The Bill Simmons Podcast - Brady’s Future, Zeke’s Revolutionary Holdout, Griffin’s LeBron Comments, and a Big Announcement With Ryen Russillo | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: August 7, 2019

HBO and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss Tom Brady’s contract, Ezekiel Elliott’s threats to hold out for money, NBA vs. NFL contracts, GM David Griffin’s comments on LeBron James, Gym Corner, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast on The Ringer! Podcast network brought to you by ZipRecruiter. What's the difference between working hard and working smart? I mean, sometimes there's no difference. You take Ryan Rosillo, who's joining The Ringer, who we're going to talk to in a little bit. He works hard and he works smart. Some people, they do one or the other.

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and the new Heinz Mashups, Mayo Chip, Mayo Q, Mayo Must, and Crunch. We're also brought to you by TheRinger.com, the world's greatest website. Right now, we are knee-deep, waist-deep, shoulder-deep into fantasy football you ready

kyle ready i saw we're on the team again yeah we should have won last year i'm ready we lost by point three points or something well we have so far we have like a we did a ringer top 150 we did uh we have make the case for people like should saquon barkley go first is it kyler murray is you're already All this stuff. Five things you might want to change about your league. We have all that going. We also have the Danny C football guys are back on the Ringer NFL show. They're doing, I think, an eight-part fantasy preview.

They put their top 50 guys up this week. So if you want more fantasy, read theringer.com, go to the Ringer NFL show. And that's that. Last thing, speaking of the Ringer, we did new rewatchables podcast, me and Chris Ryan 15th anniversary of collateral, the classic Michael Mann film. Um, not, you know, it's not jaws. It's not the godfather. It's not top gun. It's not,

it's not going to be the most listened to rewatchables podcast of the year, but here's the thing. Every 12, 13 podcasts for the rewatchables, Chris Ryan, the two of us, we do one for us. It's 12 for you, one for us. So we did collateral for this one. You can check that out. We have another one, I think, coming this week too. It's an action movie from the late eighties. Shea Serrano and Jason Concepcioni will be involved. That's all I'm going to tell you. That's it. Coming up, Ryan Rosillo. First, our friends from Tic Tac and Melatonin. All right, we're taping this 12.30 West Coast time.

Tuesday, Ryan Russillo in-house. He's coming to the ringer full-time in September. We announced it last night. One of the rare cases where it's just, people are just really nice and happy on Twitter. I didn't know what was going on. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. It dropped yeah I actually am starting to think if we were doing like overrated underrated I almost feel a little overrated I think it is I think yesterday was the day it was the tipping point right between yeah they were similar is he that

good yeah I mean it was it was happy birthday into oh my god congrats but it's been uh it's been kind of a long goodbye you know when i left the radio show that was the end of 17 so and then i still had time left and then it was like hey why don't we just you know see how the next year goes so um this is not you know i don't there were some plans to do some things and i was i was telling a couple buddies i was like you know look i really appreciate this and it does feel really good there are moments where it's like know what? Actually, the world is awesome and life is really good. Well, we haven't even told people what you're going to actually be doing. Do I know?

The political podcast. Well, that's the thing is now that I'm free, I want to do about 90 minutes on every Democratic candidate. We had the Pod Save America guys here in 2016. And I'm ready. Keeping it 1600 pod. I'm ready to step in. Took off within seven months.

Trump got elected. They turned it into a business. And now we're going to see if we can redo it. Yeah. So I've got a lot of thoughts. People don't think of you this way, but they should. They should not. It was... Damn damn it you had to go in there people were going to believe that i know i thought about i mean this stuff does interest me to a point um

but i i used to love the primaries i used to absolutely love it because i felt like it was the incidentally determined of human beings you know i feel that way now yeah you're like now i mean the field right the the tournament expanded to 68 and the democrats expanded like 27 people in these debates and i'm just like man who's this plucky 12 seed like give me give me a 12 right who's this lady from hawaii she's she's firing three and then and then the other one what's what's her name who's kind of like the zen master i started reading about marion williamson yeah marion williamson obviously i'm really plugged in i read this 1991 vanity fair profile on her yeah uh it was like whoa this person's running for president yeah and it's not even 30 years later her k-bid song it is don't google me yeah i just i was like oh my god like this is this is amazing because i am like convinced that in in 20 years we're going to be debating on like who looked better naked

in the pic that leaked who's running for president there's no shame it'll be a no shame world exactly so it'll be it'll be 2050 don't shame me for my bad decisions. Yeah. And so, uh, I think these debates remind me of the first episode of a bachelor season or a bachelor in paradise season where you're just, you meet everybody and you're like, Hey, my name's Ryan. I live in Manhattan beach. I'm a sports radio host. Uh, I love, and then it's a shot of you on the boardwalk skateboarding. Yeah. But like that, that way where you're kind of like zigging in and out just shows how relaxed you are. It's like, I've been hurt a couple of times,

but I really, so then when we have these debates, it's like, hey, I'm Tulsi Gabbard. I'm from Hawaii. I really feel strongly about this. And they just kind of go and you just kind of meet these people, but you know, they're not going to be in your life for more than two episodes.

You know, they're getting voted off. You know, you can tell immediately. It's like, oh, Kamel Harris, you're in the final four. You know they're getting voted off. You can tell immediately, it's like, oh, Campbell Harris, you're in the final four. You're going to the fantasy suite, maybe. No, but this is really good. Because I used to always think, I think now that I'm not under the ABC umbrella-

Yeah, no shackles anymore. There's no way that I'm going to be on The Bachelor, which a lot of people have been pushing for behind the scenes um and i was trying to figure out how we're pushing for that well i don't think espn was ever going to sign off on that um but if they had i would have been hosting a much bigger show i think you're too old i don't think i think they had that one year where they had older contestants and the ratings were bad. So now it's like 32 is like the max. No, I am too old, but I would bring it in a way no one's brought it before.

And whatever I would lack in age, I would bring entertainment. All baby-oiled arms every day? You know, I just have thought about like different things I would say when the girls get out of the limo. And, you know, at first they're going to be like, hair kind of sucks hair kind of sucks how old is this guy right he's a kid in high school right you know and then i just like shake their hand and be like pretty amazing huh like hotter in person are you blown away all right hey good luck to you hang. Yeah. I'll be in there in a second. So try to find this lane between jerk but endearing. So you'd have some moments. I think there was one year where they actually pulled that off

with one of those guys. I would never be a side guy. I would never be on The Bachelorette. I would just go, can I leave now? You could really get into the dynamics of the house. It just, being older, you would just go, all right. I have to share a room with somebody?

Right. What? I don't have a single, you know? And then you just go, don't get hammered the first night because first night hammer guy always screws it up. Well, they do intentionally. Absolutely.

They make it like a nine hour day. Right. They just keep giving people champagne because that immediately just makes you light headed that's like a nephew Kyle move two glasses of champagne and all of a sudden you're doing shots can I get a piece of ribeye here or something

no food at all it's a lot of like lettuce cups here's some hummus and old granddad but good luck tonight and plus nobody's eaten for two weeks anyway because they're about to be on camera yeah so they've all like lost eight pounds and been to you know a steam room or a sauna or whatever just trying to sweat out those last pounds of water weight i think the best way to do it would just be to try to bring america along with you so that

you you get them to turn so at first when they think you're a jerk they'd be like wait a minute this guy invited me to the party yeah he wants me the viewer at home to have a good time and he doesn't really want to marry any of these people he just wants me to have the best possible time i can have while watching like i know chad who was on the bachelorette who just went full meathead. I'm going to just get hammered and eat turkey slices and walk around. I know it's going to shock you, but I met him. You ran into him at the Equinox. Yeah, we did. We saw him at Equinox. And then we went to this, I was at a party in Venice Beach a couple of years ago. And somebody was like, do you know this guy? I was like, yeah, actually

got me watching the show again because I thought he was kind of funny. And he went so heel, so hard. Yeah. It was tough to get everybody on your side, even though it was entertaining. I think there's a lane there. I really do think there's a lane where- It's been good for him though. He's on those MTV shows now.

Yeah, do you like him on those shows? No, I don't watch those shows. I draw the line at- What's the worst show you're watching right now what's your guilty pleasure show the hills new beginnings i just did an entire podcast about him the ringer dish and i can't believe i'm watching it it's not even a hate watching it it's more of like i mean you have the term hate watch it's more like a car crash watch it's it's basically a cautionary tale for 15 minutes of fame and what happens in like minute 24. The 15 minutes are long gone.

And you're just putting back together the pieces of this two-year run when it was pretty cool and you were actually kind of famous. And now it's the aftermath. It's good. Did you love the hills? I kind of liked it. Yeah, I did. I did. I liked how it was. Did you like Laguna beach? I did. Me too. I love my whole thing is I like any show where they have that kind of infrastructure of just fantastic editing, good music, great cameras,

nobody really saying anything, but everything seems like it's the heat diner scene, you know, the kind of intensity, but it's really like i think i might go on a second date with them but it's built up for like three minutes so by the time there's a revelation it feels substantial i just like it i haven't watched the hawaii surfing show they did a year and it was like called uh god i can't remember it was a year with hawaii surfers i watched that one i like anything with the gimmick you've always been a big surf guy though so that was a good tie-. It's by Happy Place. When they found Justin Bobby on the hills,

I was like floored. I'm like, where did you find this? This is like Luke Perry real life. Like the Dylan McKay storyline of 90210 was the most absurd thing ever. Like he's just a high school kid that happened to also- Could live in a hotel by himself. Yeah, and then would also like,

I'm going to go to Europe and write the best, you know, selling novel. And you you're like you're fucking 16 like maybe i'll dirt bike in belgium and you're like what how and yet it worked it just worked because it was so stupid and then justin bobby actually existed like the guy was wearing a wool cap in la summertime working on motorcycles and you're just like what and obviously adrena was like in and i'm like do you blame her and then you're thinking like this you found this guy like you found a real dude who did this she's still crying about him if you if you no way hill's new beginning yeah they tried to kind of she had a kid it didn't work out they got back together and uh it's really depressing i saw her manhattan

beach once that's the end of that story. Could be. So anyway, you're coming. You're starting in September. Dual Threat is moving to three times a week during the football season, but it's not going to be all football. No. It's going to be a combination of your old ESPN podcast and the current Dual Threat podcast merged into a three-time-a-week something. Right.

And then when that football season ends cuts down to two and then you come back on mine for like that 22 week stretch during nba yeah and then pop on some other stuff too like you did the town rewatchables last week uh i i know we're gonna get nominated for stuff i don't know what i don't you know i know the p buddy committee is is circling it uh i don't know what the podcast gramm the Peabody committee is circling it. I don't know what the podcast Grammys are, but I'm sure it's a lock. We'll see.

We're talking about the town rewatchables? Yeah. It went that well? You think we'll get nominated for something? I think we're in the award buzz. I think we'll see in December, but I think, you know, we'll see. We'll see how it goes.

People think that's the only reason I got a deal here. The town rewatchables? Yeah, that the company was on the fence. We'll see how it goes. People think that's the only reason I got a deal here. The town rewatch was? that the company was on the fence. Like we're on the fence and then that happened. The shine stepdad thing. Like he just showed up through a no hitter.

So anyway, we're very happy to have you. It makes sense. We're going to figure out some digital on camera stuff as well. And who knows? Who knows what's going to happen? Very excited.

Let's talk about football. Two things that happened this week. Normally I don't get excited about football in the dregs of August. Tom Brady, let's start there. The weird, he's selling his $39 million mansion in Chestnut Hill, which is right behind the Pine manor soccer field where i played youth soccer when i was a kid so there you go are you gonna buy it thinking about it you could go back there try to relive the glory days um the timing of it was weird because nobody

moves now his kids are in school you don't like pull your kids out of school in november and move them to greenwich so it does seem like it's a shot across the bow, but I just, I can't figure out the Brady. Is it bow? Shabow. That's what I meant. Okay.

Just, I'm a big below deck guy, but we didn't get to that. I didn't mean that. I screwed that up. Show part. The Brady Patriots relationship reminds me of the movie Eyes Wide Shut, which I've been watching for a while because we're doing a rewatch.

It was about it this fall, and I'm trying to figure it out. It's this marriage where not everything is being said, and there's underlying stuff. And they might just be able to get through it fine all the way to the end. But every once in a while, something bubbles up. But it always has the potential to just go off the rails like it did in that movie. And I can never totally figure it out. They redo his deal. Now it's just a 2019 deal. He gets more money, but he has no security after this year. And then they ask him about it and he's like, it is what it is. And then he puts his house on the market. This all seems like a big deal,

but then he's 42 years old like how fucking long can he even keep playing and then it's like do they do this just for the drama i can't figure it out i'm just confused by this story is where i'm leaving you okay uh no i think you bring up every good point and there's not really anything to to debate there uh i'd start with the real estate thing though how many times have we been wrong about where a player is going or what they're going to do based on a real estate rumor? I mean, how many bad real estate rumors have you heard over the years? I feel like we're two for two in the NBA with Kawhi and LeBron.

Yeah, but Kawhi also registered as kids in school in Toronto. Remember that one? Yeah, it was a red herring. Okay, all right. LeBron, when I hear, oh, NBA guy has house in LA, dude, all these guys have houses out here but he bought two next to each other

that was to me the red flag okay but he LeBron also supposedly what was it when he went back to Cleveland

the first time in 2014 he was supposedly because of his giant house gonna do it because of the house here and they were gonna get the kids

I mean KG's house in Malibu was constantly oh he's gonna come out here's going to come out here but it actually never happened when you buy two giant houses next to each other in brentwood like that's like where al michaels lives you're not if you're coming to la for a week you're not gonna be like oh so where'd you get the house yeah we're in brentwood we're gonna be spending the week there like that's not that's a place you live. You don't vacation in Brentwood.

Yeah, that's not a Malibu house. You're right. You're right. But, you know, the Peyton Manning, West Hartford one is my favorite ever. Oh, what was it? I don't even really know that one. He was going to get Monday Night Football, and it was because he was buying a house in West Hartford. I was out to dinner.

I was sitting. My routine would be like, I'd go to a restaurant bar. I'd watch a game, get out of the house, sit there, eat some chicken parm. And a guy in West Hartford comes up to me. He's like, he goes, you know, who's going to be our new neighbor? Like who? He's like Peyton Manning. Like just bought a house here. I go, that makes no sense because he doesn't need to have a house in West Hartford. He doesn't like, I can guarantee you the Peyton Manning deal at ESPN. If you were coming to ESPN to do Monday night football, when that was the rumor is that you never have to be in West Hartford.

Gruden didn't- Ever. Gruden didn't live on Trumbull Street, okay? So- Yeah, Gruden was probably there twice in five years. So, okay, so he puts it on the market. I mean, there's obviously other parts of this that could be financial where you just go,

hey, you know what? Maybe real estate's been on fire for a bunch of years, so it's time to move on. All right, so now that we get into the facts of what we have, Tom Curran is usually really good on Brady, Belichick specific stuff uh guy i trust yeah um he just did an interview today where he said brady's not happy he's not happy about this but i think you and i would agree that like some of the seth wickersham stuff that came out and you may have hated that

it was it's felt very anti-patriots but i think there was some real like smoke there that there's whenever it's like two guys that are this great and belichick and brady it's not rare for the younger guy in the relationship to feel like hey you know what like i'm i'm pretty good at what i do too and maybe i don't want to get treated the same way like i expect in a couple years you and i are going to have that fight. And maybe even too much from now, you know, it's a bit, a little bit like the Theo Lucchino thing, right. Or Theo Epstein's going, Hey, I'm really good at this. Like, I know you guys grabbed me and made me an intern in San Diego, but I'm just kind of sick of the, the pat on the head shit. Right. And so I think there was some truth to some of that stuff with Brady, but it doesn't mean that this is this bad relationship because all this stuff came out

before they went ahead and won another freaking Superbowl. So yeah, it stuff with Brady, but it doesn't mean that this is this bad relationship because all this stuff came out before they went ahead and won another freaking Super Bowl. Yeah, it's not bad, but it's definitely not as 100% functional as you would think, considering how much everybody's won and how much money everyone's made. So why does he keep taking the discounts? If he's not happy with what he got,

then why does he keep doing this? He's been pretty clear about, all he cares about is Super Bowl rings and it's a competitive advantage for him and he can make money somewhere else. He's been pretty clear about he feels all he cares about is Super Bowl rings, and it's a competitive advantage for him, and he can make money somewhere else. The cap has gone up like $60 to $70 million in a very short amount of time. It's true. I wonder, see, this is my fear as a Pats fan.

I wonder if he's retiring after this year, and this is all like smoke and mirrors for, they just didn't want to say he's retiring after the year and have that be the storyline that just dominates the whole season. So they're paying him up front. They gave him more money knowing that you can't do that if he retires after the year. And then they're just going to be like, only the three of us know. Nobody fucking say anything. When people ask you about this, whatever. That to me ties all the puzzle

pieces together because then that would explain why you're selling your house that would explain why you took more money up front and didn't push it back all that stuff okay but if you were going to be that calculated and making sure that never you know no one's ever going to find out which doesn't happen how many people know it's bob craft Bob Craft, The Sun, Jonathan, Belichick, Brady. That's it. And Brady's agent, maybe. So that's five people total who would know. You don't think Giselle's going to know?

Yeah, she is kind of a wild card. Right. She's the one who spilled the beans on at least two concussions that we weren't supposed to know about. I'm not saying she's calling Tom Curran, but you can start doing the game only this person knows only this person knows we know how this shit works like eventually somebody's going to say something to somebody else and it could be craft telling one person that's the wrong

person and so maybe it gets out but i do think if this were the whole plan hey we're going to be this calculated then why would you go ahead and list the house immediately after you did a contract that apparently you didn't like again? And why do the contract that you didn't like again? You're at head contract. That's my point. Nobody put a gun to your head and said, restructure this. He could have just been like, no, not doing it.

The Patriots, the way they use the cap space is always unique, for lack of a better word, where they're always the team that has like seven, eight, 9 million left and can just restructure deals on a whim. And like August 22nd and everybody else is tied up for the most part. And I never, I don't know the strategy behind that. Like when that, when that green Bay, Mike Daniels,

when he became available and we had all this cap space, I'm using, we like I'm on the team. It was like, oh, cool. This is why they saved the cap space for a guy like that.

And then he just signs with Alliance. So they've always had this buffer and it seems like it's always ends up being used for stuff like this. Restructuring deals, creating more cap space, but it becomes like this Ponzi scheme. We're just rolling stuff over.

I'd love to know the timing of the cap space thing because I think over the years when I've looked up their cap number, you know, as the season's gone along, I mean, there's been times where they've been close to being capped out once the season got rolling. There's been some times.

And that could be restructuring, but it also could be something where they just, I mean, if you were Belichick, and over the years, the thing he's probably best at is getting that vet who's cut somewhere else. And you get those guys at such discounts. Like, I'll never understand how, if I'm a guy who's like 33, and I'm really good, And I've been with the team for a bunch of years, almost like the

Rodney Harrison thing. I'm just going to give some examples. And it's like, Hey, you're on the books for like five and a half million this next year. And you go, Oh, that's way too much. Okay. Well, we're not paying you that. And then they signed somewhere for like nothing. And you're like, why couldn't the original team had said, we don't want to pay you 5.5. It's like, there's like, it's such hurt feelings that it's just understanding football business that you end up getting him as a discount somewhere else. So maybe it's the Patriots going, hey, let's see what happens after preseason three and four cuts,

and then we have some of that space that's there. But back to Brady. Hold on, one point on that. John Skipper told me this once a long time ago. He said the hardest thing to do when you're a boss is to tell somebody they're getting a pay cut. If somebody is making X and you go to them and you're like, okay, now, now you're going to make Y. It never goes well. No, but that's, that's totally understandable,

right? Because once you see that money and you go this is what i expect to make this and the place that you're at is like we don't think you're as good as you were as you were when we gave you that or we overestimated how good you were when we gave you that and now we feel you're worth this it never works out nobody's like cool all right so i agree 75 as much good call i had that i had that dwight howard comeback player of the year take that was that was i could have done a better job i interrupted you what was your last no but i'm glad you got that in there because i mean that's just that's been the trend that you see in the nfl all the time but i would always still be like why couldn't you just made a few but you're right it's hard It's hard to come back. The Brady thing, you know, I was going through it again today.

And three years ago, I remember arguing with people going, okay, well, I mean, he can say, hey, I'm going to play an 0-45, but we're going to sit here and accept it. And here we are kind of like entering year four of when I think he first said that he could play like another five. And I think the Super Bowl does cover up the fact at times last year, maybe more so than he had looked in a long time, where you're like, wait, is he starting to slip here a little?

We've had it the last two years. So that was my other take on this whole thing. Like how long is this going to keep happening? I wonder if Belichick, who as we all know is one of the all-time savants. Right. I'm not texting, by the way. This is research I did earlier.

I'm positive he watches every single play of the season after the fact and probably watch every Brady throw again and then goes to Ernie Adams or whoever the LA has around him. And maybe there's a possibility he was like, Brady just wasn't that good last year. We scored 10 points in the Super Bowl. That's a little misleading, though, because I felt like they were moving the ball on them

and it was like going to... I know it's 10 points. I'm just playing this out. There were some weird hidden points that didn't happen. He's looking at it and he's going, we scored 10 points in the Super Bowl. He threw a pick in the Chiefs game that if D4 is not offsides, our season's over.

He's going to be 42. It's only going to get worse, not better from this point on. We have to start planning for the next five years because I want to win a Superbowl without him. Hey, Tom, this is it.

We're done after this year. We'll pay you whatever you want this year. If you want to keep playing after that, knock yourself out. Go play for the freaking Vikings, wherever you want to go. Knock yourself out. But we're done after this year.

Here's a lot of money. It's not impossible. I don't think it's true. And I really think that Kraft's, I think Bob Kraft would just, the thought of Brady and another team team i think he'd be a blubbering mess i think he'd be so upset i mean the orchid spa and brady leaving in the same year that'd be tough like losing both of those things if i could love love the spy loves brady

but so i don't know so this is like this weird dance which brings me back to the eyes wide shut thing it's like not a perfectly happy marriage something's wrong but but it feels like they're going to navigate through it and maybe some people will get killed right but they just they just did right they just did it again so for yeah you know there can be things going on that aren't great and that if you found out about it maybe like oh that seems like a problem but then again like whenever and somebody's like oh well this isn't going that well or this isn't working out i go well wait a minute describe to me like how do you grade something not going well somebody goes 11 5 that means things aren't going well or like the way we talk about different things being successful

or not successful i think it's so results-based that it's like, if, if you don't win, you know, like I've, I've heard people say like, oh, well, you know, look at, look at Nick Saban now and all the turnover he's had in that coaching staff. And now it's starting to like, you know, this is, this is going to be the downfall Alabama. It's like, they just won the sec again and they just played in another national championship game. So tell me, tell me what isn't working. Yeah. I know they got smoked by Clemson, but that's, that's arguably the most lopsided loss

that Saban's ever had there after 2007. So is it really not working? So, you know, I mean, this team just won a Superbowl and we're going to talk about all these things that are going on that you we've read about or rumblings about. And now, like, this is further proof that this season could be in a turmoil. I mean, if this team's proven anything, it's that turmoil doesn't affect them the way it does other teams. Yeah, they got through that whole story two years ago, the Wickersham thing. They made the Super Bowl the last four years.

Yeah, so I think it's working. The year before that, they almost made the Super Bowl. They lose to Denver 2018. Brady's concussed in the second half or the last drive whenever he got hurt. Gronk's open for the two-point conversion. We're almost headed to OT. So you think like, if you look at the NFL, I think the NFL and the NBA are the two sports you can really look at in terms of five-year runs. I don't know about baseball. I just feel like you can spend enough in baseball

to stay relevant. But those two sports specifically, because I was thinking about this Warriors, the five-year run they just had, and the whole concept of, for some teams it's four, for some teams it's five. The Celtics with KG, it really should have been four. And then that last year was kind of gifted to them

because Derrick Rose got hurt. All of a sudden, they're almost in the finals. The Lakers with Shaq and Kobe, that was, they won three in a row, almost won in 03, almost won in 04, it's over. You know, the Spurs, that last Spurs run where it's like 2011, could have made the finals. 2012, everyone thought they were the best team in the league.

Then OKC gets hot, knocks them out. 13, 14, make the finals, win in 14. 15, really good Spurs team, ends up losing a bloodbath to the Clips. Nice five-year run after we thought they were done. Yeah, that was like a second five-year run for them. So you're trying to do a Patriot bookend here and a five-year run. I'm just saying they've had weirdly three five-year runs with Brady.

They had that first one that they did. They had that next one from like 07 to 11 through when they lost the Giants Super Bowl. And then that third one really started the Denver one and went all the way to here where they've been the best team in the league for the last five years. And I think they have less weapons

than they've ever had. Yeah, but I also- The no ground thing's a massive, massive thing this year. Okay, it's a massive thing because of who the replacements are. Like I was going through the depth chart the other night, like Benjamin Watson's got the four game suspension. It's a bunch of people who are 50 and maddened.

Kendrick's, it's, you know, they try to trade for that guy from Detroit. Like that didn't work out. Like I was going through it. I'm going, man, this is really thin at a position that they prioritize a ton. They lost an a plus blocker who in a big drive could make a couple of plays

every time. Yeah. I just think it's important to remind ourselves that they're not losing a plus Gronk. They're not replacing the gronk you're replacing from last year is not the gronk that was this absolute nightmare matchup like i don't think you got the same kind of separation consistently last not at all but he was like having another left tackle but yeah he did murder people by which he'd always had done that was weird like

when he became not an absolute a plus receiving option then on he'd be like, he's really taking a block. He'd be like, have you not been watching him his whole career? He murders guys off the edge. But the two biggest games of the year when they really needed him the most, Chiefs OT,

and then that last Rams drive when they scored the TD, he was the dominant guy on those drafts. Yeah. So. Yeah. I want to do this though

because when we sit here and you start wondering, like, should I start, and I don't even mean this as a joke, like, should I start focusing more on plyometrics? Should I start lengthening muscle instead of building it?

Like I, I look at what Brady's doing going. Oh, I like that. You're looking at this from a gym corner standpoint. Is this, is this really a thing? Like,

should I get on the diet? Like, is there a way to actually experience longevity? And then you go and think, okay, so he just turns 42 last week, and you compare it to the other QBs. Montana was 38 in his last year, right? And it was an old 38. He felt like he was 50. By the way, he got his ass kicked.

He did. 86 eight games. Well, the Jim Bird hit, I think, was the most brutal hit anyone took in the 80s of any QB in a big game. I mean, he was missing time all over the place. And then he didn't play in 92. He missed five games in 93.

And then his last year, he actually wasn't... He had a good Chiefs year. ...bad in that he was better in that second year. But then you look back, and I mean, just some of the numbers are just so ridiculous. Never threw for 30 touchdowns other than one season never threw for 4 000 yards different sport though it's like talking about three point right shooting in the 90s jim kelly got his ass kicked and he was done at 36 and he wasn't really good in that last year

now tied his career high in interceptions he's the He used to bet a lot. I bet a lot against him those last couple years. Well, they actually had better records than maybe you remember at the end. And then Marino.

Do you remember the beatings Marino used to take at the end? Last couple years of Marino was like a statue. It was brutal. I remember in that one Pats game specific,

that one playoff game where they knew all of his calls at the line when I was super into it and knew everything. And then there was a picture of the globe where he was on his back.

And I'm trying to think, was it Collins, the white guy off the edge that the Pats had? They had somebody who like was in his face. Todd Collins? Yeah, I think it was. It was not Walpole. It was Todd Collins. But the picture, the cover of the globe was marino looking up into the face mask of the patriots guy that was right on top of him and they were like what was the quote he was like you guys

really like kicking the shit out of me don't you and it was ugly like it used to get so ugly and then you compare that with brady that yes it's a different sport you left that out way though which i think is an important guy to mention in this conversation because because he aged he aged nicely he he moved to a different point of his career a little more of a game manager but could still make big plays and 96 97 98 was really good you know and then that was it and he stepped out before he had that last terrible year like one of the things with manning was he stayed that year too long they were still amazingly able to win the super bowl though no but I know. But I mean,

he couldn't throw the football anymore and he wanted to play that next year. And people were like, yeah, we're good. And I think everyone's fear

with Brady is nobody wants to see that version of him. You know? But even, you know, Elway was 38. Favre was so good

in that first year of Minnesota. I think that's one of the most impressive seasons you're ever going to see from a quarterback. We thought he was done too. Well, it was like he went to the Jets farve was so good in that first year of minnesota i think that's one of the most impressive seasons you're ever going to see from a quarterback we thought he was done too well it was like he went to the jets to get back at the packers like talk about serious vendetta right like i can respect the hell out of that kind of grudge where he's like i'm so pissed at green bay which he shouldn't

have been because he was the one screwing with him he was really bad the year before well and he just started doing his own thing and he was retiring four straight off seasons and then finally like dude enough yeah and he was like oh like you have a problem with me like i can fake retire every fucking year if i want to and they're like actually we think this other guy's really good yeah and he's like well screw you i'll go to the jets just to go to the vikings in two years and he was unbelievable that first year with the vikings almost mvp who knows what. And he was unbelievable that first year with the Vikings, almost MVP. Who knows what would have happened. He was never the same after the Bounty Gate game.

And then he was really bad at 41. And so now we're going into a 42-year-old season where Brady, who showed some signs last year of not being as crisp, which is completely forgotten because they won a Super Bowl. And people still arguing he's the best quarterback in the league, which I'm like, I don't know that we can say that anymore. Like, I still feel like science has

to catch up to this guy, despite how pliable his muscles are and how unimpressive he is with his shirt off, which blew people's minds. But you're like, that's his whole approach. It's not about being ripped. We've done this with everybody. I've said it before on the pod. It's coming. You're not fighting it off

until age 50. He's going to have the year like Kobe's last two Lakers years and Peyton Manning that last year. It's going to happen. Do you feel like you don't feel how uncomfortable you're saying that, hey, this is the year. I'm calling it. I don't think it's going to be this year. My bigger fear... I'm afraid

to say it, so I'm not going to say it either. My biggest fear with this coming year is the weapons and the fact that they have a first-round pick that I'm not positive they're going to be able to rely on. Harry. I don't... People are just penciling him like he's going to be like a

third-round pick in your fantasy league. It's like, that dude... Rookie receivers, it takes a while, you know? And sometimes it's pretty quick as a first-rounder. You go, this doesn't work. How they let Renfro. Well, and then Edelman. How could they not get Hunter Renfro on that team? Edelman was hurt a year ago.

They have an undrafted rookie, Jacoby Myers, who I already bought my bandwagon seat for, the converted quarterback, classic Patriot pick. Who's playing with the first team? Bunch of like just replacement tight ends. Do you think in the draft room they're like who are these two guys? We're like okay well this one guy's been a tight end his whole life. Well this guy

was a bullfighter. Belichick's like what? Like how'd you grade him? They're both 72s on our grade scale. Well he was a bullfighter? Let's take the bullfighter. This guy surfed with Kelly Slater in 2009. Good edge guy. Let's take the bullfighter. This guy surfed with Kelly Slater in 2009.

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Better than the red socks. Unfortunately. Go to stance.com slash BS. If they're not stance, they're just socks. All right, so we didn't resolve the Brady thing because the Brady thing's not resolvable. He's doing stuff that has no parallel to anything that's ever happened.

So neither of us are going to go on the record and be like, Brady's done, this is it. Because we don't know. I think the contract thing's a little strange. And I also think there's nothing to talk about, so people are going to blow out of shape anyway. The Zeke Elliott thing, So he's played three years. I wouldn't call them uneventful off the field,

those three years. He was good on the field. He's got two years left on his rookie deal and then he's a free agent. And he's attempting to do something that nobody has done before in the NFL. He's holding out with two years left on his rookie deal. And he's basically going to play chicken with them.

And the, the ammo that he has is you can't tell me that running backs don't matter. You drafted me fourth in the entire NFL draft. So they have to matter. If you just spent the fourth pick in the draft three years ago on a running back, you can't now tell me that all running backs are replaceable. You get anybody, you can win Superbowls without a running back. Why't now tell me that all running backs are replaceable you get anybody you can win super bowls without a running back why'd you take me forth pay me that's the case i think for zeke this is a classic example of absolutely understanding both sides where i go

yeah all right zeke like give it a shot go for it but if i were jerry Jones, I'd be laughing at you. Be like, yeah, we took you high because we liked you. Not because we thought we're going to have to pay you two years before we need to. And just because Todd Gurley got money two years. And look, the Todd Gurley deal was one of the dumbest contracts in recent NFL history. Because they knew he wasn't 100% healthy. I'm not even going on the health. I'm not doing revisionist history. He has arthritis in his knee.

Other teams were like, what? Yeah. Okay. Like you didn't need to do it a year ahead of time. And the excuse for it is, well, we had eight or nine guys that were going to be up. Welcome to running a football team. Yeah.

Like you didn't, if you didn't worry about him holding out, you didn't have to give him 45 million guaranteed at a price where, look, we saw, you know, Chip Kelly get called all sorts of things by people that wanted to have good TV segments. And the reality was he didn't want LaShawn McCoy at $12 million. His cap hit at a position where he felt like he could get value and spread that money around. Okay.

That was it. That's all it was. David Johnson hasn't been worth it. Devontae Freeman hasn't been worth it. Todd Gurley, you gave him $45 million. I'm not even doing, like I'm emphasizing this again, I'm not saying this only because he's hurt, because at the time when I was doing the first dual threats,

I was like, man, that still doesn't really make a ton of sense. Why did you need to do this? But what happens is kind of like, remember the Barry Zito contract from the San Francisco Giants where they paid him like $125 million and it didn't make any sense whatsoever and then thanks for not doing a Red Sox contract there good you're welcome Jack Clack um every other lefty then was like oh Zito got 125 million like that's what we want and you go this isn't a neighborhood real estate comp thing if somebody screws up the market and

pays too much then they pay too much. So that happens in every market, not just sports. Right. But if one dumb deal can make everybody go, Oh, they got that. I'm like,

our, our backyard is way better. So if Zeke's making that argument and what I've heard is that he wants a gap beyond the 60 million 45 guaranteed that girly got, and he wants it two years before, then I would just be like, all right, dude, enjoy Cabo. Enjoy Cabo. And the fact that I'm supposed to pay you, it sounds like they're willing to pay him more money. Okay, that's great. But there's this other parallel that I'm going to kick back to you is, do you think this is a

couple NFL guys with Zeke and Melvin Gordon, and maybe Le'Veon Bell, what he just did. And Antonio Brown definitely flexed his muscles. And, you know, that was different, older guys. But I wonder if this is kind of an influence thing by the NBA, like the power flex that we've seen from the NBA players the last few years. If some of these NFL guys- It's generational.

Yeah. Oh, so you think it's generational? You don't think it's influenced by it? I think it's influenced by it, but I actually think, I'm going to flip it back on you. What if this influenced the NBA? We haven't had an NBA holdout in a long time.

Doesn't happen. What if we had, let's say Jalen Brown, smart guy, Berkeley, nine months, but still, smart enough to get into Berkeley, didn't get the extension this summer. By the way, I'm not saying aggregators, Berkeley, nine months, but still smart enough to get into Berkeley.

Didn't get the extension this summer. By the way, I'm not saying aggregators. Do not aggregate this and say I'm predicting this. This is all hypothetical. Jamal Murray gets 170. Ben Simmons gets 170. The Celtics look at Jalen and be like, yeah, let's see what happens this year. What if he's like, no, actually, I don't want to see what happens this year I'd like to get

what Jamal Murray and Ben Simmons got or something close or I'm just not going to play I'm good I've already banked some money I'll just do some

speaking tours I'll have a podcast I'll be fine I'm going to join The Ringer or the Jalen Brown podcast would that be tampering? Pay me more.

We haven't had this happen in basketball in forever. And if Zeke stares down the barrel at Jerry Jones, old teetering Jerry Jones, who just wants to win a Super Bowl, you know, he's, what is he, like 75 now? That's the leverage play that everybody- The leverage is on the owners. Like you think your career is short, you might be dead in like five years. So I'm not going to play. You think your career is short. You might be dead in five years.

So I'm not going to play. Let's have a staring contest. And if Jerry caves, this might usher in this new era of people on rookie deals going, yeah, fuck you. Pay me now. What happens if a quarterback does this? What happens if Mahomes does this tomorrow? Yeah, my deal's not fair.

You know I was the MVP last year. I don't even think Mahomes could do it though until, like they can't do a new deal for him until what, after year three, I think, anyway. All right, so whenever he's eligible. I could be wrong on that. I gotta say, I don't mean to sound like an uneducated ass. I don't know what the threshold is for stuff like this.

But at some point, I would say Mahomes would be the ultimate test case for this because he is the most valuable asset in the league right now. He'd be the number one pick in any trade value column. If I wrote an NFL trade column, Mahomes is one. So what if he says, yeah, fuck it, pay me? Well, the team with Mahomes would be like, like well not only do we have your contract for two more years with an option we can franchise you so we're just i mean we're we're not going to do this so if you want to go ahead and retire after maybe the greatest season we've seen from an individual

you go ahead and retire what if he calls about it there's's just no way. No one would ever expect it. I think that's what it would come down to. Did you ever expect Kawhi Leonard would do what he did with the Clippers and then sign for another two-year deal? Did you ever expect Durant and Kyrie would play together? Yeah, but he's not retiring. Kawhi knew all that money was still coming.

For me, mentally, everything's on the table with athletes now. Everything. Nothing would surprise me anymore with an athlete. KD and Kyrie going to brooklyn like broke my brain that was the most surprising of all it was like a culmination of 19 things this decade everything's on the table though okay so if we go back to the zeke thing yes people have said you know zeke is looking at jerry jones going well if you want a super bowl so bad like

but do i want a super bowl so bad do i feel like i'm incapable of winning this thing without you when we've seen how replaceable some of these guys are not saying that zeke is replaceable because we all understand how good he is but i just i wouldn't be giving in on this stuff if i were an owner i'd be like hey look i respect and i'm not even knocking zeke for trying to get that money because it sounds like he was still going to get a raise anyway first of all i would have never drafted a running back i don't care how good i wouldn't have taken sake on barkley too i just i just wouldn't have taken Saquon Barkley, too. I just wouldn't. Love that guy.

I know. Was the pod last year that we first did the dual threat where you were arguing he may be the greatest running back of all time? Yeah. Still arguing it. Haven't wavered. I think I saw you in the hallway and you were like, hey, do you want me to come on and get 15 minutes on Saquon?

I just wandered the streets of Hollywood and told people that he's the best running back I've ever seen. Here's the real problem. You can't pay a quarterback the big price and the running back the big price on the same team. You can do it. You're just not going to have a very good team. Nobody's ever been able to navigate that in the 21st century. I just don't think you should.

Kurt Warner, Marshall Fox, probably the last time we saw somebody even try to, or maybe Edge James Manning. I don't know. I don't know when it started, but you just can't really do it anymore. I don't understand, though, why so many people would just be like, well, you can't have two guys at $25 million, and then you can't build out the rest of your roster. You guys seriously get like $ 10 million every year extra.

I mean, the NBA cap forever would be like, hey, we're going from 61 to 62. Like, oh, it's at 63.8 now. Like, yay. I mean, that's nothing. And in the NFL every year, and on top of the way you could structure some of this stuff,

you could start doing some things because it's just easier. There's more flexibility and freedom to figure out your sheet to do this, knowing that there's TV deals coming around the corner in two years. So I think what you're presenting, and I'm not saying you're wrong, but I mean, that stare down would be, okay, Mahomes, you seriously want to retire after, say, he plays this year, and then he's like, okay, I want this deal. Russell Wilson got his new deal a year before they had to, but they felt like, hey, you know what?

He's been the best bargain in team sports, so why don't we just step up and pay Russell Wilson? I think a year before is totally understandable. That's fine. What's fun now is the two years before. That's a different animal. And if you're saying, well, the reason it happens in football doesn't happen in basketball, it's for the obvious differences between the two sports,

but the basketball part of this is that some of the way it's structured too, right, is that a quarter, or excuse me, me just a regular extension sometimes there's more complications it wasn't so much with the rookie ones where jalen didn't get one but other guys were like beal doesn't want to take his extension now or kairi didn't want to take his extension before because there was a benefit of holding off on it anyway well do you feel like we've hit some some new generational thing now just in general with all this stuff where the whole sports is a business thing? These young guys now have learned from the previous generations the league as a business, themselves first over the team, which kind of undermines the concept of a team in some ways,

because if you're just thinking, give me the most possible money right now, then every team is going to have to figure out who their one guy who makes the most money is. They're not going to be able to just kind of align them the way we've done in the past, which means like they almost would have to reinvent the football salary cap, I guess would be my long-winded point. The new way of doing it does not work

with the old way of doing the salary cap. I don't know that it's a salary cap issue, okay, with what you're saying. So like that, off of that point. Well, it's a salary cap issue okay with what you're saying uh so like that off of that point well it's a salary cap issue when you've already made your salary moves for a season and then your running back comes in and is like pay me more oh okay all right all right well at that point you're talking specific to that i thought you meant sort of overall and how you were well it's two-pronged right it's like what's your mindset for how you construct a roster but also, if somebody's just going to throw a red herring in August

and you're not ready for it, and you've already committed your money the other way, and you know you have to pay DAC and all the things they have to do, I wonder if they're going to have to fix the salary cap in some way and make it so that it's a little more malleable. I've never understood the dead cap money thing. So it's an average, the way it works, and no one ever talks about it, but like you don't have to,

the NBA, you have to write a check whatever you're below the 90% of the cap. Like at the end of the year, you're writing a check to every other player. And it's one of my favorite things ever when teams think that the players are going to get it and then they do something late and then the locker room finds out like those bonus checks.

They get pissed, yeah. Yeah, right. I mean, it's happened a couple of times. It happened, hanky-doodled with the Sixers and it happened with Portland once too. The NFL, you don't write that check if you achieve the floor

on an average of four of the five years. So, you know, this is all hard. This is the Cincinnati Bengals rule, right? Yeah, this is all like hard capped in a way, right? Hey, you're a player, you make 50%, okay? So whatever revenue is coming in,

you guys are all still making 50%, but whatever you sign for, like it's going to flex a little bit this way or the other. But it's not, how do we get to 90% of the floor? How do we get to 90% of the floor in the NFL? There's kind of like a, hey, we didn't want to spend it this year, and then we can carry this over,

which I'd always wondered if there was a way to do that in the NBA. I've talked about this for years, where instead of being forced to spend $20 million on J.J. Redick for one season to get to the floor. Like a PayPal? Yeah, you could credit it, but as soon as you start saying that stuff, like, no, no, players, trust us, this will work out,

they're immediately, none of the players, Michelle Roberts is going to be like, yeah, great idea. You guys don't have to spend. So do you think if you could pick one system or the other, but both leagues would have to have it, all contracts are guaranteed in both leagues or the NBA has to adopt the model that the NFL has where it's like guaranteed money up front, but it might,

you might not necessarily get there. So if there's a John Wall situation, guess what? You're not guaranteed. You're 170. Chris Paul's situation, he re-signs with Houston for four-year extension for 190, whatever it was, and it's like 80 million is guaranteed. So they pay him that one year, and now it's like

you could do some chicanery if you wanted to get out of it. Okay, this is a fascinating question because... Because more and more basketball players are getting hurt now all the time. And you could argue... Wait a minute, I thought they were healthier now because they're resting more and they changed the schedule. It seems like they're getting hurt more. Wait a minute, they spaced it out. There's less four and five.

There's less back-to-backs. I thought that meant everyone was going to be healthier. That's what I read. That's not how I put it out. Wait's less four and five, there's less back-to-backs. I thought that meant everyone was going to be healthier. That's what I read. That's not how it played out. Wait a minute. Are you sure? I read a lot about this. We just had Clay Thompson, Kevin Durant.

How many guys went down? Kawhi can only play 60 games a year. Andy Davis never plays 82. LeBron got hurt. These guys aren't playing full seasons as much. I don't want to distract us too much to get back to your question about which format would you rather have but I mean the infamous Daryl Vegas pod he like shut down the science on the rest thing that's like the second GM in that that week of being in Vegas I was like hey what do you think about some of the rest stuff

and he's like science is all over the place he's, I don't know what to believe. And then Daryl was in that pod and goes, yeah, I don't really know what to believe. I was like, whoa, Mr. Data? Yeah. They have no idea. So, all right. This is good because I think the most important thing though, to say, okay, say John Wall, right? John Wall, what would he sign for in an open market? But what would he sign for in an open market as a full free agent? What would he sign with a franchise tag? Because even though, and I feel like I got this wrong when I started talking about franchise tags a little while ago,

where I think the number that I read was 11 players have actually played with the tag over four years. So the players aren't going to care. If it's only 11 players, who cares? They're not going to vote against it. But that's not the point. The fact that it exists impacts everybody at the high end.

Right. It's not that 11 players were impacted by it. It's the leverage that matters. Yes, it's that it exists. So, you know, Mahomes doesn't have the leverage he would normally have.

Like, if Andrew Luck got to real free agency south of 30 years old, I know he's had the injury history, but let's face it, if he was just like a real free agent, like a free agent, free agent, the way 30 years old, I know he's had the injury history, but let's face it, if he was just like a real free agent, like a free agent, free agent, the way like a pitcher is in baseball, where all the contracts are the same, like I go to the Dodgers for 10 years, or I can stay here for nine, there's no bird rights, there's no max salary, super max advantage.

If it were just a free for all, what's a quarterback worth that's 30 and who's awesome on the open market? Like, you want to tell me he can't get to $150 million guaranteed from these guys? Of course you would. So- You would think. Their argument would be it's so many players on a roster, it's too debilitating to put out that much guaranteed money. Yeah, but I'm talking guaranteed.

I'm talking- That's what I mean. You think guaranteed? See, I think average annual salary, you would convince me there'd be'd be some concerns i think the owners are more scared about the guaranteed but here's the thing they're all making gobs of money like they make so much money owning an nfl team and they could sell the team immediately for more than they paid it we just saw with the carolina carolina becomes available because jerry richardson's a fuckhead and he's got multiple suitors immediately and they're bidding it's each other and he makes a ton of money for it so yeah but remember too

though the football rule that they have that they don't have in basketball is that all the guaranteed money has to go into escrow immediately so it's an old accounting trick back in the day that it was kind of like we just want to make sure the players are protected here in case some owner is buying the New York Islanders. This is total phony. And now you look at it and go, well, how many is that really impacting? And look, I talked to Mort a year ago about the Khalil Mack thing. And he goes, that was still an issue with the Oakland Raiders. Other people in the media said, absolutely not. It's not an issue. Mark Davis has plenty of money. I'm like, does he? Does he have 70 million cash? Liquid cash. Yes.

I mean, liquid is way different. You know that. Paper, liquid. As well as it not. You know that. But that's a good example of two really high-priced guys, and Gruden looked at it and said, I'm not doing this. I mean, the Patriots, Kevin Clark's written a couple pieces about this for us.

They just don't splurge on one guy. They would much rather have a bunch of guys in that seven to 11 million range and do it that way. Whenever they've splurged, other than Stephon Gilmore, I mean, Belichick's splurge record is bad. It's bad.

Gilmore's been a success, I think. It has, but that was even with one year where you were like, what the hell is going on with this? You know what I really love? There was that there's it's happened two times with the NBA where they had the amnesty clause and it was this get out of jail free card for dumb contracts. And just about everybody used it. Now the contracts were longer back then you had six years, seven years now, shorter contracts, harder to do. But it was so funny how many people made these massive mistakes.

And mistakes that they made a year earlier, the same GM. Oh, right, right. But that's kind of my point. You go, okay, here are all our guys that we want. And guess what? We're probably going to miss out on both of them. But shit, we still have $25 million in cap space. So is it worth it to give al harrington this

much money no remember the johan petro jordan farmer the nets when they struck out on everybody press conference wait a minute say that one again they that they struck out everyone in 2010 when they got i think i think procroft would take it over yeah they signed those four guys and they had that sad picture of the four of them holding their jerseys up. And it was like Johan Petro, Jordan Farmer, and like two other guys. Petro was decent from the elbow. I'll give him that.

But let's get back to like, because if it were just all, if it was all NBA structured, okay. In NFL. In the NFL. I think the NFL guys get way more, there's way more fairness in their contracts than they want to admit. When you're getting this money guaranteed and you're at the top end, it's kind of like getting guaranteed money. If you're going to sit there and tweet about, oh my gosh, I was owed $14 million in year five of this deal. It's like, well, you're either pandering for sympathy or you don't understand how contracts work.

I think most players should know that yeah like these years at the end here are fake so i'd rather in a way have all the nfl money be guaranteed i don't know that it would really change i think it would just change structures of contracts but i still think the top guys spending the same money yeah they'd still be getting their money it would be structured a little differently and it may hurt some of the mid-level guys a little bit more because it's like hey i can't do this this fake deal so if you're going to do a two-year six million like that's the best i can do and so i wonder if it could do 16 if it was like two-year three-year deals max and everything is guaranteed i uh

but you know it is important though to point out like i'm not anti the nfl guys having guaranteed contracts at all. I would like them to not have. I would like it to be harder for the owners because I think the owners, like some of the average annual salary stuff, I don't understand why it hasn't gotten higher. I don't, I'm not anti paying players. I'm anti having a high salary cap hit on running backs. It's proven time and time again that that's just where the league isn't going that way. And I don't think it's because 32 guys became stupid.

I think it's because they all became smarter. I've had a lot of bad ideas, but one of my best ideas ever was an NFL salary cap idea. And I think I thought of it going way back to when Willie McGinnis had to leave because, you know, Cleveland's offering this and the Pats have a cap and you hit a point where you get this guy in his 30s

who's the defensive end who can't even play every down anymore. But I thought there was some way to do it where the longer somebody's on your team, the easier it becomes to keep him on your team, basically. So let's say who's been on the Pats for a while now? Julian Edelman. So Julian Edelman's on the Pats for 10 years. After 10 years,

whatever you pay him, it only counts for like 70% of the cap. And then if it's their year 11, it drops to 65. In year 12, 60. And it rewards continuity, which I think is something football needs. I think it's important to have guys in the same team. So it's not just a bunch of jerseys. Now the younger generation,

they don't care. We just saw with the NBA, they love the player movement. It's like, great. All right. That guy's on this team now. I'll follow. Odell's on Cleveland. That's great. But I still think there's something to rooting for a guy at the beginning, middle, and end of their career. And I really hope we don't lose that as sports fans. Yeah, that's what I always ask everybody is like, do you want absolute Armageddon? Because if you want Armageddon, like you can convince me there should be no draft, right? Just a free for all. You just get to sign everybody.

It's the Madden draft. You're just doing Madden auto draft and Tom Brady's in Denver this year. Well, I used to joke that like the NBA, if you wanted to have the most popular single sporting event, you would just redraft the entire league every year. Every year. It feels like we just went through it. We just kind of did that. Whenever we do the guy on TV

going, Zeke, get yours, I'm thinking okay, that's cool, but you can't argue that Dallas is stupid for not giving Zeke that money. Can you? Because that would be ridiculous. So whenever I think about all the NBA player movement, I go, yeah, this is fun. But Paul George just signed a four-year deal. And after a year, he can be like, hey, I get to bounce. And then the pro Paul George argument is, well, they can trade him at any point. Be like, okay, so then do you not believe in the value of a contract at all? Like, you don't believe just because he can be traded that he has equal right to ask for a trade.

Like, could he then in theory sign the contract and then before camp even starts going, you know, I just don't like my house and OKC and I've never even played for you guys. Russell and I had a fight. He doesn't like the Hills New Beginnings. I do. It just got, it got heated. He tips 12%. I can't, I can't play with a guy that tips 12%. That was what the argument would be.

And that's why I always ask. Like it happens a lot with college football and college basketball where I go, do you want to fix it? Because I think players should get paid more money. I think the revenue generating sports, they need to figure out a way to get these guys some money. They do need to because the money has escalated beyond anything the NCAA ever thought it would be. And they're still arguing

there isn't enough money, there's enough money. And then the schools, it just turned into an arms race of like, hey, we have a zero gravity room and hang out in there now. And it's like, okay, cool, because you definitely needed that. Zero-gravity room. Right, right. It's awesome for tendons. But when I hear the guy who hates the NCAA so much be like, I just hope it all burns to the ground, I'm like, well, no, no.

I'm not down with that. I think the NBA thing that scares at least front offices is, you know, the way this thing happened and the movement and guys asking for trades now with Paul George two years left in the deal, two and one or whatever, and then Anthony Davis, it's like the injury thing. You know, Paul George just came off of two shoulder surgeries. What if he says, I don't want to play?

Like post-Kawaii, where now I think there's more Toronto fans that probably believe he wasn't hurt now that he's gone. He's definitely hurt. No, I'm saying he was hurt, but I'm talking about the Spurs. I'm talking about the Spurs injury. Right. Where front offices in the NBA will tell you, we don't know what's going to happen here in the future,

but you realize that these players now are going, well, maybe I'm just going to be hurt all year if you don't want to trade me. And that's why the players can move. I have an important point on this, but we're going to take a break. Hey, did you know on average, it takes police 45 minutes to respond to a home security alarm? That's almost an hour. When a home security system is triggered, the police often assume it's a false alarm and the call goes to the bottom of the list, but not with SimpliSafe Home Security. SimpliSafe has video verification technology that helps police get on the scene up to 3.5 times faster, making their average police response time just seven minutes. It is one reason why SimpliSafe Home Security is so different. They

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Nothing to lose. Go to simplisafe.com with two I's. simplisafe.com slash BS. I was thinking about it. I think the single biggest thing, man, you could make a list of all the things that's changed. This is the end of this decade. I really remember sports, 77, 78, 79. I really remember specific things. Dave Parker. The Sports Illustrated covers, guys, how much everybody made, the baseball cards, all that stuff. And that was an era of, you took it really personally if somebody wanted more money or somebody bitched about their contract. The fans were just like, who the fuck are you?

You don't, do you understand what you do for a living? How lucky you are? Yeah, and it's bullshit. It was wrong to think that way, by the way. So then that started to shift. It really didn't start to shift for another 20 years well look at the nfl strike stuff when you go back and watch some of the documentaries on that right i mean imagine being a fan making a sign like waiting for nfl players to get off a bus and the sign is basically to rate them yeah i mean think about that well so late 90s nba was like that so yeah and we're basically the fan the players it's an adversarial relationship in a lot of ways,

all the way through to the decision. And then this decade, it started to flip. And how you really know it's flipped is with the Zeke Elliott thing. Because he's got two years left on a contract that he signed. If he blew out his Achilles, the Cowboys would have to pay him or buy him out or whatever. He's saying, I'm not playing anymore until you take care of this.

And it seems like the fan response is mostly like, go get him, Zeke. You got this. Get paid, man. Get your money. And that's the mentality we have now. So when you talk about like whoever this year's version

of Kawhi Leonard could be, like Bradley Beal. My shoulder kind of hurts. I'm not playing. I think in the old days, it would be like, that guy's a malingerer. Or you've come up with all these bad words. That guy's a fucking coward, man. Get out there. You're getting paid. And now people don't think

that way at all. Now it's like swung too far the other way. I'd like to find some sort of balance. I really feel like we lost our way with the Anthony Davis thing where he had two years left. That team had a chance to make the playoffs. He's one of the best seven players in the league. And he was just like, I want to go to LA and I want to go now. And I'm going to sabotage this whole season. And there was nothing the team could do. I don't think that's right. I don't think that's good. I don't think that's a good place for sports to be. I don't want to sound like the old guy on the couch, but I think that's too much.

It's just gone in a direction I don't like. I am in total agreement that I think it's more so the media, though, than it is even fans. And that's been the biggest shift. It's so quick. It's been so quick.. I mean, it's been, it's so quick. It's been so quick, but I guess, and I've heard others already be like, well, why did you ever want to root for management?

Like, why were you rooting for management? Why were you rooting for ownership? Why were we following sports? But we're rooting for the fucking jersey that we started rooting for when we were six. So maybe that's just going to be completely different now. But I don't think it's old guy on the couch to say, and we've played pickup basketball.

But there is something about giving up some part of yourself for the betterment of team. I'm not saying don't get your money. Again, this isn't even like an anti-Zeke thing, but you can't sit up there and watch Ed Reed give a speech and realize this guy is like... I mean, talk about getting it at every single level. To come out of the tunnel with a guy like Ed Reed every Sunday.

Greatest teammate. Right. But he understood a lot of the sacrifice shit. Like, hey, now I'm'm nasty but there's a there's a team element to this thing there's even that rant about him that goes it's been around the internet for a while like him getting pissed at guys for not throwing away their towels and like let's do all these little things and all this stuff and i know that's not the same as wanting money but i don't think it's an outdated archaaic, old guy thing to suggest that, you know, there still has to be some level of sacrifice to be in a team.

And if everyone is their own brand and own business, which is what this has all become, like, oh, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this. Like, there is a little bit of a disconnect. And I worry about where this ends up going. Zion gives me hope because I think Zion's wired in that way of he's just like he's a fucking awesome teammate you read every quote about him from Duke last year when he got hurt and all the pander police

came out and was like he shouldn't play anymore he's jeopardizing for Duke he shouldn't and Zion was basically like these are my friends

I'm probably never going to play with him again if it's okay I'm going to play in the tournament how great were his answers too because he was almost like what?

I'm having a blast these are my best friends I want to play basketball to play in the tournament. How great were his answers too? Because he was almost like, what? He's like, huh? I'm having a blast. These are my best friends. I want to play basketball with them in the NCAA tournament on national TV. Is that cool with you guys? I'm going to do that. And then the stuff that Griffin article, which we should talk about

because it was really weird. The stuff Griffin said about Zion and that, I was just like, this guy's a fucking awesome teammate. He just wants the team to do well. I don't know, man. I got two kids that play sports. I still feel like that this guy's a fucking awesome teammate. He just wants the team to do well. I don't know, man. I got two kids that play sports. I still feel like that's a good example to have people out there that are like, I care about getting what's mine.

But I also really care about the infrastructure that I'm in and being a good teammate and setting an example and doing good work and sticking up for everybody I'm with and not just being like me, me, me, what's next for me. I don't want my kids to learn that lesson. Again, I'm being the old guy on the couch. Zion said everything the right way. Let's see if it doesn't work out in New Orleans year four or five, how he feels. And he's not saying everything the way I would say.

I mean, that's just like dudes in the media. You in your 20s you're like I want to say yes to everything or I want to make sure everything I do is special and I'm like wow how much is Ford gonna pay me so let you know let's see let's see how the Zion thing goes because we both know after a while you can be in a business where you're like okay now I just start looking at this differently but it doesn't mean that you necessarily end up having to be a bad teammate I don't think that guy's ever going to be a bad teammate because I think he gets it. By the way, when he was asked at the press conference,

like, hey, what do you think you're going to do after seven years? He's going, are you guys serious? Like, is it worth asking him that question to have that be the question and the answer that resonates? He hasn't played in a game yet. He's just excited to put his uniform on. What the fuck is he supposed to say?

Yeah. Like, well, you know, if by year three we aren't contending, I'll force my way out before my rookie deal is up. It would be funny if life worked the way that professional sports now seems to work where I could just come home and my wife would be like,

yeah, I'm good. I'm out. Like, what happened? We got married. Any reason? Nah. I'm good. Bigger market. I want to move somewhere. I don't know. Somebody looked at me at the tennis club today.

I'm good. I'm out. I'm done. They're like, what? What happened to your marriage? Somebody followed me on Instagram and just started giving me attention. I was like, we should pair up. Somebody slid in my DMs.

It never happened to me before. It is funny, though. I was reading about Reggie Miller recently. And Reggie Miller hit this point in the early 90s when people were really starting to figure out the cap. And he was like, he'd been in the 91 Celtics Pacers series with Chuck Person. And Reggie Miller's becoming a thing.

And his contract's up after, I think, the 92 season. And he's hanging out with Magic Person. And Reggie Miller's becoming a thing and his contract's up after, I think, the 92 season. And he's hanging out with Magic Johnson. And he's working out in LA with Magic Johnson, I think Byron Scott. And Magic Johnson becomes like this mentor to him. Magic Johnson introduces him to his future wife, a ton of other stuff. Magic Johnson tells him, play out your contract

and sign with the Lakers in 92. And Reggie Miller's like, I'm not going to do that. I made a commitment to Indiana. And that summer with a year left on his daily, he signs this new big extension. And if you go back and read the quotes, he's like, professional basketball in Indiana means a lot to me. I want to build my version of the Lakers here. And this city and this place means a lot. And I was reading it and it felt like it happened 700 years ago. I was like, wow, this guy. Right, and I wonder like would

younger players read that today and think, what an idiot? Yeah, like what a dumbass. You could have played with the Lakers, man. Magic was telling you? He's from, I mean, plays at UCLA. Oh my god. Magic laid it out for you and you just stayed in Indiana? Stay with those local Yokel fans?

What are you doing? Meanwhile, and then Reggie Miller ends up, they build a team around him that ends up playing in six Eastern Finals in 11 years. And even though he wasn't a superstar, but it's still like the focal point of that. And it was the right decision. Now, if he'd bounced around and played for five teams like Ray Allen did,

or Ray Allen was a better player, but Reggie Miller belonged to Indiana and Ray Allen was better. But it doesn't belong to anybody though. It's like, who are the who, what city is like, hey, it's Ray Allen night. Come get it. Come get some. Okay, but you think Ray Allen's like, yeah, but look at what I did

in Boston. Look what I did. I don't think he cares. To hit one of the most iconic shots ever, which I think you've called it the biggest playoff shot. He hit the greatest basketball shot ever. Got to play with LeBron. Right. He should have been the 2001 finals. Went head-to-head against Iverson. Had some really good last basketball days ever in Seattle runs.

I thought he was the 2008 finals MVP. So I guess the question is, which career would you rather have? Would you rather have the career where you did everything in one city or would you rather have the career where you just had an awesome individual career and a lot of people passed through your life and you played for a bunch of teams, but now you're in that situation like LeBron was where you're passing a record and the crowd doesn't give a shit because you just got there. That's a tough one.

Yeah, it is tough, but I still feel like Ray's the answer, I think, because of that shot. I mean, I can't stop thinking about that shot and trumping it. But I think back to, like, younger guys reading about that now, I bet you they do go, like, what an idiot. And you have to remember, too, like, even though these guys are pro athletes, and this is part of just becoming older,

like, I used to always kind of laugh, like, one of the first times I'd be around a team, and you'd go, Oh wait, there's like a dork on the team. Like a pro athlete is a dork. And be like, well,

yeah, like it's 25 baseball players. Not herder though. No, no herder is, I'm not even gonna tell you some of the herder stories I get. When is he coming out? Well,

there was a, there was a bit of a controversy because i have been the number one herder guy did somebody jump on your corner and then we had his people appearing i've had her cell phone number for a couple months i've never bothered him and so somebody somebody gave it to me like hey if you want to hit him up i'm like i don't even know if i'm not going to do it until further developments. And then his people reached out and were like, hey, we want him to go on with you. So I was like, all right, let's book him.

And then Cerruti goes, no, they want it to be with SVP. I was like, all right, well, you know what, though? That makes sense. He's a Maryland guy. So then here I've talked up Herder, and then Big Cat sends me a text a couple weeks ago and goes, hey, we have an interview coming up. You're going to be totally jealous.

And I was like, well, who? Big Cat went in and got. And he's like, weder he's oh my god and i went you know what i was like actually that's beat because i don't think you would have herder on if i hadn't been making herder jokes for a year yeah that's a fuck you i was more upset that herders people like look they want to get herder on part of my take so you know what i mean like he thought, this is a good get. So, I understand the strategic part. So, I wasn't really upset. They didn't know you had this idea for a podcast, you and Herter, called Hurt Locker.

Just you guys flexing and tank top. I just thought it was a no-brainer. I may have sent him a text once. It was like, what do you think about you, me, Buckhead, Thursday, tall boys? And he was like, who's this? What's your name again? It felt a little bit like on the food chain that I was not, it wasn't so much me as it was Van Pelt.

So you'd rather be Ray Allen. I would, I think I would rather be Reggie Miller, but I think that's just, that's a personality thing. But I don't think being Reggie Miller is a bad thing and where people would look back and historically, so like, let's start doing this whole thing, right? And this is the point I was going to make is that even though some basketball players are like 27 and 28 years old and you go, well, how impressionable could you still be at this point in your life?

Yeah. We have friends that are over 30 and I don't even know if, you know, some people it's just like, Hey, that guy's a really impressionable person. I think basketball players become incredibly impressionable in a way that it would surprise the public. And I don't know if it's because of the way that so many basketball players are brought up. It's because they're alone a lot where they're sheltered you know where there's there's a bunch of stuff that's going on um where it's it's you know you're going off to all these different camps and it's it's competitive but then you're hanging out and you're like meeting new guys and like i remember when guys started wearing all the bands yeah on their arms i'm like wait a minute so like kenyan martin wears a bunch of bands and now every other player is going to do it?

And then like one guy wears a headband, and now it's like every guy is going to wear a headband? I think what we've seen is that LeBron is so powerful. He is impressive to other players. Even we can debate on how many other superstars actually still wanted to go play with him at some point. But he has changed what it means to be an NBA star. And with his movement, that is something that has influenced so many of these other guys. And it's playing out perfectly with his Anthony Davis thing. When Anthony Davis did his sit down with ESPN and says, let's see how the year goes. And trust me, I understand the six month extension rule with him as well as anybody else out there. But if you're going to force a trade and tell the

rest of the NBA world, I'm only going to one team and that team gives up five picks and three players for you. And you have the balls to sit there on TV saying, like, let's see how the year plays out. That's not Anthony Davis talking. That's the LeBron playbook. I've tried to tell everybody this. Like, that actually was the wrong play by Davis. In that spot, that's not Davis keeping his options open. That's where Davis should have been like, look, you know, I want this all to work out.

I'm going to do this. But LeBron, who does this year-to-year thing, which Griffin explains in that Sports Illustrated article, how tough it was at times. And I think even LeBron's own detriment that when it's like, when you're going year to year and you're all about you all the time, that actually can hurt you and your whole team. And that's where I'd push back on somebody just saying, hey, whatever, get yours. And you go, yeah, but sometimes you can be your own worst enemy where it's like, yeah, you have to sacrifice a little if you want everybody to be on the same page for a team. And I think players think it's laughable now.

Brady, I love how you got that. I have. I thought the Griffin thing was such a missed opportunity last week. I'm going to talk about it. One more break. All right. These days, a lot of workplaces offer some pretty nice perks. Snack station, 15 flavors of soda water, even insurance.

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This is Griffin thing happens. Gives this Sports Illustrated interview. The first person I've ever seen go on the record with all the stuff everybody has said to us off the record about LeBron and the whole experience. I've said the year toto-year thing before. Yeah, we've said it on the podcast. Yeah, right.

We've talked about this on the podcast over and over again. It's not a criticism, by the way. It's reality. It's not a criticism. He did it. I mean, it's what he did. His thing is always, I'm year-to-year because I never want to let ownership or management be able to be like taking a year off or settle.

He used the year to year as leverage to get what he wanted every single year from the team, whether it was the amount of money they spent on extensions, trading first round picks, they traded five in three years. It was always constantly, well, I mean, you could keep that first round pick, but I mean, I may be gone next year. So I don't know. You do what you want to do. He definitely did that. And then the other piece of the Griffin thing that both of us have heard over and over again, and I've said on this podcast, and it sounds like a dig of LeBron, but it's really not,

is it is a no-win situation to play with LeBron in some degrees because he does get all the credit if the team wins. And if the team loses, everybody does point to the other pieces and start saying, well, if they just traded this guy or if this guy had done better, if this hadn't happened. And this is really exclusive to the last, I would say, seven years because he took a ton of shit. In 09, I remember Rick Buecher coming to my podcast and saying, lebron just didn't get it done in the orlando series and lebron had like the greatest six game statistical series like anybody'd ever had to that point it's like wow he just i love you i want it i love that was his

worst take but he's he's been so pro kobe that he's anti-lebron but i used to make fun of it about it on the podcast still doing it yeah he's. He's still anti- We all have our lanes. 2010, he got rightfully annihilated, LeBron, for the Boston meltdown. 2011 finals, got rightfully annihilated. But I think once the Cleveland thing happened, especially those four years, the way that team was set up,

it just became one of those things. LeBron wins, and if he doesn't win, it's got to be everyone else's fault. I think it started that last year in Miami. Because Wade wasn't playing as much. Totally. I mean, Bosh was traded when they were down 2-1 to the Pacers. That's the thing.

In the season the year before. So he says that out loud. A thing that we've heard from everybody? Everybody. Everybody. Yeah. And then he has to go back and be like, actually, I was misquoted.

Some stuff pulled out of exaggeration and I felt bad for him but at the same time I really admired he was the first person I heard who went on the record and was candid about some of this stuff it's okay to be critical of LeBron James this isn't Jesus Christ hasn't come back and

walked the earth for us here he's just a basketball player he's a great awesome basketball player the problem and part of the power that LeBron has is like, they can talk about Clutch not being LeBron and all these different things, but if you want to have a good relationship with Clutch, you can't criticize LeBron publicly

when you're his former GM. And it felt like Griff was one of the few guys that LeBron was cool with. I mean, think about all the GMs LeBron has had a problem with, all the coaches he's had a problem with. Now, I think the no-win thing is a little exaggerated with LeBron because it's actually kind of inaccurate.

Well, you win if you win that title. You win games. I mean, think of all the other guys that we think are stars that don't even come close to sniffing the success or a chance at a championship that we saw from LeBron for an entire decade. So to say, oh, it's a no-win situation, well, that's not really accurate. I can understand like- I meant a no-win, like you're not getting the same credit you would get if it was whatever else. So I saw everybody freaking out about it on Twitter before I read

the article and I made it through that first LeBron part because honestly, most of the articles about New Orleans- And Griffin. It's way more about that than it is the LeBron stuff. And so the LeBron part because honestly most of the articles about New Orleans and Griffin it it's way more about that than it is LeBron stuff and so the LeBron part in the beginning was like one part and I went oh wait I'm like oh so everybody's doing this again like it's not and then he brought up the second LeBron part where it was he just doesn't look like he has the same fight and at the end of the Cleveland thing and I went okay well the Griff's Griff's gonna take some heat on this one because it was like a second part where he was criticizing him and then LeBron you know tweets out like I've had it I'm sick of people saying this and I'm coming out and it's like all right fine but like you're gonna have to play like you're gonna play a full season of

intense defense too because that's that's probably not gonna it's probably not smart for LeBron to even do that I thought Griff made a good point And it's a point I've made on this podcast. There's nothing more fun than watching your kids play basketball. And LeBron, I think when he won that 2016 title, you know, at this point, it's, it's all gravy in some respects and the family part of it, you start to look around and be like, oh shit, my, I, this happened to me after, you know, at the Grantland thing, like doing five jobs and you realize how much stuff you're missing. And you look at, I look at my daughter, I'm like, shit, you're nine. And I missed 75% of your games and I didn't go to your

musical performance. And you really start caring about that stuff. So if he's going to care about that stuff and not be like the maniacal, I have to be Jordan guy, I think that actually is pretty cool and healthy. But my question is, 18 seasons in, I'm not sure you can be everything at the same time. You know, like Giannis is in the fucking lab right now. That guy has, all he's thinking about is I'm going to be better than I was last year. I want to win the title. This is Rocky III now. Giannis is clubber in the gym, just like pounding some heavy bag.

And Rocky's in the big mansion. It's a really good parallel for sports, that movie. LeBron's in the fucking Rocky III mansion now. And he's set up now where Davis can be the MVP. He can be the most overqualified number two guy ever if he plays it correctly, I'll be really interested to see how he plays it. There's stuff about,

oh, he's going to play point guard this year. I think that's ridiculous. I just don't think, I don't see a world in which he's an actual, like how the Sixers tried to use Ben Simmons where he's guarding other point guards. Oh, I don't think he'd be guarding any point guards. Well, then you're not a point guard.

FYI, you're not a point guard. Yeah, I don't blame him for coasting on defense. I don't blame him for the last couple of years of making sure he's guarding the guy. You go, I'll take him. Like, awesome. Rex Spex? He's about to go tip it up at live oak and it's like you start wandering slowly over the dad bod guy or the rex specs you're like i will be able to he's like i've got trevor reese guys

i don't know who you guys have i don't blame him for doing that i don't blame him for doing that so you know part of it's like okay well if other guys are pointing that out that's not really a critique it's it's actually what's happening out there but i still find his year last year to be more impressive than he's given credit for knowing that like those numbers at the end of the year i can't believe okay so i feel like the lebron thing like i'm not all the way you have him seventh i think that's too low right now but when steven a comes out and says hey he's going to be mvp of the league like that's too high i think there's two different rankings i'm middling here with lebron if i'm talking one game with my life, hey, he's going to be MVP of the league. Like that's too high. I think there's two different rankings. I'm middling here with LeBron.

If I'm talking one game with my life, depending on it, he's not seventh. If I'm talking about- How many guys would you take over him right now? One game. Kawhi. That's it. That's it.

Healthy Durant? I would still have LeBron second. Durant's not healthy. Can't do it. That's it. Where was Yabusele in that? Low. But when you're talking about I have somebody for 8 months

the thing with LeBron is I have no idea if he's a 90 game guy anymore or an 80 game guy you're talking if you're going to win the title you're playing for 8 months Kawhi is the most you can push it 62 regular season games 22 22 playoff games.

He still was at 80 plus. I have no idea if LeBron can play 3,000 minutes in a season anymore. Now, Brady's, going back to Brady, Brady's done things that we never expected. But the key thing, the difference between Favre 10 years ago and Marino 20 years ago and Montana 25 years ago is he doesn't get the shit kicked out of him in football games anymore. You don't have guys diving at your knees, and you don't have people hitting you in the head. You don't have people body slamming you.

You're still getting hit, but it's not the same punishment remotely. So it's realistic you can play to 44. I don't think it's logical, but it's at least like relatively realistic. But if his 42-year-old season's like his 41, like it's the first time where I'm going, maybe he is going to do this. Right.

And maybe the ultimate thing like gets back to like the beginning of the whole conversation we were having is that, does Brady want his Theo Epstein moment where he's like, actually I'm going to go to Tampa Bay for one year. Oh, that would be fun. I don't know if it'd be Tampa. That would be fun for everybody,

but everyone who loves the Patriots and Tom Brady. But as a football story, it'd be fun. And I would probably not leave my room for like a week. The LeBron thing, though? Yeah. I would argue that playing basketball, like just the Kawhi level, what we saw from Kawhi last year,

I can't believe I'm saying this, is just so much more physically grueling than it would be to be a quarterback at this point. I actually think it's more punishing. Football, how many hits am I really taking in 20 games as a quarterback? How many hits am I... Especially him.

I mean, he was... He's getting rid of the ball every time. Yeah, you're not hitting him. You're coming, I already got rid of the ball. You're not hitting me. I mean, even Manning. Remember when Manning went down and they thought he was just giving himself up?

Was it a playoff game? Yeah. They just didn't blow the whistle, so he kept running. I forget if that was a playoff game or it was a primetime game. Yeah, it was a primetime game. Like, everybody was watching at the same time. Like, everybody's so used to him giving himself up, and he still ended up not being healthy.

I don't... Manning was like... I have to go through it and, like, look at... Because Brady had that year, was it two years ago, where he was, like, halfway through the season, he was on on pace and he was getting the shit kicked out of him for him like he was he was actually i remember one year doing the math on it was like if he keeps up this rate it's going to be the highest hit rate he's had in maybe ever or 10 years like it was actually an alarming rate there where it didn't look like they were able to protect him and he was taking

one more hits so i don't know that i'm ready to say the kawaii thing is more grueling it's just different it's just different it is true like you talk to anybody who's a doctor in any ER I remember when I was playing yeah I used to play pickup basketball that's right when I was playing in my 40s and I was at a party once with somebody from like a parent from the school and I was like yeah I still play and he's like I mean you're the reason you are staying in business. Little kids and 40-year-old guys who think they can still play, pick up basketball and softball and touch football. Like, those are our bread and butters. Four-year-old kids and 41-year-old not-ready-to-retire-yet athletes.

I don't know if this is a bad time to ask about your health policy here at The Ringer. I got a couple of things things i gotta get checked out the uh anyway i think lebron the way he plays is fucking grueling i'll be interested to see if he can keep doing it i don't think he can play people seem to have penciled in now well when his son gets to the nba and he's gonna play with him it's like well his son's not going to be in the nba for at least four years and isn't like a top 10 prospect right now i don't think and is a 6-2 guard i'm sure there's been a lot of good ninth graders 6-2 guards over the years so that that he'd have to hit the jackpot with that side of it but then would also have to stay healthy for another four years to the point that he'd feel good about playing i don't know enough

about his. What would you put as a line right now? Just out of curiosity, LeBron plays with his kid. I give you plus 500. Do you grab it? Oh, I think I need better odds.

Like 10 to one. Cause the prospect part, like this is to assume, yes, you'll be in the NBA. The prospect list changed. Yeah. Like within a week.

Titus told us he was Zion when he was 14. Right, true. We got to go. I got three really quick things for you. Okay. We have a gym corner? We can. We can do that.

I have something I've observed. i wanted to share it with people um do you care about team usa yes or no the only thing i think is interesting it's a playoff of everything we just talked about how impressionable guys are how influenced and it's like hey wait a minute you're not going well i'm not going if you're not going i'm not going and then it turns into this thing where it's like now nobody wants to go do you see the team canada thing yeah none of those guys want to go yeah wiggins not going maybe the least surprising thing ever i know wiggins is like i'm just it's kind of funny how like patriotism has nothing to do with other than like are the cool guys going that's really what it is patriotism is now who's going to the night club yeah seriously

you think Steve Nash called Wiggins it was like all you can bet is coke and Xbox it was on again last night it's

probably watching I can't watch it now without the director's cut yeah you need the extra scenes because I was like I don't remember

Mohegan having these rooms can I make the case for Team USA for a split second yeah sure I thought it was really important in 08 with those young guys, and all of them had the best year of their career the next year.

Melo, Wade, Dwight Howard, LeBron. Being in that infrastructure, the intensity of it, working with older guys, seeing the work ethic of Kobe, Kidd, those guys. 2010, none of them wanted to go back. We made it a younger team. It turned out to be, I think, the most important moment of young Kevin Durant's career. He became the leader of that team. Lamar Odom was on there, a couple guys.

That was great. 2012, I thought was great for everybody. 2014, I still vaguely remember it being good for people. And now it's starting to fade. And I just think the proof's in the pudding where these guys go through this experience. They have different coaches. They're playing with the best of the best.

They're picking up a couple tricks left and right from like, oh, I didn't realize he was coming out here an hour before practice just to work on corner threes. There's no way it doesn't make you better. I think it's way better for you than the possible minor injury risk. But I do think the Paul George thing changed it. I think it changed the mindset of it.

And meanwhile, that was a fucking fluke injury. It was a fluke injury and he still got paid twice since then. Yeah. So, and he's probably coming off of what would have been his best season ever this past year. I mean, he was incredible up until both the shoulders and it just, you know.

Also, you're playing basketball either way. It's not like, you know, you're a fighter pilot. That's, if you don't do this war, you're not going to be in the fighter jet. Like, you start to play basketball all the time. If I see another pickup game with Mello, who's playing with NBA guys, like these guys are still playing ball.

I would say that's much more dangerous to play with like the 32-year-old stockbroker who's feeling himself in the new york city pickup game and undercuts you versus playing an organized game with everybody knows what the fuck they're doing one of my buddies was at chelsea pierre speaking of ray allen he played in college he's only been good in pickup games but yeah he he was like hey to ray he's, he's like, do you want to play with us? And Ray was like, y'all hackers? And he was like, no, I played and whatever. He's like, all right, we'll see. He's like, he played around with him.

And Ray wasn't going hard. He was making everything. The first thing he said was, like, are you guys out to fucking prove something here? Like, hey, I held Ray Allen to seven points or something so yeah that is more dangerous than that's a youth soccer thing by the way because youth soccer hits a level where it gets really competitive everybody's kind of on the same page with how to go what to do slide tackles being like all the different things and everybody kind of moves in concert and if somebody then goes down a level and plays in like an aysoSO game, that's how you get hurt.

Because you're playing with kids who don't know that same language and end up like they come in for the ball when they shouldn't. They have no chance at it. And all of a sudden, you have a broken leg or a broken ankle or something. So pick up basketballs like that, too. You put the want guy in there and it gets dangerous. Team USA basketball is basically like spending at a company where big companies have these spending freezes where all of a sudden it's like, now, okay, can you not park there? I'm like, what? I'll never forget. That was one of my first wake-up calls of the corporate world where it was like, can we have you park in the walking lot and walk over?

And I was like, yeah, absolutely. Six bucks a day, great savings. It's a ripoff, 24 bucks a month or 24 bucks a day. And then I pulled in and there was like a private lot, like four different managers were pulling in there. And I went, oh, you want me to do the $6 lot? But you guys asked me to do the $6 lot. You guys are parking there.

So basically USA basketball, you have to have multiple bad stretches for players to be motivated enough to go ahead and play. Everything you said is right, but when there's no like, hey, we're getting our asses kicked over and over again, like that's what'll have to happen. They'll have to have a couple of bad showings

and everybody will come back and start playing again. I would just be like, cool, I get to play with Greg Popovich. I'm never going to play with him in any other situation. Maybe I'll learn two things. How good was Popovich's Duncan Matero the other day? Just knee slapping. Yeah, Pop's at this point like Bill Murray at Pebble Beach.

That's perfect. That's better than mine. He can do anything and it's hilarious. I was going to say prime Tiger. Tiger could say something that wasn't even he could say something pro-communist after a tournament like on a saturday yeah and the room would laugh he'd be like obviously i can't have a six iron 320 yards right this guy's on fire you get a netflix special yeah and popovich is in that lane. I'm done with the pop, like the whole sideline

reporting thing died two years ago for me. I've been done with that for. And now it's, it's two years beyond being dead for me. I, my vote for Team USA would just be young players. I would go 24 and under, maybe have two Kemba Walker types and then everybody else like on their way up, do it that way. Make it like a experience that would actually help young guys. I think that's the answer. I would give citizenship to Giannis' entire family. Like you guys go. That'd be so funny if we did that.

It's like, good news. We did it with Hakeem in 96. Remember he was like on the fucking team USA all of a sudden. It's like, good news. Hakeem's on team USA. Like what? It's like the Italian baseball team. Right. Like, wait a minute. The situation's on it? Mike Sortino?

Do you have a Chris Paul prediction for us? Ooh. You want to save that for dual threat? No. Because, I mean, I had said all along, don't just assume that he's not going to play in Oklahoma City and from everything I've heard like that's the plan he talked it out with everybody and they're ready to go and let him run that ship and I think they need him to be really good again for everybody to get what they want out of it is for him to be a better asset than he is today and

for him to be enough of an asset to maybe find a way to be traded somewhere but so he's a two and a half month temp yeah but the milwaukee thing wasn't gonna work um unless that went disastrous i don't think it would i could see miami being bored enough to do it but you know the the lakers thing because i think he's gonna stay in la so i think i think so his hope is clutch clutch goes hey man um maybe some things aren't working out with LA. I don't know. No, that clutch goes, AD would really be receptive to a Chris Paul trade. It would be great. That'd be good if he did that.

Just throwing that out there. Because if not, he really wants to play with Wendell Carter, Zach Levine. Yeah, that Chicago thing came out of nowhere. Yeah. And then you have the clippers who they thought they mortgaged just everything for those two guys and then those guys like yeah we're gonna be on two-year deals is that cool it's like what right but two-year deal that would that would surprise me if the clippers would even you know i mean i expect that clippers thing to go really, really well. Well, especially now that Kawhi's uncle is the CEO of Xbox.

It's my hidden Balmer Microsoft joke for you. Is that not true? No, I was joking. Everybody's been joking about this. I don't know. You just did a big tech pod and I hadn't listened yet. No, everybody's been joking about these under the table perks that Balmer gave Kawhi. It's been a running joke this summer in NBA circles.

So he's not the voice of Cloud Strife, Final Fantasy. So you think it's not impossible that Chris Ball ends up in Los Angeles? Impossible. Is a strong word, but I think he would like that more than maybe they would. My prediction is still Minnesota. Okay. Any quick thoughts on why people care about Carmelo so much when he hasn't been relevant in four years? Is it because there's nothing to talk about?

No, I think because he's an awesome interview. Yeah. He's incredible. He's one of my favorite guys I've ever interviewed. It's weird that he hasn't been thrown around for studio announcing the jump kind of stuff. Well, maybe he's like, because I still want to play, right?

And I know other guys have done both, Vince Carter being a good example of that. But, maybe he just, you know, he's like, cause I still want to play, you know? Right. Uh, and I know other guys have done both, you know, Vince Carter being a good example of that, but I feel like mellows younger where it's like, well, if I go do that, it feels like I'm giving up. Uh,

one of the only athletes I've ever interviewed were like, as I was kind of going down a road, he just stopped me, but stopped me in like the most intelligent way to kind of make it better, but was cutting me off i'm like no dude that's not that's not what happened or what you need to be asking about like this is what it was and it totally blew me away like i've never forgotten obviously i forgot the word for word part of it but it wasn't him being a jerk at all he was actually just taking control and being like

no no this is this is what you need so i've always been impressed with him that way and so he does that big sit down with Stephen A. And what happens is, I mean, he's just slow time of the year, general consciousness of this whole thing. That's when we care about LeBron's parenting. Yeah. At youth basketball games. Exactly.

Carmelo's Stephen A interview. Taco Tuesday video. Tom Brady's real estate. Melo kind of got dumped on so much that I almost feel like there's a little bit of a guilt thing about it is that part of it too I think it's bullshit I I've already talked about this I just think it's it's ridiculous he was Mello was really really good oh so we're in agreement on this oh yeah yeah Mello's really really good and I don't even know who the best teammate he ever had was but it's either like past his prime Allen Iverson or Tyson Chandler or

you go through all like whenever anybody's like I did it for a comp five years ago so I've done it in an email with my friends but it's also his fault because over and over again he took the money over like a good situation and he specifically this past thing like this past contract to get that fifth year And he took the money over a good situation. And he specifically-

This past thing. This past contract was- To get that fifth year. You knew the next thing was done at that point. And he just went back there anyway for the money. Last question for Jim Corner and we got to go. Everyone wants Kyler Murray to be Mahomes for this year for fantasy, fun, out of nowhere purposes.

Is it actually realistic i still don't think what mahomes did last year was realistic okay so now i'm supposed to think another guy's just going to go ahead and do it and it's not me going i don't know about kyler murray i mean now i'm i'm more open-minded about any of these guys being studs i mean this position is just no offensive line coach, seemingly tough division. And by the way, you can add... Like, none of that means as much as... Do we have to remind ourselves of what Mahomes just did this past year

so that he's just going to step in and do that? I mean, that doesn't make any sense. I just hope he's fun and that when Nephew Kyle is drooling in the corner of the guest house at like 4.30 on a lazy Sunday in LA. I've been told. Not dueling. Thinking about dueling. He's not allowed to duel anymore?

No, not in the house. It definitely sends off the fumes. Come on, dude. Yeah, a little bit. A little bit. But I just hope he's fun on one of the TVs. I hope it's like, oh, look, Kyler Murray's scurrying around doing stuff. He's about as much fun as I've ever seen run

in a college football game. Just be like, oh, what's going on in the top TV? Yeah. Ooh, what's Kyler Murray doing? Switch it over. Yeah, flip this. He's probably going to run more, too, when you're younger.

I thought they were down 20. They're down six? I hope he at least hits that. All right, what do you got for Jim Corder? I've been doing this thing lately where i'm observing guys practicing uh mixed martial arts boxing and you know if you're good at it it's like it's a cool thing to be good at right when you're good at throwing punches and kicks it's kind of awesome you know it means like you grew up with it you get some natural ability

and you can tell right away like oh you know, this guy either has the Ty Bo video at home or this guy, like, actually, you know, was doing classes. He had a Muay Thai instructor when he was nine. Absolutely. But there's been dudes that I've been noticing that have been doing this thing where they set up their whole thing in front of everybody. And it's not, like, usually the gyms will have some side room

or if you're into that, join a gym that has bags and a room off to the side. And I've noticed in a couple of different spots, going to be traveling a bunch too, is that some guys are like setting up some sort of like cone obstacle

and then sparring with the deal while everybody else is kind of walking around them and going to different stations. And I'm thinking to myself, it's not so much that you want to work out it's that you want to have everybody see that you're kind of like an mma boxer dude and i've noticed a lot and the same thing happens with videos like kevin hart big workout guy right i like ke Hart. My basketball teammate, celebrity game, doesn't pass a ton. But he was doing like a sparring video, right,

where he was hitting it. And you can kind of, if you're athletic enough, you can memorize all the routines and what the different numbers are and you can go through it all and it can look really, really good. And you get routine down and Hart posted this video and it was really good.

And then the other key thing though that you do to try to just get in front of the haters as you go steal some work to do or steal some room to improve so that you're not posting it to be like look at me i'm the shit i'm a badass brady should just start doing that on his instagram but everybody that's doing that is posting it because they think they look like a badass in the video nobody Nobody looks at the video of them hitting the bags and goes, I look terrible. Yeah. I'm going to post this. My left wrist looked limped on that one. Yeah.

Like, I keep pushing this punch. There's no, there's nothing behind it. There's no snapping. Like, I even did it once because I knew in the video I looked cool. I did it years ago. So I'm admitting my own guilt in this process. But guys are posting stuff. Like, Russell Wilson Wilson every prime time game

always boxing footage guaranteed because he thinks it looks awesome so when guys release this stuff we all know that you're doing it it's just another version but it's a little extra and it's also bleeding into the gym routine to the the actual day-to-day where I'm noticing more and more guys like, hey, if there's a room that's actually set up to hit bags, here's a thought. Go in that room. But the other thing is you can't really say any other thing to those guys because if they actually are pretty good at it. Like what, bro? Right.

Oh, okay. We go live right now. And then you get your ass kicked at the gym and everybody finds out about it so I'm not gonna say anything to anybody do you think they're so they're showing off but they're also

kind of hoping they find a kindred spirit who then they can talk about MMA stuff a little bit with right maybe but I usually think it's about girls

no I think it's girls oh I'm tough I could defend you at the Tarantino movie if somebody spilled popcorn on you and wasn't nice about it.

Oh, you're a trainer? Yeah, no, I used to train MMA back in Huntington. I moved up here, though. I'm in LA now. We have one Jim Corner video idea that we're going to do when you officially join the ringer next month that I'm very excited about. Oh, yeah, that's right.

Don't say what it is. It's a good one. I forgot. I got nervous for a second. No, it's, this is one idea. It's, I don't know if it's a one-off or we can do like three of them.

It feels like a one-off. It might be a one-off. It might be a one-off, but it's great to have you here. Welcome aboard officially and very excited to get moving. Thanks a lot, Bill. Seriously.

So I can't wait. All right. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to go to ziprecruiter.com slash BS. Thanks to SimpliSafe. When a home security system is triggered, the police often assume it's a false alarm, but not with SimpliSafe Home Security. SimpliSafe has video verification technology that helps police get on the scene up to three

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Oh, yes. I was hoping you were going to say this. That I've never had on before. That it's kind of, I got to say, this is the single most unbelievable, I can't believe she, there's your hint, has not come on yet. But now, after 12 years, she's coming on.

That's all I'll say. And don't forget about the rewatch, it was collateral. You can listen to that after you finish this one. There you go. See you next Thursday. Wash on it. Wash on it. Wash on it. Wash on it. Your baby girl, she like, oh my god. I play time like things are a mess.

Wash on it. Wash on it. Wash on it.