The Bill Simmons Podcast - Denver Ends the Lakers, Chet Vs. Paolo, Atlanta’s Penix Envy, and NFL Draft Family Etiquette With J. Kyle Mann and Van Lathan

Episode Date: April 26, 2024

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by J. Kyle Mann to discuss the Lakers' drop to 0-3 against the Nuggets before checking in on every NBA playoff series (1:50). Then Bill and Van Lathan talk about Round 1 of the 2024 NFL draft, including the six first-round QBs, the Falcons shocking the world and Kirk Cousins by drafting Michael Penix Jr. eighth, Round 1 WRs, TE Brock Bowers to the Raiders, the importance of first-round offensive linemen, and more (59:19). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Van Lathan and J. Kyle Mann Producer: Kyle Crichton The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, basketball, the NFL draft, the Pats have a quarterback next. 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, great taste. Picture this, it's game day. All the gang's here. You're

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You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I put up a new rewatchables on Monday. We did hardcore, have another one coming up on this coming Monday. It's an action movie, Kyle Branson, Bob. I'll tell you what it is on the rewatchables Twitter feed over the weekend. So follow the rewatchables Twitter feed. Why not? It's easy. Don't post a lot over there.

You can also follow youtube.com slash bill Simmons where we put clips and videos from the rewatchables and from this podcast as well. The Patriots have a quarterback. They picked Drake May, number three. It felt like it was headed that way all week, so I did not have to sweat bullets. That was the guy I wanted. I started to maybe talk myself into,

could the Giants trade the form up from six to three? And then the pass would move back, get a bunch of picks, take J.J. McCarthy's six. But as it got closer and closer, it was like, you know what? Just take Drake May. Don't overthink it. And we talked about that later in this podcast with Van Lathan, who I watched the draft with.

Coming up first, J. Kyle Mann. He's going to come on and talk a little basketball with me because we had some good games today and we also had just an awful Celtics loss last night. So we're going to talk NBA playoffs first, then the NFL draft. First, our friends who I just saw in Seattle.

If you saw my Instagram photo, our guys, Pearl Jam! Alright, we're taping this. It is 9.45 Pacific time. J. Kyle Maness here from The Ringer. Hasn't been here in a while. Good to see you, by the way.

Yeah, good to see you too. It's been a minute. I'm glad we could make it happen. I know. Well, you've been doing some good stuff for The Ringer and the Nuggets have been doing some good stuff. We have not talked about the Nuggets in a while. They're on this... It's almost indescribable where if they're down

20, you feel like they can go back. If they're down eight in the fourth quarter, you feel like they're going to win. If they're up eight in the fourth quarter, you feel like the game's over. So they take all these different identities, right? If you're comparing them to a football team, they're the football team that in the fourth quarter down 10 can come back and put two touchdowns on you. They're also the team that if they're up 10 in the football game, they could just run the ball and run out the clock and you're never going to get the ball back. It is unreal. I said to KFC the other night, I thought this is one of the three best teams I've seen this century. Wow. O-1 Lakers, 17 Warriors in this team. And then special asterisk kudos to the 2013 Heat

during the winning streak. I think those are the four best teams. They never were able to really put it together during a postseason. But I think those are the four best teams I've seen this century. Where do they rank for you? Thank you for saying asterisk correctly, by the way.

Thank you. That's one that people mess up a lot. I appreciate that. I had this written down in my notes. I'm glad that you said this because this is right in the strike zone of where my brain was too. I noticed this over listening to different shows and reading different things when people were talking about this team, where over and over again, you would hear people say they should they'd say uh they should be up more like whenever that like if a team gets a little bit of a lead on them like tonight they said it on the broadcast they were like man feels like the Lakers should be up more like even if you hit them

with a big haymaker and like in the beginning of this game it was just that like LA was like just running it was a little deceptive because they weren't really just executing Denver to death. I mean, they had some good moments, but they were just running a lot. I think in the first half, they had 13 transition looks, and they scored or were fouled on all of them. They were having a lot of success with that. But Denver just kind of keeps chugging along, chugging along, chugging along. And I feel like that's kind of the last level for a team that reaches that.

I remember, I know this is like a team that like reaches that, like I remember like, I know this is going to make your skin crawl, but like when I used to watch baseball in the early 2000s, it was like those Yankee teams were like that, where like even if you had a good team, a good game against them, it was just like, man, but the lead's still not that big. And I just feel like they have,

they have that inevitability about them where they're just going to continue to do what they do and you just kind of can't shake them out of it. They just are going to keep coming. I have not seen anything to change my opinion that they're going to win the title. Kevin Wilds, my buddy who was on here last week, he's been doing this gimmick on Twitter, which I made fun of him about, where he's like, nobody's beating Nuggets in a seven-game series. It's actually one of the most obvious favorites we've had of this century where I just don't see a scenario where they lose unless somebody gets injured,

basically. That's it. And I think it would have to be one of the top four guys. But you saw with the Celtics last night, people thought I was trying to reverse jinx the Celtics or I'm just doing the glass half empty thing, but I just don't think they have any chance of out-executing the Denver team. So you agree with Kevin? You agree with KOC? Did you say what KOC said about it? Well, I've always felt that, well, KOC, yeah, he ramped it up.

He threw some steroids and some HGH on the take, but I just don't think they will be able to out-execute this Denver team in a seven-game series. I don't see it. I didn't see it the whole year. And you could see in that Miami game, not to shift this to the Celtics, but in that Miami game, some of the strategy stuff was just so head scratching. When they fell behind, all of a sudden it's one-on-one basketball. You can just see things slip away, whereas Denver always keeps their structure. They never get phased. They never play at a different speed. They're never frantic. They're always just like, we're the Nuggets. We're going to figure this out. And they have one of the biggest game breakers in the history of the sport. To me, he's on the bird magic level at this point. Yeah. And now it's just about padding the resume and getting the actual resume to where those guys are.

But I don't see much difference from impact between him and those two. I wanted to ask you about, I want to, well, like his play style specifically, but like something that really stood out to me in this game, having watched them sort of like on their playoff arc over the past few years like going back to i feel like it kind of started to shift during the bubble i remember i had like prepared

like a whole video where i was like trashing their effort and stuff and that was like when they kept winning i was like okay well that's like you know 90 hours down the tube where i had worked on that but denver fans it was to their benefit but like as it started to shift over time i've just kind of noticed that like the nuggets have taken on nicola's personality in a way where like he used to be he still has some of that like it's still it's similar to luca where if you just kind of prick the surface a little bit it'll show up every once in a while but he used to just kind of wear his heart on his sleeve all the time and would just run super hot and get himself out of the game. You were like the crying fits you would have at the refs when he just storm off or like

you just don't see that as much from him. And I see like throughout the game with them, we just keep saying the same kind of things over and over again. Like you can't speed them up. You can't get them off what they do. I feel like the nuggets have really just kind of become him in a good way. Whereas in the past, you know, if he pulled himself out of the game, you could kind of feel them fall apart. Like this physicality stuff like that just doesn't rattle them the way it

used to. And I feel like that's sort of the evolution that has made them kind of what we're talking about now, where they have this crazy talent, but you can't get them to get off their game anymore just because of that. It's a good point. The pace that they play, I think is so unusual. And it's another thing that comes from him because you don't think of him as this guy

who's like, go, go, go, go, go. But he is, you know, and when he slows stuff down, it's always for a reason that has to do with the game. I'm going to slow down this play because I want to set up this specific matchup and I want to get this. And if we do this, then that will lead to this and we'll get that. But for the most part, they're always trying to push because he's such a special passer and his ability to just grab the ball and take off with it. I don't know how many guys in the history of the league have been able to do that well to be able to get a rebound in traffic and then go and then create the play. Was that, is that a list of less than 10 guys? Is it eight guys? I don't know what the final number is, but it's not a long list.

Yeah. And then his ability to actually, you know what, I'm going to just to just take this guy myself. Can you guys just move over here? And I'm just going to do my whirlibirl back it down thing. Watching him just suck the life out of the Lakers. I mean, LeBron, the body language for LeBron in the second half was crack. Because he knew, like, if D'Lo's not going to hit, this team has no chance. Their really only chance was to do a little like what Miami had last night, which is, we're just going to make a bunch of threes

and try to hang with you and out-shoot you, basically. D'Lo didn't have it. They wasted two pretty good offensive games from Davis and James, and it just doesn't matter. Those guys had 59 points combined. It didn't matter. Davis was over in the third quarter. Davis was awesome, I thought, throughout the game.

It's funny. Sometimes you look at the box score and you'll just be like well look at the draw like if you look at it like denver took 27 threes and they didn't even hit 20 la shot 22 and they shot 13 you know about 13 and a half percent like you know you're talking about like yokich like what makes him great like obviously the passing obviously obviously the, like having those two separate things in and of itself is like great. But I've always said that like the balance of his, his understanding of the balance of those two things is what makes him great. Because like,

if you watch him, like he could shoot like the, the Philly game tonight. Like there was a sequence where he just was like, I'm shooting a no dribble three, like eight times in a row. And he like, like you would never. And, but the thing about Y just was like, I'm shooting a no dribble three eight times in a row. Right. But the thing about Jokic is you can't lure him

into any kind of self-sabotaging agenda the way that you can some other players. I'm trying to think of some of the other stars in the league. I mean, Tatum is a guy, if he gets on a tough shot streak, he's like, I'm taking the next one. Guys who are kind of like that, Jokic will not bail you out with a decision like that. He has no sort of tilt this way or that, like, I really want to score here. He's just like, no, I want to play the game. He just

punishes you. He just kind of constricts like a python over and over throughout the game until you just, you know, and that's the result of his decision-making. He had a sequence where I think it was an offensive rebound where really just happened to be on the same side as him. And I was just like, Oh boy,

this is bad. You could just see what was coming immediately. Yeah. And he posts him for like a second and a half, maybe double comes rifle to the opposite side swish three it was like

that's the challenge of guarding them just because he he could score on anybody and it doesn't matter what kind of help you send he has all the tools to exploit it and the mind to exploit it well the irony of the Lakers

like Caldwell Pope being on the other side there right that was one of the guys that gave up in the Westbrook trade and Caldwell Pope it feels like other side there, right? That was one of the guys that gave up in the Westbrook trade. And Caldwell Pope, it feels like he's gotten better every year for the last five and has just turned into this incredibly valuable 3&D asset where it doesn't even really matter if he scores, but he can guard anybody and just fits in. He knows how to play.

He doesn't care if he gets the ball. And then Caruso was the other guy they let go after 21 where they just didn't want to pay him I think I think they offered him three for 21 and Chicago offered him four for 37 and the combo of those when you watch a game like tonight and you think like you know they want that 2020 team it's a better version of LeBron I you know he's just four years younger Davis that's about as good as we've ever seen him until this year but then the supporting guys were just a lot more reliable because of the defense, some three-point shooting, some savvy rondos on that team. Dwight Howard was another big guy for

them. And I don't feel like the Lakers are necessarily much worse than that team, but it's the subtle differences where they just can't get stops and they can't survive if Reeves, I mean, Rui's been terrible for most of the series, but if two of those three guys suck, it's just hard for them to win. They can't get enough points. I don't know how they fixed this. It was your mindset.

LeBron played 42 minutes tonight. Your mind starts going, oh, what happens to this guy? Yeah. Does he stay on this team? They just got swept by the Nuggets last year. It looks like they're going to get swept by them this year. It would be the 12th straight time

if they lose game four that they would have lost to Denver. That's the team they need to get by. They have no chance. And Jokic is 27. Where is he going? Their whole core is young. Yeah, and their whole core is young. my career with LA. It's almost done. Then I'll be involved with the Vegas ownership. Is it, I want to go play with my son? Is it, I want to go be on one more really good title team?

And how this has played out makes it more realistic to me that he wouldn't stay. I'm not also not positive that matters. It's going to be his 22nd year. And I'm not sure, can you win a title anymore if he's one of your two best players? I don't know. I mean, I would lean toward maybe not, especially with the injury potential. My mind keeps going back to Karl Malone in 2004 when it was just, oh man, well, Karl Malone, he never gets hurt. And then all of a sudden, he got hurt twice and he was out of the league. When you're in your 40s, you start getting hurt. It's a different animal. But to me, the ass-kicking nature of this series in this game, and then the way they were able to come back in game two, I know the Laker fans would be like,

no, no, we almost won game two. It's like, yeah, but that's not the point of game two. Game two is like, you had a 20-point lead and it didn't feel like enough when you were up 20. And I just don't know if he wants to win a fifth title. I don't know how you run it back with the Lakers. There's no fix. It's not Trey Young. It's not Zach Levine. There's no fix. I don't see it. Yeah. It's interesting to think about the types of guys that worked around LeBron and the types of contained roles that he could still win with, like having those guys play. If you think about like those Miami teams, you know, with like catch and shoot guys, he had a lot of success. It just seems like as he's aged. Yeah, but that was 10 years ago,

LeBron though, right? I mean, he was like a Swiss army knife at that point. Yeah, that's my point that like, as it's gone on, he's, you know, I need more help has gone this way, and he needs guys to assert themselves a little bit more. Whereas, it'd be incredible to have a Kyrie in this situation or somebody who could assume. But these guys that he has are all sort of like distressed asset it's sort of like you know reeves was an awesome find they got really fortunate there that that worked out and that was a great draft but you know christy has been ready to play hood shifino not ready to play um well not and not taking hawkins in that draft not taking whether whether it was like the ceiling of whoever but not taking a guy who could be ready to play immediately and taking like a project, I guess, as a trade asset? That's what I thought.

That's what I thought. This summer, they drafted three of those guys in a row. They drafted Christy Huchefino and then Maxwell Lewis, the Pepperdine guy. And I was like, this makes no sense. I was like, these guys aren't going to be ready to go. And I was like, I wonder if they're going to like bank on, like,

these are the types of valuable players we could flip for something else. That's what I thought they were doing. And then they didn't flip them. Maybe the deal didn't come along or they couldn't make it work. But I heard Hawkins didn't want to be in LA. That's what I heard,

that he was glad. Maybe he was just saying that to Miami people. But I heard that he wanted to be there. I find that hard to believe. His sister goes to UCLA and like, really? He's not going to goes to UCLA and like, really? He's not going to want to play for the Lakers?

Who knows? Russell had a really good year for them. And I think if you're just saying like, oh, 17 million for a free agent guard for the year he had, where he basically shot 42, 43% from three for the last five months of the season, but deep down lurking was,

was the Russell we were all hoping. Yeah. I look, this is going to be the big topic. I would be surprised if they won the Saturday game. Usually, um, unless the league really intervened and just was like,

Hey, anytime Yoko bars on anybody, just call Falun. Scott Foster's on a plane right now, I bet you. Scott Foster and his brother Bob. Yeah, I mean, this will be one of the stories, but I guess the bigger question is, should it even be that big of a story that this is it for LeBron?

It probably is, at least on a Laker run. I don't, like if they had Kyrie Irving, do you think that would have changed the series? Because I'm not sure. I just feel like, you know,

maybe they, maybe they win two games, but I just don't think anyone's beating Denver. Yeah, them beating Denver is like a whole other part of the conversation.

But yeah, I mean like a more competitive series. I think so for sure. I've been a weird Kyrie defender lately. Yeah, he's been good. Syrett was giving me a bunch of shit for drafting him

in like an all-star thing we did last year. I was like, the cloudiness of all his off-court stuff made us forget. And the Dallas stuff has reminded us, I feel like,

that like, yeah, this dude's like one of the best basketball players alive. I think you would have made a difference, but you know, it's all hindsight now. Would he have made a difference in actually winning a series different

or just making it more interesting? Well, maybe not against the Nuggets. Maybe Denver's a 2-1? Yeah, maybe not against the Nuggets. So they draw, LeBron at this point in his career draws the worst possible double beat. One is that he just has this monolith

in front of him. It's something he never had to deal with his entire East run, right? He's in the East from 11 to 18. There was really no team on any level of the team. He was the one team that really had a chance was the Bulls. And then Rose hurt his knee. That was the one team I felt like had a chance maybe to get their talent versus talent. Celtics got old as the early 2010s and never had it. And then the Golden State piece, he goes to

the Lakers. Durant blows out his Achilles, then ends up leaving Golden State and then Murray gets hurt. And it just seems like it's going to be the same situation where there's no dominant team. And then all of a sudden last year, there's a dominant team. And I don't know what the move is for him. And maybe it doesn't matter. He's had an unbelievable career. He got 40,000 points. He has four titles. He won some MVPs.

He's going to have a lot of the long-term records. And maybe he's just going to want to be like, you know what? I want to play with my son and that's going to be it. So he's going to be playing for... Dallas? Well, I's going to be it. So he's going to be playing for... Dallas? Well, I was going to say, what's the Mexico City G League team

or something like he's going to be... They'll bring Bronny up. Yeah, I don't know. When he turned that ball over late in the game, that one that was sort of like an unforced turnover, it had a weird energy about it. And I texted one of my friends but what you were talking about i was like that felt just sort of symbolic to me i don't know there was something about it and he was like you're reading into this too much

but that's just what we do i guess but i i don't he doesn't strike me as somebody that's gonna he he's you know i i think he takes a lot of pride and still being so competitive and that's part of his legacy. It seems like it would be a really weird left turn for him to just be like, I'm good. I feel like LeBron's going to kind of die on the battlefield. Well, then that means he's got to switch teams. Yeah, I would say so.

And people will be like, no, they have a couple picks. They'll be able to get somebody. It's like there's nobody they're going to be able to get that they're going to have enough assets to actually get, let's say Devin Booker ass out of Phoenix. Let's say that goes sideways. They're not going to have enough assets for him. Guess who's going to have to be in the trade? Anthony Davis. So you're going sideways with whatever, or you're going to have to roll the dice with somebody that's like a distressed asset, which they've been doing for the last couple of years. And ironically, all this starts with the Russell Westbrook trade, where they give up some real assets.

They give up a pick. Then they're stuck with Westbrook. They have to attach a pick just to get rid of him to get the guys back. There's a fork in the road there where they could have rolled the dice with Kyrie, but you can't really blame them considering they've taken two firsts where Kyrie's head was at. It's just the situation is what it is. Yeah, this is the first time I felt like I could see the finish line for him. I don't know. Unless he starts

doing mid-level exception or just like, I'm just going to join this team for two million because I want to win a fifth. I don't know if he'd want to do that. Could you see him being like, I'm just going to join this team for 2 million. Cause I want to win a fifth. I don't know if he'd want to do that. I don't like, could you see him being like, I'm going to, wouldn't be the Celtics cause he hates Boston. But, uh, so Denver, Minnesota wouldn't be Dallas would I guess be the team I'm going to join Dallas. I'm now on Dallas for one year, 2 million bucks. Want to play Luca moving to Texas into Texas. It's just weird. I don't see him doing it. I'm trying to

think of a team that really could use him. The Cleveland thing I don't think would work. They would have to move off of a lot of people. How about Philly? Him and Allen and Mobley couldn't play together, but they probably could figure it out. Cleveland homecoming would be interesting. Him and Mitchell and Garland could work together.

I think him as a passing kind of fulcrum between those two guys could work if Mitchell even stayed. Philly's interesting. Philly's interesting. I don't know. Is Embiid even going to be in Philly, though? That's a good question. You hear that even from Philly fans.

They're like, oh, he wants out of here. So I don't know. It's hard to say, man. Maybe LeBron or show LeBron the tape of Orlando game three just laying the smackdown on Cleveland. Yeah, I love it. I talked shit about their offense before the game and then they came out and just had the game. Is that

weird variance or are they going to go back to what we saw before? Was that an outlier? That's what I'm trying to figure out from that one. I mean, they were 13 for 37 from three, right? To me, it was more, I just don't think Cleveland's that good. So you flip home court, Orlando comes out, they play really well in the first half. Palo

finally gets going and has a real kick-ass Palo game. And then Cleveland couldn't make any shots. They were eight for 34. It's so funny how so many of these playoff games just come down and you just look at the three-point shots on both sides. How did this team do? How did that team do? Oh, that's why they won. I hate to reduce it to that, but sometimes that's what it is. Miami made 23 threes yesterday. Now, why did they make those 23 threes is a real discussion. But the fact is, if you make 23 threes in an NBA game, you're probably going to win. And I don't care who's playing who. It's too big of a disparity.

Yeah. Are you feeling pretty sick about the... Well, you had a good night, right? The Patriots got their guy, but I bet you're pretty conflicted right now, right? You're feeling... What's the panic meter for you? Is the nausea, the dread, is it spiking right now or are you still like, we're all right with the Celtics? I'm going to answer that question right after this break.

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Yeah, so I watched the Celtics game last night on an airplane. I went to Seattle. If you saw my Instagram, I went to go hang out with Pearl Jam, which will be running next week on this podcast. Watched, was in the airport going through, checking the phone and we're like, uh-oh, this game's close. Oh no.

And then watched. That has to be tough for you. You're the most visible self. Are you getting like, hey, Bill, it's going to... There's no avoiding spoilers or avoiding... Are you getting like, hey, Bill, there's no avoiding spoilers or avoiding... Are you getting annoying commentary in that situation? Only be... I mean, a couple people

did mention stuff, but I'm at the point with that Miami Celtics series where I'm like, we're fine. We're way better than them. And then I was able to actually watch the last two and a half quarters. Then when I got back last night, I went back and watched the whole game. I think all the Celtic fans who are realistic about this team have some real concerns about strategy, coaching, and the team's ability to perform under duress.

Right. It's a team that has been killing everybody, They've been up 15, 20, and 75 to 80% of their games. They also haven't really played a meaningful game in a month, a month and a half. They had everything wrapped up. There was a New Orleans game maybe four weeks ago when they laid the smackdown on New Orleans. I was like, oh, that's a good sign. But Miami just picked all the scabs.

Everything, they threw some weird ideas. They defended Porzingis in a goofy way and they completely discombobulated the Celtics. They slowed us down. It's a lot of isoball stuff. And then they just bombed threes, which is what you should do if you have an inferior team, right?

I mean, we've been talking about this forever. If you don't have as good of a team, shoot a bunch of threes. And Boston was like, you guys aren't good three-point shooters. Well, they were last night. But the thing that really bugged me, Kyle, you know, you got no point guard on the other team. And Hero did a really nice job as a playmaker yesterday, but he's not like a typical point guard.

There were, I don't know whether it was one third of the plays or one fourth of the plays or 40% of the plays, but you had Caleb Martin bringing the ball up. You had Hawkins bringing the ball up. You had Duncan Robinson bringing the ball. That guy fucking guy can't dribble. And they're not pressuring anybody. And it was, I just watched him like at one point they had Duncan Robinson just walking the ball up and I'm on the plane and I forgot I was on the plane. I'm like, what the fuck? And then like a bunch of people, then I'm like, oh shit, I'm in public. But like, why are we letting Duncan Robinson walk the ball up? Like how is Drew Holiday not hounding him full court?

Just, they made it so easy for them. And it's like, yeah, Miami hit a bunch of shots, but they also ran any play they wanted and got all the shots they wanted. So when I see that, I'm like, all right, is this, you know, you just, it was your lack of days ago because you thought you were going to sweep the series or is there something else going on here? So you tell me, what'd you see? Well well you're talking about them just kind of getting to the shots that they wanted to over and over again i mean like this is a this is a big scary number uh they ran 43 pick and rolls in that game and they were 1.628 um that that okay if you just running 43 is crazy so they clearly had a mindset but the 1.6 is like... And like, Porzingis had to have been at least 40% of those.

They were just trying to get him over and over and again in a pick and roll. They spread it around and everybody had success. Now, maybe you bank on that was a one-time thing, an out-of-body zombie experience, but they spread it around. It was Hero, it was a little bit of Hawkeyes,

it was a little bit of Martinkins. It was a little bit of Martin, and it was Robinson had success. Even Jovich. Ryan and I were texting about Jovich, and I'm just like, I should have been higher on him, but he's just tough. Yeah, I mean, pressure him.

Speed him up. Do whatever you can on that front, and then depend on your rim protection to kind of put out any fires. But my gut says that it's shooting variants and that they'll regress because they had some guys just... But then if I'm Boston, I'm

not banking on that because we got knocked out of the playoffs last year because of crazy shooting variants. So you can't bank on that. I just think if I'm Miami and I'm looking at the fact that we have the best coach in the world in this situation, I'm feeling pretty good.

Because they're just house money. I don't know. I don't know what the exact tweak is for them, but if they keep shooting the ball like this, you've got to change something up. Celts were playing with no pace. And there's also Tatum, the offensive stats were good for him. The on-off court stats were really good no pace. And, you know, there's also Tatum, the offensive

stats were good for him. The on-off court stats were really good for him. There's still that piece where he's just not at the same level as, you know, there's the Luka Jokic SGA class of guys. And then Embiid, when he's healthy and looking like he did tonight,

where just guys that are kind of unstoppable. And if you're down eight or if you're up six, you just guys that are kind of unstoppable. And if you're down eight or if you're up six, you just know you can go to them again and again. And he really wants to be that guy and the Celtics want him to be that guy, but he's not totally that guy. And Porzingis has been the big superpower for them. And he just, I'm not willing to say Miami figured out Porzingis. I just think he had a bad game. It didn't bother me that he had a bad game because it happens. What bothered me was the defense and how they defended what Miami was doing, which was basically they didn't have an answer or a real original thought about it, which speaks to the coaching and the strategy piece of it. And Spolstra,

it's just a hilarious disadvantage. It just is. So can they overcome it? I'm sure they will. Does it make me feel better about them playing Denver in six weeks? No, it made me feel worse. And I already felt awful. That shifted hard in the last 24 hours. That conversation. Because I don't know.

Do you feel like that's true? Or did you come into the playoffs thinking you all couldn't beat Denver? Because I feel like that changed in the last... No, I never felt like they could beat Denver. Because I watched the two games when they lost to Denver. And I just don't think... If they did, I'd go nuts. It would be amazing.

But I just think, first of all, Denver is the best team in seven years and one of the three or four best teams of the century, as I said. Second, Denver executes at a level that does not resemble anyone else in the league right now and that's been the Celtics biggest end of the game issue and if you're just talking about a bunch of close games where they can't execute at the same level as Denver

why would I think they could beat Denver in a series? You know something else that's interesting if you're comparing Boston and you're comparing Denver and like crunch time offense is like a big thing obviously for the elite of the elite like when you watch i was really struck tonight by like porter jr who had a great game murray murray had moments he was battling through some physicality the whistle has been really interesting to watch for some of these guys who score the way he does but denver's very mature

about like the silos of what they do they're like in the beginning of the shot clock if there's an open shot we'll take it we'll we're aggressive we'll go after it but we're running our stuff we're doing our actions they say they have shot makers who can go and get theirs at any other time like you know porter jr on another team would average more points murray on another team would average more points. But they, like, wait until certain situations to be like, okay, talented shot makers, go find your shot. And I feel like that is a little bit of a difference between them and Boston in the past few years,

where Boston has these guys like Tatum, you were saying, who's not quite to that level yet of, like, the maturity of, like, when to create rim pressure, when to get your jump shot, when to, you know, when to get off the ball, when to stay on the ball. I just feel like that is kind of the thing about denver that makes them so tough is that like they just kind of have these guys in their back pocket that like after we've run our stuff our last kind of backup generator for our offense is like hey all-star level tap like to have michael porter jr just kind of over there on the wall, like, ah, we're in kind of a jam here.

Did you see the pull-up that he shot over Anthony Davis? Yeah. My wife was like, I went, oh, my God. My wife was like, what, was that weird? I was like, yeah, people don't shoot pull-ups over Anthony Davis like that so casually. Well, and they also get the six points a game off Gordon on the baseline, just people forgetting that he's over there.

Meanwhile, you have Philly who's down 2-0 and Bede is very bombastic about we're going to come back. We should be winning this series. First half, thank God for, this was a thank God for three TV night for me

because I had the draft. I'm dying with the seeing what the Pats are going to do. Cleveland's getting their ass kicked by Orlando. And then Philly, we have with no sound. And Embiid really looks like he's unraveling a couple of times there in the first,

I don't know, quarter and a half of the game, including the Mitchell Robinson play, which was just super weird. That was like Clemens throwing the bat back of Piazza kind of level bizarre. I thought he was getting kicked out. I think normally guys would get kicked out for that. There was a little superstar tax for that, but that was really weird behavior. Just in general, he seemed a little unhinged.

And then he just channeled it into one of the more memorable 50 point games I've seen because he didn't take 20 shots and he's just unstoppable going to the line. He's making threes with people right in his space and the Knicks to their credit, the game seemed like it was over, especially in the fourth quarter, like five different times. It was like, oh, that's it. Oh, they're up 12. It's over. Oh, they're up 15. It's over. And the Knicks just they come back they come back they come back they come back and uh and Philly was just able to fight it off and Bede was was just awesome I can't remember a legendary like playoff performance like that from a player who should have probably been ejected I was trying to think of another yeah I can't there's been a

few I couldn't think of another one well Leitner in 92 came to mind he should have been a few i couldn't think of another one well latner in 92 came to mind he should have been ejected i stand by that but like there was a there was a sequence where um you know in beat speaking of how you were talking about it came out that he has there were people talking about he has bell's palsy that's like yeah roge reported it that he had a mild case of bell's palsy made sense because it didn't seem like his left eye was blinking or closing correctly yeah i didn't even notice his left eye was blinking or closing correctly yeah i didn't even notice that that somebody was texting me about that i was like i didn't even notice that the main thing that struck me was i was like and b just looks he looks like i look if

i've like been if my like wife has been away with like her family for a weekend or something and i don't shave and i've kind of just been in the house, you know, just eating like leftovers. Yeah. I just kind of look a little crazed and I've been up too long. Like he just looked a little like on the edge and I was like, man, what is it? And then, yeah. When the Knicks were yelling at him and he was yelling at Hartenstein, he was just kind of looking around. He was like, you seem like a maniac.

He looked, yeah. He had the, uh, he had the Tom Jane and Boogie Nights look on his face. He was like, I've been away. Oh, he really did. Well, then on top of it, it really felt like there was, you know, because we flipped the game to the big TV a couple of times, and it felt like there was like one-third Knicks fans there. That was insane. So the energy of the game was totally weird.

What was that about? I was asking Chris. About the secondary market. I was like, yeah. I was asking Chris, I was like, how many fights was asking Chris, like, I was like, how many fights like in the stands? He was like, oh, countless. Oh, my God. I can't imagine.

Get those videos. Yeah. He had a stretch, though. I mean, this was like a back and forth game. For me, the big thing for this was like when I took a step back, because in the first half, I kept thinking like New York looks like the more put together team I was like New York is running their stuff they get to their spots and I was like but they're not pulling away and I was like yeah I was like why do I feel this way and I was like this is this game was like the definition of a like four quarters don't equal a dollar in the NBA where it's like you can have an incredibly well put together team and a team that maybe is a little wobblier

in execution and just have insane elite shot making talent and like Embiid and Maxey at different times they were bridging the gap like there was a sequence where it was tied and Embiid was just yeah it was like a minute and a half it went from tied to up 10 just because Embiid was like

I'm making three threes in a row so that was kind of my thing. And then he just started wearing away on them from the free throw line. So Brunson was good, but the Knicks just didn't have enough talent. Do you think they missed Randall? That's what I was saying.

I don't. I think today was a little fluky. The Sixers were 15 for 31 from three, right? 48%. That's one thing. Campaign, who I don't even think played in game one. Can't remember if he played at all in game two. But some people are calling like,

why aren't they playing Campaign over Buddy Hield's dead body? Buddy Hield played four minutes tonight. But Campaign hit three threes, 11 points. And I actually thought he had big points. Oh, yeah. At the points of the game when he scored, it was like, oh, that was fucking points. Oh yeah. At the points of the game when he scored, it was like, Oh, that was fucking campaign backbreaker. Um, but really it was, you know, when, if Maxine and

beat are going to score 75 points, they're probably combined with shooting almost 50% for three. You're probably winning that game. It's amazing. The Knicks were hanging around. I wouldn't blame the Randall thing. I thought the Mitchell Robinson injury was a bigger issue because they were really killing them on the boards in the other two games. This game, the Sixers actually had the rebounding advantage. I still think the Knicks are going to win this series. I'm not worried. The Sixers were supposed to win tonight. They're see game four. OKC New Orleans last night as we head toward the weekend. I thought OKC was fantastic last night. Yeah. I really was like blown away. Uh, maybe the best check game I can remember.

And I don't even know if Chet was leading the headlines on that one because SGA was so great. And, um, you know, Chet 26 and seven, butet 26 and seven. But I always felt like, how are they going to handle overpowering centers? And Chet just over and over again, he's in the right spots. He's got the verticality. He's perfect. He's super competitive, plays with a motor. He spreads the floor. And that was, I thought the best game I've seen that team play considering the stakes. They really annihilated New Orleans., I thought the best game I've seen that team play considering the stakes. They really annihilated New Orleans,

and I thought New Orleans was going to either cover or win in that game. I think going back to New Orleans, I could see New Orleans winning game three, but I might have underrated OKC a tiny bit. Where were you on them heading into the playoffs, and has it changed? I thought, well, if Zion was going to be there, I thought it was going to be a toss-up, honestly, because I didn't think they had an answer for him. Aside from the Valanciunas thing,

if you just get his size moving in space, they don't have anybody like that. But, yeah, overall, I kind of thought they'd win in six. That's kind of where I was. I thought they'd need a minute to get their legs under them a little bit. But I thought last night was a really impressive response to that first game because they kind of came back with their shit way more together, shot the ball a little better.

But yeah, Chet, Kevin and I were talking about this on the draft show that everybody's pressuring them to go get a big guy you got we got to get a big guy we got to do this thing to sort of account for the things other teams have but it's like okc just has such a speed advantage one through five they have lineups that they can put out there with like five shooter handle handler passers i'm kind of like it made me think of like the like the the Seconds or Less Suns where they had this style that was such a get-you-on-your-heels, odd kind of thing. And they got this pressure.

They ran into the Spurs a couple times, as we remember. They just got this pressure to hedge a little bit. And if you listen to Mike D'Antoni talk now, he is just filled with immense like, immense regret about that. He's like, no. The Shaq trade. So is Steve Kerr. Yeah. He's like, we're not big enough.

We got to do something. He's like, we should have gone on. But if you watch that game, I was saying, like, if you can stomach the moments where Valanchunas makes you look like a junior varsity squad, because he does. There's the times where he's just- It's like five times a game, yeah. Palming it and putting it in effortlessly. But there

are also moments where he where Chet makes him look like a wax figure on the perimeter. And that's like I think you lean into your strength. So I'm kind of just like Stan Pat unless you have to make you know, I just I just don't know that I would be in a hurry to like undermine your stylistic advantage

if you're OKC. I think they're going to win the series. I could see I could see New Orleans getting a couple, but I still think that they're going to win. Well, and they would get Dallas or the Clippers in the second round when that series is already zagged. It goes from what's wrong with Dallas after game one to could Dallas be the team that beats Denver? That's the story in round two.

I don't know what to expect from that series. And I think anyone who bets major money in any of the Dallas Clippers games needs to have their head examined because there's no rhyme or reason. I just think it's going to yo-yo back and forth. Do you have any sort of gut feeling on where that series goes?

Especially where we don't know what we're getting out of Kawhi? Yeah, the Kawhi part of it. I mean, just the bigs for Dallas. They're just such a big variable for them. If they're going to get nothing. Yeah, Gafford's already hurt. Yeah, and Lively, he does very narrow things well.

And it's like he has a very small script of things that he can do and if you if you push him off of those he's just not ready yet so you can really see that and that's that's the thing for me i think it's gonna just rise and fall similar to philly like you know philly might get a couple more if like they have some more out-of-body experiences from their stars i think it's gonna rise and fall with luca and kairi, you know, we've seen Luka do that, though. That's the thing. We've seen Luka get crazy. I don't even know.

I feel like Luka could play even better, honestly. So it could happen. I don't know. I don't even, I don't know how much I trust the Clippers, though, either. So it's sort of, I have no trust in the Clippers.

Yeah. Well, you never trusted the Clippers. No, I don't. I'm never going to trust them. I also think they played a great first half in game one. And then the next three halves they played got progressively uglier, what they were doing offensively. And Dallas really figured out a way to just do all the things

that I don't like when I watch the Clippers. It's a lot of one-on-one stuff and just a lot of people standing around. And it really, I thought Westbrook actually really helped with some of his energy and stuff, but otherwise not a lot to love. We also, the hardest series I think to figure out if we're just looking toward the weekend

is Timberwolf Suns. Because you could tell me, Sears is going to zag, Suns will shoot the lights out, a little like the magic today. 2-1. Oh, why are we worried about the Suns? Booker and Durant just combined for 68 points.

There's also a world where they suck like the Lakers did tonight. And by the end of game three, we'll be having the same conversations about them as we just did about LeBron like the Lakers did tonight and by the end of game three we'll be having the same conversations about them as we just did about LeBron and the Lakers before it's like oh my god this is done what are they going to do it's a little like what KOC and I talked about the other day

do you see road back for them or no for the Suns yeah this series just feels like it feels like an Anthony Edwards like I've arrived kind of like mission for him in a way that makes me think that like it feels like an Anthony Edwards like I've arrived kind of like mission for him in a way that makes me think that like it just has that feeling you know and and these two teams stylistically are just a really interesting pair because you have the length and the size and the

rim protection against like I don't know they're probably the best dribble pull-up shooting team in the league I would say or at least the most dependent on it. I just feel like... Yeah, I still feel like Minnesota is going to come away and win this one, but I don't know. Betting against Durant and Kevin Booker, it's just that Minnesota has the tools to sort of throw at those guys if there is any

kind of ultimate answer, but I'm still going with Minnesota. Where are you on that? I'm so mad at myself that I flipped my opinion on this series because of game 82. Well, it's interesting. Phoenix is plus 350 to win this series, which I thought seemed low.

That's on FanDuel. Because usually when the first two games and you have game seven at home, that becomes a Herculean task to come back for the other team. You'd win four out of five, but game seven at home, that becomes a Herculean task to come back for the other team. You'd win four out of five, but game seven is almost definitely going to be on the road. So plus 350 seemed a little crazy. I didn't like what I saw from Phoenix in game two from a body language, cohesiveness standpoint. I thought it was a little alarming actually. And then Grayson getting hurt too, which I think has been pretty important for them.

I would lean, if you had to tell me this series is going to go seven or Phoenix is going to get swept and those are my two options, I would pick Phoenix getting swept. Yeah. What would you pick? I think that's more likely too. I'm with you. I just think I don't know. It's an interesting thing to just keep repeating because the shot making of your stars. I don't want to keep reiterating this, but they just lean on it so heavily

and it so specifically kind of plays into what Minnesota can defend well. And the Ant thing, man. He looks like he's on a mission. He looks determined. Yeah, I agree. So we're still getting the brain fart Carl Towns moments,

but Ant's... Might not matter this round. He's just got that glow about him right now. We'll know how desperate Phoenix is because if they play Isaiah Thomas in game three, that will tell me that Frank Vogel's officially at the... And maybe that's not even a bad idea. But if they do that,

then now we're throwing darts against the wall and hoping. The other darts against the wall series is Indiana-Milwaukee, which right now Indiana is minus 150. They have the next two games in Indiana. And we have no idea when Giannis comes back. And there's been some real good shit talking. This is like kind of a sneaky good series because I forget who called them front runners.

Maybe it was Bobby Portis. Somebody took a shot at Indiana about, oh yeah, they're front runners. They talk a lot when they're up 15 or whatever they said. But I think without Giannis, I think Indiana's going to win the series. So the hardest thing to figure out is, can he come back? Can it be 2-2 when he comes back? Do they bring him back when they're down 3-2 in Indiana? Does he come back at all? If he doesn't come back at all, Indiana is going to win the series. The calf stuff just makes me nervous. Me too. I would wait. I don't necessarily think.

I mean, even if he comes back and he's healthy and they win this series, where is it going? I mean, I don't know. He's 80%. What do you think their ceiling is even if he comes back and looks all right and they play one of these other teams? I don't know if the juice is worth the squeeze, to be honest. And, yeah, I mean, these teams, Like I just don't, I don't know if it's where I don't know if the juice is worth the squeeze to be honest. And yeah, I mean these teams,

even, even when he was healthy, Indiana was a terrible matchup for them just because you're really seeing the sort of like stresses of, of what has made Milwaukee have such a tough season really played out in this team that plays this really particular specific way of playing as up-tempo as they can and, and shooting a lot of threes, getting out and running.

It's just a really, really interesting kind of style juxtaposition between those two. Celtics are plus 110 on Fando to win the title. Ridiculous. Denver's plus 230. Now, Fando's job is just to put the odds where they're going to not have too much risk. So, obviously, more people have just been on Boston because the road in the East is easier.

Oklahoma City is 12 to 1. Dallas 17 to 1. New York 17 to 1. And Minnesota is 18 to 1. I mentioned that because Minnesota is probably our best chance in the West to beat Denver. And they would be playing them in round two. And if they beat Denver, that's a real path.

I don't know what they'd be in that series. They'd probably be like, the Lakers were plus, I think, 330. So Minnesota would probably be like plus 250 against Denver, maybe plus 270. But if they beat them,

they'd have to be considered the favorites or the co-favorites. So those are probably the best odds, but it's interesting that OKC has crept up to the number three odds. I think a lot of that had to do with how good they looked in that New Orleans game where it was just like, that was the first time it was like, okay, this is happening. And we watched this happen in 2012 with a different version of the Oklahoma City team that resembled this one. Where there's a lot of young guys. We were like, nah, they're not ready yet. And then all of a sudden they're in the finals.

Yeah. It's like, oh, they're here. It has some of the kind of 13 Warriors kind of vibe to me. Where it's like maybe, because, you know, Thunder did the same thing. It's just like the ahead of schedule thing. And then sometimes you take a step back and you retool and address some of your things that need to change. But, yeah, I mean, there were some questions, too, that people had about like Shea's offensive game. You know, you heard people talk about that a lot about like, oh, he likes to get these.

He likes to kind of generate this much free throw offense. Is he going to get the same whistle in the playoffs? Is he going to make the same types of shots? He made some plays in that game that I was talking to a buddy about this that he wasn't making a couple years ago. He was making a couple dribble pull-ups in pick and roll that were really effortless

and getting to the rim and just the mid-range, just pull-up stuff. He's doing things and getting off the ball in ways that I think are confirming that this isn't a feel-good, we got the one seed. They are maturing in front of our eyes.

Whether or not they do it this year, but... Who were the people questioning Shea's offense when he had 55, 30-point games this year? Was that a topic on a podcast I didn't hear? You see things out on the internet. I think whenever the foul generation,

he's not the same type of player, but it's the hardened conversation about, is this going to translate? Is he going to be able to generate as much offense? And I don't think he was doing, I don't think what he did last night was driven by foul baiting at all or a good whistle.

It was skill and tough shot making. What would have been Sharks' favorite plot of this playoffs? Oh, God. I was thinking he would have loved John Isaac versus Mobley because those two squaring off was fun. That was a good one. I think he would have enjoyed just how weird this

OKC team is. And I think he would have completely talked himself into Kyrie. Probably about January. Kyrie's amazing. I've been underrating him all along. A funny thing that we were talking about, that Kevin and I were talking about

was the Paolo versus Chet thing. I know Cerruti's going to come strangling for this, but you hear a lot of people talk about that and I haven't moved at all. Like it's a done deal that Paolo is a better pick? I don't know where you are on that, but I haven't moved on that at all.

I still have Chet one in that class. Oh, wow. It's a great argument. Yeah. I don't know. Where are you on that? I mean, and that's not I'm like pushing Paolo off a cliff. I just prefer Chet. Like his two-way offerings and spacing and passing and stuff like that. I still think Chet's ultimately going to be the better player.

Is Cerruti still on the Zoom? What's up? Are you mad? No, not at all. I mean, I famously... I wanted Chetet i went on the koc i went everywhere and i was like i love chet so the fact that both of them are good i feel like is a w for me so i'll take that but i i keep coming back to i think both teams got the exact guy that they needed i think orlando we needed a guy who just was like screw screw it, give me the ball. I don't care. And I'm going to be maybe a little inefficient,

but I'm not afraid. And I am definitely a one. And OKC didn't need that guy. If you swap these two guys, I don't think it works, actually. I don't know how much SGA works with Paulo. And I don't know that Orlando... I mean, Chet would be good.

He'd be great. But he's not a number one option on a team that just won a playoff game by 30-something points. So I think everybody's happy. I team that's you know that just won a playoff game by like 30 something points so I think everybody's happy I think that's the right answer I also don't think we have an answer yet because I want to see how these guys evolve over the next four years I will

say this I think what Chet does translates more to a team with a higher ceiling than maybe the Palo version of it. Because I think Palo is just like, if you have Palo, he's your best player. And if you win the title, he's going to be the number one guy, a little like Tatum. Whereas Chet, I think he could kind of be the second, third, or best player potentially on a team, depending on who's on the team. He's such a unique asset.

I just can't believe that he's able to hold the fort against Valanchunas. Even at the trade deadline, I was going nuts that didn't get a center. But as Kyle said earlier, yeah, he'll look bad five times in a game where you're like, oh man, that looked awful. But he comes right back. He just puts his head down. He runs back and he'll make a three. I love how competitive he is. And it ties into what people saw when he was in AAU five, six years ago when everybody was coming at him and trying to dunk on him and test them. And he just always came back. So it's a tough one. I guess the question for me is, and maybe Kyle, maybe you can answer this as a neutral party. What is Palo's ceiling? Because is his ceiling top three MVP candidate? Is it first team on BA? Is it 30 and 12 a game? Because if it's that high,

then he's probably the ultimate answer to the question. I don't know if Chet's ever going to be like a top three player in the league. I would doubt that. But Kyle, do you think he has the chance to be a top four MVP candidate? Because I would say I'd lean toward yes over no on that. Yeah, he kind of feels like high all nba ish sort of ceiling to

me like i've said that i thought that his developmental path would kind of be similar to blake griffins because they have the same kind of tilt in their game whereas like they played in different eras where if blake had played now he probably would have played more facing the basket he was so post-up dominant early in his career. But I feel like they're going to end up similar places where they both can pass the ball. The shooting is like, eh, every once in a while it's okay. But to answer your question, I don't know

about top three in the league. I'm not sure about that. But I do think that second-ish flirt with first team All-NBA, which is hardly an insult to me. So basically Tatum range. Yeah, I think that's fair.

Yeah, I think that's fair. I don't know if Tatum gets higher than where he is right now. Unless there's one last thing he can add to his game that he doesn't have yet. But to me, he's getting closer to a finished product than maybe I felt before the season.

Really quickly, the Apollo thing, like he, you saw it today, like his tough shot making ability and like, yeah, the efficiency is always going to be, you know, it's going to improve. I mean, he's in the second year and it's his first playoff series. So I got, and he's 21. Yeah. And let his team points at rebounds and assists. Youngest guy ever do that. So I, that to me, those things that he does,

like Chet, I don't know that Chet ever does that. Chet's an incredible secondary piece to me. But does that matter? I think it does because, you know, like he's already a really good playmaker. I mean, I know like people are going to throw the turnovers in his face. I don't know, man.

It was two road games. He doesn't have a point guard. Like it's the first playoffs. So like, cool. Two big guys. Zero turnovers. So like, I don point guard. It's the first playoffs. Two big guys. I don't know. The shots he was hitting tonight, there's not a lot of guys in the league that can do that.

Yeah, I guess his destiny, Chet's destiny would be the Anthony Davis piece on a title team. Paolo's destiny could be, can I be the best player on a finals team? Something like that. Could I get to that Durant Tatum territory, which I think at the age

he's at with some of the stuff we've seen already, it's a great argument. It's amazing that this isn't even close to being a finished argument yet. Usually after the second year, we kind of know who should have been the first pick. But in this case, I'm not positive we know yet. Anyway. Poor Jabari. So old. So old my Jabari

stock. So like him. The yet. Poor Jabari. So old. So old in my Jabari stock. Still like him. Oh, he's great. The funny thing is Jabari was also a really good pick. And maybe this actually worked out perfectly. I hope we say the same about the football quarterbacks in the draft today. Serenity. Where it's like, oh man, looking back. Yeah, Caleb's the best.

But man, Drake May, really good pick at number three. Maybe Paddocks will be awesome. Who knows? That would actually be the greatest plot twist of all. He actually would be an awesome guy. All right, Kyle, great to see you. Saruti, thanks for popping on. We're going to take a break, come back,

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All right, I'm taping this part of the pod. It is 745 Pacific time. Van Lathan and I just watched 20 plus picks in the NFL draft. We watched two basketball games. The Falcons took Michael Penix with the eighth pick in the draft. Yeah. Every once in a while, the NFL draft reminds us, no matter how many mock drafts you do, no matter how many experts you listen to,

something fucked up is going to happen. Yeah. Something. This was a fucked up thing because they just spent all this money on Kirk Cousins. It feels like a team that's pretty close to really competing in the NFC with a couple moves. And now they spent the eighth pick on a backup quarterback.

I don't get it. It's a drama factory. Like you have a guy in their league veteran, a proven quarterback, not an elite quarterback, but a proven quarterback. And you think you're tooling up to make a go at it. And then you bring in youth. And like, we're all sitting here, we're watching the draft. And no sooner is that pick made, then you start to hear rumblings that he's actually, I think the word is stunned.

Stunned. From Michael Penix. Disappointed, I think was the other word. And so this is the thing. You wonder with a pick like this, number one, with a player like Michael Penix, who has all the talent in the world, had a really strong combine in pro day, if they just fell in love with him so much for whatever reason that they had to draft him, no matter how it would shake their organization up. And despite obviously the huge medical concerns that he has. You love Michael Penix.

Love him. So make the case that this was actually a great move to do this. Because by the time he actually starts for them after Cousins is out, which will be a couple years from now, Michael Penix will be 34 years old. Well, he is older. He's yet another one of these transfer guys. And look, he's had significant, significant medical issues.

Two torn ACLs, same knee, uh, a shoulder surgery. All you guys have seen it all. They ran it down on the draft. But look, if there was a world where you could say Michael Penix is going to be healthy and he's not going to have any injury problems and obviously that's a huge conjecture given his past yo he can just fucking ball he can throw the ball down the field beautifully he puts the ball in pockets and in windows with amazing touch and accuracy he's like a Drew Brees type of quarterback while he was at

Washington in college. He just, it's almost like he's handing the ball off down there. Anticipatory throws the whole nine, and then plus all of that, his knees seem to be holding up, his legs seem to be holding up, his body seems to be holding up well enough for him to go 4-5 at the combine, which I think shocked everybody. But he doesn't

really run as a quarterback though, so what do I care if he runs 4'6"? We talked about this. If you're not actually running. He's not running, but the fact that he can still move and the fact that his body is functional and working, I think that explosion and that type of speed was surprising to a lot of people

who had heard that he was essentially held together by thumbtacks and chewing gum throughout his college season, you know? Well, he tore the same ACL on his right knee twice. That means the second one was a cadaver ACL, maybe bad cadaver. Or maybe it's like rookie of the year. Remember when rookie of the year, when he got hurt and then all of a sudden that made him throw harder than anybody right there it just got stronger and better stronger it's like they put the rookie of the year ligament in there now he's like the man but look here's the thing if their plan is to

uh not play him for a while make sure that his body can take the load of an nfl season give him a look-see for a couple of years, and then turn it over to them, it's a very smart draft pick. The reality is that it's one of the riskier draft picks that I can remember somebody making right now. Like, with a new QB coming in and with the team as close to continuing as you said. And one of the funnier draft picks.

Nobody thought it was going to happen. I love when there's the... And I said we were watching with a couple of people, and they showed him like three, four minutes before the pick. Uh-huh. And I immediately got suspicious because I thought the Falcons were going to trade out of that. They were such a logical trade candidate

for somebody to come up and get J.J. McCarthy. And instead they were staying put. And then they're just showing him in his living room with his family and you want to talk about the families later. You have some thoughts. I have some thoughts. You have some theories. Tough night.

But it was like, I think they're going to take penance. But I said it the same way you would say like if you're at a bar and one of your buddies was talking all night to somebody, you were like that lady's 25 years older than him.

I think he's going to go home with her. I think they're leaving together. I think she just paid the check. Right. And then that was it. They took her. You hate the Falcons. We should mention this.

Yeah, with a seething white hot passion. So this must have delighted you. They wasted all their cap on Kirk Cousins. And then they spent the eighth pick on a backup quarterback. So here's the thing. This is why the draft is sometimes tough for huge college football fans. Yeah. It's tough because you get connected to the players and their stories over three or four, or in the case of Bo Nix, 12 seasons that they've been playing. Then all of a sudden, they get drafted to your moral

enemy like the Falcons I want to see Michael Penix do well because it's just such a fantastic story you were even defending his performance in the playoff game which was not good so look he played against in Michigan what I believe to be a top three, if not the best defense in college football. And they had him schemed up. They played him really well. It was a hard-hitting, very physical defense. He didn't, well, he diced Texas up. Bad secondary, but he diced Texas up.

Okay. And all throughout the year, except for a couple of games where he just kind of led them to victories and didn't really dominate, Michael Penix was the offense for Washington. Obviously he had some great guys on the, on the outside, but he was the engine of the whole team. He played fantastic football.

He played fantastic football. So like he made me a believer in college. He's a long time. Like a lot of guys, all of these guys are all the fourth, 15, six years, 25 year old rookies,

the whole nine. That's, that's the way of the world now, Bill. Can you walk us through a couple years here in the city of Atlanta where you have Kirk Cousins as the incumbent and Michael Penix as the backup, how that might play out? So I want to walk you through it, but I can't do better than a meme that I saw.

Okay, what's that? There's a little movie called Any Given Sunday. Mm-hmm. And this is where Dennis Quaid played Cap, the old veteran QB who had led the team to glory in the past. You know, this was the first rewatchable we ever did after Heat.

True. Any Given Sunday, yeah. Any Given Sunday was the one. Any Given Sunday, some shocking locker room scenes there some shocking drug use shocking drug use some shocking all kinds of things so you're gonna say that cousins is cap and pennix is willie beeman and that and that that i mean we're not there yet because we haven't seen pennix like uh uh like outperform and, like, take his job. But that type of locker room animus, especially if Cousins is already there.

Now, look, Kirk Cousins has a decision to make. He can either try to nuke this kid in an Aaron Rodgers, Jordan Love type of way. He's too nice of a guy. Too nice of a guy. I don't see him doing that. Too nice of a guy. I don't see him doing that. However, the choice to, I guess, talk about or discuss or leak to the media your displeasure at the pick is an interesting one.

If you wanted to go with the flow and not rock the boat too much, you would think that you would stay away from any public criticism of the pick itself. Not saying that he came out and went on a record, but obviously if it got out how he felt about it, he knows that it got out. But you can't win with any scenario

if you're Kirk Cousins. Because if you're like, no, I think it's a great pick, but I can't wait to work with Michael, people are like, you're full of shit. Yeah, I mean- Who are you kidding? But to me, it's just,

sometimes you tell the lies that you have to tell. Hey, I can't wait to show this kid how to be a great pro. I can't wait to get in there and make sure Michael Penix has, we know that he doesn't mean it, but letting people know now that he's not feeling okay with it makes it a story going into mini camps and going into OTAs and going into training camp in the summer. So the city of Atlanta, you gave me on the one hand a Dennis Quaid character and then you gave me a Jamie Foxx character. Sure. Where do you think

the city is going to lean? Look, let me tell you something. I wonder how it's going to play out. Let me tell you something real quick. Atlanta loves a winner. Okay. And I think that's going to be a problem for Kirk Cousins. Kirk Cousins is a good QB, but he's a 9-7, 9-8 guy.

He is a 10-7 ranger, right? He is the cream of the crap, the best of the worst. Now, I'm not hating on him because he's had a had a great career but i don't think anybody is looking to kirk cousins to take you to the promised land now if he goes in there and he has problems figuring out a little bit they're going to be people that want to see the new kid that's the thing and not just because he is culturally should i say what atlanta is looking, just because he just came off of a fantastic college football career. The Netflix series really helped Cousins.

I've been saying that for a while. It made people forget that he's just basically a slightly over 500 quarterback who doesn't really do well in the playoffs. And the Minnesota thing was fine. Coming off an Achilles to boot, made me wonder if they think he's going to be 100% healthy.

And maybe they wanted insurance. Maybe they were worried about something. The question is, is Kirk Cousins a quarterback, I think everybody knows the answer now, that you think you can win with? Or is he Gardner Minshew plus? Meaning a quarterback that's a stopgap that comes in. Or is he Dak Prescott? Well, I mean, Dak Prescott is different.

A stopgap. Well, Dak Prescott, they. A stopgap. Well, Dak Prescott, they built the whole fucking thing around him. They think. They're the same guy. I've been saying this for years. You think Prescott and.

Yeah, they're the same guys. Same level of success, same stats. Yeah, true. It's just one guy plays in Dallas and the other guy was on Minnesota and a couple other teams.

I think the only difference with Dak Prescott is he really put the team in a real bind to where he fails just enough to ruin your franchise. Yeah. Like he, if you commit that type of money and make that type of commitment to obviously a guy, I'm not like rewriting or saying anything profound here to a guy like Dak Prescott, you almost have to win. And he just hasn't demonstrated that at all.

Kirk Cousins was different. It's one of the more unique careers ever. A bunch of different franchise tags. There wasn't a real commitment to him long term. Kept betting on himself, making a shitload of money. Kept betting on himself, making this shit. But he never asked the team to commit long term. So there was still some type of flexibility

that other teams didn't have. Yeah. So it was odd in that way. But you never thought that you could put a team around him that was going to win a championship. And I don't think anything's changed now, you know? So to sum up the Falcons offseason, they decided not to hire Bill Belichick.

Yeah. They kept their whole inner circle in place that had done all the other stuff. They tampered with Kirk Cousins and are probably going to get penalized with some sort of something at some point down the road when they get more info.

And then after tampering with Kirk Cousins and paying for him, even though they don't know if he's going to be healthy from the start of the season, then they spend the eighth pick on Michael Penix. They drafted his successor. The only thing I like,

I actually think Raheem Morris, I actually like that coaching hire. It would have been way more fun if they had hired, like the guy Carolina hired, like Dave Canales. Like, oh man, you didn't hire Bell. But I actually do think Raheem Morris could be a good coach.

But at the same time, they passed on Bill Belichick, the greatest coach of all time. Well, I mean, Robert Kraft, right? Robert Kraft. Yeah, Robert, definitely. What is it like for you to watch the most buttoned up, the most disciplined franchise in the history of American professional sports,

maybe turn it to the Real Housewives of Massachusetts? It's been an adjustment. My dad was at the Celtics game yesterday, game two. I don't know if you saw it. Celtics lost. We didn't put any pressure on. Oh, I saw that. Miami had no point guards.

We just decided to let them dribble the ball up. Oh, Duncan Robinson, you want to just dribble the ball up? Great. We won't do anything. Bob Kraft was there sitting courtside. And whenever they used to show Bob Kraft during the games, huge ovation, right? Kept the Patriots in New England, hired Bill Belichick, Super Bowl champ. Everyone loved Bob Kraft. Things have fallen to the point, they showed him on the Jumbotron and my dad's like, yeah, they showed Kraft on the Jumbotron last time. I was like, oh my God, what happened? Did they boo? And he's like, no. And I was like, did they cheer? And he's like, no. It was just kind of awkward. He was just on the Jumbotron and they stayed on him

and then they moved off. So he's hit that level where it's like afraid to even have a reaction. Let me tell you something. That's tough. Let me tell you something. I'm not one to defend Bob craft, but after six fucking Superbowls, if I was, if I was anything less than a walking deity in Boston, i would sit courtside and show that entire arena my entire ass i get it it's been a couple of down years six super bowls well i think it was how they he treated belichick i think yeah well look how i just don't think people appreciate i get it how he treated belichick fine like belichick was not Methuselah. He wasn't going to coach there forever. It was only going to go either.

It was going to go one or two ways. Either Belichick was going to leave on his terms or he was going to leave on the terms of the organization. Well, you know, it's like cough on and coggling in a cocktail. Oh, yeah. Everything ends badly. Otherwise, it doesn't end. One of the great quotes of all time from one of the greatest movies of all time.

He ended badly. He did. Not the greatest. He killed himself in a yacht. Right. Tom, real quick, before we move off that. One of the great

what the fuck just happened scenes from Tom Cruise. Yeah. Like one of, in movie history, if you guys have never seen content, I don't want to ruin it, one of the great oh my god scenes.

It's Cruise's greatest performance in a movie. I've made that point before. Really? Yeah. He's carrying a 12-win team to 48 games, 48 wins. I don't know. Kelly Lynch was there for a couple of wins. That's true. She didn't help out. The thing that shocked you tonight.

So we had six quarterbacks go in the top 12, which I'm pretty sure that's never happened. And Bo Nix goes to Denver at 12. And this is after Minnesota trades up a spot with the Jets to get JJ McCarthy, which we expected. Drake May goes to the Pats. We'll talk about that later. Jaden Daniel goes to Washington.

Caleb Williams goes to Chicago. He's going to be the hero. But then Bo Nix, Denver was the last team that kind of needed a QB. Maybe could have gotten him later. Take him 12th. Yeah. And you started laughing. Yeah, I did.

Because the Bo Nix thing is very, very funny to me. So I'd read a lot about the fact that Sean Payton has fallen in love with Bo Nix. And Bo Nix is the Sean Payton type quarterback. Yeah. Drew Brees and Bo Nix I don't know I mean Bo Nix is a way better athlete than Drew Brees uh was um no question uh I don't see the the same type of accuracy but look if you follow Bo Nix's career you saw just just an up and down career at Auburn where he was nearly benched. And might have actually been benched if I remember. And we should mention you're one of the world's preeminent SEC experts. I've watched all of the guys.

I've watched all of the guys. I've watched all of the games. I've watched all of the snaps. And Bo Nix was really embattled there for a long time in his career at Auburn to a point to where it was almost a record room for Bo Nix at a point like, oh, my God, what could have been? Transfers to Oregon. And Dan Lanning, to his credit, puts things around Bo Nix

to take advantage of his skill set. But even still, the offense that they ran up there in Oregon, there's a lot of passing out to the sideline i mean there's a lot of it's a very college offense in terms of what he was what he was uh what he was asked to do he just did not see first round draft pick bo nicks in his future when he's leaving auburn you just did not see that. So he's five, fifth year senior. Yeah. Fifth year.

Everybody got a COVID year. So I'm not sure how many years he was actually in, but yeah, it was fifth year. Might have been six years. Had 77% accuracy. Look. And Sean Payton, he just wants, Drew Brees is like the ideal for Sean Payton. Just keep the chains moving. You had it.

You root for the Saints. I did. That's what he wants from a QB, which was so interesting when he kind of, when they moved toward the Jameis era, which is the opposite of keep the chains moving. The Drew situation is different. Drew never had the biggest arm, but a lot of that stuff was vertical.

A lot of that stuff was timing. And I'm not, I'm rooting for Bo N nicks it's just interesting to see bo nicks and to a degree jj mccarthy both go on the first round both go at the top of the first round yeah um uh obviously bo nicks was like he had fantastic numbers and all that but i just did not think of bo nicks as a first round quarterbacking talent. Well, I sent you, Belichick was doing McAfee's show, doing the draft stuff, and they showed his best available board,

which his top five was Caleb, Jaden Daniels, Marvin Harrison, Malik Neighbors, Drake May. But apparently he was a little critical of Drake May's footwork, but Drake May's also 21. I don't think anyone thinks he's a finished product. Then he had Rome 6,ck bauer seventh he had dallas turner eighth who ended up

going in the mid-teens reason i bring this up he had bo nicks 36 and he had michael pennix 37th well michael pennix's thing is probably you know once again about the medical but when you look at bo nicks at 36 if i remember correctly drew, the quarterback that he's being compared to there, went at the top of the second round. Right. Right. And even like after a couple of years with the Chargers was still. Figuring it out. Yeah.

And he ended up, you know, he switched teams. Miami almost got him. Yeah. Right. But that was a shoulder injury situation. It really wasn't until he got to New Orleans that he became Drew Brees. He had a couple of, he had a couple of good years. Yeah, he was.

I certainly never thought he was going to be a Hall of Famer. No, the numbers got crazy. But look, one thing about Sean Payton is he likes to get his guys in there. Once he has a quarterback that he actually believes in, he believes that he can take that quarterback and that his system is so superior, his play calling is so superior, that he can get that guy to the kind of numbers he needs to get him to. Unless it's Russell Wilson.

He never believed in Russell Wilson. So they pay all this money to get rid of Russell Wilson. And then they have the 12th pick in the draft. After they've traded other picks for Russell Wilson, they're going to have this huge cap hit. And then on top of it, now you roll the dice with Bo Nix.

Who, we'll see if he's better than Russell Wilson right so that caught our attention um your guy neighbors yeah goes number six and there was a lot of was Hamer Harrison Harrison who was a slam dunk as the best receiver as we headed the whole draft process by the time we we got to this month, people were like, I don't know, Neighbors, Harrison. He played for your favorite team. Of course. And now he's in New York City. Now he's in New York City.

There's absolutely no way I can be objective about this. I think that Malik Neighbors has a higher upside than Marvin Harrison Jr. You've said this the whole time. Right, I do. Here's the thing, though. Marvin Harrison Jr You've said this the whole time. Right, I do. Here's the thing though. Marvin Harrison Jr., just the workload and

what he was able to do for the Ohio State offense. I've said it on here before. He earned his position as the number one receiver in the draft. Just the explosiveness, the dynamic ability after the catch, the strength.

I mean, Marvin Harrison Jr. is much stronger than he's a stronger player than Malik Nabors, but when you have everything that Malik Nabors has and the ability to be a dog like he is, he is, to me, a surefire all-pro going into some of these years. He's getting compared to Jamar Chase

and Tyreek Hill. And those are the two names, which makes me think like, oh, this guy would be, I wouldn't have been bummed out if the Pats had traded back to six, gotten a bunch of picks and ended up with him. Right. And just such a stack receiver draft too. We talk about the quarterback draft is right now.

The stack receiver draft as well. Well, your guy Thomas just went to the Jags. We're taping this near the end of the first round. He went to the Jags at 23, which is amazing value for them, right? They lose Ridley and they just get to move him in. As we continue to try to prove that Trevor Lawrence is a franchise QB.

They keep spending money on free agent receivers, making trades, spending first round picks on them. And he's like a rich man's Mac Jones. So here's the deal. I'm tempted to believe something deep in my soul here. About neighbors or Trevor Lawrence? About Brian Thomas Jr.

Okay. So the Brian Thomas Jr. Another LSU guy. Another LSU guy. The Brian Thomas Jr. Malik neighbor situation, to me, is very reminiscent of the Jamar Chase and Justin Jefferson situation now Brian Thomas Jr. is not the route runner that uh that Justin Jefferson is however he is around 6'3 he ran 4'3 at the combine he led the nation in touchdown catches uh last year there is a chance that that,

in terms of the receivers that have been drafted, that he is actually the steal of the draft. Well, you know what he has now. What? The fucking giant chip on his shoulder. Right. Not only did I go fourth, I went like deep fourth. It went four, six, nine, 23.

Now, a lot of people that know LSU ball will say that a lot of the opportunities that he got were because so much attention was being paid to him in the league. But if you watch BTJ, BTJ is a dog, man. Dead straightaway speed. I was hoping the Pats were going to trade up from 35 to get him. He is a dog. He could easily, easily, easily be the best pro.

Like him versus Rome, you think, if you were going to say who's better in five years, to you it's a toss-up. It's a toss-up. However, I don't want to take anything away from these guys. No, you love all of these guys. I'm just saying, it's not inconceivable. It's not inconceivable at all

that Brian Thomas Jr. ends up becoming the best receiver in this draft from the guys in the first round. It's not inconceivable at all. He is that type of talent. And if you watch it at LSU a lot of times, if you watch him

in some of these big games, a lot of times BTJ watch him in some of these big games you know a lot of times BTJ was holding things down and as his season went on and he picked up steam you started to hear his name called as much as Malik's you start to see teams game plan for him a little bit more and I think when he has an opportunity to be wide receiver one he's going to shock a lot of people with how he's able to produce compared to those other guys. Malik Nabors in New York City? I think he's going to be an immediate fan favorite.

Yeah, he's got that right. I mean, you could even see from the draft. Coolest guy in the draft. You could just tell. And he went third person on us. He laid that out early. He's like, look,

if you don't think I'm going to call myself Malik Nabors, he went full name third person. He went full name third person person. He went full name, third person. And I think he did it two or three times in a row. He was like, yeah, these are the type of people that made him an elite neighbors where Malik neighbors came from who Malik neighbors is. Right. It was amazing. He was describing a Malik neighbor. He's from New Orleans.

It's from down in that area. Yeah. Yes. Um, let's take a break. More draft stuff to discuss all right we have a louisiana update on neighbors yeah he's not he's from more like the lafayette area he's a 3-1-a boy i'll find out more in your seven boys the 337 boy middle of the state you'll talk about it more in your pocket louisiana podcast that we have that's in the stealth ringer what do you know about the 337 the middle of the state they're like not a lot Lafayette the real real my life never took me never invited me so let me tell you something about the 337 real quick and I love this uh all my feet people in Lafayette New Iberia all these places like this you think that the actual culture of Louisiana is exemplified by like New Orleans it's really

when you talk about food and all of that stuff the real cultural it's really right there in the Acadiana. It's all the stuff the water boy captured. Basically. That's what it really is. It's really right there in the Acadiana. Hardcore water boy Louisiana. The 3180 I keep saying that because that's where I would

that's the north of the state. That's up there the north side. But I'm talking about the 3-3-7 right there in the middle, Swampy and Lafayette, all of that stuff. I'm not giving any shine to the other schools across the basin, but that's really kind of like the joint right up in there. Are we going to cover this in New Orleans month on the rewatchables? We should. What's New Orleans month going to be?

So Heaven's Prisoners. Heaven's Prisoners, can't wait. Big Easy? The Big Easy. Of course the fuck with the big easy yeah uh tightrope with quinn eastwood angel heart angel heart angel hearts that that's the one that might get the feed shut down lewis cypher lewis cypher and Lisa Bonet. Oh my God. A couple other things that happened in this draft that I thought was fun. Well, I mean, we barely talked about my team getting a quarterback, taking Drake May.

It was just three months of, I really was through the torture chamber. I was convinced they were going to fuck this up. There was so much JJ McCarthy buzz. And I don't know. I just like Drake May. I'm in. Even watching him in the draft today,

I was like, I like the way this guy carries himself. I'm on the record as I think quarterback is 75% how you deal with people and how you lead people. And all these guys from a talent standpoint, I know there's degrees to it and then there's sometimes there's guys who are just like incredible right you know like mahomes like you can't compare them to other people but when you're talking about like why guys succeed and fail i do

feel like the personality piece is a big piece of it you're leading these fucking dudes 80 000 people the pressure of the moment being scouted getting the shit kicked out of you, having people, you know, you're the pilot of the airplane. And if you can't fly the airplane, if you're nervous, if you're like Denzel's partner in flight, the other guy, you don't want that guy, you want Denzel. You want the guy who's like, he's had some cocktails and some cocaine yeah he can still fly the fucking plane upside down he knows he can do it yeah you don't want to be the other guy the guy who's praying in the in the side seat so this is what i would say yeah you definitely don't want to be the guy who has a strong religious background in prayer oh stop okay so um this is what i would say i like like Drake May. I told you before I like Drake May.

I've always liked Drake May. I think Drake May is a baller. I think you like Drake May. I do. I also think that Bill Simmons has the strength of mind to convince himself that Drake May is the savior of New England. No. You don't.

I am. You have made yourself fall in love with Drake May. I'm old enough to know that these quarterbacks, you just want to get to like 70, 30, the guy might be your guy. Because you don't. You never know. You never know. Right.

I just don't want it to be 50, 50. I want to get to like 70, 30, 75, 25. And with him, the reasons that he's not going to make it are if they threw him in too soon, if they never were able to fix some of his mechanics. But like,

from a physicality and a physical standpoint, he has it. He's big enough. His arm is strong. He's a fucking gamer and a half. I like that he stayed loyal

to North Carolina, that he didn't leave, that he didn't go to Alabama or wherever, try to win the Heisman. I like that he's a little brother. I like that he's young. I've covered all this stuff.

Hyper competitive. Yeah. Where it could go wrong is, you know, you just throw him. Like there's some quarterbacks that I still feel like even now after their careers are over, like I think Sam Bradford actually should have been a good quarterback.

But he was for a little while. He was okay. Yeah. But I think there's another world where he goes for a little while. He was okay. Yeah. But I think there's another world where he goes to a much better situation and it works out amazing. I think there's a world where Eli Manning could have sucked. Right. Like he just goes to Jacksonville and gets a shit kicked out of him and he's out of the league in eight years. Situation, when you get thrown into the fire, who your coaches are, what your weapons are.

Consistency, system, all of those things. Yeah, and what division you're in. In his case, cold weather, which is a little tougher, but he's a physical specimen. So, I don't know. Then I look at Daniels. I think Daniels is in a great situation. You're a guy.

I think he's in a real good situation. I think he's in a good situation for a lot of reasons. I think he'll be embraced in D.C. I think he's been through a lot. It's funny. A lot of things that you say about Bo Nix, a lot of things that I said about him, you could make the same

types of observations about Jaden Daniels. You really could. You could say that J you know jayden daniels had an up and down career at arizona state his teammates celebrated at arizona state when he left yeah that was weird right and then after he leaves um arizona state and he comes to lsu he's with lsu for that first year and you can see that he's got tools there, but there were tons of questions about his ability to push the ball down the field. Jaden would not throw to the middle of the field.

I don't think he did last year that much either, right? He did more so than he did before. He likes the sides, and he likes to run. Right, but you could see the anticipatory throws in the middle of the field, him just letting the ball go a little bit more than he did the first year. So no one had Jaden Daniels.

I mean, people were talking about whether or not he would be a first-round pick. No one had this. The explosion of what happened had to do with his familiarity with the offense and really a lot of hard work. So I'm very proud of him. But I'm not going to act like he was a surefire. I mean, he came in as a pretty touted prospect. But after his first year at LSU, just to be honest with you,

a lot of fan base wanted him to leave so that they could turn the keys over to Garrett Nussmeyer and see what was going on there. Well, you talk about percentages. He's maybe same 70-30, 75-25, but all the percentages on the downside would be, can he stay healthy? It's what happens when he gets racked up by somebody.

Even today, we were like stunned how skinny he was. I mean, he looked, I made a joke. He looked like, it was like Timothy Chalamet at the Dune II movie premiere. Like he's just skinny. He's his. And the thing is, he is small. He is slight.

And we've seen him get slammed and knocked around a lot. But he always got up, right? Didn't have a ton of injury problems. He got knocked out of a couple of games. But for the most part, he was a gamer. And when you called his number, he was there. And he played a very aggressive style of football. Jayden did not like to slide very much.

He liked to run sometimes to the middle of the field to then break out towards the sidelines. So he's a tough football player. We dissected every Caleb Williams shot that we had during the draft every time they showed him. Did you see anything that made you like him less or more? Nah, look, Caleb Williams is like ridiculously ridiculously talented i just watched a lot of the games and in watching a lot of the games you saw a guy who uh as far as me i saw a lot of hero ball

um i saw it i wish for nothing more than the success of all of these kids, right? All of these young men go out there and do your thing. But like I always tell you, tell the story, like me and Jomie are watching the game, shout out Jomie. And I'm watching Caleb. And maybe this is maybe more on Lincoln. Maybe it has to do with some deficiencies of the SC roster. I'm just watching Caleb like make simple plays hard to me.

And he's going to the NFL, and if there's the structure there to get him to play within that structure, he could be a very, very successful quarterback. But I think he's going to have to learn some things about his game to be the guy that they want him to be in Chicago. Honestly,

I would rather have Drake May. Interesting. Yeah. Of the three guys that were at the top of the draft, of the three guys at the top of the draft, I think Drake May is going to be the last guy who gets an opportunity, but I think he's going to be the most successful quarterback of the three well caleb's in the best situation out of those three probably now he's got dj more

in rome yeah offensive line seems solid enough for a rookie qb compared to what other people have seen their defense is good i think some people would have thought with a decent qb this year they might have been a playoff team, because the second half of the year they were better. And that's it. And to Justin Fields, the second half of the year he played better. Yeah. Yeah.

So good situation for him. Other subplots, JJ McCarthy goes 10th. Yeah. To Minnesota. Yeah. My wife happened to join us for the three minutes when they were doing JJ McCarthy stuff. And she was like, he's minutes when they were doing J.J. McCarthy stuff

and she was like he's so cute so I think that helps his stock I was surprised after that that he fell to 10th but you know he's got the charisma he's got something but you were

he pulled up draft boards when I asked a question on Twitter, I was being 100% serious. When I asked the question on Twitter, what is with the, not the resurgence, what's with the surge of J.J. McCarthy and, like, how he's flying up draft boards, I really wanted to know, like, what was happening. When you looked at the team, it seems as if they were a team that didn't ask their quarterback to do very much. He made a lot of big plays.

It seemed like they were a team that didn't ask their quarterback to do very much. Well, our friend Noah, who's watched every Michigan game, was saying this guy came through every time. And he did. But for him to be as highly touted as he was in terms of his place in the first round and where he went i think that has a little bit

more to do with us being in the age of the quarterback yeah that it does to do with like anything he did when he when he was at michigan because he just wasn't asked to do that much he wasn't asked to do that much even with what i asked to do that much. Even with what I said about Bo Nix, the numbers that Bo Nix put up, even if the offense was tailor-made for him to have a high completion percentage and all that stuff, the numbers were still crazy. McCarthy's weren't really. And they had a punishing run game. And they grinded teams out.

They were like a python the way Michigan was. But people are looking at it. grinded teams out. They were like a python the way Michigan was. But people are looking at it. They're looking at intangibles and they're looking at what a guy can do and they're thinking that they can build a stable offense around him. I like his situation too. Kevin O'Connell. Yeah. Justin Jefferson. I thought

Addison was really good last year. And then Minnesota, they got Dallas Turner too, who everybody was saying was one of the three best defensive players in the draft. So they're feeling good. I thought that was a nice spot for him. The only other thing that stood out from the first 20 picks was just the offensive tackles.

And I've been saying this forever. I just didn't understand why the draft never mirrored what actually happens once these guys become older, what we see in free agency. Because you get to free agency when these guys are four or five, six years in, and what always happens? Nobody can get a left tackle. Everyone just re-signs the left tackle they have if the guy's good, right? Or even the right tackle, like Sewell on the Lions just signed a huge deal. If you get a tackle, that guy stays on your team

forever unless either he had some injury or there was some major cap issue and maybe they jumped. Whereas Bowers, I just never was buying that he was going in the top 10 because we've just seen these teams getting burned by tight

ends getting taken that high. And tight end just isn't as important of a position as left tackle. If I get a left tackle, I'm always going to want a left tackle over a tight end. I don't care if the tight end is, you basically have to be Gronk or Kelsey to justify it. Well, I mean, look, you got Kittle, you got Andrews, you got a lot of guys, a lot of tight ends that are huge, huge, important parts. They don't make as much money as left tackles. No, left tackles definitely won.

Left tackles make shitloads of money because if you have a good one, you want to keep the guy on your team. I know, but we're talking about Brock fucking Bowers, bro. I know, so you have to explain how good he is to me. Brock Bowers is a fucking animal, bro. He is literally, to me, he had some injury problems as well in and out of the lineup and stuff but when you look at the type of athletic specimen that brock bowers is he could almost be dominant wherever you put him you were saying you would use him like as a mike all start running back everyone i'm saying that you could i'm saying that if you if you got to a situation like third and one you

just put him in the back right like if you had to if you had to payton hillis yeah or mike alls not him he could literally be an all pro at that position dynamic with the ball in his hands strong ridiculously athletic and can catch the ball like like crazy he's like a different type of those talents don't come don't come around very often yeah well unfortunately went to the raiders you can make an argument at some points that brock bowers when he's healthy that he might have been the best player in all the college football wow i'm serious like he's that good well it does seem like everybody wised up this year to the sense of oh what are the two most important positions quarterback and left tackle yeah well let's just take those until we're until the basically the draft drops off then we'll grab the other positions it was

interesting because i remember two years ago when the pats took cole strange and it was like all right we took a guard. But then when I watch free agency, guards go for like a couple million bucks. Or it's like, oh, Kansas City, they found this guard. It's his seventh team, and now he's starting in the Super Bowls. This is a great story. It's like, why would we take a guard in the first round? You know? Like, why not take positions that are hard to get?

Like receiver, tackle. That's, I think, one of the reasons running backs have fallen off. All right, before we go, you had some thoughts on the draft telecast in the rooms. I'm just going to clear the floor for you. It's funny. The draft is always a talking point in the black Twitter sphere because if you're following on black Twitter right now, you're seeing a phenomenon in the black Twittersphere because if you're following on black Twitter right now,

you're seeing a phenomenon in the draft. You're seeing very prominent black athlete with white girlfriend. And every time we see it, we laugh. There's one particular situation right now. So it starts this morning. It starts this evening with Caleb.

Caleb walks out there he's got his beautiful blonde lady with him and they like one tweet was like caleb already getting ready for success look right there he already got the white girl he had to have played one slap snap yet and then there's it's funny because i don't care how i don't give a fuck y'all can't tell me that race isn't funny sometimes i don't give a fuck you can't tell me that it's not funny to see a whole family full of black people and sometimes you know they're like west african and stuff like that so everybody got dashiki on and they're wearing all of this shit. And then in the middle of there, right in the middle, there is a Becky, a Barbara, a Suwan, a motherfucking Jenny right there. That's fucking funny.

I don't give a fuck. And the mamas always try to like make a little barrier. Like, yo, look at it right now. I can't remember which brother it is, the brother that got drafted. And his girl is literally trying to reach for him to hug him. And mom is kind of keeping her off to the level. But I find the girlfriend angle of the draft. Yeah.

Always really hilarious because for these girlfriends that are with these guys right now, it's both probably the best and at the same time, the most nerve wracking night of their life. Because they got to hold on now. Right. Not only are there guys going into the big leagues, they going into the big leagues too. They're not competing.

This is Haney against Garcia. You're just grabbing around the waist. Exactly. You're trying to figure out... Trying to get the ref to help out. Only a couple of these guys had it like that. If you were Caleb Williams, you could have run the IG streets and made

the whole thing pop. But some of these linemen and some of these defensive guys, they didn't have it like that. Ain't nobody know who they were. So now... Do you think this should have been an alt cast on espn you know there's all cast the girl studying studying the girl you remember a couple years ago where cd lamb his girl who are the announcers for the girlfriend cast oh this is easy is big rage on this big rage dre and michelle like you got big rage dre, Dre and Michelle. You can have a couple of different people in there. Throw them in there.

Like, the girlfriend cast. Just the whole thing is just watching the girlfriends. Watching them try to get next to the guys and stuff. And the mom-girlfriend reactions. Mom-girlfriend reactions. And then sometimes there's a sister who gets a little elbow-y. Sometimes there's a sister who will, like, look, bitch, you ain't been around. Right.

You just got here six months ago. Yeah, you ain't been around. Right. You just got here six months ago. Yeah, you just got here before the draft. Get out of here. And now, it's like I'm saying, now these girls got to compete with everybody. They got to compete with the pop singers, the cast of Loving Hip Hop Miami. They got to compete with everything

on IG, everything on Twitter. Do you think they root for the guy to go to like a smaller city? Yes! Right? It's like, oh, he got drafted by Jacksonville. Yes! Love it! What are you talking about? Green Bay? That's the number one

like, that's the number one destination. LA, New York, Miami, like these places, you gotta, woo, it's a lot of Thunder Kittens out there, baby. It's different.

Girlfriend cast. Girlfriend cast works. We'll work on this for next year. Definitely. Sponsored by Fando Sportsbook. Fando, good to see you. No problem, brother. Thanks.

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Van Lathan and J. Kyle Mann. Thanks to Van Lathan and Jay Kyle, man. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti for producing as always. And I will see you on Sunday night with someone. Enjoy the weekend. I don't have.

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