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On today's part of my take, we have an awesome interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Probably a lifelong dream for me and PFT to get him on the show. It was via Zoom, but I think we have a future date where we're maybe going to go to LA and lift with him. So very, very fun interview. I just had a smile on my face the entire time. We're also going to do picks and preview for week 17. It's just me and PFT again because it is a vacation week. It's going to be abbreviated. We're going to fire through the games. We're ready to roll. We have the Arizona Bull. We're both in Arizona right now. We're the Arizona Bull on Saturday. Tune in two o'clock Mountain Time, four o'clock Eastern Time, Barstool. Tw, and the CW. We're going to be on TV, but we got a great show for you. We're going to do an extra Hot Seq, Cool Throne because we didn't have a show on Wednesday. Firefest of the Week. Let's get into it. Let's get into everything. We have Joe Flacko. We're going to talk Thursday Night Football. Okay, let's go. Now in the street there is violence and a lot of stuff, work to be done.

No place to hang out or wash in. It's a part of my take, there's an event of our own. And then I can't blame all on the sun. Oh, no. We're going to wrap it down.

To electric avenue. And then we'll take.

It higher. Oh, we're going to wrap.

It down to electric avenue. It's a part of my take, this isn't about martial sports.

Welcome to part of my take. Today is Friday, December 29th and PFT. Joe Flacko is elite.

He is fucking elite and the Cleveland Browns clinch a playoff spot. Watching this game, the thought occurred to me, what if we had a Browns-Lions Super Bowl? How cool would that be?

Well, we'd be out of a lot of money. That's what.

We'd have. I'm willing to sacrifice that just for the good of America. I think our country needs something like that, the battle for Lake Erie.

I think we're also in a spot where that's getting ahead of ourselves a little bit. If we just get Stafford versus the Lions and Flacko versus the Ravens, that would be pretty nice in terms of storyline and drama. One thing at a time. Let's go baby steps to that. But yes, the Browns, clinch a playoff spot. Good for them. Incredible season. They've been the most injured team, it feels like. We've talked about it pretty much every single week, the roller coaster of their season where they've had big win followed by big injury, followed by big win, followed by big injury over and over and over again. Joe Flacko is their starting quarterback, and I feel so much more about the Cleveland Browns in 2023 than if DeSianne Watson had played the whole season. I can't believe I'm saying that sentence, but I fully believe it. I think if you're a Browns fan and you know the history of your franchise and you know how this season is gone, Joe Flacko with how he's playing right now is the perfect guy for this because you can basically say to yourself, What if he just gets hot?

He's done it before. What if he just gets hot? We know that he can do it. Why not with this team?

And he's hot right now. He's so hot. There's one very funny moment. I don't know if you're watching the Prime Vision broadcast, but our good French, Sam Schwartzstein, he started doing a picture-in-picture talking about Joe Flacko, whether or not he's elite. He's like, Yes, by our advanced metrics, they created all these advanced Saber metrics to determine whether or not a quarterback is elite or not. Then Sam was like, We've debated this for, it feels like, 12 years now, but I can say that right now, Joe Flacko, yes, he is an elite quarterback. Half a second later, hes a bit later. He does the pick six where he's falling backwards and two pump fakes, gets taken back to the end. It was a very funny moment on live TV. But the way that Flacko is playing right now, and he did it today without Amari Cooper. Last week, Amari Cooper set records in terms of how many yards he had. He was just dominating every single ball in the air. Then this week it's like, you know what? I'm just going to throw the ball to David and Joku 100 times the first half, and we're not going to miss a beat.

I put a bet on him about a month ago, 50-1. I'm feeling better about that bet than I'm about my Bill's bet right now.

Yeah. I mean, the Browns are hot. It is really just like when you talk about hope, it's Joe Flacko. Joe Flacko, he trades in hope because you know that he has that in him somewhere. He is that guy. That's the whole conversation about when he got the big contract, when he won the Super Bowl, everything. There is that guy inside of him. There's a lot of quarterbacks in the League who might be better week to week or more consistent, but they don't have that thing where you're like, But what if he just gets hot? It's a very Eli Manning-esque thing. I was actually thinking about it like, What if Joe Flacko wins a Super Bowl with the Browns? He has to be a Hall of Fame, right?

Yeah, 100 %. It would be... You know it would be perfect too. Former Baltimore Raven, winning his Super Bowl with the Browns. The Baltimore Ravens used to be the Cleveland Browns, took the franchise, then Cleveland takes Baltimore's quarterback and wins one. That would be awesome. Yeah.

It's set up perfectly. So I'm excited for the Browns and playoffs.

I have a question for Max. Max, as an Italian, why don't you show Joe Flacko the respect that you show Tommy DeVito?

Flacko.

Doesn't sound as Italian as DeVito does. That's true. That's true. Yeah. His name ends in a vowel.

Yeah. His name does end in a vowel.

But Tommy DeVito sounds like a more.

Italian name. It just does. Sounds like a fuck boy. Yeah. But yeah, Joe Flacko in the Italian-American sports hall of fame? He should be.

He absolutely should be. Yeah. I don't know what it is. I guess he's too steady, too even keeled. We need to celebrate Italians like Joe Flacko just as much as we celebrate Italians like Tommy DeVito. That's all I'm saying.

Yeah, I'd agree. Let's get into the picks and preview for week 17. To set the stage, we are, like I said, this is technically a vacation week, so we're on Zoom. Hank and Jake are not here. We're on Zoom, not Riverside. It sounds shitty. Tweet at PFT and blame him because his computer had a corrupted file, which PFT, you weren't there for the very funny moment of Max and Evan and I were sitting on the Riverside waiting for you. You texted me and Max being like, Max, it says there's a disk server corrupted. Max and I were just like, Max doesn't know anything about computers. Like nothing. Yeah, I know.

I had to tell somebody. What am I going to do? It'll be like, Hey, Big Cat, my computer is a corrupt disk here right now. Is. I just decided to put it on Max, and that way maybe we could blame Max. But no, it's my fault. This is a computer I use for the dozen for a lot of the stuff that we do and for whatever reason. Sorry if it's on Zoom. I will take all of your complaints.

I'm sorry. Yes, all complaints filed to PFT, but just to set the stage so people are aware. This is the last show we'll do on Zoom. Monday you'll get an extra long show. We'll be back in studio. We'll obviously talk college football playoff at week 17, everything. Everyone will be back. The Arnold Schwarzenegger interview is very much worth it. We taped it like two weeks ago, so we were together for that. So fear not. But we are going to do week 17 picks and preview. It's brought to you by our friends at Uber Eats, delivered with Uber Eats. It's football season. You can now get almost anything you need for game day delivered with Uber Eats. What do we mean by almost? An O-line? Definitely no. Put a carton of O-J? 100 % yes. Running backs? No. Ribbs? Yes. Uber Eats can get you that. There you have it. Get almost anything for deliver with Uber Eats. Official on-demand delivery partner, the NFL. Alcohol in select markets and 21-plus to order product availability may vary region by region. See app for details. Uber Eats get almost anything. Order now with Uber Eats. Okay, PFT week 17.

First of all, fuck you to the NFL schedule makers. Ten games in the early slate, three games in the afternoon. They basically were like, We're going to just try to scramble everyone's brain in the second to last big Sunday of the year. We do have a Saturday night game, but yeah, I looked at it and I started to count the games at that one o'clock kickoff. I was like, What is going on? Why do they have this many games?

Yeah, it's a bad job. I would have much rather enjoyed three games on Saturday again. We have to try to do this.

Yes. We have a lot of shitty games, but a couple of really good games. Obviously, a ton of playoff implications. We're going to fire through them. Let's start Saturday night, Detroit to Dallas. I think we're both very excited for this game. This game to me comes down to just how big of a letdown spot for Detroit? That's really what it is. Will there be a letdown spot? That was obviously an emotional win, winning the NFC North. Do they have a little setback from that? Also, Dallas needs a win very badly right now. They're reeling a little bit. They've lost two in a row.

Yeah, and Dallas is what? I'm in a node home and they're coming down off whatever the opposite of a letdown spot is. They had a statement loss last week. We talked about it on Tuesday's part of my take where we said, in a weird way, the fraud bowl actually ended up making us like both teams a little bit more. Dallas had a very emotional loss, but almost in a way that should light a fire under their ass last week. I feel like they're going to be coming out swinging. It's also the Jimmy Johnson game, which has to count for something, right? We've waited 30 years for Jimmy Johnson to get into the ring of honor. They selected this weekend as the weekend, Jerry Jones lets him in finally, which to me is more proof than anything that Jerry Jones is actually dead and that AI Jerry Jones is now running the show. But regardless, it'll be like an emotional Saturday night, prime time game for the Cowboys. I think I like the Cowboys in this game.

Let me ask you a question, though. How much emotion does the actual team care about Jimmy Johnson? I'd say zero.

The stadium will care.

The stadium will care. The team itself was probably like, Okay, cool. We all weren't born when this happened.

Any other team I would say that's probably true for it. But with the Cowboys, you know that Jerry Jones is going to be talking to guys before the game. He's the most hands-on owner. It's a big weekend for Jerry Jones personally.

But will he be talking like Jimmy Johnson? He'll be like, Jimmy Johnson, he was a real son of a bitch. He and I really didn't like each other.

I could also see it going the other way where the team is like, Wow, Jerry's gotten soft. Letting Jimmy into the ring of fame. I'm not afraid of this guy anymore. I thought this was a dude that would hold a grudge against me for forever.

You guys think I hate Mike McCarthy? I really hated Jimmy Johnson. He was so much better than Mike McCarthy. Just to tell you how it used to be.

Yeah, I don't know. Well, I'm still going with the take that it's a big game for the Cowboys. It's a have to win game.

I know this over is very, very high, and I know totals have come down all year in the NFL, but I'm going to take this over because I don't know how either team stops the other. It does feel like both teams are just going to do whatever they want offensively.

I feel like the Cowboys are going to go back to running their zone defense that they normally run. They didn't do it last week because you can't really play man to man against Tyree Kill. That's just an impossible thing to do. But I feel like they'll go back to their old defense this week. I could see the Cowboys holding the Lions to 20 points, 23 points.

Well, I really do think like there's... I know you can't say let down spots exist the same way in the NFL as they do in college football. It has to be. You just won the NFC North. You don't think the Lions partied and took a big sigh relief after this. Now the weird part is the Lions, weirdly, can still get the one seat, which I didn't even realize. They are still playing for a lot, but there just has to be a letdown. I'm convinced that you do something that no Lion's team has done in the history of the franchise and also secure a home playoff game for the first time in 30 years. Everyone's human. If I did something like that, I'd take the fucking next three months off. Job well done.

Yeah, that's going to be us after the Schwarzenegger interview comes out. See you. We just did something great. Accomplished a 30-year goal of ours piece. I'm out for a week. I'll say it this way. If the Lions managed to go to Dallas and beat the Cowboys, I'm going to upgrade them to the potential Super Bowl and FC team. Right now, I'm still like, I need the defense. And Justin Huston coming back in the next couple of weeks is going to be big for them, I think. And CDDues isn't back yet, so they're going to get better on defense. But right now I still have that thing that you saw two months ago where you're like, I don't really trust the defense against a good offensive team. So if they're able to come out there and beat the Cowboys, I might put them into my trust column.

It's not even a good offensive team. Look, nick Mullins had 400 yards against him. I know that there was four turnovers, but it was also like Hawkinson and Addison had to be out for the season for the Lions to start getting stops. That's how all their games go. They're just going to give up big leads. They're going to get big leads. It's just going to be.

On.

This football to watch. But yeah, we'll see. If they can slow down the Cowboys at all, I would agree with you. I'll have to upgrade them.

It's a trust game for me? Yeah. It's a trust game for the Lions. If the Cowboys win, I'm probably just going to be like, Yeah, the Cowboys won at home again. Big deal.

Yeah. Okay, next game. Sunday, best game. Dolphins-ravins, literally for the one seat. Obviously, either team could lose in week 18 and then that would be out the window. Actually, no, if the Dolphins won this week and then lost in week 18, the Ravens would then have the one seat because they have obviously won less loss than them right now. That hard knocks clip of Tyree, Keel and Toa, when he was talking, he pretended to talk to Braxon Berios, which we love Brax and Barios. He's a friend of the program, been on the show Thirstrap King. That's going to suck where you're... You know it's like the biggest play of the game. He's like, All right, Reek. No one look at Reek. Let me just look at Brax and Barios and just pretend that he's going to get the ball even though no one in the world thinks he is.

Yeah. No, it's a little bit emasculating, but if you're a Brax and Berios, you know what your role is on that team?

Yeah. Your role is to- Return punts and catch balls when the other guys are covered.

Date Alex Earle. That's pretty much it. Yeah.

Yeah, just- Pretty good life.

Be a Miami guy on our sideline. You're good. I have a theory, and you can tell me if this is fan fiction that I've been writing my head for the last couple of days. But you know who the defense coordinator of the Ravens is? Mike McDonald?

Yes.

I've seen him on the sidelines a lot this year. He seems like the next hot head coach in weighting. He'll get more interviews this offseason, I'm sure, because their defense, I think, leads the NFL in scoring, I believe. Great coach. Used to coach at Michigan. Do you think that there's any chance at all that Connor Stallions has been working for the Ravens since he resigned from Michigan?

I think it's not a zero percentage chance. Actually, this triggered a theory that we have to look into with the cowboys, which should have mentioned when we were talking about the cowboys. Cowboys are too good at home. Do you think there's any chance that Jerry's figured out a way to hack into their communication?

Yeah, probably.

Yeah. But yes, why wouldn't Connor Stallions? I mean, he's diehard Harbaugh. He'll do whatever he has to do for the Harball men.

Yeah, I honestly do think that he would die for anybody in the Harball family, including Tom Creen. But yeah, I looked it up since he resigned. The Ravens are six and 1. Their only loss was at Cleveland, where everybody would recognize Connor Stallions if you went to Ohio. Public and to me, number one. Their defense has been playing lights out. I'm just going to float it out there with absolutely no backing behind it, besides the fact that McDonald's used to coach at Michigan, and Connor Stallions is a hardball guy for life.

I like the theory. I like the theory. Did you see the other theory floating around the internet today? The 49ers have lost four games this year. The first three times they lost, they scored exactly 17 points, and then the quarterback got hurt shortly thereafter against the team they're playing. The Browns to Sean Watson got hurt, the Vikings, Kirk Cousins got hurt, and then the Bengals, Joe Borough got hurt. They're thinking that maybe the ref was actually doing the Ravens a favor by tripping up Lamar Jackson, making the final score for the 49ers 19, not 17. I like that too. So Lamar Jackson has been saved.

That's probably... It's probably more likely than Conversations is working behind the scenes for the Ravens. But I like both theories. Why can't they both be true?

Yeah, they're both true. As for this game, I want to take the Ravens really badly, but I also feel like this is a fuck around game for the Ravens. I know that makes no sense because they're playing for the one seed, but that win was so big in San Francisco and the way they were talking about it after. The Ravens, I think we all agree, the Ravens are the best team in the NFL, but they also are the number one team of like, look at their losses. They just fuck around. They lost to the Colts in overtime. They lost to the Browns when they're up 14. They lost to the Steeler's. The Steeler's team that can't do anything this year by dropping a million balls. They're like the quintessential. If they lose, you can just be like, well, yeah, they were fucking around. They should have been fucking around.

I don't know if they're going to fuck around against the Dolphins, though.

I don't think so, but I'm also nervous because this would be the fuck around spot off a big win. But both teams are off a big win. I want to fade both teams. I don't know how you can do that.

Ty. Seriously, what does Mike Flores.

Think about these games? Seriously, the spot says both teams. Yeah. You want to call?

Yeah. You want to call Mike?

No, we can't. We'll do it. We'll wait because he's too keen on it now. But we publicly embarrassed him.

He is. Well, yeah, but we appreciate Mike. We really do. We love him. I want to know if this is going to... Because he has the opportunity to turn this into a brand for himself to be the biggest Ravens hater on planet Earth, which I don't think he really wants to do. But if he had a more shrewd eye towards carving out that niche for yourself, you've got certain people in media that absolutely hate other teams. Skip Baylor hates LeBron, you can find your niche and then you'll be that person, the go-to person for that. We don't really have a Ravens hater.

Mike is too honest because it is true. There's a lot of media people though. They just pick a lane and then they just like... Because they do the calculation where they're like, All right, I'm going to pick this lane. And if I end up being wrong, it's even better for me because then everyone's going to tune in to see me publicly embarrassed. I think Mike is too honest for that. I don't think he actually calls it like he sees it. He won't do the easy way out because it is easy way out where he's just like, I think this and I'll just keep saying this forever and forever. And then if I'm wrong at the end of the year, everyone's going to tune into my show at 9:00 AM and be like, Ah, you're wrong.

Yeah.

That's sports media.

Yeah, actually, it's an undefeated way to make yourself a very good living in this business. He should be a bigger flowers fan if his name is Florist. That's true. That's true. That's true to me a second ago.

That's the fact. I'm excited for this game, though. I'm very excited for.

This game. I am too.

Also, Dolphins obviously beat a really good team in the Cowboys, but they still haven't done it on the road. So maybe we could just shift the narrative to that and no jail and waddle. And two has got a thumb. Two has got a thumb. He's got two thumbs, but he's got one thumb that hurts.

One injured. I think it was probably good for the Raven or for the Dolphins to win a lower scoring game like that.

I've been saying their defense.

There was a lot of stuff going on. They were asked in the media this week. I don't know, Mike McDaniels had to deal with a lot of like, Are you guys too cute? I think they just straight up asked him, Are you too cute? He was saying that there's people that talk out there and it doesn't really affect what they're doing. I actually think that if enough people call football team too cute, they do start to listen to that.

Yeah, I agree with that. I absolutely agree with that. How can you not? You hear that? And then the Ravens are just talking about how they're the biggest underdogs in the world, which I don't know how you can still be when you have the best record in the NFL, but it works for them. So don't fix what's not broken there.

Yeah. Just give yourself whatever fuel that you need. But I think I like the Dolphins on this one.

We do have our one nerd nugget of the week. We told Jake to send us his nerd nugget of week. It is, The Ravens have recorded at least one sack in 36 consecutive games, marked the NFL's longest active streak, the longest such streak in franchise history. Very cool.

I don't count that as... You didn't do the sound.

Okay. Nerd nugget of the week.

Very cool.

Very cool. All right, Saints of Bucks. Pft, I'm going to do something really dumb. I'm probably going to bet the Saints.

Yeah, that's pretty dumb. Pretty dumb.

It is. But it's also like this is... The Bucks are good-ish. Bakers played very well. He should win comeback player of the Year Joe Flacko. No disrespect to DeMar, Hamlin, but why is he winning? He should not win Come Back Player of the Year.

They should do a different award for DeMar. They should name an award after DeMar.

Yeah. If you almost die, you get the DeMar Hamlin Award.

Yeah, you get the DeMar Hamlin Excellence and Courage Award.

I actually think that DeMar Hamlin, probably if you hit him with truth serum right now, he'd probably be like, I don't want to win this because everyone's going to just shit on me and be like, he had two tackles and two games. There is an element. I honestly think DeMar Hamlin is like, Can I just be a regular human being again? I know it was a crazy story, but I want to just go back and maybe get my career back on track.

He should have won the award last year when he survived. When he came back from literally death. That's when he wouldn't come back to the year. But yeah, this year they're probably going to give it to him because football writers, they see a story like that and they're like, Oh, wow. It's just such a great, great story that we have to promote. But yeah, if we're being honest, he hasn't played much. We've got some really good, deserving names like, yeah, Flacko, but Baker. I would say Baker, if Flacko did it all year long, then that's one thing. But Baker, he's been pretty solid all year. They're probably maybe going to win the division. I don't want to jinks it, but they have every opportunity. Even if they lose this game against the Saints, I think if they win next week, they win the division, right?

Who? The- The Bucks. Oh, the Bucks. Yes. The Bucks. Yes.

Yeah. I mean, Baker, he's put together a season. I'm not just saying this because I bet on him to win the award, but I also am saying it because of that. But I do think that he should win. Demar, it's a good story. I don't want.

To take anything away from Demar. It's hard to say that he shouldn't win, but I'm here. I'll be the brave one and say this guy shouldn't win the award.

I said it. Name it after him. I said it. Name the award.

After him next year. He shouldn't win the award.

It's.

Just a fact. He shouldn't win the award. As for this game, I'm going to take the Saints probably because I just feel like the Saints couldn't be worse and the Bucks are riding as high as possible. It's a buy-low, sell-high situation for like... The Bucks are playing out of this world good the last few weeks, and I think it's slightly a mirage. I think they're a good team. I don't think they're as good as they've been playing, and the Saints are bad, but maybe they're not as bad. It's even me saying this sounds dumb. I also have a nerd nugget for this game. It's the fact that the Saints, this is their first outdoor game since October eighth.

Yeah, okay. That's a big red flag to me.

Yeah.

That's crazy. If you watched the Saints last week, I understand what you're saying. I get it. With the Bucks, they beat what we thought was a good team, the Jaguars. They crushed them. Baker's been playing out of his mind. Now is the time where they should come back to Earth, but also the Saints have just looked real, real bad for the last month.

There's no football analysis behind the fact that I'm just saying that everyone in the world is going to look at Bucks Minus two and a half on Sunday and be like, That's the easiest bet in the world. That's always the bet that loses.

Do you see the report that Russell Wilson, a possible destination for him next year might be with the Saints?

Oh, my God.

I can't think of a worse culture fit. The torture. I can't think of a worse culture fit for the city of New Orleans than Russell Wilson, with the exception of maybe Derrick Carr.

Well, the only thing you could say is maybe Russ would like, maybe he'd like enjoy eating with Zion and they both get really fat. That'd be fun. Russ could get fat. Russ has the frame to get fat.

Yeah. It would be very funny seeing tubby little Russ Wilson waddling around next year.

That would actually be like, I would have to stop the simulation and say this is actually mean to Saints fans at this point. You can't do this.

And it's been torture for them this year. Did you see that podcast caller last week that called and complained about Derek Carr? I thought that guy was from Staten Island.

No, so that's-.

Before he threw in a couple of yauls.

That's the New Orleans accent. I can't remember. I had a clip. This comedian, very funny comedian, went on a late night show and he explained it that all New Orleans accents, like true New Orleans accents are essentially like a Brooklyn firefighter with a couple of Valiums. Yeah. When he broke it down, I was like, Wow, that's exactly what it is.

I hit up our friend, Derek, that we got to meet from LSU way back in the day. I was like, This guy, I thought he was from New York, and he threw in the all. He was like, Yeah, the accents are exactly the same. They're both port cities. I guess that's just a port accent.

Yeah. Shout out to Snow Lake John. That was his calling show after. Very, very funny. He's a good content creator down in New Orleans. He does Red Beans and Rice reviews every day. It's fucking awesome. Every single time I see it, I'm just like, I want that.

Listen, I agree with what you're saying that now would be the time to fade the bucks, but I haven't seen anything out of the same sense that I've liked it. It feels like years. It's dumb.

It's dumb. I'm fully saying how stupid what I'm saying is, but it's just that feeling like I've been doing this long enough that when you can see those easy, like spots, you're like, Oh, man, the Bucks. This is going to be the easiest game ever.

This is also a potential Mike Evans gets ejected game. He loves fighting the saints.

True. He likes fighting the Saints. You're right. It seems like it happens more often in the Dome, though.

Yeah.

He does get pissed in the Dome. Okay, next game, Raiders and Colts. I don't know. I want to bet the Raiders, but then Aden O'Connor still... What has been like? Actually, I hope for this game, Aden O'Connor goes like a couple quarters without completing a pass. That would be awesome. Was the full game?

Yeah. If you went a full four quarters without completing a pass. I hope that they win the game too, like they're winning at the time. I don't love the Raiders, but I do think that Antonio pierce has Coach's way into being the full-time head coach. If they really want to win this game, Mark Davis should announce before the game starts, like you're giving away a scholarship, like this walk on now has earned his position. If you're looking for a boost, Mark Davis, go to the locker room before kickoff and tell the team, Antonio pierce has come back next year as the head coach. I guarantee you win that game.

Yeah, because there does feel like the Raiders win against the Chiefs. You know the joke that Hank and Patriots fans used to always make like, Oh, congrats on your week six Super Bowl. That did feel like a Super Bowl for the Raiders. They were smoking for cigarettes in the locker room after. I have a running theory that if you smoke cigarettes in a locker room for a regular-season game the next week, you can't be trusted.

They did that in Pierce's first game too.

Remember that? And what happened in.

The second game? I don't know. I don't know. Can we look that up?

I'm going to look it up.

Right now. Okay, yeah. Because I remember Max Crosby lit up a cigar after that game too.

Max Crosby also might just light cigarettes after every game, so that might be different. I believe his first game was the giants game, so they won the second game by they beat the Jets 16-12. What a barn burner.

But you remember that game? The Raiders did feel like it also might have just been them celebrating not having to go back to the locker room with Josh McDaniels in it. That's why they were excited. But they did act like that was a Super Bowl.

I do have one stat that goes for us just talking about storylines and being dumb from sports info solution that Raiders defense, they played six high S in zone and Gartner, Minshe was bad against the zone. Take that however you want. But I thought I'd throw in a stat that people can actually be like, hey, they're not just talking about cigarettes and teams being cursed after the 49ers scoring 17 points.

Yeah. That's definitely one that you can drop in the bar and everybody be like, wow, that guy knows ball.

Yeah. Holy shit. Okay. All right, Patriots and Bills. This game, I want to take the Bills so bad, but doesn't it feel, and maybe this is way off, like the Bills... This is a game that all the pressure is on them. There's no pressure on the Patriots. They cannot lose this game. They've climbed all the way out of this hole, and they're one game away from basically playing for if the Ravens lose or if the Ravens beat the Dolphins, they're one game away from playing for the AFC East, which we would have thought was impossible a month and a half ago. I think the Bulls will win the game, but I also feel like so much pressure is on them to win this game that a 13-point spread is a lot.

Thirteen is a lot. Yeah, for sure. All his Patriots fans know, going back to week one, we said we're just going to play spoiler this year. Now is the time. We've got two games in a row, play spoiler. You can spoil the Bill of Season right now and then next week you can just spoil the Jets' existence and spoil their fans' lives. But this is a big-time spoiler game. I think I'm going to stand by that take. I would not be shocked if the Patriots did something weird because their defense is really good. Their defense is not the problem at all. Their defense is good enough to win football games. If Bailey Zappy gets hot, then anything can happen in this game.

That's a crazy thing to say. But yes, if Bailey is happy, he gets hot.

He gets.

Hot for half. He does. He got hot. The first half against the Steeler, he got hot for the first half against the Broncos. He gets hot for halfs.

Yeah. So if he can just not be as cold in the second half as he is in the first half, then the defense... Thirteen points is too much for this game.

It also feels like he was so hot last game, and that was such a big win that there's no way he's going to do it again, right?

You never know. Maybe for half. I did read a take on, I think it was on Fox Sports, I forget who wrote it, but they're speculating that if the Bulls somehow collapse, if the Patriots win this game and the Bulls ended up not making the playoffs, Belichick could take over from McDermott after the season is over. In Buffalo? In Buffalo. That would be wild.

What job is he not been rumored for now?

He's just linked to everyone. It's just a hack where you can be like, Possible landing spots for Belichick and then just include every team.

I don't know if he could do that. That would be weird, wouldn't it?

That would be very weird. It depends how much he hates the Patriots. How bad is the exit going to be for him where he will be petty enough to go inside the division? I don't see it happening, but I saw this one person throw that take out there and I was like, That's worth exploring just a little bit.

Also, Bill Belichick, like dude, you've lived in cold weather for a very long time. You look miserable every time they show you on the sidelines. You're old. You know your bones probably hurt when it gets below 30 degrees. Go somewhere warm. Why not? Go somewhere warm.

Go somewhere warm. Go somewhere where if you're walking out of the house early in the morning with your shirt off, you're not going to have your nipples freezing.

Yeah, go to New Orleans. Why not? That'd be fun. Go to New Orleans. Go to L. A. Live the life. You deserve it. Do like a half retired, half coaching job. That's the dream.

It really is. But back to this game, I think that the Bills are going to win, but they couldn't take care of business against the chargers. That game was way closer than we thought it was going to be. That's what I'm saying. I still don't trust the Bills. They might win the division, which going into the season, we thought this might be the best division in football, and they might win it, but they still might not be a very good team.

I don't think there's a team you can trust right now in the NFL.

I trust the Commanders to suck.

I was going to say you go down the list. We talked about it. The Ravens are a true fuck around team. I think The Ravens are the best team, but the Ravens fans are nodding right now being like, Yep, we do fuck around sometimes. The 49ers, do you trust them if they go down a couple of scores? Because I don't. The Cowboys defense, the Lions defense, the are broken. The Dolphins haven't beaten a good team on the road. That's why this season is so much fun. I don't think there's one team that you could say, Put my life on the line, they win this game.

The Ravens are probably the.

Closest to that. Closest, yeah. But then they have the fuck around thing where it's like they do a full Ravens situation where it's like, Wait, they're the better team. But how is this game a tied game in the fourth quarter?

Yeah. But the Bills, they're-.

They have more.

Of a glare. They're more glaring trust issues because they haven't been good all season.

They've had good stretches. I mean, this stretch they're on right now is very good. You have to say that. They won't add Arrowhead and then they killed the cowboys.

I would also say, though, last week, that's not a team that I trust the way that they're toed around with the chargers.

Yeah, well, East and Stick. Too much time for East and Stick. Okay, next game, we could just, Falcons and Pears. We don't have to talk about it.

Yeah. What do you want to happen?

I don't care. You care a little bit. Win. Yeah, I care. Win, Justin Fields looks awesome. I don't know, lose, get a better draft pick. Ask me with two minutes left in the game and I'll let.

You know. You've had so many instances where you get a good game from Justin Fields, but they lose. I know. Then you're like, Well, he looked good, but also it would have been sweet if he understands what winning is like.

I guess actually, now that I'm really thinking about it, I would like them to win because I think there is a culture change and they're starting to win and be a tough team to play. You got to carry that over the next year. As long as the Panthers lose out, the bears can win out and I'd be happy. Especially if they finish eight and nine and you're like, Look at how they played the last two months. That's something you can build off of. That's not nothing. Right.

So yeah, win. Yeah, roll some confidence over. You want to win?

I do think they're going to win. I don't think they're.

Going to win. You just got to put all your eggs in the Panthers losing basket.

Correct. That's the thing is if that Panthers' pick wasn't there, I would say I would want the bears to lose. Because we have that Panthers' pick, it changes the whole calculation. So yes, win. Win, and I think they are going to win because I don't think the Falcons are going to be able to run on the bears and the Falcons need to run to be good. And also doesn't it feel like they had a good game last week? What does that mean? That means they probably will do something stupid this week.

That's.

Our bears, falcons preview. There's a couple of games we could do that for. Ram's giants, Ty'God is back. The Ram's are dangerous. The Ram's are playing great ball. I like this over in this game. I think the Ram's are going to win this game, but I am a little nervous about Tyra Taylor because he is so much better than... It's crazy that he's like second or third-string everywhere he goes because every time he comes in, he looks good.

Yeah, he looks really good. He just gets weird injuries that happen to him all the time. That's the concern with him. I think the Rams, they're peaking at the exact correct time. They had the midseason downhill swoon that they went on- They were three and six. Now they're playing so well. They're running game. They're passing game. Matt Stafford is playing as good as he's ever played. Their defense is playing pretty good. Aaron Donald is back to being Aaron Donald. Although, Ram's PR might have janked it. I don't know if you saw all this, but Ram's PR put out a stat. They said, Quarterback Matthew Stafford became the fourth quarterback in NFL history to throw 10-plus touchdowns and no interceptions in the month of December in a single-season joining Aaron Rogers, Drew Brees, and Tom braided. It's only happened three times before. They put this stat out. Correct me if I'm wrong, Big Cat. I haven't looked at a calendar while we're both on vacation. This game is being played in the month of December, is it not? It is. It seems like they should have waited until after this week was over to put that stat out.

I'd agree. I'd agree that was a premature stat by a premature staculation.

By Schaefer. Yeah, premature staculation. Sometimes the premature stats are more potent.

He can't keep it in. He can't keep it. The Stafford was just too hot. He had to release.

The stat. It was.

Presum- Maybe he was just so hot.

It's.

Presum- Yeah. Schaefer just whispered, he's like, Listen, this doesn't usually happen. You're just so hot, Stafford. You've just been so good that it just... It's not that I swear next time you want to go again? You want to do it again? You want to do another stat? I swear I can last longer on this stat.

I'll be good. Just give me like 30 minutes and then he falls asleep. Yeah. Although, just minor correction, it wasn't Adam Schaefer, Big Cat. It was Ram's PR that did that. It was their own team.

Oh, I wish it was Schaefer.

That was funier. We can just say it was Schaefer.

Yeah, it was Schaefer. I don't know why I thought it was Schaefer. Because Schaefer, I have alerts on. And an alert popped up on my computer and my phone that the Browns were the first team to make... Let's see, Browns are now the first team in NFL history to make the playoffs that are starting four different quarterbacks in the same season. It's pretty cool.

Very cool.

That's why I had Schaefer on my brain. Schaefer alerts are a blessing and a curse because you have to have them on for Sunday mornings, but sometimes it's too much.

My favorite Schaefer alerts are when I wake up on Sunday morning and I see that at 11:59 or 12:01, it's always like one minute away from midnight, Schaeferner did his dump of who's playing and who's not. He has a handshake agreement with every team. I'm not going to put this out until midnight the night before, but just give me all your info. It's perfect. I'm not going to put this out until I put my parlay in and then I'll drop it.

I think the Reds are going to win this game because the giants love to blitz and Stafford kills the blitz. Not fully this year, but it's also because Kyrin Williams is like, he's a lead dog in terms of blocking. We talked about it in the offseason when the whole running backs. They had their Zoom call and everything. Kyrin Williams is one of those guys that he should just do a whole blocking highlight and that should get him $15 million a year alone because he saves Matthew Stafford's life multiple times a game.

He takes a lot of pride in his blocking. That's what they always say about running backs.

He does. He was like that in Notre Dame, too. He's just a dog back there. Okay, Cardinals and Eagles. I don't know. Eagles have to win by a lot for me to feel good about the Eagles.

Yeah, they're going to win this game.

But they have to win by a lot. Don't you agree? If this is another game where the Eagles win by five somehow, I'm going to be like, well, they're not fixed.

It's a revenge game for the Eagles against Gannon. Remember the way that it all shook out before the Super Bowl? He said, Jonathan Gennon said, Philly's keeping me good, bad, or indifferent. I'm staying here. That was this quote, I believe, after the NFC Championship Game, the week of the Super Bowl, the Cardinals hit him up and they're like, Hey, we want to interview you after the Super Bowl if we happen to have a coaching vacancy. He was like, Yeah, sure, that sounds good. Then they interviewed him, I believe, the day after the Super Bowl. They want us to believe that they called him the Monday morning after the Super Bowl and they're like, Hey, since you're in Arizona, you want to just swing by the facility? We'll talk about it. No, this was something that was put into place probably a week or two before the game. I think that Philly's got like, Let's get some revenge against Snake Gannon.

Yeah, they have to. Max, two things. We're in Arizona right now. I took my son to mini golf at Talking Stick, where if you remember, we went and interviewed Lane Johnson. Vibes couldn't have been higher at that very moment. Do you remember that moment, Max?

Yeah, it was a great time. Great time in life.

Yeah, great time. Number two is, what do the Eagles have to win by for you to feel confident? And is it also just a terrible feeling knowing that the Eagles are going to lose in the playoffs and you know it's coming and there's nothing you can do about it?

I'm going to.

Answer that first question.

I'll say three scores.

Okay.

Three scores. Three touchdowns? No, three scores.

Three scores? Nine points?

Six points. Three safeties. I don't like the way that you guys are doing this. I think- You said three scores. We want to dive into the numbers. The answer is-.

Three scores to 17. 17 or- Correct.

17 would be nice.

Or it never getIf it just.

Never got to a one-score game after the first quarter, I would be fine.

With that. Okay. Then I would it be the other part.

A comfortable win, because sometimes the Eagles can.

Dominate a game.

And only win by 14 by just absolutely controlling the clock in the second half, and I would like to see that.

Yeah, the Eagles, like the Cardinals, can't really stop to run. It would be fun if the Eagles just played a game where they didn't do a forward pass. Yeah, I would be fine with that. Yeah, Michigan versus Penn State. They're like, We're just going to win it this way. What about the other part of my question?

I snucked at that part. I know I answered. We only do one question at a time here. One question with a max.

Pfc, do you have a question for Max?

Oh, he's frozen. Oh, he's frozen. We're back.

Do you have a question for max, PFT?

Yeah, I do. Max, is this a must-win game for you guys?

No, you're supposed to ask me.

No, no. I think I asked him. Great question.

Yes.

Must-win. I'm frozen again. I didn't hear Max's answer.

No, he wouldn't answer the part where I said, Does it suck that you know that the Eagles are going to lose in the playoffs? There's nothing you can do about it. It's going to be tortious because you know it's going to happen and you can't stop it. But we can't ask him another question, so he's just going to allude this question.

Max, I was curious to know, as an Eagles fan, the way that the last couple of weeks have gone for you, are you a- No, yeah, I agree. This must win. Yeah, this must win. He's frozen again.

This is painful. He's frozen again. He's frozen again. It's almost like a bit. He's freezing. Memes, do you have a question for Max? I'm thinking about one.

If.

You can.

Text me the correct verbiage.

Wait, I.

Think I found a problem.

Okay, memes. Do you have one question for Max? We're doing one question for Max real quick. Do you have a question for Max?

Memes here. Part of my take podcast. Max, are you worried that you're going to lose in the.

Playoffs and there's nothing you can do about it?

And you're going to cry and be sad and.

You know it's coming and you suck?

Good question, memes. Good question, memes. Good question. Thanks for reaching out. Yeah, no, most teams lose in this league. So the chances are that, yes, the Eagles will lose in the playoffs. So I am preparing for that. But I'm not... I'm not canceling out all possibilities here.

So the Eagles still.

Could win the Super Bowl.

Okay. All right. Good answer. The Bears could still win the Super Bowl.

Wrong. That's incorrect. Right.

They're not eliminated right now, Max.

Okay. I didn't thought they were. That's on me.

Yeah.

That's on you. I got to know my facts. I got to know my facts.

The Bears and Eagles might have the same chance of winning the Super Bowl. Zero.

Not zero. Max, what are your thoughts on Gannon? Do you hate Gannon? I don't really give a fuck about Gannon. I hate Gannon. I like Matt Patricia. I'll say that.

Yeah, Matt Patricia is your guy.

Defenses looked better past the past two weeks.

All right, let's go to the next game. For the Niners of Commanders, PFT, Jacobi were said is your starter now. Good job. You found the right guy. Week 17 took a while, but you found the right guy.

Listen, it's a move that at first I was just like, Why are we doing this? Why don't we just let Sam Howe play the season out? You remember last year, that's when we bench Heineke, was against the Niners. We said, Okay, we're going back to Carson Wentz. It felt weird then. It feels weird now. But also, the Niners are just going to destroy us. The Niners are going to take a big shit all over us. Shanehan hates the organization. We've got Chase Young, and he's going to be looking to prove something against us. It's not good. But then I thought to myself, if you're going to bench to him how? Why not bench him for this game? Just like, okay, he might not be the guy in the eyes of the coaching staff. I don't think putting him in this game is going to prove anything because we're going to lose no matter what. Also, I think that there might be something wrong with him physically. This would not be a good game to put him out there, let him get killed again. I don't necessarily hate the move. It's just a sad move for me because I saw the picture that the commanders tweeted out of Jacobie Brisset looking dummy thick, by the way.

I don't know if you saw that picture, Big Cat. Yeah. He was doing the influencer pose with his ass sticking out in the pocket. He is the Kobe. He's Jacob Briskett. It was very funny, and I saw that thought to myself, You know what? Fuck it. I guess we're doing Jacob Brissett. We want to lose this game. When the game is going on, I will be rooting for the Commanders. But ideally, I would like to lose this game and then lose the last game of the season and maybe end up with a third overall pick if my New England Patriots can do their part and play spoiler. It's going to be a sad game to watch. I don't think that it's going to be particularly competitive. I'm not going to bet against the Commanders, but if you were smart, you would bet against the Commanders this weekend.

Yeah, this is going to be a tough game to watch. I would agree. All right, let's do it. This has never been done in our preview, but I think because this is a abbreviated preview, I'm going to do it here. We're going to do a combo game. So whatever you want to say, Panthers and Jaguars, Titans and Texans. It's a four-way game.

I guess, Titans and Texans is a more interesting game because the Texans aren't dead. Cj Strauss is coming back.

Well, the Jaguars aren't dead either.

Yeah, that's a good point. I feel like the Texans are more alive to me than the Jaguars are, even though I think all the Jags have to do is they have to win against the Panthers, right?

Yeah, I think they just have to win one more game maybe. I don't know. I don't even know.

I have no interest in watching either one of these games.

Correct. These are games- I guess there is.

Something interesting in the Titan's-Texans game is Will Levis and C. J. Straud.

Yeah. And C. J. Straud being back after concussion. Hopefully, he looks good. I do want the Panthers to lose, obviously. I'm very nervous about it because I actually think that the Jaguars could absolutely lose this game. But yeah, these are the games that you have to just in their memory hole and be like, We would kill for this game in July. But when it comes to like... It's crazy because both, like you said, the Texans and the Jaguars both are alive, but I don't really want to watch either of them play football right now. And maybe that will change once we see CJ Straub back out there. But right now it's like, this is a bummer. These are bummer games.

You know what it was? The last couple of weeks, we got a flashback to the old Texans. We had just now started to memory wipe ourselves of what the Texans have looked like for the past seven years. We had a flashback with Kase Keenem and Davis Mills playing quarterback. Now it's like, okay, it's those Texans again. We forget that when C. J. Straud is playing, they're actually very, very fun to watch for the most part. Yes. I'm just hoping for a fun game. I hope both quarterbacks look good. Maybe we should reframe the narrative and say we get to watch Will Levis against CJ Strowd for the next 13 years.

Actually, let's just hope that all four of these quarterbacks look good. Let's root for health for all four of these quarterbacks, specifically Trevor Lawrence, who's gotten every injury in the world.

Yeah. I want to give a quick shout out to one of my favorite Twitter accounts, Art But Make It Sports. Yes. This guy has encyclopedic memory of all sorts of art, like going back to renaissance paintings, modern art. And he sees things that happen on TV and sports games. And then he immediately finds a painting that looks exactly like that still frame. The Trevor Lawrence face, where his face started to melt because he got hit so hard, he found the portrait of Pablo Picasso, which was like a pixelated curvy face that was the exact perfect fit for it. I wish I was as good at anything as this guy is at just going back through his memory and being like, That reminds me of this thing I just saw on TV. Perfect.

He's actually a well adjusted, well rounded person. He's a sports fan, but he also has some culture. The opposite of us. Exactly the opposite.

Of us, which is why we like.

Him so much. Yeah, we try to do art, but make it sports to be like, Wait, that one time in the Simpsons? Now I can't remember.

It's like either The Simpsons or it's like a screenshot from The Sopranos. Yeah.

Tony Tilly, Christopher. Or another sports event.

Yeah. Artput making sports and memes his brain, except it's just Punch Bob memes.

Yeah. This time, Trevor Lawrence' face gotsmushed, remind me of the time Blake Portals' face got smushed.

Yeah.

That's really it. Remember when Blake Portals had his tongue wagging out and he was getting hit? That's what I thought of.

Yeah. That's a great one. If you want to be like 10 % smarter or just feel 10 % smarter, follow that guy.

All right, so gun to your head, these two games, I would go Texans minus the points and Panthers plus the points.

I would go Texans minus the points and Jaguars. I feel like back to your theory on how you're fading the bucks this week, I think you can do the opposite with the Jaguars that they look so bad last week that now is the time to take them.

It's not a bad thought. They could not possibly look worse. Okay, afternoon games. That was all just the one o'clock. It's crazy. I don't know why they did 10 games. Stealers and Seahawks. I think the Stealers might win this game.

I like the Stealers here too. This might be back-to-back culture games for Tomlin.

Yeah, this would get them to nine wins.

Yeah.

This is the ninth win game.

Can you imagine if the Stealers won 10 games this year?

It'd be crazy. It would be crazy, especially because if they win 10 games, they would be in the playoffs and I wouldn't really hate them being in the playoffs because it would have meant that they looked good for the last three weeks of the season. Mason Rudolph would be fun. It does make you a little nervous because it feels like the story of this season is backup quarterback comes in, does awesome things, and then we're reminded why they're the backup quarterback. It's the Dobbs here. If you want to tell the story of the 2023 NFL seasons, it's Josh Dobbs and all his offspring. Every branch of the Dobbs tree is just quarterbacks. Jake Browning popping up looking good. Zach Wilson getting hurt, coming back looking good, getting hurt again, coming back looking good. Billy Zuffy looking good for a game. Mason Rudolph looking good for a game. All these guys, nick Mullen, all of them.

-true luck.

-true luck. You can go down at Jacob Perset. There's just a list of these guys who've come in for a game behind the key when he came in for the first game. Now he's back. That's the entirety of this NFL season, is guys coming in for one start, East and Stick. It just keeps going on and on and on. It is the Josh Dobbs year.

Yeah, I know. That's a good point. We've had a lot of quarterbacks that show up, and it's a feel good story. We're like, Oh, this is so awesome to see that. There should be a team that gets to the playoffs, and then they have an unexpected backup come in right at the start of the playoffs. Then we get a nice little two, maybe three-game stretch. We're like, Oh, wow! This version of Josh Dobbs is awesome, before they fall off and lose in a heartbreaking fashion.

Dude, remember Tyson Baygent? That was awesome for.

A week. Yeah. With Mason Rudolph, I feel like what he's done is very similar to what Drew Lock did. Everybody was very down on Drew Lock. A lot of people were disrespecting him. A lot of people, like us included, were saying bad things, thinking bad things about Mason Rudolph, just our own fault for the last three years. Then he came in, played well, and we're like, Wow! I guess we've really turned the page on him. I think we have another week or two of feeling good about Mason Rudolph before we're like, Oh, yeah, fuck that guy.

Yeah, I agree with you. This is the last week, so we should probably be like, Yeah, we should probably bet the Steelers.

Yeah, I think so. Then in the Broncos game, I think this is our... Oh, Jared Stidham.

Yeah, he's-Jeric, yes.

He's the new Josh Dobbs.

We should talk quickly about Russ, the sad ending of Russell Wilson's maybe his career. Someone will pick him up, but I don't know if he's going to... If I said to you right now, Russell Wilson over under 15 starts in the NFL for the rest of his career? Would you take the over or the under?

It depends how bad the team is that picks him up.

I'd take the under, I think.

I think he'll getanother shot. I think he'll get another shot after this next shot. Wait, so- So I take the over.

This shot? Well, I don't know if this shot will be a starting job.

I think he will. I think he's going to start week one next year, and then I don't know if he's going to last the entire season. Then there will be one more team that's like, Let's roll the dice.

Okay. Obviously, they benched him mostly because the contract is very similar to the Derek Carr thing last year, where it's like, We can't get this guy injured because then we have to pay him like, $40 million. We can't risk that, especially because we're going to cut him. That Anna Rosini had that report that he's gone from Denver, which I think we all knew. This also was like a very good test on the stats that you see compiled on Twitter versus the eye test, because there was the meme going around that Russell Wilson and Patrick Mohones were the same quarterback this year. It's like if you watched the Broncos, yes, it was great that they turned around, but it was a lot of smoke and mirrors. There was a lot of turnover luck. Russell Wilson still had the same issues that he's had the last two years, where it's like, he can throw a deep ball that has a 20 % chance of getting completed. He can't move an offense down the field, and he can't use his legs the same way. Then Sean Payton came and did an all-time press conference where he's like, someone asked him if Russell Wilson, it felt like Russell Wilson was getting all the blame.

He's like, Well, I can't cut five offensive line men. I can't change all my receivers. It just went through everyone under the bus all at once. Great job by Sean Payton.

He was like, Well, yeah, that's what a scapegoat is. That's why the quarterback position is the best because you can just be like, Yeah, it is that guy's fault. Russ, to his credit, he was better than Russ last year. Everybody was like, Oh, maybe he's back. We spend a lot of time this year being like, Oh, maybe old Russell Wilson is working his way back there. But yeah, the math did not work in his favor. That's why if you if you give big money to a quarterback, then they're always going to have in the back of their mind like, Oh, well, this is our biggest expense. What can we do to try to move on from this guy a little bit too soon rather than a little bit too late? I don't know how that works when they ask because it's an injury guarantee. They want to make sure that he's healthy. Did they give him a physical? Then he passed the physical and they're like, Okay, you're benched.

A trick flip physical. They're like- A.

Trick physical. Because if you're an NFL quarterback, a good agent should tell his client, if you ever get a physical done, always say that something's really hurt. Then tell Coach like, I'm going to play through it. But yeah, this is really killing me. But yeah, I think it might have been a fake physical.

They did the thing like I do with my kids. Their dentist's office is right next to a toy store. I'm always like, Yeah, we're going to the toy store today. They're like, Oh, we got to stop at the dentist's office first. You think they did that to Russ. They might have. They might have said, Hey, we're going to the subway right now. We're going to get a sandwich. You're like, Oh, shit. Before we get the footlong, we're just going to need you to sit up on this table and cough for us.

Yeah, Sean Payton might have been like, Hey, Russ, we're giving out big boy bonuses today. If everyone's feeling good like a big boy, no pain at all. If you're a tough guy, then I'm giving you $100,000 cash under the table. You want to take your physical? He's like, Yeah, Coach, I'm feeling great. All right, you're benched.

His physical is literally just the the pain chart, the zero to 10 hits in every hospital room. Russ, can you point up here where zero to 10, Russ is like, Oh, I'm like a one. Oh, great. You're benched.

Yeah, Payton was probably like, Hey, I'm just going to check on you because I don't want you to get banged up if you're hurt. I'm going to sit you because we value your long term health here. I just want to make sure going into this next week that you're feeling good, like you're ready to start. Because if you're not, just tell me and we're going to take care of you. He's like, No, I want to start. I'm feeling great. All right. Tough news.

You're benched. Yeah, cool. You answered that incorrectly. I also did love Sean Payton doing the classic coach speech where he's like, Listen, if I'm bad at my job, I'm out of here too. He's like, Yeah, okay, Russ is a scapegoat. But someday I'll get fired. It's like, Okay, dude, we know that you basically have control of this whole organization for the foreseeable future and you're getting paid a ton of money. So, of course, yeah, you can say that, but you're not getting fired.

I'm sure he's been fired before, but just thinking back on his recent career, when was the last time Sean Payton was fired?

Yeah. Let's look it up. By the way, Because- In sad stats, since this is the end of the Russell Wilson era in Denver, he officially is finishing his career with less wins than toilets in his house. So he has 12 toilets in his house. He won 11 games for the Broncos in two years.

That is very sad. But yeah, Sean Payton, he left the Saints on his own terms. I'm pretty sure he left the Cowboys on his own terms.

I guess he technically got fired as a player.

He got fired? Well, he got suspended for a year.

He got fired by Andy Reed and the Eagles. Well, that was the switchover. He was on the Eagles and then Andy Reed came in and they didn't retain his duties. That's fired, right?

Sean Payton is like, It's a tough business. I know every day I wake up, I might get fired tomorrow. I'm in that same boat as you, Russ.

Yeah. Basically, he's like, 25 years ago, the Eagles brought in Andy Reed and they didn't extend my contract. I know exactly how this could happen.

Yeah. Do you feel bad for Russell Wilson?

Hold on. Let me look up all the money he made.

Let's.

See. Yeah, that.

Really plays a big part.

In it. I do feel bad for him. On paper, I feel bad for him. But I also think there's a lot of this was his doing in his own... I guess I don't know how the rest of his contract, how much is guaranteed, but let's just say if he makes, I think he's going to make a bunch of this still. He's so far in his career made 266 million. If he makes the rest of his money, he makes $477 million. So no, I do not feel bad.

I feel bad for Russell Wilson the same way that I feel bad for Internet Explorer, where it's hanging around. It was very useful for a long time, but it's just sad to see it on a desktop somewhere and you just never want to use it ever again. If you're focused into using it at any point, you know that your job is not going well.

Yeah. Or I'd feel bad for Blockbuster. I was like, Oh, that was a shame. They really should have thought differently there.

Yeah, it was fun to walk to Blockbuster on a snow day and the smell it used to have when I was a kid. That was cool. I remember Blockbuster, so it makes me sad that it's not around.

Right. Yeah. I remember Russell Wilson when he was fun. It was fun. He was fun to watch. But it does feel like a lot of this was his doing. If you could hit him with truth to him like, Hey, dude, maybe you should just stayed in Seattle. You had it pretty good there. I know that Twitter got in your head a lot and said, Russ should cook, but maybe it was a good idea that they always were trying to establish the run, even though they couldn't. That was probably good.

We'll always have the danger witch.

Yeah, he definitely played himself out of a Hall of Fame career, right?

I don't know.

That's going to be tough then. Remember we did top quarterbacks all time? I think you had him nine. This was four years ago, so I didn't disagree. I didn't think it was that crazy, but I think you had him like nine or 10. He wouldn't be anywhere near that. Because it was right when it was like, he was really good. He had a Super Bowl. He had probably seven, eight years left. You were just projecting and I didn't disagree. I was just like, Yeah, if he just keeps being this good for a really long time, the way the League is gone, all the best quarterbacks, quote-unquote, are going to be in the last 15 years.

Yeah, then when he left Seattle, that's when we all got to experience more of what Russell Wilson was all about. As a country, we're like, That's too much Russell Wilson. In Seattle, he was nice. He was a little bit sheltered. The media up there was very friendly to him. We didn't get all the stories from Marshon Lynch about how they wouldn't talk to each other and how Marshon had to call his agent to talk to him. And then all that's come out in the last two and a half... It started with the finger injury when he came back from the finger injury. And he was doing the simulated reps on the field. He was doing the fake high fives. That's when Russ turned bad. That's when he broke bad.

It's actually a really interesting hypothetical. How quickly would America have hated Russell Wilson if he was drafted by the giants? Pretty quick. The New York media would have... Yeah, they would have found that out right away. They would have been like, This guy is weird. Again, Russell Wilson, he's not a bad guy at all. He's just a weird guy. There's a big difference, I think. That's where I would start to feel bad for him because there's nothing about him that is truly a bad person. I think he's just a weird guy who's... He is like if Gary V became a starting quarterback where you're like, All right, this is a little much. I don't know.

I think if he was on the jets, we would have hated him from day one. They play a little bit nicer with the giants for whatever reason. If he was the starting quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, America would have hated him in training camp his rookie year.

Yeah. I mean, he was one of my favorite Badger seasons, so I still have love for him there. But yeah, I guess to answer the original question, I'd say I feel 20% bad for Russell Wilson. Then if you show me how much money he's made, it goes down to 10%.

Yeah. You show me a picture of his wife and I'm like, He's doing okay.

Yeah, he has a pretty good life. Okay, so okay, last two games. Bangles the Chiefs. I think this is the get-right spot for the Chiefs. I think the Chiefs are going to beat them. I think the Chiefs, it's basically if Andy Reed, which is asking a lot, if Andy Reed can be like, Hey, you know what we can do in this game? Just run the ball, we'll be fine. Because we've talked about the Bangles defense is not that good. Dj Reed being out has been a really big problem. You saw it last week with the the Steelers, Mason, Rudolph, and how they ran the ball. If the Chiefs are smart here, like the Eagles, just run the ball. Run the ball and win the game by two touchdowns and feel good about yourself.

We've started to see a little resurgence of Clyde Edwards-Lair recently, which is always good because he was a big time what happened to that guy, person. I would like to see them run the ball, too. I just don't know if the chiefs are capable of getting right. They might be so wrong that they might win ugly games. But I don't think that they're capable of flipping that switch and getting right.

Oh, man. Memes just sent this to us, PFT. It is from April 15, 2020, top 10 NFL quarterbacks since 1980. This is peak COVID discussion. You had Russ at number nine, ahead of Patrick Mohomes.

That feels like it was a troll. We need to- Yeah, you had Mahomes 10, too.

Yeah, but I had no one out like everyone else. I didn't have anyone else who's current ahead of Mohomes. I had everyone whose career was over.

You had Steve Young ahead of the Holmes.

Yeah, and the Moh homes would obviously get ahead of him. This was before he won his second Super Bowl, but I didn't have anyone else current contemporary against Mahomes.

I'm looking at this list right now. I think we knocked out of the park. These are lists.

I remember it vividly like you saying Russell, I was like... And then you convinced me, but yeah.

Well, in 2020, were the Mohomes done?

Yeah, you had won Super Bowl. I mean, the fact we had my homes on this list is pretty crazy. He had won Super Bowl. Hank was the only one who had Big Ben.

Look at Hank. He also had.

Portals number three. He had Portals number three. Yeah, okay, I didn't see that. Yeah. Russell Wilson is nowhere near top 10 now. That's a lot of football that's happened since then.

Nowhere near top 10 now.

-nowhere near. Wait, so you like the Bangles or Chiefs?

If we're talking spread, I like the Bangles, but I think the Chiefs are going to win.

They have to get right. They have to get right. Okay, last game, Vikings, Packers, Sharon Hall playing for the Vikings. No, Hawkinson. No, Addison, I believe. It feels like Kevin O'Connor, who's done a great job this year keeping this team. I do really feel bad for Vikings fans because this was the year if Kirk Cousins stay healthy, they would not have been fraudulent. They would have been... Think about how wide open the NFL playoffs are going to be. The Vikings would have been absolutely live with Kirk Cousins and the way he was playing. Now, Kevin O'Connor is stuck with his fourth quarterback trying to be like, Maybe this is the spark. He's just searching for a spark everywhere he goes. That is Jaren Hall's term.

Yeah. The spread is Vikings minus one, right?

Yeah, I think it was two and then Jaren Hall made it one.

I love the Packers in this game.

I.

Know. I love them. Now they are missing a key component on defense. Correct. Jari Alexander. We should talk about what happened with him because this might be my favorite story of the second half of the NFL season. He is from Charlotte. They were playing against the Carolina Panthers.

Which Matt Liford probably didn't know.

He might not have known. But Alexander nominated himself. He sent himself out onto the field as a captain before the game. Not only did he make himself a captain for that game without his coaches' knowledge, but he also thought that since he's from Charlotte, to be fair, he's from Charlotte. From Charlotte. It was up to him to call the coin toss in the air. He called the coin toss, and then he incorrectly told the referee that they wanted the defense on the field instead of deferring possession to the start of the second half. The ref stepped in and said, Wait, what are you asking for? And corrected him so that he didn't give them double possessions on kickoffs. I think we should investigate the refs because they let the Packers get away with them.

That's a good point. But this, I agree with you, one of my favorite stories of the year, him doing the press conference at his locker with the macho man Randy, the Savage glasses and just being like, Coach, you didn't know I was from Charlotte. I was going up there and this whole teammates. This teammates just been like, Dude, what are you doing? I put.

That on the other captains, actually. You have to nominate better captains and empower them to take leadership when they see a fake captain going out with them to be like, No, you're not a captain.

We talked about it last week with Rezuel Douglas and how that was probably the worst trade in season this year. Imagine if the Packers had traded Jair Alexander, they probably would have gotten a lot more for him and they would have kept the cornerback who can stay on the field and also is not crazy.

I love this though. Who does that? Who's like, Yeah, Coach- Well, he's from Charlotte. He probably didn't know he was from Charlotte, so if he had known, then he definitely would have made me the captain, the speaking captain, in fact.

Yeah, I mean, he's from Charlotte. He's got to get everyone... He's from Charlotte. I don't know what Matt Liford was thinking. The dude's from Charlotte.

I blame Joe Barry for this act, actually. He should have said something about it.

I had a lot of, and.

Also-.

They're like, Oh, we talked about at Christmas was Joe Barry.

Did you know that Joe Barry was the, I think he was a defensive coordinator on the Lions team that went on 16?

He was Will Compton's coach, too. On the Redskins, yeah. I like the Packers too here, which is probably stupid because if both of us love a side, usually we're really dumb. Okay, should we do our picks then? Let's do our picks. I don't even know what the standings are. Does anyone know what the standings are? I think Hank's eliminated.

I don't think he's officially eliminated you. I think I'm up two and a half points on him. Three and a half?

Okay.

I don't know.

Okay. Jake didn't send us the standings. I'll ask him for the standings right now. Why don't we just say, let's just give Hank and Jake's picks. We'll give them their first picks, and then we'll go from there. So Hank sent the picks to Max, his picks to Max. Max, what are Hank's picks?

Patriots.

Plus 13; Ravens.

Dolphins, over 47 and a half.

Okay, so that's there. His two picks and Jake's two picks are the Bucks minus two and a half and the Bear's, Falcons under 37. Seven and a half. So Max, you want to go first and we'll go to Snake? Sure.

I'm actually going to fade, Hank. I like bills minus 13.

Okay, memes. I'm going to go Niners.

Twelve and a half.

Okay, PFT?

I'm going to take the Packers plus one.

Okay, I'm going to take, so I got two here. I will go with the Over in Ram's giants, 43 and a half. Then I'm going to take the Cowboys minus five and a half. Mpft?

I'm going to take over in Houston, Tennessee, 43 and a half.

Oh, Hank is eliminated. I have the standard.

Oh, he is?

Yeah, Jake is at 20 and a half. Max is at 17 and a half. Mims is at 17. So max and memes, this is very important.

I was going to say that we should do another PIC. It's the holidays.

What did you say, Max? I'm just going to lose on the last second.

On a historic fashion again in week 18.

That's the only way it's going to go. It's going to be me and Hank getting punished again. It's going to be it.

It is what it is. And then in the main show, I have 22 and a half points, PFT have 20. Hank has 15 and a half.

So yeah, it's over. Okay, yes.

Yeah. So if he wins four, he gets 19 and a half. You already beat him. All right, so Memes and Max, what are your picks? Because these are very important.

I'm going to go over 44 in the Bangles Chiefs game.

Okay. I have over 44 as well.

I thought you.

Were going to.

Take my pick.

I will.

Go over 44 in Texas Titans. I already took that.

Oh, you did? Fuck me.

And it's 43 and a half is what I'm looking at right now.

Shit.

You.

Dick.

I'll go over...

This game sucks.

I'll go over.

38, Falcons, Bears.

We'll give you 37 and a half because that's what Jake has.

All right, love it, 37 and a half.

Okay, those are our picks. We got Hot Seq, Cool Throne. We got Hot Seq, Cool Throne because we're going to have a show on Wednesday. Hot Seq, Cool Throne is brought to you by friends at Core Light. Core Light helps you find moments to unwind. Big work presentation. Follow it with a happy hour, some friends and a cold Corez Light. Weekend chores. Take Saturday off and hit the tailgate. Even if you don't have tickets to the game, whenever you need to hit reset, reach for a Corez Light. It's made to chill. There's only one beer out there that's literally made to chill, and that's Corez Light. The mountains on the bottles and cans even turn blue when your beer is cold. That way you always know when it's time to chill, when you need to hit reset, just open up Coors Light. It's mountain-cold, refreshment, made to chill. Coors Light is the one I choose when I need to unwind. I've had a couple of Coors Light this week. They really hit different in the desert. It's nothing like Coars Light in the desert. So when you want to hit reset, reach for the beer that's made you chill.

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My hot seat is Liberty. I'm putting Liberty on the hot seat.

Oh, I like this.

On my flight out here to Arizona earlier this week. I happened to be on a plane that I had a layover in Los Angeles. The connecting flight that I took into Phoenix was with the Oregon football team. They were all on the plane. They are so fucking big. They are huge. They're so strong. And 17 points is not nearly enough points. They're so strong. And he's so strong. They're so strong. They've got great haircuts. They've got a bunch of mullets. They looked like they're ready to play. They were pumped up. They were high-five. I was sitting next to this one guy who I think he was maybe, I'm going to guess he was the mascot. Either the mascot or an equipment manager. But every player that walked past him reached over to him and dapped him up on the way back there.

Wait, how were you on the same flight as the Oregon football team?

It was a connecting flight in L. A. Somehow that they also connected in L. A. To go to Arizona.

Wait, it was their flight? You were on the same plane as them? Yeah. That's crazy because I saw a video on sports that them getting off the flight. Did they do the weird... Did you get off the flight out of a gate or did you go down the staircase?

No, I got off the flight onto a gate and then walked through the airport like a normal person.

That's crazy. I mean, that's cool.

Maybe there were a couple of guys that didn't take that flight, but there were at least, I'm going to say 25 or 30 Oregon football.

Players on this flight. That even goes more to your point because it could have been the backups or non-scholarship guys. And if they're big, who?

Yeah. Well, maybe they're so big that they had to take two separate flights because they would have overloaded the plane.

They're so big.

But I can tell you, I did not see Bownex. I don't think that Bownex was on this flight, but they're so big. They're way bigger than Liberty. This might just be because I saw a bunch of football players up close and I'm like, Oh, these guys are way bigger than they look on TV. They look huge. I'm hammering Oregon this weekend.

No, I was on a flight from Chicago to Arizona with the Liberty team, and they were just all stowed in the overhead. In the overhead. Yeah, in the overhead. I'm with you.

Yeah. This seems to me like a big team against a little team. Also, Liberty has dead last strength of schedule in all of college football. I think Oregon is going to have something to prove. I think that most of Oregon's players are playing this weekend, too. Then my cool throne is full-backs. We're announcing the Lowman trophy in the pre-game, I believe, at the Barstool Bowl. You can see on the CW, same network as Liv, no big deal. We have a winner. I've collected all the votes this week. We have a very special winner that we're looking to announce in that pre-game show. I will tell you the three finalists right now for the best fullback in college football. We did the long list earlier. Now it's been narrowed to three. The top three vote getters, Ernest Crownrower from Texas A&M, Stone Ibi from SMU, and then Ben Senate from Kansas State. We have a very special presentation. A legend in the fullback community will be presenting the award to them via video call. But I'm excited to announce it. It's one of my favorite things that we do. Recognize the fullbacks. They're an unheralded group of guys.

They don't get any of the shine. This is their time, the Lowman Trophy.

I love it. I love it. Everyone do tune in. It's going to be a great time. Solito versus Wyoming. Four o'clock Eastern, Saturday, I'll be doing the anthem. You have to be in the pregame, in the half-time. I'll be on the call with Jake and Dave. It's going to be a great time. We had a great time last year doing it. It's going to be a great time this year doing it.

It's always super funny when you get Jake in the booth with you and Dave because you can tell which way you're leaning at certain times. Then Jake's always playing it the straightest that you can possibly play it. It's a good dynamic.

Yeah, I'm a little nervous about this game because I have... Wyoming's coach is retiring and he's been there for a long time and he's like an old salty coach. I like him, but obviously my heart is with Toledo. We're friends with Jason Candel. We gave the scholarship, the N-I-L deal. I won a national title there. I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm really stuck. I'm really, really stuck.

You got to make a special house divided shirt for yourself. Toledo, Montana.

Wyoming.

Tune.

In for the first five minutes of the game. You'll figure out which side I bet. Okay. Guaranteed. All right, my hot seat is John Moran because there's a story released today from Tom Habistraw, who's actually, he's a great writer, but this one did make me laugh. His story was more about how there's basically the Beatwriters are like, don't exist anymore. It's a problem because things aren't getting covered. But it was a story about how John Morant called the referee a ho last year after a game. I just... That headline maybe laughed so hard. I was just like, well, I mean, the ref was probably being a ho if we're being honest, right?

Yeah. Which ref was it? That makes a.

Difference too. Right? Well, I had to look it up because I was like, Wait, if it's a female ref, then obviously this is a... No, it was a male ref, so we're good.

Well, also maybe it's possible that she was being a ho, too.

Yeah. A quality. Yeah, refs could be hoes.

That's a very funny story, though. This is why journalism is dying in America because we didn't know that John Morant called this ref a ho until just now.

Yes. Oh, man. And then my cool.

Throne is- I love Jah's celebration that he did the night where he just took the finger guns out after a dunk. Do you think he was happy after he did that? Or it was just muscle memory where he just did the guns and then he was, Oh, fuck. That's the one thing that I shouldn't do.

No, I think he probably like part of the therapy. He was like, You need to get it out some way. It's like people who are struggling with addiction might get addicted to something else. They might drink soda or- Exercise. -drink soda or exercise. Do real estate deals, whatever it may be. But this might be good for him. Yeah.

I would rather John Moramp be waving his fingers around in the shape of guns than actual guns. We should be celebrating that as progress.

Exactly. Then my cool throne is bowl season. I was down on bowl season because of the NILs... Actually, not the NILs. I don't know why I said that. I sound like an old man there. Actually, Minnesota, did you see that? The story that Minnesota needed, they didn't have a quarterback. Their third-string quarterback had just gotten engaged. He's like 25, and he was going to go move to Arizona and start his life. Because they needed a quarterback, they paid him $30,000 in NIL money to play. They won't- I like that. Yeah, it's awesome. But there's something about bowl season. Every year, it sucks me in. It's like you're sitting there in this weird... Christmas to New Year's time doesn't exist. I've had to ask myself what day it is every single day. But you're watching the Pop Tart Bull. There was a bowl game at Fenway Park today that looked miserable. Miami just having to play in a cold weather city is the easiest bet against every single year in bowl season. Ruckers just wanted it way more. I love bowl season. I'll never quit bowl season. I know that people are down on it with the transfer portal and the opt outs, but I fucking love bowl season.

The one thing we have to make sure to unlearn, though, is at the start of next year, if there's a quarterback that's sucked in a bowl game, we can't automatically think this guy stinks.

Yeah.

Which I'm not going to follow through on that.

No, I don't agree to that. I'm not going to follow through on it. Yeah, the only draft analysis I ever gotten right was Paxton Lynch sucks, and that was based on a bulgy.

Yeah, but this is like, I'm saying this to make myself smart in the future, but I also know that I'm not going to take my own advice.

Yeah.

Don't do that. I'm just saying in this moment, while I'm saying it right now, this is the smart thing to do.

Yeah. But I see even in this moment, I disagree. Let your heart. Heart wants what the heart wants. Just to make decisions on players and meaningless games. Okay, let's get to our interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Awesome interview.

Great interview, and Arnold is being brought to you by our good friends over at GameTime. I love GameTimes. Gametimes is the best. If you're looking for tickets to a bowl game, if you're looking for tickets to college football playoff, if you're looking for NFL tickets, hockey tickets, basketball tickets, there's one place to go, that's GameTime. They just don't do sports. They also do music, comedy, and theater events near you. Gametime is the easiest to use. You get last minute deals, flash deals, zone deals. Easy to find and buy tickets for every event in your area. They're obsessed with finding ways to help you save money on tickets. If you're looking to go to an NFL game this weekend, use GameTime. It's the best way to get the best price. You're always going to be happy with GameTime. They also guarantee every ticket that's sold there. With zone deals, you can pick the section and GameTime picks the seats for an average of 18 % savings. They're also the easiest app to use in terms of transferring tickets. If you're trying to send tickets to a family member, all you have to do is text. It's super easy to do.

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We now welcome on a very, very special guest. He might be the most famous person that we've ever had on this show. It is Arnold Schwarzenegger. I mean, movie star, weightlifting legend, governor. He's done it all. He's got a new book out. It's called Be Useful, Seven Tools for Life. Arnold, first of all, thank you so much for joining us. We're huge, huge fans of you, and this is a thrill for us. I wanted to start with the book, though. We're not very useful people. We're bumps. What in the book can you tell us that will help us being more useful in life?

First of all, it is a great pleasure to be on your show. I've admired your show. I think you guys are really entertaining. I happen to disagree right off the top with you when you say you're not useful because the stuff that you do and the amount of entertainment that you bring to people and stuff is really incredible. I think that you should call yourself useful. Now, if there's a question about how to be more useful, I think everyone is striving for that. I always strive for that. How can I be more useful? How can I be more successful? How can I be happier? How can I be better in what I do and all that stuff? That's what makes us really have an exciting life to always strive for being better. And that's what makes it also fun to get up in the morning when you have a mission. I want to be better. I want to train harder. I want to get in better shape. And I want to have more effect on our community and what I do and all that stuff. And I think what the book is about is to inspire people how to be better and how to be great and how to be happy.

Because when you think about that 78 % of the people in America hate their jobs, so you know that that's not a good statistic. And I think that we can do better than that. I always loved everything that I did, even though I had my losses and my downfalls and my good times and my victories and all that stuff, but I always loved what I was doing. I want to make sure that people can read about the seven tools that I used how to be more successful and how to really feel good about the stuff that I do and where you feel like you're marching in the right direction.

I do think seven tools is an accurate way to describe this podcast too. We might not be as useful as you, but what would you say would be the most important tool?

Well, I think that the vision, I put this number one in my book, the is useful because I think that vision is the most important thing. If you don't have a very clear vision of what you want to accomplish in life, and if you don't have a very clear vision where you want to go, you don't have anything. You're just drifting around. And I see this with a lot of people when they don't have a goal or a specific a mission or purpose to get up 4:00 in the morning. When you get up in the morning, you have to have a purpose to know what you're going to do in life or that day that makes it fun. I think if you don't have that, you drift around and you get lost. And I think this is what happens to a lot of young people and even older people. And so what I'm trying to do is just show them how do you create a vision and tell them the story about how when I was 10 years old, I had a very clear vision of coming to America. When I was 15 years old, I had a very clear vision of becoming a bodybuilding champion and being the greatest bodybuilder of all time.

And then later on and how I wanted to get into movies and be a leading man in the movies and all of those things I accomplished because I had a very clear vision. I saw it. It's see it, believe it, achieve it, that old saying. And I saw that how it works firsthand. And I used it with everything that I did, and it really worked. And so this is just one out of seven tools is have a very clear vision. Another one I think it's very important is not to listen to the naysayers because you could have a very clear vision. And you tell this to people and say, Look, I want to be a great actor. I want to be a leading man. And they say, Oh, that's stupid. I mean, you're never going to make that. What do you think? Hollywood is going to wait for you and all that stuff. I heard all of those things. Will you want to come to America? This is crazy you want to go to America because what do you think they're going to wait for you? That they need another person over there? That's never going to happen.

When I said I want to be a bodybuilding champion, they say, Oh, no, Austria has ski champions. We have bicycle champions, we have track and field champions, soccer champions, but we don't have bodybuilding champions. That's an American sport. What are you talking about? This would never happen. So it was always no, no, no. Everything was always impossible. Even when I got in the movies, I remember in the '70s, they said you would never make it in the movies. You would never be a leading man because you have an accent and you have this overdeveloped body that is not in now, in the '70s, the little guys that are in. And then you have this name, Schwarzenegger, you have to change that. So forget about it. There was always no, no, no. But I didn't listen to the nice as I had my own vision and I had my own gore. And I said, Okay, if it is so difficult to climb that ladder, then I'm just going to create my own ladder and I'm going to climb that and I'm going to make it up there no matter what.

Yeah. You did a great job. I did read that when you started acting that your name was not Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was Arnold Strong for your first couple of movies. How did you come up with.

That name? No, the producer did... I hated it because I remember when I did the movie Hercules in New York, which is a movie that my first movie ever that went right in the toilet. And they changed my name to Arnold Strong. But then when I did the next project with Lucile Ball, Happy Anniversary and Goodbye, which was a TV show that she did a two-hour special with Art Connie, then there was Arnold Schwarzenegger again. Then for Stay Hungary, it was Arnold Schwarzenegger again pumping on. So all of these other projects after that was Arnold Schwarzenegger because I thought it was stupid to change the name for what? And that was absolutely right. That A, that the body worked on the end because I remember when we did Conan, The Barbarian, John Millius, the director said, Hey, if we wouldn't have had Schwarzenegger, we would have had build one because it was the only one that really had the muscles to play Conan, The Barbarian. There was no one around to play that character. So that's why they never really filmed it. And so then when I did Terminator, Jim Cameron said, Hey, Schwarzenegger, if we wouldn't have had his accent and him talking like a machine, this would have never worked of him playing a machine.

Then all of a sudden, the accent was welcome. And then later on with the name, as far as the name was concerned, it was like, all of a sudden it became hip to keep your name with the idea that if people cannot pronounce your name or remember your name, by the time they learn it, they would never forget it. That was the idea. People like Gina, Lola, Bridget and the actresses and actors like that with complicated names kept their name, and it became fashionable to keep your name.

Your career is amazing because I watched the documentary, which was great. Everyone should go watch it. You alluded to it that you set out to do all these things and you went out and accomplished them, like Mr. Olympia and then the movies and then politics. You basically were like, I'm going to go do that. And then I did it. Was there ever a moment? Because I think in life, there's a lot of times successful people can sometimes forget the failures or the points where you almost gave up. Was there ever a moment that you said, All right, I'm done. This isn't going to work out? Because it does feel like everything you set out to do, you just did, which is so inspiring.

Well, in the end, I did it. But on the way there, yes, there's always failures. I remember in bodybuilding, I lost the first few bodybuilding competitions. I remember that the first Mr. Universe contest I went to in 1966, I lost against an American by the name of Chad Uyarton, who was the Mr. America, and then he won Mr. Univers. So I was 19 years old. That was okay. With the age of 20, I went back to the Mr. Universe contest and I won it and I became the youngest Mr. Universe ever. And then after that, I was winning and winning and winning. And then there was another obstacle I remember in the Mr. Olympia competition. There was Sergio River, who was an extraordinary Cuban bodybuilding champion that now lived in Chicago, and he was unbelievable. So he beat me. 1969, he won Mr. Olympia and I came second. But the following year, I went back and I won against him in 1970. So on the way up there, yes, there were losses in power lifting, losses in weightlifting, losses in bodybuilding. And also politically, I remember I won the race for governor. And then literally a year later, there was a special election that we held here in California, where I wanted to get certain things passed by the people.

And all those four initiatives lost. Because the people basically sent a message to me saying, don't come to us with your problems. We elected you to work with the legislators, so you work it out with them. And so they voted it down. And again, it was a huge defeat. And people said, Oh, in 2006, a year later, he's going to lose the ownership. But I came back again. I told the people I hear there was a mistake to have four initiatives like this on the ballot. I should work with the legislators. And the people forgave me for it. And then I came back and I won with 57 % of the votes. I won the governorship the second time. And so, yes, there are losses along the way and setbacks along the way. And I don't forget them because the fact is we learn sometimes even more from the failures than we do from the successes. And so you have to be very honest. When you fail, you have to be very honest. And you have to say, I fucked up. Here's what I did wrong. Then analyze it and they take the blame for it and they're not like blame someone else for it and say, Well, it's his fault.

She's her fault and this fault, and that fault. No, you've got to go and just look in the mirror and say you fucked up and here's what you did wrong. And then just write that down and then deal with that and improve on it the next time. So this is exactly what I've always done when I had a failure.

Like that. That's a great answer.

Yeah. Just admitting your fuck-ups goes a long way if you're being honest.

To me. Absolutely. You got to be honest and just say, I did something wrong here, because otherwise you would never learn. You would never learn. If you don't admit it and just recognize the problems that you had, you would never learn.

Yeah, you brought up The Governator, which was an awesome nickname that you had. How could you vote against The Governator? You had a built-in campaign slogan there, especially for re-election. There's another movie star that's I think getting into politics, followed, I guess you could say, a similar trajectory to yourself. Different a little bit, but the rock, Dwayne Johnson, I feel like he's priming us to get into politics at some point. Have you reached out to him? Have you talked to him about a future politics?

No, I've known him for many, many years, and he and I are friends. And he has been kind enough when I ran for governor and then became governor to take over the after-school program movement that I was in charge of that I started 30 years ago, After School All Stars. So he was the honorate chair for a year until we found somebody else to do it. And he did a great, great job and he was very helpful. And he was very helpful with my race for governor and everything like that. So we have really been communicating and I've admired his career. And so he's an extraordinary human being with a tremendous amount of willpower and multiple talents, someone that is so well-versed in wrestling and then in acting, show business and all of that. I mean, he's really talented, and so I'm very happy for him. And if he ever reaches across and wants to go and get out of acting and go into politics, I'm more than happy to talk to him about that if he needs or wants any advice from me.

Yeah. I want to talk to you a little bit about your movies. We're children of the '90s, so you were a seminal part of our childhood. The first question I have about your movies, when you were doing Terminator 2, did you at any point realize that you were going to scare an entire country of children with T-1,000? And then actually, in a weird way, I grew up being like Arnold Schwarzenegger would save my life if I ever get a robot that's coming after me because T-1,000 was the scariest thing I've ever seen in my life. And you, thankfully, you were there to save the day.

Well, I have to say that Jim Cameron, the director who wrote Terminator Two and Terminator One, of course, too, in order to directed it, he really came up with this concept. And I remember that when he came to me and he says, In this movie, you will play the good guy. And I said to myself, Why is he doing that? It worked so well in the first one when I was really the machine, the bad guy that just destroys everything, why would you want to change that? And so I had a negative attitude about it until I read the script. When I read the script, I got it. And I just thought he did such a brilliant job with that, how he turned that whole thing around and how he had determined to come back to actually save humanity and the human race and not the machines and how he then created this T-1,000. I played the outdated model, the T-800. So then there was that T-8, 1,000 that could do all kinds of additional stuff that I could not do. And so it was a real threat. And I think that's what created the suspense in the movie and why it became the most popular movie that year.

It was the number one box office success, not only domestically, but also internationally. I cannot even take the credit for that because Jim Cameron really has to get all the credit for that because he created the characters and he directed it. So he was really the genius of this.

Whole thing. It's an incredible movie. Also, how often do people ask you to say, Get to the chopper? I know that's a different movie, but day to day.

Well, I mean, it's like when I ride the bike through the streets in Santa Monica or Venice, people call out many times, scream loud, Get to the chopper. And I said, That's very funny. Put the cookie down. Someone would come up to me and just say, I'll be back in a very dramatic way and stuff. People throw my movie lines around all the time. I hear it all the time. And the funny thing about it is, I tell you guys that you never really know when you do the movie that this is going to be a very much quoted movie line, that people are going to like that and they're going to repeat it over and over and over and over and... You don't know? When we shot, I'll be back in Terminator 1, we did not know that anyone is going to repeat that line. And the same thing was we get to the chopper. We get to the chopper, I think people just... People just think it's funny because I don't say chopper with an. And I just say choppa. And so they imitate that when they scream loud on the street, Get to the choppa.

That's the funny thing. It's just the way I pronounce things that makes it then funny and that's why.

People repeat it. And it's memorable. There I go. It's so memorable. Yeah, that's the part.

Yeah. Terminator 2 was a great film. Again, I'm a little bit nervous interviewing you just because I've seen you so much and you were such a big part of my childhood. As a guy that played Terminator, you were first on the scene for Skynet. What are your actual feelings on AI? Were you thinking AI is going to actually destroy the world?

Well, interestingly, that when I filmed Terminator 1, I really looked at it as a purely science fiction type of a movie. Then we went on with time, decade after decade, all of a sudden I realized, Oh, my God, we are actually going in that direction. And what Jim Cameron wrote about is going to happen. That the machines are now so sophisticated, so far ahead of human way of thinking that they are so far ahead. Now the big fear is how do you make sure they don't become self-aware like in Terminator 2 and where the machines take over. This is, I think, the fear that everyone has. Where is this going to lead? And how do we still control all of this and how can we stop it from getting to that point? That's why I always said that Terminator 1 was written so brilliantly by Jim Cameron that originally it was like a B-movie, an action movie. But then when the movie came out, they realized, wow, this is intellectually speaking, really very sophisticated movie, not just an action movie. The action is there. Yeah, it's the visual feast. But the meaning behind all of that and the writing behind it and what it meant, that's why I think Time Magazine, for instance, picked it as one of the 10 top movies of the year, and they normally never an action movie like that.

I think that people really were celebrating the brilliant writing and the sophistication of the script that Jim Cameron wrote at that time.

It also taught us that if that ever happens, we just need Arnold. We just need to call you. Save the day. You personally and you'll stop it. That's it.

Yeah. That's it.

To a bunch of kids, you were like a true hero. I assume you're still lifting.

What are you- I go every day. I bike down to the gym and I work out every day for half an hour, 45 minutes with weights. And so I do a combination of cardiovascular training and also weight training. And it's like an addiction of mine. I have to do it every day. This is what sets off the day. My day starts out by feeding the animals, my pig and my three dogs and my miniature donkey, my miniature pony and all those animals. They come into the house and I feed them and then they all go out and they have a good time. It's really funny. Then after that, I've done that. That takes me usually an hour. Then after that, I go to the gym and I bicycle down and then I work out and then I come back into my work.

Do you still go for max on anything? Do you still bench the squat?

No, I had my first heart surgery in 1997. And so after the heart surgery, I was advised not to lift that heavy anymore. And so I then did more reps and less weight because I didn't want to put extra pressure on the valves. I had to replace my aortic valve and my pulmonary valve. So they said don't put any additional pressure on those valves, otherwise they would not last for 15, 20 years, which they will if you don't lift up any heavy weights. I was very lucky. I was like, they lasted 25 years, almost. And because I listened to the doctors and I was watching a little bit more what I eat, I don't eat as much meat anymore, even though I love it, making a steak every so often and eating minnow, schnitzel, and all this stuff for them. I eatI've cut down around 70 % of my meat intake, which is better for the heart and for your health. And that's it. I listen to the doctors.

Yeah. This is a random name. You might not know who I'm about to say, but do you recognize the name Steve Moholic at all?

Sure. He was Mr. America back in, I think, in the '70s or beginning '80s. Yeah.

Did you ever work out with him? Did you ever.

Pass- Yeah, I worked out with him. He was always known for his wide shoulders and for his great, great build. I mean, interestingly enough, he was one of those typical American bodybuilders that had the wide shoulders, small waist. He was good looking. Whenever he went to the Mr. Universe, Candace, people knew, Oh, this is the American Mr. America.

He knew.

All religions. -he looked like and he.

Was fantastic. He was incredible. Incredible guy. That makes me happy that.

You knew him. We've got a friend of his that works with us here and he's always talked about Steve Mahalik. Very versed in every religion. He knew all religions.

Yes, great guy and incredible strength. He trained with him. I'm just fascinated with the bodybuilding and just, I mean, it's crazy to watch because you said it's like an addiction. When you felt at your peak, how good did you feel every day? Do you think about that? Do you think like, Man, when I was 19, 20 years old and I was at my absolute peak, I just walk around and felt good every day?

Yeah, I think it really is a great feeling to be strong. It's a great feeling to have energy. I was running every day in the deep sand before working out and sometimes after working out, and you just feel like King Kong. It was great. The and to be able to lift this weight. I was dead lifting then over 700 pounds, and I was bench pressing with over 500 and squatting with over 600. I was competing in power lifting also. And in all of the quick lifting and weight lifting. I felt fantastic. I think this is the thing that I'm talking about, be useful, is how important it is that we do something physical. You train really hard. It doesn't just have to be bodybuilding. Anything where you exert and you do something that you feel like really productive and you've done something for yourself, you've gotten in great shape because of this training and all this, it doesn't matter what it is, you can walk up Mount Everest and climb up there. It makes you feel good that you've accomplished something really great. And I think it gives you a positive attitude. And I see, for instance, I go to the gym in the morning, I feel like okay.

But then after the workout and the bicycle back, I feel great. It feels like you're going from a black and white movie to a color movie all of a sudden because it's just the way you see things all of a sudden in a much more positive way. This is why I say to people, I said, The working out is not just to get a bigger bicep or bigger delts and bigger pectroid muscles. And abs, all of that. It's just what it does also psychologically and mentally for you. It just gives you such a boost. And this is something why I say I'm addicted to working out because I have to do it every day and it makes me feel good.

Yeah, you get the endorphins going. I mean, the famous quote from Pumping Iron, it feels like you're coming. You're coming all the time when you're working out. Yes. Do you still get that feeling?

Well, that was more a publicity stunt.

You didn't feel like you were coming. I've been working out, trying to come. I've been waiting to come. I've been trying to come for 15 years in the gym and I've never gotten there. I thought there was something wrong with me.

No, I don't think everything is okay with you. Everything is okay with you. No, but you have to understand that in those days to go and to get big stories written as a bodybuilder. As a football player, you could get any story written as a tennis player, baseball player. You could get any story written that you want. You wanted to do. But as a bodybuilder, it was very, very difficult. So you had to be really way out there of the things that you say so that it's quotable. And then people say, Oh, my God, I got to write a story on this guy. This guy just said, he's coming all the time. He's coming in the gym, pumping up. He's coming by backstage. He's coming at home. Every day in the day, he's coming. This is unbelievable. Then they wrote the story. It actually made it. My goal was actually right and my take on it. I always knew how to sell. That's why one of the chapters in my book, he used for this sell, sell, sell because it's all about how do you sell something. So I, when I met Muhammad Ali, I was so excited about talking to him because he was the person that was selling boxing in the '70s more than anyone.

And there was just such excitement that he fought because he was Muhammad Ali, and he was more than just a fighter.

And.

The way he talked, his poetry, how generous he was, how he gave his money away, and his religion, everything was just interesting about him. And I said to myself, Well, I want to be the Muhammad Ali of bodybuilding. I want to really not only lift weights for myself, but I want to lift the entire sport. How can I dodo that. I even hired a publicist for one of the competitions that we had out here that Franco Colombo and I organized called The Missed International. This publicist got us on talk shows and interviews and the magazines and newspapers, but we knew that we had to say outrageous things so that people go and write about it. And it worked 100 %.

Yeah, it did. Yeah, it really did. You had me fooled.

It did. It also made sense because this guy is just pumping so much iron. His muscles are enormous. I've never felt as good waking up that in your entire life, you've probably felt better every single day than I have ever felt. I aspire to be like that.

Very nice. That means that you're working out every day.

I'm not. I need to. I need to do something physical every day. I use my mind. I need to do something physical.

Arnold, I had a question about you were talking about reading a script and being like, This is a very good script. I think it's going to be a great movie. I think that there are a lot of movies that you're in where you completely you elevate the movie to being a classic. I'm thinking Predator, I'm thinking Commando, I'm thinking all the Terminators you're in. But when you're reading a movie, are you imagining yourself as that character? What about a script that come across your desk? Do you look at and you're like, Yes, this is a very good project for me to be involved with.

Yeah. I read it, of course, with me in mind when someone sends me a script and says, I want you to play Max in this movie. So then you, of course, you visualize yourself playing that character and the way it's written and all that stuff. But to me, the important thing is always how great is the action in the script? How great is the story itself? Does it have any emotional value? The way it goes up and down the emotions and all that? Does it have any sense of humor in there? And this is a story that will sell worldwide because I'm not interested in just doing a project for one country, let's say America. To me, that is great to entertain the American people as my number one goal because that's where most of the money is in box office, on TV, and so on. But I also have to think at the same time about, is this something that will sell well in South Africa or in the Middle East or in Australia or in Asia and stuff like that. So I always tried to think, and I've always been a global person because in bodybuilding you travel around the world, so I always felt like I should entertain the world, not just one country.

And I think it used to be back in the '70s and '80s or in the beginning of the '80s, the studio is always frowned upon that idea because they said the only three places that are important are America, Japan, and Germany. That's where we sell most of our tickets. And I said, Well, I said, but it's a limited way of thinking because you should actually groom the audience in other countries as well, and not just get stuck with those three countries. And they didn't understand it when I said I want to do Conan the Barbarian. I want to promote it in 10 different countries. They said, Well, we don't have 10 countries to go to. I said, Bullshit. Is it created? I said, The movie is coming out in France. The movie is coming out in England, in Germany, in Austria, in Holland, in Finland, in Denmark, in Sweden, in Italy, in Spain, and all those places. They said, So I want to go there, and I want to promote myself, and I want to promote the movie.

And.

They said, Well, no actor has ever done that. I said, Well, I care what some actor did or not did. I said, I always break new grounds. I said, That's my mission in life. I never wait for someone else to show me the way. I said, I show the way.

And.

So they sent me to those countries. And then afterwards, when I came back, they said, Oh, my God, this is amazing. We doubled the income that the ticket sales that we thought we're going to make because you were there in those countries. I said, Well, hello, of course. And so I always promoted my movies internationally, and I always looked at it as an international marketplace, rather than just domestic marketplace. And I think it all has to do with that I was more international thinking coming from Europe, from Austria. Number two, because I studied economics in college and it was very clear that there is a growing international marketplace and everything, and that we would be in a global economy eventually. And so this was not in the '70s I'm talking about, and exactly that's the direction we went. And so I'm so happy that they did travel around internationally and promoted my movies. The same as with the book, the useful, the same thing. I go to England, I go to other countries, Germany, to Austria and stuff like that to promote the book internationally because I wanted to sell internationally.

Yeah. This has been incredible, Arnold. It's like a thrill for us. Everyone should go buy your book, Be useful, Seven tools for life. We had a couple of last quick questions. I'll do the rowback question real quick. Rhobacq. Com, use promo code take. Twenty % off your first purchase. Q zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, everything. Great workout gear. Rowback. Com, promo code take. Maybe this has been done, but this is just an idea, free idea for you for a documentary, which everyone should go watch your documentary that came out a few months ago. But Schwarzenegger versus Stalone was one of the best rivalries because the world just got bigger movies and bigger guns and more action. The fact that you guys ended your rivalry by investing in a planet Hollywood together is the most 90s story possible. Maybe we get that. Would that be? It was a fun time. Do you look back on it even though there was some real bad blood? Look back on it and be like, That was good for the audience.

Well, it was also good for us.

Yeah.

Remember that the Stalone, by being so good made me better. So he gets like a competition. If you go to the Olympics and you're the only one that is running the 100-meter sprint, you're not going to get the performance out of it as if a bunch of guys are chasing you. And so it's always the competition that creates performance. And so Ceylon, by being good, it made me better, and by me getting better, it made him better. And so we drove each other up and up and up and up in making more and more money in the box office, using bigger and bigger knives, killing more and more people on the screen, and using bigger and bigger guns and all this crazy stuff. But one thing was always clear, they'd be respected each other.

I.

Always respected him for his talent he had in directing, his talent he had in writing, his talent he had in acting and in all of those, and also in painting and other things like that. And he respected me. Now, of course, when we did our Planet Hollywood deal and we became partners in the Planet Hollywood deal, then we really started hanging out together, flying around the world and promoting the restaurant chain. And we had a great, great time. We became great friends.

We need the documentary. We need the documentary.

I don't know how many debates have happened all over America back in 1994. Arnold Schwartz, I think, you could kick Sly Stalone's ass. No, we couldn't. That was actually a talking point that we would have. We'd sit down and debate that. For the record, I think you would have kicked his ass. Yes. Yes. Yes. I'm going to take.

That as a yes. I'm going.

To take that as a yes. He would have had a great battle.

Yes. Was there a movie where you went to and you're watching Sly and you're like, You know what? That is a very cool gun that he has. I need to make a note of that. We need that gun with modification when I come back in my next film because I can't let him outgun me.

Well, every movie that Sly did, I just watched it a few times and then I just called the guys, the prop guys and the movie on my next movie and said, Okay, watch this movie and get me bigger guns. That's incredible. I said it was not even a modification. I remember that Sly and Rambo ran around with a gun, a machine gun on his arm. And I said, Guys, I want a machine gun that is mounted on a tank or that is mounted on a helicopter that I am using. And so that's exactly what they then created. That's awesome. It was total madness. I called the prop guy and said, What a knife did you use in this movie? And they said, Well, it was like a 12-inch blade. I said, Yeah, I want to have a 24-inch blade. He said, Fuck it. It was always like outdoing each other. I think that was the fun of it all.

Yeah, Iron truck.

Is iron. Yeah, it's great. Well, Arnold, thank you so much. One anecdote, I did actually meet you at one point in 2014. It's probably one of my favorite brushes with a celebrity story that I tell. I saw you in Santa Monica outside of a hotel, and I asked you for a picture and you smiled and said, Sure, no problem. Then just didn't break stride and got right in your car. I was like, That was the coolest thing ever. We never got the picture, but it was awesome.

Well, I mean, but that's interesting because when I say, Yes, you can take the picture, then you just go and have to take it. Because if you would stop every single time, I can't get to.

My car. Yes, it was perfect.

There are some people that get with the program right away. They walk in front of me, have the camera, and then they just take a picture of us together as we walk and then they get the picture. But the people would say, Oh, he didn't stop. Well, he didn't say stop. He said, Can I take a picture? And I said, Yes, you can take a picture, but he didn't say stop and take the picture because I was a bit upset here. No, let's walk and take the picture. You can do two at the same time. Yeah.

No, I loved it. I loved every second.

Of it. The next time you come out here, I will not stop either, but then just to-.

Yeah, I'll run with you.

Yeah. We walked together.

Yeah. I really did. I told everyone it. I was like, But that was the coolest thing ever because he was so effortless. You were just like, Sure, no problem. And just kept on going. I was like, That was awesome. I love Arnold.

That's funny. It's very funny. Anyway, it was great to talk to you guys. You're doing a great job. Keep it up, okay? And we do it.

Again, hopefully. Yes, we'll come visit you. We'll come and do it in person next time. Good. You get a workout in. How about that?

And you come to Coach gym?

Yes. Done.

You'll be doing a show at a Coach gym.

I love it. We absolutely will do it. Yes. I'm in 100%. All right. Thank you so much, Arnold. Okay, let's wrap up with Firefest of the week brought to you by our friends at Rowback. Pft is wearing the Rowback hoodie right now. Rowback. Com promo code take. Use it right now 20 % off your first purchase. Ques, this polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, everything rowback. Com. It is the best clothes out there, most comfortable clothes out there. Rowback. Com promo code take. My rowback question of the week is PFT, what's your Firefest?

Oh, good question. My Firefest of the week is, I've been on an extended trip here. I went home, Northern Virginia, for Christmas. Now I'm out in Arizona. I've been traveling around a lot, driving, staying in different places. I packed at the last minute when I left initially to go to Virginia. I thought I threw in everything that I needed for this trip, but as well as I do when you pack for a trip, you always forget one item. What would be the one item that you would want to make double sure that you packed enough of?

Yeah, you went robot voice there. Say it again.

What would be the one item that you would want to make doubly sure that you packed enough of?

Underwear.

Underwear. Yeah, correct, underwear. I believe I packed five pairs of underwear, and I just grabbed a whole bunch of them. I was like, This seems like the right amount of underwear. As of right now, as I'm speaking, I'm out of underwear, so I have to try to go find some more underwear tomorrow to buy. That's been a pain in the ass. Also, I realized on this trip just how out of shape I am. I'm going to chalk some of it up to altitude because I went up to the Grand Canyon a couple of days ago. Did a hike. Grand Canyon, fantastic. Awesome. Five stars, five balls. Tremendous review for the Grand Canyon. Great job, God. I walked. I did a four-mile hike. You go down and I went down about two miles and I was like, Oh, this is pretty easy. Two miles, this is nothing. I'm barely even sweating right now. I turned around and started to walk back up. After about, I'd say, 30 seconds, I realized what a big mistake I'd made not factoring that going uphill is going to be way, way harder than going downhill. My lower body has completely revolted against my upper body and it's more like first day of squat.

So I'm in bad physical shape right now, but I also did get to say to myself, Well, I can eat whatever I want. So I'm going to eat a bunch of steak, get that protein in. So I'm out of shape. And then I'm also getting fatter because I'm eating more because I think that I just worked out when in reality I did a normal workout. And now I'm like, Oh, that was such a hard workout that now I get to treat myself. So double whammy.

That is a double whammy. I have a reverse for you for the underwear thing. And this shouldn't be a complaint, but it is because I'm just going to complain about it. I'm also in Arizona, and I took my family down here for the week because I was like, if I have to work during Christmas, New Year's week, I don't want to be away from my family for a whole week when we have a week off. So we're all down here and we got here and there's a washer and dryer in the place that I rented. That's also a really bad feeling because being like, I could have just worn the clothes I wore. I could have just not packed. I would have just not packed. I overpacked by so much. I'm a simple guy. I could have done a backpack and I would have just done the laundry like twice and I would have been fine.

You do a load every night.

Really, if you have a washer and dryer, you need maybe three pairs of underwear and then one pair of pants and two sweatshirts and you're good.

Yeah, it's very true. I've thought about doing the hotel laundry concierge thing, and then you look at the price for those and it's like, I could do four days of laundry and that's going to run me like 200 bucks.

Yeah, you could just buy new underwear for.

Like- I'm going to buy new underwear, or at the very least, turn the ones that I have inside out.

Yeah, no problem. All right, my Firefest, it's something that happens every time around this year, but it is going to be January first. Diet does start on Tuesday. And then PFT, I don't know if you've thought about this, but I have the double whammy of our birthday month is coming up, and it's our last birthday in our 30s. I am trying to tell myself that when I turn four, I have to turn 40 in good shape, in the best shape of my life. This is basically, diet starts tomorrow on steroids.

It's everything. Your life starts tomorrow.

My life starts tomorrow. I've told myself I'm going to turn 40 when I turn 40, and we're not turning 40 for another 13 months, so please don't say that we're 40 at the end of January this year. But when I turn 40, I would like to be in good shape because I feel like once you turn 40, it's like, what shape you're in at 40 is what shape you're going to be in for the next 20 years. I know that doesn't make sense, but that's just what I've told myself. I'm going to put in a very concerted effort starting on Tuesday. I want everyone to please be supportive of me. Max and I have a lifting plan we're going to get into. Max, you know we're doing that. We're actually going to start that Monday, Max. Just so you know. Love it.

I don't know if I'll be there in time on Monday, but Tuesday I'm in.

All right, we're going to start on Tuesday. Yeah. Let's not go ahead.

Of schedule here. That's fine. I've taken a little bit of the opposite approach to it where I've always thought that nothing that you do before you're 40 really matters. Once you're 40, you're an adult. You're right. If you turn 40 and you're not in good shape, nobody ever gets in great shape after they're 40 unless they're one, divorced or two, like a former funny, chubby actor that then converts into being like a superhero actor. Then you can get in really good shape. But besides that, you don't really clean your life up that much in terms of your physique. But I also just think that when you're 40, that's when you're grown up. That's when your health starts to matter to you. I look at my 39th year as being like, This is the last hurrahout, like get it all out of your... Do all the drugs in the next year. And then you turn 40 and then boom, adult.

Okay. All right. Maybe I'll go with that method. I just, I feel like I've... Okay, yeah, I like that better.

It's easier, right? We're still kids, Big Cat.

We are still kids. We could still get arrested and people would be like, Well, they're just kids.

Yeah, they're just rascals. We have one more year of being a rascal.

I remember I had a buddy who got arrested when we were maybe 23 and it was just like, We're not kids anymore. You can't get arrested in your 20s and be like, It's just kids being kids.

The type of crime really matters. You can't get a drunk in public after you're 30. Yeah. But if you're in your 20s, then it's like, okay, they're still figuring out how all that works. But yeah, I'm just going to tell myself I got one more year being a kid. Just a kid.

By the way, before we kick to the lottery ball, we got breaking news. Our aforementioned friend, Sam Schwartz, just sent us a video, PFT, of a drunk Browns fan leaving the stadium. His customized jersey is Skidmark. I just tweeted, and I don't know where this guy is, I don't know what his life is about, but I just tweeted that if the Browns get to the Super Bowl, Skidmark is getting one of the tickets from me and you.

Okay, that's fair. I think that's fair. It'll be Skidmark and that other drunk Browns fan.

The drunk guy, yes. Yes, yes. Skidmark and the drunk guy. And what makes this video- I had a lot of people tweet me the Leo meme on Tuesday when you said the drunk Browns fan is getting a ticket.

What makes this video so much better is that he's being carried by his buddy, rocking at Trent Richards in Jersey.

Yes. Oh, man, Skidmark, Browns fans rule. Congrats to the Browns in the playoffs. Okay, that was the conclusion of the Zoom show. We'll see everyone back in studio on Tuesday. We will have a show, so we're going to recap everything from the weekend. Please do tune into the Barstool Arizona Bowl on Saturday. Thank you for everyone for being patient with a couple of Zoom shows. We don't love to do them, but we had to do them this week. We did tape a lottery ball, so we have a lottery ball. Let's kick it to ourselves with a lottery ball. Okay, last of the year.

Numbers- Eight.

Eighteen. 40. 71. 23.

28, pull.

Twenty-eight, pun.

Twenty-eight, pun. Give me that eight.

Give me that eight. Long way here. It's like the.

Ball waiting for the ball.

To drop.

Fitting.

10, 9.

8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

-7, 6, 5, 4, 4, 3, 2, 1.

-thanks.

Sir. His name is on the episode.

-happy New Year. -9. -oh. -9.

-use.

That was thrilling.

I like that. Love you guys.

See you.

Next year. I'll be.

Coming for you, love of day. -i'll be coming for.

You, love of day. -i'll be coming for you, love of day. Be gone me. Take me up. I'll be gone. And I don't want to. I don't want to. Needless to say, but I'm all.

The same as Bucky stolen away. The villain.

Of life is okay, say it to me.

It's no better to be safe and sorry to be safe and sorry to be safe and sorry to be safe and sorry to be safe and sorry to be safe and sorry. Take on me. Take me on me. I'll be gone.

Me take.

Me on. I'll be gone. Jim Daffigin here with some more straight talk. Now you.

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