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On today's part in my take, we have an awesome, awesome interview with NFL reporter Diana Rossini, friend of the show, also has done some incredible airplane reporting that we will talk about with her. We talked to her on Wednesday last week at the Combine in person. She brought two sodas Max. I thought that was very nice. She brought two sodas. Great interview. We're going to talk some NFL transactions that have happened. We have a hot seat, cool throne. Hank's number 10 on his top 10 Patriots list, which actually this is where it gets fun because You're going to leave someone out. Then we have Pardon Your Take, a great Wednesday episode for everyone. It's brought to you by our friends at DraftKings. Get in on the action with DraftKings' Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. New customer Owners who deposit $5 or more can get a no-sweat bet up to $1,000 back in a bonus bet. What's a no-sweat bet? It's just like getting an offensive board. Miss your first shot, you get another opportunity to score with a bonus bet back. We have some NBA action coming up this week, some big games.

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Issued as one bonus bet equal to amount of initial losing bet and expires 168 hours after issuance. See dkng. Com/dkn. Promos for deposit, wagering, and eligibility restrictions, terms, and responsible gaming resources. Okay, let's go. It's a card in the street there is violence, and then a lot of work to be done. No place to hang out or watching, and then I can't lay all on the It's Part of My Take, presented by Trey Crivenou. And then we'll take it higher. Oh, we're going to rock down to electric avenue. And then we'll take it higher. Oh, we're going to rock down to electric avenue. It's a card in my take, presented by Trey Crivenou. Welcome to Part of My Take, presented by DraftKings Sportsbook. Go download it right now. You can get a no sweat bet with the code take up to $1,000 back in a bonus bet DraftKings Sportsbook. Today is Wednesday, March sixth, and I have a very important question for you, PFT. I have a very important answer. Okay. Should we feel bad for a man who's getting paid $39 million to not work? No. Are you talking about Hank? I'm talking about Hank.

No, I don't feel bad for Hank. I'm talking about Russell Wilson. Russell Wilson has been cut by the Denver Broncos. We all expected it.

That's the dream.

Anytime a coach gets bought out, anytime a quarterback gets cut, and they've got this big dead cap hit.

Yeah, I would love to get paid millions of dollars to not work anymore.

That is truly, schools should teach classes.

If you want to prepare young children for how to succeed in America, teach them the best ways to get paid a fuck load of money and to not have to work at their job. But with all that comes the territory of being maybe the worst NFL trade of all time. Herschel Walker has always been the gold standard. Or sorry. Yeah, no, Herschel Walker, right?

Herschel Walker.

The Cowboys' dynasty was started with that That trade. But Russell Wilson's trade, when looking back on it, the Broncos gave up two first-round picks. I think they gave up, what, a second-round pick? Two second-round picks, a fifth-round pick. Drew Locke, Shelby Harris, Noah Fant, and they got back Russell Wilson in a fourth-round pick, and then they signed Russell Wilson to a $242 million contract, and he played for the Broncos for two terrible years.

And yeah, I think it might be one of the worst trades in sports history. I think there was a fleecing. It was. The Seahawks won this trade. We can officially declare that now. It was still up in the air, but now we can say, Yeah, the Seahawks, you dominated the Broncos.

Congratulations. It's another win on your schedule. For Russ Wilson, I think you asked me at the end of the season, over under, Russell Wilson starts 17 and a half more games. I still take the over on it. I think that there's going to be a team out there that's going to sign him to be a starting quarterback next season. It might be a team, probably a team that's not very good. But I do think that he's going to start next season. He's going to start-Oh, he's cheap now. Can they sign him for nothing? Yeah, they can sign him for pretty much nothing. You could sign Kirk Cousins, or you could sign Russell Wilson for 5% of what you're going to pay Kirk Cousins. I still would probably want Kirk Cousins.

You think 5% of Russell Wilson or 5% of Kirk Cousins is better than 100% of Russell Wilson? Yes. I don't think Russell Wilson is good anymore. I think he's an average quarterback. I think in the right system, he could thrive. I think he's... Yeah, the number one defense. He's a weird guy. That's the thing. You can overlook signing a weird guy if he's going to be good, but Russell's goodness, his talent, is no longer to the point where it outweighs just what a bizarre human being he is. I just don't know where that team is going to be to sign him as a starter.

When you look at who's got openings- The Raiders.

Yeah, but are they going to draft someone? Obviously, whatever, three, four, five of the openings will be filled by someone who's drafted coming up in a month. Then you've Kirk Cousins, Justin Fields, where he goes. I just don't know where Russell Wilson fits in in these musical chairs.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I just think a team will sign him No doubt.

I don't know if they'll be like, You're guaranteed starter.

Yeah. What about a team that's probably going to draft a quarterback and could use some veteran leadership?

Do you want that type of leadership, though? Weird leadership? Leadership to where? Yeah, it's weird leadership. He's a Super Bowl winning QB. That's a fact. True. Yeah. I don't know where he fits in.

Maybe I'm wrong. I think there'll be a team that takes a chance. I'm like, If you were to tell me that the Steeler signed him, I would not be surprised by that. But he wouldn't be guaranteed starter. He wouldn't be guaranteed starter? Probably not. No, it'd be in a QB competition. He might win the job. If he signed with the Raiders, I think he'd probably be guaranteed starter. Yeah. I could see- What about the Dolphins? As a backup? Yeah. I don't think... If you're Russ Wilson, would you want to backup? For the Dolphins? I don't think you get to decide.

I don't think you get to decide if you're Russ Wilson right now.

But he might. But Russ might be at the point where if he's not guaranteed a starting job, he might just retire.

Like Russell Wilson with Mike McDaniel, obviously, he'd be a backup.

But... Fireworks. Maybe the Giants. Did you see the report Rich Eisen said that the Giants are done with Daniel Jones?

He said the two words that are being used with Daniel Jones is buyer's remorse. Yikes. At the time, I think Leroy, his ghost might have actually broken the news of his contract. That might be his final scoop. But when Daniel Jones signed with the Giants, I think all of our reaction was the same, which is like, this is a case where you should pay your running back.

You should franchise tag your quarterback. Yeah, because you had a history of a guy who had a very good year when they went to the play house, where it was two years ago, and you essentially said, This is who he is now, not the other four years. Let's bank on him being the same guy and have this not be an anomaly. Yeah. Yeah, he had a great year, and he stayed healthy that year, which he normally doesn't do.

Then you paid him like he was a healthy, good quarterback, which I guess he was in the most recent season that you saw him. But then you sit back and be like, Well, the other seasons weren't so good, so we're not going to pay you. They just didn't want him to hit the free market.

In retrospect, maybe drafting a quarterback in the top 10 because he reminds you physically of your previous quarterback was not the best idea for your general manager. But I think actually, Saquan is an interesting dude that's going to be a free agent because I actually I would pay him if I was a GM.

I wouldn't treat him like the other runningbacks that are going to be out there. I'd be like, Saquan deserves a big contract, I think. We have some runningbacks in DC. I wouldn't mind Saquon Barkley in DC. I think everyone would want Saquon. I think Jerry Jones would probably want Saquon Barkley in Dallas. Yeah. I think that'd probably be a pretty good fit. So one last question about Russell Wilson before we talk about some other stuff. I do have a small part of me that feels bad for him, and I know that's He's crazy. He's made millions of millions of dollars. He's getting paid $39 million to do nothing this year. If he chooses to do nothing, he'll obviously be on the team. But at what cost? You've basically become a joke to the NFL, and everything that happened at the beginning of your career, which was phenomenal, is somewhat tarnished by what happened in Denver because it was just an abject failure.

Then on top of all of that, you have being part of one of the worst trades in NFL history. There's a small part of me that feels bad because I bet you if you hit Russell Wilson with some true serum, he'd be like, Yeah, the money is awesome, but I really wish that I wasn't a joke. Yeah, maybe, but also at the end of the day- Also Malcolm Butler. Also Malcolm Butler. At the end of the day, you're married to Sierra. You've got more bathrooms than a number of times. You've probably had to piss in the last year. Yeah, true. Things are pretty good if you're Russell. Yeah, they're good. But at the end, it's one of those deep down, your head hits the pillow late at night, you're like, Man, I wish that didn't all happen the way it did.

Things were pretty good in Seattle for me.

I had a fan base that loved me no matter what I did.

That would have let you age poorly and still stuck by you. Giving you a hero's retirement ceremony. Yeah. It would have been good. It would have been good for Russ to stay in Seattle.

But I do think that there's going to be a couple of GMs out there that want Russell Wilson. They're like, I can bring back Russ.

I can fix him. I'm going to let Russ cook. But then I think the What do you think if we're doing dominoes, if we're talking about quarterback dominoes? Because there's three big domino pieces. What is the first domino? Kirk Cousins. Kirk Cousins. Who reportedly is thinking about moving to Atlanta. Yeah. Per Mike Florio, a pro football talk, not fan This is a fiction? Mike Florio had some words for you, Hank. This is a fan fact. He was not happy last night. I'm going to pull up the tweet, Mike Florio was not happy, and the first person I thought of was you, Henry Lockwood, because you've been giving him a hell of a time online. Hell of a time. Read I mean, there's like many shows do interviews. I don't know that that's proof of anything.

Okay. That was the weirdest flex I've ever seen. He had two flexes. Okay, hold on. I actually thought that his Caleb Williams flex is pretty good the other day on Friday.

Oh, he's been texting me being like, I'm so mad the bears are going to be good. I'm like, I feel like you're tricking me.

Yeah, I'm going to pull up the Caleb Williams one.

He said last night, To the folks who try to dismiss our reports by saying we have no sources or whatever, you realize we had like 50 guests on our show last week from Indy, You realize pretty much everyone in the league reads PFT, right?

You realize I've been doing this for 23 years, right? I actually didn't realize most of that. Yeah, exactly, because you're a Mike Florio hater. But everyone reads PFT. That's subjective. Well, here's the thing everyone in the league does.

Having 50 guests. Okay. Here's where Florio- You're on a radio row.

You probably pulled the vendors off the street.

We're like, Hey, how's the popcorn selling?

I'm going to back our guy Florio for a second because he's in that weird gray area where you have the Shefties and the Ian Rapports who will just trade news.

They have news.

They'll give you the news. There's not opinion. Florio adds his opinion. So people then take it as, Well, he's making things up, and it's fan fiction. Florio is still doing reporting like Shefti and Rapport. He just has a little more personality behind what he's writing and saying, This may happen, this isn't happening. Here's a fun hypothesis. Florio is great for what we do because he throws out ideas and things that could potentially happen that get everyone's brain churning, not just this guy got traded or this guy signed or this guy got cut. I think where people get confused, though, is because with Rappaport and Schefter and Diana, they report facts. So when they're reporting something, you just assume it's a fact because they're tweeting it. Florio does that, but then also speculates. So sometimes people are confused where they're like, Is this a fact?

Well, you I got to know your source. It's Florio sometimes, especially in the dog days of the NFL calendar year where there's not a lot happening, that's when Florio, his mind starts to wander a little bit. And he starts connecting the dots and doing the tea leaves and all that stuff.

And that's fun. But when it comes time to analyze players' contracts and salaries and predict what's going to happen, he's a lawyer, so he is able to decipher some of the bullshit that's put out there, I think a lot better than a Schefter would. I like Florio. I always say this. He is more more like Barstool than he thinks, where, again, Schefter and Rapport are just driven by scoops, driven by getting reports. Floreo is driven by page views, so he knows that- You're saying he's doing click bait?

I disagree. To an extent, He knows dog days of summer, let me just write some crazy shit and people are going to click. But I don't think- Fact or fiction? Fiction. That's fan fiction. You're doing fan fiction on your part.

You're fan fiction on him. You're fan fictioning him.

This is Hank Florio. We've all seen the picture. You're at it again, Hank. What Florio does, I don't think he does it for clicks.

No. I actually think that the clicks... No, no. Shut the fuck up for a second, Hank. I think that the clicks happen to be a nice byproduct of what he does. I just think that Florio gets crazy sometimes, and he puts these dots together that sometimes don't end up happening, but he does it to entertain himself and because he believes that he might be right. He also- It's informed speculation. I don't think Florio ever writes something just being like, There's no truth behind this. Let me just throw this out there. He actually does have colonels of truth that end up being popcorn.

He does hypotheses. Yeah, either way. I like Florio. I'm not a Florio hitter. Your entire life is a hypothesis. I know. My old point is we're more alike. Sometimes I just think he likes to get mad and be like, How can people not take me seriously?

So he thinks Kirk Cousins-He's the best in the biz. He thinks Kirk Cousins is making some family plan to move his family and his team down to Atlanta.

Yeah. I don't know what that could possibly be. Is he trading all of his sweaters at Cole's? Yeah. He's getting T-shirts now. He's getting just warmer clothes. My first thought was this is like a kids enrolling in schools thing. It seems like it's-Looking house hunting. House hunting. Zillow. His wife is down there. Someone's friend's cousin is a real estate agent in Buckhead, and she's actually taken a meeting with Kirk's wife. Kirk was spotted in Magic City last weekend behind the curtain, sampling the wings.

I mean, the Falcons would be… If they sign Kirk Cousins, I would definitely pick them to win the NFC South. What are the odds right now?

What are the odds on the Falcons winning the NFC? Can we look ahead at that?

I don't know. Jay, can you look that up? Either way, Kirk Cousins, domino one. Domino one. I think Justin Field is domino two. I agree.

I think… Jimmy Garoppolo. Remember him? Remember Jimmy? No. Then I think Well, the other dominoes are draft picks. Then Russell Wilson.

It probably will go sequentially. He'll probably get signed before the draft picks.

But I wouldn't be shocked if a team signs Russell Wilson, then still draughts a quarterback.

They do the old Andy Dalton.

Russ is our quarterback.

Also- Mike Lennon had that happen to him with Mitch. Yeah. Also, here's Jaden Daniels. Mike Lennon threw out the first pitch, and everyone was like, Mike Lennon time. Like, it's Mitch. What you got, Jake? Plus 1400 doing the NFC, Atlanta. I still don't like it.

It's right in the middle of the pack. I like it. With Kirk.

Just based on the speculation of Kirk.

The Vikings are plus 2000. So another Florio tweet, We just spent 10 minutes with Caleb Williams.

Condolences to the Vikings, lines, and packers.

This guy is the real deal, and the bears will have their first franchise quarterback since Sid Luckman. Yeah, no, he's jinksing. That felt mean.

We can't get into specifics for now.

We're getting very credible indications that Cousins is seriously considering movies family to Atlanta. Yeah. You know what the original Magic said he was. We can't get into specifics for now. I could say that about anything.

I'm being like, Well, can't get into specifics.

It was Bethlehem. Well, he can't get into specifics.

I believe him on this one. Okay. But I can see why some people would be like, How can we take this seriously?

By the way, We screwed up on Sunday.

We should have mentioned- I forgot.

Well, I guess I would say that, and then I'd be like, Wait, he had 50 interviews Super Bowl week, so it got to be a shit.

Well, it was combine week, actually.

Combine week. Yeah. Chris Mortensen passing away was sad.

Mort was the original. He was the original newsbreaker. He was the guy who created basically the idea of NFL news.

I don't think that there was ever a sports, like an NFL reporter that was on television before Chris Morton. Yeah. As a feature of a show. He seemed like a great guy. I never got the chance to meet him.

I don't know if you have-No, I didn't. But he seemed from what everybody else has said, he seemed like an outstanding human being. Yeah. You could tell just by the outpouring of people saying their stories about him and everything, he was just beloved by everyone. It makes me think sometimes, how much hate do you think we'll get when we die versus love?

Because definitely, we'll still be some hate. I don't like to joke about death on the show, Big Cat. Yeah, that's true. John your Purple Gloves. John cena. It'll be love. But there'll be some hate, too. When Big Cat dies, somebody's going to post the Taylor Swift video.

Yeah. Be like, This fucking asshole. Hope he burns in hell.

It'll just be like, Thank God there's one less man on the planet.

Yeah. This is what unhealthy does. I knew this was happening. Yeah.

Yeah, all those donuts we should have known.

It'll be some of that. Shout out to Mort because I think the diagnosis of his throat cancer, which is a super aggressive type of cancer, was that like 2015?

It was a long time ago.

2016? Yeah. And so he lived for what? Nine years, eight years after that. I don't know. It's a very sad day. It was sad seeing the tributes because people that you watch on TV all the time that are always having a good time joking around laughing. They were on the verge of tears talking about this guy. I wish I got the chance to meet him, and he seemed like just a cool dude. Isn't it weird to think, though? It's morbid, but we'll eulogize each other. If one of us dies first, Hank, if you died, PFT and I would have to do...

We would be part of the eulogies, right? Who gets to decide that? Dibbs. No, I think it's the family decides, but I think they'd be like, PFT and Big Cat, you guys should say something. There's multiple eulogies. Yeah, of course.

If I died, PFT would definitely eulogize me.

He would be part of the eulogy. I don't know if you... You would probably procrastinate until the last second. You should be like, This is worse than doing the stand-up comedy. I think that if Hank dies, he should have died. Memes should eulogize him. Oh, man. Memes. Well, man, if Hank dies, we need to remake it. The stand-up comedy was good.

We need to remake the picture of showing up to my haters funeral and just have Max in the picture.

That'd be great. That would be memes. It would be memes. It would be, yeah, it'd be memes and Max. If Dave eulogized you, he would just talk about how you were a ticket taker. Be like, Hank would still be taking tickets right now. I think I would have to give a eulogy for Dave, right?

Yeah. Like one of them. Oh, no, Ms. Peaches, what'd you do?

Thankfully, he's dead. He can't complain about his shoulder anymore. That would rock. Ms.

Peaches, there's bite marks on his throat. Oh, no. Ms.

Peaches rocks. She's very cute. The fact that she looks like a peach.

Yeah. It takes it to the next level. It's the best life hack ever.

If you're naming a dog, if you name your dog after a noun, it's awesome. If you name your dog after noun and put Mr.

Or Ms. In front of it as the noun. It becomes cuter. It's perfect. Mr. Biscuit. Jason and Kelsey retired. Max thought we were going to lead the show with that. Probably should have led the show.

Probably should have led the show. Well, I think, shout out to the Kelsey brothers. He's becoming a full-time podcaster right now, which I think he's going to find out is a lot harder than playing football.

Max. But they've done a very good job of playing the game, and they do a good job on the podcast. It's a very funny show and a good show, but they also know how to play the game. When you got Travis dating the most famous person in the world, it tends to help with ratings. When you got the other guy being shirtless on TV, chugging beers all the time, winning football games, it helps with the ratings. So we need Hank. What do we say, Hank was going to date Beyoncé? Yeah. Hank will date Beyoncé. And then I think that, Max, you give your thoughts on Jason Kelsey as Jason Kelsey. You can just be Jason Kelsey for a minute. Yeah. No, I will do anything to emulate Jason Kelsey and his life for the rest of time.

He was an all-time dude in terms of NFL lore, six-round pick, incredible mainstay of the Eagles this past whatever decade plus, where they've gone to a Super Bowl, won a Super Bowl, gone to a bunch of big games. He's the guy. Were you sad? Did you tear up a little? Also, his speech was great. Actually, let me ask you this first. Some haters out there... I have. I know where you're going with this, and it is disgusting. I agree with you, but some haters, I'm not one of them.

One hater. One hater out there was commenting on the fact that he didn't put on sleeves.

It's his own thing. Yeah, I agree. He can choose whatever the fuck he wants. I agree.

If he was going to Travis's retirement day and everyone else was dressed as nice and he wore no sleeves, then yes, I could see I would be disrespectful. It's your thing. You choose the rules. Who is this hater? He sounds like a real loser. Yeah, he was.

It was an all-time ratio. Yeah. Who was it?

It was Rico.

Oh, no. Really? Yeah.

He's like, Can't put on the sleeves.

I honestly didn't know that.

Max did ratio the fuck out of it. Ratio him to hell. But yeah, it was a great speech. It was a great speech. He hit everything. He talked about nick Foles dick. What did you think? What was your takeaway? It was great.

It had everything. It was emotional. It was funny. It was a great walk. That was my dynasty documentary, just him going through each year by year of his career and the highs and the lows. I cried. It was a lot. It was very, very emotional. I was not expecting it to get that emotional right off the rip before he even gets a word out. It takes a good two minutes of him just bawling. He in his eyes. It was tough. He was Philadelphia. He is the most Philadelphia athlete I think that there's ever been. The fact that an offensive lineman was the face of Philly for so long was so big for the city. I think that him being gone is a real problem for the locker room. He was the leader for so long, and he was also just an unbelievable football player. Going out last year, first-team all pro, deserved first-team all pro. Changed Could have almost changed the game of football with the Touche Push. He's the best, best personality of all time. His Super Bowl speech will always be one of the best speeches of all time. He's the best. I'm going to miss him so much.

You bring up a good point, though. What happens with the Touche Push next year?

Are they going to run it? Yeah, they're still going to run it.

I don't think it'll be as successful as it was. Did you see the Wisconsin Center?

Actually, finally, someone broke the three cone. I think it was three cone drill that Jason Kelsey had the record for centers for whatever it was the last 13 years. So maybe you draft him. Good. That's fine. Passed the baton.

He definitely gave a blueprint for other Philadelphia athletes.

I feel like Bryce Harper, he wants so very badly to be what Jason Kelsey is. Nick Ceriani looks in the mirror and he sees Jason Kelsey. Yeah.

It's good to have a blueprint, though.

It's like you have somebody that everyone wants to emulate. If everybody could be Jason Kelsey, then you'd be very happy as a Philadelphia sports fan. Yeah.

Mount Rushmore of 6th-round picks. He's on it. He's the Mount Rushmore of eGles athletes.

Mount Rushmore of Eagles athletes. Yeah.

Mount Rushmore, six-round pick. It's Tom, Tom, Katie, Antonio Brown, Terrell Davis, and then Jason Kelsi. That's a good round. That's a great round. That's a great round. There's some great pics right there.

Yeah. Also, first-team, All-American beer drinker. Yeah. That dude loves beer. I love how much he loves beer. Yeah, he's the best.

Got to get him on the pod. We hung out with him once.

Yeah.

When?

Probably '17, 2016. Was it Chris's apartment?

It was Bo Allen's apartment. Oh, yeah. It was Chris Long, Bo Allen, and Jason Kelsi. We just hung out. Brent Selleck, too. Yeah, Brent Selleck, and we just hung out for, I don't know, three, four hours. It was awesome.

Drank beers. Great dude.

You didn't know that?

No, this is the first time hearing of this.

Have you ever hung out with him? No. Oh, no.

You know what?

I really- I'm actually surprised he didn't mention us in his speech. That was a great night.

It was a great hang. I hope so much that he hates Max. That would be so good, wasn't it?

Come on, don't say that.

That would-Well, you're appropriating his culture.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, his culture is not your costume, Max.

You just told me that I have to appropriate his culture.

You look like a guy that gets dressed. You look like a guy who's currently in costume on Halloween dressed up as slutty Jason Kelsey.

He grew out his hair whenever his hair was growing out. That's when I started to grow out my hair, and then I just never looked back.

You're very unsettling in a hat.

I just want to look like him. I want to be him.

Great hats They're going to be out on Thursday, the Just Cover hats. We got all new gambling merch for March Madness.

I don't look good in a hat. You don't look good in a hat. You will look better than me in this hat.

I told Max before we started that he looks like when Forrest Gump went on his cross country run, he just somehow got fatter. Yeah.

I mean-Well, we workshop that. I said I looked like Forrest Gump. You said you looked like If Forrest Gump got fatter. True.

It was a workshop.

It was a workshop. Yeah, credit to Max, actually.

Yeah, credit to me. It was a workshop. The fatter part was funny.

Okay, what else do we have before we get to Hank's number 10 Patriots?

I saw I was a pretty hilarious fan last night at the Clippers Bucks game. Did you see the guy from Taiwan? No. There was a guy that flew in from Taiwan, and he held up a poster that said, I flew 15 hours or whatever from Taiwan to see my favorite player, Russell Westbrook. Oh, no. Didn't play. Didn't play. Brought all his jerseys. The man was wearing 15 Russell Westbrook jerseys. Oh, my God. All on top of each other. And he started to take them all off, showing the different layers of Russell Westbrook.

But at least you got to see Giannis.

Yeah, at least he got to see Giannis, which is nice.

I thought you were going to say Yannis, and that would have... Because he got ruled out an hour before.

But he was definitely on a plane overseas, and the news broke that Russell Westbrook had a hand issue. That's brutal. That's a tough flight. That's a tough flight. You can't- And your bag is just filled with nothing but Russell Westbrook's. Yeah.

I think we're at the point, though, with the NBA, that you can't make a long flight to try to see your favorite player with any type of confidence anymore. No. It's on you.

You have to actually be in touch with the player before and let them know Hey, I'm considering spending $5,000 on this flight from Taiwan. Would you just promise me that you're going to play that game?

Yeah, you need to find a week where they're at home for a straight week and be like, I'm just going to take the whole week because then I might have a good chance of seeing my favorite player play.

Yeah, but I think, Hank, no disrespect. I know that I did crown the Celtics Eastern Conference champions. I think NBA champions on Monday's show. I think I'm going to ride on the box. I think I got to go with Pat Belt to Ass. Belt to Ass. Belt to Ass. Belt to Ass. They're just-Six and no. Last six. They're fucking people up. Ever since they got Galanari. They haven't lost a game since they got Galanari.

Is he playing?

I don't know.

I think so.

Celtic's a legend.

Yeah, I think he's playing.

Never played. Also, some other people would- The greatest rehab working out videos. Just skipping.

Yeah, he played last night. He played 17 minutes, four points.

Some people would just point to the fact that the All-Star break did happen, and they've just been good since the All-Star break.

But still.

But still, Galanari.

They have been good. Yeah, it was actually... No one cares about our bets, but I saw that Giannis was out, and I was like, I'm just going to bet Dame to score over 40. At plus 400. And then he did because it was game time. I like that. The Bucks have that situation. A lot of teams, Celtics have it, where their best player goes out. It's like, Well, the other guy is really fucking good. He's just going to score all the points, and we'll be fine. Okay, Hank, do you want to do your number 10 Patriot? Yep.

This is big. Yeah. Before you announced number 10, I want to give you just a little bit of background here.

Well, it doesn't matter because the list has already been locked in.

Yeah, I know. But we already went from what? 6 to number 1? Is that what we did, the top 6 or top 7? Yes.

So give us 6 through 1, and then we'll go back to 10.

Dante Hightower, 6. Tyla, 5. Julian Edelman, 4. Teddy Brusky, 3. Rob Gronkowski, two. Tom braided, one.

Okay, so when we left the combine on Thursday, I was hanging out with a couple of coaches and a couple of GMs, not to brag, but I got a big slap on my back. And before I turned around, I said to myself, That's a coach who's too big and intimidating to coach in the NFL anymore. I turned around and it was Mike Vrabel right there, and he was like, What's up, bitch? Which is the perfect Mike Vrabel way to say hello to you. The first thing that I talked to him about was the fact that you're doing your top 10 patriots of all time list, and you haven't announced numbers 10 through 7 yet. He said, Tell Hank, if I'm not on that list, I'm going to beat his ass. Just No pressure.

Well, it doesn't matter because the list is locked in. That was my point.

I can't retroact it.

I know, but just so you know, no pressure. I hope you put Vrabel on there because he's going to beat your ass.

I would love to watch that.

Dude, he would kick your ass.

He would fuck you up so bad. You'd be crying. You'd be bloody.

So would you.

Yeah, but I'd put him on my top 10 list. Yeah.

He doesn't want to beat my ass.

Who said I didn't?

Okay, so he was number 10?

With that being said, number 10, Randy Moss.

Randy Moss.

Yeah, only player on this list to not win a Super Bowl, but he was that good, that exciting record breaker.

Best receiver all time.

Best receiver of all time. When he came to the Patriots, they got him for nothing. People didn't have high expectations. Then game one, it was apparent like he was going to dominate, and that was the most fun season until it wasn't. But his years in the Patriots were so fun to watch. Him and Gronk are probably the most, obviously, braided, but receiver-wise, they were justUnstoppable.Unicorn.How.

Many Super Bowl?Two unicorns. How many Super Bowl do you think Tom braided would trade to get 19-0?

Two, probably. I think he said I could be wrong, but I think he said he would trade one or two just to have that one.

I had memory hold that one play at the very end of the first Giants Patriot Super Bowl where braided just chucks it downfield. He told Randy to reverse fields when he points at him, and the ball hit off Randy Moss's hands, and they would have been in field goal range. I'd completely forgotten about that play.

The thing with the time was, though, there was only 14, 12 seconds left. They were all the way on the other side of the field. They had no time out. It would have been-People posted a lot being like, What if caught this? I don't know that they would have gotten down the field and spiked it, but yeah.

It would have been electric, though. Tom braided would have run the fastest 40 of his life.

Yeah. He run a faster 40 now than he did when he was 22.

I saw that. Yeah, he beat himself.

I don't even know if they mentioned the record-breaking season in the documentary. I don't think they did.

Insane. Who's your honorable mention?

My honorable mention, Rodney Harrison.

Oh, okay. Rodney Harrison.

Great guy.

Great player. Didn't make the top 10. Yeah, he got no play in the dynasty documentary.

I think he talked about the helmet catch. They mentioned that.

Talk about the helmet catch, and then we'll just do one quick clip of you winning a Super Bowl.

My favorite thing about Rodney Harrison is when he gets on TV on Sunday nights, and he just talks about how dirty some of these players are and how much they should be suspended for their hits. It's like, This is Rodney Harrison telling you this. Rodney Harrison.

Okay, good job, Hank. Should we do Hot Sea, Cool Throne? Sure. Let's do Hot Sea, Cool Throne. It's brought to you by our friends of Proper 12 with a huge fight night this weekend in St. Patty, just around the corner. Time to grab a bottle or two of Proper Number 12 Irish Whisky. Proper Number 12 is a delicious blend of golden grain and single malt aged four years in bourbon barrels for a rich and smooth taste. As Proper 12 founder, Conor McGregor would say, Anything else just wouldn't be proper. Try the original Rich and Smooth Proper 12 Irish Whisky or New Crisp and Fresh Irish Apple. Smooth to the core. Perfect for St. Patrick's Day. A proper fight night starts with a proper Irish whiskey. The fight night, Pour the Roar with proper number 12. Pour the Roar. Order your bottle of proper number 12 Irish whiskey with Drizly today. It is delicious. Drink it all college football season when we're on set. And proper number 12 is the best whiskey, so go get it. Right now, stock up for St. Patrick's Day. Stock up for the big fight night on Saturday. Proper number 12, Pour the Roar and order your bottle of proper number 12 Irish whiskey with Drizzly.

Okay, Hank, Hot Seat Cool Thromb.

I have two Hot Seats. I'll elect to use one because I'm assuming one of you guys will have the other one. That's very nice of you. Thank you. So my Hot Seat is spring break.

Why?

Miami is opting out of spring break. Yeah. I don't know how that's going to work.

I saw the video.

But they made a video. Desantis was like, We're not... They made a video that was like, It's not you, it's me. We're breaking up a parody video of Miami residents, breaking up with spring break. Desanta said they have a bunch of security measures to stop it.

Yeah, they did this with PCB a few years ago where they stopped letting people drink on the beach, and then it just ended there.

The war against spring break is raging.

I was never a big spring break guy because I was too fat. Just having to take off your shirt for a whole week right after March Madness was always daunting. But for those who celebrate, I'm sorry for I never got to go on one. Max, were you agreeing with me there?

Yeah, I played baseball, so we had... Yeah.

It was always like, get in shape, or I could just stay in Madison and just drink and hang out. Then I would do the latter.

I did Panama City Beach one year, and Panama City Beach, it might be the worst city in America. It's just you leave the actual beach, and then you've got guys wearing Jinkos, riding a bicycle named Travis. Beating up future quarterback. Beating up future quarterbacks and trying to sell you Salvia on the street. Then there's an occasional preacher that pulls you signs like, I'll give you free pancakes if you listen to me preach to you. I'd take that deal. Yeah, I did. I actually did take that deal.worth it. I saw Woody Harrelson in a Waffle house in Panama City Beach one time. During spring break? During spring break. He was there eating by himself. Then as he was on his way out, this kid stopped him. He was probably like a nine-year-old kid. He was like, Hi, Mr. Harrelson. Then Woody asked his dad if they could go out to the parking lot so his son could ride on Woody Harrelson's bike. Then Woody just drove around the parking lot with this nine-year-old kid on a Harley Davidson, took a bunch of pictures, dropped him off and rode away. That's bad. Pretty legendary celebrity, yeah.

Yes. Okay, so spring break, out. Hot seat. Hot seat. Feel bad for the kids.

Although Miami spring break, I feel like it's not a college kid destination. I would agree with that.

Yeah, you got to go to Mexico.

Yeah, or you go- somewhere cheap.

Then you got to come back with all the bracelets of all the places you went to. Senior frogs. I went into Senior Frogs. I think there's one in Cabo, and we went in for one drink in the middle of the day, and it smelled like puke and spaghetti. I was like, Do not miss this.

Yeah, the good news is there's like 400 other beaches in Florida you can go to.

My cool throne is Having Nothing to hide.

Oh.

The commercial, I think we talked about it a few weeks ago.

Yeah, we really should have given people a warning about that commercial because it hit on a Monday morning and everyone was like, What is this?

We did a commercial where we're basically naked.

You guys came out great. That one side angle of just an upshot of my side boob, not great. I haven't seen the commercial.

I think I came out the worst. I look like two-dimensional.

I don't know.

Big Cat looks jacked, barrel chested. Can somebody send-Send the video because I haven't watched it.

I just walked by Max when he was editing something. Just our nude bodies were on his computer screen. Yeah.

Apologies to everyone for not giving you a heads up because you've probably seen it, especially if you're watching the podcast. Our bad. We should have been like, Hey, there's this new commercial. It's a great commercial. We love Body Armor. Also, shout out our Billboard.

Shout out Billboard on Randolph Street.

Hank's just fishing with Dynamite now.

Across from J. P. Graziano's Goodnight, John Boy. It's great.

You were at a bar on Friday night with the billboard out the window.

It's interesting that we put it outside your favorite bar.

Do you even say anything to girls?

No, I didn't mention it at all. I didn't even mention it at all.

You just keep nodding towards the window. Check it out.

Just yarning like, Oh, whoa. That's a cool billboard.

You're so lucky. Yeah.

Sorry about this video. I just watched it.

That's tough. Yeah. It was just the fact that it was a Monday morning and we didn't give anyone a prep. It's a great ad, gets people watching. Body Armors, we love Body Armors, but we should have been like, Hey, there's an ad coming out. You get to see. We all saw each other's cocks because they gave us the thinest see-through flesh-colored boxers. I think Did we talk about this on the show? But Hank's got a big cock. Pft's got big balls. I got nothing.

Well, yeah, I think we did because we showed up. It was a late Sunday night, still football season, and then we showed up 8:00 AM. They're like, Here's your costume. It was just a two-inch see-through, I don't even know, spandex boxers.

Yeah, it looked like we were all hiding different sizes of birds in our shorts.

Mine was like a small sparrow.

At one point, they were saying that was going to be the billboard, and we pushed back.

Yeah, I pretty much say yes to everything that's ever been asked of me in my career. I think that was the one time where I was like, and I think you guys played it correctly because you're like, let's let Big Cat decide this because he's the one who's going to look the worst.

No, I said I need to be in a bodysuit. No, what happened was somebody asked me, here's the idea for the billboard. You guys are all going to be nude, and you and Big Cat are going to be holding footballs in front of your crotches. And then Hank is going to be holding a golf ball in front of his. Oh, man. Blurring it out. And so I said, I'm down with that, but you might want to double-check with Hank that it's okay because Hank's the one that's going to have to live with that visual.

And I said, If I'll make a compromise, put me in the jacked body suit, and I'll do it. They're like, No.

No. I was like, All right. No matter who was going to have the tiny ball in front of our penis was going to end up being like, No, I don't want to do this billboard.

I actually think I'm less... If my penis is out there, I wouldn't really care. It's everything else. That sucks. I mean, the penis sucks, too, but at least I've told everyone it sucks.

Bad penis.

Yeah, right.

I mean, we're podcasters. What do you expect?

Yeah. Okay. Good Hot Seat, Cool Throne. Thank you.

My Hot Seat is Arch Manning.

Yes, I had that as well. Is that the one you had, Hank? Yeah.

Oh, thank you, Hank.

Good job, Hank.

Well, actually, my hot seat was NCAA football 2024.

Okay. Well, I'll just put Arch on the hot seat because he's not going to be. He's opted out of being in the new college football game. I don't really care, but it is very funny seeing people... Because if you just zoom out and look at what you're actually upset about, a lot of people are upset that a 20-year-old isn't going to be in their favorite video game.

Right. Initially, I was like, the story, and I don't know if it's fact, is like, I just want to focus on football. I have Arch Manning's back in that respect, because if you're in a football game, a video game, you're going to just play the video game as yourself all the time. Then someone pointed out that Arch Manning would be in it, and his rating would be like 65, and he'd be a backup. Also, the Manning name is worth a lot of money. Maybe that's why he did it. Then that, to me, is lame. He should just stick with... He should just do a press conference and be like, Listen, if you put me in the game, all I'm going to do is play the game. I don't want to do that. I want to focus on football because I actually buy that. If I were in a video game, I wouldn't be podcasting right now. I'd be just playing myself in the video game.

Let's reach a compromise, E. A. Sports, NCAA College football. Archmanning is not going to be in the game. However, don't put any filters or blocks on the game that prevent you from making Archmanning, creating your own Archmanning. I don't want the last name thing coming up be like, Sorry, this last name cannot be used. If it's just one player, then everybody should be able to make that one player and see you can make the best Arch Manning.

Yes, agreed.

I have another hot seat just real quick. Charlotte the Stingray still hasn't given birth. It's fucked up. I don't think that she's actually pregnant. I still think it was a lie. I've been on Stingray watch for the last three weeks. That bitch in pregnant. My Cool Throne is... I'm going to put Chris Clemer on the Cool Throne because I've been watching a solitary confinement stream for the last couple of days, and I think he was built for this. He seems to be having no problem whatsoever living in solitary confinement. It's insanely entertaining somehow. So shout out to Chris. He's a very strange human being. The strangest.

He chose to do this.

We had to do It was a 24-hour punishment, and I was thinking about it last night. We had games, we had each other, we had guests popping in. It was still one of the most miserable experiences of my life. I've been in jail with the braided Four, maybe nine hours where we were locked in a cell. Absolutely miserable.

Jail sucks. Put it on a quote card.

He just chose to do 100 hours. He was like, Oh, you know it'd be funny if I did 100 hours of. I completely respect it, but it's insane.

He's down for anything. Clemer's down for anything. If you build more people like Clemer at Barca, it would be great because he'll do anything. But I agree with you, Hank, when people are like, This is punishment. You got to stop this. It's like he decided. Yeah, it's his story. I think he's fine. Yeah, like PFT said, he's fine. He's just living his life.

When I started watching it, all the comments were... It was right off the bat, like the first four hours. They were saying, Clemer's going to go insane by the end of this week. No, he's going to make everybody that's watching the stream go insane because he's doing fine with it. The way his brain works is just so strange that you can't help but watch. I tuned in the other day, he was putting himself into a suitcase.Yeah.He was just folded his body up.He.

Did that multiple times.

Yeah, it's really bizarre stuff. But yeah, I can't stop watching Clemer. Yeah.

All right. My hot seat is Anthony Edwards. Did you guys see last night, Anthony Edwards lost track of time, and he missed the tip off of the Timberwolves game?

I didn't see that. No.

Yeah, he didn't start. First time he hasn't started since he was a rookie. He was at the arena. He was warming up in the tunnel. He just lost track of time, and so they subbed him in 25 seconds into the game, but he did not start the game.

This is the thing that you point to when it's like, Yeah, the Timberwolves are good, but...

Your star player lost track of time.

Just forgot when the game started. Just completely forgot. We should do reasons why teams can't win the NBA Finals. It would be just Anthony Edwards. Anthony Edwards. It would be like Chet Holmgren's shoulders.

Yeah. There was a... Man, I can't remember his name.

Chris Paul. Just a picture of Chris Paul for the Warriors.

There was a player. Fuck. What was his name? He was a pitcher. Edwin Jackson. Edwin Jackson forgot. He put in the wrong Google Maps to a Cubs spring training game 10 years ago. He's like, Yeah, whoops. I just drove to the wrong place.

I love that. I would do something like that.

Okay, my cool drone is Dak Prescott. He got a new haircut.

Oh, yeah. What haircut is it?

He also, I think, had kid, but it was just a regular haircut.

Just a close haircut?

Yeah, I couldn't really see any difference. But that is where we're at in the news cycle in the NFL.

Is that like when moms have another kid and they cut their hair because they don't have time to take care of it? Yeah. Prescott just cut half an inch off his hair?

Yeah. He went from beard to goatee. Yeah, and all the... Oh, that was what it was. The aggregators were like the ML football, the dove climbing, were like, Dak Prescott got a new haircut. Thoughts?

Okay. My thought, yes.

Yeah, that's a haircut, and he got a goatee. I actually like the goatee. He looks good. He's got a good jaw.

Looks like Dan Quinn a little bit. Great jaw. Besides the fact it's made out of glass. Yeah.

Okay, Jake, your hot seat, cool thrown. Jake is back. Congrats, Jake. You did a great job with the tournament this weekend.

Thank you, guys. It was a lot of fun. It was a great job. We had Monday morning golf, so an extra time to get reps in.Who won?It.

Was all good.

His name was Austin Eckrote. First ever Pj win.Nice..

You were working the Bear Trap this weekend, which is a great name.Post up in the Bear Trap.Great name for holes on the golf course, the Bear Trap. Yes.

Brought to you by Jack and Klaus, which I wanted to say really badly, but wouldn't have made sense.

With the PGA tour this year, everyone that's won is the biggest underdog ever. Yeah. It's really weird.

There's been eight or nine events, and there's already been three rookies who have won. Last year in 54 events, three rookies won.

Yeah. If you look at the odds, they're all between 60 and 500 to odds that have won.

Yeah, the co-leader after 54 holes, David Skins was 1,000 to one.

Maybe he has something to do with the fact that 50 really good players are on the live.

I don't know what that means. We don't include them in our World Golf.

We have the Arnold Palmer and then the players next week. So it's some big events coming up.

There's two big boy events if they don't get a big name in either one.

Yeah, we need some big boys. We need some big boys. Okay. That was fun.

My hot seat is teams who need a wide receiver because Mike Evans is staying with the Bucks.

Yes, one Jersey A lot of people were saying if he had free agency, maybe the Jets, maybe the Chiefs, but he's not going anywhere, and he had a great year.

Yeah. He, in a way, hit free agency. He was just like, I'm going to hit free agency. And then the Bucks were like, Here's some more money. He's like, Okay, thank you. I'll stay.

Jason light's first draft pick as a GM, Mike Evans. He's been there a long time. Mike Evans, we talked about it this fall. If he plays another three, four, five years, he will be in the conversation for Mount Rushmore of wide receivers in terms of total numbers and the dominance he's had. Every single season he's been in the NFL, he's had a thousand yards.

Also, Jason Light, very cool guy. Very cool guy. I like Jason Light a lot, but I still have that red flag in the back of my head with Jason Light that he likes Steven Che.

Also, he might be James, one-to-one.

Yes, that too.

My cool thrown is friend of the program, Dan Hurley.

After winning the Big East title, regular season, he went out to the bar and celebrated with fans and students.

First time they won it since 1999. This is a big deal. Yeah.

So love him. Was he drinking piss?

Probably. Literally all Dan Hurley has done since Max joined this podcast is win. Yeah. It's crazy.

You guys tell me if I'm wrong, this is the best chance for a repeat since the '06 '07 gators.

Yeah, probably. Yeah.

Usually a team loses some key pieces.

They did, but they're going to be one seed. They have a chance to do it. Yeah, they absolutely do. Okay, good job, boys. Let's get to our interview. We have Diana Rossini. Great interview with Diana. It's been a long overdue to have her on the Before we do that, PFT.

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I am high, and I'm right. It tastes fantastic. Credits to me for being correct about that. But 3Chi is awesome. It's one of my favorite things in the entire world. I think you love it, too. Check it out right now. If you're ready to experience the next generation of cannabis, go over to 3ci. Com, find the exact experience that you're looking for with true strains. Go to 3ci. Com. That's 3ci. Com, 3-C-H-I. Com, and find your true strain today. Now, here's Diana Rossini.

Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest. She is a friend One of ours hasn't been on the show yet. It is her, pardon my take, debut. Been way too long, probably long overdue. That's our fault. It is Diana Rossini from the Athletic lead NFL reporter. Can I say that? Yeah.

Senior Insider.

Senior Insider from the Athletic. We're going to talk some combined. We're going to talk some football. You brought two sodas, though.

Are those for us? No. Okay. Who are they for?

Someone really special on this show.

You broke maybe the story of the year, Super Bowl week, when our producer, Max Delente, decided to rip farts on a plane with two sodas and a burrito.

And a burrito was This was the big mistake.

Should we do this part now, Max? Do you want to... Okay, it's my show. It's our show. Why don't you come down and sit down here, Max? Let's just get this out of the way. This is what the people want to hear, and then we'll talk some NFL. My first question is, Diana, you do have a thing for Philly guys. You're married to a Philly guy. Is there a part of this entire escapade where maybe you have a little crush on Max?

I've always liked Max on the show anyways. I just never knew what Max looked like because I just listening to you guys. The entire time he was sitting next to me, I had no idea that was Max. The biggest issue I had with this thing was the fact that I'm texting a friend of mine, that being PFT, about just my irritation in the moment and to then reveal the source on it all.

You had to have known that was going to happen.

We have a really good, honest friendship. I never thought he would do that to me.

No, because you usually feed me bullshit stories.

I 100% thought he would do that because that's...

I think Diana knew what she was doing, but she does send me a lot of bullshit. What was the one you sent me yesterday just to scare me? I don't want you- Commander's trading out signing Baker.

Yeah, that's what I- She fumes me bad scoops intentionally. I just like to throw something at him just to keep him in shape.

It felt... It was very funny, and it was great reporting, the level of detail that you presented. Incredible reporting.

So detailed. It was so detailed.

Here's the problem. Max was sitting next to me, and usually you make some eye contact with the people next to you. Not long, right? Because it's awkward, it's weird, it's tight. He never even slightly looked to his right. He just looked straightforward, almost as if, I got to get through this flight and not vomit. He just stunk of hangover. You know that it's a mix of... It's a little bit of- Let's do this again. It's a little bit of B-O. It's a little bit of beer.

I put on clothes. I got right on the airport. It was panic time. I thought I was missing that flight for sure.

Yeah, you made it. You were fine once you sat, but the sweat was... It was obvious. You were sweating.

I also had 20 minutes once I got to the airport to get through security, get on the plane, and get Good food.

We've all been there. We've all been late. But I don't know about you guys, but I just grab a bag of chips, something quick.

That was the smart play.

You get the dry, shitty turkey sandwich that everybody hates.

The big, hot, saucy, meaty, beefy burrito.

Yeah, no, I regret it. The two sodas.

The two sodas are crazy.

The two sodas, I will fight tooth and nail.

I obviously am well aware what I'm in for when I see the man next to me eating the burrito. I was in for it.

You knew it was bad, but then the two sodas, you're like, Whoa, this is very bad.

It was actually three. We've been misreporting. What? No, because it was- This is wrong. No, it was the two Pepsis and then the Mexican orange thing that is just all sugar.

This is wrong. I went to the burrito place, got the Mexican orange soda and the water. That's never reported.

Never saw you drink the water. Never saw you drink the water.

That's a fact. That is a fact. Then they came through and I was asleep, probably when I was farting, during the... Probably when I was farting. Correct. During the soda call. Then they came back to me and said, Oh, you were asleep for the beverage. Do you want something?

The soda call.

The soda call. The soda call.

The soda lady came by.

That's when I got the That's when you got there. You chug that thing. You threw it back.

I was thirsty. I was dehyd.

I usually listen to a podcast on a plane, but I was trying to catch up on work stuff. I was in text mode and taking notes based off text of stories I was trying to chase at the Super Bowl. Because of that, I didn't have AirPods, and so I could hear everything, which is why it was so clear how often you were farting. It's so clear why the music was so loud.

The music was...

That's the part that concerns me.

Who would come over and listen to Tech Yout?

It was one of the...

It was so loud.

I played something, and then it went into a mix of like this song that you played, and I was in a bad spot. I didn't want to pull out my shit to change anything. I was like, All right, I'm in this zone. Let me just stay here. I'll listen to this. We fart my way out of this. Well, I also didn't know I was farting. We had two sodas, dude. Well, the farts were before the sodas.

Do you remember when I got up to use the restroom?

Yeah. Okay, so I was wearing a sweatsuit, and it was a little bit of a crop top, and I remember thinking I don't want to face this guy with half my skin out and straddle him, but I also don't want to put my butt on him. I had to make a quick decision. On the way there, I went back, and the way back, I went front. I tried to make eye contact with you. You gave him both views. Yeah, I tried to give him just the courtesy like, Hey, dude, sorry, I'm giving you a lapper while we're going to bed. I could have been naked. You weren't even going to look at me.

That's respect. That is respect.

You're obviously very happy, man. You're But you weren't going to see anything. You didn't want to see anything. You just didn't want to obviously continue funny.

Diana, afterwards, did it dawn on you? You're on the plane, you're working on all these stories for Super Bowl week. Did you realize, do you have a moment where you're like, And the The historia of Super Bowl week was sitting right next to me?

I did not realize that until I got to Las Vegas and you guys did the show and people were stopping me all week long. Three times as a different party, people were sending me over soda. I was like, That's cool.

That's Max's life now.

Yeah, that's my life.

But I obviously felt terrible about- I've been delivered six sodas. I apologize that you're associated with all these drinks and obviously the farting thing, which everyone is guilty of doing on airplanes, but I'm sorry that he aird that all out. Our friendship has changed completely since then. I'm not sorry.

Yeah, I'm not sorry either. I don't retract my report. You can retract yours.

What you did, that's the best thing that's It never happened in the two of us.

Oh, absolutely. You had to know. I don't think that you're innocent in this because content is what drives this whole thing. The second you sent that text, it was being said on air. That's how it works.

But the thing is, I was in a bit of an irritable mood. I didn't sleep much. You sat next to a farting guy. No, and even the guy next to me was hung over and eating. I was stuck between these two guys, and Hank made the best point, Why was I sitting middle seat?

The athletic not doing so well.

No, I I actually gave my first class seat up to someone in the service. To a truth.

Thank you.

But then, of course, that is not the truth. I really just wanted to be part of all the action in economy. We know Donnie knows all of that. I figured that's That's where the fun times are in an economy. Here's the thing. I've flown now twice since then, and both experiences, I think I miss you a little on these flights. No, no, no, no. By the way, I found out after all of this, we have tons of connections in Philadelphia. Oh, I got that, too. There's weddings that I guess we've been at together, or our friends have been, or something. Because it's Philly, right? Everybody does everybody. It's just one family.

So you've probably been around Max farting before.

Correct. So I am now just used to the sense. So it's good to be back with you, Max.

Natural sense at this point.

There was a moment when it was like right as she was texting me these updates, as they were coming in, we're sitting in the hotel room in Vegas, and we're getting ready to record the pod. And you looked over me and you had this sheepish look on your face, and you were like, Was Was your friend Diana on a plane today? And you knew even before I brought it up. So it was like, in the back, I think you might have recognized her, but you were like, I really hope that wasn't her.

That is correct.

But I also didn't know of the farting.

I knew about the burrito, though. I remember.

But those are one and the same. You put a burrito in that body, it's going to produce farts.

It's a fart machine. If I'm awake, I'm clenching. I'm making sure that- You're like an easy bake oven for It's farts.

You just put the food in and boom.

It's farts. Yeah, correct. But the thing is, if I knew I was farting, it would have been a different situation.

Is there any possibility? I'm not questioning your reporting, Diana. Obviously, this is a wonderful piece of journalism. Is there any possibility that-I don't want you to ask this question. No, you do. The other guy that was sitting next to you that was also hungry, was there a second farter?

I'm really glad you brought him up because he also chose to eat a sandwich. He didn't go burrito style. He was one of those type A types. I could tell he would take a bite, wipe his face. He was the complete opposite of the man to the left of me. But I could tell he was struggling, too, a bit. I mean, that flight from Newark to Vegas was about five, five and a half hours. Yeah, that was up there as one of the worst flight experiences I've ever had, and I've thrown up on flights, but that probably topped it.

Sean McDermott will use that as a lesson before training camp.

I also ate the burrito extremely fast.

I I remember thinking that. I'm like, This guy is a freaking animal.

I got about 75% of the way, and I was like, I don't want this anymore. But then if you think about it, what do you do with a quarter of a burrito?

There's no You got to wrap it up.

You got to wrap it up. You got to wrap it up.

I think by the time we took off. I was like, I need to finish this before we start moving.

You need to make more farts.

Because if you have an open burrito as a... It's not like a sandwich that you can put back in. You're unwrapping it as you're going. I remember thinking, I was like, I hope nobody sees this, but I need to finish this immediately.

I'm sitting right next to you. And get to fart-making.

And the thing, too- I get to sleep, was really. But I guess those were one and the same.

Obviously, I was a little irritable, right? The fact that... And I just needed a vent to someone, and you just happened to be the victim of it.

Well, no, what happened was I tweeted out a picture of Miley Cyrus on TV because it was a Grammys night, and Max was standing in in front of the TV, and you saw that, and you were like, Is that guy you just tweaked a picture of that, Max?

No, this is when we landed. I was like, Wait, that looks like Burrito Boy. That's when I texted you. I said, Hey, is that a producer of yours that you just took a picture? No, I said, Who's that man in the picture? That's what I said. Then you're like, That's Max. I'm like, Oh, I love Max. Oh, my God. That was the guy next to me, though. Yeah.

So, Max, are we cool? Is everything cool between you two?

Yeah.

You said that she was your mortal enemy.

In the moment, you were. I still think that.

Okay, so then no, that's good. Keep the grudge alive. Maybe you have to give him some type of insider information about the eagles at some point to make it right. Yeah, that's Max. Come on, I'll negotiate for you, Max.

No, this would be good.

All right, we'll text. Just don't do what he does and read them out loud to people.

That's not fair because I told you they were going on the show.

Yeah. Also, the minute you said it, again, you knew. I think you knew what you were doing. All right, Diana, we're at the Combine. Now we can talk some football. First of all, what does Combine week look like for you? Are you just walking around, just getting talking to everyone, getting all this news? I mean, is it just nonsense? Stop.

I went to dinner yesterday at four o'clock, and I call it dinner. It's not really dinner, right? Because it's four. It's like a late lunch, I guess. I sat there and I had six back-to-backs meetings with different people. The bartender, four dudes in, he's like, Are you all in a dating service here? I said, First of all, why would you ever call me out? But I said, No, I'm just taking meetings because I just stayed in the same spot, and I just kept eating and drinking.

That's a funny visual. Just a revolving door of Just a bunch of coaches.

Nfl dudes.

It's all different agents, coaches, GMs, one owner, just having conversations, catching up, just talking about things that are coming up. Most of the conversations I'm having now are really just, How are you doing? No one really wants to get into the of all stuff just yet, but I'm not traveling as much anymore because I change jobs, as you guys know. For me, it's really just getting back in front of people's faces and being like, Hey, I'm here.

You left ESPN. You're now my coworker at The Athletic. I write the premium plus newsletter.Oh, my gosh, I know.You report. What was the thought process like when you switched over? Are you any regrets about leaving ESPN? Because I know a lot of people, they're scared to leave ESPN because of the magnifying glass that you're under, the microscope with the megaphone, whatever you want to call it. There's a spotlight that people think about with the ESPN, and then to go out on your own is like, Okay, a little bit different change of pace here.

Yeah, I was scared out of my mind. It was one of those situations where you know you got to move. You know you have to change it, but comfort is awesome. I like to be comfort. I got two kids. The athletic gave me just a pretty incredible opportunity to get better, actually. I think it's been a really good few months. But that first week when I took the job, I was a disaster just trying to understand, did I just jump off ship of the best place to work for what I do for a living? It's ESPN. There's still a gigantic media outlet. But I figured after about two weeks, and I started to actually write and do things with the athletic. It was like, Oh, it doesn't matter as long as you have information, that's all you need. Yeah.

The athletic is great. I read it all the time. There's always great, like plugged in people and you fit in seamlessly there. I have one question about your job that's a little weird. It's a two-part question. One of the hardest things I think you probably have to do, and you could tell me I'm way wrong, after a game, when you're trying to talk to a player coming off a field, how do you approach that? Because I see that. I'll see on TV. It's like, Oh, there's Diana talking to Travis he walking off the field? Because it's got to be a touch and go situation, I'd assume.

Well, if it's a good situation, it's easy as heck. It's, Hey, Travis, how are you? You just lit it up. Oh, how's Teller? That's easy. That day was bad. You probably saw it on Instagram, I was walking off with Travis after they lost to the Jets. If you have relationships with these guys, they know what you're doing, they know who you are, and they're just talking, knowing that whatever they're going to say probably is going to hit the print and be on television. But I don't think talking to players after games is really that difficult. But if you have a good relationship, that's usually where it can come handy and think about. Most of the times after games, you're talking to the happy people. You're very rarely going up to Brock 30 one-on-one on the field being like, Oh, this is nice.

You lost Super Bowl. All right, so the second part of the question is, I would assume it's happened many years in a row, but I know this year you were in the locker room after the Super Bowl. Do you go to the losing locker room at all?

I do. I always swing in there first just to see if anyone's acting up or crying or if anyone just wants to talk about situations because that's usually when they're in their most raw state of right after they lost. So I did. I circled, and I always just try to follow my instincts on things. I'm like, I think I should probably go see what they're doing in there, especially the type of season the Chiefs had this year, knowing it wasn't as easy as it had been in the past. I bet you they're going crazy. Oh, my God. I have never seen a locker room like that after a Super Bowl win. I was actually talking to Mahomes about it, and he's like, It's the year we had. It just felt that much better, even though he's been there before he knows what it feels like. And obviously, because they've lost a Super Bowl before for them, just the idea of going back to back and being able to prove to everyone this year that, Yeah, maybe we didn't have some top dog receivers, but look at us, man. We figured it out, and we won the whole thing.

That's awesome. That has to be a pinch me moment being in the Super Bowl winning locker room because that's it. That's where it is.

Sometimes one of the hardest things in my job is you have all these conversations and you're running around, and sometimes you don't even know what to do because there's so many people you need to talk to and story lines that you want to jump on. And there's great story lines. I want to go talk to Chris Jones. I want to ask him what he thinks about his future now. How badly do you want to stay in Kansas City? I want to go up to Travis, talk about what this feels like. So you have to quickly, because you're only allowed in there for a few minutes, figure out fast who you have to go to and what you want to get. Sometimes I'm in these conversations and there's news there, and I don't even realize it until about an hour late. I'm like, Oh, my God. I went up to Travis and I was like, Man, this is awesome. You feel good? He's like, Didn't we just do this conversation? I said, Yeah, last year. He's like, Well, let's do it again next year. Let's go for three. So he said it to me right after the game.

And I was like, running around, talking to whoever next. And then in the back, then later, I was like, Oh, crap. He basically just called it out. We're going to go for three.

And he's not retiring.

Because there was definitely some rumors. Sometimes you have to take a breath in the moment and be like, Okay, this is something. But that locker room was really cool. That's a really fun group anyways, whether they win or lose, even when they lose. I've been around them before. They're all pros. They're good. Yeah.

I think one of the best One of the things that the athletic does is the postmortems, whether it's a coach that got fired and they go back, they review all the shit that happened there or a season that didn't go the right way. The athletic does a very good job of covering the dysfunction. There was one report that you had earlier this year regarding the Jets dysfunction. Memes, our producer, called you a liar. I think he was very upset. I think a lot of people were upset about the Jets report, but I thought it was pretty well done. Do you want to address allegations for memes that you're a liar?

Well, which one of the 30 sources did you think lied?

Yeah, there were 30-30 sources. 30 sources memes.

Which one was a liar? Do you think 30 people just said, You know what? I'm going to tell you stories, then they're all fabricated.

Memes?

Memes. Memes?

Memes?

Who are the 30? Also, wait, wait, wait.

He wants all the sources.

Wait, wait. That's way too many sources. Thirty is ridiculous.

At The Athletic, because the standards are outrageously high, we're owned by the New York Times, you have to supply the editors with your list of the people that you're speaking to. We had a list together after putting together the piece and writing it, and it was actually 30 plus.

More.

Then it'll attach the name that we sent to our editor is the information that person gave us, the quotes, the details.

Let me ask you a question, Mims. Just hypothetical. What if Diana was What if her name was Dan Rossini and she was a man, would you have believed the sources more? No.

I don't know.

Interesting. It seems like being a little misogynistic here. No. Whoever wrote it would be alive. Okay. I actually believe him on that because he just- Which part of the story, because you obviously read it, which part of the story bothered you the most?

What detail did you go, She's a liar. She stinks at her job. I hate her.

The headline. So Wait, so, Diana, though, big picture. You have to deal with this all the time where fans, no matter what, because we're crazy, we're stupid.

And remember, I live in Jetsland. Right.

Has there ever been a specific story that you reported and released that got way more backlash than you expected? You're like, What the fuck? I'm reporting. I'm doing my job.

About six years ago, maybe now, I fired Doug Maron, and he didn't get fired. That was when I was wrong. You always had to have one really bad one. That was my one bad one. I will say this Jets piece was tough. I think Jets fans are in denial.

That would be memes.

They want to call people liars because they don't want to believe that it's actually that bad, that the culture is that awful. So don't blame the team. Blame the reporter that uncovered all of this. Blame however they sleep at night with it. So because I live in an area where there's Jets fans, I have people coming up to me. And even just went to the eye doctor and the guy that was helping me was like, Come on. What do you mean? I'm a reporter. My job is to give you facts. Don't be mad at me. People want me to say, All right, we dramatized it. It's not really that bad. Aaron's great. He's kumbaya with everybody. Study, when the reality is, it's a mess in New York. It's really bad.

Per 30 sources.

It is true, though. You're absolutely right. The Jets fans, for some reason, they're like, This isn't the truth. Where if you wrote that story about the bears, it'd be like, You probably missed something. Correct. It's probably way worse than that.

A lot of people have been asking me how I've been managing the Jets since then, right? Because you would think they would hate me. They're great. I love the Jets. I talk to all of them still because they know I know. You did your job. And they know it's accurate, right? It's when you're wrong, that's where the attention comes with teams. Or if you don't inform a team that a piece is coming out, and that's something that we do at The Athletic. If we're going to put out something with that much intel and information that's going to make the owner, the coach, the GM, everybody, the OC look bad, you have to call them and say, Here's what we're doing. So New York was well aware of everything that was coming out. Yeah.

It's got to feel awesome, though, because you're really good at your job, and when you do it well and you know there's going to be people like memes, they're going to be like, You're a liar. And it's like, I'm doing my job, and I crushed it. I know the truth. I found the truth.

Yes, but I would prefer to tell memes that things are so good.

But no one wants to read that.

True. But I am working on a bunch of pieces coming up where it's just how teams have survived issues that the Jets didn't figure out, like the Cleveland Browns, how they were able to have success after- Joe Flacko. Deshawn Watson goes down. The Jets are gone. Wine and the Jets do that, right? Sometimes taking the bad stories and focusing on the dysfunction, you can then go highlight some of the teams that are doing it right. But again, most people like the dysfunction. I did a whole story on the Panthers as well, where it was like hunger games in that place, behind the scenes of everyone killing the other to just stay alive and not get fired by Tepper. It was a mess. It seems to be better from what I understand now. But if you remember, when we did that story, it was early November. There was still so much season left.

You need to forward that story to Peter Schrager. I think he missed it because he tried to tell us that David Tepper is not crazy.

Good guy. Did you know that he bought his old boss's house and then bulldozed it to the ground?

Yes, normal stuff.

It's a great move. I actually like I like it in the evil cartoon billionaire mindset. He is actually what I think about when I think of the power hungry owner that doesn't know how to work with people.

Also, if you're that rich, I would never live in another man's house.

Owners in general are very They are unique. I try not to think about how much money they have when I'm talking to them because I probably would run away like a little girl because they could destroy my life. They could just buy my family or just tell someone to kill us.

Not your dad, Your dad could beat up anybody. Yeah, it's from the Bronx. You went to high school with Doug Marone. He's from the Bronx.

Don't mess with them.

You remember that? That was a regret. That might have been my favorite. You guys crushed me on that. That might have been my favorite. She had never seen a tweet of all time. Wait, let's set the table because maybe not everybody is aware of it. When Jalen Ramsey almost got into a fight with Doug Marone, and you said, I think Doug Marone would beat him up because he went to high school where my dad went to high school. My dad's strong.

He's from the Bronx. I said something like, Doug Marone is from the Bronx, and you don't mess with people like that. Then, of Of course, all the award-winning listeners flood my Twitter for years, by the way. Every time the Bronx is mentioned, be like, Oh, can you beat him up? Just whatever it is. It's so annoying. It's this mob mentality. You cannot. And they don't forget.

You guys don't forget.

They don't forget. They were not reminding them right now.

Please, forget something. Let me go.

My second favorite Diana Rossini moment of all time was, I think it was at Foxborough. I think it was 2017. You You were working for ESP, and you're doing the pregame report there on the sidelines. It was cold. It was giant thermometer season, and you had a glass of water because we're going to show a science experiment of how cold it was. You filled the water up to the top, and then you said, I filled this water up 10 minutes ago. Now watch how cold it is. Then you turned the cup upside down, and you just poured out a cup of water. Did you think that that was going to fly under the radar for a little bit, or were you immediately like, Fuck, this is going to-No, in the moment, my head was just like, Just keep going.

I was like, And you see, there's the water. It's cold out here, but obviously not that cold. But that's all right. Back to you. I just kept going hoping no one would notice that the point of the project was I was freezing the water. But I did get some redemption. Last year, they sent me to Buffalo. It was negative 9,000. I did it again. It worked. It worked. People ask me, You miss ESPN? I miss it all the time. I miss the people I work with. Obviously, Adam's a friend of the show here, and he was one of my good friends when I worked there. We're not friends anymore. You're off the text thread. They kicked me off their group text. But doing stuff like that was always so stupid and fun, but just being out with the fans, I used to love that.

Yeah. Has there been a player or coach who's gotten mad at you for a specific story where they're like, You burn me or something like that, that you were like, Fuck, that sucks?

Yeah, Mike Brable. He called me the day after an aggregator took something I said that basically said, Mike Brable is too fat to work.

Oh, yeah, that was a good story.

That was That was- He didn't say too fat.

You said he's a large person. He is.

What I shared on the football podcast on The Athletic was that I had dinner with a GM at the Senior Bowl, and we had conversations about how bizarre this last coaching cycle was and how crazy it was that Belichick and Vrabel didn't have gigs. I said, Why do you think that Mike didn't get a job? He said, I think they needed a change there in Tennessee. But in terms of the next opportunity, I think there's a lot of people who are very intimidated by him. He walks into a room and he's confident and he's physically a big human being. It's a little startling at first. Very normal, right? When I say this to you.

These are all facts, by the way, and we love Coach for Able, and he is... I mean, that's what I'd want out of my football coach. Correct.

His hands are the size of your head, right?

He hit me on the back of the combine a few years ago. I almost coughed up alone.

When the aggregators took that and changed all this, the way I said it, so that wasn't great to hear from a not too happy head coach to begin with, former head coach now. He didn't call me after the piece we did on why he got fired, but the piece on him calling him a little fat, he wasn't too happy. I think it was the body shaming because he only sold the aggregator. He didn't see my actual-The way it was framed was like Mike Vrabel's fat and GMs don't want a fat guy.

Too fat to coach. Too fat to coach. I was like, Wait, I like fat coaches. That's messed up.

But you guys know personality. He's not very flowery, right? So I'm like, I see him call. I'm like, Hey, Coach, what's going on? And he's like, What are you doing? I'm like, What are you talking about? He's like, Why are you talking about my body?

The aggregators really do that sometimes, though.

They're the ones that fans should get mad at, the aggregators, not the reporters.

Believe me, they're good in some spaces, especially someone like me who's at a place not as big as ESPN, whereas I used to go on ESPN. If you say it, it goes everywhere. Sometimes it's great to have it aggregated, and then it's pushed out, and then it probably catches your attention if you don't go to the athletic that day. But most of the time, it's completely misrepresented. Then all these story lines are floating around the NFL. It's like, What? I have a really hard time right now deciphering. Is this a real report? Yeah.

No, there's a lot of click bait. There's a lot of people reporting stuff, and it's just like, Where did this come from? Deleted tweets. It's just weird.

Yeah. And then people just grabbing Justin Field, celebrating in his kitchen. It was all over my timeline today, and someone was like, That was from six years ago.

Someone said, Falcon's the background. They're like, Oh, he's going. Yeah.

He's like, Okay. Don't get me wrong. I saw it right away. I was like, I got to make calls. I got to make calls.

I was like, Oh, shit. He's traded. Yeah, that's crazy.

So what's going to happen this week? Are there going to be any trades made? Anything big?

Yeah, I think Chicago is going to get moving on this for sure. With fields? Yeah. I've been stalking their people all week. You asked me what I've been doing. So there's some people you can set meetings up and meet, and there's some people who just aren't going to deal with you. So then you have to figure out where are they going to be. This sounds so creepy, by the way. But you can figure out just from talking to people around the league, who's at what forum or who's going to sit down with CAA or whatever at this time. And you just go float in there and hope that you can catch them. So I've been chasing bears for a few days. Okay.

I can help you. We can track him down. You know them? Yeah, I know Ryan. So we'll set a trap for him.

What's Ryan saying to you?

He told me that... I'm actually not allowed to say.

Oh, wow. It's hard to be a reporter, right? I think I told you. Wait, tell me.

Exploring all options?

Yeah, there was another part of it. I'm not allowed to say. Also, I sent him my tape from the combine, and he said, We'll take a look at it. I don't think he took a look at it.

We did a combine last week.

I did. I sent him my 40-year dash.

I got to check those videos out. I got to see how that is. But I'm expecting definitely some action there. I just hope the next few days are actually a little quiet because it's just been crazy. You guys are on your phones all the time. If it's your job to be on your phone, it completely messes up your life.

Yeah, we should just clarify, you're on your phone working on stories We're scrolling Instagram and being fucking idiots.

True.

Looking at my college basketball bets.

I'm a little different. I'm playing a flight simulator.

My thing, that has been the hardest transition for me from going from ESPN to the athletic is the responsibility I do have now in getting information. So that requires me to be on my phone at all times. And you can't determine when news is going to break. So we all have wild stories of when stuff breaks and you're not in a great spot, whether you're driving or you're on vacation, you're skiing. I had one, actually, and Max, I'll tell you one day what the actual scoop was, but I had someone from Philly call me. It was when everything was starting to fall apart. I have a two-year-old and a one-year-old, and it was bath time. They're two little boys, so I put them in the bath together. There are some people who call you. There are some sources, you don't care about the safety of your children. You answer the call. They're in the water, and I'm thinking, This is not safe, but I have to take this call. So my thought was, All right, I'll pull the drain out, turn the water off, and they'll just sit there. They'll be okay. They'll be a little cold.

Well, I didn't consider a couple of things. I take the call, I run and get a notebook. So I left them real quick because I have to write down the stuff that this person is sharing with me. I'm so locked in on the information. I have half my eye on the boys. And then my two-year-old jumps out, and Joey, my one-year-old is just sitting in there, and I look, and the two-year-old runs out, and he goes, Poop, poop. And my one-year-old pooped in the tub. I let the two-year-old just run away because he just obviously didn't like it. And then I just hear him go, blah, blah. So then he throws up. And by the way, I'm still on the phone, and I'm horrified that this person can hear it, too. And thank God, my husband walked in a minute later, and he just... You have to decide in those moments when nothing's working. Am I going to cry or just laugh at this shit. So I just laughed. And he laughed, too. I was just like, What are we going to do? I'm supposed to be this senior insider getting this great story on the Eagles.

And by the way, he was very invested because it was the eagles, because I showed who it was, and he's like, Oh, I understood why he took that. But what are you going to do?

Pooping the bathtub is the worst. What is that? Why do they do that? I don't know. I've had it a few times. Myself, personally, I pooped in a bathtub, and then a couple of times with my kids as well. And it's just like you just panic and you're just like, Well, what the fuck? What do we do now?

That was my thought, too. When it was happening, I'm like, Where do I go first? To the two-year-old just running around the house or the one-year-old sitting in the- You got to get everyone out of the poop.

You don't want them to eat it. You got to get out of the poop, and then you got to figure out It has to do with that.

Apparently, I'm around a lot of disgustingness.

It's fascinating to me that you're not disgusted by the poop in the tub, but sitting next to Max.

No, but I'll actually have Diana's back here. It's like having a dog where it's like, if you see another dog's poop, you're like, But it's your own dog. Your own kids. I am so desensitized to everything. It's just like, whatever. I've actually gotten really good at timing my son's puke, and I'm three for three on the last three, getting them to the sink or the toilet. I'm pretty proud of my son.

Watching Tyler's puke is- Well, they don't bend over. They don't do anything. They just stand there.

Just in the middle of a fucking floor.

It's like an exorcism.

They don't say anything. They just start puking wherever they are at that moment. I actually had a question about this because you, your mom of two. You work all the time. You're incredible at your job. How do you do it? I don't know how you do it. I guess it may be a compliment, but it is insanely impressive.

Yeah, I lose my mind a lot. You have Obviously, I have a good partnership and somebody that gets it. I married the biggest football head in America who's never played football in his life, but he's just a big nerd. It helps because I married someone that understood it. I wasn't looking for that when I met him, but it just worked out that he happens to be broadly obsessed with the NFL. I don't ever have to explain why I had to take calls, why I had to do certain things. In fact, 90% of the time, he's the one getting on me to be like, You should get ahead on that. You know you calling right now, which is also very annoying. But it's helpful in trying to balance it all.

I like that he understands the importance and the significance of the work that you're doing. Some people marry somebody that's creating a vaccine for smallpox or something. Honey, your work is super important. He's like, You're working on figuring out if Jason Kels is coming back next year. That takes priority over our entire night.

He doesn't really get mad when I have to get up from the table. Or as long as I share it with him because he loves to know about it. I've answered phone calls in the car on speakerphone, and he loves. I actually have some sources that I'm tight enough now with. I'll be like, Hey, I'm in the car, a cab. He'll ask a question, and I'll look at him like, Shut the hell up. You are not allowed to talk just because we invited, because I made the person aware.

I have one question about your husband that's a very important question. I listened to you when you were on with our friend Ryan Rasillo, who I think he's still our friend. He has a weird rivalry with me, which I didn't know about that he revealed on his life advice. But when you went on Rasillo's podcast, you told the story that your husband was prepping you and being like, This is a big day because he's a big Rasillo fan. Big one. Did he do the same thing for this or no? He doesn't care about us. That hurts.

That's tough. Well, can I tell- He messaged me right before I got in, and all he said was, be nice to Max. That's all right.

Because that's the way people stick it together.

What else is new? All right. I was nervous that you were going to be like, No, he He doesn't listen to this stupid show?

No, he still listens to you guys all the time. In fact, you know what he does? Do you sometimes, because I don't have the time to always listen. I love you guys, but he commutes a lot, which that's a whole other man. God bless people who have to commute, especially an hour like he does. So But he'll listen to you guys, and he'll just shoot me a text if you guys had something good just to let me know.

All right, good. That's cool. I have an embarrassing story about him. It's also tied into Rosillo. I remember when you went on your first date with him, you called me and you were like, Hey, I went on a date with this guy, and we were talking about sports, and I asked him, Who's one sports media member that you think that you relate the most to? And his answer was Ryan Rosillo.

Yeah. Is he a media? I said who? And not at all. But I said, Just from a personality standpoint, who do you connect to the most? And he's like, Rusillo. He just loves Rusillo. At the time, I was thinking, because first date, you're putting on your best, right? You're charming, and he was funny. And he picked a hermit. And he was in a good In the mood, my husband is the most miserable dude ever. Okay, so it counts. So he's Ryan. That's why I also love Ryan. I'm obviously drawn to grumpy-ass people. I think about it all the time. He told me what he was. It was I chose it. He never lied to me. He was like, I'm basically a leaner.

I'll back up Ryan here. He's strong.

This is Mike Vray all over again. You're calling him? He's strong. I know.

I sound like I am on this body shame.

I'm going match that. Ryan's body is banging.

No, Ryan's always been just great-looking in terms of his physique and all that. My husband is as well. He's not as yoked. He doesn't have time. We got kids and jobs and house and all that stuff. But yeah, he's a very grumpy human being, and I like to try to be the joint in his life.

That's great. That's very Philly of him.

You've been around him. You know what he's like.

He's a good dude.

He's okay.

He's a guy's guy. Yeah, he's okay.

Sure. But you've been around my family, right? Yes. My family is psychotic. They're high energy. They want to have a good time, and it Kev does, too. But Kev rather be alone and just watch a game. He just wants to watch the Philly's.

Do you know, though, that you're the craziest one in your family? You think that your family is crazy, but I don't think you're aware of the fact that you're the most insane person in your family. I don't really think I. Your sister is the most normal person in the world. Your parents are lovely. They're a little crazy. You are the crazy one in your family.

I remember PFT was going to come down to my beach house, and I felt like I had to warn my parents of what was coming to the house because-That's nice.he's a little unique. Yeah. I said, Hey, I just want to give you guys a heads up. My friend's going to come down and hang out with us for the weekend. He's got a lot of hair. He wears sunglasses all the time, and they just weren't really listening. And when he walked in, they were like, What the fuck? Who is this? Who is this person? So we went up hanging out in the backyard. We're drinking beers. My neighbors start freaking out that he's there. And my parents are still like, Why do people care? What does he do? I said, Oh, he's just on the radio because they don't understand podcasts. I have a podcast starting soon. My dad thinks I'm going to be on the fan. He can't separate it.

So now you're competition?

Oh. Well, I thought we were on the same team. We're at the athletic. Which, by the way, some of the stuff that you put out, the fact that you put it with the athletic now, it's so funny to me because sometimes it's believable. I'm like, this is good reporting that we do with the athletic.

No, I was the Mark Davis fired Josh McDane. He was using a fortune cookie from P. F. Changs. From P. F.

Changs.

It was very believable. Did they get pissed off about that?

I feel like they would. I don't think they love it because it puts our name with false information when We work so hard to be accurate.

Well, except when you lied about the Jets.

I'll be putting out my Jets for traction. Can I ask you a Commander-specific question? Sure. Justin Field is going to be traded. We can say probably, right? I think it's almost definitely.

I think at this point right now, it's going to happen.

The commander is probably taking Drake or Jaden Daniels with the second overall pick. Is there any chance that that's not what the plan is and we're doing something Just based on talking to them this week, they're doing the typical, We're going to do our homework on all of it.

I don't think they have a clear-cut answer to what they want to do because there's still free agent veterans there, too, that could come into Washington. Washington could obviously trade out if they want, depending on if they're looking to build and get some more pics for the future.

Are you talking about Kirk Cousins?

Now, Kirk Cousins is really the story of all of this right now in terms of who's going to land him because he's starting domino for all of this. I mean, Kirk going back to Washington, I actually think that would be a really good move. That's just my opinion. Just because when you look at Dan Quinn, you have a first-year head coach, first-year GM.

Owner.

Owner, right? You bring in a guy who A, knows the city, but B, understands a winning culture, understands what needs to be done. I think that would be a good first step for this group. But they may want to take a swing and see if they can get a rookie quarterback to step in there. But here's the problem. You don't know, right? You have C. J. Stroud. Oh, my gosh. That's amazing. Of course, everyone knows that that's the dream. But on the other side of it, you have Bryce Young, and it's nothing against Bryce. It's just he's going to need some time.

He might need more than time.

I'm interested to see how aggressive Washington will be in the free veteran market because that'll tell you where they sit on all this.

For the record, I like Kirk Cousins. I think I've done a 180 on him. You'd want Kirk Cousins back in Washington? I don't know because I feel like if you You have this opportunity to take a great quarterback at the top of the draft, get him on a rookie deal, and then build around that. It seems like that's the right move for a franchise that's trying to move on and turn a complete page. You were there during the worst times of the Washington Redskins. It's been very dark for us. Having this opportunity to just move forward and start completely new, I feel like that's a good opportunity that would be hard to pass up. Now, if it's Kirk Cousins, to me, that feels like they're trying to win nine games. It's like, let's win nine to 10 and not try to build a Super Bowl contender in the future.

I mean, if that's how you want to look at it, but I see why not continue to stockpile these pics and keep getting better and better in all the different positions.

No matter what happens, I'll spin myself into it. I'll be like, That was a great move.

That's how we do it. You're going to be into it. Which, by the way, I don't know Jason Wright. Do you want to meet him? I just have never met him. So today, I see him pulling in or getting out of an Uber, and I I went right out to him. I said, Hi. I said, Diana Rossini, I apologize. It's taking this long for me to say hello to you. And he said, Hello, I'm Shane. And then took a bag out of a car and kept walking. I was like, Oh, my God, that was not Jason Wright. I feel like the biggest idiot.

Can I give you a lifeline here? Sure. It was a white guy, right? It was. Yeah, that's tough. I know. You just had a mistaken identity. Classic. Happens all the time.

Damn. Oh, my gosh. I'm queen of it. I do that all the time. The other day, We had our athletic summit, right? So here in Indy, everyone just comes together. And no one really knows each other because we all work remotely. We know each other a little bit, but not really. So I was like, I'm just going to bite the bullet here. I'm just going to go up to people and say, Hey, I'm Diana. How are you? What's your name? Which team do you cover? Plus, I'm the new girl. So first person I decided I want to go up to is standing right by where the fruit and the coffee is. And I said, Hi, I'm Diana. Who are you? And he said, I'm Sam. I said, Oh, great. I said, What do you do with the athletic? He said, I work at The Hyatt. Oh, no. Are you okay? What's wrong with me? I'm like, I can't pick out the right people. Maybe I'm blind. Maybe my eye doctor gave me the wrong prescription.

Do people at The Athletic or maybe even at ESPN, are they ever like, We report, we study the game, we watch film. Why the fuck do people listen to these two idiots?

Yes. Everybody says that. I say it to myself sometimes because-Yeah, I say it to myself all the time. On really stressful days, like it's free agency days, draft days, even playoffs, I put you guys on because the rest of it's so stressful to me. Then I'm like, I just want to slowly start my day.

Feel smarter.

Two guys have no idea what they're talking about.

Exactly. Figure out how dumb these guys are and go the other way. Yeah, right. Figure I don't know how to go. That's really smart. Get information so I can have the accurate opinion on it all based on all the gibberish that they say on this stupid show.

It's a good palate cleanser, for sure. If you're getting too much... If you get too down into the weeds and get too smart about football, I actually I do think that it's important to remind yourself sometimes that the vast majority of people that watch the sport and pay attention to the coverage, just like fucking football. They're us. We're idiots.

I'm starting this podcast. I'm not going to try to compete with you guys. I'll just be a friend of the show. We'd squash you. Well aware, well aware, but I'm going to try. We have a podcast coming up, and that's essentially the tone I want. I wanted to be informative of good football using the stuff that I know, but also just talking regular stuff as well.

Well, I can give you a tip.

I would love something, please. Here's a tip.

Please. If you want to keep it more casual, do what PFT and I do, where we'll only read the headline of a story because we don't have a subscription to a certain site, and then we just guess what happens after.

Are you subscribers to The Athletic? I am.

I am a subscriber. Yes, I am.

But there's sometimes where there'll be a story, and it's just like, Well, I'll just read the first two sentences, and then we'll just go from there.

It's a good topic. It's actually not a bad idea because you see what the story is about, and then you choose your own adventure as what you think it was written, and then you react to what you think was written, and you create a much more entertaining show that way out of pure fiction.

Yeah. No, there's a thing that has really helped me over the last few years. It's credibility. I think that's probably some of the things.

Non-mimes his eyes.

None Doug Marrone's eyes.

Why didn't Bill Belichick get a job?

Why didn't he?

Yeah, was it too big?

I don't think Bill's that big. I think it was just his big attitude, just wanting things to be his way. I also think in Atlanta, that situation, ownership wanted him there, and the other people on the other side of the football operation did not.

Which is weird.

Why wouldn't- That's what Chef They lose their job.

Yeah, I get they lose their job, but I don't know. That's a bad way to run an organization is really what I'm going to say.

If they wanted to hire me to be on a podcast, which would mean that your podcast would get canceled, are you going to support my hiring?

No, we'd squash you like a bug. Exactly. No, but I guess more, I understand the people who are selfishly acting for themselves and being like, We don't want Bill Belchick. As someone who roots for a dysfunctional organization, and hopefully it's going in the right direction. It always feels like a common trend when it comes to bad organizations. It's a bunch of people trying to save their own job instead of thinking about the future of the team and how can we get better and playing Getting the blame game and being like, Well, I didn't draft that guy. You drafted that guy, and this, that, and the other. That's just a bad way to run an organization.

It is, but it is so hard to get one of these jobs. You look at the guys that don't have them now, and there's a lot of guys on the street outside Belichick and Vrabel who are really smart and should be back in football but can't get back in. So when you're in the spot, you're doing everything to take care of that so you last. But does that make sense for an entire organization? No. No, it's dumb. Every owner should hate that. You should hate hearing that anyone would be in self-preservation mode. But unfortunately, a lot of these guys have incredible salesmanship to them, and they can get an order to believe in them when that person is really just believing in what they want to do and what's good for them.

It's very ironic because the reason why Bell or part of the reason why Belichick had so much success is that he was never thinking about keeping his job. He was thinking about what's good for his football team. It's like, if you see that, why wouldn't you want that?

Yeah. New England is so interesting now, too, because it seems that they are really pumping up this new way, this new post Bill Belichick style.

Kind or gentler.

Well, I think they finally realized that the Patriot way is just having Tom braided on your team. That's a big part of the Patriot way.

I don't necessarily agree with all of that. Really? I think Bill Belichick had a gigantic part in all of this. Of course he did.

No, I'm not saying Belichick didn't have a big part in it. I'm just saying the Patriot way, when you're like, Well, this is the way they do it, they're minimizing the fact that Tom braided is the best quarterback of all time, and that's a lot of the... You could do any way. But if you have Tom braided, you're going to be successful.

Is there a Chief's way?

No, they have Patrick Mahomes.

Well, I was just going to say. Andy Reid said yesterday, someone said, What's the secret to having success? He's like, Get a quarterback. Yeah, right.

Well, thank you. Belichick is the best coach of all time.

I'm just saying like- But there is a culture.

Yeah, there's a culture, but it's also Tom braided being the best, and he sets the culture.

So I think when people say Patriot Way outside of just the superficialness of the Super Bowl wins and Tom braided, there is a language those guys speak, players and coaches, and this is just from being around it so much over the years, I know within 2 seconds of talking to someone if they're New England, and that doesn't mean because they're cold or they're mean. They're just a little bit more suspect at first. They don't overshare. They're very detail-oriented. They're usually really smart, actually. I really like the New England way. I prefer it, actually, because I see so many other sides and other guys trying to do it a different way. And outside of the Chiefs, I haven't really... And even maybe the McVeigh tree will call it, who does it a little different, but almost similarly. It works.

Yeah, but my counterpoint to that would be if the Patriots decided to answer all the questions and be gregarious with the media, it would It doesn't matter because they still have Tom braided.

Possibly. Yeah. But I think it's interesting that their attack on this is to talk about how they're going to be different.

That part is interesting.

They probably need to just go do it, right? Just go be the team that has eased up a bit and people want to be there to get free agents to come.

That's probably what they're doing. That's smart. No, you're right.

They're selling that right on that. With the Patriot Way, who would be your number eight ranked Patriot of all time? The show is coming out, what, Wednesday, right?

Wednesday. Would that be the eighth ranked Patriot? Two is Friday, one No, 10.

10. Who's your 10th ranked Patriot?

Wait, you guys are ranking Patriots?

Hank is. Hank's got a list going.

We've released one in episode.

He's doing number 10 when this show comes out. So who is your number 10?

My number E, I'd say Teddy Bersky.

Oh, interesting.

He's actually Hank's third.

Number three. He's higher. Teddy would be That's the guy that I put him so low as well.

Yeah. But throw Hank a little bit red meat here. What are the Patriots going to do?

I think the Patriots are obviously exploring the quarterback market, both free agents and draft. I know that there's some free agents that they're interested in right now, that they're having some conversations with their agents. I still think they're doing the same thing the Washington is doing, looking at the whole landscape to figure it out. But quarterback is very much what their home did on. They're also in for a stud receiver.

I can tell you that. Stud receiver.

That could mean through the draft and bring on a veteran. That could mean two free agents. I feel like you're so happy with this news.

Do you have any questions, Hank, about the Patriots? He's had a rough... We feel so bad for Hank. He hasn't won a Super Bowl in what? Four years, three years?

Hank, literally, Diana, he's had it so great. He didn't know how the draft worked. He thought that if he treated the third pick for the first pick, the Patriots would keep the third pick. Yeah. It still happened. He was like, We'll take Kael Williams and Marvin Harrison. I was like, No, if you trade up to the first pick, you have to give up your pick.

Not theoretically.

Okay.

What are the chances they trade down?

I don't think very high. I don't get the sense that they're trying to turn this thing around now.

Draft goes through us.

That's just the reports are coming out, but I feel like that's just smoking.

You listened to Elliott Wolf yesterday talking about the things that-Hey, do you know Elliott Wolf?

Yeah, I listen to him.

The things that- Her. So yesterday, he was talking about the type of quarterback he's looking for. And I actually happened to... I didn't see it live. I was sitting at a restaurant looking up, and I was reading the captions on SportsCenter. And so I see what he's saying. He's like, We don't want a type of... We're going to look at a quarterback's body language. And someone was being very funny at ESPN. They just used the B-roll of Mac, just like, Worst body language at her. So it was a little editorializing, but essentially was, Yeah, we don't want that. That's not the ideal quarterback that we're looking to build around.

Yeah. Okay. Good answer. Good news for you. What's the other big story? You can't tell us what story or big story you're working on, but any big league things that you see coming that are going to be a story?

I think the fact that the cap went up, it was very buzzy when I landed here because that does change how a lot of teams are going to operate. I don't think significantly, though. Immediately when When I thought, Oh, 30 million each team. Wow, we're going to see more teams go, swing in free agency. But I think if there's any position that will probably see better business, it would be backup quarterbacks, especially after last year. We see so many teams struggle. By not investing in it. That was the story of the year, right? Invest in a backup quarterback. Sorry. That was to me. Make that effort. And memes is well aware that they're telling Zack Wilson that he can go Seek a trade, so the time is over there, which we knew.

So with the backup quarterbacks, the Cleveland Browns, what are they going to do? Because I think right now we can say unless something crazy happens and Deshawn goes off for the next couple of seasons, maybe the worst contract in the history of professional sports, maybe up there for one of them, do they have any options? Or are they just going to have to roll with Deshawn?

They still believe in Deshawn. They're in on that. That's ownership. Even if Stefansky didn't want anything to do with anymore, which is not true, he wants to work with him, they're tied to this, and they're going to try to make this work. Look, I think there was moments last year where we're like, Wait, should the Browns sign Joe Flacko on a long term deal? Should he be the guy? But I don't see that happening. Although I will say I talk to people close to Flacko, and apparently he just loved his time there. Was blown away by Cleveland, wants to stay there. So I don't see a world where he winds up there again. But But I've seen crazy things.

Is he going to look for a starting job? Is Flacko now like, I want to be the guy?

Yeah, in Washington. Oh, shut up. No, I don't. I think he knows. He knows where he's at. He knows his role. He may wind up pulling off the same thing he did last year. Why jump back in and do training camp? If he can just hang out, wait for a team starting quarterback to go down, and then he can get the call and step in. I'd say that, obviously, the salary cap thing is boring as hell, but I'm interested in what the stealers are going to do at the quarterback position. Are they interested in going with her cousins, bringing him in Justin Fields? There's a lot of chatter about that. I don't see that happening. I'm not saying it won't. I don't see it. It doesn't feel stealers, right?

Yeah, he did say something like, Heinz It was his favorite place to play, which is weird. I don't know if anyone has it as their favorite place. He didn't play that Monday night game.

He played that, probably.

Yeah, that's true. That's about it. But yeah, I agree with you. That feels… That doesn't…

It just doesn't seem…

Yeah, it also feels like the Stealers would be doing the same thing where it's like, now we have three quarterbacks again. What are we doing?

Yeah, three quarterbacks that we don't really know. I do think, obviously, it's all bears right now. It's unbelievable how much attention. In fact, I talked to some people with the bears this morning, right before I came here, and I was asking them how they're handling just all the pressure it feels, all the attention. I mean, there's reporters everywhere chasing them, and they seem pretty calm, I will say. My sense was just like, they're optimistic. If you think about it, they're in control. Things are up. Things are up for Chicago.

Graph goes through us. Yeah, we have the ninth pick, too.

It's going to be so boring next year for the bears when they don't have the number one overall pick, probably. They're spending all combine. We go like, Fuck, this sucks.

No one wants to talk to me. We trade the ninth pick, and then we get another number one pick. We can root against another team.

You get all the number one picks.

I love having the number one pick. All right, I have one last question, then we're going to have Steve and Shay ask some questions. This might be a dumb question, but Since you've gone from ESPN The Athletic, ESPN, you were obviously on air at games. I assume you're not at games every single week. So what does Sunday look like now?

It's amazing. I do what you guys do. I just sit on my couch.

No, I doubt that. Do you have seven TVs?

I don't, but I do have a good set up now because I want... So when I was at ESPN, I was at one game. So my job was to be on Sunday countdown, cover whatever the biggest, usually was like an AFC, whatever the biggest AFC game of the weekend was. But now I get to watch everything. It's It's so fun. It rocks. I feel like you guys now. I can hear myself. This is what people are talking about because it's been almost 10 years since I was not doing football. So to be able to just sit there and consume it, I love it.

Wait, are your kids in the house When you're watching on Sunday?

Yeah, that is hard. Yeah, that is something we're trying to figure out.

You can come watch in Chicago. I leave at 11:00 AM and my kids are like, Are you going to watch TV? And I'm like, Yep.

That's amazing that you've been able to work that out. So We have a little bit of a deal in our house where Kev will watch the boys for all the games where the Eagles aren't playing that time slot. I love when the Eagles have a night game because then I get the day and then Philly can do their thing.

Okay, that's a good deal.

It's worked out. The boys wear their little jersey, and they think every football item is eagles. They'll just point at eagles, eagles.

Football is just eagles. Yeah, I like that.

Kids are dumb like that. My son thinks that every team in Chicago is the bears. Yeah, it's okay. He's just like, We go by Wrigley, and he's like, The bears.

I went back and forth with how I wanted... I think about it a lot, actually, how I want to raise them because they don't have a choice. They're going to have to be eagles fans. My in-laws are season ticket holders. They sit in the last row at the link. Closer to the eagles in the sky, the eagles on the ground, one of those seats. So I have no choice. I'm married into this. But I would really like Mikey and Joey to not be weird about it. Because Philly people are very-Oh, that's not going to happen.

What do you mean?

Uncle Max will make sure they're weird.

They're going to be painting their chest next year.

I want them to love the sport in a way that's healthy. That's a no.

I'm going to stand up for Kev here. That's a no.

It's because it's a good sports town.

And also what's healthy is to be unhealthy about football. That's what's healthy for guys.

The tone of my household when the Eagles win versus when they don't, it's incredible. Kev's 37 years old. He's a grown man. There's no reason you should be giving me attitude on a Tuesday because the Eagles lost to Washington on Sunday.

He's probably been through this a million times.

That's all he's thinking about, by the way.

It's with every sport. Like, Wisconsin lost last night to Indiana, and it ruined my night. It ruined. I was grumpy, just frowning. And why can't I just not... It's just what we are.

If you lose, if you're an Eagles fan, you lose on Sunday, then you spend the next three to four days dodging articles. You just tried not to read all the bad shit that's coming out. It's like, Oh, here's a new article. You have to pretend like you never saw it. You look away, you're on high alert to like, I don't want to consume any content regarding the game that happened on Sunday.

That's exactly what he does. He will not look at his phone. If I even say, Hey, I heard that. I don't want to know. I don't want to know. He's like, Whatever. Who cares? It's just a stupid game. It's just a stupid game.

He is a well-adjusted male.

I'll say that right now. But again, that's fine. But I'm passed. I'm never changing him, right?

But I have this opportunity with these boys to just make them good guys. No, no, no.

You don't want good guys. Joey and Mikey, the eagles fans. Nice guys finish last. No, they're going to be some real shit heads on Sunday. It's going to be awesome.

I went real creative on the names. Max finishes two-sonas.

Max, two-sonas, baby. Do you want to get Che up here? Before Che- So, rowback question. Okay. Oh, you had the Roback question?

You could do the Roback question, rhoback. Com. Promo code, take 20% off your first purchase. Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, Roback. Go right now. It's roback. Com. Pft, you have a rowback question?

It wasn't the rowback question. It was just a question. But it will be the rowback question today. Power rank your favorite Jersey Shore bars.

I'd go Parker House, Bar A, The Osprey, and Leggits.No DJs.

No DJs.

I can't do DJs.

Max is upset.

I can't do DJs.

Why can't you do DJs?

Well, Phil, I'm new to that. If you're from North Jersey, you stop at a certain area. If you're from Philly, you go to the South Jersey side, so I'm still pretty new to it. It's all the same disaster. Except the only difference is you see Jason Kelsi out, and he's everywhere. But, Max, is there a bar that you would say, I have to go see if I haven't.

What's the bar you got kissed in by your dude?

White briar is amazing. Okay, that's fair. White briar. White briar is what he's saying. He's not in my team. No shower happy hour. This is what they do. You just go right from the beach, you start drinking. It's a good It's time. Yeah, this is stuff I did 10 years ago. Not now. I can't do it. Although I did do it last summer. My sister-in-law and I, we just said we were going to go to the bathroom to the guys, and we went to happy hour and just didn't come back for two hours. That rock. That's cool. It was actually the best thing we did. It was a good move. They didn't care.

All right. I don't know if you ever met our junior draft analyst, Stephen Che. He was at one point a senior draft analyst, but he's a junior draft analyst, so he's been demoted. Stephen is a football nut. All he thinks about is the NFL. Stephen, what are your questions? Well, I think we covered a lot of the NFL stuff. I do have some... I think NFL Insiders are very interesting, fascinating people.

I'm a huge...

I'm a Schefter Stan.

I saw that picture. It was very cute.

Does that make you sad to say that out loud, Jeff?

No. Why do you... Schefter is Greek. Is it admiration? Or is it inspiration, admiration? What is it about Adam? Because I don't think a lot of people would be like, Man, Adam's amazing. He's good at his job, but no one wants to-Yeah.

No, he looks up to him as a human being. As a human being? Yeah.

Do you think he's funny?

Yeah, I do.

Do you think Adam Schefter is funny? Yeah.

Well, he's not selling out like, Manas of the Square Garden for like, comedy, but I think he's funny in his lane. But you might say if he was. Probably.

I think that's great how much you love him.

A Night with Adam at MSG, how much would you be willing to pay?

And this is like the full garden?

One-man show, the full Madison Square garden. One night, you have floor seats.

Yeah, I mean, oh, floor seats? Yeah. A couple of hundred bucks? I mean, what's the going rate for that? In the twos? High twos?

High two figures?

No, high two digits for main standing. We were like, not standing.

I don't know. This concert will never happen. Yeah.

Okay, so what's your question? Sure. We actually talked at the Jets facility right after you got the athletic gig, and something that I remember about that time time, and I'm sure it's a struggle for people that leave the mothership, is what do you do with your Twitter handle? Because it was, was it Racine ESPN?

It was Diana ESPN. Diana ESPN. And now it's DM Racine.

Yes. So what was the process like to be like, okay, I got to drop the ESPN. What do I go with? So it's funny you bring this up. This is the big question. Because I feel like you might have changed it twice.

It's funny you bring this up because players have asked me this. Derek Henry came up to me at camp. I hadn't seen him in six months. He said, Hey, I got to talk to you about something. I said, What's that? He said, Your handle, you got to change it. You don't work at ESPN anymore. I said, It's been three weeks. Like, chill. So I came up with DM, but I realized after I agreed to it that it's very inviting. Dm, right?

Yeah, DM-Rocini.

I was like, I didn't think this out.

Change it to DM feet pics Racini.

It's like a prompt, DM Lucini. I'm asking for it, right?

Just like, Come get me and send me nasty stuff, which, man, some of my DMs are wild. But yeah, it was easy to change, but it was definitely a little bit of a sad moment because I'd been dying of his fan for so long. Dm now.

Good question. Good question. That was really important.

I noticed that, so I think that's-Do you want to know more about Adam?

I can tell you everything.

Yes, I do. But actually, that is my next question. It's like, because you are the senior insider at the Athletic, you are the person there. There are natural rivalries between newsmakers and insiders. We have Woj and Shams, obviously. Schefter and Rapsheet have a built-in rivalry. I don't know if they personally dislike each other, but they're at competing networks. What is your relationship like with other insiders? And if somebody beats you to a scoop, are you just like, Fuck Jay Glazer. I hate that guy. Or are you internally kicking and screaming, or are you like, All right, great job?

Oh, no. I motherfuck everybody. I'm competitive. So it's not personal. It's just damn, they thought to call that person first or, man, they were working that story harder than me. I usually put it back on me of like, what didn't I do that I didn't get it? So living in that world is dangerous, too, because then you just get down about it. And it's so stupid. That's another thing where I'm so lucky. I have a family that has nothing to do with football. My dad's a plumber, my brother's a plumber. They don't give a shit about any of this. And they'll see me bummed out about something like, who cares? But in my world, it is everything. But our relationship, all the insiders are actually pretty cool. Everyone gets along. I wouldn't say we're best friends. I don't want to go hang out with Ian Rapport. I have no desire. But I see Ian, I'm like, What's up? And I think he's awesome. He's great at his job. And Adam's obviously the best at what he does. Adam's the king. There's no qualms about that. There's no one better than him. But I'm the only woman out here doing it.

That's where it's been a little different for me because-Off, queen.

No, it's crazy. I give you the question about parenting and stuff. What you do is... It's like, what you do is it's insane to me. You serve all the credit in the world.

I don't-No, I really- I'm still trying to get better too at it because I wasn't doing it a full-time job at ESPN. This is full-time now. So the athletics has been really good about they're just so psyched that we're doing these stories now. And I actually had a conversation with an insider recently, and he was like, Are you nuts for writing these dysfunction pieces? No one's going to talk to you anymore. And I actually found the opposite. I think more people are talking now because there's a little of fear in, Wow, this person is digging, and they know, and I don't want to get on their bad side. I don't want to be a doom and gloom reporter, but I love this new role of being able to just uncover stuff that fans, whether Beams wants to hear it, or Max wants to hear about the Eagles and their dysfunction at times, it's there, and it's why they're not winning.

Yeah. I just wanted to follow up on that because you were saying that now you're writing. You were reporting basically on Twitter, on TV before. For it. Now you're adding in the writing thing. I think it's a Mitch Hedberg joke. It's like going to a chef and being like, Oh, you're a great chef. Can you also farm? Two things that are tangentially related. But becoming a writer at this point in your career here, that seemed like a big ask.

That was the hardest part about it when they were like, okay- Writing sucks. They're like, We want you to write. I'm like, What? The last time I wrote anything was just my email password. I don't want to have to do that.

Writing and reading sucks. You got to go face scan.

You should be able to face scan an essay. Correct.

Just like anything else in life is the thing that you're most fearful of is always the most rewarding when you're able to accomplish it. Now I'm doing it all the time, and I dread it. It's like a report that we all did in school. It's just like you dread it. But there is nothing better than turning that in. When I press send to my editor, I'm like, Peace. I love it. Then especially when I see it published in the New York Times or on the athletic, it's worth it. It's definitely been hard though.

Sorry, last question. You obviously They go and visit with a lot of teams and stuff like that. Today, the grades came out from, I think it was the NFLPA with grading the different franchises in order of several different factors. I don't want you to bash anyone, but who are your favorite team to visit and are the most accommodating, have the nicest facilities, et cetera?

I think asking a media person is difficult because we're going to base it on access. The PR staffs and the team-Not the buffet? Well, the The food thing does annoy me. The Super Bowl's food? Terrible.

Really? Terrible. I'd base it on food.

It made me so sad. I was like, Come on. The Super Bowl in Tampa the COVID year? Amazing. It was so good.

Steve is a Bucks fan.

So I would say the stadium outside of Dallas, so Dallas, Jerry obviously does it top-notch. Outside Dallas, the team that does it the best in terms of the food I like is New England because they do pasta, they do lobster roll, they lean into who who they are. There's some Italians, some seafood, and they take care of their media because they probably knew that the media is going to have to deal with grumpiness. They're like, Let's feed these guys. That's smart. But in terms of just dealing with different organizations, it's all over the spectrum. You deal with some teams, and they just make your job so hard. Then you deal with people like the Chiefs who have every reason in the world to be arrogant, and they're not. They're great. Patrick Mahomes is really open to doing stuff, so that's helpful. But then you'll go to some teams that are not good at all. It's such a pain to deal with. But in terms of facilities, the Jets actually have a beautiful facility. I like going there, and they feed you. That's another thing, too. They feed you at lunch. I think I'm a little bit more like you than I thought.

If you feed me, I'm happy.

If you put out a good spread, nothing else really matters. All right, good question, Steven. Diana, thank you. Like I said, it was long overdue. And now that you're a current guest, we'll definitely have you on in the football season. Good luck with the podcast. What's the name of it?

Scoop City.

Scoop City? More like Scoop City. Uh-oh.

Is that- Are you scared? No.

Scoop City, is that Jack Mac?

I actually was hoping- Oh, no.

We got a guy who is actually a very good reporter, and he says Scoop City.

Well, I wanted to reveal on the show my first gas. I thought it'd be a really good- Is it Jack Mac?

No, it's Max. Oh, is it Max? Yeah, Max is your first gas. Max is my first guest.

A huge book. All the listeners at The Athletic like, What?

Who is this guy? It's just Max.

We're just going to put the microphone next to his butt and just fart the whole time. I'll be number one before you know it.

He did finish the two sodas. We gave him $600. Proud of you, Max. Good job, Max.

Diana Rossini was brought to you by Pardon My Cheesesteak. Big news from Pardon My Cheesesteak. In honor of our boy, Max, and everything that he does for us, they're running an exclusive buy one, get one promotion on all beverages this Wednesday through on Uber Eats only. How about that? That's right. Buy one, get one free. Perfect for doubling up on your favorite drinks, max style. Just tell him, I want my order to the max. If you haven't checked out Part of My Cheesesteak in a while, they added over a thousand locations last year. 2024 is the year of The Cheesesteak. Order now. I love Part of My Cheesesteak. I get it all the time. It's delicious. No better couch meal in the world than Part of My Cheesesteak. No better lunch than Part of My Cheesesteak. Now you can get two sodas. Buy one, get one on sodas. Thank to Part of My Cheesesteak. Order now on Uber Eats or partofmycheessteak. Com. Also, I don't know if you guys saw this, FedEx is taking their naming rights away from the commanders. Infective immediately. What do you guys think about Part of My Cheesesteak Stadium?

I like it a lot.

Should we submit a bid? I love that. We're going to submit a bid.

Yeah, let's get that bid submitted, Hank.

Then when it doesn't get approved, we'll just be like, We're banned from the NFL, the Bad Boy Cheesesteak. Yeah.

By the way, speaking of steaks, Breaking Moos. Breaking Moos. The one baseball player who keeps us all connected, who is that? Schwerbo.

Schwerbo.

The MLB did one of those TikTok videos, and they asked every single player on the video, obviously, it was probably 35 players, how they liked their steak cooked. Kyle Schwarber, Medium Rare Plus.

Okay. That's love it.

Schwarber. We love Kyle Schwerber. We do love Kyle Schwerber. We love Kyle Schwerber.

We should do that as a special.

Yeah, Medium Rare Plus.

What's special?

Like a part of my cheese steak special. My cheese steak will be Medium Rare Plus.

We did order steaks in Indianapolis. The medium rare was the exact same as medium rare. No, it wasn't. Yes, it was.

No, it wasn't. That's not true. Hank, pardon your take?

Pardon your take. Sure.

Uh-oh. A lot of reading.

I think Boston is going to become the new tortured city.

Oh.

The paths are going to be way down by their terrible owner. The Celtics have had recent success in the regular season, but always will get face fucked by the heat. The Bruins are aging fast and don't really have a strong chance of winning the Cup.

What are your thoughts on that one?

That one's valid. Although they're really good this season, so maybe not. Yeah. The Bruins that I know aren't on the team anymore. Yeah. I got to get familiar with it.

Aging fast. Pasta.

Julia. The Red Sox owner should pay their fans and are much more interested in selling the Fenway Park experience than playing good baseball. That's a fact. Red Sox owners suck. This totally could come back to bite me in the ass, but I think the whole city is about to become the new Dallas Cowboys. Wow.

The whole city will become the Cowboys.

I don't think you can't torture a city. I've won, I think, 10 plus championships since I was nine years old. You can't torture. That's not torture if we don't a championship for a few years. The Celtics are the favorites to win the championship this year. The Bruins are in the top five, I believe, in the standings in their division. Patriots, new coach, they're going to be really good. Top three draft pick. Really good. That doesn't sound tortured to me.

You think the Patriots are going to be really good?

It will happen at some point.

Yeah, championship for the next four years.

Where everything goes down. Is there a chance it's going down right now?

No. Okay. The Celtics are the most fun team that I've watched since the big three. I love watching the Celtics. They're fun to watch. It's going to be an exciting postseason. Bruins, I hop on once we get into the play.

He's got a crinkle in his face.

Hank, do you ever feel like the best years of your sports life are behind you, though?

I think that is a fact. There's no way that it's not.

That's a fact. I'm okay with that. The best sports years of my life were when I was 16 to 25, and they were the most fun years of my life. I can't replicate that. I would rather have had the best years of my life be at the age that they were Then when I'm 30 in Chicago. No, you're right. The prime years were my prime years as well.

If the Celtics win a chip this year, then that extends that window another three to five years. You're like, Oh, we just recently won another one.

What are you going to say, Max?

You say that they can't be tortured. Would you say that current Cowboys fans are a tortured fan base?

Yes.

The answer is yes.

Yes. No, there's enough time.

That's a long time. Right.

Enough time can absolutely- Yes, but that's what this is saying, that it could trend in that.

By the time I'm 40 years old, we'll be tortured.

Yeah. Next thing you know, your quarterback's going to be- You're 30. Your quarterback is going to be shaving his head like he's 36.

Right, but the Cowboys are tortured because they won. When was the last time they won? '95, '96? Yeah.

But you would have said 40 like you're like, When I'm 80 years old and dying, I'm a tortured fan.

If you don't win another championship in the next 20 years, you would be tortured.

Yeah, but I'll be old by then.

Okay. Yeah, you will be.

Being a tortured fan is People get mad at it. It's a young man's game.

I don't know.

There's probably some old Bills fans. Yeah, but that's because they've never won.

This sucks, dude.

They've never won.

It's funny because Hank has experienced being a fan in the same years as his potential athletic prime. Now he's looking at-He's like, Yeah, I'm retired. I got to retire. I had a great run. Now I get to watch the other teams do it. Yeah, I did. Okay.

All right, next one.

Wait, also, why can't you be a fan when you're older?

No, I'm saying-Yeah, no, you can. That's But Hank's not looking at it that way. Hank's like, I'm retiring from being a sports fan. I'd actually think- That's what it seems like. I'm going to do a press conference. I'd like to thank the city of Boston.

I also think that when you're older, it might mean just like it gets... If you have kids in your 30s and 40s, you got other shit, your career going, maybe not paying as much attention. But when you're 50, 60 and you got nothing going on, your teams probably mean a lot.

That's what my dad looks forward to at night is going home and watching the Villanova game or the Philly's game.

That's It's tough.

If I have kids-That's tough.

What you just described it as tough. What?

Seeing two national championships?

No, but this year, I'm talking about this year.

Well, we're playing good ball right now. Okay.

Yeah, put a future on them.

Philly's haven't really upgraded, but it's fine. Okay.

If I have kids and then the teams go through hardships, maybe by that point, it will be torture.

Yeah, but this is like the last dance for you, Hank.

It's not.

You can't. One final chance at a chip.

Jason Tate him is He's 18. Okay. It's 19. What's up, King Cat, P. F. Tits, Golf Boy, Mr. Positions, and Double Soda Dawn.

What does P. F. Tits mean? I don't know.

Dan Hurley drinking what looks like piss before Every game had me thinking. Would you guys drink your own piss before every game of the season if it meant your team would go 17-0 and win the Super Bowl? Yes.

Without a doubt.

Are you kidding me? That's the easiest question ever. Definitely.

Jake, you would drink piss?

You would not, Jake. That's a lie.

Oh, no. If I was the coach of that team.

Oh, we're talking about his fans. His fans?

Yeah, no, fair enough. The question might have been like, if you were a coach, but we'll just say like his fans.

Yeah, no, his fans, I would do it. Easy. I would drink piss every fucking Sunday just to have the bears be in the playoffs. Don't even guarantee me anything, but just be like, You guarantee the playoffs? That would be piss every Sunday, no matter what, wake up, mouthwash, piss.

I agree. I would do it actually every day. Yeah. Not even every Sunday.

You should just do it next year.

Yeah, maybe we will. Maybe Maybe we will.

Tell me I won't, Max.

Tell me I won't again. I think you guys are all talk. I don't think you'll drink your own piss next year.

Yeah, maybe we will.

I drink Max's piss for a Super Bowl.

That's too far.

His toilet can't even do that.

Sure, I eat so much Asparius.

All right. Hey, fellows, I'd like to draw your attention to one of the biggest conspiracies in modern college athletics. Did you know that the one and two seating WCC tournament automatically start in the semifinal and get three buys?

Yeah.

This means that basically every year, all Gonzaga has to do to guarantee a tournament birth is win two games.

Well, no, that's not all they have to do.

Even with this ridiculous format, Gonzaga has still failed to ever make a single final four. It's truly shocking. Love the show.

But they would have to get that by.

Yeah, right. Saying like, Oh, well, Gonzaga only has to win two games. They have to win all the games in the regular season to get the one in the two seat. Max pulled up the visual.

It's a great-looking graphic.

Yeah, no, it is. It's a greater than this. But I like how they do it.

It makes the regular season mean a lot more.

Yeah. No, it's not a conspiracy. It is crazy, but it's not a conspiracy.

Looking at the bracket makes me think it's more of a conspiracy because that is a shocking bracket.

Well, it's just you got to play well in the regular season.

Yeah.

They only have nine teams. Okay, next.

All right, last one. I'm so fucking sick of Sean Payton getting away with being a bad head coach. Name another coach that gets away with throwing his team under the bus, wasting the rust seasons, and being so bad that nobody wanted to buy his contract, so he had to go on TV for a few seasons. He gets away with too much for winning only one Super Bowl with Brees as his quarterback. Bill Belichick gets crushed for being a far superior coach, but Sean is the same guy with much worse accolades.

Was this written by Hank?

What does Sean Payton know?

This is written by Roger Goodell, I think.

I actually agree with this take. I agree with this take.

I'll say this about Sean Payton. He's too miserable all the time compared to what he's done. You have to earn the right to be that onerary all the time and that pissed off at your own players. The way that he treated Russell last year, who, by the way, was not very Good. I'm not going to stand on the table for Russell Wilson, but everything was Wilson's problem last year, even when it wasn't. That game against the lines on Thanksgiving when he was like, Yeah, it's your fault that this happened, and it turned out that it wasn't at all. He needs to tone down the pissed offness a couple of notches until he gets to the playoffs again.

It's also a great lesson that if you can win a Super Bowl with a franchise that everyone assumed was never going to win a Super Bowl, you do get way more grace than if you win a Super Bowl with the Cowboys or the Steelers or the packers. That's a fact. Mike McCarthy and Mike Tomlin have a Super Bowl, and they're talked about completely different than Sean Payton because Sean Payton won it with the Saints.

I think Sean Payton could have been that pissed off and throwing his team under the bus if he had stayed in New Orleans. But now he's in Denver.

I think, yeah, now it might turn on him. If he doesn't get it right, it will turn on him.

Also, Hank, I just remembered, you said that the Red Sox ownership doesn't care about the fans at all. Are you excited all about Theo?

Theo's back.

Did you know that Theo was back?

No.

Theo's back? Yes.

I mean, they haven't signed anyone. They don't do anything.

Well, he's not back. He's with the ownership group, so he's not the Red Sox GM.

The ownership group does not care about the Red Sox. They care about golf, they care about soccer, they care about- NASCAR. Nascar. They care about everything but the Red Sox. Yeah. It's the Fenway Group. They started with the Red Sox, and now they're on to bigger and better things. They know that they'll sell out. They'll still get a lot of money from people coming to games, even though they suck. So why bother? It's a shame. It's tough.

Okay, good show, boys. Great interview coming on Friday with Pat Bev. Awesome, awesome interview. In person. Numbers.

40.

20. 18. Oh, shit. Did I beat you to that?

77. 3. Wait, wait. What?

Are you looking Jason Kielsey's number? No.

No, you already said your number. I know. Pug 99? 99, Pug.Okay, here we go. And Shane's got 21.

He's got a doctor's appointment, but he sent me that.

He sent that.

Beautiful. What is it? I wouldn't be shocked if Pug actually goes to a vet. Just sitting next to a doodle in the waiting room, panting. Eleven. Eleven.

I thought that was 77.

Eleven. Love you guys. I'm talking away.

I don't know what to say, I'm saying it anyway.

Today is on my day to find you. Shying away. I'm coming for your love of great. Shying away. I'm coming for your love of great. Take me out. Take me

I'll be your future. Things that we say every little I hope, just to play my very way. You are the things I've got to, who am I?

Shining away, I'm coming to be in the same way.

Shining away, I'm coming from the same way. Take on me, take on me.

Take on me, take on me.

I'm So what do you want to watch tonight? Oh, what about...

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