The Bill Simmons Podcast - A Green Bay Crossroads, a Giant(s) Underdog Story, 'The Redeem Team,' and Million-Dollar Picks | With Benjamin Solak, Peter Schrager, and Joe House

Episode Date: October 14, 2022

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Benjamin Solak to discuss some of the NFL's aging QBs, Russell Wilson trying to adapt his game to a new team, the Packers attempting to get their season back on track, analytics influencing pivotal in-game decisions, Eagles-Cowboys, and more (3:49). Then Bill talks with Peter Schrager of NFL Network and Fox Sports about some NFL Week 6 matchups, including Giants-Ravens, Saints-Bengals, Seahawks-Cardinals, Patriots-Browns, Buccaneers-Steelers, and Colts-Jaguars (54:46), before making the Million-Dollar Picks for NFL Week 6 (1:33:45). Finally, Bill Simmons and Joe House discuss the Netflix documentary 'The Redeem Team,' as they remember Team USA in the 2008 Summer Olympics (1:39:50). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Benjamin Solak, Peter Schrager, and Joe House Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

October might be the greatest gambling month we have. We have NBA Futures. We have NFL. We have college football. We have the baseball playoffs. We even have two boxing events this weekend. We're covering it all on The Ringer Gambling Show. We're going almost every day.

You can even get Thursday night football picks and Sunday night picks as well. People like Raheem Palmer, John Jastrzemski, Joe House, Austin Gale. Kevin Clark's going to be on there this week. Check it out. The Ringer Gambling Show. This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. You know me. I can't go a day without sports.

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They're all on Prime. Prime Monday Night Hockey. It's on Monday. It's on Prime. 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. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day, all the gangs here, you're tailgating outside the

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Must be legal drinking age. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I popped on two of our pods this week. Death Taxes and Bananas. That's the Johnny Bananas podcast. We have a new challenge season that launched this week. It is called Ride or Die. Of course, I came up with this idea.

This is the third challenge season that I've come up with. They give me no credit. I get no perks. It's probably one of the worst relationships I have. But it's a good idea for a season. And Bananas and I talked about why he came back for this year, his history with the challenge and Nani and a whole bunch more. So if you'd like the challenge, go check that out. I also went on our Boston sports podcast, Off the Pike. Brian Barrett brought me on. We talked about the possibly resurgent Patriots,

the excellent Boston Celtics, and the pathetic Boston Red Sox. Went like 70 minutes on that. That was really fun. I was glad we did that. If you missed our three-part over-under NBA podcast on Tuesday, me, Russillo, House, we went for like almost five hours. We did it in person. There's some videos we're putting up on the YouTube page, youtube.com slash Bill Simmons. If you want to see us in action. We don't have video of when we thought we were going to dinner with Rosillo after the taping. And he just said, oh, I forgot. I can't. And that was it. So I don't know. There's dissension in the ranks. Rosillo blew off House for a meal, which is the worst thing you can do to House.

You can punch him. You can insult him. You can do whatever you want to him, but don't at the last minute back out of a dinner with House. So we'll see how those two guys resolve it. I'm fine. I'm agnostic.

I'm an only child. I'm used to doing whatever, but I think House was really hurt. We'll see if those guys can heal. You can hear all four hours of that podcast. Uh, they're on my feed, right? Where you're listening to this one house is going to be on this, this podcast much later. We taped it a little bit earlier this week, but it's going to be the last segment on this podcast, the redeemed teen documentary that's on Netflix. We had a lot of thoughts, some good, some bad, but we wanted to give our review and break it down and talk about what that team meant in the context of basketball

in the 21st century. That's coming at the tail end of this pod. First up, Benjamin Solak. Second, Peter Schrager. We are mixing it up this week. I'm like David Tepper. I couldn't fire Matt Rule. I couldn't fire myself, but I could change the order of what we were doing. And I could bring back Schrager for the actual million dollar picks. I tried to get fancy this year, have the two guests, have them leave. I take a little extra time. Then I do a solo where I do all the picks with them as my conciliators. That's out. I fired myself after five weeks. We were going back to me and Schrager and then me doing the million dollar picks after we've already talked about all the games

and then us running the video where he's basically nodding euphorically and saying, let's go a couple of times. We're back. It's the only formula that's worked. It's going to happen. Solak next, Schrager, then House. First, Pearl Jam.

All right, the ringers, Benjamin Solak is here. He wrote about the Packers this week and why some of their stuff might not be fixed. But I thought we'd start there because I was feeling like reading your piece that you felt it would be hard for Rodgers to turn this around in a real way, like for him to be an elite quarterback at the way we're used to with the people he has with the offense,

he has stuff like that. And I was thinking big picture. Is this feeling like the little bit of the end of an era? And I don't even know what era it is, but we have the end of Brady. We have the end of Rogers, Matt Ryan's a freaking zombie at this point. Right.

Matt Stafford might be headed that way. And then Wilson, everybody is just buried alive. I don't even know what happened to him. And then Roethlisberger, I mailed you the passing leaders from 2016. And it was basically all those guys with Roethlisberger and Breeze. And now we have this new generation. But I never really thought of the whole, oh, this actually 2022 might be the end of something. What do you think about that? Yeah, I think that you have two separate things going on, right? The change of like the aging cliff in old quarterbacks has been really interesting, right?

Brian Burk for ESPN wrote a piece that apparently has lost the time. I couldn't find it, like the URL's dead and whatever, about how when quarterbacks age, they get a little bit worse, a little bit worse, a little bit worse, a little bit worse, and it's generally fine. And then one year, they're terrible, right? It's important to understand

aging in quarterbacks as a cliff. We don't really see gradual declines. And that explains what you've seen from guys like Brady and Rodgers over the last five, six years, right? There was that time where we were like, yeah, Rodgers is done. Like, it's clearly finished.

Like, he's not the guy he was. And then all of a sudden, he wins back-to-back MVPs. Brady's final season in New England. He's off. He's fallen off the cliff. It's done. He can't do what he did. And then he goes and he wins the Super Bowl with Tampa. You have these downturns, but generally, it's more noise. It's variance until all of a sudden, there's one year where everything collapses. Typically, that aging cliff we've seen be in the mid to late 30s. That's not the rules anymore. Quarterbacks are able to play for longer.

Certainly Brady's pushing that horizon, but also a guy like Rodgers looks like he might. Ryan is trying to at 38, but Ryan's falling off. They're trying to get into their late 30s and even into their 40s. So number one, you're seeing the aging cliff for quarterbacks, I think, start to move a little bit further down the line

to get into later seasons. Some of that's being smart about taking hits, advancements in sports science, whatever. The other thing that ushers in a change of the guard or the quarterback position is when the young guys are really good. That's just by default, right? The alternatives are better.

Number one, we're a lot better at getting young quarterbacks good. The whole advancements in quarterback development have changed drastically to the point where you don't need to sit a guy for three Aaron Rodgers years to make sure he feels good. You can get him out there and you can start to produce. We have these offenses, right? Eagles with Jalen Hurts, Niners and Rams with Goff and Garoppolo, just kind of point and shoot a guy. You know what I'm saying? We can work around them. But then also, we hit on a few classes. And in the 2010s, we weren't hitting. We were not getting getting consistent good quarterbacks out of the draft

year over year we'd have one guy here and one guy there and russell wilson in the third round we kind of you know 2013 class was weird but we didn't have years like we had with 2017 2018 2019 where mahomes watson certainly for his rookie contract we haven't seen him yet kind of posted suspension and posted injury and his holdout. But Mahomes Watson, 2018 Lamar Allen, and then 2019 Burrow and Herbert. We didn't get that run of dudes. And once you get that run of guys, they start pushing the old dudes out just by virtue of how they play. The ceiling of quarterback play raises and the mid-tier veterans feel like they're falling off. And we lost Andrew Luck.

Yes. Who should be either in his prime or at his absolute peak or close to his peak now. He should be the bridge. He should be the connection between the over 35s and the under 26s. He'd be the guy in the middle. And we kind of lost Wilson, which is weird because I would have thought Wilson would have aged really well. But I don't know. Why do you think so?

Because he was so... To me, it was like a Breeze thing, right? Breeze was smaller, but he was so accurate me it was like a breeze thing right breeze was smaller but he was so accurate and he could move around a little bit but as he got older the accuracy stayed and i just assumed it would be something like that where it'd be like a short you know short yardage passing offense and just he would just be able to 70 a year right veteran savvy and that didn't happen it's such an important comparison for russ specifically because breeze is what he's trying to be now breeze is what he wants to be right uh uh steven ruiz at the ringer and i have the joke about uh russ's performative checkdowns where he's constantly

like dumping the ball off to giovante williams and melvin gordon and the running backs and the tight ends and you watch the film and downfield kajer hamler's like one-on-one with a step and old russ was throwing that ball and And for some reason, he's just underneath, underneath, underneath. And it's because I think he knows that physically, he can't be the scrambler he was. Physically, he's not the tackle breaker he was. You look at Russ's scramble numbers in terms of how many yards he picks up, how often he gets a first down, and also his sack avoidance numbers.

The percentage of pressures that Russ takes that turn into a sack have catapulted, skyrocketed over the last two or three seasons so as the athleticism goes down he knows that if he's going to have a late career renaissance if he's going to be good in his 30s it will be in the breeze model yes I'm short but I'm accurate the ball's out quick and I'm distributing he just has never ever been that quarterback previously previously he was run around scramble hold the ball for five seconds deep moonshot and and he doesn't physically feel like he can do that anymore. So we're watching a quarterback

try to change his play style, which is literally a tiger changing his stripes. It doesn't happen. And that's what Russ is trying to do, square peg in a round hole in Denver. And that's why you're experiencing such discontent, such toughness in this offense right now. Russ is trying to play a brand of football he's never played before. It's funny that

Brady belongs to basically two different generations, right? Because he's definitely in this Rodgers, Wilson, Ryan, that whole generation, which was the 2010s class, basically. But he was also in that previous generation with Peyton Manning and Rivers and all those guys, too. And so I guess Rodgers would have a chance to bridge the generations, but back to your piece. If they don't have the receivers the same way they did,

and then have the coaching on either side of the ball, I thought you did a good job of laying out that. First of all, how loaded the Packers defense is just from assets that they've spent to have seven first rounders you've drafted and free agents they've spent. The oldest one is Kenny Clark. These are young, talented dudes.

And the defense is horrible. It's unacceptable. Yeah, because I felt like the Pats left a win on the table. And I don't think they fully trusted Zappi in that game. But the plays were there. They were moving the ball. And they just became too predictable because it became clear they didn't want Zappi to win or lose the game for them.

The Giants thing was amazing to watch them move the ball on the Packers without receivers. Like, Dayball just worked them like a speed bag. But with the Rodgers thing, like, there was a report today, who knows if it's true, but somebody was like, I'm hearing Aaron Rodgers might retire after the year

with some radio guy. I do wonder, he is the type of guy who I could see if he felt like, eh, probably can't win here anymore. Like the Adams thing was a bigger death blow than I realized. I don't really want to just check down and throw screen passes and hand off to Dylan and Jones. This kind of sucks. Maybe I'm ready to do something else in my life.

It wouldn't like shock me. But the reason I bring this up is they have, they're only seven point favorites at home at Lambeau field this week against Zach Wilson and this kind of frisky Jets team. Yes. But if you had, if we had said before the year, what's the line on this Jets Packers game? We would have said 10 and a half.

Yeah. I could see it getting the 13. At Lambeau, 12. Yeah. Yeah. And instead we're looking at the Jets as like, could this be an underdog parlay play? Could they go into Lambeau and win? Could the Packers lose two weeks in a row to the New York teams? All of this seemed inconceivable. So what is the roadmap to them better quickly, right, like this week and the next week, stuff has to come off of Rodgers' plate.

They have to become a little more point and shoot, run the old Shanahan stuff, right? When LaFleur came to Green Bay, he and Rodgers did a great job of being like, hey, we're going to run this Rams offense that I've run previously, but we're going to make it a lot more pre-snap dependent on the quarterback because you're smart and Jared Goff wasn't. So I can do that here, right? And so it put a lot on Rodgers' play in terms of letting him add color to the offense, letting him be in control, quarterback on the field, coach on the field, whatever. That's not going to work as well. It clearly hasn't worked as well. They're throwing behind the line of scrimmage more than any team in the league.

They don't have good yak threats. If they want to make this work quickly, they have to start doing the over the middle of the field, 10 yards between the numbers stuff. And that's the whole Shanahan, McVay,veigh bread and butter that requires taking some of the decisions off rogers played yes we have an under center quarterback turn your back to the defense point and shoot one route and that's just not very mentally engaging and that's what makes me curious about rogers hanging around in green bay if this has to be the model like is he going to want to

play this way when he's the back-to-back MVP having played a different way? That's not a fun experience nor does it feel necessary for a 38-year-old back-to-back MVP to have less control over the offense. That's the short-term change. We'll see if Rodgers gets on board with that or not. Long-term, they need Romeo Dubs and Christian Watson

to get good. I think Dubs will. Having watched almost all the snaps of that offense. Feels like he gets open. Dubs is, yeah, Dubs is going to get over the hump, in my opinion, with Rodgers, with the communication, the chemistry, and knowing the whole route tree

and kind of the whole Rodgers rookie receiver narrative. I think Dubs will get there. Watson, we'll see. Banged up in camp and not really getting a lot of snaps. I don't know about that one. He's more of a gadget play guy now. But if they get Dubs better, if they move Elton Jenkins from right tackle

back inside the guard where he's better, play Yash Naiman at right tackle, by the end of the season, we could be like, oh yeah, Packers offense is good. Defensively, they need to time machine back to 2020 and hire somebody else. Somebody who hadn't previously been the defensive coordinator of two NFL teams

that had below average defenses both times. Maybe somebody who doesn't run the same stuff. Mike Penn runs only a little bit worse. Joe Barry coming into the building. Uh, a Packers guy told me yesterday, uh, Packers fans blame Joe Barry for walking into the building.

When the Packers hired Joe Barry, what was your Barry supposed to do? But walk in the building. I got hired for the job. He's, he's not capable of doing what they need him to do with the resources they've given him. Unless he makes drastic changes to how they play ball, which would be surprising,

this defense is always going to underwhelm. It's going to be, as it has been, Rodgers trying to lug them through the playoffs the last couple years. I liked what you said about Watson. You called him a speed gadget guy. It's funny when you draft these high receivers, there's basically four paths that it could go. The guy could be awesome, like Justin Jefferson.

It could be one of those, I can catch passes in traffic guys, and I'm a good blocker. Kind of what the Pats were hoping to kill Harry could be, and it could even be that. You could have the speed gadget guy is your best case outcome. Or it's like the dubs guy,

the, oh, he's aubs guy, the, the, Oh, he's a little smaller, but he's, he's frisky and he can do, do, he can be a slot guy. He can play on the outside.

Um, the speed gadget guy is always fun because it's the team basically not wanting to admit defeat that maybe they missed that this guy's not a number one. So there's over and over again, trying to work him in all these different ways. I haven't seen enough of Watson to know one way or the other, but it does seem like he's the speed gadget guy for them now.

Yeah, and the Packers have a little bit of an issue in terms of how they get their personnel into the building, and this goes back to kind of Roger's complaints with the early drafting. The Packers are very, very stringent on height, weight, speed. You go back and look at Packers draft history, any position since Guttenkamp was there, since Elliot Wolfe was there, everybody. They do not draft back and look at Packers draft history, any position since Gutkens was there, since Elliot Wolfe was there, everybody.

They do not draft smalls. They do not draft slows. Unacceptable. Which narrows your field for who you're going to pick, right? You're going to miss out some talented players. So for a guy like Watson, Watson very clearly is their MVS replacement. Let's get a very tall, very long guy

who can also open the tank, run a 4-4, and he'll stretch the field for us. That was a great idea until you turned on his North Dakota State film and realized the only time this guy was comfortable catching the football was when it was a jet pass two yards behind line of scrimmage. North Dakota State couldn't use him like this. They didn't really have a quarterback to use him like this. He's not a successful catcher, doesn't have good technique downfield.

So Rodgers figured that out pretty quick, even with Watson being hurt in camp. And then all of a sudden, Romeo Dobbs, who played in an air raid system, vertical stuff, Nevada, they're going down the field all the time. Not as tall, not as fast, but guess what? He catches a football. He's where I expect him to be. And that's how Dobbs leaves over Watson like that.

You drafted a ball of clay in round two. The round four guy knows what he's doing. And Rodgers wants a guy who knows what he's doing, so he wants to throw in the ball right now. The reason I don't want to give up on the Packers is I just think the NFC is so weak and so weird. I basically can't give up on anybody, right? You could argue Philly and Dallas are the safest bets right now. Philly, because the overall and the schedule, we'll get to them in a second.

Dallas, the defense, I think they've kind of a little bit like a better version of what has happened with the Patriots. They kind of know who they are now. It's like, let's not go crazy on offense. Let's control the clock. Our defense is really, really good and potentially great. And this is kind of who we are. So just identity teams, I would have those two and the Niners, except the Niners are already having the injury luck stuff again. The Niners are killing me. I was so ready to just hammer the Niners every single week. And then we already get the injuries.

Watch it during that Carolina game. During the game, they're losing real guys. So now I don't know about them. But other than that, is there anybody else you would even... I'm not ready with Tampa. Their offensive line and just the offense in general looks so disjointed. I was telling myself, don't judge them until mid-November. Don't judge them.

But now I'm just, I don't know. I don't know if they get it together in time. And I'm not sure Brady is that guy anymore that could just be the galvanizing, I got this guy, I'll pull everybody, just come my way, I'll pull everything in, I'll figure this out. I don't know if at age 45 he can do that. Yeah.

The Packers and the Rams are in a race to figure out their schematic issues and how to account for the players that they lost this offseason. Wait a second. It's not happening with the Rams. They're a cross off to me. I don't think it is either. I don't think they have enough talent. I think they're going to keep roping people

into, oh, this will be the week and it's going to be week 12, and we're just going to look at each other and go, oh, the Rams are 5-7. This isn't happening. I very much agree. I wrote about the Rams last week, and I was like, hey, we can talk offensive line injuries all we want.

They ain't got talent. Players in the building are bad. And that's what happens when you trade all your picks and you spend a lot of money and everything. Eventually, time to pay the piper. You've been robbing Peter to pay Paul for a long time, and that check comes due, and you've got Ben Skoranek on the field for 80 of the snaps it was never in the plan to have notre dame grad transfer from northwestern undrafted free agent ben skoranek on the field for

80 of the snaps playing fullback this guy's a wide receiver like they are at the bottom of the barrel and so i think the rams and the packers are in like a race to figure out their stuff and i think the packers are ahead and going to stay ahead. But they both have to beat the Bucs getting healthy for this power struggle in the NFC. I think those three teams that people expected to be Titans all coming in under expectation. I think the Bucs have the easiest path to getting right if they're able to get healthy, if the young guys on the line improve. That kind of is a more understandable path. For the Packers, it's going to require coaching adjustments, scheme

adjustments, humility, check in on the buy. That's tough. We don't see that all the time. And there's no big red Devontae Adams button to push, which is the scariest part of this all, is that even if you get everything right, you become run heavy, Aaron Jones, 20 carries a game, start finding ways to get Robert Tunyon down the field, Dubs gets better.

You still eventually find yourself in a third and eight. And there's they have nobody on a third and eight. And they have nobody on a third and eight right now. They have no one-to-one man winner. They have no Rodgers trusses this guy on the back shoulder. That forces this team to be really methodical,

really ahead of the script, which is tough to do. So I'm on the Jets this week and I'm on the Panthers this week because to me, Rams and Packers are bad. And I'll get burned by one of those at some point.

But fading the Rams and fading the Packers down the last couple weeks would have been profitable for you. I was there on both last week. I'm there on both again. And if that means I have to root for PJ Walker, I'm rooting for PJ Walker, baby.

Well, he's not going to be worse than Baker. Baker's the worst quarterback in the league this season. I was just having this debate with somebody where they were like, well, PJ is a downgrade from Baker. I was like, I'm not sure he is. Watch a Panthers game. We mentioned all those NFC teams and the Vikings were like,

guys, we're 4-1? Guys? Anyone? Any takers? It's like, cool. We're all good with your 4-1 record. They got blown up by the Eagles. Real NFC team. They were down 10-3 to the Lions. Had to come back. The London game

against the Saints, they won on the double doink on the Will Lutz field goal. Tried to give it away for two hours. And gave away an 18-point lead to the Chicago Bears. Fell behind, and the Bears had the ball and were driving late, and they forced a fumble in their own territory. Forgive me for not taking the Vikings seriously until I see them beat a real team.

It's so bad that I have Giants fans in my life who they'll put some caveats in. Giants fans in my life who, they'll put some caveats in. Giants fans, you're listening to this and you're nodding. They're like, I know we don't have receivers. I know it wasn't supposed to be this year and I know Daniel Jones is my quarterback, but I think we could go 11-6. And they're

serious and they're probably not wrong because the Giants have been probably the most well-coached team from an overachieving standpoint that we've had in either conference. They know what they are. You know what kind of game you're going to get when you're with them. It's going to be super ugly. They're going to try to have the ball a lot. They're going to try to avoid third downs. Warren Sharpe was talking about that on the Wednesday pod. And I got be honest, now that Tibto's back,

they're gonna have a pass rush and they're gonna be able to at least disrupt you a little bit. They're gonna have great home crowds. The home team home crowd loves this team. I think that might be a playoff team. We'll find out this week. This will be a nice test for them this week against Baltimore. Home dogs. It has all the recipe

toward, oh my god, it's like, oh, this is all lined up for, if you believe in the Giants, this is the all-time perfect spot. Lamar on the road, crowd going nuts. No running game, fall behind, couple thumb throws, but I'm not sure I believe in the Giants yet.

Do you? No. The Giants are the model for what a lot of the nerds recommend and what a lot of like football writers recommend for when you are a bad team, what should you do? What you should do is chaos, right? Wink Martindale defensive coordinator, chaos defensive coordinator. They had their

fourth and sixth string corners and I want to say by the end of the game against the Packers and they're blitzing like crazy and playing man zero. That's not allowed. Nobody in the world's doing this. We're a chaos team. We send heat. We send pressure. We confuse you. We try to get a negative play. Here we go.

Offensively, no wide receivers. Daniel Jones, not a long-term quarterback. Wildcat, single wing, quarterback run game. We don't care if our quarterback gets destroyed every game. Exactly, yeah. He's going to take some hits, but that's the nature of the game. We're going to be a chaos team. We're going to throw stuff at you that you don't see in other weeks

that you have to prepare for on a fast turnaround. And if you bust and you get something wrong, Saquon Barkley, 40-yard catch and run, we're in scoring range. And so invite chaos. Invite a lot of coin flips, a lot of variance. And sometimes that's a win over the Packers in London. Now, tough team to bet on, tough team to believe on because week to week it's going to be high peaks and low valleys.

But that sort of an approach is dangerous. You have to take the Giants seriously when you prep for them because they do a lot of stuff that nobody else does. All right, we'll take a break. We'll talk a little more NFC. Download FanDuel America's number one sportsbook. If you join today, you can get started with $150 in free bets guaranteed. When you place your first $5 bet, that's free bets back. If your first bet doesn't win, just sign up with promo code BS. You can jump on one of the NFL bets we're about to cover, a million dollar picks with Solak and Schrager.

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$10 first deposit required. Bonus issued as non-withdrawable free bets that expire in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Okay, coming back to put a bow on the quarterback conversation. You talked about how there was a little bit of a drought, right?

You go back to 06, where it was just first rounders. Vince Young, Leinart, Cutler. That was supposed to be, you were only two years old that year. That was supposed to be an awesome QB draft. We were like, wow, three stars coming in. This is when everybody was West Coast offense pilled.

We all watched Manning and Brady and Breeze and Rivers, and we said, this is what offense is going to be forever. Five in the concept, short passing game. Let's all just get a tall white who looks nice in the pocket and is smart on the chalkboard. And it turns out there's like one of those every three years, and you can't build a house around that. And so that's where you see all these first-round picks busted out.

Cutler kind of made it. I mean, he did get traded for two first-round picks at some point. He had a decent career. He wasn't a bust. The other two were bust. The next year, 07, Jamarcus Russell, Brady Quinn. The next year, Matt Ryan, Joe Flacco, which counts as like an

absolute boon compared to some of these other names. 09, Stafford, Sanchez, Josh Freeman, all in the top 17. 2010, Sam Bradford, Tebow, crossed that year 17. 2010, Sam Bradford, Tebow, crossed that year off. 2011, Cam Newton, Jake Locker,

Blaine Gabbert, Christian Ponder, all in the top 12. So Cam makes it. We go one from four. In 12, there's another QB year. Luck, Griffin, Tannehill, Whedon. Yeah, and that's the Foles-Russ year, if memory serves, as well.

So that was the year where the third round just randomly hit. Right. But even after 2012, it was like, Luck and Griffin, this is great. These guys are really good. And Griffin's out of the league pretty shortly after. The only one still starting is Tannehill. Yeah. Out of that whole round one.

The wide receiver from Texas A&M. Incredible. 2013, ZJ Manuel. 14 is Bortles, Manziel, and Bridgewater. 2013 also has Geno. Don't you forget. Round two stud, Geno Smith. Yeah, I'm just giving you the round ones. 15 was

Winston and Mariota. And then 16 was Goff, Wentz, and Lynch. So when you talk about a drought, it's actually kind of impossible that we had 11 years there in a row with how few franchise guys we got out of that. And then probably the best guy I listed out of all those dudes was Andrew Luck, who retires

when he's what, 27, 28. So then this happens in the NBA sometimes where the NBA kind of ebbs and flows depending on drafts. And we're in this draft boom right now where year after year, we've just had these awesome drafts from like 2017 on. And now the league, you can really feel it. There's all these all-stars and franchise guys, but then there was other stretches where we didn't have it. And I think with the NFL, it does feel like this is a new quarterback era, starting with that 17 draft where we're just going to be like, wow,

look at all those dudes we got. This is amazing. We got like 10 guys who can run a team versus that before. So anyway, I think that's why it feels like an end of a generation, but there's no next generation that I guess Luck and Wilson would have been leading and didn't happen.

The final important note on that 2017 turn is that you saw a lot of the players that get selected from 2017 on get selected to AFC teams. And the reason we saw that was because they knew the Brady dusk was coming. They knew that Brady was either going to retire

or just leave New England in some way. The rumors were starting. He was reaching that age. And so there became... You go back and you look at who was making the AFC championship games over 2004, 2017. Brady, Brady, Brady, Roethlisberger, Brady, Manning,

Brady, Roethlisberger, Manning, Brady, Roethlisberger, Manning, Manning. There was just this top cap on the AFC where nobody could get past this unit of quarterbacks. And Roethlisberger's falling off, Manning's out of the league, and we see the Brady fall off coming. And all of a sudden, Miami's on Tua, the Chargers are on Herbert, Cincinnati's on Burrow,

the Bravens are on Lamar, the Bills are on Allen, and then that's just the good ones. The Browns went for Baker, the Jets went for Sam, right? Everybody is going for a young quarterback ready to develop that guy. They've put new resources in,

they have new knowledge of how do we get a young quarterback to be better, because everybody wants to be positioned for the moment the Brady hammer drops. We have our knowledge of how do we get a young quarterback to be better because everybody wants to be positioned for the moment the Brady hammer drops. We have our young guy. We're on a rookie contract. Let's go. And so that, a big part of the drought ending was

half of the league, the AFC deciding, okay, we are going to figure out how to develop a rookie quarterback, how to get him on the field and win with him. Because if we can get a rookie contract quarterback ready and we have the advantage of the extra money and he's contending, he's successful, the moment Brady leaves, we can finally shoot.

We can finally go and actually push here in the AFC and get back on top when this guy's just been sitting there for so long. One other thing that I don't know if this is a trend because this may have been happening, I'm just noticing it more, where you have a team that already has their quarterback that then drafts another one. And you saw this with the Eagles with Hurts, right? Where

you would have thought they were probably good at quarterback between Wentz and Foles and the whole thing, but they're like, fuck it. Let's take him. Let's take Hurts anyway. The Pats did this with Zappy. They just drafted Mac Jones 15th and he was the QB of the future and he had a good rookie season.

And then a year later, they take Zappy. They just drafted Mac Jones 15th and he was the QB of the future and he had a good rookie season. And then a year later they take Zappy. It's funny that team, and we'll see if Pittsburgh does this this year, right? Because they'll end up having a top six or seven pick. Will they go QB back to back for two years in a row? You actually should. Like, why not? I don't know if they hit or not with Pickett, but if they feel like there's another awesome QB and this is a loaded draft,

there's supposedly five QBs in the top 12 or 15, whatever it is, why not? It's better to have two than one. I think the Pats, if Zappi plays well this week against Cleveland, they have two assets, a quarterback. Like, they can spin one of them if they want. Maybe they could even think about trading Mack.

I don't know. But to have two of the most coveted position, I think that's how I would think about it if I was running a team. Wouldn't you or am I wrong? No, this is a very big thing from the nerds. I know you're pretty anti-nerd right now. I'm not anti-nerd. We can talk

this. Let's talk about that next. I got you. But this was the number one thing when the Eagles selected Jalen Hurts, which was it is, and Howie Roseman himself said this in the press conference, we are going to care about and invest in the backup quarterback position, right? Our backup quarterback, Nick Foles, just won a playoff game for us, a Super Bowl for us. We are going to care about and invest in this position.

And the reason is because we never, ever, ever want to be caught unprepared at quarterback, unready at quarterback, nowhere. I'm like, oh, snap, we have some great free agents. And our fourth round wide receiver turns out he's a star and we're ready, let's go. And we just didn't invest in quarterback. We just weren't prepared for the most important, essential piece of building out a contending team. So we're going to invest in quarterback. And because good quarterback play is a highly questionable proposition because it's a very hard thing to identify and get into the building like we went through some of those first overall picks in recent years and the fact that they

decisively did not hit because it's hard to get it right a second crack at the plate a second swing just going to increase your probability that you have at least one good quarterback in the building and sure if you end up with two quarterbacks in the building, you have a little bit of a hot potato problem. Right. You have some you have to manage a locker room and you have to figure out how to get one guy up. And, you know, that requires deftness. But it's a better problem than zero. Right. And so we're going to take two swings here for a team like the Steelers. This is a very important conversation because Pittsburgh saw you could see Ben coming down the mountain like Ben was getting for three years year

after year and the Rooney family was leaving there year after year and they took Mason Rudolph in the third round and then they got an opportunity to see him start this wasn't even like Rogers behind far we don't know what he looks like they got a chance to see him and he wasn't good enough to beat out Duck Hodges in that 20 I want to say 19

season when Ben was hurt right and they just sat there with mason as the backup and just waited for ben to retire and then they got their one swing at the plate can you pick it with the 20th overall pick oh qb1 yeah but it's 20th overall good quarterbacks don't make it to 20 and he's the first game i think it was not good and i don't think it's going to be a an impact starter in the league and now you're caught with zero quarterbacks and that's that's going to piss off george pickens and it's going to piss off chase claypool Pickett's going to be an impact starter in the league. And now you're caught with zero quarterbacks. And that's going to piss off George Pickens. And it's going to piss off Chase Claypool. And it's going to make it hard for the rest of the offense. You're not going to be able to evaluate your line and so on and so forth.

Myriad of problems. So if you have one, great. Go get a second one. Invest in QB2. We did this when we hired you and Stephen Ruiz. Some people are like, just get one of them. Like, no. Double it up. If we hit on both of these guys, this would be great. So the analytics thing that you mentioned, I've been really upset

about the coaches. So here's where I land, because I think I'm about as pro analytics as any mainstream sports media person has been the last 20 years. Where I start to break away is this new era of aggressive analytics, I guess we would call it, where these coaches, there's no fault anymore. If you're the coach, you're on the sidelines, you're watching the game, you're watching every play, you have a feel for where things are going. And you can just default to, well, fourth and one. Numbers said there's no difference. So trying to be aggressive, trying to set the tone. Like what Brandon Staley did last week was reckless.

What the Raiders going for two with four and a half minutes left in that Chiefs game was just reckless. I didn't get it. I don't understand the concept of it. And Stefanski, same thing, going for it in his own 25. in that Chiefs game was just reckless. I didn't get it. I don't understand the concept of it. And Stefanski, same thing, going for it in his own 25. Like there's an difference between aggressive and stupid. When there's, first of all,

the downside of the decision is so much worse from a momentum standpoint than the upside of just like, cool, we got a first down. Now we're on our 28. Like, who cares? I just feel like there's no, they can always hide behind the hole. Well, the numbers said it's an even decision.

So, you know, like, I don't think there are even decisions. And I think your job as a coach is to manage what you think is happening in the game. The Hackett on Thursday night was the ultimate example. Whereas like, there's no chance the Colts are going 80 yards. Matt Ryan's broken.

He's been hit 100 times. They have six points total. Just take the field goal. You're going to win the game. And no. And then on top of it is the play you run in these situations.

That's the big thing. It's the other piece of it that the analytics doesn't go. It's like, whoa, it was 81 or 78%. It's like, yeah, but what was the play of Russell Wilson on a timing

cross that's completely covered? What are the analytics say then? And the timing of it's bad because Russ can't see it because Russ is like 5'11". And Russ is 5'10". So anyway, it's this era of aggressive analytics and that's my little speech, but that's what I'm against, that there's no repercussions for dumb decisions. Yeah, so

the word aggressive is the really, really important word because I think, like if you listen to Josh McDaniels talk about the two- is the really, really important word. Because I think, like if you listen to Josh McDaniels talk about the two-point conversion attempt, it's not, like he never mentions analytics. He's never like, yeah, gods-wise, we wanted to go for win percentage-wise. He was like, I wanted to put pressure on the Chiefs.

Which firstly is dumb. Why? Do you want Mahomes down with four and a half minutes left and three timeouts or up? I'd much rather have him up because I know what Andy Reid's going to do and I also don't want Mahomes trying to beat me.

I want Mahomes trying to outlast me. That scares me less. Right. So he talked about it as a gut thing. He talked about it as an aggressiveness thing. And to me, this is part of like the social aspect of coaching, the comparative aspect of the NFL. Everybody in this big family, you have just some smart coaches,

Doug Peterson, you know, put Staley in there if you want to. We start going for it more on fourth down because Harbaugh's a good example because they've invested time and energy not just into analytics departments, but also into their

short yardage game, right? Like Harbaugh and Peterson when he's with the Eagles and now with the Jags where he's been great on fourth down regularly, historically have the right call in short yardage situations. They're not above running a QB sneak. Just go get great on fourth down. Regularly, historically, have the right call in short-range situations.

They're not above running a QB sneak, just go get a bucket, right? They said, okay, we're going to decide to be this way and we're going to invest in all aspects of it, not just in good modeling and good data and adjusting our models on the day in case Matt Ryan's on the other sideline and he's broken, but also in the designs.

So that starts to happen and there becomes this movement to more aggressive coaching decisions because it's supported by data. Is it aggressive or reckless though? Right. That's the thing. Guys like Nate Hackett and Josh McDaniel see this and they miss the forest for the trees. And they go, oh, we're just being more aggressive now. Oh, we're just going for it more now. I have cover for this decision. It seems justifiable. So then they make these choices and like you learn all right firstly they're coin flips on the data the data is like yeah 50 50 i think you know you can do either one but if you're not prepared for it if you're just doing it because it's what's done then you you don't understand the context

of you're not just in a fear of it you haven't been coaching all game with this in mind with this moment in this time that's where it becomes reckless that's where it becomes like reactive right is where i think you if you want to buy into this approach and i time, that's where it becomes reckless. That's where it becomes like reactive. Right? Is where I think you, if you want to buy into this approach, and I think you should, I think it's the right thing to do, you have to go wholesale. You have to enter every single drive from the first drive of the game to the last drive of the game knowing, alright, we get to a fourth and one,

no huddle up to the line sneak. Like, that's what we do here. We are a four down team. It's like blackjack two against a twelve, right? You kind of have to decide how you're playing that for your entire life. You can't be like, oh, i'm gonna do this right and and and that creates a philosophy and a culture that isn't 100 defensible because at times it's like hey staley that was probably too risky you probably should have punted the ball away at least that's our perspective on it but at least it's holistic at least it makes sense to everybody in the building at least it's

internally defensible because this is what I decided to be as opposed to Josh McDaniels just like walking out of nowhere and you've been running the football great and going for a two point conversion where you never expected that. It was shocking. It was astounding. That's what makes it feel reckless is like relative to the context.

I was just going to say on the flip side with Harbaugh who took shit for not going forward and betraying the Ravens they've always been aggressive, pro analytics I was okay with it and I talked about this on Sunday night but I've been thinking about it more, why I liked

it and I was trying to think what did he see with that because I think he's a smart coach, right? We probably have seven or eight good coaches, that's it. He's one of them He knew that he needed to get to probably 19 points. The game was 13-10. It's fourth quarter. Bengals hadn't done a ton.

He goes up six. One outcome is the Bengals just can't get a touchdown. You win anyway. The other outcome is the Bengals drive down and get a touchdown. They're up one. But I have Justin Tucker. I just need to get to like the 45. I need to return the kick. I need three first downs. I have Lamar who missed a couple of throws, but for the most part. So the worst case scenario is I get a kickoff return and I'm home and I go 35, 38 yards and

I'm in field goal range. And the other team knows I have Justin Tucker and they're going to be playing it that way. And I just know I can get those yards. So there's two outcomes where I can win. And then there's the other outcome where I don't get the first down on fourth down. And now I'm up three and the Bengals can go down and now they're up four. And now I've lost the Tucker advantage. I just thought it was defensible. People were acting like he completely betrayed analytics with Ravensworth. I was like, I don't know, man.

This was a close game. I don't mind taking the points and getting the 16-10. Yeah, I was mad at the time. To me, it was like fourth and three inches. Whenever it's like fourth and like less than

18 inches, I'm like, I just go. Just fall forward. So I was mad at the time. And then modeling wise, it was a toss up. It was like a slight edge to go, but it was generally in the 5050 range. And it's because of that context you described. When you go up with six with this little time left, it's extremely unlikely you'll need anything more than a field goal to win the game. And that just shortens the field. You don't need to go 80 yards need to go like you said 3540 yards and then we're in the range to at least try this thing with the greatest kicker they they had a play call in for that right it was they had like the mark andrews tight end goes under the center and runs the sneaky sneak thing and it was okay if we don't

like the look we'll just kill it take the delay game and go and andrews gets under center and the bangles just got big josh dupo 330 pounds and right over the center they go all right we're gonna kill it and take the six right that's good coaching that's that's understanding the through line of like here's my analytics department here's me here's what play calls i like here's what team i've got here's what i've got in terms of justin tucker and the advantage he gives me as a kicker i know all my pieces this is what's going to give us the best chance to win as opposed to mcdaniel's being like i want to be aggressive and put pressure on the chiefs and it's like did you tune in for the divisional game last year the chiefs got a field goal with 13 seconds on the

clock why would you want to put pressure on the Chiefs? The goal with the Chiefs is to lead for two seconds, and it's the last two seconds of the game. You don't want to be beating Mahomes with four minutes left. That's where there's a dissonance. There's a misunderstanding of how this entire thing plays together. But if McDaniels

had said, look, the Chiefs had their backup kicker. I watched them kick in the warm-ups and I just felt like if we get a one-point lead, that it would be really hard for them to trust that guy to make a kick. And we would put pressure on them. Even if he had put that amount of thought

into it, I still would have disagreed, but I would have been like, all right, at least he thought about this one component of it. But just putting pressure on Pat Mahomes is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard for a rationale. What did you think of in week four when Ravens-Bills fourth and two

tie ballgame and the Ravens go for a touchdown instead of going up three? I would have taken the three. I liked the seven. I thought that was the right call. With the Bills, I thought it was the right call. I'm not against... I've been lucky enough to watch Belichick for the last 20 years.

And Belichick, who I think is one of the reasons that he's the greatest coach ever, is just an incredible game manager, right? It's always like end of the first half,

start of the second half. When to take points versus when to go for it. Belichick loves taking points. He did this with the Lions on Sunday. They took field goals a bunch of times.

I know. Oh, man. It sucked. We lost the over. It sucked. But he looked at it and said, you know what? I'm going to bank these points.

They have Jared Goff. I own Jared Goff. And if we can get up double digits, they're not going to be able to come back. So it goes back to the whole context thing. And I just think the coaching, what you laid out with Staley or Stefanski,

if they just came out and said, we're going for it every fourth down. This is just what we've decided. I would respect that more than just fly by night. Sometimes we go for it.

Staley seems like he is just a mess. But he really does. He just doesn't seem like he can decide every 10 minutes what he's going to do. So anyway,

can we talk a couple gambling things really quick? going to do. So anyway, let's, can we talk a couple of gambling things really quick? Let's do it. Eagles, Cowboys. You have the ringers Philly special with shield, which is just a heroic podcast for the Philly fans. Cowboys.

It's like, it's in that five to six range right now. Your O line is banged up. I'm going to probably stay away from this game. A million dollar picks because I think so much of it hinges on who is not going to play versus who's going to play on that Eagles line. Give me the when we get to Sunday,

give me the thing to look for in the injury report with the Eagles offensive line that would make me want to flip and just grab either the points or the money line with Dallas. Who would be the crucial, oh my god, this guy's out guy? It'd be Kelsey for sure, which I don't expect Kelsey to be out. Kelsey was banged up for a little bit of the game,

but he came back in against the Cardinals. So I don't think that'll be a big one. But if Kelsey's out, Kelsey is the entire running game, right? In terms of how unbelievable he is on the move, they'll run zone and pull Kelsey instead of just blocking up with the guards because he's that much better than the alternative guys. Nobody else in the league does this. So Kelsey is the move. They'll run zone and pull Kelsey instead of just blocking up with the guards because he's that much better than the alternative guys. Nobody else in the league does this. So Kelsey is the guy. My lot is also

really important just because they have two elite rushers, Aaron DeMarcus Lawrence and Michael Parsons. So if you're down one of your right tackles, you have to protect him against what the Cowboys do, which I think the Eagles can do. They've typically been really, really good when the chips are down on their lines. Heard Jeff Stoutland, one of the best O-line coaches in the league. But the Eagles have faced, by most metrics, really good when the chips are down on their lines. Jeff Stoutland, one of the best O-line coaches in the league.

The Eagles have faced, by most metrics, a defensive schedule that ranks somewhere between 32nd and 31st. With the Cardinals and Washington and Detroit and just everybody they've faced, this is the best defense they've faced by a mile. To me, this is an underspot which everything's been

an underspot so far this year, but 42.5 is a little bit too much for the Eagles getting, I think, a real defensive test for the first time all season. I'm going to give you a statement about this game that has nothing to do with logic, research, anything. Just me being an old guy who's watched football forever. The reason you lose this game if you lose

is because if you win this game, I don't see a loss until week 16. It would have to be like- Which is the Cowboys again, right? That's Dak? Yeah. It would either be that or Green Bay week 12. But God, you got bye week, Pittsburgh, at Houston, Washington, at Indy.

Those are four more layups. I don't know how you pulled off all these layup games. Home for Green Bay. Home for Tennessee. At the Giants, I guess, could be a tough one. Maybe that would be the one. At Chicago, at Dallas.

So three and zero. So that would be the key stretch. The point is, 12-0 is sitting there if you get through this game. And I don't know, man. I think this Eagles team is really good. This doesn't feel like a 12-0 start kind of team.

There's going to be one game where something weird happens, and this feels like it would be the game if that's going to happen. Yeah, I agree there's going to be some game where something weird happens. Dallas's ability to create pressure is pretty unparalleled in the league. And I think that, right, Hurts has been extremely good protecting the football so far this year. If there's a game where that gets given up against like Trayvon Diggs, how good he is intercepting the ball at the catch point with the way they put

pressure, losing the ball in the pocket. This could be one of those. So yeah, I, I am hopeful the Eagles eventually lose a game soon, even if it's a dumb one. Cause I just,

I don't know if this team is suited to carrying the undefeated thing for as long as they do. Like Hertz is obviously such a good professional in terms of his messaging. And like, you know, some guy mentioned a good professional in terms of his messaging. Some guy mentioned 5-0 in the post-game press. He was like, I don't want to hear 5-0. I don't like it. He's already kind of got that veteran mindset to it. But the rest of the team is pretty young. Nick Sirianni is a young head coach.

I don't know with how few tests they have on their schedule if going undefeated into November and through December is going to be good for them. I think they're going to walk into the playoffs and counter that kind of 1-0 week and that different beast that comes from the NFL in January is scary. So I'd love if they could just be

like 15-2. I'll take 15-2. Just very nice. I would hope so. Yeah, what's interesting about Sunday is there's four teams that could come out of Sunday where we will say that's the best team in the league. Because I even think if Dallas goes into Philly and just lays the smackdown

on them in a real way, we could leave that game going, that's the best team in the league. They play defense better than anyone else does anything. KC, who's getting points at home to the point that now it's like dangling a carrot in front of me.

I know, it's so tough. I'm going to get three points at home? What are you doing to me? I'm alarmed by... I picked the Chiefs for this season. There's been some alarming stuff so far. They should have lost the Vegas game. The Colts game was an absolute debacle.

And I just... I'm a little concerned. I'm a little concerned. I'm a little concerned that Vegas, that Jacobs just ran through them. Like, Jacobs was the best player in the field in that game. I thought Vegas, their offense, I thought was more explosive and looked better.

And, you know, if Adams just holds on to that pass, they win the game anyway. I'm a little concerned. So the plus two and a half actually makes sense to me. And yet I would not go against Mahomes and Arrowhead. And I do wonder, was there a little bit of a look ahead with them with this?

Are they saving anything? Is this a kitchen sink game for them? What do you think? I very much agree that I look at Bill's Chiefs in a vacuum and I'm like, yeah, Bill's are probably about five points better than this team. The Bill's are extremely good. They're balanced everywhere. They're incredible. And then I look at Mahomes and Arrow in a vacuum and I'm like, yeah, those are probably about five points better than this team. Like the bills are extremely good. They're balanced everywhere.

They're incredible. And then I look at Mahomes and Arrowhead and I go, okay, well, I'm not, obviously I'm not fading that. And then there's a, there's a great conflict there. There's pulling in two different directions. The main issue with the Chiefs, you know, in terms of the loss of Tyreek Hill is that, yeah, their wide receiver participation and their deep passing participation have both

substantially dropped mahomes is uh has fewer than 50 of his receiving yards going to wide receivers this season which is like him daniel jones and one other quarterback i want to say it's extremely low and then his deep passing numbers have completely fallen off a cliff they have not been able to find deep connections with mbs with miko harman who's never been that for them and juju's underneath guy and and Travis is like an underneath to intermediate guy at this stage in his career. They don't stretch the field vertically nearly as much as they used to.

They're still cool. You know, they flood zones, and they get the backs involved, and they run the gadget stuff, and Kelsey and Mahomes off script are literally unmatched in the league. There's no better pair when things break down than Kelsey and Mahomes

and their ability to find space together. So it all still works. It just doesn't work as explosively. It doesn't work as downfield as it used to. If they get into a boat race like they did like the game was last year, right? In 2021 and in the divisional round, they're not suited for that anymore.

The Bills are better suited for that, which means they have to play a little bit more ball control, a little bit more hold on to the clock, a little bit more get to second down, get to third down, keep Josh Allen on the sideline, which as they themselves have proven with Mahomes in the last four years,

doesn't really work because the other guy's just too good, right? Right. And so unless you get, I think, a surprisingly solid performance from the Chiefs defense, I think this is a Buffalo cover. With that said, I will

not be fading Mahomes at Arrowhead. I will get to 4 o'clock and I will not fade Mahomes at Arrowhead. I will pull it off. I think we're aligned that if you're betting the Chiefs, I think you got to do the under. Because I think those go hand in hand. If they win, it's going to be because they...

And they'll see it. They'll do the old Belichick style. They'll just slow it down 40 seconds per play. Just try to shorten the game, basically. What's your favorite game this week? For betting purposes. Yeah. I like Bucks minus eight against the Steelers a lot. This Steelers team is extremely bad.

Pickett's not ready. He's accurate, but everything else around him is not of NFL caliber he's not an NFL arm right where he's an above average arm he's not an above average NFL athlete he's not an above average NFL processor right like a lot of the book on Pickett was oh good in the pocket he had to do his third read he doesn't do that

he just throws back shoulder deep ball Hail Mary you know comeback stuff on the outside of George Pickens and Chase Claypool which is better than what Mitch was doing, but not much. Najee's not playing well. They've got to involve more Jalen Warren. The line isn't good. Matt Canada's the worst offensive coordinator in the league. There's not a good thing

on this Steelers offense not named George or Deontay. Those guys are going to be limited by what their quarterback's doing. Now you get a Todd Bowles defense. Jamel Dean has been one of the best corners in the league by man coverage metrics over the first five weeks. Carlton Davis, one of the best best man corners in the league.

They're going to dominate at the front. They're going to dominate on the line of scrimmage against these receivers, make it tough to get that back shoulder game working, and then they're going to blitz the ever living daylights out of Kenny Pickett. And he's not ready to handle that. It's not his fault. He isn't. He wasn't brought along properly to be ready

for this sort of a game. Last week was a good week for me with Bills minus 13.5 and a lot of Steelers team total unders. I'll be on the same thing for the Tampa game, especially because when Tampa gets the ball, this Steelers defense remains pretty bad against the run. Run defense 26 in the league by EPA per play.

They're going to feed Lenny. They're going to feed Mike Evans because the Steelers outside corners are bad. They're going to have theny. They're going to feed Mike Evans because the Steelers' outside corners are bad. They're going to have the ball for 38 minutes. Steelers aren't going to score a lot of points. So I like Bucs against the Spratt. I like Steelers' team total unders. And I'll like that until the Steelers play a bad team or show me that they're better. Tampa beats Dallas in

Week 1 by 16. Kind of an ugly game. New Orleans by 10 in Week 2. They lose to Green Bay. They lose to Green Bay. They lose to KC. Take a big lead against Atlanta and then almost blow it.

And arguably should have. They're kind of due for a 42 to 10 type game you'd think. I was thinking about teasing them. I don't know who your other teaser team is,

but I love the Pats plus eight and a half in Cleveland. Was the one I was looking at. Love the Bucks and teasers. Love the Jags and teasers. Love the Saints and teasers. And love the Pats and teasers this week.

Very good teaser week. Horrible week for straight betting. Just so many two and threes versus three and twos. And these guys are on the road. Like I want a feel on Saints Bengals really badly. I want to feel good enough about the Saints. I can't get there. Niners Falcons is causing me a headache.

I've been really good betting both of these teams this year. Yeah. They're playing each other, and I'm just nowhere on them, which is really frustrating. A lot of the totals are correct, right? We've seen the totals come down now after a lot of unders in the first four weeks. So it's tough to feel good about a lot of these single spots,

which is why teasers feel nice to me this week. And so Bucks-Jags, Pats, and Saints, I like a lot in teasers. Saints are looking like the Sharp team this week. Not Warren Sharp,, Jags, Pats, and Saints, I like a lot in teasers. Saints are looking like the Sharp team this week. Not Warren Sharp, but the actual Sharp. The Bengals. I mean, the case for the Bengals

would be if they go 2-4, they're on the road to nowhere at that point because their schedule is pretty tough. So in a weird way, it's a must win for them. I don't think there's a must win for anyone in the NFC until like week 60. Because it's going to be like 8-9 might be a 7 seed. But I like New Orleans

in that spot too. It just requires betting on Andy Dalton. Yeah, which if you can't get Andy Dalton, get Taysom Hill anytime touchdown. Because guess what? Once they get in the red zone, they stop using Andy and they start using Taysom. Good point. Yeah, so Saints, so that would be a little same gamer then. Saints, Taysom Hill,

what's the third piece of that? Under probably at 43.5. Bengals team total under also, I think if you're going to pick a team total, it feels stronger. The style of defense that Cincinnati has run into troubles with is the style of defense that Dennis Allen majors in. So they're going to be comfortable running the stuff that

forces the Bengals to try to get under center and run the football. And whenever the Bengals try to get under center and run the football, they score 13 points. Tough. All right. I thought we were going to go 35 minutes. We went 50. Ben Solak.

Oh, holy smokes. I've got another pod. Good luck. Good luck with the Cowboys. All right. Appreciate it. You be well. This episode is brought to you by Movember.

The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health,

suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you can still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. All right. Peter Schrager is here from the NFL Network, from Fox. He has a new podcast. What's the new podcast called? Podcast is called The Season with Peter Schrager. Once I saw Meghan Markle had a podcast,

I said, I got to get into the game. I mean, that was red flag for everybody. We are back. We're going to do Million Dollar Picks together this week. Yes, dude. We got to mix it up. I talked about this at the top. I tried to do this new thing where I talked to you.

I talked to Solak. Then I did the Million Dollar Picks like two hours later after I put more thought into it and just bad luck all the way around. The gambling gods were like, you know what? We liked you and Schrager together. We liked his fist pumps as you rattled off the picks. One of the things we're looking at, and this allows us to get into the Giants,

the Giants money line plus two of five at home against Baltimore. The Giants are four and one. They're in that nice, delicious, the prize team. Nobody expected anything. Now it's starting to get into a little bit toward mid-October. People wondering, wait a second, is this potentially real? There's so many badly coached teams that to just see a well-coached team with a new coach feels like a revelation. Saquon is looking like if he's not the best running back, he's one of the three best. He's a legitimate weapon.

They have a pass rush. They have a home field advantage. And now you have the Ravens coming there, and it just has all the makings of this line should be three and instead it's six. Empty your notebook on the Giants. What do you got? and now you have the Ravens coming there, and it just has all the makings of this line should be three, and instead it's six. Empty your notebook on the Giants. What do you got?

The most positive, good vibes possible coming back from a trip from London, down 14 points in the second half, coming back and winning, but in a way that I would say is not miraculously against the Packers, held them scoreless in the second drive. Like 13, 15, 11 play drives without Saquon, even on the field, that 11 play drive.

They came back and it was one of these deals talking to sources in New York where it was like, we're not that surprised. Like the Packers had some things that came up on film and like, we really felt that this was a good matchup for us. And they, they came back and that was huge. And it's such a relief for giants fans.up for us. And they came back and that was huge. And it's such

a relief for Giants fans and for us who observe the game. The Giants have always prided themselves on great coaching. And that goes back to when Parcells was there with Belichick, to when Coughlin was there. And for years, it's been this rotating door of coaching and it's, is this Giants football? We're going to try to convince ourselves that the Joe judge thing is Giants football, but this is what like Giants football is three tight ends run the ball with a quarterback who is going to just be fearless and tough as shit, whether or not he can complete passes or not. We're not sure he hasn't had to do that yet. What he's done is run this offense that Brian Dable has drawn up. And then on the flip side of it, a defensive mastermind in Wink Martindale, who is like, okay, what are the assets?

All right, let's send the house. Let's bring all the dogs. And those two deflections of Aaron Rodgers on the third and fourth down, that was like Wink's football in a nutshell. We might not have all the guys. We might not have the scheme to match up with everyone, but we're just going to send the house and deal with it. And Rodgers couldn't deal with it.

I'll say this. Well, I know a little revenge game for Wink this week, right? I mean, there's no other way to say it. So here's how it goes. So Wink Martindale was with Harbaugh since like 2012. He was like the linebackers coach, like has like this great history with him, then gets elevated to defensive coordinator.

And his first three years with the Ravens, they're like a top five defense all three years. They're all healthy. One of those years, Lamar goes and wins the MVP. And after Lamar won the MVP, Wink interviewed for the Giants head coaching job. And I remember speaking to folks in New York, is this really a possibility? And it was. He was in the conversation and they hired Joe Judge. Wink goes back to Baltimore is another great top five defense. And then last year they have a bunch of injuries. Things start falling apart. Lamar's not in the field on offense.

I'm making excuses at all, but like it fell apart. And I mean, they had the worst injury luck, any team in the league last year. We know that he got blamed. Gets blamed. And then it's one of these deals where it's like maybe it's best for both of us wink was a is like a high energy in your face dude talked to sean payton last week or something he's like wink reminds me of rex and rob ryan and i'm like spot on like that is the kind if you could picture rex and rob like with the in your face i'm a player but i'm really a coach and like

that's not for everybody and when you're losing it's certainly not for everybody so harbaugh does this move where he calls his brother jim and he's like is mike mcdonald uh you know available because mcdonald is this 35 year old wunderkind everyone says he's a whiz kid he was with the ravens for years went for one year to work for jim and then john is like all right i'm bringing him back he's gonna be a defensive coordinator with us so that's all celebrated this off season. They got younger. They've got this young, bright guy. And then sure enough, the season starts. Mike McDonald's defense had given up the huge lead against Miami, the huge lead against Buffalo. And suddenly people start chirping. Did we make a mistake here? Should Wink have stayed? And then

meanwhile, Wink is over here in New York and he's getting bouquets of flowers. He's on the cover of the New York Post. He's like the most beloved guy. know, bouquets of flowers. He's on the cover of the New York Post. He's like the most beloved guy. He's got this mullet. He's like fantastic. It's perfect like Jersey football. This is right. This is the 80s football.

And it's like so Jersey. And it's like that North Jersey, Jersey of like, here's one of us. He's blue collar. Send the dogs. It's LT. It's Carson. It's, you know, it. Send the dogs. It's LT. It's Carson. It's all the guys. Yeah, so like I said earlier, he's blitzing with his third and fourth string quarterbacks.

It's crazy. It's a care. He doesn't care. He's sending everybody. And you're getting stuff like Dexter Lawrence has been widely viewed as maybe not fulfilling his first round status. And then he comes here and he's dancing and Wink has got him going. And Xavier McKinney was a second round pick.

He's playing great. I could just go through all the guys that are playing well. But Harbaugh, they've been very good publicly. And they did say it was a mutual parting of ways. There's lots of love and Wink has no ill will and all that stuff. But Wink is one of those dudes that he will have his players ready to run through a wall for him on Sunday. So if there is a little X factor that might not show up in all this, it's the wink factor, but also he went up against Lamar every day in practice.

So I was going to ask you, so I do think that's an advantage. I really do for football where, you know, everything the guy can't do, you just watch it 365 days a year. Oh, you're just filing little things away that he's going to use against it.

But the thing is Lamar is great against the Blitz. He is. And it seems like that would be a horrible matchup because Lamar will just run out of anything in the Blitz and be able to improv. Here's what it is. When you're in those rooms, it's almost like a Myrta, like what they've got. It's, hey, we know our inefficiency. Let's keep it in the house.

But you better believe Greg Roman, over four years speaking with Harbaugh and Wink and closed doors. Yeah, they're having drinks at a hotel. It's express. God damn it. Lamar can't throw to the left. He just can't. Everything we run, he can't do it. So this is going to be interesting. And I think there's a lot of love from those defensive guys in Baltimore for Wink. So I love that. Only your podcast that we start off doing 15 minutes on the defensive coordinator revenge game, but I'm telling you,

I think it's a real factor. There's a giant stadium piece of it too that certain teams just make sense for the city and the franchise and the organization. This whole thing feels very Giants-y. They're just like, we don't even have any wide receivers anymore. Our quarterback's just going to get the shit kicked out of him

every single game now. Dude, you're watching that game. David Sills, the fourth or the fifth, I'm not sure which one. Oh, no offense to the Sills family and their lineage, has a catch on the sidelines. It does like a toe drag, toe tap, and it's like, this guy's been on the roster for training camp the last

three years. Everyone's been waiting for it. It's like in the big moment against the Packers, National TV. There he is. I think Rodgers had a lot of respect for that defense after the game and said as much. I don't know. It feels like a moment in time and it's a cool moment for

this fan base that hasn't had anything quite frankly since Odell left. The line's a little disrespectful. It feels like this should be like Ravens three and a half. The six feels super high. It does. I was looking at the Giants schedule. They can get through this with some sort of upset.

At Jacksonville, at Seattle, the next two weeks, bye week. Then they have a little Houston-Detroit combo. At Dallas, they get Washington-Philly home at Washington. And that's probably like at that point, Rivera's gone. Who knows what kind of dumpster fire hell Dan Snyder is in at that point. Minnesota, Indy, and at Philly in week 18, Philly will have quenched the one seed three weeks before that game. If Dallas doesn't.

I mean, it's one of those where you're cobbling together victories and if they can get to nine or ten wins in the Sears NFC, that's doable. They could be nine and seven heading into that Philly game where Philly's just playing every backup they have. That part's fun. I'm really happy for Saquon. As you know, I think he's the best

running back of all time. I have him one and Walter Payton two. I took him first overall in a fantasy draft and I got laughed and I'm like, he's my guy. I have him one and Walter Payton two. I took him first overall in a fantasy draft and I got laughed and I'm like, he's my guy. I like him too. I've never quit on him until today because Ramondre Stevenson is now the best running back of all time. Saquon's second.

But anyway, we like the Giants. They're plus 205 on FanDuel for the underdog parlay, which we almost hit last week. Dismissed it. Atlanta alt line plus four and a half. That flag killed us. And who did we have with the other one? The money.

We had the Titans, and they did take care of business. Titans took care of business. So our candidates, there's some smaller underdogs, because the Giants being so heavy with the plus 205. I don't want to put the Pats in this, because I'd rather bet the Pats straight up, because I think they're going to beat the Browns. But we could.

Saints plus one and a half. Bengals. The Saints are home. The Sharps like the Saints. The Bengals are still getting this respect that I'm not sure they really deserve. Listen, it hurts me because I have some Bengals preseason bets. We have that or we have Seattle against the Cardinals, which the options for Seattle are we can throw them an underdog parlay. They're plus three. So put that

together. It'll be over six to one. We could also do Seahawks first half. Why first half? Explain that one. You think Kyler takes a little while to get going. He always pulls it out at the end. So I went back because we did this last week. We did a first half bet in a parlay that ended up losing because the Pats game couldn't go over 39. We had Pats plus three and a half, Eagles first half against the cards over 39. And Dan Campbell was over six on fourth downs inside the 30. Zero points. It's like just one of those, all right, God hates me. The Cardinals, their last 10 first halves, dating back to the playoff game in last year, they've led one of the 10 times in the first half.

They've been down double digits four times. They've been outscored 154 to 55. Just this year, first half, Eagles 14-10 going backwards. Panthers 10-3. Rams 13-6. Vegas 20-0. Chiefs 23-7. Playoff game, Rams 21-0. And then week 18, Seahawks 17-10. That's just the last seven. They're just getting demolished. And over and over again, and the eye test backs this up, it's Cliff has some sort of script. It doesn't work. They fall behind. And then playground Kyler shows up

second half. He's just running around doing Kyler things. And they come back. I just want to bet on this. Seahawks plus zero and a half first half. They don't even have to win the game. Just can you at least have a tie score in the first half or be up in the first half?

I think they can do it. Yeah. You watch the end of that game for Arizona versus the Eagles, and it's so maddening for so many reasons. Your take, I know you spoke with Sal immediately after. Kyler, everyone's saying it's Cliff. To me, that's one of those where if Kyler just dives forward, I know it's

heat of the moment. I didn't play the game. I don't know who I might have said it, but if he dives forward, it's a first down. Instead, he slid. It was a football awareness kind of failure test. Right? Just knowing. Late in the game, if I dive, I can stretch for the yard. If I slide, it's my backhand where it is.

And then, of course, all the miscommunication on whether they thought it was a first down or not, that's whatever, then a missed field goal. But that kind of stuff, that's a win. That's a win over the Eagles. That changes your whole season. It's the whole season. Whatever it is, you find a way to get to overtime in that game, and then you can maybe pull it out at home.

They haven't won a home game in eight games. I agree with you. They haven't won a home game in eight games. I agree with you. They come out slow every single game. And on the opposite, you could find very few offices in this league that comes out better than the Seattle Seahawks and what they do. And I know they lost Penny,

but I think Kenneth Walker is a talent. They have two offensive tackles who are rookies. They've got two defensive backs, Tariq Woolen and Kobe Bryant, not the basketball player, but the football player who is on the other side of Sauce Gardner at Cincinnati, who are both playing outstanding. And Geno runs Shane Waldron's offense better than Russell did. So I would take Seattle in the first half.

I might tell you, take Seattle and other underdogs, take them in this game. I feel like Seattle is coming ready to play and they're in a lot better place headspace wise than what Arizona seems to be trying out in the field. And Gino is the most fun story in the league other than the Giants. Just like, I can't believe this is happening story. Except for Steven Ruiz who was on it the whole time. Steven Ruiz did talk him up. I think he was big on Daniel Jones also this summer. So let's give him his credit. I'll also say this about Gino, which is cool. He got offered other jobs in March during free agency. His agent was saying that he was, you know, teams came after him, but it was for a number

two role. And he was like, let's wait, let's wait. They trade. Drew Locke is there. And whether it was because Gino thought he could beat out Drew Locke or just didn't like the situation, but he signed his fourth straight one-year deal with the Seahawks. Bet on yourself. Bet on yourself. And think about it in our world. Can you imagine signing four straight one-year

deals with the same company every year and saying, okay, well, let's see what happens. Oh, they're only offering me a one-year contract. I'll stick around. It takes a lot of mental fortitude to be like, don't worry. This is a long play. Once Russell's out of here, I know this offense. And gosh, they love Geno Smith there. Everyone I speak to, they love Geno Smith. So there's good vibes. And it's like this post-Russell Wilson era that we saw that week one game when they were all so excited to beat Russ,

but it was also they were so excited for Geno. It's a good story. They've also, offensively, the nerd stats are very favorable to the Seahawks. And I can't tell how much of that has to do with, they've had a favorable schedule with the defenses they've gone against, but still we were expecting, I thought that was going to be a top three worst.

I thought it was going to be them, Washington, Houston, Chicago, maybe those four. Right. Yeah. And that's certainly not the case.

And then there's the, the, Chicago, maybe those four, right? And that's certainly not the case. And then there's the... Russell Wilson not eligible for the Ewing Theory because he won a Super Bowl, sadly. Oh, that's interesting. I didn't know there was a color to the Ewing Theory. I thought it was just a big star leaves. If you win a championship, it can't be a Ewing Theory. Interesting.

If you brought a title, but I might have to add some addendum to if the title was at least like seven years earlier, maybe. Or if you want a title and all of your teammates that you won the title with swear, it wasn't because of you. Maybe that's why Marshawn Lynch was on with like Sherman.

And it was just like, Oh my God, those guys hate him. It's crazy. Like, and Marshawn was actually like, I actually want to check in on him, but like Sherm and KJ,

right? Like now that it's out in the open, it is a field day on Russ from those guys, and it's been 10 years. It's funny. They're number one in offensive DVOA. Crazy. Baltimore's two, KC's three, Cleveland's four, Philly's five. They're number one in

past DVOA. They're only 12 in Rush, but they have the best, according to the NerdStats, best passing offense in the league with Geno Smith. What a legendary trade. What an amazing trade. Fucking victory lap that trade. It's unbelievable.

You can't trade your expensive superstar and have this go better than I think the Seahawks did. I think they're paying him. I don't know the number. I think it's $3.5 million, and Russ this year I think is making paying him. I don't have the number. I think it's $3.5 million. And Russ this year, I think, is making like $40 million. Him and Huntley, the backup on the Ravens. We've always liked Huntley.

I always feel like there's a version of Huntley where this offense, if you just gave him two receivers, good running back, a little bit of a philosophy, I think that would work. So Giant Seahawks is plus 577. Giant Saints is plus 540. I think the Saints are better with Dalton than Jameis. Just a small sample size, but Jameis does not have it. And injured or not, it's only so many times I can buy the same offseason storyline that Jameis is, this is the year. Dalton looked very competent last week he was moving the ball up and down the field and he's a professional quarterback you know what

you're getting with andy don't did it with the cowboys and of course he did with the bangles and then i don't see this as like a revenge game or whatever but it is the bangles i'm sure dalton would like to beat them and then you know the sharks are out for zach taylor right now and it's funny you know eight months ago he won an AFC championship, but some of these decisions. And when that happens, and this kind of happened with Matt Rule, when that happens, when it's now becoming not a local story, but a national story, the players start seeing it. And then every questionable call that he makes, there's head scratching amongst the players. And they're like, what's up with this guy? So I'd, I'd be, I mean, he already had to defend his offensive coordinator this week. He was talking about Brian Callahan

last week in February, Brian Callahan was the bell to ball. Like, look what he's doing with Jason Burrow. It it's an ugly time in Cincinnati right now. And I would think new Orleans, that building is the last place you want to go. Yeah. So new Orleans plus one and a half for the game plus one 10 for the underdogs. So maybe we look at Giant Saints and Giant Seahawks. Let's do both. Or a three of them, Giant Saints, Giant Seahawks, and then Seahawks Saints. I mean, that's really aggressive. That's almost as aggressive as going for it on a fourth and one on your own 46.

A little shovel pass. It's the Browns, yeah. Let's take a break because I just realized I had a recording issue and everybody had to listen to my Zoom audio for the last 50 minutes. We'll be right back. What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend to powers your scale with no preset spending limit.

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Okay, give it up. Give what up? Really? Really, really. This message is brought to you by Metrolinks. All right, let's talk about the Pats. I went on off the pike with Brian Barrett. I'm bullish on this Patriots team.

That was one of the reasons I wanted to go on. They are plus 280 to make the playoffs. They was one of the reasons I wanted to go on. They are plus 280 to make the playoffs. They're 24 to one to win the AFC East, which I stared at for a second. Chiefs beat the Bills. Maybe Allen has a high ankle sprain. Who knows?

Is there 24 versions of this season where there's one of them? But yeah, I didn't do that one. The Pats had two drafts in a row, which is just unbelievable. This last draft they did, they got five guys who were playing like real minutes for them. I love Zappy

and Jones, but list the five. Let me hear. You got Cole Strange, Thornton's back, which makes their receivers, now they have a trade to make with Bourne or Aguilar if they want to. Panda Jack, Jack Jones, who's become a shutdown corner. Marcus Jones, who is

like a really, really, really good kickoff returner, and then Zappy. And then Pierre Straud now is going to be the backup running back. So they have guys all over the place. Then last year, Stevenson, who looks like a top five running back right now. Day three pick is fantastic. Barmore on the defensive line, and then Mac Jones. So they got eight guys in the last two drafts that I feel like are starters potentially. The Jack Jones story, you call him Panda Jack.

For the listeners, I mean, we could talk about it. It's because I've done a lot of work in the last couple of weeks. I remember during the draft, it was like red flag, red flag, red flag. The story for everyone is guy is a standout in high school, goes to USC, doesn't have the academic grades, takes a year off. And when he took his year off, basically walked into an empty panda bite and tried robbing the place, gets arrested. They dropped the charges, gets a misdemeanor, 45 days of house arrest, comes out of it. And Herm Edwards shows up and is like, I believe in you, young man.

We're going to find a place for you. Goes to Arizona State. And then there's this great redemption story, all conference. And then he gets in a huge fight and they suspend him. And it's like, all right, well, there's Jack Jones. That's like that story. Two red flags, you're done. Then comes back and was like outstanding. And of course, every team passes on him. Belichick sits with him, looks him in the eye. And it's early, but they're like, we love this guy. He's great in the building. And talking to Jason McCourty, who's my co-host on Good Morning Football, he comes in all smiles. And he's like, Dev, his brother who's still there

is like, this kid's amazing. They lost JC Jackson, but this kid's got great high energy, believes in everything, was joking around that Rodgers shouldn't have challenged him, that kind of stuff. Has great up, up energy and a ton of confidence. And that's the stuff that other teams are like, well, I'm not putting my name on it. But Belichick's like, all right, fourth round, I'll take Jack Jones. I know this guy's a first round talent. He's just had some issues in the past and let's hope he's redeemed himself. He was a five-star high school recruit. One of the elite of the elite in his high school class. They bet on talent and speed over and over again because they got their ass kicked in

that Buffalo game. And I do think this team, I said this on the Barrett podcast, I'll say it again. I do think this team kind of found its identity during that Packers game. And we went on that night and I was telling Sal, I was like, I think something's here. Like I can tell the way Belichick was coaching. I could tell the way Kyle was reacting. Like he was not sneaking out for beers. He was really locked into the game.

Um, but they know they're run the ball. Um, don't make mistakes, pass rush and a bunch of safeties. And now that Jack Jones can actually play, like play, they just can kind of move around. They can cover all types of things. They can show different looks. They were so predictable last year on both sides of the ball. You always knew when they were going to run the ball. You always knew what

they were doing defensively and they don't feel predictable anymore. But I think the Zappy thing is a real thing. I think, look, Mac's going to end up being the starter when he's healthy, but they're also not going

to bring him back until he's healthy. When they bring him back, they're going to tell him, like, you can't make mistakes anymore. You're going to lose your job. If you play the way

you did in those first three games, we have another guy and we'll play him. Belichick gives no fucks. He doesn't care. He doesn't care where you were drafted. Yeah.

He did it with Brady and Bledsoe. He traded Laura Malloy. He traded Seymour out of nowhere for a first round pick. Like he doesn't care. It's like, who's the better asset? What can I get? Can I turn this person

into a better asset? He'll just do it. So with the Zappi thing, there is something real going on here because Zappi's playing the way they wanted Mac Jones to play. And they've've been more conservative than Barrett was listing all these stats

about how he's not throwing into tight windows. They're doing way more play action with him. Little subtle things. They don't want their quarterback to throw to a guy who is just tightly covered in the middle of the field where the ball could

bounce off his shoulder pad and go up. They just want to get first downs, keep the chains moving. And I think this Browns thing, I think they're going to win this game and they're going to come out of this weekend and people are going to be like, hmm, the Pats, there's something here. But I don't think people think that way.

Bill, that was kind of like last year. Started off one and three. I think the Brady game must have been around this week and Mack held his own and you're like, we lost, but shit, we might have something.

And then they won seven straight. Like that could be the blueprint again. We just have to find it. Well, now the easy schedule coming. Yeah, the next four after this are pretty good. I think they're catching the Browns pretty good time.

The Browns defense is abominable. Terrible. I mean, the Browns are 31st on defense. And they got a lot of talent. I know that Garrett's on thisrible. I mean, the Browns are 31st on defense. And they've got a lot of talent. I know that Garrett's on this year. I'm sorry, they're 32nd on DVOA on defense. They played

Baker, Mayfield, Flacco, Mariota, Trubisky, and Herbert. How are you the last ranked defense? I know Garrett was out a couple weeks, but that's embarrassing. Herbert's the only even above average quarterback they've played, and they've played four of the stinkers. Trubisky got benched. We're never going to see Baker again.

Mariota doesn't complete passes. So I don't know. I think this is a good matchup for them. Then you have the Belichick-Cleveland history. I really like the Pats. Okay, I'm with you. I think that's a good analysis. The only X factor here is that Chubb and Hunt,

they could have 192 yards rushing and it could be one of those games too. As good as the Patriots' rush defense has been, this is a different type of deal, what they've got behind their line of scrimmage. What does Belichick do in these situations? Oh, you can do this one thing, but you're not really good at the other

thing. We're going to take away your right hand. He does with your left. He's just like, we're not landing Chubb. Jacoby, throw for 380 yards. Good luck. I like the pass. Nobody knows Jacoby better than Bill. Maybe the only other guy is Parcells. I think they're going to see if

Brissette and Amari Cooper could beat him through the sky. We'll see. I also think the coaching... Stefanski cost them two wins in a row there. The Falcons and then last week against the Chargers with some weird stuff. I just think Belichick's a better coach. Is there never been a season where the good coaches,

and I think Stefanski is a good coach, but the time management, has it been a greater delta between the good coaches and the bad coaches out there? It's unbelievable. Every week we're like, what is going on in this team? And then you see the good teams that are well coached,

and it might be Seattle, Pete, and it might be Belichick, or it, whoever, San Francisco with Kyle finding a way with all those injuries. It's just like, oh, they're not going to make mental errors. They might lose, but they're not going to shoot themselves in the foot every game. It's a game management thing, right? You said Stefanski is a good coach. I'm sure like intellectually as somebody who puts together game plans and stuff, I'm sure he's really good. But this team has had big leads in the first half, I think, in at least three of the games

that they just squandered. And they do dumb stuff. The Jets game? Yeah. They do dumb shit. They blow games. Even Chubb not going down in that Jets game. That was literally a win that they just gave away

because Chubb didn't know to go down. That would never happen with the... No matter what kind of Pats team there is, they don't do stuff like that. So that's another one. Solak, his favorite one was the Bucs against the Steelers putting the Bucs in a tease potentially. Like that the Steelers are done.

So the Bucs just bring in a tease to bring them down to minus two and a half. Now you get six points to play with another game. My question is, the Bucs kind of need a we kicked your ass game against somebody. And the Steelers look like they're the worst team in the league and they're a complete mess. So I'm going to have the Bucs minus down to two and a half in a tease. Okay. The question is, do you trust the Jags plus seven and a half

against the Colts? The case would be they killed them in week two. Now, the Colts were missing a couple guys, but still, that game was over in five minutes.

It was crazy. Lawrence has had success wherever you stand on him. His last two Colts games were great. But his last two games have been terrible. His last two games have been terrible, but his last two Colts games were great. To me last two games have been terrible. His last two games have been terrible,

but his last two Colts games are great. To me, it's like if I can get the Jags plus seven and a half, then Matt Ryan and the Colts offense, which is by far the worst offense of the league, has to beat them by eight plus. I just don't see it. I don't see it either. And I think that the Jaguars could score in a hurry

if they had to at the end. Also, they're going backwards. They're 14-0 on the Eagles and terrible weather. Lawrence starts fumbling the ball. Eagles come back. Last week... Damian Pierce just running all over the place.

It's 6-6. There was a bad pick. Yeah, they're inside the three. Lawrence could have just run for a first down. He throws it into traffic. There's a pick. That's one play. The other one was they get the stupid penalty to extend the drive, like the classic. I think

you and I were the only two people on earth watching Jaguars Texans as closely as we did. I was watching it the same way. I had it on the big screen too. I'm like, the Jags just could not get out of their own way in that game. They could not. Well, it's interesting because they're now a pretty good division bet. If you believe in them at all, they're plus 240. I think the Colts are terrible. I really do. I think they're terrible. I think they're two plays away from being on five. You could say Chris

Jones, the third and 15 rough in the passer, if that's not called. If Hackett kicks a field goal to go up six, they're on five. There's just, that's it. It's two plays. Instead,

they're two and three. They're the favorites on FanDuel. They're plus 155. Because Frank Reich, Frank Reich teams do this. They always start shitty and then they just like

rattle off wins and then you wake up in late December and it's like, oh, the Colts are, went away from clinching the division and Then they'll ultimately

either clinch it or lose the last two games like they did last year. You have to think with all the talent on that roster, it's going to start coming together. It just hasn't yet. Then you have Tennessee who is somehow 3-2 who's been a little better defensively than people think.

I don't trust them either. No, but they've put it together the last three weeks. They've won three straight games. And last week's game, that should have been Washington in a million ways. And Tennessee just is one of those teams that got the big interception at the end. They do that all the time.

Yeah. And they grid out wins. And it's always like 21-17. It's not like a 38-3 blowout, but they just win ugly. And they run the ball with Henry. And Tannehill actually is playing really well right now. Yeah.

Frabel. I know somebody who knows him, and I think they're surprised that they're 3-2. I think this had all the makings of, maybe this is a transition year for us. We'll try to figure out if this rookie quarterback down the road.

Now it's like, all right. If you're just going to leave the AFC South division on our front porch, I'm going to open my door and I'm going to grab it. I think they had a lot of bad luck. They lost some guys and I'm not sure they thought this was an AFC South title team. Yeah, they lose Burks and then

Nick Westbrook-Akina shows up and has a big game. That's what they do. They find guys. They always do. That's them. Alright, so Jags plus 7.5 with the Bucs. I think that's one. Pats, definitely. Seahawks first half.

And then we put the Saints in with the Giants and the Giants with the Seahawks. The only other one I was interested in. The Panthers being plus 10 to the Rams. I know the Panthers just fired their coach. I know it's kind of

a dumpster fire. There's been rumors they might have a fire sale, which I don't totally believe. That's not happening. I'll tell you my information on that. If someone calls and it's like, we want three first round picks for Brian Burns, they'll trade Brian Burns or Christian McCabry, but they're certainly not looking to trade guys, you know, 50 cents on the dollar for no reason. They, they just like, we're got a good team. It's just, we got to figure out the coaching situation.

Yeah. And I've watched a lot of Carolina because I had, that was like my big, I know. And it turned out it was the Giants that are the team. I can't believe they made the playoffs team is going to be the Giants that are the team. I can't believe they made the playoffs team. It's going to be the Giants, not the Panthers. With that said, Panthers are 1-4. It's fucking early. It's a 17-game season now.

1-4 is not a death sentence. I just, the quarterback, and it's not, P.J. Walker might be fine. Baker, Bill, I didn't think. I'm writing off Baker. That's a wrap. Can you imagine a worse scenario for Baker Mayfield? Goes into the final year of a contract, new team, all this hope.

If you just get to free agency and have a decent season, you can make $20 million next year. Statistically, the ESPN rankings as the QBR. He didn't break a record for the threshold of bad QBR? So I think there's like 16 quarterbacks over the number 60. There's like 20 over the number 60. There's like 20 over the number 50. Then like Joe Flacco's at 30. Baker Mayfield is at like 16 for his QBR. He's the worst in the league and maybe worst historically. And now he's in a walking boot.

It's like, could anything have gone worse for Baker? And I'll tell you what's crazy, talking around the league about the talent, because I asked people, I'm like, all right, so who would you want to trade for? Their offensive line sucks, right? And it's like, to a man, all right, so who would you want to trade for their offensive line sucks. Right. And it's like to a man, like every other team that I speak to, it's like their offensive line is actually really good. They've got a good offensive line, a lot of young talent.

Like Baker was just abominably bad. And part of that has to be, you can't say it's not the coaching that it's at least a small piece for whatever, but he was, I hate to me, you just like kind of broken. He looked like Carson Wentz in that last Eagles

year, where it's like just mentally the things that were happening and it looked like it wasn't connecting brain to body and it's like, oh, this guy's broken right now. Something needs to be fixed with him. And that was Carson at the end of the Eagles. By the way, that's been a lot of quarterbacks over the last 20 years.

It kind of goes sideways for them when they lose that kind of swagger. they lose the swagger uh can i interest you in giants plus 205 panthers plus 370 no no at 13 to 1 odds no okay not that the rams are gonna look like uh lights out or anything i just the panthers i don't see them okay i feel like this is one where McVay desperately needs this before the bye weekend. They desperately need something to hang their head on. Mack Jones and a second for Brian Burns. Who says though?

Are you that in on Bailey Zappi? I'm just asking who says though. I mean, yeah, I think Mack Jones for Brian Burns is a good trade. You throw in a second round pick, if you're the Patriots, you got to listen to that for Brian Burns is a good trade. You throw in a second round pick if you're the Patriots, you got to listen to that.

Brian Burns is really good. So is Jeremy Chin. They've got some good players on that defense. They draft decent players. They have the guys. It just doesn't look that good. What about Uche in a first

for Brian Burns? Not enough? I need to throw in a second also? Yeah, Burns is really good. I'm aware. Yeah. I was trying to figure out if the also? Yeah, Burns is really good. I'm aware. Yeah. I was trying to figure out if the Pats could get Burns, what kind of defense they could have.

How good could that defense be with one more pass rusher? The interesting thing is the Mac Jones thing, we laugh about it, and it's like, Tepper's not going to want to do that, I don't think, but he's just crazy enough where it's like, oh, I'll take your first round asset if you want. That's the one owner where

he will pick up the phone and listen. The bummer, if I'm a Carolina fan, is I just would have gone after Huntley. I think Huntley has a chance to be above average quarterback versus, I guess they got Baker for free, whatever. It was cheap. I certainly thought it was worth

the gamble. No, I get it. He started in the playoffs two years ago. Look, PJ Walker, he'll be free, whatever. It was cheap. I certainly thought it was worth the gamble. No, I get it. He started in the playoffs two years ago. And Darnold, look, PJ Walker's like, he'll be fine, whatever. But Darnold still has now 10 weeks. If he gets on the field, who knows? What their problem was, they never just went for it and got the Watson

or got the Stafford. They always were hedging and they're like, all right, we're going to go with... Well, they didn't hedge with Bridgewater. They spent like $60 million on him. That was like a legitimate spend. I know. And they realized he wasn't the guy.

And then it was like, we're spaying him. Now we're going to pay this guy, this guy, this guy. I'll tell you, they were very much involved in the Stafford. Yeah. In the Stafford talks. And then once McVeigh gets in a hot tub with Stafford, away we go. McVeigh, can't get in that guy's hot tub, man.

Can I ask you a question? Should the Rams be favored by 10 points over anyone in the league? No, but this is the one team where it's like if they need a pinata, this is the week and they desperately need a pinata. But this is the, we just fired our coach, we got a little hop in our step week, week. Okay. Sure. Okay.

The owner will be in the building. I believe Tepper. I'm not going to do it. I'll cross it off. We're all watching. I'll cross it off. And then Chiefs Bills,

I think is a stay away. I just want to watch it. I just want to enjoy it. Yeah. I just like my default is Chiefs at home as an underdog. Let's grab this,

but I'm staying away. The line is suspicious. Do you remember a regular season game this early in the season that like felt as big as this one? I was going through it.

They're both 4-1. I gotta say, I think Eagles-Cowboys feels almost as big to me because if the Cowboys can beat the Eagles, we'll have a prince in the NFC.

You're right. It's like the combo of those. I can't wait. Two excellent ones. Two different kind of games because the quarterbacks are the story with the Bills and Chiefs. And obviously you could talk about how good the Bills even is, but four and one, four and one,

both teams have come back from 17 points in a win. Yeah. Quarterbacks are like at the peak of their powers in the other game. It's like the nastiest defensive line in football. This Cowboys D is just so good. And then you get this nasty offensive line with the Eagles. One game is about aesthetics. The other game is just sheer brute strength.

It's great. I would do Bucks-Eagles as the tease if I knew, unfortunately, we're taping this Thursday lunchtime. Well, I don't know what I'm getting with that offensive line. And I don't want to have the Chiefs in a big tease and then find out on Sunday that two O-linemen are out and one guy might try to play, but it's hurt. And I just don't trust it. Yeah, my allot is a big one there.

And Kelsey's going to play, but I know he's banged up. I'm doing this podcast, I'll mention again, and it's for iHeart. And we interviewed Sala this week. We're going to do a different guest. But also, I tried to do a segment called Make Me Smarter where we go into the research where it's like, give me one little nugget. And the shit that Micah Parsons is doing right now, Bill, is insane. He's already got three multi-sac games.

The record for the season is eight by Reggie White. And he only rushes the passer 65% of the time. It's crazy what he's doing. He's not a pass rusher. He's in coverage against wide receivers 35% of the game. He's the unicorn. I said this on Good Morning Football and got

dragged, whatever that means. That's new lingo, but I got dragged for it when I was like, if he blows up this game and it's like two interceptions, two sacks, and he does exactly what he did against the Rams, does exactly what he did. It's going to get that. Forget defensive player of the year.

You're going to get Cowboys, national TV. You'll get that MVP whisper and buzz, whether or not he'll win. He'll be in that conversation. He's been that dominant as a player, And that's even with the groin injury. Season awards on FanDuel. Where's Micah at? Because this might be that unicorn season where LT did it in 86 and no one's done it since. But this guy is on... 200 to 1. Dude, 200 to 1. And you know that the voters are looking to do something that is special. What was the game? Was it last

week or two weeks ago where we had nine pressures? I was like, I don't know if the Pats last year had other than nine pressures for the entire team. Crazy. All right. It's time. It's million dollar picks time. For old time's sake, give me one.

Let's go! Let's go. Let's one. Let's go! Let's go! Let's go! Let's go! First bet. Teaser. Bucks minus eight and a half against the Steelers. Is this the worst team in the league, the Steelers, Peter Schrager? No, but they're in the conversation for the

bottom quarter of the worst teams in the league. Not only are they in the conversation for me, they're in the corner at the bar. In a long, long talk with whoever wins this Bears-Washington game. And they're trying to hash out. Dan Campbell and Mike Tomlin and

Rivera and... They're all in there in the corner. Bucs teased down from minus 8.5 to minus 2.5. Just win by a field goal, Tampa. Can't do that. Can't do that. You need this game. Got some guys coming back.

Got a nice, fast defense. This should be Tampa destroying them. We're going to tease them with the Jaguars who have burned us two weeks in a row. They have hurt my feelings. They killed the Colts in week two. Colts were a little banged up. Now we're coming back. They're getting two points

in Indianapolis okay Indianapolis is two plays away from being owned five facts Trevor Lawrence does he own the Colts can we say that

the last two times he's played them he's kicked their ass Jags plus 240 also to win the AFC South I think this is the week they kind of grabbed the AFC South back a little bit.

I'm not willing to write them off yet. Weird Philly game. Monsoon, the whole thing. Then the Houston game, just like, it's a strange game. It had no flow. It was 6-6 for two hours. They made one dumb mistake. Then they made another. All of a sudden, they lost. Teasing them to plus

7.5. Bucks minus 8.5 down to minus 2.5. Jags plus 1.5 to plus 7.5. Weucks minus 8.5 down to minus 2.5. Jags plus 1.5 to plus 7.5. We're putting $700,000 in that. Patriots. Next one. Patriots, another $700,000. Patriots plus 2.5 against the Browns.

I believe in this Pats team. I would encourage plus 280 for them to make the playoffs potentially. I think they know who they are. I think they like Zappy. Game manage. Run the ball. Remondre Stevenson. Maybe you didn't feel good about spending 15 bucks on him in your fantasy draft.

Somebody went 16. You backed off. Boy, was that a mistake. I was trying to get him from Cousin Sal this week. I offered him Devontae Smith. Nothing. Offered him Alan Lazard. Said no. He wanted Jamar Chase for him.

Can't do that. That's where Romandre's gone. The defense coming along. Belichick versus Stefanski. Belichick fired by the Browns. Back to Cleveland. Pats win this game. They're three and three.

Nephew Kyle is in. Pats plus two and a half. 700,000. Then a couple of small appetizer bets. We're going to do the Saints plus 1.5 against the Bengals. I don't like the smell of the Bengals. Sharks are in the water.

They're circling. Didn't like that loss in Baltimore. We're going to put Saints as a home dog. We're getting back to some home dog cooking. That's super dumb. Saints plus 1.5. And we both like to some home dog cooking. This is super dumb. Saints plus one and a half. And we both like Dalton a little bit more than Winston for them, right?

A lot more. A little game manager-y. Competent offense, no issues. Dalton does what Dalton does and it's not going to blow you away, but that is a pro's pro and he can move the ball downfield. And this will officially,

if the Bengals lose this, this will be the let's look into the mirror and really try to talk about what's happening here. Kind of lost for them. Saints plus one half, put 200K on that. We're putting 200K on the Seahawks in the first half against the Cardinals. I laid out earlier in the podcast,

Cardinals last 10 games, first half, they're down in nine of them. They're outscored by 100 points in their last 10 dating back to last year. And we're going to take the Seahawks plus zero and a half. Tie game, win the bet. Seahawks up by any lead, win the bet. Want to make your Geno Smith case really quickly? Best story in football right now.

32 years old in the fourth year in a row. He's on a one-year contract. These guys are playing for him. He runs that Shane Waldron offense better than Russell Wilson did a year ago. They come ready to play. They got two rookie offensive tackles who are playing their butts off.

They come ready to play. The Cardinals, week to week, I have no idea what I'm getting. Let's go Seattle. Underdog parlay. Almost hit it last week. Hit it two weeks ago with you, the one we did. We're going to put the Giants

in both of them we're doing two we're doing 75k a piece okay Giants plus 205 with the Saints plus 110 that is plus 540

on FanDuel okay Giants and Seahawks plus 577 on FanDuel you know we'll do 50k on that not 75k

okay lower it down this is the Wink this is the Wink-Martindale game. This is where the defense wins one for the Giants, and it's for their defensive coordinator who was shown the door by Baltimore. Mutually parted

ways. Wink-Wink was shown the door by Baltimore, and now Wink, he gets one back. Down 2.709 million for the season. Oh, really? Yeah, it's rough. It's not great. But I would either be way up or way down.

I don't want to be in the middle. So either fade these picks. It's going to make for a great story. I will say this has been the worst luck I've had in the first five weeks. I don't want to change my system. I've had a whole career of these little things that I do. And just this year for five weeks in a row, it's been a disaster. But do I overreact because Chris Jones gets a rough in the passer after they stopped the Colts on third and 15?

Was that the wrong pick? Do you overreact when Grady Jarrett has a perfectly formed tackle and they're going to cover and instead they throw a flag and they don't get the ball back? No, that's not your fault. There's been 10 of these plays this year and somehow I bet on the team that got screwed in eight of them. Clean slate. Peter Schrager is here. Those are the million dollar picks for week six.

Let's go. Let's go. All right, Joe House is here. We watched the Redeem team doc on Netflix. I think this is a really interesting era of American basketball. And I remember writing about it for page two. I don't know if I had a podcast really until 2007. So it was more writing. We were so disappointed by what was happening to basketball in our country and all the one-on-one stuff and the fact that the other countries were catching up in this 08 thing, which was an amazing thing captured, especially in the

Spain game in the documentary, but it wasn't on at a normal hour. Did you even watch this game? I don't think you did. I did watch it. Yes. I definitely watched because that fourth quarter had genuine drama in it. It did. And I enjoyed it very much. I want to clarify one aspect of what you just said. And I know that I can speak for you in this way. We were disappointed in America's inability to be competitive with world basketball in the context of world basketball growing from the dream team 92 era up into those early two thousands, because the kind of basketball that you and I have grown up loving, you know, our, our entire lives, uh, and the version of basketball really from, from the eighties, um, the impression that made on the world and how the world responded to it from 92 up to this time

when the U.S. lost its top of the food chain, Hoops food chain stature, it was like a perfect microcosm of the version of the NBA that we were, because the NBA was going through its own transition at that time. In a bad way. In a bad way, right. So we were frustrated that the U.S. was not up to the team standard. And I think that was the thing that resonated the most. Just the big picture context while we're watching 10 years of basketball post-Dream Team

10 to 15 years, why can't we play better as a team? Why are we so disconnected? Why is it that the selfish elements of our guys are the predominant elements? Why can't we just get on the same page? So this was the big picture part of the doc that it just kind of ignored and stayed away from because it's too deep basketball. But for us, it always came back to the point guards yeah it was like who is running this show even if you go back

to 92 it's Magic and it's John Stockton by the time things start falling apart in that 0-2 0-4 0-6 range

Jason Kidd is really the only you know great team first American point guard we have other than that

it's a lot of the one-on-one stuff and why one of the reasons-on-one stuff. And one of the reasons it fell apart in 04 was it was Marbury and Iverson as the guards. And those were shoot first guards. And this goes back to the 90s, the Jordan influence, the one-on-one influence. People started to emulate him, including people like Kobe. And everything was just one-on-one, one-on-one, one-on-one. And we would go into these tournaments and then these other teams that weren't as talented, they would just have ball movement.

Like we lost to Greece. We lost to Greece in world championships. We got our asses kicked by Puerto Rico. And it was all because they had movement and picks, which we had none of. And the documentary was helpful in emphasizing the lack of an institutional vision. Yeah. That there hadn't been a game plan previously. And part of it is because it was sufficient for us to trot the college kids out

all the way up until the mid 80s. Well, let's go backwards because I think this is an important piece of this. You and I, the doc glossed over it. It glossed over a lot of things. It's a benevolent doc. It is. For what John Thompson did in 1988. Yes, that's right.

And you're a DC guy, Georgetown. You have a mostly loving relationship for John Thompson. Yeah, very, very fun. But you really appreciate him. He did an awful job as the Olympic coach. That's true. And that set this whole chain of events. He picked the wrong guys for the team.

We got our asses kicked by the Russians. And that led to the dream team. And then this idea that we have to send our best. But then somewhere around 2000, we lose the narrative of sending the best. Now we're just putting together a fantasy team. And context-wise, the documentary did a good job. I mean, you know, uh, September the 11th happened and the terror threat that was present for the Olympics in Athens, what was a

real thing. And all those guys pulling out, you know, a whole bunch of, of otherwise committed guys pulling out because of concerns around the terrorist threat that, that was legit. But the thing that, you know, to the point you're, you're, you're making from that John Thompson moment forward,

it, there was still no USA basketball. It was, there was still no like organized, cohesive top of, you know, somebody sitting on top, genuine leadership with a vision for how

the U.S. is going to compete on the international stage for the next few decades. Well, and they, it also became not worth it for the players to some degree, right? I think Duncan, especially in 04, Duncan's the best player in the world at that time. He has won in 99 and 03 and 04 plays, you know, all the way through the western finals then has to play the olympics after then comes back has to go through that whole five season they end up winning the title over detroit but he's like limping around by the end of that and that that's where it became like what is the upside of this to basically, I might have a 100 game NBA season. On top of it, I'm going abroad. I have to practice and be part of this other team. And then on top of it,

that might be three grueling weeks right before the season. And I think it flipped in 08 because I think people saw the value of coming off the Olympics and coming in the season. Remember that 08,09 season? And the doc ends when they win the gold medal. But Wade was incredible in 09. I felt like Wade's 09 season was as good as any Kobe season. LeBron wins the MVP in 09. Carmelo was awesome in 09.

That was when they made the Western, I think they made round three against the Lakers. All because I believe they had that experience and they got to learn from Kobe, right? And what it did in terms of their competitive level, that's exactly right. I mean, one of the highlights to me of the entire documentary was the story of the team in a team bonding moment, going out to the club, spending the whole night at the club. They all get back at 5.30 in the morning. And who they encounter is Kobe coming off the elevator, getting ready to go to the gym. He's got all his workout gear on. And they're

like, yo, what are you doing? He's like, I'm going to go prepare. And the guys all claim that that has such an impact on them, their commitment. I think that was probably true. And I wonder if Kobe deep down maybe regretted letting those guys under the hood with some of his secrets, right? Well, but by that point, he wasn't eminence in the game. He'd achieved that. I mean, part of what you're struck by, at least I'll speak for myself, how beloved he was in China. Like he's the star. He's the single biggest star. And the way that MJ was the star in 92,

it's Kobe as the star. Now the whole team was really a star in 92, but going back and looking at the Dream Team documentaries and stuff and seeing that, you know, the role that MJ was the Beatles. Yeah, LeBron wasn't LeBron yet. LeBron had had, he had snuck into the 07 finals with that weird Cleveland team because they upset Detroit in 07.

Then in 08, they lose to the Celtics in round two. But he wasn't, he hadn't won any MVPs yet. The doc tries to do this whole LeBron versus Kobe thing, but I just don't feel like LeBron, we considered him the best player. I didn't personally consider him the best player in the league until that 08-09 season. Yeah. That's right. That was when he was clearly, he had gone up a level. But that 08 season, that was a really

complicated MVP. That's the year Kobe got Gasol. That was the year Chris Paul did so much with that New Orleans team. That was the year the Celtics traded for KG and there was cases for everybody. And then LeBron had a really good season for Cleveland. Kobe, who wanted to trade heading into the year, they weren't very good. And then they get Gasol and they take off. So the league was kind of in flux. That was why I wrote a column about that gold medal game

for ESPN Magazine. And probably like I had been on book leave for like two months. And that game kind of came and went. I thought it was an incredible basketball game. Cause I remember I watched it live on the West coast and it seemed like we were going to lose. And the Spain just kept coming and coming. Fernandez was great, which they captured in there. The Gasol brothers, nobody knew Marc Gasol was good. But then the part they didn't have in the doc was Rubio was great in that game. He was 17. Jose Calderon had gotten hurt. And Rubio out of nowhere, it's like this precocious seemed like he was going to be a transcendent player potentially. And there's that moment that did you capture in the doc with

eight minutes left, down to timeout. And it's kind of like this, who got this moment? And the answer was Kobe. And that was when the best player in the league thing just organically solved itself. No, actually Kobe's the best player in the league. And then Wade made a couple of plays too, but that was the moment I think for Kobe. And then he goes on to win the title the next year. One of the unanswered things, and I understand the point of the documentary was not to provide, you know, the historical timeline for, from 92 up to 2008, it could only touch on it a few times. Where was Kobe in 2004? And why was it that Larry Brown, who chose Larry Brown to be the coach? Well, Larry Brown was, his stock was red hottie. It just coached the pacer, the Pistons to the title. Right. Yes. Yeah.

But with Allen Iverson and Marbury, with that, those players at that time. Weak league though. Remember? I know. That talent was really low at that stretch. Yeah.

I don't even know who they should have had. There's two things that Doc skips over. One is some of the Kobe stuff, right? Like he's not in 04 because he's going through the trial. 06, 07, he is really unhappy. And I think they capture how he goes to the 07 and Plasky does that thing

in the doc about he wanted to trade and he did this and he did that. Yeah, Plasky was super valuable. Yeah, he was. The reputation Kobe had after the summer of 07 was this guy is not a team player. This guy is a solo act.

He couldn't even coexist with Shaq. And for the last three years, the Lakers basically did nothing. And what is this guy? We know this guy's great, but what is he? Can he actually be part of a winning basketball team?

Then he's the focal point. We all fought it. And so they go and they roll the dice with him because they desperately needed that. Like older. He was the most talented player in the league. But I do think this team, I do buy the argument that the doc made that this team was a little bit helpful with him pushing him toward this next phase of his career. That's what Plasky said, right? And the doc intimates and Plasky gives it voice that Kobe needed that team for the second chapter of his career. He needed the team, maybe as much as the team needed, maybe more than the team needed him. He needed it to, you know, all of the stories that the guys tell about his individualism, his solo pursuit, him not having friends throughout the league. The thing that really did accelerate his stature,

the thing that made him an eminence, it seems like it started with that gold medal game. And then that was the second chapter of his career. Yeah, I think summer 2007, he has a good experience with that team. He ends up not getting traded. The Lakers start off a little better than I think people expected. And then they move in for Gasol because Chris Wallace puts Gasol on a platter.

So the Kobe stuff was a little more complicated than I think the doc is going to want to go into. And then the other piece was the LeBron, Wade, Carmelo stuff in 04. Like those guys were really immature. I don't think they had a really high approval rating after the 0-4 thing. And I think in general,

I sent you that Wojnarowski thing. Wojnarowski wrote a piece for Yahoo 2010 about LeBron after LeBron went to Miami. And it goes back to some of his behavior for Team USA and them telling him in 2007, you have to be more of a team person

or we're going to literally leave you off this team. Yeah, Woj literally talks about the All-Star game. In 07 in Vegas. In 07 with his crew. Yeah. And that the behavior there was so egregious, it seems, that Nike intervened on behalf of, you know,

this was a reported piece by Woj. She was now, you know, I, however you want to feel about his authenticity at this point back then, I think it's definitely, there feels like an agenda, right?

It feels like he's against the LeBron side and he's airing some dirty laundry and stuff like that. But at the same time, it was interesting. I had heard all the same stuff being around the league that they didn't know if they wanted to deal with the LeBron machine with the Olympic team. And they would just rather have 12 guys who were committed buying in. The doc doesn't touch that. Now, LeBron and Dwayne Wade were two of the executive producers of the doc. And it makes it seem like Larry Brown was the bad guy in 04. It's like,

I think Larry Brown just wanted professionalism in 04. I didn't mean to suggest, you know, my criticism was really just a failure of kind of imagination, like a little more planning, it seemed, was required for 2004. Well, think about if they had asked us, hey, we're going to build an Olympic team and the guards are going to be Allen Iverson and Stefan Marbury. We would have been like, that seems like a bad idea. Where's Jason Kidd? Can we get him? Well, I think they tried.

This was part of the problem with the terrorist threat. Yeah. I mean, all those guys that self-selected out, that's why they asked. I mean, the guys themselves were incredulous. LeBron and Melo and D-Wade talk about how surprised they were that they were getting phone calls to go participate in team USA. And it was because the vets didn't want to mess with it. I remember that.

Oh, seven Vegas thing. Um, there was a lot of stuff. There was definitely a sea change in the league where they're handing the torch to this new wave of stars. And this was the first generation of guys that just didn't listen to the NBA and stuff.

I have a request. They did their own thing. Who can you do a deal with at the ringer? We need the oral history of the 2007 All-Star game, All-Star weekend in Las Vegas. Oh, my God. I mean, I wrote like a 10,000 word thing. Yeah. It was in the air because they were having a lot of trouble with Kobe that year.

They were having a lot of trouble with LeBron and just that younger generation. Wade, who seemed like he was going to be super important after the 06 finals, but then he gets hurt. The 07 season was unhappy, him and Shaq. 08, he gets hurt. And I thought the doc did a decent job of pointing out, he'd weirdly become an afterthought for this guy who was a finals MVP in 06.

Yeah. He's coming off the bench. I mean, he was, I thought, in 08 and 12, the kind of greatest stealth asset this team had. You can just bring Wade in as this disruptor. The three-point line was perfect for him. He was so athletic back then. The Spain game, he was perfect for him. He was so athletic back then. The Spain game,

he was the MVP of that game. So think about Wade and LeBron as the executive producers of this. They get to make a choice about what kind of light they want to cast Jerry Colangelo in. And they made the affirmative decision to celebrate the role. It was very positive. And Colangelo was the one who went to Chicago and asked Dwayne Wade to prove it to me. Show me that your rehab has worked. Show me that you're committed and show me that you can do it. Got to give Jared Colangelo some credit. It didn't go into all the private planes that he made them fly around. One of the things in the Olympics was how much money they spent to get this 08 team.

Everything was first class. But they did what they had to do. They felt like they had to reestablish their brand overseas. And then Carmelo, who, it's funny, in this 08 range, I felt like was right there with LeBron and Wade, as weird as that sounds, as an asset.

We did lump those three together in all these different ways, right? And then when 08-09 season, they make, it's 2-2 in the Western Finals, him versus Kobe. It felt right. It felt like, you know, those were four of the best players in the league. And for Carmelo, it never really got back there except for that one 2013 Knicks season. Well, what's crazy is Carmelo's legacy, his resume will forever have his imprint on our international teams. He was the best player on a couple,

well, the most important player, not necessarily the best, but it really clicked with him. The international team and his commitment to it and his legacy will always have, like some of his highest achievements will be his commitment to it, and his legacy will always have, like some of his highest achievements will be his commitment to USA basketball. Yeah, what did he have?

08, 12, and 16, I think? And I think 12 was the one where he saved our ass. Which, there was one year. Why was that 12? CP was huge in 12. CP was huge in 12. Well, one thing this didn't go into in 08, which I found out in 12,

was that Dwight drove all of them crazy. And Dwight's in this doc, he gets interviewed, he's wearing a Kobe and Dwight sweatshirt. Kobe's on record as couldn't stand Dwight when they played together. The one picture where Kobe is actually in something that looks like an embrace. Yeah. Dwight took that picture and put it on a sweatshirt and then wore it for the purposes of this interview. But I remember like the whole team, that was a big theme hearing. Cause I, I was in London for 12 and I was around the team a little and around the people around the team and heard a lot of stories. And Dwight was, Dwight was, he wasn't on that team cause he was hurt and they were relieved that he wasn't on the team. And they were small that year. They had like Kevin Love ended up playing center

basically in crunch time in the 12 team. But the Spain team was such a good villain for them or adversary, I should say, because they had two Basals. Fernandez was just the perfect international player. Jose Calderon wasn't there in 08. They had Navarro, young Rubio. They just had dudes coming out of the woodwork who seemed like they could hit threes.

They moved the ball. They were tough. They'd been playing together forever. And that really was an awesome opponent for us. Yeah, a perfect vehicle for the thing that we talked about a bit ago, where you go from 1992 up to that period of time, how international basketball, the development across the world, the growth and interest in competitive basketball and how competitive those guys were they were i mean you know they had six nba players on that team well one of the funniest things about 08 was

gasol's brother mark who was kind of thrown into that uh the pal gasol trade yeah and we were all like what the fuck and And then, like what, five months later, he played real minutes in the 08 Olympics and the trade wasn't as bad. It was still an absolute affront and a giveaway.

I'll never get over it. And it was awful. I'll never get over it. But at least after that, you were like, all right, maybe they got something here. And then Rubio was the big winner

because then Rubio, the 09 draft. God! Yeah, he's in it. and your stupid team trades mike miller is that the number five pick for mike miller randy for you could have had rubio i'll never i'll never we could have had steph curry i'll just never it's just a never oh you could have steph curry yeah we could have had steph curry could add steph curry yeah was. Five pick. Just keep it. Just keep it in that draft. That's a rough one. Don't draft Johnny Flynn.

Boy, Johnny Flynn was already gone by then, fortunately, because of God! Jesus. You know, the Kobe piece of this too, which I thought

it handled pretty nicely just where we are now in 2022 with the Kobe story. And there's a couple moments there that were a little heart-wrenching, right? When the daughters come out of the stands.

I'm telling you, I choked up, bro. I didn't beat you over the head with it, but I thought that was smart. The Doug Collins stuff I thought was really good too. Because when I did TV with him that year, he said that was like, when those guys came over to the table for him, that I think was like either the most meaningful moment of his career or one of them. Um, cause they didn't have to do it, you know, and they went out of their way to do it. And it's clear that, that they, um, were open to him and he made an impression on them. And that was, you know, all credit to Krzyzewski, right? Yeah.

You know, you, you got another winner. I was thinking about our guy, Tate Frazier watching this coach K hater, but that story he told about our guy, Tate Frazier, watching this. Coach K hater. But that story he told about the grandfather-grandmother was good. I like that he drops F-bombs too. Oh, he's a fiery competitor. It's what you want and expect

out of somebody that takes the mantle of our international status and stature in basketball and tries to re-elevate it, re-establish it. Good job by Coach K. I feel like there was a lot more video and a lot more stuff that because there were so many, I mean, there's like a hundred producers in this. The Olympics were a producer. You go on,

Wade and LeBron and all the way through. I'm sure there was some good stuff that they ended up not using. I think you're right. I don't think this was the good ship lollipop, I'm sure there was some good stuff that they ended up not using. I think you're right. I don't think this was the good shit lollipop. I'm sure there was moments when Kobe's just screaming at Dwight Howard. There's no way Kobe

wasn't screaming at somebody during these practices because they were taping everything. No, look, think Howard and Kobe were eventually teammates and then Kobe sanctioned it. So maybe they got along. Maybe Howard was on better behavior then. The big it. So maybe, maybe they got along.

Maybe Howard was on better behavior. Then the big winner, I think was Carlos Boozer. He looked very handsome. It was having a moment in the late two thousands, right? He signed with Utah, him and Darren Williams made the conference finals.

Darren Williams not interviewed for this. Chris Paul barely in it, which I thought was suspicious. A little bit, but barely. Yeah. Chris Paul, I thought, would have been a big interview, but Boozer's

interviewed five times as much. A lot of booze time. Wade's in it a lot. A lot of D-Wade. Wade's like, put two more things of me in there. One of the things that was great about this team, and I wrote about in that ESPN mag piece, was they had Chris Paul and Darren Williams,

but they felt this weird obligation to play kid. Kid wasn't really kid anymore. He was moving into kind of a new phase of his career. And Chris Paul and Darren Williams were like incredible. And I think that was one of the reasons that team struggled in that Spain game because they stayed with kid a little too long. The crunch time lineup, I think it was, it was LeBron with Wade and Kobe. Yes.

Chris Paul, and then... Was it Bosh? It was Bosh. Yeah, which is... Think about that. That's a very modern lineup, right? Three wings, a point guard, and basically a rim runner, floor stretcher. It is funny.

And no center. As you described that, I had a very hard time with the timeline in my brain because those guys are still very present. You know what I mean? Yeah. Here in 2022, they're still playing so many of them and there's so much. It's hard to like, wow, what was I thinking back then? How did I feel about this back then?

Well, Carmelo had never really had a moment in the NBA. Bosh was buried on these bad Toronto teams. Wade had had the two great Miami postseasons in a row and then was basically in obscurity for the next two years. Kobe hadn't had a playoff moment in three years. LeBron had probably had the most experience just from those, because he 0-7 finals and then he went, had that war against the Celtics. But yeah, there were no Celtics on the 0-7 finals, and then he went, had that war against the Celtics. But yeah, there were no Celtics on the 0-8 team, even though they had just won the title.

It was a cool time for the league. Another thing they didn't go into, which I was very surprised they didn't, it was, this was allegedly, I don't even think it's alleged. Roach wrote it. Yeah, this was when they started talking about all playing together. Yes.

Which they just stayed away from completely in the doc. But Wade, Bosh, I think Carmelo got screwed up because his contract

ended a year later than the other guys. But Wade and Bosh and LeBron, but really Wade and LeBron knew that their contracts expired at the same time. Melo was supposed

to be part of it. I know, but his agent did the full extension with no option. I remember, but that's an important nugget. And that whole thing of it, that's in the footage. There's somewhere in the footage.

You know what I mean? They basically, well, maybe they said in 07, we played poker 35 straight days or something like that. But I think at some point during the whole thing, they all decided. But that. But I think at some point during the whole thing, they all decided. But that was what I had always heard. That they all made a pact. The Woj piece is pretty fascinating.

It's pretty great. It's a great reread. Yeah. So the legacy of this, I'm glad this doc exists. I didn't think it was amazing or anything, but I thought the footage was good. It's fun to relive it.

I liked reliving the game. I didn't mind the Kobe hagiography. I didn't either. It didn't drive me crazy. I didn't either. I think if you're going to make it more basketball-y, I think you have to dive into the Jordan influence from the late 90s and kind of this one-on-one stranglehold

that the league was in that led to some of the rule changes in 04 and 05. It was defense over offense. It was everything one-on-one stranglehold that the league was in that led to some of the rule changes in 04 and 05. It was defense over offense. It was everything one-on-one. And kind of how do you unlock making the league fun again? And the Redeem team kind of tied into that. Yes. How do we make this product what we actually want to watch?

You know, the Celtics in 08, I think were very team first on selfish. Ubuntu. Yeah. But LeBron was stuck on that Cleveland team that he basically had to just be a scorer, and he wasn't. He was so much more than that at that point. Kobe just had to be a scorer.

Wade just had to be a scorer. T-Max in Houston, he just has to be a scorer. So on and on, it was like there was no team basketball except the Spurs, and all the Spurs were international guys and Phoenix was the other one and Phoenix had

Nash's from Canada I mean really the big mistake we made was not convincing Nash to defect to America renounce his citizenship what is it

when you become an American citizen that was what Colangelo should have done in 06 he just should have gotten Nash we would have been fine Nash in 06-08 we're have gotten Nash. We would have been fine.

Nash in 06-08. We're good to go. Anyway, all right, Redeem Team, we recommend this doc. I think if you're a basketball fan, it's fun.

Absolutely. Yeah. Did you really get choked up? The daughter thing. Yeah, that did. That was good. It's tough.

That was good. It was handled correctly and it wasn't overt, but it was in there and you could feel it. yeah, I, the Kobe, we didn't even talk about plowing into Gasol, which was all over the internet last week, but that does not seem like that was an exaggerated story. No, I think it's a real story. Yeah, it was a real story.

And it looked like it. Fuck this guy. It's right. Yeah. All right. House, good to see you. All right. That's it for the podcast.

Thanks to Schrager and Solak and house. Thanks to Kyle Creighton for producing. Thanks to Dylan Berkey and Steve Cerruti as well. Thanks to FanDuel. Don't forget to jump on that boost. Milwaukee, 50 plus wins. Denver, 50 plus wins. Sacramento, 35 plus wins. Denver, 50 plus wins. Sacramento, 35 plus wins.

A nice little juicy parlay with some actual juice on it. Go check it out. I will be back on this feed on Sunday, hopefully celebrating the triumphant return of a victorious Million Dollar Picks week. And the New England Patriots officially throwing themselves into the playoff race.

I can't wait. Enjoy the weekend. Go Harvard Westlake. See you Sunday. Feel the air that's wetting On the wayside On the first sun Never once again I don't have to ever