Welcome to the Athletic Football Show.

I'm Robert Mays.

It's another Mailbag Monday here on the Athletic Football Show.

A ton of great questions.

Really appreciate everyone who sent them in.

No reason to belabor this.

Let's get to this conversation with Michael Beller and Derek Klausen right now.

Southern Mailbag Monday here on the athletic football show,

another series of great questions.

Sincerely appreciate everybody who spends the time to send these in

because they're good every single time.

We will never get to all the ones that we want to get to.

So sincerely appreciate that here to help me work through those questions, like we always do, it is our co-hosts here at the Athletic Football Show, Derek Classen, and our producer, Michael Beller, whose dulcet tones, you are going to hear reading the questions. I'm very glad we've kicked into this version of it, Beller. Make things a lot easier for me, and I think just a lot smoother overall. I've loved it, as you guys know, and also I've had these like

lingering cold symptoms for like three weeks that for whatever reason won't go away. Yeah, I think

that's probably it. It sucks for me, but I feel like it takes what is already, I'm not afraid

to say it myself, pretty great voice. It makes it even a little bit richer and a little bit better. So I hope the listeners have been enjoying that too. So you're saying to make myself a better podcast host, I should be like licking the L platform. That's what I should be doing consistently. I'd be really good then. Yeah, hang out with a bunch of parents of four and two-year-olds who are bringing daycare

viruses home with them all the time and you'll be great.

Yeah, just get like child sickness or start chain smoking again.

Like, it's something to like to roughen up the voice a little bit in a good way.

We, I've always rationalized the fact that we haven't had kids yet in the sense that like, oh, you know, whatever. Like, I'll be 40. It'll be fine. I'll be on better footing. Like, I'll be more equipped to handle it. And then you think about the lack of sleep and the sickness part of it and how if I don't get six hours of sleep now, I can't function at 37. And if I'm sick, I can't do anything. And the fact that both of those things are going to come at me in a way they never have as I turn like 40 years old, I miscounted the men a little bit. I'm going to be honest with you. Excuse me. There it is. Right there. Perfect. Get ready for that. I am 40 on the dot right now. So I had the first one at 36 and yeah it's uh it's it's exactly what you're saying good stuff i'm really looking forward to it let's get into these questions so i can stop thinking about how awful my life is going to be in three years oh it's going to be great and this is a great question from tony neighbor to get us going he says my question centers on personal fandom i grew up a loose Cowboys fan in Iowa. I would watch them when they were on, but at that time, the NFL was more regional and I ended up with more NFC North games. I moved to Arizona for five years and became an Arizona Cardinals fan watching and going to games. I have since moved back to Bears Country and I am struggling with who is my favorite team. Do I go back to my childhood roots and be a fan of the Cowboys? Do I purchase NFL Sunday ticket and stick with my Arizona Cardinals fandom? Or do I adopt the team of the area I live in currently and become a Bears fan? Thanks guys. Again, love the show. Very excited to listen for another year. Robert, he's bringing up the Bears, so you got to take this one first. So I emailed Tony because I wanted more information, by the way.

I was like, I need more information specifically about the Cardinals aspect of this. And I was like, why did you start rooting for the Cardinals? Was it solely a matter of convenience or were there elements of the current Cardinals team that you started to appreciate? And he said, you know, at the beginning in the Khyme era where, you know, the Kime Cliff era where there was a lot of struggles, it was a matter of convenience since Gannon got hired and they started doing some interesting stuff and just became a little bit more of an exciting team. I think that there was like an affinity that he developed for this version of the Cardinals. And because of that, to me, I think my answer is the Cardinals.

The Cowboys, absolutely not.

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