Transcript 0:00 Oh, oh, oh. Hey, yo, man. Can you see them mics, man? 0:08 [upbeat music] Welcome to Norse Code, the number one podcast for your Minnesota Vikings. I'm your host and producer. My name is James Pigoshnik. Thank you guys so much for listening. 0:25 And at the other end of the tin cannon string, we have our analyst and co-host. You know him from numerous blogs and podcasts around the internet, most notably from the Wide Left Sub Stack. He is Mr. 0:35 Useful Human, Arif Hassan. 0:37 Arif, judging on the end of the game between the Eagles and the Cowboys, it seemed to me that Dak Prescott was truly trying to get the spirit of Daunte Culpepper in him, and he was g- he w- he, he, if he was gonna lose, he was gonna go down in flames and just start throwing bombs that were very nearly picked off multiple times. 1:00 Not his fault. Nah, he, he played outstandingly. The- it's... You have one contested ca- uh, throw to a tight end, and then you have, like, three drops from your star receiver. Nah, it's... That, that was... 1:12 That's, that's how you have to play that. You have to play that high risk, high reward, and I don't know, man, he gunned it in there. That's gotta be one of the better bad stat games I've ever seen. 1:21 [laughs] He, he was certainly trying. You cannot say that Dak Prescott was gonna just let this one go. Nope. Oh, yeah. He, he, he was trying to will this thing into existence. 1:32 He just didn't have the supporting cast to do so. Um, good on A.J. Brown for- It's crazy. They had a superstar on their team, like, two weeks ago. Whatever happened to that guy? 1:40 [laughs] Um, that's an excellent question, uh, for another time. Uh, also shout-out to A.J. Brown, who got one catch. Um- One ca- eight yards. That's, uh, that's 1.8 fantasy points, right? That's great. 1:52 That, that stuff adds up. I... Not immediately, not this week- Yeah... but it adds up, and that's important. And with that, welcome to this episode of Norse Code. Hope you guys are all doing well. 2:02 The season has kicked off. We have a game to preview. We're gonna bring on Lauren Cox here in just a moment to preview the Bears game. But before we do, thank you guys so much for listening to Norse Code. 2:14 If you enjoy the show and would like to help us out financially, there's a couple different ways you can do it. You can go over to patreon.com/norsecode. 2:21 For $3.50 a month or a littlest f- little less for the year subscription, you get access to the Discord, the bonus episodes, all that. Special thank you to, uh, to a couple people. 2:29 I m- I, I almost missed the people who signed up last episode, so I'm just gonna put them in here as well just at the very beginning. Special thank you to Kevin O'Quigley. Uh, Heb- Heathen. Heaven. Heathen. 2:42 [laughs] You were about to pronounce that Heather. I love that. I... Well, you know, it... I, I, I triple-checked it, like, mult- like, it just wasn't gonna happen. Heathen. Yeah. 2:50 Uh, Alex Stevenson, Mitchell Kane, Darren McGuire, and Michael Dahlstrom, thank you guys so much for subscribing over on Patreon. 2:59 You can also go to PayPal- Hey, if y- if that's, if that's the Alex Stevenson that did speech at Eagan High School way back when, uh, thanks for subscribing. F you, dude. I hate you so much. 3:12 Well, we've already got his $3.50, so- [laughs]... uh, patreon.com/norsecode. You too can be verbally accosted by Arif- [laughs]... in a very possible chance of mistaken identity. So patreon.com/norsecode. 3:26 I mean, if y- if y- if it's, uh, if it's a different Alex Stevenson, we're cool. You're cool. Change your name, but w- you're cool. PayPal.me/norsecode as well- [laughs]... for a one-time donation. I'm just gonna... 3:37 I'm, I'm attempting to start the show. Just gonna, [laughs] just gonna roll through it. I'm just gonna roll through. Arif's gonna be, uh, berating the next person I bring up too, I'm sure. 3:46 Uh, and then [laughs] you can go to- [laughs]... norsecode.threadless.com for every, any number of wonderful pieces of Norse Code merchandise. 3:54 Uh, next person I'm bringing up is Lauren, so I'm giving you a moment to, uh, to figure this out. Uh- They... Uh, no, we're good. It's- No, you're, you're good there? Gave up like an hour and a half of his time. 4:03 [laughs] Fantastic. So, uh, we are going to just get into the show. We know that you wanna hear about the, the Bears previews. We're gonna do that right now. 4:11 S- friend of the show is gonna be coming on here to discuss it. Uh, Lauren Cox of Locked On Bears is gonna be on here, so check it out. We will see you, uh, in time for the mailbag. 4:22 I, I'm here with, uh, to my knowledge, the only Bears podcaster in existence, uh, the only guy that we bring on for Bears podcasts, I think. Um, h- wait, have you ever canceled and, like, re- you've recommended... 4:37 This is Lauren Cox, by the way, Cox Sports 1. [laughs] We- Yeah. [laughs] Have you ever canceled on us? Have you, like, had to recommend a guy to us? 4:44 I don't have any memory of doing so, but I can't claim a perfect record either. I, I'm not sure. Sure. I mean, James would know better, right? That's... He keeps track of this kind of stuff, and I don't. 4:55 J- like, uh, actually, earlier this week, James was like, "Hey, did you get a guest this week?" 5:00 [laughs] He asks, like, every week, uh, uh, which honestly him asking is generous enough 'cause it should just be, "Hey, man, get a guest." And this week I was like, "Yeah, I reached out to Lauren." 5:10 And he was like, "I'm so proud of you, man." [laughs] We've been doing this show for like 12 years. Finally got it. Finally got a guest. [laughs] Finally got it, man. How's it going? It's going well. 5:20 Um, you know, it, there's a lot of, I think a lot of angst around what this season's gonna bring for Bears fans, but I'm... We're gonna learn a lot. Is it different? 5:28 When's the last time that there wasn't angst, like 2011? Well, I, I... Let me put it differently, I guess. Like, like, angst is maybe not the right word. 5:35 Like, there's a lot that we just, like, don't know, and we gotta see and figure out, and I, and I feel like in the past there's been, like, a more of like, "Oh, we have a specific expectations for what exactly..." 5:45 Like, oh, it's year three of Matt Eberflus, or it's, you know, X, Y, or Z, right? We kinda know... 5:49 It doesn't always go that way, but w- with Ben Johnson right now, it's like, we just have so m- so much is gonna be brand new and different, and we don't have a lot to know what to expect 'cause it's not gonna be the Lions offense. 5:59 It's gonna be a new version of the offense. We don't know exactly what that's gonna be, and Dennis Allen's defense, there's some real question marks. We don't know exactly what it's gonna be. 6:04 So there's just a lot of, like, we, we're optimistic, but we don't know what-... really to expect. Okay. Yeah, optimistic but don't know what to expect. Perfect start to a season. 6:15 Um, great, so I'm gonna ask you to tell us what to expect. Uh, [laughs] um, yeah, I guess, like, the, the top-level question, though, is, like, this Ben Johnson question that you kinda referenced. Like, 6:28 obviously, I don't think anyone expects Caleb Williams to play like Jared Goff, which would then mean that we wouldn't expect precisely the same offense or exactly the same offense. 6:37 But, you know, we've seen a little bit of it in, or you maybe have seen or Bears people have seen a little bit of in camp, and then we've seen a little bit of it in the off-season. 6:46 It still does seem to be, just like the Lions, a timing-oriented offense, which kind of works in interesting ways, I think, with the way we perceive Caleb Williams to be as a player. 6:57 Um, what are elements of this offense that you kind of recognize from the Lions, and what elements are kind of different? 7:05 And how much can we say from what we've seen that we even know what this offense is gonna look like? Yeah. 7:14 I think that last point is probably the most poignant, that we, you know, pre-season and even training camp practices haven't given us the whole shebang, but yet we know it's gonna have fundamental tenets that are similar to the Lions offense. 7:25 Like, there's just things that Ben Johnson wants to accomplish that are fairly universal, right? Like, ideally, they'd like to run the ball as much as possible and not have to throw it if they don't need to. 7:34 And, you know, they would like to get the ball in the hands of playmakers, right? So it's not necessarily like the thing we're gonna see the Bears do is some totally unique, has no similarities to Detroit at all. 7:44 It's more just, like, taking those sort of philosophical preferences and then applying it to the skillsets that Chicago has, that they have a quarterback who maybe can improvise and, and break from structure a little bit more than Jared Goff could. 7:56 Or, you know, they have playmakers at, uh, receiver that have slightly different skillsets. 8:00 They don't have quite a Jamison Williams deep threat in the same way, but they've got pass catchers who can make plays after the catch in terms of DJ Moore having some Amon-Ra-like traits and Luther Burton having some Amon-Ra-like traits, but neither one being exactly quite the same player there. 8:14 So it's, it's just gonna be kinda like a Bears flavor on this idea of, like, make the quarterback's job easy, not because we don't trust him, but because we don't need to make it any more difficult than it should be. 8:23 And then when it, when it does get difficult, that's when we can turn and trust him to be the playmaker that we've seen him be at college and, and as a rookie. 8:30 W- so when, when I think of the concept of a Bears-flavored version of an offense, I think about the time Dave Matthews Band drove over a bridge. [laughs] In Chicago. [laughs] In Chicago. Yeah. 8:44 I mean, listen, you gotta empty the, the, the latrine every once in a while. [laughs] And the Bears feel like they, they drove over that bridge this off-season by letting Matt Eberflus move on, and- Hey, look at that. 8:53 You're bringing it back around. What a professional. Yeah. 8:56 [laughs] Well, the idea is that now the Dave Matthews Band tour bus that is the current Chicago Bears i- is, now has bathrooms that are ready to be refilled, and, uh, you- [laughs] We've got, we've got all new crap to put in there. 9:08 [laughs] Well, yeah, we're just hoping not a lot of crap to add back to it. Yeah. [laughs] Okay. So, uh, w- how has... Let's start, let's start with Caleb Williams. How has Caleb Williams, uh, progressed? 9:20 Like, has it been, you know, growth? Has it been stable? Uh, are we seeing any differences? And obvi- again, obviously, like, pre-season, camp, whatever, right? Like, we don't have a ton of information. 9:31 But given the information that we do have, are we seeing elements of his game change? Are they changes to his weaknesses, changes to his strengths, some secret third thing? I don't know. [laughs] Yeah. 9:45 The, the cha- there will be changes. I don't know that we've had enough of a sample size to, like, definitively say, "Ah, this is what's improved," or, or, "This is what hasn't improved." 9:54 But, like, there's a big ongoing storyline narrative throughout training camp that, oh, this Bears offense was struggling and Caleb Williams was struggling and that, you know, there were interceptions and passes were hitting the ground, and that's- Good, good... 10:07 in [laughs] that... Well, that's been very, uh, I don't wanna say, like, intentional. 10:11 Like, they're not intentionally having him be bad, but, like, the whole point for Ben Johnson and the staff was to push these guys really hard and to make things really difficult for them. 10:20 And so, like, they, in some sense, want them to be making mistakes as part of that growth and learning process. 10:26 And I think the idea from Ben Johnson is, like, if, if they were having these really flawless training camp practices, then that would mean we're not pushing them hard enough and we're not putting enough on their plate. 10:35 So that once they finished installs, which was, like, you know, the first two or three weeks of training camp practice, we stopped hearing that narrative of, like, oh, these bad practices, because now they started going through plays the second and third time through and eliminating the stuff that didn't work very well and focusing on the stuff that did work well. 10:50 And all of a sudden, they've been able to build a lot more momentum, and we see them come out against the Bills and have a really strong performance. 10:55 And I know it was a little bit more concerning against the Chiefs the second time around, but it was a very different offensive approach in that game and a, and a very small sample size that I'm not sure... 11:05 I'm not sure either one is definitive of, of, like, exactly what we're gonna see this season, but I think somewhere in the middle between this looks like a well-oiled machine and same old Caleb is gonna be where the truth lies, at least for week one against the Vikings. 11:16 When you say the offenses look different between those two games, like, what... How did, how did that materialize for you? Yeah. 11:24 So against Buffalo in the second pre-season game, which was the first game that Caleb played in, the, the Bears came out passing on, like, seven of their first eight plays, and it was all very intentionally designed, I don't wanna say quick. 11:37 Not, not quick rhythm, but in rhythm passing, right? It was, like, five-step drop, hitch, ball's out, thrown with anticipation. 11:43 Like, there was very clearly, like, let's dial some things up for Caleb to get in a rhythm and get going early and not really worry about the running game so much and not really worry about how we're, you know, how, how we're sort of approaching it from a broader game plan perspective. 11:57 It's just like, let's unleash this a little bit and show, maybe show ourselves that, like, this is how the offense is supposed to work. 12:04 And it really looked like, you know, e- everything was the way it was supposed to look. I mean, they got... 12:08 got the ball to, like, five or six different receivers, got everybody involved, ended in a nice touchdown drive, and it was like, boom, there's, like, your proof of concept. 12:14 But then against the Chiefs, in their second game for the starters, but really the third overall preseason game, they came out and ran it on, like, six of the first seven plays, and it was all about let's run D'Andre Swift. 12:23 And so the couple of times they threw with Caleb Williams, he, it hadn't really gotten to a rhythm, and then the blitz came, and he held onto the ball a little bit too long, and it started to get back to some of the stuff that, you know, we, we wanted to see more improvement from. 12:33 But it wasn't really... It didn't feel like Ben Johnson was, was trying to run an offense that was like, "Hey, let's score as many points as possible this game." 12:40 It's like, "No, I wanna get this running game and this offensive line some work here, so we're gonna sprinkle some passes in between, but it's not really the emphasis for us today. 12:47 We just wanna kinda get the ground game going." So none of it felt like a, a showcase of exactly what this offense was gonna be. 12:53 It was more like, "Here's what I want to accomplish in these games, and regardless of whether it's gonna win or lose it for us." Okay. Uh, so the Bears offense is bad. Got it. That's what I learned. 13:05 Uh [laughs] That, that's the only takeaway you can get there, yes. Yeah, yeah. Um, let's talk a little bit about the running game. 13:11 You mentioned that, like, obviously Ben Johnson focused a lot on the running game in Detroit. 13:16 Um, and I wanna know kinda, like, how much of that is like, "Hey, we're like a Dan Campbell team, not a Ben Johnson team," and how much of that is, like, Ben Johnson is like, "No, we, like, I love running the ball. 13:28 I love running the ball so much." Um, uh, how can, how can we, like, divine which of those two things is kinda maybe closer to the truth? 13:37 And then secondarily, like, the last time Ben Johnson had D'Andre Swift, he got rid of him, right? So, like, I- how happy are we with this situation? 13:48 Yeah, so I would say that, that the D'Andre Swift narrative is something that has been persistent but not with much evidence since he's come to the Chicago Bears. 13:59 Like, yes, I mean, yes, he did get rid of him in Detroit, but, like, from the moment he has gotten here, Ben Johnson has been very complimentary of D'Andre Swift and has endorsed him publicly over and over again. 14:09 And yet because he was so disappointed last year for the Bears, I think Bears fans have been looking at every possible draft pick and trade and free agent to upgrade the Bears running back position, and the Bears kind of repeatedly showed us with inaction or drafting a running back in the seventh round that, like, "No, we're actually pretty happy and satisfied with, with D'Andre Swift. 14:27 Like, we're rolling with this. This is our plan." And they're, they're pretty confident that he can get the job done, in large part I think because the real fix was the offensive line, right? 14:35 This was supposed to be a, a much better group up front with Joe Thuney and Drew Dalman and Jonah Jackson rebuilding the interior. 14:41 You got Darnell Wright coming back at right tackle and now Braxton Jones back at left tackle. He's probably the biggest question mark at this point, more so due to health. 14:49 But I think the idea from Ben Johnson is, like, "I can scheme this, and we can block this well enough that any of these running backs will get the job done. They're not gonna be Jahmyr Gibbs, but that's okay. 14:58 We don't need, in year one of me op- trying to execute this offense, we don't need this to be Jahmyr Gibbs just yet. 15:04 Swift can be a 1,000-yard back, and we can run plenty of play action off of that and feel like that group will at least get the job done, if not be, uh, uh, more than what they need." 15:12 [lip smacks] Why did he get rid of D'Andre Swift? I mean, obviously he's not the general manager of the Detroit Lions from several years ago, but, like, why did that happen? I don't have, like, a definitive answer there. 15:25 I mean, for, for, for me it's like you, you kinda get to that decision point where it's like we're coming up towards the end of a rookie contract, and you know that a payday is gonna be in the near future, and he was always kind of a rotational back there. 15:37 And so if the right offer's there from Philadelphia, you say, "Screw it. 15:39 We wanna go, we wanna go and get better," and you have the opportunity to, you know, get D- David Montgomery on a, a decent price deal and then Jahmyr Gibbs in the draft. 15:47 You know, you trade down, and he's still there, so you take him. 15:49 So I, I think there was just a feeling of like, "Well, we kinda saw this through, for what it was worth, and we can make this work with other running backs and don't need to get caught up in, in paying him." 15:59 But I, I don't know that it was some, like, you know, he's bad or not good enough. I mean, his last year in Detroit he averaged over five yards per carry. I just think... 16:06 I, I, so I don't, I don't have, like, a, a definitive answer. 16:08 I just think it's a combination of getting towards the end of a rookie contract and saying, "Well, let's get some value for him and see if, you know, see if we can upgrade that position." 16:16 Uh, Roschon Johnson, not healthy, right? So we're just gonna see, uh, the seventh rounder? Almost certainly. He has not practiced. Roschon Johnson has not practiced in... 16:27 I, I don't have an exact date, but it's been, feels like close to a month. At, at two to three weeks at, at least, but probably close to a month, and he's been, like... 16:36 You know, I, I don't know if you follow, like, the coach speak index people on Twitter that track, like, all the, all the press conference and stuff. 16:42 But they've noticed how, like, Ben Johnson has s- not said, like, three words about Roschon Johnson all offseason. Like, he's glo- he's raved about- Oh, rip. Okay... 16:49 he's raved about Kyle Monangai, and somehow Roschon Johnson has been the forgotten guy in there. 16:54 And I mean, he was disappointing last season, but I think there's a pretty clear expectation that Monangai, even if they're healthy, Monangai might still be the number two running back. 17:01 And with Roschon still out, uh, it's definitely gonna be him as that next choice. But there's a feeling like, you know, could Roschon still have, like, some kinda third down role in the future? 17:10 He's probably the best pass protector of the three and a decent pass catcher, but Monangai for now is, is a, is a bowling ball ba- you know, secondary ball carrier behind Swift. 17:20 Are they gonna elevate a g- I think the only guy on the practice squad right now running back is Britton Brown, right? Are they gonna, like, elevate a guy, or is it ju- are they just gonna roll in with two? 17:28 That's, so the number three running back will be D.J. Moore. That's, uh- Gosh... the, the fun wrinkle they're going for now. All right. D- D.J. Moore is- Wait, so n- wait, not Luther Burdin? No. D.J. 17:38 Moore has been practicing with the running backs. Like, he, not, not- Oh. The- Oh, geez. [laughs] Individual, in during individual drills, Eric Bieniemy, Bears running backs coach, is coaching up D.J. 17:46 Moore on taking handoffs in the backfield. Like, he's- All right. Uh, this is not a serious team. You can't tell me this is a serious team. So, I mean, s- D.J. 17:54 Moore's not gonna get 10 carries, uh, but, you know, but, but it's something they're- [laughs] It, it is something they're, we're absolutely going to see it against the Vikings. 18:02 He, he's gonna line up at least once in that backfield. I would be stunned if he never got a single snap back there. 18:07 But, uh, Ryan Poles has insisted that he thinks these running backs are gonna be healthier and good to go, but as the culture- Sure, yeah... 18:14 of the game time, I would expect Roschon probably doesn't, and they, they might... call up somebody like, you know, Britton Brown from the practice squad. 18:21 But I think they've got other guys they really wanna call up from the practice squad. 18:24 I think they already have plans for those two call-up spots, so they might just go two running backs plus DJ Moore and say good enough. [laughs] Why not? 18:32 Um, I do wanna talk about the receivers in a second, but I, I totally forgot to address this thing with the quarterbacks real quick, which was there seems to be a underground movement, as it were, tell- that argues that Tyson Bagent is better than Caleb Williams. 18:48 And I know that that's a rational and reasonable take. 18:53 I know [laughs] that that is something that people who are, uh, you know, that have a lot of ball knowledge and are mentally extremely healthy, that's the kind of claim that they would make. 19:05 Would you care to respond to the allegations that Tyson Bagent is actually a better quarterback than Caleb Williams? Yeah. So I mean, there's a lot to like about Tyson Bagent, right? 19:15 It feels like if, when you're- So diplomatic, dude. This is great... Well, you know, it, it comes off as like, "No, Tyson Bagent sucks." Like, no, that's- [laughs] 19:23 But, but like, there is very clearly a difference between the talent of a number one overall pick quarterback and the talent of a, of a former undrafted free agent quarterback, and it's one of those, I think as a fan base, where whenever there's a, a anything wrong with the starter, the grass is always greener with, with the backup. 19:37 But I mean, Bagent has operated this offense well in the preseason and, and this, this is purely a sample size thing where like we've seen Caleb Williams throw a handful of passes, and we've seen Tyson Bagent run the offense for, you know, three quarters of three different preseason games. 19:49 And of course it's, it's looked good with Tyson Bagent doing it that long, 'cause he has a whole game to get in rhythm and work with the receivers and, and do all that stuff that Caleb hasn't had the opportunities to do. 19:58 Like I, I, it's, it's, so it's like we, we ca- we're struggling to give Bagent credit without taking credit away from, from C- Caleb Williams. And, and I think the accentuation of Caleb 20:09 reportedly struggling in training camp practices that maybe isn't that big of a deal, combined with Bagent looking sharp in preseason games naturally lends itself that way. 20:17 Plus Bagent is, and his dad, are very media friendly behind the scenes, and so there's a lot of, uh, there's a lot of people who are big fans of Tyson Bagent for more than just on-field reasons. A conspiracy. 20:32 I see how it is. Um, [laughs] ha- did Tyson, did he have the same troubles that Caleb had the first two weeks of camp while we were, we were figuring out the limits of what we could get away with? Th- s- some. 20:47 I mean, it's, it's hard to compare them side by side, 'cause Caleb- Okay. I mean, that sounds like no. That sounds like no... D- so I mean, the same struggles, not necessarily. 20:56 [laughs] It's, it, it's, I mean, it's, it's hard. 20:59 Uh, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's kind of an apples and oranges thing in the sense that like, like s- some of the struggles for the offense was like guys getting lined up correctly and, and ex- you know, it's, it's like operational stuff, not so much like is Caleb missing open receivers downfield or misreading coverages. 21:16 And so, you know, is the second, i- is T- was Tyson Bagent maybe a little bit better at getting the backups lined up in their spots? I mean, probably. But it, does that make him a better quarterback? No. 21:29 I [laughs] I mean, okay. [laughs] He, he's more of a coach maybe. [laughs] Right. Let's talk about the receivers. Uh, so Luther Burden, it sounds like he's not gonna play a significant role early in the season. 21:42 Sounds like he's like wide receiver four maybe. Um, w- why, why? Why, why, uh, is Olamide Zaccheaus ahead of him? 21:52 Um, well, I think a lot of it's veteran versus rookie thing, whereas Zaccheaus just can pick up an offense quicker and kn- you know, knows how to handle himself as an NFL wide receiver. 22:01 A lot of it is also that Luther Burden, in rookie minicamp right after being drafted, uh, suffered some kind of soft tissue ish injury that I don't remember, and so he missed all of OTAs and mandatory minicamp and, you know, came back for the start of training camp, but even still a little bit slowed up then. 22:17 So I think just generally being behind, uh, because of injury, and then also being behind because of, of being a rookie and just trying to learn and c- catch up to all this stuff has been some of that. 22:26 But we have seen Luther Burden in particular take really well to Ben Johnson's coaching. 22:31 Like, one of the, one of the knocks on Burden coming out of college was, like, some effort, motivation stuff, like when the ball is not being thrown his way, doesn't, doesn't, you know, give, like when it's blocking on a screen pass or whatever it is, like maybe he doesn't care that much. 22:43 But in the preseason, there were a couple plays where they motioned him into the, like, into an inline tight end position at the snap and then had him block, and he moved linebackers. 22:52 Like he, this is someone who it seems to be buying into the message of this coaching staff and saying, "Yeah, I'm willing to do the dirty work now." 22:58 And I think from there you'll start to see his role grow and accelerate, but I think that took some time to really kind of sink in. All right. So we got Tyson Bagent, diva. We got Luther Burden, diva. 23:12 [laughs] A diva who's blocking in line like a tight end, you know, classic diva behavior. 23:18 Um, so what, what does Zaccheaus offer as like, I'll ask about the real receivers in a second, but what does Zaccheaus offer as a receiver? Like, we see him on the field, like what is like... 23:30 I remember seeing him at Atlanta, which is actually, I thought he did pretty well there. Saw him at Washington. Like, what does he, what does he do? 23:38 Yeah, he feels to me like kind of a jack of all trades, master of none type of thing, where it's like he's a pretty good route runner. That's probably his, his best trait. 23:45 But like he's not, he's not fast, but he's not slow. He's not big, but he's not small. He can play inside. He can play out. Like he's kind of just a little bit of- He's just a guy?... 23:54 old reliable kind of, you know, that, that kind of like security blanket type player for, for Caleb Williams that he, they very quickly built a rapport, and he's probably like the, the least exciting of the receivers, but maybe the, I don't wanna say the most trustworthy, but just sort of the, it, it's kind of that, that, like I said, that old reliable. 24:10 Whereas like DJ Moore and, and Rome Odunze and Luther Burden, like they can be big time playmakers, but, you know, not quite the same. I, I, I guess, I, I guess they've got more distinct roles, I guess.Okay. 24:23 Uh, well, let's talk about those roles then. Let's talk about, first about D.J. 24:27 Moore, who I, I feel like ever since he was traded has produced kind of like disappointingly, but has he been a disappointing player like on film, right? Like, it's not necessarily his fault that like 24:40 as a rookie Caleb Williams couldn't necessarily connect well with him or whoever was before Caleb Williams. Was his name Justin Fields, right? [laughs] Yeah, whoever that was. Yeah. Um Some guy. Well, because that's... 24:51 But to, to your point, like this is the first time in D.J. Moore's career he will have the same quarterback two seasons in a row. So he's now got the opportunity- Wait, what do you ha- Wait, wait, wait. 25:02 When it wasn't Justin Fields, was it Case Keenum, Andy Dalton? What are we talking about? Like two seasons in a row where the s- the same starting quarterback year one to year two. 25:12 Oh, yeah, 'cause yeah, again, Moore hasn't been there for very long. Okay, that makes more sen- [laughs] I was like, "That doesn't make sense." 25:17 He's got one year of Fields and one year of Caleb, so now he's got two- Yeah, yeah. Yeah. [laughs] I was like, "But Fields has been the quarter..." [laughs] Like I, we just wasn't processing this. Got it. Yeah. 25:24 No, fair enough. 25:25 Um [laughs] There's the idea then that like he can, he can now develop more of that connection, more of that rapport, more of that timing and, you know, not have miscommunications and, and, you know, and just missed opportunities out there. 25:39 Plus, a coach that you feel like can utilize D.J. Moore's skillset, you know, a- as a running back in the backfield and as a, a playmaker after the catch. 25:47 And, like he's not, he's no longer, they're no longer trying to make him the ex-receiver number one on the outside. He's, he gets to kind of be, uh, a little bit more of a gadget player that goes all over the place. 25:58 Okay. And I mean, like that's kind of how a lot of people envisioned him being used at Carolina. It, it didn't feel like he was necessarily used like that all that often. 26:08 Um, do we, like, do we really think he's at like the... How old is he? He's 28? 28, yeah. God, he was a young prospect. Okay, never mind. 26:18 I was gonna be like, "How much can we trust a 30-year-old to start picking up running?" That's fine. No worries. Um, he never struck me as a particularly nuanced route runner. Super good athlete. 26:29 Does get separation kinda despite that. Um, this does feel like an offense that does want a little bit of precision from its route runners. Is that... 26:41 I mean, it sounds like they love him anyway, but d- does that seem like an area where maybe we, we won't be able to maximize D.J. Moore? I, I'm not... 26:50 I mean, I don't, I don't see that as a concern for him because I, I, well, I don't think he's an elite or special route runner. I don't think it's like a, a weakness of his either. 26:59 I, I think he's just kind of middle of the pack in that regard. 27:02 And, and I think the feeling is like the precision is mo- I mean, uh, every offensive coordinator wants precise routes, but like the precision in Ben Johnson's offense is more about the timing than like the, the nuance of the cuts of the route. 27:17 Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you gotta be- I think there's a difference, yeah... where the quarterback expects you at a certain time, but that doesn't mean you have to make four cuts in order to get there. 27:23 It's just sometimes it's gonna be a crossing route. You gotta- I'll tell you... Hey, hey, hey. You know me. I don't think that a good route runner is like this Hunter Renfrow, I'm gonna make, you know, six cuts to get... 27:33 Come on, man. [laughs] Well, you know, for, for the... I, I know you're a genius of all kinds. [laughs] Your idiot listeners, you know, those are the ones I gotta talk down to. [laughs] Like... 27:44 [laughs] No, but you know what? So when- Yeah... I'm, I'm thinking D.J. Moore on, you know, shallow crosses. He, he can run a deep in route. 27:51 Like you don't need to be a precise route runner to run 12 yards and then cut in. 27:54 Like it, it helps, but like the offense isn't gonna fall apart if he's a little bit sloppy on that cut, 'cause he has the acceleration and the speed and that in theory the layering of the other routes should create the space so that he's where he needs to be and has room to run in front of him. 28:06 Like this, the, the route concepts are supposed to sort of make up for whatever lack of technical proficiency you might have, and then your ability after the catch is what they're really counting on. Okay. 28:17 Uh, let's talk about Rome Odunze, who unfortunately I can't even like pretend is a diva. Like his whole deal coming out was that he had- [laughs]... this like phenomenal attitude. So- Nice guy. Yeah... yeah. 28:28 Uh, so Rome Odunze, great locker room guy. A good... Not amazing athlete. Good athlete, right? Like 4.45 guy, pretty big. Yeah. Um, yeah. What's his deal? How is he... I, I, I read a, a... 28:42 I Googled just before this section. Rome Odunze has looked, quote, "unguardable" in camp. Is that correct? Yeah. 28:49 I mean, he's, he's the precision precise route runner with definitely good enough to, speed to maximize that great route running. Uh, I mean, he's- Yeah, I, I don't wanna like under... When I say like... 29:01 I'm comparing him to like Malik Nabers, who's an insane athlete, right? Sure. Like I- Yeah, yeah. He's a, he's an above average [laughs] athlete. I don't wanna undercut it too much. Yeah. 29:08 I think the only, the only lingering question or downside to Rome Odunze that we still need to like see is like physically he's a little bit frail and can get pushed off of routes by more physical corners that get up and jam him, and like we need to see more growth in that regard. 29:24 But he's really gonna be like the prototypical ex-number one wide receiver on the outside in this offense. Like th- there, he's... I, I still think D.J. 29:33 Moore leads in targets, catches, and yards, but like when you talk about who looks like the number one wide receiver visually and just sort of like when you watch the film like, "Oh, he's lined up there," and is still gonna get a heavy dose of targets and catches and yards. 29:46 But like I, I think the primary plan is get D.J. 29:49 Moore the ball in space and let him work after the catch, and then if he's not open, Rome Odunze will have created separation by now in his route and he's the next place to look because he's just gonna be open all the time, and you hope that he can give you a little more of a vertical option there because you kinda, you don't wanna have to make D.J. 30:05 Moore as vertical of a receiver as he has been in the past 'cause he can do it, it's just maybe not his perfect skill set. Sure. Uh, should I, should I think about Jalen Walker or Devin Duvernay? 30:15 I mean, Jalen Walker had like an amazing, like he was a fallen undrafted, everyone loved him. But like I don't gotta think about them though, right? N- no. 30:23 I mean, Ben Johnson's g- gonna get them involved here and there, but no, I mean, uh, it should be... 30:28 We talked about the four receivers, and then, you know, we'll get to the two tight ends and the running backs, and that's, that's pretty much what the passing offense will be.Sure. 30:34 Uh, yeah, let's talk about the, the tight ends then. Okay, so they, they got the wrong one, right? Um, [laughs] why? Why did they, why did they grab the wrong tight end and not the correct tight end? 30:45 What, what- what's going on there? Yeah, crazy. Crazy how that works. Um, I, so I think from their perspective, one, uh, Ben Johnson sees Colston Loveland in the mold of Sam LaPorta a lot more than Tyler Warren was. 30:57 Uh, they liked especially Colston Loveland's blocking a bit more, and it's... You're not drafting a tight end number 10 for blocking. Have, have we seen, have we seen Sam LaPorta throw a pass? I'm curious about this one. 31:08 That's a good question. I don't know that we have. 'Cause- But, uh, uh- Yeah, 'cause if you could, if you could throw the ball, then you gotta get Tyler Warren, right? Like, that's the... Well, [laughs] 31:19 I'm looking through his, his p- Pro Football Reference sheet, and I'm not, I'm not seeing a pass attempt in there, so. Okay, yeah. So yeah, he doesn't want tight ends throwing the ball. Weird. Okay. 31:27 [laughs] But so they, they, they see, you know, they bas- I think they looked at it and said, like, listen. 31:31 They think Loveland's got a little bit more of a well-rounded skill set, and if they're similar enough receivers and he's the better, more physical blocker, then we're gonna take him and roll with it. 31:40 And I, I, I certainly understand, you know. But do you think they are similar enough receivers? I don't... 31:46 That's like, uh, 'cause, like, everybody ha- and, uh, I know obviously not everybody, but I have over 100 big boards, right? 31:53 [laughs] Like, m- almost everybody had Tyler Warren ahead of Colston Loveland, and I would imagine a lot of them understood that Loveland was a better blocker. 32:01 And so y- just by like, by just, like, inferencing it that out, I think most people would very easily conclude that they were not similar receivers. So, like, why would they come to that type of conclusion? 32:15 So I, I guess a couple thoughts on, on that side. One, I think from Ben Johnson's perspective, 32:24 it's, it's not even necessarily just the fact that, that Loveland is the better blocker, but that in the context of this offense, he really wants the threat of the tight end as a blocker to be a real sell for the play action. 32:36 Right. Yeah. So that when Tyler Warren is in the game, it's a little bit more like if Jimmy Graham's out there, it's like, well, we don't really have to... 32:43 Like, if they're gonna run the ball, we don't really have to worry about his side of the, the line. Sure. Yeah. 32:48 Because he's not that great a bl- Like, Warren is not a good blocker, and I, that, again, that's not the whole decision-making point here, but it is, it is a bigger factor for Ben Johnson than it might be for other coaches. 32:58 But then also, Colston Loveland is younger, and I think there's a feeling like he can still be growing into his body a little bit more and be even bigger, faster, stronger, and that Colston Loveland, you know, wasn't playing in as prolific of a passing offense. 33:12 His role in that offense wasn't the same. We've seen, you know, Jim Harbaugh admit, uh, before he left, but with J.J. 33:16 McCarthy kind of hiding the passing game a little bit more and being more of a run first offense there, that maybe didn't put Loveland in as many positions to shine the way that Tyler Warren was really, like, a first passing option over and over again for Penn State over there. 33:29 So I, I think there's some opportunity 33:32 aspects of this that, that change the evaluation, and I'll note that the, it's been reported by a few different places that the Los Angeles Rams were trying to trade into the top 10 to draft Colston Loveland and were unsuccessful in doing so. 33:45 Sure, bud. [laughs] Sorry. 33:49 [laughs] Uh, I, I do find it kind of interesting 'cause, like, this is, like, a, relative to the other draft classes, just, like, broadly, this, I think, is one of the younger ones, especially considering that they drafted two offensive linemen who are typically older, right? 34:02 So, like, what the only old guy is, is the Maryland linebacker who, I mean, he's a super athlete, so there's, like, other reasons that you gra- grab him. But, like, this is a pretty young draft class, right? 34:12 Luther Burden's kind of young. Colston Loveland's young. Shemar Turner's young. Ozzie Trapillo's an offensive lineman, so he gets to be a little bit older, right? Like, that's... Is that a trend? 34:23 I don't think of Shemar Turner as being extra young. He's 22. Oh. Um, but- Yeah. Well, he's not old. I mean, okay. Not old. COVID classes, right? Yeah. 34:31 I mean, I didn't see this as a, as a specifically, like, an, an intentional trend along this class. 34:37 Like, I think from, from Ryan Poles' perspective, like, they got to the 10th overall pick, and it was like, "Best player available is gonna be one of these two tight ends, so we like Loveland. We're taking him." Sure. 34:45 Okay. And they get to their second round pick, they missed out on TreVeyon Henderson, who they actually really wanted. So it's like, "Best player available, Lu- this first round caliber wide receiver, Luther Burden. 34:54 We'll take him. All right." 34:55 And then from there they're like, "Shoot, we gotta get a tackle and we gotta get a defensive lineman, so let's trade down and see if we can grab a couple of guys we like in, in Turner and Trapillo." 35:04 And then from there- The, the Ryan Poles magic at it again. Well, yeah. Uh, it- Look, I mean, uh, uh, you're on a Vikings podcast. Kwesi has historically not been the most wonderful drafting GM either. 35:17 Don't worry about it. [laughs] Yeah, especially... Uh, uh, that's, that's why he's, that's why he traded up from the third round to get three second round picks, 'cause all of his third round picks have been abysmal. 35:25 So he just said, "Screw it. I'm not-" [laughs] I'm just kidding. Yeah. I'm not dealing with this anymore. Even great third rounds. Yeah. But he just cut third round pick, Zach Pickens. You got Bayless Jones. 35:35 [laughs] Uh, there's a couple others I'm struggling to think of off the top of my head, but it has been- Bayless Jones from the analytics cylinder. Love him. That's right. He's got an A score of 100 or whatever, yes. 35:44 Yeah. Yeah, but- Speaking of, like, uh, draft prospect ages, good Lord. Yeah. Well... [laughs] All right. 35:52 Um- The one, the one area that kind of ties that, those into this current draft class is, like, the way that they've been approaching it generally is, like, once they get past the second round, I, I think his approach is generally been like- It's just guys. 36:03 Is... What, sorry? It's just guys. Like- No, it's, it's, it's our assistants have some favorites in this draft class. Hmm. Hmm. Let's get them the guys they like. 36:12 So, like, Dennis Allen loved Ruben Hipolite in the fourth round, so they went and got him, and their DB's coach- [laughs]... 36:17 Al Harris, former Green Bay Packers cornerback, he loved Zay Frazier, the corner from, uh, I'm struggling to remember what school he even went to. UTSA? Yeah, UTSA. Yeah. So they got him his guy. 36:28 Like, the O-line coach loved their sixth round pick, Luke Newman. Like, they're just kind of like, "All right. We're gonna get you your guys." And I wonder, you know, if in previous drafts as well, right? 36:36 It's like wide receivers coach loved Bayless Jones, or Luke Getze loved... You know, I, I would imagine defensive line coach loved Zach Pickens. And so they're, you know, they go get guys. 36:44 They're like, "All right, you guys are the coaching staff. We're gonna get you the guys you want." 36:47 And-Maybe that's not always the best idea, especially if the previous coaching staff wasn't able to really develop those players very well. Right. Yeah, yeah. Um, all right. 36:55 Uh, sh- Cole Kmet is still gonna play a pretty significant role though, right? Yes. 37:00 I, I think, you know, certainly from like a fantasy football perspective, I wouldn't trust either of these tight ends 'cause I think- Nice... you know, neither one is gonna hit 800 yards, but neither... Well, I don't... 37:09 Neither one's gonna hit 1,000 yards. Neither one's gonna get below 400 yards, though. 37:12 Like, they're both gonna play a lot, and it's really gonna feel kind of like splitting tight end one, and there's not really a true starter versus a true backup, 'cause they're both gonna kind of have different roles and overlap here and there. 37:22 And I think it's gonna kind of be a, a constant juggling back and forth of like, who's really kind of the primary tight end? And it kind of depends on the week and the game plan. All right. 37:30 Uh, let's talk about the offensive line. 37:32 Um, primarily the question about whether or not Braxton Jones has the ability to perform against somebody like, uh, Jonathan Greenard, which historically has not been the case, might hinge on this injury question. 37:44 Can you, like, fill us in? Yeah. So late last season, Braxton Jones suffered some kind of ankle injury, I don't know if it was a break or whatever it was, that, you know, he carted off and ended his season. 37:55 It was like week 15 or 16, pretty late in the year. So he had surgery on that and missed all of OTA's mandatory mini camp, et cetera. 38:04 But all, all along the plan was that he should be good to go for the start of training camp. Uh, he was, I would say, barely good to go for the start of training camp. Like, he was... 38:13 He practiced pretty much right away, but there was a really long kind of ramp-up period where he wasn't full go for the first couple of weeks. 38:20 And the rest of training camp and the preseason has been a whole process of just him trying to get healthier and trying to get more physically comfortable. Like, he played in the preseason game. Like, it's not... 38:30 He's been practicing. He hasn't had to, like, miss practice with ankle soreness or whatever. It's purely just like a, a stiffness and a... He, he just looks different on tape when you watch him in the preseason games. 38:40 He doesn't look comfortable. He's not moving naturally and freely like someone who you would think of as 100% healthy. 38:46 But they keep saying, like, every week he's been getting a little bit closer to 100%, and the last, you know, week and a half is the best he's looked as you get closer and closer to week one, as he gets just a little bit more- Best shape of his life, yeah. 38:56 Well, not even best shape of his life. 38:57 [laughs] It's just like he's getting more strength and stability and comfort with the ankle that he can trust it more and just kind of play naturally and more loose without, without, you know, thinking about re-injuring it. 39:09 And so the, the, the idea is that he's, he's gonna keep getting a little bit better as we get closer and closer to week one, and that is what has allowed him to win the quote-unquote offensive tackle competition that I'm not sure how much of a true competition it was. 39:22 I mean, I think- I, I heard it was a four-person competition. It w- yeah, I mean, it was, it was really, like, three and then they swapped out the third guy for a different third guy. 39:30 So I mean, four players over the course of time. But all it was was like, "Hey, we need a plan here in case Braxton Jones never gets better. 39:36 Like, if th- if this doesn't improve, we got to figure out who else is gonna be our, our plan B here." And it, none of the other options really worked out, so they said, "Screw it. 39:44 We're gonna roll with, you know, what, 80% of Braxton Jones is probably still better than 100% of a rookie or couple of second-year guys who've never played." 39:53 80% of Braxton Jones sounds kind of like a nightmare, if I'm being honest. Um- If, if that's your worst problem up front, I think the Bears are in a pretty good spot. 40:01 I, historically speaking, they're in a phenomenal spot if that's their worst problem. Correct. Um- I'm worried that Jonah Jackson will become that worst problem, but for now we can have the illusion that he's good. 40:11 [laughs] Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit about somebody who tricked me. Darnell Wright, whose rookie year was, I would argue, not fantastic, and then last year, I, I don't know, he seemed pretty good to me. 40:21 Um, is he good? Is he... Are we, are we comfortable with the Bears' right tackle for, like, the first time in a long time? Yeah. Darnell Wright is, is good. 40:31 P- and I think for Bears fans there's this, like, almost dissatisfaction that he still needs to be even better. 40:38 Like, because he was a top 10 pick, he was 10th overall pick, it's like, all right, like, year three w- we want to see this guy be, if not a literal Pro Bowler, like, closer to that caliber of player. 40:50 Like, I think right now he's a, a average to above average starting right tackle. Like, that's v- very, like, he, he checks the boxes. Like, yeah, don't got to worry about Darnell Wright. 40:58 But given, especially because they chose to pass on Jaylen Carter and then took Darnell Wright, there's an expectation of- That's rough... "All right. You better be really something special at right tackle." 41:10 And I don't think he was particularly well-coached the last couple of seasons, and so I think there's a, there's a hope or an expectation that the new offensive line coach can get more out of him. 41:20 And long term, I would predict Darnell Wright will be the Bears' week one starting left tackle in 2026, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. All right. 41:29 So you mentioned Jonah Jackson, the concern that he, like, might not be good, and he, he's playing right guard, right? Correct. Okay, so he has done that, like, three times in [laughs] NFL. 41:44 By three times I mean three games, not three seasons. Um, how, how happy are we with this? 41:51 That's one of these, like, bubbling under the surface things that has not come up or been an issue at all throughout this process that I think is an easy trap for the Chicago Bears to fall in, where, like, everyone kind of just assumes, "Well, he's back with Ben Johnson and he's healthy, so you're gonna get the Pro Bowl guy who in, from 2022, right? 42:11 Like, of course, right? There are no, no questions, nothing to worry about there." And, uh, b- my entire lifetime of following the Chicago Bears suggests that- [laughs]... be more concerned there. 42:21 Um, yeah, I, I'm less concerned about, oh, he's playing right guard now, because he's been there throughout the entirety, uh, of the off-season. 42:28 I think a lot of the problems in, with the Rams last year was that, like, they, they had him at guard initially, then moved him to center towards the end of, like, training camp, and then after, like, a game or two at center they tried to kick him back to guard. 42:39 I think it would've been right guard at that point, and he hadn't really practiced it. 42:42 So there was just a lot of that, like, moving him around and not putting him in any one spot and, and maybe just not being a very good fit all around there. And then he gets hurt on top of that. 42:50 And so I, I'm, I'm willing to sort of-Uh, overlook or write off or ignore last year with the Rams, but I'm less willing to overlook the previous two years with the Lions where he missed six or seven games each year and wasn't nearly as good as he had been the year prior. 43:05 So like I-- it's-- my question with Jonah is mostly an injury thing, but also, like, I think if he's healthy, he, he's not gonna be great, but you'll get by with him, and then if he's hurt, uh, then you're in some real trouble there. 43:17 Uh, and then with Drew Dalman and Joe Thuney, my question is, is it possible to overpay for good offensive linemen? That's, that's, that is a really good question. Um, I mean, I, I think generally the answer is yes. 43:31 I think if you're gonna overpay, center is a good place to do it, 'cause they're just generally cheaper than guards. They are, yeah. 43:37 They spent 14 million a year on Drew Dalman when they really wanted to spend 20 plus on Trey Smith of the Chiefs but couldn't get him. 43:43 But so I-- the Chiefs kind of saved them from theirselves there, and they called the Chiefs about trying to trade for Trey Smith, and they're like, "Not Trey Smith, but if you want Joe Thuney." 43:50 And Ryan Poles is like, "Wait, really?" [laughs] "Sure. Hold on. Yeah. Are you sure? Yeah. No, no take-backsies." And he's like, "That's not what..." 43:56 He literally, like, he made it sound like that's not who they had called about. 43:59 Like, he literally said, like, he didn't say it in exact words, but the impression was like, "We were calling about Trey Smith, and they offered us Joe Thuney instead, so we took that." 44:06 And it's just wild how that works out. But- It's crazy that he said that, though. Like [laughs], I don't-- we never get that from GMs. 44:14 Yeah, it was, it, it was-- he's got that relationship with the Chiefs having been there that I think he's a little bit more forthcoming with them. 44:21 But, like, for me, when we're talking about overpaying offensive linemen, my concern is that they gave Jonah Jackson three years and $54 million more than the contract they gave- Sure, yeah. That's fair... 44:31 Dalman or Joe Thuney. Like, Jackson's the one who's both overpaid and the least reliable of the three. The other two, they're, they're fine. The Bears, the investment in them will be well worth it- Well-... 44:40 even if they're not elite. Well, Jonah's coming off an injury, and Drew Dalman's coming off an injury, isn't he? Dalman has had ankle issues the last two years. Yeah. 44:48 It's definitely a, a concern for me, but, uh, they haven't been, like, major season ending as far as I know. They've been a little bit more minor. 44:57 Like, I, I talked to some Falcons guys about that, and it sounds like it's one of those, like, smaller lingering questions, but not like a this is... Like, that's not why they didn't re-sign him exactly, you know? 45:07 It was just more of a pricing thing and the turnover on the roster, and they had some other younger guys. But it was more of a minor factor than, like, a major deal. Okay. 45:15 Uh, famously healthy Bears offensive line, so ain't gotta worry there. Yeah. They never have issues with that, so should be good. Yeah. Um, all right. So that whole setup against the Vikings defense, right? 45:26 Like, obviously the Vikings have good individual players, Jonathan Greenard, Andrew Van Ginkel, hopefully Dallas Turner, Blake Cashman, whatever, right? And they just added Jonathan Allen, uh, Javon Hargrave. Cool. 45:36 Uh, I'm not gonna talk about the corners. I don't wanna think about that. Um, [laughs] how do we think that they match up to the way that Brian Flores kind of deploys a lot of these, um, a lot of these pass rushers? 45:48 Yeah. I'll say Ben Johnson in Detroit, and not that we're gonna apply everything he did in Detroit exactly the same in Chicago, but he- He did okay with it, yeah... but, but yeah. 45:57 I mean, obviously he was good in the Vikings, but, like, more generally over the course of the season, he gave his offensive tackles a lot more help, especially the left tackle, despite it being, you know, like Taylor Deckel- uh, Taylor Decker and Penei Sewell, like, than even the Bears did. 46:10 The Bears put their tackles on an island a lot in recent years. And so I think there's an expectation that, like... 46:16 Like, obviously the Braxton Jones, Jonathan Greenard matchup scares the hell out of you, but that there will be more support for those positions. 46:23 And I think more broadly, like, I, I think the Bears are probably a little outmatched in that matchup. 46:28 But if Brian Flores is gonna be s- blitzing you a lot anyway, then it's almost like who cares how well you're gonna be able to block him? Let's just get rid of the ball before we need to block them for very long anyway. 46:39 So get, you know, whether, whether your offensive line is great or not, like, we're still gonna try and have the ball out in two and a half seconds, so not gonna have to worry too much all the time about how well Braxton Jones is gonna hold up against Greenard, 'cause the ball will be out before. 46:52 As long as you just get in his way, the ball can hopefully, in theory, be out before any problems would've, would occur. 47:00 How, uh, but, like, how confident are you the ball is gonna be out, like, in the right amount of time? That's, that's the gonna be the real measurement of, of Ben Johnson. 47:10 But I do think with Caleb, there's been a difference or delineation in when holding onto the ball too long versus a regular pass rush versus the blitz coming. 47:23 I think he's someone who, when there's a four-man rush, he's like, "Oh, I can, I can outrun these guys. Like, I got five... Like, I can maneuver this. I can escape this and keep this play going." 47:33 But I think he's generally been smarter about seeing, "Oh, this is an overload blitz. I've got man coverage. I just gotta get rid of this. Like, I know I can't, I can't fully outrun this blitz." 47:42 Like, with, with the exception of I know there have been times when he's got a free-running DB, and he doesn't have much room to go, and then he'll try and escape that. 47:50 But it's not necessarily because he's holding onto the ball too long, it's 'cause it's, this pass rusher is free, and he's getting here in under three seconds, so I don't have much choice, and so I'm gonna just try and escape this. 48:00 But generally speaking, I think he's pretty good at, at the, "Oh crap, here's all the blitz. 48:04 Let me get rid of it," and not hold onto the ball too long in those situations where the defense demands that you have to get rid of it. 48:10 But when he, when he thinks, "Oh, I can just, I could extend this," that's when the holding onto the ball actually starts. All right. Let's talk about the other side of the ball. Um, 48:20 how much did they pay Odayingbo, by the way? I j- I'm so curious about this. I forget. Yeah, Daiyingbo is top 25 paid edge rusher in per year average. He's getting, where is it here? 48:32 16 million a year, so he got three years, 48. Okay, I was gonna make fun of it. That's not, that's not awful, actually. Um- It feels like it. It really does. 48:40 It feels worse than it, than, than the numbers- [laughs] Yeah... 48:43 'cause they lowered his cap h- his cap hit this year is eight, only eight million, but it gets up to 20 the next two years, and, like, I don't like the idea. Okay, yeah. Let's talk about this. Why? 48:51 [laughs] What?I, I mean, [sighs] I don't know. I- this is, this was the probably the most confounding of the off-season moves for me, that it was such a high priority to get a pass rusher. 49:04 And I mean, part of it is that the only guaranteed... Well, I mean, it's, 32 million is still a decent percentage of the contract, I guess, guaranteed. But, like, the- listen, they see him as a young ascending player. 49:15 The- essentially, the short answer is they're paying Dayo Odeyingbo for what he does in the future, not what he's done in the past, and they're banking on them being able to develop him and grow him into more because he's young, he's long, he's, uh, the, he's in the Dennis Allen mold of oversized defensive ends with some, some high athletic upside. 49:31 But it's a big risk and a big, big bank to try and make here, and I'm not confident it was the right move. W- [sighs] So, I, I, I can't actually come up with a question here. [laughs] I, I don't, like... 49:49 What is the vision for... How do you think he performed last year? Dayo Odeyingbo? Uh, [laughs] Yeah, for the Colts, yeah. I, yeah, I don't... I mean, 50:00 I think there were flashes, but he didn't look to me, like, wow, this is a, this is a top of the market, not top of the market, but this is a higher end free agent pass rusher that we gotta go out and make a priority to, to bring in. 50:12 Like, it felt a little bit more like a, we gotta get somebody, and so this is somebody that we're, that we're gonna trust in Dennis Allen to, to identify the talent and, and, you know, if, if our scouts can kind of match up some positive to like, then we're gonna put it in his hands. 50:28 And I, I do think th- among Chicago Bears fans, there's a little bit of an overrating of Dennis Allen. Like, he's always had good defenses in New Orleans, but, like, 50:36 they're giving him a lot of say and leeway when they didn't always make the best decisions personnel-wise in New Orleans. 50:42 And I, and I think more generally for Dennis Allen, it's that he puts a lot of emphasis on interior pressure and collapsing the pocket at the top. 50:51 And so if he feels like he can get some long defensive ends that can hold up against the run and give you some pass rush, then he can kind of make the rest work. 50:58 But again, that's putting a lot on Dennis Allen's shoulders that everyone's kind of counting on, you gotta be the guy. Is this the year Montez Sweat breaks out? What is he, like, 27, 28 now? Yeah, 28, I think. 51:11 I mean- Is this the year he breaks out? [laughs] I mean, in a lot of ways, the, the year he was traded to the Bears was that breakout season. He had 12 and a half sacks. 51:17 Well, his, his sack numbers were high, but I feel like his pressure numbers were, like, the same as the prior year. 51:21 Yeah, and that's been, uh, consistently over the course of his career, they've, they've, like, steadily increased. The pressure percentage increased, like, 1% a year. 51:28 Like, he's gone from, like, 8 to 9 to 10, then 11, like, over the last four years. So it's like- Yeah, when he's 33, he's gonna be unstoppable. [laughs] Just think when he's 50. I mean, wow. [laughs] Yeah, so I mean, 51:40 I, I do think we should see an improved Montez Sweat from a scheme standpoint. Now, is that gonna be 12 and a half sacks or what? 51:47 I mean, uh, what number you wanna put on that is, sacks are not always, you know, a, a good- Yeah... measurement of pass rush. 51:52 But I think so often w- in the Matt Eberflus defense, it was like we're straight rushing four, maybe we'll stunt him every once in a while. 51:58 But Montez Sweat was getting, you know, a, a decent amount of double teams, and I think with Dennis Allen, we're gonna see a lot more variety up front. 52:08 And the idea is that, you know, if you're moving guys around a little bit and sim, more sim pressures and bringing pass rushers from different places, that maybe Montez Sweat should be able to get more favorable matchups. 52:19 Or if he's not getting more favorable matchups, then everybody else is, and that even if Sweat doesn't have a big year, that he can be enough of a decoy that they'll get enough pass rush elsewhere to collectively have a good enough rush, even if the plan isn't let's make Sweat the superstar. 52:34 All right, so that's a, that's a good question to ask, like, just the, the way to develop one-on-ones. So last year, the Bears were slightly, very slightly below average in blitz rate at 23 and a half percent. 52:47 The league, uh, and this is from Pro Football Reference, who uses Sportsradar, who they have different blitz numbers than, like, PFF and stuff like that. So just, like, all of that is different. 52:57 But the blitz rates on, on this platform moved from 14% to 40%, which is where the Vikings are essentially, um, or they were last year, um, with 23 and a half kind of that median area, and the Vikings are, like, 5% above the next rate. 53:14 So, like, you know, that's what they are. [laughs] Um, what, um, what kind of blitz rate within this range would you expect Dennis Allen to produce? 53:24 That's gonna be the, one of the biggest unknown questions here, uh, because there's so much concern about the defensive line and the lack of pass rush there, that I don't think Dennis Allen wants to blitz aggressively, and, you know, doesn't, doesn't ha- wanna have to rely on that, but I think he's going to be forced to because of some of these deficiencies. 53:49 And so I'm expecting it to be, I mean, the boring answer is, like, in between, right? 53:54 Like, uh, definitely a s- a significant step up from what they did last year under Matt Eberflus, but not, like, over the top, top five most aggressive blitzing defense in, in football. 54:04 Like, in some ways, he's gonna wanna just rush four and sit back in man coverage and, and trust that their guys can hold up on the back end and, and give the pass rushers time to get after the quarterback, and that the pass rushers can get after the quarterback quickly enough that the man coverage doesn't have to hold up for five, six seconds. 54:20 And it's a concern because both the pass rush is a concern right now, and the injuries in the secondary make that side a concern. It feels like each one is relying on the other to be better than they are. Oh, good. 54:31 [laughs] Fantastic. Uh, anything- And I think they found ways to make it work in New Orleans. 54:36 Like, even when they don't have great talent on it, they've still been pretty consistently top 15, top 10 defenses, where, like, I don't think it's gonna be a big weakness for the Bears, but it's a question of, like, are they a strength or are they just fine? 54:48 Yeah, that's fair. Uh, anything about the defensive tackles worth noting? Uh, Gervon Dexter suddenly becoming good, Grady Jarrett suddenly becoming young? Is there-... the thing I should worry about there. 54:59 I mean, we, so Grady Jarrett did not play a single snap of preseason football, and we didn't hear s- a lot about him throughout training camp. So I... He's someone who we're interested... 55:12 I mean, I'm, I'm struggling with the words here. Like, I- I think there's an expectation that he's gonna be back to being a great, great Jarrett, and that I think Bears fans are hoping to be pleasantly surprised by. 55:21 And I find, when they signed him, I had some, I have some doubts about how good he's gonna be, but he might just be able to kind of like veteran savvy his way to a good season where he's not as fast as he used to be or as explosive as he used to be, but he's just smart and knows his way around, you know, tendencies for opposing offensive linemen. 55:38 So, like, I think they're counting on him being a big factor, and I think his performance might be even more important than Dayo Odeyingbo in terms of what Dennis Allen needs from his group up front. 55:48 But they feel really good about their four deep at defensive tackle and can rotate all those guys. 55:52 Shamar Turner has been hurt through most of training camp, and he's gonna probably be inactive on game day and not play much at all this season just 'cause he's so far behind, and they like the guys they have. All right. 56:02 So at linebacker behind them, uh, Tremaine Edmunds, obviously. You s- you mentioned that T.J. Edward, before the show you mentioned that T.J. Edwards might be hurt, question mark? 56:11 And that will create a, an interesting scenario where they might have to pick between Noah Sewell and Ruben Hippolyte. Correct. 56:18 Ed- Edwards missed practice the last couple of days, but they, th- as we're recording this, we ha- we don't have the first formal injury report just yet. 56:26 But I suspect a- at best he'll be limited, if not out missing practice now, and that's definitely gonna put his week one, uh, status in, in doubt. I can't remember for the life of me what the injury was. 56:37 It was something he suffered at practice, you know, after the preseason was done. It was, I think it was even after 53-man roster cut down day. 56:42 So it's just within the last couple of weeks, but it wasn't something that, you know, landed him on IR or anything. So I, I don't think we can rule him out for week one at this point. 56:50 But the more time he misses, obviously the more of a question that becomes. 56:53 And then the question is, yes, do they go to fourth-round rookie Ruben Hippolyte or former fifth-round pick Noah Sewell, younger brother of Penei Sewell, who is kind of, I don't know if you remember the former Bears linebacker Nick Kwiatkowski, who started for them a couple seasons back. 57:06 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, he also, he also had a, a stint with the Bengals. Yes. Like, Sewell is the next in line from like the, the, the Pokémon evolution of, like, Kwiatkowski, to Jack Sanborn, to now Noah Sewell. 57:17 It's like, who's the next slow instinct run-stopping linebacker that doesn't belong anywhere near the field on third downs? But they might have to put him out there if T.J. Edwards isn't good to go. So we'll see. 57:31 I think, I think that could be a pretty significant burner here where, like, Kevin O'Connell, if s- if Noah Sewell's out there, Kevin O'Connell's gonna circle him and T.J. 57:38 Hockenson's gonna have, you know, another 100-yard game. None of them will be as good as Raiola Luga. [laughs] Great name. Yeah. [laughs] Um, okay. So Ruben Hippolyte. 57:52 Okay, so before the show I was like, "Hey, this is crazy. Ruben Hippolyte's a crazy athlete. Noah Sewell is the opposite of that." Noah Sewell knows what he's looking at. 57:58 Ruben Hippolyte is, like, fairly familiar with the concept of football, is maybe the best way I can put it. Um, how, how do you make that decision about who goes in? 58:10 I think it's purely a question of how much has Ruben Hippolyte learned in the last three weeks? You know, has he, has he gotten a, a consistent enough understanding of his keys on defense to say he's the guy? 58:23 'Cause like as soon as the brain catches up with the body, he's the better player. 58:26 But, you know, you'd take a more instinctual, slower guy than the, you know, right away who knows you, you can tr- like, Noah Sewell's the devil you know, and Ruben Hippolyte's the devil you don't, where like with Sewell you know what he can and can't do and you just, you can, you can scheme around that. 58:40 But with Hippolyte it's like we know you can do more, so what, what are we actually gonna get out of you? And we can't... It's, it's more of a- But he, but he played in college for like five years. Like, like [laughs] 58:51 like when is he gonna learn how to like read his keys? I, I think it's about adjusting to the NFL speed, right? It's just like he, he's a physical athlete, but like everything moves a lot faster in the pros. 59:01 And I don't think he was like totally lost in the preseason by any means. Okay. But I don't like a guy who has any of those question marks against a Kevin O'Connell offense, so I just, it's, it's tricky. 59:11 I don't know how... Honestly, we could see them potentially just go more dime package as well and take, take a linebacker off the field and just go with- Yeah... 59:17 a lot 'cause we are gonna see the Bears do six DBs quite a bit. That's a big Dennis Allen thing. And w- I know we're about to talk about DBs, but Kyler Gordon is gonna surprise some people this year. Okay, yeah. 59:28 Let's talk about Kyler Gordon. I, I'm, I'm already surprised by the words you just said. How is he gonna surprise us this year? What does that mean? Kyler Gordon is gonna do everything. He's the secret weapon X Factor. 59:40 Is he, is he your Josh Metellus? What's going on? You know, I, when I talked to Luke Braun from Locked On Vikings, that's exactly what he said. He's like, "Oh, he's gonna be your Josh Metellus." 59:48 And I was like, "Yeah, essentially." Like, he's, he's the slot cornerback, but they're gonna rotate him in at safety. They're gonna, at, at deep free safety. He'll cover the back end. He'll be a strong safety. 59:57 He'll be in the box. He'll play some outside cornerback. 59:59 Like, Dennis Allen wants him to be everywhere and to feel like this is a guy who's, uh, really effective blitzing and c- off the edge and can get home and finish the quarterback. 1:00:07 He's really physical against the run and can, you know, get up in there with linemen and tight ends and, uh, they really trust him in coverage and he's got some play-making ability for the ball in the air. 1:00:15 So he's kind of the other thing that we haven't seen them unveil yet. 1:00:19 But I imagine especially when they go to that dime package, you know, they'll bring in another slot cornerback, probably Josh Blackwell, then move Gordon a lot and then, and that may be one of the key ways they try and confuse J.J. 1:00:29 McCarthy a little bit is like you gotta account for where number six is on every play, 'cause it's not gonna be the same spot twice in a row and you're not sure exactly what his responsibility's gonna be 'cause it could be a- all sorts of anywhere. 1:00:40 Has Dennis Allen employed this kind of player before? I mean, he's had a Tyrann Mathieu. Uh- Yeah. That's what I thought... 1:00:46 not, not that Gordon is the same physical skill set, but I think it's kind of that idea, right, of like he, he often in New Orleans would use three safety packages. 1:00:53 And so instead of the Bears bringing on a third safety, 'cause they don't have safety depth, they're just gonna make Kyler Gordon that third player who kind of becomes the star, you know, that star position that roam around and they'll bring in extra corners instead.They got Simone Biles' husband. 1:01:06 What do you mean they don't got safety depth? [laughs] Have you seen him play football? It's not great. Right. Does he do that? [laughs] I, I just, all I've seen is him screwing up interviews. 1:01:15 That's, that's all I've ever seen him do. Um- Not a bad special teams player, but, uh, defense not so much his, his forte. Sure. 1:01:23 Uh, okay, so we talked about Kyler Gordon a bit, um, but like the real question mark here is Jalen Johnson. What is going on with him? 1:01:29 Yeah, so before training camp, like he was all good through OTAs and mini camp, but like in the time between th- that summer break, he suffered... 1:01:38 At first, the Bears were being really vague about it in a way that was concerning. 1:01:41 They just said some kind of like soft tissue injury, put him on the non-football injury list, and then he was gone for like a month and a half, and like he didn't get activated from NFI until the 53-man roster cut down day. 1:01:53 So he did not practice at all throughout the whole process. They still wouldn't say what was going on. 1:01:56 Eventually, we just like last week or earlier this week found out it was a groin injury he suffered while working o- against recei- like he was just practicing at all. He was working against receiver releases, yeah. 1:02:07 Working receiver releases. They called it a kinda like a freak thing that was- Freak accident. You love hearing it. Yes. Right. 1:02:13 And so, but like groin injury is one of those things, first of all, like, uh, not to be indelicate, but people have already made the joke so I will, I will mention that th- this, this joke is poor taste, but people already made it that a couple years ago Jalen Johnson admitted to struggling with sex addiction. 1:02:26 And so people are like, "Great, the sex-" Oh... groin. Which is not fair, but also- Well, I mean, but also like this could, this could prevent. I mean, i- you know, like, hey, yeah, you can't even do it now. 1:02:38 You'll hurt yourself. It's, yeah, it's, it's tough. Maybe, maybe it's, maybe it can be a good thing for him along the way. 1:02:43 But the, but the point being like groin injury is something that doesn't feel like it's just gonna be 100% week one and now he's good for the rest of the year, right? 1:02:51 This feels like something that's gonna just be a pain tolerance thing and a lingering thing, and so he, he's just got back to practice earlier this week for the first time since May. 1:03:02 And if there's anything- And are we, like are we gonna see him? Like that's, that's a, that's a pretty, that's a pretty short timeline to suddenly return to practice. Correct. 1:03:10 Like to me, to me this is gonna be, if I had to predict, they're gonna see how he feels Monday warming up. 1:03:15 Like they're not gonna know until he gets to Soldier Field and goes through warmups and says, "I'm good to go," or, "I'm not good to go." Like w- we won't know until inactives before. 1:03:23 And maybe even, maybe even to kick off, like he, they'll give it a d- a try for a drive or two and then maybe come out and rotate him a little bit. Like this is gonna be the ultimate coin toss. 1:03:32 Like if it, if it was any other player but Jalen Johnson, like a, a veteran Pro Bowl player like that, I would say there's no shot that he'll be ready to go. 1:03:40 But I think this is, he's in that category of players that they trust enough even on one week of practice to say, us, you know, 70% of Jalen Johnson is still well worth it, so let's throw him out there. 1:03:51 But- See, that I can believe. That's a, that's a way better argument than 80% of Braxton Jones in my mind. [laughs] Correct. And I, I think Braxton Jones is probably more like 90 plus at this point. Sure. Sure. 1:04:01 But yes, I, I agree. But I, the, the impression I've gotten all along is that if, if I had to, if, you know, a gun to my head is Jalen Johnson gonna play, I would lean no. 1:04:10 I think they, they've kinda made it sound like we don't wanna rush him back if it would risk anything bigger. And so if one more week would really make a big difference, we're okay with sitting him down. 1:04:19 But I'm not as okay with plan B, so I, it's, it, it's like- Sure. Who, who is, who is plan B? Uh, Nishan Wright. Ever heard of him? Yeah, he's a former Viking. They cut him. Yeah. [laughs] I know, I know. 1:04:32 That's the problem. Like- [laughs]... they traded for, for, uh, that safety, Edgar Booth, right? Was that the trade? Yeah. [laughs] Yeah, they traded, they traded Edgar Booth for picks and Nishan Wright. 1:04:43 And they were like, "Ah, you know, that, that's not important." They like waived him I think the day they traded for him. Yeah. 1:04:49 So the, the Nishan Wright story here is that, you know, he was a, a third round pick by Dallas when Bears defensive backs coach Al Harris was the DB coach there. 1:04:58 And so they signed Nishan Wright to a one-year basically vet minimum deal this off season as some depth, and then Jalen Johnson's hurt and Nishan Wright looked pretty good, honestly, like at OTAs and, and like he was one of the early like standout surprises. 1:05:11 Like, oh, this guy that really no one had paid any attention to when the Bears signed him, we kind of assumed camp body kind of thing. All of a sudden he was kind of emerging and looking good. 1:05:17 But then we got into actual preseason games and it's like, oh wait, yeah no, this guy's not, he's bad. He's- [laughs] Oh. Oh, no. 1:05:23 It was like well he's, he's a long physical press man corner, and he was kinda out of the, wasn't a great scheme fit in Dallas 'cause they, you know, put him in more zone situations, so this should be a better fit in, in, in Chicago. 1:05:33 And it's like, uh, no there's some real issues there that are beyond just zone coverage. Like even in man, you know, he's getting burned sometimes. Like he's... 1:05:40 So I'm, I'm nervous about him being lined up against Justin Jefferson and Kevin O'Connell being able to scheme up, ah, let's find the weakness in the secondary and go attack him, especially when like we thought that was just gonna be Tyrique Stevenson, but now we, we've stepped even lower there. 1:05:55 Yeah. [laughs] We, we, we have, we have regressed even further somehow. Uh, yeah, Tyrique Stevenson, how is he still on the team? That's crazy to me. The, the Bears were very cool about just saying, "Hey, clean slate." 1:06:07 Like, "We're gonna, whatever happened last year with the Hail Mary and all that," like they addressed it at the beginning. They said, "Listen, like-" They tried. [laughs]... "that, that's not gonna fly here." Yeah. 1:06:15 [laughs] So they did that anyway. But there, there, there seems- Yeah, but then he got like, he got benched and then he got mad that he got benched, right? 1:06:20 Like there's a, there was a, there was a couple of things that happened. Yeah. And I think, you know, if the Eberflus regime was still around, he pr- might not be here anymore. But I think there was enough of like- Okay. 1:06:30 No, that's fair actually. That makes sense... and, and it's one of those things where we hear this all the time of like, "Oh, he, he's very, he's been humbled by this." And like I think there's- Has he? 1:06:39 There's th- there is, there is some evidence of that. I'm not here to say convincingly like, "Oh, yes, he's definitely a changed person," but I think we have seen him talk differently this off season. 1:06:51 Like whether it's a true humbling or whether he just learned public relations wise, "Hey, maybe I should act more humble," I'm, uh, uh, we can't actually know the difference on the outside. 1:06:59 But there has been a noticeable change in his approach-And feeling like it sunk in a little bit that, "Hey, I can't do those same thing." 1:07:09 Now, in the heat of the moment in an NFL game, will that still get the better of him? We shall see. But they approached this whole off-season as an open competition for Tyrique Stevenson's job. 1:07:18 It was him versus Minnesota legend Terrelle Smith versus Nishan Wright. But then Jalen Johnson was hurt the whole time, so then it was just, like, those two guys got to... 1:07:27 Nishan Wright and Jalen Johnson are- Phenomenal open competition [laughs]... they just got to be the starters the whole time. Like, they were both starters. So, like, you guys both win the competition. And so- [laughs] 1:07:36 ... clearly, though, Stevenson won. I mean, if Jalen Johnson was healthy, Stevenson is cornerback two, Wright is a backup. And Terrelle Smith, uh, is, is lost for the year on injured reserve. 1:07:45 He suffered an injury in a preseason game. Rip. Otherwise, Smith was really in the running there to start. There was a pretty good momentum for him to potentially push that spot, but out of the question now. 1:07:54 So it'll be... Yeah, it'll be probably, if Jalen Johnson doesn't play, it'll be Wright and Steven- or, sorry, it'll be, yeah, Nishan Wright and Tyrique Stevenson on the outside, Kyler Gordon in the slot. 1:08:03 Although, I wonder if eventually Dennis Allen will just say, "Screw this. Let's put Kyler Gordon on the outside in base, and then move Gordon to the inside in, in nickel and, and try and figure it out from there." 1:08:11 But one step at a time. Sure. Uh, and then, I don't know, Jaquan Brisker, Kevin Byard, are these, uh, are these more than just intriguing names? Like, I, I know that Kevin Byard has an All-Pro in his history, right? 1:08:27 Uh, he ha- or I think he, yeah, 'cause what Deion Sanders was like, "Who the heck is this guy?" And Kevin Byard was like, "I had, like, eight picks last year. What are you talking about?" You remember that? Oh, yeah. 1:08:37 Yeah. Yeah. That was great. Is he still good, or was it just, like, a one-year thing? And also, is Jaquan Brisker, like, has he continued to progress? Yeah. So Kevin Byard is still good but not great. 1:08:49 Like, he's, you know, he's the savvy, wily veteran in the back there that, like, he's, he's not as fast as he used to be, but he's not slow. 1:08:55 Like, he's just, he's, you know what you're getting with him and it, it's not perfect, but he gets the job done. And this will probably be his last year in Chicago. 1:09:01 But he's a good leader, and good tackler, and good solid team guy that you like and, and can rely on back there, but not gonna go crazy or have a big breakout performance or game. 1:09:09 Brisker's the one that there's still a lot of optimism for progressing. It's just, like, he missed all of last season, or all but, like, three games last season with that concussion. 1:09:19 And it's, it's sort of the Tua situation where you just feel like every hit he's about to take is the one that's gonna maybe end his career because of he's had concussions three years in a row now and missed progressively more time. 1:09:29 But there's a feeling like, much like Tua, like, if he can stay healthy, he could be a potential breakout player for this defense, that he is smart, and instinctual, and a good hitter, and pretty good in coverage, and a good run defender, and can get after the quarterback. 1:09:41 Like, he can, he's got a lot of the tools to be a really effective, strong safety in this defense. 1:09:46 It's just a matter of whether he'll get the opportunity to do them and, and can he actually have the chance to show us what kind of growth and progress he's made, 'cause we didn't even really get to see it last year for how little he played. 1:09:57 Rough. I, I don't know. I don't, like, to me, he's the Tua Tagovailoa of the defense, is like a tough sell. [laughs] Um, it, so 1:10:08 has he, like, w- okay, when, so obviously on the first snap we're gonna see kind of like a, quote-unquote, "fully healthy Bears team," obviously without necessarily Jalen Johnson and maybe without T.J. 1:10:18 Edwards, but, like, that's the idea, right? So for the game, we don't have to worry about Jaquan Brisker's, like, season-long likelihood of staying healthy. 1:10:27 We, we're going to safely assume that he'll play 60-ish snaps, right? Um, what, what are we getting out of him? Who is he? It's so hard to, to say 'cause we just haven't seen him for a while. Yeah. That's rough. 1:10:43 So, yeah, so I mean, in theory you're getting a, a pretty dynamic athlete with really good instincts that you feel like can cover. 1:10:52 And he's not an elite cover safety by any means, but, like, can more than hold his own in the box and back deep, but then also be a physical threat against the run and, and get after the quarterback and feel like this is, in theory, one of the more talented players on this defense, but we just haven't had enough sample size to see him fully put it all together in a way that is like, "Ah, that, there it is. 1:11:13 Like, that's exactly what we've been looking for." But we've seen enough flashes of it that it feels like with health and, and time that he should be able to put it all together. 1:11:22 And if he doesn't, there's gonna be some real long-term question marks, 'cause he's in the last year of his rookie contract, so he's kinda gotta show like, "Hey, I deserve a big deal because not only am I great, but I can also stay healthy." 1:11:32 Uh, Justin Jefferson's over-under is 77 and a half yards. Uh, you've suggested throughout the course of this preview that this is primarily a man coverage defense. Uh, over? I would say probably. 1:11:46 Uh, but I think the over, the over-under question mark for me is less about can this- Yeah, how many times is, is J.J. McCarthy gonna throw the ball and not can they cover? Correct. Yeah. 1:11:54 That is, that is the bigger question for me. Like, it's not, I mean, primarily man is, is a tricky thing. 1:11:59 It's, they're g- they're gonna run more man coverage than a lot of other teams, but I mean, still it's probably closer to 50/50 man and zone, which is still a huge rate in, in the modern NFL. 1:12:07 But, like, you know, it's not all man coverage all the time, and I do wonder if, if it's not Jalen Johnson out there, if that pushes Dennis Allen to say, "Hey, for week one, maybe let's be a little bit more conservative." 1:12:18 Stay on the, yeah. All right. We'll see. Uh, back when the Bears drafted Torrey Taylor, I, like, made fun of it, right? 1:12:26 And then a couple people were like, "Hey, you might make fun of Torrey Taylor, but he's like a weapon." And then, and then I think the Bears used that language. They were like, "He's a weapon." 1:12:36 Um, we're done with that, right? That's stupid? [laughs] 100%. I- [laughs] I was also anti-Torrey Taylor at the time and got a lot of pushback for it. 1:12:45 But he's been a average to slightly above average punter, which is a nice thing to have, but not for a fourth round- [laughs] Yeah. You know? Yeah. 1:12:53 [laughs] You can get that in free agency every year, like regular, undrafted free agency, let alone rather regular NFL free agency. 1:13:00 I mean, the, the real advantage to Torrey Taylor, the best part is that as an international player, he doesn't count as your 90-man roster in the off-season, so you get to keep an extra player. Isn't that so valuable? 1:13:07 Wow.91 in this training camp, bru- bu- buddy. Why don't you, why don't you get your 90-man roster somewhere else? [laughs] Uh, Cairo Santos still reasonably solid, right? So... Yeah. 1:13:24 Uh, he's the team captain, Cairo Santos. Yeah, I mean- All right... you know what you're getting with Cairo. Like, he's classic, like, automatic from under 50 yards. 1:13:31 50 plus, you know, 50, 55, he's probably all right and, but he doesn't have enough leg to do the, the big bombs we're seeing everybody else- Like the little, Cam little 70-yarder, yeah. Yeah. All right. 1:13:41 Um, anything else that we, that we missed that you feel like we gotta cover? Nothing jumps out at me. 1:13:49 Um, trying to, like, wrap my head around it, but no, I mean, it's, it's all about the, it's all about the coaching scheme battles for me in this game, right? It's, it's- Yeah... 1:13:56 all about Ben Johnson's had Brian Flores's number, but now he's doing it with Caleb Williams. So does that change exactly how this works? I mean, yeah, I, I, I think, I will say this. 1:14:05 It, and, uh, we always talk about the trenches being important. I, I'm more worried about the Bears' ability to rush the passer than I am their ability to account for Brian Flores's blitzing. 1:14:14 Like, I'm more worried about the Bears pass rush than pass protection. 1:14:16 Like, I, I trust, I trust Ben Johnson to be able to find a way to keep the offense moving against Brian Flores than I do Dennis Allen finding a way to make this pass rush work, because I'm more concerned about the pa- the defensive line talent than the Bears' offensive line talent. 1:14:32 That makes sense. That's fair. Um, Vikings, I think, are favored by one-and-a-half points. It's an away game, Monday night. What do we think? 1:14:41 I, I still, I, I b- I, I still need to see the Bears actually prove that it's all gonna work together the way it should. 1:14:48 I have enough questions about, you know, the O line, the D line, and the health of Jalen Johnson and T.J. Edwards to not be confident that they're gonna come out and get a big win. 1:14:56 So I, I think, I, I mean, I like that, I like that spread. 1:14:59 Like, it's gonna be Vikings by three or less, and it's probably a pretty close game, and neither team looks super great, but probably a little bit more of an uglier scoring game. 1:15:08 You know, like a 20 to 17 or a 21-20 Vikings victory is kind of where I'm sitting at. I do like that your concern with the defense was like, "I'm worried about the front seven and also the back seven." 1:15:18 Like, that [laughs] was, that was really good. Other than that, we should be good. [laughs] All right, man, where can people find you? Yeah, of course. I always appreciate you having me on. 1:15:28 Uh, you can find me on Twitter, @CoxSports1, and you can hear me- Let's go. [laughs] You can hear me five days a week over on the Locked On Bears podcast. 1:15:36 By, by the way, uh, he hasn't been posting on Bluesky, but I'm still mad that he didn't take the same name for Bluesky, so... I figured no one's gonna claim it on Bluesky, so I can hold off for now. 1:15:47 But now someone's gonna steal it. You could, you could just pounce on it, though. Like, you could just... It's, it's free real estate. Like, you should just do it anyway. Whatever. 1:15:54 Well, yeah, Bluesky is such a, a burgeoning, blossoming social media platform. I get, I get more traffic from Bluesky than I do from Twitter. I'm just telling you. 1:16:01 Well, yeah, the algorithm on Twitter is anti-web traffic, so yeah, maybe web traffic, but, like, you know. [laughs] If I... 1:16:07 But where am I gonna get all the rest of my white supremacist memes if I'm not getting them on Twitter, right? [laughs] How, how can I fulfill this need? All right. Yes. 1:16:15 I mean, it's, it would be a deficiency in my life, so yeah. [laughs] All right, man, thanks for coming on. [laughs] Thanks for having me. Peace. All right. 1:16:23 It's time for the mailbag, and the first question is from Deez, uh, who asks, "Ask Arif why the on-field NFL product sucks [laughs] and players cannot even celebrate anymore. 1:16:32 I'm gonna extend this to they can't even spit on each other anymore. I thought this was America." Okay, okay, you can't [laughs] you can't spit... Okay. 1:16:41 That's g- that's gotta be one of the funniest things I've ever seen in an NFL game, and it opened the season. [laughs] To just- I worry this is gonna create-... you take yourself completely out of the game. 1:16:51 [laughs] I worry this is gonna set up a series of copycats where people are gonna just, like, repeat the crime against Dak Prescott. And so, like, uh, you can't... 1:16:59 Like, that, that is the point of these kinds of, like, suspensions, right? Like, you're not gonna do that because you don't wanna lose a whole game. And then apparently, uh, Mike Florio said, like, multiple games. 1:17:08 You can't get suspended for multiple games. So that's why you have that suspension. I don't think Deez is asking about the spit, which is, which was crazy. You can't do that. [laughs] That's insane. 1:17:18 I, I brought up the spit. I, I, I was- But Deez is probably asking about the, um, the, the... Was it Zach Bond, the tackle? 1:17:26 No, it was Nolan Smith, uh, the tackle where Nolan Smith flexed over the running back that he tackled. And, you know, I watched that. 1:17:34 I saw someone tweet out, like, you know, live it didn't look like something that you would, you'd penalize. But, you know, watching it back I can see it was clearly... And I, and I watched it back. 1:17:43 I was like, "What are you talking about? That's just..." Yeah, no, you're right about, if that's what you're referencing, Deez, which I think you are, you're correct. That is nuts that that is a penalty. 1:17:53 Um, and the, the reason that that's a, a point of emphasis, which is crazy, right? We were told, uh, while the penalty was being thrown that it was a point of emphasis. Um, which, like, would... 1:18:05 If it's a point of emphasis, it would suggest that over the past couple of years, um, taunting has gone woefully underpunished or something like that, which is also nuts to me. That makes, uh, no sense. Um, so 1:18:20 yeah, I don't... Uh, I, I think that the reason that that is something that the NFL is focusing on is, like, just take a look at who is on the NFL rules committee. 1:18:31 It is a bunch of old billionaires, and it's just so much more important to them that this game be conducted with, like, whatever their vision of decorum is than, like, to understand what people, like, actually want. 1:18:46 Like, that's one of the biggest disconnects right now between the way the NFL changes its rules and the way the public perceives the NFL, is that they keep on, like, changing a lot of these things that they think the public wants, and they're just so disconnected from it that you get, like, these absurd things. 1:19:02 And so it takes forever for an innovation like a, the tweak to the kickoff rule, which I think was a good thing, um, to actually take hold. 1:19:09 And even then, they have to, like, look over it multiple times, talk to multiple special teams coaches. Yeah, it's, it's so annoying. 1:19:15 The only thing that'll change their mind is, like, some-Argument about injury, which obviously this has nothing to do with. So yeah, it sucks 1:19:23 It, um-- I was at dinner for, uh, for the first three quarters of the game, and, uh, the only thing that I knew is that somebody got suspended for spitting. And I, I had a- Yeah, but before, before a snap, by the way. 1:19:35 Yeah. It was like literally the first-- Well, the Eagles player got injured for the season. That was the first play. Yeah. 1:19:42 But the first, uh, from scrimmage before that, like in the Cowboys huddle, which actually I should, I should point out, right? Some people will want to like want this to be said. 1:19:54 The full story [chuckles] is that Dak Prescott spit kind of on the ground near the Eagles. 1:20:02 We did see some video later corroborating that, which is like the number of camera angles we have is, is nuts for these prime time games. 1:20:08 Um, so Dak spit kind of near the Eagles, whatever, and we first learned about this from like reports on Twitter and, uh, one of those reports was like, "My understanding is that Dak was trying to explain to Jalen Carter that he wasn't like, you know, doing something intentional. 1:20:28 Uh, he was just kind of spitting on the ground. And before he could like finish that explanation, Jalen Carter just spit on him." Um, which in my brain registered as like, "Sir, I do not spit on you. 1:20:39 I spit in your general direction." Like, it was like a Romeo and Juliet opening, right? Where like, "I do not bite your thumb at thee. I bite my thumb in general." And it's like, "What is happening? 1:20:49 Why is this-- What is going on?" Um, but the video kind of showed that like, ah, maybe he was, he was talking a little bit and taunting. 1:20:58 And again, uh, taunting shouldn't be enforced as a rule, but it, it's a, it's a little bit-- It's still not excusable, but it's a little more understandable [chuckles] how that sequence of events came to be. 1:21:10 It's like this... It's the, it's like Shoresy says, "If you, uh, if you retaliate, you're gonna be the one who gets the penalty." That's just how it works. Yeah. It's the first thing they teach you. 1:21:18 Uh, also I'm reminded of the- Yeah. Hockey, football, basketball. It's just true. I'm-- I am reminded of the line from "The Simpsons" that, uh, "It started off like Romeo and Juliet and ended in tragedy." 1:21:29 [laughs] Uh, let's go to Hitman Stan, who asks, "O'Connell's system famously asks the wide receivers to be able to play X, Y, and Z roles. 1:21:36 Can Adam Thielen, at 35 years old, still reasonably threaten the defense in every role, or should we expect his presence on field to narrow the potential play calls at Kevin O'Connell's disposal?" 1:21:46 It's also worth noting, since this happened in the period between, uh, episodes, Adam Thielen, uh, did in fact sign with the Vikings. 1:21:53 Appears to have taken a bit of a pay cut, although hometown discounts or just discounts in general are now questionable at best. We'll, uh, we'll leave it at that. Let's not go too deep into that. [chuckles] Yeah. 1:22:06 Um, yeah. Adam Thielen was traded to the Vikings. Uh, it's been a week since our last show? It hasn't been that long. We had like a bunch of people in the Discord being like, "When's the... Are you canceling the show?" 1:22:17 And it's like, "It's been a week. Chill out." Um, [chuckles] I do-- I'm just yelling at like people who pay us. That's crazy. I should stop that. [chuckles] This is, this is a wonder item. 1:22:26 As the person in charge of the books, I, um, I would just like to say, please stop. [laughs] This is not... We, we appreciate every one of our listeners. 1:22:36 We appreciate our Patreon subscribers, especially, um, those in the Discord. No, I, I love you guys. Just chill out and I hate you. 1:22:43 [laughs] If you personal-- If you'd like to be personally called up by Arif, patreon.com/norsecode. A- again, if you're a different Alex Stevenson, it's cool. Don't worry about it. Okay. Uh- Anyway, X, Y, and Z roles. 1:22:57 Let's talk about it. So- Back to Adam Thielen... Adam Thielen, 35. [laughs] Adam Thielen is 35 years old, right? And la- I mean, last year he had a remarkably efficient season. 1:23:06 He had over two yards per outrun, which is really high level, like in terms of an efficiency, um, statistic. It is a little bit difficult because it interacts with stuff like target share. 1:23:15 So if you're the only good receiver on your offense, it's gonna be a little bit inflated. But whatever, that's a really good efficient statistic. It's one of the better wide receiver statistics we have. 1:23:23 Um, but he also played like 75% of his snaps for Carolina last year from the slot, whereas in previous years with the Vikings, you know, he played like 50, 55% from the slot. So he played essentially every role. 1:23:36 Um, the X, Y, and Z roles in, in offense typically, um, the X is the, the split end, right? So this is the classic like number one big receiver. 1:23:49 So, you know, uh, I remember like when, when we were like podcasting about like the Norv Turner offense, like this was like a big part of like, this is like what Michael Irvin did or, you know. 1:23:57 And, and it could be like any number of prototypes, but it's like your premier big receiver. So like Randy Moss, Terrell Owens, Mike Irvin, um, the-- like A.J. Brown contemporarily, right? 1:24:08 That's the, that's the, that's the idea behind that role. And then the Z is the, is the flanker. And so because of the NFL rules, you can only have like seven players up on the line of scrimmage, right? 1:24:20 And so five of those are offensive linemen. One is typically a tight end, and the other one is your X receiver. And then everybody else is back. And so that's like your slot receiver, and that's your flanker. 1:24:30 And so your flanker is the other receiver in two wide receiver sets. Um, that player is more like, and this is not to say that these players haven't played in split end roles, but more like a Stefon Diggs, right? 1:24:43 Um, you know, that's, that's kind of you, you wanna kind of protect them a little bit from press coverage. You play them off the line. Um, so somebody like a Greg Jennings or, um, like a Jake Reed a little bit. 1:24:56 Um, these are players that, you know, they're not never going to be up, but they-- you give them a little bit of room to work off of the line of scrimmage, and, and they tend to be the ones that are in motion a lot or are part of like offensive shifts. 1:25:11 Uh, and you can match a punt with them a little bit. Um, but that's kind of what a Z is, a flanker. And then, uh, in the question it says Y. Uh, a lot of offensive playbooks will designate the Y as the tight end. 1:25:22 Um, but as like, you know, we've gone from two tight end to three tight end or two running back to, to whatever. But, um-E- essentially, he's just saying slot receiver, right? And I think that that's fine. 1:25:34 I think some, some offensive nomenclature will call it the F, which used to be, like, the fullback, but we don't use that anymore, so you can reappropriate that for the slot receiver. Uh, for some of it, it's like the U. 1:25:46 It's whatever. It doesn't matter. So the slot receiver, right? Um, in a modern offense, you essentially have access to the full route tree for all three of those roles. 1:25:57 And so it's not as important as it used to be to have these big, deep downfield, um, plays just for your X receiver. And I think that's what this question is driving at. 1:26:08 Can Adam Thielen be a big, deep downfield target and e- especially, you know, given that, like, speed is of, like, u- most importance to some of the, some of the deeper routes that specifically Kevin O'Connell calls, but just what you would demand of that position. 1:26:24 And I don't think that that's actually gonna be a significant problem because I don't think that there's any issue with his release off the line of scrimmage. 1:26:29 I don't think there's really any issues right now as far as we can tell from his ability to beat press coverage, and those are the elements that you're looking for primarily in an X receiver in the modern NFL. 1:26:40 Um, your ability to understand how to create with tight windows or tight space, that's something that, that is important to that position and also something that he excels at, right? 1:26:50 So I think that, um, it's fine that he, you know, be asked all these roles. Does it limit the offense in some way versus, like, getting somebody like, um, uh, God, the guy that the Patriots just got rid of. 1:27:02 I f- I forgot his name now. Um, not Juwan Jennings, a different... Um, Juwan Jennings just signed an extension with the 49ers, but he used to play for the 49ers. I forget now. I liked him a lot. 1:27:11 Um, but, uh, the kind of the difference between, 1:27:16 you know, Thielen and somebody who's a little bit younger that's got a little bit more speed or, or something like that, is that you might be able to call for deep routes from that position. 1:27:25 So in that sense, like, yeah, I guess it limits the playbook, but y- if you always have a receiver going deep and you always have a receiver available to you that can go deep, whether that's Jalen Naylor or Justin Jefferson, I don't know that the playbook is limited all that much. 1:27:38 Um, and given how much mixing and matching there is in these roles because of how motion heavy this offense can be, um, you can always kind of look around and, and figure out what you need. 1:27:48 So in one sense, like, yeah, I guess the offense is a little bit limited, but I think practically it, it just isn't. So, um, I think it's a good question. I just think that in this context, it's not necessarily the case. 1:28:00 Let's go to Kenneth Allen, who asks, "What are the most interesting things to look for in general during the first game of the season? 1:28:06 And what are you going to be paying attention to during the Vikings' first game this year?" 1:28:12 Um, I think part of it is, like, we, we do wanna take a look at some of these players that have elevated roles who are new to the team, right? So like Ty Felton, Donovan Jackson. 1:28:22 Or is Ty Felton gonna have an offensive role? Is it just gonna be special teams? Donovan Jackson, how is he gonna do? That kind of stuff. That's fair. 1:28:27 Uh, I think schematically and stuff like that, like what, what do I want to look at aside from, like, J.J. McCarthy? Um, I wanna see kind of like, given that it's J.J. 1:28:39 McCarthy back there and not somebody like a Sam Darnold, who has a lot more experience and he's historically been a somewhat aggressive quarterback, or Kirk Cousins obviously, who has a ton of experience, how insistent they are on hunting for big plays. 1:28:51 You know, I was on Matthew Calder's podcast, "Purple Insider," and, um, you know, he asked like, how, how, you know, how aggressive is Kevin O'Connell gonna be? 1:29:02 Or is he gonna try to find ways to kinda ease this quarterback in? 1:29:05 And I said, "I thought he's gonna be pretty aggressive," because even in situations where he's had a lot of reason to, to kind of bring that quarterback back, you know, someone like a Joshua Dobbs, uh, he hasn't really done it. 1:29:16 Um, or a quarterback that wants to, you know, be aggressive, he kind of encourages it, like Nick Mullens, even though Mullens just doesn't have the facilities [chuckles] for that sometimes. 1:29:27 Um, I, I, I think that it's just kinda who he is. Um, but I would like to see if that does change, right? If you have a couple more, I call them easy buttons in the offense, and that doesn't... 1:29:38 Usually when, when people talk about easy buttons in an offense, they mean like play action and stuff like that, and that's not necessarily what I mean. 1:29:44 I mean more just like having, you know, checkdowns and short throws available to you or shorter timing, um, things, uh, against like off coverage or something. 1:29:52 Um, so I, I'd look for that and then kinda defensively just how exposed those quarterbacks are. 1:29:58 Um, you know, if it feels like, you know, the pressure's not arriving, um, quickly enough against, you know, a Bears offense that should not be very good at mitigating pressure. 1:30:08 Um, if the pressure is not arriving, like how exposed can those quarterbacks be? 'Cause I think that'll tell us a lot. 1:30:13 Overall, like whether or not those passes are completed by Caleb Williams, we can probably tell how exposed this offense is gonna be if within two and a half seconds, um, you know, there's not either immediate danger to the quarterback or an open receiver. 1:30:27 So, um, that's probably what I look for. I don't know that there's anything kind of just in the first game that there are these long-term trends I wanna see. 1:30:35 Like, yeah, it'd be kinda cool to see if the blitz rate changes, but it's probably not gonna tell us much because Brian Flores has seen Caleb Williams specifically before. 1:30:43 Um, and you know, whether or not Ben Johnson has like answers to this offense in the context of being a Bears coach instead of a Lions coach. But yeah, I don't know. 1:30:51 Um, I think after four games we'll have a lot of answers to questions that we forgot to ask, uh, [chuckles] and then just like know more about, uh, you know, both the offense and the defense. 1:31:01 Kenneth Allen also asks, "For our reefs cover, uh, cover up corner, who would you least like to be investigated by or interviewed by? Pablo Torre, Ken Klipstein, [laughs] or Isaac Chotner?" Okay, that's crazy. 1:31:16 Uh, Kenny Klips, shouts to my guy Kenny Klips, I love him. Uh, I also love Pablo Torre. Holy crap, what, what a podcast. Um, I... 1:31:25 Least is Isaac Chotner, and so the reason is this, Pablo Torre if, will, will dig up stuff that you had no idea he, anyone had access to, much less him, right? That's, that's crazy. That's incredible. 1:31:36 Wow, deep, deep dive, incredible journalism. Um, he can find out if you're like violating the salary cap or whatever, right? Like just incredible stuff, great journalism.That would be terrifying. 1:31:48 Kenny Klipsch, pretty similar, although a lot of that is like FOIA requests, so Freedom of Information Act requests, and which is not to say he doesn't do great journalism. He does. 1:31:57 I'm just saying the area of journalism that he operates in doesn't really interact with what I do that much, at least I hope so. Um, so that's not as concerning. 1:32:07 Uh, he's broken a bunch of great news, and some of it isn't FOIA related. 1:32:10 A lot of it's like, you know, people are in the military are upset with the direction the military is going, and so they like, you know, securely and anonymously contact him, and he breaks some news regarding that. 1:32:21 Like, he, he's good at that, but it's also just like not in the area that concerns me. Isaac Chotiner is terrifying because he works in like a bunch of different arenas. 1:32:30 A- and the thing about him, if you ever like see a, a Chotiner interview go viral, like it's usually screenshots of texts. 1:32:38 And in the screenshots, he-- what he has done is he's asked a couple of questions to get somebody to kind of put out their initial line, their initial statement, kind of what the, what the press release would say, right? 1:32:51 And then he gives them just enough rope to hang themselves, and then he asks one or two simple questions, and you look like the biggest idiot on the planet. 1:33:01 And if like, if I'm in a, in a spot where one of these three journ- journalists is going to signal my doom, I would rather it not be me, right? 1:33:11 Like, I would rather it not be me that sinks me, and that's what Chotiner does. 1:33:15 I would rather Pablo Torre find a document that I've been trying to hide for five years as opposed to Chotiner just asking me three questions and me immediately folding. So that's, that's my, 1:33:26 that's, that's my answer to that. Not that I'm covering anything up. I-- we shouldn't, we shouldn't have a coverup corner 'cause I-- there's no, there's nothing to worry about. Not yet, no. 1:33:36 Uh, Raul asks, "Who is boobdoc01?" [laughs] "And is ESPN dramatically overpaying Adam Schefter? Easily one of my favorite stories of the last week or so." [chuckles] So funny. Okay. 1:33:49 So w- in the show notes, we'll link this SB Nation article that kind of goes into greater detail than I thought, 'cause I thought I knew the story, but James put this, this link in the show notes, and I clicked on it, and I read through it. 1:33:59 And there's like more to it than I even knew. So, um, boobdoc01 [chuckles] is a cryptocurrency influencer, 1:34:09 um, who, uh, is currently in the process of shilling, uh, NFTs called dburps, I wanna say, um, which is cool. Uh, "dburps are gonna be the next Bonk Fund success story." That is a quote from one of his tweets. 1:34:26 Uh, it is dustburp. Oh, sorry, it's not an NFT. It's a, it's a cryptocurrency. That's different, um, in a material but also irrelevant sense. Um, yeah. [laughs] Um, but yeah. 1:34:41 Uh, y- so he said-- This is such a good tweet. So before any news about the Micah Parsons trade, uh, officially broke, and by officially I mean from like established incredible insiders, he tweets out, Dr. 1:34:54 Feelgood, @boobdoc01 tweets out, "So the breast enhancement community is rather close-knit. My DFW colleagues are texting..." Okay, I-- we're, we're still maintaining the iTunes rating. "... 1:35:09 are texting the blank out of me right now saying that Micah Parsons to Green Bay deal is cemented, and both teams are playing it up for all the PR they can get. 1:35:17 Take it for what it's worth, but the wives can't keep a secret at all." And I believe this was a day before the trade was announced, I wanna say. Yeah. Um, and I don't know. 1:35:27 That's-- there's something beautiful about that, I think, [laughs] 1:35:31 um, that, that is just like because so many people who would have access to this knowledge have spouses who've gone through breast enhancement of some sort. Um, 1:35:46 because of that, it has leaked out that Micah Parsons has been traded. It's just, it's beautiful. 1:35:52 But also reading the story, I did not realize that in the Green Bay Packers subreddit, someone else also the same day, uh, said, "Hey, uh, this is third-hand knowledge. I don't know. 1:36:03 I live in the Dallas area, and a friend of mine is next door neighbors with one of the Cowboys team physical therapists. 1:36:09 Supposedly, he did some work with Michael Parsons today, and the word is the Packers have a deal in place. Just need him to agree to the contract offer, which he says averages forty-five million dollars a year." 1:36:18 Um, now both of these guys have never attempted to break NFL news before. Uh, Dr. Feelgood, boobdoc01, he is laser-focused on this cryptocurrency. Um, he has, he has not tweeted about the NFL. Uh, 1:36:37 username GridironGamer, who has been in the Packers subreddit for 12 years, has never, you know, produced a rumor as far as we can tell. Uh, and so both of them on the same day were like, "Hey, this is gonna happen." 1:36:48 And then it did happen, which is great. Uh, and then also the piece links, 1:36:53 uh, to what, uh, enemy of the show, Justice Moca- Mosqueda said, which, um, a week before the trade, he was like, "Hey, you know, I think it's likely that Michael Parsons signs with Dallas, but I've been reading just a truly psychotic amount of tea leaves, and if it doesn't happen, it's absolutely Cowboys to Packers. 1:37:13 There's no question about it." And he breaks it down in his own SB Nation piece. Um, it's truly incredible how much this leaked. Uh, is Adam Schefter out of a job? No. You know he's protected. He survived Mr. Editor. 1:37:29 He will survive boobdoc01. He's, uh, he's apparently attempting to survive the whole, um, RedZone commercial thing too. 1:37:37 Yeah, I, I mean, like, I think he was required to tweet, which is not a, a, an excuse, but I think he was like required to tweet. 1:37:43 Okay, so for people who aren't familiar, RedZone announced that, or someone announced that RedZone will have commercials, which technically they did have some commercials last year, but everyone was like really mad about it, which you were right to be mad. 1:37:55 The tagline is literallyYou know, now begin seven hours of commercial-free football. Um, which Scott Hanson, like, apologized for and everyone's like, "Well, hey, kid." Scott's, like, 40-something. 1:38:06 "Hey, kid, it's not your fault. Don't worry about it. It's not on you." [laughs] Everyone was super nice to him. Yeah. But yeah, so- Nobody, nobody has anything may- mean to say about him, no. Yeah, right. 1:38:16 [laughs] And so, um, so it, it, it was announced that they would, like, kinda continue this. 1:38:21 So Scott Hanson goes to the Pat McAfee Show, and he, like, talks about it a little bit, and McAfee is d- McAfee also an ESPN employee, right? He's, like, doing as much as he can. 1:38:31 And for those who don't remember, uh, the NFL just bought, like, a 10% stake, uh, in ESPN, and they didn't buy it as much with money as they did with access to NFL network products. 1:38:41 I mean, they did also spend money, but, like, um, ESPN gets access to RedZone, so they can distribute it upon, uh, through ESPN channels like, uh, ESPN Plus or Disney Plus, I don't know, something. Um, so they own it. 1:38:55 But NFL, the NFL network and N- and NFL Media, I should say, NFL Media still controls all the programming for it. 1:39:03 Um, so technically not ESPN's decision to continue running commercials, it's NFL Media's decision to the degree that you feel it's important to separate these two entities that are now whole- you know, wholly intertwined, right? 1:39:14 Um, so Adam Sh- so, like, everyone's, like, mad, right? Because, like, "Hey, I am paying a lot of money for this product. 1:39:22 You already are making money from it, and so you monetizing it by diminishing my experience sucks." Um, Cory Doctorow has a... Doctor-oe. I, I don't, I shouldn't know how to pronounce this guy's name. 1:39:35 He's, like, a legend. Um, Doctorow, let's just go with that. Cory Doctorow, uh, has a term for it, which I-- screw the iTunes rating. It's just, it's enshittification, where products just kinda get worse over time. 1:39:46 Um, that's kinda what's happening here. Uh, he, there's a whole process behind it. I've super oversimplified it. It's actually really interesting. 1:39:53 But, um, that's what's happening here, and Adam Schefter tweeted out, like, "Hey, if you, like, count up the, uh, amount of time that there will be commercials on RedZone, um, 1:40:05 it'll be, like, one to two minutes, less than 0.25%," something like that, right? Um, he, he's like, "Yeah, so RedZone is actually gonna have... Like, you're barely gonna notice it." And the one thing I know about people 1:40:18 is that if you have provided an uninterrupted experience, and they get used to that for over a decade, and then you slightly interrupt the experience, they will super notice the hell out of it. 1:40:32 There's just no question about it. And, like, uh, that's just, like, it's just, just not how psychology works, right? 1:40:39 [laughs] Like, um, people complained about how much Taylor Swift was shown in NFL games, and that was also, like, one minute out of, like, three hours, right? Like, the amount of actual time it was, was very small. 1:40:51 But if you're not used to it, it is a ton. It grabs your attention. There's a ton of studies on that kind of stuff. There's, like, a study, uh, this is a long time ago, I don't know if it's true anymore. 1:41:01 But, like, if you showed people, like, a movie cast, right? And it was, like, I think it was, like, 11% women and, like, 89% men or something like that. 1:41:13 A- and, and you look at a scene, and that's, like, that's the distribution of dialogue. 1:41:17 And you ask them later what percentage, you know, men spoke and women spoke, because, like, the whole history of movies had, you know, men taking on these, like, leading roles and dominating the conversation and being the stars and the protagonists and stuff like that. 1:41:30 Um, they would overestimate the amount of time and dialogue that women had in those, in, in, in those circumstances, or even in crowd shots in movies. Like, it's just, like, like, if you're not used to it, 1:41:44 you're gonna notice. So that's not gonna help Adam. And as soon as it happens, people are gonna screenshot it, video record it, and tweet out about it and complain about it. And Adam, you, like, I... 1:41:56 You're very good at what you do. I feel like I can't respect you [laughs] but this doesn't help. Like, this, j- I can't... Like, they shouldn't have made you do that, but also you shouldn't have done it. 1:42:05 Because they can't make you do... You get paid, like, $10 million a year or whatever it is. They can't make you do anything you don't wanna do. You shouldn't have done that. That's so stupid. 1:42:13 Well, speaking of interrupting a product that's, uh, gone without commercials for 10 years and then just subtly bringing it in, let's talk about our new sponsor, BetterHelp. Oh my God. 1:42:22 [laughs] BetterHelp is the app that's gonna provide you with the best chance of fixing your mental health. 1:42:29 Check out today with- Yeah, that's, [laughs] that's definitely the language in the ad copy, fixing your mental health. [laughs] Use promo code CarsonWentz for 10%- [laughs]... off your first month at betterhelp.com. 1:42:42 Uh, let's go to, uh, Jogger who asks, "So Harrison Smith had COVID, right? And everyone's just being weirdly cagey about it?" Uh, [laughs] he was gone for a month, man. That's not... No, that's not what happened. 1:42:55 I'm confident I got- Um- Uh, I'm confident I got the 'rona, like, a month ago, and I still have a lingering cough that knocks me out. Like- Y-... it's possible- Yeah, but like-... but not super likely. 1:43:06 Yeah, also, I mean, like, no offense, James, but Harrison Smith [laughs] is built a bit different than you. I... No. [laughs] No, no, no, no, no. [laughs] Other than being- A-... 1:43:18 a couple weeks older than him, a, a couple years, uh, no, that's not how [laughs] any of this works. A- and, and hey, no, this was not, I'm not calling you unfit. 1:43:26 I'm just saying, you know, he has access to better medical resources. Oh, is that? It's not your fault. Okay, well- Yeah. Right, yeah. He's got access to-... go- government, government resources and all that. 1:43:33 I, I get it. It's, it's- Yeah, like, he immediately could get Paxlovid, right? Like, that's what I'm getting at, right? Okay. Yeah, no, uh, based on what I heard, that's not what it is. 1:43:42 But what I heard is unconfirmed, so I'm not gonna go into it. Yeah. Uh, next question. Will Melvin asks, "Who could last longer in a filibuster, Arif, Luke Braun, or Matthew Collar?" 1:43:53 I'm actually really curious what James' answer is, but I've got an answer. Uh, I think thatArif would eventually, uh, be the, um, be the snake that eats its own tail. 1:44:08 Like, e- eventually he would just sit there and go, "What? I just said something for two hours. I don't know what I, I, I'm slightly confused. I need help." 1:44:17 Uh, I think- And you think, and, and you think Matthew Collar or Luke Braun wouldn't, wouldn't have the- I think-... introspection to realize [laughs] that they were talking for two hours? 1:44:26 [laughs] The disconnect would be truly amazing. Um, I, I don't know. And Collar would be an interesting tell. I think Luke would do a fine job. I just... 1:44:36 I think you would be able to outlast Luke, Luke Braun, and likely, and likely, uh, Matthew Collar. Yeah. So I, I think that that's true as well. I think, um, I think for two primary reasons. 1:44:49 One is that I think out of the three of us, I have a tendency to overexplain. 1:44:54 I don't know if you've noticed this, James, but I have a tendency to overexplain more than most people in most situations, and I tend to use a lot of words to get there. 1:45:02 Uh, two, fil- successful filibusters are fueled by, like, spite and hate. 1:45:07 And I, while I think all three of us could effectively be characterized as haters, especially Collar, I think that, like, I definitely qualify as a hater who can be fueled by spite. 1:45:19 And I think that that would allow me to just pull out a phone book and just start reading it. Like, I think I could just do it. Yeah. You, you are a petty, petty little man, and I appreciate that about you. 1:45:30 Uh, let's- Well, yeah, I mean, I'm seven feet tall, but, like, I, I understand what you mean. Uh, s- short in spirit. Uh, Milo asks [laughs] how big... [laughs] Ah, that's, that's an episode title. 1:45:44 Uh, Milo- That's a good one. Yeah. [laughs] Milo asks, "How big of a concern is the defensive back room? Is it sufficient? Is it proficient? Is it deficient?" Uh, [laughs] okay. Um, I- it's, uh, yeah. 1:45:59 It's deficient, I guess. I don't know. Um, it is a thin defensive back room. Um, and it also isn't very top-heavy, which I guess just makes it bad, right? Uh, you've got one good player, Byron Murphy. 1:46:13 You got one player that I think you could be reasonably confident has, like, a pretty wide range of outcomes in Isaiah Rogers, and one player you'd have to, like, convince me of, right, which is Jeff Okudah. 1:46:23 And then after, like, who is on the team after that? Like, it's just not... I mean, like, I know it's, like, Dwight McLaughlin, right? But, like, that's not good, right? 1:46:31 Harrison Smith is coming off of a mysterious injury. We don't know how good Theo Jackson is. 1:46:35 So Josh Metellus, who is fantastic at a lot of different things, but not necessarily at the things that if you're missing other defensive backs, he can fill in for, right? So I don't... 1:46:45 It's, it's not, it's, it's, it's, it's sad. It's not good, and it might not m- Ryan Flores' whole deal is that don't worry about that, that doesn't matter. So we'll see. But, uh, it is a concern. 1:47:00 Next question is from, uh, is from Hallie. Haley? Hallie. Whatever. Uh- I think it's Haley. Yeah, let's just go with that. 1:47:07 "For Arif's debate corner, which Minnesota Viking do you think would be the best policy debater and why?" Uh, I would have to go... I wanna say Max Brosmer 'cause he's from Minnesota. 1:47:17 Minnesota has a pretty decent policy debate team now. But, uh, Michigan has, uh, phenomenal debate teams. I'm gonna go with JJ McCarthy. Uh, you know, requires, uh, poise under pressure. 1:47:30 It requires, uh, the ability to interpret information very quickly. Uh, it requires the ability to kind of dissect what's happening in front of you. I'm gonna go with JJ McCarthy. 1:47:39 Plus he's got, like, a lot of poise in front of the camera, right? You know, I think that that presentation ability matters. 1:47:45 Now, before the show, I did try to figure out who spoke the fastest, but then I realized that James would misinterpret that to mean that that is a requirement to be an effective policy debater, which is not, uh- But it should have... 1:47:58 which has not been true over the past decade of college debate, uh, where a lot of very, very successful teams have spoken at conversational rates instead of, uh, at very high speeds. 1:48:09 And J- James seems convinced that that is the only skill you need. But if that were true, I would have won multiple national tournaments because I was the fastest speaker in the circuit when I was in college. 1:48:20 Uh, and that did not do me as much good as you might hope. So [laughs] I, uh, I'm not gonna go, keep going on this topic because you called me a racist earlier. 1:48:31 So I'm, I, I've learned my lesson and, uh, we're just gonna go to the next question. Uh- That's right. [laughs] I'm, I, I, I'm okay with being called a racist on the pre-show, just not on the regular show. Uh- [laughs] 1:48:48 I- Just, just don't have a recording of it. [laughs] That's, that's different. That's, uh, you g- you gotta pay for that. So listen to- [laughs]... 1:48:56 listen to that and have Arif make fun of you personally at patreon.com/norsecode. Kyle Seagal asks, "Good morrow, gents. Got a random query. 1:49:06 Let's say you've been on the run from the law in the woods and found a militant band of individuals disenfranchised by your state's total collapse into fascism. 1:49:14 Is being a cook or being a lookout a better contribution to this society?" Okay. Again, a, a lot of curious hypo... 1:49:24 I mean, he didn't say this time it was hypothetical, but a lot of curious hypothetical questions from, from Kyle the past three weeks. 1:49:32 Um, and again, I always regret not being able to get to his question until we record because it always seems like they're very pressing. [laughs] Um, 1:49:41 but I would, I would say probably a cook because if you're the only cook, you get a little bit of time. 1:49:50 You get a, you get a couple of mess-ups right before someone's like, "Hey, you can't be cooking anymore," unless you, like, poison someone. Obviously, it depends on the degree. 1:49:58 But, um, you get a couple of mess-ups because you're the only cook. You're the only one who knows how to cook. Uh, it's an important skill. Lookout is not a super highUh, unless I'm, like, missing something. 1:50:09 It's not a s- high-skill job. If you mess up once, that's it. The- you're done. Uh, and so I think it's just more valuable to be a cook. Also, like, my understanding based off of kind of 1:50:22 reading military fiction, which is identical to having military experience- We've always said that... um, yeah. No, I, I don't see a problem with that. I can't imagine any of our listeners being upset with that. Um, 1:50:35 unless you're, like, a truly bad cook, you're, like, everybody's favorite guy. The lookout is no one's favorite guy, not because e- they're annoying and they suck. It's just you don't remember that guy. 1:50:46 But, like, the guy who feeds you, rules. I- that is awesome. So, uh, yeah, be the chef. It, I mean, uh, be good at it, but like- Yeah... you know, be the cook. 1:50:57 Uh, based on my experience of playing Red Dead Redemption 2 for a lot more hours than I'm willing to admit, uh, yeah, be Pearson. Don't the, the cook. 1:51:06 Don't be the, uh, one of the nameless people who are just sitting and watching and waiting. So Pearson is your, uh, is your, is the person you should emulate as long as you're, you know, useful. 1:51:17 Uh, my four-year-old plans to replace me asks, "Question for Arif's AI corner. One of Arif's friends, Ed Zitron, hates AI and will regularly declare that it's killing the economy and will crash to the ground." Mm-hmm. 1:51:31 "Does Arif feel like he's betraying his friend by using AI to draft his Hell League teams?" Oh my... Okay. 1:51:36 "And what assurances do we have that you're not using AI with your other work, Wide Left, Norse Code, et cetera, when you're using it for fantasy football?" This is an important question. Oh, yeah. I had 13- It's not. 1:51:46 It's not actually an important question... I had 13 drafts back to back to back to back on Monday. Uh, Arif, how many did you, how many of those did you attend, uh, online? 1:51:57 How many people, how many, uh, drafts did you go in and... 'Cause you're signed up for a couple of leagues. 1:52:02 Yeah, so I did receive some emails on Monday, uh, that gave me grades for the draft, and I believe I received two such emails. So, uh, I, I, I believe I, uh, someone with my team name 1:52:21 ha- ha- had two drafts to attend. Um, but I will say that Ed Zitron is very specific about the type... In fact, he goes into great detail about the types of AI he's talking about. 1:52:35 He's not talking about, you know, typical machine learning. He's not talking about... He's talking about generative AI, typically, uh, in the large language model, um, kind of arena of machine learning. 1:52:48 Not a lot of, like, neurolinguistic, uh, AI or neural network AI or any of the other, um, algorithmic approaches to solving problems or big data that, that we've had over the years. 1:53:00 So there's a lot of different types of AI, uh, things that we call AI. I don't really super love the terminology. 1:53:06 In fact, it's become so diluted that we had to invent another term to get at what we originally meant with AI, which was AGI, which is great. Um, 1:53:15 but that's not what auto drafts are run on, and so that's, you don't have to worry about that. 1:53:21 Um, and also, like, hey man, if you can't detect whether or not I'm using AI in my writing or on a podcast, I, that just sounds like that's on you, man. 1:53:31 That's, like [laughs] at some point, like, if, if you can't figure that out, that's, that's, that's a you pro- actually, that's a bad precedent. I shouldn't say that. Yeah. But [laughs] Don't- But, like, come on. 1:53:42 It's pretty clear I'm not using AI. 1:53:43 [laughs] I, um, I was trying to describe the uncanny valley in terms of animation, uh, to, uh, to my fiance, uh, this evening, and I had mentioned how it's getting to that point now with, uh, receiving emails at work or seeing ads on Twitter or Facebook and how they're, like, all kind of looking alike and how I'm seeing these... 1:54:06 And it's not even, like, generative AI images, but, like, just the generated, uh, typing that, that's coming out, the, the specific images, the fact they're writing like no human speaks. And- Yeah. 1:54:21 Like- Like, that is, like... 1:54:22 It, and, and if in case you're unfamiliar with the term the uncanny valley, it's, it's referring to an animation, uh, thing where you're looking at something and it's, there's something wrong, and your body- Yeah, so, so-... 1:54:33 can't figure it out... so the reason it's called the uncanny valley is if you created a chart of, like, how realistic, especially, like, a human specifically, like if you were drawing- Yeah... 1:54:42 a human, how realistic it is and how, how much people, uh, enjoy interacting with it, right? You would generally have a graph sloping upwards, right? The more it looks like a human, the more you like it. 1:54:55 But at some point in between looks incredibly close to a human- Mm-hmm... 1:55:00 and looks kinda like a human, there's a sudden dip in that chart, and it goes way down because you're really uncomfortable with, like, how close to a human it is, but how clearly not a human it is. 1:55:10 Uh, and we've understood this overall concept for much longer than we've had a term for it. A lot of our horror movies are based off of this concept where, like, the eyes are a little bit too big. 1:55:21 You'll have, you'll still see it in a bunch of horror. 1:55:23 Or, you know, the hair is a little bit o- like, it's, like, uh, specifically we've designed a lot of creepy and monstrous things to fit into the uncanny valley even before we had a name for the concept, and it's amazing that we have now created a machine that just does that for us automatically without us wanting it to. 1:55:43 Yeah. Um [laughs] And that, like, just reading those or it's, like, seeing emails. Like, tonight I got two work emails that were basically, like, that's clear she's just using AI. 1:55:53 And she's clear, she's just like, "Hey, these are the things I would like you to say. Please put it in a, in, in, in English. Please put it in- Right, yeah... a way they will understand." 1:56:01 And like- I'll, I'll link to- Ugh... like, a video or two about how you can spot AI-generated text. I see it all the time. So it's not an issue for me to figure it out, so maybe I was being a little bit unfair. 1:56:11 Um, I see it all the time now. Um-But like, and, and they'll probably, like, fix some of these things, right? But the fundamental problem with the way that AI writes or speaks or whatever is it's built off of... Sort of. 1:56:25 It is not entirely accurate the way I'm gonna put it. Um, it's built off of sort of an averaging of a lot of cadences in the ways that we talk. 1:56:34 So, um, you type in a couple of words, and just like a, a, your, your phone from 15 years ago using T9, it'll predict the next word based off of the most common word, uh, given all of these contexts. 1:56:47 And one of the things about, uh, large language models is that they have a lot more pieces of context to draw from than your phone did 15 years ago when they're predicting the next word, and they'll put that in there. 1:56:57 Now, you can change the randomness of it. It's called the temperature, and it's not necessarily gonna choose the most likely word. It might choose the second or third or fourth, and it'll determine that pseudo-randomly. 1:57:08 Um, but the overall outcome of this is that even though it'll never produce the same text twice because it is picking based off of certain frequencies of, of words to use based off of the previous words used in the question that you asked and all of these other pieces and tags attached to words and context and data, um, it still tends towards the most average thing that a human can say. 1:57:31 And I don't know if you've ever seen these, like, I tried to find the most average person in, on, in America type, like, articles or videos, but no one fits the category. 1:57:42 Zero people are perfectly average in all respects, and nobody writes like the most average writing thing. Yeah. It's inhuman and uncomfortable, and also the t- I hate the tone. 1:57:55 The tone is, like, the most annoying passive-aggressive office email- Mm-hmm... but again and again and again and again, except for some reason it likes you, and that, I, I don't know why, but that's worse even still. 1:58:05 [laughs] I would rather the guy writing this passive-aggressive email hates me. Like, why, why are you talking like that, man? [chuckles] It just, it's, it's... 1:58:13 Every time I see it now, and I, I see it everywhere, especially after trying to do promotions for a festival on social media, and every other ad from every other restaurant or every other thing- Oh, God... 1:58:26 it, it all looks the same. There's a little image in there for no good reason. There's a bunch of bullet points when you've never used bullet points before. 1:58:32 Like, it's- And sometimes the bullet points are emojis, and no one does that. Right. [laughs] Like, the, just-- 1:58:39 I am, I-- It drives me nuts, and I'm sitting here, and every time I get one of these emails, it's like I'm looking at a hu- at a, at an animated human whose face is wrong. Yeah. And you're just- Yeah... 1:58:51 stuck there, like, you just, the pit of your stomach just, ugh, this is not... Also- Yeah... we've gone off the rails. I just wanna point that out. 1:58:58 Uh [laughs] Oh, yeah [laughs] we, we- After, after this 10-minute AI rant, I just wanna point out that we are in fact off the rails. 1:59:05 We, we, we did, we did just give some advice on how to survive in a militia, so hopefully you've figured that out by now. 1:59:12 [laughs] Just- But, yeah, one, one- That's actually just good advice for everybody, so I just- Yeah. No, yeah, yeah... wanna point that out. Yeah. Uh, one last thing about... 1:59:20 I think my favorite bit on, in, like, Reddit comments is when, like, someone is signaling that they're pretending to use AI is, "Certainly, I can help you with that. You're right to notice that XYZ. 1:59:29 That's really important context. Now, let's figure this out." Just the perfect AI sentence. Ugh. It makes me die every time. Yeah. Uh, let's go to Tank B., who asks, "For Reef's animated, not anime, corner. 1:59:43 Uh, in recent, in a recent episode, your co-host ruled that K-pop Demon Hunters was an anime. However, the film was a Sony Picture Imagine Works work that was- Image Works. 1:59:53 You're right, Image Works, apologies, uh, that was animated in Canada. As there is no, quote, 'Canadian anime,' Canime? 2:00:01 Uh, that means that, that this anime f- uh, animated film is in fact a simply a Western cartoon with Korean-esque influences on character and scene design. Why do you allow James to bully and gaslight you like this? 2:00:13 Do you need help?" Uh, I think any interpretation that the listeners draw from, uh, our interactions on this podcast that produce the conclusion that, uh, James is an abuser and I am a victim, I want to encourage. 2:00:27 I do want you all to think that that might be the case. Uh, but in addition to that [chuckles], um, I, I, because I don't wade into these debates, uh, 'cause I'm just, frankly, I'm just not interested in anime. 2:00:40 I don't know anything about it. I don't watch it. Um, I've seen a couple of my friends bring up this discussion that, you know, what is anime? 2:00:48 You know, is, is it necessarily the case that something animated in the United States, uh, can't be an anime? Is, um, uh, what's the, what's the one that everyone uses all the time? 2:00:58 I think it's called Avatar: The Last Airbender. Is that an anime? 2:01:01 And a lot of people think it is an anime despite the fact that it was animated entirely in the United States because it draws on anime, and it reads more like an anime that has Western influences than a Western cartoon that has anime influences. 2:01:15 And then, of course, people will ask, like, "Well, if it can't be a Western animation, if it i- if it can only be animated in Japan," well, most of the things that people call anime are now animated in Korea or even China or even Vietnam. 2:01:29 Uh, do those count as anime? How much outsourcing needs to be done for it to count as anime? 2:01:34 If you take a look at Western animation in the United States, most of the frames that you see animated are actually animated, uh, across the Pacific Ocean. 2:01:44 Uh, most of the non-keyframe animations that will occur in most of the animation that you see in the United States and in Canada will have actually been animated elsewhere, even if it's an American studio that lists credits to American animators who absolutely deserve, you know, that credit and the work that they put in. 2:02:05 Um-But most animation in the United States and in Canada, a lot of the individual frames, most of those will be done overseas, and particularly like in Korea, and China, and like Vietnam, and I believe Thailand. 2:02:19 Uh, and so wouldn't that make everything anime? So I don't really know, you know, the answers to these questions. Does anime refer to a style? Does it refer to particular tropes? Do, does it refer to a genre? 2:02:30 If it does refer to a style, do these... 'Cause there's other anime that don't look like what people call anime. Um, there's, I don't know the name. Um, 2:02:39 something like Panties & Stocking, I guess, is supposed to look different. I don't know. It's, it's weird. Um, so I don't know the answers to this. This is why I asked James. 2:02:46 I, I figured that he might know a little bit better. But I see that James' answer has drawn, um, a little bit of, uh, controversy. And I wouldn't know. 2:02:52 I haven't watched, uh, K-Pop Demon Hunters or listened to the soundtrack, uh, 80,000 times, um, or gone to the singalong that, where they broke box office records for, uh, or not records, but they won the weekend, um, despite only being in half the theaters of some of the other releases that weekend. 2:03:09 Um, I wouldn't know anything about it. I don't know anything about K-Pop Demon Hunters. Um, but I would say that, you know, 2:03:16 the definition that people wanna use for anime seems to be a little bit outdated, and it no longer refers to kind of the notions that people bring up in their heads when they talk about anime. 2:03:27 And so it sounds like the stricter definitions that people use are maybe a little bit inappropriate for these kinds of discussions. Um, but I wouldn't know. 2:03:34 I haven't traced the history of animation or done any research on, on that kind of thing, uh, as it pertains to animation coming out of Japan. 2:03:42 So, uh, it's tough, especially because it sounded like that a lot of, uh, Japanese animation was initially influenced by a lot of Western animation, and Disney in particular. So what is Western? What is not Western? 2:03:52 I don't know. That's not, that's not for me to decide. So it was less about James gaslighting me, which again, I wanna remind you, he does every day. 2:04:00 Um, and more about the complexities of this kind of world that I just haven't explored any, uh, of at all. Like, is My Hero Academia a, a, another... 2:04:11 I, I, I guess it's an anime that's based off of Western comic book tropes. Does that count as an, an anime that was primarily produced in Japan even though it, it has Western tropes in it? I wouldn't know. 2:04:22 I haven't watched it three or four times. If I'm gaslighting you, I really need to s- I really need to just start bullying you more if that's, uh, if I have permission to do this now, fantastic. 2:04:32 No, no, you don't have permission. I will- No, that's bad. Nope, that's- It's bad. You shouldn't do it... nope. That's, I'm, I am taking- But the fact is that you do do it... 2:04:36 from our conversation that I should be doing it more if I'm gonna be blamed for it. So a second jet- No, no, you're already, you're already doing it... as Hit Drew Bledsoe asked- You, you like, this is-... 2:04:44 for the grim darkness of the 41st millennium corner. 2:04:47 [laughs] Mortally wounded space marines of great honor and importance to the chapter will sometimes have their warped and disfigured bodies interred into a cybernetic coffin to pilot bipedal war machine known as the dreadnoughts. 2:05:03 What NFL coach, which NFL coach, would ha- you have stuffed into these nightmares to continue coaching well beyond the time mortal flesh can withstand? I, it just kinda depends, right? 2:05:16 Because a lot of the, a lot of the coaches that have been historically important are, like, still alive. [laughs] Um, so like, th- that one, that one's kinda tough. 2:05:25 But, you know- Does Belichick, does Belichick count as alive? I'm not- Yeah, that, that was my, that was my first thing- Yeah... I was thinking of. Like, could we get, like, good Belichick? 2:05:33 [laughs] Um, 'cause, like, what's happened has been d- like it's, it bears... I feel kinda bad. I'd never thought I'd feel bad for Belichick, but, like, we talk about someone who's being gaslit. 2:05:47 It's this guy, right, by this 24-year-old. Um, I don't mean, I don't mean the backup quarterback. I mean his girlfriend. Um, they are, they are actually the same age. Um- 2:05:59 The comment that at the last time they had lost by this much is when she was back in middle school. Yes. It was 11 years ago, but still. [laughs] Yeah. That, which is like, ah. 2:06:11 So which, like, again, like, is he, uh, the creep or the victim or both? Like, I don't know. That, this is, I hate this whole situation. 2:06:19 Anyway, um, uh, put, so my point of contact with this is not, I assume this is like Warhammer, uh, is not that universe but a very similar concept in StarCraft, the Dragoon. 2:06:32 Um, although, like, the space marines are more like the Terran marines, and the Dragoon is a Protoss. They, doesn't matter. Um, but I would, I would, I would, uh, Bill Belichick, good version. Um, Paul Brown. 2:06:47 J- I mean, all of these guys were probably problematic, so let's ignore that part. Paul Brown, uh, Don Shula. I, I think those would be fun, uh, and good. It's just good to have good ones, right? 2:06:59 Um, but as we kinda go into kinda the more fun ones, um, I mean, Wade Phillips is still alive, but I mean, he'd be kinda fun to, to see try, uh, head coaching again 'cause I actually think he would be good at it. 2:07:12 Um- Andy Reid would be interesting in that spot. Oh, would younger Andy Reid... Oh, that's interesting. Oh my gosh. Okay, I like that. Sid Gillman- Andy Reid right after he discovered time management. 2:07:27 [laughs] 'Cause they were two completely different Andy Reids. Oh, completely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but, like, peak equals Andy Reid versus peak now Andy Reid I think is really curious. Um, Sid Gillman for sure. 2:07:42 Um, I believe he has passed away, right? I think he entered the Hall of Fame posthumously. Denny Green, obviously, no question. Uh, Don Coryell. Um, John Madden, yeah, absolutely. 2:07:55 Uh, and, and I mean, I hate, I hate to say it, but it's, y- Vince Lombardi. I think you have to, right? So those are my answers. Let's go to our final question. Oh, Bill Walsh. Jesus Christ. Bill Walsh. 2:08:08 Oh yeah, Bill Walsh. Yeah. Uh, let's go to our final question, uh, from, uh, Yannick Eckhart who asks, "I don't know what a Labubu is, and I also-" Mm... 2:08:16 "don't want to know what a Labubu is."Without revealing anything about Labubu, in your answer, because I don't want to know, can you convince me that I should get invested and make Labubu the focal point of my entire life? 2:08:28 [laughs] My, my favorite thing about this question is that every time Labubu is spelled out, there is a question mark after it. [laughs] And I... 2:08:36 And me reading it, I had to figure out if that was the end of a sentence, and it never was. Nope. [laughs] So- I had, I had to read it a couple times to make sure I didn't stop. 2:08:45 [laughs] Um, but no, uh, you don't have to know what a Labubu is in order to get invested in it. Um, so, uh, I don't know how old you are, Yannick, but I- if you remember Beanie Babies. 2:09:00 Um, if you had a bunch of Beanie Babies and sold them around the year 2000, you would've made so much money. 2:09:10 Um, the same thing is true of Bitcoin, like right about now, uh, or tulips, uh, in, uh, like what, 18th century Netherlands. Um, 2:09:24 these are all gold rushes that you never wanted to miss out on. Um, you know, uh, obviously, you know, a couple of people held onto some tulips for a little bit too long. Uh, and it didn't, it didn't go well for them. 2:09:38 But you're, you're, you're better than that. You're smarter than them. You can do that with, uh, Labubus. You can get invested in Stanley Cups before the Stanley Cup craze. Um, you can get invested in, uh, 2:09:54 NFTs before- I-... NFTs died, right I was gonna say, it's like an, it's like an NFT, but a f- but like not a digital thing, like a physical thing in front of you. 2:10:02 [laughs] Yeah, no, yeah, it, it physically exists, which is like way better. Um- And they're somehow less ugly than, [laughs] than the F- NFTs were. Okay, that is crazy, and that is true. Um- [laughs] 2:10:15 But, but- There's less apes involved. Yeah, here's the thing- Oh, no, my apes. [laughs] All gone. If someone steals your apes, you have no recourse. You can't go to the police. 2:10:25 They'll be like, [laughs] "What are you talking about?" And also, "No." [laughs] And also, "Can you prove that?" No. 2:10:32 But if someone steals your Labubu, you can go to the police and they'll be like, "Oh, someone physically stolen that." Well, I mean, the police will never help you, but in theory. 2:10:40 [laughs] Uh- After they, after they take your car, you, you can have a conversation- [laughs] Right, yeah... about your Labubu. Right. They'll be like, "Oh, yeah, we'll get right on top of this." 2:10:47 But like that's physically, like that's an item, right? And, and that is subject to property laws, in theory, unlike an NFT, which is typically just a hyperlink. If, like that's, it's not even- [laughs] 2:11:01 I don't wanna get into what NFTs are, but like- A screenshottable image. [laughs] It's, yeah. Okay, you know, here's the thing. 2:11:07 Okay, so, uh, NFTs have already died, so I don't have to explain it too much, but I just, I wanna say it again 'cause it's so stupid. 2:11:13 Almost every single NFT that has ever been minted is not of the image that you're looking at. It is of a link to the image because the amount of space it takes up on the ledger. 2:11:27 So all of, all of, uh, cryptocurrency and cr- cr- yeah, all of the blockchain stuff, the blockchain is just a ledger. And so all of that is very expensive. 2:11:38 As you know, like the, the cryptocurrencies are insanely expensive. 2:11:40 That's because, uh, cal- like all of the processing power it takes to verify and calculate all of the things that need to go on the ledger, it takes a lot of, of time and electricity and money, kinda like AI. 2:11:53 And so the longer the data or the, the bigger the data that has to be put in the ledger, the massively more expensive it is to put on the ledger, in, in this case minting an NFT. 2:12:03 So the shortcut that they use is not to put the code for the image into the ledger because if you did that, every single time that NFT transferred hands, it would take an insane amount of money to verify the transaction. 2:12:18 So they just put a really small piece of data, which is like the URL, which means it's not actually the image. If someone changes the... 2:12:27 I- if, if it goes to www.pictureofanape.com and it's a picture of one ape and that's the NFT you bought, you bought access to the URL. It, I mean, you didn't buy anything. But in theory, you bought access to the URL. 2:12:41 So somebody who controls what is on that webpage could just change the image one day, and there's, there's nothing you can do about it. That's it. That's, that's how stupid that was. 2:12:53 Now, Labubu is so much better 'cause you just ha- it's just that it is the thing that you physically have. I can't believe I said that. That was- But it is better... 2:13:02 that is, uh, truly a baffling am, uh, series of words that you just put together. Um- I am so mad at myself. You, you should be. We all should be actually. 2:13:13 [laughs] This, this, this, uh, this episode started with you taking shots at, uh, at, at patrons, and now we're taking shots at you. One patron. May- hypothetically one patron. 2:13:22 [laughs] So with that, that is gonna be the end of this episode of Norse Code. I'm just forcing the, I'm forcing it to end now. Uh, Arif, what do you have to plug? Uh, [laughs] my apparent hatred for Alex Stevenson. 2:13:36 No, uh, at Wide Left Football, we've got a couple of pieces up. I've got one evaluating the Michael Parsons trade. Uh, also [laughs] Matt, Matt Fries has turned in his piece on Carson Wentz, so that'll be up pretty soon. 2:13:52 Um, I don't know what he said, and, um, I did not direct him to say... Yeah, I'm just gonna publish. Like he, if he's like, "Carson Wentz is actually better than J.J. McCarthy," that's gonna go up. 2:14:02 I don't know what he said. Um, I'm gonna assume he didn't because I hired him because he's smart, but I don't know. Um, so that's gonna go up soon. 2:14:11 Uh, Alex Katzen, uh, is covering the Chargers game in Brazil, uh, which is the next day as of this recording. 2:14:19 And, uh, his recounting of his trip and, I don't know, maybe the game, uh, is gonna beI can't put it into words. It's incredible. 2:14:30 The stuff that he suffered through to get to Brazil, I could not be happier as a boss to make an employee go through that. It's going to produce excellent content. So you want to see that over at Why I Left Off Football. 2:14:45 I was also on the Heat to Call podcast. I'll probably put a link to that in the show notes. But yeah, check out Why I Left Off Football. That's going to be it for this episode of Norse Code. 2:14:55 Hope you guys have enjoyed it. We will be back on Monday night to talk about hopefully the win over the Bears. So for Arif, my name is James. Thank you guys so much for listening. 2:15:03 And please remember that the horrors persist and so does Carson Wentz. And we will be back soon. Norse Code is the largest and only division of Norse Code LLC. 2:15:13 You can find Norse Code on the Daily Norseman, SB Nation's Vikings blog at dailynorseman.com. You can also find it on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and wherever fine podcasts are aggregated. 2:15:25 Our Vikings blogger extraordinaire and generally useful human is Arif Asan of And he can be found on Twitter at ArifAsanNFL. I am your producer and host and my name is James Pogashnik. 2:15:38 You can find me at the show's official Twitter feed at NorseCodeDN or at my personal account at BigMono. If you'd like to donate a few bucks to the show, you can do so in a couple of different ways. 2:15:49 You can go to patreon.com slash NorseCode and donate there. For $3.50 a month, you get bonus material and more. 2:15:55 You can also go to paypal.me slash NorseCode for a one-time donation or you can go to norsecode.threadless.com and pick up some Norse Code merch. 2:16:04 Any questions or comments that cannot fit in a tweet can be sent to norsecodepodcast at gmail.com. On behalf of the Norse Code staff, we thank you so much for listening. Our formula is this. 2:16:16 Say all things are possible through the power of Ben Denucci.
