Hi everyone, and welcome back to the m m QB week in Review podcast, our occasional Friday podcasts which we do on Friday's but not every Friday. We just like to keep you guys on your toes. But we are back this week. I've got my usual cast of characters. It's Jenny Rerentis, Connor Or and Albert Breer. How's everyone doing good? What's up? Mitch? How's the beard? The you tell me? I think the beards don't find I think Connor likes it more than I do, which is always appreciated. It comes up on this podcast even on days that I don't appear, I just get talked about. Apparently I might. I might like it more than Mrs Goldich likes it, to be honest. Yeah, it's really been a hot topic of conversation, even on the Week's side podcast. Well literally literally hot topic. I knew this was coming, and still I'm flustered and totally unprepared to segue and move on to another topic. But thank you so much for your kind words. So this is the podcast where we talk about basically what we've been up to and what work we have up on the site at the MMQB this week. So a lot of times usually we start this by going around and saying, what's everyone been doing, whether something you've seen on TV or something you've read or this has then spiraled into hobbies and things going on in your lives. So let's do it quick, busy, highly highly disturbing, and I think they did a good job with it. But I would warn anybody if you're squeamish at all, if there's a lot of really really horrible stuff in there. So like a good, necessary piece of journalism, but but man, it was a tough watch. Just lighten the mood there for everybody. Okay, um, yeah, no, thanks for letting us know. Um, Jenny, how about you? Well, I made um coffee cake muffins over the weekend, so that was a nice bright spot, I suppose. Okay, how were they? They're pretty good. This is a gluten free mix of like cinnamon cake type stuff, you know, mixing in for the coffee cake. I'm not sure it was a baking activity. Did you eat these all yourself or did you were these gifts? No? I froze half of them because I wouldn't get I wouldn't get through the whole box. Yeah, got it. I'm only asking because obviously, you know, we could meet and social distance in the courtyard between our apartment buildings, and I could have taste tested these, uh, these desserts. But that's fine, maybe for next time, Jeff, that's true. Yes, it's very disorienting. Our listeners should know because Mitch and I live in the same apartment layout, except they're mirror images of each other. So we're on a zoom call and I'm looking into my appartment see your image of it, and it's very odd. It is the weirdest thing. Our sister building a reaction struct or of apartment. Yeah, our buildings are part of the same community, and we're both on the same line, so we have the exact same layout, and our desks are in the same place, so it's a little strange. At some point during the podcast, somebody's gonna walk out that door behind Jenny and and they're just gonna come into mitches. It's gonna be It's totally insane. All right, Connor, how about you? What have you been up to this week? Um? I got to uh. I went to Scranton for my birthday, which is where everybody should go for their birthday. Um, and got to see my parents and basically celebrate all of the holidays that I like to celebrate with them that we've missed through COVID. So God bless my mom. She made Irish soda bread because I missed St. Patrick's Day, um, and just a lot of fun stuff like that. So it's good to catch up with my family. See my grand mother ninety and going strong. So, um, you know, everybody's you know, yeah, everybody's uh, you know, doing what they can. So nice and happy belated Connor, thank you. Yeah, I can't believe it. Twenty two. Um, all right, well, uh, I guess similar to Albert on a documentary that felt like a necessary watch, but um, I actually watched the documentary on Netflix, which um, you know, was highly recommended. I think I've seen a lot of people sharing all kinds of recommendations for books and movies and TV shows and documentaries on the subject of race and all kinds of related topics. And this was about the Thirteenth Amendment, which uh mentions prisons. The thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery. Slavery, but it has this clause in it about criminals, and so it was this documentary that was done recently just about the criminal justice system and mass incarceration and drawing a line through our country's history from slavery all the way up to mass incarceration and modern times. So I've seen it recommended by a lot of people, and also Netflix kept popular up saying do you want to watch this? Do you want to watch this? And so eventually I made some time for it, and I'm glad that I did, and I know a lot of people always feel the same way. I have a lot more on my list now to check out on similar topics that I saw that. I mean it, it changes the way you look at certain things. Definitely, all right, should we hop into football? We always go around the horn. Our second trip around the Horn, we talked about stories that we worked on that we're published this week. So Albert, we can start with you. Um your Monday Morning column, you wrote about the two videos really that I'd imagine everyone who's listening to the podcast has seen at this point. The first video was by NFL players asking for a response from the league, and then the second one was Roger Goodell's responding video which came out later, and you went behind the scenes in the fresh sort of how this like unprecedented circumstance over the last couple of weeks has given voice to a lot of younger people, UM, who think a little bit differently. And I think it's one of the most fascinating things to me about all of this is like you can look at different levels of it in the NFL and you can see like guys who are on the younger end of things finding their voice. And it even happened like like the week before I wrote about um, you know, like you know Richard Sherman's point of view on all of this, and he said, like the white quarterback speaking out was a big deal. Well, who were the white quarterbacks that spoke out? It was Joe Burrow, who's a rookie. It was Trevor Lawrence who wasn't even the league yet. It was Carson Wentz who's still in his twenties. And with the video here, this is the same sort of thing. It was a bunch of guys in the office actually, UM who had who are really frustrated with the league's response and that they felt like the initial statement that came out I believe it's two saturdays ago now, UM was is very corporate and kind of came off as if it went through sixteen different channels the way a lot of these statements go go through, and it's sanitized and everything else. So it led to you know a lot of the guys talking and UM, it led to a series of meetings and there were young guys, you know, young African American guys like UM, like Maurice Jennings and UM and Jerick Walker, who are I would say rising, you know in the ranks of the League office. UM, that really felt you know, I think a little bit more at liberty to speak on these things, and I think we're change agents. Over the course of the week, and you know, got through to a guy who's you know, a content producer named Brendan minter Um. And Brendan basically you know, decided one night to send the d M and has been out there to to Mike Thomas, those Saints receiver. UM, you know, thinking like okay, like I'm not even gonna get a response, And before he could even start reaching out to other people to see if other people wanted to do it, Thomas got back to him said he was in and then you know, by the next morning, they you know, shop for like, like, let's let's try to get ten guys in this video. Um. Like by the next morning the number was up to fifteen. And um, you know, I thought the brilliance of the video of its itself, to me was not it wasn't so much just it wasn't like even complaining about the previous statement. It was providing a new statement, and it was challenging the commissioner. I was saying, this is what we want you to say, like, and we're not going to let you be silent on this because if you're silent on this, you're taking the other side. Essentially forced the commissioner to take a side in the whole thing. And the commissioner read this statement, which I thought was significant because it was it broke new ground in in a in a couple of areas for the league. Um. And you know what's fascinating about it to me is like a lot of people have sort of wondered, what's the League gonna do if the protests, Um, if the protests you know, resumed in the fall. I think this is a sort of quarner to them, you know, like this is sort of put the commissioner in a corner where like if if he were to put in any sort of policy, like he'd be going back on his word, it would make a liar of him. Now, So you know, I think it was brilliant in the on behalf of the players and Mike did a lot of the writing on that, like and you know there are huge names and that that were involved, Um, Deshaun Watson, Patrick mahomes Uh, you know, Zeke Elliott, se Quon Barkley, Odell Beckham, like a lot of really really big names. I just thought it was brilliant the way they put it together, and I think it was really kind of an example of a you know, the power that young people's voices have had over the last couple of weeks that we've seen it different at different levels of pro football. And then be just kind of like the format of it and saying to the commissioner, we're drawing a line in this end and you have to pick a side now. Yeah, the commissioner saying that he supports players who peacefully protest. Now they have to follow through on that, they have to support them financially. I saw that there's just news at the enough all will contribute some two million to social justice initiatives, and but money is not where they you know, they have given money in the past. They you know, have built out this platform to donate and kind of encourage teams to raise donations within the team and then the NFL could match them. And they've created those systems in the past. But I think where they really need to do is support the players and whatever action they choose to take to continue making this a part of the conversation, to continue demonstrating and protesting against racism and police brutality. However the players choose to do that, they need to offer support through their actions, not just through their their money. So I think that will be the big tel moving forward is how not only the league but especially the owners, you know, if they're backing up, you know, the support that they say they're offering now, they they've got to show that in the months ahead. I think it's just the the quality, the depth of star power in that video to really probably left the NFL with no choice in the long term. I think that while you know, and I want to make sure I'm saying this clearly, I think that the NFL probably viewed Colin Kaepernick as someone that they could afford to lose. I mean, you know, and say that, hey, we're gonna play both sides of this. We're gonna see it. Let the public dictate which way the wind is blowing. And if this whatever happens to this guy, happens to this guy, I think it could have been as callous as that. But when you hear from Patrick Mahomes, who is arguably the most important person in the sport right now, and this is not too you know, I trust me. I'm just saying that what Colin did was incredible and brave and more important than any of this because he got it all started. But now that there's a tail wind to this UH that features UH ten or eleven or twelve of the most important players in the sport, um you know, across a ton of teams, across a ton of markets, you're seriously forcing, you know, the commissioner to back you because there's no other recourse really, and you know, you hate to see the NFL UM act that way, you know, be so responsive. I mean, we we all read that first statement. It was completely worthless, and I think they would have stuck with that had any of this not happened. But instead, here we are. So I think kudos to all those players for finally building that tailwind for for Colin Kaepernick's message four years later. I mean, you know, at least you know, I mean, what happens if you guys remember a couple of years ago, in sixteen and seventeen, this was like an intensely local issue, you know, like this was an intensely local thing where I think the sort of fallout for like the Cowboys or the Saints or the Texans was different than the fallout for the Giants or the Eagles or the Seahawks. And so that I think is going to be an interesting Like now it's sort of the balls in the court of the individual owners, you know, And so how does Jerry Joe react, How does cal McNair at react, How does Gayle Benson react? Like I think all those I think that's probably the next set of questions here is like, now the commissioner has kind of been put in a corner and he has to kind of like stand with the players because you know, that's his word on the line. Now. I think what's interesting now is like what's going to happen with each of the individual owners, and particularly the owners that are in like some of the quote unquote red states, Yeah, there's gonna be a lot of pressure on them, And I'll echo what you guys said, just the importance of stars being involved, because I think the NBA has gotten a lot of credit, the league itself and some of their star players for speaking up and using their voices over the last four years. And it reminded me a little. I think it was maybe it was four years ago, maybe three at that time at the SPS when Lebron and Dwyane Wade and I think it was Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony the other two guys, the four of them stood up there, and you know, those are the stars that everyone knows who they are from just seeing their faces. They don't have to be in their uniforms or any team identifying colors. Everyone knows who they are. And you know, in the NFL, Kaepernick was a name and was recognizable, but some of the other guys who have been outspoken are not as recognizable. But then when you see it's like you said, you know, Mahomes and uh Deshaun Watson and Zeke and se Kwan. That's those are the Lebron and Dwyane Wade characters in the NFL. And so when those guys are standing up, you're right, Albert, you said, Goodell's painted into a corner. I mean, he has to stand with those guys. They're the league. He said that in his video the player. You know, they don't have a league without those guys. You know, they would, you know, if they had to or whatever. But it's like, those are the people everyone's tuning in to see every Sunday. So if they're the ones speaking up and using their voices, then what choice does the NFL have but to listen to that. And that's the power of this generation of black quarterbacks because we've seen so many talented black football players be pushed into other positions going decades back, you know, not allowed to play quarterback or move to wide receiver, running back. And I think the brilliance of the current black quarterbacks in the league right now on the field is one thing. And then also we're seeing that that gives them this greater faction. You know, like I just think back to like the like you think back to the nineties, and like the way the quarterbacks were then and like they were very like Michael Jordan bears the brunt of that Republicans by sneakers thing too. But I mean, like I can remember playing video games. Connor you may remember this, but like I remember playing video games when I was a little kid, were like the quarterbacks weren't in some of the video games, you know what I mean, Like because they were because they had a separate union, and like the quarterbacks were very much back then like sort of like like again like just neutral and like we have to appeal to the biggest audience, so we're not gonna say anything. And I just think this generation of athletes, and I think you probably give Lebron James credit for this and being one of the leaders in it, is it just feels way more comfortable speaking out and you know, taking up a larger cause. And I think that's probably a credit to you know, again, some of the leaders not just in football but across sports that it is okay for players to speak their mind on these sorts of things. Now, yeah, I think that you guys, there's a Quarterback Club nine whatever, Sports Talk football, football, Yeah, there's some good. And then there was Joe Montana football. Um, he had his own game. Well if you if you remember Tech mobile. I'm trying to think somebody else might have. Steve Young might have did that. Sports Illustrated had their own football game, believe it or not. Yeah, I can actually send you, guys the link. You can play it on like a really sketchy um Czech Republic website right now. You can stream it on your laptop um and and it is awful, I think, and football and baseball combined, so you can, like you can play football for a little bit and you can play baseball for a little bit. So really remember, like tech moo just I think the Techno techs Super Bowl that I'm not aware of the players and the teams, and I'm pretty sure tech most Super Bowl Jim Kelly was actually QB Bills because he wasn't because he I remember stuff like that, because like Michael Jordans wasn't in video games, he was player twenty three in certain games. And I remember that. I do remember that. I don't remember the specific examples. It could have been Jim Kelly, but I remember certain guys being like some such a such player or whatever with the team name or the uniform number. Now we're gonna have to look this up. I'll have to do that when someone else is talking here, I have the rest for junior baseball, the only player and it was ken Garfe Jr. And then right, and then everybody else was named like, yeah, the one guy's name was just Face. I remember that there's a player named Face. I think I'm the only one in this call who never played video games. Too busy, TV and movies, right, Jenny, Yeah, exactly, exactly, too busy records for biology records and all these. Yeah, and here here we are played talking about n B a GM. Where did that get me? Well, speaking of where I got you, Connor, you're a staff writer for the m m QB, and you wrote a wonderful piece. Uh, you examined the weakness for all thirty two NFL teams. So if anyone is listening to this on Friday, all of your NFC teams are published, and we'll be pushing out your a f C teams that list on Saturday. So if you're listening over the weekend catching up, you can go read all thirty two of them right now. Um, So we're not gonna have you go through all thirty two teams because that's a bit much for this podcast, I think Connor but is there anything that stood to you just going through that exercise, something that may be surprised you, or something that was really apparent when you looked at every single team position by position. Um, yeah, I think a few things, and I guess I don't know where we want to start. But um, Jets are not any are still not very good. Um, I'm kind of wondering how they're going to function. Like there there were like three or four, Like there are a lot of teams where I think that you can flip to even the our lads like roster page or whatever, and you can just run down the depth chart and be like, oh yeah, it's obviously this right. Um. The Jets, there was probably like five of them that I had to decide from, to the point where I was so torn that I texted Brian Costello, the wonderful Jets spat writer from the New York Post, um, and I said, Brian, I'm torn, what is the worst part of the team that you covered? So he had to help me out of a gym there and we we settled on cornerback. But m yeah, yeah, it's just remarkable, like you know, yeah, um yeah yeah. Um. And so they were much worse off than I think that I assumed. And I think that the flip side of that is, like, you know, I'm starting to feel that that tickle in my throat, you know, that uncomfortable uh, you know, sniffling that I might be coming down with Buccaneer's fever. I don't know. Man, Like this their problem largely complete, like far more than I thought it was. Like for Buccaneers, I gave I gave running back a slight edge over corner. Um, I just don't think we know enough about what they have and based on how they did last year, um, you know, you have to think the run game is gonna be largely similar. I don't know if they have anybody that's gonna be able to compliment Tom Brady the way that he is accustomed to. So, um, I gave running back a slight nod over corner. But still, I mean, there's really not a lot of weak spots. And Todd Bowls is just so good at his job that I think that he mitigates a lot of stuff on the back end. They're like advanced stats last year on defense, we're surprisingly really really good. Um uh to the point where I was like, oh boy, I better stop making fun of these guys because I'm gonna look really stupid if they go thirteen and three and win the division. So you're picking the box to Ben South. That's what this exercise taught you. Don't. Don't Handcuffy into this yet. I'm not ready, but probably but probably. Well, no picked the Falcons. I think we both picked the Falcons on the Weeks side. But I'm staying there. I'm staying there. I'm staying there, and yes, I'm putting the Saints there. Okay, okay, I mean we've talked about thoughts on the Saints in regard to the power ranking. Listening to this, I am, I am. My voice on the Saints is being drowned out by management and editorial and everything. Uh, this is a pro Saints editorial staff. That is that, you know. So just you know if they're if they don't make the playoffs this year, right, you know where to find me in Meanwhile, Connor, what did you write about the Saints weakness and in this post? I'll get to that in a second. But who is the only national writer in all of football to pick that that? I've seen this coming for months, ready for it? That was just the beginning of the end. I'm ready for it. What's the Saints biggest weakness? They're the only team in this entire exercise that does not have a week, but they're going to finish third. They are just so good. And if you go, like, so I's trying to the Saints, but the Saints, and well so, where would the blame lie then? Right? So the question is the coaching staff? You know, I'm just wondering out loud. It's a hot take. There maybe the deepest team in football for the last three years and you haven't won a Super Bowl? Whose fault is that? Okay, Okay, Connor, I support as a union representative, I support free speech right, so I will go to that for you has free speech rights. He just can't do it anonymously in a group call that results in all of us getting tagged in tweets from bots complaining about the same, about thee or whatever it was. I'm ready, yeah, I mean, it can't be worse than I I honestly think that my responses from Saints Twitter just for that little Peyton jab are not going to be nearly as bad as Bill's Twitter for saying that quarterback is their biggest week spot. I'm I'm really hunkering and for that one, that's gonna be a long day on the But I support that. I agree it's a It's a really good roster and it really depends on if Josh Allen is slightly better. You guys know how I feel about this. I've been I was shotting I was doing on my podcast earlier in the week, and then I looked at him, like, they've got three guys in like Tradevious White, Tremaine Edmonds, and Ed Oliver on defense that like, is there any team that's got three defensive players who are like under twenty five? They're that good? Like that, Like that's really and they could easily be in a situation like the Bears were with Drabsky where they said, okay, we'll give him one year and then all of a sudden they had to go out and find somebody and it was urgent and immediate. And the Bills are a team where maybe you go find a plan B now one year early instead of waiting and possibly Josh Allen regresses and then all of a sudden you're without a franchise quarterback one year too late. Sometimes it's just if you see a guy out there who's undervalued and you can bring someone in as a backup plan, it's better now for cheap than there's misplaced right. But there there's confidence in Josh Allen, and I think the fact that they didn't go after cam Newton has proved positive of it because they're are strong cam Newton connections in that building. Sean McDermott was in Carolina with him, Brandon Bean was in Carolina with him, and so the fact that they left that one alone, I think is sort of a sign of where they stand on Josh Allen. I think that they think that he's a lot better than the general public does. Yeah. Yeah, And I will say they drafted Jake from so they probably viewed that as their plan b. I know, he's not a not one of the first rounders they were talking about playing right away, but they at least addressed it. They brought somebody in the building. And you know, and we've seen fifth round quarterbacks come in the middle of the rookie year and you know overperformed. I mean, what you know what round was Gardner Minshew Sudden started quarterback in year two. Not that I'm saying this is Jake From's future. You guys know, you guys know how I feel. No, no, no, you know what I wanted them to do all offseason. I'm just saying. Connor and I were texting during the draft when they got Jake From, was like, well the dream is dead now of Cam to Buffalo. Committed to your Cam Newton take Mitch, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna put this to be until he signs somewhere. Mitchell. We talk about this once a week. At least, we've talked about this once a week since like February. Yeah, is this This might be the first time we've talked about it on the podcast. You can tell I'm a little wound up, Like I finally got the chance to say something and now I'm just gonna run with it. I'm I'm still processing Connor putting out there that the Saints playoff loss of the Vikings was the beginning of the end, because if it was in fact the beginning of the end, we will be pulling this podcast clip. Shelby Royston, our producer. We're pulling this clip. We're putting it on social media, and they're like six and ten. If they're six intending like, yeah, you have that pen tweet up there with the audio. Finally, you know the you know the Orbit commercial where the guy turns into the peacock and just starts like, if the Saints go six and ten, I'm just gonna I'm gonna force every country just peacock and everything's gonna everything's gonna go downhill after that. Yeah, there it is. Yeah. Oh wow, we're just writing the script for a season the Bowl, right. I think we're going to pretend most of these podcasts didn't happen anyway. Alright, I think we are pretty much wrapped on the football talk. Should we do one good thing? This was Jenny's idea, which I don't know if you meant to do this every time or if you just wanted to suggest it once and then it became a tradition and now we have to do it. But going on, everyone can say one good thing, either about their week or the week in general. But Jenny, now you're you're you're were smiling and now you're looking up like you're trying to think of something to say. I'm gonna put you on the spot and ask you to go first. Here, Do you have one good thing? Yeah, well, no, I did kind of mean it for it to be a weekly thing. I think it's a nice thing to end the pot on. I did mention this on the week side earlier this week, so I don't want to say repeat things. But I went to a vigil at Carl Shur's Park on the Upper East Side on Monday night, and it was really just a really good energy in the group. It was Black Lives Matter vigil for George Floyd and Brianna Taylor, and the energy of the group was really uplifting and energizing. And afterward there was another group that had been marching up for Washington Square Park, so our group marched over to meet them and kind of did a loop. And so yeah, it was just, uh, I said this the other day, but you know, you go in not really sure thinking it's it's such a heavy topic and there's a lot of sadness obviously, but being around that group and the energy of people that we're all fighting for the same thing, it was. It was I really added a lot to my outlook, like it. It gave me a positive outlook that maybe we're headed towards positive change. To see so many people mobilizing together. Um. And so that was like a nice takeaway. Well said thanks, Jenny, um connor, you want to go next? Um, yeah, I can go next. UM. I don't know if I said this on did we do we can review last week? We did not do this last week? Okay, so then I didn't I didn't say this on. So throughout the uh pandemic, I think our family has been much more in tune to wildlife. Um. We had a nest of robins in our tree. Um that became they became somewhat of a group of neighborhood celebrities when everybody knew that the babies were hatching, and everyone was very excited about it. UM. A few weeks ago, I found a toad, and so I ran out with a little tupperware container and brought it into my daughter for breakfast so that she could watch it jump around, not to eat for breakfast. I saw Jenny's face. Yeah, And so while she was eating her breakfast, we got to watch the toad. We we gave him water and everything and and and stuff so he was comfortable in there, and then we we let him back out. UM. And then really cool so uh in our backyard in the pond there there's like old snapping turtles that have been there for decades and decades and they always lay their eggs in my neighbor's house three houses down to the left, but for some reason they picked our yard to lay their eggs this time, which is so cool and weirdly, like I went to go, Um, I went to go see it because I was so jarred and I was going to take a picture of my wife who had to go into the office. Um. And it was actually the moment that they were like laying the eggs, like actually turtle like laying eggs, and it's like that's like Planet Earth stuff. You know, you just don't get to see that every day. So that was cool. That's amazing to ninety days. Um. And so we uh, we put up like metal steaks around it, and then our neighbors are going to get gung ho and apparently there's a cage that you can buy at home depot. We're gonna we're gonna protect the turtles. We're gonna make sure that they get home safe. We've been like looking at the dirt to make sure that none of the animals have gotten in there. And meantime, so I don't know. We're very excited about her baby turtles. They're coming. I feel like I would want privacy if I was laying eggs, like i'm just thinking of it would be a little I'm now picturing laying eggs and connors why I feel like, I don't know. You know, I'm glad you've had this experience. Yeah, I'm just a phone. I don't know. Maybe maybe i'd leave him. I'd want to be left if someone was giving birthday, wouldn't want me in the hospital room shooting it on my iPhone. For percent of people, I feel like that is the kids. But out there is listening that you know you do have a child, so I assume you were around that day. I mean, I don't know. I feel like the last two good at Um, I my my daughter is this close to crawling now, which you know, like she looks like she's ready to walk almost, but she's this close to crawling now, so that's good. And then, um, you know, my my younger son, Drew has like I played football outside with him once and like he caught the ball really well, and then he wanted to keep it a secret from everybody, he said, he announced to me that he's good at football, and then he like made me basically keep it a secret, like so like I couldn't tell anybody that he was good at football. And I've finally convinced him. Um, I finally convinced him yesterday, like to go play football with his brother and his brother who was hyper competitive and doesn't let him win in anything. Actually, like what like they played football. They created some rules that who knows, Like it was like you like, if you can get the ball and throw it against the tree, then you score a point or whatever. His older brother he announced his older brother's good at football, so he said, let's play, and then he let his little brother win, which was really nice. So there's that, and then we're I'm after we're done with this, I'm going to Vermont, Um, Mitch, you get to learn about this live. I'm going to Vermont for about thirty six hours. My wife's already up there, and there's I'm told that this house, which you know, our friends, it's family friends of ours. Um. I'm told that this house has no internet, no cell phone service, no nothing, and so it's gonna be an interesting thirty six hours. I can I can apparently drive down the mountain to go, uh, to go, like if I need to make a phone call or whatever. But but when I get up there, it's gonna be all eyes on me. People are gonna sort of be people are going to be studying my behavior tonight in tomorrow. I think you'll get that like that. I got a lot of the workout. As long as MP gets filed in time, I do whatever you want for the next for the next thirty six hours. There they're times yours, says Andy. Reid would say, alright, well, I was gonna I was actually gonna say the same as Jenny. I also went to a march and a rally in New York last weekend and found that really inspiring and heard some great speakers, and seeing how young some of the people were who organized has been great. But you covered that well, I'll just say I actually I left New York City for the first time last weekend. Also, we've been taking the social distancing very seriously. I don't know a car. We haven't been taking any public transportation, but my wife and I had some friends who were going out to Long Beach on Long Island last week and they offered to give us a ride and we took it, and it was crazy to leave the city for the first time in three months. But it was very nice to get a little break and be outside, sitting on the beach, looking at the ocean, drinking a white claw. It was a very relaxing afternoon, and it was nice to finally get out and feel normal again. I know we still have a long way to go, and a lot of people still need to continue taking this seriously, which is something that I care about a lot, especially as places are reopening and sports are coming back, and uh, you know, a lot of important things are happening. But it was nice to with the weather changing, just to get out and even while continuing to take this seriously, just get some outdoor time and feel like I'm having a normal summer again. What what flavor claw? Well, I had a mango, and I had a black cherry, and I'm a big fan of the watermelon and the tangerine. I didn't have all of these in No, We've been drinking a lot of white claws the last couple of months. Can't go to bars, so buying white claws and drinking it at home. But I think the mango and the black cherry are probably my two favorite, and I had one of each on the beach. I've never had one a White Claw at all. Right, no, never, Okay, this is gonna We're gonna have to meet in the courtyard for white Claw and homemade desserts. You bring the you, you bring the baked goods, and I'll bring the white claws. Jenny, I want to I want to go. Well, if you can find a safe way to do this, you're welcome to wear a mask. I guess there was no alcohol at all, but it was. I mean, like, I don't know, these things are like it's like ten bucks for four of them, but up they were pretty effective, just like and I guess like it's like supposed to be like a white Claw, but I don't know. It was the first time I've ever had one, so I yeah, it's amazing how many brands of that there are now that are coming out with this. But I feel like white Claw was so early on it that people have I mean, I have brand loyalty to them. I don't even because you know, I would try some of these if it's all the round, but when I'm in the store, you know I'm buying White Claw. I don't know. Um, actually it is a good They might not have been like the first ones, but it feels like they were. They were the first one to get really popular. But I don't know, Maybe I don't know if rip offs a fair word. Some of them, I'm sure good, But to each their own. I'm a fan of the White Claw Mango and that's all I'll say. Alright, anyone else have any final thoughts or words here before we take off for you know, at least a week, maybe two weeks are occasional Friday podcast that we do some weeks and not others. Anyone have anything else to share before we hop off here? Oh, thanks for doing a great job hosting as always, match totally you know I try well. Thank you Shelby, our producer, for putting the tape together, five people talking, all in different places. We always appreciate his hard work. Thanks everyone for listening. Make sure you subscribe to the m m QB NFL podcast. You get new podcasts all five days of the week, including this one on Fridays and others with Jenny and Connor and Albert, so make sure you check it out. Make sure you visit the MQB dot com to see all of our stories that we're writing, and we will talk to you again real soon

Hi everyone, and welcome back to the m m QB week in Review podcast, our occasional Friday podcasts which we do on Friday's but not every Friday. We just like to keep you guys on your toes. But we are back this week. I've got my usual cast of characters. It's Jenny Rerentis, Connor Or and Albert Breer. How's everyone doing good? What's up? Mitch? How's the beard? The you tell me? I think the beards don't find I think Connor likes it more than I do, which is always appreciated. It comes up on this podcast even on days that I don't appear, I just get talked about. Apparently I might. I might like it more than Mrs Goldich likes it, to be honest. Yeah, it's really been a hot topic of conversation, even on the Week's side podcast. Well literally literally hot topic. I knew this was coming, and still I'm flustered and totally unprepared to segue and move on to another topic. But thank you so much for your kind words. So this is the podcast where we talk about basically what we've been up to and what work we have up on the site at the MMQB this week. So a lot of times usually we start this by going around and saying, what's everyone been doing, whether something you've seen on TV or something you've read or this has then spiraled into hobbies and things going on in your lives. So let's do it quick, busy, highly highly disturbing, and I think they did a good job with it. But I would warn anybody if you're squeamish at all, if there's a lot of really really horrible stuff in there. So like a good, necessary piece of journalism, but but man, it was a tough watch. Just lighten the mood there for everybody. Okay, um, yeah, no, thanks for letting us know. Um, Jenny, how about you? Well, I made um coffee cake muffins over the weekend, so that was a nice bright spot, I suppose. Okay, how were they? They're pretty good. This is a gluten free mix of like cinnamon cake type stuff, you know, mixing in for the coffee cake. I'm not sure it was a baking activity. Did you eat these all yourself or did you were these gifts? No? I froze half of them because I wouldn't get I wouldn't get through the whole box. Yeah, got it. I'm only asking because obviously, you know, we could meet and social distance in the courtyard between our apartment buildings, and I could have taste tested these, uh, these desserts. But that's fine, maybe for next time, Jeff, that's true. Yes, it's very disorienting. Our listeners should know because Mitch and I live in the same apartment layout, except they're mirror images of each other. So we're on a zoom call and I'm looking into my appartment see your image of it, and it's very odd. It is the weirdest thing. Our sister building a reaction struct or of apartment. Yeah, our buildings are part of the same community, and we're both on the same line, so we have the exact same layout, and our desks are in the same place, so it's a little strange. At some point during the podcast, somebody's gonna walk out that door behind Jenny and and they're just gonna come into mitches. It's gonna be It's totally insane. All right, Connor, how about you? What have you been up to this week? Um? I got to uh. I went to Scranton for my birthday, which is where everybody should go for their birthday. Um, and got to see my parents and basically celebrate all of the holidays that I like to celebrate with them that we've missed through COVID. So God bless my mom. She made Irish soda bread because I missed St. Patrick's Day, um, and just a lot of fun stuff like that. So it's good to catch up with my family. See my grand mother ninety and going strong. So, um, you know, everybody's you know, yeah, everybody's uh, you know, doing what they can. So nice and happy belated Connor, thank you. Yeah, I can't believe it. Twenty two. Um, all right, well, uh, I guess similar to Albert on a documentary that felt like a necessary watch, but um, I actually watched the documentary on Netflix, which um, you know, was highly recommended. I think I've seen a lot of people sharing all kinds of recommendations for books and movies and TV shows and documentaries on the subject of race and all kinds of related topics. And this was about the Thirteenth Amendment, which uh mentions prisons. The thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery. Slavery, but it has this clause in it about criminals, and so it was this documentary that was done recently just about the criminal justice system and mass incarceration and drawing a line through our country's history from slavery all the way up to mass incarceration and modern times. So I've seen it recommended by a lot of people, and also Netflix kept popular up saying do you want to watch this? Do you want to watch this? And so eventually I made some time for it, and I'm glad that I did, and I know a lot of people always feel the same way. I have a lot more on my list now to check out on similar topics that I saw that. I mean it, it changes the way you look at certain things. Definitely, all right, should we hop into football? We always go around the horn. Our second trip around the Horn, we talked about stories that we worked on that we're published this week. So Albert, we can start with you. Um your Monday Morning column, you wrote about the two videos really that I'd imagine everyone who's listening to the podcast has seen at this point. The first video was by NFL players asking for a response from the league, and then the second one was Roger Goodell's responding video which came out later, and you went behind the scenes in the fresh sort of how this like unprecedented circumstance over the last couple of weeks has given voice to a lot of younger people, UM, who think a little bit differently. And I think it's one of the most fascinating things to me about all of this is like you can look at different levels of it in the NFL and you can see like guys who are on the younger end of things finding their voice. And it even happened like like the week before I wrote about um, you know, like you know Richard Sherman's point of view on all of this, and he said, like the white quarterback speaking out was a big deal. Well, who were the white quarterbacks that spoke out? It was Joe Burrow, who's a rookie. It was Trevor Lawrence who wasn't even the league yet. It was Carson Wentz who's still in his twenties. And with the video here, this is the same sort of thing. It was a bunch of guys in the office actually, UM who had who are really frustrated with the league's response and that they felt like the initial statement that came out I believe it's two saturdays ago now, UM was is very corporate and kind of came off as if it went through sixteen different channels the way a lot of these statements go go through, and it's sanitized and everything else. So it led to you know a lot of the guys talking and UM, it led to a series of meetings and there were young guys, you know, young African American guys like UM, like Maurice Jennings and UM and Jerick Walker, who are I would say rising, you know in the ranks of the League office. UM, that really felt you know, I think a little bit more at liberty to speak on these things, and I think we're change agents. Over the course of the week, and you know, got through to a guy who's you know, a content producer named Brendan minter Um. And Brendan basically you know, decided one night to send the d M and has been out there to to Mike Thomas, those Saints receiver. UM, you know, thinking like okay, like I'm not even gonna get a response, And before he could even start reaching out to other people to see if other people wanted to do it, Thomas got back to him said he was in and then you know, by the next morning, they you know, shop for like, like, let's let's try to get ten guys in this video. Um. Like by the next morning the number was up to fifteen. And um, you know, I thought the brilliance of the video of its itself, to me was not it wasn't so much just it wasn't like even complaining about the previous statement. It was providing a new statement, and it was challenging the commissioner. I was saying, this is what we want you to say, like, and we're not going to let you be silent on this because if you're silent on this, you're taking the other side. Essentially forced the commissioner to take a side in the whole thing. And the commissioner read this statement, which I thought was significant because it was it broke new ground in in a in a couple of areas for the league. Um. And you know what's fascinating about it to me is like a lot of people have sort of wondered, what's the League gonna do if the protests, Um, if the protests you know, resumed in the fall. I think this is a sort of quarner to them, you know, like this is sort of put the commissioner in a corner where like if if he were to put in any sort of policy, like he'd be going back on his word, it would make a liar of him. Now, So you know, I think it was brilliant in the on behalf of the players and Mike did a lot of the writing on that, like and you know there are huge names and that that were involved, Um, Deshaun Watson, Patrick mahomes Uh, you know, Zeke Elliott, se Quon Barkley, Odell Beckham, like a lot of really really big names. I just thought it was brilliant the way they put it together, and I think it was really kind of an example of a you know, the power that young people's voices have had over the last couple of weeks that we've seen it different at different levels of pro football. And then be just kind of like the format of it and saying to the commissioner, we're drawing a line in this end and you have to pick a side now. Yeah, the commissioner saying that he supports players who peacefully protest. Now they have to follow through on that, they have to support them financially. I saw that there's just news at the enough all will contribute some two million to social justice initiatives, and but money is not where they you know, they have given money in the past. They you know, have built out this platform to donate and kind of encourage teams to raise donations within the team and then the NFL could match them. And they've created those systems in the past. But I think where they really need to do is support the players and whatever action they choose to take to continue making this a part of the conversation, to continue demonstrating and protesting against racism and police brutality. However the players choose to do that, they need to offer support through their actions, not just through their their money. So I think that will be the big tel moving forward is how not only the league but especially the owners, you know, if they're backing up, you know, the support that they say they're offering now, they they've got to show that in the months ahead. I think it's just the the quality, the depth of star power in that video to really probably left the NFL with no choice in the long term. I think that while you know, and I want to make sure I'm saying this clearly, I think that the NFL probably viewed Colin Kaepernick as someone that they could afford to lose. I mean, you know, and say that, hey, we're gonna play both sides of this. We're gonna see it. Let the public dictate which way the wind is blowing. And if this whatever happens to this guy, happens to this guy, I think it could have been as callous as that. But when you hear from Patrick Mahomes, who is arguably the most important person in the sport right now, and this is not too you know, I trust me. I'm just saying that what Colin did was incredible and brave and more important than any of this because he got it all started. But now that there's a tail wind to this UH that features UH ten or eleven or twelve of the most important players in the sport, um you know, across a ton of teams, across a ton of markets, you're seriously forcing, you know, the commissioner to back you because there's no other recourse really, and you know, you hate to see the NFL UM act that way, you know, be so responsive. I mean, we we all read that first statement. It was completely worthless, and I think they would have stuck with that had any of this not happened. But instead, here we are. So I think kudos to all those players for finally building that tailwind for for Colin Kaepernick's message four years later. I mean, you know, at least you know, I mean, what happens if you guys remember a couple of years ago, in sixteen and seventeen, this was like an intensely local issue, you know, like this was an intensely local thing where I think the sort of fallout for like the Cowboys or the Saints or the Texans was different than the fallout for the Giants or the Eagles or the Seahawks. And so that I think is going to be an interesting Like now it's sort of the balls in the court of the individual owners, you know, And so how does Jerry Joe react, How does cal McNair at react, How does Gayle Benson react? Like I think all those I think that's probably the next set of questions here is like, now the commissioner has kind of been put in a corner and he has to kind of like stand with the players because you know, that's his word on the line. Now. I think what's interesting now is like what's going to happen with each of the individual owners, and particularly the owners that are in like some of the quote unquote red states, Yeah, there's gonna be a lot of pressure on them, And I'll echo what you guys said, just the importance of stars being involved, because I think the NBA has gotten a lot of credit, the league itself and some of their star players for speaking up and using their voices over the last four years. And it reminded me a little. I think it was maybe it was four years ago, maybe three at that time at the SPS when Lebron and Dwyane Wade and I think it was Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony the other two guys, the four of them stood up there, and you know, those are the stars that everyone knows who they are from just seeing their faces. They don't have to be in their uniforms or any team identifying colors. Everyone knows who they are. And you know, in the NFL, Kaepernick was a name and was recognizable, but some of the other guys who have been outspoken are not as recognizable. But then when you see it's like you said, you know, Mahomes and uh Deshaun Watson and Zeke and se Kwan. That's those are the Lebron and Dwyane Wade characters in the NFL. And so when those guys are standing up, you're right, Albert, you said, Goodell's painted into a corner. I mean, he has to stand with those guys. They're the league. He said that in his video the player. You know, they don't have a league without those guys. You know, they would, you know, if they had to or whatever. But it's like, those are the people everyone's tuning in to see every Sunday. So if they're the ones speaking up and using their voices, then what choice does the NFL have but to listen to that. And that's the power of this generation of black quarterbacks because we've seen so many talented black football players be pushed into other positions going decades back, you know, not allowed to play quarterback or move to wide receiver, running back. And I think the brilliance of the current black quarterbacks in the league right now on the field is one thing. And then also we're seeing that that gives them this greater faction. You know, like I just think back to like the like you think back to the nineties, and like the way the quarterbacks were then and like they were very like Michael Jordan bears the brunt of that Republicans by sneakers thing too. But I mean, like I can remember playing video games. Connor you may remember this, but like I remember playing video games when I was a little kid, were like the quarterbacks weren't in some of the video games, you know what I mean, Like because they were because they had a separate union, and like the quarterbacks were very much back then like sort of like like again like just neutral and like we have to appeal to the biggest audience, so we're not gonna say anything. And I just think this generation of athletes, and I think you probably give Lebron James credit for this and being one of the leaders in it, is it just feels way more comfortable speaking out and you know, taking up a larger cause. And I think that's probably a credit to you know, again, some of the leaders not just in football but across sports that it is okay for players to speak their mind on these sorts of things. Now, yeah, I think that you guys, there's a Quarterback Club nine whatever, Sports Talk football, football, Yeah, there's some good. And then there was Joe Montana football. Um, he had his own game. Well if you if you remember Tech mobile. I'm trying to think somebody else might have. Steve Young might have did that. Sports Illustrated had their own football game, believe it or not. Yeah, I can actually send you, guys the link. You can play it on like a really sketchy um Czech Republic website right now. You can stream it on your laptop um and and it is awful, I think, and football and baseball combined, so you can, like you can play football for a little bit and you can play baseball for a little bit. So really remember, like tech moo just I think the Techno techs Super Bowl that I'm not aware of the players and the teams, and I'm pretty sure tech most Super Bowl Jim Kelly was actually QB Bills because he wasn't because he I remember stuff like that, because like Michael Jordans wasn't in video games, he was player twenty three in certain games. And I remember that. I do remember that. I don't remember the specific examples. It could have been Jim Kelly, but I remember certain guys being like some such a such player or whatever with the team name or the uniform number. Now we're gonna have to look this up. I'll have to do that when someone else is talking here, I have the rest for junior baseball, the only player and it was ken Garfe Jr. And then right, and then everybody else was named like, yeah, the one guy's name was just Face. I remember that there's a player named Face. I think I'm the only one in this call who never played video games. Too busy, TV and movies, right, Jenny, Yeah, exactly, exactly, too busy records for biology records and all these. Yeah, and here here we are played talking about n B a GM. Where did that get me? Well, speaking of where I got you, Connor, you're a staff writer for the m m QB, and you wrote a wonderful piece. Uh, you examined the weakness for all thirty two NFL teams. So if anyone is listening to this on Friday, all of your NFC teams are published, and we'll be pushing out your a f C teams that list on Saturday. So if you're listening over the weekend catching up, you can go read all thirty two of them right now. Um, So we're not gonna have you go through all thirty two teams because that's a bit much for this podcast, I think Connor but is there anything that stood to you just going through that exercise, something that may be surprised you, or something that was really apparent when you looked at every single team position by position. Um, yeah, I think a few things, and I guess I don't know where we want to start. But um, Jets are not any are still not very good. Um, I'm kind of wondering how they're going to function. Like there there were like three or four, Like there are a lot of teams where I think that you can flip to even the our lads like roster page or whatever, and you can just run down the depth chart and be like, oh yeah, it's obviously this right. Um. The Jets, there was probably like five of them that I had to decide from, to the point where I was so torn that I texted Brian Costello, the wonderful Jets spat writer from the New York Post, um, and I said, Brian, I'm torn, what is the worst part of the team that you covered? So he had to help me out of a gym there and we we settled on cornerback. But m yeah, yeah, it's just remarkable, like you know, yeah, um yeah yeah. Um. And so they were much worse off than I think that I assumed. And I think that the flip side of that is, like, you know, I'm starting to feel that that tickle in my throat, you know, that uncomfortable uh, you know, sniffling that I might be coming down with Buccaneer's fever. I don't know. Man, Like this their problem largely complete, like far more than I thought it was. Like for Buccaneers, I gave I gave running back a slight edge over corner. Um, I just don't think we know enough about what they have and based on how they did last year, um, you know, you have to think the run game is gonna be largely similar. I don't know if they have anybody that's gonna be able to compliment Tom Brady the way that he is accustomed to. So, um, I gave running back a slight nod over corner. But still, I mean, there's really not a lot of weak spots. And Todd Bowls is just so good at his job that I think that he mitigates a lot of stuff on the back end. They're like advanced stats last year on defense, we're surprisingly really really good. Um uh to the point where I was like, oh boy, I better stop making fun of these guys because I'm gonna look really stupid if they go thirteen and three and win the division. So you're picking the box to Ben South. That's what this exercise taught you. Don't. Don't Handcuffy into this yet. I'm not ready, but probably but probably. Well, no picked the Falcons. I think we both picked the Falcons on the Weeks side. But I'm staying there. I'm staying there. I'm staying there, and yes, I'm putting the Saints there. Okay, okay, I mean we've talked about thoughts on the Saints in regard to the power ranking. Listening to this, I am, I am. My voice on the Saints is being drowned out by management and editorial and everything. Uh, this is a pro Saints editorial staff. That is that, you know. So just you know if they're if they don't make the playoffs this year, right, you know where to find me in Meanwhile, Connor, what did you write about the Saints weakness and in this post? I'll get to that in a second. But who is the only national writer in all of football to pick that that? I've seen this coming for months, ready for it? That was just the beginning of the end. I'm ready for it. What's the Saints biggest weakness? They're the only team in this entire exercise that does not have a week, but they're going to finish third. They are just so good. And if you go, like, so I's trying to the Saints, but the Saints, and well so, where would the blame lie then? Right? So the question is the coaching staff? You know, I'm just wondering out loud. It's a hot take. There maybe the deepest team in football for the last three years and you haven't won a Super Bowl? Whose fault is that? Okay, Okay, Connor, I support as a union representative, I support free speech right, so I will go to that for you has free speech rights. He just can't do it anonymously in a group call that results in all of us getting tagged in tweets from bots complaining about the same, about thee or whatever it was. I'm ready, yeah, I mean, it can't be worse than I I honestly think that my responses from Saints Twitter just for that little Peyton jab are not going to be nearly as bad as Bill's Twitter for saying that quarterback is their biggest week spot. I'm I'm really hunkering and for that one, that's gonna be a long day on the But I support that. I agree it's a It's a really good roster and it really depends on if Josh Allen is slightly better. You guys know how I feel about this. I've been I was shotting I was doing on my podcast earlier in the week, and then I looked at him, like, they've got three guys in like Tradevious White, Tremaine Edmonds, and Ed Oliver on defense that like, is there any team that's got three defensive players who are like under twenty five? They're that good? Like that, Like that's really and they could easily be in a situation like the Bears were with Drabsky where they said, okay, we'll give him one year and then all of a sudden they had to go out and find somebody and it was urgent and immediate. And the Bills are a team where maybe you go find a plan B now one year early instead of waiting and possibly Josh Allen regresses and then all of a sudden you're without a franchise quarterback one year too late. Sometimes it's just if you see a guy out there who's undervalued and you can bring someone in as a backup plan, it's better now for cheap than there's misplaced right. But there there's confidence in Josh Allen, and I think the fact that they didn't go after cam Newton has proved positive of it because they're are strong cam Newton connections in that building. Sean McDermott was in Carolina with him, Brandon Bean was in Carolina with him, and so the fact that they left that one alone, I think is sort of a sign of where they stand on Josh Allen. I think that they think that he's a lot better than the general public does. Yeah. Yeah, And I will say they drafted Jake from so they probably viewed that as their plan b. I know, he's not a not one of the first rounders they were talking about playing right away, but they at least addressed it. They brought somebody in the building. And you know, and we've seen fifth round quarterbacks come in the middle of the rookie year and you know overperformed. I mean, what you know what round was Gardner Minshew Sudden started quarterback in year two. Not that I'm saying this is Jake From's future. You guys know, you guys know how I feel. No, no, no, you know what I wanted them to do all offseason. I'm just saying. Connor and I were texting during the draft when they got Jake From, was like, well the dream is dead now of Cam to Buffalo. Committed to your Cam Newton take Mitch, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna put this to be until he signs somewhere. Mitchell. We talk about this once a week. At least, we've talked about this once a week since like February. Yeah, is this This might be the first time we've talked about it on the podcast. You can tell I'm a little wound up, Like I finally got the chance to say something and now I'm just gonna run with it. I'm I'm still processing Connor putting out there that the Saints playoff loss of the Vikings was the beginning of the end, because if it was in fact the beginning of the end, we will be pulling this podcast clip. Shelby Royston, our producer. We're pulling this clip. We're putting it on social media, and they're like six and ten. If they're six intending like, yeah, you have that pen tweet up there with the audio. Finally, you know the you know the Orbit commercial where the guy turns into the peacock and just starts like, if the Saints go six and ten, I'm just gonna I'm gonna force every country just peacock and everything's gonna everything's gonna go downhill after that. Yeah, there it is. Yeah. Oh wow, we're just writing the script for a season the Bowl, right. I think we're going to pretend most of these podcasts didn't happen anyway. Alright, I think we are pretty much wrapped on the football talk. Should we do one good thing? This was Jenny's idea, which I don't know if you meant to do this every time or if you just wanted to suggest it once and then it became a tradition and now we have to do it. But going on, everyone can say one good thing, either about their week or the week in general. But Jenny, now you're you're you're were smiling and now you're looking up like you're trying to think of something to say. I'm gonna put you on the spot and ask you to go first. Here, Do you have one good thing? Yeah, well, no, I did kind of mean it for it to be a weekly thing. I think it's a nice thing to end the pot on. I did mention this on the week side earlier this week, so I don't want to say repeat things. But I went to a vigil at Carl Shur's Park on the Upper East Side on Monday night, and it was really just a really good energy in the group. It was Black Lives Matter vigil for George Floyd and Brianna Taylor, and the energy of the group was really uplifting and energizing. And afterward there was another group that had been marching up for Washington Square Park, so our group marched over to meet them and kind of did a loop. And so yeah, it was just, uh, I said this the other day, but you know, you go in not really sure thinking it's it's such a heavy topic and there's a lot of sadness obviously, but being around that group and the energy of people that we're all fighting for the same thing, it was. It was I really added a lot to my outlook, like it. It gave me a positive outlook that maybe we're headed towards positive change. To see so many people mobilizing together. Um. And so that was like a nice takeaway. Well said thanks, Jenny, um connor, you want to go next? Um, yeah, I can go next. UM. I don't know if I said this on did we do we can review last week? We did not do this last week? Okay, so then I didn't I didn't say this on. So throughout the uh pandemic, I think our family has been much more in tune to wildlife. Um. We had a nest of robins in our tree. Um that became they became somewhat of a group of neighborhood celebrities when everybody knew that the babies were hatching, and everyone was very excited about it. UM. A few weeks ago, I found a toad, and so I ran out with a little tupperware container and brought it into my daughter for breakfast so that she could watch it jump around, not to eat for breakfast. I saw Jenny's face. Yeah, And so while she was eating her breakfast, we got to watch the toad. We we gave him water and everything and and and stuff so he was comfortable in there, and then we we let him back out. UM. And then really cool so uh in our backyard in the pond there there's like old snapping turtles that have been there for decades and decades and they always lay their eggs in my neighbor's house three houses down to the left, but for some reason they picked our yard to lay their eggs this time, which is so cool and weirdly, like I went to go, Um, I went to go see it because I was so jarred and I was going to take a picture of my wife who had to go into the office. Um. And it was actually the moment that they were like laying the eggs, like actually turtle like laying eggs, and it's like that's like Planet Earth stuff. You know, you just don't get to see that every day. So that was cool. That's amazing to ninety days. Um. And so we uh, we put up like metal steaks around it, and then our neighbors are going to get gung ho and apparently there's a cage that you can buy at home depot. We're gonna we're gonna protect the turtles. We're gonna make sure that they get home safe. We've been like looking at the dirt to make sure that none of the animals have gotten in there. And meantime, so I don't know. We're very excited about her baby turtles. They're coming. I feel like I would want privacy if I was laying eggs, like i'm just thinking of it would be a little I'm now picturing laying eggs and connors why I feel like, I don't know. You know, I'm glad you've had this experience. Yeah, I'm just a phone. I don't know. Maybe maybe i'd leave him. I'd want to be left if someone was giving birthday, wouldn't want me in the hospital room shooting it on my iPhone. For percent of people, I feel like that is the kids. But out there is listening that you know you do have a child, so I assume you were around that day. I mean, I don't know. I feel like the last two good at Um, I my my daughter is this close to crawling now, which you know, like she looks like she's ready to walk almost, but she's this close to crawling now, so that's good. And then, um, you know, my my younger son, Drew has like I played football outside with him once and like he caught the ball really well, and then he wanted to keep it a secret from everybody, he said, he announced to me that he's good at football, and then he like made me basically keep it a secret, like so like I couldn't tell anybody that he was good at football. And I've finally convinced him. Um, I finally convinced him yesterday, like to go play football with his brother and his brother who was hyper competitive and doesn't let him win in anything. Actually, like what like they played football. They created some rules that who knows, Like it was like you like, if you can get the ball and throw it against the tree, then you score a point or whatever. His older brother he announced his older brother's good at football, so he said, let's play, and then he let his little brother win, which was really nice. So there's that, and then we're I'm after we're done with this, I'm going to Vermont, Um, Mitch, you get to learn about this live. I'm going to Vermont for about thirty six hours. My wife's already up there, and there's I'm told that this house, which you know, our friends, it's family friends of ours. Um. I'm told that this house has no internet, no cell phone service, no nothing, and so it's gonna be an interesting thirty six hours. I can I can apparently drive down the mountain to go, uh, to go, like if I need to make a phone call or whatever. But but when I get up there, it's gonna be all eyes on me. People are gonna sort of be people are going to be studying my behavior tonight in tomorrow. I think you'll get that like that. I got a lot of the workout. As long as MP gets filed in time, I do whatever you want for the next for the next thirty six hours. There they're times yours, says Andy. Reid would say, alright, well, I was gonna I was actually gonna say the same as Jenny. I also went to a march and a rally in New York last weekend and found that really inspiring and heard some great speakers, and seeing how young some of the people were who organized has been great. But you covered that well, I'll just say I actually I left New York City for the first time last weekend. Also, we've been taking the social distancing very seriously. I don't know a car. We haven't been taking any public transportation, but my wife and I had some friends who were going out to Long Beach on Long Island last week and they offered to give us a ride and we took it, and it was crazy to leave the city for the first time in three months. But it was very nice to get a little break and be outside, sitting on the beach, looking at the ocean, drinking a white claw. It was a very relaxing afternoon, and it was nice to finally get out and feel normal again. I know we still have a long way to go, and a lot of people still need to continue taking this seriously, which is something that I care about a lot, especially as places are reopening and sports are coming back, and uh, you know, a lot of important things are happening. But it was nice to with the weather changing, just to get out and even while continuing to take this seriously, just get some outdoor time and feel like I'm having a normal summer again. What what flavor claw? Well, I had a mango, and I had a black cherry, and I'm a big fan of the watermelon and the tangerine. I didn't have all of these in No, We've been drinking a lot of white claws the last couple of months. Can't go to bars, so buying white claws and drinking it at home. But I think the mango and the black cherry are probably my two favorite, and I had one of each on the beach. I've never had one a White Claw at all. Right, no, never, Okay, this is gonna We're gonna have to meet in the courtyard for white Claw and homemade desserts. You bring the you, you bring the baked goods, and I'll bring the white claws. Jenny, I want to I want to go. Well, if you can find a safe way to do this, you're welcome to wear a mask. I guess there was no alcohol at all, but it was. I mean, like, I don't know, these things are like it's like ten bucks for four of them, but up they were pretty effective, just like and I guess like it's like supposed to be like a white Claw, but I don't know. It was the first time I've ever had one, so I yeah, it's amazing how many brands of that there are now that are coming out with this. But I feel like white Claw was so early on it that people have I mean, I have brand loyalty to them. I don't even because you know, I would try some of these if it's all the round, but when I'm in the store, you know I'm buying White Claw. I don't know. Um, actually it is a good They might not have been like the first ones, but it feels like they were. They were the first one to get really popular. But I don't know, Maybe I don't know if rip offs a fair word. Some of them, I'm sure good, But to each their own. I'm a fan of the White Claw Mango and that's all I'll say. Alright, anyone else have any final thoughts or words here before we take off for you know, at least a week, maybe two weeks are occasional Friday podcast that we do some weeks and not others. Anyone have anything else to share before we hop off here? Oh, thanks for doing a great job hosting as always, match totally you know I try well. Thank you Shelby, our producer, for putting the tape together, five people talking, all in different places. We always appreciate his hard work. Thanks everyone for listening. Make sure you subscribe to the m m QB NFL podcast. You get new podcasts all five days of the week, including this one on Fridays and others with Jenny and Connor and Albert, so make sure you check it out. Make sure you visit the MQB dot com to see all of our stories that we're writing, and we will talk to you again real soon