The Bill Simmons Podcast - Chuck Klosterman on Baker Mayfield, Philip Rivers, the Clinton Affair, Trump vs. Goodell, and Much More | The Bill Simmons Podcast (Ep. 457)

Episode Date: December 19, 2018

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Chuck Klosterman to talk Amazon and Netflix growth, changing football, the NFL rookie class, outrage culture, the next great athlete commentator, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Broke It Down, Maché Serrano, Chris Ryan. That is up. We have one more Rewatchables coming next week. It is Tombstone. It's coming probably Christmas Eve. And then speaking of the Ringer Podcast Network, I hope you're checking out all the stuff we have. Ryan Rosillo's show, JJ Redick, One Shining Podcast, Ringer NFL, Ringer NBA, a bunch of sports stuff, our Oscars show, TV, The Watch.

We have 25 podcasts. I can't name all of them. But check all those out. And then finally, theringer.com. I have a piece coming this week. Yeah. It's an NBA trade value piece. Oh, yeah.

And there's a wrinkle this year. It's going to be a living, breathing list is how it's going to play out. It is going to be updated probably once a month during the season. I wrote a huge intro for it, did all the honorable mention guys, and then laid out the top 55 is how we did this. Did not write about the top 55 guys.

I'm going to be doing that next month. I promise. I swear on my kids. But there's more than enough content in this for you today. And then we're trying to hope that this becomes something we update month to month. It's funny. I almost had this up before Thanksgiving, and that list was different than this list.

For instance, Luka Doncic, he climbed a couple spots. I'll leave it at that. A couple guys fell out of the top 55. A couple guys I was just horrified by and just cut out of the honorable mention entirely. But I like the idea of the list ebbing and flowing depending on the month. So anyway, that is on theringer.com, middle of the week. I think it's Wednesday. It might be Thursday.

I can't remember. But yeah, be on the lookout for that. All right. Let's get to Chuck Klosterman. But first, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right. It is the end of 2018 or close. We're heading into holiday season. Who better to call than the ringers real life Santa Claus,

Chuck Klosterman, uh, 2018 wrapping up. What are you going to remember about 2018? Hmm. Well, Laverne DeFazio just died. Did you see that?

Yeah Penny Marshall Penny Marshall Like died Well she didn't die A half hour ago But it was just reported A half hour ago Yeah

Although I doubt That will be my singular Memory of 2018 Yeah I don't think It will either I don't know I don't know What will you remember

About this year? Oh I love when you Freaking flip it on me Well No It's just that My thing is like I finished a book No, I don't know. What will you remember about this year? Oh, I love when you freaking flip it on me. Well, no, it's just that my thing is like, I finished a book this year. That's probably what I'll remember. I remember more about my own life than the world at large.

Oh, that's an interesting way to put it. Yeah, I think I was thinking more for non-personal stuff. But yeah, I guess the default is you first remember, you know, things that happened in your own life and some of the places you went and all that stuff. But yeah, I guess the default is you first remember things that happened in your own life and some of the places you went and all that stuff. I was thinking more like from... Go ahead. I was just saying from a political standpoint, I think it's easy

to, you know, whatever side you're on, you're going to remember 2018 the way you want. But from like a pop culture side, this really felt like the year that streaming started to kind of overpower everything else. And I think that would be one of the first things I remember. The music year was really all over the map in a lot of different ways. And some of the personalities we had either gained steam or lost their minds.

And why do you think, why do you feel like streaming took over this year? I feel like, I mean, I haven't had, I haven't had a DVD player for like five years. Yeah. I don't have, I don't have anywhere like my computer doesn't have a CD drive on it.

So I feel like streaming has been sort of dominant for a while now, hasn't it? Yeah, I agree with that. I, I just meant more from Netflix is starting to Netflix and

Amazon are really just starting to figure it out in a lot of different ways. Some of the stuff Netflix did this year from a hiring standpoint, I was really fascinated by. Netflix just said, oh, we're competing against Disney. We're just going to take a lot of your best executives and a lot of the best people

who made diversity possible at your company. We're just going to take all of them. We're going to quintuple pay whatever they're making, and now we have them. And it was some Game of Thrones shit that, you know, we've heard these different rumors and whispers about what they may be up to, that they're building an animation studio.

They're taking all this space in Hollywood. And just in the last two years, it really seems like them and Amazon specifically, and Apple to some degree too, because Apple's starting to make these content deals too. We're just like, oh. Well, you are quite the media insider here. I know, listen.

You're following all the business chess moves. I was just going to say, I like that on Netflix now, movies that are in theaters are sometimes at home the same day. I like that. Well, that's happening too. I like watching the Coen Brothers movie.

Yeah, that's like the Coen Brothers movie. That was great to watch immediately. I didn't know about these. Hired. Well, so what's really going on is, you're right, streaming's been around for a few years and they had a lead and they didn't really know how to do with it. And now they're like,

you know what we should do is just spend our resources on the best possible people who either create content or can find the people who create content. And we'll do that. Plus we have this algorithm now that over the last five years, we have all this data on what people like to watch and we're going to steer content toward those people. I've talked about in the podcast before, but the, you know, a lot of the movies that you see on Netflix are, you know, in these different kinds of genres, right? There's like these, they have horror movies left and right. They have these movies for teens. They have rom-coms. There's certainly a formula movies about all kinds of content about dogs.

Like they actually had a documentary series called dogs, which was six episodes about people, their dogs, father-in-law and mother-in-law loved it. They were like, you've got to watch this. Yeah. Make you love dogs.

Um, it's smart. So like now, like, like for now, are we going to start saying things like horror, horror content and dog content? Like if we're going to start using content at the end,

instead of using like movies and, and well, we just use content now. Yeah. Content. Listen to the new content. It is content. May,

might be the word of 2018. You're right. I hear people using it. It's like, oh, I can't wait until the new Radiohead content comes out or whatever. Here's something about 2018. I was glad you texted me a day

and asked me if I wanted to do this. I'm glad you did because something has been bothering me. I feel like very often in this world of podcasting, particularly kind of in the take culture of podcasting. Yeah. You'll make all these takes,

right? And then when they, when they're proven, right, they'll bring it up like 15 more times in the future, but they don't bring it up when they're wrong. And I just feel like I gotta say, I was totally wrong about maker Baker Mayfield.

I was just, I was completely wrong. The, I, in retrospect, the idea of moving him to wing back does seem like an insane thing that I thought should happen

we had that conversation you recall we talked about the Tiger Woods book and then we talked about all the quarterbacks coming out and we were both really down on him I was just totally wrong about that

although I guess down on him. You know? Yeah. I'm asked. I was just totally wrong about that. It was, he was, uh, although, you know, I guess the, uh, I guess you could argue he's only the second best rookie quarterback this year after the guy from Southern Mississippi,

but you know, right. The, uh, I was wrong. I realized that immediately and, and couldn't have backtracked any faster. It just seemed crazy to me that he was going to go first.

And then you watch him a couple of times and he's still raw. He's a rookie. He's had ups and he's had downs. And I think he had a crazy coaching situation. He doesn't have a lot of weapons, but there's enough there that you can kind of tell. I got to say Darnold, who I was lukewarm on and he felt Matthew Stafford-y to me, against

the Texans was the first time where I kind of saw the ceiling a little bit. And you start to wonder what he's going to look like if they actually put real weapons around him, you know? Well, actually, the first game Darnold played against Detroit, it was like, ah, he threw that pick on the first throw and that was great the whole way, the whole rest of the way. It was like, you know, maybe he'll be good, but then he kind of disappeared. In truth, a lot of these rookie quarterbacks have seemed pretty good this year. I mean, in different ways.

I mean, like Josh Allen, he's a really intriguing runner. I really enjoy watching him run the ball. Really, I never would have guessed that he was that athletic. Lamar Jackson, it's odd. They're better with him in there. Even though he has some limitations

in terms of accuracy, not a lot, and he just makes them a much more interesting team. Obviously, Mayfield is good. It is, by the way. Who is forgetting? Colin Coward, who I really like. I had heard him maybe five weeks ago talking,

four or five weeks ago, talking about Lamar Jackson as fool's gold and Tim Tebow. And we did this and it's not going to happen. And then I heard him yesterday on the radio being like, Lamar Jackson's looking good. And I just remembered it because I'd heard two different takes and I've been in that position before where you're just wrong on somebody. But I almost feel like there needs to be a word for these people

who have to give takes all the time where they're just, as they're giving the take that crosses off the take they had had four months ago, you just say some word like, like silver nugget. And people just know that you're, you're aware that you screwed this up initially. I don't know what pineapple, whatever.

I don't know what the word would be. Oh, you want a word for the mistaken take? Yeah. It's job itself. Yeah. Instead of a safe word, it's a take word.

You're just like, Hey, you know, Lamar Jackson, like cowardly, like Lamar Jackson looks awesome pineapple, but here's the thing. And then he just goes in and he's acknowledging that he was wrong. And that's it. I think that would work. Yeah. Well, I just, I feel like this is, I mean, I'm wrong about lots of things, but I was obviously wrong about this. He looks like he's just, you know, and you know, now I'm going to be wrong again because

I've been talking all year about how I just like, like, I just do not think Oklahoma is one of the four best teams in the country. I think they should not be in the playoffs. And I've said this so many times, so many people now, like they'll probably beat Alabama, but it just to me doesn't seem like they have any hope whatsoever in that game. You know, they could score 30 points, but they're going to give up 68. It's just that I think the Big 12 is so bizarre now. But Murray is a real fun guy to watch, you know,

and I guess it's good that he's in the playoffs just to watch him play at least one more time. I can't remember if we ever talked about this, but I have a buddy, my, my buddy, Steve Bishop, one of my best friends from high school and my friend for more than 30 years at this point,

his favorite thing was when somebody was equally had pad potential in two different sports. Like he used to love Ronald Curry the most. Remember Ronald Curry was the NC quarterback but could also be the point guard on their basketball team. We were so blown away that somebody could do that. Bo Jackson was obviously the ultimate.

It's so rare to have these two guys that are in this fork in the road moment where they could go either way and be really good because it seems like Murray could play baseball if he wanted to and, and be good at it. I enjoy that. It looks like he's going to play baseball.

I mean, the thing is he is in a little complicated position because he's a quarterback. So it'd be real difficult for him to play baseball and then play football the way bill jackson did right because you can't it just he'd miss too much he missed too much um like if if he played a different position and he's you know and he obviously could play many positions so maybe he could you know attempt this there's a lot i mean he could be there's many things he

could do well um but i don't see how you could be a quarterback showing up in October. It just doesn't seem possible. It's like a special level of athletic ability when somebody, you know, and I really think like I remember talking to Abby Wambach about this once, you know, who ended up being the best striker in the history of U.S. women's soccer and is one of a kind player. But she could have played any sport. If she had just gone toward basketball, she would have been great at basketball.

And there's certain people that are just at a whole other level than anyone else. And then you see it with baseball where, like my son is on a travel team and we have these kids on the team who have been playing since they were four. But the reality is there's some athlete out there that can just pick up baseball at age 16 and be awesome at it immediately. It's just like final level of athlete. And I always enjoy when somebody has the ability, like it'd be cool if Zion Williamson was also like a scratch golfer.

It could just be like, Oh yeah. It was Zion Williamson played golf. He would revolutionize it, but he's going to do this basketball thing. It said, I like when people have choices at like age 19, like that at that level.

Yeah. You know, it, it, it's, it is like you're free or what your friend is intrigued by. It is, it is really cool.

Like, like in Charlie Ward, I remember when he decided to play in the NBA, my initial thought was like, he's just going to be a shutdown guard because he's going to be so much physically stronger than everyone based on the fact that he played football. These are weird stories. Have you? Yeah.

Well, I was going to say, Charlie is a great example. Because Charlie, didn't he win the Heisman? I think he did. He did. And then he went to the Knicks and was, you know,

had some moments on the Knicks. He got paid a couple times. I remember he had one really lucrative contract. I think he played 10 years. Yeah. And I remember he had a contract that was expensive

and tough to trade at one point. So, it was probably the right move. Like, if he had played football, I don't know how well he would have done. So it was probably the right move. Like if he had played football, I don't know. I don't know how well he would have done.

Maybe it would have been a backup. Maybe he could have been a starter on a lousy team or whatever, but the basketball thing was the right move. Yeah. Anyway, I interrupted you. Oh, I have a,

I went to the, uh, went to the blazers and, uh, Raptors the other night. And, uh, you know,

I'm kind of watching the blazers a little bit because I'm here. Do you know the backstory on how this guy, Yusuf Norkic, got into the NBA? Yeah, Yusuf Norkic. Yes. Yeah. It's amazing. That story's amazing.

Why don't you tell the story? Because he's the world's most interesting NBA player. Well, okay. And if I get anything wrong, because I kind of heard the story. I kind of like half heard it and I was like, what? He's like from like Bosnia or whatever. And

apparently there was this guy in the United States who wanted to like, I don't know, be an agent or something. And he's just kind of reading on the internet. And he reads this story about this small Bosnian town that has a huge cop. Like, the town has a seven-foot cop. Right.

So this guy calls the cop and says, hey, this is a weird question. Do you have any kids? And he's like, yeah, I got a 14-year-old kid or whatever, 15-year-old kid. And they're like, does he play basketball? And the guy's like, I don't know, maybe. And then they decide, I'm coming over there. And this guy goes over there, finds this kid, gets him playing basketball, and now he's in the NBA, and that guy is his agent. So it sounds like that agent really paid his dues.

Yeah. So he was seven feet tall. His dad's name is, it's H-A-R-I-Z. I don't know how you pronounce it. Maybe Hariz Nurkic, a police officer in Bosnia, seven feet tall, 400 pounds. And then allegedly that's what happened. And he was like this famous, like badass, like this famous badass, almost like a villain in Taken, but he's on the good side because he was a cop.

And yeah, I mean, you're right. That's probably since Hakeem Olajuwon. I still think Hakeem Olajuwon's the most incredible success story in the NBA. This is probably second, I would say. Well, I mean, Olajuwon's the greatest success story. I mean, Manute Bull too, because I mean, Elijah won the greatest success story. I mean, Manute Bull, too, because, I mean, he really came from nothing. You know, it's like, you know, it was like it was, you know, and I just find it amazing that, like, you know, very often it's like I don't really trust agents.

I don't really like the idea of sports agents, you know, like they're kind of glomming onto these guys, but like I, this guy, he's fine. If that's what he's doing, if he's reading the internet, looking for tall cops in order to find NBA players, that's a,

it seems like he, he invested his time. It does sound like a bad sports movie that somebody would write the script, but it never actually gets made. You know, like that Kevin Bacon movie. What was that? The air up there where Kevin Bacon goes to Africa to find whatever. And this would be like, this guy reads the story.

You'd have the seven foot, 400 pound bouncer and you'd do the whole thing. And nobody would believe it. I think the thing with Hakeem that I was always amazed by and I've written about it, but just that he played soccer in Nigeria and was able to develop this crazy footwork. And then just because he grew to a certain point, they were like, you should try basketball. And he just goes into basketball with this crazy,

you know, once in a generation footwork that he had just for this completely bizarre reason that was just never happened now. You know, I don a generation footwork that he had just for this completely bizarre reason. That would just never happen now. You know, I don't see any scenario where. Well, didn't that kind of happen with Embiid? I guess. But I think.

He was playing basketball until late in his life. And he's very similar in terms of how the degree when Embiid was at Kansas. I thought to myself, he'll play in the NBA. He'll be like a rim protector. Yeah. He might be able to, you know. I would have had, I would have never guessed

that he would be the best offensive center in the league, which he clearly is right now. Yeah, the only thing is they had the Beyond Borders program at that point, and that's how they found Embiid. So it was actually easier

to target somebody like that. When Hakeem was playing, all of it was just a fluke. Nobody was looking for players in Nigeria. And I guess Abaka's story is pretty crazy too. We told that story in a documentary, just like how he came out of the Congo and had to live different. Now there's more.

I mean, this guy, Pascal Siakam on Toronto is really good. He's another one. He's from Cameroon. And, you know, this is when we had Masai Uhairi on the podcast last year, this is like his passion is to find more and more of these guys who, you know, he's so convinced that more and more of them are out there that, you know, the stuff's going to be in place. Now the streaming of the games is probably going to get to Africa

at some point and all the different, the bigger hubs and who knows. I don't know. 20 years, you could tell me basketball players that the league would be 50% American players and 50% elsewhere, and I would believe it, right? I mean, it does seem at some point there's going to be a lot of chinese players in the nba kind of dictates that has to happen at some point but you know the world is a big place bill and this is good i wanted to ask you something okay so i was recently in australia yeah okay and an interesting thing happened it just just kind of proved the cliche

that Americans just do not know about anything in the world except what's happening in America. I feel like I followed sports relatively closely. What do you know about the Melbourne Cup? Hey, let's talk about Microsoft Surface. If you need a device that helps you get stuff done but is also perfect when you want to catch up on some fun, like streaming live sports or checking on your fantasy team, check out the

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slash BS. What is it? Okay, so I'm in, I'm in Australia for this thing called the festival of dangerous ideas. So I, I, I fly over there, you know, super long flight. I have an event on Saturday. I'm off Sunday, but over there, Sunday is our Saturday. So I go to this, I find this casino nearby, and I watch college football there. And then Monday, of course, is Sunday, so the NFL games are on. But Tuesday is my last day there, and I'm flying back. I get up and go down into my hotel, you know, walk through, kind of the bar is there. And it's like 10 in the morning, and the bar is filled with people just dressed insane. Okay. Dressed like they're like going to some gala in 1925. Okay. And I'm like, what's, what's going on? You know, it's like, why, why are they all waiting, milling around in this bar? Why is this bar bringing in five TVs?

I walk outside. No one's working in Sydney, okay? I'm not even in Melbourne. I'm in Sydney. Nobody seems to be working. They all seem to be milling around, drinking at noon, you know? And they're all getting ready for the Melbourne Cup, which is a thoroughbred horse race on a grass track. It happens at 3 o'clock.

But the entire country seems to shut down. Apparently in Melbourne, the only people who have to work are people who work in bars. Everybody gets the... It's like a combination of the Kentucky Derby and the Super Bowl

and Memorial Day. Because nobody's doing anything. And the entire country watches this horse race. And I don't even know if this is possible, but I heard like three people say it between noon and three o'clock on that day in the country, there are 3000 bets placed on this horse race every second. Jesus.

Is that even possible? But it's like, it's all P and like, I had never, I never knew this thing. And like, there's this, there's this Australian author who they kind of think like some people think

will be like, like the next major author, his name is Gerald Murnane. He's this old guy. He works as a bartender. He doesn't use the internet he's like a recluse sort of or not really a recluse but likes to stay there the public eye but he's obsessed with memory and one of his claim to fame or claims to fame is that he can recite every

winner of the melbourne cup in history in, and the race started in 1861. Oh, my God. It's a crazy thing. It's like Rain Man. I know before, like, yes, yeah, that's like his thing. He's obsessed with memorizing things. I want to memorize. But it was just bizarre to experience something that I had never heard about

that appears to be the single biggest sporting day in an entire country. It just is weird. I can't believe I'd never asked other people when I got back to the United States, what do you know about the Melbourne cup? They all did the same thing you did. They were like, is that like Australian rules football? I don't know. I would have thought that too. So what you just described is yet another reason to love Australia.

I love Australia. I haven't gone there yet, but I know I would like it. Yeah. I just, I, I think it's, I've liked everybody I've met from there. It's just seems super fun. Everybody's kind of, I don't know. They have a nice spirit about them, but what you described, that was basically, that's what Massachusetts people have with Patriots Day, where we get the day off when they run the marathon. And it's a special holiday just for people in Massachusetts and really in the Boston area. But I always wondered why more cities didn't do that because it becomes this great day that everybody looks forward to. And, you know, it's a three day weekend and it's like unique to people who live there. And you would just think like San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, all these

different places would just want their own version of that day. Cause it's really cool. You can't just, you can't just do those things though. I mean, it's like when stores try to be like, oh, Christmas in July or whatever. I'm sure they would think it would be great if we could convince people to have a second Christmas in the summer. But you just can't decide. Traditions have to be traditional. They have to come organically,

and they have to be around a long time. Well, what if they decided in L.A. that the first Dodgers home game was just a holiday in LA? Would that work? Who decides? I don't know. Who would be the they deciding? The people who run California.

The governor. It'd be a good move. That should be part of somebody's election push. It's like, hey, if you vote for me, you get a day off during the Dodgers home game. We had somebody here, you know Jerry Brown, who famously was

40 years ago was doing this and then circled back. He squashed, they wanted to... Yeah, he used to date Linda Romsfeld. That was, he became famous for that. He squashed, there was this big push to extend last call in LA till four in the morning. And everybody was excited about it, including some of the degenerates who worked for the ringer.

And Jerry Brown, who's like in his seventies at this point, squashed it. And people were really mad about it. And I was like, why squash that? Wouldn't you want to garner favor with your younger voters to extend the last call? Plus Nephew Kyle.

His last call in LA if it was 4 o'clock. Is that a good thing or a bad thing for you? I'd probably roll out around 3. Is that good for your health long term? I feel like 2 is too early sometimes. That's how I feel. They do this with all-star weekends too

where you'd be like, I remember in Dallas one year, it just shut down at like 1.45. So you have all these people come to celebrate a weekend in your city and then you're basically, they have dinner and then you're telling them they drink for an hour and they have to go back to their hotel room. I don't know. Things should be more fun, Chuck. It's four o'clock in New York and that does really change

the culture, the drinking culture, when you can stay somewhere to four. Whereas like when I was growing up in North Dakota, it was one. So There was this whole kind of culture of going to people's houses after the bar. But you could also buy off-sale at the bar. You could go up just to the bar and buy a bottle of Jack Daniels or whatever and go home. In the Uber generation, the Uber Lyft generation, it seems like the DWI stuff would be mitigated a little bit, but maybe I'd be naive. Oh, it's got to be. Yeah.

I just, I can't imagine why, like, if you're driving drunk now, man, you're really like, you don't care. Because it's like, it wasn't, you because you not just say like you know when it was there used to be the problem it's like well i got my car out of the bar now i gotta get my car home right like that was always the big deal like i had i mean i will admit i drove drunk hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times and part of i mean stupidly i can't believe i never got a dui or never killed anyone or myself but part of the reason was like i had to get my car home like i can't leave my car at this place but now if you could have a car take you to the bar and back and it's real easy

like you know in most cities getting a taxi is kind of complicated like you know you have to call and all these things you don't know how long it will take to get there, but that's not how it is now. I also had a lot of drinking and driving moments that I regret. And the thing is, there was no education for it 30 years ago. And it was, I mean, so many things were different about 30 years ago. This could be a 19-hour podcast. What was the lack of education? You're like, Oh, maybe I'm driving better. No, it's just, it wasn't, it wasn't really discouraged like this.

Like you might, your, your goal was to not get a DWI. You never, you never really thought about the moral consequences or holy shit, I could kill myself or somebody else. The goal is the only thing I thought about was avoiding the police. That was the only thing. The goal is to get your car home. Every group of friends had, especially in college, there was always

the one friend who was always the best at driving after having a few. That was the one who drove. I just look back now and it's fucking crazy. This was only 30 years ago. It it was all been like 300 years ago, you know, but we didn't know any better. And I think, well, you know, I have like my brothers and sisters who are like 18, 17,

16 years older than me when they were young, they told me a DUI was 60 bucks. That was it. Right. You would just pay a $60 fine. Yeah. I, I had two experiences in the mid nineties that are fork in the road moments for me and both when drinking and driving. And I look back now, I'm like, God, I was such a fucking idiot. I can't believe I did that. But you know, when you're young and especially when the era is, you know, not do it, not accentuating certain things. Now there's commercials left and right. There's a real warranted fear of all of it.

But I look back at the late 80s, early 90s, and I'm like, God, why didn't we know any of this stuff? It was really nuts. I talk about this with my college roommates all the time. We're always amazed by how stupid everything was back then. But now it seems like it's better. Now I wonder if it's shifting too far the other way where people are just going to be too wary and too cautious about everything. I'm not talking about drinking and driving, but just in general, there's just such a fear now of

saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing, crossing some sort of line that you don't know if you crossed it or not. And just how this is going to affect everybody going forward. I'm, I'm curious. Well, it is, it is an interesting combination of things that have happened is that there, people are more public about their life, but the penalty, like the social penalty for making a mistake, uh, has increased. I don't know if those things are, if those things are sort of like a, if they happen kind of in orchestra or if this is just kind of like an unexpected consequence

of two things happening at once but um you know it would be uh it wasn't that long ago where like say a high profile person got a dui like let's say there's somebody out there who uh there's just a large you know group of people who dislike the person somebody kind of you know in like a skip bayless role or whatever if skip bayless were to get a dy people would never let him forget it yeah like they would they would bring it up every day for the rest of his life uh yeah it's i think it's like a real it's just real dangerous like if you don't if you're if you're in a position where you have a lot of people who have this pre-existing issue with you or have a serial relationship with you

a mistake like that just would never end yeah and it's weird because at the same time people are more sympathetic than ever to certain things right like I think we're more sympathetic than ever to battles with sexual identity to we're more sympathetic than ever to

struggles with mental illness you know these are things that nobody gave a shit about 10 years ago and now people do care about and they should care about it but so at the same time, we have that stuff. But then if somebody makes a mistake, the pile on aspect of it, if it's a preventable mistake, the pile on aspect to it is the scariest it's ever been. I think Twitter now, you know, and Twitter can be deceiving because if it's 500 people coming at you, it can feel like 500 million, you know, and it can feel like a hurricane and it's not. But at the same time, I do think it makes, it's just kind of scary.

You know, you make a mistake and whether you say something the wrong way or you wrote a piece and you put a line in there you shouldn't have put in or whatever. And it's like, fuck, people come at you left and right. And I think for younger writers and younger podcast people or younger people who are on TV or whatever, there's really no margin of error anymore. And that's pretty scary that you can't just say, oh, I said that wrong. I apologize. I learned my lesson. I'm better for it now. It can't just be over at that point, you know?

Yeah, that is, you know, but then there's also like, okay, so I don't know what percentage of the country is on Twitter. At one point they used to say 11%, and then maybe now it's 14% or something. I don't really know. But it's a hundred percent of people in the media so when something like that is happening on twitter when an event is happening on twitter it's almost everybody who works in the traditional media because they use twitter to promote themselves for the most part is like uh it seems as though they all know about this and that this is a central thing. And then there's this whole percentage of people who don't find out about it

until like something becomes so controversial, it spills over CNN or USA Today or whatever, you know? And I don't know what their feelings are about these things we're talking about. I mean, it is possible that when these things explode on social media and just seems like someone is being crucified or, you know, then I wonder if there's a large percentage of the country who a comeback that the same people who were kind of part of the crucifixion group they're like how is this person already back like how how you know how is they've only been away for a year or whatever how are they let back in and i wonder if it's because the majority of people never thought it was a problem to begin with they were like oh i didn't see that person for a while. Well, and the other thing is, this seems to be a social media thing, but people move from one thing they're fired up about to the next thing.

So if you happen to be the thing that day that everybody's upset about, you take your 24-hour beating, basically. And then it's like, oh, there's something else. Let's go over here. And it's just like, it's that whole outrage culture that we've talked about on the podcast before. It's worse than ever. There's no question.

And I look at whether you're for the Trump presidency or against it. I think the outrage culture has really worked against it, the people who are the opponents of Trump. Because when you're outraged by everything, and then you have somebody in the White House who you really find outrageous, it's hard to have that same impact with your words and your actions when you've also overreacted to all these other things. And I don't know, there seems like there should be a middle balance. Well, it also sort of validates his argument, which is that he's being persecuted unjustly because, you know, he and then his supporters basically look at him and say, like, well, the entire world is against him. And it's incredibly easy to to find evidence that they are, you know, if that's what you want to believe.

It's incredibly easy to create this silo where it appears as the only thing that's happening to him. It's criticism. I'm curious now. It's 2018. Maybe we're kind of jumping the gun on this, but what percentage would you put on the likelihood of Trump's reelection today prior to Christmas 2018? I mean, I think he could absolutely get reelected. The question is whether he gets impeached or he has to resign before then.

But the bar is... I don't think that's going to happen. The bar is so low to get reelected now. What do you need, like 37% of your votes now or something? What is it? It's a much lower number than it used to be. Three times the popular vote? Yeah. Well, I mean, there are ways you could work it where you could probably, I would be interested

to see what's the lowest percentage of the popular vote you could get and still become president. I bet it's incredibly low now. But I'm just, would you place the odds above or below 40%? I would say 55%. 55%. That he gets reelected, yeah. But I mean, what he did was something that we've never really fully seen a politician do on the national stage is just to basically quadruple down on his base

and screw everybody else. And I got to say, it reminds me a little of how Goodell has run the NFL. Where Goodell is just like, I'm quadrupling down on my base, which are my 32 NFL owners and screw everybody else.

I don't care. I'm not here. I'm not here. I'm not here to make you happier about being a football fan. I'm not here for the players. I am not here to be a judge for certain incidents that we have that are unseemly. I'll contradict myself and I'll contradict rulings that I did in the past. And I don't care what you think.

All I care about is that these 32 guys are happy with the job I'm doing. And that's it. I'll take all the bullets for them. And that's my base. And so we've seen it where the, all the stuff Trump's done in the last two years, we've seen it with, you know, in football this whole decade.

Am I crazy? Or is that accurate? Well, you know, I guess, okay. It's not crazy. Let me close this edge. Is Goodell's base the third-year owners? Or is Goodell's base, as he would see it, the people who love football solely as a sport?

And that the only thing that matters to, and I would say this is probably the majority of people who consistently watch football, watch it every week, that the value of the product is the only thing that matters. Because here's the deal. This has been a pretty

good NFL season. On the field, it's the best it's been in a while. And as a consequence, I feel like a lot of the things we've been talking about on these podcasts over the last two or three years have, to a degree, sort of faded into the background. I hear a lot less conversation about concussions. It seems that the Kaepernick thing is, you know, we've got to a point now where he hasn't played for a while.

He hasn't played long enough that it actually isn't reasonable to say, you know, the Redskins should sign him or whatever. It's like he's missed too much time now. Yeah. You know, and left the league at a point where he was sort of fighting to be a backup on, at the time, about the worst team in the league, you know? Not to mention the fact that if he tried to come back and play now, in all likelihood, it would hurt his legacy and sort of hurt his political position.

But you don't hear people talking about those things as much because they talk about the Holmes now. Like, that's really kind of fun to talk about. You know, it's been a really kind of fun thing there. Or even the cream hunting. I was A, I was surprised the chief waved him the way they did. Were you surprised? Yeah.

I thought they were going to suspend him for the year and try to get him help. Seemed to be the move. They were like, we're not fucking around. And they really couldn't because they also have Tyreek Hill. So, you know. And it was a good move because it's just, it's done. Like that situation seems to be over. Well, there was also, there was a sneaky part of that whole thing too,

which became obvious if you watched Chiefs the last couple of weeks. The drop off from Kareem Hunt to Spencer Ware and Damian Williams was not dramatic. It was a drop-off, but it wasn't crippling and it still allowed them to compete for a Super Bowl. If that had been Tyreek Hill, I would have been really interested to see how they handled it because they have no replacement for him and he's one of the best weapons we have in the league. Yeah, there really is

no replacement for him. He's not the best receiver in the league but what he brings in terms of just his speed on the field is so unique. It really goes well with the kind of quarterback he has.

He is one of the most memorable offensive skill position guys I've ever seen. I honestly think he's the fastest football player I've ever watched. I don't even know who else would be in that conversation. I think when Randy Moss really had it going on those, you know, the button hooks, the 50- yard button hooks and things like that, it really did seem like he could outrun anyone on the earth. And he had those long strides. He was like six, six.

He was a long strider. That was the thing. He was just like, if a guy was his speed, he was like he's saying bold in that way. If a guy's the same speed as him because of his height, he's going to get separation. He'll look faster than the other, he's going to get separation. Hill looks faster than the other guys he's running against.

Right. The other thing that's crazy about Hill is he's running full speed, what would be full speed for a normal human being, but he's not in fifth gear, where he can like, he'll cross the middle on some pass and he's going full speed, but he's not yet. So these guys, you look at the defenders running with them and they're

running as fast as they can. And he's like on cruise control kind of, but he's going as fast as him. And then he kicks in this extra gear. And I've just never seen anything like that. I mean, when we were growing up, it was something else has changed. I was listening to some guys talk about this on the radio and it was kind of an interesting point. Okay. They were talking about the Tyreek, but being the idea of him being the fastest player that they'd seen.

Um, and then someone brought up Bob. Hey, yeah. You know, Bob Hayes was this Olympic sprinter who then played for the Cowboys, but you know, he played in a period where, and this was true at the pro level, the college level, in the high school, he played in a period where everyone was taught to basically run straight line and make their cuts at specific angles. Yeah. Like you see guys in the NFL now, the way the offenses are run, these guys are kind of running these curve pass patterns. You know, the Rams really started that like, you know, when when they had those real good teams at the kind of the turn of the century where they would have these sort of kind of almost like like an arcing kind of trajectory to these pass routes the warner rams yeah the guy like it makes a guy harder to run

with because you've got to expend so much energy to keep up with him and you can't really anticipate that that kind of move across the field because when he has to cut let's say he was running like a conventional post pattern where he's like running down stop you know you know kind of making the break toward the post or whatever. He, the runner, you know, the receiver himself had to sort of slow down or kind of idle down. They don't do that. Like they can run these patterns without really increasing their speed. And he just gets away from these guys.

I remember when we were growing up, the two fastest guys were Cliff branch and Stanley Morgan, right? For receivers. And then, Oh, and also the running up, the two fastest guys were Cliff Branch and Stanley Morgan, right? For receivers. And then. Oh, and also the running back, the running backs, or no, the corner for the Redskins. Oh, Daryl Green. Yeah. Daryl Green.

Yeah. So then the Niners, Ronaldo Nehemiah was that famous hurdler. And the Niners signed him with basically to be that Bob Hayes, like just run a straight line. We'll teach you two pass routes. You're faster than everyone. And he was in the cover of Sports Illustrated, which was a really big deal.

Yeah, which was a really big deal back then. Being on the cover of Sports Illustrated was about as significant as, most significant thing you pull off back then. And it was really fascinating to see it was going to play out. It was a disaster. And I can't remember what was wrong with him. I can't remember if he couldn't catch or if he just couldn't figure it out

or what happened. But he was on the Niners, then he went to the Raiders, and it just never worked. Well, and there was the idea of Ron Brown. Do you remember him? Yeah. He was another guy who was an Olympic sprinter and a football player. So it seemed like he would be able to sort of maybe bridge that gap.

It didn't really work. Willie Galt, actually, is a pretty good example of someone who was a track guy. Yep. Who was good. Who was able to translate that. Yeah. Hold on. We're going to take a break and I have, I have a good question for you. Hold on. Hey, if you're listening to this podcast,

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It's time well spent. I love the crosswords. I go in little binges with them. My dad is the biggest crossword fan I know, and he's always done the Boston Globe crossword because he lives in Boston. Now he can get the New York Times crossword. He can challenge people.

He can do the whole thing. Check it out. get the New York Times crossword. He can challenge people. He can do the whole thing. Check it out. Download the New York Times crossword app at newyorktimes.com slash mini. All right, I have this question for you. Let's say the NFL said, yeah, football's dangerous. We actually think it got a little too soft over the last year. We think we might have swung too far. So here's what we're going to do.

We're admitting it's dangerous. We're telling people the risks. We've studied all these concussion steps for the last few years. We figured out a way to make it a little safer. And we're going to protect quarterbacks. You can't hit their knees, stuff like that. You can't take cheap shots of them late, but we want it to be a little more physical. And where we're going is this. It's going to be more physical. It won't be as crazy as some of the NFL films highlights of like Deacon Jones throwing Terry Bradshaw on his head and that kind of stuff, but it's going to be more physical. This isn't, this This maybe isn't a sport for everybody.

If you come in, you got to know the risks. And it would basically be their equivalent of the cigarette companies selling warning cigarettes could cause cancer. And then they just lay it out on the table. And it's like, if you want to play, hear the risk. You can't sue us. Let's go.

People want a physical, semi-violent football game. Maybe not quite as violent as 10 years ago, but 80% as violent. How do you think that would fly? That's an interesting thing because, okay, I have kind of a two-part answer to that. The first part is that without that language, without without directly happening, that sort of is a situation now, right? Like we assume that anyone playing football knows that this is a dangerous game and that the dangers might even be deeper than they appear on the surface. It's sort of hard for me to imagine a football player now playing, even at the high school level, who has never heard this. But what you're saying is if the NFL actively said this, okay, they would have to, if they

framed it as transparency, because that shuts a lot of people up. If you say things are transparent, there's just a whole group of people who are like, well, it's great. It must be good. That must be good. Okay. So they're just saying like, we're being transparent about this, that there is no way for this

sport to exist, uh, without there being, uh, a degree of danger to the participants. And if that is unacceptable to you, don't play this game. Yeah. I suppose what, you know, it would be widely criticized. And the argument that would be made was that there are certain people who have limited potential for a good life. Football presents the only possibility for them to substantially change their life and the life of the people in their family, and you're saying that you're not even going to attempt to protect them. You're almost going to penalize them physically for doing really

the only option society has provided. Um, and there is some truth in that. Uh, but I think for the most part, uh, fans would appreciate that. Well, you know, it's like a weird thing, but I think, I think that, I think that it would be perceived by the average person who watches football as like, I'm glad they're just finally saying it. Good. We have a test case already. The UFC. The UFC has established themselves as a violent sport where they quote unquote care about their athletes,

if the guy gets knocked out or cold cocked or is getting the crap beat out of them, the referee will jump in. I would say it's pretty safe to say that there's been concussions in the MMA. There hasn't been the same outrage that there's been with the NFL because with the MMA, people just kind of expect it and it's what they've signed up for and they've come to grips with it. They've come to grips with it if they're boxing fans or MMA fans.

This is the sport I've chosen. I know bad things will happen and these fighters know the risks, but they're doing it anyway and that makes it okay. And I guess my question is, I think the biggest problem with the NFL over the last however many decades was that it really does seem like the owners and the people that work for

the teams knew the risks, but the players didn't. But now we know the risks. So couldn't they spin this now a certain way, I guess, is my question. Well, okay, when you talk about the MMA, when I was in Australia in that casino, there was those big fights in Madison Square Garden. And Joe Rogan is like the Cozell kind of a vet. He's kind of the interesting announcer on that. That was on the biggest screen in the casino not counting the horse race day but like even during the football days the biggest screen had this ufc stuff and one thing that was very clear sitting in that casino but i guess i didn't need to be in a casino to realize this is

there's not a lot of casual fans of that yeah and that is the real difference here because if you talk about you know the nfl owners what they know or what they would say, one thing would say the other. I would agree with you. But the biggest thing is there is no it's very clear that. The NFL wants casual fans. Yeah, it's really important for the magnitude of the NFL to include people who barely care at all. And that is why this is such kind of a moral and ethical problem for the culture at large. Because there's these people who are suddenly kind of in the situation where they feel like they are complicit in these guys getting hurt. And they were like, I didn't sign up for this.

I just wanted something to do on Sunday. Everyone else was at the bar doing it, you know? And that's why, you know, that's why like a sport like, you know, like, like mixed martial arts, she's not really the kind of person who's like, um, I don't know, maybe I'll watch this basketball game tonight, or maybe I'll watch mixed martial game tonight or maybe I'll watch Mixed March West. It's just not really how it is. Yeah, but I think the UFC was hoping that would become how it is and maybe they're finding out that it's kind of difficult.

Kyle and I were watching football on Sunday. We were watching the Seahawks game. They're playing the Niners. And there's a play I've never seen before in football and it made me think that some of these rule tweaks have actually worked. It was the linebacker on Seattle, not Bobby Wagner. What was that other guy's name? I can't remember.

I'm blanking. It was the guy originally thought it was Bobby Wagner. Clark. Yeah. Clark came in through the middle and crushed the quarterback right as he was throwing it and hit him, had his arms wrapped around him. As they're falling to the ground, in the old days, he just would have driven him into the turf, crushes him, arms wrapped around as they're falling to the ground, throws his arms out.

So now he lands on the guy just with his home and his torso and then jumped up with his hands up. Like, look, see, I pulled my arms back. I didn't drive him into the ground. And it was like one of the smartest football plays I've ever seen because they absolutely would have given him the penalty. And I was thinking like that my big question with all of this was how do you teach these guys who are like these trained missiles who are running 20 miles an hour at somebody or 18 miles an hour, however fast they're going, to in a split second realize, oh, that guy ducked his head. Now I won't hit him or now I'll hold up. And you're seeing some people take advantage of this.

Like, okay, I think the most interesting problem within the way the rules are now is kind of the dealing with Cam newton as a runner yeah so when he went like like because the panthers are basically out of it you know he's uh he's kind of sliding he doesn't you know but let's say the panthers were really competing for the playoffs they're competing for a championship and they got to the playoffs and if i was his coach i would look at him and i'd be like well you know when you're just a passer you're maybe among the 12 or 15 best quarterbacks in the league. But when you also run, you're an elite player. I would basically, when he's really running, I would pretty much place him in the top five of quarterbacks that he had so much.

But when he's running upfield, if you're a defender, what are you supposed to do? Because he could slide. And if you do that, if you hit him, you know, there's going to be this penalty and you get kicked out of the game. But if he chooses not to slide, he's going to truck the guy.

I mean, he's so big and so powerful. I'm not sure what you're supposed to do. If you're trying to tackle him in the open field and you're unsure if he's going to give himself up or not. I also find it very odd, kind of unsettling almost, even though it's exciting, the number of players now who, when running the ball, attempt to hurdle oncoming tacklers. Kamara did it last night.

He does this all the time. And there was one in the Saints game last night that got called back by a penalty. I don't, I find that to be, like, I'm not, I think it's almost like the guys now are a little more confident that if they do that and they're exposed to the air like that, the defender's not going to just put his helmet into their chest and break him in two. So they're doing this thing that actually seems more dangerous, which is taking advantage of the safety rule. Yeah, that's what happened. I mean, this is one of the many reasons why Gronk is breaking down to the point of no return now, where for the last few years, as they hit the guy in the chest rolls, which

is how everybody would hit him, and sometimes that hit would they hit the guy in the chest rolls, which is how everybody would hit him, and sometimes that hit would end up hitting him in the head and you get a penalty and all that stuff. Now these safeties and cornerbacks are just told to go at the knees. So it's like Kelsey, Gronk, George Kittle. Anytime those guys get the ball over the middle and they're turning around, there's somebody just diving full speed at their knees and their hips. And now Gronk's whole body is breaking down. I'm convinced it's because he's taken so many lower body shots that in a weird way, it's ruined his career.

I feel I have to disagree with you and a lot of other people with sort of the takes you guys had after the Patriots-Dolphins game in that last play. Oh, let's hear it. Okay. Well, okay. There was all these people I just saw sort of being like, Bilicek is a genius, but he's finally failed. How did he allow this to happen? Okay. First of all, the play that happened, you can run that a thousand times and it would work once. I mean, I don't, maybe we need Nate Silver or something to tell us what, what is the likelihood of scoring from your own 31 with three lateral in one play? I don't know what the likelihood is, but so it's like a thousand to one, maybe 10,000 to one. Okay.

Well, the Patriots have a defensive formation they use against Hail Mary's and they put their biggest, most athletic player in the back, just like they did with mom. I don't think it's reasonable to expect the team to have a kind of a last gasp defensive formation. a kind of a last gasp defensive formation if you know the quarterback could reach the end zone with his arm or if they're at the 31. He couldn't though. He couldn't reach the end zone. He couldn't throw the ball 75 yards.

Exactly. But what I'm saying is I don't know if it's reasonable to expect a team to have that many different sort of formations and personnel alignment for situations that almost never happen and never really succeed outside of these examples that we remember. Also, you know, if Kroc doesn't, if his cleat doesn't catch the ground or whatever, if he manages to get there and pushes that guy out at the one or two,

I guarantee you a lot of the people who attacked Bilicek for doing this would be like, see, the genius at work. He put his biggest, most athletic guy in the back and stopped him at the two. How many other coaches would have done that? No one. He's a genius. But because it didn't work, suddenly it's like, oh, he doesn't have it anymore. He's starting to, you know. Did you see the Instagram video somebody took from the end zone,

the Dolphins fan, of that play from the vantage point of right behind the uprights where Gronk's just standing there for a good five seconds, just zoning out, or I don't know what he's doing. He just doesn't know what to do. And then all of a sudden you see Drake just kind of emerge from all these white jerseys. And then Grock's like, oh shit! And then he's like, gotta go get him.

It wasn't great. Here's my idea. Put defensive players on the field when somebody has to go 75 yards. It's just a crazy thought I had. Sure. I mean, but like there's so many things to worry about that are you really going to also build in a package

for every possible last play scenario on a play that has a minuscule chance of working? I mean, I think that's a real bad investment of time. But you act like there's 400 scenarios. It's like there's a Hail Mary from the 25 and a Hail Mary from the 50. It's two defenses. How hard is this?

You just have like, alright, they're under 20 with 8 seconds left. What defense do we have? I don't think that's like 10 minutes in practice. There were many opportunities on that play to stop it from succeeding.

Many plays. Many situations were many opportunities on that play to stop it from succeeding. True. Many plays, many, many situations there within that one play, there were many plays within it. I do not think the failure was in the defensive alignment or the personnel they had on the field. It's just that these things never happened except when they do. And it did. And it just, if it seemed like an unfair criticism to me.

I mean, you're the same person who thinks Oswald acted alone. So I'm not surprised to hear you think Gronk should have been out there. Hold on, we gotta take one more break. Hey, video conferencing has changed the way we do business. Fewer long distance trips, more FaceTime at the click of a mouse.

And in 2018, the clear winner is Zoom. Zoom delivers flawless video, pin drop, clear audio, and instant sharing across any device, desktop, laptop, tablet, or mobile. Share anything with anyone, a word file, a spreadsheet, a presentation deck, Zoom, everything you always wanted video communication to be with some amazing features you didn't think of, but you'll wonder how you lived without them. Visit doom.us to set up your free account today. That is zoom.us, zoom.us. Meet happy with Zoom Video Communications. And since we're here, don't forget the rewatchables. Con Air is up. It's one of the most important podcasts I've ever done in my life. And then next week, Tombstone.

Check that out. Subscribe. We had an awesome year. We're coming back with, I think, 50 episodes next year. We're even going to bring in a couple of celebrities to do some of the movies with us. So yeah, subscribe to that. Apple Podcast Best of 2018 was one of the winners of that one. Yeah, The Rewatchables.

All right, back to this podcast. We didn't talk about Phil Rivers and I really want to talk about him. I'm excited for your thoughts on him. I feel like he's been in our lives for a long time. I remember we were in a ringer meeting maybe two months

ago and May said he was the best quarterback that's never won a Super Bowl. I was kind of like, whoa, that's a take. And then I'm thinking about it and I'm like, oh yeah. Well, that's wrong. Marino's the best quarterback. Oh, that's what you see.

I'm sorry. I besmirched Mays. He said second best. He said Marino first. And he said after Marino, it's Rivers. He meant, I meant best active, but, and I did a double take. I'm like, oh yeah, that's right. That Rivers is the second best Chargers quarterback to have never

won a super bowl. Yeah. He's better than his performances were way, were beyond, I mean, the gap between Fouts and everyone else for the three years, he was great was, you know, more than anybody I can really, it's been a while. I don't know when the last time it had been a quarterback. It's been that much different, you know more than anybody i can really it's been a while i don't know when the last time it's been a quarterback it's been that much different you know um but here's the thing about philip rivers okay so i used to not like him at all uh i would say i disliked him he reminded me of rick helling for a bunch of different reasons and i i just i did he got into that sort of dispute with jay cutler you remember that yeah i took jay cutler's side at

the time like i I was like, Oh, Jay Cutler went to Vanderbilt. He's probably the smarter guy or whatever, you know, just not knowing anything else. But at this point, I think Phillip Rivers is my favorite player in the league. And well, you know, and this is the thing, okay. There are certain things that I find really frustrating and I hate hearing announcers say. And two of them are like, oh, it's like he wants it so much. And he's like just a gunslinger or whatever, all those things. And yet with him, man, it does. You can just see the competitiveness dripping.

He seems to care more about playing football than anyone I have seen in a very long time. And he just, he has that kind of that funny throwing motion, but he really goes for it, man. Like that last drive against the Chiefs, the throw he made on fourth down was like, it's gutsy and technically great. And then here's kind of the wild card thing, and I can't take credit for this. My friend Michael Weiner mentioned this, but it's absolutely true. The next time you hear Philip Rivers interviewed, close your eyes.

He sounds exactly like Wright Thompson. He could be Wright Thompson's voice double. Not just like the timbre of his voice, the words he chooses, sort of the rhythm of his talking. They have the same voice. I remember, that's a great observation. I remember in like 2008 or 2009,

I wrote a column, I think during the playoffs where I did awards and one of the awards was about Phil Rivers dropping F-bombs and being caught on camera. And all of these Chargers fans came out of the woodwork just furious at me because Philip Rivers doesn't swear. And he's like devoutly religious. And they were like, he would never.

You owe him an apology. Yeah, you owe him an apology. So the next week I did, I wrote about how they were all mad at me. And I was like, well, maybe he didn't. And then the retraction wasn't good enough. And I was like, wow, these people are fucking crazy. But I remember that. And I remember he used to get mad about the Philip versus Phil thing. He didn't want to be, he doesn't want to be Phil. He wants to be Philip. And, and I would call him

Phil. And I think it, I think the Chargers reached out to me at one point about that it's Philip, not Phil. I was like, really? So I like calling him Phil Rivers now. Luckily, you didn't have a Chris Everett, Jim Rome situation. I know. Well, here's the thing. I'm with you. He's probably my favorite non-patriot other than Saquon Barkley, even though he cost me money last week.

I love the fact that he just keeps having kids. I think it's hilarious. Like he's clearly just like, fuck it. I think it's awesome that he has nine kids. I don't know anybody who has nine kids other than like a reality star. He's really,

really, really competitive and hard on everybody during these games in a way that, you know, Marino is like this too, where for a few years, like, wow, that guy's an asshole. And then after you get used to it, you're like, ah, I kind of like this guy. And now he's like your grouchy uncle. Who's just, he's mad at everybody, but he's happy. But the thing that really jumped out to me is,

and I talked about this with Sal in the podcast the other day, is for the first time over the last couple couple weeks, I started thinking like, this guy could be like another Tony Romo if he decides to do TV. Because he's got the right Thompson voice. He's really likable. I feel like he'd say anything.

Here's a great example. Okay. After the Chiefs game, he's being interviewed on the sideline. Right away, you know, like, and of course, because he sounds so much like Ray Thompson, now I watch every interview I can see yeah talking so he's being interviewed directly after the game and he's saying he says something along the lines of check this on YouTube he's like

well you know we played pretty well we were we stuck with him we had more first downs than they did and I was like why is he keeping track of that like i i can understand a guy on the field keeping track of his own numbers but why in his mind is he keeping track of overall first down for each team yeah completely useless statistic anyways it would be like if he memorized the amount of time of possession was happening in the game or something but he just and he said it casually so it wasn't like he was real proud of himself for knowing this um i do wonder if he does have because you know we're watching the monday night game now like i and i always hate criticizing guys because it's like no i couldn't do any better but you know like do you think that part of the

reason jason whitton was hired was because they were like, well, he's Romo's friend. Maybe he's like, maybe he'll be like Romo. I kind of feel like that Romo's relationship to him convinced people that maybe he'll be able to predict play. Maybe he'll be one of these guys who knows everything. And this is a ghost. It never made sense. it never made sense it never made sense because he wasn't a great interview

I always feel like I don't think this stuff's hard if the guy's a good interview then the chances that he's going to be good in a broadcast booth for me exponentially increased this was always the reason anybody who followed Barkley in the 90s was like, wow, when that guy

retires, he's going to be an amazing TV guy. So, Phil Rivers... But Marino was not a good interviewer and became a pretty good studio analyst. Romo was not as charismatic as an interviewer as he is as an announcer. I did not anticipate

that he would be that much better. I gotta say, though... I did... Listen, I that he would be that much. I got to say though, I did listen. I've been wrong a million times. I did predict the Romo thing on this podcast just cause we had dinner with him once and he was so outgoing and gregarious and, and, uh, had so many tidbits. It was like, wow, if they ever channel this in a booth, that'd be amazing. I never,

I can't imagine anyone had that experience with Jason Witten. Like, oh man, if he ever can explain what it's like to be a tight end in the broadcast booth, people are going to go nuts. It's so funny because Gonzalez does this too. These specialty positions like tight end, we're basically either blocking or you're running a pass pattern. And it's really not that complicated, but they feel like they have so much expertise. And then they'll gear the whole broadcast. Like, I want you to watch what Kelsey does right here. He gets the block.

He jumps off that guy. And then what? Perfect little route here. It's like, yeah, he's a tight end. That's what they're supposed to do. Do we really need to break this down? We don't see running backs do that. Like, watch Saquon Barkley.

Watch what... But for some reason, the tight end, they feel like they have to elaborate on every fucking thing with those guys. I don't know. It's annoying. Well, I think it is more complicated than you think, but I think the failure that somebody like Witten makes

is kind of an unwillingness to transfer the knowledge you have into sort of contemporary normal language. It's almost as though he feels as though he'll be respected more or they'll take him more seriously if, you know, it's like there's a kind of guy, a kind of analyst who will never say weak side linebacker. He has to say the will linebacker.

He has to say that. Yeah. He wants people to know that he's using the language that they use in a film session. And, uh, it, it,

it doesn't improve the experience. You know, you were there. It's one of those things you're either good at it or not. Like Nate Burleson did a game last weekend. I don't think he'd ever done a football game, at least an NFL game before. Who are you talking about? Nate Burleson.

He's fucking awesome. He did it. He did the Jets-Texans game. He was just great. I felt like they were able to add him and Mariucci. I forget who the play-by-play guy was. I felt like I was hanging out with them, but they were telling me stuff, which is, I think, the hardest place to get to and I think that's why people love

Romo and Nance or at least some people because you kind of feel like you're hanging out with Romo watching the game with him it's a really hard place to get to Collinsworth was able to get there I think to some degree he's got some tricks now

the dream set up now would be Michaels and Romo. That would be the, that would be the ultimate pairing for the booth. I mean, Collinsworth has been the best for many years and I think he's great. You know, I just, um, but it would be, I think that the guys who are good analysts, it really seems like it is the first five or six years that they do it.

And that's really when they're peaking. And Romo is still in that kind of window because during that point, they still have all this knowledge from guys they know and believe. Well, that's the thing. They have a few relationships.

That's the danger of the TNT show, which is the greatest show of all time, is Barkley's been out of the league 20 years now. And Kenny's been out of the league, I think, 22 years. And Shaq's been out of the league eight years. And at some point, you know, when everybody in the set has never played against anybody, I still want to hear from somebody who can tell me

what it's like to try to stay in front of Giannis when he does that two-step thing or whatever. But Barkley has the advantage of never having to be right about anything. Right. People just love Barkley. There's no expectation with Barkley that the things he's saying is in any way accurate. There is still some of that with Kenny Smith that we do sort of assume Kenny Smith has to offer accurate analysis. And Shaq is

I don't, he's more of a he has not been as good in that role as I think. He's still likable though. He's fine. He's not bad. I think Shaq's post-post bad I think Shaq's Shaq's post post career I think has been

really intriguing because he's somebody who seems like he's more popular now than he was five years ago and I think part of it is social media he's on the TNT show

he's done really smart commercials he just seems like a good hang he's done a nice job of whatever you kind of need to do after your career that he has formed the second life. And it's hard, you know, and I think what you're saying about, you basically have the four or five years after you play where you have all this advantage of all this inside intel and info that you have. But then after that, it's really personality and hard

work. You know, like I look at somebody like Jalen, Jalen's been out of the league 12 years now, but still puts in the work and can, can fight off the fact that he hasn't played. But, you know, then you have somebody like Vince Carter, who is going to be, um, a broadcast free agent next year, probably. And if you've heard on the podcast, like he's great. And, um And it's somebody that is clearly going to be on television and has 20 years of playing against all of these guys, you know, recently retired new guys. He's been on teams with guys. It's, it's just an army of information. It's going to be an advantage. I want Phil Rivers to do TV though.

Did you happen to watch? Oh, go ahead. What? I just said, I want Phil Rivers to do TV though. Did you happen to watch? Oh, go ahead. What? I just said I want Phil Rivers to do TV after he retires. I just hope that he doesn't keep having kids and decide that he just needs to drive people around to soccer practices. Well, I mean, he's just going to have, just imagine in 10, 15 years,

how great his life is going to be like Christmas when all his kids come home and some of them are married and they start having kids. I mean, he's just going to have a dream life. I'm really envious of him. Did you happen to see the – do you ever watch A Football Life on the NFL Network? I do.

I DVR them and I pick and choose, which I like the LT one I thought was really good. Sometimes I'll skip them, but I like them. Did you watch the Troy Aikman one? No. Okay. There's an interesting thing about the Troy Aikman one, just mentioning these guys who are broadcasters.

When he was in high school, football was the second best thing Troy Aikman was at as a skill. What do you think he was better at than football? Golf? Nope. Guess again. Baseball? Take one more guess.

Archery? Typing. What? He like won all these state titles for typing. He went, he said he took typing because his friend was like, wanted to meet girls or whatever in the typing class. And he became this world-class typer. Oh my God.

Typing competitions that he would dominate. Hey, we're hitting the final bell here. You wanted to quickly mention you love the Clinton affair in A&E. You're the third person in my life. It's one of my Christmas break. I'm plowing through it. Juliet, who one of our ringer OGs

also loved the Clinton affair. And one other person told me about it too. What's weird. There's a lot of Clinton content right now, but this seems to be the one to watch. Right. Okay. This is definitely the one to watch.

Okay. There's here, here are the reasons why you got to watch the Clinton affair. Okay. First of all, the level of self-awareness by Monica Lewinsky is incredible. I mean, it's just,

I know that she has sort of been moving in this direction kind of consistently. You know, when I wrote that book, I Wear the Black Hat, I talk about Monica Lewinsky in that book and Clinton and the whole situation in Star Report. And at the time, it was like she was still kind of this unknown vessel. We didn't know much of what she's like. Since that time, she's just sort of become more and more of a public person, and her description of these events is just real insightful, okay? Paula Jones comes across incredibly credible, and so unlike the way she was framed at the time.

And this just shows my own biases. I never thought of sort of the idea of her being anything outside of the way she was sort of presented in the media. Ken Starr in this documentary is pretty good. I mean, it's like he, there's no, you know, it's one of those things where you only see the person talking, you don't hear the question. So you could say to someone that was like, why wasn't he ever asked the three specific questions or whatever, but he seems much more competent than I thought he was. Um, and, and sort of had, you know, some, some kind of real

insight. But the biggest thing, the reason you will like it, is I couldn't believe how fun it was to see the old news footage from that time. Like, you know, I was working in a newspaper when that all happened, and of course it was everyone's life. But I guess it would be, you know, whenever I talk about things from the past, I'm always hesitant to say, like, this is nostalgic because I think that somehow weakens the compliment or whatever.

But this was the best kind of nostalgia, just seeing that footage, just seeing a lot of the people who are still in the public sphere now. Yeah. But back then, it was five episodes. I wish it was 20. I wish it just never stopped. I just want to keep watching. Wow. What a review. It was so, well, it was.

It was, I just, I started doing this thing where I would only watch 10 or 15 minutes at a time because I knew I was going to run out. So I would just like

watch 10 or 15 minutes and then just think about the 15 minutes I watched for a day. It sounds like the next part. It sounds like Kyle with a pack of cigarettes in the airport. It's milking it. I, I would recommend since you're here, the Dominic Dunn documentary that my mom,

shout out to my mom alerted me to on Amazon that I thought was really good. And he was, I thought, one of the most enjoyable writers of the 90s in the magazines, just with the OJ coverage. Is that new? Because I watched one on him a bunch of years ago. It's a new one. I think it's new. Yeah, it's good. And it's got a lot of footage of him and it's about Phil Spector and all the different trials that he got involved with. And it's got a lot of footage of him and it's about Phil Spector and all the kind of the different trials that he got involved with. And I recommend that one as well. All right.

We never got to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We can talk about that next time. What do you, what do you got to plug for the holidays? Anything? Well, if anybody wants to go back and buy my old books, give them as Christmas presents, that would be a brilliant idea. Great. Let's do that.

There's lots of old books you had. What was that thing you, you Instagrammed like a, like a bar menu of all your book titles? What was that? Shit. Well, this is this bizarre thing. It's like, so I'm on Facebook. And I should actually, I'm glad you brought this up because I should mention this hotel. So I'm on Facebook and somebody just puts this on my page.

Somebody who, I don't know if I'm friends with them and I just don't know. Because I just kind of, when I joined Facebook, I just sort of agreed to anybody. But there's this place called, okay, it is the Penny Royal Bar in the Kempton Hotel in Seattle. Wow. For some crazy reason, the guy has named, or I shouldn't say the guy, the person who made up the menu has named all the drinks after my books. It's like the apex of my career. I never put things on Instagram. That's amazing.

I know. The fact that you put it on Instagram, I knew it was a big deal for you. What was your, just out out of curiosity what did you think the best drink was like that the best match of drink to a book title I uh the kind of drinker I am I honestly don't recognize

a lot of these ingredients yeah I don't know what Cronin Swedish punch I don't know what lot of these ingredients yeah like i i don't know what cronin swedish punch i don't know what that is or like a saint george spice pair i mean i don't know i guess uh i'm not sure i don't know i i guess i have no answer to that but i drink them all they gave to me because i'm real flattered they did it that's a real cool thing now i suppose i'm going to find out later that the reason this guy did this, it's some next-level way to mock

me or something. I have no idea. Whoever did it, I appreciate it. Even if your motives were to make fun of me, it's very cool that this happened. I think it's any writer's dream to have their work associated with alcoholism. That's such a key part of being a writer.

It is real flattering. I'm really impressed. I think it was 100% not to mock you. I think he was a huge fan and I think you have to go to that bar. It's like a three hour drive. You gotta go over there and you gotta meet the person. I mean, if I'm in Seattle, first of all, I'm a hundred percent staying in this hotel if I'm ever there. Probably the whole chain of hotels.

And I'm totally going to staying in this hotel. If I'm ever there, probably the whole chain of hotels. And, um, I'm totally going to this bar, but yeah, um, uh, it, uh,

I guess I could take the train up and I go to the train and take the train back. Real, uh, real loaded, but yeah. Well, congratulations.

I appreciate it. Unknown person at the bar, at the, uh, what was it again? The, uh, the penny Royal bar.

Yeah. All right. Chuck Klosterman. Always a pleasure. Happy holidays, my friend. at the bar at the what was it again the Penny Royal Bar yeah in Kenton alright Chuck Klosterman always a pleasure happy holidays my friend alright thanks to ZipRecruiter don't forget to go to

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