บทถอดความฉบับเต็มของ Hour 1 - Purple Pickers

people told me this guy is a genius. He's got the Midas touch. 00:07:03 Speaker 2: Well, when it comes to the quarterback position in recent years, he's had the Saddam touch. And he thought, along with the other geniuses there with the Vikings, and some of the names have changed, but Kevin O'Connell is a consistent, they thought they could do better than Kirk Cousins. They looked at him. They said, ah, he's getting older. He's injured a lot. 00:07:23 Speaker 1: We can do better. 00:07:25 Speaker 2: And now, now Kevin O'Connell's out there on the catwalk, and he's doing the walk of shame, and he's shaking his tushy and doing a pirouette, and that's it. Admitting defeat. Admitting defeat. Minnesota's quarterback master plan. The smartest people in the room. Fans don't know what they're talking about. They're the smartest people in the room. Minnesota's quarterback master plan. The blueprint was apparently written on an Etch-A-Sketch. They spent three years... Three years auditioning a traveling circus. It was more like a freak show. 00:08:02 Speaker 1: J.J. McCarthy, Sam Darnold, Carson Wentz, Kyler Murray. 00:08:07 Speaker 2: There were others. Seemed like everybody got a turn on the Vikings quarterback merry-go-round. Round and round and round and round on the quarterback merry-go-round we go. Turns out the next Kirk Cousins is. 00:08:21 Speaker 1: Kirk Cousins. 00:08:25 Speaker 2: This is the NFL's equivalent of trading in your very dependable 2018 Honda Accord that had 150,000 miles on it, buying not one, not two, but three lemons. You won't get a lemon. You got three lemons in a row. And then paying extra. to get that 2018 Honda Accord back, but now it's got 175,000 miles on it. You're just happy to have it back. You really missed that bucket of bolts. You really did miss it. Also, we must save a little slice of embarrassment. We'll give them a little Pop-Tart, a little fun-sized Pop-Tart. Kyler Murray. Now, feel free to call up. I'm not going to give out the number yet, but I'll give out the number in a little bit. When I give out the number, feel free to call up and say, you know what, Maller? You were right. 00:09:09 Speaker 1: I don't need the applause. 00:09:10 Speaker 2: We did several monologues pointing out what the F were the Vikings thinking, but Kyler Murray gets the Pop-Tart of embarrassment, the little Pop-Tart of embarrassment. He has validated every criticism that I ever had. He's validated the Arizona Cardinals, who I believe paid almost $ 40 million to get rid of him. And Kyler Murray, the Vikings are admitting, we failed, that guy blows. 00:09:33 Speaker 1: That's what they're saying. 00:09:35 Speaker 2: And now they've said yesterday's leftovers that we didn't think were all that delicious in the back of the refrigerator in the Chinese takeout box. Well, now that's the dinner we're looking forward to. That's the big dinner here in the Twin Cities. 00:09:48 Speaker 1: Who goofed? I've got to know. 00:09:51 Speaker 2: I think

we know who goofed. All right, now to the big question and the big picture. And the question here, will things be different? Will things be different during Kirk Cousins reunion tour as the band is back together there with the Vikings? So is he going to be different? Is this going to end differently? So we always point out like when you go to the zoo and you look at the different animals in the zoo, And you see the zebra out there. Way out in the back there, there's a zebra and it's eating. And you look at the zebra. You say, well, look at the zebra. That's really cool. Can a zebra change its stripes? 00:10:29 Speaker 1: Of course not. 00:10:31 Speaker 2: Cousins is still captain almost. He's defined, his entire career has been defined by sporadic malfunction. Now, that does not mean this is not the right move. That does not mean that the Vikings made the smart move, and I give them an A for this trade. I give them an A for this trade. It was a trade that had to happen. That does not mean, though, that the Vikings have acquired their savior. They traded for the least offensive item. In the quarterback lost and found bin, the Vikings officially entered the ABTT era. Anything but these turds. Carson Wentz and Kyler Murray were so bad. How bad were they? Thanks for asking. They were so bad that Kirk starts looking like Joe Montana. combined with Thor. It's crazy. It's crazy. Get him a cape. He's a superhero. This is the NFL equivalent, what the Vikings are doing here, of remarrying your ex-wife because you went on the dating apps and they were a nightmare. And you're like, I don't want to deal with that. I'll just get remarried here. I don't want to deal with the dating apps. For Kevin O'Connell, though, this is a gotta-have-it combo meal. 00:11:49 Speaker 1: You don't really want the burger. You really don't. 00:11:54 Speaker 2: You're not even craving some fries, but you're starving and the drive-thru closes in five minutes and you had to pick it up. 00:12:02 Speaker 1: Now, we assume that. 00:12:03 Speaker 2: Wide receiver Justin Jefferson rubber-stamped this transaction. It would make sense. If not, that wouldn't make sense. So we assume that Jefferson had a role in this. 00:12:13 Speaker 1: It is comforting, though, to know. 00:12:15 Speaker 2: That after spending millions on coaches and scouting and analytics, reading the algorithm, the smartest people in the room, the Viking Solutions, multi-billion dollar football team, the Viking Solution was to open up their black book. and dial an old Flames phone number, that that was the solution. 00:12:39 Speaker 1: What happened to all the analytics? 00:12:41 Speaker 2: The analytics said that Kyler Murray and Carson Wentz were going to be great, and I don't understand, and J.J. McCarthy and all that. Now, we mentioned that if you look at Cousins, and we've been very critical of Cousins over the years, he's not very good in big moments, that doesn't mean that Minnesota cannot win a Super Bowl. 00:13:01 Speaker 1: They can't. 00:13:01 Speaker 2: This gives them at least a fighting chance. They did not have a chance. They had no chance with the Alligator Arms Murray and the guy that should be working at a bed and breakfast in North Dakota, Carson Wentz. 00:13:15 Speaker 1: They had no chance. At least now they have a chance. 00:13:18 Speaker 2: And all he has to do, easier said than done, is not Kirk Cousins, not burn down the barn. Don't burn down the barn. Let the defense and the special teams do their thing. And even a blind squirrel, I was told, finds a nut once in a while. And in my lifetime, there have been some bad quarterbacks, some provably bad quarterbacks that have stood atop Football Mountain and looked down at the peasants as the champions of the NFL. And you only have to play well for a month. Joe Flacco, no one thinks Joe Flacco's all that good. For one month, that was the greatest playoff run I've ever seen when he played in Baltimore and he got paid. And the Ravens got played after that. And Flacco's still hanging around, collecting a check. Nick Foles, great example. Nick Foles, second-rate JV quarterback. However, for one brief moment in time, it all came together for the Philadelphia Eagles, and he's a champion. Another suck-bag quarterback in Seattle. The Seahawks fans are learning how bad Sam Darnold is this year. The real Sam Darnold has arrived. Some of the 12s are starting to realize that. I guess they got blindsided by that little bling-bling thingamajig that they got last year. If Flacco and Foles and Darnold can win, then certainly Kirk Cousins can stand atop NFL Mountain as the king. They can certainly do that. Now, last word to the Vegas side of things. Lost wages, Nevada. So the Raiders have now officially pulled the ripcord on the Kirk Cousins parachute. 00:14:53 Speaker 1: Bye-bye, he has been decommissioned. 00:14:56 Speaker 2: And moving on up to a penthouse on the Upper East Side, that would be Fernando Mendoza. 00:15:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the turbulence. So I looked at some of the reaction. 00:15:06 Speaker 2: It seems overwhelmingly positive, which always raises my eyebrows when I say, oh, it's overwhelmingly positive. Social media praising Tom Brady. Yet another win by Tom Brady. The GM by proxy. In Vegas, he liked the team so much, he bought a piece of the team. But Tom Brady is there in control of everything. And so he's being celebrated for flipping, like a hot cake, Kirk Cousins for a third-round pick. So here's the question. Is this trade of Kirk Cousins to Minnesota a feather in the cap of Tom Brady's run with the Raiders? So this seems to be the popular opinion. By people that claim to be popular. So I give that take a yawn and a shoulder shrug. I give it a yawn and a shoulder shrug. It's classic spin. It's hero worship with Tom Brady. 00:16:04 Speaker 1: A third-round pick. Let me tell you about a third-round pick. 00:16:07 Speaker 2: A third-round pick is the kind of thing losing

organizations and losing fans frame and hang over the fireplace. Oh, let me put that on the fireplace. Whoop-dee-damn-doe. Whoop-dee-damn-do in your little third-round traffic. Since Tom Brady took over as the de facto general manager and the hands-on minority owner of the Raiders, the Raiders are 11-32 under the leadership of Tom Brady. 00:16:37 Speaker 1: They have a 256 winning percentage. 00:16:39 Speaker 2: He is just as bad as an executive as Michael Jordan was, except he doesn't get nearly the criticism. Doesn't get nearly the criticism. that Jordan got in his days with the Washington Wizards and the Charlotte basketball operation and all that. And despite that terrible record, Raider Nation celebrating the third-round draft pick while their supposed franchise quarterback, Fernando Mendoza, has spent nine weeks in quarterback daycare. So I don't want to hear any kind of excuse about Mendoza if he comes out there and rides the vomit comet. 00:17:21 Speaker 1: You sat his ass for nine weeks. 00:17:25 Speaker 2: He's got to come out guns a-blazin'. Guns a-blazin'. It is unbecoming of a number one pick. The Raiders tanked last year to get the number one pick. You play the number one pick right away. And there is no guaranteed payoff at all. Fernando Mendoza... has been watching football from the bench and getting those hemorrhoids out there. 00:17:50 Speaker 1: Very educational. Very educational. Oh, it's so educational. You know what you're talking about, Mahler. 00:17:55 Speaker 2: Okay. 00:17:56 Speaker 1: We'll see. 00:17:56 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:17:57 Speaker 1: You know what's also educational? Watching the Great British Bake Off. 00:18:01 Speaker 2: It doesn't mean you can make those nasty British desserts and become a chef. 00:18:06 Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that. Now, as for Tom Brady. 00:18:09 Speaker 2: He spent his glory days winning championships with the Patriots and even in Tampa Bay. And now he's collecting these draft picks like a babushka, collecting coupons back in the day for the grocery store. And that's his big contribution. And it's a great shell game. It's a great three-card Monty game, the hoarding of draft picks, because you never have to show any tangible results. You just keep talking about, well, these draft picks are going to pay off at some point. Oh, it's going to be good. Good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good. All right, here's the Ben Maller Show. If you would like to be part, you can give us a buzz right now. The line's opening up here at 877-99 on Fox. That's 877-996-6369. As we steamroll through the overnight, we take a lot of calls and a lot of comments. 00:19:04 Speaker 1: A lot of comments on X, so if you want to interact. 00:19:06 Speaker 2: And usually you get off to a pretty good start on X, and then you guys pass out by the final hour. So hopefully we'll get off to a good start here again. At Ben Maller. That is at Ben Maller if you'd like to be part of the live program. We'll take your

calls and comments on X and the whole thing. Later this hour, we have the Who Am I game. The next hour, the third degree, the instant trivia, and all that. The music has now stopped. The music has now stopped. It is time for us to go to the CompuBox stats on the 2026 trade deadline. We have the tail of the tape and the CompuBox stats on what went down. What went wrong? 00:19:50 Speaker 1: We'll get to that and we will do it next. 00:19:54 Speaker 2: Be sure to catch live editions of the Ben Maller Show weekdays at 2 a.m. 00:19:58 Speaker 1: Eastern, 11 p.m. 00:19:59 Speaker 2: Pacific. The Ben Maller Show on Fox Sports Radio as we continue on. And on and on and on on the red-eye flight. 00:20:09 Speaker 1: We have not reached our cruising altitude. 00:20:11 Speaker 2: We know that you probably want to get up and walk around the cabin. 00:20:15 Speaker 1: However, it's just. 00:20:17 Speaker 2: We're not allowing that. You have to remain seated until we reach our full altitude, and then we will turn off the fasten seatbelt sign. You'll be free to roam around the cabin. Keep in mind that many of the overhead passengers Luggage, all the overhead luggage might have moved around a little bit. So you got to be careful on that. Very, very careful. 00:20:39 Speaker 1: Reminder, this weekend, the Fifth Hour Pod returns. 00:20:42 Speaker 2: There'll be three new episodes of the Fifth Hour Podcast. That'll be dropping before you know it. Well, actually, Friday. That's still, today's our Wednesday show. So we still have a couple days to go before we give you that fresh pod on the weekends in addition to this show. So make sure to subscribe now so you don't miss any of those Fifth Hour podcasts. If you want to be part of the live radio show, it's NFL Trade Deadline Postmortem. We're doing the autopsy on the trade deadline. The good, the bad, and the ugly. You can be part of this at 877-99 on Fox. That's 877-996-6369. Also on the X-Machine, at Ben Maller. That's at Ben Maller if you'd like to be part of the program. And Lorena doing two jobs tonight right now. How about that? She's screening the calls and hitting all the buttons. You can say hello to Lorena. 00:21:39 Speaker 1: I'm multi-talented. 00:21:41 Speaker 2: That's right. And you're getting paid for that, I'm sure. FSR Tech Queen. That's FSR Tech Queen right there. 00:21:48 Speaker 1: And you can say. 00:21:48 Speaker 2: Hello to her. 00:21:50 Speaker 1: All right, back to it we go. 00:21:52 Speaker 2: And let's see, what do we have here? Take a call. All right, we got the knuckleheads on the X machine who, as always, have a lot to say, hiding behind their avatars, which are not who they are. They're fake avatars and doing their normal stuff. That's at Ben Maller on X. That's at Ben Maller on X if you would like to comment on the moving and shaking chip in the cues. He was at one of the first Maller meet and greets we did years and years ago. It was Chip, and there was Dale there, and a professor from

Syracuse came out. It was a small but good group in Syracuse. Chip says, A-plus on the Mallard monologue. I'm sure Kirk Cousins is as good as Joe Montana. Of course, Joe is now 70 years old and has been retired for many, many decades. There you go. Baltimore Freeloader account writes in. Media Freeloader says, I'm really starting to get tired of your You sending stray bullets Joe Flacco's way. It was a magnificent season and a great Ravens run. He says he won more than four playoff games in Baltimore. But more importantly was the incredible free food that was devoured. 00:23:05 Speaker 1: During the Super Bowl spree. 00:23:07 Speaker 2: I looked at Baba Ganoush. Isn't that nice? Ferg Dogg writes and says, Hey, Ben, can you go over the Chargers moves at the trade deadline, please? Were we buyers or sellers this year? Oh, you were buyers, Ferg Dogg. You were buyers. You were helping the Broncos out. And did you trade anyone else? No, I didn't see any other trades that. Reached my radar. King Rory is in Wisconsin, and he writes in at Ben Maller on the X Machine. He says, I wouldn't say I'm afraid of Kirk Cousins. However, I know the refs have their hands on their flags and are ready to blow their whistles if the Packers defense happens to breathe on Kirk Cousins. I don't like blaming the referees if the Packers lose, but I won't be surprised if they influence the outcome. 00:23:58 Speaker 1: It sounds to me like King Rory. 00:23:59 Speaker 2: Is expecting the Packers to lose this weekend against the Minnesota Vikings at Lambeau Field. I'm actually, the funny thing is I was thinking about going to that, I'm going to be in Wisconsin this weekend. So I was thinking about, I'm. 00:24:16 Speaker 1: Visiting my brother, right? 00:24:18 Speaker 2: So I was like, well, maybe I'll go see a Packer game because I've never been to, I've been to Lambeau Field, but I haven't been to a game at Lambeau Field. So I was like, all right. I'll go check that out. But then I was like, well, wait a minute. They're playing the Vikings. That's a big rivalry game. And then I looked at how much the tickets were on the secondary market. 00:24:33 Speaker 1: I said, no, I'll be good. I'm not going to spend that kind of money. 00:24:38 Speaker 2: To sit outside for four hours in, I don't know, it was going to be 45 degrees on Sunday in Green Bay or something like that. I'm not spending that kind of cash to sit outside. Of course, I wouldn't spend that kind of cash if it was a dome stadium. I'm not going to spend that kind of cash. It's not happening. Not happening. Now, if somebody wants to give me tickets, I'd be more than happy to go. Not that I'm begging for tickets. I'm just saying, if I had a freebie, if I had a hookup, if I knew a guy, I'd be in. But I don't know a guy. My brother who lives there, he's not a sports fan, so he doesn't know anybody. So that's completely useless. Completely useless. Now, King Roy mentioning the penalties and planting the seed of excuse should

the Green Bay Packers... end up losing to the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday in a made-for-TV matchup. Kirk Cousins, you've got to play in that game, right? Cousins has to play in that game. You only get so many of these games, you've got to play them. Minnesota, the least penalized team in the NFL this year. Did you know that? 00:25:40 Speaker 1: That's my fun fact of the hour. 00:25:42 Speaker 2: The Minnesota Vikings are the least penalized team in the NFL. They get called for 5.4 penalties per game. Fewest in the NFL. Now, the Green Bay Packers... Where do the Packers rank among NFL teams in penalties? Well, let's see, a little further down, Green Bay, not in the top five in penalties. The Green Bay Packers are near the bottom. They are in a bottleneck at 8.2 penalties. They're called for as many penalties per game as Dallas, Baltimore. They're in that bottleneck. Tied for 26 in the NFL. Green Bay, close to the bottom. The most penalized team, as it has to be. The factory of sadness, the Cleveland Browns. Man, do they keep doing it year after year. The consistency of the product. Just tremendous job by that Browns organization year after year. The coaches change, the players change, and the one constant, the factory of sadness, never letting you down. All right, let's go to the phones, and we have someone cashing a golden ticket. So here we go. Let's say hello to Scott from the Commonwealth, who's cashing that golden ticket right away. Hello, Scott. 00:27:04 Speaker 1: Welcome. 00:27:05 Speaker 3: Hey. Hey! 00:27:07 Speaker 4: I did it! 00:27:08 Speaker 1: Now I get the song. 00:27:09 Speaker 2: I did it! 00:27:10 Speaker 1: Yeah! 00:27:11 Speaker 3: Thanks, Lorena. 00:27:14 Speaker 2: Yes, you're the answer to a trivia question. This is the first time Lorena's had to do both jobs. 00:27:20 Speaker 3: Oh, no, did Lorena take my call? 00:27:23 Speaker 4: Because I didn't realize it was her. 00:27:26 Speaker 1: Let's go through that. 00:27:26 Speaker 2: Who did you think it was? Did you think it was like an 800-pound man that answered the phone? 00:27:30 Speaker 1: Who did you think it was, Scott? 00:27:31 Speaker 3: Oh, no, I knew it was a female, but I didn't realize, does Lorena have a radio voice and a telephone voice? 00:27:41 Speaker 1: Oh, interesting. 00:27:42 Speaker 2: All right. Lorena, did you inject some testosterone when you were screening the calls? Do you want to hear what I sound like when I answer the phone? 00:27:49 Speaker 1: Yeah, let's hear this. 00:27:50 Speaker 4: Yes. 00:27:51 Speaker 2: Thanks for calling the Ben Maller Show. 00:27:53 Speaker 1: Who am I speaking to? 00:27:55 Speaker 2: No, that sounds the same. 00:27:56 Speaker 3: That's pretty close. 00:27:57 Speaker 1: I thought you were going to go. 00:27:59 Speaker 2: Welcome to Fox Sports. 00:28:01 Speaker 3: No. 00:28:01 Speaker 1: Something like that. But you didn't do that. 00:28:04 Speaker 2: You didn't try to get that really low baritone thing going on. You didn't do that. 00:28:09 Speaker 4: Interesting. 00:28:09 Speaker 2: Yeah, well, Scott, you're the answer to a trivia question. So Lorraine was somewhat concerned. And let me tell you, this is such a tight ship. I didn't even know until the show started that Coop wasn't here. 00:28:19 Speaker 1: I didn't get a message. You'd think I'd get a message. 00:28:21 Speaker 2: I didn't even get a message. But you're here now, Scott. That's all that matters. That's all we care about. 00:28:25 Speaker 4: All right. All right. Here's why I called. 00:28:29 Speaker 3: Yes. 00:28:29 Speaker 4: Ben, when are you going to write a book? You have all these cool stories. You have a million cool, funny stories. Remember the other night you were talking about back in the day in the 90s when I was doing broadcasting, I had just gotten into business. All the guys are like chain smokers, so they could have. 00:28:49 Speaker 1: A masculine voice. 00:28:52 Speaker 3: Remember that? 00:28:53 Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, in radio. 00:28:54 Speaker 1: Yeah, well, a lot of the players were smoking. 00:28:56 Speaker 2: I'll never forget when I walked into the Chicago Cubs locker. 00:28:59 Speaker 1: Room and they had Rod Beck. 00:29:02 Speaker 2: I don't know if you remember. I don't know how old you are, but Rod Beck was a closer. 00:29:05 Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, no, I'm 63. 00:29:07 Speaker 2: Okay, oh, you're older than me. So Rod Beck was this fat closer with long hair, and he was a good pitcher. He was a star for the Giants, but he was with the Cubs after his glory days with the Giants. And he was smoking. 00:29:20 Speaker 1: Jeff Blauser, who was with the Cubs, he was smoking. Mark Gray. They were all smoking cigs in the locker room. It was wild. I was like, wow, I might get a casino in Vegas. This is next level, man. 00:29:30 Speaker 2: And as far as your– to answer your question, Scott, I would love to write a book. I actually– a friend of the show, I was working on a project a couple of years ago. We had we had a draft of a book that we had made and put a lot of work into it. One of my friends who's a writer. They put a lot of work into it, and we pitched it to the publishing houses, and nobody bought it. 00:29:53 Speaker 4: Really? 00:29:54 Speaker 1: Yeah, to sell the book. 00:29:55 Speaker 2: Somebody asked to buy it, and nobody wanted it. So if you know somebody that can publish the book, we have a book, and we have it ready to go, and we can get it published. But they were not interested. 00:30:07 Speaker 3: Well, Ben, Ben, instead of– excuse me. 00:30:10 Speaker 4: Hold on. Excuse me. 00:30:11 Speaker 1: I'm not being a– Don't cough up a lung, please. Do not cough up a lung. 00:30:15 Speaker 3: No, no. 00:30:16 Speaker 4: I'm good. I'm good, Ben. 00:30:18 Speaker 2: Hold on. 00:30:20 Speaker 4: All right. 00:30:22 Speaker 2: No. 00:30:23 Speaker 3: I don't have a call button. I'm sorry. 00:30:24 Speaker 4: Why don't you just do. 00:30:27 Speaker 3: Like a podcast? Like my

life as a broadcaster podcast. 00:30:32 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the kind of thing you do. Well, I will when they whack me. I'll do that. That'll be my podcast. When the company whacks me, I'll do that. But until then, no, I would like to write a book. And I had a rough draft of a book ready to go. And so we might revisit that at some point. And do it. But if you think radio's not doing great, newspapers are dead. I think radio's doing better now than it was. The book industry, Scott, not doing very well. Not a lot of people reading books these days. You know what I'm saying? 00:31:02 Speaker 3: I mean, Barnes & Noble is probably... Do you have Barnes & Noble out there? 00:31:07 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. It's a national... Yeah, it's a national. 00:31:09 Speaker 3: Okay. 00:31:10 Speaker 2: All right. 00:31:11 Speaker 3: If you walk in the store, back in the day, back in, like, say, 2008... there'd be like 10 people working there, 11 people. You walk in now, there's like three or four. 00:31:25 Speaker 2: That's pretty much everywhere. I mean, I remember when, I think it was, Barnes & Noble, or maybe it was Borders Books. 00:31:31 Speaker 1: They had this. 00:31:32 Speaker 4: Oh, you had Borders? 00:31:34 Speaker 3: Yeah, that was great. 00:31:36 Speaker 2: They're gone. 00:31:36 Speaker 1: But one of them had. 00:31:37 Speaker 2: They used to have these big, comfortable sofas and chairs. And then some CEO said, let's get rid of it. 00:31:45 Speaker 1: Too many people are coming in here, and they're not buying the books. 00:31:48 Speaker 2: They're just reading the books. And I would go in there, and I'd... I'd sit in those chairs and I would, you know, I'd buy stuff, but I'd sit in there. It was very comfortable. 00:31:56 Speaker 1: And that actually, that hurt their business and all. But I lived, when I. 00:31:59 Speaker 2: Lived over, when I lived in Hollywood, the bookstore over there, they had all the authors come through there when they, new books came out. So there were a lot of famous, it was really cool. There were a lot of famous people who would come in there. and try to get you to buy their book, and they'd speak about their book. And you knew they hated it, Scott, because they were around the unwashed, but they had to do it. 00:32:18 Speaker 1: It was part of the deal to get the book published. All right, I got to go. Thank you, Scott. We'll try to publish the book, buddy. 00:32:23 Speaker 2: Yes? 00:32:24 Speaker 1: All right, thank you. 00:32:25 Speaker 2: All right, go away. There's Scott. The CompuBox stats for the trade deadline, which is now over in the NFL, the 2026 NFL trade deadline, the musical chairs has stopped. There were 18 in-season trades, 18 in-season trades that is tied for the fourth most in the last 35 years. 00:32:52 Speaker 1: The fourth most in the last 35 years. 00:32:54 Speaker 2: So it's not the most tied for fourth most. How many trades happened at the deadline? Right before the music stopped, there were not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, but six trades that took place on Tuesday before the deadline. And that is tied for the fourth most on a single day the last 35 years as well. And overall, this calendar year involving trades, there were 110 separate trades this season. That is the most in a season since at least 1990. Now, the theory on this is because of the analytics. This is actually a positive. Old school football people my entire life said you cannot make trades in the NFL. You can't expect the player to come in here and learn the playbook and adjust. It's just too hard for them to do. And they have been outnumbered by the analytical crew that says, okay, we can build a better mousetrap. We know that you can bring a player in and drop them in and everything will be fine and all that. And so that has changed in my life. There are many more trades now. Doing this job, doing sports radio, it was such a disappointment year after year. We'd all get worked up into a lather. We'd get all horned up for the trade deadline and there'd be no trades. Or it'd be like the backup left guard for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was traded. for a seventh-round draft pick, and you're like, okay, who the F cares? It doesn't matter at all. Irrelevant. Time now, though, for the Who Am I game, which is not irrelevant. We'll take some calls as well on the other side. But here's the Who Am I game. According to the next-gen stats, according to the next-gen stats, I. 00:34:49 Speaker 1: Lead all NFL quarterbacks. 00:34:52 Speaker 2: This 2026 season with an average of nine point nine air yards. 00:34:57 Speaker 1: Per pass attempt. 00:34:58 Speaker 2: Again, according to the next gen stats, I lead all NFL quarterbacks this 2026 season with an average of nine point nine air yards per pass attempt. Who am I? 00:35:10 Speaker 1: That's the question, the answer. We'll get to it. We'll do it next. 00:35:15 Speaker 2: Be sure to catch live editions of the Ben Maller Show weekdays at 2 a.m. 00:35:19 Speaker 1: Eastern, 11 p.m. 00:35:20 Speaker 4: Pacific. 00:35:21 Speaker 2: The Ben Maller Show on Fox Sports Radio as we continue on in the overnight hours here on the Ben Maller Show. Reminder, this show is a five-night-a-week experience overnight, four hours of original content every single day. You can only find here. in the magic radio box and then repackaged in the podcast format wherever you get your podcast so check that out don't forget also about the fifth hour podcast on weekends every friday saturday and sunday new episodes drop so support the ben maler show keep the show going and we thank you for the most important thing that you can give us your time now money's very close to that but We're not really begging for money. 00:36:09 Speaker 1: We just want your time to listen to the pod and subscribe. 00:36:12 Speaker 2: So thank you. All right, back to it we go. We'll pay off the Who Am I game in a minute, but let's go to the phones. Anthony is in Louisiana, and

we say hello to Anthony. Hello, Anthony. Welcome. Hey, man. 00:36:26 Speaker 3: How you doing? 00:36:27 Speaker 1: Hey, there he is, the great Anthony. 00:36:30 Speaker 2: What's going on with you? 00:36:32 Speaker 4: How was your weekend? 00:36:35 Speaker 1: Well, Anthony, it's. 00:36:35 Speaker 2: Actually Wednesday today. It's our Wednesday show. The weekend, I feel like we're past. What is the cutoff on when to ask about the weekend? I feel like we're in the middle. We're in the twilight area where we're in between weekends. We're kind of halfway. I think Tuesday is the cutoff, Ben. Okay, so we're past the cutoff. When you go past Tuesday, you can say, hey, what are you doing this weekend? 00:36:59 Speaker 1: Or like we're already in how's your week been weekend. 00:37:03 Speaker 2: There you go. 00:37:03 Speaker 1: You can say, how's your week going? 00:37:04 Speaker 2: That's good. That's another one. 00:37:06 Speaker 3: You had a good week? 00:37:08 Speaker 1: Oh, thanks for asking. I was hoping somebody would ask me how my week's going. Boy, it's been great. It's been so much fun. 00:37:15 Speaker 2: Man alive. 00:37:16 Speaker 1: How about you? What's going on with you, you little devil? 00:37:20 Speaker 3: Oh, nothing much. 00:37:21 Speaker 4: Oh, Coop made it back. 00:37:22 Speaker 2: I wonder how his cat's doing. Okay. Coop? 00:37:27 Speaker 1: Doing fine, thank you. 00:37:29 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:37:29 Speaker 2: All right. 00:37:30 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:37:31 Speaker 2: All right. 00:37:32 Speaker 4: Hey, Lorraine. 00:37:34 Speaker 1: What up, cuz? 00:37:36 Speaker 3: I love you. 00:37:37 Speaker 4: It's good to hear from you. 00:37:38 Speaker 1: It's better to hear from you. 00:37:39 Speaker 2: Thanks for calling. 00:37:40 Speaker 3: I love how you made me laugh. You guys, this is the humor. 00:37:43 Speaker 1: I try to keep it up. 00:37:44 Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying? That's right. 00:37:45 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:37:46 Speaker 2: Very nice. 00:37:47 Speaker 3: You tell my friend Andrea I said hey. 00:37:50 Speaker 2: Bingo. 00:37:50 Speaker 1: I've got bingo. 00:37:52 Speaker 2: I'll let Andrea. I'll let her know. All right. We got one. 00:37:55 Speaker 1: Any other thing you want to say before we're done with the conversation? 00:37:58 Speaker 2: Anything else you want to say? 00:37:59 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:38:00 Speaker 4: Oh, and tell my other friend, Nature Boy, I said, hey. 00:38:03 Speaker 2: Who? Nature Boy. 00:38:06 Speaker 1: Oh, Nature Boy. 00:38:07 Speaker 2: Oh, okay. 00:38:08 Speaker 1: He changes that. That answers the call of the wild, the Nature Boy. All right, well, thank you, Anthony. 00:38:14 Speaker 2: All right, go away. There's Anthony. Time now for the payoff on the Who Am I game. This is where we pretend to be somebody else. So according to the NextGen stats, I lead all quarterbacks this season with an average of 9.9 air yards per pass attempt. Who am I? That is the question. What is the answer? And let's see here. Does anyone know the answer? We go to the hoi polloi here. Pauly D is going with Kirk Cousins. Rob in Vegas. Good to see his name. He's back. Bobby the Brain Heenan. Bubby Brister from Doc Dan. Who else do we have? Rob the Goatman, guest by Robbie, the Mariner fan. Marlon Perkins from Alf the Alien Alpiner. George Patton, the General from Chip. In the queues, 2% chance going with Miss Cleo. Who else do we have? Dom DeLuise from Michael in New Mexico. That's a name we don't get very often. Viking Clown Shoes from Michael in Tulsa. Rich Garces from James. That's a good name. 00:39:16 Speaker 1: Do you have an answer, Lorena, quickly? Jordan Love. No, it's C.J. Stroud of the Houston Texans. C.J. Stroud.