The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 137: 'Friday Rollin' With Mike Lombardi, Robert Mays, and Joe House

Episode Date: October 28, 2016

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons brings on Mike Lombardi to discuss Gus Bradley's coaching future (4:00), the Panthers' comeback potential (8:00), the Vikings' O-line issues (14:00), reasons to trust Matthew Stafford (18:00), the ailing Bills (21:00), and the Chargers' playoff potential (24:00). Then, The Ringer's Robert Mays, a Cubs fanatic, joins to give firsthand World Series thoughts from Chicago (28:00). Finally, Joe House hops on to discuss if the Warriors should panic (52:00), LeBron's desire for the MVP (1:09:00), and Joel Embiid's ceiling (1:14:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We had Wayne Gretzky, Bill Burr, and Larry Wilmore this week. It was a good one. Unfortunately, it was going against Game 2 of the World Series and 14 NBA games. But the good thing is there's re-airs, and it's on HBO On Demand and HBO Go. You can still watch it. It was a good one, and I really enjoyed the great one. He, once he started getting a kick out of, uh, Bill Burr, it was like, he loosened up. I felt like I was in the locker room with him. Don't forget about our other eight podcast feeds on

the ringer. And don't forget to check out the ringer.com because I wrote an NBA column this week. We put it up on Tuesday. It's about LeBron James and the Red Hot NBA. Okay, so we have Mike Lombardi coming up. We have Joe House and from the ringer Robert Mays. Let's do it. All right. It's time for the hardest work of man in show business. The one and only Mike Lombardi.

You're mad at me. What did I do? I listen to the Sal podcast. Love it. Every Monday I take the dogs for the walk and I listen to you and I got so upset with you because you sat there and you handicapped the Denver-Houston game perfectly and then, you know,

for a man that reads Malcolm Gladwell and is friends with Malcolm Gladwell, you violate every pretense of blink. You went ahead and went again. You thought it through. I'm not going to Gladwell, you violate every pretense of blink. You went ahead and went again. You thought it through. I'm not going to do it. And then you went against Denver.

It made no sense at all. And if you're wondering why you're having gambling issues, it's because you're not reading Gladwell's book Blink. You need to trust your instincts. I know. I was for some reason scared to lay that many points with that weird Denver offense. And I just talked myself into the AFC South is terrible. Anybody can win. I'll just grab the points. And I regretted it as the week went on. And Blake did what Blake does. He got a lot of cheap yardage in the second half. I don't, so Gus Bradley's had Blake Bortles and Blaine Gabbert basically as, as his two saviors at quarterback. Do we, how do we even know if he's a good coach? Are there other signs that he might not be a good coach? Well, the, the one sign is you have to look for is he's a defensive specialist and they've collected a bunch of talent on defense. Malik Jackson, Jared Aldrich,

you know, they drafted guys in the first round, Fowler, Ramsey, and the defense doesn't play well. Now, there was a stretch where the defense was playing good. And last night was not typical of how they played defense in the past, whether it was a short week or not, I don't know. But that's how you judge them as a head coach. And I think, really, he's tolerating this offense, which is really not very good. Bortles, we know, has four touchdown passes in the first quarter. That's not just all on Blake

Bortles. That's part of the scheme. Sometimes if you're a good coach, you can manufacture your way into points on the first drive, kind of be deceptive and creative. And Jacksonville doesn't fall in any of those areas. So do you think he's coaching the team next week? Well, according to Shad Khan, he told the Florida Times-Union that he's his coach. So I think what happens is if you get rid of him, you open up a whole other set of situations where people will ask the questions that you and I are asking. Are they really this talented? Do they really have this much ability?

When you keep them there, you keep perpetuating the lie that Jacksonville tells to yourself. If you would have a conversation with Jacksonville during the trading time, you would think they were the Super Bowl champions four times over. Right. They have this perception of themselves that's far different than what the NFL sees them. So we have four terrible teams, the Browns, the 49ers, the Bears, and I'm putting the Jaguars in there after what happened these last two games. Would you put the Jets in there, or are they just a hair above those four?

I think the Jets' problem really comes down to their secondary is not very good. They paid a lot of money for their corners. They can't play man-to-man. I think Revis has slipped dramatically on them. Buster Screen hasn't played very well. They can't cover their fronts very good, but they let the team get old. They've had a situation where they just really haven't been able to fill the corner situation, so people throw the ball on them. I mean, you can't run it on them, so they're one of the worst teams in the league on first down where you can throw the

football and gain yards. And then offensively, when you don't solve the quarterback problem, it makes the rest of your team not look very good. And you carry four quarterbacks like they're doing, that tells you you don't have a quarterback. And you know what's going to happen as you enter 2017? You still don't have a quarterback. Right. So you'd put the Jets in there, it sounds like.

Would you put the Saints in there? No, because the Saints can score points. The Saints and the Falcons, the difference between those two teams are just a little bit, really. When you look at it, the Saints are the worst team in the league in terms of points combined. Offensive points scored, defensive points allowed. But the Falcons are second. Both are over 60 points.

So the Saints are the perfect Big 12 team. I mean, they'll play any pillow fight you want. They don't tackle very well. They could walk into the Big 12 and probably win it. But their offense is good enough where they keep themselves in games like this week against Seattle. Seattle, Arizona has probably the biggest

challenge of any two teams in the NFL. They've played five quarters last Sunday. It was a physical, hard-fought game. No matter what you thought of the game, I loved it. A lot of people didn't, but the game was hard-fought. It was intense physically, and now they both have to get on the road and travel. And Sean Payton will move the ball in Seattle. Drew Brees will move

the ball. And Seattle's offense isn't explosive enough to really extend. So I think they have a chance to win some of these games where they play a team's offense, which isn't great. So the Panthers, I mean, every game is do or die for them, I think, at this point. They're 1-5. They have that banged-up cards team coming in this week. Then they're at Los Angeles, home for the Chiefs, home for New Orleans on a Thursday night. Is there any chance?

You know, this to me is going to be the true test of who we are with the Carolina Panthers. One more time we're going to give them and tell them, look, who are we? And I think this is the perfect time. They should be healthy. Jonathan Stewart should be 100%. You know, they had a week to regroup. This should be the best Carolina Panther team we have seen all season. And then we'll find out where we can go from here. If they don't beat this team, obviously eliminates them, but they have a chance to. They're catching a wounded team coming in, and a tired team that has to

travel. Whether they can improve defensively, I don't know. I think the disappointing thing if you're a Panther fan is your defensive front isn't playing nearly as well as you'd hoped it was, and it's translating into problems in the back, and it's all just not because Josh Norman isn't there. It's because there's other things that are causing this, and that's their

defensive front. So, for me, this is my last stand on Carolina. I think they can win this game. I think this will be the healthiest and that's their defensive front. So for me, this is my last stand on Carolina. I think they can win this game. I think this will be the healthiest and most motivated they'll be. We'll find out a lot about their team on Sunday. Who do you have out of the Colts, Titans, and Texans out of curiosity? Actually, I like the Titans. I'm disappointed that they lost the game to the Colts last week.

I thought they had a chance to win that game. They got conservative towards the end. But, you know, and they turned the ball over the Colts last week. I thought they had a chance to win that game. They got conservative towards the end. But, you know, and they turned the ball over and made it – the score extended itself. I like the Titans. I think their defensive front is good. I don't think their secondary is very good. And I think their offense can control the football and move the ball well, not that they're explosive at receiver.

But to me, they're the best team. I think Houston's – as much as we make fun of Osweiler, and there's a lot to make fun about him, because to me, he's not even the best quarterback on their team. I think Tommy Savage is. But the reality here is their defense has really struggled. This was the team that on first down, they were the best team in third down last year by a lot. They were really good. And this year, they're ranked 14th in the league on third down. They're not the same team defensively and that's a problem. The Colts, it felt gimmicky last week and it worked and they did what they had to do to win the game, but they basically kept the tight ends in to help them block, which

was something they started the week before. And a lot of times they had like a seven-bit offensive line. At some point, that's a gimmick and the league's going to figure out how to go against that, right? Oh, no doubt. I mean, look, they have to protect themselves. This week's a challenge for the Colts because they've got Kansas City coming in as a very well-coached team. They don't make a lot of mistakes.

They don't have penalties. The Colts, besides their problems on offense, I mean on defense in terms of not being very talented, they commit a lot of penalties. They do a lot of things that hurt themselves to win the game. And when you play a team like the Chiefs, you know, that are well-coached, they don't make mistakes, they typically don't turn the ball over, they're not flashy, they just come out and play you well, I think this will be a difficult game.

But I think this will be an ABA game, because I think the Chiefs defensively are not the same team that they were. They miss Justin Houston. Tomahawley can't rush as well. Dee Ford has been better, but I don't think he's a dominant rusher. And you can't play as much man-to-man as the Chiefs try to play and survive if your front's not playing well. And I think that's where it goes.

Look, that same game, if Sean Payton doesn't make that bad challenge late in the game, they have a chance to come back in that game and win it. I mean, the Saints had them. And as Peyton admitted, they just weren't, they didn't play smart enough to win the game. So it seems like the Chiefs are just limping along with Justin Houston and not rushing him back, almost like they think they can make the playoffs

and they just want him to come back 100%. I thought he was going to be back by now. Yeah, I don't think he's 100% healthy, and I don't think he's going to have the same year this year that he's had in the past. It's hard to feel that explosiveness off your ACL after one year. It takes another year to really kind of come back fully. I think getting him out there will certainly help them because they need more edge pressure. But the reality of it is I don't think the Justin Houston that dominated will be the same Justin Houston.

You warned us last week, Vikings-Eagles. You warned us about how bad the Vikings offensive line was and how you thought that was a good matchup for Philly's defensive line. Do we overreact to that game from a Vikings standpoint? No. You have to be worried about the Vikings.ings they're a lot bad lines don't travel and that that lines problems are going to be always when they go on the road they were masked because they played at home the once they started getting guys hurt and they could hide it a little bit at home you can't hide it on the road and i think when they play a front like philadelphia or they play a front that can really rush the passer from the edges, like Brandon Graham was, I think, fifth or sixth in the league in pressures before he went into that game.

He's moved way up now. But when you play a team like that, I don't think you can play them on the road and effectively win the game. So the Vikings' problems are going to keep creeping up all the time. What other defensive lines do you think could give them trouble? What's your top five defensive lines? Seattle's defensive line will give them tremendous amounts of trouble. They'll have a very difficult time. If they played the Jets,

just their defensive front could give them trouble. Anytime they play a front that could really rush the passer and create havoc. Miami, when they were good with Olivier Vernon and Cameron Wake, would have given them trouble. They're not the same team as they were. But I think the Seattle defensive front, when you look at it,

Arizona's front is starting to play really well. Arizona will give them trouble in there. And so I think that, you know, as you move forward, I don't think the Vikings are the lock to – I think they're the lock to make the playoffs, but I don't think they're a lock to get to the Super Bowl because they're the most talented team. I think there's issues on that offense that are going to keep creeping up every week. Their road games left are Chicago, Washington, Detroit on a Thursday,

Jacksonville, Green Bay. And then their home games are Detroit, Arizona, who you just mentioned, Dallas, Indianapolis, and Chicago. I don't think that line is going to come back to haunt them in too many of those games. But in the playoffs, I think you're right. That's right. I think that's why.

I think there's no doubt. And look, they know the problems. They're going to try to work around them. They're going to start using tight ends to stay in a block. But, you know, they're getting nothing out of Treadwell, their first-round pick as a receiver. You know, they're starting to use Cordell Patterson more in their offensive scheme because he can at least give them explosive plays to go along with Stephon Diggs so that they need to find a way to get the ball down the field without exposing the line that's always a really difficult problem to address and ultimately answer you and I talked

about early in the season about how good Stafford was the tail end of last year his last 15 games everybody's been talking about it this week 34 TDss, six picks, 107 QB rating, over 4,000 yards. The flip side to that, if you actually look at the teams they played since last year's bye, he had Green Bay twice, he had Philly, Oakland, the Rams, the Saints, the Niners, the Bears. That was last year. This year, Indy, one of the worst defenses in the league, Tennessee, Green Bay, Chicago, Philly, the Rams, who have been really disappointed defensively, and the Washington Native Americans.

So I don't know whether to one— I'm definitely buying that Stafford seems like a different QB, and I get how they're using him differently. But should I trust Matthew Stafford yet against a good defense? I would say Matthew Stafford's never been the problem in Detroit. He's always been the solution. I think the team's offensive line's better this year than it's been in the past, which helps him.

The Philly game, you know, they blocked Philly half-decent. They were home. And so you have to take a solace in that. They hasn't had a running game the last couple weeks because they've had injuries at running back. I think Riddick playing coming back soon will help. I think that when you look at Forsett coming in there, he gave them a little bit more life than the other back they were using.

So I think he's still going to be a good player, Bill. I think their problems defensively will creep up. And the one good thing he's been able to do is he hasn't had to play from behind. I mean, he's played from behind, but hasn't been dramatically behind like it was in the past. And I think that in the other area, why I think he's been more successful is he doesn't have to feed the monster. You know, when you have a guy like Calvin Johnson, you've got to feed the monster,

and it takes you away from what you want to do offensively. And now he can just run his offense and run the system effectively and get the ball to the right people when he has to. And it takes a big pressure off of him because he knows when you've got a great player like Calvin Johnson, you've got to get him the ball. And so now he can just execute the offense. Not that you don't want a great player, but it makes it easier for the quarterback to just distribute the ball to

everybody. The New York football giants coming off a bye, they're on a bye week this week. And then they have three home games, Philly, Cincinnati, and Chicago in a row. So they're basically at bye week this week and then they have three home games Philly, Cincinnati, and Chicago in a row so they're basically at home for a month and then you have Washington's also 4-3

Philly's 4-2 Dallas is 5-1 I don't remember having four teams in the same division heading into week 8 with winning records. Do you think both wildcards come out of this division? I do. I think they'll be.

I like Philly to be the wild card here. Maybe Washington could sneak it. I don't trust Washington's defense. I haven't trusted them all year. And the New York football Giants, to me, their offense has been very bad. People talk about the Packers being bad on offense. Well, they run the Packers' offense in New York, and it's bad. And they, they run the Packers offense in New York, and it's bad. And they've got really good offensive skill players in New York,

and they can't seem to always... Like, that game against the Rams was bad offensive football by the Giants. And Eli can't get protection inside. I don't trust the Giants defensively. I don't trust them offensively. I don't trust their head coach. I don't trust anything they've done organizationally. I mean, they've had a really bad year. I mean, you know, they've had a bad year hiring. They've had a bad year in the decision to sign Josh Brown. I don't trust anything they've done organizationally. I mean, they've had a really bad year. I mean, you know, they've had a bad year hiring. They've had a bad year in the decision to sign Josh Brown. I don't think it's been a good year for the football giants. Even how they've handled Beckham, all that stuff. Yeah. I'm really fascinated to see how this division plays out because the Cowboys look like the best NFC team. It's hard for me to fathom, but if I had to bet my life on one of those

teams, I think I would bet my life on them. And yet they have this Romo shadow hanging over them. I saw you on TV. You were saying I think on the Bayless show this week, you were saying how if Romo's going to come back, at Cleveland is the week to do it.

Do you really think they're going to bring him back? No, I said it in this sense. I said it in a way to indoctrinate him into to get him some reps because he's never played. He's missed all of preseason. He missed all of last year. You've got to get him some live bullets and get him used to it. And I am clearly saying not to bring him back to stardom, but to bring him back to be an adequate backup.

Right. That's what you have to do. And you can't go into any decision with maybe. Maybe is the worst thing you want to do is because you don't have an answer. So can he stay healthy? I don't know. Maybe he can. Maybe he can't.

Well, let's put him in a game if we're ahead in the fourth quarter in Cleveland, which we should be, and let's let him play a little bit and see how he does. And hopefully we'll have a big enough lead. He's not going to cost us the game. We can run the ball effectively, but let's at least get him out there and get his feet wet and see what he can do. You're not going to be able to simulate it in practice.

So where are you going to be able to make the right decision on Romo if you don't see him in a live game? So if you do that, do you have to say beforehand, Prescott is our starter the rest of the season, but we're doing this with Tony Romo? How do you handle it externally? I think you just say, look, we've got to get Tony some reps. I mean, I don't think you go into the game saying, you know,

when we blow out Cleveland, because now that puts Cleveland on alert. But I think there's a – I would just simply say, look, we have a plan for Tony. The plan doesn't involve starting him right away. The plan involves we have to integrate him back into the system to prove that he can be durable. And leave it at that. And then watch people execute your plan. What do you expect from Patriots' Bills this week? Well, look, I think McCoy's the wild card. You know, last week he had no burst. He really couldn't press off the hamstring. I think it was, to me, I thought Miami could beat them last week. I thought Miami was a bad matchup for them because Miami's receivers could exploit the corners in Buffalo.

And I thought if Miami could protect, which is not always an easy thing for Miami, the one thing that drives Rex Ryan crazy is when you can run the ball on him. And you can run the ball. The Buffalo Bills are not a big physical team. They're a little team. Now, they get Darius back this week. That helps. But what kind of shape is Darius in coming off the hamstring?

I doubt he's in very good shape. I expect the Patriots to tempo this game, play fast-break basketball, try to get it going, and throw the football. They're not going to get shut out this week, and I think the Bills will have to find a way to move the ball. If McCoy's not 100 percent, they have to find a way to consistently move the football. They're not very good on third down, and if the Patriots can force them into third downs and put some pressure on them, which hasn't been the forte of the Patriots, I think the Patriots have the better team.

The Patriots have no pass rush whatsoever, and they're the best team in the league, should I be concerned. Yeah, well, I think if they had to play Pittsburgh again, but look, the Patriots rush a certain way, which is always not conducive to having a great pass rush. They never run up the field. They never run past the quarterback. They try to work their way. They try to keep the pocket tight,

but they need more production out of their defensive players. I think they need more production out of Hightower. They need more production out of Collins. People have this notion that these guys are playing great. They're not. They're not at the level that would be acceptable to a championship level. They need more out of Collins. They need more out of Hightower. They need more out of all their defensive guys, and I think it needs to start showing up. I think the Eric Rowe trade has proved to be pretty good because they get another corner that can match up on certain receivers.

He can play the bigger receivers. Perhaps this week he goes on Justin Hunter because that's kind of the kind of guy he can cover. So I think that that's really been a good acquisition for him. But they need to be able to have more guys on the field with speed that can tackle, especially if McCoy's 100%. They missed a lot of tackles. And then this week, hopefully they'll decide to block Zach Brown.

He only made 17 tackles the last time they played him. So I have a feeling Belichick's pointed out to him that, you know, we better block Zach Brown. We don't want to get him defensive player of the week again. Do you think Landry Jones was a 40-minute QB or a 45-minute QB? I think he was about a 40-minute. I mean, I was screaming at the television, can we just put a little pressure on him? I mean, at some point, make him play faster. But, you know, that's the one thing about Belichick, that he has such a great ability

to be patient. He was not going to let them have a cheap touchdown or blow the game, and he was going to force them to work it down the field. I think they played the style he wanted to play. It drives me crazy, but he does. He's just so good at that. He doesn't really blink, and he doesn't panic, and he doesn't ever get tired. I've always said about Belichick, if he was in the home building business, he'd build one home a year. He's not Pulte Homes.

He's not going to build a bunch of track homes. He's building one house a year. We haven't really dipped into the Lombardi Glasserie yet. Do you have anything to explain 2016's most entertaining team, the San Diego Chargers? I can't. I think they're remarkable. And I went through it and I think they're going to make the playoffs. Me too. You look at the schedule. I think they're going to make the playoffs. I thought they beat it. I thought they would give Atlanta a tough game last week. I think they have two dominant defensive front seven players in Joey Bosa and Melvin Ingram. Melvin Ingram is one of the best players in the league nobody talks about.

He's number 54 on the scorecard. He's really good. And Joey Bosa's really good. Now, they drive me crazy because I love John Pagano as a person, but he does not subscribe to the Fred Palermo theory of menus. He's all over the place. He is all over the place. He, he is all over the place. He's got every blitz known to mankind, and sometimes he can blitz them out of a game.

But they're a good team. I mean, they're a good team, and Phillip Rivers is really a good player. They find receivers. I mean, the kid from Western Oregon, Williams, I mean, where do they get him from? And he comes in and makes plays. I thought Travis Benjamin, when I was in Cleveland, was a legitimate big-time receiver. I know he's little.

I know he's not going to go across the middle all the time, but he's explosive and can outrun every angle. So I like their pieces. They're playing better in their offensive line. I think it's a good team. Do I think they go into Denver and win? No, because I don't think Denver's going to have 12 penalties like they did the last time they played them. So I think Denver will play them much smarter.

But I think it's a good team, and I think this San Diego team is a team to contend for. I mean, you have to be prepared to play them. Your offense has got to be really good because he's going to move the ball on you. So to your point on the schedule, at Denver this week, then home for Tennessee and Miami. Right. So let's say they lose to Denver. I actually think they have a good chance to beat Denver, but let's say they lose.

They're certainly not favored to win. They'd be 5-5 after those 10 games if they took care of business against Tennessee and Miami. By week, at Houston, home Tampa, at Carolina, home Oakland, at Cleveland, home for KC. Now, that KC Week 17 game, the Chargers could be nine and six and the Chiefs could be 10 and five or nine and six, whatever.

That could be one of those week 17 playoff games. I think they have to get to 10 wins. I think 10 wins gets you in in either conference as a wildcard. I think it's one of those years where we're gonna have a lot of teams cluttered in that nine and seven, eight and eight, seven and nine range.

10 wins gets them. So the Chargers right now are plus 400 to make the playoffs. There's not a team on that schedule that they can't beat. Yeah, I'm with you. Last thing, we have the can't-handle-success Super Bowl this week between the Buccaneers and the Raiders. Well, I mean, look, I think this to me has me completely—if I'm a Raider fan, I'm worried.

The Raiders decided to stay in Tampa this week. I think they stayed in Tampa all week long. I didn't fly back home and fly there. So I'm not—you know, men will be men, and Tampa's not a town to put an immature team in for an entire week. And Tampa has this little uniqueness to them. I mean, they make mistakes, they battle back, they got down to San Francisco 14 points,

and then they rallied back, and Winston's all over the place. But I think Tampa's one of those teams that you better make sure you button it up and play well. And I think the Raiders are not a mature team. And everybody's talking. When the Raiders get talked up, that's when you have to worry about them the most. Mike Lombardi.

Sunday, 11 a.m. Fox Sports 1. Oh, we didn't talk about Embiid. Oh, he's good. The process. Trust the process, Bill. I'm excited.

I really am. I bought the ticket. I'm excited. I'm going to enjoy it. I'm not going to overreact. I'm going to enjoy it. I really am. I'm going to enjoy it, even though I don't think they, you know, I don't trust the process. I think Millie, my wife, could have picked Embiid. I think that would be easy. They just fell in his lap. I think the coach is really good, and people keep telling

me to trust the process, and all they did is lose. But I do have a big announcement for you, though, Bill. We are starting a podcast here, Make Me Smarter podcast on Fox. It's a short, quick podcast. We're going to take about two or three things that happened during the week and try to explain them in a correct fashion. So instead of me screaming at the television all the time about what they're saying, I can do it on a podcast. Oh, that's exciting. All right. And we can see you on FS1 on Sundays, 11 a.m. and say hi to Fred Palermo for me. We'll see you next week. I exciting. All right, and we can see you on FS1 on Sundays, 11 a.m., and say hi to Fred Palermo for me.

We'll see you next week. I will. All right. I'm sure he's probably at the diner right now. All right. See you later. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

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Post your job to 100 plus job sites, including social media networks like Facebook and Twitter, all with a single click. Find candidates in any city or industry. Just post once. Watch your qualified candidates roll into ZipRecruiter's easy to use interface. No juggling emails or calls to your office. Quickly screen candidates, rate them, hire the right person fast. Find out today why ZipRecruiter has been used by over 1 million businesses. You know what? The ringer

might have to use it to find our West Coast social media head because we need one. We need a social media head on the West Coast. Might have to try ZipRecruiter. In the meantime, my listeners can post jobs on ZipRecruiter for free by going to ZipRecruiter.com slash BS. Once again, ZipRecruiter.com slash BS. All right, here's Robert Mays. All right, I've known Robert Mays for six years. We met at the 2010 NBA finals. He was a young little pudgy baby. And now he's a grown adult. He writes football columns. He meets deadlines.

We've been working together for five years. He hands in long pieces. He writes a whole bunch of stuff for the Ringer. And he's very good. He's also the host of the Ringer NFL show. And most importantly a giant cubs fan we had to have one cubs fan on the bs podcast this week how are you maze you know what i'm doing okay i feel like the dread that will creep in in the next six hours

or so hasn't started yet and it feels pretty nice what was your reaction in the ninth inning even though you were up five nothing and you're about to go to the World Series and you had clearly vanquished the Dodgers and they had no spirit left, and yet somebody hit a foul ball right into the Bartman seats and the announcers were like, oh, and then they just agreed not to talk about it and pretend it never happened. Did you have a heart attack in that moment? I did not have a heart attack in that moment because I was at the game, and I don't think I saw it go that direction. I feel like I was more engaged in everything else that was happening, and I didn't even consider that in the moment, which was really nice. I'm glad I was distracted because that probably would have made me lose my mind.

Yeah, you know, having gone through this in 2004 with the Sox, and you just start looking for signs that something terrible is going to happen or there's some bad omen. And that's just how you're conditioned when your team hasn't won forever. You just assume every, every sign is a bad sign. When I saw that and then they just got through it and they won anyway, I thought that was a good sign. I think it's a good sign that they won game two, a game that they had to win.

I think it's a really good sign that you have three games in a row at home because if you win tonight, Friday night, it's not going to get rained out or anything, right? I don't think so. I mean, I know that it's supposed to be in the next 24 hours or so. There's a chance that something's going to come in, but it doesn't look like it. It's drastic.

Okay. So if you win tonight, then Kluber is tomorrow on three days rest? Kluber on short rest. Yeah. I mean, that's the nice part. You just assume that he's not going to be the guy he was in game one. Beatable. He only threw 88 pitches in game one, but beatable. And I think the narrative will be, if you can win tonight, then it'll be, oh, the Indians, well, they have Kluber. And, but if you, if you,

if you get past Kluber somehow and you're up three, one heading into that Sunday, that's going to be one of the most unbelievable sports nights of this century, potentially. I'm really not ready for it. Okay. That's way too far away for me. Okay, good. My thought is that the pitching side of it, the thing I was most worried about, which is crazy to say at this point, was what Arrieta was going to look like on Wednesday.

I mean, he's just been so up and down that I feel like him getting the good version of him. And now, tonight, we have the guy I feel the safest about. The guy I feel he's the most reliable is Kyle Hendricks at home. Which, when you consider that the Cubs' one and two starters are Jon Lester and the guy who won the Cy Young last year, that's insane. Right. Well, Hendricks doesn't have a pulse. I'm not sure he has blood.

He might not have blood. He just, he's like, he's like a zombie. He came back from that game the other day and did his taxes. I guarantee you he did his quarterly tax report after winning game two, or winning that game six. I guarantee you he did. He reminds me of the Westworld, in the Westworld pilot pilot when they brought the naked guy back out to reprogram him, and he was just kind of blankly walked out. That's what he was like walking back to the dugout every inning.

He's really impressive. If a fly landed on his face, he'd be fine. He would definitely not react. Yeah, he wouldn't move. I don't watch the National League until October. I just don't have time. I'll admit it. I love baseball, but I watch the Red Sox, and I care about the have time. I'll admit it. I love baseball,

but I watch the Red Sox and I care about the American League. And then when it gets to October, I watch everybody. I've been really impressed by the Cubs. I like all three of your starters. I think you need three that you can count on. You need that sneaky starter who's not the ace, but still super reliable, which you have with Hendricks. The bullpen's good. I had no idea Baez was so entertaining and annoying and entertainingly annoying all at the same time. Chris Bryant's scary as hell. Schwarber, obviously, to have him in six and seven if it goes back would be great. Just a really, really, really super-duper entertaining team. And I don't know. I think they're the best team. It doesn't mean

they're going to win, but it does seem like they have the most talent, right? I feel like that. And especially when the bats are alive, it definitely feels like that. The thing that made them great in the regular season, that kind of near-historical differential, all that stuff, people want to say it's because Brian Rizzo and everything. Their pitching staff is incredible. So Kyle Hendricks led the majors in ERA.

So the fact that you have that kind of quality up top, and then the thing that I really appreciated was Theo and Jed Hoyer understanding that they needed to make some moves. And I know Chapman's been the one everyone's talked about, but Mike Montgomery is quietly a huge trade. The fact that you go get a lefty that can give you three innings in the middle of a game, that's come up for them. And combined them and combined with everything else yeah i mean i think they do have the best team but all year what i was worried about is in baseball that doesn't necessarily matter

so the fact that they're this close and playing well that's what has me breathing a little bit easier what's your worst case scenario we talked about the best case scenario which would be winning tonight then uh when everybody thinks kluber is going to bring it back to 2-2, knocking him out, all of a sudden you're up 3-1. Because that's the great thing about these three in a row. All of a sudden it could be up 3-1, down 3-1. What's your worst case scenario for tonight? My worst case scenario is that the bats go quiet in a game where they shouldn't.

So you're looking at that Hendricks game that he lost against Kershaw, where even if he pitches well, I think him pitching well is not a certainty, but something I feel good about. But just because that happens doesn't mean they don't go cold again, which they've done at times. So they go cold, they lose a 2-1, 1-0 game that they should win. Kluber comes back and pitches lights out tomorrow, and Lackey doesn't pitch well.

That's my worst case, is that easily you could be looking at 3-1 with that. Okay. Two questions about the crowds. So with the Red Sox up through when they finally won, there would be a tenseness sometimes that you could just feel collectively like, oh, no, oh, God, oh, what's going on? That just is what happens when you're like an abused dog, basically, as a fan base. Have you felt that in the stands at these games during weird points of the games?

The nice part about Game 6 is there was really no moment to ever feel that. Because they jumped on them so quickly, I think the only time that ever really crept up was when Hendricks gave up the leadoff hit to Tolles. Because there was never a moment where it seemed like it was slipping away because they only had 27 outs. Right. They turned a double play every single time my guy got on base. So that was really the best part of the game is that they got up so big so fast that that dread really never had a chance to creep in. Right. The only time it really happened was the previous round against the Giants when the Giants had the comeback homer. I forget what game that was.

Game three? Yeah, that was bad. It wasn't in Wrigley. But when Rich Hill pitched lights out, I was like, this is over. Rich Hill just shut this team down. I know Rich Hill. I've had some time with Rich Hill. And if they're not going to be able to hit,

and Kershaw is just lingering somewhere, there's no way this is going to happen. That's definitely the moment where I was just like, well, this was fun. But outside of that, I just felt like they've been in control ever since the bats started getting heavy again. Yeah. All right, so you're there Saturday night.

Jacko, my buddy, made the thesis that Saturday night was the drunkest night any city has ever had. I don't know if that's hyperbole. What was Saturday night like? How drunk was everybody? I, going out onto Clark Street, there was a guy climbing a street sign the moment I left the stadium. It was to a point where I was actually afraid. My buddy lives right off Clark in that main drag, and we just tried to sprint to his apartment in order to avoid it. But over the course of those next four hours, the streets did not clear out, and every single person that arrived at his apartment, it was just like a party all over again.

I don't know if I've ever seen a collective joy like I've seen that. Yeah. We had it in Boston, too, during 2004 a couple times and some other times with Boston sports. Chicago people are just generally just happy, drunk people. I hate to pigeonhole the entire city, but just a happy place. Oh, no, we'll take it. People like celebrating in Chicago.

They'll celebrate anything. It was really great. Yeah. That's so true. They will celebrate anything. It was really great. Yeah. That's so true. They will celebrate anything. And when there's something actually worth celebrating, it definitely gets kicked to another level. I will admit that. I'm honestly afraid about the integrity of my buddy's apartment if this does actually happen.

I think he has disaster insurance. I honestly think he went and got some. You know, it's so funny. Chicago people, the curse of the Cubs these past few decades is that everybody just loved going to Wrigley and having a couple drinks, maybe sneaking a couple cigs, and then going out after. And it was like there wasn't that urgency that some other teams have. I've talked to Tommy Alter about it, who works for my TV show. There wasn't that urgency with the Cubs fans because you're just like,

whatever, we're probably never going to win. I just like going. And it was this kind of happy-go-lucky nature that I always really envied and admired. That is true. But the thing is, I feel like now that did leak out over the course of this season. I think that when you have a team this good, there is true, but the thing is, I feel like now that did leak out over the course of this season. I think that when you have a team this good, there is a I-can't-believe-it's-happening element to it. But I also think that, especially the Cubs fans, one, went a lot, two, are really in the know.

They want this. It's not a we're-happy-to-be-here sort of thing. I think it's kind of a desperation. It doesn't matter how much you think they're going to be around for years to come, how young they are. When you get this close, I think that there's a hunger that starts to creep in for sure. No question.

And you could feel it in August and September and yet a lot of the Cubs fans are doing the whole thing of no man, just getting there would be great. I just want to get there. Yeah. Anything else is gravy and you're like, come on, you're full of shit. Stop it. You don't believe that i just want to get there yeah anything else is gravy and you're like come on you're full of shit stop it you don't believe that you want to win you have the best team it's gonna hurt if you don't win just admit it and the cubs say no no no man we're

just honored to be here now i think everybody could smell it there's an odor you can't yeah you can't as soon as rizzo started hitting that that's when I said to myself, okay, now this is the team I watched all year. And the team I watched all year is definitely the best team in baseball. So that was the nice thing about game six. It's not just that they won, it's that they won as the team I watched all season. And that's what made me really confident going into this. I said, okay, this team that won 103 games, that had this plus 260 run differential or whatever, that's the team I just watched, and I don't think anybody's beating that team. Can we get slightly sad for a second? Sure, absolutely. Your dad is no longer with us,

but you had the same relationship with him that I have with my dad. When did he pass away? 2009. So it's been seven years and change. Yeah. So watching you go through this and you've tweeted about it a couple of times, like how much your dad would have enjoyed this. How much do you think about that during this whole thing? Because if it was me in 2004 with my dad and my dad wasn't there,

I would have thought about him the entire time. So what's that like? I think about it every day. Um, every single time I'm there, I do, you know, there are a couple moments before the game or like a song or a montage or whatever, you know, every single time I'm there about it and it's just little things, you know, it's when I came back to my place and I listened to the Pat Hughes call, just the amount of hours I spent driving around Chicago during the summer, listening to Pat Hughes call Cubs games with my dad. It's just amazing. I mean,

you just think about the years and years and years. So yeah, I mean, every single time, I just don't know how you would separate that. It's impossible for me to. Yeah. I noticed that when it happened with the Red Sox, how many people experienced it through relatives or parents or brothers or sisters, like whatever, that weren't there, and how prevalent that was in how they experienced the moment. I mean, people are going to the graves and stuff the day after and everything. And I do think that's the difference with tortured fan bases and fan bases that just haven't won in forever

versus a fan base that's been around 20 years or a team that's been around 25 years or whatever. So it is that extra element. There's no doubt. My dad moved here in 1981 to Chicago. He wasn't from anywhere. He was a military brat. He grew up in 100 different places.

And he adopted Chicago, but Chicago adopted him. And I think that he did that through sports. And just the idea of how he reacted to those teams. There's no way I'll ever be able to go to Wrigley Field and not think about him. And I feel like that's added another level to it. It's made it even more special. How many people fit in Wrigley Field?

It's like 42,000. So that's the attendance when you take into account standing room, all that. I was going to say, is it like secretly 50,000? I mean, there's a lot of people standing behind you when you're in the seats at these games. They're really trying to pinch pennies. They're not trying to pinch pennies here. They're really trying to bleed people for those 800 bucks

or whatever people are paying for seats. Yeah, because I remember Fenway was 35,000 or something when they've added seats since then in 03, 04. But especially in 04, it started to feel like all right this is not safe there's 43 000 people in here or whatever it seemed like it was like 20 percent more filled than it should have been um it can be funny when a million people claim like they were claimed to be at game six there are gonna be a million people they're like oh yeah i was there it was great it's gonna be really fun in 10 years when that to be a million people that are like, oh yeah, I was there. It was great. It's going to be really fun in ten years when that happens.

What are your columns that are scheduled for next week? Just out of curiosity. I've got a couple things. Should we have some younger ringer staffers being ready to fill in some of those spots, maybe? Potentially? The worst thing is, I'm going to be in LA next week. So if it goes seven, you guys are going to

have to deal with me all day on Wednesday. Oh my god. That sounds like a Facebook live. When do you get to LA? I have a camera on me all day. But it's Wednesday morning because I didn't want to come Tuesday night because if they do question six, I would

like to be home. Yeah, I would hope so. I feel if they for some reason won on Tuesday night, I feel bad for the guy sitting next to you on Wednesday morning on the plane. I'm just not going to have slept. It's the worst four hours of that guy's life. He doesn't know who he is yet. He's like,

oh my God, I had some unshowered guy. He was just emitting alcohol from every pore of your body. Yeah, I should apologize to him when I sit down. That's always the worst when the person apologizes to you when they sit down before the plane's taken off. You're like, oh no, this is really going to be a disaster. Yeah, it's not going to go well.

Quickly, you're hosting the Ringer NFL show for us, and you're also writing a ton of football for us. What's your Super Bowl right now? That's a really good question. I feel like, done to my head, it would probably be Seattle-New England still. There's not a team in the NFC that really scares me. I think that everyone in that conference is super flawed in one way or the other. Even if you think Seattle's offensive line is a disaster, their defense plus Russell Wilson, I still feel like is the best combo in that conference.

And then in the AFC, I mean, who scares you? Like, no Roethlisberger in Pittsburgh? So outside of that, I mean, there's really no other team that looks nearly as good as the late one. I don't think this is anything close to the Patriots teams we've seen over the past five years, but I still think it's more than enough to make them the favorite over there.

Our defense scares me more than any other team. That's how I'd put it. I think it's, I think that's totally fair. It's a beatable Patriots team and the right team could just like, you know, I keep, I'm kind of hoping the Chargers don't make the playoffs because the Chargers would scare me in a round two, Phil Rivers, 10-point underdogs, just kind of doing Phil Rivers things. And they have two guys who can rush the passer really well. And that would scare me a little bit. I don't know. It just seems early. I don't know whether it's because the league is just worse or there's been too many injuries or the CBA has put so many

young guys on every team. It takes two months to even know what you have. I don't know what the reason is, but all of these teams look really, really flawed. And you wrote about this last week, but I don't see any light at the end of the tunnel. I don't see the team that's putting it together and running on all cylinders. It's just not happening.

I totally agree. Aaron Schatz wrote this week in his DVLA breakdown, Seattle is the worst No. 2 team in DVLA through seven weeks ever. Wow. And Denver is the worst No. 3. So even if, I think Philly is like the fifth worst No. 1. So it's not just that we're wishing for better times or thinking that the teams we grew up with or whatever are more elite.

It really is bearing out in the numbers. There just aren't that many teams that are running over people, and I feel like it makes it wide open. Would you bet on the Chargers plus 400 to make the playoffs? I probably would, but you know me and Phillip Rivers. I cannot be rational. I mean, he's just the guy who I've been in love with for like six years. I look at him through rose-colored glasses.

He has eight kids and you, so you're really his ninth kid. He doesn't know you're one of the eight or one of the nine, but you love him as much as... Does he have more than eight kids? How many kids does he have? I think it's eight. I feel like that's where we are right now. I mean, how quick do you want him to pump them out?

He's got a pretty good clip. I think he should have one for every year he plays from now on. I think he could just get to 16 17 it could be he could be on like that john and kate type of show after he retires or something uh i'm sure his wife is super into that idea because she obviously just has no problem uh duane wade did you were you excited at all last night that'll be my last question i mean it was i'm excited to watch the Bulls, but I still,

one game against the Celtics, I know the Celtics are good, but one game is not going to make me, make those fears disappear, that they're not going to be able to shoot the ball. I know they hit their first five, but it still feels like, you know, that's blind luck, and that is not going to happen anytime again soon. I really enjoyed having basketball back, and it actually struck me watching the basketball

how many quality guys they have and how good some of the basketball was already compared to what we've watched with football where football is just a fucking slog. I love football. There's maybe one game a week that I like watching.

I don't even care if I'm watching some of these games anymore. The problem now is that even the teams that are good, like Philly is number one in DVOA, Minnesota, they're good with defense. So the teams that are the best in the league aren't fun to watch. And I feel like that's the biggest

problem, is that that Seattle-Arizona game, quality of play-wise, isn't as bad as people are making it out to be, but it's still not fun. And I totally agree. As someone who spends 12 hours of his Sunday every single week doing this for a living, it hasn't really been a blast. No. Thank God for the Chargers.

Brief, tiny shout-out to the Raiders. They've been kind of fun. Yeah, agreed. The Pats with Brady and Gronk together I think is just a reliably entertaining combo. But for the most part, the Cowboys I've enjoyed. I like watching Elliott. I like watching Prescott. That's a pretty fun team.

But for the most part, pretty lousy. Hey, Mays, good luck this weekend. Thanks, buddy. One question for you. Do you feel like Gronk's 69th touchdown or the Cubs winning the World Series would be a bigger sports moment? I think they have to happen on the same day. I think that's good for you. I think the parlay of those two. First of all, Gronk getting to a 69th touchdown, the odds of that were probably 10 to 1 with how everybody goes at his legs and how crazy he is. But man, if that could happen on the same day, wow.

It'd be the greatest thing in the history of sports. Yeah, what's next? Good luck. Good luck to everyone in Chicago. Thanks for coming on. Thanks, buddy. I'll see you soon. All right.

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the host of Sheck House podcast on the Ringer Network and the owner of one of the most embarrassing picks records that's ever been recorded on podcast so we have good news we're heading we heading into week eight we decided to blow up the calloway par three format we're throwing we're throwing away the first seven weeks we're pretending it was a preseason the real season begins this week house and i are now teaming up we're gonna make three picks he's making one i'm making one and then we're making one that we agreed on and we're gonna seriously keep track and we have let's see seven eleven regular season weeks left and then four playoff rounds left so let's see

what kind of score we can shoot here house how are you? Bringing up the rear on Friday rolling is exactly the right place for us after the first seven weeks. But I love this collaboration that we're about to embark on. We just need to come up with three, you know, well thought out. Everyone's not going to win. We're not going to go, what did you say, 11 weeks, 33-0 here. Right. But maybe we can win two-thirds. And two-thirds would help a lot of our friends, if any of our friends were dumb enough to track our plays these first few weeks, maybe win back a little bit of their money.

Or go online and order some Callaway stuff and use promo code house and get that shipped to you for free. That's another way to get money in your pocket. Well, another thing I was, another tweak I was thinking with the four mil, we'll call it the Callaway par three, but sometimes it might just be a par four. We might take four.

My goal is to get for us to get to like minus eight by the end of the season. So you go first. That would be good. Let's hear your pick first for this week. This week I like out of all of the 13 well there's 12 remaining after last night's uh crap fest that i hope you and lombardi didn't talk about for more than five seconds and we talked about it for two minutes

oh okay just about the remaining sure that's that's that's the right topic. I'm taking the San Diego Chargers. I've seen them getting as much as five and a half points in the Super Contest, I believe. They're getting five and a half points. I have it at five. I've seen it at five as well. At both of those numbers, I like the Chargers. I like them for a few reasons. First of all, Phil Rivers, very good as an underdog in his career.

17-7 record as an underdog of at least 4.5 points. Against elite defenses, Phil Rivers, also with a strong against the spread record, 11-5 against the spread when he's playing against defenses that have allowed, that are allowing less than 16.5 points. I like very much, this was the thing that put me over the top on the Chargers. Kevin Clark, in his column this week, his picks column, mused about the Chargers. Where might they be if Joey Bosa had been along for the ride from the very beginning. In just three games, he's already in the top half of all edge rushers with a number of pressures.

And it's easy to look at their schedule and look at the way some of those early games went, the way the ball bounced. The Chargers could be 5-2, and I greatly regret not sticking to my guns. You and I and the Cubs had a preseason discussion in August. I didn't stick to my guns on either Tom Brady as MVP, which is looking pretty good, or the Chargers as the dark horse coming out of the NFC West.

Wait, I have good news for you. What is it? The Chargers are plus 400 to make the playoffs. Yeah. Discuss that with Lombardi and with Mays before you came on. We went through their schedule. I mean, obviously, if they could get through this week and they have Tennessee and Miami at home the next two weeks,

they could potentially be 6-4. But even if they don't... I don't like them to win this week. This one's a tough one. Well, even if they don't— I don't like them to win this week. This one's a tough one. Well, even if they don't get through this week, they can still be 5-5 heading into the bye, and they can still go 5-1 down the stretch. I think it takes 10 wins to make the playoffs.

It's an incredible Phil Rivers year. That's the only thing I'd like to say. The only thing I'd like to say. My pick this week, I kept staring at the Raiders, and I thought I was going to take the Raiders, and then Lombardi told us a little bit earlier that they've been in Tampa all week. They decided not to fly back. That makes me nervous.

You don't like that. The funny thing is, Tampa is flying back. Tampa was in San Francisco last week. The historical bent is to penalize the team that has to travel cross-country. You're penalizing the Raiders for staying in Florida. It's not just Florida. It's Tampa. I know what happens in Tampa.

I don't like this idea at all. And I don't think you can get grown men curfews. You know why I'm laughing. Yeah, I know why you're laughing. So I'm staying away from the Raiders. I like the Texans a little bit, but not quite enough. Because the Matt Stafford repeatedly coming back over and over again thing is, I just don't want to go against that right now.

I really like my team. And I'm taking them minus six and a half for the following reasons. The Bills embarrassed them a couple weeks ago. That's one. The Patriots now have Tom Brady, who they did not have in the last game. I think it turns out he might make a difference

over Jacoby Brissett. Gronk's 69th touchdown, and Mays and I just talked about the possibility of this happening the same day that the Cubs won the World Series that's pretty exciting and then uh and then last but not least leshawn mccoy not healthy pulling a hamstring and their receivers are a mess i was watching last week bill's dolphins and they kept throwing a goodwin the whole game because watkins is out robert woods didn't play so it was a good one.

I barely even had ever heard of good one. And at the end of the game, he got a concussion. So Woods is coming back. They have no receivers, and McCoy is banged up. And the Pats have that bend but don't break defense, but I just don't think they're going to be able to score touchdowns. And I think you're going to need to get to, I don't know, 27 to beat the Pats. And I don't think that the Bills can get to between 14 and 17.

And I think the Pats are just 24 points every game. So it's math. It's pure math, House. I think the Pats win. The people do not like it when I agree with you on Boston teams. Yeah. But I'm vigorously and almost violently in support of this Patriots pick this week. What's the closest game been with Brady back at the helm in terms of point differential?

Has anybody gotten within? No, they double figures every game. They've been 33, 35, 27. Last year they were at least, I forget if it was 24 or 27, but it's just the offense they have during the regular season, if everyone's healthy, they're going to get to the mid-20s every game and probably into the low 30s if they get a special teams player, defensive player, anything.

Since Brady's been back, yeah, Vegas has trotted out a whole series of inflated lines trying to get folks to take the other side. And I've been on the wrong side a couple times against Brady. I'm not doing it again. I support your pick of the Pets. Yeah, and they have a bye week next week too. So, you know, they like to pull the whole Milton Berle out the week before the bye week. All right, our joint pick this week is going to be the Chiefs.

They're playing at Indianapolis. They're laying two and a half points. It's a team that there's always been a lot of good games between these two teams. I just think the Colts are terrible. Last week they beat the Texans. They did this gimmick with, not the Texans, the Titans. They did this gimmick.

They had a bunch of tight ends and seven man offensive line. And I just, I don't think it's going to be something that works long term. I also like the Chiefs. I think they're good. They're not great. They're probably not a Super Bowl team,

but they're just a professional football team. I'm taking any lead. I'm right there. Exactly. That's the point I was going to make. I think these teams are not that far apart overall. There's a humongous difference

defensively, obviously, between the Colts and the Chiefs, but I like very much, it's a nice tight line. The Chiefs just have to win by a field goal. They are the better side of these two teams, and Andy reads on the road against the spread record over the years.

He's done a very nice job of preparing his teams for the road. I think the Chiefs can do a little ball control. And the other thing I worry about, every week with the Colts, is this the week that Andrew Luck gets knocked out of the game? Yeah. I'm not rooting for it.

Right. But it's always in play with this stinky Chiefs-Colts line. I have a little – we're adding a little wrinkle to this, the 60-foot putt. My 60-foot putt this week is that the Chiefs' defense or special teams gets a touchdown. Oh. I don't. Yeah. I like that.

I like to make up new wrinkles that you're not prepared for and you have no counter to, and I just get to own them myself. All right, quickly, let's talk about the Warriors and what we saw on Tuesday night. Do we have to? That was kind of the least interesting thing that happened among all of the NBA debut games. Like, hey, the Spurs are prepared with a game plan to beat a team that's never played a single game that matters together, and they have exactly the weapons, that pick and roll that the Spurs know how to run,

to challenge the Warriors. I felt like the thing that I greatly regret, you know this, I picked all three of the home teams in a three-way parlay just to win, just because I wanted a little action on NBA debut night. And there was an obvious and easy hedge on the Spurs. And before I walked out the door, I told my colleagues, the only one that's going to mess this up is the Spurs, because they're going to come in prepared for this Warriors, you know,

faux juggernaut. Well, you almost lost the Jazz game, for the record. But I was – I watched the Jazz game. I didn't almost lost the jazz game, for the record. But I was... I watched the jazz game. I didn't feel like the Jazz were going to win at any point. I mean, they were winning with four minutes to go. Joe Johnson was having an outer body experience. I think he likes the altitude.

I felt good about the Blazers. Go ahead. Here's what I noticed with the Warriors. And I think people are wrong to say it's one game, it's one game. Because there were a couple things that manifested themselves in that game that would have me concerned if I was a Warriors fan. One is that we knew Zaza was going to be a downgrade from Bogut. I don't think Zaza is a rotation player on a good team anymore.

And I didn't think he was last year in Dallas. I mean, he was, as any Mavericks fan will tell you, he was a train wreck the last four months in Dallas. He had a good first two months, and then he completely fell apart. Going from Bogut to Zaza is a real thing. And if you're going to play him 20 to 25 minutes a game, that is just a sub-subpar player to have in a championship rotation. I thought David West was done last

year too. I just didn't, you know, God bless him, had a great career. I just didn't think he really had an impact on the Spurs, especially in the playoffs. I'm not sure he's a rotation player either. I'm not sure where he plays on that team and how you use him correctly. So to be counting on those two guys, I think they miss Barbosa. I think they miss Spates. Obviously the Boga to Zealy combo, the shot blocking against a team like the Spurs where at least you could have some size protecting the rim.

Look, their ceiling is higher because of Durant. There's no question. Their best possible game is now a better possible game than what they had before, which is really frightening because they won 73 games last year. I think there's way less room for error game to game with the roster they have right now than they had last year. And that's the difference is that on any night, a decent playoff team has a chance against these guys if they're not shooting that well and last year their defense could win some games their bench could swing some games stuff like that I don't think their bench is going to swing games and let me tell you another thing I didn't love

what I saw from Iguodala in that game either and that's somebody that has a lot of miles on him and I just think I don't want to judge that by one game. I want to watch him more, but that's somebody who has a lot of miles on him. And he was the only guy in that roster who could guard Kawhi. And if Iguodala is now shifting to a different phase of his career, I think it's dangerous. So again, I don't want to overreact from one game, but those were just things I noticed. I think the zaza west thing is a real problem and it's going to continue to be a problem and iguodala i'm now watching to see how that plays out and whether he's the same guy that he was two years ago well they're going to win so many games because they're just so much better and i don't we barely got a taste because of the way that game went

of the five man defensive jubilant that is going to be kevin durant sliding in along with uh... draymond and clay and uh... a key and and that's you know that lineup of death that small, defensively really didn't get any minutes because they were so far behind so quickly. They made a quick push and then the Spurs jacked it right back up

and that was really, they never threatened the Warriors. But there's so much yet to be seen. Do you agree that that was a weird game to no-show? Out of all the games, you're going to not show up in that game and give up 129 points? I just didn't like that. Well, the no-show begins

and ends with one of the things you observed just earlier. Clay missed a boatload of open shots in the first half, and that's a deciding factor. How many times this season is that going to happen? How many times did you anticipate him missing? I mean, they were open threes,

and that's really the formula that we all expected to see. So one of those three guys is going to have open threes all game long, Clay Durant or Steph, and Clay had them and he missed them. I kind of like, over the balance of the season, the Warriors rebounding from that. I think Clay's going to turn out okay this season. Iggy is in year 13.

How about that? Oh, wow. I'm surprised to hear that. I would have guessed 10 if you put it to me. If you said, guess what year Iggy is in, I would have said 10. He's played 901 games. He during the first part of his career,

played a lot of minutes on those Sixers teams. And he played every game, too. So he played 82 games five of the first six years of his career, 76 the other year. Minutes per game, 32.8, 37.6, 40.3, 39.5, 39.9, 38.9. That was the first seven years of his career. So that's a lot of miles to go early on a perimeter guy, you know, unless it's LeBron, who you almost can't count in any of these conversations

for whatever reason. That's a fact. He's in his own class. Yeah, he's in his own class. Good way to put it. But I just feel like if he slips at all from the guy that he was to this, you know, different phase of his career where he's the wily veteran and maybe athletically is not quite the same guy. That's a pretty interesting wrinkle for the lineup of death because they're going to need him. Durant, Paul George, Kawhi, LeBron, all these guys throughout the league, that's the guy that has to guard them. I'm already bored talking about the Warriors. If they were going to play the Spurs for another 81 games or the Cavaliers for another 81 games, this might be more interesting,

but they're not. So they're going to go out and win an F-ton of games, maybe rip off 15 in a row or something. They're going to look back and say, oh, they figured out some stuff. The transition's working. My question to you, every single team in the league has played one game so far. What was your biggest surprise? Biggest surprise?

Yeah. I think LeBron wants to win the MVP. That was my biggest, I don't know if that's a surprise, but that was my one major takeaway from the first week was when he came back in to get the triple-double. And I think what LeBron, we've seen when he's really happy with his team and his situation he puts these little weird personal objectives out there remember that year he tried to shoot 60% and he tried to be like super duper efficient

he was like my team's good I'm going to try to do this during the season my guess it was kind of awesome to see too he did it he did it for like pretty much all through the All-Star break. And then he tailed off. But then it was like a three-month stretch where it was legitimately happening.

And he kind of mastered field goal percentage as a perimeter guy. My gut is telling me that he wants to win one more MVP. And that his team is really good. Love looked great. I mean, to me, that was the biggest. I wasn't surprised because I'd been reading about it, but just watching him, he looks like Kevin Love again. He's the right weight.

He's the right muscle. Like, he seems confident. He fits in with that team. He doesn't seem like, you know, an abused dog anymore. But LeBron going back in and getting that triple-double made me wonder, is he going to go for a 20-10-10 this season? Oh, it's so exciting. I'm sitting here with a smile on my face.

The thing I like the best about that Cavs game was how seamless it all looked. It felt like, oh, I just watched this team in the finals, and they were ripping stuff off like this. The game never fell in doubt, even when the Knicks were up. I appreciate the Knicks were competitive for a little while. They did the best they can. That's a team that's going to win 38 or 39 games, maybe. Maybe they'll nudge up to 40.

But I enjoyed it. I think it's going to be a very enjoyable year. I'm knocking loudly on wood for a mostly healthy Cavs season. Every team will have some injuries through the course of the season, but I want to see this Cavs team stay healthy all the way through because they could do

really interesting things, I think. We both like them for the over. I think we made them over locks. No, I think if those three guys, if nothing major happens to those three guys, I think you can pencil that in. The Cavs are the most complete regular season team just night to night.

I think they have the biggest room for error. If like, oh, Kyrie's not playing well, okay, we'll do this. Or, oh, guys, can the bench bring us back, please, in this quarter? There's a lot of stuff they can do. You know, the other thing I liked, and I wasn't really surprised by it, but I just liked it, was just how the clips looked last night. I watched the second half.

I just think it's a good basketball team. I was having a little behind-the-scenes chat with The Ringer's own Chris verno because the homie sent me some wonderful barbecue yeah he sent me some memphis barbecue i mean you know buddy bro for life verno but we were i i was uh commenting to him i i thought blake looked incredible he looked great i the the the effects you know, really having essentially three quarters of a season off. And it's clear that he was focused on his physical conditioning. His bounce was awesome. I mean, it's like the kind of bounce we saw out of him, I feel like two years

ago. He looked so comfortable. You know who else looked great? DeAndre. I think the Olympics really helped DeAndre. There was one play in the fourth quarter when they got a defensive rebound and he flew down the side and ended up getting flagrant fouled by McCollum. If you watch that play on replay on the NBA app, he's running like

a 4-4-40 down the sideline. They just look, the whole team, even Chris, who usually November or December plays himself into shape a little bit. I thought he looked like he was in shape. And I think Ray Felton's going to really help them. You know, Ray Felton was good last year on Dallas as kind of a third guard slash somebody who could come in from time to time and take over a game for five minutes, which is weird to say

because he's had such a weird career. But I thought he was pretty good last year. They've been dying for a backup point guard. The Austin Rivers experiment, I know that they're committed to it and they've reinvested in it, but the rest of us sitting on the outside looking in say, goodness gracious, at some point you have to address that. Maybe Felton is the answer to that. I want to talk about another L.A. team, the other L.A. team,

because that was the most eye-opening performance to me of the first set of games. I was so goddamn impressed by the Lakers, I have to say. The difference between Byron Scott and Luke Walton, I know it's only one game and it's an almost entirely different cast, but what a professional basketball team that was out on the floor against Houston. I agree. I know that Kobe hate is a properly alleged crime that you and I commit repeatedly, but it's a joke what Kobe did to that team last year. That wasn't a professional basketball team. If I had season tickets to the Lakers right now, I would be writing and asking for a refund. I'd just write the letter because it would make me personally feel good. Could I please have a refund

of the garbage money that I threw away on that awful garbage team last year? Because this is a professional basketball team. This is what it looks like when guys hustle for 48 minutes in a rotation with 10 guys and sharing the ball and letting young players get out

and get their legs. I was so impressed by that. What about you? I knew it was coming because I had watched them in the preseason. So I fell in love with the Baby Lakers about two weeks ago as a league pass team. The quotes they had after the game were really interesting. They were basically saying last year it was Kobe fans, and they were there to see Kobe, and we were just kind of there on the court.

I mean, if you read between the lines, that's what they're saying. Like we were just kind of the accessories to everybody's last year with Kobe and this year, Kobe crime accessories to Kobe crime. And this year we felt like the fans were rooting for us. That's an actual quote. Somebody, I forget who said it, but somebody said that last week. Like we felt like the fans were rooting for us.

That's a pretty illuminating quote, but I think it's a young team that really got energized by the fact that they felt like the fans were on their side and not just waiting to see Kobe jack up a three. I forgot to mention. Well, they deserved it, too. Yeah. I forgot to mention one other thing that I was just, you asked me what the biggest surprise for me was.

I was staggered by Embiid. I just couldn't believe it. They were posting him up, and he was facing up and beating Steven Adams off the dribble and getting the rim. And he shot a three, and he made it. And he was flying around like a young Hakeem Olajuwon on defense. I was just so impressed. What a gem. I'm pounding the defense. I was just so impressed. What a gem. I'm pounding the wood.

I'm pounding on wood. You can hear me pounding. Please let him stay healthy. That was another team. I so enjoyed watching the Sixers. I can't believe it. Did you talk about it with Lombardi at all? We talked about it a little bit.

Here's the thing, though. If Embiid is going to be able to play 35 minutes a game, and I think he's going to be eventually, they need to get him a real point guard. Enough fucking around. Go get a guard. You know, like Rodriguez? No, go get a guard.

They're available. You can't go through a whole season with yet another poo-poo platter backcourt. Go get somebody. Go use Noel or use okafer or use that uh i think they have that lakers pick still do something go get go get somebody who can make an impact like i think eric butzo can be gotten from phoenix go just go get him figure out what it takes do a three-teamer that would be really nice that That accelerates their timeline. I mean, I know we're still in the process mode because they still have –

don't they have another incredible pick up there coming up? They have their own pick and they have the Lakers pick. Look, it doesn't have to be Eric Bledsoe. It just has to be – they just have to – Okafor is, I would say, eminently tradable now because I don't see a world where he plays with Embiid and watching him kind of stroll into the game for six minutes and leave. And also somebody that should be an asset on the right team.

I would love to have him on the Celtics coming off the bench. He'd look wonderful in an almost bullet. Red, white, blue, come on down here to the nation's capital. So I hope they get him a point guard, but I love them. All right, we have to go. So our Callaway part three, you took the Chargers. We both took the Chiefs, and I took the Patriots. So those are our three picks, and you can listen to House.

What's the name of that podcast again? It's the Checkhouse. All right. What's the name? Is there any big more golf stuff coming up? We're in November house. What's the name of that podcast again? It's the Checkhouse! Is there any big more golf stuff coming up? We're in November now. Well, there's one very important golf thing. I'm coming out to San Diego this week. San Diego, California. Callaway is collaborating with

the San Diego Padres on the Lynx at Petco Park. Nine-hole golf course set up in the baseball park. One of the holes is right off of home plate. I think that you're not allowed to hit a ball out of the stadium, but I'm going to try. Believe me. I mean, how can I stand at home plate and not hit a golf ball over center field?

It's the only way I could ever get a home run out of there. Please do that. But, yeah, so we're going to record. There will be a bunch of content coming out of that, live and taped. Keep your eyes open, CallawayGolf.com. You can see all the stuff coming out of there. Shackelford and I will be together for that fantastic event. So keep your eyes open for that.

Great. And speaking of fantastic events, thank you to SeatGeek and Stitcher for sponsoring the Keeping It 1600 event last night. It is exclusively running on stitcher through friday and then it goes on their feed this weekend so thanks to everybody for that it worked out great thanks to sling tv the best way to watch live tv on your turf sling orange service just pay 20 bucks a month you get espn espn2 and more top channels add the sports extra for five dollars extra to watch sec network and more football start watching for seven days free at sling.com slash Bill Simmons. Restrictions apply.

Don't forget about any given Wednesday. Catch up on the Gretzky-Burr-Wilmore episode on HBO Go or HBO On Demand, 10 p.m. every Wednesday on HBO. Don't forget about all the other podcast feeds on The Ringer. And if you didn't read the column I wrote about LeBron this week on theringer.com, it is up there. Go check it out. Joe House, as always, a pleasure. We'll talk to you next week. Anytime y'all want to see me again, rewind this track right here, close your eyes, and picture me rolling.