Welcome to a Thanksgiving Week hour of The Jalen Ramsey Show where we’re here to talk about your life and your money. Open lines at 818-338-0011. It’s a short week in a long, long year so let’s reflect where we’re at and where we want to go. Starting off today out east with Matthew in Bloomfield, Em-Eye. Welcome to The Jalen Ramsey Show, Matthew.

Hello and thank you taking my call, Jalen. How are you doing today?

Better than the Jaguars under Tom Coughlin. How can I help?

Well, I….I need to get some guidance here on dealing with fans. I get that they’re our customers out there and, at the end of the day, if they aren’t watching then we aren’t making these big paydays. And I get that listening to fans bitch is part of the job but — and I guess this is my question for you today — how much is really enough? What do I owe these people beyond my contractually obligated play and limited media appearances?

Matt, you’ve been in the spotlight since the early aughts. Played high school ball in Dallas before facing the SEC for three years then became a #1 pick in 2009. Now we’re playing in empty stadiums and you’re concerned about mean fans?

Hey, no one loves hearing the fans who fill out Ford Field on gameday more than me. But — and I’m talking about all it now — it’s getting personal, man. You know, and I’m sure you’ve seen it too, the longer I am in the league, the more personal fans want to be with you. I’m talking about people who don’t even follow the Lions or have any interest in Michigan or Michigan sports. And I get it with these young guys because that’s part of the culture they grew up with. They have their opinions and influencing brands and, you know, they sell themselves as much as their performance to the masses. But me, that just isn’t my style. Never has been either.

So don’t play that game. Don’t worry about your social media presence or lack thereof.

But the digital world is, now, unfortunately where so many fans live and then, like, they only venture out into the real world when they’re looking for confrontations. It used to be that I may get stopped at the grocery store and someone who couldn’t put Sunday’s game behind them would make some snide comment about ‘Fat Stafford’ or ‘Fat Piece of Shit’. But now it’s just, like, conspiracy theorists and white supremacists and political wannabes that have filled the void of amateur sports journalists or fantasy football professionals and, you know, I just don’t think I owe anything to these people. I’m not a celebrity. I go out and earn my paycheck and go home. And….well, it just has to be said Jalen: Fuck These People.

I, and correct me if this isn’t right, I heard your wife posted a pretty challenging diatribe about Michigan’s Coronavirus response last week, including referring to the governor as a dictator. Is your call maybe about the negative responses that she received for publishing these remarks?

What? No. Not at all. I say shut the whole fucking economy down. What kind of job is bolting together a riding mower simply because the task hasn’t been fully automated yet? I mean, Michigan didn’t do jack about this virus thing for ten months and now it’s time for Michiganders to take the medicine. I don’t completely agree with Kelly and, trust me, I know how that bitch gets when she’s on the rag. But then these fucking lunatics — the same ones telling me I’m a traitor because my teammates took a knee to protest police brutality — are now trying to appropriate my family’s good name for their weird little cult rallies and websites. I’m here to shut up and play ball so, you know, don’t I have a right to my own silence?

The US is a service-based economy — which is part of the reason stocks of actual production-based businesses have fared so well despite the overall recession — and you’re right that we’re nothing without the fans. But it sounds to me like you’re saying you’ve had it with regular people who don’t care about your status as a football player?

I’ve had it with their hypocrisy! I deal with enough bullshit and don’t complain. But these same people who screamed a year ago that I needed to just focus on my game are then complaining that the NFL came up with a testing regiment that allows me to earn my living this fall and, if I’m at work then they should also be at work at their rust factory or whatever they do around here. I mean, this assholes have called me soft while I’ve absorbed hit after hit and played through all types of injury for their entertainment. I say lock everything down and show them what a dictatorship really looks like!

That’s a pretty strong position to take.

Megatron quit specifically because he couldn’t take the bullshit with these people. They’re freaks. Fuck them, Jalen. You know what I’m talking about. The same assholes who drag us through the mud over any sense of social equality and swore for years, “durrr, that’s it for me watching the NFL! I’ll just watch old clips of Mike Pence on Sundays! durr!” are now heralding my family as the new Pepe the Frog. I don’t know if these clowns were ever fans in the first place but, shit, how much more of myself do I owe these people?

Fair point. But I think your angry response is part of what they’re looking for. I mean, trolling is pretty much their main form of action.

Jalen, these people are absolute fucking losers. They obsess over what my wife — some rich lady who hangs out in a mansion raising twins while her husband goes to work — has to say because they think they can use it for…honestly, I don’t even know what because I have a job that, unlike theirs apparently, is essential. If Kelly told them how I feel, they’d tell us we’re spoiled elitists who need to shut up and dribble. So why do I have to make a concerted effort to stay out of politics while they insist on dragging my family into politics?

It’s tough, right? But I think that is just part of what it is. Fantasy football brought a lot of new fans to the league’s periphery and, at the same time The Shield hasn’t done much to diffuse the national attention the NFL has been getting from the political arena. Like I said, it’s all on social media. When you lump these goons in with the normal noise from fans, does it really sound any different? I’d suspect that it’s all just white noise that you’re only bothered by because you’re reading the press clippings. Don’t worry about the haters and, my advice for you, is to just ignore these lowlifes and focus on your game.

I dunno Jalen. These people are mental. They celebrate the Rittenhouse killer. They applaud calls for violence. They shout down and threaten any sort of dissention, which is impossible to avoid because their screams and shouts regularly contradict themselves. Then they claim to care about the Constitution but clearly their little facist cult is only concerned about —

You’re just talking in circles now, Fatty. I get your point. You’ve heard my advice. If you don’t want to take it, don’t take it. But it’s not going to change just because you insist that these are such horrible people. Trust me, man. I’ve played in Jacksonville. I know exactly the dregs you are talking about and I know what it’s like to have to live amongst them. And I did exactly as I told you. I put my head down and grinded out, allowing me to get out to an organization that isn’t in a shithole like Florida. Have the serenity to recognize the things you cannot change and all that.

Now, let’s head over to line two where we have Jake from Orchard Park, New York. Jake, welcome to the show.

It’s just Jake Fromm, Jalen.

Huh?

You said Jake Fromm Orchard Park. Orchard Park is the place in which I am standing placing this call but my name ends with Fromm. Maybe you meant Jake Fromm from Orchard Park? =)

State your question, Bozo.

Got a teammate in the quarterbacks room who is big on crypto. Says millennials are really driving this current Bitcoin surge and I wanted to ask if I should be buying now for a long hold or is this just another spike that’ll drop off and, if now is not the time, when I should start looking at crypto? 

Bitcoin is surging now around $18.5k/$BTC, it’s highest point since December 2017 when it shot up to $20k/$BTC. And that’s what I don’t like — the surging. Lots of economists point to the recent value spike — and by it, I mean all blockchain currencies of which Bitcoin is the most popular — as a result of Visa and Mastercard strongly looking at blockchain as a part of the transaction landscape in the future.

Matt says it’s going to replace gold.

‘Matt Barkley says’ isn’t exactly how I like to handle portfolio advice here on The Jalen Ramsey Show but there’s some truth to that. When you consider that, since fiat currency has replaced gold, gold has lost most its practical value as a day-to-day trading standing. I mean, you gonna buy drugs with gold? No. But you can get drugs, hitmen, and anything else you’d like on the dark web utilizing crypto. And the true beauty of crypto is the blockchain, which prevents counterfeiting and wholly secures the currency within it’s universe. In theory anyways. Oh — but it requires electricity and an internet connection.

I’m thinking, you know, maybe $BTC is the bubble currency and I should be looking at the Augers (REP) and Orchids (OXT) of the arena to take off?

Well, I don’t like to get far into the investments arena on here because, as I’ve mentioned in the past, I lean heavily on my advisor for a wholistic assessment of my portfolio and we are only discussing a snapshot today. But here’s what I’ll say: first, most $BTC ownership is in hold, even as we approach an all time high (ATH). It’s more of a Tesla type stock in that they’re working on something new that is far from the standard. Second, I like that this surge is not showing up on Good Morning America or being discussed on The View. Have you seen the Google search history for Bitcoin?

Nothing drives a bubble like poorly-informed people jumping on the bandwagon. Third, crypto should be a part of your portfolio now and, frankly, should have been even a small amount before. Now I wouldn’t be asking for my paycheck in Etherium — which, by the way, I wouldn’t play much outside BTC and ETH with cryptos — but it’s not the worst long shot. Hell, even if it cycles back down and you can wait a couple years, it’s a good medium-term hold but, and I mean this, a very low — like zero-esque — floor. Most of the problem with crypto investing is that it just doesn’t have a track history so advisors can’t make a call on it because, frankly, most of what they do it just lean on history and leadership information — two things BTC is without at the current time.

Do you, uh, do you think like, with the poor performance of the Sacagawea dollar coin that, you know, that maybe a BitBUCK would do better than a BitCOIN?

Good God. The Buffalo Bills quarterback room is absolutely insufferable. I’m ending this call and I’m ending this week.

Not the greatest slate of callers this week but, hey, I’m just gonna focus on what I am thankful for here and not being stuck in either Michigan or New York for the winter is a huge blessing. What say you, Ramsey Nation? Let us know in the comments and, as always, SMASH that subscribe button. In the mean time, you all enjoy your Turkey Day with or without your loved ones and, as we say every week, sit tight, mask up, and we’ll see you next time, right here, on The Jalen Ramsey Show.