This week on Barbell Shrug, we're going to interview Ian Berger from the New York Rhinos and John Callahan from the Phoenix Rise both NPFL teams and these guys are the general managers.

Hey, this is Rich Froning, you're listening to Barbell Shrug for the video version, go to BarbellShrug.com.

What's up, guys?

Welcome to Barbell Shrug. I'm Mike Blets. I'm here with Doug Larson. We got CTP behind the camera.

We have traveled to Atlanta for the NPFL Combine. We're standing here with two of the coaches. Is that right?

We've got all these new jobs being created.

We're still trying to feed that out about the general manager as well, helping out on the coaching side too.

Gotcha. So we have Ian Berger, New York Rhinos and John Callahan. But I've been told this weekend you go by Cal.

I prefer rising Phoenix, Phoenix, rising Phoenix, rise, I'll figure it out sometime in the next couple of years.

I talked to Jim and Tony both and they said that you two would be the ones to get on the podcast together because you have this feud going on, you hate each other.

But then I talked to you guys about it.

Ian's pretty intolerable. He's just too damn nice. I mean, Cal doesn't share too much. But I will get along with him just for the sake of a podcast.

I do still owe you money for breakfast this morning.

Yeah, so this is, I mean, everyone's very amicable at this point. No one hates anybody yet because no one's competed against anyone yet.

So it's a super friendly environment. You guys probably sharing some information. I look over everyone's kind of sitting at the same bench, running some stats.

And then once everyone makes a split, I mean, you're like best friends now, but you'll hate each other soon.

Yeah, I mean, you know, today and through the combine process, we're trying to move the best athletes through because we either had all our athletes signed or were pretty close.

And so once you get to the level two combine, there will be a lot less sharing of information. Right now we're trying to select athletes for the draft to come to Phoenix or New York.

And so at that point, there will be, it'll be a little bit gray about how friendly we're going to be for sure.

This maybe, it sounds like to me this is more about trying to make sure the best athletes get into the NPFL. It's not really about your team.

Correct. We just want to make sure the best athletes continue on through the process and have the opportunity to become professional athletes in the NPFL.

Do you guys have anything specifically that you're looking for this weekend if you're still sharing information at this point?

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