The Bill Simmons Podcast - A 2023 NFL Re-Draft, Deion’s Next School, the 76ers Soap Opera, and Week 3 Picks With Danny Kelly, Van Lathan, and Howard Beck

Episode Date: September 22, 2023

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Danny Kelly to re-draft the top NFL rookies after Week 2 (1:45), before Bill makes his Million Dollar Picks for NFL Week 3 (30:51). Then Bill talks with Van Lathan about the top five college football coaches he thinks should be watching out for Deion Sanders taking their job (40:57). Finally, Bill talks with Howard Beck about joining The Ringer, the story lines dominating the upcoming NBA season, stories from Beck's time covering Kobe Bryant and the Lakers, and more (1:20:00). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Danny Kelly, Van Lathan, and Howard Beck Producer: Kyle Crichton The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming, please checkout theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, football. College football? Basketball. Next. It's the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sportsbook

is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good.

And then trying to back what you think in those first few weeks and then zag the other way if you were wrong. You could bet on new and fun markets on FanDuel like to catch a pass, same game parlays, highest scoring game across the Sunday slate, offensive TDs in the next drive. They have so much stuff. It's crazy. The app is safe and secure and easy to use. And when you win, you'll get paid instantly. Plus, look out for FanDuel Squares this season. Here's what you

have to do. Visit FanDuel.com slash BS to download America's number one sportsbook. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit RG-Help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler

or visit rg-help.com. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day, all the gangs here, you're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air? Moments like that are when you want a light beer that tastes like beer, that's delicious. You don't want to load up on those heavier beers and then you only have two of them. Then you feel tired. Your stomach feels full. Miller Lite, it's your friend. It just accompanies whatever else you're doing. You're super happy

with it. Opening an ice cold Miller Lite can signal the beginning of Miller time. Miller Lite is the light beer with all the great beer tastes we like. 90 calories per 355 mil can. So why not grab some Miller Lites today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network.

Hope you listened to the rewatchables on Monday night. We did also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. Hope you listened to the rewatchables on Monday night. We did A Bronx Tale, have a very special one coming on Monday night. That's one of my favorite movies ever. Stay tuned for that. Coming up on this podcast, we had a lot going on. I brought Danny Kelly on from the Ringer to basically redraft the first 15 picks of the 2023 NFL draft to try to figure out who the best rookies have been this year. And we talked a little about Dallas's bad injury look as well and what he thinks of the Seahawks. So that's first. Then our friend Van Lathan came on. I had to get some college football on the pod this year because I've actually been watching it.

And he came on to talk about five teams, five coaches that should be terrified that Deion Sanders is about to take his job. So we did that. And then last but not least, Howard Beck, who has just joined the ringer. He is somebody that has been in our orbit for a while, but now we get to finally work with him day after day. And he's an awesome basketball writer and a great basketball voice. And he's going to hop on and talk about the upcoming season

and tell a couple of Kobe Bryant stories as well. So that is the podcast. It's a good one. Let's bring in our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, Danny Kelly is here. We have a really fun gimmick coming up in a second. But right before we started taping, Diggs goes out for the year for the Cowboys. What does this do in your mind for top teams in the league? Oh, man, that's a good question.

I mean, clearly, because their defense just was so dominant. He's such a good player at creating turnovers. Definitely hurts them. I still think they're still up there among the best teams, though. Yeah. It's just their defense seemed like was the best unit of anyone's unit in either conference.

And I wonder how much that compromises it. But too bad though. Poor Cowboys fans. Can't they have nice things? Can we figure out a way to make ACLs indestructible?

I feel like science should be caught up with this by now. We should at least ban them from practice ACL tears. It could only like happen during a game and practice is not allowed. Anyway, sorry least ban them from practice ACL tears. It could only like happen during a game and practice is not allowed. Anyway, sorry to the Cowboy fans out

there. All right. We are doing a gimmick. This is the earliest anyone has ever tried this gimmick during a season. We're not even in week three yet, but I asked you to do a redraft of the top 15 picks of the 2023 draft. And the reason I asked you is because this was a goofy draft to begin with. You do our draft guide for us. You're one of the hosts on our draft show. We knew this was going to be a weird draft. But now as I watch the rookies unfold and who's jumping out at me on TVs, it struck me like I have no idea what the order would be. You have baby Rhino fell to the Eagles at nine. He would clearly be higher. I think Stroud would go over Bryce. I think Christian Gonzalez would go way higher.

You could even argue the running backs. Everybody was much maligned at eight and 12. Those might be higher. So I'm just unleashing. And what we're going to do is I'm going to say who made the pick in April and what they did. And then you're going to say what you think they would do if they could have a redo right now heading into week three. So the first

pick is Carolina Panthers who took Bryce Young. They traded into this pick. There was a lot of Bryce Young, Stroud, who's it going to be? And then they settled on Bryce Young. What do you think the Panthers would do if they could redo this? That's a

great question. So I put CJ Stroud. I think at the end of the day, if we're being totally realistic, teams are pretty stubborn and like to stick to their take. So maybe they take Bryce again. But if I were them, I would take CJ Stroud. I mean, what we've seen from him through a couple of weeks is really, really encouraging. He was my number one quarterback anyway. So this makes a lot of sense for me. Just go with Stroud. He's looked like, to me, the big thing is like, it doesn't look too big for him. It doesn't look too fast for him so far. The Texans have not been on my TVs a bunch

these first two weeks, but I've been, couldn't help but notice all this CJ Stroud praise. Who, I'm going to check him out a little more carefully this week because I like that Jacksonville spot.

They're getting a lot of points and I think that's going to be an interesting game. What QB does he remind you of? That's a good question. I think Dak comes to mind. Just kind of like a, he's poised. He's accurate. He's like a ball distributor.

I mean, he's got actually, his receivers have been a lot better than I thought. Like Nico Collins looks like he could be a future star. You know, Robert Woods is in there kind of just doing his thing. And Tank Dell, the rookie, the like 150-some pound rookie, looks really exciting.

So they've got some guys there. And I think just mostly Stroud, to me, again, it doesn't really feel like the game is too fast for him. He's doing a few things out of structure, but they've asked him to throw a lot. I think he's second in the NFL in pass attempts right now. And I thought he's acquitted himself really well. He looks like he, to me, is going to be

a longtime starter. Dell was getting some fantasy waiver action in all of my links. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. People were jumping on that one. Okay, Houston second.

He just took CJ Stroud from them. They're devastated. Yeah. What do they do if they had that second pick? I mean, you think they just take Bryce

and like, screw it? No, I put Richardson, Anthony Richardson. Even though I kind of hate it for Anthony Richardson, I wanted to keep Anthony Richardson on the Colts because I think their coaching staff is really just perfect for him and their system and their scheme and everything. But I mean, if we're being honest,

what we've seen from Richardson over a couple of weeks is, again, very, very encouraging. This game doesn't look too fast for him. You know, he's obviously going to be really dangerous with what he can do with his legs. And the way that he gets the ball out, he avoids sacks. I think all of this is super encouraging. He does not look to me like a guy

that was basically touted as super raw and super inexperienced. He doesn't look to me like that type of guy. I think the future is really bright for this guy if he can stay healthy, of course. There's a physicality slash air to him that I like. Hard to explain. I don't even know what the word

is, but it reminds me a little of Anthony Edwards in basketball where he just has this look physically like, I'm ready to run over whoever I need to run over. That's why it was such a bummer when he got concussed in week two because that seemed like that was a possible breakout game for him. I think that was a freak thing.

I'm hoping that was a freak thing. It wasn't necessarily an indication of how he plays or whatever. But yeah, it's definitely concerning. Don't want to see him getting hurt so quickly. A couple of these rookie quarterbacks are already hurt. But yeah, I mean, he was the most athletic quarterback of all time, literally, at the combine. Yeah, he was the most athletic quarterback of all time, literally, at the combine.

Right. Yeah, he's fun. We're seeing that. Yeah. Their O-line was a little banged up this week, so maybe this is a good game for him to skip if Minshew ends up playing. Yeah. Houston's also on the board with the third pick.

They took Will Anderson, who I think people have liked. I think he's been a thumbs up, but do you think he would go third if we did a redraft? I do. I put Will Anderson here. I know that's not the most exciting thing ever, but I think they obviously were very

convicted on him. They obviously moved up really far to get him. Big trade. Yeah. They gave up a future first for that.

They gave up a 12, a future first, and then one other was like a second or third, but it was a lot. Yeah. So I think they would stick with this pick.

I mean, he's been really good. He's been really disruptive, getting a lot of pressure. He just looks the part. You know, he passes the eye test. So I think they would stick with that one. You liked him in the draft guide, right? I remember you were more focused. Because he turned into a pretty polarizing guy.

Like, who is this? What is he going to be? I think there was some worry that he was a little light. Not on the same level as some of the top tier pass rushers of the past. He's not quite as big as some of the guys we've seen.

Like a Bosa or whoever. But I think his explosiveness and just overall skill set, he's good against the run. He can get after the passer. I think the way that the Texans have been utilizing him so far, at least from what I've seen, is pretty exciting. Kind of letting him go out and pin his ears back a little bit. And so, yeah, he's looked really good so far. The Texans are definitely a little bit better than I expected team. Yeah, for sure. And the Bears are exactly as bad as I thought

they might be. But the Texans are, yeah, a little friskier. They'll at some point, and I'm not sure when, over the next five weeks, ruin a three-team parlay or tease. They're just going to demolish it. Nobody's going to see it coming. All right, here's where it gets interesting. You just took Anthony Richardson from, and I think I agree with your top three, by the way. Okay.

Unless you wanted to throw Baby Rhino in there for Houston. All right, so Indy on the clock. They took Richardson, which turned out great for them so far. Now he's off the board in this redraft. Who would you have there? I think, so this is going to be controversial, I'm sure. But for the content, Bijan Robinson. So obviously they've ruined their relationship with Jonathan Taylor.

That ship seems to have sailed. I don't think that they're going to, it doesn't feel like they're going their relationship with Jonathan Taylor. That ship seems to have sailed. I don't think that they're going to, it doesn't feel like they're going to rekindle that, at least to the point where they're going to re-sign him. I don't know. From what I've seen for B. John Robinson, he looks to me like he's the best running back in the NFL. He looks like, and by the way, the way they're using him as a receiver,

they're splitting him out, running him all over the field. This is like, he is actually doing the things we always talk about running backs doing, but then it never happens. Like, B. John Robinson is actually like a positionless player. He's like Debo Samuel, but like more explosive. And so, you know, obviously that's me rationalizing taking him so high, but just the way that, just how explosive he is, if they don't have Anthony Richardson or CJ Stroud there,

I don't think Chris Ballard is going to take a guy like Bryce. Yeah. Well, from what we've seen from Bryce too, it's a little worse. A little shaky so far. There's a is he too small question that I think could be legitimately asked. I couldn't agree more wholeheartedly on Bijan.

I know it's just idiotic to take a running back that high, but he leaps off the TV. more wholeheartedly on Bijan. I know it's just idiotic to take a running back that high, but he leaps off the TV. I don't know if he's the best running back in the league. He might be, but he's certainly the most exciting. I mean, it just feels like any screen pass, any handoff, any sweep, you're surprised when he gets tackled.

He seems like what it's like to watch an awesome college football running back, but he's doing that at the NFL level. And I think Packers are good. He kind of tore him up a little bit. And clearly their only concern is they don't want to give him too many touches, too many carries. They don't want to put too much of a workload on him. So he's always around, what, 12 to 15 carries,

maybe a couple screens. I'm with you. I think if you're going to say who's the most talented running back in the league, he would be the first pick, right? Who else would you even put against him? I mean, Chubb, but that obviously changes

things now, and so I don't know. And Chubb didn't catch the ball. He's not a pass receiver threat, I don't think, like Bijan is. As you said, Bijan can turn into Debo Samuel out of nowhere. I think the only guy that really, at this point,

compares to him is Christian McCaffrey, but they're not even like really stylistically that similar. I don't know. It's like Christian McCaffrey is a little smaller and he's more versatile as a receiver. Bijan is just, he's like 220 pounds and, you know, raw power.

And the way that he moves is so unique. I feel like you can see that on the first run he had in the NFL where he just cuts. He just cuts on a dime. I've been kind of comparing him to the top gun line where he's like, I just hit the brakes and let him fly by. But he does it so subtly.

You see defenders run past him three or four times on one play. You know what I mean? And so he's just incredible. So I'm really excited about that. Of course, the Colts could have taken Jalen Carter here, but I did it for the content. I did it for the whole Jonathan Taylor storyline too. I love it and I completely support it. All right. So you got your beloved Seattle Seahawks, or we're on the clock at five here.

They took Witherspoon, the cornerback, in the first iteration. Who do they take, in your opinion, now? This is already a discussion in Seattle. It's already heating up. It's already heating up. Is it on the text threads? It's already on the text threads. I think most people are still pretty bullish on Devin Witherspoon. I think he looked good in the first game they played

this last week, but I'm going with Jalen Carter here simply because he's been one of the best interior defenders in the NFL, period. Not even among rookies. One of the best interior defenders in the NFL, period. Not even among rookies. One of the best interior defenders in the NFL. He looks unstoppable. So, obviously, I think the reason the Seahawks didn't take him was not necessarily related to football at all.

I'm guessing they probably had a really high grade on him from a football point of view. But internally, what I've heard is that they just wanted guys who were really, really hardcore competitors. And that was some of the question marks that you had about Jalen Carter coming in. And he landed on a team that has a really good support system. Some of his former teammates there. So hopefully it works out for him there. But

I think just on the football field, man, he would be really very helpful for what the Seahawks are trying to do. Because their defensive line has not been outstanding so far. Well, with the legal issues he had, five was aggressive. Nine was like, all right, this is ridiculous. Don't let him fall.

So it was somewhere between five and nine. I think five, they would have taken some heat for a couple minutes. And then by, what, June, all the Seahawks fans were like, holy shit, we got Jalen Carter. Right. Exactly. The thing that's crazy about him, he's old school in the sense that

because the Pats went up against him week one and then I watched week two with Minnesota, obviously. But he takes up space. He's one of those guys that It's a big body. It's just like putting a building in the middle of the game. And then just things move. The offensive

line just kind of moves backward and he's involved. So you almost can't even see half the stuff he's doing. It's just a brute force thing. I think the fact that they got him at nine is just an outrage. It really is upsetting. It's upsetting. I wish Arizona had taken him. Why didn't someone else take him?

Yeah, like Arizona. He's sitting there. Arizona's here at number six. They took Paris Johnson, who was considered to be the best tackle in the draft. What do you think they'd do if they have a do-over there? I mean, I think they would still be happy with Johnson, but I put Christian Gonzalez here. I think...

Oh, are we doing this now? Yeah, let's do it. Oh, let's do it. He was my number seven player coming into the draft, and I feel pretty confident that I was on the right side of that story in terms of just what we've seen from him so far. He looks like physically, athletically, schematically, he's so versatile,

so fast, so explosive, so big, so long. He has everything you want from a corner. I still truly don't really understand how he fell to the Patriots where he fell. So I don't know, man. To me, he looks like a difference maker, a guy that can really change your defense. And when we've seen things from like Sauce Gardner, what he did, what he's done for the Jets defense, I don't know why he wouldn't go higher.

It's been one of the great gifts of my last couple of years. I mean, I'm still recovering from the Mookie Betts trade. It's going to take forever. So it's just little victories that are trying to make me feel better. But Gonzalez going to 17. I mean, he took on Tyreek a few times, especially in the second half in that Sunday night game and stayed in the vicinity of him and got a big interception.

He's one of those, like, you kind of know it right away. You had it with Russell Wilson, ironically, in 2012 where you start hearing the buzz in like late June July the stuff starts coming in the other players start talking about him and he's had all those check marks to me he reminds me of uh of Rod Woodson when Rod Woodson was a cornerback in the early Rod Woodson days like just like just a ridiculous athlete he's always in the right spots. He's really competitive. If you had to rank

who is the best type of player to have on a rookie contract, quarterback would be number one. Would you go left tackle or a cornerback, shutdown cornerback, number two, for what the price is

compared to what the price is going to be when they're a free agent? That's a great question. I guess probably tackle, but by a hair. It kind of depends. Tackle is just hard because he protects your quarterback. That's like

the number one thing, right? But I think corner, like I said, it can kind of change the whole complexion of your defense. I mean, look at Sauce Gardner. He can shut down the entire side of a field. That really limits what the other team can do. And so I think, obviously, these are big impact players. They get paid like it.

And like you said, getting a guy on a rookie contract that can completely take out a number one receiver or shut down one side of the field is a massive competitive advantage. You know what's bonkers about him? He turned 21 in June. Yeah. It's not like what's bonkers about him he turned 21 in June yeah like it's not like

he's like one of those like we had Kyle Duggar you know he was like 24 when he was a rookie right right right like he's the opposite of that he could

you could argue he should probably even be in college another year but yeah they they finally struck oil and that's why it's really hard for me

to give up on this Pats team because the defense that they added in the draft combined with what they already had like it potentially could be an awesome unit, but the offense just can't stay out of its way and they make no explosive plays at all. Yeah.

It's depressing. I don't want to talk about that. Vegas is number seven. They took Tyree Wilson. Yeah. And people were confused when it happened. I think I do not see him going in that spot again. Who would you think they would take? I know. I do not see him going in that spot again. Who would you think they would take? I know. I think I saw the stat. Tyree Wilson has zero pressures so far. He has 47 pass rush snaps, which is tough.

I think he's going to have to learn how to vary his attack and not just be a pure power rusher. But yeah, so I didn't have Tyree Wilson there. This one was hard. I considered putting Bryce Young here. I think they're probably happy with Jimmy G, though. They're happy with

Aiden O'Connell as the fourth rounder. That too. I like that dude. That's true. I put Devin Witherspoon. I think obviously the jury's still out

on him a little bit. He did give up a touchdown last week on a flea flicker, so he kind of got out of position on a flea flicker trick play. But for the most part, he looked the part to me when they played the Lions. And so he was breaking up passes.

He was like a tone setter type of player for them, which is exactly what you expect. I think the reason the Seahawks loved him is because he's just uber, uber competitive, tough, physical, a guy who's going to get his teammates pumped up on every single play. Like literally when you watch him, even on the plays where he gives up a catch, he's like barking

at the opponent. He's just like an insane competitor, which I love, and I know the Seahawks love that. I still think he's still a top 10 type player, and I think obviously the Raiders could use some help in the defensive secondary. Is it fair to say we just dropped a level

there from Christian Gonzalez to Witherspoon? Like we're in like a tier two now? Yeah, I think so. I think this is that was like sort of the blue chip type players

and then we get into some more question marks here. So yeah, Witherspoon potential blue chipper but you're not as sure. Like Gonzalez you're more sure. Okay.

Number eight Atlanta you just took Bijon from them. Are you going to give them Jameer Gibbs? No, I'm going to, this is where I'm going with Bryce, Bryce Young. I considered, I really didn't know where to put him. I think I considered, you know, the Raiders. I consider the Titans. I don't think Mike Vrabel is the type of guy who would take a five foot 11, 190 pound guy. I don't know. Maybe he would, but... I don't know.

The Falcons, to me, look like the type of team that would really work well for Bryce Young. They have a sports system in place. They have a great run game, which they absolutely love to depend on. They have a couple of really tall

athletic pass catchers in Kyle Pitts and Drake London who he can throw to. Obviously, the skill player group is way better than in Carolina. I think that gives him a better chance. I don't know. What have you seen from Bryce?

Have you watched a lot of the Panthers so far? I actually watched some of both games because I had them in bets, and especially the Monday night game. I did not like how he looked on Monday night, but that's also your second start. You're on Monday night football. You have no weapons. The Saints, I think, have a good defense.

That was one of the reasons I love them minus three. And of course, they ended up not stopping the backdoor cover at the tail end of the game. But he just looks like he has no weapons to me. And it's weird because I liked that Carolina team last year in the second half of the year. And I thought they had really found an identity as this physical... Foreman was really good for them, and they would just kind of pound the ball and control the clock. Now I don't know what they are.

They have no weapons at all. They have Adam Thielen. He's almost my age. And they don't have that awesome running back. So I don't even know what they're supposed to be. I've never been a Frank Wright guy. So I do think he's in one of the worst situations you can be. I would not give up on him yet. I know that's where I am. I'm like, this isn't a situation that's quite as bad as like the Bears system or support system or

whatever, but it's a little worrisome to me so far, what we've seen. Yeah, I agree. And he's hurt already. So not great. Right. Okay. Number nine is Philly, who you just took baby Rhino from them. So who do you think they'd take? a Roseman pick where it's like he has five position versatility potentially and adds onto their offensive line, which is like a huge part of their identity. You know, he could play right guard, left guard, left tackle in theory,

like right tackle, maybe even center. And so, yeah, I just think he's, you know, typical Eagles pick. Tennessee likes him and he missed,

he had an appendectomy, appendectomy. You think he missed last week, but he's probably not playing this week. And it's one of the reasons I'm nervous about Tennessee and Cleveland because Cleveland's defense looks incredible. I think it's

actually a real thing. So if you're just pulling blue-chip offensive linemen out of there, I don't like it. He's a blue-chip guy too, though, I think. I could have put him even earlier here, but yeah. So Chicago's at 10. They took Darnell Wright, who was another one of the tackles.

You think they just run that back? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. All right, so run that back for them. To me, they're probably pretty happy with that pick, which is the only thing they're happy about right now. I was going to say, things we're happy about are for the Bears. It's the shortest list possible.

Yeah. Tennessee, you took Skowronski from them. Yep. So what do you give them? Broderick Jones? Give them another tackle? Paris Johnson's still on the board here. Oh, all right.

I gave him Paris Johnson. I don't know for sure if he really fits their personality, but they did sign Andre Dillard in the offseason, so maybe I don't know what their personality or identity is because he's a more finesse guy. Paris Johnson, I think, right now now is a really good pass defender, or sorry, pass set guy, but he's not as good of a run blocker. And so, you know, maybe it doesn't fit the Titans all that great, but I think he is the

best tackle on the board here and they need offensive line help. Number 12, Detroit Gibbs. They run that back. Gibbs is electric. I think, yeah. You disagree? No, I don't. I don't disagree at all.

Here's what I did. I gave him Zay Flowers from Boston College. Oh, you moved him up. I like it. Here's the reason why. I think Zay Flowers could do some of the same things Jameer Gibbs does for them, but he also gives them an outside threat with speed. I'm a little bit worried. I'm a little bit worried

about Jamison Williams. I think Jamison Williams, obviously, very talented player, but we have not seen anything from him yet. And he's suspended for the first six weeks. I guess he's away from the team. Who knows what we're going to get from him this year at all. And I think this is a Lions team that could really scheme up some fun ways to use Zay Flowers.

And so basically, I'm saying he could be sort of the Jameer Gibbs role, but also play on the outside, play all over the formation, give them that speed. I do of the Jameer Gibbs role, but also play on the outside, play all over the formation, give them that speed. I do love the Jameer Gibbs thing, though. Save flowers at 12. That's a big win for Baltimore because they got him at 22.

I'm with you. He jumps out of the TV. He's just electric. Really fun. I'm glad Lamar has him. Green Bay at 13. They took Lucas Van Ness, who I think has been pretty spotty for them. Who'd you have to redo? I ran it back with Lucas Van Ness.

You did? Okay. Yeah, I think... So, from what I've seen, he kind of fits their prototype. He's big, strong, athletic, fast, versatile. Kind of like everything they're looking for. I don't know. I haven't studied him very closely yet

on All-22 or anything like that. But the times I've seen him, like there was one play where he chased down Justin Fields in the open field. And I was like, okay, this guy has something here.

And so, yeah, I just kind of ran it back with him. I think he's fine. I mean, there's definitely a few other guys here that I could consider. I did consider Broderick Jones the tackle.

Yeah. Just because of, you know, sounds like Bakhtiari just doesn't want to play on turf ever again, maybe. So that's kind of an interesting wrinkle here. But yeah, I stuck with Van Ness.

All right, we'll do two more. Pittsburgh's at 14 and the Jets are at 15. Pittsburgh took Bradwick Jones. The Jets took Will McDonald, who was a healthy scratch last week. So I'm guessing we're going to be redoing that one. Who do you have? I got, this is a curveball here. Jordan Addison

out of USC. Not a curveball to me. I think he's another one who looks like he's got it. By the way, this guy, Addison, won the Bolitnikoff

catching passes from one Kenny Pickett a couple years ago. Do the whole thing where you pair up your college quarterback with your college receiver. See if that helps.

Obviously, the Steelers offense needs help everywhere it can get. The offensive line has been spotty. I don't even think Broderick Jones is playing yet. They don't really have him in at this point. I don't think he started last week.

I looked it up. He has four snaps. I don't know what's going on there exactly. I think Jordan Addison gives them an immediate boost. Obviously, with Deontay Johnson hurt, he gets in there and then, of course, he has the built-in chemistry with Kenny Pickett, who needs as much help as he can get. So I love that one. I actually think this Chargers-Vikings game this weekend, we might be hearing from him. Yeah, I could see that. Because one thing you can do in the Chargers is

throw the top on them. I know, they have the worst defense. Yeah, Addison enjoys that. Alright, this will be fun. The last pick. Just like the Jets need another kick in the balls if you're a Jets fan. But we're about to do it. They took Will McDonald. Healthy scratch last week. Also 24 years old.

I know. The double red flag. I did not like that pick. He's also very skinny and light. And I don't know. So. So who do you have? I went.

This is one of those picks where you could go a million different ways. I consider Jameer Gibbs since he's still on the board here and they were apparently interested in him. I went Jackson Smith and Jigba from Ohio State. Pair them back up with Garrett Wilson. I feel like the Jets quietly,

their receiver core completely fell apart over the offseason. Corey Davis got hurt. They traded away Elijah Moore. Sorry, Corey Davis got in. He retired. They traded away Elijah Moore. Sorry, Corey Davis got retired. They traded away Elijah Moore. I don't think Alan Lazard is a difference maker. Randall Cobb is getting

snaps. What is going on with this receiver? They have nobody really past Garrett Wilson. I think Jackson Smithy Jigba pairing up with his old college teammate, Garrett Wilson. That would be a lot of fun. That would be a big help for Zach Wilson, clearly. I like that one. The Jets just go get a different quarterback if it's not working out.

I don't know. Who for you has won the tight end, the Kincaid and Sam Laporta and Musgrave? Who's your favorite? Oh, and Michael Mayer. Who's been your favorite out of those four? I think probably Laporta, honestly. I think Kincaid was my favorite coming in. And it's not like he's done anything

that's really disappointing at this point. He's playing. He's getting a lot of looks and he's already making plays for them. So that's saying something for a rookie tight end. I think I saw there's more rookie tight end catches in week one than any other year before. So this is sort of a new era.

Rookie tight ends are going to come in. And basically because they're slot receivers at this point. But I would say Laporta has really looked apart. I mean, he's like, he looks like Kittle, like when he's out there,

he's breaking tackles. He's just powering through guys. He's running after the catch. I mean, obviously there's the Iowa connection, but he looks like Kittle to me out there. And so I'm really excited about what he can do. What did you see?

Your team played the Lions last week. What did you see from the Lions that made you either think they were a playoff team or maybe a team that we overrated? I think you texted this to me. There's no difference between the Seahawks and the Lions. They're the same team. They're the same team.

They're like a plucky, good vibes team with a really good offense, but a very spotty defense. I don't know exactly what to expect from either of these teams' defenses. But offensively, the Lions, to me, are one of the most fun teams to watch. The way that they mix things up,

the skill players they have. Amon Ross St. Brown is awesome. Jameer Gibbs looks super electric. Laporte is a fun player. And I think Jared Goff, honestly, he kind of gets a bad rap for, he had a couple of very bad seasons, but he's a very solid quarterback,

kind of like in the same vein as Geno Smith. So to me, like you said, these are very similar styled teams. It feels like there's only one playoff spot for the two teams, and maybe it'll come down to that game, like some sort of tiebreaker or whatever, but

I'm with you. I thought Detroit got too much hype. I thought Jacksonville got too much hype, and I thought the Chargers got too much hype, but I think Detroit roaring back and being a playoff team would be the least surprising out of those three. The Chargers just seem like they're headed toward

a coach firing or something awful. Yeah, they're just doing what they do. Wait, before we go, America's going to ask, like we did 15 people in a redraft, where's Puka, the greatest receiver of all time? Why did we leave him out? He's Don Hudson.

Oh, man. I was so conflicted here. For real, I put him with the Lions at first just because he could play that sort of Robert Woods-style role with the Lions. I think Puka is basically playing the Robert Woods role for the Rams right now, and he's doing it incredibly. He has, I think, 35 targets to start the season,

which is absolutely unheard of. But I don't know. at the end of the day, like realistically, I don't think he goes top 15, but I mean, he's clearly very good. He clearly belongs in the NFL, so. He's an amazing story. Yeah, he just looks like those Welker, Edelman, just, he's just always open.

Yeah. He catches everything. It doesn't matter if you're hitting him as he catches it, he still catches it. He's not like crazy explosive, but just like third and eight, he just seems like he knows how to get open. Just kind of like, I think he's for real.

Keenan Allen style player. Like, yeah, just gets open and catches the ball. So he's been awesome. Incredible. All right, Danny Kelly,

we can hear on the ringer fantasy football show and we can read you on the ringer.com. Good to see you. You too. All right. Million dollar picks week three. Here's who we're staying away from this week. Vikings Chargers. It's in Minnesota. The line's like one, one and a half. And I really want to take the Vikings. I don't trust them. I don't trust the Chargers. It's a classic stay away. Colts Ravens. I was a little intrigued by the Colts plus eight and a half, but, uh, and Gardner Minshew. But, uh, I just, I'm tired of losing money to the Ravens, I was a little intrigued by the Colts plus eight and a half and Gardner Minshew,

but I'm tired of losing money to the Ravens. Maybe they're just good. Maybe I just have to accept it and move on. The Seattle Carolina game, I kept looking at and trying to figure out with a parlay, putting Seattle, taking their money line, throwing it with some other teams. But then Andy Dalton got named the starter of this terrible Carolina team. And he actually dusted Seattle last year when he was on the Saints. So that scared me off. So we're going to cross them off too. But I do have some delightful picks for you for week three.

I actually kind of like week three. First one, Falcons are plus three at Detroit. I don't think Detroit's defense is good. I like this Falcons team, despite my Desmond Ritter affairs. We just talked about how good Bijan Robinson looks with Danny Kelly. I think the Falcons can just run the ball, keep the ball. I think they have an identity. I think they think they're good. They like playing indoors. And I just think this is an either team could win game. So if I'm getting plus three, fantastic.

Taking that. Packers are home for the Saints and this line is only one and a half and it's because the Packers have had a couple injuries. Watson seems like he's going to play finally this season for them. Aaron Jones isn't practicing and the Saints, they're 2-0, right?

Well, let's look at that 2-0. They barely beat Tennessee with Tannehill just completely falling apart. It took them three quarters to even get going against that awful Carolina team. And then they finally pulled away in the fourth quarter. But they have scored 37 points in two games. Good defense. I really like this Packers team. I thought they should have beaten Atlanta last week.

I like that Atlanta team too. Derek Carr on the road outside. I don't know if you saw Derek Carr against Carolina, but there was a couple moments where it was like, you guys actually have to bring in Taysom Hill here. So I think this line is off. I think it should be Packers by three. And again, I like this Packers team.

I like them to win that division. We're taking Packers minus one and a half. Patriots-Jets. I got to do it. The Pats are minus two and a half against Zach Wilson. It's in New Jersey. I don't think that matters because the Jets fans are so bummed out. I don't even think it matters where the game's being played. They're all going to be sad. Here's the thing with the Pats. If they lose this game, they're 0-3. If they lose this game, real questions open up about Mac Jones, who has had 35 starts and has one, I repeat, one fourth quarter comeback. And that actually seems high because I don't even remember what the comeback was. He also has one game winning drive and he has four pick sixes. And I'm on a lot of

Mac Jones threads right now wondering, is he even as good as Matt Kavanaugh was when I was growing up? This is, in my opinion, probably the biggest game of his career. He's played in playoff games. I get it. But this is like, if you go on three, you lose to Zach Wilson, it's done. If you're Belichick, you've owned the Jets. This is the one thing you've had other than all the Super Bowls and all the dominants in the AFCs. But deep down, you've owned the Jets. This is the one thing you've had other than all the Super Bowls and all the dominants in the AFCs. But deep down, you've owned the Jets. And you've owned Zach Wilson. You've owned bad quarterbacks.

You always know if Belichick knows if somebody's a bad quarterback when he talks about how he can make all the throws. There's some good Boston social media stuff about this. If they lose this game, pack up the season and start tanking and start going for Caleb Williams. That's what you got to do. If Belichick is as smart

as we all think he is and know he is, you almost have to throw away the season and start thinking about how can we get the number one pick? Because if you can't beat

Zach Wilson with the defense that the Patriots have, with all the plays they left on the field in those first two games, you can't cover minus three against the Jets? This is minus two and a half.

Win by a field goal. I got to take it. I think Zach Wilson is an absolute affront to the quarterback position. He is the worst. He's the worst in the league and a league that has Justin Fields in it. So, Pats minus two and a half. We're grabbing that. And then, I love this one. So, this is one of those you can't overreact to the first two and a half. We're grabbing that. And then I love this one. So this is one of those,

you can't overreact to the first two weeks too much. You can overreact a little. I stared at Bengals minus three against the Rams for a long time. And ultimately, I just cannot get there from a fear staring point with the Bengals. They have looked so bad in the first two games. I know Burrow's not healthy. I know their defense isn't as good and I just don't trust them. And if you'd give me that line before the season, before we knew Burrow got hurt, you would have guessed it was like Bengals by eight and a half. Now it's Bengals by three in a must-win game in their own two. And I can't pull the trigger on that. I just can't. But I can pull the trigger on the Steelers in Las Vegas laying two and a half. I think this is one of

the gift lines of the year. The Raiders are terrible. The Raiders have scored 27 points in two weeks and their defense stinks. Other than that, they're doing great. Pittsburgh has played two of the three best defenses in the league, San Francisco and Cleveland. Cleveland's dominant. They've been amazing. The only great defense I haven't played yet is Dallas, but now you get to relax. You get to play this goofy Vegas team and finally get some first downs, get some drives. I still believe in the Steelers. I don't know why, but I do. And if I believe in the Steelers, I got to lay the minus two and a half. So that's the fourth one. And then last but not least, we didn't do a parlay in the first two weeks,

but we're going to do on today. The parlay is plus one 11 and it involves two alternate lines, Dallas minus two and a half against Arizona. All they have to do is one by three chiefs minus two and a half. All they have to do is one by three against Chicago. And then we're throwing Browns minus 184 as the third piece. And the reason we're doing that is because this line is three and a half. I don't trust Deshaun Watson and his hodgepodge running back post Nick Chubb committee to

protect a three and a half to cover that. But I do think the defense is so good that they're going to win this game. The defense is unbelievable. They held the Bengals to six first downs. They kept the Browns in that game against Pittsburgh, even though Pittsburgh had two defensive TDs. And I just think the Browns defense can win this game by itself. It's a little win-win for Nick Chubb. Vrabel always scares me, but from what I've seen from Ryan Tano in the first two weeks, I don't think he's ready for a defense like this. I just don't. I think they're, and Derrick Henry's hurt. He's limping around. I don't think he's ready for a defense like this. I just don't. I think they're, and Derek Henry's hurt.

He's limping around. They don't have Skowronski, their first round tackle. And this just feels like a Browns defense wins the game. So that is my parlay. Plus 111. Browns minus 184. Dallas minus two and a half. And Chiefs minus two and a half.

I also kind of like on Fandle, they have Sunday's lowest scoring game, plus 650. For Browns Titans. But, you, but defensive touchdowns, who knows? I always lose those bets, so I'm staying away. So we're doing those five. Then last but not least, the Luca Brazzi line, which I'm 2-0 on these for the season. The line that just smells the fishiest. It just looks like it's wrapped in a bulletproof vest and it seems like a complete stay away. The Broncos. So they're at Miami and the Broncos stink. They've lost two games. Russell Wilson, who knows?

He's on a time clock. This could be his last start ever. Miami's look great. Miami is, I think, the class of the AFC right now that could change. But right now, if you're saying, what AFC team do you feel most comfortable picking for a Super Bowl thing? You'd probably say Miami. Why is this line only six and a half? Why are the Broncos only getting six and a half in Miami

against the explosive Dolphins? The Broncos that just got torched by Washington last week, by all these, you know, Brian Robinson, Sam Howes running around. What, what happened to them in that game? Does Denver just stink? Yeah, they probably do. Why is the line only six and a half? We're going to take the Broncos plus six and a half for 50 K. And that is our last pick. I'll tell you this. I looked long and hard at the commanders, um, plus six and a half at home against Buffalo. And I just couldn't quite get there.

But I thought that was enticing too. Anyway, here are the picks for week three. 200K on Falcons plus three. Packers minus one and a half. Steelers minus two and a half. Patriots minus two and a half. Parlay plus 111. Browns to win.

Dallas and Chiefs minus two and a half. And then our Luca Brasi game. 50K on Chiefs minus two and a half. And then our Luca Brasi game 50K on Broncos plus six and a half. We were up $210,000 for the season. Those are the million dollar picks for week three. Step in action this NFL season with FanDuel, America's number one sports book. Right now, new customers get $200 of bonus bets guaranteed. When you place a $5 bet, that's $200 of bonus bets. Win or lose. You just heard all my million-dollar picks.

I have some fun news for you. We're going to be doing another same-game parlay on Sunday with a boost for either the 1 or 4 p.m. window on Sunday. And I'm going to be tweeting that out either Friday or Saturday morning. So stay tuned for that. We hit the one last week with the Patriots. They boosted that up to plus 150 and it won. And I think like 1.5 million bucks Fandle had to pay out. So let's try to keep the streak going. If you've been thinking about joining Fandle, there's no better time to get in on the action. The app is easy to use, and there's a wide range of betting options,

including spreads, player props, overrunners, and more. Visit FanDuel.com slash BS and kick off the NFL season. FanDuel is an official partner of the NFL. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. First, online real money wager. Only $10 for a surprise is required. Bonus issued is not withdrawal, but bonus bets that expire seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply.

See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. You know me, I can't go a day without sports. I really can't. And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right. There's a new exclusive home for streaming Monday night NHL hockey. And it's on Prime.

All season long. Watch prime Monday night hockey, deliver unreal plays. The biggest goals can't miss moments. Matthews, McDavid, Crosby, the NHL is best.

They're all on prime prime Monday night hockey. It's on Monday. It's on prime. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you can still walk or run 60 kilometers,

host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. All right, our friend Van Lathan is here. I've made him the unofficial college football correspondent

of the Bill Simmons podcast. Yeah, yeah. I didn't do that at a press release. It's just, you know, we keep it low. We keep it easy here. As you know, I've been watching more college football this year. I jumped on the Colorado bandwagon. I've had a great time.

It feels like that bandwagon is probably going to either crash or stumble this weekend, would be my guess. But I asked you to give me Van's top five and it could be top five anything. I just said, give me a top five list that somehow captures the fact that you watch college football

all day on Saturday from, when do you start? What is it? 12 straight hours? What is it? Oh, it's all day long. It's as much as I can possibly get.

Waking up, early game, nine o'clock. I miss game day now because game day is like it's seven o'clock or something so i miss game day um wake up workout come back on the couch rest of the day that's it yeah do you have conferences like how does this work when you're like a crazy college like do you is there games that jump out to you or you just go to whatever the closest game is or do you because you're an sec guy is it like is? Or do you, cause you're an SEC guy.

Is it like you want to monitor SEC? What do you do? So it's the games that are in the SEC. It's LSU and then whatever big games are in the SEC. So you can see the way the conference is shaken up. And then it is big games that tell big stories throughout the rest of the day. So Saturday, I'm looking forward to obviously LSU versus Arkansas, battle for the boot. But also you have Notre Dame versus Ohio State.

You have Colorado and Oregon. You have a full slate of big, big Saturday games coming up on this weekend. So I'm looking forward to all of those, you know? Tell me about how is Colorado looking before you do your top five. Hunters out for a couple weeks. This is the hardest part of the schedule. But yet, they always get counted out.

I don't know. I just feel like they're going to be in the mix no matter what happens. They're just a frisky, feisty team. So it's tough, right? It's tough because, like you said, the Colorado bandwagon, right? What does the bandwagon consist of is the actual question.

Does the bandwagon consist of people who are in for the Colorado experiment? Or does the bandwagon consist of people who are in for the Colorado run? So last Saturdayurday when it looked like they were about to lose in the game that they probably should have lost when it looked like they were about to lose i saw a whole bunch of people on twitter being like well it looks like my experiment with college football is coming to an end and my question is because

there are tons of casual fans that are coming into the game because Deion is such a magnetic character my question is why would a loss eject you from the Colorado bandwagon like Deion Sanders is at Colorado this is his first year it's a full college football season that goes from September on to the national championship game yeah and I certainly don't think that there's anybody out there that believes they're going to get a 12 and 0 season from colorado so i'm kind of wondering the bandwagon shouldn't lose any people it really shouldn't gain any people based upon how well the team is doing if you're there for what he's doing then you should be there for what he's doing you know i agree with that and the quarterback is incredibly fun to watch i think that's what i've enjoyed the most um i don't understand the draft list.

I know college, it's hard to translate and stuff, but when I watch him play, he just feels like he has qualities that I would want as an NFL quarterback. He's got incredible poise. He's really strong. He's fast. He makes good decisions.

It's hard for me to believe that's not going to translate on the bigger league. I think there's some questions. Yeah yeah he's moving up some boards i think the thing is whenever somebody comes um from what used to be uh the one double a but now the fcs but for whatever somebody comes from the fcs and they move up you want to see how they're going to adjust to the game on the power five level yeah fbs level and look here's the thing it's like for sure the only thing he can do is continue to put good stuff on tape like the reality is there have been players that have played down there in the old one double a level and really been dogs remember remember steve mc McNair? There have always been guys. Scotty

Anderson from Grambling. Those schools have put out a lot of players. Look at guys like Joe Flacco. Joe Flacco came from a 1AA school as it was called then and strapped it into the league. He was a bounce back, I think, from Michigan.

I'm not sure. Or from one of the schools like that. But a lot of of times there's great talent down there. The question is whether or not Shadua Sanders is one of those guys or whether or not he's just a guy that can operate a college offense to a high degree. But a 98-yard drive on prime time in front of everybody watching in a game where, like I said, your team hadn't played particularly dominant. I mean,

if you don't like that, you don't like football, man. Did you see that the rating... I hate rating stuff for the most part, but I thought it was interesting because that game ended... It was like almost 11 o'clock our time on the West Coast and that game was ending. And it was still a million more viewers than any other game

at any point in the day on Saturday. This team's become a semi-phenomenon. I wanted a reason to go to sleep so bad, bro. I was like, look, State, are you guys going to pull off? I really thought when the tight end made that amazing catch and turned it upfield and scored that that would be a reason because that was the end of my college football day. Like, I had seen so many firsts.

Yeah, yeah. Me and Kalika did not move from the couch the entire day. But the game just kept you. It made you watch. It was awesome. You couldn't have written a better script. Couldn't have written a better script. All right, what top five do you have for us?

All right, I got the top five coaches that should be on De watch. Now let me tell you what I mean by this. What does Dion watch mean? Dion watch means coaches that might get their programs stolen by prime time. Okay. I am not of the belief that Dion Sanders is going to be at Colorado for 10 or 15 years. I don't think that it's going to happen. How many, how many years do you think it's going to be? Okay.

So I think he's got a four year contract and I don't believe that Deion is going to be able to fight off offers from teams that are particularly in a couple of different situations. One situation is just a lot more money, a lot more college football cachet than Colorado has. Some of these schools out here are really, really rich and really dedicated to football. The second thing is in fertile recruiting areas. Obviously now with the internet and private planes and all of that, it's a national recruiting game. However, it is a lot easier to win in college football

when you have proximity to some really great players. Colorado, that area of the country, not necessarily an area with a fertile football base. Like say a Florida. Florida. They happen to have a few

good football players come out of there from time to time. Texas, Louisiana. If you're looking at places like California, Florida. Florida. They happen to have a few good football players come out of there from time to time. Texas. Louisiana. Yeah. If you're looking at places like California. Like, I think the call of that and... So, New Hampshire's out. New Hampshire's out. New Hampshire's out.

Maine is out. You know what I mean? Those places are out. Now, Colorado has been a power before. They have been before. Not that they can't be done. But I'm saying, I don't think Deion will be there for the long term. I'm one of those people. Okay, so your

top five is top five teams that should be worried that Deion is kind of staring over their shoulder a little bit. Top five coaches. I'll start off at number five. Now, this is a long shot for a couple of reasons. We're going to get to higher. We're going from five to one to build

up suspense. We're going from five to one. This is great.'re going from five this is great and it's working great so far i'm having a good time from five to one five is dave aranda dave aranda is the head coach of the baylor bears now things are going bad for baylor if you don't know who dave aranda is dave aranda was formerly the defensive coordinator at nebraska then became the defensive coordinator at Nebraska, then became the defensive coordinator at my LSU Tigers, went down to Baylor and had almost immediate success turning Baylor's program around. If you know anything about Baylor's program, you know that Baylor's program had some issues.

I would say so. Yeah, had some issues. If you had issues that lead to a documentary that's longer than two hours, you had issues. Right. And, you know, because of that, it was tough sledding down there in Baylor. He had a lot of chances to take a lot of different jobs. He took the Baylor job. Now things aren't going so good.

Why would Dion be interested in the job at Baylor? Texas. If Dave Aranda, Texas. Texas athletes. Texas athletes. Texas athletes. Baylor is a team that over the last 10 or 15 years has been able to eke out a national

identity for itself in a very football-rich state. They have a good hoops team now, too. Great hoops team. The entire sports program at Baylor is on the rise. And you're in Texas.

Dedicated to football, dedicated to sports. Baylor could be something. The reason why Deion wouldn't go to Baylor, in my opinion, is because it's kind of a lateral move, right? It's not one of the traditional powers that we're going to talk about for the rest of these places. It's not a place in the SEC. It's not a place where football is in the blood. Not quite yet.

Yeah, my counter to that one would be if you're going to Texas, go to Texas. Go to the actual Texas. There's another school. Okay. Are we going to number four? Number four. We're not quite to Texas yet.

Number four is going to surprise a lot of people. Ryan Day at Ohio State. Ooh. Now surprise a lot of people Ryan Day at Ohio State oh now a lot of people might be asking me right now man why would you have Ryan Day on this list Ryan Day is 48 and 6 during this time at Ohio State uh he's had them in the college football playoff they lost in the national championship game was a blowout 52 24 to Alabama um they've been a successful college football team since he's been there. The only problem is that the chatter from inside

the Ohio State fan base is not as high on Ryan Day as you would think that it is. One reason, Bill, is because he is one and two against Michigan. Oh, that can't fly. And that's not gonna fly. Gotta be Michigan. The coaches

before him, Jim Trestle and Urban Meyer didn't lose that many games against Michigan in something like 18 games. Trestle was that many games against Michigan in something like 18 games. Trestle was nine and one against Michigan. Urban Meyer was seven and oh, when you combine that, plus the fact that Ryan Gay hasn't been a particularly good big game coach.

There are some people who believe that if Michigan would have if Ohio State, excuse me, would have a down season this year and not get back to the college football playoffs or if they were to lose to Michigan again that there might be some people that would look to bring in a different regime there in Columbus here's a reason why that wouldn't happen I don't think there's a culture fit there I don't think Deion Sanders would fit in a super traditional college football power like Ohio State. He's probably a little bit too outside of the norm for them. It doesn't seem like that would translate that well in Columbus. However, good athletes in Ohio, good athletes in Ohio, some of the best. But I don't think that would work because I don't think that

the OSU tradition would have, and I also think that Dave's success would make pulling the trigger on him a little bit too early. All right. I like that. I thought it was a good thought experiment, though. I enjoyed it. I don't see Dion in Ohio State. Just funnily, it doesn't pass the sniff test for me. Don't see it. Okay. Number three is

a really interesting one, and it's the worst nightmare for college football fans. Uh-oh. This's the worst nightmare for college football fans uh-oh this is the worst nightmare for college football fans for me the thought of this one keeps me up at night oh no texas a&m this is the texas who i was talking about um jimbo fisher is in hell right now. Texas A&M. He's in hell. All right? They paid this man $100 million. And they just got waxed on national television a couple of weeks ago by Miami. Miami's coming out party was against Texas A&M. Texas A&M has one of the most talented rosters in the country.

When you talk about blue chip composites, they're up there with the Alabamas in terms of the talent talented rosters in the country. When you talk about blue chip composites, they're up there with the Alabamas in terms of the talent that they have. It just has not at all reflected on the field. Jimbo Fisher, who won a national championship at Florida State, just can't seem to get it going there at Texas A&M and they're paying so much money for him. So you think Jimbo is rooting for Colorado State on Saturday night? I think Jimbo is rooting for any hot shot

coach out there to fail because any hot shot coach that's out there makes it more realistic that Texas A&M would make a move. He is on the hottest of hottest of hot seats. So what do we think of that fit for Dion?

He's in Texas. He gets nice, nice crop of athletes. I think it's actually a perfect fit. I think it's a ridiculously perfect fit. I think he would be in the SEC. He's got access to Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, all the neighboring places. Oh, yeah. The one thing that would stop this from happening is $70 million.

Jimbo Fisher has around that left all the resources in the world, like literally brought in one of the most impressive recruiting classes ever. Actually, if you use the composite number, the most impressive recruiting class ever because of NIL, they can just pay more than anybody just about. But $70 million eating that, having to pay him that, and then having to pay Dion, who if he's making 29 at Colorado, is definitely not going to jump for anything less than $70 million. Mel Tucker got $100 million. So you're looking at a guy who probably wants that same type of money.

That's a lot of money. A lot of money. Do you think college coaches should make that much? I don't see why not. What do you mean? What's that a year? I'm just trying to... I think Jimbo got 10 years, 100 million

or something like that. If you're paying $100 million for 10 years for Jimbo Fisher, it's almost like you have to have the guarantee that your team's going to be good for that amount of money. Because you can't get out of it. But then they're not that good. How many coaches are...

I don't know. It just seems like, watching from afar, it seems like way more, much more of a crapshoot with college coaches than it is in football. Whereas in football, let's say Brian Dayball, pro football worked like college football,

and Brian Dayball had one good year. And they'd be like, oh, the Browns have offered him $120 million to be the coach. I like Brian Dayball, but we've seen such a small sample size of it. So I don't know. It just seems like a dice roll half the time. You're not with me on this? It's know. It just seems like a dice roll half the time. Well, this is what I'll say.

You're not with me on this? It's interesting. You'd have to understand how important a college football coach is. I totally get it. I get all of it. But it's just, how many of them are actually good? It's a recruiting thing more than anything, right? Not really.

When you're paying $100 million for one, you're normally paying $100 million for one, you're normally paying $100 million for a really established coach that can change a program's culture. But he didn't do it. I mean, it can backfire. Any coach can be a bad fit. It seems like it backfires half the time.

It doesn't. Well, you got to look at coaching as a profession, man. How many of these coaches go on to be Popovich's? You know what I mean? However, when it does work, think about it. When you have a coach that really hits for a program, think about where he takes the program. He or she. But in this case, it's he.

Like, think about the fact that when Alabama, you don't remember Alabama, the program it was before Nick Saban got there. I remember it wasn't good. Strugglesville. You don't remember Alabama, the program it was before Nick Saban got there. I remember it wasn't good. Strugglesville, his first year, they lose to Louisiana Monroe, right? So Strugglesville, think about the national brand that Alabama is. Think about what that means, not just to the school and to the team, but to the state of Alabama, the economy around the area, like the investment for a coach that changes the culture of a program.

So how many of those guys are there at this point? How many now? I would say you probably have the guys that are for sure winners. I'd say you probably have. Because people used to say that about Chip Kelly, right? And then he went, you know, he bounced around. Now, you know.

Here's the thing about Chip Kelly. Chip Kelly is actually a good example of what we're talking about. Chip Kelly built a culture at Oregon, right? He built it and he had it going in a very specific way with the support from Nike and all of that stuff. He left to try to take it to the NFL and then when he came back, he's not been able

to build that exact same culture at UCLA, although he has made UCLA into a reputable and powerful college football program. So I would say that when it works, it's really worth it. And when it doesn't work, it's all fucked up. And that's kind of the

thing with any of those big contracts like that, right? How many NBA contracts can we think of guys that got a lot of money? But this thing in the NBA, there's like, Monte Williams got an incredible amount of money to coach the Pistons. And it's just like, eh, I don't know. Right. There's like five NBA coaches that matter.

I mean, there are only five to 10 college coaches that matter. Yeah. And the rest of them are trying to prove that they matter. Would you put Dion on that list yet? Not yet. I would say that he's significant, but he's not quite there yet because in order to matter in college football, I mean, Deion matters culturally, but he has to show success in Colorado and then success in the long term. And some game management stuff. There's a whole bunch of to hire Deion Sanders, the reason why I say it would be the worst case scenario is because with those resources and that proximity, if Deion is even half of who he says he is, they would be a perennial top five, top two team for a long time. It would be a nightmare if he were to end up at a school like that with those type of resources.

Okay. Okay. Number two is Arkansas. And let me tell you why I have Arkansas on the list. Arkansas coach Sam Pittman right now, LSU is locking horns with Arkansas. This weekend, battle of the boot, Sam Pittman, great guy, amazing guy.

Been a great coach for Arkansas. KJ Jefferson's the quarterback. He is a veteran there. It's going to be a tough game for LSU. There are ties there. Jerry Jones is a huge Arkansas alum. Oh. And they actually gave Deion Sanders an interview,

from what I understand. And him going there, it would be greased for him to go there. It would be the SEC school, one of the SEC schools most likely to give him a shot, right? So there's some familiarity already there. Sam Pittman and Arkansas haven't quite gotten to the point that you would want them to get to. They've been competitive for the last couple of years,

the last few years, but they haven't really made a real run in the SEC West. And it doesn't look like this season is going to be the season that they do that either. They just lost to BYU last week. We'll see what happens on Saturday with LSU, but it doesn't look like a program right now that is a very powerful program, and that's

a state with a great football tradition. So Deion going there would be a huge deal, and Jerry Jones could probably make that happen for Deion Sanders, you know what I mean? Would he have to live in Arkansas? He would. See, that was a joke just for you because you're from Louisiana.

I know I had to do that just for you. He would. He would have to live in Arkansas. The only reason why I don't see that happening is the reason you just named. I don't know how culturally that fits, you know, in Arkansas. We're going to call it a major city or major state. Yeah, but I like the people in Arkansas. I have a lot of time when I go up there to watch games.

I'm just saying, he's a very famous, like, wealthy person. I just don't see him, like, shacking down in Arkansas. Well, Nick Saban lives in Arkansas. It just seems unrealistic. See, and this is another thing you don't understand. Last thing I'll say before I move on to the number one,

the charm of the college town also is... Alabama is different. You can't compare Alabama to anything. That's the most important college football program and everything.

Now it is. No, but it was from the past. Fair play. But like, you can't tell me that places like Oxford, places like even Baton Rouge, Starkville, all of these towns have their own charm,

and the coaches build community there, Bill. They build community there. So it can happen. Okay. Number one, and this is by far, to me, the coach that should be looking over your shoulder the most. Okay. Billy Napier at Florida.

Oh, yeah. I was waiting for this one. Billy Napier at Florida. Oh, yeah. I was waiting for this one. Billy Napier at Florida. Sunbelt Billy is a great coach. Anybody that spent time around him knows that he's a process-oriented coach. He is a coach that is able to inspire his guys. He's pragmatic. He's all of that stuff.

Florida wants results. They start this season with a loss to Utah, and it completely deflated the fan base. On the Deion Sanders front, Deion Sanders is from the state of Florida. I'm aware. Fort Myers, Florida, right? Yeah.

It's probably the home of the fastest human beings in America, Florida. Just speed everywhere. With how they like to play at Colorado, with how they like to put pressure on defenses, like to have speed everywhere. Just imagine a Florida team with Deion Sanders at the helm. And then also, man,

if you guys think he's got Boulder rocking, what would happen in the swamp? What would happen in Gainesville? The type of national Noah ride that that program has had traditionally, that would be an incredible scene. An incredible scene.

Also, it's his out for getting out of Colorado if he actually wants to leave, which you know, he might want to stay there for 20 years. But if he left Colorado and he bounced again, the natural narrative would be, I'm from Florida. It was always where this was going to end up. I want to come home and I want to coach a team in my state.

Come home, coach a team in my state. It seems like his relationship with florida state right now team is actually obviously riding high you don't have to tell another shoe fan that it seems like his relationship with florida state now it's kind of icy so it also would grind their gears a little bit to have dion in gainesville a lot of things the reason why it might not happen is florida might be good they just beat Tennessee at home this past Saturday obviously the loss to Utah was a setback but Graham Mertz looked really really good in the the victory at Tennessee the running game looked fantastic the defense stopped Joe Milton and Josh Heupel's

offense they actually might be good so this might be a moot point billy napier who a lot of people think is on a hot seat based upon the performance we just saw might not be hot might not be warm maybe it's like a lukewarm might be warm but i can tell you one thing if the season goes on and they get splattered by georgia and they drop a couple you Missouri looks like they might be better. If they drop one at Missouri or the seat gets hot, look for Deion to Florida, Deion to Arkansas. Look for those two teams right

there to be really in the mix for Deion Sanders if somebody wants to pluck him. But Colorado's got to keep winning. Everybody's high on Deion right now. The Pac-12 is one of, if not the best

conferences in all of America. And Colorado has a hell of a schedule coming up, Bill. Like a hell of a schedule, man. I think it's more fun if he stays at Colorado for a few years because you're basically creating a powerhouse team from thin air that we didn't have, right?

Florida, all these teams you mentioned, Florida, Arkansas, they're all teams that are in the mix anyway. But Colorado was like, when was the last time people were having Colorado conversations? Very long time. I will say this. And it's in a cool place. The Denver area, I could see having a cool college football team. That's kind of fun. I don say this. And it's in a cool place. Like it's in, like Denver's, the Denver area, I could see having a cool college football team. That's kind of fun.

I don't know. It's fun that they play on the West, on West Coast time. I like having more West Coast teams. I think it depends on a lot of things. If Dion is able to be successful, and we're jumping the gun right here, we are.

But anytime there's a successful young whippersnapper coach, other coaches start looking over their shoulder. If Deion's able to be successful there, the question is, can Colorado be a traditional football power? Can they spin like the SEC? Can they win like the SEC or the Big 12? The conference realignment matters here.

You're going to look at a situation where you're going to have two mega conferences and the Pac-12 might not be the conference that you want to have one of those major, major, major heavy hitter teams in. You might want to get in the game from a playoff standpoint and from a power and television standpoint. You might want to get in the game in the SEC or in the Big Ten. So it just depends on how things shake out for Deion Sanders.

If he thinks he can do that at Colorado, we don't know yet. It's working fine right now. Can we bring in Cerruti quickly? Cerruti, you there? All right, Cerruti, Van just laid out his five teams, and you know way more about college football than I did. Which one of those five got you the most excited? run of anybody in college football and they just had so many dudes rolling through there and that was kind of pre the Saban era too or at least like the dominant Saban era and they were kind

of the closest scariest thing to what Nick Saban has done in Alabama so I think if you can get that going again in Gainesville man that would be a pretty terrifying situation the only other one that I would say that you didn't mention that would be probably the only other place that would be worse than Florida State you know Deion Sanders a former Florida State guy going to Florida would be going to Miami other place that would be worse than Florida State. Deion Sanders, a former Florida

State guy, going to Florida would be going to Miami. We've been talking for the last 10, 15 years plus, however many years, whether or not Miami could ever come back and be the U again. He seems like the guy with the bravado. He seems like the personality that can make it be the U again and make them be the number one team in the

country and the scariest team to play. Certainly, the recruiting ground there in Miami is probably the most fertile one in the country and the scariest team to play. I mean, certainly the recruiting ground there in Miami is probably the most fertile one in the entire country. The question is, is the former Seminole going to cross those lines and become a hurricane? I doubt it, but that would be the one where I'd be like, man, if he went to Miami, that's a perfect cultural fit

and it's a perfect, obviously, reviving one of the long-lost programs that hasn't made its way all the way back yet. So I would say Miami. Florida, but Miami's the one wild card. Fun place to live for a rich former superstar athlete. Miami. Absolutely.

A few of them have enjoyed it. Miami definitely could have made this list, especially over maybe like a Baylor. I just wanted to throw in a Dave Miranda thing to show my college football knowledge. But the only reason why I wouldn't put Miami on, I really do think that Miami is headed in the right direction. I really do. But like Dion in Miami, think about what that would mean.

Think about the U coming back with Dion. It would essentially be 1989 again. I'm not even talking about the second iteration of the U. I'm talking about that first group of U people that were hanging out with Luther Campbell and hot tubs and all of that and the camouflage and everything that's going on. Like that would be crazy if he ended up there. That's a good one.

All right, Van. I really enjoyed Van's top five. That was fun. We'll have to do it again. Good to see you. Definitely. You definitely will. You can hear Van on the rewatchables, by the way.

He was on the Brock's tale this week, so that was fun. Thanks, Van. Bye, guys. Y'all afraid of ghosts? How about ghost peppers? It's the moment you've been waiting for. The ghost pepper sandwich is back at Popeye's. A buttermilk-battered chicken breast served on a brioche bun with barrel-cured pickles.

And here's the best part. It's topped with a sauce made from ghost peppers and on show chilies. If that doesn't send a chill of anticipation down your spine, nothing will get your ghost pepper sandwich today at Popeye's before it ghosts you for another year. What does possible sound like for your business? It's the ability to reach further with access to over 1,400 lounges worldwide. Redefine possible with Business Platinum.

That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit mx.ca slash business platinum. It's really not important to me to have a lot of things to show off. Fancy cars, you know, a giant home. Those things are just not part of who I am, but I've been coached and I've learned through my advisor that it's not one size fits all. Everyone has their own preferences. Everything that I do with Edward Jones is tailored to who

I am. Edward Jones. We do money differently. Visit edwardjones.ca slash different. All right. Howard Beck is here. He's officially joined the ringer. He's working for the Swedes. You've, you, we've like been parallel universes and we've cried and it's just kind of never worked out. And now it's, it's finally happening and you're with us and we couldn't be happier to have you. I couldn't be happier. Great to be here. Great to see you. Great to join you.

I said it the other day on Twitter. I'm just freaking psyched, jacked. I can't even come up with enough adjectives. This is great. Ready to jump in. Love the Swedes. I learned what FICA is this week. I'm really excited about FICA.

Well, you're going to do a lot of stuff for us, but one of the things is when the season starts, hopping on the real ones on Monday with Logan and Raja, which you did last year, and I thought it was one of the most entertaining podcasts I heard all year, so I'm excited for that. All the other stuff, you're going to pop on all different pods. We'll see. As always, it always evolves here,

but one of the things, you're jumping in right before this season. Austin and I talked about it a little bit on Tuesday. This season, it just has all become about this guy's unhappy. This guy might go here. What's going to happen with this guy? You've been covering this league for a long time. Do you ever remember it being this dark heading into a season?

That's a good way of putting it. No, Bill, I don't. We've gotten used to, almost too used to, frankly, over the last five, 10 years that superstar discontent is now just an ongoing theme of the NBA. If it's not Anthony Davis forcing his way to the Lakers, it's Kyrie forcing his way from Cleveland to Boston, and then from Brooklyn to Phoenix a couple of years later. It's Harden forcing his way from Houston to Brooklyn to Philly to now who knows where. It's fine, right? We have gotten accustomed since the decision, capital D, in 2010 to the idea that stars have the authority, the leverage, and are empowered, as we use that term all the time, to dictate their careers. And that's fine. And I think most people have gotten used to that.

We don't have the backlash and the vitriol accompanying that that we did 13 years ago. But free agency is not the same thing as forced trades. And this is where I think the league has let this kind of get away from them. I don't know if let is the right word. Bill, I don't know if there's anything the league can really do about it, but it's not good and it's not slowing down. The number of forced trades over the last five to 10 years outstrips anything. The league always fell back on this, well, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar back in the day. Okay, cool. Yeah, he was the only guy. And then there, maybe there was another one 10 years later. This to your point is an annual occurrence now. And we're going into a season where two of the greatest players of the last 15 years, or certainly the last 10 are both awaiting trades that they have demanded that they've demanded to only one destination. Yeah. And, and, and are facing down teams that don't want to do it because neither of them feel like they're going to get fair value back. And so, yeah, we're going to go into media days with just nothing but this saga hanging over,

not just those two teams, but kind of the whole league. What do you wish we were talking about on media day? If we were the czars of media day, we're like, let's talk about positive stuff. For me, it's Jokic. It's can Tatum get over the hump with the Celtics and become the guy in the Eastern Conference. It's can Miami get over the hump, this great run they've had. With the Warriors, Chris Paul is going to be on the Warriors. That's going to be kind of bizarre. There is fun stuff, but it just feels like we're heading right toward Giannis, they're on the clock. Harden, where's he going to end up? This Philly situation,

I have a bunch of Sixers fans in my life, none of them who I wanted to talk to about this on this podcast. We're nice balance, we're detached. If you're a Philly fan, this is like a catastrophe. What are you looking forward to this season? You have unhappy James Harden. The Embiid trade is looming. I guess you're talking to yourself and maybe Nick Nurse, but can you remember a weirder situation for a team that was really good last year? Well, how about this?

If they do trade Harden and they trade him for, let's say that they can't get fair value, it will be the second time in the last less than a year that a viable contender, the first one being Brooklyn, essentially, I don't want to say voluntarily blew itself up, but blew itself up before it ever got a chance to even see if it could win. I didn't believe in the Nets last season as a contender, Bill, but there was the outline of a contender.

They were on a hot streak before Kyrie forced his way out. And who knows what might've happened if they'd stayed together. So now listen, you alluded to it earlier. This is, I'm going into my, I can't believe this 27th season covering this league is the first time in my memory, you're a historian of this league. I think it was the first time in history that I'm aware of that a viable contender blew itself up in the middle of a season. Not an off-season, retool, tear down, whatever.

Middle of the season, you have the tools, you have the players, you have the talent to go a long way, maybe even win a championship, and you blew it up. And now the Sixers are in that position now, not of their own doing, really, although I guess we could argue the details of what we believe may or may not have happened between Daryl Morey and James Harden and all this. But yeah, to have the reigning MVP, Joel Embiid, and one of the greatest scorers of the last 10 years, one of the greatest players of the last 10 years, and James Harden, and a really great young player in Tyrese Maxey, and some good role players, and to not be able to feel good about going into training camp,

if you're a Sixer fan, that blows. Well, especially with how the East is kind of more wide open than ever this year, right? And you would think Philly, if they were just happy, would be one of the people I think that would get picked. Yeah, look, if the James Harden situation had never happened, he's just under contract and happy for once. When's the last time James Harden was happy?

There's a question. Yeah last time James Harden was happy? There's a question. Yeah. James Harden. Hold on. 2018? 2017? Maybe the minute before Chris Paul pulled his hammy. Well, can you define happiness?

Like three months of happiness? Because I'm sure he was happy for a week in certain times. Yeah, sure. He was happy going to the clubs sure he was happy for a week in certain times. Yeah, sure. He was happy going to the clubs when he was forcing his way out of Houston. That's true. That was a fun time. It was a fun time for James Harden.

Maybe not so much for the Rockets, or their fans, or anybody else. It was good for him. Not only did they forgive him, they wanted him to come back. That was weird. I mean, did they? I feel like that's kind of an open...

Although, to your point, a lot of Rockets fans, when the rumors were about, hey, Harden might go back, a lot of Rockets fans were weirdly, in my view, weirdly celebratory about that. I don't get it. They're very defensive about Harden, the Rocket fans. I think they really love the Harden era. I think they think he gets a bad rap,

and I think they want him to come back. But now they have this great team that are a great young collection of talent, at least that's at least something. They don't need James Harden. Now, it would have been a weird callback and just a weird move to make for a young team that is trying to start something new

and to bring in a bald, dominant, older, aging star who's going to take up a lot of oxygen. It never made any sense to me. No way. For him or for them. Why does he want to leave? And still, I could ask the same question now with the Rockets door having closed months ago. Why do you want to leave the reigning MVP? I mean, seriously, James Harden's at the stage of his career, Bill, where for a lot of guys, look, your Celtics team, right? Pierce, Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, oh, they got to get the exact right time.

They got all their individual accolades and they were ready in their early 30s to just be all about doing the one thing that none of them had done, and that's win a championship. James Harden, at the age he's at, this is the moment where you go, I'm okay sacrificing a little, whether that's money, whether that's touches, whether it's stats. And I want to tie myself to somebody who can help get me to the place I've never been. That's what we kind of expect as media and fans of the superstars. And Harden's like, no, I'm good. I'm out of here. And I know if he goes to the Clippers, sure, he's joining Paul George and Kawhi Leonard and Russ. But I don't think that's a more likely path to the title

than staying in Philly with Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey. So what are you doing, James Harden? Also, if you're the Clippers, why are you doing that? You want another unreliable person? You already have one of the most unreliable teams possible. You're going to add James Harden to that? I mean, I guess you do it if you're free. The Brooklyn point you made was interesting because I agree with you. We

haven't seen that before. A team just like, fuck it. We're blowing this up. On the other hand, the two trades they made were pretty great. You know, that KD trade to get Bridges and all the picks and then Cam Johnson is kind of a bonus, but they ended up having to pay him.

But just the Bridges plus all the first round picks they got for a guy who's hitting his mid-30s and didn't want to be there. I thought that's about as well as you're going to do, especially watching Bridges and Team USA and stuff. Like he's a foundational piece. I don't think he'd be the best player in a title team, but he could be the second best player maybe.

For sure. And if you're the Nets and you now are armed with Mikael Bridges, Cam Johnson, a young Nick Claxton, and some other interesting pieces, Dorian Finney-Smith types, and this boatload of picks from the Suns, plus you've still got some other, I think

they still have a Dallas pick and maybe a Sixer pick or a swap or whatever. They've got enough. They're one of those teams you've got to keep an eye on. I'm not a big believer, and we'll get to Embiid, an eye on. I'm not a big believer, and we'll get to Embiid, I'm sure. I'm not a big believer that we should start the Joel Embiid trade machine yet. I mean, it's natural. It's obvious. We can't not talk about that speculatively. But I also think it's maybe one year too soon on it. But they're going to be near the head of the line.

All these picks, and the Suns picks are going to be really attractive. Remember, once upon a time, it was the Nets picks that went to Boston in the Pierce-Garnett deal that were looked at as gold because everybody was sure the Nets were going to fall off a cliff and those picks were unprotected and they would be worth a boatload. That's what the Nets now have from the Suns because everyone's expecting within the next couple of years, Durant will wear down, maybe retire. The Suns will fall off a cliff. No one expects Beal to stay healthy. And so they're in a position between the picks they have and a lot of their ancillary

players that are interesting. I don't know what it's going to take to get a Joel Embiid done or, God forbid, a Giannis trade. Again, I think we're a little early on it, although Giannis is the one who stoked these fires. I love this, by the way. It always becomes this, why is the media speculating about all these guys? And we just spent 15 minutes on it. But they, like, this is my,

we didn't start the fire speech. Apologies to Billy Joel. Like, we didn't start this bill. Like, the players have been the ones, first of all, the superstars leaving in free agency, starting with LeBron in 2010, and it opened the floodgates. It started this whole era. And then that has now advanced to forced trades. First, it was forced trades with a year left, the Anthony Davis example, or the Paul George one when he was in Indiana. Now it's forced trades with multiple years left.

Now it's forced trades five minutes after you opted in, James Harden, or five minutes after you signed, or a year after you signed the extension, Damian Lillard, like it, we didn't start the fire. Like the players created this and all we can do is react and now anticipate because that's part of what we do in the media is like, well, in an era where guys become discontent and have the leverage and the ability to force their way out, why shouldn't we be attentive to that and have our radar up? Because by the way, the whole league does too.

This is the other one. I'm not just trying to get us off the hook with the fans and listeners right now. But look, the whole league acts this way. The whole league, if you are the teams that don't have Giannis or Embiid, you are plotting to get Giannis and Embiid if there's any way possible. So we're more reactive to this than I think a lot of readers want to believe. I see people getting cranky about this on Twitter all the time. But we're not creating this atmosphere. We might talk about it too much. Maybe we are right now.

There's nothing else to do right now. It's September 21st. We're waiting for the, for media days, but. Well, one of that, I, I honestly, I hate talking about it, but it's hard to talk about this upcoming season when there are all these variables in play with like some of the best teams, you know, like Miami went to the finals last year. Their team's worse. They kind of have to get Dame lowered.

You don't know if he's getting traded there. Like this week, there was a story about a mystery team in the East, and people spent the whole week trying to figure out who's the mystery team. Is it Toronto? Is it Chicago? Oh, if it was Chicago, what would they give up? And doing that whole thing, we don't know who it is. But if it's not Miami, then that opens up all these questions. Well, what's Miami going to be this year?

They're just going to have Jimmy and Bam and Kyle Lowry and expiring and hero coming back after they tried to trade them all summer. And they've lost their depth. What are they going to look like? And then you look at, uh, like if Dame went to Toronto, well, what's, what is Toronto with Dame? What would Toronto have to give back? So it's almost like the season can't start until that piece gets figured out. And then the Giannis Bucks thing is just real. I mean, he's one of the best players of the last 25 years. And this happens sometimes where sometimes you go on the clock. Were you covering Kobe in the mid-2000s when you got mad at them?

No, I was already in New York at the times by then, but I covered it from a distance. I did cover the Kobe meltdown where he was basically like, get me out of here. He demanded the trade. Back then, boys and girls, teams said, no, we're not going to try. Now they did. They had a lot of discussions, right?

There was the, oh, he was almost a bull. He was almost a piston. He was almost all these things. But yeah, that got ugly for a little bit, but they, you know, to their credit, they held firm and then they traded for Pau Gasol six months later, whatever it was, and won a couple more championships. Well, that's part of the problem with this Dame trade. And people have been writing about this and talking about this week, so it's not an original thought. But if you know other things are coming,

do you want to go all in on Dame trade? If you're the mystery team or if you're the Nets and you're like, oh, they got to get rid of them and they don't like the Miami offer. We have a chance to get them. But you know, these other guys might be sitting in the back and it's just, the league is so weird now. The turnover is crazy. And you know, I'm lucky enough. I have Tatum and now Jalen Brown and these two guys that we've watched kind of grow up and we get to keep them. And those guys almost feel like more of anomaly and anomaly than what we grew up with. Jokic is like this endeavor. They get Jokic and Murray and they get them for a long time.

Maybe Dallas will have that with Luca, but Golden State has that with Curry. I personally like that more. I wonder what the league thinks. If you pour truth serum down Adam Silver's throat or put a few drinks in him, what would he say? Because on the one hand, everyone's talking about this all the time

and they're talking about it during the off season when nobody cares about basketball. On the other hand, I don't think any of us think this is good for basketball. So what do you think he would say? You know him. You've now put the image in my head. I'm trying to think of like Adam,

like slumped at the bar, like drunk on shots of Jager Meister or something. Adam, wake up. I got a question. Adam, how are you going to fix superstar trade demands? Yeah. There's a part of me, Bill, that what I understand about Adam is this much. And we've seen a lot of this in various ways over the last 10 years.

He certainly is a guy who loves the idea of a 12 month league. He and the league have leaned into every aspect of that, whether it's the Vegas summer league, you know, exploding into a thing that didn't used to be a thing, right. Free agency, trade demands, all this discussion about transactions and all this, it keeps the league in the ether in the discussion all the time. I think Adam loves that on some level.

I think the league office loves that. But is there a tipping point in this whole discussion? I kind of think there is. Instinctively, I think there is. You and I came up at a different time, right? Where if you're a fan, you're a fan of the team and you might be a fan of the best players on that team. But if that player crapped on your team, wanted out, left, went somewhere, okay, they're a traitor now. They're done. I'm done

with them, right? Or you were heartbroken when they were gone. And we're in an era now where our younger friends, they say they root for players, not teams. I'm not sure that that's an absolute. I don't want to paint with too broad a brush, but we're in an era where people seem to be like, if you're a Dame fan, maybe you're happy for him no matter where he goes.

It's like being a Beyonce fan or something. It's like, I follow Dame wherever he's going to put out his albums. I mean, in his case, he actually puts out real albums too, but yeah know what he means but to me though the the the whole mystique of sports about fandom about rooting right seinfeld said you root for laundry what if the laundry doesn't matter anymore right like that at that time like the joke was oh you root for laundry and as long as that guy's wearing the laundry that matches your city your team you root for the guy but now it's not even that the laundry

is irrelevant. You're rooting for the player in the Jersey period. Yeah. I do think there's a limit to it. I do think what's happening in the last 10 years is somewhat destabilizing to the league. And I do think at some point, this is a hard thing to prove bill, but like, I think at some point there's a, there's a reckoning where there might be more of a hard thing to prove, Bill, but I think at some point there's a reckoning where there might be more of a backlash where fans say, you know what, I'm tired of these. It's not through free agency. Everybody understands free agency, but maybe fans at some point are going to say, I'm tired of a James Harden or a Bradley Beal, a Kevin Durant, a Kyrie Irving, a Chris Paul twice, on and on and on, forcing their way out. And if you're a fan of

the team that that guy was with, if you liked that player, it's excruciating every time. And especially if you're a fan of a small market team that has a really hard time ever getting those guys again. If Giannis decides to leave Milwaukee, whether by free agency or forced trade, whatever it may be, they're not getting into the Giannis for a very long time. And look, they got their championship. And a lot of fans might just say you know what it's cool we're like you you got us to the promised land and we wish you well but I just don't think it's great for the league overall I do think it's destabilizing and I do think it's like the fans are the one constituency we never talk about oh good for the players that they have fully empowered themselves to take control of their careers. We can all get behind that. The league is fine. The league's still

making a boatload of money. They're going to sign a new TV rights deal sometime in the near future, broadcast rights deal. They're fine. Everybody's fine. The only people who maybe aren't fine, I feel like are the fans. And that's the constituency that nobody really takes into account. It's funny that the people in my life who love soccer and basketball, and they're used to this from the soccer, the movement, and just the way people bounce around. And I don't think they notice it as much. And sometimes I wonder if we're the old guys that are just like,

ah, this isn't what I grew up with. And maybe this is just what this might be with the league is. Like I'm in a fantasy league with fantasy football league. I think we have 11 other teams, right? So it's a 12-team league. At the end of the year, 11 of us are super unhappy and we hate ourselves for being in this league, right? And then you're like,

the one guy who wins, you send him some texts, he wins some money and it's like, okay, cool, I won. You're supposed to be unhappy in the NBA. There's 30 teams. 29 of them are going to be unhappy at the end of this season. This isn't going to go right year after year. I think what's changed is the reasons people seem to become unhappy.

To me, sometimes they don't add up. Like you said before, what is James Harden unhappy about? Because he didn't make the All-Star team? You're on a good team. You're playing with one of the best players in the league. You've been in different situations. And he's like, well, Philly wasn't honest with me. Well, you opted into the contract.

If you wanted to go, why didn't you opt out? Well, because I would have made less money. Well, maybe that should tell you something. You go on down the line. I wish there was a way, and I've. I just, I wish there was a way, and I've said this before, I wish there was a way to reward the players

that stay in a situation for a long time. That the team, the team and the player could benefit from that. So, Curry's in Golden State for,

what was he, 09? So, this would be his 15th year. Maybe there's some tax advantage to that. And maybe, you know, maybe his contract only counts 75% on their tax instead of 100.

There's some sort of advantage that would make him want to stay because I want to win titles. The longer I'm here, the better it is for my team. And that makes me want to stay here more. But I just don't know if they'll ever do stuff like that. Wait, what if you're at a Steph Curry type level, Tim Duncan, Kobe, Dirk, and you hit a certain

threshold? You have to be a superstar already by whatever definition. And if you hit a certain threshold, you get equity. In the team? Yeah. That would be interesting. Oh, you get like a third of a point or something like that? Yeah. 15 years in a team?

Yeah. Why not? a team? Yeah. Why not? Right now, the only reward for staying put is you get the no trade clause, right? And you accrue a lot of money, but you can get that anywhere and bird rights don't even really matter. I like that one. Do you feel like the league is desperate at all? Do you sniff an air of desperation

with some of these moves? Like the way they're trying to get this Vegas thing going, which by the way, both of us will be in Vegas and it's going to be really fun. But do you feel like they're kind of grabbing for straws here

to try to make this a 12-month league, like you said? I think they've already achieved it in terms of the conversation. But the backside of that that got neglected, that they're now trying to like, you know, suddenly fix on the fly is that the regular season keeps feeling like it matters less and less. And so now we've got like Adam Silver, I feel like is the only person in the entire NBA community who seriously wanted the in-season tournament. There may be some others, but he's fought for it, fought for it, fought for it. And he finally has it. Why? Because they want to make the regular season matter more. Crack down on player rest, load management. They're trying to make the regular season matter more. Good luck cracking down on that. Yeah. I don't know if either of these things are going to work, Bill. And I hope they do for the league's sake. I want to see the

league be healthy. I'd like to be proven wrong about the in-season tournament that I remain very skeptical of, but I'm just not sure any of this stuff is going to work. And if it doesn't, well, then what? So on the one hand, you've made yourself a 12-month-a-year league by leaning into player movement and transactions and rumors and all of that and gambling. And so people are talking about the league all the time. They're engaging with the league on a whole bunch of other levels that they never used to. And it's a 12 month league. Great. What about the year or the months that you're actually playing?

And especially the months that, that are, you know, November through March before the playoffs arrive. That's a, that, that seems to me to be a problem for them. And I wonder how,

like I, I, I, you know, heard your pod a couple of weeks back discussing the TV rights deal. What if it's not the double to triple of the old deal that they're expecting? What if all of this instability, I don't know anything about this stuff, but what if all the instability in the broadcast world, the RSNs, the unbundling, all of it, what if it does create a problem for the league in terms of the value of the next rights deal?

It's still going to go up, right? They'll be making money. The question is, with all the changing habits, are people watching enough? And when does that finally come back to bite them? What do you think the ideal length of the regular season is? I'm not a big cut the regular season guy. I agree with anybody. It's impossible not to agree with this.

Even though we grew up on the 82-game season, it's been there for our entire lives and long before we were watching the league. It's hard to imagine the league any other way, and it's hard to imagine how we'll discuss... It's already hard enough to compare eras. What happens if you now have an era where, oh, those guys only played 54 games and they played

82 for 50 years. That part's weird, but it's impossible to argue against for quality of product reasons, health reasons, longevity of player reasons, all of that. It's hard to argue anything other than it should be shorter and they're never going to get there. And just to be clear to people, it's not just, oh, well, the owners will never agree to it because they'll have to like sacrifice money. No, it's a 50-50 split more or less. The players would sacrifice it too. And they don't want to cut it either. So the players are not exactly like, oh, we should cut to 66 games. I think that 66, we had the lockout season that was 66. That was kind of fun. It had a lot more momentum.

Just lopping off 16 games actually did something for just the urgency. It's hard to get the urgency, right? That's the thing the NFL has. You have the urgency because of the shorter schedule overall. I just don't know how the NBA ever gets there. Yeah, my ideal, I think, would be like

70-72 range. I think you can cut 10 pretty easily. And I think that would solve some of these issues. And I think it would make the product better. They're going to make

so much money from this next TV deal that, you know, at some point, you got to make decisions based on what's the best for basketball, not what the money decision is. We're going to have guys making $70, $75 million a year.

At some point, you got to care about the quality too. Yeah. This idea that both the owners and the players would lose a lot by cutting the number of games. Well, one, there's the scarcity argument, right? Well, you can charge more per game, whether via TV rights or via tickets to the game. So there's that argument to counter it. I don't know the economics of it, but that sounds plausible. And there's also just the fact that, to your point, if the next broadcast rights deal is going to double or triple potentially the old one, all right, you're gaining enough that you could afford to maybe lose a little at the other.

These things might balance out. And maybe you do expansion. Maybe you add two expansion teams and that gets you another... to maybe lose a little at the other, right? These things might balance out and you're still only- And maybe you do expansion. Maybe you add two expansion teams and that gets you another, you know, 10 billion bucks that you could split among everybody.

I just, I find it hard to believe watching from afar, which is year after year, they're trying to figure out all these ways to get these guys to play more. And nobody's just looking at the obvious issue, which is there's too many games.

Less than the number of games and make it, make it so that it's harder to skip games because it could really impact you if you're trying to make the playoffs. The one hitch though, Bill is, is this, and I, and I believe this,

I've heard other people say it and I, I, I buy this. All right. At 82 games. Now guys are only averaging like whatever, 67, 70 or whatever,

because they're, you know, rest, load management, whatever. If you cut it to 66 or to your 72, how do we know they're still not going to blow off eight to 10 games? Whatever the schedule is, the guys who want to rest or, and I should make this point, the teams that seriously believe in load management are still going to say, well, we think you will be better in May if we rescue these two games here in February. So I don't know that fewer games will actually produce a higher attendance rate among the players. We'd like to believe it would, but I'm not certain of it. And so, because think of it this way too. One of the other things that's been a hallmark of Adam Silver's tenure is they have made the schedule much more efficient and player-friendly, right? They took out a ton of back-to-backs. Those are way down. You don't have four games and five nights anymore. All-star

used to be, all-star break used to be like four or five days, and now it's an entire week. They've done a lot to try to make it more player friendly and health friendly and we still have guys only playing 67 games so i don't i just don't know what the answer is there if there is one all right we i'm leaving a lot of meat on the bone because we have a whole season there's lots of stuff for us to talk about but before you go give us your greatest Kobe story. Just give us your number one, your best one. Number one? Your best one, your go-to Kobe story. How many years did you cover him? Seven years as a beat writer in LA. And then obviously covered him from afar for a while. But you were day-to-day with him for seven solid years. Seven solid years. Yeah. Best Kobe story. Oh man.

Come on. One's got to jump to mind. I use this one only because I think people have too often missed the part of Kobe that was empathetic, personable. He put on the Mamba mask for so long that people didn't understand that there was actually like a pretty thoughtful guy behind it who wasn't always looking like a maniac on the court and cursing people out and cursing out his own teammates and all this stuff and having you know it'd be championship at the cost of everything else um early in his career it's like my second season on the beat might have been my first season. They're practicing every day at LA Southwest College in a so-so part of LA. They didn't have their own practice facility.

Back then, teams didn't all have their own practice facilities. And the Lakers were not among the first, by the way. So we're going to this community college. And you go and you park in a lot. And you walk in. There's like 20 doors leading out of this gym. On every side, there are double doors. Players could leave to avoid us anytime they wanted to. And we'd be in there. there's like 20 doors leading out of this gym on every side there are double doors so they

players could leave to avoid us anytime they wanted to and we'd be in there dell harris would would you know let us in with a good 40 minutes left and actually we actually got to watch practice back then dell was great to us but then inevitably after the uh practice breaks up you're going to get like you know derrick fisher robert ory rick fox whoever and if you're not careful if you're going to get like, you know, Derek Fisher, Robert Ori, Rick Fox, whoever. And if you're not careful, if you're not watching yourself, Shaq or Kobe or somebody you really needed might be sneaking out behind you because there were all these different doors. Some went to the training room or weight room. Some just went straight out to the parking lot.

So it was easy to miss guys to lose them. And so the story I love to tell, because this is one of the nicer Kobe stories I can tell was just sitting there talking to, I think it was like Robert Ori. My back is turned to the main way out. And I just hear this, hey, Howie. And I turn around. It was, all right. It was, do you need me today?

And I turn around and it was Kobe, like checking in before he left. Like, do you need me today? Like, what? Huh? No, no, I guess we're good. Like, it's fine. Go ahead. Like, we'll get you tomorrow but um he was really thoughtful and i i know like people immediately go to this cynical view of

like uh he's just trying to butter you guys up whatever this was a pretty young kobe he was like 1920 at the time of of this particular story and i think at that time he was just looking for connection because if you've read a lot of the stuff about Kobe from back then, you know that he had a really tough time being so young on a team full of veterans and a team that really revolved around Shaq, not just as a player, but as a persona. Shaq was so larger than life, always the life of the party, and guys gravitated to him. And Kobe couldn't manufacture that and was a little bit more to himself back then anyway. He was, I don't know, maybe not quite a wallflower, but at times wallflower-ish.

And so, you know, I'm 10 years older than him. But even among the beat writers, I think I was maybe among the ones who were closer in age to him. And so, yeah, he just liked to talk. He just liked to just like shoot the shit back then, back when we could just shoot the shit with guys because you didn't have to worry about Twitter or anything or anybody else hearing it and running off and saying, oh, Kobe just said, you could just have human conversations and get to know each other a little bit.

Actually, that reminds me of another one. You want me to go one more? Yeah, one more. They used to still practice sometimes at the forum on off days. When I first started covering them, they were still at the forum. Um, you know, that arena and winning time that y'all have for the younger listeners that existed. Um, and I walked in one day and we could just kind of plop down. They also weren't real officious about like who sat on the seat. I could just like plop down in the locker next to Kobe to say, Hey man, what's up? How's it going? And there's, um, golf is on,

like the masters or something is on. And he says, how are men do golf? Like, no. And this is back when I, you know, Tiger Woods is at his peak and players are all NBA players. We're just starting to think really become like big into golf. And I said, I said, no, no, not, not, not really my thing. Uh, what about you do golf? And he goes, nah, I could never, I could never play anything that I couldn't master or something like that. I never said that I could,

that I couldn't perfect or something like that. And I'm like, and you could perfect basketball. And he was like, absolutely, man. Absolutely. Kobe loved the word.

Absolutely. There was a lot of things that were absolutely, which is fitting. Like he was kind of an absolutist about basketball, about himself, about winning. And it was like, holy moly. And that was one of those conversationsist about basketball, about himself, about winning. And it was like, holy moly. And that was one of those conversations, again, just a quick footnote to that. That was one where recorder's not rolling. My tape recorder's not on. My little

old microcassette recorder. My recorder's not on. My notepad's not out. We are just two people just talking. And so I didn't jot it down. I'm telling you this from memory, but like a couple of years later, they're in the finals against the Pacers. This is their first finals. Kobe has that incredible game four. That's the one Shaq fouls out. Kobe comes through in overtime and it's his Jordan moment. This is the moment where everybody said, oh, wow, that kid that we thought is a little Jordan-esque. He just had his moment. Like this, This cinches it. He really is worth all the hype. He can live up to it. And so now we got to write an off-day story. And I think it might've been on,

whether it was a travel day or they had multiple off days. And so there's no availability. So you're writing, what else do you got? What's still in the notebook? And the first time I ever told that story about the golf remark was the day after game four or the day after the day after game four, when I had to write something off of just what's left in your notes. And I had, you know, it was this fun little insight that I could save and use later, which I feel like in today's media environment is really hard to do. When do you think that ended? Like late 2000s? When do you think it officially shifted? Just the dynamics of how we covered.

Just like, like just being around dudes in a way that, yeah, you know, it wasn't scheduled. And it, it probably, it was eroding all throughout my time in LA.

Um, yeah, because players were getting more and more people in their ear, PR people and their agents and everything. And the people who would be managing them started to grow. So there was, that was part of it. Some teams started getting a little bit more strict about access or just not as, as helpful. Um, a lot of things started to erode over time, but really, honestly, I feel like it's mostly the social media era, right? Like Twitter comes along and it's just this big noise machine. And it has, it is complicated a lot. Like

I thank God I'm not a beat writer anymore, right? Like for the last 10 years, I have had the luxury of being the quote unquote national writer. I can parachute in. I covered the Lakers for seven years, the Knicks for close to nine with a quick detour to the nets at 16 years of being a beat guy. And it was hard anyway. It was hard back then. I really sympathize with and feel bad for the beat writers today who are on that treadmill and with a lot more on their plate because of the demands of social media, the demands of the internet, the demands on players and how much harder it is to get to know them. I used to be really envious, Bill, of the guys who covered Showtime when I was in LA and

I came to the Laker beat in 97. And so if a Steve Springer came in on a given day for the LA Times to sub in for the beat writer and Steve had covered Showtime, he's written a lot about that era. And he would regale us with these stories about what it was like back then when they're on the same airplanes and maybe they're on the bus sometimes. And I thought we missed the golden era for sports writers. We missed it because I was born too late to get to really enjoy the kind of access and to really get to know guys where most of the time they're talking, they're not on the record. And then eventually they got to get on the record. Oh, by the way, let me open the notebook. And so I thought I'd missed the golden era, but I think about my experience, especially

the seven years on the Lakers, which I appreciate much more now from a distance back then I was just too stressed to really appreciate what I was experiencing and what a privilege that was. I appreciate it more now, but I also look at it now and I look at what beat writers today have to deal with and how much harder it is. And I think, wow, in comparison, I had it good. I'm the Steve Springer, Scott Osler in this story now. So it's wild to see. All right. Well, we'll keep talking about the old days every once in a while when you pop on.

But Howard Beck, great to have you at The Ringer and enjoyed the time today. Thanks. Great to be here, man. Thank you. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Van Lathan and Howard Beck and Danny Kelly. Thanks to Steve Cerruti and Kyle Creighton for producing. Don't forget Big Fan Duel Boost coming this weekend.

I'll be tweeting it out so you don't want to miss that one. And I will see you on this feed on Sunday with Cousin Sal after week three. Looking forward to it. Enjoy the weekend. Must be 21 plus I'm a person never lost And I don't have to be alone Must be 21 plus and present in select states. FanDuel is offering online sports wagering

in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit fanduel.com slash RG

in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee,

and Virginia. You can call 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 in Arizona. Call 1-888-789-777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. 1-800-9WITH-IT in Indiana. 1-800-522-4700 or visit ksgamblinghelp.com in Kansas. 1-877-770-STOP in Louisiana, mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland, 1-800-GAMBLER.NET in West Virginia, or 1-800-522-4700 in Wyoming.

Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York.