The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Annual NFL QB and NBA Star Comps, Plus Kevin Clark and the Rapper Bas

Episode Date: December 20, 2023

Ryen opens the pod with the annual NFL QB and NBA star comparison. Find out which QB is the Jokic of the NFL and who Aaron Rodgers’s NBA counterpart is (00:40). Our old friend Kevin Clark stops by to discuss the dysfunction in Philadelphia and have an Orlando Magic discussion with Ceruti (16:09). The rapper Bas sits down with Ryen for close to an hour and talks about his much-anticipated studio album 'We Only Talk About Real Shit When We’re Fucked Up,' J. Cole, and coming up in New York (57:44). Plus, Life Advice! One guy is upset with his friend for inviting his ex-girlfriend to a New Year's Eve party (01:48:46). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: Bas and Kevin Clark Producers: Cliff Augustin, Steve Ceruti, and Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

on today's pod the annual nfl quarterbacks compared to today's nba players we've got kevin clark on the eagles and a bunch of other stuff now he's with espn and most importantly boss the rapper his new album is out. He came over my house and we talked for almost an hour and we have an update on the controversy of the photo from that interview

and life advice. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Winter is here, so be prepared and get almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. What do I mean by almost anything?

Well, you can't get a ski slope, but dish soap, definitely doable. Sunshine? That's no. A bottle of wine? Yeah. And a snow day? Again, no. But blueberry muffins with the delicious crumb topping?

Total yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. It is time for my annual NFL quarterbacks as NBA player comps. It's not perfect. I spend some time on this every year. I'm watching games. I'm like, who's this guy like? What could we make? What kind of connection could we make that's

like a comparable conversation because it's not just this guy looks like this this guy's numbers are like this this guy's playoff success is this or lack of play of success is the same it's more about the conversation with some of that stuff sprinkled in okay so we always had a lebron james brady one um but brady's gone and there is no lebron james you know again what lebron is doing i'm not sure we're ever going to be able to compare anything to it jason peters doesn't seem like a good fit plays offensive line he's 41 matt prater feels a little dismissive to compare to lebron james so let's just say this there is no lebron james nfl comp so if we go back to the quarterback part of it and again rogers i'm going to save him for later and he missed the season. So if we start at the top, Mahomes, it is Jokic. Both currently the best players in their

sport. They always feel like they're giving their offense a chance to have a good look, no matter what the circumstances, despite the last fourth quarter possessions for the Chiefs that have not worked out this season. But it still feels like you're still scared. Like, is Mahomes still going to find a way to convert a fourth and 20 that I really wouldn't have faith in any other player in the league? And there's a lot of stuff with Jokic. It's like, okay, well, the defense is going to do this. Defense is going to do that.

It's not like, yeah, you can try a bunch of those things. But over the course of a game, I think he's going to figure you out. They elevate everyone around them unless it's Kadarius, Tony, or Bones Highland. They both have one guy. They're like, I can't work with this. All right, Lamar Embiid. I've touched on this in the past. Let's hammer it right now. Both have an MVP. Both have absurd numbers. Lamar, although not statistically up at the top of some of the other quarterbacks and stuff when you're looking the total touchdowns and everything. But he is projecting now to be the first ever quarterback who throws for over 3,700 yards and rushes for over 900 yards. No one else has ever done that before.

Embiid, on the other hand, is averaging 34 a game right now. I mean, dude, he could have even more points if they want to play him more in the fourth quarter. Some of these blowouts in December. That's 15th all time if he stayed at 34. The last center to score 34 points a game was Kareem in 71 and 72. But the playoff numbers and the playoff hesitation is real, and it's there for both of them. I think even more so with Lamar than it is for Embiid. We've covered Lamar's drop-off in the postseason, but it's less games. That sample is really, really small. And when you actually look at the touchdown passes, it's in the postseason, but it's less games. That sample is really, really small. And when you

actually look at the touchdown passes, it's in the beginning of his playoff career where he's against the Chargers, where I thought at that point he was still a very limited quarterback. Where Embiid, the traditional numbers in the playoffs are still pretty good, 24, 11, and 3. But the metrics for Embiid, I was surprised how much of a drop-off there's been from the regular season to the playoffs. PER goes from 28 to 21.6. Win shares per 48. You're like, hey, what's up with this nerdy stuff? The point is, whenever you're over 2 in that, a.2 in the win shares per 48, you're a tremendous player.

It drops down to like.134. Again, that's just to point out how big of a gap that is because that's a significant gap there. All right, let's keep it rolling. Josh Allen is Luka Doncic. Huge white guy stuff, rather visual. Physically, not much you can do with either of them. So when does it get interesting? Now, because if either were to win a title, there would be momentum there would be a

public push whether it were fans or the media to hand over the belt to a luca or a josh allen if luca to win a title the conversation is going to be that next morning every show is asking is luca the best player in the world and a lot of people would say yes. That's just what happens. It took me a while to give it from Durant to Giannis. I don't like that Jokic immediately got it from Giannis, but it just feels right. That's exactly what would happen with Luka. You may think, well, wait, would that actually happen if Josh Allen were to win a Super Bowl this year? I think it would. I think it would come up. I think that conversation, like there's one thing that posed the question is content. It's another thing to have people actually believe it. And if you go

back to the beginning of last year, there felt like there was a push to find somebody else, ABM, anybody but Mahomes, whether it was Jimmy Johnson saying, hey, I'd rather have Herbert over Mahomes. And then there's like, you know, maybe Allen actually is the better guy. And then Mahomes goes and takes care of business and wins the Super Bowl. So that's where I think there's a good connection. Tua, Trey Young. Okay, this one feels a bit more like the physical comp. That's not really what it is.

We know they both have big numbers. It's not the small thing. There is no version of officiating in the NFL that is comparable to how Trey benefits. But there is something that is very similar, and it is this. As you've watched both play throughout their careers, and Trey has the one playoff run to the Eastern Conference Finals that's beyond what Tua has had, but the Tua thing still feels newer than Trey Young. This is the similarity. This is why I've connected the two. Because I think most of us, when you watched Atlanta with Trey and you go, okay, that Eastern

Conference Finals run was kind of fun, but I think for the most part, there feels like there's a bit of a limitation despite his talent and his output. The same can be said for Tua, where when it's against the better teams, it looks different, it feels different. And yet the real similarity is when you bring up that ceiling that I feel is accurate and exists and is obvious to most of us, both fan bases absolutely lose their shit. Aaron Rodgers, I was going to go with Royce White. Doesn't play in the league anymore. So let's just say Kyrie Irving.

The reason I bring it up beyond the obvious is there's a physics book that I read. And I don't think I talked to you about it a ton because I started to realize like, hey, once you read books, are you reading them for you? Or are you reading them so everybody knows that you read them? One of my favorite pieces of content is somebody who is a public figure sharing their reading list. Sometimes it's actually beneficial. You're like, hey, I align with this person. If they're into this, I might be into it. I like when people ask me for book recommendations, but I also think there's a very narcissistic thing that happens there where it's like,

Hey, I read these books, but you better know that I read these books. And there was an interview I saw with Rogers once where he, they were like, what are you reading? He was like, Oh,

this book on physics. It was like, of course you were psyched. You were pumped to tell us you're reading a book on physics. Let's keep it rolling. Let's go with some young guys. Bryce Young. is there a comp number one overall pick disappointing first season kade cunningham number one pick now to be fair to kade thank god if you start looking at the trend of his numbers and we were making up all sorts of dumb trades bill and i yesterday uh

knowing full well you don't trade a player like Cade. The franchise would never do that kind of thing this soon into it. And it looks like with some of the stuff that they're trying to do, like Cade is not nearly as bad as he was in the beginning of the year, which gives me a lot of hope. So that's a thing that Bryce doesn't necessarily have. I think the comparison there is that you go, wait, did we get it wrong? Which is part of the Cade question, but at least with Cade, there was no one else to take. So with Bryce, the fact that it hasn't looked as good, but Cade has been in the league three years,

is that a perfect one? So what if Bryce is actually Scoot Henderson, where this season is not a final indictment? If at the end of the year, you're going, Bryce is never going to be good, that's completely unfair. You look at that offensive line. The coach loses his job halfway through the season. He doesn't have a ton of weapons.

But there are still going to be questions about Bryce. But you can't end 23 going, he's not the guy. That's not fair. And the reason I bring that up is because when I saw Scoot in a redraft where he was at the end of the lottery after, I think, 10 career games, I'm like, that feels a little quick. That feels a little quick. So for both players, and Scoot's been better recently,

if both players, like it'd be nice if it looked a little better, but we can't be saying anything definitive about either player until, you know, end of year two, you can talk to me. So if we're working with young guys here for the NBA NFL comp deal, is CJ Stroud actually Chet Holmgren? It looks like CJ is clearly going to be better than Bryce. I don't think that's ridiculous to say. Chet, is Chet better than Wimbanyama? He's played a more important role. The team is better the Spurs have four wins you know as great as you may have thought when Minyama was going to be and I certainly hold out that hope uh look he's

incredible it's unlike anything we've ever seen before when it's right it's awesome he's still like the traditional numbers are really really good with him um I still think he has a hard time kind of getting into his offense and still make some decisions that show that he wants to be like a two guard or a small forward to show it at times. So there's just a lot of shots throughout a course of a game. You're like, what the hell was that? Whereas Chet doesn't have as much on him. He has a much better team. The whole thing is more stable. Like Oklahoma city has a real chance to make some noise here in the playoffs. So that would be at least for this year, maybe not a career projection, but if I was doing the comp for just this year, I would say, hey, Chet's actually felt like the better story despite all the attention to the other guy in

Wimbanyama, which again, I understand are different draft classes, but both are rookies where Stroud has clearly been the headliner for the quarterback rookies for this year. Russell Wilson, Kirk Cousins, doesn't work, both quarterbacks. Is there a quarterback comp for John Morant? There is. Probably not going to do it. How about Justin Fields, Jalen Green? So as the Fields last month has played out, he has two picks.

I don't count them. They were the two picks that were Hail Marys at the end of the first half and at the end of the game this previous week. So he's been pretty clean in the turnover part of it, at least throwing the football. I have him down my own personal interception charting that I do. I have him at zero interceptions this month. But that has led to what I still think is some really absurd conversation about him actually still being in the mix to have this gig. And I understand it. You've spent a top

pick on him. You want it to work out. You're starting to play the game of like, hey, if Fields has actually turned the corner, add a receiver here, add another line, all these different things that you want to do. It's a lot like the Jalen Green part of it. Now, it's not perfect because Fields can't have the job and still be on the Bears if they take somebody else. Jalen Green can still be on the Rockets and be one of the five guys that are playing. It's more about having the keys to the franchise where there's a pushback from some of the fields. Maybe it's not even accurate. Maybe I'm just seeing some of the stuff in the media that's playing out where 80% of the fan base is like, dude, you're wrong.

We're totally fine moving on from him. But there's still an emotional part of handing it over to somebody else, whereas Green will still be on the team. But it doesn't look like it's going to be his team the way maybe you thought it was when he was drafted and his rookie and his second year when he got all these options. Maybe he gets better. Maybe it's a delay for him in his growth. But it's feeling like, at least in Houston, it is a transition away from him being the primary guy.

And it's happening right now, by the way, when you watch the way they run their offense late in games. Is there a purdy in the NBA? It would be what? It would be big numbers, good team, win games, doubt because of system. 2018-19 Harden? MVPs? Maybe, not perfect.

I don't think there's a quarterback comp for Steph Curry right now. There just isn't. It would have to be one of the all-time great resumes, future Hall of Famer, still really good, questions about this team, don't really think they're going to do anything anymore. It would have to be like a Brady on a team that feels like they have no chance in the playoffs. And I don't think

we have that right now. Mac Jones is James Booknight. The last one that I was trying to find was a Justin Herbert. I thought about Tatum. I'm like, that's ridiculous.

Tatum's been to the NBA finals, another Eastern Conference finals a bunch of times, not another one, tons of them. That's not fair to Tatum. Even if you think where Herbert gets talked about, could he actually be the best quarterback in the league, like at the best versions of the Herbert conversation? Um, and then the reservations about it. Now you'd be like, Hey, Tatum's Tatum's awesome. You know, he's really, really good, but I don't know that he's ever really going to be one of those guys. Um, that's

not right. Then I started thinking about is Zion there like, yeah, that doesn't seem right either. Uh, it was maybe the best thing we thought of was a prime Chris Paul where it's like, hey, I know this guy is really, really good, but it just hasn't worked out. So it's certainly not Chris Paul now, but I don't think there's a perfect NBA comp for Herbert. Let's finish with this unrelated. Is Ben Affleck movie John Mayer and is John Mayer music Ben Affleck? Cash in on balling out this NBA season with FanDuel,

America's number one sportsbook. Right now, new customers get $150 in bonus bets with any winning $5 Moneyline bet. That's $150 if your team wins. Okay, let's go post-disappointment bounce back with the pick today in the NBA. Here's what I'm looking at. I'd love to take the three and a half, Minnesota plus three and a half in Philadelphia because part of it was like, well, you know, look,

Philly hasn't really played that many good teams recently. This could be a massive wake-up call. You're getting three and a half in Minnesota. Maybe the best team in the NBA right now. So I still kind of like it, but I felt like Minnesota on the travel part of it, Philadelphia at home, maybe because they haven't been tested, they're more arrested, the whole thing. So I kind of worked myself in circular debate with this one until I landed on Boston plus two and a half at Sacramento. Yes, I realize it's back-to-back for Boston here with a short

slate last night, but as disappointing as that loss was, I think if this Boston team is any good, getting two and a half with them, likely being pissed off. And the travel Golden State to Sacramento isn't that arduous. That is the play. So the Celtics plus two and a half. Monitor that line on FanDuel Sportsbook. If you've been thinking about joining FanDuel, there's no better time to join. The app is easy to use and there's a wide range of ways to bet

including quick bets, live same game parlays, the parlay hub, and more. So visit FanDuel.com slash Ryan R-Y-E-N and turn dimes into dollars this season. FanDuel, official sportsbook partner of the NBA. First online real money wager only. $5 pregame money line wager required. First online

real money wager only. $10 first deposit required. Bonus issued is non-withdrawable. Bonus bets real money wager only. $10 first deposit required. Bonus issued is non-withdrawable. Bonus bets expire seven days after receipt. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. This is a pleasure, old friend. Kevin Clark of ESPN now joins us on the pod. He's on all the time with us, and glad we get to do this finally, man.

What's up? What's going on, buddy? It's like I never left. I feel I like to keep in touch with you. I like to pod with you. This is my ideal. I think we may even have to get some Orlando Magic talk in here with Saruti at the very back end of it, but let's start with the football stuff. Yeah.

Um, Eagles disappointing loss at Seattle. We could, if it were one thing you go, Hey, you know what? Monday night are on the road at that place. You never know.

Um, but this is not really what the story is here with the Eagles. This has been going on for weeks, a couple of wins in there that you're like, man, they were lucky to pull that one off. Uh, and then they lose the rematch with Dallas. This is, this is a team that feels like it's in the

decline where if you're just looking at the record and now the seating is a lot different because of the Dallas part of it, it feels like it's a real concern where you can't just default to, Hey, they have a really good record. They'll figure it out. Yeah. A third worst point differential for 10 and 14 ever um i saw after the seattle game and it's interesting because i think there's three levels of bad news here number one is you demote your dc in mid-december which is a panic move number two is that you promote matt patricia who's not well liked and he's not all that good at being in dc it's not like you found vic fangio in mid-december um and then the third thing is that's not all that good at being in DC. It's not like you found Vic Fangio in mid-December. And then the third thing is that's not even the biggest problem because the offense just seems disjointed.

Jalen Hurts is turning the ball over in a way he doesn't. And the numbers are grim. And one thing that I've found kind of diving into the data over the past few years is you really need to hover around or surpass eight yards per attempt in the air. Like that's just how modern football works. And if you don't like Tom Brady, some of the Tom Brady teams didn't didn't have that. But otherwise, you really need to hover or surpass that mark.

And right now, the Niners are killing everybody in that stat. They're at nine point eight. But the difference in yards per attempt. So this is like the most simple thing in the world how much do you gain when you have when you throw the ball the difference between the Niners and the Eagles is the same as the difference between the Eagles and the Panthers like that's how big the gulf is right now and I think the Eagles are ninth in that stat in the NFL but that's not how this should be going. They have offensive talent everywhere.

They have the line. They have the skill guys. I think replacing both coordinators is harder than we think. I think it takes an elite head coach to not miss a beat. There's a great anecdote in Seth Wickersham's book where he talks about when the Patriots got rid of Weston Cornell and they went and got head coaching jobs. And he said to somebody, he was like, hey, this is going to be tough to replace them. And they're like, no, no, no, it's all Bill.

It's all Bill. Bill runs this operation. But for most coaches, probably 30 out of 32, it's really hard to replace both coordinators. And so I think we're seeing some growing pains right now, but the offense is predictable. Orlovsky was saying basically they run the same three, four plays over and over again. They hit a low when Christian McCaffrey on the Manning cast is calling

out their plays. I don't know how this gets fixed in time to beat the Niners next month. Yeah, that's the thing is that you're looking at the remaining schedule. They've got the Giants twice. They've got Arizona. This very well could be a 13-win team here. I think Hurts on the ground against Seattle, that's the best he's run it all season long. But during the other games, I was like, man, he's clearly hurt. He's been hurt since the Jets game. know what's fair but i i have a feeling like the record is still going to be really good we'll see how the playings the play the seating plays out uh that's also determined on what dallas ends up doing in the division all this different stuff so i i just wonder if there's going to be a record

that's kind of lying to us at the end of the regular season about who they really are in the playoffs and i don't know if there will be a result from those three weeks that gets you to buy in because ultimately if you're going down the list of teams in the nfl that i want to give some kind of like hey i'll defer to them kind of figuring out it would be this roster it would be this team but you know the sack percentage on third down stuff is ridiculous uh the air yards doesn't make a ton of sense because they're built to actually attack down the field i think that's one of the best things with hertz is that when it's not working he really especially aj brown and some of the stuff where it's like,

man, I can't believe he even threw it to him, but that's how much he trusts him. And that's a weapon that, you know, only a handful of teams have in this league. So I don't know if there'll be anything that will get me now back on them winning the NFC, which seems dismissive. Like it feels a little unfair for a team that might have 13 wins. It seems dismissive, but when you see them play the Niners, I don't know where the gap is supposed to close because they don't have the linebackers and all the safeties. And that's a nightmare against a Niners team that breaks tackles, gets yards after catch, understands where to go with the ball. The Niners yards after catch is half a yard more than anybody else.

And they're also throwing the ball down the field more than anybody else. And so I just don't know if you're a Shaq runner, just not going to help. Like, just not going to help. There's a reason that a former All-Pro was available midway through the season. Like, that's just, I was surprised at the recruitment around that. But I just think that generally, I don't know where the answers come from. It hurts could get much better. You get healthier, all that.

But like, I don't, I think it's somewhat dismissive. But if you just watch how ill-equipped they were, and I put the Cowboys in the same bucket, like the Cowboys, right now, they couldn't handle James Cook out of the backfield. All of a sudden, they're going to handle Christian McCaffrey a month from now. It just seems like the Ninersers as long as they stay healthy are built to beat the

two teams that are the competition the nfc yeah it's a good point in the shacklender part of it too because i think it's a bit like the buyer acquisition we're like oh man you know that's that's great it's like okay yeah but clearly he's not the same guy that he was during the peak tennessee years where he's arguably the best safety, the entire league. And yet you're like, Oh wait, the fact that they feel motivated to add to the guys beyond the line of scrimmage, the linebackers and defensive backs. And now you had Shaq Leonard to it. It's, you know, I've already said this before, so I'll share it with you, but it's,

it's a bit like, you know, that power five team that brings in a group of five receiver and then he's their number one target. And you're like, okay, maybe that guy's awesome, but it also maybe speaks to that wide receiver room for that program. So yeah, I'm, I'm totally, you know, whether it was the chiefs game where you're like, man, I got day one, but I didn't feel like they were better than the chiefs, but you know, that it just, at least for me personally, it feels a lot different about what they are. And then it also speaks to this Niners stretch where, other than the spring break month where things weren't working out and Purdue was turning over the football,

I don't know how anyone on paper is going to look at any of the teams in the NFC and be like, no, I actually like the way they match up with the Niners. I prefer this team. It doesn't mean it's not going to happen, but I don't know how you can make a sensible argument to say, based on what we've seen to this point, that you prefer another team in the NFC over the Niners. No, they don't make mistakes. Their drop rate is by far the lowest in the NFL. It's 1.8. No one else is below three. Like the Chiefs, by comparison, their drop rate is six and a half, which seems impossible. I can't believe you brought up because prior to the Bills Chiefs game I was looking at the drop totals and the Chiefs were like number one with 32 and I was like I wonder who's who's has the

best drop rate the Niners at that point it had six drops all season long and again we're going back two games ago so when I saw I was like this can't even be and I was like yeah it's right so go ahead yeah no i it's one of those stats it's yards per attempt too like there's a bunch of niner stats when i look at it i'm just like is pro football reference off like are they do they put the data in wrong because some of this stuff is just unbelievable i had to double check it i i immediately was like this can't be right like i might be on one of these weird gambling sites why would was the weird why would the weird gambling site have inaccurate data just offshore stuff no it's just sometimes you know how it is when you're sorting through and you'll be like okay wait a minute what's the best database for like red zone touchdown percentage and then you're

like wait why is it asking me if i want a russian bride i'm like, this doesn't like, do I, I might need to double check these numbers somewhere else. I don't think Provo Barber is going to do that yet, but just as a side, I, as a joke, my roommate and I, when we were like 22 sent away for the VHS for the Russian bride cruise, cause it was a free cruise. Now it ended up getting a ton of mail after that for months and months. And my mother came to visit me in my apartment and she saw the vhs out or it was like you just go on this cruise and then you find your bride and it's like all set up and she just held it up she's like are you fucking serious and i was like i'm not actually serious don't worry about it did you watch the vhs it was unbelievable i wish i still had it because it was just i mean it's just everything you

imagine that it would be in that it was just hey I mean, it's just everything you imagine that it would be in that it was just, Hey, here's Elena. And she was like, hello, I love the ocean. And, you know, and then it would be like, Hey, here's so-and-so. And then, you know, you pick out and here's the buy-in and all this stuff. And I was like, I don't even know, like, granted, I'm not going to do it, but if you did it, I think the other guys would be more of a negative than it would be whatever the arrangement was, you know, like you just, the dude you'd meeting and be like, Hey, you did it, I think the other guys would be more of a negative than it would be whatever the arrangement was. You know, like you just the dude you'd meeting be like, hey, you gave up, huh? You'd be like, you know, you're only 22.

You know, I've been divorced twice. Like I can't I can't believe you're here. Do you want to you ever make it to Topeka? Nope. So anyway. I didn't mean to do that to this segment. No, no, I'm glad I'm glad we got there. Um, but no, this is, this is what the Niners leads us to is the VHS Russian brides tape,

the Russian brides crews, um, like that, that level of, of disbelief. And so, um, I just don't know, like, I know, I know it's so, this league is so humbling and every time we crown somebody, they immediately lose. Like there was kind of a joke on around the horn a couple of weeks ago where every time I declared somebody the best team in football, they would just get their ass kicked that Sunday. But that just was, that was just like a narrative vessel, right? Like it was just the way that the things were shifting violently in the league. By the way, can we, can we come up with a quick checklist off the top right now of best teams in the league at some point? Like how many were there

in the beginning? was oh uh it was i i thought the cowboys were going to make the super bowl first so i thought the bangles were so so i that was on that was by after burrow got hurt so i had the bangles preseason to win the super bowl and i still believe if burrow was healthy they would have dominated everybody and then so that first month was tough yep so then i moved to the cowboys who were my nfc pick and then i moved to the dolphins that was before the niners game right the 42 10 one yes yes yes um and then i moved to the dolphins and then i moved to the niners and then uh i couched it and I was gonna,

I called the lions, the best team in the NFC, just kind of a cheat joke as it just got at that point, it became like a meme. And so I just kept, I just kept rolling with it, but that was it. So it was those,

those teams at the beginning, not, not the lions have been deemed the best human football by me. Um, and I think that the, I, I think it's probably going to be the dolphins and the, and the Niners and Superbowl. So i'm half right you just flood okay yeah it takes

right because i think the the dolphins definitely had a stretch there where it was like is anybody going to be able to stop these guys it's just totally fair you put up 70 points which they probably could have had even more if they wanted to um i think the lions flirtation was real at one point like i saw some guys, you know, dipping their toes in there being like, Hey, I think this team is real.

The funniest thing is it's taken the longest to actually maybe pick the right team in the AFC in Baltimore. Yes, I agree with that. Why do you think that is? I just think that there's always going to be Lamar playoff doubt. You know, I just don't think Lamar's for everybody.

And you know, I've, I've even had to like come around on the idea that he could win MVP and I think I was probably a little too in after the Sunday night game but I didn't feel wrong I didn't feel wrong on Monday when I'm like you know what a couple weeks ago I thought of vote for Lamar I'm like what are you doing now I don't have any argument with it but I know you had a thought so I think earlier in the season we saw some real stinkers I love that Ravens team we saw some real stinkers and I got in a big team. We saw some real stinkers. And I got in a big argument with Barnwell where he was like, well, the good news about the Ravens is that when they lose, they beat themselves.

And I was like, well, when does the good news kick in? Because that sounds like bad news. Every couple of weeks, they just kind of implode. But I think Todd Munkin has been amazing. Like the scheme diversity. And we saw it. Remember that? Was it the Brock Bowers throwback and the Natty? He had some real nasty plays

with Stetson Bennett. You don't get two national championships with Stetson Bennett without being in your bag offensively. And so I knew that there would be an improvement. I didn't know it'd be this much of an improvement for the entire team. They have a genuine pass rush. They have an awesome DC and Mike McDonald.

Both. I think Todd Munkin could be an NFL head coach as well. They have, they have really good talent. And I think that just, it's all coming together in a way that I didn't know if it was going to take an extra year with that offense, but,

but it's, it's impressive. Yeah. When you think head coach, both coordinators and Munkin and McDonaldcdonald you're like okay you know that's a very short list where you can point to head coach both coordinators and everybody is raving about all three guys i think there's a harbaugh lesson in there too where there was a weird stretch a few years ago and i think some people are going to push back on this because we just quickly forget some of this but it was like hey is it stale is it time to go to somebody else

you know like i'm not wrong on that like there there at least was a conversation around maybe even speculation and you know i always kind of fall back to like look if ownership in the front office is happy and you know there's there's coaches that lose their jobs just because well we have to do something it's like do you actually think he's a bad coach? It's like, no, but we just, and that's fine. That's the business. But I just love that he kept the job. I love that the organization's ownership down, like wanted to be more stable with the whole thing. And it's like, just because you had these lofty achievements in the past and you've dipped from it, you know, don't just make a change to make a change if you still think you have a really good coach.

And it's also up to the coach to adapt a bit on this too now. But what they've done in kind of limiting some of the stuff that will expose Lamar, and at this point he's healthier than he's been the last two years to close the season. So I'm really impressed with the entire organization. And that Jags win was so dominant that I just kind of went like, you know what?

Start throwing them in that short list of the four or five teams you think could have a title at the end of this. I completely agree. But also the Harbaugh thing, he's already shown to be an adaptable mind. That's also why I think like a special teams coach, which is part of his background, is always underrated as a head coaching opportunity because they have to, they're running a fire drill basically every single week. Like they're just dealing with different personnel and the DCc is like hey we have to take this guy he can't be a gunner anymore it's just it's a wild position but like the fact that he was able to be this flexible with lamar to begin with and i remember there was a really great albert really telling albert career report that the patriots loved lamar jackson they knew they'd have to

change everything about their offense well guess what the what? The Ravens were like, yeah, okay. We had Joe Flacco for 15 years, but we're just going to change everything. And we're going to change our personnel. And we're going to change the way we think about offensive coaching. And that, to me, is the sign of an adaptable mind. And then you keep doing it. You understand. You're talking about stale. The Greg Roman thing became stale. And so I think that that's, I think Harbaugh's ability to change with the times is probably under, it's the only way you can last as long in the league. It's the only way. And I have deep appreciation for Harbaugh. a bit on social media with reporters being like, oh, what about all those teams that didn't want him? And it's like, okay, but you're being really dismissive of the point that you just made, is that if you were going to throw him 100 million plus and then the guarantees and however that was going to be structured and it wasn't just a clean break with the way that Baltimore still had a hand

in the whole mix. It wasn't like he was just a straight up free agent. It's like, like okay you just go ahead and pay him and then you're done it's that you knew you were going to have to adapt a lot of things so that part of it like i thought the market being a little lukewarm for him normally you're like okay well this is a top 10 quarterback and he's still younger and he's available like what what's the holdup and it's like well there's probably a couple different versions of what the holdup was but i think there's a football part of it that's a little dismissed now when people are having a victory lap about how well he's played and that the market seems so tepid for him. So I understand,

I understand what you're saying, but isn't Desmond Ritter the worst quarterback, like in the passing boom era. So let's start 2011 CBA until now, like has any team with actual expectations rolled into a season and been like this is our guy no competition no draft picks and like has it has it been a worse choice than jasmine like i'm trying to think like it seems very england in the 90s in the 90s you'd always do this and you'd be like all right well like we're just gonna roll with this guy he's a fourth

round pick we don't really know because nobody's paying attention like the only thing would be like an si preview blur being like i don't know what they're doing and now i feel like we've owners fans have bullied the owners into always having a plan a quarterback and i feel like atlanta going with desmond ritter when they had an actual roster that was ready to win is a throwback to an earlier era yeah the blurbs are great be like they love the way you threw the ball in the rain against akron you know and you were like oh that's right the akron game uh i think new england's in the conversation of this was your plan like the biggest indictment for belichick and i don't know if you want to get into any of that stuff it's like okay you wanted to be the smart guy

you want to be smarter than everybody else and you moved off of brady a year or two earlier you know because you saw a little bit of a decline and then brady goes ahead and wins his own super bowl which is a different part of the story but it's like oh you want to do that okay fine but what is the plan and the plan was stidham cam newton mac jones and so like do you think ritter is that much worse than mac jones uh i i think that there were more signs than mac jones and mac jones had a successful rookie year when he was getting the ball out quickly uh he was making correct reads like he he showed more he's gonna end they're both gonna end up on the proverbial football scrappy but i i don't think that that's i i think mac jones had higher highs in college and higher

highs in pros yeah i don't i think i think the falcons are did a worse job than that also like the falcons had other opportunities to invest at quarterback. They could have done any number of things. I picked them to win this division as a crappy nine-win team. My process mistake was everybody around Atlanta was like, well, he's better than Marcus Mariota. It's like, oh, cool. I thought that was cool.

Then looking back on it, I was like, what was that? He's better than Marcus Mariota and it's like oh cool like I thought that was cool and then looking back on it I was like what what was that he's better than Marcus Mariota like oh okay cool I I heard that in my brain I was like oh yeah hell yeah here we go better than Marcus yeah no it's a great point it's a great point I mean basically if you ask Arthur Blank now and you're like hey do you wish you would just find found a way to get the resources put together for Lamar? Is there any way he says no today after week 15? Right. Zero chance. Do you have any purdy stuff on MVP here?

You don't have a vote, correct? I do not have a vote. You have to be 70? I think Lindsey Jones has some pull. That's totally unfair. I shouldn't have said that. No, no, no, no, no, no. I've actually never pursued a vote.

You have to pursue it? I don't know. I don't know where you sign up for it. I'm not in the, I think, maybe I'm in the PFWA. I don't really know. You don't even know if you're in it i don't know i don't like signing up for things i'm bad administratively i am bad at paperwork i'm not a paperwork guy um so your kid who comes home from school he's like i don't know

i never got into the candy stuff to sell kind of i hey candy can i tell you a little candy nugget? I went to a school, and every year, the number one person, there was this neighborhood where all the kids would just destroy everybody else in the candy selling, and it was because they lived in a neighborhood with Lee Corso, and Corso would buy them out. I used to go to my grandmother's nursing home. Racked it up. That's a lot of cash on hand there. Yeah.

I wouldn't think that. Pretty stuff is fascinating to me because Chris Long was on our show the other day, my friend and yours, and he was like, it's become MVP. I'm probably closer with him. You had time on task. You had time on task with that.

If both of us. If he's doing something and both of us call him, who gets picked up quicker? Chris Long's a big FaceTime guy. I've never been FaceTimed by him. You get a FaceTime?

I've never been FaceTimed by him. I think you get a FaceTime? I've never been FaceTimed by him I think you got your answer so Chris Long's point is MVPs become the highest it is quarterback on the best team my thing is like if Purdy doesn't win it

by the parameters set up I was going to say FSU fans San Francisco fans have a legitimate gripe. They can be like the FSU fans, just yelling at the media and being like, you guys caused this. Second in passing yards despite being last in pass attempts. I saw a stat on Sunday

that he had in that game, the first quarterback to throw multiple touchdowns to receivers with 10 yards of separation since Dak Prescott three years ago. And it's like, does that help or hurt his case? The fact that he's just doing an easy job reliably. I don't think he's the most valuable player in the league because if there was an expansion draft and you were able to pillage the entire Niners, he would not go first. Like Trent Williams would go first. A bunch of other guys would go first.

Fred Warner would go first or not first, but you know, he would not go first. Trent Williams would go first. A bunch of other guys would go first. Fred Warner would go first. Or not first, but he would go before. Where would Purdy go? Would he go ninth? Seriously, with that roster, you're not wrong here. You might be being too nice about it. I'd say sixth or seventh, probably. You want to do it right now?

It goes Trent Williams. This is in no particular order. Trent Williams, Bosa, like sixth or seventh probably yeah okay you want to you want to do right now let's do uh it goes it goes trent williams it is in no particular order trent williams bosa fred warner mcafree kittle yep mcafree debo uh debo six uh and then it i i i think he'd probably go ahead of of uh of everybody else iuk green law look i love green law too but you i don't think you'd be taking the other linebacker ahead of a quarterback i mean maybe pretty maybe he's actually going a little too low here yeah so um it's an inefficiency and it's hypothetical the hypothetical yeah right because you know captain hate running back over here i'm like wait you just put mcafree ahead of a guy who may win mvp at the position so that's not really in line with everything else i think about the position there fred warner yes

bosa yes uh trent yes a little older debo yes yeah all right okay all right so we know he's maybe closer to five than he is ten. The way the award is set up, he probably should win the MVP. And I think that we could probably open it up. I think it's unfair to him because earlier in the year, I was like, all right,

maybe this year a defensive guy wins or Tyreek Hill wins or whatever. And then it's like, it's a little unfair to him to be such a flashpoint that we just decided to change the rules and the parameters of the award because a little unfair to him to be a, such a flashpoint that we just decided to change the rules and the parameters of the award because we don't want him to win it. That's what it feels like.

Yeah, it really does. Like the Florida state comparison that you made is perfect for this. Cause it's, if he doesn't win, it's going to be like, no, it was your fault. Actually, I think Purdy fans would have more of a case than florida state did but go ahead yes so my my overarching point on purdy is he runs that offense incredibly well and he i he is not like everybody does the does he do you win in spite of because of or just as somebody a passenger right i really do feel like Purdy is a huge positive in that offense.

And he reads quickly and he plays point guard. And like a lot of people were like, well, he's better than Jimmy Grapple. Well, yeah, I would hope so. I hope, I would hope you rolled into the season with a better plan than Jimmy Grapple. Like he really is a, like a savant at running this offense. And I don't think that we should like probably

have a little too much of like debate culture where we say like this quarterback is better than this i do think there's a bunch of quarterbacks here run this offense with a lot of efficiency but the numbers he's putting up the wins he's putting up how efficient this team is what a juggernaut they're going to be in january by the parameters set up for the award that we've established over the past 75 years, I think Brock Purdy is the MVP of the year. If you look at Mike Sandoz's piece where he kind of did a deep dive, so it's not updated to the day.

It may have even been two weeks ago and he went over the EPA stuff for passing and it went through all the MVPs of just kind of the passing boom that you're talking about the last 10 years or so, looking at who's won MVP and where they've ranked in that stat, Purdy wins the MVP based on history. The only outlier that was way below the other guys was the Cam Newton MVP year where the traditional stats are off the charts. He had all the second half comebacks. I would say statistically, like in the second half, he kind of away with it, where in the middle of the season, there was a Brady-Cam Newton

conversation because it was weird that Cam was having these incredible second halves versus the first halves. But when you look at that specific number and it's presented to you and be like, hey, Purdy's here, and then this is where all the other guys were that won MVP, you're like, I can't even believe this is a conversation. But it is a conversation, which is fine and why it's fun. All right, two quick things before I want to have some more fun with you here. What did we learn with Brandon Staley? Yeah. So two things. Number one, the next time somebody brags about their scheme and how they're able to stop the run without committing resources to it, but they also have Aaron donald and jalen ramsey maybe stop listening to them

maybe be like hey hey and that scheme's good didn't you have aaron donald on your team isn't that isn't that maybe why things were going well for you um so first year dc in la gets a lot of hype and i think i don't want to say it's funny because i i said to dominic fox with a couple weeks ago i was like he talked his way into a head coaching job. And Dominic was like, dude, they all do that. They all do that. Like 99% of head coaches are just self promoters who were able to like hire an agent, game the system and get in there. I talked to a bunch of coordinators and they're always not always, but a lot of times they're selling themselves either directly or indirectly to be head coaches.

they're selling themselves either directly or indirectly to be head coaches um a lot of the guys who like are actual just football heads are position coaches who are like you know what i make mid-six figures and my kids don't get bullied at school because nobody knows what the linebackers coach does and life is good but when you enter into that coordinator head coaching thing it's a different game having put that aside um the book i heard on him was this is a ago, because I had sent something on my show and somebody got in touch with me. And they said, like, basically, he rose so fast. And I'd never thought about this. He rose so fast, he knew how to manage up. And one of the biggest things is managing down when you're a head coach.

And when you rise really fast you're not a coordinator for a long time you don't have a lot of time uh managing position coaches at the nfl level and then all of a sudden you get to be head coach you have an entire staff under you you don't have a lot of experience and it sounds like he didn't have the most cohesive staff it sounds like um there were just some managers like there was an amazing thing a couple weeks ago. I don't know if anybody saw it with Rodney Harrison and Tony Dungy after one of the Sunday night games where they were teeing off on Staley. And they were just like, yeah, we talked to the Chargers staff before the game

and they really lacked confidence. I think that comes from the head man. I was like, what? I've never heard this from a pre and post game show on any network where they're just like, yeah, the entire staff was like, yeah, we don't know what the hell's going on. Because it sounded like Staley was doing a bad job of instilling confidence in that staff or managing that staff. I don't know. Maybe it was an experience.

He rose too fast. What did we learn? I think it's that young coaches can be good. Coaches who rise fast can be good. Look at his old boss, Sean McVay. But I think that you got to look at, did you do less with more? Excuse me, more with less?

And I don't know necessarily if in Staley's Rise he did that. There's definitely an argument to be made that he did less with more than... In Los Angeles, absolutely. With the Chargers. Yes, definitely. Yeah. It was an old,

expensive, overrated roster towards the end. I think 60% of their cap next year is tied up in four players, none of whom are the quarterback.

Like whoever takes that job is in for a real nightmare because it's going to be the worst of both worlds because you're going to have Herbert. So you're going to have the expectations. But cap wise,

they're going to have to do a lot of maneuvering just to have a real like football roster. In the open, I did my annual NFL quarterbacks as NBA players comparisons. And I spent probably too much time trying to figure out because I didn't want them to be reaches, right? It wasn't, Hey, this guy looks like this guy so therefore and it's these numbers are these and your playoff success mirrors this guy's playoff success because you have a little bit of fun with it to kind of make it more about a comparable conversation about the two and i'm like who's the nba herbert because you know after the lions game that they lost i came on the pause like i just don't want to hear i don't want to hear that he's a media creation i

don't want to i don't want to hear that he's he's bad um you know when I went to the Chargers Cowboys game in person it was it was an experience like I'm glad that I did it now that I understand it's the worst setup for any team in American pro sports because not only does no one in the city care about you look the city took a little while to warm up to the Rams. And it's like, oh, by the way, you get another team. A year later. A year later. The stadium always feels like an away game for them. And it wasn't just the Cowboys because then you're asking around,

like, is it like this every week? And they're like, yeah, it's kind of bad. So you've got that part of it where you don't even feel like you necessarily have a home. And I just, I'm not, whatever the stock position is, whatever the broker would say, like, hey, here's your Herbert position. I'd be like, look, I just think that he's good. And then the season ends the way it does. He has the injury, the coach is out of there, the whole deal. I guess what I'd be looking for is an NBA player that we all think is really good and really

talented, but the holdouts are wondering if they're going to have to ask themselves in a year or two hey maybe i was wrong like what was i why did i not figure it out because other people were completely off of him because they're associating way too many of the win-loss stuff with quarterbacks but i think it's just generally a waste of time um but then old school court like if i have trent dilfer on and say hey i think the one loss thing is really kind of stupid he would be like you're stupid so he's like that's the job play the game to to win the whole thing but can you can you think of anything can you think of an NBA I'm putting you on the spot here this is really tough and I'm telling you I couldn't even come up the perfect

answer like I brought up Tatum but I'm like that's unfair to Tatum because whatever you think like the Tatum limitations are and that he's actually not going to be like a top five guy ever. When you lose in game six of the NBA finals, that's far superior to anything that Herbert's ever done with the Chargers. You're just looking at a guy who is thriving despite a situation like magic era TMAC where you're just like, all right, this guy is going to put up 52 points and nothing else will be happening. But the fear being that you may have to one day go, what if T-Mac isn't really the guy? You know, where that never felt like the case ever. And then, you know, the injuries get into the part of it

towards the end of the Houston whole thing. Because that's what's still on the table for us Herbert holdouts. I agree. Can I tell a Chargers story real quick? So when they were playing in the soccer stadium, I brought my wife to a game. Bill Simmons was like, why don't you go to a game to see what that's like?

Because everybody was talking about it. So into a Browns game, October, November, I think that year, Browns fans took over the stadium. The Browns were awful. It was an awful Browns team. And yet like 18 of the 20,000 people there were Browns fans. That's what it was like. So we're watching it. We have good seats in this MLS stadium. It just all seems so surreal because you're watching NFL games so up close and you're

like getting a beer at the beer stand and the game is right there. And you're just like in any other stadium, this would cost $6,000, right? So my wife leans over to me in the third quarter and she knows nothing about sports. Nothing. Like we once went to a Magic Nets game in Brooklyn and she kept calling the program the Playbill because she only knows Broadway. She's just like those sort of vocabulary things, right?

And, but she's a total trooper. She leans over to me at this Chargers game and goes, I don't mean to be weird, but does this game count? And I was like, that's the perfect question. It took me a second. That's count.

And I was like, that is the best question I've ever been asked at a football game uh okay let's let's patch cerruti in here we gotta do it we got the three bulls back in the house um the magic are real you know bill and i did the trade pod this week where we just made up a ton of trades. And he had said something like, hey, we see young teams kind of early have this thing. They lose the back-to-back to Boston. He felt like that might be a sign of things.

I looked at it as Boston was like, we can't keep losing to these guys. We were losing them when they weren't even good. So I'm still in on it. They're a four seed. That first round matchup with the Knicks in the playoffs, little early, maybe to start doing some of those projections,

but you two boys take the floor. So really, when was the last time you were this excited about magic basketball? Oh, 2009, 2010. I mean, after that,

once the Dwight thing Carter trade, I'd say pre Vince Carter. Yeah. Yeah. Pre, you know, the, the infamous, you know,

press conference with Stan Van and Dwight when things just really went downhill. That was bad. I did have a little bit of fun with that, like, big baby resurgence when Dwight got hurt.

I was like, wait, this is kind of fun. Like, just a bunch of scrappy guys. But none of those guys were that good, and the team sucked. So at least a decade. I'm trying not to get ahead

of myself, man, but I think, like, what, Ron, two weeks into the season, we had the conversation on the pod. I was like, I think we have to have a real discussion least a decade um i'm trying not to get ahead of myself man but i i like i think like what ron two weeks into the season i we had the conversation on the pod i was like i think we have to have a real discussion about whether or not like the expectations need to be changed for the team this season like i was like a play-in would be great that'd be i would take the play-in tomorrow and now i'm like wait should we be having should we have a home playoff series so that's kind of where i'm still at i think i think they're a top four team in the east but they got a rough stretch

coming up they got a rough stretch but like they're a top four team in the East, but they got a rough stretch coming up. They got a rough stretch, but they're genuinely good. That's the one thing. We keep looking at schedules. It's not like they're the freaking Falcons from earlier. They're a genuinely good team. They're efficient. They're deep. I completely agree. I thought that the expectations were a little low

before the season when everyone's saying play. This is a really interesting young team that should be competing for, for a little more this year than, than the play. And I know that there's, there's baby steps. Like the history of the magic has always been when they get this course,

like get the eighth seed. And then the next year take the huge leap. And so maybe there were two years away, but I, I completely agree. A home playoff series should be not the expectation, but like, we should be talking about it.

We shouldn't be scared of it. If they, if they weren't a top six seat, I i would be this would be to me a pretty big disappointment at this point like they shouldn't be in the plan at all they're better than a lot of these teams that because my biggest concern coming into the season was there's just like a lot of teams in the east that i kind of like that i think are good but not bad and they were kind of in the mix there and it was just like you know it was indiana it was toronto before we knew they weren't but we always had higher upsides in those crappy teams that were just trying to be mediocre. True, but I thought the Ross was still really flawed.

There's so many teams in the East whose ownership is like, well, let's just make the play in. And we always had a higher ceiling in those teams. Yeah, and I would take our future over pretty much everybody except for Boston. I don't know. I mean, Milwaukee, who knows, the next however many years.

But I've been talking myself into, because Bill has always asked me, like every couple months, I feel like he brings me on. He's like, hey, would you trade for this guy? Would you trade for this guy? The Magic would be a perfect guy. It was Donovan Mitchell.

It was whoever. I always say no. Remember when Bill on the pod bullied me into accepting a Vooch for Time Lord and a pick swap trade? Well, I do. But we can't really. me into accepting a vooch for uh time lord and a pick swap trade well it's like i do but you can't really can't listen we can't listen to the build trades and i was like uh i was like i don't know if i'd do that deal and he's like come on okay but now i bring that up because i i called

yesterday i was like yeah hey if marketing's available just just have like a bunch of huge dudes and just be weird and be a huge pain in the ass to play i know the fit's not perfect and they basically on the pod yesterday pooh-poohed him even being available but that's the first guy where i'm like i would give i would overpay for that guy because that's kind of they need shooting he's one of the best shooters in the league um and think about just having him paulo franz and just how weird that big lineup would be so that was the first time i'm like actually i wouldn't just write it out but if that's not realistic i'm with you i just let the season play out don't make any major moves and you know make wins on the margins the next

couple years and hopefully you know franz and paulo become perennial all-stars hey sruti can we do the uh magic expansion draft thing we did with the Niners? Yeah. That's number one is the biggest question. I think you have to go. I've been the captain of the, like, it's not impossible that Franz ends up being the better player, but Franz has had a weird year this year.

He's not shooting well. Not efficient. Yeah, I think he's better than this, so I think you have to take Paulo one and Franz's two. I agree. Three? How long is this going to be? As a member of the audience, I'm just speaking for us.

I'm going to take Suggs. This is off the rails. This is where we end it, Ryan. Do you agree or disagree? I don't know. The leap, the defense disagree i don't know um i mean the leap the defense i don't i don't think i this this would take 30 minutes this ryan was right to to is wendell carter jr yeah yeah my guy jonathan isaac making making i tell you i didn't give

up on him just saying he's's still here, but still there. 18 games played, bro. 18 games played. Kawhi playing every leading the Clippers in minutes and Jonathan Isaac playing 18 games. Basketball miracles everywhere. Is this 2018? I love it.

Prior to this run from Isaac, I was worried if he ended up on another team and they did the tribute video, the staff would be like, we just don't have enough film. They'd show him holding up a book. Summer league? He had a great summer league? Yeah. We can't do anything. Yeah. We him holding up a book summer he had a great summer yeah we can't do anything yeah we had him at a car dealership once you want to run some of that b-roll

before we let you go kevin you're at espn sure you guys spent a lifetime there yeah you're look we're seeing you on tv you're part of the main cast the pod is is going great so what's what's it been like for you it's been amazing i've spent most of my time at the seaport um that's where i do around the horn from and some of the other stuff i've been to bristol once do a college football thing um you're doing it right it's really in far into connecticut bristol like it's really and i feel like these people lie to you and they're just like, ah, it's like an hour from where you are. It's like, no, it's not. It's not. It's 90 minutes.

You hope it's 90 minutes. You hope it's 90 minutes. It's been everything I expected and more. Most of my TV's been on Around the Horn. I won Around the Horn's Rookie of the Year. Take that, Barnwell. I think that episode's on Friday, and, uh, that, that comes,

I think that episodes on Friday tournament of champions TOC. Um, but it's, it's great. And like the seaport is really cool. And like the best thing about it is I knew most of those people like Dominique, um, like most of the people on,

on the panel shows. And so it's mostly just spending more time with people. I already, I already liked, I miss everybody at the ringer, but I talked to them all the time and I get to ask Suriti about the magic. And so, uh, it's all, it's all one big family. It's the, it's the extended universe. You can hear more of Kevin. You can see him on TV at ESPN, but you can hear his podcast. This is football, uh, every single week, man. Thanks as always.

Thanks buddy. uh every single week man thanks as always thanks buddy this is a lot of fun for me boss at my house uh hanging out the new album we only talk about real shit when we're fucked up just came out and uh your boy derrick is in my living room as well so gorgeous house by the way this guy's doing good out here I'm trying to keep it a secret now um yeah somebody offered me when I first moved in here somebody offered me money to film a movie scene and then I was like well wait a minute like what kind of movie yeah this is LA this is LA what kind of movie are we talking now I I'm not in the Valley. So I wasn't, I wasn't too worried. And then the strike happened. So I never.

True story. We had a, when Cole was working on born center, this was like our first extended LA state, probably like 20, 2012, 2011. We had this house with a, a pool in the living room. Where, which part of town? It was in the Hills, you you know and then come to find out everyone was very familiar with that house you know everyone had had seen that house before you know and uh it got real icky after that yeah i never spend any time up there i've been out here five years and the first six months that i lived in la i was like captain explorer like i was like

yeah i'll come visit you there i'll come to this this party. I'll, I'll do, you know, whatever. And then I realized I was like, actually I'm like an outcast because nobody, nobody does it. Like once you get settled into your hood, that's it. You might as well be in Canada. Yeah. It's very LA. Right. Because I feel like New York, everyone tries to like huddle around, you know, certain like central locations, you know, downtown Manhattan, Brooklyn. But out here, it's like, if you got your local Target and Costco, you're good. Yeah, because now,

it was sort of a little pandemic-induced. I feel like I moved here twice because post the pandemic, it was like, hey, start getting out again. But there was a stretch. I don't think I went north of Venice for a year and a half. Yeah, I feel know california was a little tighter with it than everything else uh look we could we could go over all that i have some travel stuff for you because

you're a worldly man i just want to tell you about the story the first time i heard you okay so i was back in connecticut um i had a pretty standard routine and it was like a later on a friday i don't know what i would have been doing because i likely would have been watching basketball maybe i was just getting back to the house or whatever and i'm driving back and i hear new world order so i don't know you i don't i don't know anything all right i you know i have my old school rap taste and so that means as an older guy there's stretches where i would get frustrated and look what the hell is this and i hear the sample was a demise or something like i hear the sample right and then i hear your lyrics and then the flow that matched it and i pulled up to my house and park because i was like

it was one of the dj shows so i wasn't getting the boss and new world i wasn't getting that i was getting just the guy show whoever it was late on a friday night so i don't know who you are i don't know what it is i don't know the title of anything i'm freaking out being like i have to know what this is and it was before the phones were to the point where you could just hey ask siri right so like i'm sitting there trying to get shazam to figure out what it is but it's picking up the wi-fi from my house because i'm close enough to it so it's all fucked up and it's and i'm going i have to know who this is i have to know the song because it was the kind of thing like you listen to enough music it was immediate for me i was like it's different this is awesome i have to hear more

and then luckily the guy on the who's hosting the show said it was you immediately went and downloaded and it was amazing dude that means a lot man addicted to that song addicted that's like it's still one of my favorite like probably intro it might be my favorite intro i've ever done to an album um well this new one's nice yeah of course the course you start with a new one yeah where i was like okay his new things out let me see and i don't want to jump ahead too much here but as soon as i heard the chorus of what you were trying to do, I was like, okay. Because with you, I always know it's going to be different. Thank you, man.

And that's definitely by design. So I'm glad, you know, that you pick up on that. You know what I mean? I feel like I'm a believer that you kind of have to make what you want to be out there in a sense. Like a lot of the landscape with music. I mean, even you, like you said, like some of the stuff is just going to miss you it's not for you it's not yeah you know we're all we're all looking for something and and for me like those are the those are the vibes i look for so i'm like well if i don't find them i gotta it's on me to create them you know so your background i mean i know a

bit about it because i know a couple of your friends who as soon as they heard me talking about you and i think we played it on the rejoin for espn radio um dudes are like wait you know like you you like them i fucking like them they were like that's our guy and then you guys sent me a ton of gear and everything but give me and kind of share with the audience like your music is worldly your background is worldly your family's accomplished but kind of your deal and where you were as a sibling of kind of like learning you know what inspired you because you know when you're young you kind of your deal and where you were as a sibling of kind of like learning, you know, what inspired you because, you know, when you're young, you kind of don't even notice it. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I'm, I'm blessed to come from a really, you know, a large family is five, seven of us, you know, four of my siblings, I'm the youngest of five.

So through the years, they were all just kind of imparting their musical tastes on me. My sister, she's currently in Senegal. She's been with the United Nations her whole career, so she's super worldly. She's so semi-acoustic, West African, multi-instrumentalist artist. My brother, DJ Moma, he's a very accomplished DJ. He's got a world traveling party called Everyday People. My fondest memories of our youth is him coming into the house with a new CD or a new vinyl and be like, yo, come to my room, I got to play you something. It's Daft Punk to Digital Underground to Pac and Big L and things of that nature. My brother Proof, same thing. My brother Ebe,

who co-started Dreamville and manages J. Cole, we're the closest in age. So we were kind of, our social networks were kind of always one. And he was the first to put me on the G unit and D block and those kinds of things. So I just been blessed to be on the receiving end of that as the youngest, you know, so it was a lot of music in my household. And then my parents, my family's from Sudan. So my dad is a career diplomat as well. And so, you know, we grew up the first eight years of my life were spent between Paris, France and Doha, Qatar, eight years of my life were spent between Paris, France and Doha, Qatar before we finally moved to New York. So, I grew up, first languages I learned were French and Arabic.

I didn't learn English until the third grade, until I got to New York. So it was very, as an adult now when I can look back on it, it's really helped, A, compile my sound as far as all these worldly sounds that I've always been attracted to. And making them my own and regurgitating that into the world. And then just the basis of writing is to be relatable. relatable, you know? And I think the more you travel, the more you go to these other cultures, the more you meet people of different walks of life, you kind of see these very kind of simple lines that connect us all and things we all want, things we all want to achieve, things we all deal with, our sorrows, our stresses, you know what I mean? Our loves, all of those things, you kind of start to see those similarities and you want to write for those people. When you're starting out and, you know, I know there's

a lot that goes into your story, but I've always wondered, you know, whether it was the late 80s of LA rap and it being so close where you're like, wait, so-and-so's doing something and be like, oh yeah. And then, you know, I think this kind of speaks to like influencing younger people and letting them know that things are obtainable but i still think new york has that so you know maybe you're not even thinking about it and you're seeing some friends do stuff but what is it about new york and the boroughs and i know it's queens for you but as you mentioned like you can have your neighborhood but i think that that city is is more proactive in exploring a little bit more certainly than,

than Los Angeles is. What is it like when it's, it's somebody that you know, that was somebody from the neighborhood where I think there's so many things that are accomplished that are like, who, you know, how do you even get started with that?

How do you do, what is that like being in that community knowing that maybe the shit is more obtainable despite the the level that somebody has gotten to it's eye-opening you know it's uh it's uh the whole you know see it to believe it kind of thing it takes very special like cole um you know he came up to queens to attend st john's and that was like our backyard you know me and my brother him and my brother went to school together that's how they got close and he was managing him right yeah he's still managing him he's the co-founder of dreamville um and and but you know when we started hanging out we were just like hooping

at the park i used to throw a lot of house parties cold come through it wasn't until being cool with cold for you know almost a year or so you're not even thinking about being around no no no i'm i grew up with a hundred rappers into my neighborhood you you know, and I never looked at it as a viable option in life. You know, it just felt like, man, like that don't go nowhere. Like that doesn't make nobody enough money. Like it just didn't seem, it seemed out of this world. It seemed unattainable, you know? And then I remember, I vividly remember one day I was in the car with my brother and he was like, yo, you know, Jermaine raps. And I'm like, wait, like, like light skin J raps. And I'm like, wait, like light skin Jermaine? He's like, yeah, he raps.

He's like, yo, he's pretty good. He's like, I got to play you something. And he played me what ended up being the warm up to the warm up, which was like the first like five song thing like Cole put out. And, you know, we all hit the ground running, like putting the CDs into the inserts, handing them out around the neighborhood. You're just handing them into the inserts handing them out around and they're just handing them out like whatever you like yeah it's interesting too because derrick my manager who grew up in left rack city and uh maddie maddie matthew robinson who's like our one of one of the

main staff members at the label at dreamville and helps kind of co-manage all of us he's from south side jamaica queens like he grew up like around g and helps kind of co-manage all of us. He's from Southside, Jamaica, Queens. He grew up around G-Unit and a bunch of that movement. And those were two of the focal guys that I was handing the CDs to. And they're going in their neighborhoods and he was attending NYU. So he's passing around NYU and we're just like, just putting on because we're like, yo, our boy's dope. Check it out. You know what I mean? Like, here it is. And then, you know, it's dope check it out you know what i mean like here it is and then you know i remember i remember just how much belief he had in himself and then i vividly remember him and eve uh like waiting outside the jay-z studio i remember that day when they came home and they were like man like hove got out the car and like he didn't even like look at us i'm not taking that shit you know what

i mean and and lo and behold you know must have a year, year and a half later, they ended up signing with Jay-Z. And then invited me out to come on tour. At the time, I think I had lost my way a little bit in life. I had just dropped out of school. I was back home. I was a little directionless. I started doing some dumb things in the streets, just running around.

Cole and my brother saw that and were like, yo, come out on tour with us. Come to Europe on my first album tour kind of thing. And I was just like, all right, cool. And then it was like, wow. It was so eye opening. Man, not only is this stuff achievable, look at how you can change all these people's lives. Like look at how you can take your crew around the world, put money in everyone's pocket, let them experience a lifestyle they would have never thought possible. And then I started looking at my team like, well, well, we could do this. You know what I mean? Like it actually, maybe it's not like the 200 rappers I know in Queens. You know what I mean? Maybe there is a way to actually do this. I'm blessed now.

We've been making a career out of it for over a decade. But that leap from like, oh, maybe I could do it. And it's like, yeah, but are you good? Yeah. I got my friends. How did that happen? Yeah. So it was like 10 of us in this apartment in the West Village.

It was two of the homies that were on the NYU basketball team had an apartment, and Derrick was managing the team. And at the time, I was just... I would DJ all their after parties, because my brother MoMA gave me his old laptop and was like, yo, just start DJing. Like I said, we always had that relationship where he would pull me into his room and play me songs. And he's like, you got an ear for music.

You know, he's like, you can start opening my gigs. And it went from that to DJing these NYU parties. And that very same laptop, like we would get back and they were all like, they would all just like to freestyle all the time, you know? And I remember thinking like, man, like everybody I know rap. Like what are you guys talking about? This ain't it. Like let's do something else.

And then our boy DJ like just convinced me one night. He's like, man, just rap with me. Just rap with me. So the same laptop my brother Moment gave me, we just opened up GarageBand on there. And we did two freestyles. I remember that because it was my birthday and I had DJ'd my birthday party and we got got back and it was uh you know i was looking at it as almost like a rebirth because i we did those two and then i woke up the next day and i was like oh man like that was so much fun you know like just having a form of expression like i didn't grow up you know like my my father

was always like a a real professional dude. They came from Sudan, obviously, which is a third world country. The immigrant idea is that you come here, you got to be a doctor, a lawyer, something that's going to secure the financial future of the family. Even though, ironically, my mom's brother, who is one of the biggest artists in Sudanese history. He's very highly regarded back home, but the arts were never really pushed upon us as kids. It was more so like, go get a degree in this, that, and the third. Go be an engineer.

Things of that nature. Obviously, I don't blame him. That's just the harsh realities they came from but we had the privilege of of growing up in a city like New York um so you know what I mean when when we got into the arts like I still remember like my dad was a little worried when my brother started managing Cole he was a little worried and my brother dropped out of school to do that and when I started rapping he was even more worried because he's like, man, two of my sons are in this thing now. But we played, I vividly remember this one night on Cole's tour. It was the Born Sinner tour.

We played the theater at Madison Square Garden. And that's still to this day, that's the only show my dad's come to. He's not like a big hip-hop guy. But he came up to Derek after the show and he was like man like I'm glad he listened to you and he ain't listened to me and I was like man that's that's all the validation I needed the other part of your story other than J Cole basically being like hey you don't suck dude yeah there might be something here because of the stuff that he had learned through the way he had come up in the business it's almost like hearing about a quarterback or a high school pick you know in the nba you know granted one year and one and done but like all right we're only going to play you these minutes

and then we don't want you doing this but then next year we may add this it felt like you know it's easy to tell with an athlete like you're being developed but as an artist like it was almost as if they were taking the same kinds of steps developing you do you even realize that as it's happening no you you don't in retrospect yeah right because even the first tour that cole brought me out on i wasn't performing but his his um his stage manager cedric brown who's a good friend of mine um you know he had just come home from home from his own issues and Cole brought him out on road. And then Ron Gilmore, who was his MD and his keyboard player, he was kind of transitioning from just being a keyboard player to being a producer.

And then both those guys, we all linked up on road and it was like, hey, I kind of rap. And he's like, well, I kind of produce. And, you know, they did lit for me. They did like a bunch of my biggest records. And it kind of all started there with Cole just bringing us all together and being like, all right, we're on this tour together. You're not performing, but you have all this time and all these talented people who've put in their 10,000 hours, even though I had it. You know what I mean? And that was the way that kind of sped me along.

And I think a lot of Dreamville artists got that same artist development. You know, like Cole had a house in Carolina where, you know, he brought Earthgang and Jid too and worked on some of their earlier projects with the label and Ari as well. And that's something that is really missing nowadays in the music industry. You know, there's no more artist development. Like I watched a Motown documentary and it was like amazing. It was so inspiring to see like the level of artist development. They were all like, now go to your dance class. You got to learn how to dance, you know, go in here and like, it's a songwriting session. And all these things things where they were so in-house with developing their artists, I think nowadays it's shifted.

It's all metrics. The labels could be like, all right, this song is doing this many streams. Grab that kid. Let's put that song out. And if he fizzles out, he fizzles out. We already own the master for this big record anyway. It's recouped for us. Whatever the case may be you know i think it's it's rare nowadays that you have uh these kind of sub labels like dreamville or you know

like a tde or or whatever lvr and there's a few in the game that are really focused on like all right let's let's create let's build careers let's put them on the road let's give them you know 10 15 years in this game minimum so when too high to riot came out i was you know at that point i'm i'm in and i'm like okay what's he gonna do and you know the reason i like you so much is that it's different it's very melodic like even the best rappers like you gotta give me something melodic you gotta layer some stuff in there and the the mellow angle that you went like i want miles and miles to be 10 minutes long i'm so mad it's only a minute and a half it drives me crazy uh penthouse you know was was there like that

doesn't seem like the sophomore album from somebody who's like i need to blow up yeah like it seemed like you cared more about how it sounded than the biggest appeal which as i'm sure you know you had a record deal but you have cole with you a little bit they might have been like hey artsy guy like yeah great job yeah but we need we need an anthem here you know what it's actually the complete opposite as far as cole's concerned i vividly remember going to sit down with cole at the label at interscope like the very first time he walked me in the building and he was like, yo, we're not pressuring our artists to go get like the top 10 single.

We want them to have long careers. We want them to put out good albums and tour them. Because, you know, that was kind of a blueprint that he followed to gain his fan base. And that's, you know, where we made a lot of our bones on the road. But I've always been, I take pride in the cohesion of these albums. I take pride in just building a world.

I'm a big sci-fi geek. And my favorite sci-fi movies, whether it's whatever, Blade Runner, whatever you want to point to, Star Wars, I always really respected how these directors built these worlds where you can kind of get lost in them. Everything fits, everything is of this place. If you want to revisit that specific world, you have to go there. And I always wanted to take that approach with my albums. 2 High to Ride is super mellow, is super vibey uh and and it's like if you want that you kind of have to go there you know you're not going to get that too many other places you're not going to get that even in my other albums necessarily but if you want to revisit that world like this is this is something

i built to kind of you know stand the test of time that's how it feels and it still holds up and that's what i love like my favorite music you know specific to rap like you know day stand the test of time. That's how it feels. And it still holds up. And that's what I love. Like my favorite music, you know, specific to rap, like, you know, De La is big for me because, you know, I'm of an age where it didn't exist and then it existed. So it became something while I was a kid and, you know, three feet high and rising was cool as hell in junior high. And then I always joked that like, none of us were ready for De La Sola's Dead. And I'll go back and listen to Stakes is High all the time. Now, again, because they started streaming, so it'll be easier for me to pull it up on the phone again.

So I've been on a big De La thing this year. And when I listen to that, I listen to Stakes is High. You could tell me it came out last week. You tell me it came out 25 years ago. Exactly. Like, I'm not going to know. And that's what I think is with Too High to Ride, because it felt, you know, I don't know if you were going

for a full blown concept and obviously in a Milky Way in the recent thing, that's the way it feels, but you're making albums and I think it's cool that it's still happening. And I don't know, I don't usually, I can't believe it's happened to me as somebody had this massive CD collection would go through start to finish as As soon as the song ended,

I knew what the next note was going to be. And I'm like, poor kids, they don't even hear the note before it happens. That was the beauty of knowing the next song was coming on. And I feel like you're still doing that in a way that very few are. Yeah, and it's funny because I have those fears too, especially with how streaming has changed

the way music is consumed now people pull up an album and they're like all right who's which features where oh he's on track eight and they're like they'll start with track eight which to me is like it's blasphemy like i couldn't do it to you yeah i looked down and i was like all right calm down yeah it's tough and and that's just like how a lot of these kids it's not even their fault, it's how they've been conditioned to... We come from that time when you go through the booklet, you're reading all the notes, who produced what, who's the A&R on this, who wrote what, oh, what's the sample? Rob Markman, I remember geeking out over those things.

I want to bring some of those feelings back. Even with this last time like i posted all the credits and like it was cool to see the response people like oh man like i never even like seen these you know yeah no you did like this there's a lot of people working on this music working on these albums um so it's like you know i i do think it's it's a little like sad but i do love that like those insecurities were quelled for me. Even working on this last album, it was like, man, do people still want to take this ride? Do people still want an album that's going to take them through these phases and land

at a certain point? And then you're like, oh man, I love that journey. Those are the albums I grew up loving. And I was like you know it's like i said it's like well that's not happening right now so let me do it milky way felt like that was the one where you're the most comfortable of like okay all these influences that i have i'm just gonna throw them in the pot now yeah i mean is that is that fair it's fair to say and also going back to what you said earlier, Milky Way was the first time where I kind

of felt like, all right, I want to take a few more commercially viable swings while still remaining myself, still staying true to my sound. But a song like Tribe or a song like Boca Raton, to have these bright, very appealing sounds, appealing melodies, there were my attempt to kind of coming out of too hot a ride it's like ultra vibiness to be like okay let me make maybe something that you know a song yeah let me take a swing on a couple songs that can maybe just appeal to a you know a broader audience while trying to you know maintain the integrity of what i do what's been the moment for you where i was like you know i'm almost speaking third person here for you but where you go wait

that guy likes me but like somebody hitting you up oh it felt real i mean because the cold thing almost desensitizes you because he's your buddy and he's becomes this huge thing because there's some out somebody outside your crew that you were like, oh, wow. It's cool to me. It's the Hoopers, man, because I'm such a fan, you know. So when you're such a fan of someone else, like, you know, like KD, like KD will always show me love or like, you know, D. But literally I was with KD, Devin Booker, and Bradley Bill the last time

they were in town, you know. And they're all like always show us love, big Dreamville guys, and a lot of guys in the league, like a lot of guys in the league. You know what I mean? Our fans and our supporters of myself and of Dreamville. There's always that connection with rappers and hoopers. It's almost like we want to be them, and they want to be us in the alternate universe.

But they don't know their contracts are a lot better than ours you don't want to be us trust but you know i think it's just because they're all fans of the genre and the art form so i think that that's usually what uh what what kind of geeks what kind of geeks me out you know it's like oh man like these guys these guys are some of the best ever at what they do. I remember I was with Eve and we went and we sat courtside at a Suns game. Book gave us his seats and the whole game. And they're playing the Clippers and Terrence Mann is my guy and some guys on that team. And they're all coming up and saying, what's up? Everyone's court side is like, who the hell are you guys? Why are all these players saying, what's up, T-Ion?

It's like, yo, these are the homies. We're fans of each other. It's kind of grown into friendship. So I would say it's less so like peers and other musicians and more so like these guys that are, like are you know i mean i can't dunk a ball i've never dunked the ball never i've never dunked the ball look at me bro i've never dunked the ball set some screens yeah oh no mean screens no no i set the best screens forget about i set the best screens i boxed out you know i got all my badges but um you know i just like i really obviously i really admire what they do like like all of us do

so it's to have them reciprocate that is like you know it's definitely humbling is there a rule about what level you have to be at in the nba to get a shout out like to be in a like where you're like hey man i you know i really like this guy he's only scoring 12 a game so i can't no no We've shouted out so many people, man. I think I had a bar about cephalosha back in the day. So if it makes sense in the rap, it makes sense. You know what I mean? If it fits.

Yeah, if it fits, we'll go for it. One of the things about the business, and this is kind of like the unsolvable riddle for anyone trying to aspire to do something, you know, actor, writer, whatever, you know, mine's a much more, I would say, uncool version of any kind of success with that. Because it's like, oh, cool. You watch a ton of games. But there's all these things that I'll be like, man, if I had known that, and I think anybody, look, anybody in life, I mean, that's kind of the joke is that, yeah, that's the whole point is you

don't know the things in the beginning. But specific to your business, look, anybody in life, I mean, that's kind of the joke is that, yeah, that's the whole point is you don't know the things in the beginning. But specific to your business, like what are those things that now that you've been in it as long as you've been in it and you've had this level of success where you go, all right, well, if I had known that, like if I was able to figure out some of that stuff that just, you know, we're not allowed to figure out in the beginning. That's a great question, man. out in the beginning that's a great question man um i wish you know my first my first contract i wish i knew a little bit more about the business for sure you know we came in the game at a time where streaming was kind of just on the uptick you know around 2014 i think i signed my first deal

um i didn't know anything about you know how independent artists operate i've met a ton of independent artists then and learned like um you know just how much money you can make owning your masters you know i don't understand the importance of all that and granted i was in a place financially where i needed a major label you know you need that cash influx you need that investment and you know but but generally it's it's just like a loan with really bad terms you know what i mean so i wish i knew all those things and then maybe it would have been like all right maybe me and the guys do something you know maybe how bad are the terms because i don't know i hear about it all the time

i mean derrick will tell you better than i will because we talk about it now all the time. But it's usually, I mean, you got to think. It's bad in the background from Derek. I do remember one line in my contract that was like, holy. It was like that they own your masters in perpetuity throughout the universe. So it was like if one day I managed to make it to Mars. No, that's in the universe. I still wouldn't own my masters there's nowhere i can go where you know what i mean where my masters would be mine like through through the universe is it's like it's the language in these things is crazy you know so i mean and there's a there's a bunch of stuff

like royalty rates and does it have to be that way? Like, it's really easy to go, you know, it's almost like when you look at service time in baseball, right? And it's like, man, Shohei Otani's making 500 grand a year. It's like, well, you know, we'd like you to prove yourself. And the rookie contract reset scale for NFL guys, it used to be, remember, you just were a free agent. You weren't a free agent. Your rights were with the team. But then the contract would just go up and up and up and so there's there's a sliver of me that every now and then is like well doesn't somebody new have to prove it but there feels like there's such a

leverage hammer that's hit over the head of every artist but then i don't know if i believe the studio arguments it's like hey we put so much money out there that this is the way that it has to be because there's so many whiffs too so i've always tried to understand yeah no and and then it's like don't get me wrong i have a great relationship with my label you know i mean it's not even like i blame anyone there i just maybe i'm influenced by literally listening to every single rapper diss their label yeah yeah no i don't even i don't even feel negatively about my label at all and and by that i mean like in the school we've had a great relationship they've supported you know all our wildest ideas and things of that nature. I just think the music industry itself is just kind of set up a little predatory, you know, and that goes back.

You know, those are just the precedents that were set. You can go back to, you know, Sam Cooke. He was saying it from back then, you know what I mean? Prince had his issues with them. You know, these things are ongoing, so it's just the precedent that set has always been a little bit skewed and the artists don't really get their just due. But it is true, they invest a lot of money. Sometimes you invest all this money and the artist is a head case and they don't want

to fulfill their side of the thing and you're taking else i get it it's like any other business you know but um i mean i can't compare it to baseball those guys when you bring arbitrator in if you needed to you know what i mean yeah i was just trying to think of like how there's a comparable publicly consumed product where the entry-level person you know ownership goes you know hey this is the way it needs to be but look there's always there's always something that's closer to fair but it doesn't necessarily it seems to get a lot more fair the more people listen to your music right yeah yeah because then you know other avenues open up but you know it'd be cool if you know maybe if i find myself on uh i don't know, one of the moons of Saturn one day,

if I can get my masters back. You know, that'd be nice. A nice little loophole. You are into sci-fi, so maybe that's your next concept album. Where everybody, you mentioned the NBA thing, and I kind of jumped into the business stuff there a little bit. It's all New York for you, right? Knicks, baby.

I just went to Knicks Lakers last night. It was a big win for you. Big win. Big win. Were you annoying? How so so were you rambunctious um i'm definitely in there like let's go new york i put on my my strongest new york accent you know just just for them to know you know but uh now you know uh josh is my guy josh hart we go back um jb me and uh jalen brunson we just did like a fifa event uh pretty recently so me and jb were on the team and and he had told me that he had him beat it was josh and dda drugba who's you know

icon icon african legend and uh and you're a psg guy too right yeah i'm a psg guy for sure so uh josh told me he had him i mean uh jalen told me he hadn't beat josh in fifa josh told me he hadn't i mean uh jalen told me he hadn't beat josh in fifa since like college and and uh i gave him this backheel assist for the only goal of the game would beat the one zip so that's my guy your uh your travels you know your background took you took you all over the world i love to travel solo headed to new zealand here soon got a little solo trip little basketball done spain south france nice i've got a boat solo trip, a little basketball. Done Spain, South France. Nice. I've got a boat license.

It's a big, big back pocket. Where'd you go to Spain? Did you hit Barcelona at all? I did Barcelona. You know what I've learned about myself as I've gotten older? As soon as I'm at the major city, I want to go to the villages. I want to try to find a way to get to the villages as quickly as I possibly can. And at least with Spain, like I got to the islands

and I went to Ibiza and everybody told me like, don't go to Ibiza unless you want to tear it up. But like, I was like, look, I'm hopping around every couple of days. I don't really know

if I have one of those nights in me. I was actually a little lame on this last Spain trip. But because I also started doing like a travel podcast, it's kind of a retirement plan later on. Oh, that's tight. But I don't know that

I'm going to be as much fun. Like it would have been better if I had done it in my 30s. But the reality is, you know, the way life life works it'll probably be when i'm less adventurous but i got to abiza and it was it was funny because it's not it can be all of those things that you see on instagram and then it can also be none of those things right because it's bigger there's all these different parts of it and then i went down to formentera which is like their version of the caribbean that island that's south of abiza which was like a highlight and then made it over to

uh majorca where i eventually was going to go to majorca and sardinia just keep going going east but i like majorca so much and that was so big and i think it had some absurd absurd beach number that i just hit up a bunch of different villages the problem is is when i'm kind of doing it like on the i would just wake up and go, all right, I'm hitting a different part of the island. That's a great way to travel. Yeah, but the last stop in Mallorca, I ended up in this weird northern seaside town that was basically designed by the European version of Disney World.

So I stayed at this resort, and there was magic shows for kids going on and then pony rides. And then in the pool in the morning, they had aerobic instructors for kids. So kids were like on their parents' shoulders and they were doing all aerobics to like Wiggles music. It was like a full family resort. Yeah. And then, you know, when I checked in, you always know what's going to go bad because when I'm checking in and the guy was like, it's just you. I was like, yeah, man, it's just me. They're like, you want to stay here? And I was like yeah man it's just me they're like you want to stay here and i was like yeah this

beach the harbor's right there i'm gonna get a boat over there tomorrow and he's like have you been to japan no i have a connect that's a great solo travel so you know john elliott the clothing designer yeah yeah yeah actually this is hoodie right now a lot of john elliott at the crib he's the best and i had him on the pod and then i was talking to him about his travels he's like you have to go to japan and i was like i don't know if i want to do japan solo because that's usually my thing because i don't i don't want anything else to bog me down right right and he was like no i've got the connect for you like i'm going to hook it up and i'm going to have you go so i anyone that's ever been because i'm a big beach guy big water beach and when i think of japan i don't necessarily i know that's absurd to think of its geography that way but everybody that's gone there

is like no no no you have to because it really feels like a completely different experience than all the european stuff absolutely it's like it's what what makes it so great um it's like they signed a social contract out there you know and maybe it's because somebody was explaining to me that like 99 percent of japan is japanese you know so um it seems low yeah right there's like a few uh few off ones here and there but you know you could tell they really um they're they've all like bought into like their society you know so it's like everything's so clean no one like you'll see people carrying their trash till they get home you won't even see like everything's so clean no one like you'll see people carrying their trash till they get home you won't even see like trash cans in the street you'll see like everywhere you

go anything you buy any restaurant you go into like just the level of care and craft that they put into everything like there's just like this immense pride in in what they put out you know it makes it makes for a very cool like society you know people are hella helpful super respectful like you'll go on i came from like new york city subways and then i went and rode the train in tokyo and it was like you could hear a pin drop you know i'm used to the kids getting on they're like excuse me like i'm selling candy for my basketball team or like you know what i mean the guys getting on i question whether it's really for a basketball it's never for a basketball team we all know that if you're in new york you know it's not for a basketball team you know what i mean what's your record you give them the money anyway um because you know you just got

to respect a kid hustling like that on the subway but then you know you go to you go to japan and it's like you know there's not even like gum on the floor you know it's just did you what's it like though to enter a world that isn't even like your world and then see people losing it singing along with you like that's gotta be yeah it's so tight man they love hip-hop culture they love hip-hop culture and it's like i vividly remember my my first trip there um i went my a friend of mine was working for Nike Japan and she was introducing me to a lot of just the local scene and community in Tokyo. And she took me to this guy who had a clothing boutique and he saw me and he instantly was

like, oh, he's like, I have a gift for you. I have a gift for you. And I'm like, all right, cool, bro. Thanks. I'm humbled to be here in your place. And he takes me up in the boutique and he's ruffling through some bags and he pulls out a do-rag. And he takes a knee and gives me the do-rag. It just came from such a pure... I was like, yo, look at my afro. I haven't worn a do-rag probably in my entire life. I hate do-rags. My head's too big. They cut off the circulation.

I'm not a do-rag guy. But just the way it came, the place it came from was so pure. And he saw me and instantly was like, I know you guys like do-rags. I got something for you. I was just like, man, I just respect it, man. I really enjoyed just the hospitality, the way people... And then it's just it's so adventurous that's why i said like solo travel you would enjoy it because it's so densely like

packed you know you'll yeah but i'd have to get out i have to get out like some of the stuff that you see once you're out of the cities well yeah i went to kyoto i went to kyoto as well kyoto is amazing um it's like a it's one of the of the Buddhist capitals of the world. So there's all these shrines on mountaintops and hilltops and just beautiful, beautiful shrines. It actually blew my mind because I went and we went up this mountain and there was this shrine and it was like a line. It was like a single file line of like 3,000 people taking their turn one by one going into the shrine. I'm like, well, I'm not here to obviously pray, but I'm curious as to what's in there. So I just walk around and I look in the shrine and it's like this big black Buddha.

Black is me. Wide nose. Pink lips. I'm like, are y'all praying to a black guy in Japan? It blew my mind, you know what I mean? And then, you know, you start just learning more. I think it's interesting because when you're in the West, when you travel Europe, you know, if I travel Europe or if I'm in the States, you know, I'm used to, you know, there's certain

PR campaigns that come out of the U.S. as, of the US in regards to African-Americans in the Western world. I'm used to the lady clutching her purse when she sees me or somebody crossing the street if it's late at night. You know what I mean? You're bombarded on the news with certain imagery of African-Americans, whether it's like violence or thug or whatever the case may be. And it's in the music, a lot of it is self-perpetuated, but when you get to Japan,

you notice they're kind of like, they're cut off from that. It's the only place I've been outside of Africa where I was like, oh, they have kind of like their own idea of black people here. They have their own relationship with black culture and what it what it means to be black or what it is to be black that's that's very different than than you know kind of the preconceived notions in the west you know so i also found that super refreshing the new album um when you're sitting there going okay you know i've got to keep raising the bar. You know, I'm a few in now. I don't want to lose any momentum, but I don't want to deviate from what makes me different. And like the people that really appreciate you, you know, uh, there's,

there's bands that I've, I've talked about in the past where it's like, sometimes I don't respect the change, but then if no one ever changes, you're like, you never evolved or anything. What was, what was the thing that kept kind of just, whether there was an overall theme or message that you wanted to have happen in this one? Yeah, I think when I really think about my sound, and even if you go back to Last Winter and songs like NWO or Made Bell,

or maybe it's the Gemini in me, I fluctuate between kind of this bright, happy, you know, tribe, Boca Rat have to really challenge myself to express these feelings, express these emotions, to not feel the insecurity to be able to get in a vulnerable space, and then to paint a landscape that accompanies those emotions. For me, it was like, there's certain parts where I'm like, all right, well, maybe a song like Testify. I spent a lot of time in South Africa, so there's like Amapiano influences where I know some of my hardcore hip hop fans might be like, well, this is kind of too left for me or I can't go there with you. But also, like every album, it's always, to me, it's like I can't do the same thing twice.

Because then I'm really selling my fan base short. And that's one of the biggest things I'm appreciative of. Because I've heard this from my peers. And I'm aware of this. There's a lot of guys that can't go left right anywhere you know like you you came in here and in a way your fan base kind of keeps you here you know but i think the way i came in and the sounds that i've always been incorporating it's almost kind of uh like trained the ear of my fan base to know like okay well he's a guy that goes to these other places he's a guy that's

influenced by these other sounds, by these worldly sounds. And so they're receptive when I go left of center. So that's a blessing because I know so many guys that want to and just don't have the freedom to. What's the difference between being sad and writing a song or just saying, hey, I want to write a sad song? I think... I imagine doing the first is a much better product than the second one.

Yeah, 100%. I think for me, it's the relatability. I think when it's like, hey, I want to write a sad song, I don't know... And not to interrupt you, I don't always mean that when your songs that are slow are sad, but there's an emotion that's totally different in the songs where you're like, okay, I'm not trying to throw a bunch of bars at you. I'm not trying to whip European and the Kid Sudanese, which is more the all-time.

The way you connect it and how awesome and the pace of it is incredible. But when you decide to take your foot off the pedal, it's not always because it's sad, but there's an emotion there that's different from the other music. Yeah, and a lot of that was born from really, with this go-around at least, was a lot of conversations we had during the lockdown. I think I can't force them.

I've never been able to say I want to write a sad song. It's just like, there's something I have to express. And a lot of this album really started because some of my best friends, Derrick will tell you, we spent the better part of COVID in the lockdown. We're touring artists. You know what I mean? So we essentially had everything taken from us. We couldn't go nowhere. We couldn't share our music. We couldn't... It just felt like everything got real stagnant.

And you find yourself in a space where you're like, man, are they even going to care about me? Is everyone still going to listen? Are we kind of losing these prime years of our careers? We're all in a weird place, you know, and then you're dealing with family issues. You're dealing with, you know, not making nearly as much money as you were, you know, you're dealing with a bunch of, a bunch of stresses and we'd find ourselves like huddled up in a house, having having a few drinks and having these conversations that we never had in 20 plus years of friendship.

Hearing people express just their deepest insecurities, their deepest fears. It inspired me. It was like, wow, if we can have these conversations here amongst us, there has to be other people feeling the same way, other people having these convos. So that was a challenge for me. It was like, how can I take my songwriting to that place? How can I have the same depth and the same gravity of the conversations

we're having at 2 a.m. over shots of tequila while we're just kind of uh in the standstill you know in this kind of purgatory of covid um how can i take those same thoughts and and and bring them to my audience well you did it uh and you did it again the last last thought i have for you um as somebody else who fucked up massively in their first semester. Yeah. You're back home, your box store, right? Dave and Buster's. Yeah.

These all check out. And then we know you had the incident where it got real and somebody takes a shot at you and you're running away from bullets to then go to 2016 to release it too high to riot and you're at the best buy waiting for it to open up and you're going in to buy your own fucking cd did you allow yourself were you were you even mature enough to understand what that fucking meant man to to even one up that yes this with this album, we had three billboards in Times Square.

And I used to work at that Dave & Busses in Times Square. You know, that's where I spent like, that's where a lot of things kind of went right or went wrong. You know, they went wrong for me to learn, you know, a major life lesson and go right. But I was thinking like, man, I used to take the train and get out and like, I used to see those billboards every day. And then I would just have my little ounce of weed that I would sell out of Dave & Buster's while I'm working security. I hope nobody from corporate hears this. But those are the trials and tribulations. But nah, man, I feel like when I look back at it, it's a blessing, man. It's a blessing that most important of anything is the support system I had.

If I was alone, if I didn't have the family I had, the friends I had, I would not be here at all. I had people that were like, hey, you're dope. You're better than this. You're smarter than this. You're more capable than this. And then I had people that gave me the grace of just real support support man like here's a here's a flight come hang out with me come see this life so you know i that's why now i take it on myself to just try and do that for as many as i can that was the one constant i kept seeing when i was reading about you

was how much everybody liked you you know there's a there's a value in that yeah if you weren't oh bossy from the neighborhood like all right whatever yeah my brother actually told me that my oldest brother he said that's like my superpower he says like i have an ability to just make people feel comfortable and at ease and and and like you know uh just be on like the same level as them i take that everywhere you know i take that whether it's south africa brazil japan like i try to put out that energy and it's helped me build like a really just just beautiful global network well the music is is all that and it keeps getting better man and uh you already know i'm a huge fan so man day one i ain't gonna lie a1 since day one

i appreciate you well it's you know i know how you are with with the music but i know that there's things with me where i can just hear a note and i'm like oh that that and uh to have you on my couch here years later hey man let me know when you get into that travel pod i'm with you all right we'll uh i'll send you the iceland one i drove around iceland two years ago yeah did the whole arctic circle deal wasn't that cold not in the summer did you get any do they have like like those uh hot springs in iceland yeah i jumped in it that was like the last day deal that's about as touristy as it gets all right i'll check it out it was great because i was at that soul and the line was like two hours long and some girl at the counter was like are you by yourself that should be the name of your pod are

you by yourself well that's why i respected josh hart's tweet so much when he was at dinner and the guy took the picture of him by himself and heart made that picture like that was an instant because as soon as he did that i was like all right he gets it because everybody's like oh how do you eat i'm like i get to go to any restaurant i want i just sit at the bar yeah like well that's that's uncomfortable like learn to be comfortable yeah i think that's on you uh we only talk about real shit when we're fucked up or when we're sober on the couch here uh the new album out now stream it it always seems weird when you're like not telling people to go buy it uh because it's it's a

different landscape now but you'll uh you'll love it as i do all his work thanks man thank you appreciate you Appreciate you. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari. 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South For south fork i have every toy you can possibly imagine

and best of all kids i am liquid so now you know what's possible let me tell you what's required life advice the email address is life advice rr at gmail.com fire them away you know everything's on the table maybe nothing's on the table we got kyle we got steve all right so go ahead saruti i can already see you get this smirk on your face and i was like all right no i mean we we have to address this uh it was all over controversy the socials last night you you know and we're coming out of the interview too with boz you by the way big fan it was awesome uh that's on tribe has been in my playlist for about you know five years now um shout out to the fifa soundtrack but you you posted a picture at your place of you two and man i don't want to say you broke the internet people use that too much but we got a lot of action on that last night it's you for those

of you that haven't seen it it's you guys during the interview everything looks great but you're just sitting on the couch and you're just barefoot right in front of right in front of our guy and it's just a i know you enough to know, as you said, you're probably lucky enough to be wearing a shirt at that situation. But going shoeless in an interview with a guy that I think you met for the first time is a pretty bold move, even for Russillo. Yeah. So it was at my house and Bas came down with Derek, his manager. And I've been texting with them now for years going back to when i first heard new world order look you've already listened to

interviews so you know the whole backstory i hear this song i'm immediately in love with it i'm like who is this guy and then once i figured it out and then um amin al-hassan and waz had kind of been like hey we know him like he's one of our guys and so they sent me all this gear and i would play boss coming back from commercial break at espn radio so it was like a fun little cool thing we would text uh i think there was a night where it was pretty late and i was playing it and there were some guests at the house and they were like who is this i was like how's my dude and we've like facetimed him um like three in the morning did not go answer cool so that's fine yeah right right so they were like wait you know him i'm like yeah i know him they're like call him up he's like all right no problem and uh it didn't work out you know the man's a world traveler

so the point is there's always been kind of like a cool relationship there i love his music uh you know i was really excited about the new album coming out and so they were like let's do the interview at your house and so i was like you know what we never do it we've never done that uh i didn't think we did it i think we did it with cowherd once like years ago i think wodge did one with me but i was it was for him so whatever we just it was something we had talked about doing more um if it made sense with people coming through los angeles and so this is the one you know when i'd moved and so he came by and you're right like i'm i usually don't have a shirt on most of the time so i threw on a hoodie for him because i thought

that would be pretty weird what a guy yeah yeah when kilbourne came over and was like are you gonna put a shirt on i was like yeah i throw i throw it on for you but you know in my house i wasn't gonna walk around with sneakers on the rug area um but i guess like right obviously right i could have put yeah i guess i could have put socks on but i didn't really think about it and then all it's been is is feet commentary the entire time which you know again i don't know i don't think my feet are repulsive and i'll tell you if you show me a man with like perfectly groomed feet i'll tell you a man i'll show you a man I don't trust. So I'm not, I'm not worried about the feet, you know, criticism. Cause I just think it was, but yeah, maybe, maybe looking back, I could have put socks

on, but he didn't, he didn't say anything. I could check. I thought it was more of the, the, the short inseam choice that people were getting that too. I didn't think it was all, I thought it was, we went with the, we went with the seven inches, the five inches. What it was. we didn't see one of those bad you can see the you can see either the liner your little undies in there yeah well yeah i guess first of all those aren't the five inch inseams that i had in the part of my take one where i look like i'm

wearing a you know a fucking swimsuit about to go bungee jumping. They got a harness on you. Yeah. Those are straightforward shorts. Those are normal shorts. But when you sit on the couch in an interview the whole time, they're just bunching up. They're bunching up. Because I could have pulled them down for the picture.

But I want it to be live action. I wanted the picture to represent the emotions of the interview. Yeah. We're not posing. The great juxtaposition was like rappers are generally these like you know hardened dudes and here you are like shoeless showing a lot of thigh it's just in your house it's just it was just a great juxtaposition like you know i know bass isn't like bass isn't like snoop dog or something but still like it's it was it was it was a cool it was a cool photo i'm glad it exists

i also did notice he's he is wearing socks did you ask him to take his shoes off no he just took his off oh i didn't i wasn't gonna ask anybody to take any shoes off yeah like i'm a big if i have guests over i don't want everybody to have to take like yeah it'd all be a better world for all of us in our houses everybody took their shoes off all the time but like if a buddy comes over i don't want to tell him take his shoes off like i'll just deal with it you know the vacuum exists you know and granted it's not like some alpaca rug here where no one can ever like you block that shit yeah it's alpaca so you can't i didn't want to tell anybody do anything i mean shit it was bad because we were like just so hyped up to get to hang out and talk and i love the interview i hope people liked it

so i didn't even think about it i didn't like i didn't even i know i know you didn't there's no i didn't think you were yeah exactly that's what's so funny about it as as we're going to continue to ziprooter film this thing there's and just because it's you there's so many different layers you also tag john elliott which is incredible um yeah that was a that was a classic instagram rassila thing though that was great yeah because i didn't want legends to get upset with me that i had tagged you know they're not competing clothing brands i think i think uh all my guys legends understand that and so yeah i'd like at first and some people were just like straight up like hey what's up with that hoodie so i was like well i we'd like john he was austin and was he came on the pod and the whole deal and then i

tag him then people look at it like are you fucking kidding me because they're on the pricier end of things i was like all right look don't get mad at me like i'm not i'm not running their marketing man i just you asked me where the hoodie was from but boss was great man he was he was really cool and he's a huge sports fan, as we know. So it was, I need, you know what I'll do for the behalf, like just for the audience, I will text him, like, what do you think about me not having any socks on? Because it's apparently a thing.

Can we just shut up and say a little memes real quick? Wasted no time. The guy's just on it. Guy, girl, whoever it is. Pretty sure it's a dude. That guy was on it and didn't waste any time the sharon stone reference come on it was god damn it was immediate i yeah you know because i knew i was gonna post it because i just thought it was you know hey whatever i don't really post that much stuff and you know i just big fan of his so i was like yeah shit he's in my house like let's do something and

you know i want to help him get the word out with the album and everything too so i i don't know i didn't even think like i'm just real relaxed down here at the beach man i just don't know what to tell you it's changed you man it's changed yeah yeah i don't think i'm losing that no shirt no shoes no problem you know yeah right it's the rossillo house motto what is that no it's katie chesney radio yeah cool yeah all right here let's get to uh some advice uh on this because that's not what we do all right not a truck guy can i drive a truck 41 6 1 225 i think you're good we just say yes 1 2 20 245 bench player comp is strapped from hoosiers minus the religious devotion that was very specific uh i'm considering moving from an suv to a truck i've

been a passenger in a few full-size trucks on recent golf trips and i've taken a liking to the vehicle class here's my dilemma i have no occupational recreational reason to own a truck i also don't have a persona that says that guy drives a truck. When I tell others, we should do that. Retrack that. That guy drives a truck. When I tell others that I'm thinking about getting a truck, the common response is really you?

Jesus. It's the whole decisions already in your head. Some color. I live in the suburbs of Cleveland and work in finance. some color. I live in the suburbs of Cleveland and work in finance. My wardrobe sits at the intersection of Costco and golf pro shops. My favorite band is fish. I have no polarizing bumper stickers or window decals. I come of age amid the like a rock Chevy truck commercials. God, this is really good writing. And it was impressed upon me that men who drive trucks do the following, off-road in the badlands, haul lumber,

toss discarded oil drums into truck beds with a plunk. I realize the vast majority of truck owners do none of these things, but most have practical reasons for driving a truck. I don't. I would use a truck bed the same way that I would use the cargo area of my SUV to store shopping bags, golf clubs, use sports equipment. Would me driving a truck be akin to a bald man wearing a toupee?

Not a good look. Should I just stick with an SUV? Appreciate any feedback. Thanks for reading. Well-written email. Terrific. You guys want to start this one? Can you start with a small truck and see how you like it?

Don't even bother. First of all, you could totally be, you could totally be a point, a truck guy. You could totally, everyone deserves to be a truck guy, you know, extended cab,

maybe go a little, go a little nicer, get a little back row seats there. Um, I think, I think you should totally do it. I'm going to be a truck guy one day. Guarantee it.

You could, you could cash that check now to the bank. Yeah. So, um, yeah, do it, man. Do it. Just start, start picking out your brand it to the bank yeah so um yeah do it man do it just start start picking out your brand i don't know you see it's not like a chevy guy i'm

more of a ford dude but um yeah i don't think there's anything wrong with that what you're gonna do with it you're gonna help your buddies move and um i don't know maybe if there's a nice drive-in throw a futon mattress in the back it's the best driving experience you've ever had not a lot of driving movies left in this country but if you could find one i would take it driving experience you've ever had not a lot of driving movies left in this country but if you could find one i would take it not that i'm anti-truck uh what am i gonna do this i fucking knew you were gonna do this well this is what i bring to the table man i don't know this is we need to be balanced out one of my buddies uh one of my good friends we were just in mexico shouts out to the crew there um he has a pickup truck and he gets mercilessly roasted in the chat

for it like you know how many dump run jokes my buddies have made about it? Because the thing is, he doesn't even need the truck. He doesn't need it at all. He's just kind of like a hard-o dude. He wants to have a Dodge Ram. He wants to be taller than everybody else when he's driving around. But most guys do not need... You could rent a truck at Home Depot if you need to make a dump run one time

for like $15 an hour. You don't need a pickup truck. They're gas guzzlers. They're incredibly expensive. And here's the thing, too, Kyle. You said, why don't you just start a small truck? What's the point of owning a small truck? Like, the whole point is that you need to do stuff with.

Have you seen a Ranger? You can't even fit anything in them. They're so small. Like, what's the point of even having it? Nice big TV. Nice big TV at Best Buy. Throw it in the back. I will say my father-in-law just so I save

this does have a truck. He has a Chevy Colorado. I actually do like that truck. He toes around. They have like a like an RV like a trailer type thing. So they kind of need that but you could do that with a Jeep too man. And so I just never understood the appeal of trucks. And if you don't need it why do you want it just it feels like a

it feels like you're overcompensating when you're driving a truck. That's just how I feel. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's just how I feel. This is terrible. The truck does appeal to him though. You're just saying, you just said it like it doesn't appeal to me.

It does appeal to this guy. What the fuck? I don't know, man. I'm going to push back on the Ranger a bit. But you know, I've had, I just,

I wouldn't, if you're getting a truck get a truck you know don't i agree okay don't go halfway into the ranger dudes out there yeah look that's fine like i get you can park it anywhere so i get it if it makes sense for what you're doing you don't need the full-size truck if you need right i would not get a ranger all right is my point so all right i've wanted a truck i want one now i want to go back to my truck roots uh you know i had a smaller truck and then i had a full size dodge and i don't you know i i loved it but i can't fit a truck i can't fit the truck into my house i can't fit it in a garage and then when i mentioned what i wanted because i wanted like a dually and they're like oh that makes a lot of sense in la you're gonna go up to hollywood one day and have to park that like i don't give a shit like i know it's gonna suck

there's gonna be all these spots i can't park in i don't care i want a big nasty truck i want to put some sort of flange on it like i want the whole thing i want to see radio yeah i'd want to do the whole maybe a western theme on the back window like i want it and i just can't because there's no i can't park it at my house it's not going to fit in the garage so uh ruled it out i i don't like how often in life to what saruti said is that if you do something that you want to do, you will receive some amount of joy. Life is hard enough. If you look in your driveway and you see your truck and you're like, fucking cool, I did it. I always wanted one. I granted families and the significant others and budgets and kids and prioritizing things. But if you can find some 20 year like

quest and fulfill it with some mild level of happiness, because you come home and you park your truck in the driveway and then you look out when you're doing the dishes and you see it there and you're like, that's fucking cool. I finally got one. I always wanted one when I was a little kid and now I have it because I'm an adult and then you got to worry about your neighbor making a dick joke like fuck off man you know I don't I don't I don't like this stuff I mean the same thing goes for sports cars like anybody I see tooling around in a Ferrari like there's a white Ferrari that I see all the time now and I'm like that thing is sick it is awesome but I'm supposed to have some reservation about ever doing it because somebody is going to talk about my sexual prowess at the golf course. Like, who gives a shit?

So if you can find some reward in something that you can afford and that you've always wanted. Now, there is some part of me that wonders with the email here. want. Now, there is some part of me that wonders with the email here if you're like, do you really want it? And then you're going to get it and be like, man, my golf clubs slam around all over the truck bed all the time. Now there's cargo nets. There's ways to adapt that a little bit that you'll get it and have remorse. But I say do it. And there's another little thing called trade-ins. And if it doesn't work out and it's not practical and it doesn't make sense, and yeah, it's not going to be the best financial decision, you go, you know what? It actually doesn't work. And now you at least know the answer instead of always wondering. to think about how much people would go like oh i want to do this i want to get this car i want to move to this house i want to get a boat i want to do but i'm worried about what people will say

who gives a shit for the record last thing i'll say on that my mom drove a pickup truck for uh the really as long as i can remember f-250 uh so there how is that for stigma fuck off steve sorry i'm not well now i feel like an asshole just kidding but i the guy's asking for our opinions on trucks i'm not a pro truck guy i think they're bad investments i think i think 90 people who have trucks do not need trucks but you're right if it makes you happy i'm not telling if it's gonna make you happy and that's what you want to do then there's your answer why you why you emailing life advice i'm just telling you what i think about trucks and why i think most of the people who have trucks and most trucks are it's illogical.

It doesn't they don't actually need them. And they're bad investments. They are gas guzzlers. And listen, I'm an SUV guy. So I'm not sitting here talking to you about, oh, let's save the environment. I just I just think they're bad investments. And most people do not need them. So I feel bad if you want to have it.

I will say, though, I do definitely subscribe to it. Like if you're going to get a truck, get an actual truck. Get something that's probably a quad cab, right? Or at least isn't a single cab so that you can have multiple people in it. But if you're going to get a little... I remember one of my best friends drove an S10. You guys remember the S10s? That's not even a truck, man.

That thing is basically a car with a flatbed in the back, without the back seats. So if you're going to get a truck, like a freaking 150 silverado whatever you want to get um i just they're just not for me i'm sorry check out the 150 lightnings 320 mile range all electric and you get trunk space in the front i've been eyeing that but i don't know what cleveland's uh electric grid is like but uh check it out rosillo strikes me as like a Rivian type guy if he was to get a truck no what you don't think so

I think that's very on brand do you know me when we were there yeah it's like kind of edgy new I don't know you kind of that's the thing that you kind of like not when it comes to trucks all right well you haven't had it not when it comes to trucks all right well you haven't had it not when it comes to trucks i may have misused the word flange by the way uh

i'm on rainies right now rainies truck parts i'm looking at this freight liner turbo wing we can get one 70 inches long 70 inches wide long would be long i. I think it's wide. Yeah. All right. Maybe I'm wrong. Yeah. The stuff I want, it'd be like, wait, is it eight or nine miles to the gallon? Yeah. 20 to 24 highway for

the new F-150s, 20 around town. Still better than what I'm getting on the old Mustang. I think the Silverado call is the right one. I think they're a sponsor at times, too. So let's just stay in that lane. Okay. We got a syrup smell follow-up. I just have to read this one, and then I'll do one more straightforward kind of guys, gals type of deal.

Love the pod. May have an idea about the syrup smell from the last pod. When my wife was pregnant with our twins 14 years ago, one day started smelling syrup around the house i was quite perplexed by this turns out my wife had started taking an herbal supplement called fenugreek fenugreek fenugreek even though she was taking a pill for him it literally made her smell like syrup it was bizarre when i pointed it out she stopped taking it which is good because according to wikipedia it has no effects it's proven to have no therapeutic effects someone in the house may have been taking it growing it or something it would explain the smell do you

think your syrup buddy kyle was on uh some homeopath these were these weren't supplements people no i don't yeah that's not what i was guessing definitely weren't supplements people it was a big host family. Big host family. That was seriously like you didn't even have to answer it. I already know who they are and I already know that they're not going. Oh, wait, did you take your magnesium tonight? All right.

Right. Final one. Try to be brief. 6'2", 240. Max bench 385. Really wish I could get 405. Don't we all, buddy5 don't we all buddy don't we all i'm really scared that i have now like like whatever was going on a year or so ago was the

peak and now it's like nope it's just but you know what i've never hit my peak keep saying that to yourself all right type of guy who doesn't squat because it hurts my back that's fine my friends and i are having a new year's eve party where we'll exchange gifts. Do we get an age here? I don't think we did. We exchanged gifts, white elephant format. It's the second year in a row we're doing this and generally acceptable by the group to invite your girlfriend to the proceedings. For context, there's 15 to 17 of us, depending on who can make it, with maybe eight to 10 girlfriends tacked on.

Oh, what the fuck? Okay, 27, 29. Dude, you guys are... You have any extra friends for some of us? God damn. Save some for the rest of us, dude. So we're talking like,

I don't know, 25 to 30 people at this thing. So they're in Hoboken. Not sure if it matters or wanted to give you the situation. One of the guys invited his girlfriend and several of her friends. Let's call this guy Jimmy. Normally this wouldn't matter

except one of her friends is the ex-girlfriend of one of the other guys in the group. Let's call this other guy Peter. Peter and the ex-girlfriend do not, all caps, like each other and he definitely does not want her there, especially because his new girlfriend will be there. Peter called her a quote, nut job, when he found out about that she might be coming uh so peter and jimmy got into an argument in the group chat that culminated with peter telling jimmy his brain had melted the most egregious part is that the only reason all the guys found out this ex-girlfriend was invited is because jimmy's girlfriend said something so he wouldn't even have known peter would have been like what the hell's going on here jimmy was intending uh for them to show up

without having told anyone he invited them who is in the wrong here should peter swallow his pride and suck it up or does a dick move to for jimmy to have invited peter's ex-girlfriend at all extra details peter and this girl dated for like four months both are kind of hotheads four months and it's this big of a deal uh look i'm just gonna say it she shouldn't want to go correct okay the fact that she wants to go means this is gonna be bad i mean she is all right yeah right like and by the way you're in hoboken there's probably other stuff you could do um but maybe she is lighter on the friends and doesn't have as many options and doesn't want to be left out. You guys hoarded all the friends, so there you go. Yeah. New Year's Eve is a very

tough holiday for the lonely people because you just, it's like, hey, you can go and drink, but you're still supposed to have that kind of someone. And then the all-time mind fuck of the 1159 text to somebody you used to date that's not there right uh i just don't think she should go but she's clear if she is a quote unquote nut job then she does want to go she does want to see what's going to happen she's going to want to see like i've had a couple times where like i was i'd broken up with somebody and then like the bat signal went out that i was out with with somebody new and then a girl went to a restaurant bar where I was eating in the restaurant bar because I couldn't get a main table.

And the ex sat at the bar and watched me fucking eat while like dudes hit on her in front of me the whole time with the ex. And the new girl's like, is this, she's like, is this serious? And of course, then you look like, she's like, you're still hooking up with her. Like nobody would normally do this.

I'm like, nope, she's actually doing it. She's actually doing it. And there's nothing I can do about this right now. And it's super unfortunate. So our boy, Peter, if this ex shows up, we could all pretend we're adults here. You already said they're both hotheads. You're in your 20s. The New Jersey angle part of this, it's going to screw up the night. So I'm peter's side i'm not on jimmy's side uh and the fact that jimmy was gonna what's is the win for him to his girlfriend being like hey it would be great if you could invite her too even though everybody knows it's a bad idea does he have to have that kind of win with his girlfriend to maybe sabotage the entire fucking night or at the very

least bum peter out and then on top of it, Peter's going to have to deal with stuff with his new girlfriend where she's just going to be like, hey, you were a little off. It's going to be up to Peter to remain calm and be cool about it and be dismissive. Oh, hey, how's it going? Here's the hug.

No big deal. It's the new girl. What's up? Cool and composed. That's probably not going to happen based on booze, New Year's, New Jersey location, and the fact that you told us both are hotheads already.

So I'm on Peter's side, but I hope he can pull it together he's not going to be able to if this wasn't new year's eve i would be like it's absolutely 100 you can't come sorry you can't come to our christmas our our friends christmas whatever the the friends giving word for christmas is like sorry you can't come but it is new year, so it's a little different. I'm sure there's been rules bent over the years in this sort of thing. I'm sure if you guys are like 27, 29. So I'm sure there isn't like rigid rules. We're like, well, you know, she's not one of the girlfriends, so she can't come. I think you could look at whoever.

I can't keep track of the names. Is Peter the good guy or the bad guy? Peter's the good guy. Peter's the good guy. All right. So who's the bad guy? We don't know.my jimmy okay uh todd's not making this be like jim and there's there's 30 people at this thing jimmy if you're if you're if you're insisting and you don't have the balls to tell her this is a bad idea i totally forgot whatever and you don't want

to ruin her new year's fine don't don't talk to me when there's 30 of us i'll see you eventually it's fine don't sorry i don't have you for Secret Santa, so it's all good. Just stay. We're staying away from each other. It's fine. If there was 10 people, it would be impossible. But there's enough people that you could totally not talk to Jimmy at all. You totally could.

Yeah, I'm mostly with you guys. But just to play devil's advocate, is 30 enough where it's like, that's a big party, man. Like, just do your own thing and avoid her. Like, grow up, suck it up. Because she doesn't want to be avoided. She doesn't want. I know.

I agree. I agree. Because I have like, there's a little personal story. Broke up with this girl years and years ago. And she didn't really like my friends. My friends didn't really like her. But then when we broke up, she started going to all the friend functions. And I'm like, I know what you're doing here.

Like, you don't even like, you don't want to be here like you don't like these people they don't like you and then there was a dust up one of my buddies told her like i don't even like you to her face and then she started crying and this whole thing uh and it just created more drama so that you're right she she wants to be there to make a statement but it's 30 people enough to be like all right just can you can you just be nice my one thing i would i would add too is this party is for the boys, right? We talked about this. They said it's the boys. It's the guys party. And then you bring your some of them are going to bring their significant others. So I feel like the priority, like Jimmy, the priority is you guys. You know, it's not a

girl's party. It's not like this coed party that everyone's putting together. It's the boys party. And you are allowed to bring some some some significant others. He's fucking it up. So that's what I would say. It's a boys first party. Let's think of the boys first. Yeah, I think there's nothing wrong with getting that point across. You don't have to put your foot down, but you can just say like, wow, buddy, this is not a good look for you. And then everybody else knows if she does, if this girl's following you around, everyone

else at the party who's going to be the majority, like, what are you doing to this nut job? You spaz. Like, I think that could like if everyone's on the same page and like, she's not going to want to be there too long if the whole party turns on her too. So I think you could, I think you get your point across. You don't say like, well, I'm not coming if you're letting her come. I think you just, you're like, buddy, this is, this is terrible. You're sure?

Like we all, we all hate you for this right now, but sure. If that's what you got to do. And then I think just use your best judgment. It should be okay. Well done. We will have a pod for you on Fridayiday thanks to steve thanks to kyle thanks to cliff ryan rossola podcast We'll be right back. agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit fanduel.com forward slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, and Virginia. Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 in Arizona 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org forward slash chat in Connecticut, 1-800-9-WITH-IT in Indiana, 1-800-522-4700 or visit ksgamblinghelp.com in Kansas, 1-877-770-STOP in Louisiana.

Visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland, visit 1-800-GAMBLER.NET in West Virginia or call 1-800-522-4700 in Wyoming. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-800-8-HOPE-NY.