Happy Half Hour Episode 5: The 99 Club

I think is too. Uh. It's very influenced by either Shan McVeigh or John Brunen, because there's the coaches that I've covered the most time. So I guess like if I were to like imitate Sean McVeigh, I would probably say that, you know, I have a great respect and appreciation for the way the week has gone so far. Are and you know, I'm just really looking forward to getting out there and getting back on the grass and so we can do whatever we need to do. I

like that John getting back on the grass. Oh yeah, it's all about the grass. And John Gruden might be more like, I'll tell you what, man, you know what you have to be here on the appyf Our podcast. I like transitions that I should never do again. Oh I love them, little Hall of Fame imitations. All right, will give me how you're doing this week and your best coach speak voice, Kristen, I'm sorry, I can't answer

that question right now. I'm talking to r V our trainer Ray as soon as I get out of this press conference, So, um, no no news to report until I talk. I never talked to him before I talked to you guys, So I'm just gonna we're just gonna have to move on. Sorry, I'll find out how everyone's doing after I talked to you. Guy. You don't know anything about how you're doing. I got you, I got you. You don't know. Clue, no clue. I haven't talked to r V yet. You guys know, I'm not going to

answer that. That is phenomenal. Oh my goodness. We're gonna have to have some more fun with that and coming episodes, because I feel like those are just we're just touching the tip of the iceberg with the both of you and your coach speak. Um. Well, I'm glad to hear that that you guys are doing well. At least I think Will is doing well. Um, I know one guy who is definitely doing well this week, and that is our good buddy, Christian McCaffrey, who was selected to at

the Mad ninety Club for a second straight season. Now, for those of you who don't play Madden or you know, maybe I don't know, living under a rock. That is the highest overall grade a player can have in the game. And if anyone deserves that, it is certainly him. So are are you guys? Mad? Guys? Will? Are you a mad guy? Um? Back in the day, I haven't played it in a hot minute. I was more of a football guy. I love that game. I actually wrote a full semester long thesis on n C Double a Football

in sophomore ye at college. All right, we're gonna need to see that at some point. Yeah, So the thirty second version of this. I took a class called Emerging Digital Narratives, which is a fancy Davidson way of trying to say we're gonna play video games and just make

it a college course. So my final uh like project, I chose that game because I tried to show how it was the first iteration of the game that did like the high school to the college I can't remember the name of it, but you know, like the you start off in a high school all star game and then you get your attributes, and then that determines where you get recruited, and then you have to decide whether you want to go to class or work out and

all these things. So it's like the first version of trying to create an actual personal narrative versus playing in a corporate sense as a non member person of the team where you can only play the wide receiver, so you can only control the wide receiver. You couldn't control the play call or the running back to the quarterback. So those were like, uh, kind of my way of showing that, like the ball was trying to create this personal avatar that you had a different understanding of rather

than a corporate nature of the team. That's awesome, and I'm sure that you got to, um, you know, play as much as you could just for research purposes to oh completely. The worst though, was when I actually like failed the project because I couldn't get through the whatever level of Grand Theft Auto three because I couldn't like hijack the car quick enough. I wasn't very good in video games, So that was kind of ironic. I just can't believe that you didn't you failed part of a

project in that course. That's amazing, and I just want to point out really quickly, are awesome. Producer Matt is letting us know that the n C Double A game mode is called Road to Glory, and he says it is the best. Yeah, road to glory. You know what, I was never too big of a road to Glory person, because I just liked um doing the sort of big cat thing and you know, you go to a program and then you win a couple of championships and then now go off to wherever else you want to go.

But to answer the original question, like I love I used to love Madden more than I do today because I always felt like Mad was easier when I was a kid growing up, and I was one of those people that was big into franchise mode. So I think in Madden OH eight, like I took one of the franchise I think it was the Dolphins because I don't think the Dolphins were very good in OH seven in

that game, and so I took him. I've simulated the first season they were really bad, and so then I relocated them to Manhattan and called them the Manhattan Kings, and it made them the this random third New York team, but like a New York team that was actually in New York, with apologies to Buffalo, but yeah, and then I was, I'm pretty sure deep into the ties in that game, which you know, Madden pretty ridiculous. So that was probably the height of my being an avid Mad player.

But that I've gotten more into it, like since I got out of PS four, and you know, I don't play against people. I just kind of do my own thing there because it's kind of fun. But I actually I like the um I guess what the equivalent of Road to Glory whatever that is in Madden, Matt, can you give us whatever that is too? It's like the

QB one franchise mode. I don't know. That was fun in the last game because you actually got to you have to sort of play as a college player, as a college quarterback, and that also gave you like a little sample of what an n C double a game would be like in you know, the YR So I missed that game too. In conclusion, I like it. I like you could write your own research paper about that, I mean about your the fact that you relocated the

Dolphins to New York. Matt says he believe it used to it used to be called He believed it used to be called Superstar. Does that ring a bell? Miles the version you were talking about? Okay, um, okay. So one thing I want to do. I am not great at video games. I don't know if I don't have the thumb dexterity for it or what. But you know, I enjoy I enjoy watching them and enjoy keeping up with everything, but I never been great at them, no surprise.

But I always love when you see the ratings come out because it makes you think, like, what is the one so CMC rating of nine can't get any better than that? What is the one random thing that you're like, I would get a ninety nine in and just you know, not the boring stuff, Like what's something that's just so random that you're like, I'm awesome at this, Miles, Do you have anything that you would feel like you would get a ninety rating in? But this is very random.

Going through the security line at the airport, I see I feel like I'm pretty good too. So let me hear it, let me hear your your pitch for why you get the ninety nine, Well, first of all, I always know when to have my idea out and when to put it back. But also not only like you have to understand where the phone is supposed to go, and how much brightness you should have on your phone.

If you're using your phone, is your boarding pass, which I do because I lose a piece of paper and I will never lose my phone because that thing is connected to my body like it's an extra appendage. So if you have your brightness up, that makes it easier

too for the little thing to scan. So you put it down, then you pick it back up, and then right now, if you're going on an airplane, you have to take your mask down and then you put that back up as you hand the person the I D then you take it and so then the key is especially if you have t S a free check, which maybe everybody shouldn't get it, but you should get it. But I also don't want you in the line, but

I guess we're not strugling right now anyway. But I'll tell you what, it's the best I've ever spent in my life. So you get into the line, and then you don't have to take off your shoes. You don't have to take out your laptop. But somehow people still mess this up sometimes when they're in the T s A line. But all you have to do is when you start getting closed, you put your phone, your keys, and your wallet into your bag and then you put that thing up on the little conveyor belt. You put

your suitcase up, boom, you walk right through. It makes it so much easier. And you also have to know which things you can and cannot wear right because there's a certain belt that I have that will always go off. But I know now that I can't wear that belt, so I gotta keep that belt in the bag at it. I'm I'm with you. I I don't want to steal yours. I think i'd be up there. Maybe not a ninety nine,

but you're right there there those little things. You got to pick the right line too, because you don't want to get behind the people that that don't know that you you can leave your shoes on. I've gotten really good at when I lived in Chicago and I was

flying two or three times a week. Sometimes in the T s A line you might have to take off a heavy jacket, so I got really good at like, while I was putting the stuff back in the pockets and going towards the line, kind of making eye contact with a T S A officer and being like, can I leave this jacket on? And he'd be like, yeah, you can leave it on, you know, because sometimes you got the heavy jackets in the cold weather. So I'll

give you that. I'll give you the ninety nine in that, all right, will what is the one random thing you would make you would have rating for so much to the chagrin of my girlfriend, I can pretty much crack every knuckle or joint in my body, my nose, I can crack my Yeah, I feel like that's not good. It probably isn't What is the one that just gets her? Is it just do you do the full body crack?

And she's like, oh my god stop. Yeah, it's the it's the wake up, and then it's the hip, the knees, ankles, and then when you go with the elbows and then the fingers like all kind of in a yeah, yeah, it's just like you're gonna die. And I'm like, no, read I've read articles about this. This doesn't actually cause our art, right is? Maybe I don't know well, from what I know about cracking knuckles and stuff, it's just

really it's releasing gas. So in some ways it's maybe good that you're doing that because it reallyves the pressure on a weird way to say that look and release the gas. But yes, you're right on a technical tertain. All right, you get the ninety nine and that love it? Um, okay, mine is I feel like I get a nine nine in identifying random celebrities voiceovers and commercials, Like, I feel really good about that. And I've always it's always been a thing that I'm like, oh, yeah, that's the dad

from Modern Family doing that Zyrtec commercial. I don't even know his name, you know, Um, that's Lenaway doing that A T and T. I think there's a weird Holly Hunter did I think? Like a Pepperoni commercial ten years back. I still think about that sometimes. I just I don't know what it is, and I'm not even super familiar with all of the actors or no a lot of stuff that they're in. But man, I can just if I hear their voice once, so I'm like, oh, I

know who that is. And if I can't figure it out, it just it gets to me so talent that no one ever asked for. But I do. I would give myself a ninety nine on that one. Interesting. I don't think it's that interesting, but thank you for saying that. No I do, because they're they're like car commercials. I'm being into cars, So there are car commercials where it's like that sounds like or that sounds like, well, Will Arnett is a big voiceover guy. But you know, Brian

Cranston just did the new Fort Bronco. Anyway, all right, I'm gonna stop talking about this. I could go on, yeah, yeah, if you ever need to know who is doing that, I don't know Reese's commercial. I got you. It's will our nut. Um. Alright, So I mean, look, who can say who's more talented us or Christian McCaffrey after us talking through all those things. I really don't know. I really don't know. I think we're right up there. Um. So that is that is some news that we got

this weekend. Again, congratulations it to him on that so well deserved. Um. But aside from that guy, is not a lot of news as it pertains to what's going to happen in the future with the NFL. Not a lot of solid news and full disclosure. We waited on recording this podcast until Thursday in the hopes that we would, you know, know a little bit more about training camp and be able to talk through all of it. Uh, but short answers. Right now, we still don't know a lot.

You know, we're operating as if everything's going to go on schedule. But you know, Miles, I know you've been keeping up with with all of the reports and things like that between the NFL and NFL p A negotiations. So what are you kind of seeing in terms of

where we are right now. Yeah, I think the biggest thing that's come out in the last day or twos from Tom Paul Sorrow of NFL Network who basically said the NFL's latest proposal to the p A still included two preseason games, and the union doesn't want any preseason games, and so the union is trying to get frequent tests injury protection for players, UM and and things like that. So it's it's a matter of still not having answers

um and so. Plus are also reported that there's a call scheduled for Friday between the NFL, the league in the NFL p A and the issue with that really is that. Look, there are two teams and the Chiefs and the Texans who at least as of right now, can have rookies reporting to training camp on Saturday, and the rest of the league has their rookies able to

report on Tuesday as of right now. So I think either things are going to get pushed back for rookies um coming out of this call on Friday, and we will have some sort of uh finalized report date, or maybe we'll still just be in limbo. But I think, you know, as I was talking to tell your white Head last week and I talked to Russell Koon this week, you're the the NFL is just it's necessarily running out of time, but it's starting to get to a place where you need to have a little bit more urgency.

And I think that there is urgency, but there you want to get something settled so that everybody can start to really plan their lives and figure out, Okay, this is where we need to be. And also so gms can say, if we are going to have to reduce our rosters to seventy five players or eighty players, is was rumored, then how are they going to be able to do that like, who do they need to cut?

They need to inform these players of those types of things. Um, so coaches need to be able to say, all right, here's what our practice schedule is definitively going to be. Whether it's strength and conditioning and you ramp up for a week or two and then you start getting into real practice or not. You just don't have any certainty, and it's just really hard, I think for everybody to deal with. And I'm sure it's hard equally to come up with a plan that is definitive because of the

way things keep changing throughout the pandemic. So it's it's a tough situation for everybody. And I guess, you know, you just got to try to figure out what a proposal that works for both sides and then go from there and if you have to adjust, you do. Yeah,

I agree. I think with rookies reporting within the next few days, we're going to have to hear something soon, don't you agree, Miles, Like it feels like tomorrow, whether it gets shared with the media or not, it feels like there have has to be some answers, right, Yeah, I think that they're definitely have to be answers especially because of that, you know, rookie reporting date that is so quickly approaching, not only for the Chiefs and the Texans,

who they have their reporting date earlier because they're supposed to start the season or a couple of days earlier than everybody else on that Thursday night on that Thursday night date, and that's why they have their first date. And then everybody else is on Saturday. Um, excuse me,

everybody else is the following Tuesday. But that, yes, to answer your question, yes, you have to start getting some sort of answers soon because of those types of things, because these dates aren't coming up fast and furious, and not only next Tuesday being that report date for everybody within the following Tuesday is supposed to be the opening day of training camp for everything else. So again, like it, you have to be able to, I guess, get the wheel turning on whatever is going to be the end

result here. Absolutely, And of course, you know, as we've talked about a lot on this podcast, and you've talked with players about, you know, number one priority is safety. But I think you've made such a good point that we know what the NFL p A is fighting for and what the NFL is fighting for and they're all really important points that need to get worked out. But then at a certain point, you're sure players just and coaches and and and like you said, gms just want

to know what's what's going to happen. How are we going to approach this? So, you know, I think by the time we talk next week, we will have a lot to to talk about, hopefully, UM in terms of kind of the direction of training camp and and maybe the season. You know, but one thing that we do know is that season will not be operating stadium wise

at full capacity for fans. UM And will I know you've been involved with the Panthers efforts, UM to inform PSL owners and fans about what's going to happen with a reduced capacity, So can you kind of fill us in on on where we are on that. Yes, So, I think one term that everyone's going to get a little more used to because you're gonna be hearing a lot is this term like opt in and opt out UM.

And I know that that was something you know, back to the players that was being discussed with the NFL p A. I'm not sure where that has kind of

in those negotiations. But the idea that you know, maybe a player on a certain type of contract that might have you know, a family or you know, have to have reasons for you know, not wanting to go put themselves in the harm's way, and you know that's kind of part of what was what went out this morning to all PSL holders was this opportunity to opt in to say yes, I'd like to still come to as many games as possible, I'd like to use tickets, or

just say nope, I'm good. I want to keep my PSLs for either get a refund or a credit, but I'm I'm good to stay home this year. UM. So that was what went out this morning, essentially the idea that if there are home games in the stadium, you're not going to have more than twenty thousand people in it. Um. And what went out this morning was the ticket office

essentially asking people to find out where they are. Um. I think that's the big first challenge for them is to in order to kind of figure out how you have groups of two or three or four socially distant from each other in the seats in the bowl in different places. You have to know how many people are actually gonna try to come to games UM, and of course they prioritize the season ticket holders UM to try to figure out how many people want to come, how

many people are saying I'm good. And then once they know where those people are, you know, then the next steps of these things start happening. They have to figure out where where they're gonna sit, they have to start showing the protocols they have, and you know, one of the things who are working on is if your seats are assigned in section one oh three for whatever, there's gonna be times to come to the gate in order to make sure that not all everyone company of the

game aren't all crushing in at twelve. You know, we need we need space and time. So you might be in a section that comes in between eleven thirty and twelve UM or twelve to twelve thirty or or something like that. And then there's gonna be areas for for which gate you're supposed to go in, for which concessions stand to go to to just to make sure that people aren't all congregating in the same place. So it's gonna be a very different experience, UM, even for those

that are coming to the game. You know, we're trying to make everything through the Panthers App, touchless payments, ticketing, concessions, all that kind of stuff. So it's gonna be very

different even for those that do end up coming to games. Well, that is such a huge undertaking that that you and know a lot of our coworkers are are working on, Like you said, just concessions through the app to get you know, everything has to be changed, and figuring out the logistics of the timing of when everyone's going to

come in and where everyone can sit. Um. But you know, I think it's a great undertaking, and I know it's got to be stressful for for a lot of people we work with, and of course for the fans it's going to be different. But you know, the hope is that we can have football games where people can can come and watch and feel safe and enjoy themselves, and that's you know, the end goal. So um, I'm excited to see all of the innovations, although of course we

wish it could be a regular football season. Um. As you said, everything is going to be different. Um. So I think it's great that that we're working on all of these things in order to try to make it the best and safest experience that that it can be, for the for the fans that can go UM. So, you know, overall, the general theme of this week right

is there's so many unknown still. So I kind of thought, though, as we hope to turn the page to training camp very soon, I kind of thought it would be fun to go over a couple of things that that we do know and that we have learned about this team over the past few months, UM, in terms of our talks with with the staff and and players. What are I would love to get just one thing from both

of you, and I'll share mine as well. Miles. Let's start with you, what is one thing that you have learned about this team in the past few months that's either been enlightening or that's made you excited for the season ahead. Yeah. I think if I had to point to one thing, it would be the team's real belief in Matt Rule in the direction that he's pointing this

team in. And I think that's kind of easy to say for coaches who have been with him, you know, and there are a lot of those coaches who have gone with him from Temple to then Baylor and now

to Carolina with the Panthers. But all I think even when you talk to players, it's interesting to hear their perspective on it too, because look, a lot of these guys have only met with Matt rulever truly through the screen and the the projection of belief that Matt Uill put into the players when all the protests started happening and he said, you know, I want you guys to

use your voice. I think that went a long way for these players, and that certainly is also set by the top of the organization um with team owner David Tepper as well. But I think when you get it from Matt Rule, and when you also have these guys talking about how they really feel like he's setting them up well um to play during the season, so it's not just on the field, it's off the field, I

think that that's really impressive. And you know, look, they're gonna be a lot of challenges for this coaching staff because they have not really met these players and they didn't get to see them on the field before. But I think when you have that kind of steady leadership at the top, that's gonna be able to help you smooth things over as much as possible. Um, when things

go on, Miles, I completely agree with you. And it's funny because I know exactly what you mean about when you say it could sound a little cliche that that that is the thing that you've learned, But I feel exactly the same way because it's something that you and I have been very fortunate to get a lot of time with this coaching staff and a lot of time with some of these players over the course of um these last few months, albeit virtually, And I get what

you're saying. It could be a cliche to say, oh, yeah, there's a lot of belief in the leadership at the top and in Matt Rule's vision, But when you hear it day in and day out from so many different people, and you hear kind of how genuine they are when they say it, I completely agree with you. It goes kind of past that, UM, that cliche, Yeah we're all you know, we're all behind. I mean, it really does

feel like that very genuinely. Um. Every time you talk to to someone that's had a lot of interactions with with Coach Rule. UM, So I I completely agree with you and get on what you're saying. UM, I want to build on that a little bit. For the one thing that I've learned, um about the seaman, Miles, has really been in listening to your conversations with some of this coaching staff. They have a lot of belief in

Teddy Bridgewater. And I mean, I've heard Matt Rules say so many times he's the perfect guy for us, He's the perfect guy for us. And then hearing um, you know, he said that to me in my first interview with him, and then he was just saying it, you know, to you, Miles in the in the media a couple of weeks ago, and I you know, and then Joe Brady saying that he's running meetings for him, um, and of course their relationship together. We've heard so many great things from Joe

Brady and Matt Rule about Teddy Bridgewater. And you know, I think it kind of goes in the same vein of what you were saying, Miles. It's like you can hear somebody say something once and you go, Okay, alright, got it. But when you hear it over and over again and you kind of hear the inflection in the voice and the excitement that's behind it, I think it goes a long way um, in feeling, you know, just

how genuine that is, if that makes sense. I really get the impression that they are that they are are so happy with Bridgewater and so excited to see, you know, what he can do once training camp starts and getting him into you know, into this Panther's offense and having him utilize those weapons. And I mean you've heard him say, I think Miles, you asked him the question rule, the question of you know, what do you want him to do?

And he's like, I don't want to throw the ball down the field, like use all these weapons that we have. So I'm I'm excited about how excited they are about that. Um, well, you're the vet of course, where Miles, Miles and I are the newbies. But what's one thing you've learned this off season? Well, I think the the NFL world is in terms of coaching, in terms of play calling, in terms of schemes. You know, it can be a large ship that turns slowly sometimes. And I think that you know,

it's called the copycat League and for good reason. And I think it's going to be really fun to watch not only Joe Brady but Phil Snow and the way that these guys are gonna come in with some pretty fresh, different ideas and different looks, and you know they're they're not trying to conform to this is what the NFL does. They know how to win football games. Um, and you know I I you know, obviously everyone's talking about the offense,

how explosive they can be. You know, Bill Barnwell ranked them fifth in terms of offensive weapons on the ESPN article this week. I'm I'm curious to watch this defense, you know, it moving back to you know, more of a fourth three front, potentially having you know, kind of a three safety look, running safeties up into the box. You know, you have Jeremy chin Um, you know, new new fresh uh, you know person at middle linebacker into

your white head. I think there's a lot of interesting dynamics in play on this defensive side, Um, and I'm really looking forward to kind of seeing that energy and seeing them just let loose. I completely agree. I think the three safety thing, seeing if if that translates into the NFL. Knowing that he did that at Baylor, I'm really interested to see a if we're going to get a lot of that, you know, personnel formation and be and be how it's gonna work. I'm excited about it,

especially with with Jeremy Chin. Like you said, I mean, I can't wait to see him out on the field. Yeah, Jeremy Chin should be really fun to watch. And I think when you think when you think about him and the guys who are safeties and people in the league who have shown to be that kind of versatilent. I don't want to make you know, crass compared a comparison,

that's like going to set him up to fail. But people of that nature come to mind, or like Jamal Adams, right, like somebody who is basically your rover all around the defense, someone that can blitz, somebody that can go back into coverage. That I think is the kind of ceiling that you'd at least like to think that Jeremy Chin has. And if he can start to show sort of that potential, that's gonna be huge for the Panthers defense, not just this year but going forward. I agree, And going off

of Will's point a little bit further. You know, full snow Is said in the past, like you you adjust your defense to the players you have, and you can see the kind of players like a Jeremy Chin that that they want to bring on board and develop up. So I'm I'm excited to see what this defense is going to look like, um this season. All right, it is time for our weird question of the week, and this one is not I want to say this. We've all tried our hand at the weird questions. We've had

a lot of fun with them. This one is not really a weird question. It's a really good question from from one of our listeners. Patrick Vogel sent us this on Twitter. He was talking about I had done a segment with Jake to lome Uh that got released this past week or last week, um, cold inside Scoop, and he had ripped his pants. We were like, look, we

can talk to Jake about anything, all of these great plays. Well, I know you're you're a huge fan of him, as am I. But we're talking about the time that you ripped your pants on National TV. And he's such a good sport about it. We had so much fun. He still has the pants with the giant rip in the butt. Um, it's on our it's on the Panthers Twitter, it's on Panthers dot com if you want to check it out.

But Patrick was talking about it, uh, the segment, and he said, you know, I still member when Jake ripped his pants, and he wanted to know from all of us, what is the most embarrassing moment that we've had at work? So will I'm gonna start with you. So this was several jobs ago, because I didn't want to bring up the most embarrassing things I've done with the Panthers because that's just not as fun. But this was back maybe two thousand eleven, when I was working at College of

Charleston UM running their website, running some of their content. Uh, And I'm posting a story late at night on them, maybe a Thursday after a volleyball match, maybe a Friday, And I refresh college or CFC sports dot com like our our website, and it's gone all of the normal things. It's just there's nothing there. It's just one of those pages that just has ads and oh my god, the ads are all the ads are like porn ads. Just

whoa my god. Yeah. Yeah, somehow the domain that we had purchased had expired, and the guy that had purchased it had long since moved on to like two other jobs ten years prior. Nobody knew the password that he had set up. Know what, no one had any idea what to do? Oh my gosh, what what I mean? How long did it take to get it fixed? A couple of hours? Those are hours, and those are hours

that will aid you by ten years. And I'm like, I'm half thinking in my own head as we're trying to find the password to log back in to repurchase the domain so that we could reassign it to like our web content company, I'm thinking, like I could personally just create a new account and buy this thing and then make College Charleston have to then buy it back off me. But you know I didn't. Actually no one else did either. We didn't have to buy it from

anyone in those two hours. But yeah, it was bad. It was really bad. So what what was the cause of that? What happened? So? You, I guess the the guy that had had the job long before I had come there. He had bought the domain and then you know, the domain gets assigned to your your back end web company who then put the actual stuff onto it, you know,

the content, but the domain itself is different. And he had it in his own files, like it wasn't something that he had when he left that he had thought to transfer to like the department's I T department when we really have one or anybody else. So we were trying to get in touch with him. He couldn't remember

the password that he had set up. You know. It was just it's just one of those things where you're like, I've always been very vigilant now about knowing who owns the you know, the domain that we currently use, like panthers dot com. Like, can you imagine if that just disappeared and anyone could buy it? For two hours? No? I can't. That's insane. Oh my gosh, I don't know if I don't know if we're gonna be able to beat that. Miles. Maybe we should have made Will go last,

because that's that's tough. But alright, Miles, what's yours the most embarrassing moment at work? Um? You know, I I'm trying to really think, Oh okay, I got it. Um, I hope, I hope. I have not told the story on the podcast before. Sometimes I forget where and when I told We've only had like five episodes, so if you I know. But so, I just started my job with the Rams back in and one of my assignments

was to UH interview Jeff Fisher every week. So I the first time I did it, I was twenty two and I basically never interviewed I head coach in my life. And I was really nervous, so I couldn't start the interview. It was. It was really bad. But about five six weeks into the season, UH, Jeff Fisher decided he wanted to mess with me, so he, I guess told everybody else, Hey, I'm gonna mess with Miles during the interview, so don't worry about it. I'm not going to be serious. So

he doesn't tell me this obviously. So I'm sitting down and then I think the Rams had lost. So I asked him some question, some benign question that had been approved by our public relations staff before before we had even you know. I started sitting down and Fisher just goes off on me. He's like, well, we lost, so

what kind of belief do you think it is? And I was like, and I probably I wish that somewhere I could find the footage of this, because it looks probably like I'm about to like pooh my pants, like because I and so then he looks at me for like three seconds and then everybody starts laughing. So yeah, I would say that that is probably my most embarrassing moment of work because I was just very scared, little twenty year old at the time. Yeah, let's see if

we can find that footage. I that's a good one too. That's a good one too. Mine is I think will is going to win this one. But mine is. Mine is also embarrassing because it was caught on camera. I

was trying to think back. Um, I'm sure I've had plenty of other embarrassing moments that I've maybe blocked out that have been recorded, But the one that comes to mind for me is but I worked on Mike and Mike at ESPN for three and a half years, and um, I was there their researcher and we sat in the studio and so they would always, you know, it's a

four hour show. They would they would have us on the staff quite a lot, and you know, there are times where he'd start a bid or you know, we'd have fun and joke around, and for whatever reason, one day there was some bet that I think it was maybe Mike and Mike versus the staff. I can't remember, but the if you lost the bet, it was that you would have to do push ups. And I think it was push ups like twenty or so every I don't know if it was every hour, every time we

went to commercial. I mean it was a lot. It was a significant amount of push ups if I remember correctly. And the studio floor it's pretty the wet and shot. I don't know how to it's a pretty shiny, it's pretty slippery. It's not like if you were gonna do push ups on the floor, it wouldn't be the ideal floor for it. Um it kind of it kind of has like that basketball court feel, and you know, when you're in your work clothes and stuff. So it's like

not starting out great anyway. But I'm like, okay, Like the camera, you know, they bring the camera over, the camera guys wearing the equipment like they're really filming. They're really zooming in on you doing these push ups. You and these other uh staff means I'm like, all right, so I gotta I'm not great at push ups in the first place, but like I'm gonna I'm gonna get through these, like just whatever ten or twenty and then we'll go to break and they'll have to come back

and do them. I swear I got to like five and I just like, but I just like, I think I fell on my face like I did, my hands slipped, I couldn't do anymore. I was like, I can just power through these, like you know, adrenaline or whatever. I don't want to embarrass myself. I think there are the worst push ups anyone has ever seen anywhere, and I can never lift those down, so I can't. Like I said, I blocked out some of it. I can't remember if I fell, if I slipped, if I just gave up

and laid on the ground. I think it might have been all of those because we hadn't do a significant amount during a four hour show. And I just remember, I've never been able to lift that down. So awesome is it? I think so? I think, But most embarrassing moment is definitely more embarrassing. Hey, shout out to Mike Golic senr on a great career at ESPN Radio though, absolutely he He's taught me so much, UM and I'm excited to see him call college football games. Although we'll

be we'll all be sad to lose my ESPN Radio UM. Alright, guys, this is gonna do it for for this edition of The Happy half Hour. This has been a lot of fun, a lot of laughs this week, a lot of embarrassing stories. I think it definitely constitutes, uh, the name Happy half Hour. So thank you, gentlemen for for hanging out with me, and uh thanks everyone who's listening. We'll see you next week now