3 & Out - Ken Rideout's story, Will Lamar crash out, Could McDonald call offensive plays

This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human Search Waterade Legacy to find out how. What is going on everybody John Middlokov, three-in-out podcast. Hopefully everyone is doing well out there in the real world enjoying yourself. Because I know we are today. We have a big show. We, uh, I met this guy at the Super Bowl. His name is Ken Rideout. He's got an incredible story. He's from Boston. He's a great guy. He's a great guy. He's a great guy. He's a great guy. He's a great guy. He's a great guy. He's a great guy. He's a great guy. He's a great guy. He's from Boston. He sounds like he's buddies with Whitey Bulger. He worked in finance like a wolf of Wall Street became like a drug addict. Turned his life around. Now is the top ultra marathoner in the world. According to the Wall Street Journal, he's just, he's a fascinating individual. He's, he's my type entertainment. So he came on the show. We'll talk, uh, we'll just talk his story because it's, it's pretty interesting. It's really interesting. He's got a book coming out. I, I met him at the Super Bowl party and we will also do a little mail bag at John Middellcoff at John Middellcoff is the Instagram. So fire in those DMs after we talked to Ken and the game. This will probably be the last podcast for the rest of this week and all of next week. As I, as I try to be a little bit of a family man for a little while and decompress after the long season. And then we will be back. The week of the 23rd in Indianapolis for a couple days, uh, podcast and see who we can talk to, rub some elbows with some people. And that will be the game plan. So I, I will also, I'll be on the herd with coward this Friday, the 13th and Monday, the 16th. So, uh, I might need to get a tan before I go on television. I'm pretty pale right now, but it might be a little too, little too late. But that's the game plan. So we'll, we'll be chilling for the next 10 days and then we'll, then we'll hit it hard leading into the combine free agency and, uh, the rest of the off season. But other than that, you guys know the drill. If you listen on Collins feed, make sure you subscribe to three and out. We are on Netflix every single day. Make sure you subscribe to the alerts on Netflix. Appreciate all you guys that have watched and checked it out and giving us some feedback. So, um, we'll just keep chopping wood. But let's dive into the interview. Okay. Here are a couple days after the Super Bowl with a man from Boston who I met at the, uh, volume Super Bowl party, Jamie Horowitz introduced us and I said, this is my type guy. Uh, Ken ride out who some consider the fastest marathon runner over 50, just written in the Wall Street Journal. He has a book coming out the other side of hard here in about a month on March 10th. You can buy it wherever, you know, uh, you, you purchase your books. I'm more of an audio book guy. So I, I will fire that thing down on my iPhone. Uh, big Patriot guy, Ken, uh, have you recovered from the, uh, the Super Bowl loss? That was a tough one, man. I was happy to, that they got there considering the only at four wins last year and, uh, but definitely mixed emotions. I can handle the loss, uh, humiliating fact, the humiliating way in which they lost definitely made it a bit more, um, painful for sure, but, uh, good run for the boys. So I didn't know that much about your story and Jamie introduced us and reading and watching some interviews with you. You got a fascinating story. I mean, you know this, you've talked about it. I, I guess, let's just start when you were young. You're now into ultra marathoners or ultra marathons having a lot of success. People got, you ran him on goliah. I definitely want to hear about that. But you were a young guy in Boston who kind of took off in the finance world. Uh, I, I guess kind of let's start from your youth, kind of a rough childhood to, you know, playing some college football, right? To go into New York City to all of a sudden, making a lot of money as a young guy. It's kind of took off fast for you. Yeah, very fast, but, uh, you know, it was like the longest overnight success in history. Yeah, I grew up in Somerville, like very much a blue collar, like hard scrabble town, um, like for context when I got out of high school, I have my first job was as a guard in, uh, prison outside of Boston. And my, my stepfather had already been an inmate there and my younger brother would eventually be a prisoner there multiple times. And, um, after I played, I played ice hockey and football in college. And then when I got out of school and moved to New York, was working in a pharmaceutical sales job and was training at a local gym playing men's lead pickup hockey. And I met a guy who was at the, at the Chelsea pairs, men's hockey league who was a trader, a commodities trader named Mike Peltier, who unfortunately died in 9-11. And he was a commodities trader and he's like, Hey, we need a junior trader. And I had seen all these kids at the gym where I was working out who were like making a shitload of money. Sorry. Can we swear on the show? Heck yeah. Okay. And I'll try to keep it to a minimum so my kids can watch. And I was like, man, these guys seem like idiots, but they're all making tons of money. And I'm like, Rokas a joke. So anyway, when this guy said they had a role, they were looking for a junior trader on this trading desk. I was like, Hell yeah, I'll do that. And long story short, I started there and about, you know, two months in, they were basically hazing me. If anyone's worked on a trading desk, it's very much like being on a sports team. And the older guys, the experienced guys are like hazing the junior guys. And one day I just had had enough of it. And I slapped the guy across his face, which it was crazy to me that they were even trying to haze in bully me. I like box for the New York Athletic Club at the time. I practically had a black eye for like three straight years. I worked in a prison. No one would have described me as a pushover. I mean, I didn't think of myself as a tough guy. And I certainly wasn't someone that was getting picked on regularly. And yeah, this guy was, was hazing like just giving me tons of shit. And eventually I just had enough and slapped a shit out of him. And they, I mean, they, they, they fired me on the spot. But when some of the senior traders at Enron heard that story, they called me up and this was a Thursday. By Monday, I had a job making twice as I was making 40 grand. By Monday, I had a job making 80 grand on a competing trading desk, which I didn't even know we had competitors at the time. That's how naive I was. And then very quickly, I was making hundreds of thousand dollars. I got hired to run this commodity sales and trading desk in London for Canifith's Gerald moved to London right before I moved. I had an ankle surgery, got some percussette. And for the next 10 years, I was basically high on opioids 24 a seven and just weren't living as a functioning drug addict and behaving like an absolute loser. But in my heart, I was like, man, I'm not a loser, but I'm behaving like a loser. So then eventually, I got married. My wife and I adopted a daughter from Ethiopia and right before we went together, I was like, I've got to get sober once in a for all. And it's a long story. It's all outlined in the book. But I got sober, halacious like two weeks of my life and then started running and started doing triathlons initially. I did the Iron Man in Hawaii three times. And I started running and showing up to running races and like everything else. Like with the finance stuff, I was looking around at the other people running and just being like, dude, I can smash everyone here if I just train hard. And I did. I started training super hard. I moved to LA in 2016 was living in the Pacific Palisades, which is where I met Horowitz who just happens to be from Boston as well. And I was training up in the mountains there. I met Reggie Miller. He was always right. We were the only two people out in the mountains in the trails every morning. I'd see him. He'd be riding his mountain bike. I'd be running. I'd be going up these steep trails and we just started talking, struck up a friendship. He wrote a beautiful blurb for my book. Then I won the Malibu Half Marathon a couple years in a row. And then in 2020, I did the Pasadena Half Marathon and like 8,000 people finished in the Rose Bowl on KTLA, live on TV. And I won. I beat everyone. 9,000 people. So I'm running into the Rose Bowl. And I'm like literally like holy shit. I'm going to fucking win this race. And after that things, I started to get some attention. And then a few months later, the day before I turned 50, I won the Myrtle Beach Marathon, the whole thing. I ran 230 there. And yeah, and then I won four of the six world marathon majors. I won Boston, New York, Chicago, and Tokyo. And I got second in Berlin and London. And Chicago in 23 was the world championships for age groups. So I beat everyone in the world over 50. I want to circle back to some of the beginning. To me, Reggie Miller, he looks the exact same physically as he did when he was playing MJ in the Eastern Conference Final. I mean, as he has a game to pound, his skin, he looks fantastic. I think I googled it because he was on TV calling like the NBA finals or the conference finals a couple of years ago. I'm like, he's got to be the best looking like 57 year old and like the history of America. He looks fantastic for his age. Let me tell you something. That guy is cardio freak. He's like winning races on his mountain bikes. And if you know anything about racing a mountain bike, it's super, super technical, but you also need to be incredibly fit. He would be out there grinding. Like I thought I was like people looking at me like I was crazy. And when I saw him one day, I'm like, Hey, what's up champ? And he had seen me a million times and we just hit it off. And I asked him to write, I mean, I felt like an ass ask. I hate asking people for anything. But I asked him to write a quote. He was like, Oh, be my honor. He wrote the most incredible quote from my blog. He's just he's not only is he like look like he's sift 17 years old. He's the nicest guy I've ever met. Just couldn't be kinder. I I've never been I've actually never been to Boston, but I lived in Philly for a couple of years. And I think just some parallels of there. There's like a toughness and a character to you guys that grow up there. And I think we were talking about this before you hopped on. There are so many successful people definitely in what we do, you know, of there's like this toughness that you guys have grown up in that area. But there's also like an EQ, like a feel for people that you know, when you talk for some I'm from California, you sound like a guy that I hear in the movies, right? That accent. It's very it's very distinct. It's like, you know, whitey bulger meets with Walberg. It's just but there's like you can throw you guys in a room and you could hang with like you worked at a prison, but you could also hang with these guys that are CEOs, multi millionaires. Is that just something developed where you kind of, especially maybe it's different now that I'm sure that area has changed. But when you're growing the 70s, the eight, it's just a it's a tough area. And it just what do you think is about the general area in Boston that develops so many people that go on to be successful in the real world? You know, that's a good question. I think of my own story more as a survival story than someone who's thriving. I was just like trying to figure shit out. It's like, I think a lot of times you meet, I had a box in actually New York athletic club one time and I was on one side of the current and woman up and the other guy was on the other side with his coach and he's like, do let that guy's accent intimidate you. And I'm thinking to myself, my accent is intimidating someone like I, I have, I was oblivious to that someone would think that that sounds, that I sounded tough because in my heart, I'm like, like everyone else, I'm scared of everything. I'm scared before a race. I just, like I tell my kids, one of my sons playing baseball and every time they throw the pitch, he's like, he's like 10, he steps out of the batter's box and I go, buddy, every time the guy throws the ball, you step in out of the box, it looks like you scared and he goes, I am. And I was like, oh, okay, everyone's scared, dude. You just have to learn how to do this shit while you're scared. And I think that if I've done anything well, it's learned to do things scared. But about your question from Boston, I just feel like when you're in like a kind of economically depressed area and I didn't know any friends that were rich or that were doing really well that didn't constantly think about money that the parents weren't always like, you know, thinking about money and trying to make money. People are so insecure, they're constant like rousing and bullshit. And then you just learn to get a thick skinned quick because if you don't, you won't survive. Sometimes even with my own kids, I'll be teasing them in my life. It's like, I think you're a little too hard on them and it's because everyone else they're around is so soft that I've got to like adjust my own behavior to kind of match the people that I'm around now. But it's like after your condition like that and especially working in a prison, man, there is not a single nice thing happening prison. Every single person in there is trying to beat you 24, seven and you're only there eight hours a day. So you learn very quickly to like read people or you're going to have a bad experience. And so I don't know. I don't think of myself as having any special skills, but I certainly have a higher emotional intelligence than intellect. You worked in prison when you were in college. I started there the few days after I graduated high school. I probably looked like I was 13 years old. Were you, you know, you talked about your son stepping out of the battle. I did the same. I was never very baseball. But I mean, did you go in there a little nervous? I mean, was that one of those situations? Did you go with the civil on a daily basis? Was it like a maximum security prison? Yeah, there was sections of it that were maximum security and others that there were lower. It's like any prison is different facilities within the institution. You know, I was probably a little bit nervous. But when you grow up with these people, like I knew half the people there. Like the first day I walked in this giant guy from the projects right now where I live, Barry Hildz, like a big Irish gangster, like a killer was in there for smashing someone in the head with the claw end of a hammer. He comes running over grabs me like in a fireman's carry like a child and is running around with me in the ball field. I'm in like in a prison guard uniform and I'm like, brother, put me down. The only thing I cared about, I'm like, dude, the other guards are looking at me. They're going to like, I don't want them to think like I'm just tied with the image come to find out. Like Mickey Ward, the fighter was a guard with me there. And his mother, Dick Yecklin was in inmate. Like all of the guards were like one, one mistake away from being inmates themselves. This wasn't like, you know, the highest form of law enforcement. Matter of fact, when you grew up in Boston, kind of the Mar probably 80s, 90s was kind of coming to an end. Still probably when you were young, still ripping and kind of came to an end. I was very much in full effect. Like how we winter lives right near me that were the whole winter hill gang hung out at at the garage on Marshall Street. My cousin lived right across the street from there. They were like, they were like my siblings. Like we spent all the time, but they were those guys were always around. But it was like, you know, it's like any mob movie you see like from a kid's perspective, they were just cool older guys that were there. They're like, you know, give you a shit all the time. They were like, we were oblivious to like the violence that was going on. Till we got older, obviously. And then it was starting to calm down when I was like in my 20s and then started like when I was start when I went to college, I did Coke for the first time. And then for like five years, my friends, my Boston friends, and I would just on a tear of like go out, drink to Coke. When I moved to New York's, a matter of fact, I said to that kid Peltier, who got me the first job, we were all on that. I said, dude, I've been here for like a few months. I've not seen one single fight in a bar, not one. If I went out with my friends in Boston, it would be a very rare occasion that there wasn't a fight either with either with the guys I was with. I wasn't like a huge troublemaker, but some of the people I was with were half of them ended up being inmates in that same prison. But it was just an aggressive like, an aggressive place. And I'm just glad my kids aren't living in that environment. I was in a, I went to this like kind of inpatient mental health place a few years ago, just because I wanted to like be happier than I was. And when I was telling the woman, she was like, oh, the childhood trauma, I'm like, I don't have any trauma. I just think I should be happier. And I stopped telling her like my childhood and she was like, well, what would you say if any of your children had to go through any of this? And I was like, are you crazy? They could never survive this. And she was like, what do you think made you special? You just said you're like, just as scared as everyone else. And I was like, I don't know, kind of put things into perspective for me that like, yeah, maybe it was a little f'd up. But when you're going to a, you don't know any different. No, you don't. You just grow up the way you grow up. You don't control anything. And you know, I was, I just had a baby. So when I'm doing, when I'm, when I'm taking some duties and she's sleeping, you know, you just have TV on the background. I throw on Wolfel Wall Street a couple of weeks ago. I've thought about this for a long time. How can people, and you got into finance right in the 90s? And it feels like the drug, the drug culture in, in Wall Street was just raging. How can you function in work? And is it as, you know, that movie obviously Hollywoodizes it? But it's fair to say, listen to your story and watching some of your talks about it. Like it was, you weren't alone in what was going on. How do you function? Like how do you go to meetings? How do you land deals? I mean, how was everyone doing? Wolfel Wall Street was like, they were covering retail clients. They were calling like mom and pops. We were, I was like an institutional trader. So we were trading with like banks and initially like, N-RON and big utilities. I never told anyone I was doing drugs. So in my mind, I was, they'd, people probably just thought that I was a little crazy and, and aggressive. But to me, you know, I take, I would take like, Perkis sense, Viking and Fentanyl and just feel good. I mean, I'm sure people are probably like, this guy's a fucking weirdo. But to me, I was like on cloud nine, I was just happy as can be. And then of course, I would get high in the morning, take them again at lunchtime and then after dinner, you know, like 30, 40 Perkis sense a day. And, um, man, it was, New York, it was less obvious when I went to London. I mean, I was in bad shape, but the people there were even worse. There were people going to the bathroom, come out, cocaine all over their nose. And guys were, because I ran the whole commodity trading desks, there was like 30 or 40 guys that worked for me and they come back to the desk. And I'm like, dude, did you even look in the mirror? You have coke all over your face. And they were like, oh, sorry, sorry, boss. I'd come in in the morning. There'd be someone sleeping under the trade desk. It was, it was complete chaos madness. It was just the culture of finance. I mean, just kind of went hand in hand as they've just say, especially. Yeah, I think, I think a lot of the same shit goes on today. It's just like, maybe, I think that this is such like a health and wellness kick too that you get one extreme or the other. You get the guys that are like, overweight, doing coke. And then you get the like hardcore, like fitness finance, bros that are super into health and wellness. You know, you probably get much more of those high performers at like Goldman, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, like the big banks. And then you got those like kind of shitty second-third tier Yankee banks, like where I worked at credit agricultural, not as bad. Some of those third-tier banks you never heard of, you get some real fucking lunatics in there, all whacked out. 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So when you need us, we're here to support you. For cover that cares, search Axa Health Insurance. Pre-existing conditions are not covered. The way you eat a cremex says everything about you. Like if you eat yours melted from the microwave, you revel in anarchy. You go to music festivals without a tent, thinking it'll be fine. And although you need glasses, you don't wear them. Plus, if we looked in your inbox, we'd find 14,293 unread emails. Not that you care. You've got a cremex in the microwave. That's just about... ready. Capri cremex. How do you eat yours? So when was there a moment in your career where you went? I probably can't do this anymore, but you were probably doing well financially, which is always like the push and pull. It's like, well, I'm living the American dream, looking at me. But internally, my life is just... If people knew what was really going on, when the doors were shut, no one's looking, they would be like, what is going on with this guy? When was the moment? Like was there a specific day? Was there a specific drug use point? Yeah. So I always stayed super, like I always exercised and was fit. So I never looked a mess. And I mean, when I moved to London, and I was making millions of dollars, I had a brand new push, straight from the push factory. I had a whole entire like three-story house in that right in the middle of London in Kensington with a garage. Like it was unheard. Like crazy. Unheard of the top floor, the whole floor was glass. You could look down into the living room from the bedroom upstairs. It was unheard. And you're in your thirties at this time, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, dude, less than a year before I was making 40 grand, they couldn't even afford to pay all my student loans and everything else. And now I have like money to burn. I was flying on the corncourt back and forth from London to New York, 10,000 each way. This is in like, in 2000. And then I met my wife. And for a long time, I was just hit everything from her. And she had never done drugs in her life, grew up on a farm in New Jersey, went to Vanderbilt, was like just perfect family. Everything was like, she was totally square. I had no idea. And then eventually she kind of figured out. But when we were going to a dog, when we got matched with my daughter in Ethiopia, we were going to go travel to Ethiopia. And we had like a month to get ready. I went to an outpatient detox where they give you like medicine to help with the withdrawal. So I would have like riddle into stay away, Xanax to go to sleep. And I mean, I was sick, like real sick. And I woke up to go to the bathroom one night, like three nights into it. And by the way, once I got to seven days clean without the drugs, they could give me this shot called Vivitrol, which would block the opioid receptors in your brain. So you couldn't get high for a month, even if you tried. So in my mind, I'm like, if I can just get to seven days, I don't even have to tell her why I'm so sick. And I'll be clear. And then I can go to Ethiopia. And then I'll have some time, some sobriety. And I'll be good. Like three or four days into it, I got up to take a leak, blacked out in the bathroom, fell down, smashed my head, woke up, my wife is like, what the f? What is going on? And I, this is like a big pivotal moment in the book too, because I'm like, looking at her. And then we lived in like a stunning, like bland, new glass high rise on the like 45th floor in Manhattan. And then I'm laying on the floor just so disgusted with myself. Because like I said, I never thought of myself as such a piece of shit loser. But that's what I was. And I'm looking at her and I'm looking at the balcony. And I'm like, I'm either going to tell her the truth or jump off that balcony. And I just, I just like came clean with everything. I'm like, I'm a fucking junkie. I'm a blacked out. I'm in with Drarles and it was horrible. Sorry. It gets me, it gets me choked up talking about it because, like I said, I don't think of myself as a piece of shit. But I was behaving like a weakling and a pussy. And it just came to a head. And that was the last time that I like really got that fucking whacked out. But being honest with her probably the best thing you ever did, then you were able to pivot into. Yeah. And then once I told her the truth, and then instead of like being completely enraged with me, she just helped me through it and like, you know, became like the fucking police. I put her in a terrible position. And it's been terrible because then like a few months ago, she was diagnosed with cancer. So it's been, it's been a rollercoaster man for sure. How's she doing? It's always been stuck with me no matter how much crazy shit I've done. How's she doing? Yes, she's great. Cancer free now and ready for a reconstructive surgery. So there are silver lining. You'll end up with nice new boobs and no cancer. You'll come out of it like a cancer survivor with a new set of cans. Everybody wins. Yeah, my mom beat breast cancer in the early 2000s. So I mean, these doctors now are pretty amazing with that stuff. It's been unbelievable. I mean, from the minute they diagnosed her until they did the surgery, it was like, it felt like a whirlwind. It was like, you know, when something like you never think something like that's going to happen to you. We would always say to each other like, can you, I'm so, so lucky. The kids are healthy. We're lucky. We live in in Nashville with everything that we always talked about is happening. And then she gets cancer and it was like, you know, when you hear someone gets cancer in their 50, I'm like, oh my god, it's a death sentence with, with screwed. And we have four little kids and the doctors were amazing. We went in for the first appointment. You're like, all right, here's who we're going to do. You're going to do this appointment and go for surgery. Then they're going to do this. Then you get the reconstruction. It'll be great. And that's exactly what happened. Wow. Damn, that's, that's, I'm, well, I'm glad she's doing well. When you, before you pivoted to the ultra marathon, did you have to remove yourself from finance, like remove yourself from the culture to, to get sober? Were you able to kind of do both? Dude, when I, when I was going through that week of withdrawal, that's when I started like this tradition of running, or this habit of running 10 miles every day. It was part penance for putting myself in this position and part like, I want to expedite this process of getting the drugs out of my system. I'm just going to run and you know, there would be days where I'm like, I'm going to drop that. I feel so terrible, but I'm going to keep running. I'm like, you know, it was like 30 degrees outside, but I'm like drenched in sweat and shorts and a t-shirt, because my body is just in complete chaos after 10 years of abuse. But once I got, once I got, and I just kept working. I never told anyone. I mean, I'm sure the people that worked with me are hearing like these stories now. And I like, I knew something was wrong with that. But yeah, and then from there, I started, I was running so much. That my knees were bottom. I got a bike. Soon as I rode the bike a few times, like within a couple years, I was racing on a team with Lance Armstrong, training with the best athletes in the world, and just clashing like the cycling scene. A guy from my office was like talking about, you know, a cyclist like runners and anything else. Like they can't like golfers, whatever. They can be such dorks. And they're like, on the best cyclist, I'm so good at this. I showed up one time with a sleeveless t-shirt and shorts. I had a bike for like two weeks to kick the shit out of all of them. And I'm like, wow, I'm either really good at cycling. Or you guys suck. How can I be bit like you guys have like the full like clown suit on. And I have shorts in a t-shirt. Eventually, I would be completely dressed like a clown too. And like full like, but what? So when did you realize that the ultra marathon, like, I'm, this isn't just going to be what I do every day. I'm going to be competitive in this. How did that kind of get going? No, good question. So I was doing the triathlon. I did a few triathlons, you know, but trounced a couple times and was like, how would these guys beat me? Like these guys shouldn't be able to beat me in anything. So I started really training hard. And I started to win like small races all around Manhattan. And then I was like, well, what's the best triathlon in the world? Like everything else that I've done. I'm like, well, if I've got this car, what's the best car? So I did the same thing and someone was like, oh, the Iron Man in Hawaii, but you got a really train for that. It's not easy to qualify. And I was like, for some people maybe. And I just, I did a couple races, qualified at the Iron Man in New York City. Did that? And then when we had our fourth kid, we have three biological boys when we moved to LA in January of 16. My wife was like, enough with this triathlon bullshit. Because I was riding my bike for like eight hours on a Saturday, running for three hours on Sunday. It was way too much and it was super selfish. So I just transitioned to running. And that's really when I started running, very quickly started to get a lot of attention from brands in particular. So I had like a partnership for years with Reebok. And they didn't have any runners except me and like Shaq with their two athletes. It was just crazy. It was like, it almost happened overnight. And quickly I transitioned out of finance. I was working for an asset manager in LA, raising a bunch of money. And once I raised the money for this asset manager, I realized I can do this on my own. And I did as an independent placement age, I raised money for a ton of different venture funds, private equity funds, as well as private brands, like private placements, investments into health and wellness startups. And through that in the running, I started to get these brand partnerships via social media that I didn't even know was a thing. And I had done so many of them and I had worked closely with the brands on the finance side that they started asking me who else they should be working with. And just quickly I started representing some of the best and biggest scientists, doctors and thought leaders in the health and wellness space. So like Andrew Huberman, if you know the humor, he was one of my really good friends. We've done some things together. I raised money for this guy, David Sinclair and Boston. He wrote a book called Life Span, one of the top longevity scientists in the world. So we have a whole roster of people that write out dark group that I manage all their brand deals in me and the people that I work with. And this whole running thing, it like took on a life of its own. And it was like, you know, it's like when people tell you like, do something that you love and you'll never work a day in your life again. That's the truth. If you can figure out a way to get paid to do the things that you love doing, not that I love running every day, it can be just as hard for me as it is for everyone else. Just hopefully if you do it enough, you get faster. But it's been like a dream come true. Getting paid to like run and represent health and wellness brands. It's crazy to think of where I was, you know, 15 years ago. Do you run 10 miles legit in a million every day? Like you never take it? Yeah. And I log every single mile is logged on Strava on the, I don't know if you know that app Strava. Yeah, I know. Every single run I've done since 2013 is there. I've averaged like 4,000 miles a year for the past five years, which is 10.6 miles a day. Every single day with no days off. What I'll be outside 99.9 percent. So when I run into you at the Super Bowl, are you just going for a bearier run that morning? Hey, like no matter, because you're, I'm sure you're traveling for work and stuff. What do you do? What about the weather? What if it's raining or freezing? Every day, every day. Fucking tornado, hurricane, snow storm, every single day. Because it ain't warm where you live. No. No, no, no. So what'd you do during the snow storm or the ice storm? I'll show you, I'll show you a picture that will like perfectly summarize what that snow storm was like here. Give me one second. You're going to like this. Someone was telling me a story that they lived there and they said the thing, oh my god. 15 miles, pouring rain and snow and like 10 degrees outside. I thought I wanted the coldest run. Do you ever been on? No, I've been on some cold ones, man. I've been on, I've run everywhere in the world. I've run almost in every single country like almost up on every continent. I've run in some cold places. Like we take the kids skiing. I run 10 miles up the side of the mountain and ask them. I've run some really cold ones like well below zero. So yeah. So what would you say as a more, I know you ran a race in Mongolia. Would you say the peak of the hottest places in the world or a freezing cold below zero run? What's one's more difficult? The heat is miles harder than the cold. Within, within reason, I mean, if it's fucking minus 50, I don't know. But running in the heat, your body uses about 80% of the energy it's burning is trying to cool your body down just like a car engine. If the engine can't be cooled, it's going to overheat and stop working. And when it's real hot, like my, any runner that you look at, their best times will always be run when it's slightly colder outside. So like my fast this time for run when it was like 40 degrees. And I had on like shorts and a tank top. That's the ideal running condition. You would say 40, 50 degrees for sure. Like about 40 mid 40s is ideal. Like you want to be, you want to be freezing cold at the beginning. Because by the end, you're not going to be cold. But yeah, the race in Mongolia about a month before the race started. I think it was in 2023, but a month before the race guy from, this guy Scott DeRouh, who was the CEO at Equinox. He's now the CEO at Iron Man. He's a friend and he called me and said he's running this race called the Gobe March across the Gobe Desert in Mongolia. Asked if I would join if, if, if, if for some advice. And I was like, oh, wow, this race sounds interesting. I had never run an ultra. I'd never run with a backpack. I grew up in the city. I had never been camping in my life. And I was like, dude, that race sounds interesting. I bet you I could smash everyone. Just kind of clown and run. And he was like, come on, sign up. I'll get Equinox to sponsor you. So he did date when I wrote the race director. It was sold out for like well over a year. And she was like, yeah, you, we will, we'll comp your entry. And I showed up there. I, I, so for a month, I tried a bunch of different backpacks, put like towels and bottled water inside the backpack in June and Nashville. I would finish and be down like 10 pounds from a 20 mile run with this weighted 20 pound backpack. Because that's how much weight I was carrying. Because it was self-supporting. Meaning you had to carry everything you needed. Except water. And they would provide a tent. So I had my backpack, a change of clothes. You have to have mandatory certain safety items like a whistle of, you know, one of those aluminum blanket things. Like just some safety bullshit. You know, and stuff for them. And then your food. So for a week. So I'm burning like 10,000 calories a day. But I only had 2500 calories spaced out per day. And of course, you know, after three days, I probably ate most of the food. But what I had planned on and I did, I had never done this race. So I wasn't sure how it would work. But I assumed people would be dropping out and I'd be able to scavenge for stuff and just survive. Which is what happened. And first day I got the shit kicked out of me. And I was like, oh my god, I finished fourth. And I was like, oh my god, in my mind, I'm like, I'm killing everyone. And now I'm like, I'm like 12 minutes down after the first day, which was 21 miles. The next day was 28 miles and it's a long story. But I won that stage by like 10 minutes. So I was still two minutes down. But with a few miles ago, I fell down the back, the strap on my backpack ripped off. And I busted my arm open. So I'm bleeding everywhere. And my bag is ripped. And I'm thinking like, oh my god, no one's going to believe my bag really ripped. They're going to think I like could on this race. So I like Jerry rigged it together for the third day, ripped again the third day. But after the third day, a woman dropped out and she let me take her backpack. So I had this ill-fitting backpack that like friggin rubbed my whole body raw. Like I had just chafing everywhere. And on the fourth day, it was 50 miles. I was down by about eight minutes. And with the leader of Swiss guy, this adventure race, a really strong athlete. And it was just him and I together, 50 miles and 35 miles in. He started to fall apart. And he was like, man, I got to walk for a minute. And you know, we're alone and we're in the desert. So I'm like, all right, I'll walk with you for a minute. You know, we're racing, but I still like we're all like, it's dangerous. It's 50 mile day. We've been out already for like seven hours and it's hot. So then he's out of water. So I'm giving him, we could get water every like five to 10 miles. But you know, you could take as much as you want, but you have to carry it. So you know, you've got just enough to get to the next station. So I'm giving him my water, you know, hoping that he doesn't like friggin pass out. And eventually first aid came by. But once they came by, the trucks and they gave him like, you know, started like taking care of. I took off and I beat everyone that day by 90 minutes. And then there was only two more stages. And I just went on to win the whole thing. And so I end up winning the whole race by 90 minutes. And that race has been called the toughest race in the world. And but yeah, it was the first time I ever ran more than a marathon. And it was basically like the equivalent of a marathon every day for five days with a 50 mileer mixed in. What type of heat are we talking about? You know, we get up to like a hundred during the day. Not like crazy like crazy heat, but it hot enough for someone to die. Someone did die. Yeah, they had to like be taken out with a camel. So are you run the whole thing on one pair of shoes? Or do you bring multiple pair of shoes? No, no, I wore one pair of shoes. And then like shorts and shirts and stuff. Are you going through a new stuff to that day? No, I had one extra of everything. So for the first four days, I wore the same one. So when we get back in the, you know, the race organizers are like, listen, don't waste the water taking showers or washing your clothes because we only have so much. Close after the second day, I'm like, fuck all this. Give me that bottle of water. And I started like washing my clothes inside the one of the water bottles that I had. And then I had an Italian guy hold the water over my head while I tried to take a shower. So after 40 is a shick hand one set of clothes. Were the next set. And I had like three pairs of socks that I tried to space out. But once I wore them, like my bag was getting lighter because the food was going down. Yeah. Clothes were going down. But you know, you had to have certain things like a raincoat, a down jacket, gloves hat, because it would get cold. That's the other thing. It would get hotter in the day, but it would be freezing at night. And you're just in a tent. So like you got much hot with you. So the tent one day when we're standing at the day before the 50 mile stage, I get into the thing. And there's only a few, you know, because one of the luxuries of finishing first is you get there. And you can get all your shit set up before anyone else gets back. So you can take the best spot. And I'm standing there and all of a sudden like a big squall comes through and I look outside of the tent and the tent is like rattling and I look out and like three or four to the tent get picked up and like chucked out into the desert like a half a mile. Like they just launched into the air and I was like, holy shit. So obviously I got out of the tent and went and stood near the trucks hoping that my tent wouldn't fly away. But it looks like that every day. Create just crazy shit every single day. What's your done? I mean, you say you run to him all day. Do you take a couple days off to like recover your body after a situation like that? No, I usually do like active recovery meaning like the best way to recover from that stuff is to jog a little bit the next day. So that race finished on Saturday. I flew home on a Sunday. So before I went and got on this like 17 hour flight, I just jogged around and Ulan Batar and the capital of Mongolia for like three or four miles. For the Lactic acid doesn't build up and then you wouldn't even move. It sounds crazy, but it definitely helps if you don't. I mean, even the marathon winners, they'll run after their marathons over. They'll jog to cool down. They'll run the next day. Not hard. Just super easy, but you just got to like keep the body moving. Well, I think obviously everything you just said serves as an inspirational story for anyone going through their own personal demons. Thank you, brother. Because if you are going through your personal demons, especially through addiction, if you put the addiction to the right place, you really can get going in the right direction, whether that's working out or some semblance of a healthy lifestyle. And you know, your book, the other side of hard, you said that comes out March 10th. You can order anywhere books are sold. Yep, there it is. March 10th, everything you want on the other side of heart. And I wrote the book really for anyone that's like thinking to make it a change in their life, whether you're trying to get sober, thinking about a career change, taking on some physical challenges, starting a family. This book will tell you exactly how I did all of that. And as you can see looking at me, I've got no special skill sets. I have no natural talent, but I do have incredible willpower and grit. And that's really all you need. We live in the greatest country on earth. You can do anything you want here. Where'd you run this morning? Just here in Nashville, I'm on my normal route. And now I've been here for like four or five years. So every morning when I run, it's literally like I feel like the local celebrity, every single car has their drive in the kids to school, beep, and I coached the local high school cross country to my health coach. And I was like the assistant coach and the girls won the state title, went to the nationals. They were unbelievable. They destroyed everybody. And so like everyone, when I'm riding now, all the cars, the coach can, coach can. And I tell my app, it's the happiest time of my life now. Like the happiest part of my day is like out running what used to be like a suffer fest. And now I'm like it's become a massive source of pride. That's awesome. You've got to smile on your face too, because that ice storm's long gone. You probably got to get even weather. The eye was crazy because it pissed down rain for like 24 hours. And then it was like no shit like 15 degrees. So all the trees froze and they all like tons of trees were down. Lots of people in Nashville lost power. It was it was it was no joke. I'd never been in a storm like that in Boston. A ton of snow you can handle. But when everything was covered in ice, it was like literally the trees were like all bent over. And I was like, oh, I don't want to spend money replacing trees. Yeah, at the volume party, Bob, uh, who is is one of the main sales guys that I heart was telling he's born and raised Chicago and has lived in Nashville forever. I said, how did that storm compare to anything that you grew up with? He said it ain't even close. This ice storm was by far the craziest thing he'd ever seen because of what you said. The weight on these trees, it was he's like, I pulled up to a stop light the day after. I I just went through it because I was afraid these trees were just they were just coming down. So as a runner, you're running these areas. You had to be pretty careful where you had a swivel kind of when you're moving, right? That was one of the days that I didn't run outside. It was the day after that storm. I couldn't get out of my driveway. When I tell you everything was coated in ice and not like a little like maybe there's a spot here, a spot I'm talking like a quarter inch of ice on everything. The cars, the fucking power lines. It was and then the vice was falling down off the power lines. And then when I could get outside and the sun came out, it was like 10 degrees. So there was one main road in front of my house. The only good thing is there were no cars out because it would be very hard to get your car out of the driveway. So I was just running up and down in the middle of this like huge street and there was no one there. Like a car every 20 or 30 minutes. So I ran back and forth on this like three mile strip. I'm showing my neighbors what like thought I was crazy. But I was out there. Can it done? Well, can I appreciate you coming on? You're an inspiration. I'm going to go put my running shoes on and go for a little jog around the neighborhood. So I really appreciate you and your story is like I said, very inspirational and keep crushing and good luck in your next race. Well, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Thanks to our man, Jamie Horowitz for connecting us. Since you're a man, I appreciate you sharing your platform with me. I know that it's not a decision that you make lightly. And I can't thank you enough. And I will get your address from Jamie and we'll be happy to send you a signed copy of the book. And I hope that you enjoy it. And I appreciate you allowing me to share my story with you. No problem. My wife and I got married in Nashville. So I absolutely love that place. And if I'm ever out there, I'll get your contact information. Yep. You've got a place to stay if you have a continent. Thank you. You're in luck because I'm the worst golfer in the world. I live on a cool course and always happy to get embarrassed myself with friends. Okay. Talk to you soon, man. Have a great day. Thank you, man. See you. Thanks. Okay. Okay. Let's dive into the mail back at John Middellcoff at John Middellcoff is the Instagram fire into those DMs and get your questions answered here on the show. Let's start with Nick. Huge fan daily listener. Why isn't the O8 Steelers defense viewed as one of the best defenses of the 2000s? They showed their stats at the Super Bowl and it seemed amazing similar to L.O.B. in the Ravens. I think sometimes teams just get lost. I think anyone that knows the best dealer teams, you know, with Tomlin and that coward kind of run, their defenses were elite. I mean, when Tomlin first got there and they had like James Harrison, Woodley, Paul Amalu, I think I Taylor was one of the corners. Brett Kiesel was at the defensive line in the do with the big beard. They were Casey Hampton. Was he on the team? They were awesome. James Harrison was a monster. Filly seemed like a really crazy place to work. What does also ask another question? What are some of the craziest things that happened when you work there? What does Big Dom do? He was at the senior bowl. I had multiple people reach out like what is Big Dom doing at the senior bowl? Guys, he travels with Cereonion how he, like he's bodyguard, meets, you know, he's a part of the personnel department in terms of he's doing research on these guys. You know, when they're talking character, especially off the field major question marks, he's a big part of that. So James Pierce, when you find out after the fact like he gets in trouble, and got out the details that keep coming out, it looks bad, that he was off draft boards. Well, when you have guys who are like should this guy or should this guy not be on draft boards, Dom is working the folks. Like, I mean, he just knows people, they know him, and he's an elite information accumulator. He also does stuff with their players. Like, it's hard to really describe his role. I'm sure some of you, if you work in certain companies, you have an individual. It's like, what does he do? It kind of just does everything. You know, he's he's a different version of this. But remember, uh, Pink Stripes, what was it? Ernie Adams for Bella check. It's like, well, what did he do? A little bit of everything. He was just always around. And again, Ernie was more from like a schematic game plan standpoint. The dude that Vrable has stretched, they call him, who just kind of behind the scenes doing shit. All these teams have a guy that just do some things that no one can really put their finger on. It's like, I know what the GM does. I know what the scouts do. I know what the coaches do. What's this guy do? Stuff that's important. And the team knows. So it's, I think, part of working in football in the NFL, especially in certain cities, it's just an intense environment. You know, you're working long hours. It's a public job. Not, I mean, no one knew who I was when I was there. But just people talking about you turn on the radio. It's just a really, really intense environment that was awesome that I got to experience it. But I've never looked back since I got in this career. So I'm glad I did. It helped catapult me to where I'm at. But nothing like I'm trying to think of crazy things that happened. It's just, it's just a crazy daily. A lot of, a lot of edginess, a lot of people mad at each other. A lot of tired people. It's just people are on edge. We didn't, by the time I got there, Michael Vicks first year, when he almost won the MVP. And then the next couple of years weren't good. So it's not like I have a suitable champion or anything. My friends are a lot of people I work with are. Hey, John, when do you think Lamar falls off a cliff like Russell Wilson? We saw this year how he's not as mobile. Andy's not as good. Mobile quarterbacks never can convert into quarterbacks from the pocket. I'm hammering the Ravens under wins next year. That's not true. Steve Young did. Steve Young turned into a very accurate pocket passer. I think Lamar as a passer, consistent passer from the pocket is way better than Russell Wilson was. Obviously his scrambling was more dynamic and their playmaking was both elite. To me, Lamar Jackson is the higher level version of Russell Wilson. Right. I mean, Russell Wilson, like didn't win anything. I never got an MVP vote. So I think Lamar. I think these next couple of years are pretty critical. Like he's not going to be running around at 36 like he's able to do now in theory. Now this year was banged up. Are these injuries going to last? You know, he took that. I don't want to say it was innocuous because in football, even when you get hit, it doesn't look as bad. It still probably hurts. The hit he could hurt on his got hit in the back. You just got he's got to be much more. I think he's always been pretty instinctive when he runs and not take big hits. But sometimes they run in between the tackles. I think we're kind of scrapping that. No more taking unnecessary hits with this guy. But I don't see a precipitous just one day. He's just falling off a cliff. I think it would probably be more gradual and injuries would play a bigger role. But if he's healthy, like Russell was, I think he would be a good player. Excellent player. I mean, you saw on that play in that technically was a playoff game. Then we get Steelers, Week 18, Sunday Night Football. He made some incredible plays in that game. I mean, incredible plays. I got scolded for quote unquote, baby sitting my own kids. Now they're eight and six. In your case, they are a baby and they sit. So keep saying, keep saying, I agree. I babysit every morning. My role in my home, like my tasks, we consider my mohomes. I say it's my mohomes to grab the trash or whatever because years ago, we tried to, I was like joking with her. Like we all have roles in the home. Like you do stuff better than me. I do stuff better than her. And I think what the chiefs game was on is like, there's certain things the chiefs depend on mohomes to do. So when I have to do something, you know, like my roles in the home, which, you know, pay the mortgage. That's my mohomes. Take out the trash. My mohomes. Carry, take care, babysit my child usually early in the morning because she stays up late from like six to 10, 11 over the last couple of weeks. And no big deal. Just doing what a father should do. Half serious question. Do you think Mike McDonald, if Mike McDonald said to himself, I'm done hiring offensive coordinators. I'm going to call the offensive plays. He could make the transition successful. No. He's. He's gotten his doctorate in football on the defensive side of the ball. Going back to Georgia through the Ravens. He's a defensive coach and he's calling the defensive plays. So you could not call the offense in the defensive plays. I think he'd be the first to say too. Like they hire Kubeak. They run that offense. Kubeak knows that offense. 50 times better than he does. I'm sure Mike learned it and had a pretty good understanding of it. But I don't think it would be feasible. I don't. I've heard players, you know, there are certain coaches that probably could, but you couldn't call the offense in defensive side of the ball and manage the game. I just don't think you have the mental capacity stamina to do it over a 17 week season to game plan. How do you go to both meetings to game plan if you're calling the offense in the defense? It'd be a lot. I don't even know if you capable of it from a schematic standpoint, an understanding standpoint, but from a functionality standpoint, I think it'd be impossible. Do you see the Rams moving off Puka? There seems to be some red flags with his recent off the field antics. And the Rams may get ahead of it by before paying top dollar for them. Can use the 13th pick in the draft to replace them. To think that you can find a player in the draft, 75% as good as him. I think any GM or scout would tell you that's you are keeping your fingers crossed and kind of pissing into the wind. Well, this could be a nightmare. Are there some things that you go, yeah, come on, Puka. Are you mature enough to handle this? Are you a guy that we go all in on? I mean, I have to superbowl when I was talking to Justin Jefferson. I fall Justin Jefferson from afar. He's just a positive upbeat high level energy guy. You just feel pretty good of like, this is the high level cat. You don't really have to worry about him. You know, part of the thing with Puka is like, yeah, he's a young player, into stardom, about to get big money. But here's the key. He is elite. So if you can pay him and get three more years of this version of what you've got the last couple of years, you don't really have a choice. Now, would I entertain trading him? Like, what can you get? He's not good enough where you don't have a conversation. Right? But what is the conversation? Would someone trade me two first round picks for Puka Nikoa? And anyone that would be willing to do that, like, where are they drafting? Is that like the bills or something? So I'm getting two picks in the mid-twenties. Would I trade two picks in the mid-twenties for this guy? How do I replace that? If I draft player X at 13, is this guy ready to roll as a rookie? Because not everyone is. I mean, Devonte Adams, he'd be the first to tell you. His first year and a half are really, really difficult. So I think, I think it's easy to say this, but he's so good. It's very rare that you just don't see a team extend that guy. And listen, he's got some things that clearly the Rams wish he wouldn't have done. But it's nothing, that egregious. I wouldn't compare him to James Pierce. Mail back question. If an entire NFL coaching staff took over an eighth grade team, and had a full off season to train them, do you think they could dominate against high school varsity teams? Since NFL coaches are much more advanced strategically, could their schemes and preparation help eighth graders overcome the obvious size disadvantage? I think my immediate answer, if it's a capable high school team, not like the worst high school team in America, which is a good high school team, you know, you just pick it air, Scottsdale, Arizona, Sacramento, California. I think there would be no way. Because look at the Super Bowl. At the end of the day, what defines football? The line of scrimmage. So even if I had one eighth grader that maybe is so exceptional, he could be like a varsity wide receiver, I would not have the offense of her defensive line and to block them. So if you have a bunch of kids that are 18 versus a bunch of kids that are 13, is that the age you are in eighth grade 13 or 14? It's, you know, and boys most, you know, kind of hit puberty right around that age. So you really grow 14 to 15 huge gap from 15 to 18. It's not like girls who some of them hit them 11, 12, 13 years old. So you'd be getting a lot of really underdeveloped boys against every boy in a high school varsity team that's starting would have hit puberty and be just way stronger. So I, you could scheme up a player too, right? And it makes them cool plays, but you wouldn't be able to block them. I don't think you'd be able to run it on them. That would be the problem. Question for the back. I didn't expect a recency bias to hit so hard, but in what world is Sam Darnold actually being taken over Jalen Hertz? They threw for the same amount of TDs in the regular season and Darnold through twice as many picks as Jalen. Jalen also had eight rushing touchdowns. Take into consideration Jalen's playoff record versus Darnold. I think it's more like looking forward. You give me Jalen's interceptions. Well, he dinks and dunks a lot of the game. Like Jalen, we have to agree. And you know, you give eight rushing touchdowns. How many of those are push pushes at the Lannister Grimitch? Because his rushing willingness is clearly going. Because I don't think like the offensive coordinator, let's just stop calling runs for Jalen. Clearly he doesn't want to run anymore. Which I don't blame him. I'm, I got a big contract. I probably want another one. So I don't want to get injured running around. I want to pass. He's not a great passer. I, we have to acknowledge that. Like you watch Jalen play. He's a pretty frustrating player. Now, so Sam. But I think if you said the next five years, if the, if the Eagles could choose, if Jalen's not going to run anymore, you give me the rushing touchdowns. To me, will he keep running? If you told me Jalen is going to be a dual threat, he's a good player. But he's no longer a dual threat, because they don't call any design runs. So I think watching Jalen this year was a good player. He was a player that most people in the NFL would go, that's, that's a scary trend. Because it's not like he had nobody thrown it. And I know everyone thinks the offensive coordinators the village idiot. Maybe he is. Right? I haven't seen he got hired anywhere. But, he might be living off that money, which I wouldn't blame him. I said it all the time. Will you pay me a million dollars to do nothing? You think I'm going to work? There's America, maybe. Uh, but Sam's season, like the totality of the season was not nearly as dominant as he was last year. But in the playoffs, he was really good. He was just incomplete, controlled and turned the ball over. I mean, the game he played against Matt Stafford was elite. The, uh, he didn't have to do much against the 49ers. I mean, the Super Bowl. Super Bowl, he was okay. I think it's more about like, is Jalen getting better? And if he's not getting any better, if he's not going to be willing to run, what type player is he going to be moving forward? Like, does he want to do the Russell Wilson? I'm not scrambling around anymore. I want to play like Brady. That was Russell's thing. I'm a pocket quarterback. They're like, okay, champ. You're a pocket quarterback now. Then it did not go well. Like Jalen, you're a playmaker. I don't know why anyone's offended by that anymore. You shouldn't be offended like you're a game manager. Alex Smith made like $200 million being a game manager. Jimmy Garoppolo made a ton of money being a game manager. Being a game manager is fine. Everyone's like, can't be a game manager. What's wrong with that? Can't be a duel through our quarterback. Well, if you're a duel through our quarterback, like Jalen, who's pretty good at avoiding hits, like that's a, that's a powerful attribute to have, but he doesn't want to run anymore. To me, if Jalen does not want to run anymore, I'm out on him as a player. Not that he sucks, and it's going to be out of the league, but I think there's going to be a lot more of what we witness this year than like him turning it around and being some elite. I was going to say pro bowl guy, but you know what I mean, pro bowl. Like a high end starter. But I hear you. I mean, I think we're probably overreacting to Darnold winning the Super Bowl, but he's clear he's a solid player now. And I think that's what Jalen is. Jalen is a solid player. They have their good days. They have their bad days. But I think we have to acknowledge like Jalen needs some superstar quarterback. You know what you're getting with a wedding? Wedding hats. A baby in a waistcoat crying throughout the vows. Themed tables. Orkwood Best Man's speech. The plus one. Hello. People dancing in a circle. Ruined rental suit. Sometimes in life you just know what you're getting. Like a luxury bed and a great night's sleep. You know what you're getting with Premier Inn. As a diehard Brown fan, I have a hard time listening to you in Colin occasionally take jabs at Cleveland for letting Staphansky walk. Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're, you're, this is one of the only lone soldiers out there that go. Is the fanski good? I mean Colin are not on quite on the same page on that one. I've watched every game of theirs since he became the coach. During his last two seasons, the offense has been atrocious. I know he won coach of the year before, but I feel like that's an award for doing better than expected. You're right. Not actually accomplishing anything like making a deep playoff run. Also, since winning coach of the year in 23, the team's offensive trajectory has been downward and he's supposed to be an offensive minded coach. However, the offense looks stale and uncreative. I'm with you. I think he's a little overrated. Because if you're an offensive mastermind, you kind of figure it out. And you watched the last couple of years specifically this year, it couldn't have been any worse. They were unwatchable. And like, okay, hand the ball off to Quichon Junkins. Like anyone called those boys. Can you scheme up some past plays? Can you get some guys and he could not do it? He was awful often. You know, Patola gets crushed and Philly. So, fanski was worse this year. Now, you'd be like, well, they had way more talent. I'm just talking about when you watch them. Like, does anyone have any clue what's going on? No wonder Gives Chorts was pissed. We're a defensive team. And this is why I always said about Sofanski. They've had awesome defenses with Chorts over the course of the last three or four years. Definitely the last couple. And it's like Kevin Sofanski. There is a decent chance this thing flames out in Atlanta. Like, it's ugly. So, I'm with you. I think maybe he's solid. But I think he's talked about like in the upper echelon of offensive minds. And I just, I don't know, man. I don't see it. Long time first time. Wondering who you think would win? The Eagles of the last year versus the Seahawks this year. Would be a great matchup to see the Eagles offense for Seattle's defense. But I do think that the Eagles defense would make Darland's stress. I would give the Eagles the slight edge. If Jalen is going to play like he played in this football, they would be in pretty good shape. The Eagles last year by the end of the season were really humbling. They were more a complete team than Seattle. Like Seattle offensively. Let's face it. Like this, I'm not no shade. That Patriot team. I mean, give me a break. Good team. Most years probably like an 11 win, 10 win team, and probably one in the playoffs, especially if their quarterbacks going to be banged up and that guy's their left tackle. But they win 17 games. They're in the Super Bowl. That's like, I don't know. I, they're offensive lines sucks. How many teams that offensive line is not good and make the Super Bowl? Pretty rare. So I think Seattle. It would have been more difficult for the Eagles to just get loose on the ground. But Sequon was just like kind of in his Hall of Fame season era. I mean, he was, he was a man amongst boys. And then the receivers were humming. Jaylen was playing well. And defensively, well, who was the best Patriot defensive lineman? Milton Williams. He was like the third or fourth best defensive lineman on the Eagles. So from a, from a defensive lion's standpoint, they had Jaylen, Jordan Davis, Brandon Graham. They had sweat who's now on the Cardinals in his big time. Milton Williams. Their defensive line was unreal. Zach Bond. They had the two young rookie corners. I'd probably give the, that Eagles team was stacked. I'd give the Eagles a slight edge. But that would be a really good game. Question for the mail back. Understand the question is going to feel reductive. But we wanted to get your opinion. Mike McDonald clearly is a phenomenal head coach. And now joins a pretty elite group of Super Bowl winning head coaches. However, there have been some notable coaches who have won a Super Bowl. But we don't see a very, we don't see a very elite. Who do you think is the worst coach to win a Super Bowl? Cereani, Aryans, Peterson, come to mind. I would say Aryans a good coach. I mean, Aryans didn't become a head coach till later in life. Aryans pretty clearly is a high end coach. If Bruce Aryans was like 55 right now and available, he would have had, he would have had 10 coaching offers. I would give Cereani the, like, I don't know Cereani. And I know Doug. I like Doug. I think Cereani's proven to be a better coach than Doug. I mean, Doug was kind of all over the map. And Doug had some weird loyalties to coaches. Like Cereani, it's all over the Titanic and the blink of an eye. So I would say the Doug ones a pretty big outlier. Brian Billick feels like a pretty big outlier. Barry Switzer was handed that Cowboys team. You watched some of the players talk about him. I don't think he was great. Who's won recently? Andy Belichack. McCarthy Tomlin Harbaugh. I mean, all these guys were listening are better than Doug Peterson. So I would say, no, I like Doug, but I'd probably choose him. I would say if Dan Quinn had won that Patriot Super Bowl, he'd be near the top too. Someone else asked me a question. I don't usually read emails, but this was kind of an interesting one. One on this. Long time listen, I love a show. This is from Rob. They always show coaches up in their boxes. I was wondering how many coaches are up there. And what does each of them do? How do people actually, and how people actually, and how many people does it actually take to call a play? Thanks. Well, there's only one guy calling the play. So if the coordinator's up in the box, he's obviously the guy calling the play. He typically has one of his henchmen, if he's a, if I'm fangio, maybe my DB coach, maybe my linebacker coach, maybe my assistant defensive line coach, a guy like that sitting right next to me, with binoculars telling me the personnel. So it's like, hey, three wide receivers, one back, one tied in, four wide receivers, one tied in, no back. You know, telling you that so that I can react. Then you have usually like an intern quality control coach, someone under that world, taking notes, jotting down each play call, jotting down tendencies, whatever, specifically that coordinator likes. Let's face it, these coaching staffs are probably oversaturated right now. I mean, you go to just a random NFL or college team, they have a million coaches. They have like two position coaches per position. It's like linebacker coach, assistant linebacker coach, DB coach, assistant DB coach, safety coach, assistant, safety coach, D line coach, assistant D line coach, pass rush specialist. So what can all these guys be doing on game day? In the box, you typically as a play caller, you have a guy telling them personnel, which then helps them dictate to their play call. They are usually talking to one of the other main defensive or offensive coaches that is on the sideline. But if you're a fan, Joe, maybe your linebacker coach or D line coaches on the sideline, you're communicating with them vice the same thing with offensive coordinator, usually their O line coaches on the sideline. Maybe their quarterback coach is next to them or on the side and you're constantly communicating. But you're the guy calling the place. Unless your head coach says, Hey, whoever coach Williams, let's, if I'm the head coach, the CEO type, let's run the ball here. I don't tell you which run to call, but hey, I want to run the ball here. So that guy will start calling the run place. Or hey, let's, you know, that some of those shots we worked on in practice. Let's pull the trigger here. I think a lot of that's going on with head coaches in communication with the play callers. But I bet there's some decent amount of guys up in the box that aren't really doing that much. Aren't, you know, from taking notes to maybe they focus on a position group, like watch the defensive line, watch the, the coverages, you know, taking notes of what coverages they're getting with certain looks. That that surely is going on. But it's probably jumped the shark a little bit with how many people are coaching on a staff. You know, I don't think you need three coaches, but I'm not sure you need 30. And some of these staffs are have a lot of guys. I mean, if I owned a team, you'd be so rich. You wouldn't spend that much time thinking about it. But there would be times where what are all these people doing? And where, where guys get mad. It's like our D line sucks. We got four guys coaching the defensive line. We got as many coaches as we do starters. How's, how's this possible? How are we not better in those units? So I think that gets discussed sometimes as well. But good question. And I will talk to everyone in about 10 days. Adios. See you later. The volume. The weekend drive. The whole day stretching out ahead of you full of possibility. With the stylish HRV hybrid, you get the head turning design you want with the space and flexibility you actually need. Because every journey matters. Book a test drive at Braille Honda today. Honda, the power of dreams. Attention. Attention. Rail travelers, platform paces, window gaysers and our rest negotiators. Have you heard? The big rail fair for ease is here. Rail fairs have been frozen across England until March 2027 on standard class tickets, including off-peak, end time and season tickets. For more information, visit nationalrail.co.uk slash fairs for ease. Season season exclusions apply. Get three months half price when you switch to an unlimited sim with three. 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