The Bill Simmons Podcast - A Boston Boomerang, Butler the Superstar, a Yankees Revival, and NFL Schedule Lessons With Haralabos Voulgaris, Warren Sharp, and JackO

Episode Date: May 20, 2022

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Haralabos Voulgaris to discuss the Celtics’ Game 2 win over the Heat in Miami, how different the matchup looks with Al Horford and Marcus Smart back in the lineup, and adjustments the Heat could make heading into Boston (2:05), before revisiting the Suns' collapse against the Mavericks, upcoming roster decisions for Phoenix, Warriors-Mavericks predictions, and more (29:48). Then, Bill talks with Warren Sharp about the 2022 NFL schedule, which teams have advantages in rest, strength of opponent, sleeper teams, and more (54:35). Finally, Bill is joined by JackO to discuss the Yankees’ 28-10 start to the season, the rejuvenated Aaron Judge, and more (1:34:36). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Haralabos Voulgaris, Warren Sharp, and JackO Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, you should be watching a show called We Own This City on HBO Max, which is really the spiritual son of The Wire. We broke it down, episodes three and four on the Prestige TV podcast. Me, Chris Ryan, Big Waz. Check it out, the Prestige TV podcast. You can also find Better Call Saul, Barry, a whole bunch of other shows on there as well. 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 gang's here. You're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer.

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Gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. If you want to follow the NBA, it's not just here. We got Ryan Rosillo.

We have the Ringer NBA show. We have the Mismatch Podcast. We have the Ringer NBA show. We had the Mismatch podcast. We had the Ringer gambling show. House and JJ are going to be on there on Friday trying to figure out what to do with this Dallas Golden State game too, as well as future bets as well. Coming up on this podcast,

we're going to be reacting to Celtics Heat game two, a game that I really enjoyed. I got to be honest. Thumbs up. Thumbs way up. Talked about that. Talked about Warriors and Mavericks. Talked about the future of the Phoenix Suns

and a lot more with Bob Valgaris, our friend, a.k.a. Late Night Bob. And then my old buddy, Jacko. The Yankees were playing so well and they were on such a hot streak that I had to get them on the podcast to try to squash it, to try to reverse the karma. I mean, they had single digit wins. It's almost May 20th. So Jacko came on to talk about what's going on with the Yankees this year. And then last but not least, Warren Sharpe, our guy from the Ringer gambling show, the schedules came

out. There's a lot of rest advantages and some future stuff and some sleeper possibilities. We talked about that with him as well. It is a very good podcast. It's all next. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, taping this at the tail end of the Celtics heat game, too. It's 8 o'clock Pacific time. Late night Bob is here.

Bob Valgaris. We just watched Celtics Heat. It was a very one-sided affair. I don't want to overreact. But with Spartan Horford out there, the Celtics looked like they had a lot of size. They looked like they had a lot of size. They looked like they had a lot of options and a lot of malleability. And even though Jimmy ended up getting close to 30,

but the rest of it, it just seemed like they had too much. You're an impartial observer. Would you say the Celtics have a better team after watching those first two games? Yes, definitely. I think I mentioned that to someone the other day who said this is going to be

a great series after game one and I was like sure as long as the Celtics spot them two starters every game it's going to be a really good series I don't mean to underestimate Miami I'm sure they'll come back with some adjustments but Celtics just have more shot making, better defense

a lot more options Miami doesn't defense, a lot more options. Miami doesn't really have a lot of options to score aside from Butler. And Butler has to really grind for his. It's not like Butler's going to just go off. He's got to get to the free throw line. You can send help his way. They don't have a lot of shooting, in my opinion, still, without Lowry, unless they go to some players who are really, really poor defensively.

Right. So if they have, you know, Oladipo, he can't shoot threes. If you put Martin out there, he can't really shoot either. So you can go with the defense athleticism size, but then the Celtics can just basically leave guys wide open,

which is what they did today. Or you can go for the more offense. Yeah. And then the Celtics can just basically leave guys wide open, which is what they did today. Or you can go for the more offense. Yeah. And then the Celtics are really good offensively, and they're just going to torch that on the other end, it seems like. Celtics have a lot more two-way guys, for sure. Guys who can play on both sides of the ball. I mean, Miami's got Butler, and they've got Adebayo,

and they've got... Tucker can hit an open shot, but he's not shooting over anyone. It has to kind of be wide open. Yeah, and then Hero is obviously very good offensively, but you can kind of attack him. It just makes a big difference. I mean, game one,

they attacked Pritchard a lot. Celtics didn't really have any options. They didn't go under on Butler's screen. That was frustrating. I watched the game again after we did the pot. He shot 24% from three the last three years. Just go under and make him shoot threes until he makes a few, right? That's kind of what they do. And so I think a lot of times coaches don't want to overreact going into a game. They want to kind of see what happens, go with their base defense,

see how the other team attacks it, and then go from there. But going under seems to me... And you have to mix it up a little bit. Going under definitely makes sense versus just trying to string out. If they were playing Pritchard, string out Pritchard. Now with Smart in there instead of Pritchard, you can kind of do whatever you want. There's nobody he can really attack one-on-one effectively with those five guys. And that's what I was telling the people in my life the last two days.

I'm like, I'm just not going to judge anything until I see what it looks like when Smart's out there. Because that's been the secret sauce for the last five months. Once Smart was the point guard and you have smart and Brown and Tatum. And then whatever you have in the four or five, it doesn't really matter because all those guys can switch basically. And I was just like, how is Jimmy Butler going to score 41 points if we have smart either guarding him or people switching on him or whatever?

I just didn't see it. He's got to get it to the free throw line a ton to score that many points, which he does. He gets to the free throw line a lot. I'm with you. I think also Williams, Grant Williams, is kind of nice in this matchup as well. Rob Williams is good, but there's not

a ton of guys that you really need his shot blocking help. They've got him guarding Tucker on the perimeter, and I think Tucker is just quicker to getting some of these loose balls off rebounds, crashing from the corner. Well, he got hurt tonight. He left a knee contusion. So that, we'll see.

He's 37 years old and he's up to two injuries in the series already. Yeah, he's a tough guy though. If he can at all play, he'll go for sure. But I'm not, yeah, I haven't heard anything on that. So let's talk about Jimmy Butler for a second because I was watching the pregame show and they had a whole segment about

is Jimmy Butler a superstar or not. And I guess it's the different definition of what a superstar is. I think certainly somebody you'd want on your side, you could say Philly choosing Horford over him basically was probably the beginning of the end. Well, but they had Tobias Harris already. They paid the $30 million a year to Horford and could have just gone to Butler, right? I feel like they chose Horford over him. Harris was there already. They're going to pay two of the three. But I just feel like the word superstar, I don't know, what's your definition of it?

Because to me, a superstar is like I'm a guaranteed finals contender if I'm a superstar. But now you could say, Miami made the finals two years ago. They're in the final four this year. So technically he qualifies. On the other hand, he's been on four teams since 2017.

And I think like the true superstars, like Dallas is never getting rid of Luka unless he says, I'm out of here. I'm going to Miami, right? Like Milwaukee is never getting rid of Giannis. Boston's never getting rid of Tatum. So I feel like the true superstar is where the team's like,

we're never getting rid of this guy. And Butler's been on four teams. I just don't know how to classify him. How do you see him? I think a bit more of who are the best two-way players in the game. And he's certainly in that conversation. He's really underrated as

a defender. Everyone talks about all these wing defenders who are... And I did this during the Defensive Player of the Year. I guess I was the one who was controversial about it, but controversy was smart. And I was looking at all the different guys who defended the best players. And he's up there. He was top five for sure for these guys. So I don't know if Adebayo's good, obviously, but he's not out there breaking

people down one-on-one. Who do they have in their starting lineup who's breaking anyone down off the dribble one-on-one? And they don't even have much shooting out there in their starting lineup, aside from Struis. Tucker, again, good shooter, but he needs to be wide open and needs to be in the corner. That's not some... I mean, everyone

does that. Most 3D guys do that. So, yeah, I would say he's a superstar. I would. I mean, everyone does that. Most, most, most three and D guys do that. So yeah, I would say he's a superstar. I would, I mean, the stuff he brought up is interesting because I know he was available. And the knock on him was just really, really difficult teammate. But guys like that, I kind of vibe with guys like that because they hold their, their, they hold everyone to a really, really high standard.

And when you can't meet that standard, then you become the difficult one. The guy who's holding everyone to a high standard becomes a difficult one. But I guess you kind of want to have guys like that. I don't know. I'm a big fan. I've liked him for a long time. I certainly was on the, ooh, this guy seems difficult

when he was available because I just thought this seems... Is this a situation you want to put him in with the Mavericks back at the time? I didn't know. I didn't really have much say in the matter anyways, but at that time, but yeah, it was pretty interesting how he just bounced around and then found a home in Miami.

But look, even in Philadelphia, they were good with him. I mean, they were a good team. I think he had a lot of issues with Brett Brown. But at the same time, maybe some of those were justified. I certainly don't think Brett Brown was Eric Spolstra 2.0 during the

last couple of Philly years there. Well, the sweetest sound to anyone is the sound of their own name. I remember that Brett Brown press conference when he said, he wasn't Jimmy Butler tonight, he was James Butler. And Jimmy Butler is like, my name's actually Jimmy.

So there's like, I don't know, I'm sure that didn't have much to do with it. But yeah, maybe he didn't vibe with Brett Brown or maybe he just didn't vibe with the players. I mean, it was a young team. You had Simmons and Embiid kind of battling. I think I made a hyperbolic tweet that compared

Simmons and Embiid to Magic and Kareem 2.0 so that's in your Twitter archives? my Twitter

my tweets my tweets self-destruct but I certainly remember thinking that and tweeting it so yeah yeah the thing with Butler I do there's just certain athletes that if they're in a good situation, it's fine. The worst the situation is kind of the more they're going to unravel in the situation.

So you put him in that weird Minnesota team and he's got, he's dealing with towns going up and downs and Wiggins and a young team. And, you know, I could see how that would go sideways or that weird Chicago situation where it was like the vets against the younger guys, whatever the hell was going on there. Windhorst, who I think's done, he's written a couple of good kind of in the moment pieces this year, but he, I thought he wrote a really good one after that incredible game one that Butler had, where it was about like that moment they had with Spolstro when it seemed like they were getting a fight in the sidelines basically and just like how Miami handled that and the way he wrote it was really careful but it was clearly like they love this

guy but at the same time like who knows how it was it felt tenuous my my take from it was like yeah they'll put up with him as long as they're winning. But, you know, this is certainly a year-by-year basis. It was a really interesting piece. I liked it. Yeah, I didn't read that, but I need to read that.

Did he bring up the sponsor asking if Butler wanted to fight him? Oh, yeah. He's like, do you want to fight me? I've never seen that. Well, he said something about, boy, you really are crazy or something like that. He said something about, boy, you really are crazy or something like that.

And then apparently he didn't coach or do anything for the entire third quarter after that. Just sat on the bench and brooded. He's a pretty well-respected, just well-thought-of guy, like calm, even-cared guy, spolstered. So I think the Heat were like,

oh my God, they just never seen him like that. But they worked it out. They hashed it out. They got through it. And I think his place is scared. The big issue for them is they paid a lot of money to Lowry.

You know, and the rub on Lowry is just like, this guy's old, older point guards. Can they hold up? We just saw it happen with Chris Paul. What are we getting? Can we get somebody to play 100 games?

If we're paying this guy this amount of money, trying to win the title, trying to get eight months a year out of him, and he's in his mid-30s, he's taking 220,000 charges. He's got a lot of miles on him. He's got playoff miles on him. Can this guy hold up?

He's heavy, too, miles on him. He's got playoff miles on him. Can this guy hold up? He's heavy too for his frame. Right. Yeah. It was a gamble. I mean, look, it wasn't like there was many moves for them. I admire teams that do stuff like that though. I was also looking like,

if you look at how many people talk about how well they've built this roster around the edges and they have for sure, they've added Strews. They found Robinson. They found Vincent. They find all these players that are kind of undrafted.

And then they develop them really, really well. But I think some people forget how many awful contracts they've laid out too. Whiteside. Whiteside, Johnson, James Johnson. Tyler Johnson. Tyler Johnson, James Johnson.

They've had a bunch of... And they've been able to get rid of them. So it's really interesting how well they've managed both around the edges and then offloading, getting off of bad deals. So I don't know. I wouldn't go out on

a limb and say the Lowry deal was a bad deal by any stretch. A lot of teams wanted him. He chose them. I think he had his choice of many teams. But yeah, the injury luck is kind of shaking against him a little bit. I think they definitely had to do it. But I think you go into it crossing your fingers

and hoping you can get eight months out of him for the first two years of the deal. Third year, it's been expiring. It's fine. First two, can this guy make it? Vincent's considering that was a guy who's in the G League for

two years, he's been an okay guy to just throw in there. He's great offensively. He just doesn't bring it at all defensively. He's another guy who's a one-way guy. He's not as bad a defender as maybe a hero is or a Duncan Robinson is, but

he might be actually because he doesn't have much effort at the point of attack. It's tough to be a good defender at that size unless you're really, really pesky as a point guard. And then versus Boston, there isn't really any guy that you really need to get into and a little point guard that you need to

shut down, which is kind of the way the league is going. Chris Paul's kind of an outlier in that regard. Not many teams that are left have that smaller point guard that kind of controls and runs the offense. Most of the teams that are left have bigger guys that are executing.

Well, they gave up Precious in that Lowry deal who I thought turned into a really good supporting guy for Toronto last year. And even having him out there, it just feels like right now they're a guy short. But maybe Lowry comes back in the Boston games. Who knows? They definitely need another player.

And it either has to be Lowry or it has to be some kind of junk defense that can get... I mean, Duncan Robinson's also lost his three-point shot this year. It's interesting. I mean, I know it's a small sample and he hasn't played a ton, but he hasn't been the three-point shooter he was in the past. I think Felix... I wonder if this happens sometimes.

Strews comes in and Strews has been good and Strews is kind of on his corner and sometimes there could only be one, you know, and he's out playing him during the season and it just becomes like a Jedi mind trick situation. I'll tell you, as a Celtic fan, the fact that Bam,

other than a really good third quarter in game one, just has not seemed like Bam. Bam is usually a guy that kills the Celtics. He killed them in the bubble two years ago. He's always been a bad matchup. If you remember in the bubble, there was over and over again, them screening him rolling in the basket,

him deciding on the foul line, whether he was going to shoot whatever dish off. And he's been pretty invisible except for the third quarter in game one. Is it him or is it stuff the Celtics are doing? What are you seeing? I think it's, I don't think it's him specifically. I think it's a function of how little space their offense occupies. So a lot of this stuff is dribble handoffs, keepers,

fake handoff running, handoff roll. And the weak side can just be completely sucked in because there really isn't... Aside from there really isn't a lot of guys who can spread the floor. And so Vincent's an okay shooter. He's not a bad shooter. He's actually a good three-point shooter. But it's just not the same.

They don't have the same... I use the term convex. It's just not the same. They don't have the same... I use the term convex. They don't have... It's a convex hole, but they don't have the same spread of defense. I mean, Boston's really packing it in with their switches. They're kind of prioritizing that. And Boston also has the length to close out.

So they can do the both. They can pack stuff in and then late close out on threes with their length, which is a really, really underrated thing to have on defense. To have Tatum, Brown, Smart, all these guys have long wingspans and length, so they can forfeit with both Williams. They're blocking shots or altering three-point shots

and also bringing themselves into the paint to be compact. I think that's a big factor of it, for sure. Well, one of those guys I want to talk about quick. This episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by State Farm. People assume the young players on a roster will play a supporting role in the playoffs, but then they get so hot during the playoffs, they surprise everyone with stats, rivaling the best players in the history of the league, like Grant Williams. With the big game seven, he turned the game that they took off today when they went in,

they went a little smaller with him. You were working for the Mavs during that draft when I think he went 22nd. And the rub on him was like four-year starter, good rebounder, banger, really plays hard, can't shoot. What is he? Could he develop a three-point shot? Where does he go? Like, how did you guys, how did you see him when you were preparing for that draft versus where he ended up now? I don't even remember because I

don't think we had a pick that year. Maybe we did, but probably not. We didn't ever really have picks. I don't know. I don't remember preparing much for him. It's interesting. The knock on him, yeah, were all the things he said. He wasn't a shooter. He didn't look like he was super athletic. But he's very smart. He uses his body very well. He's obviously turned into an amazing defensive player. And I looked at it today. He hasn't shot a ton of completely uncontested threes this year,

but he's shot them at a very high rate, which made Milwaukee's decision not interesting because I think it's fine. But it certainly was, I guess it was a little interesting to leave a guy who's shooting 1.3 something on wide open threes just to dare threes. I was thinking about that a little bit, about how game sevens are notoriously lower scoring and also the nerves are higher because players miss threes. But I think if players are comfortable and they know they're just not going to, I think that's one way

to feel more comfortable about shooting the threes. If you just know you're not going to be defended at all. And I think part of what helps Boston with him is they were trying to get him his normal threes versus the ones where he was just standing all alone. They were trying to get him some threes off of drive and kicks. Yeah, that felt like it was just standing all alone. They were trying to get him some threes off of drive and kicks.

Yeah, that felt like it was actually in the game. Versus like, I am standing here ready to shoot as the pressure just beats down on my forehead. Exactly. I still thought the Bucs had run out of ideas by game seven. They basically went back to what they did in game one and they tried the bigger lineup and they just left guys wide open from three hoping the Celtics would miss because they wanted to basically pack in the paint.

And it's not, it's not a bad strategy to play the odds on that because we've seen so many teams in the last five, six years just completely crater from three during a game. And it becomes almost like a virus that starts going around the court, just hitting different guys. I went to that 2018 Celtics-Cavs game when you could literally see it in the air. It was like, oh my God, nobody could make it. Nobody wanted to shoot it. And I think that's what they were banking on. And instead, Williams turned it the other way.

And then the very next night, Houston missed however many in a row in their game seven versus Golden State. Houston's threes, though, were very... Looking back at that, they were contested threes. It wasn't like, oh, we're just going to... So that's something to always think about is... Because I always thought that too. I think when we played the Clippers, we were

kind of thinking, well, if they beat us from three, we're not really going to win. And so we just kind of packed it and let them try to guard the corners and let them shoot above the break threes and they shot very well in that game. But yeah, we'll see how it plays out. I think Milwaukee just ran out of gas,

to be perfectly honest. The way these series go, both of these conference finals, there's two days off, I believe, in between games two and three in the East. But every other game for both series is a day of rest, then a game the next day, including the travel days on games four, five, six, and seven. Or five, six, and seven.

And I just think that's really unfortunate the league does that because these are your teams preparing for the finals. And really, you're going to play with just one day off and travel every day in between games five, six, and seven? I think they should take a break between round two and round three. Like I would, round two ends on the Sunday, and I wouldn't even start the next one until the Thursday, Friday, or Wednesday, Thursday at worst. You could do that.

The level of play would be a lot better. I think it's very important also to have a day of rest between certainly game six and game seven if there's a game seven. Not just one day and then you're traveling, but a travel day and then another day because you've noticed a lot of these game sevens have been really grimy.

Well, look at that Sunday. Get the Celtics and Bucks played on Friday night and then it was 3.30 Sunday the game seven. It was like 37 hours later or whatever. And you're not getting any time to prepare, to make adjustments. These guys are doing their game planning on the plane. It's really interesting to think about.

But yeah, I would say that would be something I would recommend. Well, it's like people that assume they can't afford great insurance, they discover State Farm has surprisingly great rates. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Get a quote today. All right, you're Miami.

You're going back to Boston. You're playing Saturday night and Monday night, which is just a bizarre combo. In the old days, it used to be the Friday and then the Sunday afternoon. The crowd's going to be

rollicking on game three. There's going to be, I'm sure the extender will be showing up for game four if the Celtics take a 2-1 lead we haven't seen the extender the extender's

in a cave somewhere doing pull-ups and push-ups get ready Scott Foster so I assume there'll be one game where Jimmy's going to get calls

I think Jimmy's hard to officiate too because he's a little like a mini Giannis where it's always him bouncing off dudes and bumping off dudes and you just kind of have to decide

how much is going to happen. Do you see Miami just going for more offense in those next two games? Just trying to outscore them? What do they do? I don't know. It'll be interesting. I don't really know what moves they have to be honest. Possibly they could

go for more offense and play zone. They've broken out. I just don't think the Celtics are the team you can play zone versus with the way they have quite often 5-4 shooters on the floor. 4 when Robert Williams is out there and 5 when he's not.

I just think they're kind of out of moods. I mean, the one thing, the couple of things I would do is maybe think about just shelving, playing. I mean, you'll certainly see less of Oladipo, I would think, if they expect to have... He's performed okay at times,

but he's been pretty inefficient. Two for eight today. Got 10 free throws though. He's likely one of the few guys left in the league that'll just come down and walk right in front of the three-point line with one foot on the,

one foot in front of the three-point line and just shoot a two-pointer. Like, that hasn't happened in years. Most guys will, they'll take the mid-range, but it's mid-range. It's not,

okay, one foot in front of the three-point line or one step in front of the three-point line. You know what I would do if I was them? I would start Oladipo. And I know they, I know the lineups with him haven't been awesome,

but I would really try to pressure the Celtics because I'd still feel like that is kind of their pseudo Achilles heel. The fact that other than Marcus, nobody in the team could dribble and even he'll get sloppy sometimes. But if I were them, I would emphasize defense and pressure early and then try to figure out the shooting coming off the bench versus bringing in Oladipo off the bench and all of a sudden it just feels like the calibration's off.

I would start him and bring Vincent off the bench. Yeah, that's actually a really good point. And that's one thing the zone doesn't do is pressure you at all. And I think you're right. I think you're dialed into the Celtics. The one weakness they have is you can pressure them and you can pressure their ball handlers. That could be an adjustment that you see.

I just don't see it in the series. I think the Celtics are... Well, you love the Celtics today. I did. I messaged you this morning and told you. I think the Celtics... And I was late to the Celtics party, for sure. I think I might even have been characterized

as a Celtics hater by some. But I quickly have become a Celtics fan. And I think they're the best team left of these four teams by a decent margin. John Schumann, who's a really good follow, who works for NBA.com, he tweeted during the game, the Celtics were 32-1

when leading by 20 points or more when they got their 20-point lead tonight. And they've had 23 straight wins when they're up by 20 points or more since they blew the New York game on January 6th. Which, the real thing from that stat is in four and a half months,

they've had 24 games where they've been up 20. Wow. Pretty good. Yeah, I mean, that's... I look at that stuff, they've had 24 games where they've been up 20 pretty good yeah that I mean that's I look at that stuff like I think it's a bad sign when you're and this was some of the other

Celtic teams from years past when you're always down 10 you're always down 12 you're always climbing back that happened in Milwaukee in the last series those teams that are always

up 10 13 14 even Boston that last series I think was up by double digits maybe 5 or 6 of the those teams that are always up 10, 13, 14 even Boston that last series I think was up by double digits maybe 5 or 6 of the

7 games I think 6 of them but I always think that's a good sign I'm with you there I think I agree with that I think it's been dampened a little bit with the

advance of the 3 point shot true so you have a lot more runs you have a lot I mean look at the Golden State game yesterday. Mavericks shot something like at 1.70% of their shots were from three and they were shooting awful from three.

So you do get a little bit of that. Some of it is... It's kind of interesting. The league has almost become a little bit more random with all these three-point shots. That's why having the ability to grind the game down a little bit and turn teams over or get into your offense quickly like the like the Warriors were able to do versus Dallas is I think a big thing that's been an issue with the Celtics so the the slow the clock down Celtics

I tweeted this today is that not my favorite version of the Celtics they they need to play with a certain pace that's when they're really have a chance to be special. And when they're like milk the shot clock Celtics, that's when I get a little nervous. I think Golden State probably has an easier time doing that. I would agree. And then Dallas, I would say, is the ultimate, yeah, we're going to take all 23 seconds here

before we get a shot. Let's talk about that series. Make every game feel like Game 7 on FanDuel Sportsbook, an official partner of the NBA. Throughout the playoffs, all customers can place a no sweat, same game parlay each week. You'll get up to $20 in free bets if you don't win. FanDuel, so many ways to play. You'll get paid faster than a fast break. For instance, Dallas Golden State. Let's say you think Dallas is going to win. Take Dallas plus six. Luka over 31.5 points. Luka over eight plus rebounds.

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And in West Virginia, 1800gamber.net. 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. Actually, before we talk Dallas, Golden State, what's your theory on what happened to the Suns? Because I'm still waiting for our answers on that.

It's not just that they lost. I know Dallas played great in the game seven. And when Dinwiddie is going to do that on top of what Luka did in the first half, they're going to be really hard to beat. On the other hand, the Suns really rolled over. And this was a team that was 70 and 20 heading into game three

and then completely cratered. It seemed like Chris was hurt. They haven't said anything. Was he old? Was he tired? What happened to Aiton? Yeah, I heard everything from hurt to I heard COVID today,

but I don't buy that. I don't know. Who knows? I think there's, I mean, his numbers, his numbers in games three through seven were, I mean, people didn't really talk about it or nothing. They were like, you're out of the league with the numbers that he had, right? Yeah, I mean,

he had foul trouble, obviously in game three and I think game four also. But I mean, the guy scored 47 points in five games. Yeah, he was like nine points a game? 47 points in one... In five games. Yeah. He was like nine points a game

and like five assists and he had a bunch of fouls and gave up a ton of points too. Yeah. This is a notoriously low turnover player. And this guy had five turnovers in game six and seven, I believe, in game three. And his body language was horrible too. He looked like

he didn't look like himself. It was really weird. He looked defeated and so that leads me to believe that he probably wasn't 100%. This isn't to take any shine off what Dallas did. But that and then

just the very, very basic approach the Suns had. And maybe when you're the best team in the league, you don't feel like you have to make a ton of adjustments. But I mean, they did make some adjustments, but their inability to, like for Booker's inability to handle a simple double team, that was kind of mind-blowing in game seven.

But it also kind of makes sense if you look at their roster, you take away Chris Paul. Now, who do they have? I mean, to create anything, it's just Booker.

So what's he going to be? He's going to swing it to Jay Crowder at the top of the arc and hope Jay Crowder makes something happens and get the ball back. Like it was, it was really, it was really interesting. I mean, look,

Luca, Luca, Luca just can demoralize you in the worst way possible. I mean, he, he was hitting shots in game seven and laughing at the team. I've never seen that before, ever,

where a guy's hitting ridiculous shots and then laughing and giggling at them while backpedaling up the court. I do think that there's a certain kind of like, that can deflate you. That can certainly make you feel like, oh, we're not beating this guy. This guy's not getting beat tonight. So that's partlate you. That can certainly make you feel like, oh, we're not beating this guy. This guy is not getting beat tonight.

So that's part of it. Bird used to do that. Jordan was the ultimate of that. But really loved... I don't remember Jordan laughing. I remember Jordan trash talking. And the trash talking is one thing because it's kind of private in some ways.

And you can kind of... You pull this jersey up and you say something, but the laughing and giggling at it was just so kind of bananas in some ways. It was fun to watch. Yeah, he was just so confident. You just like within six minutes of that game, and I was just siding

because I had some big Phoenix bets and I'm trying to decide I have to probably live bet my way out of this. I'd love to be in a room where you're trying to live bet out of a position. There was no opportunity. At one point it was like, I don't know, 29, 22. I'm like, okay, couple more threes, now I can do it. And then all of a sudden it was like 39, 22. But you could just feel it in the first five, six minutes when you have a great player who is just bursting with confidence like that. And then you have Bridges on the other end,

who's supposed to be like a defensive player of the year candidate. And he was just toying with him and toying with whoever and getting mismatches. And it was a demolition. Yeah. I don't think there's one guy that's stopping him. There's a couple guys who defended him really, really well. But I don't think over a seven-game series, he's going to download that and figure it out. In order to stop him, it has to be a team effort. And there has to be a second guy. The Golden State did a really, really good job

of defending him in game one. They threw a bunch of different looks at him. I think the first seven possessions, they went through a version of a zone. They did a box-in-one. They switched. They blitzed. They did all these things just in the first seven possessions, they went through a version of a zone. They did a box and one. They switched. They blitzed.

They did all these things just in the first quarter versus him. And their speed is something to contend with. But yeah, Phoenix just kind of vanillaed, tried to vanilla their way to a win. Game six and game seven, and it did not work. It felt like last night, I thought Gold State, who was really, really sloppy in that Memphis series, even in games they were winning, it felt like they were a little disheveled, right? They seemed super focused yesterday.

They came in, they had a game plan. They knew exactly what they wanted to do. They quickened the pace up. It seemed like their goal was like, can we rush the Mavs? Can we make them not be patient? And then Wiggins did a good job with Luka. It was like he was matched up with him every play, but he certainly has the physicality and the athleticism

that if he's assertive enough, it's at least like the type of physique you would want to guard Luka, right? Like the 6'7 to 6'8 guy, athletic, strong enough to not get bulldozed by him. He did a good job. I think Looney also does. Looney and Green do pretty good jobs

versus him as well. Green more as a help defender. They just had so many... There was one play where it was just absurd. They recovered. Green showed help on the arc on the left side and then flew all the way... Was that the one when he blocked the shot in the corner?

Go back and watch that. That was amazing. It was probably the craziest defensive sequence I've seen in a long time, just in terms of how many different things they snuffed out that play. Steve Jones on Twitter had the clip, so you can go look it up if you're listening. Okay, yeah, I will. That was

something else. It'll be interesting. I think Golden State has a few advantages in the series that may turn out to be too difficult for Dallas to overcome. The two teams who handled crashing teams the worst,

Golden State crashed the most effectively in the playoffs. Dallas does not push the ball back in transition, which is one of one way you kind of inhibit teams from crashing. First, you have to get the rebound, but then assuming you get the rebound, you can catch teams in transition. I think Dallas gave up 25 points per 100 possessions

over and above average versus teams that sent two or more players to the glass. And then, which is a fun little stat that I'm sure people have. And then the other part of it is Dallas tried to crash versus Golden State's smaller lineup and it backfired massively. They ended up being a minus seven on

their crashes because they gave up more points in transition on their crashes than they did versus their retreat. So they're kind of in a really tough spot there. I don't know what the solution is. I'm sure you can always improve your... I mean, look, Maxi Cleveland got in foul trouble. That was big.

That was a big factor. Obviously, the three-point shooting was a big factor. That won't be the same in game two. But I do think that the style of defensive Mavericks play in retrospect was more well- well suited to how Phoenix played, which is more of a stationary one-on-one attacking break guys down defense versus golden state, which is very off ball,

lots of cuts, lots of misdirection. Memphis defended that very well, historically all season or not historically, but all season. And so they were kind of suited for it. Dallas, I think wasn't really ready for it.

We'll see how they adjust going into game two. The best thing, if I'm making the case for Dallas rebounding game two, is what you said about Max again in foul trouble. Because that's the one variable. In Golden State, which I think is a really hard place to play, if he's going to be in foul trouble, then the other variables for them to win at that point are make a ton of threes or Luka goes off.

But I just think they need him. In Dallas, maybe it's a little different, but what did he have? He had three fouls at halftime. Yeah. Or a ketty and a half, and I remember thinking, this is not a good sign. He only played eight minutes in the first half, I believe.

The other thing I want to say quickly that's disadvantageous for Dallas is their premium defenders that they have, Bullock and Dorian Finney-Smith, both really, really good on-ball defenders. Dorian Finney-Smith, one of the better on-ball wing defenders

in the league. The knock against him has always been the foot speed, tracking guys off-screen. So him chasing around Curry, that's a challenge. I think they're going to have to really dial in how they switch off the ball. And that's got to be... I don't know if you remember the way the Rockets defended Golden State back in the day. But they were aided by Durant because with Durant, there wasn't nearly as much motion. The game was a lot slower, as crazy as that sounds. Now you remove a guy like that and now it's just all space and movement.

It's tough, man. It's tough watching. When it works, it looks beautiful. When it doesn't work, we're all mocking Steve Kerr for not running simple high pick and roll on Twitter like I am all the time. But yeah, it looks beautiful when it works. So Dallas, I think, was plus 180 heading into the series on

FanDuel and now I think they're plus 360, something like that, or plus they're somewhere between 335 and 360, depending on what you're looking at. But one thing with Dallas, they've done this now two series in a row, whereas the series went along,

they kind of figured out, all right, here's how we'll win this series. And then the second half of the series, they were just better than the first half of the series. And I do wonder, could that happen here? They got game three and game four in Dallas. And regardless of what happens, I don't feel like tomorrow, as weird as it sounds,

is a must-win for them because of their history just in these playoffs. Yeah, maybe. I mean, I think a big part of their history was Luka was out the first series for the first few games. And then, I mean, their history is basically two series. There's not a lot. The other one was Chris Paul

kind of disappearing at game three onwards. I don't know. I'm optimistic. Look, I'm cheering for Dallas. I mean, people might not get that, but I am. I just have a little bit more concern and respect for how difficult it is to game man versus Golden State when they're on. attack the Clay Thompson, Jordan Poole, pick and roll. I would certainly attack both those guys at the same time. Poole was showing sometimes and recovering, and there was no communication between the two of them.

You can involve those two players in a pick and roll, but they're not always on the court at the same time, and they don't start him. The big lineup is really where I think Dallas has trouble. The loony and green with the rest of those guys. Yeah, who would have thought? I thought heading into it, Looney would be unplayable by game four.

Instead, he turned out to be a huge advantage. Yeah, he's an underrated good defender. He is and he's very smart and he's experienced. And the one thing about him is you're just not getting rebounds when he's out there. It's just like you're not getting to the rim. It's just kind of impressive. Big picture. So Utah loses

to Dallas in game one or series one and it's like, oh my god, we gotta blow them up. How do you lose that series? They couldn't even play half the games. That's it. End of the line. Then they beat Phoenix. Two questions. If you're Utah, do you feel differently about how that round one went now that Dallas just beat Phoenix? Is Dallas just better than you realize? Maybe you don't blow it up. Maybe you try to figure out one more year. That's my first question. Answer is? Oh, I didn't know that you were giving me both at the same time. I think, I mean,

blowing it up, I wouldn't, they have two playable players who are, obviously you're talking about Mitchell and Gobert. They need some guys who can guard on the wing. They don't have one capable wing defender. Daniel House Jr. was like

their best defender. They didn't have... Daniel House Jr. was their best defender. They had guys where Conley and Mitchell just isn't going to work. That's not... This is 2000... It feels like the Conley thing's over. Yeah, so you have to find another guy

who can... They've got to find some of these reliable guys who can guard on the wing. They have a bunch of turnstiles and then they expect Gobert to clean everything up. Westbrook? Maybe. I don't know that he's the guy that's necessarily going to be compatible with Donovan Mitchell,

but it could be. Look, Westbrook's probably a regular season floor raiser for a lot of teams. Maybe not the Lakers, but every other team, it seems like he'd be a regular. I feel like that, I think a Utah or Charlotte would be the two for him.

I think he would love to play in Utah as would any player. Yeah, how would you not? Second question related to that. If you're Phoenix and you have this big decision with Aiton coming up and, you know, 17 minutes in a game seven, and do you want to pay somebody like that,

I don't know, $28, $30 million a year when you're not even sure he could totally play against some lineups? I might have been wrong on this one. I thought they were crazy not to pay him. My stock on him was super high after everything he did in the playoffs last year. I felt like you need him in a series against Joel Embiid,

Giannis, Jokic, Anthony Davis. Like this, there's a real need for this guy. On the other hand, yeah, but you, all of a sudden you're playing Dallas and they go small and you basically can't keep the guy on the floor. He could play small versus Dallas. I push back on that a little bit. The thing about him is because a lot of the guys who...

I mean, he can actually punish players in the post. It's not... He's not like an Embiid where he's going to punish you and throw you in the basket, but he's going to duck in, little hooks over you. He's not like Gobert where he's getting played off the floor. Because the thing about Gobert is Gobert does well defensively, but then can't make you pay on the other end.

I think Aiton can make you pay on the other end. Think about him. He's only 23. He has to work on a more physical game. He's like Patrick Ewing 2.0 with a bunch of fadeaways and a little over-the-shoulder stuff. So just turn, put your shoulder in, jump up.

Yeah. How about dunking every now and then? How about just driving into someone and dunking? I don't know. But what's a guy like that worth in your opinion? 23 years old, about to be a free agent. Is he a $30 million guy for you?

Because like the Celtics are playing Rob Williams 12. Yeah. I'm a notorious hater when it comes to paying big men money. Like I don't think you can ever win in the NBA

if your center's a max contract player unless it's someone who's like an NBA or Jokic. And then, of course, Giannis, who's a center, but not really a center. But other than that, yeah, you go get a Brooke Lopez, you go get a Robert Williams, you get all these other...

You play a Maxi Kleba at the five. You do all these different things. So, I don't know, man. They're in a tough spot because they didn't sign him, so there's already some lack of trust there. They didn't offer to him early.'s already some lack of trust there. They didn't, they didn't offer him to him early. There was the end of game stuff where I, I heard from a very reliable source,

which was Skip Bayless, who heard from little Wayne. So you can imagine the chain of custody there on that, how, how, how solid this information was that he refused to go into the game. That's what little Wayne told Skip Bayless. I think it was,

uh, which if that's true, that's bad. And I did see him say I can't pass myself on the ball. Pass myself the ball on the bench. He did say that. I don't know, man. It's a tough... Look, these are tough decisions.

I would... It would be nice if they could have signed him and then traded him. I know they wouldn't be able to trade him until... I think they can't trade a guy like that until january now because of the rules if they if they sign them in the offseason if to an extension i think i'm not sure maybe or they could trade him right before the draft like indiana is the sixth pick they could certainly do that they could trade it they could trade his rights um they could trade in indiana with the for the sixth pick and turner's expiring something like that

you know yeah i don't know i mean it i would need to i just have like such a fear if you look at there's such a there's i mean there's such a history of big men getting paid and not but you can go all the way back much further but if you want to start with like the who's the the famous one from the Sonics that the... I got so much column mileage out of that that you're the Jerome James. 30 million bucks. The Jerome James to the Hassan White side.

Look, I don't mean to compare DeAndre Ayton to Hassan White side, but there's just like something... He doesn't seem like he has the fire to want to play. I read that he really likes to play video games. He stays up all night. You just curb him as someone who had a video game addiction when I was a teenager.

If you can curb him of the video games and just let him get some sleep and get him in the gym and get him really wanting to be a little more... He just doesn't seem like he has that I want to crush people. And when you're six foot eleven, you've got to want to crush people. I think that's your strength.

The worry is something... Listen, I've been talking about this for a year because I thought it was super suspicious that they didn't give them the extension or come up with some sort of number that they let that hang over the team. I think Chris has a lot of say in that organization, right? And if Chris is like...

How many more years does Chris Paul have? Do you really want to make long term decisions I'm not even talking about no I'm not talking about keeping Chris happy I'm just more like I think these teams ask the guys their opinion and with Chris it's like hey Chris what do you think

should we risk paying this guy 110 million dollars a year is he a reliable risk and if Chris I don't know if Chris paying this guy $110 million a year, is he a reliable risk? And if Chris, I don't know if he said don't do it, but if Chris loved the guy and was like, wait, what are we doing? This guy's amazing.

We got to pay him. So there's something fishy about it. It doesn't make sense to me. Perhaps. The way the league is going though is, you look at the teams that are left, like BAM is a center for Miami. Celtics kind of play smallish to begin with. Dallas turned their whole season around by playing predominantly Maxi Kliba at the five

and a little sprinkle of Dwight Powell. You better be really, really good as a center who can play in the playoffs if you're going to be making that much money. And I think he's shown flashes of it, but I don't know. What is there? You got Booker making all the... Booker's going to get the super max or whatever

that's called now. And then Aiton. And then how do you... And Bridges making like 26. Yeah. Can you build a team around those? The cap's going up, but can you build a team around those? I don't know. We'll see. Chris Paul was super valuable to them.

They're going to need someone else to replace him when he eventually retires. Well, I said on Sunday's spot, I just think their window's shut because I think it was a two-year window and I think they're going to get passed. The West is going to be scary. The West is way better next year

than it is this year. You're bringing back Denver and the Clippers. You're bringing back not just contenders, but teams that can make the finals. You're bringing back whatever version of the Lakers we're going to get. Not to mention, well, who knows? I'm not convinced the Lakers are. I think the Lakers are washed.

It's a washed team right there with no direction. And they've exhumed frozen caveman executive out to get advice on how to build a roster. I'm feisty tonight. I don't know why I'm feisty tonight. But I tell you, I just think like when you're asking a guy who basically said the three-point shot is dead and you can't win with the three-point shot. And he said that in 2017.

Phil Jackson. I just don't know that I would be like leaning on him for how to build going forward. I don't. I would use LeBron over him, just to put it that way. I'm 90% they're a cross off with a Sharpie, not even like a pencil. I just, Davis is only 28. Like I just can't cross them off yet because there could be some training camp where he comes in and he's like, yeah, that was stupid. I'm in the best shape of my life.

I stopped putting on muscle. I studied some old Tim Duncan tapes from 2003 and 2004 and I realized that's what my body should look like and he comes in and he just torches everybody. So I can't cross them off yet. I'm concerned about radiation poisoning with all the MRIs the guys had. I mean, Jesus, the poor guy's been just so jinxed by so many injuries.

It's really unfortunate. Yeah, I just look at their roster though. Like, okay, all those things you said are great, but you have LeBron. Old LeBron. You'd be year 20 LeBron. Yeah, I don't ever want to under, like truly ever want to underestimate LeBron. But at some point, he's not going to be playing basketball anymore. And so we're getting

closer and closer to that. And then you have Westbrook. What are they going to do with Westbrook? I don't know what Phil Jackson said. Allegedly said that they want to keep Westbrook. No draft pick. No draft pick. No youth. No nothing. I mean, like Talon Horton, Tucker.

Who else do they have? That's the thing. Whose roster would you rather have? New Orleans? The roster we just watched with the eighth pick and Zion coming back or the Lakers? It's no contest. No contest, but the Lakers did win a ring even if it was a bubble. Yes, they did. They won the bubble ring which I don't mean to disparage, but they won it.

It's a championship. That's a tougher question, I think you succeed when you win a ring because it's so hard to win one of those. It's a trade that basically required a decade and a half of assets by the time it's all said and done, but they did get one ring out of it.

So the goal is to win a ring. Yeah, the goal is to win a ring. They got a ring out of it and then they had a chance to do some stuff last season that they didn't do that I think could have served them well. Yeah, I think the win a ring. They got a ring out of it and then they had a chance to do some stuff last season that they didn't do that I think could have served them well. Yeah, I think the Phoenix window's closed.

I think the Utah window's closed. I'll be really interested to see what the Clippers, because this is now Kawhi missing. It'll basically be over a year and a half since the last time we've seen him. Kawhi's a little injury prone. Yeah, a little injury prone.

And he's a guy who's in the 2011 draft. He comes back. Yeah, little injury prone. And he's a guy who's in the 2011 draft. He's kind of sneakily been around for a while now. There'll be year 12 for him. Paul George, he's had his share of injuries

and he had that shoulder thing and all that stuff. But that same time, their payrolls could be like $185 million and they'll keep adding to it if they have to. Yeah,

if they can. Not crossing them off. No, yeah. I would not cross them off at all. I love, love, love Kawhi. I think that guy's just, if he's healthy and going, he automatically gives you a chance to win it all.

Give us, before you go, 45 seconds on how we're looking with Bitcoin. Everyone loved me until I started talking about Bitcoin on your, of your fans. How are we looking with Bitcoin. Everyone loved me until I started talking about Bitcoin of your fans. How we're looking with Bitcoin? I don't know. Look, the macro picture is very, very dicey.

Interest rates. The Fed is signaling interest rates go up. I will say this. Bitcoin has held up relatively well compared to tech stocks. If you look at some of these tech stocks, they have crashed 70% to 80%, some 90% like Robinhood, Netflix, Coinbase, all these other companies. So I don't know, man. Here's the thing I would say about Bitcoin. I've always said long-term hold, great. Dollar cost average in maybe. I don't think the washout is done. I hope it is. But I think there could be another

capitulation at some point. Grind down. But three or four years from now, I'm very confident that we will see another all-time high before then. So, but short term, who knows? It's like a hot girl. You just got to really kind of stay on your toes. Anything can happen.

Hockey playoffs? You've adopted a team yet? What's that? Adopted a team? There was a 9-6 game last night that I was watching. I watched it. I watched a little bit of it.

The battle of... I was like, I want to watch all the Canadian teams. Then they just put both Canadian teams playing each other and that's it. So I only have to watch one game every few days. Yeah.

No, I got nothing for you on the hockey playoffs. I apologize. I don't have any. All right. So you have... You think Celtics are in a good spot right now? Yeah, I think the Celtics are the play the rest of the way versus probably whoever they play, Miami,

and then going forward. Seven more wins. Can't believe it. All right. Good to see you, Bob. Yeah. Thank you. All right.

All right. Our guy Warrenpe is here. You can hear him on the Ringer Gambling Show. Probably, we do a couple cameos. This is kind of the dead time. He's working on his big book. But once we get into the late July, August range, when we start thinking futures, all that stuff,

Warren Sharpe will be back, and then we'll have him during the season again. He's got quite a bromance with Joe House. Really, it's like Red and Andy and Shawshank when they see each other.

Schedule came out. People look at the schedule, they get excited about the games, the big marquee matchups. This game's on Monday Night Football. This game's on Sunday Night. These are Thanksgiving games. You look at something

a little different that is a betting advantage. What is it? I look at the rest. There's a lot of different ways you can look at the rest, but I look at the rest edge that you have over your opponent. I also look at the situations the NFL sometimes puts you in. Are they making you travel on the road to play on a short week?

So even though the rest might be the same as your opponent, let's say you both played Sunday and now play Thursday, but you're the road to play on a short week. So even though the rest might be the same as your opponent, let's say you play it both played Sunday and now play Thursday, but you're the road team. That's more difficult as well. So, um, you know, there's two different ways that you look at strength of schedule bill. The first way that we knew at this, as soon as the season ended, who are the teams that you're going to play? That's the strength of your opponent this year. We already knew that, but when they announced the schedule, the NFL has complete and total control over when you are going to play those teams and in what order you're going to play those teams. That's up to their discretion. And what they did hurts teams more than others,

helps some teams more than others. And in general, we can compare it to prior years to see, are they getting more equitable in their scheduling of games or not? Well, your research said it was less equitable. And I think part of it was they're just adding more TV games because this new deal that they're heading toward, there's going to just be more gimmick games. And you have situations like, I mean, this is a fairly normal one, but you have the Pats in Arizona on December 12th, and then the Pats in Las Vegas on December 18th. And, all right, if you're the Pats, do we fly back? Do we just stay on the West Coast the whole time?

But there's 80 examples of this during the season, and part of it has to do with Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, all this stuff. So some teams got screwed here, right? Some teams definitely got screwed. We know, I've heard the NFL schedule makers discuss how they view games. They view them as commodities. They view them in individual fashion as like these commodities. And they're trying to get as many good games on national TV as possible so that the networks will pay the most money as possible for these games.

And I've even heard that next season they will no longer be doing, you know, oh, NFC games go on Fox and AFC games go on CBS. They're getting rid of all of that as well. And so they're going to it's the highest bidder, basically what you're going to pay for the different packages of games that you're going to get. And so they are caring now less about having equity, having a rest similarity, the same rest as your opponent. And they're caring more about the particular teams that play on these primetime games and getting good games there, that now we are seeing this year, 95 out of the 272 games are going to be played this year with one team having a rest disadvantage. That's more than there was last year. That represents

34% of the total schedule. And having a rest advantage does matter. It's possible to overcome that if you've got good coaching or if you've got good players, you can overcome rest disadvantages, but they hurt teams that have worse coaching or have worse players more. And there are opportunities for us to take advantage. It's measured that we can take advantage of this

because historically we show opportunities in the ATS betting marketplace where the teams with a rest advantage cover more games than the teams that don't have one. Was there anybody who really took advantage of this last season in a way that you felt like it affected their record? Yeah, there were a couple of teams. Two of the teams that the Cincinnati Bengals, for example, were the second best team in net rest edge. Last year, they were one of two teams

that did not play a single opponent where the Bengals had a rest disadvantage. They played zero games all season long. Only two teams were able to do that. And we know that they ultimately, it was a battle nip and tuck. They had to play in the AFC wildcard game. They had to make their way, but they won the AFC North and they made it all the way to the Super Bowl. They came out of the blue more or less. And another team that had a strong rest advantage,

the fifth best rest advantage in the NFL was the Rams. So the two teams that made it all the way to the Super Bowl, both ranked top five in net rest edge last season. The team that had the worst net rest edge in the league, this isn't a great representation of the impact of this metric because you guys did have great coaching. But if you recall, we probably did a show last year this time and the New England Patriots were minus 15 in net rest edge last season. You had one game where you had a rest advantage over your opponent from a Thursday night game that you played previously. And you had four games where you were at net rest disadvantage. Two of them, you played opponents coming off of a bye. And so the Green Bay Packers are that team this year where they're the worst team

in the league in terms of having no favors done to them from a rest advantage perspective. But as the Patriots showed us last year, I mean, they made the playoffs with a rookie quarterback. But wait a second though, they kind of died at that last part of the season. True. Remember? Like we were feeling great in late November, but then they went out with a whimper and I wonder if that was part of it. You sent me the teams this year that have the biggest edge in net rest advantage and conspiracy bill was immediately suspicious. The five teams you had, the Bills, who I think they would love if the Bills became one of the marquee teams, they already are. The Lions, you know, fun little rags to riches possibility. The Broncos

with Russell Wilson, and then the Cowboys and the Buccaneers. Conspiracy build is not like this. Bills, Cowboys, Buccaneers, those are three of the five best wrestling. So do we think there's any sort of chicanery with that? I've got to be honest. The NFL says that they parse through thousands of iterations of the schedule and they pick the ones that have the best opportunities for these primetime games and they pick the ones that they think are the best. They don't put enough emphasis on the schedule from a rest perspective. So I don't know that I believe that there is a total conspiracy,

but I will say this. There are certain teams that seem to get a lot of benefit of the doubt with the rest historically and consistently. And I'll give you one example. Who is the most powerful owner in the NFL? Bob Kraft? Jerry Jones. I would say Jerry Jones is the most powerful in general. And Jerry Jones, this season, it's the first time since the NFL expanded Thursday night football that they're making the Cowboys play a short week road game. They've never played one of two teams in the league since 2006. And a number of teams have played over 10, 12 of these games. Dallas has never had to play one. They finally have to play one this year, but you know what the NFL is doing then they're giving them so many other advantageous

spots throughout the rest of their schedule that hardly seem fair. And I'll give you one example. This year, the Cowboys will play six games versus opponents who have less than a week to prepare for them. No other team plays more than four besides Dallas. Last year, nobody played more than four. The NFL average is only 2.6 of these types of games per year. And in fact, only twice in the prior 30 years did a team play six games versus opponents who have less than a week to prepare for them. And now you've got the Dallas Cowboys. So the league finally, and this is, I think, in large part because I kept pointing this

out to them, what they thought was fair, what the NFL thought was fair, Bill. And nobody looks at the schedule like this. So I'm identifying some things that I know in an interview they did with Peter King, who he interviewed one of the schedule makers. They said that they weren't looking at some of the things that I was identifying in the past, and now they're starting to incorporate it. What they tried to do with Dallas in the past is they said, well, Dallas never plays a road Thursday game.

So let's give them a road Thursday game. But what they did for multiple years is they made that road Thursday game be the week after Thanksgiving. And so Dallas actually had a full week to prepare for a road Thursday game. It was not anywhere close to playing on Sunday and then have to play on Thursday with a day of travel mixed into things. Where you can get more injuries too. Exactly.

And so finally they did that this year. And I think they said, Jerry, we're going to do this, but we'll help you out in other ways. And they gave him these six games that we just have never seen a team get. And so I do think that there is that element with the Cowboys. And if I looked historically over the last decade, the Cowboys are one of the teams that have historically received the best rest help from the NFL over the last decade in general. Well, that's why they've won so many playoff games. Oh, wait, they haven't won any playoff games. Yeah. Even with all the benefits, they're still. So out of the teams that have the rest advantage, I'm looking at Fando at the odds. Buffalo is our favorite right now to win the Super Bowl, plus 650. And Tampa's plus 750. And Dallas is 18 to one. They have the ninth best odds, Denver 17 to one. They have the eighth best odds. So out of the five rest advantage teams for them are in the top nine for

Superbowl ads, including the top two. Now I think Buffalo and Tampa were up there anyway, but I just think that's yet another thing to do. Plus Tampa's in a crap conference, it looks like, and Brady's coming back, and they're bringing

a lot of their guys back, so they're looking at least pretty solid. But then you go to the rest of the disadvantage teams, which you had the Patriots yet again. It's year two?

Two years ago? Yep. Bob Crabb, maybe that's why I had the wrong answer when you asked me who the most powerful owner was. The Packers, F.U. Aaron Rodgers,

Texans, Jets, and Saints. It's a weird list. You only have kind of two public teams on there, and then you have two terrible teams and the Saints, who knows what they're going to be. But, um, any, anybody just get demolished out of those five? I think the jets are an interesting one because they're the hot button team that a lot of people are talking about. Obviously their roster has improved. We need, we know that quarterbacks generally take that big step

year two, that's Zach Wilson this season, and they've improved a lot of the people around him. So you would imagine that he could, if he's going to take a step, it would come this year. But they are a team where if you look at their rest advantage spots, they have one day rest here, one day rest there, and one game with a two day rest advantage. These one day rest differences don't matter nearly as much as three or four or seven day rest disadvantages do. And that's what the Jets have. They are one of three teams this year. This is also a crazy nugget. There are three teams this year who must play four times against teams on mini buys, which are they played on a Thursday. They obviously don't play the next Sunday and they don't play until the Sunday after that. So they get three extra days of rest over a team that

goes from Sunday to Sunday. The reason why that's important is because for most teams that have a true buy, a real buy, you get days off. You might plan a quick vacation, especially now that COVID has wound down, like you might be able to do more things now and you're not expected to be at the facility working. But if you just have this mini buy where it's just, you know, you don't have a full quote unquote week in this calendar off, but you actually have 10 days off, you're prepping, you're going into the facility more frequently and you are, your body is resting, but you're mentally getting prepared for this next opponent that you're going to face. Last year, no team played four opponents off of a mini buy. There's Last year, no team played four opponents off of

a many by. There's been just one team to play four opponents off of a many by in an NFL season since the NFL expanded Thursday night football in 2006. And this year we've got three of them. So to force a team like the Jets to play four of those games, that is brutal. And another team that must do it, and they're not at the bottom of these rankings, they're right around league average in terms of net rest, but is the Washington Commanders. And the reason I call them out specifically is because their four teams that they must play off of many buys happen from week 10 onward. So they're jam-packed late into the season. And what we've seen, what I've found when I'm studying these rest advantage spots are

rest advantages, or let's say disadvantages, hurt you more later on in the season when you're tired anyway. So now that they're going to have to play four of these teams from week 10 onward that have 10 days to rest and rehab their bodies and prepare for them, that's going to hurt them more than if those four games were spread out over the course of the season or came near the beginning of the year. That makes sense. Fando has odds.

Who will win 10-plus regular season games? The Jets are 7-1. To go 10-7 or better. Everyone was falling all over themselves, high-fiving about their draft. They had a good draft last year. I don't see it, but I thought that number jumped out at me.

Houston's 28-1 to go 10-7. Seattle's 18-1. Carolina 10-1. Jets 7-1. Jaguars 6-1. Bears plus 550. Detroit plus four 20 giants plus two 70. So those are the worst teams. We always have the one terrible team that jumps, right? It was last year's the Bengals, but we know it's going to happen. It happens every time. So out of those,

who do you like? Do you have, have you identified the sleeper yet? I have not identified the sleeper. We're going to have to come back and do another sleeper special when I've gotten further in the book. But I will say this with the Jets. They hurt on both fronts because I mentioned there's two ways to evaluate your schedule. The one is look at your opponents and the other is look at the rest and the things that the NFL did from a timing perspective. The Jets obviously rank fourth worst from a timing perspective. They also have the sixth worst strength of schedule based upon who they actually are forced to play. They're in the AFC.

It's a brutal conference. And they have the sixth toughest row. I'm not sure the AFC is going to be that tough. Compared to the NFC? Just Bills. But I'm not sure Miami and New England. I mean, New England, is New England going to go like 8-9 this year?

Are we going to get to 500? Sorry, Kyle. I'm curious to see what that offense looks like without their prior coordinator, Josh McDaniels, and with the new guys that they brought in. They're obviously still, from what I've heard, did you hear about the competition that they are having to see who is going to be the play caller? They're

competing against one another in their offseason work. Unfortunately, I did not think that sounded like an awesome idea. I'm more concerned about the defense this year. Linebackers were, by the end of the year, just luggage. And then you have JC Jackson leaves, and they've tried to patch that together. But just in general, the defense is about as bad as it's looked heading into a season for how I'm feeling about it.

I think the offense will be fine. But you think all the good quarterbacks are in the AFC now, except for, what, three of them? Yeah. That part makes me nervous, too. You have Mac Jones, who I think all the Patriots fans

are really pumped about. I like Mac Jones, but he's not even one of the seven best guys in the conference. So you're going into a season where you don't even have a top seven quarterback in your own conference. It's pretty rough. You know, no doubt about it. Now, a team that I think is interesting that could take a step back. Now their win total is only eight and a half and they, so they aren't expected to be outstanding, But I'm looking at you, Arizona Cardinals. And the reason I want to say the Arizona Cardinals,

if you look at their net rest edge, and that's why you really have to do... So I look at the net rest edge, but I also look at all these other factors and we'll talk about them in a second to kind of bucket and segment out this schedule. Overall, big picture, the Cardinals are negative three in net rest edge, which puts them, I don't know, maybe 19th in the NFL. It's not overly terrible.

They're not the 10 worst team in terms of getting screwed by the schedule from that perspective. However, when you look at what I refer to as prep and rest rankings, they have the fifth worst schedule. So how is that? What is going on on those rankings that makes them so much worse than their net rest edge? They play four games where their opponent has over seven days to prepare for them. And they only play one opponent that's going to be on a short week. They also play only one game where they have more rest than their opponent, but they play four games where they have less rest than their opponent. They also play one short week road game and their bye week is negated because their opponent has a bye the same exact time as they do. In addition, they play the

ninth most difficult schedule based upon the win totals of their opponents. So now this is not rest, but who they play. They play the ninth most difficult schedule. And if you look at some of the other metrics, for example, the rank of their offensive efficiency of opponents, how tough is it going to be on their defense this year? They play the second most difficult schedule of opposing offenses from last season. Now we know offenses vary year over year. And just because you're bad one year, if you get a bunch of new players and potentially a new quarterback, you will improve. But overall, if we're trying to calculate what is the most stable year over year metric, it's going to be the opposing offense. Offenses are going to be more stable than defense and specifically passing offense is going to be more stable than rushing offense because uh passing offense

largely contingent upon who your quarterback is and um so they're going to be playing a very the cardinals are going to be playing a very difficult schedule of opposing offenses this upcoming season what about their first three kc at, at Vegas, home ramps. And that's without Hopkins. So that could be the 0-3 coming out of the gate. And usually that's a team that starts pretty fast. The Cardinals, when they die in the second half, this year is going to be different.

Right. With Cliff Kingsbury, he blows this team up like a balloon and then lets it go. And it runs out of air like halfway through the season. And then they're generally speaking, terrible. The reason is because he doesn't modify what he's doing, his tactics enough throughout the course of the season. So teams, he shocks them at the beginning of the year, has really good record, whether he was in college or the pros to start the year,

but then falls off. Well, now he doesn't have Hopkins at the beginning of the season. They do play a difficult schedule. But if you look at this team from week nine onwards, they literally play the number one most difficult schedule of any team in the NFL over the second half of the season. So you factor that with how they have a Mexico game. They do have the Mexico game. And you factor that with what he does historically over that last half of the season. I mean, for them to exceed their eight and a half wins, which is lower than what they've done in the past for, you know, very justified, but they're going to have to win a ton of these games at the beginning of the season because

they're going to struggle down the stretch. And you have the Kyler Murray, the way he's finished the last two seasons and whether he can hold up for a five month year and the really weird Hollywood Brown trade. Where'd you stand on that trade, by the way? The 100 in Hollywood Brown for number 23. It just seems steep, but I guess everybody's saying there's such a run on receivers. They felt like they had to get somebody, but I just didn't like it. Yeah. It made a lot more sense once it was announced that DeAndre Hopkins was getting suspended because at the context at the time, we didn't know Hopkins was getting suspended. And we said, yeah, this is ridiculous. It definitely made more sense once that happened. And I still didn't love it, but I could justify why they did it. You love some of the draft teams this year. You enjoyed the Jets draft, which I thought was a

possible sign of the apocalypse. You enjoying a Jets draft on social media? I didn't know it was happening. I kept waiting for the aliens to land, but they did a good job. They did a great job. I was looking at the draft in a little bit of a different context this year, which was, of course, I'm looking at draft value and who you're getting and whether you add more draft capital over the course of the draft or lose it. Are you building towards the future?

But the other thing that sometimes is useful, and there's obviously going to be misses on any way you try to evaluate players, but you look at the wisdom of crowds approach, which is a lot of independent talent evaluators are now in the marketplace, sharing their thoughts and opinions on who should go, what position, where the top 50 guys, top 100 guys rank all these different guys. There's a lot of people that are involved in that now with better data and more information than there's ever been in the past. And so

you can compare the average ranking or slotting of these players that are expected to go in the draft with what an individual GM decides to do. So a certain guy might be mocked to go 50th overall. He might be the 50th best player in the draft and a GM who's sitting at, you know, pick number 17 decides to go ahead and take that player. Well, is that a reach or not? Well, based on the wisdom of crowds approach, that is a reach because he was supposed to go much later in the draft. And then there are certain guys that fall and become values based upon the wisdom of crowds approach. And generally speaking, I went back and looked at it, you know, two, three years down the road, because that's what everybody cares. You can say whatever you

want today. Everybody can be an expert today because nobody knows what's actually going to happen. But two, three years from now, you're going to figure out which players that were reaches were busts and which players that fell late and we thought might be a steal actually were steals. And this wisdom of crowds approach does have a pretty good track record of being more than average accurate on picking some of these guys. But I just want to say- Was this your way to make me feel bad about Cole Strange? Like to make me feel worse when I was just over it? In all fairness, you did bring this up. So you asked about the draft evaluation approach,

but no, I did not mean to make you feel bad. And look, he could be a reach now, but ends up panning out down the road. And so that's what the whole goal is. It's about evaluating these kids and seeing what they could project to in the NFL. And look, all of us in the media, I don't think we wish ill on any of these guys. We have our criticisms based on our evaluations in our process and our certain methodologies, but we are secretly rooting for everybody to be successful. That will make the league better. Nobody wants certain teams to whiff on picks and then them to struggle and be terrible. We'll talk about them, whether they're good or they're bad, but it'll be interesting to see how he pans out. I've learned not to get too upset when they, whatever happens with the Pats,

especially the strange pick when Belichick said after, like we were pretty confident somebody was going to be taking him soon after we want to get him. I think if you like the guy, you're going to take him. The only thing we can say with certainty that made no sense was the Vikings trading backwards from 12 to 32 for what they got and for what that point of the draft was. Because look, you can say whatever you want about drafts, but they always have tears. And they had clearly hit a point in that draft was there was the one awesome receiver left, even though he was coming out the ACL injury. And then you had two more really, really highly regarded defensive players, and they were going to go in some order, 12, 13, 14. And I just don't understand why you would trade out of that, especially when all of

these teams wanted receivers and what you saw a lot of egg at, you know, what, just what the saints paid just to get him. I didn't get that at all. I still don't understand it. Yeah. I, that was one that was certainly a little bit perplexing, especially trading with a team in your own division and the Detroit lions to, to, to make that move. I like who the lions went up and got. I like their strategy in general. Now, that's not to say I don't dislike who the Vikings ultimately selected, and they thought that there was some value there

in making that move. Louis Seen is great. I just think you have to get, if you're going down 20 spots, I have to get a first-round pick back. That's the history of the draft. That's too many spots. You're going from top 12. We're about to drop off. I need a first. That's the price to do that. And they just didn't

get it. Well, there are certain GMs and I'm not saying the Lions GM has been there for a while, but there are certain GMs like the Vikings GM, first year guys in the door. And some of these guys are not getting the right type of value as they should on some of these trades and GMs like Howie Roseman are taking advantage of them. And some of the other GMs around the league are taking advantage of, of some of the more youthful, less experienced GMs, um, that are looking to, to make moves. And in general, like the common thought processes, you gain value by trading down. Like it is a plus EV move because you're going to get extra picks in doing so. And the draft is so difficult to

hit on a specific player that having these extra arrows in your quiver will provide more upside big picture. And that's why generally speaking, you do get more value in doing that. But the Vikings move, I agree. It was one of the more perplexing trade downs based upon what they got in return. Well, especially during the year when the receiver, getting the receiver on the rookie contract was like the new inefficiency because of how crazy the receiver prices got. So even if the Lions have to wait, I don't know, till week 11 for Williams or even next year, it's still worth it if that guy's a number one receiver.

You see that? Yeah, I mean, and if you, exactly. And if you look at the wide receiver run was basically ended there after Chris Olave. The last guy on the board that was viewed in this same class at the top of the first round is Jameson Williams. After that, it was like Jahan Dotson and Traylon Burks, who obviously, I believe the run on wide receivers pulled them up the draft board as well. Nobody thought that Jahan Dotson should be going 16 overall. And yet he was because if you need a wide receiver and

all the other guys have already been drafted by pick 12, what are you going to do? So that's why those guys got shifted up the board. But that pick at number 12 had so much inherent value at that time. The value increased over that pick as soon as the Saints took Chris Alave at number 11. Yeah, and that's why I didn't get it. And that, you know, I don't go crazy, but oh my God, I can't believe they took this guy here. But it was just so clear that we're about to go crater. One last thing on the rest edge. You said since 2015, teams that had a legitimate rest edge, this is home favorites of three to 10 points since 2015, rest edge, 92 and 38, straight up, almost 71%. And then against the spread at 70, 58, and 2. Those are real numbers.

Well, those are not only real numbers, Bill. Look at the comparison when you talk about equal rest or rest deficit to see, does this actually matter? I will tell you this. The NFL tries to say that this is a minor thing. This doesn't really matter that much. And so if that's true, we should be able to look back at historical data. And that's why they probably don't want to look at the point spread element of it. But the.8 against the spread. So we went from 54.7 to 45 to 40.8. If there was actually a deficit, those are real numbers. Those are definitely real numbers. And the reason I'm segregating out home favorites of three to 10 points is because we want to look at the team that is viewed as better. The better team in general should have more of an advantage if they have a rest edge. They should be in a better position because think about it. Like one of the reasons

you guys end up doing pretty well, you've got a great coaching staff. You know how to prepare the players. If you have a short Thursday game, you know what needs to happen. Whereas an inexperienced coach or a bad coach may not know the right strategy to get this team ready for a short week road game on a Thursday night like Belichick does. And so looking at home favorites of three to 10 points, generally we're talking about this team is viewed as the betting market as the superior team and double digit favorites are generally speaking terrible, whether you're going to look at rest edge, not rest edge. So you could include them if you want to, or you could take them out like I did. It's

really not going to do it, make a difference to the general comparison, which is these teams that are viewed as the better team by the Las Vegas betting market when they play at home, if they have a rest edge, they're covering the spread almost 55% of the time. If they have equal rest, it's down to 45% of the time. That's basically a 10 percentage point differential. And then if they have a rest deficit, even though they're viewed as the better team, they're down to 40.8% ATS. As you said, real numbers. These are things that aren't-

Yeah, difference makers. Different, major difference makers. Especially with a tease too. Like if you're getting, if I know I get 55% to cover this straight up, then what, even if, I know you hate teases, but you're never going to make me in house quit. Um, if I get that on a teaser number that maybe that's up to like 75%, something like that. Oh, just to win the game. Right. Yeah. Easily. And I think the

difficult part for somebody listening to the show right now is, okay, so you're telling me these numbers, but how do I know? And you've told me the big picture rest advantage. How do I know on a per game basis during the season, who's got the rest edge? Because most people aren't sitting at home, like running these calculations. What I will tell you is I am planning on this year in the book, the 500 page book for every single team chapter on the very first page of that team's chapter, I'm going to tell you every single week if this team has a rest advantage or a rest disadvantage in that game. And that should help you as you get ready to prepare for these games during the course

of the season as to whether or not you would want to make a bet on that team because these numbers are extremely compelling. And the good news is that's the schedule. It's not going to change. Correct. Before we go, quickly, division winner odds are out. Any sleepers for you? Like we have Casey's plus 155 and the Chargers are plus 240 to win that division.

You have the Colts are favored at minus 105. But I don't know if anybody is completely in love with the Colts are favored at minus 105, but I don't know if anybody is like completely in love with the Colts. You have Dallas is plus one 10 and Philly's plus two 20, which is weird. You have that crazy NFC North, which I'm just prepared for anything in that division. And then, uh,

that's really, but any, anything like you're looking at as like a possible edge. Um, I think what one team that's interesting, although like this would be a major long shot and basically you're needing something to fall apart with the Packers early schedule here, and that could be potentially the Detroit Lions coming out of nowhere. We know that I really like

their rest advantage. They also have the fifth easiest schedule based upon who they play this season. And so they're a team like, look, I think with the Lions, you want to swing big with these guys. Either you don't want to back them or you want to back them to have a really turnaround season. And we know Jared Goff has major limitations from an upside perspective, but with- His stats weren't bad down the stretch. With reasonable enough coaching and just level play, like you said with his stats weren't bad down the stretch. Yeah. With reasonable enough coaching and, and just level play, like you said, his stats are, are, are fine.

They added a lot of pieces around him. And one of the most important things for a quarterback, especially one that we don't love is a good offensive line, good protection. And that's one of the things that they really have there. Um, I, I would also be looking, although we talked about the Cowboys having a really good rest advantage situation of being plus eight, somebody else winning the NFC East. I think that there is some other team than Dallas that I would want to be betting there. And I know a lot of money is coming in on the Philadelphia Eagles. They have the second easiest schedule based upon who you play. And the Giants have the number one easiest schedule based upon who you play this upcoming

season. The Eagles got kind of screwed this year. Half of their road games, they play eight of them because they're in the NFC. So that's the other thing to keep in mind with the schedule is AFC teams have to play an extra road game this year. NFC teams get an extra home game. So they only play four road games, sorry, eight road games, but half of the Eagles road games this year, they will be playing on a short week on the road. There are 43 such games this year, up from 28 last year, and half of the Eagles contests are on short weeks. Meanwhile, 21 teams play zero or one short week road game. So to make the Eagles play four of them is absolutely brutal. But I think somebody else

could come out of the East there. Detroit plus 850 for the NFC North. Yeah. I'm with you, man. I don't. The Packers. Playoffs. Detroit playoffs. What if Aaron Jones pulls a hammy in week two or they have one other weapon that I trust? Right. And without Devontae Adams, the key is Aaron Rodgers had so many benefits as he's passing the ball. The defenses have to overplay Devontae. Now that you remove Devontae and you've got a young, less experienced wide receiver there that they drafted in the second round who's going to be asked to perform really well for them. And I mean, if those wide receivers don't get on the same page as Aaron Rodgers early in the season or during the offseason, we know these quarterbacks, they don't like to play a lot during the offseason. How long will it take for them to gel? And then what happens if the team doesn't get off to a great stretch? I mean, it's difficult to bet against this team. Matt LaFleur has won 13 games,

the only coach in the NFL to win 13 games in each of his first three seasons with a team. So obviously they're doing a lot of the right things. Yeah, but we also know the NFL runs are like three, four years. And then somebody else steps in and then they have, that's just how it goes. You have to constantly reinvent yourself every four years. I don't know. The Lions finished the season strong. If they got

Jameson Williams back in time for the start of the year, I'm on Ross A. Brown. He's going to be a big fantasy guy this year, but I thought the golf numbers down the stretch were pretty intriguing. I'm not a giant golf fan, but he has succeeded before. Now he had a lot of good weapons around him and obviously Sean McVay couldn't wait to get rid of him. But to me, he's at least more of a certainty than Zach Wilson is. Zach Wilson just might be terrible. I have no idea. And he might be good. I have no idea. But at least Goff has been okay. So who knows? I like Dan Campbell, too. Those guys really seem like they gave a shit last year. Yeah.

And the thing, the thing that they asked Jared Goff to do is really play within himself. He was, he, in terms of the NFL next gen stats has a metric called aggressiveness, which tracks how often are you throwing the football into close windows where there's defenders around you. And Jared Goff had the second lowest rate of aggressive throws last year, meaning he was getting the ball to receivers that weren't being covered, which helped lower his interception number and allowed these players to make something of themselves after the catch. And Patrick Mahomes was number one and Jared Goff was number two in lowest rate of throws that were considered aggressive by the NFL. On the other end of the spectrum, Tua was number one with the highest rate of throws that were considered to be aggressive. So I do think Mike McDaniel- Yeah, but that's only because he didn't

know where the ball was going. I don't know if you can blame him for that. He would release the ball, just go wherever it went. It still looks like that on the clips that the social team posts on Twitter. I don't know what that social team is doing, quite frankly. They're bizarre, but I do think Mike McDaniel is drastically going to lower Tua's ADOT and increase the rate of throws to players that are open to make more after the catch. We'll see if he can do that.

Yeah, maybe. Lions plus 850 for the NFC North. Lions plus 420 to win 10 plus games. So you say 10 and seven with the shit schedule, with a lot of rest advantages, with a lot of good young players and who knows. And what are they to make?

Do you have playoffs? Do you have what they are to make? They don't have the playoff numbers yet. That's why I was looking at that 10 plus regular season because, um, I think that's a decent indication of, it's pretty sad though. The, it's a tough indication. It's pretty sad, though. It's a tough beat for the Pats.

Plus to win 10-plus games this year. Plus 135. That has to be the first time. I mean, it's not even 10-6. It's 10-7. Right. And they're plus 135 to go 10-7. That is not a good sign for this season.

No, and I like in the NFC, that's why I would be waiting to see what these playoff odds are is because the NFC is just, I mean, wide, wide, wide open, wide open. You mentioned, you don't know that the AFC is really as good as what we're making it out to be, but I think the NFL, the NFC could be potentially worse than what we seen because I think that the Bucs, I think the Bucs, if you played the Bucs schedule last year, this year, they would definitely not win as many games. They might do okay this year simply because the competition is weaker, but I think they're going to fall back this year. And I think the Packers are going to fall back this year and they were the two best. And then you take quarterbacks like

Russell Wilson out of the NFC. I just think the NFC is definitely wide open. So if you're looking to bet more long shots in the NFL this upcoming season, I would be focusing far more on the NFC. And I'd be looking at some of these mediocre teams that could take a jump. Maybe they had a new first year quarterback last year, or they had a new coaching staff last year, and maybe it took one year for them to figure some things out, and they might take a jump in a weaker NFC this season. You and I see the world in the same way. I like to look at the quarterbacks on the schedule. If somebody starts out the season six and one, I like to go back. All right, who are the seven quarterbacks you played? I just think that's kind of the easiest way to

tell if somebody's full of shit or not. And some of these NFC teams just week after week, they're going to get to play Carson Wentz, Jared Goff, you know, uh, Marcus Beriotta. It's just over and over again. They're not versus like, if you're, you might have a week or a month in the AFC where you're going against Herbert, Russell Wilson, Josh Allen, Pat Mahomes, like all back to back or Lamar. And you know, every week you're just, Jesus Christ, this guy's coming up next. So anyway, all right, sharp. Good luck with the book. Thanks for coming on as always. And let us know you, you sent me the bat signal when you're ready to start thinking about sleepers. I like that. I'll fire it up. All right. All right, I'm taping this.

It is 1.15, Thursday afternoon. The Yankees just tied Baltimore. I was so excited because I called my friend Johnny, who's been on many times, the infamous Jacko, who's riding a Yankee high. His tweets have become increasingly confident. And I texted him this morning, after you beat Baltimore,

come on the pod. Let's talk about this Yankees thing. And then, of course, you were losing to Baltimore. I was like, I did it. I did. And now, as we're taping this, you rallied back.

It is tied in the ninth. Johnny, you believe in this Yankees team. I don't like this new optimistic, happy Johnny. It is a rarity. It's out of character, no question about it. But when you're at the moment pending 28-9,

everybody else in Major League Baseball has at least 14 losses, I believe. How can I not be confident? I mean, it's like 1998 all over again. It's incredible. And I never would have believed it. Anybody that follows me knows how much I would not have believed this to happen. And it's absolutely incredible.

It's astounding. This team put together by Brian Cashman that I had so many questions about, led by Aaron Boone, who I still have questions about, that they are out of the gate like this. It's really unbelievable. There's no other word for it. I think you owe some apologies. I do. Somebody tweeted at me today, when's the Aaron Boone apology coming?

And I said, I think if they keep up this pace, I may have to get some kind of Aaron Boone tattoo. I have no tattoos of any kind now, but I mean, if the Yanks go off and win 115 games in the world series, I might have to get like the Boone Jersey tattooed on me somewhere. Not with my neck. Maybe like a back tat,

maybe lower back. Yeah. Tramp stamp. I should have gone through and read some of your off season tweets. You and John Jastrzemski, our friend who hosts the New York, New York pod, you were apoplectic. Yeah. The Yankees summer, by the Yankees winter, by the not spending,

the not taking care of Aaron Judge. Although part of you was a little nervous that they would take care of Aaron Judge. Now I don't know what happens. I actually did not hate that they, well, I'm babbling here, but I thought they gave a fair offer to Judge at the time. So I'm like, listen, I can't really kill the Yankees for not signing Judge to a longer extension or more money. Because I'm like, I thought it was a fair offer given his age and injury and proclivities. But now I'm like, DeStromsey and I were actually texting about this last night. I'm like literally whatever he wants, give him,

I know the back end of that contract is going to be brutal, but I mean, the guy, he bet on himself and so far knock on wood, it's, it's working out. I mean, he's got 14 home runs. He leads the team and home runs on average. I think Stanton leads the team at RBIs, but he's put the team on his back. And he, you back and that contract offer they made him now looks low. I mean, I know he wants a nine-year contract, I think, when he's 40. It's going

to be brutal, but you're the Yankees. Money should never be an issue, and eating money should never be an issue. Give the man what he wants. Please. Right now, his OPS is 1.045. More importantly, he's played. He's played in games.

And, you know, he could straighten his oblique tomorrow. He could pull a hammy tomorrow. He could have like a bicep tightening. I keep waiting for the red flag on him. If you have him on your fantasy team. Why is that red? I had four years Aaron Judge at Mayo Keeper League. It's like, uh-oh, why is there a red flag next to. And the, if you have them on your fantasy team, why is that red? I had four years, Aaron judge, but I'll keep her league. It's like, Oh, why is there a red flag next to Aaron judge again? It's like his back sore today, his oblique, he's having some issues again.

He bet on himself. He somehow stayed healthy, but it would make me nervous that if this bumped his price by a hundred million dollars, I still don't know if he's a great health bet, especially heading into his th 30s outfield. It's one collision against the wall. It's one slide into the base. I wouldn't say he's Cal Ripken, is my point. Here's the true, but here's the thing. He has many intangibles that the Yankees can profit from, like the jersey number 99.

Everybody has a Judge jersey. Kids absolutely worship him. The name where they can do the thing with the judges chambers and they can sell all kinds of judge related merchandise you know there was the thing in toronto where the kid caught the home run ball from him and was crying and the judge brought him on the field next day and was talking with him and the kid was crying again i had freaking tears in my eyes as a parent, like looking at that, you know, because I'm getting old and weepy in my old age. But he's such a lovable guy, like for kids.

And he's the face of the franchise. He's Jeter with more power, basically, at this point, which is high praise indeed. He's Jeter with more power and no titles. Not yet. He's Jeter with more power and zero World Series appearances so well we'll see but we'll see

but I mean he he's the face of the franchise you can't they can't let him play in another uniform he's earned that right I know the money's awful but you know

and the end of that contract is going to be brutal but you're again you're the New York goddamn Yankees you can afford the money and you can make up for it in off-field sales of his jersey and all the other stuff. He has to get whatever he wants at this point.

And I know Steinbrenner has the bondholders to answer to. They have to pay for their stadium and he's Mr. Poor and he can barely scrape by. Give me a freaking break. You're the Yankees. You can afford it. Do you owe any apologies to Giancarlo Stanton? I was never really... I don't know. I probably had some

snarky tweets about Stanton, but I never really murdered him. I'm happy to see him living up to be what I hoped he would be when they went out and got him. I mean, he's the Stanton of the Marlins fame. He's been great. He had judged them. They're a huge part of the reason that and the starting pitching and the bullpen is why they are where they are at the moment. Stanton's been great for them. He's been great. He had judged them. I mean, they're a huge part of the reason that and the starting pitching and the bullpen

is why they are where they are at the moment. Stanton's been great for them. He's been huge. Well, I don't know. I don't know. To the extent that I have sullied him, I apologize to him as well. You're not going to apologize to Joey Gallo, though.

I am not going to apologize to Joey Gallo. I am not apologizing to Joey Gallo or Aaron Hicks. That's the thing. The Yankees are knocking on the door of being 20 games over 500, depending on what happens with today's game. And they're doing that with like a seven and a half person lineup, right? Because either Joey Gallo or Aaron Hicks contribute absolutely nothing. Well, my lineup is four and a half people.

So I'd still seven and a half sounds better. You have to go for seven and a half. Yeah, seven and a half sounds great. Their have to go for seven and a half. Yeah, seven and a half sounds great. Their catching has not lit the world on fire offensively. Trevino just hit the first home run by a Yankees catcher this year or the other night. And depending on what kinder Falefa does on a given day, he's not exactly Mickey Mantle with the bat either.

But so to do this with glaring holes in the lineup, but Gallo, as much as I think he's inept, at least he has hit five home runs. So he'll walk into one now and again. Aaron Hicks contributes absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. Strub's going to call some 30 for 30 Aaron Hicks because I asked you guys,

I wanted to get him in my AL Keeper League and I sent you a story about how Aaron Hicks was going for 30-30 this year. You guys thought this was the funniest thing anyone had printed on the internet in 2022. And it turns out you're right. He's at 1-5 right now. A little work to get that 30-30.

29-25 left to go. 29- 25. Almost. Still possible. And one of the dumbest things, as much as I can't really kill Cashman given what they've done, that 70-year, 10-year, $70 million contract extension for Hicks at the time was horrific. And it's only grown more horrific. I mean, that and signing Jacoby Ellsbury are just absolutely indefensible. At the time,

this is not a second guess. This was a first guess. This was no hindsight. This was foresight. I and everybody else was screaming no at the time. And yet somehow here we are with Hicks. So they run out there every day for no reason. Oh my God, it's just horrendous. Well, you'll probably trade for an outfitter now that you're close. That's the other thing is you have money to spend in June, July. We have year one of Trevor's story for $140 million.

And Gammon sending out the tweet a week ago about basically insinuating there's some sort of major elbow issue that he hit a homer a couple of days ago, but they didn't pay Bogarts. They won't give Devers an extension, which just has every Red Sox fan in my life were just apoplectic.

Like, just can you pay Devers? He's 25. Like, can we just have him on the team next 10 years? But somehow we gave Trevor Story $140 billion. Not happy about that, Johnny. Well, Jastrzewski and I were feeling our oats last night, to say the least. And we were texting back and forth.

And I said, how about in the coming months, if they win the World Series, extend Judge, and then they sign Bogarts to play shortstop. No! That'd be horrible. And then Evil Empire's back, baby. As much as I would hate to see you die from that, it would be enjoyable to see Bogarts in the pinstripes.

Well, so what's going to happen after Nestor Cortez gets nailed with the 80-game PD suspension? What do you guys do after that? Please, no, no, no. Let's not sell you the best pitcher in baseball. Explain this Nestor Cortez thing to me. Where did this guy come from? What is happening?

I don't know. It's like a Disney movie. He came from the Mexican League, or they found him on the scrap heap, and the guy's not the best pitcher in baseball. I don't know. He's crafty. He's a typical crafty lefty where he throws weird arm angles. Is he left-handed?

He's a crafty pitcher. Let's put it that way. I don't know. I'm giddy. I can't be straight. Yeah, he's lefty. Yeah, He's a crafty pitcher. Let's put it that way. I don't know. I'm giddy. I can't be straight. Yeah, he's lefty. Yeah, he's a crafty lefty and he's got weird arm angles

and he changes speeds and guys don't know what to do. It's remarkable. You can't even hit him. I don't get it. He has the lowest DRA in baseball, I believe, at the moment at 1.35. I do know that.

He was on your team last year and he was actually half decent. He was. He had a really good second half and everybody thought it was a fluky thing. What was the guy's name years ago? Aaron Small or something. The guy came up and was on hit and fall. But he's the real deal.

He's carried it over from last season to this season. I joked with Dostromsky again, and I'm only half joking. In a playoff series, I'd rather have him start game one than Cole. Jesus. Because he's legitimately unhittable. What's the Santana? How are we feeling about him these days?

Not Santana, Chapman. No, Chapman. Well, not great. I think he's shot, and that's going to become an issue down the line. There's already a lot of call that Clay Holmes should be the closer because Chapman has he has control problems. And I saw a stat today where his spin rate is ridiculously down. So he may be like a spider attack guy where the grip thing affected him as than other pitchers or as much. Are you on FanGraphs looking at spin rate? What's going on here? I'm into this team.

I'm devouring information. I'm giddy. I've got to keep this going while it lasts. Are they going to, if they make the playoffs, are they going to dedicate the rest of the season in the playoff run to Anthony Volpe, who's sitting 120 in the AAA after the season in the playoff run to Anthony Volpe, who's hitting 120 in the AAA after being anointed the next Jeter?

And God was like, wait a second, there's no next Jeter. I'm going to make this guy hit 120. I know. I mean, if they were not on the verge of being 29-9, I would be screaming every day about Anthony Volpe because, I mean, their need last year was shortstop because Gleyber Torres was not a great shortstop. So they're the Yankees

and they choose not to go spend money on Correa or Seager or Story, which mercifully turned out to be wonderful. Yeah, well, Correa was the one that was sitting there, though. They had Volpe, who was allegedly in the second coming of Honus Wagner. And meanwhile, I saw him play a couple,

I saw him play last month in Hartford against the Hartford Yardgoats and he didn't like blow me away as like wow look at this guy like you know I'm no scout but like you know you'd hope that this guy who allegedly is the next cheater would like stand out to you and really be like impressive and I was

like I don't know I didn't see much and now you know they were basing him being the next cheater off of like a half a year at single A and I was like you know know they were basing him being the next cheater off of like a half a year at single a yeah it was like you know what we're basing it on this and they they have this thing now because and it's basically because steinbrenner won't spend money where we're gonna like you know we're the rays and we're gonna hype up our prospects and our wonderful you know development staff and everything who's the last guy the Yankees developed? The judge, obviously.

But before that, it literally goes back to Jeter. You had a flash of Jabba Chamberlain. A literal flash. But they're not known for developing guys and having all this great homegrown talent. Well, I was asking you and Shremsky about that because in our Keeper League,

we had the first pick and they chose to do Marcel O'Meara, the Red Sox big prospect, or Volpe. And it's so hard to tell the smoke versus the fire with the Yankee prospects

because we've been burned over and over again with these guys with the hype machine. And this has been like 12, 13 years of it. Before we go, big picture.

You're now at 6'6", bottom of the ninth. But big picture. I do sense a little desperation from the Yankee fans. You guys were like the smoking hot girl in high school who now the 15-year reunion's coming and just worried you're going to get lost in the shuffle. It's been so long since the Yankees were really even that relevant

except for cheating scandals and just terrible things. Your last one in the World Series is 2009. That was like a lifetime ago. 2009. Cheating scandal. They basically did what they did to the Spygate tapes. They had to destroy the evidence.

That letter came out. That was supposed to be a bombshell. It was like the Yankees did nothing wrong. It was pure as the driven snow. Unlike your Apple Watch abusing team and your manager, who was the, your manager, who was the mastermind of the Houston Astros scandal. He was a mind mastermind ringleader. I don't know if he was the master. Godfather. It's been so long since you guys had the swagger. I'm feeling a little swagger coming from the East coast. It's true. Come back at these big boppers, just winning games.

It's that kind of season where you're pulling out these close games, last at-bats, game winners. I was thinking to myself last night, I'm like, there was no Twitter in 1998 because I would have been so insufferable, and now I get a chance to be insufferable with the 2022 version of the 98 Yankees. So it's really good.

It's good to be back and not be gloomy and despondent and talk about how inept management is, how inept the players are. It feels good to be back and pounding my chest. Some guy said this morning, I woke up this morning and I turned on my phone. Some guy was like, well, before you could be this cocky, you were gloom and doom. You need to have a lot of contrition. I basically told him what he could do with that because I'm back, baby. I'm cocky, I'm banging my chest,

and I'm back. The Yanks are back. I'm back. Let's roll. Good to have you back, Johnny. Good to see you. Good luck with this 6-6 Yankees-Orioles game. A pleasure, as always.

All right. I'll talk to you soon. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Bob. Thanks to Sharp. Thanks to my buddy, Jacko. Thanks to Kyle Creighton for producing. Thanks to Dylan Berkey and Steve Cerruti as well. I will see you on Sunday night on The Speed with Priscilla. Go Celts. On the wayside On the first I never said

I don't have to ever say