And, and when, when they're running something and he's coming through the middle of the field, you better look out or he's gonna flatten you." What happened to that?

Well, I've been kinda waiting for that as well.

Um, so to go back to your, to your, your point that you were making, I think the Vi- the Vikings, I don't think that they were...

I, I don't think that they misled him in any way.

I just think that if...

What was Jauan's interpretation of his usage this off-season? Whether you're gonna run the football or not, or you're gonna, or you're gonna still feature a passing offense, either way you look at it, you're not going to get a lot of targets here.

Right.

Uh, not that type of player.

I feel like we're in a remarkably different spot talking to you today than we were the last time.

Yeah, I mean...

It's hard to really explain what we think is going on because I think that there's still a lot of high hopes for McCarthy that he can continue to mature, understand this offense a little bit more and still be the guy.

Um, he still has years on his rookie contract that's left.

There's no reason really to throw him off to the side right now.

Um, But yet, you look at how this franchise is set up and the roster that's been built, despite the fact that we got rid of our general manager and we brought in Nolan Teasley, we still feel like we have a very talented roster.

And a talented roster that can compete in the playoffs.

What do you make of the whole Ben Johnson, Brian Flores? I think the NFL national pundits have talked about it a lot, but the matchup, what does that mean to you when you see yet another meeting between these two teams?

... "sleep a full night's rest, and drive in, and then I'll be there."

Yeah.

Once I get my 12 hours of sleep, I'll be there.

[laughs]

[laughs]

Oh, really?

Yeah, and i- it's really unfortunate, 'cause my brother lives in Louisville, and I just...

And, I mean, for years, especially when we were younger and he went to the Derby every year, and he went to the races pretty much the whole week.

Um, and he had, he and his bro- buddies have, like, a cheat code to get in.

And so he's like, "Dude, you gotta, you gotta come down." Like, we just basically, we get in, we, [laughs] they, they, they find their secret little hiding spot.

They, they can watch all the races, make all the bets, and they can do it kind of on the cheap, and it's a lot of fun.

And I just never had the time to do it or never took the time to do it, and I kinda regret not doing it earlier.

Twin Cities in your town, or we gotta wait a whole month again?

The ham glazing.

[laughs] He would say ham glazing all the time.

So he won't be there on Saturday.

And then he's gonna be gone for what?

But where do you feel we sit currently with Dexter Lawrence, and what do you think they're gonna do with the draft when it comes to interior defensive line?

Y- you know, see, I f- I feel like when it comes to just moves like this for veterans, you know, 'cause there's still gonna be a free agency period after the draft of, of the things of the players that you guys didn't get, you just kinda, like, fill in whoever's out there.

I, I feel the same way as our attitude going into free agency, the first part on the tier ones with the draft coming up and then even the post-draft.

I don't think that we're in a situation to be spending equity currently or in the futureI think that they-- all of the, the messaging has just been about acquiring as much talent as we can, creating as much competition as we can, literally across the board.

There's really not much...

When you think about every position group, there's not a position group that I think is untouchable when it comes to the draft or free agency, including offensive tackle.

You know, I don't think it's a high priority.

Right

Did he try to text me?

me?He may have and then realized, like, Paul's has very low self-esteem, so I can't say I meant to text Corey.

Sure.

[laughs] Did you make it out of the, like, entryway?

Yep.

Is that what you guys are talking about? Yeah.

Uh, yeah, my little, uh, not little anymore, but Whit's got a baseball game at 4:30 today, and I'm like, "I don't know, buddy."

Sweet.

So we might have game one Wolves and Nuggets and Wild and Dallas potentially both on Saturday.

I see what you're saying.

Because, because I think that true courage is knowing, having the self-awareness that there is this threat and this fear of death or imminent harm, and then still doing said thing.

Yeah.

Sam Newton from the Vikings, Adam Thielen, of course.

And they heard us talking about Kyle Murphy on the way in, and I love that they both told us off air, they just assumed that we were making fun of something that Sauce had screwed up on.

Yeah.

Um, I think it's, you know...

First of all, from the, from a person standpoint, a personal standpoint, like-Those two guys, along with a lot of other guys, like, they're just...

They were so nice.

You know, you sometimes have these preconceived notions of what these players can be, and there's, there are some guys that live up to that.

I think that that movie-scripted football character that you think is kind of a bad dude off the field, but most of the time these guys are just high performers, but great guys.

And Jeff and, and Joey, you know, when I was around them, which was not a lot, I mean, they just were so likable, so nice, uh, so gentle.

Right.

And, and to sort of sum it up, it's basically they, because of the tampering window, the Ravens then saw the actual value for Trey Hendrickson, and they th- and it came in much lower than they thought

thoughtSo they, they knew that they could n- they could fail him on his knee surgery, 'cause everybody could...

You could fail any player coming off a menis- meniscus just a couple months ago knowing that he's gonna be fully healthy when the season starts.

It's no different than J.J. McCarthy.

He had the full meniscus repair.

It's a longer recovery, but you are gonna recover.

And so you can fail him.

Why?

What are we gonna do? You know?

Oh, it was...

I mean, it was, it was horrible because it was, um, well, because we got caught, um, and the whole aftermath of, like, getting caught, and then, like, the cops coming and, like, interviewing us and trying to get to the bottom of what's going on.

But man, was it e- was it hilarious.

It's very well said.

I feel like, I feel like that is...

I feel like that's something that is just a guesstimate, and then just somebody just putting it out there.

And like, you know what'd be kind of cool? If there was like...

[chuckles]

I think that he's, he's, he's accurate.

You know, that is one thing that Koc talks about a lot is his quarterbacks have to be accurate.

Um, I think a lot of that too is just his improvisational, im-improvisational skills, um, I think allows for secondary routes to come open, so maybe the windows to throw into maybe aren't as tight sometimes just because of his creativity.

Um, I gotta be honest, this is why, this is why I just don't think that he's...

He's a tremendous athlete.

He's a good football player.

And, and what do you think he can pull out of him?

You're just supposed to spend time with salt.

What? Okay.

Well, I, I am a big proponent that I think salt is, is something that we could incorporate in our lives a little bit more, um, but I don't know if that's the method that you would do it.

I mean, they have salt rooms.

I mean, there are, there are specialized rooms.

Yeah.

Um, there's a couple places here in town where you can go to a salt room where it's basically just...

It's the same premise.

Mm-hmm

... like, like Kyler does nothing for me.

Like, he's a, he's an improviser, he's a creator.

He can make plays.

He has starting ability.

There are a lot of positives to look at, but a lot of his plays are off schedule.

They're outside the pocket.

Like, swing one more time with JJ and fail than some of these guys that are just gonna get us to the middle.

We're, we're talking to Ryan in, like, 30 minutes." Good dude.

Um, you know the worst thing about playoff basketball and playoff hockey? It goes all the way to June.

[laughs]

...

NBA Finals goes seven games, it will end June 19th.

[upbeat music] It's time for Fan Five on the Power Trip, presented by All Around, your TimberTech deck building contractor.

The Golden Gopher men's basketball team beat 10th-ranked Michigan State last night, 76-73.

[upbeat music] Your Gophers snapped their seven-game losing streak.

They had zero bench points.

They will battle Maryland on Sunday at 1:00.

King, which traumatized everyone.

The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago.

Hi, Ben.

Hey!

Tell me what he did to keep that from happening.

Well, it...

Fr- from a, from a 30,000-foot view, I think a year and a half, two years ago, people would've said like, "Oh, he's, he's, uh, he's suing his former team in the Miami Dolphins and the NFL for, um, basically wrongful termination." And I think that there was, I think there was some racially charged things in there as well when it comes to the NFL part of it.

I think there was a, there's just an overarching like, "Ooh, boy, this is kind of toxic.

Don't want to touch this.

Let's let all the legal stuff figure its stuff out." I would say in the last 18 months, though, when some of the, maybe dis- legal term discovery stuff has come out, and when he was with the Miami Dolphins, the rumors are he really clashed with the owner because the owner wanted to tank the team for that one, th- his last year to get a higher draft pick.

Um, they believed in Tua Tagovailoa.

But if you're Mac Jones's agent, you might say, "I'm not interested in getting traded anywhere unless I'm gonna be the starter, let alone waiting for a guy like McCarthy to fall."

Not necessarily a good bounce back week.

Well, listen, um, I think that we all realize there's not a lot of great takeaways from that game on Thursday night.

Um, I think the only silver lining, guys, if I have to like...

If I, if I give myself the 24-hour-rule, which I was very upset after the game on Thursday, because what a waste of time that was, and that was not a good effort by anybody out there.

Well, you know what I mean.

I- I'm sure everybody tried really hard and it was great effort.

The execution was terrible.

(exhales) Flashes, man, all the time.

Uh, how do you feel about your chances today?

Uh, not great.

But the thing is, like, you hit it on the head that, you know, your clues were like 101 level.

(laughs)

And, and I was like, fine there.

But, you know, in the last, like, five, six years, you're like at the 400 level now, so like, I'm not very good, so I know it.

Your thoughts on the money?

I mean, I think it's a, I think it's a bargain for the Steelers.

Um, I mean, I really think it's, uh, it's not shocking.

We all felt like this was gonna happen anyway.

And the thing is, like, when we were all talking about this dr- in and around the draft, you know, a lot of us believe that he doesn't have to make a decision right now.

It's like we- it's almost like we are on Aaron Rodgers' watch.

And it's like, "W- why?" Wh- I mean, I know that there might be some movement because of the draft and stuff like that, but, like, this is, this is early.

Doesn't change anything.

Of course.

I actually agree with you, but let me just look at it from the other side.

You know, it is a freedom of speech with these podcasts and everything like that.

And we can say basically anything as long as it's not offensively like racist or, you know, it's bigotry stuff like that, right? There are still some people that find swear words offensive.

It makes sense.

I, I guess, I, I guess I don't hate it.

I don't hate it at all.

I mean, it's, it's nice for that one person.

Yep.

And you can be like, "Okay, this isn't all that bad." And it, they're, they already shed some contracts this off-season, so I mean, from a percentage standpoint, I don't think it's going to be that big of a deal.

But it just, it does...

It is very eye-popping based on when you watch him play, there's nothing truly dynamic about it.

Or no?

It's just that we had...

The schedule itself sort of adjusted.

Um, OTAs probably started around the same time, and then we would get done with everything, tr- mini camp included, by the third week of June.

Oh.

I- I thought, I thought I hit record on the Zoom call 'cause I was, I was in charge, I was the one that sent out the Zoom link to his people.

So, I had control.

I literally clicked on Record, went up and changed the view, 'cause we have to go in gallery view for the editors, it makes it easier for them to, to cut up the video.

I get done with the whole interview, I'm like, "Hey, this went pretty well." And then, you know, when you, when you close out of a meeting it, like, jumps right into this, says, like, saving file? Didn't do that.

Okay.

He, he very much was in...

Be- because we even had to...