Aaron Donald’s Incredible Legacy (Hour 2)

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Call 562-314-4603 for details. Alrighty, hour number two of our radio program, rockin' and rollin' it is the Zach Gelb show on CBS Sports Radio. So Aaron Donald is calling it a career. Now remember right after the Super Bowl, when he beat the Cincinnati Bengals, there was some speculation that he was going to walk away. And if you recall right before that Super Bowl, Rodney Harrison had that report that Aaron Donald voiced to him about potential retirement heading into that game. Aaron Donald disputed it.

I got a chance in, it was September of 2022. And if you're a big listener to our show or CBS Sports Radio, you may remember this. I interviewed Aaron Donald and Aaron Donald, it wasn't a Deebo situation where he hung up the phone on me. But Aaron Donald, it was right after the kerfuffle with the Cincinnati Bengals and the joint practices from over the summer, where Aaron Donald was swinging helmets in that joint practice. So we had Aaron Donald on when I was doing the night show here. And I wasn't told I couldn't ask anything about the helmet situation because quite frankly, if you're going to put parameters on an interview, I'm not going to take it 9.9 times out of 10.

Like if there's something personal, like hey, I don't want to talk about my family, if there's a family situation, I'm understanding I'm fair. But when you are Aaron bleeping Donald, and you're one of the more ferocious defensive players ever, and Aaron Donald is swinging helmets at the Cincinnati Bengals in a joint practice, I have to ask that. So I asked him a few questions about it. Donald was being smart, where he was giving answers, but they were basically no answers. And then we were on a Zoom, so his publicist had the ability to just jump in on the Zoom because they were sitting there in the background quiet. And they were like, oh, Aaron's just here to talk about Dr. Teals today. It was kind of like a Dan Patrick show, Matt Harvey Qualcomm moment, if you remember from years ago.

So I asked one more question about it, because you're not going to dictate how I do an interview. Like I'll get to the read when I want to get to the read. I know the time I have, I always get to the read. And I asked one more question, and then Aaron Donald basically said, you know, I'm here today on Dr. Teals. Dr. Teals gets me ready for each and every football season, blah, blah, blah. So that was the conversation we have with Aaron Donald.

Most people just remember the publicist stepping on in. But in that conversation, there was two more things that I want to revisit. One was Aaron Donald saying him winning a Super Bowl kind of got him fired up again to try to go win another one. And there was a point in the interview where I asked him, if you didn't beat the Cincinnati Bengals in the Super Bowl, would you have retired?

And he didn't say yes, but he didn't say no in the conversation. So I think there's like a mixture of truth here. When you merge like all the stories together and then you find out two years later, Aaron Donald does retire. But I think the mixture of truth here is that Aaron Donald was contemplating retiring, heading into that Super Bowl up against Cincinnati Bengals. But then when he won the Super Bowl, he was like, wow, I've accomplished everything. I love this feeling of winning and winning it all.

Let's get addicted to it and see how many Super Bowls we can win. But then two years later, Aaron Donald walks away. So it kind of falls in line, connecting all the dots of what he told Roddy Harrison to them, what he told me.

And then shortly after that, two years later, he does walk away. And the career for Aaron Donald, it's one of the greatest careers ever. Three time NFL defensive player of the year.

He played in 10 seasons, is a Super Bowl champion, was an eight time first team All-Pro, and he made the Pro Bowl every year of his NFL career. The first Ballot Hall of Fame scenario is always tricky because sometimes it's obvious it's a slam dunk. Other times there's obvious slam dunk people that maybe didn't treat the media the best way or weren't perceived to be the best teammate.

And the media gets payback, which I always think is so lame. Like Terrell Owens, he had to wait three or four years to get in the Hall of Fame. It's one of the dumbest things I've ever seen happen in the NFL. But Aaron Donald is a slam dunk first Ballot Hall of Famer. Like I was annoyed when Antonio Gates didn't get in on the first try.

I was annoyed when Dwight Freeny didn't get in on the first try. Aaron Donald changed that position for an interior defensive lineman. And now those guys get paid like $30 million a year. They get paid ridiculous amounts of money because of what Aaron Donald was able to do. And here's what I always loved about Aaron Donald. He is like the Incredible Hulk.

He's built like a tank. But when you think of a dominating defensive player, you think of like a large human being. And to the average person, Aaron Donald is a large human being. But when you think about an interior defensive lineman, you don't think that interior defensive lineman is like 6'1", 280, right?

He was undersized in football world, where when you think of an interior defensive lineman, you think of like 6'1", 6'3", you know, 6'4", and like bare minimum, 320 pounds. So that was so unique what Aaron Donald was able to do. But also in that conversation that I had with Aaron Donald two years ago on CBS Sports Radio, when he was wrapping up year eight and going into year nine, I said to him, I think you're playing two years. You're going to wind up with 10 years in the NFL, and then you're going to ride off into the sunset.

And that's what ended up happening. Let's revisit that conversation with Aaron Donald. I've been saying it since May. I think you're going to play for two more years, you go a decade in this league, and then you ride off into the sunset.

Is that fair? Well, we locked in for two years, so we're going to see. So there you go. He kind of just laughed it off and had a little fun with it. So congratulations to Aaron Donald. I am not going to call him the greatest defensive player of all time. That to me is Lawrence Taylor. If you want to say Reggie White as well.

But he's in that conversation. He is one of the greatest defensive players of all time. And he's had one of the more impressive and remarkable careers in NFL history because 10 years is a long time in the NFL. But we've seen guys play a lot longer than that. It may be one of the more flawless careers in NFL history, I think is the right way to say that. We're talking 10 years in the league. You make the pro ball every one of your 10 years, and you're an eight time first team all pro like Santa.

You've been doing this for a long time. It's kind of tough to find the perfect career. Like even you look at Tom Brady, Tom Brady missed a full year because of injuries with the ACL up against the Kansas City Chiefs. Tom Brady's numbers weren't at the prodigious level, prodigious stats as what they became once 2007 started to roll around and his individual trajectory just went through the roof. Like everyone looks at Brady.

They're like, oh, he's the greatest winner NFL history. It's tough to not say that they that he that he wasn't perfect. But there are moments there where if you really nitpick, you're like, oh, all right. In a 23 year career, not that there were imperfections, but it wasn't totally perfect. Like you could take a look at like a little like a wart that's like popping up on a part of your body that no one ever sees with Tom Brady. But for Aaron Donald, there's no flaws. There's no warts on his resume. Eight time, eight time first team all pro, 10 time pro bowler. That is one of the more flawless careers and one of the more perfect careers that I've ever seen in this league. Yeah. I mean, he made an all pro, first team all pro two, four, seven straight years, but he did miss one in 2022 because he only played 11 games. No, you're right.

It's basically perfect. You don't lead the league in sacks as an interior defensive lineman, but he did. He had 20 and a half back in 2018.

And here's just like the little icing on the cake. When you talk about a perfect career, every year has to be something special, right? So like Tom Brady, he's the perfect career.

Tom Brady, what's one of the things that he's missing? I don't think he won rookie of the year that year, offensive rookie of the year. Aaron Donald won defensive rookie of the year, right? So every award basically that he could have won, he won. The only thing he didn't win was MVP. And if there's any defensive player that was deserving of MVP, it was either Aaron Donald or there was a span of time where JJ Watt was the most unstoppable force in the NFL. He had three DPO wise in four years.

The problem is though his team's never won. No, but he was so good. I mean, he had- Oh, he's phenomenal. Everyone loves JJ Watt. He's phenomenal, but he played most of his career on the Texans and the apex for the Texans was just getting to the divisional round. Right. But in a four-year span from 2012 to 2015, the dude was averaging 17 and a half sacks per game over the course of a four-year span, a year.

20 and a half, 10 and a half, 20 and a half, 17 and a half. The guy was a monster, but yes, Aaron Donald, when you look at just how good he was and just his resume itself, it was perfect. He did everything that a defensive player could ever want to do. He even had one safety in his career. I guess maybe he could have had a touchdown. He had no fumble returns for a touchdown.

That's the only flaw that I could find. But, and he never had an interesting, you know what it looks like if I'm reading this correctly, Aaron Donald never had a touchdown, no fumble or interception return for a touchdown. How many did he force though? You want to know what the, like, I'm being, 24 force fumble, pretty decent. What I meant by how many touchdowns did he force though? Like when he just murdered someone and then someone else picked it up and they ran into the end zone.

Right. But I guess if we're looking for like a flaw in a nearly perfect resume, the one flaw is that he never got into the end zone. So two things off what you just said, you want to hear a great stat, TJ Watt, who I think right now is the best defensive player in football. And I'm not saying it's by leaps and bounds, like it's TJ Watt or it's Miles Garrett. Or Micah Parsons. If you ask Micah Parsons, TJ Watt who? How many career interceptions do you think TJ Watt has in the NFL? Eight. Pretty damn good guess.

Stu? Go prices right here. I know, I was going to say.

Go prices right here. I'm giving you the answer. Nine.

No, the other way. Seven. Seven. Seven interceptions for TJ Watt in his one, two, three, four, five, six, seven years in the league. He's had an interception in every year but two.

Kind of crazy. But for a lot, I mean, I guess he's an edge slash linebacker, but he's still dropping back into coverage often. I'm surprised it's that low, to be honest.

That's not low at all. His job is to go after the quarterback. Yeah, I guess my point is just for a linebacker who probably drops into coverage, I'm surprised that he doesn't have more than one a year.

You're surprised? He's a defensive end pretty much. You know, like Myles Garrett, no offense to him. I love Myles Garrett.

He's a stud. And yeah, I know that that TJ Watt is classified as a linebacker, but I look at him as an edge rusher. Myles Garrett never has had a career interception, which is kind of crazy when you think about it too, because of how athletic he is. And remember this past year when he just moved side to side? That was one of my favorite parts of the NFL season, when he ran from the right tackle to the left tackle. When he ran from the right tackle to the left tackle, from the left tackle to the right tackle before a play was snapped and he caused a delay in game.

That was absolutely awesome. Anywho, just to get back to the Aaron Donald conversation, two more things that I want to add here. Today, we're going to have a lot of people say Aaron Donald is the GOAT. Aaron Donald is in a GOAT conversation, but Aaron Donald isn't the greatest defensive player of all time.

Because what did you just say? Aaron Donald never won an NFL MVP, correct? If I just asked you from a name, just give me a name. Who's the greatest defensive player of all time?

You already named my top two, Lawrence Taylor and Reggie White. And it would be in that order, one, two? Correct. Stu, is that the same? Those are the same two, yes.

Right? Like those names, I'm not saying Aaron Donald's not a legend. Like in 20 years from now, you'll have people just hear the name Aaron Donald.

It'll be the way that we heard the name Lawrence Taylor and Reggie White. But Lawrence Taylor won one more Super Bowl than Aaron Donald. They had the same amount of NFL defensive player of the year awards, both having three. Lawrence Taylor did win defensive rookie of the year. He has eight first team all pros, both have 10 pro balls. And then here's the big one, Lawrence Taylor, 1986 or 1988, I think it is.

Yeah, 1986, excuse me. NFL most valuable player. So he has an MVP award to his name. That to me, see, this is why I hate the GOAT debates. Because on the day that Aaron Donald retires after having an all time great career, it sounds like we're knocking him.

We're not. But when you go through the legit breakdowns of it, that's why I have to give the edge to Lawrence Taylor. So I'm looking so CBS did a ranking today in the wake of Aaron Donald's retirement. Now, by the way, I'll get to what you're about to say in just a second. I forget exactly what the quote was, but I talked to John Clayton like right before he passed away. And that is a football historian. I have to go back because I don't want to misquote him. But I think he told me, if memory serves me right, it just hit me in the moment that he thought Aaron Donald was the greatest defensive player that he's ever seen, which that's a football story. I have to go back and double check that. But I remember something along those lines.

Anyway, go ahead. That's very impressive. And again, you know, I think a lot of the stats that we can see from Aaron Donald strike you. But as an interior defensive lineman, it's not a position that normally gets stats. So it almost amplifies how great his stats were because he's coming from a position that getting double and triple teamed on the interior, not supposed to get to the quarterback and get to the running back that often. You're supposed to be plugged up the middle and the defenses were always good. So his stats are even more blown up when you think about the position he played versus maybe an edge guy whose sole job is to get to the quarterback. But to the CBS list, it actually ranked Aaron Donald fifth all time, right?

I had the same one, two as us. They actually had Reggie White one and Lawrence Taylor two, but OK, you know, I can see both sides. I go Lawrence Taylor one of this because whoever you put number one, like I think it should be Lawrence Taylor. There's a short list of names that I can't really freak out if you want to go one over the right number three.

This was the question I was going to ask you because this was the other guy. If it wasn't going to be those two, this was the guy right before Aaron dumb that I would have thought of to is Ray Lewis. He's listed number three on the list, two time defensive player of the year, only player ever in the league. Only player ever with 40 sacks and 30 picks, second all time in total takeaways. And he led maybe the best defense we've ever seen, if not the best top five of all time. Ray Lewis to me, like if you're choosing to build a defense right now and you could pick right now, Ray Lewis in his prime, Aaron Donald in his prime.

Who you taking? Ray Lewis in their prime or Aaron Donald in their prime? Correct.

Oh boy. That's so because Ray Lewis was such a monster. Is this in the year of 2024? Because I think the era now matters. Like the linebacker, the traditional linebacker is now devalued to great in today's game of the NFL. So like, man, my childhood is, is literally kicking my insides right now.

And it's going to say, you're a moron for what you're about to say. I think I would prefer Aaron Donald over Ray. No, I don't think that you're more, I think that Aaron Donald's a three time defensive player of the year, eight time, all like, it's not a bad statement to me, but as a kid, like in the era that I grew up in, the two defensive players that you said that was just like, Holy crap. There was like three that were just Holy crap defensive players. It was in my era, Ray Lewis, Brian Urlacher, and then Ed Reed. Those were the three, like there were like Brian Dawkins was absolutely incredible with the great passion.

The rail Reavis was an awesome, obviously shut down quarter. They didn't even throw the ball his way, but those three names of Ray Lewis, Urlacher, and then Ed Reed, they were just iconic. Like all you had to say were there like you go to school on Long Island. People had Ray Lewis jerseys. People had Ed Reed jerseys. People had Brian Urlacher jerseys, Chicago and Baltimore on Long Island.

There were, those were just certain names. So that's why I'm saying my insides are like kind of killing me as a kid because of how much people revered Ray Lewis as a football player. But I think I'd rather have Aaron Donald over Ray Lewis.

I do. So give me the rest of this list. It was the top five here from CBS sports. Let me get, so number four, they had, let's see here. Well, five was Donald. Four was Lewis, right? Yes.

No, no. Three was Lewis. Four is Dion.

Oh, okay. Five is Donald. By the way, we could, we could call him Dion here, not coach prime.

Cause we're talking about him from his, his football. Or we just call him prime. So, so five was Donald. Correct. Four was prime.

Correct. Three was Lewis. Two was Lawrence Taylor. And then one was Reggie White.

Yes. Six, Deacon Jones. Seven, Butkus. Eight, Bruce Smith. I love Bruce Smith.

He's not that high. Nine, Rod Woodson and 10, Ronnie Lott. They don't have Ed Reed on this list, which is surprising, but, uh, Ronnie Lott is a monster. I love Bruce Smith.

I really do. And he was great for a very long time. But when I think of 200 career sacks after I know, but he played for such a long time too. Still though, I, I, we don't need to argue 200 career sacks. I don't care if he played, played for 400 years, 200 career sacks. He played for 19 seasons. Still 200 career sacks is 200 career sacks.

No, I get it. He's I'm not saying that he's not great. I just don't think he's a top 10 all time defensive player.

I would disagree with that. But anyway, we don't need this to turn into like Christopher Mad Dog Russo's radio show where we like debate people that all those years ago. Hey Zachary Guilbe, Michael Stukovics.

All right. This is Zach Guilbe show on CBS sports radio. Oh, here's one more point that I want to make. It sucks that Aaron Donald's retiring for a multitude of reasons, but the Rams were the team with what they did last year. When going into the season, McVeigh one foot in one foot out Stafford one foot in one foot out Donald one foot in one foot out. It seemed like all the retirement talk was going away. They had a really good season. They restored confidence. You had the emergence of Pukanukui, the emergence of Kyron Williams. You had a Cooper, Cooper cup come back.

Stafford come back. Donald played dominant again. And it seemed like they were going away. It seemed like they were going all all in for one more year. That's what it seemed like. And now Donald walks away and it's like, can they still be a good team this upcoming year? Absolutely. But it takes a little bit of that love that I had for the Rams, what I thought was going to be in a continuous off season love. Now my hopes are not down in the in the dumps and down in the gutter, but I'm just a little bit disappointed. But I can't fault the guy for walking away when he gave us one of the greatest careers that we'll ever see. All right.

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Now get 0% APR or up to 1500 bonus cash on the Hyundai Tucson now during the Hyundai getaway sales event. Offers and soon call 562-314-4603 for details. Alrighty, Zach Galb shows CBS Sports Radio. I am going to issue my first top 10 mock draft of the NFL draft season for the year of 2024. What we will do from now until the draft will start this off. Well, I will give you my mock draft will hit up like a Ryan Wilson will hit up a Chris Trapasso. I do this every year and I love it. We will do a mock draft a few more times. We will bring on a guest and they'll take like the odd picks in the top 10 and I'll take the even and they'll make the pick, then I'll make the pick and so forth until we get to 10 just to see what other people are thinking.

And it's kind of a fun exercise. So, Santa, I guess I should go from number one to 10. This is not one of those things where I go 10 to one. Just want to make sure that we're all on the same page. So with the number one overall pick Marvin Harrison Jr. It's the Chicago Bears taking Caleb Williams quarterback out of USC.

See, there I go again. I sound like Charlie Casserly quarterback, quarterback, quarterback. You got to know the quarterbacks, everybody, but I'm going Williams number one out of USC to the Bears. I don't think I think there's a logical argument on why they should keep Justin Fields and you get a king ransom offer again and you just surround them with so many great players and put him like a good quarterback in a position to succeed where he then can be viewed as a great quarterback. But Caleb Williams is perceived to be a generational talent. And I think it's the first time since Mahomes has come into the league where you have like a Mahomes comparison.

I think this is the strongest one. Like you heard it a little bit with Zach Wilson, farthest thing from the truth. You heard it a little bit with Jordan Love. Jordan Love has a chance to be a great player in this league. We saw the signs of it last year, but anytime someone gets compared to, oh, he could be like 10 percent or 15 percent or 20 percent or 60 percent of Patrick Mahomes, I usually say pump the brakes, which I did with Zach Wilson, which I did with Jordan Love for Caleb Williams.

I think it's the most logical one that has been thrown that way. I'm not saying he's going to be Mahomes, but you see the ability that he does have. So I've Caleb Williams going to the Bears at number one.

At number two, I'm going to disagree with Daniel Jeremiah. I know that Daniel Jeremiah said there is a better chance than what we thought of Drake May going to to the Washington commanders until I am proven wrong here. I'm going to think that Daniels is the pick to the commanders. I have Jayden Daniels going number two to Washington, and I hope that does not occur, but I think it's going to.

Then I have my first trade. I do believe the Patriots can potentially trade the pick here. I know Daniel Jeremiah pooh pooh that he said they're definitely taking a quarterback at three. I believe the Vikings, after making the deal that they made today, how are already having 11 now getting the Texans 23 are going to be active. They're going to try to move up to pass the Giants.

They do have the potential of the Cardinals or the Chargers just to get in front of the Giants. But I think they want one of the perceived top three quarterbacks. I'm going to say that the Vikings move up to three and they take Drake May. And this has been something that's starting to pick up steam because like last week, I'm like, oh, the Vikings probably go get JJ McCarthy. We have to move up a little bit, but maybe they end up getting JJ McCarthy or they just stay at 11 to get Michael Pennix Junior. Josh McCown was just brought in as the quarterback coach for the Minnesota Vikings. He was on the high school coaching staff where Drake May played high school football.

So there is a relationship there. So I'm going to say that the Vikings move up to three and they end up getting Drake May. And I would not be happy with the trade back there for the Patriots because you're trading back to 11. I know you possibly get then 23 in a future first round pick as well.

All right. Yeah, you get a bunch of first round picks, but none of them are in that top five range, which, which I don't like. So I've made going to the Vikings at three. The guy that I think is the best player in the draft, Marvin Harrison Junior, I have him going to the Arizona Cardinals in at number four. At number five, I think the Chargers are taking a wide receiver. I know they have Mike Williams no longer there. They just got rid of Keenan Allen as well. They drafted Quinton Johnson in the 20 range a year ago. I do believe they're taking a wide receiver. Now, in most mock drafts, they have Malik neighbors going in front of Roma dunes. I, I'm going to take Roma dunes a to the chargers here to wrap out the top five. So just to reset Williams to the bears, Daniels to the commanders may to the Vikings via trade, Harrison Junior to the Cardinals, and then Roma dunes a in at number five to the chargers in the first Zach Gelb show Zach Gelb show mock draft for the top 10 in the year of 2024.

Then in at number six, the New York football giants. Isn't it funny how this works? Because I said this the other week, like I feel as if bears fans are not, you know, going to look at a Drake May because he was at UNC and you had the Trubisky connection. I think that's why some people are souring on, on Drake May, just because we do this in a very stupid and simple way. People are like, Oh, it was a UNC quarterback.

He can't succeed. So that's why Drake May shouldn't be going in the top three anymore. The giants are at six. They were at six a few years ago when they had Mr. Hog, Molly lover in, in, in, uh, Dave Gettleman and Gettleman took Daniel Jones at six.

And that was not popular at the time. I think if JJ McCarthy is the sixth pick to the giants, that's going to have similar Daniel Jones vibes. Now I think McCarthy is a better quarterback than Daniel Jones, but we had Phil Sims on last Friday, I believe. And he thought McCarthy at six to the giants is just way too early for JJ McCarthy, but the giants are kind of giving you that feel. I know what Schneider said on the Seattle radio station. It got debunked because Drew Locke got in front of the podium today and he said, no, they said Daniel Jones is the starting quarterback, but John Schneider, the GM of the Seahawks basically said that Drew Locke was guaranteed an opportunity to compete in New York.

That's why he's no longer a Seattle Seahawks. But I don't think that they're in on Jones anymore outside of the contract, which is a pretty big one. And what Rich Eisen said at the end of combine week, it does feel like the giants are done with Daniel Jones. So I'm going to say they take McCarthy at six, number seven, Tennessee quietly has had a good off season where you get Tony Pollard, you get Calvin Ridley, even though people think it's an overpay, you have the Andre Hopkins, you have a new coach in there as an offensive minded coach. I'm going to say they go offensive line here. They're going to beef up their offensive line. They're going to get Joe all the left tackle out of Notre Dame.

Then we go to eight. I believe that the Falcons who have been in on playmakers this off season, they could go defense and have the first defensive player off the board here, but I think they're going to what quadruple down on offensive talent. Now you already got the speed of a Bijan Robinson. You have Tyler Algieri, you have Drake London. You have Kyle Pitts.

They got a Stu's guy, Darnell Mooney. I think they like, if one of those receivers are available out of the big three, I think they're going to go pounce. I'll put Malik Nabors, the wide receiver out of LSU going to Atlanta. In at number nine, Bears already got Caleb Williams. I now have them taking the first defensive player.

There could be a trade scenario here. You move back, you got a few more picks, yada, yada, yada, but I'm going to say Dallas Turner is going to be the pick here by the Bears. And then in at number 10, there's two offensive linemen.

Both of their names are tough to pronounce. I'm going to go for Shanu. I think I said that correctly out of Penn State. In at number 10, DeSantor's once beloved JTS, jets, before he jumped off the jets bandwagon or the sinking ship of the jets to go join the Kansas City Chiefs.

So Williams to the Bears, Daniels to the commanders, Vikings trading up to get May, Marvin Harrison Jr. to the Cardinals, Roma Dunze to the Chargers, McCarthy to the Giants, all to Tennessee, Atlanta takes neighbors, Chicago takes Dallas Turner, and then the Jets get for Shanu out of Penn State. All right, Zach, Yelp show CBS Sports Radio. Come on back.

It is a Friday. Sam's just got some questions for me. I'll give you some answers. We'll do a little onsite offsite when we come on back. Update time first.

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Beer imported by Crown Import, Chicago, Illinois. Zach's taking on the most polarizing issues in sports. Which side of the line of scrimmage will he end up on? Offside, defense number 69.

It's Onsides, Offsides with Zach Gelb on CBS Sports Radio. Omaha, Omaha, Omaha. Got a little audible here.

Santa and Stu, do me a favor. I want you to have your phone in your hand. Because I just texted you something. I don't want you to look at it yet.

Do not look at the actual text yet. I just got an Onside, Offside question from a listener, which you can tweet me those if you want, at Zach Gelb. I guess we'll start that now. Jameson in Milwaukee, who is a long time listener to this show. He also runs a bunch of restaurants. I think he's sending us some cookies. I call them like gourmet cookies. He sent Hickey and I them once.

They're to die for it. They are some of the best cookies, if not the best cookie that I've ever had. He just tweeted me. He just opened up a few pizza shops.

He said Onsides or Offside. Goat cheese on your pizza. Now, at first, you may hear goat cheese on a pizza.

I don't know. Just sounds a little eh. Take a look, Santa and Stu. Now, at your phone, I sent you the tweet that Jameson in Milwaukee did send me.

Now, remember, before snobby Santa kicks in here, we are New Yorkers. Our understanding and standard for pizza is a little bit higher, but he just sent me a little bit of what looks like a goat cheese pizza. At first, I would have said offside, but after seeing the picture, I'm going to go onside here and I'd be willing to try that goat cheese pizza. I will say Onsides.

The fact that you would have even considered going offside to start disappoints me. Goat cheese on pizza is amazing. Like, listen, I love a good New York style folded up in your hand, grease running off, slice of pizza. But you get like a good gourmet pizza with some goat cheese, right? You put on some prosciutto or maybe like some fresh tomatoes as opposed to, you know, the tomato sauce.

Oh, man. A goat cheese pizza is Tommy DeVito. To die for.

I'm all for it. I'm a big goat cheese on a pizza fan. Still, you have some peculiar taste. I feel like. Yeah, I've never had it, but that looks incredible. I'm willing to try that.

I think I'll have to try that at some point, by the way. Yeah. Don't want to accuse you of anything still.

But but no offense or anything. I wasn't stalking your Instagram the other night, but your story was up. Where are we seeing a little stony baloney stew? Oh, no, the cookies. No, there were some cookies. There was some candy.

Yeah, there was a lot of vibes that maybe stew was a chill accent. Let's just say I could see that you could get it from that. But no, this is just a girlfriend seeing something on TikTok and she wanted to try to make it. It was Lucky Charms, basically cookies. Gotcha. Yeah. Because you can see why Lucky Charm cookies. I didn't know exactly what it was, but looking a lot of candy and cookies. Yeah. Why I say maybe stews don't a little puff puff pass.

So it'd be similar to like, maybe, I don't know, a shopping cart with Doritos, double stuffed Oreo cookies. I fully admitted that. Oh, OK. That was a stoner bachelor party. My my one friend Cole is literally getting married on 420.

So, yeah, 100 percent intentionally or is it just kind of turned out that way? No. Man, how much I want to I'm going to say I'm going to be like that one time. Ted Johnson said there's no way anyone's listening. And then Ted Johnson said something that was not so nice about Vince Wolf works now ex-wife and they were listening.

I'm going to just assume that my friend and his soon to be wife is not listening. The soon to be wife gave the date to Cole. And then my buddy Cole was like, oh, you know what? That date actually happened. So it was unintentional. But yeah, anyhow, I was just I knew that was going to come up eventually because I saw it over the week with Stu and we were talking about goat cheese on the pizza and then Stu was talking about food. And I was like, hmm, wonder Stu was really enjoying himself, maybe made a little trip to the dispensary the other night.

All right, Santa, what do you got? So so we're actually doing onside offside. We're just playing the music and like talking about all this stuff. Offside question. Yeah, I just hear some of the stuff.

It's an onside offside question. Yeah, I just hear some Jamison in Milwaukee. I also have six other questions that I painstakingly broke my back typing out, researching, looking into so dramatic, you know, my my carpal tunnel, my fingers, my arthritis. And now here I am.

And we haven't even started yet. But all right, let's try the way I'm going to cut you a couple of these before the end of the second. I'm going to cut you off one more time. Billy Wolf in the chat says Stu is one of us, one of us. Stu shaking his head adamant.

He was not participating in those activities. Stu is one of everybody. Stu is like the nicest, most likable person I've ever known. Stu should be the next program director around here. He should be the next president. Let's hear about Samtra Gelb.

It should be Gelb Kovacs. Anyway, let's get to the actual onside offside that we had planned for. The Cowboys lost Tony Pollard to the Jaguars and apparently missed out on Derrick Henry because, well, they never approached him. Now, reports indicate that Dallas could actually reunite with Zeke Elliott, who's now a free agent from your Patriots.

Onside offside. The Cowboys should bring back Zeke. So I don't know if this report was actually true, just to be full disclosure, because I saw like one of those aggregators put it out there. I saw from DallasCowboys.com. Oh, OK. One of the writers of DallasCowboys.com. Gotcha.

Because I saw an aggregator put it out there today and then I saw a quote tweet of someone I wasn't familiar with and was like, oh, everyone's getting got because of this report from this aggregator, which isn't true. But regardless if it's true or not, we're going to talk about it because that's what we do. The Cowboys should bring back Zeke. Yeah, onside. The Cowboys are all in. The Cowboys are all in, not actually winning football games, creating the most drama possible. You don't have Tony Pollard anymore. You weren't really all in because you didn't even place a phone call to Derrick Henry, which is an absolute disgrace. And Ezekiel Elliott had a solid season last year. So why wouldn't you? There's no market for Zeke. Why wouldn't you bring him back?

Onsides. This plays right into the Jerry Jones drama game I'm in for Ezekiel Elliott coming back to the drama Dallas choking Cowboys. Right now they're starting running back is Deuce Vaughn, who I love, but I don't know if he could be a bell count number one guy.

Yeah. I don't know if he can carry 25. I think maybe Gronk may be bigger than Deuce Vaughn. I'm bigger than Deuce Vaughn.

I don't know about that. Now, after 10 pro bowls, eight all pros, three defensive player of the year awards, Aaron Donald announces retirement from the NFL. The 32 year old has seven seasons over 10 sacks, including 20 and a half back in 2018.

Now we'll go back to the same conversation onsite. Also Aaron Donald is the greatest defensive player ever. Love Aaron Donald. One of the more ferocious defensive players ever. One of the more flawless careers we've ever seen in the NFL, but this is a offside answer here. I got to go with Lawrence Taylor, Lawrence Taylor and Reggie white just for starters are better than Aaron Donald.

So Aaron Donald's the greatest offensive player of all time offside. The giants have the six overall pick and some believe they may target a quarterback, but for now the team has Daniel Jones and new free agent. Sonny drew lock in the QB room yesterday. Lock was asked what he was told about the starting quarterback position. Daniel Jones is the starter of this team and that that's that's been conveyed to me.

Now I need to come in and push Daniel to do the best you can be. And that's the role that I've played for Gino. That's the role that I played for Teddy. That's the role that Brett Ripon played for me when I was a starter in Denver. I've had both sides of this. I've been the guy to push a starter and I've been the starter that's being pushed by the backups.

It's all about making that room is as best as it can be. And if we do that, you know, sky's the limit for this team. Onside offside, Drew luck will be the starting will win the starting job from Daniel Jones at some point in the season. Offside because Drew lock is going to be QB three because Daniel Jones is about to be QB two because they're going to drop the quarterback at six. Maybe Jones starts the year. And then shortly after that, they will go to the one and only JJ McCarthy or Drake May, Michael Pennick Jr, whoever they do take, but they're taking a quarterback at six and maybe they'll trade up now with the pressure of the Vikings potentially trading up trying to jump the Giants as well. Could you maybe maybe trade Jones somehow?

I don't know with that contract. And then Drew lock starts week one. Will you wait for the other quarterback? I guess, but I think it's a long shot for Drew lock to be the starting quarterback over Daniel Jones at the start of the season, or even at some point this season. So I will go offside after the Seahawks lost lock to the giants. They needed a new backup for Gino and they added Sam Howell in the trade with the commanders.

Seahawks GM John Schneider spoke yesterday about why they made the move. So you have the football player. I think that's the best way to describe it. You know, it's guys that will play quarterback when you watch and then everybody know everybody saw him play out here. He had a great day against us, uh, this past fall, but, uh, yeah, he's a, he's a quarterback, but he's, he's really a football player. That's what I love about him. You know, really tough young, you know, he's 23 years old and as 18 starts, you know, in the, in the league already.

And, you know, he's the same age as like, uh, Daniel's from LSU and Rattler and Pennix. And he's a year younger than Bo Nix and, you know, so yeah, we're, we're happy to get him in the mix and Gino is the guy and, uh, Sam will be backing him up. So onside offside, how will we beat out Gino for the starting job to start the season? Yeah. Okay. I will go offside to that. Gino Smith will be the starter week one, but there will be at some point this season, whether it's injury or poor play or pedestrian play that Sam Howell ends up starting for the Seattle Seahawks over Gino Smith.

All right. Now the Michigan Wolverines, a fire head coach Juwan Howard after five seasons in our Ann Arbor with the team sitting at just eight and 24 this year. Now, Howard got off to a fast start at his alma mater going 42 and 17 his first two seasons, but it's just 46 and 55 the past three years. So onside offside, it is a mistake for programs to hire school legends as their head coach.

You know, what's crazy. I was actually at one of their eight wins this season earlier in the year at Madison Square Garden when they went up against the Red Storm of St. John's, the Johnny's. I was at that game and Michigan did win. But I don't think it's a mistake for programs to hire legends as head coaches.

I'll go offside. I know a lot of people say, look how many coaches that played for their alma mater recently got fired. But the way this question was worded was not just basketball. It's a mistake for programs to hire schools, uh, legendary legends as head coaches. Michigan hired a very popular former football player in Jim Harbaugh. It didn't look like it was working out well. He restored and couldn't get them over the hump and then did get them over the hump. So it worked for the football team long term. It didn't work long term for the basketball team. So I will go offside. I think it's a case by case base it. I do not think it's a mistake for programs to hire legends as head coaches offside does make it tough. It does make it uncomfortable when you want to move on, but that's the risk.

Usually you take a job in college and you know at one point you're gonna get fired. We'll try to sneak in one more for the second time in three years. Former number one overall pick Ben Simmons will undergo back surgery. The three time All-Star played in just 15 games this year and has missed 173 games over the past three seasons. Onside, offside Ben Simmons will never play another game in the NBA. Can I protest this question?

We're really wasting time. You have a job. Talking about Ben Simmons. You have a job to do.

You cannot protest. Big baby Ben. Ben Simmons will never play another game in the NBA. Onsides.

I'm done. Do you believe that? You just hope that to be true. Both.

All the above. Man you're mean. No I'm just protesting. That guy is such a jerk too. He's so arrogant.

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