3 and Out - Seahawks are CRUSHING Hard Knocks + Kevin O'Connell on Vikings QB Battle

In this episode, John reacts to the 2nd episode of HBO Hard Knocks with the Seattle Seahawks and reacts to the viral vlip of head coach Mike McDonald. Next, John dives into Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell's thinking into his QB decision. Later, John dives into the Middlekauff Mailbag to answer your football questions. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. What is going on everybody? How are we doing?
John Middlecoff three and out podcast. Hopefully everyone is doing well. Today.

(00:22):
Is gonna be more fugazi Friday, because there's gonna be
no podcast on Friday, even though it's Thursday. Obviously, the preseason,
the games, I mean, are they just a big fugazi?
According to Rodgers, they kind of are. And Sean McVay,
I think part of that is the is the joint practice.
But it's a couple of quick thoughts on hard knocks.
JJ McCarthy, Kayler Murray. We'll talk a little preseason football

(00:44):
and then we'll answer some questions so that there'll be
no Friday show. I'm just traveling and just not gonna
work out, so and I don't want to do a
podcast not reacting some of the stuff that happens on
Thursday night, which we got football. We got football on
Thursday night, and I think Fernando Mendoza got the forty
nine ers playing the Titans, so I saw I said

(01:06):
that the starters are gonna play. So the bad teams
Dolphins are like starters are playing. All the good teams
are like nobody's dressing. So yeah, we'll talk some football
today and then I'll be back on what day. I'll
record something on Sunday for Monday. That will whatever. Hopefully
some fun stuff happens this weekend and then we'll react

(01:26):
to it. But you guys know the drill. If you
want to get in the mail bag at John Middlecoff
at John Middlecoff is the Instagram fire in those dms.
You want to watch us, you can check us out
on Netflix. Just hit the alert button. You'll never miss
a show. I post stuff. I did something yesterday on
the YouTube channel. You can check that out as well.
And if you listen on Collin's feed, you can just

(01:48):
subscribe to three and Out and you'll never miss an episode.
So I appreciate everyone that has done that and probably
hurt a lot of me if you listen to Colin
show too, because I've been chiming in there. So it's
a lot of middle Cooff on that feed this week.
But dive into some football. I do want to start
with Hard Knocks because what I remember going on a
rant a couple of years ago on this podcast, like
I'm out it is no longer for me, Like the

(02:12):
Hard Knocks is not for me, and that's Okay, not
everything in the sports world is for me. I love golf,
Netflix full Swing, like it kind of bored me after
a year like that. There are some content within this
space that I don't necessarily care about. It doesn't mean
that it's not interesting to some of you. It doesn't

(02:34):
mean that a lot of people haven't been watching this show.
I don't think they would continue it just for shits
and giggles, like it clearly draws eyeballs and is a
big deal for the league, is a big deal for HBO,
is a big deal for NFL films, and I respect
the production of it, even if there are years where

(02:54):
it's like I try to watch them like I don't
care and it kind of hit me watching it. Two
things really jumped out first and foremost on a sunny
day in the Pacific Northwest. It their practice facility. I
haven't been to every single one in the league, but
there can't be a more beautiful setting than their practice
fields that are on a lake with the redwoods behind it.

(03:17):
And I understand, many many months it's dreary, cloudy, rainy,
it can be ugly there, but during August, when the
sun's out, fucking place looks like a Lake Tahoe or something.
The forty nine ers practicing a data center, they're practicing
on a lake. I mean, geez weeks, what a beautiful environment.
And two, like part of the reason this works typically,

(03:41):
you know, the rule used to be playoff teams could
avoid it, teams with new coaches could avoid it. So
it was just always shitty teams with a coach on
the hot seat, and it was a lot of times
like this is kind of boring, you know, if you
think about the last handful of years, the Jets year
was the only decent year, but a huge reason for
that is they had just traded for Aaron Rodgers, so

(04:02):
they hope they built the four episodes on the acquisition
of this guy that had a couple of years previously
had won back to back MVP. Is one of the
greatest players in league history. If Aaron, if it wasn't
Aaron Rodgers, and it was no shade of this guy,
I respect him, but like Jacoby Brissett, you know, or
Gardner Minshew or who just insert random quarterback X like

(04:23):
that season would have sucked. And I think part of
the reason that I've been so drawn to this is
the NFL is a television show first and foremost, Right,
this is entertainment, and it happens to be the number
one television show currently in America. Of all the top
onered one hundred and fifty broadcasts, like ninety plus percent

(04:46):
of them are NFL games, right, And they're not all Sunday,
Monday and Thursday night games. I mean we're talking just
random games on Sunday. It's the number one television show
currently in America. And in any television show, right, I
think historically some of the biggest shows, they have stars,
and those stars make the most money. And in the NFL,
the biggest stars are the quarterbacks. And it's been that

(05:08):
way my entire life, even before the NFL has gained
in popularity to go to another stratosphere like it has
in the last ten, fifteen to twenty years. Right, But
when I was a kid, John Lway, Joe Montana to
Dan Marino transitioned right into farv and young and it
hasn't stopped since. Right, And Sam Darnold, we can argue

(05:30):
where he ranks, but if you just go on base
on the last two years and you're watching hard Knocks,
you're going this fun guy's pretty good. I don't think
it was a third pick randomly. He's a star in
the NFL. And the other thing that football, and I've
been saying this for a while, is like part of
the reason I think there was so much equality in
the popularity. Like when I was a kid in the

(05:51):
nineties of baseball, basketball and football. Is a manager in baseball,
a basketball coach in the NBA, and an NFL football coach,
they were all really famous. Well, now most teams want
to pay baseball managers like seven hundred grand that's what
a running back coach makes. In the SEC. Basketball coaches
like don't have the same juice. There aren't as many

(06:13):
rip don Nelson's, pat Riley's, Phil Jackson's. It's a lot
of random guys that unless you're a huge basketball fan,
you've never even heard of. I'm watching the Thunder and
the Spurs. You're having to google who their coaches are.
Because the front office now runs the sport. Well, the
front office during the games, which are the entertainment, you know,

(06:37):
portion of the business, are in a suit in a
suite or sitting in the stamps. And in football, the
coaches make a ton of money, are huge stars. Talk
to the media three to four days a week and
are prominent figures, and we're pretty lucky right now. A

(06:57):
large percentage of them are young hotshots, and Mike McDonald
falls under that category. So you're watching a team that
just won the Super Bowl, that has a star coach,
a sending quarterback who we have a long history with, struggled,
turned his career around, played at USC, So we've been

(07:17):
hearing his name since he was nineteen twenty years old,
and I think that has played a big, big role.
And the other thing is there was a clip that
went viral of Mike McDonald screaming at Derek Hall, who.
You know, it's a tough time just in training camp

(07:37):
in general, but definitely the first couple of days when
you're not in paths but you're trying to go like
eighty ninety percent and the offensive and defensive linemen are
kind of getting after it but kind of not really,
and there's always a couple guys maybe going a little
too hard and you get a little close to the
quarterback and the coach gets pissed off and Mike lights
him up. And I've been hearing forever. Helped since I

(08:00):
as a kid. If you're older than me. Your generation
heard it too, is this generation is soft, and it's
part of it is social media. All you ever see
is this new generation essentially is a bunch of pussies.
They are the softest generation ever. And my take has
always been every generation is different, and you can find soft,

(08:22):
weak people in every single one. Now, you could argue
there's maybe more now than ever. That's probably a product
of there's never been a better time to live on
this planet than literally currently. But I also think that ambitious,
driven people are just not going to be and this
is part of the culture of football, just like part

(08:45):
of the culture of any of you guys, whatever industry
you work on or work in and work with people
that want to do things that are hard, that want
to be successful, that have ambitions of continuing to go
our type A personalities. People get screamed at, and you
know what, not all of us like it. I've been

(09:07):
screamed at. Many of you have been screamed at. It's
not ideal at the time, but like it comes with
the territory and you shake it off, and you know what,
you're probably gonna get screamed at again, especially when you're
young up and coming in certain businesses like not everyone
just hold your hands and sings Kumbaya. That's not the
real world. We don't live in a utopia. We live

(09:27):
in a place that if you want to work with
other alphas, it's probably gonna get contentious. Right. There's there's
a famous quote that I learned early on in football,
like there's no growth without confrontation. That's coach on coach,
that's coach on player, that's player on player, that's player
on coach. I mean, it goes every way. It's no

(09:49):
different than you know, growing up with your parents, Like
early on, they shouldn't be your friends, right, they're raising you. Right,
as you get older than your relationship with them can change.
No different than you know, a relationship as I see,
like raising a child. Now, granted he's only seven months,
but there's gonna come a day when I'm gonna have
to say things that he's not gonna like when he's

(10:10):
five years old, when he's eight years old, when he's
twelve years old, And I hope I have to do
that because that means he's pushing the limits, which I'm
kind of rooting for him to do. And so far
it looks like he's probably going to but I just
see this on social media, this doom and gloom. Like
the number one piece of advice I would give any
young person right now is like, don't spend too much

(10:32):
time on that that they want to make you seem
like everything's about to fucking crumble. I mean, and if
social media had been instead of around ten twenty years,
had been around one hundred years, it would have been
like this forever because that creates a motion that keeps
people on the phone. And the number one thing you
see a lot right now, or one of the top things,

(10:53):
is so many different thoughts about this young generation, this
young generations all over the NFL. I read an article
today on Ben Johnson, who is just a nut job
in a good way. Now, Listen, all football coaches are like,
you can not coach football, high school, high level college,
the NFL without just being nuts. I mean, it comes

(11:15):
with the territory and you don't sleep much. Ben Johnson,
according to his article, drinks six cups of coffee a
day and a cold brew. Like God, this guy's right
up my alley. I love just caffeine intake guy, but
he's constantly screaming at people his coaches, he's getting on

(11:37):
as players like, it's just a tense environment. That's football,
that's finance. I have worked construction, that's farming. That's a
lot of different businesses. And I just think that young
people want to be pushed. People that want to achieve
things want to kick in the ass the other. You know.

(11:59):
Sometimes it doesn't mean when you get it you're gonna
have a huge smile on your face and say thanks
for the constructive criticism or human beings. But I just
I read this all the time, and I got to
push back and say, yeah, maybe there's a larger percentage
than ever that are quote unquote week that's welcome to

(12:19):
the jungle. Those people typically get eaten in time, you know,
and the strong will survive and the cream will rise
at the top. Football is no different, you know, it
really is. It's no different than why, you know, a
six round pick within a couple of years is running
circles around the second round pick. An undrafted free agent
by the end of camp is above the third round

(12:40):
pick in the depth chart. You know, this is this
is a doggy dog world. Football is a dog eat
dog sport. And these coaches, you know, it's like, well,
you gotta be a little softer now with this generation.
I'm watching hard knocks. Mike McDonald, who I thought was
like a player's coach, is just fucking lightening up one
of his craziest guys, lightening them up without hesitation, saying

(13:03):
this is my fucking practice. Do you know what? It's
reminded me of something like John Gruden would say, something
like Belichick would say. Reading this article on Ben Johnson
seems the exact same, you know, and that you can't
go to a practice without seeing assistant coaches at countless positions,

(13:24):
and I would include college too. Just writing guys. They're
not writing guys just to be an a whole. They're
writing guys to push them to be better. That's part
of the business that they're in. And I think we all,
most of us, maybe there are some that are so
self driven, never make a mistake, or detail oriented, they
need zero push. Hey, I need a kick in my

(13:46):
ass every once in a while. I get it now
for my wife, and I was like, sometimes she says,
I'm to be kind of mad at that. I was
thinking like, nah, she's right, she's not wrong, And I
think it's extremely helpful. The other thing is the JJ

(14:18):
McCarthy Kyler Murray. I saw this clip today. I guess
there's I'm not I've seen clips. I've never listened to
the podcast Tom Segura and his wife, the comedian, I
guess they got a divorce. They did a podcast together
and he gave some things of like, you know this
news that came out, we had been dealing with it
for months, and anyone that's ever broken up with somebody,

(14:42):
anyone that's ever got a divorce, like the day so
and so got a divorce wasn't the first time they
started thinking about it. Like the moment you serve someone
with papers, isn't the day you're like, yeah, I'm ready
for this to end. Right, The moment you dump or
get dumped is not the moment that that thought crosses
the other person mind. It's usually something that's been building up.

(15:03):
So yesterday when JJ McCarthy it was told like, yeah,
you're not gonna be the starting quarterback. Do you think
Kevin O'Connell just came to that conclusion the day before
or do you think he came to that conclusion as
he sat on a beach and had some beers Over
the course of the summer and realized, like I already
knew where I was leaning, because isn't that the way
most of us do things, Like we have a gut feel,

(15:25):
we have an intuition, we have thoughts, and we lean
a certain way. Now it doesn't mean we want more information.
He was going to try to be open minded, but
you cannot convince me that after what he had witnessed
over the course of last year, which was an abomination
over JJ McCarthy, that this wasn't like a guy that

(15:46):
had played seven games in college, multi year starter on
a team with playing in front of crowds of one
hundred thousand people, playing the biggest game of the year
back to back years against Ohio State, multiple playoff games.
I mean he played Alabama obviously, I guess who they played.
They played national championship against Washington and Kaylin do bores
now at Alabama? And I just think that some guys

(16:09):
have it and some guys don't. We talked about it
today on Collin Show, like development, I think we all improve.
Like I come from cal Poly, which keep an eye
out for that football program this year, and the motto
of our school was learned by doing and as at
the time when I was at college, I didn't even honestly,

(16:29):
I probably didn't even understand what that truly meant. And
as you get older, you come to really appreciate that.
And some people We all learn differently, right like in football,
for example, some people need to w rep it on
the field. Some guys can learn just through a walk through.
Some guys can pick everything up just on a hard
playbook or their iPad right or the film room. We

(16:51):
all consume information differently, like when something comes. If we
ordered a playpen recently, for Jack, it's no different than
a ordering a vacuum. Whatever we order to our house.
If she's gonna put it together, she gets the hard
copy of the directions. At this point in time in

(17:11):
twenty twenty six, if you hand me the directions, like
of something that needs a little time to put together,
it could be a dresser, it could be a vacuum,
it could be the playpen, it would take me triple
the time to put that thing together. The first thing
I do in twenty twenty six is type in to
YouTube construction of blank. And I'm a visual learner, and

(17:36):
I just think that you look at this situation and
he goes yeah, this guy's just not gonna be good enough.
Oh yeah, we plan a division with Jared Goff, who
has led the league in touchdowns and passing yards for
the last four seasons, and it's just well established. It's
just a consistent top eight quarterback in the NFL. Caleb Williams,

(18:00):
who by the end of last year were all like, yeah,
if this guy could just get more consistent, reports are
that he has could win the MVP, if not this
year or within the next couple of years, like that's
his ceiling. And Jordan Love, who just turned himself into
a really solid quarterback. We got no fucking chance with
the guy slinging it all over the air in the

(18:21):
ground right now. Is Kyler the perfect quarterback? No? But
was he one of our best options this offseason? Clearly
to them he was. And this notion that he's getting
crushed because he once upon a time said that organizations
don't let down or quarterbacks don't let down organizations, organizations

(18:43):
let down quarterbacks. There's some truth to that with certain circumstances,
But then there's like, did the forty nine ers let
down Trey lnser Kenny just not play? Did Shane Stiken
let down Anthey Richardson or turns out he just can't play.
Did Kevin O'Connell let down JJ McCarthy or it turned
out he just can't play. This is a very very

(19:05):
competitive environment. It's the cream of the crop. The majority
of the guys in the league right now, of the
ninety guys on every roster, most of them, you know,
are not even gonna be in the league in a
couple of weeks, right or fringe in the league on
a practice squad. And then the guys that make the
fifty three on average. Maybe it's changed a little bit,

(19:28):
but it's like play three and a half four years
in the league. Like the majority of the league is
not Jamar Chase, most of the league is not Trent Williams.
Like a lot of human beings in America are in business,
most of them are not Bezos Si Rila. So it's
like we talk the most about like Joe Burrow, justin
Herbert khalil Mack. Those guys are the outliers in their

(19:48):
own league. Most of the league are random guys that
you don't really know that much about, or just rotation
guys that will be replaced over the course of a
couple of years, like Saquon Barkley is an out player.
You know, most guys are just some random rotational running
back that has to fight every single year for a spot.
And it's very very competitive, and you know, we're dealing

(20:11):
I said this yesterday, We're dealing with human beings. It's
really really hard to judge, and some guys just get overwhelmed.
The other thing is is when you have to make
huge mechanical changes, that's a pretty big red flag, especially
if you have to play like Aaron Rodgers is a
good example. When they drafted him out of Cow he

(20:33):
had the ball really high. It was kind of quirky looking,
and McCarthy and their staff worked on it. But it
was a completely different era and because Brett Favre was
on the team, he got to just red shirt and
just work on his craft and practice constantly for three
years with no pressure. A lot of golfers they change

(20:55):
their swing and they do it constantly on the range,
on the range, on the range, and then they try
to institute it into you know, a tournament, and typically
it takes them several tournaments, some like multiple months to
get a feel for it and feel comfortable with it.
But if you just in the middle of the masters,
try to change your swing on a Wednesday and then

(21:16):
play Thursday, good freaking luck. And last year they tried
to change his mechanics and then he had to start like,
that's not gonna work. It's not, especially when the expectation
is to win, Like if your expectations are really high,
which they were in Minnesota, it's it can you can
get overwhelmed and then I don't care who you are.

(21:37):
You can be the confident or the most confident, cocky
human alive. If you lose your confidence and you're a
young human being who lacks experiences just because you can
only have so many in your early twenties, it's hard
to gain that back quickly, especially when you are told

(21:59):
to lead agree where a lot of guys are older
than you. You start questioning yourself. I don't care who
you are. We all have some insecurities, and for as
you get older, you realize some of them don't matter,
some of you don't even think about, and you just roll.
When you're young, it's easy to get a clouded head
overthink stuff and start questioning your own ability. Why because

(22:22):
how could you not You've never done it on that level.
Josh Allen could have a bad game. Lamar Jackson can
have an awful game. It's much easier for them to
bounce back. Aaron Judge could strike out every at bat
for two weeks straight. It's easy for him to kind
of figure out a way to get it back. It's

(22:42):
much harder if you're making your big league debut and
for the course of the weekend your bat doesn't touch
the ball and all you do is strike out, pop out,
ground out. Start thinking like I'm not gonna be good enough.
It's human nature. So you can't convince me that Kevin
O'Connell just had this idea this week. This is something
that one was on his mind the moment they brought

(23:04):
in Kyler Murray and the moment they went to summer break.
He had to have a pretty good idea. And veteran
players now have a lot of juice. Football used to
be the coach tells you what to do, kind of
like the general in the army, and you just fucking
do it. Whether you're an average player or a future
Hall of Famer, you do exactly what you're told. Those

(23:26):
days are kind of done. Like star players have a
lot of juice if justin Jefferson's telling the coach and
I'm not saying he did, but you'd be naive to
think that he didn't have some opinions like, hey, this,
we can't play with this guy, and Kevin's probably I know,
I know JJ trust me. I got this question. I
wanted to go into it, but this will kind of

(23:47):
lead into what I want to talk about. This is
from Robert You think preseason football gets too much hate.
First off, it's the first live NFL football we get
on broadcast in months. Secondly, it gives us a chance
to see rookie quarterbacks and other players in their first
reps playing in the NFL, and diehard fans who love
the NFL draft and roster construction, you get to see

(24:10):
live competitions for roster spots play out in real time.
It doesn't have the stakes of regular season, obviously, but
it has a lot of value in different ways. One,
it's just great content to have on your TV in
the background. You know, if you're a Raider fan, when
Fernando Mendoz is playing, it's awesome, Or you know Carson
becks in there and you're Cardinal fan, or rookie players,

(24:31):
rookie skill guys. It's really good. The second half can
be tough. But I wrote this down because you know,
there are certain things in preseason games that are a
legitimate fugazi that when the preseason ends and you're a
fan of the Dallas Cowboys or the Minnesota Vikings or whoever,

(24:54):
and you go, I just saw that guy in three
games ran for four hundred yards and they cut him.
How's that possible? So I wrote down a couple of things,
stuff that matters and stuff that doesn't matter when it
comes to these preseason games because you're going to see
it for the next three or four nights. I think
they are games on Sunday. There's definitely games Thursday, Friday
and Saturday. You can see my NFL network Guy Aberman

(25:16):
on the forty nine er call forty nine or Titans,
which I heard cam Ward was a little not great
in the joint practice. But everything in preseason is context,
especially now, a lot of these veteran guys don't play right.
There's just no point. I think these joint practices have

(25:37):
kind of replaced the preseason. They didn't really exist when
I first got in the league. I don't remember them
happening at all twenty ten range. So before that, I
think it was maybe certain coaches that were like best friends.
But they are just common. There's a common theme right

(25:57):
now in August. Whoever you're playing, in the first couple
of games, you liak up with their coach, whether you
know him or you don't, and you just practice against them.
And I think they believe that they can get more
out of those and they also can utilize their starters
in those moments in more of a controlled environment against

(26:18):
another real team, and then they don't have to play
them in the regular or the preseason. And so that's
where I really think, because it's like, well, McVeigh set
the trend. Well, McVeigh does multiple joint practices a year.
He just did joint practice with the Cowboys, so for
two days he runs out his starters against another team
and then those guys don't play. But it's not like, well,

(26:39):
they just know they get a ton of reps against
another opponent. He just doesn't put him in the game situation.
So you got to be very very careful. I was at, well,
let's just start with what matters in a preseason game.
This is not a fugazi. This is a non negotiable
for every team because most of these guys are either

(26:59):
trying to make their way onto the first team or
probably kind of make the team, like hold on to
their second Because if you're a backup, right there are
twenty two starters, well there's forty four guys if they're
twenty two right backups, which it's not really that simple,
but let's just play an easy game of math. Then
you've got a couple of special teams guys right kicker,

(27:20):
a punter, a long snapper, a couple other specialty guys
like specific kick returner, you know, maybe a couple designated
guys in each position, like this guy only rushes the
passer or this is you know, I maybe we just
keep more guys at a certain position, but you only

(27:42):
keep fitting your guys in the roster, and how many
guys are down come game day, like seven or eight,
depending on like how you do with the emergency quarterback,
so you don't have that many guys dressed on game day.
Which if you look at a college sideline, which we'll
start here in a couple of weeks, there's a million
fucking people, especially home games, like if you just look
at like a Penn State or Ohio State or Alabama

(28:04):
home game, their sideline is packed. If you get an
NFL sideline, ton of room. Ain't that many guys, especially
on the road, you probably you might not have taken
your practice squad guys. There's a lot of breathing room.
And one thing that matters, and this matters at every
level of football, but specifically because every team. Here's how
the preseason works from a scouting perspective. Every team breaks

(28:27):
it up through their pro scouts. Some college scouts help
their GM, their assistant GM kind of their personnel staff
at the office, and every group takes or every individual takes,
maybe five to eight teams, and for every guy that
was drafted in the fourth round through the seventh round,
and then all the undrafted free agents on the team,
and then maybe practice squad guys from the year before,

(28:49):
and then veteran guys who are in danger of getting cut.
You evaluate them through the preseason and really throughout the month.
You are following them on the internet, on Twitter, on
the local newspapers and just keeping tabs of all the information.
So then when the cuts happen, you've evaluated all the players.
Ideally like eighty to ninety percent of the guys gonna

(29:11):
get cut. Your personnel department has favorites at certain positions,
your positions of need, you know, if you need a
corner and a guard. You kind of take that group
of all your evaluations and you hope some of your
highest graded guys hit the waiver wire and then you
try to try to land them right. And that's a
huge part of this process. But when you evaluate, like

(29:35):
if you want to make the team, if you want
to stand out, this sounds so remedial, but you'd be shocked.
Like play your ass off, play really really hard. And
the only way to play really really hard is like
you got to be in shape. But if you're not
in shape, you can't really play hard. But like doing
the little things get you noticed. You know, when you're

(29:56):
a backside end and they're running right and you're on
the left side, if you like, keep chasing the guy
down even if you don't make the tackles, Like god,
this guy plays balls to the wall. If you're a
dB or linebacker and you come across the field even
if you don't make the tackle, but it's like this
guy never gives up. If you're a running back and
that you just your legs, never stop on contact, like

(30:18):
this guy runs fucking his ass off a wide receiver
just when it comes to blocking, like never lets go
and never stops his feet. Like those are the things
that jump out on tape. It's really true because production,
and this is where it doesn't matter, is all in context.
The first NFL game I ever attended was a preseason

(30:40):
game in my entire life was Jets Giants. I went
with Lewis Riddick. We went kind of on a I
guess scouting mission. You know, a lot during this time
of year, your scouts go and watch preseason games live.
And this guy from UMass, undrafted free agent, had like
two hundred yards and three touchdowns. His name was Victor Cruz.

(31:01):
I remember, he's making guys miss, he's running by guys.
It was like, this is incredible, But just because you
produce does not mean it's good production. Like you could
have a forty yard touchdown run where the whole parts
like the red sea, the safety trips and no one
even touches you. And this guy just had a forty

(31:23):
yard touchdown run. And on paper it looks incredible, but
in actuality. It's nothing like you would see in a
game where there might be a run in the same
game where a guy gains like six yards, is hit
behind the line of scrimmage, stiff arms the linebacker, and
runs through a tackle. It's like, infinitely better run. I

(31:44):
remember a lot of times because you print out the
leading production guys during this time of year, and you
gotta be careful with sacks. It's like, hey, this guy's
got three sacks through two games, and then you watch them.
Two of them, no one touches them, and the other
one it's a guy that's gonna be selling insurance in
a week. Barely even touched him, and all three times

(32:05):
the quarterback got killed. And then there's another guy who
doesn't have a sack but is constantly pressuring the quarterback,
is running through defensive lineman, is showing moves, is stunts,
is like Ben in the edge is just is playing inside,
is playing outside. It's much more versatile, So you gotta
be very, very careful because the level of competition. It's

(32:29):
easy to watch Fernando Mendoza handle Ohio State or Miami, like,
how can he handle the pressure of I don't know
all these guys that are gonna get drafted in the NFL.
You don't want to evaluate Fernando Mendoza playing William and Mary.
You want to watch him against Ohio State, against Oregon,
against Miami because that level of competition is the most parallel.
It's harder in the preseason because you're like, could be

(32:52):
the third quarter who these guys playing? Are all these guys?
Some of these guys aren't even gonna make practice squads.
So just because you produce contact with that production matters.
It's why Carson Beck in that Hall of Fame game,
his numbers were good, but it really was more of
an eye test. It's like calm in the pocket, stepped up,
got rid of the ball quickly. The same thing with

(33:13):
a quarterback, Like it's less about you throw a couple
of touchdowns. You could throw an interception and just play well,
are you operating the offense? Are you getting out of
your hand when there is pressure? And some of the
pressure might just be people screwing up, so there's unblocked
guys coming at you. Can you just handle chaotic situations
because that happens in the preseason line, I think the

(33:35):
easiest position to watch a guy jump out will kind
of be linebacker him just flying around and making tackles,
you know, shedding blocks sideline the sideline you can feel
his speed. But it's really hard to just say all
production matters because it simply doesn't. I would say does

(33:56):
not matter, would just be like like I said, on
the quarterback, because a lot of people are keeping an
eye like, hey, could there be a quarterback that's gonna
get cut, try to put on a practice squad that
maybe can make the team. It's very, very difficult to
evaluate these guys because who's blocking for him? We have
a problem with starting offensive line. So what do you

(34:16):
think the third string offensive lineman in the fourth quarter
against a bunch of guys that are I mean, this
is gonna be the highlight of some of these defensive
linemen and pass rushers lives making some plays in the preseason.
So the box score with these quarterbacks, you know, is
probably less important, but what matters for them is really

(34:39):
just watching them play. It's pretty I remember going back
to Perty's rookie year, like, this guy's just pretty fucking
natural playing footballer. You know there's something here. Gardner Minshew's
the guy that's played a long time League. You remember
watching them really early on as young players, like, yeah,
this guy just kind of has feel for playing quarterback.
Then you watch other guys, you're like, this is just
there's a lot going on. You know that this is

(35:01):
pretty overwhelming. And at the same time, just because you
play well in a preseason game when there is no
schemed up plays when a lot of offensive coordinators get
like five or six of the defensive coordinator's favorite defenses,
which helps out their young quarterback to make them look better.
See can kind of gash them up. Remember a couple
of years ago, before JJ hurt his knee, JAJ McCarthy

(35:23):
looked incredible in a preseason game. Clearly that didn't matter.
And that's the other thing is you gotta be very
careful of just because a guy starts doesn't mean he's
gonna make the team. So because so many of these
teams now rest a large percentage of guys that they're

(35:45):
gonna keep on their roster, you might get in in
the second quarter. You know, it's like one thousand dollars
used to be a lot, right, one thousand dollars like
doesn't go as far as he used to. You know,
they say, like sixty is like the old forty. Right,

(36:06):
people look and feel younger than they ever have. We're
much healthier country. It's kind of like that in football.
You know a lot of these guys would have been
playing in the third and fourth quarter ten years ago.
Now they might come in the first quarter or same court,
because you just need bodies to play, and you got
to be very very careful about Well, he was just
playing in the second quarter of the last three games.

(36:27):
Now we cut them. What's going on? Yeah, because the
coaches are trying to tell you it doesn't really happen, Yo,

(36:52):
Middle Coup. Do you think the quote quarterback competition in
Minnesota was only stated to try to drive value on JJ.
To me, it seemed to like a load of bs
even from the jump. Everyone in their grandma knew the
plan as soon as they got Kyler to come to
the team. This has pump and dump written all over it. Well,

(37:15):
part of a pump and dump is you need someone
to dump them too. I think he really really tried
to be open minded, because sometimes players just pop right.
Sometimes they do so I think he was probably hoping.
You've seen so many different stories, You've read so many
or heard so many different takes of like QUESTI Kevin

(37:35):
O'Connell who was responsible. There's no way JJ's on the
team if Kevin o'coalle didn't want him. I'm not saying
he was the leading force of the lover of JJ
McCarthy coming out of Michigan, but you can't convince me
that he also wasn't very intrigued in a fan and
on board with the draft pick. Now, listen, it's a
production based business and you can change fast the moment

(37:56):
you think a guy can't play. But it does feel
like he wanted this to work and it just did not.
And I think it's less about pumping and dumping and
more about like they probably knew a week easily ago.
I mean, he probably knew the moment training camp started,
like where he was leaning, but he couldn't say it,

(38:17):
and then he kind of had to give it a
week in pads, like you couldn't just say the day
after pads in day one. But once you get close
to preseason game one, you're like, I don't want to
waste any reps. I don't want to waste one more
second of pretending, because once I pretend on the field,
I'm limiting Kyler and the offense's capability to figure out

(38:39):
exactly what we're good at, what we need to change.
And yeah, I hear what you're saying, but we have
to see how this plays out over the next couple weeks.
I mean, is he traded here soon or did they
just play him in all these preseason games. I don't
know what exactly they're gonna do. Heard you're looking for

(39:04):
right hand man to drive you around for five hundred
thousand dollars a year. Where can I fill out an
app for that position? I said, if I was Tony
Romo or Tiger Woods, I would just pay those guys
five hundred thousand dollars a year to be my right
hand man, like fifty cent and drive me around. I
didn't say I have five hundred thousand dollars to pay

(39:26):
a driver, So no, I am not looking for a driver.
Uh and definitely not at that rate. When I do
need a driver, I can get an uber. So as
of right now, I said, if I were those guys
at their income levels, their net worse. I just think
I would not drive very often at all, And if

(39:48):
I was ever doing anything remotely fun, my right hand
man would be with me, and he'd be driving and
I'd be in the backseat and I take care of him.
We do buddies. We just eat together, tell swap stories,
just get close, you know. But I don't live that life.
But I if I were those guys, I would and
I would avoid all these problems. And I'm also when

(40:11):
I say that about people, because I think it's get
a driver. I do understand, like Tiger Wood's big thing
is like I feel human driving a car. And I
got no issue if you want to like go get
a breakfast burrito, or you wake up and you you know,
you drive to the gym. I am talking though, like
when you're doing business stuff or doing things that are

(40:32):
gonna involve boozing, like playing in these tournaments. And you're
worth hundreds of millions of dollars if you were Tiger,
like a billion dollars, you're a fucking cheap skate. Really,
if you don't have a driver, These NFL owners don't
drive anywhere. How Philip Rivers had a driver from San
Diego up to LA just so we could study the playbook.

(41:01):
So I'm kind of relaxing. You know, you drive so much,
and like down here in La, I get I don't
have a car, so Uber to the studio and then
tomorrow or Uber down to uh well, Fox says, it's
like car service thing that will take me down to
Newport Beach. Sit in the back. It's like if I
did have things to do, like if I if I ran,

(41:23):
like if I was CEO or whoever, I had tangible
things I always had to do, like and but I
was on the road a lot, it'd be a no brainer.
You can be so productive back there, because that's one problem,
and I see it in La. We're just stuck in
traffic all the time. You get nothing done. You hate
so much time commuting. Obviously, you have to be able
to afford that, so it you know, have to be

(41:45):
a certain level. But like to me a driver, once
you hit a certain status of like what your job
required and financially you were doing well, it's just fucking
no brainer. And then you factor, like you like playing
golf tournaments and having a few cocktails. You want to
have a few transfusions. And if you play as shitty

(42:05):
as Tony Romo did in that Wisconsin tournament, maybe six
or seven, it doesn't even matter. You tell the bartender
another round Tony Romost done. I mean that one. We
talked about it yesterday. He's just I don't know how
they're officially gonna handle it. I just we're not seeing

(42:27):
him this year on television. You don't go into Week one.
These networks live and die for the NFL. It's the
lifeblood of their business. And a guy that you're paying
almost twenty million dollars to form, I mean, one of
the most famous people in like the business. We could
argue whether he's good or bad at his job. The

(42:48):
only reason you do this is to get out of this.
This is not one of those like in the NFL,
like this guy's getting spending for two games. This is like,
we want out of this business. No way it would
happen to Collinsworth, Troy Aikman, zero chance. I mean it's
just none Herb Street with college football like zero. They

(43:13):
want out of the Romo business. Question for three and out.
Left tackle is considered one of the most important positions
quarterbacks blind side. If you have a left handed quarterback, though,
does right tackle become more important position because now the
blind side is on the other side? Is that why
the Falcons have two left handed quarterbacks? So they can
mirror their offensive line no matter which one is the starter. Also,

(43:38):
I work at a certain food spot in la It
is the best food delivery in the market. Just clean
food that is also delicious. Just another option I've just been.
I basically just have to take care of dinner and
I just do room service here, which goes to Fox,

(43:58):
which I hope is above bor. Just no one's ever
said anything, uh cheap though, you know, I'm just getting
salads and some burgers and random shit. That's a good question.
It's funny most times when the left handed quarterback is that,
we don't have that many, But when we've had them,
it's not like you move your left tackle to right tackle.

(44:21):
So I think typically historically it was because that's where
the best pass rusher came from. But now so many
of these teams have good pass rushers on the right tackle.
To have a good offensive line, you really need two
really good tackles. Now, if you look around the league,
for the most part, the best tackle is on the

(44:41):
left side lane. Johnson's played his entire career on the
right up until this year, Pine Seul's been on the right.
The Chargers are pretty lucky that they're gonna have, you know,
two bookend tackles because they got Slater, so Alt can
just plaan the right. But it's not like to his bad.
Miami had a bad offensive line, and I guess the

(45:03):
Falcons have just good offensive lineman. I don't know. I
just it's one of those things that I'm sure gets
discussed like internally in some of these buildings, but it's
never really becomes a conversation. It's pretty football nerdy. I
would say, try to think like Steve Young. I don't
even know who the left tackle was that Harris Spartan.

(45:25):
He's probably old by then. Who that Michael Vick? Like
when Michael Vick started, when my first year in Philly
and he had that great season, Jason Peters didn't move
to the right tackle. He'd just stayed on the left.
For probably ninety nine percent of NFL fans, they picked

(45:45):
their favorite team as a kick and rock with them
the rest of their life. But if you could pick
one team to be quote, your team for life, regardless
of location, who would you choose? It's a good question.
I'm probably a bad guy asked, because who's ever good

(46:07):
is who I watched the closest and talk the most about.
Because of this job, I don't really have the opportunity
to go to games anymore because Sunday is a long
work day. We do podcasts after Thursday and Monday, so
it's not like I would have the opportunity to go
to games any differently than I would now. I here,

(46:29):
I'm gonna go with the curveball like football, I don't.
It doesn't matter to me. I just I want the
best stories. I want the shit that's gonna interest the
most people. I truly just whatever's best for this business.
It does. I would pick the baseball or basketball. I
think I would just pick the Yankees. Like I don't

(46:52):
like the Yankees now. I mean, I don't have anything
against them, but it would just be I just feel
like I know so many people that are Yankee, and
there's just such a community, such a big, big fan base.
You just meet so many people like me too. Cubs
would be kind of cool. I'd probably pick a baseball team.
I love the Giants growing up. They're so dog shit

(47:13):
right now and just out of you know, some some pride.
I can't pick the Dodgers, even though the Dodgers owner
the FEDS are on that guy's ass. I mean he
buys the Lakers. He clearly is taking heat, needs some cash.
Who buys a team and then flips it six months later,
I mean, that's unheard of. He just when I saw

(47:36):
that tweet this morning when we were in the meeting,
I had to do adult I'm like, what did Jeanie buss?
What's going on here? That guy? One problem? Money's all relative, right,
If you have one hundred thousand dollars loan, you're only
worth two hundred grand. If shit gets weird, you're in trouble. Well,

(47:57):
even if you're a billionaire, if you got some some
credit lines, and if it goes the other way, you
can find yourself in a pinch quick. And it feels
like this guy is in a pinch, which the other thing.
If I'm a Dodger fan, I'm starting to get a
little worried, you know. I'm just like, financially, are we

(48:18):
just gonna stay dominant? Or is this gonna come creep
up on us? SOMETHINGNA keep an eye on. I think
I would pick the Yankees. There'd just be something about,
like something special about that brand. Cubs Red Sox wouldn't
suck either. What do you think it will take for

(48:46):
Josh Allen to be considered an all time great. What
what I'd really do back is having gone to a
small school that has no pride in sports. Whenever I
meet someone like I play golf with a good buddy
that went to Arkansas, he gets so angry during football
season and so fired up during basketball season. You know,
knowing people that have gone to USC UCLA working with

(49:08):
some of these guys with Coward show that like went
to Oregon or you know, went to Arizona or living
in Scottsdale. When ASU makes that run you know in
the in the playoffs to play Texas, Like, there's just
something that that is the one thing. Like when I
was going to college, it didn't even even though I
applied to like Arizona, Arizona State and Oregon. I got

(49:31):
into all those schools, it never crossed my mind to
go to them. And listen, I don't regret. My life's
worked out pretty fucking well, but it is just there'd
be something cool about just like Florida's on today. I
ran into a guy at the gym the other day
and I started talking to him because he had the
little EpiPen. Honestly, if it wasn't for Jack and his

(49:53):
peanut allergy, I wouldn't even have known when the EpiPen
was So I started talking to him. Financed bro from
New York. I think he's doing pretty well, big talker,
And then he started I started we started talking where
we went to school. He said, he went to Florida.
He's my age. It's like I was there in the
heyday Tim Tebow, Urban Meyer. We won national championships in
football and basketball. It didn't get any better. I'm like,

(50:15):
even when your team suck, like Florida's had some rough years,
the pride you take in that. I do think the
pride like even if you're a diehard Yankee fan or
diehard Niner fan or Dodger Laker fan, like you didn't
go to the Dodgers, right, you didn't attend uh lambeau
Field and Learn and green Back like you might have

(50:36):
gone to games there, and like you've been root for
the Packers. It was like I went to Florida, I
was on that campus. That's it that those four or
five years are depending on if you're you know, six years,
if you're like Tommy Boy, seven eight changed the course
of my life. So I would trade that. I wish

(50:58):
I had my same experience. My life worked out the
way it did. But I'm like, oh, yeah, I went
to Texas, Like, you know, I went to Oregon. You know,
I wish I had that. I went to Georgia. I
went to Ohio State. I I there's a jealousy even
people like you meet someone like I went, I have
three generations. We went to Iowa. That's fucking sweet. Every

(51:20):
Saturday during the fall. It's like a deeper meaning, like
we all get that with pro sports. We all don't
get that with with college. It's probably common knowledge to
say that Texans have the best pass rush duo in
the league. Yet Miles Garrett had puer sack numbers that

(51:40):
outperformed both Will Hunter and Will and Daniel Hunter. I
called him Will Hunter's that's actually a pretty good name.
Will Hunter be like a movie name and did it
from behind, and Byron Young had a ten sack season.
Wouldn't that just make them the de facto best in
the league. Yeah, I think there's you know, I just

(52:03):
think you'd have to look at best defensive lines in
the league. That's the best way to do it, right.
He won the Defensive Player of the year. He was
the best defensive player in the year last season. I
think Will Anderson's he'd be my bet right now. He's
looking at about six to one to win Defensive Player
of the Year this year. But if you just look
at best defensive lines in the league, you would say
the Rams, you would say the Texans, you would say Seattle,

(52:26):
you would say who am I missing? Seattle? Denver? So
because it's not I mean Miles Garrett, what defensive player
of the year? And the Browns? What was there? Draftick
five four? You know, do the math. It's really more

(52:52):
of a team unit. Like I saw some of the
Denver Broncos guys say that they want to break the
season record, which that has a huge impact. US as
a team had more sacks besides just one guy like
Miles Garrett could have way less sacts this year and
he looked way better. Am I crazy for thinking the

(53:13):
Chiefs are in store for another unimpressive season. I keep
hearing people say that as a year they will bounce
back and get what they've been doing the last decade.
I don't see it. Mahomes is coming off of major injury.
Their best offensive weapon is thirty six and a wide
receiver can't stay out of the county jail and will

(53:33):
likely get suspended. They lost McDuffie and Watson on top
of that, the AFC West schedules this year is brutal.
Of course, they have Andy, so you can never count
them out, but to me, it seems like they are
in for many rebuilt. I think one thing with football
every team has to do this is you constantly have

(53:55):
to change, tweak, adapt your schemes and specifically and often
when something isn't working. So I think they feel really
good about their offensive line. They signed Kenneth Walker, they
drafted another running back Like I do them at they
bring the enemy back. I do think they're gonna want
to run the ball more now. Travis is old looked

(54:17):
like he showed signs of slowing down last year. You
know where she Rice's I saw quote Today's like you
know that at thirty days really made me evaluate some
things like do you think he is a good player?
So I think there's just a lot of question marks
with how impactful the young guys are going to be.
I would imagine the corner Delane's going to be good,

(54:40):
but Carloff just did not play well last year. You know,
Chris Jones for years now has kind of picked the spots.
The dude they drafted from Clemson, talented player, very underwhelming
last season. Our Mason the pass rush from Oklahoma is good,
but to me, especially early on his career, is probably

(55:00):
more like situational pass rusher. They do have some bags
and if Mahomes is back motivated, Like, they won a
lot of games the year they went fifteen to two
a couple of years ago and won the Super Bowl
just off grit and guile, or maybe that was the
year they lost the Eagles, but they just they have

(55:22):
a lot of guys to know how to win. Are
they gonna win fifteen games? No, Like if they want,
if they went ten and seven, I think you're talking
about like probably the seventh seed, that would be a
pretty good bounce back while they're doing a rebuild mini rebuild.
That's fair. What are you What are some of your

(55:48):
favorite football Saints? I hear you say the Ray Lewis
Monday through Saturday one a bunch of times and Jerry
Jones Premium thing. Is there anything else you think is
funny intelligent? That's a good question. Uh, yeah, not that

(56:09):
jumps off. Right now, I have to think about that one.
What super Bowl matchup do you think would generate the
most type as a Steeler Homer and Aaron rodd and
Aaron Rodgers walk off Super Bowl appearance versus the Cowboys
would be off the charts. Uh, that's a great question.

(56:38):
You know, at one thing, the Super Bowl has proven
that it's it's pretty it's not market dependent, like the
World Series is. The year the Dodgers and the Yankees played,
the ratings were enormous. Right the year Indiana played okayc
in basketball, it was awful. If the Rays played the

(57:00):
Hockey Brewers, the World Series ratings would be shitty. If
the Dodgers are in it, If the Cubs are in
it and the Yankees are in it, or the Red
Sox are in it, it's a big deal in football,
Like the Chiefs became the Cowboys pretty quickly because they
had a star quarterback. Buffalo relatively small market, really small
market relative to America, yet they are a huge brand.

(57:23):
And Josh is just a story of a guy that's
had just devastating playoff losses. That have devastating playoff loss
I would say that you know, there's so much hype
on the Rams. I think if like Josh Allen, Let's
say the Rams went like sixteen to one and Josh
Allen finally made the Super Bowl, there's like Josh Allen,

(57:44):
can he take down the greatest football team you know
we've seen since the Seven Pats or something? Record wise?
I know that they didn't win, you know what I mean?
I guess ratings wise, like you'd be like, well, Cowboys.
I think once you get to the Super Bowl, unless
it was like Jagg's Cardinals. I just think there's so

(58:07):
much buzz. Why is it so difficult for Cleveland to
name a quarterback? We've seen enough of Sean to know
he has mostly lost his ability to play at the
pro level, and Shador Sanders is one of the most
hype young players in the NFL. What is holding a
team back from making a choice. I think they got

(58:31):
fifty plus million dollars fifty million reasons why Deshaun's got
a chance to be the starting quarterback, and let's face it,
gonna be the starting quarterback. I think it's pretty clear
by the reports, like Deshaun's start in Week one, Now,
could Shador be playing by Week two? Yeah? I just
think that they've paid him so much money, they just

(58:54):
want to see if there's something there, and if it
just looks the same, maybe he gets benched week one A.
I just think his contract gives him the gives him
the nod, and the owner, you know, probably putting a
little pressure because I'm with you. Why did the Texans

(59:16):
feel like a small market team? Houston is the fifth
largest metro area in the United States. It's not even
that though they're not even the newest. The Rockets and
Astros feel the same way as a fan of them all.
The Astros are cheap compared to the others in market size.
The Rockets front office is tragic, but is the reason
that Texans are viewed the way a side effect of

(59:40):
being an expansion franchise, lack of playoff success, a combination.
I think it's pretty simple that the biggest team, or
one of them in the NFL in terms of brand,
in terms of fan base, is in the state. So
if the Dallas Cowboys were based in Florida or Colorado

(01:00:04):
and the Houston Texans were Texas's team, then I do
imagine be a little different. I hear what you're saying
about the expansion, but before the Titans moved like that,
they're used to the Houston Oilers, Like Houston's had an
NFL team for a large percentage of years. I truly
believe it's the Cowboys being there. And I think sometimes

(01:00:24):
you can get dwarfed in your own market when you
share a state, right, Yeah, I don't know. I'm not
that familiar with the state of Texas in terms of geographically,
but like and obviously Oakland is closer to the Niners
than Dallas's to Houston. But like the Raiders, once they
moved and then they came back, once they returned in

(01:00:47):
the mid nineties, the forty nine ers dwarfed them and
the best thing they ever did. And listen, I was
once on a record of saying I hated the move.
Now granted I was biased, I was on the radio station.
I didn't want to lose them, But like, leaving to
Vegas is the best thing the franchise ever did financially,
just for the future of of their franchise. As from

(01:01:09):
a building standpoint, from a practice facility standpoint, from an
infrastructure standpoint, it's just really really hard, you know, to
compete with the Dallas Cowboys, and you could also argue
like one of I mean, I it's like feels like
Ohio State, Michigan, LSU, Georgia, Bama. I mean, I'd put

(01:01:29):
Texas top three brand in college football. So you have
this enormous college football team that feels as not as
big as the Cowboys, but like equally as big as
the Houston Texas. That's why I saw this meme on
the internet. It was this dude watching Drew Brees. He

(01:01:50):
was on his couch and it looked like his wife
was filming him, and she wrote out on the Instagram
reel like he didn't cry when we got married or
at the birth of our two children, but he's currently
crying at the of watching Drew Brees getting ducked in
the Hall of Fame. And it's like, well, the Saints
were the Aints, they didn't matter, and then the Saints

(01:02:13):
for a long period of time, and even now like
LSU is a bigger deal in New Orleans in the Saints,
like LSU is the biggest football team in the state. Now,
there was a stretch with Drew Brees and Sean Payton
where maybe they surpassed them, maybe they equaled them. Like
it's it's really hard to compete, you know. It's like

(01:02:35):
the ramp and every market is different. Like the Rams,
they're a huge national brand. They're not even remotely close
to the biggest team in this area that I'm sitting in.
The Dodgers and the Lakers dwarfed them in popularity one
because they left they came back. But usually most of
these football markets, the football team is the biggest thing.

(01:02:57):
Like the Mariners are big in Seattle, not even close
to the Seahawks, Like the Giants and Warriors are really
freaking big in the Bay Area. When the Niners are winning,
they dominate. Curry changed that a little bit in his heyday,
but like right now, it ain't even close. You go
to Philly, you go you know, New York's a little unique.
The Yankees and the Knicks are really really big. So

(01:03:18):
I think it's very market dependent and state dependent OnEnd
on this question. My actual question is this gave me
some compliments. Don't need to read them. I appreciate them. Chestin.
I'm a chief season ticket holder going on year seven.

(01:03:41):
I've seen a lot, to say the least, that's that's
a pretty good stretch you've had, you know, But the
team is moving to Kansas in a few years, and
it has me thinking about my future with these tickets.
I like to gamble. I'm in three fantasy football leagues,
and I pay for NFL Sunday ticket. I get a
little screwed over with the full football experience. When the
Chiefs played home, I end up missing the other games

(01:04:03):
and usually have to play catchup when I get home
from a ten hour day at Arrowhead. Should I keep
my season tickets at least until the switch locations, or
should I give them up so I can enjoy the
full NFL experience. I don't want to be a Debbie downer,
because I'm I got a little Chiefs fandom somewhere deep

(01:04:26):
in me. I got close buddies, love Andy Beach and
Bradway and their crew. Like I root for them. It's
probably peaked, you know, not that they can't be competitive again,
but like they're not going to five Super Bowls in
six years. I mean for six straight years every conference
championship game was are you guys never went on the

(01:04:48):
road in the playoffs. It doesn't get any better than
that in the Bill Wallsharer or the Steelers era. Like
I bet if we look these teams were going on
the road a lot, So I believe this. The season
tickets way back in the day, pre internet, season tickets
were important because it gave you access to these games
unless you were like gonna find a scalper or whatever.

(01:05:10):
Once the ticketing app comes shot out seageek, and just
the access we have with the Internet to like, hey,
I want to go. If I was just in Chicago tomorrow,
it's like, oh, the Cubs are played within five minutes.
I could purchase Cubs tickets in any area in this
in the stadium. If I wanted to spend a bunch

(01:05:31):
of money, I could find some sweet seats. If I
wanted to sit in the outfield and just booze, I
could find those. It's like if you're bezos or elon
or have a ton of money, or it's already in
your family, I get it. But like second homes, I
want a Lake Homer, I want that. Or there's this
thing called airbnb. It's pretty easy. It's like, yeah, this
year we're gonna go on a vacation and we want
to runt a house here. This year we might not go, right.

(01:05:56):
So the ability to like travel anywhere and just stay
at a house has never been easier. So it's like,
do you need a second home or you just if
you don't have the money, obviously it's a no go.
But even if you do, it's like, well, I get
invested and just go on vacations when I want to
two places that I want to go and find access
two places that I want to stay, and then I

(01:06:19):
don't have to the upkeep, I don't have the property taxes,
I don't have to deal with trying to airbnb that
out or whatever. Fuck let's headache. So I do think
the Internet has changed our world in terms of options.
Like Clark Hunstock would love to hear this, I would
say canceling. It's like, hey, you want to go to
two games a year out of the eight or nine,

(01:06:40):
fucking buy the tickets. It maybe cost you a little more,
right just then you on an individual basis, But it's
like the other game you have to worry about. You
don't have to like, hey, I can't make this game.
I gotta give it to my sell to my buddies,
or or some games like I don't really want to
go to this game today. I'm not feeling it. Yeah,
So I think the optionality. You can still go to

(01:07:03):
games whenever you want, right, I mean, it's just it's
never been easier with these apps to go to games. Ever,
I'm stunned, honestly, I guess I'm not totally stunned, but
younger people, and again, I didn't grow up in a
family that had season tickets to pro teams, which would

(01:07:26):
have been extremely cool. I had some friends who's like
uncle owned a construction company and they had season ticket
the Giants games. I remember thinking it was the coolest thing. Ever,
then you get older, like I'm gonna drive an hour
to go to the Giants game eighty two times a year.
Fuck that, I'll go to the two games a year
I want to go to. You know. So, I get

(01:07:49):
it from a business standpoint, right to give them to clients,
But if you're just doing it as an individual, I
would recommend no. And then if you want to choose
a Raider game and you know you the Bronco game,
right again, might have to pay a little bit more
to attend, but who knows, maybe not, so I would
say no. Audios, have a great day. See a ways.

(01:08:18):
The volume