National Football League

All That and a Bag of Mail: Mett Show Edition

Published Oct. 24, 2014 11:17 a.m. ET

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I know you're all pretending to work so let's get right to the mailbag. Increasingly, the mailbag is getting more and more anonymous submissions. I obviously see your names and emails, but if you ask me to keep you anonymous I'm going to do that. I'm pretty much convinced that come the football offseason we need to start doing an exclusively anonymous mailbag every Tuesday.

You can confess to anything and ask for advice. Outkick agrees to keep you anonymous.

I think this would be insanely popular. Not as popular as Zach Mettenberger's mustache, but close. There's no doubt about it -- our beaver pelt trader of the week is Zach Mettenberger. I'll write more about him later in the mailbag. In the meantime, it's question time so here we go.

Anonymous writes:

"Clay,

Backstory: My father died when I was 7 and my brother was 3. My father had 1 brother, let's call him Zack.

I am now 26, married, starting my life and my uncle has never really had much to do with my brother or I since my father's passing. He has recently been reaching out to us via e-mail/text/facebook and trying to establish a relationship. It's cool, I'm fine with it. Except in the last couple of months he's sending us e-mails with links to articles and websites that claim President Obama is Satan.

Our uncle is very successful, owns multiple small business, isn't married and doesn't have kids. I would guess he's worth around $5 million. He is also a hardcore Southern Baptist. He recently told us that he has drafted a will and left everything to my brother and I. His house, property, land - everything.

Back to Obama=Satan. After he sends us these articles, he follows up with "Did you read the article I sent you? Thoughts?" "The end is coming. Are you ready? Revelations foretold all of this." Etc.

With the knowledge that we are now in his will, my brother and I have no idea how to respond to these e-mails. Obviously, we think he is crazy but, do we just humor him and go along with it? The last thing I want is my off-the-rocker uncle who only recently entered my life and is worth a lot of money to think his nephew thinks he's off-his-rocker.

My questions is: Should we tell him we don't believe that President Obama is the Lord of the Underworld? And possibly writing ourselves out of his will? Or, lead him to think we do, in fact, think President Obama is Satan?"

I think you agree that Obama's Satan. I'm not saying this out of any particular political stance. As I've established before, I feel like I'm the only middle of the road person left in politics today. My political stance can be summed up this way -- I'm pro-markets and anti-stupidity, so basically I oppose everything the NCAA stands for. Both political parties are so stupid at this point, I don't understand how any reasonable person could agree wholeheartedly with any party completely. But that's me.

So Obama's the devil, the end of the world is coming, just agree via email with your crazy uncle in exchange for the inheritance. I'd give you the same advice if your crazy uncle was a hard core Democrat and was convinced that Bush was the devil too. I'm going to be honest with you, for $2.5 million I'd agree that anybody is the devil over email. It's not he's trying to turn you into Nicholas Brody here, you just have to agree with every crazy email he sends.

Basically, what does this hurt you at all?

Plus, crazy religious people are normal in the South. One set of my grandparents didn't buy places in a cemetery because they believed the rapture was coming before they died. I read all those Rapture books they gave me growing up and I turned out fine.

Right?!

Tyler R. writes:

"As a young adult male, my favorite questions are the comparisons of average joes vs pro athletes. It's always good for a late night drunken debate. So here is one that has recently been discussed. If you had a defense full of average joes (25-40 year old's), could we stop an NFL offense with 6 guys? (3 OL, 1 QB, 1 WR, 1RB). That's at least five players that aren't accounted for! My buddies say we would shut them down defensively.. Our biggest guy would weigh about 215 lbs...fastest guy runs around a 4.7.. tallest is about 6'2... I told them they are on some Heisenberg product if they think that.. Thoughts?"

Your buddies are delusional. Let me be your Belichick here and try to come up with your best defensive gameplan. I think you could take away the pass -- which is the exact opposite of what every defense tries to do, but let's start there. An NFL QB throwing to an NFL wide receiver would require four to five of your average guys. You give him everything under five yards and try to take away every pass attempt beyond five yards. That means you line somebody up thirty yards off the ball to ensure that you don't get beaten deep.

Blanketing the receiver requires four to five guys but I think you could neutralize him as a legit weapon. That leaves you at most seven guys to stop the run. Here's where you'd get dominated, you couldn't stop the run. Three NFL offensive linemen are total beasts. They would wreck your defensive line and open up gaping holes. Then the NFL running back would be bigger and faster than anyone you had trying to tackle him. He would just blow through you.

God forbid you had a mobile quarterback who could keep the ball and run the read option on your sorry asses. Eventually you'd have to commit more guys than you wanted to "stopping the run" and then the NFL receiver would beat you deep because, you know, who do you have in a jump ball situation, Calvin Johnson or Joe, the random guy from your accounting office?

After getting physically dominated you'd start to gamble and blitz like ten dudes figuring that might work. The offensive line would wreck most of your blitzers in pass protection and the NFL team would slip their running back out on a screen and that's a touchdown.

This would be a slaughter.

Now, you've still asked a good bar question, how many regular defenders would it take to stop an NFL offense? Like the Denver Broncos are a well-oiled machine, right? If you put 20 regular dudes on defense, could they stop the Broncos? 25? More? What if you gave the regular guys a great defensive coach and a month to practice? Can you imagine the defensive coach's reaction shots on the sideline? "WE HAD 14 GUYS ON WES WELKER AND NO ONE ON DEMARYIUS THOMAS!" I'd actually love to watch this on television. The crazy thing is Peyton Manning has probably already thought about this hypothesis and already devised a gameplan to beat it. Peyton would be like, "Guys, they're going to run a 8-7-5, In an 8-7-5, you can exploit the gap between the seven linebackers and the five defensive backs with the wheel route."

I'd also love to see regular guys biting on play action fakes. Is anyone not buying this fake if Peyton Manning is running it? Someone asked this on Twitter recently and it's a hysterical thought -- can you imagine the first team to come up with a play action fake? Everyone back in 1926 had to bite so hard on that fake.

David writes:

"Clay,

I graduated from UGA 4 years ago. I now live just outside of Orlando but still make it back for a couple of big home games each year. My girlfriend of six months is about to leave for a two week European cruise and will return the Friday before the Georgia-Auburn game. A month ago, when UGA in no way looked like a championship caliber team, I decided I would rather pick my girlfriend up from the airport the day before instead of driving 8 hours to watch us get blown out by Auburn. I am obviously now very upset with myself for making this promise, thus I now have three options: 1) While I have my own ticket offered to me, acquire an extra ticket for my girlfriend. While my girlfriend assures me she would be ok with going, this would be very expensive (tickets going for over $200 apiece right now) and logistically very difficult as my girlfriend is landing in Orlando at 5 pm Friday; 2) Keep my promise in the name of love and forego the game to pick my girlfriend up from the airport and spend the weekend with her catching up; OR 3) Take off work Friday without the girlfriend and drive to Athens to enjoy an epic college football weekend drinking excessive amounts of bourbon with old college buddies. The girlfriend will forgive me, it's a possible play-in game to the CFB playoff!"

Go with number three. Your girlfriend will be really tired after coming back from her two week European cruise -- by the way, who is your girlfriend that she can just take off from work on a two week European cruise? I didn't think anyone could take a two week cruise but retirees and royalty -- and she won't miss you that much because she'll really just want to sleep.

She'll probably be upset that you don't pick her up at the airport, but you can easily counter with, "Yeah, I feel really bad for you having to go on that TWO WEEK EUROPEAN CRUISE while I was working. Then you had to walk out of the airport and not be immediately picked up by your waiting boyfriend. Your life is really tough."

This should snap her out of her bitchiness.

Enjoy Athens.

Damien S. writes:

"Justin Brent, a Notre Dame freshman who hasn't sniffed the field, went on a date with Lisa Ann, adult film star. Where does this rank in outkicking your coverage? Sure he's 19 and a good looking kid. But she's a pornstar! And a MILF which I'm sure most of the 85% have tugged it too. This kid got free court side seats to an NBA game, probably flown out to NYC on a weeknight and oh yeah had sex with pornstar."

This has to be so bittersweet for Notre Dame fans -- on the one hand it's a player sleeping with a porn star, on the other hand, it's a real girl.

What about the confidence of this wide receiver? He's sleeping with a woman who has been satisfied by some of the largest and most skilled penises in the history of sex -- and he's sleeping with her at 19 years old. Think about when you were 19 years old. Hell, think about you right now. How well do you think you'd perform for someone who had pro sex all the time?

Also, how do they meet? Where does a 19 year old Notre Dame wide receiver run across a porn star. There can't be that many porn stars in the South Bend Starbucks. He's pretty busy playing football. I just don't see how this meeting ever happens. This is such a Carrie Mathison move by Lisa Ann too, grabbing a 19 year old and having uncomfortable sex with him.

Lisa Ann's a porn icon. Am I the only person who wishes we had Sabermetric stats for porn stars? How many people do you think have masturbated to a Lisa Ann porn? It has to be hundreds of millions right? Billions? Bill Clinton has to be one of them, right? Did he do it on Air Force One?

Anonymous writes:

"Hey Clay,

So the wife and I are have been trying to start a family and as you know there are "peak times" to get to work on that. Like most women, she wanted a baby yesterday and we haven't gotten any results. So pressure seems to mount each time one of these "windows of opportunity" comes along. Knowing this is the case, I psyche myself out and my equipment doesn't perform. I've never had a problem enjoying time in the bedroom with my wife any other time, but when I know I HAVE to do it, I can't seem to get up for it. I tell her that I need to not think about it, but when you know you have a 3 day window and it needs to get done, it's kind of a bigger thing than that. I've tried to make it more about me when I'm comfortable or "in the mood" but our schedules don't always allow for it. Do you suggest priming the pump with some naughty pictures/porn without her knowledge? I don't want her to think I need that to get intimate with her.

Any advice for me seeing as you've been thru the process a couple times? Or are you one of those guys that stuck it in randomly a couple times and it happened? If that's the case, don't take this the wrong way, but FUCK YOU!

Another quick question....I know you're an SEC guy, but what are your thoughts on Wisconsin -10.5 vs. Maryland? Wisconsin is 1-5 ATS this year, it's homecoming weekend, they're coming off a bye, and Maryland is coming off a big win. Bet the future baby's college fund?"

I don't even like to think about impotence because the number one way to become impotent is to think about impotence. So I'm pretty confident this is entirely psychological and that it's rooted in your nervousness about having a baby.

When "we" decided to have a baby -- the "we" is in quotation marks because like most husbands my wife told me it was time for us to have a baby -- I spent lots of time thinking about which sperm would end up being the kid. Unlike with women who have a relatively insubstantial total number of eggs and therefore have limited genetic probabilities, there are billions of sperm that could make a baby for men. What if one of my bad genetic sperms got to the egg first? Like my version of the antichrist sperm? That would be really bad luck. I mean, it has to be a bad feeling to be the antichrist's dad.

"QUIT BLAMING ME. I WASN'T TRYING TO END THE WORLD WITH MY SPERM. WE JUST WENT OUT TO CHILI'S THAT NIGHT AND SHE HAD TWO MARGARITAS AND IT JUST FELT RIGHT." (The antichrist will definitely be conceived after a night out drinking at Chili's. I feel strongly about this).

If you have hundreds of millions of sperm featuring your genetic code, the potential outcome is pretty wide, right? Could I produce a LeBron James sperm? Or an Albert Einstein sperm? Odds are you're probably going to have a relatively normal kid and most of your sperm aren't that different, but there have to be outliers, right?

Anyway, I'm probably making you more nervous thinking about your outlier sperm and fathering the antichrist. I'd suggest that your wife not tell you when the "right time" is and just start making sexual advances on you. It could be that it's the perfect time for conception or it could be that your wife just finds you so incredibly sexually attractive that she suddenly can't contain her raging nymphomania in your presence. Sure, your wife will have to be a good actress, but she's been pretending to enjoy sex with you while she runs through her to-do list with you on top of her for years. This probably won't be a stretch for her.

Good luck.

I like the over in Maryland-Wisconsin.

Ben L. writes:

"The report on the UNC academic fraud scandal has been released and says somewhere around 3,100 students were found to have participated in these no-show paper classes over the span of 18 years. Of these 3,100, slightly above 47% were athletes. If my math is correct that's an average of about 82 athletes per year taking these GPA booster classes to stay eligible. A number, I have to admit, I found a little shocking. Doesn't this number seem low? How naive are we if we think every school in the country that is competing at a high level is doing something to help keep the ringers in the game? If I had to guess the number of college athletes in major college sports taking classes geared to keep them eligible my number would have to fall somewhere between most and all of them. Now, I'm not a UNC fan by any means, but I can't help but think, who cares? Shouldn't the real lesson here be, if you are going to commit academic fraud, don't discuss candidly over email or make power point slides outlining your methodology? The internet morality police and sports columnists are obviously outraged by these reports and are the rallying the call for their holy grail, the "death penalty" ... something I don't see ever happening again. What, if anything, do you think actually becomes of this situation? And when will we as a whole, stop being surprised that high level athletes aren't really students?"

This is one of many reasons why I think the NCAA is full of shit. Every major state school in the country has an entire academic department predicated on keeping athletes eligible. The more money a sport makes for a school the worse the students are who play that sport. This isn't a coincidence. After all, where do schools make their money? Football and men's basketball. (There's almost no fraud in any women's sport or in any men's sport that doesn't make money. Go figure. Women dominate men in all facets of academics these days, but no matter how good you are there's also no real money to be made in women's pro athletics. I think this means young women who are great athletes know they still have to learn in school to make a living. So their teachers don't start passing them along in high school simply because they're good athletes. Top male athletes get coddled and many never learn the basics, which means college courses are impossible for them to manage. As far behind as you or I might look on a college basketball or football field, many athletes are like this in a college classroom.)

Academic fraud happens no matter which state school you attend. Everyone does it, your school, your hated rival; academic fraud is endemic in major college athletics. I hit on this every year because it reveals itself when the Wonderlic test scores leak. (One of the reasons I think they stopped releasing the scores wasn't just because it humiliated the low test scorers. It also indicted the school). You've got guys who have been eligible for four or five years of football who can't read. How does this happen? Simple, the school is cheating its ass off to keep these guys eligible. Yet no one wants to point this out because the illusion of the "student athlete" must be preserved.

It's total crap.

The simple fact of the matter is this -- most football and men's basketball players aren't student athletes, they're mercenary athletes that schools compete to sign to help them win games. Pretending otherwise is fine, but at least acknowledge you live in a fantasy world.

Anonymous writes:

"Would you make out with Zach Mettenberger if you knew it would mean he would be a great QB -- Peyton Manning or Tom Brady level -- for the next 15 years? At first I said no, but then I started thinking about how much joy I'd feel winning all those games over the next 15 years. I think I would. Your gay, does this make me gay too?

P.S. Please keep me anonymous because I don't want my church to find out about this question. Yes, I'm really a pastor."

I googled him, he really is a pastor.

This is why we need a weekly anonymous mailbag.

Yes, I would 100% make out with Zach Mettenberger if it meant he would turn into the next Peyton Manning or Tom Brady. This isn't even a difficult question. I'd let it be taped and put it up on Outkick.

Especially with that mustache Mett Show is rocking.

Sexy.

Phillip W. writes:

"Being the lights-out oddsmaker that you have become recently, what would you set the over/under on how many weeks into Mettenberger's QB debut before he and Taylor Lewan go to jail for being involved in an altercation at a honky tonk on Broadway?

I feel like this is not a question of "if" but "when".

He debuts at home Sunday and next week is a bye. If the Titans win this game.....Oh. Boy."

Well, considering Mettenberger already got punched by an Alabama fan at Loser's and Lewan just had to settle a bar brawl lawsuit from last year, it's a pretty high probability. Mettenberger is the perfect quarterback for the Titans because he's exactly like so many of the 23 year old guys moving to Nashville right now.

He went to an SEC school, he likes to drink, he's pretty funny, he doesn't take himself too seriously. Just about every guy reading the mailbag right now, Mett Show is you at 23 if you happened to also be good at football. What percentage of the 23 year old guys you knew end up getting arrested for an alcohol related infraction before thirty? Like thirty percent, right? Now imagine you were you at 23 and you also were starting for an NFL team in a city as much fun as Nashville. I think you've got to bump it up to like 65 percent then. Every 23 year old thinks the rules don't apply to him and that's without being a starting quarterback in the NFL. I don't think Mett Show will get in trouble for something that serious, but it will definitely involve a Nashville bar.

When the new radio show starts, I have to get Mett Show on weekly with me. I think he'll be an incredible guest. Hell, I guarantee you some of Mett Show's friends read Outkick. The funniest thing about Mett Show is how much he's going to drive Titan coach Ken Whisenhunt crazy. Whisenhunt is so buttoned up down and detail-oriented that he ended the free smoothies the Titans cook used to give us for training camp.

Think about that for a minute, Wiz is so controlling that he forbade free smoothies for radio guys. Yet his quarterback is a total wild card. I'm not going to lie, this is the most excited I've been for Titans games since before we all learned Vince Young couldn't read.

Jenn A. writes:

"Clay,

It seems like every weekend there are multiple officiating calls that are questionable, to say the least. These days it seems like everyone from coaches and players to chancellors when the students chant offensive things, gets questioned, and has to address mistakes, bad play-calling, or "FU Florida."

My question is, when are the officials going to have to explain why penalties were called a certain way? Coaches and players have post game pressers, why not officials? I'm sure there are several people who would like to hear, from the officials, why a pass interference call was made against Notre Dame in Saturday's game."

I asked this exact question of the SEC officials when I was an SEC official for the Alabama spring game and they said they'd like to have a press conference to discuss calls, but that the league wouldn't allow it.

The league doesn't want the officials to talk because their comments -- the thinking goes -- turn a call mishap into a bigger story. But if you have one official delegated to talk, I agree with you I think it would go a long way towards putting the story to bed.

The way it works now, social media bubbles over with outrage and then the story continues for several days, up to and including the "official response" from the league about whether the call was correct. Having an official address controversial calls immediately after the game -- provided the official is decent at talking to the media -- shortens the story cycle.

Kyle C. writes:

"Hey Clay,

Since "your gay," I'm hoping that you can shed some light on the subject of old man locker room nudity. I go to the gym after work every day, just as I did in college after class, and if I had a dime for every old man hang down I saw, I'd be drinking on weekends for free. I mean, what gives? There is seemingly a universal trait inherent to all old men that makes them think, "I should probably just walk around the locker room naked."

Is this genetically coded into our brains? I would like to think it isn't. I was discussing this with a guy I work out with, and we came to the conclusion that at some point all of the old naked guys will have died off and only the guys that walk around clothed (or at least towelled) in the locker room will exist.

The flip side of the coin is that one day I will get done with my workout and whether I like it or not, strip down into my God given birthday suit and waltz my sweaty saggy balls around the locker room for all to see. I hate that possibililty and refuse to accept it as reality.

Thanks for the input."

I actually found myself thinking the other day -- will I be an old guy walking around the locker room with my cock and balls dangling in the breeze? I just don't see any way it can ever happen.

So can we all agree that we will end the scourge of old man balls in the locker room? Look, we eradicated smallpox, surely we can eradicate old man balls. Let's all make a pledge to cover up our old man balls.