Episode Podcast Transcriptions 10 of The Markcast® podcast talking about the CFL, UFL, and other “alt-football” news, stories, insights, commentary, and more!!!

Episode transcriptions 10 of The Markcast®. The Markcast® is a sports-centric podcast, covering the CFL, UFL, and other alternative football leagues. Tune in for the latest CFL, UFL, and alt-football news. Episodes are listed in the order they were recorded. *Please excuse any spelling or typographical errors.

BREAKING: UFL 2025 Schedule Released, What You Need to Know Before Kickoff!!!

I think we're on YouTube. All right, let's bring in John. John. We're on. I was trying to get it going live on YouTube. I have the whole thing here. Let me there. All right, we're live on Twitter. Let me play the intro. Well, there we go, John, we're here. Sorry, I get on here. Stream yard. It's been the holidays. They've moved everything around. It wasn't going on Twitter. I think we're good now. Welcome, everybody. Apologize for that. That's why it's always hot microphone. John, you never want to say anything but welcome. We are here. We finally have the UFL 2025 schedule January 2nd. This was exciting. Had it, they teased it out. That was nice. I appreciate that because in the years past now, John, I did get up at 5:00 AM today Pacific time, just in case. We never know, right? But hey, maybe the UFL is learning now. We have new media people in charge. Maybe they've decided 8:00 AM Eastern a day after the holiday isn't the best time to do it, so here we go. It was like 11 or 11:00 AM Pacific today. We got everything out. We'll go through all that today. Welcome everyone, please like and subscribe. Coming off our CFL coverage, this is the mark cast. John Lewis has his own YouTube channel, John Lewis Sports. Little bit more bite-sized things, so like subscribe to both. Join the channel membership. I think we've even added some members, but getting ready for the UFL season here. We'll go week by week. Everything through here, give you all the facts and figures, all that stuff. John, how the heck are you? Last time we talked we were potentially expanding in the UFL, but now I think we already have some hot takes on this schedule, so that should be good, but how are you doing? Yeah, I'm doing good. Holidays were great and yeah, you can tell it's like post holidays because my microphone's all buzzy. I thought I had a great setup going here. I hope everyone can hear me, but no, it's going great. It was exciting. We kept hearing, we got all these releases that said the schedule is in the coming Weeks, weeks way. Yeah, The coming weeks. Well the coming weeks I think from October to now. It's been a few weeks, but it is exciting to have this now and I thought what a good time. I was really hoping it would happen New Year's Eve since that's when I think the UFL dropped all that news we already knew but last year, but it's cool. I'm looking forward to talking about this schedule. There's some quirks in there that we can talk about and some surprises I thought. Yeah, so leave your gripes in here. If you're new to the channel, we tend to get a little bit gripe on here. I already see Marcus is complaining about Mother's Day kickoff. We have a complaint about the battle Hawks playing too early, so leave your gripes and comments in here. We'll get to all of that, some interesting stuff with the press release. We'll get through all of that and then yeah, any questions, comments? I just saw Hakeem Butler is signing back. I just got tagged in that from MLF football on here. Can I share that? Am I able to share that instead? Yeah, that's exciting here. So all sorts of breaking news. He's resigning with the Battle Hawks. We have new quarterbacks so if we want to do any actual football stuff, we'll do it at the end, but this will get you ready for the UFL season, which is kicking off a March 28th, which is a Friday and then is concluding on concluding on June 14th. So that should be exciting. Yeah, March 28th, Friday we'll get through all of that and then going all the way through June 14th through 2025. Obviously we knew the kickoff date before we learning more about the home, the network that we'll be hosting, the championship game and all of that stuff. Let's get into it here, John, earlier than last year, we got the UFL schedule. I think it was end of February last year before we had all that. Do you feel good here? We've gotten through the holidays. I like them giving a couple day heads up to try to do this as opposed to dropping a random press release. How do you feel just about the rollout of this and then we'll get into the specifics. I would love to give the right person credit. I read something earlier and I sold the comment later. It's like I love spring football because spring football has always in UFL and all of them says we're announcing that we're going to have an announcement, but I do. They built something to this and we can't complain because how many times have we said they're not telling us anything or we don't know, but they really kind of teased this out. It didn't come to fruition. We thought it would. Mike Mitchell had said it was a fluid situation. It was kind of a fluid plan that they would do one day and one the other. It didn't happen, but I thought this was fine and I thought two in afternoon eastern time, 11 Pacific, I thought it was fine and I did like there was some hype and if you noticed on a lot of those social media posts, I thought it had some good reaction. It got some engagement, so yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah, so let's get into it here. One thing to keep in mind that we already have a question here, why wait so long to release the schedule? There's a lot of moving pieces here. We've already had questions about schedule availability for the different stadiums. I've seen comments about that. The Brahmas playing on the road for a while and the six games in St. Louis, so we'll get through all that stuff, but sometimes their hands are tied here and we're kind having to roll through. You kind of got to take the leftovers that you have. Audi Field has availability issues with soccer and I know the Almo Dome hosting March Madness and all of that, so there's a lot of stuff to get into. But yeah, let's get you set up here. So this came out today, new comms people in place. Jeff Alder was with the UFL. He's now with the arena of Football One Riot. I'm getting press releases from that him still in the space, but like I said, appreciate this press release coming out. I know Mike Mitchell had the scoop on this. Anthony Miller, they have their article up. I have it linked in the comments for the whole breakdown of that as well that Anthony and Mike did over at Sports Illustrated. Came out today complete 2205. Oh, I was going to say what I like two is we got the broadcast partnerships Sometimes we've already knew the home and the way and all that stuff, but I like knowing, okay, Fox or ESP and all that. I was kind of afraid that we would just get maybe the dates and times and not the network. So we have everything. This is your complete broadcast window on here. They're going to complete all 43 games, ESP and ES, ESPN two F, this one Fox and a B, C. They're kicking off March 28th as we said, 8:00 PM on Fox. It's going to debut their Fox UFL Friday and Unite dedicated to the UFL action that is taking the place of college football and also SmackDown that's leaving Fox. So looking to kind of keep their ratings momentum that they've built. I'll be curious to see, and I've even seen questions. Are they all Friday games? No, but we'll get through all that. A Friday game each week. We have comments here from Russ Brandon that's always excited to see. In addition to games, they'll be on ES, ESPN deportes, they'll be on the Fox sports app and the ones on a B, C and ESP N will be on ESPN Plus during the opening weekend, Fox will present any matchup between the Braas and the renegades at 4:00 PM So the whole weekend slate and all that. I hears some breakdowns and then we'll go kind of week by week. I was kind of glancing through this earlier, 43 games being on there, 22 on ESPN. Fox will have 21. The UFL will feature 10 weeks for regular season 10 live regular season matchups on Friday, eight teams there'll be five doubleheaders. We had mixed feelings about that last year. A, B, C-E-S-P-N and Fox will broadcast those. The top two conferences with the two best records, excuse me, with the top two and then the record holders. There was confusion last year with the playoffs and Anthony backed about all that stuff. 74% of all UFL games will air on either A, B, C or Fox. So not relegating a lot of those to FS one and all of that. And then obviously you can get group tickets. We'll do all the week by week here, but just general thoughts on the facts and figures here, John, what do you make of all that? Well, what I really liked was you can see that right there on Fox, there's only one game on FS one and I think it might be like a Sunday night. We will look at it and see I did like that and there's only one game on ES ESPN two, so they're really hitting it hard on the main outlets. A, B, C, Fox and ESPN. I think that is a very, very good sign and I love that they're making Fox UFL Friday a thing. I think this can be a thing and it can be kind of, we're all living in a niche, but I think this is pretty cool that on a Friday night in the spring that this really could be a thing, especially if Fox puts a lot of promotion behind it. Ethan, do you want to post that comment? Do you want to post that in your link in the comment? We can pull that up if I can get all of that. Yeah, I think it's good to have them on the FS ones, FS twos of the world. Remember back with the USFL being on the peacock and all that. The Friday thing is interesting. We've talked about that because it was really built into a destination for Fox and SmackDown and their viewership there for a lot of that with the wwe. And I'll be curious because that's not just a destination time slot just because that's because WWE and Fox really built that into a lot of their marketing and promotions over there. I think they were on the five-year deal with them, but that's not like people are just going to show up on Fridays that you really have to promote that and work that. But if they're already trying to brand it as that, I think that could be really cool and maybe gets you out of some of the other competition windows that you would normally face otherwise there and I think you get a different demo at home on a Friday versus midday on a Saturday or Sunday. Yeah, that's a good point. I mean your younger demo might not see a lot of those Friday games. Us old guys probably will see all those Friday games. You're right, but I think it spreads the wealth a little bit, but you also look at Fox did sink money into SmackDown on Friday nights and I think the ratings were really good on there. I think they took the money and went somewhere else, but if they put the kind of promotion that they put to me that they put for SmackDown into the UFL on a Friday night, I think it can be a thing I would love. And obviously this is pipe Dream down the way and Fox has so much invested in this anyway now to keep this alive, but seeing what the WWE is doing with Netflix I think is really cool and seeing the promotions they have and just the added reach of that, just talking the worldwide audience of we're instantly available to over 260 million I think is the Netflix subscriber count right now, right? 260, 200 80 million, whatever. Even just having the possibility of that and then promoting that on the front page when people sign up is pretty cool that I was joking, we saw fan TRO football kind of leverage that with Twitch years ago. Like hey, we're going to put this on the front page so we can count our impressions more, but hey, maybe we're getting people on. I just think that would be cool. Obviously Fox is locked into the linear programming right now and that's where we're focused on, but I always saw as spring football on a streaming platform that really got behind it would be really cool And a F tried that somewhat, but those deals were different. That was pretty much paid time I think. And you would try to find the Bleacher Report app and in 2019 that wasn't really a thing that was easy to find and it was certainly, I think I downloaded it somehow on my smart TV to watch some of those games, but it's a different world now just six years later. So yeah, I think that's Spring football can find an audience. I think you get the casuals. We talk about that a lot on network, but a lot of us hardcore fans and I think there's more now than there might have ever been. We can find those streaming apps. I've watched a lot through streaming. I mean I'm old. I watched a lot through streaming. I was able to find those pretty easily. One last thing on this, these are all hypotheticals just because Lightning says locking games in the streaming, there's no good the UFLI agree. Obviously we want to hit that wide. Just the idea, and this is someone that lives with the CFL right now in America with no real easy way to say, okay, some of the games are on the website and some of the games are on here and just being able to tell if you watch a WWE E in 2025, everything's on Netflix. If you're on Netflix, I just think that has, obviously UFL has a long way to go to get to that brand recognition, but I just think that that being able to simplify it that way is very helpful for that. So let's get into here the UFL schedule. I know the team's put out whatever, we'll just kind of go through their press release here. John said he saw some kind of weirdness opening game, so we already have comments about this, right Week one St. Louis going into Houston. Again, a lot of the matchups for UFL decisions the venues might not always be, but what do you think of opening with the Battle hawks at Roughnecks? I mean, if there was anyone in the world to get Battle Hawks stallions in there or some sort of other sexier matchup, what do you make of that? That one was a weird one right off the bat. The first thing I saw was because I wonder what this first Friday night game's going to look like. What's it going to be? This is going to be the launching point for this Fox UFL Friday or whatever they're calling it. And it was St. Louis at Houston. Now, if it was the other way around, I would kind of get that because I mean, can you imagine what kind of, Yeah, you can get in. You could put anything in St. Louis except the championship game that the Hawks aren't in and they'll draw. What was surprising was the dome taken, and I researched it this afternoon trying to find why maybe they didn't play in St. Louis. I did not see anything scheduled for the dome. Now people out there in St. Louis and may know I didn't see anything. I was just kind of perplexed on. I know the roughnecks are pretty excited to be back at T-D-E-C-U stadium, but I mean the general audience on a Friday night, I don't know that they care that much. I just hope that the turnout is a lot better. I know playing at Rice Houston fans didn't like that very much, But I mean were they really packing T-D-E-C-U? I don't know. I hope they Do. Friday night comment here. Not really weird. Since you have Max Duggan former TCU co quarterback coming back to Texas against Houston. I can promise you that. That's a wonderful happenstance. I will promise you that they did not flex that into week one because of that. I think that that's cool and that's a great storyline and the UFL needs more storylines like that and not, oh my God, the league is going bankrupt or the league is going away. So I think that that's awesome. That's a great poll there, but I guarantee they did not go, oh, we got to flex that in here now because of that. Right? I mean, how many people showed up in Birmingham when AJ returned? I mean it wasn't that many. I mean they had a good crowd, but it was not so I get it. You're right. I think that's a good add and it might work out that way. I can tell you this, if they want to promote it, that's one way to promote it. I think that is a good idea. I just writing back comments here. The other comment on here, Mike has, and I think someone else had as well, but Friday nights having the games onto the bar, I think that that's cool. I remember that the first season when we did the whole Sea Dragons kickoff and all that kind of stuff. But then I think it was week two, we were down in Portland seeing, I think it was a wrestling show. We were seeing something Michael and I, and having the games on at the bar that we were at across the venue. Oh, what is that? What's going on? Or if we're watching and the waiter waitress like, oh, what is that football like? Oh yeah, yeah. So I like that Vietnam more and obviously a lot of these games that's on Fox. Fox has the kickoff. Are you surprised with anything of that? No, not really. I think it felt like Fox is running this thing. To me, that's the way I felt anyway, so that not a surprise, but I like Mike's comment. That's one way to get the 30 and under crowd to watch the UFL on a Friday night. Never thought about that. I think that could get some interest of anybody who's sitting there. And you're right, they look up there and any sports bar you would think because Mike turn on Fox and say Here's this game. So that's great. The only thing my question is, and I maintain, we've talked about this before, I don't think time slots matter far more time. Slots and dates matter far more than the matchups. I think this is cool to go through this. I'm just more curious the timing and networks and all of that stuff. I mean this one of course because marketing it as the first game, but I don't, the casual audience isn't going to care. My question is are the roughnecks going to be any good to be in this game? Would you want, and not that you can guarantee this far out a better or worse team, and we see the NFL try that all the time, but you surprised the roughnecks have had issues through the rebrand and all that other Stuff. They've had a lot of issues. You're right, Reid. Yeah, that one was just surprising. It's like we don't know what St. Louis is going to be this year. You just mentioned Hakeem Butler resigning, that's huge. Quarterback situation's going to be interesting to watch. I mean, I think for us in this niche, it would be interesting if AJ was the Houston Roughnecks quarterback, but yeah, just don't know how competitive this one would be. There were just a lot of question marks when I saw that this is going to be the Friday night. Hey, here we are. We're on Friday night and it's St. Louis at Houston. That was just a little bit perplexing to me and we didn't get to see the USFL conference versus the XL conference champions play each other. I thought that might've been cool as maybe a promotional point for everyone else, but we'll see what it is. I just kind of scratched my head at this one. Yeah, I mean it's technically USFL here, right? Conference with the roughnecks. But yeah, we've kind of gotten through all that stuff. Yeah, I agree. I think championship, rematch, any of that other stuff. So we got here bras, renegades, back on Fox Saturday four, one o'clock eastern. That tends to do pretty well that early afternoon, the prime time if you want to look at it that way. And then we go Sunday here, but bras, renegades, does that do anything for you? And back of Choctaw Fox and everything else? I mean, that's fine. Yeah, I mean the brass, I just feel so bad for them. What was it, week five, I think we'll look and see. I think that might be their first home game. Yeah, I mean it could be a good matchup. I mean we see what San Antonio is going to bring and Luis Perez, is he going to be the starting quarterback? Those are some questions I think that we, that'll get answered, but I mean, yeah, to me that it's an interesting matchup. Could be an interesting matchup for the four o'clock Fox audience. I will see. Yeah, pat and a couple people have said Preez announced he's returning. I dunno if that's a new thing today or I asked for a link, but anyway, apparently Preez will be back playing, playing with the Renegades. That's exciting. When the Renegades on Instagram posted their schedule had Luis Perez, it was the picture, so I assumed, yeah, that was going to be the thing. Yeah, Yeah. The other thing to point out, yeah, a lot of questions about the bras playing on the road here. I believe it's the first four or five weeks, March Madness and everything they're dealing with. Not only are we now competing with March Madness in the ratings, but now we're competing with March Madness in the physical locations of the building. I love the San Antonio market. I love the Almo Dome, but I don't know. I don't know if it's, that's been tough and troublesome here to try to get that fan base going and I don't think that this is going to help. It's how excited are they going to be after five or six weeks? Maybe they will. Maybe the anticipation is building up. There's going to be going to be a lot to do in San Antonio, but yeah, that's just really tough for them and to not even get a full allotment of home games that everyone else has. That's rough. Well, and imagine you're one in four and you play, then you come home for the first time or then you're trying to get these fans behind and I'm spoiler alert, we're living this right now with the Washington Commanders. Nothing puts butts in seats like winning and there's been all this, oh, in the name and all this kind of stuff like team wins. It's packed, right? It is the easiest way and getting some of these markets going like the Memphis of the world and whatever. If the team stinks, look at the Edmonton Elks. It's really hard to get fans in there if your team is garbage. Speaking of Memphis hosting Sunday, Sunday hosting there, I'm assuming you don't mean that that team is garbage. Come on though. Yeah, Panthers going in there. ESPN hosting their first game and then the double header there leading into the Stallions ad defenders. I think that should be a really cool week one end the week on that. The stallions going in, we'll see Zach Potter, right? Moving on to Sacramento State doing scouting for them. I saw, so he blocked me on Twitter, so I don't think I've ever interacted with the gentleman in my life, but cheers on that. But that's a cool Doubleheader ESPN, Sunday week one and like I said, a big primetime match up there Sunday night. I feel really good about that week one Sunday. Do you agree? I think that's a great doubleheader to start it. No question. I'm really interested to see what Memphis is going to look like with hopefully the home crowd gets there. There's a lot of construction apparently happening. I don't know that it's all finished yet, so hopefully that it's going to look good anyway. And I think Memphis in this rebuild with Wizen Hunt, that's going to be interesting for the people who follow the storylines. And then with Birmingham and dc to me, I think those two teams could again be like maybe the cream of the crop this year. DC I know hit a road bump last year and we don't know exactly what the personnel is going to look like, but I think that is a great Sunday doubleheader. And there's also something, and we can talk about it too, it's like there's some weird Sunday game times. I thought that was kind of odd. Yeah, so three Easter, I mean ending there close to say it would be cool to me and even with the falloff Lasher DC still carries that sexy vibe kind of a team. Does that make sense? We're like, sorry, the Showboats don't yet, obviously like you said, they're going to go through a rebuild and figure all that out. We got Jim Anos in there as the gm. We will work through that. But to me that still speaks prestige right now that you can kind of count on that being together. I think that's exciting that Sunday night game signs and defenders. Anything else we want to hear John? No, I mean again, interesting Friday night matchup. Saturday could be good. And then Sunday, I like how they're wrapping this up a noon and a three Eastern. I think that's pretty cool. We'll see. I'm going to try to time code all these so we can go week by week. We'll see if that works. As opposed to putting out 18 videos doing all the week by week. We'll see if we can do that. You could do that. You could crazily make a whole video and then have ones for each week, but we'll see if that'll work. Time goes week two here. Friday night going into Ford Field back there I think. Wasn't there some debate were they still going to be back? I mean we've resolved this all, but I think that was one of the off season story lines going, I'm trying to remember this Fog Dream that is the holiday weeks here right now and kind of everything blowing together. Fox again, Friday night five Pacific, eight Eastern Roland in, we're doing that with the Fox. I think that's pretty set right, that eight Eastern for that A, B, C hosting Memphis at dc so they're getting back to back home games Saturday five Eastern and then the double header Sunday, ESPN and then FS one roughnecks at renegades on the ESPN because boy, boy, then you put the brass at the Battle hawks there. You would certainly maybe like to flip those, I don't know, maybe just Fever dreams of last year with the roughnecks and renegades on that, but 12 at 9:00 AM East Pacific there in Arlington for me here watching on ESPN and then the six 30 at St. Louis, they get their first home game because last year, right, it was like week three until they got to, so the Battle Hawks got their first home game. So that's certainly encouraging. I mean that's really rolling the dice on your spotlight Fox UFL game. And we know the Michigan Panthers attendance has been absolutely brutal. I was surprised. I don't know all the behind the scenes stuff about what happened with Four Field and why that contract got signed or even resigned. But man, if you're going to be on a, they're making these, it feels like these are the Friday night spotlight games. They're making it a thing and you got the stallions in there playing the Panthers and if it's going to be 6,000 people, I just think that is going to be a really bad look. And I'm obviously, I wore my Michigan Panther shirt because I know everybody was going to say I was going to hate on 'em. We can talk about attendance again, but I mean it is just the fact, it's the optics of it and we've talked about optics a lot. No matter if it's a Saturday afternoon game or a Sunday afternoon game or whatever it is. But when this is the Friday night game on a national network, I hope the Michigan fans don't find more excuses to not come to these games because it's week two. That was a really good team last year and I hope that this one looks good for Fox and for the whole national audience in week two. And that's what I was looking at. I have a separate one so I can not distract the audience by scrolling here because roughnecks hosting week one Panthers week two, that's two questionable fan base sizes leading out the gate. And I track a lot of just tangentially, however I say that word, that the WWE versus a EW stuff and the TV ratings and attendance and all that and a EW is still being competitive with WWE E in the ratings. But then you look at their stance, no one there, at least with wrestling, you can film the wrestling show so you can kind of minimize or hide a lot of that lack of attendance where there's, I mean we've learned there's just no way and Fox has no interest of trying to do any sort of shots to minimize any of that at all. So yeah, it'll be interesting to see you these two prime time. If we want to call these the spotlight time slots here, fill in the, and then do they move some of these games later if they're not performing? I'm going to be curious how long this experiment goes on because Fox has put a lot of time in the building this rundown here on their time slots the last few years. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see and I hope again that there's enough juice with Michigan and with this being a Fox game that the fans do turn out, I mean again, you're really rolling the dice on this to me. So the week two Sunday April 6th, that will be a spotlight, right? With Battle Hawk's first home game on there. We have that on FS one, I don't know. And obviously ESPN and all that, but could we have flip flop those and could we have had the first Battle Hawks game on the ESPN window? That would've been my vote. Any other thoughts on this say here says 25,000 Ford Field Friday night. Alright, you bookmark this. I'll send you a hundred dollars on Venmo if there is 25,000 at Ford Field on Friday, April 4th. So there you go. Let me know. I'll double it up. I'll double if there's 25,200 coming his way. There you go. Anyway, thoughts? Anything else from the week two slate there? I would flip that. I would try to get the Battle hawks into the better time slot there. At least the network window. Oh a hundred percent. And also the Battle Hawks home opener being on FS one. That's the one. That's the one FS one game you're going to put on. And I mean I didn't understand it And I'll say this again, if we have new again, please subscribe like and all that stuff. If we have new people checking this out, we've done more interviews with TV analysts over the last few years talking about all this stuff. At the end of the day, it's time slot and time of day and the network it's on. We can pick and choose all of this and what matchups and venues and attendance, that's what drives the ratings. And being on FS one, you're always going to hit a fraction of what you're going to get otherwise. Yeah, and even you compare the FS one game maybe to what there'd be at least one regional split. I still think that the regional splits might get a higher rating than an FS one game on a Sunday night. Yeah, van here. Did you realize where Augusta Sins now? Detroit? No, I didn't. I don't randomly track the crew trajectory. The people that I interacted with four years ago. Anything else weak to your here? I should be pick and choosy things on here, but I don't know. I'll get behind this Friday thing if they can get it going. I like having the consistency of that. Okay, this is what we're doing every Friday. I think that is incredibly important. I like the Monday experiments we tried before. I like all that, but it needs to be consistent. No one's going to go out of their way to find a random Thursday or Monday game. I mean obviously even with Amazon and everything with the NFL, it's try to get people to convert over to that, let alone UFL and Fox Agreed I it's Friday at eight every week and we'll see. We've already got these weird Sunday games. Five o'clock, six 30 the next week to me is weird, but I'm with you on that. I'm all in on this Friday night football. Yeah. Alright, week three here we got, so now stallions hosting, right? First game here. Protected stadium. Friday at eight. We have Memphis hosting Saturday two 30 and then the double. So we like this seemingly kind of doubleheader on Sunday at least thus far. Braas at Panthers back and forth field on a, B, C and then the Battle Hawks hosting on a BBC after that. I like the Sunday night prime of that, giving a spotlight to the Battle hawks here. Presumably that's going to be one of your best attendant with that stallions. We get to see Protective on a Friday. I mean we hear a lot of that kind of stuff and attendance. We've gone through all that, but you like to think they kind of show up there on a Friday. I think that's kind of a cool college atmosphere feel there. Thoughts on this, and I'm trying to check is WrestleMania weekend is the week of the 19th, so that'll be the next week. We'll talk through all that stuff. Okay, go Ahead. Yeah, I like, again, Fox rolls the dice a little bit because Birmingham, I mean had okay crowds but not what I felt like they should have had for the team that they've had. I don't know that anyone would disagree with that and be serious about it, but I do like that because you're right, I think on a Friday night in April and Birmingham, what a perfect time for people to come out and how good that would look at Protective Stadium, which is awesome. I mean, to me the perfect UFL venue, I think that's really cool. And then you got just the single game Saturday and the Sunday doubleheader. I mean to me this might be one of the best weeks. I know it's early on, it's three weeks in, but it's only 10 weeks, but it's still three weeks in. This could be one of the premier weekends to me. Something to kind of talk about here and I'm just reading through the comments. I'm starring guys, if I see, and Philip and Mike left questions, I'll star all the questions, make sure we get to 'em here at the end. I just want to make sure we keep the week by week things a little bit clean, but we got good questions about the UFL. We're talking about attendance and viewership and all that. If Detroit the best team in the NFL right now, one of the best teams in the NFL goes wins the Super Bowl, deep run whatever, I just think that's another storyline to track. I think the Michigan market was far better suited for the UFLA couple seasons ago before Detroit's kind of gotten on this meteoric rise. But I don't live in Michigan or Detroit or anywhere around there. I don't see, I think it's a hard sell to go from my Jared go and this superstar team that they've put together to let's go to Ford Field on a Sunday and that's just me. I kind of thoughts on that. A thing I think we have to look into There is that, and maybe there's a contingent of fans who say, well we can't get Lion's tickets, but we'd love to go to Ford Field, so this is probably be a little better opportunity or a better chance for us. I mean try to take a positive out of that. That to me could be something. But you're right. When you're seeing your team play at such a high level, your NFL team, are you going to buy in to UFL team? I'd love to see it, but the numbers didn't really bear out in the last couple of years. You turn the negative deposit. That's what Pit bull does. So there you go. Mr. Worldwide. Worldwide. But no, and I will say, and that's a great point though, if you are priced out of the lions, if you're priced out, I know with the Seahawks that was a lot of the questions, not questions. A lot of the conversations we had with former Sea Dragons fans or Dragons fans or kind of whatever it was, man, I can bring my whole family here and do all this stuff and it would cost eight times this to bring my family and kids and everything to that. We went to the Kraken on Monday and it was a weird game where it was an earlier start and everyone's off for the holidays so you could tell so many people they had never been to a hockey game or never gone to a cracking game. You're like, okay, let's get out of the way, let's move on. But it is, they have some of those games and it gives that opportunity and so that is a great point. I shouldn't PPO that If I am living in Detroit and I've got three kids and well, I could never bring 'em to a Lion's game. So that is a good point. That is a good point. Yeah. I have one every once in a while, but yeah, I, yeah, I mean I can imagine that Lions tickets especially right now are just out of control. I mean Chris is right. I was looking at some not too long ago when the Seahawks were at the Bengals, which Cincinnati is pretty close here to Louisville and I mean the upper corner of the stadium, those are like $150 tickets. It's like you just hear about the game when you're that far up. But that's been to me, the great thing about UFL tickets, even though there's been a bit of a price hike, is you get a lot for your money as far as when you pay a little extra. I mean the couple times that I've been to St. Louis, my wife and I, we get tickets and your on the few rows up from the 20. I mean it's a good price point for what you get. And if you're lucky, you even get a Marquette king halftime show or postgame, you get free concerts with that. You've seen it now. This is a good, this interest and we will move on from week three after this. And Mike brings up, this is a good point, what if Lions fans, no Jake Bates and say, Hey, came from the UFL, let's go check it out. It's a great point. I've always, this is not just a Jake Bates or Brandon Aubrey thing or anything. I've never thought the entire, which it's clearly the league disagrees with building our entire identity around these three special teams players or five special teams. I think that that is one element of that that I think is successful. But I mean, God bless people that run in the Panthers social media right now, but it's like the official Jake Bates Stan love account and everything and I'm like, okay, I get it. It's a little much, but I get it. I mean I'm also probably not in the age demo that they're trying to hit with that. Probably aging out of that. But thoughts on that, John? I mean because Jake Bates is really doing good this year. There's no question. And I think that Mike might be onto something too that a lot of people who are paying attention to who might be really hardcore NFL fans are starting to see that there are some UFL players who might not be the Jake Bates and getting that kind of notoriety, but there are guys who are in the league right now who came from the UFL now they might be linemen that aren't as popular, but if you're a football fan who they are. And so I think there's something to that. It's a lot like I'm reluctant to call the UFLA minor league. Some people might want to do that and that's fine, but it's almost to me like going to a minor league baseball game. The diehards like to go, a lot of them like to go because they want to see some guys who they think are going to play up a level. I think there's something to that. So I mean will it be the majority of fans? Probably not, but I think it could be, especially as pointed out there in Michigan, people know who Jake Bates is, so maybe they say, well let's go check this out. I mean anything to get a few butts in the seats, especially in Detroit, there's nothing wrong with That. We had six more people, we'll count that as a win. No, it is. But I will say though just, and we'll move on after this because now we're just rambling, but having the football worlds kind of cross sectioning now obviously is really cool for fans like us of all these leagues and the spring leagues and CFL in Europe and ELF and Arena. But it was so cool. We were over at my brother-in-law's on, it was either Thanksgiving or his kid's birthday. We have them kind a week apart and we were watching the game and I go, Hey, that kickoff, I know the guy that invented that. And he's like, really? I go, oh yeah, I throw Sam a text where he is like, wow, that's real good. So I just said that was just kind of cool to be like, Hey, you know this thing everyone's been talking about. Anything else with that? Anything else with three? Three? No, I like it. I think this could be one of the best of the season. I agree. Abdul also says, yeah, season tickets have doubled in the last two years for the Lions. So yeah, I mean that's success, right? You do all that. Alright, week four here. So the Friday night, again, we love the Panthers but because probably Ford Fields probably empty on a lot of, I mean in theory trying to get these stadium avails. We like these early Saturday games at Chota. I've noticed that on a B, C, that's kind of similar to the kickoffs we had before in previous years. Stallions at roughneck year on Fox Saturday night and then the San Antonio standalone games Sunday at Ford Field on Fox. One other thing to keep in mind is yeah, this is WrestleMania weekend, so that'll be going through Friday, Saturday. I mean this could be a rough weekend viewership wise for that. They'll have the Friday night SmackDown opposite that and then WrestleMania now goes Saturday and Sunday. So that'll be all the way through and then through Monday. But it could be interesting that way because I think there's a very similar cross section even though Vincent and all that isn't still involved. I think the demo you're trying to get any thoughts on week four here, John, This is not my favorite. I don't like that noon start and then the other one's at seven o'clock. I mean I just don't think you're going to get a lot of people who are other than us freaks and people who are diseased that are going to probably watch every game that are going to watch both of these games on a Saturday, especially in April. That's when the weather starts to get a little nicer in a lot of the areas. So I'm not crazy about that one. And again, good for the Michigan Panthers, number one, that's like three straight home games that they get. So again, no excuse for the Panthers fans not to show up, but God bless Fox for rolling the dice here on another one and hoping that it's a good turnout on their, what I feel like is their spotlight game. We have the, I'm say Panthers on the road week one and then week 2, 3, 4, all at home. Yeah, and we hear this a lot in San Antonio as well with the terrible scheduling all that. It is a lot to ask To go to multiple, and we saw this in Birmingham, even with the stallions and with the other USFL teams year one, it's a lot to go even Kraken or playing tonight, they played Monday. They're like, Hey, do you want to go? I'm like, I think I'll just watch it home tonight. I was just there Monday it and even hockey's more expensive, but even if you're saving cash, it's still your evening going down. Defenders here again Sunday night there, getting the Fox window there at five, that's seven. Eastern always does feel late to me, but I mean I'm not an East Coast person, but I always feels like, I dunno, you're starting to get into the later hours there, but I guess it's not that Late. No, I mean seven o'clock is not bad and these games go pretty quickly. I just think that you're going to have a split audience that day. I mean, how many people are going to watch the noon game and then they're going to watch the seven o'clock game? I just don't, outside of the people watching this video that's made it this far at 41 minutes in, they're probably going to be the ones including me if my wife will let me. Yeah, I'm curious what's going on in between there between the noon and seven, what's, well, I guess it's the A, B, C and then the fox. You wish that there was, yeah. And then you're switching networks, channels, all that stuff. Yeah. Alright, week four. Are we good with that? Looks good to me. I mean as good as it can look, It's good as it can look here. Alright, so back to Birmingham again. Friday night showing out that way. We have the Battle hawks on ESPN Saturday at seven, so nothing early Saturday window, Sunday noon, and then three. So you get a little doubleheader that way on ESPN. I like that when you can get these nuggets kind of going, it's great. It's just could we get that every Sunday? And I understand at this point, not possible, but I think that would be cool. You just roll one to the other Almo dome, right? So that's the first Brams home game is week five. So they're finally at home and hopefully they're not in a what? An oh and four hole at that point, Right? No, this one. I love the time of all these on week five you've got your eight o'clock game and it's at Birmingham, so hopefully people show out again and then you've got that. I like it. The 7:00 PM game at St. Louis. If you only had one game on that Saturday, St. Louis is pretty good for a primetime Saturday game and then the noon and the three to me, I mean if I had my druthers, this would be the schedule. This would be like every week if you could do it now. I know again, we've talked about, it's hard to do that with when you're talking venues and you're talking slots for networks and everything, but I love how this is laid out and I think these could all be really good games, assuming that you're right, San Antonio might just be worn out there playing away from the fan base. And I guess I'll have to look at the end kind of the mouth. The St. Louis is getting that other, so did that happen already? Right? Where is the other St. Louis at? Because they're doubling up, right? It's like both. So the week two Brahmas game and then there's another game, but those both count as Brahmas are home even though they're away. Mike here has a great comment. Week five is the NFL draft weekend Saturday game on ESPN will follow the end of the NFL draft coverage on espn. Good Call on that. And it's the hawk, so there you go. Well, wouldn't that be nice? I mean wouldn't be. What a great lead in. You got people sticking around and then you'll see like, oh, what is this? If they don't know. Yeah, I'm glad he pointed that out. I think that's what a great Saturday that could be. So that makes sense why that's the one game and it's at seven o'clock that night. Yes. And so you're have a red hot Michigan Panthers just is surging. They're surging Detroit. Detroit fandom is just at a frenzy where they have the lions are doing well. Maybe the Tigers has started out really hot the first week and a half of the MBL season and they're going to have the red hot Michigan Panthers coming in and playing the battle hawks. But that is cool. I like that. So thank you. And if anyone else has anything like that, I just don't have time to do the deep dive while this, but that's great. I think that that's awesome. The Saturday there're seven o'clock, and again, we're getting off of, these are all ESPN and Fox A, B, C if you pointed about before few FS one, whatever. But really this is the leverage that they got from doing this merger was we can proposition the best time slots we have on our various networks to get this going. Anything else out of this one? No, but I think you bring up a good point when you have Fox and ABC slash ESPN together on these, and they're not trying to compete against each other. They're trying to make this league a success. And I think that is nothing but positive for all of this. How often? Not anymore, but I used to think often just a different world we would've had if they Fox had just waited and then the USFL with, if they had just kind of all this is what it should have been and we kind of farted around for a couple of years and I just think about that. If Fox hadn't have just been like, we're going ahead right now. I mean we would've missed out on all the lawsuits and the SFL and the Steve Earhart of the world and all that stuff really would've been different. Moving to week six here, so now still Friday night Battle hawks. Now this could be cool, see what the renegades look like, but Battle Hawks hosting Friday. I know it's the availability, but if you could do anything to get some of these hot, because even wrestling does like that, the cold open riot or I think they do the, I don't know the industry term where they show the crowd the last commercial break right before, if you go to wrestling riots, they're like, Hey, we're going to be live here in 30 seconds and everyone cheers. And then they start and then they start the show. And if you're watching whatever it's on before it's so cool, like, God, I got got to be a part of this, right? Because look at this hot crowd and what's coming up next. You would like them to be able to maybe do something like that where you would have a Raven in this Battle Hawks fan base and go, Hey man, look, we got 30,000 people standing by for this game. Stay tuned next. I think that's hot. I would like that and I wish that you could get some more of those on there. Roughnecks hosting a Saturday at noon and then the double header at noon and four on ESPN two. We have the Panthers on that early Sunday. That will not be good ratings wise, that will hurt that. And then the stallions on Fox Sunday, May 4th. I like it. You're right about that. If the renegades are good and if the king of spring, Luis Perez is playing at his level, St. Louis is hopefully good at that time. And the good thing is remember that's seven o'clock central time on a Friday night and we all know call is indeed the law. So that could be, that's the kind of spotlight game that I think we're looking for from Fox, yet the DC defenders in Michigan, Panthers on ES, ESPN two. There'll only be rumors of that game. No one's probably going to watch that outside of the people watching here. And then, yeah, the roughnecks a Saturday noon game in May there, I hope that that is one of those where if the Roughnecks fans are serious about wanting to come back to T-D-E-C-U stadium, that would be one of the games that they really show out for. And then, yeah, bras and stallions at four o'clock at Protective Stadium. Hopefully they're both performing at the level that we think they'll perform at. So yeah, I mean, this could be a really good week Or you're probably going to get, and we need to get Brett or someone to give us kind of the weather forecast of temperature index for all of these. The Birmingham games we started to get to the year now where it's like the guys, it's a little hot here. It's a little hot, but that's a night game. I mean, four o'clock isn't necessarily a night game, but I mean that's the latest game in that. But you start looking at that. Do we have noon kickoffs in Birmingham or whatever? You start getting some of these markets now where you can't be, they're the eight on Friday the week before. I'm just trying to scroll back through here. Anyway, you got to keep the Birmingham fans cool. I don't want the weather to be behold of that. I can tell you that first year of the USFL, when everything was in Birmingham, I went down there for a Saturday and Sunday and it was, I want to say late May or June, and I can tell you that my sunburn, I'm almost over the sunburn that from three plus years ago, there was no rain. It was sunny and it was about a thousand percent humidity. So people still showed up for the Birmingham game. I will say that I was one of about 50 for the rest of the game. It is hard when we go to a lot of Mariner games and I very much pick my tickets on where the sun is going to be or where the skate's going to be because I do. I'm like, if it's a Sunday day game, okay, we got to sit on this side of the field and we went to the Coliseum for the last Mariners game there. We did the night game and then we're like, all right, we got to sit right behind, not right behind the home plate, but we're going to sit right there for the last game. Oh, I'm like, this is the worst thing in the world even. You're just dripping. This isn't even enjoyable. I am just sitting in a bottle of funk here. But yeah, I think that's interesting. Ron here, mark Cas and Bleacher Brothers got a beer snake draft to fulfill. When are we doing? I don't know what that is. Let me know. I'll do a beer, I'll do a beer draft and then we had a question. Oh, this was when Chris is timely saying we're selling out fourth field here. This will selling it. Yeah, the Red Hot Panthers hosting. No one will be watching the game. They will all be in attendance. That's why the ratings will be so low. It's going to be on ESPN and all the Panthers fans who exist will be at Ford Field. Yeah, Ron's asking me to get beers. Now this might be an off air conversation. Ron, go through all that. Chris and I got two free beer snake tickets for you to giveaway. Can't do ticket giveaways anymore, Chris, Chris can facilitate that. I'm not even allowed in the beer snake section, so I don't even know if I can give tickets away into the beer snake section. I can't even attend the beer snake section. But yeah, anyway, Chris has got, we'll start pumping up. Remember like and subscribe. We get to 4,000. Dustin with Royal Retros is going to do a couple free jerseys, custom jerseys wherever you want. I have a Sea Dragons one or it was a Dragons Like away one from 2020. He'll do all sorts of cool stuff. He's got all the USFL and CFL and all of that, so make sure, but yeah, get us up to 4,000 subscribers like and subscribe so we can kind of get that going. Roy Retros does some awesome stuff. I mean it is, and it's not just like, oh, it's 2020 XFL, which they did just put a bunch of new stuff on there, but I mean it goes back. They literally have teams that had never existed and they have jerseys and many helmets for 'em, so it's pretty cool. Side note, I popped on this, John, this is a real thing, but it came, I got a Zach TZ Commanders practice jersey coming from, I think it was from last year before. I think they kind of rebranded the stuff with the, well now maybe I'm confused in the NHL. Anyway, it so Zach's practice one got a super deal, I mean nothing. And then who caught the game-winning touchdown on Sunday when I was wearing the Jersey? John, listen, You broke a lot of hearts with that wind by the way. Yeah. Knocking this Cox Hawks out of you killed Atlanta's chances there. I mean it was, yeah, that was tough, but you know what? Good for you guys. You need to not wash that and wear it every Sunday. There you go. I got to hanging right here. Anyway, week six. Anything else with this STAs? We've talked through all that. All right, week seven, here we go. We get the album film hosting. The Friday night one could be interesting here. The DC defenders going in renegades. They love this mid-afternoon in Choctaw. They love nothing more than noon one. Nothing is going on at Choctaw now. You need to start talking to the Rangers people about cross-promoting that like, Hey, come see the noon Arlington or the one o'clock Arlington Renegades game and then go across the street. We're going to be playing baseball at five or whatever. To me that's a no-brainer and I don't understand whether it's not more synergy there stallions hosting now this is when we get tricky church. Sunday noon hot could be whatever on a B, C and then the hosting the prime time here, three Eastern ESPN. Yeah, and that's 11 o'clock in Birmingham, so yeah, that's Sunday school time. The preachers hitting the pulpit at that time. But yeah, I think I've used the term roll the dice a few times here on these Friday games. Yeah, I mean you got to wonder if San Antonio is having a tough time that could, I don't know about that, but it's good to see that they finally get to play at home on a Friday night. Yeah, these could be some interesting matchups that Battle Hawks Showboats game feels like one that I might try to actually be there for. I'm wanting to go to Memphis this year, so that might be the one. Yeah, these are some interesting matchups and again, those Friday games, I can't wait to see what these look like and I really hope they blow it out. The open of Last Boy Scout when it was a Friday night's a good night for football and it was like explosions and helmets blowing up and stuff. I hope that they do something to that effect. John, if you go to Memphis, I want you to record the video of you walking in Memphis and playing that song and we'll post it. I want, if you are going to be in Memphis, been to Memphis, I went to Nashville and then I was like, I could live in Nashville. I could be a Pres fan, I could be a Titans fan. I kind of like that and we live in Nashville and all that, but no. Yeah, Memphis and yeah, play that song with that one quick thing. Chris became a new member, I think Chris before we came back, but just remember 99 cents a month. Just support the channel. It just makes me feel good to be like, I got a new member here. Anyway, it's that 8 75 of passive income a month, John, that's really going to see me when retirement hits. It'll buy something. 8 75. That's almost a beer at a Krakens game. Probably not about half a One maybe. Yeah, it's about $20 for a double Chico there. Anyway, this was going to be, this is my bold hot take here, so this is week 7, 55 minutes into August. The bras on Friday night here. If Fox is to flex the UFL games, if we are canceling this experiment early this year, it's either going to be for this game or because of this game that they're like, that's it. We got to get, because they'll have the Battle hawks a week before week six. Okay, we, we'll keep it through that. We got to get through the Battle hawks, but this will either be like, oh, we got to flex this or afterward like, no, okay, we can't do that again because it'll be week seven. This is the dolls of the season here. That's my hot take. No, I don't think it's that hot of a take at all. I think there could be a point where, yeah, Fox is like, nobody's going to show up for this game. What are our better options? And you maybe give them some time to readjust. No, I don't think that's a hot take at all. I think that might be a good idea because we always, always talk about optics. You want good optics for spotlight Games could happen. I'm just saying right now I would go to this game if anyone wants to go. I was just because Chris is talking here trying to figure out, trying to figure out logistics for travel. San Antonio, DC are two of the best places to see games just because of the proximity of the stadium to what's going on. Birmingham only has a couple of those bars there, right? Choctaw's really good. You have Texas live there, but you really kind of got to stay out in Arlington to really benefit all that. San Antonio is one of the best. You can stay on the river walk. I have a million suggestions. If anything ever wants to do the San Antonio stuff, I would go, this would be fun on the Friday. You could fly in even that day and then just head to the Alamo Dome and then fly. That's a very doable trip for Reed here in early May. If I don't have a wedding, but I would do anything in the world, I would recommend that and the DC for that for a home team and hopefully the Brams aren't horrendous here at week seven, Right? Yeah. I mean again, that's the gamble you take on that. Yeah. Rolling the dice, John. Rolling the dice. I Think it's called rolling the dice, The dice. Have we gone to any of our double headers yet or not? Our double headers, our regional, I don't think so. I think week eight. I think it's week eight. Alright, so here let's get to week eight here. Perfect. Yeah, here we go. I just always, yeah, I see that we got the ass and all that. I was like, it's hard sometimes. I'm trying to process all this. So we got bra hosting and again, back to back. Yeah, this is definitely going to be, because spoiler alert, I hadn't really looked at, I like being fresh on here. I like John's through and I like coming in with a little whatever, but this is absolutely my hot take going back week seven and week eight are both home and so they're going to be like, we saw what this looks like in week seven. We can't go back and do this again. We've already seen that. And then the simulcast on Fox, so that'll be region locked. I wouldn't put the Battle hawks in the region locked game, but there you go. Especially against Birmingham. That would surprise me. I will say I might take it back because Saturday May 17th is my anniversary and my wife said we can go to the Battle Hawks game, but I better get a good dinner that night. And I was like, There you go. We can make that happen. So I might be going to that one, but yeah, I agree to me and good for the brass who I think get this finished the season with four straight home games or something like that and one being Friday night, maybe I was surprised to see this or be in a regional split with the Birmingham stallions being in a regional split with St. Louis and then you've got Panthers and roughnecks, that's fine. But to me that should have been maybe the Sunday noon game would've been St. Louis or the Friday night game that week. Sorry, my camera's all out of control. Keep talking with my hands and the things I want to have it track me. See now it's like, look at that. I got to turn that off me, get back over here and then I'll reset it DC again with another Sunday night game. I mean this is a lot. This is a thing Sundays, well it's not Sunday night but noon, but the Sundays at Audi, but I like that and obviously that's probably working through their soccer schedule and all of that, however all that goes. But Max has a funny comment here we'll get to, but Sundays at Audi is awesome. I just think that that is having done the 2020 kickoff, we did the C Dragons playoff game there against the defenders. It is just a really cool atmosphere for that. So I'm a big fan. Max says that Fox likes a regional split so they don't have to give away as many spots. So you see, you're protecting me. Go and I will say, and I said, but this is honestly a good point. I got to turn off this tracking. There we go. Maybe that won't follow me now when they brag about how many games are on Fox, four of the games really are two, so it does That's true. The numbers where they go, oh, we have whatever it was I read in the faction figure, it's like, oh, we have 18 games on Fox. Well it's really 16 games and they're counting two that you wouldn't normally get, but I don't know. I don't love the simulcast thing. I get why they do it because of Max's point in that. What do you make of that? Yeah, max is afraid there's going to be too many PSAs in these because they can't sell the spots. Yeah, again, they're doing it one week and I'm sure there's probably a reason for that. I don't know what it is, but the Birmingham stallions and St. Louis Battle Hawks being one of the regional law games. I didn't get that one. Yeah, I didn't like that. It was funny, we were talking, Chris is talking about the Rock in the comments. There was an article Rock came out with something for New Year's where you don't have to do anything, you get to do it. So I go into approach the new year, I get to do it, I go, do you think he has to talk about the UFL? Do you think he gets to talk about the UFL at this point? What do you think the Rock's welfare check is season three here of the XFL and his involvement? I don't know. Red won. He's got that going on. He's good. Hey, if anyone hasn't seen Red one, have a couple beers. I was going to say have a J, whatever, it's totally fine. I watched that and I watched that Carry On movie with Jason Bateman. I Watched that one the other night. Yeah, Fun. They're like, these movies are getting such great reviews. I'm like, it's like it's just a knockoff, diehard. It's just interesting to see Jason Bateman as a bad guy. That's really The, that was the hook on that movie. There's no question. EDRi, Tinder, whatever has no charisma. I never, he's in these movies. I don't understand. He was good Rocket man, but yeah. Oh, that was him. Yeah, he used up all his acting in that and then he said in his out I how him that. Anyway, Norman's checking in here. Norman's so excited. I haven't seen Norman comment like and subscribe. Become a member 99 cents a month they like and subscribe. Get us up to 4,000 subscribers. He's hoping for an Ohio team in the expansion. Let's talk expansion. Let's go. Anyway, anything else with this week eight? We've talked to Region lock and all that stuff. It looks good to me week nine. Oh my gosh. So we're back. We're back. Promise We're hosting again on Friday. Oh my God. I knew they had those home games, but I didn realize they were Friday. No, I didn't realize. So yeah, this is going to kill. Thank God, Jay. Well, I wish Jay was still with the Bram of social media, but this would kill the Braus. Might single-handedly kill the Friday night on Fox experiment here with it. I cannot believe it. I'm like, again, this is why I like going through this real time. Otherwise I would've been yelling about that at the beginning. Well, I looked and I had, one of my notes was like the Brahmas kind of got hosed this year, but at least they finished with four straight home games. But I didn't realize also now I'm just now seeing that these are Friday night games. There's got to be a flex option, Don't you think? I dunno if you can, because well, A, so you already have that issue with the NFL, right? Where you can swap within day or you can't or it's got to be so far in advance because people are buying tickets. I mean, it is true a number one. Obviously the players have to be safe in the amount of time between games. But yeah, if I'm a fan and I'm flying into Santa or not in the NFL, I'm flying to Detroit to go watch the game and then you flex it to Monday Night Football or you flex it to, you're like, well now I'm pissed because I paid. So I don't know what that, and then with the team logistics with travel, I mean you got all these dual planes and you got AJ McCarran yelling to these guys plane. I'm like, got to ride with a plane. I got it. They're on the same plane with, I'm like, what is this going on with this? But yeah, that is brutal with that. I don't know what they do. That would be a question. I would put a poll out after this. Do they flex the bras out of, is there any way we can? That's insane to me. You put this schedule Together. Wait a second though. This says at the Dome at America Center. Oh, so this is the reverse one? This is the reverse. Okay. Okay, so maybe, yeah, because I saw versus San Antonio, but then I just saw this, it said, so maybe they don't finish with four straight home games. So this is a home game in thank God. Thank God John edi. No one in the comments corrected me at all with any of this. This is the home game in St. Louis, Which I mean why this is a Houston roughneck, Houston gamblers kind of thing. Why? Yeah, obviously the Almo then was busy so they had to do it this way and you can't have the promise not play the same number of home games. I mean, I get it, but it's still not a home game. Are the San Antonio fans going to fly in there? But I do. Okay. So again, this could be a good Friday night spotlight game because it is going to be at the dome on a Friday night, 7:00 PM Central, well lubricated fans if the Battle Hawks are still going strong. That's another question that we've never seen what the fan base is going to be like if the battle hawks were mediocre or bad. They've always been in contention. They've been good. They've been fun to watch. I'm not wishing that on anybody because the battle hawks to me are kind of like the New York Yankees to Major League Baseball when they're good. The league is good and everyone benefits from it. But yeah, this is good. This is at St. Louis on that Friday Night. Yeah, yeah, no, as the battle hawks go, so does the UFL. Correct. Yes. And I'm so glad we pointed this out. I was about to have a connection with that. But it is an interesting point because you talk about the fervent fan base there and the work that they've done, and they've always been good to great, right? They've always been on the upper echelon. It still kills me. And we talked with Dave Naor about it, who's a big CFL reporter for people of you don't follow. And we were doing our breakup show and he is just adamant that the CFL could put a team in St. Louis and they would just adopt them. They have the battle hawks. I'm like, they've been working to build St. Louis since 2018 now through Vince all To me, that is a hearty laugh that you think that you could just supplant another team in there and have them support that. But maybe I'm wrong, but I think that yeah, St. Louis is very happy and when they're healthy, so we'll see what they look like here hosting the bras again. Yeah, I don't know about a CFL team trying to, and now if the Battle hawks moved to LA in the middle of the night, which that really can't happen, I would think with the UFL relocate, they wouldn't do that to St. Louis. I mean maybe, but no, I can't see that. This is interesting, interesting week though with the Brahma's home game in St. Louis. And then what could be a good one that Saturday with the Panthers and stallions if they're both playing up to par? Yeah, so that's on A, B, C, A couple of a B, C double header there. The noon three, the Memphis Noon game and then DC still DC is always that Sunday team, it seems like that they have a lot of their week eight Sunday. I mean now I go back through their week six Sunday. And that affects things too when you're traveling up their week five Sunday. I mean, DC is a Sunday favorite team there, and that is odd because obviously that's not dependent on Audi at that point, but with the roughnecks there, I'll just be curious. Like you said, there was so much with Rice Stadium and everything and the roughnecks and we don't want to support this and the name brand year or two now, but did the team still garbage? I don't know. Yeah, Chris says they only played Sunday last year, so obviously part of that is the Audi field thing. That makes sense. Yeah. I don't know what the roughnecks are going to be this year, so it's hard for me to kind of prognosticate what those games are going to look like, but they need to get some fan base up in there. People will holler for them to get back to the other stadium. Yeah, they've got to be a better team. I was surprised they didn't make some wholesale changes in Houston this year, Reid, I remember you and I talking before the season on here, before last season. We're like, which coaches are going to stay and which ones are going to go? And Houston to me was a no brainer, but I mean I hope it works out and I hope that they are improved because that really, really makes me think that they feel like they have something there that they can build on. Although I don't know that a lot of us could see it from last year. And you always wonder with that, I'm just showing a couple comments, there might just not be better options for a lot of these teams. And we talked on the expansion episode about, okay, now they're wanting cities to court the UFL for, okay, well please come here and we want all that. I think if you could be anywhere than Houston, you'd be there already. Or if you could be anywhere from some of these, you'd be there already. So to me, I don't know, it's like dating and you're like, well, this is the best I got. I don't know if I'm going to be able to do any better here. I don't know. I think some of these, and we've talked and Greg Parks and I at length with the UFL board and everything else about, you would never put any of these teams in these markets if you went back and rebuilt this map from the beginning, but obviously this is where we're at now. Yeah, no, I think that's a good point. If you started from zero again, is this what it would look like? I don't think it would. No, I hope not. I hope not. Week 10 here, rounding it out. See now Chris is already saying DC Friday night, that's going to be popping here at Battle Hawks going in and those teams are really in contention. That could be really atmosphere of the season. It seems you're waiting until week 10 for that. And then Panthers hosting again Saturday, then the double header Sunday noon three. So there's only the one simulcast game, so that's good. Fox and Friday, ESPN, Saturday and then the A BC foxes split on Sunday. Yeah, this is, yeah, I think Friday is obviously kind of the spot that's going to be the one, as you said, if they're both in contention and what we think they might be this year. And that could be with something on the line. So that could be an interesting game. And the rest you got to think, will Memphis be playing for, will there be something there for them to play for and then they're playing to Birmingham Stallions, Saint Renegade and Bras. Who knows? There are of question marks here. So you wonder how in this week 10, what's going to be on the line. And to me, just trying to prognosticate here in January on what's going to happen May 30th, it feels like that Battle Hawks Defenders very well could be like something on the line, You mean because we need to have our poop bowl this year. So what is the poop bowl game of where they play for the what is where they play for the number one pick or whatever? Oh yeah. I don't know if it's in week 10, unless the renegades are just, and I know they struggled last year, but the bras were good, but we don't know what they're going to look like this year. Hopefully. I wouldn't think it would be the Roughnecks and Panthers because of what we saw last year out of the Panthers. That's a good question. Maybe that's going to happen at week nine. Let be interesting. So I'll be curious to check that out. But Chris, you're saying if you come out, I'll get those tickets there week 10. Week 10 and Audi, I don't even know, is that Memorial Day weekend? That might be a tough kind of flex anyway. Oh yeah, it could be. It's Memorial Day. I got a wedding show that Sunday. That's a tough asky. But anyway, and then ending in Memphis. I don't know. That could be, I mean the stallions, but yes, you're hoping that Memphis has something to play for at that point, but the week 10 kind of rides like this in the wave starting in DC and ending in, if that makes sense, Right? No, no, it does. That might be the one. That might be the Friday night game. Too bad it's week 10. So then let's go here. Just a couple of play slower things and if anyone has any comments here, we can get to all that stuff. So we know the playoff dates, double header on Sunday, June 8th, 3:00 PM and then 6:00 PM so that'll be cool. One on a B, C one on Fox and then a BC holding the championship game on Saturday, June 14th at 8:00 PM on a BC. Fox hosted last year, right? They bounced back and forth in the kickoff on A, B, C. Right. So we will flip that around. Do you like the Sunday conference championships and then leading into the Saturday playoff game, or excuse me, championship game, would you prefer a Sunday championship game? Would you prefer any difference if we had any options of changing any of this? If you're going to play it at eight o'clock, I think it's better to do that on a Saturday night rather than a Sunday, the championship game. No, I'm fine with these and I like that you get a double header of, although it might be good to start a little earlier. I'm not going to nitpick this. I mean, three and six Eastern to me is fine. Yeah, I mean I like this post-season setup very much. Yeah. And there you go. Saturday June 14th, I got that marked down. We'll see how it goes. I know I have a wedding on June 7th I believe, so I can't do it that day. I wouldn't travel for the conference games most likely. But a good chance there on the 14th and we'll see where that's going to be. We haven't announced, they don't have an official, are we assuming St. Louis? I've heard Protective in there, but they haven't officially announced anything from where it's going to be. Right. Likely be neutral to site. Yeah, there was some talk that it. Was it Audi that was out? Something was out, Yeah, one of them was out. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it could be St. Louis. Could be, but I had also heard too, I mean these are all rumors, but Birmingham might be in the mix for it. It'd be interesting. I like that Birmingham setup with those bars in the hotel there. It is just hard. It is an expensive weekend. I paid it a lot to stay there. We were doing the show and we used all that, but if I was going as a fan, I would never pay to stay. Right. It's just too expensive for what it is. But it could be cool. I mean they could pack. It was packed, that kickoff game. I mean it hasn't reached those heights again, but I think with enough marketing behind it, yeah, Mike says Audi was the rumor, but FIFA World has a game that weekend. That was it status. Well, okay, so we're all with that stuff. So let's do some questions here. I have some star probably you good for 15 minutes and we'll get out of here at the bottom of the hour. I got some star questions here. Does that work for you John? That works for me. Alright. And if you guys have any questions about the games, any questions about anything UFL will get to all that on here. Abdul says that over under 1.5 expansion teams announced for the 2026 season during the 2025 championship. I think that's probably too much to ask for because the expansion process has just really been announced and I don't know how much it's really started and I think there's going to be so many moving pieces, but if they do announce it, I mean there's going to be so much work going on behind the scenes while the season is going on for that to happen in June. But I think when the expansion is announced, I think it will be two teams. Yes, it has to be two teams. I'll be really curious how this looks or goes because the UFL, they were the people that put this outright and we talk that okay, we want to do this to get some free promotion here. We're getting ready to build all this. But it's kind of like, and obviously I'm happily married, but it's kind of like being like, Hey, I'm open to dating Sidney Sweeney, I'm open, I'm here. Where you could say we're ready to do anything and we're looking, but if they don't get any reciprocation there, is it egg on their face? If they announce this and no one comes forward, do we try to fit something work because we've put this out? Do we just kind of ignore it if we don't get into that? I am just curious how this goes because now you've actually put this out in the ether. It's something that people can Google and the UFL expansion, hey, they have this, it puts it in the ether more than just us talking about it forever online. And I'll say that there was some talk, this might be breaking news here on your show Reed, so maybe I might need to get the, should I go with the red lights back here breaking, But there was some talk about Louisville being in the mix here. I talked to the Louisville Sports Commission, this was back in mid-December, a little bit after all this had been announced. They say that they've not had any talks with the UFL and then a couple weeks later I talked to the executive director of the mayor's cabinet for Economic Development here in Louisville. He says they've not been contacted by the UFL for a possible expansion team, but they're going to continue to work with Louisville Sports Commission and I'd ask the Louisville Sports Commission, did you guys give an RFP to maybe try to get this team? They have not done that. So I mean I'm not losing hope here in my adopted hometown that we'll get a UFL team, but so if the expansions are, they're moving, they're moving elsewhere other than Louisville. I mean we talked about this before. I think it's a hard sell. I think it's hard to get the cities involved and what is the cost benefit? And if you're looking in San Antonio now and you're like, okay, and God bless all these people and we got the Horns four podcast, all these San Antonio has a good hardcore fan base that shows up online and God bless that. But you got four home games. They don't come till halfway through the season. One of your home games is not even in San Antonio. So if I am a San Antonio sick rep, how do you even sell that? You're get involved in the four games and then we can give you an option if you want to go to St. Louis. To me it's really hard to sell any of these teams as five standalone home games anyway that you want these people to get invested at. Like, oh yeah, then they'll be back 10 months from now. You can come back and see 'em again later. No off season push really hard to track anything in the, it's really hard. I don't envy the people and I see 'em post all the time, these people trying to sell tickets. I don't envy that at all. I just think any of event to get people in to get the cities involved, I think it's really hard. It's easy to throw out at any of these random cities but actually get them involved. I think it's pretty hard, And you've said this before, Reed, that you're selling a product. This kind spoke to the whole franchising thing. If you really wanted to franchise this, what are people buying right now? And I think that the UFL has an opportunity to put that on the stage for franchising this year. But as far as for cities, what do the cities think that, what are they going to buy? What are they in for? How is this going to help improve their community? How is this going to help put them on a bigger stage? And we don't do a lot of advertising or sponsorships on here, just this isn't in any way my primary anything. But at a time when Paul and I were involved and we were very much okay, did we reach out to people? What did we do? And we kind of put together a little deck of like, okay, this is kind of our demo and how many people and where they live and we get all this and I have to do that anyway when I apply the CFL for credentials. And okay, this is our platforms. I don't know what is the deck of a UFL team when they're like here, Louisville, I know we've talked about this before, kind of urging. I just don't dunno what that sell is. I don't know what you bring and what you print out and bring to that meeting of here come invest in the UFL team. We just watched that stepbrothers where they're showing where they're doing the boats and hoses and they just SHR the boat and they're like, but dad, are you going to invest? It feels like that's kind of like what does that meeting look like when Russ and them go in? Here's our presentation. Like corporate synergy. I don't know. Yeah, I think it might be more appealing to cities like Louisville who want a little bit of a bigger name, but if the UFL and I think there's room here. I've said it before and I even made a video. This is why I think here are five reasons I think the UFL should come to Louisville, but I think it's a harder sell for some larger cities, especially when we've heard that it could be cities that already have an NFL presence and the UFL has that already. So you're right, we like the UFL, we enjoy it, but when you start looking at it from a level of I'm a city official, I'm a mayor, I'm a governor, how is this going to help my state? How's this going to help my community? Yeah, I don't know. I hope, I hope that there's an opportunity here. I think there is an opportunity for expansion, but you're right. I would love to know what the sell is for this. We enjoyed its entertainment, but how does this really improve communities? When they originally announced the USFL hub and all of that, and I think it was Roy S. Johnson with the al.com, but really detailed the year long process of getting that and it was right with Eric Shanks and I think they were In a truck for a different, doing some other sports thing and then they're like, well, what about we put 'em all and what about Birmingham? And they were working with the BJCC, their convention, whatever, their complex there and the committee, but it was months and then like, okay, we got to sell 'em on this or we're going to have all the teams. To me it's almost easier to sell that of, hey, we are going to have eight teams play 40 games here. To me, the US FL year one was an easier sell than like, well here now you're going to do all the same work for us to be in your city and it's five home games or four and now we got to do all this stuff with the stadiums. We have a question here about just marketing before we get out, but I just think it's in even the harder sell now of, well now it's like you're trying to sell a fraction. The CFL gets this a lot where all the games used to be on ESPN and now they have half the games locked up with CBS Sports Network, so then they just stream the rest of 'em for free. There's no market for that. Other half of the games. CBS sports pays for what they want and then all the other ones are like, we don't care, just stream 'em. I think it was almost an easier sell to sell all the teams and dates and everything versus like, well here, here's just a handful. Can you kind of be a part of this web? And I think the USFL was thinking, and Fox was thinking, this is a proof of concept now the next step is to franchise these teams out and to actually play in the cities that they're named after. But I think this year, as we said, I mean I think there's an opportunity for the UFL to show what it's about and maybe make that sell where they look, they're watching TV and they see these big crowds on a Friday night. Hopefully we'll see that. So it's something for the community to do, but it could be a harder sell for some larger cities and maybe a little easier sell in places like Louisville, which is a top 50 market but doesn't have a pro football team. The other thing here, I had one, oh, Mike had, let's see here. I just had a couple more I wanted to see. Oh, Darren, are they doing boosts like Houston, Detroit, dc, any on the ground promotions? I know they're hiring. They were always hiring for this and I even saw that they were looking for a new comms person to help facilitate that. It's a hard sell for any of this. It's okay, I'm going to be a seasonal employee. I'm going to come work. Yeah, you need to have two, three people on full staff and all these, we were talking Ryan Gus system earlier. Seattle was a great example of that and really being and doing community events and giveaways and being prevalent. I haven't seen a lot of that. I know they're trying to hire that and it's when you lay off everyone you got to hire, it's hard to get people to come back on. Do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, as you said, how many people want to be seasonal employees? If you're looking for a full-time job or you're going to be a seasonal employee, you're going to have to obviously be in the Arlington area. I just think that the talent pool for what they're looking for or what they may be hoping for that job talent pool might not be what it won't be available or at the scale that it should be to me, if that makes sense. I just think you're right. You need people year round who are out in the community, who are like Darren's saying Here, do booths be a public presence. Get your name out. We were seeing that wasn't even happening in Birmingham and Birmingham is the heart of spring football. So you need that year round and to be a brand. Anything else here? I know I have one more thing. Oh, Mike was talking. He had this question about them doing the pregame shows, doing that, trying to roll in on Fridays. I assume that's going to be more of an internet thing, right? That UFL or I don't think Fox has the programming space to give it away ahead of that, but I do know that Mike had some talks about that. I think it was online stuff. They did show on the schedule. I'll say this, the Friday night games on Fox are at eight o'clock, but I do wonder usually seven 30 Eastern time, that's going to be local time. That's going to be your local programming stuff. That's your family feuds and Judge Judys and things like that where the local stations make the money. So if they do have a pregame show, I can't imagine if it's a Fox pregame show. I can't imagine it would be more than maybe 15 minutes. And the kickoff would actually be eight 15, which we see this a lot. If anytime you notice a time, for instance, yeah, it's going to be Friday at eight o'clock. Well, the kickoff might actually be later than That eight five. For eight 10. Yeah, you could do that. And sometimes even later with college football and something, oh, it kicks off is at eight. Well, we've got a 27 minute pregame show. So maybe there's something like that I would like to see rather than just go cold into the game, let's have a little bit of a pregame. It's like when we go to the Kraken, if it's a local game, they usually puck drop. Yeah, if it's at seven, they might puck drop at 7 0 5. But if it's on the TNT or ESPN broadcast, it's always like 7 25 and then we never know. And then I'm not looking at what channel the game's on Or the game I'm going to. Right. You're like, oh shoot, this game is whatever. Well, there we go. I think we did good. We'll come back in. I know Zach was asking more regular programming. I mean, it's the holidays, it's just not a lot to talk about. Obviously we touched on the Zack news here, leaving the stallions and the KEEM Butler and all that, but I think we do our best right now. I think we pop on when it is and we've been waiting for this. We have all the broadcast windows. Like I said, I really thought we were going to get just the schedule. So this is kind of the full drop of this now through, and they hope that this, I guess, carries some interest going in here, but to me, they got a lot of work between now and March 28th to get this interest peaked. And let's think about it. It's not that far away. I mean it's really not. And yeah, let's go XFL project. You're right. I'm with you. I can't wait for the season. People think we get on here and we're too negative and we say it all the time. It's like, well, we want it to succeed and we're excited about it. Yeah, that's a good point. There's a lot of promotion opportunity out there. But here's the thing, you have to have people on the ground right there to do all the things in these markets to say, oh yeah, by the way, we're starting up here. And the good thing is the Super Bowl is on Fox. So I think that there's a really good opportunity for a lot of promotion right there. One quick thing, I hate these UFL commercials right now. These ones run the wild roughneck runs through the thing. Really? Yeah. I don't like it. I thought the ones they did last year and I preferred the Hollywood football or whatever that they called real, I preferred that over this because to me it almost takes too long to figure out what's going on. And then it's spring football returns, tiny little UFL logo go. You like these? Am I in the minority? Does everyone else like these? It's okay to be wrong, Reid. There's nothing wrong with that. No, I really, I thought they were creative and they're eye catching. I mean, it's not fireworks and car explosions or anything, but I thought they were creative and it got my attention. I mean, a lot of times you're watching a game and as soon as a commercial comes on, there's about three or four other things you're going to do during that commercial. It's like, but then I see it. The first time I saw one, I'm like, what is this? Like, oh, it's a spring football commercial. Well, yeah, they this one. Yeah. So Mike and Abdulah, the Jake Bates one was fine. Where? Yes, that is good. I'm talking the Wild Stallion runs to, it sounds like David Attenborough and one of 'em is a turnover. And then the other, I don't like that. I don't like seeing the turnover because he knocks it out of fumble or something. I'm the same thing when I'm watching football. I'm on my phone. I'm on a million different things. But yeah, I just think they're really weird. Reed noted. UFL Hater. Got it. Well, Phillips asking me how he can join guys. Yeah, click join, right? Isn't that what it says there? John? Click join. Just subscribe to the don't subscribe, click join the channel, join the channel, do all that. I think You're right. And then the last thing here. Oh, Chris said, yeah, couldn't get through one episode with having a complaint. So there you go. I had to complain about them, whatever. So anything else? I think we're good, John. I'm sorry, Reid. Yeah, I think it's exciting. As someone said, happy schedule release day. I mean, it got here, I think the UFL did it, right? They built a little anticipation and then they released the schedule. I think the destroying appearance might've gotten canceled today because all the Sugar Bowl stuff that was going on. But I do like that. I like where it's going. I'm optimistic even more this year than I was this time last year. We didn't know what was going to happen. We've got a second season of the UFL. We've got what, a fourth or fifth straight season now of spring football. I mean, these are good times right now. Yeah, and like I said, we'll do our best. This is kind of the investment that I'm in of this. I'll pop in. Do I appreciate. But yeah, I think we're doing good. I appreciate, like I said, like subscribe, fill up, click join. It's 99 cents a month. You wouldn't even think of it coming out. And thanks everyone for dealing with that weird start where it didn't trigger on Twitter. And so I'm like, I don't think I'm live. I'm like, I am live. I'm Just, I saw the stream live up. I'm like, oh, wait a second. Yeah. So here, Philip's really working through this. Well, I was going to screen share. Philip, I'll hit you up in the dms. We'll see everyone next time. Thanks everyone. And we'll check you out.

BREAKING: UFL Launches Expansion Process for 2026 and Beyond!

Well this is exciting here today. Happy Monday everyone. Thanksgiving, American Thanksgiving week here. I thought we'd have a couple weeks off here, especially getting through the holiday. We were waiting on the UFL schedule. We just got done with all our CFL coverage, but here we are today, the UFL officially announcing what their process for expansion here in 2026. So I wasn't even going to do anything. I wasn't quite sure if we were going to do this. We got John Lewis here. Max was like, you got to talk about it today. Mike Mitchell's like you got to talk about it today. So John, I wasn't sure if we were going to do the stream this time of year. There's sicknesses floating around, right? People get sick this time of year. John, I have a fever today and the only prescription that can help it is expansion. So that's weird And you got it and you finally got it And we got it today. But no, this is interesting. So John Lewis, welcome. We have a lot of new subscribers going through all the CFL stuff we just got done with our Gray Cup show. John Lewis has his own YouTube. John Lewis Sports appreciate him coming on today. John does a really good job at really kind of more manageable sized content coming out, which I think is always great. And then obviously we do a little bit longer form on here, so I'm sure John will be doing that. We will discuss everything today. I have the press release, we can talk about the Switzerland tryout we have going on next year. A lot of stuff, so this is going to kind of a catch on. John, how are you doing sir? I'm doing great. It's just amazing. We have an international event with the UFL. We've got expansion now, but we still don't have the 2025 schedule just anytime now. The coming weeks it's coming. We've heard that for over a month now, so hopefully maybe they're kind of ushering us in with some news like, hey expansion's coming. Then maybe next week we'll get, hey, here's the schedule for 2024. Well it's interesting. It's interesting timing. Yeah, well I was doing that today. I put out the thing, I'm like expansion in 25 and I'm like, well no, we're going into 25. This will be expansion in 26 and we'll pull it up here. I have all the details and then we will do a little bit more a deep dive here through all this stuff. But yeah, it is kind of a bizarre schedule release kind of here. We thought we were waiting on the schedule. I think we're waiting on an MLS schedules here in December, so maybe we'll get all of that stuff going on and then we can kind of release all that where obviously if the, excuse me, if the UFL released the defender schedule, then they would know games, the Audi field that disrupts all the other playing going with all this. But John, I do think this is unique. Obviously we've had in the past the UFL talking expansion. Okay, we're taking away teams, right? The USFL. Okay, we're putting the Tampa Bay, the bandits on hold. Okay. We we're relocating things in the merger, we lost party of the franchises here we're bringing back, but to me this is the first we are looking to expand here for the UFL at least as far as I know. Kind of a recent memory of actually written up. Kind of curious your thoughts on that first and foremost. Yeah, I was interested to see that It was a press release it and it was as they usually do their media storm there, you see the press release, it was on Instagram, it was on all social media and you're right, something that you said last year that we talked about in the preseason before you said, and I completely agreed we needed to see some kind of progress from the UFL from season one to season two and we thought maybe that would be expansion to show that here's a signal that this is growing. So the expansion obviously didn't happen, but now we're starting to look at this and say okay, they're positioning themselves to maybe add a couple of teams, maybe add four teams. As Mike Mitchell said, it could happen two teams in 26 and another two teams in 27. We'll see how it all shakes out. But the optimism of this to really put a press release out with quotes that it's open right now and that either we don't really know what the situation is as far as it does say launches the expansion process. We don't really know. I didn't get from this read that is it going to be the UFL is going to reach out to cities or they want cities to reach out to the UFL? What's going to be the process? Well, it looks like it is and I think that's interesting to go through here. Something else to keep in mind, and I hate to be the Debbie on all this stuff. We're talking the Switzerland showcase next year and we're talking, I think there was the Under Armour agreement that went through this is all kind of fluid things. So the UFL goes through this year if ratings aren't up, if anything's whatever, this is very much like I'm on the rocks with my girlfriend. We're planning the vacation next summer, but we could still get, I understand and this is super exciting and we're on board with all that stuff and subscribe to, if you're checking this out the first time, I know we've got a lot of people coming in from the CFL. Hopefully all this alternative football stuff kind of fills you in with all that. We should be pretty heavy UFL now and then trying to get some CFL off season kind of postseason whatever interviews. But I just want to emphasize that I see this all the time, like, oh, they're talking 2028, that means we have a, yeah, I mean it's all plans on there, but as Stephen A. Smith always says the list is fluid and so this is fluid, but at least we're talking about it and like I said, we can talk about it today because if this was put out, I'll do a little try my reading comprehension here and John, you can pop in, we'll kind of get through this press release and then give thoughts. I have very specific thoughts, hopefully not as negative as yours. The U-F-L-A-U-F football league announced today, it's officially launched its first expansion process. The UFL is accepting proposals from perspective markets we'll get to bring spring football to their communities and be part of the growth of the sport. So I think that's interesting to kind of answer the initial question like, hey, we're soliciting right, our doors are open. We saw the CFL with the XFL years ago, like, hey, the XFL reached out to the CFL, their doors are open and now it's Russ, Brandon and company like, Hey, you want to spring football league here? Curious your thoughts on that. First and foremost, to me that's an interesting way to approach this. It is. When I see that though, accepting proposals, again, I'd like to know what the process is. Do they contact, let's say for instance, I don't know, I'll just throw out Louisville, Kentucky out there, which is where I'm sitting, so it's like will they contact Louisville or now maybe we're getting into the weeds here and maybe I'm just kind of a nerd and wanting to know really what the process is, but I will say I do like that they talk about perspective markets looking to bring spring football to their communities and be part of the growth of the sport. I think they're seeing this sport grow. I mean frankly, let's think about this. We're in, let's see how many years now that we're going into of actual spring football that's legitimate on network television, spring football. It's been a long time since we've had that. So I think they are starting to see the growth and again, like I said, I like the optimism of this to really just go out there. They're not doing this behind the scenes. Maybe there've been talks already, but they're putting this out front, so maybe this is a call to UFL fans to start talking to their cities to say, Hey listen, they're looking for expansion. Maybe we're the right market. That can go a long way. What's interesting to me about this, and I'll read the quote here in a second, but Mike Mitchell has talked our UFL insider all the way back through all the XFL and the US FL stuff and everything that even as far back as the USFL 2022 that went in the place of the XFL, it's always been an audition for, would you like to own one of these franchises? Would you like to be a part of this trying to sell off or attract the owners and things that way. We are in 20 approaching 2025 now clearly that has not happened yet. There was talks with FedEx in Memphis and we're going to move everything in there and all of that. So this has I feel like been ongoing in some regard at least just to try to get people involved, at least on the ownership side now it seems like, okay, now we want to get cities involved, like you were saying, call your local congressman or woman, get them involved. One thing interesting to point out though is when you start accepting bids, bids come or they don't, right? We just saw the CFL 20 would be the 26th Gray Cup got awarded to Calgary. I think they were the only city of the nine CFL teams that bid on that that wanted to put together a proposal ride and obviously hosting the gray cup is a little different. I would be curious kind of the qualifications of this. Are we looking at different stadium sizes, we're looking at demographics, things like that. Maybe we can do more dive into that later, but when you open it up for proposals, you got to be, not all of them are going to come in or they might not be up to snuff or what you are looking for. Well, and you have to go into a community too that can support it. I think obviously we've talked about this being a TV product and that's true, but you need to go into a community as he says, be part of the growth of, as the press release says, to be part of the growth of the sport. And I think there are a lot of communities out there that are poised to do this that might not have pro sports or they might be a larger football community. I think that's what we've seen in Birmingham forever, St. Louis as well. Well, I mean really when you're looking at the eight teams right now, they're part of that community even though the hubs in Arlington, but you're right, I guess there are a lot of places that could say, yeah, we'll put a bid in, but it's got to be serious and I think you have to have some corporate backing to make this happen and I think there are a lot of communities out there that are really ripe to do this right now. What I do like about this and then I want to read this quote and I'll put this away so we can see both of our faces down here, but what I do like about this is at least now we're putting thought process into what cities do we want to operate in. My biggest criticism all the way back up into the USFL 2022 when they relaunched was, well, these were kind of the trademarks we were able to get from the eighties and those were cities that kind of worked and that's what we have now. Let's kind of reuse those assets or that IP that we have no real thought to. Does Tampa Bay want the spring football team in whatever? I know the XFL was a part of that, the Memphis thing kind all these rolling out and now obviously through the merger we've gotten this mishmash of kind of the XFL franchises and the US and nothing really, I've said this before on here, there's very few cities in the eight that currently play in the UFL that you would sit there on your top 30 list of cities that you want to be in and have a lot of those. So at least now that it's not leftovers from things that kind of worked before we have it's let's put thoughts into what we want. Let me just read this. Que put away as the UFL lays the groundwork for future growth, we're excited to begin exploring new markets for expansion expansion where spring football can not only live but thrive. The CFL uses that trademark now live and thriving, so maybe we'll have a IP dispute. UFL President CEO, Russ Brandon, these expansion efforts validate our vision of early success demonstrating how spring football with fans reinforcing our commitment to broadening its reach with strength and structure of our ownership group along with our media partners. We are well positioned for the long haul and look forward to identifying communities that have the potential and desire to host a UFL team in its search to identify strongest markets, UF Ls looking at several core attributes including fan interest, existing sports culture, geography, population, venue and infrastructure availability. And it talks about the eight right now and they will all be playing this year. This would be for a potential 2026 season. Do we get everything through that press release? I think we've gotten a lot through there and it's interesting that they put new cities in there, which there was some concern I think on my end when I first saw this that they were going to expand. It's like, well, they own the ip as you talked about there with the USFL and even the XFL. I do wonder if, do they lean on that? Do they try that again? Do they try Orlando again? Do they try to put a team in New Orleans because of the ip? I don't know. I hope that this is a process where as they said in this release that they have a desire to be in the communities, have a desire to be for the UFL to be there. Yeah, we're just Exactly what James says there. Yes. Yeah, definitely should find because that's the thing, it's just been this weird kind of mishmash the question that you brought up as well, and we were talking to the group chat kind of getting ready for this. Yeah, do we go back to New Orleans and maybe it's the Breakers or maybe it's something else. Do we incorporate? We have the LA Wildcats and the Guardians and obviously they went to Orlando, but yeah, if I'm a Seattle fan, well I'm a Seattle fan, but if my friends that texted me today, of course, and this'll get into why I think they did this, but if I'm a Seattle fan, knowing that the team got taken away and they end up putting a team in San Diego or whatever, shout out Andy, am I mad that San Diego got an opportunity at this before we did and we were part of this and we kind of got mixed cut off in the chopping block there. What do you make of, if you're a fan of one of these existing franchises went away and then you don't get them coming back. Yeah, and I think are you going to have some sore people in Orlando? Which that was just such a bad team. I don't know that a lot of people wanted to show up to watch them. I mean frankly that's just how it was, but are you going to have some people who are going to be upset in some of these other markets? I think Tampa Bay is another market where it sounds like there are a lot of people who really wanted the Tampa Bay Bandits back in that community. I mean, I think that's going to be no matter who you mentioned that were former XFL or USFL teams. So yeah, I mean you do run that gamut of, or that risk of maybe alienating a fan base and losing those fans because oh yeah, you gave us a taste of this and then you took it away and now we're not getting it back, so why would we be invested in it? My camera here is tricking out. Maybe there, I think I got the hand control under and I think it wants to start tracking my head on here. So curious and then I put in the comments, cities opportunities, we'll go through all that. We'll kind of workshop all that. This is fun kind of our brainstorming today. We'll get to all of that. So where you live, where you want, I'm already seeing New Orleans, Huntsville, Mississippi, so put that in the comments. We'll kind of go through some of that workshop, but why now, John, I want to ask you and I'll give my thoughts why now on November 25th, we don't have any of this other stuff going on. Why did we decide to announce this today and put out an official press release? The timing, I don't understand, especially when we're still waiting for the schedule and maybe as I alluded to earlier, maybe it was like, okay, well we're going to try to ease into, we think the schedule release is going to be the big deal, but hey, let's maybe try to get a few headlines here. Listen, and if that's what they were trying to do, it worked. Go ahead. I mean if you look up UFL expansion right now on Google and hit the news tab, you're going to see a lot of responses so it never hurts to maybe get that out there. Listen, I was a little excited Sunday in the Fox pregame. It's like we're going to return with a Fox exclusive announcement and I thought maybe they're going to do it right now, but it was something about some race car thing and I don't know what it was, but maybe that they're trying to just drum up a little like, okay, let's get UFL on the headlines and then have the schedule release coming up. I mean you're trying to guess what they're doing if maybe there is a strategy there. I don't know. What do you think? Well, that's what I think and we were talking in the group today. Of course I wake up, Dorothy was doing conferences today, she's a teacher and so I get up and I just put in the group chat what the F is wrong with this league? And I know that I get the mystery negativity and all the time on that, but I'm like, why are we focused on this? Can we just get into year two? You want these cities to put the work in to get the bid. You haven't even really proven that you can do sustainable year after year on all these. We saw dwindling numbers on most of the markets. I mean even St. Louis and dc, which Greg Parks just put out a good article on UFL board talking that they were at one of the Sports Business Journal conference or something, Russ and whoever was there, and Greg, if you want to go look up Greg Parks'. I was just reading that before. They're talking about, oh, the success we had in St. Louis and dc. I'm like, you guys didn't make that none of the current successful UFL markets had anything to do with current management that was all carryover from 2020. So let's just put that in mind. But like you said, this is free marketing. We're going into the season. There's not a lot of buzz. We don't have a new hub, we don't have a merger, we don't have additional cities, but now we kind have the promise potentially new cities here in 2026 and seven. To me, like I said, my buddies texted me this morning, Hey, I mean the sea dragons are coming back. There you go. You already have people that were laps fans. That's good point. And now go and is it disingenuous? No, I mean I think that this is a real thing. I'm not saying that and I understand why they're doing this, but this is a hell of a lot cheaper than actually expanding this year or actually adding cities like, Hey, we're just going to have press release if you want to be involved in this. It's kind of like I see a lot on Twitter now where if someone will be like, well, if a team's looking for a football player or something like, well, they're currently looking at their options wherever, and you see these people like, Hey, if Sydney Sweeney wants to date me, I'm available. Yeah, sure. But the difference in that, but I think that there's part of that in there and you're setting up this like, Hey, we're so desirable now if you want us to come to your city, I like that it's a little bit of gravitas, whatever, a little bit of like, Hey, we have something to offer. I like that, but this does just feel like how can we get some buzz? And I would say, yeah, as soon as the MLS schedule comes out and maybe we have something next week of that just after the Thanksgiving break, maybe we get another kind of random news leak. But it does seem like just kind of a way that this kind of a slow week people are around. Let's see 'em talking about the UFL And I will say too, you talked about the success there of those markets, but let's look at the success, maybe some of the benchmarks of the UFL for maybe not just attendance but also for TV ratings and revenue. And I think if you look at that overall, you have to say that was successful, especially when you think about where that league started with that merger that seemed like it just happened overnight and then they're trying to get off the ground and trying to get these venues going and trying to get these teams together. I think overall that was a success. So to me, maybe this is a little bit of rah rah, listen, we had some success last year. Now look, we are growing, so we want to tell you that we're going to expand. And again, I think that the end game here is to have franchise owners, so if that's the case where there are maybe some potentials out there, some potential owners, they'll say like, okay, they had their initial season after the merger, it was a success. When you look at a lot of different benchmarks, maybe this is something that I will want to invest in because here's an opportunity. There's a lot of doublespeak here. We were told in addition to the trademark kind of them having all that back, the USFL was putting cities in places where they thought they had potential ownership, hasn't seen to be, there's a lot of doublespeak here and now as to your point, okay, maybe now we want the cities to reach out, but then do we have anyone in that city that wants to buy a team and franchise it? I mean we've seen in the CFL, and I don't know if I've always said that I hope that the UFL is starting to look at itself more like the CFL and not like the NFL where hey, we can put on whatever we want any day of the week, people are going to watch it's BDE come in here, we're going to take care of everything or the CFL, we got to build in the local communities, we got to engage the communities, we got to send out players. If you own one of these teams, you got to put in a ton of work. We were just a gray cup in BC ownership there, put in a ton of work more so than the three previous and no besmirch on any of those, but put in additional to kind show like, hey, we're really invested in this and so now, yeah, let's say you end up going to Tulsa and then you still don't have anyone there that wants to own the team. I guess the league can just, I don't know. It still feels a little messy to me. It still feels like heart before the horse and we kind of got to get something out here, but I don't, if you pick Portland and then you put a team there, do you have anyone in Portland that wants to own a team in the next five years? I dunno. Well, this is not unprecedented. I want to read you something here just really quickly Looking to add up to two new clubs to the 18 league as early as next season. The XFL has put together a platoon of expansion experts that will visit Washington DC on Tuesday. That was from March 23rd, 2001. So I don't want to be Debbie Downer, but these things have happened before. Now I'm not comparing the UFL to XFL 2001 because that went straight that way. I think the UFL is going this way, but when we start to talk about expansion, I think there will be, first of all, I think there will be a league in 2026, but 2025 is going to be very important to see if this expansion and these ideas and talking to these cities will work because they need to see something that they want to buy into. So I think there does need to be maybe some benchmarks that they have to meet and exceed in 2025 to make that happen. Well, and I guess that also leads me to ask that follow up because we've had Mike Mitchell on here a lot talk about, okay, this year is make or break for the UFL for Fox for everyone involved. Okay, last year we got through it and it was late merger, we couldn't do any of that. We're still on kind of the delayed timeline again this year and we don't have the merger so that leads to be desired, but I still think this is a make or break. I saw comments immediately when Mike Mitchell, I think he quote tweeted the press release and then he was adding his additional context and you had people asking like, oh, well this means we're set to go this year. Absolutely not. Like I said, this could all go away in an instant. I didn't think it was funny. I had because getting all these rollouts and we had the season tickets were available and then we had the home and away matchups and then we had the theme nights and I am nowhere near a Mike or an Evan or a Sam Shady. I'm talking with a lot of players and coaches. I mean people will reach out and I got friends I talked to, but I would never pretend that I'm in that whatever. But I did have a UFL coach reach out to me. Well, we don't have coaches, but we have theme nights. So I thought that was interesting and I don't know if that's a shared sentiment or if that's an individual opinion, but I thought that was interesting that this is all kind of glitz and glamor, but at the end of the day we still got to put football team on the field. Well, and we're starting to close in here. I mean was it March 28th is going to be the kickoff? So I don't think the main thing is, and I asked Darryl Johnson this question about does it feel like you're miles ahead already because the merger's over now and now you're starting to plan. So I'm okay with this rollout right now because there are obviously some things behind the scenes that they have got to get ironed out and like you said, they're probably waiting on the MLS schedule so they can figure out with DC and some other places and how they're going to move things around. But yeah, I'm okay with this because they can focus on these, I think they can focus on these kinds of things. Maybe not to our liking, but to the fan base in general where they can say, yeah, hey, we got this happening. We're already planning for this, which were probably things that they couldn't even begin to think about this time last year as they got ready to go into the first season of the UFL. Yeah, it's also you always want to have a publicly outward facing kind of positive image and this does speak to you, Hey, see we're looking, we're doing, as opposed to hat in hand, them calling the CFL, excuse me, a couple years ago like, Hey, would you like to talk about any of this stuff? This feels like I'm a freelancer, I do weddings. When you go to events and you're like networking things, everybody's doing great. Oh, I got lots of gigs and I'm so booked and I got all this. So it's a thing, I mean perception, you fake it till you make it. And even when I started the company, there was a lot of we and us and whatever, even though it was just me for a long time. But I'm saying all that, we have some comments here and we kind of help spur any other conversation here talking about team numbers and cities and all that. I did like this, our friend Gregory and then we were just talking about Gregory the other day. He goes, why expansion now? They fell the stallion speed competition. So I like that. Well, we beat all the teams. We got to, we need some new teams to beat. I like it. But any other thoughts on that? I can keep going to other comments here. I mean the stallions have been the Yankees of all these leagues here for a while, so no, I get it. I think Birmingham, Mike Mitchell wrote something, I think it was before this past season started about how Birmingham was the gold standard. And it's true and it's just too bad. That city I thought should have embraced Birmingham a little more, but I think some of that comes to talking to some people in Birmingham when I was down there this past spring, they frankly, some people in the general public didn't know that the Birmingham stallions existed. So there's something to that, to your point as you were talking earlier, you've got to get into these communities and you've got to really start working on these things. I got there the day before and went out to the stadium just kind of walking around. The only Birmingham stallion sign that I saw was a small sign over the ticket window and where the media passes were that said Birmingham stallions media credential pickup. So there could be a lot more things and I think that was the case in a lot of cities that the marketing efforts, they need to be there and maybe not just be seasonal workers. What I would like is some sort of deck to come out of. This is what a UFL team, they have their press release, okay, we're looking for you certain demographics, certain whatever. I would like that to be a little bit more public. I thought just speaking to Birmingham, that really spurred my memory of when we used to have Roy S. Johnson that we could come on a lot and he wrote for al.com, He did a lot of the research there with the Birmingham, what was that, the BJ C or whatever kind the conglomeration around there, but he had numbers. There was this much increase in attendance over a comparable period years before and there was this much more revenue and I think parking made this much more. We had all these different kind of infusions of that to show the benefits there was of a spring football at that point, A-U-S-F-L franchise being there. And so I would like, can we get either from the league, what do they feel like some of these teams are worth? I think obviously we're talking the CFL here and this is a very similar, just having just gone through this bidding process with Winnipeg and the Calgary getting the gray cups. I just view it similarly that way, but obviously we have way more track record knowing what the gray cup means to an influx, but what does this mean from the teams? And then like you said, what are they looking for? I mean we have the press release and it says we want, lemme just put it back up here. We're looking for fan interest, existing sports culture, geography, population and venue and infrastructure availability. That's kind of a weird statement. Anyway, I don't know who Russ is. Russ, come on Russ. But what does that mean specifically? I would love to know fans of this league that are tracking its growth would love to know what exactly are you looking for? What kinds of fans are you looking for? What kind of populations are you looking for? Do you want to be in markets with an NFL team? Do you want to be in only markets that don't have an NFL franchise or I would just love more transparency of that. I know that we always want that in these spring leagues, but just more data and analytics that way. We did get a really good picture and the USFL, at least that first, and I think it was the first two years there in Birmingham, Roy was able to track positive growth throughout even if we poo-pooed the attendance or whatever, but It Meant a lot to the city. So I would just be curious now, now that we have even more years of research under our belts of like, well yeah, what does a DC Defender's home game average bring in? What kind of revenue are we? What kind of concessions are we getting there? What kind of gate revenue? I would just like to know that are people coming into town? Are you traveling with the team to come in or are you live on the east coast? I don't know. I'm rambling there, but does that make sense? It does. And when I read that passage there, it sounds like they're looking for data, whether they're trying to gather that data themselves or they want the cities to come back and give them that data, What should we be looking For? Please tell us. Right, right. It's right. It's like can you give us this information or how is that going to work? Again, it kind of goes back to my question of how this process that they were talking about really works. Are they going into these markets? Is there some corporate matchmaker happening here? I'd like to know those are the things they want when they talk about infrastructure and they talk about really population and demographics and the fan interest and the culture and all that of these cities, then where does that data come from and who's trying to gather that? Are they trying to gather that? Do they want the cities to provide that? I don't know. A couple of questions here. This will spur Abdul just this funny A UFL with a lot of XFL 2001 TV rating The first week. They probably would not the last week. Very true. And like I said, while we're just on like and subscribe, join the channel, help support, I think we can put on some new, we got a ton of subscribers with the CFL sub, which was great. I think we even added a couple new members there that 99 cents a month. Nice Getting that extra 12 bucks or whatever in my pocket with all that. But John Tanner has a question here. I think it's really good. What do you think the team cap should be for their foreseeable future? I become spoiled with the quantity of talent the UFL currently has. I don't want to dilute it. I think it's very important we're still dealing with this second, third tier athlete, however you want to look at it here with the CFL and all of these alt leagues, we kind can see that we can put a decent seven, eight teams on the field here. But are you worried about expansion kind of diluting that talent base? Yeah, that's a really good question. I think Tanner brings up a good point because that's what's going to happen. Because I mean when you look at what happened with, you had the USFL and the XFL playing the one year at the same time, there were some bad teams in there and we really didn't see that to that point. Or even if teams didn't have a great record, you didn't see a lot of bad play. I didn't feel like that was an exception rather than the rule when you saw a team that just had just bad play or get overwhelmed by something. Now we did see that in the UFL championship, but you're right, I think there probably needs to be a little bit of an influx of you want them to come in here to all things being equal. You're going to have to have some more funds to pay these players. I mean that's just math, but I think you want it where you're going to get, let's say there's 10 teams in 2026, you want 10 good quarterbacks, you want 10 good coaches. I don't know what kind of cap you're going to put on the team as a whole or is there going to be maybe a different cap or just a straight salary for the coaches? Something. I don't understand how any of the mathematics and finances work there, but I agree Tanner has a good point there. You don't want to just bring in teams, maybe lower how much you're going to pay, then you're just not going to have a great league. And that's the one thing that I really liked about the UFL last year was we saw a lot of good play over the entire season. Yeah, I think there was a lot of comments when we had both leagues going back and at the same time kind of compete. There might not be 16 spring football quality starting quarterbacks right now, right? There might not be whatever that number would be. Offensive linemen quality. I remember we had Eric gco on years ago if you want to look at the past YouTube step, but we had him on the former DPP back in the XFL 2020. They're involved in that with Sam and everyone and what were the biggest concerns for him in terms of roster building the numbers and all that stuff. Denzel, I see your question here. We'll talk AJ at the end. I do want to mention the AJ stuff and I don't want to forget about the Switzerland stuff. So Denzel, I've got your thing, whatever. Gregory here, and this is funny. On a serious note, the NFL probably wants to see robust spring football. Every team wants their Jake Banks at Brandon Aubrey side note, really a rollercoaster for Reed yesterday. Oh man, the Dallas Cowboys special teams. I hate all of them just because they're the cowboys. Brandon Aubrey's been on the show, he'd be great guy. We joke a lot in the chat about, oh, I hope he misses just because it's the Cowboys. If he played for any other team, I hate the Cowboys commanders fan, but we had Brandon Aubrey blocked field goal, missed extra point and then I think he almost missed one of the field goals. I'm like living life. Living life. And then that damn Avante turman with the game ceiling kick return, incredible 99 yard. That spin move was just unreal. Dropped the ball, went through his legs and they always talk about that disrupts the timing. Everyone's coming down that extra half. Anyway, I almost threw my phone against the wall. I was very, very frustrated With that. I can imagine. And there's a former New Jersey general right there who's getting it done. You're right. And you saw, I can't remember what the final numbers were, but how many UFL players ended up at least getting a shot in camp, being a practice player ended up on a roster. I mean there were a lot, and I think he's right. I think the NFL does want viable spring football because certainly college football, NCAA college football, that's their free training camp. That's their free farm teams for the NFL. But I think if you have some players who aren't NFL ready but could really enhance their play and become good players as we've seen this year through spring football, why would they not want it? I do worry though that if the NFL decides to dip in on it, if they lose a dollar, they're going to shut it down. We've seen that too often. So I'm kind of on the fence there about how much do I want the NFL involved with the UFL? Yeah, It's just hard. And I know this would never happen just because of injuries and everything, but we've seen what's happened this season with an Anthony Richardson, right, Right. Wouldn't that be awesome? And I understand if football wasn't nearly as violent, right? But yeah, we see this all the time in hockey where you draft a player, even the Kraken right now, we draft a player, they're not ready. We go send 'em to play in Europe, kind of does the track that way where we send 'em to the miners and then we bring 'em up. Look at someone like Anthony and someone had just put Indianapolis in here was kind of made me thinking about it in terms of teams. Send someone like him to the Spring league, get 10 weeks of rep, get kind of comfortable with it. Can the Colts loan someone? Can we make some relationships that way? I understand it's totally different, but hockey does that a lot and I just think that works as you get all these guys coming in and they just aren't ready to go and then they kind of fall to that. I had a comment I lost on that. Yeah, here it was. Indianapolis will be spending 30,000 on MLS style Stadium Entertainment District. I believe they'll be interested. They already hosted half of the Spring league back in, what was that, the 2021 season. Brian Woods famously housed the players there in the hotel district, did not pay his bills and left the city with a $1.2 million in debt. So Indianapolis might be a little bit on the fence about getting back involved in the spring football. If you missed Brian Scott, great cup winning champion quarterback here, third. Third on the depth chart with the Argos. His name will be on the trophy. Jack Hill will not this season, which is interesting was part of the CFL show. If you want to catch him with Brian. That's on our, it's all time coded on there, but wonderful talk with Brian about the CFL. Brian Woods building, the Spring league, got the cardboard boxes in his garage. Really great to catch up with Brian, my mom. He was the shining point. My mom says that boy at the end was really nice. That's great. But yeah, Andy could be one of those teams. You're right, they might be a little gun shy there with that, but I think there are a lot of opportunities. The question is, and Mike Mitchell is in the know if it's going to be two in 2026 and maybe two in 2027, who are the four and how much of an I are they going to keep on this? And you got to think about geography too. There's a lot that goes into this because more than likely, unless something changes, these teams aren't going to be housed there in their cities. I mean I'd love to see that because you just have so much community support, especially in a lot of places. I mean take Andy for example. Obviously their football crazy in the fall, but they do have a lot of spring sports there, but that could be community centric. There are a lot of places like that. As we were talking earlier, 2025 is going to be a resume for these cities and this expansion for the next two years. So let's look here at cities. I had a comment from Leon and just speaking with Mike, Mitch and all of that. Yeah, I hear that Ohio is a strong possibility. That's very true. Mike Mitchell reporting before the merger and the cities came out and he's doubled down on that afterward Ohio, very much in the mix. There could have been 10 teams going into the merger. They ended up settling for eight, so we bounced back to 10. Kind of do that slow increase that way. We do Ohio, Andy Murray, San Diego resident seems down on San Diego now. We've lived through Vegas. I don't think you go back to Seattle. Lum is too expensive, it's too far Travel. Do you look in Oakland somewhere? I think that would be kind of cool Spurred fan base there. John, where do you see if you do Ohio, which I think is pretty a no brainer to add back into this just because it was originally, but where do you do that East Coast? I don't think Portland works. I don't think Seattle works. I think that's too far north. Yeah, I love Oakland and I know there are so many issues there with California. There's been a lot of talk about a lot of governmental, there's restrictions and insurance and a lot of things that happen there with California where it might price the UFL out of business as far as trying to put a team there. But all things being equal, it seems to me what worked for St. Louis was a team that was jilted and they have a very strong base. To me, San Diego or Oakland would certainly fit that bill if you've got the right venue. But the thing is too, if you have a West Coast team, do you need two out there or do you try to do another Midwestern like Ohio, which I think Columbus would be the area to do it and have your two expansions be one over here and one over here. To me, the UFL needs a west coast presence and if it's not Seattle or Portland, to me it's got to be Southern California. The other, and just to go back to this is I'm in my head here just trying to picture the map and everything and these teams and okay Northeast, we have DC right? We're not in New York or New Jersey, but we're kind of there, right? Trying to get the West coast, this whole, okay, we're soliciting, give us your bits, the contrarian. Shouldn't the UFL know what markets work for them now as opposed to like you tell us if you want, I don't know. I don't want to be that to go back to that. But they have analytics now. Shouldn't Redbird and Fox and just, it's like the CFL with the genius sports. We have all this. Shouldn't they know where they want to play now? And maybe they do. I mean maybe this is a press release to get a few headlines and to let people know we are growing and we're going to start trying to look in these different communities. I don't think they flew blind into this. I don't think someone woke up this morning and said, let's put out a press release. I think there's probably a little bit more thinking behind it. So I have to think that they at least have some target cities. I know even when the previous UFL back in the mid two thousands, they aimed at, I think there were 21 different cities they were aiming at. That UFL was weird because they actually played in the fall, they didn't play against the NFL. They played around the NFL, which the commissioner Michael Hughes said he didn't think spring football would ever work because of the time you needed to play in the fall. That's another story. But so you have to think that they have a lot more information than, Hey, let us know if you want a team, we will come talk to you. I have to think there are some target markets that they have in some dossier somewhere that Redbird and Disney and Fox have put together. This is interesting. I was just kind of, so a couple things here, just what I'm working on in the back here. So you had talked about just wanting to get in the news period and all this stuff here. I mean you look at this, this is more people, they wrote about the UFL in months, right? You got sport, the Coast Sports Illustrated Bleacher Report, the Newsroom Sports Business Journal. We even have 1 0 4 0.3 Idaho. Yes, Idaho. Well good you have, there you Go. But you're getting all these involved or you're having the mixed. But I thought it was interesting and so I pulled up obviously friends with our people over at Sport Co. I don't know Jason Klink Dale, but I've had a lot of the sport core reporters on, looks like he did a phone interview with Russ Brandon kind of in conjunction with all this. And so obviously they have the original quote here. This is from the press release talking about that. But I thought it was interesting in phone interview, Brandon declined to reveal which cities the league is considering nor information on expansion fees. We're going to stick with the integrity of the process that is having open mind and good communications with our fellow markets to see where it takes us. Talked about St. Louis having both strong. I've given my thoughts on all that stuff, but St. Louis has obviously been the model franchise. We've had tremendous support there from the legacy into the legacy XFL into the UFL. We've seen that across many of our markets. We'll be patient very disciplined with our process and we'll continue internally to work through all the metrics that we've set ourselves. Those are a whole lot of words. I don't know that it really reveals much of a strategy. It's good, open mind, good communication. I mean we should all have that in our professional and personal lives. But I mean it's fine. He declined to reveal which cities the league's considering. So to me there considered A couple. Wouldn't you leak a couple just to be like, yeah, we're thinking about Phil stuff We're thinking about and frankly maybe they're floating this to see, okay, there was a lot of interest here. We're starting to see some returns. People are talking about that maybe we leak something out there, especially one that they might really like a city they really covet that could very well be kind of the strategy behind this. We're playing a guessing game, not in those rooms. So it's really hard to say what the strategy is here, but at least they are talking international forum. They are talking to the fans and the general public in a press release. I mean those are all good things to me. Leon has a question here and then I have another intro I'm liking. I'm doing this. So then as Sports Business Journal has some quotes as well, different quotes, I like that. I'm kind of doing this in the background, but Leon has a question. How many trademarks I can put up here? How many trademarks does the UFL still have the rights to? A lot I am on, and I can't even remember how the heck I signed up, but you can sign up for basically notifications of anytime the XFL. I mean now it's been grandfathered in, but anytime the XFL, the UFL, but I get stuff all the time. I was getting stuff the other day, the Orlando Renegades, they're still working through the check process. The Showboats are still working through that. Was it Denver Gold in there? Denver Gold's in there. Tampa Bay Viper is still working through, let me just read through real quick. I don't know if this is interesting, John Van for just a second while I pull this up. Okay. Yeah. And I remember you told me the website and I started going in there and it was a rabbit hole of all the trademarks that they had and it started to cause a lot of speculation too because people were going in there, especially Denver Gold. I mean, I would love to see a team at Denver that would be great, but just because you own the trademarks doesn't mean that you're necessarily, you own that to keep it in your back pocket. I think not necessarily like, okay, they're going to go to Denver or they're bringing back the Orlando Renegade or anything like that. Yeah, no, I got quite a few domains in Jerry Marks and url. But yeah, mean, like I said, this is just going back to, let's just go back. I get a lot of emails from this. I just kind of junk 'em all in the back, but got the Renegade Showboats, Vipers Alpha Entertainment. We've got the Bandits, Birmingham stallions. These are all working through updates on their stuff. The LA Express, the LA Express, Denver Gold, new Orleans Breakers, still working through that. The Blitz, Arizona outlaws the gold in conjunction with the Denver Gold. I think Canton was part of that too. The Canton Gold. Oh yeah. We're still working through, we have a fifth statement, request for extension to use. He hate me. That was updated as of October for the love of football. We're still working through. I did want to buy that one. I was trying to, at one point when they were working through, I was like, man, if they let that lapse, I'm picking up the front level of football. I want to have that trademark Jacksonville football. So there's a lot. The Outlaws still working through it. So yes, to answer Leon's question, they still have quite a few. Like John said, these aren't all guarantees. It's very cheap, especially if you have Fox lawyers to kind of file and work through all of these things. But it is something interesting to keep in Mind. Yeah, it's fun to talk about and it's fun to dream about. Like, oh my goodness, can you imagine again the Denver Gold, which was an interesting franchise and the story in itself. But yeah, I think you keep a lot of those in your back pocket just in case. And maybe one of those cities are like, Hey, you guys already own this. Let's sit down and talk. The other article I wanted to pull up here, so this is from the Sports Business Journal. Again, similar quotes and everything from the press release, but talking, getting another phone interview. Brandon cited the league's ratings following this initial 2024 season as to why it feels comfortable attempting to add more franchises. We've had a lot of early, this is a quote now. We've had a lot of early excitement around the league. Obviously that's been shown with our ratings, all the measurements from the engagement standpoint, the UFL average 850,000 viewers over its 40 telecast in 24. It came from the merger. Spring football may have been too saturated with both. They average 34% fewer viewers when both were in there. They believe they'll find an optimal number. We're going to see what the sweet spot is, continue to do our due diligence and see where that plays out. The league has not consulted any banks or lawyers on the expansion process, as Brandon believes its network of leaders and investors gives the league what it needs. We're doing everything internally right now with the power of the individuals that comprise our leadership group. We're going through this first phase initially. Then we'll see what resources we need. That's interesting that was below the fold. I hadn't even gotten that far. I like that we not involved in anyone. We know what we're Doing, we're just kind of sitting around a table at the office and talking about it. Kind of like we're doing right here, right here and trying to figure out, that sounds right. Yeah, That meme where it's the guy that's like, what are you doing? Like me? Nothing, just hanging around. That's it kind of feels like what this is right now. Yeah. There's more to this I really think, and hopefully we'll see that unfold as we get closer. I don't think we're going to hear a lot. This might be as much as we hear unless they do leak a couple of cities that they might be looking at. But I think this was to get UFL in the headlines maybe. And then so people are talking about the UFL and then maybe we'll get a schedule release because frankly when the home and away schedule came out that was just which teams are playing, which I mean, I don't know that did a lot of traction outside of our niche or how many people, I Don't think it did a lot of traction in our niche. You might be right. I mean how many people were really interested in that because it was like, okay, well BI is playing here and they're playing here. Well, I mean it's eight teams. You kind of got that figured out, but I think this could be a process of getting the name out there, getting the UFL and headlines. Even though we're in the middle of N-F-L-C-U-F-L, we're in the middle of the NFL season and then as we move forward here, does Fox have the Super Bowl this year? Fox does. Yeah. So there's some opportunity there. There's some opportunity for the UFL once again to get a lot of eyeballs and maybe people who didn't even realize it was a thing last year. In fact, I had someone in sports media ask me today the UFL, is that the thing that Vince McMahon is involved in? So this is someone in sports media so they can get some more eyeballs involved here and hopefully maybe the Super Bowl can help that as well. And we even have a, Mike Mitchell was talking today, he's been talking with a lot of his CFL people and they claim to know this or know that Andy and I and Evan had more people asking us about the UFL from the CFL media side. They sit there and oh this in the league and all this kind stuff. Yeah, Leon had a comment here. What's Vince McMahon doing? Definitely out on Vince. I dunno if you've been keeping track of all the news lately, but they just had the Vince McMahon documentary very out of that. It was really good. The Netflix documentary series was actually really good, but if you watch that, you don't want anything to do with Vince McMahon If you did already Abdul bring back Vegas. I still think if you could have figured out something with Sam Boyd or somewhere else, they had that loyal 6,000 people there. The other comment I wanted to bring up here, I dunno how long you want to stay on this for a few minutes hopefully we'll kind of Van Dorothy, I'm here with you brother In the article Greg shared and maybe I can pull that up, but they were talking about, it was about Russ Brandon talking this season about kind of the work they have going on in the markets. We've seen hiring for all that. I know Greg's been kind of tracking all of that and just can we get two or three years of just sustainable UFL off season living? I mean I know this is such the sugar rush and everything else, but yeah, can we get eight people in each market just building? I think San Antonio is going to be awful this year just because of the lack of the additional home game. The four home games they have are really backloaded to the end of the season. There's already issues at play here without kind of anything else, But I think it is a positive sign. I follow, you're on LinkedIn too and UFL will pop up and it's like, hey, we're hiring for this, we're hiring for that. I think those are all good signs, but I think too, as we started this conversation, 2025 is make or break. So I think that you really could, if this is another successful season, they hit those benchmarks, meet or exceed a lot of other things that they're trying to look at this year. I think you do see that. I think you start to see more than seasonal hirings. I think you see them getting to the communities, especially if you're going to go into expansion. If you have an expansion team and I don't care where it is. Again, as we were talking about Birmingham, there were a lot of people in the general public who didn't know what the stallions were. So if you can get into these whatever expansion communities you want to get into, and maybe I'm putting the cart before the horse, but you've got to get in there in the community and you can't do it by hiring people in November or December or January. You've got to get those people in there ready to go through the season and then as soon as the season's over to start showing out at these different events that are in the community. A couple comments here. Abdul San Antonio issue, we're just talking kind of the backlog. It could happen with Panthers. Ford Field was hosting the final four in 27, let's get to 27. That was like when the Kraken were looking for their off season, they were hiring a new coach in the off season. We were talking like Rob, Brendan Moore was over with the Carolina Hurricanes and they go, well Rob's good but he can't make a deep playoff run. It's like, let me get a coach that can get us to the playoffs then we can deal with that. Let's get to 27. Sam here. LOL 25 isn't make or break shut up. We don't need that kind of language, but I would like to know why Sam doesn't feel that way's been Reported bad vibes on a holiday week, man. But if you don't think that 2025 is not make or break, I don't know mean we're on completely polar opposite of opinion here because if they don't have a good 2025, do you really think that they're going put more good money after bad now? I'm optimistic. I think we used to talk about the welfare check when we would talk about before the season and with the UFL man who knew? I didn't know. I didn't know, but after what I saw in 2024, I'm certainly optimistic about 2025. But it can't be a disaster and it's certainly, but it can't be below a certain thresholds. I think of ratings and revenue and those kinds of things because they're not going to continue to invest in it. Slink the whole like, oh we're working on merchandise and we're working on this. We're like, and people are like Reed, you just need to give them time. Spring football never has the benefit of time, never has the benefit. We need to make the best we can right now. That's why we talk about it because if you sit around and say everything is fine, then this goes away here. Where's Leon? The 25 is definitely make or break The other thing. So I want to talk the sports business journal thing. Yeah, Leon caught the sports business journal video. They seem very bullish. Again, every freelancer I know is booked all the time and business is crazy and all that stuff. But this was interesting, just some quotes. So they were here at the Sports Business Journals Media Innovators conference. That's nice. We're talking through all this stuff, this REST brand and it's about money and execution. Now with the backers we have capital won't be an issue. Patience isn't going to be an issue even though we're moving to expand here before maybe we were ready for it, but I don't think execution is going to be the issue. The other thing I just thought was interesting in this, again this is Greg Parks over here. I would encourage everyone to check this out on UFL board. This just came out today, we're set up as a single entity. We did so to maximize speed and flexibility for us as a collective in terms of exits and how we think about return on investment, there's a number of outcomes. We could definitely sell franchises, we could keep it as a single entity. So I know we know that, but I just always appreciate that the vocalizing kind of just how they're viewing this, how they're viewing potential expansion and franchising, all of that stuff. And I liked that because this was in Sports Business Journal. You see that there were a lot of where they talked about some of the numbers behind it that we don't always see. I do want to point out something, if you'll scroll down just a little bit, you see that Dick's Sporting Good UFL store. I'm just going to say that thanks to Greg's page. I was on there and I was like, what is this? And I clicked on there and they had deeply discounted Under Armour UFL stuff. So I really hope that Greg got a cut of that. They had some incredible prices and I went on there and bought some stuff. But to your point there about the Sports Business Journal, those forums are exactly like you said about freelancers. Those are to get up there and kind of market yourself because really kind of a marketing thing. But I love where they can really talk about a lot of the numbers and you see one of the things the digital users on the ESPN app, which sometimes we didn't get a lot of those numbers. I would love to know overall what's the viewing public, not just percentage wise, but who's watching on these apps. And that's where you get into demos too and maybe that's just something I'm interested in, but it feeds into the bigger question of how many people are watching the UFL and I'm sure they probably put that into the 850,000, but we really don't get streaming numbers that often if ever. So that would be interesting to know. Hey there Sam. So we have massive backers, all this stuff. Keep in mind Disney just canceled the acolyte after 180 million Star Wars series or I think it was $185 million Star Wars series they were working on because it didn't meet the viewership and there was a lot of backlash and everything in terms of them working Star Wars, but they just scraped that. They're like, we're done. So if you don't think that having money involved in this from these leagues or from these companies and that's Disney, A, B, C, right? Obviously they're a part owner kind of stuff. I mean you slash products all the time. I mean this isn't just because, oh, we've put two years and 30 million into the UFL acolyte was gone like that and that a lot bigger project And it's not losing money. It's not the only factor. It is a big factor. Paramount had layoffs. We're starting to see these large TV ownership groups who are starting to gut stations right now and it's because it's all money. If you look at the media layoffs that have happened this year, CNN had an article recently about, and they ran down all the media companies that had layoffs. Remember there are two media companies that are involved in this. So if they start losing money, it might not be the only factor saying, but it's going to be a big factor. The other interesting thing here just to kind of round this out, that the moderator, this is all of the panel. So moderator took questions to the audience. One asked for a breakdown of focus between local revenue and tickets versus television viewership, which I would, that would also be my question and what do we care about all this? They goes, Brandon told a story of the Battle Hawks fan tailgate hours before home game. He talked about wanting to build the local markets using the hub and then wanting to get people in there. They know they have staff of eight to 10 people in each market building the basis for our league. We've enormously pleased with the reach and engagement, but I like that. Russ, what can you give us about this? The tailgates in St. Louis are really crazy because we talk about that all the time. Do you care more? Is this a built for TV product? Do you talk about We get all the time, the comments and all this stuff. Oh, attendance doesn't matter. They're making so much money on tv. But then there's still now in all of these, now this expansion, all these talks and what markets we want to go to. It's we need fans, we want hungry fans. This isn't just a tell. I would love to know the breakdown of that, but anytime anyone says the attendance doesn't matter because they make all their money on tv, it's just foolish to me. Well, the USFL, that was a TV product and what was the big knock on the USFL? People didn't want to watch it. There were no one, there was no one at the games except for the stallions games in 2022, the stallions games were packed. Everyone else, it looks like it was a high school practice. There were a few people in the stands there. I went there for an entire weekend and it was unbelievable Birmingham's there. It's like a awesome atmosphere. And then every other game there's a hundred people there. So that was the big knock because the visuals weren't very good on network television and it was a TV product. The XFLI felt was trying to build a more traditional one with not just a great TV product, but they were trying to put these teams in the communities and then that's what you have the conglomeration of both these leagues together and it's not just a TV product because the USFL, it didn't look good. It didn't work that way. So I think attendance does matter and maybe not even to the revenue side of it. It matters to the optic side of it when you're watching on television because if anyone who doesn't really know about the UFL and they turn it on, they're like, well, nobody cares to show up. Why would I care to watch it? Yeah, John here, John, just confirming with you, yeah, that was Foxy where cost cutting first rather than thinking marketing. Put your comments in the chat. I want to touch on the Switzerland stuff and then I want to touch on the AJ battle hawk stuff and then if anyone else has anything that way I've lost my screen break down here. What do you think? And I want to see if I can just pull up the press release. What do you think of this showcase? What is it next fall in Switzerland? In Switzerland? I don't even think they put it on the website. Lemme see if I can get the press release up. What do you think Of that? I don't know what to think of it. It is like how much football talent comes out of Switzerland, number one. Number two, is that a market that you're trying to reach internationally? I don't understand why this is happening. I mean I really don't. And if there's a press release, maybe they explain that. I don't remember seeing a press release. That's what I saw. So I don't mark your calendars for what? I don't understand what we're marking our calendars for. Is it going to be some kind of televised event? I mean that might be kind of cool, but I don't understand why Switzerland. I mean I don't get it. Philip here says the UFL purchases elf, the UFL wishes they had the attendance and fans and money and teams that ELF has. I think that would be the, that's the other way around of Elf moving into the states before the U moving. I'm telling you why the ELF is not, I can't imagine that the pay-per-view thing is really working out here in the states how they don't have a TV contract here yet. I don't get it because I mean when you see some of the highlights and I watch some of the videos there, it's incredible. But yeah, you're right. It might be the other way around on that one. But yeah, no, the thing that's interesting about this, and I had someone involved back in XFL 2020 reach out to me when this came about and they said basically if you wanted to talk about Germany or somewhere maybe that there was maybe a proven record of time, but to them it felt like this is executives wanting to plan a vacation and we can go surprised about Hawaii or The Bahamas, but remember how pissy people were. When was the FL did a showcase in Hawaii. The rock was there and they wanted do a track, but I mean the rock lives there, so that was, okay, how can we get the rock involved in this? We're going use this as a marketing thing, right? They utilized a lot of that. But then also there is a lot of players in Hawaii in the islands and kind of in that area of the world that came in and they, spoiler alert, I think that was the most talent there signed to the league of any of the showcases, right? I mean it was high in terms of any showcases or part visibility, part making money part trying to just, we're filling press releases and do whatever, but it actually was successful. But I can't figure out how this Switzerland thing's going to work out. I don't. And the player 54 episode from Hawaii was really good. That was one of the most memorable ones. That was a really good episode where the rock went back to some of his old stomping grounds. It was emotional, it was really good. Switzerland, I don't get, maybe it is a vacation. Like, well Adam Sandler signs these movie deals and he sets 'em all in Hawaii or all these tropical islands. So he gets to go there and shoot for six months and some Tropical place. We're doing a romantic comedy of a couple with, but it's going to be in Africa. John, the story can only be told in the Serengeti, you want to go on the planes here and we want to do all that stuff. There's something to, they already did Hawaii. It's almost like Max maybe listening to the show. I dunno if not Christina here. Hallelujah. It's great to hear news back expansion. Now remember, Christina is a member here. You always get your comments read if you're a remember here, 99 cents a month. I appreciate Christina that reaching out for that. I think I did see two, I think I'm eligible now for the Twitter memberships. I was like, Ooh, I'm going to start making all my secret tweets. Yeah, I feel here. I like this showcase episode in Switzer. I dig It. That's a's a great idea. That's a write off. Well, it is one, but we did the showcase in Arizona. It just sucks because you can't really tell what's going, they always get like, oh, are you seeing players? You're not really, they're running drills and stuff. I mean we had fun talking to the coaches and it was just more of a kind of cool experience that way. But it's not like you're, oh, the secret unknown Swiss quarterback. It's just going to be, isn't going to happen that way. I think Pat Rafino went to, there was one in St. Louis maybe, and there was a lot of access to or in that area and there was a lot of access to coaches and I dunno about players, but they got some really good stuff. He got some really good stuff with some of the coaches. Yeah. Yeah. Pat's always in St. Louis. Except when we went to the championship game, of course didn't be in St. Louis. That was good. Same when I was in St. Louis. He was working or somewhere. He was somewhere else. Speaking of, I want to touch on that. If anyone has any questions about this, we'll probably get done here at the bottom of the hour. This whole AJ battle hawks thing. I am curious your thoughts on this. You've been to the Battle Hawks games and obviously with the merch, this to me is the biggest pissy pants story I've ever seen here. What is your thoughts on the AJ thing? Yeah, I didn't really like it and frankly I didn't like it from AJ McCarren's perspective and maybe he was wronged. That could have been the case. I don't think he handled it great even with the response. I think the social media post, it might've been on Twitter that he put out about something about I didn't get a phone call or it doesn't work both ways, but thank you St. Louis. And it was, I didn't like it from any part. Sometimes I understand this is not the NFL, I mean even NFL players, they sometimes don't handle things great. So I thought it was, I didn't like it. You're right. It was kind of pissy and I think Beck tried to clean it up a little bit, but I mean they said they wanted to send him out the right way, but they needed to do some other things. I don't know. I didn't like it. It didn't feel good. And I know the one thing he said about not wanting to ride the plane with the opposing team, it's like you can still be competitive and ride. Now listen, I've never taken a snap of professional football, but you can still ride the plane and be competitive with the other team. You're all kind of in the same boat together here. You're all trying to work toward the same goal. I mean you live in the same city and you're probably practicing. And I remember there, I think it was with the first season of the UFL that there were some other players that kind of wandered into the stadium watching practice and didn't realize that they weren't supposed to be there. So it is what it is it. It's not the NFL, but I thought he could have handled it a little better, especially publicly. Yeah. I just have questions here. Who you guys think replaces aj? Jan here. AJ has to understand the stance of the league, its development. If he wants more money or the NFL, go find another lead. You're tasting, Right? I mean that's what kills me. Philip here, silvers is out the door. I wouldn't count on Brett, the white knight here riding that, but that's what kills me is again, just talking to freelance saying I do a lot of gigs and I do a lot of weddings and some weddings are really nice and some weddings are not so nice and some things are really going in and if you're agent McCarran and you're like, I'm going into this UFL and I want my kids to see me play, then you can't then be like, well if it wasn't for my kids, I would've walked the hell out of this league. Right? Okay, you can do that. You are an adult man and you can do anything you want and you chose to come, but I just don't like that later you knew what you're getting involved in. It was kind of like the whole pizza gate and all that stuff. You're going into these spring leagues. They kind of got the history. I wouldn't be surprised by any of this. And he even asked for his release from the Bengals because he wanted to play, he wanted to play in the UFL in his kids. And I was there before one of the games and he's coming in, walking in to all the fans and his kids are there and his whole family and it was really cool. But yeah, I don't like to call the UFL Minor League. A lot of people do. It's a professional football league. I don't think it's minor to anything unless you're trying to compare it to the NFL and I don't know, a lot of people are doing that. But like you said, it's not the top tier of professional football. You knew what you're getting into and then to complain about it afterward because you got jilted by your team. I don't know. I mean I just thought it was bad. But listen, here's one thing. If he does stay in the UFL, he says he wants to, nothing's going to change, but he says he's going to get an opportunity to beat the battle hawks twice or whatever. So at least it gives you some kind of storyline. I don't know. I dunno. I don't like that. It seems a little weird to me. Philip here, silvers is a legend roughnecks with the B Arlington if he had played rolling back to the, I guess the expansion talk today. Before we get out of here, anyone else has any comments? Like I said, I'm kind of over my thoughts on the battle hawks anyway and it's just like, see Notorious USFL hater, notorious XFL hater, notorious St. Louis Battle Hawks hater. I got it. Actually I did have one quick question I forgot. So I'll be curious going forward here, the rocks level of involvement in this league, just because this RED one movie has totally flopped. Shocker, But also it costs 250 million. I believe I saw the first Avengers movie costs like 160 million. So the fact that Red one costs more than, and don't quote me on that, but Red one costs more than the first Avengers movie, but that crashed. Obviously the black Adam thing wasn't working out. The BCU universe, I watched that movie, really Bad Rock just had an article about he wants to do more indie movies and kind of disappear and he's kind of tired of always playing the same role and all that kind of stuff. I'm just curious where the UFL fits into this new 2025 rock. Just curious your thoughts on that. And then I have another Russ Brandon comment we can go through. Yeah, I do wonder, and if he is going to maybe take a more hands, it felt like he and Danny Garcia were going to be, they talked about being really hands-on with this and being involved. I never felt that they were that involved this year. Certainly publicly, I don't know. I wasn't there behind the scenes. I just thought I would see a lot more of them other than what we saw before the season started. And he's on college game day and he's on all these different shows on Fox NFL pregame to talk about the league that I think it was January 1st or whatever it was. But I do wonder, and frankly like you said, I mean he's still a bankable star, don't get me wrong, but his star is not as shiny as it was when he first came into this. So I think he's a really good actor and if you've watched Ballers, I mean I thought he was great. He's been good in a lot of movies, but I do wonder if maybe he will concentrate more on that and they have people there that they don't necessarily need him or Danny Garcia for the day-to-Day stuff. Frankly, I think Daryl Johnston might be more hands-on involved with it than anybody of the public facing people that we've seen. For better or worse, I would say, sorry, I did think it was funny that Brandon Aubrey missed there not many NFL games this season where they missed the kickoff zone. Either they still touch back in or they land and then it's returnable. But I thought it was funny that Brandon Aubrey missed the kickoff zone and I would, so that was the other thing. I forgot the gaps of the game, but hey, if Brandon Aubrey was in the X FM L, maybe he would've known how to do that. So the other, yeah, but just with the Rocks thing, yeah, I don't know if it is kind of revamp here focusing on that. But yeah, I think his public perception has really hit a dive on that. The other article I wanted to talk about here, and I was just kind of looking through this news and a lot of these websites are just regurgitations of the press release. Front office sports has some quotes here and I thought it was nice at sport, the CO and Sports Business Journal, they have additional kind of quotes on here talking about all this stuff. This is Eric Fisher with front office reports, but they're bringing in additional franchises, building the eight, they're moving in. There's not a specific timetable governing the process or a targeted number of franchises. UFL president and CEO Rush Brandon said there'll be fewer than eight teams. And at least on the outset, something related to expansion might be in place for 2026. We're open for business, very open-minded. We are taking a very holistic approach to the market, look at the market and everything that needs to be done to stand up to a new team. So just kind curious on that. Yeah, no timetable. We've heard conflicting reports just since today. Is it 20 26 7? I just think we're kind of looking through, it was kind of like in the C-F-L-X-F-L talks when it was we're talking about talking, I think that was their public facing kind of like, well hey, the XFL is calling the CFL, what does that mean? And they go, well we're talking about talking. That was their thing. And so to me it feels very similar here where we don't really know what we're doing, but this is something we're kind of working on in the future. We're having a meeting about some future meetings that we might have later on. That's a lot what it sounds like. But I will say it was a press release that was short on a lot of details, but it had one big overarching theme and it was that I think maybe the subtle theme of we are successful, we are growing, so people you need to talk about us right now. Even though it's NFL season. That's the more we've talked about this and kind of diving into some of these articles, that's what it really feels like. It's like, hey, let's send something out there to get our name out a little bit and just float it and see how it goes. Alright, last thing here. Let's do the last 10 minutes on this or more or less probably, but figure out here. So in terms of do we, in your ideal world here, right, so we get through this season, we move forward, we're going to have a teams, we've talked to Ohio, do we move the roughnecks back over to the XFL conference? Do we redo that? Do we keep them now? Is that too disruptive? Like I said Seattle kind of all that stuff in the mix, but where do you, I guess ideally now as we've kind of read through everything before we get out, what would you like to see here moving into six and 27? Well, I would like to see a West coast presence like we talked about. I would like to see the Houston gamblers come back and be in the USFL conference. I mean we've talked about this a lot about that just felt like a compromise somehow. I'm not sure the roughneck IP was as strong as the gamblers or vice versa, whatever the reason was. Mad chatter, thank you. But I think what I would like to see as we get into, I would love to see four more teams that might be a lot to take on in an initial expansion. So what I do like about this is if they stick to the plan, what we think they will, it'll be two teams in 26 and two teams in 27. Now again, let's hope there's still a league. I'm optimistic. I want to see a lot of good things happen this year. First. That's one thing I want to see is I want to see, even if the viewership is flat, I think it was good enough that it was successful with 850,000. And again, we don't know if that really included some of the streaming numbers, but I think there's a lot of opportunity as we know it is a league of opportunity, but I think there's a lot of opportunity to have a stronger year than they had last year, which I still think was a very successful year and get to that where expansion makes sense and that these, it's a strong league that will have a strong brand. That's not just the people that you and I and the people watching this. It's maybe a little bit more and kind of growing in public perception and when you add teams, you add communities and cities and I think you add fans and that all, that's a rising tide right there. Curious your thoughts. And then Pat has a question about reaching out to ownership here, but I think in the initial reports out, and forgive me now, it's like a fever dream ago, but when the initial reports came out of the merger and all that and the Ohio was in the mix, but then I believe Arizona was in the mix and I do, Yeah, Whether you relocate Seattle there, you add a team, is that far enough West coast, you're still Texas kind of adjacent there. You're building, it's like the Oregon Trail. We're kind of building more west. Does that do anything for you? I don't love Arizona as a market. I mean the Cardinals are a great team. I Sea ox beat them yesterday, but they did. Arizona doesn't feel like a hotbed of, I mean even the Diamondbacks like World Series contending, right? Two seasons ago, really big drop off and attendance saw that. I mean it feels like they're more of a casual kind of market. There is my point thoughts on that. If Arizona fits that, I like it. If it's not going to be Seattle, Portland, Oakland or San Diego, I think it is west enough. The Las Vegas thing, we got to stop with this no more. But I mean, yes, it's west enough. I think for me anyway, as you asked for a West coast presence, which I just think you've got to get something more than mostly central time zone and a couple in the eastern time zone. Yeah, Jan here says Seattle, Oakland, San Diego, Vegas. I like Oakland. I think you can ride that, especially falling off the A now and everything. We were just there for the Mariners kind of last, their last whatever, home playing in Oakland and kind of all that stuff. Man, that's a brutal market right now if you're a sports fan there. The Warriors have moved, obviously the Raiders have moved. Now the a's are moving, I think that's a no-brainer. I don't know if you do the Coliseum there, probably not. That's huge. But other areas, I dunno. I think to me Oakland, if you're not going to do San Diego, but I do think, and I've heard this, you can't do California and the taxes and the labor. You got to suck it up and do it. You have to, I think at this point you have to say, okay, we're making an effort. If we care enough about expanding and finding the right markets, we got to pay. And maybe you have to play those players an extra 8% or whatever to counterbalance that. I don't think any player would argue, if you and I are both playing and I'm on the Texas team and you're, I'm like, you're getting paid an extra $600 a month, you're like, yeah, but they're going to take it down taxes. We understand these things And maybe this is the old school thinking that we don't need anymore, but to me it's like if you're going to be a league that is taken seriously, I've always thought you've got to have a Southern California team and you've got to have a Northeastern team where in really New York I think, or New York, New Jersey to me. I mean maybe that's not the mindset anymore because again, we saw a lot of success I think, and they hit a lot of numbers here in the UFL this past year. Without that, I think that could only add to it. And when you have a place like Oakland, to me on the surface now, again, I don't know the financials and as you said, I'm one of those guys like, oh, I don't know about the taxes and all that. It to me just seems like on the surface, what a perfect market to put a team in because there's so much opportunity there and there's got to be a fan base who's hungry for professional sports. Again, that may be on any level. Jan here says, do you think they suck up a New York cost before a West Coast expansion? If the West coast is in California, they might, again, we're talking finances. You're right. But I think a New York cost would probably be a lot less because they're not going to be housed there. They fly in and play the game, then fly back to Arlington. So it might actually be cheaper to do that, to be in the New York, New Jersey area. And there's a lot of places that they could go that might be a lot more cost effective than playing unfortunately in a place like Oakland. Abdul says, don't respect Cashman Field. John Lewis Cashman is a Don. That place, A buddy of mine was on the broadcast crew of one of the Las Vegas games and he does all kinds of, from Major League baseball to everything else. He actually worked on one of the Alliance of American football crews, which was a story to itself. But he said Cashman Phil was one of the worst places he's ever been. And the sight lines were bad. The place was just not good. And it was so weird in Las Vegas, they kept having bad weather there. Well, I can't remember who it was, if it was Matt Berry or someone else that was on the call and he was on our show the next week, one of the guys that was, I can't remember if it was him or Tom Loganville, one of the guys that came on the show, but they were in that structure. I'm like, God, what was that? They're like, dude, that was scary. It was scary watching it on the show. Yeah, it was very terrifying. No, you can't do that. But no. Yeah, I'm with you there. But they got a suck up. We got, look at this. We got van checking in here in the chat van. I wore your jacket all over Vancouver, your mark cast jacket with your sleeves. I didn't get as many comments from Evan and Andy as I would've liked, but I did stop with San Diego. USSD has much less capacity use currently doing care. I would play it. Who was it that said like, we'll play in the parking lot on the side of the road. We don't care. Right. Well, and if I'm not mistaken, was it San Diego? There was one of the markets that had been kind of bandied about even before all this, where they were building a new soccer stadium that was either, I think it was a USL soccer stadium. So it feels like some of those venues, there was some talk about in this that Louisville was a place that had been brought up and a lot of people were like, well, Cardinal Stadium, 60,000 people, which Cardinal Stadium would be great if you played a team there. But you also have Lynn Family Stadium, which seats 15,000 and is one of the nicest USL stadiums around. The only problem is you have a USL team and an NWSL team that plays at Lynn Family Stadium, which scheduling would be a nightmare. And I don't know if they'd ever let 'em do it, but I think some of these USL teams, even though they play at the same time, there could be some opportunity to play in those kinds of places. Yeah, I'm still talking about New York and I agree. I've talked a lot with Seth, a friend of the show and all of that, and having both coasts, but especially having New York and la but really helps your bottom line of TV ratings. Just having games from New York, from the New York market, even if you're only attracting 5% of whatever the people, again, it's no offense to the Memphis of the world or even New Orleans or Birmingham. You need markets with a lot of people, even if it's the 16th thing on the mines of some of the people there. You saw the Guardians games on a might cover them back in 2020, even if you're only getting a fraction, which is funny to me, kind of the thought process of spring football in general is the NFL gets a hundred million people. And if we could just get a fraction of that, here you go. Even if you're into New York, even if you just get a fraction of that, Philip, they're not doing another Texas team. We don't need foreign. No, that's enough. And it's not a zero sum game. If you add a team in New York or whatever, it's not going to take away from the Memphis or Birmingham's or St. Louis is or anyone. I mean, again, to me it's a rising tide. Tide. Let's see here. Mad chatter talking about buffalo and now we're getting some things about this and then rest. That's True. There is a Buffalo connection. You're right. Absolutely. Get that news. I still don't understand that stadium they're building. We're building a stadium that's smaller than the one we have and it's not a dome. And I don't understand the thought, but that's the story for another day. Yeah. Jennifer Fisher. No, all the way back to the Guardians again. And people poo-pooed right back in 2020, everyone, oh, the XFL attendance here is terrible. You would die for Tampa Bay Viper attendance right now. You would die for New York Guardian's attendance. You would die for the La Wildcats attendance when you look at Memphis, right? So it's all relative. And I know we talked the XFL viewers shoe back in oh one versus whatever, but this is a lot more apples to apple. So you would die for some of these ones that were deemed not good enough back in 2020. Yeah, and the 2020, I mean, people will remember that was kind of a huge deal when they, because it was like, oh, spring football is really coming back. The a f was just a non contender. This is the real deal. And you had the New York and the LA markets, and to me that makes it bigger again. And maybe that's old school me thinking that when you have a league, you got to have a New York and la. But it just seems to me it just has always worked out that way. We're at four 30 now. Anything else? Anything else we want to make sure, I'm going to shower here before we got Monday night football. We've got that's cracking or playing. We got Thanksgiving, Dorothy's on our way home. Anything else we want to touch on? Any other thoughts here today? No, but I'm always jealous of people on the West coast who get to watch Monday Night Football at what, 5 15, 7 30 here in Louisville right now. So I got to wait. I usually fall asleep by halftime, so I'm jealous of you. But Reid, I always love being on your show and you and I talk a lot offline. It's fun to talk here and keep it PG rated as we probably usually don't in our text chains and everything, but it is always fun to talk about this. And this is newsworthy. This is not trying to make something up. This is the UFL is talking about expansion. And I think that is really good news for a lot of spring football fans because to me, spring football has been as viable as it's ever been maybe since the original USFL and even then it was iffy and there are a lot of stories from that. But I just think that with this network ownership and everybody behind it, that it has an opportunity to grow and we're starting to see players go to the NFL. I just think it's all positive right now. We'll see what happens. And again, I really in this space, and the same with the CFL, I mean this is anything, I mean even the NFL, but they have a lot of other stuff. Like this is the biggest click bait sugar candy rush. We're bored. Let's talk expansion that you can do. And so I hate to get on that all the time. I just think even the Switzerland thing, like oh, so UFL expanding you can do, but when there's a press release, because again, we weren't going to do the stream. I mean I tweeted out and I said, this league's crazy. I'm going back to bed. And Max's like, oh, I think we should talk about it. And Mike and they're all going in the chat all day. And like I said, I was getting a text, but I laughed because in our group chat and John, if you ever got back on Twitter, we could incorporate you into that. It's on the Twitter chat Maybe one of these days. But even on there, and this is like the UFL media, I mean as much as you want to joke about that, but this is a group and all day in there, they're all, what about this and what about this, what I'm like you guys, yeah. Because at the end of the day, we're fans and we're all fans and all this stuff. I'm like, you bought in. It worked. We're all talking about the UFL today. I didn't think I'd be doing the podcast. If that was the strategy, then yeah, it certainly worked. And that's what a lot of people need to understand. If we criticize the UFL or whatever, it's because we want it to succeed. If we didn't care, we wouldn't have talked for an hour and a half about it. So yeah, we want it to succeed. You're right, we're fans and hopefully there'll be a lot more that come aboard in 2025 and this thing might take off. So yeah, so anyone get ready for football? Everyone give a thumbs up to the stream, please if you can like And subscribe. Subscribe if you have it. We're going to give away. I actually hung out with Dustin in Vancouver. Dustin was there of Royal Retros. He was there with his CFL pa. They've got that big partnership now with Royal Retros, but he was up there. We BS with Dustin for about half an hour at the bar. Had a beer and hung out Dorothy and I and him. So that was fun. But we're going to give away two custom jerseys when we hit 4,000 subscribers. We'll do a CFL one and then the UFL or we can do C, it doesn't matter to me, but we'll do two. So if you want like all I want to a CFL, we can do all that. But dust, I got I, he's already on board and it is a great giveaway for me. Then he can just ship 'em right out to you. You can get custom, whatever you want. I'll cover all the costs and he'll ship it right out. So like and subscribe if you want to be a part of that. And then we're kind TBD right now, once we get back into regular preseason UFL, probably in the new year we'll be doing the regular weekly episodes, but right now it's just whenever news came out, I was traveling a lot this summer. We kind of did the tail end of the CFL through the Great Cup, but I wasn't home a Monday or Friday, like any of September or October. So it was hard to get all that done. But we're back on the horse now. John, anything else you want to plug? No, I just really appreciate you having me on. It's always good to talk to you about all things UFL and everything else. Alright everyone take care. Let's go Cracking. Let's go. Who do we got? Is this, oh, we need Chargers tonight. We need Andy Murray. So we're a Pro Chargers podcast, pro Chargers. Okay, I'll go with it. Alright, we'll see you guys, John, thanks And we'll see you next time.

Biggest COLLAPSE in Football History? CFL Grey Cup 111 Review

Well, here we are back again. Happy Thursday everyone coming off. Everyone's back home after the gray cup here. Appreciate everyone checking in. We'll put the panel up here. We got Andy on here, Jason, everyone's on. We'll do some preface stuff here and then we'll kind get into everything. Thanks everyone for checking this out here back stateside. Jason's back in Hamilton following the Gray Cup. Appreciate that 15,000 plus watching the pregame show. Not too bad. I'll get into more of that later. We'll talk through Gray Cup recap today, kind of the collapse of Winnipeg. We're going to talk the Rick Campbell, Edmonton Elks, BC Lions News. We'll do stories and everything else from the Gray Cup today, so like and subscribe. We're transitioning out of CFL. We'll be moving into the UFL here. I think we're getting a schedule here maybe at some point. Andy, we had another press release today talking things about the UFL that isn't the schedule, but if you want any of that and once we start getting some actual UFL episodes, maybe we'll do some off season CFL interviews. They just don't, Cody Fido or whoever for 12 minutes kind of standalone, just doesn't really do it on the YouTube, but let's go round the horn here. Jason, back in Hamilton. Jason, sir, how are you doing? Doing good. Reid all recovered from the trip out west and ready to talk about what we experienced over the weekend. Evan, how are you, Evan? Getting on another flight here. He says tomorrow back home for Thanksgiving, American Thanksgiving, American Thanksgiving. But Evan, how are you sir? Yeah, doing well. It's been busy, man. Obviously had some delays getting out there to Vancouver for Great Cup, but really enjoyed my time. We'll get into that, made it back without any issues and then on the road again since that's what my life seems to be nowadays, so yeah. All good man. Andy, how are you sir? I'm great, but I just want to make sure, did you have a hard time settling on one of your 500 hyperbolic headlines for this podcast or are you satisfied with what you have? Yeah, it was really hard. Every once in a while I'm sitting around and if we had done more, if I hadn't been so busy this summer, sometimes I like to sit around the workshop. Yeah, it was like the CFL blew our minds or the gray cup and then I've got that Vid IQ that'll give you a couple free ideas a day and I'm like, okay, I got to wait. It's like you're doing the Candy Crush, right? I got to wait 24 hours and then I can try again, but I think it's good. I was already getting some Winnipeg people mad at me talking about that, but I do think it's a little bit of a collapse here. One of the biggest, you could look into the collapse of a game, collapse of a season, collapse of a dynasty here. I know Mil Siegel's big on that, but lots of CFL stuff to talk about. Yes, Evan would've been part of the live show and I think I said that off the top of our live stream like, oh, Evan, we'll talk about that. I don't think I ever did. I had a couple mimosas before brunch Jason and I had, but yeah, Evan delayed getting out a part of everything else for Gray Cup. It just wasn't able to be a part of the live stream real quick. Like I said, thanks everyone for checking out the stream. I thought it was really cool. Obviously last year stream kind of hit popped the algorithm and I think people looking for illegal streams, but we did about 15,000 in Saskatchewan, did about 15,000 this week. I feel like that's kind of at least a sample size now for that, but more views than anything YouTube I saw of anyone except the CFLA post in the game and then the halftime show with the Jonas Brothers. But anyone else that I bumped shoulders with all weekend that was involved in the YouTube space, I thought I didn't see anything else. So unless I'm mistaken, but that speaks to me the importance of having that independent people like us associated covering the league helps. Having a diverse set of opinions helps having people from down south. I think Jason's always been a wealth of knowledge and kind of in that more alternative space in Canada on the other side, so it just further solidifies that as we look at the UFL and everything else. I think you need to have a breadth of that and I have great respect for the Jeff Hamiltons and Tim Bains of the world and everyone else with news and everything, but I think that this space and kind of figuring out alternative ways to cover the league, I think it just shows that. Andy, what did you make of that? Real quick, I don't want to bend over and pat ourselves on the back too much, but I thought it was a strong show and I thought we did a good job. I think just the sheer people that came up onto your podcast was really impressive. I really liked the media row there and I especially liked the guests that you had on. I know some of them are repeats from years past, but you also had a really good rotation of people not only just talking about as you always do, not just the game, but also the state of the league. It's a shame that one person I will say I did not get to meet this weekend was Farhan. I did not, yeah, Farhan. Yeah, Farhan wasn't on the show and I didn't get to meet pass by him. I didn't remember seeing him at all at any juncture during the entire weekend unless he was on the sideline during the game. So it's unfortunate I really wanted to meet him. But other than that, a fantastic set of guests again, and I think that just goes to show just the effort that you made to make yourself known in the presence of the CFL Mediascape and to draw those kinds of numbers from someone who's so independent just in what four short years really in work I think is a testament to not only the work you put in, but I also think it's a testament to what can be done by others. I think people can put in that effort. I know there was conversation, I actually listened to the flight deck guys who by the way were fantastic, Tim and Cliff, awesome guys talk to them all weekend, but I listened to their podcast and they made a point about how that one thing that in regards this topic, the CFL can maybe do a little bit better as far as having a media row and reaching out to podcasts more like yes. I actually wanted to ask you, did you reach out specifically to them or did they actually give you a bit of a line because that was one thing that they did mention on their podcast? Yeah, no, because obviously we were with BC last year and so we were involved in all of that. I thought that was really tremendous to have the radio row. I thought having Rob Peterson we'll do more. I want tell, we'll have funny stories here on the backend, but having that, I do agree there's growth for that. We were not invited to be part of the CF content creators program. I don't think I've done enough work this season to justify that, but I think it's interesting when you look at that of like, well, I didn't run into anyone else. I didn't run into Coach Phil. I didn't run into CFO right up there. I didn't see anybody there. And so I think that they're working on that. I know that Christine in the league was talking to me last year about that, about what we really want to incorporate more and kind of bolster that. I just think if you don't, I look at Darren Bing as a perfect example of here's someone that has found the space and carved that niche out of like, Hey, if we're not going to get the coverage that we want to Winnipeg Sports, we need to do that ourselves. I thought that their postgame stream was tremendous. I watched part of it and then we were at dinner and then I watched a lot of it when I got back to the room. And I think having that wealth and Tim and Cliffy and everybody else, I think it's really important and it shows the breadth that we can reach when we all come together and you get a lot of different voices. So yeah, we were blessed enough to be a part of that. But yeah, I think that needs to be a concerted effort going. Just have a media row of podcasters if you want. There's 15, 20 people that you could get together and build that out. Evan, anything else from you? We'll go Jason, then we'll talk through the game here. I don't want to bore people too much on the front end. Yeah, no, I mean look, it's a shame that I missed the show this year and you always do a great job with that. I thought this year's was equally good and I think having Brian on specifically a player really kind of enhanced some things and that doesn't put anybody else, it's to shame or whatever. Everybody did a great job, but again, it's nice to see that being worked in the fact again, all that lined up is still a bit crazy to me. But yeah, man. No, it was good to see everybody up there and it's too bad that I was a bit late but still made the most of it in the end. So Yeah, I thought it was crazy. And maybe Jason, your thought real quick. The fact that we have Brian on, and this is someone that we've known for years in the media space and the spring leagues and everything, and to have him on the show and it's kind of, okay, you're the third stream, but we kind of know you and we have history. But then Jason to see him sitting there and I was posting the photos on the Gray Cup stage and holding the trophy and I just felt like we were kind of a part of that moment and a part of that journey. It was just cool to show we are, it is not that large of a space. I mean we all are very connected here and there's a lot of overlap and Andy was talking Tim and Cliffy and everyone else. It's not large of a group and I think we do do a good job of supporting that, but I thought that was cool. Any other thoughts from you on that? Yeah, I mean Brian Scott, I mean meeting him, he just seemed like such a great genuine charismatic guy. Obviously you guys are very fond of him and it almost made me want to cheer for Toronto in the game even though I'm a Tigercat fan and ultimately this show, I'm always amazed by how you're able to put it all together, coordinate all these guests. I think the unsung hero is Dorothy, your wife, coordinating all these guests and making sure they're ready for their appearance on the show. So it's really impressive what we've been able to do and what you guys have been able to do in terms of putting together the show every year. Yeah, my mother watched the stream. She said her favorite people were that really nice boy at the end, which I knew she met Brian Scott. I said, okay, that makes sense. She goes, he really loves you, he just really loves you. And then she liked that man with the nice hair and I'm like, okay, we have a lot of people with nice hair on the show and Mike Hogans, the man from Florida, rod Peterson, really liked Rod Peterson, that man with the nice hair from Florida. So anyway, we'll do more festival stuff here in a little bit. We'll talk through all that. Andy, we'll go with you first. You've seen the title of the episode, biggest Collapse, but I'll tell you, we got to the media a room that night following everything and we did dinner and everything else. I know Jason was getting ready to fly back. There was a lot of questions being asked from the Winnipeg people and we were starting to get the Jeff Hamiltons of the world in there. I mean even Jamie Nye and when Darren got in there, a lot of hard questions for the blue bombers. Okay, why didn't we run Vera more and Zach Clara's hand and all that. Andy, what did you make of this kind of having? Because real time and there was even some kind of question in the reporter's room like, well, was this a good cup? I thought this was a classic gray cup. I don't know if it holds on a rewatch, but I think going in and knowing and all the pressures on Winnipeg and Toronto's coming in and really tremendous for me. Andy, what did you make a of the game and then kind of the initial thesis and we could break down more? Well, I mean that's the thing. You can look at the box score and just say, well, this doesn't seem like it was very close of a match for all of us who were sitting there. We very much felt the tension from the get-go and felt it really until there were about six minutes or four minutes left in the fourth quarter that it dissipated because of that pick six at the end or near the end. But see, the thing is that that tension was there the entire time because you just didn't know what was going to happen with the Argos. You didn't know if they're going to be able to perform on offense. You didn't know if was Winnipeg finally going to complete the dynasty and they demonstratively did not. And I know there are people out there who will make the argument that it is still a dynasty because they've made five straight gray cups. But listen, the rule is this, you are not getting a dynasty because you participate. You are getting a dynasty because you win. You won two out of five. And the general rule is that you win three or four in a certain span of time, 5, 6, 7 years, whatever combination you wish, but there has to be a certain set of time with a certain set of players that make that qualified. I'm sorry to melt Stegel. He was very demonstrative on the show afterwards. On TSN, it said that it was a dynasty. I disagree with him and I think many other people would just based on how it was. And yes, while you could make an argument that it was Winnipeg falling flat and there are a lot of many shortcomings they have. Toronto just came out and won the game. They had an excellent game plan. Ryan did win. He is one of, if not the best, Coachman this league. He has done nothing but be successful since he took over this Toronto regime. He has won with multiple different quarterbacks. He has taken a roster that got gutted in the off season. I know they were able to replenish some of that roster talent but still remain to be seen what they would do with it. And he has just come up Roses every single time. He has gone to four straight Eastern finals. He's won two out of the three years in the Gray Cup. I mean, if any case Toronto's the one that's going to start possibly making a dynasty. And the biggest irony to me personally was seeing that guy with that sign as we were coming out of halftime. They showed it on the jumbotron. That guy that's had the sign that said A dynasty will be born in 30 minutes. And I'm sitting there being like, I hope that doesn't come back to bite him. And now I'm almost sitting there being like, is that a prophecy for the other team? Because that was a Winnipeg fan that was holding that sign. Now I'm starting to think could Toronto potentially be making a run here in the next few years? And they've shown that it does not matter what assets they have, it does not matter what injuries they sustain. It does not matter what controversy they go through. They have been successful this entire time under the din WHI regime. And that to me is what stuck out the most. Let me leave probably to Jason here just talking on that and obviously as a Bills fan and plenty of not to rub, but plenty of making it to the Super Bowl and participated in not curious how that relates to your thoughts and then thoughts on the game. I was fortunate enough I was able to sneak up and get a seat. There just happened to be, I could tell about Garth later next to Garth, my man, I sat next to you next to me from Saskatchewan, but was able, we weren't with you two during the game. So curious your thoughts on that and as it relates to the dynasty talk as well. Well, I think there's something to be said about getting to the championship game in any respective sport. I've always considered that better than losing before that. I think there's something to be said for that. But at the same time, you can't call this a dynasty just because what Andy said, winning three championships in a certain span of time, that's really what the definition is. And ultimately they have not been able to close that third championship and they've had three cracks at it. They've arguably, arguably been the heavy favorite in every single great cup that they've been in. And ultimately they've been very disappointing in a lot of these games. Zach CLA is continuing to struggle in Great Cups obviously suffered in the second half of this one and we'll get to it. But I don't think given the extent of the injury and what we knew after the fact that he should have been put back into the game, I think they should have just rode with the backup just given the fact that he couldn't really grip and throw a football. So ultimately it's very disappointing for Winnipeg. I don't consider them a dynasty right now. I mean they could still, if they win next year, they get to sixth straight, they win three out of six. I would still consider them a dynasty, but ultimately it's going to be very interesting to see going into next year and a hosting gray copier if they can get back there. Well, I want us to circle back to the Calera stuff because I've been reading this week and I haven't had, just trying to get back in the swing a deep dive on that. I was reading about the Pez Spencer and all that stuff, but Evan to you, we were talking in the group chat about it almost now with Toronto, it almost takes away from Winnipeg's wins or they were only able to win. It gets Hamilton or retroactively. Now, does this change any of the thoughts of the games that Winnipeg had won? Yes and no. I mean, I think Winnipeg, again, it was a very interesting situation because they won in 2019 against Hamilton in very commanding fashion and then you had a covid year and they came back out and won it again. So I think it's really impressive that a season was canceled and they were still able to come back and win the whole thing. And look, I understand the 2021 season was shortened due to Covid and it was later in the year and there were some variables there that we might not see again. But with Toronto it's almost more impressive these past two wins that they've had against Winnipeg. And yes, I understand they're against the same team. And that's kind of maybe the argument that we're discussing. But if you look at the Argonauts team in 2022 that won it, the MVP of that game was Henna Mwamba, who's now panelist on TSN McLeod. Bethel Thompson was the quarterback who went to the USFL and then went back to the CFL this year with a different team. And it was in that gray cup that Chad Kelly played really for the first time and emerged and then went on and had the 16 and two season. And obviously this year with his suspension, we didn't get to see him as much. And then the unfortunate injury that led to Nick Arbuckle starting in the Gray Cup. But it's incredible. They've had now four different, maybe even five different quarterbacks over this time span between 2022 and 2024, and they still got the job done. It hasn't mattered to them again, from, it starts at the top with management and personnel to construct the roster. And then Andy's already talked about Ryan did Witty who yeah, I really think deserves some credit for what he's done. And again, I understand Coach of the Year, Jason Moss being the pick out of the east. I get it. And not to take away from what Jason Moss did either or Corey Mace or any of those candidates. But what Ryan Dinwoody has done with that team is incredible. It has not been an easy journey for him. And I remember before the game started, he mentioned, he said, well, we've earned the right to be here. We deserve this and we think we can go out there and compete. And sure enough they did. So yeah, now you kind of enter a new conversation where Winnipeg's Dynasty, I'm not going to say that it's closed yet. Again, you're hosting the Gray Cup in Winnipeg next year, so maybe they make a push. We'll get into all that later. But Toronto having won two out of the past three with very different circumstances, I'd say in each of the games is extremely impressive and hopefully they can keep that up. Andy, I think there's, and I'm pulled up the stats here just because obviously we were at the game, which Mike, normally I got to go back and do this refresher course before the stream, but I think there's a couple different questions to talk about here. One, and I know Evan will have thoughts later are Buckles performance. I think Evan, they coined them heart attack passes, many of them during the game that were very close to being picked or intercepted. You have CLA claros right now, X number of gray cups with multiple turnovers, no touchdown passes, all that stuff. And then the lack of alora. I know that was kind of the touching point when we got back to the suite was how do you have the MOP like that only have 11 carries, 84 rushes? Obviously once the game gets out of hand and we're throwing and that exacerbated the number of interceptions that Clara throw, where do you want to start, Andy? Kind of with any of those storylines, obviously there's a million other ones if you have anything else as well. But those are kind of the three that stuck out to me, the easy ones. I never thought I'd be going into this game thinking, boy, I think Winnipeg's going to miss Drew Brown. But you know what, that's kind of the case here because let's look at the facts here. Terry Wilson came into this game when Zach was out, when he got taken to the locker room, and apparently his finger just split open. I mean, some of the reports on that will make me nauseous, just think about it. But Terry Wilson comes in and he almost throws a pick to Benji Franklin, which would've been his second of the game into the end zone. He absolutely had it right in his midst. Yeah, I was amazed. And that was right in front of us where we were, I think all of us because Jason was on that side too. It was. And so Terry Wilson's not throwing the ball very well. So you're thinking as an offensive coordinator, buck Pierce, well, I don't know if I can put him back in, but Zach clearly can't throw the ball and Zach had kind of admitted to such afterwards he really struggled and you saw it immediately. He throws that pick right off the boundary. I think it was to Sean Amos maybe. And then, I mean, he just struggled mightily and it just started to unravel very quickly to the point about Brady Oliveira. I mean, the thing that I just didn't really understand is why they were so adamant about throwing on first down, and especially after Zach came back from injury, they continued to do so. I think they absolutely had an opportunity to continue at least trying to work Brady Oliveira into the lineup. He probably could have had a few more rushes and maybe there were that perhaps Toronto was keen in of him running and maybe just in the formation it didn't set up to be so, but you would've thought that he would've been a little bit more involved just considering what was going on around him, especially from the passing game standpoint. So that to me just kind of surprised me. And I know there were a lot of people, a lot of Winnipeg fans, they were a bit upset with Buck Pearson, his play calling afterwards, but just kind of the management of the injury with Zach. Ros, I think really threw a wrench in the plans. And once, apparently I read somewhere where apparently Wind Inwood, he found when they saw that Ros was warming up and they saw how he was throwing, they thought we got this. And to have that kind of confidence as a team, when you see the other teams that one of their best assets being hurt, I think really was telling, especially in that fourth quarter. Well, it was wild. We were sitting there on that side and I saw Claro, I just happened to look down and saw Claro running out, and I'm like, well, he's either, obviously he's not limping off the field, so he's either got to to go make a bathroom break or something's wrong. We just really wasn't really sure. And I think it was Anthony Miller in the group chat, obviously watching on TV back in the states of like, oh well here. And it was kind of nice for all the people on our section. We could kind of get the insights. We are not getting the game broadcast and all that stuff. Jason, were you surprised with that? And here, I mean Michael Cha is revered as a coach of anyone in the league, and I know that all the media and everyone speaks really highly of him and obviously a great guy on and off the field, but they have multiple games now, be outcoached by D Witty and then kind of seeing his reluctance to do anything else when the game was getting out of the hand. What did you make of that, Jason? Yeah, I mean, I think I said this on the pre-game show that I think Brian Dinwitty may be the best coach in the CFL. I think he may have taken that title from Mike. I mean, even before the game, during the pre-game show, like I was saying, I thought that Denwoody had a case and I think with winning this game being too no against him in Gray Cups, like you were saying, I think you have to give him that title at this point. And just the game plan that he had for Nick Arbuckle in this one, Nick Arbuckle, he made his mistakes in this one had the two picks. I think he had a couple of dropped interceptions that you alluded to, but ultimately they did a good job of making stuff pretty easy for him. I think they had some screen passes that the Kevin Al touchdown, that was a good little swing pass, get the ball out of his hands quickly. Arle still had to make some plays and that's why he was named MVP of this game. But ultimately they did a good job of setting up those screen passes and really involving the running backs and making it easier on him. And I think ultimately at the end of the day, that's a big reason why Toronto was able to have success and ultimately win this game and go three and oh against Winnipeg on the season. Yeah, Arbuckle got the MVP and we can talk about that little trophy kind of thing that his daughter was holding. It felt like it was almost a toy for her, but there wasn't really a standout, right? Evan, was that your take? I mean, it felt like it was not in a bad way, but it was more of a group effort from Toronto there. I mean, obviously Nick's the quarterback. What did you make of that? Yeah, well look, I think the best player in this game was Willie Jefferson, and I've probably said it on this show before at some point back when we were doing this regularly, but Willie Jefferson man, I mean, he's one of my favorite players in the league. And watching him in that game, the way that he was able to essentially take over on defense, I still feel like Winnipeg's defense put up a pretty good effort there, obviously through three and a half quarters. But he really excelled and I almost would've given him the award in that game anyways, regardless of who won for, if I had to pick MVP, the guy that I think makes the most sense would probably be Winton McManus you have, I was telling Andy, I think during the game, if there was a playoff MVP just for somebody who had had a good run in the playoffs, it would've been Benji Franklin with his interceptions, and he made so many critical plays at critical times. I think that's a guy who really kind of, I don't want to say came out of nowhere. I knew who he was before he signed and before he started gaining some traction there, but really again, came up big when it mattered. So yeah, look, man, in terms of the game overall, I'll start with Winnipeg's side, I think. Yes, some of the play calling could have been better, and then I don't know, it didn't look very good in the first half. It wasn't bad, but then the Calero injury was just where you kind of knew that things were probably done. I still gave him a chance. Again, we didn't know the severity of the injury sitting there, but I remember when he came back onto the field, and it took me a minute to notice, but he had an entire glove on his throwing hand, and I thought, oh boy, that would suggest to me that his injury is pretty serious. And of course, as we found out after the game, the way Zach said it and the way a couple other people said it, I mean, the fact that somebody's finger looks like a Pez dispenser is extremely alarming. And maybe, yeah, you should have kept Terry Wilson in. It's a difficult decision though, right? I think I almost wonder, Andy had mentioned Drew Brown, but if Chris Reer was healthy, what could he have done in that game? Because I remember, I think it was Winni first Gray Cup run in 2019, which is when I first kind of started following the league. He was a really key contributor there, and they almost had a two quarterback system where he was able to come in and really give the offensive boost when needed, and maybe that would take away from some of the play calls that weren't so good. So for Winnipeg, it's just unfortunate, I think, look, if Calero doesn't get hurt, he wasn't playing well before that, but they still might've had a chance to turn it around. I went back today just randomly and watched the 2021 West Final where Blue Ballers turned it over five times, but still won the game because at the end, Winnipeg went up 2117 on a touchdown and then got a defensive stop. So maybe in a different world that would've been the case. As for Toronto, yeah, just again, incredible game plan by Ryan Din Whitty setting. Nick Arbuckle up for success. Look Ruckle during that game. Was he perfect? No, and I didn't expect him to be. I think one of the keys to that game for many people going in was, you can't put this all on our buckle's shoulders. You really have to. Other people are going to have to step up, and they did, especially on defense. Again, I think that was the story was Toronto's defense. Arbuckle kind of got them to where they needed to be. He got them in a position to win the game, but then Toronto's defense really took over and well, they also took advantage of Cal's injured hand and kind of said, we've got this from here and rode that game out in the final five minutes. So look, it was a very impressive performance by 'em. Unfortunate in the sense that I think some people who didn't watch the game will look at the score and think, well, that was maybe a waste of time. But in reality, no. If you watched it that game going into the fourth quarter, even with seven minutes left, I had no idea who was going to win. So it was a great game and well done to both teams. I know it's tough for Winnipeg, and I'm sure we'll get into that more here as the show goes on, but well done by both teams being there. And congratulations to Toronto. Yeah, it was because even Dorothy obviously had to fly back early for her uncle's memorial, and she was tracking the game just on her phone, and she's texting me, wow, the game seems really close. And then obviously totally unravels there. I thought it was funny. I texted Paul Sanchez formerly here, whatever, after the game, and I go, Brian Scott's a great cup champion. And Paul immediately texted me a selfie of him. He went and put on his Toronto, Argos jersey that I think Josh had mailed to him three and a half years ago. I go, oh, must be nice to pull that out without getting too graphic. Can someone explain to me the Pez dispenser analogy? I don't understand that. How the finger, Jason, did you fall? Was it I didn't understand that metaphor. No, I didn't get that metaphor. That's the first time I've heard it just on the show here. No, I saw that. I mean, three down. Did the writeup that it looked like a PE dispen, was it pe, the PE dispenser opens, or was it the PE dispenser? The head opens and was the finger open? Yeah, Maybe that's what it was. Maybe the tip of the finger Was, yeah, so P dispenser typically opens up to where there's a bit at the bottom that's kind of hanging off. So I assume they meant that was Zach's finger was kind of Okay, all Mean. Look, I'm not the one who made the analogy. I'm just going off what's been thrown out there in the media already, so I Sure wasn't going to retell that. I just Was curious. I'm trying to talk to Dorothy about the way he sounded like it was really bad. So Andy, the fact that Michael Sha, you'd see Calis come back in, okay, let's give it a shot, right? Comes in immediately, either stad the pass right through the pick. Okay, then we go back to that again. Obviously you got her Wilson, we've talked about that, but are you just screwed at that point? I mean, you go down your starting quarterback. I mean, I guess when you have that question, should we have kept the Drew Brown or had someone there that we felt comfortable throwing passes with if something were to happen? Knowing the CFL and especially where Zach isn't necessarily Ironman, I mean Zach misses games, miss games this season, missed games last year. What did you make of that, Andy? I think part of it was just unfortunate timing for them because to go back a week before that, I mean Zach Aeros had a fantastic game against Saskatchewan and absolutely eviscerated their defense and a game that they just absolutely crowd stomped them. And that's why the spread was as high as it was. It got started at 10, and I think it went that down to plus nine or minus nine or minus eight in some markets. But I mean, basically teams were saying, this is yours to lose. You are heavily favored in this game. And part of that was because of how their offense was performing and how the team was performing up until that point. So while it's unfortunate that the injury happened, I don't really necessarily blame Winnipeg for not having someone immediately behind him because they lost Traveler. Obviously they lost him during the season, drew Brown, they were never going to pay enough money to keep him back, especially when he was basically garnering starter money, but he got in Ottawa. So it's hard to kind of say, well, I wish you had another quarterback behind him. I mean, I always am a proponent of developing people behind the quarterback, but sometimes circumstances just don't lead up to that. And again, maybe they were just happy enough of what Terry Wilson brought to the table that they were willing to see what had happened. But again, you can't anticipate that you're starting, quarterback's going to go out, which again is why it's so incredible that Arbuckle was able to do what he did coming in for the likes of Chad Kelly in this big of a game, a guy that never started a playoff game ever. Arbuckle Hass been in this league for a while. He's had a lot of games. He's never started a CFL playoff game. So more of a testament to didn't win his staff, but for the bombers, I mean, it was terrible luck. And as soon as he threw that pick to Robert Priester, who was running it back, even before Robert even got in the end zone, I was yelling out, it's over. It's gone. That's it. The game was over. It was just such a finality point of that match and really just such a stamp on what the Argos had done. It's funny, I'm just pulled up here. Brown was on a $286,000 contract with Ottawa, had to go up to 340,000 with incentives. Should have done the BC route there. Should it get some marketing money in there, get Drew Brown under that Jason. So at the beginning of the game, obviously a lot was made of Toronto, not settling for the field goal, not going for the touchdown, and we're thinking like, oh my God, that's going to be the story of the game. Toronto had whatever, and they lost momentum. Lucky Whitehead then fumbling. I think if Andy Murray wants to track the momentum meter, I think that swung it back the other way. I guess having lived through the game and kind of things that you thought were going to be touchstones where really it was just ended to being Zach Claus' finger was falling off and Winnipeg didn't have a backup plan for that thoughts of anything else in the game that way of just the things that we thought were going to matter or didn't. Kind of final takeaways of that and then we can start looking towards kind of the future here. Yeah, I thought the biggest play of the game was that Lucky Whitehead Fumble because I thought that Winnipeg had the game. Yes, it was close. I thought they were still in control of the game at that point, but the fact that they fumbled, and then I think that was when the Kevin Metall touchdown happened a couple of plays later, maybe the next play. And that's when Toronto was really starting to bleed that they could win this thing. And there was also another key play where I believe it was a blocked punt that Winnipeg was going to get the ball deep in Toronto territory, but they got a penalty for, I think it was Loose ball interference is what it's called. And the guy for Winnipeg pushed the Toronto player in the back. And I was saying to Alex, my girlfriend, I don't know what that penalty's called, but I know you can't just push someone in the back like that. And sure enough that Toronto retained possession of the ball, and that would've been a crucial play for Winnipeg in the game. So ultimately, we say it all the time in football, it often comes down to a couple of plays during the game. And I think if Winnipeg had had those couple plays go in their favor or not happen at all, I think we're talking about a pretty different ball game. And obviously if they had kept Brady Oliveira more involved in this game, and it's the most baffling thing to me about that is that he had a lot of success in this game. He was getting chunk run after chunk run, but they decided to ride with Zach. And it's crazy considering how he's played in these Great Cup games that they trusted him more than Brady, their MOP. Yeah, it was funny. We didn't know either, obviously in the stands, and I think they announced the penalty, but we couldn't really hear it. And then we were texting Anthony Miller and Pat, I think we watching like, okay, what's going on? And finally I think Naylor tweeted out the rules and I was just like, thanks dad. Because we were like, everyone's in the stands is like, no, it was like last night at the Kraken game. The Predators had, they called a penalty 20 seconds into the game where they had actually announced a different starting lineup than they had started. And no one had ever, everyone on KRA COU tour was like, I haven't fallen with hockey 30 years. I've never seen that before. So it was kind one of those things. Andy, let's start looking forward here. We saw Chad Kelly from the parade screaming very loud into a microphone. I wasn't as happy to see that. I enjoyed our friend Mike Hogan, getting to introduce the Argonauts. I sent a message on all of our behalf to Mike Hogan congratulating him and saying Thanks again for all that stuff. But obviously Nick Arbuckle did not play enough. Jack Kelly will come back and do that. What are your thoughts on Toronto moving forward and then Winnipeg here because your hosting next year, everyone's talking, it would be, the sheer irony would be to have a Winnipeg not be in the next year. It certainly would be. I mean, it'd be even funnier if Saskatchewan made that game and then suddenly they forced their hands to try and sell tickets. If they did a reverse Uno card from when they did it in 2022, that'd be quite something. But to look at Toronto a little bit, their free agent list is quite extensive here. They've got a lot of decisions to make as most CFL teams do. Nick Arbuckle, Cameron Dukes are set to be free agents. Kadeem Carey, he's getting up there in years. He was great this year for them. I don't know if they necessarily bring him back. Demonte Kie, who's really made a lot of big plays, he's set to be a free agent. Jan and Grant, they're fantastic returner. I imagine they have to bring him back in some capacity. Jake Rena, a guy who's a fantastic pass rusher. They're defensive backfield. It's all the defensive backs. That's really the biggest list here. Guys like Royce Mechi, Robert Priester to VARs, McFadden, Deshaun Amos. Really key starters and contributors in the secondary. They got to kind of think about maybe replacing going forward. But the thing about this game, and this is kind of the brilliance of the Argos and what they've done the last few years, they've always managed to find a way to replenish their talent and restock the shells. I mean, Kevin Al scoring a touchdown, a rookie who afterwards said that this meant more to him than winning the Banda Cup. And the head Criton Trophy obviously is one of the best players in youth sports in Canada winning the way they won and the way he scored that touchdown. The go ahead touchdown kind of was like a picture into the future of the shape of the Argos to come in a way. So yes, we'll see if Chad Kelly is able to return healthily, whoever they bring in as there's backup. Maybe they bring Brian Scott back, who knows, maybe they keep him around. We'll see. That'd be quite the clout for this podcast if that was the case. But yeah, I mean I have really no issue with how they're going to be able to replenish their talent cause they always seem to find a way, although there are some other structural things we can get into later about what's going on with the team later on down the road. But as far as Winnipeg goes, I mean it sounds like everybody's trying to come back. Adam Big Hale said he is trying to come back. Stanley Bryant says he's trying to come back. A lot of the guys are obviously Father time is undefeated and father time's going to have to come collect here at some point. Claros Health is always in question. He's getting up there in years. Brady Oliveira is really the kind of the centerpiece here. I mean, he's still his prime, so you could still utilize them, but there's still a lot of other pieces I have to think about. The question for them is can they replenish that talent quickly enough to still be competitive? This is kind of the same problem that the New England Patriots had when they had their first dynasty run in three or four years. Then everybody got really old. Tom Brady and Belichick were still there, but it took them a while to really get back into contention. So is that going to happen here with Winnipeg? I'm not sure, but I just see everyone's kind of waiting for the cliff, right? Everyone's waiting for when are they going to hit the cliff? Is it going to be next year is the year after? Some people thought it was this year and it looked like it was for a month, but they seem to be in at least a more questionable shape in my opinion, at least as far as Toronto goes. Even if Toronto might have a bigger free agent C list, I think I have a little bit more confidence that Toronto's going to try and figure it out if things change as opposed to if Winnipeg just finally hits the wall. One side note here, we'll toss to Evan thoughts on this continuing conversation, but just, I know a lot of people probably thought famously the mark cast curse where Ben Holmes didn't go on the podcast and then went on and won a gray cup, but with Toronto I'm sure people were like, well, Brian, Brian was on the show and then he went. And those that know behind the scenes, there's many other times that Brian was supposed to come on the podcast. And so I think that the No-show still holds true with Brian Scott. No-show that he's probably got three more Gray Cup runs than him that Brian's accrued by no-show in the podcast before. That's going to kick into effect. So I thought that was interesting, Evan. Yeah. Where does Winnipeg go from here? Where does Toronto go from here? Yeah, it'll be interesting. I think it's pretty clear that this will be a big off season in the league. There's going to be a lot of change. Winnipeg, like Andy already pointed out, father time is going to catch up at some point and has to collect. I remember doing that pregame show in Hamilton before the game against Montreal and kind of felt like Winnipeg was getting old then and they were able to bring back everybody for another year minus who went to Saskatchewan and got injured. But it's impressive that they're still doing it. Stanley Bryant in particular, I think is like 39 or something. So he's going to be in Jason Peter's kind of territory if he keeps doing this and sticks around, whether it's with Winnipeg or somebody else. Again, he expressed his intent to keep playing. So we'll see. Winnipeg, there's some questions, Toronto, there's some questions as to who's set up better for the future. That's also hard to say. Again, I think we have to wait to see some of these changes and give it a couple weeks or months, maybe see how free agency goes before you can really have a definitive answer to that. Jason, to you, we can start looking towards some of the news. Obviously we're kind of in the middle of the news cycle and Rick Campbell now has been officially released. I think we expected that. I think I'm like, oh, remember when Jason, I all summer were like, oh no, Rick's the guy and then now it's like, oh, okay. But yeah, so Rick's moved on. It looks like he's going to Edmonton and BC's made some promotions that way and I think CFL News had just put out Vernon officially going to be traded. We all kind of know this stuff, but thoughts on this now, anything forward looking? It could be Winnipeg, Toronto, but then especially kind of BC in the West really feels like it could be pretty open here. Just to touch on Toronto, I think that they've become, and we'll talk about what Kadeem Carey said after their victory Sunday, but they've become the new Calgary in a sense, Calgary for years, they were able to have all these guys go out the door in free agency and they would just find these guys out of nowhere and just plug them into the lineup as rookies or second year players and not miss a beat. And Toronto's been able to do that. I think they lost a total of 17 players or something like that. Something crazy like that last off season to other CFL teams. I think Hamilton alone signed seven of them. So it just shows you the amount of turnover that team was able to overcome this year on top of the quarterback injury in the Great Cups. So just incredibly impressive. It's going to be really interesting going forward here in Hamilton now that Ed Harvey now got hired as the GM in Edmonton, who is going to be the next GM here in Hamilton. A lot of rumors speculating about maybe it's going to be Danny McManus who is the assistant GM in Winnipeg. He is the last Hamilton quarterback to bring a great cup to this city. So it would be an interesting homecoming. And Ted Geva, I think is his name, is the other assistant GM in Winnipeg that maybe gets a job here as well. So it should be interesting to see what happens with that position. I mean, BC's head coach I think is the big question because it looks like Edmonton's head coach is going to be Rick Campbell. It looks like all signs are pointing towards Edmonton hiring just because of the lineages there with Hugh Campbell, his dad being such a legend there, I think it makes too much sense for them not to do that. BC's head coach, on the other hand, I think that is a big question mark about who it's going to be. It could be a number of different people. Maybe it's a promotion from within. Maybe Jordan Maxim gets that opportunity as a head coach or maybe they look around the league to a guy like Buck Pierce who didn't call his best game in the Gray Cup as we've alluded to, but maybe it's one of those guys that gets a first time opportunity because there's not too many guys with head coaching experience just sitting around in the CFL. It is weird. And just to speak on that, and then I have one quick thing about Toronto. The Rick Campbell thing is weird to me because obviously we saw that with Jason Moss from the coordinator going over to the Owlettes and what did they call that? Failing up and you got promoted that. But generally, if you're a coach like Rick, you would take a couple seasons off and people kind of forget about, okay, what's going on? It's like to me, and people think, I know we've talked about Belichick and whatever in the chat, but to me that's the damnest thing right now is Bill Belichick went from last year where no one wanted him and saw how the Patriots kind of collapsed and he was old and kind of whatever. And then he is doing all this media stuff now and he's like the jolliest funniest guy in the world, and then we guarantee he's going to get hired somewhere next year. It's like that's the same guy that didn't want to do the thing. To me with Rick is just wild. We're like, we just saw it. We just lived through how many years of this in BC and now you're going to go hot. Why would we expect anything different? Andy, if you have any thoughts on that in a second. The other thing I was going to say with Toronto is it's really a shame to me, and this is a really good story and everything, and we would dim witty and everything they've gone through and kind of the adversity, which part of which was self-inflicted with Chad and all that, however you want to look at that. But I do still feel like that kind of hangs over because even in the, I thought Chad was just obnoxious in the parade kind of thing and screaming and yelling, and I understand you were with the team. It is not like you didn't beat the bombers, you weren't there. You missed half the season. I think whether you agree with how the league handled that or not, I just think that Chad just doesn't come across as a very likable guy online or doing any of this kind of stuff, and I think that hurts in that regard of just like this should be very overwhelmingly positive right now for Toronto, but I don't like that and obviously he's going to be back next year. Andy, any thoughts on anything I've said? I know I dropped a couple different things there. Well, and just quickly in regards to Chad Kelly, I mean, they've hitched their wagon to him for better or worse, they seem to love him even if the public doesn't, but that has to do with litigation or public perception. They don't seem to care. So we'll see what happens as regards to that. And also again, with some of the structural shifts, we'll see if someone like John Murphy stay around for that team, the team president, there were some reporting on that I've already seen. We'll see what happens going forward. But as far as the rest of the league, I can sense that there's going to be a dramatic shift in a lot of teams, especially in the West. Obviously BC is making wholesale changes. Saskatchewan, again, it kind of comes down to does Trevor Harris stay around? That's really kind of one of the big dominoes. Calgary. Calgary needs to restock the shells quickly. If Dave Dickinson wants to stay around, I mean, the clock's kind of ticking on him right now too, and I just wonder about what kind of changes are Hamilton is going to make, obviously another season where they didn't really meet their own expectations. A lot of the quarterback movement, we asked Dave Nailer about that. The carousel. I mean, it seems like quarterback musical chairs, obviously. Yes, we know that. Thank you reading the fact about Trevor Harris being the same age as Reed. I've never heard that one before. But look, I just wonder about the musical chairs with all the quarterbacks because there's so many different guys that possibly could start that aren't going to have a starting spot when a camp opens or when it concludes, I should say. And so for me, I just wonder where that's all going to go. There's going to be so much movement. I'm really excited for all of it, but what it looks like right now is really going to look a lot different when training camp starts. Yeah, that was kind of what we, I mean, Andy and I kind of all week, it felt like anyone you talked to, even the Jim Mullens and Jamie Ni, everyone just says kind of like, yeah, this going to be really crazy with that. Yeah, shout out to Jim Owen that came to dinner with all of us. That was fun. Even though I was laughing, I had texted everyone, Hey, I got a special guest coming that show with Jim, and everyone's like, we thought it was going to be for haunt. I'm like, don't say that when Jim is sitting there. You say that, say that after the fact. You don't say that during the fact. Evan, any thoughts in the future and then we'll spend the last couple of minutes here telling funny stories and we'll get out of here. We got, it's going to be a good game tonight, right? We got Steelers, Browns, right? Yeah. Russell Wilson. Here we go. Yeah, there's going to be a lot of movement on many levels. There's going to be personnel, there's going to be coaches, there's going to be players. The BC situation I think is an interesting one to monitor. I'll start there. Jordan Maxim to me was kind of the automatic name that came to mind, especially given he was the one who kind of brought Nathan Rourke to power in 2022 during his outstanding season that eventually put him into the NFL with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Buck Pierce, I also think is a convincing name. You might remember last year when Saskatchewan was doing their coaching hires, buck Pierce was a finalist for that job. It came down to either him or Corey Mace and they went with Corey Mace obviously worked out pretty well for them. Wouldn't mind. I think Buck Pierce has done enough in this league to get an opportunity, again, part of that dynasty term. Got to be careful with that. But again, he's been there and he's helped Zach and he's helped Drew Brown, he's helped Chris Traveler. He's helped a lot of prominent names in this league and especially, I mean the plethora of receivers that Winnipeg has and just Playmakers all around. Andrew Harris you had in the backfield then it was Brady ra, so obviously he's got a wealth of experience that he could bring the other spot. I'll talk about, I mean I think Edmonton's pretty clear to me at this point. It's already been touched on, but the Hamilton GM opening I think is an interesting one. Jason already talked about Danny McManus, Ted Geva. Do those guys come together as a package deal? Currently they are in that situation under Kyle Walters and Winnipeg, Ted Geva being the senior assistant GM and Danny McManus being the just assistant GM who runs the US scouting. So do they hire one? Do they hire both? If they hire one, which one is it or do they go external? I mean, I think you saw Scott Milanovich was kind of an external hire, a guy who had been in the CFL before but was working in the NFL prior, and I think Kent Austin at one point who's now doing some stuff at Auburn, had been in Hamilton maybe, and he was a guy who again, was an external hire at one time, so they kind of have a history with that. The one really interesting name that I saw that came up in some places was Chris Rosetti, who I believe is the director of scouting with the New York Giants. Obviously the Giants might be doing some restructuring in the off season with their personnel department and coaches and whatever. We've yet to see that, but he was a guy, I'm pretty sure he's Canadian and worked with the Argos when he was young at one point and of a variety of personnel or coaching roles. So that would be one to monitor. Hard to tell again which direction Hamilton's going to go yet just with their history. But again, that's just like the tip of the iceberg. There's so much more that we could talk about if we have more time, but again, a lot of it, I want to say a lot of it'll will take time to figure out, but at least on the personnel level, that's stuff that you have to get the ball rolling on pretty quickly because there's decisions to be made guys to resign and all that. So yeah. Yeah, Tim, Andy, Tim here, and then we can start getting into wrapping this and tell the stories up. But yeah, the question what'll BBC ask and I'll tell you. I mean, it's going to be a sad day when BC finally gets rid of Vernon here, and I know obviously the writing's on the wall and all that, but yeah, do we promote Jordan and then it's like the Nathan show. All I hope mean, I hope we will see, I mean anything's on that end and then we can kind of transition on. One thing we didn't touch on that I wanted to say is that the situation in Montreal was one to monitor, I think there were three down nations guys I was listening to earlier this week. They were saying because they have a choice to make between Cody Fido and Davis Alexander that from the people that they've talked to, it seems like Davis Alexander is the guy that they would prefer to keep. So don't be surprised if Cody Fajardo ends up being a free agent and with all of these guys, and Naylor was talking about this on the show being available this off season, somebody's going to be left without a dance partner at the end here and someone's going to have to be a backup that we didn't expect. Maybe that's straightforward. Maybe that's pedo, like I said. So it's going to be very interesting to see what happens this off season with the quarterback reshuffling. Yeah. Andy, thoughts on that? Thoughts on VA and then we'll, because I know he's your boy. No, he's absolutely right. I mean, just to think of the list off the top of your head, you've got Cody, Gerardo, and Davis Alexander. I would think that Montreal is just, from what I'm kind of sensing from how Danny Macha their GMs talked and how other people are talking, it seems like if they've put in that much work to develop Davis Alexander, then they're probably going to have to roll with him going forward, make the difficult decision of parting ways with Cody. So that's kind of the thought there. I agree with Tim what Tim's saying, Cody may be being traded, and then Alexander being signed to a multi-year contract. Again, they put so much space and capital in that boldly by Mitchell came up in MOPS season. Does Hamilton want to restructure his contract or is he going to have to go find that money elsewhere? That's another question. Obviously Chad Kelly, but again, we don't know how healthy Chad Kelly is going to be. Somebody else going to come in and step into Toronto, PJ Walker and Calgary. Is Calgary going to trade for somebody or acquire somebody? Obviously VA has to be traded to somebody at some point, but does somebody want to be keen on making him the starter? Trevor Harris? Nathan work obviously seems to be the presumed starter in bc. Do we assume that Zach, I mean again, Zach Lauro just based on health wise. I know he has to have some time to think and he said it's pretty much 99.9% chance he comes back, but things can change. So yeah, obviously it has the Pez dispenser hand or finger I should say, but I guess for me that'd be really bad. Like Jason was saying, it's a shame that somebody's going to have to be left out of here. Yeah, yeah, right. But it's a shame that somebody's going to be left out of the dances like he said. I would think if you're asking me yes, my personal Homer here, it would be a damn shame if someone like Vernon Adams didn't have a starting job or if Trey Ford wasn't given a real chance with somebody, which again, if Rick Campbell comes over to Edmonton, I'm just going to say right now I think Trey Ford needs a head for the hills if that's the case, because Rick is probably going to try and bring in somebody else, and I don't know if that's really the guy that I really want coaching Trey Ford. Sorry, but that's my personal take and so we'll see what happens going forward. But yeah, I mean it's good that they have a glut of quarterbacks. I'll say that because two years ago there was complaints that there were not enough quarterbacks, so now all of a sudden they have plenty of them. Yeah, it was funny, right? Wasn't it in Ed in his introductory thing with Edmonton and he's like, we're intense and we want to win and we're here. And I'm like, do you know who you're rumored to be hiring to be your head? I didn't want to tweet anything. I don't hate Rick Campbell the man, but I'm like, okay, that doesn't speak to the, yeah, I'm re for it. I get the hell out of there. There's no place for that. Anything else we will round out? I thought it was funny. Anyone had any fun stories or anything to share here at the end? I'm glad that we got Andy an audience with John Hodge and JC with the three Down podcast. I was happy to facilitate that. Jason had to fly back early. We went in there. John Hodge very quiet to me. I did get a thanks for coming handshake the last night there. I was not too chatty with me. I talked more with that Joel guy that works with Three Down. We talked with JC a little bit. I'm glad Andy was able to talk with him. Anyone else have any takeaways, any other stuff from Vancouver? Anything else, any other observations? It was cool to see just from hanging out in the Team party headquarters, just seeing Bo Levi Mitchell and other people walking around, that's what is the beauty of the CFL and beauty of Gray Cup is just stuff like that you'd never see in the NFL where people are just down to earth and personal with you. You can meet anybody and I just love that about Gray Cup Week. Yeah, it was funny, I went to the cracking game last night. My buddy was like, oh, so does Gray Cup have a big thing around it? I'm like, yeah, that's like 80% of the thing is going to the things around the Gray cup and then the game. Evan, any takeaways from you? Anything you enjoyed your experiences Vancouver? Well, I do have one funny story. So we were in the FRC suite or whatever, I was there like 11 or 1230 and then I had to go to bed because my flight back out here, I had to connect through Houston. I had to get up at like five 30 in the morning and one of the guys that I was hoping to see was Naylor because I didn't get to see him on the show and me and him obviously talk a lot, developed a relationship with him. So I'm on my way back the next day, right? I'm in Houston on my connecting flight and I'm texting Naylor and I'm like, Hey man, I was in this suite last night from whatever time to whatever time I was a bit late, but I didn't see it. He goes, oh well that's interesting. I got there at 2 45 in the morning and was there until four. But yeah, I mean we will catch up eventually or whatever. And I said, well that would've been great Dave, but I had to get up at five 30 for my eight 30 flight and then we joked and I said, well I guess I'm only a rookie because whatever I thought was late clearly is not. But no, look, we had a good time. And again, even though I was only there for what ended up being a bit more than a day, we made the most of it. Jason pointed out that team party headquarters thing was fantastic. It wasn't Hamilton and then in bc, just with the setup there at the convention center, again, I have to give credit, this is a guy we've talked about plenty of times and I know Reed you're obviously very fond of, but Amar Doman man, it's incredible to see his buy-in to this league and you can tell he really cares and that zip line stuff going on there, man, I mean that was all just crazy. I didn't anticipate that. I had no idea that was even going on until I had seen some tweets a couple of days before I got there when they were setting it up for the whole week. Just an incredible event really. I thought Hamilton was great, but I remember going to that convention center in BC and thinking there's just so much room here, there's so much going on. As Jason pointed out too, a lot of players walking around just very casual. You can strike up a conversation with anybody and that's the great part about what this league offers compared to say the NFL or maybe even college football to a degree. You just don't really ever get that experience. And I know I had a great time talking to people. It's just really easy when you don't have to necessarily coordinate external meetups and everybody's kind of already in one place. It's just one spot where everything's happening and yeah, good time all around. Yeah, it was funny. Co-signed that and Andy, I think's computer died is back. I was just resizing stuff on my end and I'm like, oh, did I hope I didn't kick anyone out or did I get dropped off or whatever. But it's cool seeing everyone around and like Evan said, it's in an approachable way that Paul and I remember when we did WrestleMania years ago, and you might run into wrestlers to do whatever, but it's, Hey, you want a photo, it's 50 bucks or you want a signature, whatever, hey buy my shirt. A lot of that kind of thing where everybody there, you could have walked in at anyone at any time and said, Hey, let me get a photo or a handshake or just say congrats or whatever. I really kind of approached that way. Yeah, Tim liked the drone show. We did that. We were in the wrong way. Evan was late getting in because his flight, he wasn't late. His flight didn't get in and Andy and I and Dorothy went out to see that we were on the wrong side of the pier and so we kind of realized it was there was no music, it would've helped with that or announcements or anything with that. But I will just say my thing and I'll toss to you two guys, we'll get out of here for Thursday night football. I just thought the West Coast aspect of it made it so nice. I thought the area worked down there great. Having the team headquarters, having the media row and all of that, having the water there. I know the Zipline and all that, but you didn't even necessarily have that but everything and then just the game and just not having it be two degrees. Jason and I understand that, okay, the Canadian League and we need to play it, but the fact that you could just sit and watch the game and not have to worry about freezing to death win a really long, I'm not saying it's got to be an every year thing, but every two, three years it gives people, you can bring out your kids and stuff you don't have to worry about, we got to put 18 layers on. It just made the game watching so much more enjoyable that I could just sit there in jeans in the sweatshirt and watch the game. Yeah, I agree. Even as a Canadian, I don't love the cold. I mean I'm not looking forward to how cold it's going to be next year in Winnipeg especially. So I will say the previous two Great Cups in Hamilton or two of the last three years in Hamilton, it wasn't that cold, especially the one that was 2021, which was in December, the latest gray Cup ever played. I thought it was ridiculously warm for December. So hopefully it's similar to that in Winnipeg. Tell my wife that it not to us. Andy, anything else that we will get out of here? I just had an enthralling experience from front to back. No, I'm the rookie here. My first time being there, first time being in Vancouver, I loved it from every aspect, every angle. I loved going to outside with all the different bands playing. I didn't ride any of the zip lines, but I loved just seeing how fun it was. People were just so into it. The convention centers were great. A lot of things to do, especially for the kids and then the team party HQs I will say, and this is an interesting point that's been brought up by a couple of different podcasts, maybe the space was too big, but you know what? I'd rather it be too big than too small. Just my personal standpoint. You can put in as much as you want, go big or go home. And they certainly did the presentation with a great cup. I thought the national anthem was beautiful. I loved the halftime performance. I'm not a Jonas Brothers fan, but I think the presentation was great. The lighting, the paneling on the upper rafters at BC Place was great. The biggest thing that, my biggest takeaway, especially with all the people that we talked to and the things about how you could just see coaches, you could see owners. I mean Ammar Doman was just walking around on the ground floor before the gray cop talking to people. I mean from our standpoint, just to understand as Americans, there's such a velvet rope aspect, especially in sports where it's like, hey, don't talk to this person. Oh, leave him alone. We can't have you talk. No, that was not the sense here. Everybody could talk to anybody at any point about anything and no one was really being harassed. I really love that a lot. Obviously I know you are not the biggest fan and maybe I'm not the biggest fan of 'em either Reid, but seeing Rick Campbell just walking around in the convention center was really cool. I mean I had coaches just hanging out. That part of it is so cool and I really appreciate that and I just appreciated all really just want to shout out all the media personnel who were kind to me, even though they had never met me personally before, for them to just be like, Hey, yeah, you're part of the troop. This is your space. No hazing. I'm not saying they would, but sometimes it'd be a little rough in the business and so I appreciate it and I really appreciate being part of that process and I absolutely want to go back to Vancouver. I have to say, going to the gray cup, it's like a drug. It really is. And I get why people are so into it and why it's so traditional and if anything else, I just wish more people could experience it because it's really that great. Yeah, Andy, I was really worried the first year we went with there be some sort of hazing gate keeping. Paul and I dealt a lot with that online. No, I mean everyone couldn't be nicer. Both media bands. Anything else? Evan and Jason, we'll get out of here. Alright, well thanks everyone for watching like and subscribe. We will, like I said, probably go dark here. I know we're going to have the UFL schedule coming out. Look for Andy and I might try to figure out a stream or something with that when that comes. It's been many weeks coming, but we'll see. And then like I said, once we start getting some UFL content, I can get some CFL interviews on here. It's not worth the squeeze to try to track down whatever to get 15 minutes and just have it die on here with the algorithm. So we'll start packaging up some of that stuff. We'll be quiet for a little bit, but we post everything on here, turn on the bells and notifications, subscribe everything else, Jason for coming. It was great hanging out with you and Alex and Evan making the time and flying through the other flights and everything. And Andy as always, and appreciate everyone, all the media, everyone else couldn't have gone better. We will see you guys next time.

LIVE From CFL Grey Cup 2024 in Vancouver! Grey Cup 111 Pre-Show!!!

Well we are here. Welcome everyone live here from the Gray Cup. We're here in Vancouver. I got Jason and Andy here. Evan, we'll touch with all that. Let me set the stage here. Live today, media row. Great Cup one 11 in Vancouver downtown. Please like and subscribe. Huge guest list today. You guys know we do this every year. I got Mike Hogan already standing by with the Argos, Dave Nailers coming by. We've got Rick Sotello, we've got Rob Peterson. A lot of activity here. I think my mic's okay, everyone lemme know if it sounds weird. Andy and Evan. Sorry we had a couple mimosas at breakfast here we got Andy and Jason there. Evan was supposed to be here en route. He will be flying here. We'll see him tonight. Jason, Andy, how are you guys doing? I'm doing good Reid. It's great to be here at Gray Cup once again and yeah, ready for a great show. Yeah, Abdu already ask you how many times have you guys been on the slide behind you? Not yet, but you seen family fun activities here. We'll set the stage a lot of activities here before we bring our first guest in. Andy flew in last night. Andy and I, we spent time with the team headquarters. Dorothy's standing by here and Jason's girlfriend as well. Andy, are you having fun in Vancouver? I have to say I never thought I'd be broadcasting in front of a obstacle course, but this is the first time for everything, right? I absolutely love being here, been wanting to come to Vancouver all my life. I'm excited to be here and to be here for such a fantastic event. I love this festival. Yeah, so like I said, so set the stage kind of fluid today. Everyone knows I posted the guest list already. A lot of activity here. We got Evan, excuse me, Jason, Andy here. Mike Hogan's coming by. Gerald Davis, Dan Ralph, whole list fluid. We'll see what we do. Jim Mullen stopping by. We finally got nailed scheduled so just if you're watching this out with the fact, I'll put time codes on so you can jump around that baker standing by, but it should be fun today. A little fluid. We'll be here for about two and a half hours, so hope you guys enjoy. Jason, you guys were walking around today, a lot of activities. Rainy today was sunny yesterday, but we got zip lines, we got the family funds in here. What do you, pretty spectacular. I know we were in your hometown last year for Hamilton. Yeah, it's definitely a step up from Hamilton last year. One thing that stands out and me and Andy were talking before the show is the amount of zip lines. They got a couple zip lines down here inside and then outside in the rain. You got a couple down there across the harbor and it's a really cool experience just seeing everybody out. It's been a great turnout so far and yeah, I'm really looking forward to seeing how the rest of the weekend goes. Andy, we Went through the team headquarters last night. We were at the Atlantic Scooters. We were at the BC Lions den. We went over to a lot of alcohol, was consumed. Did you have fun? What? Did you make team headquarters your first time? Rick Campbell walking around, I think we'll talk about that today. Rick Campbell's feature we signed. Neil McAvoy thoughts on what you've seen so far? Well first of all, to Jason's point, where's our zip line? How can we don't have one coming down to the booth. We couldn't get that. Yeah, Bring the guests in. Bring Mike Hogan in with a zip line. That would be, I would like to see that. Yeah, but no really lovely city. Just a lot of activity. Again, just the throngs of people that I've seen in the last 24 hours and all the different jerseys. Like I said, I don't think I've really been quite to an event like this. I've been to a lot of conventions where a lot of different other niches, sports related. I don't think I've quite seen the comradery like I've seen here with all the different fans, the different jerseys, the different kinds of people. I cannot count on my hand the number of times that someone said hello to you and Dorothy last night. I mean just streams of people, I mean random people that I think I try to keep up with your whole media exposures and everybody you talk to in the Canadian media sphere, but I did not expect all the fans that said hello to you last night. I was really taken aback by that and that's really just a really warm feeling to have and otherwise cold and rainy city. That's the beauty of Great Cup, man. No, it's really been nice and just even to set the stage here, there's two halves of this convention center. This is totally unique this year to bc. We're at the McLaren Grills auto Row here, a media row. I'll give that plug sponsor here when we bring in Mike Hogan, but they've put all this on. There's field goal kicking, there's bouncy houses, there's an indoor zip line, there's outdoor zip line compared to even the last year in Hamilton, and I'll tell you the team parties last year in Hamilton were often, I mean really spectacular but just a lot more this year. I think Ammar Doman and the rest of bc, right? I mean Jason, can you speak to that? And you've been to obviously more great cups than Andy and I have just the breadth of activities we have going on. Yeah, I think just the way I would describe it is they spared no expense for this gray cup. Look at the halftime show, what they got for Sunday. I'm sure Jonas Brothers weren't cheap. There's just so much to do and it really feels like when you walk around. We took the train here from our Airbnb just seeing the advertising and the presence of the Lions and the Great Cup Festival this week in Vancouver. It's really a special time and this is actually my first time going to Vancouver and I'm very impressed. Yeah, it's beautiful. I see Jamie, I she already, he's not on for a little bit Jamie. I see. I should be fun here. Maybe Dorothy can start getting Mike Hogan over here if she's paying attention. We'll bring him on in a minute. Like I said, like and subscribe. Get us over 4,000 subscribers trying to give away. I saw Dustin with Royal Retros last night. He was at the CFL PA party. We went by Andrew Pearson was there a lot of CFL players friends in the show, but Dustin is going to be giving away a custom CFL and UFL jersey to any of our listeners when we get 4,000 subscribers. We'll do a couple of those, but it was nice to catch up with him last night as well just because I mean the last time we saw Dustin and everyone knows Royal Retros if you're in any of this alternative league. That was Birmingham, what, three years ago? Yeah, it was. No two years ago but almost three years still. Yeah, the last time we saw him we were trying to film our setup through a potato essentially with how many people were in the area. I remember the stream was really fun. It was great though. And I love meeting Dustin. I mean rural Retro is obviously a fantastic just set up with all the different kinds of jerseys and outfits that they have on that site and he was very charming last time we got to talk to him, so I'm excited to see him again. Yeah, so let's bring in Mike Hogan here. Let's bring in our first guest. We'll get him in talking Argos, I think we're going to have some overlap today, so let's bring in the heavy hitters while we can. Mike Hogan here. Ready early. Let's get him situated. We're live for the McLaren Custom Grills radio row. We're broadcasting the only officially licensed CFL Barbecue Grill. To see him purchase grills, go to McLaren custom grills.com and this week only use the promo code CFL, get 10% off your McLaren custom grills. Really appreciate that. Mike Hogan, first guy I had scheduled for the stream and then number one on here. We had to have the voice of the Argos on here. Mike, I don't know if is the matchup maybe we wanted right on paper we got the Argos here, circumstances, Shaq, Kelly and everything aside. What is your take on this? I'll hold you mic for you. I think it's just two really good teams that are playing. If you look over the last five years, or at least post covid, the bombers have been the Tom and the team in the west. The Argos have been to five or four straight Eastern conference finals or Eastern Division finals. So I think if you've got the two best franchises at this stage, Montreal, Saskatchewan, trying to get a little bit closer, but I think these are the two teams that maybe didn't deserve it from start to finish this year, but finished strong at the perfect time. What do you make of, maybe Andy, I have a question of this. What do you make of this year? There was so much going in with Chad, going obviously into the off season, going in, sat out, came in, took a while, really was playing excellent even in the playoff game, obviously gets hurt and then we see Nick Arbuckle come in thoughts just with the team. I mean I have to imagine it's been a roller coaster here and I just can't imagine what the locker room is feeling at this point. And then the true leader of this team has went McManus and went and down. He was on the six game as well. So you lose out on the defense. Chad's not in Brinkman, went down for six games. We spent so many injuries during the season yet now everybody's healthy aside from Chad Kelly and Quincy Moe of the guys who would play. So I think there was 97% availability of players before the Kelly injury, which at this time of the season is stupid. So they've been good at the right time, they've been healthy at the right time, and all the momentum's going in the right direction for Sunday. That actually perfectly leads into my question, which was what is it that really holds this team together? They've gone through so much strife as you alluded to, injuries, players leaving a free agency, quarterbacks it's McManus, and then any other particular players or coaches that have really held this team together. The coaches really our business life, very professional and the goal is always want to know if you went in the middle of August and aside from Labor Day, you said, who are we playing in three weeks? 95% of the guys would've no idea. They know who they're playing that week and that's been the approach. So it's okay this week, Winton's not here. You don't think he's not going to be there for six more, but he say, okay, he's not there. What are we going to do to make up for that? And here's our game plan. Here's how we're going to do this. So it comes from Dinwoody down and if you want to throw another couple of guys in there, Devar Daniels will be top of the list. He's a guy who really assumes the leadership role along with Winton and on special teams is Jack. He's the guy. I got a question that maybe Jason will have one for you just to follow up with that. Let's talk Coach Dinwitty just being able to manage all of this, right? I know they gave out the coaching the year awards and all of that and obviously spotlighted Corey Mason and everyone else that way, Jason Moss, but just the mentality to be able to do that. We've talked a lot fans critical of D Witty in the past with the Argos, right? Really has seen nothing but unjustified, right? Criticism in that regard. But just for him to be able to kind of manage that, what do you make of that that maybe Jason have follow up? He's earned the respect of his players. So I talked to Nick Arbuckle about leadership role and he said it starts with Dinwoody. He said a team takes on the personality of its boss in this case the head coach and Ryan Dinwoody is hardcore football one week at a time. Here's your assignment, let's go out and do it. Let's go out and execute and if we can do that, we should win because the talent's there now it's all about the execution. So it trickles down from Ryan's What you got. Yeah. So you mentioned the adversity that this team, we had enemy representation here this week. I mean obviously. So my question is, so you mentioned the adversity that this team went through this year and they're going to be facing the ultimate test of adversity after losing their quarterback last week. So my question is can Nick Arbuckle, I guess have his Nick Bulls kind of moment in the gray Cup this week? There's already been one Saint Nick, why not two? Right? Absolutely. It's not like a lot of people compare this to Dinwoodie's situation. When he came in in 2007, right when he came in, started his first game in a breakup as a backup, our buckle has a lot of experience compared to where Dinwoody was in his career. So this isn't the same thing. This is an experience backup who became a starter, who became a backup, who became a starter and is now a starter again. So I don't think there's a guy, in fact, I know there's not a guy in the locker room that doesn't have 1000% confidence that Nick Arbol can get it done on Sunday. I guess I have a follow up to that. I was talking and obviously I do more of this and you guys are the smart football people obviously, but the Cameron Dukes wasn't any of that that we went immediately to our buckle. That was kind of the decision that we were. I mean I'm just curious your thoughts on that. He initially went to Dukes in the last game of the season. They gave Kelly the night off. Dukes got hurt, Our buckle came in and in three quarters threw for I think 378 yards and a couple of touchdowns. Oh guess who just won the job? And Cam wasn't a hundred percent in the next game. Kelly had to come out of the game. He got a helmet to helmet on a slide and then our buckle had to go in again. So he's been in three strike games due to injury. I can't ever remember that happening. So he got some very much needed reps and he looked great in the game against Montreal. So all always good. Nobody's got any doubt at all that Nick can get this done. I got one more and then we'll go back. Whoever wants Chad Kelly obviously it's been a story kind of off and on through all of this, right? Even going into the league and then obviously getting hurt, the interceptions right last year and all of that and then all this. I guess do you rinse and repeat going into the next season? I mean whatever happens this in the game and all that, but for Chad here, it's just been so much over the last three or four, I don't know. What is your advice to him or what are you looking for? I have to imagine you would really have to do a hard stop and kind of like, okay, we're going forward again now with him as the team, regardless of what happens Without sounding trite, he's QB one, right? I mean he signed a long-term deal for a reason. He was playing as well, if not better than any quarterback, no disrespect bowl at the end of the season. He was lights out. We know what he can do. If he's able to go and the prognosis is good from what I'm told, they'll reassess it at 12 weeks. He should be ready. I don't know if it's the beginning of the camp, I don't know if it's early in the season, but when he's healthy I assume unless something ironically changes unexpectedly, he's going to be QB one. I'll have a follow up eventually, but I'll toss to Andy here. I have What do you got for Mike? Well yeah, back On the quarterback conversation. One of the things that was really remarkable to me last year with Montreal beating Winnipeg was Cody Fudo really kind of transcending past what people had always kind of thought of him and he really took that last drive and pushed past all the narratives that he ever had and overcame I think some demons in that process in winning that game. Do you see Arbuckle having to do something similar where he'll have to transcend as a player tomorrow or do you think there's going to be a lot more help and more of a committee by approach in terms of hacking Winnipeg? If you've got five talented receivers and a thousand yard running back, use 'em. If you've got a great offensive line, use it. If you're the coaching staff, you can't do some of the things that Chad Kelly does because nobody else in the league has that arm. So I don't think there's any doubt that can get it done offensively. It'll just have to be a different way. Nick threw some great ball deep balls in practice this week, so that's still there. But is he going to throw that rolled out cross body dime from 65 yards? I don't know if Nick has that in him, but him throwing deep is not a surprise to anybody. I got you Got some firsts now. Yeah, absolutely. So Winnipeg obviously a hell of a team, five straight great cups. What kind of challenges do you think they present to Toronto Tomorrow? Great football team. They have a pedigree quarterback. They've got the outstanding player in the league at running bat. They've got a really good offensive line, fantastic receivers. The defense is always in position. They're ball hungry, they have spectacular coaches. Other than that, they don't offer anything. They're just a solid football team. So they're there for a reason. They've been to five in a row for a reason. Nobody takes Winnipeg lightly ever. Even when they were oh three or whatever their record was two and six. Nobody took them lightly and they're playing their best football right now. So nobody, they're just a great team. I was big an eyeball fan. We got Paul Felise walking by. These are the things you get on the radio row here. I just think it's funny. All the back inside I guess. Two quick questions. So first off, what did you make to Winnipeg's slow start, right? Obviously it was kind of like the demon's dead, we don't have to somehow Palpatine returned Star Wars and all that. What did you make of that Slow start really felt like they never faltered. I thought there was a chance that maybe this was Father Times's year and he is undefeated because CORIs is in his mid thirties. Stanley Bryant's in his late thirties, big hill, all of these guys who are closer to 40 than 20, right? So at some point it's got a give, give whatever reason they captured the fountain of youth at Midseason and just lights out after that. So they're there for a reason and they've got all the experience in the world. You can't say anything badly about the organization because there's not much to say. One quick one for me and then we'll toss. We got a Darryl Davis standing by. What was your reaction to the injury? Which Jack Kelly Now candidly, we were getting ready for a party. Our sink had clogged. Dorothy came, I was running downstairs watching the game. Dorothy goes, Hey, so I got the CFL plus laptop on the island, I've got my head under the sink and I look out, I'm in the group chat. I'm like, what the hell just happened? And then I literal, I had to rewind everyone. What was your reaction real time to that? I know I think it was hodge spoiled the news to Farhan and we kind of heard all this. Where were you at? But just curious your reaction. It Had to be traumatic broadcast. Booth of Montreal is at about the 20 yard line where he was tackled. He went down head first, go for the first now and he got up, okay, fine. And then he started limping. I went, oh okay. Something happened. And then he went down. I went, did he? That looked like it was an Achilles, the way he went down just with no weight on it. And then when he got up and then sat down again, I didn't see from my angle what had happened to the leg. My color voice did. And he said that's not good. And so I never saw the replay of the angle of the injury until I got home and I went, that's not good. So I knew it was serious, but I didn't know it was like that other than what Ben Grant had said because the monitor was closer to him and I was still trying to survey the field to see what was happening. So I knew it was bad. I didn't know it was that bad. Anything else from You guys? And then we'll bring in Daryl, what do you think the biggest key is to winning on Sunday? Don't Shoot yourself in the foot. And that's the both teams. I mean it's cliche. Win the battles on the line of scrimmage and don't turn the ball over. Ta-da. There's your winner. Yeah, Well we appreciate it. Mike Hogan here, voice of the Argos. Thanks for coming by. First one on, we got Darryl Davis coming in here, you guys, Darryl Davis coming in here. You guys want to do together? No, we're bringing Darryl here. We got Jamie and I. Standby. Thank you Mike. Appreciate it guys again like and subscribe. Here in we got Darryl shaking hands with Mike Hogan. Like I said, stacks lineup. Today we're rolling through 10, 12 minutes of player a person here. We got Brian Scott coming on later. We got the, who are you excited to see today, Jason? It's always exciting when we get players on the show. So I got to say Brian Scott, especially the unique season that he's had, really looking forward to asking him some questions, being a part of both of these teams at different points of this season. So I have to Go with him. We have Anthony Miller chiming in the chat. That slide in the background is the perfect mother forward to Reeds, Washington commanders after losing street two straight games and how his BC alliance season would end up all downhill. Thanks Anthony. Maybe one of these years we'll get Anthony in the great Cut that film we have Darryl Davis here. Daryl, I sent a lot of messages, didn't get a lot of emails back, but you're here. It worked out timing wise. Daryl, how the hell are you? You sent Me emails. I sent you Twitter message. I about that. Oh sorry man. I always dm. I'm doing great. I'm a little soggy. Did you know it rains on the west coast? I'm from the prairies man. It doesn't rain much. So this is fun to walk around. I keep hoping I'll grow. What's your takeaways today here? We thought SaaS was going to be here. I want SaaS to be here. Obviously following short, we'll toss to Jason in the end after that. But what is kind of your thoughts today here? Winnipeg, Toronto 2022 Redux. Well, Winnipeg knows how to get here, don't they? The bombers have played exceptionally well when it's mattered. They started very slowly. The riders started hot, had a huge skid in the middle when they went seven games without a win and then won for their last five. So I thought they were really hot the way they beat the BC Lions. They looked to be the team that was going to make it. But Winnipeg in that situation just is so relaxed, does all the right things. And the rough riders just under first year head coach, Corey Mace and everything that went with them, they weren't quite at that level. I think they'll be better. Nobody, almost nobody wins in their first year coaching a new team. So the rough riders next year have a second year head coach who's gotten better, a guy they believe in and a lot better roster than they had this year. Andy, I'll ask Cory Mayes otherwise if You have a question, what do you got? Yeah, actually, in regards to Saskatchewan, what's been some of the biggest differences between this team and the team in the last two years where they've really faltered down the stretch but this year obviously kind of holding it together in the late parts of the season? It's a great question because they are a different Team this year. Craig Dickinson last year was a, we liked Craig Dickinson from afar. Who cares if media likes him, right? But the players had fallen out of respect for him. He just didn't seem to have the command for the team. And you could see it on the field that they weren't responding to him anymore. Not that he totally lost the locker room, but there was just so much disbelief. The first thing Cory Mace did, and he did not badmouth Craig Dickinson or the preceding regiment before him at all, but he came in and demanded accountability. Remember Miles Brown got suspended, Deontay Williams got suspended, they were front and center. Afterwards they met everybody said that they apologized to the media, to their teammates, to the fans, to everybody in Saskatchewan. And that's what Corey Mace does. He's accountable to himself, to everybody in the organization, everybody in the province, everybody who follows the football team. And I think that maturity is what made this team way better than it was under Craig Dickinson and under a lot of coaches before that. So that's what he's brought and that's why I think they can handle the situation and I think why they're even going to get better going forward. You got Some Jason? Yeah, absolutely. So Darryl, first of all, great to have you back on the show after last year. I want to talk about Trevor Harris and the season he had. So obviously missed some games. Again, that's kind of been a theme of him the last couple of years. But if you prorate his stats over the course of a season, I was saying on our show a couple of weeks ago, he might've been the MOP of this league, but he's 38 years old. Does he have what it takes to get this team over the hump and into a great cup? And if he's not the quarterback of that team next year, do you see anybody else landing In? Oh, that's a huge question. What a package's that is. Let's go with with 38, you'll be 39 next year. You're right. The way he played at the end of the year was great. The way he played at the start of the year was great, but he's missed 19 games with two different knee injuries over the last two years. So is he worth it? He's making almost 500,000 a year. The players love him, his teammates love him. The community likes him, the coaches like him. Is there somebody better? Well at the moment, maybe not. He fit the role so perfectly for a long time. But you have to get younger, you have to get better. You probably have to get cheaper a little bit too. So all the familiar names come out, right? Can they go after Trey Ford? Do they go after Vernon Adams Jr? Do they go after Davis Alexander? Those are three names. You just throw it right away. And does that make them better? No. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But it positions them better moving forward in the future. So I think that they might like to make a change or then again maybe Jeremy O'Day, the general manager and Corey may the head coach, mark Muer, the offensive coordinator say, you know what? He's doing a great job, let's just live with them. But that doesn't set up anything for the future because we saw Shea Patterson the backup step in, he was okay, but I don't think he's really a bonafide CFL starting quarterback moving forward. And that's Shaa Patterson. What draft pick was he in the USFL? He was number one overall number one, number one drop pick in the US FL Shaa Patterson. Yeah, because famously I say it every week on our show, Trevor Harris is my age. He is one month older than I am. And the fact that he is playing professional football in any sense of the word is pretty in insane to me. But like you said, it's not setting up. There's no future there. That's true. Do You wake up in the morning ready and play touch football, contact football, tackle football? It's amazing what he does. He's in good shape. He looks after himself and he works out tremendously hard. But that one last year was only a S spray knee, but two years ago was major surgery for it. So the fact that he came back and played at a pretty good pace, but he also can't run the football and other teams know that. And we all know in the CFL, you have to be able to run the football as a quarterback, right? Even if you don't run it very often, which he didn't. He has to be able to as part of the threat. And Reid, as we were just talking about going forward, I don't know what they do. They're only going to have one quarterback then. And I think they have to deepen that resource a little bit and find somebody who's able, maybe Jack Cohen, the Notre Dame quarterback who's third string on their depth chart look pretty good when he played just a little bit and he seems to have caught on, but how do you know? But it might have to clear space for him and get somebody else on top. Not that we wished the worst of Trevor Harris when he came to Regina. I've been watching him for years thinking, boy, there's a guy who doesn't seem phony all the time. No he's not. He's like that constantly. And I really gained a lot of respect for him over the last couple of years. But is he still good enough? He's never won a Greg Cup as a starting quarterback. To me that still might be the number one knock against It. So I have more general questions about the lead. Do you guys have any other things SA specific we want to talk about? Because then I want to rotate. I want to get a little bit more about Randy on that. Do you have anything else to sa Well actually, as we're talking about potential quarterback options, if you do bring in someone like Trey Ford, do you think the staff at this moment is going to have the resources to put around for, because I think that's one of the biggest complaints that I think at least from our end and from other people's end and it's time in Edmonton, it never seemed like they really gave him a fair shot. Do you see Saskatchewan maybe going that way or do you think they'll do something more traditional? I guess someone like David Alexander. Great point to look at. I thought Edmonton had surrounded him with pretty good running back team. Lewis a pretty good receiver. I think that that top end talent is better in Edmonton than it is in Saskatchewan. Is AJ ette Dun? I think he is. That's a tough thing to say. He's their high price free agent and I don't know if he had one or two good games, but can he do it game after game? So they probably need a new running back. Their offensive line. People have criticized it, but they had 16 different players on that offensive line and I think they've solidified a lot of those spots. When you look at Logan Furland, Peter Gobert Center, the Travon Tate, the guys they put, and Trevor Reed who played 18 games at left tackle as a rookie, I think they put in place a very good offensive line to protect whoever is there quarterback. Great point in having to upgrade. I think at running back, Raquel Armstead ain't coming back. They had scraps at the end of the year. He's not a good person to have him all lot. So he's not coming back. I don't know if they bring back AJ Ette, they probably will, but they probably need another running back. They've got great Canadian receivers. Can't say for Baker, right? Sam Emli, good Canadian, LL Duncan Busby, the draft pick, they took good Canadian receivers. Mitch Pickton can fill in anywhere. Their Americans aren't quite as good, right? Haw and Jack Johnson got pretty good at the end. So they're going to have to find whoever they bring in some high-end talent, which would make it more appealing for a Davis Alexander or at least more appealing for a tray for to come to Saskatchewan. I guess that's a quick follow-up and I want to rotate, but yeah, because you would've to say way exceeded expectations this year, right? First year the riders Did. Yeah. Yes. Oh yeah. But then you're saying, okay, we got the Trevor Harris, we got the HLL, we got all these issues now. So is there a fall off next year? Is this the honeymoon period where you kind of had a lot of good pieces there already? Cory Mays can come in. I'm just curious how you navigate that. And then I have a follow up. They Brought in some good ones around that. Ette didn't have a good year. He was hurt and I think he's worn out. Harris missed games. So there's still, he can play quarterback in the league if they have to go with him. The offensive line is great, but they also got Jamir Thurman, right? Micah Johnson who looks like he could play another six or seven years. Isn't he even great? This the last couple of years, an all-star again, CJ Revis, a great outside linebacker, coverage linebacker. Roland Milligan Jr. The best defensive player in the league. How was Roland Milligan Jr. Not for MLP discussed. He should have been on the ballot. Yeah, he could have been both, right? He won special teams player, outstanding defensive player and outstanding player for the rough riders. Nobody, I don't think anybody's ever done that. Usually guys don't want to play special teams. He wants to play everything. So I think Reed and answer your question, they have, will they have a drop off? No, I think they're going to find out that maybe some of those high price guys, they didn't need them and they've developed a few. But you can always find Roy Shivers, the old hall of fame general manager who knew personnel here and half the guys in the Hall of Fame are probably recruited by Roy Shivers says you can find a running back anywhere. So I think that there are some around who will really help that football team if they go that way. But I don't see a dropoff. I see with Cory Mace, mark Muer their second year in the organization. I see a bit of an upswing as opposed to a drop off. Let's do a couple more here. Dan Ralph was supposed to come. I haven't seen him yet. I saw Danny. He Just told me he doesn't know what building he was in the wrong. Dan was in the wrong building. So he's coming. That's fine. I'm not worried. Confusing. We can bring in break. Early out he decided to give Toronto guy. He's a Toronto guy. He's lost more general thoughts here. Obviously Randy and bro stepping down, getting ousted, whatever. Curious your thoughts on that and kind of, we were talking on the way back last night to the hotel. I don't know what you want from another commissioner coming in, but I'm just curious your thoughts. I see you smiling. The Right Well they want, what they want is somebody who does everything that all nine owners, all nine representatives want. And you can't do that. The teams success or the leagues that are successful NFL, even the NHL under Gary Bettman is making money, right? Because one guy is in charge. Major league baseball, NBA, they put one man in charge in the CFL. The problem is, and I've been to 37 Great Cups, there have been 12 different guys I've seen stand up there and give the state of the league address. And every one of them gets ripped apart in the end by these nine owners. And not all owners, some of them are community owned teams, but nine governors who just want everything their way. They should let somebody be in charge and make those decisions like it's his project. And I know they say the commissioner doesn't have any skin in the game. He's not a part owner of any of the teams, but put him in charge of it like it is his team give him a seven and eight year contract. They're so scared, they're so gun shy because they've hired so many people who don't do the right thing that if they do find somebody and maybe Mark Kohan was the right guy, put him in charge and give him a 12 or 15 year contract and let him run it. And if you really do have to fire him, they still could, but give him that much authority. They didn't give Randy arose that much authority. They never will in this league. And that's why they keep shoving guys out the door. Yeah, I see Dan Ralph coming in here. We'll get him on here in just a minute. I know a couple of different convention centers Waiting it going. I'll have a f And do you have anything you want to toss to Daryl here about Randy? Anything else? Cause I got a follow up about that. Is there something that you believe that Ambrose did well during his tenure, for example, as you mentioned, the ownership thing, there's a lot of stability now in some of the ownership groups that there wasn't there when he first came in. Ammar Doman, obviously Pure Carl Pedo. Obviously Edmonton stabilizing their ownership. Those are things that I think of, but I'm not sure if you see it the same way. Exactly the same. This ownership group has probably never been stronger. You still wonder a little bit about Toronto with MLSE, what's going to happen with the Argonauts, but they're there and they've got the finances to do it. So that's the irony, the twisted irony of this. And Randy Ambrogi brings together maybe this strongest group of owners this league has ever had. And then they push him out the door. Can they find somebody to deal with all those guys? I don't know, but that's the one thing he did. But I keep pointing at so many bad things like the globalization. I don't know if it's going to work. It's an interesting thought. He shouldn't have pinned his hopes on it. And I keep saying it doesn't take a genius to figure out why he's out the door. It's all about genius sports. He gave away 10% of revenues for CFL ventures to let them come in and be partners. And how bad was Genius Sports to, we didn't have stats for an entire year. Anybody who puts in place something like that and it totally falls, explodes in this face. I think that's as much as why Randy arose is out of work as, And we'll get Dan here in to say, I'll let you go. I know you've been filling in here, I appreciate the, but is that indefinite, the revenue sharing in that way? I mean now it's whoever comes in, they're stuck with that, right? Sort of. Yeah, they've got a contract and I haven't seen if it's a lifetime contract with Genius Sports. I hope it isn't, but he did. I remember when he came in and said, how much did they pay for this? Oh, we gave them an ownership stake in it. So that could be perpetual. And if they finally do get the CFL making money, I know it's flat and that's another one of the reasons the franchise value hasn't improved and that's why Randy Aunt Rosie's out too. But if it ever does improve, which owner wants to give up 10% of his profits to somebody who actually ended up hurting the league for two or three years. Alright, Let's bring Dan in here. Daryl, thank you so much. I'm just checking my notes, seeing who's coming on here. Daryl, I appreciate it. Are we good? See you, the suite. You hanging out? I don't know. Maybe I'll see what I do. It's good to see you guys. Thanks for having me, Darryl. Appreciate it. Dorothy, maybe we can bring Dan in and then we'll get, I know Rick's on next year. We're kicking him out. We got Dan, Ralph Canadian Press here, went to the wrong convention center. That's okay. It's confusing. I send a lot of things. Dan, how the heck are you this four years in a row, what's going on, man? Couldn't be better. Great week. And the only thing bad is the weather, but we have no control over that. So all Good. Just to continue and then we'll get back to the game here. Maybe Andy has a question about that, but curious your thoughts. We were just talking with Daryl about Randy leaving the legacy. We're straddled now with the genius sports and the global adventure and all that didn't work out. Here's your thoughts here as we're weak and he's stepping down. Well, I think he was in a no-win situation because he promised to double league revenues and that was going to be a really, really tough sell. And ultimately I think that's what cost them, right? I mean the governors need money and they want money. They expect money, they expect certain revenues. And when you don't deliver, you can be the nicest guy in the world. But these guys need money. They want money, they expect money and they were promised. And unfortunately, the reality is that there was a shortfall there. I'll toss to Andy after this. Given how hamstrung the commissioner of the CFL is compared to other leagues, is that unfair expectations where hey, we want this, but you're not necessarily in a position? Yeah, it is. I mean equate it to the owners want somebody to save them from themselves. They want somebody to fix their problems. And the problem Randy has is that he's got nine different entities, pulling them nine different ways. And you keep your supporters at bay, you keep your detractors even closer and the guys that are in the middle, you really got to try and appease them. So I think if Randy could be faulted, I think he tried to gain consensus from all nine owners when basically all he needed was five. I mean, that's not a bad thing for him to be, but I think at the end of it, he just tried to please too many people instead of trying to please a majority. Andy, you can continue with that or switch to the game kind of wherever you're looking. Well yeah, to continue with that, I just wanted to know what do you expect or maybe hope for the next commissioner in line to do in terms of handling that dynamic with the ownership and the board of governors? Well, the next commissioner in two years has a new television agreement to negotiate. So there's an opportunity there. The problem with that is as soon as you get a new television agreement, the collective bargaining agreement can be opened between the players and the league because there's a revenue sharing model in that. So if all of a sudden the new commissioner hits the bullseye and really brings in some more TV money and the players are going to say, okay, we want to share that too. So the good news is there's Labor piece for the next four years. It can be reopened, but I think the TV deal is probably the biggest opportunity that the new commissioner will come because the deal south of the border and in Canada both expire at the same time. So then you have the opportunity to renegotiate both deals. I got a follow up and then we'll go to Jason. Yeah. Can you let anybody in the world know that the CFL plus in America's just at disaster? I mean I got people on the stream, is it on plus is it on Sports network? No one knows what the hell is going on. And then you get in there and I saw R'S tweet and I know everyone has thoughts about him otherwise, but he's talking, oh, Randy says it's working. I go, you have all these Canadians sitting there. No one in this room is actually using that service. So you're talking And neither am I, Neither am I, but it's like we might as well be talking about a Mars landing at this point. That's how connect we're. So just if you could let anyone in the world know that that is terrible. I sat through the whole genius sports statistics snafu. No, I don't use plus. I was at the CFL Awards banquet and they were streaming it on plus. Jason, what do you got? Maybe we can transition to the game, but we got Toronto here. Please do because this is Painful. Okay. Yeah, I wanted to talk about the 2026 Great Cup, which was recently awarded to Calgary and Ambros said a few years ago when Calgary last hosted the Great Cup. This will be the last Great Cup we'll ever host at McMahon. But here we are in 2026, we're going to be hosting it again here. What do you think the future holds for football in Calgary? I think there'll be some refurbishments to McMahon. It won't be a brand spanking new facility. I was also told that Calgary's proposal for 2026 was very solid. So there might be stadium shortfalls, but maybe there are other avenues that they can make the experience a positive one. This one here, they've gone all out and it is a little, I mean this is the first time I've been in this area of the convention center, but it's impressive. They've done a really magnificent job and Winnipeg's got a big tall act to follow next year, and I suspect in two years time Calgary will too. So I mean let's keep an open mind. The stadium is what it is. Hopefully they can fix it up to make the presentation. If anybody's thinking there's going to be a brand spanking new stadium. I got swampland in Florida that's going cheap. Let's start the game real quick. And then Dorothy, maybe Dorothy can get Rick here if she's paying attention, they'll always have her standing by and then she gets busy talking to Dave Naylor over here soon. Let's talk game real quick. Obviously not necessarily the matchup we want with Jack Kelly being out and everything else. What do you make of the game and then maybe you guys have a follow up on, we'll rotate us. I've had a chance to think it over initially. This is Winnipeg's game to lose. Now I'm starting to sway a bit and think that Toronto has more than a punchers chance against this team. The Argos, as we all know, started the year without Chad Kelly. They were five and four included in that was a win over Winnipeg. And then when Winnipeg was on a roll and had one eighth straight, Toronto went into Manitoba and won. Both games were tight. Both games were not aesthetically pleasing. I mean the margin of victory was five combined points, but the Argo defense got 12 sacks and Force nine turnovers and as good as Winnipeg is, if they can't protect the football, then I think Toronto hangs around and the longer Toronto hangs around, the more they believe. Jason, any last things for Dan here? Yeah, absolutely. So Winnipeg, if you look back at the track record, yes they bid in the last four Great Cups, but Zach Claris hasn't played too well in those games. So do you think a third loss really damages the legacy of this boo Bomber's team? I do. I think so. The same way, I think if they win it, we can sort of put the moniker on them that they maybe are the most dominant team over that stretch. But to get there is, I mean it's a huge accomplishment. I get it. But you're in it to win it. And if you don't win it, then everything you did to get there I think, I don't want to say is a waste, but I mean I think the players will tell you it's unfulfilling, right? So I do think if they win it, two things. One, they avenge a 2002 loss to Toronto. Two, it's their third and five and three, I didn't realize this until I got here this week, but Toronto's eight no against Winnipeg and the Great Cup and Toronto's won their last seven trips to the Great Cup. So to me there's a lot there. And I think with a win, Winnipeg Erases all that stuff that I just said about Toronto, but they I think put a stamp on that we are still the most dominant team in the league. Well Dan, thank you. We'll bring Rick Cella in next. Appreciate it Dan, as always, good to see you. Thank you so much. Be well gentlemen. Let's bring Rick in here. Rick Cella, longtime friend of the program. Again, we're live from the McLaren custom grills as I am breaking my laptop here, opening things I should be opening. We're at the McLaren Grills media row here. I appreciate them and the lion setting this up Rick. So we were just talking at breakfast. Okay, first off, how are you? What's happening? So Jason and I were just talking to brunch about you see people on Zoom and then you see them in real life and what do we expect? Or Andy, you look awesome, you look trim, you look fly. Not that I didn't think you were a cool guy, but like holy cow, you look great. Thanks brother. I'm trying to keep up with you man. You're doing good for yourself. Y'all kicked your coverage I see over here and yeah, we're soaking it in man. By the way, what a great city. I think the FLI was just talking to Rod Peterson. I think the NFL is dropping the ball with all these international games and you're not coming to play a game here. Are you kidding me? I mean this is fantastic. I've been utterly impressed. So people know you, you've been on before all access football and everything and scouting now you're with the Elks. What do we got going on now? Busy guy who was with, I can't even keep track all the time. What the heck's going on now? Well all access football.com is probably the best way to keep up with everything that's going on right now. But listen, there's a lot of whispers out there in regards to what's going to happen with the Edmonton Elk. So I hear, so listen, I'll tell you this, that team is built to contend. This is not a tear down situation. I mean you saw when we were rattling off that, in fact, I put the league podcast on, I don't even listen. I listen to the mark cast sometimes I want to throw my shoes at the monitor, but only because I respect you guys. But I was tuned into the CFL podcast. They were talking about can the Elk make run for the Great cup? And that's how good we were playing. So I don't think this is a tear down job. I think this team is on the brink of contention. I think when you look at the games that we were in, we lost it due to a bad play here or there. And I think we're ready to rock. So we'll see. Andy, I know where you want to go, So I'll let Andy toss it here. So it's unfortunate we didn't cross paths early this year. I went to Edmonton more, unfortunately, we lost this gentleman's team. Bo Levi had an incredible game. But more importantly what happened during that game was Trey came in and I felt this just rush of momentum from those crowd. The energy level just changed. And how do you feel when you watch Trey in person and on tape, what do you see from him? What kind of assets do you think he brings to Edmonton? He's a playmaker. I would just liken him to a point guard because of his ability to improvise. I think a lot of stuff is off structure and some of it's by design, some of it's not. But I think those are traits you can't teach. And so I think what you saw and what you felt is basically what we saw and felt was that he needed to be the starter. He jumpstarted, even though McLeod played well, I don't know if that was the issue, but you could see even the players. I thought there was an extra pep in this stuff. And I'm watching from afar because I'm not there in season on the field in person, but I'm watching the footage and I'm watching on tv and you can sense that and you can feel that. And I think Trey's got a bright future ahead of him. He really does. But he's got to stay healthy, I think first and foremost. And whether it's in Edmonton or somewhere else, I mean he's going to be the face of this league for a long time. Isn't it wild? Just all the time with all the alt leagues and stuff and here McLeod and the plays Argos and goes and plays in the U-F-S-F-L, it comes back. It just the journey, all these guys go on now. Just how interconnected all these leagues are and all the different affiliations you've had over the years. I mean it really is a different time. At least I'm not as old experience a lot of people. It feels like it's a different time kind of in the football atmosphere right now. I was thinking about during the Covid when McLeod was trying to make a NFL comeback, he actually only needs three games for his NFL pension. And that's how I got introduced to McLeod Bethel Thompson. I was so impressed and there was no doubt in my mind after that workout that this man can be a backup in the National Football League without a doubt. And I think the NFL is sleeping on some of the talent in Canada. And I won't go too far into that because I don't want to let them in on that right now. But it's funny how everything like you said comes back around and when he said he wanted to come back to Canada, I said maybe we should entertain that. And I was thinking about how working in the CFL is just really a relationship thing and a connection thing. And what a great speech by Nick Anderson the other night. And I was just telling the story. We were sitting in the bleachers at the Senior Bowl and Coach Jones was telling me about this linebacker. He is trying to recruit from Tulane, Nick Anderson, and I can't get ahold of his agent. I said, coach, this agent's right there. And we called him over and basically the deal was done on the spot. And just the team building of the CFL experience and having a year under the belt, man. I think with our leadership we're in position of some great, Yeah, you have to be tremendously proud of Nick Anderson. Did you believe that he really had the capability to get this award this year? I mean he really was outstanding. So we're sitting in Coach Jones's office in training camp with Roy and myself. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, listen, Nick Anderson might f around and find out and lead the league in tackles. And they just start laughing at me. I'm just telling you what I see guys. And sure enough, I think he did right, him and Niles, and that's the best linebacker unit in the CFL as far as I'm concerned. But he is the CFL Sam Mills and I know he has NFL aspirations and I think that's what we want our program to be. And any free agent player that wants to come out and play for Edmonton. We are never going to hold you back from an NFL opportunity. If want to go out and you get that opportunity, we're going to let you go there because we understand that's going to help us improve the next player. And that's what we want to do. We want to be a springboard. We obviously want to retain talent, but we also want to have the elite talent, the talent that we deem is capable of playing in the National Football League. I think we got quite a few of those guys. As a matter of fact, I'll ask a follow up and then maybe Jason if we talk Edmonton. Anything else? Just curious, going in now being a part of the CFL, experiencing all of that jumping, just thoughts and because it's been really kind of a unique crazy year for you and being able to come into this new position. Just curious your thoughts here of obviously all the experience you've had over the years. Well, Canada never disappoints. I mean I've loved every city I've been to. I would say having gone through the process now because I started talking to these guys. I mean I was officially brought on board in January, but we started talking about this right around this time because now I see when the urgency was there last year at this time. Now I understand it because between now and May when we report to training camp, that's basically where my role value lies because once we go to training camp, there's only so much tinkering we can do. And I thought Roy made some magical moves bringing in Kevin Jones, Sean Oakman ranked the tank, eliminating some of the bad apples. I thought that was really the difference of our culture. But between now and May is basically where my value is and we're going to start recruiting and have these announcements made and get, I mean the work hasn't stopped, right, but you need clarity to move forward and I think that's where we're headed. Jason, you got anything about Edmonton? Yeah, for sure. Just to build off of what we've talked about about the Elks roster, where do you think the areas of improvement are for this team going into next year? Well, I thought the offensive line stepped up their game this year and that is something I want to see continue to improve because the game is won in the trenches and so I think that Noah Taylor has an opportunity to step his game up and Elliot Brown I think is as good of a pass rusher as there is. But when you talk about the CFL, you need to create pressure. You need to win in the trenches and I'll tell you what, our secondary, we need to look at ourselves in the mirror and stop making knucklehead, which plays early. Last question for you. We'll bring on Jamie Knight here. Thoughts on the game? Who do you have? Again, it's an interesting matchup here. So let's talk about actual Greg beer before we get out, like that's around them. I think it's going to be a competitive game. I think it can come down to whoever has the ball last and you talk about Nick Arbuckle is Mr. Adversity. He's built for this moment. I do believe all the adversity that this man has dealt with throughout his career has prepared him. You talk about preparation meets opportunity. I think he might bring some of that big Nick energy and I'll tell you what, man, this game's going to go down to the wire. It's going to be a very competitive game. All the pressure is on Winnipeg, right? So I think Winnipeg is feeling the pressure. I think Toronto comes in here a little bit more loosey goosey and man, I'll tell you it's going to be fun, but I'll be there. I'm looking forward to it. So you're saying that Toronto is basically going to have a statue of Nick Ruckle outside of BMO Field in about two months time. Is that what you're telling me is Nick Bull's moment? It is going to be His Nick Bull's moment. Oh, I appreciate it. We'll bring in Jamie Nye here. Thank you so much Rick. Appreciate it man. Rick's there. Tell everything else. Appreciate all the support. I'm just going to grab a selfie Real quick before I get out of here, so don't mind me on the live. It's all doing it here. This is a fluid situation by the way. Outstanding. Greg, this outstanding. We do a good job. We try every year four. It's a little different than we were in the back of the bar here in Hamilton the first year. Let's little squeeZ In we go. Hey there, it's, we got it. There we go. Thanks Rick. Let's bring in Jamie Nye. We got Jamie Nye with the Green Zone. Again, reminder here we're from the McLaren Custom Grills radio row. We're broadcasting the only officially licensed CFL barbecue grills. See and purchase the grills. Go to McLaren custom grills.com. This week is a promo called CFL to get 10% off. Jamie Nye here with the Green Zone. We've been talking at the suite for the last couple weeks. We have a question here from Ken. I think you can hop in. Two years ago, mosaic basically stole out. I would disagree with that. There was a lot of empty seats. Hamilton last year, added seats, neutral sites. Why are there so many tickets available tomorrow? Well, Vancouver has always been a softer market for the Canadian Football League. All the major cities have been when it comes to great cup ticket sales, the smaller markets, they have a bigger season ticket holder base. So those are eaten up all the time by season tickets, buying their Gray Cup tickets beforehand. So there's a smaller supply out there in bc. It's a bigger supply and it would've been sold out if the Rough riders or BC Lions would've been in the Gray Cup 100%. But it's the Winnipeg Blue Bombers again, and I think there's a little bit of even Winnipeg fans who have traveled to four consecutive gray cups are going, okay, do I have to travel to a fifth? So that is a lot of the reason on why now I don't know how much, it's a lot of seal. I've went on the map. There are open seats, but I think it's still going to look pretty full for game day on Sunday. We'll go to Andy here in a second then Jason, just candid thoughts on the game. Little lackluster here with the Nick Arbuckle bowl, right? Or are you feeling, I think we've been at some heavy lifting this week trying to make this maybe feel a little bit bigger. I've Talked to Nick Arbuckle on a few occasions on the show when he was going in as the Ottawa Red black quarterback this week. I talked to him again. Nick Arbuckle's a great story. Nick Arbuckle, if you listen to his interviews, if you listen to who this guy is and how he is built, you're cheering for Nick Arbuckle to have that trophy in his hand. It hasn't been an easy path for Nick Arbuckle in his life. Hasn't been an easy path in the Canadian Football League. So as much as it is kind of disappointing, it's not Chad Kelly and the Argos against the, but Nick Arbuckle is a story to root for this year's great cup. At least it is for me. What do you got, Andy? Someone we haven't really mentioned today on our podcast is Brady Olive Oliveira obviously tremendous season last year, didn't win the MLP this year. He does. Do you think he has something to prove and how much do you think this really matters to him as somebody who kind of was in the shadow of Andrew Harris previously in the previous Great Cup wins, but since Olive took over started, they haven't really had that moment yet. Do you think this means a lot to him? Yeah, this is similar to Darien Durant. He was the quarterback and he wanted to win his own breakup. I know he is not the quarterback, but for Brady Olive Oliveira, it matters to him that he's going to be the lead back on Sunday and try to finally get something that's near and dear to him. He's a Winnipeg, right? He's from there now. He's the double winner of the Canadian and most outstanding player. And what better would it be to cap that off as maybe Gray Cup MVP And winning the gray cup for his hometown as the lead back for the Winnipeg blue ballers. So absolutely Brady Oliveira is one of another guy, man, you know what this guy does in the off season? He goes and save dogs around the planet. This guy is one of the nicest dudes you'll ever meet. So another person that I love in the Canadian, I loved some of, a lot of the people in the Canadian Football league and Brady Oliveira is one of those guys who I can root for ease him. Well, I hate him because BC can't tackle him and can't manage him and he just runs, was it last year in the finals? He's just running down the field. There's like five lions just clinging on him trying to, so I do not share your sediment, Jamie. I do you not like dogs? I like dogs. We got people, we got photo bombers here. That's exciting. We're living live here. But no, talk about the awards he got, how impressive that is and then we can go to Jason. Well Shouldn't have won one of 'em. It should have been Roland Milligan Jr. Who was the most outstanding player of the year, the Canadian Football League in my probably bias opinion being from Saskatchewan. But when I look at what Roland Milligan did this year, it was an outstanding season first guy since Hall of Famer Willie Plus to get 20 special teams tackles and lead a defensive category, which he did in interceptions. That is outstanding. That is rarely seen in the Canadian Football League. So I think that storyline got kind of downplayed and yes, 1800 yards from scrimmage. Yes, four touchdowns. He's the most outstanding Canadian. Absolutely. My goal would've went somewhere else for the most outstanding player award, but Roland Milligan Jr. Didn't come out of the west, so I didn't have that Option. We just had a comment here to talking about going to Winnipeg next year and I go, well now watch Winnipeg Falls off next year and it'll be the continue. Jason, what do you have for Jamie? And then we'll start getting Dorothy's attention. We'll get Rod over here soon. Yeah. Just to build off what we were talking about with the awards. Do you think the way that the CFL does, the nominees for the awards doing this East West nominations is a little bit outdated and maybe we should do what I was hearing about on the three donation podcast. Just pick the top who I don't know, just pick the three best candidates of the whole league regardless of division. Thanks. Stole my idea. I've been talking about this for 10 years or more, but of going the NHL awards, right? NHL Awards, you vote 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, your first, your second, your third, fifth, they tall. All those are different points. The top three point getters are the nominees, the voting's done, they already know who won. They just announced the top three vote getters and then you're highlighting an extra player, a breakup week every single year. Now that's a financial burden on league because they'd have to fly another person in. So that's probably a little less appealing to the league to go to three and have more people you're paying hotel rooms and flights for. But I like it. I like the top three. I think it makes sense and highlights more players and then there would be an opportunity for maybe vote splitting for offensive players where we'd have a little bit more. There's only been one defensive player to be the MOP and that was Solomon Ian. I don't think that's right. Well it feels like the NFL too or the MVP and it's always the quarterback. It's hard to especially defensive player even though it should. I look at the defensive players in this league and they get, I don't want to say disrespected, but it's always a bias towards offense because some people say they have their own award, they have the most outstanding defensive player award. So it's not the most outstanding offensive player in the league. It's the most outstanding player of the league. But I do like the verbiage of these awards. I like the outstanding instead of valuable because if you went to valuable, 99% of the time you're getting a quarterback outstanding opens for running backs, receivers, Solomon Emmy, and a decade ago for a most outstanding player award. Andy, what do you got? And then we'll start moving the rotation here. Something that really stood out to me last year watching the stream in Hamilton as you sat on the set and you said about Saskatchewan, how much culture do you really have if you won four great Cups in a hundred years and that really stuck out to me. Can you talk about what is the best aspect of Cory Mace as a leader and as a coach this year? Really kind of bringing in and sort of transforming Saskatchewan Accountability. That is the one word I think Cory Mace has brought to this organization is accountability because he holds himself accountable. He's the first guy to say he did it after the West Final. He said it was a bad game plan, he didn't use those words, but he said it was a bad game plan that's on him. He's got to be better. He'll take some bullets. But when a guy in training camp right away in training camp, Bruno LaBelle didn't run a was late for a meeting and he was dragging the bag back and forth a couple of times as a discipline accountability. And you've seen it. They're all accountable even to the media. They're a lot more open when they make a mistake to talk to media and be open to the fans about it. And when you have an accountability, the accountability issue was an issue in Saskatchewan. Now that's no longer the case and I think they all hold themselves accountable, which is beginning to grow a winning culture like they have in Winnipeg and like they have in Toronto. You guys have anything else? We'll bring Rod in Thoughts on the game and who do you think comes Out? I'm going with the upset. I'm going with the upset. I'm going with Toronto. You got Win McManus you got or Malade. I like Ralph Haw in the middle you have Playmakers on special teams in Jan and Grant you have Playmakers all over the offense. I like Kadeem Carey match up against Brady Olive. Oliveira quarterback and receivers is where I give the edge to the Winnipeg Glue bombers. A lot of the other stuff I'm giving it Toronto Argonauts. It's just up to Nick Arbuckle to be okay if Nick Arbuckle's. Okay, the Argos win. Jamie, appreciate it. Rod's destroying our set. We'll bring in Rod beers in here. Appreciate it Jamie. We'll see you later at the suite. I appreciate it. We have Dave nailed our standing by here. A lot of good guests coming, like I said like and subscribe. Give us up over 4,000 subscribers give, give away a couple of custom jerseys here from Dustin with Royal Retros here when we get 4,000. So please like and subscribe. Join the channel, do all that. Rod, I was on your show yesterday. I might've been feeling the effects of the FRC suite and everything Thursday night. I was a little tired there, but we got through it. I did your show. You're hearing that Rod, how are you doing? That's why you had alcohol on your breath. I wondered if I was like, I didn't want to say anything, but since you brought it up, your wife, your Wrangler fell asleep on the job. She's visiting too much. I know she's too chatty. No such thing. So yeah, you brought bearing gifts. There's no way that I could repay you so I'm not even going to try. Well I appreciate it. Rod's here a long time before one of the first Canadians we ever had on the show. Big merger and all that. Rod, what do you make of all this? We're here Gray Cup week and what do you think? I am pretty blown away to be honest. I've been to multiple Gray cups in Vancouver 2011, about 2005, 20 11, 20 14. I think this is the 17th Gray Cup in Vancouver. Do you read the game notes? Reid? Do you read the game notes? I haven't yet. I've been a little in here rely on me to do that. I don't know about you guys if you've been to a Super Bowl before, but last year in Vegas the Lions people were there. I saw them and they were writing down notes. This is a carbon copy of the fan fest. I can't remember what the NFL called it, but this is very similar Radio row. A little smaller, but the fan fest all the same stuff. So that's pretty cool. Are you Excited about that you think? I don't know. How do you feel about the league right now? Randy's stepping down. What do you think general welfare thoughts are and then we'll go, Andy. Well as you know, I don't work in the league anymore, so not that I don't care, I'll always care, but I'm not worried about it anymore. How could you look around at this week and think that this leaves in any way trouble, but people do want to talk about it and they say what's next with the next commissioner? I fully believe they don't know who it's going to be, but what I hear is that expansion is on the horizon. They want to get to 12 teams, the expansion revenue, look at your Kraken, you're wearing their lid. The money that comes with an expansion franchise will infuse a lot of money into this league and I think it's going great places I do. You wouldn't love the league if you didn't believe in it. The league's great and the product has always been unbelievable. That's fine. It's the business end and from what I understand, things are looking up there so the product will always be good. Andy, what do you Got, rod? From our perspective, just as overall football fans and falling all the leagues, the word expansion is maybe the hottest corporate buzzword that there could be. Everybody just loves to smash that button. But as far as the realistic options go in Canada, and I thought it was interesting that Randy and Rosie kind of broke down how it wouldn't really be much of an option to go into America at the moment. Where do you see the realistic possibilities In Canada? Well, I've got some Intel Quebec City for sure. I mean they're ready to go and they love not just football, but Canadian football in Quebec. So I think you can put that down as one of them. And I hear Windsor, I don't know if you guys know, I've never been there. I've never been to Detroit, I To school there. Yeah, so they tell me that's a huge NFL hotbed, but I think the potential owner has a lot of money. Windsor would be another. And then there is talk of Europe, but I don't really want to go down that road. But as you say, people love to talk about it. And for the last few years I'm like, let's not even talk about it because the league doesn't want to expand. That was the last thing I'd heard that they don't. But things change. And now they do want to expand and it's being led by Larry Tanenbaum, the president of MLSC and the Argonauts owner, he's the guy that's leading this. He's a man that he's the most powerful man in Canadian sports. So I kind of feel if he wants to get this done, it'll get done. So I wanted to talk about Randy and Bro's legacy as CFL Commissioner. You just talk about the things that you felt like he did well and some of the things that were kind of His shortcomings. Well, I'll tell you, I've seen him speak a couple times here this week, this morning at the Athletes and Action Breakfast, which I didn't see you a read. It's a God centered event. Not that you hate God or anything, but I was sleeping in from the NC. So I was on there. I saw him at the Legend's luncheon yesterday, the alumni event. Let's remember, he's alumni. I like Randy Reed and I got into this yesterday on my show, A rash, can we say hates him for his own reasons. Those aren't my reasons. And when I hear Randy speak, I'm like, he's a good guy. He's a player. He is. I like Randy. And I think that that job was impossible to be successful at. There hasn't been a good commissioner since Mark Cohan, which was the last time they expanded was on Mark's watch. So anyways, Randy's legacy I think's going to end up being he transferred, got the stable ownership in Quebec, BC Edmonton. That will be his legacy, but that's not a lot to hang your hat on. He tried, I'll give him credit for having the balls to try Global 2.0. I didn't like it at the time it flopped, but at least he tried. I'm not going to throw a guy under the bus for trying something and it didn't work. He thought we need to expand outside the country's borders. It didn't work. They didn't expand on his watch. That's his legacy. I'd like to say that there was more, but he is in a tough job because the owners run this league. Sid. That's what it is, not the commissioner. From what I understand, Roger Goodell runs the NFL. That's the sense that I've been told. Probably gets his direction a lot from the owners, but it's more so than the cfo. In terms of, and I think it was the article that came out with Randy stepping down or getting all the Allison. A lot of it started back in 2020 with the failed covid season and starting the beginning. Is that your understanding of just, okay, we didn't do that. I think it really set the league back years. Those next two years after Covid play was down, band attendance was down. Right? It's taken until now to really kind of get back to I think where it was. Thoughts on that. And I mean I know it's ancient history now, but really set the stage for where we're at now. I Should actually mention, I sat at the Legends luncheon with Randy. It was at my table. I tweeted a photo of it, so it's probably where it started. And Randy needs to wear this. He went to Parliament Hill and met with that standing committee basically asking for Covid funding, which in Canada read you wouldn't get it. Well, mind you probably got Biden checks too, like everybody in America. But Trudeau was handing out money to everybody and they go, Randy, they, what do you want Randy? As how about 150 million? They laughed at him. He didn't have a business plan that's on Randy. And then he said, well, we'll take 30. I don't think, I don't even know if they got that. So that's where it started. And then the fact that they didn't play at all was probably the owner's decision. You think Randy didn't want to play? Of course he'd want to play, but they couldn't find a way to play. And we all know the CFL is not a major North American pro league, but it's a pretty big pro league and they're the only one that didn't play out of all of those, but that's not it maybe started there, but the fact is they're not making money to the degree that the owners want is why they're looking for a new commissioner. Follow up here, we'll do a couple, we'll get Dave on because he's been standing by, he's on his phone now, so that's good expectations though. Yeah, the owners want more money, want whatever. I'm talking with Dorothy last night. We're walking back and we're kind of prepping for the show and I go, you look at the Cowboys, 11 billion franchise commanders just sold, right? 7 billion franchise. Obviously the CFL is not, but it's not even close. It's not even in the same world. And I just, what are the expectations? It just feels so farfetched that the Board of Governors wants whatever. I don't know even if that's possible for The next commissioner, I think it is possible they need to change the way they do things. I mean before you and I even met, I was very deeply involved in this league Reed. I was sitting in league meetings that the commissioner was in and he was saying, we need to go dark for six months in the off season. I'm like, did he just say that? And I saw it and it wasn't Randy, it was the predecessor to him. And so they need to be everywhere. The NFL is everywhere and I'm everywhere. And I was at Super Bowl and I picked up stories there that Jerry Jones didn't want to play. That's why the Dallas Cowboys aren't playing any global games. You don't want to, but nobody knows that because that's not reported. But Jerry's like, I want to make as much money in America as possible. They're like, thanks Jerry, but we're going to go play in London and Germany and Brazil and you can stay home if you want. All that extra money went into the, it's not because Jerry's not a genius, my God he's not. But expansion, it's getting bigger, being everywhere they need to. A lot of help on the marketing end. And I think it could happen. I don't think it's too late. You're seeing it here with bc, a huge increase in tennis, a major kick in the nuts that they're not in the game, but it can be done. But they need to change the way that they think and good luck to the next commissioner if he's able to do that. My Favorite tweet from Lasal go, Andy was talking about the Mike Tyson fight. They're like, as most people that go to Dallas, they went and saw an event. 80,000 people left disappointed just like they do with the Cowboys. Andy thought, anything you want to go, we'll do two more. We'll bring on day fair. Well a little Venn diagram there because one of the Jonas brothers was actually shown at the game or at the boxing match last night and now he's coming over here for media today. So kind of funny with that. But yeah, in terms of the ownership commitment, Amar Doman was really very adamant yesterday about being really committed to this whole thing. I think he really sees this as not just his time but generational time beyond him of being able to have his family involved in this for many years to come. Do you get the sense overall that more owners in the CFL are feeling that much more committed? Is this the strongest CFL ownership has ever been? Well, that's the narrative they would put forth. And I see no reason to dispute that local ownership is important. I mean, Montreal's Ettes are owned by Quebec core where they're from. Quebec Edmonton was bought by a major heavy construction operator. I live in Miami where the dolphins are owned by a guy from New York and it doesn't go over well. And the Dolphins are not a great organization. So local ownership was key. They oversaw that. I do think they are in a stable spot. And to be honest, it's the elephant in the room that you guys probably won't talk about and I haven't heard a lot of talk of it here, but the Saskatchewan rough riders are like a weak link in the whole thing, which nobody's ever set, but they're not making money. They're not in the gray cup and haven't been for over a decade. So who would've, well Winnipeg's the only other community owned team now, but they're in the gray cup. But I guess it doesn't take much to get Saskatchewan back if they need to start. So I want to build off of that with Saskatchewan. I just want your thoughts on their season this year. Would you classify it as success? Obviously it was a bit up and down, you had that skid in the middle of the season, but they were able to finish strong and obviously they didn't get what they wanted, they lost last week. But your thoughts on Saskatchewan season, It's all perspective. That's it. However you want to look at it. I would say it's pretty successful and Corey Mays to take a team from where it was as a rookie head coach to where they finished up hosting a home playoff game and losing probably is a better job than Jason Mooz. But I can see why Jason won. But there's a case to be made why Corey Mays should be coach of the Year for what he did in his rookie season. Forget about the seven game Winless game shouldn't matter. So that kind answers your question. But the other thing is they haven't been in a gray cup in over a decade. The stadium is nowhere near full at all. They do have their problems as well and their quarterback's contract is up. So it's not like they're going into next year on a huge wave of momentum. And that's not I ideal. It's kind of almost just a bit surprising to me as an outsider to see so many Saskatchewan fans. And yet when I watch the games, like you said, you'll just see rows of empty seats even during major games. I find that a bit surprising. Is there any reason for that or particular reason? Yeah, they consciously have broken the tie with the community. I've seen it. It's not like they used to do. They don't have the community involvement and it's a different place guys. I mean I was the voice of the team for 20 years and I'd never really left Saskatchewan. Most of the people there and all I'd heard from the football people was this is just Alabama, this is just like Mississippi. I didn't really get it until I went to Alabama, Mississippi. I'm like, oh, I get it. It's all there is here. That's all they care about. But they fractured that relationship with the fans consciously. They've tried to be the Dallas Cowboys, IE make money, you don't need to win to make money. They just forgot half of that. They're not winning championships and they're not making money either. And now once you get behind that eight ball, I would think it's pretty hard to come back. Well Rod, thank you so much. Appreciate you coming on. We got Dave standing by, busy guy running around. Appreciate it. Rob Peterson, thank you so much. Dave travels back to Miami. Dave Naylor DSN Insider coming on. We've kept Dave standing by, it's been back and forth but we got him on. Dave said he'll make time. Happy to do it. We don't have Farhan this year. Normally Farhan and Naor come as a co pair, but Farhan iss a child is playing football today. Loser. We're going to talk CFL expansion in the states here. But first off, thank you so much for coming. Thanks for standing by first off, how Are you doing? I'm good. It it's a week that sometimes feels like it lasts forever and goes by quickly at the same time. I dunno how else to describe Great Cup Week, but we'll wake up tomorrow, we'll do the game my 27th Great Cup. And I think this has been really positive one, the weather hasn't helped a little bit. Obviously some of the turnout and the rain and such and the lion's not beating in the game. But I mean I still think you feel a really positive vibe just throughout the entire week. That's my question. Obviously Ogle League and the Lene here, huge family zone, zip lines, everything going on. Lamar really came out and a lot of money and time and energy spent by the BC lines. How big of a failure was the season for them on the football field? Well, I think if you looked at where they were first five weeks of the season where they were even after 10 or 11 weeks and the additions they made past the middle of August to try to make sure they were here, and I'm talking about Matthew Betts and Nathan Rohr, they admittedly went over the salary cap, which is not illegal in the league if you're willing to do it and pay the fines and that you can do that. But unquestionably that was the expectation. And I think really where it got away from 'em was when they had that game in October at Saskatchewan and basically winner gets home field playoff and they didn't win the game. And that to me was where the lion season really. And look, I think with, and I say this with all due respect to Nathan Rourke, but I think it would've served him better, the Lions and Vernon Adams better if he just played it out in the National Football League. And I would think that if Nathan knew how this was all going to unfold once he came back, I don't want to speak for him, but I think he might've done things differently and just said, Hey, I'm going to come back in the off season. I thought when you saw Nathan down the stretch of the season, he just seemed kind of mentally fatigued. And I think that comes from being on five teams in 12 months in two different leagues In regards to that. I agree with you. It seemed like it was VA's team from the get-go and then the chemistry kind of got messed with. But the other thing about the VC that I pointed out a couple of weeks ago that kind surprised me is just sort of the lack of physicality that the team had and especially so considering they brought in Matthew Bets, they brought in Christian Covington, were you surprised by how soft they were, especially with run defense or just in general an offensive line too? I Wasn't, I've been listening to my colleague Farhan Ji screaming in my ear about it the whole second half of the season as everybody was talking about quarterbacks and who should play and is it VA or is it Nathan and this and this. He was talking about defense and that ultimately doesn't draw as much attention as a sexy quarterback controversy does. But yeah, I was kind of surprised to see that. And it's funny, it was a weird year for guys coming back from the National Football League, right? Nathan Roarke came back, didn't go so well. Matthew Bets came back, didn't go so well. Austin, Matt came back, didn't go so well. And those are all guys that I don't think have, we've seen sometimes young guys, they're really hungry in the CFL, they go to the National Football League, they come back, that dream is dead and they're not the same player. I don't think any of those guys fit that profile at all. So it is even more surprising. I think they're all more likely to be Adam Big Hills who came back to the National Football League and just better players than they ever were and they were good before they left. That's how they got there. So it was a weird year in that regard that having that presence especially there wasn't just a way where they won that touchdown Pacific game and it felt like are they going to lose again this year? Evidently yes. You want to go for it? Yeah, for sure. So obviously we're here in BC and there's a lot of rumors about what's going to happen with this teams Rick Campbell situation, the GM situation, then we have what's happening in Edmonton and their vacant GM and head coach positions. What can you tell us about those two situations? Well, the lions line and messaging, and this comes from the very top of the organization you're talking about president ownership level, is that they will begin the discussion about Rick Campbell's future next week. And they've gathered the information and Amar's been out of the country, they're running a great cup. I think that's true, but I think it also means that they could still know where this is trending, even if the decision hasn't been made. And if they do go a different direction now people are playing, this is how we do it. You look for clues. I mean, I think Ed Harvey's going to be the GM in ING is my thought. The tie cats, he doesn't seem to be, it's not conducting business on that behalf of the TCAs until this is resolved. And so Ed Herbie already hired Rick Campbell once in BC and there seems to be a repatriation of Edmonton, people with Edmonton history in Edmonton. So I think a lot of this is speculation, but I think it's intelligence speculation. And I sometimes say we get into this time of year, there's a very thin line between reporting and predicting because I see people say, is that a reporter a prediction? I can't tell. Right? So I think that line, trying to be clear about that line, a lot of this is, I don't think any of this is done, but if the dominoes fell that way, I don't think it would surprise anybody. Two weeks from now, Rick Campbell's the head coach at Edmonton and Ed Herbie's G in Edmonton, I don't think that would surprise a lot of people. Just curious your thoughts on Rick in general. I mean obviously VC's, my team, I've support appreciate everyone that's done. I can separate that out of work for the team and the criticisms for Rick and even Neil McAvoy, right? Like you said, we've known these issues, it's been very similar issues the last couple of years going into Winnipeg being unable to stop the run, being on physical, all those things. So I guess just overall thoughts and what Rick and Neil have done here and it's just so frustrating to me as a fan to kind of know we can see these issues and it feels like they're not being addressed. They brought in Nathan that had nothing to do with the 80% of the issues that the team was having outside of that. So to me, I'm just curious your thoughts overall of how this has gone. Well, just on the quarterback thing, I think it was logical that when a guy like Vernon Adams who has as much commitment to that team from the off season on loses his opportunity, your best case scenario is that not all the locker rooms going to be on board with that. And that's not a knock on Nate, right? It's just like they rode with VA from the off season on and we know what a team first guy he is. It's very, very difficult to make that kind of switch and not have it flow overflow into other aspects of your team. But I guess I don't really have an answer for you why that? Because it seemed like the lions sometimes you see teams are trending in the right direction, they're trending in the right direction. Last year he had some holes and things to address and earlier in the year, I mean look at some of the things that have happened with this team positively. I mean Justin McKinnis with a backup in Saskatchewan, let the league in receive. I thought William stand particularly the first two thirds of the season was a real nice presence that they hadn't had. That was one of those things, who can we give it to that can get us three yards when we need it, but can also get us flirty every once in a while? And they brought him in and then you say, you mentioned Covington Batson every once in a while in football you look at organization, you go, they aren't a lot of good players, but somehow they're not a great team. And that was kind of the line, I have trouble going personnel wise and saying, well that's a lousy player. That's a lousy player. Barhan could do it, it maybe better than I do if you watch them up close and pays closer attention to them. But it doesn't strike me as a team that on an individual individual basis on either side of the ball had extreme weaknesses and personnel. It reminds me a few years ago at Winnipeg when they had individually, guys in the secondary were great. I remember talking to their gm, Kyle Waltons. It's like we love all our guys secondary individually. They just don't play that well together. And that's kind of Frustrating. Well, it's kind of like the Jets this season and obviously Aaron Rogers is very different but all that. But here we've assembled every great player in the world and everything, but none of us play co. I mean there's just no, Remember 20 years ago the Philadelphia Eagles dream team, remember what happened to that? Oh that was when they had Michael Vick, The Dream team and the Awesome Wall. That'd be awesome. They signed all these guys and go look how they did. It's not that kind of game. Yeah, Vince Young did not foretell a prophecy there. He thought he did Not at all. But to stay on the quarterback for a moment, obviously Bernard Adams was very open about the very real possibility he will not be here in BC next year. I know this is always often than his team was. Certainly it certainly was. How do you see the quarterback market shaking out? This is a conversation every year, but it really seems like there could be a lot of movement. I Think it's really interesting because a lot of years it's been like are there going to be enough quarterbacks and backup quarter quality backups to go around the league? And this year we kind of have a glut And I haven't seen that before. And I should say we have a glut of players with a really high floor. We don't necessarily have a glut of players with a high seal in the league this year. But in terms of guys that you look at and say, yeah, that guy could be a starter in the league, that guy could be a solid number two, I think one through 18 next year we could have better one two combinations across the league than we've ever seen. And some it's the product of younger players getting to play. Not enough room for everybody to be a starter. But you look at it, everybody said three months ago, well when they trade va, they got to trade with the east division, they can't trade within the division. Where would that be? They ain't going to Toronto, they ain't going to Ottawa, they're not going to Montreal. You're not going to have the only one of those situations we're not pretty certain about is Montreal where they may have to make a choice and is there a way for them to keep both guys? I talked to Danny Macho the other day, he's like, yeah, there might be. But we're very cognizant of not wanting to get into one of these situations where there's a weekly conversation about who our starting quarterback is. They see what went on the west coast and maybe we don't want to have two guys with similar contracts and have them competing against each other week after week of practice. So I think they're going to go one or the other. But then you go, okay, so VA's moving somewhere, it's going to be in the West, probably going to be Calgary. I mean the PJ Walker contract that they signed is friendly enough that you could have him and somebody else at basically a playtime deal with 200,000 base leaves some room. I think Saskatchewan, I think they're satisfied with Trevor, but life is about options. And if that's an option, they could certainly go there. And Edmonton, I mean, how do we predict until we really know who that coach is, but maybe if it's Rick Campbell that makes a Vernon Adams move, does he pull a Jordan Mc civic? There's possibilities there, right? So I mean I think Vernon Adams is going to be playing, I would probably handicap from Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatchewan. It's a likelihood, but it was a little awkward where Lions management is not acknowledging what's going to happen this off season. And Nathan Mark is like, he says, I know where I'm going to be next year. So that means where Adams ain't going to be there. Yeah, it's interesting. For sure. So my question is just overall, you look at the season as a whole, what is the biggest storyline of this whole season? I mean it's hard to get away from the bombers. The oh and four start and the finish. To me, and I think it was just, and this was maybe just a sense of the parody in the league was just how many teams went on either good runs or bad runs? Saskatchewan went seven. Winless Ottawa nearly lost what their last seven and they were eight, three and one at one point. You have the lions who were five and oh, you have Saskatchewan who was five and oh, so it was a weird year of streaks and Edmonton. And again, streaks of not getting beat by 30, but getting beat by less of a touchdown. It just kind of made it hard to sort of separate the teams. Even though the records in the standings were very distinct. You look at it and say, well there's three walk-off losses there, right? That's not necessarily defining for your team, but I think it's hard to get past the bomber thing when you think of what they've accomplished and to get off to an oh four start with those home losses and looking nothing like they did and like Michael Shay the other day, you don't need a knee-jerk solution if you know why the things are happening are happening. And one of the things that I talked to him when I did the coaches interview this week, he mentioned one thing more. He talked about the injuries, he talked about guy's not participating in preseason and he also talked about that there were also some mistakes. They were making the same mistakes more than once, right? Was saying that, hey, you make mistakes in football, but you got to correct them. And if you start making the same mistakes becomes a little bit different. Turnovers, those kinds of things. But to me, the Winnipeg Blue bombers are the story of this season. I want to tell. We'll do the St. Louis thing before you get out of here, I promise. But I want to get your thoughts. We've talked a lot, obviously Randy today and everything. Thoughts on you, Landy, Randy's legacy and all of that. Your thoughts is where do we move next to this league? Well, I Think unfortunately two things that we'll remember is he had two really, really big initiatives, neither of which came to really the fruition that people hope. One was expansion, which is a tough nut. I know he said on the stage the other day, he thinks the 10th team is in Canada. Boy, I'll tell you, trying to finance A CFL suitable stadium in a market that does not have a team. I mean, I won't use the word impossible, but I hope nobody gives me that challenge. I mean, I just think it's really, really hard. Outdoor stadium construction in Canada is really difficult. And when you're talking about the standard of what's needed for the CFL team and the economics of the league, I just don't know if it's doable. I dunno if you'd ever get there. And I say this with respect to Randy's efforts. I don't think we're any closer today than we were. The day took office, the other one was CFL 2.0. The theory was that if you got players from around the world playing in our league, you could create audiences in their countries to why it didn't. I was willing to suspend disbelief out of the gate on that one. I was like, okay, it's outside of the box. I don't really see it. And now I was thinking about it the other day. I was like, if there were 10 Canadians playing in a second tier German soccer league, would people watch that on streaming? And when I say second tier, I'm not trying to be districting CFL to a global audience. It's a second tier league because they know the national football, so you're going to show 'em something else. I think it's kind of unfortunate that those two major initiatives, neither of them really helped the bottom line of the league. But I think look, three owners came in on that was important. And two of them were the exits of Bob Weal and David Braille who were absolute, for better or worse, there was a bit of bull, but were absolute pillars of this league for a quarter of a century. And you've replaced them with Pier Carl Palau and a mar on check mark. I think where the game is right now, the tweaking that they did, I think it's produced a very, very compelling product. And that's not an issue that anybody's going to have. And the genius sports thing, we don't really understand it. It's digitization of our, How frustrating is that? We're three years in now. We don't understand what's going on. Well it's basically to give the league data that it can use for broadcast and gambling. And look, it hasn't brought the returns that people hoped, but it's also was promised to be more of a long-term thing. And Randy certainly when he's challenged about it says, I believe the things that I've made foundations for will bring returns to the league in the future. So all those things, again, I think there's a bit of an assumption that the league was always going to survive the pandemic. I mean, not necessarily there's a reason they got into bed with the XFL. And as much as I reported about how far that was down the path in conversations I've had subsequently, including this week, it was a lot further down the path than even we were reporting and we were getting criticism for reporting that it was further down the path than it was. And I please share, they got with Dwayne Johnson, they got into conversations like with him as a participant. They got into how do we change the field? How do we do this? They were creating a hybrid game between a Canadian and American football and they were deep into those conversations about what the game would look like. So that was not fantasy. And I know they never, it was we're talking about talking. No, they weren't talking about talking. They were talking about how big the field should be. That's what they were talking about. So that was real, and I've taken a lot of criticism for this, but I'll double down on it and clarify a little bit. I never said they should merge with the XFL. I said they should explore this fully, that they should walk down this path and see where it leads them. And ultimately they decided it didn't lead them where they wanted. Okay, they probably made the right decision given what happened to the XFL. But I think that, and Randy's made the point that the conversation with the XFL did allow him to give him some leverage to get some things done on the internal business of the league that he might not have been able to get without having that there. So it was a bit of a, it did turn into a productive element for it. So again, give him a check mark. The league got through the pandemic, so that's another one. So most commissioners got some Xs, got some check marks. But I mean I've covered I think seven full-time commissioners, two or three interim guys as well. And they've all basically been shown the door for the same bottom line reason, didn't generate enough revenue for the teams. And I think there's an interesting point for the league, if you want to bring in another commissioner in five years, be showing him the door because he couldn't pedal your bicycle faster than the last guy, or do you want a new bicycle? And by new bicycle? That's when we get into the conversation about fundamentally changing the league and what that might mean and how that might happen. Alright, so let's do this. And then we got Tim and Clippy, excuse me, stand you talk St. Louis, right? We've seen the XFL one of the really only I would say successes. And it is funny that we talk now about the X-F-L-C-F-L talks and my thoughts on the league and ownership now, but I was much higher on things then and pretty disappointed right now. But we've seen that captivated audience in St. Louis and you're proponent of at least exploring that, figuring out maybe do we move a CFL team? Just thoughts on that here. I don't think that they will immediately adopt the three down game and you can't just plug and play like they did back in the day. But thoughts on that? I'm one of the few journalists here who lived through the US expansion era. In fact, my kids exist because of the US expansion era. I met their mom in an airport on my way to a Memphis Mad Dog's Birmingham Barracuda game. I always tell my kids, you should be really grateful to the US expansion era. Without it you wouldn't exist. And there were a lot of interesting lessons about that. And I think I got to put some context on the US expansion era of the early mid nineties. It was driven completely by crisis. They never would've done it the way they did it if they weren't running for their lives. And you can talk to people like Larry Smith and John Tory who can walk you through some of the risks they took and some of the things they ignored because the check cleared man, that was where the league was living. So first thing I think if you were going to expand to the us, the time to do it is when you're not in a crisis, when you don't have owners around the board of governors saying, I'm out of this league in a year. We can't think and you're not. So I think you could do it more by design and strategically than with trying to outrun the grim reaper, which is what they were doing in the early nineties. And Baltimore was unique. Baltimore had a huge anger in the National Football League, and I think it's reflective of what is in St. Louis now. And when Baltimore had an opportunity, I mean they were selling season tickets at Head the Gate. In fact, they had a thing at one time called the Indie Challenge where they were trying to get their season ticket number over the Indianapolis Colts. The team that had left, I don't think they did it, but they probably generated some interesting, some more season tickets just by people trying to get there. And you had people leaned in on it and they basically said that League left us, this league's serving us. And we don't care if we three on football, we don't care if we're playing in Saskatchewan. We're in. And again, I haven't been to St. Louis, I haven't talked to anybody, but I think if I was to answer the question, why is St. Louis so much more successful than all the other alternative football markets? It's because that spirit that existed in Baltimore in the early nineties exists in St. Louis and Reed, and I disagree on this, I think if they were part of the Canadian Football League, I think people are going to do what they did in Baltimore, want to show up and cheer for their football team and cheer professional football and don't care if you punt on third down or if there's a rouge or a no yards penalty. I think the league needs to do a better job of educating this American fans if it ever goes down that road. But it came out on a radio interview one day. Someone said the UFL might not play after 2025. And I just said, if I was the CFL, I would try and pick off St. Louis as a 10 team. And the other issue that's going to come up is competitive. You can't mandate Canadian players. But look, 30 years ago you had 10 Canadian starters and the teams for the most part held their own. Now it's seven and I think we all know the quality of those seven compared to the quality of those 10 compared to the generation. I don't think you'd necessarily have a competitive issue with that. No. Well Dave, I appreciate it. Thanks for some My thanks to the patience. This is an annual Reeb. This is an annual, right? It's good. It's good. Yeah. Dave sat by here. We were texting, we got everything going. I appreciate it Dave. Thanks for spending the time. We'll see you later. Hey, thanks very much and hey, see you Next. Gray Cup in Winnipeg, but we'll be DMing, I'm sure. Yeah, we'll going through. We'll talk St. Louis. We'll in the UFL Cup collapses in June. I'm sure we'll talk through. Alright, let's get Tim and Cliffy in here. Who wants to hop off for this one real quick? Okay, we'll get Jason out. Andy's on. We're doing the Ryan chain here. Tim and Cliffy are dabbing up. Update Nailor, like I said, guys like and subscribe. Excuse me, we got Tim and Cliffy coming on. Brian Scott's coming on. I think we got Matt Baker and then Dorothy, we'll close down. I see Jim walking by too. Let's get Jim in a minute. He's coming there for like, he's coming on now. Jim's got to wait a minute, but let's get them on here. Let's get them on. We're chatting with Dave dealer anyway like and subscribe. Join the channel. Let's do all the good things here. Come on in fellas. We got Cliffy here. We got Tim Capper. You can use that. I'll hold Tim's forum. Tim, remember, come on here, get on there. Yeah, Tim. Now welcome gentlemen. The Ettes fight, their podcast. We're here. We were Really? Yeah, give him a handshake. You let them hanging there. Sorry about it. Shake my hands. The joke we always say is Shake my hand. Right? The guy on the airplane. Yeah. I want to shake. Shake your hand. Good to have you. We really were hoping for a Montreal BC Gray Cup really would've just combined all of our forces. We are both SOL here. What are your thoughts on this and in Toronto? The big upset in the game and the crazy up loud. I don't know. Yes, we can call it an upset. I guess I am kind of biased still, but I mean it's just that I look at the result of the game based off what happened is that it's more that Montreal gave them the game than Toronto winning the game in my opinion. But I mean it is what it is here. The Great Cup and Winne picks here at the Great Cup, so I mean there's not much really what I can say about it, it says that it's disappointing. It really is Not for you. Absolutely. Really just the mistakes that were made in the first quarter, the fumbles not just from Fudo but also Walter Fletcher as well. The giveaways. I mean it was just Montreal just dug themselves a hole that they simply couldn't climb out of. They certainly tried like hell to do so, but they just weren't able to get past those mistakes and hey, credit to Toronto, despite Chad Kelly getting injured in a horrific way, Toronto still did what they had to do and they got the W, so that's why they're here and that's why the Ettes are watching the game on tv. I Want to get your thoughts, the Cody Davis, Alexander Wright, and obviously you guys track team way more than I do, especially this year. I've just, I've been out to launch admittedly a lot, doing my best to keep track of everything, but what's going on there? It feels like it's much of a good thing. I'm just curious your thoughts on that and what's going to happen. I've already said it multiple times and would've been here at Great Cup or on the pod this past week. I never expected to have a quarterback controversy on my bingo card for the ettes in the off season. It's going to be very interesting and especially for those who happen to watch the AIC post game stated the press conference at the end of the year. Just the answers alone coming from Danny Mack and from Jason Mozo seem, in my opinion to be very telling David's Alexander to me, whether even though he is not a Canadian kid, he's still a homegrown talent in my opinion because of how he was brought in by Danny Mack and he's waited his time and as you've seen in the four plus games that he started this year, even though he four wins and then won in relief, the guy really deserves a shot. How is going to play out this off season can be very interesting, curious to see what type of decisions that they make, whether they alki won or they get rid of one and then we sign another, but that will be one of the storylines for the off season. Curious your thoughts. Yeah, it's going to be a very interesting situation even if you go by body language and the answers to the questions from both Cody fdo and from Davis Alexander. They both want to be the man and Davis Alexander has proven that he can be a starter in this league and win games in this league. Cody Fdo obviously brought a breakup to the Ettes, so I mean he definitely deserves that consideration as well. So just based on that alone, I don't know if you could really do a one, a one B situation to have them live harmoniously together. It really does sound like both of them want to be the man in Montreal and it's going to come down to a simple matter of, okay, who are the, the organization like Danny Moss, Jason, sorry, Danny Macha, Jason Moss, who are they going to go with? Are they going to go with the guy that brought them the Great Cup or the guy that they've basically nurtured from day one to eventually be the future in Montreal in Davis Alexander. It's going to be a very, very interesting off season. There's no doubt about that. I'm going to let you ask a question. I'm going to tuck out here real quick before we do our home stretcher running out. So why don't you give a question. I'll let you guys respond. I'll pop right back in. Yeah. As you guys alluded to Dave as Alexander was obviously the best kept secret in Montreal land. You guys were on him before anybody else was, but as you also mentioned, Ricardo has clearly proven himself, he's won a great cop. He's almost kind of in a way that it seems to me, at least from my perspective, he's the spiritual leader in a lot of ways because of his attitude, his camaraderie, the way he presents himself. Do you think that gives him more currency in staying around or do you think at the end of the day that Montreal might be okay with cutting their ties in that way? Because you said Alexander is the product Of the team. That's it. When you talk about the future of the ettes, that's the direction you have to be looking in and again, I don't want to take anything away from what Cody Venturo has done. I mean he's proven himself, he's shown the love to Montreal and Montreal has shown love back to him. Getting that gray cup win definitely has cemented him among those quarterbacks as far as I'm concerned. I mean it was just the one year, but still for what he was able to do and that warrior mentality that he has definitely speaks volumes and people do love Cody Ard with Montreal. There's no two ways about it, but what David Alexander was able to do this year stepping into relief when Cody got hurt and performed admirably. I mean arguably you could say five and O as a starter and the team rallied behind Davis Alexander too and when Cable and Evans came in relief for Cody Ard the first time, he didn't exactly have that same that Davis Alexander did when he stepped in Saskatche against Saskatchewan, won the game there and just kept on going. And also to the body language too for Davis Alexander when he was watching that Eastern final, you could tell in his mind he's like, I should be out there. That's got to be me doing that. And that too, I think maybe has played a lot into how he feels and how he sees things going forward. He basically said, I got to see how the rest of this league shapes out once free agency gets underway and what's out there for me and I don't blame him 100%, you got to take care of you. I mean as much as all we'd love to have Davis here and I think deep down yellows organization wants to do whatever they can to keep Davis Alexander in red and blue, but ultimately it's going to come down to what happens in free agency. A lot of dominoes are going to be falling once the break cup gets handed out, but it's definitely going to make for a very, very interesting off season Gots on the game here. We'll sneak in. Jim before I got Brian, I think Brian Scott's coming in here in the middle pilot here at the end. The thoughts on the game, who do you got? Even though from the east it's like do I want to choose the Argos to win and stuff like that? I mean I'm kind of going into the game as a go team CFL type of thing because I just hope both teams have fun. Yeah, exactly. I hope this helps. Nobody gets hurt. I'm curious to see what type of game this is going to be, which Toronto team are we going to get? I mean, as I said earlier is that I don't think Toronto won the game as much as they were given the game, even though the owls had six turnovers, they only lost by two. So I think it really goes to show was it the owls that gave the Argos the game? But they did. But in my opinion, I could be totally wrong, but just my looking at the line itself and I know the line can be very misleading. I honestly think Winnipeg, I don't think it's going to be even close. I think Winnipeg is just going to win this game going away. Okay, you're talking about both teams that basically came in really hot at the right time. I mean you can make the argument that both Winnipeg and Toronto did what they had to do to get to this game. So both have I'd say an equal chance, but not having Chad Kelly in the lineup is definitely going to make a big factor. There's no question about that. They always say go with the most experienced quarterback and Zach Calleros easily has a lot more experience than what Nick Ruckle does. I definitely think it'll be a good game no matter what. But I mean, I've said it before and I'll say it again. I don't see how Winnipeg loses this game, but we also maybe said that a little bit last year and the year before. Anytime Winnipeg's in the game, they absolutely have a fighting chance, but I think a lot of pressures on them too because all this talk about Dynasty with Winnipeg Blue Bombers, they won their first two Great Cup games in this time period. Then they lost the last two Great Cup games, so now the pressure's on if you really want to be conservative Dynasty, you got to win on Sunday. Go one more here. I'm texting Brian Scott here. Directions get one more question for them. We'll bring in Jim Mullen. We'll do that too because at least again from my perspective last year, I think you guys were probably definitely not favored in that game and I think it was wonderful to see someone like Gerardo really transcend and step up in such a crucial moment. Who does that player have to be for Toronto if they want to have a chance of winning this game? I'm going to say Kadeem Kerry, I think he's proven himself to be a true leader on this Argos team. I mean Chad Kelly would obviously be the guy, but Kadeem, Kerry, Winton, McManus, those are two guys that I look at as their leaders. Those are the guys that are going to pick the guys up by their pads and say, Hey, let's go. This is a championship game. It's win go home. I fully expect those guys to be the ones that are going to rally the troops like that fire underneath everybody. So if you were asking me, I'd say either Carrie or McManus as far as the go-to guys that really fire everybody up. I actually was going to say the exact same thing. I think it will come down a couple of things. I think if Toronto's able to really control the running game, I mean they're great on the Winnipeg side obviously too, but as we've seen especially last week, which is the ettes, the special teams can make a huge difference and I would not be surprised if Toronto's special teams make, it's a huge statement and keeps them in this game. That's sure they got Liam kicking field goals. Jan and Grant returning kicks as well. I mean, yeah, special teams could play a very big factor for Toronto, Jan and Grant's like Devin Hester of the CFL, I mean why do teams even bother kicking it to him like anybody? It really blows my mind. He's incredible. It really is. He absolutely is. And it's kind of funny too, he's also got a little bit of motivation as well concerning. He's a former Winnipeg Blue bomber and now he's facing his former team for the championship. I mean he's already got a great cup ring with the blue bombers, but now he has a chance to add one as an argon just as a reminder like, Hey, I used to be with you guys now I'm here to beat you. So if that doesn't motivate you, if you're a player that doesn't motivate you as well, then I don't have To tell you. Alright, let's do the swap here. Let's bring in Jim, Jason can come back on. Brian's texting me somewhere. We'll get it going. Thanks guys. I appreciate it. There we go. There we go. Thanks guys. Jim Cliff, flight Tech, we we're texting guys here like and subscribe, be part of the Be adventure. We'll see you guys. I appreciate it. Let's get Jason in. Let's get Jim in. We got a long time friend, he's been sitting around here and then we'll get Brian on, we'll get Matt, we'll get Dorothy and then we'll get out of here. Should be good. Jason's back. Jim Mullens here. Jim, How are you? I'm good, I'm good. Hey, we're doing video look, pace advertise. That's where I'm going. New vice president of iPath. That's good. Talk about how busy you are right now. I am very busy not only with the I A, but of course we have Grid Iron Nation on TSN. It's on every Thursday and Friday in the afternoons. It's all about college football and how it relates to Canadians in college football. Whether we are talking about U Sports or whether we are talking about Canadians in the ncaa and Nathan's little brother has given us some great stuff to talk about this year. I'm curious your thoughts, obviously Vancouver here and everything else, thoughts on the lions season and not being here? A tremendous disappointment, especially after the start. I'm glad to hear through the rumor mill that there are changes coming to the Lion's Front office if we are to believe those rumors and why not? There's a good escape plan for Coach Campbell if he chooses it to Edmonton. Looks like they're trying to put the band back together in Edmonton from the 1970s and 1980s and he's the scion of that. Of course. Hug Campbell winning in five breakups with the Eskimos back in the day. So Ryan Rig maiden is if he steps up as the general manager, I believe that is a healthy upgrade in this organization and they're talking about reconfiguration then who steps up as the head coach? If you look at CFL teams these days, guys with guys that are coaches and general managers, it's too much for one guy and it's not just the amount of work that's involved for one guy, but it's the relationships that you have in the dressing room. You could not be a player's coach and then as soon as that season ends turn around and then start to negotiate with these guys or start to cut them before their bonuses cut in, you can't balance the two. Either you got to be a black hat through and through and that's hard to do with the modern athlete or you got to separate the jobs. So if the lions are separating the jobs, I think they're doing the right move here. Go for it. I was going to say on that note, I know the season didn't go the way that the BC Lions expected, but how have you felt about the overall presentation here in Vancouver? Oh, it's fantastic. It's a giant upgrade From the last days of the David Braley era, there was management that needed to go on with the estate. They were working on a fairly small budget. We understand all of those things, but Amar understands sizzle, but he also understands state. He understands that you need to, beyond the presentation, you need to the things in the community to build the football community. We're about 570 days after SFU imploded their program up on Bernaby Mountain. He's still there making proclamations that we're bringing this thing back. He's still there with half a million dollars to put into the program, right? He's still there supporting all those things in the grassroots community. And the one thing that I saw in the last Lions game that I was at was a lot of kids in the stands and a lot of kids in the stands wearing minor football jerseys and that's part of the evolution that needs to go on with a team in a league that is completely gate driven outside of your salary cap being covered by your tv. So I wanted to talk about the Canadian content in the CFL now, I believe I saw that this is the first time we've ever had the leading rusher and receiver be Canadian. Can you speak about the importance of Canadian content in the CFL right now? Well, you know what, it's not just Canadian content in the CFL, it's Canadian content in football. When you take a look at some of the leading performers in the NFL, whether you're looking at a guy like Chase Brown with Cincinnati, whether you're looking at John Mechi in Houston, I mean I could start going down the list. There is a long, long chuma. Hubbard is having a great season this year. Oh, I dropped him off my fancy team. It's the biggest regret I made so far. Well, look, I mentioned Nathan's little brother, not so little brother Curtis Rohr. I first met Curtis when we were handing out the Cornish trophy to Nathan and somebody taps me on the shoulder and I turn around and it's this larger version of Nathan as a teenager with this big geeky smile. Hi, my name is Curtis and he's shaking my hand. You could tell that he had the frame that Nathan didn't have and that he had to grow into it. Watching his development at Ohio and then watching him turn into what he has turned into with his 10 and oh Indiana team. That's another testament to Canadian talent and even more so than Nathan, he spent his senior year in Canada playing high school football in Canada at a Catholic school in Toronto. Unlike going through an academy process that a lot of Canadians do these days, leaving home in grade 10 or grade 11. This is a kid that even though he did spend some time in the States, came back to Canada, was the Mac player of the year and now has probably upgraded enough through that system in Indiana where he is going to be a late round draft pick. That's where we are in skilled positions with Canadians. What one of the conundrums for the CFL though is all the best Canadians are playing in the NFL that never used to happen before. We'd have about four or five or a dual passport holder or something like that. I think the number is up to 23. It might be around 24 that are on NFL rosters right now. And so that then has an impact on the rosters in the Canadian Football League. But as you guys point out, look at the top performers in the CFL. I still think that the ratio needs to exist though because there are guys that didn't get exposure to coaching, that didn't get exposure to training that need to get in those first two years. Brady Olive is a good example of that, even though he played at North Dakota. I went down and saw him play in North Dakota as a sophomore, A guy that was quick, a guy that had trained hard, a guy that hit holes with purpose, but he didn't have that patience, he didn't have that step, he didn't have those moves, he didn't give those half hits up to defenders. That's something that he needed to learn in his first couple of years in the CFL and that comes to that pro level of ing. So I think that's what you're seeing with this group of Canadians in the CFL. I got one more question we'll bring in Brian Scott, we got him standing by. Just curious your thoughts. Going back to Nathan and the Lions here, obviously not the ideal situation coming in and we've talked a lot today about burning and everything. Is it enough for him to reset in the off season coming in here halfway through and all that? What do you make of his future? Because the Lyon made a huge investment in commitment to him. Well, you and I had a side conversation about this sending messages back and forth when he was available, right? And you know what my perception was at the time, he should still try to find another NFL camp, run that thing out and then come in fresh to a CFL camp. The opportunity was there for the Lions to grab Nathan, sign him to a contract in a great cap beer. I don't blame them for trying, but I think in terms of the football process, he'd been with too many teams and too many situation and the kid's brain was frying, quite frankly. He had actually shown something better than what the record indicated too. He was pulled out of a game at halftime after putting together a convincing drive, a total head scratcher in my opinion. I think he was great between the twenties, right? As soon as he got into the red zone or at his back to the goalpost, he was prone to mistakes of that offense and plus that pass protection was just awful this year with the alliance team and they didn't take advantage of William Stanback. But in terms of having him here, why would you not want to have him here? Nothing against va. You know, I love va, you know I love VA and what he brings, and I love what his evolution has been as a person and as a quarterback and as he approaches the game. But when it comes to Nathan, you got star power there. You got 2022, he's going to put 2022 back on the field again and he's going to have a brother in the NFL and that's going to bring star power into the stands. Why would you not have that? That's where that marketing money that they're paying him on top of his salary kicks in right When Curtis Rourke is third or fourth in Heisman voting when he gets drafted into the NFL, when he shows up with the family, when he brings teammates with him, that just amplifies what Nathan work is doing on the field and that's what people go for. You got to have this guy in this town and you got to have a guy in this town that says, I want to be here. And that's what he's saying. Well Jim, I appreciate it. Thanks for hanging around here waiting and making the time. Thanks guys. We'll bring in Brian Sky here coming up next and yeah, I mean, I hope Mr. Personality, I hope he does more interviews next year. Nathan work. We'll see. It wasn't the best Homecoming here. A little Snappy. By the way. When you get into arguments with Dorothy, she's wearing the Huskies uniform. Do you have to bow down to Washington? That's good. Let's bringing Brian Scott here at Toronto Argos quarterback. Our listeners will know him from the Spring league, the US FL, everything else. Brian Scott. What up brother? It's only been three years. We got the grid back. We got Andy here. We got Jason. What's up brother? Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you man. Appreciate Brian. It has been a crazy year for you. How are you Doing? Are we live? Yeah. Oh, we're live. Everything's good, man. Nice. Finally meet you. Yeah, props to you, man. Known you for a long time. Just fortunate to be here with you. So yeah, You're here. You got brought back. You are with the Argos. Go with bombers, come back here. What's going on here? How are you feeling and what's going on in your life? Everything's good. I'm extremely happy and fortunate to be here. My parents are here, so just taking in every day all the little moments that I get to spend with my teammates and just happy to represent Toronto in the city. Yeah, just super grateful to be here. Just curious thoughts here today? I mean we've tracked you all the way through everything and been a part of the show since the beginning of, I mean being here now on the roster of a great Cup team, being in the CFL now and kind of experience all that. What's it been like? It's been good, man. As you know, just playing in the spring league since 2018 and the USFL, which Spring League kind of turned into the USFL. It's been good, man. It's been an adjustment. I've never known anything but being a starting quarterback like my entire life and then coming up to CFL adjusting to that role, but I think everybody does that, Vernon does that, McLeod did that and pretty much every starting quarterback up kind of goes through that period of their career. So I'm just taking it in and embracing every step and just doing whatever I can to help the team win. And it's been good for me to take a step back and look at it from a different perspective, a different role, and yeah, I'm loving it. I'm loving It. Brian, I had the pleasure of watching you two years ago in person in Birmingham, the opening game that you guys played, stars versus the Breakers, and I just remember just saying you swing it around despite the fact that a guy like Davin Bellamy was breathing down your neck, every other snap remember played too. Oh my goodness. That man is a monster. But can you talk about what was it like getting that development, that professional football development from a guy like Bart Andrews and being in the USFL before coming here? Yeah, I mean honestly I think first of all, just thanks for coming to the game, watching me and supporting me. I appreciate that. But yeah, for me it is been a journey, man. It's been a blessing just coming from a division three school and then playing in the 2018 Spring League against Johnny Menzel, who used to be my screensaver at one point I was in college as a true freshman. Johnny's my screensaver. Fast forward four and a half years, I'm playing him and we won the game. So it's been an incredible journey. I'm super grateful and blessed, but I think the Spring League and the USFL really gave me that confidence that I could do it man, and I could do it at a professional level. It doesn't really matter who I'm going against and just kind of gave me somewhat of a name just because I come from such a small school. I had little Trouts and NFL camps and stuff, but just being able to go out there and play games, lead a professional team was awesome. Thanks for watching. Of Course. Yeah. And yeah, I did get my helmet knocked off first day. Oh my goodness. But I mean USFL was an unbelievable experience for me. Just getting drafted in the first round, Fox Sports took really good care of me and having the jersey and the Hall of Fame and the football that was something brought my family to tears. So it's one of those things that I'm just always going to be grateful for. Yeah, thanks for coming on the show, Brian. Yeah, absolutely. From Hamilton, Jamal Peters, that's my guy. Oh yeah, he's a great player for us. My question is what are your overall thoughts on coming up here in the CFL? What did you know about the CFL prior to coming up here and what are your impressions of Canada as a whole? Yeah, so I signed up here in 2019 to play for Edmonton. Brock Sunderland, who's now kind of a good friend of mine, tried to get me to come up and introduce me to CFL and then Covid happened, so I had to opt out of my contract and then played in Spring league. But dude, I can't say enough good things about the league and it's been really nice for me. Reid, as you know, we were the Philadelphia stars, but we were at Birmingham or I was on the generals and we didn't have a city. So for me to just be a part of a city like Toronto and get to meet people at the games and to go to restaurants and go to certain places and make relationships with real people within that city has been really cool for me. So it's been an amazing ride for me here as well. I got two here. We talked a lot, we had Dave Nailer on earlier and he's been on the show back years ago talking USFL and all this and it's almost like the CFL. They want to make it hard for Americans to come up, especially quarterbacks, and it's really this learning process and it's their game and they protect all that and have all of, I have many thoughts on that, but just curious that coming in and especially as a quarterback and trying to learn all that, did you feel that, I mean it's okay to say or I don't want to get, it almost feels like you got to kind of go through that rite to pass. Yeah, you're not lying, you kind of got to earn your stripes and that's how they kind of protect the game up here and I respect that. I think everything happens for a reason. I truly believe that. And like I said before, it's been a great process for me to have that role of not having to be the guy not having all that pressure all the time and kind see how I want to do things when I do get that opportunity again and kind of take the bull by its horns and go for it. But yeah, Dave Miller is a good dude too, so I Got Follow up. What do you got, Andy? I got one more question here. What I find so fascinating last week, obviously a bit tumultuous for Toronto, obviously with Chad being in the game, getting hurt unfortunately, and then Nick coming in. But I was wondering was there anything that you were able to tell them or impart to 'em? Because you played Montreal over the season and you absolutely ripped against them for a few minutes. In fact you probably played some of the best quarterback against them in the entire year. Was there something that you were able to kind of impart to them or let them know about what to look for when you were out there as far as against that defense? Because Montreal defense is obviously very legit. Yeah, not really, man. I think most importantly we just go through our rules at quarterback and whatever the defense gives us, we're going to take it and appreciate you saying that. I mean, like you said, Reed, the CFL game is so much different and I think the biggest thing from a quarterback perspective is only having three downs instead of four. It totally changes your deal and with Coach Barres, as you mentioned before, he just kind of let me go out there and spin it. Man, God bless him. I was throwing it 35, 40 times a game and he just said, Hey, here's the plane, you fly it. And we had a lot of success doing that, so he trusted me with that. But yeah, it is been good. We're just going out there prepared and doing what we do and hope for a good result. I got a couple of quick USFL Spring League except for we'll let you go and then we'll bring out, we're on the show out here pretty quick. They were doing the USFL, we have the United By Football ride behind the scenes and all that. And there was one of the episodes and I kind of equated it to you're on Survivor, a big brother, and you kind get in trouble and you got to call a house median almost, and you had the house, the players and people, they were all living and you could get your own and you're bringing in the wide receivers and all that. It was a really just entertaining episode of reality TV to watch and obviously they spin it whatever way. Curious, what was it like just being a part of that and then living it and then I don't know if you watch should just because that's another side you don't normally get, especially even in the CFL right now. Yeah, I think that was kind of cool, right? We were all in one hotel, but yeah, I mean it was called United by Football, right? Yeah, I remember the commercial, it's like a fever tree now. Yeah, I think that was really cool for me to Reid because we had that generals championship team in 2020 and I didn't play in the Spring League 2021. I was doing a couple NFL workouts, I didn't want to play in it, but here comes 2022 and I told those guys, you know what, if I'm going to come back and play, I want all you guys as many as you guys as possible to get back on that team. And when we were playing, you guys called us the Spring League All Stars. I don't know if you remember that, but we had a bunch of the guys from the spring league who had success. So for me, I think one of the greatest joys in that entire process was being able to grab some of those guys from the generals team and Marge just trusted me to say, Hey, this guy's good, this guy's good, and let's bring these guys who might be done with football that want to get another shot at it, play it on a big stage. So I take it like Jordan Sewell and Colburn was done playing and Jordan Moore and a lot of those guys that are my good buddies to this day. But yeah, that episode, it was cool. I mean it was of course they kind of spun it a certain way, but Yeah, the USFL, it was a great experience for me. I can't say enough good things about the league and Fox Sports and stuff. So Last one for me and if you guys have anything, we'll bring up Matt, love Brian Woods and we all love Brian and everything and I've joked a lot on the podcast. He basically put together the spring league with cardboard in his garage. We were at a football league for that. Just thoughts now looking back and obviously everything now with the USFL and how they've expanded all the different things, but it really all started from that brain trust and just him figuring it out and I think could have, we've talked a lot, I hear Yogi you could have elevated the Spring league and kind of done that in a way versus everything they did with the USFL and that's a whole different story, but just thoughts on coming from that and just the experience and what that was like. Well you're not going to hear me say anything bad About that because without that I don't know where I'd be at, but I think it's kind of cool. I tell guys this, if you look at the UFL now or the U-S-F-L-X-F-L, I feel like I was there. Old Testament, it's like now it's the New Testament. I was there when they were trying to put together a spring football league and there was a lot of talent. I remember in 2018 Reid when I was there with Johnny, we had ESPN there every day and we had 30 scouts, NFL scouts on the field every day. So it went from that to turning into more of a TV promotion deal instead of guys just getting scouted and going straight to pants. So I saw it kind of transform and then in 2020 it was on Fox where we met but it's been cool and then I did the USFL and I jumped to the XFL and the only reason I did that was strictly financially for my family and it was one of those things where I really didn't want to but it was just I had reached the age where I needed to start putting that into perspective. Like hey, I got to do this for a living in the Spring League twice for no money, trying to just put myself out there. So I made that jump and then now I'm here in Toronto and it's been a great learning thing for me here in the CFL, so definitely loving my experience and we'll see what happens. Anything else, Andy? We'll let Brian get out of here. What's been your favorite part of the Gray Cup festivity so Far? Gosh dude, I haven't even had very much time. We've been so busy with meetings, probably sitting here with you guys. What's the connecting old memories a little bit going through the journey and I've never met this guy. I was there when he was doing a little one in his house and just seeing him kind of flourish and being at the Gray Cup, it's been cool to be a part of your journey too, man. I appreciate you following you and I feel like I'm a part of the spring football. You are for the rest of my time and career and I owe a lot of my success and just getting my name out there to guys like you guys and just people that kind of stuck with me, supported me and saw me on a smaller stage and said, hey, this guy can play. And John Murphy, I owe him a lot. He kind of paid attention to those leagues and he paid attention to guys like you and said, Hey Brian Scott can play and now here I am. So making a living and supported my family and stuff like that. So just appreciate you and appreciate all the people that supported me along the way really means a lot. Last one, what's the locker room mentality right now? I mean a lot of practices and walkthroughs and everything. What's the team feeling like? We're locked in man. I mean guys are excited. I think why I like Toronto so much is I built such amazing relationships with these guys on and off the field. Like I said, I wasn't the starting quarterback so I kind of got to do some things with the guys that I don't have to be like that force of, Hey guys, we got to run this route at this depth. I'm like hey, let's go bowling or let's, let's go do something fun together. So part of that's been really cool for my growth as a football player. I wanted to forget this time period. Yeah. Awesome. Well Brian, I appreciate it man. God bless. Appreciate it. It's good. Let's bring in Matt here and then we'll round it out here. We got Dorothy, absolutely. Long time friend the show. Brian Scott, you know, have a fan in us forever. Here we go. And then we got Dorothy. Hell yeah. Alright, let's bring in Matt, last one here, rounding out. Then we'll bring in Dorothy, close the show as always. Matt could be a busy week here every time I see you you're kind of hanging out but that's good. What's a week been like for you, Matt, with the Line? It's been a nice balance. I'd say Reid and good to see you guys as well. Yeah, as you know here at Radio Row for pretty much the last three days taking care of Moj and Julio and our Punjabi broadcast team helping the festival kind of an all hands on deck week, so just kind of being around and being seen and interacting with fans and getting the lion's den. Yeah, it's been a good balance of working fun. So I think there was a lot of expectations when BC got awarded the Great Cup, obviously with the Mar and everything, everyone we've talked to Dorothy that's been to four Gray cuts walked yesterday, which just an awe especially even up here and she was talking about the outreach and the marketplaces and the indigenous sales, all this other stuff. How do you feel that kind of living up? I think it was high expectations Going in. Yeah, definitely and it is funny, the cycle of this whole thing has kind of been awarded this game in November of 2022, the week the Lions beat Calgary and the Western semi go fall short in Winnipeg the next week. But I said okay, we're coming, we're on the rise. Same script last year. So I say okay this year we're going to get the Western final at home and stay here for the Great Cup. But yeah, we can do a whole other two hour stream on what went wrong this season. But I will say once you kind of come out of that, once you sort of get over the hump and see firsthand how this festival is, all the concerts I saw 54 40 last night, Canadian rock and roll royalty for me anyway, Reed's just like, yeah I should have invited you to the Gallup dinner. Next time I realized we could have gone, I was looking at my thing, I'm like, I actually could have gone to that. I was not dressed, I don't think my cracking jersey was. I think I specifically approve your credential to include it. So anyway, you're hanging out with all the big shots at the FRC suite, but before this gets too off the rails you really have to learn to separate it. Yeah, I can't sugarcoat it. It sucks that I'm not more busy this week but the special aspect of the Great Cup Festival, it's still great for me and you can't top it. What's been the most exciting part of this festival so far and also setting up for it Just yeah, it's hard to pick just one, like I said, concert series. Just seeing the fans, just seeing everyone come together for me and seeing a lot of the great Lions fans that we only know by their ex and Instagram handles, it's nice to see that the real people are still here and seeing all the alumni, that's big for me. Seeing the likes of Paul McCallum, g Roy Simon hanging around the lion's den, that's a very good part. Well I was telling him I was trying to twist his arm to get us a zip line to come down to our studio. I mean this is impressive having the zip lines around the whole place. Haven't done It yet, but the lineup for that's been packed the whole week. Same, well we were in the other convention center building back in late February I want to say. When they announced the kickoff of the festival what it was going to be and the zip line was the big hook. People have been talking about the zip line for the whole time. That's how I sell Do. But for nine months since this was first sort of brought together and it's paid off because like I was saying, lined up around the corner. Jason, you got anything? Yeah, for sure. So your colleague Carolyn Cody won an award at the CFL Awards. Can you speak about her contributions to all this and what she's meant to the Organization? Yeah, Carolyn's brilliance, she's got to be an 11 year employee now and a neat story kind of started in an entry level position and has worked her way up. But all this talk about the Lion's brand being bolstered under Amar Dolman and of course Dwayne Bono president, her fingerprints are all over that when it comes to the digital marketing, the game day presentation, which Reed has seen firsthand, she's all over that and she bleeds the colors as well. That's not always the case with people in these types of positions, but the Jane Mabie Award, that was a real highlight of the week for me seeing that and of course Amar getting the commissioner's award, so seeing everybody recognized for the work that's been done here. Yeah, Carolyn's well deserving of that. Absolutely. Well what I liked about that was, and I caught part in the speech that got shared. It was either from the CFL account or the BC Alliance, I can't remember, but talking about the empowering women to be in there and to kind of grow that more in that way, which I think is super important as well. Yeah, we have several women in key positions of course history with Tanya Henderson, the first full-time female coaching staff member, just completed her third season and she's sort of risen up now assisting with, she has her own position group basically that she works with and yeah, we've talked about Carolyn. I think of someone like an Arlene Stewart Irvine very high up in the ticketing department. She's a 20 plus year employee. Carol Long me who's, she also won the Mabe Award in Hamilton in 2021. Our director of finance. So broken a lot of barriers in that regard and that's something we can be proud of. I got one last one. You got anything? Yeah, for sure. Who do you like in the game tomorrow? Well, I can't make predictions right here, I won't do it for various reasons, but I would not count out the Toronto, Oregon huts. Just watching them, seeing them, it seems a little loose. Well they're Playing because they don't have anything. I mean not they don't have anything to play for but they they have the ability to play Free. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers, hey, they're here for a fifth straight year and they seem like they're on a mission the last half of this season, but I think it's going to be a close one. It was two years ago in Regina. Are we going to see two block fuel goals in a span of 90 seconds? Again, I don't think so, but I expect this to be a good one. That's my prediction. Last one for me, obviously we've seen the work done here with the Lions. We are going to Winnipeg next year then to Calgary. Do you think that the extra work done here, is that going to raise the bar now for a lot of these other teams to go, hey, okay we got to keep this momentum going. Absolutely. That's always kind of the goal when you host this event and I'm sure Winnipeg is a really good great cup city. I've not been to a great cup in Winnipeg, but I've heard you'll see how much of a presence it is there. Smaller city, a little more tight in the downtown core. You're going to see Gray Cup stuff everywhere, but absolutely, I guarantee you the folks there and with the Stampeders are taking notes this week because this'll be hard to talk. Well Matt, I appreciate it. Thanks for you and Mike setting us up here at the McLaren Grills radio Road. You take the mic here. I just want to say I'm proud of the fact that you're still doing it. I know I always reference it. 2021 and Hamilton member, the Winston Churchill Pub, what was the pub called? George Hamilton. George Hamilton, yeah, it's close. Dorothy was there and I was there and we were figuring out internet and all that stuff but it's good to be a part of it. Always. My door's always open. Yeah, a lot smoother this time around and The hotspot wifi in the corner of the bar and all that so I appreciate it Matt. We'll see you next points. Yep, thank you. Appreciate. We'll see at the Lions in later. Let's bring Dorothy in. Last one here. Appreciate it Ma. And then the final star here, we're going to be out of here about two hours, 20 minutes. That'll be good. I think we did. I think Darren bombing was messaging me. I did not see it. So that was the one we got everyone else in. Look at that. We got everyone else in. Hope everyone enjoyed the stream. Well I can subscribe. Dorothy, how are You? Yeah, great. It's been busy. It's been really good. Beautiful day yesterday we were walking around and yeah, it's been good lot of yesterday. You remarked to me, I'm provoked as we were walking around, how excited and amazed you were of kind of the outreach and community building and everything else going on here. What's your thoughts on the festival? Yeah, I think it's been awesome. I mean they're really involving lots of families. Probably everyone said zip lines and the climbing wall and everything. So I think it's really trying to get the younger scent tracking the CFL. So yeah, I think it's been good. I'll turn this. Matt was eating the microphone. I'll turn back up that level there. Andy, you got anything talk, we just ready anything else here where we're getting out of here soon, but it's always good to get Dorothy on the stream. Yeah, Dorothy, are you going to be getting on the slides anytime soon or what's going on? Hey, maybe. I mean it's looking pretty fun back there so we'll see. Yeah, maybe. Well at one point when Nailor was on, some kid pulled one of those balls and it pulled and it looked to me like that structure was going down and I was like, oh. So it was fine. It reinflated there. But Jamie, sorry Jamie. Nice said that yesterday someone was kicking the football and it almost came right over here. It hit the edge of the net almost. That's what I thought when we first started the show. Yeah, there's quite a bit. The camera's pointed this way. The bounty houses all. Yeah, there's field goal kicking, there's indoor football, field basketball, shooting and all sorts of stuff. Anything else? Any other thoughts here? We round out, we'll get out of here soon. I would like to give a formal prediction but go For, we should probably do that. This is the casual time deal. Let's give our predictions. We've talked enough as it goes. My initial reactions and thoughts usually change during the course of the week. Initially when the Chad Kelly injuries happened, I thought, oh boy, there goes their chances. Even if Toronto makes the game. Listen, I mean this Toronto team has gone through a lot of adversity. They fought their butts off to really get here and I cannot underestimate that coaching staff. I can't underestimate the talent in the locker room. I can't underestimate the fact that they did this despite losing all the players that they did last year. I give them a real chance in this game. I know if you're talking about betting spreads nine to nine and a half, I think they absolutely cover that. Having said that, while I do think there are going to be some mistakes made by Winnipeg, I don't think there's going to be as many as Montreal made. I think Toronto could take a halftime lead. I think Brady Olive Oliveira is not only going to help Winnipeg win and complete their dynasty, I think he's going to become the eighth CFL player all time to win MOP and then win most outstanding player MVP of the CFL breakup. I really believe that. I think he's going to help drive the nail in the coffin in the fourth quarter. I think it's going to come down to Nick Arbuckle trying to save them at the end of the day. And I don't think he's going to have enough for this team because I think Winnipeg, they've had enough, they've lost two years in a row, they want to complete this dynasty. They want everybody to run off into the sunset and click their heels. But I think this is their time. I think it's finally going to happen. I got to take Winnipeg in this game. I'm going to say by score of 27 to 23. Jason, what do you Got? Yeah, so I think that Toronto is a bad matchup for Winnipeg. We saw them win the season series against Winnipeg this year two nothing. And I think that they just always find a way to muck up the game. Kind of similar to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Maybe they don't get the best quarterback play every week, but they always find a way to stay within the game and I think that's exactly what they're going to do in this game. They're going to run the ball, they're going to play very good defense. I think it really comes down to the fact, can Jake Rena and the boys upfront really get pressure on Zach Polaris and really rattle him earlier in this game? I talked earlier in the show about how Claris has generally struggled in gray cups. If they can really rattle him early, it could be a completely different ball game. But if Winnipeg can protect up front, I think there's big plays to Be had against that. Toronto secondary. Dorothy, you're flying that early and missing the game. Dorothy thankfully helping wrangle all the guests and everything today here. Obviously you're room for Winnipeg here, your team. Yeah, that's right. And didn't Kelly break his ankle? So That was really bad. That was very scary. Sorry I'm not laughing at that. But yes, I don't know. So they got their backup in right, so we'll see. We'll see, we'll see. Well I appreciate everyone. Anything else from you guys? We'll get out of here. We've talked two and a half hours. Well I guess my prediction is, oh shit, I'll go 2319 Winnipeg. Yeah, I think it's going to be low scoring. I think Toronto is going to be, I like that when Brian was talking or whoever. They have a lot less stress to play. I feel like the expectations and I do think teams are able to go out and play spoiler there a little bit. I see that a lot with hockey where you have a team that comes in and it feels like they're able to play a lot more volleyball and free just they don't have that. There's a lot more pressure on win effect. Yeah. Well I appreciate it. Thanks everyone. Like and subscribe. Like I said, well hopefully we'll share this again tomorrow before the game. But I appreciate it as always. I think we did a good job. Alright, we'll see everyone next time and safe travels back. Dorothy's flying out tomorrow. We hope everyone gets some safe and we'll see you guys next time. Thanks.

CFL 2024 Playoffs Division Finals Preview!!!

Well here we are back here. Happy Wednesday. Getting you ready for the CFL division finals this weekend. The mark cast here live big announcements here coming in a second like and subscribe, but we'll be here live from the Gray Cup next weekend. I'll give you all the details just in the living room today. Couldn't bear together everything set up. Spent busy times here in America, busy times with work and everything else, but we are here live. We have Jason back in the fold. We have Evan here and then we have the professor Andrew Murray who just got home. We will be your rag take group here next weekend at the Gray Cup. But first off Jason, how are you? We did last week with Anthony Miller talk semi division finals. Now we're here for the finals. How are you doing sir? I'm doing good, Reid. Exciting time of year and I'm excited to be here and the great cups coming up. Evan, it's been a couple of weeks or it's been, I don't even know a long time here. We got Evan back on talking CFL. We were talking pre coming on here. We're all locked back in Jason and I said last week. It's been a long season. We're here to go. We're going to be in Vancouver next weekend. How are you Evan? Yeah man, I'm doing well. Really excited for Great Cup. Really excited for the games this weekend. There's only three games left but it still feels like we have so much to get through and experience, but Vancouver should be great. I'm looking forward to that. I was just out there like three weeks ago so won't feel too different for me. But yeah man, looking forward to the show. And so the professor, Andrew Murray is going to be here as well. He's getting parts coming home from work, so he's working through his schooling and his professor and what's his Mike Mitchell texting on here. Mike Mitchell texting things in the group chat. Here's the deal and subscribe. Like I said, we will be at the Lions Den live next Saturday, so this will be the last show you hear from us until next Saturday. We'll be there the 16th. Our credentials came in from the league. Appreciate that and we'll get all our Gray Cup Festival and all of that figured out as well. But we'll be at the game. Dorothy, I always joke we went over to her parents' house last week. Again, I said Dorothy's a credential member of the CFO media here, so you got to have that respect. But we will be there. Evan will be there, Andy will be there live in person. Jason will be there and then we will have a bunch of guests, Farhan and Nailor do their run in and I'm sure the Winnipeg crew will be there. Saskatchewan, I know Derek Taylor was CC'd on some stuff that I was on as well as that I want to get either in person or otherwise. Rod Peterson been talking with him. Maybe a Saskatchewan makes it in. I still have a gift for Rod Peterson here, so that would be nice to see him in person but should be a star state of the affairs. So like I said, like a subscribe, but make sure you're a part of all that. Should be exciting. Get us up to, what are we at 4,000 subscribers now. Trying to get to give you a couple free jerseys here courtesy of Royal Retros. We will recap a little bit the semifinals here today, the division, look ahead some news and notes. I want to talk through jcs article like, Hey, did you know the BC Lion are going to be over the salary cap? We will talk through all of that, Evan, just because we haven't heard from you as much here. Big games this weekend kind of as expected with either BC following the Winnipeg or excuse me, to Saskatchewan, Toronto taking care of business. Any major thoughts of the weekend or anything else before we kind of do any deep dive stuff? Yeah, those would've been the teams I picked. I mean I could go over the east and west semifinal in depth. I'll wait maybe until a bit later in the show or whatever. But yeah, I mean it was relatively, I think it went just about as I expected both home teams taking the win and I mean both teams I think deserved it. So Yeah. Jason, I'm going to pull up my tweets here. I was on a little bit of a rant here. Thank God for the commanders here really suffering through Kraken. They're on I think a five game skid right now BC missing that Mariners obviously had to live through Ani and all of that gi, that World Series, so really my life's kind of a shambles right now. Jason, what did you make of everything? Yeah, as expected BC didn't have enough kind of frustrating there. So what did you make? Well, Evan, I expected these two teams to win obviously, but I thought they were both pretty exciting games. I think especially that first half of that Ottawa Toronto game. We'll get to it like Evan was saying, but it was one of the most entertaining halves of football that I think I've ever seen in the CFL in the last several years. So I think it was a really entertaining weekend that the quarterbacks in general played pretty well and I think that is always a good thing for the CFL and I think ultimately the four best teams I think in the CFL have advanced to this weekend And here I'm hearing Glass Break by God by God, that's the Professor Edge Murray's music. Andy, Andy, how the heck are you? Are you right now? How's everything going on? I'm getting ready to pre-Pro professor and then actually professor, but I'm all right, good to see you fellas. Yeah, just spreading the news here. It'll be live next weekend. Great cup. Andy, what are you excited for? And then I want to get your thoughts on the Lions that kind of downfall here, but thoughts here overall as we approach the division finals here this weekend. I think these are matchups that just to what Jason was just saying, I think these are the best teams in the CFL that are left in the field. I think for some people it might be annoying. It's a little bit of the same as far as Winnipeg we're in the, I wouldn't say the frozen tundra because actually the weather report looks actually pretty favorable this weekend, which we'll get into, but still it's in Winnipeg again, it's kind of like becoming that New York, new England Patriots feel again where it's like, oh, we're back here for the A FC title game. Well we're back here for the West final again, but deservedly so and again, Saskatchewan more than deserving to be there and Montreal, I think this is extremely exciting for them. Obviously they've already won a great cup. Now you have that absolutely raucous crowd in personable Molson Stadium for a home playoff game. I have to double check when the last time they hosted an Eastern final, maybe Jason knows that off the top of his head, but I can't quite remember the last time they did. But still regardless, I'm really excited to just hear how boisterous and absolutely agonizingly loud it's going to be on my TV screen on this weekend. Yeah, like you said is the four best teams. I've been having a lot of conversations lately with Dorothy about all this ramping up, okay, what's happening here? We're going up to Vancouver and all that and yet you look here in the playoffs list, where's six of nine? Make the playoffs in the CFL. I don't view that as like, okay, we are a playoff team. That's the success, right? Obviously we talked with Calgary last year coming in and eking in and hadn't missed the playoffs and how many years and they get bounced. Jason Lyons was this, I do not view this as success of any hand of them just making the playoffs and giddy bounce. You view the BC Lion season as a success? Absolutely not. I think anytime you're in a great cup hosting year, the expectation fair or not in the CFL is to make the great Cup or at least like I said, make the Great Cup, let alone win it. So I think we went through this last year in Hamilton, a very disappointing year. We made the playoffs similar to BC but we lost in the opening round the division, so it's very disappointing for the BC Lions. I think they really were shown to be frauds really just they talked a lot about how this team was different in style from the previous couple of years and how they were more of a physical team. We went out, we got William stand back, we got some guys that are better at defending the run, but ultimately those are the things that cost them in this game and ultimately they couldn't match the physicality of the rough riders and it was a disappointing season for the Lions. Yeah, I had a couple and I want to talk through a little bit of Rick Campbell's kind of post stuff on here. Evan, do you have anything else to add to this and then we'll circle back, but I got a couple of tweets I wanted pull up that just kind of spurs my memory. Anything from you, Evan, just about the lions in general and then we can deep dive the games here. Yeah, I mean look, like Jason said, it's obviously a disappointing season and with what Amar Doman has done, bringing 50 cent in there for the opener, hosting the Great Cup this year, whole list of things that they did to make the magical season and they regressed, right? I mean the first two years where BC was in that West final against Winnipeg, it was well disappointing end to the season, but there's a lot of positive takeaways and this year it felt like there was a lot going on there. I mean you bring in Nathan Rourke, midseason, that's a whole different thing. Not really going to get into that because I think that's going to take too much time, but there was a lot going on and ultimately it didn't work out. So I think there's a lot of maybe difficult decisions that'll have to be made there in the off season. We'll see what happens. I'm not saying that anybody's going anywhere, but I definitely think Omar Doman has some things to consider. But yeah, I mean ultimately it's a disappointing season for them and I remember I kind of bought into the hype before the season started that this was going to be the year where it all came together and you're hosting in the Gray Cup and they were finally going to get past Winnipeg and all the things that had kind of been said for two years or whatever up to that point and it didn't happen. So it's unfortunate, but I'm hopeful that they'll be able to rebound and again, they've committed to Nathan work now as their quarterback, so that's your starting point for whatever happens moving forward. Andy, I kind of look at two years ago when we went up to Regina and there was kind of a lot of lament of the Ruff Rider fans. They weren't in it and they didn't show up and how disappointment, but this feels wildly different. I don't think Saskatchewan was necessarily a great team at that point. I think they were fine kind of trying to figure their way where BC it feels like they really went, it's like the New York Jets here. We went all in on everything, we got everybody and we're trading for this and we're signing this and we're doing that. So it feels, am I right in feeling like this is even more kind of embarrassing? I do think that's the right word. I mean it was style and hype over substance and the substance was a nine to nine season. In fact, to Jason's point, I think he made on your podcast about a month or two ago about the curse of Rick Campbell. I mean he's what he goes nine to nine, he usually does, he's 82, 92 and two in his career. Yes, he's bought himself a lot of currency as far as the head coach, as far as his finishes. He is won a great cup. He's been to another, he did a lot in ach. He seems like an outstanding success in Ottawa considering what it's been like there recently. But the fact of the matter is, I mean this is about a step below a colossal failure. I mean they absolutely had all of these pieces that they brought in. You bring in Christian Covington, you bring in Matthew Bets, you bring in Nathan Rourke the Godsend and what do you have the show for it other than you don't even get to host a playoff game. I mean that's really the biggest thing to me is the fact that they didn't even get to host a game in the playoffs, which they've done in the last two years. I mean if you travel for the Western final fine, but not even being able to host in the semifinal, I think to me was really kind of the barker of just how far this had fallen off. And for me, I mean I think there was just so many mismanaged steps. The roster construction for one, the thing that really gets me about this team is the lack of physicality, especially on the offensive of a defensive lines. I mean their offensive line just got beat every single week no matter if VA was in there or whether Rourke was in there. I mean they were just getting pounded when the pass Rush came and kind of pinned their ears back. Their defensive line just could not stop the run, which I know you've been on and on about Reed. I mean, AJ Ole looked like he was revived and even if they'd moved on, they would've had the same problem against Brady Oliveira again. So for me it was a roster construction standpoint, but it was also just a mismanagement of you could say, possibly behind the scenes personalities. I don't know if we're going to get more details on what happened. It'll be really interesting to see what VA says when he leaves bc. I'm very curious to talk, see what he says once he leaves and if people get the chance to ask him. But yeah, I mean just as I said in the chat a few days ago, I mean it just felt like such a wet fart of a season and you promised the sun and the stars and this is what happens. Yeah, so they had the post era, I guess the season wrap, whatever, what was this on November 4th a couple of days ago, and I mean I really thought that this kind of exemplified everything we've talked about with BC this year and they had the quotes, if we had Nathan and Banne here and then Neil and Rick and Rick's quote was talking about being able to host, obviously we're not here and not able to host a breakup. He goes, that's too bad, but we'll have to get over it just if nothing else of that, that's too bad. We got to get over it. How many years here is it? We're set up for whatever and well, that's too bad. We have to get over it. That's all you have to say to your fans. Like Andy said, to not even host the semis, to not even get one playoff game in this. Now you're trying to, I'm getting the emails from BC and obviously we're going to be part of the lions den there doing the show, but hey, there's still going to be a lot of fun stuff here. Hey, still show up, still show up. It is hard where you're still trying to revitalize and build that fan base. I know we've seen a big resurgence with the Mar, but that's not something that you can take for granted. I laughed when whoever, Andy, whatever, were like, yeah, we brought in 50 cent. I'm like, man, that seems like a fever dream ago. Oh yeah, remember that at the beginning of the season when we had 50 cent. But yeah, even from a game standpoint, I'm sitting there and I'm watching it and Jason knows and anyone that's been on the show this summer, I've done my best to recap everything for me the day of. So Jason and I can do these shows. I've been traveling a lot with work and I'm turning on the game and I watch the start to finish both games. I told Dorothy, I said, I, we got to work now we got to be serious. I got to get in on this. And I'm like, oh yeah, AJ Ette, huh? And then really hasn't been a major focal point, right the last five, six weeks. It feels like a lot of the season where he was kind of like Thor hammer coming in and then yeah, he was the biggest star of the day. They couldn't do anything. It looked like he was the greatest player on the field and to Andy's point, even if you get through aj, you got Brady next week. So it's not even like, oh, we kind of figured that out here. You look at even the commanders right now trading for Marshawn Lattimore like, hey, God forbid we understand what our weaknesses are and we try to, hey, let's get some players and fix that. The fact that Neil and Rick and all of them have had the same problems with the team for the last three, four years and seemingly have had nothing to do to kind of fix that is just mind boggling to me. Jason, thoughts on the game? Let's talk BC and then we can kind of reverse since we're already on that, but thoughts on the game? My tweet was that you can't spell embarrassment without BC Lions. That was my tweet during the game if you want to know it, if you want to know where I'm at. Jason, what did you think? Well, I mean the game was tied at halftime, so it definitely was not a blowout by any means, but I think that in the second half, like I said, it really was the physicality of the game that the rough riders committed to running the ball throughout the game, whereas the lions did not, they could not establish the run. I think a stand back seven carries for 27 yards, that's just not going to cut it and providing balance for your offense, and then there's too much pressure on that really weak BC offensive line in pass protection and ultimately you'll see that affect their ability to win that game. So it was very disappointing to see from the Lions. I mean I don't think Nathan Rourke would've done much better if he was in there. I think it was just the style of the team and where they've decided to prioritize spending money on this roster. That has been the continuous problem for this team over the years. But in terms of Saskatchewan, I think that Trevor Harris is still playing incredibly well. I think that the running game coming alive a J ette, even though it was against your BC Lions reed, I think getting him going down the stretch, maybe he has his best three games of the season on a way to a great cup, who knows? But I think that is huge to have balance for that offense. And they also have Rell Armstead who was a big part of the Ottawa Red Blacks Russian game earlier this season before his release due to some personal fouls that he was taking there. So they decided to dress two American running backs for this game, which is pretty rare in the CFL and it really worked for them. So it should be interesting to see how they deploy that against Winnipeg. I think having balance going into that game, we'll talk about it, but it's going to be huge for the riders and yeah, ultimately I think it just boils down to the physicality and BC was not prepared to match what Saskatchewan was throwing at him, But we knew that anyway. Yeah, why wouldn't you double up on that? BC can't do anything to stop that at all. And to your point, Vernon or Nathan on one of my tweets, someone commented Nathan, I said Nathan would be in the locker room crying. I don't even want to hear anything that it would've been any different with him being in there. Vernon played his ass off. I don't think he's to blame for that. My thoughts on Nathan and kind of how he's held, everything has been long documented at this point and kind of them acting like he's this untouchable golden boy that we should all kiss the feet of. I just don't think that that's how athlete culture works and I understand Canada is different and the media market saw that, but none of that would fly out of the border here. Evan, thoughts on the game because as Jason said, you kind of knew what Saskatchewan needed to do. Game plan coming in, they did that. I think BC's weaknesses on defense are very well known and well documented. What did you make of Saskatchewan here and I'm full on, I tweeted out and that was probably the biggest one. I tweet, I had CFL here. I'm all in Saskatchewan right now. I'm all in. This is a rider's account here for at least until November 18th. So Evan, what'd you make of the game? Yeah, listen, I'll start by saying I didn't think BC played terribly. It wasn't very exciting, but I don't think it was an absolute disaster for him. What I will say the main issue that I noticed in that game was BC couldn't convert on second down, I think it was two thirds to one third or something like that. It just felt like Saskatchewan. To Jason's point, they kind of put together these long sustained drives and were just able to run the ball, chew clocks, score points, and move on. So again, not exactly the most exciting form of football, although Trevor Harris did hit a couple passes and exposed what I would say is one of BC's greatest weaknesses probably in their secondary. Trevor Harris has played some phenomenal football this year, by the way. I know there were some concerns about him coming into this year just with his injury and his age, but he's played great when he's helped 38, he's 38. I know Shay Patterson came in for a bit to help out when Trevor was down, but he's backing up and running and they're having a good time on offense for bc. I think it would've been a lot better if Keon Hatcher and Alex Hollands got involved. They were pretty much non-factor in this game and those are guys who you're paying a lot of money to make plays and I understand look, it was a bit of a slower night and whatever, but I was just hoping maybe they could do a bit more. The wind was obviously a factor. Sean White who's been automatic on field goals missed a couple of kicks, although you have to take into account that Sean White plays in a dome for most of the year, so when you get into those weather conditions, it might be a bit harder to kick and look, I think Sean White's a great player, outstanding kicker, one of the best in this league. He's been doing it forever and I don't think even if he had made those kicks that it really would've changed much in the game. I felt like from early on kind of in the first quarter that Saskatchewan was really setting the tone. I know BC had that quick score early, but from there on out it was grounding pound Saskatchewan is what it felt like to me. So what else do I have here? Just Saskatchewan converting on down when they needed to and I felt like the real turning point in that game. The last thing I'll really say about this is Marcus sales getting that interception off Vernon Adams. I felt like that was a pretty notable moment where, I don't want to say it was a momentum shift. I felt like Saskatchewan had a lot of momentum already. At that point you're playing at home, but Marcus Sales was a guy that BC let go because they thought he was too old and he became expendable and there he is in a big moment playing against his former team coming up big, and I think that's one of those things that if you're BC that maybe, I don't know how you think about that, just because again, in that game in particular, I felt like the secondary maybe didn't do enough and if you had a guy like Marcus Sales, right, it might've made things a bit easier. So I don't know. Those are all things I took away from that game, but again, I expected Saskatchewan to win and they did. Yeah, we're right. VC scored first, right, left. I never sat there and felt like, oh, this is momentum in this way. They missed the field goal or missed the extra point and then the other score they had were Vernon did kind of the quick kick and then they were able to pin 'em and then they only had to drive 25 yard, whatever that was. It was kind of like a fluke. I didn't even take that. It was like, okay, well you basically had to, it didn't feel like you drove the length of the field there. It kind of felt like you pinned them deep and then were able to use the field position, which the studio felt like, okay, it's all about field, but it just felt like I would like to see the team do some sustainable drives here. Andy, any thoughts on the game itself? Yeah, actually to piggyback a little bit off of what Evan was saying when you mentioned Keon Hatcher, I actually did think they were trying to get him involved. He had eight targets and only two catches and I distinctly remember a couple plays where he ran kind of an incorrect post route, I believe was one of them, and then he had a drop in another instance. There was also another one where Veon I think kind overthrew him, so they were trying to get him involved, but the chemistry just wasn't there. Another guy that just absolutely fell off the map for BC in the second half of the season was Alexander Hollands. I mean he really just, he was on fire the first two months. I know Jason could attest to that in that game against Hamilton when he just went off in the first quarter, but we haven't really seen that from him since he kind of faded away. Justin McInnis was spectacular the entire season. Obviously Allstar mentioned he was fantastic, but I just want to switch back over to Saskatchewan for a minute here. I think there needs to be more said about Cory Mesa's job that he's done with this team and for a couple of reasons. One, love to see that Trevor Harris got to finish the season. I sat here with you months ago and boldly predicted that he would lead the league in passing, which the Ettes fight decks guys looked at me like I was nuts. And to be fair, his injury definitely came back up. He got hurt during the season and it kind of hampered their offense, but the biggest thing to me is just how Coase was able to kind of overturn the culture really. And it wasn't easy. There was that span of weeks where they just kept losing close games and they were just so close and the margins were so razor thin and they kept dropping those games in August and September and then they had that infamous report where they called off practice because Mace was just upset at the team and just said, I've had it with you guys. I think he really kind of got them all roped together and really got them playing outstanding football down the stretch and it showed up here. I mean all of you have been saying they just were more physical. They showed up on the prairies, the wind was just gusting through. Also a fantastic strategy for them to play with the wind as opposed to into the wind, especially in the fourth quarter. They plan that out very well. So I have to give it to Saskatchewan too. I think this is an immense turnaround, especially considering how they've ended the last two seasons. And Corey Mace absolutely for me, for my money earns the coaches of the year or no, I know those ballots have been turned in and everything, but that for me, I think really it stands out just what he's done with this culture. So yes, part of it is BC's failure. I also think Saskatchewan was just able to kind of turn it around this year. So you mean when Corey Mace came out as a leader of men and yelled and motivated their team as opposed to being like, well, it's too bad we got to get over it. I am a fan of I Hardnosed mean coaches. I know the new thing nowadays is the cool vibe and I think Dan Quinn with the Commanders is kind of the balance of that of culture building, but kind of being the cool guy. I don't think you need to be Bill Belichick kind of screaming or whatever people, but I do think that the dichotomy there of Rick Campbell being like we did our best. I think that there's a clear difference of that. Jason, any comments on any of this stuff? I wanted to just touch on this lion stuff before and we can do the other stuff and if anyone else has, but anything else on the game, Sask or the Lions? Yeah, Corey Mac has done a fabulous job this year. It's really been remarkable and it's nothing too crazy. I think he's just really worked on the fundamentals of this team. They stopped the run, I believe they had the number one rush defense in the league this year. They got their veteran quarterback back and he was able to play most of the season. I mean unfortunately not all of the season like Andy was alluding to, but I think when they brought an a Joe Ette who was not a big difference maker in the regular season, but going with those all-in moves I think has really given some positive momentum to the franchise and just given Corey Mason. I think another thing is that he's done a really good job with the defense in particular, so many takeaways this season and that played a huge role. Again, Marcus sales interception in this game and I believe Burnham's through three interceptions in this game, so they led the league in turnover differential this year. So that's always a key stat to lead the league in and I think if they want to beat Winnipeg, that's one thing they'll probably have to do in that game. Oh yeah, to Jason's point real quick, yeah, they have a turnover differential plus 28, which is nuts. That is absolutely outstanding statistic. I just wanted to allude to what you were saying, Evan, any other comments? And I want to talk this just real quick BC looking into the next season here, but any other comments on this stuff? Yeah, I mean look, Saskatchewan's got a great culture. They're the one team right now. They're kind of the odd man out in the sense, or I should not odd man out, but they're kind of unique in the sense that out of the four remaining teams, they're the only one who wasn't in this position last year. It's been three years since they went to the West final against Winnipeg and Winnipeg went on to win the whole thing against Hamilton again. But it's a fun team, it's a really fun team and I think their defense, it's good. I still don't know if it gets enough credit. I think Roland Milligan brought a lot of attention to that team with what he's done this year, but they have Playmakers on defense all over that place. Shout out to Jordan Lennon, who's a defensive assistant over there. I talk to him every week. We talk about guys and whatever and I'm like, what do you think of this guy? And they seem to have a really good operation again in terms of culture, getting guys to buy in and I think that goes a long way. Again, we'll get into the preview for Winnipeg, Saskatchewan later, but I'll bring up that culture thing again. It might be important for a game that's this big coming up. I want to get just everyone's thoughts real quick on this. We had the article with three down that JC had talked about BC going over the salary cap this season, which I replied in the group chat. Yeah, no s Sherlock obviously we went over that, but I was watching Han's Post game and obviously he'll be part of the Gray Cup show next week, but talking about, well obviously they're going to have to rework Nathan's salary and the marketing. I'm like, what are we really? We're already talking about this is already a mistake or this is already curious, just kind of Andy, we'll start with you, just your thoughts. I don't know. It already feels like we kind of got cold feet on this. We're like, well now we're going to have to go. We don't know if, I dunno, this seems kind of like a mess. I want to get your thoughts. You haven't been on here in a while. Yeah, the mythical marketing cap is always one of the fascinating parables that I think about in terms of how it's used at the CFL, which is not really used to an extreme degree. Although I remember at one point, I think months ago I was listening, I actually happened to listen to the three Down Nation podcast and I know you're in that, I know obviously, but John Hodge was saying some sort of hypothetical like, well, what if they paid Lamar Jackson $40 million off the marketing cap? Well, that would never happen. I always wonder about how that works. It's kind of like the same thing people in the NFL, I'm not sure if you're how familiar with it Jason, but people always say that the cap is a myth. People don't really believe that the salary cap exists, but in this case, I mean if that's how they're kind of phrasing it, well then maybe there is buyer's remorse on how much they're giving Roarke. I mean, like I said, his performance was not very good this year, but this is the thing. Are you buying into this version of Nathan Rourke or the one two years ago and the one that if given preparation and time can be at that same level. But again, this is kind of what happens with athletes and you guys were sort of talking about a little earlier was sometimes you kind of get this currency as a player when you play so well for one year or for a couple of years and you just kind of buy it. I mean I still remember thinking that way. Just to give a random example, not a football player but a basketball player, Derrick Rose, I mean I loved him and then he tore his ACL and then he just kept having injuries and everyone kept thinking like, well, can he get back to that MVP season he had? And it just never happened. Sometimes you just buy currency as an athlete and people just take a lot longer to kind of let it go because they really believe, well, maybe this is going to happen, maybe it's going to happen now maybe this is the magical McGuffin. So it really depends. They're going to have to do that evaluation in the off season, but the fact of the matter is they're not going to have their safety valve because VA is pretty much gone. So you better be damn sure you know what you're doing with that and maybe that is what it is. But I don't know. It's hard to say because he's been away. He was in the NFL, he came mid-season, which I will admit it's tough to just try and adjust and try to start games all of a sudden he was going to start playing he did two years ago. That was kind of an unrealistic expectation, but I think it's hard to be saying that you need to be restructuring the marketing cap after you promised all of that to him six weeks ago. And the article out, I think he said, we're like, well, at least I know where I'm going to be next year. And I'm like, well, thank God for that. I am glad that now where you're going be. No, I mean a perfect player example, Andy, you're talking about, I mean all the allegations aside is to Sean Watson right here. We've waited what four seasons now? Hey, Isan going to get back to kind of what he was. It is good to know that they're missing out on the three down podcast. I'm missing out on conversations about Lamar Jackson being paid $40 million out of the marketing budget to come play and then Zach Callero sending Jason Kelsey, Winnipeg Blue Bombers merchant and not arriving in the mail. So it's good to know. It's good to know the conversations that they're had on there. Jason, thoughts? Thoughts on the lions situation here? And then I want to talk to Toronto and all that. We'll get to the game preview, but yeah, we got an hour about all this stuff. I think we're doing okay. Yeah, I mean I wasn't aware of, I didn't see what Farhan said about this. I thought that obviously they're going to have some problems with this roster just given the fact that where they finished the season, I think they have some obvious holes so it makes sense that they would want to free up some money, especially given the fact that Rourke's going to be given such a huge figure next year. So I think Nathan will probably be okay with that full season of preparation like Andy was saying, but I think there definitely are concerns about it. I think that maybe it was that he wasn't fully comfortable there just given the fact that Vernon was there and it kind of still felt like his team. So that's what gives me hope going into next year if he's the guy, and obviously they're going to move on from VA this off season and VA even said that himself, but I think that if you do that, I think Vernon, sorry Nathan is probably going to have some success next year and play a lot better, but they do have other problems on this roster and I think as for why they went over the cap, I'm being almost every team that hosts the Great Cup ultimately goes over the salary cap. It's just a pretty normal thing. I think people need to stop overreacting to CFL teams going over the salary cap. It's more like the NBA salary cap where you pay a luxury tax for every dollar that you go over. So I don't think people really understand that fully. And one final thing is I want them to fully say, how does this marketing cap work? Or how does this marketing money work? I think they really need to start explaining that better. They put that in the CBA obviously when they agreed to that a couple of years ago, but I still don't understand it and I follow this league on a daily basis. So just your average fan trying to understand that must be a pain. Yeah. Two quick things and we'll go to Evan. God bless Vernon, his post game. He sounded really emotional about a lot of stuff really gone through a lot. And you remember two years ago, I'm being traded from Montreal and I mean I think he was on the podcast at that point talking like, okay, well I'm paying rent in Tacoma and I'm paying rent in Montreal and now I got to get a place in BC and then this year and the injuries and Nathan and all that has to be a mess. Then I did laugh speaking of the luxury taxes and all of that, Dorothy the other day, we actually had a very insightful conversation where she's like, that's why I like football and not baseball is like the Mariners are never going to win because they're never going to spend the money riding in the football. It's a little more, I'm like, this is a little bit more of a nuanced conversation I would've expect from Dorothy here after watching the Dodgers and all of that. But Evan, any other thoughts on the Lions or Sask and then we'll transition to Toronto here? Yeah, simply put, I mean they're paying Nathan to work a lot of money and what I'm interested to see next year in bc, regardless of who the coach is or what else is going on, what happens to the rest of the roster because as Jason pointed out, there's some holes on both sides of the ball they got to fill. For me, if I was there sitting as the gm, if I was Neil McAvoy, I would probably look at the run game still. Look, they brought in William Stanback this year. I know he was mentioned before. I think he did his job, but I still think you need more than that. He was just the one back they could use and then there wasn't much else there outside of that. So I would take a long hard look at the run game, say, who are we going to add there, do a proper evaluation. They did trade for that guy blank on his name for Montreal. I don't have the numbers on Him Ant. Yep, JE Ant, that's right. So they got him and that, I don't know, that was like maybe they move to Boost, bolster the run game rather, but we'll see what happens. Again, there's a lot of things I don't have, see what's tough about salary and especially in the CFLs, I don't have where every guy is at with his contract. It just sounds like they have some work to do. So hopefully they get started on that sooner rather than later. And again, just a really interesting situation overall to follow, whether you include the salary cap or not, what's going to happen with BC and does Nathan Rourke get back to his 2022 form? I think it's worth pointing out. As good as Nathan Rourke was and we all bought into the hype, I saw him play in person, threw for 400 yards against Edmonton. He only ended up playing in eight games in the regular season and had the playoff game. That's a very small sample size. If you compare that, I don't normally do this, but if you compare that to the UFL, right, which is, look, it's different than Canadian football, I get it. Okay. But a UFL season is considered short and if you're starting quarterback in the UFL and you don't lose your job or you don't get hurt, that's 10 games. So Nathan Rourke had less than one UFL season of tape in 2022 and since then he's gone on multiple NFL teams came back to the CFL. I'll be interested to see what happens. Again, he came there midseason towards the end of the season for BC and I still think it was a bit strange that they decided to play him right away expecting that he was just going to be himself in 2022 and there wouldn't be any need to build up. I think again, if I was the one making the calls there, I say, Hey Nathan, look nice to have you back, but we're going to give you more time to work with the offense and see how you fit and adjust back to the Canadian game since you've been in the NFL for a year. And then I would've just maybe played Chase Bryce until Vernon Adams was healthy and then gave Vernon Adams his job back as opposed to letting Nathan play all those games as kind of an experiment and then saying, oh boy. Well now we've lost a lot. Let's go back to Vernon Adams and then me and Reed were there last week of the regular season when Vernon played lights out. And the last thing I'll say about all this, just because I know we're at 40 minutes now already and we haven't even gotten it thrown on Montreal, but Vernon's the ultimate class act. I just love the way that guy talks. I love the way that guy presents himself in the media. He says all the right things that's going to really good when you need to have a market, right? Because again, it's pretty clear that Vernon Adams is going to be out of there barring a miracle or they restructure the cap or he adjusts into a backup role. I don't know, I think Vernon Adams is good enough to be a starter in his league. I know a lot of people agree with me on that, but again, the way he's carried himself through all this, I think if you're another gm, wherever else who's looking for a quarterback, you're like, that's the guy I want to lead my locker room and to lead my team. So we'll see where he ends up. Again, another interesting situation to follow out of all this, Evan, you stole my chest move. You stole my chest move. I was just about to interject and say that. Sorry to cut you off re, But I just wanted to say real quick, I absolutely agree with you. And not only that, let's talk a little bit, just a tiny bit more before we move on about VA maturing as a person in this league. I remember two years ago he got unceremoniously benched in Montreal and subsequently traded later on and there was all that sub-tweeting that he was doing about getting replaced by Trevor Harris and kind of getting undermined by the team and there was a whole question about his maturity and all that. I distinctly remember all that. And then when he got traded, he kind of took over when Rourke was hurt, but then Roarke came back and got his job back and this time around he had the job, Rourke came in, VA was hurt, and then kind of lost his job and he kind of lost it for a while. But for him to kind be the guy that he was that entire time really showed his growth in his maturity. And to Evan's point, I think he can absolutely be a primary start in this league. And I'll go one step further and this is just my personal belief. I think you can win a great cup with him. I really do. In the right situation. I absolutely believe you can do that. So I just wanted to say that and thank you for bringing that up, Evan. No, I do a hundred percent because there wasn't there the whole thing too, he wasn't showing up early enough. I feel like early on years ago there was kind of that and then I think the first time he was on the show with me or one of 'em and he's like, yeah, I've really kind of had to mature here and grow in and know that it's not just how I play, but it's kind of how I lead. It's funny because BC basically, and we've talked about this, where we basically fell over themselves to bring Nathan back and really if this was dating, and I understand the complexities of football are very different, but have some sense of self-esteem here. Like, oh hi, I like, oh please, what can I do to help you? But what's ironic now is that the way that Vernon has handled everything correctly, I would say from a media perspective almost now, I mean I could see teams and we have talked to following over themselves to get Vernon next season, and I think Vernon's going to get a major contract here for a team Calgary or Edmonton or someone wanting to do that. And it's just how the turns table here with the office and everything. I think Vernon played himself into a better position this way. Last things for me, I think Rick should be gone. I would blow up all of that. I've had all of these people on the show. I think they're all tremendous. Neil and Rick, and we've had the same issues with all these teams for years, and Nathan never should have left. You should have got a full season. I said that at the time he left too early. I understand buddying on yourself, but win a playoff game in the CFL and then try to move your talents down south here. Let's talk about this. Let's get Jason on this. Toronto really kind of thrash here a little bit. Drew Brown, 46 of 61. This was a wild game. We won't do as deep a dive. I want to make sure we actually preview these matchups in full, but Jason, what'd you make of this one? Well, as I said earlier in the show, this was one of the most entertaining first halfs of a game that I could ever remember. I think it was just constant big plays back and forth. Every offense or each offense just making plays to stay on the field. And Ottawa looked very good and looked like they had a real shot to win this game early on, but ultimately they sailed for a few field goals in the first half and then they cooled off in the second half, whereas Toronto just was a smooth oiled machine. They just kept on making big play after big play. Chad Kelly say what you want about him, but he played a near flawless game in this one. Ottawa got to him a couple times early. I think Lorenzo Malden had a strip sack on him, but other than that, I think he was basically 20 yards to pass just big plays down the field, just regular stuff that we've seen from him going back to last year when he won the MOP. So that is a great sign if you're an Argos fan going into this game against Montreal that he showed he could do it in a playoff environment and 58 points. I know they had a couple of pick sixes in there, but that speaks for itself with how well this offense performed in this one. And Ottawa just gave up too many big plays and it's ultimately been the story for them the last couple of seasons. They've been pretty weak in terms of their past defense and it really reared its ugly head in this game. Yeah, this really high flying, really a lot of movement here. I laughed and I had a tweet at one point, I didn't tweet it out, but when right Chad was pulled out for concussion or whatever for a couple of plays there and there was that weird shot of sidelines with the ref, like fist bumping the Argo sidelines and I said, well, you know, got to let Chad back in the game. We all know what happens when you tell Chad no, that's Andy I lost on Toronto in Ottawa. No comment on that situation. But what I can comment on, you know what I'm going to say, Evan, I think you're onto something about getting June Jones back in the CFL because can we have the air raid every game? Yeah. Oh my goodness. Otto is game plan for a team that lost by 20, can I say they just love their offensive game plan having six receivers as crazy as it was, completely befuddled Toronto for an entire half. They were absolutely just gassed going up the field. I know they had a predictable situation as far as running their pass rushers, but my God, Ottawa is just running wild out on the field. I love that they had six receivers and Drew Brown was really dialed in. I know we had the two pick sixes at the end of the game. He was trying to force it. He was trying to force a comeback, but overall I thought he played really, really well. And I think this is extremely encouraging for Ottawa going forward, but really two things stand out. One, yes, obviously their secondary got absolutely eviscerated. I mean, when you as a quarterback are able to have more touchdowns than in completions and it almost by more than double, I think that just kind is a testament to your performance, but also the defense is really doing nothing to stop you. Second of all, look Reid, I know you're going to get on me about this, about the whole momentum thing, but let me talk for a second. Oh yeah, Okay. Ottawa had a huge gaff at the end of the first half where they tried to squid kick because they didn't want to kick off the engineering grant fair enough, because that's like kicking off the Devin Hester and his prime. But they hit one of the Argonauts players and it was basically bounced into field goal range and Argonauts got a field goal right before half and that cut into the deficit. I think that did for Ottawa. I don't think it would've ultimately mattered. They probably would've given up enough points anyways, but for you to have that kind of performance on offense and score a touchdown right before that and then to give up points and lose that a little bit going into the second half, I mean, Toronto came right back down the field and scored a touchdown. So there you go, 10 points shifts over, they take the lead. I think that was a bit of, I do believe it was a bit of a momentum killer even though ultimately I think they would've lost the game. So I know you were going on and giving me crap about it in the group chat, but I think it's just kind of a testament that coaching matchup wise, look, Bob dys had a much better year this year, but Ryan did witty when we were talking about Coach of the year candidates. I can't believe Ryan did. Witty wasn't on the ballot from the east. I know Jason Moss had the team that won the most games in the east, but you lost all that talent and you didn't have Chad Kelly for half the year and you managed to somehow squeak out 10 wins with this team with obviously Cameron Dukes and Nick Arbuckle getting major playing time. I mean, I think that was an outstanding, really just overall coaching performance by Ryan Dinwitty and ultimately I think that's what took the Argos over the top. Yeah, Jason, we were having a conversation in the group chat about how the field goal and all of that somehow then related to Ottawa messing that up somehow related to them giving up what, 38 points in the second half? I don't, I believe in momentum in sports. I hate it because all of my teams, for the most part seem incapable of adjusting from it. I just watched a Kraken play last night and there was this weird fluky, it was off sides. They got scored on and they challenged it and then it was reversed and then they sat there for 10 minutes and then they reversed it. At that point, you're like, well, the Kraken are never winning this game because if anything, they're like, and it was, I break my mic, it was halfway through the second period and you're like, well, this game's done, done. I do not believe that Ottawa messing that up related to 38 points given up in the second half. I'll beg to differ with Andy on that. Evan, thoughts on this game? Before I get into the game, I'm going to build off Andy's point because this is something I've wanted to say for a long time. At the beginning of the season I said, Toronto is going to be a team to look out for this year, and a lot of people said, no, they've lost too much talent. They're not going to be able to get over the hump. Chad Kelly's suspended, everything's coming undone. I'll just give you some perspective here. Toronto. So the players that they lost after 2023, Jamal Peters to Hamilton, a Darius picket to Ottawa, aj Ette to Saskatchewan, Jevon League to Edmonton, Quantas stickers to the NFL being drafted by the New York Jets. That's a lot of key losses, no doubt. But then I look at the guys who they added, and this is why I predicted them to be a good team this year. And look, some of them were a surprise, some of them I felt like were underrated. Kadeem Carey from Calgary doing what he's doing at like 33 years old for a running back is phenomenal. Jane and Grant from Winnipeg, it is amazing how he was a free agent for so long and that nobody wanted to sign him and then Toronto brought him in and he's probably going to win most outstanding special teams player. I mean that's unbelievable. Again, they had Jevon Lee who was the top return guy in the league last year and I guess took over a place that had been owned by Mario Alford in Saskatchewan for a long time. Jevon Lee goes to Edmonton and then Toronto snags Jan and Grant, and it's almost better. Again, just an incredible turnaround there. Speaking of Edmonton, Jake Rena being traded from Edmonton over there. I believe it was for Curly Gittens if I'm not mistaken, but Jake Rena, I mean outstanding player in Edmonton, felt like he didn't get enough credit and he's really bolstered that Toronto defensive line this year. And then Ralph Hawley, another guy, former Philadelphia Star in the USFL, he really came along this year. He's a guy who I maybe thought could have had a vote for most outstanding rookie or should have been on the ballot. Unfortunately he wasn't. There's a lot of offensive playmakers including Mackay Polk. He's on their rookie out of Mississippi State. And then the two guys who have been there that I just don't think have gotten enough credit for a while now are, try not to butcher this name, but full ade and then who's a defensive lineman and then Winton McManus, the linebacker. I think both of those guys are very high impact players that got overlooked during this cycle where everybody's talking about Toronto losing this guy, losing that guy. So a lot of credit not only to Ryan Dinwitty, but to the Toronto front office in particular, the general manager, Michael Pinball, Clemens and Assistant general manager, John Murphy. Fantastic work with the roster. Even in that the East final, which I'll get into the actual game now, you had guys stepping up who hadn't really done anything or hadn't done much all year. Jake Slo, the receiver from Houston who was supposed to be a UFL guy, Benji Franklin, another guy that could have played in the UFL, both SLO and Franklin had the rights with Houston Avaris McFadden, who I thought it was really kind of interesting where Winton McManus, I think he had the interception and kind of threw it over to Tavaris McFadden and he ran it back for the pick six. And Tavaris McFadden was on the Ottawa Red Blacks roster at one point this year. And again, another former XFL guy. So there's a whole lot of lore there for all of the people like myself who keep up with player personnel and where this guy's been and all that. But anyway, looking at the actual game, I think a lot of it's already been covered. The main storyline here should be Chad Kelly redeeming himself. I mean after that meltdown in Montreal last year, probably one of the worst playoff games, especially by a guy who won a most outstanding player, nobody expected that. I think we're still all reeling from that to some degree of the, oh wow, that really happened. But he went out there and man, he looked exceptional. I mean you talk about teams getting hot at the right time. I mean I don't think what Toronto did there was a fluke and I think they can carry that a long ways maybe to the Gray Cup. That's certainly where I'm leaning right now. As for Ottawa, like Andy said, I'll give Tommy Condell credit to have to not have a traditional running back in the backfield. You've got Braylin, Addison, Devonte Deadman, who's your returner, you're running a lot of those five six receiver sets. For him to keep Toronto on the ropes like that for an entire half is pretty incredible. I didn't know what to expect from Ottawa going into that game, whether their past game would be able to make up for the lack of a run game that they haven't had for some time now. But I also think it's ultimately the run game that really hurt 'em because look, I understand there were a couple coverage busts by the dbs that was pretty obvious. It allowed Chad Kelly to be really efficient, but I don't know why there wasn't another running back option there. I mean there were a couple of guys, I think, I'm not sure if Labour, the running back for Marshall was still there on their practice roster. If he was, I don't know why he didn't play or wasn't elevated. I had talked about it privately before, but like Kevin Brown who was a thousand yard rusher in Edmonton last season, kind of took a step back to Justin Rankin who came up from the IFL this year. And Edmonton ended up being on the practice roster in Edmonton at the end of the season. But what that means is he was a free agent and as far as I'm concerned, the interim GM and Edmonton, Roy Simon didn't sign him to a futures deal to keep him there. So he was a free agent. He was available to sign going into that game and they didn't make that move. And I'm not saying he's the only running back that would've made sense, but to have a guy who had so much success last year, some success this year just kind ended up getting outworked by another really good running back and yeah, you just don't see that situation kind of. There's not players who are available like that all the time who have just played a full CFL season now they can go join another team for the playoffs. I think that's it. I mean Ottawa was, offense obviously slowed down in the second half. I think Toronto just did a really good job at keeping pace that first half. You could kind of tell they were hitting all the right deep shots to Mackay Polk and Devar Daniels and then they came out of the locker room and continued to do that. They didn't slow down. Whereas Ottawa, those long sustained drives on offense that they had in the first half just weren't there. And Chad Kelly was still dealing, they were still running the ball very well and then ran up the score at the end with two pick sixes. But again, fantastic game by Toronto. I really again picked them to win. I thought they would win that game just based on everything, but they look real good. I think that's a team. Again, we're not the previews yet, but Montreal, they might have a right to be concerned. Yeah, we'll see if Toronto can carry that momentum into the finals here. We'll see. Let's go here. Game previews here. Get out of here. Andy's got to go work and I'm going to go, my brother's a big John Wick fan. I guess they re-released John Wick in theater, so I guess that's what we're doing tonight. Jason, I'll go to you first then let's touch on both games. We'll go around the horn here. Toronto at Montreal and then Sask Winnipeg. Yeah, so Toronto and Montreal. I think the main thing I'm watching is do the turnovers from last year's East final repeat themselves, because we talked about last week. That was the main reason that Montreal was able to win that game against Toronto in blow out fashion. I think that if Chad Kelly can keep the turnovers to a minimal or zero, I think they have a great chance of winning this game because they're a much more explosive team than Montreal. I think that Montreal, that's the big question I have for them in this game. Can they hit those deep shots? It doesn't have to be anything crazy, but provide a couple of big plays to really loosen up the defense underneath and get them going. And I think Austin Mack is a guy I'm really looking forward to seeing if he can pop off for a big game. He's been pretty quiet and a little bit injured since he's been back from the NFL, so he's a guy I'm watching in this game. So those are what I'm looking for in that one. And then for Saskatchewan, Winnipeg, I think it's strength versus strength. I talked about Saskatchewan's run defense earlier being the best in the CFL. Well, you're going up against Brady Oliveira who's probably the favorite to win MOP. I think that is the matchup to watch in that one because Winnipeg's passing offense still hasn't been great in the entire season if you take the whole body of work for certainly better the second half of the season, but they weren't the greatest throw the course of the season. So I think that's where you're more concerned about if you're Saskatchewan. And then can Trevor Harris translate to what he did back in Saskatchewan on the road at Winnipeg with the elements? I think having balanced on the offense with Brady Olivea, so AJ Ette and Ray Cole Armstead will be huge for that team. And yeah, it should be interesting to see what happens in these two games. Let's go to you, Andy. Yeah, I mean I love the fact that we're getting a rematch of the Eastern final because is Chad Gelly going to be seeing Ghost again and specifically is he going to be seeing Mark Antoine Dewa again who he threw that infamous pick six to really start off the absolute debacle at home that he had against Montreal. And again, Montreal has been awesome at home. Their defense has been fantastic this year. Tyree ETT has been just an absolute monster for them. And the line backing core, I just really like the fact that they get to host a home playoff game and that those horns are just going to be working overtime. But for Toronto, to Evan's point, they have been playing outstanding. I know Reed can't wait, but to Evan's point, I really think it's been outstanding play from the Toronto Argos lately, and especially on offense. They've really found their groove. Chad Kelly has come back into the form condemn Carey, can he be a factor in this offense engineer and Grant? Have he had a return touchdown against Montreal? They upset Montreal. They actually got the first win against Montreal this year, earlier in the year, so they've done it. They can do it. It's very possible. You're talking about the last two great Cup champions and a final, that's fantastic. I love that. I'll sign up for that matchup any day of the week, but we'll see. I think for me, that matchup ultimately boils down to how well both defenses play. And I do think Montreal does have a bit of an up in hand there to flip over really quickly to the Western final. Yeah, Winnipeg, I mean standard quote, you just kind of play within your game. Interestingly enough, Saskatchewan did get five turnovers off of them in that last Western final three years ago, and it didn't matter. They still lost by four. And to Jason's point, that's been their calling call card all year. Saskatchewan is Ash. One is huge plus in the turnover margin, but can they make the plays when it matters? Winnipeg time after time, after time, I mean they're on the verge of having their fifth straight birth in the Great Cup is Edmonton Eskimo's levels of history right there. So I don't know if they have the firepower as much this year. We kind of dogged them all year, but really again, it's kind of the same thing in Montreal. Their defense has been really good. Their secondary is awesome. So I think for me it's the home playoffs and the defenses at home that really I think could go a long way into dictating both of these matchups. Last one, Evan, take some. Yeah, so in this Montreal Toronto game, I think a big key for Montreal is Cody Fido finding some receivers. I think a big hit that that team took early in the year was losing Tyson Philpot. He was doing some great things before he went down. The guy I'd look out for in that game is Charleston Rambo former XFL guy. I think I talked about him on the season preview, said that's a rookie receiver who might have a big year in the CFL. Of course, there were a lot of good rookie receivers this year in the CFL, Mackay Pollock already talked about him. Shamar Bridges, Khalil Penton, but I still like Toronto a lot in that game. Again, I just can't get over what they did against Ottawa. It was the definition of a complete game, all three phases, and I think if Montreal loses that game, you'll go back to that bit about, well, they played bc, they weren't really, it was kind of a vanilla game for them. Then you get the buy, then you have a big playoff game. Is that necessarily a benefit? I think that's going to come up if they drop that game. What I'm really focused on though, and what I'm really excited for is this West Final because I think Saskatchewan, they are a team. This is the team who has the best chance to beat Winnipeg in a while, in my opinion. I think the way that team is constructed, you look at their backfield between AJ Ette and Requa Armstead, and then you look at their defense, who I still think is a bit underrated, but a really good unit. Again, you talk about the turnover margin, a couple other things. They've done great this year. That is, again, I think they're in a good spot to win that game. Now with that being said, it's going to be a sold out crowd in Winnipeg 33,000. I'm not saying that Saskatchewan can't play in front of crowd noise. I definitely know they can play in weather, although as we've talked about too, the weather looks pretty favorable that day. So that one to me is very interesting. Again, I think to Andy, he said it perfectly, it's just going to come down to can Saskatchewan make the big play in the big moment? Because we know Winnipeg can do that, and they do that a whole lot. That's why they've gone to four straight gray cubs on the verge of five. It's going to come down to, in that moment, again, very similar. I think about the Gray Cup last year when Cody Fido, it was third down. Once he got over that you rattle off a couple plays and then you win the game. Can Trevor Harris do something similar in this game? And I'll go out on a limb here and I'll say, if Saskatchewan does win that game, which right now, I'm not sure if I would pick that outright, but if they do win that game, I'm giving them a good chance. I think that game might be bigger than whoever wins the Gray Cup just because you're what is essentially a team who, I don't know if we put the dynasty label on 'em yet, but I think that they're borderline four straight gray cups is hard. It's really hard and especially you have to give credit to that organization. They went to one in 2019, had a season canceled in 2020 where there was a lot of uncertainty around the league. You didn't know. It was like the whole world was kind of collapsing around them. And then you come back the next year and you win and then you go again and you go Last year, and I know the past two years they haven't been able to do it, but they've been so close in every game. If you look at the past two great cups that they lost, it's a couple plays. But if Saskatchewan can go in there and pull off an upset, I think that will change the entire landscape of the cfo. I'm not afraid to say that, so I'm really excited for that game. No, it should be good. Like I said, I'm going with Sask. My head says Toronto, my heart wants Montreal just because of the guys over there. But as you guys have said, I think Toronto's gotten enough firepower for that. We'll get out of here. I appreciate everyone. Like I said, we'll see you next week. Live from the Lions den in Vancouver. Appreciate everyone hopping on and we'll see everyone next time.

CFL 2024 Playoffs Preview!!!

Well here we are back here again. Wednesday, midweek here, getting ready for the CFL playoffs that Jason and I were talking offline. A little drag here near the end of the CFL season, but we are at the playoffs today. Very exciting. I have my Kraken jersey on, almost wore my commander's jersey hottest team in the NFL coming off our big Hail Mary, but I thought that that would be disrespectful to our Canadian listeners, although we did beat the habs last night, eight to two, so that was exciting. We have Jason and Anthony here. I have some bookkeeping stuff off the top, but first off Jason, how are you? It's been a couple of weeks. Good to see you. Yeah, good to see you too, Reed. I'm happy to be here. It's been a long time, but we're heading into the playoffs here and ready to go for the stretch run. Yeah, we have Anthony stepping in was trying to get the professor on. I think the professor is Professoring. Andy Anthony was on here with me last week, all his work over at Sports Illustrated. Anthony, I wanted to have a little bit of a round table today. Do a little CFL preview. You were here last week. What are you most looking forward to here for this weekend? Just glad that we finally have the playoff set and we know exactly who's going to play and I think your team Reid probably has my interest the most because I have no idea which BC team we're going to see. Are we going to see the ones from the beginning of the year? Are we going to see the one that nearly collapsed at the end of the season? So really interested to see how the Lions do this weekend. Yeah, and Anthony and I talked a lot about the Lions last week. I do really want to get Jason's thoughts on all of that. Speaking off the top, just to plug here and subscribe two weeks away from the Gray Cup, we'll probably do a similar midweek thing next week, looking forward to the finals and then we will be live in Vancouver getting that. I'll do a big post, but we're official. Jason and I will be live at the BC Lions Den part of the media row on Saturday. We'll have all of our guests as we always do the Nailers and Hans and maybe we'll get Matt Baker or Moj or whoever's walking around, but we'll get all of that thick of things, Dan, Ralph, everything else. So that should be really exciting to show. Did very well last year. Evan was there. I know Evan's going to be a part of it. I don't know if Andy's, I don't even know who's coming to Vancouver or not, but I know Evan's going to be there, Jason and I. That's all you need plus everything else. Anthony, how does that sound? Are you excited to presumably hopefully watch remote here, our big show coming up in a couple of weeks? Yeah, you get all those people on. I mean that's going to be a massive show, so I mean I always watch your stuff read, so I'm going to be plugged in and ready to watch. Well, and I think I'm about ready to pull gloves off and fight with Dave Naor over this CFL to St. Louis kind of thing. So we've promised that that's been brewing for a couple weeks. Dave, excuse me, I have a coffee here. Dave sent me a YouTube link that I still need to watch kind of my homework prepped for that, but I think that that will be exciting because Naor very high on the CFL to St. Louis. What? Can't we just replicate it? It was back in Dave. We'll talk through all of that stuff. Jason speaking the lions, I want to get your thoughts first off here. Obviously going and playing Saskatchewan this weekend, but the game last week we had Vernon Adams there. I was in attendance. We had a lot of comments of, well Montreal wasn't really playing for anything and this doesn't matter and it's vanilla defense. Is that the Lion's team? What did you make of that game and what does that make you think you're heading into the weekend? Well, I mean it certainly is a very unique situation, the whole lion season this year, being in a great cup year with all the pressure associated with that. Then you also bring in a guy in Nathan Rourke's profile in the middle of a season. I think it's kind of an unprecedented situation. So I think just based on who Nathan was and what he accomplished with Alliance previously and what VA had already done these past, what is it, two and a half years since he's been a lion, I think that it was destined to really drive a wedge between that team. I think there's definitely got to be, regardless of what they say, and to the credit of Roarke and va, they have been very friendly with each other I think relatively speaking. But in that locker room there has to be a division between the guys that are Rourke's guys and VA's guys and I think that's what we've seen throughout the second half of the season and why they haven't really, really hit their stride since that first half of the season where they looked really good and among the best teams in the league. So I think that going back to va, I think it started as his team this year. I think it's kind of only right that he tries to get them going in the playoffs here, but at the end of the day there still is that division and I think until they really move on from VA this off season, it's not really going to be totally solved on whose team it really is. Yeah. Anthony, thoughts? Any updated thoughts on that? It reminds me a little bit was watching the Steelers game was that Monday, right? And you have Russell Wilson sitting there talking with it. Justin Fields here on the sidelines and okay, we're kind of talking but you don't really know how he is with this because it felt like he kind of lost his job. Similar, obviously different dynamics, but kind of similar situation there. Any updated thoughts on kind of the VA Nathan debacle here and the fact that they're going to obviously ride with VA heading into the playoffs? I mean, I'm glad that the team is going to go with Vernon Adams. He's clearly the better quarterback for that offense right now. And I think we talked about this last week. No offense to Nathan Rourke. He's got all the potential to be a good starting quarterback in the CFL. I just think after going through four NFL teams over the last year plus and then jumping into the CFL after playing in the NFL for a year plus playing American football versus Canadian football is two different things and it takes time to adjust. I just don't think Nathan workers really set up for success in the first place. So I'm glad that they're going to go with Adams who's been in the system for a while. He's got chemistry with the receivers. The team seems to be more comfortable with him. It just makes all the sense in the world. And then when the offseason rolls around, I mean they got to go with Nathan work. I mean when you spend the kind of money that you did on him where he's got the biggest contract in league history, you got to roll with him, he's got to be your future quarterback and you got to see what you have in him in the next two, three years. So they have to let Adams walk. So it'll be interesting how the lions kind of adjust next year, but I think for the time being, I mean this year, the last few months have been just kind of a disaster for this team. It's really disappointing because they started out so good. They were one of the best teams in the league and I truly thought, I really thought it was going to be BC and Montreal meeting each other in the gray cup and technically it could still happen, but everything that's happened, I feel like there's a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes. But hasa you were saying, I think they've done a great job of hiding that if there is issues, I think they've been able to do a really good job of keeping that behind curtains, which is always a positive thing. So hopefully they get through this season next year, they can cut the cord with probably Burden Adams and roll on the future with Nathan Morgue. It reminds me, and it's obviously different as well, but I just spent the day kind of watching this Anthony Richardson debacle pan out kind of with the cults and well we drafted him and we knew it was a project and then he got injured last year and he starts this year and then we're benching him and how much time is enough time and obviously we've recounted on here kind of bringing in Nathan and throwing him right into the gauntlet there. I don't know, I feel like they didn't do right by him, but also you certainly didn't do right by va. Jason, is it, I don't know. Is it fair to say that if the lions played in America with the heavier amount of American media covering the NFL versus and obviously the CFL and Farhan and Naylor and everyone do a great job, but this might be a bigger story than it is because it feels like it's a similar situation, but obviously the BC Alliance are only going to get so much air time in Vancouver. Is that kind of how you feel? Yeah, I don't think you'd ever see this situation in the NFL just because teams really want to declare who is their guy and I think in the CFL it's less pronounced. Usually teams have their number one guy that they roll with, but it doesn't mean that some teams that the starter can't eventually be overtaken by the backup. But in the NFL, you kind of want, I think Dave Nailer says this a lot, you want to have your backup as a guy that will support the starting quarterback more or less, not necessarily push them to be the number one guy. So I think it would be a huge story if it ever did happen in the NFL. But I think the quarterback controversy like this I think is really one of a kind situation that we've seen in BC this year. Let's do a couple other news items and then we'll do a little bit more of a deep dive into these matchups. Anthony, I was at our niece's soccer game Saturday standing in the rain watching them. They won. Very exciting game. They won. I don't like soccer, but they won, got the goal. It was like 10 seconds of overage left and then they started together. They're like, wow, that was really close to it and the news came out, Randy Ambros stepping down, getting ousted. You didn't have the full support of the board of Governors. Just want to make sure we touch on all that go around. None of us have really shared any thoughts on that on here. We'll go first to Anthony on that. Surprise not and what do you make of that? Lemme see if I get an article up here. Yeah, I think it was super surprising. I think he's been in that position since 2015. I think he's done a lot of good for the league. I think in terms of what he's done with getting Americans to watch the cfo, I think has been big. I think just the evolution of where the league has been and also he probably had the toughest job of any commissioner and is to get the league through. I mean, they canceled the whole season. They lost millions of dollars. I mean, I can only imagine the turmo that was going on with the CFL because it's really important that they have fans and games and they're playing the games obviously, but unlike the XFL, which I hate to knock on the XFL four, but the CFL was able to get through it, they were able to survive. They keep increasing their attendance. I actually just wrote an article on it today that they actually did I think 30,000 more fans total. I think they had a 2% increase in attendance from last year. So I think that's a really big thing for the CFO and he's really helped with that growth process. I'd be really interested to see who is coming up to be the next commissioner. Pretty sure that probably the number one thing they're going to be asked is, Hey, when are we getting our 10th team? Is it finally going to happen? I'm sure that was kind of hovering over Randy this whole time that he's been commissioner. He wasn't able to bring it in. So this next one is going to probably, that's probably going to be the number one priority is can we get a 10th team in the CFL? But I think overall I think he did a good job of during his tenure and I think the league should be appreciative of it and yeah, I think he did a solid job, but it was a major to see that you don't see it very often that commissioners are in and out this way, but he did a really solid job. Yeah. We'll toss here to Jason and then I'll share my thoughts. To me, Jason, this doesn't feel like this. Is that coveted of a role? It feels like it's a little bit more grief than anything else. I'll let you share your thoughts first. Yeah, absolutely. My first thought was that I wish that even though he wasn't perfect, I think the biggest thing with Ambrozy that I would criticize is that he was a little bit too much of a cheerleader with his rhetoric and I think he was almost overly positive and trying to overspeak what the CFL was capable of doing. But what I was going to say is that he in the history of the CFL, I believe he's the second or third longest tenured commissioner and he's only been there since I think it was 2017 that he got hired. So that really speaks to how much turnover there is in this role and I was kind of hoping that he would stay on for at least another five years or so because just to bring some more stability to that position and just show that it's not a complete revolving door. But in terms of the stuff that he did that I think were positives, I think the seven year collective bargaining agreement was a huge thing. I think getting guarantees as part of the contracts, partially guaranteed money for the first time ever for players. I think that was a big thing and that has really helped the teams as well retain guys and have less turnover in free agency each year. So I think that helps the league in general because there was just too much turnover from one year to the next. I think that the global initiative, if you want to point to things that he didn't do well either, the global initiative was a complete waste of time, I think. I don't know the dollar value that they've spent on that, but I think in terms of real results, I think that it hasn't really produced that many star players except for some great punters that we've seen in the C FFO the last few years and a couple of noteworthy examples elsewhere on the rosters. So I think that was a waste of time. I think that the way that he went about, again, talking about the tent team, just really saying that it was super close and I get that they did have conditional funding about stadium in Halifax before Covid. Then Covid kind of killed that, but that still wasn't set in stone and they didn't really have, it didn't feel like it was further enough along for him to really say that this thing was in the pipeline. So I think those are my problems I had with him Brosy, but he definitely did some good and to be the second or third longest commissioner, I'd have to look that up. They were saying that on the three down podcast this week, but I think that's an achievement in itself that he stayed in the role this long and as Anthony said, guided them through Covid. Yeah, speaking of three that I thought Travis, what was it? Travis and Jason Kel voted people's sexiest podcasters of the year. I saw Hodge tweet out. I think they were a close second. I would toss this into the mix here. I have slightly more hair than John Hodges, not much, but I do have slightly more hair there. I will take that. I dunno. To me, the thing with Randy always been great to the show friend of the podcast. I think we had him on three times talking, said I could call him a friend of the podcast. I thought the last time I had him on because how many times are you going to ask about a 10th team or whatever? But we were talking about what do you want your legacy to be? What do you want to be your member dad? I thought he got a little emotional in saying, I really want just the fans to know that I gave it all to them and I really work hard every day and I wake up wanting to promote the league. I do believe that. I think it's a tremendously hard position that we talked about this in the past and that people want the CFL Commissioner. It's not like Roger Goodell with the NFL where they have kind of full control. It's very much kind of the LOP side of power on that. I don't know who's clamoring for the job. I don't know what else is better out there in terms of that. We've seen Randy deal with the Montreal Ette Sale twice. Obviously the Mar Doman sale. These are things that as a commissioner you are kind of in the position to help navigate through. And I think all of those things went well. Obviously the Covid and all of that, I think we could have figured out some sort of bubble in Toronto or whatever they were talking about for that. Anthony, any other thoughts on that? He said he'll stay in position until they get someone else voted in. But if the board of Governors voted them out, right, five to four, whatever, I just don't know what anyone else wants for someone else to come in and kind of fill those shoes. If it is true that he was voted out, I kind of wish they didn't announce it as he's retiring, I wish they would just be honest and just say, Hey, we're looking for somebody else to come in. I would like a little more transparency from the league on that because if he did truly get voted out, I mean, why did he get voted out? What was he supposed to accomplish? What were the goals that he didn't reach instead of just making it, I know they were trying to save face wise and try to make it look like he's retiring and stuff. But like I said, Reid, I mean he clearly loves his job and he wore his heart to sleeve and he's done a good job with the league, but I really do want to understand where did he miss the mark and what does the next commissioner need to do in order to get the CFL to the next level? So I wish there was a little more transparency on the league side. It definitely does not sound like this is retirement. So that would be the one part that really bothers me about this announcement. But otherwise it would be really interesting what the next commissioner has to do to get the CFL to the next level. I liked Randy a lot and as someone that has had the fortune to interview him and then even people with the XFL, right? I've talked with Russ at the showcase. He wasn't on the podcast. On the podcast here. I had Moose on the podcast, had other people in those positions. Anytime you're someone like Randy and you're in that position, you're doing interviews, it's always antagonistic, right? No one's ever coming up to the commissioner being like, oh, show me how great. It's always like, well, this was bad, or why didn't you handle this? Or this is going wrong. So you're always kind of in that defensive mode. Anyway, so I give a lot of grace and I've gotten a lot of private comments like, Hey, when Randy was coming on, a lot of cfo like ask him this or do this, or Hey, be prepared, he's going to do whatever. And you're like, yeah, but you're always on the defensive. That was like when Moose came on and we were talking with Darryl Johnson about the UFL. He knows from the second he comes on, they're like, Hey, they're going to be asking about this or that. How can I kind of defend that? So you never really get the full sense of the man or woman in that position, but I don't know, I thought it was really good. Jason, anything else with that? I wanted to talk about the Elks and then we'll kind of do the game stuff. Yeah, I mean, I actually personally met Randy Ambrosia a couple of years ago. He did this thing called Randy's Road trip where he did a stop at every CFL stadium during the off season. I got to meet him here in Hamilton, and for what it's worth, I thought he was a genuine guy. I got to talk to him, shake his hand, and me and my brother asked him about youth sports and what he thinks about the CFL supporting eSports, and I think he just seemed like a genuine guy that he was able to be approachable and to do that. So like you said, I think he loved his job. He really did love this position. I think that there was a lot that came along with it, but I think the fact that he was a former player in this league, it shows that he loved this league and I think that's what you need to have if you want to be the commissioner of the CFL. We had some other news. I think this just came down pretty quick. I saw Dave Campbell tweeting about this in three together article, but Chris Morris giving an new president the Edmonton Elks moving forward here. Anthony, do you have any quick thoughts? I dunno if you've had a chance to digest all this yet. I know this is just coming down as of I saw when I was getting ready for the show. Well, it's quicker than I thought it was going to be. I think a lot of people thought it'd be closer to the Gray Cup in a couple of weeks, but good first effort for Edmonton, they needed to bring in somebody. I think he used to play for the Edmonton Elk. So I guess the story Edmonton's been doing is one, Larry Thompson's been a long time fan. Here comes Chris Morris, who knows the Edmonton Elk system. So they're really trying to push for, hey, we are bringing in local people. We are bringing people that know the team that that've had some association with them because they really care about this team winning. So this is a really big first step. And now the next part obviously is going to be who's going to be the general manager, and it sounds like they're going to hire general manager separate from the head coach, which is probably a good move after what happened with Coach Jones over the last two to three years. So be interested what direction did they go with general manager? But I think this sounds like, obviously I'm an outsider just learning about the CFL over the last couple of years, but this seems like a good first step in getting the Edmonton ELs to where they need to be. Yeah, Jason, thoughts on this? Yeah, I don't know too much about Chris Morris personally other than the fact that he's the coach of the Alberta Golden Bears for the last several years. But one thing I did see in a report, I think three down put this out is that they're looking to hire both their GM and the head coach and obviously they hired the president, they're going to hire the president tomorrow by the Gray Cup. So that seems like a really short timeline. We might get a lot of news coming in the next couple of weeks, but in terms of Chris Morris, the person, I don't know too much about 'em. I have to dig in further. I'll be completely honest about that. But Edmonton, I think you're right, Anthony. I think they need to have those people that are invested in the local community and I think this is a good start in doing that. It was interesting, I think it was Dave Campbell put out, I think Edmonton must have done kind of their end of the season stuff and talking about who's coming back or what's going on and you had the whole trade forward thing and well, he's undecided and I just tweeted. I would tell him to kiss my ass and walk out the door and tell him you've had the time on here. I don't know if you can get, I think Anthony and I talked last week, right? Okay. Maybe you get the new owner in there and say, Hey, we're really committed to you or we're trying to figure this out. Anthony, any updated thoughts on that? And then we'll let Jason share and then we can kind of figure out what we want to talk about. Yeah, I mean that's the most important thing is you bring in a whole new staff, a whole new system, you got to change everything with Edmonton and you got to let Trey Ford know we're serious about changing this franchise and making it people who actually care about winning because the previous regime clearly did not care about winning because they didn't put in the better quarterback At the end of the day, I mean Trey Ford for the last two years has been the best quarterback on this team and it almost is like they have refused to put this guy on the field for some weird reason. I don't know what it is. I know some of it speculation was the maturity issue or whatever, but Reforward has been the best quarterback on the team for the last two years. So bringing in someone like Larry Thompson, bringing in Chris Morris, and then whatever they end up doing with the GM and the head coach, they have to make a statement by showing trade forward, Hey, we are making changes, we're bringing in the top people and you're going to be our franchise quarterback, so we're going to show it to you with a contract. So that's really the big thing Edmonton's got to do. And like we talked about last week, it's got to come from Larry Thompson. He's got to deliver that message to trade forward and bring 'em home. Jason, let's also touch on Lloyd, do you have any other updated thoughts on Trey Fork? I forgot what I wanted. Talk Calgary to before we get into everything else. Any other thoughts on Trey and the Edmonton Elks? Well, speaking of the Alberta teams, I don't think it's a slam dunk that if they can get Vernon Adams Jr. I think they do that in a heartbeat instead of bringing back Trey Ford. So I think that we could see a little bit of a bidding war between the two Calgary teams, and then if Vern Adams goes Edmonton, maybe Trey Ford goes and says, screw you Edmondson, I'm going to Calgary. So it's going to be really interesting. It's always interesting when in this league when there's only so many chairs available, if Trey Ford wants to go elsewhere, where else is he going to go? So there's only so many starting spots and premium backup positions available in the league. So those are just my thoughts on that. I was just looking up here how old trade Ford's 26, still got time, but excuse me, get to this point now, and he's coming off his rookie deal. You're really going to have to pay up for that. The other thing, speaking Calgary, keeping Dave as president or head coach in gm, but then I part in ways with some of their other coordinators, Anthony first surprised that Dickinson sticking around there. I mean, I know we talk sometimes coaching with the CFL and how many people want to do, or is there a vast pool people, are you surprised kind with Calgary's decisions you're heading into the off offseason? I mean, it's tough because Dave has done such a great job with this franchise that, I mean, it's only been the last two years that this franchise has struggled. So it's really hard to kind of judge it off with that. I think he's taken 'em to three gray cups and they've won one. So I mean he's had a lot of success since he's been with the Stampers. Unfortunately, he's going to be the head coach known for kind of breaking the sni on consecutive years. They made the playoffs, which is unfortunate, but now he's gone and he's also gone back to back years with a losing record. But I've always kind of gone with the rule thirds, you give someone three years to get the job done. I think there was an understanding what Levi Mitchell left, that this team was kind of going through our transitional period. It was not going to be smooth, it was not going to be the best moments for them. So I think this is kind of the third, and if I'm the Calgary front office, if I'm part of that front office, I would let him know, this is probably his last year. He's going to have to get it done. This is a make or break year. Don't be surprised if he makes the kind of moves that the Edmonton ELs were making last off season where Chris Jones was desperate and needed to get as many guys as possible and maybe change a quarterback and try to get all these new pieces in place to try to fix what's happening. So now I'm not surprised, but I am glad that he's making changes on the coaching staff. These were changes that were absolutely needed even though some of those guys were very long tenured guys that were on the staff, the St. Peters need a shakeup. They need to change some aspects about the coaching staff. So it looks like there was more of a focus on the defensive side, which is probably good for a defense that added a lot of good pieces in the secondary. This was one of the weaker defenses in the CFL. So they really need to make some changes there. And then obviously the other question's going to be what do they do at quarterback? Dave's job is going to be dependent on what does he end up doing? Does he end up going with PJ Walker? Does he bring back Jake Mayer? Do they go somewhere else in free agency for it? If he can knock that out of the park, that will probably save his job, but 2025 is going to be make or break for him. Yeah, Jason, I think it's interesting because obviously BC right, we'll talk ride with Nathan presumably, right? Toronto's kind of locked up, I guess Ottawa, right? Drew Brown. I mean these are conversations for some of these playoff teams still to be had s, which Trevor Harris. But yeah, both of these Alberta teams really seem like Elks were really trying to figure this out with straightforward whatever. But yeah, there's no way in hell that Dave Dickinson goes into this and it's like, Jake Mayer is my guy next season. I'm pinning my job on this. So I know we all are rooting for PJ Walker just because of his XFL pedigree and all of that, but realistically, I know this is too far to tell early thoughts on what they do here. I don't know if, does PJ yes in the Fever Dream come in and win the job and play, but I think that they're probably going to have to make a bigger swing than that. Yeah, I think it has to be the Vernon Adams move or like I said, the crazy scenario where Trey Ford comes because I think you can't sell this fan base, which is not showing up in as big a numbers as they used to the games. You can't sell them on Jake Mayer, another year of Jake May, and I was a big believer in Jake Mayer. I think we both were. I think the way he played the first 10 or so games of his career, he looked like he had a lot of promise in this league. But unfortunately, whether it was him or a lot of the situation around him, I think it just didn't work in Calgary and I think he would benefit a lot from a fresh start somewhere else. And Calgary would just benefit a lot from getting a guy that's more of a proven guy. That's why I think it would be better for them to get VA than go with the Trey Ford. Or maybe I'll throw another name out there, Davis Alexander, because I believe he's a free agent and he's looked really good and I think he was six and oh this year or something like that in the games that he started. So I think that Calgary, the thing with Dickinson, I probably would've moved on from him, but I do get with their opinion of let's see what he does with another quarterback. If he can bring in a veteran quarterback that's a proven quarterback. Let's see if he's still that coach. But I have doubts with that because I've seen some of the play calling he's been using the last several years in Calgary, or last two years I should say particularly, and just too many screens. I think he was part of the problem. It wasn't just Jake Mayer, I think he was not even allowing Jake Mayer to really push the ball down field too often. It was just quick snap, get the ball out of your hands on a screen pass and that was a lot of their offense. So Dickinson will probably have to look back to the drawing board if he wants to have success next year and bring in a new quarterback. But yeah, it's going to be interesting to see what happens going forward in Calgary with the changes that they made to the coaching staff elsewhere. Well, and Anthony, what I want to hear and what we can use this kind transition of the playoffs step, but here, so we had Calgary play last week, end of the season, doesn't matter at all. Alpha Calgary, they just played Jake, right? Because I think was Mark Stevenson posted like, Hey, it looks like Jake's going to be the starter this weekend. And I'm like, what the hell are we doing here? Why wouldn't you give anyone else? I know there was a lot of criticism, I think I saw about Sask not showing up for the game. I think it was a Jamie Nye kind of thing where he's like, man, this team really looks lifeless, but here you're going into the off season. Why the hell not play someone else here? You roll back Jake Mayer. I mean he plays fine 1926 and all this, but are you surprised even going into this? Well, we're still going to play Jake Mayer here. I mean, I think Dave Dickinson still is trying to decide what he wants to do at quarterback and I'm going to defend Jake Mayer a little bit. I mean, I actually think he played better than what he did last year. I mean, statistically he threw more touchdowns and less interceptions of what he did last year. And I think also he wasn't stuck in the pocket. He was last year, he seemed a little more loose. He could move out of the pocket, make some throws on the run. So I think that the Bement was kind of getting there with Jake Mair, but Hus, he said, I think he was kind of held back from what he can truly do. If there was a 10th CFL team, I could see Jake Mayer starting for that 10th team. I actually think there is some potential there, but it's just something isn't working there in Calgary. Does it come down to Dave Dickson? I don't know, but I think this was a move to be like, Hey, let's play Jake Mayer. Let's see if maybe there's some glimmer of hope of hey, maybe we can bring him in and maybe compete as the second or third quarterback or bring in someone from the outside. I think David's still trying to decide what he wants to do. A lot of things he's going to have to fix in the off season. A lot of it's going to come from the defense side, the defensive side of the ball, but then on the offensive side, it's all about the quarterback position. I think right now he probably doesn't know what he's going to do, so he probably wanted to get Jake out there one more time, get some extra tape and then figure out in the offseason who he wants to go with. I don't disagree with you Anthony, but I do think that that's insane. I mean you do hear that all the time and I don't think you're like, wow, we got to see her. It's like when these coaches try to do the two quarterback system and well, we're trying to get, do you really think pulling the guys in and out after everything? I agree with you though. That's probably the thought process. Jason, anything else on that of just we're rolling out, Jake, one more game here. You're playing against Jack Cohen and Shane Patterson here. It doesn't even matter, but it just was wild to me that we wouldn't get a sight on anyone else. Yeah, I mean I think the problem was is that Logan Bonner looked so bad in that one game that he played and then Matthew Schultz I believe was heard or there was no point of really playing him either. And then PJ Walker had something where it's like he would be ineligible to sign on the practice squad or something like that. Or if he remained on the Calgary practice squad, he could still sign in the NFL this year and wouldn't finish the season on a CFL roster. So there was something to do with that and I think that going forward it will be interesting to see what they do. I think that regardless of what Jake Mayer has shown Calgary, I think that there needs to be a clean break there. I think both of these guys, Dickinson and mayor can still have success in this league in the respective roles, but I think in order for that to happen, they have to go their separate ways and Mayor has to go and find his game elsewhere. I think you'd be a very intriguing backup for some team in the CFL. I think he instantly becomes arguably the best backup in the league. I think even right now, I would still say he's the seventh best quarterback around there, sixth or seventh best quarterback in the league. So I think ultimately that's what they have to do and they have to have a clean break here and go in a different direction. This off season, This is a cycle here of it. When you're in a bad relationship with someone like, honey, we just got to move on. We got to get out of here. Blake checking in. What up, assuming that's Blake that we were hanging out with here at the BC here last week. I was hanging out with him and Jim Mullen chatting it up. Let's look here too. I have it here. And then we've had all these tabs going up here. The CFL Schedule playoffs, right, is going to be Ottawa. I'll get this pulled up eventually, but we're going to have Ottawa at Toronto, right? Let's go first to Anthony on here. Ottawa had the chance right to host Home Field, ended up botching that. Watching that. Thoughts on this one here? Ottawa going into Toronto here playing the playoffs. I think Ottawa's biggest issue is how are they going to protect Drew Brown? Toronto is top in the league in Sacks. They're defensive line. They have four guys that have six or more sacks. I mean this is such a dominant defensive line. I think it's a nightmare mashup for Ottawa. They have struggled against some, I'll give Drew Brown credit the last couple of weeks. He's played really well, but he's been kind of maybe inconsistent at best. But there's a lot of good traits to him that I think he can potentially be a really good starting quarterback in the CFL. But I mean he's got no running game since Armstead has left. This has probably been the worst rushing attack in the CFL. I think the offensive line's really going to struggle against that. Toronto front four, and then you look at the Argonauts, I mean they have the experience. I mean this is a team that's been to the postseason year in and year out. Ottawa hasn't been in since 2018. They're going to be heavy underdogs. I think what's going to happen here is I fully expect Toronto to get off to a fast start, get a nice lead, and then Ottawa is going to do what Ottawa does best and score 20, 25 points in the second half and make it closer than what people think it is. But ultimately I think Toronto's just a better team. They got home field advantage. Chad Kelly has played really well over the last month or so. He's really cleaned up from since he got back from his suspension and yeah, I just think toronto's better on paper and I think the key matchup is can Ottawa's office a line really hold up that defensive line for Toronto? Because if they can't, then it's going to be a long day for the red black. Yeah. Jason, what do you mean? I saw the email check Kelly, right? Getting honors again this week for I think last week of the season getting one of the top the spotlight, whatever. He has gotten better. I think Toronto had what, 7,000 whatever increase in the attendance. Anthony, someone I saw that clearly the Chad Kelly sit out, maybe didn't hold as much water as maybe people thought here, but what do you make of Toronto and Chad Kelly and everything else going into this? Well, I think that Toronto should be considered heavy favorites going into this game. I mean, Ottawa was two and seven on the road this year. I think that the thing with them and I think is what Drew Brown are we going to get? He's had really great games as Anthony said, but he's also had some really bad games as well. Gotten injured a little bit in there too. So we still don't know if he's the guy in Ottawa, whereas Chad Kelly say what you want about him personally, but we know that he's the guy as a football player, right? He is a guy that the first couple games, he came back, one of these games was against the Red Blacks where he had a couple of unfortunate turnovers in Ottawa, actually blew them out in that one. But those first couple games were almost like Chad Kelly's preseason after coming off the suspension. And the last handful of weeks he has looked a lot better and Toronto's looked like, in my opinion, arguably the best team in the CFL the last five weeks other than maybe Winnipeg. So I think Toronto should roll in this one. I think that there's potential there for Drew Brown to have a big game. Toronto was second last in passing yards allowed this year. So maybe Drew Brown can have kind of a great game and build off that fourth quarter he had a couple of weeks ago against Toronto. But I think ultimately Toronto is the better and more deeper team, more well-rounded team, like their special teams better too. So I think ultimately I like Toronto to win this game. So Anthony, let's say Toronto, that takes care of business, right? Otto was out nine, eight and one on the season here. Jason said, we still don't know about Drew Brown. What do they do? It feels like the whole time that I've ever podcasted the Red Blacks, it's like what do they want to be? What's the identity? What's going on? We've had all these injuries. Have you seen enough this year from Ottawa where you're like, okay, yeah, there's a lot of good pieces here we can bring back into next season. What would you do? I mean, you got to consider this too. I mean, Darius Pickett got injured and I really think since he left, he got injured. Ottawa's defense has not been the same. So I think they really lost a key leader on that defense that I think that's where the downward spiral kind of began for this team is not having him there. So I think if he's healthy and comes back next year, I think they'll be fine. You got to think about Devonte Williams, he was their starting running back last year. They lost him for the season due to injury before the season started. They're going to have him back next year. So I think that will kind of alleviate the issues in the running game. So yeah, I think the pieces are there. I mean they have a really good receiving corps. I mean Khalil Pitton has been a really standout guy that they kind of found that popped out of nowhere and probably one of the top rookies in the CFL at the receiving corps. You got Jocelyn Hardy, you got Nick Marner. They have a lot of talent on that offense and I think the defense is really solid too. I mean, Michael Wakefield's been one of the best pass rushers in this league and he's had a really good season for the red black. So the pieces are there. They may have to do a little bit more maybe in the secondary, maybe add a piece or two more, but I think there are a couple pieces away from actually being really good. Also, drew Brown's got his first full year as a starting quarterback, worked out the kinks and all that. Season two should see some improvement with him. I think this Ottawa team is in really good position for the future. I don't know if this is going to be a gray cut team in the next year or two, but I think they have the pieces in place to be a competitive team It seems. And obviously making the playoffs Bob dies to say everyone because clearly the barrier, whatever we have here in the litmus line, well, if you make the playoffs, you're fine, even if you're going to get kicked out immediately or lose to Toronto in an embarrassing fashion, but you figure Bob's back, right? D, everyone else, Jason Burke. I mean you feel like, again, I just kind of get stuck in this where it's like we okay, we run it back, but we kind of seen what we see. I just don't know how many wax of the pinata here we get from some of the CFL teams. I dunno if that's a good metaphor or not, but I dunno. Any other thoughts on kind of the front? I dunno how Ottawa kind of addresses this. Well, I think that in most cases, as you say, making the playoffs in the CFL isn't that much of an achievement, but given the context of where this team was the last three years, four years, so yeah, they missed the playoffs four straight years, not counting 2020 obviously when they didn't play 20 19, 20 21, 20 22, 20 23, all missed playoffs and they weren't particularly competitive in any of those seasons. So I think regardless of what happens if they get blown out by Toronto in this playoff game, I still consider this season a win because it was a return to relevancy for this team. I was hoping for the same result for Edmonton this year, but unfortunately this got behind the eight ball so early in the season. So I do think Ottawa definitely took a step in the right direction this year. I think going forward, whether or not, like Anthony said, are they a great Cup team, I think they still need to add some more pieces and like I said, I don't know yet if Drew Brown is really the guy to lead them there, but I think I've seen enough to give him another season of that and hopefully he can string together enough of those great performances that you feel comfortable going into him with him as your franchise quarterback of the future. So I think that's the big question for Ottawa, but I think in terms of stabilizing the organization and giving fans some hope, this team went seven one-on-one at home this year. I think that's a big thing after that huge home losing streak that they had for a while there. So yeah, I think baby steps for Ottawa and this was a step in the right direction regardless of what happens on Saturday. Yeah, it was that famous time when three different CFL teams I think have home losing streaks at the same time. It's like how is this even possible? It's like right now I was looking like the NFL draft order and you're like, how are all of these teams one in six or two in six, how are all of these teams so awful? I mean obviously the NFL has a lot more teams. Anthony, presumably Toronto takes care of business. We see a repeat of last year with Montreal here in the finals. Early predictions we'll probably do, obviously chatty next week of some kind. We'll figure that out. But early thoughts on that with Toronto, Montreal, It's going to be a much more competitive game than it was last year. I doubt we see nine turnovers again from the Oregon nuts. I expect them to be a lot more competitive. Look, I think this Montreal team, I really liked their defense, but that offense has not been the same over the last month or two. I think the last six games they've gone two, three and one. I think losing Tyson Philpot absolutely killed his offense. It just seemed like they went on a downward spiral and even though they got Austin Mack back even, he's not really a hundred percent right now. He's been in and out of the lineup with injury. So really outside of him and Charleston Rambo, I mean they have some nice receivers there, but it just feels like this passing offense has not been where it needs to be. And Cody Charro is still playing well. I mean he's not playing great. He did at the beginning of the season. He's being efficient and protecting the football. But the one thing this offense is really lacking in Montreal is that big play. I mean they can't get any big pass plays down the field. They just don't have that defense. They don't have that big difference maker like Tyson Phil Pop was, and plus the running game has not been as good this year. They don't have William Stamp back. They have Walter Fletcher who's been nice, but this is still one of the worst rushing attacks in the league. So that offense for Montreal, I mean really scares me and that Toronto defense is really good. I think this is going to be a low scoring affair and honestly would not surprise me if Toronto wins that game. I probably still pick Montreal in a very close matchup, but would not surprise me in the least if Toronto picks off Montreal and upsets them to get in the gray cup. Jason, it does feel like, and admittedly haven't been as tuned in to all the minutiae every week this year, just we've talked about that on the podcast, but it does feel like Montreal is riding a little bit off of like, well, they're the great cup champs last year and we kind of wrote 'em off last year and they kind surprised everyone. And has it been as explosive, OTF, like Anthony said, hasn't been as dominant as they were. What's the record this year? 12 and five? I mean obviously still the most wins in the CFL at 12 five and one, but I can't even remember what the heck they were last year, but very, very good record. I have thoughts on that as I break my microphone here. Just like them not having the same as they did last season. Well I'll say this, it is very different being the favorite, whereas being the underdog versus being the underdog I should say. And that's what Montreal was last year. They were a true underdog. Nobody was picking this team to win the great copper. Even going to Toronto and really have a game with them, the 16 and two Argos, of course they're going to beat the ettes that didn't beat winning or one of the better teams in the league last year in the regular season. But there was no pressure on them. They had some things go their way in that game and I think they kind of caught Toronto by surprise and I don't think that same was going to happen this year. I think if that game does happen, assuming Toronto beats Ottawa on Saturday, I do think I'm going to be picking Toronto to win that game against Montreal because I think they're going to remember what happened last year. I think that there's going to be a lot of motivation on that Toronto side, and I think that on a neutral field most weeks I would pick Toronto to win. I think they have a better team even though that game's going to be in Montreal and that's a tough place to play and they've been really packing that barn this year. But I think that Toronto, they have the better quarterback right now. I think Cody Pido obviously turned into Superman last year for the playoffs and the Great Cup in particular, but I think we haven't seen that the last couple of months. As Anthony alluded to, the first half of the season was spectacular for this team and they were really riding that high, but I think they've kind of cooled off and they're not quite the same defense as they were last year. I think that it's still probably the best defense, arguably in the CFL. It's right up there in the conversation, but I don't see that dominance and like I said, the turnovers that they got last year in that game really swung and I think what did they force? Like seven turnovers, something in that game that really swung the scale in that game. And I think that we're not going to see that this time around and I think it's going to be a great game, but I think Toronto would be my pick to win that game. Yeah, I think Chad Kelly just threw another interception. I think I just heard that. Oh, and Tim Cappers checking him. I was just going to talk about Tim here. Tim's checking in here. I'm picking Ottawa with the upset over Toronto. Wow. I was going to say, Montreal has done a great job packing and you were talking about attendance and all that. I saw Tim and Cliffy last week. I saw them selling their merch and tailgate and all of that. I mean, but it is, they've certainly renewed that fan base there and there's been a lot of excitement coming off of that. I think that they've really played that well. I will say, yeah, I love Cody. I think Cody is a great quarterback that really had an exceptional moment in the Gray Cup. I don't know if that is Cody pdo every day all the, you look at some of the elite quarterbacks kind of in the sport right now. I don't know. I think he lived up to that moment and if he doesn't make those throws and his legacy is wildly different. But I think that there's kind of a step there. There's been a lot of conversation this week about good, great, and then special quarterbacks with the Jane Daniels and all of that and there's all these different people talking to all this kind of stuff. But yeah, I think Cody's right at that other level and I think he could step up to that, but I dunno if he lives in that space. Anthony, anything else on that? I want to Sure. We talk BC and SaaS and all that. Yeah, I mean it's a big playoffs for Cody Geral because I don't know how much longer he's going to play. I know he's a little bit on the older age. I will say for Montreal, please do not let Davis Alexander go. Don't make the same mistake Winnipeg did and let Drew brow walk. I really think Davis Alexander could be the future for this team. The way he's played this year. I mean, he's been undefeated as a starting quarterback and I think he's only thrown one pick this season. That's a guy that can really make a difference for this team. And honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if maybe he sneaks in, get some playoff playing time if something happens to Cody Fitro. But yeah, I don't know. Now that the more I think about it, the more I want to go with Toronto now to beat Montreal because the defense makes a difference for me. And I think Toronto's defense versus Montreal's offense, it's just a better matchup for the Argos vice versus Montreal defense versus Toronto's offense. I'm going to change my pick. I'm going to say Toronto would beat Montreal. I think Hudson, you convinced me. I think the Argos would win. I'm rooting for Montreal. I like Montreal that still carry over a lot of favoritism there. Talked to a lot. We haven't has many player interviews for lately, but he did a lot of work there with Montreal. I really appreciate that. Let's talk BC SaaS here. I think this game at least has my eyes. I'll be watching this one Saturday. I think we have to go visit. I got to miss the Kraken game Sunday. We got to go visit family friends. I'm like, what are we doing with our lives here? At least Commanders play in the morning BC at Sask Saturday. I guess we'll go Jason. Do I have any hope in the world here? Yeah, absolutely. And any given game? I think Saskatchewan, the home field advantage there isn't what it used to be. I think that they're not even tracking for a sellout right now. I've been seeing a lot of posts about that online. So it's a bigger stadium than most CFL stadiums, but still not tracking for a sellout. Whereas in previous years you'd easily see that place sold out. So I think that BC has a shot. I just think they need to go into that first quarter of that game and they need to create some big plays. And I think specifically VA's got to get Justin McInnis going. I think Justin McInnis led the league in receiving yard this year. He looked much better in the first half of the season when VA was playing than he did when work was put in the lineup. So I think that's a guy I'm really looking forward to seeing if he can get going early in this game and create some big plays. And BC like I said, when they're playing, I've said many times if they're playing their best, they can compete with anybody in the league. But I think ultimately Saskatchewan is a pretty good defense. They're going to have to be aware of all the turnovers that Saskatchewan's forced this season. I believe they led the league by a pretty wide margin in terms of turnovers forced this season. Courtney Mace did a great job with that in his first season as head coach. So I think BC has a shot, but I think it really comes down to how the quarterback's play in this game. And I think that it's really going to come down to BC's offense because I think that BC's defense, it really is a very middle of the road kind of team. I think there's not a lot of difference makers on that defense this year. Matthew Bets hasn't been the same guy since he returned from the NFL. So I think that the offense is really going to have to set the tone and we could be in for kind of a shootout type game because I think Trevor Harris has been really playing well this year in Saskatchewan too. I think if he had played the whole season, if he didn't miss those six or seven games, I think if you prorate that over the whole season, I think he would've been the MOP this year personally. So yeah, I think this is going to be the better of the two games on Saturday. You always know you got a good shot when you're like, do I have any chance in whoever I ask Jason the case? It's like, well any Sunday, whatever, anytime always. But this is what I'm ready for and we'll go to Anthony. We love it. I love the Lions, all this stuff, but I am really ready for either Gray cup or we blow all of this up. There is something fundamentally wrong in this and I love Rick and I love all the staff and all that, but I think it was Rob Peterson on one of his shows, whether the hockey people got coaches got let go and it's like as good as the coach as you may be or whatever. At some point what you are saying starts to lose its resonance in the locker room and I don't know if that is the case or that's the case with Arm Phillips or that's the case with whoever, but something in that equation needs to be resolved here. And so I would like to either we push through this, we figure it out, okay, we were wrong about VA and all of that, or we really need to blow all this up because I mean this is just a failure. I mean this is just a failure. Also, Jason, I did real quick, Anthony, Jason and I, the hell was it? Anthony and I were talking, I'm all confused about who I was talking to on the shows here. Anthony and I were talking last week about how I talked to a lot of CFL fans in Vancouver or people there and they didn't know about the Lions or they didn't know any of that. There was comments on the YouTube video. Well you didn't talk to real people that were born and did. I'm like always a caveat. Always it's his name was Saskatchewan, hey, they can't sell out the stadium, but it's the bigger stadium that there's always a caveat. There's always a caveat. Anthony, thoughts on this? I know we talked about Alliance off the top, but this is like a disaster scenario otherwise. Yeah, I mean Husty covered perfectly. I mean when you got the receiving core that you have in BC, you have the best receivers in the CFL. You've got to get 'em the football and you've got to bomb it every single time. Anything that you can do to create big plays for this offense, you got to be able to do it and you got the Playmakers to do it. So there's really no excuse. But I will say, I know you were talking about Trevor Harris potentially being MOP, I think the MOP is on the other side on defense with Row Milligan that dude has had such exact season and with the quarterback play being good, not great this year. I mean statistically I think there needs to be some credit to Milligan being able to be in that conversation. For MOP, he has had a spectacular year. I think he can make a big difference in this game, even if he's not getting the interceptions he has been all year. I think he can make a big difference in it. I love Saskatchewan in this game. There's a part of me that wants BC to win because I think it would be a great story to kind of see them make that run to the Gray Cup. But unfortunately you look at Saskatchewan, they're so balanced offensively between Trevor Harrison and in the backfield they got aj, they got Armstead, they got Frankie Hickson, they have a really good backfield and I think that someone like Corey Mac who's very defensive minded, he wanted to be able to pound the football this year on the ground and he has certainly done that in Saskatchewan. So they have a really good balance of the offense and defense. I think both of those units are top four in the league and what they do. So I like Saskatchewan winning and honestly if Saskatchewan was in the East, I would almost think that they would probably have a better chance of winning it over Montreal. I think they're that good of a football team. Jason, obviously the history of all of this a great Canadian sport more than I do, but first year head coach like this ask if they were to make it to the Gray Cup, but it's got to be pretty, I dunno, it seems unprecedented. You probably know better than I do. The last guy that I believe did it, I'm probably forgetting someone so don't quote me on this, but I think Corey Chamberlain with Saskatchewan won the Gray Cup in his first year as head coach there and then kind of flamed out I believe, or yeah, I think he was a really young upstart head coach when he got hired and that was a big gray cup for them they wanted at home. So that's the one guy I recall. I'll look it up right now, but I Think that's the one guy. Wasn't Jason in his first year last year when he took Montreal to the Gray Cup and won it? Oh yeah, But he had been. I had Coach Before, Right? Oh yeah. Oh yeah, that's true. That's interesting. I mean, good for SA here. Let's round this out before we get out here at the top of the hour because we're going to go, I got to go watch the Yankees, hopefully beat the Dodgers. I don't like the Dodgers. Anthony Winnipeg here started slow. Everything's churning here. Whatever team goes in, it really feels like you're living in Winnipeg's world here. Thoughts on Winnipeg here going into the final, obviously we'll do more talk next week. I mean this team, what they've been able to accomplish, I mean they were two and six and through those first eight, nine weeks of the season, I'm sure everyone, all of us wanted to write them off and just say, well Zach, Lars is washed and this offense can't do anything. All the receivers are hurt. But the one constant with this team has been their defense. And I know the old cliche is defense wins championships, but my God, this Winnipeg Defense has been incredible all year. They have been consistent. They are good all around defending the past, defending the run. They've been number one all season statistically and major kudos to Zach Colar for fighting through all the shtick that he had to go through. Just kind of get through the mental hurdles of the struggles he had at the beginning of the year and being able to pull it through. And then in the back they got a running back in the Backfield Brady that I think can be the MOP of this league as well. He was also been very consistent. He had six or seven games with over a hundred plus yards rushing this season. And then they're getting healthy at the right time at Receiver, they're getting mostly everyone back. So outside of Dalton Schone, but they got Kenny Lower back and they got a good receiving course. So I think overall it's been really impressive to see Winnipeg, the turnaround they had winning nine in the last 10 games and yeah, I don't think there's a team in the CFO right now that could beat Winnipeg and they would definitely be my pick for winning the Great Cup. And they cleaned this been ages ago in my life, but they cleaned the clock out of at SaaS right in the back to back. They just totally put Owl on the Labor Day. Right. Am I making that up in my head anyone? It's a long season. I Know. I'm trying to hear Brian CF Ls. I mean Jake, Jake brother, whoever the hell reminds in the thing. But I mean wasn't that just, anyway, I feeling like that. Jason, any other thoughts on Winnipeg here? Let's look back August. Yeah, bombers beat them on the first and then Bombers beat them at home or whatever back to back on the Yes. So they both times on that. Jason, a thoughts on Winnipeg, we'll get out of here. Well, Winnipeg, it's been remarkable the season that they've had. I left them for dead at two and six. I thought they were done. I thought that was too big of a hole to climb out of. But I think in the CFL, it's very unique. You talk about all these NFL teams that have these piss poor records right now, then you could pretty much write them off in the NFL, but in the CFL smaller league, if you can get five six wins together in a row, you really can turn your season around at any point. And I think they showed that this year and they showed that they really have the heart of the champion and they may not be as scary as they've been in recent years, but like Anthony said, the defense is looking really sturdy. I think that even if their offensive passing attack isn't what it used to be, I think Brady Olivera still really the heart and soul of that team and he's had a great season, so they're going to be hard to beat because they got that first place in the west. We didn't really talk about it, but that crazy wind affecting that punt that may have altered the way Saskatchewan had played in the game against Calgary. And it's really interesting to see that Winnipeg ended up as the first place team in the West again for what was the fourth straight year or whatever. But because they got that game at home, I think they're definitely a heavy favorite once again to reach the Great Cup for the fifth straight year. And I think that given the fact they've lost the last two years, I'm not super confident that they'll actually win the Great Cup because they've gotten into these last two years and they've been classic games, don't get me wrong, but they just have looked off and Zach Claris hasn't really played particularly well in these playoff games, but they're usually good enough to win the West Final. So I'm pretty confident that they'll do that. But one thing when you guys were just talking right there, the last coach, first year head coach that I've seen that's won the Great Cup was actually Scott Milanovich in 2012 with the Toronto aut. So that's the answer. Well there you go. Yeah, we had the wind right with Castillo's Kick or the punt and then it led to the kick and then by, didn't we have the walk-off Rouge too? Off the punt or whatever, right. There was a couple of different special teams. Unfortunately we won't talk about That. Yeah, we're getting out of here. Anthony, anything else from you? No, this is probably the most important weekend for the CFL in a little while, so I'm excited that we got meaningful games that are going to make a huge impact on the season. So I'm looking forward to it, Reid, hopefully your team can salvage something out of this season and maybe pull up an upset. It'll Be a lot to talk about. Otherwise, like I said, we'll figure out something next week, probably midweek going into the finals. And then Jason and I and the cavalcade guests will be there on, it'll be Saturday the 16th, so come stop by. We'll be at the lion's den. They said they're making signage for everybody. Really, really rolling out the red carpet. So BC is doing a good job there. I think we're going to have good reliable internet, which is always appreciated. That's always my biggest stressing point going north. So come check that out. I'll post the links and stuff online, but we'll be there always as good. Always a fun show. Jason, welcome back Anthony, thanks for hopping on and we'll see everyone next time.

CFL Week 20 Results + Reactions! Winners and Losers From CFL 2024 Week 20!!

Well, let's see if I remember how to do this back inside here. I had to get the desk and lighting. I've even installed new shelving since I did the lighting. I'm like, oh shoot, I got to readjust all this. We're back here. Anthony was asking like how long has it been since you guys have done this show? Five weeks. Last time Jason and I did a show was week 15 CFL. Been traveling a lot with work and talking with Jason offline and obviously all the guys. Anthony Miller, who scheduling knows is going to be on here today here. Lots of CFL have been tracking everything. Just I haven't been home on a Monday since whatever the last time I did it. So do the math there. But we are back here. Anthony, I traveled up to the homeland. I have my football Canada hat on. I did the whole thing this weekend. I really did think that we ended up not having time Friday night but I was going to post something that if the lion's lost I was going to eat poutine because we've had all these things lately. Like if FSU loses we're going to eat dog poop, whatever. I was going to do that. I figured that's the closest thing Canada has right to know. I won't say that but we have Anthony Miller. Anthony, how are you sir? Hopping on here today. Scheduling issues. Jason couldn't make it all but Anthony is here. I appreciate being on. Everything is good. CFL season's coming to a close. We're in the final week so playoffs are going to be interesting. I know we got some seating that we need to kind of figure out but it's been a wild ride this season for sure. Yeah, so we'll kind of do a deep dive here a little bit into just the weekend games. We'll do full play by play. I was at the BC Lions game. Share thoughts on that? Lots of thoughts on Nathan Mork and Brenda Adams and all that. I hung out with Farhan and Jim Mullen. I saw Blake, one of the other CFL content creators. CFL fan fanatic I think is the account. Saw them as well was taken care of as always by the BC Alliance. We'll see here. Plan is in some form or fashion doing shows here the rest of the time through Gray Cup like and subscribe. If you're in tuned with that, we'll figure out what we're doing off season. I know Jason and I have kind of batted back and forth of it's kind of a lot of work right now. I've just been crazy busy. I haven't had time to think about it, but we're going to go lock steam here. So like I said, make sure you're subscribed, apply everything for credentials. We'll see how that goes. Haven't been as active this season that didn't get involved in whatever that partner program was. That's okay. That's okay. Maybe next year, but we'll be there in some form or fashion. Gray cop, I know the BC Lions are going to put us up at radio row. I'm sure Anthony can call in. I know Jason's going to be there and Evan and I think Andy's coming. I haven't even gotten the whole list, but we'll do all that big blowout. So like and subscribe. Anthony, you write if no one has tracked and I can't imagine anyone listening to this hasn't tracked that. Anthony with everything at Sports Illustrated Foundation, all that stuff. Extensive work, covering everything. Make sure you follow his stuff all there. Anthony, thoughts here of the season. Winnipeg's still in front. What do you think here? I don't know if we've had you on one of these recaps, so kind of like bird's eye view 30,000 feet, what do you think? I think I would say Winnipeg's been the most impressive team. I mean you talk about a team that started two and six, everyone thought Zach Colar was washed. This was an offense that could not get anything going in the passing game even though their defense was still among one of the best. But they hung tough and they were able to kind of ride out the season and now they're on top of the West division and really one win away from winning the West division title. So I've been very impressed with what Winnipeg's done. Saskatchewan, I really think Corey Mace needs to be up for a coach of the year. I think he's done a phenomenal job with the Saskatchewan team. This was a defense last year, one of the worst in the league and he was able to have him in the top four consistently throughout the season. The job he's done with Trevor Harris, he has shown some improvement this season. This is a very balanced offense and defense between Saskatchewan and they've really come on strong here late in the season. So I mean the West Division, I know the records don't really show it's that great, but it's been a really competitive division and I think there's a lot more talent there than we think. I would also say kudos to Hamilton. I really think this has probably been the best team in the CFL over the last month or I think they've won fourth the last five games. This was a team that unfortunately they got hot at the wrong time, but they've been super competitive throughout the last month or two. Bo Levi Mitchell has been great. He's kind of found a resurgence in his career. A month ago I was calling for maybe Bo to maybe retire at the end of the season, go join TSN and start his broadcasting career. But I mean he's shown to probably be the most consistent quarterback in the CFL and probably has bought himself another year or two if he wanted to play in this league. So it's a shame that Ottawa is in the playoffs. I'll be honest with you, I would rather see Hamilton in the playoffs because I think that team is better overall offensively and defensively than the Red Blacks are. Especially since Chris Jones joined to do the defensive play calling. I know Emiton Elk fans still have their feelings about him, but he has done a lot for this Hamilton defense. I think they're allowing five or six points less with Chris Jones calling the defensive plays and they weren't before him. So yeah, those are the teams I've been most impressed with and it's disappointing that Hamilton's done the playoffs because I really think they probably deserve it right now over Ottawa. Well I know Jason and I have talked about that before, both online and off of, it's a shame that Hamilton always seems to start so slow just because they really dug themselves so much of a hole here earlier in the season to be able to come out and do that now. And like you said with Ottawa, we were tracking, what was that the earlier in the game Saturday when I was trying to get, we were getting to the BC Lion game and all that and we had it up on the phone. I'm like for a game that really could have got you home field advantage here. They do really well at home, kind of support their fans really came out laid at egg. I know it looks closer at the end and we'll talk through all that, but yeah, it really felt like Ottawa had a lot of momentum there for a while. And then you said with Saskatchewan really started hot, whether they 4 0 5 and oh and then really Trevor Harris, the injuries, all that really kind of slumped and then really the resurgence here to hold on to second place. I mean I know a lot of people aren't very high on BC's chances going in there and trying to win and then go to Winnipeg. I guess we will kind of do a play our preview later, but thoughts on that? I mean, how much better do you think Saskatchewan is than BC right now? I mean, defensively Saskatchewan is way better than where BC's at. I think all season the Lions have good individual players. I know TJ Lee's been kind of in and out of the lineup, but I really think him and Ben, that linebacker are two of probably the best players on that defense. But that's secondary is an absolute mess. I mean that defense has been prone to allowing big plays all season long and it's really hurt this BC team, especially even at the beginning of the season when Veon Adams and that offense was really rolling for them. They still had a lot of issues on that defensive side of the ball and they could have done probably a lot more in the off season to kind of offset that, but they just didn't do enough. And I think that's ultimately going to cost them is that they just don't have enough Playmakers on the defensive side. And even with Matthew bets, Matthew Bets has actually been disappointing. He's only had one sack in the last, what, four or five games that since he's returned to bc, he hasn't really been an impact player. I'm sure the lion were hoping for, so they were too late on making the moves they need to with bringing in Nathan Rourke and Matthew bets because those guys haven't really played as well and they spend all this money on them and it just hasn't really recuperated for them. So they're going to need to do a lot of work in the off season because I'm not sure what their chances are this season with the talent they have. Well, and BC is really that, I don't know, I want to do a deep dive here in a minute talking all this and Nathan and everything else, but yeah, you wonder at what point is it kind of a sunk cost and you're hosting the gray Cup and you're doing all this and you're spending all this money, but I mean they're suddenly this stuff up now, especially with Nathan's contract, you're going into the next two years and if you couldn't get it done now and you couldn't get it done two years ago, and I know Nathan was sure, but if you couldn't pay Nathan $50,000 and have all star wide receivers around him and now then you're going to be paying him the highest paid player in the league and then you're still wanting to replicate that. I just don't know. I mean I talk about disappointing for the Lions and I've told Jason offline we were doing podcasts every week. The last month I probably would've gotten in trouble with things I said just of how upset that I've been about everything. And it's really been disappointing and even talking, and I won't say names, but we went to Farhan Farhan, Fred of the show got inducted into the BC Football Hall of Fame with his after party talking with some of the people from the team. And I was like, oh, what? They didn't even really want to talk about anything. Well, we're kind of like, okay, this feels like this is kind of a cluster right now. And I was just kind of interesting to get the feedback on that. In terms of, I guess where do we want to start? Do we want to start with, I guess we'll go chronologically through here. Bo coming back in playing the game of his lifetime here I guess, right? Big revenge game. What did you make of that? We don't need to do a super deep dive, but really, I mean Bo looked like the best quarterback in the league right now. That was a good revenge game for him, especially since Hamilton lost to Calgary at the beginning of the season and Bo didn't really look that great in that game. So this was a massive bounce back for game from, especially since a couple of weeks ago. Hamilton got the lights knocked out of them by Winnipeg, so they really needed this one to kind of build some momentum into going into this final week. And then really for them it's about building momentum going into 2025 and trying to figure out what pieces they have. Sure. Hamilton, since the last time you were on Hamilton was a mess and it looked like Taylor Powell was going to be the future quarterback of this franchise. Now they're probably thinking, well maybe we have one more season with Bo because he's looked like the most consistent quarterback in the league. Yes, he's had his off moments, but this was probably his best game of the season. He did have the one ugly floater that was intercepted for a pick six at the end towards the end of the second quarter. But really outside of that he was lights out and then I mean a ton of credit to Greg Bell, 139 yards rushing for him. James Butler has been kind of oddly in and out of the lineup. Greg Bell has been a great complimentary piece for them. The two of them combined make for a really good running game and I think that's what's really helped Hamilton in this back stretch of the season is that they have a really balanced attack between running the ball and passing the ball. And then again, defensively this is a big improvement for them. I think 20 points might be the lowest amount of points they've allowed or one of the lowest points they've allowed all season. I think major credit has to go to Chris Jones for the job that he's really done with this defense and I really think he's earned the right to, they wanted to make him the defensive coordinator for 2025. I think he's earned that, right? But also it's a telling sign for Calgary. I mean, what a disappointing season it's been for Calgary and what a downfall for this franchise. I mean this was a franchise that hadn't missed the playoffs in what, 20 years since 2004 and now they're the worst team in the CFL. I mean there's going to have to be a lot of questions about Dave Dickerson and if he should be even keeping his job and if he does keep his job, he may be like Chris Jones and he'll probably be on the hottest seat in the CFL going into next year. So I think this game was more about how much of a mess Calgary is versus how good Hamilton is because I think people already knew that Hamilton has turned the page over the last month, but it was more about can Calgary be competitive against the team that's out of the playoffs? And clearly they showed they have a lot of problems to them. Well, and I know the issue, I mean there's many issues with the CFL nine teams and the playoffs and all these things and the divisions, all that stuff. But talking and when we were up in Vancouver, Evan was there as well, a friend of the show and Evan was traveling today or I think he would've tried to pop in as well, but when you have six teams make the playoffs out of nine every year, to use that as a benchmark of success is, I don't know if that is the right benchmark. And we've had Ryan Valentine on this friend of the program and with three down and writes for about Calgary and all of that, and even last year he goes, well, but we did make the playoffs. I go, but then you get bounced immediately. That doesn't speak to me as success. And if you said in here seeing them regress even more this season, they really didn't do anything last year except kind of just further extend maybe some of these coaching staffs and things into this year as you mentioned kind of the hot seat there. But it just seems that, I don't know, they didn't look good last year. You kind of eek in and you're curious the long-term decisions of that. Same with Hamilton like, okay, Bo looks good now are we really going to devote another year to him? Statistically you would say probably right. And I think he's a past 5,000 yards and I like that kind of the social media they clip ahead of him. How does it feel to beat your former team? He is. It felt really good or whatever he said. And I like seeing some of that personality. I think he's kind of been drugged through the ringer here the last few months and years just with the injuries and stuff. But you get these late season kind of bursts and then, okay, do you hold onto that promise to next year? I mean we saw, I was just watching first take talking about the jets and things and okay, Aaron got hurt last year. Okay, we hold down that faith again to next year and then it's kind of a dangerous situation when you're putting in, you're planning the year out of these things and you'll know where they're going to come about. Yeah, I mean with Calgary, I mean last year they went six and 12, even if they made the playoffs, it's like that's not even a good record. That's the worst record they had in over 20 years. So I mean yes, they made the playoffs, but I don't really think that should count for anything. This team has been a decimated mess since Bo Levi Mitchell left. Jake Mayer was supposed to be the guy, I don't even know if you bring him back next year. I think they probably do just because Dave Dickinson ends up sticking around as a head coach. They need to have somebody who is familiar with it, but PJ Walker's going to come in there and compete. I think he could be the guy who ends up taking this job, but Calie has to do something about quarterback where they're the biggest mess right now. Dietrich Mills I think is perfectly fine as a running back. He's top five running back in this league. They have some good receivers on that team overall, I think offensively they have some of the pieces there, they just have a quarterback in. Obviously Matthew Schultz is not the guy. They brought the beginning, they brought him in the off season thinking he was going to push Jake Mayer. That didn't really push the needle at all, even though I think Jake Mayer played better this year than he did last year. I still think the quarterback position is something they got to take care of. So do they bring someone in the off season, maybe Verne Adams, if he ends up being available, do you bring him in? They have PJ Walker who's I think legitimately going to be the guy who's going to push Jake Mayer and I think it's better than Jake Mayer. So I think that's where Calgary stands. They need to figure out who their quarterback is next year. Yeah, no, I like that for PG Walker, we've talked about that. What was that a week or two ago? He got added on there and obviously late this year, I don't know if we see him elevated to try to get him any sort of whatever before the end of the season, but Calgary needs to figure it out. And I'm curious, you said with the hot seat there, we will talk lions here in a minute with Rick Campbell and all that. The CFL isn't as kind of reactionary as the NFL and maybe the NFL is too reactionary when you look at David Teer or things like that. Okay, you're out, you're out. We need someone else. Need someone elsewhere. I don't know if BC wins one playoff game, do we keep Rick back next year after all this? I don't know. Right. Do we have other options here? Is there a big waiting list of people that want to show up to be the Calgary St. Peter Head coach? Do we elevate someone? Would BC ride Phillips looks like he was kind of coaching his way or coordinating his way into being a head coach BC defense? I wouldn't put him on a high list right now. So I'm curious where we go with that, where it feels like it's not complacency, but it's like well, whether, I mean I guess it is because it'd be a lot more work to try to figure out someone else here. I guess we'll just try to work with what we have. Yeah, I think both with BC and Calgary's situation, you need somebody who knows offense. You need somebody who could be able to develop a quarterback because with BC you have all the pieces in place. I think the offensive line to miss the defense needs to add some pieces, but you need somebody who's going to come in there and fixate the roarke because ultimately the end of the day he's probably going to end up being the starter in 2025. And we'll talk about that in a little bit. But Calgary, same thing. You need somebody who knows the quarterback position and can either bring someone in or you develop Jake Mayer or you develop PJ Walker into that starter. I think with Walker you, I don't think you bring him up this year because kind of like Hamilton with Tulia Taco Viola, you don't want to put someone in there right away that comes from the US game and try to learn the Canada game. It's just too complicated and you need to give him more time to learn it. So I don't anticipate PJ Walker playing this year, but he should compete for a starting job. And again, I don't know if you bring in Jake Mayer, I think you maybe go in the free agency, maybe find somebody else. But right now with the quarterbacks that are on the roster, I would definitely be wrong with PJ Walker. I think he's by far the best option. Well, and it's kind of that last gas for him too to kind of show and I think he's right at the edge of maybe effectiveness and just getting old and where he's a little bit mobile as well and being able to do all that. I don't know, I think it was earlier this season they had battered around, maybe it was nailer or someone, the kind of the QB college kind of coaching thing similar to how the XFL would do with James Palmer going in there and bringing right. Am I making up all this in my head? Oh, Jordan Palmer. Yeah, Jordan Palmer would be the development of, I don't know, some director of development quarterback development or something like that. But they were talking about that doing it with the CFL as well. And I remember when Nailer was on, I think it was two seasons ago, we were talking USFL. He is like, well it's so hard to come into the CFL and it really takes you three, four years to really get into it and it's a really hard game to learn. It's really hard to get used to. Yeah, like you said, okay, so we don't want to throw PJ in there, but if you had this program where you could work with people in the off season, if you get PJ and you get Tuya, whatever, I can never say these names, but you'll get these guys in there and kind of be able to develop them. So maybe it won't take you five years to be a starting quarterback in the league. Maybe you can do it in two years. I think we need to see that next progression of these quarterbacks is like you said, kind of shuffling around. Do we keep mayor back? I think we've seen everything we're going to see from him. You see a spark two out of every seven, eight times and then the rest of it is just kind of a mess. Well the league I think needs some kind of coach to develop quarterbacks, especially in Canada if they really want they, Canada loves Trey Ford, they love Nathan Rourke, they love their Canadian quarterback. So I think if the league really wants to take the quarterback position seriously and try to develop homegrown guys, they definitely need somebody like that. Just for Canadian quarterbacks. I remember covering the CFL draft this year, there was only two or three quarterbacks that actually went to the combine. They didn't have really any quarterbacks coming in there. And that's a position that I think is in desperate need of an uplift, especially from the homegrown side of it. So I think if you really want to push for to try to get better quarterback play, develop the people that were within your country already get more Canadian quarterbacks in there. Because right now majority of it is Americans and it may take 'em a little bit to ramp up, but it's just a matter of fact that most American quarterbacks are just playing better in the CFL than Canadians and it's just because of how they're developed going up in the rankings of high school and college. But the CFL desperately needs it if they want to get more Canadians in this league. Anything else Calgary? Anything else? Hamilton here, I kind of ended the season for both of them. Do you want to talk anything else with them before we move on to some of these other teams? Yeah, I mean I'm just impressed with Hamilton. They got a really interesting game to close out the season into Ottawa. I think they have a chance to really prove that maybe shouldn't be in the playoffs, it should be them instead. So I think for both teams they need wins to close out the season to kind of build some momentum. I think probably more Calgary than anything. I mean they haven't won a game in what, two months probably. So they desperately need to get some kind of win on the board so they can have something to celebrate over the off season. So very impressed with Hamilton. This is a really good football team and I think they're better than what people think. Yeah, we got a comment here. I see if L needs to focus more on youth sports QBs. Yeah, I think there's all this weird CFL and they want to do, I hear enough kind of behind the scenes with friends of the show that kind work with amateur football and stuff. I dunno, there's always seems to be a lot of egos and buting heads and things and working together. I don't know if I'm reading into that wrong, but even when we were up in Canada this weekend and talking spoiler alert, nobody I talked to watches the CFL, no one, I didn't talk to anyone. We went to the, well, I'll chronicle my travels here in a minute, but even we went to the bar yesterday, we went both days to watch football and I'm talking with the manager, he is like, oh yeah, I was talking to the passport guy on the way back last night, checked folks like, well what were you here from? I'm like, oh, the CFL game. He's like the Seattle game? No, the CFL, the football bc. The point is, it is interesting talking through and talking to people about, yes, more Americans succeed up there because of the strength of our college programs and they have the ratio and because they want to protect those and that's important. And having these conversations with people, it's always interesting you, they're like, well, is there a lot of Americans? Yeah, it's actually a lot, just like you said, because of all that and because we're able to come up and get going better, let's talk through Argos and Red Black Shear. We can touch base on all of those. Disappointing for the red black shearer losing this, being able to kind of host the game. I know BMO field very opened up. I saw Mike Hogan tweeted they were opening up more seats for the game, so that was good. And Toronto get a little bit of juice for this one, but I would certainly like to see Ottawa host a playoff game. Thoughts on this one? It's very ironic that Ottawa for three straight weeks had an opportunity to win and get into the playoffs and they couldn't do it. And on their bye week is when they make the playoffs. This team hasn't won since, I want to say September 7th. I think it's been over a month since Ottawa was last won a game. So they've been wildly disappointing and honestly Toronto has been very impressive. Chad Kelly has really come around the last four to five games. I think he's run maybe six touchdowns, two picks in the last four or five games. He has played a lot better over the last few weeks for Toronto and that defense for the organs have been really good. I think that's what's really propelled them. That defensive line is just very stout. I mean they do a great job of getting pressure on the quarterback, so major kudos to Toronto. I think they've won three straight after being seven and seven at one point. So I thought they've played really well. Ottawa. I mean it's disappointing. I think at one point Ottawa was what, seven, three and one or something like that. They were one of the top teams in this league and I think problem is losing Darius Pickett on the defensive side of the ball was really big for them. They kind of lost their leader who's been leading the team in tackles and they lost that boost on the defensive side because that's where they've taken a big hit. I think the receiving core is really good. I think another big thing with Ottawa, I don't know what happened with the Rayquan Armstead situation. I know there were some rumors about having issues with, I dunno the coaches or I don't know what it is, but ever since they released him, they have no running game. I mean Ottawa cannot run the ball for their lives. And the disappointing thing is they're asking a young quarterback like Drew Brown who's in his first full year as a starter and being like, Hey, I need you to carry this team. Drew Brown is not in a place right now where he can carry a full team. He's got the talent. I really think he can be a starting quarterback in the CFL and I think he's got a bright future, but it's his first full year and he's being asked to kind of carry this team and he's taken a ton of hits. He's been sacked quite a bit. He's been injured a couple of times this year. It really hasn't. It's been kind of an up and down season for him. I think there's good potential there. But I mean I know not to call out the professor, but Andy Bur, he's like, oh, he threw four two yards and four touchdowns in the game. He played really well. And I was like, yeah, but that was all garbage time points. They scored 25 points in the fourth quarter. The Agros just pretty much packed it in the fourth quarter and just let them come back. So I don't really think that's really telling the full story. I think he's good. I think he had a good game, but it's like most of that came in the fourth quarter. So yeah, Ottawa has been one of the surprise teams of the season, but this late season drop for them is kind of what we've seen with Ottawa over the last couple years and I sincerely hope they can bounce back, have a good last week of the season against Hamilton and going to the playoffs with some kind of momentum where they're going to have to travel to Toronto again in a couple weeks. Well that's the thing, you have Bob die here and I hear both sides on this. Oh, the team was flat like, oh okay, maybe Bob, but then they'll come out and really play. I'm like, Hey, see Bob really got 'em going and all this kind of stuff. And I was talking because Evan was up at one of the Ottawa games early. I think it was the last time they won a game was when that Evan was at, I think he was saying. But I mean there's a lot of talented people there and there's a lot of smart people putting together the team in terms of player management and all that stuff. I can never get a good sense of how do we feel about this and just kind of Bob die and everything and getting the team ready to go. It is interesting you talking about the Drew Brown and kind of the run game and all of that. It reminded me obviously yesterday Jay Daniels down injured in the first quarter for the Washington Commanders it feels like he's going to be okay, but even with Mariota in there and Mariota hadn't looked good in the other little bit we had seen him this season, but having a run game kind of knowing that we're able to just kind move and obviously Carolina is a horrendous team and so okay, let's take with a grain of salt, but having, we really have three solid running backs at this point that we can send out there just alleviates all of that where it wasn't like Sam Howell last year with the Commanders, I have to throw 50 times a game to be able to be successful here and you're looking and obviously they're coming from behind and all that, but 43 attempts here from Drew Brown probably not setting up for success that way at all where Toronto always seems to have a little bit more of a kind of well-rounded I guess team effort, if that makes sense. Both the run game and passing and obviously the defense taking care of stuff as well, but interesting. Yeah, drew Brown started really hot. So you think he's cooled off or do you think the team's kind of let him down? Maybe a combination of both. I mean he's been really banged up. I don't think his office line has really done him much favors. The running games kind of dropped off. I mean the good news for Ottawa is look, they have Devonte Williams who was injured before the season. He's been out the whole year so when he comes back next year they'll have one of the top running backs in this league. So that's at least the good news. But for the time being, I mean poor Drew Brown's going to have to carry the team on his back and at the beginning of the season he wasn't putting on spectacular stats, but he was doing what he needed to do to win games. But now it's gotten to the point where he's got to do everything for this team and I just don't think he's at the point of his development where he's able to do that and I don't think he should be asked to do that. It is his first full season. He's been the backup at Winnipeg for the last two to three seasons, so you need to give him time. I think he's got Ottawa in the right direction. I think he is a franchise quarterback. I do think he is the future for this team, but hopefully with Williams coming back next year that maybe it'll get the with a decent running game and maybe some help on the offensive line and the defense getting healthier, maybe that will help Ottawa out. But I mean right now for this season, I think I don't really think there's much hope for this team to really bounce back and be legitimate contenders for a great cup. I dunno, Otto was in a tough spot. We really went all in on the Ola thing the last couple years and it really feels like this Drew Brown, he had the big game when Calleros went down or a couple of decent games. I remember he had the one really breakout game last year and so you sign them off of that and then you see a full season's worth and then I dunno, I just dunno what Ottawa does here that it just feels like they've been searching for that the last couple of years. We talked to Hamilton and obviously do they double down on Bo again, it's not like there's either a wealth of options kind of floating around Vernon or we'll talk through that Nathan, someone will wind up somewhere but I don't know, it just feels like Ottawa every year. It's like, well if the quarterback isn't elite, we're not going to really compete and they've obviously had the injuries and everything else. It's just been really unfortunate for them. It feels like they've really tried the last three years and it's really just kind of not worked out their way. Yeah, I mean the problem with Lia is he's getting a little bit older and while I think there were moments where he came in in the last month where he did provide some kind of spark for them when Drew Brown wasn't able to do it, Mo turns the ball over too much. I mean, drew Brown protects the ball better than he does. So I think is a really good backer them. I think they're solid at quarterback. I think you got to give Drew Brown a little bit of time. He's already made, he's already made major strides with his AWA team compared to what they've done over the last three to four or five seasons when this team was averaging what three to four wins per season. This team is actually in the playoffs for the first time since I think it was 2018 was the last time they were in it. So he's already made significant strides with this franchise. He just needs more time to develop. So I think they have their quarterback of the future is just get the running game going, maybe fix some pieces on the offensive line, get your defense healthier, maybe add a piece or two more. Ottawa is just, I think there are a few players away from being a really competitive great cup contending team. Darren, I see your comment here talking Calgary talking Nathan Ro in Calgary. We'll get to that in a second. Yeah, I was just looking at is 36 2 years younger than I am? Trevor Harris is 38. I think he's a week younger, older. I can't remember the math here we are old people. I mean I am at the point where I have to put this lotion stuff on my ankles. They get inflamed. We are old people. I am not a professionally athlete trained in that way and obviously living a different health regimen and all of those things, but I cannot imagine any of this. And you see the trade four thing and okay, we bring back McLeod and maybe we should talk Edmonton here too at some point before we get off. But you need to start. Yeah, okay. Maybe Drew Brown sucks for a year and then we get around him as opposed to just these retreads coming back of the mcleods and the bow and who is the other one says is Trevor Harris, you got to bring in kind of a fresh crop here. These guys are getting old and it just feels like, okay, now we're going to trade. And we're like, oh this big name. I mean even Vernon, how old's Vernon 35? How old's Vernon Adams, Vernon Adam. He's in his thirties. I know that for sure. I know that For Vernon Adams was born in 1993. So what is that 31. Okay, so he is 31. He's got a little bit longer on there, but it's not like they're all just the spring chickens running around. I mean that's the most lame example there. But anyway, I just feel like you need to figure that out and we've talked to the quarterbacks thing and all that kind of stuff, but start bringing in some more of this youth here and get these guys figured out. Quit making it be five years to be able to be a quarterback. Yeah, I mean Miss always had what, 5 million ACL injuries in his career. I love the guy and I think he can still be competitive, but like you said, he's like 36. I think he needs to go. Trevor Harris has played well though. I'll give him his credit. That dude is still playing well, he may have a year or two more in him. Bo is up there in age, but he still probably has a year or two in him. Vernon Adams probably has just compared to those guys, he probably has five or six years in this league. Cody Ro is not that young either. I think he's in his early thirties, but I mean still competing in a high level, but the league still needs to find younger talent like a trade for a Drew Brown who are in their twenties and they can develop into superstars for this league. They just don't have that right now. So let's talk through a little bit here of yeah, let's talk a little Winnipeg and Edmonton just because they were on the bias this week. It's so weird with this because who else was on the buy? Hamilton? No, Montreal. So we had Edmonton, Winnipeg, Sask. Okay, so let's talk, we've done Sask, all that stuff. Edmonton. So Trey Ford's playing next week. I'm looking here, they're playing Toronto. Not a lot to play for Edmonton, but what do you think of the situation they have? They're starting Trey or we out in McLeod? Was that just kind of overall thoughts kind of put into bed this season for Edmonton because they're pretty much out of it? Well, I mean the last I heard they were trying to come up with some kind of negotiation with for to extend him or give him a longer contract. So we'll see what happens with it. But I mean for the love of God, please give Trey for a chance. Can we give him a full season to start? Because at this point people are going to, he's going to have a slow start next year and they're going to be like, oh, what's wrong with this guy? Be like, well I don't know. He's been the maid of honor for the last two, three years and you haven't given him the chance to really bloom in this offense. And we all know what the potentially is. I mean I'll say this season, I think the one thing he's done really well that maybe he hasn't done over the last couple years is his accuracy. I mean this guy's completing over 71% of his passes. He's one of the most accurate quarterbacks in this league. I think he's done a lot more, he's done a lot better in the pocket than what he has in the past. I think he's really showing that he could be an elite passer. Yes, he has his moments where he's turning the ball over, but Trey Ford is really showing that he can be a passer and once he gets, I know this year it's been kind of weird with his rib injury and they probably haven't had as many quarterback design runs as they probably want with him. But when he's a hundred percent healthy next year he's going to be a weapon. And he's proven that he can be a pocket quarterback in this league. So I think Edmonton's really got something in trade forward. Macau, Bethel Thompson, he's had these weird moments like one game, he's like 400 yards and five touchdowns. Another game. He's throwing one touchdown in two picks. He's too inconsistent and even he's getting up there in age, I don't know. And plus he's been fine 500 times for complaining about schedule and stuff. So does he even want to come back to the cfl? Because sometimes it just feels like with all the complaining he's done, I don't even know if he wants to come back. I don't know if any team's going to want him back because I don't know if he can compete for a starting job really anywhere else. So I don't suspect the Mcle Bothell Thompson will be back next year. If he is, he's going to have to probably pack it in as a backup. But this is Trey Ford's team. I think they need to build around them. I think they have some nice pieces offensive like the running game. They have an elite backfield with Justin Rankin to Kevin Brown to Jayvon Lee. They have so much talent in that backfield, they, they're the best rushing attack in the league. So they have good running backs, they have a good receiving core, solid offensive line. Defense needs a lot of work though. I mean this is one of the worst defenses in the league. So if they can fix their defense and get that going, I think Edmonton's got good potential to be competitive next year. This is a mess, right? And this is to me is the biggest situation besides the BC and what they're going to do there. Darren has a comment. I just got Cora's injection in my shoulder. We're all old. Everybody's old. Yes, they're getting old. Yes. No, I appreciate that because here's the deal, and I was looking at this. So you're Edmonton, you pay half a million dollars for McLeod to come in to win six games. I feel like you could have won six games with Ray Ford and obviously the injuries and all that stuff, the McLeod, anti CFL and getting fined and all that stuff, brother, you get paid half a million dollars to come up and play football. What's going on the deal with all that? That's why I can't stand any of this and I don't always buy Aaron Rogers last night after the game. Well our energy was low, we didn't, Aaron's just kind of talking nonsense. You're kind of to throw the blame, but you hear that a lot. The cracking last season we had a hard time getting motivated. You're like, you're getting paid millions of dollars. You are professional, you need to show up, you need to do your work. I have a really hard time with that. The McLeod, I love you. You've been on the show. Everyone plays short weeks, brother Tyler, everyone plays short weeks. Look in the NFL look in the SFL could have been a lot. I can't imagine his living standards and plane standards are any worse than it was in the USFL with the breakers. Let's be realistic here. But you've so alienated and it is similar but different with Vernon and how BC's handled it. But you have a team that's really poorly handled this person the last couple of years and people, players are people. They're not just pawns my fantasy team or we're going to start this person this week and then we're going to put this one. And if I'm reforward, I would want nothing to do with Edmonton. I would want to know there's a big market out there. You guys haven't put any energy behind me. I have no faith that even if I resign here, you're not going to try to go out and do. I just couldn't imagine having this person that Chris Jones took, moved up in the draft to take relegated and relegated and relegated him and then now, oh now we're really ready to sign you. I would have no faith in that. I wouldn't believe in that. I would be very put off by how Edmonton's handled it. Well this has to come from Larry Thompson, the new owner. He needs to sit down, trade for it and be like, look, Chris Jones is gone. That's the old regime. I'm a long time fan. I was a season ticket holder. I understand what this team needs. Put your trust in me. I'm going to give you the money you need. I'm going to get you the support you need. We're going to get a new coaching staff in here. We're going to get you some weapons, we're going to help you out defensively. He needs to sell him on the image that you are the franchise quarterback. I believe in you. I've seen you play. I don't know what the hell that other regime was doing for you. They ruined you, but I'm going to make you the best quarterback in this league. So I think that's the biggest selling point is you use your new owner to be able to sell the fact that hey, we got a new ownership. This is a new team, this is a new day. We're going to build the team around you. You're my guy. I agree. I think that's a really good yeah need because I dunno, I just couldn't imagine. I always flash back to, was it last year preseason like re Ford on the show? He's on his phone, he's at Commonwealth, the sun's shining. He's after whatever preseason practice or games is like I'm having the best time. I'm like, this is going to be awesome. And then I go, he is not the starter. I'll never understand it. I love Chris Jones. I love a lot of people with all this stuff. Speaking of people I love and teams and everything I love. So this BC alliance thing, we'll talk through all this now and obviously rowing Montreal and all that stuff. I'll talk through just my experiences going up just to give a little color for the weekend. But what is your thoughts on just the BC Alliance as a whole? Like I said off the top, if I had been podcasts in the last month, I might not have been invited to a BC Alliance game just because of everything. So what are your thoughts? I want to make sure you have a platform as well. Okay, so one, I mean these are Americans talking about a Canadian quarterback. So I want everyone to just relax this. It's not completely a negative thing, but I mean first of all, offensive line and the defense for VC is the biggest problem with this team. I mean, it doesn't start with the quarterback, it starts with those, the offensive line has been horrible all season, really inconsistent in past protection. There are some games where they're good. There are some games where the quarterbacks are getting rocked. So I want to make some acknowledgement that defense has allowed big plays all season. This has not been a good secondary, this defense needs a lot of help, especially on the backend. With that being said, I think Nathan War has the potential to be a starting quarterback in this league, but this year it just not has worked out. He just doesn't have the confidence there. And I think the problem is, and Rick Campbell I think deserves a lot of responsibility for this. He threw him in way too quick. You don't sign somebody who has been playing in the NFL for the last year plus who has bounced around between four teams, bouncing around four different offensive systems. He was literally on two teams during off season in the NFL and then just tell him, Hey, go out and play. Let's see how you do. Nathan Rourke was set up for failure from the beginning. He was given this big contract and the biggest won in the league history. You're going to be the face of this league, a Canadian quarterback, it's all going to be great. So I actually feel for Nathan Burke because I'm sure he doesn't want this kind of attention. He just wants to go out and play and he was just set up for failure. But with that being said, he's had time to go through the issues and try to fix it. I mean, Reid over the last four games that he has started, how many touchdown passes he's thrown Zero, right? Yeah, Zero. He hasn't thrown a touchdown pass in the last four starts. Even a subpar CFL quarterback would be able to throw at least one touchdown during that time. So I hate to be so negative about it, but that's a big problem when you have a quarterback who can't even throw touchdowns. And that's been another problem with bc. They can't score touchdowns in the red zone. They just don't take advantage of those situations. That's a major, major issue. And Nathan Rourke has to take some of the blame for that. I would put a little more on Rick Campbell. I don't think he's really set his quarterback up for success, but Nathan war has not been great. So I think the Lions made the right decision going Veon Adams, it was very clear on Saturday that you can make your argument. Montreal probably they didn't play their start as a whole game. They probably weren't as motivated to win that game. But Veon Adams is clearly the better guy for this offense, at least for this year. Let Nathan work, sit behind him, let him learn the offense, let him take the off season to work with him, get his confidence back, work on some of the mechanic issues that he's had and then put him back in as the starter next year in 2025. But I just think the way they handled him and then signing Matthew Betts and putting him in, I think BC just mishandled the middle of this season and they panicked because Vernon Adams got hurt. What they should have done was start Chase Bryce and give him an opportunity. It seems like every time they put in Bryce, I mean he's completing almost a hundred percent of his passes and I think he's thrown a touchdown or two this year. He's actually looked pretty good. I know they were in garbage time, but he's actually looked pretty good compared to what they have done. So they probably should have started him and see if they have a backup in him and then put Vernon Adams back in. But they jumped the gun on Nathan work and it just hasn't worked out. So I think it's more of a leadership with coaching and management problem with BC versus what's going on with the players. Yes, there's more talent and more talent needs to be added in, especially on the defensive side and the offensive line. But Nathan worked with us set up for success. These players have not been set up for success and they have squandered a perfect opportunity to be the host team for a great cup. Real quick on the defense, and I'll talk to Nathan and stuff here, the regression of this defense needs to be studied. I don't know how you were the donut boys was that early last year? It wasn't even that long ago. We're the donut boys and we're shutting down and we're doing all this and Ryan Phillips and they're like, shoot, man, Ryan's going to be coaching, he's going to be leaving BC with you. He had already got the promotion there and moved up. And I know Ryan, I shot his one years ago. This is just the regression of that. I don't understand where again, I was watching first take, which is bastion of knowledge about football and everything coming out the Sunday night game. But they were talking about the jets and you can't expect the same defense every year. The Jets defense was really good last year. You can't expect the exact same sort of down whatever, but you don't just fall apart. I just don't understand how BC is just totally falling apart. And they have some of the games that we were watching earlier this season, like receivers are wide open, they can't tackle, they can't do all that. I like that Farhan has gotten a lot more critical of the team. I like that he's gotten a little bit more critical of coaching and management. I remember I was critical of coaching during the year and got some feedback. What are you doing? We need to be, this is the thing here. And so talking to Nathan, and this kind of made me laugh because Darren, are there any quarterbacks in the CFLs egotistical Aaron Rogers, when Nathan kind of did that halftime stuff was a little that way to me, came across a little that way where no-show Farhan and all that. This entire Nathan work scenario is so weird because a number one, as Ryan Clark I think is the one that says it, like you and football, you're paid at King's ransom to play a child's game. So immediately all the criticism, everything and the people online and the hard questions. And when Aaron Rogers gets mad at people, no, you're paid a ton of money to do your work. This is everyone's is how this works. And I'm sorry that you don't like to answer hard questions or whatever, but that's how all that goes. But then with this Nathan stuff, the whole country of Canada and a lot of the media and a lot of the media members babied him the whole way up because I think that they said this is our star. We followed him all the way through high school going in and playing college in the States and he's winning the Cornish Award and all these things from Jim Mullen and we're bringing him up and we're bringing him up and it's this weird coddling that wouldn't have, and even Farhan after that game when he's like, no-show and Farhan, oh, I know Nathan. It's no big deal. That's not the point. It's not the point that you've known him and covered him and driven down to the states and gone to practices with him and went to Jacksonville. And you need to separate all that from that. But I know BC was ready to make Nathan the highest paid person when he decided to go to the NFL two years ago. His choice, obviously we've chronicled all that and the Patriots and all these things and everything, not working out Jaguar. But then this whole, the second he decides to come back, basically the BC Alliance fell over themselves to run and just throw, have this truckload of money at him, looks really bad, sets it up that way. And I do know, and I think it was Farhan said in his, the post game, what does he call that? The Farhan cast, which I go, Hey, the Mark cast is trademarked. But Vernon felt really hurt because as a starting quarterback, you should never lose your job because of injury, right? Vernon was playing good, got hurt, lost his job, was never given the opportunity to compete back and that's just not the way to set it up. Vernon put in a ton of time in the off season, they did all the arrow up stuff and he's flying people down to Tacoma and they're doing all this and they're like building all this camaraderie. You carry that into the season and then when he gets hurt and you bring in Nathan, it could have been anyone. It's not a Nathan specific. You could have brought in anyone if Vernon wouldn't have got his job back, not because of poor player or anything else. It just sets it up for disaster. And I just think that the BC Alliance had no, wasn't Seinfeld always talk like you got to save face. You can't give too much. Totally gave away what every now this team's atrocious right now. I know they beat Montreal in the game. They didn't mean anything. They looked good and I wanted to get your thoughts on that. If it was just like, because Montreal, whatever, but you're barely in this right now and you're not even paying Nathan $800,000 yet. What the heck are you going to do in the next two years? I don't know. I mean if Vernon comes in and we were arguing with people at the BC Lions game that, well, obviously this is Nathan's team, but I'm like, if Vernon wins two playoff games and maybe takes him to the Grub, are you going to cut Vernon? Are you really going to trade him? This to me is a total nightmare right now. Yeah. Two things to add. So one, the media has done such a, like you said, a horrendous job of covering Nathan Morgan and babying him. They treated this guy, he could walk on water and he could turn water into the wine. But I mean, my issue is I feel like there was more outrage with Nathan Bork about if you talk negatively on him than trying to defend another Canadian quarterback and Trey Ford who has actually proven that he has played well in the cfo. Yes, Nathan Rourke had a good season two years ago, but he got injured that season and he still threw 12 interceptions in the 10 games that he played. So he is a turnover machine. Let's be honest about it. Nathan War's a good quarterback, but he's the type of guy that's going to turn the ball over alive. When you have Trey Ford who's the polar opposite, he protects the ball well, he's accurate with the ball. I know there was some outrage, which Ray Ford was kind of passed up over McLeod Bethel Thompson, but I feel like there was 10 times more outrage with Nathan Rourke versus Trey Ford. What are we doing here? We should be defending Trey Ford by the gates more than we should Nathan Moore. And then also my concern is the off season, is BC going to have any money to spend to try to fix the issues they have? No, because they're going to under the SSI cap because they spent so much money on Matthew bets, they spent so much money on Nathan Bo and they have to fix their secondary and they're going to have nothing to work with. In fact, they're probably going to have to let good players go. What's going to happen over the receiving corps? Are they going to lose some of those top guys? I mean they have Alexander Hollands, they have Justin McInnis, they have Key Hatch, they have the best receiving core in the league and they're probably going to have to let some of those guys walk in free agency. They're not going to be able to pay them. They have to fix that offensive line. They have to fix that defense and they're going to have zero money to do it. So they just threw all this money to try to win the Great Cup to win nine games this season and probably doesn't have a great chance of making a or eight games. They won eight games, but they don't have a great chance of winning the Great Cup. So they throw all this money away for nothing. So they've really set themselves back over probably for the next two to three years because they want to spend all this money on a quarterback who's thrown four touchdowns and nine interceptions and eight starts and a defensive end who's had one stack in four to five games. And I hate being critical. I know they're just getting back into the flow of it and maybe they'll be better next year, but BC is not set up for success over the next year or two. I understand what Farhan was saying. When Nathan Warwick calls you, you need to answer that call and you need to, right? Because the argument is like any team would've done this, right? Any team would've brought in, but I don't know when you have Vernon, that's we just is 31 has playing very well is two season, well season, no two seasons now. Plus when Nathan was hurt the season before, two seasons of this coming in has built a rapport with the guys. They mismanaged their backup quarterback situation from the get-go. They should have kept a shorty yardage guy in there and then we have Dalala and then we get rid of him. And that was total waste of even having that. And I don't know, do you just stand pat and go, Nathan, we'll talk after the season, get your head straight. I don't know. Does another team go out and throw 800,000 at him? I don't know. But I feel like I understand the fear of when that phone call comes, you need to say yes. That might never come again, but to totally, it didn't solve the team when you came in and it really made it worse because like you said, they don't have any money now to do anything else. So it really took a bad situation and made it almost impossible to kind of salary wise. Yeah, I think, yeah, I mean BBC has no choice. They made their bed. They need to lie in it with Nathan that work, he needs to be the starter over the next two years. They're paying this guy the highest salary in league history. He has to play. He has to be their starter, they have to see what they have in him, but for this season they can at least control that and they need to put Verted Adams in. He gives him the best shot to win, even though the likelihood of them winning the Great Cup doesn't seem very likely anymore. Vernon Adam gives them the best shot to win this season. And then the off season you move on from Vernon Adams, you focus on the development of Nathan Rourke, fix the issues asked because look, at the end of the day, I know we're being super negative, but Nathan Rourke has all the potential to be a great franchise quarterback in this league. He's already proven that he can play well in this league. He just needs to clean up the turnovers. He needs to work on his accuracy, he needs to develop chemistry with these receivers and he needs some support around him. But again, what we talked about, that's going to be a problem. But Nathan work is going to have to understand he's going to have to carry the team on his back and he has the capabilities of doing it, but he needs some development in the off season and honestly he just needs to get his confidence back up. And I know this is how professional sports works, but it's just hard when you pay players before they actually win, right? It's like we've seen this now with Joe Burrow and Jalen Hurts and all this. Okay, we got to the Super Bowl, okay, we're going to pay him. They're paying Nathan off of eight games that he played two years ago where he had even a better receiving core now, which is the best receiving core in the league. And so that's what I was trying to explain to Dorothy. We don't even know. You don't even know were those eight games of Mirage? Is that the truth? Is it somewhere in between it? It's an impossible situation. I understand him wanting to go to the NFL, I would've stayed in bc, I would've won a gray cup and then taken that down. I don't know if that gets you any more looks or whatever, but the way that this was handled, I understand you're a young man wanting to explore your opportunities. I blame him for that. But this has been handled horribly from both sides. I mean it really is a very poor marriage kind of situation. BC should have waited until if they were going to sign him now, they should have kept him on the bench. Maybe the whole season. Maybe you just roll with Vernon Adams and just tell Adams, look, just be transparent. We're going to roll with Nathan work next year, so play this season, play well, work your ass off and then you can go get a bigger, nicer contract somewhere else. But Yeah, work it. Prove it. Yeah, prove your worth. And then yeah, like you said, just be honest with all these players. No one's been honest with anyone. Yeah, and I mean that's all the players want. I mean as long as you're honest with them about what's going on with the future, they'll respect that more than just, oh hey, we just signed a new quarterback that's going to replace you. Sorry I didn't talk to you about it, but just be honest with them. Vernon Adams I think would've been better off with it and he's going to find a team next year and he's going to make that team better because I believe if he wouldn't have been injured easily would've been MOP in this league. Last thing and then I want to recount just a couple things we'll get out of here before the top of the hour. So okay, we move Vernon, right? I mean I've seen Calgary. Okay, do you trade him to, what do you do with Vernon? Because then you're in the same situation where if you trade Vernon and he plays elite next year, you're just as pissed off of your BC because you're like, you can't have, what do you do with Vernon? You dish him and then do I save that cap and just hope that you just hope Nathan's that much better. You have to get rid of him. I mean, again, you gave Nathan Burke the biggest contract in history. You've made your bet you need to lie in it, you need to roll with him. It's like the Cleveland Browns with Deshaun Watson. You gave the guy $223 million fully guaranteed. Guess what? Fans may not like that. He's starting quarterback, not anymore. Now he's injured, but you may not have liked that he was the starting quarterback, but you gave him all that money. So the owner of Junior has him is going to be like, oh yeah, you're playing him every game. I'm getting my money's worth with him. BC is the same situation. You got to go with Nathan. So I think with Vernon you trade him away, you can get some good value out of him. You can probably get some good draft picks because honestly at the end of the day, BC is only going to be able to afford to pay players that's out of the draft. So you get as much draft collateral as you can and try to build a younger team because there's no way they're going to be able to afford anybody in free agency. So they're just going to have to try to find some good young talent and hopefully build the team around getting some sleepers in the draft. Sorry, I've been trying to mute here. I've developed a cough coming back from Canada. Last couple things here just before we get out. I appreciate Anthony coming on. I had a really good time going up. I always appreciate going up to bc. Hadn't been able to make it up this year until this weekend. Had a really good time. We were kind of caught in that, what do they call it, atmospheric River, whatever. It rained literally the entire time, literally the entire time we were there, pouring rain, but had a really good time. Like I said, not a lot of CFL knowledge from the people, the patrons at a lot of the bars we talked at. I thought it was funny, at our hotel downstairs, they had a bar they had of the TVs and they finally got a TSN kind of doing some CFL recap on, but they had my old station, Fox 13 Aaron talking Seahawks and doing the whole NFC west preview about the 49 ERs, all that stuff. Like we're at 20 feet from BC place. The hotel we stay at is literally across the street from BC place. They're all kind of the same price, but it works out. I'm like, you're literally across the street. Could you have a BC Lions flag up into? They had a Kansas City blow up doll and they had 49 ERs. Flags had Aaron Rogers jerseys, they have Lamar jacket. Hey, if I'm the BC team, I, let's put up some freaking flags in there. Game day stuff was always great. A lion getting in, which is always cool. I just kind of feel 'em like you're not just, oh, we're just showing up. It was nice to feel like, but not nearly as well attended as the one we went to last year where it was BC Winnipeg on that Friday night for control first in the west. But my last note was every single person watching the CFL game, you either have, I know absolutely nothing about the CFL. I don't even know who's on the team or what's going on or I've been a fan for 47 years and I know everything. There's no, no. Oh yeah, we come every couple times. No, it's either I've never been before or I come. The pre-game bar we went to across the street the other way had a lot of BC Lions fans, a lot of old people drinking wine and stuff just speaks to kind of the age of the Lions fan base. A lot of older white men drinking wine at the bar. You don't normally get that. I'm sure before Philly games, let's have a big, Dorothy looked at the menu, she's like, that's like $150 bottle of wine. They're drinking. I'm like, Hey, I guess if you're a bc. But it was really fun. Farhan got into the BC Football Hall of Fame. That was great. Congrats to him. We saw, like I said, Jim Mullen and all that. So really cool catching up with everyone and just obviously appreciate BC's hospitalities. So it was a good game. I mean Dorothy had fun, even though Montreal didn't have a lot to play for, she enjoyed seeing, what was it, 27 to three. So it was fun. I'm actually curious, did you get to talk to BC line fans about how they feel about Nathan work? Are they bought into him or are they bought into Vernon Adams? So the gentleman in front of me that he is on the side of the, I know every single party thing of every single person. I was just kind of explaining to Dorothy, hey and Nathan, and it's going to be really interesting because I understand that we've said Nathan's the highest contract and all that stuff, but Vernon wins two playoff games. He just says, this is Nathan's team. They played him. I'm like, he's trying to tell me the contract stuff. I'm like, brother don't know. I know that situation with the team here. I didn't say like I'm a CFL park, but I was just like, oh no, yeah, no, I'm very aware of everything. And then he had a little baby and the baby turned around and he had a Nathan Roarke temporary tattoo on his face. I'm like, well there you go. I mean obviously, but no, very pro Nathan. Everyone we talked to very pro, not even a lot of, we like Vernon. I posted, I stand with va, but very pro Nathan. I think that the run two years ago really built up all that. And even people at the bars that didn't know really what the team was doing right now knew that Nathan was back and that there were some struggles, but that was kind of the one. Yes. So very Nathan and don't talk about my quarterback. Alright, well I hope Nathan knows how to play a cornerback. I'll definitely need him to do that as well. Yeah, Nathan's about one season away from learning to speak Ule buddy. So Anthony, anything from you? You got anything? We'll get out of here. Anything coming up on the site Could probably be working on power rankings and getting some MLP conversation going and just getting up to date on the final week of the season. So I'm excited to see how the season ends for the CFL and finally get the playoffs going. I feel like this has been a long season that a lot has happened. I feel like it's a totally different league from when it was back in June versus where we are now. So should be kind of a photo finish for the league. Yeah, stay tuned. We'll either do a Monday recap, which will mostly be a playoff preview or maybe we'll do something later in the week, but we'll do something next week. Looking forward to the playoffs because week 21 is always kind. At least there's four games. Last year was like the other way and there's only three and you're like, oh my god, we got to talk about these three games. At least it's four games that don't mean anything. I dunno if it makes it better or worse, but we'll get some seedings there like we said in the west. Anthony, appreciate it. Jason's doing well and everyone else, I know it's been a long time off, so hopefully people, we still exist on here. So we're trying to do our thing and hopefully we can get all of our credentials and everything for the Great Cup. So we'll see everyone like and subscribe, but we'll see you next time.

CFL Week 15 Results + Reactions! Winners and Losers From CFL 2024 Week 15!!

Well here we are back here Monday afternoon, back on time this week. Schedule's so loud. We will talk through some programming notes here in a minute. Welcome everybody. It's always fun. I get logged into Streamy Yard here and then there's like a thousand different changes and new updates and stuff, but I think we are okay. We have Jason standing by. I have dark mode now. Lots of options on the stream yard. Jason, how are you doing sir? Doing good Reid. Thanks for having me as always and let's talk some football. Yeah, happy victory Monday. You Jason, clean the clocks out of the dolphins here earlier last week. Not as much stress over the weekend but yeah, victory for the commanders. We didn't even need to score a touchdown, we won. Appreciate that. We have a lot of, it's exciting. I was working last week coming back from a destination wedding. Miss didn't get my full Sunday, kind of sit down, be able to view over things so I appreciated that. Had my Sunday ticket going with YouTube and all of that stuff. If you can't tell Vamping a little bit today, we have three games to talk through. We'll get through all of that stuff. CFL week 15 in the books. Please like and subscribe. We're going to give away a UFL custom jersey for oral retros, A CFL custom Jersey once we hit 4,000 subscribers. Looks like we will be having some UFL news tomorrow, the professor Andrew Murray and I think we'll be streaming at two o'clock I think what works for him. The announcement's in the morning but I'm not going to make Andy Stream a day in the morning with the UFL schedule earliest, whoever the hell else is going on Jason, but we'll be doing that and then probably going to take a couple week hiatus here. I got to go to Atlanta next week and then Texas again for these interviews the week after that. So we'll see. It might be mid-October before we get back in the swing here, but we'll do this today. We'll touch base and maybe it's good to get the lions out of my life for a couple weeks here and then we'll talk UFL tomorrow and then we'll get everything else going. Jason, three games this weekend. We talked kind of preview last week. Weird, just one of those scheduling quirks. How did the games go for you this weekend? Pretty exciting, especially your tie cats. Yeah, certainly. I thought that it was a very unpredictable weekend and my main takeaway is that everybody is still alive at this point of the season technically. I mean even if Hamilton and Calgary that they're long shots to make the playoffs at this, but by winning this weekend or tying in Calgary's case, they stay alive for another week and I think that's a sign of what things have been like this season in the CFL where the teams at the top versus the teams at the bottom. It's a lot closer than it has been in recent years. So I think that's been big for the league and a great sign for the season I think it is and I think it's been, we've gotten a lot of comments on here, really excited that way. Obviously we still have Winnipeg here leading the west a little bit more rinse and repeat that way, but it does feel like at least the last couple of seasons we've done this, things were really locked in coming down the stretch and good to see Hamilton having some fight in them. I liked in the recap today, I was catching up this morning, rod Smith throwing some shade to the T Cats fans on the recap. He's like, well you just got to play every game at a time and well if you're the T Cats you don't have any other option, you're just need to live through. I thought, man, rod is pretty, I like Rod taking some shots at the C, the Tie Cats fans, but exciting that way. It was good frustrating here. We'll talk to Lions, all that stuff. We were messaging at the beginning kind of figuring out everything for today and you go, well it's three games we're going to have to vamp. I go, but we have ties. We had a tie again Jason here almost back to back ties. How often historically is this happened in the CFL especially? I think it was Derek Taylor posted today. It had only happened x number of times in Calgary and Hamilton were involved in all of them. So kind of walk us through it may be a little more uncommon than we think. Oh yeah, absolutely. So I think the last tie before this season was in 2018, I believe it was a Calgary Ottawa tie and it's Calgary and Ottawa that had been involved since 2007 and every single tie that's happened in the CFL and I believe it was 2007 that also had two ties the last year that there were two ties. So it is a very rare occurrence in the CFL, but I mean I was arguing with some people on Facebook today about, because people think it's wrong for a football game to end in a tie, but it really doesn't bother me too much because it doesn't happen all too often and I think in a lot of these cases, both of those teams don't deserve to win those games. So I think at the end of the day it doesn't really bother me too much. I think it's really doesn't happen enough to be something that people complain about. Well I would say my hockey fandom has basically numbed me to the idea of being upset about a tie because so many hockey games go down and you get the overtime loss or the overtime win and then you'll get one point versus two in the standings that way. And so maybe if I would've had a different opinion four years ago or whatever before we got in the crack in here, I might've had a different take, but so many of the times really in the standings you're grasping for that point or whatever and kind of needing the ties to kind of break up that stuff so it doesn't bother me as much. It was funny, a don't argue with people on Facebook, it's really not worth your stress level. Watching the game this morning because I knew BC lost, I knew Hamilton won and I'm sitting there and I'm like, I just kind of forgot with my weddings and everything, I'm like, okay, there's no way in the world Montreal loses this game to Calgary. I don't care. There's no way. And hey, they didn't lose the game they lost in their time but that was a wacky game. We'll talk through that as well. It didn't really seem like anyone wanted to win that game for a while. A lot of turnovers. I dunno to me the overriding kind of story of the weekend as we look even as we have Bryce Young today here being announced that he's going to be bench for the Panthers here. You had Jake Mayer come back out, play a pretty decent game after being at bench last week. What was that? Logan Bonner, right? We have Bo Levi still playing well a lot of this quarterback carousel. I want to get your thoughts on the lions here with Veon Adams and all of that, but it seems like here we're week 15, we're still trying to tweak that stuff out with the CFL. Just weird how it kind of is cyclical that way. Yeah, for sure. I feel like the quarterbacks have been very interesting this year in the CFL, obviously we've dealt with a lot of injuries throughout the league with a number of teams, but also situations like Calgary where the incumbent quarterback has struggled and is kind of boomer ranked back into the starting position. So it'll be interesting to see what teams guys, what you call, what guy teams ride with down the stretch. I think it'll be really interesting to see in some cases, particularly bc. Well, and I totally forgot too, you had Mola had Mola appearance for Drew Brown. Some we're seeing this kind of all around and just trying to get sparks. Let's talk through BC Toronto, I was at SmackDown was here Friday we went to SmackDown and I was watching the Mariner game and I had the phone on at the bar waiting for Dorothy to come. Disappointing loss, especially when BC's fighting for the number one spot we talk here, Hamilton obvious still was still playing. They have a lot to prove or play for in terms of pride even if nothing else in the standings. It is bizarre to me and I have a hypothetical we'll go through in a minute here, but it's bizarre to me here we're this deep into the season that you just can't count on BC for any of. We're okay, we're back home, we're doing the 75th anniversary, we got the gun belt, we got all this kind of stuff and then they just totally, you had messaged me Friday, I can't believe I stayed up to watch this obviously late on the west coast timing wise, general thoughts of the game. So I was very disappointed with the effort for this game from the Lions. I think that I came on this show last week and I said they have a very good chance to finish first in the west, but it didn't take one week for them to kind of blow my confidence in them. I think that considering how down Toronto looked against Ottawa, I expected BC to come out especially at home and win that game, but unfortunately they just seemed off from the beginning of that game. I think that Nathan in particular just did not look his best in this game at all. It felt like it took them into the second quarter before they could even really get a first down. So it was very disappointing effort from them. Their defense was able to hold the Argos to some field goals in the first half that kind of made the score look a little bit more respectful by the end. But overall just a really poor effort by the Lions and in particular I thought that it was a really poor game for Rick Campbell, the head coach. I think that 50 seconds into the game, I believe it was first minute of the game, he throws a challenge flag and it was one of those calls that could have went either way. It was one of those past interference calls, but why risk losing your challenge admitted it to the game. I feel like it's just not worth it from a risk reward perspective. And sure enough, he lost the challenge and he was out of it for the rest of the game and then he decides to make that bizarre decision to put kin, or sorry Adams in to start the second half after Nathan Roarke who did struggle, like I said in the first half, but his last drive of the first half, he leads a touchdown drive, so I'm thinking maybe he can get some momentum going to start the second half. Nope. Let's put Vernon Adams in who they said before going into this week that they would reevaluate the quarterback situation after the bye week. So I thought there was no way we're going to see Vernon in this game regardless of how it turned out that they were going to give Nathan the full 60 minutes, but I guess not. And then Vernon obviously didn't provide much of a spark either, so just disappointing all round for the lions. Yeah, it was weird and I'll pull up here, we'll get to the actual stats and all that stuff. It is weird and with the challenges it is so bizarre just because obviously my wife's a bigger college football fan than I am was more interested either Washington State played University of Washington this weekend, they had the big Apple cup and it's always weird for me, I watch a lot of college football, I'm kind of okay watch that or watch the CFL watch the NFL and with college it feels like they get the ball 87 times each per game. There's just a lot of back and forth and you're not really going to have these game ceiling drives all the way down the field where you feel like in the NFL sometimes, oh my god, the chief's got the ball, there's seven minutes left, they could just take it all the way down score game over. I feel that way with the CFLA little bit too. You're going to get the ball back, you're going to get a stop. All you need is one drop pass and so I agree with you the whole, well we got a challenge here. I think having that down the stretch is more important to me than kind of interrupting the drive so early in the game that way. It is frustrating. Like you said when you look at Toronto last week, when you look at how terrible BC looked as a Mariner fan this season and as a commanders fan, this season's a little different obviously with Jane Daniels and all of that, but I'm used to having the get right games be against us. The Mariners will face a rookie pitcher has never faced anyone before. We'll strike out nine or 10, get nine or 10 strikeouts before they're pulled or they'll have a career best or career lowest whatever against us. It always seems that we're the get right game for the giants as bad as their season looks, it always feels like they come in. Luckily we won yesterday. That was different obviously now with kind of the new regime, but I'm used to that and yeah, it was so frustrating to have Chad Kelly come in watching the recap again today. I don't think in what they had posted on YouTube, I don't think BC had the ball for the first six minutes of the recap of the game from Friday night. It was all Toronto and Toronto and Toronto and field goal and this and that. I'm like, it was just such a weird kind of dichotomy that way kind of balance and it is frustrating because here's someone they talk all the time, it's horrible BC traveling east and all this, I don't know man, you got Toronto coming into your house, it's laid on a Friday, let's use some of this momentum but just feels like this elusive home field advantage. I don't know if BC ever really feels like that they're utilizing that all the way. Yeah, I don't really get the sense that from watching the games, at least on tv, I've never been to BC place in person obviously going to be there for the Great Cup this year, but it never seems like it's a very loud stadium to play in despite its size. It feels like the atmosphere is really lacking when you watch it on TV and maybe that's why some teams feel very comfortably comfortable going in there and playing a football game. So maybe there's something to that, but ultimately I think that Toronto, I think just given the fact that they had such a poor week last week and even how bad that they looked, I thought that maybe they did have a bounce back back in them, but I thought that BC should have been, they're a team that was expected to be a first place team in the west this year. I think they're a team that's shown the highest ceiling of any team in the west this year. So I thought that they were going to take the bull by the horns and kind of run with it, especially after beating Montreal last week. So again, just a really disappointing performance by the Lions and I really don't have much more to say about it from that perspective. Well we'll have to tie the game here because that a little bit, but my hypothetical for you is if I am Amar and I understand that a mar is not, he's not like a Jerry Jones where I'm in there, I'm really meddling with the player personnel of the Cowboys or whatever, but if I'm Amar Doman and you're Rick Campbell and I come up to you and I go, we just brought back Nathan Rourke, we're paying them 250,000 this year, we're paying them 800,000 in the next two years. Why'd you Benjamin half if you're Rick Campbell? We needed the spark. I mean is that it worth inviting in this whole, there's already been talks and okay, Vernon and I understand Vernon's cool with Nathan. I understand Nathan's cool with Vernon, but at the end of the day we're competing for the same spot and I've noticed they've tried to be really cutesy about like, oh we've got food deals. I'm like, oh look, here's Nathan and Vernon. See they're together. It's all fun. But you're inviting that whenever you're going to bench your starting quarterback, especially one. I'm curious if you're Rick Campbell and I'm Amar Doman, I'm asking you that, what is your rationale if you have any? Maybe you don't. Well like I said, I wouldn't have played Adams in this game, especially given the fact that they said that before the game that they would reevaluate the whole quarterback situation after their bi week. So I really didn't understand the decision at all from Rick Campbell's point of view. Yeah, I get it, you want to get a spark, but playing a quarterback that hasn't played in what six weeks now and expecting him to come into the game, albeit a guy that has had a lot of success in this league, I just didn't think that was the right decision for the Lions. And I think you're right. If I was Amar Doman, I'd be pretty disappointed with the results we've seen from this team this year. I believe they already have more losses than they've had last year. I believe they were like 12 and six, 13 and five last year. I'd have to check, but seven losses already this year. It's been a pretty disappointing regular season and a great cup hosting year for them. So I would like to point to other areas of the team as well, but the quarterback position, just seeing as you have too, guys that are seen as really two of the top four or five guys in this league, it's disappointing to see where they're at at this point of the season and they need to get that right and get hot down the stretch if they want to still have that dream alive of winning the great cup at home. Yeah, I mean just from a player personnel stable, I dunno what else you need here. I dunno what else you need. Like you said you got two of the highest paid quarterbacks in the league. You bring in Matthew Bets, you've, you've tried to address all these things and I just don't understand what else in the world do you possibly need? It's like to go back to baseball, it's like the Dodgers and like oh they're going to be on this guy, the free agency or this guy at the trade deadline. You're like, you spent a billion dollars in free agency in the off season. I don't understand what on earth you could possibly need here to try to get over and Toronto is not a good team right now. You just came out, you beat Montreal at home last week, right? I mean it feels like you're building momentum there in terms of consistency, not any of that. I'm looking here at the game notes and we can dive down a little bit here to this, but I didn't realize obviously catching up today, whatever, I mean they didn't move the ball at all. I mean you got Nathan six to 12 for one 10, he ran for another, I mean one carry on that stand back is almost exists. I don't even know what you did for 60 minutes of football here. Well definitely Toronto definitely got a lot of pressure on Nathan Rourke. I think that's one thing I forgot to say. I think that that was one thing that was really evident from the first snap of the game that BC was just not prepared to play this game from a physical standpoint. I believe they gave up six sacks in this game and when you're going to give up six sacks, you're not going to win many football games playing like that. But I think some of that was on Nathan as well. I think getting the ball out quicker, generating the easy yards, it didn't seem like they were being able to generate the place necessary to stay on the field early in the game. I think that's a big reason why the game kind of got away from them as we got into the second quarter there. And like I said, Toronto had a few field goals. I think the first four scoring drives ended in field goals so it made the game look a lot closer, but if Toronto put punches the ball into the end zone, they were moving the ball that entire game, it would've been a much bigger blow for Toronto in this game. So yeah, that's one thing I definitely noticed was the big disadvantage in terms of the trenches and that's been a perennial problem for bc. I think their offensive line problems have really sprung up again this year, especially the last handful of weeks since Nathan's gotten back. So something to watch down the stretch here, especially when they start to play Winnipeg and other teams like that in these playoff games. So yeah, it's definitely a concern for the lions. Yeah, I mean you look at this 21 minutes of field possession, it's insane. I mean of the game, you don't have the ball in you. It's just remarkable that way. We were just talking at the start, CFL, you do feel like you got a little bit more of that back and forth, but for Toronto just to totally drive down and keep the ball that way you think Chad looked like, I mean we've been critical about him the last few weeks and really trying to get back after his suspension and kind of all that had a decent game here at least outline wise, what did you make of his performance? Oh we lost. It looks like we lost Jason here. We'll talk through this for minute here. We'll get Jason back on it. I think he has some internet issues to me. Chad looked a little bit better, a little bit less uncomfortable than he has. He has the last few weeks that really feels like he's really, I don't know, kind of hurry up, hurry up studying here, trying to get back in and kind of figure out what he wants this to look like with the argon dots moving forward. Obviously Cameron Dukes played decently for Chad in instead. Let's see Jason here, we were talking Chad Kelly, your thoughts about we've been critical about him recently. Yeah, definitely a guy that showcased his talent in this one. I felt like not a guy you want to, he praise on it's given his personal actions, but I think he definitely does possess the talent to succeed in this league and you saw it on full display in this game. He has the mobility, the big arm. It really stands out when you see him on a Canadian football league field when you watch these other quarterbacks. So you really did see him really put it all together and have a huge bounce back game. Mackay Polk has really turned into a nice player for them in the receiving core. He had a massive game. Looks like he has some nice chemistry with Kelly, which is huge down the stretch because they've lost some guys in that receiving core over the last couple of years or since last year I should say. So I think that they really need to continue this going forward. But Toronto, if they get their stuff together and they play like this, this is a team, I think we were talking after the show last week that I could see going on a run this year. I definitely think that this is still a very talented and scary football team that just hasn't been playing their best the last few years, the last few weeks. So I think if Toronto can just piece a couple of weeks like this together, I think people will start taking them a little more seriously when comes to the overall playoff discussion. Well and they were in that weird position with the Chad Kelly of it all where basically is they started their season, was it three weeks ago or whatever it was. My mouth is all screwed up, but it's basically like they needed to exist long enough for Chad to get in. It kind of felt like the Lions was at two seasons ago. We're like we need to tread water with Vernon long enough to get Nathan back and then we'll kind of figure out whatever's going on. And that's so frustrating because for bc, even without the Nathan thing of it all, you really didn't address the backup position at all. The backup quarterback position Vernon was going to go outright. You got rid of pco, right? You got DLA Gallo in there. He's not great. I don't even know who, I mean should I know who the hell Chase Bryce is on this? Didn't we get a signing from him a couple of weeks ago? But just in terms of adversity over the season, whether it's self-inflicted or not, Toronto's had heaps of it coming off of and all the people they lost on the off season. We've talked about that going into the year and they've had to kind of rebuild and then the whole Chad Kelly of it all like what's BC's excuse at this point? You've been more or less kind chugging along here. I mean obviously you're going to have your seasonal injuries like everyone else in Vernon and all that, but I don't know, just like you said, Toronto, if they're kind of getting their stuff together right now, what they one game behind Ottawa here, eight and four and seven and six obviously the bi weeks and all that stuff. But yeah, they're right in this and you go into Ottawa, they can win. I mean we saw them got their clocks cleaned last week, but I mean that's certainly a competitive game there. Are you, so you're pretty bullish on Toronto still heading out? I would say so. I think I was a little concerned going into this week because I thought bc, like you said, I thought BC was going to take this one. I thought that BC was going to be riding high coming off that win against Montreal, whereas Toronto was going to be a little bit in the dumps after losing against Ottawa last week. But they were able to put it all together in this one and started to look a little bit more like that team from last year and basically last year, the entire year they were the consensus best team in the CFL. Obviously this year's team a lot different from last year's team because of all the players that they lost in free agency, but I think there's still a core of a great team there. I think having Winton McManus back who I believe is back practicing this week just in time to play the tie Kats on Friday, he is really the engine of that defense. I think he's the most important player for them. So getting him back down the stretch, that's going to really help for that team. If Chad Kelly can play like he did in this game and cut down on the turnovers and I don't even think he had a turnover in this game at all. So if he can do that, this team is going to be a very scary team down the stretch. Ryan Dwin knows how to coach offensive football in the CFL, so I think they have all the components here to go on a run here, but as for them catching Ottawa, I don't think they're going to be able to do it just because there are a couple of behind in the loss column. Ottawa already won the first game of the season series. They do have a against Ottawa coming up I believe. But I think when you play at the same or you play an even number of games against the team in a season series, the tiebreaker is the point differential. So Toronto I believe would have to win the second game by 15 points and even them because the tie, I don't think you're ever going to get a situation at the end of the year unless Toronto gets a tie themselves to what you call it, have a tiebreaker scenario. So I don't think they're going to catch Ottawa, but in a playoff game, sure they can go in there and beat Ottawa and if they do that, I think they would really want to get revenge on for last year if they met up in the East final. Just to round out the conversation here again with Rick Campbell and all of that, we've talked about here this a lot on here back and forth throughout the season and I get, oh, the players love him and he's loved the locker room and all that stuff. I don't know, I lived with Dave Hacks still last year with the Kraken and everyone thought he was a really slow guy and we just could never show up and be motivated and I don't know if messaging gets lost or it's too chill or not chill enough or whatever, but something's there and this whole benching of the rur thing is weird to me. I don't know. Overall I don't see we've talked and does he survive the season and I agree with you, I don't know if he should or not. I don't see Amar being kind that if he's even the one really cares enough to even be involved in that. Right. Is that, who would that be in terms of the CFL in terms of ownership oversight? I feel like Ammar is kind of not checked out but kind of on a different level. You get the question I'm asking. You mean who would make the decision to In terms of, I don't dunno if Amar is really sitting there day to day kind of writing in and out. I'm just curious kind of where that decision would come from. Obviously the money's with him, but Yeah, I'm not too sure if Neil McAvoy the GM would have the power to make that decision because in football it's interesting you sometimes get situations where the head coach has more power than the gm. So I'm looking at Bill Belichick famously in New England and then obviously he became the GM later on. So it can happen the reverse way and I do think Rick Campbell has a lot of sway in that organization. He's similar to a Jeff Fisher to me, Jeff Fisher, he survived a long time in the NFL with being a pretty mediocre head coach. A guy that went, I think it was what, eight and eight every seven and nine every year. Rick Campbell's not that bad by CFL standards obviously has had a couple of very good years the last couple of years and then he won a great cup back then with Ottawa and in 2016 with Henry Burris, but even that Ottawa team had a losing record. So I think in terms of his overall coaching resume, I've always been kind of skeptical about him being this great coach because again, the team that he won the Great Cup with was not that good in terms of the regular season success. You look at his career win loss, I believe it's just slightly above 500. If you'd taken into account his time in Ottawa, which it was a long six year stretch, I believe he was below 500 there. So I don't know exactly what he brings to the table schematically. I know he's a guy that players love and I think that goes a long way and I think that's not really not a given in today's league, in today's sporting world that the players will love the coach, but I think you also need to have a head coach that brings something to the table schematically, especially when you lose coordinators to head coaching jobs. And I think we could see that with BC in the coming years if not as soon as this off season with Ryan Phillips and Jordan Maxim. So I think Rick Campbell, I've always had questions about, and I do think that if he fails, if they lose the first playoff game this year or they stumbled down the stretch here, I definitely could see them making a coaching change because there's just so much riding on this season for bc. Well, and I love Rick, I love the team, I love the line, I love all that this is not, oh my God, I got switched around here on that. I'm normally on the other side. This is the frustration as me as a fan and someone that's not a Farhan that's not in there. It's not on the sideline. I think you get, I always said a couple of weeks ago I was critical of Farhan and they're kind of handling the Be Nathan thing. I do think you get too entrenched in the C Ffl and okay, we're so close and we do this and we know these people and all this kind of stuff and Rick's got a lot of sway there and is he better in the CFL? He's probably one of the better CFL coaches you're going to get right now, but a lot riding on it and I don't know if you need to lose someone just to shake it up or whatever. And like you said, there's so much you'd rather stick with what you kind of know versus the mystery of, okay, who are we going to bring in? But the last thing I was trying to rack my brain here to remember to bring up was we had even talked last week like, oh, do they deal Vernon to Calgary in the off season? And they're like, who comes going for a, it's like, shoot man, they needed both of 'em in this game and they still lost. I mean do you see, are we always going to have to have, and I love Vernon and I love Nathan. It's like are we always going to have to have big brother Vernon around in case Nathan gets a little rattled and then like, okay, we got to bring, Nathan's not having a good game. I don't like that Nathan's young and obviously he's still maturing and going through a lot of that, but are you going to have that kind of thing where okay, we always got to have someone else around because if Nathan's in the pissy mood, then we got to kind of figure out what's going on. I don't know, it's really a mess and you just would've thought with all the money that they spent and everything here, I'd still just be at 500 now with, what is it, 7, 6, 7 weeks to go, whatever. It's just incredible to me. I just can't get over it Now Else. I think That, yeah, I'll let you go. Sorry. That's okay. No, I was going to say that maybe it works the opposite way where next year when Nathan's by himself here, I think maybe that does wonders for his confidence not having another guy that's so experienced and so proven over his shoulder. I think maybe that helps next year, but I think regardless they've made their bed with Nathan. I think that's obviously who they're going to be going with next year given the contract and everything like that, but we'll have to see how it plays out in the off season. Yeah, last thing here and we'll get to the other games, but this is good. We needed a van, we needed a film time for another game here, but this is good talking about the downfall of the lions, but this just doesn't feel, and obviously you don't care in sports and winning and all that stuff, but if you had said at the beginning of the year, oh BC is hosting and they're going to bring back Nathan and they're going to bring back Matthew Betts and they're going to do all this stuff, you're like, oh my god, they're going to be unstoppable. And even with all that and the drama involved in that and this whole salary cap thing and the marketing and even with everything there's still, and so you're almost getting that heel heat a little bit, but then they're not even winning really all the way. So it's just really kind of the worst of both worlds here where you're making moves, maybe controversial moves unless you're Alliance fan and then you're still losing. And then if they get knocked out of the playoffs, I mean I think they'll be in the playoffs, but if you're knocked out in that first round or even if we see the same thing we've seen with Winnipeg the last couple of years, I don't know, I mean I would hope not all jobs are safe at that point. That would be a pretty big downfall. Yeah, for sure. I mean it makes for great drama down the stretch though, right? Yeah. Alright, let's get to, so you were joking with me again and you always like it when I make proclamations and then your team comes out ahead, but we're just talking the red hot Ottawa red flags and then holy hell, you got the red hot Hamilton Tiger Cats here. Four wins coming back. Jason, you were at the game, I watched this a lot of back and forth, a lot of interesting things. We had Moli siding here, Bo Levi is on top of the world. What'd you make of this one? The most complete effort that we've seen from this TCATs team this season? I would say I think that all three phases of that team just really clicked from the beginning of this game. Again, they almost let Ottawa back into it late, but I think for the first three quarters of that game it was such a convincing effort from them. I think a lot of credit actually has to go to Chris Jones for what he's doing with this defense right now. Just a crazy improvement from what they were the first, what was it, seven or eight weeks the season before they brought 'em in. Just crazy improvement. I think that they're generating turnovers. I think it's 10 turnovers that they forced in their last three games. So that's a really good sign of what Chris Jones' defenses have been at their best. And I think even though they're not world beaters on that side of the ball, I don't think they have the personnel to do that. But in terms of the improvement, it's just been crazy and I think that a lot of these players that they brought in the off season are really starting to bring the promise that people hoped when they signed them. So I think Jamal Peters is one of those guys. I think he's really shown out the last couple of weeks as kind of being that shut down corner had interception late in this game, but I just was really impressed by the tie cats in this one. I thought that they had a good chance to win this game going into this game. I thought maybe it was a let down spot for Ottawa coming off that huge win against Toronto and Ottawa has not been the same team on the road this season, then they have been at home or they're undefeated. So I think Hamilton had a chance to win this game, but I was blown away by the effort, the energy that was in Tim Horton's field for what was a three and nine football team going into the day. I think it was 22,000 that they got attendance and I think that was just an incredible attendance for being such a poor team and it really shows you that the passion that the TCATs fans have for the football team and I'm just happy as a fan that Tim Horton's field is becoming a harder place to play again. I felt like the last couple of years they lost a bit of that home field advantage. It felt like it didn't matter if they were on the road or at home. It seemed like a very similar energy around the team. But the last couple of weeks winning at Labor Day on Labor Day and this week I think it's really starting to show that this place is a harder place to play again. Even if you're going to get a win here, it's going to be tough to do so. And I think, yeah, I was really impressed by the TCATs all around in this one and for Ottawa, I thought that mli coming in midway through the game after Drew Brown really struggled throughout this game. I thought that was a cool story. Again, I was pretty scared when they cut it to an eight point lead in the fourth quarter. I thought maybe this is a storybook kind of comeback from Azo here, but sure not the Ty cats able to score the next drive and secure the victory. So yeah, just a really entertaining game at Tim Hortons field from my perspective anyway, Jeremiah against his former team, the Hamilton Tiger Cats, it would've been a pretty, I will say we will go through more. I got more follow up comments, but I hate when you're talking like, oh Ottawa on the road, whatever. I hate because believe me, the Kraken, I think it was last year, we could not win at home at all. We could not win at home. I'm like, are we lounging too long on the couch before we get up to go in? Are we spending too much time with the I hate and it goes either way, the teams that can't win on the road or the teams that can't win at home and I'm like, just be a professional. Do whatever you have, whatever your routine is. Okay now, okay, you got a Monday morning, we would be playing some Monday games at noon or whatever on the holiday. Okay, that's fine. Your whole rhythm's thrown out and you're used to it, but it kills me either way and I've had teams that can't win this way, can't win that way. Yeah, Ottawa, you are great at home, you got to maintain that. Going into all this, I think Anthony Miller was in our group chat where he was like, is Drew Brown terrible or is he not? It kind of seems like week to week it's kind of up for debate. Were you surprised to see Mazzoli come in here? We saw him earlier this year when Drew Brown was injured, right? He had this big win and we kind of celebrated that, but were you surprised to see Mazzoli in here? I was not totally shocked. I thought that just given the score of the game, and I think it was early in the third or late quarter I should say, when it was 29 to six, so 23 point game for the TCATs OTT was just trying anything to create a spark and sure enough, Mazzoli coming off the bench did that and as a typical veteran quarterback, just showing his moxie and ability to lead his team down the field. But I think Joe Brown in general has looked pretty good this year. I don't know exactly if he's a guy that's going to be a consistent top five quarterback in this league going forward, but I think he's shown enough this year to not let one game let him lose the grip on the starter's job. I think that yes, it was a very poor game from them in this one I think had plenty of opportunities to score, but they actually had so many turnovers. Obviously Brown actually only had the one interception. Ollie had the two, but they had a couple of instances where there was a short yard situation that they were stopped in. I think there was just a lot of missed execution from Ottawa in this one and that was probably the most disappointing aspect from their perspective in this game. And I think their defense definitely had some lapses, some poor tackling. I think they had some big runs after catch yards after catch for the tie Cats receivers in this one. So I think Ottawa was just really a bad day at the office overall, just one week. I think it's kind of a burn the tape kind of game. But that being said, they did fight their way back into it a little bit late so they can draw a little bit of a silver lining from that perspective. But again, that's when Brown was not in the game still. Yeah, you're sounding a lot like our good friend Rick Campbell. Every loss with Rick Campbell is a burn the tape game. Like, ah, we don't need to worry about that one, we need to move on to next. He's like, well no Rick, maybe you do need to kind of pay attention here. It was good to see it. I'm just looking through the player. Sta good to see Dominic Rimes for once here leading yardage for the receivers. He's been working his way up. It felt like kind of a slow star that way. I mean I know Hardy's been good in Akm, but good to see him kind of moving the ball and be involved more. I don't know, that was his Zoe thing versus whatever, but he had just kind of been sleepy here the whole kind of first part of the season, obviously coming from bc, but good to see that M had, like you said, the interception coming late. He's trying to make action there, but it was pretty close there at the end. How nervous were you there coming in and having Moz run R shot on everything the last look, what was it last quarter or so? Yeah, so he was there for the last quarter and a bit, maybe quarter in five minutes and yeah, it was just touchdown drive, touchdown drive plus two point diversion to cut it to eight points and then I was officially terrified at that point. There was about eight minutes left in the game I think when they cut it to eight. So there was more than enough time for the Red Blacks to pull it off, but sure enough Hamilton responded with the drive they absolutely needed. Greg Bell, just a big talking point with this team that we haven't really gone to is James Butler being a healthy scratch the last handful of weeks for Greg Bell and I love James Butler, he was fantastic last year, very good early this year as well for the Ty. So I don't agree with the decision from that perspective, but I can't fault the way Greg Bell's playing right now. I think he is really showcasing why they put him in the lineup. He does appear to have a little bit more of that straight line speed that Jay s Butler has, so I think maybe that's what they see. He's maybe a little bit bigger back as well, so he's had a lot of production the last couple of weeks and been a big reason for this team. A little bit of a mini resurgence here, especially on this week and on Labor Day. So yeah, Greg Bell, a huge piece of that team and I think a big reason why the tie cats could go on a little bit of a late season run here. Well, I want to follow up with that. I was going to make the joke like James Butler, you are a BC lion. Like come on, let's bring him in, just drop the money, bring him in. Hey, maybe that'll help. We need to spark. It was like, again, I bring up all these other sports, the Mariners is here. It felt like every other week like okay, we got to trade for someone that'll bring a spark or okay, let's call up someone that'll be a spark or okay, let's do this. That'll be a spark. Maybe that's alliance here. Okay, we got to bring in Butler, now we need something else. Let's make that happen. You were talking because yeah, Hamilton looking decent here, right? Obviously with the Toronto, where is my, I lost my schedule here, but right be Toronto here. Last week they were off the week. I'm looking here it so off the week before, but they had the big win against Toronto there here and then they're going into Toronto again, obviously going to play at bmo. You were saying so frustrating for you, such slow starts and we talked before and you brought up slow starts to the seasons for the tie cats all around, but to have 'em play and then now to have dug themselves such a hole here, is that frustrating? Oh, absolutely. It just seems like been the case. The entire fandom of this team really, and it's really illustrated by the fact they've won one season opener in the last, I think 15 years or something, like 15, 20 years or something like that, and I think that was 2019, so the last three years I believe they've started oh and four. So you're just not going to be able to advance yourself up the standings basically, the only way you're get into playoffs is if you luckily grabbed that last playoffs spot. So I don't think they're going to make it this year. I think they've dug themselves way too big of a hole. I think when they suffered that nine flaw, I think it was really that was it for their season. Even if they do win the rest of their games, yes, they would make the playoffs, but I just don't see this team playing with the consistency necessary to make that happen. Plus a couple of really tough games coming up. I think at Toronto, that is a game that Argos in particular will be circling because they lost the first two games in the season series and playing at Tim Horton's field is playing at BMO where they're very hard to play and then I believe the week after or the week after that, they play Winnipeg. Granted, they have beat Winnipeg the last two years in Hamilton, but Winnipeg obviously playing really well right now. They have to go to the Lions, and we've talked about BC being a little bit disappointing recently, but they're going to be a team that's really hungry for getting some wins down stretch too. So I really don't see them winning out. The best I can see them doing is winning four of their last five and that would get them to eight and 10, which would maybe get them into a crossover to the west, but I don't see them catching Toronto, even though they do have the tiebreaker there. They're just a little bit too far behind. Toronto had lost to BC on Friday night. I would've had a lot more belief in the TCATs possibly making a run to the playoffs, but it's too big of a gap at this point for Hamilton to make up and make the playoffs out east. It would have to be a crazy scenario where they make it as the West crossover and it's definitely possible. Everything's possible if you look at the standings right now, but I don't see it happening Now. I'm just telling you now. I don't want to be, don't get mad if I get your hopes too much here, but so obviously BC is on a by this week here, right? Week 16, and we'll miss all this here. Oh, Bob's question in the chat, Bob. We were just talking about that James Butler and everything. Bob's the tie cast fan here. Is that Bob? Is that Bob Young? But BC is on the buy. You look here, they're going to be coming out of the buy BC Week 17 Hamilton's going into BC place. I have seen this before. Slow start coming out the by. We're at home like, oh, what's going on? I would bet you money that Hamilton wins that game. Week 17 here, Friday night at bc, you'll be staying up late. That's a seven 30 start, so it's even later than the one on Friday. You'll be glued to your television. I bet you Hamilton, I can totally see BC coming in there, trap game. It was about this damn time last year where they lost, I was at a wedding now. Then I had this country wedding. It was one of the last ones of the year we had, it was a couple weeks earlier. I think it was at the end of August, but I remember, I think we were sitting there messaging it. I was at this family's backyard. They had these cardboard box, dance floor, whatever in the middle of this field with the tent. I'm like, oh yeah, COVID was never a thing. This is totally fine. And BC is getting railed by Hamilton. Mark my words. Friday, September 27th, get ready for your popcorn there, Jason. That'll always be one win for you. Alright man, I'll remember this and we'll talk about it the next show that we have after that and see who was right here. Anything else on this? We'll talk through Montreal and then we'll look at the other games here, but anything else from the tie Cats, red Blacks here? Yeah, I'll give a shout out to Lawrence Woods who was reinserted into the lineup as the returner and the first touch of the game he takes to the house on a pump return touchdown. Really good to see that from him. Last year he was in BC or he bounced around a bit. I think that they tried to move him to defensive back or play more as a defensive back and instead of focusing on his special teams role, but the year before in 2022, he was very good for Hamilton in that return role. So it's good him reestablish himself in that regard. That's been a really sore point for the tight guys. This season usually is a strength for the tie cats. They've had a lot of great returners over the years, but this year they haven't really had too many special players from the return game, and so it was really good to see that from the tight cats in this one. Yeah, just a gift for them. Like I said, I have a lot of respect for teams that they maybe out of it a little bit and they're still fighting through and here playing for the fans. You got everyone coming and kind of all that. You got Jason here talking through everything every week on here. Being the big tie Cats fan, let me pull up here. We got about 10 minutes left. We'll get through this and then I'll put this to bed and then we'll get to, we got our big Monday night football. Hopefully Anthony Miller's Philadelphia Eagles lose tonight to the Falcons, even though I'm not the biggest pro cousins fan, which is surprising because obviously his time with Washington and everything else, but I would like to stick it to Anthony and have the commanders be the ones who get win. This week we talked off the top, the tie. I was like, God, how the hell is Montreal going to lose this game? I don't see that happening. They tie here, we go to overtime. Kind of all that stuff. Thoughts on this one because a ton of turnovers, right? TRO had the two off the top and then there was the blocked punt that was like the roughing, the kicker, which I thought it looked decently clean. I never know how they make those delineations with all that stuff. What'd you make of this one? Yeah, well, first of all, on the blocked punt, yes, I totally agree. That should have been a legal play. I thought all ball and everything like that, but I didn't know that CF has this weird rule where even if you hit the ball, I believe they changed a few years ago that if you hit the plant leg, regardless it's a penalty, which I don't agree with, but just one of those rules that they should really look at fixing. But those are my thoughts on that, and that was really a big turning point in the game. Calgary's up by 10 at that point and Montreal would've scored their first points of the game, so really could have been a completely different ball game from that point on. But this game just shows you how unpredictable the CFL can be that no team is really out of it. Like I said earlier at the beginning of the show, I think this game really shows that what the league really has become this year with how almost any team can be competitive with every other team and I think Calgary, which most teams most people I should say, would've had as the worst team in the CFL going this week and many people would still have them as the worst team in the CFL. They took the best team in the CFL to task in this one and really played really well, especially defensively for the most part in this game. Calgary, I think offensively still not a very exciting team. I think they're the most unwatchable offense in the league. Just really boring play calling and Jake Mayer don't want to beat a dead horse literally. But I think that yeah, they don't have any trust in him in terms of throwing the ball down the field. They don't like to see him hold the ball and really press to do anything, so they run a lot of renes and try to get creative in that sense, but it doesn't really usually work out for them. Their running game came alive in this one, which is always big for them. A couple of years ago they had the best running game in the CFL, but that's really declined this year especially. So it's good to see that from them and the tie for them kind of keeps them alive just by a thread in this playoff race because they got a couple of games coming up against Saskatchewan and if they win those games, it's a completely different season for them. So somehow some way they're still in it and Ty kind of helps them in a way. And for Montreal it doesn't really hurt them because they have a bit of gap there with Ottawa and the standings. And Ottawa actually lost this week and sub actually gained a bit of distance in the standings with the tie. Yeah, it seems like we had the whole Logan Bonner thing last week. Seems like back to Jake is like, we never left. Same kind of game plan, same kind of stat line for him. Same kind of looking game like you said, except for the defense, the turnovers and if that blocked punt, which I totally agree. I'm glad because I'm like, I don't know if that, I'm just kind of sitting here today. I don't have anyone to bounce that off against, so I'm glad we agree with that. But yeah, if it wasn't for that, I think Montreal wins this in the landslide. There was just so many things and to have the ball turned over that many times and give up that many penalties and still be a tie game at 19 at the end of the game to me is good. I mean, do you have any cause for concern with Montreal? I mean I don't, but I'm just to give you a chance to talk about it. Yeah, for sure. I think that, like I said, I don't think I have many concerns for Montreal. I think they've had a couple of off weeks here, but as I was saying last week, it's not great historically to be one of these juggernaut teams in the CFL. They generally do not win breakups. So maybe them losing a couple of games here along the way may actually help their ability to get hot down the stretch again. So I don't think I'm too concerned with them. I think that Cowboy just played a really solid game, especially defensively in this one. Had some luck with the turnovers, like you said, I still saw plenty of good stuff for Montreal in this one. I think Walter Fletcher, again, he had an explosive run 55 yards in this one, so I think he's continued to look really good. The receiving core is a little bit banged up right now, as we were saying in previous shows, so maybe that's a concern right now. But they did get Keyon Julian Grant and Tyler Snead back in a lineup in this one. So that's a good sign for them going forward even if they didn't result in a ton of points scored in this game. So again, I'm not too concerned. Their defense still looks really good as it has for most of the season. So I think it's never easy for an Eastern team to go out west and play regardless of what the records are. So I think Montreal should be a team that readjusts as we go down the stretch here and closes out the season as the best team in the east. And I don't know if we talked timing wise last week, Tyson Phil put right out for the season. I think I saw that late Thursday, Friday, I can't remember, but that came out obviously that's a big blow. Any thoughts on that? Yeah, that's a huge loss for them because I think especially with the way Montreal likes to run their offense, they're kind of like that west coast style offense where they throw a lot of short passes. They don't run the ball a ton in terms of a ton of volume, but they throw a lot to the running backs and they throw a lot of short passes and I think Tyson Philpot, one thing he does better than almost any receiver in the CFL is generate those yards after catch. He's a special player with the ball in his hands. He would've easily rushed past a thousand yards this season. I think he ended his season like 780 yards unfortunately. So he easily would've crossed that mark if he didn't lose of games. So I think it's a huge loss for Montreal. Obviously he won or scored the last touchdown, the Great Cup last year was a big part of that. So it's disappointing to see him miss the rest of the season, but I think they do have other guys that are capable of, especially if Austin Mack can get healthy down the stretch, I think they have enough there to definitely go on another run here this season. Let's look real quick here ahead and then we'll get out of here. Like I said, like and subscribe. If you're at this point we'll be off in the next couple of weeks. We'll do the UFL schedule tomorrow at 2:00 PM Pacific and then we'll figure it out. Yeah, I got to go and I got a conference. It's really just at least we're doing these and I feel like I am in touch enough to keep track here. It's really just been crazy this summer compared to any other kind of keeping track of the CFL stuff. So I appreciate Jason's flexibility and all that stuff. So we talked Hamilton going into Toronto there, Saskatchewan coming back, right? They were off. It should be a good western game here. Saskatchewan at Calgary, Montreal and Ottawa and then Winnipeg at Edmonton. Edmonton coming back, multiple buys last week. That to me is exciting just to see how Edmonton fairs against Winnipeg here and we got Trey Ford, right? He's coming back after the buy. In terms of that game you're most excited for here? Yeah, absolutely. It would have to be Winnipeg Edmondson I think. And they also play the week after this. So these two games, this two game little series could decide a ton in the west. It could determine Edson if they win the next two weeks. BC loses a game. I believe Edson would be in first in two weeks. So a lot can change and vice versa. I think that if Edmonton loses the next two weeks, they're basically done. So it's basically their season. If they get a split in this one, they're very much alive for one of those last playoffs spots. But if they win or lose either way, I think that's going to be a really big change for their season in the west standings in particular because I do believe Edmonton also has the tiebreaker with because of their win earlier this season because they split and the one that BC one was a very close victory and Edmonton was able to blow them out in Edmonton. So Edmonton has a great opportunity here. They're obviously going back to Tre Ford, so how he looks coming back from his injury. But I think yeah, it's going to be a very interesting game and I think the last couple of years, even when Edmonton's been in the doldrums of the CFL, they have played Winnipeg very tight. They just have not been able to get a victory but they're due for one. I think they haven't beaten Winnipeg, I believe I saw since 2018 or something like that. It's been a long time. So I think they're due for it and it's going to be a really big important game for BC or sorry Edmonton on Saturday. Well that was the game last year. That was the big trade forward invitation though, where he came out and it really looked like Edmonton was going to win and then Winnipeg came back and kind of slammed the door on that. Yeah, What you were saying with the standings, I think Dave Campbell had posted a similar thing obviously with the Elks and I'm like, yeah, I hate it. I totally hate it here. BC had every advantage in the world and like you said, here are a couple wins and they're off a week and who never knows and it's just frustrating. It's frustrating to have that and have the lead and be able to look back. Mariners are in that right now where the teams behind or teams that they have a game in hand on us or they have the tiebreaker or whatever. It's really frustrating when you're trying to look at the standings and then, well we actually are two games behind that team because we got to be equal to them and then get a game up or whatever. So Jason, I appreciate it. We'll see and maybe I'll be happy or not having to watch BC here the next few weeks. Anything else from you before we get out? No, I just think I'm really excited to see how the rest of this season plays out. I think really anything is still possible with this season as we've discussed. So like I said, it's really excited and happy with how the season's turned out to this point, even if my favorite team hasn't exactly lived up to expectations. Yeah, Jason, I think both of our team, I think we're heading here for Heartbreak here. I think it's going to be a Montreal Winnipeg again here. Maybe we can help for the Edmonton on that. Chris Mason is asking a ton. I've already said that I don't want the Eagles to win. I hate the Eagles commanders fan. Jason doesn't have a horse in the race, but I assume you just like Anthony Miller as much as I do and you want to see the Eagles lose. I don't know. Do you have a horse in the fight with Atlanta? I've always kind of liked Philly the most out of those A NFC east teams. I mean I guess I'm partial walking now that I'm friends with you, but I think Philly's always been my favorite team out of that division. Even though I generally dislike most of those teams. I feel like they get a disproportionate attention relative to the rest of the NFL, especially Dallas. I would be very surprised if Philadelphia loses tonight. All jokes aside, I think Anthony's probably pretty safe there. We'll see Kurt Cousins and everything and Atlanta's kind of a mess and I don't know what they're trying to do anymore. So Jason, I appreciate that. Like and subscribe everyone, go enjoy, get your beverages and everything here before football and we'll see you guys next time. Thanks.

CFL Week 14 Results + Reactions! Winners and Losers From CFL 2024 Week 14!!

Well here we are back here NFL season in full swing, but Jason, we have been talking CFL football for many, many weeks now. We'll continue. You had the big Monday night football game last night. Aaron Rogers looked, he looked fine. The jets didn't look great. That's exciting story for another day. Jason, how are you doing sir? Doing good buddy. How are you? I'm good. It's week 14 here. It's crazy. I was looking at the schedule because we're already getting to the point of the CFL schedule where we have three games next week. I'm not sure if there's, is there a Canadian holiday? What's the rationale behind the three games next week? I think it's just to do something with the bye weeks and it's just one of those nine team league kind of things. Well welcome everybody again. We're back. I think we'll be good here for a couple of weeks. I think I'm booking something here in October. We'll figure out what's going on and subscribe. Like I said, get you free world retros custom CFL Jersey get you a custom world retros UFL jersey trying to hit 4,000 subscribers dog days of summer going into the fall here. Jason caught up on everything today. This was a really, really exciting weekend of football. Really. We were talking before we came on Pat Crowds and the dunk and everyone, the radiants have been great is the CFL, dare I say hot again right now it feels like it's got a lot of momentum. Honestly this has been a fantastic season. I think it's an overwhelming success from a CFL standpoint. I think most of the games have been very exciting this year. I think even though there's been some injuries to quarterbacks, I think quarterback play has been pretty good this year. I think they put out a stat recently that it's the second highest average quarterback rating by quarterbacks in the league this year over any other year in the CFL, so that's pretty impressive and you'd love to see that from an entertainment standpoint. Well it's interesting and obviously week 15 here of the CFL versus week one and the NFL, but there was a lot of that going in here. I've seen a lot of storylines coming out of the first week of the NFL is again, preseason and quarterback play, getting slow coming out and scorings down and all that stuff. Again, obviously we're here with the CFL and not quite apples to apples, but all of these games were killer, really came down to the end. Go Lions here. I saw packed crowds, the Banjo Bull looked pack and we were going to talk here about the Ettes game but holy god, I mean that is right. From my understanding, Montreal was always one of those BC, Toronto and Montreal of these weaker franchises and the rest of the team you get the Saskatchewan's are kind of pulling them along. Part of it is obviously PKP coming in, new ownership. A lot of it is just them being a really good team. We're seeing crowds go back into Edmonton here. They kicked a snot out of Calgary and I think, what's his name, Logan Bond through another interception I think I just heard here a few minutes ago, but I think it just, it's remarkable just to show the turnaround, especially Montreal and here Edmonton kind of building back, it's not the Edmonton name, it's that the team was garbage for the last couple years here and I think you can rebuild, you see the lions and it's not just the concerts but talk about I guess just seeing Montreal, was it sold out and a joy. Joey Afire friend of the show posted right before I think the end of the first quarter I saw his photo. I mean you couldn't fit another person into those stands. Yeah, for sure. It's great to see and I think it goes along to what I've always thought is that as you said, the three markets that everybody points to that traditionally struggle in the CFL in terms of attendance, BC, Montreal and Toronto. I've always thought that BC and Montreal more of in relation to team success, whereas Toronto's had some good years and they just haven't been able to really get that attendance to really grow in a substantial way. Last year they had a pretty good growth with the great season that they had, but I'd be interested to see what the numbers are this year for them. But like I said, I think Montreal, now that they have a relevant team, again they have solid ownership behind them. They went through a really rough patch before the Vernon Adams era in Montreal a couple of years ago. They were in a really rough position as a franchise. They had missed the playoffs I think like five or six years or something like that since Anthony Calvio had left. So they were in a rough spot, but I think at the end of the day they are in a really good position right now because of the recent success they've made on and off the field. We got a lot of feedback. We don't get too many negative, but a lot of, we were talking last week and I had my take about the noise and the noise makers and I still maintain it makes it feel a little bit county fair, whatever. I think that everything else aside from that, the CFL feels like a really hot product right now. I mean at least from my perspective here in the states and watching, I have people texting me how can we watch the games? I have other players texting me like, Hey, my friends playing for the Argos or I got this guy starting here, how can we watch? We're still fighting through that CFL plus and the CCBs Sports Network and all that. It's not quite ideal but I dunno, I just think it's really cool. We've ridden through the doldrums coming out of Covid and I would be the first to say that those seasons weren't the best from a gameplay. It took a while to get back, but it feels to me like it is probably the best it's been, at least the time obviously that we've been covering it, but at least in the last few years it's really exciting. We have a question here about MBT. We will talk. Yeah, he played, I think he's not going to play this week, but the Alex will talk through all that stuff. Let's get to, I guess we can just look at the standings real quick. I should have had this ready to go here. I want to talk, we have the ettes, the big lion's game here, but Winnipeg here still top of the west here at bc. Kwan away with all that and Ottawa here is the hottest thing in the history of the world here at this point. Toronto game, we'll talk about that, but just flying around the field fast, getting interceptions, playing hard defense. I mean that to me biggest I guess shocking storyline right now. If you were to ask me, we expect a BC to be good. Okay, Winnipeg, they were kind of poo pey here at the beginning but they've kind of built their way back up, but Ottawa here looking like a really, really competent football team. Is that your surprise or what's kind of just a snapshot view here, your most surprising thing here at September 10th? Yeah, for sure. I think Ottawa definitely is the biggest surprise when you look at it and I think when you think about what they've done the last few years, just the struggles that they've went through this is just even if they were to lose every single game the rest of the season, I'm pretty sure that probably still would make the playoffs. It's been that remarkable of a start to the season or two thirds of the season for the Red Blacks and I'm really happy to see that for them. I think it's just been a lot of credit needs to be given to the people in that building for turning that around. Bob Deis a guy that I didn't really have that much faith in last year, in his first year as head coach. I think just really making some really positive strides with that team. They're clearly playing together as a unit and I think it's all three phases kind of team. I think it's really one of those teams that you look at and it's really all three phases of the team are really contributing to the victory. It's not really one thing that you can point to with them and just overall team effort on a week-to-week basis and we'll get to their performance this week And I think I was reading that if Ottawa, because I got the emails out of Ottawa in Hamilton this week. If they win, I think they clinch a playoff spot. I mean I think that it's that close to them. Clinching and I was thinking about this obviously and we'll transition here to the Lions game, but God willing, the lions make it to the gray cup, God willing the lions win the Great Cup. There will be a lot of narrative of like, well they really bought this right? I mean they brought back Nathan Rourke and they're kind circumventing the cap and they got Matthew Bet and they Vernon Adams there and they're really kind, all that stuff. Otto was doing this, like you said, Sean Burke and them just strong team building Drew Brown, they got him from Winnipeg coming in here because in my mind you would want Montreal and BC to be in the Great Cup. I think that would be the mark cast most, no offense to the hell of the tiger cast. I don't think we can get it this season Jason. So I'm watching that game and then I'm watching the auto game. I'm like, I could see Ottawa in there and it just feels like they did it a different way. Does that make sense? Or it feels like BC just kind of rolled out the dump truck of cash where maybe Ottawa has been really slow of building here the last couple of years unless I'm totally misreading that, but that was what I was thinking today. Well I think with Ottawa you got the new quarterback in there. I think that really helps in the fact that Drew Brown did suffer an injury earlier this year, but he only missed a couple of games. That's been a thing that's really plagued that franchise the last couple of seasons. Obviously Moli suffering back to back season, ending injuries really crushing blow to this team the last couple of years. Who knows what they could have been? I don't think they'd be as good as they are right now, but they certainly could have been better than they were the past couple of seasons if their quarterbacks had stayed healthy. So I think just getting Drew Brown and bringing him into the building, I think that brings a new life into this team and I think other aspects of the team retaining Bob Dice when some people thought maybe they should have moved on after the rough first season that he had. I think that was a very wise decision. Sean Burke really putting together a lot of good pieces carrying forward a couple of pieces from previous years team, so I think that's been a big reason for their success this season. It just stinks. They did that whole behind the, and I don't know if they're doing, I've been really busy this summer if they're still doing the behind the R thing with the Red Blacks on YouTube, but it felt like last year they were doing that. There was all this hype going into the seats and the miss gets hurt and it was just like a toilet plunge. So it's good to see them kind of the hard work with that. So speaking of teams, all this stuff here, BC Alliance, I'm not sure why. There we go. Maybe we just need to have so much dead space there. I was rightfully so a little nervous going into this game BC okay, we get a win, okay, we're kind of building back. We beat Ottawa, we did the whole touchdown Pacific thing. Nathan Rourke stat line here looks worse than it is. Have you watched the game? I think a couple of those interceptions weren't on him and this was the William stand back invitational. I mean really we've seen him move into this but I tweeted that after the game. We were at dinner, we were going to a concert Friday and I was watching the score come in, tweet out, I needed to see BC beat a good team before I kind of proclaimed that they were back. Now it turns out Ottawa looks like they're the hottest thing, like I already said on top of the world, but BC BD Montreal in Montreal sold out tremendous victory from my standpoint, it feels like this was a real team effort for that. What was your takeaway? And I love that we're getting these Farhan soli these 10 minute, I told Farhan, I said the Mark Cas is trademark, so yeah, he's got to go with Farhan Cas, but this was huge, a huge win. I mean huge win for bc. I don't think there's any other way to put it. Yeah, you have to say this is a statement win for bc. I think a lot of aspects of that team are really rounding into shape right now. It was a rough start when Rourke came back, but I think every week I think it's this fourth game back, every week's been a little bit better and this week is really when it started to turn into, oh this may be a really good team going down the stretch here and looking at their schedules I looked at beforehand. I think I really like their chances of finishing first in the west, even though they're tied with Winnipeg right now and Winnipeg has that season series. I think that looking forward, I think BC has a very good chance of finishing first and there seemed like a team that traditionally is very hot and cold. They have these hot stretches they had at the beginning of the season and then obviously they had that stretch where they lost five in a row. So I think we could see them get really hot now and after being a team of Montreal's caliber. I think that's huge. And like you said, William, stand back. I think you can't overstate the impact of that aspect of this team because that's something that they haven't had really since James Butler left to go to Hamilton. I think that having a guy that William Stanback is actually leading the league in rushing right now, surprisingly he's really heated up over the past month or so. So I think he's done a remarkable job and I think having that balance offensively gives me confidence that maybe they could be Winnipeg in a playoff game, especially if they get it at BC place And this was just kind of a weird game. Like we said Nathan, with the three interceptions, two of those were off player's hands. You get those weird kind of floating in the air and it's part his fault apart whatever. But then you had that David Mackey touchdown on the qb, the QB sneak and then they had the same one with Rourke and he ended up going around and you figure for BC to turn the ball over that multiple times to still win right by two scores here in Montreal. Just really impressive to me and we've said that here before, Nathan Rourke can be as efficient and great as he wants to be, but you got to be able to stop the other team and it felt like BC was able to not let Montreal cash in on all those mistakes, if that makes sense. But it was just more of a team effort than this. Well we're going to score more and hope that we can outscore the other team, which I don't think is a way to look at it, especially when you go against someone like Winnipeg that's so hard knows I here coming up later in the winter, but I don't know, it just feels like a lot of momentum. Well I guess I want to ask you about the gun medal jerseys here before we move on from the game. I did see that but yeah, what do you attribute? Just stand back Finally they're figuring out here we got to get the run game together. We've been talking about this all season. Yeah, I mean I don't know what it is and how the run games finally got going. I think maybe stand back's one of those backs that needs a good amount of touches in order to really make his impact and really break down a defense and you see he gets 20 carries in this game and really gets back to that William stand back we had a couple of years ago when he was averaging six yards per carry and really was, I think he was the runup for the MOP that year. So I think he's a guy that really can be an impact player. Definitely has way more left in the tank than I thought at the beginning of the season. I thought that Montreal was pretty justified in moving on from him. I thought that Walter Fletcher kind of fit their offense better at this point because Montreal kind of running that west coast style of offense, throwing to the running back a bit more and stand back, it's never really his forte. So I had some questions about his fit and BC but I think now that I've seen this in action and seeing it develop throughout the season, I think you're starting to see it make a huge impact for this team and despite BC's offensive line not really being the best the last month or so, I think that the pass protection has definitely not been the best since Nathan R's return but regardless, the Playmakers are still getting it done, especially stand back in the backfield. Yeah, you look here and I'm just looking at the receivers, right? Obviously Alexander Hol continuing kind of the lead that but really well distributed their ride and like you said before, you see stand back in there getting receiving yards as well, but really no standout in that it's just kind of death by a thousand cuts for Nathan. It just feels like he could distribute it better that way. Ride he's not locked in, okay, this is my guy. I think we get that sometimes. I don't know with Ottawa, I've criticized our wide receiver room and you're higher on it than I am, but okay, we got one guy, we're going to whatever. We saw that with the jets last night and going to Garrett Wilson over and over again trying to make that happen. It just seems to me like Nathan just has a myriad of options here, can kind of distribute how he wants to, am I kind of correct in how I'm looking at that? No, absolutely. I think it's very different in the CFL compared to the NFL. I think the NFL, you can have that one receiver that you base the majority of your game plan around. I think in the CFL you really do need four receivers operating at a high level in order to have a very good passing offense and I think BC has that. Obviously Hollins has had a couple of rough weeks before this, so it's good to see him have a good game because he's kind of been a little bit up and down, had a scorching start to the season where I thought that he could be the best receiver in the CFL this season. So good to see him have a good game, but McInnis obviously continuing his great season, Heon Hatcher getting into the mix more. Obviously he came off the injury last year so it's good to see him starting to get more and more into the fold as the season goes along. So that's a three-headed monster right there. And then any given week if one of these guys like Jevon KA Toy or Aiden Ahart can really step up and then be a difference maker, I think that's huge and really necessary in the CFL game to have success throwing the ball on a weekly basis. Looking here at Montreal, Cody fine. I mean I thought he was making plays with this. We always see that kind of running around takeaways from that, do you credit BC's defense or Montreal putting up 23 points but not nearly obviously enough to win but not maybe as much as they were accustomed to either? Yeah, so this goes back to my point about Montreal being more of like a west coast style offense. You look at the amount of carries that they gave Walter Fletcher in this game and you compare it to the box scores that they've had in previous weeks, they're not a team that gives a lot of carries to their running backs and what they do is they throw the ball more to the running backs to subsidize that and you look at Fletcher with eight catches, so maybe if one critique about Montreal is that maybe they don't run the ball as much as they could, but honestly I don't have much critique with Montreal given the fact that they're still 10 and two at this point of the season. And as we saw with Toronto last year, the CFO is not kind to these juggernaut regular season teams. Usually those are the teams that fall flat in the playoffs, look at Winnipeg a couple of years ago against Toronto in the Great Cup. So I think it's good to lose a couple of games along the way in a way. So I'm really interested to see how the rest of their season goes, but I'm not overly concerned with them yet. One thing I would say that could be a problem area for them right now is the receiving corps injuries. Austin Mack who just got back from the NFL immediately gets injured unfortunately on the six game injured list. That's very unfortunate. And then JA and Phil Tyson Philpot, he has been injured the last several weeks, so the receiving core is not what it was a few weeks ago or at the beginning of the season and hopefully that can get healthy down the stretch for them, but like I said, not overly concerned about this team and they lost to a really good lions team. Well and that's the thing, and like you said, with this hot and cold with the lions, you just got to keep it up here, right? You're going into Toronto's coming in next weekend, right? You're going to be back at home, show up. Toronto is really on the ropes right now. We'll talk about their game next and let's let Matthew bet feast on some Chad Kelly and let's hopefully continue. I don't know if it's a downward spiral of Chad Kelly and it's certainly interesting we were talking about the Toronto of it all and I don't think people are super high on them right now, just give kind of all that stuff off the field. But yeah, no, nothing like you said, nothing. Don't take anything away from Montreal Gloucester really good team. I just left here really wanting to see this game again, whether in the Gray Cup or whatever, but just really exciting to see two teams kind of ascending and with Rourke finally kind of getting back to him. We thought all of this and it was funny, I think someone posted on Twitter, I don't know if it was the CFL read it or whatever, but you had the Austin three 16, that was the shirt he wore for a long time and I don't know if you're a wrestler but a wrestling fan but was they talk about John three 16, Austin three 16, so that just whipped your ass and that was his saying and they need to make a rourke shirt that says Rourke 31 6 and then say, Hey, thanks Farhan. That's all I have to say, but good to get back to football. Any other takeaways from this game? No, I'm just trying to think of this team. These two teams have played twice this season. I think they may actually be playing again this regular season coming up, but I agree this would be a great, great cup matchup. Obviously we're both going to be there. I think I would be more than happy with this matchup probably the happiest of any possible matchup going into the gray cup this season. There you go. Week 20, that'll be a big one. Could be in contention there for trying to get first in the west or snap that the other thing. Yeah, I saw the tweet last night and I got the email today. The gun medal jersey is coming back to pre-order. I'm torn. I don't want to be like a mark and like, oh, I got to get the Nathan Rourke, whatever. Are we excited? The gun medal jerseys are back and I wish we could do some other, maybe you can do the customizations of the other ones. I didn't really look, but I don't know. That feels like so basic to get a Nathan Roarke, gunmetal jersey right now. Yeah, I am just doing a quick Google search of what these look like. I got to remind Myself they're just showing. Well yeah, because you got to look at the ones from the past. They're just showing. But it is funny, they brought Nathan Roarke back and they're like, well you've been asking for these. We're going to sell. We got to pay for that marketing budget. We got to start printing some jerseys. But I think that's cool. I think people have been asking for 'em. I wish I was on a list, maybe a Donny and doll or whatever that we could get some jerseys. I don't think we're quite at that level. I told Baker that at one point when they came out with the blackout and the fog ones and I said my goal is to be in a list someday where I'm included in that, where I get sent to jerseys to show off. But I don't know, I think it's cool. I think people like that. I'm excited. People have been asking for 'em. They were going to wear 'em against Toronto and it's the 17th anniversary. I mean a lot of big stuff here. Coming up with the game on Friday Am always happy when teams bring New Jersey to the fold. I think there's no really harm in it. I think that, like you said, it can boost merchandise sales. I think that's an important thing for a club. I think just to get some renewed interest in the brand. I think even though BC has changed their jerseys a few times in recent years, I think that a specialist in Jersey like this can't hurt. But I'm not too enthused by the jersey itself. I think that I prefer the way Jersey that they have right now as a gray uniform. I'm not a huge fan of the Hamilton's gray uniform, the made in the hammer jerseys. I know a lot of people like them, but I'm not a huge fan of those. I just prefer the regular, but I think ultimately, yeah, I think it's harmless to experiment with New jerseys every now and then. I'll tell you those still, those Edmonton ones are so fire. I love those. I was watching the game today with the Calgary. I mean it just really, really hot jerseys. Let's move on here. This was, so again, this is one of the things I see the score and because I had a wedding, I had a destination wedding on Saturday. I had to get up early, drive out there and then spend the night and I'm seeing the score. This very nearly could have been 50 or what was it, 48 to 20 where if, what's his name? What the hell is his name? Oh, I'm totally spacing. The guy that played for the lions. Who the heck is Dominic Rimes If Dom Rimes hadn't dropped the ball with the one yard line, got it punched out. This is very nearly like a 50 burger by Ottawa. This Chad Kelly is Chad Kelly washed. I mean I to put in the group chat, Chad Kelly, more like Ask Kelly. I mean this is just horrendous. Well, I like to think that it's kind of like a karma thing. You see how Deshaun Watson's playing in the NFL and just, I don't know Deshaun Watson. The thing with him is he had the year off in between and when he came back I wasn't expecting him to light the world on fire, but maybe by now you would've expected Deshaun Watson to kind of be back a little bit to the player he used to be, but it just hasn't been the case. So maybe we're seeing a similar thing develop here with Kelly, but I mean I think there's still enough good stuff here. Just seeing him in person on Labor Day. He definitely had some off plays. There was one that he ran into the back of his own offensive lineman. He basically did the butt fumble without doing the butt, the fumble. But I think ultimately the interceptions are concerning. A couple of them weren't his fault in this one. Obviously the deflections, but sometimes those are on the quarterback as well just being off target throws that get popped up into the air. So I don't think he's completely washed or anything like that. I think we definitely need a better sample size or bigger sample size going down the stretch here. But it's definitely different vibe from what we saw last year with them when he was just, nothing was going against him last year. There was no adversity faced throughout the entire season. I believe he was 15 and oh in the regular season last year as a starter or something like that. Something insane like that Because then they ended up pulling him. Once they clinched, they pulled him and then we had that whole debate. Yeah, he was, yes, very. I don't think he had lost yet in the regular season. So it's like he's already faced so much more adversity in these first three starts coming back. So we'll have to see how he responds from that. Obviously as illustrated not to be the most mature guy in the world. So we'll see how he deals with that down the stretch. But the Argos, I think one concern I would say with them is their offensive line compared to last year, the offensive line was ridiculously good last year. I think they allowed 13 sacks in the games that Che Kelly started last regular season. They've already allowed 10 in three games. I forget who tweeted that, but that was one stat that really popped out to me. So that's definitely a concern going forward because having that elite level protection is definitely not a given in today's CFL. It was just really a comedy of errors where say for the Dominic Rimes kind of punch out there at the end zone. It was every time Chad threw the ball went up, Ottawa got it where there were fumbles, Ottawa got it, Ottawa would fumble, they would hop back on it. It was like anything in the world that could go went right for Ottawa for the most part and then everything that could go wrong where we saw this last week and Chad just finally gets to a point and he's just kind of running through guys and trying to push and trying to press and throw the ball down the field, like you said, getting into these deflections or it pops the hands and goes out, did someone else grabs it. It just felt like anything in the world that could have gone right for Ottawa for the most part did and everything for Toronto Ottawa, right, undefeated at home this year, which is insane because I think it was even as early as last season, they were on the home where they had one at home and two years or whatever. They were part of that with Edmonton and what the turnaround for them. I mean like I said, I didn't for years I've thought what is their Ottawa Red Blacks identity? What is it like to be a fan? What is their shoot? Man? They were flying around the field jumping on balls, tackling guys just black, kind of running around black uniforms. It felt really cool. It felt like years ago when I turned on, it was the first Montreal game that I saw and their defense was insane and you had the Sewells of the world and they're tackling guys and pounding guys like man, okay, Montreal, they're really hard hitting defense. That's where they're going to go. I just felt like Ottawa was all over the field. It felt like they were scooping up everything. Just really exciting team to watch where Ottawa has really not been excited at all to watch the last couple years. Yeah, you're right. I think the energy with this team is very apparent when you look at it on a week to week basis, they're playing extremely hard for their coach. I think that the defense is hitting really hard. I think they're forcing turnovers, which is always a great combination to winning football games no matter what their offense is doing and their offense has been in general taking care of the ball this season, improved quarterback play from what we've seen the past couple of years with them, all of it adds up to being, what is it, an eight three and one football team right now? Pretty impressive by the Red Blacks. I think one thing that I would hope for them is for them to have one good home game without rain. I was talking to Evan, who was actually in Ottawa this weekend was saying that he was saying there was rain in the forecast and it did rain a bit during the broadcast I was hearing. So hopefully they have some good weather home games on the horizon so they can enjoy this great football team they have right now. In terms of, I'm just trying to look here and compare, obviously Drew Brown and all this, I mean this Chad Kelly line is insane. 36 to 56, 463 yards. Obviously throwing all the interceptions, but it's not like they were moving the ball. It's not like they weren't trying, I don't know. I saw the afterward at the end of the game, Bob Dice Shaken, did Wendy's Hands and Bob Dice Coach of the Year for me right now. I don't know if you disagree with that, but I don't know. I don't know what trying does here. Obviously once you get behind and you can't run the ball and we see all that, but I mean six intense for Jack Kelly is pretty insane stat line to see. Yeah, especially when you have a really good running back in Kadeem Care, you'd think you'd want to give him the ball a little bit more. But like you said, the game script kind of dictated being down that many points in the first half. What were they down 31 to three at half halftime. So yeah, you really had to throw the ball at that point and the fact that he kept on throwing pick sixes got them right back on the field for even more pass attempts. So 56 passes is way too many passes for any quarterback to be throwing in a CFL game. I think the sweet spot is around that 30 to 35 attempt mark. I think that's really an ideal thing if you want to have balance on offense. So I think ultimately I think the Argos, not all hope is lost with them. I think that Chad Kelly, he's still moving the ball. Like he said, I think they still have enough playmakers on that side of the ball to be competent and I think there was a couple of passes. There was one to Dam coy that he just missed that would've went for a touchdown. So I mean if they clean stuff like that up and especially the turnovers, I think they have a chance to turn it around. But I think this week is going to be a huge test for them on Friday night going into bc. Traditionally east teams do not travel well to BC place, so we'll see how they show up in that one. We got Blake checking in here saying, how's it going? Long time, no talk. And he's chatting in with you asking me when am I going to BC again? I might be going to that. I'm just looking at my schedule and I want to make sure that I have this. Where is the, did I look at that wrong? I don't know. That's Saturday, October 19th, Montreal at bc. I could be there. I could be there. That seems easy fun. Do an early flight up games at four. I think that would be fun better than the Friday night drive we did last year. That took like four and a half hours and we got to the hotel literally as kickoff was happening. Luckily it was across the street from BC place, so we just threw our bag on the bed and just ran across the street. But that might be a little bit easier, but I just put that on my calendar. October 19th, that could be big time game here. Calgary is going to be at Seattle playing the Kraken, but we might be going up there to bc. We'll see. In terms of like we said, the defense theywe here, two interceptions, both of those pick sixes for the Red Blacks. I mean he just had an insane game. That was the first time in franchise history actually that a red black player has returned two interceptions for a touchdown in the same game. And I think that's one of only eight players in CFL history to accomplish that. So pretty rarefied air. Heck yeah for him. Anything else on this one? Like I said to me, Bob Dice, do we do Coach of the year in the CFL, right? Would you put Bob Dice on there right now? I think you kind have to have him as the favorite right now, just given the baggage that this team has had the last several years. I think that's usually what the coach of the year goes to in sports. You look at the NHL for example, it's always the team that's the most surprising, that overachieve the most in the people's eyes. That usually wins that award. And I would say Bob Dice is definitely the favorite right now. All right, anything else on this one? No, I think let's move on to the other two. We've seen this before, Saskatchewan Star hot downward Spiral, lost the Labor Day classic, lost the Banjo Bowl, Winnipeg top of the west here. It's like they never left. Thoughts on this one. Obviously it's not the same team when you had Coach, but we've seen this script from Saskatchewan the last couple seasons. Okay, so first of all, I think these two games between Saskatchewan and Winnipeg, the Labor Day game as well as the Banjo Bowl, both great games came down to The Wire, both of them. So no complaints from that standpoint as a neutral fan watching them. But just seeing Saskatchewan struggle like this and they haven't had a win since, I believe it's July 10th or something like that. They've really collapsed down the stretch here and we haven't even really hit the true stretch run of the CFL season yet. So maybe they turn it around and they end that cold spell unlike the last couple of years. So maybe there's still hope for them. I think Trevor Harris is playing pretty well for them despite the two interceptions. I thought he played pretty well in this game and played really well on Labor Day. So that's a bright spot for them. I think their receiving core has been really good, but I don't know what to point to with Saskatchewan. They're just not making the plays right at the end of the games to ultimately win. I think maybe discipline has something to do with it. Maybe they're just running into the wrong team on the wrong week. Maybe if they had won that game against Ottawa that ended up in a tie, things could have been a little bit different for them. But it's just tough to see them falter week after week just given the fact that they are a better team than what the record shows right now. In my opinion. Trevor Harris looked pissed. I mean just looked really upset. You figure Winnipeg comes in to your home last week wins, you go to Winnipeg lose. He did not look happy. Cory Mason didn't look happy, obviously. Just disappointment. I mean it's not like there's any craziness in that, but yeah, you knew it wasn't sustainable when they started the season. What was it, six and oh or whatever. You knew that wasn't sustainable and obviously they were going to face some adversity, but it's really come tumbling now in here. And Winnipeg Calleros looks like he never left really efficient here. 24 31, we saw the St. Strep injury. Do we know how long he's out for? Where was it? James is saying that they were saying Jeff Hamilton, friend of the show love Jeff, that they might have Cornelius come back because of the injury, the Streiber. Is he out for the long term? I hadn't seen that yet. I haven't seen an update on the injury, but it looked very serious. Looked bad. Yeah, it looked really, really bad. I don't think people are going to agree with me necessarily, but I don't necessarily think it was the most dirty hit in the world. I think that during that shorty Yarded situation, I think sometimes that just happens. You're just really trying to do anything to kind of stop the forward momentum of the ball carrier. So unfortunately it was Miles Brown who's been, he's the guy that injured Drew Brown earlier this season and he's the guy that didn't headbutt but made head contact with Zach Claris the week before on Labor Day. So it's unfortunate that he was involved yet again, but I don't think this particular hit was necessarily a dirty one. Hopefully St. Strubler can return at some point this season. Wish him all the best. I think he's in all accounts a good guy. I think that it's really cool that he came back to the CFL just given what he went through in the NFL, just bouncing around a little bit down there and staying down there for a bit. So I wish him all the best, but I think at the end of the day it's tough to see 'em like that. But I think Saskatchewan, it's unfortunate that they're the team that always keeps getting wrapped up in these kind of dirty hit incidents. Obviously the Garrett Marino thing a couple years ago, don't want to rehash that too much, but just unfortunately that it always seems to be them that kind become the target of this and they kind of have to try to defend their players. Well, speaking of, Evan had just posted this in our group chat, we have some breaking news Reer, this is from his Instagram or his social media Torah, three ligament tears in the Banjo Bowl. So it sounds like this just came out, Evan just posted this three down, so certainly not good for him. So yeah, maybe it's corn dog, maybe it's someone else. It certainly doesn't look like he's going to be playing anytime soon. Thank you to everyone. He's reached out over the last couple of days, especially my teammates just stinks. Like you said, he comes back, it's the big, oh my gosh, the hero return and we have the social media posts, right, with the cowboy hat and the jacket or whatever and shovelers coming back. But I agree, I saw, I didn't feel like it was that dirty. I feel like the short yardage in the CFL is so set up for the offense anyway with the yard off the ball and all that, it's damn near impossible. Like you said, you're just doing anything in the world to try to stop that. It was kind of like Philadelphia with the tush push where if you're the defense, you're anything in the world you can do in lunging and jumping and diving and whatever to kind of stop that thoughts on reer here, probably out for the season, right? Got to be not good. Yeah, that's terrible to hear. I mean anytime you're talking about knee ligament damage, I think you're talking about months, not weeks in terms of recovery. So all the best to him and his recovery, hope to see him back in the CFL next season. In terms of what they could do in terms of the backup quarterback situation, the short yardage quarterback position, Taylor Cornelius is not the worst option in terms of that. I think that he was very poorly utilized. I thought he really should have been used as the shorty yardage guy from the very beginning of the time he got there because that's what you want in Shorty Yards is a bigger guy that has that reach and the ability to get across the first down marker. So I think he could be effective if they bring him in that capacity. I'm kind of shocked that he wasn't brought in by any CFL team this off season. I just thought somebody would fall in love with the physical tools. But I guess the game take was just really that bad from his time with Edmonton. But yeah, I don't think it would be the worst move. So it would be interesting to see what they do in terms of that shorty yardage quarterback situation. Well yeah, because what they always say, oh Cornelius, he's just so big. He's just so tall, he's just so, and you're like, yeah, but he's not like, okay, so let's sign all these receivers to half million dollar deals or whatever the heck it was. Was it Kenny? Wait, wasn't he there? Who was the guy there with the two years ago? Yeah, let's bring him in for 400 grand and have, it's like park in the Ferrari in front of a trailer park. It's just not going to work out. So anyway, back to this Claros looking good. This is just like a Winnipeg game, nothing really outstanding. Avera got some yards. Lucky Whitehead doing a little bit. They win the defense. They had the blocked pun on that right returned that was part of it. A couple different swings that way, but Winnipeg does just enough and they're not going to give up the ball too often. And any other takeaway from that? I mean it just felt like this is your standard Winnipeg win and really seemed to be in control for most of it. Yeah, it's just a classic Winnipeg, the way that they've been playing the last month. I think they've won five in a row now. It's been really special to see them turn their season around. I kind of left them for dead. I thought maybe they can get it together and make the playoffs, but it looks like they're going to be charging their way to the top of the West division once again. So we'll have to see how that plays out down the stretch. But I think the aspects of their team that are playing really well right now, I think their defense has been really good for the last two months or so. I think we've talked about that on previous shows. I think Brady Oliveira is starting to look like even though he didn't have the biggest game rushing the ball in this one, he's starting to look like MOP Brady Oliveira from last year. So I think he's really the straw that stirs the drink for them. The passing game is still not as explosive as I would've liked to see compared to previous seasons. So that's something to keep an eye on. Does that really get on lockdown? The stretch? Obviously Dalton shone is not coming back, so that's a huge part they're missing from previous seasons, but Kenny Lawler's now back, he's getting more built into the offense again. So I think in the coming weeks I'd like to see that more from them. But I think Zach, if he could play even at this level, they're a team that can win the Great Cup. They just really need to avoid the turnovers. Zach Lars actually leading the league in interception this season. I do believe so. I think, like you said, Blake says seven touchdowns, 13 interceptions on the year. It's not going to get it done most of the time, but with the way that the other aspects of that team are playing right now, I wouldn't count them out in terms of winning the gray Cup. Not at all. It just stinks because right BC lost the tiebreaker to win the peg. I think that's going to come back to bite, right? And so it's just one of the, I don't know. We'll see. All you can do is play the schedule you have with Mariners right now. We've lost a lot of games and if we had won, we'd be in a totally different situation. So all you can do is play the schedule in front of you and you can't look back too much. But really disappointed with that. Saskatchewan here still third Edmonton, and we're going to talk about them next year. Obviously gaining steam, would you put a fork in Saskatchewan? Do you think they can rebound here? I mean they're still in the playoffs spot right now. If the season ended Well, technically, I don't think you could really put a fork in anybody except for maybe Hamilton right now. I think even Calgary, if Calgary somehow finds a way to win two games in a row, they're in the conversation as well. I mean apparently they're going back to Jake Mayer. I was reading that just before we got on here, but I think Saskatchewan, you definitely can't leave them dead in the water yet. I think that the tie that they got against Ottawa could come into play here and could ultimately be the reason that they sneak into the playoffs. Realistically, I think most teams that make the playoffs, if you can just get to eight wins, almost nobody misses the playoffs with eight wins in the CFL. So I think if Saskatchewan could win three of their last five games, I think they have a very good shot of getting in. Maybe even if they win two and they get some luck here from Edmonton cooling off a bit and no other team really heating up down the stretch. So I wouldn't count Saskatchewan out just yet, but I think just the way that they finished the last couple of seasons, it's really is got to be a scary feeling if you're a rough riders fan because here we go again, right? Yeah, I was just watching today and was it, I think it was Pat McAfee and the Panthers. Carolina Panthers are horrible and you wait the entire off season and then you come in and your team is just absolute garbage and the commander's lost and obviously, but we are kind of rebuilding, right? We got Jay Daniels coming in, we're kind of like, okay, let's figure this out. You look at the Panthers, it's like a total dumpster fire. And this thing with Saskatchewan, like you said last couple seasons, super disappointing. You get Corey Mason there, you come in, we're showing, oh my God, we're undefeated, we're doing all this stuff. And then really just crashing and burning. Like you said, they haven't won a game forever. Super disappointing. But Calgary hanging in here, I don't know for how much longer I want to talk about this and this game. This was the Edmonton Invitational here. I think Logan Bonner and Chad Kelly could probably, I mean could be friends here with the amount of interceptions. Not a great start. I guess first off, thoughts of, I don't know if that was official when we recorded the last time, but thoughts on the mayor benching. We're putting Logan in, we're running with him now you're reading, they're going back to him, but the initial thoughts on that of, okay, we're sitting Jake, we're trying something else. Yeah, well in the vacuum, I definitely agree with the decision to bench mayor originally, I think that he just wasn't getting it done. I think you saw the ceiling there. He didn't really, even though statistically he was having an okay season, I think he's at somewhere around like 15 touchdowns, 11 picks just nothing special. And he's had good games, but he's also had some really bad games as well. So I think you just saw that plateau with him. So I think you kind of got the feeling that he really wasn't the guy going forward and they really needed a spark. Nothing really is going well for this team. So I don't think it's all on Jake Mayer with how he's played this year, but I think they needed to make a change at this point of the season. The problem was I don't think they really had anybody to go to, and I don't think Matthew Schultz is the answer either. Just saying as a Tcaps fan that has seen in the last couple of years, I bought into the Schultz hype at certain points. But the one thing with him is he always gets injured. It's just you can count on it every single time. Every time that he's gotten a chance to start two or three consecutive games in the CFL, he just always finds a way to take a big hit. He always holds onto the ball too long and takes a big hit in the pocket. So I don't think he's the answer for more than the game or two if they decide to go that route. But I think for them, unfortunately, they're kind of stuck waiting for the off season to address this quarterback situation. Maybe they're the team that gets Vernon Adams Jr. I mean looking ahead to the off season, maybe they're the team that really needs Vernon Adams Jr to come in here and it should be interesting to see what they do at that quarterback position during the off season. But for right now, I would say that they're pretty screwed. That was going to be my follow up question was yeah, I've seen that already. They just need to bet the farm and whatever it takes to get Vernon and just unload whatever we have. John Burns here screaming Labor Day Monday at Calgary, not this game, but Labor Day Monday at Calgary had 18 yards rushing in the entire game. It's the focus of what they call not Jake Mayer. Thoughts on that comment? Yeah, I agree. They haven't given him the best support. I think one thing that people don't really talk about with this team is the injury to Malik Henry the past couple of seasons, two season ending injuries this year, he didn't even get on the field at all last year. He played, I think three or four games before having a season ending injury. He was their best receiver two years ago when Jake Mayer took hold of the starting job in Calgary. So that is a huge part of that offense that's missing. And they've never really been able to truly replace that. And that's something that Calgary has traditionally been very good at over the years is replacing these skill position players that have left to go elsewhere in free agency. So I think that they definitely need to support the quarterback position better if they want to have success going forward. I think that with mayor, he's one of those guys that really is the victim of his circumstances as well. I think that he is a guy that if you give him the right pieces, I think you can have a solid team. I think what a couple of years ago, even though he only took over midway through the season, they did have 12 wins with him as the starter. So I think he can have success in this league and be like the sixth best quarterback on a yearly basis in the CFL. But again, as I've said a few months ago, when talking on this very show, where's that going to get you in a nine team league when you really need to be able to outdo these great quarterbacks in those big games. And I don't think mayor is really capable of doing that on a consistent basis. Logan Bonner was awful. I, and I know that first star and everything, and obviously then you're down by a million and you're pressing, and I can't even remember who the announcers were of the game, but it was right at the end it was like the last play of thing and he throws it up at the end. So I don't know if it was done again, whoever's like that's a pig, it just lands in the end zone. There's four Elks defenders and then whoever the hell he was trying to throw, just run it out. Just get it done. I mean obviously at that point it doesn't matter, you're just trying to do anything. But they knew that the second they went up, that's an interception. Speaking of quarterback, I don't know if we're going to have a quarterback controversy here, right? But Trey Ford coming back, right? I think Dave Campbell was the one I think first saw it, put that out. Him coming back from injury, McLeod was four in one, I believe with his stead here and kind of whatever. McLeod was good, had the one really bad interception I saw where he dropped back too far and was trying to get it out and it goes in the other way. But thoughts on that with McLeod here and Trey Ford and I mean another good win for the Elks, do you risk going back to Ford or do you keep riding with what you have? What's your thoughts on that? I think that you definitely go with Trey Ford going forward. I think he's the guy that provided the spark to your season when you were an Owen seven football team. I think ultimately he should get the first shot. He shouldn't have lost the job due to injury. So I think they're doing the right thing, giving him the reins back, but ultimately this is a good problem to have. Having two quarterbacks, even though they're completely different styles playing at a high level right now. I think look at this matchup with Calgary. They have two quarterbacks that are playing better than any of Calgary's quarterbacks. So I think that's a great sign for them going forward. We've seen quarterback injuries happen countlessly this year in the CFL, so who's to say it couldn't happen again? Trey four may go down again. McLeod may have to come back in or Trey Ford may struggle in these back-to-back games they have coming up against Winnipeg. Maybe you can go back in the cloud. So it's a good problem to have and especially with them being two different styles of quarterback, it definitely gives the defense a different look out there. So I'm really interested to see what they do going forward, but I do think they're making the right move. Going back to Ford Man, exciting team to watch right now. Hadn't been the case for a while. And like you said, even with McLeod it's still exciting moving the ball. Like you said, they have to trade forward with that spark, but I mean this doesn't look like the same team a few weeks ago. I mean it is exciting. And in Calgary, I guess it's a coin flip Calgary or Hamilton worst team in the league right now. That is a tough question right now because these two teams haven't played since week one, but I would say Calgary right now is looking worse. Just maybe it's recency bias. And Hamilton was on the buy this week, so I didn't get to see them lose, but the last time I saw the TCATs play, they looked pretty damn good on Labor Day. So maybe they have another late season run left in them. But yeah, I would go with Calgary as the worst team in the league right now and we haven't been able to see that for a very, very long time in the CFL. Yeah, Kevin Brown looking good here. Eugene Lewis doing his thing. Curly GIS Jr. Had a couple of big grabs on that. I don't know, I like McLeod, it wasn't against him. Obviously you want to give the reins back to Reforward for the long term, but I don't know, I guess, what was it, $550,000 worth paid here to keep them alive. Was that with a rib injury? Yeah, I think it was around that salary. It's really impressive to see what they've been able to do. I think a lot of credit has to go to that coaching staff obviously because obviously they haven't changed a whole lot in terms of the players during the middle of the season here after the fire of Chris Jones. So I think a lot of it has to do with the mentality and just the ability to keep that locker room together because this team definitely could have quit after that oh one seven start to the season, but they scraped some wins together. They showed that they had some promise earlier in the season where they were losing these close games just not going their way and now those games are starting to go their way. And I think one of the things that surprised me the most about them is their defense. I think that their defense started out as predicted pretty bad, but I think when you start to look at the pieces that are starting to develop a good mixture of veterans in that defense with those younger players that are starting to emerge. So I've been really impressed with them on that side of the ball. They're at least competent there and I think on offense you could even say they're a pretty good offense right now with the way they're playing some really good pieces. I mean when you look at the receiving corps on paper, if those guys all get going, you got Eugene Lewis, Curley Gits Jr. Her Jim A is having a great year out of nowhere. I thought he was destined to be retired pretty soon. I thought he was going to fall the league. He's had a great season out of nowhere. So I think it's just tremendous what the Elks have been able to do and I think the most important thing to see there is the attendance go back up I think to see, even though they closed the upper bowl this year to see the lower bowl is packed as it was or relatively speaking packed as it was for that game, it was a great sight to see. No, I agree with that. I was going to say, speaking of unexpected raindrops has started falling here. I had this excellent umbrella. I here what's going on? No, just really excited. But to be fair, Edmonton dealers really good. You or I could probably pick off Logan Bonner as well. I think we can probably get another interception or two off of bat here real quick and then we'll look at the schedule. Get out here. John Lewis just checking in a big expansion talk. I saw John Lewis just had a UFL expansion video on his YouTube channel trying to milk as many of those. John, it's the summer, just the CFL or bus right now. Go watch baseball, go watch whatever hockey's picking back up. We'll see John Lewis checking in here. I always appreciate that. Let's look here. I'm too far ahead here. I was looking forward to whatever, so three games this weekend. We'll figure out Toronto at bc. We've talked a little bit about that BC homecoming wearing the gun, Meow Grays and all of that stuff. Ottawa here coming into Hamilton and then Montreal. I don't know, this could be a couple of blowouts one way or another. What's your thoughts on these three games because Montreal could put up 50 points on Calgary and hold them to about six. Well I think the theme of this season has been the parody starting to show up again in the C ffo. I think the last couple of years, the last two years in particular, there wasn't any changes to the standings. We were talking about that at the end of last year that no team had changed their spot in the standings. I think you've seen this year the bottom teams get closer to the top tier teams, even Calgary earlier this season. If you think back, they went into Montreal and they had a big halftime lead and then they completely blew it. So I think that if they can replicate the start of that first half in this game, I think maybe they can give Montreal a game. I think they've actually played substantially better at home this year than they have on the road. Don't believe Calgary has a road win this year, but I believe they have a winning record at home. So I think they may have a chance to keep it close in that one. I'd have to see the line, but maybe if it was a crazy spread I might take Calgary with the points in that one. So yeah, I think that game could be interesting. Ottawa and Hamilton al be at that game. That is a game that's actually going to be televised on CTV, which is a new thing that started last week with the Banjo Bowl. So I think that's a great thing for the CFL that we didn't touch on earlier. So I think that should be a good game, Ottawa with a chance to clinch the playoffs like you said earlier. And then I think the Toronto BC game is the one I'm looking forward to the most because does Chad Kelly have that bounce back and does Nathan Rourke continue his ascension the last few weeks? So I'm really looking forward to that game. I'll be catching up on the Friday. We have SmackDown here on Friday or earlier in the day, so we'll be doing the SmackDown. I got to get up, I got to order my iPhone 16, busy day Friday. I think Dorothy has a reunion for her school, which boys are not invited to. Girls only school. Always interesting when you're 40 years old and we still have like, well this is the girls school reunion. Okay, yeah, people are married with kids. Blake here, five and two at home, oh and six on the road. I believe that's for Calgary. So yeah, doing well with that. Yeah, but this Toronto BC game should be exciting and then we'll see Ottawa, like we said, coming in here, a big head of steam and I don't know, I was very, I know it's just one game and you can't take too much, but I just thought Audible looks great. I thought that was exciting and just really feels like they have a lot of momentum there Jason. I appreciate it. Oh yes, and then the CTV thing. Yeah, it looked cool. Highlights looked like they had a lot more camera angles and things. Just looked like there was a lot more technology involved in that. I assume that was part of the CTV thing. Yeah, I'm not too sure about that. I just assumed that they just ported the TSN broadcast to that I think because they're owned by the same parent company. But I think it's just great that they're on a bigger network. I think CTV is the most watched network in Canada on average. So I think that's great for the CFL just to get on a bigger stage and I believe the Great Cup's going to be on there as well as some playoff games this year. Well, it'd be exciting, Jason. I appreciate it. We'll figure out next week. But like I said, like and subscribe. We'll see everybody full steam ahead here. I was about ready to throw my VC lions hat in the garbage again and then maybe we don't have to do that anymore. So we'll see Jason and I appreciate it. We'll see everyone next time. Thanks.

CFL Labour Day Weekend Results! Winners and Losers From CFL Week 13!

Well here we are back again, at least for the time being. I think looking at the schedule here, I think we might be able to do this for a couple Mondays in some form or fashion here. Reed Mark Cast here. Welcome to the show. Please like and subscribe. Jason Hussey is under the weather today. I think that might be Canadian for hungover. I think Jason was at the Hammer watching a thrilling tie. Kats Argonauts game. We'll talk about that. Andrew Murray is logging in here. Let me get through a couple of things. I have a joke for Andy before I pull him on, like I said like and subscribe back here. It's been really kind of a whirlwind the last couple of weeks I had to go back to Texas and then Boston for work and then went to, now I got to go to Vegas here in October, but I think for a couple weeks here, Monday night football start next week, but we will figure out I think the four o'clock and then lead you into that. Then you can flip over to Troy and Buck and all of that and watch that. Let's bring in to Professor Andy Murray. Andy, I thought you were going to pull Nathan Rourke and not fulfill your media obligations today. Andy filling in here for Jason Hussey. How are you doing sir? Great man. It's so good to see you. I haven't been on since before the season started, if I'm not mistaken. It's really, Dorothy was even nasty about stuff over the weekend. I'm like, time is nebulous right now. It was five nights on the road was very exciting back here. I'm caught up on everything. I have a lot of Nathan work and all of that to talk about. I said we hope Jason feels better. Like I said, he was hanging out at the hammer. I imagine that has part to do with the upset stomach today, but obviously we hope he feels better. Andy, first off, how the heck are you and how's life and how are you enjoying the CFL season? I mean the Labor Day era CFL doesn't start until Labor Day weekend, but this was a really thrilling weekend to football, but what have you thought so far of everything? This has been a really, really good season. I obviously made my side trip to Edmonton and that's kind of started the new era, honestly. Well, I thought to be the new era, the forward era. However, Edmonton's fortunes have been vastly improved since that game happened. The season itself has been just a rollercoaster. I mean obviously we'll get into your team later, but this has been a really just delightful season to watch from every week there being new storylines, different quarterbacks coming into the system, whether they were starting the season with their teams or not, injuries coaches being fired left and right on certain teams. It's been really interesting and honestly it's been probably the most parody that I can remember from watching the CFL in the past few years. So for me it's been a really good product to watch as far as entertainment value and even though not all of the players that I've wanted to see have been playing throughout the season, it's been very compelling to follow along with everything going on. I was thinking about it today. I was watching, I think it was the Calgary and I did put on my Edmonton, my EE hat here. I think I got this when they were the Edmonton football club or football team or whatever they called it, but got this one on today. I was watching that game. I agree with you. When I was reading Don Cat's article last week, I've been tracking everything. I've just been so, and trying to keep up with the group chat. I read everything but I'm like what is going on? But talking about TV ratings being up and obviously we'll get the ratings. I dunno if they came out today, I've been running around but for this weekend and not that we do a lot of TV rating news on here, but CFL is hot right now, right? It feels hot Ratings are good. This is exciting quality of plays up. We have a lot of parody and I was sitting there watching that Calgary game. They've got the cowbells going and the air horns. I'm like a way to appeal to this younger demographic, get rid of some of that stuff. I think you could really market this as kind of a sexy product. I know we want to get the grandpas that are part of the stamped day is kind of in all this, but I thought, man, they're talking and it seems like three downs really high on the C. Everyone's really high and everything's going on, but you watch that and then you're like, this is, I think Rod Peterson calls it state fair football or whatever every once in a while. So I wish that they would because I love everything else and I think let's revamp the graphics or let's revamp the music, get rid of some of that stuff. I don't need to hear the cowbells in the stands. I don't need, and this isn't just Montreal, but they got get rid of some of that and let's spice it up a little bit. I do think let's ride this. The NFL is the biggest thing in the world, like sports in general. I was watching, what was it, the Special Olympics, whatever. I was watching the badminton guys going back. Everything seems on the height right now. I would just appreciate that, but that's me. Call me American. But that is what it's, I mean, would you prefer death by cowbell or death by air horn? Because that's basically the choice you get these days when it comes to crowd noise in the CFL. But I do like what I heard from the Saskatchewan Winnipeg game that seemed like a raucous environment and it obviously was the most sold out game in the history of that rivalry from the Saskatchewan standpoint in Mosaic Stadium and it seemed raucous the entire time. It seemed like it was very back and forth. There were a lot of Winnipeg fans, there were a lot of very just over their skis, Saskatchewan fans who were ready for this losing streak to end, which it didn't obviously, but we'll get into later. But I mean I think the energy level, the people, the thing that I kind of saw a little bit from some of the other leagues that we follow, for example, XFL 2020 or even some cases in the UFL where people who do show up I think do care. It's just a matter of getting a mixed audience. It's about getting other people involved. It's about getting other maybe gimmicks I guess you'd call on, I'm not sure if that's the right word, but getting more excitement from what's being presented. And like you said, I think there's a point you made last week or maybe it was the week before that I really resonated with, which was how the league's advertising goes about saying it really matters after Labor Day. What about all the weeks before that? How about the entire half season that happens before Labor Day? I think that is demonstratively important, especially with teams that like Edmonton starting off oh and seven and then somehow, somehow they're actually in the potential race to be in a wild card spot in the playoffs in the west division. Winnipeg being a complete zombie coming back from the dead in the last few weeks after they were horrible in the first month. I just think there needs to be more consciousness of that too, where it's just you can't just toss that way. Especially, let's think about this read, let's just started back up this past weekend that really distracted me from engaging with anything on Saturday. I think that the Victoria game was great, but college football's back, I mean college football's back in the fold. NFL is starting on Thursday. Your American audience is conscious with that CFL. Whatever attention span you had with it for the last 12 weeks is going out the window. It's going to be completely dissipated. You have to build up momentum and you have to find a way to build that momentum. I know we're American audience, I know it's about Canadians, but I'm just saying if you're thinking about bringing other people in, that's something you have to at least consider. Well, I mean save the college football. Did the guy eat the dog poop? That's what I need to know. I was explaining to do, I texted Paul, Paul formerly in the Mark House. I go, Paul, are you tracking this as closely as I am? I just need to know that I'm not one than that. But anyway, we'll get to everything today. Full laborer day weekend, a breakdown here. See FA week 13, like I said, like it subscribe, we'll give away. We can't do UFL tickets or anything anymore, so we do, we're doing the row retros. We'll do a CFL custom jersey and then UFL custom Jersey team if you want, whatever. We'll figure it out if we get too Canadian, but we'll do a couple of that if you want a, I don't know, maybe you one of Nathan Rourke BC Lions jersey or maybe you want whatever we've done, Doug Flutie ones in the past. We've done all that stuff and subscribe. I do think, like I said, we should be regular here for at least the next couple of weeks and then I'll figure out if I get whisked away on this. That really is, and the funny story and if anyone cares on the mark hat, but I do video production, wedding videography, corporate, all that stuff, and I had missed out on a bid that I had put in for the same thing last year for this year and it was going to be in Vegas and when they declined my bid, the went on and saw, we've corresponded a lot, but she was looking at my signature and I have the Mark cast Reed owner best made video SOA of the mark cast and she clicked that link, saw the YouTube channel and it's because of the mark cast that I get to fly over in the country now and do this podcast for the ceo. So at the end of the day, something actually came out of this save with anything else. Andy, do we want to do the Nathan? I feel like the Nathan work stuff's kind of dead, but I haven't had a chance to voice. I want to make sure you have a chance. Do we want to start with that and then we can do the Victoria game and roll through? Does that make sense? You're muted, Andy, you're muted. Sorry. Oh yeah, sorry. You wanted to start with the storyline, correct. The storyline that came out about him this past weekend? Yeah, because I have thoughts. I share some thoughts on Twitter and I got into some arguments with some people and that's fine. I mean I don't need, no one needs to agree with me or not, but I want to make sure I get some points out there. Obviously we saw Nathan R kind of, I don't know if it was Cold Shoulder or kind like Standoff Farhan a friend of the show. Without getting into details, I don't think that that sort of thing will be happening again, just all hot takes aside. I'm sure Rod was talking about it today and everything else, but I want to make sure we address that. Annie, do you have any thoughts on that? I'll get to my stuff. Like I said, I know it's kind of dead news here, it's Tuesday, but I want to make sure we at least touch on it. I mean I know it's a few days after the fact, but in the moment I was just surprised and a little bit disappointed that that was the immediate reaction that Roarke had when Farhan Lo was approaching him for the interview. Look, I know a lot of people I know for a fact don't particularly care for the media interviews. They don't care for the halftime stuff. They don't care for talking to coaches and players in the middle of a game. They think that's superfluous and it doesn't really matter. But the fact of the matter is you have to put the faces of your league out there one way or another. Whatever they say is whatever they say they've been coached up to say whatever it is. As a player of Nathan's pedigree, which is quite high, in fact the highest in the entire league, I think we could argue it's honestly incumbent of him to present himself in a way to the media that even if he doesn't like talking to them, at least shows that he understands that people want to hear from him because people do. He's getting paid a bunch of money. He got basically everything thrown at him last minute to come and save the lion's season. And especially considering that Farhan, who I think we respect tremendously, I have a lot of respect for him. You have a lot of respect for him, is not a guy who I think Should be a get you. He's not a got journalist like, Hey, Yeah, he shouldn't be put into the same category as some of these other media personalities who are just trying to interrupt you and just pull you in into their little dark circle. That's not what they are. And I think that's a sidebar here because I don't believe that Nathan thinks of him that way, but it certainly seems like that's how he's treating him and I don't think that's fair to Farhan, but especially just basically for lack of a better term, blowing off the interview and just basically running off with his teammates. I understand that Nathan is a very focused, very meticulous planner when it comes to his game strategy and being in tune with what's going on. He played tremendously well on Saturday, but the fact of the matter is he still has to put up an appearance. I mean he showed up in the booth. I know he was doing NFL stuff at the time, but he showed up in the booth for his team for the BC team a month ago and speculating about what it would be like to come back. And I think he still has to at least be somewhat presentable. I just think it came off and he may not have attended this, it came off, he was above all of it and quite frankly, he should not be presenting it that way because that not only disenfranchises yourself, I think it disenfranchises your team and I think it disenfranchises the league as a whole. That is an incredible product that you're trying to put out there and I think it was just disappointing. Again, I don't think that was his intended effect. I do believe he was just very in the moment, but he has to be a little bit more conscious of that stuff. Just even if you're zoned out for 30 seconds answering questions, just that's what you got to do. Yeah, just a couple things. Like I said, and I get all this, but this is the platform we get for all this stuff. It was the same thing. I think it was McLeod, was it two seasons ago where he kind of pushed the camera guy off when they were, I think they had lost is that when they lost to Hamilton and they were going to the Great Cup or whatever, but he kind of pushed the camera off as someone that used to work in TV news and deal with sports and deal with. I was the one that I interviewed Richard Sherman when he came to Seattle and all that very in tune with all that when Devonte Adams, I think it was right, ran into the videographer was at last season. I took offense to that. It's the thing that bothers me. My thing is this because it came out and like I said, I don't think that this is something we'll have to worry about again, but when you're Nathan Burke, when you leave the CFL in the beginning and when you put on your statement, I think Evan reshared it in the thing, and I looked it up today too to make sure I had it, but it was like an unforeseen detour to have to come up to the CFL, his quote before you go into the NFL and now you're finally coming back when you've really exhausted some of your opportunities, you're being paid a boatload of money, you're coming in here. To me that speaks to I don't want to be here or I feel like I'm above that. And like you said, if that's not the intention, that's awesome. That's how it comes across to me. Also, there's been all of this back and forth with the marketing budget and how are we affording work and we're paying all this. I'm like, half your salary is a marketing money. I know that's more like media appearances or we're going to go give away coats for children and we're going to kind of do all that stuff, but you're paid for that. And then it was the whole thing where Nathan work was like, well, coach Campbell said if I did this, I would never have to do it the rest of my career. A does Nathan really believe that? Do you really believe that? B, come on Rick. I am aming myself up again because I listened to Sam and I left a very angry voice memo on the group tether for the weekend. But Rick, coach your guys up, Nathan, you need to go do this. You're the face of the league, you're the face of everything. And Hussy pointed out, we were talking about it, this was one of the 10 pole games of the regular season. This was the, Hey, we're going to, what do they call that? Touchdown Pacific and we're doing all that and the big standout and all that stuff. So you have all the eyes on this and what I don't like about it, and like you said, I love Farhan, I love all this. I've interacted with many media members and the Jam Mullan of the world and Derek Taylor and all that stuff. There's certain people, I think because of how Nathan's been on our show, I have all respect for him. Obviously the BC Lions fan, there's a certain babying of Nathan I think just because a lot of the media have covered him for so long, because obviously Farhan is covering him in high school and okay, what's he going to do? And we got this Canadian player, is he going to go to cfl? Is he going to go? So I think there's a certain sense of like we got to protect and Farhan is little post game and well, we're fine and we're good. That's not your, and again, all respect to Farhan, but I think that you're viewing that through well, I feel protective of Nathan because I've been involved with him this so long. I don't take offense to that where if it wasn't someone like Farhan, I think there would be, James has a comment here. He wouldn't have done that to an NFL reporter. Spoiler alert Mr. Want to be in the NFL. That's what they're doing this season. They're doing the FL stuff. So if you're opposed to a 32nd halftime interview, spoiler alert, this year we're going to be talking to Mike McDonald, will or whoever on the sidelines for the NFL games. This is something that's going to be carried over from the XFL and the UFL. So this whole, well, I don't want to do that. It is only going to get worse if you ever wanted to go back to the NFL, which I don't know if that's going to happen or not, but again, it speaks to this. Again, I love Nathan. He's the starting quarterback of the team that I want to see in the Gray Cup more than anything. But it really came across and I was just really disappointed. This wasn't even week one, this was week three and Farhan like, well, we didn't want to bother him the first week. He is not a baby. You can, Hey, we need to do the interview. This is what's going on here. It's part of the job. Doing media interviews as an athlete is part of the job. I think it takes a certain kind of profile and a certain kind of person to be able to pull off certain stunts with the media. For example, you're not Ello Marsh, Lynch Marsh on Lynch. I'm just here so I'm not fined, but Marshall Lynch would also say very poignant things at times that were, I know the vernacular may have not been something that people were familiar with, but he said it in a way that made a lot of sense from a colloquial standpoint. He actually was very well spoken when he wanted to be, but he didn't always want it to be. But then there's people like Terrel Owens who was just a complete circus and just loved having the camera on him. There's people like that and there's plenty of players out there who never want to talk to anybody. A lot of them, I don't know if it's a majority percentage, but a lot of them, I get it, but like you said, to your point, if you're going to be involved, if your end goal is to be in the NFL to be part of one of the biggest commercial entities in this country, you're going to have to be part of the media scrum. You're going to just have to find a way to play along with it and there are ways to do it. You can get coached up on that. There's ways for you to be able to answer those questions and be able to, you could be very bureaucratic if you want to, or you can have a little bit of fun with it and be tug and cheek or you can say certain things that reflect certain ways and your teammates may understand, but the media doesn't. There's a playbook for, there's playbook. There's all kinds of different playbooks for this and whatever playbook that Nathan was given, like you said, I'm not sure if it was from Coach Rick Campbell, but if that's the case, it wasn't the right one to use in that situation, especially like you said, this was a Marky game. This was a flagship game on the schedule before the season even started. This was va considering that he started, now Roar comes back into the fold and he gets to play in his hometown. I mean that's even bigger. I think it just blew up because of that too, because it was such an important mashup and they played so well in the first half. So you're thinking, wow, he's got to be, and that's the other thing, it's almost like ironic. You're thinking, oh, he's got to be in such fit. He's got to be in great spirits of talk. And then that's the interview you get. I mean if he threw three picks, okay, maybe I would understand, but he played exceedingly well in the first half. That's one of the last instances I would think he would be short with somebody from the media standpoint. Last thing on this, and I'm pulling up the game here, so we can talk about that. We can start with the touchdown Pacific and then the whole, because again, then I try not to get into the two arguing whatever on Twitter being like, well see those interviews are pointless, so this actually did better because it went viral. So maybe that you're just being argumentative. Well, we don't care about this. Okay, well you've carried every other game and every other time and every other. I am tired of the excuse making anyone else would need to do it. It's something that we do. Like I said, I don't think will be an issue moving forward. I think that'll be good. Let's get to, I got to present this here. I have one more thing I want to add just real quick. I think one other thing I just want to mention about this is that I think from your standpoint, I know you can attest to this, the Canadian media really gravitates toward people when they feel like they're in their fold, when they really feel like you're part of the ecosystem, they really pay attention to you and it can feel tremendously important because the country is obviously from a standpoint of how many people are there, it could be a lot smaller than the us so it feels a lot more important. I think if anybody wants context, I think you should go read Paul Wood's book on Rocket Ismail and the Toronto Argonauts in 91, rocket Ismail got paid a lot of money and he had to do a lot of media stuff and quite frankly, he did not sound like he wanted to do a lot of media stuff. He was young, he had money. He wanted to just live his life and he had to do the media stuff because it was like, you're the biggest thing since sliced bread. You are going to save our league. And I think it was just a lot of expectation on him. And I wonder sometimes if Rourke feels that way, and I get it from that standpoint, I do because it is a lot of pressure, but if you hold yourself accountable in terms of being somebody who could play in something like the NFL, that pressure is going to be there. You have to expect that. So it kind of goes both ways. I get it from the standpoint of it being a little bit overwhelming, but it's part of the game. This is what it's going to be part of Also, and the last thing was then when he, then they pulled him after the game. My other thing was, and then he was complaining after the game where he was like, well, I even came, I was talking to my family, my great aunt, whatever, and you pulled me over here and he gave a grid, and people are like, oh, well see. I'm like, that's not how I read that. I read that as I'm kind of being passive aggressive and again, if that's not the case, don't say, well, I was talking to my great aunt and I came over here. You guys had me come over here and do this. It's the post game. This isn't JV football. This is the post game of the touchdown Pacific. Anyway, I got very, very agitated with all that stuff, but this was a good game. I really feel like Zach here was in the chat asking and then we can talk with Jack later talking about when are we get back to your regular schedule. There's stuff to talk about, nothing to talk about right now. We can go play fantasy, whatever the heck Brandon's doing fantasy made, go watch the spring football invitational, whatever the hell that is. But I feel like in the absence here of a couple weeks, did I miss the dark ages of the Lions? I know that Hussy and I did the one was it two weeks ago and then after the Big Nathan work debut, but okay, we beat Ottawa here, kicked the snot out of 'em. We played good defense. What was your overall take of this game? As you know, I've been very down on the Lions and Rick Campbell this season. Well, for the last five weeks, rightfully so, this is the worst era of the Rick Campbell tenure in bc. They played awful. They were all out of sorts. Their offense looked out of sync. Their defense was just getting absolutely crushed this game. On the other hand, this was the Nathan R that they paid for. He looked fantastic. His footwork was on point. Even when he got pressured in the pocket, he was able to step up. He made some brilliant passes to Justin McInnis, got Keon Hatcher involved, got Alexander Hollins evolved a little bit more. He is still not reaching the same numbers that he had earlier in the season, but he at least got him a touchdown, which I think hopefully expands his confidence going forward. Really the biggest thing for me is that they showcased Williams. He looked like that's exactly the kind of guy that they brought in this off season to try and jumpstart this Rud game, which I've noticed has gotten a lot more potent since Roarke stepped into the lineup specifically. I'm not sure what it is, but when VA was in there really pass heavy, they didn't really want to get the run game going very much. They couldn't really get a lot of lanes going, but for some reason with Rourke in there, I think part of it is that Rourke is willing to use his legs a lot and is willing to run a lot more. I think, I can't remember who brought up the comment, but they said, well, what has he got to lose? He doesn't really worry about getting injured. He could just go out there and play. Maybe it was one of the three down guys, but basically it seems like he's playing unafraid, which for the first couple of weeks was leading to a lot of errors, but now with this ability to not worry about, well, I don't know if I'm going to get a training camp invite. He doesn't have to worry about that now. He could just go play va. It always felt like they kind of handled with gloves. It was like, okay, let's just make sure we don't break the shiny diamond that we have and I think because of that, this offense looked the best. It's looked all season maybe safe for that first half gets Hamilton earlier in the season when they just absolutely blew the doors off the tie cats in the first quarter. This was just a really, the first half was just really a clinic. It was a complete clinic by this offense and the best that they've looked in weeks. Yeah, this was exciting. It was cool watching the recap, whatever really cool atmosphere ride. I think that was everything they wanted. I wish they would've, I think in an 18 week season we can do a touchdown Atlantic and a touchdown Pacific. I don't think we need to have just one or the other, but that was really cool. I liked having BC kind of involved in the Labor Day weekend matchups. Right. I know we tried to do kind of the rivalry games and Toronto, Hamilton and kind of all that stuff. That was cool for that. Like you said, getting Stanback involved. I know that Jason has been down, was that the back that we need to come in here and really compete against all of Eras of the world and everything else when it comes to November time, getting him more involved. Do we feel more bullish on him now in that regard? And then I have a follow up question about Vernon here once you get through that. Yeah, I kind of sympathize a little bit with what JC Hass been saying. I'm not sure if he's necessarily the back for them to solve their troubles. I don't know if that would've meant they go after someone like Kadeem Carey who's had a solid season. You try to trade for somebody like Rewa Armstead, which I don't think is going to happen. I think Ottawa is very happy with him. I don't know. Could you have gotten someone, London Fletcher obviously was an unknown commodity and now he's had a very good year with Montreal. I don't know if they could have gone after him. It's hard to say. If there was a magic formula again and the CFL obviously running is not as important, but it was just having that physical element. They just needed to have something that they could use to play as a chess piece against Winnipeg and I don't know, I'm still not sure if William Sand back's that case. What I'm more impressed with is his caching ability. I did not realize he was so multipurpose. I do not remember him being like that in Montreal at all. So the fact that they're kind of using him in two different ways is really interesting. I guess they were already doing that with James Butler when he was there, so maybe that was the plan all along. So it's still encouraging. I'm still not sure about their offensive line. I think Nathan does a really good job of mitigating all that pressure that he gets on him and with William Stanback getting involved Now, maybe they won't have explosive runs, but they'll have enough to kind of keep the defense guessing a little bit and they'll be able to work, play action. So I mean to jcs point, I don't know. Yes, maybe William Sand back's not the perfect answer, but I think he is a answer that they can at least rely on a little bit In terms of, I kind of miss when we were out of town, the whole signing and the salary thing and the Vernon thing, what did we do with that? He's on the mend. I think I saw it today that Campbell said they va the kind of dress as second back up here, whatever going in. I mean full steam ahead with Nathan. What do you do with Vernon? Just kind of thoughts on that whole thing. I want to get your thoughts on the Red Blacks as well, but I mean this is really, now you're bringing in bets and I think I saw two more guys. The lions are signing. This is as all in as you could be for someone that screamed for the Mariners to go all in for decades. I mean this is about does this feel like this is make or break right now for the Lions? Oh yeah, absolutely. They're going for broke and I think they're just willing to pay a luxury tax down the line. They don't care. They're going all in. It is a little bit like Montreal last season, but Montreal was more quiet and methodical where it was, okay, well thank he's coming on board. Okay, now lemon's starting to get hot and then we brought him on board. It wasn't as publicized obviously with the lines, of course it's going to be huge. It's like you're bringing back the defensive player of the year, you're bringing back this golden boy back into the fold. Of course it's going to be very publicized. It's in your building. Montreal was a lot quieter and they were a lot more undervalued too. Montreal we all thought was just going to be a 500 team and they might win a playoff game, but there wasn't really any expectation there. BC has all the expectation they have everything to lose and not a lot of gain. If they don't make the Great Cup, I think it's a failed season if they don't make the Great Cup. I think that's the expectation and I understand why. I do think that they have a chance. I mean they're lucky that they play in the west. The west has just been an absolute mess this entire, so even with the five game losing streak, they're still right there. Yes, they lost the tiebreaker of the Winnipeg. That's unfortunate. So they kind of have to hope things don't go well there, which depending on Zach Lars status, we'll see, but they're very much in it, but they still need to get that one seat. They have to get that one seat if they want this to pay off. In terms of the physicality of the team, I know Farhan, I like these little post games used to these little little que, but talking about the physicality, talking about the tackling, talking about the defense. Things I hammered on and not that I think I say things are pretty obvious when we're missing wide open receivers and things on defense, but for that side of it, because to me you can bring in Nathan and do all the score, all the points in the world, but if you're not holding the team, it was like last week they just, Ottawa just ran all over bc. Thoughts on that side of it and I guess we'll talk to Red Black. Yeah, I think that's the thing. If bets could supply a pass rush, which I absolutely, he already got a sack in this game. He absolutely can, if they can have more of a pass rush and play from in front, they have all the potential in the world, but playing from behind, this is where the team gets in trouble. I don't know what's going to happen if they get in an environment where they have to start running the ball and they can't throw it as proficiently as they want to. IE Winnipeg in the middle of November. Again, that's a dangerous game that they're playing, so that's why I'm saying they have to get that one seat because the physical elements are not there for them to play in harsh weather like that. This is very much a dome team and I know that's seen as a slight in football. I get it because it implies that you're soft as far as being able to play outdoors. I don't think that's the case for every single dome team. I think it's just the way that certain, Just the lions. The lions unfortunately are the stereotypical definition of a dome team. I'm sorry to say, but it's not to say they can't win. They just have to be able to force other teams' hands. Ottawa just kind of ran out of answers. They seem scattered after the first half. They really did have much of a, even with Drew Brown's performances this year, it just seemed like it was too much for them to handle. Their defense got scorched by this BC attack, so like I said, if they play a certain way, I thought they'll be fine, but not every opponent's going to let them play that way. No. It reminds me of, I think it was yesterday, I saw they're like Jared Goff's schedule this season and it was like dome dome, dome, dome buy, dome dome, Lambo field, dome dome. You're like, Hey, they paid him the money. If you know your quarterback's going to play in the dome 80% of the time, let's talk Ottawa here. I was like, it was so funny because I'm like, oh yeah, Richard Leoni. Yeah, remember that fake punt. That was exciting with Richard Leoni, right? We had the news today, all Armstead getting let go, right. Ottawa bringing in the new right. Did I track all that? I was kind of catching up today after being out of town. Yeah, interesting point there. For Armstead, he's had, again, I thought he was having a pretty solid season, but obviously he had that game where he got kicked out in the first half after having the two misconduct penalties. I'm trying to remember exactly which opponent that was Calgary. It was against Calgary and I don't know, maybe they just haven't really found a way to use him. Obviously Drew Brown has been relied on a lot and he's come through in a lot of situations. They haven't had to use the running game as much. I still believe in his talent a lot. In fact, I think PC should start looking at him because I do believe that he would supply a nice change of pace too, of stand back. I do believe that. I think he actually would be a good addition, but for whatever reason, maybe him and Bob Dice just did not get along. He was the lead back. So clearly whatever transition here, I mean I know he's been in and out of the lineup a little bit, so maybe it was just from a consistency standpoint, but I'm, I'm not shocked by it. I'm a little bit surprised maybe just because I think it's a bit of a risky move to do that when you're already an above 500 team and things have been going pretty well for you, but maybe Ottawa just thought it wasn't going to really last the rest of the season. I like how, yeah, bring him into bc. I like how, I think it was it two years ago we're like, is BC buying a gray cup? Because they had Nathan Mor on the rookie deal and then they were signing, okay, we got to pay Lucky Whitehead, we got to make Keon Hatcher. We got to do all that stuff. And then now it's like they're still doing that, but they're Nathan. I mean, not this season obviously, but $800,000. I like that a march to bring him in. Let's bring Armstead Brown Ottawa looks really good. One of those things I, I get into this a lot with Dorothy when we're talking about whatever sports could be hockey, could be NFL, could be whatever, and she's like, oh, I thought the lions weren't good, and you're like the Detroit Alliance. It's like, well, no, they're kind of good now. Right? It's kind of that way with me with Ottawa where I'm like, I mean they are here, I mean seven and three second in the west, I mean, or excuse me, second in the east above Toronto here. I'm amazed to see Montreal already with a clinch here with the next on that. I guess it shouldn't be that surprising, but that's just on Ottawa as a whole here as we're past the Labor day part of the season, They're scrappy man, and look, I know John Hodge has been putting this stat out every single week. He is befuddled by the fact that this team has a minus point differential. It's somehow has a way above 500 record. But look, they play really well at home. Again, they play exceptionally well at home. They get blown out on the road. They've got an absolutely boat raced on the road, but at home for whatever reason, they just got some home cooking going on there. Maybe you could argue that for the command center of that, tie it Saskatchewan. I'm sure some rider fans would attest to that. But look, the steam scrappy, I really like what Drew Brown's done. He just finds a way to use all of his playmakers when Cleal Penton's ever in the lineup, when Justin Hardy's in there who also got nicked up. So some of their playmakers are also starting to get hurt, which maybe is starting to affect their offense. But no, I mean they're just scrappy. They're winning close games this year that they weren't last year. I was very critical of Bob Dyson, his operation, his lack of game management skills last year. Well, they've improved a lot, especially at home. They've gotten a lot better at that and take advantage of that. If Ottawa can somehow host a playoff game this year, I think that would be a tremendous success. It'd be great. I mean, I think from here on out, it's all great for them. There really wasn't any expectation, but if they get that, I mean that's a humongous success. It really is. And I'd be over the moon for those fans because those Ottawa fans, despite everything that's been going on in the CFL, whether it's financially or whether it's transitioning pieces coming out of Covid, those fans kept showing up somehow some way. Even in terrible weather, those fans would still show up. So all credit to them, I think they absolutely deserve to have a playoff game. Yeah, I just still remember, I think it was the first season we were covering where I was really, because now I've kind of given up on a watch and a lot of the games real time. I just devote Monday or today Tuesday. That's kind my catch up. I just can't because then I why I'm like, okay, well I'm just wasting, let me just kind of consolidate my efforts on this stuff. But I remember watching some of those, the Thursday rain out game in Ottawa with 800 people, but hey, it's a far cry from all that. Anything else on this? We might go a little bit over the hour. I know you have to work here in a little bit. Anything else on that game where we can start moving towards the big Labor Day classic? I mean, again, can this be a launchpad for pc? That's really the question here. Is this the start of something, the start of a new streak? That's really the biggest question I have coming out of this. I think it can be. We'll see, but I mean they had to stop the freight train from running off the tracks any further. It was starting to get really dire. Yeah, so let's go here again. We've used this show already somehow Palpatine returned the Winnipeg back here leading the, I just tweeted last night, I think it was last, whatever it was, pain and all that kind of going on. Callero Wright got knocked out of the game. Reer had to finish that Saskatchewan missed the field goal kick there at the end, didn't have the distance I group chatted them. I would've been very upset if I was a rough Friday fan. I think we came back and lost that game on the kick. I thoughts on this one, I mean, this always delivers, like you said, big huge crowd that really rock this environment in Saskatchewan. This Saskatchewan team is just snakebit. I don't know what it is, but they just have found a way to lose or tie in these last weeks. It's really unfortunate for them. I mean, they've had just some of the most heartbreaking losses I've seen from a team in the stretch that I can remember. I mean, you lose to Montreal because Brett Lahar goes three for seven on field goals, even though you play really an outstanding game. And then obviously did he not step out of bounds play by Davis Alexander, you go to Ottawa and I quite frankly, I'm going to be on Rough Rider fans. I think they got a win stolen from 'em, although I would say both teams got a win stolen from them by the command center, but we don't have to get into that any further. That's already been discussed. I mean, you keep losing these close games game in gave out. Even with Trevor Harris back who's playing very well, his complete, your percentage is really high. He is getting a lot of yards. I would've thought that was the magic formula to start playing better. And for some reason since he's come back to the lineup, they stopped playing defense. It's like they only could play defense with Jay Patterson's in there, but as soon as rubber Harris steps on the field, they're like, well, he's got it. So we don't have to try as hard. It's really unfortunate because I mean, Zach Ros, who was playing outstanding the first half, I think it was the best half he played all year, gets knocked out. Chris Trevor comes in, he can't throw the ball past five yards and you're thinking, oh, they got a chance they can start honing in on 'em. The end of this game was nuts. I'm not sure if anyone watched the sequence at the end of this game, but it was absolutely out of control. You have a case where Saskatchewan is driving to tie the game and get a touchdown on a two point conversion, somehow managed to get a two point conversion off penalty. Then they get, or sorry, they get the touchdown, they don't get the two point conversion. You're thinking there's 14 seconds left. You're like, There's no way. Get an onsite kick and you're like, oh my God. Insane. Onsite kick with what's his Willie Jefferson, right, trying to grab it. Yeah. Yeah. Willie Jefferson tried to get it. It doesn't happen. They get the ball. Harris immediately throws a pick. Then there's a flag for pass interference, and then they get in the fuel goal wrench. Here comes la her, but it's 60 yards out and you're thinking, can this get there? You see the ball go up and it's online. You're like, oh my God, are they going to win this game? And it falls short. It's like the biggest tease in the world. I just wanted to say all that. It was just a whirlwind, and that's been, unfortunately for Saskatchewan, they've just been on the wrong end of the whirlwind the last six weeks. Well, and it was a weird game because Mario offered, he missed one of the kickoffs and they got the touchdown off that, I mean, there was just kind of a sloppy game that way in general, I thought Saskatchewan, we've always said this with Winnipeg, you really have to play. It's like you're playing the Chiefs. You really got to play a really near perfect game. You can't give him any of that kind of stuff. And you look back at that. If Alfred hadn't bobbled that and he's so reliable and electric and gets you, but there you go. You gift him seven points, right? It's something to keep in mind there. And then, yeah, the kick and then Lucky Whitehead catching it. I mean, the whole thing was really tremendously exciting and yeah, because I obviously knew that Winnipeg took the win there. We'll see, I mean Saskatchewan, they really seem to always trade back and forth. I feel like it was that way last year too, but I think Saskatchewan really fell off the cliff last year following the manageable. It's like they lost seven in a row or whatever after that, so hopefully they don't with that. But yeah, the Trevor Harris thing, I think it was with the firm where he lost the ball in the end zone. Trevor Harris was putting his helmet on and he's just like, oh, okay. Not doing that right now. So anyway, yeah, really crazy game here. As I break my microphone, I'm not quite sure what I did there. Yeah, no, and for Winnipeg, I mean they just escaped by the skin of their teeth. But see, that's the opposite team. Everything's coming up. Roses for them recently. They're winning these close games. They're getting outstanding defensive efforts. Now here, of course, obviously they gave up a lot of passing yards, but this has been, again, this is a zombie team. They just somehow find a way to keep in the games. They stay around and this team will not die. Like you said, you can't really play a bad game against them because if you do, you're not going to win. Although Toronto somehow managed to get one of those weird squeaker wits against them. But other than that, things have been working really well for Winnipeg the last few weeks. You have to wonder about their offense though. If Zach Lau is out for any extended period of time, I mean, this offense just kind of dies with Struggler. I like Struggler as a run option, but as far as being the main sickle caller, it's just really stymied and then Brady, Oliver can't get involved. It's really tough to continue the attack that way. So for Winnipeg is just about health. Can they stay healthy and can they keep Kenny Lawler in there? Can they keep, they keep their guys healthy enough to be able to get to the season? It was really a struggle the first month, and a lot of it because of injuries, You wonder if that'll bite them in the ass later on the, wow, we didn't keep Drew Brown, right? We didn't keep a true backup. Where you look at BC and we talk about R goes down, VA comes in, obviously not quite, but it's a similar, right? I mean they play that similar run. I mean, you obviously love Vernon and everything with Oregon. I don't know. I'm curious that way you say Shoveler can't come in and throw the ball more than 10 yards down the field. I don't know if that'll be something, just something to keep in mind here. I know Claire, I think Jeff Hamilton was saying, I think they're off today, and then they were going to practice tomorrow. I was trying to get some reports of all of that stuff. But yeah, certainly. Interesting. Anything else on this one? No, just for me, again, I just feel for Rough Rider fans, honestly, I know they're a rowdy bunch, but this is awful. At this point, you don't know if you can win these close games. No. And are they seen Deja vu from the past two years? Like you said, losing seven games in a row down the stretch and missing the playoffs altogether after you had a pretty decent start? Again, it's up to Corey Mace to really kind of figure out what's the problem here. And again, I don't think it's quarterback play because Trevor Harris has been really good coming back from injury. I like the offense in general, the receivers and everything, but just something goes off. Again, this defense just gives up these huge plays for some reason, even though they had it all figured out for about a month. So I don't know, consistency wise, it's just one thing or another and they just have to find a way to hold strong in the last quarter. Let's get over here. So this was exciting. Like I said, that Jason was texting me like, Hey, I'm going to the game. This was like a sellout. I think James has a comment here in the chat. Great crowds this weekend. Hamilton, what were they, two in and nine before the weekend. They obviously get the win. I'm like, heck yeah, man. Sell out, show out. Beautiful day, labor Day, hanging out in the hammer. I think Marshall Ferguson was talking on there. Jack Kelly, do you have any comments on the, I guess I was made the joke, Jack Kelly immediately comes out, throws the interception that if you're on your anti Argos bandwagon, that was exciting, but we're getting the no means no chance and the signs and stuff. Are we okay with? What's your thoughts on that? Because I'm kind of curious just how prevalent this has remained since Chad came back, and then obviously thoughts on the game we can segue into. I mean, the C Ffl decided to play that game. They're hoping it just dies out eventually. I don't know if they're playing the long game here. And so the Argo, the Argos just said, we're hitching our wagon to Chad Kelly and bygones be bygones as far as what the determination is on who he is as a person. It's not a great look for them. It's not a great look for the cfl, but they're just sort of playing. Again, they're kind of playing a long game here, and I know that's bad to say, but that's just sort of reality as far as what his reputation is. And the NFL has done, notoriously been known for doing that with their players too, and who get into certain situations like this. But for Chad Kelly, I mean he played a much better after the first quarter. First quarter was terrible. He played a lot better after that. But I don't know what it is about the Toronto team getting these huge deficits against Hamilton on the road. This is the second time this has happened this season with Cam Dukes is one thing, and some of the errors they made the fumble, overture touchdown. That game was tough, but Hamilton just jumps all over them. And once again, Toronto tries a furious rally. It falls short. And now here they are, they're third place in the east behind Ottawa. And you're wondering, are they going to be able to have the horses to get that playoff game? I think they can. I do believe that Kelly is not really the issue here because I do think he supplies a passing game now down the field, especially that they've been lacking all season. But yeah, you can see that the depth on the Toronto roster isn't there. When they have injuries this year, they are having a harder time replacing those pieces. Last year, they had all the depth in the world. Didn't matter who was in there, they could plug in whoever, and it didn't matter. This year it's been a different case and even against a team like Hamilton who has been in the basement all year long, somehow steps up and also credit to boldly by Mitchell. I mean, once again, he was outstanding. He seems well, We'll talk. Yeah, I got questions about that. That's crazy. But that's the thing. It's like Toronto I think just is having a tough time really kind of moving the pieces around when they need to. And for them, I think it's a bad loss. I really believe that they should have won this game. They were favored by five. There was minus five editing line. I thought they were going to easily cover that. If you had asked me the most safe bet, I would've told you going into this weekend would've been Toronto minus five, because I really believed that they were going to come back with a vengeance with Chad Kelly and tow with everything involved Labor Day, I really thought they were going to come and just play the SmackDown on Hamilton and I mean, they pulled the reverse Uno card jokes on us. Well, and it was just weird. And I know Chad's kind of getting his way back in and obviously we talked to Nathan War getting, figuring out, getting back to the CFO and all that, but even when he was running, it just kind of felt like he got to a point where it's like, I got to just take this game over, and he was just kind of running down the field and kind of just trying to get any yard that he could, but he just felt like, yeah, we should be winning this game. We're going to lose this game. I got to take things into my own hands. He got here 24, 33, 22, but I felt like he just ran 39 yards here. It just felt like any of the highlights I saw, he was just kind of scurrying around for that with the, okay, this season in a game here where Bo is 20 of 33, 47, 2 touchdowns, he was benched earlier this season. What the heck is going on with that? And then I want to get obviously T Viola here with getting the rushing touchdown. That was cool. But this Bo Levi thing, I don't know what the heck is going on there in Hamilton, There's no plan. That's what's going on. They fired their defensive coordinator, they fired their special teams coordinator. I don't know, maybe they could fire the water boy next. I'm not sure what's going on in Hammer Town, but nothing's really worked out for them from any standpoint outside of maybe Oli by putting on some great numbers. But he was benched. My thought in the moment was this is not the reason why they have the record that they do. Their defense was a atrocious. It still gave up a lot of yards in the second half. This Chris Jones LED unit gave up a lot of yards in the second half, but they still just, they're incomplete. They don't have a returner. I mean, they've been trying to figure out somebody to replace Tyreek McAllister, who's I think is going to wreck shop with the Raiders this year. He looks great in preseason. They never really found a replacement for him. I just don't know what the TCATs plan is outside of Bo. Levi just shucking it down the field, which at times works. I mean it does work. But without James Butler in the lineup, that's the other thing. James Butler gets benched. Greg Bell comes in and I mean he played well, but I just never, seems like there's kind of just like three sheets to the wind. Let's see what happens at Hamilton. I mean Tim White obviously had a fantastic game. Great for him. He obviously has come back from where he was earlier in the season, but I don't know. Hamilton is just so, it's so weird in ham fisted. It's just kind of a OneNote offense and good for Bo Levi. Like I said, he's playing outstanding. He's leading the league in yards and touchdowns. He's playing outstanding considering all that gone through the last four years, but I just don't understand what Hamilton's plan is with. Well, let's just throw in Taylor Powell and see what happens. If you're going to have a developmental project, have a developmental project, and I don't know, don't have bold by come back this season again, there really didn't seem like there was a rhyme or reason to what they were doing this year. And it's kind showed for the most part. Yeah, that's like the brave part. I'm like, oh yeah, Chris Jones is over there as well. That feels like a lifetime ago where they brought that sign in there. Yeah, I know the Bo Levi kind of feels like the Kirk cousins thing. Like Kurt, he's on pace for 40 times. It's like, yeah, but the team is, doesn't matter. Cousins can do whatever he wants to it, not going to make a difference. Do you want to shout out T Violo here getting the rushing touchdown right to his brother? Is It? Yep, it's to his brother. It's crazy, Talia. I mean, he was just throwing touchdown passes in Maryland 10 months ago. Talia was, and that's great for him. See him get such early action, a nice little read option, play fake there on the goal line to get that touchdown run. I don't know how much they're going to involve them in the offense, but if they're going to do stuff like that, all the power to them, I think it's great to see 'em get such early action. So I mean, it's a project thing. You have these developmental projects, especially with quarterbacks and the CFL where you don't really know what they can do early on in their careers. This first year is really tough learning the offense. We'll see if he keeps this as a long-term prospect or if he finds, who knows, if he finds a job down south, maybe he could poke Mike McDaniels a little bit and say like, Hey, it's all in the family. Keep him down there behind Tua. But I think for him, it's great to see. We like to see names like this get involved, but like I said, happy for hussy, good for Hamilton. They haven't had a lot to celebrate this year, but for some reason they just absolutely own the Argos at home this year for whatever reason. Well, there you go. Let's get into the last one here. They been a lot of your boy. Was this a turning point? Was Andy going up to Edmonton? I know you said off the top you go into Edmonton, that turnaround of the season here, Mac, Bethel Thompson looks like the greatest quarterback in the world. I mean, what is your thoughts on this? Edmonton still sitting at four and eight, which is kind of surprising just given the snot kicking they gave to Calgary there. But thoughts on this one that Calgary dropping one at home to pretty packed at McMahon Stadium. I mean, that's what happens when you start off in season oh and seven. You kind of dig a giant hole, but as I said, you're only two gains behind Winnipeg for first place. So Edmonton's in it, they have a chance to be in it. They've won four out of five and I do think their defense has gotten better. Mac, Kyle, Bethel Thompson played one of his best games ever. He was outstanding. Kevin Jones also was just fantastic run after catch. He was, oh my God, he was incredible. That dagger throw that they had at the end of the game when Calgary was starting to come back and they're only down by seven and then they just throw that bomb and it just silences the crowd. That was it. It just stones throw from MBT. Well, it got really, you kind of thought like, oh no, this is getting out of, they're coming back And Calgary is won of those games at home this year. They did that against Winnipeg. It's Toronto. They're not dead in the water when they're at home. But to Edmonton's credit, they just kept throwing and I mean, you have three receivers here getting over a hundred yards, which is just bonkers. I really just, I'm impressed with what Edmonton's done recently with or without re Ford. I mean obviously Ford added, I think he was just such a breath of fresh air and I think his injury is unfortunate, but this version of a cloud Bethel Thompson that's come back in the lineup has been a lot more calmer. And I think there's just not as, I mean I know he threw for a lot of yards here, but it doesn't seem like he's stretching as much. I do think that they figured something out here and I think the team is also starting to believe, hey, they're not out of it. I think they were just so demoralized by all the close losses. Again, it's kind of like what Saskatchewan's going through right now? At what point do you say, oh my God, when is this going to stop? And I think that first win in Saskatchewan really jumpstarted them and really started to get them to believe that maybe there was something to fight for. And like I said, they're not that far out of it. I have seen, and maybe it's just because my Twitter here, seeing a lot of people call for Jake May's head here a little bit, and it shilts the backup. We need to start Shilts here going on. Thoughts on this? I mean, Jake was playing his ass off. I mean, he had a couple of bad interceptions there. I mean four, but a couple of those were, it felt like garbage kind of time. We're hucking it down. We're trying to go, they're hitting people's hands. It's babbling in the air, they're catching it. Thoughts on that? I mean, it just feels like people have kind of lost the faith that he's the guy for Calgary. Yeah, I mean, if you're arguing what it's like with Bo Levi Mitchell where you can argue, well, there's a lot of empty calorie throws that are going on in that offense. I mean, it's been kind of that way with Jake Mayer this year too. Again, I mean, he's second in the league in passing yard and he's got 15 touchdown passes and they are fourth place in the west. But I just think this roster overall needs to get overhauled. They just don't have the talent to keep up with a lot of these other teams. I think it's potential they could end up being the worst team in the league this year. Jake Mayer, I hate to say this, he might be either the least exciting or the most low end starter in the entire league because if you go through every other roster and you go through every other quarterback room with everybody else involved, you just don't really know. There was excitement around him a couple of years ago and you thought maybe there was potential for him to be one of those top end starters, but that growth hasn't come. We've seen Chardo take a step. Obviously Chad Kelly took a step last year. You've seen Vern, you've seen Nathan Rourke, you've seen ros, you've seen Drew Brown. I mean you've seen a lot of the other guys step up and be something for their team. Jake Mayer just hasn't had that happen and unfortunately for Dave Dickson. Yeah, Dave Dickson. I mean he tied his wagon to Jake Mayer and they shipped Bo out of town and said, well, this is the future. Well, the future has pretty bleak the last season and a half, and you have to wonder what's going to happen to both of them in the off season if it keeps going this way because this has been really dour for Calgary. And again, I just think their roster overall is just really lacking in resources. I always remember because it's not Craig with Calgary, it's Dave with Calgary. I always remember that whatever one is, I'm looking here. I mean, I don't know if this is updated, but he's 15 touchdowns to 11 interceptions here on the cfl. Do ca websites. I mean you talk about 15 touchdown passes all you want, but I mean, again, it may some garbage time interceptions in there, but where have I lost my, I don't even know where the game is here. Let's go back to that. I don't know. Anyway, we'll see with Calgary with all that stuff. Anything else with that? Anything else with any of these games? I know you got to get to work here after this. I don't want to take too long. I think it's going to be really interesting in the west. This west race is really fascinating. I don't think BC could potentially have new life here, but they're going to be scrapping and clawing down the stretch here for the east. I mean, you got some interesting games coming up here, especially this weekend. BC going to Montreal is not fun. That sucks. That's it. This is it. You want to be Nathan, this is it, buddy. This is It. If Nathan pulls this off, I think you got a new narrative. This changes everything. Toronto going to Ottawa. I mean, Toronto needs to win that game if they really want to have hope of being that second seed because if Ottawa ends up pulling that off, now you're really looking at the second seed for Ottawa, which again is tremendous credit to them. If that's the case, Toronto needs to find a way to turn it around. Saskatchewan also just fighting for their lives. I mean, that would be so demoralizing. Losing back to back games against Winnipeg and losing the season series too. The season series is on the line here too. This is a humongous game. The Banjo Bowl is huge on Saturday, maybe one of the most important games, the remaining stretch of the season, but They normally do. I feel like just watch these teams normally split that series. We will see, I think last year it was the opposite, whatever, but it does feel like they always, I would be curious if you go back 10 years, you swept the series there of the two game, but maybe I'm making things up in my head. Well, I mean, Saskatchewan already lost on their home field. Now you go to IG field, that's a tough turnaround. So we'll see what kind of spirits there. And then finally, I think Edmonton can really put the stake in the Calgary and really assume that they have a chance in this race whether or not MBT or Trey Ford keeps playing. I do think that their crowd's going to be a little bit more behind it. Their home crowd finally gets to see more of 'em. I do believe Edmonton has a chance to get in the playoffs now, but it's so tight down the stretch. I think if you're talking about legacy marks, you're talking about Rourke, that's bc and then with Saskatchewan, if they don't want to lose their minds, they got to win that game. A lot of, I mean, I know it all seems like there must wins, but there really are some really critical games coming up this weekend. Absolutely critical. Well, I think again, and we go back to like, okay, Ottawa is actually a good team now, but you just got the snot kicked out of you by Ottawa last week. Amanda know you came back. Andro kind of got it in it today. Okay, we're kind of getting everything together, but this is it. I mean, you got to go out and you got to be the really good team because we're the kind of scroll down here. Then after that you're hosting in Toronto, you're off, you're hosting Hamilton, that's another one. And then Calgary to, I mean, you just get to the point here where you just can't afford that many more losses. So I just hope, I mean, they know show up and then they talk, oh, we got the flights and we got to go to bc. It's always trouble when they travel east and we got to do the time zones and all that stuff. I mean, I believe me as a Mariner fan and as a Kraken fan, we can't win at home or we can't win on the road. I'm like, please just show up and just be professional. Well, here's the other thing. Reed, Montreal has had a bye week. So they have extra rest. They've had extra time to prepare for bc Watch the tape on Roarke BC's on a bit of a short week. So as we say, for lack of a better term, nut up or shut up, really what's coming up here? Well, and yeah, then yeah. Oh, we'll talk. Oh yeah, it's a short week and I mean there's just so many. It is hard. I dunno. Dorothy asked me something, he's like, oh, did the Mariners play to today? I'm like, oh, a team that had uniforms show that. I don't know if the professional team showed up today or not. We'll see tonight, Andy, did I make a mistake? We're going to Oakland tomorrow to watch the last two games of the Mariners series at the Coliseum. I'm like, I'm going in a couple months ago. I'm like, this is going to be good for us. And now I'm like, oh my God. Listen, I feel that way every time I go into a Padre series. It looks good on paper and then a month later my mind changes. But look, man, tell me how that venue is. I've never stepped foot. I've passed in front of that venue before. I've been on the bart when the Raiders used to play there, which was always just the most frightening scene in my entire life to ever cross in front of. So I'm sure it'll be not as many kooky characters there, but have fun and let me know if they chat about the owner. Yes, we, we purchased our own. We have our own Mariner sell shirts now. So I think we'll wear some of those. So maybe we'll have some compadres with the Oakland that they want to sell. They want their ownership to sell. We want ownership to sell. Last thing here, like I said, I can subscribe Zach, ask when we get back on the schedule. Just nothing to talk about right now. So I know we kind of talked on that at the top, but when things roll in, and we'll get all serious about this getting towards Gray Cup and everything else, there's nothing to talk about. I mean, I saw the UFL was hiring the ticket people for St. Louis. I got eight episodes of this dang podcast now. I got the edit before I get out of town. We're going to Oakland, so we'll get back on it. But there's just, you're not missing nothing right now. There's nothing to talk about. I'm trying to save my mental kind of anguish of doing this. I did look back because I get my Facebook memories and I don't know, it'd be like two years ago I had on Farhan and Milt Stegel and Willie Jefferson and whoever and whoever. I'm like, God, I used to put just a ton of time. We're doing what we can. Hussy iss sick today. If Andy hadn't have worked out, which I appreciate him hopping on, we just kick it to next week. It's trying to, that's the best we can do right now is try to not lose our minds on all that. Like I said, like and subscribe. Andy, anything else before we get out of here? Hang in there, man. With both your teams. That's all. I'm going to say. Commander Sunday, baby. We got the Jane Daniels era here. Hey, I drafted Jaden Daniels in my fantasy league. I'm putting my hopes and dreams in him, man. So he better show off. That's all I'm going to say. We're all, I'm all in. No, I'm all in on him. I am. He posted some TikTok the other day that he was doing. I go, I like this. Okay. He's kind of cool. He's young. He's not a Carson Lance or, I mean, I love Heineke, but he's not any of that stuff. Speaking of him, Heineke to the Chargers. My mom is thrilled, right? Am I making that up in my head? Yeah. Swap one XFL for another guy. I mean, they had to make that move. Taylor Heineke getting a really grand opportunity. I mean, I hope not to see him because I don't want Herbert getting injured, but considering what they had going into camp, I think it's tremendous that they were able to trade for him and good for him. He plays on a team that I think has potential. I really do think that they have potential to make the playoffs so good for him, and I think it's just a good situation overall. Do you think it's funny how there's, Nathan Rourke was the only one that had politics against him. He was the only one that the NFL, the Politic machine came after him. But the BJ and Heineke and Josh Johnson, all these other guys, we track all, no, just the world was just out for Nathan. That, and again, that sounds arguing with people on my mind. I'm like, I am a Lions fan. It'd be one thing if I'm like, I am the guy I had Nathan on back before he had the historic season. Like you're the guy. So Andy, I appreciate it. Making time. Hope Jason feels better. We'll get out of here. Like I said, should be here next week. We'll let you know if anything changes. Go Commanders and who are you playing this weekend? Go Chargers. You're playing the Raiders at home in Los Angeles, But then W in the win column, baby. That'll be good. I know better than do that read. I've been watching this team for too long, but Well, and Todd Bowles thinks they're playing the Redskins this weekend. I'm like, Todd, what have you been? He's like, oh, we are not playing j Daniel Daniel. I'm like, have you been living under a rock for five years now? I'm like, Look man. Preparing for a football game. Sorry, the last thing you need to remember is a team name. So We'll see everyone next.

CFL Week 11 Results + Reactions! Winners and Losers From CFL 2024 Week 11!!

Well, let's see if we remember how to do this. I did not realize five weeks off here Hu, he and I we're going to kind of stack our bye weeks. A couple busy weeks here, ended up a little bit extended and spoiler alert, we might have a couple more, but I think once we get really past Labor Day and they always say the CFL season doesn't really count till Labor Day, which is always a phenomenal marketing in my opinion for football league. But we are back here at least for one week, tons to get to. I mean literally Hussie. First off, how are you doing? Doing good Reid. Thanks for having me as always. Really glad to be back. I mean it was a big break, big hiatus, but again, a lot of news to talk about and catch up on. Yeah, so if you're back here, like I said like and subscribe, we're back for a week and then it's probably two weeks off and then once we get into September, I got to go back now to Boston for work. I was there for pleasure back again, but if you like all this CFL week 11 recap kind of midseason review here, however we want to brand that. Please like and subscribe when we get to 4,000 subscribers. I think what I'm going to do, UFL doesn't want us doing ticket giveaways, so I think we're going to do custom royal retros jerseys, we'll do a CFL one and then we'll do a UFL one. So we'll probably be two different winners there. I'll deal with Dustin about that, but the nice thing is I could just pay him and then he'll send it out directly so I could subscribe if you like any of this, but we've done Doug Flutie jerseys and we've done the UFL custom and we can do XFL stuff, anything, but we'll get two different things like that and we'll get all that situated so I could subscribe. Jason and I have a lot of rants we're going to get to here. I watch the great games, I watch all the games here. I'm all caught up, but I mean even just news of the week, I think we would have enough to kind of fill this whole thing. We won't do playby play breakdowns of all this but tend to get to, this has to be the craziest week 10 11 ever of a season. I mean normally this is the summer doldrums, right? Yeah, well yeah, I feel like a lot of people in the summer, it's a slow news month. I mean it's kind of like the dead of the season and like you said, it usually gets going after Labor Day when NFL cuts go and you start to see a lot more movement there. But yeah, it's been a very, very hectic week in the CFL. So we have Larry Thompson Wright, new Elk's ownership, they get their first big win. I did not realize that was such an ass whooping and I saw kind of the score and I was tracking, we were out of town. And then you said you were at the game for that, right? The McLeod Bethel Thompson. We will get to that because it's always great to bench your starting quarterback and then have your backup get hurt and then have to bring back in Bo Levi. That was interesting. We have Chris Jones now. Chris Jones is the defensive assistant I guess for the tie cats. I guess the Edmonton Elks beat them so bad. They said we got to bring Chris Jones in here. We've got Che Kelly returning. We have the Nathan work. I have a lot to say about that. Anything else? Major news I'm missing here? I feels like there's a ton of stuff. I think you covered it. Everything except for the games themselves. So do we want to talk through this Nathan Ro thing? First up I really thought like, okay, I was out of town. The lions got killed by the bombers shut out. I go on Rod show, we we're on vacation. I kind of poo p Rick Campbell and I don't know if he's going to be the one to get us over the hump. Us as in the BC Lions. I got a lot of feedback from that internally, externally, a lot of comments, everything. I felt so bamboozled by this Nathan work of it all and it made me forget how terrible this team is in and of itself. I feel like I bought into the hype. I have a story for all this, but what was your initial reaction to this Nathan work? I know we're a couple of days late with the initial whatever, but I want to get your thoughts. This really was a whirlwind. Yeah, it was just wow. When I saw the notification when I was on my lunch at work, I was just like, wow, I didn't expect things for him to come back to the CFL this quickly. I did expect him to come back just given the fact he was really bouncing around the NFL the last couple of years to come back in 2025, but not for this season. And to see him start the first week while he's back is a whole nother thing altogether. But I think it's in general, it was a great news obviously for the CFL. I think this is the single most marketable player that this league will probably ever have just given the fact that he's a Canadian stud at the position besides this game yesterday. But I think I just was really pleasantly surprised by that news and like I said, I was even more shocked that he was starting the very first week. So we get out, we're seeing our family, we're out at the cabin by the lake and we had gone in the night before and I always go a little too heavy kind of the first night of vacation, I might have a couple extra glasses of wine or whatever. We're sitting by the campfire and I wake up the next day, Dorothy wakes me up. She goes, we need to go to the store. We had forgot some stuff and we're trying to get breakfast. She goes, we need to go to the store right now. I pull up my phone. I see. So I'm like little delirious. I'm trying to get up. I see the Nathan work news, I see JJ McCarthy likely out for the season and I'm like, what in God's earth is going on? I can't process this. I go downstairs, I'm stuck in the house with nine people. Nobody cares about this at all. I'm walking down the stairs and go, you guys don't understand. Probably the biggest story in a decade just happened here in the CFL in terms of native there weren't coming back. That's cool. I'm like, no, you guys don't understand. And it really took me forever and there's been a lot of, we watched the games last night, was really excited about that. There's been a lot of criticism over, okay, was Nathan started too soon? Like you said, he came in on Wednesday and three practices and what did we expect and what did we expect with Jack Kelly and all of that. But like I said to me, I viewed this as, oh wow, the team realizes this is make or break. This is the gray cup. We need to go do this. We got to bring in Nathan, we're going to pay him $800,000 next year. I mean it's just crazy and the marketing budgets, we're not going to pay all that but everything. And I thought, okay, this team is really serious about winning. They realized we're hosting the Gray Cup. We have all these people and Nathan work aside and I want to get your thoughts on his performance, but I posted my thoughts on Twitter last night. I got home, we watched half the game here and then I hadn't seen my mom in two weeks. We go over there, I'm like, do you have CBS Sports Network? Can we pull it up? I'm watching the game. This is the same team, this is the same team and it kills me to think that you would go out and make this work. You spend the money and the time and all this kind of stuff to bring him in. I wish Nathan work could play defense. Can we get him on that side of the ball? I don't understand how many times, again, I dunno if this is a Rick issue or a Ryan Phillips issue or a whoever's issue. How many times do I need to see four guys hanging off of Brady Vera unable to tackle him? How many times do I need to see BC defense leaving someone completely wide open? This is still the same team. You could put Nathan R in there. I don't care if he would've had three weeks to practice. That was only half the issue with this team and it was just so frustrating to me. It's the same team and I bought into this like, oh, they're really serious about this. The same with the Mariners. Oh man, we signed for Randy Rosa Ray and we're really serious about winning. Doesn't seem that way to me. Seems like they came out just as flat as they always do. First off, what was your thoughts on Nathan's performance? I think it left him to be desired. Yeah, he looked like a guy that just got there this week. It doesn't matter what name it is. I think that in time you'll obviously become the player that he was before leaving for the NFL, but it just shows you that you do need time to practice with your receivers. Winnipeg is a bad matchup for BC regardless of when they played the last several years. And it's quite obvious that Winnipeg despite the records going into this game, and we'll get into it later, but Winnipeg's kind of creeping up on them in the standings now all of a sudden and Winnipeg just owns BC the last few years. So I don't know what BC needs to do to get around that. I think that I was talking to you last night, I think their defense has declined from the last couple of years. I think that they made a couple of interesting decisions in the off season. Obviously some of them out of their control with Matthew bets going to the NFL and that looks like he may stay there with his performance this weekend. So yeah, I don't know what BC needs to do going forward. But yeah, I think that it was a struggling performance from Nathan Rourke on Sunday And I think it was Farhan, it put out, okay, we're selling all these tickets, we're opening up, we're going to add all this, it's going to be 30,000 plus. And I had tweeted out when people say that BC only cares about concerts. I know they had that Fred, I don't even know who that guy was that played that my brother could have done a juggling act at halftime for all I care. I have no context for any of that or what that was, but to think that you get all these people back in, this is the time we're getting all these, we're undefeated at home, we got Nathan coming in, all this stuff and just to poop on all that goodwill is just insane to me and I cannot figure out the inability with this team to show up. You had the Winnipeg on the ropes now they've won the season series. Isn't that the same with the Elks now where these pivotal West Division matchups, if you can't show up at home with Nathan for BC and God bless Nathan for taking the blunt of everything and saying, well this is my fault. Nathan doesn't play defense. This wasn't all Nathan's fault. I mean BC couldn't stop a nosebleed. How many times does Winnipeg need to walk the ball down the field? Like I said, Vera unable to be tackled. I saw this last year in the West Division final. I saw this when they lost, what was that in October last year. I've seen this every time. I just can't figure out why this team is unable to show up at big moments. And I think another thing is their offensive line just cannot compete in these moments. And I think that Winnipeg is one thing with them. They've shown the last couple of weeks they're starting to look like that old Winnipeg blue ballers defense with Willie Jefferson really starting to pick things up as we get towards the second half of the season. So I think that's such a huge thing for the blue bombers and a scary thing for the rest of the CFL. But yeah, BC's offensive line, a major weakness for years now. I think the last couple of years they were a little bit better, but when it comes to these matchups against Winnipeg, they just can't run the ball and they cannot protect the passer and it doesn't matter who's in there. Vernon Adams obviously got shouted a few weeks ago against the Blue Bombers as well. So like I said, I don't know what the bombers are so the Lions should do to get over this hump And I mean it was dang near shut out anyway. I mean I know they had that garbage time touched out at the end. Nathan wasn't even in the game ride. It was that Chase, Bryce, whatever. I don't even the guys in the group chat, oh this guy on the sub. That's outside of my purview of the long history of that. But I mean you were held to a field goal for three and a half quarters here. I just can't figure out as someone that lived through the Mariners here, having the 10 game lead, blowing that 10 game lead and now being four games behind the Astros going into tonight, I mean this was your chance BC's back to 500, right? Winnipeg's one game behind four and six, you don't have that many opportunities here and I just can't figure out Nathan R or anything aside. It just seemed like this team had no energy showing into it and they always say the meme now somehow Palp team returned Winnipeg's back. They never lost and it's frustrating as someone that was hoping, God bless Saskatchewan here for kind of holding that out, but as someone that was hoping to see kind of a difference in the West Division, so disappointed with this and just really disappointed that they let them get back in, they really could have shut the door and moved on. Yeah, absolutely. And it's going to get wild as you see with the standings here, it's getting really close from top to bottom. I think it's really becoming anybody's ball game the second half of the season. So I'm really excited for that. I think that BC still has a chance to write the ship and we'll see how they respond next week I think. Who do they play next week? Ottawa. I think they play Ottawa back to back because I think they play 'em in Victoria the week after that. So really pivotal matchups coming up against Ottawa and Ottawa all of a sudden has the second best record in the CFL, so that's no easy games either. So I think it's going to be very interesting to see how BC responds from this. Like I said, I think Nathan will be better. We will expect him to see him. I will expect him to be better going forward. But I think that these performances against Wpe, the physicality, just not being able to match them from a physical standpoint despite their off season changes is very disappointing. And it's just interesting how it mirrors last year because I think BC goes into Winnipeg early in the season last year beats them and everybody thinks, oh it's BC's year to kind of take the West and then they lose the rest of the season series. So I mean it's worth noting that happened last year as well. Real quick on the touchdown on Victoria because you had brought that up here coming up the week after, I remember back when that was announced and we have a big wedding that next day on the first Labor Day weekend's always really tough for me and like I said, I think I got to fly out of town the day after I for a long time had lamented, oh man, this would be really nice to go see this go there and say I don't want to pay to go see this team right now at all. I tweeted last night, I said Imagine you're one of the people that paid to see this and like you said, a total mirror example, same thing as last year. Yeah looking strong. They come back and the scary thing about it is, so they're paying Nathan what, two 50 I think this year, the marketing budget, however we want to stretch all that. They got 600 grand in this kid the next two years. I know he is going to be better. I really don't even care that he came in and played sloppy in some of his reads. That doesn't bother me. It's everything else around it. It's receivers being unable to catch the ball, it's people being able to tackle, it's being able to stop the run and when you can't do that now, I dunno how you're going to do that next year when you're paying Nathan work $800,000. I dunno how you're going to do that the next year. I already saw tweets out when they announced all the Nathan stuff and what did they deal with Vernon and Rick Campbell. Wow, that's a good problem to have and we'll figure that out, whatever, but if you can't win, I don't know how we're expect to fix this when we can't do it this year. How are we going to do it the next two years when we're paying this kid even more money? Yeah, exactly. I think that when you look at it, I think they'll never have as deep of a team as they had a couple of years ago when Nathan was here. I think when he was making, what was it, 70 5K and they were able to really build the rest of the roster around him and have all those playmakers. They still have a really good receiving core but they do don't have some of the guys that they used to have Dominic Rimes for example. So I mean I think it's not just that, like I said, the defense has taken a step back the last couple of years, got a little older in a few spots, a little bit different in a few spots. So I mean this is not the same team and like I said, there are five team right now. They had a really good start to the season it looked like, but the last few weeks I think they've lost three in a row now. So it's been tough sweating for the BC Lions and with Ottawa playing how they are right now. It could be a five game losing streak for bc. Who knows? And they've lost four in a row they lost to Calgary before the bio week, so they haven't won a game since week six. I mean they haven't won a game since July 13. Last question because again, I don't want this to be a totally rag on the lions the whole time, but I posted some of my stuff last night and everything else, but I'm curious your thoughts on the contract here for Nathan because like I said, you couldn't win with him on the cheap and now you want to win with him on the expensive, it's like we seeing the NFL all the time. Okay, the Bengals get to the Super Bowl and then we're going to Pedro like a Super Bowl winning quarterback when we didn't even win in the first place. It's the same with the Eagles. We see that the same, I mean geez, Trevor Lawrence, I mean look at all the guys that are getting paid Two all these guys, you're paying these guys, you pay Nathan, he's won three gray cups coming in here, we're paying 800,000 thoughts on that 600 on the books and then another 200 whatever in the marketing thoughts on that just in terms of that's a major contract. I think that's just the unfortunate reality of having a star quarterback. And like I said, I think that because of who he is and being perhaps the most marketable player the team and the league have ever had, I think that they had to give him this contract. They were not going to let him go to another team even though he definitely could have, he wanted to be in BC and so they were going to give him that contract and figure out the rest later. And I think another part of leverage he has in this is that he counts as one of your Canadian starters as well and we always know from watching the contracts given out every year during free agency, that Canadian starter always gets paid a little bit extra of a premium because it really helps your flexibility on the rest of the roster. So I think I was kind of expecting Nathan to really break the bank honestly. I thought maybe they would even give him a little bit more than this. I thought that he was going to be able to really leverage CFL teams into giving him a massive contract when he came back to the CFL and rightfully so with the performance he had before going to the NFL. So those are just my thoughts on Rourke And with this marketing stuff, I know that I've seen a lot of criticisms positive and negative kind of whatever and it's something they added in right with the CBA where they can roll, you got to do so many media appearances, we'll pay you. Is that just Ammar, is he just writing, I mean is that just coming out of him and circumventing all of that? Is that your understanding of how that works? Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's just up to the ownership of every given team to spend as much as they want on that. I think they were saying on the Three Nation podcast that they are planning to are working on closing the loophole of that, maybe putting a cap on how much they can spend for marketing money, but right now that's kind of how it is. I'm fine with it. I think it's better for the league and I think I remember when we had Amar on years ago and then after we got done I looked up like what does amar doman net worth? And I was like, oh my god, this is so Ammar some of these guys, Larry Thompson, all that. We got money to go around here. But again, to concise it around, you could have the greatest quarterback in the world but if you can't tackle anybody it doesn't make a difference and you're going to give up all these points Anyway, any other thoughts? First off on the Lion's performance and then we can talk Winnipeg, anything else specifically from that game? Then we'll probably do Chad Kelly because the Argos were off and then we'll get into everything else. Talk Elks and all that. No, not too many extra thoughts, just that it was really ugly from a BC standpoint. Winnipeg, like I said, regaining power here. Calera still not great. I thought it was interesting, Winnipeg tweeted that after the game in context of their great defense, zero touchdowns, two interceptions. I'm like Calleros has five passing touchdowns during the season. I don't know if I would let, let's be fair here, I don't know if Calleros is having the quite the MOP caliber season as well, but I don't know, like you said Winnipeg defense good enough to carry them. Are they back fully? Do you need to see more from them? How do you kind of gauge them here in terms of the West Division? Well I'm with you. I think Claris definitely is still not all the way back to what we've seen the past couple of years from him. So I think if they are going to make a run in terms of winning the West division this year, whether that's finishing first in the regular season or ultimately going on and running the playoffs, I think it's going to have to be a defensive led team with Brady Oliveira really turning into that 2023 MOP level Brady Oliveira. I think that is really the key and I think you're starting to see elements of that. You got Kenny Lawler back in this game, so that definitely helps clears get better. I think he definitely has uptick his production the last couple of weeks, so that's definitely good to see. But like I said, it's not really that MOP caliber Zach clear that we've been used to seeing ever since he arrived in Winnipeg. So like I said, I think it's going to have to be more of a defensive story in Winnipeg and they're really, really playing well right now. Yeah, Kenny Lawler looks great coming back, it just kills me. Like I said, every time a Winnipeg receiver catch the ball wide open and running down, I'm like, that was supposed to be, and I think it was when BC got blown out Winnipeg like, oh the donut boys are back. Ha ha ha. I'm like, what happens? They got high in their supply last year and they had the buy and coming out. I don't know when BC's off again here to kind of figure out to regroup, like you said, they're going into Ottawa and then hosting that back to back and then they're going to Montreal, we'll talk through Montreal as well. I mean they don't get a week off to week 16 here, then they got to host Toronto. I mean this is really put up or shut up. Let's talk about the Chad Kelly of it all. We don't need to go super deep dive but just he's back. They're going to be playing here, coming up hosting Saskatchewan. That should be a really exciting game here. Thoughts on that? I know he had to meet with Randy and then they had, okay, he's kind of like a one strike and you're out kind of deal here. What do you make here? Him rejoining Toronto. And how are they in the standings here? Five and four. I don't know if they can go undefeated of the rest of the way here, but what do you make of this whole chat, Kelly coming back? Well, ignoring all the obviously personal questions around Kelly and what he did or didn't do, this definitely makes the Argos a scary football team down the stretch and I think that considering their quarterback play this far, like Cameron Dukes had a couple of really good games to start the season and then really fell off a cliff and then Nick Arbuckle got into a couple of games for them to be still sitting at five and four. That is pretty damn remarkable and it really shows you, especially given all the players that they lost in the off season because this team got gutted in free agency. This is a really talented football team and if they can hit the ground running with Chad Kelly at quarterback again, this could be a team that goes on a great cup run this year. I really believe that and hoping not to see that as a TCA fan, but I think that the reality is this team was 16 and three including playoffs last year with Chad Kelly as the started. That's very hard to ignore. Well like you said with the whole Nathan r it all too. Excuse me, I'll be curious. Does he need a couple of weeks to get back into it? Nathan was in, I don't know how much that affects. He was going through his mentality and getting cut and getting signed and doing the preseason and doing the kind of that he didn't look great for the Falcons in the preseason. I know Chad's been kind of sitting, right? I know he is been doing some light team drills here lately, but he's been pretty disconnected as far as my understanding. So I'll be curious, Nathan kind of playing American preseason football, doing whatever that looks like versus Chad here that's maybe just kind of been not on the couch, but certainly not playing in the preseason game with the Falcons week before. Obviously it'd be interesting to see does he have a harder time coming back up here than Nathan did because you would think if Nathan's struggling here week one coming in and kind of adapting, I think Chad's going to take a little bit. Yeah, it's funny you say that because I just read a quote this afternoon from Ryan Dinwoodie's saying that the way that Nathan worked played last night, just given the fact he played five days after or so after he signed with BC really affects his thinking going into Thursday against Saskatchewan and with Chad Kelly. I think that he had something about maybe using a two quarterback system on Thursday, just kind of ease Chad Kelly back into it. But like you said, he hasn't seen live bullets in a long time all the way back to that horrible East final that he threw several interceptions in. So I think it should be interesting to see how he plays out of the gate. I think that, like I said, I think the plan might be to ease him back into it, but we'll have to see what the Argos do and how Chad Kelly looks in his return. Well, and I'm just pulling up the game tracker here so we can get to it after, but Saskatchewan defense is pretty scary right now with Cory Mace. I mean I think that this is to come in and you're not playing against the BC lines defense. I mean you're playing against a team that actually knows how to get out there, the quarterback and tackle and do everything else. So yeah, really curious. I think D Witty, I trust D Witty getting kind of chat up to speed a little bit more than maybe I do Rick with all that. I don't know, I'm so out on Rick Campbell right now. I can't even stand up. I don't want to get any more hate about everything, but I'm really having a hard time with it. I think D Witty can maybe read that a little bit better going into Nathan like, oh this is incredible. He said 10 completions and whatever practice and he looks great and he comes into the game and I mean I didn't even, I'd have to even pull up what the stats were, but Nathan did not have a tremendous stat line here coming out of game. Just curious, what was his eight of 25? 1 26, 2 interceptions. Yikes. Certainly not look at Chase here. Six of six. We need to maybe we to see Chase in action here, but okay. Alright, so we've done all that. Let's talk Larry Thompson, the Elks, because I wanted to talk about this homicide I saw here on YouTube this morning when I was watching the Edmonton Elks Tie Kats game. But Larry Thompson owner seems excited, right? Is this good? Doesn't certainly no Victor, and I know Victor wasn't the owner, but certainly know Victor Que kind of taking over the world here. It seems like a good old boy Edmonton Elk season ticket holder got money. What's your read of the situation? Do I have a good handle? Yeah, I think that my impressions of watching that the opening press conference is that he's not the best public speaker or anything like that, but ultimately at the end of the day, who cares, right? If he's going to financially support the team and be a stable owner that doesn't do the whole David Stern what? David Stern? Gary. Oh, Gary with it. Oh, you're talking C Sorry. I'm thinking of the NBA commissioner, but yeah, as long as he's not an unstable owner that provides a distraction to the team and can financially support this team and give it the reinvestment that it needs, I think that's the important part. And I think another part of the conversation I saw some people bringing up was his age, but I think that he's only like 65 or something like that. A lot of people thought he was older than that. I think the worry there is that it might be a thing like Sid Spiegel and Gary Stern situation where there's not really a succession if something happens there. So I've heard that the family is very committed to potentially taking the team over after, I mean assuming if something terrible did happen with Larry Thompson. So I think that I'm not too concerned about it. I think that I'm glad the Elks have that financial now and hopefully things will get better in the short term in Edmonton. Yeah, it's kind of like Benjamin Button. People say I'm 12, but I look a lot older. No, he does. He looks way older than 65. I mean, oh my god, I didn't know how we've been town. I didn't have time to look. I'm trying to figure out what's his net worth and everything just to kind of get a handle on it. But yeah, he looks old. That's a rough 65. The whole using the double E logo, the rebrand into the ess. I mean, you got it right. I live through this with the commanders all the time and they ask our people all the time, when do you rebrand? We bring in Josh Harris, we get to do ownership. They're like, we're just trying to win football games. We don't care about that. I mean, I'm so over this. You could call 'em the Circus clowns for all I Care at this point, but thoughts on that? I just feel like you can't revert back at this point, but I just curious your thoughts. I think it would be a massive mistake, frankly. I think it would be a disaster if they were to go back to the old name or even change the name again. I think that Elks is fine. I think that yes, it might not be the most intimidating or ideal name for a pro sports team in the world, but ultimately this is the Edmonton football franchise. Call it whatever you want. The people that want to call it Eskimos, they can call it whatever they want. That's still a football franchise, C franchise that plays in Edmonton. And ultimately people blaming the name change for the poor results and the decline in attendance. I think it's just frankly ridiculous because the attendance was declining before even when they were the Eskimos and the poor performance of the team was already starting to show. Not to the degree it has since Covid, but I think at the end of the day, going back to the old name would be a big mistake in my opinion because it would really just be a step backwards, I think for the league, I will say. And because I watch a lot of this stuff now on YouTube, but having watched the BC Lions game yesterday here before I had to go, we need a new animation like the whole with the blue Bombers and the Tiger and we need to revamp all that. If we can get, Larry can donate some money to the cause or Amar, whatever, I don't care what you call the Elks, but that whole opening animation just needs to be, that looks like it came out from 1998. We got to figure that out. Let's get to, so you were at this game, so speaking of Edmonton then we'll talk to Chris Jones and kind of all that, this was a bizarre game, right? Well first off, you were there. How was the game from your perspective? I didn't realize this was such an ass whooping until I really sat down this morning. Oh, this was an awful football game. From a Ty Kaz perspective, this game, first of all, I mean just even beyond the football game itself, just the first play from scrimmage Luther Nano takes a very, I would say even a dirty hit from, I forget who the Elks defender was, but needed medical attention. It was really serious situation. You saw that both teams were kind of huddled around ano in that situation and everybody was very concerned. Luckily he's all right, but we didn't know that at the time. And then there was a bit of a delay because I didn't know this, but the ambulance cannot leave the stadium until another ambulance comes. And so there was a bit of delay in that. I think it took about 20 minutes for another ambulance to come and show up and be ready to be at the game. So that was a bizarre start to the game. Glad Nu was all right. And then once the game gets restarted, Taylor Powell immediately gets hurt concussed, and I think he had to go to the hospital as well, but he's all right as well. So strangely enough, we got to see Bo I Mitchell and it didn't go so well for the tie TCAs in this game. It really was over by the end of the first quarter, and that's been the case far too often this year for the tie cats. Think back to the game against BC where it was, I think it was 14, nothing before the 10 minute mark of the first quarter. So the TCAs defense just been a struggle all season long for them. Probably the worst defense I've seen in the CFL in a long time, at least in the last five years. I can't remember a team that's looked this poor defensively this bad in being out of position in so many different spots. The defensive line can't get any pressure. The secondary is just so out of position. Like I said, can't stop the run either. James Rankin had a field day against the Tie Kat defense in this one, so I believe it was 32 3 at halftime. So yes, like I said, it was basically over very early in this game and very frustrating as a tie Katz fan just to see them show up like this at home against what a lot of people thought was the worst team in the CFL. But quite clearly that is the TCAT right now. I think the TCATs have earned that crown that much desired crown as the worst team in the CFL right now. And I don't think it's by evidence of this game is very close right now. Yeah, say if you're at the poker table and you're looking around for the mark and you can't identify who the mark is, chances are two. Yeah. If you're trying to figure out the worst team in the CFL, you'll spoiler alert Ty Ka, it's probably you here. I will say, I'll take Rod Smith and his dad jokes over Dustin Nielsen any day watching this game. He's like, Dustin Rankin really ranking up in the standings for the running back. I'll appreciate that more than, oh my God, incredible. But this was, yeah, it was just so weird. We said, I kind had to process this because I turned the game on. I'm like, oh yeah, okay, trade for. It's hurt, right? It's ribs. Okay, we're bringing McLeod back. Okay, that makes sense. And then, yeah, okay, we bench bow Levi and no one really knows why we've done that. Okay. Taylor Powell playing and then yeah, like you said, the best thing in the world. Let's bench a starting quarterback and then have the back of immediately hurt, then we got to go back to him. That's not going to be awkward at all. And then you even saw Harrison Frost here who he rode the bench for the Sea Dragons in the XFL two years. I mean he was with the Sea Dragons. I don't think he saw really, I don't believe he took a snap behind DeNucci, but he was like our second third string quarterback there. So he even was playing the garbage time deck. Did they just give up on Bo at that point? Did they just say, Bo, you need to protect yourself? Well, to be honest, I think I actually had left by that point in the fourth quarter. I had my buddy, my buddy came all the way up from Ottawa and I was joking with him all week. I'm like brought you all this way to see the two worst teams and the CFL go at it. So we ended up heading out of there a little early. It was just really a disgusting performance that's just really hard to see and I usually never leave games early, but it was just too tough to watch at this point. It was just the fumbles were one thing that really stood out in this game. It seemed like the tiger hats had at least five fumbles in this game that were really just ERs. And I think, like I said, I think the turnovers and the penalties, and I think that's what Scott Milanovich said as well this week or last week when he was talking, heading into this game about what's defined their season to this point, it's turnovers and penalties. It's been a very sloppy and undisciplined team and I think a lot of that obviously falls back on the coach, but at the end of the day, I think the players have a huge role to play in that as well. There was a game last year where Edmonton, it was early in the season and Edmonton Oilers came into the Kraken and I think they were up three zero before Dorothy had even gone to the restroom and gotten the wine and sat down. And I always want to leave and Dorothy or whoever, oh no, we paid a lot of money, but I won't spend any more money there. I won't buy any beer. I won't buy any food. I do a Sitin hunger protest, so I don't leave the game, but they don't get any more of my money that night. You haven't earned any of that. The big news, Chris Jones coming in, defensive assistant Edmonton bought him out so the TCATs don't have to pay him. That seems weird, right? It is, it is. And on one hand, part of me just says it just adds to the circus and that this isn't going to make anything better, but the other part of me says that it literally can't get any worse with how this defense has been playing and that Chris Jones, we know he can't be a head coach anymore. It's quite clear that he's been an awful head coach the last couple of stops in the CFL going back to Saskatchewan and obviously this previous stint in Edmonton. But he has been a successful defensive coordinator in this league and defensive play caller. But funny enough, the last time he was a defensive coordinator, defensive play caller before he was a head coach, was in 2021 with the Argos and the last time he was on the field, Dane Evans went 16 for 16 the second half and led the tie cats to a gray cup. So not exactly a good lasting memory of Chris Jones being a defensive coordinator in recent years, but he does have a lot of experience. Milanovich is very familiar with him from, I believe his time in Toronto. It should be interesting to see how it works out, but like I said, I think a lot of it my mind just goes to adding to the circus And I love Chris Jones as a person and I think that that's always, and it's the same thing with Rick Campbell or anything else. You need to be able to separate what they're doing on the field versus the person Chris Jones was on, what was that, two years ago? And he was scouting talent down in the US and just the nicest most giving guy with his time and walking around LA on the phone too. It is nothing against all that, but yeah, you come in here, like you said, I don't know if it can make it any worse. I was proud of my tweet when Farhan said that because Edmonton had bought him out, he didn't need to seek permission to kind of apply for the position. And I said, well, as someone that's watching coach a professional football team for the last three years, he doesn't have my permission here to be involved in this. I don't want to see him anymore. I need to have him off my thing. But like you say, it can't be any worse, but it does feel like it adds adding to the circus here. And I don't know, Amanda tie cats are just really atrocious, really bad and Bo isn't playing bad. How do you, they benched him for Taylor. Taylor got hurt. We talked through all that, but we haven't talked. Were you surprised that Bo got the bench and then he comes back here and I mean he plays fine. I mean he had the 200 perception, but Bo has never been the problem he was last year at least the injuries surrounding the quarterback situation were last year. Yeah, I was shocked when they pulled the trigger so quickly in that game against Montreal a couple of weeks ago to put Powell in. But I do kind of see Scott Milanovich point. I think that what he pointed to was obviously the turnovers and Bo, even though he has thrown a lot of touchdowns this year though, a lot of them came against that one game against Edmonton. I feel like Beau has thrown a lot of bad interceptions this year. He has been prone and especially the last few weeks, I think it's really just reached a boiling point and when it's not leading to victories, despite how bad the defense is, I think a lot of that obviously falls back on the quarterback. And the fact that he's an older quarterback and this team doesn't look like it's going anywhere this year. I don't know how many more games he's going to start for the tie cats this year. I mean we will have to see what the health status of Taylor Powell is and how much he plays down the stretch. But like I said, I don't think Bo has many starts left the tie cats. Maybe he starts the next couple of weeks, but once you start getting to that two and 10, two and 11 or three and 11 or whatever the record is by mid-September, I think that's when you start trying to get into that evaluating player stage of your season. If you're a team like the Thai Kats and I think maybe you start to see guys like Harrison Frost and maybe even Talia Taga come in and get their chance, That would be cool. See, that would be something that to you're excited about. And I think Bo just the team's asked and he's like, I got to try do whatever I can here and run and throw and get it in the tight windows and force the ball. Like I can't trust my defense. I don't know when the heck we're going to be back on the field again here. I just need to push down the field. The other question, well, I guess I will say too with the whole, because I was watching, of course now we're back into preseason here with the NFL and they're talking about the Jets, how Aaron Rogers isn't playing in the preseason. He is going to be there at the game week one and with last year and all that. And I just thought now what a disaster both these quarterbacks were because I don't expect anything from Aaron Rogers this year. He hasn't played football in a year. He is older than I am. And then with the same with Bo, we talked all about this last year. I mean good for him. He got paid and he's been a team player and he's been involved in all of that. But what a disaster by the tie Kats to spend the money on him. I mean, looking back now, I mean I think we were both pretty down on it when it happened, but hindsight now it looks even worse. Yeah, I think you could safely add Bo to, even though he's played better statistically this year, I think you can add him to that list of Tie Kat's quarterbacks that they brought in high profile quarterbacks that they brought in the last 20 years that just have not worked out. You go back to Casey printers, he was kind of like an American Nathan Roarke in a way because he was A-C-F-L-M-O-P, he was an electric player and then went down and played with Kansas City, I believe in the NFL. Then came back and the TCATs gave him a massive contract that I think he played two years with the TCATs. They were miserable, didn't live up to it at all. Jason Moss also flopped as a member of the TCATs because he was a guy that saw a lot of action with Ricky Ray there getting injured sometimes in Edmonton. And I believe Ricky Ray also had some time in the NFL. So Moss got a lot of playing time there. But after his time in Edmonton, he ends up in Hamilton for a year and that was an abject disaster. So I mean the TCAs just have a history of this, just unfortunately with some franchises I would compare them to the Chicago Bears because the Chicago Bears, hopefully with Caleb Williams, it'll work out for them. But historically they don't have a very good history with quarterbacks. You look at or you think of the greatest players in the history of the Chicago Bears, and much like the tie cats, most of those players are defensive players. I think most of those legendary players you think of Angelo Mosca, Grover Covington, I think those are some of the biggest names you think of when you think of the tie cats all time. But you don't really think of those quarterbacks. It just hasn't come easy for this franchise and they just haven't been able to really develop many from within and I think that's been a major problem for them. The other thing here, just talking and we will touch on the other two games before we get out of here, but did McLeod stuff, are we back to quarterback controversy here? Does Tre forward come back when he hit the ribs and all that? Because you almost want McLeod to come in and just kind of not do great. I know, I feel like we're always trying to defend the Trey Ford thing here. What do you make of that and the Elks, what do they do? I think Trey Ford proved that he is the starting quarterback of this team. I think he really did really saved their season. If you look at it, they're now a three and seven football team. They're right in the thick of things. If they can win these games against Calgary and the Labor Day game and the Labor Day rematch, it's a whole new season for the Elks. And I think when Pray Forward gets back, he will be given the reins to do so. But it was good to see the cloud play well in this game, even though it was against my team. I think he has shown played well in the fourth quarter of games a lot of the time this year. You look at their first four weeks, I think it was all very close losses and they just did not play well down the stretch. He had a bad sack or bad turnover at inopportune time. So I don't think McLeod has played terrible this year on the whole, but it was really good to see him play a very complete ball game in this game. Alright, anything else from that one or do you want to put that in the back rear view mirror? No, I think that's pretty much it for that one. Alright, so we saw this even last year. Maybe you wouldn't think early in the season that this would've been, but this is two heavy hitters here, right? Saskatchewan hosted Montreal here. Davis Alexander plane for Cody. We had the whole command center thing here. The stepping out of bounds, I missed the whole, the fumble and was it a fumble I missed, was that two weeks ago? I missed that whole thing. I mean I tracked all that, but now this first off, thoughts on the command center that has really kind of been, what was it last year was the stats on the CFO page and all that this year it seems like that's one of the prevailing storylines. Davis Alexandria was out of the bounds, right? Yeah. And for some reason they weren't showing that second frame or that next frame of that play on the replay, but the command center definitely should have had access to that. I don't understand how that was ruled a touchdown still, but at the end of the day, I don't feel too bad for Saskatchewan just given the fact that they had many opportunities to win this game and the fact that they left many points on the board just settling for field goals and then their kicker missed several. I think it was Brett Lauder was three of seven and that's really the game right there. So don't feel too bad about them. But in terms of the command center, I think that a couple of weeks ago, I think they got the calls right in that Saskatchewan and Ottawa game that ended up in a tie. It was very close and it was by the letter of law. I don't think that should be a penalty if you cut up a defender and they roll into the quarterback's legs. I do not think that should be wrapping the passer because obviously the defender can't really control where they're going when they get cut like that. But unfortunately that is the rule. So I think they got the call right there and I think they got the past interference call the one that would've won Ottawa the game. It was very close, like I said, but he was there had second early, so I think they got that right. But my problem with the command center is that as someone watches the CFL all the time, I still can't tell you exactly when the command center can step into change plays. What authority do they have? I am always shocked when they step in to make a ruling on a play. I'm like, I didn't know they could change that. So as someone that watched the league so much, I don't even understand that. So I can imagine it'd be very confusing to fans that are watching the games on a relatively less basis. Well, and it's kind of the thing in Major League baseball where some things can be reviewed and some things can't and you never, okay, why can't we review that? Whatever you'll know. Tim Capper a famous fan, he wasn't out of bound, so don't worry. Of course Tim, Tim Deitz fan, he wasn't outbounds. But shout out here, and I did see this, a friend of the show, James Letcher with the Miss Field goal, TD return, that was great and that was an epic shot. And then following that really, and you just felt like you were living in the moment with all that, right? Really felt like, okay, I got my Apple Vision Pro. That's the kind of stuff you want to watch on that. I literally feel like I'm on the field kind of flying over that I forgot about the command center with the overtime game and all of that stuff. In terms of the game itself, I had something else I kind of forgetting. I was going to say here, this was a close one, Trevor Harris, everything else Davis holding the for enough for Cody being ettes really just seemed like untouchable at this point. Yeah, they are a very, very, very well-rounded team and it feel like, feels like they don't have a weakness. They got good coaching, they have good quarterback depth as it's been proven here. They can run the ball even though they didn't run the ball quite well in this game, they can still win even when they can't run the ball by throwing to their various receivers and they just added Austin Mack back today. That's another big piece of news as well that we forgot to mention. So they've just been tremendously impressive this year. It's really been really impressive to see. I think that defensively, they're also just extremely talented. We really saw that down the stretch this year. I didn't know if that was going to be a sustainable aspect of this team this year, just given the fact that usually teams that go on a defensive heater, they don't tend to carry that over as much into the next seasons as much as a great offense would. But they have definitely proven me wrong in that regard. And the offense has looked even better than they have, honestly, much better than they did last year. So just tremendously impressive. And I really like Davis Alexander. I mean, he hasn't been perfect in these starts that he's had, but you could tell when the games have gotten in doubt, he has made the place necessary to win. And he has all the tools really like his mobility. He has good size and he just has that kind of it factor. He is willing to put his body on the line and make play. And I've just been really impressed with him. And I think in a couple years, or as soon as next year, who knows, he could be a real player in this league and compete for a starting job somewhere. Yeah, he had a couple of hits he was running. I'm like, man, you really need to learn how to get down here. I mean, it's good, but you do get that. You get these young quarterbacks coming like I'm going to run. Okay. And you saw that Nathan holding the ball. We don't need to get on the Nathan thing again, but I don't know. You need to do a little bit more with that Saskatchewan here. So they drop, what's Saskatchewan now? Five and four. Not quite as unstoppable as we thought. They got the tie On five and one. Yeah. So how do you feel about that? Yeah, the command center tie everything. How do you feel about this top in the west? By what, one point? Yep. Like I said, it's anybody's ball game now in the west, just given the fact that what's transpired over the last couple of weeks BC and Saskatchewan really falling back to the pack. Saskatchewan, I think it was kind of expected just given the Trevor Harris injury. They did get a couple of wins in there, but enough to stay on top of the west. But really they needed him back and I think that's really important. And I thought he looked really good in this game. They just didn't really put the ball at the end zone as much as they needed to. And like I said, I think that really cost him the game because their kicker just honestly, Brett Lauder has usually been a reliable kicker, but he couldn't hit a broad side of a barn in this game really. So I think going forward Saskatchewan should be a pretty good team. They got a big test coming up on Thursday, I believe it's on the road in Toronto against Chad Kelly and the Argos. So it should be very interesting to see how they respond to that and if they can get enough wins here to stay on top and be in possession for a home playoff game down the stretch. But I think I really like what I've seen from them in general. I think they've been competitive almost every week. Yes, they should have probably won that game against Saskatchewan but against Ottawa a few weeks ago. But at the end of the day, I think they just didn't do enough to really deserve to win that game. Because one thing that's really overshadowed by the tie in that one going back to a couple weeks ago is the fact that it was a three nothing game at the half and it was a really, really ugly game up until the last, I don't know, seven minutes of the fourth quarter, then both offenses kind of woke up. So I think Trevor being back is just so important for this team and it's just a whole different, the way I view that team is just completely different with him at the helm. And then, yeah, like you said, I think that was the other thing I was going to say. You can talk about the review and the command scenario all you want, but Brett Lau makes those field goals. It is a totally different thing. Any reasoning for that? I mean what were, they were in Saskatchewan, right? Certainly he kind of knows the stadium and wind conditions, all that stuff. It seemed really, like you said, uncharacteristic performance from him. Yeah, I don't really know how to explain it. I think that, like I said, he is been a very reliable kicker throughout his CFL career, but this will certainly kill his season average. I think he's right now at the bottom after the last week's games in terms of field goal percentage among the active kickers in the league. So we'll see how he responds to this. But just because it's one game, I'm not overly concerned as of yet. Alright, last thing here. Moli comes back, hasn't played football in any year. We lived through all that with the Garrett Marino, everything, right? Last year they win again with the Lewis war kickoff walk-off field goal and all of that. I saw his interview afterward and crying and all of that. Great to see him come back, great to see him. Huge. I mean, had to come back from injury twice. All this thoughts on that, I mean this was buried here so many days ago here earlier last week. But pretty cool story. And it surprisingly ended up being the game of the week. It ended up being a very entertaining game that went right down to the wire. I think Mli looked very healthy. He looked like a guy that was just having fun out there. I think he had a couple of plays where he scrambled around. He had that one touchdown where they inside the 10 yard line where we really had to improvise and do a little shovel pass that ended up going to Deadman for the touchdown. So it was really good to see him out there having fun again and doing it alongside Braylin Addison who's had his own injury troubles as well. I'm had a big role in this game. So for this game to end the way it did I think was just a really exciting game. I think that Calgary once again ends up on the wrong side of a very close game. They've been in almost every game this year, but Ottawa has just kind of been the opposite of that, where they've been able to win out the squeak out these close games. So I think that it's been really impressive to see the Red Blacks have a resurgence this year, all of a sudden up to six wins, only two losses on the season and one of those against Montreal. So I think there's a team that can make some noise down the stretch here now that they have the confidence and they know that they only need a few more wins really to guarantee themselves a playoff spot. You say you thought it was the game of the week. I thought all the games were really exciting. I mean even the game last night with the Winnipeg and BC playing, I mean that at least was much watch television just because, oh my god, this is just essentially train wreck here. Yeah, I saw Morley Scott tweet out today is the West Division, the New East division where it's a bunch of mid teams and not a lot of separation, but yeah. What world with Ottawa here sitting at second and the East, they got to feel great about that. Do we ride mli now? What's Drew Brown's situation? Because Moli, I think he's transitioning to be more of a mentor ride. I think they were talking during the broadcast, he wants to get into the coaching after this, he wants to be involved and obviously he knows his time is limited just because of age injuries and all that. But what do you think they make there? And if nothing else, him being around the team has to be great in terms of leadership and chemistry and all that stuff? Well, I think what Olis experience allows them to do is not rush Drew Brown back, but I think when Drew Brown is ready to return, they have to give him the job because I think he did get this team to, what was it like five and two or something like that by the time he got hurt. So I think he's a guy that you could build around. I think he's shown enough for them to really turn to him going forward. And I think Maoli just given the fact of his health history, I think they wouldn't be wise to really ride him much farther. I think in the short term, I think he's a great option. He's a guy that's really had experience, especially within that offense because one thing that hasn't really been talked about as much is that Tommy Condell is the offensive coordinator in Ottawa. And obviously mli had a lot of success in that scheme going back to his time with Hamilton. So I think it was a really good performance for mli, really happy to see him back out there. But I think Drew Brown, it's still his team going forward because he's gotten them to where they are this point of the season. But think about Ottawa even last year with the Cru sanity of it all and no quarterback really. And now they've got m kind of like you said, can ride be that calming presence here. We get Drew Brown back, he's great. We're kind of seeing this influx now with the Trey Ford Nathan coming back. I think Jim Mullen was tweeting out. What if you get Curtis in the CFL here in a couple years, Curtis work, you really could kind see this influx that we need as Beau kind of transitions out. And I think Trevor Harris will find his way out here. I think we did good today. A lot of news. I think we went through. I wasn't too negative. Like I said, we'll probably be off for the other two weeks and then I think we'll probably be riding good there. So I think the September 9th, I think we'll go off through all that stuff and we'll figure it out. But in the meantime, I'm always running. Jason, anything else for me? I appreciate the flexibility is back and forth, but this was good. Kind of stop down today and do a kind of big recap of everything. No really great time has always, I always enjoyed talking CFL football. I mean, I'm not uploading on the channel recently, but it's always good to get together, do these shows on a weekly basis and talk some CFL football. I think it's been a really exciting season. It has been. I really enjoyed it. Like I said, being able to watch everything, we'll get back in and then once the UFL stuff kicks up here in the fall, we'll start doing the Friday episodes again. But right now this is perfect. This is all the schedule allows for both Jason and I. So we appreciate it. Like I said, like and subscribe. We'll see you guys here in a couple weeks and Abdul here send me a dm. We'll talk through job postings. But send me that. We don't have time for that today, but send me a dm. We'll get to all that. We'll see you guys next time. Next time.