Seahawks’ Crazy Comeback, David Pollack Previews the CFB Playoff First Round, Plus Actor Josh Duhamel!

Hey, Rassillo listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. The Ryan Rassillo Show, presented by DraftKings. Today's show is packed. We will go over what it means for this Rams team that blew maybe the biggest game of the season considering what was on the line as far as seating goes, how Seattle did it. And again, what I think of the Rams now my favorite team in the NFL, at least the one I think is the best. We're going to preview all the college football playoffs, then talk about who we think is going to win the entire thing with our good guy. Good guy. What the fuck is wrong with me? Maybe it's because it's nine o'clock. A guy who was good. All right, three, two, and one. The Ryan Rassillo Show, presented by DraftKings. A lot of football and a little sex appeal on the show today. How about the Rams? How does that flight home feel? That was the old Chris Long thing, worst flight ever. It's a short flight, but that feels terrible. You go from the number one seed to the number five seed, but does it mean they're not the best team in the NFL. So we'll break down that collapse on Thursday night, previewing the college football playoffs, all the games this week, looking ahead to everything else with David Pollock and Josh DeMell. He's got a new show out on Netflix and he invites me to his cabin and we've got life advice for you. The stage is set. The college football playoffs are here. Every snap, every drive, every touchdown, DraftKings Sportsbook, the number one sportsbook for live betting puts you right at the center of the action. So if I had to go confidence rankings, it would be what? It would be Oregon, James Madison, one, Ole Miss, Tulane, two, I would say A&M over Miami, three, and Oklahoma and Bama, as you will hear with me and Pollock. I can't forget the game in Tuscaloosa, but I kind of want to lean Oklahoma. I also want to disagree in there a little bit as well. So the game I'm most excited about is probably the atmosphere for what we'll have with Miami going into A&M, but I'm ready for literally anything with that Oklahoma offense, combo defense that you can't, like even if Alabama wants to be more balanced going into it, good luck against the number one rushing defense in all the college football. So I'm just the uncertainty of what the outcome is going to be in Norman. That's the one I can't wait for. From real-time wagers to season-ending thrillers, DraftKings keeps you in the game from kickoff to the final whistle. New customers bet just $5 and if your bet wins, you get $200 in bonus bets instantly. Download the DraftKings sportsbook app. Use the code Ryan, R-Y-E-N. That's code Ryan to turn $5 into $200 in bonus bets if your bet wins. In partnership with DraftKings, the crown is yours. Gambling problem called 1-800-Gambler. In New York, call 877-8-HOPEN-Y or text HOPEN-Y-467-369. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling called 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. Please play responsibly. On behalf of Bute Hill Casino and Resorting, Kansas, pass through of Per Wager Tax May Apply in Illinois. 21 and over. Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. Restrictions apply. Bet must win to receive bonus bets which expire in seven days. Minimum odds required. Four additional terms and responsible gaming resources. See dkng.co.com. Limited time offer. Well, that's one of those games you hope you never left early if you're Seahawks fans. I don't know how many people they showed. I wouldn't exactly describe it a Miami Heat fan base necessarily, but it's cold, rainy, although they should be used to that stuff. And like, you know, it starts at night. Yeah, it gets you drove there. So like, why leave? But when it's 30 to 14, you're like, this game is over. I was starting to think about the baseball beat writers, all the games that they have to like figure out what their gamer is going to be. The game story recapping 162 of those and trying to figure out how to wait just to make that interesting. I don't know that we realized how incredible that was until we stopped probably caring about it as much unless you're just completely locked into your baseball team every single night. But you figure teams up 5-2, going to the ninth, you're writing all these things, lineups coming together, managers pushing all the right buttons. There's just something about this team. And then they give up six runs and you're like, oh, I got to rewrite this entire thing. It's kind of what I did. Because when I was looking in this game and the Rams are up 30, 14, I'm like, let's talk about number one seats. So I'm still going to do it. I'm still going to share with you what I thought about the Rams. And now that they blew this game to Seattle, what it means for the seating in the NFC and then ultimately like, what do we do with this Rams team? All right. So with a win, the Rams are going to be 12 and 3. And if you're looking at seating race here for number one against Chicago, you want to talk about their journey at 10 and 4 right now. Chicago in the last, I don't know, two plus weeks went from the number one seat to the number seven seat to the number two seat. So they're the number one one seat going into the Packers loss where Caleb threw the pick in the end zone, which just sucked for all of us Bears fans. Bears beat Cleveland, then the Packers lose Denver at Denver later on. So they're back to the number two seat. And if you were going to try to start mapping out schedules the rest of the way, if the Rams had got this win, which they didn't, the Rams likely finishing up like this could have been a 14 and three season with games at Atlanta and Arizona and Chicago, Green Bay rematch very quickly, this one at home at San Francisco, Detroit, they could go on three. So who knows where the Bears are going to end up. Seattle on the other side of things coming into the game, a 52% chance for the number one seed with a win. If they had lost, and I even wrote down now with a loss, a 2% chance at the number one seed for the Seahawks. So, you know, look, this Rams team, I've thought is the best team in the NFL for a long time. And yeah, they lost to Carolina, but this is what this sport is, folks. Your favorite team or it doesn't even have to be a favorite, you could hate the team. The team you think is the best in this structure, the way this league works, you're going to lose probably four times and you're probably going to lose twice. I'm talking about even the best teams, you're going to lose twice. You're like, what happened that week? We've been able to explain that throughout the year with the Rams, blow that huge lead to Philadelphia. Maybe it says more there, you're up 26-7 at Philadelphia against that Eagles team. Although they are the three seed right now. They went from 8 and 2 to 9 and 5. No one seems to be threatened by them at all. And then you have Tampa as the division winner who's 7 and 7. So, you know, more of the seeding stuff there. The Carolina loss, whatever the overtime loss against San Francisco division opponent with San Francisco missing all their guys, there were at least things you're like, okay, is there actually even a really bad loss in there? And this loss tonight, overtime on the road at Seattle, who's now the number one seed, by the way. Yeah, that on paper doesn't feel like a bad loss unless you just watched what happened. So, when I was looking at this game and when it felt like it was over, I was also thinking about the first time that they played. It was like, you know, what's funny is Seattle, I felt much better about after that loss at LA than I feel about Seattle at home. And it wasn't just the home in a way thing at all. Because if you look at that game going back to the beginning, middle of November, I think it was November 16th, Seattle is down 14-3 immediately. LA's first three possessions are kind of everything, a fourth and one decision at the eight yard line. The Rams came out fourth down happy tonight, by the way, fourth and one at the eight yard line incomplete. So, they pass on the three points, they have an interception that leaves a touchdown, then they have the 10 play touchdown drive. It's 14-3 and you're like, all right, the Rams are going to run away with this thing. Like, I know Seattle has been killing some teams in the first half. Maybe those teams aren't that great, but there's a clear gap between those two teams. Then Seattle's defense answers the bell. LA, the next four possessions they don't score. Seattle's D is just holding this Rams team down. Seattle's offense puts a 414 total yards, just the most yards the Rams have given up in a game all season long against this LA defense. It's probably like at worst top five, I think probably more like top three, even though that will be debated after this loss. And then you throw in in that first matchup, Donald has four interceptions, you're going 21-19. Like, it's a loss, but there's there's a good part of you after that game. I'm telling you right now, Seattle feels a hell of a lot better about themselves losing that game against LA in November than LA feels about losing this game tonight. At 30 to 16, I'm like, all right, two-headed monster running back with Williams and Corum coming along, no Adams, a 13 personnel fest, a lot of duos in there, some nice duo blocking up front. 13 personnel, the three tight ends. So can they just get by with the Cua? But then we're going to sprinkle a little Mumfield, a little Xavier Smith, Jordan Wittingham out of Texas who have 33 total receptions combined on this season up until tonight's game. The Blitz numbers that we saw in the first matchup where Seattle's as Blitz happy as maybe they've ever been against an opponent this season. You know, I don't know that necessarily at the top of my head, but I think the Blitz rate was double against Stafford, what it was for the entire season. And then you have a third and three when it's 23-14, Rams have the ball, they Blitz, Stafford ends up in the Cua singled up with a safety and off coverage, 58 yards. The game's kind of over, but it isn't, right? It isn't, yeah, because they still say, Seattle's going to get the ball, we'll see what happens here. And then they throw another pick. And it's like the second Darnell pick where I thought the first was the freak out pick. And then the second one, Turner, who had an unbelievable night defensive line for the Rams, he drops into coverage and Darnell never even sees him. So at that point, you're like, it's not even after the Cua play that leads to 30-14. It's now they've picked off Darnell again. And then you start thinking about Darnell and you're like, Hey, it feels like a lot of people stick up for this guy because he is talented and he went to the Jets and he flamed out. But then it was like, everybody kind of had this like, I wonder if he ever gets another chance and then it happens in Minnesota, then it's a disaster at the very end. They move on from him. And as good as Seattle has been this season, and Darnell flirting with some MVP type like momentum that Rams game the first time through in the two picks tonight, you're just like, maybe, maybe the Vikings moved on from this guy because they do think he freaks out a little bit. Maybe they think he's got something in him. It's like, man, you can do a lot worse than Sam Darnell. But when it's in those big, big elite moments, like does he even come close to matching up with some of those other guys? And then you have the punt return for touchdown. And then you have the big tight end play. And then you have that two point conversion where literally nobody knew what was going on. Even Zach Charbonnet, who thinks he's picking up a loose football after an incompletion and they realized the throw is backward or at least parallel. And that means that that ball is live and the two point conversion is good. And the first thing I was thinking about, well, I was thinking about a bunch of different things was like, okay, so now the game is tied and the Rams are on the sidelines to themselves. Like, what the fuck did we just let happen here? Like, we are clearly the better team. We've dominated this game the whole time. And now they get all these flukey plays together in a very short amount of time. And I also was looking at third downs there. It was like, oh, it looks like they're a little freaked out. It's not like they abandoned the Blitz on Seattle's defense, but it was like, me might just try to go four man rush here after that big Nekua play. And that was something I was noticing a little bit more. But the biggest thing I was thinking about was like, oh, whatever, staffers are going to go down. He's going to kick the field over to forget to even blew this lead. That's what I was deter. I wrote it down. I'm like, this is exactly what's going to happen. Because I was like, you know, there's a little difference in your down 3014 and the phone the ball around and now it's 3030 and it matters. We can talk about the randomness of like, each possession, if you're this kind of offense, these are your expected points, every possession, every drive that you get, this is your expected point average the entire time. Right. I think when you're down 14, whatever that number is, it should go up because it's just human nature. I don't care if you're in your cubicle during the week and you've had a nice final quarter and it's coming up on the holidays. You're like, maybe I'm not going to give it my best effort here. I think the same thing happens in basketball. I think it happens in every single sport and it certainly happens in football where you're up 14. Maybe you're not as locked in to block on third down. Maybe you're not getting after the tackles if you're on the edge. It's like, we're up 14 points. We're up 16 points. Excuse me, you're up 16 points in this spot, this game. So when the Rams ended up missing that field goal, despite I was like, whatever, they're just still going to win this game and it's going to be like, it's going to actually hurt a little bit more. Like sometimes I'd be like, I'd rather just get my ass kicked than get my hopes back up and then lose all over again. It feels like I lost twice tonight if I'm a Seattle fan. And guess what happened? Go to overtime, Nikola hits the big play. You're like, all right, it's playing out and then Darnold responds and responds in a way tonight that I thought, you know what, he's not going to. Like this isn't going to happen. I know he's really good. So I'm not trying to like dump on him, but I don't think he's Stafford. Stafford 50 game winning drives, looking at him in the huddle and I'm thinking to myself, this must be so much fun. Like, yeah, they're pissed off and frustrated like, how the hell are we in overtime? But that's going to be the most fun you can ever have playing football, being the quarterback, being like, all right, it's my time. I'm awesome at this stuff. So Stafford did his job and Darnold did a better two point conversion at the end. I'm not saying Darnold outplayed him tonight because he didn't, but Darnold did something. I thought of the course of the game of watching him like this actually is not going to happen. There could be a little bit more on this 13 personnel thing because the Rams came out it with three tight ends and I was thinking about it. It's like, is this a great way to be foundationally? But does it mean without Adams right now? Who McVeigh said, like, I still have faith he'll come back, which actually made me feel like, well, that doesn't sound very good. Is it enough in the coup and these other guys are you're not going to be able to name every single week are all available in your fantasy leagues? Is that, is the 13 personnel thing a really good thing to start the game off? But when the game gets kind of loose, does it mean that you're a little limited because you don't want to go out there when you're trying to like move the ball quickly out of this grouping a little bit later on? So I was thinking about that and was like, yeah, they also scored 37 points, man. So maybe you chill out on the 13 personnel criticism right now. All right, Gruden. The final thought on all this is I still think the Rams are the best team in the NFL and I don't care what happened tonight. It's just now they're the five seed instead of the one seed. Basketball season is here, which means the excitement of being in the stands before tipoff is here too. The game time app gives the advantage back to fans. It's the hack for unlocking amazing tickets and experiences in a few taps. It's incredibly easy to use and the game time guarantee means you can trust you'll get 100% authentic tickets on time at the best price plus fees are always included. So what you see is what you pay. I was looking at today, by the way, was wondering if I was going to make it to Minnesota today. I will not be able to, but in case I was going to go thunder at Timberwolves, tickets starting at $33. I love the idea of this matchup, by the way. I don't know if I'm the only one on this one because SGA is a better player than Ant. I prefer watching Ant. I think if Ant were SGA with a title with an MVP, you'd make an argument that he's the biggest star in the league based on the personality thing. I don't think it's anything other than that. I think honestly, SGA's personality is incredible to have that be the leader of your group for a young team that's just good. We've talked about the thunder and the culture and all that kind of stuff. That is a really, really hard thing. Damn near impossible in the NBA to pull off. They pull it off, but it's always a really good test for the Timberwolves to see where they're at because it's a Timberwolves team that I really still think should have beaten Dallas two years ago. Last year, that series, even though there was that one amazing game and then there was blowouts both ways, it was a reminder of like, hey, Minnesota, you are not at our level. Depending on the standings and the seedings that we know how it's probably going to play out, I always like to see these two teams play against each other because it just either will remind me or give me hope of where it really is in a playoff series if they were to face each other again. Again, nobody today in December would be picking the Timberwolves against the Thunder in a series, but I just love these two teams arc their stories and how big or how narrow that gap could ever get. Take the guesswork out of buying NBA tickets with Game Time. Download the Game Time app, create an account and use code RISILLO for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account in Redeem Code RISILLO, R-U-S-S-I-L-L-O for $20 off. Download the Game Time app today. We are going to preview all of the college football playoff stuff with a guy I love talking college ball with from C-Ball GetBall. Some really great content out there. You can check out his YouTube page, David Pollock. Good friend from Back in the Day. What's up? Big dog. How are we doing, brother? I'm good, man. I got a lot I want to get to here. Fire away. Let's get it. Which game do you want to start with? You pick. I'm in. All right. Let's go Bama, Oklahoma. I'll give you my two cents on this. All right? Yeah. Scoring drives for Oklahoma in this game. 23 yards on a field goal. The pick six puts him up 10-0. Ryan Williams fumble, 31 yard touchdown drive, Ty Simpson fumble, field goal drive, 22 yards. I know what Bama can't do. I know the Simpson decline of the last couple of games. I know all the amazing Oklahoma defensive numbers. I cannot get that game out of my head even though it's going to be a Norman. Yeah. The Simpson decline, man. I put that at the feet of Grubb and DeBoer. I mean, it's been, when I watch them, Ryan, like I know what's coming most of the time and they're extremely past happy and they do a good job, but they're trying to, they want to be in the perfect play and they want to put guys in motion. A lot of times they're going to go three by one, three receivers on one side, one on the other side. They're trying to figure out whether you're running man or zone. And then that's what they want. That's how they want to attack you. Well, teams have gotten really smart. When they do that now, teams are, they're not playing it. They're not playing that game. They're not going in motion with them. Like they're holding their water a little bit, waiting for the play clock to go down. And then they've kind of fooled them. Excuse me. They've kind of fooled them and had some success doing it. So I think Alabama's got to get more creative. If you're going to get Blitz at Nazian, which Venables Blitz them, you know, two thirds of the time, like 66% of the time, everybody's since them has followed suit. Like Georgia was, was over 50%. Everybody's been, Auburn has been at that mark. Like, dude, you've got to adjust. You've got to run some screens. You've got to get the run game going. You can't always have five guys out on a route. So hopefully if you're an Alabama fan, hopefully your offense went to work and the last couple of weeks and you decided to break some tendencies, you decided to run the football and you decided to have a little bit more variation to your pass game. The rushing numbers for Bama are just brutal. And it's even worse when you think about going up against this Oklahoma defense. I mean, you know, I'm trying to think of to your point, like, how do you map out the game plan? It's like, okay, well, we're Bama and we haven't run the football all year. Oh, and by the way, we're going up against the number one yards per carry defense in all of college football. So like, what's the point? Why, why even bother? What do you think it is about this rush offense with Bama where, you know, there's some names on that old line. You thought they were going to be dudes. It's not like this is the first time that's ever happened with some guys with some rep and some prestige coming into a year and the unit is falling apart, especially an offensive line. I feel like I've seen this a lot throughout the years in college football, but you know, you really study this film. It's, I don't know how it's solvable this week, but what do you think happened to this group and why they became so one dimensional? Well, I think you, you weren't successful at it. And when you're not successful at it, it makes you want to stop. Now, listen, this is who Ryan Grubb was at Seattle too. Like, that's why he's not in the NFL anymore. Like he didn't want to run the football. That's not his, he'd rather play, you know, pitch and catch. And I get that. But when you do that, what does that allow teams to do? It allows teams to play in sub package more, it allows teams to rush the passer a lot more to be more aggressive, to, to do the things that attack your pressure. You got to make them pay. I've been disappointed watching Alabama's offensive line and just identifying guys, like understanding and communicating upfront. There's a lot of times where there's guys getting run throughs way too much where it's just simple communication. It's not a guy whipping the guy in front of them. It's identifying where they're going to be at Alabama and what they do best. What they do best is throw the football. What they do best is two minute. So operate in that like operating the no huddle. Like that doesn't mean you have to snap the ball really, really quickly, but it allows venables. What is venables? Ryan, what has venables been notorious for for all of these years? What has all these coaches said? What have they been telling us? What does he do? Pressure. I mean, he's, he's just relentless. Pressure like crazy and steel signs like crazy. Yeah. Well, here's the thing. If you, you can combat that. You've seen people combat it in the past. How do you combat it? Well, line up near the line of scrimmage, weight, go, shift and snap the ball. Like be quicker, go faster. Don't allow them to get as exotic. Make them pay and go fast. So I think Alabama, they're better in the two minute drill than anything else. They're better at throwing the football. Well, if you're going to be better at it, and that's where you want to live, live in it. But you do, you do have to find a way to run with Ty Simpson and Jan Miller is going to be back, which is good, but like to create some balance so they can't get so exotic and put so many little people on the field. Like if they can live and dime and they can have so many DBs on the field, it allows their past defense to be so much better. Armace and Thomas coming back. And I still think his play against Tennessee is one of the most impressive plays I've seen from a defensive player all year long. It was so impressive that I don't even think the broadcast, Valor heard, I don't know that they even knew what had happened as it was happening. I'm pretty sure it was them. I hope it wasn't McElroy and McDonough and I'm mixing up my Saturday SEC games. But like, I can't believe Oklahoma won that. Like Oklahoma has a few of these games this year. Like how do they win the Bamba game? All right, well, let's turn over to the whole thing. Tennessee game and that game at halftime watching the first 30 minutes. I'm like, Tennessee's losing this football game. But their edge guys are studs. And if Thomas is back healthy too in this one, which is the projection that it's going to happen, what do you see from those guys that's just beyond the normal Oklahoma athletes and Venombles attack style? It's just like, first of all, Armace and Thomas, he's the definition of what you don't want to see as an offensive tackle because he's got a stupid first step. Like he gets off the ball at an alarmingly fast rate. He's about six, two. He's not huge, but he also, he has the ability to beat you with speed, which makes tackles now over set and go, Oh my gosh, like I got to catch him. And then it'll hit that spin back inside. So like you don't have to have, as a pass rusher, you don't need an arsenal. Like you need a great move and a great counter move. He has that and he competes consistently at a high level. And it's not just them. It's stone. It's, it's 44. Like we could go down the list of guys that they rotate in and out that can rush the passer, but they also do as good a job as anybody in the country. And if you're asking me, like as a defensive lineman, and I'm coming out, I'm like, yeah, I want to play there. Like I want to go play at Oklahoma because they're going to, they don't just line up in two gap or play very conservative techniques. Like a lot of times they're stunting and twisting and taking gaps. You've seen Georgia do that. Like Georgia, from where they started the season to now, like they look a lot more like that. They're, they're doing so much more creative. They're using so much more creativity because they don't have the, there's not a Jalen Carter. There's not a Devonte Wyatt. There's not a, there's not those guys, those big guys in the middle that they've had for all those years. Now, Oklahoma has those dudes and some scheme and some aggressiveness consistently that always puts pressure on you. So that's why they're so hard to, to stop up front. You know, I really, really thought about this is that touchdown, granted it was a different play reminds me of your touchdown in a way where it was, now granted, he had a much longer run. Yes. In the end zone. Yeah, but yours was in all this traffic and it was a similar play in the sense that you're like, did that just wait, did that just happen? And again, I love your touchdown because I remember where I was when I was watching it and I'm like, what the, I'm like, what the fuck did that? Well, he needed oxygen though after he did. He was hurt. I think that's what hurt him and knocked him out for weeks because us big fat boys, we don't want to go the length that, Hey, I got an interception against Florida my sophomore year. I caught it on the, on the two yard line, them going in. I made a couple guys miss, right? I got to the 30 and bro, the gas tank was empty. Like I wasn't going to make it. So I literally turned to Sean Jones. I handed it to Sean Jones. Sean's running down the field. I walked straight to the oxygen. I literally go, I have the oxygen mask on when he scores the touchdown. Like that's how fast I wasn't watching. I'm like, I'll look at the board. I'll peep it later, but yeah, we don't want to run that far if we can help it. Did you yell that for handing it off? No, but it was the worst call in the history of college football because they called a Ford lateral on a handoff. The stupidest thing I've never seen it called since and they can kick rocks for that bad calls. Fricking terrible. For this game, we got to finish on Matier. It doesn't take Todd McShade to figure out this guy's been two different quarterbacks, first and second half of the season. The offense is, I mean, what number do you want? I can throw a bunch of really bad ones at you, but I have no problem based on the resume and like they should be in the playoff. I, you know, some of this eye test stuff that I was seeing argued late in the year with them. I'm like, go through their schedule again and try to tell me that this team wasn't tested this year. But look, Matier healthy, no question I'm picking Oklahoma, but this offense has been limited. It's been, I mean, not limited. It's being nice. So what do you see from him other than maybe a guy who's just not the same since that hand injury? He hasn't been the same, but I'll say this. I've been very disappointed with the decision making. Like it's okay to miss and especially when you're coming back with your team and you're, and you want to go on the field and you're trying to gut it out and you miss with accuracy, it's another thing when you miss with this up here and you're not taking the easy steps. You're not taking the layups. He consistently gives up first downs to make big plays. He doesn't have big play receivers. Like he's got some guys that can catch it and run with it, but he doesn't have guys that are burning by people and blowing the doors off of people and winning out wide. And so I think everybody's been very comfortable like, listen, I'm not letting you win over the middle of the field. If you want to take deep shots, you can take deep shots. He can rip the ball. Like you talk about horsepower, he's second to none in the country. Like that thing comes off of his hand and it's like, it's, it's, he can throw it to a car wash and not get it wet, right? Like it is, it is humming. It's got some revolutions on it, but I think the decision making, but the thing about Meteor, first of all, there's three freshmen on the offensive line. They don't get a lot of movement. There's not a lot of run game. Most of it has some form of a read with it. And Meteor has to read it and make the right decision. And I would say in the run game, he doesn't always make the right decisions either, but I'll say this, he needs to run the football. Like if this offense wants a chance to win the next several games, he's not, he's not, uh, he's not Marcel Reed. He's not Kevin Jennings. He's not tiny. Like he's got a big lower half. Like I might let this dude carry the ball 20 times. Like he has to be physical, run the ball downhill, get first downs, win some time of possession. The one thing this Oklahoma offense has done when you look at the LSU game and the Bama game, like they, like the plays down the stretch where they needed to make plays that are big plays, they'll make two or three a game and that's all they've needed. But they're not going to do that through the playoffs. They're going to play better teams that have great defenses. They're not going to win low shooting, low, low scoring games consistently. So they've got to find a way to be better. He's got to be better with this decision making process, for sure. I don't know if they can take Tanya out of the game, right? But I mean, he is so dependent or I should say the passing offense is so dependent on him. But like, I've changed my mind about this game a bunch of times. The yards per attempt stuff is hilarious. Like we're like, if I can't run the football, they're 121 in college football. Oklahoma's not great. They're 101, you know? So you start putting together some of the Simpson falloff numbers. You talk about the offensive line issues for both of these teams. And because I've gone back and forth, back and forth, I'm like, all right, it's in Norman. I'm just going to pick Oklahoma. How about you? That's smart. That's the smart play. But I still go back to out gaining them by 200 yards, losing the turnover battle, three to nothing, Alabama. And turnovers a lot of times have a way of evening themselves out. Like Oklahoma played clean, got the special teams, fumble, got the pick six, got the strip sack. Like, are they going to get those again? He wouldn't think so. I mean, it's, it was my position every time I've been like, dude, do not do this. You watch the game, you watch the game and it wasn't close. And they lost. Like, they're not going to lose at the second time around. And I just, I mean, this is the game. But then you watch the S&T Championship game and you're like, what the heck was that crap? Like, I, I, that one felt easier. That one felt easier going into that one for me that week. Cause even though they play each other and everything, and I was like, I think Georgia's front here looks a lot different than it did at the beginning of the year, to your point. And it just like, okay, now I'm starting to write dudes names down where the beginning of the year with Georgia, I was like, you know, other than C.J. Allen, you're like, you know, there wasn't a lot of outside of the Georgia fan base. There weren't a lot of people that everybody was familiar with. And now it's like, all right, 15, this guy, you know, on and on. You usually, you usually point out like three all Americans and a couple of first round picks for Georgia and coming in the year, you're like, where are they? That's, that's a hundred percent not normal. I may change my mind again on it, but it wasn't just the Oklahoma defense too. Oddly enough, as bad as this Oklahoma offense is their terrific and touchdown red zone percentage, which doesn't make any sense. So they'd be this good in the red zone on touchdown percentage. And then their kickers, the man, so the man in his Daisy Dukes, his cut, his, his three inch shorts that those are, those literally, listen, if you make it at that rate, so be it. You can, you can wear whatever you want, but I've never seen, like I've seen the knee pad not covered. I've never seen where I can almost see the dude's root coming out of his pants. Like, what are we doing here? Like that's, that's a little aggressive, my man. Herb Street was offended visually. It was hurt his feelings. Yeah. All right. Miami at Texas A&M, this A&M defense. I love it. Although you could argue they're really good. They're incredible on third down. I can run all the numbers for you where they rank, making you go third and long, but they do tend to give up some stuff, which is like a weird combo of a defense that I really like, but they'll allow some of the explosives. If this were a less tested Miami team, I would be like, go into the college station against this defense. Like no, and I'm not telling you, I necessarily love Carson Beck, but I love that he's been around and I love that they have these edge guys and their receivers, incredible and all that kind of stuff. Like this should be the prime time game because this feels like Miami might be able to handle this in a way most teams coming into a first round matchup, having to play against this A&M team. That some people thought, you know, at one point with the number one team in the country, I never thought that I always thought they were behind the two big 10 teams. They, they have a better chance, I think than other teams that I'd be picking. And I'm not considering like, I'm not talking about James Madison and Tulane, because that would make all the sense of the world. I think Miami is sort of built to go into this challenge. Well, and that's what Miami is at 12 because they don't want to compete with the NFL game at night. So that's, that's smart demographics for the companies, right? Like there's, there's NFL Saturday night. I can avoid that, right? Like that. Yeah, I know. It's just, I'm thinking selfishly West Coast, like this is the 9am game. Yeah, that sucks. Yeah, that's not, that's not how it should be. I'm not ready, you know, not ready that you haven't got your swole session in, you haven't got settled in yet in the morning. Listen, I think I'm very curious to figure this out. Like Malachi Tony has been one of the best players in the country period. And that dude is a freshman. He's a freak. Ryan, the best thing you'd like about that dude is compared to so many diva wide receivers across the country, like Ryan Williams, like when they start to do his tape and they start to, and McShay starts to break him down, he's going to be like, he has no desire to block, like less than none. He'll throw his body out of the way to make sure he doesn't get hit. Malachi Tony's tiny, he's a freshman. That dude will throw his face in the fan to go block you. Like it is impressive. And they'll hand it to him in the wildcat. They'll hand it to him on jet sweeps. He'll throw it. He played high school quarter. Cristobal told me on the show, he said his senior year, going into his senior year, he said the QB got hurt for his school. So they put Malachi Tony at QB. He finished the rest of the season. They went and won a state championship. Like he's that kind of athlete. So Beck has a guy with answers. The perimeter game, Texas A&M is really good at tackling that stuff. Like they're really good at shutting down the screens, but the tackling in the open field sometimes will give them problems. Can Miami exert their will? Can they run the football? Can they be physical? They're so vanilla the way they run it. And when they get in the red, it makes me want to bang my head up against the wall because they just bring everybody in tight and just try to pound you. And I get it. You got a left tackle that's got Barana Soros bones. I get it. Like he's 6'9", he's 3'70". Like he's huge, but when you bring everything in tight, it makes it really tough to get through all of the different bodies. And then you got Carson Beck, who's not a good athlete at the quarterback spot. To me, I worry about Miami's offense. I worry about Carson Beck. The two losses, four picks against Louisville, two picks against SMU. When they lost to SMU, that great pass rush got negated a little bit by Jennings in the tempo of SMU because Jennings could scramble and make plays. So can they limit Marcel Reed's ability to scramble? I think that'll go a long way in determining that football game. Yeah. Reed's got to clean up the mistakes that bothered me where you're like, these aren't just, hey, there was a tip ball or I didn't see the safety or the stuff that happens over the course of the season. I just don't like down in distance, three points in your back pocket when he seems to really push the limits. It seems like he raises the risk at the point of the field where he shouldn't be. Hot and cold. Very, like he can get really streaky. And those weapons though, man, like Casey Concepcion and Mario Craver, man, you talk about the fastest dude. Like before the season, I was talking about Casey Concepcion to anybody who would listen. He's Percy Harvard to me. Like he's a running back that plays the slot that is ridiculous with the ball in his hand. He has strength. He understands zone. And then Craver, like both those guys, my biggest concern for Miami is you got a running quarterback you got to get on the ground. And then when you don't, and when you miss him, now you got guys that run 10, 100s, 10, 200s all over the field running in the backhand against your secondary. That's not the strength of your team. And so the big plays will be there. Bex inability to move going against Cassius Howe. If they get in third down and long, they're in trouble. Like if they can stay out of those situations, they can survive. They can win this football game. But if they can't run the ball, Miami's not going to drop back every play and get one dimensional because A&M's really good with the pass rush and really good in disguise, and especially in those third downs, they're stupid. Yeah. The third down numbers, I mean, look, they average seven and a half tackles per loss per game. They're forcing opponents in a third and long. So third and seven or more yards, 73% of the possessions. They're number one against third down, the conversion rates in the low 20s. But I like some of the secondary from Miami, maybe more than you do. And you're right about the Malachi Tony stuff. Like I looked in the numbers this morning, you know, he's credited with zero drops all season long. Like he doesn't have a drop that he's credited with. And he's got 31 missed tackles, which is the most of any wide receiver in all the college football. So there's stuff there. And we haven't even talked about the edge guys with Miami that you know, at some point are going to show up and going to make some kind of plays. I think a lot of what would be, don't get too upfield against Reed. Because if you start thinking you're beating these tackles, you're getting upfield, and then it's like Reed's going to be psyched, because he's going to be one Reed, and then he's going to run. And then maybe there's the adjustment with that kind of stuff. So I can't wait for this game, but with A&M at home and this defense, I'm going to go A&M. I'm with you on that too. I'm going A&M too. Just, I think that it's, like now you get playoff time, like I think Reed can have 10 carries a game. And when you start running that option game, again, if you've got great players, Ryan, like they do on the edges with Bain and Mazzador, that's fine. If I'm going Bain's way, I'm going to stick that ball right here in the conception stomach while he runs across. And I'm going to read that guy. If he flies up the field, I'm going to pull it and I'm going to run it. I don't have to block one. Like I can, I can block the backside and I can read the other one. Like it really puts me in a jam because why would I spend more resources to block your best players with two of my guys when I can put them in the Reed action and run the football. But I look for A&M's talked a little bit of this and I like that. I'm here for that. I have no problem with that. They're like, yeah, I'm not worried about Bain. I mean, the offense tackle that's going to go against him was like, yeah, he's okay. Marcel Reed was on my show. He was like, yeah, they're good. I mean, I got my guys back like, and then Ruben Owens, like I was, I've just impressed like, like A&M's pretty confident coming into it and they're playing at home. So I like A&M and a close one too. Speaker 2 Speaking of guys you've had on your show, I thought Caleb Downs was awesome. It was so good. Speaker 1 Man. I mean, you're not just drafting somebody with him here where you're going to go. All right. Well, we know all the things that you can do on tape. We know he's done it at Bama and he's done it at Ohio State. And like, even if he's not getting his name called during the broadcast, then it'll be like, do you see all the stuff that he's doing because nobody, it's like that basketball player with all this gravity that is bringing all this stuff to him where it's the opposite effects of football where it's like, they don't want to do anything with this guy because they're so afraid of him. I found the quote about the SEC and the Big 10 thing to be really, really interesting. Even in a season where I just don't like the SEC contenders nearly as much as I usually would like them. It's collectively like a down year for that, but it's been trending in that way a little bit. But my argument was always, hey, let's run through some of these schedules. Let's run through what the Big 10 has to do to close out five or six games. And then look at what a handful of these SEC teams have to do. Like this, why are we even having this kind of debate? Again, I've done it too many times, but that's basically Caleb's thing. And he was smart enough to be like, yeah, but you look at the bowl games last year and look, the SEC got stomped by a bunch of these Big 10 matchups in that bowl season. And I don't think you can just blame it's default of like, well, their guys weren't as into it or these guys are opting out and all this kind of stuff because you can do the same thing with Florida State and Georgia because everybody made from Florida State after the game. You're like, come on, guys, like be reasonable about this stuff. But what did you think about his answer specific to that? Where I know everyone listening that's like a Big 10 fans like, no shit, you guys liked it. But, you know, if he's not supposed to say that, you know, he's supposed to say it the other way, the way every coach that goes to the Big 10 is like, oh, there's not that much of a difference. And as soon as that same coaches in the SEC is like, ah, it's not even close. Yeah, I've been, I've had a running dialogue with Dan landing all year via text message. And it's it's hilarious because me and Dan are so similar and like energy and we want to go and we want you, we want you to, we want you to get on board with our opinion. And like, it's been a back and forth, back and forth. And then I called him one day after we've been texting for a while and we just went through it, debate, debate, debate, debate. Listen, Caleb said it. It's a weekend and week out thing. Like it, here's my example. Ryan, when you go play South Carolina this year, Lenora Sellers first round pick, Dylan on the edge, coming off the edge. Guess what? First round pick, top 15 pick. Don't, Stuart, Stuart can rush the passer against anyone. Like you got a receiver, Nick Harper, who runs 10-2. Like there's guys that can beat you. And then, you know, the argument we've had back and forth was, okay, well, there was 79 players drafted out of the SEC. There was 72 out of the Big 10. And I'm like, okay, Dan, there's also two less teams. So the talent is more concentrated on those teams. And where do you want to play? Which atmospheres do you want to play? And so the bottom line is there's a lot of debate that we could go in with that. There's a lot more competent teams that can beat you weekend and week out in the SEC. But the title contenders are in the Big 10. Like there's four teams that can win this whole thing. It's Indiana, it's Ohio State, it's Georgia, and it's Oregon. Like those are the four teams that can win it. And the Big 10 at the top of those teams, they have something in common. They got some quarterbacks that can absolutely spin it. Like, and Mendoza is obviously going to be the number one pick. And he's a dual threat guy, and he's super tough, super talented. And then, obviously, you got Dante Moore, who's a top 10 pick when he decides to come out. He can run it, he can throw it. And then Julian saying, who's throwing the two first round picks at wide receiver? Like, and they got a good defense. So the top of the Big 10 is better than the Big 10 when it comes to championship. Yeah, SEC, sorry. Championship quality teams. There's three teams to me that can win it. There's one in the SEC. So, but as far as a league weekend and week out, it's a lot harder to be in the SEC to compete. Yeah, look, I don't think it's that complicated to say both things are true. But it's going to be shocked. I'll be shocked if the Big 10 team doesn't want another national championship this year. You know, just with the odds on of those, those three teams where I could even make an argument, I think there's certain times throughout the season. I know I liked Dante Moore a lot more than Gunnar Stockton, you know, just because I think the Stockton thing's up and down. That's not really much of a conversation. So to say like, hey, I might like Oregon better than even Georgia. And that's three teams in the same conference out of the Big 10. So anyway, I just wanted to make sure I addressed that a little bit. The Big Shack is out now and it's a serious burger. We're talking two Angus beef patties, three buns, new secret sauce. It's stacked, balanced and built the right way. You get everything you expect from Shake Shack, fresh ingredients, that toasted potato bun and sauce that pulls the whole thing together. It's big, it's fresh and it's legit one of their best burgers yet. I'm telling you right now, mom's dad's that holiday season hustle that you're trying to navigate. You know what? I think there used to be deals that we'd make as kids. It'd be like, hey, if I could get this, this can be my next, this can be my birthday present and it can be my Christmas present. I don't know. Maybe that's why I wanted to be a GM because I'd be talking to my parents and be like, I will give you two birthdays and two Christmases if you can get me this bike now and I'll never ask for anything else. So I'll give you two future unprotected. We don't, no swaps. I don't think I would have understood swaps at the time. Like I'll give you two unprotected birthdays, two unprotected Christmases if we can just make this my like mega birthday present right now. By the way, that never worked out. And I think I remember my father saying like, so just so we were clear, if we do this bike deal for you in August and then around Christmas, you just have no presence. And I pointed the bike in the shed outside, you're going to be totally okay with that. And I'm like, yeah, absolutely. I'll totally be okay with that. Don't even worry about it. He knew I would not be okay with it. So that deal never came to fruition. But I do wonder if you were sitting there and you're going to like, look, kids, Santa, he might not be able to get everything on your list. But this burger, this shack burger, this much burger, all you can handle. If I can give this to you now, burger in hand instead of burger in the bush, you see what I'm getting at here? There could be a little negotiating because I think after your kid has this burger, and you watch them, you'll actually be able to tell them what kind of kid you're going to have. By the way, he handles the big shack. I think there's some stuff. There's some, look, don't make a decision today. Write it down. Think about it. If you've been waiting to see what all the hype's about, today's the day you go to Shake Shack and order the big shack. Sounds familiar. Made different. Okay, Ole Miss two lane rematch time. 45-10 the first time they played. Their left hack was out. Red Slap was a mess in this one. 5-17, 56 yards. Another thing that was interesting that I was kind of thinking back about this game and reading about some of the stuff is that Tulane hadn't really probably had any tape on Chambliss. So it felt like they blitzed the shit out of them. And then he actually burned them on this. So between the two teams, whether it's Oregon and James Madison, Tulane and Ole Miss here, who do you think has a better chance at the upset? I'll give it to Tulane. It was 20 to three in that game and it was goal to go. And Tulane got stopped going in. Jake Redslap is a guy that played at BYU that transferred to Tulane before the season. He had the knee injury that slowed him down from running. This is a one game scenario. Like he can tote it 20 times if he needs to. And I think that- Yeah, but you know what? Like look at his rushing numbers though lately. And I know he went off against North Texas in the last game, but he's a different guy, first half, second half. And when you look at those rushing stuff, and I know like some of the other numbers get baked into that too with the sacks and everything, but he's getting the touchdowns. But you might be right. Like they may just say, hey, you're going to run like crazy today like you did in the last game. Because- He's going to have to. Well, he also hurt his knee. And so for a while, they didn't want to run him. And I think they also understood they could win other ways. But Tulane, their defense isn't great. So it's not going to keep him in it. So how else can you win? Like if I'm their defense, I'm not doing what I did last time because Trinidad went over 100 rushing. They stopped Lacey. Congratulations. But every deep ball Trinidad threw, I think he threw seven of them. Six were completed. Big time plays. Like everything was, everything was working. So how do I shorten this game? Let Lacey have the rock. Let them run the football. Not give up the big place. But we also got a dress too. Lane Kiffin ain't there. And Ryan, you know the swagger that dude has. Like that dude walks in there and when he talks to you, you feel like you got this figured out. Like I got this. Like this is my dude. He makes you feel like you've got a real chance. What does the offense look like? Pete Golding, who's the defensive coordinator, has never been a head coach, not like ever at a big level, ever, ever. Like he's never done it. So now you're addressing me and the team. And I think it's a really good thing. It's an Oxford. I think they'll be going nuts because they're going to be so ticked off. And they want to show Lane what he's missing and show the country, you know, what Ole Miss is about. But I think too lane can run the football a little bit because of Redslaw. Redslaw can make some plays. Ole Miss's weakness is by far their defense. It's not been their offense. So can, can they play great and consistent for a game? Can too lane create some big plays, run the football possess it? That's their shot. I'm not giving them a big shot by any chance, but that's their shot to stay in the game and keep it close. If I'm trying to come up with some sort of James Madison thing here, do you put any stock into, I mean, ironically, we're still talking about Ole Miss because my issue with Ole Miss, I'll see, was like, Hey, that's a game. This is still a game. I watched the Washington State game for some reason. I just happened to watch like most of it. I was like, this is still a game. Like, let them hide around. Yeah, what's going on here? And this is a Washington State team that, you know, ends up six and six. They won the rematch against Oregon State, but they lost to them the first time around. Oregon State was terrible. There's a little bit of like, well, James Madison, watching in state at their place back in November. So is there any transit or property that like, Hey, you're, you're, I guess basically it feels like people, I'm not even going to do it. So I'm just going to shut up. There's a reach of like, they beat a P 14 and it's a P 14 that hung around with Ole Miss at their place this season. That's my position and it is not one with strength. It's not one with strength, but, but here is a position of strength. If you want to get a little bit weird, Wilstein, their offensive coordinator, he's going to Kentucky. So right now he is waist deep in recruiting the portal for Kentucky, trying to get guys to come to Kentucky. Like, that's his number one probably that's what's taking the majority of his time. Tosh LaPoia on defense. He's at cow. He's doing the same thing at cow, trying to put together roster, trying to put together a full staff. So they are divided, whether they want to admit it or not. And you've seen it throughout time. Like it's a real thing. People can't go in one direction, full speed, if they've got two different jobs going on, right? So, so maybe some of that comes into play. Oregon's been banged up like crazy. The offensive line got dinged, the receiver position with Bryant Moore, they haven't been in there. Evan Stewart hasn't played all year because of the Achilles. So they can get like, they can get healthier. But the problem is, if this is a sloppy game and it's, if this is a, I can't throw it, if it's a bad weather game, Oregon could just pound it because they're the best team and one of the best teams in the country at running it. Like they've got a three headed back system in there that they, it doesn't matter who's in there. They run pissed off. Like they fall forward and hit you in the mouth. Like, they're just at Whittingham, Davidson, good, good Hill, good group of running backs. Like, I just, JMU strength is stopping the run. JMU strength, they create some turnovers. JMU strength is running the football like against Bear Bryant and Tui and those guys up front. Like, Bear Bryant, Bear Alexander, Bear Bryant's gone for a while. But I just don't, I can't make a case for them even if they're sluggish because JMU realistically shouldn't be in the playoff. Like, we know, we all know that. Yeah, some good red zone touchdown numbers there. Like if they're turning three into seven and turning seven into three, you know, they're, they're good on both sides of the ball there, but we'd like to running back. By the way, the receiver situation for, for Oregon, apparently all those guys practice this week. So more practice, Brian practice and Stuart practice. So I don't know if the Stuart thing is, is trying to mess with all of us, but they're not going to need it. I wouldn't think against JMU, but that changes the conversation because that guy's a stud. It's just, we haven't seen him in a really long time. Yeah. And then, and I would like to, if I was a coach, I want him on the field band. Like, I need to get some reps because you've already had a layoff for him all season. And then you've had this layoff the last couple of weeks. Like you kind of want to get it in some action. So he's not near as rusty as he would be, obviously, when it comes, when you're going to really need him down the road. Okay. So overall, who's your, who's your pick for, to win the whole thing as we try to map this out a little, I would take Ohio State. I think the daily injury to Indiana, Ryan, I know some people dismiss it and think it's not a big deal. If it's not a big deal, why did he play every single snap in the Big 10 championship game? Every single snap. He's one of the only players that played every snap up front. And so he got hurt celebrating after the game, which sucks. I can't stand that. That's how he got hurt. But I think one of Indiana's biggest, our best traits is having those four guys up front that are 270 that can impact the game and slant and twist and stunt. You've already lost one edge guy before that. He was the backup. So I, I think that hurts them. I don't think they're depth making it through the playoff. I don't think they'll, they'll get through it, but I've got Ohio State. And if you're going to take me from the other side, then, then I think it'd be Oregon, um, who will meet Ohio State in the championship game like they did years and years and years ago. Um, the only other time Oregon got a playoff win actually against Mario versus James Winston. Yeah. I was in the building for both of those. And I was coming off of that Rose Bowl game where they just dominated a Florida state team. That was weird too, because remember that Florida state year they'd won the title the year before they were winning every week, but every week you were like, well, this doesn't look as good. And yet the right, yeah, right. And the rank is, I just remember all the chaos from like this Florida state fans that were losing their shit during that whole time. And then James slips and throws the ball backwards and they sweep it up and score a touchdown and they get the crap kicked at him in the Rose Bowl. So then we go down to Texas for the national championship game and I'm picking Oregon, like I'm like, hell for it. All right, but this is this time they're going to get it. They're going to make up for a lose. And then I remember being on the field and watching, I actually ended up hanging out with you in the back because I think they're into being some sort of like, you're not on TV. And then I used your pass. I think they go back out there because you're like, I don't give a shit. That matter. That was one of the first, I mean, it's happened plenty of times you're watching two teams line up and going to go through their shit and hit each other in the drills. That was one of the times in the field is like, I can't believe I picked against the team and read because it looked, it was an alarming visual of having those two teams lined up next to each other. And look, that was almost 15 years ago. So, yeah, it's not like that anymore. No, it's not like what Dan's brought in there. It's a different animal. Yeah, I guess, look, Indiana beating Ohio State, even if you're like, Hey, Ohio State misses the field goal, it could have been 1313. For three plus hours, Indiana was a better football team. Would you agree with that? Like, I don't think there was anything fluky about that where I felt like, Hey, Indiana didn't just win the game. I thought they were better. Oh, it sounds like a little hesitation. All right. Ohio State got stopped on a fourth down on a fourth and one inside the red. Remember, like inside the 10 yard line where Sang's knee kind of went down and he was down. So, well, I do remember it, but I, you know, unfortunately, and I really hope the broadcast partners are not going to change your mind based on what I'm saying. You can't go to commercial on that kind of replay. We go to commercial knowing it's going to be reviewed thinking we have the first down because that's how it's called in the field. And the next thing you know, it's like, Hey, guess what? It's worth down. But I thought that was really telling David because they didn't want to run on third and one. They had the roll out and completion of the left. And then it was like, can we get the yard was saying he's down on the replay. So, you're right. It was the right call. And then they go for the field goal in the same situation later on. Like that's pretty telling a full house date going up against anybody's like, we don't trust ourselves to get the yard. Yeah. And I think we three decisions because it was pass saying overturn and then the field goal miss, which was again, fourth and short. Like, I think it was only a yard. Well, and that's the reason they haven't beat Michigan, right? All these years was the physicality in the run game. Now, I thought Julian saying played his worst game, but it's not a surprise. He also got pressured, right? So, yeah, what are your answers? He missed some things that I think they can, they can change. Surely they're not going to have Smith and Tate off the field as much as they did. Like they should be on the field every snap. I'm not sure how that ever goes. All right. Those dudes are genetic freaks and they need to play as much as possible. But I thought it was a back and forth game. Like I thought Mendoza made some big plays. I thought Indiana made some good contested catches, but like I didn't walk away and go, Indiana's clearly the better team. But I do think you've got to go through this bracket. And so, if one struggles, you know, who's going to pick it up? Like both sides of the football. And honestly, that's what worries me about Georgia a little bit. Like if they get in a shootout and the defense doesn't play great, can they go tick for attack? Like can they win that big? And listen, I know they did it against Tennessee and Ole Miss. Ole Miss and Tennessee don't play great defense. So I think, you know, Ohio State, to me, the talent, who they are, what they are, like they can win a multitude of ways. And I think Indiana gets dinged by that defensive line, deaf. But it was a it was a great game. And they were the one and two for a reason. Right. And that you should not have left out on the missed field goal third one they passed against. That's actually like four decisions in there where they're like, we're not 27 yard field goal. Like the percentages of missing that is like 8%. Like that was that was pathetic. That was really bad. Like, well, you miss it because it's huge. Yes, you you gagged that for sure. Like that was that was so bad. All right. So if we go the rest of the way, because I don't want to sit here and agree with you on everything here. But I mean, even the Alabama Oklahoma thing, I'm starting to realize I should be rooting for Alabama so that all the Alabama crew who gives me a pass come out to LA for the Rose Bowl here for the Indiana matchup. All right. Let me let me ask you this, even though tech is the four seat in Oregon's the five seat, well, maybe I'll do it differently here. All right. If you're Indiana, would you rather play? Well, this is the word. Let's just do this for the exercise. Say Indiana gets through the winner of Oklahoma and Alabama. Oregon beats James Madison. If you're Indiana looking at the other side and wondering what's going to happen in the semifinal, who would you rather play if you're Indiana, Texas, tech or Oregon? I'd rather play Texas tech. Now, Texas tech's got some monsters and they're going to eat you defensively. Like they're going to be really good. Texas tech's offense is not very good. Like there's I like the running backs. But when it comes to the throw, the throw game and the red zone offense, like they're just not they haven't been in signal. Listen, Morton's also been he's been in a boot most of the week. He's got like a broken tibia like he's so he's been in a boot. So this couple of weeks off, maybe the passing game, you know, picks up, but the Texas tech offense has just been so inconsistent. I mean, so they very rarely been really good. Like that's that's you haven't even seen flashes of them being really good. Oregon can get hot. Oregon can get healthy on offense. Oregon has balance. They can run and throw the football like Texas tech doesn't hasn't shown that ability throughout the season. So and the rematch with Oregon, then being ticked off, learning a lot from the first time that they played, you know, probably being healthier now with their squad. Like I would give Oregon a good chance. I don't think I'd pick Oregon and rematch against Indiana because that's one of those games too, where I felt like they got pushed around so badly. Where that was another one of those games where yeah, it's 2020 and I'm like Indiana is better than that, man. Like they're just they've beaten them up on both sides. And I think this is not this can happen to teams like Oregon is a very physical football team the way they run the football. So it wasn't like, Hey, this high flying style of Oregon and you know, they're just a bad matchup against other physical teams. I mean, all you have to do is watch that Iowa game to realize like what Oregon has this other gear if they want to go to it. Would you rather play Georgia or Oregon? I know they're on the other side of the bracket, but hypothetical if you're one of the other top teams, like who would you rather play? I think it would depend on what kind of team I am. But like, I'm just telling like Georgia always were Georgia reminds me of those guys, Ryan online that you watched it or they stand in front of each other and they do that slap thing. And they're like, All right, you get first crack. Like, okay, that really hurt. Like you just have your kids, right? Yeah, those big barley jokers that you're like, no way, but you get a free slap all you want. Like you can hit Georgia, you got to kill them. Like you've got to knock them out because of what they have. And I think their combination of physicality, there's not a lot of people that are going to want that smoke. Like they're going to be tough to handle because of that. So and their defense has just done this. And really Ellis Robinson at corner, he's a six foot three kid. He was the number one corner in the country two years ago coming out of high school, played a little bit as a freshman and look this this early in the season, it looked okay, very okay. Now you watch tape and you're like, that's the first round pick. Okay, he's legit. Like so now you got him and Everett on the outside, you can be more aggressive. They've been more creative. And you just physically you've got to match gunners going to fall forward for two or three yards every time Frazier has been one of the best backs in the country branching the slot is just annoying enough where you throw it to them and then you use them as a disguise. So they know who they are. Their special teams is great. Like so I wouldn't want to play Georgia. I just I think the way that they finished this season on a hot streak and playing well and the way you got to knock them out like I just don't think many people want to go in a dark alley with those dudes. Ellis Robinson is a freak. Okay, so certain times throughout the year too and then I look him up, I'm like he's from New Haven, Connecticut. And then I hit up stand for Steve and I was like, what do you got on Robinson the fourth year? And he's like, dude, that kid was down in Florida. Like he wasn't he wasn't running around the Valley. You know, he's like, I don't think they had to play against Staples. So I don't know the full scope of it. But anybody that has any connection to Connecticut, I check with Stanford Steve and like, what do you got? Like this kid's run around, you know, technically he's a freshman, even though he did get snaps last year. But I mean, he had that deep ball interception where it looked like an awesome NFL player. Like if you an NFL guy had done that, you'd be like, oh, that's why he's one of the best safeties in the league or like a Patrick Sir Tan did it. You know, you're going like, that's why he's a special corner. Like he can make these game changing plays and this guy's doing it back there. If you've seen the clips of him too, Ryan online, like the reason he got ranked number one in the country because they do all that flag football, basically stuff, all those one on one, seven on sevens. It was him and Jeremiah Smith. Like those were the two dudes that went head to head, toe to toe. And he was the only one that could hang with him. Like he was clearly the number one corner in that like gave Jeremiah Smith all he could handle that that shows you what kind of freak he is. Okay. So your final pick again for the national championship is Ohio State. Yeah, back to back back to Ohio State versus Oregon. Rematch of the national championship you were at when it was a really good game and you picked Oregon or there was that fumble there deep in Ohio State territory. It was that way. It got really close. No. Yeah. You're like, if they had gone in, that's what Scott and I were like, we did the show the next day. We were like, you know, if that doesn't, because I think we both had picked Oregon. So we're doing a little creative housekeeping on the story of the game. Trying. Yeah, I don't, I don't know that we would ever just flat out like lie, but at that time it was like, they're going in again, you know, like they're moving it around and it was like, yep, no, that's not gonna, because I was saying this on Monday, we forget, I don't think you do, but I think so much of this conversation around football, we forget about the fight. We forget about what this game is and that it's a fight for three and a half hours and staying in the fight and it can look really bad. I mean, some of these people that comment after it's 14 nothing. It's like, have you ever watched one of these games? I'm assuming if you're watching today and tweeting about it, I assume you've watched a football game before and there are teams that are built for the fight and they may not be as much fun. You know, I think about the Chargers this way a little bit sometimes like, I don't think picking the Chargers like do anything that significant in the end. There's plenty of stuff that's happened with the Chargers is here where I'm like, I don't really like them, but there's something about your guys having a bad series, going to the sideline and then going back out when it's their turn to be like, I'm still right where I need to be mentally. And I think it's hard for us that haven't played to always see that the way you guys see it. Because it's such a sport of failure, man. Like at practice, like you, you get your A-swipped, you know, you got six, seven, three, 30 and you missed with your hands like, welcome to baptism in the name of the father, the son, you're going down. Like it's not, it's not going to be pretty. And then you've got to learn to, to line right back up. And it's your offense throws a pick. Like you got to go right back on the field. Special teams gives up a punt return. Like, yeah. And who can build that too, man? Because not everybody's built like that. Not, not everybody's built to respond in big, that's why Georgia scares the piss out of everybody. Cause they, everybody knows, man. Like there is no, there is no quit. And we've seen it. Now listen, you're going to get frustrated because sometimes you're like, what are we doing? Like what the heck are you doing here? And, but then all of a sudden they wake up and they're not going to quit swinging late. And yeah, that championship DNA usually comes out. They show who they are in the end of the season. And, and Ryan, more than ever, because that was, that was four teams back in the day. Now you've got to win several to get to the championships. The fluky nature is gone. Like you can have one good game, that's sure, but you got to have four. Right? Like it's a hard, it's a hard gauntlet to run. It's ridiculous. I mean, we only have to compare it to last year, but the fact that Ohio State doesn't have the buy last year has to go through those teams, do what they do. Like, all right, you know, whatever we can talk about Tennessee, like, ah, they were kind of fluky. And it's like, all right, well, now you've got to be to Oregon who beat you at their place. You humiliate them. Oh, and guess what's next? Texas. And now you've got to beat Notre Dame, who was a really good football team last year. So it's, it's asking a lot. You got to have the right guys. I think Ohio State wins back to back. I think they salvage or avenge the loss. I don't know if Indiana will be on the other side. I think Oregon has a really good chance. I do like them both better than Tech at this point. But I kind of can't wait. I can't wait to see if George can overcome the passing deficiency that they would have, you know, because look, I'm not going to worry about saying have the bad first game in that spot. Indiana is awesome. Maybe they win the whole thing, but I'd expect saying is going to respond. It's Georgia. If that game happens, it's going to be about Georgia overcoming the gap that they have to Ohio State's passing game because that gap exists. And it's significant. Big time gap. Yeah. Big time. Seaball, get ball. David Pollock, he'll be locked in and all the games. And I'm telling you, man, his interviews are really, really, so if you love college football, you'll love what David's doing. So make sure you check it out. Stell Blue Coffee's new can lattes are here crafted with 100% Colombian coffee. Each can is a good source of protein and comes in two smooth flavors, espresso, cafe mocha and espresso, sweet cream. And whether you're braving your morning commute or chasing your pup, Stell Blue cans are for those always on the go. And for those who care, Stell Blue is more than just great coffee. It's about giving back. I named the brand after my rescue dog Stella, who inspired our mission to help more dogs find their forever homes. Every purchase supports animal rescue organizations. So when you drink Stell Blue, you're not just fueling your day, you're saving a dog's life. Try the new cans today, taste the difference and make a difference. All new Stell Blue Coffee can lattes now available at StellBlueCoffee.com or subscribe on Amazon for 10% off. A good time before the holidays. Excited to do this. He's got a new show out on Netflix, Ransom Canyon. It is friend of the podcast, Josh D'Amell. What's up, man? How you doing, Ryan? Good to see you, pal. Yeah, it's good to see you again too. I am a couple episodes in and I love learning about the process of how this is casted and the decisions you make. Is this someone, your reps, pitching to you? Is it Netflix saying, hey, we want to build a show around you or is it the opposite where it's a script and you go, all right, I like this role on the lead and let's do this? Well, it happened where I was out at my cabin out the woods and it was like, it was almost kind of living this life anyway. I'm not racing cattle or riding horses around there, but I am an attractor a lot. So, you know, I was in that mindset when April Blair, the showrunner, came to me, sent the script and I just love the idea of it. I love the family legacy, the American Western theme is always there and something that I love. So, it just clicked right away and we were in our site. We're about to finish our second season. Tomorrow's my last day until Christmas break and then we come back for like three days and then we're done with the second season. So, it's just been two really fun years of work, really great cast, really great writers and showrunners and, you know, it's been one of the good ones for sure. Yeah, the pilot, you know, the pilot's always that tricky thing and, you know, you're right in it. Wife's dead. It's like, so, you know, I think sometimes the structure is like, well, okay, where's his wife and where's his family? Like, you know, what are the things that he's coming home to to round out the character? That being different and him sort of searching, you know, like what's the point of all this stuff, how is that different than, you know, more traditional roles where most of the pilots would be like, okay, here's all the other elements of his life and with your guy here, it's a massive void from the jump. Yeah, yeah, that was, it was a dark beginning for this character for sure, you know, having lost his wife a year earlier and then he loses his son shortly after, like early on in the first episode. So, yeah, it was, there was a lot there to, you know, and it's one of those things where it's easy to fall into the darkness of that. But, you know, for me, that was just something to sort of play against rather than to play too much into it, you know, and then, you know, Minka is an amazing actor. Minka Kelly is just fantastic and, you know, that's kind of the jumping off point of our relationship. It's always been something that's been kind of there, but never really had the opportunity to do because, you know, I was married with a family, but if you go all the way back to high school, it was something that was never really pursued, I guess, and this is kind of the beginning of that. How do you prepare yourself for the lane of like, I have to express this tension, this romantic tension with her, but clearly we're not going to solve this, you know, it's a TV show, this isn't going to happen, but hey, we like each other, it's all going to work out, like, that's just not the way this stuff works. So, I do think, you know, there's this separation of like understanding it's an action movie, so I'm going to be the hero or, hey, there's the love movies, you know, the romantic interest that's all out there, like trying to figure out kind of what lane you want to be in where you're hinting at all this stuff, but you're not necessarily giving it away in the way like a movie would tell that story. Yeah, I mean, you have a lot more time to, you know, tell these stories in a series, and it is kind of the classic, will there, won't they, knowing they probably will, but it's in how you get there. And that to me is, you know, there's a lot, and there's a lot of pitfalls in that because you don't want to fall into the melodrama of, you know, constantly pining over each other or, you know, saying things that every guy watching is like, oh my god, can we go back to the football game? You know, you want to try to keep it as realistic, and I guess, vulnerable is a good way to put it because, for me, you know, these things, there's good versions of this and there's versions that are just too, you know, over the top. So we really worked on just trying to keep it as realistic as possible so that it's relatable to anybody watching. You know, obviously, this is a show that's about, you know, romance and all those things, but it's also about family and it's about legacy and it's about, you know, water rights and all these things that go along with it. So if it were up to me, we would have leaned really into that and the romance would have been something that just sort of happens on the side, but, you know, Netflix wants, they want that romance. So then you got to find a way to do it so it's not going to be just too in their face the whole time. So it feels like it's just, you know, something, some soap that you see everywhere. We wanted to try to make something real authentic and relatable. In the second episode, you get hammered at a dive bar and you start singing a hoody in the blowfish, which I appreciated later at the dinner where you're like, did I go full hoody last night? I'm wondering, I'm just, you know, I'm not, you know, you're an actor so you can pull this stuff off. Have you ever in the past decided to go like full Martin Sheen and get hammered for the scene in which your source would be portraying somebody hammered? I have actually tried that and it never ends well. It doesn't because you're, uh, when did you do it? I don't know years ago or so. I was like, I'm going to go full method. I'm going to get hammered for this. I'm going to be, I'm supposed to be drunk. Why not just get drunk? Well, what you don't realize is you're actually shooting that scene for several hours and, you know, it's, it's hard to, you know, manage the level of drunkenness that you are. And it just, it just, it really does go off the rails quickly. So I learned early on to try to stay away from that. As far as the hoody bet, that was supposed to be, um, Shania Twain. They wanted me to sing Shania. I was like, you guys, you know, to my point before I'm trying to keep this, you know, for the guys as much as it is for the girls. And I was like, I can't sing. We can't, I can't be a believable cowboy singing Shania Twain. Can I sing hoody? And they said, well, we can check. So they had to go through all these different, you know, uh, back channels to get to the hoody team. And they were like, are you going to be making fun of us? I was like, I promise he's a huge fan. He's not going to eat. And I, you know, hoody and the blowfish was the anthem to my college years. That's, we listened to hoody, we listened to the counting crows and we listened to, uh, uh, what was the other one, um, Pearl Jam. That was, that was basically all we listened to and called it. So when I had a chance to sing hoody, uh, I jumped at it. Yeah, it worked. And, you know, you had said, as your character disguised, like, Hey, that was in my range. And then you even made the Shania line. So now I understand the Shania reference that you could just like, I hope I didn't do that. Um, that's pretty, that's actually pretty funny. Um, you mentioned though, kind of like where you're at now. And I know that, you know, we touch base every now and then. And you've, you've kind of gone off grid a little bit, right? Like, where are you spending most of your time? Cause I don't even know how often you're even in LA or if you have a place here anymore. Or like, you seem to be at a place in your life where you are more comfortable, maybe just going like, Hey, I'm, I'm capable of doing this. And I prefer to kind of be away from all of it. Yeah. I think COVID did that for a lot of people, you know, you realize that you don't necessarily have to be in one place. All right. We do still spend a fair amount of time in Los Angeles. We have a place there. My son is there. My 12 year old son is there. So, um, you know, just out of necessity, we have to be there. And I, and I, and I like LA well enough, but, you know, my happy place is that cabin out in the woods. Um, we're official residents of North Dakota. Again, my wife is also from there. Um, and then our cabin is, is very close by. So, you know, if I could live there, I would, but we are literally 40 miles from anything, from any grocery store, from, you know, pretty much civilization. So, you know, I don't know if it's just as I've gotten older. I'm a bit of a rec loose. I'm not sure, but I really do love it's the beginning back to the basics. I think is what I love about it. You're either the freedom of it, the, uh, I feel like I'm more in the moment there than I am anywhere else. I'm not concerned about, you know, a meeting or, uh, you know, I'm worried about, you know, making sure we got enough wood, enough water, enough food, making sure that we, you know, can survive, you know, and for me, I built it mostly because I had this vision that, and it still may come true, uh, you know, LA goes sideways. How do I get the hell out of there? And where do I go? And that was kind of the real reason I did it in the first place. Um, I still haven't completely figured out how I get out of Los Angeles. I have a dirt bike, but then I gotta somehow get my family. You know, there's a, there's a, there's a marina, down in Reno, maybe I get like a little boat that takes me up the coast and I have a car parked in a parking, you know, I go through all these scenarios. I'm, I'm fucking crazy, Ryan. Do you not ever go, do you not ever have these, these ideas that if, you know, if one thing goes off, off the rails, the whole city locks up and we're stuck here and the zombie apocalypse occurs? I could do an hour on this. So let's, let's spend some time. I, I don't live in this, this fear of Los Angeles going sideways. Um, you know, I, I understand people that do, I am, I have people that are like, Oh, you live out there and I go, I don't, I don't even think about it, man. I don't even think about it. However, I do have a boat in Marina Del Rey and I've run myself through those scenarios of like, what if, what if like there was a, there's an oil refinery, not that far from me and it was on fire not that long ago and people were hitting me up being like, Oh, you're going to be okay. You're going to be evacuated or whatever. And then, um, I, I, I don't know that you can't help, but maybe it's just being imaginative as a person or whatever you're like, okay, in theory, like what would you do? And you're like, all right, so if there's enough gas, I know how many hours I would have in the boat. And then I would think, but this is like, what are you going to do? Go to San Diego. So, um, you're going to go to Catalina, you're just going to be in line with everybody else with an even bigger boat than what I have. So I think, I think there's something about man in general, whether, you know, I was reading like a bunch of Western stuff and Western civilization, I read Lonesome Dove for the first time. So after I got done with Lonesome Dove, I couldn't get it out of my system. Like I was reading everything I could about settling the West. And you start thinking like there is something inherently about man, whether it's the cliche go wet, go West young man or this idea that I think a lot of us kind of just have this love affair with this idea of getting off the grid and being in this cabinet and having you set up. But then I also have to have a moment where I check myself. Like you also like your nice shit and you also like to go to Equinox and you also like to go to the beach and you also like, you know, like going to Erdogan and get it. So like I'm, I'm softer than I've ever been. So I admire if you think you would go full shift and you would be completely happy. But I also wonder like being a dude who's an actor who's also famous and it's like, I can also kind of relive some of my youth and get back to LA and feel like a big deal. And if I can get a little taste of it, that, that makes me feel even better when I'm off the grid where if I were there a hundred percent of the time, I wonder if you'd go, you know what I kind of miss a little bit being a big deal in LA just a couple of weeks a year. Well, hey, yeah, I mean, for sure, I'm not saying forever. I'm just saying, you know, and if I had to, and if I had to, if I had to like live, if I had to like literally live off the grid for months, two months, even three months, we'd be okay. I'm not saying I'm going to live out there forever all the time. But it is, it is one of those things that I've, you know, you know, over the years and at first, and it's not as if we're living, you know, when I first built this place, it was almost like homesteading. I mean, we didn't have electricity. We didn't even have water at one of the cabins. And the wife was totally fine with it. Well, not, not really. It turns out women you're dating don't love having to go, you know, to the outhouse up back in the dead of winter. But we did have to, you know, we were washing our plates in the lake. It was like full on for a long time. Now, you know, we built it up and it's pretty, you know, we have all those amenities that, that we didn't have for those first 10 years or so. So it is pretty, it is pretty cushed, but it's nowhere near, you know, the amenities that you have when you're living in Los Angeles, or the proximity to an airwond or an equinox, or, you know, a nice sushi restaurant, you know, none of that's there. It's a, it's a different, just definitely a different way of life, which I actually love. I, because I keep thinking about it, I keep thinking like, all right, if I could go and then it's like, okay, what are you going to do? You get better at finger picking guitar, like you're going to write something better than what you'd like. I keep, I keep fantasizing about this, like creative years. Like you also have bills to pay. You also have a pretty good job. Like things are pretty good. And you would get out there and you'd be in the middle of the woods. It's like, it's not like I'm the most social guy now ever. So then you'd be going, yeah, but after a few months, you'd probably be like, you know what I'd like to do? All this stuff that I can do. Go ahead. Go ahead. Well, that's the beauty of it though, because I still can't. I still get to go back to Los Angeles and I do love going to nice restaurants. And I also love equinox and I love, you know, all the nice shit that you can get at, you know, five minutes down the street. But it is nice to get away, put in plug from that stuff a little bit too. I'm going to have you out there sometime. I would love to have you out there. I'd love to check it out. I mean, you sent me a couple pictures and I was just looking around going like, is he placing rusted tractors for the aesthetics? Or is he actually like working on this stuff, which also worked out great for ransom canyon, because it seems like your guy's pretty handy on top of everything else. Yeah, but I mean it. I'd love to have you come out sometime, maybe even this summer. Done. Done. I look, I love that stuff. You know, my father had this property that was like right on the border of Canada, where were little kids and it was like 10 acres. And I mean, it's in this small, small town that you never even know was on a map. And we used to go out there and there was a banding, there was like an abandoned hippie bus of people like going into Canada through this back route on the other side of the Canadian border. And it was wild, you know, and he would keep the thing up because he grew up as a bricklayer and then a carpenter and then building houses. And he would maintain it and we'd all go and like, we didn't have anything. We didn't have TV. Nothing there. We just running around and it was the simple part of that life. Like you, you forgot how simple, I think we're of kind of the same age of like realizing what everything was like before. And maybe we're being a little too myopic in our specific generation. But just to be out there where you know your only options are yourself, to entertain yourself. And it's kind of something that's pretty cool when you think about how simple that was. Yeah, yeah, you just, you just, I interned to a different mindset. I really do. And by the way, to your point about when you were kids, it's a great place to take kids and have them spend a lot of their, you know, their young years, not only in front of an iPad in Los Angeles, but get them, get them out there, you know, on the water, helping me fix whatever or clean out whatever, whatever we're doing. I always, I try to get them as, you know, involved and try to teach, especially my 12 year old, as much as I is, you know, I have learned a lot when I got out there. I didn't know anything. I never had a cabin or a lake or boat or anything like that growing up. So I've had to learn it. So for me, it's fun to, you know, pass this stuff on to my kids now and get them off the screens. Yeah, totally. I imagine the horseback part of it you had locked in then. You were like, I'm good. Well, I'm not a huge horse guy. You know, I don't look, I actually, this year, I've liked it a lot more last year. I was, because I hadn't been on, I grew up in North Dakota, obviously in close proximity to horses and had ridden quite a bit. But when we went to this, we had a little cowboy camp before we went. I was not really looking for you, because I just, I knew I had a friend who was a kid who got kicked in the head. And I'm always afraid I'm going to get bucked off and break my neck like Christopher, you know, just like all these things run through my head. So I have this healthy fear of horses. Some people absolutely love it and they look so much, they look so forward to it. But this year has been different. You know, I got my horse J.W. I know I can trust him. He's not going to do anything crazy. And it's actually been a lot more fun. Yeah, it works. I mean, look, if you're going to shoot this kind of show, all that stuff has to look really natural. The roles that, you know, I'm not going to do like the full Josh DeMell filmography here. But, you know, the industry's changed. It's changing so fast that sometimes you can feel like, okay, what is out there for someone like me and, you know, talking to different people that are writers and it's like, you know, some of the movies that we all kind of love, these smaller budget movies and everything, it's just like they don't really make them anymore. And I think that's a little negative to be like, hey, they don't make, they're never going to make any of them because that's not true. Like there's still places that are doing some of the smaller stuff. But it's definitely not popular with decision makers. So when you're kind of mapping out like a game plan and the roles that were available to you, and I'm not, it's talking about like an age thing, but the creative roles that may be available to you 20 years ago in the industry versus what's available now for somebody that can be a leading man, like how do you try to navigate what makes sense for you and what the best opportunities are and the chance for success? Well, I would argue that there's more opportunity to do those smaller indies than there ever was because they're making fewer big tentpole movies than they used to. There's just not as many of them being made. I mean, the business is really sort of tighten the, tighten their belt, you know, as far as what they're spending. And the streamers are kind of the king of the hill right now. So I've had a lot more opportunity to do those smaller ones, the really fun sort of indie things that I really do love to do. And then things like ransom canyon or shotgun wedding, these things come up because it's fun to do those too. Those big popcorn movies are also fun. Honestly, when I look at, I never know what I want to do until I read it. I just read a script called Killing John Wayne, which is amazing. It's going to be, I think, an eight or 10 episode series. And it's just so irreverent and true. I don't know if you knew this, but Stalin had an obsession with John Wayne. And when, and I won't get too into the story, I'll probably get myself into trouble even talking about it. But it's the story about how he found out, you know, he has an obsession with American cinema and he would, he would, you know, that he'd always be watching these movies. And he found out that John Wayne was really against communism and became the president of this board that was sort of meant to preserve the sanctity of American morals. It was some kind of, I'll forget what the name of the board was, or the company. And he puts a hit on them, you know. And so John Wayne literally had FBI agents protecting him from these communists that were trying, these assassins basically would come after him. I didn't know this was true. And I don't know, the script says it's true. I've never read anything about that before, but I was like, wow, it's that kind of stuff that, you know, gets me excited, you know, so that you just never know what it is until you read it. So are you saying that because like, I guess everything that I've read is more of like, maybe the studios are not interested, but the traditional studios, but your position is that because there's so much content in this battle for streaming that there's more of an open mind, it's maybe on the streaming side of making these smaller things. Because I would argue that it felt like the studio shifted towards let's spend more money on less things as opposed to just buying up millions of scripts like they used to do in the past. Because I think there's just a lot of writers that would tell you it's harder stuff like, hey, this isn't going to work. But if you go towards some of the stuff that's happening now, yeah, you dial up the front page of Netflix and you're like, I don't even like, I have so much to choose from. I know, well, that's the problem too, is you there's so much content out there. So, you know, how do you decide, you know, what's going to be what's going to make noise and what's just going to, you know, get lost in the sea of content. And for me, it's about just finding things, A, that really resonate with me, something I feel like I could, you know, excel in, and something that's going to make some noise, it's not just going to be another version of whatever thing we've seen 20 times before. So, I don't know, there is a lot of content, I think too much content, I think part of the, you know, eventually the profit going to end up consolidating a lot of these streaming platforms into, you know, what used to be like a network, you know, a blockchain, CVS, yeah, but that'll be, you know, it'll be, it'll be a bunch of the streamers sort of conglomerated and then, you know, there'll be three or four bigger ones that hopefully will make it feel like there's, because it's almost, it's just overwhelming, you know, and when you go to some of these sites, there's just too much content out there. How are you doing with your Vikings? Not great. Not great. Give me your overall, like, position on where you're at. Well, I knew this probably wasn't going to be our year. I mean, we knew that JJ was probably not going to come in and take us to the promised land, his first full season. I was pretty skeptical about us getting rid of Darnold last year, but also knowing that, you know, we've got the kid here, eventually he's going to be the guy. So, one thing he had to give, and of course, he goes off to Seattle and crushes it, same with Daniel Jones. He was also in the locker room last year. And I was pretty down on JJ, I think, for the first few times. At first of all, I thought they protected him way too much, as far as they hit him. They didn't, they didn't play enough in the preseason in my mind, you know, I'm like, you know, this dude is an Aaron Rodgers, let's get him out there and get him reps. And then he gets hurt right away again. And then we bring my boy Carson in, who gets just completely annihilated. And then he doesn't play well, but not. I don't mean to laugh, it's just the way you said it. Sorry. I love, I love Carson Lance. I get a lot of, I get a lot of heat for that, but I really do love dude. Maybe it's just our North Dakota roots. But you know what, he's looked pretty good these last couple of weeks. I feel like, you know, you look at the Bryce Youngs and the Caleb Williams and so these other young quarterbacks who struggle early on, you just got to give them a little time to adapt. Now, is he going to be, is he going to be a lead quarterback? I'm not sure. What do you think? Well, as ugly as it was, and it was really ugly, and there was a lot of stuff that you could pick through going, Oh my God, you know, I don't know, the receivers are, are the most understanding people ever. But when you're seeing one of the best, maybe the best in Jefferson out there, like getting frustrated time and time again, I think it was the game like a month ago. Yeah. Against Detroit, maybe, and it was just like, this is getting so bad. But having said all that, it's like, if you've spent the pick on him, you've moved on from Darnold, you actually have to bring him back next year. And make sure because you've invested this pick into it. Now, I would leave the caveat in there, like if you're around him in O'Connell's, like this is not the guy we've made a massive mistake, then is it mean you're punting on 26 again? Like I would allow that if the people that around it every single day be like, we completely screwed up, he's not the guy we can't punt on another year here. But more often than not, as bad as any rookie QB looks, because that's really what we're talking about here, especially when taking that high, you have to give him the chance to prove that you can't play. And these last two weeks, it's a massive improvement. Yeah. You've got a coach who's done wonders with other quarterbacks in the past here. And maybe it's as simple as that. Maybe it's as simple as some of these other guys to get off to these awful, awful starts. But it also tells you something about the faith they must have had in him to move on from Darnold. I'm not saying Darnold is perfect, but I mean, this guy prior to those last two games was in the MVP conversation in 24. And he's like, well, if they moved on from him, again, I'm not around it. So when they make that kind of decision and they seem like smart guys, especially at that position, they're like, they must love JJ. Like they must love this guy. And you can go back and replay history and go, oh, well, he never was asked to do anything at Michigan. And why would you make this kind of mistake? And plenty of people that are smarter than us have made the mistake of the position over and over and over again. But I think it'd be incredibly unfair, as bad as it may, ended up looking on the entire season for JJ, to not even give him a chance going into 26. Yeah, I agree. I think we've got to give him another season. I do think he's shown enough improvement to earn that. I totally trust Kevin O'Connell. I feel like there's nobody better, like grooming these young quarterbacks. And he obviously does see something in him, his accuracy, it needs to improve for sure. I don't think he's got a huge arm. But I think it's strong enough. He's not the most athletic, but he's pretty athletic. But what I do like about him that I've noticed is that he does have that thing, that winning sort of thing, that he can will a team to victory. And I saw it. I was at the Bears game in Minneapolis. We played that crap the entire game. Offense looked terrible, but he was able to get us down and score a touchdown at red at the end. Then we blew it by letting him run a 40 yard kick, return back to the 40. But so he does have that thing. I've seen him do that a couple of years. And that's really what you want in your quarterback, because a guy that you know is going to give you a shot with two minutes left. And I feel like he kind of is. He does kind of have that thing, I think. So it's just a matter of KOC doing what he does. He seems like a hard worker. He seems like he's got the right attitude. He feels like a pretty good leader. But that NFC North is going to be good for a while. Yeah, it's a brutal division. It's a brutal division. And you mentioned like he might have that thing. And I don't know that he does or he doesn't. But at the end of the Bears game at Chicago in the beginning of the year, and it's that fourth quarter, and it's like, oh, and just looking him out there, and he's got this intensity, he's kind of selling the whole thing. Like that personality is either going to be like the defining thing for him in the best way possible. So this guy always had a ton of fight in him, or it's going to be so bad the other way. It was like, can you believe that people were falling for this stuff? Because it's still too soon to really know like what the guy is all about. Because I think you probably appreciate this as an actor. I think we'd all know if you've watched enough football, you know how you're supposed to act. You know how you're supposed to act as the leader and inspiring guys. Like sometimes I'll see guys mic'd up that are tapping the team. And it's like the quarterback is stunk for two quarters, and they finally put together a touchdown drive, and then he's going to the offensive line. He's like, that's all we need. Like keep going. And then sometimes I feel like the old lines like, man, your average is hell. Like stop, stop wiping his up because the mic is on. Yeah. Yeah. This is, this goes all the way back. You know, you just, you take risks on these young quarterbacks, and sometimes they pan out. You just, you know, and so many times quarterbacks that could have been great were in the wrong situation, in a system that wasn't able to properly develop their talents. Well, I don't think that's the case here. I do think that any young quarterback is in a pretty good position to excel. Under, under Kevin O'Connell. So, you know, if he crashes and burns, it's because he just didn't have it. And, you know, it was, it was just a bad pick. It wasn't because he didn't have the proper sort of mentorship or tutoring along the way. But I, you know, I'm ever hopeful, you know, I want one Super Bowl ring before we die, before I die. I'm going to blow the horn this weekend, Christmas Day for the, for the bike skin. Oh, you are? How's that get worked out? You know what? I got, uh, do you have to ask or do you can't ask? No, listen to this, listen to this. I hope I don't look like I'm, you know, bragging, but I got a call from Mark Wolf. I think you can brag. That's okay. Mark Wolf called me. I was like, oh, the owner of the bike uses calling me, asked me to do this. I got to do it, right? Christmas Day was tough because it was, uh, you know, it's Christmas, but I talked to my wife and she said that, you know, go for it. Just try to get back as soon as you can. So I'll probably go do the horn, probably fly out at 6am, go to the horn, stick around for a couple of quarters and then catch the flight back so I can get home for Christmas. But I got to do that, right? I mean, when, when, when the owner of the bikes calls you, you got to, you got to, you got to do the ass. Yeah. What's the flight status on that? Because I know, I know we've, we've talked about those challenges. It'd be great if he could send me his private jet. Maybe I should ask him. Yeah, Christmas. He didn't offer that though. He didn't offer it. Well, hopefully the Vikings get it done before you get too old at some point. But I know with your new brand and it's not just you and a partnership. This is something that you've done with Gatlin where maybe you extend the life long enough to extend that Vikings window. Hey, that's, hey, maybe that, that should be my, my sole purpose and motivation behind this company. I just want to live long enough to see the Vikings with a Super Bowl. That's, that's Gatlin's new mantra. Yeah, or look like your, uh, co-star cap in ransom canyon. That guy's age. He's a handsome man, isn't he? James Brolin is 87 years old and looks, still looks like a super model. It's unbelievable. He's 80. He's over 80. I think he's mid 80s. We should look that up, but I think he is. We'll get IT on that. Uh, yeah. No, you're, you're a co-star. Like he's, it's kind of cool. They have this like father figure type thing for you. But look, as somebody who, uh, still likes to stay active is out there in the wild in the game all the time. Um, what, what is this company? What is it that you're doing? What, what motivated you to say, I gotta do something, something different as I get older here? Well, it was, uh, my, my friend Fabian Calvo, who's my, my partner in this thing had been developing this for a couple of years and came to me. Uh, and you could imagine the amount of blocking and tackling it takes just to get a telemedicine company and all the FDA compliance, everything else off the ground. So they'd done it. They'd done a fair amount of work and at the time it was just a testosterone replacement therapy company. I was like, I'd been, I'd been doing TRT for the last few years. So I, I totally believed in the stuff, but I didn't know if I wanted to be the face of it. And, uh, then I thought, you know, why not? I should be the guy that does this. If, if somebody should be doing this, I feel like I should because it really, truly changed, uh, my world. And, you know, rather than getting out there and selling a Fodkirk tequila, I felt like why not do something that's going to help a lot of guys and talk about this thing that nobody wants to talk about, take some of the shame off of it. It's got a stigma. You know, there's, there's a stigma attached and guys generally don't want to, you know, talk about losing their edge, but that it happens, you know, and it happens to everybody. And so it was an opportunity, you know, what was, what was an obstacle in the beginning of not wanting to, you know, share my dirty little secrets became an opportunity to, you know, start the conversation and shine a light on something that I think that we all could talk more about because of the shit works. Um, whether it's the peptides, BPC 157, the Wolverine stack that we got to get you on to help your, you know, with your joints in your, in your recovery, or some more land, or, you know, there's so many things now that you can take, whether it's NAD or even for women testosterone is a thing. You know, I have some friends who were that had low TRT female friends at low T low testosterone and that completely changed their world. So, you know, it's an opportunity to really sort of not only talk about it, but educate people about it. We've got an amazing group of doctors that, that, that do this stuff all day and are, you know, some of the foremost longevity doctors in the world. So, um, I'm excited about it. It's, um, it's an opportunity to really do something that I feel can, can not only extend my life, but, you know, help other guys. And by the way, my, my dad's getting up there now. And that just dawned on me the other day that, you know, to your point earlier with all of the new discoveries in this field and all the stuff that they have out there now, you know, they say that if you can just, you know, like people of a certain age, if they can just live an extra 10 years, there's going to be so much advancement in longevity that, that, you know, people are going to live to much, much older ages and a healthy ages, the longer health span. It's not just about the life span. It's about living a healthy, a healthy, longer life. Yeah. I appreciate that you didn't go full abs on the website. You're doing a very, you get the flannel on little outboard behind you. You know, it's kind of like the, the every man approaches this. Cause like in all honesty too, like the stigma part of it, if you're of a certain age and you're going to your doctor and you're like, Hey, what are the opportunities? You know, and there's going to be a lot of doctors like, that's insane. You shouldn't be doing any of this stuff. And then there's going to be a wellness clinic that's like, what do you need? You know, so I think we're on the cusp of the very beginning of people understanding there's, there's very mild things that can improve. And it's not a longevity. It's just feeling a little bit better, especially if you're staying active in your fifties. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's the main thing. I'm not, of course, if guys want to get jacked, and if they want to get like, they're like, part of this was vanity for me too, in the beginning, I first started doing it, but now it's more about staying active, staying young, keeping my edge, staying in the game, being able to roll around with my kids in the dirt, you know, just doing all the things. And I do, I feel more healthy than I have, even in my mid thirties. It's unbelievable. So I know 100% that this stuff works. And it's about, like you said, you know, just improving your life. And once you start feeling better, you have more, you have more motivation to go do more, you know, to, and it's all like a cyclical thing where if you're, if you're, if you're, you know, post Christmas, been drinking, been eating too much, it's hard to get that motivation up to get back into it. But once you start feeling better, and looking better, you start making more money, you start becoming better, you become more present, a husband and friend or brother, whatever it is. I mean, all this stuff is sort of interconnected. And that was a big reason why I jumped into this too, is, you know, to, to, I have a, I have a real curiosity about it. It's the, it's, it's, and all the stuff that they're, they're, you know, that they're, they're finding, and there's all these new peptides that are going to be coming out. And, you know, people can, people can, you know, believe it or not. But I just say that, you know, if you get your, if you get your levels tested, get your blood tested, find out where your levels are at, what you're deficient in, what you can improve on, there are things out there that can really improve your quality life. For more information on that, you can go to gatland.com. That's G-A-T-L-A-N dot com. Yeah, man, let's, I'd say let's connect in LA, but I'm, I'm down for the cabin visit, because I do like that stuff, especially if you have internet. Oh yeah, we do. Starlink, baby. I imagine so. And make sure you check out Josh on Rance of Canyon Netflix. And again, congrats on season two, man. So when's that one coming out? They're saying early summer. I've heard May, I've heard June, and I've heard July. I don't know. I don't even know if they know yet, but it's, it's going to be good. All right, man. Well, I'm happy for it. I always love catching up. So thanks. Appreciate you having me, Ryan. You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Life Advice, RR at gmail.com. That is the email address. Just a heads up on our DraftKings Alliance pick for this week, because the lines are not up as the time of this taping sorority. We're just going to do a social post and we're good at DraftKings. We'll be happy. Everybody's good. Back on the winning side. Yep. It'll be for the Friday night games. So looking for that first dub, we didn't, we did only two games because the cup on Tuesdays. We didn't do the King of the Court. Maybe we'll be back after the new year, but check the socials. We'll have it there for you. We've been good as a unit. We just haven't hit one parlay. So take the bets individually if you want. That's probably the way to go too. Yeah, there you go. That's what, you know, sure they love to hear that. Yeah. Well, no, I mean, you know, look, the bets do both, you know, dot, dot, dot, you know, let's, let's pick it up here. A couple moments here to follow up on. We have had a stream of emails, like, I don't know if it's the wine spill follow up. We have a lot of people wondering about the guys trying to live with his buddies, but it's such a bummer reading all of these emails about guys whose wives cheated on them after listening to that story that you're going to do this. No, I don't, I just want to acknowledge these guys are like pouring their hearts out to us in these emails. And I would say collectively, I'm sorry, like, these, some of these stories are just awful. And I just don't want to read them. Because like the guy who wrote in the original email, like, you know, we don't know his situation. And I think there's also a thing that will happen when there's tragedy with someone else, and there's a relatable tragedy that happens to you, then you want their tragedy to be just as bad as yours is. And, you know, I don't know that that's fair, the email, like he's already probably freaked out enough that we're even referencing any of this stuff. Because now I went from, Hey, my wife's annoying to does this mean she's cheating on me. I was just trying to fucking see if these guys were going to do the picks for the college football playoff. And now I'm questioning my entire life. I don't know that I want to be that important ever. Nope, I don't want this, you know, we're doing, we're doing well over here. I don't know that I ever want to be that important of a show. So I think the email or he's not following up, it's just, I've seen your emails, I've read your stories, I'm sorry. But I don't know that I want to bum out the original guy that much more and everybody could be projecting on him, you know, as much as they're accusing the wife of projecting on our guy that sent an email. So I felt like that was the best way to handle it. Some of those stories are brutal, man, brutal. Okay. I got glad we did that. All right. What do we got? Was that bad? Should I have done that? Glad we did that. Happy holidays. Yeah. Some guys like holding two presents in his hand right now for his wife that he's kind of got questions about. And he's like, you know what, just give me the plated one. Give me the plated gold. This is something I even forwarded to Suri because I loved it as soon as it came in. Suri's iconic moment, 26 years old, 5'10", not much for lifting stats, more of a sneaky cardio athlete, player comp, peak rockets, Luis Scola, Andrus B. Andrens, free throw shooting, Tony Allen's jumper, Rodney Stuckey's body. I thought Rodney Stuckey's body was fine. I think. I'm an avid listener. We'll alternate between the audio and video format of the podcast depending on the time of day. Approximately six months ago in the podcast during life advice, Surudi gave a cowboy impression accent saying, yeah. Ryan got laughter like nothing I'd ever seen before. It was all caps. Incredible. Can anybody, you or the listeners remember what episode that was because something triggered me to remember it today? And I had an instant deja vu and I needed to listen to this 30 second clip again to relive the glory. Thanks in advance. Would love if you do a live show in the Bay Area because of your love of stuff would allow you to eat free in the Bay Area for life. I don't know. I mean, we're going to be doing the Super Bowl stuff, which is a massive pivot because we thought we were done with Super Bowls. And now, because it's the first year, I was like, you know what, eff it. We're in. Do you remember what this is? It was like a concert yell, right? Like the way I described it was I had a I had a buddy, Bobby, who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Maybe I'm a Rinne County guy who knows what those guys are up to. But he used to do this concert yell. And it was like the idea of like thumbing your gene pocket, maybe a beer or a Johnny Walker, and you're like Steve Miller pregame parking lot. And you're just letting out this concert yell. Is that what you did for us? Because I love it. I remember. Yeah, I remember the noise. I don't remember why we got into it. I use that a lot. It's just like a it's just like a yeah kind of thing, you know, like I don't I don't know what else like I use it wasn't higher. I don't think it was higher. That's really my go to. But I don't remember the context. I certainly don't remember what the episode was. I now would also like to go back. So if anybody has some free time, yeah, let us know because I'm interested in why I even did that in the first place. But I'll do that around the house and Maddie thinks it's kind of funny. So what is it again? Yeah, it's kind of like a it's kind of like a macho man. No, it's not that it's like getting there's yeah, it's like a sarcastic tough guy. I don't know why like, you know, a guy who I don't know, maybe like you're listening to Creed in the garage by yourself, hitting some golf balls. I don't know. And you just you know, you're just loving life and it's just you're happy to be alive kind of thing. Do you know what I'm talking about though with the Steve Miller guy? Like it's a higher pitch and it's louder. It's like no, I can't do love Steve Norr though. Love Steve Norr, man. Who doesn't you are you talking more of a woo? It's more like a yell where it's like, it's not a woo. It's not a woo, but it's it's like a it's like a hoot. I don't know this guy is the only one who's not embarrassed to try it on the mic. So I guess we'll never we'll never get it. You can tell Ryan's like trying to describe it without doing it. I don't even know what I don't know what you're talking about. Because the only Steve Miller thing that I remember is that like whistle in what's that song in Jungle Love. You know, he does a you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, great song by the way. Just letting it fly today, apparently. My thing is so loud. The thing I'm thinking of is so loud that it would be I gotta go in the knob down on the right. I gotta go all for it. Step back a little bit. I don't want a guy in a car getting like what the hell there. So I don't I don't know how it would be subtitled on Netflix. Nice. So there's always a danger there. Anyway, the show's not on Netflix yet. So don't worry about it. Okay, couple emails here lifelong Hooper missing the game. All right, we'll do this one 28 years old 6518611 wingspan 357 marathon. This guy is he real? No impressive gym stats. None needed after that. 611 wingspan. Yeah, sub four marathon. NBA comp Rudy go bear I live in the paint protect the rim keep it old school on offense with a baby hook and drop step can still throw it down when needed. On the court, I enjoy my job working in finance. I'm happily married one year old boy dilemma. Like how we organize this email. I miss playing real organized basketball high school ball college intramurals running with the same squad all year. I find myself daydreaming about those days all the time. I moved away after college. So none of my high school or college friends around. I play pick up regularly and tried a few local men's leagues. But honestly, it's just I so ball guys hunting for calls or dudes looking to start fights. There's no real teamwork, no chemistry. Most of the time I'm not even having fun. My question is how can I go back to truly enjoying basketball? I don't see a way to recapture that feeling I had when I was younger. Honestly, that bums me out. Have you guys dealt with this or do you know anyone who has any advice would mean a lot? Appreciate you guys keep up the great work. I think I know. Oh, he just missed somewhat of basketball team. Like he missed a locker room. That's what everyone misses the most for basketball. What happened to the game I loved? Mark Jackson. Go ahead, Sury. I think you got to find what time do the old guys play at the Y. There you go. Because those guys play the right way. Real teamwork. And you know, you might not win as much as you want, but they're like at least going to move the ball. They communicate on defense. They certainly aren't ice sewing anybody trying to take anyone off the dribble. That's if you're looking for like the pure form of basketball, that's probably what you got to do because I remember like, you know, we would haven't played the wine a long time, but there were a bunch of old guys that were skill level, probably not as good as some of the other guys, but I would have 100% draft for them first if we were doing like a fantasy draft of guys that we could have picked at the Y. And so I think that's probably your move. You need a good balance of the young and the old. So if you can find a couple of your buddies that you trust or anybody that you kind of know that you like and then mix in a couple of old heads, guys that are kind of maybe wearing like gray, a lot of gray. Yeah. Maybe some new balances. Who knows? New balance. That's the kind of guy you want to play with. Yeah. Hit the blue plate special after a dub. That'd be great. I feel like the old guys are still wearing under armor. Yes. That's like a good indicator. So like it went from a younger thing, compression. And now I feel like the older guys are super late to the compression thing and they haven't got the low that shorts. Yeah. Some of the stuff, some of the stuff compression wise doesn't like you don't have to wear this out. Although I respect it. I've brought that up numerous times. I see a guy out of the compression under armor, full sleeping. He's gone out to drink that way. Yeah. His drinks will be on me tonight. Like, do you want to say hi? No, I don't want to meet him. I definitely don't want to talk to him, but I want his I want that move to be acknowledged in perspective. I've talked about that before. Yeah. That's that's the move. I mean, there were different games when I was still playing and I'd show up in Hartford or something. And especially if you were like the only white guy and you were older and like, okay, no one's ever going to pass to me. I think a couple of times I may have said like, I'm not here to set fucking screens all day, guys. And then it's just a bunch of younger kids looking at you just being like, what the fuck? You know, then it's kind of on you. And then, you know, whatever, just know it's going to pass the ball. But the older games and since you're 28 and it sounds like you've got some frame here, like it's going to be up to you to like understand like how much older the guys that you're playing with are like, I know, like, you're not going to want to go in and be like, yeah, but if I play with these guys, like no one can handle me physically and it's not going to be as much fun. I actually think it will be more fun. I think the overall message that I would say to you is that if you love basketball this much, and you're 28, do not let anything get in the way of you like playing bad games because I'd rather play in bad games and be able to run around and move than playing no games. Because if you do the long gap of not playing and then you come back, it's going to be a disaster. So just just keep playing. And I think so renail that one with the older guy thing because I don't know. I played in like a men's league towards the end of me playing like in pickup stuff and you know, half the games were great and half the games were terrible. So you know, the thing about signup sheets is the signup sheet doesn't know what your deal is. You just write the check. Yeah, I got put on in my most recent pickup and I joined a league in town and I got I think that I say this before I forget I got put on like basically a free agent team. There was like there was like eight of us or eight or nine new people and the guy was like I had to throw them all on the same team and that great guys, but that was a disaster. No one had any chemistry. It was like one guy who was like kind of kid. He shot a lot, but it's because like we need one guy to at least be assertive. No one was that old. And no one really knew how to cut, move and whatever. I wasn't good either. And that's it was a tough situation at the end. Yeah, that's there's also like just way less leeway. If you're 6'5 with a 6'11 wingspan though, and you're 28 years old and you could still dunk, then I think guys are going to defer to you. So I'm a little surprised. Like this guy's just about the game, the purity of it all, right? Because I imagine you're still getting touches, even if you're saying like if your offense is more like Rudy, but I think everybody would want you on the team. But again, boxing out, setting screens, getting back on defense, like that stuff's just not appreciated that much. It's just a free for all of guys. But you know, there's just when it's new basketball players, players playing with each other, there's zero like tolerance for anyone else. If this makes any sense, and I'm not doing a great job of this. But if you're doing something wrong, or you're messing up with what it's guys that you've played with, then nobody ever gets caught up in all the bullshit of like what you're doing. And you can be just as good. And then in a completely new setting, and then it's just guys get so mad at each other about the same shit that you would never get mad about. I mean, you could relate this to like, how- Should we switch to zone is always the best way. We're getting like eat up and lean live. It's like, we can, I'm not sure that's going to solve our problems. But I remember this one game I played in where it was a bunch of guys that always played this like half core thing. So it wasn't even like a full run. And I got so mad at it because like they got burned in the same pick and roll every, like it was like eight buckets in a row. And I was like, are you guys ever, are you just going to let this happen the whole fucking time? And then none of them knew me except for one guy. And then I was like the dick. But I just, I couldn't take it anymore. Like, I think they figured out how to break the D guys. And you're like off to the side. And then you're like, well, then I'll, I'll jump in here. And if you're not going to, like, if you're not going to, if you can't figure out what it is that they're doing when they've done it eight times in a row, and you're not doing anything different, like what the fuck are we doing? I don't know. It's also the guy though, too, who, who like does the scoring maybe, who was one of the better players, but like things that he doesn't really have to get back on defense and then yells at like the teammates for like letting layups happen. It's like, Hey man, you're, you're guys that want getting back and beating us in transition. Like, cool. Like, you know, you made a couple buckets here, but we're net negative because you're not really given a crap about the other end of the court. It's really the same thing as like having a relationship with somebody versus, you know, stranger, our tolerance for a stranger is incredibly low. I mean, it's not even driving. Come on now. No one's ever given anyone the better for the drought driving. Yeah, not even that profound. Let's keep it moving. All right. How do I reject a relocation at work five, nine, 31 years old, not listing waiter gym stats because I've been taking the last few years to kickstart the rebuild. I like the lower expectations around you. It's kind of like when I used to have hair, I would let it grow out long and it'd be kind of like nasty, like hockey hair is that guy in the ECHL and then I would get it cleaned up and it's like, wow, look how hot or silo is. I'm like, not really, but I just look better than before. I think that's a great move for you guys that are out there. Let yourselves go a little bit. Don't be Lego guy. You know, don't be the same guy all 12 months. Look worse to then look better. All right. Back to the email. Never played basketball. A high school football comp would be the height, ball skills and brain of Wes Walker, but a Gillian speed of Tony Saragusa. Tough combo. I live in a large western city and work for a massive company. I'm a headquarter's out here. I've been working here nearly 10 years now. Generally, enjoy my job and the people I work with. I've been a, quote, key talent on, quote, development employee, got in top performance ratings, multiple raises, promotions, etc. This is not intended as a brag. More laying the foundation for my issue. That's fine, man. It's not bragging if you're doing it, right? I make decent money and we have good benefits. My wife also works with the company, is based locally, but she works remote. Over the summer, I got moved into a new department, not a job I applied for. Initially, I was told I would have to travel to the main office two times per month. I was already traveling a lot for my previous role. So, while this was not ideal, it wasn't a huge change for me. Then after I accepted the role, it was made clear to me that I was going to have to relocate. I was able to partially fight it off, as my wife and I were expecting our first baby, a daughter we had eight weeks ago. This past week, my boss told me that coming out of the holidays, she would like a more definitive timeline on what I would be relocating. I've already moved four times to this company, including moving myself back to a major mountain city when my job on the West Coast was eliminated and I was transitioned to remote position. My family and my wife's family, both are nearest. We just had our first grandchild in July, back to the eight-week thing. After missing, wait a minute, not in July, our first grandchild of our family, which we just covered again. After missing a lot of family events in time with our families in the last seven years, because we didn't live here, my wife and I do not want to move for the foreseeable future. Where I could use the help of this esteemed committee is, how do I tell my boss that relocation is not going to happen without fully torpedoing my promising career? They have roles in my city, but they are few and far between. I'm unsure if this decision will kill my chances to get one of them. I've been a great employee for 10 years, but I'm anxious that all my goodwill is going to get tossed aside in the spot. Am I a dead man walking, or is there a way to do this? It won't get me fired. Kyle? I don't know what it's like anymore. I feel like I knew a bunch of people with dads who were just like, yeah, we're going to Tennessee now. I was just like, oh, shit. Okay. I think in the... You think that happened? You think dad stopped moving to Tennessee? I don't know. I just wonder if COVID... A lot of people started moving to Tennessee. COVID changed a lot of things. A lot of people were like, I don't have to do this shit anymore. I mean, some companies were good with it. Some were like, we got to get back. I just don't know. I don't know what... I've been incredibly lucky where I'm sitting in my wood panel basement here doing this thing in the stick, so to speak. But I don't know what it's like in the real world anymore for regular jobs where if it's more of a strong suggestion that everyone do this thing, or if it's just like, that's it or hit the bricks. I don't know what it's like out there. Just to go back, he was not told that he specifically had to relocate, and then now there... It was kind of like on the table, and now they're just like, hey, when is that going to happen? He said after I accepted the role, it was made clear to me that I was going to have to relocate. Yeah, I think that... I mean... He probably shouldn't have said that part. If he's stringing it along though, and the boss is like, hey, after the holidays, I want some... He probably could have said that out front. I want some clarity about the real experience. Yeah, because now you look like you're moving the goalpost. Now that someone asked you, hey, what's going on with that project? And you're just like, actually, I don't think this project is unfair or something. It might be tough to bring it out now that you've been basically quiet about it for this long. I don't like that I'm going to say this, but like... And I know it'd be like Toby, obviously, but like, it feels like an HR problem. You were not... You did not have to... This was not part of the deal, and now it's just sprung on you that this is part of you taking this gig. That's not really like a thing that should happen. That's something that... That's what the reason HR is there to kind of protect you, even though it probably might make you look like an asshole in the long term and who knows. But that's probably the most official and clean route you can go. I mean, maybe just be honest with your boss and just say, hey, this was not something we agreed to, and I just had a kid and just kind of lay out all the stuff that you have. I like this company. I'm good here, but this is not something I'm really willing to do in the near future. And if it becomes a huge problem, then you have to kind of raise it up the levels. But I think they... Anyone would be on your side if this wasn't part of the deal when you took the job, or at least the new position. Yeah, this comes down to the Scouting Report. What's the Scouting Report on your boss? She's telling you she wants a definitive timeline. Now, is she... Because bosses have to remember all of their encounters, and you only have to remember your encounter with her, which is the downside of being the boss is you're talking to all these different people. And I've always had some things in the past where I'm like, look, this is what was said. And the advantage is with me here because I only have to remember what you said to me. I don't have to remember everything that you said to all these other people. And it's very simple that you could have gotten lost here. She may be remembering this scenario as if you accepted the job after you were told that you're going to have to relocate. And it doesn't mean anybody's evil or anybody's doing anything different, but you've got to figure out the Scouting Report. Is this somebody that just forgets things? Is this someone that doesn't care and is going to just hopefully march right over anybody that's in the way of her decision? She may fully know that you took the job before you knew this relocation thing, and she's thinking in the boss-employee relationship that you're just going to go with it. And the last thing I'd ever want to do is give somebody advice on this, and the guy checks in two weeks later, he's like, yeah, I just got fired. Thanks, man. But every one of our professional lives, I think you could break it down to something really simple. You'll be fucked with for a long time with the ultimate goal of hoping to do it to a point of like, you can't really fuck with me now on this. Ultimately, like... It sounds like you're in a good spot too. Like 10 years in, you're probably getting close to that. Yeah, year 10, you've moved four times. If everything that you said to us was true, I mean, what's the worst that can happen by saying, I'm not, I didn't accept it based on this for all of these factors. We just had the kid, he's here with his grandparents. The family thing is incredibly important to me. My wife already works for the company. I'm going to do everything within reason to want to work here for a really long time. I mean, if you don't at least stick up for yourself, then not only is this going to trample you, they're going to think of you, this scattering report on you is that you're going to always give in. So this is always a case by case scenario here where, you know, I don't... Again, we're just reading the email here, but like to that original point, like when I was at ESPN, I knew like no matter what was happening in all those decisions for the most part, I'm like, yep, but guess what, like you're kind of that we can fuck with this guy list. And it was a very short list of people that they couldn't do that to, but I was on the longer list of all these people. So I could get mad up into a point and then it's like, well, how mad are you going to be? Like you're still working here. Yeah, you're going to talk yourself into this tough guy thing. And then ultimately when it comes down to it, it's like, yeah, this is still probably the best option. I'm just going to have to deal with the things that I'm going to have to deal with until you think you can get to a point of, guess what, now I don't have to deal with this anymore. I don't have to accept these changes or whatever. I don't know if 10 years is enough. I don't know if you've been valuable enough for you to be able to get away with that. But I like anybody, I would say you at least have to offer them your position. And based on the timeline, if that's correct, you're like, I would not have accepted this role. So we need to figure out another way to do this and be not defiant, but defend yourself in a way that's, don't talk for too long, which is something I would struggle with. But you can just go, hey, here's the timeline, boom, boom, boom. I've been this, I've done this. These are why the reasons I have to stay here. And let's see if we can't figure out some sort of compromise. And you know what, sometimes bosses, it's amazing, because they just go, hey, this person's right. And I don't really have them. Like you'll never know. And like some of the people that are managers that are listening to the pod right now, like you know the shit you try to pull. Like you know some of the stuff that you try to pull on people. It's like, well, maybe I can get this person to go over here and I'm trying to like figure out all this stuff. And you know, sometimes it's great too as an employee, like if you become the employees, like I can't really fuck with that guy. And he's valuable. So again, I don't want to get an email in here and be like, yeah, great, they let me go. But if everything you said to us in this email is true, you at least have to present your case and go in there in a way that they feel like there is no leeway. Because it'll take advantage of that too. All right, that'll do it for life advice. Thanks Kyle. Thanks Steve. Make sure you check out our YouTube page and subscribe and also holiday schedule. How are we doing this? We're doing a Monday pod and a Wednesday pod. Yep, we're going to have Gruden on Monday and Fred Warner on Wednesday. Sounds like that'll be some good content. Ryan Racillo show part of the Barstool Network.