The Bill Simmons Podcast - Brady’s Troubles + Herbert’s Ascent With Tony Romo. Plus the John Belushi doc With Jim Miller. 

Episode Date: November 27, 2020

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Tony Romo to discuss his post-NFL career, Tom Brady in Tampa Bay, how limited fan attendance can work to a defense’s advantage, Tua Tagovailoa, Lamar Jackson, Justin Herbert, Patrick Mahomes, Super Bowl sleepers, Golf, and more (2:00). Then Bill gives out his Million Dollar NFL Picks (56:00); Before talking with author James Andrew Miller about the Showtime documentary ’Belushi’, the copious amount of never before seen photos, letters, and videos, John Belushi’s impact on SNL, and more (1:05:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hope you are enjoying the little holiday stretch here. Hope you're staying safe. Here's Pearl Jam. All right. I've told this story before, but I knew this guy was going to be a great announcer when we had dinner once. And you got up and started imitating different quarterbacks for me and Kimmel and Sal. And I was like, this guy's got it. As soon as his career's over, it's another 40 years going. Has it, Tony Romo, has it been everything you thought it was going to be?

You know, it has. I mean, I feel like, you know, it's kind of the unknown. When you're done playing football, it's like, what are you going to do next? And, you know, I love the game. And so I was, you know, like talking kind of the unknown when you're done playing football. It's like, what are you going to do next? And, you know, I love the game and so I was like talking about it and analyzing it and I studied it, you know, basically your whole life. So to be able to kind of keep doing it, that's a, obviously a huge positive and sometimes you get lucky and people may like a little bit of it and you know, not everyone, but I think we,

we did okay at some parts. How, how many times have you gotten itchy to come back like less than okay you love gambling i'll give you an over under over under four and a half times you got itchy over the first year uh i probably was itchy once but other than that probably probably none you know it's just life goes on i got three boys they're young and so and uh just being a dad and you know i got golf for the competitive side of it and announcing so i kind of get you know competition is really what i love and so i kind of get another audience all right so let's talk old quarterbacks because you would technically be an old quarterback if you're still

playing we're taping this on a Tuesday, Brady last night against the Rams. This was the third time this season when a team that really, actually the fourth time, when a team that could really pressure him seemed to discombobulate him. And it seems like there's two Tom Brady's at this point. One is the guy that if he has time, he looks like the old Tom Brady. And then there's the other one, like the one we saw last night and a couple other times this season, where it looks like he doesn't want to get hit. He's making throws that the Tom Brady of 10 years ago didn't make before. And it just seems to me like it's pretty clear. Anyone that has a front seven that can make him uncomfortable is going to either beat the Bucks or come damn close. What do you see

from afar? Well, that's always been the case with any quarterback forever. Okay. The only difference is, I mean, quarterbacks, I mean, you can go back to Aaron Rodgers against the 49ers last year. You know, the front four can make you very uncomfortable, and guys who are amazing can look, you know, not at their best against those type of teams.

Now, I would say with Brady that when you go into a new system, you have so many, like you built a system when he built for 20 years, basically he built it. So he had all these things set in place for certain looks, certain blitz packages, certain pressure looks that he could get to. When they had Welker and then obviously Edelman, you almost never pressured Brady. And when you did, usually you got caught with a play

that all of a sudden looked very easy, a wide receiver screen. And a lot of that is because he knew the system so well he could go to it instantaneously and when you go to a new system you gotta learn the system and there's so many levels to every like a quarterback has been around a long time there's so many levels to the system that you start to morph it into you and what you need versus certain things talk to the coaching staff they put it in you start to go ahead say, I'd like to do this versus this. But it doesn't come up often, but it comes up in three games, and all of a sudden you're like, ah, I can use it.

Why? Because we did it in 2006, right back in 2012, and you hadn't used it in a while. Well, I think he just is figuring out, and the coaching staff really, is figuring out that Tom's ability to get to the right play is going to win in the end and it's a new system and they don't they do have kills they have checks they have certain things but you don't have you know that second third fourth fifth level until you've been in it a long time and so teams teams who get after you, you find very quickly that you're

now trying to process the information differently than you used to. So he's kind of going through that a little bit right now. But I said it after the first game when people wrote him off a little bit and I said, I'd be careful. He has a very unique way of proving people wrong very quickly. Well, at the same time, he's 43, and this has to end at some point. You know, and I think when you're a quarterback, especially in big games and especially in the playoffs, you're a little bit like a pilot.

You can't, even if you make one mistake, that might be it. That's the mistake, you know? And that was the thing for years and years. He would always kind of, you know, he would have his moments, but some of the passes he's had this year, you just kind of go, oh man, that looked like a 43 year old guy. And that's the part that's hard for me to figure out whether it's just age. The system, and this is the hard one to describe to people,

but in their system, they have the ability for the receiver to read it and the quarterback to read it. And that's a little bit different in that Tom knew over time what each of his receiver, you know, all the receivers that he had, tight ends, he knew what they would do versus this look versus outside leverage versus the guy inside versus the safety who shaded a little bit. He's going to bend it a little more. He's going to widen it.

All of a sudden you find a guy that he thinks is going to widen it, bends it right when he's throwing the ball. And you expected him to do that and so um every time he throws an interception i would argue he's almost learning the people the system and so i don't look at it in a way as long as they get in the playoffs yeah i think they'll be fine with But he's probably not going to make the same mistake twice on the same routes and the same coverages and the same looks. But you almost have to go through that. I don't care who you are. I mean, you just can't learn that second, third, fourth, fifth level

this short amount of time with no offseason. I mean, the amount of time he's done right now is still not even the same amount he'd have had to do it against his defense day in and day out. Make those mistakes when no one's looking. And all of a sudden you put that in your brain. He processes the information and, Oh, look at this. He didn't make that again in week one. So he's just going through that a little bit, but he's still playing great.

It's just a little bit different. I'm a big body language, facial expression guy. That's one of my things. Some people call me the body language doctor. I haven't liked the body language of him in a couple of these games and especially yesterday, because I think one of the things that made him so awesome to root for, for me for 20 years, was he carried himself like a movie character. It was like having Patrick Swayze walking into the double deuce, like that kind of energy. The guy in Tampa sometimes, and you could see it when it's

happening, especially last night, he has this look like, I can't solve this. I don't know what to do. And to me, it seems easy. He's got three really good receivers. He's got at least one good tight end. Spread them out and do Tom Brady stuff. And I don't know why they don't do that. So why aren't they doing that? Well, what happens, the old game of football, like if you go back a long time, like Dan Marino, spread them out. Let me look at it because quarterbacks usually like things spread out because when you have people very like close

together let's say you have a bunch formation you have a tight end at the point a guy one yard inside of them will go with the old patriots right you got edelman right here you got gronkowski here and then you get the receiver right by him he's on the right side of brady just off the line of scrimmage and then you got another receiver over here well that makes the defense all get closer to you as well so the game in the nfl from a quarterback's perspective is about pressure and not about the four guys up front it's about who can break down the protection you got five offensive linemen there's four d linemen let's say One guy gets to block an extra guy. So Brady sends the center. Or down Lyman, he says, center, go block Mike 52.

That's who you got. So who else is left? You got a running back. So when you tell the center who he's blocking, he's got that guy. But if you bring a safety and a nickel corner down over here, over that little bunch, all of a sudden you're like, those guys can break the protection down. So most quarterbacks spread it out. If they want to bl blitz they got to come out of the middle of the field or on the side over here

10 yards off he's got to start to show me or that guy who's out there on the slot receiver he's got to start coming in i can change the protection center go get him tailback go get him now in new england they were incredible because they could do all these tight bunch looks, mostly get stack releases because they did so much stuff quickly and got the ball out of his hands with so much unique stuff that it allowed the quarterback to be like, if you're blitzing, we have an answer right away. Now in his system, it's a little more of a hot route. If he blitzes, throw a hot, you get three yards, four yards. Well, that's kind of a quarterback struggle. Sometimes it's like, well, it's third and third and eight yeah do you want to throw it for four and to me it's just learning the system and what really over time is the right way to do it in this system

and so like any quarterback the frustration will come in when you're like there might be a better way but then you got to also go teach it to a lot of people. And that's very difficult because not everyone has his background of what he had before. The coaches there didn't. So they can't just put stuff in left and right without knowing all the little intricate rules for every single player on the field. So you're buying long-term on the Bucs.

You feel like three months from now, this, this will be, or two months from now, I guess. So mid January, you feel confident that they won't look sloppy like this. I think it's easier to double team people with space. The league used to be like that. And like I said,

quarterbacks just like that. The league has gone to motion, get the defense running. They don't really want to pressure you. If all of a sudden you're going to change very quickly. I think the bucks could motion a lot more, make the defense have to communicate. uh you know in a way to talk about it would be like uh if jabbar's in the paint for the lakers they're gonna run fist and here comes the skyhook right yeah well everyone could get set up but it's like

well this guy's gonna catch it and turn and shoot we're gonna double team with that guy well the rotations in the league starting to get better and faster. People knew how to rotate and go double team and the other guys all could float, but they all had to communicate. In football, it's the same way. You want to make defenses have to talk while the snap is occurring. When you're static and you're stationary, they can fake it. They can talk just like offenses. They can do a whole bunch of stuff, make it look like this, then get back into the spot. But when you're going like Patrick Mahomes

and the Chiefs do, when you see the motion, the movement of everybody, it kind of calms the defense down. It's hard to pressure those type of things. I think if there's one thing I would say, it's that they probably need to get a little bit more, you know, movement pre-snap.

Incredible basketball reference. You know, that's why you've made the transition so well. You're seamlessly able to grab other sports in here. It's the Spurs. It's the Spurs when they came on, right? Everyone's moving and going and coming. Oh, yeah. Now you've brought two NBA teams in this. I love it. All right. So we have no fans this year and you can pick up basically every audible, every signal, every whatever that the quarterback saying, and all these little test things. There was one game I was watching.

It was, it was a car was doing like Sammy Davis. And when you're watching these games, cause you have that weird brain where you in general know what everybody's going to do. Are you even picking up like the terms and by the third quarter going oh they're doing sammy davis that means the running back to the tenant like how much can you absorb even as the game's happening oh i mean i think you're absorbing all the time i think people sometimes talk about a coach and you know some

people and you know organization or someone might ask me a question about when they're hiring someone and certain things i look at and just a point about what you made would be your ability to adapt so from a coaching perspective or a quarterback it's like can you process the information that just happened and come up with a plan that's in your system on offense, let's say. Yeah. You're an offensive coordinator. This is just happening. We weren't prepared for that, right?

Well, how can I teach it and make it very simple for 11 guys? You can't just say, hey, do this. Guys, you go do it. Because they don't have all the rules. Something's different. So you have to have 11 guys. So how do you make that simple for all 11 guys and make it something that we do but we're going to change it because they're doing all this crazy stuff now and that's just your ability to adapt on the fly

and a lot of coaches i found can do it on monday morning after they look at the tape they're like ah we should have got to this or we should have done this earlier could have done this and quarterbacks the same way and then the guys, the guys who are really gifted, they're doing it on the next drive. So blue 80 is now blue 72. Yeah. I mean, it is, but it's like Sammy Davis, right? Yeah.

Well, the defense should get coached up on the side. The middle linebacker, if he has walk services, hey, that was Sammy Davis when they ran outside zone right. Yeah. Or let's pretend it was Red Rover. Okay. Well, there's an R in there. So, offenses are making it really easy and simple because quarterback goes,

Red Rover, Red Rover. Right. So, is it a pass player or is it a running player? Oh, it's a running player. It's outside zone. Great. Guys, next time they run Red Rover, I want you to slide the line. That's the middle linebacker.

He's the quarterback of the defense. Say, slide. Right? Well, you have that in. You just weren't prepared for that this week, but we've done it before. You just slide the line and gain a little advantage. That's a debit. So the R thing, it could be like railroad, Range Rover, Rod Stewart,

anything with an R and everybody knows just to go, right? Is football that easy no it's not because what happens is red might be right rover might be the play red might be right and what happens is offenses then hear that you know that and they slid the line they'll come back with red letter gotcha all of a sudden the play's going left so it's just how they it goes back and forth I don't know how they keep track of all this stuff

so has there been a game this year because literally we can hear everything this year has there been a game this year where by the fourth quarter

you knew everything the team was going to do no I mean you never know everything someone's going to do but I you know

once you know football it's almost like sometimes it can be like math where you can kind of give yourself a great opportunity, I guess you could say, to guess. So it's more like poker. Oh, yeah, totally.

I don't know. I know you don't gamble at all. In poker, sometimes you can kind of guess what people's sins are. But by the way, that's another part. The permutations of this don't just end with someone saying something. It's mannerisms of people. Like you said, just the way that guy's looking, like you'll see there's a linebacker, right? You walk up at the line of scrimmage. And I told you before the center,

Hey, Tom Brady says center center. Mike's 52. Go block 52. But you're sitting there. 52's looking around, looking at you. He's pretending to blitz. 56 is right next to him. 56 is standing there looking down at the ground. And through all the years you've played, you're like, nah, change it.

Mike's 56. Block him. And all of a sudden, at the snap, 56 comes comes and it's because the mannerisms of the guy it's like guys are trying to hide when they're blitzing they don't want to look at the quarterback don't look at me don't look at me I'm not here I'm not here I'm not blitzing and you already know that's not right you would never do that unless you're blitzing

it's so hard I think it's the hardest job in all sports and you see like even Tua I had the Dolphins. I had the Moneyline, not the minus three nap. Oh yeah, the Dolphins beat the Broncos. The Broncos stink. They've been down 20 in four straight games.

And then Tua, whatever they're doing with them in that first half, he just can't figure it out. And then it gets into the second half. It's like, oh, they'll make adjustments. Nope, still can't figure it out. Finally, they have to go to the Fitzpatrick thing. And the reason he couldn't figure it out, they shortened the field on him. They're sending weird pressure. Sometimes they're rushing four, sometimes a weird blitz. And he doesn't have enough confidence to just drop the ball over

people's heads. And they basically have to take them out. And I still think two is good, but it just shows you the stuff that somebody like Herbert's doing, where he's 37 completions in a game and you're a rookie. I don't know. I just think the position's so much harder. Do you think we expect too much from some of these rookies? Well, it depends on the system you're in, the talents around you, everything. The one part is with the 201, you've got to remember who he went against. I think Vic Fangio, who's the head coach of the Broncos,

is one of the best defensive design coaches. So he was the defensive coordinator before. He was one of the most difficult that I went against as far as like what – like usually we have rules you look at after the snap based on coverage. So certain rules are if it's cover two, these routes adjust to this for our receivers if it's cover three we know what we're looking at but the very i mean the league why it's different than college or high school you've got to figure out what they're in

right after the snap or pre-snap if it's first down or second down third down gets very difficult but after the snap you have to look at certain guys to tell you what, you know, if a safety, they both go back, it's cover two. Because you've watched tape all week, right? Well, if one guy goes down and the other goes back, it's cover three. And that means that three guys have all the way to the end zone to protect on defense. Two corners go back and the one safety goes back.

Two safeties cover two, they go back, they have safety goes back. Two safeties, cover two, they go back, they have half the field, 50% of the field, all the way to the end zone. So what happens is you're always looking at safeties, maybe linebackers once in a while, to determine where you start your read. So my read starts in cover two, over here, one to two to three to the four. In cover three, same route. We didn't change our route concept. Oh, it's cover three. I start over here. One to two to three to four. So what happens when you're young and going against Vic Fangio,

you kind of don't know what it is. Is it cover two, four, three, two men? And all of a sudden you're kind of like holding the ball and you don't know where to start. And you don't know how to get through a read because you're just randomly looking and so you don't make it systematic something wrong with lamar or is this just one of those year from hell years for them well it's a it's a combination of multiple things i mean um we know how talented he is you can't luck your way into m into MVP. So we know he's a very special quarterback,

and I think he's going to have a great career in the NFL. This year, just, you know, they lost their right guard. He retired. He was a great player at Marshall. And then their left tackle, Ronnie Stanley, he's on IR. They lost him. I mean, those are two of the best linemen yeah in the nfl and uh people don't understand how you went from two and a half to three seconds in the pocket to one and a half to two seconds now all of a sudden all the reads that you're used to doing

at this pace you normally go boom boom boom boom Now you're going boom, boom, hit. Yeah. And you're like, whoa, that wasn't like that last year. And it's like Baker Mayfield in year one. He had Zeitler, an offensive lineman that traded him to the Giants. And I think for Olivier Vernon, if I remember correctly, I couldn't remember there. And I was like, ah, I didn't love it simply because baker was used

to playing at this speed yeah his brain was like i can read it i have time to get through this now the next year he's reading the same thing he's like boom and now your internal clock speeds up on every place you're trying to do it faster and over time that starts to make mistakes happen and all of a sudden these plays that were great a year ago aren't quite there. Teams have had a year to study you, so that was going to help half a second. Players in front of you aren't quite there anymore.

There's another half a second. I mean, all this stuff adds up, and that's why it's really hard to maintain it for a long time without cohesiveness. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring,

he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal

and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. Have you done a Herbert game yet? I actually did his first one. Oh, which was amazing because Tyrod Taylor almost gets stabbed to death by the team doctor, basically. And then Herbert comes in, looks like he hadn't even like showered or put his contact lenses in.

He's like, oh, am I playing? And then was really good. And I was watching that going, wait, is he good? And now we know the guy is special and he's kind of unlike any other QB right now. He's just like this old school AFL gunslinger, right? Yeah.

You must love him. Well, I watched one drive. I watched his first drive and I said, I'm going to tell you right now, this kid, he's not pretty good. He's really good. So I could see some of those small little things sometimes where you're like, he shouldn't have been able to do that. Yeah. That was rare. And then I'm like,

okay, maybe that was lucky. And then I'm like, he shouldn't have been able to do that either. And there was two of them on the first drive. And I said, you know, I told Jim, I'm telling you, this kid's not pretty good. He's really good and he's special. They hit a home run right here. So, you know, for me- You know what?

I remember you doing that game now that you're bringing this up. And I remember you becoming more and more impressed as the game went along. You kept pointing it out. I think it was the Chiefs, if I remember correctly. Maybe it was somebody else, but I think it was the Chiefs if i'm if i remember correctly maybe it was somebody else but i think it was the chiefs they went against they had a beat yeah went down and scored

to beat him right and herbert's had a few tough losses that he's played amazing but he has the ability to i call it process information quickly and so when you're young you really can't like i described i'm like you can't always know exactly what to look at when you're young, you really can't, like I described, I'm like, you can't always know exactly what to look at when you're young. Cause you don't know where all the rules are for the stuff I said, cover three, you go to restart, boom, boom,

boom, boom. But when he does this, he has a spatial awareness where he's like, I don't know. There's more guys over here. I'm just gonna throw it over here. And that guy's kind of like underneath him.

I'll just throw it behind him. And normally, he had that, that touchdown he threw where the guy hadn't even turned around yet and he threw it through this 25-yard laser to the spot where the guy was going to be a second and a half later? It was unbelievable.

I haven't seen it. In our game, he threw a rub that he threw two balls that quarterbacks don't usually make in the first game I did. And this was later on in the game. I already knew he was really good. And I mentioned it on air, but he was exceptional.

Like, I mean, it's hard to describe, but he's, you know, it would be too long for me to explain everything I saw on the thing. But he just does things that are rare. And he has the ability to throw the ball downfield versus certain coverages not others do. And he has the ability because he sees it very quickly. And his eyes can go, boom. And if you watch people, why do people always, Patrick Mahomes has this like times 10 of anybody,

but he'll look over here and he's looking over there. People have seen him go like that and throw it. Yeah. They see that. But in reality, they don't see the one where he's looking at the guy. But the linebacker, if you go watch the tape, he's throwing a guy breaking this way, right? He's going to throw here.

He just looks right here. And the linebacker moves and then he goes and he's just using his eyes so what he's not doing is he's not actually looking most quarterbacks look at the guy they're gonna throw to yeah when you get really good you just look at the defense and move them you say i already know where my guy is i'm just gonna look at the defender and go i'm gonna throw. Just move your body weight just an inch. Start your body weight here. Bam, I got the extra foot I needed.

Ball goes back there. And that's where I think Herbert has a little bit of that. The NFL Top 100 shows that they did, they had Belichick on, and they were doing the Ed Reed section. And they showed this play where Ed Reed faked out Manning, where he basically, where he basically, he pretended he was going to veer left because he knew what Manning was going to do, pretend he was going to throw right and then throw it back left deep to Reggie

Wayne. So Ed Reed drifted that way. And then basically did this 180 sprint to the spot and picked off Manning and Manning came off the the field like he was just, what the fuck? I had this guy taking it. And Belichick was so excited about it. He was like, that is the greatest play I've ever seen a safety make in my life. But it was the only time I remember the secondary guy outwitting the dude who's outwitting him with the eyeball look to the right. Because that was a Manning specialty.

You were good at that too, by way yeah thanks way back when uh i tell you that you're exactly right it's you know if you're good enough like if you know the rules to things right when you see this so when people come off the ball if you're ed reed and you see this combination four guys are going that way right yeah and you see the quarterback who's really good you go against a rookie he looks over here you flow with him right away and go pick it off or try to against peyton manning you're watching enough tape if you're really like i said if you're gonna adapt you're watching the tape you're like every time he looks right on these four guys going vertical he throws throws left. Yeah. Why is that?

But are you willing to trust that in a game? Yeah. And so when he looks right, he's really still looking at you. And he's trying to move you because he wants to throw this guy. So I'm going to look here. I'm going to throw this seam. And then he goes, boom. And you're like, ah, I fell for it, right?

And everybody does because on the field, it's real real it's not like this fake video game thing it's like these are big places so your responsibilities stay there but you got to flow quickly so he basically said i'm gonna make him think i'm flowing with my body leverage and as soon as he feels that leverage i'm gonna i'm gonna go right away the other way i'm guessing guessing. I haven't seen it. Yeah, that's what happened. Yeah. He did that to me, too. You got me. The Herbert's cannon on top of everything else.

Sal and I talked about this on Sunday in our pod. I'm just, you know, I'll do respect to the Chargers fans, but they're basically like a team without a city right now. They're in LA as like the second team. You just think, if you put this dude on the Cowboys or the Broncos or the bears, these teams that have these generations of fans, they'd be absolutely losing their mind. And here it's like, maybe he's the gateway to the chargers having fans in LA and people like my

son. But, but it's just weird that this is, and then, then Burrow who sadly went down last week, but I felt like Burrow in a lot of ways was just as good and just as impressive as Herbert is. The difference is the age.

I think Burrow's probably like three and a half years older. Yeah, I haven't done a Burrow game. I think he's really good. I watched, once again, a couple drives. Usually I watch a couple drives just to get an evaluation from my own brain. So you know right away, pretty much. It was quarterbacks, yeah.

I can tell pretty quickly. But I knew right away with Herbert. I mean, that might be the best pick in that draft. And I'll tell you right now that there's going to be a lot of teams ahead of him who are going to look back and be like, how did we miss on this guy? Well, how about Miami? And I'd like Tua,

but Miami takes Tua over him on top of the injury risk. But I got to be honest. I'll be honest. I've yet to see one play of Tua so far. Each week I'm studying the game we're doing. I had Miami in the first game and Ryan was the quarterback,

Fitzpatrick. Yeah. Is Mahomes the most talented quarterback ever? I'm not saying he's the first game, and Ryan was the quarterback. Fitzpatrick was the team. Yeah. Is Mahomes the most talented quarterback ever? I'm not saying he's the best ever, but does he bring the most to the table from a talent standpoint? That's hard to say because what does talent mean? When you say that, give me a description. I would say Jordan and LeBron brought the most to the table, but they also maximized it by how hard they work.

But they were just if you're just checking what are the 20 things I need from the best guy in the league, they probably check the most boxes. So with Mahomes, if you're trying to create. That's a better description. Yeah. checks so many boxes it's hard to describe because he kind of has the vision and instincts you know of like a Peyton Manning but like when I say that I mean like the vision the ability to look off do these things yeah has a little bit of an arm close to like Aaron Rodgers. Or early Favre. Yeah, but with Favre, he's – back then, you've got to remember, people were under center a lot more. And so the game was – I don't want to say faster,

but shotgun the game slows down a little bit for quarterbacks because you're not rushed to get back to get set up. And that's why everyone went to shotgun. It was like quarterback can feel things better differently. And so it's a hair different. I thought Favre played as, I don't want to say as slow in the pocket, but if you watch Darren Rodgers or Brady, they're calm in the pocket. When Favre started, it was rush back, get there, run through these things,

and he had a cannon, right? Well, Rogers had a cannon. Patrick does too. Patrick plays very calm. And so he moves when he needs to move, but he can move, you know, whenever he wants. He can run for 20. I mean, in the playoff game last year, he ran for 40 yard touchdown. I think Made two guys miss and broke a tackle. But he just – he checks so many boxes. It's hard to think that someone else has ever checked that many boxes. That's how I feel.

The only thing that comes to my mind, Brad, is that, like, a Brady, these boxes, there's 10 of them. He checks them all. Well, I still don't have a great description for you that tells you where what's that one that brady has that's 14 points better than everybody else right because there is one of those and he has and it's like that box right there well that just made those other four really not matter you know, that's for another day. But well, the thing with my homes on top of everything else is just like that

third and nine play where you call the perfect D two guys are chasing him. He's about to get sacked. And then he just puts his jet skis on and all of a sudden he runs for 11 yards. You're just like, we played that perfectly. That's the fact that he has that piece on top of everything else is nuts. I think the quarterback play, you know, it seems like we ebb and flow with this stuff, but I think I like the state of quarterbacks right now, especially with the rookie infusion

we had and just going down the line. There's only like a few teams that are really screwed. Losing Dak obviously wasn't great, but in general, I think half the league has to be at least somewhat happy with their QB play. By the way, this is probably the best collection of talent. There was one other time frame. It was probably 2007 to 11 or 12. You had the older guys and the younger guys together.

Right. Far was still playing. He was in Minnesota. You know, you had Rogers. You had, and then your generation's coming in. Yeah.

And it was Brady Manning, but you had Roethlisberger. So you had Brady and Peyton, obviously you had far, you had Aaron Rogers. He was about to come in rivers. By 2011, they were like 15 and one or whatever it was.

And then you also had Kurt Warner. I mean, you had probably in Roethlisberger. I mean, you had probably 10 or 12 guys that could be Hall of Famers, you know, in a lot of ways. And so this is probably the best collection of depth, you know, that I've seen since then. And I think it's probably better because everyone learns from the people before him in every sport. You just start to like, be like, how did that guy do that?

Hmm. And they studied it. And then the coaches study with that guy would pay Manning figured out with Tom Brady figured out other coaches are studying what their system is doing and trying to implement it to make it hard on defenses. And eventually they start using it and it makes life easier on the quarterback. Basketball's like that too. Basketball ebbs and flows right now. Basketball's in an awesome talent stretch. You look at the three all NBA teams and 10 guys that don't make it. We're like, man, the league's got like 30 awesome guys right now. And sometimes that number could be 12. But yeah, it's funny when the quarterback's like that.

I know you haven't seen every team yet. Is there a defense that's jumped out to you as, uh-oh, watch out for that team in cold weather, January, that's going to be a bitch to play?

Well, I feel like last year's San Francisco right away, it was like, they're going to rush four guys, but the system was difficult. Like, you know, everyone else at Kansas city just went in that Superbowl.

And I said, this is going to be a game. Like people just can't understand how talented, but also their scheme was really good on both sides of the ball. And, you know, they were pretty close to winning the Superbowl. And everyone,

everyone forgets Kansas City had to come back in three games in the playoffs to win. How about the Garoppolo bomb? If it's a yard short, they go ahead with a minute and a half left. That's where it's like, oh, this team's so great

they're going to be a dynasty. The Chiefs are great. They have Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes, Tyreek Hill. The combination is really tough. And, you know, I said this was about Brady. I said, when Tom Brady, if you have the best quarterback who meets the best coach and they're together, they're going to win multiple championships

because they're always going to be the most prepared. They're always going to have the most answers. And the guy's going to overcome little things that other people can't. And then they're going to always be in the mix or possibly win just based on those two, regardless of kind of people that come in and out. And when you get really good people around you, you win and go 16 and up. And it was like Popovich with Duncan, right? Now, Duncan wasn't LeBron or Michael, let's say,

but he's way up there in the class of people. And that combination means they're going to be in the mix every year that those two are together. Right, 50 wins every year. That's Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes. Yeah, it's 11 wins every year unless something weird happens. Yeah. I know you frown on gambling and you don't like gambling at all but is there um first of all sal and i decided

on sunday night my homes was the mvp and he was plus 180 heading into those games and now we're just like as long as he's my homes for five more games that's a wrap i don't do you see any other mvp candidate across the board? You could make a case maybe Kyla Murray could get hot down the stretch, but other than that, I don't see it. No. I mean, no. It's Patrick Holmes unless he gets hurt or something weird happens, which you never wish to do. And then the other thing that's going on, this is right around the time everybody decides who's going to be in the Superbowl. But as we learn every year, who we decide never actually, that's never actually the Superbowl. Is there a kind of medium shot that you like somebody in that seven to three,

six and four range, like maybe a, maybe a Ravens, maybe the bucks, uh, maybe Buffalo, maybe you like what you saw from Tennessee. You did the game on Sunday. Is there kind of a mid-range team that you're enamored with? So give me the division leaders. Do you have it off the top of your head right now? Yeah, I got, well, AFC, it's Buffalo, Steelers, Tennessee's in a tie with Indy,

but I think Indy has the thing and then the Chiefs and then in the NFC I mean we'll throw the East out Packers, Saints and I think it's the Rams right now maybe Rams Seahawks the two teams that come to mind would be

the Cardinals and the Bills those are two teams that can give any team trouble in the league in a one game set. Sean McDermott, great coach for the Bills. Josh Allen has rare ability

and he's still learning the game. But I think you'll see, you know, you started seeing the flashes of how good he can be. It's just him learning. And their offense, and their offense,

I think people jumped off on, including myself and maybe look back and it's like, ah, a couple of bad weather games. There was one weird COVID week and maybe we shouldn't have been so eager to jump off that team. Well, I think anybody who jumps on or off after a game is kind of silly in general

because sometimes a coach on the other side just came up with a great scheme that day that really made it very difficult and everything was hard and you go back and look on monday but when you play them again in six weeks or in the playoffs you're way more prepared because that same scheme is not going to work so where do you go from there? And so, you know, that happens sometimes. I mean, we've seen like, we all, we keep talking about the Patriots, but how many times do we put them for dead over the years? I mean,

I can remember the Kansas city game years ago where they lost and came in and threw a touchdown on the last drive. And it was like, there's the end. It was like 2014. They only played in like three or four Superbowls after that. They won three more titles after. So Buffalo is 25-1, Tennessee is 30-1, Cardinals are 32-1. I think to me, the Cardinals and Buffalo will be the two dark horse teams.

I'm not saying they're going to get there, but they'd be teams that have the quarterback who can do it and have a defensive system that I think could give teams trouble. I'm not saying they're going to get there, but they'd be teams that have the quarterback who can do it and have a defensive system that I think could give teams trouble. The thing with the Cards, so they play the Pats this week. That's a team they should beat. The Pats don't have a front seven that's

going to hurt Kyler in any way. If they're really good, we're at the point of the season where it's like, you just got to take care of business in games like that. You win by 10, go to the next game. That's a funny statement, though though in the nfl because there is like you're not going to play bill belichick and all of a sudden it's like the ravens like that was an easy go win a game two weeks ago and yeah all of a sudden that's a lot you look back it's like what just happened but bill belichick is really good i'll tell people like same thing be very careful about this season

saying that he's not still built bill belichick same with brady it's like these two guys they're not pretty good they're the best and they're gonna figure this thing out and even if it's not this year they're over time, they're going to figure it out. Well, him beating the Ravens was ridiculous that he, he pulled out a, a game plan from the Bronco Nagurski era. And then he convinced God to have a monsoon during the fourth quarter. Really? That's why he's the best. Um, let's talk about golf really quickly before you go. You love golf. You watch golf constantly. You fantasize about maybe being in the senior tour someday.

No. Masters is open. Okay. Oh, even better. Okay. Whatever. DJ finally wins the Masters. Everyone's like he's pound for pound. He's kind of the Mahomes of golf in some ways. He checks the most boxes of all the golfer. Then you have Koepka who seemed like he was banged up this year. A year ago, golfer. Then you have Koepka, who seemed like he

was banged up this year. A year ago, it was like, oh, Rowe goes through Koepka. And then two years before that, it was oh, Rowe goes through Jordan Spieth. It just seems like the guy kind of changes year to year. Who's the guy for you right now? Well, I would say based on your statement right there,

this is sports in general. There's very rare times where you have you know gotta remember michael jordan didn't win a title for what seven years yeah seven years okay so you can be the guy it doesn't mean it's guaranteed success and you know even with patrick mahomes i i think sometimes it's what happens when something like Tyreek Hill and one other guy go down. He can do it. He's that good. But all of a sudden it makes everything way harder. And teams pressure you now because they're not scared of that guy scoring a touchdown.

Tom Brady lost Randy Moss or Wes Welker or Edelman. When guys go down, Gronkowski, things get more difficult, no matter how good you are at the professional level, because the game just isn't as easy as it looks year in, year out. There's one Tiger Woods, I would say. I don't think that we're going to see that probably very soon. The combination of speed, power, precision, touch, softness, and then obviously incredible putting.

But I think you're right with Dustin Johnson. He has rare ability. People watch it. I can still remember watching Aaron Rodgers at the Pro Bowl one year. He threw a ball and it was in a practice. And I remember watching it and I turned to the coach and I was like, yeah, I've never seen anybody do that. And I was like, I can't believe that ball just like went that high that far with that effortless power and it was like well if that guy's on it's really hard to beat him in golf let's say right and uh it's the same way dj is kind of one of those guys but the rest of it's like you can get injured that's where you're

talking about with brooks you know if my home has one or two guys get hurt, you know, if things happen, they just happen in sports and you're never guaranteed tomorrow. I mean, Dan Marino came out and threw 48 touchdowns his rookie year or whatever, second year, sorry. And he was incredible. And he was the standard right then too. And he, he went to a Super Bowl and they didn't win it then. He went against Joe Montana. Obviously, that's very difficult. I mean, how great is that game? But then after that, Dan Marino, like you talk to any quarterbacks

growing up in that era, he was the guy they looked at. He was like, wow, that's Dan Marino. That's Patrick Mahomes right now. But you're not guaranteed him. Well, talk to a Patriots fan who had to root against Dan Marino. That guy was absolutely petrifying.

Yeah, I think the thing with golf, because it does change year to year, right? Everybody's the guy and then something will happen and flips. What's more interesting to me is there's always one guy who becomes the guy in a tournament. If he's like two back, the fans are aware of it. Like fourth round, he's eagled eight. And there's always that one guy that the other guys are like, oh shit, that guy's coming. And that was what was so great about Tiger.

Even after his run basically ended in 08, then all this shit happened to him. But he still was able to, he had that persona of like the Tiger shadow over those, over those fourth rounds where he could be five back three back. And you're still kind of aware of him. I feel like Brooks is that guy now, even though he hasn't had, you know, a year remotely, like what he had the previous two years. But even then that master's weekend, all of a sudden he was kind of lingering for a second. I was like, Oh, here comes Brooks. Yeah.

So I, I guess like the title would be the, Oh, here comes blank guy. And I think that's Brooks. Unless you disagree. No, Brooks has been incredible for such a stretch,

but he was, he was banged up. What happens is like in professional sports, you got to learn your body again. Like all the same stuff you used to feel like in golf to hit the golf ball that's fine it's not like your hands and your thought process go away but it's like a quarterback who gets hurt and can't quite run like he used to he's so used to doing it this way but the body doesn't quite react that way and that's why health matters and so brooks is just learning how to get back to where he was but he just he has to go through the process like

everybody else you know it's this isn't like high school where you can just show up you know in some ways because i'm better than everybody it's like yeah these are really good and if you're not at your best it's hard to win against guys who are at their best because, you know, just small margins between them. But Brooks was able to keep that for such a long period of time. And so people talk about confidence, all that stuff. And I'm like, confidence is just a demonstrated ability to yourself. You know, I have confidence strictly because I know I've been doing this every day on the

range in the tournaments. I know I'm going to do this. And I know I know. yeah you know i have confidence strictly because i know i've been doing this every day on the range in the tournaments i know i'm going to do this and i know i know and i know they know and so it's like i'm going to go do it when you get hurt you come back you're like i pulled that one shot i don't normally pull it in the front nine in the first round i mean i might pull it in the you know 48th hole of the tournament, and I know how to adjust it. But now I'm like, all right, let me go ahead and correct it a little bit. And so your confidence gets just a little bit.

And that's why when people say, I've got to be more confident, I'm like, you get confident by going to show yourself you should be confident. Go practice. Make it 100%. You want to eliminate left? Eliminate it. Hit 100 balls. Never start one left of the flag.

Do that. Now you're going to get confident. It's demonstrated ability. Brooks just is going through what everybody does as a professional athlete. He'll be fine. He's incredible. Are you pro-Bryson or anti-Bryson? I love it. I think it's great for the game. I'm pro-Bryson too.

I get mad when people are like, no, he's kind of a villain. It's like, why? Cause he's hitting the shit out of the ball. What's how is this not fun? I don't know.

There's a weird backlash with him that I don't totally understand. When you're, when you're, when you're doing something and other people are trying to copy you, you're doing something right. At the professional level, it's very hard because there's a lot of people who have a lot of great teaching. They work very hard and it's their livelihood. I mean, it's all day and you're studying it and doing everything and you hire a

team and they got everything around. But Bryson deserves credit for figuring something out. And that requires patience, practice, ingenuity, adapting. And also at the same time, it requires you trusting it fully. And all of a sudden after that, it's like, oh, maybe we should all do that. Whereas before, people don't really want to, you know, it's like oh maybe we should all do that whereas people don't really want to you know it's like me and golf it's like no one wants to really if you're a really a pga guy or a guy who's a really good golfer it's like he's a football player playing golf but if i beat a guy then they might ask you so what are you doing with your technique and so when you start winning people want to know how come you haven't ended up in one of these goofy skins matches with the celebrity and the real golfer and they go head to head and everybody's mic'd like how have you

not done this yet they asked a couple times but you know just wait that's not a good answer well i just haven't been i just you're not ready yet what are you afraid of i'm not afraid i just you know i got life i got kids i only have so much time my hands so you know do you know do you realize how much fun sal and i would have betting on you in some goofy celebrity skins match why are you depriving us of this well because you're calling it goofy so i think that's it's goofy i'm dying to see it. Who would you pair up with? Who would be your guy? Who would be your partner? I'll take Sal.

Who do you take? No, no, no. Not Sal. A real golfer. Who would you take? Brooks? No, I'm taking Sal, right? He's good at golf.

He's fantastic. No, you definitely don't want Sal. He's not good either. Okay. No, no. Yeah, he doesn't check any boxes. He checks arrow boxes for golf. No.

I mean, there's a lot of great golfers. I'll be fine with them, but just, you know, scheduling wise and just, it's so diplomatic, such a diplomatic answer from you, but it's like,

I like playing tournament golf where it matters. If that makes sense. What, uh, you've done pebble beach and all that stuff, right? Yeah. I've seen you in there.

What's the best one to do for, as a celebrity kind of moonlighting in this stuff? Well, I mean, I've played in a few PGA Tour events. And so my goal is obviously to take the next step and keep going there. But as far as the other one, American Century is amazing. You know, in Lake Tahoe, that's always really my family. My boys love doing it on there. So that's always really my family my boys love to go down there so that's been really enjoyable but that's pretty much the only one I play in

when it comes to that I'm going to end on this speaking of boys so my son really got into football like a year ago and became obsessed with LT so we watched the football life on LT which is just like LT is like who's the football life on LT, which is just like, LT is like, who's the best,

you know, defensive player ever. It's like, it's LT there's let's move on to the next argument. So then he started watching all the football lives and they made one about you. That was really good. And he beat belatedly became a Romo fan, even though you're retired, but they did a nice job of capturing your career and some of the ups and downs and all that stuff. And he was, he was really into it. Have you actually watched that or did you just do an interview, but you're one of those people who you don't want to watch it? You know what? 99% of the time, I don't really watch a whole lot of the stuff,

but that one I did, but I, I actually was excited about that one because it felt to me like it's one of those things where you're going to be able to pass on to your kids. Yeah. And so, uh, I don't know. I,

I felt honored that anybody would do that. You know, and a lot of times you're like, Oh, got too much going on, blah, blah, blah.

But I think that one felt weirdly it felt like an honor it just felt like I was like wow I can't believe anyone would want to do that on me but it felt special and unique and I just thought about my kids and the grandkids and I'm dead and gone you know hopefully more than 10 years but they'll all be able to go back and look at that and kind of see it so I gave them you know time and I tried to be as honest as I could. And I loved it. I thought they did a great job and I watched it all the way through. And they really, really did.

I'm glad you watch it. Cause you know, obviously when we created 30 for 30, we weren't expecting that historical document aspect of it. And I remember like the Fab five one we did about Jalen, that like changed Jalen's life. He was this whole new generation of people who had no idea what that team was. And they watched that Fab Five and like belatedly became a cool team again. And it got mentioned to him for the next 10 years.

That was my error right there. Oh, yeah. But that's the thing. If you do those correctly, it's really cool. And it's really cool to watch it, you know, with your kids, your grandkids someday, all that stuff. So anyway,

I'm glad you watched it. It was good seeing you. I'm glad you're well, um, hopefully you're right about Brady. I would hate to see him go down the tubes. Don't worry. Yeah.

On a different team like this. He's going to figure it out. I'll believe you. Uh, great seeing you and congrats on all the CBS stuff. It's been really, really fun watching you do the games and keep it up. Thanks, Billy. You're the best. Appreciate it. Thank you. At Pennzoil, we have one job, pioneering a motor oil so advanced, you don't have to think about

your motor oil. Instead, you can think about how your engine sounds, how your stomach feels as the RPMs build, how your wheels hug the curves, and how with the Pennzoil Platinum up to 15-year, 800,000-kilometer protection guarantee, your adventures will be many. Pennzoil. Long may we drive. Available at your local Canadian tire. Enrollment required. Keep your receipts. Other conditions apply. See Pennzoil.ca slash warranty for full details. All right, I'm taping this piece of the podcast on Thanksgiving, 530 Pacific time. It's been one of the worst Thanksgiving football days ever, if not the worst. I can't speak of anything that happened before I was born, but at least in my lifetime, this was the laziest one. We started out with Houston and Detroit. It was a terrible game. Detroit obviously quit on their coach a couple of weeks ago. Houston blows them out. That was game one. Game two was an NFC East shit bomb between Dallas and Washington.

It was just a matter of who was going to screw up more. The winner was Dallas. Antonio Gibson was great if you had him in fantasy, but Dallas just blew that game in a bunch of different ways, culminating in a fourth and 10 fake punt that ended up being a long developing reverse sweep where the guy just ran right into the line where four guys were. It was maybe the worst fake punt I've ever seen, at least in the top five.

So that was game two. And then Baltimore Pittsburgh was supposed to be the third game. That one gets postponed, which we knew heading into today. So we lost the only game that actually would have been fun. And then right before I taped this, we find out that Lamar Jackson reportedly has COVID. The Ravens are in such trouble right now that they have shut down their facility. Nothing is going to happen at least until Monday. And that game is probably going to get postponed for God knows how many days. So I took,

I had that Pittsburgh in two different million dollar picks. I guess we're just going to avoid those. One of them won Houston. The other one lost Dallas. So if that doesn't happen this week, I guess we'll end up voiding those. You knew, you knew the COVID thing with football.

You knew this was a high wire act and you knew at some point there was going to be a reckoning and it's starting to feel like this week is the reckoning as the numbers surge everywhere as the government that we currently have seems completely oblivious to anything and as the cold weather is coming

and it just feels like if sports reflects society in a bunch of different ways, as we know, it's definitely going to reflect everything that's going on in society now. And the numbers are surging. It makes sense that it's going to really mess with the rest of this football season. 17-week season. Could see it getting pushed to 18 weeks, maybe 19 weeks. I could see them extending the playoffs to eight seeds per conference. Who knows?

Sal and I are going to cover all this on Sunday. We'll have a lot more information then. But it's depressing. So, you know, here are my million-dollar picks. I'm depressed. First one, Colts minus three against the Titans. I just like the way the Colts are playing now. Michael Pittman, the rookie receiver,

I think has really added something to them. And you throw in Hilton, you throw in Taylor, they have an explosiveness that as long as they're playing a team that doesn't have a good defense and isn't harassing Phil Rivers, they can control the clock. Their defense is really good with Darius Leonard back. And I like the way they're playing. I wasn't a big fan of them three weeks ago, but I like the way they're playing now. I think they're better than Tennessee.

So I like the minus three. They're home. And I think they can grab a foothold in the AFC South. So that's one game. Cards minus one and a half against the Patriots. This is in New England. Doesn't matter. I just like Kyler against New England's front seven. And I also think the Patriots

teams have just kind of figured out that they're going to try to run the ball all the time. And they're just stacking the line, making Cam Newton throw. I think the cards have more firepower. I think the NFC West is way better than the AFC East. And I like the cards minus one half. Mark that one down.

Also mark down Panthers plus three and a half against the Vikings. The Vikings lost to Dallas last week. You watched Dallas today. Dallas is terrible, right? Well, why would you like the Vikings? This line feels like it should be Panthers plus two and a half. I feel like I'm getting a free point. And I just think the Panthers are a well-coached, if you have a

tournament of all the bad teams, this is probably the most professional bad team. Also, if Teddy Bridgewater plays, we got a little Teddy Bridgewater homecoming thing in Minnesota, which can't be ignored either. So you got that. Last one, Vegas minus three against the Falcons. Vegas is a playoff team. They've been impressive enough times and they have enough youth. They have enough explosiveness. They're good on both sides of the ball. And I've just been impressed by them. What's funny is their schedule has been brutal, and it's about to get a lot easier. So if you've liked what you've seen from Vegas,

you really are going to start liking it now because now they're about to play some bad teams. First one is at Atlanta. I just think they're better, and I think Atlanta gets weirdly favored in the betting community just because they're allegedly explosive. And yet every week they're disappointing, basically. So mark that one down.

Two teases for you. One is the Seahawks with the Saints. Seahawks playing Philly on Monday night. Saints in Denver. I don't see Denver winning two games in a row. I just think these are two superior teams playing inferior teams during a point of the season when you don't fuck around anymore. So Seahawks, Saints together.

Both of them just have to win by a half point. Mark that one down. And then the other tease I have is a Trevor Lawrence tease. I just want to go against the Jets and Jaguars. The Jaguars have not only thrown away the season, they've brought in Mike Glennon to really try to throw away the season. So they're playing the Browns and the Dolphins are playing the Jets. And the Jets and Jaguars are in a death match to try to get Trevor Lawrence. So why not profit from this? Tease the Dolphins down to one. Tease the Browns down to a half point. The Browns worry me a little bit just because they're a little banged up.

They've had some COVID stuff. And they're not playing with a full deck right now. I'm not sure it's going to matter. I think they're just going to run the ball and Mike Leonard will do the rest. So that is my Trevor Lawrence tease. And I might do that the rest of the way. Just go against the Jets and the Jags together in the same parlay of tees.

Mark that one down. And then finally, a four-teamer, three-to-one odds, four-team tees, Seahawks, Saints, Dolphins, Browns. Everybody goes down to a half point except the Dolphins who goes down to a point. So three-to-one outs. Mark that one down. Long shot parlay. Chargers plus 190 in Buffalo. And you figure if they win, it'll be because their offense is awesome. Herbert does Herbert stuff and keeps cementing his rookie of the year claims. And it's just a high scoring game. Really fun. Old school AFL type game.

The over is 52 and a half. I want to parlay those together. Chargers plus 190 over 52 and a half, figuring if the Chargers win, they win a high scoring game, plus 433. Mark that one down as well. So here are our million dollar picks for the rest of week 12. Colts minus three over the Titans, 150K.

Cards minus one and a half over the Pats, 150K. Panthers plus three and a half at Minnesota, 150K. Vegas minus three at Atlanta, 150K. Two teasers, Dolphins down to one, Browns down to a half point, 100K. Seahawks and Saints both down to a half point, 100K. In those teases, both sides have to win. And then 50K on a three to one tease, Seahawks, Saints, Dolphins, Browns. We're throwing all of them together. So if all four of those win, I will win 100, 200, 350. Great. And then long shot parlay of the week, 50K on the Chargers plus 190 with the over of 52 and a half. That is plus 433. We are down.

I'm sorry. We are up 177K for the season. I guess we're avoiding those two Steelers bets. Good luck to the Ravens. Hope you recover from just a horrendous Thanksgiving football day, but hope you enjoyed seeing your family. Hope you enjoyed eating. Hope you stayed safe.

We're going to take a break and then we're going to get to Jim Miller. All right, Jim Miller is here. He wrote books on SNL and ESPN and CA. He's got one coming out on HBO next year. And he's been on this podcast before. You texted me like three weeks ago, two weeks ago, whatever, and you were like, did you see the Belushi duck? And I'm like, wait, that's going to

be good? And you were like, you got to watch it. So it came out on Showtime. I watched it on Sunday night, and then I watched it again yesterday. I watched it twice. I'm like the all-time Belushi guy, and I feel like it was directed by RJ Cutler. I think they did a really good job. I learned a lot. And Jim and I are just going to talk about the doc. Were you surprised it was this good? Hell yeah. I mean, because there was, look, there's no way anyone could understand how good it could be because Judy was sitting on so much. You know, I think this thing is, I mean, you have to go back to when Woodward wrote Wired and everybody, I mean, it was such a polarizing, awful thing for so many people.

And at that point, everybody was trying to put toothpaste back in the tube and say, look, we got to own the narrative of who John really was. You know, even all 360 degrees of who he was, but it's been talked about for so long and just had no idea. I mean, look, I think envy is a cancer in somebody's life, but as somebody who worked on two volumes of the SNL book, I just sat there with my jaw on the ground. The letters, some of the recordings that we didn't even know existed. Obviously some of the footage, it's all, it's just, it's just beautiful.

So for people listening, Judy is Belushi's widow, by the way. For people listening, Eddie's my favorite guy ever for favorite comic of all time. And Belushi was second. And the reason I fell in love with Saturday Night Live in the first place was when they started showing the greatest hits on whatever night that was, when they would take the condensed half hours or hours, however long they were from the first four years. So right around season four, they started showing those in primetime. And if you're a little kid, you just gravitated to Belushi. You're like, who's this guy? And at that same time, Animal House is coming out. He's on covers and stuff. And he was just this force of nature. And I remember one of the times I was able to stay up and got to see him as the Incredible Hulk in the Margot Kidder season,

or they showed the replay, whatever. And it was just him as the Hulk. He clears out the bathroom and you're just like, this guy's my favorite guy ever. I can't believe this person exists. So I saw all his movies in the theater. And then I remember buying Wired. I remember buying the Saturday Night Live book that came out maybe two years after, which seems like it was a little affected by how divisive Wired was. And then you did the two oral histories. And at some point, as you said, the Belushi side tried to own the narrative because the Wired thing went so badly. And that's why I never thought we'd get this documentary.

It's certainly been, how many years has it been floating around as an idea? At least five or six, right? Yeah. But you have to really go back to Wired where people started to talk to Judy Belushi and say to her, listen, you know, we can't let this be the final word. And it was just very interesting because she got remarried and she didn't want to be delving into a project out of respect to her husband, her second husband, like that, immersed in the world of her first husband. And then she got divorced. And I think she just came to the conclusion that she needed to do this. And thank God she did, because I was stunned by how much, I didn't realize, for instance, a lot of people didn't realize how many notes and letters he wrote.

I mean, thank God. By the way, email sucks. It's so great to go back to when people really communicated on paper and to see his handwriting. Bill Hader does the reads on his letters, and Bill is a perfect human being. And he does a great job with that. And so the whole combination of everything is just, it's literally breathtaking. All right. So let's go backwards to Wired because just to put that in context, Belushi dies March of 82. And it's the culmination of somewhere between six and eight years of him leading a really hard life and him spiraling out of control. One of the things that they really didn't have back there

was rehab centers and interventions. I think Betty Ford opened the year John died. Right. And you also had, this is an epidemic, this drug in Hollywood and sports and comedy and music, you name it. A lot of people are just not realizing how dangerous it is. So it's hard for some of them to intervene when they're also using it, partying, stuff like that. So he dies. Everyone's bummed out. He's only 33 years old. And Judy, his widow, brings Woodward in, who at that point is probably the most famous investigative reporter. Hey, I want you to find out what happened here. And she thinks it's going to be news stories. He ends up writing this book

and everybody was blindsided. And I actually read the first 300 pages of the book after I watched the documentary again, because I had it on my iPad. He's got everybody in that book. Spielberg's interviewed. Every SNL person is interviewed, all these different actors. He talks to Robin Williams. And I think people thought because it was Woodward, it was going to be this on-level book. And as Al Franken pointed out years later, the book was the equivalent of reading somebody who wrote this account of your life in college called Puked. And it was just, every story was about how you partied too much, you threw up and it missed all the nuances of

why all these people loved him. And not even, not even the nuances. It missed everything. So as you were doing your oral history, there was still that residue of, I don't trust writers to, to handle the John legacy. How did you handle that? Usually with knee pads and begging, but I think it's also, I think being keenly aware of the fact that there was a lot to tell that hadn't been told before. And I think that appealed to people,

certainly with Ackroyd and others, because they didn't want wired to be the final word. They didn't want that to be what an entire generation remembered about John Belushi. I mean, look, there are 360 degrees of this guy. He can be John Belushi. I mean, but the whole point is you just can't take 90 degrees or 45 degrees of that and then run with it and make that be the defining characteristics of who he was. And I think that's one of the great things that Cutler does here, which is we understand the dark side and we understand the light side, but it's such a beautiful combination of everything that John Belushi was. Yeah, it definitely doesn't shy away from some of the drug stuff. And especially... Including mentioning heroin.

Right. But they don't... One of the things I appreciated was it didn't even mention who was with them when he died. And he was with that lady, Kathy Smith, who was really about as low as you're going to sink. Can we just say one thing about the ending, about the death? Yeah. This is so well done.

It is stunning. I don't know if you remember, but you're cut and you can see, maybe I'm just so obsessed with it, but you can tell by the foliage that you're right outside the barmite. And all of a sudden, he gets this tracking shot of this guy.

We don't even know who the guy is. He's just a guy and he's walking right to us. And so you can't help but wonder why are we talking? Why is this guy, you know, in the center of the shot? And then the guy comes towards us and makes this left-hand turn. And on the back of his jacket, we see corner. Yeah. And it just like, it just shakes you. I mean, it's just such beautiful editing and it's, you know, you don't need any voiceover. You don't need anything. It's just, he does such a wonderful job with the footage. Well, and the other thing I, so I had Jim Belushi on a couple of months ago and I, I could have easily started like by saying your

brother is one of my favorite people of all time. I didn't. And he mentioned his brother a couple times organically. And then near the second half of the pod, we kind of eased into it a little bit. But I didn't want him to feel like, I just want to get stories of your brother out. But the thing that struck me was he really liked talking about his brother. And I think that's the recurring theme of all those people from now that the Wired was 35, 36 years ago. I think they're okay with talking about what a special guy he was. And yeah, he had some demons. But for the most part, they had never met anybody like

him before or since. And I think that's the difference with him and other comics. Usually comics, they're more like that Jim Carrey side, right? Where it's just kind of really super weird and quirky, or they're like Sandler, like just an awesome guy. He just has his dudes. Everybody loves them or people like that. Or like Eddie, where they just, they close off everyone by the age they're 24 and they have their inner circle and that's it. Everybody shut out. Belushi belonged to everybody. And I don't know if there has been another comic like that. Can you think of anybody?

It's tough because he is so exceptional. And the other thing is, and it shows itself in Saturday Night Live and Animal House and to a degree, Blues Brothers. A lot of comics, they go on stage. I mean, Eddie on stage, you just can't take your eyes off of him. He's fantastic.

Robin Williams. Belushi is like the leader of the pack. He's the alpha male, and he isn't, in fact, he isn't threatened, and he doesn't dismiss the idea of people around him. He's always had people around him. He had people around him back in high school and college. And so as, you know, Chevy starts to wane and ultimately leaves SNL,

and John becomes, as Lauren says, the alpha male, it's so easy to see everybody around him. And then, of course, if you look at the script of Animal House, the shooting script, you're not going to say Pluto is the breakout guy. Like, you're not going to say Bluto is the breakout guy. Like, you're not going to say, oh my gosh, whoever gets to play Blutarski is, you know, he's gold from this moment on. It was the force of his expressions, his eyebrows, the way he deals with, you know, an entourage and communicates with everybody.

I mean, only on the stairs with Stephen Bishop, probably, is that singular Belushi moment. The rest of it is like he's getting in, he's trying to cheer people up, he's trying to, you know, be a peck's bad boy. It's just the way he interacts, I think, is singular for a comic. How much Belushi material did you have when you did your book that you ended up not using?

You must have had so much more than you actually used, right? Yeah, that is the day. And it was the first time doing the oral history. So I have to say that that was a little heartbreaking because people, particularly in the course of an interview, then they'll say, you know, you can't use this. But and then it was just like, you know, you can't use this, but, and then it was just like, you know, the most incredible story. I mean, it happens on every book, but particularly with Belushi, it was just, there was just a lot that people said, but that couldn't be used. And it was frustrating and heartbreaking, but, you know, I mean, you got to obviously got to pay attention to that and go along with that. Well, the other thing about him on SNL, you know, the relationship he had with Ackroyd and the fact that two stars were the two dominant guys on the show, but also as close.

That's never happened again on the show. Can we just talk about Dan Aykroyd for a second? Because one of the things that this documentary does, and people have known it for decades, but this is a good man. I mean, he's super talented. But remember, at no point while Belushi becomes a real big star, Bill, do you see Aykroyd acting out? He's jealous.

He's bitter. I mean, how many times have we seen that? I mean, by God, you got to go back to Lewis and Martin for that kind of bitterness and jealousy. There's nothing from Daniel Ackroyd like that. He's always protected. He's sitting there writing ghostbusters for John. Yeah. While John's going through this and he never says a negative word for, about him. And I mean, even Blues Brothers, I mean, it's obviously a buddy movie, but Aykroyd has such a low level

of ego and paranoia that he's always just letting Belushi take up whatever space Belushi needs. And I just think Dan Aykroyd doesn't get enough credit for being, I mean, obviously he's incredibly talented, but he's just like an incredible human being. Yeah. And the Ghostbusters is a pretty sizable what if, right? Because if Belushi, if they have the whole rehab system in place, he clearly is in rehab at that point. On the other hand, they tried, you covered this in your book, they tried with Chris Farley. How many rehab stints did he have? 10?

At some point, it just doesn't take for some people. Maybe it wouldn't have taken with Belushi. I don't know. I mean, there was rehab before the Betty Ford Center. And there were ways in which people in the, I mean, the studios in the 1940s used to send their starlets or stars to places to- To dry out. Yeah to places to dry out. Yeah, or to take care. But I think that, A, you have to be open to it.

B, you have to go through it. I mean, it's a whole complex subculture. And obviously, Chris Farley had many attempts. Ironic that when Chris Farley got to Saturday Night Live, one of the first things he wanted to do was try on the old Belushi wardrobe and then wound up dying at the same age. And they kept referencing it to him.

Do you want to end up like Belushi? We know he's your idol, but you don't have to actually end up like him. But you think about if Belushi somehow gets through at Ghostbusters, I would assume it would have been the Bill Murray part, right? I think it would have been the Bill Murray part, right? I think it would have been. That had to have been the part, because that was the funniest part

in the movie. Yeah, but I think it would have just been very different. I think according to Dan, I think he said before, though, I mean, obviously when you're writing for John, it's not like anybody can just come in. Even Billy's role, I think, was measured compared to what belushi would have done around ghosts and in that outfit and everything else uh i'm not you know i

think that there was probably some changes but yeah i would have been that role well i think you know the most about the old snl history of anyone I've met, but I'm probably a close second. There were a couple of things in there that I didn't know. Like for instance, they showed that video of when Belushi's in LA and he sent the video back to Lauren with all the girls in the pool about, sorry, I can't be there. And Lauren ended up not using it. I remember reading the story in the books.

I didn't know the video existed and they fucking unleashed the video. It was unbelievable. And Judy was like, okay, I mean, that video was startling on so many different levels. I mean, obviously it was a kind of a certain kind of statement about his version of marriage at that time. Yeah. But also I think it was, he wasn't aware.

He wasn't aware of the optics. And I think Lorne correctly points out, we can't put this on and we can't do this. This is crazy. And that's one of those things about Lorne Michaels. He bends, but he doesn't break. It's like he has done a lot of accommodating. But man, on something like that, the other thing in the doc was when Belushi is sick

and the doctor says he's afraid that if he goes on, he might die. And Lauren says, what are the percentages? And the doctor says, well, I think it's 50-50. And Lauren says, basically, I can live with that. I mean, that is a side of Lorne Michaels that people rarely get to see. Well, you know, all the old SNLs are on Peacock. Now, anything that has any music, the sketch isn't in there.

But for the most part, the bones of every show is in. So that episode when they thought Belushi might die was the one Kate Jackson hosted. And you can just go watch it on Peacock. Like that opening scene is there. And Belushi up go watch it on Peacock. Like that opening scene is there. And Belushi up until when they said, all right, ready, action. Belushi, they don't know if he's even coherent enough to be on stage. So it's really weird that, you know, when you were doing your book and even way back when Hill and Weingrad did their book in the mid eighties, like they're just diving into the library of the stuff

and we're kind of just trusting the writer's take that this is what happened. It's weird that we can actually go and just watch this stuff now, right? I know that would have been very helpful when I was doing the book, but the truth is that there were time after time after time guest hosts who interviewed and said, it was like 1030 or something.

And they said, they ran to Lawrence and Belushi's passed out. We're going to have to like change that opening sketch or we're going to have to. And, you know, more times than not, they were like, don't worry, he'll be fine. And that was also part of the reason why like that strong Albanian stock. Nobody thought even, even though he was doing drugs and everybody was worried about him, they, they,

they somehow couldn't see him some coming, you know, because he was, he always got up and he always prevailed. I did think it was, there was one note though, where Judy shows that she says she was afraid when he went to LA, she couldn't go with him, that he might die. That was another incredibly

poignant moment in the doc. They covered the stuff about smoking the bodyguard, which was always a fascinating Belushi wrinkle, where they were paying this guy to basically protect him from himself, which is a rarity. But the guy, Smokey, worked for him and just over and over again was thwarting all these people. I mean, one of the things... Look, Wired, I wish he had written the book differently and he did a bad job only capturing one side of Belushi. But if you read that book now, it's a pretty interesting snapshot of how bad cocaine was in LA in that era. And I think that's kind of what Woodward became more fascinated by was this whole community where basically everybody was doing

drugs and nobody could help themselves. And basically people were losing their minds. And I don't know if that's inaccurate. No, I mean, look, Robin Williams, I mean, the list is long, but I think maybe it's instructive to just point out for a second, here's a guy that when he was 30 has the number one movie, number one album, number one show. And so people might think, why does he need Coke? And what is, but the truth is that, you know, sometimes you, you know, you, you can't get away from yourself. And for a good part of his life. And I think the doc shows some of that.

John was, there was a dark part of his of his being and he was sometimes insecure and sometimes depressed and sometimes unable to be you know who we think of him as being and that's part of the port of entry for the drug and right i mean it's just so weird because so many people think, oh, well, why would he need that? I mean, he had everything. But that never makes, that never explains it all.

Well, there's some good stuff in the Woodward book about that, ironically, because Judy was giving Woodward some of the letters and stuff. And it was the same thing in the documentary. Belushi seemed like he had a lot of trouble kind of understanding what was what had happened to his life where you're this dude who's in second city and you're in lemmings and you're trying to

work your way up and then you're on this this tv show that all of a sudden becomes the most important tv show for anybody under 30 you know and you're getting watched by 20 million people and then you're in animal house and now you're in Animal House, and now you're in the biggest movie, and now you're in Blues Brothers, and this dream you always had of being a musician, now you're on stage. And I think that's why Cutler led with that concert of 1978 at Belushi with 7,000 fans singing with his buddy, because it's kind of like, all right, I've checked every box, and I still don't feel great. Now what? And that's usually what happens to people who are on top who kind of self-destruct

where they thought it was going to feel differently and it doesn't. That old cliche about when the Lord wants to punish you, he answers your prayers. But I mean, like when I was in each of those seven people that first season, when it probably hit the fifth or sixth show, they started getting noticed walking down the street in New York. And I remember Lorraine Newman said that was just totally, I mean, that just blew them away. They weren't prepared for it. Well, wasn't Gilda like terrified by it? Like she would like run hiding? People would come up. I mean, strangers. And sometimes you don't even know if they're

going to be like attacking you or if they're a friend or you don't even know. And there wasn't a lot of training back then. And certainly they were just walking around the streets in New York and hanging out and everything else. And so I think it's a lot to get used to. I mean, we see it with athletes for sure. And, uh, and rock stars and, and people like this, but it really, he was,

he was on the cover of news. I mean, this is, this is, he was the guy, he owned the culture at that moment. And, uh,

and I think that it wasn't as easy for him as a lot of people might imagine. Yeah. It's a different level of fame back then. If you're in a hit TV show, it's 20, 25 million a week. You's basically a Superbowl audience. And you also had less people and you had less people with TV. So you had this outsized importance. Then a movie like Animal House, when that hits, it makes 300 million or whatever it made. But now it'd be like if it made 3 billion and everybody went to see it. But now it'd be like if it made 3 billion, you know, and everybody went to see it.

But the other thing is, and this happens a lot, if you think about what was going on his 30th birthday, so all the success that he has, and then you decide to do Continental Divide or Neighbors. And it's not, I mean, look, not every movie is going to be as gigantic as Animal House or even as fun and basically great as Blues Brothers. But boy, oh boy, if you do something and the audience doesn't like it, then you have to

deal with that. And I think that was hard as well. I saw Neighbors. I must have been 12. And it was so disappointed. And even at age 12, I was like, why didn't they switch roles? Why wasn't Belushi the crazy guy? But that was part of what attracted the movie. It's like, Romo and I just talked about it actually because he had that football life documentary that I thought was a good snapshot of his career. Sometimes if you do these documentaries correctly,

then they live on the same way a book does. And I feel like the Belushi thing, we needed something like this to finally happen. I think so. And I feel really sorry for anybody else who's been planning to do a Belushi doc because I don't think they left a lot of meat on the bone. I think now for the first time, for the first time between, okay, if you want to include any of the books that have been

written, but I think now people can genuinely have a real understanding of who John Belushi was, for better or for worse. And more importantly, why people like Judy Belushi and Dan Aykroyd and others were so dedicated to him and so loyal to him for so long, because there was something just beyond agonizing. It's compelling about him that you just, you just couldn't get him out of your system. And even beyond the inner circle people, people, his other friends, like guys, like Tim Kazarinsky, there was like another, there, another few dozen people who like, just were ferociously defending his memory and the wire thing. There's never really been anything like that wired book where Hollywood, like literally revolted against that book.

And then when they made the movie with Michael Chiklis, it was like Michael Chiklis was on the outs of Hollywood for seven years after because he played Belushi. Talk about bad food and small portions. I mean, Oh my God, then we're going to, we're going to take this book out. We're going to make it a movie. It's like, wow, that was, that was brutal. That was, that, that had no chance. That had no chance, That had absolutely no chance.

Well, I'm glad this existed. And I thought they did, as somebody who really cares about this stuff, I thought they hit all the right notes. Before we go though, SNL had Jim Carrey playing Biden for five weeks there. And it became pretty clear after week one that this was not a good idea. And they committed to it. They kept going with it. I don't know what version of Biden that was. It got slightly better by the fifth episode, but never really worked. What was your take as the ultimate SNL follower slash chronicler watching this unfold? Look, it was a very specific choice.

I think there's two quick things, which is one, you start to realize, oh, I guess there wasn't anybody on the cast that could step up to that role. And for many, many years and decades, in fact, there always was. So you look outside and you think, oh my gosh, if he wants to do it, can we really turn down the star quality of Jim Carrey? And at that point, it's a very specific choice. And it was a physical, it was just a physical, physical kind of impersonation. And the thing that I think, and the reason why I don't think it worked, particularly in terms of SNL history,

is because every great presidential impression always had, there was a physical component, but it always had another layer. When like Phil Hartman as Clinton goes into the McDonald's and starts eating everybody's burger and grabs their fries and stuff, it's telling you something else about that. When Will Ferrell was doing W, you know, people were always arguing, is it good for W or is it bad? Well, some people thought, you know, it makes them out to be like a guy you want to have a beer with. You know, but like the word strategery and all that stuff.

There's always multidimensional understanding. And it took you into a different kind of level, like real political satire. And with. Well, go back to Chevy Chase with Ford. Like he didn't look anything like him, but it was all the physical stuff. And not only that, but Ford was a he was a great football player. They just you know, I mean, he was falling all over the place, but it stuck, you know, it stuck.

And I think that the thing that Kerry didn't do was he didn't give us another dimension of who Joe Biden is or who he could be or anything else. And so I think that's one of the reasons why it didn't work. Yeah, it was too bad. I mean, you and I have, we've, we've talked about this in the past, but to not have a cast member playing either of the presidential candidates to me is just, it's a very strange time for the show. And it made me think like, even when you see the Belushi thing, how that, that the cast was everything for the show,

the guest hosts would come in, but the cast was in for the show. The guest hosts would come in, but the cast was in everything. A lot of the times, especially in the first 10 years, the opening segment would always be cast members or playing off each other. They'd bring internal stuff onto the thing. They were always pushing the cast and it was cast, cast, cast. And now the show seems like it's drifted toward the most important people on the show are the celebrities that drift through the orbit and the cast is marginalized. And I don't know whether it's because Lorne doesn't believe in the cast members he has or whether the show has just become almost addicted to celebrity, which is really weird because it

should be parenting these people over like relying on them for the sketches. I don't get it. Right. I mean, that's the big question people ask because look, it's not a small cast, by the way. No, they have like 14 people. It's a big cast.

And you would think that it's probably a decision that they've made that they'd like this stunt casting and the star quality to give some lift. But it's not the way it has been for basically the majority of the show's history. But by the way, how are you going to build the next generation of stars if you're not giving them the most important parts on your show? That's the other part I don't get. Like Will Ferrell, you know, you think back to 95, he was a force of nature, right? It was going to happen for him.

But there's been other people like Hartman. Hartman was the glue guy. Everybody kind of loved him, but I don't feel like he really vaulted to the next level until the Clinton stuff. And that was what really nailed him. I think Farrell became a bigger star doing W in 2000, you know, and even like somebody like Norm Macdonald doing Bob Dole, it, that elevated him up a level. And I think that's the piece they've missed. Like not having a cast member playing Trump the last four years is just

inexplicable to me. And then throwing away the Biden thing, even if you were doing, you could have done a weekend at Bernie's thing with Biden, where he just comes on and he's got two guys dressed like Andrew McCarthy and the other guy next to him. And they're just kind of holding Biden up. And, but I just don't get it. That's satire. I mean, that was the thing going back to Dan Aykroyd playing Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, there was always that other level that he was, they were telling us something about the person. And sometimes it was like a de facto branding of that person. Like it was like, that's how they,

that's how the country started to see that person because that it was just so well done. Right. Well, remember, remember one of the best ones I ever did going way, way back was when Aykroyd's Jimmy Carter and he's taking calls and the one guy's like he took bad acid or something. And he's like, what do I do? And he's like, do you have any almond brothers? And Carter's like walking him through how to come down off an acid trip. It's ridiculous. It would never happen. But that was the point. It was what you said about take the person, then add the funny layer to it, and now you got something. And that's what they lost with this. Do you remember the Pepsi syndrome? One of the longest sketches in SNL history? What year was that?

I think 77 or 78. Oh, the China syndrome ripoff. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And where Carter becomes the amazing colossal president. But there are so many Jimmy Carter lines in there that are just outright, I mean, they're just so funny and they're so telling and it just makes you think of Carter in a different way. That's what didn't happen with Biden. Well, I also wonder if you're SNL right now, this is a country that has lost its sense of humor for a variety of reasons in a

bunch of different ways. And a lot of the stuff that you would parody now or push buttons with, I think people are afraid to do it. Like, even think back to the Belushi era and stuff like the Claudine Lange ski invitational where

another skier's been accidentally shot by Claudine Lange ski invitational where another skier's been accidentally shot by Claudine Lange and it's like, I don't feel like the show would do that now because people are like, hey, Claudine Lange's husband died. That's not cool. You should apologize. How do you do comedy in that era?

It's a really rough time. I was just writing about Veep for the book and you couldn't do Veep now. You want to compete with what's going on now? You can't even make it up. I mean, 90% of what happens in the political sphere for over the last four years, if you put in a script,

the studio would send it back and say, oh, cut it out. You're pushing too far. Now it's not realistic. Now you've gotten too crazy. But there it is every day on our, you know, on our sets and on our, you know,

on our timeline. So I just, I think it's really difficult and they have to figure that out. They, they, they have to figure that out starting in January. Yeah. I'm not even sure if they had a breakout star,

you know, maybe it's not this year, but next year, if you have like the Will Ferrell moment or Hartman or whatever, what would that person be doing to break out? Because I think it's probably like the Kate McKinnon way of just like you're playing these crazy characters and doing it that way. But in terms of being cultural critics, which I think was such an important piece of SNL

for so many years, you got to be willing to take the hits with it. You've got to be willing to kind of, if you're going to push the line, you're going to go over the line every once in a while.

You got to be ready to take the backlash for that. And I'm not sure the show's ready for the backlash with stuff, which means they're going to make safe choices. The history of SNL is like an EKG.

And there have been times when, you know, in 85, well, in 80, in 85, lots of other years where people thought it was DOA and somehow they come back. And I think that the Biden administration is going to be a fresh start for the show and they've got to rise to a different level and by the way I miss reoccurring sketches you know I think that it used to be for so much of the show

shows history we had you know whether it was like the lovers or going back to Belushi and Samurai there's a million different examples a million and we don't have those anymore. And I think that that's going to be something that I think would be fun as well. Well, here's the thing with SNL. You made the key point.

It's always going to come back. And I'm sure I would always bet on the show finding its stride and, and figuring it out and figuring out the landscape. I am amazed that nobody's tried to challenge them. Well, they have through the years. Howard Stern tried. No, I'm saying right now that Netflix hasn't just looked at this and crunched some algorithm and said like, hey, we should just go after these dudes and come up with a Friday night

show and we can push the envelope in a way that maybe they can't. But I think I've said this to you for the last four years and it's never happened. Look, I think SML is on a mission right now, right? You got four more years to the 50th anniversary. I fully expect Lauren to stay on. I think that they're going to, for that, I think that they're going to, you know, do everything they can. But I,

but I do think some of the things that we're talking about now are going to be essential to, to that level jump. The big thing for me, and then we'll go, is just trust your cast members. If you hired, especially if you're going to have a 14-person cast, let them cook. Let the chefs get in the kitchen. Try to build some new stars. You can't just rely on these cameos. That's the thing that drives me nuts.

All right. Thank God for Keenan. Yeah. Oh, I meant to ask you, by the way, because I was arguing about some of this. Do you think Keenan could host a late night show? I think Keenan can do anything. I think he's a dark horse

because I'm watching this Fallon stuff. Fallon got rid of another executive producer and I know they renewed him for a year, but at some point, if that show doesn't rebound, we know with Late Night, right? It's when you least expect it. And I feel like Keenan could host one of those shows. Everybody likes him. I think Seth would be moving over before it went to anybody else. I assume Seth was going to move up. I'm saying like for if you're talking about somebody to enter that 11.30, 12.30 landscape

as somebody in the wings or whatever, I could see Keenan being a guy. I would say if I were Keenan's manager, that's kind of like a Porsche going 40 because his physicality, his ability to do different impersonations. I mean, it would have to gravitate into

almost like a composite talk show slash sketch show or something in order to take advantage of all that he does. But maybe that's how you win though. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that's the new formula, but he's so good at that and he has saved so many shows and there are so many sketches where it's kind of average. And then just his performance is, uh, I mean,

just otherworldly. I'm buying Keenan stock. I think something happens with him. Cause I, I just know like if he started a show, I would give the first episode a chance. So I'm going to, I'm going to file that way.

I'll put a little 21 odds on it. It'd be a regular production. Jim Miller. Great to see you as always. Thanks for the Belushi tip. Glad we got to talk about somebody we both really liked a lot. And happy holidays. Hey, thank you too.

Thanks for having me. That's it for the BS Podcast. Happy holidays, everybody. Don't forget about the Book of Basketball Podcast with Kevin Garnett. He's not on it. It's just me and Jackie McMullen breaking down his career. A real little essay at the top.

If you haven't listened to those podcasts, please check them out. Enjoy the rest of the week. Stay safe. See you Sunday night with the cuz. I want to see them on the way so I never say I don't have feelings with them. On the wayside.