The Bill Simmons Podcast - A Pistons Abyss, Scorching Purdy Takes, Must-See Holiday Movies, Ravens-Niners, and Million-Dollar Picks With Justin Termine, Kevin Wildes, and Sean Fennessey

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Justin Termine of SiriusXM to discuss the Pistons' 25-game losing streak, how it got this bad, and where they can go from here (2:30). They also discuss Ja Morant's return, revisit the Rudy Gobert trade for the first-place Timberwolves, check in on the Celtics, talk about Suns concerns, and more (26:40). Then Bill talks with Kevin Wildes about the MVP of NFL TV show arguments before running through their favorite NFL Week 16 games and some Half-Baked Ideas (56:37). Next Bill makes his Million-Dollar Picks for NFL Week 16 (1:50:42). Finally Bill is joined by Sean Fennessey to discuss his five must-see new films (1:56:00). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Justin Termine, Kevin Wildes, and Sean Fennessey Producer: Kyle Crichton The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming, please checkout theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, basketball, football, movies, Christmas, the holidays. It's all next. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's

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Visit fanduel.com slash BS to download America's number one sports book. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. This episode is brought to you by Prime Video.

You know me, I can't go a day without sports. I really can't. And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right. There's a new exclusive home for streaming Monday night NHL hockey, and it's on prime all season long. Watch prime Monday night hockey deliver unreal plays. The biggest goals can't miss moments.

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Sunday night. It is my little Christmas gift to you as we head into Christmas Day. Kyle Brand is the co-host. You know what happens when Kyle Brand comes on. We do dopey but great action movies from the 80s and 90s. And this one is no different. I'll give you a little time frame. It's early 90s for this one, but it's a classic.

So that is happening on Sunday night. And then Monday night is when Sal and I are going to do Guest of the Lines. We're going to wait until after all the Christmas Day games, Ravens, Niners, and we're going to come on Monday night and we're going to have a podcast for you that you'll be able to listen to late Christmas night or Tuesday morning. Don't forget to check out all of our awesome Ringer podcasts. Don't forget to check out theringer.com. Coming up on this podcast, Justin Termini, our buddy, is going to come on to talk about the Thursday Night NBA action, which just happened.

And what the hell is going on with the Pistons, who have just lost 25 straight games. Are we talking about this enough? Feels like no. Then Kevin Wilds, my longtime friend, comes on to talk about Brock Purdy and great NFL takes from the year. And he helps me do some million dollar picks. And then last but not least, Sean Fantasy talking about the movies that we need to know about and think about and go see as we head into holiday season. One of the ones he recommended, just a quick spoiler alert, was The Iron Claw, which I mentioned that I was going to see after we taped it. And I did. I took my son. I really liked it. I give it a huge thumbs up. I wasn't totally happy with some of the

Carrie Von Erich parts would be my one nitpick. Wanted a little more meat on that bone without spoiling too much, but I thought Zac Efron was fantastic. I thought our guy Holt playing Fritz Von Erich was fantastic. And I thought it was totally worth seeing. So thumbs up. But we talk way

more about that movie and some other 2023 movies as well. At the end of this podcast, it is action-packed. Let's bring in Justin right now. First, top of the podcast here. 8.30 Pacific time. Justin Termini is on the East Coast. We knew something would happen tonight. We had two really good games.

We had OKC and the Clippers. We had Lakers-Timberwolves. Seemed like possible, maybe even second round playoff previews. But we're going to lead with the pathetic Pistons because those other two games were bust. Kawhi didn't play. LeBron didn't play. OKC wins.

Minnesota wins. We can talk about them later. The Pistons lose 25 straight. This is a number in 2023 that seems impossible with the amount of three-pointers everybody takes. Just three-point variance alone, it's almost like flipping a coin 25 times and getting heads 25 times seems as realistic to me. And yet they did it. And looking at the schedule, this might keep going. And nobody's talking about this, but we're talking about it now.

I don't see where it's going to end. I mean, and tonight was the place where it would have ended, This might keep going. And nobody's talking about this, but we're talking about it now. I don't see where it's going to end. I mean, and tonight was the place where it would have ended, right? I mean, I looked at it when I was on the show this afternoon, Bill. Lowry Markin's out. Jordan Clarkin's out. Keontae George's out. Talon Horton Tucker is out.

This team is playing a back-to-back. I think it was their fifth game in seven days. So it was the easy end to the streak. You don't win this one. I don't know where it ends. And now the pressure probably starts to build. So they have home and home at Brooklyn, then home against Brooklyn are their next two. Then they play at Boston, home Toronto,

at Houston, at Utah, at Golden State, at Denver, at Sacramento. Basically, it's got to be one of these two Brooklyn games, unless it would be the upset of the century. Because the problem with this team, they're 30th in every three-point category. So it's not like they're not going to shoot

22 for 45 one night from three, which means they're going to have to beat you with talent, and they don't have any talent. And they just get their asses kicked over and over again. Where are the wins coming from? because the schedule has been relatively easy i think it gets a lot harder as the season goes along and like think about some of the teams that they've they've lost you so you lose to the jazz which is a skeleton crew tonight you do that at home uh when they're well rested minnesota's well rested utah's not you already

lost to portland at home where you blew a big lead. You lost by 19 points to Washington at home. So who's left? You're running out of bad teams because there's six or seven bad teams. There's three or four historically bad teams. Then there's 20 good teams. So if you're not beating the three or four bad teams at home, you're running out of wins and possibilities. And even as this was going on, and once this got into the 20s, I certainly, I didn't do a podcast segment about it, but it felt like it was a bigger story than maybe it should have been. I think one of the reasons it wasn't was because there's no smoking gun to point to here where you can say, this is why they're in this mess.

This is a team that picked first, fifth, fifth, and seventh the last four years, right? But there's a little bit of bad luck with some of those picks. There's no terrible trade. You can't point to one sort of tipping point moment. It's just kind of bad. And what's crazy is if you go through the Pistons just in general, so they made the Eastern Finals in 08, and they lost in the Celtics.

And that was kind of the end of the Rashid. That whole crew that was done. 2009, they lost in round one. Since then, they've made the first round twice. Since 2009. Think how long that is. That's year

one of Obama. They've made the first round twice. They lost both of those. What do you think their highest win total was for a season since 2009? Oh, my God. Number of wins. What would you guess? I'll go 500, so I'll go 41. All right.

Well, that was their second highest. That was in 2019. They won 44 games in 2016. They've lost 50-plus games eight times. This will be the ninth time this year. How many All-Stars do you think they've had since the 08-09 season? Oh, boy. Let's

go two? Three. Iverson, Drummond made it twice, Blake Griffin in 2019. Do you think they've lost the most games of anyone in the league since the 2009-2010 season? Is that a yes or a no?

I mean, think about this, because Philadelphia spent like five years losing on purpose. Intentionally losing. Intentionally losing. And that's the concerning part about this team, is they're not intentionally losing. I'll go with yes, I guess. All right, the answer is yes.

They're the only team with 700-plus losses over that stretch. Sacramento's second. Minnesota's third. Orlando's fourth. And Charlotte's fifth. And the reason I mention this, Sacramento, they've turned it around.

They have some hope, right? They made the playoffs last year. It's not as great this year, but at least they're above average. Minnesota, we watched them tonight. I think that team's a legitimate finals contender. Orlando, feeling great.

Franz and Paolo, looking good. Arrow pointing up. They got some moves to make. They might be a sneaky four seed possibly. And even you look at Charlotte, they have LaMelo and they have Brandon Miller. Those are at least foundation pieces for something going forward.

I look at the trade. Russell and I talked about Cade, would you trade him now and just try to do the complete rebuild? Is he a keeper? I guess Cade is the keeper on this team, and I'm not even positive he's a keeper. Well, you're mentioning all these picks. Think of the roster, and this might be the issue as well, is they didn't draft or they don't have anybody on the roster, grew up almost as a role player, came into the league thinking, I gotta be a role player.

Like, Cade's a number one overall pick, right? Marvin Bagley's number two overall. James Wiseman's two overall. Jaden Ivey's fifth overall. Asar Thompson's fifth overall, who I actually do really like. He's gonna be a winning player. Killian Hayes, seventh overall. Kevin Knox, ninth overall.

Alec Burks, even a while back, 12th overall. Jalen Duren, 13th overall. So I think that's nine guys that got selected within the lottery. They got nine lottery teams. Can you think of another team that's got nine lottery guys on their roster? And they're still this bad. No, and they were shopping for kind of failed lottery picks. They were at Costco, walking down the aisles, They're still this bad. No, and they were shopping for kind of failed lottery picks.

They were at Costco, walking down the aisles, grabbing, oh, is that Marvin Bagley? We'll take him. Oh, Wiseman? We'll take him. I really like Thompson. This is the worst kind of team for him to be on, right? There's no cohesion in this team at all. All the stuff that he does is stuff that is going to work

the better the team is. I still believe in him. If I had a, a keeper draft for this team, I might actually take him over Cade because Cade's got that big contract coming up. You know, he's, he's, this is year three for him. You can start thinking about an extension before year four. I, I, I mean, this is the problem with the NBA right now, right? The Bulls are in this situation now with Levine where they're like, all right, here, take it. And you literally can't trade him now. So I don't know what the answer is with that. And then on top of it, they just spent $80 million on their coach and he just lost 25 straight. And if it was year five for him,

you'd be like, Oh, Monty's going to get fired, but he just started. So I don't know what, I don't know what you do with that either. Yeah. You're not eating $78.5 million. You know, you would think that you have to do something. And I know Troy Weaver like signed that extension last off season. I think that they said was, Oh yeah, he earned it. Yeah. It's a great job by Troy. So he's going to stay, uh, uh, unless they want to eat that money.

Monty's going to stay. Like you would think, like you'd think they'd trade somebody just to make a move. Or he goes in like Wick Rusbeck last year, I think when Miami was up 3-0 and he like started throwing chairs and screaming at the players. Like at least something that Tom Gores has to do because you're embarrassing the team. And like the concerning part is, like you said, it's been 15 years since their last playoff victory. And Bill, like think about the other teams that have lost more in a row, right? So I think it's just the 2011 Cavaliers, the 2016 Sixers, the Sixers were losing on purpose, right? So like there was a reason behind that. The 2011 Cavaliers really didn't have time to pivot off of LeBron leaving, right? Because that kind of came as a surprise and they're like, okay,

where do we go from here? Detroit's like had all this time to build this thing. And Troy Weaver's been there for a pretty good amount of time. And there's still like really no direction. Tom Gore has bought the team in September, 2011 for 325 million during that stretch when there was just a bunch of teams available. And basically everybody who bought an NBA team in the beginning of 2010, late 2000s, got an awesome deal. He is the worst owner just from a success standpoint. This is now a 12-year run of abject failure, but never gets mentioned in the conversation

for, hey, who's the worst owner in sports? Just from a win-loss record, it's Tom Gores. I think you could put him even against the Cleveland Browns owners and people like that. Maybe the one organization that's gone down since then in money. I don't know how much he could sell it for. I'm joking, obviously. But yeah, I mean, it's been that bad.

And I don't know where it ends. And is Monty even going to make a million dollars per win? Are they going to get to 13 wins? That's what he's making. Well, I mentioned this like two weeks ago. When you have a bad team and then you overpay your coach, sometimes that's the worst thing you can do because then he feels like he's invincible.

And then the players are like, well, I don't really like playing for this guy, but he's not going anywhere. But the problems are deeper where they built this team. It's like a bunch of guards, right? They took lottery picks on Killian Hayes, Jaden Ivey, and Cade Cunningham

three of the last four years, all of whom seem like they need the ball to succeed. So just fundamentally, that doesn't work. Then they have all these big guys in a league where you need a lot of shooting. They traded Sadiq Bey last year for Wiseman

even though they already had Jalen Duren. It just, it feels like they're putting together a fantasy team more than a real team. But when you go through all the, the weird thing,

and this is why I think people haven't really talked about them that much because there's not a lot to say. You go year by year and I can't, you can kill them a little bit, but you can't go, Oh my God,

that's the stupidest thing. Like in 2020, they took killing Hayes seven and Halliburton went 12th. Well, a lot of teams passed on Halliburton a B. A lot of people like killing Hayes, like KOC, who I think has done a really good

job in the draft for us, he thought that was possibly the best prospect in the draft. Obviously, in retrospect, Halliburton was the pick. I really liked Halliburton that year. 21, they took Cade Cunningham, the first pick in the draft. I was a mobile guy that year, but most people were Cunningham guys. Nobody was like, what are you guys doing? That was the consensus, number one. And then in 22, when they took Ivy at five, nobody was going nuts about that. I mean, you could look from a roster construction angle. Shaden Sharp went seven. Dyson Daniels went eight or nine.

And Sohan went right after that to the Spurs. And you could say, well, why didn't they take a swing guy? I think that if you're going to kill them on anything, it's probably that, thinking Ivy and Cade could play together because they can't. Yeah, but even if you think back to that draft, and I remember I was there covering it, everybody thought that Jaden Ivy was going to go fourth, right?

And they kind of killed Sacramento because Sacramento went with Keegan Murray and that's turned out to be a really good pick because that kid's taken off right now but you know so he kind of slipped and people thought he was a top four player it was pretty clear that it was going to be Chet Palo and Jabari Smith as the front three but then you thought hey a little gap it's Jade and Ivy then it's Keegan Murray Sacramento was Keegan Murray and you know so you I wouldn't kill Detroit on that either and like I actually like Jalen Duren. I mean, I think Jalen Duren is going to be a really good player. You can't kill him for Cade because we all would have taken him number one or Mobley. And then you can't kill him for a Sar Thompson, who I think is going to be a good guy. So there's not individual years where you can kind of go at him and say, this is a bad move. That's a bad move. It's just, I guess, the pieces that fit together. And that's the other thing, Bill, just like for a second, like think back to the 2000, you know, I guess, 16 team that lost the 26 games in a row, which it looks like they're going to do right now. Like if Smith, Jaleel

Okafor, Nerland's Noel, Robert Covington, Hollis Thompson, those are the guys that had the most minutes for Philadelphia that year. Like you can tell why that team lost so many games in a row. I like this roster a lot better than that Philadelphia team or that Cavaliers team that lost 26 games in a row. Like the talent here, they shouldn't lose 25, 26 games in a row. I agree with you.

Bogdanovich missed a bunch of games and he's their best shooter, but he's back now. You go back and you look at some of the trades they made. You know, they traded Kennard and Bruce Brown in some seconds for Sadiq Bey. They traded for Jeremy Grant from Denver, and then they paid him. They traded Christian Wood in a second for Isaiah Stewart. These moves aren't bad.

Getting Bagley and then paying him was probably a mistake because I'm not sure what world Marvin Bagley is, a $13 million a year guy. They traded Jeremy Grant, who I think has some value for a 25 bucks pick. That will be in the bottom of the draft. They signed Olenek, then they traded him for Bogdanovich. And then last year they held on Bogdanovich

instead of trading him. And I think he would add value. They traded Bay for Wiseman. This summer they used their cap space to trade for Joe Harris. You go individually and it's like, none of these moves are like a catastrophe, but the team that they built, the roster and how it makes sense with each other. This is, I don't know if they should have lost 25 games in a row, but it's, it's clearly the worst team in the league. Even the Wizards, you can watch the Wizards and there's going to be a night where Kuzma and Poole are feeling it.

Or they'll get the random Corey Kispert game. I think it would be really hard for that team to lose more than 12, 13 in a row. If you can't shoot, it's a little more realistic to me, right? Yeah, especially when Cade's taking a ton of shots, right? And he's been really inefficient. So that's another issue is like your best player is, and Bogdanovich still might be their best player at this point. He struggled here at the night,

which is one of the reasons they lost. And that's probably the one move that I would criticize him a little bit with is Bogdanovich last year when he had a ton of value and he might've been able to get like two first round picks. I would have maybe parted with him last year. And I had said that throughout the entire process. Yeah, you want to get worse,

not kind of tread water somewhere near the middle. And I think Bogdanovich had real value last year. I think he has value right now. Yeah. I mean, if you're going to lose 25 consecutive games,

what's the point of having him on the roster? If you're going to win six games all year, what's the point of having him on the roster? Get somebody that's going to help you in the future

because, again, like Bogdanovich, as soon as he can get the heck out of there, he's going to get the heck out of there. I threw this at Rosillo on Tuesday about the possibility, again, Bogdanovich, as soon as he can get the heck out of there, he's going to get the heck out of there. I threw this at Rosillo on Tuesday about the possibility, should they just trade Cade? Do you just do a full

reboot, see what you got with Jaden Ivey, maybe give him the car keys? I was thinking about the Spurs for Cade, and they have a million picks. Is that even realistic? Because we don't see, we usually don't see in this day and age teams giving up on young point guards like that.

I saw it with Halliburton and the Kings, but that was pretty unique circumstance, right? They had a clear Fox Halliburton. They kind of had to pick one of them, but for the most part, you don't really see it. But this is the NBA we grew up with, right? We watched in the nineties, we would watch these high lottery picks just get traded after like a year and a half. I would think about it if I was them. I think it might be a change of scenery time for him because with the extension coming, you just can't extend somebody who can't win anything for you.

Yeah, you saw with Chauncey Billups, right? 50 games into his career and he bounced around before he kind of finally found himself. And if he did go to San Antonio, do you think Popovich would play him at point guard or would he play him at power forward? Oh, my God. I don't know if you saw the clip today of Sohan driving. Wemby flashes for now the hoop and he just ignores him and then drives in and does a turnaround airball.

But I mean, Pop's one of those. This is one of the reasons I like listening to you, Nettie, when I'm driving around is you're not afraid to zag against the, the group thing. And one of the group things is pop spurs. They're so great. It's like, are we sure pop's still good?

Are we sure there's competence here at this point? I've been saying that. And I fell into that as well. Like when it first happened, I'm like, wow, he ended up in the right place. Right.

And everybody did say like, what? Yeah, exactly. Like everybody, if you say like, oh, what do you think about Wemby? Like the first words out of everybody's mouth is, oh, he ended up in the right place. I'll tell you that. Like, are we sure? Because if anybody else was using him the way that Popovich has used him so far this season, we'd be criticizing him.

Right. And I wonder like how Wemby and the people around him starting to feel halfway through the season, because the frustrating thing about watching them is just like, get him the fucking ball. He's 7'5". He hasn't touched the ball for four minutes. What are we doing? And then it's like, we judge these guys

right from the start, right? It matters if you win Rookie of the Year, which it doesn't look like he's going to do, because that's probably going to go to chat. It matters if he has an 18- game losing streak on his resume, because like Eddie and I were going through it, we're going like, all right, well, the longest losing streak for magic was this, the longest losing streak for bird was this and Jordan and, and LeBron. Like if he wants to build up his resume, stuff like that matters, uh, in the longterm, like you look at all the guys that won rookie of the year. I think the only two, like all time

grades that didn't win rookie of the year, meaning like my top seven guys of all time are Russell because he joined the Celtics like midway through the season, but he won the championship and then magic, uh, who won the championship, but he didn't win rookie of the year, obviously, because it came in at the same time as bird. And you're not giving this guy the opportunity to do that. And like, that's something that's important on the resume. And you're not going to get that because Popovich is using them in all these weird, different ways. And Chet has, I mean, it's so early. We're not even at the one third point of the season, but we're hitting the check mark where when you get the third of the season, it's like, Hey,

let's look around. What do we got here? Hey, Chet really being a, a, a sturdy Rookie of the Year pick, I didn't think it would be this sturdy 25 games in. I thought Wemby would be in there, some mystery guy. But it's Chet, and it would be unanimous if we had to vote now. But let's also be fair about this. If Wemby was in Oklahoma City and Chet was in San Antonio, then I think Wemby would be. Because I still think Wemby is the was in Oklahoma City and Shet was in San Antonio, then I think Wemby Yama would be because I still think Wemby Yama is the better player and the more talented

player. You see kind of the numbers, but he's just he ended up in the perfect spot. And it goes back to like we see it with rookies all the time. Like LeBron didn't end up in the perfect spot when he was drafted in Cleveland. Magic and Bird ended up in perfect spots. Russell ended up in a perfect spot. Duncan ended up in a perfect spot. Wemby Yama right now hasn't and Shet has. Most of the time, it's not a perfect spot.

Do you think second year guys should win rookie of the year? Like I have all these different things where I won't give a second year guy the most improved player because I think you're supposed to improve. Like if you want to argue that. Oh, that's good. Like, yeah, I mean, I get worked up over so many stupid things. That's just another thing, like on the list that I don't allow myself to get worked up over. So I don't have an issue with it. I'll probably end up voting for Chad at the end of the year.

I don't really factor that in. I think I probably voted maybe for Embiid if I even had a vote back then when he was rookie, even though he missed, I think, his first two years. And he played like 31 games. So maybe I didn't because I'm a big stickler for the games played. You got to play a certain amount of games, like 66, 67 games in order to get my vote. But I don't really have an issue with a second year guy winning it. Yeah, the bad team thing with the NBA right now, Detroit's 2-26, San Antonio's 4-23.

But at least San Antonio feels like on the occasional night, they have a puncher's chance of maybe beating somebody, but they're still second worst. Washington's 4-22, and they're going to probably start trading guys soon. That's about as bad of a bottom three as we've had because then you go Portland 7-19. They beat Phoenix last night. Portland's kind of looked sneaky, frisky for about 10 days here,

and I think they're actually pretty fun to watch. Yeah, I describe Portland as regular bad. Like in a typical season, they'd be the worst team in the NBA when they beat Phoenix. But because I was ripping Phoenix for losing to them, giving Eddie a hard time.

But these other three teams are historically bad. Like, you know, Detroit clearly is historically bad. And then San Antonio and Washington are historically bad. Portland's just regular bad. Charlotte 7-19, but that's a team that on the right night can

be, especially if Hayward's healthy. Memphis is the 6th worst team right there. They're 8-19. They've just won two in a row and Jha's back and I don't think they're going to make the playoffs, but they're certainly not a bottom 6 team with Jha because Jha is one of the 20 best

guys in the league. And then you got Utah at 11 and 18 and Toronto at 11 and 16. That feels like they could go either way. Are they going to fire sale it with Ananobi? Are they going to string it along here a little bit more, see what they got? And then the Bulls at 13 and 17, who since Levine went out of the lineup, have been playing really well and I don't even really know what the trade is because my Laker fans are like, oh, we're going to trade Russell and Rui

and a pick for him. It's like, oh, I'm sure the Bulls are dying to get D'Angelo Russell. They're actually playing well. What do they want him for? Like Kobe White, they might have actually found something. He's on a great contract.

I think they're going to have a lot of trouble trading Levine. So do I. I don't like, I mean, Woj came out and said there was no market for him. And I agree with that. Like there is a market for DeMar DeRozan. There's probably a bigger market for Alex Caruso. Like I think those are the two guys that you covered on that team.

But now does Chicago like buy into this? Almost like Miami a couple of years ago. Remember when they like started out the season, I think 10-31 in the first 41 games. Then they went 31-10 the second half. And they're like, all right, we're going to give extensions to Whiteside. We're going to give one to Deion Waiters. And they kind of got tricked a little bit. I mean, does Chicago buy into it and go, all right, well, now that we're playing a little bit better, let's keep these guys and not make a move? I don't think they should do that. I think it would be a mistake, especially with DeRozan, because he's going to be a free agent. But maybe they do that at the deadline. I don't think they should. that. I think it would be a mistake, especially with DeRozan because he's going to be a free agent,

but maybe they do that at the deadline. I don't think they should. I think they should get rid of the guys. I'm glad you brought up Whiteside. Heat culture, which we always hear about. Oh, yes. I am a big, I respect the heat, but you also need some luck.

And that Jimmy Butler summer, they had no cap space, but they needed some sucker to take Hassan Whiteside's contract off their books. And Portland was like, here we are, and raised their hand and took him. And that's how they got Jimmy Butler. But they've had a couple of those. They had that year when they got Lamar Odom because the agent screwed up Anthony Carter's contract and got voided. And all of a sudden they got Lamar Odom. They had the year when they got Lamar Odom because the agent screwed up Anthony Carter's contract and got voided. And all of a sudden they got Lamar Odom. They had the year where they got Karan Butler because he fell to 10 when he never should have fallen to

10. You need a little luck with some of this stuff too. We're going to take a break and we're going to come back and you have something sticking in your craw. As the weather gets cold, the NFL offers stay hot. I on FanDuel. Right now, new customers get $150 of bonus bets. When your first $5 Moneyline bet wins, we are going to be covering a lot of

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There was, he's, he's done some weird media stuff this week. I'll say this. If I was T Moran's PR person, I maybe would have told him to lay low this week. I'm not sure being defiant and making it seem like no lessons were learned at all.

And he, his guy wasn't being treated as fairly as other people in the same situation. I'm not sure that was the tact. I'm, you know, Rossella and I both talked about this. I thought the suspension was too long. That 25 games was obscene. I didn't really agree with it because he didn't put anyone else into danger and he was just basically setting a bad example and acting erratically. I don't think that's a 25 game suspension, but it was definitely 15, somewhere in there. But the way his dad

handled it made me think the suspension didn't work. Yeah. So like you said, you were surprised my producer goes, Hey, we've got T Morant on the line. And I'm going, wait, team of rants going to talk to us right now. You didn't know he was calling in. view, because I'm thinking like, all right, somebody from the NBA probably said, hey, tone it down. Let's not, you know, be public. Let's be quiet here for a little while. I'm thinking maybe somebody with the Grizzlies ended up doing that. So it was a surprise to me that we get him on initially. And then as he starts talking, I couldn't believe the stuff that he was saying, because

yeah, it gave me the same idea that that you got from it is that there's no remorse there at all. Like he's saying that he didn't do anything criminally wrong. We talked to him for about 15, 20 minutes and he's like, he didn't do anything criminally wrong. Like what's the big deal? And then he kept saying, well, other people have done worse and he wouldn't name the other guys, but he's like other faces of the league in the past have done worse. What he did wasn't that bad. And then like one of the criticisms, everybody's been given jaws, like, all right, you got to change the inner circle, the people that you're hanging around. So I asked him like directly, I said, is anything changed about his inner circle? And he said, nope, inner circle is

still the same. And then we got into like, you know, is he the face of the league? Can he be the face of the league? And he said, well, he doesn't want to be the face of the league. That's for other people. He just wants to win games for the Grizzlies. That's his only job. And it's like, well, one, it's not his only job. You've got to represent the league in an appropriate way. But two, like you didn't do that job well this year because the reason that they are seven and 19 or eight and 19, whatever they are right now, and going to miss the postseason is because he was messing around with the gun. Right. He murdered their season. Unfortunately for everybody there,

he, when he came back, they were six and 19 and Chris Vernon and I were arguing about it. Cause he's like, you know, we, we can get back to 500 here. Meaning the Grizzlies, like we,

Jaws, one of the best players in the league, like this is doable. And I just thought this was completely undoable. Then they win that game, the big comeback game against New Orleans, and Ja is incredible. And you start thinking,

I don't know how this plays out. Like, could they rip off like a 20-5 stretch because now they have him and Triple J and Desmond Bainbeck? The league seems too deep and too strong to do that. But I got to say, he looked, he didn't look like he missed a beat since he left. But the off-court stuff, the fact that he doesn't seem chastened at all by anything

is concerning. It just is. Yeah. I mean, you heard it with the father and you can go back and listen to the interview on SiriusXM. But the other thing is like, you heard it almost right after the game was over, right? Where he does the does the- I'm taking receipts. Yeah. I remember everything. Exactly. And like, all right, what are these receipts on? Like, is it basketball related? Because like the receipts I think are coming from people that want to help him or that are concerned like that his career is going in the wrong direction. Like everything critical I said, it wasn't about him as a player. Like I think he's a phenomenal player. I think he's a top 15 to 20 player in the sport. Like I love him as a player. I think he's a phenomenal player. I think he's a top 15 to 20 player in the sport.

I love him as a player. It was all about like, hey, if you don't get this rectified in the way that you're behaving off the court, then we're not going to get to see that player and you're not going to live up to your potential. So it was like criticism that was coming from a good place and he's acting like it's coming from a bad place. Yeah, I thought it was very kid's glove. The Zion stuff, I thought, and I include this podcast was a little bit

harsher because that's something we could see it's like you're not in shape and then we find out all this stuff with Zion this week about this contract that he has where there are all these different clauses in there and there's a possibility it might not even be guaranteed for the last three years if he doesn't hit certain weight and

body fat limits that's another one. And I just think we're nicer about this stuff than we used to be, right? If this was the mid-90s, I think the way this would be covered and discussed would be way more vicious. I think the behavior of the fans with the heckling

and all that stuff would be way more vicious. I think the feeling I got with Ja the last, I don't know, eight, nine months, whether it's people in the NBA community like us or fans or whoever, is everybody was just like, hey man, we all love watching you play. Can you get your shit together?

But really, I didn't feel like there was a mean-spirited edge at all. So when he was like, I'm keeping receipts, I'm like, I didn't hear anybody say anything really shitty about him. Did you? No, I didn't. I didn't hear it. I mean, I didn't, and I'll be as harsh as anybody I think in the NBA media. I'm a guy, if I think that he deserves to be called out. And I didn't say anything that I felt was inappropriate. In fact, I think like, to be honest with you, I feel like the attacks on Zion now that warranted, but I think it's more

mean spirited towards Zion than I think it is towards jaw. Uh, like people saying about Zion, like you're fat, you eat too much, you know, you're not in shape like that stuff but I think it's more mean-spirited towards Zion than I think it is towards Ja. Like people saying about Zion, like you're fat, you eat too much, you're not in shape, like that stuff, I think. And I'm guilty of it as well. I throw out those jokes, but I mean, again, it's his job to stay in shape. So I think it's fair. I don't think it's out of bounds, but I think the more mean-spirited stuff is probably directed at Zion, not necessarily Ja. Well, we were mean-spirited about the Gobert trade. Yeah. I stand by that. I thought they gave up way too much. When we headed into last summer, I thought

it had a chance to be one of the worst trades of all time. It's clearly a lot better. The team has improved. He's fit in better. They've figured out how to manage him in town so far. Although the Philly game last night, when Embiid just slaughtered them. On the one hand, I was really disappointed because I was like, this is, this is going to be Minnesota's

moment where they show like, Hey, if you have Embiid or Jokic, we have the type of team to shut those guys down. And it went the other way and Embiid torched them. But if you actually watch the game, like the refs were just, Gobert got 2,000, what, two minutes, something like that? And it just was one of those games that it was immediately off with the way it was being officiated. And you could kind of feel it like, oh, it's going to be one of these games. Okay, I get it.

Yeah, I mean, and that can dictate a game. You get two early fouls, like on a guy that's a key defender or a key player, it takes them right out of the game because they got to play differently. And you saw all the bigs, because they are the best equipped to deal with them. Same thing with Jokic is you got the two quick fouls on Gobert, two quick fouls on Towns, two quick fouls on Nasri. So your three guys that are going to be trying to impede Embiid are all in foul trouble. Now that's a skill for Embiid. You give them credit for being able to

draw that and to make the referees blow the whistle on that. But yeah, you wanted to see that a little bit better in 51. I mean, you wanted to see that a little bit better. And 51, I mean, you got to give him credit because I had been one of those guys that's going, all right, he's not facing any good defenses, but by the time he faces a good defense, this is going to be a big test. And he came through with flying colors.

But with that said, even with that performance, now maybe it registers a little bit when you're filling out your ballot. I think he's been the best defender in the sport this year, Gobert. And like the difference, and I'm sick of hearing this thing, well, once he gets to the postseason, he gets exposed. Yeah, the reason he was exposed, Bill, and I think we know this, is because he was surrounded by horrific defenders all over the floor in Utah.

That's not the case in Minnesota, where you've got Anthony Edwards, who you've noted on your pod, when he wants to, can defend with the best guys in the league. Jada McDaniels, who I voted for second team, all defense last year. He's fantastic. So now go bear those weaknesses can't be exploited. So I think he fits in perfect there. And we had actually Tim Conley on the show today and he claims he didn't hear any of the criticism that guys like us were given. Oh, come on. Yeah. So, I mean, clearly he Uh, but you know, you got to now hear the apologies, I guess. Now, did he still give up too much? Yes, he gave up too much, but are you really going to get on his case in retrospect? If they have the best defense this year,

which is mostly because of Gobert, if they have the best record in the Western conference, if it's the best Timberwolves team of all time for an organization that's been incompetent and they make a run to the conference finals or the finals. Can you really look at that and say it's a failure? Maybe you can for like the Lakers or the Celtics or Miami, a team that's continually had success. But if that's like where they topped out after making a trade like that, but if they top out conference finals and it matches the best team in franchise history, I think you got to say the trade was worth it. If you put Walker Kessler in Gobert's spot and also gave them five first round picks, I'm curious to see how it plays out because Gobert is a little further along than Kessler,

but that would be the counter. One thing on Embiid, because I don't want to make it seem like we're skipping over a 51 pointer by him because part of his job and part of what makes him great is he makes it really hard in the officials to officiate him. Right. And he initiates contact. He's just good at it. Um, the stuff he was doing in the fourth quarter,

when he gets in grooves like that, we've seen, we're old enough that we've seen some, some really great centers, you know, there, there's some Elijah on in there. Um,

there's hybrids of different scores, but I actually think he might be the best scoring center I've seen since Kareem in terms of just when he really wants, if he wants to get 20 points in a quarter and he's feeling a little bit, he really can. He's got these different spots from the court that he's just like money with now he's in shape. Um,

I, I just, I've just been really impressed. And I thought Jokic, I mean, it might even have been like 10, 11 days ago where I was sitting the distance between Jokic and the second best player in the league. Yeah, it was about three weeks ago. Yeah, it was about three weeks ago. The same as LeBron

and the next best player. Embiid is short in the distance. No doubt about it. Now, also, it's one of those like hardened things where you've got to see it in the postseason, right? Because like if you look at the postseason for Embiid, all the numbers go down. Like think about it. You said that he's the best scoring center maybe since Kareem.

You know who's averaging more points than him in the postseason? Jokic, who everybody says has passed hard. And Jokic is averaging more points than him in the postseason. So he's got to do it in the postseason, Jokic, who everybody says has passed hard. And Jokic is averaging more points than him in the postseason. So he's got to do it in the postseason. And one of the reasons I think is end of the season, he's asked to play like 44 hard minutes, whereas Jokic is capable of doing that. Embiid sometimes breaks down. But like you said, in regards to the scoring, what I would say, he doesn't score in the same way as the Shaq, like imagine making Shaq like a 90% free throw shooter. Cause that's basically what Embiid is right now. Like you could file Shaq and Shaq's not going to make you pay for it. Like Embiid, chaotic, which is good for him. Last year's team was too deliberate. Watching the team this year, they feel a tiny bit more unpredictable. The reason I brought up the Gobert trade other than the talk about Minnesota and Embiid was you think that we're at the point where two trades that happened in the last couple of

years are worse than the Gobert trade now. Yes. I think the Donovan Mitchell trade is worse from the same team. Now, I always like Gobert better than Mitchell, even when they were in Utah. But I mean, think about it this way. Gobert actually wants to be there, right? In Minnesota. Donovan Mitchell, from everything you hear, doesn't want to be there. The Cavs aren't winning. Minnesota is winning. And then I think what Gobert does is like he covers up for the mistakes of Carl. And you correct me if you think I'm wrong in any of this. He covers up for the mistakes of Carl Anthony Towns and the weaknesses. Carl Anthony Towns is not a great defender. Rudy Gobert is amongst the best in the sport and the history of the sport. So it equals out there a

little bit. And they found a nice little way to play off each other. And then you look at Cleveland and I know you were big on Mobley coming right out, right? Kevin Garnett, Duncan comparisons and defensively. Yes. But has he developed offensively at all? Like has not been Mitchell made him better offensively at all. And you tune into those games. They run no plays for him.

He's actually taken less shots this year per game than he did in his rookie year. And then Darius Garland's 22 bill. Okay. He's 22. He makes Okay, he's 22. He makes an all-star team. His numbers are flying off the chart. And you're thinking there's no way he's going to go but up. Now you're taking the ball out of his hands

and you're giving it to Donovan Mitchell and his numbers have been stunted. So like two guys that you could build your organization around who I think are both studs in Garland and Mobley, those guys haven't gotten any better. And maybe they've gotten slightly worse when they should be developing. I liked the trade when they did it. Mobley has not progressed the way I thought. I'm not going to take the loss yet because it's year three and he's like 21, 22. And it seems

like he was hurt this year, but if he's not going to shoot, he's got to, then he's got to be a center if he's not going to have an outside shot. Well, how much do you put that on Mitchell though, right? And getting him involved and the guy's taking 21 shots a game, which I think is the third or fourth most in the league. And I like Donovan Mitchell. I think he's a good scorer, but he should be taking two or three more shots than Jason Tatum, two or three more shots than Kevin Durant. I don't know if he should be taking 21 shots a game. I agree with you. I just, I fundamentally don't, I've seen enough of the Garland Mitchell combo to decide that I just would rather have Garland be the guy on that team.

A hundred percent. And I'd rather turn Mitchell into a lesser score and some other pieces. So exactly. So another score and some lesser pieces. Do you think that they can get now? So Danny Ainge gets rid of Mitchell at the right time because we knew he wanted out, right? Do you think that Colby Altman now in Cleveland can get what Danny Ainge got for Mitchell originally?

Even a player as good as Larry Markin. If he traded him, forget the picks, and there's a ton of picks involved. If you just made a straight-up trade, do you think that you could get a player as good as Larry Markin? But we didn't know Larry Markin

was even close to being discount Dirk at that point. They also lost Sexton in that trade. And I think they lost didn't they lose Abaji too? Yeah, Abaji and all the picks that are coming their way. They're going to look a lot better if Mitchell ends up darting. And then the other trade is

DeJounte Murray. And I don't understand why nobody brings that up because they gave up a lot for DeJounte Murray. I mean, they gave up first round picks. I got it written right here, 2023, 2025, 2027, a pick swap in 2026. So that's like potentially four first round picks. And like we kill the Timberwolves. We're starting to get on the calves a little bit. Nobody says anything about Atlanta. Well, at least Cleveland had a modicum of success last year. Minnesota's playing really well right now. You traded all that stuff to team up DeJounte Murray with Trey Young. What have they done? They've been under 500 teams since they did that. That's my biggest disappointment this year.

I did pretty well in the over-under so far, but that was one of my overs. It was like 41 or 42. I was like, over. Same with me. I think you had that as a lock. I had Quinn Snyder as my coach of the year, and I had that as a lock for the over. I think it was 42 and a half. I'm wrong. That's not going to happen. I don't know what this means necessarily, but they had by far the worst record against the spread this year. Going into last night's game, they were 6-20 against the spread this year. Going into last night's game, there were six and

20 against the spread. And the reason I think that matters for NBA purposes is over and over, people were waiting for them to play better than, and it just was game to game. It was, oh, this will be the game. Oh no, this, nah, we should favor them by three again. And people were betting both sides of it. And just for 26 games, they were disappointing. And when you watch them, it's like they can't guard anybody. And Trey and Murray, like Doc was saying on the pod the other day,

that he just thinks they're too small as a combo. And he doesn't guard anybody. Like, yeah, down the stretch, you're afraid of Trey Young. But like, you know, we were texting about Derek White as well. And I know this is like, maybe it's viewed as a hot take,

but that's a winning player. He's efficient offensively. He can defend anybody. He's one of the better defensive guards. And Trae Young doesn't guard anybody. It's like, all right, Derek White's a winning player. He's not going to give you

the flashy numbers that Trae Young. I'd almost rather have him in a winning situation. I don't think Trae can be involved on a winning team if he's going to take a million shots, not shoot efficiently. I don't think guys necessarily love playing with him.

He can't get along with head coaches, Lloyd Pierce, Nate McMillan, and who knows with Quinn Snyder. It doesn't seem to be a problem yet. There's a lot of issues with Trey Young if he's going to be your centerpiece. That's another piece of the Popovich puzzle. They traded Derek White and they didn't really get a shitload back. I tweeted that out. That's a guy everybody loves and they just kind of

were like, hey, take him. I tweeted that out the other day. What did they get in return? Essentially nothing. Maybe a 2028 like protected, I think. Top one protected. Yeah. Top one protected pick and Romeo Langford and another first that they already used. Yeah.

Where's Langford right now? Where's the first that they used? I think it was Blake Wesley. They're not doing anything at the NBA level. So really, it's just based off this upcoming pick. That's a pick swap that most likely, who knows? It probably doesn't even kick in. But yeah, Derek White, that trade, it was brutal. Now, I criticize maybe that a little bit from the Celtics perspective, so I can't be a hypocrite. But Popovich is the one watching Derek White all the time. He's supposed to know how good he is. I knew when they got him, I had a couple of people I trust in the league who were like, oh my God, you're going to love Derek White. I was like, oh, that's a good sign. Like hearing that instead of the usual when my team said, like when the Red Sox would sign a free agent, my Dodger fan friends would be like, oh my God, you're going to hate that guy.

You're like, I don't know. Or not sign a free agent, like Yamamoto, who was headed to the Dodgers. Oh, come on. We had no chance of getting Yamamoto. It was the all-time spoken mirrors. They were never signing him. You asked me where White ranks in the hierarchy

for the Celtics right now. It's weird because the two most indispensable players in the team are not the players. People would think the superpowers for the team are white and Porzingis. A hundred percent. They can survive. If one of Tatum or Brown is out for a game or even a week,

they could survive. Um, if Drew is out, but white, you, you just feel it when white or Porzingis is out. When Porzingis didn't play in that Golden State game, I was like, oh my God, here we go. He's the superpower. I was telling somebody what Iguodala was to the Warriors in the mid-2010s. He wasn't the best

part of the team. But when he was out there, when he was healthy, the ceiling just went up and it just felt like, oh my God, look at this group. That's what Porzingis does for them. And White, White's just been lights out on both ends. Like he, he, he has a case for best defensive guard in the league. He's at least in the running. Um, and offensively, this was what I was saying when they, when they got rid of Marcus was like this. I just want the ball to be in White's hands more. I think he, as a ball-handled distributor, pick-and-roll guy, he's a good shooter. The more the ball's in his hands, the better they are. Their big issue right now is this end-of-the-game stuff.

They've lost six games this year, and five of them were losses in the last two minutes. And three of them were just in the last two minutes. And three of them were just possessions that if they had just taken care of business, they win the game, you know? And the only team that's blown them out so far is Orlando. And that was like 15. That game was close.

Six minutes left in the fourth quarter. They haven't gotten a shit kicked out of them in a game yet. Yeah. They get the shit kicked out of them. Like in the last like minute of a close game if they got to draw up a play though and that's the part i think you're referencing like and i i don't know if you saw i quote tweeted you the other day because you put out those two like plays with jaylen brown i think the year ago in philadelphia then no no those are both from this year but the

brown one and then the tatum one and like no time out from joe missla, but I'm watching. And what I quote tweeted your thing with was like earlier in the day, did we not watch Taylor Jenkins in a similar situation? Rebound for Memphis, six seconds left. He calls a timeout. He draws up a play for Ja. What does Ja do? Ja doesn't take a 22-foot contested three in a tight game. He drives to the hoop.

He tries to create contact. He finishes at the rim. Meanwhile, you got Jalen Brown earlier this year. No timeout. Dribbles the length of the floor. Takes a three. You got Jason Tatum. Tie game.

What are we shooting a three for? Drew Holiday hands the ball off to him. Takes a three. No timeout. So yeah, that stuff drives you nuts. And then it was the Charlotte game. Tie game. 30 seconds left.

Porzingis flashes in the paint. Jalen just shoots a contested three. And then the other one was the Minnesota game, which I put up there. And then there was another one against Indiana. Halliburton makes the four-point play, comes back down. We still got like a minute 10 left.

And Tatum's like, I got to shoot a three and takes the 28 footer over and over again. This team thinks a contested three is a good shot. What drives me nuts is in a tie game, a three pointer is not a good shot. It's just not. It's a 32 to 35 percent shot, especially if the other team thinks

what teams don't want the Celtics to do. I'm going to tell you right now. They don't like when white is in a pick and roll and has the ball and has a screener who can shoot threes. They hate when Tatum has his back to the basket. I just always study how the defense reacts to this stuff. When Tatum has his back to the basket 15 feet away, the defense panics. They'll send a double at him right away because he can spin and go to the hoop. He can

shoot over whatever defender. They don't want him to do that. What they want him to do is take 28-foot contested threes, and they continue to do it. I don't know what to say anymore. Especially with the weight that Tatum has put on. He's big now, so that's what he should be doing. He's posting up and doing that spin

move, so I'm 100% on board with you. The thing that's frustrating to me is, and I don't know if you heard the back and forth with gary washburn and they've had it a couple of times in the boston globe where he said like hey golden state doesn't have a rim protector do you think you should have taken a couple more layups and driven to the hoop and missoula's like no uh like i thought we got good looks you missed missed 41 threes, 41, yet a 17 point lead. You're playing a team without a rim protector and you're taking 58 threes. So that's the concerning part is like they're being told that's the thing that the coach wants to do. And he said earlier in the year, I guess, according to Gary, that he wants to average 53s a night, which Bill is something

like the Pistons could use to their advantage, right? I mean, they can't shoot an outside shot, but it's like, if you don't have talent, take threes, because that helps you stay in competition with teams that are better than you. Correct? But if you're the more talented team, don't rely on threes. Attack. People. So I said, and I was arguing with a Celtic friend, a friend of mine.

I was like, I don't understand why we didn't attack Curry. He had five fouls for an hour in that game. And my friend was like, well, they did attack him. They, they kind of almost got out of their offense because they were trying to get him in switches and stuff.

And I'm like, yeah, but they didn't attack him. They were shooting jump shot. They're getting switches on him. Then shooting 22 footers over. That's not making, making him defend you when you're driving in the basket.

It's there's an IQ thing with this team at the end of games that is the biggest fear I have with them. Yeah, because talent-wise, they're the best. Talent-wise, I think they have the most talent in the NBA. The shot selection, the IQ, that's the concerning part for me, 100%. And the coaching piece. I love Al Horford. I don't think Al Horford should play more than 30 minutes in a regular

season game ever. And I think he played 40 in that Golden State game, but Joe kept him out there. He kept him out there. Golden State, every play now, they're trying to just get Horford on Curry. And what I don't understand, and I don't understand why the Celtics don't see this, is just go small. Horford doesn't have to be out there. Go and say they don't have a center. Just play Tatum at center. Go smaller. Just have more shooting. Bring in Pritchard. I don't care who it is,

but Horford, it was the wrong matchup for him, and once he lost his legs, I don't want to be the Celtic fan who's just complaining about this awesome team that's probably going to win 60 games, but I think this team's not reaching their potential as crazy as it sounds. Well, and I'm not going to like really get on Missoula's case, but what I will say that'll concern me, like,

let's call him a league average coach. All right. And we'll say, we'll say he's league average. Okay. Then you look at the two teams that probably scare you the most. Cause I'm not scared. I'm sorry. And we talked about this last time about Milwaukee and I know they're keeping up record wise. I'm not scared of them. Their defense, not scared of them. Just because defensively, there's too many holes. The two teams that scare me the most, even though I've killed their offseason and somehow they find Jaime Jaquez, is Miami and Philadelphia. I think those are their two biggest hurdles right now. And they

got the two of the three best coaches in the sport. Spolster is the best. Nick Nurse, Ty Lue are the other two. And Missoula is going to have to match wits with them. And those two guys are legitimate, top-notch head coaches. I'm not that concerned about Philly yet, but I do want to see what their trade is. Because I think they can beat Philly. They've had their number. Miami, I'm terrified of.

Go to the other conference. Lakers. LeBron's IQ and the way he'll dissect them as the series goes along. That's terrifying. Jokic, same thing. Jokic will just use his fucking computer brain and just figure out how to get them. And then the Minnesota

matchup is a bad matchup for them because both of their wings can guard Tatum and Brown. And Tatum and Brown have a tendency of just ramming their heads against the wall when they can't get what they want versus like, oh, maybe I'm not the matchup this game. And their size that they have. And unfortunately for the Celtics, they might see three of those four teams.

Or two of those four. They could see Miami, but Denver, Lakers, Minnesota,nesota in the west those would be the three of the four likely candidates other than maybe okay see i'm out on phoenix don't tell eddie yeah no i keep it a secret well i'll say bill's out on him but but eddie i don't i'm not out on him eddie i'm i'm in support of phoenix because of uh if i blame it on you he's not going to yell at me is eddie me. Is he still in we good mode as he watches Nurkic? This has been as willing to criticize as Eddie has been at any point. What does he not like? So he's just like concerned about the off.

Now he still thinks they're going to come around, but like he is a little bit concerned about, I think, the offense because he thought it was going to be a lot better. And there's no excuse for them to be what I think a middle of the road offensive team. If you have Booker and Kevin Durant, like you got to be better than that. And the other thing is, I don't know if you've looked at their schedule. They've played nobody. Right. And can you even name a good win? Like the two teams they beat over 500. OK, the Knicks at MSG.

What happened there? Booker needs a three at basically the buzzer to win that game. And then the other 500 team they beat was Minnesota, and they beat Minnesota at home on the second end of a back-to-back. They don't have one good win their entire season. Well, nobody could have predicted Bradley Beal would miss some games, so that's not their problem. No, nobody. Yeah, you're right. Oh, wait.

Yeah, everybody, you mean. I think you meant everybody, not nobody. I mean, you get what you pay for, right? You're going to pay $50 million a year for a guy who plays 40 to 50 games a year, and that's probably how it's going to play out. The other thing is the body language doctor is not like what he's seen from them at all. I don't like anything I see from them on that front. Even Durant, after the game the other day, finally kind of admitted that he didn't say it directly, but he's like, we got to get into our offense sooner. Okay, well,

what helps you get into your offense sooner? How about a point guard? A point guard? Like a traditional point guard? Oh, wow. It turns out point guards matter. The position that has been at the center of the league since 1946? Yeah, and they kept saying at the beginning of the year, like, oh, we don't need a true point guard. Like, Devin Bradley will split the time. It'll be fine. And so far saying at the beginning of the year, like, oh, we don't need a true point guard.

Like, Devin Bradley will split the time. It'll be fine. And so far, that has not been the case. Anytime a team says we don't need the thing that has worked in basketball for the entire time it's existed, I'm suspicious. Same for the Spurs. Ah, Sohan can be a point guard.

It's like, okay, great. Good luck with that. Yeah, that's a little bit probably like stealth tanking. Well, good luck with Eddie because I know he gets super grumpy. You can hear Justin with Eddie Johnson, 4 to 7, Sirius XM. What is it? Sirius XM, NBA radio, four to seven Eastern time. I got to deal with Johnson.

I got a nice little respite though, because he's not working the day after Christmas. We got no show on Friday. So it's four days. I don't have to deal with that meatball. And we don't, by the way, we don't talk at all. And then you text us and you know what you do is like, you'll text us in a group text and then we'll start fighting

and you'll just sit back there and not respond. And then it's me and him going at each other. And then that like lasts the entire week where we're going at each other. And he's like, well, you said this to Bill. I'm like, well, you said this to Bill. And it turns into a mess and you add a lot of stress to my life. You guys are like a 1950s Irish Catholic couple that doesn't talk. And then when it explodes, it just explodes for like five days.

Yeah. He always says like he could be my father and I'm like listen my mother would have no interest in you so that is not

you could not be my father Justin good to see you thanks for staying up alright thanks Bill thanks for having me this episode is brought to you by Movember

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Learn more at sunnybrook.ca slash special. All right, my friend Kevin Wilds is here. You can see him on First Things First on FS1. You could have seen him in my house a couple weeks ago. We watched football. He just came over. He didn't give me any warning. He texted me like an hour before the games.

I felt like I had to fly across country and I'm like not like you're the best planner in the world either. When did you ask me to come on the pod? 20 minutes ago. Hey, can you come on? So I was like, I was kind of reciprocating your planning ability. Like, I'm going to get off the plane and see if Bill's around.

Also, I didn't know where you lived. I'm like, where do you live, by the way? First of all, it was two hours and 20 minutes ago that I texted you. I just wanted to see you before the holidays. Thank you. You're on a show every day doing TV arguments about football stuff. We're almost at the end of the year. Instead of asking you who the MVP is, who has been the MVP for football arguing on TV where you need like a seven-minute segment and you just need to throw some raw meat toward the camera?

Is it Brock Purdy? It feels like Brock Purdy is the winner. Is Brock Purdy... Brock Purdy. So this is what we did. The Brock Purdy is probably the answer because of the gulf of opinions you can have. You can say, and, and I will listen to Nick Wright, for example, say Brock Purdy is not that good. And we'll push back on him. He's like, oh yeah. Then why don't you give him $50 million a year? I said, wow, that's actually a cogent analysis. That's a great point. And then today we had Jerry Wright saying,

you know, Brock Purdy reminds me of Joe Montana. And both are reasonable takes that I vacillate left and right between. So I would say that he's the MVP in the runner up in the TV topic. MVP race is going to be the Dallas Cowboys. Oh, and three on the, where they are. Oh, and three on the road against teams over 500,

four and three. Yeah. I'm going to get my stat wrong. Oh, and three on the road against teams over 500. Are the Cowboys actually good? So it's like a cousin of his Brock Perry guy. Are they actually good or are they just

beating up on tomato cans? Those are the two MVPs. Coming in with the bronze of the topic MVP. Personally, for me, it's like what are the Patriots doing? But that kind of ran out of steam. Not for me.

I still care. No, but don't you feel like nationally, I mean, maybe it's different for you, but I had to like tell the producers, I'm like, you know what, guys? We probably shouldn't do the Patriots anymore. Oh, I know the bronze. The bronze medal is

what's wrong with the Chiefs? What's wrong with the Chiefs? And Nick is like super fired up saying there's's wrong with the chiefs what's wrong with the chiefs and nick is like super fired up saying there's nothing wrong with the chiefs because the defense is so good like i get the defense is so good but you guys used to have the best pizza place in the entire country and now you're trying to sell me on how good the garlic knots are like the pizza has taken a step back like don't tell me how good the defense is at the same time. I think the chiefs are going to win the super bowl. So those are,

those are the top three MVP candidates, Brock Purdy, Dak, and are the chiefs dropping too many balls, which they are. Well, after you laid that out to me, that even emboldened Purdy's campaign.

Cause the, the best thing about him and the best thing about any sports topic like that is that somebody can go in any direction and they're not wrong. That's usually when you have the perfect sports topic, right? Because as you said, we have Steven Ruiz on The Ringer who's just, he does QB rankings every week. And I love it. It's this rare 2023 where the person's like, I'm not wavering from this. I don't think he's that good. I don't care what his stats are. I don't care what he did last week. I'm going to be right in the end.

A little like how I feel about Harden and the Clippers, actually. But with Purdy, on the flip side, people can't even figure out what comparison to use. Because I've heard the Joe Montana thing. People have pushed that. But then there's like a Drew Brees with better legs thing I've seen. Oh, I like that. Yeah. It's like if Drew Brees was more athletic. And then the other piece I like is that anytime a reporter or a TV person needs a story or three minutes, they can

just go to any Niner and ask them why Brock Purdy is so underrated. And they're all able to give these cogent monologues about how people don't understand how Brock Purdy is. It just keeps going and going. You can go up to the 49ers and be like, hey, you know what they're saying? Brock Purdy sucks. And like, what? And like, here's what people don't realize.

And then Brock went on and said, hey, Brock, who do you think the MVP is? And rather than saying, you know what, what guys i'm focused on the ravens he's like ah christian's probably the mvp so then we have to spin this one as like wow what leadership wouldn't the mvp yeah say that his partner is the mvp so he's also so he's montana he's tom Brady as well, obviously. Late draft pick. A little bit of the system, but maybe revolving. He's also Tua. So Brock Purdy came in and took Tua's narrative that Tua's trying to reclaim.

Like, oh, I'm only good because of this Mike McDaniels system, which is actually a branch off Shanahan's system. And Tyreek is the Christopher McCaffrey, like legendary offensive weapons so he's also a little bit at tua uh and and then this one pops up too because maybe just on my algorithm because i just get mac jones trending all the time like oh if you put mac jones in the niners offense but do they have the same record? Are they better? I'm like, oh man. If you like Brock so much,

why don't you trade Mac Jones for him? Straight up and give him $50 million. Give him a long-term expense. I guess I don't like Brock Purdy. There's a good Trevor Lawrence piece of that too. If you flip Trevor Lawrence and Brock Purdy, what happens? From what we've seen from Trevor

Lawrence for the last few years, who's been who's had flashes and then he's been sloppy with the ball and you can go that route. There's two other good pieces on the bone of the Brock Purdy bone now that you're talking about this that I thought. One is that he's been so good this year you can now go backwards

and do the whole if Brock Purdy didn't get hurt the Niners would have won the Super Bowl last year. And there's no way to argue about it because you're just in a vacuum of not knowing what the answer is. So you could just say that blindly. Then the other one,

which I actually think is a good argument, is the draft is stupid. Why do we care so much about it? Where you can get, just having trey lance who they trade up for at number three and then they get the quarterback of the future with the last pick in the draft and it's like it's just a fucking crapshoot well i know that's why i don't care about the patriot tanking games like i don't know in matt jones trevor lawrence justin field And Matt Jones, Trevor Lawrence, Justin Field, Trey Lance, Zach Wilson.

There's, are we 100%? I guess Trevor Lawrence, we're 100% positive he's good. I'd like that 95%. I don't know. Like, what is good? Is he ever going to be like a top seven quarterback in the league? Like, I don't know. Not positive. I don't know.

I'd say it's more likely than unlikely, but I still feel like we have some questions with him. Yeah, I mean, not generational, but the fact that that draft went one for five, where I count Brock, two for six is kind of weird. I spent a lot of time

on the draft boards watching stuff. Or maybe Mac Jones will be good. Maybe Mac Jones will move to a new system and be excellent. He's pretty good. It feels like it's 40% now. It used to be 50% with a quarterback

pick. It's like, oh, it's a coin flip. I don't even know if it's a coin flip anymore. It's 40%. It feels like 35% to 40%. You look at the Jets. I was talking to a Jets fan because I was saying how I wanted the Pats to get the first pick.

Yeah. And the Jets fan pointed out to me that they had the number two pick, I think, three years apart, and they went 0-2 with Sam Darnold and Zach Wilson. And they were like, we did that both of those years. We're like, we got to get the worst pick possible.

It's a loaded quarterback draft. And then you're still at 35%. I think for me, the difference is it's the best asset. Forget about the quarterback part. Just getting the number one pick. That's an asset I can trade back. I can pick up more picks. It's just better to have that pick versus, I know there's not

Andrew Luck this year, but I would still rather have the asset. I think Caleb Williams should be better than Andrew Luck. I hope you're right, but that's another thing. Caleb Williams, I think, we talked about the conversation fodder.

He's been a good one because some people, they do the, I don't like we talked about the conversation fodder, he's been a good one. Because some people, they do the, I don't like what I've heard about him. There's been some red flags. It's like, is there? Seems pretty fun. He seems amazing. And Drake May, I got to start grinding more Drake May tape.

But if you're telling me Drake May is the guy, I'm going to go with it. The other weird thing about quarterbacks is like, I wonder if we go back, look back on this year as in a whole quarterback, it's a quarterback league, right? And everyone's just like, you say that, and everyone nods their head like, yeah, of course. It used to be a running back league, and, you know, when I was growing up, now it's a quarterback league.

It's like, really? Because Gardner Minshew, who no one believed in, is going to bring the Colts to the playoffs because of Shane Steichen. And all of a sudden, Joe Flacco is good. Jake Browning is good. So we have these backup quarterbacks that are all of a sudden excellent. Is it just system? Is it wide receiver?

But maybe we were overvaluing paying quarterbacks, you know, a quarter of your salary cap when Jake Browning can come in there and put up sort of eye-popping numbers. If he's got Jamar and T Higgins there, his numbers are nuts. It's one of my, one of my picks, but Jake Browning is there. And when Joe Burrow was cooking, he was, they were scoring 25 and a half points a game. Now Jake Browning, they're scoring 26 points a game. Passer rating Joe Burrow.

This would have been like Joe Burrow's back 106.5 and Browning that 109.3. So it was just Browning. Just great. All of a sudden, or is Browning part of the system? I'm not, I don't know. I guess we'll find out this weekend. The only thing with Browning part of the system? I'm not, I don't know. I guess we'll find out this weekend.

The only thing with Browning, I don't know if there's a way to make sense of any of this, but he did have like a lot of, he had a big high school. Like he was really good in one games in high school and was considered like a blue chip guy. And then he went to Washington and he was like sophomore year,

he was in the Heisman running and then he got hurt. It was never really the same after he got hurt, but he started like over 50 games for them. And one of the things I've heard people try to make the case, like if you're trying to figure out how to get sleepers from QB, it's the guys who have played a lot of games. And they have like, you know, this is basically the anti-Mitch Trubisky corollary.

Like the big thing with Trubisky was he didn't play enough games. He didn't get enough experience. Only started one year. Same thing with Trey Lance. And you throw those guys out there and the football so fast, they can't kind of process it. It makes sense to me. Even after watching my son go through high school football, there's so much going on.

Like if you don't, if you're a quarterback and you don't have that reservoir of just all of these games that you've been in and all these different defenses that have been thrown at you versus if you... Jake Browning, I think he had like... I think it was like 55 college games, some crazy number. I was like, all right. And he's confident is the other thing.

You need to be confident. I also feel like you got to be handsome most of the time. Not every time, but most of the time. The quarterback's got to be somebody you might be afraid would steal your girlfriend at some point. It's got to be the guy who grabs the car keys. He's got to have some sort of charisma.

But Browning seems like he has a lot of that. Drew Locke threw that touchdown and Drew Locke and Gino, they were fired up. I'm like, oh, you guys have got a lot of swag. And that's the reason why he just drove down the field on the Eagles. Like Drew Locke felt like he was the guy. And his whole emotional press conference afterwards was really beautiful

with the undercurrent of, you know, for a while I thought I wasn't the guy. Turns out I am the guy. It's like, yeah, Drew Locke, good for you. Dancing on the sidelines in your Broncos uniform. I wasn't the guy. Turns out I am the guy. It's like, yeah, good for you. Dancing on the sidelines in your Broncos uniform like you are the guy. I like that. There's not just pressure and running the offense and performing in front of 65,000 people

post TV, but the bigger pressure now I think even more than the games is your post game locker room speech after the win because they put that stuff on Instagram. And it's my favorite content every week when they, either the coach gives the speech or the QB and there's a camera right there on them. And there's 60 guys who just played a game and they're all standing around.

And all of a sudden they have to be Mel Gibson and Braveheart. It's a lot of pressure. You really got to come through. You got to be emotional and inspirational, and you've got to single out people. Mahomes is great at it. As secretly nerdy as he is, he gives

great speeches. What did Jalen Hurts say? He said, rain, sleet, or snow, the Eagles are ready to go. I was like, yes, let's go. Your defense is not that good good and you've got a bum knee. But dude, that is still hitting.

That works. The Eagles are ready to go. I didn't click on it. I saw it and was like, Pete Carroll's fired up. It's going to be a no click for me. Can I give you the cliff notes on it? I can imagine. That's why I didn't click, but go ahead.

He did this thing where, first of all, he's all fired up. He's like, do they win a game in the first quarter? The team goes, no. Do you win in the second quarter? He's like, no. And then he gets to the fourth. Do you win in the fourth quarter? And they go, yeah! And they went nuts. And he started jumping around.

I like a little call and response. I like that. Are you surprised more coaches and quarterbacks haven't taken the Belichickian approach of I can only take L's at this press conference. I'm not going to give you anything. Deal with it. Belichick takes a lot of shit for it.

And then once a year he goes on TV and everybody goes, he did it again at the Army-Navy this year. He went on TV, everyone went nuts. They're like, wow, he's great. He could have a future in this. It's like, yeah, this is, he's intentionally not giving you anything

in these press conferences, but he's good at TV. But then everybody forgets for 11 and a half months. And then they remember when he's in the Army-Navy game. But I think it's the way to go. There's just no value. Like, just go up there. Tua was here today talking about the narrative around him and Tyreek and how he doesn't pay attention, but he also keeps receipts. and it was very honest and transparent and interesting and good fodder for

talk shows because it had an element of him talking to friends. But if I was his publicist, I would say to it, we're out here cooking, man, just go out up there and Bella check it. Like, to be honest with you,

a hundred percent focused on the Cowboys defense. Hey, to a, a lot of people are saying you're no good without Tyreek Hill, and it's right there on the tip of his tongue. He could say, well, I completed 86% of my passes without Tyreek Hill last week. He could just say, again, I'm really less concerned about Tyreek Hill, more concerned about Micah Parsons. I'm just really locked in on the Cowboys. Thank you guys for coming.

I'm going to go back and grind some Cowboys tape. Who would be mad at that? I know everybody can't do it, but if Belichick's the only coach doing it, it seems like there's a player that should do it. I mean, Jalen's close. Jalen's pretty close. I think he's intentionally boring. Jalen

hurts. I think he's way more fun. I think he's probably the closest to Belichick. Yes. And when he says the commitment thing last week, he's been kind of coach speak the entire time. And that was the first one he kind of popped to send a message. So like, and I think that resonated. But I think more people should be like Belichick.

My favorite is when the person is obviously unhappy, but still has to give a quote. Like Mike Tomlin talking about George Pickens this week. He's like, yeah, you know, George is going to play. And, you know, he's going to, he just has to talk in these kind of vague things when you can tell he's like this motherfucker. I can't wait.

I can't wait to trade this guy after the season. I'll take him. Trade him to the Patriots. We'll take a break, and we got a lot of picks to do, including I have something off of what we're talking about tied into one of the games. So I'm trying to figure out million-dollar picks. I'm going to put them at the end of this podcast,

but we're going to go through some games. One game that ties into what we were just talking about with press conferences and giving away too much or too little, Ravens-Niners, which the line starts at four and a half. People immediately bet it up to five and a half. And then we have to do the 24 cycle of the Ravens should be insulted by this. Well, they're just as good.

Well, this is what I'm getting to. So they asked them, usually it's not till after the game when they do the, yeah, we saw the line. We, nobody believed in us,

but the people in this locker room, now we're fast forwarding to before the game that people are doing it. We're like, we're definitely insulted. Yeah. Wait, they said hard said horrible today. They were like, were you aware that you guys are big underdogs in this game? He's like, oh yeah, I made the team aware. It's like,

you can't do the nobody believes in us before the game. You've got to wait. You've just got to button it up. I think they've screwed up, but I think it's a tactical mistake. I think Lamar said he liked being an underdog, which everybody says, like Dak said.

He said it before the Buffalo game. They went up to Buffalo. They got blown out. And after the game, he's like, you know, usually I like it. We need to embrace being the underdog more.

I kind of do enjoy it. Lamar's career as an underdog, eight and four against the spread, 11 and one, 18 touchdowns, four inter interceptions so he says it meant it that's why i'm all about ravens ravens straight up over over the 49ers i know we're not doing oh come on straight up stop it up that's ridiculous bill here's the thing so i obviously we have a our esteemed researcher josh and there's a certain point that I've been believing in Kyle Shanahan

and Brock the whole year. Once I saw they're going to be healthy, that's actually not true. I didn't think they were going to be healthy. I thought they were going to get hurt. Once I realized they were going to be healthy, I'm like, oh, I'll start believing them. Josh gave me a thousand statistics, and there's a certain point where you have to say, oh, the Ravens are going to win this

game. So Lamar against the NFC, if he was 10 and one, I'd be like, wow, that's pretty good. 12 and one, 14 and one, 15 and one. He's 19 and one against the NFC with the theory that like, if you don't get a chance to play him that often, what you see on film doesn't translate to like boots on the ground 19 and one against the nfc it's not bad it's just wild it's wild then he's good as an underdog and it's like oh what's the big flaw with the ravens they they blow lead which means they've been in every single game and probably could be undefeated colts. Matt Gay hits four 50 yard field goals. Okay. Steelers picket throws a bomb one 17 left.

They had that game. And then the Browns who have a great defense, he scored 31 points on them and they lost in the last second field goal. So like, Oh, and then when you just watch Lamar and you watch Brock, when, if you have two good defenses, who's more likely to be able to just go off script against a great defense?

Like, oh, you know what? I couldn't have planned for that. Is it Brock Purdy? Oh, didn't see that coming. How were we supposed to stop that? Brock Purdy doing X. No, I think you could stop that. That's Lamar's when it all breaks down.

Lamar's going to be like, oh, yeah, I'm going to do this. And you guys had no answer for it. Straight up. Straight up. Feels like a bit. Counter? Go. Can you name the three best Ravens wins this year?

The three best wins. Can I count the Rams win? Sure. I just liked it because it was a close game. They weren't rolling teams. Lions. Blowing out. I like blowing out the Lions.

Lions 38, six. I'll give you the Rams win because that was a really good game. 37, 31. And it was like rainy and messy. And that was also the first time we thought the Rams were great.

Or not great. They were pretty good. Probably the third one was at Cleveland. 28-3 week four. I'm not positive Deshaun played. No. Dorian Thompson Robinson played. My point is...

It's less of the offense if you're putting up 28 on that Browns off, excuse me, on the Browns defense. That's what's interesting. Not the three, but they're also a good defense. Whereas the 49ers, they murdered their Steelers in week one. Yeah.

They murdered the Cowboys by 32. Yeah. They murdered the Seahawks. They murdered the Eagles. They announced they wanted revenge for the Brock Purdy injury that they deserved to go to the Super Bowl. And then they went to Philadelphia and did it.

Yes. And then Aaron Schatz said, DVOA through 14 games. The 2023 Niners, third ever since they've been tracking DVOA since 1980. Number one was the 07 Pats near and dear to our hearts. Number two was the 91 Washington Redskins. They won the Super Bowl. Number four was the Chicago Bears in 1985, one of the most famous teams ever. Good team. It's a pretty good list.

And my analysis is, if you think the Niners are going to win the Super Bowl, you have to take them in this game because this is a, we are the best team, we're healthy, we have the most weapons, we're the best on both sides of the ball, and this is a playoff game, and they're going to want to prove it.

It's on Christmas night. Super important. It's, it's a statement game. And I think this team's great. I really, I think when they're healthy and they have all their guys, I think they're great.

I don't think the Ravens are great. Even that Jaguars game last week, you know, the play of the game was Lamar ducked the sack and then just chucked it up for grabs. And the tight end caught a ball with two guys on him. They lost, they lost Mitchell who I thought was their only running back who had a

little, little juice. So now it's going to be just like a lot of Gus Edwards and like Melvin Gordon might play in this game. I like Melvin Gordon. So I don't know. I'd like the Ravens. I'd probably say they're the second best team,

but I'm glad we disagree though. Disagreements are healthy. If the second best team, but, uh, I'm glad we disagree though. Disagreements are healthy. If the 49ers win this game, then I think you have to have them winning the Superbowl. Which I do. Okay. The Niners. I could,

then, then it's kind of like the more interesting, I also root for storylines obviously. And sometimes I hedge my pitch so I can get a good storyline out of it. Yeah. Um, but if the, if the Ravens win,

great. And it's the better storyline or the, or the Niners, you know, beatable. If the Niners win, who's beating them? The chiefs.

And then you gotta just, you gotta just rely on like my home's magic. That's the, that's going to be their only, their own, your only fear in injuries, which is super boring, but you could also see them popping up. We could also do the comeback bills if they have another good next couple weeks,

just because of the offense. Their offensive stats have gotten pretty good. Yeah, I think McDermott's 16-2 in December or something insane where they just start slow and then they kind of figure out who they actually are and then can heat up. Can I give

you one more Niners-Ravens nugget? Yeah, go. We can both be right at the same time. Lamar can cover. The Ravens can lose by three or four. And the Niners' money line will still hit, which is where I think I'm going in this game. I think it's slightly too many points

because everyone is so in on the Niners. If you look at the stats, like I mentioned that DVOA stat, the Ravens are like 12th all-time DVOA right now. Oh, okay. You're a nice guy. But there's some teams in there like they're... I wouldn'tA right now. Oh, okay. You're a nice guy. But there's some teams in there. I wouldn't have mentioned that.

Yeah, yeah. But I mean, the Ravens statistically have been really good. So, you know, could this be a three-point game, four-point game? A couple other ones. My favorite pick of this week

that I'm trying to figure out what to do with. The Bills are playing the Chargers. They're minus 12 and a half on the road. It's in LA. It's in LA. Too many points. Well, but here's what we can do. A bet that has hit for us

a bunch of times a million dollar picks is the first half game bet where you bet the team to win the first half and the game as a parlay. They have to do both. Let's say with the Rams. Let's say with the Niners. We've had some success with it.

That together is minus 290, which now can be put with another Moneyline game, like somebody in the minus 4 to minus 6 range. And I don't see a world where the Chargers are leading at halftime in this game with Easton Stick. And who's the coach?

I'm normally a new coach theory guy, but I think this Chargers team is like, let's just get us to week 18. Let's get the hell out of here. New coach bounce. The new coach, I don't know if there's a history of new coach new quarterback bounce. Do those offset each other?

Does new coach bounce work if Easton Stick is the quarterback and you've just lost by 42 to the Raiders? I don't think so. I also feel like this is going to be a home game for Buffalo. This is like Christmas vacation trip for the Bills fans. So on top of the Bills fans anyway, I think there's going to be like all Bills fans.

What Chargers fan? It's a holiday weekend. There are no Chargers fans anyway. Who's like, hey, want to go see the Chargers get killed by the Bills? Put your Tomlinson jersey on? You're not worried about the Bills feeling like they actually did something last week? Like wear it back, like let down game across the country? No, because it's a must win.

They're a ninth seed right now. They have to win. Here's the snare I was looking at. So how could the Bulls be the seventh seed after this weekend? they're a ninth seed right now. They have to win. Here's the scenario I was looking at. So, how could the Bulls be the seventh seed after this weekend? Cleveland beats Houston, which is one of my picks.

We'll get to that. Buffalo beats LA. Yep. Pittsburgh would have to be Cincy. We can litigate that in a second. Okay. It doesn't matter what happens in the Indianapolis game. They could be 9-6, 8-7, but I have them beating Atlanta.

And then Denver, New England, whatever happens in that, Denver would be 8-7 anyway. So if you have a scenario after this week where it's Cleveland's 10-5, Indianapolis is 9-6, Buffalo's 9-6, now they're the 7th seed. And now we get to one of the most fun parts of the football season when people are ducking the 2-seed because they want to slip to the 3-seed or the 4-seed because they don't want

to play the 7th seed. I always enjoy that. But I just feel like Buffalo is going to come out of this weekend as the 7th seed somehow. I just don't like it. You think they're going to win. I just don't like it. So what are you going to bring the number down to oh you're doing just money line

just first half game just lead by one point at halftime win the game I don't care the number that's totally then that's totally that's a safe bet

that's totally fine they're missing a bunch of offensive line in the Chargers Herbert Bosa Mike Williams I mean their defensive numbers

are abysmal and the Buffalo numbers, right now, they're first and first downs. They're first and third downs. They're 15 yards per play. Like, they've actually put together. And James Cook has been, like, the revelation of the second half of the season.

Yep. I also don't know the new coach of the Chargers. I forgot his name. Giff, Giff Smith. Yes, Giff Smith. I also don't know if you're Giff Smith and you just watched that Cowboys game. Like, hey guys,

you go into your defensive coordinator and you're like, hey, are we prepared for Josh Allen to have seven completions and lose this game? Like, ah, yeah, so start figuring that out. What happens if they run the ball for 266 yards and Josh Allen just wants to throw the ball five times

like he's playing the Patriots in a typhoon? Like, I think they'll win, but it's an odd game. New coach bounce doesn't happen there. So I had the Steelers initially and I took them off because I think this is irresponsible to bet on Steelers Bengals. No Jabbar Chase for the Bengals. No picket for Pittsburgh. I looked at the Mason Rudolph stats. Not bad.

They were less daunting than I remembered. He had one bad game when Garrett hit him with the helmet. He threw four picks in that game. But other than that, it was pretty good. I was surprised. Either Jake Browning... So here's Jake Browning during his three-game win streak. First completion percentage,

first in passing yards per game with 320 almost. Second in yards per pass, third in passer rating, tied for third with 32 points a game. Do you think this guy is that good? Or is he going to have to come back to earth with no Jamar chase? And with all this tumult around the Steelers and George Pickens, not blocking.

Yeah. Are the Steelers still the Steelers? Like, I actually think that will galvanize them. Like guys, come on division game. Like let's go. So I've got,

I've got to think that Steelers win this one. Oh, so you like the Steelers? Cause I do too. Yes. I like the, I like Steelers a lot. Can I give you a couple more,

a couple more things? Can I, yeah. Can I give you an editorial hedge? Yeah. If the Steelers lose this one, like, man,

what's going on with Tomlin? There's already a lot of like this Tomlin, like bubbling up. What's going on with Tomlin there's already a lot of like this Tomlin like bubbling up what's going on with Tomlin maybe maybe he needs a change of scenery oh you know else needs a change of scenery Bill Belichick maybe Bill Belichick goes somewhere and maybe Robert Kraft puts a call into Mike Tomlin hey you know what you're used to playing for great winning franchises why don't you come over here hatredots way and the Steelers way colliding. Oh my goodness gracious. I don't

think he wants to go to Pittsburgh, but Krafts can do anything in the world for Mike Tomlin over Ben Johnson. God bless Ben Johnson, but I'd rather have a proven track record.

Look at that Will Rowdy design. It's so hard to be a coach. Every year they get excited about some play caller. Incredible Jameer Gibbs Will Rowdy. If I was an offensive coordinator, I would just design the weirdest plays possible.

I don't even know we'd be any good. Wow, that Kevin Wilde, look at that. He was out there with seven guys. It's an old flag football play. How do you defend it? Oh, and then you have to draw one crazy one. And then the oldest play you could find. Like, oh, this one was, he found this one

in the Library of Congress under leather helmets. He found this plane. Oh, Andy Reid dug this one up from 100 years ago. Steelers beat them 16-10 a month ago. Pickett was playing, but 22 first downs to 10. 421 yards to 222.

Had the ball for 37 minutes. They also have not lost four in a row since 2013. I like that. And they're getting points. They are plus two and a half in this game at home. Like it.

Yeah. If the Bengals win, Jake Browning is a guy. Jake Browning shouldn't be on the Bengals next year. Jake Browning should make some phone calls. Can I say something that try not to have a stroke?

Here we go. He reminds me a little of 01 Brady. Okay. Not Tom Brady. The totality of Tom Brady, but 01 Brady. but 01 Brady. When 01 Brady came in and they're like, well, who's this guy?

Oh, he does a lot of stuff well. Oh, he's pretty accurate. Man, he doesn't really make mistakes. Ah, teammates really like him. And he just kind of kept game managing and being accurate and just making chicken salad out of chicken shit for four months. And then they won the Super Bowl. And then it's like, but we already have

a number one franchise quarterback. He was the number one pick. What do we do with Joe Burrow? We just paid him the most amount of money in the league.

What should we do? I'm not saying he's going to be Tom Brady, but the things I like about him, he's accurate. He's good at the sleight of hand, the play action stuff. He just runs a good

game, and his teammates like him. I think he's solid, but no chase is concerning. Good for Purdy. When someone's like, you know what? He reminds me a little bit of Brock Purdy, as a compliment. Purdy is not yet to be compared to. That's Purdy's next step of stardom.

He's a little Brock Purdy-ish. That's after he wins like three Super Bowls. Next one I really like. I love the Browns in Houston this week. The line has moved up, but it's Browns minus two and a half right now. Doesn't look like they're going to have CJ Stroud. Their receivers are banged up.

Tankdale's out for the year. Nico Collins is hurt, probably not playing, so they're basically down one receiver there. They're just banged up all over the place. Guys are playing hurt, potentially Will Anderson, Laramie Tunsell, Blake Cashman. In general, I don't think they're that good.

Do you believe in Joe Flacco? I do. He's a little banged up, but I do think, I just think their defense will win this by itself. We've seen the Texans against the wrong defenses really struggle to move the ball. And CJ was pulling some shit out because he's him. But he's not going to be in this game.

It's going to be Case Keenum. And I do not like that matchup for the Texans. I buy that 100%. Okay. Next one I really like, Colts-Falcons. Colts plus two and a half in Atlanta. The Falcons did something that I can't remember really happening that often other than in the 80s when it happened way more often,

where they had the starting quarterback. They benched the guy for the backup. Then after three games, they brought the starter back, but benched the guy for the backup. Then after three games, they brought the starter back, but now they have benched him again. We've had three benchings this year with the quarterback. Now they're like, you know what? We took a longer look at Taylor Heineke

and maybe he is pretty good. Like, I don't know if you could do that after you've already benched the guy. I thought he was good. I thought he was good with Washington. I remember the Washington players were like, no, he's a guy. He's our quarterback. And then all of a sudden

he just wasn't good. So you like the Falcons in this game? No, I like the Colts. The Falcons, 28th in DVOA. They just have a stink to them now and it feels like this is going to be it for Arthur Smith.

The owner didn't really back him. Their skilled players have been pretty disappointing considering they have three top ten picks at all the important positions. I don't think they have it. That was one I was looking at. Bucks minus two and a half over the Jags,

probably without Trevor Lawrence was the other one. Yeah, fake show. It's time to start believing in Baker again. It's like the revenge of like the okay quarterback that you once wanted to believe in are all playing well. Or maybe he was good and got hurt. That's true. He played through injury.

Played hurt. He shouldn't got hurt. That's true. He played through injury. Played hurt. He shouldn't have played. Lost his confidence. Yeah, and the team kind of didn't seem like they totally believed in him for whatever reason, but all the fans loved him. I don't know. It's a believable comeback to me.

He had the pedigree. He's the first pick in the draft. Yeah. So... I'm rude. In this game the it's more of a bet

against the Jags I just don't like what I see with them and their wide receiver crew has been decimated they don't really seem like they seem like you can push them around

they shoot themselves in the foot at the worst possible times they're 6-6 on American soil and I actually and I like this in the foot at the worst possible times. They're 6-6 on American soil. And I actually... And I like this Tampa team. So,

that was what I was looking at. The last six weeks total yards, the defense, Lamar 268, Flacco 310, Browning 376, CJ did 351, Will Levish 162 touchdowns, and Purdy 296, 310, Browning, 376. CJ did 351. Will Levis, 162 touchdowns. And Purdy, 296, three touchdowns.

They've got two interceptions on 185 pass attempts from our researcher, Josh. That defense is no good. And so it's going to be another great day for the Bates show. They'll light them up. People are like, wow, Baker's back. Franchise quarterback. This could be like the end of the, hey, does Tampa need to look for a quarterback? No, you got

Baker. You were just trying to clear cap space this year. Baker brought you to the playoffs. You're going to have a home playoff game. Baker's your guy. You stumbled into a number one pick. He likes it. People like him. Works. I follow a couple of injury,

NFL injury Twitter accounts to try to figure out what's going on, have some stuff bookmarked. A lot of buzz about the Bucs being the healthiest they've been all year. Really? Yeah. Like finally like

feeling like they're a little bit healthy again. And plus Godwin got going again, which I was. So I like the Bucs. There's two more and then we'll go. Yeah. They're related to each other. If the Pats can get the number one pick, this is the week for the Panthers.

They're home against Green Bay. They're 4.5-point underdogs. Green Bay is the 29th defense in DVOA. They're pretty banged up on that end. They're receivers. Watson's not going to play again, it does look like. Jaden Reed, who was doing some really good stuff for him and was a fantasy pickup mid-season. He has a bad foot. It looks like he's out. So now, now we've moved into the Romeo Dobbs and a bunch of guys you've never heard of receiver piece of it. And then the defense to Joe Barry, like the fucking tailspin he's in. And then Carolina, like, could they just run the ball and play an ugly game and play? And Bryce Young makes two plays.

Like, could they be in this in the fourth quarter? I'm feeling like maybe. Is this your head or your heart right now? Well, that's what, that's why I'm talking it through because there's a Panthers money line, Broncos money line bet.

The Panthers game is before the Pats game. So the Pats could go into their game and know that the Panthers have just won. And that's when Kraft, I think, he goes down into the locker room. He's like, yo. Put Mac Jones in. Can you platoon Mac Jones and Zappy

every play? Mac, air that thing out. Mac, get ready. I love Mac Jones, but gosh darn it. Mac, we're in mile high. Throw that thing. This is in play, though.

Panthers possibly winning, and then the Pats just having to take care of business and not beat the Broncos. But I'm scared of this Broncos game. I think they could beat the Broncos. I do, too. I do, too. But I also thought, like, I'm, like beat the Broncos. but there was just a lack of energy in the stadium. Yeah.

Which was just, I mean, it's not, I don't know why I was like surprised concerning the pre, this is how silly I am. The last two games I went to was where Brady's game back. So, uh, bucks Patriots and then my home's Patriots.

And I was telling my kids, I was like, you know, a lot less energy this game. I'll be honest with you guys. And I was telling my kids, I was like, you know, a lot less energy this game. I'll be honest with you guys. But it just felt like a team that had kind of, I don't know. It just

didn't feel, we just didn't feel, we felt like who we are, to be honest with you. Parcells, Parcellsian. We felt like a team that's won three games. So I could see it. And Broncos are fighting to survive, so I assume we're going to lose. And I figure there's some Bronco fans there. Bad history with the Pats against the Broncos.

The non-Brady history against the Broncos is not great. I remember going to a game with my buddy Jeff in the mid-90s. Broncos at Pats. and we sat down, and on the first drive, the guy sitting directly behind us did one of those animal house pukes where he just puked so much that it started to drip down

to where our feet were by the second quarter. And I don't think I've ever been more bummed out. The Pats got murdered. We had puke, just that dried puke water on our feet. And it was like, when I think about the Pats pre Brady, it's the moments like that.

Just, just sitting in someone else's puke, watching your team lose by 30. That's not great. I would have changed seats at least. Like, you know what? We couldn't,

it was a sellout. I think we ended up watching a lot of the game from the concourse because we were like, or we could go back to the puke. I got to call the usher on that one. I could see the Broncos winning. I'm still waiting for some

Belichick magic against Sean Payton, but you know what the sad part when Andy Reid mercifully didn't score in the final drive. He's like, ah, Belichick. Oh, see, I disagree. I think that was

a little passive-aggressive move. Oh! Yeah, that was... Oh, man. I feel so bad for you. I'm going to give you the ball back, but it was really a fuck you. I take it personally.

You are 100% right and I didn't see that. I thought it was like a nice gesture and I felt bad, but it was actually a ticket to you. You're right. I used to play, in high school, we used to play Monopoly and our friend Scott Carino, he would get this big lead. He would start laughing and he would offer people $100 to roll the dice for them because he was about to win. And he'd be like, oh my god, I gotta take it. It's $100. But it was passive-aggressive and it was mean. And I think that's what

Andy Reid was doing with that. He was offering us $100 to roll the dice. That is so insulting. You better not have. No. I didn't. I would get mad. I'd be like, fuck you. We're playing again. We're playing. God darn it. I think Pat's Broncos is a complete stay away because it all depends on what happens in that Panthers-Packers game.

Plus, who knows? They could actually beat the Broncos. So I'm staying away from both, but I wanted to talk out whether there's parlay potential. All right. So if you had to put Bills plus Bills first half Buffalo game minus 290 with any bet on the board as a parlay, who would you do? Who's your favorite bet? Is it the Bucks? No.

No. Cleveland. Cleveland. Okay. What's the Cleveland line? Cleveland's minus 2.5. Yeah, that's easy. That's easy. Yeah. That's, that's easy.

Flacco. No CJ. Yeah. That defense is wild. That defense is fantastic. And everyone knows it's fantastic, but it's like historically great. Yeah.

It's still underrated. And you agree. Dolphins, Cowboys is stay away. Yeah, that could go in. That could go anyway. That could Yeah, that could go anyway. That could go.

Who knows? I could see Mike McDaniel finding some wrinkle in there, just like Sean McDermott did. Like, oh, guess what? We're going to run up the score now. Or it could go the other way. You have four minutes to do one half-baked idea before we go. Okay.

Your best one. Shoot. Or do you just want 10 little ones? You do what you want. Rapid fire. Four minutes. Rapid fire. Here we go.

You tell me, stop. Gingerbread, 365. I like gingerbread. I feel like it's underrated. Maybe I'd have a chance if you would just give it a chance. Not a full half-baked idea. Aluminum foil wrapping paper. My dad used to wrap things in aluminum foil. My mom used to make fun of them and all our presents had a certain metallic look until you try it once. You're like, wow, it just kind of clings to whatever shape it takes. It's very easy and recyclable. Everyone should do it. You shouldn't be made

fun of for doing it. Wait, hold that one. Okay. That's a really interesting. So you're saying you throw away the aesthetics of, oh, look, my holiday season wrapping paper under the tree. You just buy a giant thing of aluminum foil at Target and you just wrap it and throw it under there, put maybe a couple bows. Are you putting bows on there or not even bows? But yeah, you could. Oddly, my dad was great at making bows,

very strange quality for a contractor, but he could just like make a great bow. So he would have aluminum, aluminum foil, any shape present. You would get like, unless you're getting a book or a pair of shoes, you start, these presents start to get kind of tricky to wrap. Boom,

grabs yourself some aluminum foil. What do you got there? A strange looking vase in the shape of a bird. Bang, done. Aluminum foil and fast. It's eco-friendly. So maybe the aluminum foil Reynolds wrap can have like, throw some Christmas trees on there. You got silver, just draw, you know, put some red and green on there. We'll be good. A little foil wrapping paper. I like it. Uh,

that's a strong one, but at Christmas movies. Oh, this was just a offshoot of diehard. The whole argument, which I'm not going to have that equalizer for at Christmas, just saying, and just put it out there.

Antoine Fuqua and Denzel, Equalizer 4, Christmas. And then they're like, hey, do you think Equalizer 4 is a Christmas movie? Like, yes, I do. That's why he was in the North Pole where there's some bad guys. Hold on. Can I workshop that one with you for a second? Yeah, go. Denzel, tail end of his run.

He's now a Santa in a mall. Love it. Love it. The poster is Denzel in a Santa outfit with two kids sitting on his lap, but he's also holding a machine gun. I mean, the poster needs work. I think that'd be, but I understand.

Well, no, it's like he's a Santa, but he's also going to have to go to work because terrorists are about to take over this mall. I don't know if we've had a terrorist mall movie yet. about to take over this mall. I don't know if we've had a terrorist mall movie yet. We've danced around it, but I don't know if we've had it. No, but Denzel's always going somewhere exotic.

I think it's like part of the deal for him to make the movie. Maybe it's a mall in Sweden. It's a mall in Sweden? Or Italy? He's got to go somewhere beautiful. He already did Italy. That's equalized to three somewhere beautiful he already did Italy that's equalizing three he went to Russia it has to be probably cold for Santa

Barcelona yeah that's nice alright keep going give me more cards probably getting too many of them right now so I got two ideas for your Christmas card I love the cards I'm probably getting too many of them right now. So I got two ideas for your Christmas card. I love the cards. I'm probably getting too many. So either we divide up by your birth year, you know, evens and odds, whatever you have to send, you know, half of your cards go to July.

So we get two, you get two bites of the card apple. And then the post office, this is the last time anyone's getting mail. Like we're not getting mail. Christmas cards. The only reason why we're, I'm sending, I sent you a card, you know, open up tactile happy holidays. The big barrier to entry is stamps, stamp free. Just give me a stamp reprieve for the, for Christmas cards or maybe July cards. Just anything you want to write, throw it in the mailbox. It'll get there. Just give me a stamp reprieve for the, for Christmas cards or maybe July cards.

Just anything you want to write, throw it in the mailbox. It'll get there. Try to get letter writing back. Part of, part of my life, little Tom Hanks on a typewriter type thing. I want to bring back letters,

opening letters. I'm kind of getting old, more tactile letter writing. Flip off that idea. Now, let me flip it a whiff. Did social media ruin holiday cards? Because most of the people I'm getting a holiday card from, I'm probably following on Instagram

or somewhere. So I've already, part of the holiday card thing is, I haven't seen Kevin Wild's family in a year. Oh, there they are. But I've seen your family because I follow you on Instagram. So it's less special.

So maybe it should just be either digital pictures or a special holiday Instagram account of all the people you're friends with that it just goes on some special, almost like Spotify wrapped, where it's like here, we now have your 2023 holiday friends

and you just get emails with that. There's something there. I like the idea of opening. Are you at all into July 4th cards? Can I tell you on that? I think it's a good idea to think about quarterly something where, yeah, you split people into the groups. Not bad.

It's not nothing. All right, last one. Now, there was a point where Frank Sinatra put on a tuxedo and was about to walk out on stage at the Sands and he looked in the mirror and said, I look great. In fact, I look so great, I should

wear a tuxedo most of the time if not every day. And that's what he looks like, Looks great all the time. Yeah. Just a random Wednesday, Frank Sinatra's in a, in a tuxedo. Took my dog for a walk, went through the neighborhood. Like there's no argument that the neighborhood looked better in two months. These lights look fantastic. Lights that we would just to decide as a nation, we are a nation of light.

It looks beautiful. There's no, you can't tell me that it doesn't look, maybe we'll get tired of it. We'll cross that bridge. When we get there, keep your lights up. Never take them down.

Not great for light pollution. I get it. We also need someone on that, but lights three 65. Trees. Indoor trees. I can't-sign no just Christmas trees year round no too many bristles

but lights you're in on even with the electricity you know what we gotta solve that put some engineers on that but it's just so beautiful I I think it's worth it. Those are half-baked ideas for the close of 2023. Kevin Wilds, happy holidays.

Great to see you as always. Thank you. Look forward to your card. We're supported by NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube and YouTube TV where it's easier than ever to follow the race to the playoffs. And right now, you can get the midseason price starting at $39 for the rest of the 23 season when bundled with the YouTube TV subscription. This is the most important stretch of the season. Traveling during the holiday is not fun. Kind of a drag. Dealing with long lines, flight delays, maybe some family gatherings you don't totally want to be in. You might be missing some of the most exciting matchups of the NFL season. Here's the great thing about YouTube TV. You get

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No cancellations. Million dollar picks, week 16, holiday edition. Love the holidays. Hopefully we'll have some nice million dollar picks come down your chimney. We lost some last week. It's fine. We're still way up. Lost chimney. We lost some last week. It's fine. We're still way up. Lost 1.036 million last week.

Still up 1.590 million for the year. Some bad luck last week. Had the Seahawks game pegged, but somehow didn't get the over. Had the Bears. They led all game. All of a sudden, it's a push. We're coming back this week. We mentioned some of these bets with Wilds, so we're going to rip through them right now.

First one, Buffalo wins the first half. Buffalo wins the game. That is a parlay that you can have when they play the Chargers this weekend. It is minus 290 on FanDuel, and we're going to parlay that with the Niners money line. The Niners minus five and a half scares me a little bit, but as we discussed with Wilds, anytime you talk about how nobody believes in you before the game, I'm out. You got to wait till after the game for that stuff, Ravens. I think the Niners, healthy, are the best team in the league. I think they're up here. Everybody else is here or lower.

Patriots are way down where my feet are. That parlay together, minus 104. We're going to put 300,000 on that. Buffalo first half, Buffalo game, Niners, money line, parlay. All minus 104. We're going to put 300,000 on that. Buffalo first half, Buffalo game, Niners, Moneyline, parlay, all of them have to win. Next one, Browns at Houston. Doesn't look like CJ Stroud's playing. Doesn't look like they have pretty much all of their good receivers except for Noah Brown, who basically was like a special teams guy for the Cowboys. The Browns defense wins this game on its own.

I like there's a scenario here where if Cleveland wins and Indianapolis wins and Buffalo wins, those could be our five, six, and seven seeds. And that's what I'm going to be betting on this week because I love the Browns, minus two and a half over the Texans.

They take care of business. How are the Browns going to have 10 wins with four quarterbacks? It's what an amazing season for them. Houston admirable. Great job. Great job. Just even getting to the chance to be over 500 for the year. You're not a playoff team. I'm sorry. Browns minus two and a half. We're putting 300 K in that. We're also putting 300 K on Baker Mayfield and the Bucs playing a Jags team where Trevor Lawrence

might play probably isn't going to play their receivers are banged up they still don't have their left tackle I think their defense

is soft I think they're a smoke and mirrors team the Bucs are the healthiest they've been all year and I believe in Baker Mayfield

I think they're going to win the NFC South you saw the Saints lost tonight to the Rams. I think the Bucs win this one. Bucs minus two and a half, putting $300,000 on that. I think they can move the ball up and down the field.

I'm in on Baker. Comeback part of the year? Maybe. Steelers plus two and a half against the Bengals. Wilds and I discussed this as well. This is a I can't help myself game. No Jamar Chase for the Bengals.

These two teams played like a month ago and the Steelers whooped them 16 to 10. And it was really one-sided and it's in my head where I just, I know Mason Rudolph's the quarterback. Go back to his 2019 game log. He has one bad game against the Browns.

Other than that, pretty confident. I like some of the quotes I read from him this week. Basically, his teammates were like, yeah, Mason comes every day, puts the time in. He's been waiting for another chance. I'm in. You have a chance with me, Mason Rudolph. Steelers plus two and a half. We're putting 300,000 on this. I don't think. Steelers, plus two and a half. We're putting $300,000 on this. I don't think the Steelers can lose four in a row. It hasn't happened since 2013. And this is a do or die kitchen sink game for them. This is it.

They lose this game, they're out, they're done. I think they come through at home. Last but not least, Colts, plus two and a half at Atlanta. Atlanta's changed quarterbacks for the third time. They just keep going back and forth like it's a yo-yo. Colts are really good on offense. The Shane Steichen-Minchu combo, if you went into the season thinking

that would be one of the better QB coach combos, you're lying. But they've been pretty good. They've been pretty successful. And Atlanta just looks like they're headed down the Arthur Smith is going to get fire train. Whatever railway that is, that's the railway they're on. Colts plus two and a half, we're putting 300,000 on that. And last but not least, I was going to take the Panthers money line because I actually think they can beat the Packers and they're like two to one underdogs to win at home.

The Packers are all banged up. The Panthers have nothing to play for and they don't have their first round pick. But I realized, is my heart telling me to do that? Because I want the Panthers to lose so the Patriots can potentially have the number one pick in the draft. I'm actually more worried about the Patriots

plus seven against Denver. And I think they could cover that. I'm staying away from that. I'm staying away from all Panthers Patriot stuff, but you know where my heart is. And you know what I asked Santa for this weekend is for a Panthers win and a Patriots loss and the Patriots to have the number one pick in the draft. I don't ask for much. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Enjoy the draft. I don't ask for much. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Enjoy the weekend. Sean Fennessey is here.

He's been on this podcast a few times. We have done the rewatchables many times together. You can hear him on the big picture as well. We've been working together.

I think this is, how many Christmases for us? Like our 12th Christmas? Something like that? I think it's 12. Yeah. Which is a lot, Bill. That's been a long time.

You sick of me yet? Well, you've hated your life as a Jets fan the entire time I've known you. Yep. Can you just weigh in quickly on this Aaron Rodgers, why did you pretend you were coming back story that became a story this week, even though I was flagging it six weeks ago? Yeah, sure. You've been right the whole time. I've had a full heel turn. I think he has destroyed the franchise even more. I thought it was ashes when he arrived, and now it's like embers of ashes.

We are so screwed. It's crazy. He brought all of these goon losers to this team, and they've just been absolutely pathetic. And I'm just miserable. Now, maybe it'll all turn around next year and they'll fix some things, but what a clown show. It's embarrassing. Do you think they actually thought he was coming back? I think that there were legitimately three games in the last six weeks that

they, one, should have won and were the better team in, and two, if they had won, it at least would have been an interesting conversation to say can you put this 40 year old guy behind one of the worst offensive lines in the league because you have a chance to actually make the playoffs after missing it for 12 consecutive seasons so it's not like it wouldn't have been impossible to me and i know that you think that it was mostly because he's such an egomaniac that he wanted to stay in the news and you know he was constantly

trying to propel his myth as a great longevity football player. But I think the team is so desperate and the fan base legitimately is so sad and hates this organization so much that they would have done anything they could to just have some positive news this year. But they lost games like that Falcons game where it's like,

how do you lose games to such inept teams and make no changes and let Nathaniel Hackett continue to call plays when he's clearly the worst play caller in the NFL? There's just stuff that is so obviously wrong with the team at a fundamental level that it ultimately didn't matter and we didn't even have to see Rodgers make that decision.

I think it's... So the only case I've heard for that any of this might've been even somewhat legitimate is if whatever this new version of the Achilles surgery he got, when people were saying this is, maybe this is like the Tommy John surgery when the, when you could replace your elbow and come back and throw a hundred miles an hour again. And they were like, maybe, maybe this is a revolutionary. And now we've cut the time for Achilles. Because there was a time in our lives when the ACL

injury was like 18 months. Then all of a sudden it was like Peterson came, Adrian Peterson came back that year. It was like 10 months. It was like, whoa, that was fast. He's back. Wow. But four months seems insane for really any type of injury like that. I just don't,

I'd be surprised if he was 100% at minicamp at the eight-month mark. I completely agree with you. I don't really understand it. I think the conspiracy theory that's been floated is that it was a partial tear and not a full tear. And I don't really even know what the difference is between a partial tear and a full tear.

I'm not a doctor. But that if it is a partial tear, then its ability to heal would be different and he would be able to get back more quickly I also think that there was like Bob Fosse level choreography of showing us what he was able to do now so like when he did something

cool they would show it to us but they never showed him looking a little gimpy out there you know like it seemed like the entire league and the networks were conspiring to make us think that he is Superman but honestly it doesn't matter now. We'll never see it. And you might have been right that we were never going to see it. It's hard to say.

Putting him behind a bad offensive line when he wasn't 100%, they're like, well, he's not 100% yet. Well, I can't think of a worse position to play if you're not 100% where you have to cut and pivot and duck out of the way. It's just nuts.

I was talking to Wilds about this. I'm in this position where we're going to have a top three pick. A position you were in twice in the span of three years. And both times you grabbed the guy and then it turned out he wasn't the right guy with the second pick in the draft. Why do we spend so much time even thinking these guys are going to be the saviors when it's like a 35% chance. You've had Sanchez, Zach Wilson, and Sam

Darnold and went 0-3. I mean, for the Jets, it's a little different than the Patriots, right? The Jets are just a miserable team that effectively have one truly great quarterback in their entire history. And that was 50 years ago.

So because of that, there's just this desperate march to get one. I listen to every draft podcast that we make at The Ringer. I follow this so closely and I care about it so much. And frankly, the Jets

are almost always picking in the top 10 that it's of interest to me. But the QB thing is like a... It's still a complete crapshoot. The CJ Stroud thing this year. It's so crazy that he is so clearly one of the 10 best quarterbacks, maybe 15 best quarterbacks in the NFL in his rookie season.

And Bryce Young looks like he may not make it to a second contract. Like, it's just a very strange thing that I certainly can't wrap my head around for you. It's, I mean, this is the first time in how long, even the Mac Jones,

but that was like 15. It wasn't the same thing as when you're looking to spend capital. I'll tell you one thing to keep your eyes out for though. Because if you guys get it wrong, if you take a QB and get it wrong, think about this. Next year, for the Jets to not employ Zach Wilson, they have to take a huge

cap hit to cut him for his fourth season. If you screw it up, it's like a $15 million charge just to not play a guy in his fourth season when you realize he's not the guy. So the stakes are pretty high on the pick. Yeah, I must feel like if Belichick stays, he would trade

back if he wasn't 100% sure on the QB because he would look at it in his weird Belichick brain and be like, oh, I can turn it into two firsts and a second and less money. One thing that is a lot... Wait, who do you want? Who do you...

Like at this exact moment, you want Caleb, you want... So I haven't done all the research yet. I just want the highest possible pick with the most options. Okay, okay.

Like if we get the first pick, then who knows? Somebody... Every year, there's some crazy team that's like, here are all of our picks and take this too. And you know, like that bears trade last year,

which was, which was nuts in retrospect, retrospect with the, with the Panthers. They just moved up and gave them all the shit. And then they're here, take DJ more too. And they didn't even know who they were going to take.

And do they, didn't they do the same thing to take Trubisky too? Didn't the Bears trade up to get to Trubisky and gave up a ton of capital? Yeah, I think that one they only moved up a spot.

But yeah, they still gave up real assets. Movies are a lot safer to talk about because at least we have established directors. And, you know, this year we had a lot of pedigree. This is a pedigree year. It was.

I also know a lot more about... All of our big directorsree year. It was. I also know a lot more about... All of our big directors were working. Yeah. Well, I know a lot more about movies than football too. So it's better to talk to me about this. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that that was like some runoff

from the pandemic, right? Like a lot of these great older masters, these guys who are in their 70s and 80s got the chance to take some time on their projects. So like Martin Scorsese and Ridley Scott and Michael Mann and all these great filmmakers all put movies out this year. I don't think really any of them were like the absolute best movie that they ever made. But a lot of them were really, really good.

Like if I'm doing anything that if I'm podcasting that well at 80, then I'm going to feel fucking proud. That would be pretty amazing if you still had a podcast at age 80. If I do, I screwed up. I screwed up my life, honestly. I'm thrice divorced. I've got six mortgages. I've got nine kids. What is a podcast 40 years from now? It's probably you in a virtual hologram sitting next to somebody doing AI director's commentary of the movie. I'm going to have CR's corpse lined up next to me. You know,

we're going to have to revivify his corpse. I don't know. I better not be podcasting at 80, that's for sure. But yeah, it was a good year

for older people and it was a good year for filmmakers in their prime too. It was a really, really good movie year. So I asked you to come up with a gimmick.

What's the gimmick? I have a few for you, okay? One is, here's five movies you need to see over the holiday season. Because there's a ton of new releases and it's a little confusing. And I want to preface that by saying that

in the last few years, what you might have said is, here are the five movies you should stream with your family at home. But something has changed, thank God, which is that the studios don't stream their movies first anymore for the most part. They realized that putting movies in movie theaters, even if they don't make a ton of money in the theaters, creates a level of awareness that then helps it have this longer

term life that makes a longer tail for revenue, longer tail for discovery. So when you eventually see the movie on Max or Netflix or wherever you end up finding it, maybe you rent it from Apple or Amazon, that having that marketing spend to get the movie in movie theaters makes it feel more substantial, makes it more desirable. The movies that chart on Apple as the most

popular movies of any given time are almost always entirely movies that opened in theaters first. You think it's like a credibility thing almost? Like, oh, that movie was good enough to come out in a theater? Exactly. And who knows how long that'll last, but it is happening right now. There have been five big movies that have been released

basically directly to streaming in the month of December. Those movies are May, December, Leave the World Behind, Maestro, The Chicken Run sequel, and Rebel Moon Part One, which is the new Zack Snyder movies. You know what all five of those movies have in common? What? They're all Netflix movies. Netflix is the only place that is like we're still doing streaming.

This is that is the primacy of our business. Everybody else kind of realized it's better to go see movies in theaters or at least better for the business of movies to put them in theaters. So that's exciting. And there's some really good ones out right now. First one is like is really obvious. it's like the most it's the most Bill Sean

movie maybe ever and that that's the iron claw like it is it is in the dead center of our interests as movie fans because it's a it's a period piece sports movie made by a visionary auteur for a 24 like it

is so great. Obviously, it's also very much a David Shoemaker movie, being a man from Texas, but it's about the Von Erich. Yeah, come on. He doesn't count. He's literally the audience for this. It's weirdly sucked from his brain. They put his brain on screen.

But yeah, it's about the Von Erich family, who fans of wrestling will know is one of the most tragic family stories in pro wrestling history. It's written and directed by this guy, Sean Durkin, who made Martha Marcy May Marlene, the cult thriller from the early 2010s. And I grew up on the East Coast like you, and I'm a little bit younger, so I didn't know very much about the Von Eriks aside from what I had read really in David's book. And Kerry Von Erik was familiar to some WWF fans, but he had, I want to say five brothers and many of them died tragically.

And the story is almost too, too sad and absurd to be believed. And the movie is like genuinely, genuinely moving. It is, it is, it is the most sincere quality American sports movie in a decade, two decades. It's a really, really good film.

So I'm going to say at the very top of this podcast, I'm seeing this movie after we've talked about it because we're talking early afternoon. And I'm going to put my thoughts at the very top briefly. I don't want to spoil it for people. I have a history with the Von Eriks because when I used to go, when I was in high school, when I would go back to visit my dad, because I was going to high school in Connecticut, but I'd go back like every other weekend and see my dad.

And I think it was like one of the cable channels, like Nessun used to show the Texas wrestling. So that was where I kind of, and it was like, Oh wait, there's other wrestling. Like it's not just WWE. So I kind of knew what was going on and they had this there's other wrestling. Like it's not just WWE. So I kind of

knew what was going on. And they had this feud against the free birds. That was amazing. I I'm sure it's covered in the movie. Um, but it was like the first time I'd ever seen any sort of wrestling thing where they pulled off like the gang against gang wrestling feud thing, which now has been ripped off for the last 40 years. And then those guys all just started dying. So that was, that was my history. But Kerry had this sad moment when he came back to WWE. He was like missing his foot. Anyway,

I can't believe they pulled it off because when I saw they were making it, I was like, ah, that'll be terrible. That'll be like a TV movie. And then you see it's 824. They get a real director. But then Zac Efron's the revelation, right? Just an amazing performance by him.

I mean, he's never really done anything like this. He plays Kevin Von Erich, the surviving member of the family. And yeah, I mean, on the one hand, his whole body is like a special effect. The way that the shape he has gotten himself into is almost bizarre. He looks like a giant sculpture. But he gives a really quiet, beautiful performance. And it's like,

it's also littered with like all the right guys. You know, it's Harris Dickinson who was in Triangle of Sadness last year. It's Jeremy Allen White from The Bear is playing Carrie. It's Holt McCallany from Mindhunter and Fight Club.

And he plays Fritz von Erich, the father from the family. I love that guy. He's awesome in the movie and Fritz is a fascinating character unto himself. It's really one of my favorite movies of the year and like I said... So you're going best sports movies since

Moneyball? Gosh, I hadn't thought about what the context is but it's up there. Yeah, I don't think it's... I don't like it as much as Moneyball, which is an all-time movie for me, but it's... For these times, for these sad times with sports movies, it's really, really good. And also,

there's a world in which even if you're not a sports fan, and even if you think pro wrestling is ridiculous, it's very easy to get connected to the movie because it's a family drama. You know, it's just a movie about brothers and their dad and their mom. So that's very, very good. So you tweeted that you don't understand

why it's getting more Oscar buzz. Yeah, I think that pro wrestling is held against it in many ways by the Academy. The Academy is a little snobbish and that pro wrestling is very snobbish. And pro wrestling is down market as much as you and I really like it and appreciate it. The movie does a good job, though,

of explaining how pro wrestling works without being like boring or pedantic. It does a really nice job of kind of clarifying like what does it mean to be why it's not quote unquote fake. You know there's more to it than that. So I think that that could be helpful. I just hope more people watch it. It's coming out late in the year. I think that's part of it. You know

it's also coming out coming out from a studio that has two other really big Oscar movies in A24. They got Zone of Interest and Past Lives, and they're pushing those movies. Who knows? Maybe if people love it and a lot of people go see it over the weekend, then it'll get more buzz. All right. What's your second one?

You've already seen American Fiction, but I feel like people should check this out. This is Cord Jefferson's new movie. I know you talked to him at length on your show. Just a really smart, kind of like the flip side of the coin of The Iron Claw, like a really good family drama that also shows this world of publishing and entertainment for black creative people that frankly we don't get to see that much or don't understand

as well as we should. These two movies are interestingly paired. I thought it was really funny and features a pretty amazing Jeffrey Wright performance and has like, of you mentioned Keith Davids in it when you talk to cord like Sterling K Brown

Tracy Ellis Ross like kind of everyone who crops up in the movie like oh I like that person like every time they show up and so I thought it was really good I thought it was really really impressive for a first time filmmaker to like cord and never directed anything and this is the first thing he did so I thought that was really promising.

Number three is a big one. It's Ferrari. It's your boy, Michael Mann. Comes out on Christmas Day. I'm nervous. I heard the special effects weren't that great. Yeah, I mean,

are they as good as you want them to be? No, but I'm not really sure that it matters. That's not really what the movie's about. Like, there's two big FX sequences that, like, could be a little bit better. But if that's the pre-re two big fx sequences that like could be a little bit better but if that's the pre-release hype i think that's doing it a disservice because it's a classic michael mann movie it's about a guy who's obsessed with his own success and anybody

who gets in his way he needs to push aside yeah woman is talking to him he wants her to shut up so that he can keep succeeding and ignoring his family and going forward to win. It's Neil from Heat. It's Daniel Day-Lewis in The Last of the Mohicans. It is the obsessive man's guide to car racing in the 1950s in Italy. And Adam Driver, who you've been a little dubious of, I want to say, I think he's phenomenal. I don't think that's fair. Okay. But you said he's not our great American male movie star, right? I'd said he wasn't there for me yet,

but I didn't cross it off. Okay. Okay. So you think he's the best American movie star right now? Male? Gosling made a big comeback with Barbie this year. Like if Gosling really wanted it, if he was like, I am Robert Redford now,

I think he could do it. That's interesting. If he just went through the Redford IMDb and he's like, all right, this year I'm making my three days of Condor.

Yeah. I'm doing a spy movie this year. I'm doing a rom-com this year. If he just like, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, he would be the guy. I mean, Bradley Cooper, he's doing his thing too.

I'm not necessarily recommending Maestro in this segment, but it's an interesting movie that I kind of liked. Ferrari, though, I think you'll dig it. Whether or not you buy 37-year-old Adam Driver as a 57-year-old Italian man, your mileage may vary.

Sorry for the pun. That part worries me, but as you know, I support all Michael Mann movies and we've even done Black Hat and The Rewatchables, much to your chagrin. Yeah, that movie's not good.

I think it's his best movie since Collateral, Ferrari. Okay. Yeah. All right, what's number four? I'm very, very excited to report back to you about the film anyone but you the new romantic comedy starring sydney sweeney and glenn powell it's good well

i didn't say that um it's a movie that i think you should go see of course i'm gonna go see it i gotta support the queen okay here's what i didn't know about the movie. It's kind of like an unofficial spiritual sequel to My Best Friend's Wedding. It's very inspired by My Best Friend's Wedding. It takes place in Australia, which I did not know when I sat down to watch it. It features a reunion between Dermot Mulroney and Rachel Griffiths,

who play Sidney Sweeney's parents in the movie. Oh, so they do the homage, but they also kind of acknowledge it with some of the cast. Yes, exactly. It's a clear homage to that tone of movie. You know, two young sexy leads who in the story hate each other but are meant for each other

and you know, they find a way to meet cute and then they get separated and then they have to come back together again by way of a scheme. It's inspired by Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing like so many of those 90s movies. Glenn Powell is just like a locked and loaded A movie star in my mind. He is as

good as we've gotten in the under 40 category for this kind of a movie. Sidney Sweeney I don't think is great at saying words. And I think that there's some challenges in her performance at times. This isn't exactly her tone. I thought she was pretty good in that movie

Reality that came out earlier this year, which was a straight drama about reality winter. She produced this movie, Anyone But You. She looks beautiful. She's a very magnetic on-screen presence. You can't take your eyes off her whenever she's there. That doesn't necessarily

mean she's giving a great performance, but that kind of doesn't matter. Like that's, that's true of how many people in the last hundred years in movies where you're like, ah, maybe you're not the best actor, but I want to spend time with you.

I want to see you interacting with other good actors. Um, and I thought it was pretty solid. It's Will Gluck who did easy a, um, and friends with benefits. And so like, he's,

he knows how to make a movie like this. So I thought it was, um, definitely not bad. Kind so like he's, he knows how to make a movie like this. So I thought it was definitely not bad. Kind of like a B minus B. But honestly, if you're looking for something fun to go see with really hot people taking their clothes off nonstop

on the beaches of Australia. So it's like an R-rated rom-com? It is. It is R-rated. Oh. My wife is excited about it because she likes Glenn Powell. So I always feel like

Glenn Powell, obviously when we talk about the COVID era, there's a slew of terrible things you have to mention before you get to Glenn Powell. What place would you say he's in? He's low on the list. There's a lot you have to go through. There's a lot of machinations. Well, we lost so much. We lost so much and then way, way down the road, you get to go through. There's a lot of machinations. But eventually, we lost so much and then way, way down the road you get to Glenn Powell. But Top Gun getting delayed, I thought really hurt him

and Miles Taylor because if you're just putting together your career like it's a chessboard, those were supposed to be the breakout movies for those two guys. And then it ended up happening,

what, two and a half years after it was supposed to come out? Yeah. I think they shot it in 2019. Yeah. I just think both of those guys got really screwed by that. You know, I don't even, it's like an NBA player. Like if Giannis was about to have his breakout year or something,

and then it just couldn't happen for three more years. And then not that Miles and Glenn Powell are Giannis, but you know what I mean? It really kind of delayed something. We have seen this in the NBA, right? This is exactly what happened to Blake Griffin and Chet Holmgren. They basically got hurt in their rookie seasons, right? And then

they came back in their new rookie season and they were great. So to me, I don't think anyone but you is necessarily Glenn Powell's version of Blake Griffin's rookie season and they were great. So like, to me, I don't think anyone but you is like, is necessarily Glenn Powell's version of Blake Griffin's rookie season, but he's one of the most, I'm glad we workshopped the take together, but Glenn Powell,

somebody that we've, we've been with and been writing for since the early days of the ringer, because he's in everybody wants some, which will be on the rewatchables at some point, but he's great in that movie. And we just were always like, all right, what's next for it? He was a what's next for that guy for years.

And when we saw the Top Gun with him and Miles, we were like, oh, this is great. This is perfect for these two. This will blow them up. And it did blow them up. It just took an extra two years.

Well, he's also the star of Set It Up, which is the only movie that's ever been made that is loosely based on Grantland slash The Ringer. With that in mind, we're team Glenn Powell for life. Alright, what's number five? Godzilla minus one. Have you heard

anything about this movie? Just from you. It's a new Japanese produced Godzilla movie. There have been a bunch of Godzilla movies in the last eight or nine years in the US made by Warner Brothers and Legendary. This is Toho, the original home of Japan and it's a pure

post-World War II movie that happens to feature Godzilla in it. It's like a sincere drama and also a movie where like a giant monster lizard dinosaur steps on people. And it is like weirdly emotionally affecting and also rocks and features, you know, said dragon monster like firing rays out of his mouth. It was also apparently only made for like $15 million, which really puts to shame a lot of the US blockbusters that came out this year many of which were bad and forced me to have nervous breakdowns on the big picture so

I think if you're looking for a cool blockbuster this is the one to go see interesting well it definitely feels like something shifted from the beginning of 23 to the end of 23 with some things kind of ran its course and now if we have a Paramount Warner Brothers

merger by the way has a merger ever Things kind of ran its course. And now if we have a Paramount Warner Brothers merger... By the way, has a merger ever worked in entertainment? Really, can you point me to the one where they're like, man, thank God those two merged. It's been so much more amazing. It always seems like... Well... Then it leads to a shitload of layoffs

and a whole bunch of different terrible things and worse content. I agree. I think it depends on how you look at it. Like Disney acquiring ESPN, that was pretty good. That was more of an acquisition than a merger. Yeah, that's fair. Would Warner Discovery

like are they acquiring Paramount? Like who's bigger in this equation I guess is the question. Who's like leveling up on top of who would determine it? But yeah, there's always bad outcomes to acquisitions. or to mergers rather. It could be, it could be really bad.

I hope it's not. I hope it's good. But, um, I don't know. I, I have one, I have a trivia question for you that I think you might appreciate.

Um, so this year was the, the first year that all three movies at the top of the worldwide box office were neither sequels nor remakes. So bar, Barbie, the super Mario brothers movie and Oppenheimer. Do you remember when the last

time that happened was? Can you guess what year it was last time that happened? I would say it was not a 21st century year. It was, but just barely. So it was 2001. And that year, the top three movies at the box office were Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the first

Lord of the Rings movie, and Monsters, Inc. Now, of course, all three of those movies spawned sequels and even franchises in some respects, but this is what I really wanted to ask you. Well, when those three movies came out, it kind of changed Hollywood forever. The next year, Spider-Man came out and it was like we were off. Franchises

defined movies for the next 20 years. Can you guess the last time the top three films at the box office failed to spawn a sequel, remake, or wider franchise of any kind? Ooh. I'll give you a hint. We covered one of these movies on the rewatchables this year. Oh.

So it's probably the 90s? Nope. Earlier. Oh, it's the 80s? Yeah. Oh, shit's the 80s? Yeah. Oh, shit. What was it? 1982.

The top three movies that year were E.T., Tootsie, and An Officer and a Gentleman. Wow. So this used to be 1988. Until 2021, it was 1988. That's when Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Rain Man, and Coming to America came out. But in 2021, Coming to America got a sequel. We don't acknowledge the sequel, though. I know, I know.

It's been 40 years since a movie, three movies came out that topped the box offices that didn't have a franchise after effect. It's a scary thing with movies in their future. We've covered all the reasons for it. A lot of it's drifting towards scripted and a lot of ideas that would have

been really cool. Um, movies just end up being seven episodes. Something's that's something I like about the iron claw is like five years ago. This might've been a show and I'm glad it's not a show. I'm glad it's a movie. I feel that way about the offer that,

that paramount show. I think that could have been a really. I'm glad it's a movie. I feel that way about the offer that Paramount show. I think that could have been a really good two-hour movie. I agree. Yeah, I think ultimately this movie year will be considered to be a huge win. We got people going back to theaters. We had big directors. We had some organic giant hits

and the Oscars are going to be really fun again. Yeah. This is the first year in a long time that there are roughly like 15 or 16 movies competing for Best Picture and I'm a pretty big fan of like 13 or 14 of them. Wow. You know, there's not a movie where I'm like,

oh, this movie stinks, which is pretty exciting. Now, who knows? We could look up in a month when the Oscar nominations come out and I could look like an asshole because something terrible has been nominated. But even stuff

on the fringes you know like air or past lives those are really good movies you know that I really liked so it's been a really good one 2024 I'm a little nervous about I feel like they overloaded us this year a little bit

when does the sequence happen where it's clear that Oppenheimer is the heavy favorite for best film and then that turns into, of course the men want to vote for Oppenheimer and we have that whole fight. Because I want to stay as far away from it as possible. I don't think it will be a Barbie versus Oppenheimer thing.

I think it will ultimately be like, should we vote for the holdovers because it makes us feel better kind of movie. Which we've seen those kinds of races before where there's one movie that is this big, portentous, important film that tells us something about the nature of our character

and the embittered future of America. And then there's a movie, they're like, that movie was nice. And I liked it. Remember when you predicted CODA to win Best Picture and it did win? Because They were like, that movie was nice. And I liked it. Remember when you predicted Coda to win Best Picture and it did win? Because people were like, I just want to feel nice. Really like that Joni Mitchell song. Here's the Oscar. Yeah. Like that could happen.

That could definitely happen. And I like the holdover. So I'm not like rooting against that in any way. It's just, we've got three months here for things to evolve. I have some really disappointing movie takes for you, but I'm not going to give them to you yet. Okay. I have some really disappointing movie takes for you, but I'm not going to give them to you yet. Okay.

I'll save that for another segment. We don't need it now. Maybe that would be a great segment for when I'm 80 doing my show, you know? The 40 years later Oscars. Yeah, I have some zags. I do worry about the group think that we had in 2023 with a lot of these movies what is that i don't get you come on you're holding back don't hold back

i'm holding back i'm saving it because i really want to i think feel like this is a whole other podcast but okay i just think there's more group think than ever with movies now. And I think part of it is because the movie criticism has really gone sideways and we just don't have enough movie critics who are like, fuck it. This is what I think. And Wesley's probably the last one who's really like, fuck it. I don't care. This is what I thought. And it's just like, we'll go 100% all in and not couch anything. Yeah.

I think there were some good zags available this year that I just didn't see. I think what happens for me is, I just obviously care about the art form and the industry so much that I am kind of actively rooting for things to be good. I try to not... Like me and basketball. Yeah. Yeah. I try to not let that cloud my taste

and what I'm interested in. But it's not fun, especially when I go see like 150 movies a year in the theaters, like an insane number of movies. And then I stream another 150 more at home.

Like, I don't want to be wasting my time. I don't want to be like sitting there with something I don't like. I don't revel in... Like, I don't write... So I don't write pans of movies.

Sometimes it can be fun to write a pan. Wesley wrote an incredible pan of Saltburn a month ago, one of the great reviews of the year. But like... Saltburn was terrible. But is it fun on a pod once a week to get on and be like, you know who sucks at basketball is Player X. We don't do that.

This was not a Sean Fennessey assault. No, I'm just, I'm defending myself. I'm saying, but it wasn't targeted at you. I just feel like we used to argue

way more about movies. And just watching the dialogue about Barbie was really interesting because, you know, John Carpenter came flying off the top rope with some crazy tape and people reacted like he was questioning

whether 9-11 happened or something. It was fucking bonkers. Should he be institutionalized for saying that out loud? Put that guy in a hole. But it was just, that's one of the reasons on Rewatchables we have so much fun going back to see what people thought at the time

versus how it evolved. I just, I don't know. It does feel like there's a lane for somebody to zag pretty hard. Because we see it in sports. Sports is, everyone's zagging too hard in sports. And then in pop culture, I feel like there's not enough zagging.

Like, May, December, really good movie. I thought it was very well done and very well acted. I'm not sure I was happy afterwards that I spent the two hours on it. Yeah, I think that's a really good example of what I think has been a good thing about this movie year. One, I don't think

it's weird to be like, I'm not so sure about May-December. I think that's good and healthy to interrogate maybe why you didn't like it or what you didn't think worked about it. It was like a, why? Why did we do this why did they make it this close to the mary k latourno story but not just call it the mary k latourno story and what like what was the point but i thought it was really interesting i i was glad i saw it but i don't ultimately know like if it's going to be nominated for best picture that's what i'm like whoa really yeah i

mean i have like my own interpretation of the movie and and why they made it and why the script was written um it's like ultimately about this kind of refraction of celebrity and the way that we like vampire people's lives you know like publicly and like what happens when you go into the public eye and how you kind of like lose yourself in your life i think the themes and the ideas of the movie are really rich, but Todd Haynes has a very distinct kind of style. His actors always act in a particular kind of way. Actually, we just got a sandwich together

last week and the guy who was ringing us up at the sandwich shop was like, hey, I watched May December. Didn't like it. That's a good thing. Amanda and I had a great conversation on the pod about this movie, Anatomy of a Fall. I don't know if you've seen that one it's a French movie but it's mostly in English

and it's about a woman who's accused of killing her husband and he falls from a great height at their home and the most of the movie is a courtroom drama and we both really liked the movie but we had somewhat different points of view about like what actually happened

why the choices were made to tell the story that way and it was the most fun i had doing the show in a while because we were just really digging into the movie and there was a lot to kind of debate i think that there's a lot of room for that right now i don't think there's as much room for and i think some of what you pointed out is the reason why for the like pauline kale like hey guys i'm just going to toss this grenade in the middle of the room kind of take you know where you're just like maybe that's a good thing but it's fun to read where you she'll just be writing and she'll be like

you know in this film it appears that Jane Fonda never read the script and barely opened her eyes while giving a performance like whoa what and it'll be in a movie that like everyone agrees today is incredible and there there isn't a lot of that there isn't a lot of like aggressively going against the

grain because you're a fearless writer or commentator. But I do think that there's a lot of debate with movies because it means that a lot of people are seeing movies, which is... That's the thing I'm most excited about. Yeah. The Killer was the most interesting one for me because I knew some people who loved it and I knew some people who just thought it was boring, but respected Fincher because you know he's technically probably one of the three best directors we have so they were like anytime he makes anything I'm watching it I enjoy it I see it but it's like

kind of boring yeah I think a lot of people felt that way and I also understand that but like as a Fincher maniac every single choice in the movie I'm like over reading and I'm like what he did this because of this he did this and that's fun for me to think about the movie that way but most people that I talk to who are not psychos

were like that was not even a real character who was that guy why did I spend an hour and a half with him he liked the Smiths so that was his personality yeah Koppelman unlocked it for me that's why like sometimes with these I need to see it a couple times Koppelman said that was a story about

a businessman and just the world of business and executing business. And if you look at it through that lens, it's a different movie. So I got to watch it again thinking about it that way. That's a good reading.

As always with Fincher, I respected the work. I just didn't really love hanging out with Fassbender for two hours, I guess was my nitpick. I did. My Irish-German brother,

I appreciated his work. Me, him, and Tom Hagen. I know you missed his crank. He didn't get to unleash that thing on this one. It's too bad. He's so gifted, too, you know? Different sort of a weapon

in this movie. I think he... I like him a lot as an actor. I think with Fincher, he seems a little bit bored because he's like, I know how to do everything better than everybody else. But got to keep in mind, like roughly 80% of his movies,

when they first come out, people are like, eh, was that really so good? And then two years later, everyone's like, oh wait, that was the masterpiece of our time. And I years later, everyone's like, oh, wait,

that was the masterpiece of our time. And I kind of think that's going to happen with this one too. I think that it's going to be 2025. It's going to be a bad movie year. And everybody's going to be like, remember when we kind of ignored The Killer, which was made like a diamond, like it was a perfectly cut object of filmmaking.

But we'll see. It has two incredible scenes in it. Which ones? The fight? The fight scene. I thought the assassination scene was amazing. Very cool. Very funny too.

In the first like 20 minutes, like just all of it and then it not happening and then just how it moves from there. I thought it was one of the best like eight, nine minute stretches of Fincher's career. But then there was other stuff

that I was just like, man, why did he do this? Yeah. He's one of those filmmakers too where if you read more or watch YouTube videos about how he did certain things, you're like, oh, he's just on another level. That whole image, that rear window image in the opening sequence that you're talking about is just all digitally created.

That's not a set. That's not a real place. Each room and box was designed and created. So he's on another level. All right. So you've done some recap stuff on the big picture, but there's more coming and then everything heads toward the Oscars, which is your Super Bowl

because you're never going to have a Super Bowl as a Jets fan. God damn it. Sean Fantasy, happy holidays. It was great to see you. Thanks, Bill. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Justin and Sean and Kevin Wilds.

Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti for producing, as always. Merry Christmas to everybody out there. Thanks for listening. Hope you have a great weekend. Stay safe. I will see you on this podcast on Monday and on the rewatchables on Sunday night. Merry Christmas. A few years with him On the wayside

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