Top Ten Beefs (5-8-20)

This is The Drive with Josh Graham Podcast.

Tune into The Drive weekday afternoons 3-7 on Sports Hub Triad. I have three big takeaways from the Carolina Panthers schedule release last night. We finally have the full schedule in front of us. It starts with something we haven't seen on a Panthers schedule in over a dozen years. Not since 2007 has Carolina only faced one NFC South opponent in the final month of the year. How bizarre is it Carolina is going to be facing, in five of its last six games, non-NFC South competition. They have the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on November the 15th. That date is significant because it's the same date as Sunday at the Masters. I have a poll question I put out earlier today that you can vote on at Josh Graham Radio if you'd like.

What are you more interested to watch if you can only watch one? Brady and Charlotte for the first time since the 2013 Monday night game? Or Steve Smith's telling Albert Breer, or excuse me, Aqib Talib really, to ice up son? Or the final round of the Masters? Right now we still have a lot of time to go between the end of polling, but 62% of the polls say the Masters final round. Your thoughts are welcome on that subject and more on Twitter at Sports Hub Triad 336-777-1600. But after that Tampa Bay game on November 15th, five of the last six, non-NFC South games. The finale, January 3rd, home to the New Orleans Saints. It seems to me the NFL isn't too worried about the Panthers resting their starters this particular season. Another thing that seems pretty obvious, TV executives gave Carolina a hard pass. They got one primetime game stashing them on Thursday night against the Atlanta Falcons. And aside from that, it's the second straight year Carolina will not appear on Monday Night Football or Sunday Night Football.

It's hard to blame them. Monday Night, they're trying to get good matchups. They're trying to have teams that are going to be better than Carolina. Sunday Night Football, it's the highest rated TV show in America during football season. Usually you see the best games go to the networks with the best talent. Great games for Jim Nantz and Tony Romo, the lead CBS team, Joe Buck, Troy Aikman and Fox. Al Michaels and Chris Collins were for NBC while ESPN still trying to figure out what's going on in their booth.

As currently it's comprised of Joe Tasseter and Booger McFarland. We've seen a lot of trash games get stashed to Monday night in recent years. Carolina couldn't get one of them. Little surprise just because Carolina does have games against Aaron Rodgers, Pat Mahomes, two against Matt Ryan, two against Drew Brees, two against Tom Brady. You'd think one of those games would be good enough for Tess and Boog on Monday night, but I guess not. ESPN, they should be thinking they're lucky stars that they got what I'd argue to be the signature matchup of the entire NFL regular season. Week three, it's Robert's Baltimore Ravens facing the Kansas City Chiefs on Monday Night Football. How is that not a Sunday night game?

It's pretty amazing ESPN gets that. Not terribly surprising Carolina doesn't get a Monday night or Sunday night game, but I thought the opposition that I just mentioned might reel in one of those. So Carolina in a primetime sense will just have to settle for that Atlanta game.

Lastly, I took away this. Tough open and a tough close. Two of the first three games are going to be on the road and two of the last three are going to be away from Bank of America Stadium. That's tough, but it's not as tough as the stretch put right at the middle of the season, weeks five through ten, where Carolina has to face Tom Brady, Matt Ryan twice, Mahomes, and Brees. Five games and a six game stretch where you're facing almost exclusively MVP quarterbacks.

Good luck with that. This is the only plus I draw from the Carolina Panthers regular season schedule. They get a bye week 13. You always want the late season bye, right? I just hope Carolina Panther fans understand that the pandemic, it's going to affect them worse from a football perspective than maybe any other team in the league. I mean that.

And here are the reasons why. Only five teams in the league have new head coaches. You think about the first time coaches, Kevin Stefanski, Matt Ruhle, Joe Judge in New York, Ron Rivera and Mike McCarthy are both accomplished past head coaches that have been to a Super Bowl. When you look at those five rules different than all of them, because not only has he never been a NFL head coach, he's transitioning from the college game. But that might not be as big of a deal if you have an assistant on your staff that has head coaching experience, right? We even see the Giants and Joe Judge hiring Jason Garrett to be his OC. Matt Ruhle didn't do that. Matt Ruhle hired Joe Brady, the wonder kind from LSU, who's never been a play caller before, wasn't even the coordinator at LSU last year to be the offensive coordinator, and he hired Phil Snow as DC and Baylor to be the DC.

So that guy's going to have the same issues that Ruhle's having trying to adapt to the NFL game. It really hurts Carolina that they don't get OTAs. It's not sexy to talk about OTAs. There's not a lot of substance that comes out of it, but just because that's the case doesn't mean it's not important.

There's nothing sexy about flossing, but flossing is still a pretty important thing in your life, right? So I think here Carolina, with a new head coach, doesn't get a chance this offseason because of coronavirus to take advantage of advantages in an expanded offseason program, I think to get a week more than anybody else, with returning head coaches coming back, they don't get that advantage and being a college coach going to the NFL, I think it's even more difficult for Coach Ruhle. Also, out of the five teams with new coaches, only one head coach has a new starting quarterback. That coach, you guessed it, is Coach Ruhle. That quarterback is Teddy Bridgewater. I can't understand how Bridgewater, Panther fans are expecting him to get Carolina to.500 somehow, he's too good, oh they're going to win seven or eight games, when he's unable to be around his teammates and generate chemistry or timing with them. That's a difficult thing, I guess, since Robbie Anderson I think is hanging out in Miami and Teddy might be down there as well, they could maybe hit up one of those beaches that have opened up and run some routes and gain some familiarity, but it's just not an ideal circumstance. What we found with halts in offseason programs that more experienced teams benefit, they're more successful in times like this. We saw it with the work stoppage in 2011. They were working out, banging out the CBA, Carolina was just bringing in a new head coach and a new quarterback.

Sound familiar? It was Rivera and Cam Newton and they struggled that year, as did a lot of teams with new head coaches. The teams that went to the Super Bowl I think that year were New England and the Giants. Teams that were good and had quarterbacks coming back, experienced teams, they were more of beneficiaries over teams that needed the offseason program in order to implement, install, and gain chemistry, gain familiarity.

So I think that's really going to hurt Carolina. This is interesting, Mike Glennon signed with the Jaguars today, leading for former NFL general manager Mike Lombardi to go on a tear, just ripping a few league execs in the athletic. In fact, he went as far to say in the headline of the story that teams are lacking common sense with their quarterback evaluations. He's upset that Cam Newton somehow is still not on a team. If I had to bet today, I still believe Cam signs before training camp starts. Somebody who has a lot of inside information, a lot of sources on the subject, and has pretty much broke most of the news that's come out this week regarding Cam and where his head's at is Joe Person from the athletic who's going to join us at 5.30.

So in a little over 30 minutes, we'll catch up with him. But I think Mike Lombardi's right. Cam, he has more talent than I think two-thirds of the NFL. Two-thirds of the NFL's starting quarterbacks, that is.

Now, that doesn't mean he's the best option in place. A team might have a young quarterback on a rookie deal. They invested draft capital in. They have financial commitment into somebody that makes things tough to bring somebody else in.

They want to invest in somebody and see if they blossom. The Bears and Jags don't have any excuses. No good reason to not sign Cam. The New England Patriots, I get it. I know you can point who's Jarrett Stidham, drafted I think in the fourth round a few years ago. If you're not a college football fan, you might not remember him at Baylor and at Auburn, but the Patriots apparently like him. Also, they have so much dead cap hit because of Tom Brady and others that have left the team that they couldn't bring in Cam if they wanted to. Unless he took considerably less money in order to do so. I don't know if Cam's interested in doing that. That isn't to say he won it.

That's just to say I don't know. The Bears, it's essentially executives saying they don't want to take an L on Trubisky. That's what's happening in Chicago. The funny thing about it is they've already took the L on Trubisky. We know he's not a franchise quarterback. They know it too because this week they didn't even accept the fifth year option. They turned down the fifth year option on Trubisky for 2021. When you do that, you're telling the quarterback, you're telling the public, you're moving off of this guy. However, they want to save face because they traded up in a draft that had Mahomes and Deshaun Watson.

They want to save face because they traded up to select this guy. So they only bring in Nick Foles as a backup plan and they know Nick Foles is a good enough teammate, good enough guy. And also not quite talented enough that he's just going to win the locker room away from Trubisky. Trubisky isn't going to be uncomfortable by Foles being there. Chicago wants Trubisky to start Game 1. That's the only reason he is. Not because Cam isn't as talented as Foles or Trubisky.

There are politics at play that, quite frankly, I just don't agree with. Also, Foles has familiarity with that entire Chicago staff dating back to his first stint with Philadelphia. As for the Jaguars, I'm just convinced they don't want to be any good.

Tell me differently. You bringing Glennon to go along with Gardner Minshew? This is a pure on tank. I don't know if Carolina is tanking, but I would happen to think they aren't. They're just trying to get cheap. They're trying to get young because they're looking at a long-term rebuild. I don't know what Jacksonville is doing. You'd like to think Doug Marone is trying to save his job.

So, why not bring Cam Newton in to help you do that? You bring this staff back when everybody thought they were fired. In fact, Diana Rossini reported that he was set to be told to be fired and then he was brought back.

It was just a poisonous situation. Gone is Jalen Ramsey. Gone. Eventually, we would think Yannick N'Gakwe. Same for Leonard Fournette who is on the trading block.

It's just not a good spot. They lost Boyer, I think. They traded Boyer. Right.

That's what I'm saying. They traded Boyer to the Denver Broncos. So, they're losing a ton of pieces. They're not really adding. A lot of subtracting.

No adding. Cam Newton would easily be the best player on their team and they would attract interest. And Jacksonville and maybe even nationally as well because of Cam's polarity.

It just doesn't make sense he's not on the team. I'd like to think simply teams getting medicals from Cam will make a huge difference. I hope that's the case. In fact, I bet that is the case. And Cam's going to sign somewhere. But I'm an optimistic guy.

I hope, I hope I'm right. That when things become loosened, Cam could get into facilities. He could show teams what he's physically capable of doing because it's obvious he's motivated.

And a motivated healthy Cam is better than two-thirds of the starting quarterbacks in the National Football League right now. So, Robert has a really interesting fascination with nicknames that I want to get to after we visit with our next guest. NFL nicknames that he's dug up. Joe Person from The Athletic, he's been crushing it this week. Has a really interesting story on Cam Newton that generated a lot of reaction this week. Led to some more reports about his willingness to take a backup role.

Maybe potentially wait it out until some players get hurt in a worst case scenario. You could read his stuff at The Athletic Carolinas and also get his takeaways. He has 10 of them from the Panthers schedule release. Joe Person, you can follow him on Twitter at Joseph Person.

It's good to have you on buddy. I got to know this. If teams were able to work Cam out, do you think he'd be on a roster right now? I do. And now you're going to ask me which one. I'm not staring into that crystal ball.

But yeah, I really think more than anyone. Listen, there are some other players who've been hurt. Like Nick Foles got hurt last year. His was a collarbone. Cam's shoulder could potentially be chronic at this point in his career. Foles collarbone, it healed up.

He immobilized it and he was healthy by the end of the season is my recollection. So when the Bears were kicking tires on quarterbacks, they felt pretty good that Nick Foles was on a different level as Cam Newton. I don't know how interested they would have been. I do know for a fact that if they were one of the teams, they got scared off by Cam's health history.

Of course, most recently the Liz Frank. But I got to tell you Josh, the reporting I did this week and the feedback I got from executives around the league, more concerned about that right throwing shoulder than Cam Newton's left foot and probably for obvious reasons like we saw in the last couple of years. I don't think Cam Newton's shoulder has been right since the first surgery.

Doesn't mean he can't be effective. We saw sort of Cam 2.0 at the beginning of that 2018 season with North Turner. Highest completion percentage through that point of Cam's career.

Then he gets clobbered by TJ Watt on Thursday Night Football and he really hasn't been the same since. Dating back to the coaching search that you covered so closely with Carolina, I thought you had something very interesting in your story this week. A lot of people were saying the New England Patriots should consider bringing on Cam since they only have Jarrett Stidham and Brian Hoyer in Foxboro. You said that, per a source, Josh McDaniels was low on Cam and initial discussions with the Panthers. What do you know about that?

Yeah, for sure. Listen, I don't think Josh McDaniels was any sort of personal vendetta. I think it was more along the lines of what Matt Rule probably shared with Marty Hurtey and David Tepper during their early meetings. You know when they met with these coaching candidates. Now, McDaniels never got the sit-down interview, but it was scheduled before they hired Matt Rule. There were preliminary phone interview type stuff going on. I'm sure one of the first questions that Marty Hurtey and or David Tepper had was, what do you want to do about the quarterback situation? Again, I don't think it was McDaniels necessarily getting into some long pontification of scheme fit or anything like that, but it could have been. But I think it was more about, I think I'd probably rather start fresh, maybe draft a guy, whatever the conversation was. Matt Rule's conversation with Tepper and Hurtey is pretty clear now that Matt Rule said, I want to hire Joe Brady, and I think Joe Brady is probably going to want to bring Teddy Bridgewater. So interestingly, and I don't think I put this in this article because it really didn't fit, but I heard Eric the enemy who did interview with the Panthers was a guy who was more enthusiastic about working with Cam Newton and so forth.

Yeah. And I mean, it's obviously revisited his history. If David Tepper felt a certain way about Cam that he never voiced publicly, it could have maybe played a role in who they ended up hiring. Could we rule that out? No, I don't think so at all. If David Tepper loved Cam Newton, Cam Newton would still be here. I mean, I'm sorry, it's David Tepper's money, David Tepper's team. You don't want him getting too handsy.

But I don't know, maybe we're going too far on that. But the fact of the matter is, is they wanted to know what these guys thought about Cam Newton. And I was told Josh McDaniel was saying, you know, and quite obviously, so did Matt Rule have a similar reaction. He's on Twitter at Joseph Person.

A lot of really good information here. There are some people saying, oh, it's a it's a foot thing. You're saying it's more about the shoulder. There are some saying, oh, it's just a quarterback ability thing.

It's not anything to do with health. I think that's probably unfounded in the most obvious way, based on all the reporting you've done and a lot of other places as well. Based on the schedule, I have this one question of you, a hypothetical. If you didn't have to cover for whatever reason, week 10, Panthers Bucks, it's November the 15th.

You're at home. You can only watch one of these two things, NFL football. And let's just say in this case, it is Panthers Bucks or the final round of the Masters.

What is Joe Person turning on? I probably want to see Brady. I mean, now, granted by mid November, we will have had a very large sample size to know if the Tom Brady experiment at Tampa Bay is going to work or not.

So, let me caveat it by saying that. Assuming Brady goes in there and plays at some level close to his prior self and that the Tampa Bay Bucks are at least interesting and competitive and not two and six, three and seven, whatever the case may be at that point. Then yeah, I think I'd watch it. Masters in November is going to be weird and goofy and different. I think we all kind of like weird at certain moments on the sports calendar. Not this weird.

I don't like empty sports calendars, but Masters in November is weird. I wrote that down last night. I'm sitting here. I think it's instructive sometimes to look at these things through the eyes of fans too. Those are our readers.

Those are your listeners. I'm thinking, if there's a game I'm going to take my kid to next fall, if we're taking anybody to games in the fall, I think I'm like, hey kid, you want to go see Tom Brady in person? This may be your last chance to see this kid. That was my answer to that question. Then it's like, is there a bucket list trip?

Absolutely. Go to Green Bay in December. You're going to be cold. It's going to snow. That's what you'll want it to do at Lambeau Field in December. I think it's cool as hell. I thought it was cool in November last year. Despite being stuck there an extra day because of the weather, I would trade that.

I would do that again. I think it's fabulous. The Panthers are playing up there in December.

He's on Twitter at Joseph Person. We put it out to a poll. What would you be more interested to watch in November 15th? Surprisingly, I think 61% of the audience say the Masters final round over Tom Brady returning to Charlotte for the first time since that memorable Monday night game in 2013.

I have another down the rabbit hole fun question here. We had Lincoln Riley on the show earlier. I've known Lincoln back to his days at East Carolina. I know he's a big basketball fan. Have you watched much of the Last Dance documentary or no? Yeah, all of it.

Oh, it's fantastic stuff. But he obviously, this episode coming up, he's going to be leaving basketball to play baseball. So I just asked Lincoln, I'll give you time to think about it while you hear his answer. If you had him on a football field, where would you put him? And this is what Lincoln had to say.

A lot of places. I mean, I think the guy would have been an elite receiver. I think another guy that you put back there at free safety and just how physical and tenacious he was.

Smart, cerebral. Yeah, there'd be a lot more places you could put him than the opposite. He's got the hops, Joe. I mean, he's got tenacity. I mean, he was great at defense and basketball. He's got great speed. Where is head coach Joe Person putting Michael Jordan on a football field? He's my ex-receiver. He's my Randy Moss, who, by the way, as you well know, excellent, excellent basketball player in Charleston, West Virginia. Yeah, I mean, I'm throwing the fader out to him.

I'm letting him get some yak. Just the way he created space in the lane, I think MJ would do that in the middle of the secondary after catching a little slant. Yeah, I'm not wasting that dude on defense. I'm not putting him at safety. You want to put LeBron James at outside linebacker? Absolutely. Like, let's do that. How about Zion at defensive end?

There's your next poll, all 40 on a Friday. Like, all 22 with stud basketball. Oh, I mean, David Cutcliffe told us that he joked with Coach K. He said that, hey, man, like, there's a couple big games on the schedule. Maybe we could just have Zion line up number one at the end and see how the guy who's literally the same height and weight as an 18-year-old as Julius Peppers his final year playing.

Yeah, that guy might do some damage there. But, Joe, great stuff as always this week. It's just good to hear your voice and look forward to catching up sometime soon. Appreciate you, man.

Stay healthy and have a good weekend. Likewise. That is Joe Person. He's on Twitter.

At Joseph Person. All around good dude and nobody's more connected with the Panthers than he is. I would say Jordan Rodriguez, but now she's a Los Angeles Rams reporter.

Oh, it's breaking my heart seeing on Twitter her just do the same update she would do for the Panthers for the Rams. I almost feel cheated on. Like, oh, man, you reported so well for the team that, you know, I report for. And now you're reporting for somebody else? It hurts. I thought Joe Person made a really good point, though.

What's that? When he said you don't want David Tepper to get too handsy. I feel like that's what happened with the previous owner. He got a little too handsy.

Oh, that's pretty bad. It's not too soon, though. It's just soon enough. It's not too soon. It is just soon enough. It's not too soon.

It's just what are we doing here? I think what he might have been referencing. Did you know this story? That Tepper apparently last year told Ron Rivera he wanted it to be a 4-3 or a 3-4 versus a 4-3? And he told him, he's like, hey, we need to change this defense. Yeah, that's apparently what Tepper did. That is the most terrifying headline I've seen since Tepper's become the owner. Oh, you don't want to do this?

If he's thinking he knows enough about ball to tell Ron Rivera, the guy who under his coaching tree has produced not one, but two defensive coordinators, yeah, I think you need to be running the 4-3. That is a terrifying sign. Now, we promised NFL nicknames because you are just a child sending me while I'm trying to do a radio show.

I said check it in the break. You make it seem like this is huge news that I'm about to look at. And then I pull up the link and it's Jadeveon Clowney's nickname.

Would you like to share what that is? It's Doo Doo. Again, you are a child, a child because you're laughing at his name being Doo Doo. And it's not even like his real nickname. It's pro football reference. They have nicknames. Like if you just pull up random players, you will find nicknames. Like give me Chris Long, for example. If you just search him, I think they were talking about nicknames not too long ago. Like what does it say when you look at the pro reference page?

I'm stalling to give you enough time here. Chris Long, what is his nickname? It says here it is White Thunder. Like there's no chance that people say, hey, White Thunder.

I know the story behind it, though. Like at Virginia, do you think they're calling him White Thunder? No, they called him that on the Rams when he was with Robert Quinn. He was White Thunder and Robert Quinn was Black Lightning. And that's why they call him that.

What an ACC duo that is. Former Who and a former Heel. I pulled some more random. And it's actually harder to find these nicknames of players. Because I tried looking up random ones like you said. I looked up D.D. Westbrook, looked up Morris Claiborne, looked up... I just went through rosters and clicked on random players. And I was getting nothing. And so I decided to just look up weirdest NFL nicknames.

And I found a couple that I think fit that description. All right, I'm down to hear more nicknames. Kiko Alonzo's nickname is Goldilocks. Wait a minute. Wasn't he bald at one point? He is still bald.

Okay, just making sure. At Oregon, he was bald. Why are we calling a bald guy Goldilocks? Is it like the same thing where I get Senior Superlative Best Smile?

Because I had a retainer that when I pulled out when I ate, it revealed that I had a missing front tooth? Is it something like that where it's complete irony? It is nothing like that. Apparently in Oregon one night, he came back to his apartment a little drunk and broke into the wrong apartment. He couldn't get his door open, but it's because it wasn't his door. And he breaks in, passes out on the couch, and they call the police. And it's just a misunderstanding that Kiko Alonzo broke into our apartment and passed out on the couch.

So his coach started calling him Goldilocks like she did with the three bears. Oh. That's great, right?

That is pretty good. Also just not a great nickname. Yeah, come on. I also looked up, since we were talking about Martellus, I looked up Michael Bennett's nickname. His nickname was Black Santa, which... I don't know why I find that funny.

It's just funny. I didn't expect to hear the words. Like when I came into work today, I don't know how your job is.

I hope things are going well amid what's a difficult time for many. But when I came to work today, I did not expect, during hours of work, to hear the words Black Santa today. I didn't think that'd happen. Why is Michael Bennett nicknamed Black Santa? Apparently when he was on the Patriots, he was a bag of toys, like a bag of fun. And every day... He is a lot of fun. A great quote.

He would bring in different things. You know that Martellus Bennett quote that dates back to our top 10 list? It was our top 10 beefs today.

I do, but I have to find it. Yeah, top 10 beefs. Martellus Bennett, he doesn't bleep around. Neither does Michael Bennett. Even if you're a Pro Bowler like Brandon Marshall was with the Bears, which gave us this amazing quote that I think comes from E60 way back when. I was like, Brandon, do you want to talk or do you want to fight? And he was like, I'm a six-time Pro Bowler.

And I said, Brandon, six-time Pro Bowlers could get knocked out too. Just tremendous. Do you have any more nicknames or did we empty the well? Your microphone's off. He's still talking. I had no idea about this guy at all.

Sorry, I was talking my mic off after I had already tried to test. I was looking at you and I was like, he's still talking without his mic on. I had no idea. Yeah, Earl Thomas. I had no idea this was this guy's nickname. I looked it up, couldn't believe it. Earl Thomas the Train.

Thomas the Train. Oh, got it. It does not take Pro Football Focus long to hop on. Going into the weekend, make sure to subscribe to the Best of podcast. iTunes, Apple podcast, Google Play, SoundCloud. Give the show a listen and make sure to subscribe.

Joe is great today. Our top 10 list. A lot of fun. A lot of interesting things we got into today. Also, the Lincoln Riley interview is already up on social media and on all of those different streaming sites.

Just search The Drive with Josh Graham and it will all be readily available to you. So Robert, I'd say it's been a very interesting week. Wouldn't you?

You could say that. John Curry Monday, Steve Forbes Tuesday. Is it Steve Forbes or Teav Torbs? I think it's Teav Torbs.

Ah, got it. Steve Forbes, he joined us earlier in the week. Created national headlines. I didn't even get time to watch the PTI episode from yesterday or two days ago where they led the show with that until last night. And it's on highly questionable.

A lot of people chiming in on this. It became big national news. On Wednesday, we caught up with Bruce Pearl, which is pretty neat.

Billy Gillespie, a guest on the show. Luke May yesterday, Lincoln Riley today. It's just been a really strong week. But the highlight of it has been this beef between Wake Forest and Kentucky where Coach Forbes took a jab at the Wildcats academically and Olivier Saar said, I still want to play basketball for the Wildcats. So I'm just going to up and do that.

That's been the highlight here locally. So in honor of that feud, we can call it, here are my top ten beefs. Top ten beefs. Go ahead and hit the music. Up! Yeah!

Woo! All right, Robert. Top ten beefs. Number ten. My number ten beef.

KK Shortplate. Who the **** is that guy? I thought I would kick it off with that one. I love how you faded it out so quick just in case you didn't include the bleep. You know that's what got me.

The one time I've let one slip, that's what got me. Do you want to tell the back story on this real quick for those who don't know? Yeah, it was like my second week producing your show in Greenville. Five years ago almost.

Oh yeah, a super long time ago. And I had gone, there were so many curse words in this clip. I had listened to it probably six, seven times and by then it sounded normal. So I had missed one Conor McGregor word where he just says, Who the **** is that guy? Can we hear the clip one more time?

Yeah, sure. It brings back bad memories. Who the **** is that guy? But I didn't bleep it.

Then Josh comes in there and I'm crying in the room because I'm pretty sure I'm fired. And that was it. Look at you now. Number nine. Top ten beefs.

Rib Isaiah Thomas. I'm the best corner in the game. When you try me with a sorry receiving like Crabtree, that's the result you're going to get. I feel like I saw that one coming or at least I should have.

Like I don't usually guess before these, but as soon as it came out of your mouth, I was like, yeah. One of the greatest follow ups in the history of sports journalism. Aaron Andrews asking Richard Sherman, who are you?

Who was talking about you? Crabtree! L.O.B. Number eight.

My number eight beef. A T Boneyard match? Got up, I calmly walked to him. I picked him up by his neck and I slammed him. And I told him I could be punching you right now, but I don't want to. I'm glad you got the Boneyard match in there.

Who have you been talking to, Jansen or something? Who have you been hanging out with that watches wrestling? There are a lot of wrestling fans, Robert. Didn't last WrestleMania have a T Boneyard match?

It did have a T Boneyard match, Undertaker and AJ Styles. Number seven. My number seven beef. Chuck Barkley.

I'm going to do a walk. I'm going to punch you in your ass. Do it then, Barkley.

I'm sorry, that's one of my favorite sounds. Worldstar! Richard Sherman is like saying thank you to somebody. And then Trent Williams walks up. He's like, hey, what you going to do about it, boy? I'm going to punch you right in your face.

Well, then do it then. I thought you were laughing at Chuck Barkley. Chuck was good. Chuck was good. Number six.

My number six beef. Derek Carne Asada. And I was like, Brandon, do you want to talk or you want to fight? And then he was like, I'm a six-time pro bowler. Then I said, Brandon, six-time pro bowlers could get knocked out too.

Just tremendous sound. Who said that? Was it Brandon Marshall?

Yeah. Who was involved? Martellus Bennett. That's right. The Bears.

They were with the Bears and Bennett got suspended from team activity because he was not messing with Brandon Marshall one bit. Number five. My number five beef.

Angus Johnson. I'm not even – I don't even want to play the clip. I don't play them games.

And if I see them on the street, I'm going to bust them in the fucking mouth. Thank you, Steve. Because I was not ready for that. Angus Johnson. God, I hate you.

It's pretty good. I love Gus and Gus. I love Angus and Gus as well.

Do you have a favorite Angus Johnson call? Probably the barbecue. That's got to be it, right?

You got barbecue back there and didn't invite me? Can you find that? Yeah. I know that's a really obscure ask.

I feel like there might be content there. Ohio State, Maryland game. Yeah, when I think about college basketball calls, I think about a fresh mess or here comes the pain. One that wasn't so great is when Chris Johnson had a long touchdown run and it was – he's got running from the cop speed. That one wasn't great. Not great. Give this a listen real quick.

All right. Morton Schlocker to the sideline call. First down. What a hit.

Denzel Lord. You got barbecue back there and you didn't invite me? Hurt my feelings. That's great. That's great. That's excellent stuff. So good.

All right. Number four. My number four beef filet fanatic. Yeah, I was just wondering why you were so late and I saw you were twittering about you being stopped at the quarter.

I was late because I wanted to go get some chicken wings. I feel like this game has become a contest. Like I feel like this bit that we do here, it's now what's funnier, my top ten list or the sounds that Robert picks to be adjacent to these clips. Number three. I feel very good that my top three is better than your top three.

Probably. My number three beef. Bill Cower. I smell like beef. I smell like beef.

I hate kids. Number two. My number two beef.

Jacoby Brisket. Oh my God. I'm going to cry now. No, don't cry now.

I'm going to cry after the interview's over because otherwise I'll look like I'm responsible for it. Ah, yes. Where's Michael Cera been? I don't know, man.

Just a magical moment in time. I feel like historians are going to look back on film in the late 2000s, early 2010s and say, why was this guy a think? For the longest, I could not tell the difference between him and the dude that's in Juno. Same dude. Okay, there's a different guy. There's a different guy. And that's not Michael Cera. Hold on.

This is the exact same one. Number one. My number one beef is Kobe. Shaq, let's just say that a snake bit your mom right up here, right in the chest area. Would you be willing to suck the venom out to win the title?

No, but I will with your wife. That was not planned, anybody. It wasn't planned that I put Kobe number one and Shaq just so happened to be the clip that Robert chose to play there.

That was not planned at all. While you're trying to figure out the Michael Cera wormhole, you went down the rabbit hole there. I had a couple others that just involved players that I think were too obscure. Like, try Tippy Martinez, I don't think was good.

I thought you might appreciate Scott Vahita. Oh my. Bubba Franks, but then I realized that's not necessarily beef.

And Filet Mignon Vesley. Yeah, don't ever say that phrase again. Okay, the guy that was in that interview that is mean is Jesse Eisenberg. Yeah. Not Michael Cera. Yeah. You just called him Michael Cera.

I did the exact same thing. Their voices sounded very similar. The visual would be important.

Visually, I think they look very similar to each other as well. Jesse Eisenberg also interesting. Like, if you would have told me, based on the first movie I see them in, that's popular, Jesse Eisenberg, Michael Cera, who's the more popular, better actor, I'd probably say Eisenberg because he was in the social network. And I'd argue that's one of the two, maybe three best movies of last decade. I go as far to say that. You know it's great when you can watch it again, knowing all we know about Facebook in the last six or seven years, and it just carries different meaning.

Like, it's just awesome. I love the director. His name slips my mind right now, but it's the same dude that did Gone Girl, same guy that did The Zodiac as well, David Fincher. David Fincher directed all those movies, and it's just a, I'm not going to say a perfect movie, but pretty up there. And Jesse Eisenberg after that, he did that magic movie that no one can remember the name of, and that's essentially it. Like, that's what Eisenberg did. Oh, he was in Zombieland too.

There you go. But Michael Cera, he had a couple more movies that were popular without, I think, a lot of substance. Scott Pilgrim, I think of Juno. He had a lot of movies. Now You See Me is what it was called. And there's also a sequel, which I've also never seen, Now You See Me 2. Really? Yeah, I can only imagine. Fascinating. Up next, my three big takeaways from the Panthers schedule release last night, including something we haven't seen in over a dozen years. Keep it here on the drive.