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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome again to Thinking Sideways, where once
Speaker 1: again we have a mystery for you. This week, we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about a completely different kind of mystery. Well, first,
Speaker 1: what is your name? Well? I was going to tell
Speaker 1: people where we were talking about before I told him
Speaker 1: who I was, so that maintained the mystery. But if
Speaker 1: you want to what is your name? Who are you? People?
Speaker 1: What's going on? I actually figured if I talked long enough,
Speaker 1: one of you would spill my name so you could
Speaker 1: tell me who I was, because I don't remember anymore.
Speaker 1: We are Thinking Sideway. That's Steve over there that I'm
Speaker 1: pointing to. There's Devin. Yeah, um, I one of these
Speaker 1: two guys as Joe better known as Wolf. Yeah. Okay,
Speaker 1: well okay, should we talk about stuff? Yeah, let's talk
Speaker 1: about some stuff because that was a beautiful, beautiful intro
Speaker 1: I'm glad to be scripted very well. This week we're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about the supposed curse surrounding players who
Speaker 1: were featured on the cover of the Madden NFL Game.
Speaker 1: Supposedly it ruins their careers or does bad things through
Speaker 1: their careers and seasons and their team seasons. And it's
Speaker 1: kind of a fun one, a sports mystery. It's also
Speaker 1: it's also kind of pop culture mystery. Yeah, kind of is.
Speaker 1: But I do want to say right off the top here,
Speaker 1: I'm not a huge football fan. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: a little bit about it. But the point is there
Speaker 1: are fanatics out there who get a little upset sometimes
Speaker 1: when you drop a stat I'm not a sat guy.
Speaker 1: Give us a little bit. We're an ministries podcast, not
Speaker 1: a football podcast. Right, You can only know so much.
Speaker 1: So we know what football is, Yeah, we do, we do.
Speaker 1: We're talking well, we're talking about American football where they
Speaker 1: kick up all around. We're talking about not the good football,
Speaker 1: We're talking about the dumb football. Well, you both have
Speaker 1: managed to alienate all of everything everything, all right, Well,
Speaker 1: these two are gonna leave. I'm just gonna tell you
Speaker 1: about the story. It'll be great. But I do want
Speaker 1: to before we get into the story, mentioned that this
Speaker 1: was a listener's suggestion. This was suggested a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago by Peyton Manning. I think, so okay, I
Speaker 1: kind of think, all right, Peyton, I think might have
Speaker 1: been a little pissed that he wasn't picked for the cover. Well,
Speaker 1: you know what it'll um, So let's let's kick things
Speaker 1: off and talk about the banning the Madden Curse. As
Speaker 1: I said, players are featured on the game's cover and
Speaker 1: then they have poor performance, and this seems to have
Speaker 1: affected most, if not all, but quite a few of
Speaker 1: the players. Uh. And there's there's a bunch of details
Speaker 1: here that before we dive into the curse we need
Speaker 1: to dive into first. They're kind of precursor bits of information.
Speaker 1: For those of you who are not familiar with Madden NFL,
Speaker 1: which actually was originally known as John Madden Football. It
Speaker 1: is a video game, so it's been on consoles since
Speaker 1: the beginning of time. The game was originally released on computers,
Speaker 1: but immediately jumped over to the console world, so it
Speaker 1: was on Sega Genesis and the Supernintendo. Several pixels or
Speaker 1: something like that has more pixels every year, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's how that's genuinely yes, it is. I think you
Speaker 1: can get it for also on computers still today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you see primarily on consoles because you know, it seems
Speaker 1: like the game market, at least as far as I'm waring,
Speaker 1: I might be wrong here, but there's a huge portion
Speaker 1: of the game market that is console based, and they
Speaker 1: seem to go for that. I know there's people who
Speaker 1: play computer games. You are going to piss off the
Speaker 1: PC master Race here, man Master Race. I'm a Mac guy.
Speaker 1: They can't do anything Windows and Windows. Yeah, than it
Speaker 1: used to be there is. I mean, basically, a console
Speaker 1: is just a computer. Yeah, that's very dedicated to There
Speaker 1: are a ton of people who do game on PCs
Speaker 1: as well. And It's funny is that when I started
Speaker 1: doing the research for this, I was pretty sure that
Speaker 1: I had played John Madden Football when I was in
Speaker 1: junior high in high school when it first came out,
Speaker 1: But as I started looking at screen captures and stuff,
Speaker 1: I realized that, No, what it was is that I
Speaker 1: was over my buddy Joel's house with Rocky. We were
Speaker 1: playing tech Mobowl, so we were playing a completely different game. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you were, I played Madden sixty four like once, and
Speaker 1: then my brother Nintendo sixty Sorry, the naming conventions are
Speaker 1: going to get weird. And it's fine, I know all
Speaker 1: of the game, but yeah, he beat me really really
Speaker 1: badly the very first time I ever played it, and
Speaker 1: I was just like, I'm done with this. It's just ridiculous.
Speaker 1: I've never I've never played the game. Is that a
Speaker 1: first person game or what? Is it? Exactly? Yes and no.
Speaker 1: It really depends on the version. Sometimes you're the quarterback
Speaker 1: and you see what the quarterback is. Sometimes you're a
Speaker 1: field camera. It's and it's it's changed over time, really
Speaker 1: is the technologies evolved. So it's hard for me to
Speaker 1: say exactly what's the viewing perspect is God, and I
Speaker 1: haven't played on Yeah, the one we played it was
Speaker 1: like you basically picked your You're like, all right, we're
Speaker 1: gonna do this to this time, We're going to do
Speaker 1: this play this. Yeah. Well, and that was the big
Speaker 1: thing about so this is a weird thing. But that
Speaker 1: was what really helped put this particular game on the
Speaker 1: map is there was all kinds of games out there
Speaker 1: that were football games, but they all had made up
Speaker 1: teams because they didn't have endorsements, and John Madden Football
Speaker 1: would be the first one that would get the NFL
Speaker 1: National Football League endorsement. But the other thing that they
Speaker 1: had is from the very beginning, though it had a
Speaker 1: clunky user interface, it apparently had this really amazingly deep playbook.
Speaker 1: Let's say Tech Mobile had ten plays that you could
Speaker 1: run through a team. Madden was thirty forty fifty deep,
Speaker 1: and I don't know the number I'm making it, but
Speaker 1: it was. It was exponentially larger in the number of
Speaker 1: plays were available than any other game at the time.
Speaker 1: Madden was actually, from what I heard, really deeply involved
Speaker 1: in the creation of this game. Yeah, when I first
Speaker 1: heard about it, I just assumed that they paid him
Speaker 1: some money and he got his name, and they got
Speaker 1: his name and his picture to put on the game.
Speaker 1: That's what I would all think. It turns out he
Speaker 1: was actually pretty involved in it, and so he probably
Speaker 1: insisted on it being as you know, cool and realistic.
Speaker 1: And he did insist on realism, which is part of
Speaker 1: the reason that the playbook was as it was. And
Speaker 1: there was a two year delay because they they approached
Speaker 1: Madden in eighties six, I think it was five or
Speaker 1: eighty six with the game idea. It didn't come out
Speaker 1: until eight. I always loved the story because they got
Speaker 1: a hold of him while he was traveling somewhere on
Speaker 1: an amtrack train because apparently Madden was afraid to fly,
Speaker 1: so he would take the train everywhere, so they knew
Speaker 1: they had him as a captured audience for at least
Speaker 1: several hours of interesting. That's really smart. Yeah, I wonder
Speaker 1: if he's still if he still does that, or if
Speaker 1: he has no episode about the amtrack derail. I don't
Speaker 1: I actually do not know about Madden's travels anymore. I've
Speaker 1: Madden's been on the news for many years. He's now,
Speaker 1: I mean John Menn's would eighty one eighty two, he
Speaker 1: was well here, No, he's born in nineteen thirty six,
Speaker 1: so he's gonna be eighty two eighty three, somewhere right
Speaker 1: in that range. So he's been around for a while.
Speaker 1: Um speaking of Madden though, the reason that John Madden
Speaker 1: people know Madden. For those of you who don't know Madden,
Speaker 1: he was a football player who was an offensive tackle
Speaker 1: when he was in college, and he was drafted into
Speaker 1: the NFL, but he would never actually play in the
Speaker 1: NFL because in training camp that first year he suffered
Speaker 1: a knee injury that he couldn't overcome. Right, So then
Speaker 1: he turned around, he got into coaching, right, Yeah, he
Speaker 1: got into coaching. Turned around, he figured out he like coaching.
Speaker 1: He started coaching college ball in nineteen sixty and then
Speaker 1: he made the transition to professional football in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: seven when he started coaching the Oakland Raiders. And he
Speaker 1: would coach the Raiders for a total of eleven seasons
Speaker 1: from nineteen sixty seven or no, I guess it was
Speaker 1: ten because it was nineteen sixties. Oh yeah, it was
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty seven in ninety eight is when he
Speaker 1: was coaching there, and he was a pretty successful coach.
Speaker 1: I mean during that time, he got them into the
Speaker 1: playoffs multiple times. They would eventually win the Super Bowl
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventies seven, although they did kind of earn
Speaker 1: the moniker of the team that couldn't. They would get
Speaker 1: into the playoffs, they would get into the Super Bowl,
Speaker 1: but they couldn't actually win it. It was team is
Speaker 1: one of the Buffalo Bills used to be that way
Speaker 1: back in the nineties. They made it into the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1: I think it was three or four times in a
Speaker 1: row when I was a kid, and every time it
Speaker 1: was that was when I stopped. I could I couldn't
Speaker 1: watch football anymore because I was so excited they had
Speaker 1: made it again, and then they would just fail again
Speaker 1: and fail is a harsh way to say it, but
Speaker 1: they didn't win. And that's really what counts on the
Speaker 1: Super Bowl. It's life in general. Kids. Yeah, they don't
Speaker 1: have a they don't have a cut downside super Bowl ring.
Speaker 1: They don't. So we've we've covered some of this history here,
Speaker 1: but from there and on out of course, Mad after
Speaker 1: he retired, he'd become a sports commentator, and he would
Speaker 1: be a commentator for about thirty years. And I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure that's where everybody these days really knows Mad because
Speaker 1: he's on Sunday, Saturday and Sunday Football talking about the teams.
Speaker 1: He's got that really a iconic voice. They either know
Speaker 1: him as a commentator or they know him because of
Speaker 1: the video games. One are the two? Yeah yea. Now
Speaker 1: and as we said in eighty six, I think I
Speaker 1: might have said it was eighty five, but in eighty
Speaker 1: six he was approached about this game idea and at
Speaker 1: the time it was electronics artists who approached him. They
Speaker 1: are now e A timer on and e A sports.
Speaker 1: Just it's it's e A. You if you know games,
Speaker 1: you know e A. Then you know if you know gas,
Speaker 1: you know, and you also know how I feel about
Speaker 1: e A. So I'm just not even gonna do not
Speaker 1: Like I don't know how she feels about it, but
Speaker 1: I don't care. We're gonna keep going because that's a
Speaker 1: warning sign right there. That's a do not interest, Like
Speaker 1: the porky Pine when they it means don't touch me,
Speaker 1: don't don't break this up, don't do it. Just keep
Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep moving on Porkypine that does a little
Speaker 1: dance yeah from the skunk Um. Okay. So, like I said,
Speaker 1: the first version of the game comes out, and then
Speaker 1: each time that it comes out, John Madden is featured
Speaker 1: on the cover of the game in some pose or
Speaker 1: you know, the photo of a football or looking like
Speaker 1: he's pointing at something, but what's just wearing a sexy
Speaker 1: little teddy or maybe posing in front of a Christmas tree.
Speaker 1: That was not that one. Those were all rejected ideas,
Speaker 1: which is why you didn't stay at electronic arts for
Speaker 1: very long. You kept coming up with these great ideas
Speaker 1: that why not guys. Yeah, but the game would begin
Speaker 1: to integrate players on the covers. The first time that
Speaker 1: it would happen would be for Madden NFL, and then um,
Speaker 1: from then on out, it seemed like they're typically would
Speaker 1: be at least one player, though in the beginning that
Speaker 1: player wasn't the prominent person. It was still John Madden
Speaker 1: was screened back or knocked back image of some player
Speaker 1: in a game in the background, and it was some
Speaker 1: high performing player, but they weren't the main focus of
Speaker 1: the cover. Yeah. Now, I will real quick here just
Speaker 1: explain something about the way the nomenclatier or the description
Speaker 1: of dates and names is done, can be a bit confusing.
Speaker 1: I just want to get break this down for folks.
Speaker 1: Because football has the regular season, which is normally September
Speaker 1: ish to December, and then the postseason, which is of
Speaker 1: course the finals, and then the football or the football
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl, and of course the beginning the year
Speaker 1: that the regular season happened is typically what you'll see
Speaker 1: that season referred to in terms of the numbers. Soeen
Speaker 1: just passed and then we had the Super Bowl and teen.
Speaker 1: But that's still considered the seventeen season. Okay, but Madden
Speaker 1: NFL the game always uses the upcoming year's number, So
Speaker 1: in seventeen they released Madden NFL eighteen. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of car years they jump ahead, so it can get
Speaker 1: in an effort to stay relevant longer. I yes, I
Speaker 1: don't know. It can It can get a little kookie
Speaker 1: or a little hard to follow if you're if you
Speaker 1: don't think about that. So that's the reason I bring
Speaker 1: it up. And I was the first one I looked
Speaker 1: into it. I was a little confused to Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was too. I was like, well, that doesn't make but yeah,
Speaker 1: oh wait until wait, it gets better. There are years
Speaker 1: that they change the numbers and it doesn't make a
Speaker 1: lick of sense, and that's when it's even better. Well
Speaker 1: like like Madden's sixty four. Yeah, what what the deuce?
Speaker 1: Come on, guys, cut it out. There was Madden two
Speaker 1: thousand six, and now after it changed to a two
Speaker 1: digit number, you know. Yeah, yeah, it's it's not it's
Speaker 1: not consistent. Um, but let's let's okay. So that's that's
Speaker 1: the backstory. That's all you need to know there. Let's
Speaker 1: get down into the nitty gritty bits of the curse itself.
Speaker 1: As I said before, there were about eight editions of
Speaker 1: the game with just Madden, and then after they started
Speaker 1: showing players. But of course in those first couple of years,
Speaker 1: those players seemed to not suffer any ill effects. It
Speaker 1: wasn't until Madden ninety nine that problems began to erode
Speaker 1: to arise. That was the year that the PAL version
Speaker 1: of the game, the p A L which that's the
Speaker 1: the oh, it's the version of the game that has
Speaker 1: meant for Asia, Europe and Australia because they use a
Speaker 1: different encoding method on video that we do here, which
Speaker 1: is nt s something I can't remember what the full
Speaker 1: acronym is, so they have to release different versions in
Speaker 1: different countries. So they released this one overseas and this
Speaker 1: one in Madden n In the States it's still John Madden,
Speaker 1: but over there it's Garrison Hurst of the San Francisco
Speaker 1: forty Niners. And then the next year that they would
Speaker 1: do the same thing. They would release a version of
Speaker 1: the game with Barry Sanders from the Detroit Lions for
Speaker 1: the two thousand version. And I'm not sure if that
Speaker 1: was the PAL version or if they did it all
Speaker 1: over that way. I think it was still pal at
Speaker 1: that point. And then from that point forward, John Madden
Speaker 1: is no longer on the cover. It is all star players.
Speaker 1: And right away people would say that there was problems
Speaker 1: once it was just a player on the cover. Uh.
Speaker 1: For example, the NFL ninety nine or Madden NFL ninety
Speaker 1: nine with Garrison Hurst that he's considered the first victim
Speaker 1: because that year he would twist his ankle in the
Speaker 1: playoffs and he would miss the following two seasons. And
Speaker 1: then from there on out and all that time forward,
Speaker 1: tons and tons of these guys have suffered luck. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's actually recent point so many football fans
Speaker 1: believe in in this that like when the nominations for
Speaker 1: the the upcoming cover are the people will actually not
Speaker 1: vote for their favorite player. Yeah and get that, Yeah
Speaker 1: when the when the theory section. Yeah, So it's been
Speaker 1: like nineteen years of disaster. Basically, not every player seems
Speaker 1: to have suffered the effects, but quite a freaking few
Speaker 1: of them happen as anybody sued, Not nobody's sued, but
Speaker 1: a couple of people have have really ducked out of
Speaker 1: the nomination. And we'll talk about that I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: I'm gonna run through about a dozen players here, because
Speaker 1: I just this is the best way to illustrate the curse.
Speaker 1: And that's a bad st You can just to a
Speaker 1: dozen NFL players, yeah, because I'm I mean, that's not
Speaker 1: the way it works. Okay, So I'm just gonna start
Speaker 1: with NF Madden NFL two thousand. That was Barry Sanders
Speaker 1: of the Detroit Lions. The problem was, Sanders retired just
Speaker 1: before the start of the nine season. He got some injuries,
Speaker 1: right well, he had been injured, yes, and he decided
Speaker 1: he was he wasn't going to start the season, and
Speaker 1: of course they don't released the game, so they were
Speaker 1: kind of in a bind there. So that was a
Speaker 1: negative thing for the Lions because they lost their star
Speaker 1: because Barry Sanders was a badass. They of course, now
Speaker 1: they turned and they've got the POW version, and in
Speaker 1: Madden NFL two thousand POW version, they had Dorsey Levins
Speaker 1: of the Green Bay Packers. He would have a decent year.
Speaker 1: He'd run for a thousand thirty four yards that's HEAs
Speaker 1: and which is good, but his team they'd missed the
Speaker 1: playoffs and then from that year forward, his performance and
Speaker 1: his role in the team would decline. Uh, and they
Speaker 1: would let him go in two thousand one. So not
Speaker 1: but two years after the team lets him. Not good
Speaker 1: about a year and a half later. Yeah, Matt And
Speaker 1: NFL two thousand one, Eddie George of the Tennessee Titans.
Speaker 1: The Titans would lose the divisional round of the playoffs.
Speaker 1: That that junction of the two thousand two thousand one years.
Speaker 1: The two thousand season. Uh, they had made it to
Speaker 1: the super Bowl the the year before, so that was
Speaker 1: kind of a shock. And George's performance and his numbers
Speaker 1: would start to decline and he would be let go
Speaker 1: from the Titans. In two thousand three, he would go
Speaker 1: over the Cowboys. But he's only at the Cowboys for
Speaker 1: a season before. They said, yeah, no, we're done as well,
Speaker 1: and he just rehired. So I believe he just retired.
Speaker 1: He so lucky they get to retire. So yeah, lating
Speaker 1: bodily injury at all, brand damage whatsoever. No Madden. NFL
Speaker 1: two thousand two. Dwayne Culpepper the Minnesota Vikings. He had
Speaker 1: a atrocious season. He would throw He's a quarterback. He
Speaker 1: throw twenty three interceptions and he would tie the NFL
Speaker 1: record for most fumbles in a season, which is not
Speaker 1: a record you want to tie or are not familiar.
Speaker 1: If you're the quarterback and you're throwing interceptions, that's not
Speaker 1: a good thing. No, receptions are good things. Interceptions are bad. Yes,
Speaker 1: the Vikings would finish five wins or uh yeah, five
Speaker 1: wins eleven losses for that season, and then Culpepper would
Speaker 1: blow out his knees in two thousand five. And also
Speaker 1: there was a thing known as the Minnesota Vikings boat
Speaker 1: party scandal, which was house boats with lots and of
Speaker 1: ladies and sex and football players. And you can see
Speaker 1: how this would turn into a giant scandal. They flew
Speaker 1: ladies in from out of state. That's as far as
Speaker 1: we're gonna go with it. But his numbers would continue
Speaker 1: to decline. I mean, I think he was I think
Speaker 1: a two thousand eight might have been his last year,
Speaker 1: but I don't remember. I don't have that written down,
Speaker 1: and looking at other notes here, he oh, that's what
Speaker 1: he did in two thousand eight. God, he really good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Lions. He would be the quarterback for the only
Speaker 1: team in NFL history to lose every single game in
Speaker 1: the season. So zero for sixteen. That's uh, that's how
Speaker 1: far the Mighty have fallen. Wow, yeah the game bam well,
Speaker 1: and we're just gonna go from one fall into another.
Speaker 1: Michael Vick, people know Atlanta Falcons. He would break his
Speaker 1: phibia in the preseason game of two thousand and four
Speaker 1: or two thousand three excuse me season, So you know,
Speaker 1: he actually went on the cover and then like like
Speaker 1: a week later he broke his legs like that. It
Speaker 1: was super close. The Falcons would end up with five
Speaker 1: and eleven that year. But the problem is that most
Speaker 1: people know Vic would then later be found to be
Speaker 1: running a dogfighting ring. Vic went to prison. He can
Speaker 1: never play ball again. He they just booted him out
Speaker 1: so hard and understandably just don't like that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: you know, really didn't. It sounds like there's a like
Speaker 1: a three year gap here. Basically at least we've said, well,
Speaker 1: the really really awful thing happens like three years later
Speaker 1: about yeah, almost all of these, you know, three years later,
Speaker 1: they're like, go, three years later, they blew up both
Speaker 1: their knees. Three years later, got convicted of being an
Speaker 1: I'm going because I agree, let's keep going here. Madden
Speaker 1: NFL OH six would feature Donovan McNabb of the Philadelphia Eagles.
Speaker 1: He would be injured and put on the reserve list.
Speaker 1: He heard his ground. He also was in a dispute
Speaker 1: with another player on the team. This was all off
Speaker 1: off field, of course, so there was all kinds of
Speaker 1: tension in the squad and it was terrible. Yeah, okay, uh.
Speaker 1: And so they would end with a six of ten
Speaker 1: record that year, and they had been to the super
Speaker 1: Bowl the year before as well. Madden NFL OH seven
Speaker 1: we got Sean Alexander of the Seattle Seahawks. Uh. He
Speaker 1: was actually named NFL m v P in the two
Speaker 1: thousand five season. But then he would hurt his foot
Speaker 1: and he would miss a half dozen games and then
Speaker 1: he would never be He would never go back to
Speaker 1: his previous level of performance. He was never good as
Speaker 1: he had been, and the Seahawks would let him go.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and eight, he would go to the
Speaker 1: Washington Redskins, but he would then be injured again and
Speaker 1: further and then they would let him go. So he
Speaker 1: just continued to slide downhill. Gratitude for you. You know,
Speaker 1: this guy is out there playing its hard out for
Speaker 1: you all your knees busted. Sorry, we're letting you go.
Speaker 1: He did that because of us. We didn't ask you
Speaker 1: to do that. Later, Yeah, what have Madden NFL OH
Speaker 1: eight featured Vince Young of the Tennessee Titans, and Young
Speaker 1: would miss one game because of a injury, but he
Speaker 1: would have an overall good season. The Titans would finish
Speaker 1: ten and six that year, and they would get to
Speaker 1: the playoffs, but they wouldn't ever go anywhere from there,
Speaker 1: and then he would his career was kind of sidelined
Speaker 1: because he was having an ongoing dispute with the head coach.
Speaker 1: So that did no good, no good things for him,
Speaker 1: and he would only start a couple of more games
Speaker 1: after that season. Mad NFL OH nine has Brett Farve
Speaker 1: of the New York Jets. Now everybody probably knows Farv
Speaker 1: because he had been with the Packers forever, yeah, many
Speaker 1: many years. But Farv had been playing this I think
Speaker 1: I'm gonna retire at the end of this season game
Speaker 1: for several years. And so I don't think that the
Speaker 1: guys at Maden NFL really believed him, because a lot
Speaker 1: of people didn't believe him, and they said, we're gonna
Speaker 1: put him on the cover, and uh, then he said
Speaker 1: he retired, and then he came back. And that's the
Speaker 1: one where you like he went with the Jets when
Speaker 1: he came back. That's because he said he was retiring.
Speaker 1: So of course they the Packers say well, we need
Speaker 1: a quarterback, and so they get a different quarterback and
Speaker 1: he says, I'm coming back, and they say, great, We've
Speaker 1: traded you to the New York Jets. I bet I
Speaker 1: really like that because they had to re render the
Speaker 1: longer they put on a whole new cover, So I'm
Speaker 1: really probably pretty sure they were not happy with you.
Speaker 1: I bet there are some very very expensive collectors editions
Speaker 1: that somebody has of him actually in the Green Bay Packers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can only imagine that probably Garners a couple of
Speaker 1: bucks from collectors to actually release any of the ones
Speaker 1: with the Packers uniform of the cover as far as
Speaker 1: I know, Yeah, they had to do a late release,
Speaker 1: they had to redo it, and they have a second
Speaker 1: release of it because of course the stinking thing comes
Speaker 1: out almost immediately after the end of the the Super
Speaker 1: Bowl because it comes out early in the year. But
Speaker 1: then you know, he says I'm retiring, and they're like, okay, great,
Speaker 1: it's fine. And then he comes back. But now he
Speaker 1: comes back at the end of the year. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: had to fitter redo it. I bet that it's probably
Speaker 1: about half a million football fans out there who want
Speaker 1: to each version of it. Too possible, probably possible. But
Speaker 1: when he comes back, you know, farms, Uh, he doesn't
Speaker 1: exactly have the best year his his season. He has
Speaker 1: a lot of poor performance. He doesn't do as good
Speaker 1: as people thought he was gonna And then there's the
Speaker 1: whole issue of there was a sexual harassment scandal going on,
Speaker 1: so somebody harassing him. Yeah, no, the other way around,
Speaker 1: because that's how that stuff works. Jomp Um. The Jets
Speaker 1: would finish the two thousand Eights even season nine and seven,
Speaker 1: which isn't bad, but they wouldn't get into the playoffs.
Speaker 1: Um and then five would leave there and go play
Speaker 1: with the Minnesota Vikings in two thousand nine and ten
Speaker 1: before he would actually officially officially officially retire due to injuries.
Speaker 1: But it sounds like maybe he should have just retired
Speaker 1: in the first probably well, you know, he made a
Speaker 1: boatload of money from it, but he probably shouldn't have
Speaker 1: done it. Probably could have made a boatload of money
Speaker 1: with just endorsements and you know other stuff. You can
Speaker 1: make money on endorsements. Holy crap, I back. You just
Speaker 1: got to be careful not to get caught like dog
Speaker 1: fighting or running dog fighting or harassing people. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean generally being a good human being as much required
Speaker 1: he like Tiger. Remember old Tiger. He had a hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars in commercial contracts and then he got sort
Speaker 1: of Oh my god, yeah, he lost a lot. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I don't think you even have to be a good person.
Speaker 1: You just have to be I mean, it's not even
Speaker 1: you just have to not be a horrible person, Okay
Speaker 1: or no, you can be as horrible as you want.
Speaker 1: Just don't talk. I mean, yeah, there's that. Well, let's
Speaker 1: keep going. We're almost through my list here, mad and
Speaker 1: NFL ten. This is Troy Paula Malou of the Pittsburgh
Speaker 1: Steelers and Larry Fitzgerald of the Arizona Cardinals would both
Speaker 1: be featured on the cover that year, and they died
Speaker 1: in a car wrect together. No they didn't. They absconded
Speaker 1: with millions of dollars. To know they didn't together. That's
Speaker 1: the first year that two players were actually on the cover,
Speaker 1: and it's actually one of the more interesting because it
Speaker 1: shows the pair of them actually running towards each other
Speaker 1: like they're gonna have some big tackle, explosive hits situation.
Speaker 1: But of course that's not what they're gonna do. But
Speaker 1: the point is people went, oh, my god, the curses
Speaker 1: gonna get both of them. Oh hell well. Paula Malouf,
Speaker 1: for his part, would strain his MCL at the start
Speaker 1: of the season and miss a couple of four games,
Speaker 1: which it's it's it's a ligament in your knee. He
Speaker 1: would then strain his PCL, which is a different ligament
Speaker 1: in your knee, and he would only play I think
Speaker 1: he played five games that year. In the Steelers wouldn't
Speaker 1: have a very good season. They would be nine of
Speaker 1: seven and they wouldn't get into the playoffs. Fitzgerald, for
Speaker 1: his part, he had a fantastic year. He scored a
Speaker 1: career high thirteen touchdowns and the Cardinals would win the
Speaker 1: NFC West Division. They time. I can totally see a
Speaker 1: new refinement to the curse now, which is that the
Speaker 1: guy on the left hand side still the guy on
Speaker 1: the right hand side actually actually gets a boost. He well,
Speaker 1: that the only year that they did two players. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I haven't, I don't. I didn't see anything from there
Speaker 1: that said there were two on the cover at the
Speaker 1: same time. They always featured one prominently and that's it.
Speaker 1: So he was to do one because they have that
Speaker 1: endorsement thing. They have to pick is part of that
Speaker 1: endorsement thing. Yeah, how it works. Let's skip forward in
Speaker 1: time because so far we've been sequential, sequentially, sequentially, jumping
Speaker 1: one year at a time. But we're gonna skip a
Speaker 1: couple of years forward. We're gonna go to mad and
Speaker 1: NFL third team, which is Calvin Johnson of the Detroit Lions.
Speaker 1: The year that he was nominated for or from, Johnson
Speaker 1: broke records in the NFL for receiving yardage. Uh he was.
Speaker 1: Actually he broke the record that Jerry Rice from the
Speaker 1: San Francisco forty nine years had had. And Rice, I
Speaker 1: mean Rice created that record or hit the point where
Speaker 1: he camera record and I want to say the mid nineties,
Speaker 1: I mean it had stood for a long time. Was
Speaker 1: not but Jerry Rice, he played it was many many,
Speaker 1: many years. I think Rice was actually one of the
Speaker 1: players they featured in the pre game or halftime presentation
Speaker 1: of the latest Super Bowl. And that guy he you
Speaker 1: tell he's aging, but he's still really put together. The
Speaker 1: last time I looked, he looked great for his age
Speaker 1: espersonally for him played ball that long. But anyway, Johnson
Speaker 1: Um Johnson does all these great things. But once he's
Speaker 1: featured on the cover, this team has a terrible year there,
Speaker 1: four and twelve of that year, even though they've been
Speaker 1: in the playoffs this season before. So terrible performance as
Speaker 1: a franchise overall. And then we're gonna jump ahead to
Speaker 1: Madden NFL. No, it was one of This is the
Speaker 1: one that drives me bonkers that they named it that,
Speaker 1: But they released it in twenty thirteen, and this is
Speaker 1: the version that was on PlayStation four and Xbox one.
Speaker 1: It's Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings. Peterson again in
Speaker 1: two twelve. He had had or it had had an
Speaker 1: amazing season in twenty twelve, but then he has foot
Speaker 1: injuries and he only manages to play about twelve over
Speaker 1: fourteen games. Right in uh, he had he had a
Speaker 1: great twenty twelve sucks. Yeah, that was after after Madden
Speaker 1: had come out, after the cover had come out. The
Speaker 1: Vikings would have a five ten and one season, so
Speaker 1: five wins, ten losses, one draw, which I didn't even
Speaker 1: know you could get a draw in football, So that's weird.
Speaker 1: That means I'm guessing that it was overtime, overtime, overtime,
Speaker 1: and the the ref set listen, I gotta go home.
Speaker 1: I left the oven on like I gotta go But
Speaker 1: during that season he would have a lot of horrible
Speaker 1: personal things go on, maybe not all of it, which
Speaker 1: he was innocent in. His two year old son would
Speaker 1: be assaulted by the son's mother's boyfriend and that boy
Speaker 1: would die not too long after that from the injuries.
Speaker 1: And then, uh September twelve of two thousand and fourteen,
Speaker 1: Adrian Peterson would be indicted in mont Gramman County, Texas
Speaker 1: for reckless injury of his four year old son. He
Speaker 1: was hitting him with a piece of wood like you know,
Speaker 1: Billie Club style. And there are a lot of players
Speaker 1: in the NFL who have some aggression, is serious aggression
Speaker 1: there would know he Actually, I don't think there's nearly
Speaker 1: as much Sterward's. I it's it's symptomatic of a lot
Speaker 1: of other things which we that is not But he
Speaker 1: would he would then be charged put under investigation of
Speaker 1: abuse of yet another son. So at that point he
Speaker 1: had three boys. Uh, the only one of them died. Yes, thankfully,
Speaker 1: the Vikings would drop him after the sixteen season. I
Speaker 1: was looking him up. I think that he played again.
Speaker 1: I think he got a contract somewhere else, and I
Speaker 1: believe he played last year. But I'm not a d
Speaker 1: percent positive who he played four But you know, I
Speaker 1: mean he's he's with all the legal stuff. His career
Speaker 1: just kind of way right down into the tubes if
Speaker 1: nobody really wants to be associated with. No, it's really
Speaker 1: not good for a franchise to have a child beater
Speaker 1: accused child beater. So you can just see like all
Speaker 1: these guy eyes where we started from, you know, eight
Speaker 1: years on, and then we've gone through a dozen of
Speaker 1: these guys and the just horrible luck and performance and
Speaker 1: personal stuff like it is just not going good for
Speaker 1: any of them. Yes, exactly, it's John Madden's fault or
Speaker 1: maybe e a sports I don't know. Yeah, every but
Speaker 1: everybody seems to have had negative impacts from being featured
Speaker 1: on this game, except John Madden himself, because that guy
Speaker 1: seems to have just prospered everywhere. So that having been said,
Speaker 1: that's our story and we should probably get into the theories. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: Wayne buying toilet cleaner at the store, did you, Edward
Speaker 1: back from the replay. Yeah, So the first theory that
Speaker 1: we have is the curses real of the money I
Speaker 1: mean yeah, no, I mean sports people are of the
Speaker 1: people who are superstitious in the world. I think sports
Speaker 1: people are maybe the most No, no, no, sailors are
Speaker 1: the worst. The sports fans are I don't know. I
Speaker 1: mean ship people let women on board. Now they've overcome
Speaker 1: certain superstitions. It just seems like perfect to call them
Speaker 1: boat people. It's a derogatory turma. Actually, it's a microaggression,
Speaker 1: devine actually. But the curses are real. You've heard of
Speaker 1: the curse of the Billy goat, right, is just Billy
Speaker 1: go gruff? Now Billy go rough? Okay, what are you
Speaker 1: talking about? Uh? Yeah, I got the curse of the
Speaker 1: Billy Goat. It was a real deal that afflicted the
Speaker 1: Chicago Cubs for every one years. Oh, this is like
Speaker 1: the curse of the Bambino of those sports curses. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of their fans, this guy who wanted the Billy
Speaker 1: goat tavern his name was. His name was like Billy Sianna.
Speaker 1: Billy Sianna, I think. And he had at a pet
Speaker 1: goat that he would take to the Cubs games. And
Speaker 1: he was ejected from the fourth game of the World
Speaker 1: Series and on his way out the door, he basically said,
Speaker 1: the Cubs will not win again. That was his curse,
Speaker 1: and his goat were leaving out the door, and so
Speaker 1: the Cubs. In short, it was word. The Cubs did
Speaker 1: not win again for seventy one years. It took him
Speaker 1: along and a lot of fans actually, and they did
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff to try to lift the curse,
Speaker 1: you know, and it did nothing work. And finally something
Speaker 1: happened in finally and they want he probably died or something.
Speaker 1: Billy Sianis died in seventy The goat died. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the goat probably forever for the Goats lineage, finally died Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's hard to say. Maybe the last maybe the last
Speaker 1: original fan who was present when it was cast. Maybe
Speaker 1: he finally died, Maybe that was the final straw could
Speaker 1: All I know is I played football in high school
Speaker 1: and I played with a guy who had a lucky undershirt.
Speaker 1: Which was fine. He'd wear it in practice, he'd wear
Speaker 1: it two games, you know, it was it was his
Speaker 1: lucky shirt. But the problem, of course, was he hadn't
Speaker 1: wash the lucky shirt. Yeah, so stuck but smelled bad.
Speaker 1: That was part of this strategy. People didn't want to
Speaker 1: tack That would be a good way to do it.
Speaker 1: And you know, the thing about about curses is that
Speaker 1: it to be real and affect people, all that's required
Speaker 1: is people believing in them. And while a number of
Speaker 1: the players and the mad and NFL Curse have come
Speaker 1: out and said they don't believe in the curse, well
Speaker 1: clear they don't. And then you know, but then there's
Speaker 1: been some of the ones that have dodged. What's his
Speaker 1: name that's on that was just won the Super Bowl
Speaker 1: again and um then this last year, I can't remember, yea,
Speaker 1: na it was something else. Brady, It's Brady Brady. Yah,
Speaker 1: that guy Okay, that guy is on the latest cover
Speaker 1: and people were freaked out. But Brady was like that stupid,
Speaker 1: I don't believe in that, and it apparently worked for him.
Speaker 1: Yeah he did so far. So far, We'll see what
Speaker 1: happens next season. Three year lag time that well, it's
Speaker 1: there's three years it can take. It can affect you,
Speaker 1: but it affects you right away. It's not as if
Speaker 1: it waits till the third year to strike. But what
Speaker 1: I do find funny is the people who have dodged it.
Speaker 1: They said, I don't believe in the curse, and then
Speaker 1: they went about some pretty you know, they went to
Speaker 1: get out from under it, uh, notably from the San
Speaker 1: Diego Chargers. There's the They're running back Ladinian Tomlinson, who
Speaker 1: this guy was selected to be on the cover in
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, and when it was announced that
Speaker 1: they were gonna not they wanted him to be on
Speaker 1: the cover, the San Diego fans went nuts, and not
Speaker 1: in a good way, and the nuts in a bad
Speaker 1: way because they did not want that to happen, and
Speaker 1: they were terrified of what it would do to him,
Speaker 1: to such a degree that they created a website calls
Speaker 1: Save lt from Madden dot Com, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: is on the way back machine. I was spinning through it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's I mean, it's a two thousand seven website.
Speaker 1: It's something. Actually, it probably is pretty flashy. No, it's
Speaker 1: not flashy. It's very static, but it's it's not that great,
Speaker 1: but it's very funny. Did these guys take themselves totally seriously?
Speaker 1: Was there a bit of tongue in cheek about the
Speaker 1: whole time? I did not get that impression. They seriously
Speaker 1: believe that this was pretty real and they did not
Speaker 1: want their favorite player on it. And for his own part,
Speaker 1: Tomlinson would eventually turn down the offer of being on
Speaker 1: the cover, but he would say it was because of
Speaker 1: contract and negotiation issues and basically they weren't offering him
Speaker 1: enough money, which I call convenient reasoning. Well, if it's
Speaker 1: going to end your career you now, you might as
Speaker 1: well get top dollar for it. But you know, the
Speaker 1: thing is, is that another way that this curse might
Speaker 1: actually be real? Is Joe alluded or brought this up
Speaker 1: a little bit in the beginning of the story. Is
Speaker 1: the fans and the fans behavior and the way they're
Speaker 1: going about things and that is specifically by confirmation bias,
Speaker 1: because initially e A was making the selections of who
Speaker 1: would go on the cover, which you kind of makes sense. Vote.
Speaker 1: Now they let the fans vote, so believe it or not.
Speaker 1: As shocking as this is, people go on there and
Speaker 1: they nominate for the however players they don't like that
Speaker 1: guy on that other team that you hate so much
Speaker 1: so that those guys can suffer the effects of the curse,
Speaker 1: and they downvote their favorite players to help spare them
Speaker 1: from the curse. Well, I mean another way, I guess
Speaker 1: we could say this is real, or maybe it's confirmation
Speaker 1: by us. Maybe it's fake. There's a there's a whole
Speaker 1: heck of a lot of personal drama and injuries that
Speaker 1: happened in the NFL, all by themselves without Yeah, so
Speaker 1: you know, if if we're saying and then three years
Speaker 1: later he broke his knee and it was the curse,
Speaker 1: I tell you the curse. Sorry, it's not a great
Speaker 1: departure from that. Yeah, but yeah it is. It is
Speaker 1: not unheard of people to get injured in the NFL.
Speaker 1: But that I mean, that's in a way that it
Speaker 1: is technically real, right, but maybe not as real and
Speaker 1: I think that's that's probably a great lead in for
Speaker 1: the other theory, because this is one of those day
Speaker 1: or nay kind of stories. Well, you know, listen, I
Speaker 1: don't think Choopy could put on a set of pads
Speaker 1: and actually run up and down the field because he's
Speaker 1: a little guy and those fans are kind of heavy.
Speaker 1: But he's actually just he's just gonna let a little
Speaker 1: air out of the football. So most farther, I don't
Speaker 1: think that was Chupy No, No, it was probably somebody else.
Speaker 1: So well, let's move on to this whole curse thing
Speaker 1: is fake. So I think I talked about Yeah, I did.
Speaker 1: I know, I talked about confirmation bias just a couple
Speaker 1: of seconds ago. But there's another really good reason this
Speaker 1: could be fake, and that is what is known as
Speaker 1: regression to the mean. And regression to the mean is
Speaker 1: a very fancy way of saying that things that are
Speaker 1: outside of the norm, that are abnormal there, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a spike tend to very quickly come back with
Speaker 1: the normal expected track of things. So if there's a
Speaker 1: runner who in a race suddenly runs ten seconds faster
Speaker 1: in the dash than he normally did, and by the way,
Speaker 1: it's Hussein Bolt suddenly and in the next race he
Speaker 1: runs to his normal run. Well, that's regression to mean
Speaker 1: his normal pace. That means things. It's what must goes
Speaker 1: up must come back down, essentially. And usually these people
Speaker 1: are at the peaks of their careers when they're picked,
Speaker 1: you know, exactly, So they're at the peak, which means
Speaker 1: that they they just had a really really, really really
Speaker 1: good season and we're going to feature them for it,
Speaker 1: and then they're going to go back to normal and
Speaker 1: it's going to appear that they are failing because they
Speaker 1: had a phenomenal run and now they are going back
Speaker 1: to their normal performance levels. In football, as we said,
Speaker 1: is such a difficult beat them up meat grinder of
Speaker 1: a game that to push yourself that hard. I mean,
Speaker 1: guys that run amazing yardagin throw these amazing number of
Speaker 1: recepted passes, received passes, completely received passes. Nonetheless, they are
Speaker 1: pushing it and they're pushing themselves physically, and they are
Speaker 1: getting the hell beat out of it. I would I
Speaker 1: would say also there is a certain amount of luck involved.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of skill involved, but there's
Speaker 1: a certain amount of luck involved in completing that pass
Speaker 1: or you know, and it's not it's not just down
Speaker 1: to wow, he threw it really well. It's also he
Speaker 1: caught that really well. So it depends. It depends on
Speaker 1: the other players. And that's the thing is it's conceivable
Speaker 1: you could actually have the following it. You're great year
Speaker 1: in the following year. Actually you're every bit is good,
Speaker 1: but the other guys screwing up, you know, and and
Speaker 1: and so you just like, yeah, yeah, or the other
Speaker 1: team that you faced last year was having a bad year.
Speaker 1: Now they're having an okay year. Suddenly you're a great
Speaker 1: performance because it's being balanced. Yeah, Or maybe last year
Speaker 1: you were making you're the quarterback and you're making these
Speaker 1: kind of crappy throwers, but the guys at the other
Speaker 1: end were talented enough they could correct and still catch
Speaker 1: your crappy throng. And they those guys got traded off,
Speaker 1: and now, you know, and so you're still a crappy thrower. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's and we thought they were the quarterback, but according
Speaker 1: to Joe, they're the thrower. Yeah. I kind of like that.
Speaker 1: I did the better name. Well, that's what you do,
Speaker 1: and you're throwing the ball and the quarterback you're gonna
Speaker 1: throw the ball. Okay, Okay, I like it because I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're not the quarterback, you can pass
Speaker 1: the ball, but you can't really. So there was I know,
Speaker 1: I sent in you guys this article. There was a
Speaker 1: great article by I G. N where they looked at
Speaker 1: the Madden Curse and what they did is they used
Speaker 1: stats to try and figure out if indeed it was
Speaker 1: a real thing. And what they did is they compared
Speaker 1: the guys that were on the covers and their performance
Speaker 1: prior and after that two players who were nominated as
Speaker 1: m v P or guys that were considered top ten
Speaker 1: players that season. What the stats showed is that the
Speaker 1: m v P s had a sharper decline in performance
Speaker 1: the season after they were named MVP than the guys
Speaker 1: that were considered to be Madden Curse sufferers. So there was,
Speaker 1: as we talked about, that whole regression to the mean
Speaker 1: that seemed to be more pronounced. And they also looked
Speaker 1: at things because we talked about the injuries and missing
Speaker 1: games and that kind of stuff. They looked at, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: m VPS, Madden Curse guys, and top ten players, what
Speaker 1: is the average number of games missed than the following season,
Speaker 1: and it turns out the the Madden cover players were
Speaker 1: actually missing fewer games than the other two test groups,
Speaker 1: so it really, yeah, no, not at all. So it
Speaker 1: does seem to be this every you're picked when you're
Speaker 1: at your peak, and it's just it's so hard to
Speaker 1: maintain that level of performance that everybody says you're there's
Speaker 1: something causing that, some extraneous force that's causing you to
Speaker 1: not play as well, when in reality you're just kind
Speaker 1: of human. Yeah, you're normal human beings, exactly right. You're
Speaker 1: a year older, yeah, and yeah, and professional sports a
Speaker 1: years a year and age is a huge deal, and
Speaker 1: it can be all those injuries pile up to the
Speaker 1: years that are in their mid to late thirties and
Speaker 1: mid forties. You don't see a whole lot of those
Speaker 1: dudes in it all. And there's a good reason for it,
Speaker 1: because it it's a young man's game and it beats
Speaker 1: him up and spits them out. And you know, the
Speaker 1: funny thing is about the Madden curses, it's not the
Speaker 1: only cursed out there for the NFL. So there there
Speaker 1: was for a long time, there was the Sports Illustrated
Speaker 1: cover that and it's not the swimsuit issue. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: the Campbell Soup curse because they were doing they used
Speaker 1: to put players on the labels and then for a
Speaker 1: while it was Campbell Chunky Sup. They have them advertised,
Speaker 1: they would have them in commercials. Yeah, and they have
Speaker 1: their moms on and stuff. They were really funny. But
Speaker 1: these guys also seemed to perform poorly after that, So
Speaker 1: it appears that it's the same thing. When you're at
Speaker 1: the top, they pick you, and then once they pick you,
Speaker 1: you go back to normal, which is why I'm glad
Speaker 1: that we've never get picked up on television, because then
Speaker 1: we would just would just vall apart all yeah next
Speaker 1: week one. That's why we turned down The cover of
Speaker 1: People magazine is yeah, the World's Sexiest podcast. People Magazine?
Speaker 1: Is that that magazine that just got some people. It's
Speaker 1: the Guy down the Street. That is a zine that
Speaker 1: the Take down the Road makes. That's the one about
Speaker 1: the British royal family and a few movie stars. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad to know that. Okay, okay, um. So personally,
Speaker 1: I am of the opinion that while it seems compelling
Speaker 1: on the outside and fun and easy on the outside.
Speaker 1: I really think the whole thing it's just it's not
Speaker 1: it is just just stat I think this is an
Speaker 1: excellent example of causing or correlation does not equal causation exactly,
Speaker 1: or maybe it's the other way around, whichever one it is.
Speaker 1: That you know, just because the stats reflect something doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that that it is the cause of those stats,
Speaker 1: right when, especially in the short term, and you don't
Speaker 1: look at the greater everything else all at once. Yeah,
Speaker 1: on board of that idea, Joe, every but so yeah
Speaker 1: and welve that I think that we have saw this. Okay,
Speaker 1: football players, stop obsessing about it. Go ahead and vote
Speaker 1: for your favorite player to be on that to be
Speaker 1: on the because he'll make some money. It won't destroy
Speaker 1: his career hopefully probably the illicit dog fighting or you know,
Speaker 1: yeah that don't don't do that. That will probably no
Speaker 1: dog fighting, no house boats with lots of ladies that
Speaker 1: are in various states of undress. Don't do that, guys,
Speaker 1: that's bad. Just be like a decent human. Yeah, try that,
Speaker 1: Try it out for a while. Seeah, it works works
Speaker 1: out better for you. Okay, Well that is going to
Speaker 1: be the end of this particular episode. This episode as
Speaker 1: well as all episodes that we have made in the past,
Speaker 1: are available for streaming and download. If you're going to
Speaker 1: download him. Of course, a lot of people go to Apple,
Speaker 1: So on Apple Podcast you can download, subscribe, leave a
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Speaker 1: you go to stitcher pre stitcher dot com, you can
Speaker 1: get to the normal episodes. If you join Stitcher Premium
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Speaker 1: them add free. So that's available there. That's it. The
Speaker 1: occasional yes, and yeah, we are trying to put out
Speaker 1: some bonus content on a monthly basis for that which,
Speaker 1: by the way, if you download them and play them backwards,
Speaker 1: they can see that contains certain secret messages from the illuminati.
Speaker 1: That's true. Yeah, oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: started ever copy me on these mammos, Dude, you just
Speaker 1: don't read them. Yeah, it's because they're written backwards. Um,
Speaker 1: we are we of course. Also, this episode will be
Speaker 1: available as all of them on our website for streaming
Speaker 1: and download. The website is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: On the website, you can view some of our research
Speaker 1: links because we always put up some of those. On
Speaker 1: the right hand panel, there will be a link to
Speaker 1: the Stitchard Premium page, as well as our merchandise and
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Speaker 1: questions those of course. The answers are yes and Thursday,
Speaker 1: yes and something else. We are on Twitter where we
Speaker 1: are Thinking Sideways, where Devon puts out funny, funny memes
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Speaker 1: just send us a message directly by email, So you
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Speaker 1: gmail dot com. The inbox is always full, so sometimes
Speaker 1: it takes a little bit to get through all the messages,
Speaker 1: but we will respond. So if you've got a suggestion
Speaker 1: of a story, you've got questions about a story, there's
Speaker 1: something that you're just not quite sure. Ever you don't
Speaker 1: agree with, reach out to us. We're happy to age
Speaker 1: and all those you want to tell me how awesome
Speaker 1: I am exactly, So we've got all of those. But
Speaker 1: that having been said, I think that we uh we
Speaker 1: we need to huddle up. We need to put everybody's
Speaker 1: hands in the middle. You ready, come on? This is
Speaker 1: our game time. Cheer you guys. Oh, you're the worst
Speaker 1: sports players. All right, I'm out of here. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: spike it, and god do you expect to hit a
Speaker 1: home run? Devon? These are all bad? That's why I
Speaker 1: do it. You're so we'll lamit. Radio Workshop. The award
Speaker 1: winning Will Lament Radio Workshop returns for the nineteenth annual
Speaker 1: UFO Festival in Mcminville, Oregon. Two live radio shows at
Speaker 1: the Hotel Oregon in Mattie's Room at three p m. Saturday.
Speaker 1: The nineteen Isaac Asimov's Pebble in the Sky and Craig
Speaker 1: Kenworthy's parf The extra Dimensional Assassin tales of future worlds
Speaker 1: with a modern edge. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wonder
Speaker 1: when the Mothership arrives. Free admission, with food and beverages
Speaker 1: available all ages. A local live radio lives at mcmaniman's
Speaker 1: nineteenth Annual UFO Festival. Don't miss it.