The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 141: Mike Lombardi, Joe House and JackO

Episode Date: November 11, 2016

Bill Simmons brings on Mike Lombardi to discuss New England's defense against Russell Wilson (2:50) and which NFL teams are contenders or pretenders (9:25). Then Joe House joins to pick NFL games for the Callaway par-3 (27:00), debate a hypothetical John Wall trade to the Nuggets (36:40), and speculate on Klay Thompson's early shooting struggles (42:10). After that, JackO breaks down a wild election and wonders about the future of both parties (49:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Download the free SeatGeek app or go to SeatGeek.com. We are also brought to you by Sling TV the absolute best way to watch live TV on your turf cord cutting embrace it with Sling Orange service pages 20 a month that's dollars and get ESPN ESPN 2 and more top channels plus

add the sports extra for just 5 bucks to watch SEC Network and more football start watching for 7 days free at Sling.com slash billsimmons. Restrictions do apply. Hey, welcome to the BS Podcast. Taping this on a Thursday afternoon, we have Mike Lombardi. We're going to do football picks with Joe House and then Jacko

talking about the election, which Jacko's been coming on my podcast since 2007. We've talked politics from time to time. And we certainly never expected to have the conversation we're going to have later in this podcast. So that's on the end. If you're burned out by politics and politic talk, all that stuff, you can just skip it and just listen to the other two.

Wanted to mention, we filmed the last any given wednesday this week it ran on wednesday it was with my friends jimmy kimmel and adam carolla and that's that so uh i'll have news on what's next down the road but for now just wanted to say um we said this so we did a the press release all that stuff but did want to say like i really love the people i worked with on the tv show um the one thing we managed to achieve was we collected a great group of great group of personalities characters people that really genuinely liked each other and i think that's been the saddest part of this whole thing was just um you know the fact that it didn't last longer because everybody really liked working with each other. So I want to give them a shout out. Fortunately, we have a chance to get drunk next week.

I'm looking forward to that and more details to come down the road on that whole side of things. For now, we're doing a podcast. Let's go. Here we go, Joe! All right, he's on with us just about every week. You've seen him on FS1.

You've seen him on Sundays with the Fox 11 AM show. You saw him in the headlines after the Jamie Collins trade. He became part of the story. We have not talked to you since. Mike Lombardi, how are you? I am great. I am wonderful. I like that.

I love the theory that you're like Belichick's, I don't know, Bundini Brown or something. When something happens, you just have to read the tea leaves with what you say. That's how Belichick feels. Like he's not his own person. Yeah, he's only won four Super Bowls, been to six. He's gotten more rings than anybody, but yet he thinks the people think I'm speaking for him. That's the most amazing part is, you know, I mean, look, I know how he thinks, but I don't know how he's going to – I know how he thinks if I was working with him, but I don't know how he thinks independently of that.

So it was kind of comical how people took it to such an extreme level. Like I was just feeding the information on Jamie when nobody was paying attention. This podcast and every show I've been on have been complaining about the Patriots' defense. Right. I mean, it's remarkable. Well, the other funny part about it is

Belichick cares what the media thinks probably less than any person who has ever worked in sports as a player or coach. So, I don't know. The whole thing was funny. And the defense was terrible, and we've talked about it over and over again on this podcast. I've been extremely concerned about the Patriots' defense,

and I think a lot of warts and scars and open wounds have been covered up by the teams they've played and the luck they've had with the schedule, and it's going to continue this week. You have the Seahawks. Wilson, I mean, everybody's like, Wilson's back. I don't think Wilson's back. I don't think he can really move that well,

and I don't think the Seahawks' offense is very good. I think he's the type of quarterback that would kill them in the right situation, but he can't move like he used to. What do you think? I don't think he's as fast as he once was. No, I think he isn't moving as well, and I think that offensive line's a liability. Look, at the end of the game, when they had a chance to keep the ball away from Seattle

against Buffalo and get three first downs, they couldn't do it. I think it's going to be hard to go into New England and win with just a passing game and keep them off balance. I think they'll make some plays, but at the end of the day, they'll struggle to score enough points because New England will score points. I mean, New England has a good feel for how to play against the scheme. They understand how to attack it. And, you know, if the game gets in the 20s,

you have to wonder if Seattle is going to have the ball with consistency enough to get it there, and who knows what happens with the officiating. I mean, God knows last week they got a huge break, but, you know, anything can happen. I mean, Seattle's a good team got a huge break. But, you know, anything can happen. I mean, Seattle's a good team. So Seattle's not going to just lay down and die. But I think Seattle's concerns offensively, which is why I thought they wouldn't beat New Orleans.

And New Orleans is because I just didn't think they could match them point for point. I thought the offensive production would have a lag, and that would give New Orleans an advantage. Yeah, you know, the Pats don't have a pass rush. Normally that's the type of situation where Wilson is just unstoppable. If you're just giving him time, oh, that guy's not there? All right, I'm going to run here. Oh, I'm going to run over here.

All right. And then it's the same reason why Roethlisberger's had some success against the Pats too. But I don't see that guy. And I do think that if the Pats can get through this week, now you're looking at San Francisco, at the Jets, home for the Rams and Ravens, at Denver. And Denver's not in a free fall,

but they certainly don't look like the contender they did a month ago. Then home for the Giants and at Miami. I mean, you could argue this is their toughest game left on the schedule. Do any of those other games scare you? No, I think Seattle's a good team, so I do think this... Now, I think Seattle not having Michael Bennett's a different enterprise, but they're a good team. I think this will be the

best team they play. I think Seattle's still at the end of the season will be Dallas and Seattle, for me, will be playing for the right to go to the championship and to the Super Bowl. So I still think this is a really good team, and all those other teams on that list don't have near the mental toughness. I mean, I think that's the remarkable thing that always strikes me about Seattle

is their ability to play in close games, never blink, never panic, and find a way to win the game and enjoy being in really close games and finding a way to come out the winner. And those are the hardest teams to beat and the hardest teams to kill. And that's why they're always going to be a threat coming back to New England, whether they go to Dallas or whatever they have to do. You're going to have to defeat the champ if you want to beat Seattle. All right, let's go through mental toughness checklist.

Patriots, yes. I'm going to say Cowboys, yes. What do you think? I think people laughed at last week. Well, they beat the bad Browns. Well, yeah, the Browns are bad. But I thought that was a mental toughness game for Dallas because you could easily have said, you know what,

we don't even need to bring our A game and we'll beat the Browns. And Dallas, not only did they bring their A game, they brought their A-plus game. They were focused. They were serious. They looked like a Patriot type of team. They took the game right to, I mean, Cleveland went down the field, kicked a field goal, scored, got the lead, and they never blinked. They went right down the field. They scored. They dominated. They were the

best team on the field. That was a mental toughness win, and I think Dallas is developing a huge level of mental toughness from their defensive coordinator, Rod Marinelli, to the way their offense, the run of the football, the offensive line, I think that's a tough, tough mentally team physically as well. You need a Lombardi phrase for the taking care of business win. That was just one of those, like, you know what? Let's go to Cleveland. Let's take care of business. No screwing around.

This has all the makings of a trap game. Let's just finish this off really quick and get out of there. Especially knowing they're playing Pittsburgh the next week. So, you know, they've got to play Pittsburgh. You think, oh, we've got to make two trips. Now, I mean, to me, that was an impressive game for that. Yeah, we do need a name for that kind of a style of play. Maybe that's like Goodfellas when Leota and Pesci go down to Florida

to just take care of that guy. It's like Goodfellas, Florida trip. Pack one bag, go down, do your thing, get out of there. Raiders, mental toughness or no? I thought so. I thought the Raiders finally played a complementary football game. They played the way they have to play. They cannot let their defense on the field for 30 minutes.

They can't play Little League defense. They have to play Little League defense. They can't play a full game. Their defense isn't good enough, and their offense is good enough to control the football and handle the game. And I think that's really where they gained the advantage. They kept that Denver. They made Denver play from behind, which Denver doesn't really want to do. They ran the ball right at Denver on the road, which is not an easy thing to do, but they were able to. And they kept their defense off the field, and they dominated the game. I thought that was remarkable. They cut

down their penalties. They've always done a good job protecting the football, but they give away so much in other areas, and that was a complete game for the Raiders. And I thought it was a statement saying, look, we're mentally tough. We can handle this. When do we have the, are we sure they're a good conversation about the Broncos? Because I don't think it's this week.

But how many weeks away are we from me asking you that? Well, I think it is this week. I think this is a tougher, I think this is, now, I think New Orleans has a chance to get back in this thing. Yeah. And Denver is not going to just be explosive and run away from the Saints. And the Saints play so much man coverage. I mean, the Broncos play so much man that they don't have Tlaib.

Now they don't have Derek Wolfe. And what we do know about Drew Brees is this. He likes to step up in the pocket. He doesn't really mind guys coming on the edge. So they'll set inside out. And as good as Von Miller is, and he's great, Brees will step up in the pocket and still find a way to make throws, he'll find a way to make completions, he'll find a way to make plays.

And I think this game, if it gets to the 20s, my question is, can Denver score 20? Do they have a passing game to score 20? Do they have a running game to score 20? And I think that's the problem, and their offensive line's not played nearly as well as they'd hoped. I think Denver is going to have to slug it out with everybody. When they can't run the football like they haven't been able to on the road, they ran it against Cincinnati. But other than that, when you look at them on the road, they struggle to run the football. Then I think they've got some problems, and I think this is when it creeps into you. This is a game that, look, Denver can go in there and win,

but New Orleans is hard to play in that stadium, and New Orleans gets their season back if they win this game. I mean, that's what they do. I think New Orleans has a little mojo back, and they have a lot of weapons, man. They have three good receivers. Their running backs can run and catch the ball. They're not great, but they can run and catch the ball and at least move the chains. The tight end who they shouldn't assign, they should

have spent the money in the defense, Kobe Fleener. But at least he's a tight end who can make you think for a second. I just think every game they're going to put up points. And I'm with you. I think Denver, we just have not seen from them that they have enough weapons to match a team. Now, they might go into New Orleans and just be like, we're taking these guys out. But I don't know if they have the linebackers to do that anymore. Do you see that? I don't see the linebacker play like that. I don't, and I think that what Sean Payton will do is he'll take a little bit of that Falcon game plan

of isolating their backs because they've got some good backs. He sees a team run for over 200 yards against them last week, what the Raiders did. So he knows what they do. He doesn't have to leave out there. And it's tough to play man-to-man against the Saints because Sean does so many different things with them, and Breeze is so good.

Plus the snap count. I think Denver proved to me last night, last week, watching them play in Oakland, that they need to play home playoff games to be a really good team. And I think that that's going to be a challenge, because when they go on the road, I don't know if they can handle it. They've had some injuries. They're not the same defense.

So you can run the ball more effectively on them. And right now, they're just a 2-2 team on the road. They went into San Diego. San Diego had a command of the game, and of course, they barely hung on. But I think it shows up on the road. And look, the Saints have only held one team under 20 points all year. That's the Giants. Yeah.

And my question is, can the Broncos score more than 20? Understanding this, they're 28th in the league in third-down conversions. Okay, but here's where it gets really hairy. They're 25th in the league when it's third and sixth or more. So if you win the running game, see, this is where stats kind of lead you down a road. If you win the running game, if you stop their running game and you force them into third or sixth or more, you own them. They're 25th in the league in that area. They're not going to convert enough of those. They might get one or two, but they're not going to dominate the game in that area. And so that's where everything starts

to compound for Denver Orleans, for Denver, because of one problem sets off another problem. All of a sudden they've got three problems. I think Minnesota is in real trouble and does not look right to me. They, their running back situation and their receiver situation, the combo of that is just murdering them, not to mention their offensive line and their defense doesn't look as fierce as it once did, who the hell wins that division? Because I cannot figure it out. Please don't tell me Jim Caldwell is winning that division.

I can't figure it out either. I mean, people are talking about it. I did this on my podcast. People are talking about Matthew Stafford for the MVP. He lost in Houston to my man Brock Osweiler, a.k.a. the Luz Cansa Heist. He lost to Houston to my man Brock Osweiler, a.k.a. the Lusconza Heist. He lost to Tennessee at home. He lost to Chicago on the road.

How are you the MVP candidate when you've lost to those three teams? Now, he could be the best. And I said this on the pod, he's like a trailer player. You know when you go watch a movie and you think that could be a good movie, but that might be the funniest lines of the movie? Well, if you just watch a trailer of Matthew Stafford, you're going to fall in love with him, right? Because he does show you the last two minutes of the games they've won.

You go, oh, wow, that's great. But the other 58 minutes, what's going on? And I love Matthew Stafford, but I can't see Detroit with that defense winning. I can't see Green Bay with their lack of skill players winning. I mean, Green Bay has six college free agents on their roster right now. Six college free agents on their roster. And people tell me, oh, Green Bay's a talented team. They're a talented team.

No, no, stop. They were a talented team. You know, then is then, now is now. And that's the reality of Green Bay. So I can't give you an answer. It reminds me, the Green Bay thing reminds me of Favre near the tail end of his prime, maybe a tiny bit after in the

mid-2000s, when they just weren't good anymore, but it was Favre. It was like, oh, they'll be fine. I just don't see it. I think if the Colts beat you at home, you're terrible. You're just terrible. You are, and you have to drink

the Kool-Aid. Packer stop drinking the Kool-Aid. Packer fans drink the Kool-Aid. And the reality here is, one time we were playing Cincinnati at 93, and we just lost them. And I get on the team bus, and Saban's sitting in his first seat there, and he's making himself a sandwich, and he's like, what's wrong, dog? I said, I hate losing this team. I thought I was going to go burn my clothes every time we lose to the Bengals.

I just can't stand it. He said, hey, when you admit that they're better than we are, that's when we'll start beating them. And he's right. And when the Packers admit they've got a problem, I mean, they went into the game last week. If you were a fantasy player and you had any Packer running back, you had to be appalled.

They went into the game with Tyrone Montgomery. No fantasy player would go into the game with Tyrone Montgomery and Don Jackson as their two starters. I mean, you wouldn't do that in Madden. When I say the Packers are terrible, I want to preface that by saying I think like 22 of these teams are terrible. I'm not singling out the Packers. I just think the Colts are terrible. I think all these teams are terrible.

This is the worst football week to week we've ever seen. There's only like, I don't know, eight or nine teams I even trust. But that's always the league. And that's what Bill Walsh said to me in 84. But when the Indianapolis Colts stick their middle finger at you and say, we're going to play man-to-man defense and see what you can do, and you don't have a come-to-Jesus conversation with yourself after that, you've got issues.

But I think the difference with this season, there was always a top half and a bottom, and a basement. This year, the Bears are probably the fourth worst team in the league. They could go into Green Bay and beat Green Bay. The Chiefs are probably the sixth best team in the league. I don't trust the Chiefs.

I think it's so weird how the middle class is basically almost indiscernible who's good and who's not good. And the advanced metrics back it up. Like, our dudes at Football Outsiders, they had the Eagles as the number one team in DVOA this week. This week!

I don't even want to go down that road on outside. Like, I was going to tweet that. Like, how could this happen? I don't even want to go down that road on outside. Like, I was going to tweet that. Like, how could this happen? I don't even want to go down there because I don't feel like listening to people. Like, pass the eye test. I mean, first of all, you've got Doug Peterson coaching your team. To me, there's got to be a category for head coach on that football outsider thing. Yeah.

You know, and so there ought to be a category. Ben McAdoo, Doug Peterson, I've got to have a category. But to me, here's what happens now. Bill, we're in November. The gales of November have come. And to have a category. But to me, here's what happens now, Bill. We're in November. The gales of November have come. And weather plays a factor. And teams' improvement must show up. You can't practice as much as you did in September or even August, okay?

So what most teams that win now figure out, they aren't like Nicolas Cage who thinks, you know, I'm just having two or three drinks a day. We've got a problem. We need to fix it, okay? Yeah. And that's where I'm saying the Packers won't do it. New England's sitting there saying we're no good on defense.

We're trading Jamie Collins. We're putting Landon Roberts in. Whether it works out or not, I don't know. But they're having an honest conversation with themselves. The teams that win in November and December have that honest conversation. That's all I'm saying. And they need to fix it. You can't go in a game with Ty Montgomery and Don Jackson who had a cast on his hand

as his only running back and then blame McCarthy because he can't run the ball. I mean, that's not fair. I mean, you can blame McCarthy for things, but to me, McCarthy deserves a purple heart for A, looking at six college free agents make a team that's supposed to be really good

and not bitch about his GM. You tell me another situation where a coach who's dealt that hand that McCarthy has, who isn't going up there saying, hey, put Larry Brown in that press conference. I don't know. This is what they give me. I don't know. What can I tell you? So there's a couple.

Week 10 is when somebody makes a run. Somebody gets hot. Maybe even two teams get hot. I can't figure out who those teams are going to be. I'm going to give you one of them right now. Give me one. Baltimore. Baltimore has all the earmarks of a team that wins in November, December.

They're really good on first down defense. They don't let the ball get thrown over their head. They're physical. They're tough to play. They're in every game. Their field goal kicker hasn't missed a field goal all season. He's 20 for 20. They're minus two in the turnover takeaway, but when you

add the five missed field goals against them, they're minus seven. Now, they can't run the football at all, but their offensive line finally just got back intact. So last week against the Steelers, they were able to, you know, they could block.

And they made a couple plays. They're not great on offense, don't get me wrong. But their defense can play. And they have all the earmarks of a team that gets better in November and December. And they're going to be a tough out. All right, so here's the point-counter point for that. They lost to the Jets in Week 7. Now, here's the flip side of that.

The Redskins game that they lost, they scored 10 points, but they should have won. That was a stupid game. They've actually lost two of their three either-or games because they lost to the Giants game they could have won, too. They looked good last week against the Steelers. They dominated that game. Now, Roethlisberger wasn't healthy. They also hung with the Raiders.

They could have been on the field. Yeah. But the Jet game you're citing, their offensive line was completely in disarray. It's fair. And, look, I'm not sitting here saying Marty Morningwigg's going to design an offense to gain 50 points a night. I'm saying that they have some skill. They're horrible on third down. But'm saying that they have some skill. They're horrible on third down, but they can make a

player or two here. And if they get the ball in your field, they're going to make the kick. And they're going to play close games and they're mentally tough enough to win those kind of close games. They're dangerous this time of the year. When wind plays a factor and weather, they're dangerous. And the best case you made,

they're professional. As you said, I think dangerous and the best case you made just they're they're professional nobody as you said nobody throw i think they had the best defense for like against long plays and long runs like you just don't get them against the ravens they they're good on special teams they don't beat themselves unless the linebackers reaching over the goal line for the touchdown which was a total fluke now here's the the flip side, though. They have a tough schedule left. They have road games at Dallas, at the Pats, at Pittsburgh, and at Cincinnati, and they've already lost four games. But if you're good, you're good. It doesn't matter.

Right, but they lose Suggs for an extended period. I mean, if they lose that offensive line again, like if Stanley's not playing left tackle and Lewis isn't playing left guard and they have to start moving pieces around again. And look, Flacco doesn't really have any faith in anybody other than Pitta. Maybe he's starting to develop some in Mike Wallace. I don't know. But Flacco hasn't been the same either.

He's coming off the A.D. He doesn't look very good either. And it looked like he almost got seriously hurt last week. I thought his brace was all screwed up. It looked like he blew it out again. One of the worst slides in Little League practice. Hey, can I defend the football outsider guys for a second?

Sure. That site has been really reliable and has had a good indicator year after year of like, oh, you're kind of sleeping on this team, or oh, even though the win-loss record doesn't totally reflect it, this is happening.

I think this year for them is a little bit like what happened with all the political models with Trump and Clinton. I think it's such an effed up football season that it's almost like their model can't figure out what to do with it. All these teams, the Patriots are the best team in the league. And as you said, their defense stinks. They just traded Jamie Collins. So I don't know how, what do you, what statistical model is going to make anything?

I don't think, I think they would admit it. They don't know what the hell's going on. How are the Eagles number one in DVOA, which has been really reliable over the years because the league just isn't as good right now. It's depressing. And look, in fairness to the Eagles, if they get Benny Logan back, I think the Eagles beat Atlanta this week. Not because I think Atlanta's not any good, but I think they match up to Atlanta.

There are two tackles. If Logan plays and Fletcher Cox inside, you've got to pressure Matt Ryan. Matt Ryan's been hit 61 times so far this year. He's been hit the third most of any quarterback in the season. He gets hit a lot. He's tough as hell. But they can year. He's been hit the third most of any quarterback in the season. He gets hit a lot. He's tough as hell. But they can do it.

I just think the Eagles have no idea offensively about where they are and who they are. And they need a running back. I think that it's so funny. You and I would always talk about all these running backs that we would pluck off rosters. Where are they? What happened?

The seven teams don't have running backs. I mean, the Packers played a guy with one arm last week. You know, you think you should be able to find one, especially for what they do. Like, you know, I mean, look, DeCancy just took Bishop Shanky. Not that he's a great player off of New England's practice

squad. There's guys you can put. I mean, look, Cedric West and Spencer Ware, those weren't household names in Kansas City. You know, so I just think to me... Your dude Jalen Richard looked great last week.

That was one of our guys. He's really good. And they kind of rotate backs through there. It's to find the role. Like, now Peterson's going to play Sproles and every down back. So now it's like having two good pitchers and you trade a pitcher for a hitter. So now you play Sproles all the time and you lose his

impact on third down. That's not good. I used to drive Al Davis crazy. That was the one thing he used to preach all the time. If you have two good pitchers and you need hitting, don't trade a pitcher. Build a strength on a strength. Last question. Do you think any of these three-win teams make the playoffs?

Cardinals, Panthers, Rams, Bucs, Jets? I thought the Panthers could, but I think their schedule is too hard. Yeah, they screwed it up. I think the schedule will get them. I thought the Panthers could, but I just think the schedule's too tough. What other teams do we have there? You have the Cards,

you have the Rams, you have the Bucucks, you have the Jets. We cross off the Rams, Bucks, and Jets. I think the Cards can. I think the Cards can. I think the Cards have got San Francisco this week. I think the Cards can get... You know, when they panicked after week one, I told you that they're looking to get to the top of the mountain without climbing it.

You know, I thought that was a little premature. And they have a good team. Now, I think the problem the Cards have, and I'm going to hedge my bet here, is I don't know who's going to play left tackle. Aldrich John or are they going to move DJ Humphries over there? If they don't have a legitimate left tackle, as we know from New England last year, it's hard to overcome replacing a left tackle. And losing Valdez hurts them.

Your Sixers look good. I've been watching. Yeah, thanks. I mean, Abid's great. Trust the process. We're. Your Sixers look good. I've been watching. Yeah, thanks. I mean, Abid's great. Trust the process. Abid's great. We're 0-7. Really good.

This is the best possible process, though. The team's fun to watch, and you're 0-7. What more could you want? You have 82 entertaining games. You could lose all of them, get the number one pick again. The process, man. It's so great. The process.

It's so good. Mike Lombardi, as always, a pleasure. What's the name of your podcast? Make Me Smarter Podcast. You can get it on all those sound – it's only every Tuesday it comes out. It's 22 minutes. It'll take you – not even a ride in L.A. traffic. It's easy.

Okay. All right. We'll talk to you next week. Thanks, Bill. Bye-bye. Let's take a quick break to talk about wine. We sang the praises of Club W on this pod before. They are now called Winc.

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Every week, Joe House and I do the Callaway Par 3. We've decided to team up these last couple weeks through the rest of the season and make our picks. I make one, he makes one, then we make one together. We are two over par right now. We've bogeyed a couple holes last week. Went in the woods. Knocked one out of bounds.

It was trouble. House, we're rallying back this week. How are you? This week, I'm very excited to talk about Callaway Customs. Callaway Customs bringing tour-level wedge customization. You can personalize

your Callaway wedges with letters, numbers, symbols. You, Bill Simmons, I think have one of these. Did you not get an Any Given Wednesday wedge? I do. Long live any given Wednesday. Long live it. It's great.

It's a great keepsake. It's the best. Callawaygolf.com backslash Callaway Customs. Go on there. Check out letters, numbers, symbols, colors. You can personalize it however you want. All right. I might have one that says check out.

All right. Can you get to the fact that you're taking the Broncos, even though Lombardi told us for 10 minutes? I really am taking the Broncos. Oh, my God. Here's one angle that I like. I like an angle. Okay.

I have an angle. I'm waiting. Defending Super Bowl champions. Yeah. Like the Denver Broncos. 24-2 against the spread since 1981 if they are on the road after a loss and matched up against a team

that the previous week won both straight up and against the spread and the Super Bowl champion is not getting seven or more points. So that all applies to the Denver Broncos here. A wonderful nugget. My good pal Big Al McMoore defeating me. Oh, my God.

A big-out nugget. What's wrong with that one? It's like watching you duck hook a drive, and now we just bogeyed the first hole, and now we've got to win these next two. Denver's not winning in New Orleans. But that's all right. I hope you're right. The Saints have the 30th ranked defense, allowing 30 points per game.

I like Denver to get a little spark in the offense just prior to their bye week. The people of Denver hate me, by the way. Well, New Orleans hates you too now, and they're yelling who dat at you. My first pick, or my personal, well, let's do our joint pick. Okay. We both like the Eagles. The Eagles are first in DVOA. The Eagles have a good football team. The Eagles should have beaten the Giants last week.

They have some flaws. They have some running backs you might not feel good about starting on your fantasy team. They have a young quarterback who throws balls very high and is going to get one of his receivers hurt at some point. But I think they're talented, and I think they have a good defense, and I like the way they match up with this Falcons team. And I think you do too. And most importantly, I like the fact that they're getting points at home.

And we've seen the home dog starting to take care of business recently. The Eagles are getting two points. And I just like them. What do you think? Yeah, we're in the same boat. This Philly team is kind of an enigma. Can you think of a team, a better team in recent memory, with worst players at the skill position?

I mean, the roster. Nelson Ag mean, the roster of all those teams. Right. Incredibly bad receivers, completely non-consequential running backs, with the exception of Sproles. But there was also some nice angles on the Eagles and angles that go against the Falcons. I'll only mention one of them, Atlanta, 37-57 against the spread after scoring 30-plus points in his previous game.

37-57 kind of sounds like my record of picks this season. But it's also working against Atlanta, so I like the Eagles on this spot. Their last five games, either were a game in Detroit, they lost by two. Lost by seven to the Skins skins they were in that game beat the vikings overtime loss to the cowboys last week's giants game which was another either or game um i don't know they just hang in games and i like them getting points and they also they have a really tough schedule and if they blow this game they're major major trouble now i'm not a doug pet fan, and I'll probably regret that we picked him on Sunday, but right now I like it.

All right, last pick. Oh, man. I can't believe. That was a heavy sigh. I can't believe I'm doing this. I'm taking your team. Wow. Yeah.

I'm taking your team in Washington. They. I'm taking your team in Washington. They're only laying two and a half points to Minnesota. I think Minnesota is in a free fall, and I think their offense is terrible. They can't block. They can't run. They can't throw the ball. You guys can throw the ball. You guys can do stuff.

I think the crowd's going to be fired up. I like the NFC East. I like the NFC East. I think the NFC East is just good. The league sucks, and somehow you have a good division. The Eagles are the fourth best team in the division right now, and the Eagles are number one in DVOA. So I don't know. The line's off.

I think the line should be like Washington by four, but it's Washington by two and a half. The Vikings team getting a lot of respect right now. They've had a lot of turmoil. The OC quit. I don't know. I don't see it. What do you think?

I think the line is exactly appropriate at two and a half. I actually will, of course, be taking the Vikings this week because I still think that the Deadskins are doing it with a little bit of smoke and mirrors. Although at this very second, they are in the playoff picture. They're the sixth team right now in the playoff coming in from the NFC Conference. But I just worry every single week, is this going to be the week where the wheels really come off on defense? That's what I'm most concerned about. The Deadskins should have beaten Detroit in Detroit.

They scored with a minute left and then let Matt Stafford march right down the field and in about 40 seconds have scored a game-winning touchdown. Every week I have this concern. The missed field goal in overtime against Cincinnati is obviously going to be a thing that haunts them for the balance of the season because 5-3 right now at this moment is something you can really sink your teeth into. 5-3-1, right? Yeah, 5-3-1 is a real record.

What I would be if they win this. Yeah, if they win this. For me, it's more of an anti-Minnesota pick. I think they're getting too much respect for what the team, how the team has been performing the last few weeks. We should mention since you're here, we,

you were part of the incredible bet that Sal and I made that we conceived in Vegas of the Patriots to win the AFC East, which I was at a table imploring all of you

that we had to figure out a way to make money because every year the Pats win the AFC East and for some reason Vegas continues to offer this bet. Every year, I somehow figure out how to make money because every year the Pats win the AFC East. And for some reason, Vegas continues to offer this bet. Every year I somehow figure out how to lose this bet, even though the Pats always win the AFC East.

This year, it was Hillary Clinton, who we had at like minus 300. We parlayed them together. It was a great bet. It was going to win. She was minus 600 over the weekend. We had so many chances to go against this. We stared at it. We stared at it.

We never did. And yeah, many chances to go against this. We stared at it. We stared at it. We never did. And yeah, that's how I lost money. And that's how you lost money and Sal lost money on the most improbable political election of all time. I'm weirdly proud of us. If anyone was going to, if we're ever going to lose money on a bet, this should have been the bet, right? This is our track record. The real turn, the thing that should have tipped everybody off jeff chow and i um went in on this uh venture together um jeff chow of the ringer and jeff last week said should we hedge trump was at plus 215 at that point and and uh i looked right across the table and i said are you crazy to hedge and that immediately put the stink streak on Hillary.

Yeah, but over the weekend, she was minus 600. Like, there was so, it never even occurred to me she was going to lose. We filmed, I did my last Any Given Wednesday show. We taped it on Tuesday. And the first five or six minutes was about, you know just anticipating that Hillary was going to win it was basically like with Jimmy this whole thing about what are late night hosts going to do now that they don't have Trump

this whole piece on it and then it dovetailed into this whole thing about how the Rock should be should run for president now and his social media following and him versus Trump and we had to throw all of it out but this was tuesday you know we're taping late afternoon on tuesday west coast time so the election stuff

hadn't come back in and we just nobody saw coming i mean we we could have filmed an alternate version i guess but that would have not been able to capture the the mood of the country as the whole thing was going on i i just, even to the last possible second, never occurred that we were in trouble with that bet. Never worried about it. That's right. I never for one second thought about a hedge. From now on, I'm listening to Jeff Chow when he says,

should we hedge? The answer is just yes, of course. And I don't mean to trivialize the election, the mood of the country right now, all that stuff. I just thought it was, if anyone was going to have money on Hillary Clinton, it was going to be the amazing team of New York

itself. It was a spectacular failure of a bet. Yeah, it really was. I remember where we were when we thought of it, when we made it. We were at a sushi restaurant in Vegas, and only us. Wonderful. The omakase. Hey, last thing. Kevin O'Connor wrote a piece on The Ringer about the Denver Nuggets and threw out a John Wall for nurkage, Emmanuel Moutier,

and some picks type of situation. And it made you upset, and now you don't like Kevin O'Connor anymore. I just don't understand. We're six or seven games into the season here. Why is the ringer trying to pry John Wall away from the Washington basketball team? I don't understand it. Well, your team's not very good. This is the second column.

There was a free John Wall column, and then Kevin comes along. By the way, I love Kevin. Yeah, he's been doing a great job. I've really enjoyed himself so far, and he was an excellent addition on the podcast last week. I know. He's supposed to come on this pod. Having said all of that. Yeah.

Huh? He was going to come on this pod, but we had so many technical difficulties this week that we had to... We're bumping him to next week. He'll be on. Yeah. But having said all that, can't we just let this Washington team muddle its way to 43 or 44 wins to get to seventh or eighth seed?

Why wouldn't you turn Wow into Moutier and Nurkic and picks? I don't understand why you wouldn't do that. Be terrible for a year, because then you'll get a lottery pick, too. You'll get a top five pick, plus Moutier, plus you could completely revamp your team in a year. The infrastructure is not in place for the team to go through a successful transformation. When by that I mean the general manager is not in place for the team to go through a successful transformation. And by that I mean the general manager is not very good here in Washington. Get a new general manager. He hasn't been good for a long time.

Then do that too. Do all of it. That's the starting point, right? That's where you start from. You have to have a plan. Now, we had a plan here in Washington. It was KC to DC, or KD to DC. Goodness gracious, I'm so worked up. KD to DC. It didn't happen. He didn't even do a meeting. It was KC to DC, or KD to DC. Goodness gracious, I'm so worked up.

KD to DC. Yeah, he didn't even happen. He didn't even do a meeting. It didn't work out. He didn't even come for a meeting. It was worse than that. No, he didn't. Everything changed.

Here's my three-step plan to save the Wizards. Go ahead. You trade John Wall to Denver. I'm with O'Connor. I think it's a smart trade. You get that. You get Moudier.

You get Nurkic. You get a pick back. Your own lottery pick now is a top five pick. So you got that. New GM. Your new GM is also your new minority owner because Barack Obama is buying into the Washington Wizards. Ted Leonsis gives

him 7% of the team. He has to buy at a very low price. Barack is now in charge. Barack is now in charge of the team. He has to buy at a very low price. Barack is now in charge. Barack is now in charge of the Wizards. He's going to rebuild it. He's going to do Theo Epstein. This is his next project. Is it going to be like the

Affordable Care Act? I don't think that really distinguishes him from Ernie Grunfeld. All right, fine. So find a GM, but also get Barack Obama. Give him 5% of the team because he can come to the games. He can sit courtside.

He'll be there with his daughters. He becomes your Jack Nicholson, like your Magic Johnson. You want some buzz here at the DMV. You want Chocolate City to get going again. I do. I understand it. It's dead here. I mean, the basketball team is so moribund at this point.

And honestly, more than anybody else on the team, the guy I'm prepared to blame is Bradley Beal. Come on, dude. You got the contract of your life. You had the whole summer to prepare. He did prepare. All the news stories talk about what great shape he's in. He had no physical setbacks.

And he can't put the ball in the basket. There's only one skill he's being paid for, and that's to put the ball in the basket. Now, of course, I'm going to pull my Aaron Rodgers. Relax, because we're only seven or eight games into the season yet. The whole thing is built on Wall and Beal.

The whole deal falls down if one of those two guys is out or not up to standard. This will get you excited. One other angle from that Wall to Denver trade that got me kind of fired up so let's say that trade happens they then could say it i'm not saying it but go ahead let's say it happens this is all hypothetical everybody gets been out of shape it's just hypothetical

two buddies talking let's say that trade happens right after that they make a move for boogie oh yeah they they dangle yokich and they dangle uh they dangle some of the other picks they have and maybe they dangle jamal murray and they do a godfather boogie trade and boogie and waller reunited in denver with wilson chandler and will barton yeah but it would be fun and Danilo Guarneri and Will Barton. Yeah, but it would be fun. And then maybe they, maybe Calipari. That's where he ends up. I want a team to root for.

I don't care about Denver. I mean, I actually enjoyed Denver quite a bit this season, but what about my team? Your team's screwed. They're all, you know, wake and bake and going in there, watching games high. I mean, they have a nice team to do that. None of that's happening here. Yeah. Your team's in trouble. Oh, you think?

Is that your read? Your team's in deep, deep, deep amounts of trouble. You have two assets that are both very expensive, and you really don't have anyone. I mean, Otto Porter destroyed the Celtics last night. I don't know if that was the game of his life or something, a portent of something to follow. But, you know, when you look at the Wizards.

Bigger cross. I'm not, by the way, thanks for asking if I was worried about my team and our Celtics overbet. I'm not. But Al Horford. I didn't say a word. Well, Al Horford, Jay Crowder are two of the best three players on the team. They're missing a week.

And if you go, you know, like, everybody's like, what's wrong with the Celtics? It's like, they're missing two of the three best players. Yeah, Al's got a concussion. He'll be back. Why don't you take Durant and Draymond off the Warriors and see what's going on there? Yeah, I just compared my team to the Warriors. You mean Kevin Durant is shooting 58% so far this season? I know.

Yeah, but we're going to lose Clay soon. What do you... Whoa! We're going to lose Clay soon. What do you mean, lose? We're going to lose Clay soon. We're just going to lose him. I don't think so. I think he flies off the reservation soon. You think? Nah, I...

This isn't his game. He's a rhythm shooter. He needs the ball. Like, he's not Kyle Korver. I don't think he's going to handle this season well. I have no inside info just my spidey senses is when you have four guys it's really hard to keep all four happy like that at when all four of them think they're really really great at basketball somebody's got well they are all all four really great basketball it would be the first player that kerr has lost and that's the thing that makes me not get too worried about it.

I promise you he is working on Klay constantly about you're as big a part of this team as the other team. But the reality is they used to be Steph and Klay's team, and now it's Steph and KD's team. And it's a fact. You watch the game, and the team belongs to those two guys, and then you have the complementary guys. Yeah, but it's eight games in. I mean, Clay single-handedly won game six against the Thunder. So I'm not that worried. That was five months ago.

My point is Clay is overqualified for the role he is playing on this team. So far, that's probably right. I don't know how you fix it. How do you fix it? Well, look, they're light years ahead they're in golden state so i'm pretty sure that with the all the brains you know i'm pro i'm pro this whole thing i think it's fascinating it's fascinating to watch them but i don't know i my favorite thing about that team and i think that what everybody really responded to with that team, was the heat check potential of Steph and Klay at all times. And now it's that same potential, but it's just with Steph and KD.

And I just think Klay needs the ball more often to get hot. Because, you know, the way they've set it up is you've got to ride one of these guys, right? That's kind of what they did the last couple years, and it's still set up that way, but the ball is always in Durant and Steph's hands. And I don't know how you keep Clay involved. That's an interesting point worth doing a little bit of analytics on. Yeah, I want to see it. The correlation between usage and Clay's shooting percentage, right?

I mean, there is some way to do a deep data dive on, you know, does Clay really need to touch the ball that much to get hot? Or, you know, is there some other forces at work? But still, eight games. Come on. Let him figure it out a little bit. Let's have this conversation at Christmas. Listen, this isn't a panic conversation.

I think this Warriors team, I still think they're going to win 68 games. I'm just really fascinated to see how it plays out with Klay specifically. I thought Draymond was going to be the one who, you know, if you just look, somebody's got to take a back seat. Four guys can't be the most important guy on a team. So somebody's got to take a back seat. I thought Dray be the most important guy on a team. So somebody's got to take a back seat. I thought Draymond was going to be the one who took a back seat, and he has to some degree,

but he's still having a huge impact on every game. He's arguably the most important player on that team. He's still the straw that stirs the drink. Don't get carried away, House. Let them play a stretch without Draymond. I'd love to see them play defense without Draymond. Fair point. Hold on, I was looking at Clay's usage rate and somehow can't find it.

All right, usage rate. Here we go. Oh, 26.3 last year, 27.6 the year before, 23.5 this year. Okay. A little lower,, 23.5 this year. Okay. A little lower, not significantly. Not yet. Shooting percentage,

43% to 50 from three, which is an aberration. The first one to me. I mean, he's still taking seven and a half threes a game, but the right number. I don't know. It's an eye testing.

I'm counting on this out of Brad Beal. I put it this way. I bet Steve know. It's an eye testing. I'm counting on this out of Brad Beal. Put it this way. I bet Steve Kerr is already working on it. How to keep Klay involved mentally. How to get him involved in the offense. How to do the your turn, your turn, his turn. It's all stuff they have to work out. My fear is that Klay is overqualified to be on this team.

And I can't really express it in any other way i use the analogy well i use the analogy i don't remember if i did it on a podcast or not but it's like in oceans 11 matt damon was matt damon just shouldn't have been in oceans 11 it was a waste of matt damon like that that could have been like joseph's take of all bill thank you i appreciate it joseph gordon levitt could have played the Matt Damon part. It would have been the same movie. It's like, why are you even in this movie, Matt Damon? And I feel a smidge of that with Clay Thompson.

All right, House, we're going to call Jacko and talk about the future of the country. Oh, I'm so happy. I can't wait to listen to this. All right. We'll talk to you later. A quick hiatus in this podcast to talk about our friends at Squarespace. They make it easy to build beautiful websites without breaking a sweat, regardless of skill All right. We'll talk to you later. and some of the world's most respected brands trust Squarespace. You should too. You get 24-7 online support, and you can even design a best-in-class online store with Squarespace's award-winning templates and customizable settings.

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Terms and conditions apply. That's casper.com slash BS and using code BS. Terms and conditions apply. That's casper.com slash BS. Back to the pod. On the phone right now, my longtime buddy, my former college roommate, my friend for 28 years. Oh my God, we're so old. Yes. We never imagined this day would come.

We've been doing podcasts together for a long time. Never imagined the day would come where I called you two days after Donald Trump won the presidency of the United States with the Republican Party, and to get your thoughts on that. But we're here. This is the world we live in, Jacko. How are you? It's pretty crazy to think that what we do, two podcasts in the course of two weeks, discussing the Cubs being World series champions and Donald J. Trump being the president of the United States of America. I know we are in uncharted waters here,

my friend. I don't even know if it's water. I don't know what we're in. It's a liquid. Outer space. Yeah. It's something. Did you, did every, everybody seems to think they had no idea this was going to happen

yeah did you think i had absolutely i mean i i was from the time of the primaries when i was ranting and raving about him on twitter and on podcasts and not anyone that would listen to me um at any venue i kept saying he was going to lose 40 states, that he was completely and totally unelectable, given his demeanor, his persona, his lack of intelligence, because every quality that he has is nothing that you would ever want in a president. And I just thought there was no way I could fathom when elections are decided in the suburbs of Philadelphia by college-educated women and moderates and not people who are far to the right or far to the left, it's decided in the middle,

that he would have zero appeal to them. Right. Because based on everything in history, I mean, you know, the Republicans four years ago ran a guy like Mitt Romney, who's sort of a, you know, milquetoast, moderate guy, and a, you know, competent businessman who had been a governor who had had some success. And the public was like, nah, he was going against President Obama, who has much more popularity than Hillary, what have you. But I just thought if he can't even appeal to moderates, that he was deemed to be too much of a fringe and too right wing and what have you, that there was no way Trump would appeal to those voters and that there would be no way that Trump could ever get elected, especially with an electorate that

is increasingly Latino and minority and younger. And yet here we are. I mean, I was completely flabbergasted on election night. I just I still can't I still can't get a hold of things like to really wrap my head around it. When I saw the picture today of him in the Oval Office with President Obama talking about a transition, and I'm like, Jesus Christ, that really happened. It's just nuts.

I read everything yesterday, and I read everything today. There's a lot of good stuff that was written, and a lot of interesting stuff, a lot of informative stuff. It didn't really seem like the same it seemed like the same people that voted for romney and for um uh mccain in 2008 the votes in those states that swung basically this election were around the same right but it was hillary that didn't bring out the votes and And that was the part that I just did not see coming. Especially that more females didn't come out and more minorities.

And I don't know what she did wrong with getting the message out, trying to get people out to vote. I thought the message was out, but it made me wonder. People are in their own little bubbles. And you have bubbles and the, you know, California bubble, you have your New York city bubble, and you just assume everybody is seeing it the same way. And obviously they weren't and they didn't understand, you know,

the Supreme court's at stake with this one, you know, and things like that. And I just, I just think people felt like Trump couldn't win and it was, Oh, well he's not going to win. And that was at least part of it. Yeah, I think maybe a lot of people took it for granted that there was just no way he would get elected. He actually got fewer votes, I think. I mean, there's votes still being counted. But at this moment, he has fewer votes than either McCain or Romney got in terms of pure raw vote totals. He's at like 58 million and change, and McCain and Romney did better than that,

whatever their numbers were. You know, because there's a number, some percentage of Republicans, although I guess ultimately 90%, according to exit polls, voted for him. But, you know, there's some percentage of Republicans that did not vote for him or split the ticket and, you know, voted for Republicans down ballot

but didn't vote for him. And yet he got elected because exactly, you know, Hillary's voters stayed home. Now, there was some percentage of people that were, you know, non-college educated whites that went for Obama apparently in 2012 that swung to Trump this time because economic concerns or what have you. And that was a deciding factor in some of these Rust Belt states, you know, Michigan, where he apparently won by an extremely narrow margin and Pennsylvania. And so, you know, those people didn't go for Romney, but they went for Trump. And the amazing thing to me is I think he Trump got a higher percentage of Latino and African-American voters than Romney did. If you could, if somebody could explain that to me. I'd love to see

that. Like after everything Trump said about Mexicans and building walls and, you know, to keep rapists out, how, you know, his vote among Latinos went up. It's just like, what? I think, yeah, I think I've heard so many different takes. And one of the takes that I've heard a couple of people say that I do agree with, it does seem like everybody underestimated how unhappy a large chunk of people were in the country just with the status quo. Right. If anything, Hillary was just the wrong candidate. So just take Trump out of it. You just had a ton of Americans just looking at Hillary and going, that's more of the same.

I've already watched this play. I mean, in history, it's very difficult to elect a president of the same party after a two-term president. George H.W. Bush got elected after Reagan, who was wildly popular and was running against Michael Dukakis. But it's very difficult. Nixon couldn't win after Eisenhower, and you could go all throughout history. It's very rare that that know, Nixon couldn't win after Eisenhower. You could go all throughout history. It's very rare that that happens. So when you then put up an unappealing candidate like Hillary Clinton, because whatever her other talents, she's a terrible politician. I mean, she's just robotic and unnatural and not warm and fuzzy. And people just do not love her in the way that they love Obama. So to put up somebody of the same party after eight years of Obama,

whatever your opinion of Obama is, people have short attention spans, and it's like, oh, I've had a Democrat for eight years, and we want something different. And then, like you say, when you put a pillory that's been in the public eye for 30 years, ballpark, people are like, oh, that's the same old thing again. Yeah, and it's hard for her to say

it's time for a change. I'm doing it. It's like, no, you are who you are. You're 70 years old. You're not changing at this point. She's got to bring out the Obama coalition to vote for her, so it's tough for her to say, I know people are hurting here

now because you want to say, well, Obama's wonderful and you love him. you should vote for me to continue that. So it's hard to thread the needle and say, well, Obama's wonderful, but you folks are in trouble and I'm going to fix that. But I'm going to do what Obama did. You know, it's like it's an impossible line to walk. And I also think people might have underestimated just people voting their party no matter what. Yeah, I mean, I was surprised by that when I saw the numbers that actually 90% of Republicans came home to vote for Trump.

I was really surprised by that. I did not. I'm one of the 10% that did not vote for him. Yeah. But, you know, I'm surprised by the overwhelming number because he was so unpopular even in Republican circles. And, you know, be it the email thing, last minute drop that that sort of reminded Republicans, you know, how they don't trust Hillary. And that's what led them to come home or just, you know, like the old Seinfeld thing, we're just rooting for laundry.

So you're just, you know, you're rooting for your team no matter what. You're going to vote your team no matter what, whatever the case was. You know, he got enough Republicans and enough independents, certainly, to swing his way. And Hillary didn't get enough Democrats turned out. So here we are. Yeah, they're basically voting for an infrastructure. And they're voting for, you know,

that's the other thing is some people just vote and literally the only topic they care about is abortion. Oh, yeah, they think the glitchy voters on anything. Yeah, I'm just voting for that. Or they're like, hey, that guy's, I like guns. That guy's going to make it so that I'm not, nobody's going to mess with my guns. I like lower taxes for wealthier people.

That's my issue. And it is a big coalition. I mean, you know, the part that was scary, I think, is some of the hate speech and the things that kind of seeped out. I think that was the part that was so alarming to, you know, basically all of us. If you had drawn up a playbook of things not to do, say, or be involved with and run for president, he would have checked every single box on that list. Everything. Right.

You know, and yet here we are and he got elected. He would have checked every single box on that list, everything. And yet here we are, and he got elected. I mean, I never thought in a million years that that would ever happen. And I kept lamenting from the time he got the nomination back in May that the election was over. And I think Hillary and the media and everybody else thought the election was over. They talk about measuring the drapes in the Oval Office. Hillary hadn't just measured the drapes. She had bought the drapes. She was getting ready to hang them.

And so to wake up, I mean, and say, you know, find out at two o'clock in the morning or 2.30 when I went to bed that she, although she hadn't conceded that every network was basically calling it for Trump. I mean, it's just unbelievable. I still can't believe it. I couldn't believe, you know, states like Wisconsin, Ohio believe states like Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania. That's the problem. See, you're just an elitist. You just combined Ohio and Iowa into one state. You don't even know what state it is. I don't know where I am right now.

Ohio. They should merge. Pennsylvania? But over and over again, he's just saying the same seven things everyone's making fun of him like oh he doesn't know anything about any issue

and he's just basically like crooked Hillary I'm gonna get your jobs back right NAFTA's the worst like he just he was just hitting the it was like a jukebox

and it really resonated for a lot of people and they were willing to basically overlook all these other things but I saw Bill Burr on Conan last night and, you know, he was trying to make light of stuff and he was just like, come on. Hey, everyone's freaking out like this is how is your life going to be that different? What's really going to happen?

I think that underestimates, you know, he's like, you see this guy every three weeks, like there's a bunch of checks and balances. But I think the part that doesn't account for is just the fear and unease of people in their 20s who just can't believe this. And then minorities and women and, you know, people who are really fearing the future. All these college kids who are freaking out, you know, Obama's been president for eight years. So if you're in college, that's almost half your life. So that's all you've known, basically, is that Obama, and you've had this dream messiah as your president. That's all you've known. And then when you couple that with Trump, and, well, you couple that with having to have safe spaces on colleges and their general demeanor of getting a trophy for participating and never knowing not winning and not getting your way. So then you have a full-blown temper

tantrum. But when you couple with that, and the part of me that is a bit empathetic to some of these feelings is that Trump has not only dabbled, you know, talk about dog whistles, but he's had outright whistles, not just dog whistles, but outright whistles. And what happened, I think, this time too, and Seth MacFarlane, of all people, I saw this on Twitter, when Democrats paint a guy like Mitt Romney as this awful misogynist or awful racist, you know, because he happens to be a Republican, or they say that about John McCain, who's practically a Democrat, and you scream and rant and cry wolf about all these Republicans, when the actual wolf comes along, people are like,

oh, you said that about everybody, just ignore that. Because now when you really had legitimate reasons to be concerned and warned about Trump and some of the things that he certainly plays footsie with, at least if not outright believes, now it's too late. People are like, oh, you said that about everybody. Any Republican, if they ran Rubio, he would have been branded a racist and a misogynist and a homophobe and all the other epithets. So you get hoist on your own batard when you cry wolf too many times, and then the real wolf comes in. So are there some legitimate

concerns about, you know, some of Trump's views? Yes. But we live in a constitutional democracy where there are three branches of government, there checks and bounces and it's going to be very hard nay impossible for trump to bring in the dark night of fascism and internment camps and some of the other horrors that i've read about on facebook from some of my left-leaning friends where you would think like you know we're going to start goose stepping down the street or at a gunpoint you know i mean everybody needs to take a deep breath i think people are more worried about what what this inspires from common people not trump i think i suppose the group the group mentality of the hate stuff i think is what is what's scaring people to the extent that he has his victory has empowered any hate groups to come out from their holes in the ground and into the light.

That is indeed one of the more troubling aspects of anything. You know, my hope is that he will have little to no impact, really, on anything. I mean, my dream scenario would be that they duct tape him to the chair and let, you know, Pence and Ryan and McConnell and his advisors run things and just tell him to sign here on the dotted line and bills passed by Congress. Yeah, I do. I do wonder, like for him, if part of this was like professional wrestling, almost. He's just saying and doing whatever it took to win. And once once he got in there now, he's going to scale back. Because what what president would ever just want to be despised by half the country? Yeah.

I mean, and see, well, you know, back during the primaries, there was really stories, but his son had called John Kasich and said, how would you like to be my father's vice president?

And when we win, you can be in charge of the budget and you can be in charge of national defense. Yeah. And so Kasich supposedly said, well, if I'm in charge of the budget and national defense, what's your father going to be in charge of national defense. And so Kasich supposedly said, well, if I'm in charge of the budget and national defense, what's your father going to be in charge of? And he said,

well, he's going to be in charge of making America great again. So if Trump maybe wants to run this as like a chairman of the board so that he's like the figurehead, right? His name is on the administration. They play hail to the chief when he walks into the room. But he really is hands off and he lets people that may know what they're doing run things. From my perspective, I'm going to be a lot happier with that than him actually having his finger on the wheels of power, which would concern me, does concern me to no end. So if he's hands off and he just did it for a kind of a lark and can't believe he won, but knows he's over his head,'s great the problem is he's the most

narcissistic human probably ever to walk the earth yeah and when you you know they hand you a suitcase these are the nuclear codes and the gravity of the moment hits you and you say i'm donald trump i'm so wonderful look how wonderful i am he starts doing real things that makes me very nervous or offending other countries in real ways. Or offending other countries and responding with the 3 a.m. Twitter threats. That's what scares me is him just, you know, it's really hard to tell whether he was acting crazy or if he's crazy. Really crazy. And, like, how do we know he's not just going to go on a tweet storm at 3 in the morning against the Korean guy who runs North Korea? I know.

We don't know. What if he's just feeling it one day? I'm going to take some shots at this guy. Who the fuck knows what he's going to do? That's the part that scares me. You know, and the guy is not beholden to the Republican Party, so he doesn't care if he takes the Republican Party down with him because that was just a vehicle to get him here.

He has no real core views or beliefs because he, you know, he's donated to Schumer and Pelosi and Hillary and everybody else. And now suddenly he's a, you know, crazy right winger. So, you know, is he going to make deals with Schumer and cut out the Republican Congress and work with the Democrats to get, you know, big government projects in? Who knows? I kept thinking about it. This is, you shouldn't be thinking this way about your president, but I was thinking of the Saturday Night Live skit Goat Boy with George and Brewer was this goat boy that they had made in the lab at the University of Chicago.

And he hosted like a dance party show or a talk show. And then there'd be these scientists and they had like a cattle prod and like a rope. And so he would be goat boy and he'd be normal. But then when he started acting more like a goat and got crazy, they would, like, tase him and rope him. I was like, that's what we need. We need, like, the Goat Boy guys in coats around Trump. So if he starts getting, like, too far, Pence gives him, like, the cattle prod. I think you probably. President Goat Boy. That's what we have.

Pence already bought it. He already has the cattle prod with him. Do you think Bernie Sanders would have beaten Trump? That's a good question. I think he would have, I think he inspired more passion probably among Democratic voters. I don't know how many more independents he would have turned off with the socialism and all, but I think that, I think the Democratic Party, their base, their heart of hearts was more with Bernie than it was with Hillary. Yeah, because I do think... You have Hillary who voted for the Iraq war. You have Hillary who was giving, you know,

multi-million dollar, several hundred thousand dollar speeches to Wall Street executives. It was sort of, you know, Wall Street senator. So that's not where the heart of the Democratic Party is. So I think it was hard for a lot of them. And I'd be interested to see how many Bernie voters stayed home, thinking, well, she's going to win anyway, and I don't want to be a party to that. So, you know, I wonder how much more their heart

would have been in it to go and, you know, walk over hot coals to vote for him and they didn't do it for her. Yeah. Cause you know, I'm like a, like an election nerd. Like I love this stuff. I went through a big, big run once upon a time, reading all the books and everything. And I do think there's like two types of elections where you have like the, like something like this year where the country's not happy and they want something. And I think 1980 was like that. You know,

that's a good example of you coming off the Iran hostage crisis and the oil stuff and the vestiges of Watergate and Vietnam and all this. And people are like, just give me something. I'm ready for anything new. Give me something. And Reagan comes in and it's great. Um,

and you saw the same thing a little bit with Obama in oh eight after all the Middle East stuff and just the economy's not doing well and everything. And here comes this guy. It's like, Oh, this guy. And you attach to movements like that. And that ultimately was the thing that doomed Hillary.

Cause there's nothing new about her. And you attach to movements like that. And that ultimately was the thing that doomed Hillary. Because there's nothing new about her. It's like bringing in fucking Carson Palmer to try to win the Super Bowl. It's like, I've seen Carson Palmer. He's 38 years old. I'm not winning a Super Bowl with Carson Palmer. And that's what she was. And that's why I think Bernie could have potentially tapped into something.

And, you know, the rap on Bernie was he's talking in these platitudes of, we need to do this, we gotta fix this. When I'm president everybody will get their taxes cut and they'll get free school and it was like, well, how's all this gonna happen? It's basically what Trump did. Trump just talked, he just talked in code words and I'm making

America great again, I'm gonna bring jobs back, I'm gonna get rid of the I'm going to bring jobs back. I'm going to get rid of it. He never actually said anything. And I don't know. A big factor too, was his celebrity, the fact that he's been on The Apprentice and real or not, people perceive him as a successful businessman. No question. And people always have this fantasy of, oh, if only the country was run by a business by a businessman. And these people watch The Apprentice and they've seen him on TV and they're like, he must know what he's doing.

I've watched him and, you know, we're entertained by him. And so they're like, oh yeah, that's what we need is a businessman. No question. Part of it is the celebrity factor, you know. Yeah, force of personality. Kim Kardashian has 20 million Twitter followers

or whatever. Celebrity goes a long way. And there's a big element of the population that loves somebody who's just taking shots. Who's just doesn't, doesn't hide the bullshit. That was his thing in the primary. Like he's a fighter,

you know, he'll be like, Jeb, you suck. And Marco, you're short. He's great. You know,

like crazy, but people leak that shit up. So it, it totally does. There's the force of personality part of it. And I also also you know people made this point too but some clear sexism with this too i think there's just the people out there they're just like i don't want a female president and that's it yeah there's no question

that's out there i think there is some of that i think there is some of that too so i remember watching that second debate when it looked like he lost his mind and he was almost stalking her like a bear stalking a stray i don't know straight a straight deer yeah yeah and i i felt like he was doing it a little bit intentionally and for the real reason of to remind people like hey this is a man's job you want a man like look how intimidating i am compared to like it was there was a physical aspect to it that i felt like he'd actually put thought into and i think there's people out there that see something like that and they're like push comes to shove if this country is really in danger and we got to go head to head with putin i

probably want i probably want that guy and you know i'm not i'm not saying it's the right way to think but i think you're not endorsing that view you're just saying that is you held by some and i think you are correct i think there are people out there who see stuff like that and like that guy just seems more presidential i'm not ready to vote for a woman i'm just not yeah i think that's part of it yeah but and she's just not that inspiring of a candidate i mean even among democrats you know i don't think their heart was really with her. So, you know, it's easy to have 20-20 hindsight in retrospect. So, yeah, she was a horrible candidate.

But I mean, she was a horrible candidate, you know, so. It's weird because she was a horrible candidate who was also like one of the most qualified candidates we've ever had. Yeah. And having been secretary of state and a senator we've ever had yeah and having been secretary of state and the senator yes yeah and also been in the white house umbridge at like the most qualified ever i mean james buchanan who's widely regarded you go way back it was like you know yeah sure you know yeah nixon was a nixon was the nixon was a congressman he was a he was a senator he was a vice president of the United States.

You can make a case for a lot of people being qualified. True. I guess the thing that I liked with her qualification thing... You know who I can't make a case for being qualified? Donald J. Trump. No, I was thinking the fact that she was in the White House for eight years, married to the president, I thought was an amazing advantage. It would be like if Belichick's, the girl he's dating who's 20 years younger than him, you know, who was also loved football and was a football coach and all that. He picked some stuff up through osmosis.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There had to have been 20 things she learned from being the first lady for eight years, you know, that nobody else would have access to. Probably picked up something, sure. Yeah. Well, anyway, Donald Trump's our president. President Coke boy. Big winners.

Republicans. Well, I don't know, in the short term. But when he fucks something up immeasurably, that's going to redound to the negative of the Republican Party. So I hold my fire on that one. I think there's two types of Republicans. There's the ones like you

who are the diehards who are just in crisis right now with how this went. And then the ones who are like the best. Yeah, and the ones who are like, fuck it. We have control of everything. This is great. We're in charge, sure. Yeah, this is great. And I think the other big winner, late night shows.

Oh, sure. And Sam Bee and Kimmel and Fallon and Colbert and Oliver and Bill Maher and, you know, even the Keeping It 1600 guys, like whoever. This is now. There's going to be a lot of material to work with, although, you know, there's a lot of theories now that that's some of what got us Trump, that these people in the flyover country didn't like being condescended to by multi-million dollar celebrities on late night TV and belittled and what have you. I'm not saying that's going to get him re-elected

if he's abysmal, but it's two different countries. It really is. It's crazy to think about, but it really is two different countries. Well, in 2020. In terms of culture and what have you. Well, in 2020, we have President The Rock.

Right. Who's going to come in. There's no way Trump beats. We're really going to have to bring in The Rock. I mean, he saved the Fast and Furious franchise. This is now the next, the evolution of him. He's got a better social media presence. He's biracial.

And he's a better wrestler than Trump in WWE, really. Yeah, he's better. So we'll try to get on that. Superior is much more likable and probably just disqualified. No question. Jacko, I'm glad you've weathered this one this week. I know it's had to have been the weirdest week of your life. Well, you know, you sent me that Gordie Lockbob bobblehead and that got me through.

So I continue to use it for consolation. So thank you. All right. Let's keep trying to make America great again. Just whether if anyone else can't do it, at least you and I can try. Thank you, Jack. I appreciate it. All right.

Always a pleasure. All right. Take it easy. Bye. That's it for the podcast. Thanks so much to Sling TV. The best way to watch live TV on your turf. With Sling Orange service,

pay just 20 bucks a month, you get ESPN, ESPN2, more top channels, plus the sports extra for just five bucks extra to watch SEC Network and more football. Start watching for seven days free at sling.com slash Bill Simmons. Get Sling TV on your favorite device.

Restrictions do apply. And also, thanks so much to Framebridge because they just mailed me eight new posters that they framed for me, because they love me, and I love them just as much. Check out framebridge.com. I can't even tell you how cool the Nirvana poster is that they framed me. You can't see it. You're just listening to this. But check out framebridge.com, promo code BS, and you get 15% off your first order. Check them out.

I really like frame bridge. Uh, thanks to HBO. Thanks to the ringer.com. I hope you checked out the ringer this week. We had a lot of political stuff and a lot of really good stuff and also a lot of escape stuff too, because some people are tired of reading about this stuff.

Uh, some great NBA, some great NFL, some great pop culture. I highly recommend it. Check out the other podcasts. Thanks to the Keeping It 1600 guys

for cranking out Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. Pre, during, and post election, they were pretty traumatized. They got through it. I was proud of them.

I even went on the live stream on Tuesday night. It was quite a night. It was quite a week. Stay safe. Enjoy the weekend we'll be back next week