The Bill Simmons Podcast - Brady’s Pats Future, Trae vs. Luka, NBA Trade Tweaks, and NFL Picks With Kevin O’Connor, Kevin Clark, and Mallory Rubin | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: December 6, 2019

HBO and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Kevin Clark and Kevin O’Connor to discuss Tom Curran’s article about the end of the Tom Brady era (1:55). Then Bill and Kevin O’Connor discuss getting Trae Young some help on the Hawks, and the 2019 NBA draft class, before hashing out Bill’s NBA midseason tournament idea (32:49). Then Kevin Clark returns for some Million Dollar Picks, including the anticipated rematch between Andy Ruiz Jr. and Anthony Joshua (1:05:27). Finally, Bill sits down with Mallory Rubin for Mallory’s Most Intriguing, in which she shares her top four story lines of the week, including the fourth spot in the College Football Playoff, AFC and NFC playoff implications, and more (1:29:45). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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State Farm, talk to an agent today. Meanwhile, see Hollywood's biggest stars, Leo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, and Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, a movie so good, we actually once did a podcast about it on this podcast.

Time Magazine says they're marvelous together, DiCaprio and Pitt. Now with over 20 minutes of additional scenes and exclusive access to the set, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Watch it now on digital, on Blu-ray, on Tuesday.

And we should mention things that came out this week. My friend Jimmy Kimmel, my old boss, he wrote a book called The Serious Goose, a children's book that he wrote inspired by his relationship with his daughter. And it's really good. You can get it for the holidays for whoever you care about. All of the proceeds from it go to children's hospitals. So there you go. The Serious Goose. Don't forget about the Book of Basketball podcast.

We did Dirk Nowitzki this week. And we have another podcast related to Dirk coming next week. The Rewatchables. Happy Gilmore is next week. Be ready for that one. Coming up, we have a hodgepodge of stuff. NBA, NFL, whole bunch of things with Kevin Carr, Kevin O'Connor, and Mally Rubin. Here's Pearl Jam. All right, the Kevins are here.

Kevin Clark, Kevin O'Connor. Tom Curran had a piece today about the last days of Brady. I think that was the headline, wasn't it, KSA? It was. It worried me because Tom Curran is a very good reporter. Plugged in. He's plugged in with the Patriots franchise, and he's also the type of person who would make fun of this piece.

It's very Mish, right? If somebody else wrote it and it wasn't sourced and it was just a full sheet. Somebody started a trouble piece. This was not that. This was a I have put together this giant board like the Zodiac killer trying to figure out the answer to something. And here are the 20 reasons I think this is probably bad and he's leaving.

I'll start with you, Kevin Clark. What was your reaction when you read this? Everything in the piece made sense. Things like the agreement that was signed in August means Brady can't be franchise tag after this season. The fact that Curran made this point that after this season, are the Patriots really going to ante up

for a 42-year-old quarterback? That's really not what the Patriots do. I think that Brady wants them to ante up. I think he wants to get paid. And I think that the agreement in August was kind of weird in that regard. He gets a raise, but it voids after one year.

And so I think that it is, I am with current. It makes sense that this could be the end. Kevin O'Connor. My reaction was identical that Tom Caron is a guy who's always been a measured reporter.

And he's been somebody who has laughed at reports like this in the past. And now he's the guy writing it. So it's something to take seriously, whether you're a Patriots fan or not, that maybe this is the end for Brady. But whether he leaves or retires, that would be my question here, because it's right to say, will the Patriots pay him the dollars and the money that he wants? I don't know. Probably not. But would Brady get that elsewhere? Has Brady

dipped in production to a point where he may not get that money in a city where he's like, you know what? I don't want to move my family here. I don't want to move here. I'll just retire. Can I say one thing? It's amazing that we're having long-term discussions about the future for a 42-year-old quarterback. It's amazing that he is 42 years

old, and we're sitting around saying, is this the, is this could be the end of his Patriots career, but where does he go next? I mean, that's remarkable in and of itself. I think Kevin that from a NFL teams don't necessarily do this a lot, but I think that if you're the chargers and you're moving into a stadium and you've sold 25,000 season tickets and absolutely nobody, if we walk down the street right now and ask 20 people who wear the chargers play, I'm not totally sure they, they would like the results of that. If you Godfather offer Tom Brady and you say 60 million for two years, you sell tickets. He gets to live in California. He likes, he likes the West coast. I'm not saying it's perfect. It's not a football decision at all, but I guarantee you they'd sell more than 25,000 season tickets. And this was a team a couple weeks ago. Everybody was like,

oh, they should move to London. Okay? So, once that happens, you need something drastic. So, if he becomes a free agent, if I'm the Chargers, I do everything I can to get Tom Brady. This is the most upset I've ever heard Kyle. Kyle's groaning like he's getting

a parking ticket. Kyle's just stopped recording two minutes ago. So I think there's smoke and fire here. I still don't know what the fuck happened with that Garoppolo story two years ago and all that stuff and how much was true and not true. Putting the house on the market right after he signed the contract was just a weird flex. And he's smart enough to know that people are going to notice shit like that.

But the thing that really was alarming to me was the Antonio Brown stuff. And Brady really... No, well, good question. All the parts, but Brady's reaction to it. Brady really pushing for them to kind of work it out and seeming bummed

and making a point of being bummed publicly when it didn't work out because he was telling us these guys kind of suck like I'm fucked

if you don't make this work out I think that was an acknowledgement of who was behind Antonio Brown once that Brown left I mean this was not a receiving core that he was all jazzed about. I went to their training camp practices in Detroit, watched them for two days of practice, and I just didn't see a whole lot.

And so then when they get Antonio Brown, I said, okay, problem solved. That doesn't work out after one week. And so I think Brady knew that Brady is probably he and Peyton Manning are the two quarterbacks of the last 20 years who trust with their receiver is so much more important than anything else. I've talked before about the things that he goes through to earn trust. Brandon LaFell once told me that he used to throw the ball up into the sun before a game in Miami because he wanted the receiver's eyes to get used to staring into the sun. Stuff like that.

Little things like that where a quarterback is going to say, okay, I need to know that they can do this. Aaron Rodgers does a little bit too where he'll throw a ball up in the air

just to see in practice just to see if a receiver will come down like intentionally throw a bad pass a little bit. Mahomes does a little bit too. But Brady is the king of that.

And I think he looked around and we talked about this in training camp. i think he looked around and we talked about this in training camp i think he looked around before brown and said i can't trust any of these guys and i'm not totally sure with the exception of edelman obviously who keeps come back um i'm not sure that that has improved and that's see watching that past game brady's been in your whole life yes how old were you when brady became the q? I was 10 years old. Oh, my God. Sorry, I was 11 years old when they won their first Super Bowl. It's a pre-chest hair.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I still remember John Madden, 121, left to go in the game saying, Patriots should kneel the ball. Go in overtime. Don't take any risks here. Because we've had some bad supporting cast. Like the 06 supporting cast was legendary. Oh, my God.

Jabbar Gaffney, Lawrence Maroney, who was an atrocity. There's been some bad supporting cast. The 06 supporting cast was legendary. Oh my god. Jabbar Gaffney, Lawrence Maroney who was an atrocity. There's been some bad supporting cast. And even in those Super Bowl teams, he didn't have the supporting cast that Manning had. I think the bummer, I talked about this Sunday night in the pod, but the bummer this time around is they actually spent capital trying to get him a supporting cast and they just got the wrong rise.

They got Sony, 31st pick. They got Nikhil Harry this year who whether he's going to be a guy down the road has not been a guy this year they just got the wrong rise. They got Sonny, 31st pick. They got Nikhil Harry this year who, whether he's going to be a guy down the road, has not been a guy this year. And then the second round pick for Sanu

who got hurt immediately. That's a lot of capital for three offensive guys who weren't really helping. Hey, Bill, I'm starting to doubt whether Sonny's better than Lamar Jackson

who was picked one spot afterwards. Jury's still out. You don't want to rush to judgment on this kind of thing. It takes three years. I mean, honestly, if you had Frank Gore, is it a lot differentury's still out. You don't want to rush to judgment on this kind of thing. It takes three years. Honestly, if you had Frank Gore, is it a lot

different? It is not. This is why you don't draft a running back in the first round. You know what's bad about Sonny? He's a good pass

protect blocker. It's like, great. So is Frank Gore. He's 100. And Michelle had the injury concerns as well. Right. The knee stuff.

The cartilage stuff. Which has already popped up in his career. So KOC, when you see Brady, you've watched, Brady's been in your life your whole life. When you see Brady's body language in that Houston game, and Houston's not even

that good. That was the frustrating thing about that game. Yelling about Dorsett. Yeah, and guys in the wrong spots, and him thinking somebody's going to do a stop and go, but they just stopped. That was the Dorsett play, right? Well, then there was one for Jacoby Byers too. And then Harry just quitting on the route and getting beaten by a guy who was much smarter than him. All that stuff.

Combined with the fact that the one thing Tom Brady loves more than anything is throwing to a tight end. And they were like, here are tight ends this year. Joe Schmo, John Schmuck, and Bob Dickman. Ben Watson. Oh, we got Ben Watson back. The guy who sucked 10 years ago for you. And couldn't make the roster of two months ago. Yeah.

So Tom Curran pointed this out. The only investment they've made is drafting Ryan Izzo two years ago in the seventh round. So they had Gronk. Gronk retires, and they did almost no problem solving there. Listen, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. No problem solving with could have traded for Kyle Rudolph when he was getting floated around there. Didn't do that. Didn't

sign any free agents. Dawson Knox they could have taken instead of Damien Harris who doesn't play. They didn't invest in tight end though, but like you guys just mentioned, they invested elsewhere. The Patriots roster has always evolved. The only thing they've ever really had was a running back

who catches pass out of the backfield, whether it was Falk or Danny Woodhead, James White. They've changed their offense. They weren't a too tight end offense before Aaron Hernandez and Gronk. They changed that. And then they became a tight end offense because they had the GOAT tight end and Gronk. And I think they probably viewed the next evolution of something

without a tight end. It just hasn't worked out. Yeah, no, listen. I think they were going to go heavy this year with heavy personnel and try to use a fullback in James Devlin. I think that injury mattered. I think that they thought that they could have more of a heavy personnel scheme this year. It just hasn't worked for them. Now their offensive line is banged up. I just think that they are the best problem solvers in the history of the sport.

And I think that they saw the 2019 roster on the offensive side as a problem they could solve and i think antonio brown helped in that regard for exactly nine days but i think that um unless they thought they were getting him for six months yeah exactly and so i think that they i still defer to them and i think that they have the capability to figure it out i think there's a couple of worrying things first of all i saw this on unprobprovable reference. Brady's yards after catch this year are down a full yard. Okay. So he's not getting a lot of help there. I saw it. It was a good stat in USA Today today that on his quick throws, just his quick throws, that his passer

rating has dipped 10 points just from last year to this year. Okay. Brady's quick throws. And I think that at some point you start looking around and I don't know how they solve this I just don't know you can't dink and dunk at this point you can't go heavy they've tried that it hasn't worked yet maybe you do more heavy and then try to pass out of it with the play action and maybe there's there's going to be some success there but I at I they are so much smarter than me I assume they'll figure it out but I think that the thing I always come back to with the Patriots is they operate like a casino right like little edges and uh and position groups okay they'll rob Peter to pay Paul we're not gonna we're not gonna have a good receiving core but we'll have x y and z right that they always do that the problem is in this all-in era of football

where there's just mega teams who are good at everything I think it's harder for them to operate like that and that's why I think you know know, I saw on Pro Football, excuse me, Football Outsiders, that the Ravens are the top DVOA team since 2007 Patriots. I saw that. If you're a team that's just trying to be good enough to be a contender like the Patriots are right now,

I think that there's, that you might be running into a bit of a buzzsaw in the playoffs. Hench, my buddy Hench, who's always guys following, he sent me that text Sunday night. And it was just like, we're going to get fucking annihilated in the playoffs. This sucks.

I'm like, I'm not there yet. I still hope we're going to figure it out. I'm with you. Nobody's open. And on top of that, he can't, he doesn't move around the same way he did 10 years ago come on he had that pass last week stepping up into the pocket no i know i'm just saying the game come on like those stats are nice but yes qbr qbr like and the same thing in the nba some of these single

number stats i don't give a shit it's like with with brady i would care about has his packing accuracy dips no has the ability to step into the pocket dipped? No. It's the receivers that stink, and that's why his numbers are down. It's the offensive line that's been hurt. That's why his numbers are down. Brady is still an elite quarterback. I love that.

That hasn't changed. I want an NBA, an NFL, I want process-focused stats, looking at what did a player do to set his team up for success or failure, not results-based, because sometimes the result is out of the control of the player as soon as... So we had, like, adjusted complete percentage is like that, where you factor in... With accuracy.

With accuracy, exactly. And I still don't think Brady is himself in that regard. I still think, I think it's a really good thing. It's a nice problem to have that Brady and the offense, if there's a problem with the Patriots is the problem because they will figure that out. I'd much rather if I was Bill Belichick, I'd much rather have Brady be the problem because he will eventually sort

it out. Then if there was a defensive problem or something like that. And so I think it's an, again, it's a nice problem to have if the greatest quarterback in history is your, your weak link. Okay. And you can win the Superbowl like that. You can win the Superbowl like that You can win the Super Bowl like that.

Like the Peyton Manning winning. I think that Belichick will have... Listen, they play... Yeah, exactly. I mean, Peyton Manning is a great example. He made like three throws in the Super Bowl and they won. But I think part of Brady's problem is I'm not fucking Peyton Manning in 2015.

I'm better than that. Give me some help. He is. Right. And so I think that generally, the Patriots play better situational football than any team in the history of the sport. And so I think that generally the Patriots play better situational football than any team in the history of the sport.

And they will, all of this comes down to we can do all the complaining we want about the Patriots offense. This is going to come down to four or five plays against Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson

where they're able to stop them. Just like last year's AFC championship game, it's going to be close late and it's going to come down to a handful of like JC Jackson plays. Here's the problem because I've heard

this theory and I agree with it. It's not the typical Patriots team this year for a couple different reasons. The special teams isn't good this year. It's a bad kicker. We've never had a bad kicker ever. Now we actually have a bad kicker. Boy, is it shocking to go

from Vinatieri to Gus Gusty to this rubbish. So in a three-point game, suddenly we're at a disadvantage where it was at an advantage. We have bad returners. Like Sanu, fair catching punts on the five-yard line

and our kick returners are terrible, stuff like that. Those are the stuff that Baltimore is really good at. So I'm worried about that. Punting's good, though. Punting's good.

That's been the... I mean, on both ends. Yeah. Yeah. The real problem, the thing that worries me the most we always had this kind of the Nas in Fast and Furious

when it was like you're in a race it's like alright I'll press the button and it's always there we always had the Nas button for us was Brady no huddle

fuck it throw everything out I'm just gonna call the plays to the line. All my guys know where to go and what to do. And it's unstoppable. And that's how they won the Atlanta Super Bowl. They threw everything out. Brady's like, I got this. Or that comeback versus the Saints in the past at Kenville Tompkins.

Or the first half of the Chiefs game when they were quicking the pace up and did the whole thing. He can't do that with these guys this year. Especially Sanu just got here. Edelman's getting double teamed. He doesn't have tight ends. If Sonny's in the backfield, they can't throw to him at all because he can't catch.

So it's James White's the only one they can do that with. And I just don't think they can, they don't have that no huddle button. What do you think with that, Kevin? Yeah, so no huddle is, has always been the cheat code for them. And I think the 2012 team, they almost ran the cheat code for them. And I think the 2012 team, they almost ran the most plays in the history of football.

Right. That's how, that's how extraordinary. That was the year with that Saints comeback, right? 2012. That was 2013, 2013.

Yeah. It was the beginning of 2013. That was the game where Belichick was like, Jimmy Graham came in with historically good numbers. And Belichick said, here's what we're going to do. We're going to just shut down Jimmy Graham. And he's not going to be a factor in this game. That was one of the all time, because there's been so many great Belichick said, here's what we're going to do. We're going to just shut down Jimmy Graham and he's not going to be a factor in this game.

That was one of the all-time because there's been so many great Belichick moments. We forget just some random October games where he's just like, eh, I feel like

just taking this guy out of the game. Anyway, yeah, so I think that they just don't have the flexibility at their disposal that they have in the past

and that comes down to exactly what you said. Trust me. Listen, Julian Edelman is still out there. James White can still. Julian Ed what you said, trust. Listen, Julian Edelman's still out there. James White can still... Julian Edelman getting double teamed. I know.

He's Julian Edelman. He should never be double teamed. I will say that the difference between most Patriots teams and this team is they still do have a historically great defense. Let's not forget this one. Let's not gloss over this. This is really important.

And if they have the game plan against Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes, they can still win these games. I worry a little bit. I saw a stat yesterday. Lamar Jackson has more carries over 15 miles per hour than anybody in football. He's ahead of Dalvin Cook. He's just a force. We've never seen anything like Lamar Jackson ever, ever, ever, ever. And so it comes down to Belichick's game plan in January. And I think that the offense can get where it needs to be.

And I don't think, I know that some of this is performative here with the Patriots fandom, because you're making me, you're making me, no, I'm saying you're making me defend the Patriots. We got killed on Sunday night.

But I'm saying that I don't want to defend the Patriots too much to you is what I'm saying. But I will do it. I think the Patriots still have a good chance to make the Super Bowl. Yeah. Hell yeah, Kyle. I think Kevin's right about the defense. That was the conversation earlier this year is people looking at their strength of schedule.

They've beaten weaker opponents. No, this defense is actually elite. I saw a stat. JC Jackson has a lower catch rate than Stephon Gilmore. We all sit around talking about how great Gilmore is, and he is. But JC Jackson's just as good.

Jonathan Jones was so good last year in the playoffs and the Super Bowl. They have a secondary that's just awesome. Bill, can I ask you a question? Chris Ryan and I were talking yesterday about the Eagles, and he was subscribing to the five-year rule of the Bill Simmons five-year rule of grace period

after a title. Where are you now on the five-year grace period? Having invented it, where are we with the Patriots? To me, it's more about, I want Brady to retire as a Patriot. And that's all I care about. And I don't want this season to go so badly that he's on Tennessee next year or Denver or some fucking team.

Tennessee's got Ryan Tannehill. They're spoken for, baby. Whatever. Makes me sick to my stomach. I was watching first take today, and Stephen A is like, I could see him going to Tennessee with Mike Frabel. They used to play together, and I'm like, what's going on? Why is this a topic right now?

The charges thing makes somewhat sense to me. I think the only way he would go is if he just wanted to be like, you know what? I can still sling it. And I haven't been on a team in a couple years that allowed me to sling it. I want to play with like a DeAndre Hopkins type of guy. Or I want to play with, I don't know, the Keenan Allen or anybody that can just get open.

I want to play with an awesome tight end. I want to be in Carolina's system and play with Christian McCaffrey and their receivers. Whatever he ends up with mentally where he's just like, Belichick fucked me in the last couple of years because I really do think he kind of feels that way. Getting fucked going to two Super Bowls in a row. No, but I'm saying like. I think he's probably thinking

like, I'm getting blamed for all this stuff. I didn't sign these guys. And maybe that's where he is mentally. I don't know. The funny thing about it is you're right. You feel like you're getting fucked even though you're having all the success because that's where the bar is for the New England Patriots. Well, he's the greatest

quarterback of all time. He's probably like, why are we spending money on defense? Why aren't we spending money on offense? Why do I have to play with Marshall Newhouse for eight weeks? I thought we drafted a third and a fourth round offensive lineman. Why aren't either of them playing?

Why did we use the 87th pick on a four-string running back? Like, he's probably at home thinking about this stuff. Yeah, I mean, the rookie problem is bad. They're 31st in the NFL in the percentage of their cap tied up in rookie contracts. Only the Vikings are worse. They are number one in what's called low contracts is from over the cap who do a great job, but their number one, what's called low veteran contracts, which you know what those are like $2 million guys. So they do, they get off the scrap heap, a lot of trades. We've seen that so much. And, you know, listen, not everybody's going to be Jamie Collins where they're

going to come back and play a defensive player of the year level. But lot of trades. We've seen that so much. And, you know, listen, not everybody's going to be Jamie Collins where they're going to come back and play defensive player of the year level. But I think those trades have been beneficial generally. Let me ask you, Bill, you said you care so much about Brady retiring a Patriot. Would you if the deal is Brady retires after 2020, but they go eight and eight next year with Brady's

quarterback. Do you take the deal or or in 2020 goes in place for Denver? I can't conceive of going eight and eight. No, but I'm just saying this is the deal talking about. This is the deal? Or, in 2020, he goes and plays for Denver. I can't conceive of going 8-8. No, but I'm just saying this is the deal. What are you talking about? This is the deal. Or he goes and plays in the Chargers. He goes to play for the Chargers in 2020. If Larry Baird had played two years

with the Dallas Mavericks in 93-94, that would have fucking sucked. But that's the hypothetical I'm giving. I'm not saying, I think that Tom Brady's never going to go 8-8. But what I'm saying is that would you give up a little bit of success to keep Tom Brady for two more years? No. So I'm not saying, I think that Tom Brady's never going to go late in eight. But what I'm saying is, is that would you give up a little bit of success to keep Tom Brady for two more years? So I'm the 2014 Lakers? No thanks. I'd want to keep Tom Brady and win with him.

Okay, but at some point, if he's 44 or 45, at some point he's not playing like the greatest quarterback of all time. At some point. I personally do not think he would leave the Patriots to go play for some rando team. Okay. I think it would have to be the Chargers, but we're also, not only are we getting you,

but we're also going to do this, this, this, and this, and you're going to have an awesome offense for two years, and you get to pick your coach. Or, I don't know, the Jets. Not that they would get rid of Darnold, but a team like New York. New York is a city. LA is a city. The Bears. He's in

Chicago. I don't see him going to some small marketplace. I see him going to like a famous franchise or a famous city. San Francisco is a Niners fan, but unfortunately Garoppolo has taken that position. That's why the Chargers idea makes some sense for him. Going to LA.

I know, but nobody cares about the Chargers. I know, but like a big city, at least. I think, here's one thing I think, and I don't have any information on this

particular subject, but the talk for the past decade plus has been who's really responsible for New England? Brady or Belichick? And I wonder if with his slightly

diminished capacity to play like an elite quarterback, if Brady doesn't want to go somewhere else because if he fails there, people might say, oh, well, it was Belichick the entire time. Right. I just,

him failing somewhere like the Chargers at age 44 would still be considered. I think from what I know about Brady though, I think he's just thinking about the next one and not thinking about the past. That's always his response. What's your favorite Super Bowl?

Where can I win my next Super Bowl is how he thinks. The thing is, that's why I wonder, is retirement a stronger option than maybe we're considering? Because for him, does he review these other options, these teams that are offering him a lot of money for a one or two-year deal and think, you know what, the risk in me going here, moving my life out here, playing for a team that's probably not better than the team I'm currently on.

It's not worth it. I'm just going to retire. I feel like that's a stronger possibility than we're talking about. What does he do in post-playing career? I mean, he's wearing Joe Pesci's wig from my cousin Vinny right now in these games. So I'm prepared for anything with the guy. What happened to his hair? I don't understand it.

Looks good. Looks better than him balding away. It seems like a Jason Witten thing and in five years, he's going to be totally bald. No idea what happened. One thing I wanted to mention with just the drafts for a second. The whole concept, which we've written about and talked about

a million times in The Ringer, but if you don't do well for a couple. Yeah. The whole concept, which we've written about and talked about a million times in The Ringer, but if you don't do well for a couple drafts, how much that can impact you. And you wrote a piece, I think it was last year, about the Pats have lived on those $5 to $8 million guys.

And they've exploited that better than any team in the league by far. When no one else was doing that. By far. They had like double the amount of guys making that salary cap. But when you're not hitting on your first

and second round picks and this is what happened to them in 08, 09, 2010 where they had a couple bad drafts and they really paid for it.

Their last four second round picks are Juwan Williams, Duke Dawson, Cyrus Jones, and Jordan Richards. Yep. None of those guys play.

The pick before that was Garoppolo, who they traded. The last four first-round picks, Nikhil Harry, Isaiah Wynn, who I think is really good. I'm glad he's finally healthy. I agree. Sonny Michel, I think that was a whiff. And then Malcolm Brown, who's already gone. Dominique Easley.

Those are the last five first-round picks. I think it's just really hard to succeed over long stretches of time if you're not nailing like 50% of those top two rounds, right? Yeah. So over the Captured Study last year, where they looked at the previous 2015 to 2018 drafts, right? Yeah. And the Patriots were bottom five in players who were still on the roster at that point. Oof. And part of that is humility. Bill Belichick will cut a guy if he doesn't perform. He doesn't care. He does not care if he's a first-round pick,

a second-round pick. He will just move on from guys. But I think the problem with the last couple of years has been just the amount of guys who have just been complete zeros. Duke Dawson, Antonio Garcia, Cyrus Jones,

we played a little bit, but just what the hell. He finally did something good for us in the Baltimore game. Yeah. Stunk from the Patriots. Yeah. And so that was just, you get no value from those guys.

And that was what was surprising to me over the past couple of years is just the amount of guys who are just complete washes. And look, they've had concentrations of drafts where it's like they hit on one draft and they're able to sustain for a couple of years. You know, they took Chandler Jones and Donta Hightower in the same draft in 2012. You know, Trey Flowers and Shaq Mason in 2015.

That kind of thing where they have... Belichick hasn't always been a great drafter. He's a better coach than drafter. But he's been able to have the draft to have sustained this run. And he's been augmenting that. And I think that the trades, the pick for players thing

that he's gotten really good at the last couple of years has helped a little bit. That's the reason they're number one in low veteran contracts. But right now, they have just not hit on some of their big swings.

He's good at stealing unappreciated guys from other teams and putting them in. Look at Trent Brown last year. Trent Brown comes in. Nobody cares. Van Noy. I mean, Jamie Collins

is one of the best moves of the decade in general. You draft him. The whole arc of it. You draft him. You let him play like one of the best defensive players in football.

You get a second round pick for him. You get Cleveland to give him $28 million who he's content for a couple of years. He plays like crap in Cleveland. You get him back on a veteran minimum deal and he's content for a couple of years. He plays like crap in Cleveland. You get him back on a veteran minimum deal

and he's back to playing a defensive player of the year. That is the absolute Belichick value arc. Is there a parallel for that? Has that happened in NBA, NFL? It's going to happen

again with Kyle Vannoy when he leaves this winter and then comes back three years from now. It's going to be awesome. You know what the most underrated moment of the Patriots decade was

other than our tight end being a serial killer? Well, I mean, he was. He killed multiple people. That makes you a serial killer, right? If you've killed more than one person, you're a serial killer. But the most under, anyway, the most underrated moment.

Julian Edelman almost went to Jacksonville. They were offering him more money. Devin McCourty too. Yeah,. Julian Edelman almost went to Jacksonville. They were offering him more money. Devin McCourty too. Yeah, but Julian Edelman, if he goes to Jacksonville and they had no real way to replace him, I don't even know who the receiver is, but I don't know if they win any of the three Super Bowls without him. Maybe they win last year's without him.

Maybe, I don't know. Devin McCourty also turned out more money from Jacksonville. Jacksonville is just a really tragic character in this Patriots saga. But then flipping it the other way, the Adam Humphreys, where he decides to go to Tennessee, and now he's finally starting to come on because Tannehill

has been playing better. But that's a guy I think they were counting on too last week. They thought they were getting him. Who was the other guy they thought they were going to get? They came up short on two free agents that they went in on. I thought there was a second guy. Who was the other guy they thought they were going to get? They came up short on two free agents that they went in on. I thought there was a second guy. It was Humphreys?

I don't know. Not sure. And then they tried to get- They lost Trey Flowers. They tried to get Kyle Rudolph and then Minnesota ended up keeping him. Do we think they tried

to get AJ Green? Don't know the answer. Don't know the answer. That was one of those things that everyone was saying made sense and then we just don't- I don't think the Bengals probably made a call at least

well then he got hurt and then now he's just not usual we gotta go so let's do this quick how far do the Pats go in the playoffs

if you gun to your head right now AFC Championship loss winning the Super Bowl number seven Brady retires after the season I think they right now I'm in the

lose to Baltimore mode but I think close but close by January I'll be back and we're the fucking Patriots. We've got this. Where's Brady playing next year? Gut reaction.

I think he plays one more year in New England. Kevin? I mean, I think Tommy Brady will retire after winning a seventh Super Bowl. He'll retire on top. What about you? I have this terrible feeling he's going to leave. Where?

I don't know, but I just feel like I don't like anything that's happened and the fact that Curran wrote that piece made me nervous. I agree with that.

Curran does not throw stuff against the wall. No. And just people I've talked to, I know some people. It's just in general, I know some people. I just, in general, I don't like where this is headed

and dating back to the Garoppolo stuff two years ago. And it just, when you think about it, he's been with Belichick 20 years. And at some point, if you're not married to somebody, at some point,

anyone you're with 20 years, they're going to start to annoy you. If Kyle's still in that chair 20 years from now, I guarantee he's not going to, yeah, shoot me. See? That's what you said.

He wants to be shot if he's in that chair 20 years from now. Imagine how Brady feels with Belichick. Belichick's like, really? Fucking your sons

are defensive coordinator? What the fuck? Can you get him a haircut at least? I think that's where he's been. Do you think, Kevin O'Connor had me with the theory that Steve Belichick is the heir been. Do you think Kevin O'Connor had me with the theory that Steve Belichick is the, is the heir apparent?

I'm serious. Like six, seven years from now. He's an extreme makeover. McDaniels gets a new gig at some point before then. Is it Mayo or is it young Belichick? I think Brian Flores comes back. I'm in on Brian Flores.

I love that Eagles game. He coached last week. I love when you suck and you're just like, you know what? We're doing this weird formation, going for the two point. We're starting the third quarter with an onside kick. Like that's the shit you should do when you suck.

They abandoned the tank. Yeah. Because he's too good of a coach. It's awesome. He's too good of a coach. Awesome. He was awesome last year. I love that every owner was like,

let's hire one of Sean McVay's friends. And Brian Flores was like, actually, I might be- Brian Flores is three points in the Super Bowl and everybody's like, hey, who else is known? Sean McVay. Kingsbury.

Classic. All right. Kevin Clark, you're coming back to do Million Dollar Picks in a second. I'm talking NBA with KFC right now. First, we'll take a break. Hey, we all enjoy giving the perfect gifts to everyone on our list. None of us wants to give gifts to cyber criminals. I know I don't. That's what you

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Get Norton Secure VPN for as low as $3.33 a month for the first year with the annual subscription. Go to norton.com slash VPN Simmons. Terms apply. All right, let's bring in Kevin O'Connor by himself here. All right, now we're here with just Kevin O'Connor. So I figured once a month for the rest of our lives, we would just take a victory lap of Luka Doncic. I'm down.

Just like maybe like early in the middle of the month, each month, we just do it. I do feel bad for Trey Young. I think he's an unwitting victim in this. He got mad this week because people kept asking him the question. I don't think he's realized yet that this is just going to be a part of the rest of his life. He can have his own career and hopefully it'll be really great. I like watching him.

But the Luka thing is just going to be part of his career, and that's just the way it is. It's just unfortunate that for Trey, he's attached in a trade to a guy who's having one of the greatest second years ever and has a chance to be one of the greatest players ever, far down the line. Yeah. Certainly one of the best offensive players ever. The Luka rebounding is the thing that's...

He had 18 rebounds. He's more Larry Bird-ish than I think people realize, especially if you go to the early first four or five years of Bird's career, where Bird could affect games in all these different ways. It was funny watching him last night against Minnesota. Covington's been really good this year. And I wonder, when I think about trade pieces, that's somebody that I think, you know, you saw Jeremy Grant went for a first round pick before the season, and he's probably

a better version of what a lot of the stuff Jeremy Grant can bring. I'll be really interested to see if they blow it up, what they do. And if that's a guy somebody really tries to target. Because you have these teams that have these war chest of picks. Celtics have this Memphis pick. If they feel like they're close and they have a chance to make a finals, and the draft this year sucks, they might flip that pick this year

if they feel like it's somebody good. Not for Covington, but for somebody. Or even like a Bertans on Washington if a team wants somebody who can shoot the lights out and can at least play good positional defense. But you mentioned the Bird thing. I have to ask, is my Luka Legend nickname

appropriate? Is it too soon? I have to ask you. Luka Legend's pretty good. Maybe it's the Slovenian term for legend. One of the great things about Luka is he doesn't really need a nickname. It's like LeBron, right? He has such a distinctive name. But with the Trae Young thing,

I do think the Hawks are doing him disservice in this respect. They built a team that is just around him getting stats. And the team's not successful. Part of that has to do with John Collins just left, but they lost 10 straight. They're 5-17, and you have a game like last night where they lose by 12, but Trey has a 30-10. And it's like, great, another great Trey Young game. It's like, not really. They're losing all these games. And he's, I think, 34 and 70 in his career. And I do worry that the Luka trade has backfired on them

so the response is partly let's build everything around this guy get him stats because at least we can point to the stats I don't know if that's going to lead to wins I think with Trey one of the reasons why I like Trey

it's a prospect I didn't love him because of his potential limitations as a smaller point guard how that would impact him on the defensive end and never mind the fact that as good as his shot looks potential limitations as a smaller point guard, how that would impact him on the defensive end. And nevermind the fact that as good as his shot looks,

the percentages were not always there. So I always had some questions about Trey, but the way to build around him is what they've done though, with DeAndre Hunter and Cam Reddish and Kevin Herter, and then rim runners like John Collins. And now they're using Jabari Parker in a rim running role. Is that a good thing though? Well, I mean, this is the way you sort of had a build around Trey Young on the offensive end.

And then you have to protect him defensively too with all these long defenders. So this is what you have to do when Trey is your star player. I think for Atlanta, ideally, at some point, either hurt her or they find another guy that can be a secondary playmaker for them. That way you can really show what Trey can do off ball, use him more off screen,

show some of that IQ and give him rest. Because right now it is all him. I guess my fear is he's not Lamar Jackson. Like when the Ravens go on on Lamar Jackson, they're saying this guy is, we think this guy is a transcendent talent. We've seen it in practice every day. And if we build the right team around him,

we have a chance to win the Super Bowl. Well, they think he is because otherwise they don't do that Luka Doncic trade. But I just think that's a mistake. I don't think he's

that type of player. I just don't. And I think defensively he's a real liability. Well, that's my long-term concern. I mean, we're far away from talking about,

oh, how does Trae Young's defense impact the Hawks' playoff hopes? We're not even close to that. But someday that will be a discussion. And it will be for Luka, too. It's just Luka's bigger

and he's better positionally and he can hold his own and he's a great rebounder. And he gets steals. And he gets steals, yeah. I think Trae Young is your kind of guy because you love nothing more than good stats, bad teams guys.

Those are your guys. Devin Booker, Zach Levine. I don't like Zach. If you were GM, you would be getting all these guys. I had Zach Levine ranked like 37 in his draft, which was way Booker, Zach Levine. I don't like Zach. If you were GM, you'd be getting all these guys. I had Zach Levine ranked like 37 in his draft, which was way too low, by the way. I made a mistake there.

I still don't like him as a player. If you're GM, you're just getting stats guys. Look at all these 25-point scores I have. I love Booker. Young, I didn't love him in the draft. Look, Young is a guy that I think, you're right that he needs to have somebody else by his side. He needs another Batman. I by his side he needs another

batman I'm not sure he's the batman he's one of the batmans on this team right but with Trey like he's a scorer and a playmaker but he needs somebody in that backcourt who can protect him on the defensive end and compliment him and really showcase some of the stuff he can do off ball um I want to talk about trades. But before we do that, just quickly on that 2018 draft, because you mentioned the two guys they got. I don't really love either of those guys yet.

I don't love this draft. John Hollinger wrote a piece today about how this draft was a disaster. It's early. There were a lot of young guys in it. On the other hand, it's certainly not encouraging so far. Are there four guys that you're in love with at this point? Yeah, I listed out before we recorded.

Rookies performing well. PJ Washington, 12th pick. So he's been the biggest surprise, I would say. Tyler Hero, 13th pick. You know how I feel about Tyler Hero. Matisse Theibel, 20th pick to Philly. Brandon Clark, 21st to Memphis. That's pretty much it of the first rounders. Out of the top 10. Well, so feel about Tyler. Matisse Theibel, 20th pick to Philly. Brandon Clark, 21st to Memphis. That's pretty much it of the first rounders.

Out of the top 10. Well, so think about that. All those guys you listed were not in the top 10, right? Of course. PJ Washington was even, what was he, 12? He was 12. Ja Morant in the top 10. Ja, too, has performed well.

Other than that, I mean, as Hollinger, he ripped Darius Garland in his piece. I mean, he has not been good this year. Jarrett Culver in Minnesota has not been good either. Been a little bit better since moving to the starting lineup. And they moved up for him. They did. They did 11 in Sarich, although Sarich is...

It's like Culver, you're not giving up on him. He's somebody who was a late bloomer in high school. He didn't really emerge until his second season at Texas Tech. He went from a role player to a star in college. And he's a hard worker, a good kid. So I think he's somebody, whatever his max is, he'll get there as a player. But yeah, the draft has not been super impressive yet. It's still early, though.

It's worse than I thought it was going to be. You thought guys would pop? I thought we would strike oil with one of those top six guys other than John Morant and Zion. Like, oh, Garland is way better than

I thought. I thought we'd have one of those guys. I thought it might be Garland. I said before this season that Garland is like a sleeper.

I still like him. He can shoot. It's just right now the problem with Garland is he can't defend and he can't finish around the rim and he can't draw free throws either.

Well, and also the fit with him and Sexton, I was unconvinced at the time, and I'm more unconvinced after watching it. At least Sexton's been back to himself on defense. Yeah. Because he was really good in college. I'm just saying, can you play those two together? It's a cousin of when they had Kyrie and Deion Waiters together.

It's like, eh. Yeah. I'm not sure this is a backcourt. How do you feel about Kobe White? Exciting, explosive. Man, he shoots a lot. Yeah. And I always, you know me, I judge everybody by,

especially point guards, would they be fun to play with? And it's like, would I have fun being on Kobe White's team? Not from what I've seen so far. No. And I think that's one of the problems with that team in general, is it's kind of like whoever gets the ball over half court gets to shoot. It's one of those teams. I feel like without Zion so far this season,

we, like the collective we, NBA fans, media, all that, have sort of grasped that Rookie's trying to find somebody to latch on to. First it's Ja, and then it's Kobe White, had a nice stretch in preseason. And then you got rui hatcher more now like you have players talking him up and all that rj had a couple games yeah we're looking for somebody to latch on to it's just nobody's done it even john moran who's been good i mean he's should be the guy that people are looking at and are excited about but in some ways like you watch memphis and you come away more excited by Bernard Clark,

who I loved in the draft and love him even more now, just seeing his game translate. Thibaut really hurts because they're starting to play him more. That was the guy I was just so focused on. Do you think Boston, well, which teams probably regret their pick

the most already? I would say everybody from 14 on, right? After Hero, and I think Boston thought they were getting him, and that's why they kind of audibled. I think they did too. But I think from that point on, it became a different draft. And what's interesting is I liked a lot of the guys after that Hero pick, just not in the order they went.

And it reminds me of, what was that draft that had like a Baca, Batum, George Hill? All those, it was like maybe 2010, something like that? 08, 08 a Baca. 08 something. I forget. There was one draft where there was like four great picks in a row. 23, 24, 25, 26.

Baca went 24th, Batum 25th, George Hill 26th, Darrell Arthur 27th. Who went 23rd? 23rd was Costas Koufis. I've never given up on him. He's my NBA support group guy. I mean, see. I always liked his drop step. Always getting those $7-8 million contracts.

Sometimes you have these drafts, though. The 2013 draft, and it was like McCollum was 10 and Giannis was 13, and those ended up being probably Giannis is one and McCollum was 10 and Giannis was 13 and those ended up being probably Giannis is one and McCollum or Oladipo's two in that draft Anthony Benico number one's still shocking though well that happened well it feels like this draft that we're about to have is kind of an Anthony Bennett draft where we don't even know who the top five is going to be at this point no we don't and and this is kind of odd because usually at this point, mid-December,

a guy begins to start to emerge. We see somebody, but oh yeah. Oh, that guy. Like John Morant last year. Like, oh, who's this? But that has not happened yet. It's very odd.

All right. So here's what I got to throw at you. Okay. Oh, I wish to mention on the draft, RJ is the one I feel the worst for because to me, that's just a bad situation. You go to a team, it's a complete mess. They're going to fire their coach. We just don't know what week it is. You have four point guards. You have seven power forwards. It's not a team

built for him to succeed. It's the complete opposite of what Atlanta tried to do for Trey Young. And I just feel bad for him because I really like his game. And I actually think he would have been better off playing with veterans and guys who actually know what they're doing and where he could have the ball a lot and stuff. And Dennis Smith Jr., who has started to play a little bit more lately, talk about a terrible fit with R.J. Barrett. That's a worst-case scenario. I mean, Dennis Smith couldn't make it work with Luka Doncic. No. He's not going to make it work with terrible fit with RJ Barrett. That's a worst-case scenario.

Dennis Smith couldn't make it work with Luka Doncic. No. He's not going to make it work with RJ Barrett. No, Dallas wanted to get rid of him pretty much immediately when they saw that. All right, so here's what I have to throw at you. I'm really excited for this. I was thinking about Chris Paul. Mahoney wrote a good piece today for our website

about how he's kind of in this NBA purgatory where there's no way to trade for him, basically. He makes $38 million. He's under contract this year and the next two. And he's become this guy that's just kind of like, I guess he's stuck in OKC. Kevin Love, same thing in Cleveland. No secret Kevin Love wants to get traded. Now, maybe he should have thought about that before he signed the giant deal, but I think he wants to play for a contender. He makes $29 million. Really hard to figure out who the contender is.

Even when people throw a team like Portland in there, Portland's $12 million over the luxury tax right now. They're not dying to add Kevin Love. So you have these guys, you have these assets. And the reason I really started thinking about it was Tristan Thompson. Because Tristan Thompson's having a really good year. He makes almost 19 million. He's somebody that would absolutely help a playoff team.

But he makes enough money that it's actually kind of unrealistic he would get traded. And it's actually probably more realistic, as crazy as it sounds, because he's good. I think he's only 28. Then he would get bought out. And then somebody would sign him at the end of February. Because if you're Cleveland, I don't want to take a giant contract back. Now I take an expiring contract back and you're shitty pick. I'd rather just buy him out and save 4 million bucks. The system's kind of broken. And I think the reason it's broken is because we never anticipated the salaries would jump like this. We didn't know

this was going to happen 10 years ago, five years ago, that we'd have guys making $38 million and $34 million, $29 million. We have to fix the trade rule. So here's what I have for you. Right now it's what, 75%, 80%? The contracts have to be within 80% of each other, 75%? It varies depending on. It varies, but it's not lower than 75. If it's over 19 million, it's 125% or 75% plus 100,000. Let's just make it 50%. For everything.

For everything. Every deal. Every deal. Across the board. So a $2 million contract, you can deal a $1 million contract. A $20 million deal, you can do a $10 million deal. If I want Tristan Thompson, you can do $10 million deal. If I want, if I want Tristan Thompson,

if the Celtics want Tristan Thompson, Tice, Poirier, Langford adds up to like 10.9 million. I wouldn't actually do this trade. I'm just using an example. Right now, you couldn't make that trade.

The Celtics have no way to get Tristan Thompson. They'd have to add seven contracts together. It wouldn't make sense. If you made it 50%, now all of a sudden, you could have trades like OKC, Chris Paul. Minnesota goes, we'll give you Teague. He's an expiring.

He makes 19. We'll throw in one other contract to get to 50%. I'm liking this. And we're done. And that's it. And OKC gets to save $19 million. They get way under the luxury tax, all that stuff. And we're done. And that's it. And OKC gets to save $19 million. They get way under the luxury tax, all that stuff. And they're super happy.

They got rid of Chris Paul. And Minnesota takes a gamble. And we're done. So why wouldn't that work? Because in baseball, the Red Sox can trade Mookie Betts to the Dodgers for four prospects. By the way, it will kill my soul when they do it. But it's just allowed because in baseball, we figured out how to do this. In football, it will kill my soul when they do it. But it's just allowed because in baseball, we've figured out how to do this. In football, it's like impossible to trade anybody.

But in basketball, it should be easier because we never anticipated these salaries to be this high. All right. So what's your immediate reaction? So it's interesting because, so right now with the league rules, like I said earlier, for a salary over $19.6 million, the incoming outgoing salary has to be within 125% or 75% plus 100K. Complicated. But with tax paying teams, teams that are already in the tax, every deal's like that. 125% plus the 100K. It's just flat no matter what the number is. So I think it does make sense to simplify this type of rule not to mention the fact that yes it's going to lead to more trades again driving more interest giving teams more flexibility I think it's good for the team side for the fan side I wonder would there be pushback from players

and agents or the PA would there be pushback from them maybe maybe not though think about who runs the PA well to your point though, Chris Paul. And then you have players who want to be able to play for contending teams, but can't because of their salary number. This is actually pretty smart, Bill. You told me before we recorded that you weren't telling me your idea.

Yeah, I was just springing on you. And I'm glad you waited because this is actually really, really good. I like it. One of the things when I try to think of an idea is who's against it and why would they be against it? All right. So who's against this? Well, if, you know, let's say Miami trades waiters and James Johnson for Chris Paul or whatever it is, and they take on an extra $15 million in salary. And OKC gets to get rid of his contract.

Ultimately, who's against that? Because Miami is now a luxury tax team, so all the smaller market teams will be able to get that. OKC gets to cut this contract that they have no chance of trading. Chris Paul gets a new team. The league's more fun.

It's like, who's arguing with this? I guess you could say maybe a contender, like if the Lakers were able to get somebody good and people are like, oh fuck, that's not fair. But that's really the only thing I can see. But I have another wrinkle for you. This is where it gets really good. One time a year,

one time in a 12-month cycle, a team can make a trade where it's only 30%. Why is this necessary? 50% is good, Bill. It's a one-time 30%. Here's what this opens the door

for, though. Milwaukee trades Ilyasova and Wilson, who make $9.9 million combined, for Kevin Love, who makes $29 million. And if you're Cleveland, you're like, great, we just cut $20 million off our payroll. And if you're Milwaukee,

you're like, great, we're paying the tax, but now we have Kevin Love. And it's a one-time 30% thing. Chris Paul, you want to go to Miami? Miami's offering Dion Waiters and Kendrick Nunn, and that's it. We're within the 30%. We'll

take on his money. We'll pay the luxury tax with Chris Paul. OKC gets to save a shitload of money. So you're out on the 30%. Too crazy. I think the 50% is fine. I think for like, you and I may have talked before about Chris Paul for Milwaukee. If you're looking for a team

that could potentially want a deal for him, this was before the season. We mentioned why not Milwaukee? I'm not so sure that's the case anymore at 18 and three on pace for 70 plus wins, but yeah, 30% would make it easy to add a little bit to Bledsoe. We have it in baseball.

Does it bother you in baseball? Baseball? There's no percentage anything. No. So here's what the 30% would allow. Chris part of the Lakers for Caldwell Pope and Avery anything. No. So here's what the 30% would allow. Chris Paul to the Lakers for Caldwell Pope and Avery Bradley. I'm not sure people would love that.

So this is why the 30% can't work. Yeah. Because... Keep it at 50. The Lakers could just stack their team with these crazy contracts and just pay the luxury tax. What do they care?

They make so much money in gate revenue. They'd be like, fine, we'll pay. What if the middle ground here is you get the one 50% trade a year, if that were the rule? And it would have to be the one time for each team? Sure. So let's say the NBA is like, Bill, your idea is too extreme.

We're not in favor of it. But how about this? One 50% deal a year. My thing is, it would make the league more fun. We would be talking, you'd get to put stuff in columns like, they haven't used their 50% trade yet.

I'm all for it. I'm all for anything that makes the league more fun. And that's why I also like the mid-season tournament and the playoff plans. I want to talk about that in a second too. The thing is, the thing that's changed fundamentally

and why I think this is a good idea is that the league has changed and the salaries are just too high and it's become too hard to make the salaries work. Like you think about

the early 2000s, there were trades all the time with stars that people want to get rid of, right? Steve Francis, Jalen Rose,

Stephon Marbury. You could always patch the numbers together because the guys weren't making that much. They were making maybe $18 million. Now we're getting to the $38 million for Chris Paul and $29 million for Kevin Love. I didn't even mention Tobias Harris. He's

34 already? What happens when Philly is like, fuck, maybe we shouldn't have done this. They can't send him anywhere. And I think that's what's changed and that's why we need to relax the trade kickers. How much do you think, so I thought about this in regards to the Anthony Davis signing,

trade this offseason, just the salary cap gymnastics that they had to make happen. Which was absurd. Do you think the common fan cares about that or do they not tune in into the point where the deal is done or it's not happening? Do they care about that story leading up mechanics? Yeah. I think it gets stupid where they have to basically just give away Bo Wagner

to create extra stuff for it. I mean, how many picks did they actually give up for AD? Four? I think it was four, yeah. It's really five because Wagner was the first-round pick the year before. He's been pretty good this year for the Wizards. And he's been pretty good.

And he actually probably would have played for the Lakers. I actually like his game. I love Mo Wagner. He's great. He loves you too, guys. But yeah, now look, I think 50% just makes more sense anyway because it's easier for everybody to figure out.

It's like, what's half of that number? We just have to get here. Okay, good. And then we're off. Have you told anybody in the league office this idea? No, I just thought of it today. This is the first time. I thought of it today.

This is how sad my life is. Wait, this idea came up today, as in like, right now we're recording this at 11.53 a.m. I read Mahoney's column about Chris Paul, and I was thinking about how weird it is that he's completely untradeable. And I was like,

man, how would we fix this if we could fix this? So you're like workshopping it on the fly here. I'm workshopping it on the fly. All right, I like it. The playoff tournament, or the midseason tournament which

you wrote about last week I did a podcast about got some good feedback on it and I like that structure you outlined so and

some of the feedback was really good what so I had the Russell Cup which was the top 14 and then the Chamberlain Cup which was the bottom 30 the Chamberlain Cup, which was the bottom 30. The Chamberlain Cup's the – that's the weakest part of this

because people are like, why wouldn't the 14 seed just want to go into the Chamberlain Cup? They could clean up some wins against shitty teams. I'm like, ah, fuck. I didn't think of that. But I think the concept of the top 14 and the whole idea of a point system, I think fans would be able to figure out. And that's been discussed in the past.

I just think that's an unassailably good idea if they could figure that out, where it's like you shorten the season, the Clippers go 50-22, but if they win the Russell Cup, they get an extra seven or an extra nine or whatever. Do you like that part of the idea? Yeah, I'm in favor of moving towards a point system.

I'm in favor of those wins being worth extra towards the standings. I think that's a good overall thing if the league can move towards that. One of the things that I've had conversations with the people about is, well, what happens to those teams that lose? Do they get put into a loser's bracket?

Or does it turn out that the teams that are advancing are playing four or five more games during the full calendar year before the actual postseason than others? Or do you put those teams into a loser's bracket in which they're playing games that still count towards the regular season record? And how does that all work with scheduling games and arenas? How does that work with broadcasting on local RSNs, but also national as well? From what my understanding is, that's the big hurdle with all of this,

is making it work with scheduling, with arenas, and for TV too. That's why it can't be 30 teams. And that's why it has to be 12 or 14 that we care about. And you get buys for round one. And the way I had it structured with the top 14, with the top two seeds get buys, I think it's seven games, then it's four, then it's two, then it's one.

And it's 14 total. Or six, four, two, one. 13 total. A reader emailed me last week, and it's sort of similar to your idea, a little different though. He was like like the top four automatically are in the postseason and then five through eight choose their opponent for a one

game playoff between nine to twelve and i really really like that idea i think something like that would be cool even if you remove the aspect of a team choosing their opponent but that something like that system or the system you proposed in the pod last week, that would create the meaning in the regular season to get a top four seed, just like you have now in the NFL with the top two seeds getting a bye. If you don't have to play in that one game tournament,

you're not load managing your players quite as much. You're not having guys rest. Guys are going harder trying to get that one, two, three, or four seed in their respective conferences. That's why I think the hand-in-hand idea at the midseason tournament, which I proposed on the pod Tuesday, is only guaranteeing the first five playoff seeds.

Now you have real weight, not just for the Russell Cup or whatever you call it, but it becomes impossible to load manage that point. You look at the East right now, there's six good teams. The Sixers couldn't be like, ah, we're just going to rest and bead if there was a chance they fell into the playoff thing.

The feedback I got from people within the league, though, the biggest obstacle of the 7, 8, 9, 10 from the owners is... The one that was proposed... The one that they've been talking about for two years. Yep. The one that they've been talking about for two years. Is the owners were nervous about the 7-8 teams playing this whole season, 82 games to get in this spot, and then they could just lose it in two hours. And they were like, well, why are we rewarding the 10th seed that could fuck around for an entire season and then all of a sudden turn the switch on for two hours. So I guess one of the things that's been proposed,

which I don't know if I've read anywhere, was the lower seed would have to win twice. Have you heard this one? The higher seed wins once they advance. Lower seed has to win twice. When I first heard about the idea in August, I was told one of the ways it was discussed

was like the seven would face the 10 first. And from there, I got incredibly confused on how exactly it would work. But if the 10 were to win, they would have to play another game to get in versus the eight or nine. And if the seven were to win the seven versus 10 matchup, they would be in automatically.

They just win one, they're in. The 10 would have to win two to get in. So I'm thinking if they guarantee the first five and it's six versus 11, seven versus 10 and eight versus nine, you make it so that six and seven host the home games and it's basically back-to-back nights. If they take care of business first,

then it's over, they advance. If that road team can beat them two nights in a nights, if they take care of business first then it's over. They advance. If that road team can beat them two nights in a row, then they advance. And they get knocked and the 6-7 get knocked out. 8-9 I think

is just one game winner takes all home court because those teams are going to be close to each other and wins anyway. But, you know. And I think that was

the wrinkle there. It's like if the 8 beats the 9 then they're automatically in. But if the 9 beats the 8 and then the 8 would face the 10, something like that.

Yeah, that gets too complicated. It gets really complicated. I don't like that. I'm confused even saying it out loud. The seven, eight, nine, 10 that was in the original ESPN article is the one that makes most sense. It's most sensible.

The thing is, though, from a revenue standpoint, if you drop to 72 games, you had this mid-season tournament, even if it's only 14 teams, and then you had the six playing games, potentially more if there's a, you know, the team wins the first,

the lower team wins the first game. That makes up the revenue. That is something they could sell as a package to one of the eight suitors that's out there that would make up the five home games that everyone's losing. I had another idea based on that Chamberlain Cup, which I just cannot figure out

totally. Tell me if you like this. The bottom 16 teams, 24-minute games in the first round. Kyle's laughing. So you have a situation. Everyone

has to play four half games, two in one day. No. Two in one day? Two 24-minute games. So you have, let's say, the Hornets, the Magic, the

Wizards, and the Knicks. And two of them, the Hornets and Knicks play, then the Wizards and Magic play. 24-minute game. It just comes right back on the clock. Other ones come in, they go. The other one's waiting, and then they come in,

and it's just these 24-minute mini-games. Sounds like summer league. And the stats count. I would watch it. I feel like this is something for the NBA to experiment with during a summer league first. Before every...

Good idea. Anything close to that. But I'm in favor of experimentation. That's why, like, with the midseason tournament, there's been a lot of conversation like, oh, this isn't perfect. You got to get it. The incentive is right.

You know, this isn't going to, what if it doesn't work? Well, so what if it doesn't work? So what? It's worth experimenting because we know right now the 82-game regular season doesn't work. So let's try something new and see how that does. And maybe from there, you build forward, maybe you pull the plug on it, but I think the

in-season tournament and the play-in tournament are both positive experiments for the league to at least try, hopefully in 21-22. And you and I both agree it should be 82-72 however this plays out. 72 is the logical number for the league. I don't get the 76.

I feel like that's the owners being over-nervous about how much revenue they might lose. But that's the thing, though. I get starting with 76. Again, because if 76, you stay there, and then it turns out, well, now we have some teams playing 83 games. That's too many.

Maybe four, five, six years from now, then you're like, okay, now we can comfortably move down to 72 knowing the amount of money that's in this tournament or these tournaments if both get approved. What about big three rules, first team to 50, and then it's like you could potentially play three games in one day.

Is this an idea for the Chamberlain Cup? Yeah, for the Chamberlain Cup. No, no, no. I'm not in favor of that. All the bad teams are in Vegas Yeah, for the Chamberlain Cup. No, no, no. I'm not in favor of that. All the bad teams are in Vegas and it's just basketball all day. No. I mean, it'd be fun. It's fun in theory, but if I'm like putting on my Adam Silver commissioner hat, it's a no. The reality is the Chamberlain Cup needs to go and it should be, the mid-season tournament should be the top 14 teams. You play in there, You get rewarded with wins. A couple readers were suggesting

do you reward the winning team with a trade exception of $5 million or do you reward them with luxury tax relief of $10 million? I don't know why the players would care about that. To me, it's all about incentivizing the players and getting them excited about it.

One last thought on the Chamberlain Cup side of it, though. I think those teams do need to play, though. I just don't know if it needs to be in a tournament Cup format. I think there needs to be a flexible part of the schedule where teams play games. Instead of just taking a week off? Sure, yeah.

Because then it's a bit of an unfair advantage in that case. Or teams may want that time off. Alright. Thanks for talking this out with me. Thank you, Bill. All right, let's talk boxing. The much-anticipated Andy Ruiz-Anthony Joshua rematch is coming December 7th on DAZN.

This is important. This is really important. This is an early fight because it's in Saudi Arabia. 2.30 Eastern, Saturday afternoon. Be ready. The first fight was awesome. We had Andy Ruiz on this podcast. It was a real-life Rocky story.

Joshua's opponent dropped out after failing a drug test. Ruiz volunteered himself as the replacement. All that happened one month before the fight. Didn't matter. 11-1 underdog. He knocked out Joshua in the seventh round, became the new heavyweight champion. Now he is defending the title. You can watch it on DAZN. It is available on all your devices. Make December 7th an epic sports day, college football championships, and stream Ruiz Joshua at the same time. What's better than that?

Don't miss the second of the action. December 7th, 2.30 Eastern, 11.30 Pacific. Only on DAZN. Not only the best schedule in boxing history, but the best value too. You get everything. Every fight, original content, all live, on demand for one low price.

Just download the DAZN app to start watching. All right, let's bring in Kevin Clark to talk about this. All right, Clark is here. There's a big fight this weekend that I want to use a million dollar pick. I should mention, million dollar pick's red hot right now, up 1.569 million, almost 1.57 million, 1.69 million. Almost swept last week, and then the Pats fucked me. Had a chance to go perfect last week. I want to put Andy Ruiz in here in million-dollar picks this week

because I think he's going to win again. I think Joshua basically rolled over in that last fight. I don't think he has it. I think Ruiz is going to beat him again. What do you think? Great question. I am actually taking Ruiz as well.

I think that because Joshua came in so hyped, I don't think it's... It's really hard for fight fans to get the idea of Joshua before that fight out of our heads. Yeah. He looked like... He looked like...

He was one of the most famous athletes in the world. I mean, the equivalent to me is if LSU right now, before the playoff, decided to schedule Memphis, and Memphis beat them so badly that we wondered if LSU was ever good in the first place, right? That's how I feel about the advantage of Joshua, where Andy Ruiz so thoroughly dismantled him that I'm saying, wait, what did I just watch against when Joshua fought Joseph Parker and all these guys?

Was he ever good? Of course he was, but the destruction was such that now I question everything I've ever thought about Joshua. I think a lot of people are having that too. I was never a huge fan, so all it did was reinforce my questions. Well, I mean, it shows you how good Deontay Wilder is, I'll tell you that much. I mean, I just think that if Anthony Joshua

couldn't take those punches from Andy Ruiz, Lord help him when he steps into the ring with Deontay Wilder's right hand. Yeah, Deontay Wilder is like the chief slash J where you could be up 20 to three and then they just score three touchdowns in five minutes. And you're like, fuck, we're losing. Yep.

Like everyone's like, oh, Deontay Wilder is not that great of a boxer. Well, he has the most powerful right hand in the last like 25 years. So he's fine. Yeah, they're like Ortiz won the first five rounds. It's like, well, then he got knocked out. Then he had no idea where he

was. He'd be carried out of the ring. So, I don't know the answer to this. A weird fight. It's in neither boxer's home country. It's in Saudi Arabia. Joshua was smoking mirrors heading into the Ruiz fight for the most part

and then got his ass kicked and seemed fine with it after. I think he had no idea Heading into the Ruiz fight for the most part. And then got his ass kicked. And seemed fine with it after. I think he had no idea where he was. Magnanimous. And there were all these rumors about he had tried to get out of the fight beforehand. Who knows if all that's true. I just think Ruiz is better.

Yeah, and then there were the, not the rumors, the comments that he was relieved to have lost because of all the pressure. I just don't know. Some people aren't meant to be the heavyweight champ. It doesn't sound great, to be honest with you. And the other thing, I always judge this stuff by

when Ruiz, like the Rocky Balboa arc, how they're going to handle that. Most famously, Buster Douglas, where he beats Tyson and the next six months go off the rails and then he gets knocked out by Holyfield. And it just was like, just wasn't prepared for all of it. I think for Ruiz, it seems like he's got a really good head about this whole thing.

I was impressed by him when he did that podcast. Well, the other thing that we learned about Ruiz, we had kind of a, once he won that fight, we look back on his career, he probably could have beaten Joseph Parker. And maybe he's just a better boxer than we thought. His physique killed him for what we thought of him. He was a late addition to that fight because of the, the, the previous fighter testing positive.

And so I don't think we had enough time to actually look at the fight as, as an actual fight. It was more of a look, Joshua was fighting a Madison Square Garden because you wanted to build his United States brand, all of this stuff, which is actually similar to something we talked about, to the Mike Tyson loss in Japan. Yeah. You know, Lennox Lewis lost in South Africa?

Somewhere weird, yeah. Something like that. Somewhere that wasn't the United Kingdom or the United States. When boxers go abroad, sometimes weird things happen. And I thought that was interesting. That actually makes me nervous about I feel really strongly about Ruiz, but the Saudi Arabia part makes me nervous.

Anthony Joshua is not from Saudi Arabia either. No, I know, but it's just, it's like when you go it's like the London game. Where the London game is just like, I don't know what the fuck's going to happen. One of these teams isn't going to show up. I don't know which one. So I don't know if that's the case for this, but I almost wish they were fighting in the Staples Center. If it was

Staples Center, I'd be like, Ruiz is winning. This is happening. We'd be there. Oh, we would be there. We'd be super happy. I have news for you. We're going to Saudi Arabia right after this podcast. Hopping on a plane. It's a brisk 12 and a half hours. Get there soon. So we agree. Ruiz plus 170. I was

shocked that the odds were this good. I looked at the knockout stuff for him, but to me, it's like, I just want to win. You start rooting for the knockout, and then it throws you off. I'll say this. If it gets to the judges' scorecards, I'm not feeling good about Ruiz.

Yeah, true. All right, so Ruiz. Pencil that away. We're doing Ruiz plus 170. There's a couple awesome football games this week that I will not be betting on. Just wanted to mention the case for a couple teams. Again, I'm staying away.

The Bills line is just... There is now a Lamar tax if you want to bet on Baltimore. The Baltimore should be favored by three. They're favored by six in Buffalo. It's absurd. And yet, I don't want to take Buffalo in the six because I'm afraid of Lamar. Vegas knows that. That's absurd. And yet, I don't want to take Buffalo in the six because I'm afraid of Lamar.

Vegas knows that. That's why they made the one six. So I talked to Robert Mays about this a little earlier today and we both agreed on one thing, which is that Baltimore's blitzes

and their defense and their aggressiveness, I feel like this could be a big, notable Josh Allen mistake game. I feel like we could see some gif-able Josh Allen moments.

I think that the Bills are really good and they're really well coached Josh Allen is better than we thought I'm more in on them than I was a couple weeks ago I totally agree with you but I do think there's the capability for Baltimore's defense to make Josh Allen look a little closer to the

quarterback that we were used to last year so I liked Buffalo in this game for about 10 minutes. I looked up the standings. A little stat, it's an advanced stat called points scored. Don't know if you've heard of it. Football outsider guys aren't on to it yet. Don't talk about it with them.

Baltimore has scored 406 points this season, which leads the league. Buffalo has scored 257 points. So I'm looking at that. I'm going, you take Buffalo and this other team scored, you know,

160% more points than they have. Just, I was out. Also, Baltimore has a really good defense. Because Baltimore scores 30. Can Baltimore get to, can Buffalo get to 30 if Baltimore gets 30? I don't think so.

But I also think Baltimore's defense is really good. It isn't like Kansas City last year. The Marcus Peters thing would really be annoying if you're a Rams fan. I agree. That's one of those things where you're like, really? Yeah.

Really? That Tampa game when he's quitting on routes? Yeah. Maybe don't trade two first round picks for Jalen Ramsey. Yeah. When your team's going nowhere anyway. The Rams will be running the Rams in about a year. It's my guess.

I think that the chargers and the Rams moving into a new stadium, I don't think it's, it's not hearing a lot of buzz around Los Angeles from either of those teams. The thing I heard was the seat license thing is a real issue. Yep. Like a real issue. Yep.

Like a real, real, real, real issue. Like panic time. So that was one I liked that I decided to You didn't buy a seat license, Bill, for both teams?

Didn't buy a seat license. Didn't get that. Do you know anybody who's bought a seat license? I don't know one person. No, neither do I. Saints, Niners, the Saints, it's still under three. And one of my favorite gambling tricks is if it's a team that I like, that's home, regardless of who they're playing.

If I'm getting less than three, awesome, fantastic. Something's holding me back with this game, Saints by two and a half against the Niners. And I just don't love how Drew Brees looks. And I worry about him against an awesome defense. And I think the Niners have a really, really good defense. And it's just something about this game freaks me out. Do you like Drew Brees more than Jimmy Garoppolo? I feel about the same about both of them.

Really? Okay. Yeah. I like Brees a little bit more right now. I like Michael Thomas a little bit more. The experience. And the eye test and a couple other things. I think that I like Michael Thomas,

who is just playing out of his mind this year. And I like home field advantage. So I would go with the Saints. So you like the Saints. I like the Saints. I'm staying away. I'm staying away from the hole, from everything. But if I had to bet, I would bet the Saints.

I think it's a stay away. I agree. Then the other one is Chiefs the Saints. I think it's a stay away. I agree. Then the other one is Chiefs-Pats, which is also a stay away because I don't know what I'm getting from the Patriots these days. Are you betting the Patriots for the rest of the season?

I need to see a week where receivers get open. This is one of the things I'm looking for. More advanced stats from Bill Simmons? Even when Brady's completing passes, there's somebody on the guy's back. And that... All right.

So we're staying away from all those. Here's what I like this week. First one. The Colts, who I jumped off of after a tad in their Ewing Theory of Prospects. And they've been really banged up. The Marlon Mack thing is somebody who has them on a fantasy team,

who bet on the Colts over-under for the wins this year. I've watched a lot of Colts. And Marlon Mack was fucking awesome. Really, really good football player. And I think they missed him. T.Y. Hilton was hurt. Wasn't able to really come back. Jacoby's playing on one leg.

The league figured them out a little bit. And now everyone's like, well, the Colts are done. Now you have Tampa. They're playing great. Looking good. What are they going to do about Jameis? The line is only three. This has all the makings of the Colts with

their season on the line beating Tampa as Jameis turns into Jameis again. Bruce Arians does some dumb stuff and Indy's winning by 10 and people are like, oh my God. as Jameis turns into Jameis again. Bruce Arians does some dumb stuff. And Indy's winning by 10. And people are like, oh my God. Maybe Indy's not dead. This feels like, against a really well-coached team,

this feels like Jameis Winston just having two awful fumbles. You know, like we're kind of like, how did he fumble this? It feels like a Tampa blows the game and Indianapolis is just like, all right, we'll take it. So I think Marlon Mack's going to play. We don't know yet. Part of the thing that sucks about taping this on a Thursday is we don't know, but it seems like he's going to play, which I think will really help them. So he had no interceptions against the Jaguars, Jameis Winston. Well, he had one drop that, or he had an interception that got overturned, which is very exciting.

Before that, he had six and two games. So I feel like there might be a return to form for Ole Jameis this weekend. I also both like and don't like the Colts' defense. I think you can run on them. Yeah. I think it's a little harder to throw on them. They kind of... A thing with Evans and Godwin,

I feel like they could at least keep those guys a little bit in check. And I think they can control the ball. They'll get a couple turnovers. And I just like getting the points with them. So what I was thinking was the plus three is minus 120. Yeah, I can buy the half point for minus 135 to plus three and a half. Parlay them with Minnesota, minus 750 against Detroit.

Do you see any scenario where Minnesota loses to Detroit. Mmm. Do you see any scenario where Minnesota loses to Detroit? No. I do not. That parlay is now plus 116. Minnesota to win

Colts plus three and a half. Hmm. You like that? I think I do. I think I like it too. I think I really like Minnesota. I just think Seattle's really good.

Yeah. And I think that we I think that that Monday night Minnesota. I just think Seattle's really good. Yeah. And I think that we, I think that that Monday night was just more about Seattle And Cook got hurt. Yeah. And Seattle figured out a way to run

all the fucking hell over Minnesota. Detroit's not going to be doing that with Bo Scarborough. Sorry, Bo. So anyway, mark that one down. Next one.

I'm all in on Tennessee still. Yes. I think Vegas is still late on this. Right now, they're minus three, even in Oakland. Oakland's looked like shit the last two weeks. I just believe in Tennessee. I think they're a playoff team. I just saw Danny Heifetz over there.

And he told me, the ringer's Danny Heifetz, he told me the Tennessee Titans are number one in the NFL in points per play since week seven. I believe it. And they scored zero points in week six. Yeah. The Titans are good. Ryan Tannehill,

here's the thing about Ryan Tannehill. The whole thing, he was an above-average quarterback in Miami. He just was banged up all the time. He was hurt,

couldn't stay on the field, couldn't stay on the field. The Dolphins wanted to do their rebuilding thing. I understand that. He was on bad teams. He had no supporting cast. Those drafts,

you know about bad drafts. I mean, the Miami Dolphins had some bad, bad, bad drafts. Bad coaches. And some bad coaches. Joe Phil no supporting cast. Those drafts, you know about bad drafts. I mean, the Miami Dolphins had some bad, bad, bad drafts. Bad coaches. And some bad coaches. Joe Philbin, can't believe Joe Philbin

didn't maximize Ryan Tannehill. Joey Phil. And, you know, when we were talking about Ryan Rivera and the firing and Dave Tepper

and the last five new owners before David Tepper have all made terrible hires, including Joe Philbin. He's the type of hire that a new owner who has no idea what he's doing makes since Stephen Ross did.

Anyway, Ryan Tannehill, this is just great. I mean, he looks like the long-term answer there. What's funny about it is when they signed him, everyone who watches football every week like us was like, oh, he'll have that job by week six as long as he can stay healthy. He's even better than I remember him in Miami. And I like the team around him. Sal and I talked about it a little on Sunday night.

It's a team that when something good happens, but you can see their sideline in the game, the entire sideline's locked in, jumping up with their fists up. And I think Vrabel's done a really good job. I wasn't 100% convinced on him, especially from a game management standpoint, but they've built a really tough team,

and the Henry stats are unbelievable. Unbelievable. The last 16 games. The last 16 games. I look at Oakland. I just think they can run all over Oakland. Yeah. Derek Henry is a legitimate elite running back,

and that's just... Would you take him number one of all the running backs just right now if I had to win one game right now this moment? That's it. Just this moment. I think healthy Dalvin Cook is quite good. Yeah, he is pretty good.

He's amazing in video games. In Madden? Yeah. Oh, my God. Ben loves Dalvin. My son loves Dalvin Cook in Madden because he runs those sideways routes where it's just like he's going full speed sideways. Yeah.

He's definitely up there, though. I don't believe in Oakland. I think where they outscored something like 72 to 10 the last three games or something. I don't.

It's gone sideways for them. They have a bad defense. It's really all Jacobs. Teams have figured out the whole car thing. Also next 15th is their last game in Oakland.

I think they're playing a lot of emphasis on that. I think they're in that mode. Just win that game and we'll be fine. Well the problem with this Tennessee game is Houston Week 15,

Houston Week 17. And this is a classic trap game. So I just want to acknowledge that. But I'm going to say I think Tennessee's really good. And they should take care of business. I love just giving three points. So mark that one down.

Seahawks are even at the Rams. Here are the Rams losses this year. Baltimore, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa Bay. What do those five teams have in common?

They're all going to be good teams that are in the playoffs. Here are their wins this year. Carolina by three. That weird New Orleans game when it was like everything turned on that stupid rough call cleveland by seven atlanta by set by 27 cincinnati by 14 bears by 10 arizona by 27 they have not beaten anybody when ronald vera got fired i was thinking about this a little bit

the carolina panthers got to the super bowl lost thought about it for a number of years when Ron Rivera got fired, I was thinking about this a little bit. The Carolina Panthers got to the Super Bowl, lost, thought about it for a number of years and never got back anywhere close to where they were. Yeah. The Falcons,

still very spooked from their 25-point performance against 28-3, 25-point blown lead. And the Rams look like they might be spooked as well. I don't think we give enough weight to how

much it can ruin a franchise to get that close and not win the Super Bowl. Here's the thing that alarms me about them. They've rolled over in a couple games. Baltimore, they rolled over. I thought San Francisco, they rolled over. And that game, it was like tied at halftime.

And as that game went along, they were like, all right. And then you guys take it. We don't want it. And I just don't think the character is there with the team collectively this year. Well, I think that Belichick and Vic Fangio and Matt Patricia and all those guys showed the way to stop them. Flexible defenses waiting, taking away golf's audible game by waiting until the last second,

ignoring the window dressing. So much of the Rams offense last year was based upon this jet motion stuff, and essentially teams are just ignoring it and saying, you can do all the motion you want, we're just going to do whatever. They used to play this, early in the season, they were playing the 6-1 against the Rams, not even having to do that anymore.

And they're still beating the Rams. I just think it's a weird season for them. I think, I think enough of Sean McVay to where he'll come up with something new, but right now what Sean McVay has has been solved and there's just nothing behind it. I like Seattle here. And then you look at Niners 10 and two Seahawks 10 and two Rams, seven and five still hanging on to the potential of a wild card,

but the Niners playing in new Orleans Seahawks 10-2 Rams 7-5 still hanging on to the potential of a wild card but the Niners playing in New Orleans Seahawks win this game Niners lose in New Orleans all of a sudden they're in the cap bird seat and they're the potential one seed I love when there's two great teams

in one division and only one of them can get the bye this happened last year the Chargers ended up not being great but the Chargers could have gotten the bye

late in the season against that Chiefs game that was that weird game at the end of the season. But I love when that happens and it makes things so much more dramatic because the Niners should not be playing a wildcard weekend, but it looks like they are.

The other thing I love about the Seahawks, they know exactly who they are. They're really good in close games. The Penny thing I did not expect because he looked like a bust last year. He did. And now they have this double-barreled attack

where it doesn't seem like it matters who's in. And Penny can make plays a little bit. He has a little more breakaway potential than Carson does, but both of them are good. Metcalf was a great pick. They have a Miss Baldwin like I thought they would. They're just

good. And I would be really surprised if they lost to the Rams. And I think the Rams are a team that's kind of dying to tap out. Yeah. Just my gut feeling. So I like the Seahawks even last game. I want to mention the return of Eli. Should we take a break before we talk about this? Take a break.

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we were out he pulled us back in Eli Manning against a team in crisis the Philadelphia Eagles a team that Fitzmagic

lit up lit up destroyed they were outcoached and outplayed did you see if Ryan Fitzpatrick has now thrown a touchdown

against the Eagles with seven different franchises seriously yes wow that's a record well he showed that they have real

quarterback issues that unfortunately my Patriots couldn't exploit because nobody can get open the Giants are plus 300

to win the game the over under of this game is 46 and a half and if you parlay those two things it's plus 759 I call it the

Eagles fans can't fucking believe they their season is over because of Eli Manning parlay I don't know if I want to do it I just wanted to

throw it out there I think 9 is a little high for this one I think it could be a little closer I think the Eagles will win this game but I think it's going to be close so you don't know if I want to do it. I just wanted to throw it out there. I think nine's a little high for this one. I think it could be a little closer. I think the Eagles will win this game, but I think it's going to be close. So you don't like the plus 300? I think that's a little,

it's a little ambitious. I do like, The Giants are terrible. I do like the idea of Eli Manning just having a nice, dignified two touchdown game against the Philadelphia Eagles. The other way to go is,

24-28. You go like the minus 440 with the under 46. I'm not going to do this game because I don't want to bet on Eli Manning or Ruud Verm. I would rather he threw seven picks. It would be much more enjoyable.

The other interesting part is Carson, this is fantasy football playoffs. Eli's the league winner? Is Eli somebody you pick up for a week? Are you going to do it? No.

Who's your quarterback? I have Lamar Jackson. Okay. I think you're set. My life's made. You're set. I'm going against somebody who had a choice between Josh Allen against Baltimore

or Carson Wentz on Monday night. And it looks like he picked Josh Allen. That's a good idea, I think. Wait, I have Baker. What do I do? Baker against... Baker, who's your other choice? It's Baker.

It's a two-quarterback league. I have Tom Brady and then it's Baker. Pick up Eli Manning. Pick up other choice? It's Baker. It's a two quarterback league. I have Tom Brady and then it's Baker. Pick up Eli Manning. Pick up Eli Manning. Holy shit. Pick up Eli. I'm going to do it.

Do it right now. All right, Kevin Clark, here's what I have. Million dollar picks after we just talked this out. Don't call me Johnny Ruiz. Andy Ruiz.

Yes. Plus 170 in the Joshua rematch in Saudi Arabia. Gotta get a knockout though. I think Ruiz wins. Can't go to the cards. Don't go to the cards, Ruiz.

I will go $300,000. Ruiz plus 170. Yeah. Okay. Minnesota minus 750 just to beat Detroit. Parlayed. We're buying a half point with the Colts. Colts plus three and a half at Tampa Bay.

That parlay is plus 116. I am throwing $350,000 on that. Tennessee Titans. Our Titans. The Ringers Titans. We've all embraced the Titans. Minus three even in Oakland. I'm throwing 400K on that.

Okay. And last but not least, the Seattle Seahawks. Even odds against the we can't sell any seat licenses and we're ready for this season to end. Los Angeles, don't call us

the St. Louis Rams. 400K, even Seattle. You like those? I love them what's your favorite one? Seahawks

okay I think the Rams might stink alright we are up 1.569 million for the year hopefully we can add even more to that

Kevin Clark thanks for coming on anytime alright Mallory's coming in a second but first let's talk about the FanDuel Sportsbook app

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Right now, it's only available in New Jersey, Indiana, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. So if you're not in one of those states, that's all been pretty tough to hear, I'm sure. But I think they're going to be in more states soon. This next part is even tougher, though. Right now, new FanDuel Sportsbook users can get their first bet risk-free by signing up with promo code BS. Just place any bet on any market. FanDuel will refund you up to $500 in site credit if you don't win. Remember, be sure to use promo code BS so they know who sent you.

And now, the legal stuff must be 21 plus and physically present in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, or West Virginia. Site credit non-withdrawable expires 14 days after receipt. Terms apply. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER. If you're in West Virginia, visit 1800gambler.net. In Indiana, call 1-800-9 with it. All right, last but not least, we haven't had her on in a couple of weeks, right? I think we just missed the one. We missed one. The holiday.

Hi, Mallory. Good old Thanksgiving. Hello. Good to have you back. Great to be here with you. I hope you ate enough at Thanksgiving. It's the highest of holy days in my mind, in my home. Turkey, football, pie.

What more could you want? The Irishman. I know what more you could want. Sweet potato casserole with sweet pecans on the top. Oh, pie. What more could you want? The Irishman. I know what more you could want. Sweet potato casserole with sweet pecans on the top. Oh, wonderful. How good was that, Kyle? That was awesome. I think that's my single favorite thing to eat on Thanksgiving.

Really? I really enjoy it the most. Interesting. I could just eat it and need it until I throw up like a duck. Oh my goodness. What do you have for most intriguing this week? We're going four this week, not five. Keeping it tight this week. Start off with some college football for you. And number

four, we're heading into championship weekend. It's one of the biggest moments in the sport of the year. I watched, you'd be proud of me. I watched the iron bowl and I saw some Ohio state, Michigan. Okay. What'd you think? It was Ohio state's going to win the title. I don't even follow college football. and I know that. They're very good. They have the best line on each side. That always wins. They're very good.

They're going to dominate whoever they play. Mark it down. Bill Simmons, not college football fan, knows that Ohio State's going to win the title. They are very good. They're probably going to be the number one seed, barring a loss to Wisconsin in the Big Ten title game. Well, we'll see. All right, we'll see.

The college football playoff can be interesting. You never know. But this weekend, the key thing heading into this weekend, really, barring one of the top three teams, Ohio State, LSU, or Clemson, losing. Yeah. The question is, who gets the four seed? And it really is a question this year.

And it's pretty fun. We have Georgia currently sitting at four, but playing LSU. So if Georgia wins, Georgia wins the SEC title game, I think both of those teams get in. Yeah. And then I think what happens is we head into a very, very high fever pitch level of we need to expand to eight teams. Because...

No, we don't. We do. No, we do. We can save that for another week, but we do. We really don't. We really do. No, we're fine. Oh, we don't. We do. No, we do. We can save that for another week, but we do. We really don't. We really do. No, we're fine. No, we really do.

We're fine. You should have a system where every conference's champ at a minimum can get in. No, we're good. Okay. Well, agree to disagree. We'll agree to disagree. We're good.

We're good with the four. And then after Georgia, you've got Utah, number five currently, and Oklahoma, number six currently, both playing in their conference title games. Utah's going to play Oregon and NFL draft darling or NFL draft stay away because he's too tall, depending on whether you're talking to Robert Mays on a given day, Justin Herbert, they're playing Oregon. Oklahoma's playing Baylor.

Baylor's the other team here that's in the mix, the winner of the Big 12 game. The Big 12 champ has a real shot of jumping Utah. Again, this is if Georgia loses. And then we're going to get into some controversy around brand names and brand recognition and whether

you can make the playoff if you don't have it. If Utah gets jumped. Because Utah is ahead of Oklahoma now. So this is a thing to watch. Utah has a football team? Utah has an 11-1 football team, an excellent football team. I just thought they had basketball.

Pac-12. Kyle Whittenham running a great program there. What are the greatest Utah football moments of all time? Do you remember the dropping the ball

right before the touchdown a few years ago? Vaguely. That was a bad moment. Do they pour milk on their coach when they win? What happens? Is Gatorade... They can't do that?

Come on. Okay, so you're not... Is it full milk or 2% milk? You're not in on Utah. You're rooting for Lincoln Riley and Oklahoma. That's my takeaway here. Yeah, I want Lincoln Riley, the next Patriots coach.

So that was what I was going to say next. This is another thing to watch, of course, is depending on what happens with Oklahoma, does that have any bearing, not only on Jalen Hurts' NFL draft stock, but on the Lincoln Riley coaching sweepstakes? This was a thing last year. He didn't end up leaving.

You have to assume that he's going to be the top target again. Whether that means he'll leave or not is certainly an open question. But the prospect of a couple jobs that would be most intriguing to him, one, Cleveland, of course, because he was Baker Mayfield's coach at Oklahoma. Cleveland's like buying a haunted house. It's like, there's only been eight deaths in this house. It's for sale.

You want to move in? Maybe he just needs to bring in some sage. I have the team for him. I have another prediction. Dallas Cowboys. No. Dallas Cowboys. Yes.

I have a better team. Okay. I have a stealth team. Carolina. At that owner, Tepper. You ever read about that dude? Sure. He's one of those.

He's going to blow it up in a way like when John Henry took over the Red Sox and the first thing he did was try to go get Billy Bean, which was the end of Moneyball, which is a great movie. John Henry's like, let's just get all the best people. What are we doing?

Right. I think he's going to be like that. Who's the best coach? Lincoln Riley. So reading Tepper's statements and quotes this week after the Ron Rivera firing, now I admit I'm in the Ravens bubble, of course. But that caveat aside, I read that statement as we're trying to do what the Ravens did.

Now, of course, the Ravens didn't make a coaching change. Harbaugh stayed, but he stayed because he committed to Lamar and to that vision of building around Lamar. That statement from the Carolina organization boiled down to me to last year, the trend that we saw sweeping the NFL was everybody was looking for their Sean McVay. This year, the trend is going to be

everybody's looking to do what the Ravens did, which is top down, all in on the same idea, everybody on the same page, no room for any kind of dissent or a competing vision. You all have to be in it together. If you're not in, you're out. And also the line that he had

that was basically like- How is that a trend? Well, but the line that he had- Isn't that how any business works? Well, I don't know. I mean, are coaches and GMs always on the same page? Certainly not.

Isn't that how the Patriots won the last 20 years? Was that exact thing? Now you're taking credit for that with the Ravens? But the coach and the GM are the same page? Certainly not. Isn't that how the Patriots won the last 20 years? Was that exact thing? Now you're taking credit for that with the Ravens? But the coach and the GM are the same person. You're 10-1 with the Ravens

and now you're like, we've created this new trend. No, it's not the same thing. Everyone's in the organization. Settle down. You need to settle down with the Ravens. It's not the same thing.

Welcome to where the Patriots have been for 20 years. The Patriots are structured differently. The Texans are accidentally backing their way into attempting to do what the Patriots are doing and they're doing a bad job of it. the Ravens ethos that people are going to try to replicate. Be able to play smash mouth, run it down your throat. Football still have, I mean, took, you know, a handful of games into the season to get there, but still have defense be a key fundamental part of your identity, but also make your

decisions based on what the numbers are telling you. The Ravens are an analytically driven franchise. And I think other teams, you know, it's happening. The question for years has been, when are we going to see football catch up with the other sports? And it's happening now. Wasn't that what Tepper did with the hedge funds and stuff? Everyone said he was

always the best hedge fund guy. So here you go. Lincoln Riley for lots of money. Do you think Lincoln Riley... Mark my two predictions down, Kyle. Ohio State's going to win the title. Got it. Lincoln Riley to Carolina. Does Lincoln Riley have Cam Newton as his quarterback in Carolina? Why wouldn't you have Cam Newton? That would be fun. I would love

to see that. Isn't Cam Newton like less than 30? Well, it's just a question of the injuries, right? Yeah, but he was playing hurt for two years. Now he's got a year off. Yeah, hopefully he'll come back healthy, vibrant. Bye, Kyle Allen. We enjoyed our few weeks with you. Thanks, Kyle. I am happy that some of the backups are now back with us again. You know, having Minshewmania round two is a real delight. I obviously loathe and abhor everything about the Steelers, but the duck thing is very fun, you know?

I think pound for pound Jacksonville has been the dumbest team this year. Everything they've done, I've disagreed with, starting with like, why do you have Nick Foles and Leonard Fournette on the same team? Why are you bringing Nick Foles back when he has a broken collarbone and he's not 100% healthy? And now he's back and he's terrible. And now he has no trade value whatsoever. Like none of this makes sense. I don't know. And why would you trade Jalen Ramsey just because

he was getting pissy? Well, because he didn't want to play for the team anymore. He's your best player. Player empowerment, man. That's the era that we're in, in sports. Well, the thing is, that trade might actually work because maybe those Rams picks aren't that bad. I mean, they might actually... How about Jalen Ramsey and Marcus Peters going at it in the tunnel after the Ravens-Rams game?

Did that happen? That was really something, yeah. What were they doing? Well, you know, it's like basically... Old boyfriend, new boyfriend stuff? That roster spot is essentially the one that Peters vacated for Ramsey. And, you know, Marcus Peters has been doing all right for the Ravens. I'll just leave it at that.

I hope you keep trusting him. So you're saying Ohio State for the title. Who do you think is going to get that fourth spot? You just don't care. You think it's going to be Oklahoma. Oklahoma beats Baylor in the Big 12 title game. Oklahoma gets in the fourth spot. Can I ask you this?

Who's the most fun team to get the four spot? I'll root for that team. I think Oklahoma would be really fun. I think Utah would be fun if you love to watch good football. It's obviously less energizing in terms of just the brand name. But I also do think that college football

is such a unique and interesting proposition because on the one hand, when the brand names and the blue bloods are in on the big stage, the sport is just fundamentally a more interesting proposition. But also what makes it so fun is that every now and then you get that disruptor. You get that TCU, that Boise State. You get OSU versus Utah.

And it's just weird. Utah's a really good team. Utah has been annihilating the competition this year. So I think that they would for you, though. They're not going to make the playoff. They're out of it. They'll be in a New Year's Six bowl game, and they won't care about that because they've been in the playoff every year until now. And it's just a colossal disappointment, obviously. Also, too, I had a devastating injury. It was a really tough season.

You don't get to make fun of it. Maybe Nick Saban should go to the Cowboys. I get to make fun of whatever I want to make fun of. Nick Saban. Go back to the NFL, Nick Saban. Challenge yourself. And then Dabo. Dabo leaves Clemson, takes over at Alabama. What do you think about that? Dabo goes home to Bama. I do like Dabo. I like how he's feisty. How do you feel about Dabo's? Have you been paying

attention at all to Dabo's nobody believes in us thing? Yeah, I love it. It reminds me so much in such a vile, nauseating way of the Patriots being like, nobody believes in us. Like right now? It's, what are you talking about? Nobody believes in us. We're doing, you know, Jason and I are doing Binge Mode Star Wars right now. And one of the things that we've been having a lot of fun with is this idea that George Lucas puts out there that, you know, when people first saw Yoda, when people first saw R2-D2, these beloved things, they hated it.

This is this like, this thing that George Lucas says. So it's become this bit, oh, this thing you love, they hated it. And Dabo, somebody tweeted this at us. Dabo really bringing the George Lucas energy. They hated Clemson. They hated it. No, they didn't. What are you talking about?

You're undefeated. You're going to be in the playoff. Everybody loves Trevor Lawrence. Everybody loves Clemson. He's a smart man. What do you got for number three? Number three. I know you're talking about football

and a lot of sports in the rest of the pod, so I wanted to give you one little pop culture nugget here. Yeah. Bill, it's a big weekend for us as CODs, children of divorce, because Marriage Story is coming to Netflix. Yes. Do you watch it with your spouse or do you solo it first for a test run? So, I'm glad you those, cause I've been battling

this myself. I'm, I have a really great marriage. I don't know if I want to, I don't know. I've consulted many parties, uh, who have seen the movie. They're people who screened it for, you know, their media privileges, people who saw it in theaters. And I have said to my husband, Adam, whom I love, that I don't think that we should watch the film together, that I don't think it would be advisable or even sensible. Yeah. And everybody says it's going to be fine.

Watch it together. If you're in the right headspace, it can be affirming instead of devastating. But I don't know. I guess there's only one way to find out. So we'll talk about it next week on the podcast. I'll watch it with my wife. Remember Revolutionary Road was a tough one. Yes. Yes. That was one of those where you're kind of side-eyeing whoever you're with about halfway through. Now, we have both survived watching The Affair with our

partners. So if you could get through that, you can get through anything. No, the toughest one ever was Tell Me You Love Me. Oh, that was rough. Yeah. That's a tough one. That was one of those. If your relationship is there tight, you're just questioning everything. That's a bad one. I can't wait to watch this movie. It sounds like it's a front runner for Best Picture for a lot of the awards. Scar Jo crushing it. Adam Driver's one of my favorite actors in the world. And he's going to win the Oscar. He's elite. You know how I feel about Scar Jo. I mean, you know how I feel it Adam Driver's one of my favorite actors in the world and sounds like he's going to win the Oscar he's elite you know how I feel

about Scar Jo I mean you know how I feel about Adam Driver Adam Driver season right now from Marriage Story to The Report to Kylo Ren what can he do

when are you doing Hottest Take just named as one of Vulture's 10 new podcasts today when are you doing Hottest Take about girls only succeeded

because of Adam Driver? This is your take and this is Juliet's take. So I will not be doing it. Maybe Juliet and I will do that for you. I'll happily field it for you. It's a very hot take. Very pro Adam Driver. You didn't watch The Affair though. You lied to me. You said you would watch it over Thanksgiving. I've watched every season of The Affair until this season of The Affair.

I was even mailing you screenshots and you still wouldn't watch. They made me laugh every time though. I'll catch up one of these days. Now I'm really excited for next week's pod when we talk about Marriage Story. Maybe that should just be the entire most intriguing. It might finally be time for the Kramer versus Kramer rewatchables. Oh, I have that.

It's on the 2020 schedule. It's like we're going to be in the Kramer versus Kramer headspace. This is the comp that everybody's making, the divorce movie pantheon. Can marriage story live up to the bar that Kramer versus Kramer established? One pint of chocolate chip ice cream

and one gallon of tears at a time. It's our best chance for the two of us to both cry during the same podcast. I would for sure cry. I would be a wreck. If I started getting emotional about my whole Kramer versus Kramer story, it's a mortal lock that you'll cry. Oh, I'm crying, almost crying right now,

just thinking about it. I can't wait. Do you remember when I came back from Grantland after the three-week suspension? Yes. And I met with everybody in the room and I was so upset I couldn't talk. I do. And I looked up at you and you were like, you were just a quivering mess. I was like, I'm not going to look at her again. Yeah. Yeah. I'll tell that story in the oral history 70 years from now. That was a beautiful moment.

It was great. A beautiful moment. It was great. Great times there. What do you have for number two? Number two. The jettisoned item this week, by the way, just so you know, was Hot Seat Watch. We'll keep it in the back of our minds. We'll come back to it next week. Number two, the AFC Playoff QB Showdown Preview.

We've got, I know you talked about, you're talking about Patriots a lot already today, so we can keep that quick, but we've got Brady Mahomes, which is huge. And we've got the next wave. Lamar versus Josh Allen, Ravens, Bills. These are two massive games in the AFC. Seatings on the line.

The resurgent Josh Allen. Or surging, because he's not even resurging. He's just surging. Playing great. Playing great. Kevin and I talked about it right before you came on. The Ravens are favored by six. I was saying that there's now a three-point

Lamar tax with all of these games because nobody wants to bet against Lamar. It's not fun to bet against Lamar. Everyone's afraid of Lamar. The ceiling of the Ravens, all that stuff. The Bills, who are a really good team who kicked Alice's ass on Thanksgiving, are getting six at home. But it makes

sense. I don't want to take Buffalo. Here's where I am with this. It's possible I've never felt better about a Ravens team. I'd also be okay with a loss here because I think it's similar to me to an elite college basketball team

heading into the tournament. You're not going to win every single game. You got not going to win every single game. You got to drop one at some point. The Ravens have won eight games in a row. This is 2007 Pats when we should have. I wish we had lost the Baltimore game. Exactly. I think we would have won the Super Bowl. Exactly. So I started to think about this last week with the Niners game,

mostly as an attempt to rationalize a potential loss to myself in advance. And now I'm just shifting that to this game. I don't want to lose to the Jets next week because it would be embarrassing. Sorry, Sean, but it would be. And obviously, I don't want to lose division games to the Browns or Steelers. I don't want to lose to the Steelers in the final week of the regular season

and have that be why they make the playoffs and then set up a potential showdown of division rivals in the postseason. So this is the game. If it has to happen, and maybe it doesn't, but if it has to happen, this is the game. However, some positive milestones coming no matter what. Lamar going to break Vic's rushing record this week. I'm not sure if you've ever heard anybody- You're not allowed to talk about Lamar this week. No, because we're not jinxing him this week because I need him for my fantasy playoffs. Yeah. Okay. So I hope he does okay.

I hope that scrappy kid from Louisville, I hope he makes it. Can we attack Steelers fans for one second? I would be delighted. It would be an honor and a privilege. Have you talked to any Steelers fans lately? Yeah, we have an unconscionable amount of them on our staff. You ever had a conversation with Ben Glicksman or Pat Muldowney or Corey or Cram? The whole thing they're

doing now of like, it's just an honor and a privilege the way this worked out. I can't stand it. It's like they've reached some state of higher being as football fans because this ragtag group of kids without Antonio Brown and

Roethlisberger and and Le'Veon Bell and they just kept it together and it's like all right you're what are they seven and five?

They are seven and five. All right you're seven and five settle down beat somebody good beat a good team. It's very it's very

have they beaten a good team? Um sure let's see. Let's go through their wins here. They've beaten Bengals.

That's not a good team. The Chargers, they're obviously a debacle. The Dolphins, horrendous. Colts are good. Yeah, that's a good one.

They beat the Colts and the Rams. And then the Bengals and the Browns again. Yeah. So there are a couple decent ones there.

Here's the thing. Soft wins. But everybody has soft wins this year because there are a lot of really bad teams. This is why I bring the Browns again. Yeah. So there are a couple decent ones there. Here's the thing. And also some soft ones. But everybody has soft ones this year because there are a lot of really bad teams. This is why I bring this up, though. I think the Steelers are the good-bad team this year. I think they beat the other bad teams. Yeah. I don't think they're a good team.

They have Duck Hodges as their quarterback. With that said, I won money on them last week. I appreciate what's going on. I just settle down, Steelers fans. Just in general, settle down. You're going to lose in your division now for the next 12 years.

You should be more focused on that. From your mouth to God's ears. The best new quarterback in a long time, which is, I can't believe

we've been saying that because Mahomes came in the league last year, but like, you should just, all you should be doing is being like, I can't believe

how fucked we are when we're in Lamar's division. And it's like, oh man, what a rush this has been. It's been great. It's like, yeah, Lamar's in your division. You are fucked. That's my speech to Steelers fans.

I got to say, for the first time in the history of us podcasting together, I am in complete agreement with you, sir. It's wonderful to hear. The Steelers thing is just performative horseshit. And it's very disingenuous. And I hope that they lose every game that they ever play for the rest of time. That's my official stance on the matter.

I don't want to see the Steelers in the playoffs. I really don't. I actually want to see them in the playoffs. I don't. Because it would be fun to always see the Steelers lose in the playoffs. I don't know. The thing is, when you have a season like that,

whether you're the good, bad team or not, at a certain point, I don't want all the momentum isn't real. The thing is, when you have a season like that, whether you're the good, bad team or not, at a certain point, the... I don't want all the momentum isn't real heads coming at me, but the momentum carries you to a certain place. It starts to feel like a miracle season. All the stuff that you're currently citing that the Steelers fans are saying becomes a thing that the team internalizes and absorbs.

And that in sports can carry you a long way. And again, the division rivalry factor, I just don't want the Ravens to have to play the Steelers. And they've been very well coached. Oh, yeah. So it's a great coaching job for Tomlin. It's a really good Mike Tomlin here because I've kind of battled back and forth on him.

And even opening night, he was awful against Patriots. They did a good job. I love the way, I've talked about it, but I love the way he handled the quarterback situation. What do you got for number one? They're playing a full-strength quarterback. It's incredible. Number one, we just

switch over to the NFC here because it's a massive weekend for the pecking order. We got Dallas, Chicago, Niner, Saints, Seahawks, Rams, Giants, Eagles, and I mentioned Giants, Eagles just because not only of the delightful factor of having Eli Manning back in our life, obviously the Giants are not going to be in the playoffs, but that

really feels like, and I feel like we've been saying this for a month straight now and will continue to say it for a couple more weeks, but this does actually feel like the specific final nail for the Eagles if they drop this game on Monday Night Football to Eli. That's it. You can't show your face again after that if it happens.

Plus 759. Eli in the over to win. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. If the Giants win win 47 or more points. I'm happy for Eli that he's getting this little bit of a farewell to our moment. I think that's great.

It's lovely that that's happening. The Eagles absolutely have to win this game. You cannot have another moment where Doug Peterson has to go out and give this week's version of, yeah, but the Dolphins are a good team. You just can't have it. Right.

You absolutely cannot have it. And then, you know, Dallas on the one hand can probably keep counting on the Eagles fucking up. That's not actually a strategy for success at a certain point. You need to take care of business

on your own. So they have to beat the Bears. They have to. You're running out of time. There are only three games left after this week. And then the Niners, Seahawks, who's going to end up

winning that division and who is going to end up in the wild card, I think is one of the more fascinating seeding situations to watch in all of the NFL right now. And whether those are just the two best teams, and it doesn't matter, they're going to play each other at some point. But the fact that the potential second best team, and I do think the Saints are in that conversation certainly as well, but the fact that the potential second best team in the NFC might end up having to play the wildcard slate. That's a big deal. As you know, because the Patriots might have to play the wildcard slate if the Bills take the division. Why are you smiling like that?

Because it's a delightful prospect for me to think about. We'll see. You never know. I don't like to get cocky where the Ravens are concerned. I take nothing for granted. You know?

I saw some dents in Lamar's armor last week that were super encouraging. It was pouring. Missed some passes. Receivers dropped some passes. Also, every quarterback misses some passes. I don't know. This is ridiculous. Unfortunately,

they play a football in cold weather. Tom Brady at 42. I don't know. Well, Tom Brady's won a lot of games in cold weather. When receivers who can get open. Yeah. Lamar, cold weather. I don't know. Come on.

Prove it to me. I know you don't mean this. Prove it to me. And it's okay because I know it's a defense mechanism for processing your own grief. Because the Patriots dynasty, one of the most important defining relationships in your entire life. Awesome run. You're starting to think about the end. 40% of my life.

Can I drop a theory on you? Yeah. This is, I'm looking inward at you. Yeah. This is why you didn't like The Irishman. This is why you think The Irishman was too long. I did like The Irishman. I just thought it was too long.

I liked it though. I was glad I watched it. It made you think about mortality, made you think about things ending. And even if you're not able to admit it to yourself subconsciously, made you think about Tom Brady and the Patriots. And you're not ready for that. When De Niro's sitting in the room at the end.

You're not ready for it. I'm just looking at, I'm just staring at a half empty door. You're looking at the six inches of new hair on Tom Brady's head. And you can't help but think that's the same height as the platform shoes that De Niro's wearing on set. All of the connections are there. It's not the worst theory in the world. I'm going to give The Irishman

another chance. I thought The Irishman was really good and I thought it should have been eight hours. That's my take. The Irishman is too short. That's my take.

I mean it. I'm totally serious. This is not a bit. The Irishman was not long enough. Yeah, it was too short. It's my take. I mean it. I'm totally serious. This is not a bit. The Irishman was not long enough. Yeah, it was too short. Okay. Mallory, as always, thanks for coming on. I mean, this podcast was two hours long. I guess I shouldn't complain about The Irishman. There you go. Thanks for coming on as always. Thanks for having me. Great job with the website. It's a really good website and I like reading it. The ringer.com, great website. It's very special.

Check it out, everyone. Great pieces on the site right now. Make sure you watch Dear Baby Yoda on the Ringer YouTube channel if you haven't yet. Smash it.

Oh my God. The sensation that's sweeping the nation. Your son, Isaac, the voice of an angel. He's a marvel. Are we not doing a third hour now

on Baby Yoda? No? Kyle and I are going to sidebar on Baby Yoda instead, I guess. That was, Kyle said it was one of his favorite pieces of Ringer content ever. Baby Yoda? No? Kyle and I are going to sidebar on Baby Yoda instead, I guess. That was, Kyle said it was one of his favorite pieces of ringer content ever. Baby Yoda is an absolute revelation.

Mallory, a pleasure. Great to be here with you. All right. Thanks to State Farm. Thanks to the Kevins and Mallory. Thanks to Allbirds. Stylish, comfortable, sustainable. They come in a wide range of colors inspired by nature, variety of silhouettes to keep you looking your best in whatever situation you find yourself in this holiday season. Allbirds, the perfect gift to make the holidays a little less uncomfortable for everyone on your list. Give the gift of comfort this holiday season

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