About Rich and Nate

Rich grew up in Cleveland during the long, torturous era where the Browns’ greatest achievement was inventing new and creative ways to lose. He loved two things more than anything: wrestling in dingy high school gyms and yelling at his TV about blown coverages. Naturally, he raised his son Nate the same way.

By age 8, Nate had spent 3 years on the mat. By age 10, he could name every Browns quarterback since Bernie Kosar — which was an unhealthy number of names for such a young brain to hold. By age 12, he was correcting his dad on the obscure Browns and Notre Dame stats.

So when Rich and Nate found themselves, years later, sitting around after a particularly bad Browns loss (it was Week 1, naturally), they realized they had two choices: 1. Cry into a plate of pierogies. 2. Start a podcast.

They chose the second option.

They called it “Flagrant Foul” — partly because it sounded tough, partly because Rich thought it was a basketball term, and partly because Nate just liked saying it dramatically into a microphone.

The show was chaos. One minute, they were breaking down Browns draft busts like they were discussing Shakespearean tragedies. The next, Rich was challenging Nate to describe which Star Wars character would make the best middle linebacker (Chewbacca, obviously). Every episode ended with a debate over whether Journey or Metallica would win in a no-holds-barred cage match, and somehow it always ended with Rich screaming “Don’t Stop Believin’” while Nate threw his headset in mock disgust.

Their listeners — mostly other tortured Browns fans, a few ex-wrestlers, and at least one guy who just thought it was a music review show — loved it.

The podcast didn’t make them rich (though one guy did pay them $20 on Venmo to stop singing Bon Jovi), but it gave them something better: a reason to laugh every week.

And in Cleveland, if you can laugh and still root for the Browns, you’ve basically achieved enlightenment.