Tuesday on 2 Pros and a Cup of Joe, Jonas and LaVar look back on the good ol’ days of hard hits and playin’ in the streets. Rodgers believing this is his last year is not what Steelers players and fans want to hear. Plus, The Old P, Petros Papadakis talks about the transition of football from a gladiator sport to a more health conscious product.
This is the best of two pros and a couple. Joe with LaVar arings and rating win and Jonas Knocks on radio.
Good morning bar Hello Jonas Knocks, I mean otherwise known as Drack. I got a duo. I was thinking about you this morning. I was, all right, So I was working out clothes on or off on unfortunately, all right, well listen, that could be arranged.
Don't you come in here telling me you was thinking about me. Okay, don't you do that.
H So all right, So, so I was watching on televisionhile I was working out this morning.
Was an old NFL game. I mean we're talking Neil O'Donnell on the angle. Oh okay, so Bengals Lions, old NFL game, and I saw some guy on a punt return get clean lit out all the way lit. There wasn't even a thought of it being a penalty. Well that's what people looked for. It wasn't even a thought like literally, nobody looking around to see if the flight, you know, a player like looks around at all, They're for sure going to call a flag on that. Nothing, not even not even the ten highlights you used to see back then. We're all big hits. I got annihilated, and there was nobody, nobody, It didn't even occur to anybody that that could be a possibility. Nobody could fathom that would be a penalty. And it was some guy getting wiped out on a punt return, not looking. Everybody wanted to see it. Yes, people still want to see it, if they're being honest. I want to see it. They showed it immediately. I want to see dudes getting blown up. Man, Well, they don't want to get blown up. Don't get blown up. It's Rubbernecker mentality. Yeah, man, you know you like get hard? Are you got a you got yes, it's true, not rubber necka, but you you uh, you stop to look at whatever is happening, and if there's an accident, if there's some you know, some sort of a I try and not watch street fights that come up on the algorithm on Instagram or anything like that. I try not to, but you almost have to watch it twice. If it's a short reel that goes for you know, fifteen seconds, I'm good for two of those like that'll lead up thirty seconds of my day. And then I realized, well, that's going to throw everything off and you see those are the most viewed clips for the most part. But it was funny because we've talked about just what the NFL used to be, yeah, and what it is now, and I'm watching that play going nobody even considered There was celebrations, there was high fives, guys were guys were you know, dapping it up, not even a thought that that was going to be a penalty. Differ different NFL these days. It was a different NFL then and it is a different one now. But you know, evolution happens. People want to be responsible for making the game better, leaving it better than what they found it. And I get it.
I mean, you're you're making safety more of a priority, you know. You know, what would be even more interesting to me would be to hear the back end conversations of producers of the of the the football games, the the GMS, the coaches back then versus those conversations, Now, what do you think they would oh bruh, oh, it would I think it would be And and you know what's crazy about it, I'll say this, it would probably be the same way as a microcosm. You know, football is a microcosm of the entire hole of our society. I guarantee you it would be glaring in comparison, just like normal people of today versus normal people from that era of time. The conversations behind closed doors would be wild, just.
What they were, what they would allow in a game with what you didn't think about, what was normal, what was commonplace. I feel like you're made to think more now than you ever have. And while I say thinking is a is a wonderful thing, it isn't for everybody. Thinking is not for everybody, you.
Know, So it would be It would just be interesting if some of the people back in those days had to fit into these days, and even more interesting people of these days trying to fit back in those days. Like can you imagine? Kids really don't even go outside anymore?
Bro? Like we I would not allow my kid outside, and I live in a dope community. Wouldn't allow her outside if she's not if she's not monitored or inside of the gate. Oh yeah, she's not going outside. We were going from Burrow to Burrow. We get on me and my brother, we get on our bikes or catch the bus. And now I mean we're like what eleven what do they call lock key kids or latch key latch key kids. Yeah, but we weren't. We weren't really latch key kids. We just kids. Just moved around back then. Like it wasn't just sitting on a device. It wasn't sitting on your cell phone. It wasn't like you were. Life was different.
Man.
When I take my son out because he loves baseball and we go, literally go every day, and he's four years old, I I've never and I mean never seen anybody at the park when we arrived to play baseball that we've got to like wait for them to finish in order for us. Brobody's there. We had and it's summertime, it's all throughout the year, nobody's there.
Ever, we had street games all the time. Baseball it was woofleball, woofleball, street hockey.
You could you could join a pickup game, like, hey, you guys need to play. We used to play Smear. The rhymes with smear or free for all, Free, free for all. Yeah, but the first one was the name smear the Okay, so you said different time, different time. Imagine saying that now, Oh they're coming to get you.
They come.
What you mean, We're just gonna play this game die forerd worse, Oh daily, Oh yeah, it's it's it is wild man. You get out there and nobody's there. It's just it's just so it's just this day and age, it's just so different. Like it's just so different. Do you realize that gym class back in the day was it was modern, It was it was patterned and modeled after basic training, because they were basically preparing kids to be able to go to basic training. Like your gym class. Physical education was for you literally to be getting your body in shape and getting it acclimated to being able to do the things that you would do if you had to go to the military. Wasn't there the presidential fitness stuff that you were supposed to test for that was like nationwide. Yes, yeah, yeah, everyone had to like you had to be able to pass it. Now now, and this is the wildest thing I've ever heard. I remember that, this is the wildest thing I've ever heard. You used to have to be able to run the mouth. It was required the chins and pull up yest Oh, I remember that, all right, But it's great. But here's what's crazy. Here's what's crazy.
And like like these kids should be ashamed of themselves. I ain't gonna lie like you should be yourself. The only guaranteed A that I knew I was going to get in school, Jim, I knew, Jim, I count that as an A.
People are failing gym class must be nice. I had to go on the gas to get a be minus. People are failing gym class. How okay?
And when you're able to explain that one to me, then we'll maybe starting down the road of some of the things that need to change in today's society. I believe progression is great, right, I believe evolving is great. But some things you just can't. You just really can't lose the essence of what some of these things represent. And I tell you what missing out like not getting Everyone should get an A in gym class. I don't care how athletic you are. It's just the effort. People are failing, Jim. That's crazy, it's crazy.
Yeah, But they're great on an iPad though, you know what I mean, Like, they're great. And by the way, you can make gym class pass. You make the time pass very easily. You just listen to us on the iHeartRadio app. There you go, like, listen to the podcast. There's always a way out here. I mean, gone are the good old days when you could just call people out for their laziness. Oh don't you. You could say firing, he'd be fired, suspend it on leave and then fire you slovenly, sloppy boy.
Imagine you told a kid, well, go ahead and jump, go ahead and jump, let's go. I just you know, I don't know, man. Anyway, I don't know how we got on that tangent because we were talking about football highlights and I saw a football highlight of a guy getting blown up on kickoff as well. Ironically, coincidentally, I don't know these phones and these TVs like are studying our brain waves and all this stuff because on God the minute, I think is something that as pops up on my social media. I don't know how that works. I don't know why that is, but I saw that as well. I saw a kickoff the other day and I posted it. I was like, imagine this was football, you know, and it's just times have really changed, man, Like I would say, in some instances, some cases, really the only true football that you really watch anymore in terms of the physicality of it is between linemen. Like that's really it. And that's even that. I mean, you gotta think when I was playing ball, and it was way worse, like Deacon Jones and all of them. You go back to them days with Meil Blunt and all of them. They were close lining people. They were head slapping people. Deacon Jones was giving a dude concussions every single play because he come off the ball and just slap them in their air hole. That's why he was getting all them sacks. People don't realize that. But when Deeke came off the ball, he slap you in the head, right right in your air hole. And and and that was how he got around.
He was power slapped before power slapping dudes.
Dudes, Yes, it's like straight power slapping dudes didn't have to have the ball for you to close line them. So dudes like Mail Blunt and and uh Night Train Lane and and and you know, uh Lester from from the Raiders, they used to run around just close lining dudes.
Oh it wasn't wasn't his nickname Lester. That's I didn't use it though.
Yeah, well that mean, you know, because of the way he can't but think about it.
You can't even say that. You can't even say what the tank tops are anymore.
And I always thought that I never even thought two seconds about it saying it, and you just never thought about it.
And you can't even say it. You got say tank top? What do you mean? Wife beater? Can't believe you said?
Do we have to dump that? Is that a dumpa bull offense? I'm sure there's some people out there that still say it. Probably I remember a word we used to use in the in the playground when we were younger in grade school. And I'll tell you what, I honestly believe you could like get a citation for saying it now as easy as that word rolled off the tongue. And I ain't talking about the N word. I'm talking about the F work and people used to say it and not the one that ends with K ends with a T. And people used to say it and and and It's what's crazy to me is how it today's culture and society, how there's been such strong lines drawn and connected to certain words where it didn't even like when we used to say we didn't say it because of that. We said it because it was funny, Like it was funny to call somebody that, Like you call people names like oh, don't be mean. At school, like all right, you start to learn social cues, you start to learn how to communicate and do things and whatever. But it was like it just seemed like just like football, man, it was just it just seemed better. It just seemed better back then. And maybe that's what everybody says because that's your experience growing up. But honestly, like I can't sit there and look at some of these correlations, Like our society is soft as hell at this point if you ask me.
You know it is. It was just less complicated. There just wasn't as much. You didn't have to always think about what could you just did, so there wasn't a well, god, you know all of these you know, terrible things could happen, or I could get in trouble for this, or I could do and look, some of that needed to change. It's not saying that everything was perfect, but it does feel like people are more likely to be overly cautious. You can find outrage and everything. Yeah, everything you do is like I'm outraged. I'm upset that that upset me, Like it's so crazy to me, Like if you take some of these old old dudes and say, those old dudes that owned football teams in the National Football League were the jors of P Diddy's trial, Well, they say, why are we even here? Why are we here? Why are we here? What are you doing to this? Man? I did that last night? Come on, what it's a car and a man diaper on? Where do you think he got that idea from any woman that's willing to take my dependence off and go to work as a woman for me, Like, I just I don't know. I just feel like the times have changed so much, man, And even though I still get excited for football. Like workout culture, It's interesting because workout culture is very real now. It wasn't.
Workout culture was like limited to a few people, and people would get excited about him, like Walter Payton, workout dude. You know, Jerry Rice, workout dude. Like there were certain dudes and they would highlight them working out. That's common now, that's like it's like, Oh, you don't work out like that, you don't do specified skilled training, you don't do this, you don't have a personal training A coach, A personal coach, I coach, how I was a high school head coach, and I had a kid wasn't even that good, had a person or had a private coach, and every time I would tell him to do something, he referenced his coach. I'm like, well, if you want to play on this team that's coached by me, you probably should listen to the way I'm telling you to do it. Otherwise I'm not going to trust you to put you out there. But the kid wasn't even throwing the ball. He was taking sacks. These quarterback coaches teach these kids these days to take sacks instead of throwing the ball away because it messes up there.
QB RATINGA. This is high school. Brady's talked about that, man, protect what is it? Protect the rating?
This is high school? Like, kid, this is going to be the last time you play ball. What are you protecting your rating for? Who are you going to tell twenty years, thirty years from now that I had a quarterback rating of ninety nine. Meanwhile you had three completions for minimum yards.
What the hell is wrong with that's incomplete? What the hell is wrong? I don't know, man. You you sprung like the president saying they don't know what they're having doing the SoundBite running you talking about seeing when guys used to hit this funny man. It just it's just it triggered something to me. I'm sorry, everyone, I'm sorry. You know what.
I'm not sorry if I offended you because it's how I feel. But you know, it is kind of early, so there you go. Good morning.
Be sure to catch live editions of Two Pros and a Cup of Joe with Brady Quinn, LeVar Arrington and Jonas Knox weekdays at six am Eastern three am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio II.
Hi, this is Jay.
I'm the producer of the Paul an Toni Fusco Show. Usually in these promos they asked you to listen to the show. I'm here to ask you please don't listen to the show. The hosts are two apps morons who have the dumbest takes on sports magical. Don't listen to the show so it can get camp.
What theol Listen to the Tony Fosco Show on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcast.
He's Still Moving, Lvar's guy Aaron Rodgers was on The Pat mcavie Show, starring aj Hawk, and he did all but confirm that this is the grand finale of his illustrious career.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is it, you know. That's why we just did a one year deal. You know, this was really about finishing with a lot of love and fun and peace for the career that I've had, and I've played twenty freaking years.
It's been a long, long run.
I've enjoyed it.
And what better place to finish than in one of the cornerstone franchises of the NFL with Mike Tomlin and a Greig group of leadership and great guys in the city that you know expects you to win.
You know what I wonder because I don't think anybody's surprised that this is it for him. I think that was the expectation, the understanding that, yeah, this is a one year deal. That's why he signed a one year deal. And almost certainly he's going to go out play as best he can and then just call it a career and disappear into the night, so to speak. But I do I wonder if tell me what you wonder? If he had his say, based on his experience in New York with the Jets. Would he have still left Green Bay? Because what he's saying is, I want to go out with peace, with an illustrious organization, with one of the true cornerstones of the National Football League, which is basically the Packers, yet in the AFC, and I wonder if, and we've talked about this before, that two year circus with the Jets made him realize even more, Yeah, it's not like this and other places.
I remember a moment in my career. I was balling against the Eagles, balling, having a dope ass game, and this play took place where Donovan McNabb gets flushed out and I'm running him down and he makes it out of bounce and Andy Reid says to me, while I'm turning around, getting old, La, getting old. I turned to looked down. I was like, you, you know, f you coach, and we both laughed and I went trotting back to jogging back to the huddle. But what makes that relevant in this moment was or is the fact that you stated would he have stayed in Green Bay? You know, there's always the things that coaches see because of how closely, if they're the good coaches, how close they watch and look and evaluate the talent that's on the team. Aaron Rodgers wasn't going to stay in Green Bay because Aaron Rodgers wasn't going to be the starting quarterback of the green Bay Packers for much longer.
He didn't.
I don't think.
I think a person like Aaron Rodgers in his mind, his heart of heart, he knew to get out of there, and he made it a little messy. He made it a little ugly because he knew what the writing was on the wall. So it wasn't about him being able to stay. It was about him being able to finish up his career the way he wanted to finish up his career. And that's why I think he didn't stay in Green Bay, not because he didn't want to stay in Green Bay. It's like how you guys treat me like this when I am Green Bay, Like I am the guy, this is my team. How you guys going like you guys have been trying to find a quarter back to replace me instead of giving me the weapons that I need as the quarterback of the Green Bay Packers.
Handwriting was on the wall. The bigger question.
That SoundBite from Aaron Rodgers leaves with me, is that all of the conversations surrounding the Pittsburgh Steelers, this is the type of responses you want from your incoming starting quarterback. This is it just want to finish it out the way that you know, I'd like to finish it out with peace and da da da. And you know I've been playing for how long he say twenty years or somebody he's twenty plus years? This is the guy, Like, this is the guy you want. Like this is like to me, this has like Manny pakiaw written on it, like why are you Why can't you just let the gang go? If you're at this point in your career where you feel this way, where that's the way you've almost given your that's almost you can wrap that into a retirement speech when he retires and you listen to what he has to say. I can guarantee you some of the things he said in that answer that response is going to be in his retirement speech. I just find it interesting that in a year where the year before it was a tremendous miss with the quarterbacks that you brought in, both of them were one year deals, and we're starting quarterbacks elsewhere around the league prior to coming to Pittsburgh. You're going to place your reputation, the chances of the team, the fans, the fans feelings, so on and so forth, the sales, the relevance of the franchise. You're placing that on the arm and the shoulder of a man who's already telling you I'm done.
Yeah, good luck. I mean, if it works out the I guess the idea that he's going to play with a sense of urgency and he's going to play with it all, let it all hang out, because literally it's all going to be gone after this. If you feel confident about it, then you roll with that. But where this Pittsburgh Steelers team is where? In respect to Mike Tomlin for making a decision, it's a big decision and it's going to have large implications if you ask me much respect for him, you know, making the decision to do it. Maybe it pays dividends, But if it doesn't, what's next. I think there's also somewhat of a decent chance that maybe this is Mike tomlins last year in Pittsburgh as well too, and I and I wonder if Mike Tomlin also sort of sees that this is either the beginning of the end or the end. And he's like, Man, if I'm going out, I just want to go out on my terms. I want to go out with Aaron Rodgers quarterback. I don't want final season. I don't want to go out with you know, because you know apparently, I mean, they could have drafted Shit or Sanders. They could have they could have taken young quarterbacks and really planned for the future, and they didn't. And I just wonder, based on the Kenny Pickett experience, based on what happened last year, Mike Tomlin's like, man, f this all all ride with a veteran who I believe and I've seen play his best in the Super Bowl that I lost ultimate years ago. That's a long time ago. But I'll take my chances with that as opposed to riding with whatever we've been trying to do or whatever we planned with at the quarterback position in the past several years. Because this isn't just a way you go back to the Kenny Pickett era. No, Man, like the last couple of years for Roethlisberger weren't great. So I just wonder if Mike Tomott also realizes Hey Man writing might be on the wall. I'd rather go out this way than than trying to go deal with a youth movement and take my chances there.
I just feel bad that I have to look at Aaron Rodgers and say this is more about his name than it is about his game today, more about his name than it is his game. I feel bad saying it. Damn, it's a leverage. This is a leverage job.
Guy got you in a Netflix documentary. You think you should a little appreciation that.
You in the Netflix? What you mean they got me in the end? Like, what you mean you're the one that's talking in that Netflix here talking about Rogers.
I just again, I just I feel as though I'd be remiss if I didn't say it, because looking at it from with a critical I I just don't understand how you think this can work. I just don't see how it can work. That's just how I feel about it. I mean, I'm not I'm not trying to be cynical about it or you know, be be you know a Debbie Downer, you know, but I just don't see how it's gonna work. I mean, Week one is gonna be sweet though, Steelers Jets, you know, I mean, you know he's gonna have something if they were.
It's it's like, if they win the game, don't you expect them to beat the New York Jets? Like I feel like I feel like you're gonna get a false sense of whatever it is by whoever wins that game. The New York Jets wins that game, that's a false sense of what do you think the New York Jets are gonna be?
Do we have any sort of game show music here? We're gonna We're gonna try and see what we got here for mister LeVar Arrington, all right, what would you get right now? Courtesy of our friends at DraftKings. What would you guess the spread is for Week one Steelers at Jets? Who do you think is favored?
I would say today the Steelers are favorite, and I would say three points three and a.
Half LeVar Arrington, that is correct. The Pittsburgh Steelers are a three point favorite. What I'm talking about six.
Picks is right sticks picks, not just bad.
Have you picked right? You picked the spread?
I think they when they did the spread for that game, it was a hurry up and get to the next one.
Damn damn, Like what Cardinals Saints.
Yeah, sure, I just I don't know, man, I don't know. And if I'm the Pittsburgh stay, if I'm a player on the Pittsburgh Steelers and I'm on the defensive side of the ball, even if I'm a receiver, I'm I'm like, I just hope he can do it.
And if he can do it, I hope I hope he can last. You act like Aaron Rodgers is my truck. We're just hoping he makes it in just hoping he makes it, man, Listen, We're just hoping it gets there. That's that's you know, fingers crossed.
The man went out on the first play, third, third play, first play.
What we'll play with it?
His first play, fourth play, fourth place, Yeah, his fourth play.
Yeah, okay, I was three off my bat. You gotta ride it up next time.
I don't know, man, I just you know, again, I kind of feel I feel a little bad feeling this way, and I really do believe that if if this were you go wrong, it's going to cost Mike Tomlin his gig. I really believe that. And you're placing that amount of pressure and weight on this season with that decision. Maybe it's the same with anything he does. Like you said, maybe the handwriting is on the wall. Maybe the time, you know, the sands of time are running out. I don't know. I think he's a hell of a coach. I think he's an even better person. And I just don't know that I would stake my claim on what my last campaign or potential last campaign as a head coach on somebody who you can clearly hear in his voice that this is this is it. This isn't a grand finale for a community that he was drafted in and grew up in and they love him and revere him and admire him. And he's going to be a first ballot Hall of Famer for this team, in this community and everything that he's established. This is a one year deal. You know what, This makes him a mercenary. He's a mercenary. He's a paid gun, damn right, hired gun. If a hired gun doesn't get it done, he doesn't care as much as if he if he was a part of the army.
Yeah, he's gonna go out slinging it though, Okay, slinging it.
Okay, it could work out or it could not be sure to catch live editions of Two Pros and a Cup of Joe with Brady Quinn, LeVar Errington, and Jonas Knox weekdays at six am Eastern, three am Pacific.
It is a tradition here on this show. Every Wednesday at this time we celebrate the old pe Petros, Papa Vegas, the co host of the Petros and Money Show, which you can hear on the Blowtorch and five seventy l E Sports Fox college football analyst and our good buddy here Petros. Good morning, Hello, pet.
Morning, Hello, Hello, hello to everybody.
How you doing.
I'm okay.
I guess okay, I could dig that pee. What do you think about LaVar and I his new show name Black and Drack.
What do you think about it? Yeah?
I mean, I don't know when Brady's gonna come back. You're gonna have to add a horse.
Dang, dangang. All right, So, Pete, we were talking about just you know, the old school I I saw a clip and I was watching this morning of an old NFL game and they showed some guy getting lit up on a crackback block on a punt return, and it just got us talking about like old school football, th like how often do you find yourself looking at old highlights and going, well, that wouldn't be allowed today.
I don't know, I mean a lot. I guess it was really hard to be uh calling games through those rule changes, if you know what I'd mean, Like, it was really hard because when I first started calling games, everything was pretty much there. You know, all the crackbacks, all the cut blocks, everything, setting up a guy on the end of the line and cracking back on him, not even in like a special team situation, but you know, just just lining a guy up and cracking him back in the way that a play is designed, which used to be very kosher. We would try not to run and practice that much against our own guys unless it was somebody.
We didn't like.
But that stuff was all in play when I first started calling games, and then they started to litigate that stuff out of the game.
And I'm not here to say that they're wrong to do it.
I think that I think that they've made football safer. I think I'm not exactly sure. I mean, everybody's still big, strong and fast as hell, and there's still a lot of really really intense collisions out there, but a lot of that stuff has gone and it was really hard for the first few years to watch somebody wear a call like a fifteen yard call that was considered to be good football and it would change games, you know, it would make a first down on a drive and something like that, or herd a drive and heard a team. But it was really hard for me growing up with football the way I grew up and being a run game defense kind of oriented guy son of a defensive coordinator, it was hard to see that stuff litigated out and to be like, well, okay.
That's it.
First down in twenty five now, I mean, that was that was I remember, I had a visceral reaction kind of to not liking it.
But at the same time, you have to call the game.
You can't just sit there and be a little bit about it for the next three or four series just because you didn't like something that happened in the game, and you're just there to call the game. You're not you're not there to tell people how to feel about it. And it took me a while.
It did.
I mean, I don't know if you if you wanted that kind of a deep answer from me, but it did.
It took me that.
I think that's one of the hardest things well, being on radio with me too, and then COVID and then all the other stuff happening racial divide and riots. That stuff's not easy either because people are always asking you to take one side of the other and why haven't you spoken out about this?
And why haven't you spoken about that?
That's a challenge that that's been a challenge and in work as well. But one of the biggest challenges to me was was was dealing with the way they changed the game, calling the games and being able. And you know the other thing that would bother me about it is you'd get people that never played that never played. And that's okay. I mean if we if if people that were I are the only people that were interested in football, are people that had looked through a face mask before in their lives, we wouldn't have jobs. So it's our job to interpret the sport to others in many ways, and I get that, But to have people that have never played people on our cruise, you know, people in the production people play by play guys.
Their reaction, Oh, this this is savage, this is terrible. How could you allow that? Look? He should be the guy should be bad for the game forever once he.
Don you know, I mean I used to call a lot of I think we've talked about it before, LeVar. I used to call a lot of Vonte's perfects game in high school and college. And I love that player. I mean, I knew he was crazy, but I love the player. I love the way he played defense, and I was inspired by it, and I'd get in arguments.
With people this guy, this should either be literated out of the games.
You know, listening to guys like that who don't understand what the sport is like, who you're out there playing with, and what you're willing to do for your teammates and what you're willing to take for your teammates, and how quickly everything happens is usually the main point I like to make. But it was hard for me to have people sitting there telling you what's right and wrong with the sport who have never played the sport. So it took a lot of adjustment. But one person that I'm really really grateful for is Mike Pereira. You know, because Pereira, you guys see him. You know, people see when I see you guys, I mean listeners, you know, they're used to seeing him sitting with Trom Brady or Troy Aikman and Joe Buck and now it's Brady and Kevin. But either way, they're used to seeing him on the big NFL games. But people don't realize we have Perera on our games too. So he's sitting there all day and night, Saturday night, Friday night, Thursday night, if we have a game, and if it's not Pereira, it's Dean Blandino, who's excellent and great to work with as well. And that the fact that those guys are there. And I really love the way Pereira does it because he's not an over officious jerk about it.
He's not.
He just wants to be able to explain it to people and not argueing this and that. And you just got to get out of the way and let him go. And it helps so much, and it takes you and your bias or whatever you feel about it out of it, and he really helps. I mean, I remember doing a game in Oklahoma State and it ended up being the game of the week. They're playing Central Michigan and there was a big controversy at the end, big controversy about grounding. They gave the ball back to an untimed down to Central Michigan and they were like sixty yards out and I was like, those guys arms are not good enough to make it to the end zone.
I was right.
It caught it on the ten and pitched it to a dude and he ran it in and it was bedlam. The pardon to term in a tea boon picking stadium tea boon. People in the Big twelve office that were supposed to be in the replay office did not know the rule. The officials at the game did not know the rule. Pereira is the only guy that knew the rule. So everybody in the building was an idiot except for us on the broadcast, and that was only because of Mike Pereira. So stuff like that has softened me over the years. But yes, to make a long story short, I was very, very disturbed by the rule changes when they first started happening and thought that they were changing the sport completely. And maybe you look at it right now and with all the targeting stuff and stopping the game and looking at it and what we're all used to, maybe they did change the sport completely. But I was able to adapt to it. I guess just you know, to continue to make a living.
Can I ask just a question to both you guys, and do you believe do you trust in your abilities that you could have adapted to the newer football and excel like the way you did back when you were playing or were you meant for that time and this new era would not have been a good fit for it.
I think LeVar would be fine.
Why you say that.
You're one of the best linebackers in the history of college football, But I mean for me, yeah, I'd have been fine. I mean, you know, I just ran the ball. I mean, you know, you do what the coaches tell you. And college football is so coach oriented and everything is so I mean, once the game starts, it's kind of chaotic, but there's a lot of there's a lot of instruction going on. So it really has more to do with the way they teach the game. Part of the problem in college and part of the reason we have such intense collisions and people don't realize this is the hashmark placement. I mean the hash mark placement between college and football, I mean pro football. They'd make the games so different, and that's why all the innovations in the sport generally come out of the college level because you have innovative coaches, sometimes in very obscure places, playing with that extra space that you get when you're on the boundary. And that's how we got chip Kelly stuff. That's how we got leeches stuff. That's how we got Gundy stuff, how mummies stuff, all the different things that have been innovated in the sport over the years. It's because of that extra space. You can also hide a white guy safety on the boundary. Am I wrong? You know, and that guy can get to you know that guy, but you know Iowa State. Yeah, they can put a guy on the boundary and say, wow, okay, this guy can you know he can make fifteen tackles in a game for us and not get exposed in coverage because we only play him where there's not a lot of field. I mean in the NFL. Yeah, when they get tackled on the hash, there's more room to the other side, but much less.
So.
What I'm trying to say is there's no there's no way to get around people in the NFL.
You have to go kind of through them.
Everybody's like, oh, the guys are so fast because it's like, well, yeah, they're all They're also going a less amount of space. So in college you get people really opening up their hips and sprinting to the sideline, which creates vertical run lanes, and that does really create big collisions because of the space and because the players are just so reckless and kind.
Of don't know what they're doing.
The other element that I really realized in college was I didn't care about the other guy on the other side of the line of scrimmage.
Ye, like, I didn't care if his leg fell off.
Literally, yeah, you know.
I do now, But back then, I I wanted those guys to be to suffer. Arizona State, whoever we were playing. I hated my opponent, hated our opponents, and you didn't know them, and you didn't care if their head flew clean off. And in the NFL, guys, you know, everybody's making money. People tend to want to stay off each other's legs. People understand the value of being able to stay out there and playing the game in a cleaner way. In college, we didn't care. We wanted everybody to die, seriously, because we were out there suffering. So more space, more speed, innovations and the sport idiot young people playing.
And the rules changing.
All of those things have happened over the last few years that we've been discussing. But yeah, the space on the field I think leads to bigger collisions at the college level as.
Well, speaking of rules and different things at the college level. Obviously, Hanging got an opportunity to talk to you since the House versus the NCAA deal, you know, has continued to progress. How you feeling about it? I mean, do you feel as though you know that that decision taking place and now being official, that there is the amount of money that the universities will you know, have the the option of how to use it on on the student athletes, Like, do you feel like it can improve college football?
Is this? Is this going in the right direction?
How?
How are you viewing it?
It has to be there.
I mean, I think it'll be chaos, but that's not any different than what we deal with. And I think it will probably end a lot of the the fun, smaller school type of stuff in the sport.
Maybe I'm not really sure.
I'm not I don't think anybody really knows hows how's how it's going to look, because I mean most people if you just talk to casual people on the st that think that they're sports fans, and they are, and they'll say, well, college is great now. All the players are getting paid, right, It's like no, And even if they are getting paid, they're not getting paid by who they should be getting paid by. I mean, the universities are still shoveling these billion dollar TV deal revenues straight into their coffers without any play. All they pay is the coaches. I mean that's the only thing they have to pay. And for the stadium and all that stuff. The one thing that's the biggest commodity in the sport the players and the guys between the lines competing that make up your college football program. They're the ones that aren't getting paid and they're the ones that generate that that billion dollars in.
Revenue or whatever it is. So it's always been backwards.
The same people that we've had paying the players under the table for many years, of course, are the same people paying them above board now. So university here are still making out like bandits, although they now have these nil collectives they have to deal with. We are in a new territory where you know how the NFL is in a new territory where all the second rounders are holding out, right, Well, we're in new territory in college football because Wisconsin's nil collective is suing Miami's an IL collective and that's never happened before.
I think it's over a dB after.
Signing his deal, Bailey I think is his name, so and and that's unprecedented. So now you know, we're starting to get a little bit more uniformity and like, hey, you're here, you can't go. You know, the portal is closed for you. You know that kind of stuff. And I mean, I'm not smart enough. It's obviously an intelligent question. I'm not smart enough to tell you what it's all going to look like when the bureaucrats get done with it, but it.
Happens, I'm not sure the smart people will be able to answer that right now to yeah, to be honest.
With you, But I will say this philosophically, with so much money being made, I mean, there's always been a lot of money being made in college football by the universities, and it's always been a little bit of a well kept secret. But you know, in the last twenty years, or whatever. The pile of money that they just keep putting behind them or shoving under the carpet looks like you're hiding like a giant camel under the carpenters. Right, there's so much money, so that the money's got to be used for something other than paying players and building for I mean, paying coaches and.
Building for self homes.
Yeah, it's seriously, it should be used. It should be used to pay the players. So I mean to say that they're trying to get that done and not say that they're going in the right direction would be wrong. I feel as if they're going in the right direction. But I don't trust bureaucracy. You know, the bureaucracy of the government's one thing, and then you get all these diversities that are filled with bureaucrats, and it's kind of hard to figure how things are going to end up. But I do believe, Yeah, we we have to pay players some kind of baseline salary.
We need, you know, some kind of uniformity in that.
But we can't even get people to agree on how many freaking conference games they got to play.
So we'll we'll see.
Petros, we were talking about deance.
To Jonas's point the other day, our off season sucks the worst, the worst, absolutely sucks.
It's miserable. It's a portal nil automatic qualify for.
The Dodgers were throwing Japanese parties with every guy they signed. You know, in the NFL, you know, people are hugging Roger Goodell like people like him, and they don't you know, at the draft. Everybody's got the off season figured out.
But I did like the the Aesahi read during the Dodger broadcast on the blow Tour yesterday.
Though Jim Kates has got every every Japanese read in the world.
Green tea. He really does.
So we were talking about then she sushi ready made sushi at the Rouse Star.
Yeah.
And by the way, I say, you guys a pick of it. I saw it at Ralph's. I said, you guys don't know about place?
Then she.
Do you guys know about the sushi place that was on the the what is it stars? The Midas not Midas? What what are Michelan Michelin Stars.
They took them off because it's in a train station and it's so exclusive that they don't care how much money you have. It's like they're booked out for months, you know what I'm talking about. I forget his name.
I don't know, but I know a friend of mine got a Michelin Star, the first Michelan Star for a restaurant in the South Bay. And he's in a little strip mall. He'll serve anybody, but it was it's not a sushi place.
I don't even understand the Michelin star stuff. I didn't even know that was a thing until Lee brought it up.
When I was a kid, you know, my father's restaurant, we had the Zaggat Uh, the Zaggut ratings, you know, the Zaggat book.
That was a thing. Maybe some people know it.
It was kind of like the Thomas Guide for restaurants when we were younger, and that was a big deal. I mean we were we were a good We were a great dinnerhouse. So we got invited to the banquets and stuff with all the other you know, like Spago and all the other Wolfgang Pocking. Yeah, he was their chef. He was an old friend of the restaurant for many years. A lot of those guys.
And uh, the guy, Yeah, he's a really nice, super dude.
I mean, I grew up around a lot of those guys, so we would, you know. And I was even nominated as a waiter many years ago. So uh so that was the stuff we went to. But I don't think we were artees andal enough to be a Michelin restaurant. But I don't remember when the Michelin Star thing started. I'm sure it's been happening for a long time, but I only started hearing about it maybe about twenty years ago.
It's in Tokyo and the guy's name is Seku Yabashi Jiro. Yeah, keeps old Yero.
I could ask my little brother. My little brother is is almost like a Japanese guy.
It's like the best sushi restaurant. He's a Japanese Greek in the world.
He is Dimitri's actually very Uh my little brother is well, he's very Greek. In fact, he sings in Greek in church every week. But he's he's married to a Japanese woman. There two little girls who go to Japanese school.
Uh so, what would that mix be called?
Hop along?
I guess anybody who's half Asian they call him a poppa.
Wait what wait?
You guys have never heard the term hoppa? Oh? Hell? I had a friend named Happy McGrath because he was half a dad.
It's a term uh for uh racially mixed children, usually if you're like half Hawaiian or half Japanese or all.
My son's half white, half Mexican, is he he doesn't count.
It's just a damn.
Damn. It doesn't count. Sorry, doesn't need to.
Maybe it does count. I don't know, but.
We call him noxians what we call him.
That's fine. But he's also half vampire, don't.
Yeah, I don't know how I come home. He's hanging upside down again.
You gotta fly a nubis air like they did on a True Blow. But I, uh, yeah, they speak Japanese beautifully, and uh.
He knows the culture very well. He lived there for a few years.
So I will ask him about it. About that rest too. It's a it's in a train station. He'll know it well.
All the you know, all the dorks around here, you know that come and work for Fox. You know they're like you been to Sugarfish? I love sugar fish? And what does sugarfish with? One of the Fox executives of.
Gunfired, All right, it was great, jeez all, what do sugarfish with? Joy Taylor. She's so awesome. She has such great hot takes.
We're sure kidd about X at the old p He is Petro's papadagcas. I'll see you later on today, Petros.
Yes, thank you. Jonas.
Jonas is going to be with me today and tomorrow on A five seventy.
Yeah.
I appreciate the invite.
Do you want to be a co host?
I mean you've never asked me. You never asked me. How long is your show for today?
Yeah?
Two and a half hours?
Man, You've never asked no.
No, Yeah.
The co host list is.
Expansive.
Do you want to come in and work another three hours of radio?
Hey? Bro, I like talking radio especially.
Will you drive to Burbank?
Uh? That's what you see? You got me there? Damn, damn try no.
We can try it out sometime. But but Jonas is coming today. The Dodgers are in Colorado, so we'll start.
It too sweet, Okay, all right, So Petro, so you can get them, don't I mean, don't be that guy, I mean LaVar, don't be like.
Hey, you can play me to the boundary. You know, I'll run out there. Now.
You can put me in the middle of the defense, you know what I mean, and we.
Can cover up both guards and you can just run into.
There you go. Yeah, I'll come mess with you. Well if I can use my comrades.
If we do bring you in, I will make sure both guards are covered, okay, so you can run free.
Perfect, they're not stemming to you.
Perfect back or backer eleven eleven eleven.
There he is? There is how much we're gonna do? Did I ever tell you?
We played Penn State jonas Uh the game the first game that they were that they had without LeVar, So two thousand was the first two thousands in the NFL, and we played him in the first game of two thousand. So you're watching all the film from ninety nine, there's there's nothing to look at from two thousand, and our coaches had to reiterate to us every time the film came on. Listen, this guy's not there anymore. Don't worry about this.
That's pretty cool, Like god, damn nice, all right, all right.
They got some other guys, but this one is not there.
That's how we felt when we played Arizona. We were looking at Chris mccallis, We're like, oh, he was great, Like yeah, no, he's not there anymore. Great, we got a corner. Yeah, we got a chance, the.
Big corner like Albert lewis out there.
Dale Carterale Carter, Yeah, I appreciate to come right, Patrick, all right, Well you know I'll be sure to listen to you guys today.
Yeah, Ben st Yeah right there he is the great Petro today, just the posted d Petro some money show which you can't hear on the glow Torch, a five seventy la Arts Fox college football analyst get him on X at the old p But that one of the greatest college football linebackers of all time. Look at you? Whoa whoa? Now look at you? You were unaware of that?
No, I knew that.
Just it's fun to reiterate that some people know, just in in case people. I was somebody in a previous life.
Man.
Then I was reduced to doing radio with you and Q.
Damn where are they now?
He's doing radio. He doesn't even get to go to Burbank. They fill the bar sitting next to Count Chocolate three in the morning.
Town