Hey, pardon my take, listeners. You can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime. Members can listen ad free on Amazon music on today's part of my take we have a packed show for the Awls. It is Grit week, day three and we have Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce, one of the grittiest guys out there. A great interview with him. We went to USC today to run a basketball practice with head coach Eric Musselman, recurring guest great guy. He is going to be on the pot at the end of the show to answer listener submitted Grit questions. We also have a very special interview. Probably the only podcast that would do this interview. We ran into at the bottom, the meet and greet the kid, or he's not a kid anymore. The adult who has a kid got his head stuck in the Jacksonville Jaguar statue. So we, we did an exclusive with him, which was great. We have the Mount Rushmore of tough things. We're going to talk hard knocks.

It was a very good Mount Rushmore, by the way.

Mount Rushmore.

Great Mount Rushmore.

We have hot sea, cool throne. It is jam packed show and it's brought to you by our friends at DraftKings know the beautiful thing about being a sports fan? There's only like two days the whole year without a game. Two with so much happening and so much action, that makes just about every day game day at DraftKings sportsbook, it's super easy for first timers to get started. Try betting on something simple like picking a team to win. Go to the NFL or to the DraftKings sportsbook app. Select your team, place your first bet. It really couldn't be any easier, any simpler than that. We did our NFL futures, the ones we liked. What'd you pick?

I picked a little team called the Kansas City Chiefs to win over eleven and a half games. You got a good young quarterback I like and a tight end. Jason, Kelsey's brother plays tight end and he's pretty good.

Okay. I had the Saints over seven and a half. I think they're not as bad as people think they are. Hank, what was yours?

The Bears.

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Pardon my take presented by Barstool Sports.

Welcome to part of my take presented by DraftKings. Download the DraftKings sportsbook app now. Use code take. That's code take for new customers. Get $150 in bonus bets instantly. When you bet just dollar five. Only on draftkings, the crown is yours. Today is Wednesday, August 7, and football is back. Memes, are you okay? He's crying. We're so happy that football is back. We're going to talk about hard knocks in a second. I just want to set the stage. We are on day three of grit week. Grit week. As grit week goes along, the days get longer. I feel like today was a thousand years.

Thursday.

Today's Thursday. We are all kind of running on fumes, slash, like, weird fights, but fun fights. All. I don't even know Hank was.

Hank wasn't being that fun when he was being a bitch earlier.

That's a real hibbity dibbidy. Right, huey? We found out also, we found out that Hughie says hibbidy dibbidy. He doesn't. What do you guys said that?

Oh, I said. I said that. Memes thinks that.

Oh.

He thinks that.

That should be his catchphrase.

Oh, okay. Can that be your catchphrase? Hiddy dibbidy. Hippity dippity. All right, there it is. The words. Yeah, he did the tweet. The smocking tweet.

Hippity dippity.

Say one more time.

Hibbidy dibbidy. How do you spell that?

I don't know. I think it's spelled.

Yeah, that's above our pay grade. But football's back, and we are on grit week, and we're losing our minds. But in a good way.

Yeah. And we did the. We did the clothes thing yesterday. We had Hughie and pug. Right. Pug went with you, so we're wearing our new clothes.

Yeah. I got an outcast shirt. I'm getting a lot of street cred.

Big cat shirt is just awesome. Yeah, but you are wearing, like, horizontal conduct. Horizontal seersucker shorts, which I've never seen before. It's kind of hypnotizing.

I didn't even realize till now. One leg is horizontal, one leg is vertical.

That's your. Yeah, your shorts are hypnotized.

Kind of cool.

I've been wearing these shorts all day.

It's like a magic eye thing for your crotch.

What the hell?

Hank is rocking a daytona shirt.

I would just wear this outfit.

Yeah, Hank looks good.

Max. Max is wearing something.

Yeah, I look good.

Yeah. Yeah.

What's wrong with my fit?

Well, you're wearing a tank top.

Yeah, well, we're in Cali, bro. We're in Cali.

You look like the owner of the shittiest bar in Mexico.

I think the boys look great.

I think the boys look pretty good this today, but, yeah, great week. We are. We're doing the damn thing. So we went. We watched hard knocks, shout out Corby and Susanna. Great awls. They opened up their home to us. They made buffalo wings.

And Rosie.

Rosie, the beautiful dog.

I wanted to be the one to shout out Rose.

No. The dog actually did growl at one person and one person only.

Didn't growl.

Did not. It was a growl.

Not even a slight growl. It was a little.

I saw it was a little hesitant.

That there was no growl.

It was not hesitant towards any of us.

She wasn't hesitant.

She was hesitant.

You guys sucked.

No, she rubbed up against my leg. I got. I have dog hairs on my leg.

But we. We did it all. We had. We had a great meet and greet in Long beach. Tons of awls came out. We met the kid whose head got stuck in the jaguar statue, which we have him on the show later on.

Shout out to the guy that just brought me a football. He just came up to. He goes, Apft. I brought you a football and handed to me. That's the nicest thing anyone's ever given. This is the nicest present of all time.

Yeah.

Cause then you got to just have a football and toss around.

Hank called the Awl soft as fuck because they didn't give him any drugs.

I was just. The last three or four meet and greets. We've walked away with, like, a lot of weed.

Silk road, the entire size.

I was surprised that in California, of all places, that it didn't happen. But I don't. I wouldn't have taken it anyway.

You don't like them. That's fine. I love them. They were awesome. Everybody was super cool today.

Yeah. So we had a great day, and we. We finished it with hard knocks at Corbyn Susanna's house. What are you gonna say?

I'll say I'm. You probably will before the interview, but quickly, since I'm sure there's many, many people who will not understand the Jaguars because even our own producers are like, I don't even know.

Okay, that's fair. That's fair. There's a famous picture of. From 1990.

No, this was the NFL world.

The NFL world.

I knew it. I knew.

There's a famous picture of a nine year old who put his head inside the Jacksonville Jaguar, outside the Jaguar stadium. He put his head in the statues, the Jaguars mouth, and he got his head stuck in the Jaguar. And there's a picture of this little kid with his head stuck in the Jaguar. And it's, it like the fire department had to come. He's gonna tell the whole story. I get to the bar today, this kid, this guy comes up to me. He's like, hey, you've talked about me a lot, but you don't know who I am. And I was like, all right, this is weird.

This.

I'm skeptical. And he's like, I'm the guy kid who got his head stuck in the Jaguar. And I was like, shut the fuck up. And he showed me his id. I then looked at all the articles about it, matched up age, matched up everything. I used to post a picture every time the Jaguars lost in my blogs. And, yeah, listen, if you do, if Hank hates this interview, pft. I thought it was fun. I thought it was a fun wrinkle.

I don't think that Hank appreciates the lore behind Jaguar.

No, you hate the interview. It's fine. It's a ten minute interview. It's a funny story. Jack was the guy even said ESPN.

And meeting and greeting while you guys.

Were the ESPN and the Jaguars have reached out to him to try to get him to do an interview. And he's like, I saved it for PMT.

I love that big cat. I was sitting next to him as we start, you know, doing pictures and every, maybe first or like, second or third picture because I can't believe he's here.

This kid is, I know. Like, I would say that the, the first, like, things that come to mind with jaguars, it's Blake Bortles and then probably Blake Bortles again. And then distant third Jaguars kid.

Yeah.

Also urban Meyer.

Yeah. All right, so that's we got a shitload for. For everyone. But we should talk hard knocks, which is great. I loved hard knocks.

It was a good, good first episode. I don't think that you did like it. I thought you didn't like it.

No, no, no.

ICat went through some emotional swings during the episode.

I understand the storytelling HBO has to do. I thought they were pretty heavy on the bad kill Williams highlights to start, but then they turned around, and I will say right now, just watching it, I mean, Caleb Williams has aura. He's. He's also got a fucking fat ass, which is good because that's the power to drive the football down the field.

I made a couple notes during it, just right off the top, because big cat did get upset with how they.

Showed his first ten minutes.

We're just bad passes.

We're just bad passes. Like, where is. No, no, no.

In the first five minutes, they did a montage of some silky, silky spirals. Great passes.

It was a lot of bad passes.

Pass was great.

Yeah. And then it was bad passes. Then they showed some good ones. I understand they're doing storytelling. I just, you know, we. And they also did the whole. The whole pun like, oh, everyone could take the l, but they want w's.

So I made a couple notes here. Just a big cat's initial thoughts behind it. First thing, big cats.

Wait, whoa. You're. You were. You were recording me when we were just watching.

I made two notes. Two things that you said. You can tell. You can tell me if they're false.

Okay. I mean, they're probably true.

All right. First big cat thought that they were calling Caleb Williams gay. When Iber flu said the word grinder, they were cut.

I'm just got. Listen, everyone shits on the bears. Everyone outside of Chicago is saying the Caleb Williams can be a monumental bust. I have my defenses up.

I don't think that's a lot of people.

Okay?

A lot of people.

We never speak in hyperbole here. A lot of people are hoping for Caleb Williams to be a bust and wishing for Caleb Williams to be a bust, including Hank. I have my.

Hank's going to bet on.

I have my guard up. You guys do the same thing with your teeth.

All right, all right.

You do the same thing with your teeth.

That was the first one. So after the gay, I don't.

I think that's a totally normal thing to have my guard up. I'm trying to defend my guy, okay? I'm watching out for negative things. After you, Hank, you went to jail for Tom Brady.

Yeah, I know.

You had your guard up.

Yeah.

Right.

Okay.

So after I got my guard up.

After the gay thing, next thing was he was stretching. And big cat says, caleb Williams has a nice ass.

He does. Yeah, he's got a fat ass. You've never made a sexual comment?

No, I'm just saying. You said he had a nice ass.

He does. He's got a powerful ass. I want my quarterback to have a big ass. Drives the ball.

He's got a good ass. But I think as it went on. Correct me if I'm wrong, I might be psychoanalyzing you a little bit.

Yeah. This sounds like you're watching.

This is from the first ten minutes. There were only two things, but I think when they. They did use your clip, which was awesome. At the beginning, when you said 100 out of 100, Caleb Williams was awesome. Will be the best quarterback.

And they were playing serious behind it. It was pretty fucking cool. It was pretty cool project.

And. But then Nick Saban said, the one thing that gets quarterbacks is expectations.

Correct.

Is that why you were feeling touchy, because you feel like you've given him big expectations?

No, I'm gonna. I'm gonna say wild shit all the time. Just like you. Just like Hank. Yeah, we all say wild shit. I get what? Not you.

Not me.

Well, that. Do you want to talk about your gaff?

Yeah. Pft is gonna argue on my behalf on that one.

Okay.

Wait. Have I just been deputized as his lawyer?

I don't know. I didn't know. I feel like I was in a safe space in Corbyn, Susanna's house. I didn't know I was being watched as close as I was being watched.

We talk about things on the show.

That, personally, that weren't personal.

I get it. I know that because I have my guard up right. I'm. I'm agreeing with you that I'm. I'm psychoanalyzing every moment. But it's because I've been battered to a point where it's like, you know, like when you drop your keys and your dog flinches. That's what I do. When there's any negative thing, I flinch.

I think you might feel the pressure of giving expectations to Caleb.

No, I don't feel the pressure at all. I'm gonna give expectations to ever. I did the same thing with Justin Fields. I did the same thing Mister Bisky. I did the same that they go on down the line.

Okay.

I'm gonna do the same thing for the rest of my life. Kale Williams doesn't turn out the next guy, I'm gonna do the same thing. The next guy, I'm gonna do the same thing. And round and round, round we go. And then when someone drops the keys or someone closes the door really loud, I'm gonna flinch.

Okay, so Nick Saban sucks a karaoke, by the way.

That's.

I agree. Yeah, I said that if you want to criticize Caleb about anything, you can't.

Sing, which is fine.

Or read what he like. Couldn't, he couldn't even. He wasn't trying to sing.

This is why I had my defense up. This guy is going to see everybody in the being. I'm proven correct.

Everyone thinks he can't read Carrie to.

Defense or a karaoke machine.

And I rest my case. No, this was the guy who just 2 seconds ago said he was an ally. This is why I have my guard up.

Drake may think he's good at karaoke.

Definitely.

I would rather my quarterback stink at karaoke.

To each their own.

Okay, what else about hard knocks?

Okay. Nick Saban.

Yeah.

It brought Nixon apparently. Matt Eberfluss. He has a coach.

Yes.

Nick Saban is now coaching Matt eberf.

Loose. I didn't understand. Maybe this was just for cameras and it is a show and that's what, you know, the Kale Williams, the, the bad highlights that I was like, come on, show something good. I understand there's telling a story. Did Nick Saban and Matt Iberfluz never have that conversation before? So I was, that made no sense.

I was wondering that if you're Matt Iberfluss, it actually, it's good that they're having this now when they have Caleb. But I feel like they would have had that conversation when he got the job.

They 100% have had that conversation.

Right.

He's probably had that conversation. Like he probably talks to Nick Saban every year. It's kind of like the, the clip at the end with Jonathan Owens clearly watching a tape recorded small piles being like, yeah, go. It's like, no, she's in. She's going for a golden. You're half clapping. We know this isn't live. Yeah.

So Saban gets in, he talks about what can kill a quarterback. He's giving him advice. And then during that conversation, Max chimes in. Max says, nick Saban, not a great track record when developing quarterbacks.

He's not a QB whisper.

Yeah, that's what they were just like showing Nick Saban as like this wise, like tell all coach, which he is. But if you were to say one thing about Nick Saban. It said, he's not like a quarterback whisperer.

Right.

And then. Then big.

Trying to think about quarterbacks that he's had.

No, but you took that as, like, a defense against the bears for some reason.

No.

And then big cats.

Oh, yeah, it was. Yeah, my guard is on.

I'm saying, like.

Yeah, because you're like, why is this guy telling him about the quarterbacks?

Listen, I'm gonna have my guard and.

Hurts, and then I'm not going to apologize for having my guard up. I want that very clear.

Okay?

Memes, back me up. You have your guard. This is why you've had a flurry over the year. You gotta always have your guard up. Yeah.

Always have your guard up. There's haters like Florio, Hank and Max.

When you're a battered franchise, you gotta be looking around every corner being like, there's a shooter. What?

Max.

Max is best. He said the jets are gonna win Super bowl.

So I love Max.

He just kept saying that. I was like, after he told us to do a long shot pick, and I said, the jets.

Yeah, but. But he's got his guard up. So he's like, you're guard up, guard up, anti Florio of the year.

No, I think it's. It's natural to have your guard up. But I said during, when we were watching it that this was like big cat's version of the dynasty, the Patriots documentary where Hank got his guard up. But I came like, give me more football porn.

I came around after they started showing Caleb's good stuff. I understand they've got to tell a story. They're like, oh, he's a rookie. He sucks. I just. I want to see him throw touchdowns, that's all. Yeah. So it's not too much ass for.

So, Max, the Jalen hurts comment, when you said Saban, not really quarterback whisperer, and they brought up Hertz, I got flustered.

Like, I normally, actually, Corbin brought up Hertz.

He was like, he's like a fifth member of PMT.

Yep. That was good job.

By. He was just like, what about hurts, Max?

I got flustered. Came up with a bad answer.

Then.

Pft is like, all you have to do is say that he got better when he went to Oklahoma.

Yeah, he did that when he left.

That's true.

Yeah, he did. Yeah, I. Listen, Max, I agree that Nick Saban, I think that was just all like, they're like, we want Nick Saban in this, and we're going to have him do a conversation with Eber. Flus. A conversation they probably had a million times. The main story of this hard knocks is going to be Caleb Williams. So he's going to talk about Caleb.

Yes.

That's it. Like, there was no. That whole conversation was like, basically for show in my mind. Cause again, you cannot. You. You could never tell me that Nick Saban and Matt Iberfoose have not talked about football every single year.

Agreed.

It wasn't the first time they were doing it and he was, like, taking fake notes.

They had a very long montage of Matt Iberfluz getting hot.

Yeah, well, funk, our guy funk, he got funked up. Yeah. I don't know how I still feel about that.

I would feel. I would feel better about he looks better because in some of the clips.

That they show good, feel good, play good.

The last point when he was bald faced and he was making these goofy, goofy facial gestures or facial expressions, it made me repel in my chair a little bit. And then they showed him now and it's like, that guy's hot.

Yeah. Oh, I forgot. Nick Saban. The one funny part about Nick Saban. Washington. It's like the best college coach of all time, this football genius. And he also uses the dumbest argument in all of sports. Peyton Manning threw a ton of interceptions as rookie year, which is like, there was only one guy who did that who threw as many interceptions as Peyton Manning and then went on to be Peyton Manning.

The more interceptions you throw as a rookie, statistically the better you are.

It's. Every single person has been using that since Peyton Manning being like, if your rookie sucks, you're like, well, Peyton Manning sucked. And to see Nick Saban use that same dumb logic was awesome.

The star of the show was the canadian offensive lineman that sang karaoke.

Yes.

I think he might actually be deaf.

Yeah.

But it wasn't about the singing. It was about the. It was about the Speedo rocking an american flag. Speedo and his buddy in the background clanging the cymbals. And that was awesome. But it was like doing a speed run of hard knocks where usually you get the. The very sympathetic, the guy that you root for right off the bat. Episode one, you follow him, you root for him. You root for him. Then he gets cut in, like, last episode. This time it was like, okay, I'm rooting for this guy because he's fucking hilarious and had the most hilarious canadian accent. And then later on in the episode, he got hurt and he's gonna get cut.

Yeah, for sure. Gonna get cut.

But that guy.

Yeah, he was awesome.

He's the most american guy that I've ever met.

Yeah, he was cool canadian. It was cool when Kale Williams said his signing bonus just because everyone was like, oh, fuck. He was pointing at Ryan polls. The DJ Moore thing was cool. He's an awesome guy, getting all that money. It was also funny watching Kevin Warren sit there and, like, read over the numbers at the end. Been like, yeah, good deal.

Mm hmm.

Okay, thanks.

It's fair on all sides.

Appreciate that. I liked it. I I liked it. I just want to see. Caleb Williams should probably throw more touchdowns. And I'll see more touchdowns. Yeah, I understand that part of it.

I. They did show a lot of his sick throws very early on. Yeah, when they had the spirals, he had a very fuckable spiral, but, yeah, there was the. Okay, he's struggling a little bit.

Do you think he has aura? I do.

I don't think that you can argue otherwise. Yeah, I don't think that's even a question.

Yeah, the slip and slide was cool.

Also.

Tyson Baijin is very funny.

Yeah, Bajan's hilarious. The slip and slide thing was funny because that's. There are two things that a coaching staff can do to train their quarterbacks how to slide, and every team does. One of these two things is a slip and slide.

Yep.

The other is call up the professional baseball team in your city and ask them.

Yes.

Do you have any pointers on how to slide? Yes, but football coach, you should be able to teach a guy how to slide without consulting a professional about it.

Oh, breaking moves.

We just had an earthquake.

Do we feel it?

We said earthquake.

I've always wanted to feel an earthquake.

Five points.

Oh, is that what the breaking news?

5.6. How do we not feel it?

Is that the big one?

Pug text texted our group. Chat was like the whole hotel was shaking.

The rv didn't move.

This thing is a fucking tank.

Did it? You felt it?

I thought it was just like someone shifting in the bus.

That's a fat joke. Me, Huey, and Max just locking eyes.

Being like, okay, is it still going? No.

No.

We survived our earthquake.

There could be. Let's go after it.

Also might have been me yelling about the bears. Cause a little floss.

First earthquake on the pod.

Yeah. So we've done a tornado. We've done earthquake. We've done. We've survived.

Kind of pissed that I didn't feel it.

Yeah, me too. What else have we.

Tougher than earthquakes. We just didn't even feel it.

Either that or we have really bad balance, naturally, and so we just didn't feel being shipped.

Bad awareness.

Yeah.

I was probably focused on how I fucked up the Jalen hurts thing.

Yeah. Also, Max did say that he was hoping that Caleb Williams got hurt on the slip and slide.

That's not true. That was Hank that said that.

Oh, did Hank say that if he got hurt on the slip inside, you're not. Hey, listen, little tip for everyone out there. You're not paranoid if everyone's out to get you.

Okay.

I agreed, though. I agree that it would have been fun fact.

Have you guys.

What is that? What are you guys talking about?

San Andreas, you and me. Starts with an earthquake, then a tidal wave, then just get hit by tidal wave.

Do you think the earth knows that? It's great week.

I think it would probably need more than 5.6, but, yeah, maybe.

You think there's a tsunami. Should we go catch a wave?

We did surf, so go surfing.

Yeah.

Video comes out Thursday.

I'm bummed that I didn't feel that earthquake.

Same.

I know. Like, I. If I didn't feel it and we were just hanging out, then we could at least lie about it. But the fact that we were recording, we didn't talk about it, so everyone knows we didn't feel.

You think the cameras shook? That'd be cool.

Earthquake cam.

Shake one of those cameras real quick. Oh, yeah. There's the earthquake. Oh, my God. Oh, shit. What an earthquake.

That feels like. I'm going to say a 5.6.

Whoa. All right, last thoughts about hard knocks. I I'm. I wish the bears weren't on hard knocks. That's what I'll say. It's too early for me to get my blood pressure this high. I don't like that. I don't like having. I think I even said during the episode, I was like, how many episodes of this are there? Because I don't.

Oh, yeah, I don't. I'm done watching this show.

I'm going to have to just. But I'm just. I'm like, usually August is when I, like, reserve my energy getting ready for the battles I'm gonna go into. And now I feel like I have to fight the battles early, and it just. I don't know.

Why don't Buddha Ben just tweeted, whoa. Big earthquake. Hashtag Los Angeles.

Wow. What are you gonna say, max?

I I would be so excited if.

My team was on hard, won something.

But it's like, you.

You've won more football. Yeah.

Your team likes, like, you got to.

Be your team's not a joke.

If. No, the commanders wrong.

So excited are, if they are joined, I would love.

You think that it's not like you think that everyone's out to get you when they are. I don't think they are.

Yeah. You guys were wishing Kale Williams got hurt on the slip and slide.

That would, someone brought it up like they were getting all of that slip and slide with like no footing at.

The end of that.

I agree that they were very, it made me nervous if it was another team, when you vocalize it, I was like, he's out to.

Okay, so if this, if this was like the Steelers, and we're watching the Steelers hard knocks and Russell Wilson was on a slip and slide because he couldn't slide, I wouldn't give a fuck. And, and you said, like, I wouldn't give a. Someone said it'd be very funny. Like, just hilarious, though. Not like wishing bad will, but objectively speaking, it would be funny if he got hurt on the slip and slide they brought in.

No, that one. Wait. Yeah.

They wouldn't know that.

If there was the commander on the hard knocks and someone said that you would have the same reaction, you'd be like, shut up.

No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying if somebody said that, you would agree. Yes. Objectively, it would be funny.

No shit.

Yeah.

Right.

If I agree, I don't know if it happened to Jane, if I be this upset.

Yes, you would.

Okay.

You react the same way. That's why I upset.

I'd be upset.

Yes. Max would be upset. We all react the same way. It's just that this is why I don't, I wish I wasn't on hard knocks. You can't predict. Pft. Don't pretend that you wouldn't be upset if it was. Jaden Daniels is like, he like, comes up a little gimpy or something and you're like, oh, would be a shit. You'd be like, shut up. Don't say that.

I would say, shut up. Don't say that. Yeah, if he, if he got up.

Gimpy, yeah, it would be the same thing. And if it was a team that wasn't my team, I would have no problem. That's how all of us react.

Guards up.

But that's how everyone reacts to fandom. Yeah, but their team, they defend. I would love, everything else is funny. That's how fans work.

I would love to see just, I'm with Max where it's like, if we get five weeks of extra commanders content I would be. But again, I'm not in the trenches.

No. Yeah. You're not a man in the arena.

You're not.

You're not right there right now.

It's.

I'm gonna watch every second. I just. I wish I didn't have to have my guard up this early, that's all. And we're a joke, and I don't want to be a joke anymore. Anymore, huey, you understand? You just stopped being a joke. Yeah. I mean, the Lions literally just stopped being a joke.

But to that point, it was two seasons after hard knocks.

True.

The best season ever.

True. So I have to wait another year. Yeah. Okay.

Next year over year.

Okay. What are you doing?

Hank Hubbard?

So close. So close. All right, what else?

Well, USA basketball wins.

Yeah. LeBron had quite the moment. Did you guys see that?

The.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was funny.

The French. The french swimmer came into the arena and the arena went crazy. And LeBron thought everyone was cheering for him. He even put on the crown.

It's very funny seeing a guy who's been like main character his entire life not be main character. Still thinks that he's main character.

Right. Hank detatom play.

Yep.

How Tatum do like, compared to Joel Embiid? Because that's been the big back and forth.

Better. No, I mean, it's a team game. USA one and be played well. Tatum played well, indeed.

Had a monster game.

Monster game. Only played half.

Why?

Because they were up so big, they tired. The starters were.

We now need to win every game by 30. Yeah.

I mean, today was domination.

And who we play next, we bet.

We play jokic, Serbia.

Oh, so isn't b gonna go home for that game?

No, he's gonna fucking dominate.

He's not an altitude.

Okay, good. Wait, how high up is France?

I don't know, bro. I don't know.

Max's guards up.

Yes. This is guards. I'm shocked up for.

No, there's the USA basketball is the is reach. Reach city for takes.

Yeah, 100%.

Unless your guys play well, then it rocks.

No, it's a complete. Everything we've said has been a reach on USA basketball. Yeah, 100%. I'm shocked. Pft you like, you would. You would have the same reaction to. He just had his guards up because we flipped it on him. And then when it compare me, I put it. But you would have the same reaction.

Pf to which thing go, guards.

Be it up. If your team was under the mic.

I just feel an earthquake. Now I'm thinking. Now I'm feeling the phantom quakes. Because I want to feel them.

There you go, man. Shake it.

My guard would probably be a little bit up.

Yeah.

But I would also be all.

Have our guards up. When our teams under the microscope.

I'd be excited. I'd be excited about having the team.

I am excited. But guards up. Always got to get your guards up. Hanks got his guards up anytime we bring up Tatum.

When you win it. When you win a championship, it's like, who cares?

That hurts.

Yeah, he's right.

Right? No, he's right about that. You're actually absolutely right. You're absolutely right about that. Okay.

What.

Anything else in Olympics happen? Snoop Dogg is getting paid half a million dollars just to hang out.

That's pretty sweet.

Yeah. Day.

Like, $10 million.

Crazy. Crazy.

It's good money.

Mondo de Plantis pole vaulting record. That was a big story. We met him at LSU six years ago.

We met that guy.

I met him at a tailgate. We were at a tailgate together. I was, like, separate. I met him, hung out with him. Like, we went to a different tailgate. I was with him for a few hours. Just an. I started. A normal student. Like, we just had a good time. He was a normal student. Had a good time, was with his friends. And then he followed me on Instagram. After I remembered his name, I clicked his name, and he had, like, a hundred thousand followers. Like, oh, track and field star.

Yeah.

And then he went on to break the world record. And then this. He won the gold medal in Tokyo. Then he broke his own world record and won the gold medal yesterday. And, like, the celebration with his girlfriend went viral. He was, like, the. The talk of the Olympics yesterday, which is very cool.

Does that mean he's got a small dick, though?

It might.

That's fine. Gold medalist, world record model girlfriend.

Who cares?

Yeah, no one cares.

He's fine.

It was so Hank after you. Was it after you met him that we did the Mount Rushmore of Olympic sports that you think you could dominate at if you trained?

That was.

And Hank selected pole vaulting.

Was he bigger than you? He's. Oh, you maybe take him in a fighter.

No, I mean, he's an athletic freak, but he's probably. I don't know, he might be, like, 510 or six one.

Well, you can't be that big of an athletic freak. He needs a pole.

Maybe had a run. Fast as fuck.

Did he respond to you when. When you selected pole vault?

Yeah.

You're the dumbest person of all time. I almost filmed a video with him. The timing didn't work out, but, but he would.

If he didn't.

Had all time, if it had. If I had been able to execute my vision, it was going to be me doing the running and then cutting to him in the same outfit so it looked like it was me.

Okay. That's good vision.

It would have been great.

Yeah.

But, yeah. Shout out to Mondo Mando.

Oh, we. We buried the lead at the start of the show. Congratulations to the Chicago White Sox.

Oh, yeah. They won.

They won a game. They beat the Oakland Athletics today.

So 21 games in a row. Snapped.

Yeah.

Also, did you guys see today that Scheffler was doing a weird thing? He was. It was very smart of him. He was just tweeting out depth charts for the first preseason game just to get like, their interactions were crazy. It was like JJ McCarthy's the second quarterback.

Yeah.

Bo Nix, I think was the third quarterback. I see you shifty that that plays.

Although I think Russell Wilson was QB one. Oh, so does that mean he's actually QB two?

I think so. Are we said Fields was starting?

We're doing Terrence Howard math right now?

I don't know, but it was. I saw he had a flurry of them and I was like, because I have alerts on for Shefty. And each one that came in, I was like, these are going to do numbers because it's basically like this first round pick is the second quarter, which doesn't mean anything, but it just gives fodder for everyone.

Yeah. Listen, we all. We need content this time of year.

Correct.

We need stuff to argue about.

Correct.

Just give us a list. That's all I. People say that all guys need to do is sit around naming names. And that's fine. We do that sometimes. But if you give us those random names in any sort of an order, that's when our blood really gets up.

Yes.

That's when we have fun.

That's a fact. All right. Anything else before we do hot sea cool throne and then get to the rest of the show? It's been a great day.

Yeah.

I can't believe we played basketball this morning.

I can't.

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Seat cool throne my hot seat, unfortunately, guards up patriots.

Oh, I had them, too, on my hot seat brand.

Nyuk. Rumors were hustling and bustling. It seemed like we were going to pick up a stud wide receiver, number one wide receiver for a new quarterback. And then the report, report came out on Monday that said it was basically two deals were in place, one with the Browns, one with the Patriots, and it was just going to be up to the 49 ers or I guess.

Iuke to decide this whole thing makes no sense.

And then a report came out today, which isn't official, that it's going to happen with the Steelers. McCaffrey, Christian McCaffrey was in an interview called Ayuk, his former teammate.

Right.

Basically means everyone, everyone knows he's gone. I just don't know where he's going. But apparently it's not the Patriots.

Kyle Shanahan said something along the lines of, it's hard to get better as a team when you lose a great player.

Right. So I don't, I just don't know how. The details aren't confirmed or out, but I was hoping it was gonna be the Patriots, and it's not.

Yeah.

So I think it means he doesn't want to come here.

That's what it means. So, so that's, so what happened. What happened was the Patriots, when the, the word got out there that things fell apart, they issued a statement being like, we're full steam ahead and we love the guys we have, so we're no longer going to produce, pursue that. Then word came out that Brandon Iook did not want to go to the Patriots. So it sucks for you, Hank, I'm sorry.

I don't fire.

Do we quit?

Brandon, are you, is he been doing the whole training camp, even though he's like, I don't want to be here, and I want to be traded. But also, I haven't agreed to a trade. But you guys have agreed to a trade.

I don't think he's done that, but it's, like, very similar to what Debo did a couple years ago.

Yeah.

But then Debo got the deal done, so I. You probably thought maybe this is gonna happen.

The deal done. Yeah.

Yeah. So now he's either gonna be a steeler or brown, huh?

Steeler would rock.

It'd be very unstealers. Like when it.

Yes.

Like, make a deal like this in the training camp for a wide receiver.

Yeah. I mean, they also. Yeah, they just draft great wide receivers. Yeah, they never need a trade for him. Okay, good. Hot seat.

My cool. Throwing it is the market. We're good. False alarm the other day. Oh, no worries.

You told us the world was in.

Well, did you? Oh, you said World War three.

Said World War three. I said black Monday, but it was. It was more of like a light gray. It was chill.

Well, what happened? What happened was, Hank, as an. As an economist yourself, I have no idea how you didn't pick up on this. It was bad on Monday, but then Black Monday ended, and now it's fine because it's no longer black Monday.

Yeah, I gotta. I gotta do some more research into Japan, but I think, like, it's all Japan's gotta play as a big. Plays a big role.

They fucked this up, I think.

But now they're like, you know, we. I don't know. I don't. I don't know what.

To print more money.

No, I think that's the issue.

I think.

What. Not if you print more money.

No, that's bad.

No, but if you.

Okay, so if you're out, happen to.

Right, but just keep printing money.

What hat.

Who had a threat on the country about this the other day?

No, which country was.

It was either Chile or Argentina.

They just kept on printing money.

Yeah, but then they were a booming economy in the thirties, but that's the problem. There was Argentina.

I think you're probably thinking of Germany, but anyway.

Oh, in Germany, they had to carry cash around wheelbarrows.

But see, my theory is that they just didn't. They. They stopped. You got to go through the wall. So, like, when you're like, oh, we printed so much money that it doesn't. Like, it's not worth anything. That's when you print even more money.

Right.

You can't quit printing money. You got to be committed to printing the money.

And then when people are like, you've printed too much money, then you have to print more money than you originally.

Correct.

You like love. If you print twice as much money as you did the time before, then you're good.

Right.

You just have to be committed that it's almost like you're just not committed all the way to the process. The process is printing money, and the minute you stop printing the money, it ends. Right. Yeah, I. Listen, any of our econ takes that are incorrect blame Hank Lockwood because he hasn't taught us anything.

It's true.

Yeah, we need that lesson.

Also. Rough and rowdy.

Yeah, that was my cool to have mind. I'll talk about rough and rowdy. Cool to run. Pft, your hot seat.

Hank stole my hot seat with New England Patriots, but that's fine. So I'll just think of something else that I. Oh, hot seat Arizona Cardinals. No, hot seat is people in Arizona's teeth, because the Cardinals just released a new dessert that they're selling at the stadium, which I'm convinced that teams do this just to get impressions on social media. I don't think that many people actually order them, but they're looking for the next, like, epic meal that is sold out of stadium.

Right.

And so they released a candy. Was a cotton candy stuffed burrito where it was, like, just filling. It was filled with all these different sugary cereals. And nobody's actually gonna eat that, right? No one's going to order it. It's just something that you want to order. Take a pic. Actually, that's a good idea for a restaurant, boys.

We had.

We should do a, like, the most instagrammable food, but it's disgusting. But it looks awesome. People come in and they buy it, take a picture of it, and then throw it away.

Yeah.

Or give it back to us. They rent the food to take the picture, give it back to us, then we sell. We rent it to the next person.

Remember, early part of my take, we had the idea we were gonna create a fake team and then create fake menus to then try to do Darren Revell. And it was gonna be like a shit in a Frito.

Yeah.

And then I created the account, and we said it was gonna be like the Montana black bears or something. Yeah, but I did. Montana's state code is Mn Mt.

And you did mn for. No, I did mo for Missouri.

For Missouri. And then I just quit.

It was a good idea.

Yeah, that was. That was the whole story, Hughie. Maybe that's something for you. You ever shit in Frito? No.

Okay.

Would you do Rito?

No.

Have you shit in any type of chip?

Not to my knowledge.

Okay.

Was it weirdest place you pooped.

Um.

That would have been awesome. If you just drop, like, my ex girlfriend.

Or if it was like, a bag of candy. Never chipdein.

Yeah. In my hand. Okay. Your cool.

My cool throne is Internet debates. Because there was a take. I think Draymond Green put this out there. He said that the 1992 dream team, the original dream team, he said that they would spank the current one.

Oh.

I don't know. I didn't see this.

Yeah. I think.

Said that.

Yeah. Yeah, it was.

How can you say that if you're a current NBA player?

Well, he's a throwback. Yeah.

He. Because he sees himself as being like Dennis Rodman.

Right.

He's the jump shot guy. Porn. Wrong. Error.

I think that. I think it's true. I think that the original dream. You don't think so, Hank?

No.

Modern game. More shooting. Like, if it was. If you literally just took them in a time machine and dropped them in 2024, the 20, 2014 would smoke them.

I don't know.

Smoke.

I disagree about smokers. Smoke is not. Smoke is not the right word.

Same players.

And it's not the right word.

Same type of.

They went on a. Folks.

Not the right word.

They went on a 46 to one run at one smokes.

Not the right way.

The other countries, like, didn't start playing basketball until after that.

Also, our vitas bonus.

Also, I fucked it up. He said, quite frankly, I'm taking the 2024 dream team.

Okay.

Seven days. Seven days a week.

That's what I'm saying.

You can't. I got a better. I got a better dumb debate. I got a better dumb. I got a better dumb Internet debate for you. Ready for this? Maggie Gray, who hosts a show with our friend McLovin.

This is. This is valid.

She. She had the take. Can you really brag about being the fastest person on earth if you win a race by 0.5 seconds?

So when you win a race by 0.5 seconds, does that mean that the person that you beat by 0.5 seconds is slower than you?

Yes.

Okay. Then, no, she's wrong.

It's crazy. I don't understand the argument. Yes, you could brag you won the Olympic gold for fastest person, but.

By how much?

But. But you won.

How did.

How much.

But you won. It doesn't matter how much.

I think a better debate off that would be. Can you really brag about being the fastest man alive if you win the hundred meter dash? Because who decided that was the fastest man alive?

Yeah. True.

Why not 40 meters dash? Why not 40. Why not the combine?

When a five meter dash.

Yeah.

Get off. But yeah, I think no lyles can. If you win the gold medal, you.

Won the gold medal.

Set a world record.

No, no, that's you saying bolt.

Oh, that's right.

He can brag about being the fastest person to ever live.

All right, my hot seat is Kyle Kuzma. I follow this account called NBA alerts.

Which there was ease. The Celtics are.

Oh, so this was Kyle Kuzma. Morning, 514 am Pacific time. NBA alerts tweeted, Kyle Kuzma is now following Miss Thick overload. Oh, and then 07:22 a.m. kyle Kuzma is no longer following Ms. Thick overload.

How long was that?

It was about 2 hours.

He lasted pretty long.

I, that it's, I clicked on miss thick overload. Monitor has. It's just straight porn. Oh, just straight up porn. Yep, there it is.

1St, 1st tweet. My pussy said hi.

Yeah.

Yeah. High back.

That's a, that's a brutal one, though, to have that. And that's also way too early in the morning to be that horny.

We're on the west coast, but even still, if it's eight. Yeah, you're right.

I mean, that's 08:00 a.m. to be over my load.

I might give her toss or follow here.

Yeah, I'll tweet. Pft commenters now following his thick overload.

I'm following just, just so that I know what my favorite players are doing.

Yes.

In their free time.

Yes. And then my cool throne is rough and rowdy this Friday. Rough and rowdy. We're going to wheeling, West Virginia. We have a retirement match between our guy Mikey Betts and the Able brothers. He's fighting on behalf of Frank the tank. It's going to be awesome. I'll be there. I think Nick Tarani is going to be filling in for Caleb. He's from wheeling. Roan, Dave, Robbie large, all the crew. So get excited. We're going to be doing rough and rowdy Friday night. It's an awesome card. Doing the anthem. Buy r.com. go buy r.com right now. Huey.

My hot seat. The Utah Jazz. Oh, they just gave Laurie marketing a five year, 200 plus million dollar contract. But the kicker, he can only be traded on the exact trade deadline date. What, so he can't be traded for six months?

Oh, that's part of the cop. Yeah, that wasn't specific to his.

No.

Yeah, but the only day he can be traded is on the trade deadline. It just happens to fall on that day. So they don't trade him then. Then they're potluck committed to him for a whole other year and for at least until another season. So a calendar year. Laurie marketing is gonna be a near $50 million guy for the Utah Jack.

He's a very good player. He's a very good.

Shout out, Lori.

Not worth that much money.

How much would you pay him?

I'd pay him 35.

Okay, so you think Danny ain't doing too much? Okay. But, yeah, he's overpaid him by $20 million.

He's not on your team anymore.

Hue, analytics. Yeah.

I mean, this is two recurring guests here.

Yeah. Laurie was on the show.

He's a rich man who's gonna be an all NBA player one day.

Yeah.

So why would you pay him?

All right. I shouldn't have said all star. He'll be a back to back all star again. I feel good about that. I think it'll be. I think it'll be fine. Teams wanted to trade for him. Now they can't. So that kind of closes their. The Utah Jazz a little bit.

The trade deadline thing is interesting. That's kind of a weird.

This is the only one day.

Yeah, but if you're the Utah Jazz, you think, like, this year, you might be like, man, if we had those extra $15 million, we could win a championship?

No, but what you're gonna have. What you're gonna now do is have to. You're essentially saying that this is. We want to trade him, but we also can only trade him for one day in the next, 365.

Yeah.

So if we don't trade him today or that one day, then he's ours. But we are paying him, in a way, to where we could trade him this.

That would kind of rock.

Exciting day for everyone.

Yeah, that would kind of rock. If. If it was like that with every player, like, you have 24 hours aid, and then you can't do shit. You just have to live. It's called consequences of your own actions. You have to live with them.

Yeah, well.

And it could be, God forbid, some tampering a few days before.

I don't think that would.

The NBA is not known for that, so I wouldn't think that.

Okay.

My cool throne. Pit bull.

Yeah.

Dolly.

Buying the FIU stadium for 1.2 million a year.

Wow.

Or to put his name on it. So it's the pit bull stadium.

You guys are so distracting. Hank and memes.

Sorry.

What are you guys doing?

Memes are distracted.

What are you guys doing?

He's looking up.

What do you have to share with the class?

Talking about school lunches. What is going on memes? I don't know.

Hughie was talking about Pitbull. What's going on memes? Hank almost just pressed retweet from the part of my take account that said.

Sorry, but I will never understand people.

Being against free meals for kids in school.

I do not give a shit. Families who can't afford lunch, get free lunch. Feed the fucking kids.

I just got this.

You were doing retweet on something.

Should have mentioned that. What's his name? Tim. What's his name?

Tim Walls.

Tim Walls.

Football guy.

Football guy. Ran. Not political football guy ran a four four defense. I don't know if that. If that plays at all levels, but it played Minnesota.

Took them from like an Owen seven team to three state titles.

At least one. I don't know how many won.

We haven't had a football coach or like a football guy. Who would be the last one? Gerald Ford.

Gerald Ford would be the last one.

Yeah. See, the only president was never elected.

That's a good question. I don't know.

I think he was Washington.

I think he won the first election.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Democracy was built on Lenin.

No, Andrew Johnson guided.

Andrew Johnson is the one.

Right? Cuz he got. He took over for Lincoln. Mighty, killed Lincoln. And then he got impeached. And then I think he said, fuck you guys, I'm out.

Gerald Ford did not get elected. Yeah, yeah. He took over for Richard Nixon and that was it.

Yeah, but Joe Ford all time over.

Here, Hank is on his demon time. He's just like, what is going on?

I know, I just, I got.

What did you say?

Iguodala.

Oh, wait, wait, so wait, what, what?

Iguodala.

I don't know. President.

You're just.

You're just saying. Iguodala.

He's president of the players association.

Oh, Andrew Johnson did not.

I don't think so.

He was. Oh, yeah, no, Andrew Johnson didn't as well because he took over for.

Wait, yeah.

Oh no, Andrew Johnson. When was the election? He was president for four years. Oh, so history.

So he might have been elected.

That he might have been elected. Sounds like he was presidency. Lincoln and Johnson. Okay. No, he might not have been. You might be right. So Gerald Ford. And how do we get here? Oh, Gerald Ford's last football guy.

Mm hmm.

Yeah. Iguodalae.

Football guy.

He's not even.

He says, I know, I know.

Walks away and then just goes back.

On his phone he's the acting executive.

Director in the National Football League basketball. Okay, so not a football guy.

No.

Okay.

And we got to the Bible and not a president.

Yes.

Yeah.

Acting executive director.

Apologies.

All right. Pitbull.

Acting executive director would be a good name for John Wilkes Booth, too.

Pitbull's got a stadium.

People put his name on a stadium in Florida.

So it's called the pit bull Stadium.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's gonna dome.

Mike Vicks gonna go there all the time with that name.

So I think this opens up the door now. I think it's open.

So watching. You're just. Your brain is gone.

That'd be a great name.

Okay.

But I think this opens up the world for celebrities now to start saying, you know, what school can we get our name on? What stadium was 1.2 per years? Nothing.

But it is FIU.

We must have Mercedes Benz.

Yeah. Parcel sports. We also did almost in Buffalo. Yeah.

Yeah, that would rock if just celebrities did it and they just named it after themselves for a year.

Yeah.

I got. When that was going on. I was in big into naming rights. I wanted to do, like, naming rights and for, like, people's man cave, which would be sick if I just had, like, a. If you show me a sick man cave and I just pay you, like, a. Make it my man cave would be cool.

Right, but you're right, like, $1.2 million for, like. So a mid level school.

Yeah.

Is not a bad deal at all. Yeah.

And it's one year, but still.

Yeah, yeah. But you get one year of having your name on the side of a giant stadium.

Yeah.

That'd be cool.

Really a good deal. Yeah.

What about the Miss thick overload dome? Mmm.

Followed by pft.

You followed by Pfc. How much would that cost? What's a good, like, 2.42.2?

Price goes up when it's back down.

We only need you get. It's gonna be a little inappropriate, I even tell you.

The school.

Oh, school of.

Yeah. All right.

Yeah.

By you, BYU.

Three.

Three. Okay, don't.

Yeah. Mystic overload stadium.

No, dome. It's got dome.

It's got a.

Also on Twitter, she is thick overload. Ent. Is she. That your nose? Is she a doctor?

Entertainment.

Oh, okay.

Around the porn game once or twice.

You are a porn guy.

You don't knock it till you try.

Wait, we just know I didn't use bit in porn.

No, I was just meant.

No, no, no, you did.

Sex problem?

No, no, not at all. Not one problem.

Hank, any last words before we get to our Mount Rushmore, you Betty Doobity. All right, our Mount Rushmore is brought to you by Paramount Plus. Paramount plus is once again your home to stream the NFL on CB's all season long. Follow all the exciting on field action and stream your live local NFL on CB's games every Sunday all the way through the AFC championship. You can watch from your smart tv, tablet, phone or any device. And all you need is Paramount plus account. Sign up and sign into Paramount plus today and get ready for any another thrilling season of the NFL on CB's streaming live on Paramount plus. Go right now. You need Paramount plus. If you're a football guy. Paramount plus is a must. So go right now. Paramount plus. All right, let's kick it to ourselves. Mount Rushmore of tough things. Okay, Mount Rushmore time. We are sitting in the USC locker room. We're going to have Musk on at the end of the show for some faqs about grit, which was great. Just did a workout. Max looks like he threw up on himself.

That's called sweat.

Looks like samurai.

You guys were able to shower. I was setting up for the pod so that, that, that could be a tough thing if you were to ask.

Yeah, it is a tough thing. So we're going to do the Mount Rushmore of tough things, which feels very open ended. This is one of those ones. I really wish I wasn't going first, but I am going first.

Yeah.

And we have updated standings. Who won the last one? Hank.

Hank did.

Hank.

Hank's fully back right now.

Hank. So, yeah, 47.

It's over after this 147.

Max. 40.

Me. Max already won.

Hank. Mike's 32 and PFT's got 31. So we got a new loser right now. Yeah.

It's okay. It's a long season.

It's a long season. Mount Rushmore of tough things. Anything we want to say before.

I'm woefully and prepared.

I am as well.

I think I'm prepared. I think I'm prepared.

Okay.

I think I would also like to.

Say when we talked about it, when we talked about things you thought you were going to do when you were younger and going pro and basketball, I always thought I was going to play basketball at USC and then go pro.

Oh, that was your goal.

This is a dream day.

Dream come true.

That's awesome.

Holy shit.

You played basketball at USC?

Yeah. That's. Now I gotta go pro today.

Yeah.

Yeah. I don't think. I don't think that Musk is gonna give us a scholarship.

I don't think we were very good.

No hustle, though.

Yeah, yeah.

Tried a lot of hustle. Okay, Mount Rushmore of tough things. I have the first pick.

Yep. So it's big cat. Hank, Max, me, then back.

Yes. All right, I'll go one. One. I'm gonna go a safe one, because I don't know where this draft is gonna go. Tough things, Navy Seals.

That would be my one.

Was it?

Well, troops.

I had a.

Troops.

Navy Seals.

That has to be, like, the tip of the spear.

Tip of the.

The spear.

Sphere.

Yeah, yeah. Tip of the. Tip of the sphere.

Sphere. Tip of the sphere.

Yeah, I actually don't eat so many.

Mushrooms at the sphere that you get.

I don't think that spheres have tips to. They're tipless.

They have heads.

They actually kind of look like, though, a big tit.

The tit of the sphere.

The tit of the sphere.

Yeah. That's the nipple on the top.

James Dolan, that creep. Okay. My one one. Navy Seals. What do you think, Hank?

I think it's a good pick.

Oh, okay.

I think it makes me question my own pick. Like I said, I. Not prepared. I'm gonna go childbirth.

No, wait. It's not your pick.

Yeah, it is.

It is.

Oh, it is. Yeah.

Childbirth. Oh, okay. Interesting.

That's good.

That's one answer. One of the hardest things anyone could ever do.

It's good answer.

Nah. Heartburn.

Yeah.

Also being, like, having a big shit.

If you give birth and it's a c section, then you're not. You're not pushing anything.

Yeah. They do a lot of. There's a lot of drugs involved.

Taking the easy way out.

I respect all.

No display.

I had it on my list.

Yeah, I had it.

Being pregnant is also just, like, the whole process.

Mm hmm.

I had pregnant women, but I feel like that's. Yeah, they're tough.

Tough. They are tough.

They've the strength. They can.

They could pick up a car while they're giving birth.

Yeah, yeah, same. Same thing.

Yeah.

Women can just pick up.

That's good.

Yeah, that's one of those tick tocks that went viral. Guy tries to pick up a car. Women. Yes. Okay.

Okay, I'm going to go first responders.

Okay.

Tough, tough, tough.

Yeah, very tough.

Running. Running towards danger.

Toughest.

Yeah, I love.

I like.

I love which one you had to pick.

If you have Marlins, man, you made a call. Which.

Which responder would you hope showed up first?

I. I hope. I love responders. I don't want to wait.

All responders matter.

You call the first responders and Marlins man shows up. Are you like, no, no, he's a first responder.

Ever. Every first responder minus Marlin Marlins. Man.

Are you.

Are you including a reply guys? Because reply guys.

Yeah.

Like, they're literally comments.

Nope.

First responders.

First responders.

The guy who. The guy at 03:00 a.m. who says, way to push the button, Max. Is he count?

No, I'll go fireman. I got a buddy. Shout out money.

Cops only have Max.

Only fans. Models that have notification set on for Adam Schefter.

Mm hmm.

Then they reply immediately.

I'm done with. I'm done. I'm done with the reply guy. I'm not answering anymore questions on reply guys. First responders.

Okay.

Correct.

Pft.

I can't believe this fell to me. Hockey players. Mmm. Hockey players.

Hockey. Tough. Yeah.

Anyone complain?

That's good question. A good answer. That's very good answer.

Okay. The troops was a good one. I had the troops.

Troops is my one one. Yeah.

Yeah. So for my second one, I'm going to say passing a kidney stone. Now, not to belittle Hank's point about childbirth, but when I passed my kidney stone, I was in the hospital, and the nurse told me, she said, I've given birth to three kids. Passing a kidney stone is the worst pain I've ever felt in my entire life.

Wow.

She said that?

Wow.

Pretty good.

But shout out women.

Shout out women.

Shout out women.

Shout out women.

We love women.

Yep.

They can have kidney stones, too.

Yeah.

Yeah, we love women.

Look at that chicken.

Look at that chick. So, my turn.

Yeah, I don't know what Hank's doing right now.

He's trying to think. I'm going to go with strength coaches.

Ooh. Okay, good one.

That's good.

Okay. That's a good pick.

Yeah.

Herbert was tough.

Yeah, very tough.

Hank.

I'll stick with the one other one I had in my notepad.

I'd give anything to see Hank's notepad.

It doesn't really fall this theme that we're going with here, so it might hurt, but holding in. Puke in an Uber or in a bar.

Mm hmm.

I like that.

Yeah. No, actually, Max, you don't like doing that.

I've seen you.

Actually did it yesterday.

You guys don't even know I puked yesterday.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

From what we were.

We weren't in an Uber. So you could be like, I'm gonna puke and open the window. But if you're in a car, like, you're in an Uber with people, and you have to puke. But you can't just do it like.

Yeah, we went, there's nothing harder.

There's nothing tougher.

Yeah. And the ad, I chugged water as fast as I could, and you know when you chug water, it goes down the wrong side, and it just, like, sits in your chest. Yeah. So it's just like, a quick. I got to get this out of my, like, chest water puke. Yeah, pretty much. But I would have my head out the window.

Okay, we gotta pull over. Laughs he's like, no, I'm serious.

It's crazy.

Are you gonna get that, like, $250 Uber charge?

No, we were in our car.

Okay.

Yeah, but I timed it well. I was just, like. I was sitting there, like, I think I can handle this. And then I was like, nope. I just got to get it out of my system. So, yeah, that is. That is tough. Okay, I got two picks. I will go. City of Pittsburgh. City of Pittsburgh. Tough.

Good.

Built on steel.

Just.

That whole city is just tough. It's a steel city.

Fries on the sandwiches.

Yeah. Yinzers. They're just tough. And then I'll go with one that's a little. Kind of like Hank. This little off the board from my notepad, dealing with Hank when he wakes up in the morning. That's very tough. Probably tougher than childbirth.

Yeah.

If you actually have to do it, like, childbirth versus, like, if you're like, hey, every day you have to just wake up, Hank. I'd take childbirth.

Shout out. Shout out to my mom and my sister, because growing up.

Toughest, toughest women ever.

Getting me to school.

Yeah. I can't even imagine. Just you. The first hour of the day. It's. It's the toughest. It tests our friendship every time. So when we're on the road together, especially, it's just like, I think Hank's.

Getting better in the morning. I've had two great breakfasts with Hank.

Well, that's because he's eating.

That's on his time, though. Yeah. Yeah, that's on his time.

I've woken Hank up probably, like, a dozen times in my life, and I'm convinced that the first, I don't know, 15 minutes of Hank's life, when he wakes up, he's just blacked out. He's just still asleep.

He tried to punch one of us.

Thursday morning is gonna be great.

Us.

Hank, do you have, like, threw a punch?

I killed one of my friends.

Yeah.

Do you have morning amnesia? Do you not remember the first 30 minutes of your day?

It's not amnesia, but it's like, it's bad. It's like. It's like Doctor Jekyll, mister Hyde, where, like, I'll say and do things, and I'm like, oh, my God. Like, that was. That was insane. Like, I was so mad, fired up. It's just like, I've had girlfriends and stuff to where it's like, I just. You say stuff you would never say otherwise, and then you're like, why would I. Like, I don't know what happened to me there. I just. It was the first 30 minutes. Shouldn't count.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You're picking.

I will go bomb disposal engineer.

Oh, yeah.

Nice. Nice.

Love that.

Huh? Are they tough, though? Because if you're. If you have a bad day as a bomb disposal engineer, you're just dead.

Yeah. Also, what is. Wouldn't the tougher guy be the suicide bomber?

No, that's coward.

Why? They're literally blowing themselves up. That's tough.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But they're not. They're not sticking around.

Okay. Okay.

They don't have to deal with their shit.

Yeah, that's true. Okay.

Bomb disposal. Wait, is that a first responder?

No, like, hey, I think we got a bomb. Yeah, they call Marlins, man. Then they're actually tougher. Yeah.

Yeah, you can say that.

First responders. First responders are too scared to respond to that.

So you hate first responders?

No, you don't.

Respect.

Yeah, that's not true. Cops are in my fire fighters. I have a friend shout out, Molly.

What about.

What about tow truck driver? If a tow truck driver gets there before the cops do, is he a first responder?

What? Stop asking me about the first responders.

Okay, well, we have to dive into these questions, all right?

Nurses or cops.

I love all. I love all first responders.

Doctor Vorkian, who? He was the assisted suicide doctor. Oh, killing people.

Okay.

I don't think that's a first.

I don't think that's the first question.

You're just. You're just saying random people being like, that's a first responder. Like, pug pugs. A first responder. I love pug pugs.

A first responder.

I don't know. You're just saying random people on the first responders.

No, that's a doctor. It's. It's in line with what you were saying.

He's the.

He's a video podcast guy.

Correct.

First.

He's the first one to click post on the YouTube and the rumble.

That's not a responder, though.

You click the button, I click the podcast button.

That's. That's.

That's one thing that people.

Oh, so they got to start saying good, good push on pug.

Correct.

Damn.

Every year, stolen.

Valid.

You.

I'm the one who just brought it up.

Wait, but what happens though? So you're also putting. If it's late, they're gonna say, bad job, pug. Yeah, I don't know about that. I don't. I don't want our dear pug.

Yeah. The late can be me. Early can be pug.

Okay.

I like that.

What about.

Sounds good.

What about corrupt copse?

Can we stop with this? Can I make.

What about firefighters that are actually also arsonists? I gotta be one of them.

Rico Bosco.

Next pick.

Yeah.

Can't believe this lasted. Fullbacks.

Good pick.

I thought fullbacks was gonna be in the first. In the first round.

All right.

I mean, offensive lineman have to play a lot more.

Yeah. They have to block a lot more.

All right.

Situational.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm like more of. Yeah, I won't actually. Won't get into my own strategy.

Okay.

Okay.

Good pick.

Max.

Were you gonna pick that?

Yes.

Shit.

Okay, I'm gonna go with Ronnie Lott. Ronnie Lott cut off his finger instead of having it repaired so that he could play football. He was like, it just be easier if you cut it off. I don't need my pinky. Put me back in.

Yep. That's good pick.

And then my last one is going to be going vegan and not telling anybody about it. Mmm.

That's good.

I think that's impossible.

Yeah, that's good.

Being a secret vegan without.

Yeah.

Not bragging.

That's tough because.

Well, yeah, it is.

If you eat with people. It's also. Yeah, that.

Yeah.

I just gave you.

Yeah.

I just gave you a great confidence.

I. I think it's actually. I don't think anyone's done it yet. Yeah, it's like the three minute mile.

Yeah. Okay, good pick.

I'm gonna stick with people. I'm gonna go coal miners.

Mmm. I kind of got that with city of Pittsburgh too much.

Cos being mined these days, there's less.

Which makes it even tougher. So you're probably. I don't.

I see.

I don't really know what fracking is.

I don't. I personally don't know.

I personally know it's bad.

I know. I don't know if I'm pro or anti fracking. I have no idea.

I think I'm anti.

I don't know.

What do you think about the environment, though, I hope.

I want it to be good.

Okay, what about, like, different types of, like, is it just coal or.

Believe in global warming?

Yes, I think global warming is happening.

All right, liber the year. Nominee, 24.

That's on May.

My pick.

Yeah.

Just like in the movies. The coal miners look so tough.

I don't know how this fell to the fourth round.

Max loves minors. Put that on a code card.

Toughest people in the world. Cancer patients.

You son of a bitch.

You asshole. You fucking asshole.

What's tougher than cancer?

No, you're.

That's.

No cancer patients.

No, I'm saying, like, are you pro cancer? No, I'm saying cancer is the toughest thing you can have to deal with. So cancer patients are the toughest people in the world because.

Okay, all right, well.

Including people who get, like, a mole.

Removed, if it's cancer.

What about an ingrown toenail?

That's pretty tough.

Not more stolen valor?

It's pretty tough.

I'm just saying.

Wait, Hank. Would you say that we're the toughest people in the world because we have to deal with you and your cancer?

Mm hmm.

No, I'm not. I'm fake cancer, okay?

You're benign.

Okay?

You are. You think I am a cancer. I do not have cancer.

Right.

You're the black plague.

I think you're a good guy.

Okay, my last pick. I got last pick. I'm gonna go. Cause I. This probably will not help me because we don't have a ton of wrestling fans, but I'm gonna go with mankind. Mick Foley, toughest dude ever. Fucking going when he got slammed on a bed. Attacks from undertaker. From the top of the hell in the cell. He is literally the toughest. Some of his early days, where he's just, like, wrestling with barbed wire and shit. That might have hurt me, but people.

Have told me I look like that's.

You don't know who mankind is of all time.

Whoa. That. Hold on. That's not a niche pick, because people hear your attitude on this show. They know.

They don't.

Everyone listening right now knows that dealing with Hank is tough.

It's you guys? Some. My friends, my mom, my sister. So everyone are the true heroes of that answer.

Max, you don't know who mankind is.

I don't really know, but people tell.

Me that I look like I know the name.

I was gonna go stone cold, but, like, my heart. In my heart. No.

Mankind's tougher, man.

Kind of what I had to do.

How is Vaughn's son not tougher? What Vince or what? Not Vince Vaughn. What's his name? Vince McMahon. Steve, what's.

Shane Omac?

Yeah. Oh, Shane.

Make a. Make a photoshop of Vince Vaughn.

Took insane, like, bumps and stuff, but, like, mankind would do it every single.

Week off the top of a cell, he would do.

Dude. So I'll show you highlights. Like, when he was wrestling, like in the independent circuit or what was it? ECW. Yeah, ECW. Like, he would get.

Shane Vaughn.

He'd literally get thrown into barbed wire and shit. Yeah. Broken over him.

His back was all cut up all the time. So far, Max does look a little bit like him.

Yeah, he does.

That would be a great mick. People say you look like Mick Foley all the time, and, I don't know, I'm always.

We gotta watch. We gotta watch highlights. I'll just send you the clip of he. Undertaker literally threw him off the top.

It's a compliment to be said that I look like him.

Yeah. Into a bed attacks. Yeah.

So much tail.

All right, other picks?

I had.

Rude just text me who's sitting in the room. Mankind lost an ear in Japan. It's got awful fucking tough shit. Okay, who'd you have?

All right, camels, honey badgers.

Camels.

Camels. They go, like three months without drinking water.

Yeah. But they can smoke cigarettes again. I guess that makes them tough.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, that's. Yeah.

Smoking cigarettes would be a good pick.

Yeah. Calculus. Yeah, real tough.

I had that.

Pit bulls.

Pit bulls. Tough.

An ingrown toenail removed and then playing 30 minutes basketball practice immediately after. It's pretty tough.

That is tough.

I. I was gonna pick this guy, but big cat took all Pittsburgh. I've been Roethlisberger.

Yeah, he's tough.

Every injured.

Everyone from.

I thought about. I thought about just.

I actually got Ben Herbert before you took strength training because he's from Pittsburgh, and I got all the cops and the.

I picked that first before you.

Accepting that you're going.

Accepting that you're going bald.

Oh, yeah, it's a good one. Watching Cody Parkey hit kick field goals. Yep. That's very playoffs.

Substitute teachers I had on my list. That just must be the worst job of all time.

Yeah.

When I took hockey players, I got the FDNY and the NYPD hockey players.

Right.

Well, I still get that first, so.

No.

Yeah.

You guys have both said things that you. That were just wrong.

Standing up at a bar for a long time.

Mm hmm.

Very tough. You just don't get a seat at a crowded bar. It's one of the toughest things a person can do.

Just waking up is tough.

Yeah, Hank, waking up and realizing your phone wasn't charging overnight.

Yeah.

Chasing a charge.

And you have to go to Canobie Lake park with your other producer.

What?

That's. Coleman.

Can be like park.

That's where they went, I think.

That place.

Invading Russia in the wintertime.

Yeah.

Tough.

Also. Dumb.

Dumb.

Tough, man. Tough.

If you want to be dumb, you gotta be tough.

That's true. That's true. Johnny Cash. Yeah, him in general. Tough guy. Teddy Roosevelt tough.

Oh, that's a miss. Damn, I was a miss.

Teddy Roosevelt shot through his hand. Yeah, that's a big one.

No, he got shot in his chest.

Oh, that was his chest.

He got shot in his chest. And then he stood there and said, bring the guy up to me.

Damn.

It takes more than that to stop a bull moose.

Damn.

Jean Claude Van Damme. Steven Seagal.

Deer meat. Dear me.

Oh, the meat of deer.

Oh, venison. It's tough, I guess. Human flesh. That's tough.

Living with your conscience, knowing that you hit a bear cub ten years ago and someone's gonna find out eventually.

Yeah, tough.

That is tough.

Really tough.

Sneaky. Oh, Bernie Madoff. Weirdly tough. Having to live with just the fact that you're a complete fraud and it's going to be found out one day. Mentally's got to be tough. It wasn't a pic, Max. So we're doing. We're just spitballing.

Yeah. You're an apologist. That sounds like what you're doing.

No, Hank, you definitely think you fucking.

Shouted out suicide bombers.

Yes. Jeffrey Epstein next. I almost said Theo Epstein. I do that often. Honestly?

No, because he had no.

Yeah, you just switch them sometimes. I say, like, if I'm talking about Theo Epstein, I'll say Jeffrey Epstein.

I mean, they're both known for evaluating young talent.

That's a big mistake. Oh, that's a big mistake, Max. All right. Anything else, Huey? Did we miss anything?

Draft a lot of high schoolers.

I didn't think of anything too crazy. Maybe a test, maybe just a bit.

You kind of COVID any tests. Any test of any kind. Tough. That is tough. Huey.

Huey didn't go to college.

He tried it once.

Yeah.

Dan Campbell.

Tough.

Tough.

Detroit.

Detroit. Yeah.

Nails.

Tough as nails.

That's a Miss diamond.

Diamonds are the hardest thing. I thought about saying that.

I was thinking steel or ironization. Yeah.

Yeah, steel. Oh, spider silk. Isn't that tough?

Oh, yeah.

Like if you made spider silk as big as a steel bar, it'd be twice as strong.

Kevlar.

Kevlar. Tough.

It's tough.

Yep.

It was ten times their weight or something.

Marva was. Was just saying that, right?

Bees.

Bees. Guy.

Not coming too fast.

That's very tough, actually, that I. I think that doesn't count because that's not tough. That's impossible, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Big difference. Oh, because it's not possible.

Yeah. Super.

You say I was like, that's almost as tough as making a woman. I was like, that's also impossible.

Women don't come next.

Great week. Make a woman come challenge.

That.

That kid's super superhuman. The guy that does the backyard wrestling.

Oh, yeah.

That guy rocks. I love that dude. He'll just set up, like, a piece of plywood and then wrap it in barbed wire and be like, hey, I'm superhuman. Shout out to all the juggalos and the jugglettes out there. I'm going to jump into this barbed wire. And he does it every day.

Yeah. And does he say something else like this? This fucking sucks or something like that?

Well, he just. He just screams in pain, like, every time. It's not like he doesn't feel the pain. He feels the pain. And then he gets back up, and every day he does it again.

Yeah. Shoe nice.

Shoe nice. Top.

Shoe nice. He ate, like, like a hundred tampons once. Live on a stream.

Pretty drunk.

And glue.

Yeah, he drank glue. He ate a bottle. A beer bottle. That's tough as fuck. All right, that was a good Mount Rushmore.

Great Mount Rushmore.

Yeah. All right, boys. Good job.

Before we get to Antonio Pierce, he's brought to you by Chevy. It's presented by our great friends over at Chevy. There's a reason why we've never done a Mount Rushmore pickup trucks. That's because for part of my take, there's only one pickup truck. It's the Chevy Silverado. Why is that? Silverado is a partner. It's a partner you can depend on. We've all spent time driving and using the Silverado for all kinds of part of my take jobs, adventures, and other shenanigans, Silverado has been our ride for a cross country trip to the big game. Silverado helped us dig the biggest hole ever dug in the state of Ohio last year. In grit week, Silverado helped us give full back to the recognition that they deserve with a low man award. And this year, Silverado will be our partners for another grit week. Silverado brings the grit, too. Legendary grit paired with modern truck tech, inside and out. Massive screens up to eight cameras with 14 different views to help make driving, towing and parking all easier. Four different powertrain choices and the available multiflex tailgate so you can work and play smarter, not harder. So head over to chevy.com to build your own Silverado.

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Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very special guest. It is our grit week interviews brought to you by Coors Light. It is head coach, Las Vegas Raiders, Antonio Pierce. Coach, first of all, thank you for spending any time with us. We appreciate it. We're big fans. We start every great week. Interview the same, though. How do you define grit for me?

Toughness. Guys that don't blink. Look the barrel down the eye. That's still the eye. Focus. And more importantly, man, they got. They got. They got some. They got some shit to them.

Yeah. Yes.

They gotta have the ish tool, man. And if they got that, man, they will go hand in hand. That's good to me.

Yeah.

Playing Raiders football.

That sounds like raider football.

Yeah.

You said that you were born a raider, and I don't know what that means because I was not born a raider. Or can you change?

No, no, no.

It's. It's genetic.

You have it.

Either you got it, you don't.

There's no Raiders converting DNA tests that you can do.

Well, no, it's kind of attitude.

Okay?

You can look, you can feel it. You can fill a raider.

Somebody could present as a raider, but you know, deep down inside, they're not actually raiders.

Sometimes. I know we're in California right now. So you hollywood around?

Yeah, yeah. Can you look into someone's eye and know if they're a raider? Without a question, look into our eyes?

No, no. I was waiting for you to blink. I saw a little twitch in the.

Eyebrow, like, hey, I'm gonna go at you, but.

But the bears had a family.

So what does that mean to be born a raider, man?

Like, for me to be honest, like, growing up in your city, Los Angeles, is. Go back to the word we talked about. It was great. It was toughness, it was attitude. It was. It was swag. It was when you wore those, you know, colors and you saw silver and black walking down the street, or somebody in all black, you knew they mean. You knew they meant business.

Yeah.

There wasn't about no b's. Right? It was straight. It was straight stand on business. And that's what it kind of, like, started with me, you know, growing inner city and seeing that and seeing obviously, you know, the entertainment and that culture with hip hop moving on. But then wa. And those gentlemen and then just watching Bo Jackson. Marcus Allen. How we long, man.

Yeah.

Tech mobo.

Yeah, that was, that really did. That actually is not gritty, though, to play with Bo and Tecmo bowls. Yeah, right.

That was an easy way out.

Yeah, that was an easy way out.

It was fun, though.

So, I mean, you do have grit. We saw it last year when you took over the team. We've seen it your whole career. I want to go back, though, because you played at Arizona. You don't get drafted. I've read some stuff that you were shocked you weren't drafted. Do you think your career goes different if you get drafted? Or was that like, was that the motivation you needed to then have an incredible NFL career as a player?

I mean, it definitely added more fuel to the fire.

Yeah.

You see 30 guys go in front of you like, God damn, 30. I get 1015, but 30 then, you know, when you start seeing those guys in the end of that 7th, 6th, and 7th round, man, it was like, what I do wrong, you know, career was productive. Play some good players, good defense. Okay. Measurables. Back then, everybody was 6463-6425 okay, I get it, you know? 61230.

Right.

All right, cool. But, um, it definitely added fuel to the fire. I would have loved to be drafted because that, it's just kind of a badge.

Yeah.

But at the day, like, man, it's kind of like my whole life. It's not where you start and where you grew up and all that. It's how you come on top of all that stuff. Right. And that kind of just really put that. That fire and desire my to try to be great.

Yeah. I think it's actually a cooler badge now. Like, to be like, I was not drafted.

Right.

And I had a.

But when you say that, when people say that about me, they're shocked because you look at the end result.

Yeah. Right.

So you're like, oh, man, he should put in the second 3rd round. I don't know. First, but, you know, you like, I had to get drafted.

Right.

He realized, no, it wasn't good enough in 2001. Right? Yeah. You look at my career, I'm a brag a little bit. All those guys that got drafted before me didn't hit any of the stats as an individual or as a team player that I did with the Redskins at the time and the Giants. So I really pride myself on that, man. And that obviously that fueled me as I got into to playing, especially in New York.

Yeah, I mean, look at us three undrafted guys.

Every day I wake up and it fueled me. If I had a jersey, I'd wear 32. Every team passed on me.

Yeah.

So I was born. I don't think I can say I was born a Redskin. I was born a Redskin fan. Cause I'm from the DC area, so I always appreciate you on that team. You were the heart and soul of that defense that last year that you had.

We had some ballers on that team.

I know, but that last year you were like, you were a great player for us. And then we had Clinton Portis on the show, like six months ago, and I was talking to him about you and he said that the skins were trying to low ball you at the time, and then you obviously had to take the money and go to New York, where you ended up flourishing. But we missed you in DC after that. We wanted you back. I'm sorry that the ownership didn't feel the same way, but you made the right decision. You go to New York, you win a Super bowl there. Going into that game, everybody else in America again doubted you. They thought, okay, let's just anoint the New England Patriots. Going to that game, though, your mindset, did you feel like an underdog going in that game or did you feel like you were going to win?

Felt disrespected. It really went back to week 17, right? Like, the media was asking us, like, why we got into playoffs. We beat the Bills week prior. Pedro was coming into our place to kind of, you know, finish that undefeated season, the regular season. And I remember media asking, like, are you guys gonna play the game? Like, what are you playing for? Me, myself, stray hand, a couple others was like, what the hell are you talking about? Like, why wouldn't we play for 16 games and these dudes are coming into our house? Nor did we not really like the pitchers at all anyway, right? So we obviously had a team, even coach Coughlin, and it wasn't even like, we didn't even hesitate. Like, no, we're doing it. And then if you guys remember that game, we were up twelve points late third quarter. But, you know, listen, Randy Moss is special, and Tom had a great year that year. They popped some plays, we lost by three, but that gave us kind of like that, man. Listen, we just went total with probably the best team of all time, and I still think part of the best team of all time.

Regardless, that they didn't win the Super bowl. So when we got to the week of the Super bowl, it goes back to, you know, your question, born the raider, man. You know, we got off that plane, we're all black. It was deaf to the Patriots, it was deaf to the dynasty.

Like going to a funeral.

That was a mindset. That's what I told the team. Only got it. One dude is Eli. Everybody else were all black. But that was kind of our mindset. Yeah. So we had a big underdog and then there was comments made out the week we were lose by double digits. You know, Tom Brady was laughing about the points spread at Plax or the points that plaques said it. We're going to hold him to. I mean, I lie. If you just watch this practice on defense, you'd have knew, like, it's not going to be close. Yeah, we don't get after those guys.

Because that what, it was crazy because Tom Brady, his entire career, he didn't give Bolton board material. But that one time, it feels like he slipped up and. Yeah, but is that like. Because I never know. We're. We're just fans, but like that type of stuff we say, oh, yeah, bulletin board material. Does that matter a lot in the locker room?

No, it did. Like I said, it even goes back to, like I said, back to right season, how the Patriots are being treated. Right. That was spygate year two as well. Remember that, right. So there's a lot of things going on and they just. You felt a sense of entitlement, you know what I mean, with that team overall. And then, like you said, the comments came again. I get it. Like, you know, competitors, you know, they're averaging almost goddamn 30 something points per game. And we said sitting and say we're gonna hold him to 17 points and he spot him through. It was 14, actually.

Yeah. Yeah. Were you worried at all during that run that Tom Coughlin's face was gonna.

Fall off that Green Bay game?

Yeah. Yeah. I've never seen a face like that.

No, I was. I was concerned for him, but he's a tough dude and you talk about grit now. That's a great guy.

His face was melting.

It was done. Yeah, it was done. But, like, all of our face was done. So, like, we look at each other like, this is not going to end well.

You know what I mean?

But the coolest part about that game, man, like, regardless of the weather, the adversity going back and forth over time, you know, Brett Favre last game as a packer, which it ended up to be like, we were just so determined to make it happen because we had played the two teams, Dallas, really, the last three teams we faced, right. Dallas, Green Bay and New England. We all facing regular season. The first two games of the season, we gave up 80 points, 1000 yards to Dallas and Green Bay to start the season.

Season.

Then the last game we lost to was the Patriots. So, man, there was a lot of like, bulletin board material, things that we can really go back and look at and really study and that really propelled us and helped us in those playoff games.

Yeah.

Yeah. Tom Coughlin, ultimate football guy. Ultimate grit guy. We've heard a few stories about Tom as a head coach that he doesn't give bathroom breaks. They have to be. That's true. Could you like, raise your hand, be like, no. This emergency, please.

You had time before.

Are you still on coffin time?

We try to get. I do start my meetings early.

Okay.

I think our team realized that, like.

Cause you kind of came two minutes late to this.

Yeah, well, I couldn't find you guys.

Okay. All right. All right. I mean, we're gonna find you.

Yeah.

Do you call it.

Do you still call head coach?

I can resend that.

You still call it Coughlin time or do you call it Antonio clock?

No, I call it coffin time. He was here the other day. He was here last week for the team and we started his meeting five minutes earlier.

Love it.

Yeah. For him.

Yeah.

Does it get confusing with, like, daylight savings when you change the clocks? It does, yeah.

Especially back then. IPhones wasn't even out. So he's trying to, like, have us do things that we can do and we had to go by the clock inside a building, the stadium. But if you're not inside the building stadium, then how do you know what time it is?

Yeah, I just realized that that might be that that day probably sucks for when on Coughlin time.

It was very confusing. It was very costly.

Yeah. You got to set your clock back an hour and 15 minutes.

No, he's just.

You set it back an hour, but you also.

But also the 15 minutes.

Yeah. Right. No, five. It's only five.

Oh, it's five.

Okay. So it was five minutes early.

We'd always heard 15 in the five.

That's five.

Well, he's. He's an ultimate football guy. And listen, it's. It's great that you're the coach of the Raiders. We were rooting for you last year. We wanted you to get this gig. And when you took over the team, it seems like they got a nice little boost the players believed in you more than anything. They played hard. They played really hard for you. And that game against the Chargers on Thursday night, at that point I knew, I was like, they, they have to do this. They have to hire him as the, the full time head coach because going out there on that field, after about 1 second a game, it looked like the Chargers didn't want to be out there. Did you know in the first half of that game, like, I think I'm going to be the head coach of the Raiders next year?

Not really. Not that game. That felt good because the week prior we scored zero.

I was going to say that was the worst football game I've ever watched.

That was the worst game I had to be a part of. Yeah.

I mean, that was the three game.

It's like, God, we can't get close to field goal range. We came to tempt the field goal.

Incredible.

I mean, it was just one of those games. And really as bad as is, I know we love scoring. It was really too good. Defenses playing well. Yeah, obviously quarterback play and offensive play on both sides wasn't good enough because, hell, they didn't score until almost, you know, three or four minutes left in the game. But that was tough. So then you got a short weekend.

Yeah.

So we're doing, we got walkthroughs, only got two practices. Right. And then you about to play the Chargers at home and we. But we did see something on film. We're like, if we can jump out and we can impose our will early and come out with the energy and the tempo and play with the style play we wanted to play and tax certain players, we can get after him. And then right away the first two plays in the run game, we got after him and we knew it then. Yes, our office started rolling. Defense was Mac, start flying and turn the corner. Malcolm Coons had some big plays and obviously Jack Jones did his little one hand deal there.

Awesome. Yeah, that was great.

So, so the game that I would assume you were like, I might get this job, was that Chiefs game? Because that was another one where it was like, there's, it's something beautiful with football where if you play that game a hundred times, the Chiefs probably win more than half and. But it was, you guys just had a perfect game plan. You just frustrated the hell out of them. Was that the moment we were like, okay, this, I, I think I might be able to do this?

Well, that's what for me is like, wow, you know, I went up against, let's go back. I went up against Andy Reid 25 times in my career as a player.

Yeah, right.

Or 23. Excuse me. And so I'm used to that battle, but it was always different. It was a player versus coach. Now it's coach versus coach. So ultimate respect for what he's done in his career, both in Philly and Kansas City. But it was like, man, it was tough. That was the hardest thing we've done.

Yeah.

That we did that week. I thought the coaches, the buy in the players, just the mentality that we talked about all week and the way and the style of play we wanted to play with and what we wanted to do to 15 and 87 was critical. And we wanted to make it ugly. We want to make it gritty. Keep using your word. Cause that's a good word for what we're talking about today. All that stuff came to fruition, and more importantly, man, the guys, they played with a purpose, like, we didn't want to be. They were not gonna be denied that day.

Yeah, right.

And it was good to fill it. After the game, we were in the locker room celebrating. But did you, did I feel like that was a moment? No, I just felt like, okay, I belong in the national Football League as a head coach. Yeah, I thought that myself. Did I belong to be the head coach? Are deserved to be hand coaches? Raiders, we still have some games to go. We was hoping to get in the playoffs at the time, had two games left, and playing the Colts the next week, you know, and see how that, how the chips fall at that point.

Yeah, and I do. I love the way that you attack, like football in an old school way, like talking about Patrick Holmes, like, we're going to go after him because we have a theory that with the way that the quarterback position gets refereed now, there's a lot of times where Patrick Holmes gets, and it's a credit to him, gets like, that extra five yards because guys will, like, come up short and stuff like that. So are you like, is that something you guys preach every day where it's like, hey, we have to hit the quarterback? Like, we know the rules are different, but we can't just play this style that, like, lets him do whatever he wants?

Yeah. I think our identity on defense is to make you uncomfortable. Yeah, we want to, we want you to step, we want to step on your toes. We want to be in your face, you know, I mean, we want to make you thinking about us, why you're on the sideline. Why are you preparing us for us during the week? What do these guys, what they got up they sleeve now. And if we win that mental edge, then obviously I go there to execute with X and O's, and our players got played a high level, but, you know, the game is different ways of fishing when I. When I play. Right. So, yeah, you got that old school mentality, but then also, you gotta be smart and play within the rules.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I love it. I love, like, there's just something about old school football and just not especially.

Late in the year, though, right? Like, in the year, like, it was cold, right? You know, everybody got the hoodie on, the beanies. Like, yeah, goddamn stuff's coming out your mouth. Like, it's. That's what football is supposed to be, right? Supposed to be high scoring and pretty and guys flying around. All. You're supposed to get, like, hitting your mouth.

And that's ugly. That's why you tune in. Because you tune in and everyone's like, I mean, the chiefs were like, ten point favorites. Like, oh, they'll win easily. It's like, no, the Raiders are going to just muck this up and make it a fight in the trenches. I love it.

You got some. Some good coaches with you now, too. I read. I don't know how true this is. I forget it was one of your players that I think, talked about it. But you have some of your coaches doing conditioning drills. Somebody said that Rob Ryan was on a treadmill the other day.

I saw him. All of them got 29 coaches.

Big group.

Yeah.

So in offseason, and really just even when I was a position coach prior, you know, you watch coaches both on defense, offense, especially teams. And, like, we're always young at players to run from drill to drill. But then you got that coach, and he's like, ten yards behind you. The players that are at the drill with the coaches behind. So we're still late. Right. So, cool. That's one thing. Then I start thinking about, like, man, what. What can I do to show the players also that, like, man, whatever we tell you to do, we can do as well, regardless if you played or not. And I said, like, one thing we can all do is we can get in shape. We can lose a couple pounds, right? So, yeah, man. So I told the coaches that in February, I said, listen, april, a week before the players come in, we're gonna do the condition test. So we ran 2040s.

Rob Ryan did.

Okay, hold on. Anybody over 60 got on a bike.

Okay. Okay.

So they were on the bike. No, no, it's good. Yeah, we had an age limit.

We don't want to kill anybody.

Gotta take care of our senior coaches. We had a few of them and. But they had to do this. You know, they had the trainers, had an equipment staff, had a good idea of what to do. And we ran them and we got some former players on the staff, and there was a couple guys showing out. And then we got to. It was funny. We got to last five, right? So we did 15. We're doing the last five. So now guys are trying to show off like, I'm good. And we had about two coaches come up lane, right? So come on, man, you gotta finish. You know, kinda like the players, you know, patting on the butt, like, hey, let's go, let's go. And then I give em credit, man. The last two reps, they fought through it, kinda made the time, but at the end of the day, they finished it. Yeah, the whole thing is about finishing. So what we did, boom. Players come back offseason, program starts. And I said, listen, man, I appreciate everybody being here, but let me show you how dedicated these coaches you got this year. Look what we did.

And I put it on. And of course, Rob Ryan has his shirt off and he's doing stretching. It's not pretty at all, but, you know, Rob's and got the flow. Yeah, he's laughing, he's karaoke, and the knees not going up at all. It's just, it was good for our team and our coaches to do it, but obviously it's even better for their health. Man, Portland, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Who's the fastest coach?

It's you.

It's you.

I'm putting myself in top three. We got Ricky Mannon, played corner in the league for several years. He's up there. Andre Carter's still in tremendous shape, so I would put us three there.

Would you say, are you addicted to making other men run? Because that story that I also heard of you in high school, when you were coaching high school and your team was up 63 nine at half, and you didn't like how they looked, so you made them run during halftime, and then you actually took a penalty at halftime because you got back, like, not in time because they were still running.

Gassers ran back the opening.

Yeah. And then you won 99 nine. So would you say maybe you're addicted to making other guys run?

Well, I know, you know, what was the thought, Brad?

I mean, that's a crazy story.

What's crazy is when I played, I could run for days. I was always in shape. Like, you know, you're high school athlete, college athlete. Want to be a pro athlete. You can never be out of shape, right? So coaching at Long Beach Poly, and, you know, we're getting after the team pretty good, but we're just being sloppy. You know, guys, you know, got some penalties and stuff like that. So what I.

63 to nine is the score?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The team was like, 0607. I was mad they even scored. Like, what we doing? So I told my, I told the other teammate, listen, y'all can have our locker room. Go drink our water. You get all our snacks. We're going on the side field in the dark. And we ran literally for, I think it was. I think it was 20 minutes half time, and then the referees were blowing the whistle. We didn't go out there, and they threw the flag and they kicked the ball off, and we ran it back, and we're up 70 to nine, and we just kept running until the score hit 99. And we could have kept running, you.

Know what I mean?

But, like, man, to me, that's like, it's like what our team, we talk about effort, because at the. At this level, when you get to professional football, everybody, right, you're playing with the one percenters of 1%. What separates you and, like, you look at a max Crosby. What separates Max Crosby from the rest of the defensive ends and defensive players? Nash football league. His effort.

Yeah.

So if I can get our guys in shape, in condition, in football shape, to just constantly run and give that effort, man, like, we can roll with the best of them, because now you got 61 minutes to deal with us. Yeah, 61. Cause we're gonna play that play each second longer than you.

Yeah.

It's probably nice having a defensive player like Max, too, as a leader of the team. And he's out there on road trips, and he's, like, importing his meal prep that he brings in and makes at home. If he's spending all that time taking care of himself, then, yeah, you don't want to be, you don't want to be a fat ass behind him. Right?

Listen, the first day I ever walked in this building, back in 2022, the first person I met was Max. At 06:00 a.m. in the morning, when I wake up every day, the first person I see in the building and downstairs is Max Crosby. Yeah, it's amazing. Like, it's 365, 24/7 I've never seen nothing like it. Like, there.

We don't.

We got walkthroughs, and it's not a walkthrough film. They just kind of understand that.

Yeah.

Like, there's walkthrough and there's Max.

Mm hmm.

Right. Yeah.

But when you have your best player playing at that level, what's happening now with the rest of our team?

Yeah.

Then I had a Christian Wilkins.

Yeah.

I got two of them. And I got a guy inside, outside, because he does the same exact thing. So now that this breeds this man, this energy and his synergy into our building, into our defense, that, you know, these guys, they just want to run, man. They want to run in here. They love playing ball. You know, it's fun to watch. It's really fun to watch.

Do you have to change anything about your personality as a defensive guy? That's, you know, you've hated quarterbacks for a long time, and now you're the head coach and you're like, shit, I have to coach a quarterback now. Like, I have to love this guy.

No, I don't change. I talked to them crazy. Just like I talked to the linebackers. They look at me crazy, too. Like, that's not quarterback talk. Like, it's okay. It's football talk.

Yeah. Yeah.

Football's football.

I like that.

Football is football, man. Don't. Let's not ever get confused, right? That's how we operate here. And they get it. Obviously, we gotta be sensitive to them at times, how we touch. Yeah, but how we talk is how we talk.

You talk football to the kickers, we do down. Okay.

They gotta make tackles.

Yeah.

Pick off room. Right. So Daniel Carson did a good job of day with the media. He's talking about, like, man, I'm doing biceps and getting a little bench press going. Cause I gotta make some tackles down, you know. Yeah, I gotta be involved. So, yeah, we talked a little bit, trying not to get those guys too much, but, uh.

Yeah, you don't want to bog them down with too much.

No, we don't. We got two special guys, man, with AJ and Daniel. So we talked a little bit, but I love it. Sense of. Because they're more with the feet.

Yeah.

A little different. I'm not that good, that one.

Yeah, kickers are weird. Very strange people have.

You know, our kickers are cool. Yeah, we got cool kickers. I've been around weird kickers. Yeah, some weird guys. Like, I mean, this is a weirdo.

But these guys can hang down.

We can hang out together. They can hang out.

Weather for. Were you with him?

Yes.

He's a weirdo.

I play with Jfee. Jay used to come with all the wristbands popped up like, he's gonna knock somebody out on camera.

Did you ever see the picture of Jay Feely when his daughter was going to prom and he had a gun in his hand?

Jay fee.

Like, we.

It's funny, we came in the same year in New York Giants together, both as free agents assignees. And so we played a couple years together. I got a good j feedy story, man. We play in Seattle, we miss a couple field goals, and shock, he just goes haywire. He's in the damn locker room throwing chairs at him, and Jay's bobbing and weaving, man. Like, I actually kicked one of damn things, you know what I mean? Kind of cool, man. But Jay was like a tough dude, man. Like, he was a guy that wasn't supposed to be a kicker. He's supposed to be like a linebacker.

Yeah.

He just happened to be a little short, a little stubby. He's a good linebacker.

I feel like Weatherford was kind of like that, too, where he was self conscious about being a punter, so he spent all this time just working his arms out.

Yeah.

Most jacked up punter of all time.

Yeah. So we are obsessed with the owner of the Raiders. We want to get him on the show at some point. Mark Davis, have you gone to. Listen, we saw him at Super bowl. We kind of. We might have ambushed him at a hotel. And we're like, hey, you're going to come on? He's like, yeah. Okay. So I don't think that's going to happen, but have you gone to PF Chang's with him?

No.

Will you?

That's all changes.

That's where he eats all the time. That's every.

His favorite meal, breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I thought was in and out.

Oh, so I heard that earlier, too, that he's spending a lot of time at in n out. But I also think he goes to PF Chang's and that's like his meditation spot. Yeah, he sits down by himself, a spa, eats the meal.

Yeah, I don't think none of us be going with him if he goes by himself and he's eating a meal. PF Chang's, I think we only. That's it.

That's our dream, to go to PF Chang's with them.

Gotta catch him.

Yeah, we might just have to stake out a PF Chang's.

That's fine. Yeah, we'll just have to go to PF Chang's every day.

There's not a lot of niggas. I mean, there's only a handful.

Okay. Yeah, we'll just. Yeah.

Spot. You got some spotters.

Yeah, he's got his minivan. I don't know if he still rides around in that thing. That thing rocks. Yeah.

Got some toys, too, now.

Yeah.

What was it like when. When you got offered the job, like, officially?

It was good. Came downstairs and kind of looked me in eyes, says, man, I think. I think you're the guy for the job. And got up, get a little bear hug. And I told him, I said, man, I'm not gonna disappoint. You. Won't be consistent. What you've seen last year is, and we got a good relationship, man. That's cool. Like, I reach out to mark a lot, keep him informed of what's going on. It's good to see him around the building. He was at practice just a couple weeks ago just to see the guys and watch the scrimmage and stuff, man. And I think it's important when your owner. Owner's presence is around the team, because, you know, when I was a player, I looked like, where's the owner? Does he care? Does he not around? Because I had two different organizations, right. I had one guy, you know, the team you like.

He was probably drunk in Cuba somewhere.

Never around.

Right?

Yeah.

And that was another organization where they were all.

Yeah.

And I thought that was which team was better.

Just curious.

I would have stayed with that one if there's better. But, yeah. Anyway. Yeah, but, no, man. Listen, Mark, one thing about Mark, he just wants to win.

He was born a raider.

If anybody's born, he came out of silver and black. I don't know. Most time you get that pretty blanket pride. A raider blanket.

Yeah.

I didn't have a raider bank, and I just happen to see the colors and fell in love.

Yeah. And he wears the white jeans, which rock. Yeah.

Nobody pulls off.

No, I know what I've been seeing. He's sometimes in the owner's suite with white jeans, white shirt, eating, like, buffalo.

Wings, but not a stain on a shirt.

Yeah.

He doesn't spill.

He's adrenaline junkie.

Or just keep a couple white shirts with you. Get why you just flip it.

That might be the case. I think he can afford. Yeah, you could probably.

Yeah. All right. I know you got to run in a minute. So we got a couple last questions. My last question. Chevy question. Chevy.com. go to Chevy. The Silverado is the best truck ever. Great sponsor for grit week. So how often, like, in day to day, do people bring up that 2007 Giants team? And has there ever been a time where you've talked about them, and it was awkward.

No, no, not at team meeting.

Head coach.

Now, you know what the question was.

I don't think I was asked a question. I just made a reference.

Yeah.

It goes back to the mindset, man. It goes back to that mindset.

Yeah.

You go against the best. You gotta do something a little different. Right. You gotta approach differently, you know? I mean, what. What you did in past doesn't work with this team, and that's kind of what it was. But, yeah, I've been asked that question quite a few, and when, if you ask me, the question, better be ready for the answer.

Yeah, that's good. That's a good, very, very fair point.

Maybe some people would cut too close to the bone, and they just be very sensitive about it.

Hypothetically, things like that can happen.

My last. Last question is just, I read that you had interned on the Howard Stern show.

Man.

What was the process like for that? Why did you decide, like, I would enjoy being interned for the Howard Stern show?

So when I was with the Giants, I did a bunch of. I had my weekly show. I think it was a Pierce fierce report is what we called it. And after won the Super Bowl, I was like, hey, man, I want to. I want to play with stray. Ann played with Tiki Barber, two guys that went to the media right after football. So I'm like, man, I want to. I want. I want to do some internships. So I did the j, which is cool, which is crazy. I did. Which nobody really talked about. The Jamie Foxx did playboy, which was.

You enjoyed that. Playboy, bonkers.

Stay with Howard Stern. And then they were like, howard wants you to do it. So I'm like, cool. So the first day, I literally did all the stuff with Sal, Richard, Howard, and all the guys behind the scenes. And the next day, like, we gonna put you on camera. And then it was. It was crazy, man. Like, I wish I could do it again. Cause I didn't know Howard as well as I know him now, especially back then. I knew who he was and how big he was. I realize how smart he was, how sharp he was. But then also, I didn't know what goes on in the back rooms. Yeah, the back rooms are real.

Yeah.

I went to pull back this curtain. I need them shades.

Yeah.

Yeah, you better be prepared.

Yeah, but, um.

No, man, it was. It's funny, cuz I get asked about that. Probably close. Probably second most, other than super bowl game.

If I'd known you were an intern for Playboy, I would have just strictly written Playboy questions?

Yeah.

I said I want to be diverse, and they gave me the most damn diverse days possible. If I could do Howard Stern show again, I'd love to do it, man. Howard is a good gentleman. Obviously very sharp. They got a good thing going. I mean, how many years now?

Yeah. It's forever.

30 years.

Yeah.

He's the king of media.

Yeah.

He's the godfather.

Yeah. Well, coach, thank you so much. I know you're gonna have grit on these raiders.

Oh, yes.

Like, just being around you pumps me up. So, we're big fans and best luck this season. You want to do a prediction?

Yeah.

Okay.

We don't win a lot of games.

A lot of games. Okay. I'm gonna take over on not a grit.

Yeah. Yeah.

We're games that I think.

Okay. I like that.

Very good.

Wrong. Yeah. All right. Thanks so much, coach.

I appreciate it.

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Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very special guest. This is a gritty interview because we only have one camera set up. Backstory. We're at the Long beach. We're in legends at Long beach doing a fan meetup, and a guy comes up to me. Me, and he says, big cat, you've talked about me a lot, but you don't know who I am. And I was very skeptical. And I was like, what the fuck is this guy talking about? And he says, I'm Andy. I'm the kid that got my head stuck in the Jacksonville Jaguars statue, however many years ago, 20 years ago, 1990, 719 97. So I verified he showed me his id, verified it with the news stories. So we were like, we have to have at least five minutes with the kids. That got his head stuck in the Jaguars statue in 1997. An all time iconic picture. So, Andy, I mean, just what happened?

Well, first of all, thank you guys for having me for grit week. This is. I don't know if what I did was gritty enough of a worthy of this sit down.

I'd say it is.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Without a doubt.

Yeah. So, no, I was so I grew up in Jacksonville. Love Jacksonville. I was nine years old. I think. I think my parents took me there. We were going to some cause. You know, Jacksonville's like a Navy port city. I think they had some Navy boat museum thing they were doing. And so we were already downtown. So we're like, oh, let's go to the statue and, like, or the stadium and, like, kind of hang out and, like, check out the vibe or whatever. And I was like, I think at the time, I was like, oh, my God, this will be a really funny picture when I stick my head in here. Yeah. And so I did my thing, went up there.

It was your idea.

It was my idea. Cause there's a lot. I'm glad we're getting this moment because there's a lot of different things. I know you guys have speculated. My dad a couple times.

Yeah.

I think when you talked to Tony Khan, I think one of you said, well, I think he might be dead.

Yeah.

He just died in this.

Yeah. Because when we saw, we saw the picture, we're like, this kid is so dumb. There's no way he's lasted, like, many years past.

Oh, yeah, no, I was nominated for a Darwin award.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I thought that there was a chance that maybe you died in the statue and then the news just covered it up.

Oh, yeah. I mean, there's. I mean, those conspiracy. There's. I mean, it's a full spectrum of all those situations.

Okay, so back to what happened on that day. A fateful day. Yeah.

So I stuck my head in the statue for picture thinking it'd be funny. And I remember after the picture was done, I was like, I can't get out. And I think at first mom was like, all right, get in the fucking car kind of thing where like, I'm nine and I'm with like, you know, it's just me, my mom, my brother, and my sister hanging out there. And I was like, no, for real? Like, this is, like, a thing. And it escalated from, like, a. Holy shit. This is actually happening moment from, like, a parent who's, like, freaking out to, like, how are we gonna. What do we do from here? Kind of thing. So I think some jaguar security, like, came out. Monitor the situation. The first thing they did late into it is they put Vaseline all over my head. I feel, like, wiggle me out, holding me by the feet. Holding me by the feet and trying to, like, wiggle me out, and then I just remember them being like, it's not gonna do it. And I. And I. And all. I'm like, nine. My head's in there. They put a towel over me, so I'm not, like, looking out at all of the people.

Yeah.

Cause there's a crowd.

It's starting to trickle in. Like, there's. As this is happening, it's starting to trickle in. Like, a whole, like. Like, circle is forming.

That's when I thought they killed you. When they put. When they put the towel over.

And they're just put this guy out there.

It's been euthanized.

There were just too many eyes on at the time. Yeah, it would be hard to pull off.

So how long were you in the statue?

A little bit over. I would say, like an hour and a half.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

And so you got stuck in there because the. You were saying earlier, the curvature of the jaguars. Fangdeen. You can go in, but then when you try to go out the fangs.

Yeah. That was the number one question. That was the thing that was hitting. And this was pre social media, obviously, but this still, like, this was so big that my mom's sister found out in Germany, and no one from America called her. Like, they were like, is this Andy? Like, is this your son? And this was, like I said, this is pre social media, pre any of that. So, like, this was, like, a big story. And the number one thing, like, my parents got all these phone calls, like. Like, to come on these talk shows. I remember, like, Nickelodeon's, like, something I think was a summer Sanders. I don't remember the name of that, like, thing. Some, like, Rosie O'Donnell and et cetera. Like, all these, like, talk shows, like, oh, we got to get, like, the story or whatever. And my dad's like, there's no story, whatever. I do remember that one of the big things that they talked about was the Jags were, like, the jags were nervous at the time. There was, like, things like, oh, my God, these family is gonna sue us. Yeah, this is gonna be.

Yeah, this is gonna be a thing.

Like, whatever. And I think my dad was just like. And he got a lot of respect for this. My dad's like, we're not gonna sue you. We're not like those type of people.

Kids. A shithead. Yeah, exactly.

He's nine.

Yeah.

He's just like, whatever. But there was a lot of people, like, oh, my God. Like, freaking out. And the jaguars were super thankful. The owner at the time was owned by the weaver. I know it's shot Khan now. Prior to that, it was the weavers. The weavers came out and, like, you know, made sure everything was okay. I got a football signed, like, all the jaguars back in the day, because I've been a hardcore fan since ever. So I was like. I came out, and I didn't understand the gravity of how big this was. It was like, oh, this is. I was nine. I was like, oh, this was kind of a shitty day.

So. So, wait, so how did they get you out of.

So after the Vaseline procedure failed, they're like, we're gonna have to give the jaws of life.

So the fire department shows.

The fire department shows up. I was on rescue 911. There's still, like, some. There's still some clips you can find of this. So they call the fire department. They try to do something with a couple tools first, and then eventually they're like, no, we got to bring out the jaws of life. So that's when I think. And it might have been around the moment when they actually put the towel on me because they don't want me to see. Because they had that thing.

Yeah.

Just like, you know, right above, like, my head. But going back to your thing earlier, when you were talking about the actual. How does that work? And I explained, because the number one question was like, how does. How does it get in and not out? That's just the number one. You'll never not hear that question. I explain it like a crab trap where, like, you can push your ears backwards. Like, bend and back, but then it gets forward. And so that was, like, the simplicity of it, but everyone, like, that was the number one thing. People were like, how does that. How is that even possible?

So, all right, so you get out. And then, like, when you were growing up, was people like, hey, you're the statue kid.

Yes, 100%. And again, like, I knew when I got home that day, I remember. I do remember getting home and being like, all I thought about when I got home was, oh, my God, I have a football signed by, like, Mark Burnell.

Yeah.

Like, oh, that's all I cared about. I was nine, but I was a die hard jack.

It taught you the wrong lesson through this, which is like, do something really stupid, and then everyone gives you stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Congratulations.

Yeah, thank you.

I appreciate it.

I appreciate it. No, so I remember getting home and being kind of stoked. I was like, look at this football I got. This is kind of rad. And I remember seeing my dad. My dad's a doctor, and he got home late that night, and he just like. And my mom, I think I'd, like, called him at that point. He just comes in. I just remember him being like. Like this big sigh. Because it's like, I don't know how relatable that moment is when your kid. I know you have kids. Like, if you just found out your kid is about to be all over the news, right? Cause I got stuck in the bear statue.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, that. You'd be like, I don't even know. And how do we move forward with this? And so from that point on, it was, you know, parents getting calls to do this and want to talk about it. And then me at school, I was in fourth grade. So when I remember, I came back, I had some friends. Like, yeah, dude, you're like, you know, you're a legend or like, whatever. This was in 1997, in fourth grade. And then I had to get, like, strategic about it as I got older, later in life, because it's like, I'm not gonna, like, you know, actually, my college essay that helped me get in, like, I feel like, to. I went to Emory, was like, I bet you never heard of a kid who got his head stuck in a jaguar and lived to tell the tale. Because that became like, you look for a hook for those, right? And that stood out. But I also had to be careful and not like any other kind of particular jogger interviews. Be like, oh, yeah, I'm the idiot. I got my head still gonna jaguar statue when I was nine.

So how it. So I used to do NFL recap blogs, like, way back, early barstool. And I would use the picture every time the Jaguars, I would see it every time. Yeah. Like, you obviously get older and you're like, all right. That was the thing of the past. Like, have you had moments where you're like, fuck, it keeps coming up. No one. I mean, I didn't know you came up to me. I had no idea who you were.

No, no, I know, exactly. Like, that's the thing. I was lucky it was pre social. Media even know that people like you and other people. And I'm not saying this is a dig. I think it's still fun. I don't. It doesn't, like, affect you.

Yeah.

The Jaguars official account posted on their TikTok, like, a few weeks ago, and people started. People don't know. A lot of people, like, who I didn't know in Jacksonville, who knew of the story growing up, are like, where is he now? Whatever. And I was laughing at the comments because some were like. Like, I heard he's, like, in Bangladesh. Like, one guy was like. And then one guy. I was funny. I saw a caption was like, I actually heard, like, he's in LA. Like, he's a producer on Vanderpump rules, which, with the time that was correct, and I was like. I was like, oh, shit. This guy.

He's knows.

This guy's been digging.

Yeah.

How long into a relationship, if you're, like, dating somebody, how long do you wait to tell them? Like, just so you know, I'm the kid that got his head stuck in the statue.

Oh, my God. I wouldn't say it's an icebreaker, but it's definitely that. Something that comes up. I would say, I don't know, three weeks in, once you're past the, like, awkward vibe, whatever, then they're comfortable with you. Then it's like, hey, here's a fun story.

If you wait, like, two years, then they'll be like, why the fuck didn't you tell me that earlier?

Exactly. And I wouldn't put on my dating profile if it was, like, a first.

I would just have the picture.

You have me in the house.

Yeah.

Look at me now.

Before now.

Yeah.

They would figure nine.

Look at me now.

All right, so last question I have. Do you think you've cursed the Jaguars?

It's a great question. There's been a lot of speculation. I was actually. Before we got on the bus, I was trying to dig back. There were some really funny old Facebook messages I would get from seriously angry fans that would be like, fuck you. Like, fuck you. Ever since you did that, we've been terrible. We were sick back then and now.

Yeah. You went to an AFC championship game.

Soon after, and, like, we were sick back then, and we've been nothing but garbage since then. It's all your fault. If I ever, like, fucking see you in Jacksonville, you better, like, keep your head on the swivel. And it's like. And it's not like. And it was dead, and the guy was like. And I don't get, like, tons of those, but, like, those exist. Like, people on the Internet are incredible. So I'll get something like that occasionally, and I'm just.

Yeah, well, so what we're going to do for you, because we know Tony. I'm going to. I'm going to send Tony a picture of this, and I'm going to be like, if the Jags ever win the Super Bowl, I think you need to be part of the parade.

Yeah. And we should all get to the Jags. I'm hoping. We're going to go.

We're not going to. We're not going to go to Jacksonville. But you are. You're gonna go. Yeah, we do love Jacksonville, but we're not. We're not gonna go to Jackson.

I might go play Sawgrass again.

PC, I saw that. I saw your tweets.

But I want you to be. I want the jags to, like, embrace you. I want to, like, going forward, you need to be like, hey, we found them, and everything's gonna be good. Now.

It's a matter of fact that you cannot tell the story, the Jacksonville drag wars without this kid getting his head.

Stuck in the statue.

Yeah.

That's, like, a very, very big part of the Jacksonville. Jack.

I was seriously starstruck. I said to Hank, I was like, I don't. I don't remember the last time I felt this way. When you told me that you were the kid, I was just, I felt.

Coming up, because I know you get everywhere you guys go, there's like, no, this one was, I have a funny story. Anytime someone prefaces especially to you at this point, your career, when they say, I have a funny story, I know this one.

Deliver.

Yeah, go ahead and shoot, man. No, this is one that's really gonna.

I thought you were dead and out. Yeah, no, I might have started that rumor. All right, well, Andy, thank you.

Thank you, guys.

The story's not ending, though. I want to see you with the Jags when they win a Super bowl.

Oh, yeah.

And maybe we get, like, a paper mache, like, jags hat. That's just the. The statue still there?

Yeah. So the statue still there at one point. So when they. They gave me the tooth and I. Sucks, because I actually. I gave it back to them, and I wish I didn't. I know at the time I didn't, so I gave it back to. Then they put, like, a rubber, like, fake stub tooth. And it was so funny because I want to say, like, I mean, this was probably, like, eight years ago, I was back home. And we went to, like, monster jam at the Jaguar stadium or something. There was a yellow security guard standing out who was just monitoring to make sure, like, kids don't get near the statue. And my buddy's like, dude, you created a job.

Yeah, you did. Job creator, Andy. All right, well, thanks, man. Appreciate you coming out.

Thanks for having me, guys. I really appreciate it.

I feel, like a sense of relief that I thought that you're not dead.

We can finally move on.

We know.

And we found each other in the most unexpected place. Sports bar in Long Beach, California.

Kept that tooth, though, that would go so hard as, like, a necklace.

Yeah. We gotta get you another one.

I know. Can I say one thing, too?

Yeah.

Going forward, when you guys talk about, you know, I listen to you guys religiously from beginning when you do your recaps the week, I get the joke. Sometimes when you do like, oh, Jags, Tennessee. We're like, we can just skip that one. There's a big jack. We love the Jaguars. They're a big deal. Like, and we love listening to you guys. I know you're. I know you're laughing.

Pre Trevor Lawrence, though, like, cuz you guys had some years between, but garden after blaze. Yeah. Yeah. And then you had the urban Meyer year. All right, we'll do, we'll do. Maybe more at a minute. Yeah, yeah. And now it's talking jaguars. That's all right.

Now we're talking jaguars.

Yeah.

All right. Thank you, Andy.

Thank you, guys. I really appreciate it.

We're about to get to head coach Eric Musselman, and he's brought to you by Mountain Dew. You know what we all need to get more of off our ass. With bold flavors and a refreshing citrus kick. Mountain Dew is going to get you off your ass. Have you feeling like you're on an actual mountain. I love the original. The Baja blast is incredible. And then there's the go to Code red. I remember when Code Red came out, changed the game. Game. Code red is an elite flavor baja blast. Love it if it's frozen. Love it if it's regular. Love it. Great flavor. I like the zero sugar, too. It makes you feel like you're on a mountain where the weather is always perfect, your friends are always ready to hang, and a day of epic proportions awaits. After we got done with our workout with Coach Musselman, we got back on the bus. First thing we did, grabbed a mountain dew, hit the spot. The mountain's calling. You should answer. Grab your friends. Grab an ice cold mountain dew. Wherever refreshing beverages are sold. And do the do.

Okay, it's time to wrap up the show with our good, good friend. It is coach Eric Musselman, USC basketball coach. We just went through a workout with you. Let's start with that. How. How'd we do?

I was super impressed. One with the effort.

Okay.

Energy and the enthusiasm.

All right.

You know, there's no basketball skills. I like that. Just the effort, energy, enthusiasm.

The three e's, you brought it. And then the fourth e, you guys executed.

Okay.

We put in a play. You guys executed. You had good reads. We kind of lacked ball skills.

Yep.

True.

Yup.

We for sure lack shooting.

Yep. Yep. These are. Now, would you say. Yeah. Would you say shooting the basketball is important in basketball, not that important.

I mean.

Just a little bit.

Yeah.

The meanest thing that you said was, I think you were trying to be nice, but the fact that you were impressed with us, you were surprised, and that really speaks poorly to what you thought of us going into this workout.

Well, I hadn't seen, you know, I hadn't had the ability to really scout you guys.

Yeah. That's actually our secret weapon. People don't know how unathletic we are. Yeah.

So it would be hard to surprise you. It's hard to put a practice plan together, and it's hard to coach. You guys were fairly easy to coach. Great coachability, but that usually happens, like lack of skill, really coachable, and then super skilled and maybe not so easy to coach.

Yeah. It's perfect that we have you on the show because we were in Southern California for grit week. There were a few people that were pointing out that maybe it's hard to be gritty in Southern California. It's too nice. But you are a perfect example. So can you teach us, us how to maintain our grit while living in, you know, 73 degree weather year round?

Well, I think it's all about where you are, you know what I mean? So, like, if you're between the lines in the Galen center, you got to have grit, you know, and then maybe tonight at the Manhattan beach pier, you don't really need the grit, you know, and so it's all about your environment and where you're at at the time.

Yeah.

You know, but you don't need grit 24/7 right. You just need it when you competing.

Yeah. And you are a gritty coach. You, you know, your teams always play very hard, you know, always running. So what is it like when you. When you get guys and you're like, hey, we're going to run where I'm going to expect the most out of you. How do you get that out of guys?

I think the big thing is it, like, starts in the recruiting process. You know, like, you got to go recruit and get guys that kind of fit your style, fit your system, fit the identity that you want to play. It's kind of hard to change guys. You can tweak it, get them to step over the line a little bit more than maybe where that. Where they are. And that all comes with player development buy in. You know, it's hard to run. You know, everybody says they want to run, and then you're like, hey, here's the commitment that it takes to play with some pace, to play with defensive intensity, and then all of a sudden, guys might not want to do that.

Yeah. How do you get that? How do you get the conditioning? What's the conditioning drill that you do to get your guys to a point where it's like, they're going to be able to outrun and outlast the other team?

Yep. So the first thing we do is there's a mile test that you have to pass.

Okay.

And if you do not pass the mile, you have to do it again, like, two or three days later.

What's the passing time?

So it's 530 for the guards.

Okay.

530.

I'm out. Okay. Yeah.

It is a bike, huh?

Can we ride a bike?

You could.

Okay. Yeah.

Beach cruiser. Yeah.

And then it's 545 for the wings.

Okay.

Then 555 for the. For the bigs, the fours and fives.

Damn.

Yeah.

And then what happens after that? After they pass?

Once you pass, you're good to go.

Okay.

And then we have a conditioning test that is in the gym with the strength coach that we've taken from the Miami Heat. Coach Riley did it. Coach Spolster did it or does it? And then they got to do that with the strength coach.

And what's that?

That's a sideline to sideline thing that I let him kind of run. Yeah, they'll do that when they. So we just finished our eight week segment. We did the mile. Everybody passed but two guys. So when they come back, they'll continue to try to work on the mile. The rest of the team, when they come back, they'll do this Miami Heat conditioning in the gym. So it starts on the track, and then it evolves onto the court.

I noticed in your evaluation of us, you didn't mention if we had aura. Is that part of your evaluation process? Yeah. Do we have aura mojo?

Yeah. I thought there was a lot of confidence, you know, maybe at a few of the positions. Too much confidence. But certainly swag. I would say the swag was there. That would be the biggest thing, you know, is you guys walked out there like you belonged.

Yeah.

And that's half the battle. You got to look good in the layup line.

Yeah.

It's also insanity thinking that we belong out there.

Probably. Probably.

But, yeah, I did. I. When we went to the practice facility, I hit, like, four threes in a row, and then one of your assistant coaches gave me a bad pass, and I missed the next, like, ten, and I was like, that bad pass probably ended my career. Yeah. You know, I was. I was kind of in a point where I was like, if Musk gets a look at this, like, he's gonna be like, damn.

You know the deal, big cat. Never shoot a bad pass.

Oh, I like that.

So you gotta. You gotta remember that whether you're watching NBA game or it's really hard to make a shot off a bad pass. So you got it. You should have thrown it back, coach, and said, hey, man, hit me in the chest. Hit me in my shooting pocket. Get your stuff together. Yeah, cuz that's not on you.

That back.

Yeah, you're back.

Yeah. All right, so we have our listener submitted grit questions. Hank has them. Hank will fire them off, and we'll answer them to the best.

Did have grit today, too.

Yeah.

I mean, when he dove on the floor. Yeah, he showed. Great.

I can't wait till people see this video. We were flopping all over the floor. Max, maybe some butt crack. We'll have to. There was some big time butt crack for Max. Yeah. Huey. Yeah.

Hughie with an all time hustle play. Facing down that loose ball.

Yeah.

All the way into the stands.

All the way to the stands. He went a couple rows.

Incredible.

Yeah.

Okay, Hank, is Grit and Moxie the same thing? Having moxie in the pocket or having grit on the line? Are they the same?

Ooh.

I think Mojo also showed us the. The mojo and, like, mojo grit or. I feel like it's all kind of the same.

I don't think Grit and Moxie are the same.

I don't think. I actually don't think I would agree with you.

Yeah.

I don't think that you can have aura and grit at the same time. I think they're mutually exclusive.

Yeah. Moxie is, like, you can have grit in moxie. I don't know, but if you have Moxie, I don't know if you have grit.

Yeah. Like, in football terms, I'd say that Drew Locke has moxie.

Right.

And, like, Taysom Hill has grit.

Yeah. So what would you rather have in a guy you're recruiting? Moxie or Gritz? Grit.

Both.

You need the combination.

Yeah.

How many grit guys? If you have a twelve man roster, how many grit guys you need? How many moxie guys do you need?

I don't think you can have a lot of moxie guys.

Okay.

So I would say moxie guys. Three.

Okay.

Right. And the rest? Grit.

Yeah.

And then you're gonna win.

I think. That's right. Because if you have too many moxie guys. Everyone. There's only one ball. Everyone. Yeah.

Moxie. There's a little ego involved.

Yeah. Right.

Just toughness. You're like a sewer rat.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But how. How good is it you do need? The one thing I love about basketball is you do need at least one guy in the roster who thinks he's just never going to miss. Right?

Oh, no question. Yeah. You got to have a guy that's just got unbelievable confidence.

Yeah. Like, too much confidence where you're like, he's actually insane. But you need that.

No doubt.

Yeah.

Good question.

As an avid pickup basketball player, what's a good way for me to consistently be the grittiest guy out there?

Floor burns.

Yeah.

I mean, it's a little hard if.

You just pick up basketball, though. Pick up diving on the floor and pick up basketball.

I mean, nobody wants to do that.

Okay.

You know? So if you can do that, or. Or forget diving on the floor, then it's all about when the ball's in the air. How many loose balls can you get? Long rebounds, balls that are floating around. Can you get those?

Yeah.

It's like a receiver. You think every. Every rebound, when the ball is in the air, that's your ball.

Yeah. Go get it personally. So wait, what was the exact question? How can you be the most grit?

What's a good way for me to consistently be the grittiest guy out.

So the two tips I would give is you want to save your energy. So always try to correct the score every time down. Be like, hey, hold up. Check ball. What's the score again? And then use your timeouts. So the timeout will always stop the game for at least 30 seconds. Everyone be like, dude, there's no timeouts. And pickup. And then you get your breath back a little bit.

Just yell ball.

Yeah.

When people are shooting.

Yeah.

If you call a timeout, though, and you're playing with the wrong guys in pickup ball, especially if it's outdoor. You might.

Yeah, that's true. But listen, the timeout, everyone looks around, they're like, what are you doing? A timeout. Breath back. Yeah, yeah. I called the timeout today during practice, the mic. Yeah.

When we were getting miked up.

That.

That saved me.

Yeah. Right. It's all about that. That's. That can maximize your grit.

Can you please ask musk what grit means to him when it comes to what makes a great walk on? Oh, does he have any good stories from walk on tryouts, specifically at Nevada and a walk on abilities to juggle and ride a unicycle? Also, does he have any good Gilbert arenas or run our test stories.

Oh, oh, oh. Good question.

Where do you want me to start? Just with the walk on?

Yeah.

Yeah. What grit means to him when it comes to what makes a great walk on.

Yeah, a great walk. First of all, a great walk on has got to be the grittiest guy on the team. That's. There's no questions about that.

Or the coach's son or the coaches son.

That'll work, too.

Or grandson.

But I would say, okay, you know, a great walk on story. Right. Was that part of the question?

Something. Yeah, something about, I think, I'm guessing this. He's talking about himself, specifically at Nevada and a walk on abilities to juggle and ride a unicycle.

What was this guy's name?

It doesn't have his name.

So, was there a walk on at Nevada that.

Yeah, we did a pregame warm up at Nevada, which was. We had a guy that rode a unicycle and juggled.

So this is his question for sure.

So we had it. We had a walk on tryout at Nevada, and one of the assistant coaches was really serious. He was having him do ball handling, shooting. All's I wanted was a walk on who could ride the unicycle for the pre game warmup. So I kind of stopped the thing and go, hey, let's stop with the basketball stuff. I just want to find a guy that can juggle and ride a unicycle for this warmup.

You wanted red panda on the team. Yeah. There you go.

Yeah, exactly. Do you ever have walk ons that try too hard in practice, or is that not a thing?

Oh, no, for sure. Great question.

Yeah. Yeah.

Cause if you got a walk on, who's too excited and really, you know, like, you don't want an injury.

Right.

You know what I mean? And a lot of walk ons oftentimes are smaller, maybe not as skilled, not as athletic, you don't want to walk on, like, hard foul bill Lambie or hard foul on one of your better players. So you do have to tell some walk ons, like, hey, man, chill. Or you're only on the scout team. You're only to go, like, 50% right now.

Right.

We're not going, you know?

Yeah.

What if you're playing against a team, like, I know Houston comes to mind, our team that's just going to absolutely, like, shove you around and be physical. Do you then tell your practice team, like, hey, we need to actually dial it up with the intensity. We need to be a little bit more physical.

Yeah. We haven't played Houston, but if you're playing Calvin Sampson's team. Yeah. You would probably. I'd probably throw seven walk ons out there and have our guys try to guard five, five on seven and put seven scout team guys going to the offensive glass. Cause that's what it looks like when Houston, when a shot goes up, like, their best offense is a missed shot.

Yeah.

So, yeah, we would, we would probably over exaggerate what we would have to do to try to take away their offensive rebounding game.

Yeah. Okay. And then what was it? Run artest or Gilbert arenas? So do you have any good stories about them?

I mean, there's so many with both of them.

So you were an assistant coach when they were on what teams?

No, I was a head coach with Gilbert Arenas his second year playing for the warriors. He didn't play much his first year. I got hired as the head coach and probably about the second or third practice, about 15 minutes in. I don't ever leave practice. I left practice, went upstairs. The GM was Gary St. Gene. I'm like, this guy down here is an all star. Like, he's going to be a bona fide all star. He was so talented, could go get his own shot whenever he wanted. So that's the one thing that. And then with Ron artest, I mean, it was, it was every game I was the head coach of the Kings. First close game we had, right. It's like 15 seconds left. We call a timeout. We're playing in Milwaukee. Ron comes sprinting up to me, coach, what are we doing? The Kings need a basket. And we're down one against Milwaukee. Buckley, I'm like, I don't know. He goes, get the ball to run our test.

That's good answer.

I'm like, all right, let's get the.

Ball to run Gilbert arenas. He's one of those guys that had unbelievable confidence in himself.

Yeah.

He did.

And he could back it up.

Yeah.

Yeah, he really could. Unbelievable player.

All right, well, last one. What? Who's your favorite or player with most grit from your time at Arkansas?

Ooh, that's a. Yeah, that's a tough. I would say we had a lot of guys at Arkansas that had grit, but I would say the one guy, and he kind of changed our season was a guy named Trey Wade, and he was a guy that just kind of stuck with it. And we had some other more offensively talented players, but as soon as we added him in the lineup, our team took off. We made an elite eight, beat Gonzaga, who was, you know, number one at the time, and Trey Wade was the grittiest guy. He was six foot five and a half six. He ended up garden shed. Holmgren did a great job of doing all the dirty things.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, your teams are great, tournament teams. I mean, I loved the Nevada teams were so much fun to watch. I mean, I've told Ruda a bunch, but, like, I would, I would stay up. We were living in New York at the time. I'd stay up. 11:00, tip off in New York time. She's like, got to watch muscles, got to watch the Martins going crazy.

Hitting every three super talented team.

Yeah. And how do you, how are we feeling about this upcoming season for USC?

Yeah, I'm. We're like, our, we had finished our eight week summer session was unbelievable. Got great chemistry. Guys really get along. We lack certain things, but we know what areas, you know, we're like, at that center spot, we don't have a lot of depth, so we're going to have to play small ball. Those are some of the things that we're trying to figure out. We've had a lot of injuries, but there are injuries that everybody should heal. But this will be a great experiment. Like, we're going to have to win off grit. We're going to have to win off togetherness. We're going to have to win off team chemistry. We're going to have to win off having a better locker room than the other team as far as being together because there are going to be some teams that probably have a little bit more talent in certain areas or certain positions, but it's a team that's super fun to coach.

Okay.

You guys got a theme for this year or something that you're hammering home to the team? Like this is going to be your motto moving forward?

Yeah, we don't have one yet. It's interesting you bring that up because we've talked about it. We wanted to go through the summer. We had a two week break where we need to come up with a hashtag or a theme or, you know, and then we got to be all about it. It's one thing to put it on a wall or put it on a shirt, but then how do you execute that?

Yeah, it's got to match up.

You got to match up.

You got to spend some time, like, meditating on it. Let it come to you. Let the universe speak it right into existence.

And welcome to the Big ten. It's tough basketball, tough basketball, physical league.

Really hard to win on the road in this league. And then you think about the travel that USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington, you know, we have to go through the three time zone way more than the other. You know, they come to us once and we got to go there four times. So it's. It's how you manage that is super important. We've tried to study. We've. A couple weeks ago, we were over with the Rams, asking them how they travel. When do you leave for a Sunday game? If it's an afternoon game, what do you know? What's what time you want to arrive at the hotel? Do you try to slate change your sleep habits or do you stay the same? And so all those things, it's going to be like for us, quite frankly, the first year, we're going to be learning on the fly.

Yeah, yeah. I'm excited, though, coach. You're the best. We're going to finish off. We guess a number. We have a lottery ball machine in our office, so we don't have it here, but we do random number generators. So I want you to. Any number from one to 100. Guess whatever you want. I'll let you start. We're all going to guess a number and then we're going to. We're going to randomly generate it.

Perfect.

So what's your number?

13.

1317.

Eight. I'll go 20. You guys, what memes got three, Max. 1121. All right, here we go. Pft. You're watching. Yep. 48. 48.

So nobody got one. Is that exciting?

I mean, I wish somebody really hard to explain that was.

Yeah, I would have been. It's all right. You got to get better.

Yes.

Yeah. You got to get.

We all got to get better.

Right? Next time gets the right number question. Yeah.

Work, no excuses, right?

Yes. Yes. All right. Well, thank you so much.

Thank you, guys. It was awesome. Great day. Appreciate you having us on.

Yes.

Awesome.

Way to start the day.

Anyway, today is another day to find you.

Shying away I'll be coming for your love.

Okay.

Shying away I'll be coming for your love.

Okay. Take on me. Take me home I begun

me. Take me home I begun the day of day.