Hi, I'm Will Bruin, and I was just recognized as a Seattle Sounders legend. Now I get to do voice reads for the Sounder at Heart Podcast Network. Here we go. Come on. Hey, oh, shit. Let's go. Let's go. And now they truly can start the celebrations! It's the Sounders MLS Cup! Nicola now leaves absolutely no doubt. The Sounders rule the region. Ah, this feels fucking awesome. This is a tiny... Nice work on your little yacht you know, what was the thought process?
in terms of who you decided to use. Ever since Sounder and Har wrote a commentary that we didn't take them seriously. This episode of Nos Arietes is sponsored by Full Pull Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of Nos Arietes since 2011. Bull Bull was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime Sounders supporters. They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, Pacific Northwest.
Welcome back to another episode of Nos Adietes on the Sounder at Heart Podcast Network. I am Jeremiah Oshan, and joining me today to help preview the Open Cup game on Tuesday between the Tacoma Defiant. And the Portland Timbers is Tyson Allinger of the I-5 corridor, which is a sub stack that covers sort of the Portland sports scene. But this time of year, pretty heavily into soccer. Timbers. Uh, Thorns. Welcome to the show, Tyson.
Hey, thanks for having me. The corridor runs up north a little bit, so we do have to at least have a little bit of knowledge about this Tacoma game coming up. So I'm so happy to be here. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it does. It runs, apparently it all runs all the way to the Canadian border. Who knew? My mistake is that thing goes all the way down to San Diego, too. In December, I'm like, wow, I should open up the South Bureau. Exactly, exactly. I know, that would be pretty slick.
But you do focus mostly on the Portland area. So University of Oregon, I don't know, do you also cover the Beavers? Yeah, we have...
You know, my first couple years when I started this, I tried to cover everything equally, and I just realized that that's kind of a losing battle in the long run when it's just one person. So I... I primarily cover the Oregon Ducks and the Portland Timbers, but when the Beavers have a story that I come across that I like or that just feels like that needs to be told, I still branch out and do those things, but I'm primarily Ducks and Timbers these days.
Okay. An eclectic pairing of football and football. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So what is the, you know, it's funny. It's been a strange few years for the Timbers. The vibes have been sort of all over the place. Last year, they were obviously a very, very good offensive team, but a dreadful defensive team that ended up being their downfall. They, of course, go out in famous fashion losing on the road at home.
to the Vancouver Whitecaps in the playoffs. But they didn't really do anything dramatic this offseason. They kind of stuck with what worked. They still have a very powerful offense, but the defense does seem to have gotten a bit better this year. Yeah, it was kind of a weird off-season because you had the one major aspect of
Evander kind of had his blow up after the Vancouver play-in game. And it just felt like that that was an unfixable relationship. So that kind of hung over the majority of the offseason. And so like when the Timbers did go about making a few signings, such as like Jimmer Forey. or Joao Ortiz.
Or, you know, a couple of those, or I guess David DaCosta came after they sold Evander, but it was just everyone was waiting for kind of like that cloud to lift. And that didn't happen until mid-January or so. So you basically had this roster that didn't look. terribly different from last year.
Just minus the fact that you had a 15-goal score and a 15-assist guy out of it. So, yes, there was belief that the defense was going to be better because it couldn't really be a whole lot worse than it was last year. The biggest question for them really coming into the year was like, where are the goals going to come from? Because Evander was gone. Jonathan Rodriguez had a knee injury during preseason that kept him out for the first seven games.
And so, you know, when they opened the year with Vancouver again and it was 4-1 and, you know, it was a red card game with Kamal Miller getting taken off, the vibes were pretty terrible around Providence Park and the general Portland area because it just seemed like it was the same team minus an MVP candidate. you know, once they were able to play with, you know, a false starting 11 for an entire game, you did get to see that.
you know, the back line has really, um, established itself, especially with Vince Herman playing alongside Kamal Miller. But then the craziest thing has just been like their scoring goals at the exact same rate they were last year, if not better. And I think a lot of that has just been progression from some of the youngest young players. I believe the lineup that they put out. Last week was the youngest in Timber's history, which...
You know, you just have a handful of like 21, 22 and 23 year olds. So. They're really spreading the ball out a lot more than just kind of when Evander was a spectacular player. You've seen that this year with how he's produced for Cincinnati, but it's kind of the game revolves so much more around him. And I think that there's a lot of talent and there's a lot of athleticism on this roster that is getting better utilized now here in 2025. Well, and that's all...
That's all very interesting and will be, I'm sure, of particular interest when the Sounders and Timbers actually play in a couple weeks in MLS play. But this is an Open Cup game. I am curious how... A, how seriously, what is the approach that... that the Timbers are coming into this game and how much of their first team roster or like their regular starters do you expect to actually see on Tuesday?
One of the things that they talked about in the preseason coming into this year was that they wanted to take these cups and these tournaments seriously. I know this isn't necessarily the hardest opponent that they might face in this US Open Cup in this round of 32, but I think it does come at an interesting time because You know, the Timbers do have a fair amount of starters from last year who have been sitting on the bench all this season that haven't seen a lot of action. You know, Max Cropot.
He played this weekend, but that was his first game since the first one of the year. We haven't seen Dario Zuparic yet. You know, we've kind of rarely seen Bravo out there as well. So I think that they're still going to play a fair amount of their first team, but I think they're going to be able to get minutes for a lot of those guys. haven't quite earned them yet you know Phil Neville was talking last week he was saying that at practice they did an 11 on 11 scrimmage and
He said he didn't really see much separation between the two groups, you know, talking about the depth that they've built. So I do think they utilize a fair amount of that, but I also wouldn't be surprised to see a few call-ups for that game as well. And so when you say college, do you think there might be some T2 type of players that come into this game? Yeah, yeah. But I also think...
It's an interesting club because they really are about some of the cliche type things like momentum and unity and Neville Will Wax. poetic forever about like get the group coming together and so I think I think with them coming off of this loss that they have on Saturday which was a pretty dreadful loss of San Jose I think I don't think that they're going to want to put out a half-baked team out there and take two losses before coming back into MLS play on Saturday.
Yeah, so it's been an interesting... sort of uh approach that are not an interesting mood around the team uh for the defiance because they you know they came into this tournament they've they've obviously this is their fourth
game in this tournament they had to start in the first round and they you know they started against an amateur team and then they played a league one team and then they played a championship team and now they're playing an mls team this is the farthest they've ever advanced and they've sort of been talking about how They've been wanting to get their players more games because the MLS Next Pro season is so much shorter.
And they don't have all these other competitions. So they've sort of been approaching this tournament as a pretty big deal for them because at this point, obviously, they're playing the highest level of competition that they'll play, even if the Timbers rotate their lineup. But there's also this very clear sense, you know, there's a lot of people in the defiant side of things.
that have a very acute understanding of this rivalry between the Sounders and Timbers. You know, Wade Weber is sort of the, essentially sort of like the GM of the Defiance. He's a player, he's someone who went to the University of Portland, but grew up in the Seattle area, came through the Sounders. He's been a co-chair for a long time. He has a very... a very strong connection to this rivalry. And you can kind of go through the roster and there's a lot of academy players.
and whatnot. And so they're approaching this game like it's a huge deal. It's unclear at this point how many players the Sounders will be loaning down. Just for our listeners' education, they are essentially limited to players who would be otherwise eligible for the supplemental roster for these loans. So in the past, we've seen Andrew Thomas played last game.
Last game, Cody Baker was in, although he's suspended for this one because he picked up a red card. Who else they had? Stuart Hawkins is technically on a first-team contract. Travion Sousa is technically on a first-team contract.
but we've seen Reed Baker whiting potentially, but even guys like John Bell are eligible. Kalani Kosa-Rienzi, who I don't think is going to play in this game, but they have a bunch of interesting players that are eligible so i i do think they are going to approach this right it's a big deal for them um
But has there been much discussion about, and so they've gotten really hyped up for this game. I'm just curious, has there even been a lot of internal discussion that you're at least privy to about this game specifically?
You know, not a ton yet, just because... the timbers did find themselves on that unbeaten streak and we were like taking you know the momentum that they had very seriously and so they played on Saturday and unfortunately we don't have a media availability between the game Saturday and tomorrow's match as well so we haven't been able to kind of the page, if you will, towards the Open Cup. So I don't have any solid information on how exactly...
how serious they're taking this game. Again, they came out at the start of the year and said that winning a cup in some form or another is going to be a big deal for them. They're playing in the one later this summer as well, too. I still think there's something there with the I-5 rivalry, with it being, I know it's Tacoma, but it's still... you know, you're, you're, you're, yeah, exactly. So, um, I, I, I think, uh, I think there'll be some intensity to the match. I hope.
Yeah, I mean, I know that the way that the sort of the Sounders fans seem to be taking this is that it's sort of this all upside potential of. bragging rights, right? Like they... uh if the sounders win this game hey our second team beat our first team and if the and if the defiance lose it's like well what are you gonna like okay their first team beat our second team that's not like a big shock and so the the dynamics at least from a fan perspective
also seem very sort of like skewed and i think there's a lot of anticipation for potentially being able to sort of embarrass your rival uh i don't but i don't and i don't i just don't i'm just trying to get a sense of if the timbers are even If that's even on their radar as something that is a thing, like...
These two teams have a fair amount of history in the Open Cup. Of course, there was the red card wedding, but the year before the red card wedding, there was this epic match at Starfire where the Sounders won in overtime. And then, of course, the red card wedding comes, and that ends up catapulting, essentially, the Timbers to MLS Cup that year.
Yeah, and the Sounders season kind of spiraled to drain and was wasted. And then there was... not to even get into all the sort of like the stuff around that game. And then they've played a couple times since then in the Open Cup. The most recent meeting, I believe, was back in 2018 when the Timbers went to Tacoma, interestingly enough, and won at Genie Stadium.
But that was that was a game that came during an international an international break and so the sounders were missing a whole bunch of players and the timbers were essentially able to bring their first team because they didn't have any other games going on and and you know they won that game i think two to one
But it's been one of the other kind of funny little things about this is I want to say the Timbers and Sounders have had something like seven coin flips between them to determine who are essentially our draws or whatever to determine who's going to host. Open Cup games, and somehow the Sounders organization has won every single one of these.
At least all the games that they've actually played against one another have been here. And I know at one point that Merritt Paulson was very frustrated by this. I assume that has not been a talking point recently. No, no, it has not been. We see Merritt pretty few and far between these days. He came out and did a... He came out and did a press conference, an impromptu press conference at the start of the year, which was, I think, his first public.
comments in probably about two years or so. Wow. That's quite a... quite a change it's quite the change because you know like he used to be he used to be like one of the most active owners in the league on social media. Like it was, it was very undeniably the most active owner. Yeah. And, and that's just kind of all evaporated in the last three or four years. So it's, it's, it's kind of an interesting.
Just an interesting change of an owner who used to be so public-facing. They obviously went through a fair amount of scrutiny in the last few years for the way they've handled stuff off the pitch.
but I feel like he's trying to dip his toes back into the water and get back out there because like the poster doesn't die in somebody like just because you're not getting your comments out there doesn't mean that like that's that's not like who you are anymore so Yeah, so I'd be interested to see how much more of merit we see going forward here. Thank you for listening to the Sound at Heart Podcast Network, which now includes No Sanientes, Lobbing Scorchers, and The Cooler Gale.
We've been independent since August of 2023 but need your support to make sure it continues. Although this podcast is free, it's only made possible by your continued support. Memberships start as low as $25 a year which not only helps make podcasts like this one happen but also gets you access to everything we produce. If you're able to support us at higher levels starting at $75 a year you gain access to a host of other perks.
Most notably entry into our members only discord where the smartest, funniest, and most engaged commenters share their thoughts and ideas. Find out more, just visit CenterAtHeart.com and click the subscribe button in the top right corner. Thanks for listening. And so I guess kind of pulling back and not so much speaking about the open cup and we do have another, you know, another first team game coming up.
pretty soon here with the sounders and timbers what is the you know like you sort of alluded to there was some dark days inside the timbers organization they went through a couple years of frankly self-inflicted you know, bad press, right? How has, have things, do you feel like there's been a genuine sort of reckoning or a moving on from all that? Obviously getting out of the, selling the thorns, I would imagine was, has helped in some way.
You know, what's interesting is when they announced the hiring of Neville back in November of two years ago, that seemed at the time like another self-inflicted wound because you were coming off of firing a relatively popular coach in Portland, you brought in a guy who...
a lot of people have opinions on and specifically there was like a zeroing in focus on some tweets that Neville had back like 15 years ago that were relatively crass and probably misogynistic but also something that I think that he did a solid job of owning up to uh later on and so like it just felt like one of those things of like yeah, they were tweets, but also like this organization needs to know better, like needs to know, you know, kind of the waters it's swimming in right now.
But then there was also another faction that just thought that like he wasn't a good coach. And so it's just like, you're bringing in this coach with baggage. He doesn't have a winning record. Like where has he proven that he deserves this gig? And so last year I felt that. The fan base was pretty slow to kind of welcome him in. I mean, like shoot, like the Timbers Army at first, like I think. like trying to protest his hiring. Um, but I can't,
But he said he was going to take efforts to try to get to know the fan base and do all those sorts of things. And he did. He met privately with the Timbers Army. He's done a lot of fan speaking engagements. And then, you know, the product on the field last year, like, Yeah, like the tempers weren't great last season, but they were really fun to watch. Like that was, you know, even if they were losing, it was going to be like a 5-4 or, you know, like a 6-4.
6-4 sort of game. And so you could see some progress there. It was fun to go to Providence Park again even if they weren't going to win. I think he just endured himself to the supporters over the year. And then this year comes in and... by the time they finally traded Evander, I feel like
The fan base had finally kind of, like, sided with the Portland side because, again, Evander is one of the most talented players who have ever put on a Timbers kit. But also, it was kind of drama from day one when he got here, even the year before. It was always, you know, it was just always something with him. It's funny to go with the cliche of addition by subtraction or this team's getting along better or the chemistry there.
But I think it legitimately is there. And I think you have to give Neville a lot of credit for kind of like fostering the mentality in the locker room right now. And, you know, with him. Through 10 games, they were off to their best start in their MLS history. Obviously, Saturday was a bit disappointing. They had a few key players out, but I think just the way that...
He's managed this roster, kept the Timbers in contention this year while they've gone through a fair amount of injuries. And just like... He's an awesome quote. I cover a lot of college football, and college football coaches suck. Specifically, Oregon coach Dan Lanning, who might be one of the best coaches in college football, he's just a nightmare to interview because he gives you nothing.
You never leave a Timbers press conference wondering what Phil Neville was really thinking. I mean, this guy loves to be in front of cameras. He's a quote machine, and it works well now. And it works a lot better when they're winning too. And so it's been a good club this year. And I think the overall supporters are beginning to kind of trust what they have at the moment.
Yeah, you make a good point about the strong start. The Timbers, I know one of the ongoing narratives around this team has been they just can't, they keep shooting themselves in the foot with slow starts. And this year has not been that. This year, they've gotten off to, like you said, their best start ever. And it'll be interesting to see how they... how playing in this game factors into that or whether or not they just sort of...
I mean, they've got plenty of depth, you would think, that they can rely on. The fact that Kropot has barely played up until now is certainly notable. That would be it. It's such an interesting dynamic with their whole goalkeeper situation because obviously Max was brought in to be the number one. James is his backup.
James has played fantastic. They're both Canadian and Max plays above him on the national team. So you had James as number one and Max as number two for all this season. But then Max, you know, during the last international...
uh thing like he went and played for Canada while James is still here so it's kind of like I find that that dynamic has to be fascinating in the locker room of just and these guys have known each other for a long time too but um kind of going back to like the Timbers hot start
At no point watching them this year have I been like, this has got to be the best Timbers team ever, or this seems fantastic, or excellent. They've just been very consistent, and they've been a good soccer team, but I think that... emphasizes just how poorly that their starts have been in prior years because i i think they're good this year i i don't think they're punching too high above their weight class um but Yeah, and just
It's going to go a long ways for them come September, October, because at this time last year, they were mired in, I think, a nine-game winless streak. And so to be able to kind of flip that on their head and to go, they went seven unbeaten in a row like they are. way ahead of where they were at this point last season.
Yeah, I feel like this is around the time of the year where the Sounders and Timbers played, and if I remember correctly, the loser of that game was going to be stuck in last place in the West. I think they're the bottom two teams in the league at that time. Obviously, on their current trajectory, it looks like these two teams will be in very different positions when they face off. in a couple weeks, essentially. Yeah, it's a couple weeks, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah.
Anyone in particular that you think this might be a good opportunity for on the Timbers that maybe hasn't been getting as much run? You know, we talked about Kropot, but anyone else on the roster that you think? maybe stands to really have potential to sort of maybe change their season trajectory. I think a guy like Ariel Lasseter would probably be a good run in this game. He was one of those guys that they brought in as kind of like a veteran depth presence.
You know, the Timbers are just so kind of deep in that kind of attacking midfielder sort of position that he hasn't really been able to get a ton of run unless it's like... above the 80th minute and they just need a little bit of depth. So I think a guy like him, again, I would love to see Dario Zuberich on the field just because, again, he's another player that...
uh, he was injured in the preseason. And so like he kind of got behind and then Ben Sermon has just really established himself as, as one of the best center backs on the team. And as what I think is a pretty high ceiling too. Um, so it's. mainly selfishly i want dario on the field so then we can talk to him after the game because he's one of those guys that like pretends like that he hates doing media
but then gives us, like, the best quotes afterwards. So, like, selfishly, I want some of that. Yeah, no, we have a few of those guys, too. Albert Ruestack is one of those guys. Even Stephen Fry pretends as if he doesn't like... talking to the media, and then he'll sit there for 10 minutes just waxing poetic about whatever is going on. The guys that are reluctant... seem to almost always be the better quotes. Are they vain reluctance, at least? Exactly. Exactly.
And on that same token, you mentioned liking covering Phil Neville. And you seem to think that he's speaking from the heart. And I guess there's no reason really to doubt that he's speaking from the heart. But does the... I don't know. From afar, you see every time a call goes against the Timbers, he makes it sound as if... It's the most egregious thing ever and that they're being unfairly targeted. What is your take on his sort of
I don't know, that particular thing. He can be a bit grandiose and exaggerate a fair amount. I think... If the cameras ever catch him when he's on the pitch, you can tell that this guy was a pretty intense player back in his day. I don't think he's quite shaken that from his system. You know that? The Timbers had a couple pretty egregious calls go against them earlier in the season. I'm thinking the Galaxy. Maybe the worst non-call in history.
Yeah, and so I think maybe there's a little bit of that's just still in his system, and he just thinks that they're getting screwed here by the MLS officiating, but... He finally did get fined two weeks ago. He came into the press conference and
then left and he was jokingly upset at us for not asking him about it because he says, I'm not going to be able to feed my children now. Uh, I think he's going to be okay. I think he's, he's going to be just fine. But, um, Yeah, I imagine there's a little bit of gamesmanship there, but also he's probably not winning over a whole lot of opinions of referees by attacking them.
Because he doesn't just say the refereeing was bad. He takes some shots at these guys, too. That's always my thought. Brian Schmetzer takes a totally different tact. His attitude is... There's seemingly nothing to be gained by attacking the referee, and so he's just sort of...
Hey, it's a tough job. What are you going to do? And I don't, I mean, I don't know. It would be interesting to see an analysis of like which one actually works better. But you would just think on some level that he's actually, like that Bill is sort of undercutting.
Like, he's just keeping that narrative going, which I don't, you know, these refs are human. Like, I don't think that there's... consciously thinking oh this is this is phil neville i gotta get him but yeah yeah i wouldn't seem to help your cause yeah i i agree with you there and then he also has a tendency to like on the other end
I think there's probably four or five players on the roster in the last two years where he's called that person as the best in the MLS at X position. He does like that one. Yeah, which I always get a kick out of. He was definitely driving the Evander MVP bandwagon early, and it ended up being... He almost pushed it across the finish line. I think he deserves some credit for... creating that narrative and sort of driving it forward. Because it seemed almost... It was...
I thought outrageously hyperbolic to be early in the season saying this might be the best number 10 in the league when he was on a team that was in last place. Right. I mean, his numbers suggested that he was at the end of the season. The best part of all that is all last year, Neville kept saying that Evander was like one of his sons. And then at his first press conference this year, he was like, yeah, he's no longer one of my sons.
The thing I always thought was very funny about that is, like, Matt, you have actual sons. Like, why are you likening this player to a son when you have human sons that you presumably have a relationship with? Yeah, but, you know, Evander's got pretty talented feet, man. I'll let you get going pretty soon here, but... But how have, in your perspective, how have the Timbers done at replacing the singular talent, really, that wasn't?
Yeah, it's One, David DeCosta has been fascinating to watch this year because I think from the fan base perspective it looks like you're bringing in one DP to replace the other and you kind of would think that especially since they're playing a similar position that like oh you know is this guy going to be a goal scorer too but
Dacosta covers just so much more ground on the pitch and is a lot more versatile in what he does and he actually tracks back a little bit too you never really saw Evander get back behind into the defensive end of the field and so I think Just having him being able to facilitate the guys like Anthony has taken a huge step up. Last year, Anthony was that guy who was super fast, but just couldn't handle the ball and wasn't much of a passer. And we've seen his.
His footwork and dribbling increased substantially this year to where he's not only able to score on some of those counterattacks, but he's also able to set up some of his teammates too. You still have Felipe Mora, who was a 15 goal, or I think a 14 goal scorer last year. It's been interesting to see how they rotated him with Kevin Kelsey. because I think initially they brought on Kevin Kelsey to be an everyday starter, but now they kind of just, you know, rotate him and Maura, who...
And it's always an interesting change that they do because they're such a different profile of a player too. Kevin Kelsey is a big guy. He's tall. He can go up there and kind of finish with his head a little bit more than Maura. But then, you know, having Jonathan Rodriguez back in the lineup for the first back available the last three games has helped a little bit too, but...
What gets interesting is when he gets back to a point where he should be starting, I'm not quite sure who they take out because naturally it would probably be Anthony based on the positions they play. But Anthony has been their best offensive player this season so far.
They'll have to kind of figure out what to do with that, especially because Rodriguez is a player who, you know, he's older. He's 31, 32 years old. He's coming off of a knee injury. He has... a taste or he has, um, Kind of like he's able to sniff out the ball around the net probably better than any other player on the Timbers roster and just be in the right place at the right time.
But, you know, so much of this Portland attack has been based on kind of the counter and being able to get the horses out there and get them running. And so I'm curious to see how they kind of fit Rodriguez back into the fold because obviously he's... He was a 16-goal scorer last year. He's one of their designated players. He's a guy that needs to play a lot, but it's just... Yeah, it'll be fascinating.
Yeah, Flea Valor has been another interesting player to me just because it seems like they've been trying to move on.
find his replacement forever, and yet he just keeps producing. It's a very funny thing, because he seems to always be there producing, and yet they seem to constantly be looking for someone to... sort of take over for them and they've had some interesting They keep bringing in interesting options that actually do okay, sort of doing it, but never for as long and never as consistently.
Yeah, it's one of those things where I can't tell you, and again, this is probably me being... a relatively new soccer writer but i can't tell you like specifically like what felipe mora does so well but The dude's got four or five goals already this season, and that's been split in time with Kelsey. He knows where to be, and he knows what to do with the ball.
Yeah. Well, it's going to be an interesting game. I'm obviously most fascinated to see what kind of roster... uh the timbers bring down here but i'm sure it will be interesting it'll be interesting to see what kind of crowd might My assumption is that there will be a decent contingent of Timbers fans there for no other reason than I know that there's a decent contingent of Timbers fans in the Seattle area.
But it doesn't sound like there's necessarily a huge contingent that are going to be coming up from Portland. Is that fair to say? Yeah, I don't think the party bus is heading its way up north, but it's close enough. You know, depending on traffic from here, it's about two hours, 15 minutes or so. Yeah, I guess it's a little closer than Lumen Field as well.
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. All right. Well, Tyson, thank you so much for doing this. Folks can read you on the i5 corridor, which is a sub stack. And where else can they follow you? Yeah, the website's just i5corridor.com or you can find me on Blue Sky or X or, you know, all the other things. My handle across all things is just Tyson Alger, one word, so. Yeah, I'm not terribly hard to find out. Yeah, great. Perfect. Well, thank you, Dyson, for doing this.
sign off i'm jeremiah shan this is no side yet as part of the sounder at heart podcast network and we'll catch you next time I expect a LAFC who is motivated. to prove themselves at home, to prove to their fans that they're capable of winning in this league. And it's up to us to really ruin the party. You guys like that? Awkward joke, dad joke right there.