Unmasking Brown

Episode Transcript
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There isn't an easy answer on what to do with
Antonio Brown and the Pittsburgh Steelers situation. I am in
love with the absurdity of this story, with everything that

(01:06):
is surrounding it, with the difficulty associated with making a
decision in this modern day NFL what exactly is the
right move? I don't know that anyone can tell you,
but if you haven't been paying attention. Antonio Brown didn't
play in the final game of the season against the

(01:28):
Bengals for the Steelers, initially reports word that he was
not healthy. It now appears pretty clear that the Pittsburgh
Steelers lied about Antonio Brown not being healthy and really
he just didn't show up after a Wednesday dispute in
practice where he got mad at Ben at Ben Roethlisberger

(01:48):
and maybe also Mike Tomlin. The result is we've got
no earthly idea what the actual decision making is going
to be. Um. But this is a messy situation. Antonio
Brown has left the team three times since August, not
shown up for a lot of meetings. Uh, he's been

(02:10):
uh difficult with the media. If you remember before the
season started, he got uh kind of snippy with the media.
He also sent out a tweet before the season started
saying trade me then. UM. And it doesn't really make
any sense what exactly is going on unless you realize

(02:30):
maybe Antonio Brown, turning thirty years old, is uncomfortable with
the fact that Juju Smith Schuster is starting to rise
up on the on the flow chart of its importance UH.
This year, in his second year, Smith Schuster had a
hundred and eleven catches for fourteen hundred and twenty six yards,
which is a hell of a season. And maybe he's

(02:52):
starting to think that he is a little bit of
a of a of an expendable player. Now here's where
this situation becomes so epically absurd. Brown right now is
thirty years old and he's ending about to enter into
the third year of a five year, seventy two point

(03:15):
seven million dollar UH contract extension. So right now, Brown
has a salary cap hit of twenty two point one
million this year, and if he's off the roster, the
Steelers take on responsibility for over twenty one million dollars,
so they don't really have a play to make here.

(03:38):
It's unlikely, given how much money is left on his contract,
that anybody's gonna be willing to trade for Antonio Brown,
and so he's basically got the team held hostage. Mike
Tomlin spoke to the media yesterday and tried to talk
about this situation, and he really didn't tell us anything

(03:59):
at all except I've got a decent analogy of this situation.
But first let's hear from Mike Tomlin himself. After Friday's
business was done, it became difficult to to communicate and
catch up with him. I wasn't able to communicate with
him on Friday evening or Saturday morning. So when we
had our Saturday morning my game or walk through and
he was unavailable and we hadn't communicated with him, then

(04:21):
it became something altogether different. Circumstances being what they were
and the amount of things that we were going through, Um,
it wasn't a lot of communication there. Obviously, we take
his lack of communication and his lack of presence, particularly
on Saturday prior to the game, to be something that's
very significant. It will be handled appropriately. So I'm not
gonna speculate on trades and things of that nature. We

(04:43):
haven't formally received a request in that regard. I'm not
gonna speculate in terms of where the discipline might go
and things of that nature. Just know um that it's
going to be addressed, and it will be addressed. It
needs to be addressed for obvious reasons. So this is
and utterly fascinating situation that the Pittsburgh Steelers find themselves in.

(05:04):
It reminds me a little bit of what Pete Carroll
found himself in when uh it felt like the defense
under Richard Sherman and Michael Bennett started to rebel against
the relationship that existed between between Russell Wilson and Pete Carroll,
and finally Pete Carroll said, Okay, you guys are defensive stalwarts,

(05:26):
but we're building this franchise around Russell Wilson, see you.
And they have and the result has been pretty solid.
In Seattle, where Russell Wilson is still a young player,
it seems like Ben Roethlisberger and Mike Tomlin have a
really good working relationship, maybe even a great friendship, and
Antonio Brown feels like he's on the outside of that relationship.

(05:50):
The challenge for the Steelers, I would imagine, is Ben
Roethlisberger is not as young as Russell Wilson is, so
getting rid of Antonio Brown and starting all over again
isn't really a very valid option. Especially in the wake
of what happened with Levian Bell. It seems as if
Mike Tomlin has lost control of his team. This is

(06:12):
also further evidence of why Michael Jordan's was so ridiculous
when he was saying that NFL players were like slaves
uh working for slave masters in the NFL ownership ranks.
Antonio Brown didn't show up for work, and the Steelers

(06:33):
don't even have anything they can do about him not
showing up. How many people out there listening to me
right now are in their cars on public transportation, waking up,
getting your kids up, headed into school, headed into work.
What would happen if you just didn't show up for
four or five days in a row at your job,

(06:54):
and you weren't able to be contacted by your boss,
like Antonio Brown wasn't able to be contact acted by
Mike Tomlin, you get fired. There are very few people
that if they went totally in communicado with their boss
on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday leading up to a big
responsibility at their job on Sunday, and then they didn't

(07:17):
show up there either, that they would in any way
be able to keep their job. I think the easy
call here is, if you're an owner and you really
want to send a message, it's go ahead and get
rid of Antonio Brown. Just release him. Find somebody who
will give you something, maybe in trade value. Accept responsibility

(07:39):
for this contract that you signed that is way too massive.
There's a great point here as well, and it is this,
No team that has ever won the Super Bowl has
had its best player be a wide receiver. There is
way too much attention and credit given to wide receivers

(08:01):
in the NFL then they deserve in terms of their
likelihood of winning championships. The same thing is true of
running backs. It's a quarterback league, and I would go
to Ben Roethlisberger even though he may only have two
or three years left. Remember, Antonio Brown is thirty years old.
What value would he have on the open trade market?

(08:24):
Maybe somebody would give you a third round pick for
three years of Antonio Brown. Maybe, And that might be
too much because it might depend so much on the
overall value of the quarterback that they're willing to trade for.
If I were the New England Patriots, is it possible

(08:45):
that in the off season they could make a move
for Antonio Brown in the same way that they tried
to make a move for Josh Gordon. Yeah, I can
see that being a potential reality. I can see that
making sense for a team like the Patriots that feels
like it's already close to being a championship caliber team,
that feels like maybe it's got two years on the

(09:07):
top end left with Tom Brady. Why not try and
surround him with a great deal of talent and do
whatever is necessary for him, even if that includes taking
a risk on Antonio Brown. Now, the danger is with
the Patriots, this could blow up in their face like
the reclamation project on Josh Gordon blew up in their face.

(09:28):
But maybe Antonio Brown would be a little bit more
like Randy Moss than he would be anything else. And
if that's the case, then yes, I would say that
he could be worth a third round pick to the
New England Patriots because of what Antonio Brown could be
worth to that offense if he got into that scheme. Regardless,

(09:50):
this is a messy situation. UM, I'll bring in the crew.
We'll talk with I believe we got Lance Taylor scheduled
to join us now nine five jocks in Birmingham. We'll
talk about the upcoming game with him between Clemson and Alabama.
Will also talk about all four of the NFL Wildcard
games that are upcoming. What does he like from a
gambling perspective there, We'll be talking about that this entire show.

(10:13):
Appreciate all of you spending your Thursday morning with us.
This is outkicked the coverage Antonio Brown. If you are
on your way into work, you're doing a better job
than Antonio Brown did. The Steelers, once the model franchise
of the NFL, have completely fallen apart when it comes
to Levian Bell, when it comes to the drama surrounding
Ben Roethlisberger, and when it comes to everything about Antonio Brown.

(10:36):
Worth reporting as well that Antonio Brown does not seem
to be very well liked by his UH teammates, and
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This is Outkicked the Coverage on Fox Sports Radio. Be
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(12:25):
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We'll get to Lance Taylor at the Lance Taylor Jocks
in Birmingham here momentarily, But first let me go ahead
and bring in Eddie Garcia. Eddie, you are a Steelers fan.
What would you do with Antonio Brown? How would you
handle this situation? Let's pretend that you are suddenly the

(13:09):
GM you are having to make a decision about how
to discipline him, how to trade him. What would your
determination be as an executive in charge of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Well,
first I would have to figure out what he what
his problem is. I don't I don't know what exactly
he's unhappy about because he's one of the most targeted
wide receivers in the NFL. Uh And I think they

(13:31):
go out of their way on the field to try
their best to get in the ball, even though he's
double team constantly. Uh So, I don't know what. I
gotta find out what his issue is. I want to
try and straighten it out. I think he's an elite
level talent that you want on your team. But in
the end, I'm also gonna field some calls from other
gms and try and test the waters and find out
what is the interest in him out there and what

(13:53):
maybe is you could get possibly in return for to me.
When you don't show up for a game, I'm done
with you. I don't disagree with you. Cant up a lot,
but that's the one thing you can put up. Yeah,
I don't see how you rebuild any kind of trust
in a guy. When you walk out of practice on Wednesday,
you're in communicado. I don't see how you can allow

(14:13):
that to be the message that you send to the
rest of your team, which is deciding to play in games.
And look, could have been a huge game if the
Ravens ended up losing that game. The Steelers bare barely
got past the Bengals. I think not having Antonio Brown
was a huge story. Can you imagine if they were
in the playoffs and they were getting ready for a

(14:34):
playoff game and they're having to answer questions about making
up a lie to cover for Antonio Brown. Um, A
part of me thinks this is you gotta stop protecting
the player. You just come out and tell the media, Hey,
we love for Antonio Brown to play in the game,
but in order to do that, he's got to show
up for work. And he hasn't been here on Wednesday, Thursday,
Friday or Saturday, and he's not responding to phone calls

(14:57):
or texts, and as a result, he's no longer a
member of the Pittsburgh Steelers. I feel like at some
point you have to send a message about what is
and what is not acceptable behavior. And if you look
at what happened with Levion Bell, you'll look at what
happened with Antonio Brown. The Pittsburgh Steelers have dropped the
ball under Mike Tomlin when it comes to creating an
environment where players show up and behave in a professional manner.

(15:20):
And I don't know what's happened there. In order for
that to occur. It must be something going on between
Mike Tomlin and some of his players on some level.
But to me, that can't continue anymore. You have to
send a message. It seems like they send a message
to Levion Bell by not buckling and relenting his contract demands.
They've already wasted a lot of money on Antonio Brown.

(15:42):
Antonio Brown hasn't led him to any championships. Jujue Smith
Schuster is on the up swing. I try to trade him.
I try to get as much value as you can.
Definitely test the waters and find out what is interest. Sure,
there's a lot of teams with a lot of salary
cap money that potentially could be interested, that are desperate
to win and a win. Now the challenges he's thirty,

(16:02):
not a young receiver. How many great receivers are there
who played at the age of thirty three or thirty four,
especially when explosion is a big part of their game
like it is for his um. But having said that,
next two years, I think he could be pretty good,
all right, Eddie, Which got force on the update. Well,
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(16:23):
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start with some games of note in the NBA Celtics
over the Timberwolves one fift one, Oh too. Gordon Hayward
thirty five points off the bench for Boston thunderbeat the
Lakers one oh seven, one hundred, Paul George thirty seven
points for Oklahoma City, and the Sixers outscore the Sons
one twenty seven. Tom College basketball, we had a battle

(16:44):
of ranked teams, is number five Kansas beating number twenty
three Oklahoma seventy to sixty seven, and one mild upset
is Maryland gets by right in Nebraska seventy two college football.
Dana Holgerson, leaving West Virginia he is the new head
coach at the University of Houston, will be back to
OutKick the Cover in ten seconds. But first a word
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(17:04):
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or more on car insurance with Geico dot com or

(17:27):
call eight seven Auto. The only hard part figuring out
which way is easier. We bring in Lance Taylor. Lance,
you just heard us talking pretending we are the GM
of the Pittsburgh Steelers. What would happen at your radio
show if you went in communicado on a big week.
Let's say it's a week like this where you're leading
into a national title game between Alabama and Clemson. Wednesday,

(17:51):
you got mad at somebody at work, you threw something
at them, You walked out of the office on Wednesday,
and would didn't respond to any text messages all the
way up through the national tie a game show. Would
they fire you? Um? I think they would play. I
I pride myself on having a little value for the
station here, but I think everyone is expendable. And it's

(18:11):
kind of a game of throne situation, right, You get
rid of one guy and the show goes on. And
I think it's the same thing with Antonio Brown. As
good as this guy is sixth raight one hundred grab seasons. Um,
when you look at an organization like Pittsburgh, I just
don't know how this stuff is going on. And I
kind of agree with the question you post Eddie, or
at least his answer. You know what is the issue

(18:32):
right now with Antonio Brown? Where's the disconnect? I mean,
this guy is getting paid. You know, he's making almost
fifteen million dollars a year. He's in the third year
of this deal. He put up tremendous numbers this year.
I just don't know where the disconnect at the end
of the season is. We understood going into the year
what was going on with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Levian Bell.
He wanted the long, long term deal, so you get

(18:53):
where he was, although you might disagree with it. I
just don't know what's going on with Antonio. What percentage
of the American working public would be fired if they
threw something in a coworker on Wednesday and then walked
out and didn't have any contact with their boss and
didn't show up for five days of work thereafter. I

(19:17):
would say, per singing. And I'm embarrassed to admit this,
but my kids have turned me onto the Office. I'm
just one of these You never watched The Office before?
I never did because I didn't believe in network television.
You know, you've got so many options with great shows
on HBO and a MC and Netflix, um, and you know,
there's so many restrictions when it comes to network television
that I just didn't believe it could be as funny.

(19:38):
Um good is. Oh, it's incredible. And you know what,
what I'm starting to realize as a lot of these
episodes are you know, eleven, twelve, thirteen years ago. But
you know that's that's the one percent of the workplace
that actually could get away with something like that. Um,
it is wild to think about. So what would you do?
All right, you are Lance Taylor, you are suddenly made
the GM and the Pittsburgh Steelers. This the bucks stops

(20:00):
at your desk, and you have to decide how to
respond with Antonio Brandon. By the way, I think that's
gonna be our poll question for the day I'm gonna
try to put up. I think really there are three options.
One you could just fire him, You just release him,
and you just say this is not something we're standing
for as an organization. He's gone. UM. I think that's
a challenge because of his contract situation. To you trade him,

(20:20):
you may not get much value for him. And also
maybe you have to take some of the responsibility of
that contract regardless even if you trade him, because he's
making so much more so much money. Three, you sit
down with him and just pretend this didn't happen ever,
and bring him back next year because he's a really
good player. Yeah, I'm kind of well, you know, here's
the thing again, when you don't show up for a game.

(20:41):
You know, it's one thing when you miss practice, but
when your agent calls on on game day and basically
tries to lay out the options for your head coach. Yeah,
that's crazy. That's that's a major problem. And I think
it's where we are in two thousand and nineteen. And
you know, the Rooney's just this is not ownership that
typically has ever had to deal with something like this,
and definitely not ownership that's going to put up with

(21:02):
something like this. And I agree with something you said,
this is on Mike Tomlin's watch. And you know, when
do we get to a point where Mike Tomlin is
responsible for a lot of this? I mean, this is
and I don't know if you agree. The best team
that didn't make the postseason in the NFL this year,
you know, to go nine and six, nine six and
one with the talent they had to snap a four
your playoffsdreak Um that's gonna be beyond disappointing for Steelers fans.

(21:25):
You know your problem though, if you are the GM
as he's entering the third year of this deal, and
I don't know the ins and outs of all salary caps,
but you know dead money over twenty one million dollars
in dead money is not a good thing. So I
guess I would just kind of gauge what we could
possibly get for Antonio Brown. You know the thing is,
you know what you're getting with Antonio. You're getting a

(21:45):
great player who's made you do that much better. And
obviously Antonio is playing with an elite quarterback in Roethlisberger. Um,
but I just can't have this type of attitude surrounding
a team that just missed the postseason. So I would
get it to see what I could get for him. Um.
If I'm a Steeler fan, I probably won him back
just based on talent level, but I'd like to see

(22:07):
what I could get through Antonio. Am I the only
one who wishes the Steelers had made the postseason, just
because I can't even imagine what the drama would be
like as they got ready for a playoff game Like
his Antonio Brown gonna show up and play in the
playoff game. Does anybody talk to him? Uh? Is he
gonna quit like halfway through the game and just not
come back out for the second half. Is he gonna

(22:27):
get into a screaming match with his team? We talk
a lot about Odell Beckham Jr. And how he's a
diva and how difficult he is to manage. Antonio Brown
is like a billion percent worse right now than anything
O'Dell Beckham Junior has ever done. You know, I would agree.
I mean, you give him like platinum locks right now,
and he stands out a little bit more. This is

(22:47):
the guy look. And I didn't see it because I
think the promos have driven me crazy for the last
couple of months, and it looks like one of the
worst concepts for a show that I've ever seen. This
the Mass Singer. But apparently Antonio Brown was on, uh
you know, the the initial pilot of that show last night?
Is that real? Like? I saw that trending and I
was like that, I thought it was just some guy

(23:07):
with the same name. Yeah, apparently he did Bobby Brown's
my prerogative while dressed in a hipo costume. So I
didn't see it um. But my point there is Antonio
loves the spotlight. So back to your original question, if
they were hosting the Chargers this week, he would find
his way on the field. I don't think there's any doubt,
but I would love to see the drama surrounding that.
He's supposedly going to do a sit down interview with

(23:28):
James Harrison, which we have James Harrison sometimes on lock
it In. Uh. The guy was a good football player.
He doesn't strike me as Mike Wallace. So I am like,
I've got to see this sit down interview with with
James Harrison and all people to conducted and to conduct
an interview. But we know that James Harrison doesn't like
Mike Tomlin because he's another player who had issues with
the Steelers as he went out on on certainly not

(23:51):
his own terms. I would think if this interview ever
sees the light of day, there's probably gonna be some
things said there that are pretty explosive. Yeah, I would
would not disagree. Uh, we're talking to Lance Taylor at
the Lance Taylor nine five Jocks in Birmingham. All right,
let's go to uh to this game, the National title
game between Clemson and Alabama. I just checked this morning, UM,

(24:13):
because I was curious. National Title Game tickets to get
in price is right now around a hundred and forty
dollars in Santa Claro, which is insanely below the face value.
Do you get the sense that Alabama fans right now
are just not that interested in making this trip for
two reasons? One they're just coming off Miami. Two they've

(24:36):
won a lot of titles, well maybe, and also three
it's expensive to get out there and the game is
in the middle of a work week for a lot
of people. And I think the same thing is true
of Clemson. But are you picking up on this and
the people around Alabama as you go about your job. Yeah,
I mean, you gotta pick your spots. And I don't
know how Alabama fans and even Clemson fans have done
it to this point, because it goes like this. You've

(24:59):
got um a conference championship game, then you've got a
semifinal game, and then you've got the National Championship and
those three games basically within one month, where you're traveling
all destinations and I don't legitimately know how typical American
family where I don't know what the average household income
is now, Quay, I would say seventy five to a

(25:20):
hundred thousand dollars. It's way too high. The average household
income in the media and right now I think is
around fifty four thousand, fifty two thousand dollars something like that.
So okay, well help me out. I would I would
assume that Alabama, definitely in South Carolina boat top ten. Uh. Yeah,
they've got to be. So those fan bases the majority

(25:41):
for just doing averages. You know, how do you I
mean for just a couple, let's not even do the family,
For just a couple to fly to Santa clar to
stay in San Francisco or San Jose and to get
tickets and to to to get transportation. I mean you're
looking at just a three or four day weekend of
three four thousand dollars. So the absolute cheapest three or

(26:01):
four it's probably closer to five to seven. Yeah. I
don't know how people do it. And you know, this
is just year and you're out looking. It's a good
problem to have if you're one of these fan bases. Um,
but you look at these two teams, they've combined to
win ten of the last eleven college football games play
College football playoff games played in two thousand and fifteen.
I mean, these are the two that that are there

(26:22):
every single year, so you can kind of pick your spot.
And if you're you know, if it's about geography and
you're actually from one of those two states, well, next
year the games are in New Orleans and Atlanta. So
why wouldn't you just say, Hey, look, I'm gonna watch
on the count to this Monday night. I'm not going
to spend the money, and I'm gonna wait till next year.
Because do we believe that Trevor Lawrence and to a

(26:44):
ton of a Low aren't gonna be there next year?
It would be an upset because both those guys in theory,
if they stay healthy, you're gonna be much better. And
I think Clemson in Alabama both this programs are going
to be better next year with advanced, more active quarterbacks.
UM and so yeah, I think there's a good chance
we would at five years in a row, and certainly
this game being played in New Orleans or Atlanta would

(27:04):
make a substantial difference in terms of how much interest
and excitement there was from the fan base. Is just
based on proximity. How would you bet this one? Bama
hanging right around a six point favorite, the line over
under sixty ish. Um, is there something that jumps out
to you or does it feel like to you like
it does to me that the number is almost perfect? Well,

(27:24):
you know, I thought it would be a little higher,
And especially when you look at Alabama get out to
nothing lead over Oklahoma and look Alabama and this is
pretty well documented. They've been favored a D six who
last one seven games. Anytime you can get Alabama under seven,
if you don't play them and they cover, you feel
like a complete idiot because it seems like a ton
of value. With all that said, Glempson is a great

(27:46):
team and a great program, and they've obviously sitting with
fourteen and oh um, and this is pretty amazing. When
you look at Dabbo, Clemson is seven and one with
six outright wins as postseason underdogs under Dabo, so they
relish this spot. Trevor Lawrence is getting better and better. Um,
it's a difficult game to handicap. But the numbers dropped
a five and a half. And like I said, I'm

(28:08):
not gonna get burned on Alabama. So I probably lay
it here. I'm assuming Alabama is going to win this game,
and if they win this game by double digits, I
think we can make the argument that the greatest college
football team we've ever seen. UM. So, you know, a
lot of these games obviously haven't been close. The last
two times we've seen them out against Georgia, they look beatable.
Against Oklahoma, they didn't play a good second half. But

(28:30):
I think I'm gonna lay it with Alabama here. The
total UM I probably would stay away from. If I
had to play it, just based on not last year's game,
but the two national championship matchups between these two, I
probably would lean over. Yeah, I think I feel kind
of the same way as you on both those sides.
Wild Card weekend coming up in the NFL. Uh, you've
got the Colts going on the road against the Texans.

(28:51):
You got the Eagles going on the road against the Bears.
You got Russell Wilson, the Seahawks on the road against
the Cowboys, and uh, you've got what's the final game
there that's the escaping me right now, Chargers Ravens. There
you go, Chargers on the road against the Ravens. Which
one do you like the most from a gambling perspective.
From a gambling perspective, I'm probably playing the Ravens here.

(29:11):
Looking before the season, I was one of those guys that, uh,
I thought we'd have an All l A super Bowl,
so I had Chargers Rams. And you look at Philip
Rivers and you know, playing these early playoff games. He's
two and oh as a starting quarterback. So the time
difference doesn't matter that it will be a ten am
start Los Angeles time. But you look at the Ravens
in this defense right now, and you look what they

(29:32):
were able to do the Charges a couple of weeks
ago in Los Angeles. It is a lights out defense
right now. And Lamar Jackson, we're just waiting for him
to throw up on his shoes and it's just not happening.
And I understand he's gonna be the youngest UH starting
quarterback in the postseason game at twenty one years and
bring header and something odd days. But this team is
just clicking right now and they're out rushing everybody, and uh,
you know, Philip Rivers we saw it last week, has

(29:54):
a propensity to still turn the football over. So I
like the Ravens at home probably is my favorite play
minus the three. All right, Uh, there's the NFL eight
jobs open right now. I want you to pretend that
you are a top college football agent. Right now, you
are Jimmy Sexton, and you are representing Jim Harbaugh, and

(30:16):
you are representing Brian Kelly. Both of those guys are
one billion percent going to get phone calls about their
interest in the NFL. Would you advise one or both
of them to leave for the NFL, assuming they're going
to get seven eight million dollars minimum per year offers
from maybe multiple NFL teams. Um, I'm gonna say no,

(30:41):
especially with Brian Kelly. I think Brian Kelly has bought
a lot of equity when you look at him putting
Notre name in that situation and I know they weren't competitive,
but to play for a national championship and to be
in the college football playoffs twice in six years, um,
I think he's fine it Notre Dame. You know. The
problem is from a competitive standpoint, does he think he
can ever win a national championship? Because they look yeah,

(31:04):
And I think that's the key if I'm advising him
as a as his agent, I think Brian Kelly has
taken Notre Dame as far as they can go. I
I don't think that they can take the next step
and win a national championship, particularly now that we're in
the playoff era and you have to win two games. Right,
You've seen Notre Dame now twice in the postseason just

(31:27):
get waxed by both by both Clemson and Alabama. I
don't think they're very close to contending for a national championship.
And I feel the same way about Michigan, although I
do think maybe michigan ceiling is higher. I think Notre
Dame has maximized what they are capable with under Brian Kelly.
It's just so hard to control it. In the NFL.

(31:47):
You know, obviously, if you are an elite college coach
of an elite program, you on a given year can
go out and get fifteen to twenty uh basically first
round guys. You control that roster, and in the NFL,
you get one of those picks a year, and if
one of those guys gets hurts. And this is one
of the reasons I never understood Lincoln Riley leaving Oklahoma
because he is building a machine there and if he

(32:10):
was to go to Cleveland, say, and Baker Mayfield gets hurt,
you know who you're relying on. You know, we've seen
it in college football when Jacob Easton goes down at
Jake brom comes on, or when even Tongue a lower
this year, you've got the luxury of a Jalen Hurts
behind him. Elite programs have so much depth, even at
the quarterback position, and once you get to the NFL,
guy gets hurt, you're aforded back to back six to

(32:30):
six and ten years and then you're gone. And that
just doesn't happen when you coach on elite program and
the money is so massive now in college football. You know,
an Oklahoma, a Notre Dame, a Michigan. Those guys can
match anything the NFL wants to pay right now. So
I just think there's a lot more security. There's no
doubt at all. Do you believe yesterday's pull question we
put out was urban Meyer And like thirty thousand people,

(32:53):
I think it was ended up voting and one per
cent of the voters said they believe urban Meyer will
come back and coach again. Are you with the or
do you think he's done? Do you think the Rose
Bowl was the end for him. Well again, on the field,
one of the greatest coaches we've seen, at least over
the last twenty five years. But I don't really take

(33:13):
anything at face value with urban Meyer. And just imagine
this scenario you're originating out of Los Angeles right now.
Clay Hilton is not going to survive out there. It's
just not going to happen. And if it's next year
or the next couple of years, if USC blows out
Clay Hilton and they go after a guy like urban Meyer,
it seems like a pretty appealing place where the pressure
is not nearly as high. Um that that seems like

(33:35):
a good landing spot for a guy like urban Meyer.
I agree with you completely. That's how I finished the
show yesterday saying that you wanted to also be intriguing
as if Brian Kelly left and Notre Dame went to
urban Meyer immediately and offered him ten million dollars a year,
what do you say now? It's tough, you know, but
he's in Ohio state is better than both of those jobs.
And we just said it as good as urban is.

(33:57):
And look, he's a better coach from Brian Kelly and
a better recruiter, you know, could he get Notre Dames
at that level where they're winning national championships. Look, Ohio
State's got every resource you can imagine, and he only
won one national championship there. And look, I know, I
know we've got high expectations for these guys, but you know,
Nick Saban's kind of set the bar and Dabbo's right
there behind him. I imagine if Dabbo wins on Monday night,

(34:18):
he's sitting there with you know, two and two against
Nick Saban with two national championships. So that that's kind
of where the bar is right now. And for to me,
Urban Meyer, as good as he was, he won a
lot of games in Columbus, but it's almost like he
maybe under a teeth. This might not be fair, Clay,
but he only won one national championship. No, it's a
good point. Lance Taylor at the Lance Taylor, enjoy the weekend,

(34:39):
My man, appreciate you waking up early this morning. Sounds good, Clay,
see man. Final segment of our one. I'm gonna open
up the phone lines eight seven seven nine six six
three six nine let you guys react to Antonio Brown
upcoming weekend NFL Wildcard. Also, I'm gonna talk about all
those open NFL coaching jobs. Will discuss all that more.
This is OUTCRE coverage on Fox Sports Radio. I'm help

(35:06):
your nineteen is starting off well as we finish off
the first segment here of UH our number one, Welcome
back guy, go out kick studios. Hey sports fans, football
season still here. We got the National title game on Monday.
We got four different wild card games this weekend. That
means it's time to get on in the action with
my Bookie dot Net use promo code Clay. That's c

(35:27):
l A Y when you register for your account and
get a fifty sign up bonus. No deposit necessary. Terms
and conditions apply for entertainment purposes only, void where prohibited.
That's my Bookie dot Net promo code Clay. Um, we
got the pull question that is up right now. If
you ran the Steelers, how would you handle Antonio Brown

(35:48):
not showing up for the final game of the season.
I gave you three options. UH thousand of you have
already hopped in and voted during this first commercial break
release slash fire him, trade him, fine, and keep him.
Nearly sixty percent of you saying trade him, and obviously
that gets into what is the value associated with Antonio Brown?

(36:10):
Ten percent of you saying release him, thirty one percent
of you saying fine and keep him. You can go
vote in the poll question of the day at Clay
Travis on Twitter. You can search me out, go click
one of those buttons on Twitter. They're eight NFL coaching
jobs open right now. The Bengals, the Broncos, the Cardinals,

(36:32):
the Jets, the Browns, the Dolphins, the Bucks, and the
Packers are all open. I will rank those jobs for
you when we return in the first segment of our two.
We're also going to do the anonymous mailbag live on
the air. We missed it on Wednesday, so we got
a lot to come. An hour two and our three,
we'll talk with my guy, Todd Ferman, he's on the

(36:53):
television show Lock It In with Me. We'll break down
all the NFL Wildcard action as well as the college
football title game between Alabama and Clemson, and tell you
what we like in terms of a gambling perspective. But
I wanted to hit this right off the top before
we go into the break for hour one and before
I started analyzing all these open jobs. One of the

(37:14):
worst things that happens in the world of sports, I believe,
is when we try to turn things that should not
be of a racial nature into a racial nature. And
so there's been a lot of people beating the drums
so to speak out there about the firing of all
these coaches, three of whom were white and five of
whom were black, and they tried to turn this into

(37:36):
a racial issue. Oh my god, the NFL so racist. Look,
there five black head coaches that have been fired. Um.
And so I just pulled up the coaching records and
I just said, let's go through and actually see how
these guys did. Turns out, the five black coaches who
were fired had a forty three percent winning percentage. The

(37:56):
three white coaches who were fired had a fifty six
percent winning percentage. So the white coaches are actually being
held to a higher standard for purposes of this diagnosis. Now,
you might say, well, Hugh Jackson went three thirty six
and one. He's so bad. Even if you take Hugh
Jackson out of the equation. Um, the uh, the other

(38:20):
coaches that are still there who were fired still have
a worse record. Uh. Todd Bowls, Steve Wilkes, Convanced Joseph,
and Marvin Lewis still have a worse record than the
fired white coaches. So I think oftentimes it's important to
fight back against the idea that racism is to play
anytime you don't like the result of something, and there

(38:42):
is no racial argument to be made about why these
guys were fired. Now, having said that there are eight
jobs open, which of these eight jobs do we like
the most? If you were able to pick, if you're
a highly sought after coaching candidate, how would you break
down these jobs? My answer might surprise is you a
little bit. And I'll go ahead and tell you my

(39:03):
number one job on this list right now. I think
the Browns are the best available job on this list. Yes,
maybe I am really crazy, but I believe the Browns
are the best available job right now of all of
them out here on the eight that are available. I'll
tell you how I ranked the other seven and how

(39:25):
I would break down the decision making as to who
should get hired, and how you go through the hiring process.
Will also go ahead and set up the phone lines
eight seven seven nine six three six nine anonymous mailbag
call my guy, dub let him know if you've never
heard the anonymous mail bag before, I will solve any
problem that exists in your life live on the radio.

(39:48):
Just call me Judge Judy of the Internet UH and
Radio King Solomon of Early Morning Radio eight seven seven,
six three six mine. I will solve your problems, and
I will rank all eight of these available head coaching
jobs in the NFL. Next on OutKick the coverage from

(40:12):
the guy go out Kick Studios, where fifteen minutes could
save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. Visit
Geico dot com for a free rate quote, and we're
brought to you by True Car. When it comes to
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trade in your car, check out True Car. True Cash

(40:33):
offer not available in all areas. UM that is worth
paying attention to. To be certain. We have a poll
question that is out there that I would like for
all of you to vote for or vote in if
you are intrigued at all. If you ran the Steelers,
how would you handle Antonio Brown not showing up for
the final game of the season. About three thousand of

(40:55):
you have voted so far release him, trade him, and
fine and keep him are the three options. Fifty nine
percent of you are saying if you ran the Steelers,
you would trade him. If you're not aware of what happened,
Antonio Brown got upset through a football at a coworker
Ben Roethlisberger that has been reported since UH and did

(41:16):
not show up for work after that, including not showing
up for the game itself. This is one of those
things where I think a lot of you right now
are listening to me across the country as you head
into work, and I just find it fascinating to think
about the standard that Antonio Brown is able to get
away with compared to how that behavior would be treated

(41:40):
in ninety nine point nine percent of all workforces. In
of all workforces, if you got upset through something at
a coworker and then did not show up the next
five days at work, including the biggest day of the season,
right whatever you do for a living, uh, one of

(42:00):
the biggest days of the season, at least one of
the fifteen or sixteen biggest days of your job, I
think almost everyone would get fired and no one would
feel sorry for you, and nobody would be wanting to
hear your side of the story. You would say, you
know what, you don't deserve to have that job anymore.
Your behavior has been so without defense that you deserve

(42:22):
to be fired, and you deserve to be fired immediately,
probably on the spot. I don't think that the Steelers
are going to fire Antonio Brown, which is why, again,
it was so ridiculous that Lebron James said that NFL
players were slaves and that owners were slave masters. How
ridiculous is that that you don't even get to have

(42:44):
to show up for work. You cannot even show up
for a game. And the Steelers probably still aren't gonna
be willing to release Antonio Brown. What a mess they
have got, all right, a couple of different things. I'm
gonna rank right now the eight available head coaching jobs
in the n f L. While I do that, I
want you guys to go ahead and load up the
phone lines for the anonymous mailbag. You guys, make this

(43:08):
segment work. I will solve any problem that you have
in your lives eight seven, seven nine nine six six
three six nine double field your calls. I will then
come to you solve your problems. I believe I am
the King Solomon of the Internet and the radio. If
you're not familiar with King Solomon, he was the greatest

(43:30):
of all the judges in olden times. I am the
greatest of all the judges in modern times. Humbly, I
say unto you. And so eight seven seven nine six
three six nine is that number. As soon as I
finished ranking these NFL open jobs, I will go to
the phone lines and solve your problems on the anonymous

(43:53):
mail bag. All right, best job of the eight that's
open right now. I guess Cleveland Browns. I think Baker
may Field what he did in year one, if you
can connect yourself to him, you have got a lot
of opportunity for success in Cleveland. The Browns are on
the upswing, good salary cap space, good young talent, and

(44:15):
Nick Chubb. And in Baker Mayfield. I love everything that
I saw from Baker Mayfield. He should be the rookie
of the year this season. I ain't The Browns. I
can't believe I'm saying it are the best of the
eight available jobs right now. Second best. He's flown a
little bit under the radar, and I can't believe this
is the case because he's playing in New York. But
I guess this is what happens when you play for

(44:35):
the Jets as opposed to the Giants. Guys down the stretch.
Sam Donald was fantastic. Some of the throws he made
were downright phenomenal. The Jets have a ton of cap room.
There's talk about them going and signing Levi on Bell.
How much of a difference could he make with Sam Donald.
I think the second best job that's available right now
in the NFL is the New York Jets third. This

(44:57):
is a sign of a quarterback that's a little bit old,
and also a roster that's not put together that well
around him. I'm not convinced Aaron Rodgers is that healthy.
I'm not sure how many years he's going to continue
to play, but I think you have to make the
Packers the third best available job. I would go young
quarterback one and two with the Browns and the Jets,
given how good Baker Mayfield and Sam Donald have been.

(45:19):
But in the three spot, one of the historically great quarterbacks,
I'd go Packers four spot. If you believe that Josh
Rosen is going to be good, then I think the
Cardinals could be a decent job because they was not
very good in year one, but he showed flashes, and
so I am a little bit convinced that if he

(45:41):
got the right coach, Josh Rosen could be pretty solid.
So I've got the Cardinals as the fourth best job
that is available right now, But the fifth job, I'm
going Broncos. I'm not sold on case Keenum, but I
think Vance Joseph did a bad job with a roster
that's very good on the defensive side of the all.
I think got good young talent at the running back position.

(46:04):
Certainly you got good young talent at the wide receiver position.
You were comfortable firing getting rid of Damrius Thomas, trading him,
I guess not firing him. Uh and so uh. I
think if you go into the draft and you want
to get a good young quarterback, the Broncos have a
good roster in the meantime, you can win with case
Keenum in the sixth spot. UM, I would argue, I mean,

(46:28):
you're kind of getting into a into a difficult spot
and trying to value all of these, but I feel
like the Bengals are the sixth best team. When Andy
Dalton comes back A J. Green. Marvin Lewis won a
lot of games there with the Bengals. He went one
thirty one and one two overall, a lot of trips
to the playoffs. I don't think the talent overall is awful.

(46:51):
So I can go the Bengals, the sixth best team
in the seventh spot, I go Dolphins. That's because I
don't feel like they have anything set up with the
quarterback position. You don't really know what you've got there.
You don't think Brock Oswiler is the future. You don't
think Ryan Tannehill is the future. Um, what moves could
you make now? Maybe if you've got a chance to
make a run after a Nick Foles or somebody like that,

(47:13):
I could change the situation with the Dolphins overnight. But
I've got the Dolphins in the seven spot and then
in the eight spot. I think this is the worst
spot by far. I think the Tampay Buccaneers because I
don't believe in Jamis Winston. They've made it clear that
Jamis Winston is their quarterback, but they don't have him
under contract for multi years. The offense was really good
under Dirk Cutter, and they still couldn't win anything. I

(47:36):
don't feel good about the culture in the Bucks. So
that is my ranking one to eight Brown's, Jets, Packers, Cardinals, Broncos, Bengals, Dolphins, Bucks.
That's how I would rank them one to eight if
I were sitting around making decisions about which roster to
go be a part of for next season. All right,
eight seven seven nine six six three six nine, Low

(48:00):
up the phone lines, anonymous mailbag time, let's go ahead
and load them up. I'm gonna go to break here
a little bit early. But this is the segment where
callers are the stars. All right. People say, sometimes why
don't you go to callers more often? Sometimes I'll get
that on social media, you should take calls more often.
I say, you know what, we got a lot of
talking to do on this show. We got a lot

(48:20):
of guests. Callers need to make plays when I go
to them. Sometimes they do, And certainly the quality of
the overall caller has skyrocketed on this show. In the
four years that we've been doing this show. We've we've
trained a lot, the average intelligence of a caller has
gone up. But callers still gotta make plays. So eight
seven seven nine six three six nine. Usually We do

(48:42):
this an hour two on Wednesday, but the holiday season's
kind of thrown off things a little bit. We weren't
on on New Year's Day, so we're doing this on Thursday,
our three. By the way, we're gonna be joined by
my guy Todd Ferman to talk the four wild card
games as well as the college football playoff and more.
That will be an hour three. But right now it's

(49:03):
you guys, double will Field. All the calls eight seven, seven, six,
three six nine. Any problems you have in the world
that you need to have somebody solve. This is the
Anonymous Mailbag, live on the air. In the meantime, the
wild card weekend is coming up. That means four NFL
playoff games, after that, four NFL Divisional games, after that

(49:26):
conference title games, and then we got the Super Bowl.
So we have got a month of really good football
action still to go. Also, on Monday, I'll be out
in Santa Clara for Clemson and Alabama. It's a really
big game too. Maybe you think you know what's gonna
happen in those games. If you do, why not win
a little money on it. Go to my bookie dot
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(49:50):
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(50:33):
conditions apply for entertainment purposes only, void where prohibited. Be
sure to catch live editions of out Kick the Coverage
with Clay Travis weekdays at six am Eastern three am Pacific,
smashing publicans, Bringing Us Back Here and The Guy Go
OutKick Studios were car shopping and be confusing with terms
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(50:55):
you what other people paid for the car you want,
so you can recognize a good price. When you're read
to buy a new or used car, visit True Car
to enjoy a more confident car buying experience. It's time
for the Anonymous Mailbag live on the radio. We got
callers lined up eight seven seven, six three six nine.
You can also hop in as well. But que the

(51:16):
music boys. Let's hear what this sounds like. You've got
anonymous mail bag problem. I'll slaw me. Let's go to
the great state of Texas. What you got for me? Hey,
what's going on? Yea, I had a good New Year's
Uh China, feel like I'm calling then on the Jerry

(51:37):
Springer Show right now. So I got one of my buddies.
She had uh a child or his life had a
child by another man last year. Uh? Now, well, hold
on a second, Hold on a second. How did he
find out that the kid wasn't his? Um it was

(51:57):
a different race. Oh well that's uh, that's a one
way okay. And he stayed with her, Yes he did so.
He did he know in advance or he showed up
at the at the hospital and the baby was a
different race than him. She told him, okay, she told
him when she got pregnant. All right, now, she's messing

(52:19):
around with a girl and they have two kids together. Um,
but he does not want to you know, it've been
together since they were in there, you know, thirteen years
old somewhere around there. I don't know, and uh, you know,
I just don't want to give that up. So okay,
so hold on a sex So she uh they have

(52:41):
three kids total, two or his one or by another guy,
and now she's taken up with women. Yeah, uh, you
gotta just tell him to leave. You gotta tell him
to pull the rip cord. Is she really good looking?
I don't even understand what the attraction here would be. Yeah, yeah,
she's she's dating. It's more so that he does have kids,
and uh you know that's all that. Yeah, okay, that's this.

(53:07):
Thanks for the call. Uh. I can't even imagine how
ridiculous the home life situation would be if dad and
mom are married and mom has a kid by a
different person while she's married to dad. If you have
any self respect whatsoever for yourself, you bail on that.
You might be able probably to get custody of the

(53:27):
two kids that are yours. If there's ever been a
situation where you uh end up looking like the good guy.
I think it's probably when your wife has a kid
while you're married to her by another guy. The self
respect level deciding to stay would have to be about
as low as you could possibly get. I actually feel

(53:51):
bad for that guy just hearing that story. And I
feel even worse for him that he has such a
little testicular fortitude that he's not even willing to walk
out on her. What a total pussy Willow, North Carolina.
What you got for me? Hey? Good morning? Um? All right,
so I have a particularly weird situation, and up you

(54:14):
can be the voice the reason here. So here it is.
I met this girl. She is a freshman in college
who met in about mid September. I live in a
pretty small town. You're twenty six, and you met a
nineteen year old. Eighteen year old she's twenty, she took
a year off. All right, freshman in college. Okay, yeah right, okay,

(54:38):
so again, I live in a small town. Um, and
she kind of grew up in this town, but different
high schools. Anyway, The point is is, you know, we've
been stating for a couple of months and really wanted
to wait on meeting my parents and everything. So I
brought her over to meet my family on Christmas Eve
for dinner, and it was a really odd exchange when
she met my dad. I thought it was odd. I

(54:59):
didn't really you know, we didn't really expand on it.
And then I called their Christmas Day and she didn't answer,
and I still haven't heard from her. And then I
finally talked to her best friend and find out that
she My dad is an O B g U I
N by the way, and so that is how they
know each other. They completely played it off so I
didn't know, so it wasn't awkward because for him, he'd

(55:21):
have been breaking hippop uh. So basically, my dad is
an O B U I N who knows my girlfriend
pretty intimately. I don't know what to do. Well, first
of all, if your dad is a is a guynecologist
in a small town, he's seen a lot of pussy
willows all over that town. So the odds are if
you're dating a girl that has a gynecologist in your

(55:45):
small town, your dad might be her doctor. So I
don't it's it's interesting. I've never heard of even thinking
of this this situation before. I don't think this is
actually really kind of fast. I would imagine that this
is like a woman's worst nightmare. Right, maybe not worst nightmare,

(56:06):
but this would be an uncomfortable situation. Is like, hey,
you know, it's a little bit awkward when I go
see this person for the you know, like gynecological issues
that I have, and then I unsuspectingly realized that I'm
dating his son and we don't see each other until
we go for Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner. But she can
just change the doctor. And my thought would be, we

(56:29):
really need the girl to call in on this side
of the story. But my thought would be that, look,
I mean, whatever you do for a living, eventually you
get tired of doing it. It's unlikely that she has
anything going on that he hasn't seen a billion times before, right.
I don't think that if you talk to your average gynecologist,

(56:50):
he would be like, oh, you know, I saw this
one and it was so much different than every other
one I've ever seen in my life. So I don't
think unless, like, you know, I could see if she
had had like some sort of like let's say she
had had a couple of different pregnancies when she was
like fourteen or fifteen years old and he had known

(57:11):
about it, Like then, I can see kind of the
difficulty for her of being like, oh my god, I
can never date this guy. I had an abortion when
I was fourteen, and this guy knows my father in
law now knows all my medical history. Unless she has
a lot of things in her past, and she's young,
she's only twenty, Unless she has something like that in

(57:32):
her past, I don't understand why this would be a
major issue for her. So my concern I guess if
you're if you're the guy here and you really like her,
and she truely, truly has freaked out in this manner,
it might be that she had something in her past
that he knows about that she wishes nobody else knew about.
And it's the kind of thing you don't want your

(57:54):
father in law to know about you. That's my first thought.
If it's a typical, you know, just doctor patient relationship
and a small town, your dad treats a lot of
the women in that town, it would be hard, I
would imagine for you to find people who don't have
some sort of connection in a small town like that.
That's that's a tough uh that that's a tough situation

(58:17):
as well, h eight seven seven nine six three six
nine is the phone number going to New York next.
Then I'm gonna go to Eddie Garcia for an update.
Double fields your calls in the meantime and we will
load them up to finish off the segment. New York.
What you got for me? Hey, Clay, good morning, Good
morning to you. All right. So, UM, me and my buddies, UM,

(58:41):
I've been a long time Buffalo Abill season ticket holder
for over ten years. UM, My buddies and I you know,
we've pretty much never missed a home game last ten years,
other than you know, weddings and like, you know, big
events that one of us has had. We have this
Winnebago that we painted, you know in all Buffalo Bills callers.
You know, every Sunday morning we leave at like six

(59:02):
in the morning, we go up to the game. You know,
we come back you know, eight nine o'clock at night. Um.
And recently, you know, I just had my second kid,
thirty five years old. Um. You know, I've been married
to my wife for six years. She came into the
relationship when we first started dating, knowing that we did
this like a ritual. And this past year She's been

(59:23):
really insistent that, you know, I sell the Winnebago and
it's time to basically grow up now that I have
a second child. How many people go to uh like
that you have the Bills Winnibego. How many of you
tailgate all day? Well, there's four of us that have,
including me, that have been doing it for over ten years.

(59:45):
And you know, every week or so, you know, we'll
pick up a couple of buddies here and there, but
for the most part, it's always us four. But I
mean comfortably, it only holds like six or seven. Uh.
You know, my wife, you know, isn't really a big
football fan, so she's probably come with us maybe two
or three times in the last six years. And really,
I mean, this is you being able to get away

(01:00:05):
from your wife, and I'm assuming a lot of your
guy friends to like, this is your time to hang
out with guys in your mind, right right, Yeah, We've
been doing it for a while. You know, I've tried
to make compromises, you know, like I don't go out
on Friday's Saturday nights if there's a Bill's home game,
you know, I try to pull Maxtra weight around the house.
You know, try to do something nice, like, you know,
she likes theater, get her tickets and you know, just

(01:00:27):
you know, I know, it's a whole day thing, you know,
watching you know, the little two little ones at the house.
How old are the kids for a whole days time?
My son just turned six months and my daughters too,
all right, So and everybody out there obviously, So do
you do this for the preseason two or do you
just do it for the regular season? Just the regular season?

(01:00:49):
So we're talking about eight different Sundays, or if the
bills happen to be on a Monday night or whatever,
it is eight different days, but primarily Sundays, you get
there at six and you don't get home until nine. Yeah, roughly.
You know, we leave her early and we you know,
we hang out a little later, all right, So you know,
usually it doesn't help that I come home drunk either. Yeah, right,

(01:01:11):
that's what I was gonna say. I'm sure that you've
been so. Uh, first of all, if you're coming home
by nine, that's way late, right, because the game is
typically at one o'clock and would be over by four.
So I don't know how far you live, um, but
but this is an interesting question. All right, so you're
thirty five, you've been doing this for ten years, you've

(01:01:32):
got two young kids. My first thought, that's pretty easy,
is this, why could you afford to hire a babysitter
for your wife for part of Sunday? Yes, I mean
we couldn't. I mean, you know, she wants me to
sell it, but it's not I don't like financial concerns. Yes,
there's no issue there. It's just it's just more of

(01:01:53):
me not spending quality time with the family. Yeah. Well,
so first of all, for the quality time with the
family thing, you've got a six month old, all right,
Like the six month old, there is no quality time
with the six month old in terms of things that
he's gonna remember. Uh, you know, I I've got three
boys like that. That's a that's an age where you're
just constantly you're under seat. I think what this is

(01:02:14):
about is more there's a couple of things here. It's
a it's a great question, and I think a lot
of guys have to deal with this as they add
kids to their family. This is your wife wanting to
pull you away from your friends and your single life
them and sort of make you more of a stay
at home dad type on the weekends. What I think

(01:02:36):
it's significant already that you said you've done is on
game day weekends, you don't do anything. On a Friday
or a Saturday, you stay around the house. I think
this is also about your wife wanting to hang over
your head. Oh, I'm spending all day Sunday with these kids. Um.
I think you already mentioned that you will encourage her
to do other things that that don't necessarily have to

(01:02:58):
involve you. What I would do for the next season
is I would add a babysitter to the repertoire. So
if you are leaving at six am, if you could
find a babysitter that shows up at six am when
you leave, then I think that would be a fairly

(01:03:18):
substantial asset as well. Let your wife sleep in, Let
that babysitter be there for six or eight hours to
help out. The other thing I got to be honest
with you is this six to nine is a long day,
all right, and you're undoubtedly showing up drunk. If you
left to go tailgate at nine, which would mean that

(01:03:38):
you would get the kids up and help with them
in the morning, and you got back at six or
even five, I don't know that your overall enjoyment level
is going to be substantially declined. And then it's much
more like a normal day as opposed to you being
gone for the entirety of the day. That would be

(01:03:59):
my su action would be babysitter to help her take
care of the kids by herself. And because when the
kid by next season, your son is gonna be over
a year old, and then he's does start to be
kind of a handful because he's running around, he can
get into a lot of different stuff. So I would
say babysitter for those eight days. And also you gotta

(01:04:19):
cut down on the hours. Six am to nine pm
is just way too long to be away for a
three hour football game. Eddie Garcia, let me bring you
in the phone number eight seven seven nine six three
six nine. We're doing the anonymous mailbag live on the radio.
What you got for me, Eddie, Well, this report brought
to you by a true car online cars shop and

(01:04:40):
can be confusing me not anymore. With true price and
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Fittsburg Stealers said coach Mike Tomlin denied recent reports and
star wide receiver Antonio Brown Is requested to be traded
after Brown didn't play in the team's season finale. Tom
Le did confirmed Brown didn't play against the Bengals because
he didn't show up for practice or communicate to the

(01:05:01):
team where he was in the days leading up to
the final game of the year. In the NBA, Celtics
beat the Timberwolves one one oh too. Gordon Hayward thirty
five points off the bench for Boston thunder over the
Lakers in l A one oh seven and one hundred.
Paul George thirty seven points for Oklahoma City seventy beating
the Suns one thirty two. Seven College Basketball Battle of
rank teams Umber five, Kansas twenty three, Oklahoma seventies sixty

(01:05:23):
three was number twenty four in Nebraska losing to Maryland
seventy four to seventy two. We'll be back to OutKick
the coverage in ten seconds, but first this from Farmers.
From a dog accidentally flooding a living room to a
dog taking a joy ride, We've covered it. Talk to farmers.
We know a thing or two because we've seen a
thing or two. We are farmers under written my farmers

(01:05:45):
truck fire insurance exchanges and affiliates products unavailable in every state.
Now back in Clay Travis and the OutKick the Coverage Studios.
Why from the Geico OutKick Studios Thanks to Eddie there.
It's easy to say or more on car insurance with
Geico dot com or call eight hundred nine four seven Auto.
The only hard part figuring out which way is easier
phone number eight seven seven six three six nine. Dub

(01:06:09):
What do you think of the advice that I gave
so far? You're fielding calls, but how would you assess
my my performance thus far? Solid advice on those first two, Man,
those were some some interesting, interesting stories that those guys
are having to deal with right now. I thought your
advice was solid. I think that the girlfriend and your
dad is her guynecologist. I think it has to be

(01:06:30):
something more than just he is the guynecologist. The more
I think about it, Yeah, Danny G you've been thinking
on that. Yeah. Actually, our guy Veto texted me when
when that call was on, and he said, hey, you
guys wouldn't the last name of the boyfriend and the
dad's name, tipp her off that there may be some
sort of coincidence. Doctor. First of all, we don't know

(01:06:51):
his last name obviously, which is why it's the anonymous
mail bay. But many last names are very similar. But
he said, it's a really small town. Yeah, right, if
your last name is Brown or your last name is Smith, Like,
why would you assume, Like I understand, if your last
name is something that's incredibly unique, then maybe that could
be Maybe that could be a situation where you think

(01:07:12):
about it. Um, But I don't really see that as being,
you know, like that common because in a small town
like that, first of all, there's lots of people that
would have the same last names often. And um, it's
not that small of the town, because he also said
there were multiple high schools, so it's not that small
of a high school. It's the small of the town.
If she went to a different high school, um than him.

(01:07:35):
And I also think again that to me when I
hear that story, the alarm bell that goes off is, oh,
she must have had something in her past that's more
serious than just going to the doctor. Yeah, I mean,
I understand it would be an an uncomfortable experience for
somebody who has seen you naked to be your father

(01:07:55):
in law. Like, that's a little bit ikey and weird
to begin with. But in a small town like that,
there wouldn't be that many gynecologists. I wouldn't think so
uh for him. I would think that he would maybe
uh maybe have thought beforehand, uh to to say something, right.
I mean, if you're if you're that concerned, you could
at least think about it as a potential outcome there. Um,

(01:08:18):
the guy with the Buffalo Bills, I'm not sure he's
a member of the Bills mafia. Going in tailgating all day.
I think sixth nine is just too long ago. Yeah,
and also the longer that you're there, the drunker that
you get, I mean when the game ends at four
and you're getting back home at nine and you have
your own Bills tailgate vehicle. Um, I can see how

(01:08:41):
your wife could be like, dude, you're thirty five years old,
this was funny and entertaining for ten years. And remember
women marry men wanting to change them. This is this
is I think a great detail that men don't think
about very much. When you get married to your wife.
You probably think she's perfect. You would be very happy

(01:09:04):
with her looking ideally the exact same for the rest
of your life. You'd like her to be that pretty,
you'd like her to to be that fun. You'd like
her to be almost identical to the person that she
is when you marry her. Women marry men thinking I
can work with him, right, Like, they never like what

(01:09:25):
we actually are. They think that they can turn us
into something that they are more happy with. So women
look at men as projects, like I'm gonna get him
to do X, Y and z O. I could work
on him. Men, I think look at women and say, oh,
I like her just the way she is. I don't
think there are very many men, so I think this

(01:09:46):
is a common circumstance, like, Oh, it's cool he's got
his guy friends. He goes and he tailgates and he
has a good time, and uh, and I have no
problem with it. Oh, it's so cool that you have
your friends. I'm the cool chick. I got no issue
with it. And then you have kids and suddenly it
becomes a big issue. What used to be, Oh, it's

(01:10:07):
kind of cute, it's kind of fun. How he and
his friends go have a day and they just go
drink and they watch the bills and then they come
home and like he's been drinking, and ah ha ha
ha turns into a major issue when it's happening eight
times during the course of the season. And I don't
know where you park, Like the bills are V. But
when the bills are V that's painted in Bill's colors

(01:10:29):
is parked at your house, it's not as cool as
when you're dating and you're like, Okay, this is just
something that he does. I I think that that's uh,
the more kids you have, certainly, and I'm surprised it
took two kids. Um, I'm surprised it didn't come up
as a bigger issue with one. I think the solution
is you can't go tellgate starting at six and you

(01:10:50):
can't get home at nine. And I think him coming
drunk also doesn't help as well. Yeah, but in his defense,
like what else are you gonna do if you're gonna
tailgate all day? Like are there people who tellgate and
don't drink? Like I I maybe there are, But to me,
the tailgate experience is primarily connected with alcohol. So I

(01:11:10):
think you could drink before the game hope to sober
up during the course of the game and then be
able to drive home. You know, after a three hour
football game, maybe you're waiting the parking lot for an
hour and chill and listen to the post game breakdown
everything that happened, and then get home. Um, but yeah,
I'm certainly coming home drunk. I mean, you're basically like

(01:11:31):
wiping out the entire because I'm sure she wants him
to help help her out with something with the kids
or something when he gets home, but he's he's drunk,
and she's she wants him not to be around the
kids if he's drunk. Probably that's issue. California, last call
for the anonymous Mailbag of of the week. What do
you got for me? California A long time listener, first
time caller Clay. Funny that I'm calling on the anonymous

(01:11:53):
mail bag instead of sports though, Um, so my kids
mother and I have been broken broken up about ten years.
But to help her out, Uh, she moved in with
me recently to you know, help her save some money
get her own spot. Well, since then, she uh isn't
working and she's not holding up her a part of

(01:12:15):
the bargain, which is cooking and cleaning. I decided to
not charge her any rent. What are your thoughts? How
old is a kid? The kid is eleven years old
who has custody. So the kid thinks this is the
greatest thing that's ever happened. Right, Yeah, he wants he

(01:12:37):
wants us to get back together. But had me I
I don't want to give the you know, the kids
hopes up. I mean, you know what I mean, it's uh,
I'm kind of in between a rock and heart plains.
What do I do? Kick kick the you know, the
mother of my kids out or you know what, what
do I do? One kid or more more than we're
just one kid? Yeah? Okay, that's see. First of all,
you gave him, thanks for the call. You gave him

(01:12:58):
false hope when you allow your uh ex wife to
move back into the house. Because every kid, I think
out there on the planet whose parents get divorced, some
part of his or her head thinks, maybe my parents
will get back together again. Right. So I understand she's
having a tough go of it and you're just trying

(01:13:20):
to be the nice guy. But when you brought her
back into the house, you gave the kid false hope
and I also think you created a situation where you
can't kick your ex wife out of the house when
she's the mother of your son, and where is she
gonna go if she's got fifty fifty custody? My suggestion
in general would be that you try and get more

(01:13:42):
than fifty fifty custody of your kid and uh and
allow her to kind of get back on her feet
without having to worry about finding a place for him
to live in the meantime. But man, this is a
tough situation because you've created a dilemma for yourself where
she's not really upholding her into the bargain, but what

(01:14:03):
exactly else is going on there? That's a that's a
tough situation. And you've also then brought your kids feelings
back into play, and he's got mom and dad back
under the same roof. Oh. Man, I don't know how
to solve that problem. I don't think you can kick
her out. You need her to make a voluntary decision
to leave on her own, But it doesn't sound like

(01:14:23):
she would because she's got a good gig right now,
she doesn't have to do anything, and you're taking care
of her. Uh. When we come back, we will unpack
a little bit more of this. We'll talk about the
upcoming wild Card games and will turn our attention towards
Alabama Clemson as well. This has been out kicked the
coverage on Fox Sports Radio. What Back Geiko out Kick

(01:14:45):
Studios Thursday edition MEN. M Drive is the supplin I
use every day. You should consider it too if you
want to feel stronger, have more energy and drive. Now
is the time to start taking M Drive. To learn more,
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p time with M drive. UM as UH we roll
into the final hour here. This is a pretty funny

(01:15:07):
story on what night was it? Monday night, Tuesday night,
whatever night it was, It was New Year's New Year's right.
New Year's was Tuesday when UH, Georgia and Texas were playing.
Right beforehand they had BiVO, the the longhorn on the
field and also the the Georgia mascot. The bulldog came

(01:15:27):
by and Vivo was having none of it. He charged
the bulldog. We have the audio of this. If you
didn't hear it. This was kind of like the Animal Thunderdome.
We'll have a big Animal thunderdome for you by the
way tomorrow. Uh so, so make sure you download the podcast.
This was like Animal Thunderdome College Football edition and it
happened live on television. This is what it sounded like.

(01:15:49):
There is I'll go. He does not know where to go.
Always about that is adorable. They do not have a
scooper like people's hand moves, ladies and gentlemen. This is
like a man walking all the moves. Never oh my lord,

(01:16:15):
oh oh. Can live television get better than that? No?
Maybe that was not the best idea, but we don't care.
Who got to replail this here, we get to replace
That's targeting. That's targeting. I've seen a lot of things.
It was worth it. It was worth it. Awesome alright,

(01:16:40):
So Bevo comes after the Bulldog and as a result,
it's not going to surprise you. Peter is upset and
they have released a comment demanding that both mascots be
removed from the field. They are saying it's indefensible to
subject the mascots to be in front of a stadium.
It's no surprise is that a steer would react to

(01:17:02):
a perceived threat by charging. They called on the University
of Texas and Georgia to retire live animal mascots and
stick to the talented costume mascots. So my question in general,
isn't it a little bit crazy that we still have
a live steer on the field. It's rare that I
would as side with Peter, But I when I saw

(01:17:24):
that huge longhorn with its obvious horns running around on
the field chasing some people, I thought to myself, and
the same thing about Ralphie the buffalo on the field.
Maybe that's not the best idea to have the real
live animal there? Is that crazy? Like where do you
draw the line on the live animal. They used to

(01:17:44):
bring in Mike the tiger, for instance, down at l
s U and they would parade him in in a
cage and then they were like, you know what, maybe
this doesn't make the most sense. So now they just
have a live tiger sanctuary for him. That's pretty phenomenal
right by the stadium in Baton Rouge. What is the standard, Like,
what do you guys think? Do you agree that it's

(01:18:06):
kind of crazy for the longhorn for Bevo to be
there on the field. Can't these traditions stay sacred though?
I'm well, I think it's on the handlers. You need
to have top notch handlers and those handling the reaction
if Bevo had gotten to Oga and he steers him,
you know, like gets him with his horns. What if

(01:18:28):
he just wanted to say hi to and stabs him
and then throws him up in the air like a
rag doll. The reaction is unbelievable. Dog people would lose
their mind if Aga got stabbed to death by the
steer and he saw a real life animal thunderdome. But
when I'm watching that charging video which we played for you,

(01:18:49):
that longhorn has got some pretty good horns, right, and
it's kind of a shock to me that nobody has
gotten injured by this thing so far. And when they
run Ralphie the buff load. You remember that video where
the Colorado kids, like they were running with Ralphie, they
lost their footing and they went down and like the
buffalo got loose and he was just running all over

(01:19:10):
the field and everything else. Like that's pretty phenomenally funny,
But also like what if, like the kid who's going
to recover the tea gets run over by the buffalo.
I'm feeling like maybe I'm being a pussy willow here
but I actually see some arguments now that Georgia bulldog,
there's no reason to retire that. But when it's a

(01:19:30):
huge animal. Also, what do they do when the when
the long worn poops or the buffalo poops, Like is
somebody walking around just scooping this thing the whole time?
I don't know. We'll come back, we'll talk wild Card
and the coaching openings. Why for the Geico Outkicks studios
where fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more

(01:19:52):
on car insurance. Visit Geico dot com for a free
rate quote wherever you are across the country. We appreciate
you beginning your two thousand nineteen with us. Thanks for
hanging out with us here on out kick as we
reach what eight o'clock on the East coast, seven o'clock
in the Central time zone, six o'clock in the mountain,
and five am out west. I know many of you

(01:20:14):
start off your day by setting your alarms to this show,
so thanks for spending your morning with us. And if
you do so, you might have missed some of the
ridiculousness that is going on right now as it pertains
to Antonio Brown. Our poll question is up and it's simple.
We got ten thousand votes so far. If you ran

(01:20:36):
the Steelers, how would you handle Antonio Brown not showing
up for the final game of the season. If you
haven't followed the story, it is wild. It is diva like.
It is absurd and why and and and and really
crazy for a franchise like the Pittsburgh Steelers, which has
long prided itself on professionalism. On Wednesday of the final

(01:21:00):
week of the NFL season, Antonio Brown got angry and
threw a football at Ben Roethlisberger, his quarterback. He then
did not show up for practice For multiple days. The
Steelers couldn't get in touch with him. They didn't know
what to do. They claimed that he was injured and
was not going to play in the games. Saturday comes,

(01:21:20):
Sunday comes, Brown shows up, watches the game from the stadium.
In some way, everything about it is utterly absurd. Mike
Tomlin yesterday had a press conference where he tried to
address the situation. This is what it sounded like. After
Friday's business was done, it became difficult to to communicate

(01:21:40):
and catch up with him. I wasn't able to communicate
with him on Friday evening or Saturday morning. So when
we had our Saturday morning my game will walk through
and he was unavailable and we hadn't communicated with him,
then it became something altogether different. Circumstances being what they
were and the amount of things that we were going through, Um,
it wasn't allowed of communication there. Obviously, we take his
lack of communication, his lack of presence, particularly on Saturday

(01:22:03):
prior to the game, to be something that's very significant.
It will be handled appropriately. So I'm not going to
speculate on trades and things of that nature. We haven't
formally received a request in that regard. I'm not going
to speculate in terms of where the discipline might go
and things of that nature. Just know, um, that is
going to be addressed, and it will be addressed and

(01:22:24):
needs to be addressed for obvious reasons. So the Steelers
under Mike Tomlin have fallen into a mess. And I
think you can make an argument, and a pretty solid
argument right now, that Mike Tomlin would deserve to be
fired over the off field shenanigans that have gone on
with the Steelers over the past year and change Levian

(01:22:47):
Bell not being able to get worked out. Maybe you
can give Mike Tomlin a pass on that because it's
more of a financial decision than it is a football decision. Maybe,
but not being able to get your star wide receiver
to show up to play in the final week of
the season as you are fighting for your playoff life
is to me a sign that Mike Tomlin has lost

(01:23:08):
control of this locker room and of this franchise in general.
So our poll question, which over ten thousand of you
have voted in the last hour, is if you ran
the Steelers, how would you handle Antonio Brown not showing
up for the final game of the season. Options are
release him, trade him, fine, and keep him. Fifty seven

(01:23:30):
percent of you are saying trade him, thirty one are
saying fine and keep him. Twelve percent are saying release him. Now.
Complicating factor in terms of all of this is, of course,
the contract situation, and the contract situation in particular is
a substantial component of this story overall, and that is

(01:23:52):
how did the Steelers handle it? Right now, Antonio Brown
is in his third year of a five year, seventy
two point seven million dollar contract extension that's already been restructured.
He has a salary cap of twenty two point one
million this year. If he's off the roster, the Steelers
take on twenty one million dollars worth of dead money

(01:24:16):
that could be separated out over multiple years, but it
would still mean that that is a substantial dollar figure
the Steelers don't have, which is why trading him is
probably preferable. Is there a team out there that would
take on this remaining amount of salary That is a challenge,
particularly considering that Antonio Brown is a thirty year old

(01:24:39):
receiver right now, and that you would be uh, basically
gambling that you could get him to buy into whatever
team that you are running and that his productivity would
continue to remain at the same level. Remember, thirty one
year old wide receivers typically do not get better, or

(01:25:00):
that's particularly the case if he might be playing for
a team that is not as talented at the quarterback
position as what he has grown used to with Ben Roethlisberger,
who goes bends over backwards to get him the football. Uh.
And remember that Antonio Brown is also going to turn

(01:25:21):
thirty one years old before the season starts this year.
So again, when you factor in age here and salary,
Antonio Brown is making a lot of money for a
thirty one year old wide receiver when let's be honest,
most wide receivers are not still behaving uh in a

(01:25:43):
or not not still performing in an extraordinary fashion into
their thirty twos and thirty three year old receiving ages. Now,
this is also further evidence of how the NFL standard
for behavior is totally different than almost any other profession.
In almost any other profession, if you threw a object

(01:26:06):
at a coworker and then did not show up for
work for multiple days, you would be fired on the spot.
The standard for behavior is very lenient in the NFL,
particularly when you are Antonio Brown and you have had
I think it's six straight seasons of over one catches.
You were able to get away with basically any and everything.

(01:26:30):
And I don't know what the solution is on this,
but Antonio Brown is claiming that he's gonna do an
interview with James Harrison. James Harrison sometimes comes on Lock
It In with Us, my daily television show on FS one.
I've never thought to myself, man, James Harrison seems like
a reincarnation of Mike Wallace on sixty Minutes. So I

(01:26:51):
have no idea how that interview would go, but I
figure it would not be positive for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
As if all of this draw was not enough. Antonio
Brown has also recently taken to uh not only Twitter,
but also to the television airwaves where, believe it or not,

(01:27:11):
and I swear to God, this really happened. Now, this
was pre taped, but last night he appeared on a
masked singing special, singing along to Bobby Brown's my prerogative,
and I think we have actually, this is real. I
think we have actual audio this like an athlete. Is

(01:27:59):
there anything else extreme dry here? Or is this just
my prerogative? It's anything else said in this flip Just
amazing singing, Yeah, just amazing singing from Antonio Brown. The
concept of this show is that you wear a head,
you know, like a mask and costume. Yeah, and a costume.
And so this thing was taped beforehand, but I think

(01:28:21):
it just kind of speaks to Antonio Brown's larger diva tendencies.
And this also reminds me of back in the day
Kenny Britt, who was a first round draft pick of
the Tennessee Titans, had all these off field related incidents
and nobody had heard from him and like months as
he was coming back from rehabbing an injury, and then
I swear to God this happened. He showed up on

(01:28:42):
the stage as Brittney Spears is slave during a concert
live in Nashville, Tennessee. I'm not even making this up.
You know you've got a diva receiver when nobody has
heard from him for months, nobody knows where he is,
what he's doing, what his day to day is gonna be.
And then suddenly he shows up in a like gimp
mask on the stage being written by Brittney Spears around

(01:29:07):
on the stage in Nashville. This not quite that. But
Antonio Brown, in the middle of all the news, suddenly
appears on Fox on this new Mask television show. I
want to bring in the crew because the poll question
is how would you handle this? And I started earlier
in hour one with Eddie Garcia, who is a Steelers fan.
I still want to go back to him. You've had

(01:29:28):
more time to think about this. What do you do?
I want everybody to pretend that they are the Steelers
GM and they have to figure out what to do here.
I want your solution. I'm gonna go around the horn
Eddie Garcia, I start with you because you are a
Steelers fan. Yeah, I'm I still need to know what

(01:29:49):
the problem is. This is. This is one of the
craziest things about this whole situation. I don't think they
specifically know what Antonio Brown is upset about. Because he's
getting paid, he's productive, he's having a good season. Uh
you know, there's speculation he was hurt because he wasn't
named the m v P and another receiver was Juju

(01:30:10):
Smith Schuster and that he's upset about that. And I mean,
I guess is that what he's upset about. Does he
feel like he's not loved by I mean, he's at
one year old. Man, I totally agree. And here can
you imagine? I mean, I don't even know what the
reaction would be. I I have never missed. Like if
if I am going to miss in one of the
days on this show, I tell our bosses Scott Shapiro

(01:30:32):
and Don Martin, like six months in advance, I'll email
them and be like, Hey, here's what the next six
months looks like, me looks like for me to allow
you to plan out what the show would look like.
This show is wildly successful now the most successful morning
show Fox Sports Radio has ever had. I think they
might fire me if I threw something at a coworker

(01:30:56):
and then didn't respond to any of their text messages
for the next five days, right, And I don't think
there'd be any kind of defense that anybody would have
for my behavior in that context. So, like your point
of I want to know what he's upset about, I
kind of get that. But he's not six, you know,
Like my position is, our checks aren't bouncing. I don't

(01:31:18):
care whether you're upset or not. You show up and
you perform. Now, if you want to behave like an
adult and ask for a meeting with your boss because
something is going on that you feel like is hindering
your ability to perform at the highest level and you
want to get it rectified, that's how an adult would respond.

(01:31:39):
But holding something as a coworker and then just not
showing up for work for the next five days, nine
nine percent of people, no matter what their job is,
in America, would lose their job for that. But I
think if you're the star of the network and you're
doing really well and the t and the network would
like to keep you, I think you in why did

(01:32:00):
you do that? If I threw something at one of
you and then refused to respond to text messages for
five consecutive days, you guys have been at the network longer.
I've never missed a day of work so far, right,
I've been pretty easy going. But I think they would
be well within their rights to fire me if that happened.
And you know, like for radio purposes, we're doing about

(01:32:24):
as well as a radio show can do right in
our time slot and everything else. And I still feel
like they would have perfectly within their rights to fire me. Now,
if they eventually found out that the reason why I
hadn't you know, been in contact was because you know,
something awful had happened, then there's a different storyline there.
But just not showing up for five works like if
I got kidnapped by a Mexican cartel and that's the

(01:32:46):
reason why I wasn't responding to contact, Okay, Like there's yeah,
that would be a hell of the story. That would
at least be a reason, right, But just not to
show up because I was angry about something like That's
not how an adult behaves. And I I don't think
very many people would keep their jobs I don't disagree
with what you're saying, but again you're asking me if
i'm the GM. I try to bring him in. I

(01:33:08):
try to figure out what the problem is, and I
try to see if there's a solution to it. But
I also am taking calls, making calls to find out
what is out there. If we want to trade him,
test the waters, see what we can get in return.
Everything's on the table right now. But he looked he's
too good for you to say, even with what he's done.
And again, I'll put up with a lot of crap

(01:33:29):
from a great player, but you got to show up
to do your job. So I'm considering trading one of
the best receivers in the NFL. But I try to
work it out. But if I can't work it out,
then yeah, I'm I'm totally up for getting rid of
him and bring in somebody. I'm trading him, but I
I can't send the message to the rest of the
team that you cannot show up for a game and

(01:33:50):
feud with your coach, with your quarterback and everybody else.
I am getting as much value as I can for
him and putting him on the market, and for letting
him play for the Steelers again, Danny G what would
you do? I'm with you. Ain't nobody got time for
DIVA wide receivers right now. And you might have heard
about that report where a teammate said that A B

(01:34:12):
was talking smack two coaches and teammates right after he
got his big pay day. If that's true, and I'm
the GM that really really bothers me, and I'd move
away from them. Most likely the Steelers have the twenty pick.
My biggest needs would be cornerback, linebacker, pass rusher, but
I would move wide receiver up to the top of
that list. There's a couple of other Browns available in April.

(01:34:35):
A J. Brown of Old miss and Marquis Hollywood Brown
of Oklahoma would look good in a Steelers universe. Yeah,
And look, the Steelers are fortunate that they have a
very good quarterback, a Hall of Fame quarterback in Ben Roethlisberger,
and I think they're gonna be able to He makes
a lot of receivers look good. Look at how good
Jujuice Smith Schuster has been in his second year. The
challenge I think for the Steelers, more so than anything else,

(01:34:57):
is I talked about a little bit how This reminds
me of russ Oil Wilson and the situation that took
place in Seattle where the defense wanted to be the
leaders of that team, and Pete Carroll picked Russell Wilson
and said, no, you're the face of this franchise. You're
my guy. That's easier to do when your quarterback is
young and you know you have a lot of years left.
What does Ben Roethlisberger have left? Two three years at

(01:35:18):
the absolute topic? Yeah, so when you're choosing Ben Roethlisberger
here now. Interestingly, I think the same thing is probably
true of Antonio Brown. Antonio Brown is gonna be thirty
one in July. What are the odds that he's gonna
be a great wide receiver at thirty four or thirty five?
The numbers would suggest over time in the NFL that
the number of really good thirty four year old wide

(01:35:41):
receivers are few and far between. What about you, dub
How do you handle this? I don't know, but I
just can't stop thinking about the Steelers replacing Antonio Brown
with Hollywood Brown, which is his cousin. That would be Yeah,
you definitely can't draft his cousin. That's a funny. I mean,
I like the idea of him being a playmaker in

(01:36:02):
the NFL, but replacing him with his cousin would be
would be pretty unbelievable. It's like when the Titans kicked
steaming there to the curb and then replaced him with
his godson Vince Young. Uh, that was a really awkward situation.
He can't replace him with his cousin. I don't think.
I think a J. Brown would do phenomenally Um. I
don't know where a J. Brown is projected to be
going right now, old miss wide receiver, but he would

(01:36:24):
do phenomenally well. I think with Ben Roethlisberger now speed
and the ability to stretch the defense, there aren't very
many guys in the NFL doing it better than Antonio
Brown right now, so that would be a challenge maybe
finding somebody who fits in as well with him. Roberto,
how do you handle it? I agree with you, guys,
you gotta trade him if they're not gonna get rid
of Mike Tomlin, who allows these kind of crazy things

(01:36:46):
to happ in the locker room because who mrs practice
during the weekend says, Oh you know what, I'm just
gonna go. I'm I'm gonna show up to the game
because Mike Tomling might let me play anyways. Yeah, that's crazy,
That's that's insane. And you imagine that working for Bill Belichick.
Can you imagine having your agent haul Bill Belichick on
Saturday or Sunday to try to figure out whether or
not you're gonna be able to play in the game,
despite the fact that you haven't shown up for multiple

(01:37:07):
days of practice and haven't shown up at the facility
as you get ready. I mean again, the only thing
I wish, if I could change anything, is just I
wish the Steelers were in the playoffs and all this
news is coming out. And by the way, I think
the Steelers have to get fined a big dollar figure
here by the NFL too, because they lied on their
injury report. They lied on why Antonio Brown was not playing.

(01:37:32):
And those injury report uh and and statements I think
matter a great deal when you are looking at them
to see who might be playing in games and who
might not, And when you lie and say that the
reason he's not playing is because of injuries, when in
reality he's just calling off the deep end and throwing
a fit. Um. I I just don't think that's acceptable.
I think the NFL has to hit him with a

(01:37:52):
fine here, all right when we come back gambling picks
the the The wild card games are taking place on
Saturday and Sunday to on Saturday to on Sunday, plus
the college football National Title Game is on Monday. How
do you bet it? What are the plays? We'll talk
with my guy, Todd Ferman. He's on Lock It In
with me. He will be up next. This is outkicked

(01:38:12):
the coverage on Fox Sports Radio, and I gotta tell
you as I go to break here. Uh, that True
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Some features not available in all states. Fox Sports Radio
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(01:39:20):
all of our shows at Fox Sports Radio dot com
and within the I Heart Radio app. Search f s
R to listen live. That's the real Bobby Brown in
honor of Antonio Brown, who was wearing the mask on Fox.
By the way, am I gonna get in trouble for this?
If the show's debut episode has Antonio Brown as the

(01:39:43):
masked singer, that's a pretty good sign that the show
is having trouble getting big time celebrities, isn't it. Do
most people know Antonio Brown? Where people like, oh my god,
I can't believe it, Like if you're outside of the
world of sports, that's not a very good sign. I
don't think right now I'm gonna get fired because Fox
is gonna be like, why are you saying bad things

(01:40:04):
about the mask? Singer. It's the greatest show ever created.
It's a singer wearing a mask, and you don't know
who the singer is. Yeah, okay, but then like my
payoff is that it has to be somebody really famous,
and then it's Antonio Brown singing my prerogative. I don't
know timing was good. I probably filmed that thing four
months ago. Welcome Back, I go out Kicked Studios were

(01:40:24):
brought to you by True Car. When it comes to
selling or trading in your car, you need to make
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offer not available in all areas. Eddie Garcia your update guy.
You're an expert in the world of current events. Were
you impressed that on the debut episode, Antonio Brown is

(01:40:47):
the best draw they could get. Well, the thing is
is you don't know who the other people are, so
they could the rest of them could be uh, I
don't know, Academy Award winning actors or something. You think
like Leonardo Dicaprios, that the whole draw, that's like, uh,
you know. Twenty two by Taylor Swiss. That's what they
hope you're intrigued by. That's what that's happening. I'll be watching.

(01:41:08):
But Antonio Brown doesn't seem like a very big star,
and that's why he was the first guy voted off.
I mean, let's be honest, if you like, if you
were watching that show and you were like, wait a minute,
that's Clay Travis and a mask singing along to you know,
bust a move, Like that's the that's the best they
could pull off. Like you'd be like, this is not
a show that I think has a very long shelf life.
And I don't think Bobby Brown and Antonio Brown is

(01:41:30):
necessarily a great combination. Maybe they're related. I don't know,
he's related to Marquis Brown. Maybe they're related to Bobby
Brown too. What you got for me? I got a
guy Co scoreboard for you, and we start with scores
from the NBA, and the Celtics top the Timberwolves one
with too. Gordon Hayward points off the bench in the
win for Boston. Paul George, who a lot of people
thought was gonna be a Laker, he comes to l
A beats the Lakers one oh seven one hundred, helping

(01:41:53):
the Thunder get that victory. He had thirty seven point
six is over the Suns. Seven college basketball, we had
eight rank teams in action. Two of them went head
to head. In the Big Twelve. It was number five
Kansas beating number twenty three Oklahoma seventies six three and
the Big twelve opener Maryland scores. The mild upset of
ranker Browns make that seventy four seventy two wins for

(01:42:14):
number six Nevada, eighth rank Michigan State, number eleven, Texas Tech,
number fifteen North Carolina, and number nineteen Houston. And in
college football, Dana Holgersson is leaving West Virginia is now
the new head coach at the University of Houston. Will
be back to OutKick the coverage in ten seconds. But first,
a word from farmers. From a dog accidentally flooding a
living room to a dog taking a joy ride, we've

(01:42:34):
covered it. Talk to farmers. We know a thing or
two because we've seen a thing or two. We are
farmers under written my Farmers truck fire insurance exchanges and
affiliates products not available in every state. Now back to
Cleet Travis in the OutKick the cover studios. We're with
Todd Ferman. Now I'm gonna be on television with him
later today. Furman, Are you with me that Antonio Brown

(01:42:55):
as the mass singer maybe not the greatest sign that
that ever there has been That show is going to
be a tremendous success. Probably not a good recipe for
a long standing viability. There By, Antonio does have a tracker,
could have having been on Dancing with the Stars, and
who knows, maybe the Fox execut decided to bump this
up given all the drama surrounding Antonio in the sports world,

(01:43:15):
as the Pittsburgh Steelers have become the biggest drama story
in the NFL this side of the Kardashian If you
were a GM for the Pittsburgh Steelers and you had
to make a decision about how to respond to Antonio
Brown's ridiculousness, what would you do? I mean, it's a
tough spot because you look at the salary cap hit
that this team is gonna take. I mean, they've committed
so much to him being that face of the organization.

(01:43:38):
But when you're not getting along with the starting quarterback
and we know Big Ben is on his last legs.
We're not quite sure how Mike Tomlin has even been
able to retain his job this long given the underachievement
we've seen from the team. I think you begin to
explore every single option at your disposal to be done
with Antonio Brown, because once you lose the locker room
and you don't feel that you can go to war

(01:43:58):
so to speak, every single Sunday with the eyes around you.
I mean, he was the one that came out in
support of Lavy and Bell rather than taking the side
of every other teammate. The writing was on the wall,
and then this situation just says, hey, maybe take the
capit shop him around and send him off to San Francisco, Tampa.
Lord knows who wants to pick up his contract. Knowing
Antonio has all the talent in the world but brings

(01:44:18):
a ton of baggage with it as well, what do
you think, uh, the when you think about the overall
kind of landscape of available coaching jobs right like, there
are eight different jobs that are open right now. If
you were advising you, you know the talent the rosters
pretty well. If you were advising all of the coaches
out there that are considering these jobs right now. You

(01:44:40):
have the Bengals, the Broncos, the Cardinals, the Jets, the Browns,
the Dolphins, the Bucks, and the Packers. What's the best
job out there if your goal is to win early
and then also maintain obviously your job. For me, it's
not even close. And the only question you have to
ask yourself is do you have the right personality to
measure with b Aaker Mayfield? Because the Cleveland Browns talent wise,

(01:45:03):
have all of their key contributors that are under the
age of thirty, this roster is poised to win as
early as next season. We saw all the momentum they
finished the campaign with. You have a running back you
can build around. You have some wide receiver talent. I
like the pieces they have on the defensive side of
the ball. The Cleveland Browns, right now, from top to
bottom of all the coaching availabilities, make the most sense.
But what's interesting about it, Clay, you kind of have

(01:45:25):
your pick of young quarterbacks if you don't feel comfortable
with the Browns. Is Sam Donalds your guy? Do you
think he's headed in the right direction? Maybe it goes there.
Arizona another young quarterback in its own right, as well
as Josh Rosen and then of course the Packers a
first ballot Hall of Famer Aaron Aaron Rodgers. But you
have to have a strong personality. I think I'm gonna
be very curious to see how all of this ultimately

(01:45:45):
plays out. The one organization that I'd be very leery
of going to UH I don't see a lot of
talent in Denver, aside from maybe von Miller and some
of their young receivers. I don't like having to deal
with case Keenum and then John Elway. His track record
speaks for itself. If it wasn't for Peyton Manning, we'll
be talking about firing a legend that had nothing to
his name as a general manager of that organization. Wild

(01:46:07):
Card Weekend coming up. Two games on Saturday, two games
on Sunday. Which is the best game to bet for me?
I think it's a late game on Saturday night and
at Seattle against Dallas. I look at the Cowboys and
they're a little bit undervalued in the betting market, given
how they struggled in their final three games of the
season once they knew that they only had to win
one out of the last three, whether it was resting players,

(01:46:29):
whether it was not tipping their hand. As far as
offensive game plan, the Cowboys look like a pretty average
football team. Meanwhile, Seattle, they've been one of the more
dynamic offenses since Week ten. I know you talked about
it yesterday on the show about Russell Wilson and Pete
Carroll being such a tough tandum to go against. But
I think Dallas the most complete football team. Nobody expects
them really to win the game, even with them as

(01:46:50):
one one and a half point favorite. But I think
the Cowboys will run the football with Ezekiel Elliott, they'll
play defense well enough, and we'll be talking about them
finally shedding that mantra of being underachievers as they move
on to the Divisional round. All the teams playing in
the wild Card round are underdogs to advance to the
super Bowl. If you had to pick one team that's
playing in the wild Card round to make the Super Bowl,

(01:47:12):
who would it be? For me? I think it comes
from the first game on Sunday. That winner of the
Chargers Ravens game probably has a lot of the pieces
you'd like to see to make a deep run to
the postseason. The Chargers, of course, with Philip Rivers at
thirty seven years old, trying to finally get over the hump,
as he has all time record for passing yards, wins,
and a lot of other key metrics, never having played

(01:47:33):
in a conference championship game. Meanwhile, Baltimore, on the other side,
number one in the league in yards per game allowed.
From a defensive standpoint, they can run the ball as
well as anybody, and I know you've talked about it,
create links. How will the Ravens fair if they find
themselves in a deficit of more than one score? With
Mr Jackson being somewhat one dimensional, I trust coach hardball,
and amongst active NFL head coaches right now, he has

(01:47:55):
the second best win percentage in the postseason, behind only
Bill Belichick. This is Ravens team that's tough to prepare for,
and I think that they have everything going for them
right now, highlighted by a defense it's only on the
field for about fifty three snaps per game, meaning they're
plenty well arrested. Colts are taking on the Texans. They
won the last time they played there. They lost in
overtime thirty seven to thirty four back in early October.

(01:48:19):
So this is uh, these are two teams that are
pretty evenly matched. I like the Colts. What do you
expect here? I lean towards the Colts with you as well.
I don't think there is a ton of wibber room
with this number now sitting at the Houston Texans minus one.
You look at this Colts team and since Week seven,
best record in the league at nine and one, the
only blemish coming at the hands of the Jacksonville Jaguars,

(01:48:41):
best point differential during that span at plus one seventeen.
They extend drives better than any team in the league.
Number one ranks third down offense, and they actually have
one of the league's top scoring defenses over the last
ten games as well, led by a hot coaching candidate
in his own right, and Matt eber Flews t Y
Helton should be able to go. Ryan Kelly a full
participant in practice. So the Coast check a lot of

(01:49:02):
the key boxes. The one fear I have Clay with
the Coast is their inexperience. Twenty four the fifty three
players on the active roster are in their first or
second NFL season. Only fifteen have ever participated in a
playoff game, and while Deshaun Watson will make his playoff debut.
On the other side, there are a lot of these
Houston Texans that have been there, done that, even with
some question marks in the secondary, if things start rolling

(01:49:24):
in the positive direction for them, How will the Colts
handle adversity if Andrew Luck can't do everything you'd like
to as far as slicing and dicing in the passing game.
Last question on the wild card around the final game
Sunday afternoon will be Eagles Bears. What to you stands
out here? This is the only game that's over a
field goal, by the way, a lot of really tight

(01:49:45):
lines in these games, and then the Bears are a
six point favorite. Is that too many for me? It's
the fact that you have an inexperienced quarterback laying almost
a touchdown against the team who's playing with house money
at this juncture in the campaign. They were ad five
to one Philadelphia to win the Super Bowl at bet
online dot a g back in early December, and we
all wrote them off for debt. Meanwhile, the Bears, we

(01:50:07):
know what this defense can do, and they rank across
the board as a number one defense and a lot
of the most important metrics highlighted by their scoring defense,
their Rundee takeaways, passerrating aloud, yards for played allout, and
defensive touchdowns where they have six. First time, they'll lead
in yards per game allowed in defensive touchdown since But
can they create short field? Are they able to score

(01:50:29):
on that defensive side of the ball, Because if they're not,
and you talked about this in greater detail, Mitchell Robinsky
hasn't exactly been the but most dynamic quarterback over the
last couple of weeks, so much of the pressure is
gonna fall in Jordan Howard and Tariko wouldn't shocked me
in the least. The Bears win the football game, but
the Eagles ultimately cover the final game of wild card weekend.
How do you play the final game of the college

(01:50:51):
football season? Alabama around to five and a half or
six point favorite over under sixty in this game that's
taken place out in Santa clar on Monday. For me,
it was all about grabbing a number. Initially when some
a lot of the books opened at seven. Didn't think
that price was gonna last, so figured I'd grab a
piece of Clemson there. Now that being said, I'm not
sure Clemson will ultimately grow to become the side, and

(01:51:13):
I have some questions about their secondary and how they'll
hold up against this Alabama passing attack. But this is
a venue where I don't think you're going to see
vertical passing games on full display. I know you'll be
in attendance, and I'm curious to get a weather forecast,
since we know that is a key crux in the
way that you handicap all of your football. But these
two teams know each other as well as anybody else,

(01:51:33):
and for the first time in the rubber match in
the National Championship, Clemson enters with a better defense, Alabama
probably with a more dynamic offense. And I can tell
you from a sports book perspective, the best case scenario
for them would be an Alabama cover. But excuse me,
Clemson cover and Alabama winning outright, Because when the general
public bets a championship game or any game of this magnitude,

(01:51:56):
they don't want the underdog with the points. They're looking
for that huge payout and they don't really want to
try and run away a money line with Alabama. So
when shock me at off, we're talking about Alabama winning
a national title with this game following somewhere in that
thirty to twenty seven range. It's supposed to be cold,
and the ticket market is awful. Um. You know, you
can get in for a hundred and forty a hundred
and fifty dollars, which is way below what the usual

(01:52:17):
ticket face value is. So if you're interested listening out
there right now, this is probably the best number you're
ever going to see in terms of costs to get in.
Todd Ferman, I will see you later on the television
program for thirty Eastern three thirty Central to thirty Mountain one,
thirty Pacific on f S one. Talk to you them man.
Looking forward to my friend and can go follow him

(01:52:38):
on Twitter at Todd Furman. He's on an absolute role
right now, by the way, with his gambling picks, just
dunking all over me and cousin sal Uh. Final segment
of the show, Thursday edition coming up next. Uh. I
will tell you why I think the Browns You heard
Todd say it too, Why I think the Browns are
by far the best available coaching job. This is Oucape

(01:52:59):
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Brown's I think are the best job by far of
the eight available jobs open. I ranked them earlier in

(01:53:41):
the show. If you're just joining us, I go in
this order for the eight available NFL jobs, Browns, Jets, Packers,
then Cardinals, Broncos, Bengals, Dolphins, Bucks. That's my eight right now.
As we move into the college, uh maybe maybe the
college market. With Brian Kelly potentially interested in that Buck's job,

(01:54:03):
we'll see whether or not he moves. I can see
that making sense because I feel like he's reached the
apex of what he can achieve at Notre Dame. Then
that would, to me open up a really intriguing possibility
of Urban Meyer, who says he's never going to coach again,
being offered ten million dollars to take the Notre Dame job.
Would be really funny if he said, if he immediately
flipped jobs and uh and took Notre Dame. Um. But

(01:54:26):
in addition to all of that that is going on,
we also have not gotten an update in a while
from the King of Los Angeles. Of course, I mean
Lebron James. Let's get in l a Braun update, cub
the music boys l Hey, I got, I got, I
got I got from the first show in the country
to predict hashtag future Laker. Instead of three hours of it,

(01:54:50):
Clay Travis captures all the mania in three minutes. Lebron
has picked up the circus tent and it has followed
him wherever he is gone. Lebron, but I'm gonna giving it.
Danny G's gonna give us an update here. But last
night I was actually up late and I watched some
of this game. Lebron is still not playing with the
groin injury, but the Lakers lose to Oklahoma City. Russell

(01:55:13):
Westbrook went three for twenty from the floor, and yet
Oklahoma City still got the win. Oklahoma City right now
in the three spot in the Western Conference. The Lakers
have fallen all the way down to number eight. So
if the season we're ending today, the Lakers would be
the last playoff team to get in there, a game

(01:55:36):
and a half up on Sacramento right now in the
final spot. Danny G What have you else have you
got for me in l a Bron? Yeah, Lakers did
pay a big price for that blowout win over the
Warriors on Christmas Day in Oakland. Lebron remains day to
day with that strained groin. He's gonna miss several more
games as the Lakers take a patient approach with his injury,

(01:55:58):
of course, due to his age and uh, you know,
you need a couple of practices before you get cleared also,
so he's definitely gonna be out for another week or so.
Last night, as you mentioned, Westbrook wasn't he was jacking
up shots, but Paul George and the crew were still
able to beat the Lakers one O seven one. By
the way, during introductions, the Staples Center crowd let Paul

(01:56:19):
George here it with booze raining down on George because
obviously he didn't choose the Lakers. The Lakers are now
one and three without Lebron and Rondo, who's also injured.
Tomorrow night, Lakers will host the New York Knicks, so
even their backups can probably beat New York well the
next seven games as I look at their schedule for
the Lakers or against teams with losing records. So there

(01:56:41):
really is no pressure at this point to bring back
Lebron James because I think worst case scenario in those
seven they probably go what five and two, four and three,
So it's not like they're gonna fall that much out
of the contention, and you could probably ease back Lebron
pretty easily against this stretch of games. Again, me, they'll
lose some of them, but I think four and three,

(01:57:02):
five and two probably the worst case scenario down the stretch,
considering the next seven games are all against teams with
losing records. So that was what was going on last night.
In addition to that, we have got the drama of
Antonio Brown, which is how we have been covering UH,
the story we've been covering I would say the most
UH today on the show, and we put up the

(01:57:25):
poll question. I'm gonna pull up the most recent update
for you can always go find me on Twitter at
Clay Travis and see what we're talking about here. Sixteen
thousand of you have voted in the poll question so far,
and the question was if you ran the Steelers, how
would you handle Antonio Brown not showing up for the
final game of the season. Fifty six percent of you

(01:57:47):
say you would trade him, thirty percent of you say
you would find and keep him, twelve percent of you
say you would release him. All of that in play
as we come down the home stretch of of the
offseason now for the Steelers, lots to be determined, lots

(01:58:07):
of drama going on. Will we see that interview with
James Harrison that would be certainly very intriguing, And also, uh,
will we get any other Steeler players talking out as
this season progresses? And frankly, does any of the pressure
get ratcheted up to Mike Tomlin, Because at some point,
if you allow your star receiver to walk out on

(01:58:30):
the team and not play, that's on Mike Tomlin. And
I understand Mike Tomlin if he feels like he has
to make a decision between his Hall of Fame quarterback
or his probably Hall of Fame wide receiver, you go
with the Hall of Fame quarterback. But something is fractured
in the way that the Steelers are being run right now,

(01:58:51):
and ultimately I think it circles back on Mike Tomlin.
He is running the Steelers franchise in a very Unsteelers fashion.
The Rooney family for so long represented everything that was
right about the NFL, no drama, and now the Steelers
are filled with the most divas and the most dramas,
potentially the most drama of anybody in the NFL. I

(01:59:14):
think that falls back on the head coach, Mike Tomlin,
and easy lies the head that wears the coaching set.
We'll see whether that falls on Tomlin soon

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