You're listening to DraftKings network.

This is The Dan Levator Show with the Stu Guts podcast. I said before with Mike Schur that we were trying to save the show, rescue the show. But now, now we're bringing in the heaviest hitter we've got. We're bringing in maybe the most popular person in the history of our universe, wouldn't you say?

I would say so.

That's not true. Yeah, there's no way that's true.

I believe it.

No. When it comes to fans of our show, I think you rate highest.

It's either you or Juju Gotti, I think. Or maybe Lucy's making a show.

I get tagged. I was telling Mike, actually, when Mike came over to my house, I get tagged in a lot of the videos Lucy makes because people in a positive hey, you're going to love this. Check it out. And it's true. I do love it.

That's great. We love Lucy. You're on the metal stand.

For sure. I want to acknowledge that, though, because I feel like so many of our conversations are about how toxic the Internet is over and over and over, and it's not all toxic. A lot of your listeners are like, hey, we love this. Check it out.

I was thinking about this the other day with McAfee. Growing up of a certain age, pat McAfee seems like he's a little hurt by having been popular all of his life, and now he's not 100% popular. And it actually, if I'm not betraying any confidences here, it reminded me of how you entered and your experiences with Fame, where I thought you were getting nothing but applause. And you were getting an awful lot of applause. But you were being wounded because you come from the business world and you're being wounded by the occasional cruelty in a way that you've gotten so much stronger.

I just wanted to ask about CJ Stroud.

We just did it. I just said we've done it so many times and he just did it. He can't resist.

Tell me about CJ Stroud.

We've got so much football to talk about. Tell me about motherhood. Tell me about motherhood. We'll get to football in a second.

Hold on. Yeah. Mina, this is the first thing that you've done since you've had a baby. Congratulations.

I thought you were going to say this is the first thing that you've done in reference to me having a baby. The way you I was like, Jesus.

This is your grand re emergence?

A baby who looks like Stugats.

By the not, he does not look like Stu. I said he looks more like Stu Gotts than me. But I think all newborns come out of the womb looking a little bit like Stugats. They're a little squished. Face is condensed, kind of the width to height ratio is Stugatsian.

I see it in the hands.

You met him?

Yeah.

Why don't you give him a review?

He's very sleepy. He was very sleepy and I was afraid to touch him, a lot like Stugats.

And Lenny is starved. Lenny is starved.

My main takeaway was that Lenny and I got along so much better than we ever have because Lenny is so starved for attention.

He was loving it. He was in your lap, in your face the entire time. Mike came over to watch the Dolphins Eagles game. Yeah. And Lenny was on his lap the whole time.

Lenny, of course, is Mina's husband.

Lenny is the co host of Mina Kimes'football podcast, the Mina Kimes Show, featuring Lenny and ESPN and Omaha production.

Thank you. Yeah. Going to start recording in a couple of weeks ish or so.

I want to get to all your football.

Do you miss talking into a microphone?

I told Dan that it's like a clogged duck. All these takes are just actually, though Twitter kind of negates that or mitigates it to some degree because I just do share some of my opinions. But, yeah, it's been interesting to watch football without really having a place to put the opinions, though. For the first time in like, five.

Or six years, you and I, because the Eagles were playing, we talked a lot about the brotherly shove, and one of the things that we kept saying is, well, how can you ban this? No one's gotten hurt. And since then, Brock Purdy got hurt. So the rest of the league, I imagine, is going to propagandize this Brock Purdy injury as a reason as to why they should do this. But you were telling me something that I hadn't considered is that while the Eagles are the best at it, everyone is pretty good at this play.

Yeah, I think there's this narrative that only the Eagles are good about it, but some teams have been pretty successful. Kaylin Collard did a really good piece. She's been kind of the tush push. How do we all agree to do brother leash? The Eagles got us all to say that. And that, I think, is, by the way, hurting their cause. Because not only is there this narrative that only the Eagles are good at it, it now has a Philadelphia centric name, which, if I'm Howie Roseman, I'm like, cut this out. No, we got to generalize it and we got to propagate or draw attention to the instances where other teams are good at doing it. Because the worst thing for Philadelphia is if there's the belief that only they are good at it. I think the Bears and the Bills for the two teams she singled out as having pretty high success rates doing it. I think it's because when the other teams are bad at it, notably the Giants, like, two offensive linemen got hurt. It is so buffoonish looking that we remember that like all things fourth down related, we only remember the failures, whereas other teams have had success.

I mean, Josh Allen is a load.

Of kenny Pickett looked bad at it, but it got a first down somehow in that game because Mike Tomlin is a wizard of some sort, a master of the dark arts, then that's the only way that you can explain it. We were talking some earlier this week about Miles Garrett and how there were guys in individual generations, like Julius Peppers would stick out as someone that looked the part and played the part. Reggie White also. But in this generation, there's like four guys that have a pretty good claim to Defensive Player of the Year. What Miles Garrett is doing in improving and impacting the results of the game. Every time TJ Watt is playing a big game, he's impacting the results.

To me, though, that Miles Garrett is better than Micah Parsons and Watt and Boses, they're all but Miles seems better to me. Seems and maybe it's because of the physical strength. I'm not just seeing a body type that is quick and faster than everyone else, but he's so clearly stronger than everyone else.

Mean, he I think that there's probably a top tier of, like, four guys. You mentioned some of them, maybe three, actually, at this point. No, four. I'll put Watt, Bosa, Parsons, and Garrett in that tier. And right now, Miles Garrett is Defensive Player of the Year. I do think his physique stands out. I also think, though, that on tape, micah Parsons is as fast and strong, not as, but it's pretty similar.

Is it the running game, maybe pushing Miles Garrett?

I think how they're using him this year, I mean, when you see clips of him lined up over the A gap, like doing Allen Everson style crossover, you're like, oh, my God, that's the craziest thing I've ever seen. And you can see the terror in the eyes of the offensive lineman because they're not sure where he's coming from. I think the Browns defense is so good, has been so good, that that's helped him as well, like, stand out, and he gets to play with better defensive linemen. But there's a thing going around the NFL right now where offense is down. I'm sure you guys have noticed that. And part of it is because there are so many good edge rushers. Like, there's that tier, but then there's a second tier that's really, really good. It feels like every team has a superstar edge rusher at the moment, and they're all being deployed, and not all of them, but a lot of them are being deployed in really interesting ways. But, yeah, he's been I mean, he a defensive player. Won't win MVP. But if there wasn't he is single handedly winning games for that football team that, you know, TJ.

Walker keeps playing football games.

I wanted to ask you about Brock Purdy, because he mentioned Brock Purdy. I find super interesting this part of the Brock Purdy story. You know better than most that we have evaluated quarterbacks very poorly for a long time at various points. Basically, if you won football games, you could be Tim Tebow and we'd be confused about what the assessment should be about your quarterbacking skill. But what I am seeing in the instantaneous nature of us needing to have an assessment on what Brock Purdy is and assuming that the system is why Brock purdy is. I couldn't believe the other day that our evaluation, it seemed like, went very quickly from brock Purdy may be an elite quarterback to Brock Purdy is what I said. He is a system quarterback. And all of that analysis was being pushed without the knowledge. He was a lot worse after he seemingly got that concussion than he was before. That the two interceptions and whatever you're blaming him for because you're saying win one on the road, win one late, win one, in a pressure situation, he's concussed, and we didn't know he was concussed.

I think that's true. I also think he, having watched his tape throughout his career, does put the ball in harm's way a little bit and has gotten away with some throws that he could have been turned over. In other instances, he was punished for it. In this game, he was also concussed. As with all things quarterbacking, it's hard to parse out the individual responsibility from the context. And of course, with Kyle Shanahan quarterbacks, the context is so different from other teams that it makes it even harder. Right now, we are seeing Jimmy Garoppolo separated from that context. It looks very you know, he's older, and obviously he's injured at the moment. He's been battling injuries. Which isn't to say brock Purdy is entirely a product of the system, and he's garoppolo 2.0. But I think that the garoppolo case is illustrative of how much that offense, what it does for quarterbacks. And people always point to, well, Kyle, before he had Purdy, he wasn't winning as much, but the team wasn't what they are right now. It drives me crazy when people bring up Kyle Shanahan or quarterback numbers from before the last couple of years.

They didn't have a team of all pros. When Kyle Shanahan got to San Francisco, the skill players were bad. So it's actually really noisy to bring in quarterback stats, win loss records from those years. It's hard to evaluate him. And I say that not to say he's bad. I don't think he's bad. I think he's played really well in that context of that system.

But does it matter that Tua might look more like Kenny Pickett in Kenny Pickett's offense and that Kenny Pickett might look a little more like Brock Purdy in San Francisco's offense? Does it matter why the quarterback is looking excellent?

When you say, does it matter? I think it's like, well, what's the question being asked?

How good is this person?

How good is the quarterback?

How good is the quarterback independent of all of the variables that go into quarterback assessment? If I throw Patrick mahomes on any team, he's going to be good, correct?

Yes. It matters when you're making decisions about the quarterback. So if you're a team like Las Vegas and you're like, okay, we're going to grab this guy from this offense, that's when it matters. I guess it matters if we're trying to have abstract conversations as we do of know how good is the quarterback, whatever. But it doesn't matter when you're talking about the quarterback. Can he be successful on this team? Tua is a perfect fit for that offense because of his skill set in terms of the accuracy and anticipation. We all know this. So the question, what is Tua in a vacuum? It doesn't matter right now. It would matter, I think, if he was leaving the team.

It's going to matter when they have.

To pay, when they have to pay.

It's going to matter when they're competition for what is his value.

But the coach is going to stay. I think some of the players we'll see when Tyree Kill eventually coast down, but Jalen Waddle will still be on that team. You're still going to have really fast players. You've got an innovative coach. You have a quarterback who's a really good fit with the coach. You have to consider all of these factors. I hope I don't sound like I'm equivocating, but I think too often when we talk about quarterbacks, it always comes down to the in a vacuum. How do we rank them?

She hasn't gotten any better about the equivocation. She still has way too much context. She's got to get better at the take. She's got to tell us the way.

We talk about quarterbacks is stupid.

Yeah, well, it's only going to get dumber if Sam Darnold has a good game.

I know I made a joke about that. I mean, it's going to be so toxic. But you notice, right, it's moved from Tua to Purdy this year. It used to be Tua, now it's purdy. The most toxic conversations around quarterbacks are always the ones where it's hard to isolate them from the context.

It's funny, though. It's legitimately funny that we're sitting here and we don't know how good Brock purdy.

Actually, he's so cheap, too, which is another thing that matters when we talk about, like the fact that he is that cheap makes it doesn't have to be as good because of what it allows them to do with the rest of the team. It's like, what are they, the great man theory of history? We do this with quarterbacks and we really especially, I think, at a moment where we have certain coaches who are so good at scheming and so many skill players who are so talented right now, that's another thing happening. Oh, my God. The wide receiver play, the young wide receiver play in the NFL right now is insane. We shouldn't subscribe to this great man theory when it comes to quarterbacks. You don't need Patrick mahomes to be really good for your team to be really good. Yeah, it does help.

That's why we came out to Hollywood to get that analysis from Mina. Patrick Mahomes will help your team. Don Lebotard.

We need to establish at.

Least some reasonable doubt.

Yes. Everyone with a story where he please.

More than you do. Stu Guts.

I always like leaving Dan on him because he's so vulnerable. I just unfairly fade down the chickens to just leave him by himself.

This is The Dan Levatar Show with the stu guts.

Mina in line with the last segment that we just had about wondering aloud about quarterback evaluation. There's been one name that we've been wondering about for a decade, and it's Kirk Cousins. And he has value this year. And while the contract number is big, there are some unique things about that contract that might make it appealing to acquire him. And he'd be an upgrade over a lot of these teams that would seemingly be a Kirk Cousins away.

Jets in San Francisco.

I mean, right now, in season. In season, it's a very affordable contract.

Jets in San Francisco are the two that are most associated.

Mina has another team that it would make a lot of sense for.

There's a few teams I think that he would make sense for, but he has no trade clause, which is important. I personally think if I'm Kirk Cousins and you're looking at a team like Atlanta or Cleveland, which I don't think they'll do it because of the Watson contract, I would go there. The mean I would think he would want to be know, Minnesota, they're going to compete, but they're not a playoff. They're not a good team. I think if I were him, I would want to play for a good team. I don't know what matters to him.

Jets can't be in play, though, if Aaron Rogers come back week 13 or week 14, if he's trying to come back.

Okay, he's not going to come back unprecedented. It'd be a medical of marvel to.

Talk about the jets season as if him coming back week 13 is a realistic proposition, I think does a disservice in that. Yeah, you have to mention it. But it shouldn't guide their decisions at the position.

Yeah, I agree.

But Kirk Cousins doesn't win them the Super Bowl.

I think he could, he might. I think that team with Kirk Cousins could win the Super Bowl. I really, um, I'm like a little bit Kirkbilled think I've arrived at the place where now where I think he's underrated as a quarterback. And actually, I think in that quarterback series they were asked that and both Mahomes and Mariota said Kirk Cousins when they were asked who's an underrated quarterback. Obviously this is easier to say coming off of Monday night game, which is maybe one of his best performances in the NFL, certainly his best performance in primetime, but I've actually thought this for the last, I want to say, like year and a half or so. He is taking risks he didn't used to take as a quarterback in terms of throwing downfield and attempting challenging throws. He's always had the throwing ability in the mechanic, but he's always been a.

Little bit I was impressed, though, by Monday night against whether San Francisco is healthy or not. Doing that without Justin Jefferson having that game and throwing whatever it was 55 times because they knew they had a hot quarterback and doing it in prime time when he's had like, one decent primetime game. I was stunned by all of that.

I think you saw the difference between there's this kind of joke in the football nerd internet that there's like, when you tier quarterbacks, there's the Kirk Cousins tier of quarterbacks. You throw in purdy tannehill, like all the guys, the shanahan quarterbacks, we call them, and then Kurt Cousins is the best of the Kurt Cousins tier I think you saw last night. It's like, oh, wait, he might actually be above his own tier quarterback. When I try to rank quarterbacks for the season, which I know I just spent 15 minutes lashing at the concept of trying to evaluate quarterbacks in a vacuum and making fun of it, and yet I do it as well. I do rankings. I usually end up putting him in that ten to 15 range people were laughing at. I think ACMAN said, he's a top ten quarterback.

It's such a trick. I remember saying Rex Grossman was a top ten quarterback just because I couldn't find nine other quarterbacks. That everyone can agree, because once he.

Gets to number eight, like eight through 15 are pretty interchangeable.

But the 10th best quarterback in that league is better than he was when Rex Grossman was playing like Kirk Cousins. I think everyone listening this might have doubts about Kirk Cousins, but would also know, okay, he's serviceable. Everything might need to be right for him to win a championship, but he's serviceable. Like, he's somebody that you could pay money and feel decent about your quarterback play.

Well, San Francisco is the ultimate case study for it's. Like, in these big moments throughout the Jimmy Garoppolo era, he was probably the 15th best quarterback who was putting up video game numbers. All the stats are just fake in that offense. But then in these huge moments, notably the Super Bowl, he couldn't make that one throw, was the difference between. So it's like, okay, well, how good does our quarterback have to be? Is Kirk Cousins. The guy and they took the leap with Trey Lance. They're like, we're going to try for the mahomes thing, which is to say, let's take a shot at a quarterback with tools who maybe can elevate the offense. Obviously, they miscouted him or whatever. Is Kirk Cousins splitting the difference? Will that be enough for us or for these other teams that we've been talking about.

It's interesting that we've come around on him to a degree that he presents a clear upgrade at the position with regard to some pretty good teams, and Cleveland being one of them. And not to just fixate on the quarterback position, but this is an organizational call. If they were to entertain and Stefanski does have ties to Kirk Cousins. They've got a really bizarre situation right now with Deshaun Watson. He clears a concussion protocol, but he doesn't return to the game. PJ. Walker starting again this week against the Seattle Seahawks. Weird reporting going on surrounding the Deshaun Watson injury situation, in your opinion? I know you're plugged in what's going.

On here, so it's not irresponsible to say it's weird because the weird comments are coming from the coach. It's not even like the reporting around. It like, oh, who knows what's the severity of the injury in the arm? And we're hearing different reports. No, your own coach was saying he was fine. Your own coach was like, yeah, we kept him out even though he was medically cleared. And then your quarterback saying, no, I wasn't clear. Like, it's confusing. And then right after the game, your own coach is saying it's on to Seattle. Deshaun Watson's going to be a quarterback. Then days later, it's like, no, actually, there's this reporting, oh, he's got this injury. It's really serious. He might be out for weeks.

Oh, it hurts baseball players, like, four to six weeks. I saw that. And you can understand where that's probably coming from is all of this this injury and the spin on it coming from a specific camp? Because it doesn't seem like the organization and the player are aligned.

Mike has said somebody's lying.

It feels like someone's lying.

You love to shout that in all circumstances. Someone's lying allows us to.

The theory that I'm running with here, Mina, is that an injury like this, ambiguous, hard to nail down a timeline for, conveniently, does extend a timeline in which Deshaun Watson would be judged against. And when you have that contract and when you're lacking in confidence and when the film that you've put out there has been such this could be a convenient injury.

I think Mike has created a scenario, a conspiracy theory, where Deshaun Watson is having surgery just to protect not having to play anymore and show that he's not as good at football as he used to be.

I don't know who's lying, but I do know this. Before the season. I think we maybe even talked about I was like, by midseason, if watson's not playing well and I think we can all agree he's not playing well again. The question is whether he's hurt the titans.

Screw up all these samples, too, because people just point to that he was good against the Titans are terrible.

He was also playing poorly before the injury we talked about in Pablo's podcast. Anyways, if by I said midway through season. We're not even there yet. He's not playing well. The covering of the asses, which I realize is unfortunate language when we talk about this particular player, is going to start and it's going to come from all sides because someone fucked. And who was the driving force behind the acquisition? Was it the owner? Was it the GM? I mean, the GM ultimately does bear responsibility. Andrew Barry for this. He somehow is reporting on this was.

And the statements from the owner. The responsibility lies squarely on Jimmy Haslam's daughter. I think everyone can agree.

That press conference, by the way, is not going to age well. Oh, my God, the coach everyone's going to start this always happens in the NFL where you start getting reports. It's like, oh, he never wanted him, or, oh, the coach actually wants he wasn't actually hurt. Whatever. The point is fast and furious. Everyone's going into job saving mode or wants to preserve some degree of their reputation. And this is so predictable. Of course you're going to start getting weird reports coming from all sides that would seem to impute someone else for the failure. And it's so stark because you have a team with a Super Bowl caliber defense that I think maybe was not something that everybody saw coming, where it's so obvious that all they need is competent quarterback play. If Jacoby Brissette was still on this team, they would be viewed as competitive.

Speaking of weird injury stuff, there were a couple that got my attention last week. The Bijean Robinson thing where he has headaches at night, doesn't seem to have a history of migraines, and wakes up in the morning and says he's so foggy that he's trying to play but doesn't know where he is, is super confused. And I'm listening to that and thinking, well, how does this happen? What happened to his head that would make all of this so? And then I juxtaposed it against jamal Adams is fighting with concussion doctors on the sidelines. And I'm like, is something happening with the heads here that is in this nebulous area where we don't know what the science is. We don't know whether Brock Purdy had a concussion here what is happening that Jamal Adams would be fighting with doctors that way? And what is happening that Bijon Robinson is suddenly unavailable for a game and nobody had any notice?

Well, the you know, I used to get migraines. It can be really brutal. So I don't know in terms of what exactly he's dealing with. The way the Falcons handled it was strange, which is why the NFL I mean, I don't care if what Arthur Smith says. He's very combative about it. He's kind of a combative dude with.

It continues to be strange.

It's weird.

Yeah.

The timing of it, the like, okay, way we can use him for only for this situational like that's. It's weird.

Arthur Smith saying he'd rather talk world politics than the drama of that that he was suggesting. Why can't we talk about no, not climate change. Let's talk about Israel. Arthur, you want to talk about everything happening there?

He's kind of defensive, generally, with the press, but it was OD, but I don't know what's going on with him. Adams, too. That was weird because the first concussion where he got into the doctor, people were like, how can you find him for this? He's concussed. Everybody said he's concussed. But then the second time where he got into the doctor, he wasn't concussed. So I think that was just nobody really knew what to do with that the second time around. But this is the NFL. Their injury designations are always going to be a little bit strange. I mean, the purdy thing, we didn't even know he was concussed until days later. And then you saw it and you're like, oh, yeah, obviously. But you could do that so many times on a Sunday. You could pull out a play and say, he was clearly concussed.

We've got a minute left in this segment, and there's a lot of local audience that maybe in one time probably went in your mentions last season when.

The two there's still a guy making videos about stuff.

Sorry, you're dolphin?

I don't want to do that.

Are you dolphin?

I don't want to are you dolph out the 1 minute. I want to hear about the Dolphins in more than a minute.

Mike no, we cut right to it. She's dolphin. She's not dolph out.

I'm still dolphin. I think the Eagles lost. We watched together had a lot to do with finally, injuries on the offensive line.

Bad officiating. Bad officiating.

Yeah.

Game changing officiating.

I don't remember exactly how I felt about every call, but yeah, the Cedric.

Wilson thing was crazy. You got a face mask, and that was bad. That was really bad.

Yeah, I think they'll be fine.

But you're still dolphin.

I'm still dolphin. I think they'll be fine. I'm not terribly worried. Are people dolph out?

What does that mean? Do I think they can win the Super Bowl?

Yes.

They obviously look like a team that can win the Super Bowl if they're healthy.

That's dolphin.

You're dolphin. Okay. You're not.

I guess I am. Don Levitard that's how it's going to end. The mailing it in. End of the retirement. Chris, go get me. This is just going to be him coming out and hitting the one or two notes of that kind of thing and you know it, and then just giving us finger guns and leaving.

Baby, you should listen to the Greg.

Cody Show podcast, because that's all we do for 55 minutes a week, is just say catchphrases. We even make songs about them. And you know it is a song, for crying out loud. That's great. Hopefully that's a Suey nominee for best song. And you know it, baby, and you know it.

Stugats.

And you know it baby and you know it baby and you know it and you know it baby and you.

Know it this is the Don Levitar Show with the stugats. We all miss you. You go away for a couple of weeks. It's unacceptable. I want to know what the withdrawal feels like because they have said of Tony kornheiser for years that he cannot retire because if he were to retire, he would just be going to the plants in his home and giving his sports opinions to the plants in his home. Is the baby getting any sports opinions? How much do you miss you have been in the daily grind of snorting football year round in a way that is addictive and a bit nuts. You care about this stuff and obsess about this stuff in a way that's truly passionate. How much have you missed not being able to give your opinions on football in front of a microphone?

Well, we were talking about this before we started a little bit and I struggled to convey the millions of your listeners are like, I have a kid. I know exactly what this was like. It's like I have more time and less time at the same time. Christopher Nolan really should do a movie about the first four weeks of having a baby. If you thought tenet was like a trip because you're just like, where did the day go? But then I was on my phone know, and I'm feeding him or whatever.

What's your screen time telling?

It's not great. It's alarming. But it's also I'm like, what did I watch? I am up to the amethyst league on duolingo korean, but I don't feel like I've learned any know. By the way, duolingo, why are they always trying to make you befriend you guys are on duolingo. They're always trying to make you befriend people on it's like, I don't want to be friends with mike s in Kansas who's giving me a high five because because I learned know. But I'm watching a lot of football and a was I'm watching more college football than ever because I'm home.

What's your thought on ACC officiating?

I have not watched miami. You keep asking me about players who are not even draft.

When you prep for the draft in two years and Ruben baines talked about as a number one overall pick. I want you to go back to the clemson film.

I actually feel like being a huskies fan this year is kind of what it must feel like being a Miami fan in terms of just like you're watching your offense do crazy stuff and completely obliterate.

You mean a miami dolphins fan?

Yeah.

Certainly not a Miami hurricanes fan.

So we ran into the powerhouse. That is so okay. So to actually answer your question sorry. I feel like I'm taking it all in and it has nowhere to go. I'm very active in many group chats now. Perhaps sharing my opinions there. I don't really mind not being on TV or having a place to send them all, but I am excited because it's not like I'm like, oh, I'm so clogged, and I just asked. It's going to be a take explosion or whatever. It's more just like, oh, man, I'm noticing so many interesting things. I can't wait to have conversations with people about them.

What has surprised you about motherhood? What is it that you had no idea that you were embarking upon?

I'm trying to cite how real to be because it's all really gross, visceral stuff. Just how animalistic it all is. I think just primal. It's primal. Yeah. And just like, you're really keeping another human alive. And I'm not good at that. I killed all my tamagotchis. I've never successfully kept a plant going.

I have a hard time with cacti.

Yeah.

Keeping cacti alive.

We have a lot of plants in our house, and my husband takes care of all of them. I do not. I guess Lenny was good practice on that. Does it's weird because it actually requires all your tension, but it's not like work attention where you have to be dialed in. It's just like you actually just have to hold him and you're not necessarily getting yeah.

The positive reinforcement that you're getting is just they've stopped crying for a little bit of a minute here because they needed to fart.

Yes, a win. And also going back to the physical aspect of it, you're just constantly in weird positions and you have to stay there. Yesterday I was sitting on my sofa and he had finally stopped crying, but he was like, on one arm, so that arm couldn't do anything. And then Lenny was on my legs. It was like Misery, like Kathy Bates. I was just like, well, I guess I'm just here now. And I just had to stay in that position for 45 minutes because I was trapped by do I have this wrong?

As someone who is childless, it seems to me like the first six months of having a child wouldn't come with a great many obvious rewards that you've succeeded by keeping the child alive. But the interactions, whatever the connection is, is not obviously a spoken connection. It's something that must be felt.

Yeah, that's true. He doesn't speak to me. You're correct. He hasn't said thank you yet for anything.

It'd be nice when it gets there.

It won't come until his teens or 20s. It's not coming soon.

It's my perspective as a father is like when Juliet started reacting and that doesn't happen for at least eight months. Then you're starting like, oh, not just a wet yeah, I remember with a beautiful, wonderful wet potato that I have to keep alive. But the first few months, they just look so uncomfortable, and you're trying to figure out how to help, and they're not exactly there to tell you, like, oh, yeah, no, that's working. It's difficult.

Yes. Right. Because when they're crying, you're just going through your, like all right. Like the decision tree of like, did he poop? Yeah. Okay. I fed him, I held him. What's going on?

He could be dying or he needs the burp. It could be either one of those two.

Yeah. I think right now the validation is less so from my son and more so, like, feeling going to sound weird, but proud of myself for doing things I didn't know I could do. Literally body doing things that I just never occurred to me or whatever. And then the teamwork aspect with my husband. This is going to sound really corny, but it's beautiful. At the end of the day when we actually did the day and it was tough and we got through it together, I'm proud of us for being a team and it has brought us closer together.

That's where love, I would imagine, grows around becoming about someone else's life instead of your own. I would assume that's the thing that people rave about or why they choose parents.

Well, it was always about money anyways.

Yeah. No, it's got to be like the offensive defensive coordinator. Like high fiving, you did it. Your side of the ball came through. Today calls him good play.

Occasionally an in law comes around and special teams did its job.

Yeah. And then our quarterback is like he's our Brock Purdy. Just executing the system, trying to turn the ball over. Yeah. So that part is validating right now. Do I sound like I'm patting myself on the back?

No.

I mean, as someone that has gone through it, it's not as revelatory, but I do think that the audience appreciates what your experience is with it because they've known you a certain way the entire time. And you've said it yourself, it's not necessarily something you ever really envisioned for yourself. Motherhood.

Yeah. I think as you gave the most.

Analytical answer to Pablo Torre that I shown like six friends this video because it was so quintessentially mina like her talking about becoming a mother and how analytical she was about the decision to get there.

Here's something I'll say that it surprised me that's beyond just, you know, my boobs leak now, by the way.

So do mine.

I've been looking down every now and then. I am someone who my whole life has struggled a little bit with personal pride in doing a thing to bring it back to the Internet.

If you could bring it back to Kirk Cousins later on, that'd be great.

Yeah, I'll try. If I get 99 comments and 98 are I don't know, I should say 199 are positive and one's negative, negative one stands out to me. I'm not like, wow, I really crushed that. I don't feel that, but I feel my failures a lot more acutely. This is one where it's almost like that dynamic has reversed. I don't feel like the failures are expected and the successes are surprising. Does that make sense?

Wow. It just allows you to be super gentle with yourself. What a great gift for a child.

To give it that way. Yes. I'm like because you know what? Cousins. No, it's less Kurt cousins. I am more of the Brock purdy in this analogy because I went into this with very low expectation.

I've seen the reports. You are not getting that salary kick.

199 in a parent draft. You all nobody was like, she is.

Going to crush your cap number is not as funny.

Yes, I am lucky. When I complete a pass, I'm like, oh, my god. And maybe devo Samuel took it for 80 yards, but that screen was on time.

You're surprised. When you succeed as a parent, you.

Are articulating it as you do.

Is that because you just never had expectations for it?

Never had expectations. Not something I thought I would be great at. Not like I was like, wow, I'm going to fail. This is going to be awful. But it's just not. I go at like when I was in school and I would go into a test, anything less than, hey, I'd be like, you were the worst. I go in with certain expectations. I did not go into parenthood expecting to crush it every morning. I do not expect to crush it. I mostly expect to fail. I expect he's going to cry a lot. When I try to change his diaper, it looks up and when the nurse does it, it looks amazing. And I'm like what? How? Why? This is so simple. Why? It's on his head. The tape is like around his body, like the mummy. So anyways, every day I go into the day being like and when I do something right, when he kind of smiles, he's probably just burping, but I'll call it a smile. I'm like, damn. I actually feel pretty proud of myself.

That is wonderful. What a great gift for a child to give. I don't think people understand heartwarming. Maybe they do enjoy it. Mina's feelings sponsored by Venmo she is so prepared. Mina. I always used to laugh because it's highly questionable. Like, look, my dad's doing it over there in his second language. Like, why are you so prepared? You're too prepared. This one doesn't come with a whole lot of to me it sounds, given your personality type, like the responsibility of this before choosing, it would feel totally overwhelming because how do you prepare for this?

That's the other thing. I am not a prepared parent. Like I play it as it like, I'm trying, but I really am not. Like I have to read this and optimize every decision and if it's going to be the end of the world, I'm like, we made it.

Yeah.

What a great gift for a child to give you, mina, seriously, not just the idea that you would be more forgiving of yourself, but that you would also allow yourself to be less constrained by your own limits or things that you do to protect your insecurities so that you won't feel insecure.

This is how Kurt Cousins is playing. Like, he is not mechanical. He's just throwing it up to Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison and hoping one of them comes down with the football.

Yeah. You brought it around, Mina. Congratulations. How childhood is about Kirk Cousins. How everything is about Kirk cousins. She's ready to get back in the game.