Welcome to the big series, a podcast exclusive. Risky move, just when you thought the show could not be more diluted, puffed up like real. Wow, no more free Disney tricks. Now, here's the marching band to nowhere or mateys face dance, been stress eating and the habitual liar. You guys can't be trusting the big zui.

Yo yo, a pirate radio life for me. We know you're going after the pirates, the illegal streaming. Any any news on that.

So let me tell you that story. That's my phone.

So the the night that that I guess it was I did an interview with BTE and then I did I think you asked me at the press conference. Right. And, you know, I basically said this is what's going to happen. So and I told you guys that we we found the guy and we were watching him. He put out a statement that night, said, I want I will not be streaming the McGregor versus Poret anymore, but I will show you how to buy it legally and put out this huge statement.

And now his whole streaming service has been deleted and is gone, disappeared, one down and a shitload to go. And I'm ready.

Every event I'm going to go after one of these guys, one of these or more will say this is a bad fight for him to pick Strogatz It is, because now you're challenging this entire community to see if people can pop up to foul up your stuff. But also what's happening and this part is amazing and funny to see as a fight play out in public, which is the hackers are basically stealing Vegas money from that meathead in the fight game, like in terms of people whose money you want to steal.

Without ramification, don't go after runs Vegas meathead, who is in the middle of the fight game and now has political power because of what happened with rewriting some rules about how he can go after hackers. So he that's not even the sound I was looking for in the post fight press conference. I thought it was the post fight press conference. He was more gleeful being really happy that someone asked him the questions about hackers because he said, like he said in that soundbite, I got him, we got him.

And it made it sound like he thinks there's one hacker that he thinks that he put an end to hacking. And Mike, not a small thing. You guys talk about the money that McGregor made him last night or Saturday night, lost him money as well, because there were so many people who are going to have to get refunds. They didn't get to see what they paid for. You're going to have to refund that money because he was loud about taunting hackers.

And next thing you know, I don't know if this is what happened, but I assume that what happened to ESPN plus, which hasn't had trouble with any of its events until now, I assume that what happened to ESPN plus was that he challenged hackers and you don't challenge hackers.

And if you weren't hacked, then you have to deal with the people who now call up. This is what I would have done. In fact, you're welcome in advance. Call up and say you were hacked to get your money back. How are they going to tell the difference? How about that? And seriously, how many Essbaum plus subscriber?

You know what, you use Chris Waddington's password, make you get your money back? Yeah, I can speak for countless Bundesliga fans out there that there have been some issues with ESPN plus as a platform, but I hadn't actually heard that. It's an interesting theory because they've never had a high profile problem with the pay per view the way that they had this week. But Dana White's a man that's emboldened. He had he found out how much political influence he had.

He was you know, he was part of the pork fat in this covid relief bill. He's survived black male sex tape extortions in the past. This guy is coming for pirates in a way that no one has before. It was sort of one of these problems that we just figured there was no solution to. He's going to use his government influence to find the solution. Look, this is a guy who did a taunting video, OK? And to me, it also felt like bullying Strogatz because all he was doing is going after M.A reporters who were questioning in this video.

And my reporters don't have a lot of strength because he doesn't have to respect journalism, because Dana White is now with ESPN. And you can see in some of the coverages that have taken place at ESPN that Dana White is very much in control of messaging of. And I'm going to read this story for you so that you can see what happens when someone like this gets inside the machine and starts making money for people. Right. How much money and power ends up getting accrued in those circumstances?

Because I told you at the very end at ESPN where I thought that perhaps there might be a place that I'd get fired, I thought that the railings that were most dangerous dugouts and I'm going to read this story from The Daily Beast for you. I thought the railings that were most dangerous for us as a show was say the wrong thing about the NFL or say the wrong thing about UFC. Say the wrong thing about where the money is and you will see if problems come your way.

And this is what I found interesting and I wandered all over the place. I'm sorry that I never got to the point last week while talking about it, but this is the story from The Daily Beast. A reporter was reaching out to me asking if I wanted to comment on this story that he was writing. And I did not comment on it because I wasn't well versed enough on what it is that was happening. And I did not know of his premise is true.

So I'm just going to read to you what it is that he wrote in The Daily Beast under the headline. This is Before the Fight. ESPN doesn't want to talk about Conor McGregor's rape case. The worldwide leader in sports has largely ignored that. McGregor is being sued for rape in the lead up to his lucrative UFC bout Saturday night broadcast on ESPN. Plus, it's written by Robert Silverman. And I want to get your honest thoughts on what it is that I am reading here, because it is where the conflict resides.

You will cease to got in our conversations on South Beach sessions with John Skipper, the former president of ESPN, that one day when he was doing original reporting with NPR on one of his league partners, the NFL's concussions issue, I think this is in episode three might be Episode four, where he looks around John Skipper does and realizes, wait a minute, where's the conflict of interest between us having partnerships with leagues that we cover and us doing journalism about leagues that we cover and with that NPR concussion story that he has?

He was doing he looked around and said, oh, wait, I'm the conflict. The conflict has arrived. Me, I have to make a decision about whether I'm going to choose my partners here or I'm going to choose journalism. And he had to choose his partner because that is the last line when you're trying to do the reason that newspapers separate advertising and editorial just because you want the editorial to be pure. The reason that it's scary that a guy like Bezos is running The Washington Post, even as The Washington Post does great work, is he's got so much money that it is very easy for him to control whether or not The Washington Post is reporting about things that Amazon does that are wrong.

I'm certain with a journalist's background he wanted to go journalism. But when you reach a level that that high where you're running ESPN, that becomes very, very, very tricky. You almost have to side with your partner.

You have understood and I will read this to you, though, but that bar has been lowered because at the very top end, when you're talking, you got brain injuries and your partner and a concussion settlement that ended up going for seven hundred eighty five million dollars. And they had to wipe it out because it's not enough when you're talking about up there that's trying to do journalism about the humane scientific things and then at the very end being compromised by your conflict of interest.

But to me, the bar has been lowered during a pandemic because this isn't about concussions. What I would say to Dana White is, hey, if you want hackers to stop stealing your money, how about you stop stealing the money of your fighters and pay them correctly? But what we have here with Conor McGregor specifically is this headline that I just read to you. ESPN doesn't want to talk about Conor McGregor's rape case. The worldwide leader in sports has largely ignored that MacGregor's being sued for rape in the lead up to his lucrative UFC bout Saturday night broadcast on ESPN.

Plus, and here's the stories the guys hours after the news broke on January 19th that Conor McGregor, the star mixed martial arts fighter, had been sued in Ireland by a woman who claimed he'd raped her in twenty eighteen. ESPN weighed in on the Tuesday evening edition of SportsCenter. ESPN described the sexual assault allegation as, end quote, alleged personal injury and quote the, quote, situation, as they phrased it, had been investigated by police. No charges had not been filed.

The anchor noted they'd confirm this information with MacGregor's lawyer and added that McGregor had denied the allegation. The following morning, a different sports center anger anchor recited the exact same script. The segment was followed by a commercial starring McGregor for a brand of whiskey founded by McGregor. None of the above is false, but it's far from a complete picture. According to court documents obtained by The New York Times. The woman in question was invited into MacGregor's bedroom, where he propositioned her.

When she declined, a struggle ensued. McGregor was physically restraining the alleged victim and, while she was subdued, told her. That's how I felt in the octagon. I had to tap myself out three times. That's how I felt, the lawsuit states she was then raped by McGregor. The victim claims the allegation was initially reported by the paper in twenty nineteen. At the time, McGregor was arrested and questioned by the police. ESPN chose not to include those details.

The brief item was repeated verbatim on the morning of January 20th on ESPN two. By the afternoon, a few alterations had been made. The New York Times was cited and the audience was informed. The case concerning alleged rape. For some reason, the SportsCenter segment still opened with the old descriptor, quote, alleged personal injury, an ESPN dotcom aggregation of the story from January 19th with also use the same exact the same inexact language didn't include a link to the Times reporting.

And after that, nothing. The case was seemingly not mentioned again on ESPN, ESPN to ESPN Deportes or ESPN News this week. Nor were the words rape or sexual assault spoken on air in conjunction with McGregor, according to transcripts on the television moderator monitoring service. TVis look hard enough on all ESPN platforms, and you'll find out. This is the third woman to accuse McGregor of committing a sexual crime. Or you can learn about the bigoted, attention grabbing insults he's hurled in public.

But it pales in comparison to the wall and wall, wall to wall content devoted to parsing every bit of Macgregors minutia an Emma fan could ever hope to consume. In response to a request for comment, an ESPN spokesperson said via email, We are covering Conor McGregor thoroughly and forwarded three stories published by ESPN Dotcom dating back to late December. One example provided by the spokesperson is a 5000 word story which recounts MacGregor's entire UFC career the votes for short paragraphs to the top to rape up to the two rape accusations and omits an incident last year when McGregor allegedly exposed himself to a woman.

A female ESPN reporter was appalled by the relative radio silence, quote, It's abominable that the company would do this, the reporter who requested anonymity to discuss her employer told The Daily Beast, particularly because it feels like there isn't a uniform policy when it comes to how ESPN covers these things. McGregor will be taking on. Dustin Pedroia on Saturday night in a pay per view extravaganza broadcast on ESPN streaming platform ESPN. Plus, it promises to be one of the highest grossing UFC events of the year, despite or perhaps partly thanks to the controversy, McGregor has been UFC chief cash cow for quite some time.

Occasionally, that's meant UFC has had to tolerate or even ignore his worst behavior. Moreover, ESPN represents a crucial element of ESPN's long term economic health. The network has been shedding cable subscribers for years thanks to cord cutters. They partner with UFC two to the tune of a one point five billion, five year contract. The ESPN spokesperson did not respond when asked whether their ability to report on McGregor is in any way compromised by their financial relationship with UFC.

And then finally, and I know I've been reading a long time here, but I just want you to have a complete picture in a very long time.

It shouldn't come as much of a surprise, then, that ESPN has devoted plenty of airtime and column inches to all things kind of McGregor. They've examined how the fight will cement his legacy or whether he's going to take another. He'll turn his various public spats with UFC honcho Dana White have been probed, as has his pre-flight emotional state, which is never a sure thing when it comes to McGregor. If that's not enough McGregor content, check out an exclusive interview with May reporter Ariail Juani or a separate sit down with star ESPN Stephen A.

Smith available on ESPN. Plus, you get the point. I won't read any more. You can read there's more is plenty more. Yes, there is plenty more there.

What are your thoughts? It's a tricky situation because what you described with the NFL and concussions, that's a league wide problem. This is an individual within a sport that you are partners with. So I feel like ESPN probably did a pretty bad job. Like I don't get why you would run it in a 5000 word piece somewhere on one of the ESPN platforms and then not stay consistent with that. Throughout your coverage of Conor McGregor, why not put it on sports?

Well, leading up to the fight, it seems like a pretty big deal.

OK, hold on a sec. First of all, I think you may have misheard something and I don't blame you because I was reading too much there. So I understand if some people tuned out on that.

But the 5000 word piece was just sort of an example of all of the coverage of McGregor over the last few years on I thought, on ESPN looking into basically his life or profiling the larger issues with him. The part that I'm most interested about here, Stewart's and this is, I think, bears worth watching, although maybe the audience doesn't care that much about this kind of thing, because we have arrived in a place over the last four years where you have seen the media credibility chopped in half by a guy who wasn't very subtle and wasn't very sophisticated.

And yet he was really able to do damage with just the phrase fake news so that now you're in a place because newspapers are so crippled and we need newspapers for checks and balances. You're in a place where things like this can happen as newspapers and real reporting tends to get extinguished. And what I found interesting about that story, I'm not here to simply just yell about ESPN or them being compromised. I'm here to ask everyone here the question we've gotten used to in the last thirty years of ESPN caring about journalism, but they didn't have to.

They chose that they're an entertainment and sports programming network. They didn't have to do journalism. They chose to.

And now they're choosing to kind of walk away from it.

And that is interesting to me. Like this, this kind of thing, it's not totally walking away from it, but to kind of move away from, hey, do we have to do this? Can't we just be the Southeastern Conference programming network? Do we have to do journalism around here? And I ask you that question sincerely. Do they know the magazine is dead? Their magazine, where they did long form stuff is dead? I don't think they have to do journalism.

I think this is part of the pivot away from journalism. And furthermore, I think that the audience that they crave that doesn't want politics with their sports and by extension doesn't want minorities with their sport, I think those people don't want journalism either. I think they just want to sit down, watch the games and not be reminded that A-Rod is doing commercials after we chased him through the streets for a year for cheating. I think they just want to sit there, watch the games, yell about the athletes being overpaid, and you don't need to do the journalism.

We are arriving at my heaven. No journalism, just the games. Give me a three hour pregame show. We're at the end. An old coach butts on a mascot's head bow to God.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but you both outlasted Tom Rinaldi at ESPN and you took journalism with you on the way out the door. Yes.

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See Draft Kings dot com for all the details into this, because there's always a tension around here between the serious and the silly. And very largely, I would say one of the reasons that I'm sometimes very unpopular around here, very largely being the operative term, is because I get in the way of some of the wacky as the straight man sort of trying to keep everything together as the rodeo clowns run all over the place. And so I ask you guys this question sincerely.

I found that Conor McGregor stuff to be really interesting. But I also felt like when I was halfway through it, I'm reading way too much here and I'm not and I can't read and also read the room. Right. So I couldn't see in the zoom and couldn't see you guys. But I felt about halfway through that I was reading way too much, even though I found the information interesting.

I can't read, but I can read rooms and the room was bored. I'm just I bought four hats for my pool. While you were speaking, Billy, how did you explain?

How did you experience all of that? Billy, did did you say to yourself a couple of paragraphs and Dan is reading too much?

I realized Dan's probably not going to go to me here. So I was trying to figure out if Freddy Prince Jr. retired or things just kind of slowed down for him doing a little research for later on. Don't worry, guys. You'll be surprised with that at some point.

Chris, where were you with the entire thing? Where did you land in terms I was ordering breakfast. There's a deal on first watch. You guys at first watches by you. It's a sneaky, good breakfast joint.

No. Oh, it's called First Watch. It's on this new New Year, New Me. It's like along those parts it claims it's like the Whole Foods of breakfast places. It just gives off. You're eating healthy.

What did you order? Had ordered some fried eggs with some toast.

And they had this thing like Acardo toast.

I was thinking about investigating that, but I decided to just go regular toast with a fried egg.

Roy, I'm throwing you I'm throwing you a life a life boat here. Are you going to get in it with me in row all four? Am I just going to sink into the sea?

You know what? I'm going to join you down. I don't believe you. And I don't know. I don't believe you. I appreciate the effort and the insincere the insincere flattery. But you were out on me reading that much.

No, no. I was listening and I was questioning the the verbiage that is in use on the actual report, like, wow, that's a yes.

Injury's not exactly personal injury. Yes, that is correct. That is not the best way to describe that. However, I am not satisfied right now.

Oddly enough, dude, I was hanging on every word. That is wonderful.

It is a bit of a surprise. I was not expecting that hockey season started.

B.T. Dubs no big deal. It's kind of weird that certain teams have played six games in the Dallas stars have only played one.

But whatever came in handy, the story was sent to me by one Chris Whittingham. So I know he found it interesting, witty. You and me are ruining the show. Everyone else wants to talk about fried eggs and other things. The floor doing kicking there by the legs.

Get to that. Someone says, wait until I just said that.

That was a stupid decision by Grady is back in the Super Bowl.

I mean, why did you stop reading? Let's talk about this. Because I thought yes, I thought no, not reading Coogan's. Let's talk. We talk. Enough about McGregor and other things, the big story yesterday was Tom Brady again winning forever. I said four or five years ago to God that if I had to make a bet with my life and be correct, that I would bet that Tom Brady had indeed sold his soul to the devil.

I would have bet that. And that was four or five years ago.

So Super Bowls ago. Yes, that's correct. And so this is where we are with this, because I asked Menagh and Mike, I asked them when that happened. For those of you who maybe weren't watching yesterday, it was a fascinating game between Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady. Tom Brady is again going to the Super Bowl. And at the end of the game, some things that were very questionable happen. Aaron Rodgers could have probably run for eight or nine yards and scored a touchdown and he chose not to.

And he chose to throw a bad decision to throw into double coverage and said afterward, I thought we had four downs. I thought we might go four times. And then who was there? Is it Shaq Lawson or is it Shaq Barrett, the guys back there? Yeah, right. Yes. Well, they've got a lot of pressure.

Right. When you started feeling bad for Wagner during that game, the pressure that they were getting, Strugatsky stats are interesting. Of the quarterbacks playing yesterday under pressure, Josh Allen was better this season than any of them by a lot. His QB rating in the hundreds. Mahomes was in the 70s. And then when you get to Rodgers and Brady, ineffective with pressure and Tampa Bay won that game there because as great as Rodgers was, they got to him a lot.

And they they they bothered Green Bay's offense enough to offset the fact that Tom Brady threw three interceptions on the road and is going to the Super Bowl. They bothered Rodgers just enough where he had the one pick. He has three picks, I think, this season to get that defense. They had the fumble, so they bothered him just enough. He still had a great game, but he was a bit uncomfortable throughout the game. You could tell.

Well, there are a number of things that I want to ask you guys about that game, because I did find the game fascinating. Tampa Bay got the benefit of when they got the turnovers, they did something with them because they didn't have to go the whole length of the field. When Green Bay got its turnovers, it was three and out, three and out. So Tampa Bay and three not in their own territory. They weren't doing anything with the turnovers.

And furthermore, two guys, I would argue that the coverage of that game is misplaced because we are focusing on all the questionable stuff at the end of that game. And I believe if I ask you guys, hey, what mattered more in terms of how that game was decided, given that Green Bay was down eight at the end, the last few minutes of the game or the last few seconds of the first half, when I ask you, which had more to do with deciding the game, given all the stuff that we're questioning, would have only merely tied the game if afterward the Packers had also gotten the two point conversion that they didn't get earlier.

So I ask you the question in terms of actually deciding the result of the game, which was worth more what happened at the end of the first half or what happened at the end of the game?

Probably the end of the first half. It's just there's no there's no excuse for that. It looks like the Jets, to be honest with you, you have to protect against the deep ball there, especially with Tom Brady. And they didn't do it. And so, well, they were protecting against a field goal.

They thought Tampa Bay was trying to get into field goal range. And it was a big mistake. But if you if you don't know what we're talking about at the end of the first half, keep in mind, Green Bay is down fourteen to ten, has the ball in a first down and is driving. So they are in their territory, but in the forty yard range.

Yeah, there is no way you can go to the half with anything other than a fourteen ten deficit from there. Like that's there's nothing that can happen after you have the ball and a minute left in the first half you are driving the thing that needs to happen. Worst case scenario, locker room, you're down fourteen, ten, you have the ball in a first down. You have control of everything that's happening here in a quarterback who never throws interception, he throws an interception.

And now that's not the worst of it. Now Tampa's got 13 seconds left and they got a fourth down the fourth. And for most people punt there. I think just say, you know what, we'll just go up fourteen, ten. But Tampa knows who its quarterback is. Yes, yes. And and fourteen, ten down. What ends up happening is Green Bay is absolutely playing for you cannot make it seventeen, ten at that. So their worst case scenario was fourteen, ten.

Now they're saying no, we're going to make sure it's not 1710 and then it's twenty one ten. And then they fumble at the beginning of the third quarter in their own territory and Tampa scores again and everything's a scramble after that.

Don't forget Green Bay prior to that fourth down conversion, dropped an arm punt of an interception. And what I saw I know the talking point is. Greater than Rogers, the end of that first half and throughout that game, Aryan's and Bulls, greater than LeFleur and Pétain Green Bay Secondary was a disaster and Aaron Rodgers is good against pressure, can deal with pressure, not the type that Jack Barrett and Jayson Blair, Paul were providing, which is you're not even going to get a hand on us because we're so fast.

But LeFleur has to be taken to task if he has an owner at Green Bay. I think it's totally different. If he has an owner today, Michael Metlakatla might actually be fired for what he did there. What sense hold on. What sense does. Oh, he's been holding this in.

I know, because I just want to read the text between I sent Meana and Mike when floor made that decision where he's down eight. He's got the best quarterback I've ever seen. He's got a quarterback who is very good in that particular situation.

Second best quarterback you've ever seen, so forth. And eight would have been the situation. Fourth and goal from the eight Green Bay is good in red zone situations like that. So I asked Mina and Mike via text, what was the math on the Green Bay decision to go for a field goal there to basically do the logic of, you know, what I'm going to do here, I'm going to not trust my Aaron Rodgers, the best quarterback I've ever seen or second best.

I'm going to not only not trust him on fourth down one play for my season, I'm not going to trust my best player.

I'm then going to also trust that my defense can keep that guy from getting a couple of first downs and finishing my season. That particular guy. The decision I'm making is not about math. It's about I've got this guy on this sideline and they've got that guy on that sideline and it needs to factor into the math.

Hundred. Listen, there is no excuse for this. He made the wrong decision. You have Aaron Rodgers and what you're asking your defense to do is prevent Tom Brady. Tom Brady, OK, who's about to play in his tenth Super Bowl from not getting to first as three, ten yards? Tom Brady has to get ten yards to get himself back to where he had to get he had to get more than that because they got a first down and then they got another first down on the pass interference.

But point taken. You've got one guy on one sideline that you fear. You've got your guy on your in your huddle that you should trust. But I'll also say this like we can rip the floor all we want. There is no excuse. I don't care what he thought had it into that play. Aaron Rodgers had a clear path to the end zone there and should have scrambled and rushed and scored that touchdown and threw in the triple coverage to Davonte.

It's a terrible job by Rodgers. I'm sorry, but that stuff happens fast.

And he said after the game I thought I had four downs. I thought I had another down. I'm not disputing what you're saying, Stuart. He should have run. These decisions are very easy to make from the safety of over here. I don't know whether it was Sue or somebody else, but he was pressured all day long and there was somebody right on his back. I don't know what he felt behind him. He's got a little more pocket presence than you and I do.

But I agree in retrospect, he should have run.

He also knew the game situation better than LeFleur in that moment. He was trying to get the score before the two minute warning so they could get the extra time out. You can't do that if you run for it. And I've seen the steal this. He's very mobile. He has good speed. He doesn't have Lamar Jackson speed. I don't think he actually makes it to the end zone. And like Dan said, he thought he had four downs.

Mike, you need to forget about all that. The only thing he needs to be thinking about in that spot is I need a touchdown and we need a two point conversion. I don't care about time. Oh, my God. No, no, no, no. And if you run the ball and you don't make it, he's allowed to be criticized. He's the greatest I've ever seen. But he can be criticized for only criticizing him because what ended up being the results to God damned, if you don't get there, at least you're flushed down situations.

No wonder that too much. If he scores the touchdown with the throw and tells you after the game and they win the game, tells you after the game, tells you the specifics of I needed to get the touchdown there because I wanted the time out of the two minute warning and they win the game, you would be here applauding him and saying it's the smartest thing you ever seen.

They did end up getting the two minute warning timeout because a buccaneer player, it was very weird. Late game execution took a knee on the kickoff return. But I think he was thinking, no, I'd rather take a shot with my arm, keep the time where it is, rather than find myself just shy and losing that two minute warning because I don't think he actually gets into the end zone.

No, no, that's that's Aaron who I love, by the way. That's Aaron, you know, Monday morning quarterbacking himself there because what is he giving Tom Brady an extra time out for to get more time to score against him and take the lead? I don't think that makes a lot of sense to me. This guy is just, you know, making you run the ball.

OK, JP, if you were to cut up, you probably would have run the ball to the floor getting blamed spare's Aaron Rodgers from getting blame, which he deserved some. And these refs. Can we talk about this bullshit? Pass interference call when the Packers are going to get the ball back. I don't even care if it was actually passed there, but it was you, Aaron Rodgers. Their feet got tangled up.

You got his jersey grab.

You talking about him? Like, over. I saw the guy do a bunch of acting and flail his arms up in the air. I don't like I said, I don't care if it was actually pass interference. You give Aaron Rodgers that chance there to go the length for us, for our entertainment.

Yeah, I think I'm with you on that. What's the problem is it wasn't consistent with how the game was called and the ball sailed like the ball wasn't going to hit that receiver, not catch it. It wasn't catchable, but it was pass interference letter to the law.

Chris is so right about this, though. We did not want to see that game end with victory formation and kneeling. Don't play flag.

Oh, late flag. Don't deny us two minutes more of drama. We enjoyed the game so far. Actually, I totally understand what Chris is doing there. I want two more minutes of this. I want Tom Brady to have to go sit on that sideline and fear whether or not Aaron Rodgers is going to have the most memorable drive of his career. In that moment, we were denied that by the referee.

Did the ref explain what took so long with the flag? Was it stuck there? Imagine him contemplating at Lambeau Field. I'm about to make this call that's going to prevent everyone from seeing what they want to see, which is Aaron Rodgers to win this game and get the Packers to a Super Bowl.

Chris, this will surprise next to no one around here. But I have very strange television viewing habits. And so in that moment in what you're talking about, they're trying to slow down and savor. No, it's not muted. I wish it had been when I was looking for analysis of the kicking of the field goal in the math.

And and Troy Aikman was telling me instead, well, Tom Brady knows his night is far from done. Oh, thank you, Troy. How about you guys? Did you notice that the commentators need to be a little more aggressive? They're about questioning in real time, like they know the sport and they know the math. Hey, this is a questionable decision that's being made here, kicking the field goal. It can't just be Troy Aikman. I don't know about this.

Like, you got to give us a little more there than Tom Brady knows. His night is far from done.

It's what makes Tony Romo so good at this. He says the things that you are saying in your living room, screaming at your television, Tony is saying the same exact thing.

Detroit is in a no win position there, though, because if Troy says something that was like, well, actually the calculator said that is a good idea to keep the ball here because the players give us information.

It's not about a being in a win situation for you win the floor.

That's what he should have been doing. That's what Troy Aikman should have been doing there.

But we all needed to know in that moment that Tom Brady tonight was not done.

It was important to know. And Dan, you're throwing stones from a glass house here because three hours after the fact, you're texting Mina for what should have happened.

Hold on a second. I will get to that in just a second. I will. But I want to talk about what it is that Chris is saying there, which is my weird viewing habit of this is how I actually watch that play out to guys. I paused my television and had it go in slow motion during the duration of the play to see all of the faces and reactions of whether or not a flag was going to be thrown and the by virtue of doing that, what happened to me in the viewing experience is I'm doing it so slowly that I'm watching just the Tampa Bay faces on the sideline.

And I'm like, OK, Green Bay's getting the ball back. There was not a pass interference called there. And it's going and it's going. So when you say, Mike, that was a late flag or when you say, Chris, it was a late flag, not for you as much as it was for me, because I saw I celebrated. I saw all the outrage Tampa Bay faces. Like they were pissed because there wasn't a call.

They were screaming and yelling. There were people jumping up and down and they weren't celebrating it. And then by the time I get to the end, I see that stopped. And then the Green Bay players are screaming and yelling. And again, that's not what decided the game at the end of the first half.

Kevin King, what a mayor that guy had. Terrible player. Awful.

Let me please read the Menagh text and the mike text before you before you get to those Chris Moore reading.

Chris, you had the Packers now?

Of course I had the back. I was sitting on the future, had three hundi on them to win the Super Bowl bambino best.

I played on that guy's Mowhoush. At this point, I hate him.

I do you think that that Aaron Rodgers would have felt if they would have gone for it on fourth down instead of kicking the field goal, but they put in Jordan love for the play.

Oh, wow. I've got something for the Jordan love thing too.

This came down little Fleur's decision ultimately for me, even though some players in that secondary were really bad for four for Green Bay, I don't understand the logic of, hey, Aaron, I don't trust you to get ten yards on one down, but I do trust to you. I trust our defense to get a stop and avoid Tampa Bay from salting the game away, because keep in mind, if the game is tied, Tampa Bay is hurrying down the field and not approaching the game the way they did, which is just keep the ball away from Aaron Rodgers.

I don't trust you in this moment to get 10 yards. I trust our defense. And then I trust you to go the length of the field and win us the game. It is beyond stupid. One of the worst decisions I have ever seen.

What's the narrative if they go for it on fourth down and then just don't get it. No controversial play on. Aaron Rodgers is the guy for that third down play, right? It turns he's getting criticized. Yes.

You should have ran it earlier, too. Wasn't just that down.

There was another down earlier in that series where he could have ran it in potentially all of that, correct. All of it. Again, less relevant than the end of the first half. But we will continue to accentuate all of these things because I was sad at the end of that game. Mike just ended up because it took me so long to get to this text. He ended up taking away the punchline of me, getting to the text and then having his overreaction.

But sad because of how wrong you are about Brady or that was part of it. I imagine these three picks. Oh, that's not my thing to remember, Mike.

And anyone to hear about your money. You won that game because I Aryan's and LeFleur and Badagry.

I actually thankful that I have been tomorrow one wrong about Tom Brady this year than I have been any year because I thought he was going to regret for the rest of his life leaving the New England Patriots and ending his career a different way. Put this on the poll game at Libertador Show. If Brady beats Mahomes, does he retire on the spot? Yes or no?

He won't. It will be the toughest gauntlet in the history of the NFL, but he will not retire. Like, why would you when you're playing this? I just want to put it up there.

Brees he'd be going through Brees, Rodgers and Mahomes. So I ask Mina and Mike, what's the math on what Green Bay did there? And Mina writes, Math is pretty close, slight edge to going for it. But Green Bay was the best red zone offense in the NFL, best on third and fourth and long at the goal line. So I would have gone for it. Mike Ryan, the very next text. Right. You can't argue with anything she's saying there.

The math favorite at Green Bay's. Very good at that and all the stuff that Mike just said. But Mina gives me a detailed breakdown on the math. Mike Ryan's text is simply the dumbest shit I've ever seen.

So dumb and so dumb. It cost me nine hundred dollars. LeFleur You know, I feel bad for when we talk about this Gauntlett Hinoki and he played so great, so great.

You got to be happy. Yeah. The on that guy I think it was the closest game they had. No.

Well this one was. Yeah. Yeah. I think he played well. I mean certainly better than Brees.

Right. I mean he's never mentioned in this gauntlet Chris. It's I feel bad for having a guy who sounds like a beer in the car care center.