Hi everyone, I'm Mitch Goldich and welcome back to another Friday edition of our mm QB week in Review pod. I'm joined by the same group as last week. It's me, Jenny Frentis and Albert Breer. We are once again without Connor Or, who was a late last minute cancelation, but we won't hold it against him. That's fine. We still love Connor. But Jenny and Albert, how are you guys doing right? How you doing, Mitch? I'm good, all good here, everyone's just hanging in where Yeah, that's uh, that's about as good as we can ask for for for much of the summer that we've been doing this podcast. If you're here for the first time, this is our weekend review. We well, we start by just kind of talking about what we've been up to and what's keeping us busy during this unusual summer. But the main point of the podcast is to talk about some of the things that we've been writing and some of our news stories that are up at the m m QB and go in dive in a little bit more in depth. So we will do some of that for sure later in this episode. But why don't we start how we always do and just talk about what we've been up to. So I don't know if Albert, do you want to go first? What have you been up to this week? Yeah? Sure, I Uh, this is like it sounds like a little thing, but it really is a big thing. So you know, when we bought our house, like as this like really big basement that was meant to be finished, and it took us five years to get to the point where we were like okay, like we're gonna do it, and it's a big project, you know. So uh, this week the installation went up, which doesn't sound like a huge deal, but that's when you can actually see what the different rooms in the area of the basement's gonna look like. And so you know, I've been sort of dodging like sawing sounds and banging sounds and all that different stuff coming from the basement with everything I do with or because we're all working from home now, and so yeah, it was kind of nice to actually see things start to take shape and my kids are really excited about it. So um so yeah, like I guess that would be sort of the big breakthrough the week would be that the installation was put up in the basement. I don't know why you undersold it and said it might not be that that sounds like a big thing to me, especially like you said, everyone spending so much time at home and you and your family trying to have your own space while you're trying to get work done and stuff like that. That sounds like like major news. And when you're when you'll eventually be at the point you can work in the basement or that's where it is too, which you hit it right there, is that my my my office is going down there, so like I have like the room is going to be soundproofed, which is like I'm I'm really excited about that. Like in that like every time I you know, when we shoot like the SI videos or something or whatever, here, like there are some stops and starts for me because like my office, you just sound carries right into it. So if the dog's barking, or if you know, one of the kids is you know, like kids crying or whatever, all that comes right through. So it being soundproofed is actually gonna be pretty big for me too. Jenny, how about you? What have you been up to this week? Well, I went on a run of not watching TV for a while, but I have really dived back into Netflix recently. Um. People know that from the week Side podcast that Connor and I have been watching on Lifetime Married at First Sight, but I've also been watching some Netflix originals. UM. One of them was Indian Matchmaking, which has sparked quite a debate about the way that the characters were presented and um, different conversations have stemmed out of that. But it's a very interesting show. I flew through all eight episodes I think, and uh, our colleague Rohan Don Carney, his aunt and uncle make a cameo at the end as one of the long married couples. Wow, I didn't know that. That's awesome, pretty cool. So it's a dating show, like what it is. It's a matchmaker, so she works with clients. She lives in India, but she has so she has some clients in India, but then she's also coming to the United States um and working with clients here as well. So it's basically snapshots of different couples. The sad news is that there was a zero percent success rate for the people who were faced on the show are featured on the show. Excuse me that just teas up Season two lower expectations and then and then it'll even more powerful. Yeah, I was, I was gonna ask the same thing. Just I mean, you can get a sense from the title obviously, but the gist of the show, the format and everything, like how how long do these people spend together? You know, give us some of the details here on work, So it kind of like hops between characters, and some people's stories kind of like abruptly ended and then you have kind of had to look up what had happened to all of the couples after the show ended. So I think it depends. There are a couple of different scenarios. Um, some you see a couple of dates and then you wonder what happened. One made it all the way to the engagement process but then didn't go through with the wedding. Um. But the timeline is a little bit faster because if you're working with the matchmaker, you're not just looking for someone to date, you're looking for someone to marry. So once you agree that this is a person you would want to marry, the timeline and theory would be sped up. But a lot of the people featured, as I said, didn't even get to that point. And then no one went through with it. So just like the what was the name of the show at the beginning of Quarantine, and there was huge whether in the pods, No, the Tiger King there in the pods and they which what was that? The show's Love is Blind? That was? That was That was a very different show, obviously, but similar. I don't think any of them, No, there was one couple that made it. Netflix has really like sort of brought the heat during the Quarantine, like they like us all mysteries reboot. I actually at first it was a little slow to catch on, like to to really like like I thought, at first, I was a little disappointing, but then I finally like I started to get into it a little bit more, and then I don't know if you guys have I just started. I think it's called NYC versus the Mafia? Is that? Like, I don't know if you guys have seen it, but it was right up on my mains green when I turned it on the other day, so I just gave it a shot. And it's about how it's about how like the Mob ran New York City and the seventies, and how like these FBI informants wound up, like breaking the whole thing up, and it's like the five crime Families and all of that. So well, I can tell you I have fallen behind on TV because what I have been busy with all week is just watching a ton of basketball. Uh there is you know, obviously a lot of people are conflicted about sports coming back and what does it look like it should either, but I think it's very positive. People seem fine with this NBA bubble and obviously they're doing a great job with it. The fact that people aren't testing positive and I know there are all kinds of ethical issues and things about like you know, if you played an entire season in a bubble and people think it's okay for basketball and hockey because it's just the very end of the season and the playoffs and everything. But the bubble has been so entertaining, and for me as a huge Sixers fan, and they're a team that people were really excited about coming into the playoffs. Just like having that back in my life where I know a few times a week there's gonna be a big Sixer game on and even just checking out all the other teams and some of those big games, it has been very nice. Uh, you know, I was really sprague. I thought like I was sort of like I felt like I would be like watching an AU tournament or something right like, And I think baseball is sort of like that, like where baseball it doesn't feel like does it just doesn't like really feel like close to the real product. But I feel like I think hockey is pretty close. I think basketball is really close, so like being as good as what the normal product would be, not the same, like it's different, but it's like pretty close. Like I think they've done a really really nice job of dressing it up. In basketball, it feels like Summer League, which is appropriate for this time of year. And I love watching the Summer League games on TV, especially again as a Sixers fan. They went through that period where the pro team was awful, and so watching the summer league guys every year right after the draft was always exciting. So yeah, they've done a great job with it. The broadcasters, the like the wall of virtual fans definitely makes it a better experience than just empty seats, uh, you know, a totally empty Jim, So I'm with you. It's looked really good. And if you told me, if you told me, like the about the virtual I don't think I really even knew about the virtual fans before. But if you had told me beforehand about that, I would have been like, that's gonna be a total train wreck, and it hasn't been at all. Yeah, I'm I'm all in on the NBA restarted from I mean, I've been watching a ton of baseball too. It's good to have sports back. I know people big soccer fans are saying, you know, don't say that sports are back. Sports have been back, but uh, I am not a big soccer watcher. So the sports that I watch are back, and it's been very, very nice. And so that's what's been keeping me busy this week. Alright, let's roll in and talk about our stories. Albert. You wrote a bunch of things this week, as always, and ask you what you wanted to talk about. One thing that you mentioned that you've you've put in a couple of your columns this week the issue of college players who are opting out from the season, and you've been talking about the decision and also giving a scouting reports on some of the bigger names of guys who've done it. So do you wanna just walk us through introduced. Yeah, I mean, I just think it's fascinating. Well, first of all, like the kids that have come out so far are really really really well like highly regarded guys, and so, you know, some of the teams I've talked to her like they're sort of waiting for like the kid who shouldn't like who and I shouldn't say shouldn't because there's such deeply personal decisions, but like the kid who maybe comes out thinking he's like a first or second round pick who's actually not. Um, you know, so like I know there's some concern that that's going to happen at some point, but the kids have come out declared so far, Caleb Fairly from Virginia Tech, Michael Parsons from Penn State, and uh and Rich Bateman from Minnesota. All three of those kids are probably top half of the first round UM types of guys who you can certainly understand the risk reward ratio there. Um. I just think it's interesting because they each have their own reasons, you know, and uh, you know Caleb Farley, I thought, like to me, it was just sort of it's like the mess of college sports right now, Like where you know, I talked so like Lincoln Riley over the weekend and he mentioned how they didn't go back until a month after they were allowed to and everybody's got to wear masks everywhere, and he's relying on his doctors, you know. And then the flip side of it, you've got Caleb Farley coming out and saying, oh, it was the wild West of Virginia Tech. And so it's sort of interesting to hear how this is being handled in a very different way from school to school, and it's sort of I think, I think it colors the amount of work that the NFL put in in the whatever it was five six weeks ahead of training camp and making sure that they had uniform rules, because that would probably be what it would look like if they did, you know, like where it be if this is these were teamed by team decisions on setting policies. I mean, man, like you can imagine what that would be like. From one team to the next would probably be completely different from you know, say like and I don't know, I don't want to throw anybody under the bus here, but from one team to the next. And that's the power of having the layers union, because you have a body that's representing your rights as workers, which is where college athletes are just in a very difficult spot. You know, they're they're coming together, which has been really admirable and awesome to see groups of players and conferences come together and take a stand. But um, that's not like a you know, prescripted part of the way things work. It's not just baked into it. They have to go out of their way make that happen. It's an additional task to take on. And so I think that, Yeah, certainly the calculation for college players is a lot more difficult now, and no matter what sport or what level you're playing, I'm still just going to be a little bit uncomfortable with the fact that, like, the decisions are different for different people, right, And there's probably a lot of players, whether it's in the NFL or especially in college, who feel like they can't opt out for whatever reason. And um, so it's great to see players making that choice and feeling like they have the ability to make the choice. At the same time, I think of other people who feel, for whatever reason, um, that they can't opt out, even though they might not feel a safe Yeah, I mean it's probably reflective of America to write like that. Like I would say, like in a lot of different workplaces, is probably like that where people who are hiring the food chain more established are probably more free to take the precautions as they see fit, versus somebody lower in the food chain who feels like, if I stay away from the office for the next two months, there may not be a job for me when I come back, you know. And I think that's probably for like at the college level, certainly. I think in the pros too, Like there's probably a lot of that going on, and we're taping we should be clear, right Like we're taping this just ahead of the deadline, so we don't have all the opt outs right now. Um. But certainly, Jenny, I mean liked Avious. What was interesting seeing trade Avious White say what he said, Um, And he revealed some personal stuff on Twitter this morning, And I thought that was interesting because it's it's great that he felt free to do that. Um, it's awesome that he's you know, empowered to use his voice. It's also important to remember that he's like top five in the league at his position, so part of the reason that he can do that and part of the reason that he is like probably freed more than the next guy would be to make a decision like that is because of the sort of player he is. Yeah, and then on the flip side, he gets more criticism because of that, Right, And I think that's really the ugly side of fandom that we're seeing. That's what he referenced in his post, right, getting a lot of hateful comments for his decision. Um, and UMA's good to us that though, like right, like Jay, like you think about that, like, like, because how many guys are getting those sorts of comments. And he's got the power to push back, So when he says it, maybe it kind of illuminates because he's got the leverage to say something like that. Maybe it illuminates the situation that everybody's in and people are going to listen to him because he is a bigger name. Yeah, that's true. And we talked just before we started the podcast started recording about quarterbacks having these decisions and you want to talk about the best of the most important players, but you know, everybody is facing different decisions for all kinds of reasons. And you know, Albert, you said something about someone who opts out and it's a bad idea and then you clarified your stance. You know, anyone can opt out, you know, and they all have their own personal decisions to make. But it's true that, you know, you also just have the calculus of being a college player who might decide, you know, I don't want to play a season like this, I'm ready for the pros. We see it on a much smaller scale when guys sit out Bowl games, and you know, that argument has been going on for decades where they say, oh, that's selfish, why can't you be there for your teammates, And you know, enough high profile guys Christian McCaffrey, Leonard for Nett, whoever else, have have said, you know that, shut up, like that's ridiculous. I can make my own personal decision. And we're seeing that on a on a bigger scale with guys who might sit out an entire season, and people are just weighing so many different factors. You know, if you are the quarterback or the team captain or you know, restaurant NFL pick, it might be tough. And people are balancing decisions for their team and their teammates, and for themselves and their family, and for their future financial interests and they're just and we also we don't even know. I mean, the quarterback thing is like like you said, Like I had Brady Quinn on on my podcast earlier in the week, and he talked about that and like his own decision to leave to stay at Notre Dame for his senior year, and I asked him about like, so you know, if you're Trevor Lawrence at Clemson, or you're Justin Fields at Ohio State, or you're even like Trey Lance at North Dakota State was a very very successful FCS program, Like it's it's it's hard to separate your own personal decision from everyone else because that position is just a different dynamic, you know what I mean, Like in you wonder if an NFL quarterback, you know, based on like the length of career, the fact that everybody's relying on you, Like I just it's that that's that's interesting to me because it's just like like to some degree, those guys feel a responsibility to everybody around them, and so maybe they're not as free to make that decision, you know, like Patrick Mahomes or Russell Wilson or Lamar Jackson or Tom Brady, whoever it is, like, these guys all have the leverage that I talked about. But then the flip side of that, if your quarterback is if I walk away from here, I'm affecting a ton of people and maybe even affecting people's livelihoods. Yeah, and it's tough just imagining anyone being in that spot where that you know, this is a decision you make for yourself and your family, but feeling that sense of obligation to other people. There are just so many tough factors. Um And then just along the lines of what Jenny was saying, you know, the other thing that's interesting to me is how the pandemic seems to be speeding up a lot of things, Like there were all these conversations in college football about compensating the players and players having more of a voice and collective and some of them, you know, talking about unionizing over the years and things like that, and it just feels like there are so many trends and issues in college football, and the pandemic is showing everyone how important they are. It's sort of just like speeding up all kinds of issues where things that people already knew were there below the surface. It's just a bigger magnifying glass on all kinds of issues with the whole structure of the n C double A and and everything these players are going through. So I think, yeah, the difficult economic time and different, um, you know, different issues in every facet of our society, right, I think it really shines a light on the inequalities that exists in the system. And that's why, you know, I think you're you're seeing that a lot with different people's rights and um, pushing for a more equal society which we do not have. It'll be interesting to see what happens, because it does feel like the ball was rolling on that, like with the name, image and likeness thing in the n C A A UM. It'll be interesting to see kind of where this goes now, especially if like big chunks of the college season are gone and now all of a sudden you've got like, you know, like an economic reckoning to go long with everything else. So, Albert, you talk all the time to scouts and evaluators and personnel people. I mean, do you what kind of impact is they're going to be if there's no season or just if certain high profile guys opt out as that you know, I think it's kind of an outdated notion that they've been dinged as character red flags. I would like to think that's not going to happen at all. But just the difficulty of scouting these guys, I mean, what's it like if there's no season or half a season, or certain guys just don't play right? So like kind of study this I I, um, you know, because I've asked that question a lot the last few weeks of people I've I talked to, Um, you know, I think the best thing to do is sort of look back at last year's draft, and if you look at the top ten, really there was only one guy in the top ten who you wouldn't have said that guy is going to go really high next year, and that would have been the number one pick. Joe Burrow is probably the only one that we didn't know, this guy is going to be a very very high pick, Chase Young, Jeff Okuda, Andrew Thomas to a tongue of Alloa, Justin Herbert, Derek Brown, Isaiah Simmons, c J. Henderson. We knew all of those guys were gonna be very high draft picks. And so I think the guy the guys that affects are probably the guys further down the line, you know, and uh, you know, so you have it's it's obviously gonna affect the guys who have been at the big programs, who have been waiting behind other other people, you know, like that maybe it may have been in line to start and could be really good, but people just don't know it. So it affects them obviously, you know. But then I think when you get further down the line, it's gonna make I don't think it's gonna be as hard to It's not gonna be as hard. It's not gonna make it that much harder when you're when you're looking at the elite of the elite um. But once you get past, like the second round, I think it's gonna make things a lot more difficult on scouts because the tapes over a year old, and some of the guys are gonna be scouting might not have as much playing time. You might have guys leaving or leaving school that you know, that that that you didn't expect to leave school. You might i'd have you know, seniors who didn't play as much. But we're in line to be starters, you know. If there's just so many different factors that I think will come into play. So I don't know that it has as much of an effect on the brand names that we'll be talking about in March and April, but the guys down the line, I think certainly it's gonna make things a lot cloudier as far as you know, the NFL finding a way to get a clean evaluation all of them. Yes, sounds similar to the effect of canceling the preseason this year, where it affects guys at the loot of the roster and guys who really depend on those opportunities and ways to be seen. Speaking of the schedule for this season, Mitch from the story Today's transition right there, pretty good, right, I was just lying in Wait, Um, you wrote a story today about how the NFL could reimagine it's scheduled, basically making the point that rather than scrambling at the last minute, essentially settle for uh schedule that's modified less games but would still allow for ball to be played. I'm here to save the season. I didn't, um No, I mean the idea for this story came out of watching what a disaster MLB has been since it came back, where they put together a schedule and said, okay, we're gonna play sixty games in sixty six days, and then you've had teams with positive tests and they get shut down for a whole week, and just standings that were really funky. Yeah, where teams have played three games and other teams have played ten games. It was just since and it's sorted by winning percentage instead of games behind. It's just such a mess. And in baseball, you know that will even itself out a little bit as they play doubleheaders and more teams have games canceled and what have you. But in football, it's just hard to imagine what they would do if you get to the end of the season and say the NFC East one team is four and four and another team is, uh, you know, seven and seven, and who knows what to do then, So, you know, looking at all of their issues, I just said, you know why, if you're the NFL, I get it. The re and is to make money and have a full season. And they've all off season they've said we're confident, and they've you know, projected themselves as if everything's gonna go on is normal, even though we all know it's much more fraught than that. So just the idea of, you know, take a step back and instead of going into a season like baseball is just admit, hey, this is tough. Let's make some modifications. So my the main point I made was chopping every team schedule in half and having them play eight games each and having them all two weeks apart, and that just makes it a lot easier with the the testing and even just two weeks being in line with the quarantine period, so if a guy has a positive test, they're only gonna miss one game instead of it popping up right before a game and possibly missing two games and having all kinds of issues. It's less travel for all the teams. And then the way I built the schedule, I have the a f C and NFC alternating weeks so that you're still getting eight games every week and you're playing mostly Division games, expanding the playoffs out. Um. And then one of the other things that I did was I put all the games at night. And I forget if we talked about it on this podcast, but um, Mike Florio reported that teams were actually thinking about flying on game day to avoid hotels, and obviously you can't do that. For a one o'clock kick. It's would be really tough on the players, and it's mathematically impossible in a lot of places. Um. But if you put all the games at night, then theoretically teams could travel on game day a lot easier, especially with the way I've reimagined in teams are playing most of their games against UH teams geographic close to them. Um. And but it works even if you don't want to travel, Even if you still want to travel the day before instead of game day, it still lets you put everything in prime time. And so this actually could help. This could make a lot of money for the TV networks. They would hate losing their Sunday slots. But I chopped the season from two hundred fifty six games to a hundred and twenty eight and then put all hundred and twenty eight games in prime time. And if you're imagining a world where literally every Chief's game, every Patriots game, Cowboys, Steelers, Packers, all the popular teams, if they're all in solo TV windows, they're gonna get huge ratings. And I said in the story, like ninety out of the top hundred shows this year would be live football games. And so you're losing a lot of revenue by chopping the season in half, but you're making the season a little safer, and you're still putting games on TV. And you know, if you make the assumption that teams are gonna lose money anyway because the stadiums are empty and there aren't fans, and all the leagues are losing money for various reasons on all kinds of things, this just feels like it's it's a huge step to to do this and make this decision before you absolutely have to. But I think that if they did take a step back and said, Okay, let's do this, it feels like a much easier schedule to actually finish. Like the goal is once you start the season, you'd be able to actually get to the end of the year. And you also made use of the built in window at the end of the season to push the Super Bowl back a couple of weeks to allow for there to be not only by weeks during the playoffs, but then a double by before the Super Bowl. Yeah, and part of that was just building in that the playoff schedule looks just like the regular season, where you've got two games two uh two weeks in between games. So if a guy has a positive test right before wild Card week and you have to hold him out, or you have to hold out a whole position group or a larger number of players, at least they're back for the divisional round if you advance. And then yeah, because Albert has reported before that they are able to move the Super Bowl back as far as February, which is three weeks after it is now, so you with my timeline, you could play it on February twenty one. But if you're already going all this trouble, you might as well just put that extra week in there, and then you could even do a Super Bowl bubble. If they're still insisted on having it in Tampa, which is supposed to be the site, you could have everyone get down there seventeen days early and have them all uh, you know, tested and quarantined and safe, and then hopefully you'd have no positive tests going into the Super Bowl. Yeah, it's an interesting idea. I mean, obviously, like you said, the loss of revenue from slashing the schedules what the NFL is trying to avoid. But you're basically saying this season isn't going to be normal anyway, and here is a safer way to be able to go through with the season. Yeah, Like I think like the mistake that I don't know, I like, I'm I'm like, my personal opinion is that it's a mistake for any of these leagues to think that this year is going to be regarded as normal. And I don't think. I don't think we're gonna look at whoever wins the NBA title, whoever wins the World Series, whoever wins the NHL title, whoever wins like it's gonna be looked at like the strike here probably right. So I mean, I do think like the the cool the cool thing about it, like what you did, Mitch, is it's just sort of like it frees you from like the it frees you from like the shackles of thinking that it has to be a certain way, and it gives you a chance to toy with it a little bit and play with it a little bit. Like I think that the NHL system, like with the playing around and like playing for Like, I think what the NHL has done with what's left of its season is really cool and different and it's just a chance to try something, you know, try something new. And see if it works, and maybe it maybe it's a mess, but it at the end, I think we all know that this is going to be regarded differently. And so I'm with you in that, like, this is an opportunity for all of these leagues, right because I think we all know that we're not going to look at this the same one it's all said and done. It's opportunity for all of these leagues to sort of toy with different ideas and do fun stuff like you proposed. And I will say you mentioned seven. I was born in seven. There are a lot of people like me who they scroll down the list of Super Bowl champions and they don't know that anything is different. And I would say I was too young for eighty two was even worse. So eight seven, I was seven years old, so I can I was just starting to watch football. Eighty two, I guess was a nine game if you look back, I think it was. I think they only played because eight seven they played fifteen games, but some of them were with replacements. Eighty two, I believe, if you look it up, was like a nine game season, and they abolished the divisions for that year. And and so my point is, if the playoffs are as normal as possible, then that to me makes it easiest to look at. Didn't say it was a normal enough season that we feel okay with crowning a Super Bowl champion. Like when the NBA was still figuring out what their plan would be, people were proposing get rid of the conferences and recede and do all this weird stuff, and it was kind of like, you know, that to me makes it less like a real NBA champion if you're you know, if you're totally changing the past that they take to get there. But this season, yeah, the whole regular season would be very different, but at least we're still getting you know, an a f C Championship game and the NFC Divisional Round and the structure is the same, so you know, if we acknowledge that there are risks and we might lose a chunk of the season. Anyway, we all talked about this when they revealed the schedule, like, let's build in collapsible weeks and if we have to take them away, they're built in. You know, if you already admit that the regular season could be messed up, this just feels like a way to, uh to mess it up yourself in a reasonable way that you can control, and you still preserve this playoff format and and be able to complete the season just at a slower pace. Yeah, I don't think shortening the season, in my view, would diminish the meaning of a champion. You're still going through a rigorous process, and, like you said, a playoff process that is pretty normal in the plan that you laid out at least. And I don't know, I think that we're just all kind of figuring out new ways to do things. And so if there is some kind of season played and there's a super Bowl champion at the end, like, I don't think that should be treated any differently. I think it will be, though, I think I just think, I don't know, I just think everybody's I just it's okay. And I know I'm not the first person to say this, but like, if the Lakers win the like NBA title, like this is like the viability of Lebron's fourth championship is going to be discussed on like first taken two with Steven A at sixty years old or whatever. Yeah, but if it's not the Lakers, then it won't be discussed. Yeah. Yeah, And I've heard people say that, then they kind of it kind of depends on which team it is and how weird it is. If you look at if you look at previous lockout seasons in the NBA, the Spurs with Tim Duncan won one of them I think nine, and then the most recent lockout, the heat one with Lebron and then they both won titles. Again, it's like, if if the Chiefs win, everyone's gonna say, Okay, that makes sense. The Chiefs probably would have won anyway. Or you know, if it's some other high profile team like that, or a team if it recently, right, if it's if it's really you know, if the Chargers win, people are going to look at it that way. If if a team that has even a team like the Saints who have been close to the last three years, you know, I think they would that people would count that as legitimate and it wouldn't be weird and a lot of it If if like I don't know, if like the Colts snuck up or the like the Bear snuck up and won the whole thing with Nick Foles, like, then they'll probably be a little bit of like like there's probably some archdive brows that at championship. Yeah, but even if it's a team like the Ravens who were awesome in the regular seasons, but they yeah, they lost in the playoffs the last two years, but they're still everyone knows they're good enough. And if they go through a regular even if the regular season shortened, but if they go through a regular normal enough playoffs, I think people would say, Okay, yeah, you know, it is their turn, just like the Chiefs lost the year before and then came back. And one is that confirmation bias? It is right? Probably right, Like I think that that's the right use of that term. I think that's I think that would be confirmation bias. Yeah, like this is the outcome that it would have been anyway. Yeah, yeah, so anyway. Uh, it's actually it's been nice the response. I was expecting a lot more anger at me on Twitter today from the same types of people who think it's a sign of weakness to uh uh preach caution and wear masks and things like that. And I thought i'd get a lot more why do you hate football while you're rooting for the league to fail? But something some people actually like. People on Reddit seemed to like the idea so that was encouraging. I will reiterate this will never in a million years happen until unless it's the day before the season and they truly had to and by then it might be too late, which was part of the reason I wrote it in the first place. But it was nice. I thought I was gonna get a lot more hate today than I did, so that's always a plus. Well, a plus from humanity today. Then good job everybody, and keep wearing your masks. And I'm not I am rooting for football. Um all right, on those notes, should we do our one good thing from the week, which is how we always uh send us off here have one good ready to go? I um tried a new sparkling water flavor, and I have to say it was delicious, So that was my good thing of the week. I had not seen the Lacroix pastique it's the watermelon flavor in stores, and I figured, well, I've had Wagman's watermelon flavor. How different could it be. But I, you know, I was having not so great day and I passed the store and they had it, and I figured, Okay, this will be my treat for the week. And I have to say the Lacroix Pastique is the best watermelon flavored saltzer I've had because there's a little tartness to it, a little bit of like I don't know if it's like a line, but it's not quite as sweet as other watermelons. There's like a little bit of a tart finish. So that was really my like, you know, bright spot and a week that's kind of been tough in a lot of ways, a lot of sad news worldwide, a lot of you know, um, depressing headlines. So sometimes the sparkling water can be a nice little bright spot in the day. Have mine here, I'm a polar man. Oh that's a good flavor you have there. That's a that's the tart cherry line made. This is Emily's favorite, So I like that very very good. And dealing with the storm here too, uh, speaking of negative headlines and a tough week and everything. I will actually say this, I don't think that's one of you lost power. You both lost power, right, neither of us. That's true. If we had lost power, it would have been tough to pull off this podcast, Like, I don't know, we would have been out in the parking lot recording it in person. That's true. We could have gone out back. Yeah, I actually I have been. We've become a big white cloth household here. And uh, the supermarket across the street from me frequently has mango and black cherry, and they recently had the new variety pack which they haven't had in like months, and that happens to have the watermelon in it. So that was also a very exciting moment. I forgot about this. Jenny has never had a white claw before. Since we discussed this, I've had one. I had them. I had the mango flavor. Okay, so mango is very good. The watermelon is good, but that is harder to find, and they actually had it, so I saw it, and I was like, it was very exciting to be able to watermelon and tanderine. So both of us this week with our those things go down way too easy, like those, yes they go to they are way too easy. Anyway, big big watermelon Celtzwig. Maybe I'll make that my my one good thing. That and and people not screaming at me on the internet, which was a surprise. I've got to two good things, Alfred, how about you? Yeah, so I'll incorporate my kids again. I so we have two birthdays coming up, my my son's birthday, my our middle middle child's birthday, Drew, he turns four on the ninth, which is Sunday, and then our daughter Jenny, who's our youngest, turns one a week from Saturday. And so we went to uh, you know, my kids, It's it's weird because you know, like when you're a kid, like and I don't know if you guys live close to like a Toys r Us, but like when I was a kid, it was like that was you know what you asked your parents, Can we go Toys Rescue? We go to Toys Rescue and go to Toys r Us. Well now because Toys Rust doesn't exist anymore, well even or not, it's been replaced by Target. So like my so, my kids are always bugging me, can we go to Target? Can we got to Target? Can we got to Target? And um, so you know, we said, because they've been good for a few days, we took the boys out. I took I took the boys, just me with with the two of them up out to Target, and um, they decided on the way that they wanted to pick out Jenny a birthday present. So we went and yeah, so we went and we we had them pick out like a Lego for Jenny, which I brought home and then Emily. Emily said to me that that we had to get something else. But it was good to go through the exercise of it. Wasn't it may not have been like quite age appropriate. So we uh but we we we wound up. I just thought it was it was great watching them go through the exercise of picking something out for their sister and they were so excited about it and everything else, and so so yeah, that'd be my one good thing is seeing them get to pick that out. And by the way, Jenny, when I was there, and I'll send you a picture, I took a picture of them. I did see the adult legos, which I hadn't seen before. And so there was like they had New York, they had Vegas, they had San Francisco, they had like a the really expensive one though, there was one that was like eighteen plus, and I think it was like the I want to say it was like the Empire State Building because you know they have the ages on there. I have it here, Hang on, I eighteen plus is a weird age cut off unless it's like r rated. You would think if you're geting, you would think that if you're, you know, third teen, you're old enough to handle the legos that an eighteen year old is going to. That's a very good point. But anyway, it was the Vegas one. The Vegas one. Okay, so here I have to where this is going? So all right, yes, so the alright, so the vegat one. I have to post these. That looks good. So there you have New York. I think this is the one you showed us, Jenny Yorkay, that's the one I have. Yeah, okay, And then there's San Francisco, Ga. There's Paris. Paris is twelve twelve plus. Did not take a picture of it? Oh here it is, No, this is sixteen plus, I'm sorry, sixteen plus. The Statue of Liberty. Oh, Statue of Liberty okay, pretty complicated. You're able to drive a car to be able to put together the Statue of Liberty like pieces? How about yeah, hundred nineteen bucks. I'm looking at the price. Oh my gosh, it must be a pretty large structure. Then yeah, and then the next pictures like my mask up, my mask up shot. There we go. Nice that's an awesome story. I love that about buying the present for their sister. That's you gave us a nice heartwarming ending for this podcast. Very good Birthday, happy, but every Birthday to Jenny next week awesome. Although before we get out of I set a heartwarming ending. I do have one final note that I wanted to say for the very end of the podcast for only our real die hard listeners. Last week YouTube challenged me to come up with my Octopus watch list for just now. I can't. I'm going to reveal it on eight eight, but I have the list. Eight players we talked about Deshaun Watson and Alvin Kamara. I took them off. My list is instead eight guys who have never had an Octopus before threats to their quest. So we already know who number one is because he talked about two quarterbacks, two running backs, two wide receivers, two tight ends. People can follow me on Twitter. There's the tease. If you want to see the Octopus watch list, it's it's coming on eight eight. I don't know what time because I can't do eight eight, but at some point during the day I will tweet the Octopus watching What does so wouldn't Why didn't I think of that? That's that's why you're here, Jenny, Thank you very much, eight oh eight on Saturday morning. You can find turn on your Turn on your your mobile alerts from my tweets and you'll get it all right. Thanks everybody for listening to another never know what's going to happen on this podcast, the MMQB Weekend Review. Thanks for tuning in, Thanks Jenny and Albert for joining. You can subscribe to the mm QB NFL podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, every where you listen to podcasts. You'll get all of our shows five days week, including Albert podcast and Connor and Jenny on the week Side pod. Hoping that Connor will be back here next week. But at never know what's going to happen. We are the unpredictable podcast on the feed. But thanks everyone for checking it out already and we will talk to again next week. M HM