The Bill Simmons Podcast - Embiid Frustrations, LeBron and AD, Yankees Savior Gerrit Cole and Million-Dollar Picks with Brian Windhorst, Mallory Rubin, and JackO | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: December 13, 2019

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined ESPN's Brian Windhorst to discuss the 76ers, Celtics, Lakers, Clippers, and more (2:25). Then Bill is joined by Mallory Rubin for Million-Dollar Picks and Mallory's Most Intriguing, in which she shares her top three story lines of the week, including Heisman weekend, NFL coaches on the hot seat, and more (44:00). Finally, Bill calls up his buddy JackO to discuss the Yankees' signing pitcher Gerrit Cole (1:34:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Five good ones this week, including the rewatchables. We did Happy Gilmore and the Book of Basketball podcast broke down 2006. Game seven, Spurs, Mavs. So that happened. Also wanted to mention, we're doing the rewatchables on AMC in December. December 16th, 8 p.m., part of AMC's Best Christmas Ever. Me and Chris Ryan making our rewatchables television debut during Elf. Whoa.

Yeah. All made possible by IHOP, where you can try the Elf on the Shelf menu new and only for a limited time. Remember, tune in, set your DVRs for the rewatchables on AMC Elf, Monday, December 16th at 8 p.m. Incredible. Needless to say, Peter Dinklage, you're not going to be surprised what award he wins when we do the rewatchables for that one. Anyway, coming up, we have a hodgepodge podcast for you. Brian Windhorst, my buddy Jack O, Mally Rubin. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, Brian Windhorst is here. He's here because we just taped the excellent book of Basketball 2.0 podcast.

I hope it's a good one. I don't want to spoil. Yeah, it was a good one. But since you're here, I thought we would talk NBA for... I don't know. You don't do this at all. You don't really talk about basketball

with your current job. I never see you on any shows. Every day is a new adventure. What are we going to talk about today? Do you have a place anymore or are you just like John Wick? You go from studio to studio? The thing about it is

nobody knows where I live. They all think I live in LA or they live somewhere else. If you live anywhere, you might not live. You might be driving around like in a Madden cruiser just going to these different locations. That's right. I would love to have that.

I'd love that. That's when you really achieve. Like when Kornheiser had that bus. Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, that's- That's the heights. Those are the heights. Yeah. That's the thing. So I think this has been an unusually entertaining and fun NBA season. But we tend to dwell on the negative with this stuff. And starting with China before the season, and then it's like the ratings are down. How do we fix stuff?

And start complaining about stuff. And the Knicks stink. And I think maybe just society is more negative. I've really enjoyed the night-to-night basketball. I think it's been really good. Yeah, I think if you focus, I hate to sound like David Stern here, but whenever the NBA would go through tough times with Stern, he would go, the game will win out.

Yeah. And like, how can you watch the Miami Heat play this year and not be excited about the game? Huge win. How about Toronto being like true defending champs? And I think that the Celtics are one of the most fun teams to watch right now. There's a lot of surprises around.

Well, we talked right before we went on that the fact that this is really the first time the East is as good as the West from a top five or top six, however you want to go. The top six is as good as the top six in the West. I'd like to believe that. I think the top two in the West are better. I agree. Like if I was picking,

if we were drafting teams to win, I would pick the two LA teams before Milwaukee. And the Milwaukee fans will get mad because they're like, we just won 15 straight. We're winning by 12 points a game and we had the best player in the league and everybody's thinking this is happening

like on some alternate universe. I know. I get it. You know, I was in China for the World Cup. Little did I know that was the good China trip. Jesus. You know? The last fun days in China for basketball.

And I had this Chinese crew with me. They did not know the NBA very well, but they knew basketball. They spoke English. They knew basketball. And so we were with Team USA for three straight weeks. And when we got two weeks in, they started asking me, this, they started asking me,

this one guy started asking me, Ming. Ming was a very good man. He started asking me about what some of these players who are on Team USA make. And I go, yeah, Brooke Lopez just signed a four-year, $50 million deal. He was like, what? Because Lopez was awful in China. And I said, Chris Middleton deal he was like what because lopez was awful yeah in china and i said

chris middleton who was like he maybe had a good six quarters out of the whole time i would say he was semi-awful um he's below average i was like yeah he just signed for 170 million uh he he just like fell out of his seat um and in and of themselves they're you know middleton's a good player but he's not you know you think about he just couldn't believe after watching middleton play but when you put them together around you and by the way yannis was terrible they're terrible and miserable it reminded me of when messi has to play for argentina and he's just like ah man what am i gonna do with this roster so like to tell him that like oh you put yannnis, because we saw Giannis play a couple of games, Giannis, Middleton, and Lopez together,

and that's like the core of the best team in the league. He'd have been like, what's going on? What's all these people talking about the NBA? But when you put them together, they fit well together. And that just, you know, so I respect the Bucs because I do think that they're built well around Giannis but I don't look at them in a race to four against the LA teams and feel as good about it from a regular season standpoint they make a lot of sense and I think this is

the special thing about Giannis you know we're taping this on a Wednesday. Last night after the Philly-Denver game, Barkley and Shaq went in on Embiid a little bit. And they did it. It's interesting now how they couch their comments. And I think that's more a reflection of, and you and I were in a similar boat. You're always thinking about how people are going to receive what you're saying because it's so easy to have it get thrown against you. Oh, you're just hating and stuff like that. In the old days, they just would have ripped and beat. Right. And these days they're saying, they're doing it a little more carefully, but they're basically saying, we don't like what we're seeing from him night to night because he's not consistent

enough. And if you want to be great, consistency is what makes somebody great. Knowing that it's a TNT game against Denver, you're going against Jokic, one of your supposed rivals. This is a game you should have 37 points and 12 rebounds. And Shaq, who I think has gotten really good on that show as he's gotten more reps and he's just like, we're not criticizing you. We're giving you knowledge. We've been in these positions. We've been on the best teams. We've battled the best players. Like, we know what it takes, and you're not good enough yet. And on the flip side, I look at somebody like Giannis,

and Giannis night after night delivers. And I think he should, through 20 games, he's the MVP or 21 games. Yeah, for sure. But I think that's what really makes him special is night after night after night, he's the same. Embiid, I don't know what I'm getting from Embiid. If you play Daily Fantasy or something and you have Embiid as your center, good luck. It might work one night, the next night he might not show up. And I think that's a real thing. And if he really wants to be great, he's got to start

walking the walk a little. I would love to have the minutes from the conversations between Elton Brand and ownership and I guess Brett Brown was involved in his front office when they made the decision to do what they did with their roster this year, which was,

we're not going to re-sign Jimmy, which they knew they weren't because they didn't offer him a max, which he knew. I mean, they gave him an offer, but- There's more to that story, though, and even I don't have it.

I don't even have the inside. I can't say it on the podcast but I know it happened something happened behind the scenes and nobody's talking about it I don't know whether Simmons felt like Butler was too pro and beat or there was some fight we don't know about but yeah I don't know Butler's alluded to it though a couple times he's like I had to go it was time to leave but he hasn't explained why yeah that's that's sort of an invoke thing that Paul George the other day saying. About OKC. No, about Indiana. He was in Indiana and he said, there's a real villain here.

What does that mean? I think he's talking about a legend. Oh. Yeah. He said that when they went to Indiana, he got booed really heavily. And people were like, why is he getting booed? He has been gone for three years. And he's like, when I tell my story, you know, this happens, you know, guys get, I remember when Bill O'Reilly got knocked out and he's like, wait till the truth comes out. Yeah. It's been four years. He said, you know, when you hear what the villain is, you know, you'll know who the real villain is.

Well, you know what I know? He's going to get hit by a lightning bolt now. You don't blaspheme the legend. Well, he didn't say that, but when I talked to people in Indiana, they felt like his last healthy year after he came back from the broken leg, he came back and played a few games. Then he came back and they wanted to move him to power forward. Yeah.

And Bird was basically like, I don't care if you don't want to play there. Go down there and play. And that's what people I've talked to in Indiana think that's what he was basically like, I don't care if you don't want to play there, go down there and play. And that's what people I've talked to in Indiana think that's what he's referring to. I don't know for sure. So when Jimmy says there's something else, maybe it was super duper important. Maybe it wasn't. But even if you say-

I sidetracked it. You were talking about Philly's roster. I know. Just, but that's when Jimmy- No, it's okay. It's bad hosting by me. No, I brought it back because I knew you'd want to hear about Larry.

When you look at Jimmy Butler, even if that decision had to be made because of some unknown thing, the decision to sign Horford, the decision to use that money on Horford and come into the season and say, okay, in the 2019-20 NBA, this is going to be our roster. We're going to rely on Tobias Harris to generate shots for us when we need it. I would have, because I

think that the Sixers have made a lot of good decisions. Well, the thighball thing, that was really smart. I was so mad. I wanted him for the Celtics so badly. It fucking kills me. Every time he has good highlights. And were you excited about Carson Edwards? Because that's essentially the player that they got for moving back.

I would have taken thighault 14th. Well, that's who they got. I feel like this guy was not just elite defensively. This guy was like transcendent defensively. And the question of him was, well, he can't shoot yet. It's like, if this guy tries this hard on defense, he's going to learn how to shoot. He will be in the gym every day, at least figuring out how to make a corner three. And then he's a different player. Right. But so I think they've made a lot of good decisions, but I question them going into the season and saying this roster is going to work. It's kind of, I was there for, but I don't think either of us feel like they've made good decisions because the decision had to ultimately be, we're going to have this big, goofy, weird team and offensively we can make it work.

So they're gambling, right? At that point, the gamble has not paid off because offensively, when they get to like a game five, game six, game seven and a round two, I don't know how they're going to score. I was there for their training camp and I felt what they were trying to do was an audacious plan. I liked it. I picked them to make the finals. I was like, this is weird. A lot of people did. I'm in.

Defensively, they're going to be awesome. I think Zach did too, right? Yeah, but only after he exchanged 40 texts with me about it and probably 10 other people. Zach has this whole process. He agonizes. Hey, I was just wondering, who are you picking to make the finals i know he agonizes over this like he's he has a way of making people feel like they're the only

person he's texted but you know he's just copy pasting with 15 people especially around awards time and when he's like when he's in the middle of writing like a big column like you know he references it like it's it's on like of course this week i'm doing my you know, he, he references it. Like it's, it's on the, like, of course this week I'm doing my, you know, my, my all whatever team. Like, like, like you, of course you know that it's the third week of December. Of course you know that. A lot of people pick this, this, the Sixers, but I just remember being there and I talk, I talked to him beat. I talked to Simmons. I talked to Al and I was just like, this, this is really a gamble what they're doing here.

Well, I think the Rosillo, Rosillo has been upset about it all season. I'm on a lot of texts with him and Joe House about it. Just fundamentally what they're doing is wrong. So it's like, I'm not ready to give up on them yet because this whole idea that Embiid should be 25 feet from the basket and Simmons should be more down low and Horford is just a non-factor at 27 feet from the basket and Simmons should be more down low. And Horford is just a non-factor at 27 feet from the basket. Like the geometry of the entire team is so poorly constructed. I just assume at some point they'll fix this, right? If I built a house and I put the TV in the middle of the room and you walked in the house and be like, boy, that's weird. Why isn't

the TV on a wall? I'm like, it's fine. Just sit in that chair. The TV is just going to be there. And you're like, yeah, but this is weird. You can just put it on the wall. I mean, no, that's kind of what their offense is like. I know you love what ifs. So what if they had offered Ben Simmons for Anthony Davis? Kyle was there. You were producing those pods. I was calling for that. That was the trade. Yeah. And by the way,

New Orleans says yes. Yes, because he's LSU. I know he's there for 15 minutes, but not only is he an all-star, but they can sell it. Would you trade Tobias for Chris Paul? No. I mean,

I understand why you would say it, but I can't take that on. I can't. Would you shop and be- I would try to get Drew Holiday. So everybody wants Drew Holiday. You know why? Because he's really good. Yeah. I wouldn't trade Drew Holiday if I were the Pelicans, would you? Depends on what the offer is. Would you trade Drew Holiday for Simmons? Because that's one of my favorite fake trades.

If I were the Pelicans? Yeah. Boy, that's an interesting one. That's the most logical, fun trade on the internet right now. I don't even know if it's on the internet. I mean, I feel like Philly would want something else in the deal. Really? I'd be so happy I got Drew Holiday.

Because now I'm like, wow, we can win the finals, though. If I can get Embiid in shape. Well, but you like, wow, we can win the finals now. If I can get him beat in shape. But you're talking about a guy who's signed under contract 21 years old. You don't have to worry about him. He's with your team for five years. What is Simmons five years from now?

This is a very polarizing topic. There are certain people who think that Simmons is Magic Johnson light. And they will defend that. So the case for Simmons, he's such a great athlete, and he really does have a high basketball IQ, and he does stuff, especially at the end of the games, defensively,

that if you go back and watch early Magic, early Bird oh early mj anybody he he does have these same the bigger the stakes the smarter he is defensively instincts and yet like how many big games has he ever been in you know like does that at some point does it matter that you've gone through high school lsu nothing sixers you got a taste of it last year. But I watched him at the end of these games offensively, and he just seems lost to me. Well, he's also kind of defiant about changing his game. You know, Jokic is like that too. You go to Jokic and say, boy, if you were in better condition or if you did this, he's like, I'm an all-NBA player. I've got a max contract with an all-NBA player. Don't talk to me. I'm fine. And Simmons is kind of the

same way. Like, he will get angry if you talk too much about it. He just Don't talk to me. I'm fine. And Simmons is kind of the same way. He will get angry if you talk too much about it. He just doesn't want to talk about it. And Giannis recognizes he's got to improve his jump shot. You see him working on it. It's not going great, but he's making incremental progress. You can see him putting in the work. And I know that Ben is putting the work to a certain extent because he is shooting a little bit better, but he doesn't seem... That's what's so frustrating is that he seems like, look, I'm going to play the way I want to play. And again, it goes to the audacious thing that the Sixers are playing in another era and they've got a point guard from another era.

And what they're basically saying is we gamble at the cost of 400 million that we signed all these guys to, that this is going to work. And it flies in the face of a lot of what the NBA is right now. That's what I'm saying. It's a real audacious plan. I think he's almost a finished product defensively and just unfinished offensively. And it's weird to watch him because I thought the opposite was going to be the case coming in. But he's a big part of a lot of wins. I mean, he racked off wins and he's.

When you talk about the audaciousness though, I just assume they felt like they can move whoever they actually need to move. Well, Tobias Harris has always been tradable. Right. But Harris now that KOC was on the pod two weeks ago and I was like, they, you know,

they move Harris and he's like, have you seen his year by year numbers? I was like, they, you know, they move Harris and he's like, you seen his year by year numbers. I was like, what is it? Like 28, the first year is like 36. I was like, Oh my God, 36 million for Tobias Harris. That's like McCollum. Yeah. Like because some people have said the trailblazers should move into punt formation here and think about trading, trading McCollum. McCollum's contract is.

Poor McCollum. I've been guilty of it too. He always get, he's always the guy to go when it's like, we got to trade. But I don't think I've ever come close to it. Like I've never even heard one whiff. Me neither. That that's ever been on the table. So I had a thing on my pod last week about changing the trade percentage thing

to 50% of the salary. From what is it, 25 now or 30? It's 75% or 80%. Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah. Okay. It depends on 25 or 75, depending, I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah. Okay. It depends on 25 or 75, depending which side you look at.

Right. So Kevin Love, who makes $29 million, the Cavs can't trade him to any team that the salaries have to add up to at least like 23, something like that. And this is a relic of last decade when they're trying to protect the smaller market teams. They're trying to make sure there's not too many trades. But the guys back then were making 13 to 18 million, the best players. They never saw a scenario where Chris Paul was going to be making $39 million a year. And it's absurd to try to line up these contracts because it's turned into this have-have-nots thing where you have the best guys making between 29 and 40. And then you have a bunch of guys making between, you know, 3 and 12. Right.

So you have a situation like the Celtics where they're really one move away. I know. And they either have small contracts or giant contracts. The Celtics can't. They can't do anything. Which is one of the reasons why I think it would have been interesting if they had actually extended terry rogier i think that was the only reason they considered doing it not last not when he became a free agent but last year but like going into the season yeah to have an asset right that

he unfortunately he knew that that would be the reason yeah well he would take well he ended up doing just fine but like they can't trade marcus smart like i hear people say oh um they could do this they could trademark i'm like marcus smart's the heart and soul of the team he's not trading him he might be brad steven's favorite player of all time yeah and gordon hayward he's finally playing like gordon hayward you can't trade him so gordon hayward could have been had last summer i think by by an aggressive team i don't think i think the celtics would, I don't think they were ever going to shop him. But if the Cavs had been like, hey, Kevin Love for Gordon Hayward, let's talk. I don't think so.

You don't think so? You think they would ride him to the bitter end? It's my feel that the Celtics will not trade Gordon Hayward. I hope so. They traded Isaiah Thomas. So I'm just judging them by past history. I know what you're saying. They have no loyalty to any of this stuff. This is what I can say. Yeah. It's my feel that they

will not trade Gordon Hayward. Going forward? Or backward. Okay. Going forward, no way. I don't think he was ever available to be traded. Well, I don't think they shopped him. My feel is that. That's all I can say without getting aggregated. So that's all I can say. Oh, God. The aggregators. Well, yeah. Well, then my phone rings from Bristol and they want to know why I didn't report the story. So that'd be funny if I had pods with NBA people and every time there's a threat of aggregators, we just had actors playing aggregators coming in with computers.

You know, like I respect it as a job. But like when I do podcasts, sometimes I have to say. You have to be careful. This is a disclaimer. I am not reporting this. I'm saying this is my opinion. Yeah. Because you say something and next thing it shows up

and the teams or the agents or the players or the GMs, they don't listen to the whole podcast. They just see the push alert on their phone. And I get a phone call from Rich Paul going, what the hell did you just say about Anthony Davis? I was like, no, no, no, no, no. I, you know, I was talking about, so it's a, it's fine. I just have to be really careful. I don't think Gordon Hayward's getting traded. That's my personal opinion. He's a hundred thousand percent not getting traded.

Okay. I would also be mad if they traded him. I really liked the Celtics team. I want to talk about them on one side. We're taking a break. Hey, Framebridge makes it easy and affordable to frame your favorite things from art prints and posters to all your best photos. With the holidays fast approaching, it's the perfect way to give ridiculously easy and thoughtful gifts.

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The Celtics, really quick. The Team USA thing was great for them this goes back to my case for Team USA that everybody was like another aggregator thing he's shitting on Devin Booker for not playing Team USA it's like yeah because the evidence says you should play

these things help it's good to be in games it's good to be in weird situations it's good to be bonded with other people I think for the Celtics, even though the seventh place was awful, it was awful, but it gave them a huge advantage for the season. And I think Tatum and Brown are everything I ever wanted from those guys at this point in their careers. They attack on both ends. They're really good defenders. They can switch on any sort of defensive situation. And it's one of the biggest assets any team has right now.

Those two guys. They love Kemba Walker. Yeah. They love him. It's unbelievable. He's like Gandhi. And of course, there's the Kyrie Irving thing. That's the comparison.

But even if we just drew a veil across that, they love him. Kemba brought his family. They got to know his family. It was like this, you know, because I hear these teams like, oh, yeah, we went to the Bahamas for three days. We went to San Diego for three days. We had this great training camp in Las Vegas. I do agree that that helps. But this particular situation, these guys went for three weeks, actually longer than that, because they had training camps.

It was a month. And there were new players to play together. And they hung out every single day. They had no choice. They were in China. Yeah. What were they going to play together. And they hung out every single day. They had no choice. They were in China. Yeah. What were they going to do? Right.

And- I think for Thanksgiving, I think he, I think his family had like everybody over or whoever was there the night before. Like he's just one of those guys. My thing about Kemba is this. This is my personal opinion.

I see it with Donovan Mitchell too because it showed up in the World Cup. I think in the game,-2, game five, elimination game six, elimination game seven, I think if you really need it, I think it's going to be more challenging for Kemba because of his size. Yeah. And I know that his fans will rush to me and say, well, look where he did Connecticut. Look where he won this game here at Charlotte. Look at these game winners he hit. I'm not saying he could never do it.

I just think that it will be a challenge. But that's why Tatum and Hayward, I think, in playoff games will be the guys who decide. That's why it's got to be those guys. That's why Jalen Brown is stepping forward this year. Tatum said, he was asked the question. He didn't come out and ask for it, but he

said he talked about being an all-star for the first time. If I have to pick all-stars, I'm not picking Tatum first or second off the Celtics. And depending on what you're doing about Hayward, I may not pick him third. And that's not an insult to Tatum. Hayward can't make it. He missed too many games.

Okay, but he's having an all-star. I would say Jalen 1A, Tatum 1B. The thing with Tatum is- Kemba. I would have Kemba third. Okay. Because of their defense, it's pretty valuable. But I could make the argument that if Jalen Brown and Kemba Walker were the Celtics representatives,

I wouldn't be upset. And it's not because I have anything against Tatum. I just think that that's how good those guys have played. The advanced metrics with Tatum, even though he hasn't shot that well this year, they're just so much better when he's on the floor. And at some point, I'm not a huge plus minus guy. I think it needs a lot of context. I need to know who the backups are and stuff like that. He just allows them to do so many things.

I agree. If you go back to, I remember when I was writing about Havlicek in my book and the thing that kept popping up was one of the things that made him valuable was his ability to really play anywhere. He could be a guard or a forward. He could be the point guard. It didn't really matter. So you could build whatever team you had around him and just get players instead of being like, oh, you know, like a Ben Simmons thing. Well, we have Ben Simmons. We have to have this, this, this to succeed. Tatum is this guy who can guard any position. And he can also even play the two guard if you need him to. He can switch out anything. They played big lineups with him and Jalen as like kind of the quote unquote bigs. And it was just like, all right, we'll make this work. That's what the flexibility he gives them is so much more valuable than the fact that he's only shooting 42% instead of 48 or whatever it is. Because here's the thing, Brad, here's what Brad wants. He, if he has a choice, he's going to pick the most skilled player. Yeah. And so he would rather have five skilled players that he can move around and get them to move on defense and worry about dealing with Embiid. I mean, this is their odd. We talked about the Sixers' audacious plan.

The way Brad Stevens is playing, their audacious plan is, we think we can win this way without having a center on the court or with Daniel Tice on the court. The frustrating thing was when Hayward went down, it was really clicking. And they've still played pretty well without him, but it was, I remember I did my tweet and he broke his hand two minutes later,

but you could really see it. They had figured it out how to play those three guys together, slash and kick. And I think their destiny in the playoffs is Kemba's not the guy who's going to be deciding. You saw it in the Clippers game. Did you watch that game? They were so long.

Like he got his shot blocked seven times. That's what happened against Serbia. Donovan Mitchell and Kemba had played great. It was 4 a.m. in the morning. I'm not expecting anybody to watch it. Serbia gets up 32-7. The team USA was down 32-7. Yeah.

They make this incredible comeback. Donovan scoring. Kemba scoring. Gobert shut them down against France, shut down Kemba and Mitchell when it mattered. And then in the next game against Serbia, they had all this collection of bigs. It's really hard to trust small guys as you get deeper and deeper in the playoffs.

And there's a reason Chris Paul's never been in the finals. I know, I know. It's hard. But I think if you're using him There's a reason Chris Paul's never been in the finals. I know. It's hard. But I think if you're using him a little like how the Cavs used Kyrie in the 2016 finals kind of where he's the 1B, he's there if you need him, he'll make open threes. But you can't be like Kemba, win this game for us because I think he's going to have trouble.

So the Celtics played the Sixers on opening night. They haven't played since. Right. Sixers pounded them on the boards. Size overwhelmed them. I think there was a 13-point game or something. It was not that close. It might be a bad matchup for the Celts.

So that's my thing. Yeah. The next three times they play. Could be a puncher thing. I want to watch those games. It could be rock, paper, scissors with Bucks, Sixers, Celtics, where all of them are good matchups against somebody else. Because I want to see if... Because I've asked people from the Celtics about this.

Can you... Because they like their chance against Milwaukee. Yeah. Can you beat the Sixers four out of seven? And they don't know, but they're going to try. But they might not have to play them, depending on how it goes. The Embiid thing is the great X factor, but it goes back to what we talked about. I'm so impressed.

Is he going to be in shape? Is he going to give a shit? Is he healthy? Is he going to be near the rim? Is he healthy? Is he going to be healthy? I'm not a predictions guy, but this could be a year where Boston,

if it falls right for them, could out of nowhere slice in, especially because the Nets are not up and running and the Sixers' roster is imbalanced. I also, I can't believe I'm saying this, I can't count out Miami because I still feel like they have one awesome trade to make and I really like their team.

And I think Bam, you know, the people that actually watch basketball know this. It's turned into a thing the last few weeks where people are like, Bam Adebayo's 100% an all-star and probably one of the 20 most impactful guys in the league. The casual fan wouldn't know that. If you watch Miami on League Pass, it's like, this guy's kind of semi-dominant. I mean, again, Team USA.

But Embiid ate him for lunch. I know. That's the problem with Embiid. It's like, if you wave the fucking carrot in front of him and he's like, oh, wait, what? And then he puts up the 39-18. Adebayo and Team USA training camp. Pop was nice enough to let us watch a lot of actual raw practice. So I got to see Adebayo play a lot.

It was the most I'd ever seen him play in any kind of setting like that other than occasionally on TV. I didn't watch a lot of heat games. He exploded off the court with that. He was their first cut. They kept Plumlee. Greg Popovich, are we sure he's good? I don't know.

I told him the second day. I don't know why you want this job. They could have built the whole team around his defense. They could have been like him and Tatum and Jalen. It may not have mattered. Probably wouldn't have mattered. Wait, before we go, can we talk Lakers really quick? Yes.

This has worked out, I would say, a 20 out of 20. 20 out of 10. 20 out of 10 on probably how the Lakers were hoping this would work. Both guys have stayed healthy. They traded all these picks and all these great young prospects and players because they knew Davis was this good. So it's not surprising. We knew Davis was this good. I wasn't prepared 100% for how well they've played together. I knew they would play. LeBron's a genius. Of course, they're going to play well together, but man, it's a really good partnership so far. I've been impressed and they

seem really aligned on the court, off the court. There's no ego stuff. It's dangerous. I'm concerned as a Laker hater. Here's what I've tried to rack my brain for. Has LeBron ever played with a guy who's as good of a shooter and as good of a defender as Danny Green. By the way, he played with Danny Green early in his career, but he wasn't that player. But if you think about it, he's played with some great shooters, and he's played with some great defenders. So you're saying just a prototypical 3 and D guy, has he ever had a better run?

I mean, this is the – and this is why I think Kuzma is struggling. And people are talking about Kuzma's stats. The most important stat with Kuzma is his minutes played. Which is like 22 minutes. Yes, because Vogel doesn't think he's a good fit. If you look at the history of LeBron the last 12 years, two types of people play with LeBron as complementary pieces. Shooters and defenders.

Now, Brandon Ingram, ironically, this year is shooting. If Brandon Ingram shot like this, Brandon Ingram's three-point shooting explosion is unbelievable. It's like the only positive thing coming out of the Pelicans. But that's not any of those guys last year. Hart was not that. I mean, Hart a little bit. Ingram was not that.

Kuzma was not that. Rondo was not that. Rondo's shot has improved a little bit. Danny Green is like the ideal player. I can't think, unless I'm having a brain fart, I can't think. Because, you know, yes, he played with Ray Allen, but Ray Allen, at that point, didn't

defend like Danny Green does now. The move is to trade Kuzma. Yeah. I don't know if they're there yet. The one thing that I felt really strongly about was I didn't understand how Davis, LeBron, and Kuzma could all play together because they're all basically the same position. It just didn't make sense to me. I think the fact that Kuzma can't defend or shoot at a high level.

He's a stretch four. Right. But he's not a good enough shooter to be a stretch four. Right. But he also got hurt. Yeah, but he's hurt again now. But I think that's if they, if they want to win the title this year, I think that's the last piece for them is to use him and try to get,

I really like Alex Caruso. I think, I think he's been good. I don't know if he's somebody I would trust with four minutes left in a game seven. You've always said that. I always go to, that's my default.

The podcast, I don't's my default the podcast i don't want to spill the podcast we just did but um but i remember you do i trust in a game seven i remember you said that when you were covering the spurs heat series you were like when i pick players from my game can i trust them for my team can i trust and put them out in the floor in game six or seven. You saw, think about that in 13. Think how many guys ended up playing in those two games. And that was like somebody like Bellinelli in 2014 who's had a really strange career and has bounced around and has been on 10 teams.

But for whatever reason, you could play him in that game. And some of the guys that Toronto had last year, same thing. I didn't know Fred VanVleet could play in that game. That's a great X factor, but eventually he became somebody who could play in these games. I think Caruso could do that. I don't know for sure, though. His defensive numbers are crazy.

He's fearless is the cool thing. He really is fucking fearless. He doesn't care. Yeah. My instincts tell me, and I have said this, and the Laker fans have pushed back on me and said, well, we've got the top five defense. You don't know what you're talking about.

I still think they need another guy to worry about Kawhi and Paul George because I still think 40 minutes of the two of them on the wings to defend them is tough. It's a lot on LeBron. I don't think he can do it he'll wear out lebron's like brady and we're starting to see with brady this year where we just started locking them in year after year because it had just become absurd already and it's something like well until he stops doing it we just have to assume he's going to keep doing it and brady finally

this year there's been some some slips now some of that has to do with supporting cast, but there's still been Kyle and I watched the Pats on Sunday. There's some moments where we kind of look at each other and go, Ooh, LeBron's not there yet. I'm a little worried. He's expending a lot of energy early in the season. That's the part I don't get. He's doing it. I think mindfully because he had gotten into this routine where he sort of had a slow build and the Lakers can't, couldn't afford to do that. Also, he wanted to get A.D. going. But I wonder if in the back half he'll wear a little bit. I just think now the retort from the Laker fan is, well, who's guarding Anthony Davis? Okay, wise guy. You think the Lakers need somebody to guard

Kawhi Leonard? Who's guarding Anthony Davis? I agree. That's a good point. He's one of the toughest guys to guard in the last decade in the NBA. I agree. But the Clippers have a lot more depth. The Clippers have a lot more options. Anthony Davis hasn't proven he's going to play good in every playoff game. Anthony Davis hasn't proven

he can play eight straight months. That's true. To me, at least. Right. So that would be my thing with that. But if they can get... They can just keep him on the court until June. I don't see any way

it's not Clippers-Lakers because what we, did you see that Lakers-Denver game? Denver has no chance against the Lakers. They would never beat them in the series.

I was actually at Bronny James game that night. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I will say the Lakers are better than I thought they would be. And I think the Lakers are better than they thought

they would be. And Dwight Howard is better than I thought he would be. I'm not sold on that one. Okay, but he's been better than you thought they would be. And I think the Lakers are better than they thought they would be. And Dwight Howard is better than I thought he would be. I'm not sold on that one. Okay. But he's been better than you thought he would be so far. He is, but I'm just not counting on it. It's like if my dog Willie doesn't eat one of my shoes for three weeks, it doesn't mean

he's not going to eat one of my shoes. I just don't trust Dwight Howard. I'm sorry. It's fair. I mean, I have to base it on the last seven years of behavior, right? I can't count trust Dwight Howard. I'm sorry. It's fair. I mean, I have to base it on the last seven years of behavior, right? I can't count on Dwight Howard. It's a bonus if he does well, but they can't actually count on him. The Lakers-Clippers games and the 76ers-Celtics games

are the games I want to watch in the regular season. There's three left on each. Utah, Denver, Portland's basically out. But you just got to start going through the West. And the only teams I really like are the Clippers and the Lakers. Denver has been the biggest disappointment for me. And I know their record is what it is, but I've watched them just come up short. The Celtics should have beaten them twice.

The Lakers killed them. They lost to Philly. I don't think they have an extra ceiling. As of today, when we're recording this, they're ranked with a 22nd offense. I'm not surprised. That is unheard of for them. They actually have a top five defense,

which is what I'm unheard of for them. And that's Ty Diokic. I think my third favorite team for our playoff series would be Dallas, because I think they have a trade to make. They would be. Well, I think they could trade for Iguodala. They have quietly denied they want to. That doesn't mean that.

No, they want to get a wing. They want to get a wing who can play defense. They have Courtney. Because here's the thing about. They have the Courtney Lee contract. They have the 30-second pick. Yeah. Here's the thing about.

Here's the reality about Iguodala. Number one, they want to trade him and they're going to stick with that until the trade deadline. Why would you waver from that? Number two, a second round pick. The challenge for Iguodala is not the compensation to the Grizzlies. They may only have an offer of a second round pick. It's the amount of money you have to send them. And they're not taken back multiple years. Yeah. It's got to be an expiry. So you look at the Lakers, who are they trading? Nobody. They're not getting... I have another thing. Are we sure it even matters if you get

Iguodala? Like, are we sure he's going to be healthy? He's hurt every year. Well, okay. Maybe. What am I getting from him in the playoffs? I'll tell you what you're getting. You're getting 10 minutes on Paul George or 10 minutes on Kawhi Leonard. Okay. That's what you're getting. But I'm saying it makes more sense for me, for the Lakers, as a buyout guy, than for that to be Dallas' big move because I don't know. If I'm Dallas, I'm going for— That's what the Lakers are counting on. I think the guy to watch for me is Covington with his manageable salary,

easy to trade for, 29 years old. He's been in a couple big games. Why are you laughing? I was talking to him a couple weeks ago believe it or not about being traded he's going to get traded and I just said because he was talking about how much trauma it was

to get traded last year he said it was the worst year of his career he got traded then he got hurt and I go the problem is Robert with what your contract is and the demand that you have you're gonna you're gonna always be traded you're or you're gonna be in the rumors I talked to him I talked I was like I compared him to kind of like Jay Crowder that's the guy if the Lakers got him I'd be like oh my

god well that's a much more feasible trade piece Kuzma and some just a couple expirings well I wouldn't trade Kuzma for him I'm for a rental. I would try to trade. You know, there's a guy I'd trade Kuzma for. Is Covington a free agent? No, no. No, I don't think so. You wouldn't trade Kuzma in contracts for Covington? I'd trade Kuzma for Bogdan Bogdanovich.

But that doesn't solve my... Interesting. Bogdanovich is one of the most interesting players in the league. Restricted free agent, but he's not a starter there. And they've already committed to Heald and to Harrison Barnes. I wouldn't trade him. I would have not paid Harrison Barnes,

kept the money for Bogdanovich because I like him. But it might just be because he kills the Celtics every game. Well, I like Bogdanovich. He's not as good of a defender. It doesn't solve the problem that I talked about with the Lakers, but boy, does it give them another shooting weapon. You put Bogdanovich alongside LeBron. Oh my God. I mean, that would be a weapon. You have Bogdanovich. You have the opportunity to swing between Bogdanovich. Goddammit, now you ruined my day. I'm going to be having a good time someday.

It's going to go across the ticker. Lakers get Bogdanovich for a piece of shit, second round pick, money, and some dude I've never heard of. And I'm like, they allowed this? That's who you trade Kuzma for.

And also, you can then sign Bogdanovich. You have his rights because the bird rights are going to be everything this summer because no one no one

that makes a lot of sense none of the contenders have space so if you want a player trade for him he gets his rights if you're the Lakers and you're planning this

you say let's get Bogdanovich then we're going to sign him and now we have a a player and it's a piece we could potentially move if we had to later and then Covington

goes somewhere Marcus Morris I'm after having watched him for a couple years, I would hesitate to be excited as a team who would require him. He's just a ball stopper. Yeah, but I wouldn't mind having him again for 10 minutes. Be careful what you wish for. Brian Windhorst, Pleasure as always. We'll see you on comment right there.

We'll see you on 27 ESPN shows, right? I like, are you still doing the weekly column? It's been a little, you fell off. Yes. I wish you'd tell my bosses that it's bullshit.

I know. I was into it. You were establishing a column there. I was into it. This is part of my week. I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, start writing again You were establishing a call in there. I was into it. This is part of my week. I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, start writing again. Thanks for coming on.

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Drinkworks Home Bar, currently available in California, New York, Florida, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. With more states available for pre-sale today at drinkworks.com. Okay, the Mother of Dragons is here, Mallory Rubin.

We're going to do Most Intriguing. I am, Jacko's coming on after this and we're talking about Garrett Cole. Okay, I have of Dragons is here, Mally Rubin. We're going to do Most Intriguing. Jacko's coming on after this, and we're talking about Garrett Cole. Okay, I have an item on that. So I'm going to save my thoughts for that. Okay. You want to do two honorable mention items? Sure, yeah. Let's relegate.

Give us your Cole thoughts quickly. Okay, so Garrett Cole, you're out of the top five already. You're relegated to honorable mention. He's fine. He made a lot of money. Fuck the Yankees. Yeah. I really wanted to ask you about how you're feeling about the Red Sox, given, you know, a thing that we share in common is that I'm a Baltimore sports fan and you're a Boston sports fans fan, which means that despite all of our tension about our respective sports teams and

their rivalries, we can align in loathing the Yankees. That's a thing we share. And seeing the Yankees give out the biggest pitching contract in baseball history makes me feel sick and awful. And I am full of despair. How are you feeling? Also, just in general, with the way the baseball market is shaping up this offseason, the Strasburg deal, now the Cole deal, it sounds like Rendon is going to sign probably soon. Trade talk heating up.

You're seeing a lot of rumors. Correa's name has been out there. Chris Bryant's name has been out there. Obviously, Mookie Betts' name has been out there. So you're in a world where the Red Sox aren't spending. Talking about trading, your favorite player and the Yankees are basically preparing to win a title. How are you doing?

My favorite player is Raphael Devers, just for the record. Mookie's 1B. Okay. I can see you're already adjusting your mental calculus. We've made it through the decade without the Yankees even being in the World Series, so I'm not that concerned about them. The other big American league contender is the cheating Astros.

I just want to be very clear about something. And this really this next comment is, as I think we all know, actually the top five. Every item in the top five. You don't get to talk about other teams being cheaters because you root for the Patriots who are currently embroiled

in the most absurd redux of a cheating scandal in the history of organized competition. Fake news. Bill, the Bengals? Fake news. Sad.

Three exclamation points. Sad. That definitely makes everyone feel better is you going full Trump while trying to process this. Fake news. Sad. That's helpful. So you're hand-w's helpful on the, uh, you're hand-waving me on the Patriots. You won't engage with me on the Patriots. That's fine.

On the Garrett Cole thing. Yeah. Um, I was really upset. I was going to cry myself to sleep on my pillow, which I didn't have. So I used my four world series DVDs from this year and I cried on those. Um, we've won four times as many world series in the Yankees this year. We're fine. I think personally that it's bonkers to pay that much money to a pitcher when pitchers get hurt basically all the time.

$36 million annual value. It's just a lot. He's 29. He's not 26. I don't know. Here's the thing I'll say, though. I do think there's if you need pitching, if you really need it. Now, maybe the Yankees couldn't do this.

They need the ace. Their fans were starting to turn to them. I get it. But if I'm like the Angels and my choices are just throw 300 million at Garrett Cole or try to get pitching some other way at a cheaper price.

No. I would get a guy like David Price. What? The last three years of his deal, bring him in, World Series hero. He's available. What are you talking about? He's available.

I honestly don't even know how to process what you just said. I'm just saying he's available. Look up his stats, not bad. This is pretty devastating for the Angels. Less so for the Dodgers, who will obviously be fine. But the whole narrative around Cole for so long was like a California kid. Obviously, he pitched at UCLA. You know, the Yankees had drafted him in the first round way back when.

And as you can read all over the internet and in newspapers everywhere, you know, he's been Cashman's prize and dream for so long. I think that if we can separate the Yankees aspect from it for a second and how bad it feels as non-Yankee fans to watch the Yankees do something like that, it's good for the game, actually, to see that kind of a contract be handed out. Because we're coming off a couple consecutive off seasons where the spending was so stagnant. The prize free agents, and you know, think if you rewind beyond that to like how many years we spent anticipating the Harper Machado class and then how we're waiting until the end of February, the beginning of March for those guys to sign, despite what the ultimate numbers were, seeing big market teams be willing to spend is ultimately a good thing for the health of the game. Now, of course, that's not happening everywhere.

You have a lot of other clubs, your team, Cubs, Cardinals, on and on the list goes, saying, we can't address our roster needs right now. We couldn't possibly. And so baseball is still in a very odd position in terms of which teams are willing to spend and which aren't and how long that's going to last. But the Yankees were ultimately the most confounding team

in that why aren't they spending category. And for them to come out of that is, I think, good for the sport. Especially a sport that's been ripped apart by this Astros treating scandal and the sanctity of the game and what they've done to it. What's your role in the Do Your Job documentary going to be? I can't control what some freelance video cameraman, if he makes a mistake on an assignment, I can't control what that idiot's doing.

No? Yeah. What about, do you think that someone should be able to control somebody banging on a trash can to give away signs? That gets a lot worse. All of a piece for you. Comparing the Astros to the Patriots is just patently absurd. What they did was a hundred times worse than anything the Patriots did. Do you think that comparing the Astros to the Patriots is patently

absurd because the Astros actually did something incredibly complex and innovative while the Patriots did the exact same thing that they'd already gotten busted for? They said Kyle with a Sony camcorder. The fucking Bengals?

It's bad. Let's move on to the next one. Okay. So this will be another honorable mention and then Let's move on to the next one. Okay. So this will be another honorable mention and then we'll do a top three. Honorable mention. Bill, you know I love college football. Yeah. It's Heisman weekend. Yeah. Joe Burrow, definitely gonna win.

Great name. Great quarterback name. I mean, an incredible season. Obviously, LSU is in the playoff, has a real chance of winning the title. He's had a dream season. Really one of these magic college football moments. I'm really eager to see if we get a Heisman record.

If he can either break the benchmark for the number, just a volume vote of first place votes, OJ Simpson, or if he can break the Troy Smith's record, which is points percentage. So the biggest margin of victory, basically. And I think that this is where you get into and we can keep this quick. We don't have to get into too many numbers, but this is where the relative size of the voting body this year compared to years past comes into play. It's 927 votes this year. Far fewer than when OJ got his votes. So I don't think it's possible.

The OJ benchmark is 858. I don't think it's possible with 927 total for Burrow to break that. Who else would get a vote, though? Well, so there are four finalists. Yeah, but come on. Burrow, Justin Fields, Chase Young, Jalen Hurts. I think all of them will get votes. I think the Ohio State guys will definitely split the vote.

And if it had been one of them as finalists. Who's not voting for Joe Burrow? I mean, the thing that you have to remember about the Heisman voting block is that it's basically, this is a very reductive, simplified version of it, but it's basically regionally structured. And so you're always going to have some people who are saying, I'm voting for the Big Ten guy, for example, just as you will always have people saying, I'm voting for the SEC guy. So in that sense, you're never going to have- Sounds like a great process. You're never going to have a- Let's take this seriously.

Unanimous outcome. But- That's dumb. Could he break Troy Smith's record? So when Troy Smith won and that was the 06 Heisman, 924 voters at the time and he beat the runner up McFadden.

Remember? Run DMC by 1,662 points. Very curious to see what Burrow can make. Heisman is straight. I think there's a real shot. And then from there, Bill,

I have a little line here to sum up what comes next. On to Cincinnati for Joe Burrow can make Heisman history. I think there's a real shot. And then from there, Bill, I have a little line here to sum up what comes next. On to Cincinnati for Joe Burrow and Bill Belichick. Is that locked down yet? They're two wins behind everybody else now. I can't imagine them not having a top pick. And they'll hopefully lose this week. I cannot imagine it. Now, I guess in theory,

they could trade it if they got it, but I don't know why they would. First of all, they need a quarterback. They got it, but I don't know why they would. I mean, first of all, they need a quarterback. They need a franchise quarterback. He's an outstanding prospect. And, of course, where did he play before he transferred to LSU? Where? Ohio State. He's an Ohio kid. They're not going to pass up the chance to draft

an Ohio kid to be their franchise quarterback. There's no way. Did you ever believe in Darren McFadden as a fantasy guy? I drafted him, I think, five years in a row. There's certain fantasy guys that seduce everybody but never, ever, ever really came through. You might have had one good year. At least six times per week. Forget the NFL fantasy aspect. I just stop and in the middle of the day, I think, oh my God, Darren McFadden, Felix Jones, and Peyton Hillis were all on the

Arkansas team. Unbelievable. That's unbelievable. Unbelievable. Can I tell you about my fantasy league? I ended up winning by three points because Eli Manning never turned the ball over in a pouring rainstorm against the Eagles. I am. Eli did something good for me in my life, finally. I'm happy for you. I also want to say, I listened to your discussion with Sal, and I am confounded and befuddled by your stance on how your league is structured. You actually spent multiple minutes on a podcast that other people were going to hear complaining about the fact that you were in jeopardy.

You hadn't even lost at that point, in jeopardy of losing because your competitor had picked up a player. And you don't think people should be able to pick up players in that league, or they should be able to and the rules should be changed. No, my question was- Why is the league structured that way? We have conditional playoff ad drops. But why? Because it's an idiotic league. I don't know why we do it that way. Just let's have ad drops. Of course.

Yeah, exactly. Or let's not have them. But what we can have is somebody conditionally gets to pick up somebody and actually gain an advantage. But that was what your league had agreed to. And then you complained about it. I voted against it, though. It doesn't matter. It was ratified into your league constitution. Well, because I have a bunch of dickheads in my league who don't know what they're doing. This is the nature of fantasy sports. You agree to something with your league mates. Well, I hated the rule and I got burned by it. I almost lost. But you didn't lose. So I had Mike Evans. Yeah.

Did whatever he did to his hamstring. I lost him in six minutes, but somehow advanced. But now I don't have him anymore. And that's it. He's gone. But because I did a good job with the rest of my team and I have backup receivers, I don't get to just cherry pick other dudes now. Because I have a bench. I should be able to just cherry pick other dudes now because I have a bench.

I should be able to replace Mike Evans with somebody. Yeah, I agree. My league's so dumb. Absolutely. I'm sorry. So I have Lamar that had the red flag on him that I went and looked at my lineup on Tuesday and Lamar had the red flag

and I reacted the same way that I did when my kids were young and one of them fell off the jungle gym where you're just like in slow motion running toward them. Yeah. I saw the red flag on Lamar at a heart attack. When I got the push notification that he was limited at practice because of his quad, I actually gasped out loud,

screenshotted the push notification because I was in a meeting, sent multiple text messages immediately, including panicked ones to my husband and my father. And your husband's not even a Ravens fan. No, but he loves Lamar, loves watching Lamar and supports me in all of my endeavors and is currently very happy in terms of football

because he's a Broncos fan and he is a Missouri grad. So the Drew Locke thing is just an absolute delight for him, an absolute delight he was is a Missouri grad so the Drew Locke thing is just an absolute delight for him an absolute delight he's a solid C- Drew Locke yeah he's solid he's got a great arm it's for him in college it was always a decision making and then as as Michael Bauman would be happy to tell anyone who will listen comparing the stats in his SEC games to how he did against elite competition versus soft teams. But I don't know. He's got a great arm.

I think, frankly, if he's good enough to prevent the Broncos from drafting Justin Herbert, it's a good thing for Broncos fans, even if he's not the long-term solution. That's my take. Lamar's fine. Seems fine. I would be okay with, I mean, he's going to play on Thursday against the Jets, but I would be okay with him sitting it out and resting up. He needs to be healthy for the playoffs. Do you realize?

It's the most important thing. Well, no, I need him to be healthy for week 15. I'm a little bit more concerned about my real team's prospect for a real championship than your fake team's chance of losing in a way that upsets you in a league with rules that don't make sense. Well, I'm not winning the Super Bowl this year. So all I have now is this fantasy championship because I'm used to titles at the end of the year. I have to pick between Darius Slayton and Cortland Sutton.

And whatever I do, the other guy is going to have an awesome game. Who would you do, Kyle? For sure. He's your guy. Slayton against Miami. But you love Sutton. The thing is, think about which you'll regret more. You believe in Sutton.

You have all year. You believed in him coming into the season. He was one of your quiet hype guys. And if you don't play him in the playoffs and you lose because he has a bad game on your bench, you're going to be pissed. Slayton looked really good on Monday night. I don't know.

The problem is he's got Eli's corpse throwing it to him. So who knows? Eli's like, Joe Testore, what who knows? Eli's like Joe Testor. What a game by Eli. He had 29 yards total in the second half. The entire offense. Bill, can I share? Third and 13 for the Giants.

Swing pass out to Barkley. Nothing there. Why does he do that? What's wrong with him? It's the college carryover effect, I think. Yeah, guess what? You're doing Monday Night Football. We're not in college anymore, Joe Testatore.

It's true. I lost. 3rd and 13 to Zach Ertz. It's going to get eight. I'm glad you mentioned Zach Ertz because if he had somehow had a couple, like two more catches in overtime, I would have won.

But I lost my fantasy playoff matchup. And really, ultimately, when I look at the scoring, it came down to the fact that Odell got me four points. Four points. I'm going to regret that. But that's where fantasy becomes a microcosm. Like the one week becomes a microcosm of what you did right or wrong for the whole season, right? Sure. So you believed in Odell. You went all in on him. I went double receiver at the top of my draft. I took Julio and Odell. And Odell sucked all year and you didn't deserve to win your league because he sucked. It wasn't your fault.

It was Odell's fault. And then it turns out he has a sports hernia, which nobody even knew about for 12 weeks. Seems like an excuse to me. Now he's floating out Patriots rumors. We don't want your... If you ask Baker, plenty of people know about it. Flimsy stuff, Odell. Unless you come here and then I'll change my mind. Should we transition now into number three? Yeah, let's do it. Number three. The hot seat watch because obviously

one of the coaches on the hot seat watch is your boy Freddie. Bill Belichick? Your boy Freddie Supes. Stop it. Don't do this. Come on.

Don't do this. We're in the final three weeks of the season. He deserves to be fired. Freddie Supes? Which guy? Which one are we talking about? You're talking about Bill Belichick. You think Bill Belichick deserves to be fired? I thought you were talking about Freddie Supes. What are we talking about? You're talking about Bill Belichick.

You think Bill Belichick deserves to be fired? I thought you were talking about Freddy Supes. Yeah, we are. They should have fired him at the end of the game last week when Nick Chubb was running for 10 yards of carry and got the ball 12 times. Just run the ball against the Bengals. What are you doing?

It does seem like... Why are you using Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt as decoys? The combination of the actual on-field coaching and the level of weekly and really daily drama surrounding the team makes it very likely that there will be a change. You know, we've had two firings so far, right? Gruden, Jay Gruden, obviously,

and the fairly shocking Rivera firing a couple weeks ago. God, people love that guy. Rivera? Yeah, do you read the articles after that? Sure. I mean- The Panther, Luke Kuechly had one of the longest, nicest monologues I've ever read anybody saying about anything,

about just what a great person he was. I was like, by the end of it, I was like, ah, man. He'll land some more good. I think ultimately the timing, obviously, never want anybody to lose their job. But he got fired so early that now he's just on everybody's list as they're scouting. You mentioned the Cowboys.

This is the one I'm most interested in. There are a lot to consider. Cowboys, Browns, Falcons, Giants, Jags, Lions. A couple other. You'll hear people toss out Adam Gase or Zach Taylor. Those seem very unlikely, I think. I know where you're going with this. Is there a chance

that Jerry Jones finally pulls the trigger on Jason Garrett? Because yes, it does feel like something fundamental in the nature of their relationship and their basically blood oath to each other has changed in the last two weeks relationship and their basically blood oath to each other

has changed in the last two weeks. And with the Eagles winning that Monday Night Football game that you just recounted for us in your beautiful test impression, the Eagles probably are going to win the division now. The Cowboys blew it. Now, that's not a lock. The Cowboys could still win it

because it's only going to take seven wins. But if they don't win it, if they blow it, he's got to be gone. He's not a lock. The Cowboys could still win it because it's only going to take seven wins. But if they don't win it, if they blow it, he's got to be gone. He's got to be. And his players... I assume he's gone, win or lose, because they're not making that a round one anyway. Freddie Supes goes...

The move for them, actually, unless they can get Lincoln Riley, who you swear by... Yes. The move would be Ron Rivera. For the Cowboys? No, for the Browns. Because at least he could change the culture.

And you have a good guy who's been in big games and stuff and probably wore out his walk on Carolina, new owner, all that stuff. But from a culture standpoint, he could change the culture there. I think the... Now, in absolutely no way am I saying that Baker Mayfield is Aaron Rodgers. Literally in no way am I saying that. However, if you go back to the Packers coaching search before they landed on the floor, so much of the dialogue around that was who can work with Aaron Rodgers?

Who does Aaron Rodgers want to work with? Who does he want coaching this team? Now, Baker is not going to have the decision-making power about who the Browns hire. But if you look at how this season has played out, if you look at how things revealed themselves in the wake of Hugh's departure regarding his relationship with Baker, if the Browns franchise in the front office thinks that Baker is the quarterback of the future and they are committed to building around him for the next handful of years. They have to get a coach who he wants to work with.

It's a mistake. This is actually a fun thing to talk about right now, this week, because of course, the Browns are playing the Cardinals. And Baker and Cliff Kingsbury famously don't get along. Now, they've come out this week and said all the right things about how they're fine, they're chummy now. But in the Texas Tech days, they did not get along.

So Baker has trouble getting along with his coaches. Here's the thing. Come, mark this down. Send this to our social team right here. This is gold coming up right now. Some people have the dog that doesn't like other dogs and gets into fights with other dogs. And you're on the walk and all of a sudden that dog

gets all aggro with some dog that's walking by gets in the huge fight and the person who holds dogs like oh so sorry he never does that right but you kind of know the dog always does that and is always trying to mix it up and is always in trouble and it's like at some point you have to start blaming the people who have the dog and go like, you know, like if they're on the beach, you don't let that dog run around without a leash because that dog's going to go up to another dog and it's going to be complete chaos. Baker is like the dog.

Baker just seems to get in fights and altercations and get into trouble over and over again with whoever. He can't help it. He's on the walk. He can't just take the walk around the block, pee twice, take a dump, and go back to the house. He's got to mix it up with some golden retriever. That's just who he is.

So if you're telling me, hand the team over to him and let's hire a coach that would be great for Baker, I'd like to see him act like an adult for like a year before I made that commitment. My point is not that that is the right decision. It's that the franchise needs to decide one way or the other. I just decided for them. He's not worthy or ready for that yet. I thought you would enjoy more that I brought dogs into this. Well, I love animals.

I know. I don't like comparing people to animals, but I this. Well, I love animals. I know. I don't like comparing people to animals, but I love an animal. Why not? What's more fun than comparing people to animals? If we're going to stick with your analogy, the issue is not when a dog fights with another dog. As I understand it, I'm a cat owner. The issue in this case would be more of the dog biting the hand

that feeds it. The dog not getting along with people in its own household. That's the problem. So more like my dog, Willie, who just keeps going after my shoes. And then my wife blames me. It's like, well, you left your shoes down there. What'd you think was going to happen? And then my answer is, what I expected to happen was my dog not eating my shoes. I feel like that is your fault. Yeah. I was asking for it. Sorry.

I forgot to put my shoes away. So it's a, whatever. There's some sort of dog analogy. What's who's the third coach that's in trouble. Well, I think that Dan Quinn has probably moved out of the trouble zone for the Falcons, but that's still one

to monitor. Who do they play this week? With the Giants? Who do the Falcons? They're like 13-point underdogs against somebody. Play the Niners this week. They're at San Francisco. So here's the thing. That's a loss. If that's a 42 to 7, that

could get the ball rolling. The thing is the Niners lost their center. They lost Boza. I don't know if he's back this week or what happened with that, but I hate when teams lose their center. Ravens lost their center. Well, you have fucking Lamar.

You have the cheat code. Against Buffalo. Even Lamar is an offensive line, man. Ronnie Stanley had been one of those. The Pats lost their center and the Chiefs just bull rushed up right up the middle of the whole thing. I think Shermer's gone.

Shermer's gone. He's incompetent. Did you watch that Giants game? I did. It's like he had no idea what to do at the end of the game with his timeouts or anything. He actually could have used his timeouts

and gotten the ball back. He just doesn't know what he's doing. He's bad. Always a fascinating job to track. Here's what I would love. If after the Jets, because you mentioned Lincoln Riley. So I think there are a few college coaches who are hot candidates this year. But Matt Rule, the Baylor coach, will certainly be one of them. And after the Jets failed to lock down Matt Rule last year,

basically because they wouldn't give him the flexibility to choose his own staff. Yeah. The Giants hiring Matt Rule, and then Jets fans constantly just having to look across the aisle there and see the coach that they didn't get, while they're furious about Adam Gase. We've run out of ways for Jets fans constantly just having to look across the aisle there and see the coach that they didn't get while they're furious about Adam Gase. We've run out of ways for Jets fans to hate themselves. So it doesn't. That's definitely not true.

Oh, no, we have. No, no, no, no, no. There are always new depths of misery to explore. You can always mind your own despair in some fresh fashion. Always. Only five people are going to get this joke. But the Jets are like Cara Maria on the challenge if she never actually won any challenges. Thank you.

Who's Abram in that situation? I have to think about this for a minute. Who's Abram then? Sherman needs to go. Also, the Eagles running the three tight end offense with screen passes and the Giants just not being able to figure it out for an entire half was amazing. I mean, there was no- Guess what? They're probably going to throw to Zach Ertz.

He's the only person who can catch a ball on the entire team. They couldn't field any receivers. There's nobody healthy. It was unbelievable. That was very strange. We're going to take a break, then we'll get to the bottom two. Hey, everyone loves a gift they can feel good in and good about. Allbirds, stylish, comfortable, sustainable.

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We've got two of the next three weeks. Division rivals, obviously, competing for the AFC South title. They're both 8-5 right now. Yep. They're playing this one, Houston's at Tennessee Sunday, early slate this week.

And then they play again in week 17. Here's a key. Who do they each play between their two matchups? The Texans have the box. You're you're Tampa Bay Buccaneers. A little less, little less frisky without Mike Evans, a little bit less frisky.

Exactly. And the Titans have the Saints. Yeah. We're playing for seating. That means Exactly. And the Titans have the Saints who are playing for seeding. That means, I think, that the Titans have to win both of these games to take the division. So I'm not worried about this week. And that leads us to million-dollar picks, which I'm going to do really quickly. Million-dollar picks, four straight winning week last week.

Only 58K, but it's still a winning week, up 1.617 million for the year. And I only have two picks this week, and we could rip through them very quickly. The first one, the Titans of Tennessee. Yes. Who I've been riding like Willie Shoemaker. They're only minus three against Houston.

We're doing this on Wednesday night. And they're plus 105 with the minus three. So if I bet $100, I win 105. I just think they're better. I agree. I've watched them very carefully. We've been riding them on million-dollar picks. And people are still sleeping on them.

And I think it's happening for a couple reasons. One, they haven't had any national games. So people, unless you have like season ticket, they're not actually watching to Tannehill's involved. He's 30 years old. People feel like that's Tannehill.

They're not going to, what's going to happen there. Three people still don't seem to really understand how good Derek Henry is. Derek Henry might win the rushing title this year. Derek Henry has been, if you're just looking like last 17 18 calendar games dating back to last season, he's the best running back in the league.

He's the best production of anybody. Their receivers they finally unlocked Humphreys a little bit and then A.J. Brown yet another rookie that the Patriots didn't get. He's just getting better and you can see it.

And I think Tannehill's really good. I think, as I say every week, their sideline's locked in. Last week was one of those games where it looked like it was going to get fucked up. They rallied back. They ended up winning by three touchdowns. And I just really like them, and I don't like that Houston team that much. I felt like when the Pats got semi-killed by them, the most frustrating thing was it was like, Houston's not even good. Like this is embarrassing.

Right. And then they proved last week that they're really not that good. They have no running game. They have one receiver. Will Fuller gets hurt every two weeks. He's questionable again for this week. Fuller gets hurt a lot. When he's healthy, he and Deshaun Watson have pretty outstanding chemistry. And also that one receiver is DeAndre Hopkins, who is extraordinary. Yeah, but you can take out one receiver. Tennessee's got a good defense.

I mean, I'm with you on Titans. That's why I wanted to talk about it. I think they actually scare me. Like when thinking about teams that the Ravens could potentially match up with in the playoffs. They scare me for the Pats? They've won six of seven since Tannehill took over.

Everything's looking. I mean, I've loved Derrick Henry since the Alabama days. The first five weeks are explainable because their quarterback, Mariotta, sucked. And then they put in this other guy and he was good. And it completely changed their team because they had everything else. Yeah. I mean, I see this line and I'm just like I honestly think this line should

be like Titans by six. By six? I do. I think they should get an extra field goal. Oh my god. I feel like I'm getting three free points. Tennessee home. Crowd's going to be going bonkers. Now one interesting thing about home field

advantage this year. Home teams against the spread this year. 87, 116, and 5. They're 29 games under 500 against the spread. Oh, my God. How does that compare to a typical year? It's bonkers. Yeah.

It has no correlation to anything. Underdogs are 112, 91, and 5. So here's a situation where all the evidence that's happened this season would be like, you should just take the underdog in every game, especially like when it's a do or die, when who knows between either team.

But I actually think that has to swing these last two weeks with the home field advantage. So I like the fact that the Titans are on. The Titans are playing for so much. I would have a really hard time imagining that the Titans would come out flat in part because they're so energized, but also

that's such a well-coached team. It's such a well-coached team right now. Whereas I do think the Texans are really talented, but one thing we know is that they're capable of coming out flat and laying an egg. We've seen that repeatedly. I don't like when teams are behind in multiple games by a lot right and it's happened with them i think the titans also again they know they've got the saints next they know they need this game of course we should say both of these teams still have a very clear path

to the playoffs because they just need the stealers to fall out of the second wild card. Exactly. Which, you know, the Steelers have... We're going to them right now. Buffalo and then the Jets and the Ravens. That's hard. So my second pick is Bills plus two in Pittsburgh. Okay. Here's the case. Yeah.

And I'm down with Pittsburgh. I've won money on them a couple of times here. And Hodges is not your typical third string quarterback. He's okay. He made a back to the shoulder. What do they call the touchdown? They were on the two. He threw the-

A fade? No, but it was more like he threw the shoulder. Sure, yeah. It's a pass that goes wrong a lot. Jameis would have just thrown it to the other team. Of course. And he put it in a place where I was like, wow, that's actually like a real throw.

Sure, precision. He has pretty remarkable chemistry with James Washington. I don't totally see it with them. I thought Arizona could have beaten them last week. I think you can run on them. I think their running backs, especially it doesn't look, James Conner looks like he's who knows with him this week.

The other guys they had, that Benny Snell, all those dudes are just like average, below average. And I think that people are getting just confident that they're good. And I'm not sure they're good. I think that people are getting just confident that they're good. And I'm not sure they're good. I think they can steal games.

They're not stealing this game. Buffalo's defense is excellent, as you saw against your team. Tremendous. The times that you beat them was really because the couple plays where Lamar is just fucking amazing. But they were in the right spots. I think Josh does some stuff. Singletary has come on and I just think they're better. And I don't think it really matters where this game is.

So I am putting 500 K on the Titans minus three plus one Oh five. And then I am putting five 50 to win 500 on the bills. Plus two in Pittsburgh, which FYI, got flexed to a Sunday night. That's right. Here's what I really liked about Buffalo. When they kicked the shit out of Dallas on Thanksgiving, which they did.

Yeah. I like that they kind of went at Zeke after when they did the Shaq, I think it was Shaq Lawson and the other guy doing the Phoebe thing. Right, miming the celebration. That tells me they have real kind of gumption, like that they know they're good. And I thought in Baltimore, they went toe-to-toe with you.

And if Allen had played better, I think that actually would have been a potential upset. It was. You were nervous. I was, but I'm always nervous. I mean, I'm nervous when the Ravens are up by five touchdowns. You know, you said this on Sunday night with Sal. It was one of those games where it did feel very evenly matched.

It was competitive. To be fair, I always felt like you were going to win. You didn't ever really feel like the Ravens were not in control of the game. Because it was more of a reflection of the Buffalo offense, though. I didn't feel like they had enough to actually win the game in Baltimore against Pittsburgh. That's right.

I think they can win the game. Yeah. The defenses showing against the Ravens offense and the run game in particular was extraordinarily impressive. Really impressive. And the pass rush. It was one of the things I wanted to talk with you about

last week, actually. We didn't end up having time for it, but their pass rush the last four weeks is among the most impressive things happening across football. And, you know, the Raven and again, losing the starting center for the rest of the season is a problem. But they were able to generate pressure. And not only that, but they were able to contain, which other teams have not been able to do with anything resembling regularity. So I think that's an extraordinary defense. And they also seemed as fast as Lamar. Lamar is faster, but they were able to match his speed and raise that. I will say,

not to make any excuses, I don't think Lamar was fully healthy in that game. You know, I think that the fact that this quad thing has come out since, I think that he was feeling

a little, this is just me playing armchair doctor, but I think he was feeling a little off in that game because I don't think it's that they're as fast as him. I think it's that he wasn't

as fast as himself. You sound like me making excuses when my daughter sucks in soccer. Just the last Steelers wins for you. Yeah. Going backwards to earlier in the year. Chargers by 7. Dolphins by 13. They came

back. Colts by 2. Really banged up Colts team that game. Rams 17-12. That was more like I felt like the Rams lost that. Lost to the Browns by 14. Beat the Bengals by six. Beat Freddy's Soup Kitchens by seven.

Beat the Cards last week by six. We have no evidence that they're a good team. And we have no evidence that against a really good defense, the Codges will be able to do anything. And now you're talking Sunday night. There's also that thing when really good defense, Duck Hodges will be able to do anything. And now you're talking Sunday night. There's also that thing when the quarterbacks, the out of nowhere quarterback has been around for four or five weeks and the league has seen enough tape.

To catch up and adjust. Oh yeah, we'll do this. We'll do this. And I think Buffalo's winning this game. Yeah, it's like a slightly watered down version of the Minshew Mania thing. It's like, how long can this possibly last? I'm with you on the bills? So we're going half a million bills, plus two in Pittsburgh

and then Tennessee minus three at home against Houston. And the thing is, I think Tennessee, as you said, they need the game, not just because of the New Orleans thing, but this is their home game. They know they have to go to

Houston in week 17. That's right. So if you like lose this one, now you got to win it. Like week 17. Just take care of business. They know they have to go to Houston in week 17. That's right. So if you lose this one, now you got to win it. Just take care of business. You're better. Division on the line in week 17. Get this out of the way now. I would have the line Tennessee by six, but what do I know? All right. Last thing. You want to talk about marriage story? Yeah, let's do it.

Let's go. It wasn't as emotionally scarring to watch with our partners as maybe we were concerned about. I thought it was an absolutely stunning, beautiful movie. Oh. I loved it. I thought it was really remarkable.

Who cried more, you or Scarlett, during the movie? I cried more than once. More than once. More than once more than once more than once bill you didn't cry no i don't cry to her movies usually um i talked about i would chuck a little on tuesday i watched the movie from the perspective of the kid yes well that was when you watched the movie from the perspective of that was one of the things I loved about it is that, you know, I think about this a lot with storytelling. When I first read Harry Potter, for example, I was a teenager, right? And now I'm an old washed person in my early thirties. And my perspective, when I returned to those stories is completely different. And I love it just as much, but in a different way. And with Marriage Story,

I was able to occupy multiple perspectives at once. I was able to watch it as a married person who thinks that marriage is sometimes really hard. And also as somebody whose parents got divorced when I was really, really young, really young. And being able to think in each moment about who you should be feeling sorry for, who you should be angry with, whether either of those responses are fair or reasonable, and then always to be pulled back in by the look on Henry's face in the backseat of the car was just really moving and I also just thought that I thought all of the acting was incredible but I thought Adam Driver was like tremendous I love him thought it was great when you're doing hottest take Adam Driver

made girls this is your thing no I want somebody else to do it. I mean, he was... I have no problem saying that he was my favorite part of girls. No problem at all. Followed, you know, closely by Kit Harington lookalike Charlie. I forgot about Charlie. So, it's funny

like I read all the reviews and stuff afterwards. And people have just gone toward Adam Driver as like, I think he's probably going to win the Oscar, right? Scarlett's part, I felt like she 85, 90% got there. There's this one small piece that was missing where I didn't know how complicit she was the whole time in all of this.

And we, I talked about a little bit with Chuck where, you know, where, where I get sensitive as a COD is when the parents use the kid. Right. Against one another in some way. And I thought just as a mom,

the stuff she was doing to try to sabotage Adam driver's relationship with the kid, whether she was doing intentionally, unintentionally, Adam Driver's relationship with the kid, whether she was doing it intentionally, unintentionally, semi-intentionally, whatever, it made me not root for her. But I don't know if the movie wanted me to root for her or secretly wanted me to not root for her. But don't you think that both of those characters were ultimately at different points in the movie put in that kind of position where maybe at one moment you were feeling real empathy

or sympathy for them and then the next moment you're saying, well, you're leveraging something about either your, how your professional circumstances should take precedence over what your kid really wants. You know, for example,

the Charlie character, Adam Driver's character, refusing to accept that his kid really wants. You know, for example, the Charlie character, Adam Driver's character, refusing to accept that his kid liked L.A. You know, so that would be a counterpoint, I think. Or not a counterpoint, but an example that that was

happening on both sides. I think that the film was actually, in that way, quite well balanced. And it gets to another thing, actually, that I really, really admired about the movie, which is ultimately it's about love and loss and connection, regret, certainly, ambition and how you balance the priorities in your life establishment all around you and how the people who act like or actually think that they are trying to help you are in some way weaponizing your pain. And that was explored with like a level of care and conviction that I think is really, really rare.

And the kind of way that you watch and you say, I know that the person making this went through this. Right. So like the Laura Dern character, Ray Liotta, all of the lawyers, all the, that was like this really weird thing where you first start to get to that point in the movie, it's almost disorienting because it's such a tonal shift

from the really intimate personal portrayal but at the end of it i just was really in awe of the balance of those different facets because that is of course if you're going through a divorce or if you are the a child and your parents are going through the divorce something that i think maybe people who haven't been through that can't always appreciate or understand. Your entire life is upended by people who are not a part of it. Yeah. I don't know that much about the modern divorce institution. So going into that world and just the cost and the prices, I don't know how real... I mean, it definitely is on the high end, but it's weird to me that so many people get divorced, but there's really no divorce movies at all.

Right. I think like I could probably name all the divorce movies off the top of my head right now. It's less than 20. Well, of course, Kramer versus Kramer is the all-timer. I still feel like that's the goat though, right? I think Kramer versus Kramer is almost untouchable. But I do think that this is up there.

You know, I also really, really love The Squid and the Whale, which is also a Noah Baumbach movie. That's very different in tone. You know, I thought that Sean Fantasy, our cherished colleague, wrote this in his write-up on the movie for our year-end review package, which everyone should check out. I'm paraphrasing here, but in essence, it's not called Divorce Story. There is something at the end of it that is really hopeful. And in a way, it probably depends on your mindset or your emotional state at the moment when when you're consuming the story maybe that hope is

actually more upsetting to you because there's something really devastating about that moment where you realize that they are still in love with each other and always will be and still can't find a way to be together like that to me is way more upsetting than falling out of love with somebody you know still having those feelings for somebody and not being able to find your way forward together. That that's, that's gutting. And when he's sitting on the bed reading that letter,

it's just like, Oh my God. Yeah. It's basically like these two people can't be together through a bunch of circumstances that happen that now prevent, prevent them from being able to have a normal relationship. They have this kid. They've kind of figured out some way to share the kid. There's so much pain that's happened

from all the fucking legal mechanics and everything else that there's just no going back. And some really hurtful shit has happened. Yes. And yet through all of this, there's still no going back and some really hurtful shit has happened. Yes. And yet through all of this, there's still like a weird connection. I haven't seen a lot of movies that have able to pull off that balance

where I actually believe that she still cared about him in some weird way at the end because I honestly think that's what divorce is like. I said to Chuck the other day, like when my mom and my dad are together now, it's always so fascinating because I do feel like they still have a connection. Sure, right.

And you see it and you're like, oh, this is cool. I can kind of see why they were together at one point in life. Right. You know, whereas other people, they get divorced and it's like, they're dead to each other. Right. Which is a less interesting movie.

Yeah, I think that's exactly right it's it's rare to see that aspect of it explored but ultimately that's what made it feel really true to life you know plenty of people love each other that's it's just not always enough and when you are in a relationship like that with someone or you witness that with other people, you know, I think my, my, my two favorite scenes in the movie were the scene when he's reading the letter and then the fight, right. The fight in his house. And there were other scenes that I loved, you know, I loved the, when he cuts the, he cuts his arm and I mean, many things in the movie were wonderful, but the thing about the fight you know i i understand that in

some ways that's like clearly the most provocative scene in the movie and it's it's there to make you feel that way and maybe i'm just like an easy mark yeah happy to admit that but that really spoke to me like and not just in a marriage i i i think about often when i am trying to uh look inward and reflect and attempt to be a little bit better that i'm i'm the most cruel to the people i care about the most and like why we as people do that right and why we are capable of doing that the things that he says to her you know i hope if i knew that henry would be okay i would want you to die every every morning i wake up i wish you were dead it's just like you're watching that and you're you're just utter astonishment that you're seeing that play out because i do think that everybody has a moment

like that in their life or maybe many moments where you're like, I actually can't believe that I just said that out loud. Maybe you're capable of groveling like he did and kind of giving in to your remorse and owning your shame, but maybe you're not. Maybe you're just too stubborn or too unwilling to in any way feel a little bit lesser than the person that you're trying to wound. But I just, again, I just thought that felt like very recognizable to me in a way that is like painful, but kind of amazing. I'm really excited for the Kramer versus Kramer rewatchables. I can't wait. Can we eat chocolate chip ice cream as we're recording?

We're doing it for Oscars. It's going to be the Oscars rewatchable. End of January. Amazing. I can't wait. Mallory Rubin, thanks for everything you do. I'm glad you've never said anything cruel to me. Thanks for always taking me trick-or-treating on Halloween.

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I didn't know if we were going to make it out of the decade without one good thing happening to the Yankees, but it finally happened. They signed Garrett Cole. Congratulations, Jacko. He's on the line right now.

We're taping this on a Wednesday. You've been calling for this. You've been complaining about how your team is just a B plus every year. You wanted the A plus. You wanted the A. You even want to settle for the A minus. And then they splurge for the biggest pitcher contract of all time. How are you feeling? I feel good. I feel great. I'm sure I'm going to regret it five years, the last five years from now. years five through nine are probably not going to be loving it, but years one through five. And certainly on the morning of I'm, I'm extremely happy. Christmas came early. It was good. It's a good thing.

They finally remembered that they were the Yankees and they have the most money and the most swagger in the game. And they decided to act like it. And I'm happy. It's a, it's a proud, happy day. They have the ACE that they've lacked for oh so long. And all is well in Yankee land today. Did you have flashbacks to when they did this, basically the same contract and everything for CeCe once upon a time? It does.

It is reminiscent of that. CeCe was also a California guy that they sort of had to convince to come play in the cold Northeast. And, um, you know, that worked out with the, with the world series and, uh, let's hope this works out the same way, but it is, it is reminiscent of that. They had to overpay for CC a little bit. Cause he was a, you know, West coast guy with a West coast bias and, uh, the same may be true for Cole, but when you're the Yankees, you can do that. And if that's what it takes, that's what it takes. Go out and get the big dog to lead the rotation.

Absolutely. You sound like you've been sedated. I don't know what's going on with you. This is way too calm. You're way too calm about this. Well, here's the thing. Here's the thing. I am super excited about this. I really like

Garrett Cole. I think he's the ace that they need. I think that I'm looking forward to hopefully, God willing, going into a postseason series and not having to look at starting Chad Green as an opener in the series. I'm super excited about that. But part of me is a little wary because these big contracts have a way of not working out. You know, I got excited way back when, at one point, when they signed Randy Johnson, and that didn't work out. A-Rod's first contract was good. The second one was abysmal. You know, Stanton hasn't lived up to the contract, so there's just a little gnawing, little whisper in the back of my mind that's like, let's not go too crazy out on the limb here.

But I'm super excited. What happened this morning when I woke up and I turned on my phone and I looked at Twitter and everything, I saw 20 things. And I'm naturally pessimistic as anybody that follows me on Twitter knows me knows. So I had convinced myself when the Angels were doing things last night where they traded Cozart to clear up money. I'm like, what's this for? What's going on here? I was nervous. So when I woke up this morning, I turned on my phone and I saw I had 20 notifications on Twitter. And I'm like, this is either going to be good or it's going to be everybody heckling me because he's now an angel. And so I cautiously looked and I was very happy.

I'm very happy. I'm very happy. I don't want me to sound subdued. It's Christmas morning. It's all good. You left out some terrible contracts from the 21st century. Jason Giambi, you left that one out? Yes. Kevin Brown, does that one count? Yes. Yeah. Oh my God, yeah, it was horrible. Jacoby Ellsbury? I was better than Kevin Brown. Jacoby Ellsbury? Well, yes than Kevin Brown. Jacoby Ellsbury? Well, yes.

Well, that one I knew was a disaster from day one. I screamed from the heavens they never should have signed Ellsbury. The minute he put the ink on the paper, I was screaming and wailing about that. Everybody knew that. Obviously, my goal here is to make you feel worse about this by the end of the phone call. Of course, but that's not really going to happen. One of my favorite Twitter accounts, at Red Sox Stats, who I think they just should have hired as the Red Sox GM.

He just put side-by-side stats of David Price, his career stats when he signed that huge contract with the Red Sox, and then Cole's career stats when he signed the huge contract for $100 million more with the Yankees yesterday. And they're very similar, Johnny. Very, very similar. In fact, so similar, I'm not even sure which guy is which. He's not the delicate little head case that David Price is, though.

He has shown, plus I don't even know if he plays Fortnite, so I have no concerns in that regard that he's going to turn into David Price there's always a risk with pitchers obviously you know there's an injury risk obviously but and I just I don't know he's a better pitcher than David Price

he's a better pitcher than David Price was by the time the Sox signed him but is he? here's their career whip heading into those seasons. 1-13 and 1-13. They're the same whip.

You paid $100 million more for David Price 2.0. One guy went 94. Here's another big difference. Yeah. You know what another big difference is? The new Yankees pitching coach is a fellow Holy Cross Crusader. Yeah.

With a double major in philosophy and psychology. Are you telling me he's not going to be able to work some Jesuit magic on Garrett Cole to make him even better than he is? David Price did not have access to the Jesuit Holy Cross magic that you and I are so enamored and familiar with. So really, Matt Blake, a fellow Crusader working his magic with Garrett Cole, I mean, really, the world is our oyster. It's a great week for that argument when our basketball team lost to UMass Amherst,

a Div 3 school. Or UMass Boston, which UMass did we lose to? It wasn't even UMass Amherst. That would be respectable. Yeah, it was a Division 3 team. It was UMass Boston? Which UMass did we lose to? It wasn't even UMass Amherst. That would be respectable. Yeah, it was a Division III team. It was UMass Boston? Yeah, I believe so. We lost to a Division III team for the first time in 16 years.

Yeah. Great job, guys. Way to keep that program going. I think they're like 1-7 now, too. No, it's worse. They're 1-9. Oh, I missed a couple of losses. Hey,

which out of the two, which one do you think was 94-52 heading into the new contract and which one was 104-56 between price and call? Because I don't really know the answer. Which one had the ERA plus of 127 or the ERA plus of 126? Hard to say,

but those seem pretty damn close to me. But your guy, this is amazing to me, that you're using your own guy's stats to downgrade the Yankees signing. Yeah, that's what I'm doing. You're number two starter. World Series hero. Well, that's just it. He won a World Series.

You wouldn't get rid of that contract it. He won a World Series. You wouldn't trade that. You wouldn't get rid of that contract. He won you a World Series. He was a key cog in the 2018 World Series championship. Not only would I get rid of that contract, I think it's being offered to everyone in the league right now. All 29 teams could have it. Weren't you the last guy

buying David Price stock? Don't you have a lot of stock certificates in David Price? Weren't you the guy saying, give me all the David Price stock? Now you're have a lot of stock certificates in David Price? Weren't you the guy saying, give me all the David Price stock? It's not. And now you're trying to dump it like it's October 1929 on Wall Street? It's not my feelings about David Price. It's your feelings about David Price. Somebody you have mocked and maligned for the last four years. Yeah, because that's David Price. Plus the Yankees, your arguably biggest rival, own him, have owned Price his whole career.

They owned him in Tampa Bay, and they own him as a Red Sox. So I've always enjoyed playing against David Price from a Yankee fan perspective. Garrett Cole, while his numbers, I think, are a semi-lofty ERA at Fenway, I saw it's like 3.94. It's not David Price levels of ownership by the Red Sox versus your biggest rival. He's not David Price. He's better than David Price. He's better than David Price was when David Price signed that contract. Much better. You keep

telling yourself that, Johnny. I don't care what the numbers show, which are skewed from when he started out in Pittsburgh. I'm talking about what he's done lately in Houston, where he's been one of the two best pitchers in the American League. What are his stats going to look like when people aren't hitting trash cans on the side of the, of the dugout as he's getting an edge?

I'm not going to be concerned because I'm sure they, whatever dark arts they used, I'm sure they had it for pitching too with Pintar or whatever, but you know, he's learned, he's learned the nefarious lessons and he'll bring those with him. I'm sure even without somebody there to whisper in his ear. Garrett Cole's last two years in Pittsburgh,

seven and 10, 12 and 12. That's a lousy team. No interest. He's young. He's turned it around. And no, and no trash cans and video surveillance either.

The Astros are like, whatever America thinks of the Patriots, the Astros are like the 10.0 version. They're like Russia and Ukraine. The Patriots are just like a hacker. Let's look at... I'm just curious, looking at Garrett Cole's playoff stats. Oh, no.

I don't see a World Series trophy for him. He can't win it by himself. He's never really... He's in the World Series last year. They lost. Right. It's the only time he's been in there. In that respect,

he'll fit in with everyone else on your team because nobody on your team has won a World Series, right? Brett Gardner? Did he win a World Series? Brett Gardner has a World Series ring. He does. That's good.

He can show Gary Cole the ring, I guess. Well, I mean, yeah, it's true. The Yankees have not been in the World Series in 10 years, but we know that twice now that they've been sent out of the postseason because of the criminal acts of the Houston Astros. That is true. We both have that one. You can't compete against criminals.

And then they lost in 2018 to the Red Sox. And we know that your manager was knee deep in the criminality. And was really one of the main conspirators. So that has to come with an asterisk as well. So while technically true that the Yankees have not been to a World Series in 10 years, there's a lot of caveats with that. I think that's why we beat the Astros in 2018, because they knew Cora

knew all of their surveillance tricks. That's exactly right. They were like, shit, we have to beat these guys fair and square. They couldn't do it. Right, Cora knows our tricks. He knew where all the signals were, so they couldn't pull that shit. George Springer's like, fuck, where's the trash can noise?

I don't know if it's going to be a breaking ball here. Could somebody hit a trash can against the dugout? That's one of the things I'm so looking forward to this season because presumably Major League Baseball is going to crack down on all their criminality. And I'm curious to see how guys like Altuve do when they don't know what's coming. That'll be interesting to see.

I just want to know what would have happened if the Patriots had been involved in a scandal of the heft that this Astros scandal had. The depth of it. You're talking like a three-year thing

with 50 people involved, game after game, and paranoid opponents and all that. And the Patriots have some doofus who doesn't even work for the team like wandering around the Browns media thing just taping the Bengals sideline from far away. And people are like, there you go again,

cheaters. So imagine if Belichick was banging trash cans against the Gatorade bucket every time you thought there was going to be a draw play. Absolutely. Well, what else do you do this winter, Johnny? Is this it? Is this it for the suddenly splurgy Yankees?

I would like to see them bring back Patances on a one-year deal. I guess he's looking for a one-year deal to sort of stabilize the bullpen. But I don't know if they're going to do that. And I guess they're going to bring back Brett Gardner because Aaron Hicks is having Tommy John surgery or some sort of surgery. He's out for a lengthy period of time, so I think they're going to bring back Brett Gardner for one more run. I hated that before because I'm like, I think there's less expensive options, and he's 40 years old, and I could watch somebody else hit 123 in the postseason

for a lot less money, but I'm in a good mood today. We've got Garrett Cole, so it's like, let's bring back the veteran presence. They all seem to like Brett Gardner. So what the hell, why not? How many, what the heck? How many more years with, uh, with Chapman? And well, they just re-upped them. They just, they just extended them. Oh, coming off the red hot post-season? Well, that's going to happen with closers. He had a solid year. He had a very solid year. But yeah, obviously, he gave up the hit that ultimately sent them home. Yes, that is the truth. There's been some Gary Sanchez trade rumors too. Well, that wouldn't really break my heart because I'm not sure he's the guy. If you could get something for him, and I think they could, you could probably sell high on him.

I wouldn't be opposed to that. I also, there's rumors they're shopping Stanton for a ham sandwich in a six-pack. I would do that, too. It was what the White Sox offered. I don't think that's going to happen. The Yankees countered with a ham and cheese sandwich and a case. So they're going back and forth.

Back and forth on that. That's good. We'll see what happens. You think, Stanton, will we play 100 games this year? 100 at-bats? We played 158, I believe, the first year. 150 plus the first year of the contract. He had an injury, obviously,

injury-riddled season last year, but I'm sure he'll come back strong now in the new campaign. That's all we can hope for. Maybe change the trainer? Speaking of making splashes and trades, what's your squad doing there? Are you still crying poverty and we have to trade everybody because they can't afford, even though they sell out every single game and market everything in the stadium, they can't pay the salaries of the players that we're going with?

Well, Johnny, it's tough when you're raking in a half a billion a year in revenue and the payroll dips over 200 million and the profit only becomes, you know, 200 plus million a year. It's tough. You got to cut some corners. Tough to keep it going. You're practically on the soup line. Yeah.

It's the stuff, the stuff that's on the internet. I'm just dumbfounded by the, like, and nobody knows what's true and not true, but, um, but there was even Red Sox stats yesterday on Twitter was like, what if they trade bets with a contract and then sign Rendon for cheaper?

And then he can also play in the infield. And I was like, that's actually a pretty good idea, but wait, why are we trading bookie bets? We have so much money. What are we doing? So my hope and dream is that Ben Intende can be attached to a pitcher contract.

Yeah, I saw that speculation online today. Because they've already been floating out. You get rid of Price. You take Price and his salary, but you get Benintendi as well. Yeah, and they're already kind of floating out this stuff about he put on too much weight last year. He was too strong. It hurt his speed. Oh, here we go.

He's got to get back to being the athlete. Get that speed back. All these stats saying his jumps on balls weren't as good. He wasn't as fast in the base pass because he's carrying too much weight. He's trying to be a home run hitter. Now let's go back to you being you. So they're getting that out, which makes me wonder if he's getting shopped. Yeah.

Yeah, that's all she wrote for him. Well, but the thing is he wasn't very good last year. So I don't, that's not a very enticing thing. But on the other hand, like I do think somebody like Price, if it's three years for like 92 million, whatever he's got left versus, you know, what's left on the market. And if you don't want to spend 300 plus million on somebody, but if you're the angels and you have money to spend, you know,

you get Price, he's a world series hero. Yeah. We need somebody who can throw 200 innings lower pressure market it's a shorter commitment I think they're going to

be able to move him without attaching anybody to the contract maybe they'll end up paying some of it but that's it you're not going to

give up that whole nobody's taking on that whole contract but maybe we pay 30 million of it but if I was the Angels and I could get I could get Price maybe we paid 30 million of it. But if I was the Angels and I could get Price and they pay 30 million and I have him for 20 million a year for three years,

I actually think that's a pretty good deal. Because he's going to pitch. There's not a lot of starters. I mean, the starters on the market's pretty bleak. And then there's, it's just funny how when teams need stuff and the market goes out of whack, like there's two third basemen, but five teams need a third baseman. So the market's like completely insane for the two third baseman, which usually leads to a disaster. I mean, that's why it was a perfect storm for Cole because the Yankees were in the market for a starter.

And once Strasburg signed and he was, well, he was a bigger name even than Strasburg, because he's younger and less injury-prone, knock on wood. But it was a perfect storm for him to get the Yankees involved and get West Coast teams involved. Boris had to be like, oh, yes. Boris.

This is working out perfectly. So that was good for him. Boris is definitely the hit or miss agent of our of our lifetime because he'll have some other ones where it's it just is the opposite of how everybody thought it could go to a point that it's pretty embarrassing and then he'll have these ones like cole when he just plays it perfectly and he's got the three bidders there's desperation on all sides the angels seems like the angels seem like they've lost their minds.

They paid $350 million to buy the Angels Stadium and all the surrounding area for it. And it's honestly one of the most depressing places to go to a baseball game because it's just like acres of parking lots that they don't do anything with. Well, he wants to change that. That's what I've heard is that he didn't buy it.

Now he's going to develop it and have like a whole area, you know, basically like sort of what the Patriots did around Gillette, where they have like a whole city that built up around the stadium. And he wants to, you know, sort of inaugurate that with a big splash. That's why they thought they were going to throw the bank at Cole or Rendon and try to put some people with trout to gain some interest and build a contender. I mean, that was what he kept saying. That's what made me nervous from a Yankee perspective.

Yeah, but here's the thing. Maybe he would just write crazy checks. They already have Trout to be the face of whatever the fuck they're going to do there. And also, like, you know, when you have the whole development around Fenway, that makes a ton of sense. It's downtown Boston. People have immediate access to it. They can hop in a cab, go down there or whatever. Same thing. Like if the Mets did that with Shea stadium, where now people could beat the traffic and go at like three 34 o'clock, have some drinks, do the whole thing. Nobody wants to spend like more time in Anaheim.

People are like, cool. Now I get two and a half more hours in Anaheim. I'll go early. Spend some Anaheim time. I just, I don't see it. As I've said many times, Anaheim is the Worcester, Massachusetts of the West Coast and with a theme park. But I just don't see how that would be more enticing.

The team that would be, the team that if they did it would be, I would be really intrigued how it went is the Dodgers because they're on that big hill. And if they put some fun stuff, because basically you're just going to Dodger Stadium and then you go in. There's nothing around there.

There's nowhere to meet. If you meet somebody, you have to basically meet them right outside the stadium. I think that's the smartest thing the Red Sox owners did with Fenway is turning that whole area into just 40 options when you go down there. Yeah, absolutely. No, that is good.

That is a good thing. You can go in and come out on, well, it's not Yawkey Way anymore, Jersey Street or whatever it's called now. You could go into bars and come out on the on well it's not yaki way anymore jersey street or whatever it's called now you could go you know go into bars we can't we can't no no can't we can't call it that god forbid they're like get that guy the fuck out of here he said some stuff in 1938 right right so uh but that is a good thing around there and and there is no equivalent to anywhere around Yankee Stadium around there. I mean, I know they have like a hard rock thing built into the stadium, but it's not anywhere near the same.

You're not going into those bars around Yankee Stadium generally. By the way, just to be clear, I think they should have canceled Tom Yockey because he has a very complicated history. I just think it's funny when we cancel people who are dead and can't defend themselves. Tom Yockey is somewhere right now like, what? Wait a minute.

It's not called Yockey Way anymore. I'm dead. Right, right. So now, Tom, sorry. You've been retroactively canceled even though you're dead. You don't know what's going on. Is there any other baseball subplot you're excited about? No.

I'm curious to see what happens with the Astros. I'm curious to see what happens with Mookie Betts. You mean like prison time for the Astros or their actual offseason moves? I'd like to see them disbanded, actually, but I don't think that's going to happen. I actually think there's a roadmap to them moving into a different phase of this whole contending run because they lose Cole in all those innings and then Verlander is now hitting his late 30s. Yeah, he's not getting any

younger. Unless they can keep working their wink wink magic wink wink with Verlander, I think it's tough to just count on that dude for 210 innings a year plus playoffs. And now there's rumors they might trade Correa because they may be sort of in a rebuilding mode or retrenchment mode because, I mean, you know, this, this sign stealing thing is

a big deal. Yeah. I know that's me coming from a bitter Yankee fan, but that's an enormous advantage. And, you know, I've, I've watched that Zapruder like films on, on Twitter of the, of words broken down. Who's your guy, John boy. Yeah.

John boy, where it's blatantly obvious that they're banging on a, on a garbage can to, to warn you that I, that a breaking pitch is coming. Yeah. I mean, that's an enormous advantage.

And there, you know, there's videos from their own world series DVD, where when L2 Bay is running through the tunnel up into the locker room and you can see a guy sitting or standing, taking down a TV screen from their little nook where they would send it next to a garbage can. I mean, that's outrageous that they had cameras on this. And if this stuff comes out, there's all these rumors about how they wore band-aids with, like, electronic buzzers on their batting gloves. I mean, that's really egregious. It's outrageous.

That's why George Springer seems so, like, lively and excited. He's being electrocuted by the buzzer in his batting gloves. That's right. That's a change-up. I mean, everybody, you know, everybody has somebody on the bench. Zimmer used to be really good at it. And I guess Carlos Beltran is known as legendary at it. He could pick up the signs. And it's one thing if you're yelling out fastball or you're signaling,

but when you start to use technology and electronics to do this, that's well above and beyond the normal sort of gamesmanship. It's out and out cheating. That's well above and beyond the normal sort of gamesmanship. It's out cheating. It's really outrageous. I agree. And I don't feel like anybody really cares because baseball is turning into a sport where we only care about our own teams.

We're like parents in an elementary school where we just care about our kids. We don't care about the other kids. And it's the same thing with the Astros where it's like, yeah, if this was football where't care about the other kids. And it's the same thing with the Astros, where it's like, yeah, if this was football where we care about all the teams, people would be losing their minds. Even forget the Patriots example.

Imagine if just like the Rams had been doing this the last three years. This would be all we talked about every day. That Sean McVay, what's going to happen to his legacy? What about the coaching tree? Is he going to get fired? Should we go back and change the results to games? Like people would lose their minds. And with this, you know, if you, if it came out that like, you know, there was a, there was an earpiece in the,

in the defensive team's helmets and the coaches could say, and it's going to be a draw play to 83, you know, like that was, that's a big deal. If you know what the play is, that's a big deal. Like people would go crazy about that. It's a big deal. And you know what the play is. That's a big deal. People would go crazy about that. It's a big deal when you know what the pitch is coming. You don't have to guess. That's a huge deal. That's a huge advantage for the hitter. It's outrageous.

And they won a fucking World Series because of it. Yeah, like, imagine if they had it in hockey and they were sending the guys home, but the other guy's just going to skate around aimlessly. And then he's going to pass to somebody else, and then that guy's just going to skate around aimlessly. And then he's going to pass to somebody else. And then that guy's going to just circle around the net. And then he's going to stop and skate aimlessly the other way. Huge advantage.

LeBron's going to pick the ball up at half court and walk into the key without dribbling. James Harden's going to stay at mid court for 20 seconds, banging the trash cans. Oh, they're running that play with James Harden again. We're going mid-court for 20 seconds, banging the trash cans. Oh, they're running that play with James Harden again. We're in best of thing for 20 seconds. All right, before we go, just very quickly, how are we feeling about the 2020 election? Well, I don't know. I mean, I'm not going to be shocked to see Trump win,

I think, at this point. I mean, this impeachment thing does not really seem to be playing very well with the public. I mean, there's not like a groundswell. You know, people obviously don't really care for him, but there's not really like a groundswell. People are like, yeah, we've got to get rid of him. And the economy seems to be doing well. Unemployment is really low. And I mean, it looks like the Democrats are coalescing around Joe Biden, who's, you know, arguably their strongest candidate in the Midwest, Pennsylvania

and states that they need to win. But, you know, I'm not sure. I'm not sure old Joe's got it in him. And when a push comes to shove and you're like, well, it's between two idiots, you know, maybe we'll stick with the idiot we have. I don't know. I don't know what people are going to do. Trump is down minus 140. Yeah. He's a favorite. And what's even crazier is Mayor Pete is the third highest odds right now. Yeah, which is insanity. Who's never been anything other than a mayor.

Yeah, of South Bend, Indiana. I mean, if you're the mayor of New York or Chicago or Los Angeles, you're arguably, well, Bloomberg, I guess, would make the case. Arguably, you're experienced enough to be the president. But I'm not sure being the mayor of South Bend, Indiana is really like the natural springboard to be the president. It doesn't feel like people have fully paid. We have a game show host as the president now. So what do I know?

Game shows. That's being kind. He's totally unique. That's being kind. Calling him a game show host is a compliment. Yeah, it seems like we're going to hit 2020. The new year's going to happen.

And then everybody's going to be like, oh, so this is everybody? This is it? This is who we settled on? And then complete panic's going to set in. And Trump will start doing the whole, they can't even find somebody to beat me.

Are you kidding me? Look at it. He'll start denigrating them as a whole group. Well, Bloomberg just got into the race because he's like, you know, he doesn't think Warren and Sanders can win. And he didn't think, you know, he's more of an establishment guy and he, you know, like a Biden and he doesn't think Biden has it. I mean, Biden's a gaffe machine. You know, the other day he was in Iowa and he didn't know what state he was in. Well, you got to know you're in Iowa. There's a lot of states though. I mean, in his defense, that's true. He had a 50 proposition,

but you got to know you're got to know you're in Iowa. You got to know that. Yeah. And then Bloomberg's like, we can't elect somebody as old and adamant as Biden is. By the way, I'll be 79 in 2020. I know, exactly. I'd be 83 at the end of my first term, but it would be fine. Exactly.

Yeah, it's good. Unbelievable. I shouldn't be allowed to drive or coach an NFL team, but I can run the country. What a year we have in store for us, Johnny. Did you watch succession yet? No,

I have not watched succession. Can you do that as your Christmas present for me? I will. That will be my Christmas present to you. My Christmas card is actually going to be a picture of me watching succession. That'd be great. I'm going to have my wife take a picture of me watching it. And I'm going to send that to you exclusively as my Christmas card.

I also have another show for you to watch. This one I really encourage. It's a faster watch than Succession. Succession, you have to watch 20 episodes. It's called Mrs. Fletcher. It's on HBO. Katherine Hahn. She's a mom whose kid goes off to college,

and the wheels start to come off. All right. I know she's a big favorite of yours. She's a podcast guest. This is a very good show. I can't believe the, it seems like it just came and went. Nobody saw it.

It was one of the weirdest TV shows of all time. I loved it. I thought she was great in it, but more importantly, it is just fucking bonkers. And I highly recommend it. Yeah, it is. It is bonkers. Kyle's been recommend it. Yeah, it is bonkers.

Kyle's been over at my house a couple of times editing the Sunday Night Podcast as I've been watching it. And he's just like, what's going on? There's just things happen on the show. No context. Yeah, without context especially.

But yeah, I would recommend Mrs. Fletcher. All right, Jacko, congratulations on Gary Cole. I hope you get a year and a half out of him before his career falls apart. And, uh, and happy new year. If I don't talk to you on the podcast, I'll talk to you in real life, but not on the podcast. Happy new year in a podcast way. I'll talk to you in real life. All right. Take care. Bye. Okay, thanks to Windhorst and Jacko and Mallory. Thanks to State Farm. Thanks to AMC, where Elf is coming on Monday with the rewatchables, 8 p.m.

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I will be back on Sunday night. Kyle will be in Puerto Rico and hopefully still alive. A lot of rumors of Jim Cunningham stepping in for one pod. We'll see what happens. I might have to produce this one myself. We'll see if Jim makes it. We're trying to book him. He's a very busy man.

Enjoy the week and we'll see if Jim makes it. We're trying to book him. He's a very busy man. And enjoy the week, and we'll see you on Sunday. On the wayside On the first side of the river I said I don't have To ever forget