The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 112: 'Any Given Wednesday' Bonus Material

Episode Date: July 20, 2016

This bonus 'Bill Simmons Podcast' includes extra material from the first four episodes of 'Any Given Wednesday,' including interviews with Charles Barkley (2:15), Ben Affleck (15:30), Malcolm Gladwell and Mark Cuban (24:00), Bill Hader (36:45), Joe Rogan (41:00), Anthony Anderson and Chris Bosh (49:30), and Aaron Rodgers (56:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome. This is a special Any Given Wednesday only edition of the BS Podcast. We tape these shows and we only have a half hour for the actual show, but I like to go long form when I have the guests. So we always end up having a bunch of extra content and that was actually one of the goals of the show because I think the old school format of of these shows is the guest just comes out you tape maybe they're on for six seven eight nine minutes and then they leave and my thinking was if I'm gonna have some of these celebrities on why wouldn't I want to have them for longer than that? Why wouldn't I want to go in a bunch of different directions, try some stuff, do some different gimmicks, and try to leverage the time I have for as much content as possible? HBO is HBO Now. We have YouTube. We have this podcast. We have a bunch of places to put the

extra material. And actually, if you go to the Any Given Wednesday page on HBO Now, they have a new splash page going up that really easily assembles all these clips so you can watch all this stuff. And it's all on there from the first four episodes. So what we're going to do right now is run seven different extra clips that were not on the first four episodes of the show that we're going to run now just the audio of. And I actually think they really lend themselves well to the podcast forum, which is why I wanted to do it. So these clips include Charles Barkley, Ben Affleck, Mark Cuban and Malcolm Gladwell, Bill Hader, Joe Rogan, Chris Bosh and Anthony Anderson, and Aaron Rodgers.

And the first one up is Charles Barkley. We did a speed round with him. That was so much fun. It could have gone on for two hours. I had so many questions. We had to cut it down to 12 minutes. But really the goal of this was to find out what a Cliff Robinson shower was. I think it was like three or four years ago on TNT.

After a game, they talked about a Cliff Robinson shower, and all of them just started laughing hysterically. And it was like this huge inside joke, and the Internet kind of went crazy about it for six, seven, trying to find out what it was and we never knew it was like the bigfoot of nba references dropped in a post-game studio show so i got to the bottom of it along with a bunch of other things with charles barkley here is that right now all right it's time for speed round with nba hall of famer charles barkley now do, do I have to answer or just say a word? You have to answer, and it's got to be fast answers.

Okay. Which current NBA player reminds you most of you? Not that fast, huh? This is not speedy. Draymond Green. Oh, the nut puncher. Yeah. Okay. Um, Draymond Green. Oh, the nut puncher. Yeah.

Okay. Cheapest player on the 92 Dream Team? Scotty Pippen. Scotty Pippen? Yep. No tipping Pippen. That's his nickname. Why haven't you ever gone to Magic's house to get your 1990 MVP trophy?

Yeah, I've been salty about that since the year I should have won. Why don't you just gone to Magic's house to get your 1990 MVP trophy? Yeah, I've been salty about that since the year I shouldn't have won. Why don't you just go and get it? Just take it. Just go over there. He lives in Beverly Hills. Just go take it. Magic's a billionaire. He's probably got security.

So that's the only reason I haven't won it. Maybe if you're at a Christmas party, you just kind of sneak over. It's yours. He's had it for 26 years. Listen, if he just gave me, like, Starbucks for life, we'd be golden. What cost you more money over the years,

Vegas or your daughter? Vegas. How close is it? But my daughter is fine, but Vegas is more fine. Okay. Do you think NBA stars used PEDs when you played?

No. Do you think they use them now? No. Because I don't think they'll help you, to be honest with you. You don't think having more endurance and more strength would help you? And the ability to recover faster?

I think we're the best in the world at physical conditioning. Okay. And I don't see it giving you... Because there's no player who came out of nowhere and just got better. The same guys you see in high school and college,

they're the ones who do well in the pros. Do you also believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy or no? Listen, I believe that Santa Claus is black. And I believe the Tooth Fairy is... You're the funniest NBA player ever. Who is second? Who's the silver medalist?

I think Dennis Rodman is funny. Was Manute funny? Manute was hilarious. Okay. One of the best teammates ever. Oh, I was going to ask you that. Who was your favorite teammate ever? Well, there's probably three or four.

I can't go one. Rick Mahorn, Mike Jeminski, Derek Smith, and probably Dan Marley. Rick Mahorn had your back if you got in a scuffle with someone. Yeah, but he was hoping I wouldn't get in a fight because he couldn't fight. Oh, it seemed like he could fight. Okay, remember that. Okay, think about this.

You fought Rick Mahorn. Go back and look at the bad boys' pistons. First of all, the two toughest guys on the team were Isaiah Thomas and Joe Dumars. Yeah. But the other two guys who act like they were tough were Bill Lambert and Rick Mahorn. Have you ever seen them actually win a fight? You've always seen them getting punched.

But you've never seen them actually win a fight, have you? You clocked Bill Lambert. I did, and he deserved it. He came at you, though. I was impressed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But let me tell you something. Have you ever seen Mahorn and Lambert win a fight?

They've always been getting to punch E. They were never the puncher. Lambert even lost a fight to Isaiah Thomas. He was like 10 inches shorter. But Isaiah Thomas is tough now. Isaiah Thomas and Joe Dumars, you didn't mess with them boys. Yeah. What happens if the 93 Suns play the 06 Warriors? Oh, we beat them like a drum.

Beat them in five? Yeah. No, we won't beat them in five, but we'll beat them. Do you hard foul Steph within the first two games? Oh, yeah. You got to set the tone. Yeah. How many times does he run by you when he's running around screens? You hit him every single time. You push your butt right into him.

Anybody who does not think that all the physical pounding going back to Oklahoma City and against the Cavs didn't have an effect upon Steph, they don't know anything about basketball. Clippers always defended him that way. Yeah, you have to. That's what they did. It's been 23 years. Have you stopped blaming Kevin Johnson for no showing the first two finals games in 93 yet?

I have forgiven Kevin. First of all, we only didn't show, and I was part of that too. I take responsibility for that. Okay. Because I didn't get my team ready to play. Yeah. Because the finals are different. You to play because the finals are different. You're home.

The finals are different. The lights were too bright for us, and I blame myself for that. I should have been a better leader on that situation. That's a very diplomatic answer. No. You should be as nice to Kenny Smith and Ernie. Everybody, well, I'm always nice to Ernie. I'm never going to be nice to Shaq and Kenny.

Fair. Do you think you reached 75% of your potential as an NBA superstar? I probably reached more. 80? No, I probably got 100. There's a couple years where you were a little out of shape. Only the last year. Near the end?

Yeah. What about a couple of the Philly years? I was in great shape in Philly every year. Really? Yeah, every year. Well, in Phoenix, you lost like what? How many pounds? I didn't lose any weight in Phoenix.

Really? The only year that I was fat was my last year in Houston because they had promised me $12 million. When I showed up, the contract was only for $8 million. And I said, what happened to my other $4 million? They're like, well, we just decided to keep it. And I says... And then you started eating?

I did. I did. I was so pissed. They did. It was like, they did. Because what had happened was, I took a pay cut so we could sign Scottie Pippen. Yeah. I didn't know he was going to come without Michael Jordan.

That was a full part of my part. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You thought he was coming. So they says, we need you to take a pay cut so we can sign Scotty. So I said, okay, I would love to play with Scotty. So they said, we'll give you $12 million next year. So when I showed up the next year, they bring me a contract, and I said,

this look like an eight. They're like, yeah, we're gonna give you $8 million. I said, what about the other $4 million? They're like, well, we just changed our mind. So I wasn't motivated. Did you not have an agent or...? What about the other $4 million? They're like, well, we just changed our mind. So I wasn't motivated. Did you not have an agent? Well, no, I took my agent out.

My agent didn't trust him. Yeah. I should have fired him then. Yeah, that sounds like a fireball offense. No, no, no, no. He said, do I trust him? Because, you know, back then, because what had happened was, if you go back and look at that time frame, the Minnesota Timberwolves did an under-the-deal table with Kevin Garnett and got busted and lost all their draft picks.

That was Joe Smith. It was Joe Smith. It was Joe Smith, excuse me. So now teams were doing those under-the-table deals. They didn't want to put anything on paper. So I trusted the Rockets, which was a mistake. We got sidetracked. Okay.

Most underrated NBA star from your era. Great question. Just say Kevin McHale. Oh, Kevin McHale's the best player I ever played against, period. So he counts. Yes. How many years... You ever answer any question with anybody other than Boston?

No, I mix it up sometimes. Okay. How many years would you have lasted playing with Kobe Bryant before you asked for a trade? I think I could have played with Kobe because I could do other things. Like eight years? No, no. First of all, we would have been really good together.

See, Bill, I was content. Like, I was going to get at least 20 points, but I was content on getting 12, 14, 16 rebounds a game. So me and Kobe would have been fine together. That's one of my favorite things that you say when you get mad that centers can't get 12 rebounds in a game. No, it bothers me. It's three a quarter.

You're right. It drives me crazy too. When I look at once I got into the starting line, it was after my rookie year. I never averaged less than 10 rebounds a game. Like, it drives me crazy. Like, who can't get 10 rebounds a night? I know. I feel like I can get 10 rebounds a game. It drives me crazy. Who can't get 10 rebounds a night? I know. I feel like I can get

10 rebounds. First of all, you're standing in the paint. The ball's going to bounce to you seven to eight times. I played with a guy who said, I'm going to get two off missed free throws, Mike Jemiski. Mike Jemiski is one of my best friends. We'd be standing on the free throw line. Somebody would miss a free

throw. He'd come all the way across the free throw line and almost knock me into the stands. He says, that's a rebound. Did you ever play golf with O.J. Simpson? I did not. Golden State owner Joe Lacob claims to be one of the world's ten best blackjack players. There's no great blackjack players.

There's only great cards. First of all, I always tell people, people say i'm a good gambler there's no such thing as a good gambler when you're getting shitty cards you're a shitty gambler like i love to gamble but when i'm sitting there getting my brains beat in when i'm getting 12s and 13s and the dealer's flopping over 20s and 21s. Gambling is just really a thing about peaks and valleys. But don't tell me. The biggest adjustment I made in my life, Bill,

I quit trying to break the casino. Yeah. Good move. Yeah. No. That's why they keep building them. I went to Vegas and I've won a million dollars probably six times. Yeah. I probably lost a million 20 times.

So that's the truth. So what happened was every time I went to Vegas, I was trying to win a million dollars. Yeah, yeah. So I quit gambling for two years, and my friend said to me, Well, gambling's not your problem. Your problem is you're a fucking dollars. Yeah, yeah. So I quit gambling for two years and my friend said to me, well, gambling's not your problem. Your problem is you're a fucking idiot.

And I said, explain to me why. Because my friends have to be honest with me. Yeah. One of the biggest problems with celebrities, they never put people

around them as a checks and balance. My friends, they better tell me when I'm doing something stupid. So my friend said to me, Charles,

you'll be up $300,000, $400,000, $500,000, $600,000, $700,000. You won't quit. You're trying to get to that imaginary number that you won a few times. So now when I go gambling, if I win a couple hundred thousand or I lose a couple hundred thousand, I'm like, okay, guys, we had a fun weekend. Let's go home.

You could change one NBA rule. What would you change? A half kid stay in college for two years. You played with the first Cliff Robinson. There were two Cliff Robinsons. Yes. You guys made a joke once about a Cliff Robinson shower and everybody laughed for like five minutes.

What's a Cliff Robinson shower? It was like a drive through. So what happened? Like, he would walk through the shower, get wet, and keep moving. No soap, no nothing. We call him drive-thru. You know when your car just go through the drive-thru?

That's where he went through the shower. He would just go in, he'd walk through the water, and then he'd be right back. Then you just go in there. But how did Kenny and Shaq know what that was? So everybody in the league knew what a Cliff Robinson shower was? That's all we do is sit around and talk about the old days.

When you're old and fat, that's all you got is the good old days. 30 years ago, Dr. J, Magic, and Dominique are all at the club, and they all like the same girl who gets the girl. Dr. J. Okay, that's what I figured. Dr. J is like a minus 300 favorite? Dr. J is there's minus 300 favorite? Dr. J is, there's certain people, when they're like, oh, that's Dr. J.

Yeah. You said that with reverence. He deserves that. Okay. Favorite piece of memorabilia you've kept from your career? I don't keep any memorabilia. Okay. No photos, nothing?

No. I think I got a dream team flag on the first Dream Team. That's a good one. Yeah. I got everybody to sign it. That's probably my most favorite. That's a good one. Yeah. Everybody signed it. It was pretty cool. All right. Three more.

Sure. Best looking woman you've ever seen in person? Probably Jennifer Lopez. She's beautiful. Should any NBA player ever date a Kardashian? No. And that has nothing to do with the Kardashians. I don't know them.

But you just said no. It has a little something to do with them. I don't think any person ever should discuss their personal life, especially not putting it on television. Like, I tell people, you can ask me anything in the world you want to. I think any celebrity to answer any personal question is an idiot. And to go on TV makes you a bigger idiot. Last question. What happens first? Tiger wins a major or my show gets canceled? idiot and to go on TV makes you a bigger idiot.

Last question. What happens first? Tiger wins a major or my show gets canceled? Well, listen, I'm on the first show, so I don't care what happens after this. Charles Barkley, thank you for being the first speed round. Thank you. you all right this next one is also from the first episode Ben Affleck was on controversial appearance because he went full mass hole about Deflake and I loved it and uh and so did New England uh we did tape this at 10 30 in the morning I should add people were wondering why he was so upset. Because we taped for a half hour. And we edited a couple different pieces together, including that deflategate thing for the show.

But we also had a whole bunch of other stuff, including this eight-minute clip about him talking about what it was like to be famous in his mid-20s. And also the whole experience of putting Good Will Hunting together, which I thought we easily could have just used this for the show. So instead, we're putting it here. I don't think people realize you became super famous when you were 25. That's pretty young. I was 25. I think I was unemployed, or barely employed. What would you, if you could go back 20 years ago, what would you tell yourself? Saying about having more money than cents or more something than cents,

galleons than brains. I don't think, you know, I have to say, I listen. Somebody e-mailed me and said, I really liked your commentary on Armageddon. Oh, yeah, that was a big Internet thing last week. I just went back and listened to it. It actually was pretty funny. And it was me

before I realized that you don't do the DVD commentary and shit on your own movie when you're doing it. You know what I mean? And make fun of the whole thing. So it was kind of endearing in a way. It was very funny. It made me think I should shit on all my movies in the DVD. We did a Good Will Hunting commentary that's actually really good. I mean, that's one of my favorite movies. I probably wasn't shitting on it. No, you weren't shitting on it, but it was funny. It was like you actually,

it was like mystery science theater a little bit. I think you should just do every movie. Just bang them all out. Reindeer games, just go all the way through. Yeah. I mean, I just know that it was very fast

and very hard to, and I was, the mistake that I made was that I thought that like, being real and hanging on to and I I was mistake that I made was that I thought that like being real and hanging on to who I really was meant also hanging on to a certain kind of knucklehead aspect of like I grew up in Boston I'm gonna do who I am be who I really am and say what I really feel it's a little bit about like I'm not gonna grow up or mature in some ways because that would mean that's Boston though Boston is very like I don't going to grow up or mature in some ways because that would mean selling out.

That's Boston, though. It is. Boston is very like, I don't care what happens to me. I'm going to be the same guy. I'm going to have that. And you try to stick with that. Yeah. And then that was a little bit of what I, of the attitude that I have.

I think it came across as just like this kid's a moron. You know what I mean? Just immature and a little bit like a knucklehead or something like that. Not a moron, but just a kind of attitude of, I'm not going to change. You know what I mean? There's this whole thing of, if you don't, you never change.

You know what I mean? As if change is the real enemy. Right. You go to Hollywood and you get successful, but the thing is you can never change. Change is actually a good thing. You know what I mean? Change and growth and that stuff is healthy.

You're supposed to change and get better and evolve and get smarter. And I sort of actively resisted that and instead just, you know, had a bunch of my friends from home living in my house with me and we all just got drunk every night. And I was like, I'm never changing, you know? There's a great Goodwill hunting oral history, and one of the parts in there is about how after you became famous,

SNL did a sketch about you guys, and Damon was, like, the smart guy in the sketch, and you were knucklehead, and Damon was saying how it hurt both of your feelings because you realized, like, people's history with you guys Was just as these two characters and they weren't actually you weren't people to them and it was kind of illuminating Yeah, there's definitely that wasn't a question. By the way. I did a bad job. That's so that's a Bob Costas

That was about cross this just goes on and on it was a great thing. Yeah with bombast Yeah, and then you just was supposed to go, that's right, Bob. I'll observe it. And then the next question, he says something else. So Ben, was that an illuminating experience for you? It was an illuminating experience, Bob. I, you know, it

was illuminating because I realized that people conflated our characters with us because that's just what they knew us. We got really famous for these two characters, and people didn't know us from anything else. And I just kind of assumed, well, people will naturally feel like, you know, judge us or give us credit in equal measure,

considering we both wrote this story and came up with this idea. But it's really a powerful thing. I mean, you kind of still, to this day, you think Celeste Stallone kind of is Rocky. Right. You know what I mean? I think he thinks that. You know, maybe.

But it's, you know, we identify people with characters really strongly, especially when they are the first big impression that somebody makes. And I think that the impression that got made right off the bat with me and Matt was not like two guys who write a movie and come up with these interesting characters, but rather like this tough genius and his friend

and his like lunkhead friend come out of, you know, Boston and tell their own story to the world. You know what I mean? In a way that it was a sort of semi autobiographical story. You guys had like every great and bad experience that happens to people who become famous overnight. Cause like right before you won the Oscar, people are leaking that you didn't write the script.

And meanwhile you'd spent what, like five years on it? You've done 17 incarnations. And like, there's a great story about when you did the construction scene with him that you'd been waiting to do that scene for what? Four years? Yeah, at least. And then you did it in one take and you were like, instruction scene with him that you've been waiting to do that scene for what four years yeah at least and then you did it in one take and you were like yeah okay now we did it once and then i was kind of like that's it and he was like i don't know and gus was like yeah but we could go

one more time and i was like yeah let's go again i you know i had been practicing this moment you know in bed and working out you know for years you're in the bathroom coming out of the shower just like that you know and uh yeah it was that that years. You're in the bathroom coming out of the shower doing it? Just like that, you know? And yeah, that script we spent rewriting probably more time in aggregate than I spent writing all other scripts that I've worked on combined just because we didn't have anything else to do.

And so we kept just sort of rewriting it and rewriting it and trying to get people interested in it. And then when it got sold, we ended up working on it for a couple of years while it was in the studio system and taking these very circuitous routes to where it ended up. It did get better, by the way, as we continued to rewrite it. But it was a long process from being, I don't know, when we started the script, you know, it's 18 and 20 to whatever it was, 24 and 26 or something when the movie came out. And it's true you guys cried when the first scene happened?

Yeah, it could be true. Stellan Skarsgård and Robin Williams, and they're reading your lines, and you guys both teared up? We did tear up a little bit. That's awesome, though. We were less jaded. I mean, it's been five years on a script. Yeah, it was just one of those involuntary things

where our whole identities were wrapped up in the idea that we were the guys trying to get this movie made. And any time we went out went out to a bar anytime we went to a restaurant i met somebody that was our story that's who we were the kids we had this script that was it yeah we didn't have anything else to talk about we were doing anything else aside from that we're the most boring people in the world i mean that was all we had yeah and that's all we talked about and that's all anybody who hadn't seen us in a while, how's that going? You guys had that script, right? You were trying to get that movie made.

And we'd talk about our latest adventure and being stymied by movie studios. And so when it finally happened, it was kind of like we didn't know who we were anymore. We weren't the guys trying to get this screenplay made. We kind of lost our identity. Did we get the people who made the movie you know it was almost too weird i remember seeing my father's name is tim and uh and we named arbitrarily the bar that they stellan and and robin went to have a beer at timmy's tap

um just just because we couldn't think of a name and uh and then we were there the first day and the neon sign was like um you know just there it was this big neon sign that said timmy's tap and we realized that somebody like from our just sort of typing it down somebody had gone out and built bought some whole 500 dollar timmy's tap sign it was a giant thing and i was like i gotta have that i gotta keep that you know and i kept it and i put it in my apartment in new york you know, and I was like, Dad, I got a sign, a big Timmy's tap sign. And he was like, I don't want that. Why do I want a big Timmy's tap sign?

I don't know. I'm not a bar. I was like, OK, good point. All right. This third clip is with Mark Cuban and Malcolm Gladwell. It's from the second show we did. I actually had these guys on to talk about PEDs, which is why when we did the, if you watch the second episode, the opening was about PEDs,

and then I was going to lead into a PED discussion with Gladwell and Cuban. So we taped the first segment, and then we did a second segment about NBA owners, and we just liked the one about NBA owners more. I really like this Ps one, too. And we really could have just had the whole second show with these two guys because they were great together. So here is Cuban and Gladwell talking about PDs with myself. And this is really fun.

Let's go. That's Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks. And that's Malcolm Gladwell, best-selling author turned podcaster. Revisionist history. Revisionist history. There's not been revisionist history yet about HGH. You've been a vocal critic. You feel like there's a public stigma with HGH and athletes.

What are we missing with HGH? We're missing that there's no data that proves one way or the other that it does or doesn't enhance performance. None. Zero. It's never been tested. Malcolm, do you care if somebody uses HGH to recover from an injury? I don't. I mean, you and I have had this conversation before about it's an important distinction between things that you take to recover from an injury and things that you take to augment your performance. The problem is that it's really hard in the real world to make that distinction. I mean, it's a great distinction in theory, but I wonder whether there are a lot of drugs that might do

both or a little bit of both simultaneously. So that puts it in a gray zone that's hard to figure out. All right. So you're pro-HGH for, if the NBA legalized HGH, you'd be good. No, because there's no evidence one way or the other. So what I did was fund a study at the University of Michigan where they're taking 236 athletes that have had ACL problems. Right. And for the ACL surgery, they're going to give a half HGH before and after to see if it helps with the recovery and half of placebo. And we'll see. So rather than guessing, I don't care one way or the other. I just want to know the facts. Malcolm, you were kind of a little bit for HGH, but now you've turned. Well, the problem is that I'm principally a track fan. Right. And when it comes to track and field and EPO and things, I become a total hardliner.

There is no place for anything like that in a sport. Hardliner? It's like the 1920s. For football. Exactly. For football, because football is a special case where the injury load associated with the game is now so out of control. I mean, this is essentially a game that cripples everyone who plays it.

When you have that kind of problem with the game, you have to pursue, you have to look at different ideas about how to deal with that, right? I mean, it's negligent on the part of the NFL to play the game as it is now and not spend real dollars on trying to figure out how to prevent or speed up recovery.

So I'm guessing you wouldn't let any of your kids play football. Oh, my God. I wouldn't let a friend play football. I wouldn't let my son play football. No chance. And, you know, basketball, everyone's like, no, no, they don't use it in basketball. No, no, it wouldn't really help. It's like I really find it hard to believe that recovery drugs, drugs that help you build your strength back after you've been, why do we think that we don't have this in the NBA?

I mean, I don't think any of our guys has ever taken it. Guys in the locker room talk all the time, and they guess who they think has. Yeah. You going to name any names? No, because I'd just be guessing. Isn't it obvious just by looking at some players that something's going on?

You would think so, but it's hard to say. Right. Because there's never been a study. It's not like you can say, look, we took these 200 athletes and here's the hundred that got placebos. Here's who got the real got HGH. Now look at their body shapes, look at their physicality and see what's happened. And then here's what happens after they came off. There's no really reference points for us or benchmarks. Do we know at this point precisely what Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire were taking during that historic home run run? I call those the old school steroids. Remember when we were growing up in the 70s and the communist countries that had these athletes that were like... No, I grew up in Pittsburgh.

I grew up in Pittsburgh and I used to see a lot of the players like Steve Corsinger since the time. And he'd be humongous and he'd get into roid rages. And I'd hang out with some of those guys. And the stories were scary. Right. But they were basically like steroids you give to a horse. I think now the steroids are actually probably better and sleeker. Much more.

Well, they're safe. A lot of that. But no, I think a lot of what has gone on is that people have switched from some of these cruder, older steroids to things like, and I say things like, HGH. This is why I ask about Sosa and McGuire. So we know that it's very clear they got a substantial performance benefit from taking something over the course of those years. And that performance benefit was not small. It was on the order of 10, 15 percent. Yeah, I would say like 30. And it saved baseball. But it was among the things they were taking, or bonds later on. I would love to know if he had

in his cocktail, any of those guys had in their cocktail, HGH. That's a good way to start this question, right? No, no, because you just have to do a study. You start, you answer a question with data, right? You look at steroids. The stigma of steroids, when you just have to do a study. You start, you answer a question with data, right? You look at steroids, the stigma of steroids. When you ask people, what's the problem with steroids aside from performance enhancement? Well, we don't want it in the game because it'll encourage kids to do it. Is that a valid reason to keep it out? Because the reality is safely administered by doctors, steroids are safe. You don't see people who have taken steroids under the care of a doctor falling over dead or having problems. You see people, athletes who took them themselves,

self-administered, bought them on the black market. Those are the ones that have problems. So the question is, what does it do? What does the data say it will do? And what is the enhancement from that steroid or whatever it is? And then you make a decision. But you can't make a decision without data. You can only guess. Well, it seems like the data and the testing is now worse than ever. And you saw what happened in the Olympics where the Rio drug testing lab basically has become invalid. And now we're looking at these Olympics.

I don't know what I'm watching anymore. Like the Summer Olympics are coming up. It's like, what am I watching? Would you rather watch an Olympics where they just say, you know what you know what hgh steroids they're all legit well first of all i would say baseball to save track and field you all you already well first of all you already watched that right yeah i watch it every four years you watch so in 2012 this is the thing that because i'm track fan in 2012 six of the top nine finishers in the women's 1500 meters at in london have subsequent to that race been um been either uh kicked out of the sport or um evidence has been found that they

were using drugs so when you watch that i mean i watched that race thrilling race six of the nine that we know about were on the juice that wasn't't a real race. What if nine of nine were? I don't think they have nine. Shannon Robry was not on the juice. No, no, no. Meaning if it was legit, right? If they all could take with the doctor's care. That's not fair because what if I don't want to,

what if I'm competing and I don't want to take this stuff? So you shouldn't get LASIK surgery to improve your vision past 2020 so you can see a baseball better? Well, LASIK surgery is a good, that's a good one. Tommy John surgery? Because that's actually for people. What about voluntary Tommy John surgery? Yeah.

Literally, voluntary. I mean, those are, there's a massive gray area in those sports. I will say this about Olympic sports, though. When you have a sport that is almost wholly defined by the time, right, by a timed performance, the introduction of these kinds of drugs, which can cause, particularly in women, I mean, people have forgotten that steroids and any kind of drug, EPO, any of these PEDs have a much greater effect on female performance than male performance. So with men, it's like that. With women, it's like that. So this is, we're talking almost entirely about male use here.

Female use is a whole different ballgame, right? You're turning essentially people who are, you know, ordinary people into superhuman athletes with the use of these drugs. That's where, that gets really weird. My wife had a sinus infection. They gave her steroids. She was just nasty around the house for three days. Well, let me ask you this. I read a New York Times article where this professor from SMU went to the Dead Sea,

and he's training people because it's literally below sea level, right? So the oxygen levels are much higher. So if you train people there, is that the same as doping? Because you're increasing your oxygen levels and you increase your performance. Well, you, I mean, runners always train at altitude, right? Because you, by training where there's less oxygen. And you can simulate that now. You stimulate that. And you can do it in an oxygen tent. But there is a, there is a, I think it's safe to say, we'd all agree, I think, that there is a real distinction between traveling to 6,000 feet and running and injecting yourself with drugs.

Or giving yourself different red blood cells. One is a natural version, right? One is a synthesized version of the same thing, though. But can't we say that for the purposes of, particularly of sports, which is already, think about sports, we're not talking about human beings living their normal lives. Already when you enter into professional sports, you agree to a set of largely arbitrary rules

about how that sport's supposed to proceed. Mark's never really agreed to any of those. I don't know why I'm telling you this. I've played by a lot of them, but... But I mean, so given that, it's not unreasonable for people to accept distinctions like that. Let me play the counter to that. The rich get to go to 6,000 high-altitude places. The rich get to go to the Dead Sea.

Nonsense. The poor don't get to take advantage of those because they can't afford it. Here's a synthetic version. No, wait a second. Bullshit. Who dominates running at the international stage? Kenyans and Ethiopians? Now, why do you think that is?

Because they live at 6,000 feet. No, I would disagree with that. I would disagree with that. For a number of reasons, but that's the principal reason. What's the book by David Epstein? The Gene, Sports Gene. The Sports Gene.

I know David very well. Yeah. But David would say that that is a huge... I thought the Kenyans were in this little pocket where the altitude was just high enough to train really well. They're in the sweet spot.

Well, no, but what does evolution do? Right. They're Kenyans. They've been there since the dawn of time. Right. So your body evolves. That's what evolution does. And the strongest survive.

And to be stronger, to survive in that altitude and run and do what you do. That's why people in Massachusetts put on a little extra weight. We know what makes a great runner. You've got to be a skinny person who goes up roughly 6,000 feet. Who is the greatest American distance runner of the last 10 years? Ryan Hall, a skinny guy who grew up at 6,000 feet, only in California, not Ethiopia. But that's a very different story than sitting in your house

and shooting yourself up with drugs. Also from the second episode, we had Bill Hader on. We did a speed round with him that wasn't so speedy because they never are. Throw questions and sometimes you get derailed. You go on a bunch of different tangents. We were not able to keep the entire speed round with Hader in there, but we were able to cobble together six minutes of extra stuff, and here it is. I haven't even talked to you since you hosted SNL.

Yeah. What was the weirdest thing about doing that? Going into the picks, going in and seeing how the show was picked. I had never been a part of that. What does that mean? I don't know what that means. Oh, so you do, like when you do the table read, and then you would sit there and you would hang out for an hour, and then they would post, oh, here's the sketches

we're going to do. But to be a part of that meeting where they would, all the sketches were up and you would see, you know. And you had some authority, right? Yeah, you could say, oh, I like that one, I like this one. But I saw, what I didn't realize was when you were a new cast member, I always thought, oh, no one's, I gotta, you know,

I didn't think anybody was fighting for me, but I was so surprised how, and I was surprised how much Lauren is like, hey, so-and-so's light, you know? Yeah. This cast member who's struggling, they need a piece, so we should maybe do this, because, you know, they had a bad week last week. Right. Blah, blah, blah.

And then before air, I mean, your adrenaline's going nuts, and then you go in, so you do dress rehearsal, and they go, all right, Lauren's ready for the meeting. And you go up, and you're just like, all right, let's go. And Lauren is so chill. He's eating popcorn. He's like, did you like this? You want to do this? No?

Okay. You know, like, it's so chill. And, you know, he just knows that show better than anything. Like, he just knows exactly what he'll play and that that was cool sure false you had a panic attack during a 2010 snl episode impersonating julian assange i did i did yeah jeff bridges christmas episode i was totally exhausted i was so uh just depleted and i and it happened like i showed up on saturday The way I remembered it and Seth was like, hey, Julian Assange just did another WikiLeaks thing.

You're doing it tonight. And I was like, what? And I hadn't really had a chance to really look at it. And I'm like, I'm not someone, I always admired Fred and Kristen and Keenan because they could just, you put something in front of them and they could just cold read it and everything. I had to like go over it and over it and over it.

And I didn't feel like I was prepared. So on air, I'm sitting there and all of a sudden it felt like someone was sitting on my chest. I started sweating. I thought I was going to start crying. This was on the air? On the air. And so if you watch, I have a glass of wine and I just have a glass of wine. I just have it in front of my mouth the whole time.

And I remember our stage manager going, like, as I'm doing it, going, you know, and I'm like, oh, I'm like, I don't want anybody to, you know, sweating. And then it was nice because I told everybody after and I was so embarrassed and I was like, I just had a panic attack on air. And so many of the cast members were like, oh, I had one of those on the air once.

Yeah, yeah, do you remember when you were this about, yeah, I was flipping out, man, you know, or whatever. So it made me feel a little bit better. You've done voices in Finding Dory, Inside Out. You did two Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs movies. Have your daughters watched these movies yet? You have three daughters. Yeah, three daughters. So how does that go? It goes, they're a little embarrassed by it when they watch it.

They're embarrassed? And they go, oh, why is dad, you know? I think about that and it's like, I was watching Star Wars and suddenly my dad showed up in the Millennium Falcon. I'd be like, hey, Chewie, guys, what's going on? I'd be like, this is terrible, you know what I mean? So they're watching it with their friends and

I'm always like, can you tell who that is? And they're like, yeah, it's you. It sucks. Thanks. You know? This is so embarrassing! It's only going to get worse. It sucks. Thanks. You know? This is so embarrassing. No, but they did like. It's only going to get worse. I know. Oh, my God.

But now they brag about it a little bit. Like, they don't like it. And then we're at a birthday party just yesterday. And they'll be talking to their friends. And their friends will come over like, are you Leonard from, you know, Angry Birds? And I was like, well, yes, I am. And then Hannah's like, don't do that. I didn't even mention Angry Birds. Yeah. How many kids movies have you been in?

I've been in so many, bro. Moany, moany. Just give them the voices. True or false, you once wrote a slasher film. I did. I wrote a slasher film. Judd Apatow called me up and said I would love to do what they did with Shaun of the Dead, but instead of zombie movies

make it a slasher movie. So I wrote it with a series of writers, all my friends. We tried out different versions of that idea. And it never worked because we realized zombies are like, they're fantastical. It kind of lends itself to comedy because it's not real. But a guy with a knife, that's the 10 o'clock news. Was Syracuse not as funny?

Yeah, it wasn't as funny. You couldn't be funny in that grounded way. You had to go really insane. You know what I mean? But the way that we wanted to do it, where it is what Judd does really well, where it's kind of in a real world. It's not Zucker Brothers or something like that. And we tried a lot of different things and just kind of like,

just both of us were like, this isn't really working. I think Friday the 13th Part 4 is very funny. You should watch that for inspiration. Corey Feldman's in that one. He shaves his head at the end. That's not the one where he picks up the person in the sleeping bag and smashes him against the,

like a baseball bat? Oh, that was great. Jason Voorhees, secretly funny. Our funniest movie, Serial Killer. Michael Myers, not a sense of humor as much. No, not a sense of humor. Put the ghost thing on once, that's about it. What made you want to play a hitman on your own HBO show?

I got together with Alec Berg, who's the genius writer on, he did Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and he did Silicon Valley. And we just thought of I don't know we just saw this weird idea yeah where I play a hitman who is kind of lonely and I come to LA and I follow the guy I'm gonna kill to his acting class and I realize like oh I kind of like this yeah you. You know? And it's all these, like, very eager L.A. actors, and I figure, like, oh, maybe this is, like,

where I can start over, you know? So when is your show premiere? I don't know yet, but it'll be sometime late next year. This is a great place. Yeah. Yeah, you'll like it. I like it here. All right.

I love being here. Thanks for having me. Also from the third episode we had joe rogan on who's been the voice of the ufc since really 2002 and we did a little warm-up segment with him just to just to uh we didn't know what it was going to be it was about all the twists and turns that his career has taken he started talking about fear factor and conspiracy theories it was good it easily could have been on the show and here it is is right now. I'm here with Joe Rogan. We have a lot in common,

even though we don't have a lot in common. But you started in Boston late 80s. You're doing your stand-up. How old were you, like 21? Yes. You went from there. You came to Hollywood. You're in news radio. You're still pretty young. Did Fairfactor. You did The Man Show. Your path was very unconventional.

What were you trying to do, like, by your late 20s? What were you thinking, this is what I'm going to do? Well, I was always just doing stand-up and everything else I was just doing for money. Like, something would come along and they would say, do you want to act? And I'm like, okay, I'll do that. But it was always like, well, if that sucks,

I'll just go back to doing stand-up. Yeah. And it was never, there was no choices as far as, like, um... You're just grabbing gigs. Yeah, there was no plan. Yeah. Especially, like, Fear Factor. There was no plan.

It was like, how much? Okay. All right, we'll do it. But somehow you've been involved in a lot of stuff that has, like, rabid fans. Yeah. Like, Fear Factor was massive. Well, it was ridiculous. For, like, three, four years.

Yeah. It was, like, kind of the signature show out of all like the game show he kind of things Yeah, well survivor was first right was the big survivors that sort of launched the genre and then yeah It was fear factor, and then there was a bunch of other ones, but fear factor was just so ridiculous We were sick and dogs on people they're eating animal dicks and for drowning them and you know Whatever bodily fluids that we had available i mean it was disgusting what was the grossest thing you ever saw in fairfactor i don't think there was any one particularly gross thing well we just did it for six years 148 episodes and then

we came back we came back and did six more and it got canceled because they made people drink cum. They made people drink donkey cum. Yes. And NBC approved it. What color was it? It was just like regular color cum. Okay, good. But yeah, they had to play horseshoes. They drank donkey piss and donkey cum. And you told them it was donkey cum? I told them everything they were doing. I told the people that were producing the show, don't do it. There's only two times I told them don't do it.

I said, we can't do this episode. One, they were making them ride bulls. Oh yeah, somebody got paralyzed. Oh, for sure. They were like, well, these are stunt bulls. I'm like, does the bull know he's a stunt bull? Because I bet he thinks he's a fucking bull. This is ridiculous.

You got lucky nobody either died or not just with the bulls,'s a stunt bull? Because I bet he thinks he's a fucking bull. Right. This is ridiculous. I think he got lucky nobody either died or, not just with the bulls, but even like drinking some of the disgusting stuff or eating some of the stuff. Well, cum at the end of the day is just like protein. It's phlegm and protein. So it's really not that big of a deal. You did a conspiracy show on SyFy.

Yeah. And I'm a big conspiracy guy and my friends always make fun of me. One of the things, the moon landing has intrigued you for years. Well, conspiracies, yes, it has.

But conspiracies have intrigued me. But I found out a lot doing that show, the Joe Rogan Questions Everything show on Syfy. There's a very,

there's a classic style of human being that's into these things. And it's unfuckable white guys. Like, those are the type of guys that go looking for bigfoot like i had a joke in my act what there's the one thing you don't find when you go looking for bigfoot black eyes you will find bigfoot before you find black eyes looking for bigfoot it is just a bunch of unfuckable white dudes out camping yeah and

that's what it is it's like some weird thing they hit this point when they're like in their 40s or their 50s and like, nobody wants to fuck me anymore. I got to find ultimate truth. There's a UFO. It's at Hangar 18. Bermuda Triangle.

I got to get there. Yeah, there's something about solving mysteries. With that said, the moon landing is a little fishy. The moon landing, here's the issue

with the whole era of the 1960s and the 1970s. There was a lot of deception going on. Yes. This is where Operation Northwoods was created where the government, the whole era of the 1960s and the 1970s. There was a lot of deception going on. This is where Operation Northwoods was created, where the government, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, signed a document saying that they were going to blow up a drone jetliner, blame it on Cuba.

They were going to arm Cuban friendlies and attack Guantanamo Bay. There was a lot of deception. This was Watergate. This was the Nixon administration. There was just a lot of fuckery. All the stuff the Republicans are doing to the Democrats, like the Muskie letter, all that stuff, you're right. Even the Hollywood movies back then, they were always geared around the government trying to pull something over and people trying to realize a conspiracy. Well, there was a lot of deception. It was standard.

And so they definitely fucked with some photographs. Like there's some photos of Michael Collins that they tried to pass off. I think it was Gemini 15. Tried to pass it off as him being in space when people found out that it was actually just these tests that they were doing, these preparation runs. And they just blacked out the background and tried to pass out those photos as space. So if you look at that, you've got to go, well, if they were willing to do that, and the PR team did that, how far did they go?

If I had to bet my life on it, I would bet it happened, but I have a lot of questions. Yeah, I would put myself in the same camp. I think there was definitely some fuckery involved in some of the footage that we viewed. And there's been some people that have, you know, gone over it with a fine-tooth comb and found some irregularities. But, you know, you kind of got to use Occam's razor whenever you're looking at any of those things. Like, what is the most likely possibility?

The most likely possibility is that we went. What conspiracy theory do you actually believe in that's a conventional conspiracy theory and you're like, I'm actually in on this one 100%? I don't think there's one. There's, like, dozens. You know, I don't think even dozens. No, I don't think there's a one that I buy. So everyone you have a shred of doubt.

Well, that was the problem with that show. When you do that show, the Questions Everything show, and I met with the experts yeah about like ufos or bigfoot or any of these things you find out there's almost no evidence there's nothing like in the as you go deep into it it's all just anecdotes it's all just people's stories it's all just people saying reading this happened to them but people are fucking crazy so if you get like a hundred people you're gonna find one crazy person so if you have 300 million people you've got 3 million crazy people so the fact that all these people have sightings there

has to be something to it no there doesn't because there's you're dealing with massive numbers of human beings and you're dealing with all sorts of weird mental issues all sorts of paranoid schizophrenics all sorts of weird mental issues, all sorts of paranoid schizophrenics, all sorts of people that desperately want to be special. They desperately want to be the one who's in contact with the Palladians on Starship 17 out there. You know, there's just a lot of wackiness. The NBA has a good one, by the way.

I know you're not a big NBA fan, but the 1985 draft lottery, Patrick Ewing was the prize, and the Knicks got the number one pick. And there's video. People have slowed it down. They're picking the envelopes out of the thing, and people either think the envelope was frozen with the Knicks or that it had a little corner that was.

So Stern's reaching in, and people have stopped the video to see if, like, was he fumbling around? He felt the frozen one, and that was the one he pulled. Oh, so they made one that was really cold? That cold that's actually a good move yeah if they did it like carbon whatever yeah i like 10 believe it 10 yeah 10 it's fun last thing podcasts i started mine in may 2007 you started yours 2009 somewhere yeah somewhere around there are you amazed by how how big this genre has become it It's bananas. Like, the numbers are insane. And, you know, when we first started it out, it was just for fun.

It was just a goof. It was a silly thing to do. With your buddies? Yeah, it was just, we thought it'd be fun to just hang out and talk shit. You don't smoke pot on your pot. I don't, I'm afraid to do anything like that. Why afraid? Well, because I'm not i'm just not good at drugs oh i'm bad at doing that well then you should be confident yeah i'm good at pot so you're good you're much better at drugs than i am also from the third show we had chris bosh

and anthony anderson on and i had had chris bosh on a podcast probably three years ago at all-star weekend and i think i only had him for 25 minutes, and he was so interesting that I wish it could have gone on for 90 minutes. Really thoughtful guy. I'm not sure if his destiny is an announcer or a media guy once he retires. I don't see him on a studio show.

I think he's a little, I don't know, it's almost like he's better long form. I don't know where it goes for him, but he's definitely going to be able to do something really smart. And Anthony Anderson's great. They were awesome together. Here's a seven minute clip that we did not put in the show about them talking

about LeBron James. Is LeBron the best for you? One of the best, yeah. I still have Jordan. So do I. I promised myself I would never say anyone past Jordan, so now I'm going to just be stubborn. As you should be. I just feel like. So do I. I promised myself I would never say anyone past Jordan, so now I'm going to just be stubborn. As you should be. I'll just be like a stubborn old guy.

Your top five is your top five. It doesn't make a change for anybody. I put him over Bird, which was really hard for me. Really? Yeah. He's played 13 straight years where he's just been healthy every year. Like, Bird played nine. He broke down.

Yeah. It's just hard to justify anymore. Think Cleveland can repeat? Yeah, for sure he broke down. Yeah. It's just hard to justify anymore. Think Cleveland can repeat? Yeah, for sure, of course. Okay. I think, you know, JR is still out there. Of course, there's still moves to be made, but yeah, they'll be right there.

Did you think LeBron was going to win that series? After Bogut got hurt, you started thinking maybe. I started out watching. And when they went down 3-1, you know, of course I was like, ooh. Yeah, that's tough. Yeah, you don't want to be in that situation. But me, automatically, as a basketball player, you think of reasons why it could happen automatically.

I think, why should Golden State be nervous? That's the first thing I think about because it's hard to close someone out. And, you know, unfortunately, Draymond was suspended, so I started looking at that. And then Cleveland wins game five. It's like, whoa, wait a minute. Okay. Right.

Let's see what happens game six. They got to exercise some demons from last year. Yeah. They dominate game six. Mm-mm. Ooh. Now you got LeBron in game one. Anything can happen in game seven.

Yeah, you got, yeah, anything can happen in game seven, but you got to give a slight nod to the home team. I think it'll go down to the wire. And it was just such a strange game because Golden State played well, but Cleveland was still in it. And then Golden State just started missing. Yeah. It's the irony of ironies.

The team that couldn't miss, all of a sudden they couldn't make a shot when it mattered. Yeah, but you're on the edge of your seats because it's like that can happen at any minute yeah and it never came and it never happened wait a minute this is tight it's still tied and then brian makes that incredible block which right at the time i thought like oh man oh my god i'm watching the game nervous yeah yeah i'm just like oh my goodness he's gonna get a lab and he comes out of nowhere and Did you ever see him do anything like that? Yeah, it was amazing. Did you ever see him do anything like that in Miami?

A moment like that? Not a moment, no. Not a moment like that. Because I thought that was the defining play of his career. I mean, some plays similar to that. Yeah. But, I mean, the distance that – I didn't even see him. I was watching TV and didn't see him.

He just came out of nowhere. Wow. And then I guess –. He just came out of nowhere. Wow. And then I guess. There's an incredible clip of it. They had like the behind the basket camera and you can just see him. And at one point he's running to get back. Yeah. Somebody kind of cuts off his path and he's almost like a running back.

Like he navigates and then he still somehow gets it. Yeah. It's incredible. I mean, I think he's in the top three now. I think it's got to be he's up there him russell and lebron i mean uh and jordan yeah i think that's an awesome thing and then just you know just being able um to do that for cleveland for for cleveland the city of cleveland i didn't know how big it was till i saw the espPN reporters like breaking down and talking about their dads

and this is like a moment for us in the city. I'm like, golly, like that's, you know, good for them. Is it going to be like that when the Clippers finally win the title?

If and when we finally do win. We got a little work ahead of us. Are the Clippers now the new most tortured franchise in the NBA? I think so. Because Cleveland had to pass the title.

Somebody said it's either Sacramento, Washington, Phoenix, Clippers. Clippers have had the most trapeze. They're up there. Look, they're up there in the top three. You just named all three. So we'll see. We got to get you the Billy Crystal seat.

We'll see if we can get over that hurdle. How do we get you the Billy Crystal seat? Billy Crystal has to relinquish his seat. Maybe we take him out. Okay. Maybe just push him to the right, like two seats. How about I just sit next to Billy Crystal? That's a good idea.

Because I actually sit behind him now. How about if I just sit next to him? We got to get you in the wood. All right, so prediction. Obviously, you're in the league, so this is a tough one. But you're not ready to hand the title over to Golden State? Of course not. You know, not even for Cleveland.

I'm not ready either. You have to go out there and earn it, man. You have to win. All these things have to happen. You have to be lucky. You have to be healthy. You have to be... You have to buy into the whole thing. You have to be tight as a unit.

Your players can't punch your equipment manager. There's a lot of variables. And it all has to happen at a certain time. I mean, you can be healthy, you know, at the beginning of the season, the middle of the season, but everything has to click. You have to click, for sure. Yeah, you know, and there's a certain timeline

where that happens, and that's when that window of opportunity presents itself for the champion to become a champion. I'm always amazed by how much injuries play into this. If you just go back year by year by year, like every year an injury has pushed something some way at some point. Like even like your first title,

Derrick Rose blows out his knee in the last minute of the first playoff game. And who knows? That would have been a good battle for you guys. Kevin got hurt. Kevin got hurt. What was that? That was the 2009 Celtics.

Yeah, 2009. He got hurt. They're the best team. But every year. Yeah, I think, what, it was 88, 89, I think, Magic and Byron Scott, they pulled up. In the 89 finals. They couldn't.

I mean, yeah, of course, Detroit, you know, swept them and everything. But just you see it. Like, they can't go on anymore. I mean, you could even say in 2013, if Parker's hamstring is healthier, does that swing to possessions? I mean, even me. I mean, we don't talk about these things as athletes, and it was minor compared to other guys,

but I had a turned ankle. It's one thing you realize... 2014. Yeah, I sprained it really bad against the Pacers in that series. And, you know, you realize at one point, there's no reason in even talking about your ailments and what you did because it doesn't matter.

You know, nobody cares. There's a harsh reality to the game. And when you get that far, it's about being healthy. Well, we're not healthy. I'm not healthy, and I'm still expected to go out here at the highest level and compete for this championship. And that's what you've got. You've got to do what you've got to do.

Pain is temporary. Championships are forever. Yeah, you know, that's a great saying until you lose it and then you're like, I don't want to hear that. Don't you tell me that ever. This is just, I'm never going to recover from this. And it's just, it's a really hard thing to deal with.

But it is true. Anthony is like one of the most durable actors on TV. Oh, yeah. I played through the pain, baby. I played through the pain, baby. All right. The last clip is from the fourth episode. We had Aaron Rodgers on for about an hour.

We used 20 minutes for this show. And then we cut two more clips. One was a speed round. And one was a really nerdy football deep dive that we are running right now. True or false, you have a photographic

memory and can remember just about every football play you've ever run. I mean, I don't know how to say that truthfully because I'd get tested and probably wouldn't remember something. You mean like right now when I'm going to throw a question at you? Yeah, so I don't want to say yes because you're probably going to.

Okay, Cards 31, Packers 10, playoff game, the Kurt Warner game. Uh-huh. You get the ball. Third down and 10 from your own 20. You're down 21, third quarter. What happens in that play? I mean, that's tough. I'm going to have to... We're down 10. We're coming out.

I either hit third and 10. See, nobody can remember this. This is my point. I have no idea. Do you have the answer? Yeah. Did it hit Greg Jennings on a backside in? It was Finley for 18 yards.

That's an old wives tale. That's, I don't know. Yeah, okay. That's an old wives' tale. That's why I don't say yes, exactly. Would you rather have A- running backs and receivers but a C- offensive line or an A- offensive line with D- running backs and receivers? A- offensive line.

Really? How come? Because if you can protect the quarterback, you're going to have an opportunity to find guys open. The defense just can't cover for that long. And Green Bay, we can make guys D-minus. We can bump them up to at least a C. The QB club, though. You said you took stuff from people.

Who else did you take stuff from? Well, I like watching Peyton. Peyton, I think, did a lot for the pre-snap for everybody. I mean, his ability. The Omaha stuff? That was important. I think that's really interesting. The root of that is a timing mechanism

where his offense can get off at the same time. And then the beauty and the brilliance of it is that it goes from that word to you saw numerous times he would change it. He would have a code word that would mean that it wasn't coming on the Omaha. It wasn't Omaha, Omaha. That was a dummy. And that was a beauty. He doesn't take the chances that we do in Green Bay when we draw somebody off sides.

But his ability to manipulate that. Their thing, I think, was if a guy jumped off sides, the offensive lineman would move and initiate contact or just move to where you get the neutrals on a fraction where we want to snap it and take a shot down the field. But the stuff he does pre-snap and his ability to uh the thing i loved about peyton for years is especially in indie is they would stay in a two by two set in in any personnel group yeah they just said you know marvin would play one side and reggie would play the other side and they'd have you know the two tight ends or or you know a third receiver in the slot and be able to run their entire offense out of that and not have motion or dilute it down with you know trying to be a you know offensive guru and create some incredible plays just our offense in two by

two is gonna be better than you can do we're gonna go to tempo where you just can't match it and there's a lot to be said about that that i've always tried to uh to uh to get in in the minds of the decision makers in green bay is that the simplest stuff is often the stuff that works best. And I always appreciate that about Peyton. Well, the biggest things, I mean, you became the starting quarterback 2008. Yep. And over the last, I would say, 11, 12 years, really starting with when the Colts complained about the Patriots being too physical at the line of scrimmage, I think, which was in 04. And year after year, it became easier for quarterbacks. You had guys weren't getting jammed at the line.

Guys aren't diving at your knees. So you had all that. Everything's shifting your way. And then on top of that, you have this huge advantage that if you guys can go to the line and be able to audible and read what you're seeing, you saw it with you, you saw it with Manning, you saw it with Brady. That seems like the biggest advantage anybody could have in sports.

And yet, last year, a team wins with defense. So I don't know what to make anymore. What do I make of this league? It's cyclical. Things come back around, whether it's schematics or the advantages. And you saw for years where the offense had

the ability to communicate through a third earpiece. The defense didn't, and that changed in 2008. Yeah. Where, you know, stealing signals was out after that. And then you saw, you know, obviously the rule changes have helped us out. But I think you've seen the last couple years a little bit less of the enforcement, I think. You know, I don't know what the numbers exactly are, but less of an enforcement of the illegal contact,

pass interference has become more great. There's been more offensive pass interference. You know, we created a play in Green Bay that involved the number three receiver run to the flat and number one and two blocking. Yeah. And it was a play to defeat zone coverage or to get us an easy out-of-bounds play. And that's been called very tightly because it's a copycat league. So, you know, Cincinnati was doing a bunch.

Eli and Giants do it a ton. Yeah. It's been getting called a lot more with the offensive pass interference even in gray areas we got called last year we were on a slant and a flat pattern i threw it to the flat for a touchdown the slant pattern was looking for the ball james jones runs into into the defender inadvertently and they call pass interference on us and wiped out the touchdown on that play which is obviously very frustrating but the root of it is they don't want the offense to be able to do those picks and get those extra advantages to try and equal things out. Now, defensive players would say, you know, it's not even close, the rule changes. And I would agree to a certain depth.

But I think they are trying to make it a little bit more balanced in as little ways they can. Have you played a game where you just felt like the defense knew every single thing you were saying at the line of scrimmage? No. No, but with the way that we're mic'd up now, with the guards being mic'd up and, you know, you play a nationally televised game. Oh, yeah. They can hear every, you know, cadence you have. You have to constantly change those up.

You have to change up the live words and the dummy words. Your cadence, I think it helps my cadence, because we drop people off sides all the time. Yeah. When you have a non-rhythmic cadence, it doesn't matter how many times you hear it, it's going to be different. A scout team quarterback is going to have a hard time

replicating that during the week. When you get in the game, the adrenaline starts going. It's a big play, a big third down. You can kind of sense it when they're going to jump off sides. It's a big play, a big third down. You can kind of sense it when they're going to jump off sides. It's just a matter of our guys being able to have the discipline. You can see it in their eyes? How do you sense it? Well, you can just kind of feel it, I think. This is when it's a big third down,

whether it could be in the first quarter or the fourth quarter, there's kind of some areas between the 40s a lot of times. You're almost in the field goal range where you just have an idea this could be a play with a jump offside. So then you do that. Or you do the flip side where if it's ingrained in their mind so many times, they're talking about all week in the media, like, we've got to stay on sides, and you go on first sound.

And then you can get that little extra advantage of getting the ball snapped before they're ready. People always talk about how calm you are out there, which was always the famous story about Joe Montana in the Super Bowl. Joe Cool. John Candy, Tom Brady's like that. Does a quarterback have to be cool? Can a quarterback be hyper and still be good at being quarterback?

I think so. I mean, I think there's a lot of guys who have some mistakes. Hyper? Maybe not hyper, but animated, yeah. But it seems like everybody's... It's almost like how golfers are. There's a certain calmness that you need to have, because I'm sure there's huddles where you're down three, you're on the road, everybody's got all the momentum against you, the crowd's going crazy,

and you have these ten other guys, and they're just looking at you, and they're seeing if you're scared. Do you feel that? For sure you do. But I think the thing about leadership is you have to understand the guys you're working with. And not everybody responds to the same type of leadership. So some guys you need to kind of jump their ass a little bit. Yeah.

And get on them. And some guys you got to give them a pass and pat them on the ass and say, hey, it's fine. You mean if you jump their ass, they'll be hurt? Their feelings will be hurt? Well, some guys maybe. But some guys, they need that. Maybe they respond better to that type of energy and criticism. So it depends.

I think you can be more of an amped up guy if you've got a team, a younger team that responds better to yelling at them or ripping their ass in the huddle. Our guys are a lot more laid back, I would say, and kind of taking on more of my demeanor where we know what we have to do to be successful. And no yelling or showing a guy up on the field or showing a guy up in the huddle or on the sidelines

is really going to help us accomplish what we want to accomplish, and that's being efficient and winning football games. So, you know, we kind of have a good feel. I think it starts with the offensive line and kind of trickles down to the skill positions. What do you think, if there's one thing people, you wish they knew about the quarterback position, either how hard it is or some little fact

that you just don't feel like they know, what is it? That's tough because, you know, we talk about it so much. They know everything about it. They hear everything that we say. So you feel like you're overexposed. Maybe that's the answer. Well, yeah. People know too much about your position.

I think the next thing is when they put the camera in your helmet, and then they see exactly what you're looking every time. But, you know, I think at times people have said, and it's a compliment, that I make it look easy or it looks too easy out there. And I just try and remind them it's not easy. It's tough to do what we do. It takes a lot of preparation.

I've always said that we win games between Monday and Saturday. The way you prepare allows you to play with that confidence in the field. Why you're so calm on the field or confident, it's because I've played out every scenario from Monday to Saturday. So when I get out there, I'm not surprised a lot. And if you asked the great ones, you'd ask Tom and Drew and Peyton, they'd say the same thing. You're winning games through your preparation during the week.

That's it for the special edition of the Any Given Wednesday bonus clip podcast marathon. You can check out the new splash page that we put up on HBO Now that has all the clips. And check out the show. We do not have a show this week. We come back next week, Wednesday, and we're out for the next four weeks after that. You can watch it on HBO Wednesday nights, 10 o'clock. You can watch us on HBO Now. You can watch a ton of replays on HBO and HBO 2.

And we will be back with a real BS podcast with a guest later in the week. Thanks. Anytime y'all want to see me again, rewind this track right here. Close your eyes. And picture me rolling.