The Bill Simmons Podcast - Catching Up With Ben Affleck. Plus the NFL’s COVID Crisis and Million-Dollar Picks With Peter Schrager

Episode Date: December 16, 2021

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by NFL Network’s Peter Schrager to discuss the drastic rise in COVID-19 cases around the NFL as well as the Jaguars parting ways with head coach Urban Meyer (7:39), before making the Million-Dollar Picks for NFL Week 15 (24:56). Then Bill talks with actor-director Ben Affleck about the Patriots, Ben’s friendship with Tom Brady, some of Affleck’s favorite films, tabloids, parenting, his new film ‘The Tender Bar,’ and more (48:28). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Ben Affleck and Peter Schrager Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Derek Thompson, longtime writer with The Atlantic Magazine on tech, culture, and politics. There is a lot of noise out there, and my goal is to cut through the headlines, loud tweets, and hot takes in my new podcast, Plain English. I'll talk to some of the smartest people I know to give you clear viewpoints and memorable takeaways. Plain English starts November 16th. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality,

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Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. It's the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking,

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I don't know what to tell you. I really don't. We have Johnny Bananas talking about the challenge with Dan Orlovsky on his Death Taxes and Bananas podcast. We have Tyson, one of the great Survivor contestants ever, breaking down the mega three-hour season finale. That's on there as well, and a bunch of other good stuff. So check out the Ringer Reality TV feed when you get a chance. Speaking of

podcasts, just a heads up, Jackie McMullen and I talked about Joelle Embiid on my podcast on Tuesday. She had a quick impression of Joelle as she was sharing a personal anecdote. We realized afterwards it could be taken the wrong way. So it was a little too late. So as a result, we uploaded an edited version as soon as we could and we apologize about that one more note on Ringer Podcast if you're not listening to Plain English with Derek Thompson

one of the smartest podcasts not only that we have but just on the internets he's done a great job I'm really proud of that podcast the first I think we're basically done with the first month but but really smart topics.

It's not too long, focused conversations. And each time I learn something. So check that one out if you have a chance. Plain English with Derek Thompson. One more thing to check out. HBO Tonight, 8 p.m. The Juice World doc, Juice World Into the Abyss, directed by Tommy Oliver,

is available on HBO Max max to stream as well as the sixth and final film of our music box series which just got renewed for season two so we are uh flattered and grateful about that uh very excited to get going in the second season tell some more stories uh it's always the hardest through the first season with any of these especially convincing filmmakers to come and you and teach the audience basically what it is. This Juice doc was the toughest one we had to do. It came together pretty late, summer of 2020. It's a story that I'd become fascinated by because my son loved Juice World. We would drive around, I would listen to the lyrics. They were really complicated. A lot of the songs are really dark. Um, and my son's like

11 and 12 years old listening to this. And sometimes I even wondered if he really knew what the songs were about, but the, there's a vibe and a beat and a style that Juice had that was just so distinct, but the lyrics are kind of the key to everything. And, you know, that's a lot of what this documentary is about. Even though Juice wasn't able to sit down for an interview, obviously, he's narrating his story in real time through this footage, which is incredible. And that was what we had to crack with this.

We didn't have a ton of time to make a film. And yet what Tommy Oliver did was just unbelievable, harnessing like 10,000 hours of footage and trying to figure out how to structure it. And there were a lot of cuts of this and I, and you know, obviously, uh, our, from the ringer film side, we're involved giving notes on stuff and this one just, it hit me in a different way. And, you know, I, I really do think that juice was a genius and I think that comes out in the film.

And I don't think he's necessarily considered that way, which is one of the reasons we wanted to do it. And I remember asking Tommy at one point, why isn't he thought of like Kurt Cobain or some of these other people that we have? Why with Juice is it always defaults toward like the drugs and how it ended, things like that.

Why don't people look at just incredible stuff that this, this artist did from age 17 to, to when he died. Um, and Tommy made the point like, Hey, they haven't seen this film yet. So those were the stakes for us. We felt like this was an important story. And as one of the people interviewed in the film says, for whatever reason, Juice became a therapist for millions of young kids. And there's a big picture thing that we could have gotten into if this was a four-hour doc about just this generation of rappers and hip-hop artists and how self-aware and self-conscious their songs were compared to like what, what I grew up with in the late eighties and early nineties and what people wrote songs

about back then and what they sang about. And with Juice, I think if you think about his story through the prism of mental health over, you know, the easy way to think about it is like, oh, this is a drug story. It's not, It's a mental health story. And it's somebody that was really in a lot of pain and expressed that through his songs and expressed that through how he performed day after day for the people around him because he kind of couldn't figure out what else, how else to channel it.

And I think it's really heartbreaking to watch. And especially if you've had anybody in your life who's dealt with this stuff, the manifestation of how you deal with it can go badly in all these different ways, right? It could be drugs, it could be alcohol, it could be self harm, whatever it is. Um, but I think there's so much more awareness these days of, of people knowing that they're not okay and maybe being a little more thoughtful about asking for help, telling somebody they're not doing well,

reaching out to somebody in their life. That's something like my generation didn't do. We weren't in the 90s, if you felt like you're in a dark spot or you're in a bad place, whatever, you kind of bottled it up. You didn't want anyone to know. It was like a sign of weakness a lot of the time.

And that's changed, obviously. In Juice's case, he's going through so much, and you really feel it in the doc, and he doesn't really know how to help himself other than through the songs. So I think that's one of the many reasons why this one stuck with me unlike the usual typical music film we're going to do

it's really intense so check it out Juice WRLD Into the Abyss directed by Tommy Oliver going up tonight and that's it for season one anxious to start on season two coming on this podcast we're going to talk about the NFL's COVID crisis with

Peter Schrager and how that's going to affect these games we're going to talk about the NFL's COVID crisis with Peter Schrager and how that's going to affect these games. We're rushing the picks up just because we know that Chiefs Chargers, we actually know who's playing in that one. So, I mean, it's trivial compared to everything else, but from a gambling standpoint, almost impossible to guess what's going to happen in some of these games when you're not positive who's playing. So we cover all that. And then Ben Affleck comes on. Haven't talked to Ben in five years since he came on my HBO show. And we actually talk about that in the interview we do.

But he's always fun to talk to. I think he's a fascinating guy and really smart and really self-aware and not afraid to get into topics. So in a lot of ways, he's the perfect podcast guest, but, um, that was really fun.

So this is an action packed podcast. I can only do one thing right now. We got to bring in Pearl Jam. All right, Peter Schrager is here. We're taping this early on Thursday. It's noon right now, PT, because we wanted to get the Chiefs-Chargers game into this. And the reason is because the COVID stuff's just gone bonkers in basketball and in football. And to make million-dollar picks on a Thursday, not knowing who's playing and not knowing who's going to get scratched,

it seems like Thursday's the only game I feel great about. Is the league in a complete panic right now? What's going on? No, I mean, they're hell-bent on getting these games in. But I'll tell you, some of the teams are in a complete panic right now? What's going on? No, I mean, they're hellbent on getting these games in. But I'll tell you, some of the teams are in a complete panic. And you look at what's happening with Washington and with Los Angeles and with Cleveland, who has to play on Saturday. And now Chicago, if you saw as we're going and recording this, they don't have a head coach, offensive coordinator,

defensive coordinator, or special teams coach. Or no, the head coach. Actually, Nagy's fine. But like, I don't know. The Rams, I don't know if the Rams can field a team right now, but the NFL says we're playing these games. And the unfortunate thing about it is that if this was like week three or week four, you could say, well, there's some wiggle room. Can't really reschedule these games. Like we're here at the end of the season and the playoffs are not changing. So I don't know, man, this is something else. Yeah. My thought was that

we would just go big on chiefs chargers and then sprinkle some on the rest but i don't want to actually put big money on any of these games sunday money i don't know it's gonna play what if we what if we take the pats and all of a sudden they lose their entire secondary on friday and it's just such weird times and you know i the way most of these everybody just about i would say is vaccinated probably in the league or at least most of them so it's not it doesn't feel like anything's like life-threatening here, but at the same time, nobody understands how fast can you spread it? What, you know, what is this? The flu is at worst. Who knows? Here's the rub. There's, they all had a league meeting, all the owners, all the presidents and all the health officials in Irving, Texas this week. And a lot of people

were like, all right, we understand that you're being safe here. But if you're testing every single day and these guys are asymptomatic and they're vaccinated and they don't feel sick, can we change these rules? And I think the NFL would love to, and they might. The NFL Players Association, the union, is hell hellbent on, as of now, let's stay with the daily testing and let's do what's best for these players. And it's a collectively bargained policy. So it's not as easy as that. I'm going to be really interested to see how it plays out because these rules might change. We need the union and need the players to buy in. Crazy times. And we're heading toward the playoffs. That's the other piece of this.

And who knows how that's... I wonder, like, would they actually postpone a game? What would need to happen? Like, let's say one of these teams, the Browns, Washington, one of these teams passes the point of no return

and they can't field a football team. They have the two-week window between the championship games and the Super Bowl. So would they consider nudging everything back a week? I don't know. I think they're going to have to start thinking that way. Going to have to look at everything.

And the players union has to cooperate with it. I'll say that there was some heated discussions this week at the league meetings. And I know there were a lot of representatives from teams saying, hey, we need to change these. This is not the life or death thing. We have vaccines. And as callous as it sounds, we've played 15 weeks. Let's not throw the season away because of some rules that we think might be changing. But who knows? The NFL's being rather be safe

than sorry. But gosh, you look at a team like tonight, the Chargers don't have Rashawn Slater. He's the best left tackle in football the last few weeks. He's their best player on their offensive line this season. And now you got Frank Clark and whoever else, because of this, he can't play. And Rashawn Slater most likely feels fine. Right. Weird time, Shrakes.

I know. Not as weird for us because we just, every week we have bad luck and we lose games. We had tough beats on the Browns and all that stuff last week. But as I'm looking ahead at week 15, it's hard not to see the shadow of the one and only Urban Meyer over one of the games where the Jaguars are five-point favorites against the Texans. The line moved after he got fired because I think people are like, Oh, they're going to try, um, empty your urban Meyer notebook. What are like the three craziest things you heard about this this week? Well, it was, it was coming to a head

and, uh, Tom Pellicero from the NFL network did a really fine job chronicling it with that article on Saturday. And I think one of the things that stood out most to a lot of people said no one from Jacksonville at all was like, now, wait a second, that's not true. Like not one person came out and was like, no, he didn't get in a fiery argument with Marvin Jones or no, he didn't bench James Robinson and Trevor Lawrence begged him to come back in. There was no one coming to his side. So I could tell you that Shad Khan, the owner, did a bit of a fact finding mission this week

was speaking to a lot of people within the building. And then once you got that Josh Lambeau story on the record and no one came out and was outraged by, by that story, I think it expedited. But the story that, what I heard as of Wednesday was like, they got the Texans this week, they got the jets next week. Let's give it those two weeks and let's reassess. And then once the Lambeau article came out, I think it really expedited things. But at the league meetings, I could tell you that it was a hot topic of conversation. And I feel like Shad Khan sort of saw the writing on the wall and said, let's rip the bandaid off. Bill, it's the first time we've ever in the history of the NFL seen a first year coach fired before the end of the season. We've seen Petrino leave. We've seen coaches get fired after one year. Never through this, just through 13 games. It's pretty wild.

I think it might be the new go-to reference. For me, it was always Spurrier in that crazy Washington year he had where he's like, I was working eight hours a day. It was like, oh, good luck. Good luck with that strategy in the NFL. But there's been some good ones. Petrino, you mentioned Saban lasted a couple of years. This one went the worst. It, all the signs were there all spring, all summer. Um, and it makes you wonder like, why would teams ever do this again? Yeah. Why are you going to hire the big paycheck college guy without having any idea whether he's going to have the kind of work ethic or demeanor. And some of these guys are just better off coaching kids and ordering people around. These are professional adults. They don't work the same way.

Yeah. And I could tell you that even knowing like they interviewed Bien-Aimé, they interviewed Salo, they interviewed Arthur Smith, and then it didn't matter. It didn't matter. They wanted Urban so badly. And it was Urban who was waffling at the last second before they hired him. Like it was Urban who dragged this on an extra week. And it was basically the Jaguars brass was like, just take it over. Like just lead us there. But there was no precedent of Urban Meyer coming into an NFL team and leading them there. And my last point is, I don't know how this plays out because this is maybe next level stuff or sports business stuff. And it applies to any company that fires somebody with

such an epic fall. But Urban's going to want to get paid that full contract. And Shad Khan's not going to want to pay him that full contract. So this could get really ugly as far as lawyers go, as far as what comes out publicly, because they might say he was fired for just cause. And Urban's folks and Urban might say, no, that's all conjecture. You can't prove any of that stuff. So this isn't the end of this story. And now the Jaguars have to start all over again. And they could use the team playing thing against them.

Yep. You didn't fly back. That was negligence. We have just cause. You had leadership things that you didn't stand up to. I love this stuff i you know i was thinking i was on a thread with some of uh some ringer people about basketball and just talking about bad gm moves and how much fun the 2000s were for me as a writer summit yeah oh

my yeah the atrocious gm summit and there was like just 10 terrible GMs doing the most insane things year after year. And it was just so much fun, so much comedy. And I think everybody gets smarter. People are relying on analytics more. So analytics might steer some teams away from stuff. And, you know, that people are very aware of social media. And are we going to get attacked for this? So I think there's more caution and carefulness with big moves.

This was an old school, terrible disaster of a move that seemed terrible as it was happening, especially because it didn't even seem like he wanted to go there. A franchise that has really had a checkered history under Shaad Khan, to say the least. And it worked out even worse than we ever thought it could have, which is really rare in professional sports in 2021 to have something happen that's worse than your worst-case scenario for it. I think this actually surpassed the worst-case scenario for how bad this went. Not to mention Trevor Lawrence,

who we have no idea what he is after 13 games. Is he good? Is he not good? This guy was supposed to be the surest bet since Andrew Luck. Now he's like, is he better than Mac Jones? I don't know. I don't know how much all this affected him. I think it was the best possible opportunity for Urban Meyer to go into in that there was a very low media profile. You're going to a smaller market team. There's not this pressure cooker in New York or in San Francisco or some of these other places. You have the number one overall pick and everyone wants to see him succeed and there's room to grow. And there was a ton of cap space and he could hire whoever he wanted. And from what it sounds

like, a lot of those guys that he hired in the final days of Urban Meyer, it sounds like they turned on him and no one was in his corner. And at the end of the day, he was looking at the owner and the owner's like, you're on an Island here, pal, because Urban hired a lot of his own guys. And I don't think many of his own guys came to his defense when it mattered most. It's so funny. The Khan family has done such a bad job with the Jaguars. The wrestling's been amazing. It's the first legitimate, smartly constructed challenger the WWE's probably had in almost 30 years. And all the time, Care thought they put into that product.

And then on the football side, it's just been, you know, the wheels have been off really since, what were they, up 10 with Bortles? Yeah. And obviously, the Miles Jack play. And then Stephon Gilmore has one of the greatest pass breakups

in the history of playoff football, diving full body and deflecting that pass. And the Patriots found a way. Crazy. Well, I hope Trevor Lawrence is good because I feel like we need good quarterbacks. I know. I'd like to have more good quarterbacks. The name that I keep hearing already, and it's early, is like a Jim Caldwell type.

All right, let's hire someone who at least is beloved by the players and brings stability and has been in the NFL. Caldwell would be excellent in that role. I just don't think they're going to go crazy big splash. That's not Bien-Ami? It could be Bien-Ami. It could be Bien-Ami as well. And that's a first year coach though.

I think what they're looking for right now is stability. Let's get this thing, even in the short term, they get it back on track and put it back in place because it went so haywire so quickly too. I mean, there were so many telltale signs, whether it be the hiring of the strength coach out of the gates where people are like that, the fact that he was surprised by free agency, some of the comments he made that it wasn't as easy as recruiting. And then I would say even the Tebow signing, which we all tried to give him the benefit of the doubt,

it was not a normal move to bring Tebow back and bring him in there because you've seen Tebow's leadership skills in the past. There was a lot of strange red flags. And if you put it all together and then you add in Tom Pelissero's report and then the Josh Lambeau story,

it was almost like, gosh, that was just really unfortunate how it all went down. Well, me, Sal and House had Nagy to be the first coach fired, plus 700. It's a tough beat. It really felt like we had it there. I never wish for anyone to get fired, but if it's something we can bet on, we're going to do it. And you're betting on more the direction of what you think the team is.

On field, yeah. Yeah, on field. And it just seemed like the Bears, that was going to be the move. But now it just seems like the Bears are waiting till the end of. On field, yeah. Yeah, on field. And it just seemed like the Bears, that was going to be the move. But now it just seems like the Bears are waiting till the end of the season. Most likely. And probably just cleaning house completely. Yeah.

And the one note on the Lambeau article, which is a kicker saying he was kicked and whether it was true or not, whatever it is. What I liked about this, Bill, and you'll respect this, is that Lambeau said he wasn't going to say anything.

But the second that Urban said, once I find out who the leaking source is, I'm going to fire that person, Lambeau was like, screw that. No, Lambeau played for them for five years. He's like, that's not how this is going down. So Josh Lambeau is the whistleblower, a kicker who is no longer on the team.

Unbelievable. Before we get to million-dollar picks, do we know who Kyle Brandt is doing a hype video for on a Sunday pregame show this week? Because I want to go the other way. Which fan base is looking to be hoodwinked and have the thirsty Kyle Brandt experience? No, I'm kidding. Kyle gave the Bills fans

this passionate speech from the high school field and well, they almost pulled it off, but it wasn't enough, Bill. I don't know, Kyle Brandt. It's back to the drawing board. I don't know if these motivational speeches are working. We need a motivational speech. We sure do.

Maybe Kyle can give us one. We lost 101K last week. We're still down six figures, but man, we're getting close to seven. We are down $995,000. Ironically, two of the losses last week were losses you tried to talk me out of. I feel like we're fractured right now.

We're not on the same page. Well, one of them, you tried to talk me out of the Browns minus two and a half against the Ravens, which was the right pick. And I'll never understand how the Browns didn't cover that game. Whatever. The Cardinals game against the Rams.

So I look at that game. I'm not positive how the Cardinals didn't just win that game by 10 points. They had almost 500 yards of offense. They're driving down. They're about to score and go up 10, nothing. And Murray throws one of the worst picks by a good QB of the season, flips the game, throws another terrible pick later, seems banged up by the end. And we had been talking about this. You and I talked about it. I talked about it with Sal on Sunday night. It's

like, yeah, the Cardinals are in pole position. There's something I just don't a hundred percent trust. And it all comes out in that game. All of it. And now it's like, yeah, they haven't been there. And I'm not as talented and amazing as Kyler Murray is. Sometimes it sucks when either you're rooting for him or you're betting on him and you can kind of see how that game's going and you think like, oh shit, this guy's 5'10". And I don't totally trust how this is going to go. And it feels like all of a sudden

they're batting down passes and some of his little shakier decision-making pops into play. And then he'll have a play where he's about to get sacked and he does a pirouette 180 and runs out and gets 17 yards. You're like, that's my guy. That's Kyler Murray. He completed a pass on third and nine.

That was one of the best completions on a big play you'll ever see. And it was along the sidelines. You're like, oh shit, he's just so good. He's so good. But it's a rollercoaster ride. I know. It just is. So I don't know if I'm getting back on this season.

That's fair. I think I might be staying away. I didn't really enjoy my last rollercoaster ride on Monday. No. And one of the weirdest stats that I've ever seen, they're 7-0 on the road and they have a plus 112 point differential and a plus 17 turnover differential on the road.

But at home, they're giving up just as many points as they're scoring and they're minus 17 with turnovers. It's a very odd team. They win on the road and they're not, they're not good at home. It's very bizarre. Glendale's a weird place to play. And I know this firsthand soccer tournaments or super bowls. What do you got? Oh, the fucking Tyree. The Tyree game. I know. Oh, my God. It's just weird.

The energy is weird. You're driving forever. It feels like it's in the middle of nowhere, even though it's not. And big, spacious stadium. It's got this weird energy to it. And I don't know. It's like that last of the old school domes that people were building in the 2000s.

I think they make them better now. They feel a little more intimate than the stretch from like Gillette Stadium all the way through whatever that Glendale thing's called. Giant Stadium's another one. It's like, is this an advantage? Does it feel like it helps the home team? Because my take is no. It's not in downtown. You've got to drive out to get there. There's like, you know, it's like the, what's it called? The Bar Louie. And they've got like the whole thing.

It's like the little, like a couple of restaurants. I don't know if they still have those, the Jillian's, like the bowling thing, whatever that was, you know? Right. And then it's the stadium and you're like, all right, I'm in a corporate office park and here we go. And it's a fan base that- That's a great way to say it. That's what San Francisco's like.

It's a corporate office park with a giant stadium in it. And it's like, is this cool? Does this feel like an advantage at all? Maybe that's just the era we're in. Especially with half the people at the game

are just on their phone checking their fantasy teams half the time. Unless it's a Monday night. All right. We're going to take a break. We're going to come back. We're going to try to figure out

the million dollar picks. I can't tell you how do we are. You know you're in a bad run but man are we do. Are we do or am I crazy? Are you kidding me? We've had some of the worst bad beats in the history of sports gambling over the last few weeks. Yes we're do. God every time there's a bad beat just assume there was a million dollar pick. Alright, we're due. God, every time there's a bad beat, just assume there was a million dollar fix. All right, take a quick break. 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

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Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. All right, Million Dollar Picks. Week 15. I'm so disoriented by this season. We're already in the Saturday game schedule, but it's not the second to last week of the season. And there's lots of football left. And the patch, I feel like, oh my God, and there's so many games left.

I know. I don't know who's in the driver's seat. Very confusing. But we're going to jump on Casey playing tonight, which I feel good about for a variety of reasons. You mentioned Slater is not playing. They'll have Taco, who is the best lineman on the Chargers. Seems important.

It's a home game for the Chargers, but as we've seen all season and for the last two seasons, is it? Does it count as a home game? How many Chiefs fans are going to be there? How many Chiefs fans turn this into their little holiday trip? Or let's come to LA. We'll go to the game on Thursday, stay for the weekend.

What's the most random Chiefs jersey you're going to see? I'm thinking like a Dexter McCluster jersey you're going to see. This is what we call the not New Jersey game, where people just have these incredible random Chiefs jerseys all over SoFi Stadium. Well, you know what the underrated ones are? It's the Montana jersey and the Allen jersey. The Marcus Allen jersey is like a secret one

that you will see multiple times. So you got that. The Chargers, they're getting some Renaissance stuff. And our guy Ben Solak wrote a better for the ringer this week about why does their offense look so much better than it does. And it's like they're doing more stuff on first down. They're using Keenan Allen more, all stuff that makes sense.

At the same time, I look at their schedule. They put up 20 points against Minnesota. They put up 41 against Pittsburgh on Sunday night. But if you remember that game, everyone on Pittsburgh was hurt, right? It was basically missing everybody and took advantage.

13 points against Denver. They light up Cincy. Really weird game. We had Cincy in that game, but it was just there were turnovers. There were, it was, didn't feel like a 41 point offense performance. I'll just say that.

And then, and they killed the Giants last week. My point is like, I'm leaving the door open for the Chargers have figured it out offensive juggernaut thing. But at the same time, they might have just had a couple good games and maybe they drift back a little to where they are. I like the Chiefs' pass rush. I think the Chiefs have found their identity defensively.

And especially with that Slater, Spagnuolo just blitzing the fuck out of them. Then on the flip side, like I like the way the chiefs are running the ball. Yeah. Um, they've really, since Edward's hilarious, this is the best he's looked since he's come back.

And then Williams comes in and they can throw in it. It just seems like, even though maybe the points aren't there, I still like that. I like the plays they call. I like the way they look. And I, I actually feel like there's upside with the chiefs still. And maybe this is the game. What do you think? Sure. We'll see. And by the time this

goes live, we already will know the results of this. I'll just say this. Watch the two offensive linemen, the two rookies for the Chiefs. The Chargers, as we know, have a really struggling run defense. And Trey Smith and Creed Humphrey, that's their center and their guard. They're both rookies and they've been mauling dudes. And I could see this. Everyone wants to shoot out between the quarterbacks, but I could see the Chiefs just dominating the ball up front in the trenches and taking care of business that way. A little more Kelsey.

Yeah, we'll have this up. This will be up by like 5 o'clock Eastern time. So we have plenty of time to get this into the wire. So KC minus three, I think we are marking down. Let's go. And in general, this is a nice spot for KC because the Pats are underdogs against the Colts this weekend. And the AFC could flip pretty quickly. I mean, if you want to talk about it that way, Chargers win.

They're in first place in the AFC West. So it is so up for grabs right now because they've already beaten the Chiefs in Arrowhead. It's actually a really cool week of games, even though it doesn't look like there's that marquee game. Every single game seems to have some playoff contention stakes in it. And the whole thing could be totally rewritten by Monday. It's an amazingly unusual good Thursday night game. It is. It's a marquee Thursday night game in week whatever it is.

Usually this is the Titans-Jaguars and both teams got three wins. Because the flip side is if the Chargers pull this off without their left tackle and beat the big bully in the AFC West, you would assume it was a Herbert game. Yeah. And Herbert's, you know, I'm not going to say he's bursting through the door yet. But he's starting to accumulate. Holy crap. That passed the guy in 66 in the air last week.

That's maybe the pass of the season. So who knows? We shall see. But I'll bet on Mahomes in a big spot. Let's go. Well, I'm with you. But I was going to say Herbert. It's kind of infringing on Mahomes' wow factor corner

where Mahomes was like, I'm the wow guy in this league at quarterback. You're right. I'm the one that gets the clips cut out and everybody has a big jerk circle about, I can't believe you did this. And oh my God. And look at, look at this.

Like there was a Herbert thing where somebody posted the pass chart. Yeah. And that, that pass he threw there, you're talking about, it was like 65, 67 yards, whatever it is. And it doesn't end on the pass chart. It's just this line.

It just goes. There's no X to where the pass landed. So yeah, from a wow standpoint, he's kind of there with Mahomes, I think. And doesn't it feel like Mahomes has one in his back pocket for Tyreek tonight? And it's like, now I'll take that back. Thank you.

Yeah, Mahomes really one in his back pocket for Tyreek tonight. And it's like, now I'll take that back. Thank you. Yeah. Mahomes really seems like the... I wonder the stuff with his brother, how much... It's weird. His brother is just a very strange social media presence in a whole bunch of different ways. And I wonder... I don't know.

Maybe that's partly to explain he's had kind of a goofy year for him. Mahomes, who is the guy going in the air, we were thinking was like Tiger Woods in the late 90s, basically. So who knows? We'll have some answers tonight. More games for us. You know I'm not letting Pats plus two and a half

against the Colts go. Okay, let's talk about it. Well, you make the case for the Colts. I want to hear it. If you think they have a chance, make the case that's not just Jonathan Taylor, they're going to run on him. Like, what make the case for the Colts. I want to hear it. If you think they have a chance, make the case that's not just Jonathan Taylor, they're going to run on him. Like, what's the case?

What do we know about Damian Harris right now? I mean, that's the thing. If we got a hamstring issue with Harris, are we ready for Ramondre Stevenson and Mac Jones to go into a building in late December and say, hey, I'm going to beat a playoff contending team with Darius Leonard and DeForest Buckner? Colts are good.

Like, the Colts are legit. They have a really good upfront offensive line, maybe the best in football, and DeForest Buckner. Colts are good. The Colts are legit. They have a really good up front offensive line, maybe the best in football, and then a good defensive line. And I think they're going to make Mac Jones beat them on the road in a big spot. And I'm not sure, as much as we love Mac, I'm not sure he's going to be lighting the ball, he's going to be lighting it up all through the air in this game.

So you're worried about young Pats guys in key skill position spots? Yes. Can I flip that on you? That's why we do this. Let's go. Carson Wentz against Bill Belichick. Your thoughts? It's not a great matchup for old Carson. I'll tell you that. I mean, that is fair.

But I will take the Colts' run game over the Patriots' run game right now. Fair. Fair. Pats coming off a bye? Colts coming game over the Patriots run game right now. Fair. Fair. Pat's coming off a bye. Colts coming off a bye. Frank Reich versus Belichick? They beat him in the Super Bowl. These are good counters. This is good.

Pat's in a tease or Pat's straight up? What makes you feel better emotionally? I mean, if you think the Pats are going to win, you take them straight up, right? I don't know if the Pats are going to win. I think this is... I think all the Pats fans deep down

know that this is probably, other than the Chiefs, the worst matchup in the AFC for them. It's a tough one. Because if the Colts get the lead, and then they start hammering it with Taylor, and even though you stop him nine times, the thing about Taylor is the 10th time,

all of a sudden he's running for 38 yards. Let me ask you, as far as Patriots fandom goes, when you see that logo and that building and that owner and that history, is there a part of you that just absolutely fucking hates the Colts? It's not a small part. It's an open part. Even without Peyton

and without Bill Polian and without all that, it's still just that logo. Hate the Colts. It goes back to them trying to change the rules after 2004 because they didn't like when we were too mean to their receivers.

The 06 title game, which is just still devastating to this day. Up 21-3. Jeff Saturday and Klecko. Yeah. The Manning-Brady stuff. And then the flake gate when the Pats kicked their asses and then all of a sudden it was, ooh, the balls.

45-7 they beat them in that game. I just rewatched it. I didn't realize it was that big of a blow. And everyone thought Andrew Luck, like, this is his chance to seize it a sudden it was the balls. 45 to seven. They beat him in that game. I just rewatched it. I didn't realize it was that big of a blow and everyone thought Andrew luck, like this is his chance to seize it. And it was, it was not that. I was thinking about luck the other day,

actually. Is that the biggest, what if that's happened this decade? Because you think like they had this whole team that was set up to be a monster contender, right? They're also, he's on the salary cap. So it actually costs them from a salary cap standpoint. But if luck, I don't know if he just

plays and he's a B plus with all the other stuff they have and they don't have to give away draft capital for Wentz and they still draft Jonathan Taylor, who they probably would have anyway. And they just kept the team that they had. And maybe he takes a year off and comes back and he's healthy. They would have to be the best team in the AFC. I actually feel like we don't talk about this enough. The, oh my God, Andrew Luck retired. That guy was really good. It's amazing.

And he was an MVP candidate every year. He had fulfilled every promise as the first overall pick right out of the gates. He took them to the playoffs. And that was when Pagano got sick. And Arians then got sick before the playoff game against the Ravens. Like luck was amazing. And yet he kept such a low profile and has kept such a low profile that he showed up at Stanford a few weeks ago and was there when they honored John Lynch.

And it was like a blip on the radar. And I'm like, that's like seeing a Sasquatch. I have not seen Andrew Luck once. And in today's social media, Instagram world, like it's unbelievable that he's been so low profile. Would you call him an enigma? Would you go enigma? I think I would too. But it's such a weird fork in the road for them because everything else is kind of there with the Colts. They would at least be, I think, a contender. Now they're a team that if they lose this Pats game, they're not even a playoff team probably. Yeah. And it's a great what if, and there, a contender. Now they're a team that if they lose this Pats game, they're not even a playoff team, probably.

Yeah. And it's a great what if, and there's a great doc to be done on Andrew Luck and what went down there, because now three years removed, you're not coming back. But when you're removed, maybe two years removed, and shit, I work on TV, you do this stuff. I haven't even seen him do an interview.

I haven't seen him. Would he be good in a studio? Maybe. Would he be good in a studio? Maybe. Would he be good doing games? Maybe he's got an interesting voice. But gosh, Andrew Luck has vanished. And who knows what the Colts could be right now if he had stayed. I'll tell you this. It was a huge loss for the BS podcast.

Sal throwing it to Andrew the Giant and me getting to do my injury. I don't have a lot of good imitations. It's like we're only three or four and I could do the Luck voice. And now it's like I'm so out of practice, I'm afraid to even try it. So it hurt me too. Andrew Luck, you, you know, you left a trail of broken hearts. Um, I hope he's happy though. It seems like he's happy. I read like, he's like traveling the world and climbing and look, football, really physical, violent sport. Sometimes people are like, I'm good, I'm out. I'm going to do something else. We could tease the Pats. Okay, let's tease them.

We could tease the Pats past seven. Okay. Which I think is what we should do this time. I think that's the move. We could tease them in a six-point tease to eight and a half, or we can go seven-point tease. The reason I mentioned a seven-point tease,

the Eagles are playing Washington. Washington, just a bunch of COVID scratches. Ravaged. Ravaged. To the point that this is a potential might even have to cancel

the game situation. I like Philly in this game anyway. The line has climbed to nine and a half on FanDuel as we're taping this. And a seven-point tees would take that down

to two and a half under a field goal. So Bay, like, could Philly win by a field goal over a completely ravaged Washington team? Seems like a safe bet. I was thinking of marking it down, unless you disagree. No, I go with that.

And I don't know if, I would assume as we do this on a Thursday, Hurts has been practicing this week just a little bit, been around, been seen. They might go two quarterbacks for all we know. You might see some Minshew, you might see some Hur Hertz, whatever it is. The Eagles have avoided the COVID stuff

and Washington, unfortunately, has not. Third one, if we're going to do a three-team, seven-point tease, which is plus 120 on Fendel. The San Francisco 49ers playing the Falcons. The Falcons, the most deceiving

six and seven of all time. And yet, every time they're a deep underdog, you get scared because they come back. They're down 21 to three. Now it's 21-17

and Matt Ryan has the ball. To bring them down from nine and a half to two and a half. Now, we don't have to do this, but wanted to talk it out. I think the Niners, we talked about this on Sunday.

I was just really impressed with the blue chippers on that team and the fact that their best guys now, except for the running back, their best guys all seem either healthy or mostly healthy. Samuel, Bosa, Kittle. Kittle.

Yeah, you add in Trent Williams, who I think is the best tackle in the sport. You can argue that those four guys are enough. And with everyone being injured and all this COVID stuff around, like those four guys being healthy and out on the field enough. And Samuel's battling right now.

I know he played 46 snaps and a lot of guys wouldn't have played any last week. But I think you can argue just the talent of those four guys alone are going to keep them in every game. And then you have like, like Ayuk started to come around a little bit. Jimmy looks better.

Jimmy's still going to throw his one terrible pass. I know, that near pick six was bad, but the 49ers corners are atrocious right now, like real bad. And you saw what Jamar Chase did. If you trust Matt Ryan at all, you might want to stay away. Yeah, I was...

There's something about the Falcons as a deep dog. I wanted to have the Niners conversation. I will say this. Bet on them to make the Super Bowl today at 17-1. Did you? Yeah. Interesting. Just good odds.

Sure. Because if we're going to say the Cardinals aren't in pole position anymore and we have Tampa who had Richard Sherman playing safety on Sunday. And then Green Bay who, I don't know. I like Green Bay,

but do I think they can be beaten in a playoff game? Sure. And then I watched that San Francisco team where in the right matchup where they can run the ball and Kittle, if he can just stay healthy for two more months. And then what Bosa was doing last week, I thought was out of control. They can block,

they can rush and passer, and they have multiple playmakers. Like what more am I looking for in January? I hear you. I hear you. So that was, all right. So can I throw in one team?

Just the Rams are just so ravaged with this stuff too. And it's nothing against them. I, you know, obviously I was on them last week against Arizona, but right now it's like, it's really bleak right now, and I'm not sure how it clears up by Sunday.

So I would say just consider the Rams and going with whoever they're playing this week, which is Seattle, and maybe just say Seattle. They're going to be down without Lockett maybe, but they might just have more fresh bodies and more guys available to play. So Seahawks are plus 5.5, and that could be brought to 11. a half or 12 and a half.

I would do that. I would do that. I find it very hard to think that the Rams are going to look anything like they did on Monday with all the stuff they're dealing with this week. All right. So we'll mark that one down.

Eagles minus two and a half. Pats to plus nine and a half. And see it. I wonder if we just do a 10 point tease with that. All right, we'll figure it out. Two more bets for you. So Fando has these alternate lines.

And I think we might, there's a chance we might boost this, assuming the COVID stuff goes okay with these games. But we can take the Pats to minus two and a half. So they'd have to win by a field goal against the Colts. Plus 130.

Take the Browns playing in Vegas. Obviously no Mayfield, but I'm not even positive that's a bad thing, assuming he doesn't play, because I think Case Keenum, I'm not sure there's a difference. I know they've had some COVID stuff too. A lot of COVID stuff. You could take that in the minus three and a half. That would be plus

170 for the Browns to win by four against this Vegas team that just seems like they're just a complete mess. Yeah, and it's in cold weather in Cleveland. I'm not sure if Vegas is looking to schlep out there and bring their A game for that game. They might already be done. Pats, Browns with those alternate

lines would be a plus 521 parlay. Fun Saturday. You like that one? It sounds like a fun Saturday. So little on the Pats minus two and a half, little on the Browns minus three and a half. They would both have to cover that plus 521. I thought we could mark that down. And then, last

but not least, underdogs. Underdog parlay. We knew we weren't going to do well last week. We just didn't like the underdogs. The Giants. We weren't feeling great about it. But a couple good well last week. We just didn't like the underdogs. The Giants. Yeah, we weren't feeling great about it. But a couple of good ones this week. We have the Texans. Okay, why would you do the Texans?

They suck. What's going on there? Well, Jacksonville's favored by five over them. And I just, my question is, should Jacksonville be favored by five over anybody? Plus, the glass half full is like, well, got rid of urban.

There'll be some fired up to him without him. Glass half empty. This has been a complete shit show all week. Crazy week. And this should be, this is a coin flip. How do we know who's going to win a Jacksonville Texans game? Who knows?

Let's go. We've met on the Texans, I think twice this season and they won those two games. Texans beat the Jaguars. Yeah. Yeah. Let's go. And then, so that's one.

And then the other one would be, as an underdog, the Bengals. The Bengals are... In Denver. I like it. We won't give up on the Bengals, you and me. Plus 130 for the Bengals. I'm in. Let's go. Texans

plus 190. And if you put them together, it's around plus 570, which will boost because we like to do for the FanDuel stuff. So,

that's what we're looking at. Anything else? Anything else you would throw in there? No, I'm good. I feel great about these. Okay. You feel great about these? I do.

Why not? I do. Why not? It's the holidays. Let's go. All right. Kyle It's the holidays. Let's go. All right. Kyle, turn the camera. Million dollar picks.

Week 15. Taping this lunchtime Pacific time. In time to get the Thursday night game in. Casey, at the Chargers. Do you really consider this a home game for the Chargers, Peter Schrager? I don't know. I imagine a lot of Dexter McCluster and Glenn Dorsey jerseys out there. Glenn Dorsey.

KC minus three. No left tackle for the Chargers. AFC West on the line in a way that I think the Chiefs actually need this game. It's not like, if we lose this, we'll be fine. It's like, no, actually the this, we'll be fine. No. Actually, the Chargers could grab the AFC West if you lose this. A lot of Herbert buzz this week. A lot of Herbert buzz.

A lot of Herbert has the strongest arm and is the best young quarterback buzz. A lot of Mahomes. Hey, you're not the sexy new thing anymore. I'm sorry. No. A new hot actress is coming and taking your place.

You're not on the magazine covers anymore, Mahomes. And Michael Jordan, guess what? Clyde Drexler might be the best shooting guard in basketball. Yeah.

I like the way the Chiefs look right now. And getting them minus three or under, jumping on that. We're going big. 750. I'm the Chiefs minus three. We're going big. $750,000.

And the Chiefs minus three. We're going big. Look, for the year, we're down $995,000. We need to start making some swings. We got the playoffs. We need to increase some bankroll here. We win this game if Troy Aikman and Joe Buck see the name Trey Pipkins 20 times. Trey Pipkins is filling in for Rashawn Slater.

He is at a Sioux Falls college. If Trey Pipkins is mentioned a Trey Pipkins is filling in for Rashawn Slater. He is at a Sioux Falls college. If Trey Pipkins is mentioned a bunch, it means we're doing all right. Next one. A tease. It's a three-teamer. It's going to be a seven-point affair, which is plus

120 on FanDuel. Here's what we're going to do, if you agree. We're going to take the Eagles down from minus 9.5 to minus 2.5 against Washington, who is just going to have a bunch of people scratched and might not be good to begin with and had some quarterback issues already. Philly wins by a

field goal. We're good. Hopefully some Midshipmania. Be excited for that. The Patriots, we're going to take them from plus 2.5 all the way to plus 9.5. So the Colts really would have to kick their ass at this point. We would need Mac to completely meltdown. I don't think that's happening Saturday night. And then finally the Seahawks taking them from five and a half to 12 and a half against the Rams. Um, now my question is, do we do a seven point teaser or six point tease? If we wanted to get frisky about the Eagles, can they beat Washington by four?

Does that make you more nervous than the two and a half? We can take the three and a half or two and a half. No, let's go. I think they can. Let's go. Let's play it big. Six-point tease is plus 140. So we're going to take the Eagles to minus three and a half.

We're going to take the Pats to plus eight and a half and the Seahawks to plus 11 and a half plus 140. A little less on that one, 200K. That's right. Then we're going to do a little alternate line parlay that you can do on Fando. We're going to take the Pats to minus two and a half plus 130. The Browns who probably have Case Keenum started, they're having some COVID issues as well, I get it. But they have Vegas, and we don't trust Vegas. Plus 170, minus 3.5. We'll put 100K on that.

Plus 521. Plus 521 for the parlay. 100K on that one. I like it. This is the Willie McGinnis parlay because he is going to be there for NFL Network. It's the Patriots. It's the Browns. It I like it. This is the Willie McGinnis parlay because he is going to be there for NFL Network. It's the Patriots. It's the Browns. It's his teams. This is all for Big Willie. And it's a Saturday thing. We'll know right away. We'll know if we won 100K at plus

521. We'll know at the end of Saturday night whether that one worked out. Pats minus two and a half. Browns minus three and a half. Finally, underdog parlay of the week. Texans. Yeah. To beat, who's coaching the Jaguars now? It's Darryl Bevel. Darryl Bevel. Bengals to win in Denver. I like it.

Combo that is plus 570. We're going to boost that up to 701. Come on now. Give myself a Fando boost. Put 33K on that. what are you the most excited about i have all those bets i i can't wait i cannot wait to see what cleveland brings amidst all this covid stuff without stefanski all this stuff can they hold their end of the bargain come on now browns also little reverse ewing theory for them with odell Beckham, who's gone to the Rams and who has been immediately turned into an asset again.

It's like, hmm, what's going on here? All right. Those are the million dollar picks for week 15. You're working Saturday? Oh, I'll be there Saturday and Sunday. Let's go. All right. Let's go.

So we'll see Schrags on Good Morning Football. We'll see him on Fox this weekend. Good to see you, as always. We're taping this. It is in the morning on Thursday. The Tender Bar is coming out on Friday. Ben Affleck is here. He's doing a lot of press. Not a lot of press about the Patriots' comeback.

It's been more about you and the movie. I don't understand why the Patriots aren't at the forefront. You would think they would be, but most people outside of New England, believe it or not, aren't as interested in talking about that. I can't explain it.

Well, I'm going to start. I want to start sports, then we can go to the other stuff. You're friends with Brady. You love Brady. You appreciated the Brady run. Brady goes to the Bucs. You're rooting for Brady,

but now the Pats are good again. So I just need to know coming out of the gate where your heart is right now. Split. Uh, I mean, you know, look, you know,

I grew up in New England. I love the Patriots and I always will, you know, like the Red Sox and Souths and the whole thing. But, you know, initially happens. I don't know if this happens to you, like be honest, i'm in the spirit of honesty um because when i was a kid right like

we watched larry and kevin and dj and and danny ange like play the pistons you know what i mean you felt like god you guys really hate each other like you really want to win they really want to beat lambert you know what i mean they really um they want to beat the lakers you know larry got to fight with dr j and 81 or whatever it was and it was like not that you want to approve of fighting or that's a good thing because that's not a thing but um it was emblematic of a certain kind of genuine competition that as I got a little bit older, well, a lot older, and I started to meet people who play professional sports, I started to get like, and it I got to know a bunch of the guys in the 03, 04 team. And they were great. They had great team spirit and great guys.

But overall, one can't help but start to get the sense that, for one thing, none of them are from the team. So they're kind of like, yeah, I'm from Oklahoma. And now I play for Boston, and I've never been there, and I hope it's a great town. But they're not people who have a tremendous amount of like allegiance for Boston itself. Whereas the fans really do. And that's okay. But don't you start to get the sense that the business changed of sports,

professional sports, somewhere between the eighties, nineties and where it is today. We're really, it became about like, and they all have the same agents. They all kind of want to like, you know, it's like, yeah, sure. We kind of put on a show and we want to win us collectively or us individually.

But there seemed to be less of a emphasis on like the regional aspect of it and where we're from and we're doing this for the city. And part of it's you kind of say that because you're supposed to but it doesn't it was it became harder for me to invest in a team purely based on like these guys love my town because i knew that wasn't always the case you know what i mean i'd be happy to you know johnny damon's gonna run off to new york you know and and uh so are a lot of other people and then you go like you feel like he's so betrayed you know how did you do this and the truth is because like they don't i don't know johnny damon i don't know what his motivations were but i think most people are kind of like how did i do it because it's like another 20 million dollars down the street you know and i love you know kenmore square don't get me wrong but like i'm not gonna spend my life there just

out of fealty and the only guy in the contemporary sports era I think who genuinely gave up money, committed, like put his money where his mouth was, and committed to the idea of we're going to build this franchise for this city was Tom Brady. And I'm not sure he was rewarded for that. Yeah, I think that's fair. I also think everything you're saying, which I agree with, I think that's a I also think everything you're saying which I agree with I think that's a product of us getting older where you think like as you're younger and you're in your 20s

and you just think we're all in this together and then eventually it was like Larry and Limp Beer were having a beer after the game no but I think the Damon one

was a good example because I remember writing about that for ESPN when it happened and I felt completely betrayed but it was kind of eye opening because it's like alright we're rooting for the laundry. It's really about us.

The players kind of come and go. They don't really care. It's a job to them. And I think the 0-4 Red Sox, one of the reasons that team won was most of those guys weren't from there. Some of them weren't even from America. They didn't care about a curse. We cared about the curse. They didn't know about it. They didn't grow up with it. They weren't nervous about 86 years of baggage when they're out there freezing cold at Fenway on a Sunday night when it's 30 degrees out, they're not thinking, Oh my God, so much baggage. I could feel all of it. Like they're just dudes, professional athletes. So yeah, I do think it's a product.

I think that's true. I think you're really right. And I think they, I think you can, maybe it can be both, you know what I mean? Which is they do bond and they do like their team. Like one of the greatest things I've ever seen in sports, I think it was one of the ESPN docs was Millar. Was it the night of the game four game against the Yankees? He was kind of real relaxed and playing catch. And he was sort of talking to some, you know,

like somebody recording him on the sideline he said you know well i'll tell you what don't let us win tomorrow yeah you know win tomorrow and he started putting together a scenario that was like to all of us like utterly impossible and absurd and never happened in history and certainly was never going to happen in boston and yet to him it was like well don't let us win tomorrow because then we got kurt on the mound and then we got it. And he put together this whole idea. I've always found that like that moment I've wanted to steal from him.

I think that's a brilliant idea of a guy whose back is totally against the wall. The odds are entirely against him. And he's completely comfortable with the idea that, well, if we get one little opening, you know, we can take advantage of that. And we can take another, you. And we can take another. It's possible. I can see the way, all the way to the top of Mount Everest, where everybody else just feels like, it's impossible.

We'll freeze to the death and we'll never survive. Well, at that point, everyone had hit rock bottom emotionally. They just lost 19 to 8. I went to 4 and 5, and all of it seemed so improbable. I think that's the only way we could have won. The more the years pass,

it had to be just this complete improbable miracle, or else if it didn't seem realistic at all, it would have never happened. I knew, but I agree. At the time, I knew. I remember talking to my friends going, there's no way we're going to beat them unless it's the most incredible comeback story ever.

And by the way, if we do, the World Series is is total afterthought yeah there won't even be a question there's no they're going to win the world series no matter who or what happens because it's clearly destiny and it already was the world series in effect against the eights like who remembers st louis you know i mean like kevin millar you know you know, Bill Miller, three errors. I mean, whatever it was. Like, I don't even, like Keith Folk was on the mound. I can't remember, was it who caught the ball?

There was no drama. There was no anything. It was just like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now we're going to win because things are different. It was like Blues Brothers. We're on a mission from God. This is happening.

Yeah, it definitely, I know it changed my mood just in life and my perspective on everything. And I'm sure I think everybody who cared about the team. And then this Patriots run. I mean, now you think it's over and everybody was so happy last year about, oh yeah, oh, welcome to the real NFL.

No more Brady Belichick. And then within a year, it's kind, welcome to the real NFL. No more Brady Belichick. And then within a year, it's kind of back and it's retro. And you're dating J-Lo again. I feel like we're in a time machine. It's the early 2000s, a young Patriots team on the rise. You guys are back. I can remember, I think we were doing Geely when Benetary kicked the field goal against Oakland, was it, in the snow

in 03? Snow game. 01, yeah. Was that 01? But that was the first Super Bowl in 03, though, wasn't it? No, the second one, you're thinking the Carolina Super Bowl where they... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Nonetheless, that was the era

of the, like, you know... The last Super Bowl, you know, before that, early 2000s, that was the era of the, like, you know, the last Super Bowl, you know, before that early 2000s time was 86 when we got run by the Bears in the Super Bowl shuffle. That was terrible. And yeah, so, you know, everything comes back around again, evidently. I saw you on Kimmel's show last night, and I thought it was funny that he brought up when you gave him the tip

of where Brady was going. Well, because he immediately gave it to me and Sal and I think we bet it and I think you cost all of us money because it was like, oh, that fuck's got the inside info on Brady. Don't worry, you guys are cheap. It couldn't have been more than 50 bucks. Yeah, I think Brady was floating that stuff out. He was

probably using you to make sure you weren't like using you to make sure you weren't leaking info. I don't know. I think actually the truth was there were a lot of considerations for him. He really is a good guy and a big part of, ultimately, I think what matters to Tom is being close to his son, who's in New York. And the California team's ultimately, I think at the end of the day, if I had to guess, that was a determining factor. He's not a guy who wanted to be that far away from his kid. And on game day, who cares so much about seeing the game, obviously. And so whether or not it was the best deal, obviously history shows he's not somebody

who just goes, well, what's the best number? What's the best deal? Ask Boris, make me the most money. You know, it's like, what's going to fit in my life? What's going to work for my wife? What's going to work for my children? And by the way, it doesn't matter where I go because I'm going to win the Super Bowl anyway.

I mean, how many thousands of years would it have taken for Tampa Bay to understand? It's true. As you got older and more famous and more known, do you find yourself, you have just more in common with somebody like Brady? Just that, because you're going through a lot of the same stuff, what it's like to be in the public eye, how you have to be reserved, how any one thing you say could get blown out. And just who do you trust? All those things that like an A-plus lister has to deal with. That may be true about some of this, but I wish I had more in common with Tom Brady. I played catch with the man once and realized how very little we have in common. I mean, he was throwing the ball to me haven't come. I mean, he was throwing

the ball to me and I thought, I mean, I was praying to God that I catch the ball, not just because I wanted to impress the guy, which I very much did because I really thought I would get hurt if I didn't, because it would come, shows up right in front of your face. You know what I mean? And after about 10 minutes, he was like, you ready? And I said, yeah. And he goes, all right, now I'm gonna start throwing the ball. And I was like, oh my gosh, I dump another 30 miles an hour on this. Cause I'm very much at my like peak and really trying. And it was incredible. It was the most incredible, just not spending a ton of time around like pro athletes in terms of like, Hey, you you know come out on the

court with us or whatever you know i'm sure anybody you see who's a pro or a semi-pro or a great player in college you know they get into your pickup game you really understand very quickly what the difference between excellence and uh 50 year old white men but the so watch him do it and then not be that much uh young and also just watch what he's done it's like i don't know i don't know who has you know they're very very few serena williams i mean how many people have really michael jordan how many people could really relate to that you know lebron i mean obviously do very well uh making a bunch of comparisons among people like that and you understand that really well but and could could detail and nuance it much better than I could. But ultimately at the end of the day,

there's 10 men and women who have done, you know, maybe that level of what they do. So I have some things in common with Tom. I like to think like people both know who we are sometimes, and we were in New England and, you know, but there's sort of about it, you know what I mean? He's just like, and he also talk about never, you know, he has this incredible knack for maintaining discipline. And that includes like a refusal to, to deviate in any way from the kind of bulldog platitude,

you know what I mean that kevin costner taught tim robbins in that movie no matter what they say no matter what happens and you know a lot of those people you know are try to be provocative you know what i mean in an effort to like stoke conflict in what may or may not but quite possibly could be, an environment where there is, in fact, personality conflict. And nonetheless, you just see, like, I mean, calm, and you would never, ah, great, just trying to win next week. Ah, just having a good time. Ah, you know, just lucky to be here. Ah, doesn't comment on what it's like being, you know,

the greatest ever, doesn't comment. I mean, sometimes he'll say, you know, appropriately competitive things things and it satisfies the fans, but he has this really rare, for an athlete, because that's not their business, understanding of exactly where the line is about what to say to entertain people and never, ever cost himself in terms of having to answer another question the next day about what he said the day before. I wonder if he learned some of that from Belichick because Belichick's the master of that, right? He never says anything interesting, even though he's an incredibly interesting guy.

He's fascinating, but he doesn't come off like a great guy. I mean, look, I'm from New England. I love Belichick. I remember him all the time. I never got the sense that he was fun to play for. I never got the sense that he was like a sterling conversationalist. He's not charismatic. Brady is charismatic in the realm of George Clooney or Cary Grant or one of those people.

Belichick's not at the Met Ball, although I would pay a lot of money to see that. Wearing a sweatshirt. Wearing a sweatshirt at the Met Ball. I love it here. I'm having a lot of money to see that. Wearing a sweatshirt. Cut off sweatshirt. I'm over here. I'm having a great time. You know, I mean, he's also enjoyable because he will sort of, without saying it, kind of say fuck off to people all the time. You know, like Ridley Scott, a director I just worked with, did an interview in Russia.

I read it. It was amazing. You should see the video. I mean, I saw it. I read it. It was amazing. You should see the video. I mean, I saw it. I read it. Yeah. The guy kind of gives him a backhanded compliment. The kind of which one becomes accustomed to. It's like

routine. You know what I mean? This movie's not as bad as your previous films. You know, in that sense. And you have to go, thank you. That's so nice. And he was just like, fuck off, fuck off,

fuck yourself. It was so abrupt that I was, the journalist like understood, you know, like he just, it's just at a point in his life where he just doesn't care. Yeah. You know what I mean?

If you're going to insult me, I'll just tell you to fuck off and end the interview. And that's a, an enviable position to be in kind of funny, but Belichick kind of reminds me of that in the sense that he that's an enviable position to be, and kind of funny. But Belichick kind of reminds me of that in the sense that he doesn't tolerate any, he won't brook any nonsense. He's also older than Tom, he brings a little more gravitas. You know, he's older than some of these other grizzled writers who kind of probably see themselves as, you know, the real workaday lunch

pale veterans of the New England sports world. And I don't think anybody can trump Belichick in that capacity. And also, he's just like, Belichick exhibits an attitude publicly that many others exhibit privately, but don't feel comfortable saying, which is basically like, you don't fucking understand this

game, even remotely the way I do, so shut the fuck up. That's the vibe you get from him. You know, I'm going to end this now. And it is very appealing in its own way because it's, you know, you wish you could have that kind of sense of self. But Tom is a, I would say Tom is another level of master because it's not about just, I'm going to draw a line and I'm going to tell you, you know, I'm just going to basically set a boundary which says you're not entitled to

know any of these things and I don't care to tell you and I don't give a shit what you think about that. It's like making you feel as though the question has been answered and you've had a satisfying exchange and you do know him and he likes you and then only when he is out of the

press conference do you realize, well, he didn't really say anything. He seemed charming, though. He was accessible and gracious, but he actually didn't answer my question or tell me anything I wanted to know or even respond to what I said. Sort of like a Ronald Reagan-level gift for communication. Wait a sec. Go backwards.

So you're playing catch with him. Because I've heard this about Brady, that he'll be on vacation with people or somebody will be over for the weekend or whatever. And he basically just eventually sees anybody who seems relatively athletic as somebody who could catch footballs for him for an hour and leverages the whole, I'm famous. Of course, they'll want to play catch with me. And you go into it thinking, oh, cool. We're going to throw the football. But it becomes an actual workout for him. Because I've heard all these stories about people who had no idea, like they brought

like tennis sneakers and all of a sudden they're running 25 yard outs because Brady needs a workout. First of all, I wasn't even on vacation with him. I happened to be at the same place and he knew I was there. So you're coming down. Let's have lunch or something. And I thought, oh, gosh, maybe I'll get to see Tom. That would be great. And then he calls me up. He goes, yeah, G's not a great receiver. She's getting a little tired of catching balls for me.

So you're around. You want to catch some balls? To me, I think this is like a guy who's going, should I make someone's dreams come true today? Yeah, heck with it. I'll change someone's life. Hey, you want to catch my footballs? Because it is one of the most memorable days of my life. Yeah, you think he just wants to keep his arm loose. You don't know it's an actual workout for him.

It's definitely a workout. He uses it as a workout and he works you out. And all of a sudden you're like, okay, I'm going to work out harder than I have in 25 years and I'm going to pretend that it's something that i'm accustomed to and i can tolerate it even though i'm sure it's evident that i can't and i'm sure what i'm really sure of is that when he sends me 35 yards out he has to wait the amount of time he normally waits for a guy to run 90 yards right so he's doing the like calculus in his head of like nope not yet not yet not yet you know but he still nonetheless is able to calculate for like an extremely slow middle age man's pace yeah running as fast as he can and turning around i think he's in the nfl and

probably running the route totally wrong you know and have no idea and nonetheless you run like you know where he tells you to go you turn turn around, and the second you turn around, you know, and that's what's amazing. Yeah, he's working out. He's using it as a workout, but he can use me every day like that. I mean, it's a joy. He does it with his kids too,

so I'm sure it doesn't even matter how fast you're going. That's probably part of the challenge for him. It's like, because you see there's videos of him with his two boys, and they're taking turns, and so a 12-year see there, there's videos of him with like his two boys and you know, they're taking turns. And so a 12 year old, he's got to calibrate it a certain way. Probably weirdly helps him.

I, I think it's amazing how obsessed he is with football. Like at some point, and I don't know what year it was, he decided to just construct every choice he made in his life around being as good as he possibly could at football. Like, I don't like,

I guess the only actor who you've maybe read was kind of like that was Daniel Day-Lewis, right? When he would do a part, he would just completely immerse himself into it in every aspect. I don't know. The stories I've heard, um,

kind of line up with that. The change to me, cause I met Tom, maybe at the white house correspondence or because I met Tom maybe at the White House Correspondents Day or something after like maybe after the first, yeah, I knew he was. It was after the season when he replaced Bledsoe.

And that was it. That had happened. He was like the star and I met him and I was like, oh my god, you're the king of Boston. This is for the young kid. He was four years younger than me. And I was like, hey kid kid, you know, not really. But like, I could sense that he was young. He was youthful.

And he was like, oh, no, you know, he's very humble and self-effacing. But he was a different person. You know, he didn't have that thing that you see in him now. He definitely had that sort of, here I am. I'm going to do my best. Oh, shucks. Hey, I'm trying. And then he won a 10-year drought. We call it drought for those of us who, as if most of us our whole life is a Super Bowl drought. Cleveland's like, fuck you.

And then I remember talking to him at some point during that time and I detected there was a change where he kind of, you know, he was thinking a lot about it. It had become more meaningful to him. He didn't like the feeling. And I think some people would go, hey, I won some. I got a good contract. And he found, I think, that that was the thing that really drove him. He loved that feeling and wanted it.

And I remember saying, people just don't understand how hard it is. People don't understand what it takes. People don't understand the level of commitment it takes to do this, to win it. You know, it's hard to get. And I thought, like, oh, more kind of, you know, sport. Oh, it's hard. You know, like the usual sort of things you hear. And I ran into him again, and he

said something similar. And I remember thinking, this is a really different guy. This is a guy who's really pissed off, but really serious about this and not fucking around at all. And that then seemed to be reflected

in terms of what I saw, which was a lot of what people saw in talking about his training, his regimen, his approach, his sleep. I think he made a decision at some point. I want to do the absolute best I can, and I'm going to do it. I'm going to dedicate all of myself, every part of myself, because I'm not going to sell myself short. I'm not going to give myself the off day. I'm not going to cut myself a break. Not by being overly serious, but by just somehow he had a level of commitment to it that changed. I think he may have surprised himself by what happened

the first time he won yeah and then he i think then he decided like i can do this i want to do it and i have something to prove i don't know what that was um and i think his he's great he's gifted you know obviously they're incredibly athletically gifted quarterbacks right i mean there are people who can do incredible things you know running sideways and throw the ball 100 yards and all that stuff and i've thought a lot about like what is it that separates tom brady from other human beings why is he able to do this because it's he has a great arm like you talked to other i've talked to a lot of other players why why why and then i'll go yeah he's got a good arm you know yeah he's really accurate he makes decisions like you get

little pieces you know what i mean he wants to win or he knows how to get along with people, or he knows he's a good leader, and, you know, he connects with people. But there are a lot of people like that. And my theory, and maybe just because it relates to my own work, is that, and kind of what I get from him, the difference between him and other people is that he just doesn't have that part of the brain that gets nervous. He doesn't get tight. And my getting tight ruins. That's why guys drop the ball in the clutch play. You know what I mean?

We've all seen it. There are famous places. Plays they make 10,000 times. The ground ball, ball right in your hands, you know, these moments that it's like, why didn't I do that? This is what I've been doing since childhood, you know? And also that sort of Seattle throwing interception, you know, that kind of panicked uncertainty that happens when everything's on the line.

Because even when we were playing catch, we weren't just playing catch. He would say, all right, this is super, you know, we're on the 16 yard line. It's worth that. We have six seconds.

We win. This is everything you miss. It's over. And I like, even just listening to him, I I'm like out there in just a field of grass. You know what I mean? But I thought we were in,

I was like, I'm going to catch this ball. It kills me. You know kills me you know i will do anything to catch this ball and i i went out it was a little and i like because i was so slow it was a little past me and i put i leapt out and dove and flipped him i think i was doing like batman at the time i was like never mind my career you know never mind my aging body. But he just, because people have talked to me about how, like, you get in the huddle

with a guy, and the whole stadium is anxious. Everyone at home is anxious. You're behind. That's what's such a great fourth quarter team, such a great, the worst, such a great come-from-behind team. Just going like, yeah, we're going to win. This is how we're going to do it. Okay, guys. You know, they'd get there all panicked, and it was just like, no, no, it's not a problem. You do're going to do it. Okay, guys. You know, they'd get there all panicked.

And it was just like, no, no, it's not a problem. You do this, you do this, you do this. We'll figure it out. And yeah, he's looked at the defense and taken it apart and taking advantage of what he knows and all those things. But ultimately, someone told me a similar story about Joe Montana, which I'm sure you've heard. The John Candy story.

Yeah. Exactly. Getting the huddle and they're all panicked. And he goes, hey, is that John Candy? And they and they all look over and you know then they're just thinking about something else and they realize like jones all right like he's not that uptight about this and that's really that like i've noticed that in a much lesser to a much lesser degree uh as a director like you have to give people the sense like, it's okay. Don't worry.

We're going to succeed. It's all going to be fine. You can do it. Even if you don't believe it, you know, if you don't communicate that, it's never going to happen. It's a great point.

Calmness, competitiveness. That's the other thing with him. And it's funny because with you, I remember writing this and then I sent it to you and you were like, yeah, you hit it. But when you had your big comeback, you had the big rise, the fall, everyone kickstarted on you, comeback, oh, Affleck's back. And then you put together a few good things. It's like Affleck's fucking back. And then you decided to do Batman and people are

like, that's weird. Why is he doing Batman? He's put together this career as a director. You know, he's really, really won the respect of Hollywood. And why is he doing a superhero movie? And I was looking at it like, because he's fucking competitive. He's going to have the comeback. He wants the actual comeback with a capital C.

He wants all of it. Now he's going to be Batman because fuck everybody. And that was kind of your mentality, right? Really, my mentality was I thought it mattered so much because people had been so

had denigrated me. Despite the fact that I think, well, wait a minute. I thought the whole reason I became successful was that you thought I was able to do this and I had internalized that sense and it was meaningful to me and then people are going you can't do it you don't belong here you don't deserve this it becomes this intense uh take it away thing like never mind this person they shouldn't have what they have which is a total like delegitimization so from oh three you know six seven eight nine ten you know was was and it's kind of a younger person's uh drive in some ways but there's something proof

you know i can do this i belong here i'm gonna get rid of me i'm not meaning i i know i have something to offer i know i mean something in effect i can do it even though you're telling me i can't and that's the only motivation at that point that really works is if people are telling and i'm sure probably fuel time with his draft pick and so on and so forth like it's very common you go like really you don't respect me well let's see i'm gonna do it i'm gonna lay it out there on my own terms and if you if you want to tell me i'm no good at that point fine i'll i'll have failed on my own marriage but i'm gonna take a crack at it which is why when i made gone baby gone it was so incredibly stressful

because i knew if this doesn't work i'll never work again and when i made the town and this doesn't work i'll never be able to act their act uh in movies again because they'll write me off and they'll say he can just direct and so having done those things i sort of relaxed i felt as though not that i proved everything but just i didn't want to be told i was the greatest to ever let i didn't want to be praised and i don't need that i just don't want to be like anybody, treated unfairly or told they're no good. That sucks. And it feels bad. And I wanted, at the time I had kids,

I wanted my kids to be proud. I wanted to do something that was important to my kids. I wanted my wife to respect me. All these things go into this stuff. And unfortunately, as people, I think it's an evolutionary thing like if you're not brought along on the hunting party you know in the you know primordial days you know by the other the rest of the village you'll starve so being included and being accepted even though it doesn't

literally mean that now but i think to the brain on some level means, can I survive? Which is why ostracization and exile is one of the cruelest, most painful things you can do is why, you know, teenagers suffer from that like tendency to exclude, you know, certain members of the, why we recognize that as so cruel and excruciating. So I felt that, and I felt like, okay, you know, I have something to prove and I got to prove it. And at the end of the day, we'll just see it. And it was years and years of giving up a lot of my life to work.

Cause I just thought, well, maybe I, I clearly believed on some level, like, I guess I do suck. I suck. But you know, maybe I can not feel this way. Maybe I can do something that I don't suck at. I do know what I'm talking about. And I but I thought like I can't rely on my talent because I didn't believe in it.

I can only rely on how many hours a day. So I just worked 18 hours a day every single day. And so I was exhausted. I only thought about the movie all day long. Probably very unhealthy, obsessive way. We'd go on, maybe go on maybe go on it just worked well enough that people were like alright it's not shit

even though I love the movie to this day it's probably my favorite movie I've made and then with The Town as it was coming out I remember being at Toronto Film Festival and one of the awards awards comments or whatever it was like it doesn't look like it's going to work.

It seems like it's going to bomb. I'm sorry. I thought, does it really look like it's going to bomb? I couldn't believe you would say that. Is this true? Is nobody telling me this? Maybe they were afraid because I remember they spent more money at the last minute to get

people to go. Then it worked enough so that okay you're gonna you're gonna be able to like work you're gonna have a career at least the next few years unless disaster strikes again but it meant that the last chapter of my career wasn't the final it was going to be defined by like ball game see you later he came up he was a disaster he was shit we all told him so we never saw him again which was not how i wanted my life to go and not how i felt it should on some level and you know then i so yeah it was like something to prove and then i did argo um really just because i was a middle eastern studies major i got the script i didn't want to just, I thought people were going to sort of say, well, you can do movies, but only in Boston.

That's all you know, you know, because of hunting the town, probably beyond it. I had that company man. So I picked this movie that was way outside anything else that I had. People had seen me do, even though secretly it was actually between Hollywood and the Middle East were sort of the two things I knew really well and was well suited and had good support from Grant and George were really smart guys and Chris Terrio was brilliant and Billy Goldenberg was a genius and I mean that was a not me alone was a very and a brilliant cast and then when that movie worked I didn't even really expect that or have anything to prove. So at that point I felt like, and I felt a little bit like, okay,

I don't need to, this is a, this is the unhealthy perspective. This idea that I have to be making all these decisions about my life predicated on like what somebody else says on on twitter or you know or on the comment section like a man like what that's not gonna make me happy i mean they don't know me anything to do with what i want to do and by the way if you give people the power to sort of make you feel satisfied or happy according to the degree to which they tell you you're okay or good enough or a good person then like situations that happen where somebody completely mischaracterizes what you say and decide to say like you know you're a terrible ex-husband and sensitive dad

you know if you don't really understand that that's entirely false and you know you know and that this you don't really that these opinions are often uh come from people who haven't even you know who have just skimmed the last article and have no idea they don't know me not only that but they don't even know what the source material is that they're referring to because we just don't take the time to do that you know it's just what's on my newsfeed? What do I think? I'm not ready to respond. Then I'd really be hostage to that. And I have to worry about it every second. Does everybody like me? And so I just thought, you know what? These last three movies

my kids didn't see. My son's getting older. He likes superheroes. My middle child might be into it. I know my daughter wouldn't be interested in Batman, my oldest daughter, but I was like, I want to do a movie for my kids and yeah i wanted to work you know and i want to try this and i also want to sort of like daredevil always bothered me because it was a movie i so didn't like yeah you know and i had loved that hero as a kid. And so it ate at me because I thought, God, we had the best character and really fucked it up.

And it was right before they really understood how to do those movies. And the terrible fucking irony to me is that Kevin Feige was on that movie. But he just was like a subordinate, like third guy. Oh, he could have saved it. I keep on thinking I should have just turned to him and been like, fuck all these people. What do we do? How does it?

Cause I've never, if there's anybody and I've, I've never thought this was true about anybody until I looked at his career. If there's any one person who I would actually believe when they told me, look, this is what the audience wants. It would be him. Because he seemed to have an unerring instinct for two set pieces, two jokes,

pull on the heartstrings, make fun of the suits, two set pieces. You know what I mean? And then thread in the villain for what he does, that genre, those movies. And by the way, there's never been a more successful producer in the history of the movie. Ever, by far. I'm going back to, where were you? Daryl Zanuck and anybody else. You know, Cecil B. DeMille.

It's like, anyway. So it's like you find out you were working with Cecil B. DeMille. And he was, you know, somebody's VP. And they made him be quiet. It's like, God damn it. The answer was right there. Going back to that stretch, because the first time Damon came on this pod,

we talked about everything, but one of the things we were talking about was when you started to have a little bit of, you had a couple misses and people started comparing the two of you against each other. And he was the most upset about that than anything because he was like, it wasn't like I was making every artistic choice either.

The narrative became Affleck's grabbing paychecks and Damon's the one who wants to do good work. He was like, fuck that. He was getting paid more than me. He was really hurt by that because you guys were so close and you know then he's protective of you obviously but i think he did feel bad and he felt uncomfortable anytime you

see something that's like first of all we're you know best friends and we love each other and and we do really root for each other and i think he was i imagine kind of going like, A, I feel bad for my friend because this isn't really fair. And B, like, don't attribute to me, like, some great wisdom that I'm the genius. Because we have very similar tastes in movies. And it wasn't like I was out there going like, Scorsese? No, no, no, pass on that. I'm going to do Surviving Christmas. You know what I mean?

Part of what you're, as an actor, and I know this is a difficult thing to see because you don't know what the range of things you're choosing from or what your opportunities are. But because it's collaborative, you're a hostage to a number of other things. You're never going to be better than the material. You're never going to be better than the director. You're never going to, you know the director. You're never going to... You're bounded by what's available to you. Really, if you want to evaluate an actor's choices,

you would have to look, you would have to know, which they guard this information, so you never could. You would have to know, what were the movies that were off the tush? What did you take? What did you do? This would be a great website. I would go to this website

all the time if it existed. The 19 movies Leo turned down in 2005. I always wanted to do a fantasy actors thing instead of fantasy football. We're like, okay, here are my five women and we're going to see how their

movies do. You can take five and we can do picks and the problem is that the metrics aren't exactly the same in sports you know you know what the obps is and that's absolute whereas you know you can make various arguments about well yes it didn't make as much money but it's a better movie or i got awards or people yeah blah blah blah but but but ultimately that would be an interesting exercise because it would reflect what was actually available to them. And somebody once told me when I was really young, a guy named Tom, who owned Lakeshore. And I did this $2 million movie called Going All the Way before I did Chasing Amy in 94 or something. And he said, and he had made a bunch of money,

I think, selling furniture in Chicago and got into the movie business kind of to, you know, as a sort of quasi-retirement, like, ah, try something with this money I made. He ended up winning an Oscar with, with Clint Eastwood from Forgiven, but Tom Rosenberg. And he said, you know, in your life, you know, at the end of the road, you should be able to look back and say, you know, I missed a bunch of good opportunities. That's where you want to be.

You want to be there going, I should have taken that one. I should have taken that one. Because what that will tell you is you're being discriminating enough. You're saying no enough. Oh, interesting. And you're being careful. Yeah. I thought it was interesting. I never forgot it. I didn't understand at the time. I was like, say no, I'm trying to pay the bills. I'm not really in the position to... By the way, Tom, you just paid me $18,000 for four months. you know it was like okay so there is some value to to what you say no to and the really difficult thing is that for actors your whole career is trying to get people say yes to you get an agent get an audition get the job get the director to like you and then one thing happens

usually and then you're it's all about what you say no to and you have to radically shift those gears literally from like sixth gear into reverse and go okay it's a totally different game and that's hard and who it's really hard for a lot of times is the people around actors like like agents or managers or producers and that's why patrick weitzel is so my agent i think is really brilliant because he always got that he knows exactly when to chase and when it's time to to be discriminating but for a lot of people obviously whose living is tied up in your living you know it's like just take it take it take it more is more do it yeah they're offering us this

let's do that and we got a commercial opportunity yeah that's dog food and you eat out of the dog bowl, but I think you look good, you know? And there is, that's a tough thing to get used to. Trips up a lot of people. And that was one of the hard things for me because there were movies I did. It's not totally, I did do some movies for money because it was a lot of money.

Because from my point of view, I was like, my mom made $25,000 a year teaching school, public school, you know, back in Boston. And then eventually I think she got to like 35, you know, it would go up two and a half percent of years. She worked 30 years. My dad, I don't know what he was, a Toyota mechanic, janitor, and a bartender. Not a lot of money. He had an old 76 red Buick Sky skylark which we ended up having a son uh and so when somebody would say to me 10 million dollars which by the way is actually you know

four but um which took me a while to understand too i would just think it's it's irresponsible like how could i possibly face my friends or my family and tell them that I said no to that? And it wasn't until I realized that actually, after you can pay your bills, money isn't that important. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't make you happy. But we collectively share that mythology, that idea that this is it. If I won the lottery, you ask like, you know, 10 people, what's the one thing that would make you happy? Probably eight of them would say winning the lottery. And I've always thought there'd be

a great documentary on lottery winners because I bet you find half the number of them. Right. When you're talking about how much luck you need with a movie, and I think sports is like this too, right? You have a team. Look at the Patriots this year. Like if anyone takes Mac Jones before number 15, this whole Patriot season is completely different. You need all these different pieces.

You need to get a couple of fridge signings. And movies are the same way. We do this Rewatchables podcast where we break down these different movies. And when you're studying the research of how the movie was made and the casting what-ifs and it could have been this person and it turned out to be this person instead.

And a lot of times it's the greatest thing for the movie that the first person passed and the second person took it. You've had a couple like that. Like, I still feel like Runner Runner could have been a good movie. Like, the script was good.

There was something there and it got screwed up for, you know, it got screwed up., you know, it got screwed up. Oh, I know I got screwed up, but I'm not going to say it. But, you know, movies do get screwed up for various reasons, and sometimes they're not as easy to identify. And like you say, a lot of times people go into it like a movie from the outside. When you approach it, a movie that ends up failing doesn't look any different movie that ends up being successful changing your life in the sense that you're like smart it's interesting talented people are working on it basically i think the most

accurate way to think of it are like bets you know what i mean like a blasher okay the count gets good you know you're a favorite you know it's a 10 rich deck you're a 52 favorite that's about as good as you ever get in that game so if you're if you can bet on a 52 favorite theoretically mathematically you should bet all your money but only if you can bet all your money over 10 000 bets because 52 comes up as you know like barely more than the coin toss you lose that you know five times in a row but you won't lose it you know you'll you'll win it exactly 52 times out of a million so you know you never get a chance probably to make enough movies to fade the variance and the the probability of the ways in which, you know, even big favorites don't always come in,

but you still, it's a bet. Not in a monetary way, but in like, I bet on this filmmaker, I bet on this script, I believe in this. And you got to know, it was still a good bet. Gigli was a good bet. Marty Brass had done my favorite movie, Midnight Run.

Yeah. He had done Beverly Hills Cop. He had done Scent of a Woman. I liked Meet Joe Black, even though it was a little long. I thought it was good. And he was a really smart, articulate guy. But he was a guy going like, yeah, I've done a lot of commercial movies.

I want to do a, you know, a personal movie, kind of an art film. And then a bunch of things happened to it that caused it to, it didn't work. The original version didn't work. I don't got to lie. There's no Snyder cut out there that you're going to, you know, to, it didn't work. The original version didn't work. I'm not gonna lie. There's no, there's no Snyder cut out there that you're going to,

you know, I thought that would be great to the breast. I'm not sure we have the same success as the Snyder. But he, he was part of everybody. Everybody wanted that. You know what I mean? Like,

and I, I had been in pro hard, which was such a big hit that people were like, okay, just look at the metric of like who makes us money you know okay we'll take this and marty was was willing to live with me and a lot of other people want to do it who are now probably like you know what i really wanted to do um and i did it and and then because jennifer and i were in a relationship after the movie came out, and initially that relationship got some sort of positive attention.

It was on Us Weekly, which was like their only two or three tablets. That was the height of Us Weekly at the time. You guys were carrying them for months. Yes. They should have sent me stock. Young winner. I would like.

I own that company, whether you want to admit it or not. And the conventional wisdom was like, oh, that's what they want to see. Because in the original version, it wasn't a love story. She left in the middle. I died at the end. And it was like a kind of a bummer. And it also didn't quite have the catharsis or poignancy that you need to have with a you know kind of wrist slashing indie movie and then the studio decided well look you know hey

look everybody loves them together it's a love story and we we did five weeks of reshoots to make it into a like a cutesy love story by which point the Us Weekly situation, which never bet on the contemporary tabloid taste, because they're going to change next week. So by the time they had made that, everyone was like, we're sick of them. Why are they in our face every day? Why don't you shove it down our throat?

What do you think? I publish Us Weekly? You know what I mean? That was the start of the era of pictures of you getting coffee, which are now we're in like year 19 of just, that could be a coffee table book of just all the times you're

holding a latte. Well, that ghetto, how fucking interesting is it? There he is. Oh, he's taking out his garbage. Let's get a shot. People are like, oh, because you court in and you do this stuff. I remember I looked at an

old clip recently of Access Hollywood from that time. It was Pat O'Brien who had segued into working for Entertainment Journalism after his stint with the NBA. He said he was like, well, for an actor who wants privacy,

going out to dinner at the Ivy's, not a, you know, I felt like, oh, so don't go to a restaurant. Because that's clearly hiding my house. Yeah. So then I literally spent years where I was like, okay,

if the message is, your life is going to be this unless you make your life utterly pedestrian. Okay, I can do that because I like a pedestrian life. I'll take my kids to school. I'll get coffee. I'll go home. I'll do my work. And that wasn't

nonetheless, it was still like, well, look, he gets coffee. And then that's the thing. Why does he own an expensive coffee maker? What does he need to go to Starbucks for? Shouldn't he have a bracelet in his house? I don't like those coffees. I'm not even going to say it until they pay me and make me an official ambassador. But there is a brand of coffee that I grew up with that I like.

That's what I like. And I like Jack in the Box, too. There are things that I really like. But just the idea that that's you know and and but just the idea that that's like again it's another idea of like oh you're trying to show us that that you drink coffee i'm really not i really wish you would just not be there when i drink coffee i don't want you there i don't need that exposure it's not fun for me uh you know i'm not trying to get known as a guy who drinks iced coffee. I mean, there's people I meet who know my order for Dunkin' Donuts.

I mean, you've had one of the strangest celebrity experiences, I think, of anybody. Because not only the ebbs and flows, but you've been in some big celebrity relationships. You just had it this week. You talked about it on Jimmy's show last night. You do a two hour Stern interview, which I'm trying to steer toward topics that you didn't cover in that. But you, you talked about your wife and stuff gets aggregated from it. And all of a sudden it seems like you're shitting on your ex-wife. And if you actually read it carefully, you weren't. So you talked about it on Jimmy's show. I don't want to go over it too much, but my default is we have a daughter that's basically are the same age. And anytime something like that happens to you, I always think like,

what would that be like for his kids when they read something like that? And how would I deal with it if it were me and I had to talk to my kids about, hey, this happened, I have to explain it. So what was that part of the process like? Because I've spent so much time dealing with the other stuff, which was initially hurtful, don't say that I'm shallow and superficial. That's not who I am. Or don't say I'm about it. And then at a certain point, I thought people are always going to say what they're going to say.

I don't think it's shit. It's about my work. That will define me at the end of the day. That's what I have control over. And so I really kind of worked hard to sort of just get free of that but then when i had kids um that's really the only thing i wish if someone's going to touch my children and my ex-wife and i think it's really really important i mean i don't know how else to define someone's character at its essence other than how they treat the parents of their kids um and not only that but what was depressing about that well one thing is

just to give my kids the impression that I've ever said anything negative with my ex-wife it is deeply irresponsible wrong and the worst thing that could happen to me. Because I don't believe in it. I don't think it's true. And I'm acutely aware of the degree to which children, particularly of divorced parents, but any children, one of their most basic fundamental needs is to know that their parents respect them. They want it. And it's certainly the least I can do. And in fact, it happens to be true i respect him on a great deal we've worked really hard to go through this process carefully and uh you know so so and also it's not even read it it's like there's an interesting link i think from the show the next

day it's about 12 minutes and maybe i'll i'll send it to you and you can put it up on this probably available on site where he analyzes and he does a much better job of me than I do. The difference between what I said, what our conversation was, and it's a two-hour conversation. It's not like you don't get a chance

to get the gist of it. Where over and over and over, I talk about the pain and difficulty of divorce. And why is it painful? In my case, and in the case of my ex-wife, principally because, you know, children experience pain from that. And you have to weigh that against

what will be the difficulties they have if we stay in this marriage. Do no fault of anybody's. Do no... The idea that... First of of all it offends me that i'm i would be so stupid and immature uh to think that anyone else is responsible for me drinking like what are they yeah hold your hand and like that's me okay let's get it real clear everything i've ever done good or bad uh and in the case of the good i've often benefited from smart people. In the case of all the things that I regret,

I did those things. I come to terms with that. I take account of both of that. And when I've hurt people, I make a mention. Real simple. I don't have any confusion about whose fault that is. I certainly don't attribute that to my ex-wife. And the idea that I would cast me in a light that is

a worse insult than anything anybody has ever said about me. And I've spent years and years giving interviews and talking about this. I mean, lengthy and dying.

Even a cursory Google search will reveal a litany of instances where I say precisely the opposite of it. So when you know it's snowballing and there's that half hour there where it's like, oh shit, this is actually

going to become a thing, what's your instinct? Do you want to almost go on Twitter and try to stop it or are you just like, oh shit, this next 24 hours is going to suck the problem is it's not a stoppable thing because what it's rude because the people who who who decide to pull a phrase you know out of this conversation and isolate it in a headline the clickbait practice itself is flawed and i don't think there's any changing it because it's just how people make money and the hardest thing to get people to do is to work you know

in a way that is contrary to their pocketbook they make money this way right and we've all clicked on you won't believe what this he said about such as actually click on it and you go like but you didn't see him why don't you but you realize that's not the the point was to get you to go there because now they've already made money. So they don't care if you're satisfied by what they say. They care that they successfully lured you to their platform because they measure eyeballs. And according to the number of eyeballs that come, they sell ads and they make more money. So that practice has just metastasized and become less and less responsible.

It used to be you had to sort of be vaguely connected to the truth and now it's hold them and grab them what's the most and i can tell when i do interviews oftentimes the whole goal of the person is sort of listening to you and going what can i use like but can you say something provocative you know but can you say something you know like that's the whole goal whether it's the editor telling that that's what's going to make them the most money. They don't really care about acting or your process or the movie or any of this shit. They're just waiting to see if you can blow yourself up so they can make money. That was the worst thing about when you came on my HBO

show. When we did... I thought we had a really good interview. Yeah, but we were talking about Deflategate and you got super animated. I was scared in the morning. I mean, I suppose there's probably a drunk who gets drunk at 10 in the morning, but really, I mean, again,

I don't, it's just, I don't think people really looked at that and thought, he's drunk. They didn't, you know, I wasn't very animated and continue to be like a Tom Brady. Yeah, but we talked for like, we talked for like 50 minutes that day

and that deflate gate conversation we had was at least 10 or 12. At one point, you got super animated and that was the part people cut. I was there. It was 10 in the morning. He was definitely not drunk because people were asking, what's going on with Affleck? I was like, I don't know. He flew cross-country the night before

and it was important. Nothing's going on. I get animated sometimes. I know. I get worked up about the things i care about and that's doesn't make you in fact when i have been drunk in the past you would know it because i'd be sort of just like my tendency was to get just very quiet kind of like i wasn't like a crazy drunk right yeah yeah although some people probably the point is you're right they it's it's what can

we seize upon and it really doesn't matter whether you think it's true. In fact, that's totally irrelevant. It's like, can we plausibly use this? And can we be sued? That's their ultimate defense. Well, you can't sue us because the words are there. Yes, but you're supposed to be better. The tenets of journalism have to do with truth, accountability, and

partiality. That's what you're supposed to have done in college, to learn. We lost a lot of good interviews with you over the years because of the ebb and flow of this. I think you get disenchanted by the whole machine sometimes. Then you

come back and do it again. I do because I like to talk to people. I like to talk about this stuff uh there are movies that i'm really proud of and i want to promote and inevitably something happens like this where i think like really what's maybe i should just do the robotic thing or just not do it i know if i don't do it you know you more but and then of course the illusion is that there's a win you can't win you're never going to do you read the robotic answers they're going to say he's stiff and fake and blah blah blah the only win is to create a totally artificial life on social media relentlessly advertise that um and sort of hope people believe you.

And even then, that's not something I'm comfortable with because I really do believe in being honest. And I think, so you have to accept that this kind of misinterpretation has happened to me and worse has happened to friends I know. Worse punishment for no offense. And in this case, the one thing, the reason why this doesn't bother me on a personal level is that it's so obvious that anybody who reads this,

not one person who heard the interview ever brought this. Anybody who listens to that is saying, this is bananas. It's not fair. So maybe it becomes a moment where people sort of go like,

okay, we can't go that far. Howard's very, and I'm really grateful to him because I think it was such a, he's not a kiss ass or a guy to him because I think he's not a kiss-ass or a guy who lies. I think if anybody has a reputation for being honest on here, it's Howard Stern. He went up to great lengths to elucidate really clear, specific terms, like both what it was obvious I was saying, why I was saying, what it meant, how it was really a positive thing a loving thing and how reckless it is

um for people to just kind of blithely blow past that because they feel like they can make a few bucks if they're the first one to mischaracterize the story and once one person does it that's the other problem with clickbait that kind of thing is that you then in a sense you know allow others to abdicate their journalistic responsibility. Because once you've printed it, they don't have to read the source material. They're just like, well, they said it. They probably did the research.

They did the due diligence. I'm just citing them. It's a Pontius Pilate. The first story becomes the story. And the second, third, fourth, fifth stories are not the story. They fade each way. Exactly.

And also people just, and this is one of the sad things about technology because we have so much of it. People mostly see the headlines. They don't have a bunch of times. First of all, the stories aren't that long. They're not that detailed. They don't care that much.

They want to get the title up, get it up there. It's new content. There's a lot of pressure to do that because if you don't generate new content, you go elsewhere. It's part of their whole corporate strategy. And I'm guilty of the same thing. I kind of skim through, all right, it's the Apple News, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I'm just as guilty as going, so-and-so did this thing, and they're crazy. And I keep going. And that's why it really is incumbent on journalists not to tell anybody their job. But, you know, fourth estate, First Amendment, journalism, the freedom of the press, kind of a fundamental aspect of our democracy. And if you don't take it seriously, then I think in cases of celebrities, there's a sense of like, we don't really have to take that seriously because fuck them. You know what I mean? They have too much. What did they do?

It's not like the vice president, but you know, my dad, one of the great things my dad taught me was, and, and Jerry Speck and my, my drama teacher and other people I've worked with. If you're going to do your job, it doesn't matter. You do it.

Well, you do it really well. A friend of my father's, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, Todd, you know, and he would always come over to the house

everywhere we went. He would look at the tile and the grouting and stuff, and it would drive him crazy. See how the guy did this? See, that's lazy right there. You see how it doesn't blend with, you know what I mean? Because he cared about what he did. He took a tremendous amount of pride in it. And I always remember that because I never looked before or thought about the tile or thought about the person who put the tile in and what their attitude was. But whatever it is that's done, you notice this as an adult particularly.

Some people care. Some people are really meaningful and do their job right. And some people are just trying to get over. Some people are trying to get ahead. And some people will shoot you for $50 at a liquor store. Your daughter and your kids

and all that stuff you tell them not to google you how do you handle that I tell them I tell them the truth and it requires

periodically having to it's the part of this this is why I'm having this conversation otherwise I'm having this conversation otherwise I'd say oh fuck it yeah but

it means something because they don't realize they just think they of course believe what they see whether it's on YouTube or on Buzzfeed or whatever it is that they get their information from, they imagine that if somebody wrote it, it probably is true.

Now, they've been culturated to understand that there are lies that get printed because they've had the experience of growing up and going to the grocery store and looking at seeing if their mom was pregnant and going like, are you pregnant? And then it became a running joke in our family. We know that if everything that we think was true you'd have 13 brothers and sisters. But you don't. They get that. They get that it's dishonest.

But nonetheless, in cases like this, really even with me, it's like I'm like, yeah, well if somebody wants to pile on a movie or something, I'll just come up with it. Yeah, last week, it didn't work. I'm disappointed. I feel bad.

Because I think it's a good opportunity model for them. This is how you deal with disappointment. It's okay. This is not going to end you. It's the end of the world. You look at it. What can I take from it? How do I move on?

You don't lie about it or deny about it, but you also make it the end-all, be-all. But if it's something that could potentially, if they believed it, cause them to start to understand what they know in their home life, if they see their mom and me respecting one another, consulting one another, caring about one another, treating one another well, I can imagine it would be very hurtful to see, oh, that's not what he did. He said something different. Because they know about bullying.

They know about people who talk behind people's backs. They're adolescents. They see that every day. That's exactly what I would never want to model for them, which is why, whether they are aware of it or not, to do that one thing, particularly as you say, like, if you want to be reckless and irresponsible and just chase money and be utterly indifferent to the truth in terms of relative to what it is you report as truthful, really think about whether or not they have children. That's all I would ask. You know, like, at least go that far. Yeah.

To think, is this fair to their kids? Because you know what? I chose this. This line of work. And I didn't think it would be like this, but I knew you know, Sean Penn, Madonna, photographer, I knew that was a possibility that it would come true. But I knew if it did, it was the price that I would pay. So I entered into

that bargain willingly. Children just get bored into a life. They don't ask to be a celebrity's kid they don't ask to be in the fucking have their photograph taken they don't ask to be separated out from their peers even when it's a good thing you know my one of my kids said oh my teacher just you know yeah you know the whole thing in front of the class by a movie and this and that i you know i was like was he what was it was about there's only like the movie but it's just like but it didn't matter i was like don't make me separate from this don't do this to me change

my social life and adults can be really obtuse about that and i can be very sensitive you know because i won uh despite the fact that it's probably an unrealistic expectation it is a expectation my kids have the most normal healthy best life they can and it really really pains me in part because my own father uh at times was not mindful of this or was not able to be because of being an alcoholic so i had times where where i felt embarrassed really you know my old man comes in the basement of the league game and you know start talking to me you know tell me how to pitch and what pitch to throw, except I was playing third base.

And that kind of thing when you're 12 years old. I mean, here I am. I was 50. I remember that, right? Yeah. So I just think, that I'm never going to do. And so for, in effect, somebody to read a very detailed, very clear, in-depth interview,

then I say how much I love my children, respect their mom, and how hard I work at it, and how painful it is when it's mischaracterized. And then to go do precisely that thing, not only put me in the position, in effect, of generating the feeling in my kids that I felt on third base, going, that's not me, I'm not pitching, I'm not pitching,

I'm not pitching, you know, is very, very brave. I'm switching to movies because we got to talk about the new one. But you made two good movies in a row that weren't necessarily successful by normal standards,

but I don't even know what the normal standards are anymore. Like the way back was an excellent movie. I actually thought I, I genuinely, I'm not saying this to suck up to, you know, I wouldn't, I genuinely thought you should have gotten nominated for an Oscar.

I've had a couple of bad ones over the years. I actually thought you had a chance to get nominated for an Oscar. You didn't. But I think that movie really stands up as like a modern sports movie. We've talked about this on this podcast sometimes where there's like the different eras of sports movies, right? And we're now in this era of real movies that happen to be about sports. That movie has this conventional sports movie set up and you win win the big game, and it's like, cool. And then it just goes off a cliff for the next

20 minutes, and it was the most, I think, the most personal movie you probably made. I think you were great in it. It does fine. It doesn't do great because we have a pandemic. There's no movie theater, really, in one week of release for it. Oh, what happened was that was a really interesting movie, and it ties

into the other movies that you're referring to. The exact same thing happened, which is what made me realize the business has totally changed and that I have to change with it. You know, it'll do the kinds of things

I want to do. I love The Way Back. It was very personal to me. Everybody invested in it and believed in it. And I wanted a chance to, just selfishly as an actor I was like this is gonna give me the chance to do something I haven't done before and I think it could be really

personally rewarding and we did it and I could tell already like that the business was changing as it was coming to release it was like people don't want to see a movie about a guy whose kid dies and who descends into you know alcoholism and then tries to find some hope through this basketball it just was too difficult and the people just adults just weren't going to those movies already then it comes out a week later they shut

the theaters yeah it's COVID and I thought like you know of course sort of self pityingly like well this is my luck. Like the movie I really love. And they shut the theaters. But then there's this interesting moment where all of a sudden it's on demand. So it's like, all right, what's this?

We're going to put on streaming in two weeks. So everybody who's captive audience who's sitting at home in lockdown, like what's new, what's on, what haven't you seen? That's the new movie that they just saw an ad for and it's on. And I do think that that was the beginning of this whole day-and-date thing. Like, wait a minute. There's a lot of value to streaming movies, right,

when people are aware of them theatrically. And it did really well. Like, of all my movies, I probably got more sort of just on my empirical, subjective level, like, more emails and texts about people who liked the movie than, you know movies that did your gigantic box office that maybe people don't like those movies but still it was like people clearly saw it and then i thought that this is i'm so much happier that people saw it you know and their td however big it was and it's not like the 11 inch black and white that i had

at my dad's you know it's it's 180 bucks for a 65 inch plastic wall you know you can get pretty good televisions and see them in ways where you can appreciate what's going on and then I just thought like this isn't bad at all I'm really glad people saw it you know and and um when it came to the last duel I did well, maybe this has enough genre stuff, enough big screen stuff with dueling and fighting. And I always viewed that movie similarly to The Town, where you sort of wrap a character story in the candy shell of like, yeah, people are going to bludgeon one another and duel to the death.

And if that's what you want to go to the movies for, you're going to get that because conventional wisdom is like, you got to have action or nobody wants to see it. They're not wrong. You'll get Netflix top 10 movies for all action. But even that, and I understand when a movie is shit, that's not a mystery to me.

I'm like, well, that's obviously news, don't you? But it is, it strikes me, like when they it's good. I know the movie works for audiences. I had screened it for audiences. We had tested it for audiences. We knew

that audiences enjoyed it when they saw it. And so then I was kind of baffled. Like, but very quickly I thought, like, not that, oh, this is so genius and there's no way anyone could not want to see it but it should have been

it should have done better numbers than it did in any other world it would have I've done this enough to know like a movie that works well enough that has that should do better than whatever minuscule numbers it did and it just told me like this audience is done they're never going to

at least for you they want to pause. They want to get up and take a leak three times. They want to finish it tomorrow. You know, they want to be able to stop for dinner. You know, me, I actually do the same thing. Well, like nine years ago, that movie's Gone Girl, right? And it's that adult movie that you go with your, you know, it's a couple's night or whatever it is.

And I don't think Gone Girl would work now either as, as a movie theater experience. Gone Girl, Argo, Accountant, uh, all of the movie streamers. For sure.

None of them are theatrical reasons at all. So the only thing you can do is just make good movies and hope, hope, hope people see them. I don't even know what the option is at this point. No, but the good news, the silver lining is actually, if you look at the numbers in terms of how many movies people are watching, there's much higher. Now, you have to control for the epidemic, obviously, because people are home more.

But still, those numbers have skyrocketed. People are watching, watching, watching, watching. They can't fill the demand they have to get people to see new stuff. So people are watching stuff. You just have to understand that this business has changed since the beginning of time. It was vaudeville. It was silent movies. It was longer silent movies.

It was talkies. It was collar movies. And there was television. It was to destroy the business. And then it was digital. And it's always changed. And it's always required evolution. But what's consistent is that people are interested in storytelling in

particular kind of storytelling. Well, two kinds, one that sort of, you know, I know guys are like, Hey, you know,

I like your movie, but like, you know, I'm like doing HVAC all day. Tired. I don't, I don't want to hear it anymore. I don't want to go home.

I want to go to the theater and see something I just want to see the good guys win and somebody blows them up they got a funny line I can kind of just let go I get that, that's really valid and I've made movies that were trying to do that

I'm not that interested in doing that now as I'm older what I'm interested in is doing the other kind of movies, and the audience for that movie is there. And in fact, the streamers can find them more efficiently because they know what you've watched before, and there is a real commonality to if you like this, you'll like that. That's why the whole genius feature of music, all that stuff works.

Not always. Sometimes you're like, I like this movie too. They're trying to suggest you a new movie. But it's effective and so they email directly that your home screen on Netflix

looks different than mine. Even the poster for a movie, like, they'll use a different poster for maybe, probably you or I would get the same poster,

but like, for somebody who has really different tastes, they'll get a very different poster, maybe with a different cast, maybe with a whole different look. So you do all these shoots and you think like,

well, wait a minute, what movie are we promoting? Because there used to be a unity to the idea of what we were selling. And now it's like we're promoting a bunch of different stuff. It depends who's watching. And so they're good at that. They can find that audience. And I want that audience to see it.

And I think those opportunities are still there. And as long as I can continue to do it well and actually satisfy that audience and have them feel like I'm glad I watched that. And the last duel

then, the silver lining of this is it came out and it was successful on streaming. And ironically, one of the big metrics is like,

was it the number one pirated movie? Which you can evidently find out. We won that. I don't know if they sent you a prize for that. So what do you expect for The Tender Bar? Because really well-reviewed.

It's really good. What is that movie now in December during a pandemic when people don't go to the theater? I feel like people will see it. I think some people will, but I don't know how many screens it's on. I know that, just broadly speaking, Amazon's not in the theatrical movie business.

Amazon's in the business of, like, we got everybody's homepage. We sell them fridges. We sell them, you know, we have books. Amazon now, you look at their market cap before the pandemic and after the pandemic, it's astonishing. Amazon, Apple, and Netflix. If you just Google their market capitalization, look at the graph, 2019, it's like a rocket ship. Companies don't just go 5x in value, 10x in value in three years, especially ones that are already worth $200 billion. So to get that kind of growth for those kind of companies

is a seismic event in the sort of corporate Wall Street world. And I think the way that Amazon has been successful is by recognizing, oh, we don't have to do books. We can do books and records. We can do books and... And then they just started going, well, why is there everything? And it was

everything. And then once it was the pandemic, that was just the way we got stuff because you weren't supposed to meet or touch other humans. And so I think they like movies. They like being in the movie business. But I suspect if you looked at a pie chart of their revenue,

it would be like, you wouldn't be able to see it. It would be a blip. Yeah. Yeah, you wouldn't be able to see it. And so they go, hey, we got these home screens. We have people already. Might as well show

movies too and see if we can add to our bottom line in that way. So they're the most sort of not detached, but they're the best example of a business that was doing something totally different that then says, let's

add this too. And as such, I think most of what they're interested in is just, does it bring us, do people use Prime? Do they upgrade to Prime? Does it bring, I don't even think they're in the new subscribers business because I don't think there's any new subscribers left. Netflix just doesn't.

And they used to just mail out DVDs. There's a company that would mail you a DVD. And David Fincher did House of Lies. All of a sudden, I was like, well, they have their own shows. Maybe I should have or subscribe to Netflix on those merits because then they had transitioned to, yes,

a platform. They were streaming, but they were streaming everybody else's movies. Then, at the same time that everyone else realized, why are we giving them money to stream our movies and started clawing all their movies back? They want to build up their library because they want to establish this brand. So they're also not theatrically oriented,

although they do theatrical releases to things. Sometimes it's qualifying releases. Roma, if it was only on Netflix, wouldn't have won the Oscars. So it needs to be in theaters. And people like me go to theaters. I go see Licorice Pizza in theaters even though that's only in theaters because I want to see Paul's movie.

But the value isn't theatrical for them. I think they view it as kind of an ancillary aspect. So you're going to have a bifurcated theatrical business which consists probably of 40, 45 movies that get released a year that are all intellectual property that you already recognize. They're either heavily branded with their sequels or they're such a concept that they believe kids will see it. So basically, you've already won.

I think you've already won. Who's going to see the movie? I think you've already won. I think the eyeballs are going to be there. And it's've already won. I think the eyeballs are going to be there. And it's a good movie. The eyeballs are going to be there. Tenderbar, I'm totally happy. Amazon's a great platform for that.

Because it would be an incredible hump to try to convince people to come out and theatrically see it on the first weekend and the numbers it would need. But I don't think it'll be difficult at all for Amazon to figure out who's going to like this movie and have enough of them watch it so that according to their calculus it's a profitable movie to have made and as so yeah you went and by the way the thing about streaming is you know their economics are really different because it's about half as expensive

for them to make a movie because they don't have the p&A costs that distribution has, where you're making money for $75 million. Then you got to put another 75 into theatrically releasing it. And if you're not sure the movie works, you got 75 on the line, you know, it's kind of like doubling the six. And you go, I want two things here. And now you got twice as much. And if it only does 40, the theaters keep 20, you know, now you've lost a massive amount of money.

And you don't have that level of risk for streaming, which is why they're able to make stuff more broadly. So yeah, the very short answer, which I'm very bad at, is it's probably good for me. Because the kind of movies I'm going to make are getting made more, and the streamers do a good job of showing them. Why aren't you directing? What's going on with you?

I don't want to be away from my kids. So when does that come back? What is it? Like five years from now? Well, being nine, but my son's nine. Oh,

yes. He got you. My young. It turned out a bunch of stuff that was like, we love it, but you got to shoot it in Bulgaria. Well, okay. You got to love it with someone else because I'm just not doing it.

I've got real comfortable with it. It could be anything. It could be sitting in a cave. It doesn't matter. I'm not leaving for a year. It's too important for my children. It's too important for me. Even if it's Boston or some LA, some Washington, some Turkey, like Argo, I don't really know how to do it well.

I'm not good enough to not spend all day doing it. I got to put in the 15 hours to make sure it's great or at least as good as it can be. And so if I found, if I had like a cool event, I was like, let's do something kind of, you know, something like I did have a movie with Terrence Malick that was a sort of an impressionistic movie, but it was $10 million movie. We actually shot a film. We shot in Oklahoma for five or six weeks. It looked great. Chivo shot it. or Cleo Duvall was like, let's do like a improvisational movie about, you know,

that takes place in kind of one location. We can shoot it in LA for five weeks and we get home by dinner and that kind of thing. I would do that. I would direct that. I was going to say, why don't you do this?

Do the Sandler move where you all go to Hawaii and you film some rom-com in Hawaii for two months. That'd be great. With all the family, that'd be unbelievable. I didn't want to go to Hawaii.

I had my debate. I had my friends. Like, no, I don't want to go to Hawaii. They want to have my debate. I have my friends. Isn't that sad, by the way, when that happens with your kids where all of a sudden they just don't want... I know it's probably happened with your daughter. I know it's happened with mine where it's like, I'm just not in the loop anymore. They don't want to hang out. That's it. It's over.

We got to shoot some ladders. We'll play games. Anybody? No, dad. Yeah. I'm on my phone. Hey, But I like, you know, we got to shoot some ladders. We'll play games. Anybody? No, dad. Yeah. The door's closing. I'm on my phone. Yeah. Hey, you want to take a walk? You want to party?

You want to? No. Close the door, dad. Yeah. Okay, good. Great. Hey, what are you listening to? That song sounds terrific.

That really slaps. Who is that? Oh, my God. You're embarrassing me. Please leave. Okay, I'll leave. You know. Want to come to Starbucks with me to go get photographed? No, thanks, dad. Oh, yeah. You want to come to the premiere? You want to Okay, I'll leave. Want to come to Starbucks with me to go get photographed? No, thanks, Dad.

Oh, yeah. You want to come to the premiere? You want to come look at this? You want to come to the concert? You want to? Uh, no. I'm doing something with me. You talk about ego blows.

There's no bigger ego blow than when your kid suddenly doesn't want to hang out with you all the time. I'm still remembering. Oh, yeah. My kids really thoroughly keep me humble. I gave my daughter the script for The Tender Bar, which I got her to read,

only because she had been such a great consultant on The Last Duel. Because she's so acutely aware of every little nuance and aspect. She's brilliant. She's really aware of all the social, political aspects of not only how might something reasonably interpreted, something that touches on sensitive issues, but how

could somebody characterize something that didn't intend to be that as that. Right. So I actually, nevermind all the consultants. And listen, we worked with Rain and we worked with Gina Davison. So we had a lot of people. But my daughter was incredibly valuable. And it was a lot of people. My daughter was incredibly valuable. And it was a joy for me. I was like, heaven.

I was like, would you read this again? And look at the gender roles issue. And once I said that, she was like, okay, I'll read it. You know, mark it up. And so she got used to reading my stuff. And I said, hey, would you look at this Tenderbrush script? And she read it and she said, well, you're finally playing your fantasy character. Somebody who stands around and lectures children.

They have to listen. I was like, yeah, sort of. I guess that is what I love about it. But it's great. And the thing about having your kids be able to do that shit, it's like I've heard, I know sometimes people take it personally. It's hard not to, but like, it actually is such a healthy, good thing. It's a sign that your kids don't worry about you.

They know you're there for them. No matter what, you're going to stop loving them. They don't have that fraught, fractured, delicate, scary relationship with you. They just know that you're just that. You're just a big oak tree in the backyard. You're going to be there if I want to climb on you. I'm a little old for that now, but, you know, and I can carve my name in you and do whatever I can, stand on your leaves and do whatever I can, and you're going to be there. And I think that's the most healthy, effective way to help kids understand and internalize the voice of the parent, which people really need as they grow older to feel like I have worth.

I can do hard things, you know, not to do the participation trophy and you're good at everything and everything's okay because they know you're lying to them. You know what I mean? My daughter was nine years old. She didn't win a game on her basketball. At the end of the year, they got these trophies and she was sort of frowning. And I said, what's wrong? And she was like, dad, we didn't win any games.

I said, yeah, I know. She know she said i mean so why are we getting trophies this is the winless trophy i was like maybe they give out prizes for being winless that's rare that also doesn't happen that often it's an achievement yeah you did something notable but you know the point is they know they know know when things are good. They know when something's bad. That's why I have to address it. If something comes out on a tablet, I have to stop and go, hey, guys, I know this is bullshit. Here's the story. Here's what happened.

Here's the truth. You can always ask me. You can always ask your mom. You know the world around you is true. You're not always going to know that about the outside world. And to hope that they develop some comfort in that, that's the best I can do for them across the board. All right.

Last thing before we go. Other than Good Will Hunting 2, I think you should start seriously thinking about. So Chuckie and Will, 25, 27 years later. Bill came out to California and ended up on Mast. He's one of those guys playing speed chess at the Santa Monica area. Yeah. Um,

all right. This is this one. That would be a good one. Uh, a drama. All right. This is going to get aggravated. Ready?

I did this with Tom Hanks and people really liked it. Ben Affleck's favorite top three Ben Affleck movies. So I'll set it up again. Ben Affleck's top three favorite Ben Affleck movies. So I'll set it up again. Ben Affleck's top three favorite Ben Affleck movies. What are they right now in 2021? Do I star in a drug? Doesn't matter. Oh, that's interesting.

I think it can be either. Let's say either. Okay. Gone Baby Gone, The Town, Good Will. I swear to God, that's my three. Are we matched? Where's Bob Eubanks, that's my three. Are we matched? Where's Bob Eubanks? Are we like brothers?

Are we connected? That's the three. I think The Town has had an unbelievable kind of run since it came out because of cable and streaming. And you know it's true because it's always on. It'll pop on Netflix. All of a sudden, it's because it's always on. It'll pop on Netflix. All of a sudden, it's there. New on Netflix.

It'll be on Cinemax. It'll be on HBO. It just keeps going. It's not going to stop. I remember when it came out, another director said about that movie, like, no one's going to talk about this movie in 10 years. And I felt hurt by that because I thought,

hey, we're not supposed to put each other down on some level. And the irony was, I mean, it's got to be 10 years later. Here we are talking about it. I mean, granted, it's me talking, but still. The experience I had making them were the most rewarding. What was the Gone Girl experience? I don't know that story.

Gone Baby Gone. Gone Baby Gone. I have Gone Girls, my three. I screwed that up. Gone Baby Gone. Oh, Gone Baby Gone. Oh, I have Gone Girls, my three. I screwed that up. Gone Baby Gone. Well, that was the one where you realized if I'm making a Boston movie, I got to use the locals.

They have to be involved. Yeah. And more real than Good Wanted, which did elide certain elements of Boston, which we thought we had to in order to make it. And I felt like Gone Baby Gone was more, maybe not better, but was more honest. I think that's fifth for me.

Gone Baby. If I'm on your list, I'll tell you. Gone Girl 3. I think The Way Back is four for me. Way Back's up there for me for sure. You know what? I love the last two. I really love the last two. I haven't seen that enough times yet.

I need like three, four more viewings. I feel like that was one that we got under just a little bit. I think if we had gotten all of it, we could have driven the ball 450 feet. I feel like we got to the track. You know what I mean? In some ways. Maybe it's squeaked. It depends on what you ask.

In some parts it's out. Yeah, exactly. In Fenway, it's off the monster for sure. You know what I mean? For sure. I don't know where we're playing, which by that I mean who's watching it. I know we got a hold of it. I do also know we just got a hair under it for reasons I'm not going to go into. But those are the heartbreakers. It's not like, okay, guy fools me. I was looking fastball.

Throw them in a beautiful curveball. Bang, strike three. You see guys do it. Throw the bat. They know they're out. Okay, you beat me. But when you have that shot, you get the pitch to hit. You look fastball, inside part of the plate.

You gear up, turn on it, and it's like, I knew it. I got it. It's a third of an inch lower on the ball. That's Jim Rice in the 1978 Yankee playoff game in the late innings.

Just a bomb. It seemed like it was out, but of course it wasn't because the Yankees, we could never have good things against the Yankees for years. That fact about sports is actually the most relevant to the PED issue because if you're going to get a 10 or 15% boost, that's going to make the difference in those moments, which is quite significant.

You know, every time you hit the ball, there's a lot of fly balls that come 10 feet short of the warning or hit on the warning track. And if you got a 10% bump, it's gone. Now think of the difference between that. So does this mean you and Damon are going to do more stuff before we go? You wrote Last Duel and you got it going. We were like, why have we not been doing this the whole time we had the wrong idea this is so stupid we were out there chasing this thing that gets

successful do our thing whatever and there's nothing there doesn't matter how many movies you didn't make you happy doesn't matter what people say about it or if you get trophies or if you don't in the box none of that shit makes you happy the only thing that makes you happy is spending time with people you love principally your kids loving them loving your family being a good person and when you go to work if you work with people you like it makes such a bigger difference in your life than whether or not you kind of what go around with your crew jacket on and impress people because like hey i did this movie like fuck that you know what i mean it doesn't do anything for you. Except to the ugly narcissist part of people that

wants everyone to love and admire them, which is just a miserable, shitty character attribute that makes you unhappy. You should write a 30-year college reunion movie with Matt. Just hole up. Just write it out. Eight, nine characters. You can film it in five weeks.

Cheap costs. Everybody takes smaller salaries because they just want to be a part of it. Just bang it out. I'm going to say right now you can get nothing. You want storyback credit? We're going to negotiate right now. Storyback credit is great. Yeah, I want to start a

$200 Dunkin' Donuts gift card. I'm good. Done. Done. That's a good idea. I know. Just do it. Just hole up with them and write it. All right. Ben Affleck, good luck with the Tender Bar.

It was good to see you. So it's always the best, whether or not, whatever they say about our interview, the interview itself is always a pleasure. I think this, hopefully this one won't get aggregated in a terrible way. I think we did it. I think we navigated it correctly, but we'll see. I mean, who knows? Maybe. I'm sure somebody hopefully this one won't get aggregated in a terrible way. I think we did it. I think we navigated it correctly, but we'll see. I mean, who knows? I'm sure somebody, I don't know,

I'm talking about being drunk. You can find something, but you know what? We have the interview recorded for the posterity if you're really interested. Welcome to watch it. I had a good time. All right. Good to see you. Take care, bro. Thanks to Ben Affleck and Peter Schrager thanks to

Kyle Creighton our producer for this episode and thanks to everybody who spread the word for season one of Music Box don't forget

Juice WRLD Into the Abyss the last film of our six film series HBO 8pm Thursday night and available on

HBO Max as well have a great weekend go Pats see you Sunday.