#people post the weirdest things thinking it’s a gotcha

[animerunner]

Comment I saw: Why can I look at the sun normally not during the eclipse?

Me:…your not supposed to? Like where were you told you can look at the sun directly. Like that was drilled into my head growing up. Don’t look at the sun it will cause eye damage

Like this is not a weird gotcha your not supposed to period

It just gets repeated more going into an eclipse because people are more inclined to look at the sun during this kind of event since it involves ya know the sun.

#science #health #facepalm #people post the weirdest things thinking it’s a gotcha #when it’s just basic don’t do this period

[sanzu-sanzu-sanzu]

Hii 🤸🏻‍♂️💕

💡 for the ask game ^^

-

oh, hello! ok gotcha

💕 What is the WIP that you are most excited about?

someone posted an hc about how sanzu keeps doing drugs bec it's the only way he's able to see his dead lover, and he doesn't care even if it kills him. i have one in my drafts inspired by this and i'm excited to continue working on it soon :)

💡 What’s the weirdest thing you’ve been inspired by?

ahahaha so i just learned like 2 months ago that decaying bodies give off a sickly-sweet kinda smell. idk how exactly but the way it was described to me makes me think it must be pungent/meaty but with a hint of cheap or expired perfume? haha but so anyway, there's a scene in chapter 8 of songs about toxic people wherein the Reader is with a man and she catches a sniff of citrus and that triggers a memory. originally, back when i still didn't have a direction for the chapter, she's supposed to remember an event wherein she was surrounded by dead bodies and beside her stood sanzu, and around them everything smelled rotten but weirdly her nose detected a sweet something in the air that she couldn't quite catch, and it was starting to frustrate her you know the way when you're faced with something so bad and so beyond your control that all you can do is be mad at the smallest thing? like how you're pissed big time and the faucet is leaking so now you scream at the faucet. so like the whole scene was grim and depressing and she's just trying to keep her eyes on him and not let him go like how she's trying to hold on to that sweet scent she's not even sure is there, except sanzu she knew was real etc ETC it was supposed to be comforting BUT so i ended up changing the whole thing bc i was having a hard time describing corpse smell 😭 it just wasn't coming out right haha

OKAY THIS HAS GOTTEN A BIT TOO LONG omg, thank youu for the ask @omi-replies !!!!! 🙇‍♀️

#i should prob have a tag #for my asks #so easier for me to find them #how about #anriqs #as in Q's like questions #wait no they're answers #OK I'LL THINK OF SOMETHING

[fromiftowhen]

fic: and you decide what you think of me

Hey anon! Originally this was going to be my post for the undercover day for Chenford week, but it didn’t work out. That day ended up being i’ve got the real thing (and nothing else matters), but I liked this enough to keep it in my gdocs until this meme came around. 

And then I opened it up and realized it was about as finished as it was going to get. So I’m doing something I don’t typically do, and posting it here instead of on ao3... because it’s finished, and there (probably) won’t be more, but it’s not quite as complete as I usually like my fic to be. 

So, enjoy! (Feel free to ask about any of my other WIPs!)

(The Rookie -- Chenford. Rated T. 2235 words.)

It’s not that Tim hates undercover work. It’s that he hates the roads it can lead a person down, the way it can consume a life and ruin a marriage and throw his world off its tidy, easy axis. 

So he never volunteers, he never takes the chance, his career never suffers for it, and his axis stays as it should. It can’t change his life again if he doesn’t get involved. 

Which is why, of course, it somehow falls directly in his lap, and he never sees it coming. 

Or. She does, actually. And he never sees her coming. 

He couldn’t have seen her coming if he tried. 

——-

He’s just finished his beer when she crashes into him, long brown hair brushing his cheek, and her stumble is just controlled enough, just the exact right amount of pressure, that he knows it’s intentional. 

“Babe!” It’s loud, louder than necessary in the relatively empty bar, and he wants to ask who she is, what she’s doing, but. 

“I’m sorry, just help me out here,” she says, and her hand is on his shoulder and she’s kissing him, quick and dirty like they’ve done it a thousand times before, like they know each other, like he’s her safe place to land. 

It feels like coming home, in the weirdest way, but not to any home he’s ever recognized. 

“Sorry,” she whispers, just a breath against his lips as she pulls back. There’s a tiny flash of recognition in her eyes as she takes a step back, like maybe she’s seen him before. And maybe in a different life, maybe, they knew each other, because she feels a little familiar. His skin pricks in what might be recognition, but he can’t place it. 

“Yeah,” he clears his throat and wishes his beer wasn’t empty. He glances around, checking to see if she’s clearly trying to get away from someone. What the hell is going on?

She holds herself like law enforcement, strong muscle and confident, challenging eyes. He feels like he’s being read, and he doesn’t necessarily like it. 

“What in the hell—“ he starts, but she just smiles, and he wishes he didn’t immediately feel warmer, better, somehow. 

“Thanks. See you later,” she whispers, shaking her head, and it’s like the tiny motion distracts him, because the next thing he knows, she’s gone. 

——-

He’s still reeling a little when Grey calls him into his office the next morning. He shouldn’t even be surprised to see a flash of long brown hair as he walks in, but somehow, he still is. 

“Sergeant Bradford, I hear you may have walked into an undercover op last night.”

He glances at the woman. “More like it fell into my lap, sir.”

Grey glances between them, and maybe he’s about to introduce them, but he misses his shot. 

“Semantics,” she mumbles, reaching a hand out. The press of her hand is firm, so different from the way her fingers had floated against his shoulder last night. He wishes, half-heartedly, that he could stop thinking about it. 

“Lucy Chen,” she says, and the name sounds a little familiar, maybe. 

“Tim Bradford.”

She nods, like that was the expected answer. “Sorry about last night. I recognized you from a couple joint crime scenes last year, and I needed to blend in a little to keep my cover, so..” She trails off, and he doesn’t need her to fill in the blanks. 

“Agent Chen is working an undercover assignment to help bring down a big drug ring out of Malibu. She was hoping you’d be willing to lend a hand.”

He glances at Grey sharply before he responds. “I don’t work narcotics, sorry.”

Grey nods slightly, but Lucy looks undeterred. It’s a little aggravating. 

“Then it’s a good thing I’m not a narcotics officer,” she says, smiling. “Agent Chen,” she says. “I’m a profiler with the FBI.” 

And it all clicks into place, that nagging familiar feeling. A kidnapping case last year, and a high profile bank robbery a couple months after that. He’d been first on the scene for both, and she’d come blazing in, lots of energy and questions and earnest answers, a little hard to miss. 

He nods. “Not a big fan of feds, either.”

“Ouch, Sergeant. I won’t take that personally.” She smiles, and he hates how he already feels a little doomed. “But I’m hoping you’ll reconsider. I just need a little backup, and it turns out a few of our principle suspects saw me with you last night, so it’d be easier to keep that part of the cover the same.”

“Aren’t there a thousand colleagues you could rope into this?” 

“We’re trying to keep as many of my colleagues out of the early stages of this, in case they need to go undercover at some point. This is a months long operation, and my part in it is small, it’ll be over soon. Yours would be even smaller.”

He glances at Grey, who gives a tiny shrug. Super helpful. 

“What exactly would I be doing?”

She grins, like she knows she has him. “Basically exactly what you did last night.” He wants to ask if that means she’ll randomly kiss him and disappear again, but he stays quiet. “Just help me blend in a little, maybe keep the creeps away. Nothing life changing.”

He rolls his eyes. He wants to say no. He wants to stop thinking about the fact that he hadn’t kissed anyone in months, before last night. 

He wants to say no. He means to. 

But she sticks out her hand to shake, a deal, a promise, and nothing in him can say no. 

——-

He’s regretting his inability to say no the next night, shoulder-to-shoulder on the edge of the dance floor in a crowded club at what is alarmingly past his normal bedtime. The music is loud and the crush of bodies makes him equal parts annoyed and on edge. 

Agent Chen — Lucy — though, she looks like she lives for it — the noise, the music, happy, laughing, loud people all around her. She looks alive, vibrant and carefree, and it’s distracting in a way he couldn’t have prepared himself for. He has no frame of reference, but instinct tells him that’s just how she is. 

She’s anything but distracted though. He watches her, the way she’s clearly taking in her surroundings, keeping her eyes on their target for the night. 

“Fun crowd, right?” She half-shouts over the noise and he raises his eyebrows at her. If she says so. 

He shrugs. 

“I spend the majority of my day behind a desk, reading files,” she explains. “I spent most of my 20s behind a desk, actually.”

He leans closer, so he doesn’t have to shout. “This doesn’t seem like an assignment a profiler would usually take.”

She shakes her head. “It’s not, unless you spent most of your 20s behind a desk and woke up one day bored and craving an adrenaline rush and basically demanded some real field experience.”

The honesty surprises a laugh out of him and he smiles despite the crowd, despite the noise. 

“Kidnappings and bank robberies aren’t enough of an adrenaline rush?” He asks, and her eyes absolutely light up. He doesn’t want to notice it, but it’s impossible not to. 

“So you do remember me.” It sounds like a gotcha. 

“I remember the cases,” he mumbles, glancing away. 

“Mhmm.” The way she’s looking at him readies him for another question, but their suspect moves onto the dance floor and she grabs his hand before he can react. “C’mon.”

She pulls him out on the dance floor, and he’s a little embarrassed at how easily he lets himself be dragged. It doesn’t feel like work. 

“Dancing wasn’t part of the agreement,” he says as they stop just a ways away from the suspect. 

“You don’t have to dance, bud. Just stand there and look pretty.” He wants to protest, and he definitely rolls his eyes, but he lets her step into his space and wrap her arms up around his shoulders. The song isn’t slow, and suddenly neither is his heart rate. 

“Come on,” she urges. “Act like you’ve danced with a woman before.” 

He huffs out a sigh and lets his hands skim her waist lightly, pulling her in so she can look over his shoulder easily. 

“Better?” He half-grumbles, his eyes scanning the dance floor around them. 

“Mmm.” Her soft reply is distracted. The song slips into something louder, faster, and she presses against him, her hair brushing the side of his neck. He vaguely wonders if it looks as intimate as it feels, pressed together close as the music pulses around them. 

“What is it you’re looking for exactly?” He asks, pitching his voice just loud enough she can hear over the music, even though his lips are basically buried in her hair. 

“Body language.” It’s quiet, and she shifts against him to move them slightly. “We’re putting together profiles on the major players now, so when the op develops more, when we have to send someone in really undercover, they’ll have as much inside information as possible.”

“Body language?” Her hand slides to the back of his neck and he tenses. 

“It can tell you all you need to know about a person sometimes.” 

He rolls his eyes. He doesn’t disagree, necessarily, but it feels flimsy to base any real assumptions off of it. 

“For example,” she continues, “you tensed when I touched your neck. That tells me you either really don’t like being touched there, or you really do.”

He feels extremely aware of every muscle in his body now, how they’re at risk of tensing and giving away secrets he isn’t even aware he’s keeping. 

“But whether or not you enjoy being touched there isn’t really the question I’m directly trying to answer. It becomes what else can your body tell me about why you tensed up that can help me figure out if you enjoy it or not?”

“Good lord,” he mutters. 

“But of course, I’m not going to go dance with that guy, so it means looking for nonverbal clues and observing the way he interacts with people.”

“What does that—“

Her other hand drags across the back of his neck, her nails raking the skin lightly, and he tries so hard to keep from tensing, from reacting in any way. 

“— Teach us about a suspect?” She finishes, and he doesn’t know her, not really, not at all, but the laugh in her voice is unmistakable. 

He nods, but doesn’t let himself respond otherwise. 

“It helps us figure out how to approach him, who to send in, what to focus on. Does it need to be someone he’s intimidated by, does he need to exert force over them to trust them, how does he interact with men versus women, or in a group dynamic? What are his weaknesses, physically, emotionally?”

“Seems like a lot of work,” he says, and maybe it seems a little too bookish, a little too clinical for him to really invest in, but she doesn’t need to know that. 

She leans back, and it’s the first time he’s seen her face in several minutes. He’s not sure he knows her any better, but the look on her face makes him think she knows him better. “It is,” she says. “But I excel at my job.”

She leans back in, and it goes like that for another hour as she tracks the guy around the club, peppering in little facts and details about what he’s doing and what it means about his personality. 

Some of it, honestly, is distant white noise to Tim, her voice pleasant and upbeat, her words carefully chosen but bold. He does his job, he holds her close, he scans the dance floor, he keeps her safe. 

——-

He walks her to her car after their suspect leaves, and he’s all too aware it’s the first time he’s not been touching her in over an hour. He walks with his hands in his pockets and wishes he didn’t spend so much time thinking about what she’s reading into that body language. 

She smiles when they stop at her car. “Thanks,” she says, and he shrugs.

“No big deal.” 

“No big deal,” she echos. “So, if I need you again, you’re in?”

“I guess.” 

She laughs. “Well. It’s not a no. I’ll take it.” He watches her glance away and then back to him, her eyes falling on his lips, and it doesn’t take a body language expert to read the signs. 

She leans up on her tiptoes, presses her lips to his quickly and runs her fingers along the back of his neck.

“Sorry,” she murmurs, pulling back. “Just wanted to see what it was like when it wasn’t for show.”

He swallows and nods. “And?” 

“Just as good as the first time,” she smirks, backing away toward her car. She waves, getting in the car, and he thinks he smiles in return.

Just help me blend in a little, maybe keep the creeps away. Nothing life changing, she’d said. 

He’s definitely not the expert here, but he’s pretty sure she was wrong. 

He runs a hand over the back of his neck as he turns to head to his truck. 

She feels a little life changing. 

#my fic #chenford #the rookie #tim bradford #lucy chen #the rookie fic

[unofficialkfamtranscripts]

King Falls AM - Episode Twelve: All the Pretty Flowers

View on Google Docs

Summary: October 15, 2015 - Against Ben's wishes, Sammy broaches a touchy subject after witnessing a hearse delivering white roses on his way into the station. Is it a King Falls Halloween tradition or could it be something more sinister? #RedRumRoses

[podcast intro music]

[jazz music]

Chet Well the clock on the wall is telling me that’s all, y’all. So I’m gonna mosey on down to The Red Rock bar and buy all the ladies a drink on me. But don’t try to fool me again, Dennis. This has been Chet Sebastian’s Jazz Corner. Until next time… keep it cool King Falls.

[Sammy & Ben Show intro music]

Ben Good evening, you’re listening to King Falls AM [door closing]– that’s 660 on the radio dial. [slightly irked] And this is the Sammy and Ben show— sans-Sammy at the moment.

[footsteps]

Sammy Sorry about that, Ben! everybody at home. I was just running a little late. I was j- Y-you know, I just saw the weirdest thing!

Ben Was it Chet leaving? I told him to take that fur coat off. Guy looks like he walked off a set of a Blaxploitation[1] film.

Sammy *laughs* No, I wish I’d seen that. But I was driving in tonight- I was running a tad bit late, as you can see, and I swear to you: I’m coming up Main Street, I got behind a hearse delivering these giant white rose bouquets! Like, every couple of streets the damn thing’s stoppin’!

Ben No.

Sammy No *laughs* yeah it did.

Ben … SOOOOO… Weee’ve got a great show for you folks tonight. Uh, Ernie Salcedo…

Sammy Ben.

Ben *pointedly clearing his throat* … Yes?

Sammy Okay, I can see you slashing at your neck furiously and shaking your head “no”, but the audience can’t. Sooo, what’s the issue here?

Ben *nervously* I’m sorry we… just don’t talk about this, Sammy.

Sammy So you know of it! Is it like some kind of weird Halloween thing?

Ben [flatly] Halloween? Are you serious? We don’t celebrate Halloween here in the Falls, Sammy.

Sammy WHAT? This is like friggin’ Halloween Town! You know those shops that open up every year around Halloween and close the day after? King Falls is where all those shops should move to when it’s not Halloween.

Ben Two things. 1) That’s a horrible business model, and 2) Halloween is one, big, diabetic pumpkin.

Sammy Come on? You don’t like decorating? Trick-or-treating?

Ben ALL OF IT. It’s like you’re— tempting these ghouls and goblins to come and mess with you. We get enough of that here. And again, diabetes.

Sammy Okay, I can see where you’re coming from, but I’m not gonna lie— this is kind of a surprise.

Ben What can I say? We’re more the Christmas or Arbor Day types.

Sammy Okay, so the hearse is delivering flowers. What’s the deal if it’s not a Halloween… ritual?

Ben Did you really see that? Did someone tell you to mess with me about this?

Sammy Scout’s Honor. I was late because of it! I illegally passed on a double yellow line (sorry Deputy Troy) just to skate around ‘em and make my way up the mountain.

Ben … I don’t like this. I-I don’t know that I’ve ever known anyone that saw the flowers delivered. Usually businesses and people just find the wreaths the next morning. D-Di-Did you see inside the hearse? Was it… people?

Sammy You know, I didn’t look, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say… it was a human being.

Ben Well, that’s good. *breath* It’s something.

Sammy Okay, so the roses…

Ben [voice breaking] Damnit, Sammy! We got a show scheduled, ya know?

Sammy I’m well aware! Just fill me in about the roses and we’ll move on.

Ben [muttering] Yeah yeah, okay, so… *deep breath* Every year, around this time—

Sammy Halloween…

Ben OCTOBER.

Sammy Uh-huh…

Ben Every— October… there is a certain society of people— and I use the term “people” loosely— that congregate and deliver the rose wreaths to individuals and businesses. That’s— a fact.

Sammy And?

Ben Annnd… nobody really knows what happens after that.

Sammy [audible grin] But legend has it…!

Ben Don’t “legend-has-it” me! Nobody knows for sure! Why gossip?

Sammy Okay. What do you think happens, Ben?

Ben *breathes in* Uuuugghhhh… Well, I think people either accept this weird— invitation or… they don’t. But I can tell you, the people that don’t? Well… they don’t, last long after that.

Sammy Okay. So we’ve just went from spooky 1-800-Flowers to murder in only a few easy steps.

Ben Not- murder- per say, but… businesses that decline tend to… move away or go under. Or tragedy strikes. Sure, I-I’ve heard stories of these folks winding up on the wrong end of a funeral ceremony, but… I couldn’t prove it. Are you satisfied now?

Sammy Of course. Thank you, Ben. King Falls, you’ve heard our story, now let’s hear yours!

Ben DON’T open the phone lines!

Sammy We’re-opening-up the phone lines here at the station! 424-279-3858. Have you had contact with this demonic annual floral delivery? Hit us up!

Ben Don’t call or tweet us. Please.

Sammy Give us a call or tweet us @KingFallsAM, [smugly] Ben will personally answer every tweet #RedrumRoses[2]

Ben NOPE! Not gonna happen.

Sammy Ben…[faux sympathy] It looks like the phone lines are lighting up, buddy.

Ben I expected better of you, King Falls.

Sammy Lucky Line 1, you’re on the air with Sammy And Ben.

Pete Low-down, gossip-mongering, muckraking filth.

Ben [flatly] Pete?

Sammy [quiet and amused] Escobar?

Pete N-uh- it’s Pete. You know damn well I’m listenin’.

Ben Wwhat’s on your mind tonight, Pete?

Sammy Did your mom teach you to start off phone calls with name-calling, Pete?

Pete [faint creaking in bg] My mom taught me to… stand up for myself! Don’t start a fight, but don’t be afraid to end it.

Sammy Who’s fighting?

Pete Oh, what a short attention span you have, Sammy. Not dwelling on you and Mr. Howard Ford Beauregard III issues; you’re picking a fight with the Unknown! Ben told you to shut your trap. [very faint sounds of driving]

Sammy Heh, lemme tell you, this would a long four hours if we didn’t talk and, y’ know, sometimes you have to—

Pete Yeah yeah, I get it, Mr. Nincompoop Radio Host. [creaking] You gotta blab. But that’s something you don’t trifle with. You should know this.

Ben Sammy, you know I hate to say Pete is right about anything, but—

Pete But I’m right about this! I know you know, Ben. That’s all I need to know. Stop yapping about things you don’t understand.

Ben Thanks, Pete.

Sammy [mostly resigned] Did you have a question or an experience with the flowers, Pete?

Pete Abs-absolutely not! I– d-don’t try to get me in trouble. [car door closing]

Ben You okay over there, Pete?

Pete [failing at being nonchalant] Yeah I’m just out, and… uh, just out.

Sammy [incredulous] This time of night?

[car door slamming]

Pete Yeah! I’m- runnin’ errands and- stuff like that, y’know. ‘T’s- It’s not- it’s not your business!

Ben [literally tongue-in-cheek] Uh-huh…

Pete You’re makin’ something of this. Yer- you’re doin’ somethin’, you’re getting me invo— Stop.

Ben It’s just weird, Mr. Beauregard’s gardener is out at 2 in the morning, running errands.

Sammy So your boss doesn’t have anything to do with the roses, does he, Pete?

Pete Ben Arnold. If you’ve got a lick of good sense, I wouldn’t walk too close to Sammy for the next feww… mm— mmmm… lifetimes! He’s gonna wind up on the bottom end of an anvil.

Sammy You know, I just don’t think asking questions is the equivalent of buying ACME rocket kits and trying to catch a damn bird.[3]

Ben [semi-stern] Y’mind answering his question, Pete?

[creaking]

Pete Oh, HELL NO. You two are a couple ‘a horse patoots. I’m never listening to this show again.

Ben Until tomorrow.

Pete PETE OUT! [click, dial tone]

Ben Are you happy, Sammy? Is this what you were hoping for?

Sammy Civilized conversation is the only thing I look for. That said… I’m gonna say, it’s a tad bit suspicious.

Ben There are dots we don’t need to connect. MOVING ON!

Sammy Maybe you’re right.

Ben Folks, we’re gonna take a break to pay some bills, and we’ll be right back and on schedule.

[rattle, guitar strums]

Dale (presumably) [voice is a low murmur (for lack of a better word)] Dale’s Dollar Tree… [strum] at dirt cheap prices… [strum] it’s almost free. [guitar,western music] Hi, everybody, I’m super excited to tell you ‘bout some unbelievable deals we have right now… at Dale’s Dollar Tree. Let’s segue to the savin’s [eagle screech] Our low prices are guaranteed… Who’s guaranteeing it, you ask? … Me… [guitar stops] How do you take advantage of these savings? [strum, rattle] 1) Walk into Dale’s Dollar Tree [strum] 2) Throw somethin’ in your cart [strum] 3) Savings. [guitar] Dale’s Dollar Tree. [eagle screech]

[S&B theme]

Sammy Ladies and gentlemen, we are back and you’re listening to King Falls AM. Now we were just talking about me running late this morning, because of a, uh, hearse—

Ben [cutting Sammy off] So we’ve got a great show scheduled tonight. We’ve got Mr. Eli Goldblum on later in the hour.

Sammy And who is Mr. Goldblum?

Ben Are you kidding me? Only the most renowned post-mortal psychologist known to man! He’s on his spoken-word world tour, and this Thursday, you can see him live at the King Falls Convention Center.

Sammy … That’sss-something.

Ben Indeed! So that’s in about… forrrty minutes. Uh, we got Rose, (from Rose’s Diner, of course) calling in to talk about how the Bee Crisis is affecting her honey-baked ham specials for the- foreseeable future.

Sammy [TIL] Really? That’s something that’s happening?

Ben Come on, Sammy. This bee situation is serious business.

Sammy You get points for not buzzing or saying “beeees-ness”

Ben You don’t wanna know how hard that was…

Sammy -eh- Okay. So, how can we help with the bees?

Ben Uhhh… cut- back- on swatting them?? *awkward laugh* I-I-I don’t know for sure that’s-that’s why we’re talkin’ to Rose.

Sammy Gotcha!

Ben And our first topic of discussion this evening— was gonna be—

Sammy About the flowers.

Ben Don’t.

Sammy Okay, look. Can we open up the phone lines again? I’d like to talk about these flowers. Uh, you tell King Falls your topic, and then we’ll see what they wanna talk about.

Ben You know they’ll talk about the damn rose wreaths!

Sammy You heard it here, folks. Line 7, you’re on with Sammy and Ben.

Herschel Ugh, I can’t sleep with all this damn racket going on! You two DINGLEBERRIES keep it down!

Sammy *laugh* Herschel??

Herschel Oh, hell. Don’t make me get out of bed and give you a full blast so late at night! [muttered] Don’t even know where my slippers are…

Ben Mr… Baumgartner, you realize you called us, right? This is- the radio station.

Herschel I know who and what I called. I dialed you DICKWHISTLES because all this [mocking] cry-babying about the damn flowers. Turn that jazz fella back on so- so I can get some rest!

Sammy Chet is on from 10 to 2, Mr. Baumgartner. This is Sammy and Ben and we- talk about—

Herschel I don’t give a damn if it’s Tricky Dick Nixon calling to give me a Congressional Medal of Honor! You shut your nose holes about the damn funeral flowers. And play me some heroin-fueled American art! [click]

[dial tone]

Sammy We’re gonna count that as one for the flowers…

Ben Line 14, you’re live on the air.

Creeper Long time listener here!

Sammy [click, dial tone]

Ben Did you hang up, Sammy?

Sammy Yeeaah, sorry. I hate that guy.

Ben Line 3,*chuckles* this is King Falls AM.

Beauregard Good evening, Benjamin. Samuel. This is—

Ben Beauretard?![sic]

Beauregard *sigh* Mr. Howard Ford Beauregard the Third. My man told me that you were spreading more lies than usual on your little “radio show.” I thought I would call and clear the air.

Sammy Mr. Beauregard, can I just say, before this call goes ANY further— that we will not accept any abuse towards us or the listeners of this show.

Beauregard How cute that you think people listen to you two buffoons.

Ben That’s abuse! That’s exactly what we were—

Beauregard Oh, that’s a joke where I come from. You millennials would never have lasted back in my day. With your emotions and feelings and the like.

Ben When was that day, again, Mr. Beauregard?

Beauregard Information about myself and my family, can be found in my international, best-selling e-book, “King of King Falls” … I don’t have to answer to— well— you.

Sammy *sigh* Did you have a reason for the call tonight, Beauregard?

Beauregard Indeed, I do. While men with any couth wouldn’t speak about festivities that they know nothing aboouut—

Sammy So, you’re behind these deliveries?

Ben Also, while I would never name names and throw my friend under a bus— you should know this wasn’t the agreed upon topic of the show.

Sammy Oh, stop it.

Beauregard [agonizingly insincere] I don’t know a thing about the supposed yearly white rose deliveries you speak of. My family, nor myself, have ever been involved with such jovality.[sic] In fact, in all my years I can’t recollect such a thing.

Ben I don’t buy that for a second. Maybe you’ve never sent the roses, and— let’s play devil’s advocate and say, sure, you’ve never received them (which I doubt), but there is No Way you haven’t heard of this.

Beauregard Maybe it’s something you commoners have made up, like, uhh- the tooth fairy or the Illuminati orrr— equal rights for the sexes.

Ben I can’t deal with this guy! Just dump him and let’s take another line.

Sammy Wait… Mr. Beauregard. If you don’t care about this— and, in fact, haven’t even heard of it until tonight— why would you bother to break your Hate-Silence with us to call in?

Beauregard You’re not nearly as dumb as you look, Stevens! And while I continue to honor my statement before— I’d have to assume that this “rose” ordeal is a real thing. It’s probably a very special thing! An intimate invitation sent by the upper echelons of King Falls. A way of making amends or bring people worthy of attention, into a conversation that normally would not have been invited to have.

Ben Just for everyone keeping score at home: I took a college course on Crazy and I believe he is saying he knows that the wreath deliveries are real, and he is probably behind them.

Beauregard Time is money, gentleman. Not that you understand that concept. But instead of painting a ceremony you know nothing about as tragic and scary— perhaps it’s not. Perhaps it’s something more than that, entirely. In any case, it’s not something that should be spoken about in public. [phone pings] Ahhh… I’ll be going now, “gentlemen.” And while I do use that word lightly, perhaps take a break from your radio program and… check your door.

Ben Isss that a threat?

Beauregard Trick-or-Treat, Samuel… Benjamin. [click]

[dial tone]

Sammy I wonder what he sounds like when he has something nice to say to people.

Ben He probably hasn’t said anything nice to a person since the 60s… The 1860s.

Sammy Ya know, I didn’t mean to ruffle anyone’s feathers tonight. Especially crazy old billionaires who try to drive us off the air— so let’s just—

Ben I’M GONNA GO CHECK THE DOOR.

Sammy What?!

Ben Yeah. [chair sliding out] I’m sorry, man. Beauregard gives me the willies [squeak] and I wanna make sure there isn’t—

Sammy A sugar-glider on a noose?

Ben Too far. I was just gonna say— that he hasn’t had Pete ding-dong-ditch us- or something.

Sammy And here I thought the Williams boys had that market cornered.

Ben I’ll be back in a sec. [footsteps rushing off]

Sammy [shouting after him] Don’t talk about Pete that way, Ben! He’s never gonna listen to the show again! Alright, folks. We are just a few hot minutes away from Eli Goldblum coming into the studio to talk about, [ominous bg music starts] uh… I’m guessing- ghosts with lingering mental issues? Ah, sorry— apparitions. [footsteps rushing back] I’m holding out hope for an apparition with multiple personality disorder, but I don’t know if that’s a thing or not… [chair squeak, Ben sitting] Ben? You okay, buddy?

Ben [upset] How many times, did I ask you to stop talking about the stupid, hearse, Sammy?

Sammy What’s wrong?

Ben [sarcastic] Oh, nothing. You wanna go outside and take a look?

Sammy You know, I don’t think I want to. I’m happy with you filling me in.

Ben Well, I didn’t go outside, Sammy! I didn’t have to. I looked out the front window.

[ominous bg music getting louder]

Sammy Yeah? And?

Ben [hissed] damnit

Sammy … Ben. What is going on? Do we need to call Troy?

Ben The whole parking lot- your car, MY car— as far as the lights will let me see— Nothing but white roses, man.

Sammy … Are you serious?

Ben Go look!! Just don’t go out there, huh? It looked like it was snowing, that’s how many of those damn things are out there.

Sammy [scrambling for optimism] What’s the chances that it’s just a non-Halloween bouquet from Emily to you?

Ben ZERO. Zero percent chance, Sammy.

Sammy [seriously] Folks, we’ll be right back after a word from our sponsors.

[KFAM outro]

[CREDITS]

References

[1] Blaxploitation - Blaxploitation or blacksploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s. The films, while popular, suffered backlash for disproportionate numbers of stereotypical film characters showing bad or questionable motives, including roles as criminals.

[2] #RedrumRoses - Redrum is from the psychological horror film The Shining. It’s “murder” spelled backward.

[3] “ACME rocket kits and trying to catch a damn bird” - I sincerely hope no one will ever be too young for this reference, but I once had my little brothers ask who Mr. Rogers was so: this is a reference to the Looney Toons cartoons, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. In each episode, Coyote repeatedly attempts to catch and eat the Road Runner, a fast-running ground bird, but is never successful. In order to catch the Road Runner, Coyote uses absurdly complex contraptions- most acquired from the mail-order company ACME- to try to catch his prey, which all backfire comically with Coyote often getting injured in slapstick fashion.

#king falls am #king falls #kfam #sammy stevens #Ben Arnold #kfam transcripts #kfam ep12 #pete myers #herschel baumgartner #hfb3

[met4n0i4]

Master cleansing method, for those nasty energies that won’t come out.

Hey, guys. This is the weirdest prompt ever. I’m in my van writing on my phone. But I couldn’t just shake this post off my head and I’m not heading home. So I had to do it. I’m sorry if it’s specially bad written or has more typos than others but when the muse calls, we answer.

So, it’s been a couple of days since I talked to you about detoxing and I hope you now understand that there’s a lot of energy that we put out there in the universe, some time or another. And that we have to remove or transmute it. Because that stuck energy is most of the times the one blocking our manifestations.

You now know that transmuting your negative thoughts and transforming them into positives is not just something that happens in your mind. It affects your body, too. And that transmuted stuck energy literally comes out of your body as sweat, pee, poop, and mucus. Funny how our bodies are hyper sensitive to our every thought, huh?

But, today I just remembered that when I first got this and started transmuting my thoughts, something besides the detox started happening. I would out of nowhere get this really intense emotions and thoughts that I just couldn’t turn around.

I lived with my family back then. One brother, one sister and my parents. And I remember my family used to leave very early. Of course that meant that they usually would leave some mess back in the kitchen. Being a nice guy and all, I used to clean after their mess. After all, I had more time in the morning before I left.

But the more I cleaned, the messier the kitchen got in the mornings. After a while that was out of control. After a few months the kitchen looked like a gotcha camp for three years old. I’m not kidding when I say there was juice dripping from the counter to the floor. And sometimes there was even food on the walls.

I started to get a little uncomfortable about it. But I never complained. I kept cleaning after all my family. But you know what? It did get me a little mad. I felt like I was being abused somehow. But it was just like a little anger and when I saw my family later in the day it was gone. I didn’t even remember the morning mess. And so that same thing kept happening for months.

Well, after I started transmuting my thoughts, everything seemed great. I was casting spells about my beautiful body and my millionaire lifestyle mostly. I was detoxing hard. Yep, it hit me hard. But at the same time I was having some sprouts of happiness here and there. So I knew I was getting somewhere even with the mixed signs I was getting, that now I come to understand where just the detox.

But one day I woke up just like any day, went to the kitchen and guess what? It was the worse I’d seen it in my life. And I just 🔥🔥 🔥

I couldn’t transmute my thoughts about that kitchen. And to be honest I knew in my mind it wasn’t such a big deal. I was getting way too angry over nothing. Besides, I could just NOT clean the kitchen and nothing would’ve happened. No one was making me do it after all.

But I just couldn’t control my anger. It was too freaking much. I had been very successful at transmuting my thoughts up to this day. And now I just couldn’t stop thinking of how ungrateful and inconsiderate my whole family was. Why couldn’t they just pick their plates? Why is there food on the floor? What are they? Humans or pigs? My god! Why couldn’t I just chill????

Well, my friends. From what I’d leaned si concluded one thing. This had to be addressed ASAP! My emotions and my mind where telling me that there was this accumulated energy under the rug that I hadn’t dealt with for a very long time. And what do you do when something like this comes up? Yep, clean it up.

But as much as I though ‘My family is so clean! They are so considerate to me. They clean while they cook just like me. Everyone’s so organized that even with the dirty dishes the kitchen looks good. I only find food on dishes.’, it was just not working. That rage was not going anywhere!

How am I supposed to clean all that filth surrounding me in thought and emotion? And then inspiration hit me. I previously told you that I read and tried a lot of things before I came to all this. So I remembered one specific practice that Saint Germain suggested. No, it was not a suggestion, he clearly said it was essential or we wouldn’t see much progress. And it was the use of the violet flame.

Well, to put into very few worlds the violet flame was supposed to have 3x more grease cleaning power! All I had to do is use the next spell. ‘I am the violet flame that cleans and transmutes all this negative energy. Root, cause and consequence, cleans it all. Cleans perfectly and deep. 🧼 The violet flame is supposed to be the love of God in action, that forgives past negative thinking. So, it’s supposed to be powerful!

So guys, I did it. I lay down on my bed and started casting the violet flame over me, my kitchen and my whole family. ‘I am the violet flame that cleans and corrects all the negative energy around that kitchen. I am the violet flame that consumes and transmutes all my anger.’

See, I didn’t know what spell to cast or what to transmute specifically, so I used something a bit more general. Clean, correct, fix, scrub 🧽 all this energy that is now coming to the front! And it did. In about half an hour I could feel relief. Something was lifting from me. The uncontrollable anger was completely gone and I was amazed. It was like it never had been there in the first place.

See, when I first used the violet flame there was nothing this strong to transmute. That’s probably why I didn’t feel its effects and didn’t stick to it. But now that I was slowly cleaning thoughts, big chunks of negative energy where coming forward to be dealt with, and the violet flame turned out to be a life saver! Just like Dawn, with active suds for squeaky clean dishes!

And then I understood that I could just cast a spell to clean whatever’s wrong! I might not know what’s wrong or how to fix it. What would things look like if I remove that energy. But I can cast a spell to just clean and fix. And I started using it.

Guys, I didn’t just use the violet flame. Some of you might already have figured this out. But sometimes a very powerful spell that usually works like a charm, doesn’t seem to work in other situations or in different moments. So at times I’ve used the blood of Christ to clean and correct. I’ve soaked in God’s love. Or any other thing that seems to work better at each moment. And they all work.

See, I believe in God so thinking of God’s love cleansing me was powerful. But everyone has to find their own spell. If you believe in the tears of Pachamama,for the love of God use that. If you believe in fairies dust, then use that! Just like any spell, it has to be personal and close to you.

I never told you this but lots of people telling me that one spell about being sexier than Brad Pitt doesn’t do it for me. I’m sorry, the guy doesn’t turn me on! What are we gonna do about it? So find a spell that works for you in this situation.

I’ve come to figure out that believing in something more powerful than us helps. People, who believe in something or someone bigger and loving is helping them, usually have better results for this kind of cleansing. For me, God’s love, whoever God is, did the trick. But you get the help from your favorite archangel, saint, ascended master, or Pokémon. It’s all good.

Only conditions is it has to be very very powerful and it has to be loving.

So well, after learning and applying this powerful force of nature that cleanses very strong emotions and thoughts that arise after some house cleaning, I started applying it to the most difficult things. That’s how I healed a shoulder pain that was not going away with the day to day transmuting. Pain was gone in less than a week with this spell, and it had been there for more than a year.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that you stop doing the every day magic. That’s still mandatory to get results. This one trick is just for the most stubborn stains! And it will come with some detox of course. But we want all that energy out so let the detox come.

And so, now you know. If you are experiencing this super hardcore thoughts or emotions, and normal transmuting everyday thoughts is not helping. Well, this right here might do the trick. Use it wisely and have a happy deep kitchen cleaning!

⚠️ Using this technique may cause excessive diarrhea.

[thesporkidentity]

melthedestroyer

replied to your

post

:

libations-of-blood-and-wine replied to your post...

ok she’s crazy but that night construction story is amazing.

Oh yeah that was super duper fun. Because she was screaming at them through the fence they could only say female with a dog in this 20 foot area (she’s actually the only one who fits that description in our little block so it was definitely her lol) so they accidentally came to me first.

So I wake up at 2:30 in the morning to a cop pounding on my front door shining his flashlight through my window and a scene which I’m sure would be hilarious on tv but was in fact extremely confusing while he tries to play bad cop and bully me into a confession while I stare at him sleepily in my nightclothes like

“So ANYTHING YOU WANT TO SAY ABOUT THE INCIDENT YESTERDAY”

....???????

“The incident IN THE YARD BY THE FENCE? HMMMMMMMM?????????”

And I’m barely awake just staring like I mean a branch fell on it yesterday but it doesn’t look like it hurt it or anything...?

HOW’S YOUR DOG DOING????????? (This was supposed to be some sort of gotcha moment I think? It was the weirdest interrogation strategy I’ve ever seen)

..........................i don’t have...my cats are doing well...?

And then we stood there looking at each other in silence for a good thirty seconds before he kinda awkwardly told me to stay there and got one of the construction guys to come by and give a negative ID on my voice or whatever and I brought out a thing of oreos for all the poor dudes to eat their emotions and all in all it was one of the weirdest experiences of my life.

And of course later Sharon, the likely suspect, interrogates me about what was happening oh my word my goodness and I tried to explain to the best of my abilities and instead of a normal person reaction like “holy shit what a whacko who spray paints people’s cars over something they can’t control” she was legit correcting me on things I got wrong like “oh I’m sure that strange woman wasn’t actually threatening their jobs it makes no sense she wouldn’t be able to back up those threats she was probably saying (insert argument I can’t remember because I was mostly shocked that she basically was admitting she did it or had insider knowledge) instead that would make more sense” like okie dokie there.

So yeah my neighbor is legit terrifying

#melthedestroyer

[thegloober]

Extra: Full Interviews With Jimmy Garoppolo, Joe Staley, Mike McGlinchey, and Kyle Juszczyk

We talked to Jimmy Garoppolo, Joe Staley, and many other players and staff for the San Francisco 49ers during their first week of pre-season practice. (Photo: Lachlan Cunningham/Stringer)

Our latest Freakonomics Radio episode is called “Extra: Full Interviews With Jimmy Garoppolo, Joe Staley, Mike McGlinchey, and Kyle Juszczyk.” (You can subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or elsewhere, get the RSS feed, or listen via the media player above.)

Stephen Dubner’s conversations with members of the San Francisco 49ers offense, recorded for Freakonomics Radio episode No. 350, part of the “Hidden Side of Sports” series.

Below is a transcript of the episode, modified for your reading pleasure. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post.

*      *      *

This is a Freakonomics Radio extra: our full, lightly edited interviews with four members of the San Francisco 49ers offense: quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, offensive linemen Joe Staley and Mike McGlinchey, and fullback Kyle Juszczyk. We interviewed them for episode No. 350, “How to Stop Being a Loser,” which tells the story of how the 49ers are trying to reverse their fortunes after a few dreadful years. It’s part of our special series called “The Hidden Side of Sports.” This is one of many interviews we did with 49ers executives, players, and other football personnel and you can hear all of them by subscribing to Stitcher Premium. Just go to StitcherPremium.com/freakonomics and use promo code FREAKONOMICS for one month free.

This interview, like the others, took place in May, during the team’s first couple days of pre-season practice, or what are called O.T.A.’s, organized team activities. We’ll start with Jimmy Garoppolo, the quarterback who joined the team mid-season last year, as they were on their way to losing their first nine games — and who took over and helped the Niners win their last five games. And was duly rewarded with a five-year, $137.5 million contract. Hope you enjoy.

GAROPPOLO: Nice to meet you.

DUBNER: Hey, Stephen Dubner, nice to meet you.

GAROPPOLO: Nice to meet you guys.

DUBNER: Yeah, congrats on everything.

GAROPPOLO: Oh, thank you very much.

DUBNER: You’re welcome. It’s exciting.

GAROPPOLO: How’s your day going?

DUBNER: Our day’s going great. Really fun. How’s yours?

GAROPPOLO: Busy. But, it’s good. First practice.

DUBNER: Was first O.T.A. significantly different from everything else you’ve been doing here?

GAROPPOLO: It was just exciting to get back out there really.

DUBNER: Yeah.

GAROPPOLO: Being a quarterback, you know, running and lifting is important. But the practice is awesome. Getting out there with the guys and everything.

DUBNER: I bet. What do you spend your offseason doing mostly? Conditioning, etc.?

GAROPPOLO: Yeah. Just your normal working out.

DUBNER: Were you here?

GAROPPOLO: I was here initially, went to Chicago for a little bit.

DUBNER: For home?

GAROPPOLO: Yeah, had to see the family and everything. And then we got the deal figured out, got out to L.A., and that’s kind of where I do most my training at.

DUBNER: Gotcha, gotcha. All right, so you have about 15 minutes here. Is that right?

GAROPPOLO: Yeah.

DUBNER: Or more? Three hours? We’ll take it, whatever we’ve got. No, whatever you’ve got, we’ll take it. If we’ll begin, just say I’m Jimmy Garoppolo and you’re listening to Freakonomics Radio.

GAROPPOLO: What’s up guys, I’m Jimmy Garoppolo and you’re listening to Freakonomics Radio.

DUBNER: Last year was a wildly unpredictable and dramatic and successful year for you. Can you just walk us through it quickly from your perspective? Starting in New England, coming here midseason, and how it ended?

GAROPPOLO: Yeah. You know, it was very unique. I clearly had never been in that situation. But it was exciting at the same time. I went, I took a nap, woke up to 100 text messages, 100 missed calls, and next thing I knew, that next morning, 5:00 a.m. I think, I was on a flight out west to San Francisco. So, it just happened so quickly and suddenly —

DUBNER: That’s really the way it works?

GAROPPOLO: Yeah, and it was three days, four days before my birthday, and there was a whole bunch of stuff going on. But you go through so many emotions initially, because you don’t know what’s going on. I’ve never been in this situation before. Your emotions are going wild. And then, you get here and now you’re learning a whole new playbook. It’s like learning a new language. You’re meeting new people, you don’t know anyone’s name. So there a bunch of stuff going on, but, you know, things really worked out well. After a week or two things start to slow down, and you get kind of a routine, and, you know, it worked out well.

DUBNER: Yeah.

PRODUCER: The first call wasn’t from your agent, it was like, it was in the press before you actually knew that the team —?

GAROPPOLO: No. Fifty of those calls were from my agent.

DUBNER: How long was your nap?

GAROPPOLO: It wasn’t that long, I swear. But next thing I knew, I was a 49er, and, you know, the rest is history.

DUBNER: Do you nap every day?

GAROPPOLO: No, there’s rarely nap.

DUBNER: That was rare. You’ll never do that again.

GAROPPOLO: Definitely not during the season.

DUBNER: All right, so just talk about, did you have any inkling that you might be traded? First of all, I know teams have been talking about you right?

GAROPPOLO: There were rumors and everything, but during the season, especially as a quarterback you’re so locked in, there’s so many things that you have to worry about for the next Sunday that I really don’t have time to really think about that, my agents would keep me notified, but they know for the most part I’m all football during the season. So there were rumors and everything. I didn’t really know whether to believe it, because some of the stuff is hearsay and it turned out to be true.

DUBNER: What’d you think and know about San Francisco, the organization, the history coming in?

GAROPPOLO: Very rich history. You know, Joe Montana, Steve Young, those guys just paving the way and they went through a little bit of a downstream there for a couple of years, but just, the fans around here are pretty unique. I didn’t know that. Never been out here before getting traded, so when I first got out here the fans, the faithful, I mean they really are faithful through the thick and thin. It’s impressive.

DUBNER: All right. So, of all the weird and wonderful things about the way it worked last year, to me the weirdest is that your agent, you share an agent with the guy that you were backing up. And then we know the drama of, the drama —

GAROPPOLO: What drama?

DUBNER: Yeah, I mean I don’t know you can tell me as much as you want to, and I only know what I’ve read which is probably true, but I don’t know what your relationship was like with Brady. I’m happy to hear you say anything you want to say, if you want to take a pass on it take a pass. But let’s start with that.

GAROPPOLO: Yeah. You know nothing, but the media made it out to seem — We always had a good relationship. You know, initially when I was younger kind of like an older brother type of relationship, but as I got older and matured through the N.F.L., we became closer and we became good friends. You know, we still text here and there. Jacoby was a good friend of mine too. So, the three of us always were texting each other, and it was, you know, everyone said it was a terrible decision to have the same agent, but I think it worked out very well.

DUBNER: Yeah.

GAROPPOLO: They, our agents, look out for both of us, both of our best interest. But at the end of the day it’s the N.F.L. So, it’s a business.

DUBNER: Yeah. We also read that Kraft made it happen or wanted it to happen, and that Belichick was against it. Tell me what you can about that?

GAROPPOLO: Not, I didn’t know any —

DUBNER: Did you hear from Bill Belichick after?

GAROPPOLO: Yeah, he was the one who actually told me that, I mean my agent told me initially, but then coach Belichick right behind them told me, and we always had a good relationship. Both of us are very straightforward people, really no B.S. or anything. So, I always appreciated that from coach, he kept it real with everybody whoever you were. Practice squad or the starting quarterback, you know, and you gotta respect him for that.

DUBNER: So, everything I’ve read and heard about you coming in, you know, we know the kind of details, we know that Kyle Shanahan originally said let’s give him time to get up to speed, you may not even see him play this year. Then of course you do come in relatively soon and then, as far as I can tell, you’ve never actually lost an N.F.L. game that you’ve started right?

GAROPPOLO: I’ve done pretty good.

DUBNER: You won two with the Pats, right?

GAROPPOLO: C’mon.

DUBNER: But from everything that we’ve heard, from everyone on the exact side and on the players side, you’re some combination of like Y.A. Tittle and Superman and Jesus Christ, like people just gather around you and love you.

GAROPPOLO: That’s a hell of a combo right there.

DUBNER: It’s a pretty good combo. So, tell us, I’m sure you can’t be that good. What are some things that you work hard on, that you struggle with, that you’re trying to get better at?

GAROPPOLO: As far as what? Football —

DUBNER: Football and also being part of, I mean, it’s a huge thing you came in, you won five games in a row that you started, and then you’re given what was at the time the biggest contract ever in football, got surpassed, but it’s still pretty big. So, it’s natural for both the team and the fans and maybe even the league to look at you as a kind of savior. That’s a lot. I’m just curious how you process that or if you mostly ignore it.

GAROPPOLO: You know, for the most part I just go out and do my thing. You know, everyone sets high expectations and tries to predict things, but at the end of the day, no one really knows anything or what’s going to happen. And I set a higher standard for myself than anyone ever will, so I kind of worry about that more than anything. You know, all the outside noise, it’s just noise. So, you really got to stay focused on, you know, your craft and all the things that we have going on this building, it’s, you know, if you get caught up in all that stuff, you’re gonna have a tough time. The N.F.L.’s hard enough as it is.

DUBNER: Yeah. Kyle Shanahan knew you pretty well, he’d worked you out when he was with the, with Cleveland right? For the draft? So, just tell me about that relationship going back and what it’s like now.

GAROPPOLO: You know we had a good relationship I met with Cleveland a bunch. They were looking for a quarterback that year. And they ended up taking Johnny Manziel.

DUBNER: Trading up to take him, right?

GAROPPOLO: Did they?

DUBNER: Well, that’s what I read, but then I thought when did Cleveland ever have to trade up to get the 22nd pick?

GAROPPOLO: Oh, jeez.

DUBNER: No, seriously. Well I am a Steeler’s fan, but still.

PRODUCER: That’s probably their —

GAROPPOLO: That makes sense.

PRODUCER: Maybe their fourth first-round draft pick.

DUBNER: Yeah maybe that was their fourth first-round, so anyways —

GAROPPOLO: You guys are ruthless.

DUBNER: Sorry, no, we’ll move on from that. But anyway, so he’d worked you out a couple times. Yeah?

GAROPPOLO: We had a good relationship from really from the start. I mean, he worked me out at Northwestern and I remember. And, you know, he was a young, energetic coach.

DUBNER: Right.

GAROPPOLO: And we were very similar personalities and I remember going home and telling my parents that. And, you know, I didn’t know where I was going to go or who was going to draft me, but just you meet coaches throughout the process that you get along with better than others and me in college a good connection, right off the bat.

DUBNER: So, again if you don’t know football and you read about the kind of offensive mind he has, and that he just tortures defenses by being dynamic and creative, et cetera, et cetera. Can you just talk for a minute about what that means for you as a quarterback and how that fits for you?

GAROPPOLO: I always use complex as the word. It’s a very complex offense, just how —

DUBNER: So give me a call, a play for us here, for instance, and tell me what each term means.

GAROPPOLO: Each term? Oh jeez, we’ll be here for a while.

DUBNER: Really?

GAROPPOLO: So like, you could go “North right clamp three jet Y-C-O bo.”

DUBNER: That’s one play?

GAROPPOLO: That’s a shorter one.

DUBNER: Okay.

GAROPPOLO: So, it tells everyone what to do. But at the same time, you could get into different packages, where it’s one word tells all 11 guys what to do, and it’s just, that’s the complexity of the offense. And now, you’ve got motion, moving around the defenses looking at a hundred different things. You snap it, all of a sudden, and they’re messed up, and it makes my job that much easier, just by, you know, a simple little thing that we did before the ball was even snapped. And that goes back to the film study — the coach’s film study — and all that. And it gives me a lot of confidence in the whole offense as a whole, just you go into that game and you know the coaches have done their studying and done their homework. And it’s nice having a game plan like that.

DUBNER: Yeah. Let’s assume you turn out to have a really long and great Hall of Fame career. And if you were to look back this time now,  your beginning with your starting career. What would you attribute it to? Because there are a lot of guys who, physically I’m sure, are like you, are close to you, and so on. So, what do you think actually makes you successful at this level?

GAROPPOLO: I’ve always really relied on the extra work. The day ends at 2 o’clock say, you try to be here until 8 o’clock.

DUBNER: Doing what? Physical, film?

GAROPPOLO: Anything and everything.

DUBNER: Okay.

GAROPPOLO: Yeah. I mean one day it could be more physical than mental.

DUBNER: Yeah.

GAROPPOLO: Everyone has their own routine. And being in the N.F.L. for four years now, going on five, I have a pretty good routine that I’ve gotten used to and during the season, it’s a long tough season. You have to have a good routine that keeps your body healthy and keeps your mind sharp for all 16 weeks.

DUBNER: What are some things you do physically that like a layperson could do to keep their body —

GAROPPOLO: A what?

DUBNER: A regular person, not a studly athlete.

GAROPPOLO: Well, I do things for quarterbacking.

DUBNER: Yeah.

GAROPPOLO: It’s different than your average athlete. You know, I have to stay loose and be able to throw 100, 200 balls a day, every day, and if you lift a ton of weights and get real big it’s tough to do all that. So, it’s a little different than the normal stuff.

DUBNER: What’s your diet like?

GAROPPOLO: Good.

DUBNER: Yeah. Do you cook for yourself or no?

GAROPPOLO: Nah, they make phenomenal food here. Why would I cook?

DUBNER: Is that why you’re here like 18 hours a day?

GAROPPOLO: It doesn’t hurt man, it doesn’t hurt for sure.

DUBNER: What’d your folks do for a living?

GAROPPOLO: My dad was an electrician. He just retired three, four months ago, something like that. And my mom was kind of a cook, chef I guess you could say, and she’s looking to retire pretty soon too.

DUBNER: Are they going to move out here, now that you’re here?

GAROPPOLO: I don’t think so.

DUBNER: You have other siblings?

GAROPPOLO: I have three brothers, yeah. Two of which are moving out here.

DUBNER: Oh, wow.

GAROPPOLO: And the third is an architect in Chicago. So, he’s killing it right now. It’s awesome, but my parents, you know, they — I don’t know, we’re a very tight knit family and they’re locked in back in Chicago. So, it’ll be tough to get them out of there.

DUBNER: I see.

GAROPPOLO: They’ll be out here every week, though. You can count on that.

DUBNER: Is that right? Yeah. Tell me, you may not think about it yet, since you’re young, but a lot of guys come into the league with all kinds of promise and even success. And then afterwards, it can be a really hard adjustment, because you’ve been doing this one thing since you were six, eight, ten years old, and kind of had people taking care of things. Can you just talk about what you think about the afterlife of an athlete, again I realize it’s not the right phase in your life to ask you this question, but I’m just curious your thoughts? People you’ve seen do it really well and not well maybe?

GAROPPOLO: It seems like — You know, I have no idea for myself, that’s hopefully a long ways away. But it seems like coaching is a way that a lot of guys go. I have a bunch of guys that went to school with at Eastern that got into coaching, because they miss that atmosphere, that family feeling. And so every one of them that I’ve talked to is — they love it. And they say you get just as much joy out of that as you do playing. So I don’t know, hopefully that. I got a long, long time until I even have to start thinking about that.

DUBNER: Do you have a prediction for this season either in terms of number of wins or how deep into the playoffs? Do you have any idea in your mind whether you want to tell me you’re not like what would constitute a successful season for you? Or how would you describe it?

GAROPPOLO: I mean there’s a million things that go into that.

DUBNER: Like what would, at the end of the season, if they’re, like name three or four things that would need to happen for you to consider this a successful season?

GAROPPOLO: I think we have to have a good O.T.A.s first.

DUBNER: Okay.

GAROPPOLO: Yeah, I mean you’re talking about a successful season. We’ve had one practice so, we’ve got a long way to go. Then we’ll get into training camp, and that’s really where your team starts to come together, and you start to see the mold of the team and we’re just try to create a good team right now, good standard that we set for each other, and I think we’re moving in the right direction on that.

DUBNER: Everything I’ve read from every player says that you’re the natural leader, that people gravitate toward you in the locker room and on the field. Is that something you learned to do? Is that your natural way of being? I’m curious about.

GAROPPOLO: Yeah, I think I’ve never really tried to fake it or be, I don’t know, someone that I’m not, because everyone says this guy’s a great leader and you should be like him. But I think if you start going out of your comfort zone and doing things you’re not used to. Guys, I mean especially in a N.F.L. locker room, they see right through that. They’re not they’re not dumb. So, you just have to be yourself. I don’t know. I’ve always thought myself as one of the guys and I think that plays a big part in it.

PRODUCER: Where are you in the four brothers, like age-wise?

GAROPPOLO: Number three. Two older —

PRODUCER: Okay, so when you’re with your older brothers are you still in a leadership role? Are you like a little brother that gets kicked —

GAROPPOLO: No, I’m the little brother. I got two older brothers.

DUBNER: Is that right?

GAROPPOLO: They’ll never let you forget it. That’s just, and I’d be upset if they did. It’s just how we were raised. I’m sure it’s made me a better person having them around and keeping me humble and everything.

DUBNER: Well, thank you. Good luck.

GAROPPOLO: No problem.

DUBNER: Hope you win a bunch of games, win a Super Bowl.

GAROPPOLO: Hell yeah.

DUBNER: The only thing is, again I do have one issue that, as a Steelers fan, I can’t let any team get more Super Bowl trophies than us. And you’re one of the few that are —

GAROPPOLO: We’re right there.

DUBNER: So you can get one or two, but we have to keep. So, if we can toggle between the Niners and Steelers, that’s fine.

GAROPPOLO: We’ve gotta see how many Big Ben’s got left in him.

DUBNER: There you go. Yeah, I don’t know. Okay. Good luck to you. Thank you very much.

GAROPPOLO: Nice to meet you guys. No problem.

Next up, our interview with one of the larger and more colorful members of the San Francisco 49ers.

STALEY: My name is Joe Staley. I’m a left tackle for the San Francisco 49ers. I’ve been on the team for — this will be my twelfth season coming up, only played here in San Francisco.

DUBNER: Right. And you’re easily the longest tenured veteran here —

STALEY: And the best —

DUBNER:  —by a long shot.

STALEY: And the best looking.

DUBNER: Best looking, yeah. You nose I have to say —

STALEY: Leans right.

DUBNER: What would I say?

STALEY: It leads to the right.

DUBNER: Yeah.

STALEY: Yeah. Had been broken a couple of times.

DUBNER: Bunch of times?

PRODUCER: You can do that with the facemask on?

STALEY: Yeah. So, this is a funny story, we were in Green Bay and I had this old school helmet from like, you know, 1984.

DUBNER: Is it legal?

STALEY: It’s in the last year of being legal. I was kind of grandfathered in, I’m actually switching facemasks this year, but in 2000, I think it was 12, they tried to get me to switch facemasks. And so, I was trying out this new helmet, and very first game, we’re playing the Green Bay Packers, I’m going against Clay Matthews, and he’s a big time bull rusher, you know, kind of just like runs down your face and my helmet was not fitting properly, because it was a new helmet, and I have kind of a weird shaped head and it was just slamming my nose over and over, and there’s a bunch of pictures, I mean, that thing was broken. And like all the skin from the top, I still got the scar up there, was like flapped open over my, over the bridge of my nose. It was a miserable game —

DUBNER: It looks really —

STALEY: So that was broken then, and I got broken — We did a one-on-one pass rush back in college with no helmets, for some reason, and I caught a spin move heavy elbow to the nose. Nose, it was completely like on the side of my face. Trainer came over and was like, oh you’re good. I was like, all right, seems pretty official.

DUBNER: It looks good now, though.

STALEY: Yeah.

DUBNER: You’ve grown into it.

STALEY: Grown into it, I’ve got a big head.

DUBNER: So how big are you now?

STALEY: Six foot six. I’m about 295, 300 pounds.

DUBNER: 295. So, when you started, you thought you needed to be heavier then? Yeah?

STALEY: Yeah, I came in the N.F.L., I was pretty light out of college.

DUBNER: Did someone advise you to get heavier or you just thought that was the way to go?

STALEY: When I came out, I came out in 2007, it was kind of going through a transition between like offensive linemen, being big-bruising-like-type players, and I was very much on the light spectrum of that scale of what guys are supposed to weigh when they came to the N.F.L. So, I just continued to gain weight like I was in college and kind of stopped on about 235 or 335 pounds at one point. 330 pounds and was way too big.

DUBNER: Was that uncomfortable?

STALEY: Yeah, it felt miserable, couldn’t move. Basically, was losing everything that put me into the N.F.L.

DUBNER: Yeah.

STALEY: It was my like athleticism and my foot speed. So, one off season just was like, screw this I’m going to try to try it the other way.

DUBNER: Yeah.

PRODUCER: What did you have to do to put on that much weight?

STALEY: I mean I was just eating everything. So, I mean, I was a tight end when I got to college, I was about 220 pounds and new coaching staff came in. Brian Kelly at Notre Dame. He came in and said we don’t have tight ends in my offense, so I want you to play tackle. Just gain as much weight as you can. So, I was just eating everything. He was like, “I don’t care what you eat.”

DUBNER: Wow.

STALEY: Healthy or not, I was, on a college meal plan basically and also had a couple of bucks to go get a burger. You know, five-dollar pizza, a Little Caesar’s and so. I was stuffing my face and then also I was working out pretty heavily. I would do two workouts a day pretty consistently on the off season and then working out every day on top of practices. And also, you’re young in college, so you’re —

DUBNER: You’d never played lineman before that though?

STALEY: Nope. I got taught the position my sophomore year.

DUBNER: And how did you like it when you started? Seem a little boring?

STALEY: Hated it at first. No, it was just different. You know, and I wasn’t really a blocking tight end either. I was brought there to catch passes. I was fast for my size, so it was a transition for me. I didn’t really know anything. So, they kind of had a clean slate to work with, I didn’t have any bad habits as far as blocking and took coaching pretty well.

DUBNER: I mean your career has obviously turned out great. Do you sometimes think, “I wish I could have stayed a tight end,” though?

STALEY: No, I would have never, maybe would have been in the N.F.L. for like one or two seasons —

DUBNER: Really?

STALEY: No, I wasn’t fast enough for a tight end, you know. I was fast for a lineman, wasn’t fast enough for a tight end.

DUBNER: Right, yeah.

STALEY: And then had that explosion, the guys here.

DUBNER: Yeah. So, for people who don’t know football at all, left tackle — Just describe kind of your primary missions, especially relating to protecting the quarterback, and also what you actually do with your body.

STALEY: Yeah, so I play left tackle which is considered the blind side of the quarterback, made famous by that movie.

DUBNER: Hey, a book before a movie, c’mon now.

STALEY: Yeah, a book, the book. Michael Lewis, right?

DUBNER: Yeah, Michael Lewis.

STALEY: I protect the quarterback’s blind side, so basically when he’s dropped back in a protection, he’s right handed quarterback, he can’t see, obviously, behind him, so that’s why they called it the blind side. And yeah, I mean my primary job in the run game is to move the guy that’s in front of me from point A to point B, wherever the scheme is, whatever the play calls for. We have a plethora of different blocks that we have to do. And then different combinations single blocks, double blocks, you know, whatever they are. And then, in the pass game, basically keep the defender from rushing the passer and getting the sack on the quarterback.

DUBNER: I remember we used to hear that, on average, offensive linemen were the smartest players on the team. Some people would say Q.B., some would say O.L. You know anything about it? I mean, do you feel like, is your group particularly, because the playbook, you need to not make mistakes obviously.

STALEY: Yeah, it’s a different thing. I think quarterback obviously probably has to know the most. You know, I think in just straight intelligence, you know, offensive linemen tend to be smarter. I don’t know if it’s just because of everything, the way we have to break down a playbook. I have to understand, not what I’m just doing as a left tackle, but I have to understand what the left guard, center, right guard, and right tackle are doing, and sometimes also the tight ends. Then also the formations and I have to know where the receivers are, and all that stuff. So, you have to have a heavy grasp of everything and that kind of ties together as, you know, especially up front like all five guys playing together and I have to know the adjustments that we make. Say a defense comes down and they bring in a safety down that kind of changes are blocking scheme for a particular play. And that all happens within two seconds, so I have to be able to process all that information, know exactly what the adjustments are, what I’m supposed to say, how that affects me, and then also the guy next to me, what my call is to my tight end if I have one next to me. And that’s just on one particular play.

DUBNER: Do you make mistakes?

STALEY: Yeah, all the time.

DUBNER: During the game — So how many mistakes might you make, like you’re one of the best in the game, how many mistakes of a nature of, you know, actually, be there an assignment or a package —

STALEY: So we have like mental, you can call them M.A.s or, I don’t even know what that stands for mental assignment error or something like that.

PRODUCER: Missed assignment error.

STALEY: Missed assignment error. There it is. Missed assignments like a mental error.

DUBNER: Yeah, yeah.

STALEY: M.E.s, M.A.s.

DUBNER: And you’re graded on those after every —?

STALEY: Yeah. Those are minimal. You know, those are, I think, if you’re getting an M.A. that’s just poor preparation on your part. You should have a firm grasp by the time you get to game day. You should have a firm grasp of every single situation that we have, what the playbook is, obviously, the combination blocks and everything going to be making it on the football field. But technique is a huge part of what makes offensive linemen successful, and that’s why we drill, you know, individual drills, and we’ll drill like the little tiny techniques of where exactly your foot placements are, your foot angles, your hands, your levers, and your hip roll, and the run game, your, what we call pass sets, you know, your kick slides, the angle that we use on our kick slides, the hand placement on that, when to use our hands. Those are always like very, very rarely are you gonna be perfect. You know, so it’s, you know, I consider those mistakes, like you’re always kind of like judging yourself of, A., did you do your job, did you win the block, and then B., like how can I make it better. Like, “Well my hand was late here on this pass set, and I didn’t get it exactly where I want to be. So, you know, I’ll try better next time.”

DUBNER: So you’ve had something like six or seven head coaches in your career?

STALEY: This is my sixth.

DUBNER: Your sixth. So, we can talk a little bit about the stormy years, and then last year, the very bad start and the great turnaround. But before we do that, when Kyle Shanahan came in for a guy like you, offensive lineman, how much new was there to learn? And I guess for every head coach, how much new is there to learn?

STALEY: Yeah, every head coach kind of brings something new, because they all have a different scheme that they run offensively and a way of looking at the game of football. I’ve been fortunate and unfortunate to play with so many different head coaches and also, this is not only six head coaches, but eight offensive coordinators. I’ve been eight different offensive systems. I’ve kind of seen everything. When Kyle came in, I knew he was — Basically, his staple was zone, outside zone, inside zone, play action. So, I was pretty well versed in how to attack a defense with that. But what I kind of wasn’t ready for was just how detail oriented his specific scheme is. And how everything is pieced together in the way that he kind of sees Xs and Os and the way he sees a football field is pretty different than typical offensive coordinators. So, I was really excited just because of his reputation that he’s had in the N.F.L., but I got a first-hand experience of that pretty quick.

DUBNER: I can’t remember, was it last year, the beginning of last year, when you were hurt and thinking about retiring, and basically everything was kind of garbage? Was that last year during the losing streak?

STALEY: Yeah, it was.

DUBNER: Can you just walk us through last season from your perspective? It was an amazing turnaround, obviously, but also you being hurt — I’m just curious to hear.

STALEY: I just had a hip impingement basically something, nothing that was injured, just something that I was kind of dealing with that was causing my right knee to feel like crap, basically. There was not really an injury. There was nothing torn structurally, it was really, really good, but it’s just one of those deals that every time I would load that leg up, which I do every single play, it felt like just basically bone-on-bone rubbing. And it just got to be really, really painful, and something that I was kind of just dealing with through the season and getting a ton of treatment, I mean doing everything I can to make sure I felt as good as I possibly could on game day.

DUBNER: You missed games?

STALEY: No, I didn’t miss any games.

DUBNER: Wow.

STALEY: But as far as what I had to do just to get myself through it. I was in year eleven, I was on my sixth head coach. We’re, I think, at this time like 0 and 7, and it was just like I had mental lapse of weakness there were I was just, you know, the adversity kind of got to me. I was —

DUBNER: You were talking to your wife about it? You were —

STALEY: Yeah it was the first time that I was just like this might be my last year. I don’t know if I can just continue to do this if my body is starting to fail me like this and I feel like I’m doing everything I can. It’s just not responding like it used to.

DUBNER: If you’d been winning it would have felt different I assume?

STALEY: You know, winning kind of heals everything, but also it wasn’t really that, it was just — It was more just the way my body was feeling.

DUBNER: Yeah, and then how did it get better or did it not?

STALEY: It did actually, it was before the Eagles games. It just kind of released, I don’t know exactly what it was but —

DUBNER: Herbal tea or something?

STALEY: No, I was doing a bunch of different like stretches and I think everything was just kind of bound up. And I ended up doing this kind of stretch on my own and it was so frustrated, and I don’t recommend this for anybody listening, but like I just really like wrenched down on this stretch and was just like, it was in a moment of frustration and I was really pissed, and I just kind of put all my body weight into the stretch and I just felt like my whole entire hip just one thing. And I could feel it move and then like it was sore for two days, like really, really sore and then the knee pain was kind of gone after that so, I think it kind of released —

DUBNER: Wow.

STALEY: I don’t know what it was but —

DUBNER: Did you tell your trainer what you’d done?

STALEY: Oh, I told everybody and pumped up about it.

DUBNER: Do you think the trainer is going to recommend that for future athletes who have a hip impingement?

STALEY: I don’t know. They probably just think that I’m making up stuff. Yeah, just move your body in a weird ways, contort yourself.

DUBNER: When you were at your bottom and hurting and thinking about quitting and so on. I know your wife is a former athlete as well who, high-level soccer player, who never made the women’s national team, because of injury herself right? Is that right? So, I’m curious what those conversations were like. Obviously, you’d had a long career, but I’m curious what those conversations were like.

STALEY: We didn’t really talk seriously about it, but I had seen her kind of go through this when she was done with playing soccer, the league folded that she was playing in. And just, something that she was playing consistently and at a high-level since she was like six, seven years old, then all of a sudden to be gone just kind of seeing that transition. So, you know, when that day does come for me, it was the first time I’ve actually brought up possibly not playing football anymore and probably got a little bit scared of even talking about that.

DUBNER: Do you have thoughts about what you’ll do afterwards?

STALEY: No idea. No idea.

DUBNER: T.V.?

STALEY: I don’t know. I don’t want to.

DUBNER: I mean, I don’t want to jinx it if you’re not, if you don’t want to go in that direction.

STALEY: I’m more of a radio guy. Maybe?

DUBNER: Is that right?

STALEY: No, I don’t know. I have no idea.

DUBNER: You’ve got the nose for radio.

STALEY: I definitely do. I definitely do. I don’t know. You know, I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about that too much, because, I don’t know, I just don’t want my mind — The way my mind works, I’m very structured and I have to like to stay in the moment. And so, if I start thinking about like setting myself up for life after football then I’m just worried that I’m not going to be like as focused as I need to be on what I’m doing.

DUBNER: Let me ask you this, it’s obvious now that a lot of former athletes, even those who make quite a lot of money, when they’re done, often not done at a time of their own choosing, all of a sudden like they don’t have a career, and they often don’t have anywhere near as much money as they kind of thought they would have or they didn’t take care of it well, et cetera. But one of the conflicts I think is what you just said, which is, when you’re an athlete, you want to devote all your mental energy to being good now. Do you have any advice for athletes or for people who are trying to help athletes in the afterlife. How do you balance that? You know, do your job now, do it well, but also try to think about preparing for the future?

STALEY: Yeah, I’m probably not the best person for that, because like I said, I’m not really setting myself up for life after football.

DUBNER: But you’re making enough money unless you’re a total fool with it, which you seem like you’re going to be fine.

STALEY: Yeah.

DUBNER: There are a lot of people who earn —

STALEY: I know.

DUBNER: Right.

STALEY: That’s the conundrum there, is where do you — Like you said, you want to set yourself up for success after football and use this avenue to kind of propel yourself into something that is beneficial for you when this is all done. Because, I mean, it’s a short part of our life right here. You know, I’ve been fortunate enough to play for going on 12 years and even then, if I retired, I mean, I’m still 33. You know, so, I have hopefully a large chunk of my life left.

DUBNER: Have you ever been a player rep on your team or are you now?

STALEY: No, I’m not.

DUBNER: Yeah, but like if if the P.A. came to you and said, listen Joe, you’ve had this amazing long career. How would you suggest that the the median player, the guy who’s going to be in for three or four years, and who earns maybe four to eight million dollars, which sounds in the beginning like a lifetime, but it’s not. Do you have any advice?

STALEY: The P.A. does a great job of setting us up with programs and stuff in the offseason of trying to take advantage. And that’s all for the players as well though, you know. And that’s sort of the thing that — What you said is, you know, for me personally like I have two young kids. The offseason is my time to really hang out and be a dad. And I love spending time with them and love being with them and all that stuff is kind of set up for, you know, week, two-week programs, and I just don’t want to sacrifice that week potentially just hang out and my kids to just go and go to broadcasting boot camp or whatever it is. And I feel like this is kind of like on the job training too for that stuff so, I mean, I try to take this stuff seriously, is what I’m doing as if this could be a potential avenue for me down the road, and something in broadcasting or something like that, but as far as taking advantage of programs I’m probably not the best person to talk about that.

DUBNER: All right, so go back to last year, losing nine in a row. You’d never, had you ever been on a team in your whole athletic career where you lost nine games in a row at anything?

STALEY: Well the year before that we went 2 and 14.

DUBNER: Yeah, true. Yeah, all right.

STALEY: So yeah, we had a rough roll there a couple of years. I think that was what it was, coupled with my body feeling bad, I was coming off a 2 and 14 year, new head coach again, kind of going the 0 and 7 route, as we were going at that point in the season last year. And was just kind of, “Oh, I just don’t want to be a part of a rebuild again.” And this is like, you know, maybe this is farther along I thought, but it’s not, you know? And I think that we have a really good thing going here.

DUBNER: So, we keep hearing from players and execs that, even at 0 and 9, the locker room was good. The building was positive.

STALEY: It was.

DUBNER: It sounds like everybody but you. Sounds like —

STALEY: No this was me —

DUBNER: Yours was more about personally —

STALEY: This was me personally, the locker room — And I was pretty vocal about this with the media here, was something I’d never seen before in my career. I mean in 11 years, I haven’t seen a locker room that was going through the adversity that we had gone through last season and still stayed so solid and together. There was not the — I mean, I was on teams when we were 12 and 4, 13 and 3, and we had more division in the locker room than we had last year at 0 and 9.

DUBNER: How do you —

STALEY: And we had a game when we won, against the New York Giants, and I was like celebrating like, like it was — I even had a quote in the paper here, it was like, this felt as good as when we won the N.F.C. championship game, because that was just so deserving for all the guys in the locker room to have that success to stay with it. And I think that was kind of one of the huge reasons why we finished the way we did.

DUBNER: How do you account for that positivity? I mean obviously the coach, everybody, I’m guessing guys like you also played a big role, but still it’s hard to be 0 and 9 and —

STALEY: It did, and it was very trying, and I think it definitely starts with leadership up front. You know, it starts with John, and starts with Kyle. The kind of culture that they set, the way they come to work after a loss, you know, and they kind of set the table for everybody else, and then, you know, some of the veteran players as well to kind of go out there on the practice field and keep working every single day. And kind of setting the example of how you work through it and, you know, not point the fingers. We had a really good room as far as that goes and then when we had a really cool rookie class last year too, that just didn’t take it the easy way out. They just kept on working really, really hard. So, it was fun to see everything come together.

DUBNER: Do you think that had anything to do with the kind of people that John was looking for in his rookie draft?

STALEY: Yeah, I think it definitely did. I think it was. I mean, you saw that right away, when those guys came in, they were guys that were, not so much about being an N.F.L. football player, but they enjoyed the work of being an N.F.L. football player. And football meant something to them and that’s one of the hard things to figure out about guys coming out of college now, because they’re so programmed to say what they think they’re supposed to be saying to the executives and the head coach that you really don’t know what you’re getting. And I think they did a tremendous job of figuring out who the right guy is to bring in. And we all, across the whole entire draft class last season, we had guys that really perform.

DUBNER: McGlinchey is the Giant — Excuse me. McGlinchey is the Niners number one pick this year —

STALEY: He’s a giant too.

DUBNER: He is a giant.

STALEY: He’s a giant man.

DUBNER: We’ve been reading that you have been very helpful taking him under your slightly less giant wing.

STALEY: Yeah.

DUBNER: And this is an amazing thing to people outside of football where you’ve got guys on a team who are working with their ultimate replacements and yet trying to help them. Now, I’m guessing you, in your 12th year, it’s a little easier. If you were in your fourth year, he might be a little bit more of a threat. I’m curious if you could talk about that whole dynamic for a second.

STALEY: Yeah, and it’s a little bit different too, because we have two different positions, you know, he plays right side, I’m playing left side.

DUBNER: But ultimately, he’s designed to move over, right?

STALEY: Didn’t draft 9th overall to go playing great right tackle the whole career. But, yeah, I’m trying to, I mean we’re all trying to win games here. So, I mean it doesn’t matter if I’m feeling insecure about my job that I can’t help a guy that’s coming in. I mean, that’s on me. And I’m not —

DUBNER: When you came in —

STALEY: I’m not doing something —

DUBNER: When you came in as a rookie, did you have guys who theoretically could have felt threatened by you, but who helped you out a lot?

STALEY: Yeah, we had a good room. We didn’t have an established guy. I came in and was competing right away. I kind of got drafted to take someone’s job. So that was a little bit different of dynamic, but it was never like, you know, there’s no other, there was no weird tension in the room about that. I just feel like, I’m trying to teach him everything I know, I feel like it’s my duty as an offensive lineman, that’s been in this league for a long time, to try to, you know, accelerate his progression as a as a football player and I’m just trying to teach him everything I can and it’s up to him if he wants to listen. If he doesn’t want to listen, he can figure out himself, and that’s kind of what I did to figure too. Figure out what works best for you. But, you know, I’m not going to, if he wants to ask me anything he can about the N.F.L., the N.F.L. life, how to take care of your body off the field, and, who to associate with, who not to associate with, all the stuff that comes with being an N.F.L. player, I’m more than welcome to, more than willing to help him out there.

DUBNER: At the end of the season, winning the last five, with a Q.B. who obviously was, you know, performing really well, hopefully long term. What did that feel like for you? Like on the one hand, you were a 6 and 10 team, which isn’t very good, on the other hand, you go out with a five-game winning streak and you are feeling better. So, what was your mind like during the offseason and then now, preseason, looking toward this year? How optimistic? How realistic? Etc, etc.?

STALEY: I mean it was huge for our team last year to finish the way we did. Jimmy coming in really made a huge difference for us. He played at a high level and you can see why we gave up a draft pick for him, signed a big contract this offseason, he’s the real deal, every way. But I think the trap is to look at that last season and those five games that we ended up with and think that we’re just going to show up and do that again this year. I mean every season, I’ve been a part of it for a long time, every season is a brand-new season, and brings a lot of different challenges and different situations that you have to deal with. Whether it be injuries or, you know, another team in the division stepping up or —

DUBNER: You guys had a lot of injuries last year.

STALEY: We did, last couple two years actually. We’ve had a lot of injuries, lot of guys go on I.R. I mean that’s just the thing, is taking it one day at a time and I think we’ve done a good job of that this offseason so far.

DUBNER: Were you a big fan of Richard Sherman in previous years?

STALEY: No, because he was on the other team and he was so good, but I think that was part of the reason why I wasn’t, because he was so good at what he did. It’s so frustrating to go against, because you kind of knew that side of the field is always going to be taken care of.

DUBNER: Yeah.

STALEY: Whenever we play the Seahawks. So, I’m super excited to have him on our team, obviously. I think he’s a great person, great player. He brings a ton of veteran leadership to the locker room and especially in that D.B. room that we have right now. It’s a young room. To add him as a veteran voice in there is going to be nothing but positive.

DUBNER: How many games would you need to win this year to considered it a successful season?

STALEY: I always think of it as a Super Bowl. You know, even the years that we were looked at on paper as not being a good team and I’ve always just thought that’s a goal. It should be the goal every single year. But, I never really got into like what the win is, what the predictions are, because that’s our goal every single season. And at the end of day, it’s just what you can do today to better yourself to get to that goal, so —

DUBNER: You’re probably the only guy here, maybe a couple, who lost the Super Bowl, right?

STALEY: Me and Garret Celek, I believe are the only two left, right? I think Celek, wow.

DUBNER: What’s that feel like?

STALEY: Losing the Super Bowl or being one of the last two?

DUBNER: No, losing the Super Bowl.

STALEY: Oh man, it sucked. Oh, that’s like the worst day of my life. Thanks for bringing that up.

DUBNER: You’re welcome.

STALEY: I mean, we were so — The way we did it too. It’s still very fresh in my mind. You know, we are down big early, then had that big comeback in the second half, and then had that drive in the fourth-quarter, time was running out. We had a first and goal from the 7-yard line. Thinking that we’re going to go in, we had the best rushing attack in the N.F.L. and, you know, we pass it four times or three times. We ran it the first time.

DUBNER: Yeah.

STALEY: Yeah and then lost, I mean it just sucked, because you were so close. You could just taste it, you know, that victory is so close. But it wasn’t meant to be. So, here I am, and I play ‘till I’m 20 you know.

DUBNER: I think —

STALEY: 21 years and I’ll win a Super Bowl.

DUBNER: So, I have to say, I admire you as a football player, you seem like a fine human. But, what I really, really, really like is I find your musical performances are —

STALEY: Oh gosh here we go.

DUBNER: I think Hakuna Matata is the finest I’ve ever heard.

STALEY: Thank you.

DUBNER: It’s absolutely extraordinary. So, I would be so honored.

STALEY: You want some Hakuna?

DUBNER: I’ll take some, I’ll take whatever you — I mean I know you’ve been working hard, you just came from a two-hour practice —

STALEY: Do you like Moana?

DUBNER: I don’t know Moana.

STALEY: All right well, I know Moana.

DUBNER: What’s your repertoire? What do you got?

STALEY: I got four-year-old daughter who’s obsessed with Disney songs. So that’s my repertoire right now.

DUBNER: Yeah.

STALEY: And Moana’s her go-to.

DUBNER: I’m sure I’ll love Moana. It’s really up to you.

STALEY: Okay, okay, okay. [singing] I see what’s happening. Yeah. You’re face to face with greatness and it’s strange. You don’t even know how you feel. It’s adorable. It’s nice to see that humans never change. Open your eyes let’s begin. Yes, it’s really me, it’s Maui, breathe it in. I know it’s a lot. The hair, the bod, when you’re staring at a demigod. What can I say except you’re welcome. All right I’m gonna do Hakuna Matata.

PRODUCER: By the way, you know who sings that, Stephen, in the movie?

DUBNER: I don’t.

PRODUCER: The Rock.

STALEY: The Rock.

DUBNER: Oh really?

PRODUCER: Yeah.

DUBNER: Oh yeah. Well, he better watch out

STALEY: [singing] Hakuna Matata, what a wonderful phrase. Hakuna matata, it means no worries for the rest of days. It’s our problem free philosophy, hakuna matata. There you go.

DUBNER: Extraordinary. Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Staley, left tackle for the 49ers and future musical theater.

STALEY: [singing] I’ve got gadgets and gizmos aplenty. I’ve got who’s it’s and what it’s galore. You want thingamabobs, I got. Is it 20 or plenty?

PRODUCER: Hey wait, you don’t have kids. What are you doing?

STALEY: [singing] But who cares. No big deal. I want more.

DUBNER: I can’t believe there’s a question about what you’re doing after football. It seems obvious, children’s theater.  Pleasure, and I thank you very much for that. I wish you a very successful season.

STALEY: Appreciate it.

DUBNER: Okay. Thanks so much for coming in.

STALEY: I listen to you guys all the time, too.

DUBNER: Thanks appreciate it.

And here now is our conversation with the brand-new 49er and giant of a man that Staley was talking about: offensive tackle Mike McGlinchey.

DUBNER: You are going to be starting here, playing right tackle, I understand, yes? Migrating eventually to left tackle probably.

MCGLINCHEY: If that’s their plan. I’ll do whatever they say they need me to do.

DUBNER: So here’s the thing. We always hear like  — Obviously you’re a first round draft pick, so nobody’s trying to bury you. But we do hear the stories about how veterans who are trying to, you know, theoretically make welcome young guys at their positions sometimes aren’t as welcoming as they might be. I know that you’ve been getting good advice and welcome from Joe Staley. I’m just curious like, what your expectations were and so on, on that front.

MCGLINCHEY: Yeah, I really didn’t know what to expect, because I’ve heard a lot of different things. I came from an O-line room that was completely the opposite of that. At Notre Dame, we always helped out everyone that came into the room, no matter what age you were, you were always welcome to  — part of the family. And fortunately here in San Francisco, I’ve had the same experience thus far. It’s an awesome group that we have. And there hasn’t been anybody that’s making you feel like crap or anybody that’s making you pay your dues too hard, other than you know, a couple jokes here and there. But you know, it’s been an awesome experience with all the vets. All the guys that we have in our room. And everybody is just trying to do the same job and that’s the  —.

DUBNER: Is there any rookie hazing anymore?

MCGLINCHEY: Nothing that I’ve experienced. I mean, we’re only in day two of practice, so I’m assuming I’m waiting until training camp. I still have my guard up a little bit. So even in two weeks, I still have a little bit of a guard up to see what’s coming.

DUBNER: You’re how tall?

MCGLINCHEY: About six-foot-eight.

DUBNER: And you’re weighing what?

MCGLINCHEY: Like 310, something like that.

DUBNER: And what’s your optimal weight? Is that it?

MCGLINCHEY: Yeah, right there.

DUBNER: What’s your shirt?

MCGLINCHEY: Yeah, it’s a West Point. A family friend of ours plays basketball there. I think they mis-bought a 2XL. I was one guy that I knew for it.

DUBNER: You come from a big family, four brothers, one sister, something like that?

MCGLINCHEY: Four brothers, one sister. I’m the oldest of six.

DUBNER: Okay. Are they athletic?

MCGLINCHEY: Yeah, yeah. Nothing  — I don’t know. We’ll see. They’re all younger than me, so I don’t know if anybody’s gonna make it to the N.F.L.. But yeah, they definitely play their sports.

DUBNER: Yeah. So how many games have you missed due to injury in the last ever years?

MCGLINCHEY: Never. I’ve never missed a game. Unless there was like a family obligation when I was in first or second grade, but I can’t remember that.

DUBNER: But since you play football, presumably you’ve been a little bit injured. What are some of the things you’ve played through?

MCGLINCHEY: A sprained left ankle. Stomach flu. Broken hand. You know, a couple nicks every other where. So nothing major.

DUBNER: Was the broken hand something that most sane people would have not played with, or  —

MCGLINCHEY: It depends on how much you love football, I guess. Yeah.

DUBNER: Can you explain, especially for people who don’t care or know anything about football at all, like, what’s your job.

MCGLINCHEY: My job is to open up running lanes and keep people off of Jimmy Garoppolo. I just kind of get in the way, is really what my job is.

DUBNER: So the paradox or I guess  — maybe it’s not a paradox — The hard thing to come across is someone with your size who is also fast and coordinated and a good athlete. So there aren’t that many of you to start with. But then there are a lot of people your size and speed who don’t make it. So what is it you think that is the difference between people who are physically capable and who are gifted with the size, but who don’t have the capability to play at your level in college? And now in the N.F.L..

MCGLINCHEY: Oh, I think it’s all mental. I think it’s about how much you want it, how much you love it, and how much you’re willing to sacrifice for it. I was never the best athlete on my team. I’m still not the best athlete on my team here. But I’ve always wanted it more, I’ve always worked harder than everybody else. And just attention to detail and the things that  — You need to know how to self-correct, you need to know how to learn. And I was always pretty good at learning. So the faster you can do that, and combined with, you know, really truly wanting something that bad, that’s what separates everybody out.

DUBNER: Give me an example that like  — I like football. I’ve liked football my whole life. But, I really don’t know — When you talk about learning how to learn, in your position, give me an example of a particular thing that you’ve gotten better at maybe over the years, and how you figured out how to get better.

MCGLINCHEY: I think it’s just fundamentally how to move. Playing offensive line is one of the more unnatural human movements on earth. In sport, I think. You’re required to move other large men out of the way and when you’re trying to stop them in pass protection, you’re completely moving backwards. So it’s a different thing to have to learn how to do, and until your body can feel it, until you can watch it on film and self-diagnose when things happen, that’s where the separation comes in.

DUBNER: So when you watch yourself on film, what do you look for, what do you learn from? Do you look at a case where if you’ve been beat, what you were doing, were you bent all wrong?

MCGLINCHEY: Well you know, when you get beat and you’re at this level, you know why, pretty much immediately. You’re just looking at it to look at it and visualize it, how not to do it again.

DUBNER: When you say why, does that mean because it’s you, or because it’s the other guy?

MCGLINCHEY: I’m pretty convinced that offensive  — unless you’re getting an absolute freakozoid — all defensive players are playing off of what you do. So if I can control what I can do better than the other guy, then I’m going to be in a better position.

DUBNER: Right. What about just confidence? Does it ebb and flow for you?

MCGLINCHEY: I think it is when you’re young, when you’re first starting out at a major level football, like it did at Notre Dame for me. My first couple of years, I certainly didn’t believe that I was going to be what I became to be. And I’m still not, I don’t think, what I want to be. So it’s always a learning process of continuing to move on and continue to get better, and you know, definitely confidence waives a little bit when you’re young and mistakes constantly are happening. But when you get to this level, if you’re not confident, you’re probably not going to be able to, you know, do your job.

DUBNER: But that said, I mean, there are a lot of guys who get drafted first round, who don’t work out. There are a lot of guys who were undrafted, well maybe not a lot of guys who were undrafted, but they’re undrafted guys who do become great players, become Hall of Fame players. How do you account for that?

MCGLINCHEY: I think that a lot of guys come from smaller situations or different situations in college that they know that some of the undrafted guys that  had a tough situation in college, came from a smaller school, had other people producing ahead of them at their school, and they’re late bloomers. And then once they get their shot, and eventually some  — if you really, truly want it, a flip will switch inside you to make — make sure it happens. And I think sometimes first round things, there’s a lot of — especially in today’s day and age — there’s a lot of media attention, and if you play at a big time program or if you have a lot of media attention behind you, you’re kind of pressured in making picks that necessarily aren’t the best ones, and it’s a mixture of misinformation of first round guys, of who they are as a person and what they can do as a player. And I think some of it’s probably a little bit of complacency as well.

DUBNER: Being a first draft pick, there’s obviously a huge pride or badge of honor associated with that. But on the other hand, especially when you come into your team now, and you were your team’s first pick this year, what kind of pressure does that put on you?

MCGLINCHEY: I’m not really worried about the pressure. And I think that’s one thing that I learned greater as college went on and you know, once attention starts getting toward your way, then expectations just continue to grow and you should look at expectation as something that you’ve earned. And I think that’s something that I’ve always tried to do is, if people are expecting the highest and most production out of me, then I’ve done something right along the way to get there. So I just have to stay true to what I’m doing and stay true to who I am and good things will happen.

DUBNER: If I recall  — and I may be wrong. So pardon me if I am. You were not contacted by the Niners during the run up to the draft, is that right?

MCGLINCHEY: I had one formal interview with them at the combine for 15 minutes long, and that was the only contact that I had.

DUBNER: You probably had contact with a lot of other teams as well?

MCGLINCHEY: A lot of other teams. I had individual workouts where coaches came to my school. I was flown to  — some of these teams were three or four different visits with them. And you know, sometimes it’s just all facade and they’re trying to play a hand with other teams, or sometimes it’s really truly invested interest in you. But yeah, I think that I’m lucky because I love the situation here. I love where this organization is at. And you know, the area that I get to live in now is pretty sweet, too.

DUBNER: I mean, you always hear these cat and mouse games that a team won’t contact a guy like you because they don’t want to tip to other teams that they’re interested in you. Did you talk about that after the fact with John or Kyle?

MCGLINCHEY: I didn’t talk about it necessarily. I did a little bit with Kyle, because he he was joking around with me because he was so close with my cousin Matt, who was his quarterback for two years in Atlanta.

DUBNER: Matt Ryan is one of the best quarterbacks in the last whatever  —

MCGLINCHEY: Yeah, he’s done a pretty good job. But Kyle and him were pretty close and he didn’t even tell Kyle that they were interested, just because he didn’t want it to get back to either me or somebody else.

DUBNER: Why?

MCGLINCHEY: Well, just so that things didn’t happen unpredictably during the draft.

DUBNER: So they don’t lose you to someone else. So how surprised were you? Who did you get the call from, John or Kyle?

MCGLINCHEY: John was first and then Kyle was right after him. Yeah. So as soon as Roquan Smith was announced for the Bears, my phone rang and it was John Lynch on the other line. And pretty excited. I didn’t expect it to happen. But it was pretty awesome.

DUBNER: Yeah. This team has obviously had a pretty eventful last 50 years, but the last you know, 5, 8, 10 years particularly, some good and a lot not so good. What’s it feel like to be coming on to a team  — obviously you’ve got your stuff to take care of — but this team is in turnaround. It started out really bad last year, then ended up really, really good. I’m just curious what you think of is like, what are you going to contribute to that turnaround?

MCGLINCHEY: Well, I hope to continue to do my job and to the best of my ability, and at the best ability in this league, to help the 49ers win games. The only three goals that I’ve ever had in my career of playing high level football is to help my team win, be the best at what I do, and then you know, the third one is be the best offensive line unit, I guess now, in the N.F.L.. It was in the nation in college, but now it’s in the N.F.L..

DUBNER: Yeah. You were captain at Notre Dame twice, right? What are some duties associated with that that the public might not know about?

MCGLINCHEY: I don’t know if there’s anything, you know, everybody knows what a captain does.

DUBNER: You’re not doing bed checks.

MCGLINCHEY: No. I mean if it’s needed, I would have. But we had a pretty good group of guys at Notre Dame that it wasn’t  — we had some hard times there. In my true senior season, we were four and eight. It was a hard season. But you know, it’s just the normal being-a-good-teammate, set the example, and if anything that needs to be said, that needs to be said, you say it.

DUBNER: How many calories do you eat in a day? You know?

MCGLINCHEY: I don’t count. I just try to eat what’s right for me. And I know my body at this point, of what I need to eat to keep weight on or if I need  — I haven’t really ever had the feeling of needing to lose weight. So to get my body to feel and look the best that it can — I know what I need to do.

DUBNER: So I weigh like 172. Do you think you could like, break me?

MCGLINCHEY: It depends on where we’re going. I don’t know if I could break you on a football field, but if  —

DUBNER: Like what if  — just throw me up against the wall here.

MCGLINCHEY: I don’t know if I have that  — I don’t know if I have that killer instinct in me to just do that.

DUBNER: You mean right now?

MCGLINCHEY: Well, if I step between white lines it’s a little different.

DUBNER: I’m just curious. Like, literally, what a guy of your strength and size could do  — like you could pick me up and put me through this wall though, right

MCGLINCHEY: Yeah, but normally offensive linemen were the best guys on the football team, so  —

DUBNER: I know that. You’re also the smartest.

MCGLINCHEY: That’s the thing with football. It’s a dangerous game  — it’s hard. It’s hard to live through, and it’s hard to be able to flip that switch, and some guys, unfortunately, aren’t able to have as distinct lines with that. But the good ones do — and the best guys do. And it’s a matter of you know, when it’s time to work, it’s time to work, and you have to have that edge to you. But you know, when you’re in everyday life, you’re no better than anybody else.

DUBNER: It’s really interesting you say that. A sports journalist, really good sports writer, once wrote this thing that captivated me about sports, because I’ve been a sports fan for a long time. He said, when athletes get in trouble everybody says oh you know, they kind of make more of it than is normal. And he said that if you think about it, sports, you’re encouraged to do all these things that you’re not allowed to do.

MCGLINCHEY: Yeah, you’re supposed to be big and mighty. You’re supposed to be that as  — There’s supposed to be a different aura about you when you when you get onto a field that it’s not normal for society. It’s a hazy world if you can’t manage yourself. But I’ve never had that issue.

DUBNER: Well we know that you can manage yourself. Have you had guys on your team, Notre Dame let’s say, who you saw were having a hard time drawing that line and tried to help them?

MCGLINCHEY: Yeah, I think it’s not as much of a physical thing as it is mental. You know, when guys get a little too big for their britches, you’ve got to bring back a little bit, or they’re just nonresponsive, and you got to figure out a way to you know, probably get them off your team. So like I said, you know, you’re a great football player, we can we can all be great football players, but in the end of the day, we’re no better than anybody else. We have a job. Other people have jobs that they do. So it’s just our line of work. You know, it’s different  — just a different field of work.

DUBNER: Yeah. I thank you very much and I hope you have a great first year. And I wish you all success.

Next up: Kyle Juszczyk, a fullback about to start his second season with the 49ers.

Kyle JUSZCZYK: Just got done doing some brain training.

DUBNER: What is brain training?

JUSZCZYK: So, I’ve been doing some stuff with this company called Neuropeak Pro that, I mean, it started off as you just working on some different breathing techniques, syncing it up with your heart rate. But now, we’ve kind of moved on to a more advanced part of it where you’re working on putting your brain in a parasympathetic state. I don’t want to get too —

DUBNER: What’s that? I mean, I kind of know what the word means, but I don’t know how —

JUSZCZYK: So, basically like gets you out of that fight or flight sense where a lot of us, we could just sitting in a room like this and, for whatever reason, your brain is in that fight or flight state and it can’t calm down and can’t get into this recovery mode. So, we do this thing where like we watch, basically you’re hooked up, these sensors are reading your brainwaves and depending on how they’re reacting while you’re watching a movie, that movie will either shrink or pause or brighten and it’s kind of like giving your brain feedback on how it’s supposed to act.

DUBNER: Wow.

JUSZCZYK: And kind of put you back into a better —

DUBNER: This is over multiple sessions, over multiple days or something?

JUSZCZYK: Yeah so, I’m trying to log I think it’s 15 hours’ worth of training and I’m about 12 hours in.

DUBNER: How many other guys on the team are doing this?

JUSZCZYK: I don’t know how many players, do you know? Probably like six?

DUBNER: So, it’s voluntary?

JUSZCZYK: Yeah.

DUBNER: And why did you volunteer?

JUSZCZYK: Well, I had a concussion last year and so this offseason I decided that I wanted to put a lot of energy towards my brain this offseason. So, this was something that I came across and jumped on.

DUBNER: Interesting how, so, you’re like 12 hours into your —

JUSZCZYK: Yeah.

DUBNER: And what happens when you become proficient at 15 hours? Can you like hypnotize me?

JUSZCZYK: Well, I’ll get a reassessment at 15 hours.

DUBNER: Yeah.

JUSZCZYK: And we’ll kind of see, you know, where my brain is at, but I’ve already seen the benefits of it where anxiety levels have gone down, big time. Sleeping well and I already feel like I’m processing information faster. So, it’s pretty cool.

DUBNER: Wow. Now, how do you persuade yourself that that’s not a placebo?

JUSZCZYK: I know, yeah, that’s definitely something you have to watch out for. But, I mean, I’m —

DUBNER: I mean even if it is —

JUSZCZYK: Even if it is that’s what I always say about the placebo effect.

DUBNER: Yeah. Right, right. Of course.

JUSZCZYK: Even if none of those supplements in my locker work or technically work, if in my head they are then they are.

DUBNER: Has it translated at all into playing football?

JUSZCZYK: Well, I mean today was only our second day of practice. I want to think that I was processing things visually quicker today. So, hopefully.

DUBNER: Interesting, yeah. Let’s back up just, since we didn’t get it, would you just say your name and what you do.

JUSZCZYK: Yeah. Kyle Juszczyk, fullback for the San Francisco 49ers.

DUBNER: Okay, you happened to go to Harvard.

JUSZCZYK: Yeah, don’t use that against me.

DUBNER: I won’t use it against you. How many Harvard alumni are in the NFL these days? Do you know?

JUSZCZYK: You’d be surprised.

DUBNER: There’s quite a few.

JUSZCZYK: I think we have somewhere around like 12 maybe?

DUBNER: Really? Yeah.

JUSZCZYK: There’s a good amount.

DUBNER: Yeah, yeah. So, your career, you started Baltimore correct? First four years, Baltimore?

JUSZCZYK: Yeah.

DUBNER: Then one year —

JUSZCZYK: Four years Baltimore, this is my second year with San Francisco.

DUBNER: Then you came here, okay. All right, so you came in just in time for all the fun here. Right? So, you were coming on to a team that had gone 2 and 14 the year before.

JUSZCZYK: Yeah.

DUBNER: And then last year was the dawn of a new era.

JUSZCZYK: Yeah.

DUBNER: Just walk me through your process last year with 0 and 9 and so on.

JUSZCZYK: I mean, it was an interesting deal, went into free agency and that’s an interesting thing in itself. Just not exactly knowing where you’re going to be. I had just gotten engaged. So, trying to figure out, you know —

DUBNER: Congratulations.

JUSZCZYK: Thank you.

DUBNER: You’re married by now I assume?

JUSZCZYK: Not yet, actually, long engagement.

DUBNER: Wow, that’s a long engagement.

JUSZCZYK: Yeah.

DUBNER: How’s she taking that?

JUSZCZYK: Good.

DUBNER: Yeah?

JUSZCZYK: Yeah. We’ve got a date set for this next summer.

DUBNER: Offseason.

JUSZCZYK: Yeah.

DUBNER: Yeah.

JUSZCZYK: But, just working with that, having to figure out where she’s going to be coming with me, but everything worked out great. When my agent went to the combine, he’s talking with a lot of different teams, and got a sense that San Francisco was really interested. And the idea of coming out to California, the idea of playing for Kyle Shanahan, were two really great ideas to me. Playing for John Lynch, a former player.

DUBNER: Did you know much about them other than what, you know —?

JUSZCZYK: I knew a lot about Kyle, because when I was in Baltimore, there was rumors that we were going to hire him as an offensive coordinator.

DUBNER: Okay.

JUSZCZYK: And he’s kind of from that Gary Kubiak tree and that offense fits me very well, and I had a great year when Kubiak was my offensive coordinator. So, I was excited about that. Definitely knew who John Lynch was, remembered him as a player, and just like the idea of a former player running the organization. I thought that was really cool.

DUBNER: So then when you first heard that they were interested in you, did you have pause about the Niners considering that they had some rough years?

JUSZCZYK: Yeah, I mean that was something I definitely had to consider, was coming to a team that didn’t really have a ton of success, but I tried to kind of spin it in my head to think about it as, like how cool would it be to be part of that first class almost that turns it around. You know, it’s almost like going to that college and being part of the first recruiting class for that head coach that turns the whole thing around. And that’s how I kind of looked at it here. We were kind of Kyle’s first free agent class that, you know, hopefully can get this thing turned around.

DUBNER: And then, obviously, it didn’t turn around, at least in the beginning. So, what, I mean, I look at it now collectively as 0 and 9, but obviously it’s one week at a time and I’m guessing it gets a little bit more frustrating every week.

JUSZCZYK: Definitely.

DUBNER: What was going on for you then?

JUSZCZYK: Definitely super frustrating, not how we expected things to start, but you’d be surprised just how positive things stayed around here. It was pretty incredible. Not something that I was used to experiencing. In Baltimore, if, you know, we lost a couple games in a row, I mean, things were getting crazy in the facility and people are walking on eggshells.

DUBNER: Well, you’ve got a Harbaugh in charge, what do you expect?

JUSZCZYK: Exactly. But nobody was walking on eggshells here, we were still very confident that we were moving in the right direction. And every week Kyle would pull up some clips to show like, we’re making progress, I swear guys. Hey, just stick to it and it’s going to turn around. And once it, man it made it super rewarding.

DUBNER: You know, we’ve heard exactly the same thing from everyone from Jed, to players, etc. Which is that, you’d never know from the locker room that it was an 0 and 9 team. And, I’m just curious, I guess kind of hooking up the two things you said about your brain training and Kyle showing you clips of things that are going well. Do you think he was practicing some kind of positive psychology that worked?

JUSZCZYK: Yeah.

DUBNER: Because, I mean the reality was you were 0 and 9 and yet people seemed to think that success was coming still.

JUSZCZYK: Yeah, definitely. I think you don’t see the positivity in like our record. We’ve got to find it somewhere else. So, he did a great job of showing us those clips and showing us, you know, just exactly what you’re doing well and, you know, as a football player if you’re never getting, or at least the way I work, if I’m never getting any positive feedback, I mean, that makes things really tough. So, for him to do that, I know that really struck home with me to, you know, he shows me a clip from the game, a clip from practice that week where I did something really well and he points it out. I’m like, okay, you know, I’m doing something right and it motivates you.

DUBNER: I have to say that just sounds like exactly the opposite of what lay people think about football coaches.

JUSZCZYK: Yeah.

DUBNER: We think like you could have a pretty good game then they call you in and show you, this is the block you missed and so on.

JUSZCZYK: Oh, that definitely exists. And I’ve definitely been a part of that too. But, I almost feel like it’s more of a kind of a new age thinking of this more positive feedback and I know it definitely resonates with me. You know, I’ve never gotten much from a coach that’s just screaming at me and telling me how terrible I am. I don’t know. That just doesn’t work for me. I like a guy that points out when I do something incorrectly, but he also rewards me when I’m doing something the right way.

DUBNER: Yeah, that’s interesting. So, are there any other examples you can — Because that’s the best example we’ve heard of how the positivity kind of happened, which him showing you the cuts of you doing good stuff. Can you give any other examples?

JUSZCZYK: I mean, I just think about my times with the Ravens, when things weren’t going well, there was just a mood in the building. When you’re passing coaches in the hallway, like you’re trying to keep it short, you’re not trying to make a ton of eye contact, you just want to get moving and get through your day. Where here it just, it really wasn’t like that. You saw your position coach and it was easy to still go talk to him, you didn’t feel awkward, I didn’t get any sense of that.

DUBNER: What are your expectations for this year?

JUSZCZYK: I’ve got high expectations. I expect to win. I think you can already feel it just from two practices that we’ve had so far that things feel a lot different than they did last year. There’s a lot more confidence. There’s, on the offensive side, there’s definitely a better understanding of the offense as a whole, you know, because we’ve been in it for a year.

DUBNER: Was it a lot of relearning for you? Was it a system that took a lot of work?

JUSZCZYK: Well, I’d played in a system that was similar. But, I mean, Kyle takes everything to a whole other level. So, there was a lot of learning new stuff. And, I mean, for anybody, when you’re learning something new, you don’t react quite as fast. You know, there’s just that millisecond of hesitation and you’d be surprised what a huge difference that can make.

DUBNER: So, can you help me reconcile this? Here’s what I don’t understand, I know that N.F.L. offenses are super complex, right?

JUSZCZYK: Yeah.

DUBNER: Laypeople, we literally wouldn’t even understand the terminology in the play call, right? At all. And you’ve got 11 guys who all A., understand it, B., then execute it, at the same time, at lightning speed. Okay. So, we know how hard that is, but then we also see that Jimmy Garoppolo comes in, and after like ten days, is basically running that offense and winning five games in a row. How do you explain that?

JUSZCZYK: That’s a great question. I think you’ve really got to give Jimmy a lot of credit. I think he did such a good job of — I mean, he put in serious time, after practice, with the coaches, by himself. I mean, he was here all night just trying to learn this playbook. And I think he also got to attribute the fact that he was able to extend plays. He’s able to get the ball out quickly, and people always ask, what was the difference in our offense before Jimmy and once Jimmy came along. And I think the difference was we were converting on third down. And when you convert on third down, you get to run more plays. When you run more plays, you get to dive deeper into your playbook, and into your game plan of that week. And that’s when you get to really start to exploit the defense and all that work you put in this week where, okay, we saw they were doing this like and we’re going to take advantage of that. Well, when you’re three and out, you can’t really set things up, you know, but when you’re actually moving the ball and getting first downs, you start to set things up and things really start to come together.

DUBNER: You had a concussion last year you said. Was it during a game or practice?

JUSZCZYK: During a game.

DUBNER: What happened?

JUSZCZYK: So, we were playing the L.A. Rams, it was a Thursday night game and it was week three and we are on the goal line and just running a lead play and smacked my head with their linebacker and just had a really, it was really weird. I remember it like sounded like, like I remember hearing a noise in my head. It was almost like a bell like just ringing. I remember feeling like a tuning fork. Like for a guitar or something. It weird the weirdest feeling. Right after that play, you know, I’m pretty shook up, but we got back out to the line very quickly, we’re trying to get another play in. And I remember, I’m sitting in the huddle and I’m definitely messed up. But like do I sit down and wait for the trainer or do just run this next play and then figure it out after that? Well, it all happened so quickly I stayed in and I ran the next play and it was the worst decision. Same thing, ran into linebacker and that one finally put me out, where I was, you know, unconscious for a second and then had to get taken in by the trainers and all that kind of stuff.

DUBNER: Wow, do you regret, it sounds like you regret the decision?

JUSZCZYK: The second play definitely. I should’ve taken myself out, but things happened so quickly. And, you know —

DUBNER: How much of it is also just, you know, macho?

JUSZCZYK: There’s a little bit of pride in there, which is stupid, because there shouldn’t be. Like there’s no —

DUBNER: That’s changing, I gather, in the N.F.L.?

JUSZCZYK: It definitely is changing. Like there’s no shame in like taking yourself out in that situation, like your brain is way too important for this kind of stuff. And I think guys are starting to understand that a lot more, but it’s still I think so ingrained in all of us that there’s a little bit of that pride that still, you know, keeps guys in there maybe a play or two longer.

DUBNER: Had you had concussions previously?

JUSZCZYK: Nothing officially registered. Definitely, I’m sure I had.

DUBNER: Yeah.

JUSZCZYK: You know, but nothing that I had actually —

DUBNER: John Urschel, who we’ve had on the show actually a couple times.

JUSZCZYK: Oh really?

DUBNER: He’s really — I love him.

JUSZCZYK: Great guy.

DUBNER: I mean, he’s just such a nice guy, interesting guy. So his decision to retire I think was misunderstood, it was more complicated than just, you know, I saw the report.

JUSZCZYK: Yeah.

DUBNER: He’d had a concussion, I think he got in practice when he was with the Ravens.

JUSZCZYK: Yeah.

DUBNER: I’m just curious, you know, whether his decision, whether that made you think about anything differently yourself?

JUSZCZYK: Yeah. You know, I would never take it to the point, or at least I don’t think I would retire unless, you know, I’d started to rack up a lot of concussions that became a problem. But it’s just I love the game too much that I don’t think I can step away from it early. And, you know, so that I don’t run into that situation, that’s why I’m trying to do some of these different things to really strengthen the brain and just get a better understanding of it. And all of those sort of things.

DUBNER: Do you meditate or have you ever —?

JUSZCZYK: Yeah.

DUBNER: Yeah. Does it, have you noticed any effect from that as well?

JUSZCZYK: I have, I actually I enjoy that. I mean, it’s nothing extensive. It’s, you know, it’s maybe 6 to 10 minutes here. You know, I try to do it —

DUBNER: Twice, you try twice a day or —?

JUSZCZYK: It’s usually just once before, I usually do it before I go to bed. At the very least, I try to do it the night before games. But I do a pretty good job of it.

DUBNER: Tell us something about being a professional athlete or more specifically, you know, an N.F.L. fullback that you think most people just have no concept of or wouldn’t understand or maybe appreciate maybe.

JUSZCZYK: I think a lot of people, I don’t think they understand the amount of time that’s put in outside of Sunday. You know, I think a lot of people they know we practice, they know we work out, but I don’t think they realize that like during our phase two of our offseason program, we’re only blocked for four hours. I’m here for eight, nine hours. You know, like we are only required to be here for that four, but I don’t think people realize just how much time is really spent in this facility.

DUBNER: Have you been on teams where most guys would only be there for the minimum?

JUSZCZYK: Baltimore is pretty good. Like most of the guys were putting in that extra time. But, I would still say like it doesn’t really compare to here. I think they do such a good job of — there’s so much available for us here.

DUBNER: Like what?

JUSZCZYK: I mean as far as our nutrition is like off the chain, it’s incredible. There’s so much information available there. I mean the food is great. I do a lot with our dietitian where — I mean, right now we’re doing another kind of a brain study. We’re doing D.H.A. supplement tests. But, you know, like I have that available, I have the brain test available. Our training room, our medical staff, is so great about — I can go in there and ask for anything. I can get cupping, and get Graston, I can get acupuncture. I can just get a massage flush if I need it, you know. Hot tub, cold tub, sauna, steam room. We’ve got the weight room always available, we got cryotherapy there.

DUBNER: What’s cryotherapy?

JUSZCZYK: It’s a chamber that they pump nitrogen gas and they’re super cold. And you’re in there for like three minutes and it drops your body temperature super low.

DUBNER: So, tell us, let me just ask you about a series of — Give me like what you’re doing Monday at 10:00 a.m. typically, during game, during the season.

JUSZCZYK: During the season? So that’s Mondays are like body maintenance. Right? Tuesdays you’re off day here then?

HANDLER: Yeah.

JUSZCZYK: Is that right?

HANDLER: Yeah.

JUSZCZYK: Okay. So, Monday at 10:00 a.m. probably getting a massage.

DUBNER: Friday at noon?

JUSZCZYK: Friday at noon we’re on the field.

DUBNER: Okay. Sunday, let’s say 8:00 a.m. with a 1:00 p.m. game?

JUSZCZYK: Probably starting to get up and get ready for breakfast.

DUBNER: At the team hotel?

JUSZCZYK: Yeah, yeah.

DUBNER: Then what about Sunday night, let’s say?

JUSZCZYK: Sunday night after the game?

DUBNER: Yeah, after the game.

JUSZCZYK: You know, it depends if somebody is in town for the game. Usually there is somebody, so we’re probably grabbing dinner somewhere with a friend or family that’s visiting.

DUBNER: Yeah. Thanks, it’s great to talk to you. Really great talking to you.

JUSZCZYK: Great meeting you guys, too.

Thanks to Kyle Juszczyk, Mike McGlinchey, Joe Staley, and Jimmy Garoppolo for taking the time to sit down with us. And special thanks to Bob Lange, vice-president of communications for the 49ers, who made all these interviews happen. If you want to hear more of our interviews with 49ers players and management, sign up for Stitcher Premium. You’ll hear Jed York, the team’s owner, and other front-office executives; head coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch; and several other players. Just go to StitcherPremium.com/freakonomics and use promo code FREAKONOMICS for one month free. 

Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Dubner Productions. Our staff includes Alison Craiglow, Greg Rosalsky, Greg Rippin, Alvin Melathe, Harry Huggins, Zack Lapinski, and Andy Meisenheimer. The music you hear throughout the episode was composed by Luis Guerra. You can subscribe to Freakonomics Radio on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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