Great Dane Nation Podcast, NFL Picks, Odds

Great Dane Nation

VegasInsider.com is proud to announce "Great Dane Nation", our newest NFL and sports betting podcast featuring NFL Hall of Fame kicker Morten "The Great Dane" Andersen and VI’s own experts.

Each week, Morten “The Great Dane” Andersen will be joined by other legends of the game to talk about their life in football, tell stories, talk about today’s NFL and bring our listeners inside the locker room in a way they’ve never been before.

Along the way, Morten will be joined by his sidekick, TommyFreezePops (Tom Carroll), who will be joined by one of our experts from VegasInsider.com to discuss the upcoming weekend’s slate of NFL games and offer up weekly FREE PICKS.

If you love football past and present, "Great Dane Nation" is the perfect podcast for you.

Download or stream all episodes of the "Great Dane Nation" podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, Spreaker, iHeart, and Castbox.

For all advertising inquiries, contact us at gdn@bettercollective.com.

Listen to "Episode 6: Dick Butkus" on Spreaker.

Episode 6 - Dick Butkus

On the sixth episode of “Great Dane Nation,” Morten is joined by his Pro Football Hall of Fame brother and Chicago Bears legend Dick Butkus (10:09 – 43:40).

But first, he checks in with TommyFreezePops (Tom Carroll) to talk about the weekend that was in the NFL (01:12). The guys lead off with a conversation about Dak Prescott’s devastating injury, and whether Morten had ever seen anything like that in his 25 years in the league (01:19).

Then, Morten weighs in on the benching of Michael Thomas in New Orleans, and how it reminds him of an incident with Craig “Ironhead” Heyward during his days with the Saints (03:48). He also relates this incident to playing with Randy Moss in Minnesota in 2004 (06:49).

We then move to our interview with Dick, where he discusses a wide array of topics:

The Legendary Bear

replacing Bill George and the creation of the middle linebacker position (10:52);
why he chose to play for the Chicago Bears in the NFL instead of the Denver Broncos in the AFL (12:07);
how close he was to signing with the New York Jets (17:24);
extended thoughts on the passing of his great friend Gale Sayers (19:01);
his time playing at the University of Illinois and the unveiling of his statue on campus last year (26:47);
the Bears amazing legacy at the linebacker position, and why he thinks the organization has been so successful at this position (28:09);
why he made a career of avoiding unnecessary contact while still being one of the most ferocious tacklers in NFL history (30:35);
what exactly goes on at the bottom of the pile on the football field (32:52);
a poem that Deacon Jones used to recite about Dick (33:29);
what got him into acting and why it became his career after retiring from football (35:09);
and his work with the Butkus Award and Butkus Foundation, and how he’s helping save lives through a program that saved his own life (38:55).

Mark "The Shark" joins Tommy to Handicap NFL Week 6

Then, TommyFreezePops is joined by Mark Franco for his weekly check-in with the experts from VegasInsider.com (47:13 – 54:00).

With Chicago sitting at 4-1, are the Nick Foles-led Bears a legit threat in the NFC? Mark shares his thoughts (48:00).

They also talk about the Pittsburgh Steelers hosting the red-hot Cleveland Browns (48:47), the battle of the GOATs between Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers (50:13), and a matchup of two first place teams in the AFC looking to bounce back as the Kansas City Chiefs head to Buffalo to take on the Bills (51:21).

Game Winner

Finally, we close things out with Morten’s “Game Winner” – a weekly segment where Morten monologues his biggest takeaway of the week. This week, he talks about his friend Dick Butkus, and how he redefined what it meant to be a linebacker (54:00).

The Great Dane Nation Podcast