Muse

The road to the Super Bowl is long and pointless. I mean, what do you think about it?

Football's so great.

But now, the two conference champs must survive a harrowing bye week that no one enjoys. Bye weeks? Bronco Nagurski didn't get no bye weeks. And now he's dead. Well, maybe they're a good thing.

TBTL! There are two types of people in this world. Those who like Neil Diamond and those who don't.

My ex-wife loves him.

I have a hunch that we'd all be a lot happier discussing this over dinner. What do you say?

You guys like Italian?

No. No. Yes. No. Yes. I love Italian.

And so do you. Yes.

I thought you was in Hawaii. A lot of people think a lot of things about Hawaii.

Well, if it makes you feel better, I'd rather be up here with you than down there with those teenage people with their memes and their hashtags and Drake, Drake's.

That's the voice of the youth of America.

Well, all right. Hello. Good morning and welcome, everyone, to a Monday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. my name is luke burbank i am your host we are living in the midst of a podcast boom coming to you from south beach in miami beach in miami in south florida in florida the miami meat tent where it is uh boy the rumors are true it is warm down here it's like uh 80 degrees 82 degrees here uh in florida where we are taking a little bit of vacation well not so much of a vacation that we're not doing tbtl because this right here my friends this is something that taxes death and tbtl three things you can't get away from both as a listener and a creator of it so here we are bringing you episode 4649 in a collector series let the fun begin you know i got rid of twitter a couple of years ago because i didn't like the direction it was going, even though Twitter was something that I thought about a lot, that I posted on a lot, that I got a lot of my, I guess you could say, enjoyment, self-esteem, dopamine hits from. But I've adjusted and I've moved all of that attention now to TikTok. And now I feel like

I might have to walk away from TikTok. Going to be a sit-down comedian on Tiki-Taki. Don't I get

to have anything anymore? I guess I get to have the Seahawks going to the Super Bowl, which is making me feel of course very happy today but then the federal government of the united states is killing its citizens without regard and that's something that has me feeling extremely upset as i know all of our listeners are feeling as well and this is what i am trying to figure out how to hold on this monday as we do this show the the things about the world that are good which include I'm in a sunny place with my girlfriend. And my football team did a good thing. And the things that are bad, which we all know about. And what's the focus of what we do here? I don't know. Maybe this guy knows the answer. He is the longest-running cobro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships.

Believe it or not, I'm a complete catch.

He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

I mean, I guess the irony is when the NFL is the good thing, I mean.

Good morning, Luke. Good morning, Andrew. Have you ever wanted me to say, maybe he knows the answer less in a toss to you? I realized that was so unfair. No, no, no. I felt bad. That was me just spiking the hacky sack directly into the ground at your feet and going, hey, do something with this, sir.

We were joking before the show that you were going to offer me to be the first voice on the show today.

Hey, kid, it's your big break. You want to take the reins today? Yeah, hey, Andrew, I've been thinking. I think you're ready. You should crack the mic first here on the show.

No, the funny thing is I hesitated before making that joke because I wasn't trying to, like, get into a conversation about all of the social and all the ills of the NFL either. I wasn't trying to undermine what you were saying. But it was really weird. It was obviously, I think, a very troubling weekend for almost everybody within the sound of my voice. And it was very strange going to the Eagles yesterday to watch the football game.

Oh, so that's where you watched it.

Yeah, so I watched the football game. Your brother was there, by the way. We had another pretty good contingent of the fun-loving criminals were there along with some other friends.

But I remember waking up on Sunday for real and just thinking, like, it's kind of hard to care about football right now.

Yeah.

And not even, I mean, that's just a private thought. I'm not trying to, what was the phrase everybody was using a few years ago when you're trying to make yourself look like you care more than you? Virtue signal. Yeah, I'm not trying to virtue signal. It really was like, God, okay. And, you know, I've been looking forward to this game, obviously. all week and then the weekend was so dark what with as you mentioned the government executing innocent civilians murdering people murdering them and on camera and then having the media both sides it and then yeah and it's like oh and it's upsetting what's happening about it saying

that he pulled a gun yeah that was their initial statement and it was provably false yeah and and

you can just literally see that that is not the case he was disarmed at the moment of his execution and and also but then also all the things you hear about well he was a domestic terrorist are all just all the absolutely just infuriatingly hateful things that are going on the country right now and you're you wake up and you're like oh hey football uh but then i gotta say you go to the eagles you're in you know i'm not i'm not on blue sky i'm watching the game and it was true that like not long into the game not not unlike a lot of drugs you just you you're locked in and you and the rest of the world sort of was closed out for about three hours and what a game that was and that was amazing but you're right and then and then i i think this morning then you wake up again feeling a little bit like kind of hung over from everything and not just the the um just copious amounts of alcohol that i drank yesterday just kidding we mostly kept it in check i think nobody nobody literally fell over this time so that's good so we're making improvements there um but anyway yeah so it's a for those of us who are who have no interest in football at all or certainly this very specific Seattle football experience you might be wondering what the hell we're doing on the show today if we invoke any kind of celebratory attitude but I also don't

know exactly how to navigate this any better than you yeah I feel like because of the this used to be a maybe a once every six month conversation we would have to have or maybe you know once a year where it was like the the events of the world were so upsetting that they were pushing their way into our minds and it felt almost like we were being irresponsible if we didn't talk about it on the show and yet something about the show that people love i don't let me put it this way i don't think that our listeners are unaware of what's happening in the world in other words i don't think that if we if we tend to just talk about our lives and things that are very meaningless like me forgetting to put the garbage out on time or whatever like I don't think that we're doing that and that means that our listeners will not be aware of the events in Minnesota I think our listeners are aware of the events in Minnesota and some of them will say to us what I like about TBTL is I know where you guys stand on things but I like having an hour break from the reality of the world that's what tbtl provides for folks so that's always in my mind that we are we're like a little calm from the reality storm um and that is people appreciate that people need that break and then on the other hand i don't ever want it to seem like we're you know uh like we're we're whistling past the graveyard we're not we're closing our eyes because i do really feel like at this point being non-political is a political choice like i don't know if i've always believed that but in this moment i do think that that's really the thing i think you know i think not having an opinion about what's going on there is is a choice in and of itself and and one that i really can't wrap my mind around people feeling that way and so this used to be something that would come up not all the time and now because of what's going on with this administration i feel like we have this conversation like once a week either off air or on air which is like how much should we be talking about the real tragedy of the world versus how much should we be trying to be a place that is a little more fun and light and where people can kind of like just have a moment of respite in fact even like this morning so I'll just give you the timeline Becca and I flew down here on Saturday and um and came here to this Airbnb in Miami and um and of course I sit down on the couch and I think she was like taking a shower or something and I'm just I just immediately go into the most intense doom scroll of all time about what had happened in minnesota and i'm just like completely and totally wrecked by it to the point of being really emotional you know like having a really kind of an i don't know if i'd call it a breakdown but i had a pretty hard time with it let's just say as i'm sure so many people did particularly our friends in minnesota especially and um and then you know yesterday we we we got up here And we had it was a nice day. The weather has been unseasonably warm here, which, by the way, is strange considering part of America is like completely frozen. And then somehow you could still be in America and it's 80 degrees, which is a metaphor probably for something. Right.

Had a very relaxing day and the whole day it felt like this tension of like we're sitting by a pool at the condo that we rented and there are people that are protesting in Minnesota. And, like, we literally, like, on Saturday night, Becca and I, because she lived there in the Twin Cities for a good while, and we really asked ourselves, like, are we being irresponsible being in Miami right now? Like, is our responsibility to actually go to Twin Cities, just be two more people in those crowds? Like, I'm not saying, and that, I'm really not trying to say that the virtue signal, because we also didn't do it. That's my favorite kind of virtue signaling, the kind that involves no actual change in behavior on my part, but only considering it for about four minutes.

But publicly considering it, though, too. Well, now publicly.

I mean, the issue was previously it was a private consideration, but now I've been able to make it public.

If nobody sees your signals, then you can't virtue.

If a virtue falls in the woods, did it get signaled? If a virtue falls in the woods and nobody is there to see it, did it get signaled? But, I mean, I'm not trying to say that because we're here. We're still in South Florida. So, but I'm just saying that was literally what, that was a not crazy, that what to us was not outside the realm of possibility on Saturday night was like, what do we do about this and how we're feeling and what's happening in the world? And how are we, what do we do to try to be responsible people in this country? Right. And then, so the whole day was, it was really a lovely day. And it also was, I, the whole time I felt like I was being kind of an evil person to be enjoying the loveliness of the day. And the Seahawks game finally came around. oh by the way remember we were talking last week about like what how and this is before we knew the further events in minnesota and and how that would kind of cast a shadow of everything but last week we're talking about like where should becca and i watch the football game here in miami because uh you know she's not a particular seahawk or football fan um and is we're here it's kind of a birthday celebration for her and i can get insane when watching the football game here's where we landed on we watched it here in the airbnb which ended up being perfect and because they have a big tv but i was able to like log in with my youtube tv so they don't have a tv here that's connected to like channels but because i have that stupid streaming service any big tv that has an internet connection is basically my tv at home so we were able to get the game no problems uh we have a balcony here and um and so what i could do is pace around and i could go out on the balcony and like scream at the in the direction of the atlantic ocean when i was feeling too nervous and then i could come back in i spent the the majority of the the game the second half anyway on the balcony watching it through the windows and then coming in and out and then and then updating becca on like why that was a big deal or why i think that we should consider um taking away reek woolen's helmet and sending him home mid-game so it ended up being because you and

i had landed on just make him wear one of the leather ones for a little bit thank you like

but but you and i had discussed that maybe the best way for for us to watch it would be to go to like some kind of a beach bar or restaurant where the game is on but it's not a sports bar so that there could be like you know becca could kind of i don't know just not be getting the fully immersive 360 experience of seahawkness if she didn't want to be part of it this was great though because she was very invested in the game she was obviously very much hoping that i would be happy about the outcome but she also at times was reading her book which i found i don't know how someone can do that with a maniac pacing between the balcony and the interior of the condo constantly but um it was a john madden book though right it was it was actually nicholas cage's biography of the version of John Madden that he played. You know that, right? You know Nick Cage is playing John Madden in a new movie?

No, no, I didn't know that.

Oh, yeah. And Christian Bale is playing Al Davis. What a movie.

What a movie. I'm trying to I don't know Al Davis' look. He looks nothing like his son. Okay, yeah.

So he doesn't have that weird haircut that Mark Davis has, which is so funny. It's like Al Davis was actually kind of a cool customer. He was the guy who famously said Just win baby And he would wear these gold glasses With gold glasses chains on them He's a terrible human But he kind of cut an interesting figure

And he seems to cut More of a figure That Nicolas Cage Would inhabit better Well Nicolas Cage is John Madden That's what I'm saying Why my brain is locking up on this I feel like I could see Thank you. cage being al davis better than john madden i think i i think i don't know if um if nicholas cage actually gained some weight or they use some prosthetics but they heavily augmented his look to make him look like john madden what i'm really going to be curious about is if he nails the john madden impression or if they just try to do one of those things where it's like he's not doing a john madden like vocal impression he's just kind of we just at some point have to believe that this

guy is john madden oh and we we have photos of him as john man we're this we have photos we're this far into the project and i'm just learning about it i think it's done okay all right i'm sorry everybody i'm way behind the ball on this i'm sorry luke but i mean the good thing is we are covering the important things today um wow that's really yeah okay i'm seeing okay it's more convincing than i thought it was going to be that's for sure but the the watching it here

actually was great we did i want to be very careful i don't want to sound like um anyone's policing my behaviors particularly becca she's not but we agreed that a good thing for me with watching this game but keeping it fun was we would have some alcohol here but it would be michelob ultra so i got a six pack of michelob ultra and what i realized is you know the maximum number of Michelob Ultras I can drink, Andrew? Six? 1.2. And I was working hard on the .2. I had just switched over to my Diet Dr. Pepper by the third quarter because like, one Michelob Ultra, like if it's a hot day, it's kind of refreshing. It's kind of like, ooh, that hits the spot. That is the most number of Michelob Ultras I think any human being will voluntarily consume.

Wait, hold on. I thought it was going to be because you don't drink beer much, and so you found it to be like kind of filling or something but no this is i just specifically

got bored with it it's just it's such a bad it's such a you know i'm not a beer snob at all and i definitely like like a cold budweiser now and again but like a michelob ultra the thing about michelob ultra that it's you know it's it's lower calorie lower carb i think it's 4.2 alcohol but the idea was like let's do that and let's not grab a bottle of tequila at the liquor store and have that be the thing like where i'm doing a victory shot every time a good thing happens because that could you know lead to me being in foul temper if they don't win or even in foul temper because

a bird landed on the balcony who knows so can you remind me in a moment by the way like um can you remind me to come back to tell you about our uh booze yes purchase in vegas

oh yeah well that i mean that's that's more or less the end of the story is we watched the seahawk game it was really obviously super tense ultimately very rewarding then we went for a walk to find some ice cream in south beach and uh i was you know again the the real events of the world are still like in my mind at all times but they're it's it's undulating it's like sometimes if i'm not standing in a rita's water rice which they've apparently franchised down here to florida and ordering a custard if i'm not doing that it's like what's happening in minnesota and in this country it like it grows and it grows and it grows and it's like it's 50 of my brain and then something else happens i'm engaged with something i'm watching the seahawks or i'm reading i'm on the la times this morning reading articles about how sam farmer is saying that sean mcveigh lost this game for them and then the part of my brain that is thinking about this country it gets smaller and smaller and smaller and it goes down to 10 and then i finished that article and then i'm walking towards uh the other room to put on my running shoes and then it gets bigger and bigger and bigger does that make any sense like it's just it grows and shrinks based on how much i'm distracting myself with other things and then we're sitting this morning having coffee and we're both kind of on i'm on my computer are getting tbt already becca's on her phone and her feed pops onto somebody one of these kind of citizen journalists on tiktok and they're doing the thing that a lot of the citizen journalists that you and i probably see on our feed is doing which is they're just pointing out in another new and novel way how messed up this is and they're comparing it to something and i don't know if it was something about um you know it being broadcast from her phone or because i was reading the la times about how sean mcveigh messed up the game for the rams which gives me great joy but all of of a sudden it hit this moment of like I don't want to hear anything more about this right now like I didn't say that but like the thought you know what I mean like all of a sudden it was like I've been ingesting information about Minnesota a lot I've had moments of it being a bigger and smaller part of my brain all of a sudden it was like okay now I need it to not be part of my brain for the next four minutes and I guess my point in that is I don't know where each individual listener to TBTL is on this Monday as they hear this I don't know if they're in the mode where it's a really big part of their brain and they feel seen by us talking about it or I don't know they're in that mode that i was in where they're like can i just not have this for a moment please you know so i don't know what the answer is i've i've done nothing here except point out that rita's water ice has franchised to south

florida you and i are similar in some ways in that i also visited the la times today to see what bill plaschke had to say oh i read oh i read plaschke did you oh i read plaschke my friend and i did you see i reread his prediction yeah okay for people who don't know and plaschke very lovable by the way sport and and kind of iconic you probably know him from your la days you guys probably booked him sometimes i don't you know i don't i don't know i i definitely i probably learned of him when i was down there as somebody who was not you know super into sports and super into la culture but uh anyway he wrote and the seattle times re-ran it um oh they did they printed it on january 20th which would have been about a week ago rams are going to win the super bowl commentary and i think the seattle times ran that as a bit of a uh you know like well locker room material yeah exactly and so this is bill plaschke and then when you click on it says Bill Plaschke, if the Bears' miracle can't beat the Rams, what can? Nothing and nobody. And then it begins, now do you believe, and finally do you understand, the Los Angeles Rams are going to win the Super Bowl. I was reading this six days ago, and then this morning at some point in my bleary mind, I was like, what's Plaschke cooking up today? After that, locker room material. Let's give him credit.

Let me give him credit. in today's column he linked to his previous column oh did he i didn't get that far and i was looking

to say he was talking about um mcveigh as well and i was reading and then at some point i set it back down but that that is good did he did he comment on it or did he just no he kind of

he linked to it which i give him credit for because he was basically you know he was pointing more eyeballs eyeballs towards how wrong he was but he also didn't fall on his sword as it were Like, he didn't say, you know, the Rams lost and I was loud wrong. He basically said, like, I think he did a clever joke, actually, which was something like, you know, Sean McVay's decisions, you know, led to a game the Rams should have won. And I think should have won was a hyperlink.

Yeah, I'm looking at it now.

Which is kind of a funny, what's the hyperlink? What are the letters, what do the words say?

So it says it all added up to negatively impact a game the Rams could have won, comma, and, and then the link is, should have won. Now, here's one other thing I'd like to tell you. That's kind of a funny way to say I was wrong, like they should have won it. If he's the one who puts the links in the articles, which I'm not 100% convinced of either, that could be somebody else. Oh, wow, that would be so funny. I mean, he might. My guess is some things he probably does say, hey, I want this to be a link here. But I also bet you when they're linking internally to other articles, I'm sure the people who basically print it are making some decisions, too, about like, oh, well, we should cross-link to this other thing we've done.

Because we've got this other piece that we wrote that sheds more light on it. That would be the funniest thing of all time if he did not tell the copy editor, whoever it is, his editor, hey, can we link to this here? And they just threw that in. That would be the funniest trolling of him by the L.A. Times staff. I would love that so much.

Yeah. So anyway, I don't know.

But yeah, so we were both hearing the lamentation of the Rams fans this morning as a way to sort of, you know, like, I think the term dissociate, that's really in vogue right now. You probably don't get as much sort of people of a certain age on TikTok talking about, I don't know how I would put it, but like the term, oh, I just totally dissociated. that comes up a lot and sometimes it'll be just like i was at starbucks ordering something and they were like out of it and i dissociated i'm like did you but i i do think that i i kind of have been like a lot of people cycling in and out of like of of how much i feel like and again i'm very far away from the issue i'm not physically in danger i'm not trying to center myself in the story i'm just saying in this moment of my life as i'm living it there are times where i feel like i need to know everything i can know about this and i need to watch every video angle and i need to know more about this victim and then there are times where i'm like i need to see bill plaschke

embarrassed right exactly you know a man that i generally like i want to say by the way no he's

he's a i think he's a lovable man that's a hard listen i give cold take calkins a lot of grief on this show matt calkins for the seahawks but like it's a hard job to have a take to have a sports take and it's more interesting when you do so i mean listen as a even even on the um i like to have takes on the Hawk, you know, our text chain. And, like, I called this a George Halani hero game earlier this week. Loud wrong. I'll hyperlink back to that. But, like, I do give, like, guys like Plaschke credit for going hard with the prediction. There's a 50-50 chance it's going to work, right? And if it works, you look like you're, you know, you really know what you're talking about. So I don't begrudge him going hard.

In his case, he was going hard with a 1 in 20, you know, So, well, it was a, he had a.

quarter of a chance how is the how do i say that because at that when he wrote that there were still four teams vying for it and he was saying well they would win yeah i guess you're right

because i yeah you're right i meant 50 50 chance for the seahawks but you're right he's also talking about the super bowl so he's 25 somehow that prediction is getting compounded in a way i can't

do the math on 25 chance i don't know it was it was a bigger you're right it was a bigger swing than i was even giving him credit for but anyway um i wanted to so yeah so basically that's where you and i are today we don't have the answers we don't have the answers we don't have the capacity to to um maybe balance these things as gracefully as we would like to but and again maybe this is literally the definition of virtue signaling it is important for me that the listeners know that we aren't as you say whistling past the graveyard or ignoring everything or being you know purposefully myopic either in our lives or on this show i think we do have to you know discuss it when it comes up naturally i also think and this goes for like kind of everything we talk about i know that like people like to complain about you know if we talk about sports too much for their particular um taste or or politics although we rarely i don't i don't think we get people saying too much like hey lay off of politics if anything maybe we get encouraged to talk about it more but whatever it is I really do think the important thing of this show, to the degree that, you know, anything is important that you and I are doing here, Luke, is that it does sort of flow from where you and I are as individuals and as a team on any given day. And that is kind of the, you know, it literally has to be organic in that way. And, you know, maybe this is me subtweeting some people who will sometimes say, like, well, why didn't you give us a warning that you're going to talk about the Seahawks that much? It's like, well, because we didn't go into it thinking we're going to talk about the Seahawks.

You have us confused with two guys that have a plan and can stick to it.

Right, exactly. And if it's not the Seahawks, it's something else, you know. And I'll often encourage people to say, hey, listen, like there are podcasts that I absolutely love that I am addicted to that I listen to like on the reg. Even there are some now that I listen to twice because they because I want to maybe stare away from the direct harshness of the news for a while. But not everything on every podcast is for everybody. And you can fast forward through a thing or two. But the point is, though, you know, if you and I feel like we're constantly walking around sort of landmines of content because, well, have we gone too far on this or this or is this the right place in the show to bring up this whim that has occurred to me? I really do think you're going to end up losing whatever whatever makes this show palatable.

It's not possible to do this five days a week, 52 weeks a year, if we're trying to not ever say the wrong thing at the wrong time or leave out the wrong topic at the wrong time. You're exactly right. The only way this thing is sustainable, for us anyway, with our current staff of three, is we've got to do our best. We've got to basically reflect where we are in any particular moment of time, including how we feel about the Seahawks and Rita's water ice and how we feel about Minnesota, and just kind of do our best and hope that people take it as a good faith effort, you know, because we're just not going to ever nail it perfectly.

Yes. Now, having said that, I kind of want to talk to you a little bit about my mindset during this game. Do you want to hold off on that for a little bit later? Well, here's the first thing.

I want to hear about what happened with you and alcohol in life.

Vegas. Oh, not a, not a, this isn't a huge deal. Then I want to thank the donors. Can I lay this

out? I've got a plan. I just, I just said, we're two guys with a plan that we stick to. Right, exactly. That's what we're known for. Um, I want to hear about your Las Vegas alcohol situation. Then maybe we thank the donors. We knock out a quick top story. Um, uh, and then, and then fully we'll probably be in the Badlands by then. And then we could just really talk about your watching experience and anything else that we want to say about this football team which i'm as you would imagine pretty friggin hyped about yeah well the the the vegas story is

saying i want to hear your vegas alcohol story definitely sets it up for more dazzling details than what i'm going to be offering here this is not about this is not a super exciting story about craziness it's more about budgetary concerns i told you that when we were in vegas genevieve adopted genevieve who is very cost conscious of things i really don't think she's a cheap person

but definitely and as somebody i always have to say this if i can at this moment of the conversation which is that genevieve is very cost conscious but very generous in my experience and i think you are i wouldn't i don't know if i describe you as cost conscious i would describe you as a person with a pretty like light footprint like i don't think you need to buy new flashy expensive things for your own self, for your own enjoyment. You'll make an audio board work for you.

years after its shelf life, and yet you're very generous also to people and to causes and things you care about. So I do think you and Genevieve live really well within your means, but you're also just – you guys are great to be out with and around with, and so you guys have somehow kind of nailed it. I'm a fan.

Okay, great. Well, you are picking up dinner next time we all go to dinner together. A hundred percent. Okay. But I do think that maybe living with Genevieve – and again, I appreciate this. I think that maybe I do wonder, would I take the bus as much as I take the bus if I didn't live with Genevieve for 25 years? I guess we haven't lived together for 25 years, but you see what I'm saying. Like Genevieve was gone this weekend. Boy, I really am turning this into a stem winder. And Genevieve was gone this weekend, for example, and I wanted to go have a nice meal down at 13 Coins, Luke. And by the way, it was. I'm just going to turn this into like four stories and on top of each other. But sometimes when Genevieve is gone for the weekend, I get excited. I'm like, ooh, Andy times, which never makes sense because Genevieve doesn't stop me from doing any of the things I want to do during Andy times. But sometimes you're just like, ooh, I have the house to myself. I don't have to consider anybody else's schedule or feelings or anything. I can do what I want. But then I always somehow blow it. Either I fall asleep too early or I just feel like I didn't take advantage of the time right or things just didn't work out well. Well, Friday, after you and I recorded the show and I did kind of a minimal approach to newsletter writing, I really – and I hadn't eaten all day. And I had this idea in my head. I'm like, I want to go somewhere. I'm still sort of chasing that sort of cozy bar feel. I had about maybe –

You tried Vons.

Yes, I did Vons, but they were really, really crowded the last time I went to Vons, and it wasn't quite as cozy as I wanted. And I always thought, like, well, 13 Coins is a little bit of a longer ride. And this is a, you know, a restaurant and bar that used to be down at the bottom of Denny Hill in Seattle and used to be open 24 hours. And you and I clocked sometime there with some listeners and friends of the show before. But it's moved now. It's down kind of where the stadiums are. It takes me about, you know, it would be about a 45-minute bus ride down there or something. And I just thought, you know, it's not, it's like, it's a nice place. They have nice food. It's well-appointed. And I knew that they had this area that I describe it as a bar, but I guess they call it the chef viewing area where you can, like, sit in these. Those big captain's chairs. Really tall, swivel captain's chairs, basically at a bar, only it's not a bar. You're watching them cook there. But there's like, I don't know, you've been there like 15 of those chairs or something. And when you sit in them, they're like, the back of the chair is so tall that it goes above your head and curves around you a little bit. So it really gives you a sense of like, you can socialize in those chairs, or it can give you a sense of being in a little cocoon. And I knew that I was very near the end of this book I was reading that I've really been loving and been sort of milking a little bit because I didn't want to leave the world. And so I'm like, you know what, it's time to finish this book on Friday. I'm going to take the bus all the way down. It was a cold night. It was actually, you know, evening, early evening. But I'm like, I'm going to take the bus. Do I really want to do this? Yes, go down there. But the whole time I'm like, you have this idea in your head of going to this place and having a French onion soup. I don't even know if it's on the menu. But you have this idea of going having a French onion soup and an IPA and sitting in one of those chairs and you just need to really prepare yourself for this not being everything that you want it to be right now. Because when you get – you, Andrew, when you get so fixated on this cozy moment, it tends to not materialize. And then I have trouble like sort of rolling with it because I was so focused on it. Friday was perfect. it was so good on the bus ride on the way there you know i read books on my phone i'm like i know that i'm going to finish this book i'm enjoying within probably 10 or 15 minutes of sitting down so what's my next big book it's really hard sometimes when you're finishing one book and not wanting to leave that world what is the next vine that you're going to grab on to will it pale in comparison will it do you want to you know what i mean will it match the vibe or whatever so i ended up kind of spending my entire bus ride choosing which cormac mccarthy book to read when i oh sure yeah that's the pension book and so you just want a very very austere vine that gives you almost no hope it was definitely yeah going from i finished up the pension book in heron vice and then went into this very very different writing styles um very uh well whatever anyway um but it was just like my time was used well and then i got there and like i was a little bit before the dinner crowd as i was probably getting there five thirty or six or something and so i had my choice

of the chairs and it was so cozy and like i've been doing this thing which i'm sure a lot of people have been doing their whole lives but i'm trying to do more of which is like not order everything at once because i'm realizing i'm at an age now like when i have a moment like that everything comes out too quickly you know like if i order soup and a sandwich or whatever the soup's going to come out and the sandwich is going to come out immediately which is is nice if you want if you're in a hurry or you want fast service but when you're going to a place because you're like i want to sit here for a while and read and nurse a beer and nurse a soup i don't know if you can nurse a soup but i tried and luke everything was perfect everything i ordered was perfect i had some you're not a big fan of those um sauteed brussels sprouts are you

or maybe were these i like those okay i feel like they went from zero to 60 like nobody was eating brussel sprouts in restaurants and then suddenly they're on every menu and and i've certainly had lots and lots of them so i guess i don't get as jazzed now as i did in the first heady few weeks of brussel sprouts showing up on the menu everywhere they did it they just did them

perfectly they're exactly what exactly what i wanted i got my onion soup to start with a very friendly waiter everything was just absolutely perfect okay why did i get on this well first of all that was another moment of escapism that i really truly appreciated and realized not maybe not everybody can do. Also, the price was not bad by the way. When I went to check out I was like, I don't know, 60 bucks or something for a really nice meal and a couple of beers. I was pretty happy with that, but Seattle prices. Your move Vons. Yes, exactly. That's right. Yeah. Vons is the place where I ordered like a whiskey and they did that thing where they measured it out super, super carefully and charged twice what like the, you know, the dive bar down the street would do. I would like to see them.

Didn't you also get meatballs there? It'd be funny if they also measured the meatballs in front of you.

Exactly.

They have like a shot glass, but it's it roughly a meatball size and it's got to fit in there right exactly like your luggage on the plane

if the meatball doesn't fit it's too big if the meatball doesn't fit you must have quit anyway um point is all of this I brought up because that was a very nice night but what did I do while I was splurging a little bit I still took the e-line down there and back my question is if I did not live with Genevieve and we and she hadn't sort of instilled this sort of bus culture in me I probably would have just taken a lift you know back and forth you know and however much that would be but so i think i appreciate this is all going back to my to to me acknowledging that i appreciate that genevieve watches the budget and has sort of instilled that in me in a bit that i don't think would come as naturally to me i think that um we've been together a long time and and that's one thing that sort of rubbed off so we're in vegas but genevieve is approaching vegas as what did she keep saying i mentioned it on the show when we got back she kept saying this is a not a free weekend or a don't worry about it weekend or something like that like we're not we're just not counting pennies we're going we're going to splurge we're there you're in las vegas we're on las vegas it's a two it's a two-day trip it's a quickie it's for our 25th anniversary like we're just not going to be like taking because we have taken many times on vacation in places that one would describe as paradise we have taken bone-rattling buses across town. I remember hearing about this

the last time you were somewhere in the Caribbean or South America or Central America where you guys were... The bus situation was fairly sketchy.

Yeah. Puerto Vallarta kind of came close to breaking me as far as getting to the airport on a bus when I was dragging these bags around cobblestones trying to figure out in a different language which bus was actually going to get us to the airport on our way out but um all of it to say is when we were in vegas we're staying at this you know this nice resort or whatever this nice hotel and uh but then i'm like you know we should get some booze for the room like you know usually if eves and i are going to be on vacation it's almost always more than a two-day trip and so you're always getting there like well for maybe a you know maybe a cocktail before we go out to dinner or after dinner or whatever. So we went down, and I knew it was going to be expensive. We go down to the little store that's in the hotel, and right away I'm like, this is not where you're going to buy the most budget-friendly booze. But we were sort of like, oh, whatever.

I know that exact store that you're talking about, because you guys do in the Vidara, right?

Yeah, exactly, right, across from the little bar down there. It's this tiny little boutique thing.

It's a nice little store. Everything is kind of laid out really conveniently, but you know you're paying so you don't have to walk on that overpass over to the CVS by the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company

which you know honestly if usually I think Genevieve would have said that or I would have even said it like well let's just get to the lay of the land and like there's got to be like a CVS around here or something but we were just like let's just go the easy route on all of this stuff so not long after we'd gotten settled I think we'd come downstairs we're like oh well maybe we had gone out for a little walk or something we come back i'm like well this little you know this little store down in the lobby is open let's grab it so we grabbed two of those small bottles obviously not full fifth of liquor right two smallish bottles not not the tiny little airport bottles not an airplane bottle but like the kind that you

You could.

potentially fit in your pocket and and in your breast pocket and then go and write the great

american novel if it we yeah but but not they're not they're not bigger than that they're not in that shape of the flask or whatever they're a little bit bigger than that but like you know it was like we got a little mini bottle of i want to say maker's mark that still looked like a fifth of maker's mark only it was like okay you know half the size it still had the the the wax on it and then we got i think you know me uh it was probably gin or or vodka i can't remember which one like kind of a a middle-sized bottle of that as well and a couple of bottles of tonic and they didn't have limes and we're checking out i'm like i know we're going to be overpaying for this and then the woman says do you want a bag and i was kind of surprised genevieve said yes and i'm like you know we're going to be paying 15 or what i didn't even end up looking at an itemized receipt but i'm like asking if we want a bag from this very like checked out woman behind the counter who did not want to be there and just gives us this little tote bag that I don't even know where the tote bag ended up

Oh, I see, so it was like, do you want a bag? It's not a plastic bag, it's a fabric bag

Because everything about this place was a little upscaled so I think that Genevieve wasn't really thinking about it and I was sort of like, we're going right up to the room we don't need a bag, we could carry these but Genevieve was like, yeah, okay and so whatever it ends up being so those things, two bottles of booze this bag and two bottles of tonic i think it was over a hundred dollars or something like that it was really expensive or maybe knocking on the door of a hundred dollars or something and i was like okay you know whatever we're not going to worry about it weekend and uh and then we go upstairs now the thing is i have told you before the expression that i like to lay on john of on vacation like one time when we're in hawaii and it was our first night there and we go to the liquor store and i'm loading up on liquor and beer and stuff for our like full week in hawaii and these is like do you really think that we're going to drink all of this and i said i think you'll be pleasantly appalled which is a expression that lives with us this was the one weekend where we were not pleasantly appalled because we spent so little time in our room genevieve i think we you know we did finish up whatever the clear you know whether it was gin or tonic i can't remember we made some cocktails we watched like part of a football game in the room before dinner one night and i think we maybe did that a couple of times but then i basically still had this almost full bottle of maker's mark that at one point i just ripped the lid off of and took a guzzle from sure just because i was like well and genevieve's like well it's okay i can check my bags for free so i'll just have to check my we'll put your bottle of booze that i had hardly touched at all in my bag we'll check it for free because you know she's in alaska a she's got the credit card and whatever else she's got so she's like i can check it at most exactly well it was more like at least because it was not at most we get there and they're like well you got to pay forty dollars to check your bag and she's like did you tell them that you know me and she's like no i don't like it's always free and she even talked to somebody about it like i don't know they're like we're not sure generally even i are still not sure if she's misremembering it or if they changed the policy on her but the next thing you know we didn't try to like try to drain that bottle of alcohol at the hotel which i don't know if we really would have done anyway i mean once you get into a drinking contest it stops being yeah i know it's like what what are we gaining what are we doing here so i'm not saying that our behavior would have changed but the whole time was like oh well this is fine we'll have a little bottle of maker's mark for when we get home but then we're at the airport and now we have this moment of like literally a full not unsealed but a full bottle of whiskey and them saying well you can kind of throw good money after bad if you want to pay forty dollars to take this thing home that you've

already the cost of the bottle of whiskey to send the whiskey home or toss the whiskey and just take

the bag on board with you and don't pay the forty dollars and it's the only time i felt really bad for not being pleasantly appalled as we stay and genevieve's furious i mean there's not at not at Me, I don't think. I think she's mad at Atmos, and just she's got squiggles of anger coming out of her head.

Of course, that's a ridiculous situation. The whole point of getting those dang credit cards is one of the things you get from that is free checked bags.

Yeah, well, we didn't, so we had to throw away this whole bottle of liquor that we massively overpaid for.

Wait, you didn't shotgun it in the airport. I did not. We threw it away. I might have considered transferring my anger into pleasantly appalling behavior in the airport and on the flight. Like, honestly, depending on what I had going the rest of the day, I could have seen myself in that situation being like, I mean, maybe not the whole bottle that could get you literally physically ill. But just like, I don't know, if you're considering having a drink on the plane, why don't we just do that here, faster, and then toddle our way through Harry Reid International Airport? Yeah, that just, honestly, that didn't, Genevieve doesn't really drink whiskey, she wouldn't want, I think it was, oh, it was morning, it was morning, it was an early flight, it was an early flight, too, yeah, there was just like, but it's just such a weird feeling to like, just take this full bottle out of your bag in the middle of the airport and be like, well, I guess we're just throwing this away now, you know, this thing that I already had massively overpaid for, and it was a, yeah, Genevieve was pretty ripshit about that, so, but the good news is, sometimes we aren't pleasantly appalled, sometimes we should.

We need all of the W's that we can find anywhere and everywhere right now. And that is a W that you actually under-consumed while in the hotel room from what your estimation was. That's right. So tell that to your doctor.

Are you listening, Doc?

all right let's thank some donors these fine folks are keeping tbtl going day in and day out this is 100 listener supported podcasting and it's thanks to folks like ross smith who's in Dedham, Mass. All right. Thank you, Ross. One of those Massachusetts places that I'm always wondering if I'm saying it correctly, but I think I did all right, right? Dedham?

You did great. In fact, I was thinking maybe instead of saying deadass, because you tried that once on the show and you were mocked for it, maybe just say Dedham.

Low-key, I could consider saying Dedham instead of deadass. Low-key, that might work.

Low-key, we appreciate these donations, Dedham.

We do.

High-key, we appreciate these donations. High-key, indeed, yes.

Thanks also to William Hagan, who's in Beverly, Maryland. No, Beverly, Mass. Beverly, Mass.

Yeah.

Oh, M.A., it's Mass, like the other one. Mm-hmm. I didn't know there was a Beverly, Maryland. You know what happened? We've got a Maryland coming up on the list, and I just was skipping ahead. I am sorry, William. I apologize to you and the Higgins of Beverly, Massachusetts for misstating you. In the most literal way, you cannot misstate something more than I just did. That's a really good point. You know what I mean? Yes. Like, usually we're saying, misstate, yeah, you messed up. No, I literally had the wrong state. It was a misstatement. I apologize. I don't apologize yet to Georgia Millward of Baltimore, Maryland. But, you know, the night is young. That's right. We'll see. We've got another 15, 20 minutes of the show, so anything could happen. But thank you, Georgia, for your donation. Thanks also to Amy Phillips, who is in Spokane, Washington. I'm sure—well, yeah, I'm guessing—Spokane is not in this moment part of, as I understand it, the band of cold, but it's this time of year. It's going to be brisk over there, Amy. Hope you're staying warm. Thanks to Kurt Pewterbra of Shoreline, Washington.

You might have added an R in there. Now I'm getting in your head. Did you say brah? Pewterbah? I did. It's pewterbah, I think. Brah? Brah.

I messed up Kurt's. Brah. Brah. Kurt. It's a bah. Brah. I'm sorry. Pewterbah. Pewterbah. Pewterbah. Not pewterbrah. Although they both have, well, now that's, to me, that's a, that's a, the R that I added, that was a, that was a factual mistake. The pronunciation, that one, I don't know. Agree to disagree.

Yeah, well, are you disagreeing with me? I don't know. I'm just saying it could be pewter, like you're saying, or it could be pooter, right? It could be. But you think it's unlikely, though?

No, I don't know, Andrew. I don't know anything. I don't know much. Could it be putter-ba? It could be putter-ba. It could be pewter-ba. It could be pooter-ba. It could be pooter-ba.

Aren't pooter-ba's? The good news is we've covered all of the eventualities. We've covered all of the eventualities. What is the tape we play of Janine Garofalo talking about some kind of balls?

Oh, I believe that's Mr. Show, right? I don't— Because Ben Stiller is the manager of T.J. O'Poodertoot's.

Yes, that's Ben Stiller's show, I want to say. Oh, that's the Ben Stiller show. Okay, gotcha. Yeah, yeah. What's going on with those Ben Stiller commercials? I couldn't hear them during the game because I could only see them.

That's so funny. Last night when Becca and I were watching the game, I kept unmuting it during the commercials. And I'm sure she was like, wait, why are we doing this? And my thought was, I'm sure this will come up in a conversation with Andrew. And we were both trying to figure out who's the other guy with Ben Stiller.

I don't see. I saw the visuals of that, but I couldn't hear the commercials, which really gets into my plans for this coming Super Bowl, by the way. I don't know what I'm going to do.

Oh, I've got more on that, too.

But anyway, so all I know is it looks like it was both like a full commercial, but a teaser for something.

that's going to happen during the Super Bowl.

It's the, is it Uber Eats maybe? Instacart, I want to say. Instacart. They're previewing, Instacart is previewing their Super Bowl ads. They had one with McConaughey too where he's being all true detective. Well, okay. Just really quickly,

so McConaughey's been doing those Uber Eats commercials for a while now where he's conspiracy theory minded. I remember the first one in the campaign about a year ago It was pre-Super Bowl. It was really, really funny. And they've maintained it. But that's Uber Eats. But then you have Instacart. I did see that where you had Ben Stiller and some other people.

Well, that's really funny then because I bundled them together in my mind, I guess, because A, both of them are like kind of food or grocery delivery. And two, they both did the same thing, which was they showed you a commercial and then they said more coming, whatever it is, February 8th, 9th, whatever day the Super Bowl is. So both of those ads were previews for their Super Bowl ad. And I just, in my mind, thought they must all be working for the same company. So I guess we have multiple – I guess this is the thing now, is maybe you start trying to build some interest in your Super Bowl ad in the weeks before the Super Bowl, but by buying other ad time?

Yeah, the teasers. They've been doing this for a long time now.

That's been going on for a while.

Yeah, that's why Vives and I – we always end up doing, like, three shows regarding Super Bowl commercials. one about all the teasers which ends up being a long show before the Super Bowl then the Super Bowl reaction show then the listeners get to respond in the last one last time our Super Bowl show just the Super Bowl show was four and a half hours long it was an hour longer than the football game as I believe listener Max pointed out so we're going to try to be more restrained this year but anyway yeah no I would like you to get it up to five hours Genevieve refuses I love that I'm not doing it again she's like I'm not doing it again I'm like we'll see we'll see but um it it looks like benson boone is the guy sitting oh that's benson boone that's what the internet is telling me in its well i overview but i let me double check that's

interesting okay so benson boone he is a musician he's from like maple valley he's from the greater seattle that's a broad interpretation of say from washington he's very famous now for um he's got this big music career going he does backflips on stage oh he sings that now take these beautiful things or whatever song that's plays a lot on places anyway that's benson boone how interesting i would not have uh been able to there by the way the ad is pretty funny it's like he's the little brother ben still is the older brother it's kind of unclear if they're like a sort of a i don't know if they're supposed to be a siegfried and roy minus the sex presumably but like some kind of a brother duo of some form and and you've got ben stiller's kind of roasting benson boone but in a pretty funny character-y way as ben stiller is is capable and want to do so that one actually looked a lot better to me than the mcconaughey when the mcconaughey one was like actually felt like they were on fumes he's like suspicious that the uh the 49ers mascot is named sourdough which is a bread oh is it your name's sourdough which is a bread is it football is an excuse to sell food man and i'm on you and he's like eating a piece of sourdough as he talks i mean it felt like nobody including sourdough wanted to be there for this commercial and who is the mascot it's like a because i

remember it's a 49er it's a 49er okay that's right i couldn't quite remember because i remember seeing it with the sound off that campaign started strong it's like his whole thing is like football is here to sell food man and he was sitting on the couch with i want to say maybe mccaffrey but this goes back this goes back like a over a year ago now and it was actually started off really good but i could see and then remember they started putting in another actor in those uber eats commercials the guy from the hangover he's in a bunch of them he's in a board at helms uh no are you joking i know he's in there but he's in the hangover who's the handsome man from the

hangover oh bradley cooper bradley cooper and he's what if i said zach alifanakis who i think is underrated handsome by the way very handsome yeah i think so too i still can't believe that

one meme is not him that that gif of oh yeah is that robert redford who is it that turns around yes it's robert redford you have i don't know if we ever got to that that was in the show sheet a while back like a year or like a half a year ago we know i don't think we ever talked about it because you were like a lot of people don't realize this is not zach alifanakis i learned in that moment that it was in Zach Galifianakis.

Andrew, the only handsome redhead from yester, yore, that I'm interested in talking about is Dick Hammer. Do you know who Dick Hammer is?

I do. I'm just trying to place it. And also, I thought you were tying it into our final donor of the day. And I was like, how do you know she has red hair? I was.

This is one of Aaron McNamara's favorite dazzling details about Sam Darnold. By the way, Aaron's in Westmont, Illinois.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, Dick Hammer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. His dad, right. The Marlboro man. Granddad, right.

granddad the marlboro man yes sam darnold our quarterback his granddad was one of the four original Marlboro men, and his name was Dick Hammer. He also played in the Olympics. He was on the U.S. men's volleyball team in the 1940s Olympics. I'm not saying this as a joke, but it

is notable that he was the Marlboro man who died of lung cancer, which I remember when that came out. I didn't know that part. I think so, yeah. I remember being a kid and hearing about a Marlboro

man had died of lung cancer, and that, of course, being a stern lesson about what cigarette smoking will do to you, but I didn't realize that was Dick Hammer. I guess he had a one in four chance. I mean, considering there was four Marlboro men of the four, you know.

Just like Plasky. Yeah, I did confirm it, he did. And again, I'm not trying to, whatever, raise that for, I'm not trying to dunk, but yeah, that stood out to me as well. Can I ask you a question, and I'm going to make things really uncomfortable here. We can cut this out if you want, but I didn't understand, you were going back to this Instacart commercial, which by the way, I'm going to read the description for you in a moment off of the official site, just so we can get some clarity on it. But you said there's Dress Like Siegfried and Roy without the sex thing. What is the sex thing?

Well, Siegfried and Roy were partners in life. They were? Oh, I didn't know that. And the Instacart thing is Ben Stiller's playing the older brother of Benson Boone.

You know, I'm going to say one of the stupidest things I've said on this show, which is a statement. But for some reason, I was like, oh, yeah. Siegfried and Roy, they're brothers. They have different names. that would have been my first clue that they're not brothers we're brothers we have different last names i mean it happens but that would be uh going against the grain there oh i did not know that they were partners they were they were partners or did they i mean i sure hope they were

because i have always i mean i don't think they're brothers but i also assume that they were partners both in life and in their performances and i think that was kind of a known thing but But I guess I never actually, you know, I never independently confirmed it. The New York Times has not independently confirmed this information yet.

What does AA overview say?

Let's see. I'm on there. It also could have been one of those things. Let's see. Okay. According to Wikipedia, Fischbacher and Horn, those were their last names, were romantically involved, though details were never disclosed, likely to avoid any negative effect on their careers for biases against homosexuality. They lived together at Jungle Palace, a Moroccan-themed eight-acre estate in Las Vegas. They called Little Bavaria, although they had separate houses on the property since 1996. In 2007, they came out in the National Enquirer, but they reverted to their preferred state of privacy. Interesting. That seems like it's verified.

Sometimes these are humorous, sometimes not. I didn't have a chance to scan this whole thing, But I'm going to read to you the description of this commercial with Ben Stiller and Benson Boone. Ben Stiller and Benson Boone sit side by side in matching green 1970s outfits, trying to harmonize like musician brothers. Benson jumps into a high pitch and the harmony breaks, sparking bickering as Ben tells him to sing more like a man. They try again, but Benson drifts right back into the high keys and the harmony falls apart once again. Tune into Super Bowl 60 on February 8th, 2026 to see the Bickering Brothers if they can find their rhythm with Instacart. Okay.

That's pretty much it. But the thing that I feel like we saw, I don't know if they were singing in that one, but Ben Stiller was doing a funny thing where he was basically saying to Benson Boone, you are grown like an adult, but your brain is small like a child's or something. I actually kind of thought that, I don't know if they wrote, I'm paraphrasing, I don't know if they wrote that for Ben or if that was, like, the umpteenth riff they did, but I thought it was actually pretty funny.

Can we take a listen to this? Because, again, I've seen it, and I don't know. Like you said, they might have released a couple of these yesterday, so not 100% sure this is the same one you saw, but this is the one that matches the description I just read.

Say it, then. Hey. It's the car lets you choose your bananas. Get them just how you like. It's a bit. What are you, a mouse? I don't sing low, though. It's a harmony. I'm harmonizing. I don't like it. Okay. I never liked it. I am sorry.

Instacart, I am a little boy who has a moustache.

Try singing, huh? Would you like to go again? Yeah, go again. Sir, hey. Instacart, let's... Oh, my God, goodness. My goodness.

That's pretty good. I like it.

Can you find the one where they're sitting next to each other, sort of like on director's chairs? I think they've got like an Instacart bag next to them.

Yeah, that is it. They're sitting on director's chairs, Instacart right between them.

Well, interesting, because they, yeah, they must have aired, they must have done a bunch of them. because the one that we were watching yesterday during the game, it didn't have them singing. It was them maybe before or after that moment. And, again, I thought it was pretty funny, but I don't know how I would describe it.

I think this one is exactly – they're both in the same exact set here. Let's take –

Hi, I'm Gary. I'm John. And we are excited to sing for you in this football game. Hopefully many, many girls. And, uh, fun time. It is a different football. They touch down. You just ruined the thing now. I'm telling you it is just... And I'm telling you you're just my little brother. My young little brother. With big mustache and big muscles, but still little boy head. Still little boy mind.

I hate you. But we call him John. And we're going to perform for you. Little boy head, little boy mind. They got me.

I'm interested in seeing where this goes. They got me.

Yeah, yeah, nice. well thank you to our donors we don't have that instacart money yet we don't have that you face money who are you facing so we need the donors and we couldn't do this without you hello and welcome to top story all right andrew um i'm gonna level with you right now uh it's miami i'm uh looking outside we've got another hour or two of sunlight oh yeah i'm gonna we can talk tick tock tomorrow let's talk seahawks right now um and uh the incredible sort of like the highs and the lows of yesterday uh you said you watched at the eagles there was something else i think that we were you were going to talk about related to just the experience of

the game for you yeah i was just gonna say that like this is weird coming from me because i started this season so chill bro on football like i'll catch a game here and there i wasn't watching all of the games as doing my other Sunday stuff and then um you know I feel a little bandwagon-y because it got as it got more and more you know kind of interesting with the Seahawks just continuing to win and then having the I think they had their best winning record uh franchise history am I right about that 14 wins I think is yes most wins ever it does help that they added a game sure of course yeah still though so anyways as you know uh I've been getting more and more into it but then it was kind of funny because yesterday i i wasn't even sure i wanted to go to the eagles to be honest with you because i felt like all this week i was not entertaining the burbankian mindset of optimism i was feeling pretty pessimistic about this game i thought that it was going to be a close game that the seahawks were going to lose and that it was going to be really really heartbreaking which is kind of funny coming from a guy who didn't really care about about football that much supposedly six months ago but knowing that i was going to sort of be really bummed if they lost and even more so i think to the hands of a rival like the rams i was really starting to get into that like i just do not want to see the rams celebrating in seattle you know going to the super bowl or whatever and it sort of felt i don't know like whatever i was pretty concerned about my mindset and so I was like I think I'm gonna watch this one at home even though I'd been watching the past couple of games with the gang at the Eagles but I knew your brother might be coming to the Eagles and I haven't seen your brother in forever so I was like well if your brother's coming then I'll definitely go and so I checked in with him on Saturday and he said yeah I'm gonna be there and I was like all right then then I then I will be there as well but I did send a note to the whole crew just saying like I'm going to see this game with you guys at the eagles but i'm pretty anxious about it so if i'm like super not communicative at times like please don't take it personally just sort of like setting the groundwork for that and or setting expectations for my behavior a little bit if i turn inward which i did like i realize and i think it took me a little bit of reflection this morning to figure out exactly what was going on with me yesterday but i think what happened was never once during that entire game was i convinced that the seahawks were going to win and after that taunting penalty i was i i felt like it was a fait accompli that they were going to lose i was like well that's the moment it was so hard to not feel that way it was just and so i spent that happened did that happen kind of near the beginning of the the third quarter was that happened it was at the end of the third quarter oh the end of the third quarter okay because it felt like it loomed larger over the game than just one quarter to me

but um those were just my emotions but i once that happened i was convinced we were going to lose and there was a big chunk of the game where we were still up by i want to say four four and we were

never after we scored that touchdown to end the first half we never had a lead that was less than four which against a lot of teams with the seahawks defense you're like you don't feel great but you're like even a field goal doesn't tie this you feel like you're in the driver's seat

it never felt like that yes exactly and so and it was after that and it was after that penalty that just felt so I don't know laden with the fate or I don't know what the word I'm looking for there is but just felt so fateful honestly and I was convinced we're gonna lose and then I started getting like pretty sour like just in my own head not saying anything but our friend katie it was not too long after that that she's like well let's get a big you know group photo of the of all of us here nobody had to get up or anything we're just sitting there but like i didn't i hope i never see that photo because i'm sure i am not looking at the camera and i am not smiling i will tell you that much because i was just kind of like this i can't do a group selfie right now like i just and but again we're up by four points so I'm not saying that Katie was doing anything wrong by doing this but in my head we were going to lose this game and it was going to be a very tough thing for me to watch Puka Nakua celebrating on the field you know like and so I'm just and by the time the game ended I was thinking about it this morning I'm like oh that feeling I had was until literally those last three seconds drained off the clock because their receiver didn't quite get out of technically down in bounds i don't even think i realized that that was nakua but um i and then we watched it and then everybody just you know screamed in celebration by the end of the game by the way i had left the table we were sitting at and just was pacing in the back of the room which then led to like four other people doing the same thing um and then it'd be we all needed to pace i think and not even i don't mean of our crew i mean of other tables and stuff people needed pacing room you know what i mean and so there was a bunch of us kind of in the back of the room your brother i think was one of them too some guy i didn't know we're all just pacing and being nervous because i lived that whole game ready for the pain of the loss even during the large chunks of the game where the seahawks had the lead and i think that it was at one point somebody did say andrew you look stressed and it was like somebody who kind of came you know clearly not that big of a football fan but somebody who was like kind of there because this is a fun time to hang out with your football fan friends but i was just kind of like i am stressed i am the one who stresses like i was not i could not pretend to be social and in a good mood because i was ready to just like go crazy when we lose and tie it all to one guy's jawing

at the at the opposing team sideline i was in exactly the same sort of mental state i kept trying to remind myself we do have the lead we do seem to be demonstrating the ability to move the ball on offense um but it all the game just felt so precarious it felt like almost like we were playing from behind the whole game because we were so in case we were having such a hard time stopping Matthew Stafford that it just felt like anytime they got the ball they were likely going to score a touchdown so we had to keep scoring touchdowns to stay ahead of them because it was it felt inevitable what they were doing and so because of that a four-point lead which under normal circumstances again with the Seahawks defense should just be like okay we're in a good position here it just felt like at any moment they're going to score a touchdown and suddenly we're going to be behind and now Sam Darnold's oblique is going to flare up and now like you know jared verse is gonna sack him and like i i would i was with you i was here was this is a very weird side note to the whole thing but like i was trying to not let my brain go to the fact that if the rams beat us in two weeks the super bowl was going to be the rams against the patriots because like i would be that there would be nothing in that game for me to root for you know peace and love to our friends who are patriots fans and our friends who are rams fans but they're just like not two teams that i root for if the eagles got in there against the rams and i've got if you know hell if the arizona cardinals got in there you know like there's a whole bunch of different teams that could be playing each other where i could figure out a rooting interest i can't i can't freaking break out of the escape room okay i don't know the i don't know the code to the get out of the escape room that is rams pats for me like just there's nobody in that situation i like so that would have just been extra bummer like two weeks of like hype around the rams and the patriots and just sitting on the sidelines and then realizing that like that whole sunday i'm going to be eating a deviled egg and i'm going to look up and i'm going to have to see you know cut to mike vrabel who by the way i don't particularly dislike mike vrabel i kind of have no opinion on him but just like cut to delirious pats fans or cut to delirious rams fans and just like that was going to extra ruin it for me like i can live with the seahawks not being in the super bowl it happens most years but then i've got to figure out okay well what is the thing about this game that i find interesting and i was like struggling to think of what that would be if it was rams pats so anyway i but i was also at the same time trying to not allow myself to continue raising the stakes in my own mind of the whole thing because like you i kept waiting for that moment where the bottom dropped out i kept waiting for that moment where there was a 60 yard pass where the free safety falls down and there is a ram just sauntering. into the end zone and they cut to uh apoplectic seahawk fans and we realized that everything has shifted and now the rams are leading and are in the driver's seat i kept waiting for that moment

to happen to me too even that you know what what did they have when they started their final drive

which i think ended up being three total plays it was like 29 seconds or maybe even less it might be even less yeah it was somewhere between and yet and yet it felt i i was like i was so i mean i was standing on the i was standing out on the balcony like look watching through the open sliding glass door because that seemed like way too much time for them like matthew stafford who has a gun for an arm even at age whatever he is 37 him from the 50 like if nakua would have just like gotten a cleat out one second earlier and they they get to actually like throw a hail mary from the 50 i don't like our chances on that even though it's a very low probability play like i could i mean here's actually what i said about the reek woolen play i wrote on blue sky because again i was just processing my feelings in a million different directions my initial thing was take his helmet kick him off the team right now and for the people that don't know this is a weird thing for me to clarify because if you don't know what i'm talking about you don't care what i'm talking about yeah yeah right so there's like me explaining it doesn't matter you either know what i'm talking about or you don't but it's the sky for the seahawks named tarik woolen who was extremely good in his first couple of seasons has had do you know he has the most taunting penalties of anyone in the nfl this year no he has three no other seahawk has more than one the seahawks as a team lead the nfl in taunting penalties by the way reek woolen had two costly taunting penalties in the beginning of the season to the point where they almost traded him or cut him there was very real talk that he was not going to be a seahawk they kept him around he sort of got it together and was getting back to being a reliable good player and then for him to do this he the seahawks had stopped the Rams on a critical drive, and were about to get a punt and get the ball back. Tariq Wollin, by the way, could have intercepted that ball. He sort of didn't. Then he goes over to the Rams' sideline.

Puka does a really good job of playing defense,

which, by the way, I've noted him doing. In both of the last two games against the Seahawks, there were critical plays where the Seahawks could have picked it, but Puka Nakua turned into a DB. So add that to the resume for that guy. I mean, whatever his politics are, he's a pretty phenomenal football player. but then this guy rick will and then goes over to the ram sideline and is jawing with them even though the umpire is like hey man you got to go to the other side and he can't just like turn on his heel and run towards his side he keeps saying stuff to where a flag is thrown by the way i actually don't think that that kind of unsportsmanlike should impact the previous play if we can just get x's and o's now i know i'm saying that because it almost lost the game for us because they ended up extending the drive for the rams who have the very next play through a touchdown on the guy that reek woolen was guarding so that was that's as about as bad as i've ever seen it happen for a particular player in a high impact game like this a high pressure game but don't you think it's kind of silly there are lots of plays that are dead ball plays that don't affect the outcome of the play for instance if tarik woolen would have intercepted that ball right and then he starts running it back and then somebody for the seahawks does a crack back block on the rams does an illegal block on the rams and they're trying to tackle reek woolen that doesn't change the interception you just lose whatever it is 15 yards like i think honestly and i would i would be okay with this in both directions even if it impacted us negatively if the play is over the play is dead the whistle has been blown the pass is incomplete to me the the action is done the the rams it's i guess the question is well how do you enforce that because it's fourth and 12 where do the where does the where does the penalty get walked off

Well, they have other penalties. I could not agree with what you're saying more. That's why I was confused in the moment that it would be applied to the previous play. Because there are a lot of, like if you have a block in the back on a kick return, that penalty is applied to where the ball is going to be placed for the next play, right?

Well, I guess the problem with my logic is they still have a play on fourth down. So in other words, if you said that Rick Willen did something illegal, he was taunting, the Rams still have the ball. it isn't after the punt that's what i was kind of miss i was confusing that in my mind right like so it's fourth down for the rams treacle and has violated the rules there are yards to be assessed yes how do you assess them you sort of have to i guess what i mean is yeah that's because i believe also i might be wrong about this but if that were a fourth down play i think it could have extended the play and that i think would be a problem it was a third down play so i guess there's no logical way to deal with it otherwise but i think let's just say on fourth down if you do something dumb after a fourth down play is over it should not give a first down to the team that was trying on fourth down it should just be assessed against you because you you know the play was over you stopped them on fourth down and now your offense is gonna have to do deal with the fallout from whatever you did from a yard standpoint but now that doesn't now i'm

just going to confuse things even more though but i because i don't i guess i don't that's usually a 15 yard penalty right so that's why it becomes first down maybe it is applied to the next play but it was fourth down but with that with the penal with the penalty yardage it now becomes an automatic first down that happens on a whole well automatic first down doesn't mean that the

yardage is achieved automatic first down is a type of penalty so for instance if it's fourth and 15 and there's defensive holding, that's a five-yard penalty, but it's an automatic first down.

But I'm just asking here, but let's say that you have, and maybe this is what you just said, but I need to get this clear in my own head. This is not for the podcast, by the way. This is just you and I talking. We're not recording.

Becca's not waiting to go to the pool.

Somebody please just lean on Nixon's delete button for a little bit here. Halderman? I know that there is something that's an automatic first down, But then aren't there also penalties that are just like, let's say, that penalty is the shortest yardage penalty a 10-yard penalty? Are there any five-yard? Five-yard. There are five-yard penalties. So let's say that it is—

They're even shorter, technically. They're half the distance to the goal. Right, when you're in there. Two yards. But that's a weird side category.

Yeah. So let's just say that you are in a position, you're on offense and you have it's third down and you have, you know, three yards to get to get a first down and you don't quite get it on your play. But then there's some sort of penalty that awards you five more yards that puts you past that first down line. And it's not an automatic first down, but by the very nature of getting those yards, you have achieved a first down. wouldn't that have been the case in this case yes this it was both it was both i missed that so yes

because it was 15 yards it would have just the yardage alone would have made it a first down for the uh rams it also happens to be the kind of penalty that is itself an automatic first down penalty so there's a weird category of that some aren't and some like like offsides is not an automatic first down so like let's say you're on offense and it's third and 10 and the defense jumps off sides neutral zone that's a five-yard penalty replay third down so now they're at third and five whereas if on that third down play you hike the ball your receiver is trying to run out like cooper cup was and the guy is hanging on him that's defensive holding it's i believe maybe also five yards or it's like illegal contact it's also a five-yard penalty but it's automatic first down so you could be like third and 30 and if they called an illegal defensive hold automatic first down even though you're only advancing five yards from the penalty well there also are the ones like you said where the yardage itself because you could do this you could be um you know uh i'm trying to think of what the a lot of the defensive ones well of course only defensive ones are going to be in the category potentially of automatic first down but like there are times where something happens and you advance the ball but it doesn't give you the first down because the penalty as they walked it as they walked it off wasn't going to be enough to get you past the first down marker

i want to come back around to this penalty in a way that might open up the conversation a little bit back into i'd like to close it even more narrowly because i think that i have to maybe apologize to my dad if that's not a good teaser for you so are you listening my dad was clearly watching the game live which is that's an that's an accomplishment anyway I don't think my father has watched a non-time shifted football game in 25 years since since the advent of TiVo but um he loves time shifting things but he must have been watching in real time and so he was texting me a couple of things during the during the game and I you know I should be careful I don't think he expects me to read his text on the air but it was it was fine but he um he's like hey looking good out there or whatever you know and the team was doing well and i was like yeah i'm so glad to have the lead but i'm still not breathing easy here and and then out of the blue right after that reek woolen thing he just wrote and i hope this is okay to share but he's wrote what an asshole with a bunch of exclamation points but the thing is i didn't have the volume on and it didn't look that bad to me and i was feeling very defensive in the moment as was genevieve as were probably some other people at the table i don't remember if you i don't want to misquote your brother because he'll listen to this i don't know if he felt like that was a a right call by the officials he did later

say in one of the text change i think hawk squad that he thought that was a pretty sus call the taunting call was pretty pretty sus so i i would say that's an accurate assessment of his his

perspective on it and that's definitely how i was feeling but of course i'm a you know i'm rooting for a team so it's all gonna feel you know i i can't ignore my bias in this case but i told my dad i'm like my dad was just like what an a-hole and i was just like that's a and i just wrote back i'm like that's a terrible call like that that you know like i felt like that was a really bad call because it didn't look that bad on television i don't like taunting calls anyway but i sort of understand it like after a big play when you stand over somebody who you just knock down or intercepted from or something and you're you're potentially maybe even straddling him and looking down and saying shit or doing anything you know there's been a lot of spitting this year or whatever like okay all of that stuff like okay we can talk about taunting and whether or not it's a whether or not those taunting calls should even be called at all but in this case it just looked like a man was jawing with a sideline that was jawing at him it just looked like a lot of jawing and it felt like a bad call to me in the moment but now I think that maybe I was caught up in the moment and I didn't hear the announcers my dad was like oh well the announcers seemed to think it was pretty you know egregious or whatever and I didn't hear what Tom Brady was saying and so I just kind of moved on and now this morning I'm kind of like oh I'm not seeing a lot of even Seahawks fans saying that that was a terrible call was i just in the wrong there well it's funny the

difference between watching it at the eagles with a bunch of people and me watching it here with becca because and i had the sound on so that like and lord knows i'm not taking any of my marching orders from tom brady about how to feel about stuff but it was like it it it didn't seem like a blown call to me as much as tarik woolen having very poor impulse control you know what i mean like But he wasn't being overly demonstrative. Well, first of all, there is an emphasis in the NFL. You are not allowed to, like, talk to the other team's sideline. Like, the thing is, you can do almost any manner of incredibly ludicrous celebration as long as it is directed at your sideline or away from. For instance, like, three plays later or whenever it was that the Seahawks got the ball back, there was this sack of Sam Darnold, which was, like, a totally busted, you know, blocking scheme from the Seahawks. I think we lost nine yards on it. And the guy, after he sacks Sam Darnold, he steps one step past him and just starts doing some kind of booty dance. And Becca was like, how is that not taunting? And I was like, he's not doing it in Sam Darnold's direction?

Yes, I had the same exact conversation with Genevieve because she's like, he's yelling at the sideline. And I was like, yeah, but it's his sideline.

It's so, you know what I mean? But it's like this is the insane world of the NFL. It's like you can do almost anything as long as it's not. we don't perceive that it's going it's directed at your enemy but like what reek willin did he was just talking i kept thinking just if you left your freaking face mask up like your muff like you know he had a little kind of sleeve over his head because it was kind of cold i was like if you left up they can't even see your mouth moving bro just be undercover be for real for real like say what you want to say to them but just do it low-key like do it like john stockton used to foul people as a utah jazz like do it so the ref can't tell run back towards your sideline take a slightly longer route and with your mask still up so they can't even see your mouth moving just say whatever you want to say and then head over to your sideline like it was just i almost disrespected the technique as much as anything else right from reek but but it was a pure lack of control i mean that's the thing and from a person who has had a the same lack of control problems this very season that's why to me it also felt like is this like you said is this our fate like there was something kind of shakespearean about the thing that the guy the guy who had bad impulse control about taunting people and it almost got him kicked off the team and then he got it under control and then here it is in the most important game that he's probably ever played in his life certainly i don't think that cx have been to the super bowl since we've had reek woolen and it comes back and then it extends the series and then it he gets burned on the touchdown and it just was like that that felt to me like if it was anybody else if it was like um jordan love gets called taunting i'd be like that was the dumbest play i've ever seen it's not part of a pattern it's not shakespearean to me it's not like it's not the achilles heel of jordan love you know so so that was why i was just like i i felt really really distraught by that because It felt to me like it was part of a larger, I don't know, Shakespearean or cinematic plot line to the to the movie that was this football game.

But, you know, I'm just realizing that I'm sorry to interrupt, but I I am just realizing that at some point before all of this happened, it might have even been right as the game was beginning. I said something if it was your brother, he might be able to back me up and it might have been to Anita. But I was saying to somebody, I'm like, well, I'm just kind of glad like we don't have DK here to like because DK, another easily triggered dude. Exactly. He had no like kind of self-control and caused a lot of problems for the Seahawks. And I know I was talking about him yesterday. I think it was before this penalty kind of saying like, oh, I'm glad that we're going to play cleaner now because he was always like a liability out there. he would do something great, but then you would have to, you know, bring it back another 15 yards or something because he would stand over somebody and jaw at them while they laid on the ground.

Totally. And in... fact with DK Metcalf being a Pittsburgh Steeler and he's had a couple of and he had a pretty decent season actually but he's also I remember watching a Steelers game or two and seeing him do something that's very DK where he like does that he he does a really good play but then he does something that you know he grabs a guy by his face mask or jersey because he's always sort of jawing with these guys and he gets the flag thrown and it's just like I was I remember thinking it's like seeing your ex doing something wild online and you're like I'm really glad that that's not my reality anymore yes yes so i remember having that feeling about dk and being kind of relieved this year like all we've got is the i mean there's no other way to say it jesus christ obsessed jackson smith and jigba like you didn't have the sound up but it was like he had such a great game and i love him so much and i say this with peace and love to our listeners who are people of faith but like we get it that you like jesus dude like he gets interviewed on the sideline after the game by whoever the national reporter is on fox and they're like how are you feeling he goes long pause well i just have to give all of my thanks to my lord and savior jesus christ okay we're used to this by the way as viewers of of sporting events that happens but like okay thank you you've gotten that in now let's move on to the x's and o's and he's just like the way that he has just blessed me and made this possible and brought me to seattle and that i can even have my life and i'm like oh pastor smith and jig book calm it down i want to hear how you ran that curl route that got you open for that touchdown you know what i mean like i just i i

was just like oh and then and then i did find it interesting when matt stafford blamed jesus christ for the loss though i respect his honesty yeah i respect his honesty we were in this game until

jesus betrayed us that's right um and then it was like he he ends up jackson smith and jig but ends up on the on the um the platform you know for the big celebration and i'm like and they bring him over and it's like what's he doing gets on the mic he's thanking his lord and savior jesus christ i'm like we heard you the first time it was four minutes ago i know i thought i was going to get

more love from you on my josh naylor joke i thought that was pretty solid um oh on the uh on the uh

text chain remind i was saying like peep josh naylor on the back of the podium not wearing

victory t-shirt yes yes you know there's a really cute photo of him before the game of him wearing a jersey i don't know if he was there or rooting from afar or something so i think as and also by that i think there's just a lot going on and i think things got a little bit maybe a little bit swirly for me later on by that point but oh my god when we actually won i'm still a little bit like i just like uh i don't know like i said i was so geared up for heartbreak yesterday that the win felt just especially good i feel like i still am not quite like oh yeah like the super bowl like this is happening and like this is how negative i was and by the way you know me i don't spread my negativity around i know that like it can be a bummer for you guys on the chain and we talk about our friend who does that a little bit too much so i'm conscientious of that but like i was in such a pessimistic mood that i was and i'm sort of just realizing this now luke no joke as I was sort of kind of casually following the game that came prior to this, which was, you know, the Patriots-Denver game to decide which one of them would go to the Super Bowl.

Beautiful game, by the way. I mean, artism at its highest form. I mean, granted, the snow didn't help, but give me a break. Talk about a couple of lousy teams.

Well, that's the thing. I mean, for weeks and weeks now, as I've been listening to just random sports radio on satellite, The doggies got you or got you covered or like wherever I'm getting all my information from. Some of it local, a lot of it national, though. It just sort of seemed like everybody agreed that whoever got out of the NFC is going to win the Super Bowl because the NFC just looks so much better than the AFC. And then especially when it comes down to these two teams now. But I was still sort of rooting for Denver. I know that a Seattle Patriots matchup, there's some there's some like sort of sweet vengeance there potentially or whatever. But I also thought that, like, you know, Denver with a totally backup quarterback was just like a little bit more like the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood licking his chops, you know, asking like, oh, give us Denver. But this is where my pessimism comes in. I think a big chunk of me was pre-bummed listening and watching to that game thinking, I'm so bummed that the Rams are going to be able to just devour this. I think I was like seriously, I'd really, truly.

That's your brain trying to emotionally protect you, I think.

Maybe, maybe. I was just like, because I really, well, I really did think that, like, and this might sound bananas, like, I just did think that, and I don't even know fully what this means, so don't examine it too closely or ask any follow-up questions, but it just sort of felt like the Rams were maybe more of a complete team. It just sort of felt like, you know, like, yes, that touch, that. that touchdown in the first 13 seconds of the last game we played was amazing, but you can't bank on that. You can't bank on a kick return for a touchdown. You know, it just sort of felt like you just would feel more comfortable rooting for the Rams, given all, you know, all things being equal. They just sort of seem like a, you know, their offense. Except one phase,

and that's what they lost on.

The phase?

Well, there's three phases of the game, offense, defense, and special teams. Oh,

special teams. Yeah.

And that's, you know, they fired their special teams coach after the last Seahawks game that they lost.

Somebody had mentioned that. I don't think I was clocking that. I think your brother.

And then the, I think the pivotal play of the game was that muffed. Well, if you're not re if you don't count reek woolen, that muffed fumble, or sorry, kickoff, the punt rather, that's, I was going to get there. That, that was, that was, that, that was the only way that we won the game, obviously it was because of that. And then the touchdown to Bobo right afterwards. And that's the, that's the only phase of the, of the game that we were i think consistently better than the rams in every game this season was the special teams phase and they that was one of the things that uh i think sam farmer was writing about in the la times today was just that like the the ram special teams have been terrible all year and it's kind of what lost them the game yeah and and i guess you're right and

that's you know and then that was also our special teams in san francisco or playing san francisco the week before so I guess I guess you're right right about that but it just sort of I just was so and I'm just sort of again like kind of processing my feelings because yesterday I was just feeling whatever I was feeling as we already talked about in in the show and then getting obsessed with the game but then being just like poised to be angry like I I get conspiratorial minded with their with certain teams like the Rams and Kansas City under my homes like it just I I can start to feel like i don't like who i become because i started thinking like it does feel like they really want the rams to win more when you're talking about the officiating or whatever and maybe that's just not fair but i was just like i was so sour until it was all over yeah it was so so stressful but

and and i really got to wrap up my portion i i totally authorized you to go on as long as you'd

like no no no i get it we've also got i don't know if you noticed your echo cancellation just kicked back on too so we got to get out of here are you were you able to turn that off from your I can't because we are recording there, but it doesn't matter. We're wrapping up now anyway. But I think that's the universe telling us we're done here.

I will have so much to say in the coming days and weeks about what I think about us and the Super Bowl and stuff. I will just say the thing that I was really impressed by with the Seahawks yesterday was their ability to convert these third downs when they needed to. And these were not big plays. These weren't flashy plays. It was like a throw to to Ken Walker, the third, when we were really after we had stopped them on fourth down and then we were deep in our own territory and it was third and something. And they threw this little route to him where he had to catch the ball and then curl back in and beat two guys. And he got the first down there. The Cooper Cup catch where he hauled it in and then extended to get the first down, whether he did or not. who knows they called it a first down there were just these little gritty moments where sam darnold found someone on like third and eight third and nine those are such hard downs to convert and if any one of those doesn't get converted we're punting and i unfortunately think the rams are going to come down and score on us so like i you know it's it's easy to think about like these hero you know these 50 yard pass to jackson smith and jigba or whatever or even reek woolen who i'm still mad at and will forever be mad at but like there were just this couple of like these plays that just no one's going to talk about that i was just like that's the game i kept poor becca kept being like that might be the game that might be the game like i just kept saying that about like a third and seven completion because it was like if we don't do that we're punting from our

own 10 and now this is a totally different football game that's very derzian of you as well well you know what you tell him what's up doc but he's like that's the game that's the game that's the game i was saying i got a text message i gotta say i'm saying it in the positive oh i see what you're saying like after it's been converted i'm saying the seahawks may have just

salted this game away by converting that third and eight there i see yeah like so so it's you know not to not to um nitpick or to constantly try to be the anti-durs but yeah i am much more inclined to say that might have been the game as in we might have just won that game which

only shapes up about half of the time i got some listeners it's always very it's very nice to hear from listeners like first of all this is really funny i hear from so many listeners who will text me because again i get texts at the tbtl voicemail line i get the text on my phone and people are always checking in how is dirz doing people will like write in to be like how is dirz handling all of this or whatever. And I got some of those yesterday. And I'm going to say this very, very gently, and I don't want to make the person who sent this feel bad. And I honestly don't know who this person is. It's somebody who texts in sometimes, but I don't have their name saved in the phone, so I have no idea who this person is. But after that Rick Willen penalty, somebody texted in to say, boy, it'd be a shame if that keeps you from going to the Super Bowl or something like that. And they weren't saying that to taunt. They were saying that supposedly in a supportive way. Right, right.

But I was just kind of like, yeah.

yeah, it would.

Like, I'm aware of this fact. I don't need this right now. No offense to the person. I know that you meant that in all good spirits and that you were rooting for us, but in the moment, I'm like, yeah, that's sort of what I'm thinking right now, friendo.

I had somebody who I really love, who's in, I'll just say, the far extended version of, I guess you could say my family, just somebody who I really am a fan of, and they texted me right after that play sorry to interrupt your vacay but did you are you watching the game they used the word vacay and if i could have picked this condo up with hulk-like strength and just tossed it into the atlantic ocean i would have i love that you point out the vacay thing

because you're right that is me and my hubby are going on vacay those are like two words i just can't i don't abide by i've never really examined that before showed it to becca and of course

because Becca's a normal person I was like can you believe this and she was like I don't know it's like doesn't seem like that's not I mean injurious to you I was like it does hurt me it hurts me bad

hey you know what I just saw when we started talking about this I was just sort of googling around while we're talking I did not see Rick Woolen's apology on X the everything app did you see I saw it I heard it oh I didn't okay I don't know if he did more than one or maybe does this gif have audio I just see the picture of a little cartoon fox in meme writing that says i'm sorry do you still love me and he just hashtag wrote no more taunting

penalties is this what you saw he apologized he apologized he said the right things and i believe it i just don't know i mean i believe that he means it he definitely said the right stuff that's i just uh you know i just worry the thing is those taunting penalties are it's the kind of thing that you can plan on not doing uh but then you're three mcultras in and are who knows now you're in the moment now you're in an emotionally reactive state so i do think i do think his taunting penalties are done for the season i do believe that yeah well he's only got he's got to get through one more game he's got to get through four quarters my friend but i do sort of find it so i

didn't see the official apology or whatever he said but i do i sort of think just releasing a gif that says without punctuation i'm sorry do you still love me with this big one that's literally from it's reek woolen posted that to x at 9 20 p.m last night so it might have been after he made his official apology but i gotta say it's it's making me laugh and again we won so we can laugh at that but it's kind of like i'm sorry do you still love me it's very humanized

that is actually funny i will give him credit on that because winning covers a lot of yes uh you know a lot of it's a it's a pretty big band-aid on things so now that's funny to me yes it is Can you imagine if we posted that and we'd lost? Oh, my God. I would have been like, find him.

Yes.

Find him and get him.

Exactly. All right.

Okay. Well, that, I think, probably is where we should wrap things up today. But I have incredible news. We are going to be right back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio for you. So if you can, please join us for that. In the meantime, everybody have a great Monday. Hope you're holding up. And yeah, hope you're doing as okay as anything can be right now in this moment of our time. And just know that we're with everybody and we feel all the same things you feel in a million different directions. So thanks for being part of TBTL, everybody. We'll see you tomorrow. In the meantime, please remember, no mountain too tall.

And good luck to all.

Power out.