Speaker 1: It's fine. It's fine podcast as a year and hello
Speaker 1: from America. It's the Around the NFL podcast. That's my
Speaker 1: British affectation again, sophistication. Dan Hansons, Greg Rosenthal Erica tamposted
Speaker 1: back in the States and that all will be back
Speaker 1: in the States. We're back, and I mean we all
Speaker 1: the way back, baby, the best as we can be
Speaker 1: because Mark Sessler is back. What's up? Quiet storm? Oh?
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, this is the second time
Speaker 1: I've had to um discuss returning to the show after
Speaker 1: it a medical scare. It's getting just slightly old. UM.
Speaker 1: I had a good time like in the last month. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the second time in the last I think probably the
Speaker 1: upshot is I I hastened my return um the first time,
Speaker 1: which might have been against uh, you know, smarter advisement. UM.
Speaker 1: I have learned the value of having a great nurse
Speaker 1: here and there. They've been UM, A lot of people
Speaker 1: help me out during this whole thing. But also I
Speaker 1: don't know to make it to keep it short like UM,
Speaker 1: I have I think you know anyone that's been away
Speaker 1: for any period our listeners, I've I have heard from
Speaker 1: a ton of them, and I really think them for
Speaker 1: everything that they wrote. Um, it has been a weird month.
Speaker 1: Like I my life has changed a little bit. Um
Speaker 1: from a physical perspective. I don't need to dig into
Speaker 1: all that. But UM, it's good to be back here.
Speaker 1: And I couldn't thank you more the three of you
Speaker 1: and everyone surrounding you. UM that handled the TV shows, uh,
Speaker 1: the podcast of course, the trip to London. You guys
Speaker 1: did an incredible job from what I saw, And you know,
Speaker 1: I did my best to handle any sort of drama
Speaker 1: that occurred here on the in the States while you
Speaker 1: were gone. Very little UM popped up. But it it also, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, we've done this show for so long and
Speaker 1: we've had to go through periods where you've got to
Speaker 1: pitch in and do a little bit more. And I
Speaker 1: know that you guys did that. It really um it
Speaker 1: kind of it was terrible to be away on some
Speaker 1: level because just as an aging man, UM, you're watching
Speaker 1: like your career occur without you, kind of um from
Speaker 1: a distance, and I had to reconcile a lot of that.
Speaker 1: And you have a lot of hours alone to think
Speaker 1: about your life. And I don't think anything for me
Speaker 1: will ever really be the same, but um, it's it
Speaker 1: also is the same in many ways, and so I
Speaker 1: guess I'm just happy to be back with um, with
Speaker 1: all three of you. People should know that Mark is
Speaker 1: live via satellite inside an iron lung. That's right, it's
Speaker 1: a wonderful place to be. He's live inside of kirk
Speaker 1: Cousins is plus plexiglass container. Oh Mark, we we missed
Speaker 1: you so much, buddy. Uh and the audience did as well.
Speaker 1: And yeah, we had a great time in England. But
Speaker 1: obviously it's just, you know, not the same about the
Speaker 1: quiet storm. So it's great to have you in the mix.
Speaker 1: When you referred to a great nurse, was that some
Speaker 1: pillow talk of involving your wife or was that an
Speaker 1: actual nurse, like a practitioner of medicine. Well, I won't
Speaker 1: reveal the former, but Um, on the latter point, I
Speaker 1: think that you know, I probably over over since late August.
Speaker 1: You know, you nurses work three days a week, but
Speaker 1: they work these twelve hour longer shifts, and I kind
Speaker 1: of think that's an incredible setup. I think maybe I
Speaker 1: should have been a nurse had it been more trendy
Speaker 1: back in the day. I like, I could totally see you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you have to, you have to kind of
Speaker 1: care for people. It's nice. Um, but I would say that,
Speaker 1: you know, having probably thirty of them over the last
Speaker 1: month plus. Um, there is the way, Dan that you
Speaker 1: power rank thirty two teams. I easily could have come
Speaker 1: up with an article about power ranking nurses, an article
Speaker 1: that literally know on what I've interested in reading. But
Speaker 1: some really did there did their jobs with um a
Speaker 1: plumb and I tell us I would note that right
Speaker 1: away in appreciate that. Tell us about number twenty seven,
Speaker 1: Olga seven, very run down. UM. One thing I've learned
Speaker 1: is I am a pretty polite patient. I was told
Speaker 1: that by you don't want to be a nightmare. Um.
Speaker 1: But what I learned was that when you're not the
Speaker 1: squeaky wheel, and I think we this is you know,
Speaker 1: all areas of life if you have children, especially the
Speaker 1: non squeaky wheel gets ignored. So the Olga at twenty
Speaker 1: seven would be the type that you know. On her
Speaker 1: twelve hour shifts, she stopped by three times, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm totally dehydrated and fading away. Because you're not
Speaker 1: the most annoying patient. There are plenty of them, so
Speaker 1: you've got to get in there and kind of learned
Speaker 1: the smarts of how to be just vocal enough to
Speaker 1: get attended to. That's what I've learned. Wow, And what
Speaker 1: a lesson that is. Not that I'm hoping that you
Speaker 1: have to deal with that, that's something. And and you'll
Speaker 1: you'll have to promise us not to leave us again, because, uh,
Speaker 1: we miss you when you're not here. And you know,
Speaker 1: we were supposed to do a show. We were going
Speaker 1: to take a little uh take a little break on Tuesday's.
Speaker 1: We flew in, got in early last evening into Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: ten hour flight after a crazy week and all that.
Speaker 1: The plan was to take it easy Tuesday, come back Wednesday.
Speaker 1: But then some crazy stuff went down. Uh. First of
Speaker 1: course the John Gruden News which were about to dive
Speaker 1: into uh and then like a wild Monday night game
Speaker 1: where Lamar Jackson authored one of the more memorable prime
Speaker 1: time performances in quite a long time. UH. And with
Speaker 1: that all there, Greg, it was like, all right, I
Speaker 1: think we gotta throw up the bat signal. We gotta
Speaker 1: get back into the bunker cast uh, studio setups at
Speaker 1: home and rip one off football waits for no travel
Speaker 1: plans no, it's good. I mean, this was a wild,
Speaker 1: a wild fork in the road for for two big
Speaker 1: NFL characters. We might be the last time we talked
Speaker 1: about John Gruden for quite a while. I think that's
Speaker 1: certainly possible, all right, And also we're going to uh
Speaker 1: cap the episode by previewing the first game of week six.
Speaker 1: Look how the time flies. My goodness, Mark Sessler's back.
Speaker 1: Let's do some news. All right, here we go John Gruden.
Speaker 1: Unbelievable turn of events uh in the NFL On Monday, UH,
Speaker 1: the Raiders coach who's been involved in the NFL for decades,
Speaker 1: came back signed a ten year, one hundred million dollar
Speaker 1: deal with the Raiders UH to lead them back to
Speaker 1: the Promised Land. Instead, after three seasons in five games,
Speaker 1: he is out as a result of reports that emails
Speaker 1: he wrote over ten year period included racist, misogynistic, and
Speaker 1: anti gay language. That I mean, that's the hat trick.
Speaker 1: If you're looking to get run the hell out of
Speaker 1: town and your career to be shot, there it is.
Speaker 1: And he did it all. Uh. And you know, this
Speaker 1: is a situation that we saw leading into the weekend.
Speaker 1: It was a story because it was the Demorris Smith
Speaker 1: jabs and the racist tropes in the language he used.
Speaker 1: And little did we know at the time, but other
Speaker 1: teams and the league and UH news organizations, most prominently
Speaker 1: the New York Times. UH, there was much much more,
Speaker 1: and it all came back to bite Gruden in a
Speaker 1: big way. UM, and he had this statement released on Monday.
Speaker 1: I love the Raiders and I do not want to
Speaker 1: be a distraction. Thank you to all the players, coaches,
Speaker 1: staff and fans of Raider Nation. I'm sorry. I never
Speaker 1: meant to hurt anyone. Greg. There's there's there's long term
Speaker 1: ramifications for the Raiders, their short term ramifications for the Raiders,
Speaker 1: and we'll get to that. But the central figure here
Speaker 1: John Gruden, a towering figure really in both the sidelines,
Speaker 1: in the NFL and in the broadcasting ranks. He's gone
Speaker 1: and he ain't coming back. I know. I think of
Speaker 1: the few days after he won the Super Bowl with
Speaker 1: Tampa and Bill Belichick wrote this column weirdly in the
Speaker 1: New York Times, and the column was like, what are
Speaker 1: you gonna do next? And it was basically Jon Gruden
Speaker 1: at that moment was as bright a young coaching light
Speaker 1: as I can remember. Over the last twenty years, very
Speaker 1: similar to Sean McVeigh. I think when when he popped up,
Speaker 1: But if Sean McVeigh had had won the Super Bowl,
Speaker 1: and you think about what happened after that in Tampa,
Speaker 1: after that win, mediocrity, and then you think about this
Speaker 1: run which has been mediocrity, and then you think about
Speaker 1: now how it's gonna end and will forever um be
Speaker 1: connected to Gruden, you know, as one of the first
Speaker 1: couple of lines in in his obituary, how how this
Speaker 1: went out in the most like embarrassing, ugly pathetic way possible.
Speaker 1: And I think when the second batch of you know,
Speaker 1: information came out, which Mark Davis, the Raiders owner, apparently
Speaker 1: had a little bit of an idea was coming anyways,
Speaker 1: and I think was prepared for it. Um there was
Speaker 1: no choice Mark Davis, because Raiders history, of all teams,
Speaker 1: is the history of inclusion. They they have been ahead
Speaker 1: of the NFL at every step of the way in
Speaker 1: terms of diversity, in terms of giving um black people
Speaker 1: executive jobs, giving them coaching jobs, giving Latino X coaching jobs,
Speaker 1: having you know, quarterbacks in that position, having women in
Speaker 1: the executive positions. The Raiders are such a unique franchise
Speaker 1: in history, but that that is one of the things
Speaker 1: that has made them more unique than ever. And so
Speaker 1: Mark Davis, I think knowing what his father would do
Speaker 1: made a probably what for him was obviously a painful decision,
Speaker 1: but I can't imagine it was one that was that
Speaker 1: difficult for him. It was pretty obvious because to to
Speaker 1: it to Mark Davis, to Al Davis something meant a
Speaker 1: little more of what it meant to be a Raider.
Speaker 1: I don't think he knew all of this stuff about
Speaker 1: Gruden obviously when when he hired him, but he found
Speaker 1: it out this weekend and and that was it. And
Speaker 1: you move on and and maybe we will talk Gruden
Speaker 1: in the future, because there will be lawyers, you know,
Speaker 1: there will be money disputes, and there will be a
Speaker 1: lot more that that goes on just between the Raiders
Speaker 1: and John Gruden. But unbelievable to the career like that
Speaker 1: that was once at that pedestal taken out in one
Speaker 1: of the most I don't know, brutal ways, um in
Speaker 1: in deserving ways that we've ever seen from a figure
Speaker 1: of that level. Yeah, I mean, I love that you
Speaker 1: mentioned the Belichick letter in the in the time that spans.
Speaker 1: I mean, Gruden is one of these figures that you
Speaker 1: know on a football front, has been in our lives
Speaker 1: for decades plus because it wasn't even just the Bucks job.
Speaker 1: It was him rising up as a colorful character with
Speaker 1: the Niners and previous roles and just him on television
Speaker 1: and the persona of Gruden as much as anything else.
Speaker 1: But I guess you know, for all of us, you know,
Speaker 1: character will be revealed, and uh, you know, I think
Speaker 1: that it's it's fair to to look at this from
Speaker 1: a couple of different angles, and you're absolutely right about
Speaker 1: the Raiders. Greg. Um, I think there's it's fair to question,
Speaker 1: even with the Demorris Smith comments that came out, why
Speaker 1: Gruden would have been coaching on on Sunday. Um, that's
Speaker 1: for another day, because I think it's pretty evident because Gruden,
Speaker 1: you know, talked, he talked over the weekend to Chris
Speaker 1: Mortenson about some of the disparaging Goodell comments. He did
Speaker 1: not give total details, but you give you get the
Speaker 1: sense that the Raiders and Mark Davis knew, and you're
Speaker 1: absolutely right about the Raiders. If I if I feel
Speaker 1: that I was benefited by one story I worked on
Speaker 1: last year was like spending weeks talking to guys like
Speaker 1: Art Shell in old school Raiders. And it was Art
Speaker 1: Shell who became the second, really the first UM African
Speaker 1: American head coach in the modern era after Fritz Pollard.
Speaker 1: Way back when UM Al Davis, you know, he refused
Speaker 1: to play in Mobile, Alabama back in the early sixties
Speaker 1: because of segregation. He hired Amy Trask, Tom Flores, Karl
Speaker 1: Nasset is the first openly gay player on the Raiders.
Speaker 1: The athletics set it perfectly of Al Davis. He respected
Speaker 1: talent no matter how it was packaged, and so the
Speaker 1: Raiders have been a different team then the rest of
Speaker 1: the league on that front. And I think it's Mark
Speaker 1: Davis is UM really essentially two decades long fascination with Gruden.
Speaker 1: I mean he courted him for six years before hiring him,
Speaker 1: and they talked about the fact that Mark Davis had
Speaker 1: a favorite laundry mat in Tampa because he was down
Speaker 1: there so often trying to get Grooden back into the
Speaker 1: grip of the Raiders. I don't know what Mark Davis
Speaker 1: is doing at a laundry mat to begin with, but
Speaker 1: I mean, you look at all the people in these emails, Lady,
Speaker 1: I guess he's also the same guy that got like
Speaker 1: eight dollar haircuts at Supercuts and drove around that pop
Speaker 1: top van. He's a little different, that's fairy. He does
Speaker 1: things um in the Mark Davis way. But I mean,
Speaker 1: if you go through the laundry list of who was
Speaker 1: ripped on by Gruden in these emails, I think it
Speaker 1: just came to a point where there's literally no argument
Speaker 1: for him to stay. Was there an argument after go ahead?
Speaker 1: And now I was just gonna say, like you you're
Speaker 1: mentioning um Mark Davis and like a decision he had
Speaker 1: to make. There was no decision. This is two one
Speaker 1: and and when you're seeing when you're seeing the gay
Speaker 1: slurs used to describe ROGERI. Cadell the commissioner, and all
Speaker 1: the uh anti feminist comments he was saying about various
Speaker 1: figures getting opportunities, whether it's on coaching staffs, or on
Speaker 1: the sidelines or um on the officiating ranks. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was a rap. But by the time I got
Speaker 1: to the third paragraph of that New York Times story
Speaker 1: when we got off the plane from London, was like, oh, well, okay,
Speaker 1: John Gruden's career is over and you know it's like,
Speaker 1: first of all, Mark the I can't believe Belichick writes
Speaker 1: a letter about John Gruden, of all people, and you
Speaker 1: still can't get a letter back from Gruden from Belichick
Speaker 1: after all the great things you sent him back in
Speaker 1: the day. That's on my radar. But I'll say this too,
Speaker 1: because Gruden, you know, his stripes were revealed and he
Speaker 1: said over the weekend there isn't a blade of racism
Speaker 1: minium um. These emails obviously say otherwise, not just racism,
Speaker 1: but all other kind of repugnant thoughts that he should
Speaker 1: have own better. Even if you have that inside you,
Speaker 1: you have to be smarter. And it makes me think,
Speaker 1: it makes me think there are a lot of coaches,
Speaker 1: g MS, owners, scouts up and down the NFL ladder
Speaker 1: on this morning being like, what did I send? What
Speaker 1: did I send? What emails are out there that are
Speaker 1: connected to me? Because John Gruden did not send that
Speaker 1: from an NFL account. He sent that from a personal
Speaker 1: account to his old buddy Bruce Allen, his old henchman
Speaker 1: who was with Washington, and he was dumb enough to
Speaker 1: be sending all sorts of things from the official Washington
Speaker 1: account and Uh, that is just something that just to wonder,
Speaker 1: what is there going to be more fallout from this?
Speaker 1: And it wasn't a Gruten investigation. This is all connected
Speaker 1: to the Washington Football team investigation and all the misconduct
Speaker 1: that was going on there behind the scenes under Daniel Snyder.
Speaker 1: So uh, that is an element of this story too,
Speaker 1: like the shock waves that come with this because again
Speaker 1: Gruden greg towering figure in this league, and if he
Speaker 1: could be taken out, uh and be exposed this way,
Speaker 1: maybe there's other people too well, right, because you only
Speaker 1: send those emails because like it's a normal thing to
Speaker 1: do at the time. That's the thing people were like, well,
Speaker 1: this was eleven years ago. First of all, the band
Speaker 1: was in his late forties eleven years ago. Like when
Speaker 1: this thing is like, well, you know he's he's grown
Speaker 1: since them. It's like, this is a grown man. Let's
Speaker 1: let's let's stop with the like this is eleven years ago.
Speaker 1: That that's that's so different. But it's just a look,
Speaker 1: it's not it's not a surprising thing. There's tons of
Speaker 1: racist and homophobic and sexist people in all in every
Speaker 1: in every business, especially the higher up you go, and
Speaker 1: especially eleven years ago. Everyone, you know, people felt comfortable
Speaker 1: expressing that it's like a boys club and and and
Speaker 1: at that level, it's a rich it's a rich white
Speaker 1: boys club. And so that's you could scrub all these
Speaker 1: emails from different accounts and and that you would find it.
Speaker 1: The fact that it's only out there because the owner
Speaker 1: of the Washington football team was found to um be
Speaker 1: responsible for a workplace uh that condoned and essentially supported
Speaker 1: sexual harassment and saw all sorts of things, and even
Speaker 1: even these emails where they're talking about sending pictures between
Speaker 1: Alan and Gruden is part of that. The fact that
Speaker 1: it's only coming out because of that is is really
Speaker 1: wild because we haven't seen those emails. And Dan Snyder
Speaker 1: we talked about on this podcast. It was a on
Speaker 1: one hand, like a in a incredibly embarrassing moment for
Speaker 1: him to be taken off the day to day operations
Speaker 1: of Washington the football team. Videos on the other had
Speaker 1: his wife is running the team, and that the last
Speaker 1: year and a half since they hired Jason Wright has
Speaker 1: basically been like a year and a half long press
Speaker 1: release of like how we've changed as a team. As
Speaker 1: recently as a couple of months ago. She you know,
Speaker 1: his dance player's wife is on the Adam Schefter podcast
Speaker 1: and it's basically doing pr about like how tough it
Speaker 1: is on them, And you would just have to wonder,
Speaker 1: like are more of these coming out? Because that was
Speaker 1: the bigger That was the bigger story Gruden. Gruden needs
Speaker 1: to be wiped out and everything, but that that was
Speaker 1: like the bigger story. And it is fascinating that the
Speaker 1: NFL is officially asked, you know, taking this moment of
Speaker 1: the public paying attention to this story again and asked
Speaker 1: for them to release the emails. And so we'll see
Speaker 1: if that there's enough public pressure for the NFL to
Speaker 1: consider any of this because there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: like guessing who the sources are. I don't think you
Speaker 1: can do that, and it's just like it's impossible. There's
Speaker 1: I mean, another another big aspect to this story is
Speaker 1: the targeted nature of it. I think we all agree
Speaker 1: that what John Gruden did was absolute grounds for immedia
Speaker 1: dismissal and he's gone. Um we all feel I mean,
Speaker 1: we don't all know a lot of coaches personally, but
Speaker 1: the coaching community um is a circle. Uh, No one's
Speaker 1: fired for long Um, it is an old boys club,
Speaker 1: although that's changing, you know, on minuscule amounts um. But
Speaker 1: at this point I think that, like you'd have to
Speaker 1: assume that if you heavily vetted all thirty two head coaches,
Speaker 1: this is my guest that twenty plus would be in
Speaker 1: serious hot water if not, if not more, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think some of your younger coaches are coming up
Speaker 1: through a different um prism in portal, but Gruden belongs
Speaker 1: to a time period where that was completely different. And
Speaker 1: on the on the Washington front, I mean the completely
Speaker 1: separate to what grewed and said they went through six
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand emails. Um, you talk about a
Speaker 1: group of you know, rich whites that essentially run things.
Speaker 1: But there's another layer of it, and it's the ownership.
Speaker 1: Because the report on Snyder was given to the league
Speaker 1: and oral fashion, it was not written. This is a
Speaker 1: league that did a two hundred forty three page written
Speaker 1: report on Tom Brady using inflated football's when it comes
Speaker 1: to the players and what they would call the coaches
Speaker 1: and the players, and it was said way back when
Speaker 1: that those are the cattle. We can get rid of them,
Speaker 1: we can replace them. The reports on those people are
Speaker 1: thorough and rich, but there's no written report on what
Speaker 1: else was found in this Washington investigation. And I mean
Speaker 1: there needs to be much more pushed for that because
Speaker 1: we're talking about a level of ownership and leadership that
Speaker 1: goes above the coaching level. Mark you return and right
Speaker 1: on cue, a conspiracy is a foot maybe in the NFL.
Speaker 1: Not to make light of the situation, but it is. Uh,
Speaker 1: there are layers to this, and uh, it is going
Speaker 1: to be interesting how it all turns out in terms of, yes,
Speaker 1: what else can you get rid of coaches? You can't
Speaker 1: get rid of owners because I think if you could,
Speaker 1: well you can. Jerry Richardson will tell you you can,
Speaker 1: but it takes a lot. He stepped down, you know.
Speaker 1: I think if you could, then we would have different
Speaker 1: ownership in Washington, or at least if they felt like
Speaker 1: you could. Because honestly, think Greg that Jerry Richardson steps
Speaker 1: down by choice there or because he doesn't have it.
Speaker 1: He stepped down because he was um completely embarrassed in
Speaker 1: his career, was in flames now in Washington, and that
Speaker 1: he just felt like it was the you know, he
Speaker 1: was pressured and he felt like was the right thing
Speaker 1: to do. What I'm trying to say is Washington. There's
Speaker 1: first of all, it in many moments where publicly in
Speaker 1: Washington that you could have said that, but that they've
Speaker 1: resisted the public pressure there, I mean before any of
Speaker 1: this workplace stuff. But yes, I think there's probably been
Speaker 1: pressure in various fashions, certainly publicly and through the media
Speaker 1: on Washington to change ownership. But I would tend to
Speaker 1: surmise like privately too, and it never happened. It's never
Speaker 1: happened because there's there. It's a it gets very complicated.
Speaker 1: That's that's in theory, a boss of the person you're
Speaker 1: trying to push out, you know, they're they're the boss
Speaker 1: of Roger Goodell. Right. The penalty for owners is you
Speaker 1: hand it off to a spouse or a daughter or
Speaker 1: son or some family member who can take over for you.
Speaker 1: It's not actually new control of an owner of a
Speaker 1: team for the most part. And now spinning back to
Speaker 1: the Raiders side of things, in the short term, this
Speaker 1: is the situation. Uh Rich Bisaccia takes over as the
Speaker 1: interim head coach and that is a very tough gig
Speaker 1: the Raiders. I mean, how much things have changed. He's
Speaker 1: assistant coach with Sachi has been around forever, just like
Speaker 1: all of Gruden's guys. And um, two weeks ago, the
Speaker 1: Raiders are three and oh and one of the big
Speaker 1: stories in football, and the Raiders are a vibe in
Speaker 1: that building. Now the vibe has changed around the Raiders.
Speaker 1: And you just will see what happens. Is this a
Speaker 1: team that now goes in the tank? Uh? Do they
Speaker 1: kind of follow whatever path they were originally on. We're
Speaker 1: gonna see what happens in the short term and in
Speaker 1: the long term. And this is also this is something
Speaker 1: we'll we'll find out as time goes along. But it's
Speaker 1: almost unprecedented. Um, Gruden wasn't just the head coach. I
Speaker 1: know Mike Mayock as a general manager, but this was
Speaker 1: Gruden's team. He was the face of the Las Vegas Raiders.
Speaker 1: He was the face on the sideline. He was the boss.
Speaker 1: He had a major hand in the personnel side of things,
Speaker 1: might have maybe even above Mayock most likely. Yes. And
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, over one weekend, you pull that
Speaker 1: guy out and he heads for the curb. And as
Speaker 1: an organization, it's like, oh boy, now it I mean
Speaker 1: this is maybe not an episode of now What on
Speaker 1: the Round the NFL podcast, but that is exactly what
Speaker 1: the Raiders are probably wondering right now, what do we
Speaker 1: do next? Because the entire organization in a lot of
Speaker 1: ways was John Gruden and now he gone, that's a
Speaker 1: huge story too, right, Who's even they at this point?
Speaker 1: They is the team for the rest of the season.
Speaker 1: Who was twenty five d v o A Through five
Speaker 1: weeks it was one a couple of close games, was
Speaker 1: pretty poor the last couple of weeks. You know, it
Speaker 1: has some things to like about it as a quarterback
Speaker 1: plane really well, but has a quarterback plane really well
Speaker 1: in the system that John grun ran that you know,
Speaker 1: he was with him for four years. And if there
Speaker 1: was one positive thing about this John Gruden's second tenure,
Speaker 1: I think he called plays pretty well and the players
Speaker 1: that were there in his offensive system mostly car improved.
Speaker 1: But it's it's not a good team on paper, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's probably a mediocre or or less than that.
Speaker 1: I know they lost less two games in d v A.
Speaker 1: G v o A means everything to a lot of people,
Speaker 1: but I think the Raiders doesn't mean everything. Like an
Speaker 1: underlying thing that they were a competitive but pretty average team.
Speaker 1: You watch that team, I feel like cars playing at
Speaker 1: a top five or six level, and he's carrying a
Speaker 1: terrible offensive line. Uh, and they give up a lot
Speaker 1: of big plays, certainly defensively. Still even if they're like
Speaker 1: a little better. It's it's just crazy because Mayock has
Speaker 1: to assume he's not going to be there next year.
Speaker 1: Of course he'll he'll try to do everything he can
Speaker 1: to make it um, but it's gonna probably be a
Speaker 1: new coach that Mark Davis hired. A new coach isn't
Speaker 1: gonna want that GM and it's just not how things
Speaker 1: work generally. You you could almost assume that everyone associated
Speaker 1: with this Raiders coaching staff is not going to be
Speaker 1: there next year, and that Derek Carr, who's under contract
Speaker 1: for very cheap, that'll be that'll be up to the
Speaker 1: next coach. Well, and and also their team president left
Speaker 1: and I know that kind of stuff flies by like
Speaker 1: our radartists some degree, but he essentially Mark Bada, the
Speaker 1: team president, left under rather you know, serious surprising too,
Speaker 1: And people were chattering wrote like what is going on
Speaker 1: with the Raiders that all these executives are leaving in
Speaker 1: like a noble circumstance. It leaves Mark Davis to have
Speaker 1: to rebuild, you know, the vision of the team from scratch.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that's the first owner I'd picked to
Speaker 1: do that. Um, his vision was John Gruden and John
Speaker 1: Gruden to your point, Dan running the entire organization with
Speaker 1: you know, who would have ever put money on Mike
Speaker 1: Mayock outlasting John Gruden. It took something like this, and
Speaker 1: the Raiders are in free fault because it's administrative side
Speaker 1: and coaching football side that they've got to dig their
Speaker 1: way out of. Ricky A. I just think there's a
Speaker 1: couple of Obviously, all of this is so important. One
Speaker 1: this story drops on right before Monday Night Football, which
Speaker 1: something Gruden was heavily involved in, which is interesting too.
Speaker 1: Yesterday was National coming Out Day and so to think
Speaker 1: of some of his players where we have the first
Speaker 1: openly gay player on this team, uh, to kind of
Speaker 1: see this stuff, not to mention the black players on
Speaker 1: this team and all, you know, Roger Goodell has told
Speaker 1: stories about defending his gay brother from bullies in the past,
Speaker 1: and there was there was name calling, and that There's
Speaker 1: so much that goes into this that is so crazy.
Speaker 1: But one thing that I've seen that are is so
Speaker 1: interesting to me is there was reports that the league
Speaker 1: brought this to you know, Mark Davis on Friday, and
Speaker 1: he still showed up, and he still coached Sunday, and
Speaker 1: then Gruden resigns on Monday. And and as much as
Speaker 1: I want to say like, yes, this team is so
Speaker 1: forward and so great, I do find it interesting as
Speaker 1: how Gruden resigned and how he even coached on Sunday,
Speaker 1: and I just I just find that very peculiar. I
Speaker 1: wonder because Gruden now that we have the benefit of
Speaker 1: a benefit of hindsight. Um, Gruden alluded to the Roger
Speaker 1: Goodell thing, which seemed kind of random at the time.
Speaker 1: Greg on the way of the airport yesterday even kind
Speaker 1: of said that was random that he brings up Roger Goodell,
Speaker 1: as if to say, hey, listen, it wasn't just d Smith.
Speaker 1: I was getting it. Well, that was all calculated, as
Speaker 1: it turns out, because he knew this was on its
Speaker 1: way out. I wonder if he thought, Okay, I'm probably
Speaker 1: gonna killed for this Goodell thing too. But I heard
Speaker 1: the reports out that the League is not gonna fire
Speaker 1: me as of Monday, morning was being reported or it
Speaker 1: was late Sunday night that he was probably gonna be okay. Um,
Speaker 1: the League office was probably not gonna do anything serious
Speaker 1: in terms of suspension. I wonder if they thought, oh,
Speaker 1: we could handle this fire and completely misunderstood how how
Speaker 1: this league going to come off? Right? The League wanted
Speaker 1: Mark Davis to do it for them, um, which it
Speaker 1: makes sense on some level, but they just wanted him
Speaker 1: to take care of it. And it feels like Mark
Speaker 1: Davis obviously was surprised by this, and you know, he
Speaker 1: took a couple of days, and I think there's also
Speaker 1: legal ramifications of whether he you know, contract ramifications of
Speaker 1: whether he's resigning or whether he's fired and whether it's
Speaker 1: for cause and all this sort of stuff. And and yeah,
Speaker 1: they probably gave him the weekend basically the New York
Speaker 1: Times or something, and then and then the rest of
Speaker 1: it comes out, and then they forced his hand. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: On the brighter side, though, Mark will win some sandwiches,
Speaker 1: So I mean that's yeah, let's let's wait. Put let's
Speaker 1: the copinion that we're gonna close the show talking about
Speaker 1: that Ricky and as a as a gay woman and
Speaker 1: as anyone else that has Um was really taken aback
Speaker 1: and insulted or hurt by what was in that email.
Speaker 1: I guess you could take. You know, they let him
Speaker 1: coach on Sunday. Now they're getting heat for that and
Speaker 1: the team though showed they lost anyway with Grooden. So
Speaker 1: that's one last note connected to that. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: the spice Rack would say that they're gonna win this week,
Speaker 1: that when coaches get disgraced and fired that the team
Speaker 1: always responds. According to the spice Rack College Football NFL,
Speaker 1: he believes that the fighting blasacchi Is are gonna go
Speaker 1: to Denver and really give a great effort. That almost happens.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's the case with with this Grooden
Speaker 1: situation is a little different than firing out and firing
Speaker 1: a tired you know one in two, well Um non
Speaker 1: creative coach that players don't relate to. Gruden had supporters
Speaker 1: in that. And that's also you're telling half the story. Greg,
Speaker 1: I won't know this says specifically the second part of that.
Speaker 1: I know that he would have said to pick against
Speaker 1: the Raiders Sunday, and now he would have said go
Speaker 1: with the Raiders. This week So yeah, Greg shared it
Speaker 1: with me into the weekend that when there's heat around
Speaker 1: a team on a sensitive subject, spice rack also has
Speaker 1: a separate rule. You gotta go against that team when
Speaker 1: there's heat in the locker room potentially a hot button topic.
Speaker 1: He was right about that, And now you have to
Speaker 1: trust the spice Rack if you're a desert person, because
Speaker 1: the Raiders are gonna be fired up under Rich Bisaccia.
Speaker 1: Let's hit Monday Night football right after this. Jackson takes
Speaker 1: the snap looking over the middle pumps. Once grows hot trauma,
Speaker 1: the Raiders have wandered it over time. No, Glamar Jackson
Speaker 1: throwing in spirals better talking than talking about John Rudin
Speaker 1: disgracing himself and his family, including Doo Scrudin who's still
Speaker 1: on the staff. Ravens wint On Ravens and overtime, they
Speaker 1: were down three in this game, it was over. They
Speaker 1: were down twenty nine in the fourth quarter. It was over.
Speaker 1: Only it wasn't over because Lamar Jackson had the greatest
Speaker 1: passing day of his life. He went thirty seven or
Speaker 1: forty three four two yards and four touchdowns and marched
Speaker 1: the team back with three touchdowns UH sixteen points, two
Speaker 1: touchdowns in the fourth quarter, and then the walk off
Speaker 1: UH touchdown on the first possession of overtime and Mark
Speaker 1: this game was Barker's first of all, let's we're gonna
Speaker 1: get to the cult because that's a stomach bunch of loss.
Speaker 1: It's one of those stomach punch losses. And Frank Reiks
Speaker 1: a really good coach and a good motivator, and he's
Speaker 1: got that locker room tight. But like some losses, you
Speaker 1: don't bounce back from, even if you're in the a
Speaker 1: f C. South, And I just wonder how the team
Speaker 1: reacts to that to fall to one and four. But
Speaker 1: on the raven side of things, just the comeback, the
Speaker 1: way it unfurled in the fourth quarter, like just like
Speaker 1: the the fact that they throw a touchdown pass UH
Speaker 1: two Mark Andrews, then a two point conversion to Mark Andrews,
Speaker 1: then another touchdown past to Mark Andrews, and then another
Speaker 1: two point conversion to Mark Andrews, and then get the
Speaker 1: ball on the coin toss, and and the Colts came
Speaker 1: and put up a resistance. It just it was a
Speaker 1: done deal once Jackson got rolling. And you can't pay
Speaker 1: a better compliment to him then he was completely unstoppable
Speaker 1: when the game was hanging in the balance. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know, Hardball called it one of the greatest performances
Speaker 1: he's ever witnessed. Um. And I don't think that's hyperbole
Speaker 1: on on any level. And I was watching this, um,
Speaker 1: you know, as a Browns fan at some point with
Speaker 1: the Ravens, Um, you just have to give it to
Speaker 1: them for for who they are. To me, they feel,
Speaker 1: uh like a team of destiny. And I think it's
Speaker 1: because they're led by a man of destiny and Lamar Jackson.
Speaker 1: And you look at their week to win over the Chiefs, Um,
Speaker 1: you look at the Justin Tucker field goal against the Lions,
Speaker 1: and you look at what happened lastly, the game that
Speaker 1: seemed completely out of hand. Um, the Ravens. Really, I
Speaker 1: think the story would have been had that just kind
Speaker 1: of finished in a different way, that the Ravens. Ravens
Speaker 1: are finally crumbling around some of their injury issues and stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: But instead Lamar Jackson And I think there was a
Speaker 1: part of me and I don't know if I'm sure
Speaker 1: you felt it a little bit that once they got
Speaker 1: going for me, I've seen too many of these um
Speaker 1: primetime games go completely out of whack and turn into
Speaker 1: a star vehicle for someone like Lamar Jackson. I was
Speaker 1: like this, they're winning this game, and I did not
Speaker 1: say that. You know, like, with two minutes to go,
Speaker 1: you could just feel the tide turning. And the Ravens
Speaker 1: are a team that when they're clicking, they're Mark Andrews. There,
Speaker 1: their Hollywood Browns, their star players are just simply a
Speaker 1: higher class than a team like the Cults. And they
Speaker 1: turned it on and to me, what happened, like Kolias
Speaker 1: Campbell Um, you know, essentially change that game. That guy
Speaker 1: is thirty five years old, six ft eight and a
Speaker 1: complete game changer and a perfect signing that showed you
Speaker 1: who the Ravens are. I look at this team and
Speaker 1: I just say, look at I realized they are not
Speaker 1: potentially as talented as the Chiefs. On some level, um,
Speaker 1: they might not be as um, you know, nouveau reach
Speaker 1: as the Chargers are. At this point, everyone's in love
Speaker 1: with Brandon Stalely. I told you that in January I
Speaker 1: leave for three weeks. Everyone's got a huge man crush
Speaker 1: on him. That's a whole different story. But Lamar Jackson
Speaker 1: to me, it just I was like, what does this
Speaker 1: remind me of? And I know that we draw this
Speaker 1: comparison almost to a tired extent, but it was sitting
Speaker 1: in my living room, um in the nineties as a
Speaker 1: high school in the college person, watching Michael Jordan's get
Speaker 1: into a billion fixes and every single time you're like,
Speaker 1: you know this is going down to the last minute.
Speaker 1: You know that he is going to take care of
Speaker 1: whatever adversities come his way. And Lamar Jackson talked about
Speaker 1: entering into a state of total calm in that game
Speaker 1: that the players around and believe it that Harbaugh basically,
Speaker 1: you know, two weeks in a row is saying we're
Speaker 1: gonna go for everything, and it's because of this one player.
Speaker 1: And he came into the league completely doubted, and I
Speaker 1: think it's a perfect season for him to cap, you know,
Speaker 1: this entire thing with a raven's journey that no one's
Speaker 1: ever expected this season. I mean they've been even weeks
Speaker 1: ago that he's been figured out, and you know, you
Speaker 1: look at the running backs. They ran for like twenty
Speaker 1: five yards last night. Had we known that four weeks ago,
Speaker 1: you could have projected a Ravens team that just was
Speaker 1: gonna crumble in on itself, but you cannot when you
Speaker 1: have this talent inside this locker room and on the field.
Speaker 1: Lamar Jackson is everything the Ravens could have hoped and
Speaker 1: there's literally no ceiling for where they could wind up
Speaker 1: as a team. They're they're not a perfect team, Like
Speaker 1: we shouldn't have said that they're crumbling if they had
Speaker 1: lost this game to the cause, and we shouldn't say
Speaker 1: there a perfect are you know, a fixed complete team
Speaker 1: just because they keep scraping out these wins. They remind
Speaker 1: me the Oh three Patriot and Lamar starting to remind
Speaker 1: me of early career Brady, where every every game comes
Speaker 1: down to this insane ending. Everyone thinks they're lucky, and
Speaker 1: everyone can't, you know, believe quite that they managed to
Speaker 1: lose the game and they can't figure out how and why,
Speaker 1: and you know the reasons, the quarterback usually and the
Speaker 1: coaching because of these margins and they make their own luck.
Speaker 1: And it's almost like the Ravens have went into this
Speaker 1: season Greg Roman and Lamar and they went through every
Speaker 1: checklist of criticism that Lamar had as a pastor, and
Speaker 1: they're like our goal early in this season is just
Speaker 1: gonna be to shut everyone up about that, Like we
Speaker 1: can't play from behind. Okay, we've done that three times now.
Speaker 1: Uh two from huge margins again, you know on in
Speaker 1: in primetime. Uh, Lamar can't win from the pocket. Like
Speaker 1: last night, those weren't easy throws to go thirty seven
Speaker 1: for forty four. Those were a lot of tight window throws.
Speaker 1: Almost all of them were from the pocket. Even like
Speaker 1: the winner too, Marky's Brown, Like that's kind of a
Speaker 1: typical throw in that scenario where it's like it had
Speaker 1: to be exactly on point. It was on point, and
Speaker 1: then it was like, well he's He's only really can
Speaker 1: throw that well. Because they're so good in the run
Speaker 1: sets it up. Their running game is still stunk this
Speaker 1: year other than Lamar Lamar's eighth in the league and rushing,
Speaker 1: but they're running. They haven't done anything running the ball.
Speaker 1: They're one of the past heaviest teams in the NFL,
Speaker 1: and they're they're great on offense, so it's like they've
Speaker 1: gone through every checklist. Lamar is doing that individually. The
Speaker 1: rest of the team needs to catch up and then
Speaker 1: they could be really special. And you know, the Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Brady parallels, we'll see. We'll see about that, because
Speaker 1: Brady came out of Gate winning big games when it
Speaker 1: mattered most. And they're obviously very different physically because for
Speaker 1: his since Lamar Jackson accounted for for four of the
Speaker 1: five three net yards, just being like, what the hell
Speaker 1: happened here? Thought that no one thought that Patriots team
Speaker 1: was any good until they actually won the Super Bowl
Speaker 1: and I he's been Let's see, we're talking LAMARX. That's
Speaker 1: what this is about. Like, he's such a unique player
Speaker 1: in the history of the league, the recent history of
Speaker 1: the league, because he came in number thirty two overall,
Speaker 1: um the fifth of the quarterbacks drafted in that first round.
Speaker 1: I believe that was the Mayfield, Donald Rosen, Josh Allen draft,
Speaker 1: and uh, he takes the league by storm in the
Speaker 1: year two wins the m v P. Um has these
Speaker 1: disappointing January outcomes that have cast a lot of doubt
Speaker 1: on his ability to be a big time player. But
Speaker 1: then you have games like last that game, the primetime
Speaker 1: game against Cleveland last year, and now this game where
Speaker 1: like when the lights are on and everyone's watching, he
Speaker 1: plays at his best. So it's just kind of it's
Speaker 1: strange to put that this version of Jackson who's unreal
Speaker 1: when everyone's paying attention to the performances we've seen in
Speaker 1: January where he and the Baltimore offense have been so vulnerable.
Speaker 1: So there are demons the slay for Jackson that he
Speaker 1: won't get a chance to do until January. But I
Speaker 1: don't think there's any question, barring injury, that they're gonna
Speaker 1: be there, and maybe as the number one seed in
Speaker 1: the a f C as high as that, or as
Speaker 1: the as the defending champion um of the a f
Speaker 1: C North or the new a f C North Chapanion,
Speaker 1: because that's the ceiling he brings to the team. And
Speaker 1: I thought that was just it's just a reminder of
Speaker 1: his greatness, which is kind of unique in our league. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean when you think of the Ravens, like there's
Speaker 1: this innate trust if you've been watching their consistency since
Speaker 1: they came into the league way back when, and I
Speaker 1: just look at this team and you know, look at
Speaker 1: its weeks. We're entering week six. A lot can change,
Speaker 1: everything can change. But who couldn't the Ravens beat in
Speaker 1: the a f C. And why wouldn't we look at
Speaker 1: them and say that there is mentally they're built mentally, coach,
Speaker 1: the quarterback are are annoyed. We haven't mentioned them yet
Speaker 1: as like fine built. But the Bills, the Bills, I mean,
Speaker 1: the Bills are number one of the power ranks or
Speaker 1: I love the Bills. But you can't tell me that
Speaker 1: the Ravens can't beat the Bills in Orchard Park in
Speaker 1: a big spot, because I could see it. They could
Speaker 1: beat anyone. I mean they You know what Peyton Manning
Speaker 1: was dogged for years about like not a playoff winning quarterback.
Speaker 1: He's shiny, He's a regular season think piece. We love him.
Speaker 1: But Lamar Jackson simply will knock down those bowling pins
Speaker 1: at some point because he didn't lose those games for
Speaker 1: him on his own. That said, you look at that
Speaker 1: Chargers game from a couple of years ago. He got
Speaker 1: totally unplugged. So the Greg Roman Mark Jackson, Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: gonna have to find a way to come up rookie quarterback.
Speaker 1: We're seeing this year what it's like for most rookie
Speaker 1: quarterbacks who step into the line. But it's not just
Speaker 1: last year that he's saying that's the thing that's a
Speaker 1: that's a fair critique his January performance that he's going
Speaker 1: to have to deal with. But to Mark's point, yeah,
Speaker 1: Peyton Manning, nobody says that anymore, but for years that
Speaker 1: dog to him, five or six seasons before he finally
Speaker 1: got rolling the game winning drive. Though to me, it
Speaker 1: was amazing because it wasn't spectacular. It was just him
Speaker 1: in the pocket picking out the right mismatch every play,
Speaker 1: you know, second or third read very often, it was
Speaker 1: all from the pocket. It wasn't There wasn't a lot
Speaker 1: of spectacular plays on that specific drive. Like Mark Andrews is.
Speaker 1: You know, he he's been dogged. I mean, talk about
Speaker 1: not showing up in the playoffs. Mark Andrews in the
Speaker 1: playoffs turns into John Smith on the Patriots. That's what
Speaker 1: Mark Andrews has been in the playoffs. And he was
Speaker 1: making incredible catches last night. Marcus Brown is on pace
Speaker 1: and I hate this because of the seventeen games, so
Speaker 1: I don't even know what to say on pace. Let's
Speaker 1: pretend that season was still sixteen games. Marcus Brown's on
Speaker 1: pace for almost fifteen hundred yards and Mark Andrews on
Speaker 1: pace for about That's the type of passing game. That's
Speaker 1: the thing that's crazy is that they're just like a
Speaker 1: totally different take out those three drops by m by
Speaker 1: Brown two weeks ago. And he has been outstanding this year.
Speaker 1: He's been everything they ever wanted him to be. Uh,
Speaker 1: he's really he's really made the leap and you know
Speaker 1: on the other side of the ball that, yes, Indy
Speaker 1: could still bounce back and if you want to, if
Speaker 1: you want to try to be positive, he said, Okay,
Speaker 1: Carson wentz Man, I thought he played well in this game. Uh,
Speaker 1: they moved the ball. They really dominated this game a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. Uh, for the better part of three
Speaker 1: plus quarters. But this is one of those losses that
Speaker 1: you know in any diehard fan, um knows what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about when I say this, when your team really
Speaker 1: really blows one and it ruined your day or your night.
Speaker 1: You go to bed and you wake up in the
Speaker 1: morning and then like within seconds, you remember what happened
Speaker 1: and it's like getting punched in the stomach. Again. That's
Speaker 1: every Colts fan, uh, in this country and beyond, because
Speaker 1: I mean, given the Spotlight game, the Island game, given
Speaker 1: what it meant to get if they got to two
Speaker 1: and three what it could have meant for their season, Uh,
Speaker 1: to let it all slip away, And it reminded me
Speaker 1: Greg you know. Yeah, all due credit to everyone on
Speaker 1: the Baltimore offense on that last possession and overtime, but
Speaker 1: that was like super Bow fifty one. If if they
Speaker 1: call the wrong heads or tails, and I think it
Speaker 1: was Wentz that called heads, goes tails, it's over once
Speaker 1: once Lamar got the ball to start. That defense was
Speaker 1: a mix of being gassed and not being coached up
Speaker 1: by Matt Eberflus because they had no way to stop
Speaker 1: the Ravens on that last possession. What happened, by the way,
Speaker 1: on that coin toss, I'm mean, I you know, there
Speaker 1: was no like LSD inside my body or anything. But
Speaker 1: I swear I heard the cults Carson Wentz call heads
Speaker 1: and it was heads, and then Baltimore got the ball
Speaker 1: and I thought he said heads in it landed tales.
Speaker 1: Then I was twats about it too, that people were
Speaker 1: saying that like it was. I got a bunch of
Speaker 1: tweets about it, like you know, but I'll go back
Speaker 1: and watch that, Like the cults probably would have brought
Speaker 1: this up, like you think they might have said they
Speaker 1: might have they beat guys. They have one thing to
Speaker 1: add about Tonight's lots go watch it again. Though it's
Speaker 1: something it was like a trick of sound, maybe like
Speaker 1: it was you actually the Ravens guys say, then we
Speaker 1: got heads or I don't even know. I'm not gonna Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're fine. I mean, I don't know what the
Speaker 1: point it was. Fine. The Cults are fine, fine, trust me,
Speaker 1: one and four. They're just five years for their organization.
Speaker 1: They ain't fine now. Their their defense is is pretty mediocre.
Speaker 1: Teams do change. That's one thing the Ravens have to
Speaker 1: feel great about because I think as much as any
Speaker 1: team other than the Patriots and the Seahawks, they are
Speaker 1: usually better after Thanksgiving when it matters, that's when the
Speaker 1: season starts, like they usually improve the Ravens. They usually
Speaker 1: figure out their weaknesses. I think the Cults could too.
Speaker 1: But it's like, what's the point of the a f C. South.
Speaker 1: It's just like as as Mark would say, proved me wrong.
Speaker 1: But they just feel like whoever's gonna win that division
Speaker 1: is gonna be cannon fodder. H in January and went
Speaker 1: went I'm glad people got to see that all the
Speaker 1: Wentz you know, critique this year, like he's been okay
Speaker 1: Reich's he feels more comfortable with the Reich Reich was
Speaker 1: in his bag, like uh, play calling last night. They
Speaker 1: just don't have a lot of juice, especially defensively. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you knew that Wentz was gonna throw for four
Speaker 1: hundred and two yards with two touchdowns and have the
Speaker 1: first three quarters that he did, and that that that
Speaker 1: aspect of the story would essentially be buried like it
Speaker 1: was hidden inside the Warren Commission, Um, you'd wonder what
Speaker 1: was happening in the fourth Mark Mark trope is like
Speaker 1: if you knew before the game that it would be
Speaker 1: for but has that anyone ever like brought it up
Speaker 1: to you before the game and be like, hey, um,
Speaker 1: Carson Wentz will have four hundred yards in this game,
Speaker 1: So what do you think is going to happen? Is
Speaker 1: anyone Well? I don't have those I don't have those
Speaker 1: type of forward thinking conversations with people. But if you
Speaker 1: want to make a case for the Cults, we knew
Speaker 1: their early schedule was tough. You now get the Texans,
Speaker 1: a forty niners team that feels like you could deal
Speaker 1: with them, the Titans, the Jets, and the jack So
Speaker 1: you can climb back in, but I just don't buy them.
Speaker 1: Though I don't buy I buy them as like a
Speaker 1: seven win team, though I'm kind of it doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like it doesn't matter. I mean,
Speaker 1: this was this would have went a long way into
Speaker 1: um really spicing up the division race. And the Titans
Speaker 1: are so mediocre that it might still be okay and
Speaker 1: they'll be battling it out the two of these teams
Speaker 1: in December in terms of supremacy of the South. But
Speaker 1: you know these are Hammond Aggers when you look at
Speaker 1: the greater picture of the NFL. But sorry, can I
Speaker 1: tell you one thing that I honestly affected me emotionally
Speaker 1: because this person um feels like every eighth guy friend
Speaker 1: I had growing up, and he's so um nerdy and
Speaker 1: lovable and I want to just give him a big hug.
Speaker 1: Is Rodrigo Blanket Ship playing the Goat. He's clearly hurt
Speaker 1: in that game. Um, Rodrigo Blanket Ship if you look
Speaker 1: him up on Instagram has Rodrigo the Collector, and he's
Speaker 1: like a huge Lego head um and sci fi nerd,
Speaker 1: and he does these Instagram live like hour and a
Speaker 1: half long um chats with fans where he'll just sit
Speaker 1: at his table and normal cloth. He looks like he
Speaker 1: lives in a totally normal house and Carmel, Indiana with
Speaker 1: his wife, and he just does like nerdy lego stuff
Speaker 1: and it's something about him on a football field. We
Speaker 1: all get it. He doesn't. He looks a little atypical
Speaker 1: with the glasses and everything else, and he weighs about
Speaker 1: a hundred and eight pounds. But for him to play
Speaker 1: the goat um hurt me. Remember it like that? If
Speaker 1: don't you remember our Christmas special last December when we
Speaker 1: dug up his old blog when he was in high
Speaker 1: school in college where he's just burying his teammates h
Speaker 1: for down. Yeah, we hadn't. Well, maybe he's maybe he's
Speaker 1: much more, you know, sinister. On the surface, he looks
Speaker 1: cute and whatever this injury he is. He's adorable whatever
Speaker 1: this injury is. And I don't know six one, he's
Speaker 1: a big dude. What do we say the injury was
Speaker 1: clay As Campbell. But yeah, so like what are we
Speaker 1: setting up for a forty nine yard field goal with
Speaker 1: a kick or the bum hit like that was a
Speaker 1: conservative moment. I remember that. Well, they ran for the
Speaker 1: first down, uh with a sneak or they tried to sneak,
Speaker 1: and then they got the third and one, and then
Speaker 1: they ran a three times three times to set up
Speaker 1: that field goal, including on including on third and eight.
Speaker 1: That was some. That was some Kevin Stefanski running on
Speaker 1: third and long. No, sorry, buddy, on Sunday, when you're
Speaker 1: in when you're in the forties, don't be running on
Speaker 1: third and eight. That's all I'm saying. Now. I feel
Speaker 1: like he got he had like his brain stolen from him,
Speaker 1: because that was a very anti Stefanski thing, and that
Speaker 1: brought us Dan to miss kicks for the first time
Speaker 1: in an NFL week since Venice. All Ricky's comment that, um,
Speaker 1: the Kicker Club maybe needs to be I guess it
Speaker 1: would be sort of shut down. You put one of
Speaker 1: those huge balloon things over the house or over the
Speaker 1: club to kind of yeah, just the bugs and evil spirits.
Speaker 1: It's the This week, it was the Kicker Club. It
Speaker 1: was just you know, it is what it is. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll be better, but you know my and it was
Speaker 1: an all time record for missed extra point missed extra points. Again,
Speaker 1: I had this right, you know, just like Wes had
Speaker 1: it right about past interference, and uh, Mark, you had
Speaker 1: it right that Brennan Staley is a god. And Greg
Speaker 1: had something right that doesn't pop in my head right now,
Speaker 1: but throw it out there, Greg as an example of
Speaker 1: you being right. Lamar Jackson less, Lamar Jackson. He loves Lamar. Um.
Speaker 1: Come on, let's move these p T s back to
Speaker 1: where they were. This is ridiculous. But we're missing, they
Speaker 1: would say, is the point that exactly does it enrich
Speaker 1: the game to you? Do they make? I was always
Speaker 1: for eliminating the play. H That was what Bill Belichick
Speaker 1: was for back in the old days, either making it
Speaker 1: longer or eliminating down to we're down to p A
Speaker 1: T conversion. And meanwhile, as we saw, especially if you
Speaker 1: have Mark Andrews on your team, but uh, two point
Speaker 1: conversions have never been easier in our league. I think
Speaker 1: it's in the range of like si so not sixty nine.
Speaker 1: And it's like, oh, that makes the game better, and
Speaker 1: now just go for two all the time. Well, I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe you do the thing. And Matt money
Speaker 1: Smith brought it up today, Maybe you do the thing
Speaker 1: where you just get rid of the p at. We
Speaker 1: do Power Rankings every Tuesday, three pm Eastern neon Pacific
Speaker 1: on NFL. Still pronouncing your name incorrectly though I noticed,
Speaker 1: and maybe on purpose at this point hands we did.
Speaker 1: We had a we had a conversation about that on
Speaker 1: the show today on Power Rankings on NFL Network three
Speaker 1: that um, no, that just make it. Uh, just make
Speaker 1: it a six point score and um and then you
Speaker 1: get a chance to go for two and that's it.
Speaker 1: I think what he said actually is you make it
Speaker 1: a seven. I sat on our show three years ago
Speaker 1: here when we have this time now, you were all like, oh,
Speaker 1: make extra points hard, push it back if you're gonna
Speaker 1: do it, or eliminate it. Yeah, you make it seven
Speaker 1: and you either yeah, you either keep it or you
Speaker 1: go for two and you make it and lose one.
Speaker 1: And if you make it to say, but the idea
Speaker 1: that a coach would look at a scoreboard, especially these
Speaker 1: older guys and take a point off the scoreboard, it's
Speaker 1: just they would never do that. The extra point used
Speaker 1: to be when you get up and get a beer
Speaker 1: or you'd go urinate. If you're someone that does that,
Speaker 1: that's all of us um that you don't even look
Speaker 1: at the extra point and now it's like anxiety written
Speaker 1: and you must sit there and stare at what chaos
Speaker 1: is to come. Yeah, can you flip off Mark saying
Speaker 1: that the whole yurinate, that's all of us. I really
Speaker 1: like that most Maybe you maybe you did overdid it
Speaker 1: during the snack time, the food time, of the tell
Speaker 1: of the telecast viewing experience and you need a longer
Speaker 1: trip to the bathroom. Do you want to elaborate on that, Mark, No,
Speaker 1: I mean I think it's a universal, um human thing
Speaker 1: that we all do. But like you would, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: get up with Lamar Jackson on the ten yard line
Speaker 1: extra point. Back in the nineties, it was like see
Speaker 1: you later, extra point. But I mean back in you
Speaker 1: know when the if we've got to go like history,
Speaker 1: let's back when it was created, it was like the
Speaker 1: extra point, you know, percentage was probably like forty is
Speaker 1: like most of them, you know, you know they have
Speaker 1: to come off off their you know, construction workers shift
Speaker 1: and they're just like kicking it into the line of
Speaker 1: scrim to your point. Grad in youth football and you
Speaker 1: know that I played Pop Warner back then. You would
Speaker 1: you would run a one point play. It would just
Speaker 1: be a play. But if you had someone who was
Speaker 1: like nine or ten on your team that could kick
Speaker 1: an extra point, that was worth two because it was
Speaker 1: like no human can do that at that age. I
Speaker 1: now combine all the Mark Sessler pre NFL life experiences
Speaker 1: into one event. So he was playing Pop Warner in Surrey, uh, England,
Speaker 1: and the games were played on the grounds of Camp
Speaker 1: Happiness on the banks of the Colorado River, the factual jungle.
Speaker 1: You've totally missed, missing the point there, all right, Thursday
Speaker 1: Night Football, it's moved to six, not Camp Happiness. What
Speaker 1: was it again? I think that was wilderness there is.
Speaker 1: I worked at a place called Camp Jewel up in
Speaker 1: the Berkshire Foothills. That you've transformed into camp. I don't
Speaker 1: think any place can assume that that's what they meant
Speaker 1: calling themselves. And then the other new thing. Not that
Speaker 1: happens a lot. And by the way, I love having
Speaker 1: you Backmark, Not that it happens a lot, but sometimes
Speaker 1: it will be at a social gathering and Ceciler will
Speaker 1: be there, and then my buddy Bob from the Throwback podcast,
Speaker 1: he'll be there and his wonderful wife, Heather, who I love,
Speaker 1: will be there. And she also grew up in Connecticut
Speaker 1: and also went to Camp Jewel and her friends went
Speaker 1: to Camp Jewel. And then it's just like, where's Mark
Speaker 1: and Heather. It's like, oh, they've been talking about Camp
Speaker 1: Jewel for three hours and they're texting people they haven't
Speaker 1: seen in twenty seven years. No, she actually she did
Speaker 1: um an incredible bit of gum shoe work. Um. She
Speaker 1: found she was friends with the sister of one of
Speaker 1: the most pivotal early life girlfriends that I ever had.
Speaker 1: So as I was talking to Heather about Camp Happiness,
Speaker 1: which is not the name of it, um, we were
Speaker 1: we found it. We had sim are friends and it
Speaker 1: was this GF from like the early nineties. It was
Speaker 1: a shocking bit of news. So Heather is a huge
Speaker 1: ally on that front. It would have been it would
Speaker 1: have been cool. Well if we were in London, if
Speaker 1: all the people, all the friends and family you made
Speaker 1: in Surrey like came up and told us, you know,
Speaker 1: they missed you and stuff like that was too There
Speaker 1: was no end of the friendships. I missed you so much.
Speaker 1: All right, We got Thursday night football coming up, right
Speaker 1: after this, all right, here we go. Hit it. Prianka.
Speaker 1: There she is, Preaka and I know you're something in
Speaker 1: that said. Hey, Yes, Thursday Night football begins with the
Speaker 1: Tampa Bay Buccaneer traveling to Philadelphia to face the Eagles.
Speaker 1: I don't know, is it just news the Eagle? I
Speaker 1: feel like the Eagles play a big time team almost
Speaker 1: every week. Tough scater early on the teams. But the
Speaker 1: Bucks four and one. The Bucks are doing what we
Speaker 1: expected the Bucks to do. And my favorite stat the
Speaker 1: two thousand one was on the plane. We had a
Speaker 1: ten hour flight from Heathrow to l a X yesterday
Speaker 1: and um, that's a long time. That's a very long flight. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we and I just cranked out for six and
Speaker 1: a half hours. Power rankings words I read like the
Speaker 1: entire internet, uh in my preparation, uh Ford and the
Speaker 1: stat that that I loved the most, as as follows
Speaker 1: from a gentleman, hang on, I'm finding it. Greg Allman
Speaker 1: of the Athletic formerly of the Tampa Bay Times, in
Speaker 1: his right up on the game Sunday marked the sixth
Speaker 1: time in twenty five games with Tom Brady that the
Speaker 1: Buccaneers have scored forty four points or more. The Bucks
Speaker 1: had scored forty four points in just just six times
Speaker 1: in their forty four season before tom Brady's arrival last year. Oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, tom Brady is forty four years old.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's it's mystical mark what Tom Brady has
Speaker 1: done in Tampa Bay. But that's stats. Six times in
Speaker 1: twenty five games forty four points. The previous forty four years,
Speaker 1: the Bucks have done it six times. That's a super
Speaker 1: Bowl team in there, and some good playoff teams, some
Speaker 1: bad teams too, but that is bonkers. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: we talked about forty on the RAG a year ago
Speaker 1: and that became essentially true. But it's like, you don't
Speaker 1: trust teams necessarily to carry over who they are on
Speaker 1: offense from year to year, but you do with Tom
Speaker 1: Brady in this whole situation. M Now they get the Eagles.
Speaker 1: They had a couple of down ish weeks offensively. Uh,
Speaker 1: that had a little bit of you know, people, I
Speaker 1: mean some concern. You know, you only put up nineteen
Speaker 1: in Foxborough and and you lose that game. Convinced they're
Speaker 1: just they're just ridiculous. We've seen what this Eagles defense
Speaker 1: which was very frisky last week, played great. Um really
Speaker 1: won that game for them against Sam Donald. And but
Speaker 1: we've seen what they do against the best offenses in
Speaker 1: the league. Like most defenses, they just they get run over,
Speaker 1: they get they lay down. I mean the Chiefs scored
Speaker 1: a touchdown in every possession but one against them, and
Speaker 1: the Cowboys went walked them up and down the field.
Speaker 1: And Tampa is you know, every there's every reason to
Speaker 1: believe that they'll be able to pinpoint mismatches. And so
Speaker 1: then you're asking Jalen Hurts to try to keep up.
Speaker 1: I want him to play a little more hurry up.
Speaker 1: He that is best in that I still hear that,
Speaker 1: like Nick Saban thing that Peyton Manning talked, you know
Speaker 1: that he said in the Manning cast of like why
Speaker 1: doesn't every team play hurry up like all the time,
Speaker 1: because it really it really sucks for defenses. And when
Speaker 1: Jalen Hurts plays hurry up, there are a lot to
Speaker 1: deal with. They are like the one team in the
Speaker 1: league though, where it just feels like they pass so
Speaker 1: much even though they're so good at running that it
Speaker 1: blows my mind a little bit. But this is a
Speaker 1: matchup where the Bucks because they're so good stopping the run.
Speaker 1: It's just like a pass funnel. And then most most
Speaker 1: teams don't even try a run against them. I'd like
Speaker 1: to see them try, though that The Eagles are the
Speaker 1: number two team in the league in terms of passing
Speaker 1: in neutral situations. The Chiefs are the only teams that
Speaker 1: passed more and yet to their fifth in the league
Speaker 1: and yards per carry. They have a good running game.
Speaker 1: They have these big guys up front, and they have
Speaker 1: a great running quarterback, and they haven't really integrated it.
Speaker 1: Maybe this isn't the game to do it, but I
Speaker 1: feel like that's the only way you could try to
Speaker 1: keep up here, slow it down a little bit. I
Speaker 1: don't know if this is the game though at all.
Speaker 1: I mean, if there's one opponent, one defense in the
Speaker 1: league that you look at and say, let's um, we
Speaker 1: can try but but well that's fine, but there's a
Speaker 1: reason people aren't trying to. I mean, they gave up
Speaker 1: negative one yards rushing two weeks ago in thirty nine
Speaker 1: against the Dolphins. And I get that the Dolphins, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you've got Jacobe per setting there. It's a
Speaker 1: tough situation. But they were also eight for eleven on
Speaker 1: third downs. The Bucks. They had the ball for thirty
Speaker 1: seven plus minutes. UM there dominant, and you look at
Speaker 1: the Eagles and I thought, actually, that was an incredibly
Speaker 1: resilient second half and had a lot to do with
Speaker 1: their defense. But Hurts, um, you know, like that that
Speaker 1: they had thirteen yards of offense over their first seven drives.
Speaker 1: The Eagles, it took them a while to shake out of, um,
Speaker 1: you know, their slumber. But I thought that Hurts down
Speaker 1: the stretch, asked to make a couple of big throws,
Speaker 1: had a big one to Dallas Goddard Um to help
Speaker 1: set up the win, and then an incredible two point
Speaker 1: play where you threw it to the back of the
Speaker 1: end zone to DeVonta Smith, and I Hurts just does
Speaker 1: it all. I mean, I know that some of these
Speaker 1: games like he's not looking, you know, like Lamar Jackson
Speaker 1: in terms of the overall functioning offense. But I I understand,
Speaker 1: like it feels like the Eagles are still in this
Speaker 1: referendum period with Hurts, and I think in one he
Speaker 1: does a lot for you, um, and he keeps growing
Speaker 1: every week, is he is. Their offense is not the
Speaker 1: same as Tampa's on any level. But I think it's
Speaker 1: their defense with Darius Slay who broke up last week,
Speaker 1: Javon Hargrave, who is playing awesome right now. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's the same all thing you've got to try to get.
Speaker 1: I'm not locking this this game on any level. I'm
Speaker 1: not totally psychotic, but if you're an Eagles fan, you
Speaker 1: really take positives out of Sunday because there there was
Speaker 1: some questions starting to percolate in Philadelphia about Nick Sirianni,
Speaker 1: whether this team is disciplined enough under him, if if
Speaker 1: they have their poop together is another way to put it.
Speaker 1: And then in the final five games against the quality
Speaker 1: Carolina team, we don't know how good the Panthers are,
Speaker 1: but they're pretty good. Uh. They get a block punt,
Speaker 1: they get a touchdown drive on a Hurts touchdown run,
Speaker 1: and then Stephen Nelson um picks Sam Donald uh to
Speaker 1: win the game. So that's positive. At the same time,
Speaker 1: now you get a short week. I know, you get
Speaker 1: to stay home and that's good, but um, I don't
Speaker 1: like having a deal with this Bucks team on a
Speaker 1: short week when you're kind of a middling, uh middle
Speaker 1: of the pack team. Now I'm not gonna lock it
Speaker 1: up the mirror test. It is on the edge of
Speaker 1: the mirror test that it's the desert says the seven points. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I don't do seven. I don't, okay, so then
Speaker 1: nobody can lock it up. But I'll say this, this
Speaker 1: is interesting. Richard Sherman, who you may or may not
Speaker 1: be aware, is now on the Buccaneers because you know,
Speaker 1: why not just collect all the stars, uh, even if
Speaker 1: they're past their prime. But he approached Leonard Fournett for
Speaker 1: Net at halftime on Sunday or against the Dolphins, even
Speaker 1: before the game was out of hand. But I think
Speaker 1: everybody knew what was gonna happen. And uh, Richard Sherman,
Speaker 1: who was a member of the Legion of Boom, of course,
Speaker 1: that two thousand thirteen Seahawks team was one of the
Speaker 1: best I think of this century so far. And he
Speaker 1: told Leonard Fournette that he had never been part of
Speaker 1: a team with so much talent, and for Nett responded
Speaker 1: and he told the media that's how we know this
Speaker 1: this is different. That's what he said about the Bucks.
Speaker 1: And that's what I think that the Eagles are going
Speaker 1: to learn. I think this is a double digit blowout
Speaker 1: type situation. Yeah, I tend to agree and hurts maybe
Speaker 1: makes it interesting late, but Brady, Brady, this eats his
Speaker 1: own coverage now and that's all the Eagles do. Your boy,
Speaker 1: Lenny that you're talking about, he's running great is uh.
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, I don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: have an opinion on one way or the other. That's
Speaker 1: all the story of him. I've never seen him look
Speaker 1: as good as he has the last three weeks, even
Speaker 1: early in his career. I don't think like maybe that,
Speaker 1: you know, being around all time great makes you better.
Speaker 1: Funny how that works, true, true, true? Alright, so check
Speaker 1: that game out, Colleen Wolf Um. I think Colleen would
Speaker 1: have been on the show today to preview the game,
Speaker 1: but now she's doing the Split Ends podcast with Ricky
Speaker 1: Hollywood and uh now, rick Now, Connie has to make
Speaker 1: some hard decisions. So in an indirect way, our own
Speaker 1: producers undermining our show. Your thoughts, Erica incredible, h Yeah,
Speaker 1: I disagree with that. I think, Um, you know, originally
Speaker 1: we weren't going to do a show, and she had
Speaker 1: planned otherwise, and then you know, with this news, we
Speaker 1: changed it. So uh, you know, scheduling sometimes can get
Speaker 1: in the way. But to but to Damn's the point,
Speaker 1: Ricky like it did tire her out to such an
Speaker 1: extent that she was unable to appear on our show.
Speaker 1: Speak on it. Okay, well, Um is always on the schedule.
Speaker 1: One that was a planned I always say Eric went
Speaker 1: in doubt. You could also always just say screw you
Speaker 1: guys and disappear because your answer was fine. The first
Speaker 1: one was fair. Yeah, yeah, we yeah, Okay, screw you guys.
Speaker 1: We'll she be sitting with Tom Brady that that is
Speaker 1: something that I thought about Um earlier today. You know
Speaker 1: it's who which he's Tom? I don't think it's Tom
Speaker 1: doing Thursday football. He like doesn't he doesn't do that.
Speaker 1: It'll be like what Gronk might play. By the way,
Speaker 1: Dallas Gardard got COVID or he's on the COVID list
Speaker 1: though he might not play, would be amazing Mite. Maybe
Speaker 1: maybe Tom does a solid Roger Tom, Gronk and Tom
Speaker 1: together right now, Gronk does. Gronk does Aaron Andrews after
Speaker 1: the game, but he won't come out to the podium.
Speaker 1: You can't do Antonio Brown because he's problematic. Um Gronk
Speaker 1: might not play so you basically you gotta hope Chris
Speaker 1: Godwin has a good day or JPP someone that that
Speaker 1: the fans can really embrace Lenny playoff, Lenny scenario down
Speaker 1: Gruden out of the league understandably, and there's justifiably so
Speaker 1: Antonio Brown. They celebrated superstar in the league. It's weird
Speaker 1: how things are sometimes, that's all. And Antonio with the
Speaker 1: youngest player in NFL history to get to nine catches,
Speaker 1: and he's like, I been out for long stretches of time.
Speaker 1: It's kind of he's been the last a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: I could be wrong, but I think it might have
Speaker 1: been in terms of games played, So they're not not
Speaker 1: just your point being that he was able to get
Speaker 1: back into the league because he's so damn good, right,
Speaker 1: And maybe like if John Gruden had made the playoffs
Speaker 1: the last three years and they're coming off a f
Speaker 1: C Championship Game appearance. You know, I'm cynical enough to one,
Speaker 1: I'm cynical enough to wonder what if everything would happen
Speaker 1: in the same way, you know that would all come out,
Speaker 1: whether the information, everything could be different. Like I don't
Speaker 1: want you don't want to do the kind of do
Speaker 1: a you know, blind a b test. But you know,
Speaker 1: I mean we we had a point on this podcast
Speaker 1: where we would have been totally convinced Antonio Brown was
Speaker 1: done in this league forever. I mean, Chris Chris famously
Speaker 1: stopped rooting for the Patriots, um for good once they stop,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, like and like here he is, you know,
Speaker 1: winning super Bowls back with the same guy, and everyone's
Speaker 1: just like he's the same guy, he's a different guy. Well,
Speaker 1: we've got new things to be outraged about, and you
Speaker 1: know Antonio Brown's and the deep dist and should he
Speaker 1: be different questions? Those emails are terrible. Well read about
Speaker 1: Antonio Brown. It is a sliding scale. Um, all right,
Speaker 1: big Ben? Like come on, well, had that his six
Speaker 1: game suspension reduced to four? And who were they playing
Speaker 1: in week five? To I guess that's another I have
Speaker 1: a guy we're hitting for the cycle of Mark And
Speaker 1: also he's coming back with a bang. I love that story. Um.
Speaker 1: Just so you know, Ricky, if you didn't mention Big
Speaker 1: Ben in the next twelve seconds, Greg would have Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wanted to be do we just want to play
Speaker 1: the game, all right, Jamis Winston. I mean do we
Speaker 1: want to keep going there are yeah, yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: here we go before we say goodbye. Um, speaking all
Speaker 1: the controversy, the fact that the listeners are so into this,
Speaker 1: uh it cannot cannot go to the episode without bringing
Speaker 1: it up. I mean, Mark Cecily, you know when I
Speaker 1: when you think about the Sandwich game, by the way,
Speaker 1: I think about Mark, and I think how he's lasting
Speaker 1: the standings, but that doesn't matter. He's kind of like
Speaker 1: to use a baseball analogy, the true three outcome type hitter,
Speaker 1: where it's like, yeah, he's gonna strike out a ton,
Speaker 1: gonna walk, and he's gonna hit a lot of home runs,
Speaker 1: and Mark's gonna run into one every once in a while.
Speaker 1: He's sure did here because Mark, I'll set it up
Speaker 1: here to your Sandwich props. When made this at the
Speaker 1: beginning of September, a coach will resign during the season.
Speaker 1: Boom shaka laka. He resigned, not fired, and he gone
Speaker 1: that Mark was rooting for something like this to happen,
Speaker 1: and not just that we might get two coaches. By
Speaker 1: the way, you've got it. You've got a long way
Speaker 1: to go on Urban Meyer here and not just that.
Speaker 1: A top story involves an NFL cheerleader, and yes, one
Speaker 1: of the allegations within the report that doomed John Gruden
Speaker 1: was Bruce Allen Area slam Ball sending um photos of
Speaker 1: Washington cheerleaders from a calendar shoot to John Gruden. They're
Speaker 1: part of the story, thousands of the only reason why
Speaker 1: we know this story at all. I feel like I
Speaker 1: got dozens of tweets people like you gotta give Mark
Speaker 1: this one, Like I'm the judge. Listen some of these
Speaker 1: things with Mark, some of these ones that were close,
Speaker 1: they were just that close and he didn't quite nail it,
Speaker 1: and we couldn't give the sandwiches. But there's nothing missed
Speaker 1: on this one, Marky. That is also a winner. That's
Speaker 1: three sandwiches and you are Joey Gallo, good sir. That's
Speaker 1: a walk off. Yeah. I mean, I you know when
Speaker 1: it when it started to erupt during Monday night football,
Speaker 1: Like my mentions were going crazy. Yet the dynamic of
Speaker 1: making those type of sandwich props. No, I mean, I
Speaker 1: maybe privately I was thinking, this is totally bizarre that
Speaker 1: this is happening right now and nothing feels real in general. Um,
Speaker 1: So that just tack that onto the non the non
Speaker 1: reality of the whole thing life. But um, like what
Speaker 1: you can't openly celebrate it either because it's come through
Speaker 1: um horrific circumstances. But it has to be satisfying for
Speaker 1: your predictions. Um that were that came true because someone
Speaker 1: made like horrible, bigoted, hurtful comments and that cheerleaders were
Speaker 1: sexually harassed. That Greg, that's you. That must be satisfying.
Speaker 1: Then that's how you spin it. But when I when
Speaker 1: I really did, I mean that that was about as
Speaker 1: gregor response as you could drum up. But time back
Speaker 1: in August, how can you root for this? Well? But
Speaker 1: when you but you like so, I guess the other
Speaker 1: maneuver would be when you're doing sandwich props, it would
Speaker 1: be let's just come up with delightfully rose gardens, delightful
Speaker 1: spreads of good news. But I can't, you know, I
Speaker 1: can't control what I spent the night before coming up
Speaker 1: with two or three things that's stuck with me, and
Speaker 1: then I dismissed them and they kept coming back. And
Speaker 1: the cheerleader thing, which really was just a footnote in
Speaker 1: this report, a terrible one, but um, maybe not as
Speaker 1: central as I suggested early on but you can't control
Speaker 1: what comes into the mind, whether it's good news or bad.
Speaker 1: You know you're Stodamas Mark. And there's a story I
Speaker 1: love Notre Damas. There was a HBO special in the
Speaker 1: early eighties hosted by Orson Wells called The Man Who
Speaker 1: Saw Tomorrow and amazing, keep this music pumping, rocky um,
Speaker 1: and then that HBO special, there's a story that always
Speaker 1: stuck with me, and of Nostradamus, the famous French astrologer.
Speaker 1: The stories about his ability to predict the future. We're
Speaker 1: starting to grow and spread from village to village. And
Speaker 1: he was invited to a banquet and the host attempted
Speaker 1: to trick Nostre Damas. He said that there would be
Speaker 1: a black pig and a white pig, and he asked
Speaker 1: Nastro Damas to predict which pig they'd be eating. No
Speaker 1: Damas said the black pig. So then the host, all
Speaker 1: sneaky light, all sneaky like, instructed the cook to prepare
Speaker 1: the white pig. Later on, while they're eating and enjoying dinner,
Speaker 1: he challenges no Damas to stay it again. Which pig
Speaker 1: were they eating? And No Damas said the black one,
Speaker 1: So the host all proud of himself, calls in the
Speaker 1: cook and says, which pig are we eating right now?
Speaker 1: And the cook says, well, while prepare ring the white pig,
Speaker 1: it fell from the table and was devoured by dogs,
Speaker 1: so they had no choice but to serve the black pig.
Speaker 1: Nostre Dama's new mark Sessler always knows well one and
Speaker 1: the same how this works, just fixing person pork. All right,
Speaker 1: good to have you back, Park. Here's the schedule. We're
Speaker 1: right on schedule, considering you know we were just in
Speaker 1: England yesterday. There's your Tuesday show. We'll be back Thursday
Speaker 1: with the week six preview show. The television shows back
Speaker 1: as well, getting just monster ratings, a huge hit all
Speaker 1: across the world around the NFL broadcast. I have no
Speaker 1: actually data to back that up, but just let's work
Speaker 1: under the asopo on Sky Sports NFL on Saturday's UM
Speaker 1: same program that shows uh the NFL game shows over time,
Speaker 1: the show we we joined last week, lots of great programming.
Speaker 1: I'm slightly concerned that ratings did ratings creep up or
Speaker 1: height a spike while I was gone. That would be
Speaker 1: am I still allowed onto the set for this or
Speaker 1: have you found it better. We'd rather you have that
Speaker 1: conversation with our producer. Um, but you'll leave it at that. Um.
Speaker 1: So yes, the back Friday at the Televisi show and
Speaker 1: then of course Sunday night, Uh, the recap with the
Speaker 1: gang back together. Good stuff, all right, let's go. Dan
Speaker 1: Hanson signing off for the Quiet Storm. He's back, baby,
Speaker 1: the old boss, Ricky Hollywood behind the virtual glass until Thursday,
Speaker 1: will be back in the studio. Heed the call. S