time. The Vikings conversation changes quite a bit here with the Cousins thing. But how many wives and girlfriends are listening to life advice going, when the fuck are they going to do the stuff that I want to listen to right now? They're not even tolerable right now. Yeah, they did sports on it. It was awful. And for those that are offended by that, I'll just tell you the number of times that I've met the significant other. It's only about life advice being like, oh, we love the pod because we can listen to it together. It's the only segment we can listen to. All right. My ex, my house and our dog, 33, 5'8, 165, basketball comp, Brian Cardinal with better looks, less height and not as good a shot. All right. Hitting the gym five days a week in pretty good shape, high reps, lower weight. So not throwing the Resilla weight around. I got some weak numbers to report recently. Here's the situation. Recently reentered the dating scene after a breakup about five months ago, my girlfriend and I broke up after several years together. We made the decision to buy a house together, picked it out, planned our future, the whole deal. The only catch, the house is in my name and I've paid for everything. That created some tension during the breakup, but she eventually moved out. Well, sort of. Five months later, a good chunk of her stuff is still here and she still has to access the house. She hasn't actually lived here in months, but occasionally stays when I'm traveling for work. Why have I let this continue? The dog. We got them together and we've essentially worked out a divorce parent custody arrangement. At times I travel. A bit for work and having someone to watch him has honestly been pretty convenient. See, this is exactly what you're doing. You guys, when you just need somebody to watch your dog, you will do insane things. But as I said, now I'm dating again and things are starting to look promising. Now the potential conversation of, by the way, my ex still has stuff in my house and occasionally sleeps here to watch our dog looms. And I know that's not a particular great selling point. If you meet somebody that's cool enough for that, marry her immediately. All right. Um, I think it's time to make a clean. break, but here's the problem. I love the dog. I want to keep them at the same time. time I'd be lying if I said I haven't enjoyed the flexibility of our current arrangement so what's the move do I tell my ex it's time to get her stuff keep the dog and figure out logistics myself is there a world where we're shared custody of a dog when the next actually works long term or am I just being selfish by wanting the dog and the convenience yes is my answer and most importantly how do I handle this without turning a relatively peaceful breakup into an ugly one appreciate the advice I'll just say on the peaceful breakups there's a lot of peaceful breakups that are just delaying the ugly part you know it's like hey this is cool oh we're both adults about this whole thing and then whatever and like usually if there's feelings in one direction still some way I've just seen a lot of like very mature breakups where you know it just means you've delayed you've done like zero payments zero percent financing for 12 months real conversation where you start really telling the other person and she tells you what you actually think of each other so just a heads up to some of the peaceful peaceful the peace treaty relationships I'll just say I don't I have a couple friends right now really one but I just don't respect you if you co-parent an animal after a after a breakup it's wow I like that I don't I just I agree I don't I don't want to talk around it it's it ruins shit like when we're trying to make plans and like or you tell me like what's going on buddy you seem down and you're and you're gonna hit me with that uh I just I can't believe we're even talking about it so uh that seems a little harsh it sounded a little harsh coming from me but I just I don't respect you if you can't pick you got the house give up the dog it's all right to lose things in life like I don't I don't know this one seems pretty cut and dry I I'm totally with you Kyle I I don't think it's harsh at all I think like this is like a pet thing it goes one person the other that's it like that's that's that's how this thing should work it's not a child there's no like hey we're raising this thing together we're just gonna you know we're gonna stick it out and put on a smile you know for the holidays like it's a dog one of you gets it so that's like that's that's what you have to keep the dog and have to pay for a sitter that's great or do you want to give the dog maybe she can't take the dog maybe that's you know she's having whatever but if you have to take the dog you did have the dog sole custody and she's not watching it on random weekends if I was a girl dating you that would be a total red flag I'd be like nope hard pass so one way or the other you have to you just got to cut this out of you got to cut her out of your life by either keeping the dog or getting rid of the dog new year's resolution right around the corner that's that that's how you can go ahead and be like hey I got something we can talk about like you gotta yeah you gotta he wants it all he wants it all sure you can't have it all and so whether or not you like just leave a public storage flyer on the coffee table the next time she dog sits like here's a place where you can also keep your stuff um you know what's more important to you like seriously what's more important to you you want a wife and kids the whole thing or the dog joint custody of a dog you can buy another dog man I love dogs too my wife and I have already discussed like if we ever you know we don't have any plans to do this you know knock on wood but like if they're things were to go haywire like I'm probably guys workshop divorce proceedings it's just been discussed like hey I'm probably I'm getting the bigger one she's probably getting the little one and you know we we go our set we have two dogs I guess we're talking just in case we're talking kids for a second yeah it's like how much smaller is that's what I get the easier no I have two dogs we have two dogs and it's just like hey like one of us is getting I'll probably get I'm closer with the old one yeah the honest the little one I don't even know if he likes me that much so it's you can go with him talking about the dog again just to be clear yeah um I saw I saw something like this where there was a breakup the guy didn't care he didn't take it seriously I remember he even said something to him at one point because I was like what's going on and he was just like oh whatever she's annoyed she will you know like classic guy like dismissive hide his feelings thing and I was like okay but I'm just telling you like how are you going to feel when you're moved out how are you going to feel when you're moved out all your stuff you're supposed to get married and then she's living with another guy because she's going to meet another guy really quick if she wants to and he was like oh I don't care and then of course it's exactly what happened the other guy was like he was like you're not that guy like she just upgraded she just upgraded in a major way and then all of a sudden it was like went over there and goes hey I want this this piece of furniture right and it was something the parents had bought them because they thought they were getting married and so he's like I want this because my mother paid for it and it's like all right fine you know it's been like a year kind of a pain in the ass but whatever and then he decides like even I think after the year because there was some joint custody stuff happening with the dog he was like I want the dog back he's like what's gonna get her to move the needle here yeah right how far can I how can I get revenge on this situation which by the way I remember talking to the guy and I was like you're gonna be totally fine with this he's yeah dude I'm so sick of this whatever whatever and then it was like not only did she kick me out not only did everything work out for her now the new guy's awesome and now I want my shit back stuff I didn't care about and hey by the way I want the dog and it was like well the dog has been here this dog's been living here for years doesn't even want to go dude what are you doing I don't think the dog did and I want that sick summer jam t-shirt that you slept in you know I love that shirt yeah it's that heavier cotton that's yeah kind of coming around now I can't find the heavyweight fees anymore so okay um all right six foot three 210 player comp low usage Lance Stevenson I accidentally lied to my father-in-law I don't know how to recover I have a friend who comes from a wealthy family this is a close friend who was at my wedding and my father-in-law has met him and will again at one point I read an article that said his friend's grandfather had sold this family business for six million dollars no small chunk of change especially if managed well the problem is one time after a few too many beers I misspoke and told my father in law his family sold their business for six billion yeah okay he was amazed he should have been it's a big number he was amazing by the way he was amazed he was amazed he was impressed by the number I realized immediately that I had misspoke but instead of correcting myself I just kind of nod and let the conversation go elsewhere now every time this friend is mentioned I think about the fact that I said he's a billionaire and I don't know how to recover do I just ignore it or do I make a point to correct my lie well it wasn't even really a lie was it you just misspoke and then but he says in the moment he knew and the guy was like Jesus six billion and you just took a sip of your drink and nodded why'd you do that yeah not to be a dick but I was kind of wondering why you were telling a story about a grandfather however long ago selling a business for six million like I don't even know if that registers anymore but that's happened to me before businesses are going for this situation though has happened before like I could I can't I don't have specific examples but like where you just kind of screw up and then you freeze and you don't know what to do and then it's like oh I just made it worse and now there's no out like you just kind of have to but like what were the stakes of being like oh no million my bad sorry there is none it's wrong he just he just screwed it up like he that's it they just messed up but I think I don't know like is it really that big of a deal like what you know next time it comes up just be like oh yeah I don't know I messed up it was just just a quick correction and act like you know you it's not a big deal and then everyone probably moves on it'd be funny if you tell your friend just be like this is your problem now I just feel like yeah you guys say you're you're billionaires sorry but they're not I mean that's the other thing this isn't like you told your side of the family that the grandfather of the woman you're marrying has a guy in there that sold a company for six billion because then everything would be different from that point on because it'd be like well wait a minute what does that mean what's going on what does that mean for you like holy then people actually is better that it has nothing to do with that because they're going to be somebody in the family that decides separation yeah hey can I interest you in any solar paneling and I'm not talking about for your home I'm talking about a franchise because here's what I you know so that would lead to that I've had a few weekends man where I swear to God like every guy's introduced that guy cleared 500 million on whatever so I think in these settings like those numbers always get thrown out to like such a massive degree so I don't even know if you need to make the correction you didn't like lie there was no intent you got it wrong but then again a big intent guy the intent was to tell a story and you up the number a significant number but there's no like real correlation like it's it's a friend and so this is a in-law that you told about like a friend and I don't know if there's ever going to be somebody coming around being like hey so you were saying a couple months ago I think it's just an anecdote and now this guy looks like you know the heir to a fortune that doesn't even exist that may not even have that much traffic with this person based on everything you've told us so you think nothing to sit on this I I think it's the easiest thing to do is nothing yeah if it comes up I think you and and you maybe you own up to it and you if you clear up your concerts a little bit but like it's really not going to affect anyway just gaslight the out of it it's like I said million dude what do you think six billion dollars embarrassing me you're like are you sure it's not building said no it's million right I know that could be kind of funny I don't know what to make of that one all right we'll just do one more here uh should I hang it up I don't know 35 years old six four two hundred bench 260. usually a taller guy on the court but my strength is shooting threes and cutting drives I'm a big fan really appreciate all the shows you guys put out allowing me to be entertained during life's monotonous tasks having a little bit of a crisis right now about eight years ago i tore my acl playing basketball just was having too much fun playing like five days a week not listening to my body fast forward to this year i sprained my problem ankle of years for the 100th time apple picking not kidding people put those half eaten apples on the ground and they just get you know it's a they get plugged and you think you're on on uh stable but you're not yeah i think about the ruts when they get to go in and get the apples and they're pulling them out with some sort of tractor all of a sudden there's a little bit of i don't know fescue over the rut really wouldn't be any fescue i wouldn't think but you know what i'm saying i turned my ankle so bad golfing but it was one of those where it just completely turned over and then popped right back up yeah i was like wait a minute i'm not gonna be able to walk for a week and i lucked out 15 minutes just feeling it was like a freak out oh no this is so bad like it was a wrong step like going down the side of the i wasn't in a fair way and so it was like oh i gotta walk down there and see what kind of shot i have and then i just turned my ankle but it's it's weird with the ankle turns it could look so terrible but then it doesn't happen or maybe i'm just maybe there's this one stretch where i turn my ankle and i hold it for like i make it look like it's broken and i hold it for like 20 seconds so i can send a video to that it can be feel weird i don't like this that's my number one injury so maybe i'll just go i'll do the ankle stretch thing i'll post it on instagram please yeah yeah yeah it'll help everybody out uh rested a bit then played basketball made it through unscathed but ginger then i was chasing my one year old around the house and my ankle popped it's most likely that i tore a ligament barring my results my question is do i retire from competitive basketball oh i thought this guy was like i'm never gonna say no or i'm never gonna say to retire from competitive basketball you can change your game dude yeah you just might have to do that you're 30 35 dickhead i'm sorry to say this but like it can be fixed it's 35 should i stop playing basketball don't stop playing basketball i mean i'm sorry i like was so forceful about that but that's what he needs though i think that's why he came here i was playing in a league once a week and finding some pickup at a nearby college probably once a week doesn't sound like i'm playing too much but with having a three and one year old the fact that i likely will need surgery recover and rehab really is going to be depressing while also requiring my wife to pick up some of the slack which leads to my question is risking injury even worth it i can scratch the itch shooting by myself and challenge myself to dunk again but is that even worth it i want to be athletic an active dad when my kids are older which i can do for the most part but i worry that if i'm not doing a sport i love or practicing alone to get better for the league that doubles as my workout for the day i'll simply lose my motivation and then an item that makes me tick on the flip side i can't get injured again after this surgery recovery rehab are no longer worth it for me what i miss for what i would miss with the kids so what are you i mean dude you're making me feel like i'm not making it sound a little bit like you're on the verge of having cte and you're never going to be able to like right but the wife's never going to be cool with you doing this it sounds like that's what's gonna well he hasn't mentioned anything he mentioned basically like i feel bad for what she's gonna have to do but she's not like she's stopping you before or when you come back like sure it absolutely is i'm just i mean like there's a difference between changing your game you know hanging out or you know around the perimeter or whatever get really good at passing and you know maybe not trying to return to dunking and playing once a week or once every two weeks versus never doing it again i think they're like if if this next if this next out of commission for you is like so traumatizing for her like you might have to play in secret you know what i mean but you can't grab your gym bag she married an athlete through sickness and health come on yeah what are you doing you knew what i was when we got together yeah yeah no i love this guy okay because i know exactly what he's talking about he doesn't want to not be as good but guess what as you get older you're not going to be as good and then maybe you'll find an older game and then you're going to feel like a hall of famer again and then you're all right maybe this is maybe i shouldn't be in this league yet and all these things i just don't like the defeated tone i don't like the idea that 35 years old if he's actually this good at basketball that he would be like i'm going to hang it up i expect to blow out both of my achilles i can't figure out what the hell is going on with my legs all right i have accepted that i'm likely going to be in a boot multiple times in my life and i'm not going to be in a boot multiple times in my life again now granted i have little kids that are chasing around but when i tore the game changer there wasn't anybody to help me i don't even know if i was whoever i was dating i was like i don't even i don't even want you to have to worry about this and they were like don't you have an elevator and then they were like don't ever go in that elevator by yourself without your phone because that's how you're gonna die like anybody heard from rossillo you're like i don't know what you know he isn't responding like you're literally pulling the card like hey i'm actually single because just in case i tear both my achilles in my 15s i don't want any i don't want to be anybody's ball and chain no that's really what i've done is i was like i don't want anyone else with any of this stuff yeah i watch the games for you guys i mean maybe not the bo nicks guy but like when i'm there grinding on the legal pad i'm doing it for the audience i'm not gonna have an air i'm not gonna have an air because i want you to know who's doing well on third down thank you for your service um you're not gonna like this but there is there is kind of like something really uncool about being like an injured old guy and you got injured like playing a sport you know what i mean like it's like oh man what's like brian's on crutches again what's out like pick up men's league you know whatever it's just like okay that i it's kind of cool when you're younger it's kind of cool when you're younger but i don't like at some point there's just diminishing returns on this like we had my pickup league i still play pickup now it is you are right like it's so it's your enjoyment and like just your effort is probably just with who you're playing with the first year i played with a bunch of randoms it sucked and the first game this like older guy probably a little older than me pops his quad and and then then later on the facebook group that night somebody somebody posted my wife saw she's like hey is this guy you play with it's like hey my husband popped his quad looking for an we're new to the area looking for an emergency care room i don't think they had kids it was fine but like so anyway that sucked that whole what are the kids gonna do they can't help them walk around the next year i started playing with some young 20s kids and i was the old head and all i had to do was like knock down shots and like be in the right place on defense i haven't had that much fun playing basketball in years years you got to find your crew where you can find a safe role and i think you're i think this is a good you know not at 35 though if this guy was playing all the time at 35 he can still move around and do all like a lot of guys can't play all the time he's got a job two kids five days a week was a lot but i don't know yeah all right maybe play once once or twice load management hasn't worked out yeah it's like i'm getting paid all right that'll do it for the show today thanks to tom kevin thanks to kyle thanks to suri ryan rosillo show all of our episodes on netflix barstool sports you