The Bill Simmons Podcast - A Memorable NBA Reopening, Plus: Talking NFL With Kyle Brandt

Episode Date: July 31, 2020

The Ringer's Bill Simmons shares his thoughts on the NBA restart, including Lakers-Clippers, Pelicans-Jazz, the NBA broadcast, NBA awards, and more (4:40). Next he talks with NFL Network's Kyle Brandt about his new Ringer podcast '10 Questions With Kyle Brandt,' the seemingly precarious 2020 NFL season, Brandt's time on 'The Real World: Chicago,' the golden age of MTV's 'The Challenge,' the evolution of reality TV, his recent two-hour interview with Aaron Rodgers, nostalgic NFL talk, and more (35:05). Finally Bill talks with his daughter, Zoe Simmons, about teen culture during quarantine (1:41:06). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tonight's special, the NBA is back edition of the Bill Simmons podcast on the ringer podcast network brought to you by ZipRecruiter. If you're an employer, you know how challenging it can be to hire, but right now you face even more challenges. Mats and resources could relate. They needed to hire a seasoned senior Citrix administrator to provide IT support. So they turned to our presenting sponsor ZipRecruiter. That's how they found Peter Alcantar Jr. He was laid off during COVID-19, needed to find another job quickly. So he posted his resume on ZipRecruiter.

They identified him as a great match for the role at Mattson. Resources to hire him in less than three weeks. See how ZipRecruiter can help you hire. Try it now for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash BS. Meanwhile, basketball is finally back. We'll be talking about it at the topRecruiter.com slash BS. Meanwhile, basketball is finally back. We'll be talking about it at the top of this podcast. If you're missing the sports bar as much as we are, you need to get to Buffalo Wild Wings

to watch all the action. The beer is cold. The wings come in 24 sauces and seasonings. Fans can still be fans. And if you'd rather watch at home, make sure you watch with a wing bundle. You do what you want to do. Just make sure wings are involved.

Please drink responsibly. Should also mention the ringer NBA show, which is going to be back in full force, the mismatch with a Verno and KOC that's happening this week. It should be up late tonight or early tomorrow morning. And then then Monday, we have a new weekly podcast on the Ringer NBA show

that we'll be tweeting about, I think, tomorrow or maybe early Monday morning. I'll tell you more about it on Sunday's podcast. Very excited about this. We have a couple new additions coming to the Ringer that I am super pumped about. So that's happening.

Hey, wanted to mention Spotify really quickly. Thanks to everybody out there who's been spreading the word for, man, we're coming up, it was October 2015 when we launched this podcast. It was the first one on The Ringer Podcast Network. Trivia question, what was the second one? It was Channel 33, which was The watch with chris ryan and andy greenwald i think that was the second one

but uh you know we're heading toward the five-year mark here and now spotify has podcast charts and the bill simmons podcast was one of the ones who made it to the top of the charts i love doing the show obviously it's been show. Obviously, it's been great. And it's been great to watch it grow and watch the audience grow. And especially now that the NBA is back. This is usually when this is my favorite time to do the show. NBA and then the start of NFL would be the other favorite time. Somehow those two times are now merging, which is bonkers.

But I like charts just because it gives you at least a sense of what new pods are coming out, which of the old standbys are still doing well, what episodes are out there, things like that. If you want to see what other podcasts made it on the charts, go to the podcast hub on Spotify, where you can also check out some of the vodcasts too, that we did book of basketball has some videos now and Higher Learning with Rachel, Lindsay, and Van Lathan as well, which is a really good podcast. One more podcast we launched this week.

You know this because they were on my podcast on Tuesday, but R2C2 with CeCe Sabathia and Ryan Rucco. That one is up. It's just an excellent podcast. Couldn't be happier to have it on the Ringer Podcast Network. So check that one out. Coming up, I'm going to talk about the doubleheader tonight.

Just my late night thoughts here about the Lakers Clippers and Jazz Pelicans and just what it's like to have basketball back and what tonight meant. And then Kyle Brandt from the NFL Network, who has another podcast that's launching with us in two weeks. He'll talk about that. But we're going to talk about the possible return of football, whether that's actually going to happen. And we're going to talk a lot about the real world and the challenge.

And we're going to talk about the 2007 Pats, all kinds of things. Hold on to your seats for that. And then at the tail end, we needed a teen culture update during the pandemic. So my daughter's coming out for a little mini edition of For Reals because there's a lot of teen culture. There's stuff I don't understand with TikTok and people fighting, people getting canceled.

She's going to explain all of it. That's all coming up first. Our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, I'm taping the top of the podcast. It is 9.37 p.m. Pacific time, Thursday night. Just watched basically, I don't know, five and a half straight hours of basketball. Man, did it feel good. I said on the CC and Ruko when they were on the podcast

a couple days ago, I was talking about how badly I wanted basketball to come back, how I felt like Tom Hanks on the Castaway Island just waiting for anything to wash up on shore. And then the FedEx boxes show up and you're like, oh my God, FedEx boxes. I wonder what's in these. That's how I felt about two random regular season games that were on television today that we didn't know if basketball was going to come back. We didn't know if this was going to work. We didn't know if the huge commitment they were going to make in all these different ways to social justice was going to overpower the basketball, change the tenor of it.

Nobody knew. We didn't know anything. I thought it worked beautifully. I really thought it was one of the great regular season nights the league's ever had. When you think of the stakes, you think about everything they went through, how much money, time, effort, energy was put into figuring out how this could work, how they really wanted to use their platform in all these different ways to raise awareness, to bang home the social justice theme, which started really with that TNT promo with Meek Mill at the top, all the way through the really powerful national anthem with the Pelicans and the Clippers. There was a vibe and a feeling that I thought was really special watching on TV from, you know, 3000 miles away. And, you know, if you just think like, all right, what were our objectives here? Keep the season going, make the players feel safe, raise awareness, entertain. It did

everything. And I thought in one of the weird ironies of all of it, Rudy Gobert was the hero of the first game where you have March 11th, which I just kind of think of now as the Gobert game, where it becomes the tipping point really of the pandemic, where I think for Americans, at least we knew this was bad. We knew this was happening. And then all of a sudden that night with basketball and Tom Hanks gets it, it all hell breaks loose and they're canceling NBA games and Gobert's positive. And, and it all kind of came to a head that night. So then you fast forward nearly five months, almost five months, and Gobert's out there and makes the two big free throws

and was the dominant defensive player the second half of that Pelicans-Clips game. But I thought that was an interesting turn of events. All right, so I wrote down a couple things that I wanted to talk about, just a couple themes, just coming out of this game, out of the two games, but especially the Clips Lakers game, which I think was a better game than I expected without Harrell and without Lou Williams. The first question I had,

does home court advantage even matter now? Because you think about the games today, the Pelicans, I think, were favored by two over the Jazz. I don't even know how they come up with that spread. And I honestly don't know why the Pelicans, I think were favored by two over the jazz. I don't even know how they come up with that spread. And I honestly don't know why the Pelicans were favored. Um, and then the Lakers were favored by, I think it was five over the Clippers, but this is the all time neutral court. And if there is a hole in this whole thing and it's a tiny hole, it's a, it's a little prick. It's a little pinhole, but it's still a tiny hole.

It's that we played this whole regular season for an advantage that doesn't seem to really exist. And I think Reggie Miller was almost getting a little confused by it because he kept talking in the first half with the Lakers Clippers and how this didn't really matter. You got to use these games to get your guys, you know, into the groove and get the rhythm back. But ultimately, you know, there's not real stakes here. And I'm thinking like, there's actually a lot of stakes for the Clippers. They could

pretty easily drop from a two seat to a four seat. And then the more I'm thinking about it, I'm like, well, who cares? It's not like, it's not like there's real home court advantage. It's not like you have to worry about winning a game seven on somebody else's court. It's not like there's real home court advantage. It's not like you have to worry about winning a game seven on somebody else's court. It's the same court for everybody. So I guess I'm looking at it from the Clippers' perspective where they were very careful with the minutes with Paul George and Kawhi tonight.

There was a moment in the fourth quarter when both of those guys were out, and they completely fell apart. And I think if it was like a must, must, must win game, you bring those guys back out. You really, you know, you don't let that slip away the way it did. But the Clippers are like, we just want these guys healthy for the four playoff rounds and we want to get them back in the group. So in a weird way, Reggie Miller was right. I hate to agree with Reggie Miller, but he's right.

It doesn't really matter if the Clippers are second, third, or fourth. I don't know. They're going to play the Lakers at some point. So that was my first takeaway where I'm thinking about matchups and stuff. And you think about Philly and the other side where they could end up playing the Celtics in the 3-6 matchup or they could try to climb to five. And if you're them, it's like, does it really matter? You don't have to win a game seven in Boston.

So mark that subplot down. The second thing, we were worried whether this would feel like basketball. And we had a sense from the scrimmages that it would. But there's a couple of things I really liked one and the announcers didn't talk about this. And I was really surprised in both games. I don't think they had a conversation about this underneath the basket where normally there's 10 photographers, the basket support always seems really close. And then you have all the court side seats pretty close to the baseline too.

And you always worry about the players on drives or whatever, flying past the basket and basically doing what happened to Paul George in that, in that FIFA game or crashing into a cameraman and breaking their arm, whatever the wide real estate behind the basket, I thought changed the way some of these guys were doing their drives. Like they were going full speed at the basket and flying by. There was a couple of points where the guys went so far back, back behind the basket that their team had to intentionally foul because it was a five on four. So there's a recklessness on these drives in a good way because they don't have in the back of their head. If I go flying past the basket, I'm potentially going to break my leg flying into a

cameraman because there were no cameramen. And it reminded me of, of what the FIFA games look like, or even what the Olympics look like. So you had that little bit wider shot, more space, especially under the baskets, just more space in general. And it was a little weird, but no weirder than watching, you know, an Olympic qualifier or something. I liked it.

I don't, I gotta be honest, I don't really care about the fans that much because most of the time it's canned noise anyway, or the fans are just, you know, cheering after three or whatever. But, you know, the, the crowds that I grew up with in the seventies and eighties were basically all we had was an Oregon and people doing chants. Like those were real crowds and those crowds affected the games. Nowadays it's, it's kind of just noise and manufactured noise some of the time.

So I didn't really miss it. I really liked hearing the noise from the teams on the bench, especially. Like you could really hear like after a big dunk or a big defensive play, you could hear the bench and the coaching staff like, and make some big kind of roar. I liked it. I liked hearing the sneakers squeak. I liked hearing,

sometimes you could hear the guys yell at each other. Other times they would bleep it. But I just didn't miss the fans. I think the digital faces, it's cute. It's adorable. Ultimately, I would get rid of those if it were up to me.

And then the one thing that I was trying to get used to was the jerseys. Because, you know, everybody had different phrases to get used to was the jerseys because, you know, everybody had different phrases written on the back of their jerseys, but it was just disorienting to see, I don't know, Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert, uh, Zion Williamson, but their juror, their actual name wasn't on their jersey. And it was always like kind of a double take for me. And then you'd be like, oh, that's Zion. Or, yeah, that's Mitchell. But I can't wrap my head around the jersey thing.

But I'll get there. I'll get there. I think it's cool that they did that. I would put, I think I would put on the front, maybe on the shorts, I would put the guy's name, the letters in descending order on the shorts. So their name is somewhere in there. But I thought in general it worked.

I liked the coaches and the polos. I thought the referee uniforms were cool. And that leads me to another thing that I noticed that I wrote down. I didn't realize I'd miss it this much, four and a half months in. So nice to have bad NBA officiating back. So nice to just bitch about calls. You think about all the shit we've been through

as a country the last four and a half, five months. It was nice just to place my anger at Scott Foster again because of a terrible no call or LeBron just freaking out for the 15th time in the fourth quarter because he didn't get the call he wanted or terrible long replay reviews when you knew what the call was going to be. And then we have to spend another three minutes watching it from 15 angles, wondering why the hell they do it this way. Nobody likes this. Literally nobody. Kind of enjoyed it.

I liked having it back. I liked having stuff to complain about again. Stuff that wasn't, why isn't that guy in the Starbucks line wearing a mask? Is he going to give me COVID? It was nice to have benevolent things to complain about again. Next thing.

And the TNT guys, especially Barkley, was on this at halftime and after the game too. And it was the big takeaway from that Clippers Lakers game. And it was the big takeaway. Anytime you saw Davis against the Clippers all year, he's their kryptonite. They don't have anyone on the roster who can handle them. They haven't really figured out a solution for it.

And then you take Harold out. Not that Harold would have like shut him down, but at least it was a more effective body. But he had 17 free throws tonight. It felt like he could have had 50 points if he really wanted to. And if LeBron was like, I'm getting Davis 50 points tonight, which he wasn't. I didn't even think Davis played that great.

I think he was 8 for 19. He's such a tough matchup for them. He's just so long. They just don't know what to do with him. And it was interesting at the end of the game where LeBron basically took over in the last minute on the crunch time possessions and waved

Davis off and did it himself. He got a layup. Then he got that heave that he got the rebound and put it back in. And if we're in a playoff series, and I know it's LeBron James, I know he's one of the three best players ever, but if I'm the Clippers, I would much rather have LeBron trying to create his own shot in those situations than trying to figure out something with Davis because they don't have an answer for Davis. And worst case scenario in a Davis possession, he's getting fouled. He just is. So I don't know what they do with that. You look at the minutes that Zubach and

Noah played today, and they were awful. And I don't love plus minus, as people know who have listened to this podcast. But I went to look at the plus minus because I was like, yeah, that can't be good Zubats was only a minus 5 in 15 minutes Noah was a minus 12 um I don't really have an answer and it was the one thing I felt like

heading into the trade deadline I really wanted to figure out how they could get another body and not Marcus Morris who was terrible tonight I just didn't think they needed Marcus Morris. I thought they needed somebody to throw at Anthony Davis. And you could feel it tonight. They also needed Lou Williams.

And I think, you know, that's why it's hard to judge this game in the big context of Clippers-Lakers, not just because of Harrell, but Lou Williams, he's a possession saver. He's a guy that you know you can run 8 to 12 plays for him a game and he will save 5 possessions

that have gone wrong with 8 seconds left in the shot clock and get you a good shot they didn't have that tonight it's not Reggie Jackson, Beverly that's not really what he does so there was a huge load on Kawhi and Paul George tonight. When Lou Williams is back, not only does he add that, but it's also somebody that the Lakers would have trouble,

I think, defending. It basically would be Caruso defending him because they lost Avery Bradley. They lost Rondo. Not that Rondo would have done a great job. But, you know, the Lou Williams thing, it's weird. Everybody's been making jokes about it. I heard Chris Vernon talk about this the other day and I agree. Like he, you think how well this has gone. Lou Williams could have screwed

the whole thing up by going to magic city. And I know it's funny to talk about the chicken wings and all that stuff, but, um, he could have single-handedly undermined all this so um i i'm with you the chicken wings thing is hilarious i laughed at all the barkley jokes today but it feels like it should always be mentioned every so often that this guy um really put this whole bubble thing in danger and you know we're in 2020 we're supposed to all be player-friendly, and it's supposed to be a big jerk circle for the players, and you have to be really careful about criticizing players and all that stuff. But I don't think Lou Williams could be criticized enough for that.

They let him out of the bubble, and he went to a gentleman's club wearing the mask that the NBA gave the players. And it's a tough one. So we'll see what happens when he's in the next Laker game, but that it would have been fun to see him tonight. I don't really know what to take away from the clips tonight. Other than, uh,

other than George and Kawhi, you know, they're really tough for LeBron. It's just really hard for him to get good shots. And even when he's able to get to the basket or get the shot he wants, it's a lot of work. So that bring, that is another reason why the Davis thing is so important. Um, to the new Orleans game really quick. A lot of people are talking about this. I'm sure the minutes restriction was Zion when they do this minutes restriction thing. And it somehow results in the guy not

being out there for the four most important minutes of the game, I don't really have an explanation other than that's the kind of thing you do if you're Alvin Gentry, if you don't want to be in the bubble and you're trying to get fired. It's not like New Orleans doesn't need these games. Newsflash, they really need these games.

So you end up with a situation where he's on a minutes restriction. That's fine. He's not out there during the only time you really want him out there. Like maybe stagger it so that he's playing the last six minutes. I thought that was crazy. I thought it was crazy they didn't bring him out for a decoy when they're down to

12 seconds left. Just put him on the floor. Tell him to stand in the corner. At least Utah would have had to worry about him. The thing with Utah, and I need to see them a few more times, but losing Bogdanovich, which I thought was really going to hurt them, and I still do. But O'Neal basically replaced his minutes and he's a defense glue energy guy. But it puts more pressure on Conley to create, have the ball in his hands

and kind of be Mike Conley. And he looked like Mike Conley tonight. So did they have to sacrifice Bogdanovich to get the Mike Conley they actually traded for? Like, no, that's not how it should have played out. But I do think that might be a result. And he did look like himself. And, you know, I do think it was too many chefs in the kitchen. Bogdanovich is a guy who loves having the ball. Mitchell loves having it. Ingles likes having the ball in his hands weirdly. And then Conley, you have four guys who are just kind of used to playing with the ball

or, you know, having the ball kind of play off them. And he looked more like himself tonight. But I thought there was some really good Mitchell Holiday stuff in that game too. Some good one-on-one battles. That was the first time, you know, we'd gotten through the National Anthem. They're actually playing, getting used to what it looks like and everything. And then that, when they started kind of going toe-to-toe,

that was the first time it really felt like basketball to me. But last thing with that game was, I was, if I'm a Portland Trailblazer or a Portland fan, that was the game you really needed New Orleans to lose. Because their schedule is pretty easy for the most part. They needed to lose that one. And now you're looking at that if you're Portland and you're going, this is great. That was what we needed to happen.

Portland's playing the Grizzlies tomorrow. If they win that one, they are in the mix. And House and Sal and I have them at plus 480 to make the playoffs. So we're in for that. By the way, you know sports is back when me and House and Sal had a devastating gambling loss. We had 5-1 odds on a Jazz Clippers Moneyline Parlay that if the Paul George three goes in, we win. But this is what we do. We lose at gambling. This is why we are us. Quickly, the last thing I have on this, which is just really annoying, and I handed in my awards

picks recently, so it's pretty relevant for me at least. I have no idea why these eight games did not count for MVP in All-NBA and I think they made a huge mistake with that. I'm somebody who admittedly cares about that stuff more than probably anyone else on the earth. I really take it seriously.

I know I've said it a million times but when I wrote my basketball book I really relied on the MVP votes in the All-, even though I knew, you know, so there were some mistakes in there, but, um, I've had an awards ballot for a while. I think most of the decade, if not the whole decade, I really take it seriously. I think these last eight games should have counted. You know, you think like the eight lottery teams, they're not playing. Well, fine. I wasn't going to vote for anybody in the eight lottery teams for MVP or all NBA. Anyway, I think we should have turned in the ballots for everything else. And I think we should have held off on MVP and all NBA. Cause like, what if the Lakers go eight? No. And what if LeBron looks

awesome? And you know, what if Giannis looks like garbage for the last eight games? There's just too many loopholes. Now I'm pretty happy with the rewards ballot I turned in and I'm going to read it to you right now. Some people don't disclose their ballots. I've never understood that. I'm going to give you my ballots now. Um, I voted for Bam Adebayo for most improved player. I had Brandon Ingram second, Jason Tatum third. I had Giannis as defensive player of the year. I had Anthony Davis second, Rudy Gobert third. Kia's sixth man, I had Montrezl Harrell, Dennis Schroeder.

Dennis Schroeder. Dennis Schroeder. And Christian went. Rookie of the year, John Morant, Brandon Clark, Kendrick Nunn. I ended up not voting for Zion. He only played 19 games. I couldn't do it. Coach of the year, Nick Nurse, Frank Vogel, Mike Budenholzer.

I won't read you my all-rookie and all-defensive teams because who cares? And then, so here, for MVP, and you know this if you remember my podcast for March. I did not change my list. I had Giannis one, LeBron two, I had Kawhi three because I felt like those are the three most important teams.

I thought Kawhi, the fact that he was able to bring Paul George there, I do feel like that matters. Same thing for LeBron, that he was able to pull off the Davis trade. I do weirdly think that should matter in thing for LeBron, that he was able to pull off the Davis trade. I do weirdly think that should matter in the MVP voting. You're voting for who is the most valuable player of the regular season.

Not only were those guys three of the best five or six players in the league, they also single-handedly will the better roster of their team. I think that counts. Kawhi, everything that happened last year, I thought he defended his throne pretty well. He missed a couple games. So what? I had Jokic at four for MVP because that

Denver team, when we had to hand in the votes, was a three seed and he's the only elite player on it. That's just a fact. And that whole team revolves around him offensively, and he's the only reliable guy they have game after game after game, and I just think that matters. I thought he was awesome the last probably 40% of the year too. Then I had Luka Doncic, fifth, who I had him. The problem, this isn't a slight to James Harden or Davis. I thought there were seven worthy top five MVP candidates to share.

I thought the stuff Luka did for Dallas on a team that was pretty weird and pretty thrown together in some ways. And you have Porzingis coming back from an injury. And other than that, just a bunch of role players and young guys. And the burden that he had the whole year and how good he was and how he changed the atmosphere and the culture there. I just thought, I thought that was worthy of the five spot. I just couldn't get there with Harden because the last third of the season, he just wasn't that good.

And Westbrook was the best part of that team. So, you know, whether he was six, whether he was seven, whatever, it was a really deep MVP though. so you know whether he was six whether he's seven whatever it was a really deep mvp though and you think about uh like patient stiakovic i think was like third in the mvp in 2004 or fourth something like that but we've had years where we didn't have three where the mvp candidates carmelo was the runner-up in 2013 this year we had i thought seven really good choices. And Zach Lowe would say, Zach Lowe had Dame lowered fourth. I refuse to vote for anybody on an under 500 team for MVP, but I see the case for Dame.

He kept them in it. Now they have a chance to make the playoffs. So that's what I did there. And then all NBA. The NBA has allowed us to get more creative over the years with positions. And my rule with this now is if I'm picking the five guys, I want to make sure the five together would make sense as a team and that you could justify every spot at least by 80%.

So Kawhi, Giannis, Anthony Davis, James Harden, LeBron James. That's who I had for the top five. And now I know you're like, well, wait a second. You had James Harden, first team OMA, but Luka Doncic, fifth MVP over Harden? Yeah. Yeah, I did. Go ahead, sue me.

I just thought Doncic was more valuable to the Mavericks. And I thought Harden, for everything he did statistically this season, I think he had to be first team. His stats were better than Luka Doncic's stats. Now they were better because of the burden that he has but I just felt

good about those five. Now the stretch is playing Davis at center, which was vindicated tonight because he played center at crunch time and then putting LeBron at the guard position, which he's their point guard. So he's playing guard on one side of the floor. That's good enough for me. So I like that Kawhi Giannis, Davis, Harden, LeBron. My second team, Luke at forward, which I can do because he kind of floats around. He's also 6'8". Jason Tatum.

Now, I had him as my other forward because I thought as a two-way player, he was really special this season. And the stats backed it up. When he was on the court, the Celtics were great. When he wasn't on the court, they weren't as good. And the defensive challenges that he took and the way that he could affect games on both sides of the floor this year,

I thought really set him apart. I was saying this before he had his big hot streak. The last six, seven weeks of the season before it stopped, he was one of the best offensive players in the league. And the Celtics team was one of the five best teams in the league. And the Celtics team, you know, was one of the five best teams in the league. So I felt, I felt justified putting them there. And there's some other candidates we can talk about, uh, that I put on third team. I'd Yoko just the center, Dame Lillard and Chris Paul as the guards. That was actually pretty easy. Um, Chris Paul,

the stuff he did in crutch time this year was just phenomenal. But the way he kept that OKC team together, that seemed like a write-off season. They trade Paul George for a bunch of picks, get SGA and Gallo in a contract year, get a seemingly unhappy Chris Paul, and then he just becomes the leader of the team, makes them a playoff team. So I thought really special season by him.

I was psyched that he had one more second all-NBA in him. And then third team, Pascal Siakam and Chris Middleton as my forwards. I had Jimmy Butler and Ben Simmons as my guards. And then Bam Adebayo as the center. I put Bam over Rudy Gobert

because that Miami team, I thought overachieved because of Butler and because of Bam and how competitive those guys were. And because of some of the stuff Bam was doing defensively, um, I just felt it was more important than, than the stuff Rudy did. And here's the caveat. I'm tired of reading these stories and reading between the lines how Rudy doesn't click with his teammates and his whatever. And sometimes he's a little bit of a head case and all this stuff. And I would just rather have Bam Adebayo. I would rather have the guy that everybody talks about what an unbelievable team he is. So that's what I did for that.

Siakam, Middleton, Adebayo, Butler, and Simmons. But here's the thing. Oh, and then the Simmons case. I had him on first team all defense too. I thought as a two-way guy, as frustrating as he is offensively, he was a destructive defensive player and athlete. And somebody that,

especially in the last four or five minutes of the game, seemed like he could guard anybody on the floor. And as I've said before, was my number one draft pick for the guy. If you really needed a steal with 10 seconds left, he's your guy. So, you know, the funny thing with that is 13 mile NBA

and he won't get it. I'm sure not enough people voted for him, but I feel like the ceiling for him is way higher than that. But I liked, I liked a lot of the stuff I saw from him this year. And I just thought if it was him versus Kyle Lowry, who missed some games and Bradley Beal, who was just on a shit team,

I couldn't do it. I can't reward shit team guys. Sorry. So that was, those are my 15 guys. And the reason I bring it up is because we have these eight games left. And I really think those eight games would have affected some of these picks. I know it sounds dumb, but that's still, you know, 12, what is it? Oh man. Now I'm going to have to do math. Eight games out of, yeah, it's like 12% of the season. So I thought we should have waited.

I thought we should have done it after the season. And maybe, you know, if two more weeks, maybe Middleton is my second team forward. I moved Tatum down to second team. Maybe I would have flipped Harden and Luko. Who knows? But I wish they had done it that way. Anyway, those are all my basketball thoughts. We're going to take a break and then coming back with Kyle Brandt in one second. Congrats, NBA. All right, Kyle Brandt coming up in one second.

First, sports are back. You can find all the action on FanDuel. I was there today making another terrible fantasy basketball team for daily. MLB is here. NBA is back. FanDuel doing a major partnership with the ringer. We have a whole bunch of contests. You know what I love when people who have awesome companies come to me and they say, Hey, can you come up with some ideas?

I'm always available for some ideas. So we came up with a couple, we came up with a couple of golf ideas, some football ideas. We're came up with a couple. We came up with a couple golf ideas, some football ideas. We're going to be doing stuff. So be ready. We're going to have special odd boosts. We did one for Celtics Bucks.

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This weekend, because all of a sudden we have a crap load of sports, including Bucks Celtics. Again, I'm boosting that to 2-1 today for you from plus 164, so you got that. If you have a FanDuel sports book account already, you're all set. Use your $10 bonus day of risk-free betting before they expire on August

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If you're just interested, see what move things like that. They have a really good sports book. Sign up with promo code BS. So they know I sent you must be 21 plus president in Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia, and Colorado offer ends August 2nd, 2020 $100 max refund issued in site credit expire seven days, $10 bonus issued as non-returnable site credit that expires 8 to 20 gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler, Colorado, 800-522-4700, Indiana, 800-9 with it. West Virginia visit 1800 gambler.net. All right, let's bring them in. Kyle Brandt. Here he is. All right. Kyle Brandt is here. He is launching a new podcast later this month

with the ringer. It's called 10 questions with Kyle Brandt is here. He is launching a new podcast later this month with The Ringer. It's called 10 Questions with Kyle Brandt. That's the title? That's the title. I'm joined by you as well as Wilson the Volleyball who's behind you. What is that, like an eBay purchase? What's going on there? It's a real Wilson.

I got that as a gift. And I know you're a big Wilson fan. I am. I listened during quarantine to the rewatchables of Castaway, which I believe he did solo. And you and I texted about this. I've always wondered one of the unanswerable questions. Was Chuck Nolan in his darkest, loneliest night

ever intimate with Wilson? I think he was in love with him. So you're saying intimate where the volleyball was involved in the act or the volleyball was peripherally involved. I think it was involved with the act. I think he was in love. I think he was extremely lonely. And I think that Chuck Nolan made love to Wilson. I do.

I've always thought that. I feel the opposite. I think if he ever got intimate in the cave, he turned Wilson around. so Wilson couldn't see. You think Wilson is innocent? Yeah. I think Wilson could hear, but not really know what's going on. I was obviously just watching it again recently because I'm running out of movies to watch.

I still don't understand why he didn't make a real run to try to save Wilson at the end there in the ocean. I know he's been out in the water for a few days. I know it's hot. I know he's afraid of getting too far away from the raft, but at the same time, it didn't seem that far away. I felt like he could have pulled it off. I think he wanted Wilson to go away. I think he needed, I think he deep down, he knew he needed to cut the ties. It's an interesting question because it seemed like just a basic forward crawl for a few strokes. He could have corralled Wilson. And this is the guy who's a maniac who decides to leave the Island with part

of a port-a-potty as a sale. Like he's thrown gosh into the wind, but he won't save his best friend who I think happened to be his lover. It's suspicious. I agree. Sometimes lover sometimes is football coming back. I think so It's really scary I'm looking at this, Bill Football right now It feels like a character In one of your favorite shows Like maybe Better Call Saul

Where you're really rooting for them And you really like them But you're kind of worried that they're going to die Slash you kind of know that they're going to die Like Kim Wexler and Beto Carlson, everyone's so mad. She didn't get an Emmy nomination. We love her.

And we've gone through all this with her and we get an attachment with her. But in the back of your head, you know, that Kim Wexler might not make it. And I hope I'm wrong. It's starting to feel that way with football. It's turned. And you got,

you got into the crosshairs a little bit. I heard I've been off Twitter for six weeks and it's been the best six weeks of my life. The whole argument about our sports media members rooting against sports coming back, which is the kind of stuff in month five of the pandemic becomes something that becomes an argument

because everybody's so bored and beside themselves. I'm torn on this one because I'm the same person who thinks there's too many people out there taking this whole thing too lightly. But on the other hand, I fully support all these leagues trying to figure out if they can do this or not. There's too much money at stake.

There's too much history at stake. You're talking about athletes who have a very short shelf life for their career. Football, more than any other sport where these guys it's five to eight years for just about anyone. If you're not a quarterback, I fully support them trying to figure it out. My question is what's the plan? Because now we're, we're, if I was a player, if I was like Russell Wilson, I'd be like, what are we doing? Am I, where's the 120 page protocol?

How are we going to do games? How are we going to get from point A to point B? Like we should be figuring this out now you announced the schedule. So why haven't we figured out this other stuff yet? What's your take on that? I think my take is the craziest part that's come out of that about what are we doing and how are we going to run this thing was the memo that was sent to the players about high risk situations that they need to avoid in

indefinitely for the season. And if they don't, there could be punitive issues. Like they're telling put this way. They're telling him, take a 21 year old kid, small program, small town. He're telling, put it this way, they're telling, take a 21-year-old kid, small program, small town. He gets drafted. Let's say he's in Miami. Let's say he's in Vegas and he's got a couple hundred grand in his pocket and nothing to do. And he can't go to a bar.

He can't go to a club. He can't even go to a church gathering with a lot of people in it. If you're sitting around, you can only play so much Xbox. And then when you get the text from the girl who says, hey, we're out at this bar. I'm with some friends. Why don't you come out? That 21 year old has to be like, no, I can't do it. And I think there's going to be total,

a narc army out this fall, looking for players who are out doing things. The camera phone situation where players are, oh, I saw this guy at a club. I saw this guy was at a party more than 16 people. It's going to be out of control. I don't know how you ask a kid to do that. Not even for just one weekend, let alone six months. It's tough. You were on the real world, Chicago a million years ago. Where would you rank the judgment of people in a real world cast

being asked to make smart decisions versus NFL players in their early twenties? Who's the favorite in that matchup? I think I'm going to go real world because we don't have the expendable income. You know, if they had come to me and said, Kyle, we really would prefer that you don't go in the co-ed shower with Anissa right now. Just don't do it. Stay out of the co-ed shower. Don't go in the hot tub. Don't go into the confessional booth. I'd be like, yeah, but I want to, but I don't have a 600 grand new in my checking account.

Whereas I'm telling you, this Raiders thing is nuts. This is the year that they moved to Las Vegas. And these guys are going to be in rental condos about two blocks from casinos and strip clubs. And they are forbidden to go. They will get fined or I don't know what they're going to do to them, but they're forbidden to go. They will get fined, or I don't know what they're going to do to them, but they're going to get narced.

They're going to get going. So I would say, I think real world, actually seven strangers living in a house have it easier. I think you're probably right. There's less to lose. Yeah.

By the way, speaking of Vanessa, she was on the challenge this year. Yes. I mean, this is somebody you were on the real world with, you know, in the 1890s and she's still cranking it out. She's still cranking it out. She still does it. I guess she's a lifer. She's an awesome girl, huge Eagles fan to tie it to sports.

And I'll never remember, I'll never forget the first night ever in the real world house. This is in 2001. I'm just getting my bearings and there's cameras and she's kind of hot and that guy feels this way. And I walked into the bathroom and she was fully naked, like not just boxers or underwear, full stark naked. And I go, whoa, whoa, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. She goes, Hey, listen, this is how it's going to be. And she goes, look, it's just titties and it's fine. And I'm like, if that's how you get down, like this is going to be a wild four months because Bill, it wasn't just what she said. It was the full Monty. Right. Well, she's, she's still cranking it out. I think it takes a special DNA chromosome to be on reality TV for 20 straight years, basically, or 18 straight years,

whatever this is. Cause Johnny bananas is like this, these people that at some point, I mean, you were there for four months. Did you ever get used to the cameras following you around for whatever you were doing? It's gotta be weird, right? Totally. It's unbelievably weird. And let's be honest in 2001, they were these giant 40 pounds shoulder mounted cameras. It's like, there's nothing smart about it. There was night vision cameras. So, I mean, like when I got off that it. There was night vision cameras. So when I got off that experience, I was so stressed out. I had lost 20 pounds. I couldn't eat anything. I had so much anxiety about everything I was saying. I didn't have the talent, Bill. The force was not strong with me as pertains to reality shows, which is why I never did the challenge or any of that. Some people feel at home when they're in the co-ed shower

and the cameras are there. So they love it. I didn't have it it was too stressful i wish you had had the one challenge under your belt though i know i think i kind of do um here's the thing every time every everyone's well i'll still get the itch 20 years later i'll be like you know i could go down to cabo and maybe win a jet ski or something why not i'm 41'm 41 years old. I'll give it a shot. And then you know what talks me out of it? I see the promo and it's like, this season on the challenge. And it's dudes just shredded out of their mind,

all HGHs and wearing bandanas. And there's triple kisses and body shots. And I'm like, I have a six-year-old. I'm done. My real world days are long gone. That talks me out of just one promo when I'm out. Yeah, sometimes the married guys come back, and they're just kind of amused by the goings-on,

but about two weeks in, they have a look on their face like, why did I do this? Listen, I've been open about it. I've lost my mind without sports. I watched a lot of challenge seasons. It's not like having stuff on in the background. I'm used to doing work with games on. It's just kind of, you know, I'll wake up in the morning. I'll tape some NBA game from the night before doing emails and I'll have an NBA game on. And that's just kind of

what I did. And if it was a Red Sox game, whatever, but now there's no sports. So the challenge became kind of by sports substitute in the background. So I'm just banging out all these seasons and it's the same kind of themes every time. But I got to say it held the fort for me and now basketball is back. So I'm ready to roll. You're steady, but they got you from point A to point B. Bill, do you go, do you prefer more retro? Like we're looking at Ruthie and some of the legends and back in the old CT seasons or even earlier, or are you more of the modern crew? This may be a little more I don't know. No, I like the late, the mid to late two thousands through about 14, 15 range, I think was the sweet spot. It's funny though, every year. Cause Amazon has this thing called MTV hits and I swear they're not sponsoring it or anything. I'm just,

it's seven bucks a month and you can just get, you get like 25 challenge seasons. So in the old days in the Oh five Oh six you can tell, like, they didn't really realize it was going to be a thing yet because the shows were like a half hour. The challenges would be like, I bet you can't lift 20 watermelons, you know, shit like that. And then eventually somewhere around 2008, some light bulb went off and all of a sudden, you know, the, uh, the intro with the credits became this heavily produced, awesome thing. The show is an hour, the challenges, they're climbing mountains. And I don't know, I don't know when the light bulb went off where, and it was like, let's

just have people in bikinis, like rubbing oil on each other as a challenge to this is now like the triathlon. I don't, I don't know. I don't know what happened. I don't know. I don't know what happened. I don't know either. I know that in the real world, the series changed right after our season, when they went to Las Vegas is when it really became just about sex, sex, sex, sex. But for the challenge, it did, they did go from playing clubs to arenas really fast. I remember there was a season where it was called Battle of the Sexes,

and I'm going to put this in about maybe 03. And I remember because Puck spit on somebody and Puck like spit in somebody's face and they were going to kick Puck off of it. And my girlfriend at the time was one of the cast members. So I had like, she was like emailing me from here and saying, you will not believe what goes on here.

It's way crazier than they show on the air. All the best stuff is off the air. And now I think they just said, no, no, hold on. We're putting that stuff on the air. There's none of this behind the scenes stuff. And then it just took off. It's crazy. Well, you're, we've talked about this before you, your real world season was the first ever season with bedroom cameras in the corners of the ceiling, which has now become one of the great innovations of the 21st century for all reality TV. It's hard to imagine reality TV without these giant surveillance cameras just looking on, which is a whole other level of being invaded, right? It's bad enough

to just have the camera crew there, but now it's like you're just in a bunk bed and there's some camera just watching every single thing you're doing. It's the, those things are the sliced bread of reality TV. And it's worse than you think, Bill, because there's so many secrets when you get in the house where they don't tell you, all right, here's the deal. Now we put cameras here, just FYI, there's a camera over your bed. They don't want you to know anything. And I remember I was lying in bed one night and you have to share the bed with like three other people. And one of the female cast members walked in and there's nothing even going on she was just looking for something and i heard about my bed like and this camera zoomed in and switched on and it was it was full on like spy equipment with like a little big brother and not only do they monitor they record

the beds are miked i mean it's all and this... And this was 20 years ago. I can't even imagine what they have now. It's almost like Minority Report or something. Yes. Tom Cruise whipping stuff all over the screen. That's what it felt like. Colin Farrell and Tom Cruise trying to get me when I was just out of college. It was tough. What do you think has replaced the real world

in 2020 for... Because you think that show had a really significant hold on the culture, I would say, for about 15 years. And even Johnny Bananas was on a couple weeks ago and he was saying

how when he tried out for a real world QS, which was like five years after your season, like 200,000 people applied to be on the show. Yeah.

And then at some point within 10 years, it was gone. So do you think like social media has made the real world impossible or what happened? Well, they just- Too many choices?

I think, well, remember the show was, there was no elimination. There was no game. There was no immunity. There was none of that shit. It was just seven people live in a house and they stopped being polite. There was no game.

And so I think that the challenge became the superior product. And they're like, why would we bother people sitting around reading? Because most of the real world is really boring, which means it's probably really hard to produce because you just sit around and read books and play pool all day. There's no competition. I think it gave way to the challenge. And then I think The Bachelor really picked up the baton from real world because I'm like you, I was in college and you didn't miss an episode. And I remember Steven and Irene in Seattle and the slap and all that stuff was absolutely nuclear on our campus. But I think The Bachelor really took it. And I don't know how much longer they're going to have it, but they've

had a good run. I also think, and maybe I'm overthinking this, but like when I was, I was the same age as the real world, basically. So all the people from 92 to 96, I was around their age. And it really did feel kind of real, right? It was people who were in different situations. Like I remember the real world LA season, one of the dudes, the dude who had like frosted tips, he was going to business school or accounting school or something. And there would be storylines where it's like, he's got a big test tomorrow.

Guys, can you keep it down? I got a huge test. And they would fall into class. And then you would come out of the class and be like, I think I aced it. And this was like an actual, actual, like five minutes segment of the show, but it was the real world. I think part of this that that's happened probably late two thousands on is the internet became so much of a part of the real world for people in their teens and twenties, right? Like they're just online all the time. How do you capture that in a show with seven people in a house who aren't allowed to go online, really have any sort of technology at all. It's actually the unreal world. Cause that's not what the real world's like. And I

think that schism is probably one of the real world's like. I think that schism is probably one of the reasons it went sideways. I think so too. I like that they teased going into commercial, will he pass his big test tomorrow and everyone has to stay tuned and find out. There's also a Blair Witch

kind of factor to it. After Blair Witch happened, all the found footage stuff was like, we know we get the formula a little bit. We're not that into it. And it's just, it's, it's everything out there now is, it's so much more unbelievably salacious.

If you walk back at like some of the big moments on the real world, I remember the real world in Miami and Dan, I think his name was, was on the stairs and he's just like, why did you look at this? And he calls it a terrible word. And like, it was a huge fighting match now. Like that is doesn't even make the final cut of the real housewives.

That's on the floor. We can't even use that. It's just the volume has been turned way, way up. And it's just, I don't know. It doesn't do it anymore. They, because they perfected the recipe too. And the challenge and bachelors like this too, they, you have to have the party. You haveors like this too, they, you have to have the party. You have to have everybody out because they know stuff's going to happen, right? Then you have everybody on a, on a, in a van or a bus driving home from the bar at two in the

morning, they're slashed. It's like, well, we know what's going to happen here. Somebody's going to start yelling at somebody like they've perfected the recipe. The bachelor, that first rose ceremony, when they all come out of the limos, they're still taping it like seven in the, in the morning. It's, it's like a 12 hour event. And they're just pumping these girls with champagne who haven't eaten in

three weeks. Cause they're so excited to be on TV. They want to look as good as possible. And they're all like lightheaded and out of their minds and then tense. And they want to impress the bat and they all like go crazy. There's like an evil science to it. Oh, definitely. I love when they leave the rose ceremony and they go outside to cry and it's fully light outside. It's not even like 5 a.m. light. It's like

10, 15 a.m. It's like, what have they been doing there for 12 hours except drinking, not eating, and checking their Insta? So we didn't have that formula. People have asked me for 20 years on Real World, did they make you say stuff? Did they set you in scenarios? No, nothing. They didn't ply us with alcohol.

They didn't do any of that stuff. It was truly supposed to be a documentary. And now you could never do that. You have to put them in situations. There's no way. Did you ever think of going for The Bachelor or you were done after The Real World? You know, when I was about 25, I was approached by someone who was in casting casually. It's not like I was made an offer or anything like that, but she's, at the

time I was on Days of Our Lives. I was, you know, and so that's a really easy sell job for The Bachelor, the soap star. It's super corny, super hunky. How many times can they have The Prince or The Pilot? I would have been the soap star. And it was like a 10-second conversation because there's one thing to go on there and try to date someone. I just have always felt marriage was really sacred. And I come from divorced parents. And so my goal in life was to have a good, strong marriage. And there was no way I was sitting there having the conversation with Neil Lane and getting down on one knee on the mountaintop to Amber or whoever she was. And the second it was about marriage, I was like, no, I'm out.

Yeah. If you want to have a normal marriage, The Bachelor is probably not the place to seek one out. It's interesting, though. Some people, when they do it, uh, to seek one out. And it's interesting though. Some people, when they do it, you know, like, uh, Jesse Palmer's like this kind of pretends it never happened. Now there's some people it was like this. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not even acknowledging that, you know?

Um, and I think Jordan Rogers is probably going to be like that too. Now that he's becoming a real football guy. Speaking of, uh, right. The Rogers family. Yeah. So you, this 10 questions podcast you're doing with us that we're all excited about. Great idea.

Thank you. I was worried with certain ideas that they're better on paper. And then when you actually try to do them, it's not going to work or half of it works or whatever, but this one actually works. But so you had Rogers on,

you spent two hours with Rodgers. What was your takeaway? We haven't run the episode yet, obviously. It was wild. It was on a weekend night. It was going to be a Friday night, and he was still in California, and almost two hours, there was a lot of scotch.

There was a lot of topics, and he just said, ask me anything. We got into really, really, really interesting shit. The first clip that went out from the show was just about him talking about the draft and how the second he got a text from his agent, the Packers didn't tell him they were taking a quarterback, his agent did. And he immediately went and got the tequila bottle and just poured a huge

thing of tequila, which I think is like one of the most relatable things he's ever done, especially for people who are going through tough times right now. Like you get a, you get a bad call about work and you immediately go to the bottle. But he was just, man, a little sad, I think about that topic,

but otherwise Bill, you've talked to him a bunch of times. His pop culture is so good. He's unbelievably intelligent. Like he has that crazy recall of the third play on the second series of week six in 2012. And we got into really interesting stuff. We talked about, you know, he doesn't really have a rival. I said, you know, Jordan, Magic and Bird and whoever, maybe Peyton and Brady went at it for years.

I was like, who's your rival? And, you know, he tried to say one that I thought was total bullshit. And then we kind of debated it reminded me i remember when you had eddie veteran and you asked him about what is the one song that like really gets the crowd going and he said his answer and you go well can i tell you mine even though i'm not the band because i think i have a good answer i told rogers i'm like can i tell you who i think your rival is i'm not on the team in the league and we kind of debated it and i think i was right i think i right. I would have said it's

Russell Wilson. I think he would have been accurate. They've played eight times. They're 4-4 against each other. A couple of famous playoff games. Yeah, famous playoff games. The fail Mary, always controversial, always weird. Rivalry

doesn't mean that you play a lot. It means that one side wins sometimes, one side wins the other, and there's animosity. And I think there is that for both of them. We talked a lot about Mahomes and Lamar, about, dude, how are you going to keep up with these guys? I asked them, I said, there's that great scene, I think a really underrated scene in Happy Gilmore, where you see Shooter and he's out in the woods and he's trying to do the Happy Gilmore swing. It's actually a really humanizing moment for McGavin. I said, do you ever, I picture you and Matt Ryan and Roethlisberger, whoever,

out in the woods trying to do the no-look pass or trying to do what Lamar does just because you guys are the old guard and these guys are 23 years old winning MVPs. Do you ever feel like that? And he kind of said no, and then went into an absolute, um, adoration session of everything they do and how much, how jealous he is of Lamar's running ability. And it's just, it's crazy with it. They're, they're taking over the league and they're still babies. Well, it's been important for video games too. Oh my gosh. Yeah. My son who's really in a Madden and 2k, especially during the pandemic when there's nothing to do. And especially cause he's somehow broken each of his feet now. Um, I don't know. I'm sorry. Yeah. Just some small bones at each

one. Uh, one was football. One was skateboarding, but, um, but he, he thinks all of these court, like the only way to be a good quarterback now is to have this amazing escapability. Because when you play these video games, it's like drop back to pass, nothing's there, or you're under pressure. Oh, I'll just do a turnaround, go around the end and run for 20 yards with 4-2

speed. So he looks at people like Brady and like the old school Peyton Manning things like those guys are too slow. I know they don't fit my scouting profile. I like, I like fast quarterbacks, but I honestly, that's probably where the league is going. I think even Belichick and that cam's not the typical, you know,

he's not like Lamar, but in his own way is such a great athlete. I think Belichick is super excited just to have a quarterback. Who's not like, I am dropping back five steps. I am going to decide and do my quick looks and I'm throwing the ball away if nothing's there. That's our offense. I think Belichick's like, fuck that. I'm excited for Cam Newton.

It's got to be. Can you imagine, he and Brady had a wonderful, wonderful marriage and it bared many children, a bountiful marriage. But the divorce happens. And then you just want to get someone, at least I'm told, who's like as different from your wife as possible.

You know, if Brady was this beautiful blonde and he went and found himself a much younger brunette who does different things, like, wow, you're into that? Like that must be exciting for Bill after all these years. I love how you just casually threw in the, at least I'm told, just in case there are any lawyers listening or if your wife was listening,

like, wait, why are you thinking about a complete opposite? Like, no, no, at least I'm told. It's more like my wife is, uh, is upstairs. Like we are not sure if Chris Noth is in the last scene of Castaway. My wife is upstairs listening, But Bill, I want to present you with something. I know this is your show. I'm thrilled to be on it. The 10 questions show that we're doing on The Ringer is fun because it's competitive and you leave the show with a score.

And I have 10 questions for every single guest, trivia related, somehow tangentially connected to them. And they get nervous and they get intense and they want to compete against the competitors. So I thought if you would, we would just do a small example of what the show is like. I have two questions for you. Would you indulge?

So how do you decide what the score is? I give them a trivia question, one of the 10. If they get it right, they get the point. If they get it wrong, they don't get the point. And then on the follow-up, we have real substantive conversation about how it connects to their life. Okay. Let's do it. We'll do two. Bill Simmons, two questions. Here we go. Question number one, Bill, your category is Michael Jordan. In the last dance documentary, MJ and Ahmad Rashad are driving to the United Center talking about basketball mortality between himself and Patrick Ewing. What was MJ's license plate?

Shit. See, that's how they react. God damn it. I remember seeing it. Yep. Oh, damn it. Was it Jumpman? Is that your final answer? Yeah. I can't remember. I want to say it's something like that though. Michael Jordan's license plate was Two Tray.

Two Tray, which had to be so far down on the list of license plates he was interested in, like the 16th option. And they went with Two Tray. No one's ever referred to Jordan as two-tray. How do you spell it? T-W-O-T-R-E-Y. Two-tray. Wow. You did not get that one, Bill. Two-tray.

That's really bad. Then I don't remember it. I thought I remembered it, but obviously I didn't. So now we connect it to you. And Bill, I i would ask you have you ever been a vanity plate guy like when you were in high school did you have like chief double zero or something like that cool do you ever have vanity plate so one time i did and i got i got it as a joke um when i was in high school and then it just became it came it was was B. Simmons with a Z, though. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. Yeah. And what was the joke? That was like to make your friends laugh? You just got a funny license plate? I just thought it was funny. But then people were like, hey, B. Sims. And I think I got rid of it within a year.

What kind of car was that on? That was, I think it was one of those Jeep Wagoneer cars that they had in the late 80s. So you had B-Stemmers with a Z on the Wagoneer. What color? I think probably like brown with a little, yeah, like one of those brown mid-late 80s, you know, nice Jeep Wagoneers. And what cassette was in the Wagoneer most often? I think it had a CD player.

Oh, CD player. Yeah, by 87, 88 range, there was some CD player player. Oh, CD player. Yeah, by 87, 88 range. There was some CD player action. I'm pretty sure. Okay. I don't remember. I'm the worst person for these because I can't remember anything that happens to me.

I only remember sports stuff. But like when we were, I was on a Zoom call with my college friends about two weeks ago and we were remembering this one trip when, when we broadcast the, uh, Sienna Holy cross basketball game, but then we were driving back and it was an ice storm. And my memory of the trip, I merged this other trip into the trip. And it became this trip that had the two different memories in it. And my buddy Jacko,

who has an amazing memory for every single day that ever happened. He's like, no, no, that was the trip when we had to pull over in the mass Pike and you and Sully got out before I did. And I was stuck in the car with the driver and you guys went and you met Frank. Frank, there's this toll booth operator named Franco. And it's like, you got Franco and then you sent for help. And I just couldn't, I had merged it with another trip. So my point is I have bad memory in that Zoom session, was your screen name B Simmons with a Z? No, it was not.

It was BS. All right, so last follow-up then. This is basketball, this is a basketball question. I talked about the last dance in the question. Can you settle this? I consider you one of the NBA Supreme Court justices. Like if they formed one, you'd be on it. I do.

Which justice am I? Well, I think Ruth Bader Ginsburg. That'd be more like maybe Hubie Brown or someone from the older guard. I'm not going to say Clarence. That's the cheap joke. Well, I'm also, we both went to Holy Cross, so I thought that's the easiest one.

Okay. Then you're Clarence Thomas? Is that what it is? I don't know, but he's conservative though I feel like I would be on the more liberal one Because I'm always trying to blow up the Basketball Hall of Fame And stuff like that I think I'd be one of the more radical judges Well, let's see how you do on the answer

I want you to give me a radical answer This is a positional thing, this is almost like a political question In The Last Dance There's a big to-do about the Bulls' next series Of the 90s, of course My question to you I want to know your definitive ruling In The Last Dance, there's a big to-do about the Bulls' next series of the 90s, of course. My question to you, I want to know your definitive ruling on, did John Starks dunk on Michael Jordan? The answer is no.

Tell me more. Jordan was dunk adjacent, but it was not a dunk over him. Like Jordan dunked on Patrick Ewing, the famous baseline dunk when he seemed like he was bringing it back and then whirled around and dunked on his head. That is a dunk on somebody. Um, taught the famous Tom Chambers, two hand dunk when I, somebody on the sons and he vaults and it seems like he's like superhuman. That's a dunk on somebody. This was dunk adjacent, which I think is, is different. And depending on the camera angle can seem like you got dunked on, but I don't think he did. I'm so thrilled that you said that, you know, because when they did that part of the last dance,

they have Sue Bird come on who knows everything about basketball and grew up a Knicks fan. And she says my favorite memory of a Knicks fan is when John Starks dunked on Michael Jordan. And I'm like, in my opinion, Sue, I think he dunked on Horace Grant. And as Bill Noss says, he was dunk adjacent. But for that whole era of Knicks fans, that moment is all they have. That's the shittiest continental belt ever is what they have. In my barbershop here, it's called Jack's Barbershop. I live right now, not far from where you grew up. They have this huge poster, and they're all sports fans,

of John Starks, and it just says, The Dunk. In a series that they lost, and he sort of maybe was in the neighborhood of Jordan, that's The Dunk. I'm glad to hear you feel he's Dunk adjacent. Knicks fans are losers. And it takes one to know one in this case because they're very reminiscent of Red Sox fans pre-2004, of which I am one, where completely overrated our own significance and impact, created rivalries that weren't rivalries. They were just one-sided feuds that we lost.

The Red Sox, I remember writing a column about this for page two in like 0203 about the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry. And it's like, this isn't a rivalry. They beat us every time. A rivalry is when each side wins every once in a while. This is like, they've beaten us for 80 plus years. And with the Knicks fans, really all they have to hold on to is that players love playing an MSG and that when MSG was rocking and rolling, there's nothing like it. And then they list these two teams that played in the 1969, 70 season, when I was an infant and you were, you know, 10 years for being bored and the 73 season.

And that's really it. And then it's like they had one Bernard King season. They had a couple of Ewing years that, by the way, those teams weren't fun to watch. Nobody enjoyed watching those Knicks teams. And then they had the weird lockout season, 99 Knicks. They made the second round with Carmelo, but it's like the real Knicks fans, like the smart Knicks fans are like, our team sucks. It's this goes back, you know, way further than Dolan. But I remember when I spent time with Bill Russell in 2012, we were there with two days with him basically. And the Knicks would come up and he would just start laughing. He was like, we killed them. They were a joke. They were like, they were, they were like the league doormat.

We just destroyed them. Um, so anyway, I think they try to overrate these John Starks moments and you know, uh, how close they came. And if only Charles Smith hadn't been blocked four times, if only Starks had won in the game seven, it's like, yeah, but that's why you weren't going to win the title because you were going, you had Charles Smith and the biggest moment of your season, your John Starks and the biggest moment of your season. Like that's why you didn't win the title. Anyway, end of my next rant. I still think Charles Smith is under that basket at night,

just still trying to put up layups and dunks. The janitor comes over and blocks him, and then the night watchman blocks him. He's still there. To me, not only one of the most satisfying moments as a Bulls fan, but one of the truly hilarious athletic failure moments from the last 30 years that you can't get that bucket in.

There's one undeniable foul, apparently. I think it's like the third one. Down low or up high? I can't remember. They're kind of swiping them, blocking them. Apparently there's a camera angle, and I've never seen it where it's like, indisputably,

he's hacked. He's got people around him. The refs are blocked with their sight lines and it's the end of the game. They're going to probably tend to let stuff go anyway. But he also Jordan and Pippen are two of the five greatest athletes who have ever played defense in a situation like that. Right. It would be those two guys.

Kawhi Leonard, Dennis Rodman, um, Andre, Andre Goudala, maybe. And then, you know, you go bigger, you go Bill Russell, but I'm just talking about like perimeter athletes having those two guys there just being like, we're not letting you score. Like that's a nightmare. It was like having Marty Gennetti and Sean Michaels in their prime at the same time. Oh yeah. I would say like, I would say like Shawn Michaels and Ric Flair in their prime or something like it almost like Jannetty was kind of weak. Yeah. Poor Jannetty.

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$3 talls are dine-in only. Please drink responsibly. Back to Kyle Brandt. All right. Question two. We promised two questions. Bill, you did not get the question on Michael Jordan right. His vanity plate was too tray. But your next category is alcohol. Here we go. I met you, Bill Simmons, at an ESPN Super Bowl party in 2008. We were standing around with a group of friends doing a lot of real world talk. I said to the group, hey, I'm going to the bar. Does anybody need a drink? You said, sure. Can I get a, what drink did you order? And remember, this is not about remembering it. It's more thinking about yourself in 2008 and what you would have had at that party. So it's a great question. So all through the nineties, I was a Jack and Coke guy until, until somebody pointed out when

you have like eight to 12 Jack and Cokes and smoke eight cigarettes, you're probably going to be wired when you try to fall asleep. And I was like, ah, that's a good point. So at some point I moved to Red Bull and vodka and then eventually, um, vodka soda.

So I think by late two thousands, I was probably, I'd probably realize the wisdom of being older and doing a vodka soda. So I'm going to say I asked for a kettle one and soda with a lime. The answer of the drink you asked me for, which I got, you asked me for a tequila on the rocks. Oh, yeah. Does that ring a bell?

Yes, because that was during that stage when, because tequila was another one where, you know, no other mixers in there clean. You could have 10 of them. You don't get like the sugar hangover for all the other stuff. So yeah, that would have been my other guess, man. I went over to, yeah, you did. What, what, what, uh, cocktail you are now? I'm kind of still in that, uh, no chaser. I've been no mixer. Um, if I'm doing cocktails cocktails something where i could just have a bunch of them but not have all the other shit that goes with it i've never

been one of those you're at the bar and you order like the 20 cocktail with like the six things in it sure i've never ever liked that so i'm always like usually tequila and soda or vodka and soda and that's it. So the connective tissue here to the question, for example, when I would ask Aaron Rodgers a trivia question about Lord of the Rings, for which he's a huge fan, we'd talk about Lord of the Rings for a second, and then I'd get into the idea that he only has one ring, and how does he feel about that? And he's pretty passionate about it. For you, I'm asking about me meeting you in 2008. I've told you a bunch of times that I read you for years and you were a big inspiration for me and i love that um conan o'brien talks a lot about that he gets approached by fanboys and they'll often ask him about him writing the marge versus the monorail sims

assistance episode that like people love that and he gets asked about it constantly do you have a an old column or anything you wrote back in the day that people still approach you about or like, oh man, I remember reading that one that blew my mind. Is there one that really jumps out? No, it kind of, cause I wrote so many different types of columns. It would kind of depend on the person. Like definitely when I was younger, a lot of people would bring up the Vegas stuff. Cause I would always write about Vegas and guys trips to Vegas, stuff like that. Um, if it was a red Sox fan, always right. It would immediately go into red Sox. If it was somebody that loves sports movies, they would

do the sports movie stuff. Uh, NBA draft diaries, I think was a big one, probably out of all the comms. I think from the two thousands, I would say the atrocious GM summit was probably the one that got brought up the most because people just really liked that one for whatever reason. Um, and I think for probably this decade, the, the one, you know, cause I'm older, it was a little more sentimental, but the one I wrote about, um, when I went back to see LeBron, when he beat the Celtics, but it was the same time when we had King season tickets and my daughter, we went to the game and she thought they were going to win the Stanley cup, but they lost. And she was so upset in the car after,

and it was like her first tough loss. So it was like a column about tough losses, but it seemed like that, that hit a lot of people. But yeah, if the old school one, it was usually the Vegas stuff, which is funny.

Cause I, nobody would ever write those kinds of Vegas things anymore. I was even thinking about that with the, when we did the swingers rewatchables and how much fun that era was from like 96 to 2005 of just when Vegas was still a little bit underground. And you just kind of, you kind of went there with your buddies and that was it. And you drive,

which is, you know, the stuff you guys were saying on that episode, the rewatchables about driving to Vegas. It's such, it's one of the most overrated ideas in history, especially the drive back on the 15th South where most people are just puking out windows. It's terrible. Well, you know, one of the best ideas I came up with, I think, was the 150-minute rule, which is nothing should ever be longer than 150 minutes. Anything.

So movies, a sporting event, a drive, dinner. Once you, once you get to 151 minutes, it's a, it, it, it just goes sideways. And the Vegas drive is four hours conservatively, you know, and sometimes I get the four and a half. Well, it's, it's from LA. It's like, I don't know, 280 miles, 290 miles, something like that. No, but why is it, like, I don't know, 280 miles, 290 miles, something like that. No, but why is it 150 minutes?

Because I think it's the right length for a sporting event, right? Football is probably the only exception, but let's face it. Football could easily have two and a half hour games. They just choose to add an extra 30 minutes of whatever. Basketball, It's the sweet spot is like two 20 somewhere in there. Baseball. If it's a crisp two 30, you're like delighted. That's like the, you had a great time. I used to love Tim Wakefield for that reason. Um, but I, I think that's one of the reasons people drifted to soccer with the two-hour games in soccer, where it's just like you kind of know what the beginning, middle, end is.

But with movies, if you're going over two and a half hours in a movie, you better be like the godfather. That's true. Anything other than that, it just doesn't work. One of your recurring comments, I think, on the rewatchables, which I think is accurate, is, they could have sliced a quick 20 minutes off this movie. I don't think anybody would have missed it.

And it's usually the truth. About your columns, I remember the column. My columns were always too long. So it's funny that I'm criticizing length, and I was probably one of the biggest offenders. So I have nothing to say on that. There is an irony there, that you're just getting warmed up at about 2,500 words. The one I'm talking about, I remember well, I think it was 01, and you did a column where you compared each,

I think it was NBA team, to a Pearl Jam lyric. And I remember reading it and being like, you can do that? It's crazy. That's the coolest thing ever. And then that was the one that did it for me. That was my first hit. And that brings us here. When I had my old site, I was, I was looking for any sort of way to stand out. Cause I was by myself, you had to come to me.

So if I was going to do an awards column or like, you know, here, here's my Superbowl review. I just didn't want to make it seem different than anyway. So I was always trying to come up with some idea and half of them worked, half of them didn't. But I think the cool thing about back then was you could try stuff and if it didn't work, you just moved on to the next thing. I think one of the things, one of the things that worries me now about writing, like really worries me is that nobody trash it anymore. Nobody takes chances. Everybody just writes pieces in the same kind of style as everybody else because they try some gimmick or whatever and it doesn't work. Then people make

fun of them on Twitter and their feelings get hurt. So I think the late 90s were kind of innocent because it was like, oh yeah, I wrote this thing. I'd get some emails, but that sucked. Don't do that again. I'm like, all right, I won't do it again. And you just kind of move on to the next idea. It makes me think of what you said at the beginning about sometimes ideas look really good on paper for pods or whatever. And then in practice, they don't work because as you know, you and I have talked about this for a while, that the pod that I'm doing now is different. Like it is not the standard format where you just chitchat and maybe have a guest on, it's a whole game and it's heavily produced. And don't know i hope people like it it's different and um rogers liked it a

lot and we had a another star quarterback come on we had another first team all pro and we had an avenger and they all seem to really like it i'm i'm psyched for it everybody's pumped by the way when we met in 08 yeah i think that that was one of the most disappointing weekends of my life. Wasn't that Arizona? 100% it was. The Patriots-Giants won. Yeah, I took my dad because it was his 60th birthday. So we had this whole trip to Super Bowl.

We'd never been together. He'd been, I'd been, but we'd never been together. And we were going to watch the Patriots go 19 and O it's going to be awesome. And that Friday we were at a bar in Scottsdale in the afternoon. We're having drinks. We're just talking about the game. We're so excited. And I looked up on the TV and I'm like, it looks like the Lakers made a trade.

I remember like squinting to see what it was. I think that said Pau Gasol. And I went over the TV and, and they listed what the Pau Gasol trade was. And it was like, Lakers get Pau Gasol for a bag of shit, two sticks. It was just like the worst trade. And, and I'm looking at it and then I'm standing there. Remember the ticker would take like five minutes for the tape. So I'm just like, hold on. I, I, that can't be the whole trade. I'm looking at it and then I'm standing there. Remember the ticker would take like five minutes for the tape. So I'm just like, hold on. I, I, that can't be the whole trade. I'm just waiting.

And then it comes back and it's like Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenden, uh, a first round pick. And we went back to the table and we were like, what the fuck? How did they get power? And it just kind of set the tone for the weekend. It was this great weekend. The Celtics were title favorites. The Red Sox had just won the World Series.

The Patriots are about to go 19-0. And then everything just kind of led to the Tyree catch, which I can still see. Yeah. What was that like, you standing next to your dad? And then you're like, who the hell caught that thing? Eli sacked. Oh, my God.

No, he's not. What was it like? Well, we took a picture, which I put in the column with, at the two minute warning, the scoreboard behind us with our arms around each other, right? We got to commemorate this because we're about to win and it's fucking Eli Manning. He's not going to pull it off. You know? And then he threw, he threw Samuel an interception, which Samuel mistimed the jump. Game's over. All he does is jump correctly. And then they had another.

It was like a fourth and one, and they kind of quick snapped it and did a running play. And then that crazy play where it was like he seemed like he got sacked nine times. And then he just flings it up. And it just didn't seem like Tyree caught it. It was like, oh, that definitely hit the ground. And then the ref's doing this thing with his

and I was like, wait, what's going on? But the greatest thing about that Patriots team, though, I think there was like 30 seconds left and I really felt like we were going to win still. I was like, this is enough time. Brady's going to hit Moss. And then in that, I think it was third down,

Brady rolls out to the right, plants his feet and he throws it like 75 yards to Moss. And Moss is like, it's still the greatest thing I've ever seen in person is him running full speed, you know, him and Usain Bolt. Those are the only two things I can think of. Cause I saw Usain Bolt at the Olympics and Moss just going, two guys are on him. He's out running them. And he jumps for the ball. The ball's like a tiny bit behind him. And if it had been like one yard further, he just catches it in stride for the 75 yard game, winning Superbowl touchdown, which would have been the greatest football moment of all time, right? I remember that play vividly.

And Bill, tell me I'm wrong. My takeaway from that play was, I just feel like Randy could have done a little more. I never feel like Randy, you know, his whole thing is I moss people. I jump up over them and take the ball. And it always felt like he was in fourth gear, Randy Moss. And I just feel like he should have had a LeBron blocks Iguodala at the height of his powers moment. And it would have been the greatest play ever. And I feel like- No, it's a great point. I'm with you. I'm with you. I think it left me a little

lacking, but at the same time, it felt like he was running at a speed that I'd never seen before. But when the ball was actually there, it was like, he just kind of jumped up for it, but it wasn't like, I am fucking getting this. This is going to be the greatest play of my life. He kind of handled it like every other play. I've never heard him talk about it. I haven't either. I have no idea, but I, I think it's an unbelievably underrated moment in the Patriots empire because it's just all Tyree and it's all Plexico. But if you knew that that was the single greatest receiving season ever from Randy Moss and no one could stop him. I just feel like he left it on the field a little bit and that,

or didn't leave it on the field. The underrated moment of that play bill is insider. I'm friends with Sean O'Hara, who was the giant center. I've just worked with him a bunch. And he always says the unsung hero of that play, it's not Tyree and it's not Eli. It is the referee standing right behind Eli. If you watch the field level replay, he is so close to blowing his whistle and stopping the play for a sack and protecting the quarterback. His shoulders actually tense up and you see his lungs fill with oxygen to blow the whistle. And he doesn't. And he shows the poise. And him blowing that whistle alters everything.

So he's the unsung hero. Well, and that was right there in the era when they, defensive linemen were starting to change how they reacted when they had a QB tied up. Because I think if that play is 15 years ago, they're just pounding, you know, grabbing Eli by the thing and pounding him down or whatever. And it was, there was a passivity to it, but I still, that went though. And I feel like the Giants had a better team like that day. I thought they outplayed the Patriots. The Patriots had no running game. Once Sammy Morris went out that year, they just kind of never figured out that side of it. I think they were really worn out mentally and the giants overpowered them front for the, the

other one is the one that bothers me because the, the path, the second one. Yeah. Cause the, the pats were a better team that year and they just screwed it. They screwed the game up and let the giants hang around. Gronk was hurt. I think if Gronk is healthy, they win that one pretty easily, but I think they should have lost that 2008 one. I do think the Giants outplayed them. It's weird because that game in 2008 was a sequel, not in the Super Bowl sense, but the game that they played in the regular season

was really, really tense. Amazing game. That game. And it's funny because Moss made the miracle play, and he saved it. I feel like the Giants were better than them that day. And then Brady and Moss just pulled magic out of their ass and won the game. But if you were a Patriots fan, you must've been like, damn,

those Giants are actually pretty good. The first eight, nine weeks of that 07 Pat season, that's still the best football team I've ever seen. And then injuries, some other stuff, like they were never kind of able to sustain it that way. But when, when it was like Brady was just dry, pulling Moss out of the garage, it was like this race car. He had never been behind before. And he was just like, Oh my God.

Whoa, look at these gears. And, and just watching that was so thrilling. And I, I mean, I think Moss is the second best receiver I've ever seen. It's Rice is obviously the clear first, but to me think Moss is the second best receiver I've ever seen. It's Rice is obviously the clear first, but to me, Moss is the clear second. I don't even know if that's a very controversial opinion. I think it's like Rice, no question. Moss, no question. And then when you get to the next level and then you, you could have a bunch of guys and it could go a bunch of different ways, but I think that's clearly the levels for that. I think Moss is unbelievable.

I'm actually a really, really big fan of T.O., but anything you could say about T.O., any Moss fan could point to that same Patriots season and be like, what are you going to do about this? This is my trump card. It's funny what you're saying about the early parts of that season when Moss would just dominate. The most fun detail of it, and I know because you wrote about this,

was that, I don't know, the Patriots would be up on the bills or something, 38-7, and they would always have the screw you touchdown at the end of the game. It was like Joaquin Phoenix was Belichick just doing the thumbs down, cut their head off, and they would punch one in with full middle fingers, with malice. And it was so fun. I remember your column about it. That's exactly what it was.

It was like now we've beaten you and now we're going to say, fuck you. And then go get on the bus. They were bad dudes. Well, it's interesting because we've seen other teams and athletes do that where you kind of just have to embrace the villain at some point. Cause once Spygate happened and once the petate happened and America was like, all right, fuck this team. And the Patriots became Duke, basically. Belichick

kind of owned it. I think when LeBron was in that same situation that first Miami Heat season, he tried to own it, but it wasn't him. I don't think that was what his character was. And all the stuff he was trying to do and defiantly looking looking out in the crowd and it just kind of didn't fit who he was i think for that patriots team they were all kind of like yeah you we're we're just gonna win 50 to 10.

i know enjoy this i remember in the finals lebron caught all this because i think it was he and bosh maybe they were they were mocking dirk for like having this way or something it was way right yeah and they were like fake coughing and it was like they were just being jerks but jerks who didn't know how to be jerks like it was just a ham-handed attempt belichick had it down to a symphony and obviously that's the guy he was meant to be and brady just kind of was the captain of the ship but belichick's like i I hate all of you. I hate the league. I'm going to pour 90 points on you.

Try to do something about it. You know, he's pushing away camera people and he's stiffing referees. That was really Bill's best year. Yeah. The bummer for me with Belichick was losing a playoff game at home to Rex Ryan. That's the one where you just kind of look back and go, wow, Belichick lost to Sanchez and Rex Ryan. What happened? How did that transpire? It's unbelievable. That club,

the exclusive club of we beat Brady and Belichick and Foxborough, like club Foxborough, the only people in there, Sanchez, Flacco's in there. And then just now this last year, it's a Tannehill. So it's a weird, weird group. It's not like, okay, Roethlisberger got us, and then Phil Rivers or Aaron Rodgers, I guess, in the Super Bowl or something. But the only people who have gone into Foxborough in the AFC,

Sanchez, Flacco, who are both currently out of the league, and then Ryan Tannehill. I'll tell you this though. Flacco was just fucking awesome that one year. Best ever. Goat. Unbelievable playoff run of all time.

He was lights out. I know. And that's happened before because I remember, I don't know if you're old enough to, yeah, you're old enough to, Mark Rippon had a year like that for the Redskins.

Of course, yeah. And we were betting them all the time that season and he just for one year, he could just hit every deep throw. And then it was gone. It just never happened again with him. I remember so well,

they ran into the Falcons in the playoff. And this was the two legit to quit Deion Sanders Falcons who had just won in the Superdome. And they're like, this team has something special. MC Hammer goes to their games and they rap afterwards

and they seem cool and everything. And they ran up against the Rippin Redskins and got destroyed. And Mark Rippin could not miss. He's kind of this doughy sort of guy, not a real impressive physical specimen. But just for that January, he was Joe Montana. It was wild. My buddy Jeff and I, because we used to bet together,

and we just had so many ripping jokes. He's in that giant head. He would take that helmet off. It was like this giant kazoo helmet. And it's just big noggin. And he just didn't look like a quarterback. You know, he looked like a villain in a movie or something. Big back jersey, big hips, not fleet of foot.

It was like, he had that, that Costco helmet on, but he's a Superbowl champ. That's Flacco's. The last version of those kinds of quarterbacks where it's just like, just fling it deep. You'll hit a couple of them.

You might get a PI, but it's, it's kind of, when you're going against it, it really makes you nervous for some reason. I hated going against Flacco and the Ravens. I always felt like either he was going to hit the deep pass, it was going to be incomplete, or there'd be a PI.

And those were the only three scenarios. And you basically have a one in three chance of being happy. But back in the old days, Daryl LaMonica was like that in the NFL. I remember you used to read about him, where he was just like, drop back to pass and just throw it downfield. And it was like, well, the other team catches it fine.

It's like a punt. Um, but I, I wish that would come back. I do too. If Flacco would be kind of like the, he had punching power as they would say, you know,

like a boxer who loses the first seven rounds, like old George Foreman, who can barely sit down. And then all it's just his one punch. And Michael Moore is unconscious on the canvas. That was Flacco. He was terrible for 75% of the snaps and it's checked down this, but then Jacoby Jones is going to get loose once and Flacco is going to

throw it 300 yards and hit them. And then they would just rip your heart out. That was a, we could probably end on this, on this topic. Sure. Um, most shameful pandemic YouTube deep dives.

I basically plowed through the entire heavyweight boxing catalog of the 70s and 80s. Just to make... Ernie Shavers, Ron Lyle, Dwayne Bobbick, Ken Norton. Just going through. just watching the different knockouts and stuff. And, uh, so, but you mentioned Flacco and that, and the guy who's down, you know, six rounds to one and then just lands the haymaker.

But the, the entire division was like that for like 12 years. There was a guy, Mike Weaver, who basically wins the title like that, where he just, he knocks out somebody in the 15th round out of nowhere. His final record, I think his career record was like 33 and 18. And he was the champion for two years, but it was basically what you're describing. He's down around, Whoa, he knocked him out. Did you make it to the Tyson era in your YouTube bench? No. Cause I've already done that. Tyson. Like when they created YouTube, it was like Tyson.

You're going immediately to the old wrestling, to Tyson, to, you know, there's, that's like an OG search. Yeah. Now I'm in the Ernie Shavers level of my YouTube relationship. If you type in an old wrestler just for jollies on a Saturday night, if you've had a few tequilas and just cause you like watching them, what name are you typing in? I think the stuff, the early eighties Madison square garden stuff is really great. Yeah. Because the crowd late seventies, early eighties, cause it was always their biggest show. Cause

they didn't have pay-per-views back then. And the crowd is like the greatest possible crowd you're ever going to hear in your life. If you go and you put in the boot camp match of Sgt. Slaughter and Iron Sheik, the crowd is reacting like the Red Sox crowd in 2004 when

Ortiz wins game five. I'm not kidding. People are jumping up and down losing their minds. That's just what wrestling was like for people. Even if you go back and you watch like some of the old Bruno San Martino matches in the early seventies, which are terrible, but the crowd is reacting. Like it, you know, it's like, uh, like a bulls crowd during the Jordan era, like that kind of level of passion. And I don't know when that went away. Huh? Did you go, were you ever in that crowd? Did you go as a kid with your dad or something?

I did. I went, I went a few times, MSG and Boston garden. I saw some good ones actually. Yeah. What headliners did you see? Well,

so this was tough. I saw at MSG, I saw a big John stud, Bob Backlund title match that had a certain ending. And then in Boston, same match, like a month later, exact same ending.

And I'm like, boy, that's weird. What a coincidence. I can't believe Big John Studd didn't realize when he did the backbreaker that Backlund was going to have to rope. He would have thought

he would have learned that from New York. But never dawning on me that wrestling was fake uh, was fake. That's awesome. Yeah. Anyway. All right. This is fun for a minute.

I felt like I was on your podcast. We kind of, we kind of did a host switch. Um, we can still hear you on good morning, uh, football, right?

Every single day. What are you guys talking about? Do you just argue about the pandemic? Yeah, it sucks. It's not fun, which is why sometimes you get off a three-hour show and then you tweet things that piss people off about the pandemic and the media because you sit every morning and talk about who's opting out today,

who's going to say I'm not going to play today, who has a sick parent or a baby at home and can't play football. It's sad because we try to make football fun, but it's tough right now. Yeah, the Patriots won. People tried to get this narrative that Belichick was up to some sort of Belichick thing. And it was like, every single person that opted out of the season,

there was a legitimate reason. All they had to do was Google it for two seconds. But everyone's like, what's Belichick up to? He was going to get Trevor Lawrence by having all of his players opt out and tank the season, go to 3-13, and then have

the next 15 years of his career. It's a radical, radical theory, but I laughed at it when I read it. I got to say, there's a 0% chance Belichick's ever tanking a season. He will never do that. Unless something like he,

like if 40 of his guys opted out and he was like, all right, well, this is our only option. I have to do it this way. Otherwise, he cares too much about the career wins and all these different streaks, proving that he can win without Brady, all that stuff.

He's just not going to do it. He's hitting the, you know, the last stretch of his career here. He's not throwing a year away so he can go 2-14 and then maybe get a chance at Trevor Lawrence. You don't even know if you're going to potentially get the number one pick if you do it. I think even if he has 40 guys opt out,

he's still going to knuckle down, turn his rings around, and just fight and somehow get that AFC wildcard. Too much pride, too much ego. He's not going into the Hall of Fame and be like, oh, remember that year in 2020 that you went 3-13? Hell no. Hell no. I remember one of my favorite bets that I made the last few years was during the Brady four-game suspension,

a.k.a. railroading. When Brissette played the last game on Sunday night, Jimmy G got hurt. the Pats were underdogs I think it was against the Texans yeah I remember it well they played really well that night and they were underdogs and I was like this is like on a fucking platter like this is

this is why he wakes up in the mornings to have a game like this where people are like, oh, he has no chance. He's like, okay, watch me win with Jacoby Brissett on national TV. I'm doing it right now. It was great. And he and Josh McDaniels had Jacoby Brissett running the option.

And they had all these creative things that they did with it. And in a way, it's maybe that's what they'll do with Cam this year. Oh, my God. We got a new toy. I think they're so excited for Cam. I think last year was so unsatisfying for everybody. And I think people have really underrated just Brady's quality of play.

I just don't think he played well last year. And I think he is becoming a quarterback who's hard to play with unless he has awesome weapons. But couldn't you say that about any quarterback? Like, oh, well, he needs, you know, he with unless he has awesome weapons. But couldn't you say that about any quarterback? Like, ah, well he needs, you know, he's older, needs awesome weapons. It's like, well, every quarterback needs awesome weapons. Who's like, cool. I don't need weapons. Just give me receivers. I'll be fine. Um, I think it's, it's listen, when you fall off your diet

and you quit your diet, you don't eat salads. You go to Wendy's and like, give me six cheeseburgers. Let's go nuts. If you get out of a long-term relationship and get a new girlfriend, you're going to want to try everything. I think that is Bill now. Like we can do everything. Let's line it up. Let's light our hair on fire. Let's have some fun. I think it's going to be cool. Well, I hope we have football. I hope, uh, I hope you have stuff to talk about in your show. I look forward to launching your show on the ringer podcast network. What day is it? August 17th.

So August 12th. Yeah. That's coming up. Uh, less than two weeks. Look out for that. Kyle Brandt. Always good to see you.

Thanks for coming up. Bill. I'm going to keep rocking and rolling and making better films. All right. We're going to bring in my daughter in one second, but wanted to mention the podcast charts on Spotify because they launched them. They're really cool. More importantly to me, I have one of the top podcasts on the charts. So thank you for that. Thank you for spreading the word. Look, I'm biased. I'll fully admit it was Spotify because, um, you know, they bought the

ringer. I was using the app well before we started seriously talking to them. I just really like their podcast app. I really do. I listen to it at 1.2 speed. I got to say, fairway rolling with House and Nathan. 1.2 speed is really the sweet spot for that. But other ones,

you kind of need the 1.5 bump. I like being able to decide my own speeds. And also, I just like navigating the app. Highly recommend it. But now they have charts. So now you have a better idea how you're doing. To see what other podcasts made it on the charts other than mine,

go to the Podcast Hub to find the top in trending shows. And while you're at it, you know, give a couple of the other ringer podcasts to listen, tap the banner to explore top podcast charts right now. All right. We're going to bring in my daughter for a special miniature edition of for realsies. Find out what's going on with teen culture during the pandemic.

Here we go. All right. The pandemic stretches on. We have not had my daughter on to talk about teen culture. She's freaked out because I had bad facial hair going for a long time and I shaved it like an hour ago. And now you're just staring at me like I'm a new person. No, it's just freaking me out because half of your face had been covered for like a month or maybe more than that. It was like two months. Two months. And I haven't seen your bare face in two months. So it's a nice little

change. My face was on protest until basketball came out. But now it's back. Teen culture, we have a lot to cover. There's just a lot going on. The pandemic not only has affected the movie industry, sports, restaurants, everything, but also the teens. But there was some good news last week.

Kissing Booth 2 came out. Oh, yeah. This was the equivalent of like a new Avengers movie coming out for normal people. Walk us through it. What happened? Okay. So in this new Kissing Booth, obviously, we left off with Elle and Noah saying goodbye at the airport as he was going off to Harvard.

Did we believe that? Did we believe Noah got into Harvard? Can we address that really fast? Go ahead. Noah getting into Harvard, a school that has what, like a 5% acceptance rate? Yeah. And he is just a kid who goes to a private school and probably plays a couple sports and doesn't really come off as the smartest person.

I don't think he's the best Harvard candidate. He didn't play, he wasn't playing sports at Harvard? He was playing, well, he played football in high school. And that was like his thing. He was like the big jockey guy. But it's like, he didn't really come off as someone who would be going off to harvard well i have bad news he got kicked out of harvard because they saw his euphoria stuff he's the same guy from euphoria right yeah they saw him on that show they kicked him out i haven't

watched you yeah you know what because i haven't let you watch it for it it's probably smart i'll let you watch it when you turn 21 all right so. All right, so he goes off to Harvard. He goes off to Harvard and Elle is left. She's a senior now because he was a year above or junior, whatever. And her friends are giving her shit that he's going to go find a new girlfriend. Yeah, basically. Which, by the way, is what happened. It's very true.

So he finds another kind of interest and she's seeing all of his internet, like social medias of him being around her and she's kind of getting worried about this girl and then she has another love interest who comes into play who basically looks like the same as noah who's this is this the guy marco yeah marco yeah and he looks they look exactly the same literally just well maybe she has a type she maybe she does but it's like it's just he comes in he's the new guy right yeah and he's like they kind of they dislike each other that's the main thing here yeah they don't really get along but for some reason he has interest towards l well that's usually what happens people pretend they don't like each other, but they really deep down do like each other.

Yeah. This is your brother's strategy with all women, by the way. Yeah, I agree. But yeah, so they just have like a little flirty type of thing going on. You can tell he's kind of interested in her, but it's like a big brother, little sister relationship where they're just constantly bashing each other whenever they're around each other.

It's completely sarcastic. Yeah. So it's that type of deal. Let me guess, things change. Things do change. All right, don't spoil it. Did you like it or not? I loved the movie.

Really? Did you like it more than the first one? The first one holds a special place in my heart. So that's like a difficult thing for me to decide. But I would say I really did enjoy it. As I expected I would. because The Kissing Booth 1 was probably one of my favorite bad movies and this will probably be one of my favorite bad movies as well like I would re-watch this 10 times well the critics do not like no no one liked it

well here's the reason why they might not have liked it mini it's not a mini spoiler it's like a mini spoiler so if you haven't seen it you can just beware i don't think we're spoiling an oscar movie here go ahead but um l gets accepted into harvard as well her and her best friend lee they're trying to get into berkeley that's like been their dream school since they were little because their moms went to berkeley and they've been talking about this this whole time but i want you to go but noah because he goes to harvard she decides why don't i apply there yeah so i can be with noah so she applies to harvard she gets in to both harvard and berkeley a girl who her only personality trait throughout the entire movie was playing dance dance revolution at the pier yeah what what are her credentials what is she like a genius no she went to a private school

and she didn't show off. She wasn't like a giant athlete? No, she played soccer and we both saw her soccer scene in Kissing Booth 1. Not very impressive. I don't think she would be getting into Harvard if this were an actual real life situation. Interesting.

Very interesting. Well, it sounds ridiculous. It sounds terrible. And it sounds right in your wheelhouse. Yeah. This is what you like. We've been plowing through a lot of the rom-coms from the 90s, 2000s, 2010s because all these streaming services have them and we have nothing to watch.

It seems like Just Go With It is your favorite one of all time. I love that movie so much. Drew Barrymore. No, not Drew Barrymore. Jennifer Aniston, Adam Sandler, Hawaii. Jennifer Aniston, for one, she is probably my favorite actress of all time next to Cameron Diaz. They're both high up there. But I love her.

And then Adam Sandler, you can never go wrong. He's probably my favorite male actor. Well, it's on streaming services all over the place. It's a Joey Simmons recommendation for realsies. Yeah, go watch it. All right, let's talk about the TikTok universe because all hell broke loose during the pandemic. Yeah.

Explain the Hype House falling apart. What happened here? First of all, what was Hype House and then why did it fall apart? Okay, so the Hype House basically was a collective group of tiktokers who just grew and got a lot of fame and then they decided why don't we all join forces buy a mansion and make tiktoks in this mansion which is absolutely absurd how many people we talking kind of a lot like the main over 10 yeah Yeah. So 10 plus TikTokers in a mansion. Just making TikToks.

Making dumb TikTok videos that you and your brother watch. I think I wasn't really into the Hype House, so I didn't know everything about it. But I'm sure not everyone lives there full time. Like a group probably lives there full time. And then the rest just hang out there constantly. Okay. So now COVID happens. No more no more hype house they're still hanging out people who are like who have fame and think that they're better than everyone else thinks that they're immune to the virus so they're all in the hype house like they're all happening yeah and by the way like a little um

offset of this jake paul who we all know, very big guy. We all know his mistakes, everything he's made. He decided to have a party with like a bunch of people, around a thousand maybe, in his mansion. And he got sued for like six million dollars. Because COVID happened? Because of COVID. Because he decided to have a party with a lot of people. Did COVID get spread or it's just somebody sued him?

I think they sued him because he was not following the rules of the pandemic. Well, he has a big fight next month. Oh, yeah. He's fighting Nate Robinson on the undercard. He's fighting everyone. I don't really understand Jake Paul. Well, it seems like he lost his mind a little bit. He is a little bit.

I know Ben Simmons isn't carrying his lunchbox anymore. Back to the Hype House. So, the entire thing that happened, the entire controversy, was that Chase Hudson, who was like probably, I think he was the main creator of the Hype House. He was the big guy. And then

Charli D'Amelio, we all know her. We all love her. Support Charli. I don't know who that is but she sounds great she she's like the biggest tiktoker okay she has 40 million plus followers jesus yeah so they were kind of like the staple of the hype house and they ended up getting into a relationship which he's like 18 now and i think she's 16 so a little kind of weird that's not totally legal no no it wasn't before i think he was 17 she was 15 when they were dating but like would you be happy if i were dating a 17

year old i'm not happy that you're dating a 16 year old okay exactly so that's like a little weird and off-putting already but so they had their little relationship and like throughout the relationship they had a bunch of these friends and other people were dating each other and basically lil huddy who's chase hudson he got exposed for um like saying racial slurs and he also not only that but there was another couple in the house josh richards and nessaessa Barrett, and they had a relationship. They were dating. And it was rumored that he had kissed Nessa.

Love triangle. Yeah. Well, kind of more than a triangle. Love square. So they were, like, rumored they had this whole thing, and Charlie kind of didn't say anything on it. But he got exposed from that and he told everybody that he had kissed her before the relationship. But you know there were some blurred lines there. So probably wasn't before the relationship.

Probably while he was dating and they might have both cheated on their significant other. This sounds like your version of… It's like a high school like drama. Well I was going to say like 90210 in the 90s. This is now like your version of… It's like a high school drama. Well, I was going to say like 90210 in the 90s. This is now like your version of 90210. Yeah, but so basically that whole thing happened. And then when he started getting exposed, people were bashing him on the internet. He made this entire tweet,

which I'm looking at right now. And basically it starts off with, since all my drama has been put to the internet for the world to judge me, let's lay out everyone else's. All of his friends in the high-pops. Oh, he flamed everybody. And then he proceeds to say, Anthony got with Cynthia a week after they broke up on tour.

And then he just names like six of his friends in different lines, just very vague and saying exactly what they did wrong. Like, Keo cheated on Olivia and all this type of stuff. Just one line completely like drama-filled, ruining their relationship. This sounds like professional wrestling almost. So it's just, he's just lining out all the shit that people had done. Yeah. So he is the bad guy. And then this broke up another relationship in the Hype House just because he said that. Oh, no. I know. But he ends his tweet after flaming about like six of his friends.

He ends the tweet with an apology towards Charlie for the supposed rumors of him kissing Nessa Barrett. So a nice way to apologize by flaming seven other people. And so she obviously knew it wasn't genuine. It just created an entire like internet explosion. And then a bunch of the boys who were mentioned in his tweet went over to his house and were like threatening to fight him. And they were just, he basically wussed out and hung out in the high palace.

He wouldn't come outside. And they were sitting in the car ready to have a fight. So that's the TikTok drama. Jesus. Thank you. TikTok room for the updates. So is he canceled? What's, is it a cancellation of chase? I don't know. Chase Dawson, chase, close chase Hudson, chase Hudson known as little Huddy. Oh, Shane Dawson. Shane Dawson's the next little Huddy. So little Huddy's not canceled, but he's in probation. He's no one likes him now. It's like, it's not a full canceling.

I think he's done other things that would be worth canceling, but it's like, he's just not even relevant anymore. Shane Dawson was canceled, you said. Yes, he's been canceled. He's canceled currently. Why was he canceled? So because of this. First of all, tell people who Shane Dawson was.

Everyone knows who Shane Dawson is. The king of YouTube. Okay, king of YouTube. Sure. Yeah. so shane dawson we all know him he makes his short movie-like series on youtube he does the conspiracy theory is just youtuber since day one he's been there since the beginning so shane dawson has some had some videos resurfaced of him saying racial slurs and like kind of he did blackface, like, terrible things like that. Shane.

Yeah, I know. And he was, like, on the internet. You shouldn't do that even off the internet, but it's just stupid. And then... How old is Shane? Oh, he's old. He's, like, mid-30s, I think.

Oh, Jesus. Okay. Yeah. But, and then, there were also some other videos resurfaced of him making, making like pedophilia and some jokes revolving around younger kids and sexual acts not pedophilia but that's what that's what they called it though right but so he was just so he's out he's out a lot of people are

really astonished that something like this could happen considering shane dawson one of the greats because well yeah obviously but his entire palette just came out and he's been riding on this high that something like this could happen considering it's Shane Dawson. One of the greats. Because, well, yeah, obviously. But his entire palette just came out and he's been riding on this high and now he's completely bashed and no one likes him. Man. Yeah.

Don't be dumb, guys. Tough time for Shane Dawson. Yeah, don't do terrible, shitty stuff. Yeah, just don't do it. Get you. Any other TikTok stuff? No. Who's the biggest emerging star of the pandemic?

Anybody? Emerging star. Interesting. You said you have people here in la that you you don't they're not friends of yours but like friends of friends or just people in other schools the thing about tiktok is like anyone can get famous it's kind of a platform where it's like open to anybody right so there are people that i know are mutual friends with that do have like a really wide following and that kind of just happens and it's based off of your appearance which kind of sucks for the most part of the people that i'm like aware of that have fame but there are some like genuine funny tiktokers that like make interesting videos well i'm so glad i don't let you and ben do them yeah something you and Ben

do love is Hamilton oh my gosh and it was on Disney Plus this was the revolution of the year this was like a year long thing in 15 and 16

with you two you and your brother and you were like we had to buy you revolutionary war outfits you were performing entire songs yep

and like everything else with Ben, he moved on to the next thing. But this was like a year long. You knew the words, everything. This was a really long phase. So Hamilton goes on Disney Plus. Your mom's away. It's the three of us. We start watching it. And within like five minutes, Ben's slowly coming out of his shell, looking embarrassed in the corner. He can barely even mouth the words because he doesn't want to get yelled at. But then he just owned it. And now both of you have been on another Hamilton bitch. Oh, it's back. It's back. It's definitely in full force. And I've also seen that a lot of people because of this who didn't have

their Hamilton phase or never really got into it or couldn't even see the play just didn't know about it that much. Everyone's getting into it now. That's like my entire for you page is just Hamilton. And I kind of, I love to see it because it deserves the recognition. When you saw it in New York, it wasn't the full original cast, right? There were some people that weren't there. Yeah, it just wasn't Lynn.

I think that was it. But we had an amazing Hamilton. I thought they did a really good job. I did too. Because apparently they recorded one with the audience. And then they recorded one without. Some of the laughing and the backing track and that type of stuff. I did too. Apparently they recorded one with the audience and then they recorded one without. Some of the laughing and the backing track and that type of stuff. It was nice. I like when the king

the spit came out of his mouth too. That's been a huge thing on TikTok. Everyone's talking about it. It's hilarious. Who do you think was the MVP of the Hamilton movie? Hamilton? I love George Washington so much. I think his voice is just incredible. I like Daveed Diggs. You love Daveed D much. I think his voice is just incredible.

I like Daveed Diggs. You love Daveed Diggs. I think he's great, too. I think he's so talented. He is. He's really great. There's not one untalented person in that cast. Like, everyone's just incredible. The woman really stood out in the movie.

Yeah. They're just so good. But, like, the close-ups and stuff. Philippa, she killed it. Yeah. She was great. All right. Siesta Key is next on our list.

Oh, my God. We all know my fond love for Siesta Key. This is your favorite show. It's really the only throwback show on MTV to the old era of shows like this, like The Hills and things like that. It was built around this douchebag named Alex who quote unquote owns Siesta Key. He's a rich kid. Yeah, he owns Siesta Key. And he's had a relationship with every girl owns Siesta Key. He's a rich kid. Yeah, he owns Siesta Key. And he's had a relationship with every girl on Siesta Key.

He has a huge boat and a big house, and his dad runs Siesta Key. Yeah. Well, Alex... Alex made the mistake of saying a lot of terrible racial stuff... Yeah, go figure. ...on social media right before the season three premiere, and they had to basically edit him out,

even though he was in most of the plot. So you watch the show. Alex is the plot. That's the thing. And then we haven't seen his face once. He's in a love triangle where he impregnated his girlfriend while he was also hooking up with his old girlfriend.

Yeah. And then he also runs the place where Chloe, who's the star of the show now. Yeah. Which I'm not mad about, honestly. So they have to edit out all of his scenes. The only way I could describe it to people out there would be like, I don't know if they made Beverly Hills Cop,

but they had to edit out all of Eddie Murphy's scenes and just show like the back of his head. They're having like the reveal for what sex the baby is what the gender reveal party they can't show Alex even though it's at his house with his family and it's his baby I don't understand I get like

the sensitivity and all that stuff but like and that's much appreciated but you're erasing him out of the show but then he's still in all the plots so it's like what's the point of not showing him on the show when he's in all of the plots? Just do the show or don't do the show. That's my thing.

It's like, if you're going to cancel it, cancel it. If you're not going to cancel it, show him and just put disclaimers. Yeah. Just say like, hey, Alex is a huge asshole. He said all this stuff, but we already filmed it. So here's the show. Yeah, I feel like that honestly would have been a lot better just because every episode revolved around

Alex and the things that he's doing, but we barely even know what he's doing because we can't see him. It's ruined the show. Which is honestly so heartbreaking for me because it's like my favorite TV show. Well, we had Chloe try to step it up. All she does is have lunch with people

and pry into their relationships. Every scene. Start a fight. She's been good. I'm not mad about it. Khloe is a queen. We stan Khloe. We think there is a opportunity

for a new show, maybe in a different location, but the same kind of principle where you have like the seven or eight people in their early 20s. Why wouldn't they go back to California? I guess in the pandemic, you can't do it. I love Siesta Key though.

You just like being in Siesta Key? Yeah, because I'm someone who likes to travel throughout the TV that I watch because especially because we can't leave our house right now. You're visual traveling. Yeah. So it's nice to like actually get to feel like you're on vacation with them. Right. I like that part.

Maybe like a hawaiian siesta key spinoff well they had that show for a year i wonder if that it was called north shore it was all surfers in hawaii you would have loved it no way i'll find that we'll find that you should find that um taylor swift oh the new album see okay so we've had mixed feelings about taylor swift i loved her when she was country yeah she, she was the best. That was my favorite music of all time. And then when she kind of became pop and that was her thing, I kind of fell off. But I listened to this album and I really like it. I like the vibe that it gives. It's like she's not trying too hard to be like a Billie or she's not trying to be an Ariana Grande. She's just being Taylor Swift and it's like authentically herself.

And I really like it. You like the lyrics and stuff? Yeah, the lyrics. She has a couple good songs. They're really meaningful lyrics. And you don't find that very often. Especially nowadays when it's like rapping about boobs and stuff like that. Yeah.

It's like she actually means what she's saying. And that's what it's been like from the beginning. She writes her music. And her music has always had a lot of meaning behind it and that kind of got lost in her pop stage and now i feel like she's embracing it again and it makes me really happy and i also like the vibe of her music and the way it sounds and stuff so if you haven't listened check it out what's our billy eilish update our billy i really haven't heard about her she's been kind of quiet since the award season quiet i think there's a big documentary coming out with her though Yeah maybe

I think she's so cool I'll always love Billie Eilish She also probably doesn't want to get involved with all the slub drama going on right now Which is smart Favorite YouTubers right now? Give us three Three Or two

Vloggers I've honestly I've been really getting back into Emma Chamberlain She was an old one and now i'm back into it she's your age no she's older she's like 18 or 19 she does the vlogging right yeah and she makes videos too she got almost she got canceled for a little bit uh-oh yeah like an instagram pose that was like she was was, I don't know. I feel like you could become a vlogger YouTube person only because you've never done anything in your life that would ever have gotten you canceled.

There'd be no, if you'd like skeleton free life. Then I'd be boring. Yeah. But you'd still be able to, yeah, I don't know. Maybe that's what makes people in the first place kind of want to be on

because they're just throwing their opinions out. Sometimes those opinions are a little haywire. Yeah. But I really like Emma Chamberlain. She's been keeping me company throughout quarantine. Anybody else? Then I'm so, I'm like a little bit embarrassed to say this.

Actually, I'm not. I'm going to embrace it. I've been watching James Charles a little bit recently. Oh. You guys are back. He's making a bit of a comeback. He got canceled for a hot minute, but his videos are actually interesting.

And I like watching the makeup that he does because I'm in no way talented within that region. So I like watching him do it. We didn't talk about with TikTok, the old school TikTok versus like the alternate TikTok. Explain that really quick. So there's this whole battle between alt TikTok and straight TikTok.

Straight TikTok. But that's not a sex thing it's no yeah well kind of oh it is okay explain it because straight tiktok straight tiktok is basically like the hype house it's people like noah back who's probably like the heartthrob of tiktok right now okay but it's like no bag josh richards all those people like dancing around and trying to act flirty and that's like that's quote unquote straight tiktok videos like that or a point of views right about like relationships stuff like that that's considered straight tiktok but alt tiktok is like crazy it's like videos of people putting animal or like people are putting bugs and syringes and then squeezing it it's like weird stuff like that so it's like jackass it's like dark internet

version of tiktok oh no yeah is it on tiktok though yeah but it's like it's not it's not terrible things that they're doing like murdering people it's just weird i'm a little bit on all tiktok and i can't really explain it. It sounds like Ben Simmons would like alt TikTok. It is. Ben would like alt TikTok, but I bet he's on straight TikTok.

But it's like this whole battle is people would be talking and you're superior if you're on alternate TikTok. And if you're on straight TikTok, then you're not. This sounds like the dumbest thing ever. It really is the dumbest thing ever.

I barely understand it. I know. People are going haywire but um you've had five months without soccer almost yeah this is the longest you've ever not played a team sport i know it's very sad all you've been doing is working out and you're almost like it's like watching somebody in a prison movie who's just like doing pull-ups on their bed. It is like a prison movie. You're like crazy ab exercises and power walks. You know, you got to keep yourself busy and like people are struggling. This could be a full year without soccer. Yeah.

That would be absolutely terrible. Imagine that. I don't know. They said youth sports. So they're playing high school football in 37 of the 50 states, which I assume is going to fall apart because of how we have no solution at all for COVID. Yeah. What is that?

Haven't they like released people out of prison because of COVID? Yeah. I mean, they've done all kinds of stuff. If they've done that, but they haven't, like if they're talking about us going back to school, but it came to the extent that they had to release people out of prison, I don't know. Would you feel good about going back to school or no? I know that it would not be anywhere close to normal.

Like it would be super weird just having to wear masks and staying away from friends. It's not even school because the whole part of school that everyone loves and cherishes is like the sense of community and getting to be around your friends and just the social aspect. Just doing the work,

I feel like that's the same as virtual. Like being there won't really make a difference. I think it's tougher for little kids. Yeah, it's awful for little kids. You've kept your circle tight. You've tried not to hang around with people who you think might be out there

hanging around with bunches of people. I just, I feel like it's still the situation where people are inconsiderate and not really thinking about their family members or other people

they can be affecting by seeing friends. So I've been trying to keep that in mind. You're such a goody two-shoes. Oh, stop. I just don't want you to die. I don't know how I'm half responsible for you.

I was way more inconsiderate and selfish. All right, Zoe, we can check you out on the Instagram for realsies. Yep. But this was a good pandemic teen culture catch up. I'm glad we got to catch up. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for inviting yourself on

and forcing me to have you on. Good to see you. All right, thanks to Kyle Brandt. Thanks to my daughter. Thanks to Z you. All right. Thanks to Kyle Brandt. Thanks to my daughter. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Thanks to Buffalo Wild Wings. Thanks to Spotify. Don't forget to check out their charts.

We got a new rewatchables coming on Monday. We have R2C2. If you haven't subscribed to that already, we have a brand new show on the Ringer NBA feed on Monday and a couple more announcements as well. Man, basketball is back. It's all I'm doing all weekend. And I will be back Sunday night

with our old friend, Ryan Russillo. We're going to watch every game all weekend. And then we're going to do a long podcast about all of them. See you then. I don't have I don't have I don't have