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This is The Dan Levator Show with the Stu Guts podcast. We've got a handful of people here who have to go to the Godforsaken Bucket of Death. Greg cody's Tuesday has been magical. He is selling books like crazy. The pride of a lion, the one right in front of him that hides his asthma inhaler. It is making people all over the Internet buy huge numbers of books, and he is number one in a lot of obscure categories. Congratulations to Greg Cody and to Ron McGill. I have a number of things that I'd like to talk about before we get to the Bucket of Death, though. One of them is Greg Cody's horse. His race horse has finally paid dividends. How much you've talked a lot about this horse. Is its namely, calmly?

Yeah, calmly. It's a Great Britain horse, a philly, a female horse, and she won a race in Italy in Milan several months ago. But the bookkeeping is a little bit behind. So I just now got a residual check that will not be cashed. It will be framed.

Wow.

$35.17. How about that?

Did you see the race in Italy? Did someone send you a video at any point of the race in Italy?

Yeah. The syndicate team, Bellar International, provides us with a link to watch these races.

I'm wondering what size check does get cashed? Like, if that's $350, are you cashing that thing or are you framing it?

It's a good question. Yeah. Where does the number I'm going to say that anything over $100 gets cash.

Oh, he's cashing it quickly.

Well, the weird thing is the wife was telling me about this. Apparently, the technology exists to deposit a check while keeping the physical check. Is that correct?

What?

Yes, that's very correct.

Lucy Endorses.

For a long time, I've never cashed a check. Not doing it that way.

Oh, really?

See, that's new to me.

Really?

In my life.

Okay, do it on your phone.

Yeah, it's on your phone. It's right there. The only reason I have to go to a bank is for rent because I have old landlords who don't understand that I could do it virtually.

So evidently, I can cash a check and frame the check. I can do both.

Very easy.

Win win.

Learn something every day.

Three minutes max.

Thank you.

Never have to leave the car.

Wow. I cannot explain to you cannot explain to you guys how desolate the bank is anytime I go there.

Yeah, me too.

Just a good time to be going.

Well, but it's at any time because the tellers are being left behind by society. They are left behind, and no one has told them that this is not an industry that's functional this way anymore. No one's going to come into your world and ask you for money. Except for people my age who need a lot of cash because I want to go to the valet and be able to give a valet $4 without it being something that I have to get on my phone to give him.

I paid my valet in Venmo just yesterday, but I you're not paying your.

Valet if you do it that way. You got to grease it to them. It's got to be a hand in exchange. Hand to hand. Here's your $10 bill.

I do completely understand what you're talking about, but they're getting more money for me if I go through Venmo, I don't have cash. And when I go to the bank, the bank tellers at the bank that I work at now, I have a little relationship with them because nobody goes in there. So I'm one of the, like, ten people that they recognize that's under the age of 90. They're like, you're young. What are you doing here?

They'll talk to anyone?

Yeah, it's great. Jeremy, since you won your Emmy, is that when you started painting your fingernails after winning the Emmy, or have you been doing that for a long time?

No, just whenever I feel like it. Why not paint your fingernails? Form of but, yeah, you know, I did win an Emmy. It's no big deal. It's just an Emmy.

Congrats.

What are you going to do?

Thanks, Greg.

That's nice.

Thank you. I really appreciate it.

What was it for specifically? Because I know you do a bunch of stuff.

Thank you. Yes. It was for Marlin's clubhouse on bally sports. So really proud of that program. And Kelly Sacco is our main host. She's spectacular. And I know nobody else wants me.

To continue to talk about this.

Yeah. Didn't really need an acceptance speech.

I didn't get to give one because I wasn't at the awards.

Greg asked.

I did ask. I was curious.

Yeah, that's fine.

Touche. Teshe. That's a beautiful career achievement for you.

People are asking for that on a T shirt. I'm just letting you know that is.

A young person who has won an Emmy at a very young age. But he's going to have to do a lot of learning before he catches the big dogs in this realm, like Skip Bayless, who I have to salute. I really do. And it's hard for me to do. I have to salute Skip Bayless for the take that EME Odoko would never have called Michael Jordan the B word. I have to celebrate the one note you're hitting on for the remainder of your career, that it still works and that you still throw it out there. I'm going to give you an Emmy on behalf of always figuring out the way to hate one of the great athletes of our time from any angle. I do think it's weird that EME Odoka this is not normal. Stuts houston's a lot better this year. EME Odoka's name is stained. And for EME Odoka to be comfortable looking in LeBron's face and telling him he's soft and the B word when he's LeBron and the other one's like that takes an extraordinary amount of arrogance to be able to feel like you can do that when you're not as good at what LeBron does.

And no one ever has been except for one guy.

Debatable.

I think it's worse than arrogance.

Hold on a second.

What happened there?

I thought it wasn't debatable. I thought it's never been debatable.

Sunday night off. I feel bad for his family.

Wait a minute. Did you just say that it's debatable? Whether or not there's only been one player better than LeBron?

Some people might say Kobe. Some people might say kareem Abdul Jabbar. Some people might say Bill Russell. Some people might say that. I'm not saying I'm one of them. I'm just saying it's debatable, that's all.

Koozie George, Miken.

Back when basketball was basketball. Dolph Shays. Dolph Shays.

No, that's a terrible know. It's more than arrogance. It's disrespect.

Larry Legend.

That's right. Larry Bird. People used to say Bird was the greatest ever.

How about that?

I remember that.

Cody's really petered out here. He's run out of gas.

You decide to take a nap after that sentence.

It happens this time of the show.

Pistol Pete, let's go to the bucket.

Of death before Greg Cody goes to his actual death. He's running out of gas. He's got nothing left. This is what happens. He just sort of like he's playing with a piece of a pen. Yeah.

Sabonis did a lot of work in Europe.

I think we're going to have to make Greg 2 hours. He runs out of gas, there's nothing left in the tank. He's done rummaging. He's already checked out Jeremy.

The wizard of Oz helmet. That thing always shows up.

Yeah.

Lions, bears. What week is it?

14.

So you've got here we go. The Lions are a three and a half point favorite at Chicago. That's where the bears are.

An Oz matchup.

Tigers, you have well, the Bears.

I'm going to take the Detroit Tigers.

Okay.

You have Detroit Tigers.

Their next game.

Open game one of spring training.

Yes.

LSU.

I don't think we've gone outside of football. Bears.

We have often. Yeah. If there's a loophole, we'll exploit it.

Lucy? Well, I'm going to have to be wearing Captain Hook's costume tomorrow. I have to do that as part of my punishment.

Oh, I thought it was just Wednesday.

And that the Rams are a seven and a half point dog at Baltimore.

Oh, boy.

Give it back.

They are playing better.

What?

Red hot. Three games in a row.

Yeah. In the mix.

I got the Broncos also in the mix.

They're at the chargers. They're a three point dog.

You upgraded based on spread. And everyone knows spread is the indicator on how you pick college football teams.

Mike Ryan is now selecting and Greg Cody will go last if he still has any energy to do anything.

I've got the swap helmet.

Nice.

Congratulations.

All right. So I will most assuredly enforce this. Let me see what someone is swapping with.

You're going to take the Tigers, right?

The Big Apple. Okay. So let's just say this person will have the New York Giants.

Woof. The Giants are a six and a.

Half point dog at home against the packers. Yeah. I mean, Tommy DeVito, if you look at his numbers, compare him to Patrick.

Mahomes, it's a squint.

Yeah. It's actually pretty tyrod Taylor's supposed to be back, though, I think.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

And they would bench DeVito.

I don't know.

Before Greg Cody goes stugats, I wanted to get stugats'thoughts. And you could keep rummaging throughout his thoughts very well on Diana Rusini's report that the jets want Zach Wilson to start this week and he is reluctant. Basically, the jets are in a position where their quarterback doesn't want to play for them because he knows he's going to stink and they're going to stink and he'd rather not play.

Well, she has clarified. First off, I want to deep dive into this season. I do. I want Seth Wickersham to do a deep dive into the New York Jets organization to figure out why after Aaron got hurt with this kind of defense, did they not go out and get a better quarterback? Anybody? Joe Flacco.

Flacco.

I mean, seriously, they'd be ten and two with that guy. It drives me crazy. I'm not answering your question.

They would not be ten and two. But I do think we now know, right? Because everyone who's calling for Zach Wilson to not play, it's not Boyle. It's not Simeon. There was a reason that Zach Wilson was the one playing. He's the best of bad options. Right.

I want a deep dive, though. I want Wickersham to go in going deep and tell me what happened with the New York Jets this year.

This is a record.

Rummage.

Yeah.

It's the most incredible Gen Z move by Zach Wilson to be like, look, I tried my hardest, okay? And then you all dismissed me. And I honestly think that what he's doing is amazing. You know what? You want Tim Boyle? You can have Tim Boyle.

What he's doing now? He's clarified that by saying he's hearing this through reports from guys like Joe Bideno who had a text conversation with Robert Salah. And how does Joe Badingo have salah's number? And why is Salah responding to Joe.

Badingo gonna say, lose my number.

Left hand getting hurt. Pick the helmet, but left hand beginning to hurt.

Zach said if the jets ask him directly, he would play, which is very nice.

You're in control of this.

The Lions at Chicago. Three and a half point favorite at Chicago.

I'll take the lions.

All right. That was worth the big Giant.

Or I may take the lions. I haven't picked yet.

Not the Tigers.

Greg, you can go ahead and leave now because you left about three segments ago. As soon as you sold your book. It's all he cared about. It's the only thing that mattered to him. Stugats, I want to ask you you have heard me before. Report exclusively that Trent Dilfer and Dilfer's Dimes died at ESPN as soon as he said, I want a private plane. I want to fly all over the country on a private plane. They're like, no, you can just leave. And now Kirk Herbstreet's dog is flying on a private plane.

How does Doper feel?

Not alone. You don't know that for sure.

You're painting the picture like the dog gets to travel like it's with Kirk. That's an important tower.

And his son. Right.

I'm sure Trent would have taken the deal if they told him, okay, you can go on a private plane, but you got to take Kirk or his dog with you. I'm sure Trent would have been fine with that. In staying at ESPN, you have to.

Travel with the entire Herb Street family.

I think he'd be fine with that, wouldn't he?

Don Levitard? They would try to bring in some minority characters, and you could yeah, they tried.

Louis Aguirre was one of them. They tried to dabble in Latin flavor, and they went maurice Chestnut was one.

Morris. Morris Chestnut. I'm sorry. God, what a beefcake in that show. Miranda, why didn't you stay with him? I mean, we're going to go with Steve on this one. Seriously?

Spugats. Oh, no.

Clear out.

I have to issue her an oh, no. Is it a Sex in the City apology?

I would like to formally apologize to Blair Underwood for calling him Morris Chestnut.

Oh, no.

Wow, look.

La.

Law, man. Come on, yo.

This is The Don Levatar Show with The Stukats.

Perhaps the worst quarterback of all time.

The inaugural Nathan Peterman Award.

Oh, Nathan Peterman's way better than Tim Boyle. Way better, because I saw Nathan Peterman be good in college. I saw him put up some numbers in preseason. I've never seen Tim Boyle do anything.

We be eight and four with Nathan Peterman. Eight and four.

Tim Boyle released. Dan your favorite Tim Boyle memory outside of the hell. Mary bail mary. I've heard Hail Mary, which is they both work.

The stat is the one that I love, because it really is. I don't feel like the group in our entirety absorbed the absurdity of the statistic that I gave you that from 2013 to 2015, when he was in college, tim Boyle was of 251 ranked quarterbacks who threw 200 passes. He was 251st. He was the worst at whatever. Where was he at? Connecticut and someplace else.

He was in just Yukon dan. He threw one touchdown there.

No, but he played somewhere else as well in there and was also terrible there. And as subjective and hard as it is to measure quarterbacks, I would make the argument that basically it is mathematically impossible for a player who was that bad at quarterback in the training ground parts of quarterbacking to be someone who starts an NFL game throughout his stops.

At Connecticut, Eastern Kentucky.

That's right.

The Chicago Bears, detroit Lions, green Bay Packers. Prior we've never seen them do anything good.

Yeah, that one touchdown pass at Yukon.

I think we can call this one Tim Boyle is the worst quarterback of all time.

It was one touchdown against 13 interceptions. Put it up on the poll. Juju, please. At levitard show? Can we give Tim Boyle the Nathan Peterman Award for being the worst quarterback of all time? Who was paid to quarterback? Because there are many, I am sure, in high school and college and wherever it else. Well, not in college. No, there are none in college.

Watch the big Ten championship game.

I wanted to talk about another quarterback, though, with Mike Ryan stugats because we were joking, but not joking about FSU, that Jordan Travis was the most valuable player in college football because if he'd simply not had a broken leg, they would be at least getting the chance to play for the championship. And I do want to figure out a way for our so they say, right?

So they say, do you think that if Jordan Travis were healthy, they'd still be left out? Because I do. I still think that they would be left out. And the Jordan Travis is just the most convenient of excuses to CYA.

It's a Travis D.

I agree with Mike 100%. It's the ACC. The ACC is going to die because of this.

But it is also the ACC, because when you have a mediocre conference, or a conference rather outside of the top two conferences that they consider the SEC and the Big Ten, the top two conferences doesn't matter if you're power five, non power five. Outside of those top two, we now see if you go undefeated. You don't make the College Football Playoff if they don't think your schedule is strong enough. The thing is, we've seen that twice before. We've seen it with a healthy quarterback. We've seen it with a non healthy quarterback. We saw it in the state of Florida with UCF in 2017 and 18. Yeah, but they put TCU in last year as the inferior team.

They had to, though.

I hate using TCU. It's been said a million times over.

Bad example.

They beat Michigan. They beat Michigan to get to the CFP final in which, yeah, they got drubbed. By the way. Most teams end up getting drubbed in these games. The game's not been good, but TCU. Deserved it.

But the reason I say no to what you guys are postulating, even though it makes perfect sense, is because I believe that if Travis had stayed healthy, I believe they would have smoked Louisville and the Gators and it would have demanded. Like, I don't think the games would have looked the way those games ended up looking because they were playing with their backup quarterbacks. Because in one of them they were playing with their third string quarterback.

But you still have them I'm starting to come around to this. You still have them getting in over.

I actually the way that I would do that, I think, is how are.

You going to move the New Mexico State Aggies?

Oh, that's right.

Yeah. I believe that if FSU had won in dominating fashion with an undefeated schedule, lucy says no before I even finish my point. So you have FSU. There is not a circumstance I can present to you if I make they beat Florida and Louisville by a combined scored of 200 to 17. There's not a situation that I can put in front of you where you'd be like, yes, the committee will bow here and keep out an SEC team.

The big thing is best, not most deserving. I think someone would have sacrificed that might have been Florida State. Hell, that could have even been Washington because they were going to always have Alabama or Georgia in the playoff. There is no other way around it. And Texas, you can't put Alabama in and not put Texas in. They were always prepping to do this. Jordan Travis just worked out in their favor.

Yeah.

They just got a convenient excuse to not include FSU. But I tend to agree. You're looking at the ACC in a year where a lot of people do you tend to it's a good question, Chris.

It's a big difference.

It's a good question. It's a good question.

You know agree. I simply agree. I agree. They were going to keep FSU out no matter what, because the ACC in.

Their.

But the SEC, or the ACC rather, in their eyes was not as good as the SEC, even though the head to head schedule indicates that the ACC was at least right there with the SEC in terms of the competition, obviously through the quote unquote eye test. And that's what you're talking about, Dan, is man, they just didn't dominate enough in all of their wins. They won every single game and yet that doesn't matter at all. It has been and always will be a College Football Invitational, not a College Football Playoff. It's not the playoffs. It's an invitational. The TV networks invite teams. They invite whoever they want. It was the SEC Invitational.

I'd like to ask the audience if it has any idea because Georgia is a 14 point favorite and I really want to rally behind FSU and create a trophy and do the whole thing we did with UCF. I want to declare them the real national champion if they win their bowl game, if they beat Georgia. But do we know how good Tate Rodimaker is? Do we have any idea?

He looked better in that second half. I think it was impressive. If you watched that game. I watched every snap of that game and I thought Rodimaker was being fed to the wolves. I haven't seen the swamp that raucous in a long time. They got into a deep hole early and he didn't look good. And then he found his rhythm, started getting the ball to playmakers, and they started pulling away. And then he took a hit in that game. Did he ever. He was made limp by the hit, taken off of the field. And then an interesting thing happened after he took that hit.

What happened?

He went back in the game seven minutes later. He went back in the game seven minutes later and all of us were in our homes wondering like, well, what exactly is a protocol? Like, if there was an independent neurologist, he would not be on the field. And you have Kirk Herbstreet applauding his toughness when to me it seemed pretty clear, but okay, I guess I had that one wrong.

Okay.

No weeks worth of discussion about that concussion because we clearly had it wrong. It looked like a concussion. Sounded like concussion. Wasn't a concussion. Well, guess what? It was a concussion. It was we weren't stupid. We all saw it with our own eyes. We correctly diagnosed on the spot that Tate Rotemaker was concussed and shouldn't have gone back into that game. And because the NCAA allows for different rules. And you can't ask about this person being injured without offending them, and you can't leak any of that without having your access threatened. We don't have an entire week's worth of conversation wondering aloud how you can put that kid back in the game, so much so that he dresses for the game, participates in warmups, and then gets dressed back out of pads and put on the sideline. Like this is a tactical thing. What are we doing? That's the FSU conversation. They're dealing with this right now. They avoided a week's worth of bad press.

It opens up a weird conversation where, like, going forward teams, if you have a detrimental injury like what Florida State had with Jordan Travis, why wouldn't you dress the guy? Let people think they're going to play. Lie about the injury status if you know that your quarterback getting hurt, this player getting hurt is going to hurt you going forward. This is just like it is a weird can of worms that has been opened up here.

I don't doubt that that was part of Mike Norvell's strategy. I already hear the whispers about how I'm going to be left out of this college football playoff because I have my backup quarterback in. I can't imagine if I announce midweek that I'm going to have my third string quarterback in. Got to keep the illusion that it's at least Tate Rotemaker out. Guess.

But Mike, we read it wasn't, I.

Guess, credit to Mike Norvell for playing with this dude's health in that way. And ultimately his fears were confirmed. His fears were confirmed because he was left out primarily because he's not Deion Sanders. And that's a shame, and he should really work on that this offseason. Become Dion Sanders.

Put it on the poll. Should Mike Norvell become more like Dion Sanders at Lebetsard show? Stugats, I'd like to figure this part out okay with you and talk about something here that I think because we dehumanize athletes and because we say banged up about hockey players and football players when banged up covers an awful lot. I am now, at this age, thinking about pain differently than I have at any other point in my life. I imagine a lot of people listening to this are in pain, are in a daily kind of pain. I'm not even talking about emotional pain. I'm talking about the physical pain that keeps you from sleeping or from walking correctly or from doing whatever it is that pain limits you on. So when we talk about pain when it comes to athletes, I'm telling you, Stugat, that I've lost my ability to point out to the audience what these human beings are doing to each other without the audience thinking I am hating football or don't like what I'm watching when I do like watching it. But the toll that I'm watching, I don't ever want to get numb to. And what I'm telling you, Stu got is this past weekend in football on a channel where I'm meant to have it so fast that I can avoid the injuries because when you're in the red zone, you're not in a timeout on some other channel.

The channel exists to make me not see any of the shit I don't want to see and just mainline all the shit I want. But when I'm seeing even there the things I told you the other day that they're telling me that Higby just went in the tent for a concussion and a neck, but I saw him go off the field holding his hand. And Higby is a monster. He's a physical monster running into people bigger than him somehow. I ask you seriously how I can speak about football like I love it and ignore that stuff, when now we're doing it to kids, too. Now we're doing it to college kids because we pay them now. Now they're professionals as well. And Jordan Travis saying, I wish I'd broken my leg earlier. And Mike's talking about what it is he's talking about. Like I legitimately don't know how to navigate the space where I'm talking about this honestly without putting people off.

You can't.

Don Lebotard, you getting started on the breakfast lawn.

Oh, man, I've been singing the song to myself all morning long. Breakfast Flan. Stugats, have you never heard the Breakfast Flan song?

Hit me with it.

Okay. I wish I had some breakfast flan. Breakfast flan where can I find a breakfast like that? DA DA DA DA DA DA DA.

DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA.

This is the Don Levitar Show with the Stugats stugats is the voice of.

The fan, and stugats very often will say, as many fans do, because this is something I run into all the time, stugats, that people who don't have money or have money problems think that those are the biggest problems that there can be. And I understand how one arrives at that point. Those are very tricky and awful problems to have, but it doesn't mean that people with money don't have those problems or don't have other problems that feel to them as big as those problems. I would say that there is no amount of money that I would take in exchange for the grief that I have felt over the last year and a half. There is not amount of money in the world that you can give me, but I have money. So I can say that perhaps if I did not have money, I would not say that. And I would think that money is a cure all for all my problems, because I imagine most people listening to this, if they have money problems, there's not a lot of problems in their life larger than those problems. But many years ago, the disconnect between where me and stugats are on the subject of pain, mental, emotional, physical, wherever we were talking about Butch Davis, and we were talking about panic attacks, and stugatt said that he would take whatever it was.

Butch Davis was making $10 million for panic attacks. And I'm like, man, being in a panic at all times sounds pretty awful to me. And now I've passed out six times in the last whatever, because the panic grabs me, and I'm on the floor, and my wife is horrified because she's looking at me, and it's the worst fear she's ever felt in her life. And before I pass out as I'm panicking, I'm like, oh, no, I'm making the woman I love feel again the greatest fear that she can have, and I don't want to leave her like this. And now I'm panicking, and now I'm falling on the floor. I don't know how much I would have to pay. People who are listening to this for whatever it is, is the greatest pain in their life. Whatever the greatest pain is or the greatest fear, if I say, okay, I'll give you this amount of money for you to experience that pain for duration of blankety, blankety blank. I think most football players would indeed, now that they're doing it, they get to be the gladiators. They get the glory, they get the lifestyle. Now, they would make that exchange for the pain, and they're doing it.

Obviously, they're choosing it, telling you that they're doing it, dan, just by playing, their actions are telling you. And how many players have to tell you, hey, I do it all over again, okay?

But I'm generally not in hospice with those players at the end, when they're like the last 20 years of crawling around. Through old age when I'm not young anymore and I'm on machines and they won't pay for my insurance, and I need a ton of pills that I'm addicted to. And I'm not asking this question of the 60 year olds if they make it that long, because many of them don't. I'm not asking the question that often of the old timers, hey, was it indeed worth it? And look, Jay Glaser says it, and he's a really tough human being. He says it's an honor to be in pain and play hurt on behalf of the people around you. This is the cult that football is. It's the culture of football and Stugats, I remind you all the time the history of some of this. The original gladiators in Rome fighting to the death. Originally they were prisoners and slaves, and then people started signing up because it was super glorious. Originally, people that didn't have freedom were the ones that fighting to the death for our entertainment. Then people started choosing it. There's a lot of money in choosing it.

There's more money in lording over it and owning these bodies, throwing being thrown into the mill. And we don't spend a lot of time on Sunday thinking about the 65 year old who is in terrible physical pain and limping through the last of 20 years of terrible physical.

That would be an awful way to spend a Sunday. I mean, I don't want to think about that stuff. Dan, I have told you forever that it's impossible for me to fathom, especially now that these guys don't know the risk that comes with playing that sport and know how they're potentially going to feel when they are, if they make it to 60, 65, 70 years old, how they're going to feel. They know. But you know what? For a lot of players, this is a way out. This is a way to get to a better life. This is a way to take care of your family. This is the option that they have. They don't have the option of ownership. They do have the option to go out on the field and compete with their teammates and play a game that we all know is savage. We're watching it. We know this game probably should not be played. But Dan, I'm going to watch it. As long as they're willing to play it, I am going to watch it, and I am not going to think for a single second about a 65 year old man on a Sunday afternoon.

Oh, you have not going to do it. No, you do. That's part of the variables that go into you rationalizing. It probably, and I do the very same rationalization, oh, they know now. They definitely know. Mongo McMichael. That's tough to look at, but he probably didn't know as much. Feel really bad for him. But look, the packers are in the red zone. We like it too much. Why? Football is awesome. It's woven within our American fabric, and talking about our feelings out loud is becoming more part of our American fabric. But, yeah, we're hypocritical on this one. We really are. And it's great. And we have a media company. It's great. No, football is fantastic. Look at how much fun we're having in our group chats, talking about Florida State, missing the CFP. This is a vice. It's an American vice. We have an entire media company that does not exist without those broken bodies.

And we're in front of football and media more than I think a lot of even young football players are. Like, you say, all of them are educated on what this can do to their brains and their bodies, even with the greater knowledge and access to it that we have now. I'm not so sure that's true. I think that football is sort of woven into so much of what it is that we do and so much of glory, even from a young age.

Right.

Being a star high school football player, or even in middle school, like, a star on your team, brings a level of popularity and success and social charisma that you might not have otherwise. And look, I can understand even the people who might argue, I'd take the peaks of what it is to live my life as a 24, 25 year old making millions and millions of dollars and enjoying the success that comes with being a superstar football player for the valleys of what later in life will be. But man the trade off of potentially 20 or 30 years of my life with my family and my loved ones, because I'm sacrificing this part. And really, you talk about getting out like, this is more of a systemic issue overall in America than it even is when it comes to just football. It's the opportunities that we're providing for people.

Oh, it's not limited to football. I call football advice because, look, sugats knows the risk when he smokes on a cigarette.

He does.

I do.

But he has math outliers that hopefully one day he's like, Well, I see other people that it didn't happen to, so hopefully it doesn't happen to me, too.

That's how I feel, unfortunately.

I feel the same way when I drink a little too much. Like, yeah, okay, there are some people that have liver disease, but there are some people that party, like the Nature Boy, Ric Flair and Lemmy, even though these are bad examples. But Keith Richards, that guy's still ticking, right?

Yeah. I soothed myself on cigars with Jack McKean. Jack McKean?

Yeah. He's still around, like, how do you do?

He had twelve a day. He used to smoke twelve a day. I'm like, he gets to his 90s.

So you just think about him while you're smoking?

That's right. That's correct.

You pacify yourself with the outliers, like, Jack McKeown, like your uncle that smoked his entire life and lived to 104. Like Keith Richards.

Somehow. Still, you couldn't do it otherwise. You couldn't do football otherwise.

Joe Namath. Hey, he's still giving takes. He looks all right to me. He's from that era.

I've told you guys before, I've mentioned this story, and I've heard other football players since. The idea that Ricky Williams says that warriors can't and don't consider consequences because otherwise they would not be warriors. But also, I've stood with Ricky and others on an NFL sideline long after they've played, and they're like, how did I do this? Like, how was it possible that I decided to be a human being who was doing this? Because I do want to, just for a second, in the normalization of this thing that we love on Saturday and Sundays, just put in front of you the idea of if I told any of us to throw on helmets and launch ourselves at each other. At this rate of speed, with this kind of strength, any one hit happening on a football field would likely dismantle any of us talking about football. Like, never mind all of the hits accumulated over all the practices, over all of the weeks, and never mind what hockey does to people, which I feel like is in the same realm as, what this?

It's not for everybody. Ultimately, what drove me away from the sport was that I didn't like my coach, but I also was playing a position that really hurt. It was like, this game hurts. I took a cleave to the balls in the spring game. I was like, I am out. Put me at wide receiver or I'm out of here. The pain makes the decision easier.

I would tell my story of when I stopped playing football. I mean, it has nothing to do with physical. It just has to do with me being five five. You're acting like we had chances to make it far. No, I stopped playing the game.

No, we're talking about high school. But I also had the realization, like, Yo, this really hurts. And when you're not having fun or being self indulgent with the fun pastime, and it feels like work, and on top of that, you're getting your brains battered, this is an easy decision. I'll go play soccer.

And with hockey, there are plenty of examples of that Warrior mentality. You got Duncan Keef, who was in the Western Conference finals when he was a blackhawk. I believe he was playing the Sharks at the time. Got hit in the face, lost eight teeth, went in the locker room, came right back out.

Hockey player.

Hockey player in it.

And last year, obviously, you had the injured Panthers. You had Aaron Ekbad. He played on broken foot, separated shoulder. Matthew Kachuk. Broken sternum. They both played during the when you.

Talk about this is the part, though, stuz. I'm of an age, right?

And we're not even talking about the enforcers because fighting has gone down. You got players like Derek Boregard and Bob Provert they lost their lives.

He's getting these names out.

Dan understood. But when Stugat has to go to all these oral surgeries and stuff and when I'm going to the dentist because of my age, I'm going to the dentist and I have to have things checked just based on how I've taken care of my mouth. When Roy says and lost eight teeth and got right back out there. Okay, hockey player, but what's that going to be in 30 years with your mouth when you have to go and make sure that everything's okay and just I don't know how many people listening to this are in perpetual mouth discomfort. Just let's start there. Because I think by filing it under the umbrella of pain, we ignore the specifics of any one pain any of us have ever felt in our life. That has dismantled us physically. And now you're inviting them every single week. What these guys are doing in private, in the shadows with the needles and everywhere else just to keep being able to do it so that they can injure themselves again and armstead can be. This week it's a quad and a hamstring and an ankle and the bodies start falling apart right in front of you, even while they're still getting paid for it.

Do you have your book for book club yet or what?

I know everyone move in. Everyone hates talking about this. And I'm still trying to figure I'm pretty good with words. Still haven't figured out how to do it without everyone hating me because they don't want to talk about this.