The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 163: Conference Championship Lines With Cousin Sal and 'Patriots Day' With Peter Berg

Episode Date: January 16, 2017

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons brings on Cousin Sal to discuss the Cowboys' devastating loss (5:00), the other Round 2 games (10:00), Denzel's Oscars odds (24:00), Packers-Falcons (29:00), Steelers-Pats (33:00), and Superfly Jimmy Snuka's passing (36:00). Then, director Peter Berg talks about 'Patriots Day' (46:00), Garry Shandling (65:00), and whether 'Friday Night Lights' will ever return (76:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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feed for my sports movie Hall of Fame series. Our latest one was Any Given Sunday. I'm taking over that new expansion franchise at Albuquerque. You get to hear me do Pacino invitations over and over again. Anyway, that's it.

We are going to have director and my friend Peter Berg coming up later who just directed Patriot's Day. But first, the cuz. Here we go. All right, so the Cuz is here, and it's a tradition. Every year we've had the BS podcast since May 2007. It's a tradition. At some point, you give up on the Cowboys season. You come in, and you're all sad. This year, it actually happened right after a playoff game.

Yeah, you have to give up because they've been eliminated. No, what? I do? Oh, man. Tough one. How did I think it was going to end any other way, though? Right? That was about as bad as it gets. That has to be how it ends up.

I was thinking watching it with Rodgers, like, oh, he's going to try to get them to the 50 to run the Hail Mary. It never occurred to me that he could just throw a 36- yard pass to an open guy for a field goal range chance well here's the thing and you labeled him a witch and I'm convinced he is a witch right now but um I think he has Hail Marys all over the field like it doesn't have to just be um from the 50 yard line with six seconds left it could be from his own 25 yard line with 12 seconds left. And then to read today that he diagrammed that play in the huddle. He just like really sandlotted it

and told everyone what to do on this play. Reminiscent of James Van Der Beek at the end of Varsity Blues. Exactly. After Bud Kilmer left. They just started audibling everything. Everything seems fictional from that point on. He's ridiculous. You deserve to lose the game in his way. Yeah. So let me

add about how many carries did he have yesterday? Like 30? Yeah. Something like that, but just was, they established him early and kept going to him. I just don't understand why they didn't do that with Zeke. It was driving me crazy. Why don't you understand? Just pound the ball, but just do it right away. He should have 40 carries

in that game. They're in the nickel all game. They're begging them to run. You can't have 40 carries in that game. They're in the nickel all game. They're begging them to run. You can't have 40 carries in a game. They're losing by 18 points. You had 22 carries in a game. But eventually they were losing by 18 points. I'm saying come out of the gate and run the ball and do your thing and control it and control your line.

That's fine. The first drive, they were up 3-0. They weren't that slow getting going. But I don't know. You think Prescott comes back? If he had to get those passes out of the way where they sailed over everyone's head i think he's for a whole half how many how many carries does a guy have to have when they're down three touchdowns i think 22 was

down three touchdowns well i don't know he 11 carries at halftime this is what drives me crazy but everyone's like dac is the greatest dac's the greatest dac's the greatest why aren't we running the ball like it just drives me nuts like well it should, Dak is the greatest. Dak's the greatest. Dak's the greatest. Why aren't we running the ball? It just drives me nuts. It should be a nice little mix. I think Bryant came out of that, established himself. He was good. I want to be one of the top five receivers again.

I'm going to be a man and push everyone around. Witten had a great game. It was such a great comeback. It really was. It was. I judge everything by video games. And if I have Zeke Elliott in an awesome offensive line, and the other team is playing nickel,

I'm going to run the ball until they stop playing nickel. I don't care what the score is. To me, they're just giving him seven yards a carry. That's the part. It was almost like Green Bay Jedi mind-tricked them. They were like, we're going to give you the nickel. We're going to cover your guys. We're afraid of your passing game.

And Dallas kind of kept doing it. I don't know. Yeah. Well, they came back. He had over 300 yards passing. The one thing I'll say is, and I'm not going to cry about that Green Bay was better. They deserved to win. They outcoached us.

I think Garrett was, you could have called 12 men on the field five times. How many? Defensively, we were so not ready for that game. We're not prepared. Using timeouts, you didn't need to. But that pass interference was abysmal, that call. You can't call pass interference at the 35 when the interception is made at the 15. That's an uncatchable ball.

They pointed out, They rarely point out the spot of the pass interference. This time they did. They said the 35. Heath picks it off at the 15. That's huge. That's such a no-call. You make a no-call there. I thought the spike was the dumbest play of the game. I didn't understand

it in the moment. You had 50 plus seconds left at that point. You're skimming way down for no reason like why yeah i didn't get that and you should know left too oh that's what that's what uh garrett says this is what drives me crazy about him like he's like yeah we wanted to save the time out they never used the time out right uh they're wasting it down you have to think seven there and not three. You have Rodgers with 30 seconds. You feel good leaving him 35 seconds and two timeouts? I didn't feel good about it. No, I didn't

either. That should be going for seven the way. The way we're pushing them around offensively should be going for seven. Well, my default with that immediately Who's calling? Oh, this is Jason Garrett. My default immediately with that is I always go back to Super Bowl XXXVI

with the Rams when we had basically 35 seconds left, something like that. 32, I can't remember what the exact number, maybe 33. Yeah. But any good quarterback can get 40 yards and get you into field goal range for 33 seconds. The way they call pass interference? Yeah. Yeah, sure.

Why not? With that said, what were they on there? They were on there 35 with 10 seconds left, 12. Yeah, sure. Why not? With that said. I'm not going for it. What were they on there? They were on there 35 with 10 seconds left? 12? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't understand. But that was after the sack.

Yeah. No, I know. I just don't. Well, first of all, that was the last play in this whole game. I don't understand how he doesn't fumble. Right. How big and strong do your hands have to be? He's holding it with one hand.

He's holding it with one hand. The guy's nailing him from behind. Yeah, Heath was just so excited. And he's the defensive player of the week, if they call that interference right. But, yeah, he's holding it with one hand, and they don't get that ball. It's just insane to me.

I don't understand how he didn't fumble. I don't understand how he can throw across his body, moving full speed to the left. It helps when you rush three. But, yeah, it was a ridiculous pass. Oh, that's another one. Why not blitz? I'm crazy about this Jason Garrett. Is that like a top eight bad coach move in that game?

Yeah, I don't like it at all. He doesn't go for the gusto with anything on the offense or defensively. He's a guy who routinely punts on fourth and four from the 38 without even lining up to draw him off sides. I'm done with Garrett. The good news is Zeke's going to be really fresh for the Pro Bowl. He only had 22 carries. Come on.

Thank you. Just pound him into the ground. I don't understand. He's unstoppable. You wanted Romo in there. He's the best player in the playoffs. You wanted Romo in there, didn't you? I did think about it at one point.

I did think Dak looked a little— that's yet another reason why you maybe ride Zeke in the first half. Dak definitely looked a little skittish. Yeah, he looked like a rookie. He was like, holy shit, I'm in the playoffs against Aaron Rodgers. I didn't think there was any score where they would put Romo in where he'd have a chance to actually win. Like even 21-3, I was like, nah, that's not going to happen.

But let's not forget, like Green Bay could have put him away. They were up 28-13. I was like, nah, that's not going to happen. But let's not forget, Green Bay could have put him away. They were up 28-13. Is that right? Yeah. 28-13 when he throws that bad pick. If they're running it, you don't need to go for it there. It was a bad pick. You get a field goal there, 31-13.

This isn't even a discussion. How scared were you of Rodgers that whole game on a scale of 1 to 100? All of it. Like 100? Yeah, he's figured it out. He's so it out. He's so locked in. We've all had Jared Cook on our fantasy team, right?

We've all had him for three weeks. You wave him. He's like, oh, man, he had one catch last week. I'm getting rid of him. Like, how is he the X Factor now? I don't know. It's like, Jared Cook. It all changed when Jared Cook showed up. It's like, this guy's, any team could have had him for five years.

I love Joe Buck, but when he was screaming, oh, it's incomplete, I was like, no, that's could have had him for five years. I love Joe Buck, but when he was screaming, that's incomplete, I was like, no, that's a catch. That's definitely a catch. Oh, the one on the last one? The cook catch. He was like, that's incomplete. I guess one of the refs, one of the officials was saying incomplete, and one was saying they were going to have to be overruled.

And how does that Mason Crosby make a 56-yarder? How does no cowboy even come near blocking it? You have to kick that so low. Who's that guy, Irving, you have in your team? Isn't he like 6'6"? Yeah, he's a monster. Can't that guy put his hands up? Well, I think because the kick was 30 feet to the left to begin,

all of our guys missed it. How did that hook in? Both of those. Both of those. Poor Mason Crosby. Nobody's talking about him today. It's one of the great kicks in the history of the playoffs. Absolutely.

56-yard knuckleball. Line drive. Then he makes another one. So depressing. What else? One last thing, and I know no one wants to hear it, but Tony Romo goes 12-4, 13-3 with this team, and at least loses in their first game.

That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. All right. Where does he go next year? I don't know. You're really traumatized. I was so conflicted. Like, I collapsed.

I hated that they lost the game and everything. But I'm glad I don't have to root for this team anymore this year. What happens now to Garrett? He just comes back? Oh, yeah. Just running back? Oh, sure. Yeah, no, he was in consideration for Coach of the Year.

What was your biggest surprise of the weekend? That the best game before yesterday was the Texans-Patriots. I know. Just discuss that. I never felt like we were going to lose. No. But I was really impressed by their defense. Yeah.

It was a little 0-7 Giants-ish. They really were laying it on Brady. I started to get worried. We always used to talk, going way back to when Favre was in the playoffs, about old quarterbacks and cold weather. I was watching with Tate, actually. Right around the second quarter, I started thinking, this is an old

guy in 22-degree weather just getting the shit pounded out of him. It did make me nervous, but thank God for Brock Osweiler. That was it. He out-Osweiler'd himself. It was a weird game, though, because we've seen football playoff games like that before where you're supposed to win, you take the early lead, everyone relaxes, then all of a sudden Brady throws a bad pick,

field goal, Deion Lewis, kick return, fumble, all of a sudden it's 14-12 or 14-13, whatever it was. And the crowd's dead because it's cold. And that was the thing we should have realized when they moved that game last night. You have that night game when it's 22 degrees. How loud can it really be? Everyone's bundled up.

You can't make that much noise. Roethlisberger said it was really loud in there, but it's hard to believe it was that loud when it's that cold. Back to the Patriots real quick. We'll do every game, I think. But first of all, uh what was I gonna say I'm sorry although the man of the I just want to talk about the man of the year Gronk is the Walter Payton man of the year and Nance has to announce it and they have graphics of him like just being a buffoon yeah but fun they had everything but the cruise there that's one

thing that stood out to me. The other thing is, everyone and their mother had the Pats minus 7.5 in the second half, and it was a winner. You texted me about, you thought that was the obvious bet of the year. It was so crazy. It was so crazy everyone was on it. I tweeted that Saturday night, gutsy cover by the Pats. You don't hear the word

gutsy with gambling covers, but that was just gutsy. Just gutted it out. What's the basketball equivalent to this? You would know this. A team wins by 18, which is a massive blowout by NFL standards. And Belichick's going to be all over their shit all week about how poorly they played. Is this like Coach Knight whipping his players after they win by only 38 against IUPUI or something? Well, it was really like a college football game.

Where it's like Alabama kills Vanderbilt or something by 18, and they were favored by 38. Yeah, but they weren't. They were favored by 17. 17. Crazy. It was a sloppy performance, and they really needed every inch of Brock Osweiler's terrible quarterback play. If they had had—I'm trying to think of a decent quarterback who could have been in

there alex smith right he's about as decent mediocre as it gets is it maybe a touch above they might have beaten us in that game i thought there were six non-playoff afc teams that could have made that a one score game considering the pats at three turnovers and all that. I thought, like, San Diego, Colts, Denver, Buffalo. Who am I missing? Two others that— I don't know. I thought Houston probably had the best defense of anyone we saw this weekend. Yeah, I was impressed by their D.

Yeah, but they needed to score. Brady's throwing these weird 40-yard lollipop passes that I've never really seen him throw. He completed, like, four of them. He still had—no, he had six or seven 20-plus yard pass completions. But a couple of them were like bloops. Right, yeah, yeah. Like where the receiver had to turn around. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't know. I talked to my dad on Sunday morning. You would have thought we lost. Really? He said, I don't know. I don't know what happened. You know, it's like we went by 18. The other thing to look out for, they reported Hogan got injured. Oh. 24th pythons no it was his thigh they said they had he has a thigh injury

it's reported that he's using a golf ball to rub on it to to get rejuvenated we're going to find out that's illegal that's the next the golf ball rubbing yeah we're going to find out that's the next patriot scandal do you know that you can use know that in Boston today on the sports radio stations, there's a whole thing going on about how Goodell is basically a coward and won't come to any games in New England? Really? He hasn't been there in a couple years. He goes to all these other places.

Like, he was in Arrowhead last night. This next game, he'll definitely go to Atlanta. Yeah. He's avoided New England, but I actually think it's probably a good idea. I would want to go to New England if I was. Yeah, he can't go there. Yeah. What do they expect him to come in?

Like, like Vince McMahon, he's going to walk out. Yeah, right. Oh, hey, New England. I don't think that's happening. No, it's Boston Bomber, Goodell, Aaron Boone. Those three. Don't come back. And the British.

And the British. Oh, yeah. Those horses will make it yeah so that that was i mean we basically had the favorites covered the first six and we did not really have a good game seven uh oh six right you're right yep and it was like wow the favorites really gonna go eight no and then pretty early in that cowboys game you could tell the packers were at least covering. Yeah. What was it, four? It ended at four and a half?

It was like five, yeah. Supposedly Vegas got absolutely annihilated yesterday. They had to have. There were articles about it today. If we ever go back, I don't know. What is standing? What could be standing? The Flamingos are just on fire?

I don't know what's still up there. Like you said, all four last week. Yeah. Clemson money line which was our uh which was our don julio shot of the week yeah the fact when the when it's the money line in the over in the championship game they got slaughtered there the first two saturday and i think everyone had green bay and pittsburgh yesterday like everyone's in that pittsburgh you know rarely do you see the the quote-unquote hot team coming into the playoffs in each conference

and they both just stay hot. Usually one of them that gets upended. Right. Because Seattle was getting a little buzzed too, and then they looked terrible. The thing I don't understand with Pittsburgh is why their defense looks good all of a sudden. I can't tell if it's the offenses they're playing

or if their defense is actually they've just figured it out. Here's what's interesting. I think your team going into the Final Four, has the best defense. When does that happen? Interesting. That's never happened. There's no Carolina around, no Denver. You said maybe Pittsburgh?

Would you rather New England's defense or Pittsburgh? I don't think it's by miles, but let's not forget, Pittsburgh met more than 14 completions in a row last week. True. I think they play hard-nosed, but they're kind of soft also it's a weird combination i think yours is the best defense right now james harrison spends 350,000 a year in his body do you know they said that yesterday on this show i know he makes unbelievable he's 38 years old he makes 135 grand he spends 350 yeah 38 years i didn't know if you knew his

age because they only mentioned it 750 times. 38 years. I don't know how he's doing this, Al. I don't understand it. Let's talk about that game for a second. So they move it. It was everything we expected. But before they even kicked off, this is your boy Goodell. They're dying for a reason to get a primetime Sunday night game.

Day before Martin Luther King Day. Happy Martin Luther King Day, everyone. When a lot of people are off, they'll make that a late game. And since when do they care about how the fans are going to get to a game? Remember when we see like different blizzards and everything else? They never used to move the games. They see partly cloudy, 33 degrees chance of rain. They're like, we're moving this tonight.

We can't have this during the game. It was the most shameless fake excuse for a schedule move they've had since. Remember that time when they moved? I think it was an Eagles game. They moved it from Monday to Tuesday. I believe it was the Eagles. And it was clearly like just a tester to see if Tuesday night football could be a thing or not. They're like, Oh, we got to move this game. There's going to be too much snow.

It's like there's snow 10 times a year that wrecks these games. Just to be safe. I didn't get it the whole tester and it was right before the tv deal yeah and this is what they're clearly doing with this they want to know should we have sunday night football and the answer is yes because i'm sure the ratings were phenomenal i'm sure it was i'm glad the steelers you know that endorsed six field goals from the steelers and no touchdowns but yeah the raider the ratings will probably be good. I had friends in Kansas City say it was fine. They could have played two hours before, three hours before.

Yeah, I was going to say, when they were on the field in Kansas City, I was expecting to see, like, Christina Pink or whoever the hell was down there, like, just being pelted with ice. Yeah, right. Seemed like it was fun. No, it was fine. Seemed like she was okay. Looked like it was going to rain in, like, three days.

So if they had to do that over again, it would have been too obvious to do Dallas-Green Bay moving it tonight because you have a dome. Yeah, right. We're like, the weather,

we should just have it. So they had to do it. But you guys could close the roof. Ah, nonsense. No, no, no. What's being written? Nonsense. Traffic could be bad.

So next year, let's lock that down. It's got to be, right? And it's a huge advantage for the Pats. For the Pats? Oh, for next year. Yeah. Stand the Steelers playing

until, you know, almost midnight East Coast time and 22 degree weather and our game was done 30 hours earlier. I thought it would work the other way. I did think you were saying it was cold, nobody was talking, it wasn't loud, but I thought maybe Steeler fans wouldn't travel as well as they

did Sunday night. It didn't seem to matter because the Chiefs never had the freaking ball. Every time you looked up, the Steelers had it. I think it was like time of possession was 34-25 or something, and that's with the Chiefs having it like eight of the last ten minutes. It was ridiculous. It was everything we thought it would be. It was a very close game.

It had a weird final score. And the difference was Kelsey dropped that one touchdown. He should have had it. And Tyreek Hill never made a play. Never made a play. Chiefs needed a big play from one of those two guys and they win the game

and they just didn't get one from either. I just don't think you should lose a home playoff game when the other team doesn't score a touchdown. It's embarrassing. I know.

It's like the Steelers and the 85 Bears. They scored two touchdowns. Steelers scored none and they lost. And I don't know what Travis Kelsey is crying about. That was a hold. It's unfortunate, but Albert held Harrison.

It was. Tate and I were saying right before you got here that if he doesn't hold him, Harrison just nails him or strips sacks him or something. You lose anyway. That's all. If he held him because he was going to set. They call that every time. I don't know what he's discussing.

I think that has to be it for Smith and the Chiefs. Yeah. He missed some pretty big throws in that game. I don't know. There were some drops, too. There were a ton of drops. There were some drops. It's just something about it.

But I don't know what the answer is. I don't either. I don't know what that was. You run that back with him and Andy. Andy calls timeout on that fourth and two. When, if they don't get it, they need all their timeouts. And it's like – The two-point conversion is just as important as that play. Yeah, it's like why do you practice all year?

You can't just call in a play? You need to talk it over for three minutes? I think he said, guys, if I don't do this now, I'm not going to be able to make a terrible call all year. I have to get out of this. It's just classic. They have one timeout left. Yeah. And then it works out perfectly somehow. It's just classic. They have one timeout left. Yeah.

And then it works out perfectly somehow. The kickoff, they're inside the five, and then they give up a first down anyway. That was a great play by Roethlisberger. Waited and waited. It was nice. They're not – well, we have one more game to go over, but let's do it. Which one? Atlanta.

We didn't do Atlanta-Seattle. That was – I don't know if there's much to go over with that one seattle just wasn't one of the four best teams yeah they got exposed they can't block defense was too banged up matt ryan looked good that's kind of everything we thought they were getting hurt too that i think you the turning point everyone else says was uh hester the hole on his 71-yard return or whatever, or whatever the return was. But I think when the rookie guard comes out

and they have to replace him for three plays and Wilson steps on his foot or he steps on Wilson's foot, that safety was a killer. They couldn't bounce back from them. Then Atlanta kept scoring. Atlanta was better. They're better? I think Atlanta's good. Yeah, I like their bounce back from them. Then Atlanta kept scoring. Atlanta was better. They're better? I think Atlanta's good.

Yeah. I like their offense. Five guys that I'm terrified of. Running backs that can break plays. They can get big receiving plays. They're decent on defense, especially at home. They can make a couple plays. I don't know.

Mohamed Sanu is now a force, too. Mohamed Sanu Sr. I'm sorry, Sr. Sr. Is it Sr.? Mohamed Sanu Sr. There's a new senior i'm sorry senior senior is it senior muhammad senior yeah there's a little one yeah yeah um let's let's do uh let's quickly take a break to talk about one of my favorite companies dunkin donuts oh yeah i moved to los angeles in 2002 it took me 13 years to work or live near dunkin donuts again and then they opened one up on the

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Speeding past the line. May not be possible at all locations, but it is possible at some of them. It's my dream come true to speed past the line may not be possible at all locations but it is possible at some of them it's my dream come true to speed past the line to get coffee visit ddperks.com for terms and conditions and uh the other thing we got to do is the don julio shot of the week i have an idea for this i have an idea too what's your idea well my idea is you take over completely and pick the uh the winner of Golden State Cleveland tonight. I could do that. I was thinking we do our Oscars thing.

Oh, okay. We could do that, too. Don Julio, the world's original handcrafted tequila with multiple unique tequilas, including Don Julio 1942, the best luxury tequila you'll ever drink. I don't have a feel for Golden State Cleveland because I don't know. You know what the spread is? Golden State home. Where's the game? It's Golden State home? I would say Golden State-Cleveland because I don't know. You know what the spread is? Golden State-Home. Where's the game? It's Golden State-Home?

I would say Golden State by eight. Yeah, that's exactly right. You don't have a feel? I would say Cleveland plus eight. Let's do it. We'll do that as a down to a zero. Yeah. That's it.

All right. Yeah, I think. They just have their number and we'll keep it close. I think Kyrie really loves playing them. Mm-hmm. The Corver thing will be interesting. Okay. Yeah, it'll be close.

I find it hard to believe the Warriors are going to blow them out. They're right. I had another idea for Don Julio's shot of the week. Yeah. The Denzel bet we may or may not have done. We love this. Denzel's plus 400 to win Best Actor. KC Affleck's minus 500.

Denzel's winning the Oscar. Let's give that out. It's more than a shot of a week. Yeah. It's a big machine gun shot of the week. Denzel's winning the Oscar. So he's second, right? Yeah.

Casey Affleck is... He's winning. People are voting for him and Vail Davis. It's going to happen. Who won the Golden Globe? Casey Affleck, right? Casey Affleck, red herring. Yeah.

That's the only thing that... Denzel. These guys are going to be filling out their ballots. They're all over 80. Casey Affleck minus 500? Red Herring. Yeah. That's the only thing. Denzel. These guys are going to be filling out their ballots. They're all over 80. Casey Affleck, minus 500. Denzel, plus 400. Yeah. Gosling, plus 600.

Lock it down. Lock it down. Denzel's really good in that movie. All right. The movie's about 30 minutes too long, but he's great in it. Well, I don't know why I'm agreeing now. I agreed Saturday when you made us put money on it. Now we're giving it to the public.

All right. Let's do the lines for round three. All right. Sunday, 3 p.m. Pacific, Green Bay at Atlanta. I said three and a half, and you said three and a half? We both said three and a half. The actual line right now is four. It's been jumping around four, four and a half, five.

Sorry, back down to four. Does that line end up at three? I don't think so. You three and a half it ends up because it went up against seattle and it went up for dallas against green bay so people are pounding the favorites one thing to know here over under is 61 and a half highest postseason over under of all time before that that, it was 2012, 59.5, New Orleans, Detroit. New Orleans won 45-28. So Falcons and the over is 34-30 would be the final. How could you take under?

You can't take under, right? I'm saying, yeah, the over. No, no, I know. Who's going to take under? 33-30, they don't cover. They played in Week 8. Atlanta won 33-32, didn't cover. I know.

I had it. 40 to – it's really – I mean, to hit that, the Packers have to get to at least 24. Unless everything's a field goal. 40 to 24 covers. Right. Unless everything's a field goal. I know. I know. Well, on a teaser, it's not as high.

We'll figure it out. Are you sure that line's not going to go to three? People think Rodgers can walk on water at this point. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. Even when he throws interceptions, like Buck and Aikman, and Aikman's like, oh, that's the receiver's fault. Right.

Or like that play with Allison when Allison didn't cut across on that third down, and Rodgers is just yelling because Rodgers yells every time he doesn't get a first down. It's always someone else's fault. Well, that's not true. Well, that's Allison. Allison's got to fight through. It's like, you watch the replay.

What's he going to do? Knock the guy over to get open? Well, that's not the Geronimo Allison everyone's become accustomed to. I know. Come on, Geronimo. Who the fuck are these guys he's throwing to? This is crazy.

I know. Jared Cook, Richard Rodgers. to i know come on geronimo are these guys he's throwing to this is crazy i know jared cook richard rogers i don't know i mean atlanta i by the way i could be convinced of picking any of these two of these four against the spread i don't see atlanta scoring less than 38 though less than 38 yeah unless it's all field goals or something is there anything to less than 38. Yeah. Unless it's all field goals or something. Is there anything to Matt Ryan is going to win the MVP, Rodgers, not that he needs more motivation,

but this is nice to just go. Now you're going through the MVP. You wipe off Dallas. Yeah. Well, first of all, you wipe off the Giants. The Giants fans feel like they own you. They can go to Lambeau and beat you. You beat them. You wipe off Dallas, Dak, Zeke Elliott, Jerry Jones.

You get that done. Great comeback. All that's a great comeback from the comeback. Then you beat the MVP, and then Brady is in the final round. It is kind of set up nice for him. Yeah. Well, he's got a chip on his shoulder because they keep talking about the four best quarterbacks. Even though he's going to be MVP, probably, Ryan,

big odds on favor right now. If you read the articles and everything, they kind of put Ryan in a different class than these other three. Yeah, I agree. I would say he's on the class with Roethlisberger. I would say right now it's Rodgers 1, Brady 2, drop off Roethlisberger and Ryan. Yeah. It's so crazy.

The guys are going to win MVP. I don't know if you noticed this, but the Times ran a story about Rodgers' family yesterday. Yeah, I saw that. Weird timing, suspicious, like right at the day of the game. I didn't like that. I keep reading this stuff about his family and his brother who went on The Bachelorette. Who does that? Who does that that's a normal person?

You retweeted something funny about The Bachelorette and the Super Bowl champ. Oh, yeah, Roger Sherman. It's the Super Bowl champ and The Bachelorette winner have never. Never in the same year. Elias said that's never happened. But everybody seems to be looking at the family part, but nobody seems to be asking, maybe there's a reason he distanced himself from the family. Yeah.

Just throwing that out there. I haven't heard that possibility discussed. No. We see this all the time in sports. And for some reason with Rodgers' family, it seems unrealistic to people. But it shouldn't. Maybe they were asking him for money. Maybe they were trying to leverage him in all these different ways.

And he felt like he had to distance himself. I mean, we know celebrities, like families can be pretty rough. Families can ask for stuff. Families can want this, that.

The other thing, a cousin's coming out of the woodwork. Oh. I mean, not you. They want a cameo in the discount

double check commercial. He's not giving it to them. But I, you know. No, of course, no one wants to hear that side though

because it's not as exciting as the celebrity girlfriend and rogers being the problem and rogers hasn't said anything but the way this is being painted is like aaron used to be one of us and then now he's got this celebrity girlfriend it's like well or maybe his family kept asking him for shit and kept bugging him and kept pointing him in a bad position and kept trying to leverage his fame and he got fed up with it i'm sure i was bet on that over the version we keep reading anyway well why don't you release the back the tapes we never saw from any given wednesday when you sat down with them and we could put this ask about that you know the rest and i took heat for not asking about his brother and i'm like why would i ask about his brother who goes on this reality show trying to leverage his errand as like whatever?

I didn't feel right about that. Anyway, I thought that was shitty that that article came out. Of course. The day of. And I think Jerry Jones engineered it. It was bad for karma. Well, it worked well.

It definitely worked. It's great. And now your game. 6.40 Eastern time, Pittsburgh at New England. I think we've been doing this too long because we both picked the same for both games. Three, I said six, right? Six. We both had six.

What is it? It is six. So there's a tease here with the Pats and the Packers bringing them to 10? Yeah. 10 and a half? Could that line go to four and a half? Sure. with the Pats and the Packers, bringing them to 10? Yeah. 10 and a half? Could that line go to four and a half? Sure.

I just want to say I love the spot that the Patriots are in where coming off a shitty win is where you want to be as a football team, where you advance, but you feel terrible about it, and the coach is going to be cracking the whip all week, and now you have this Antonio Brown Facebook Live video. Tomccall and them assholes like of course he should call them assholes like like belichick well hey that guy called us assholes right but he's right he's also right yeah he's also right we are assholes we'll take it belichick time the fuck out it was great but i think this would be a properly motivated Patriots team. I do worry about Brady, though.

I think for years, if I would ask you every year going into the playoffs which team you're afraid of, probably seven of the last nine, you would have said Pittsburgh, most afraid of. Because of the weapons. But this team is, I think, 80% of what – this is not Roethlisberger hitting Antonio Brown in stride two, three times a game. This is a different team, a defense that sometimes shows up, sometimes doesn't.

Le'Veon Bell doing weird, running like no one's ever seen anyone run before. When he stops, why doesn't anyone just tackle him? When he stops in the hole. It's like an optical illusion. No, I know. I'm being stupid. They easily could, though. It's like people optical illusion no i know i'm i'm being stupid but like they easily could though eric right eric berry at one point yesterday is like oh he stopped i'm just gonna i'm just gonna tackle him now it's insane and then he ends up with 170 yards i think he lulled he

lulls people to sleep when he's doing the whatever he's doing this feet people are like oh yeah he's like no no we can't go after him now what's going going on? The one big Antonio Brown play they had was because, for whatever reason, the Chiefs decided to guard him with Justin Houston. Right. Remember that play? For like 52 yards? But other than that, I don't know. They kept those long passes pretty much in check.

It's very strange. It's not the Roethlisberger you're used to or afraid of normally. And there's still that 15-yard pass to Eli Rogers out of nowhere it's like oh man that that sinks us but you're not as scared as you thought you would be of the steelers team no i'm i'm more concerned than than uh i'm more concerned about my own team and i also think the steelers are going to go and thinking they can win which is that's where you don't want to be when you're the home team you want it it to be like a Texan situation where we're going to win, and deep down they're like, Brock Osweiler's our quarterback. We're screwed.

Or you have the Chiefs coming in last year. It's like, yeah, we can win this. Alex Misok. This one they're just going to think they can win. So we're actually going to have to play well is my point. How many points do you have to score? The Steelers do that weird thing where they kick field goals over touchdowns over and over again.

It's kind of their Achilles heel. I would say we have to get to 30. Sounds about right. Yeah. But the Deion Lewis, as predicted for weeks on this pod, was unleashed in round two, and I think he's a huge X Factor. He's very, very, very good. But now he has to have a really good game, doesn't he, for you to win?

Yes. It was a nice bonus all these weeks leading up. He kind of has to be the man now. They did what I thought they were going to do when it got to playoff time, which is just Blount took a backseat. Yeah, it was weird. Lewis got most of the reps. Wade had a nice little touchdown, but for the most part, Lewis was the guy.

And Lewis on kick returns, even though he had that fumble, it was a dangerous wrinkle that I wasn't expecting. Who was the guy who was doing kickoff returns in one of the games? Atlanta, Seattle. Hester. Oh, Hester was really good yeah um now i'm blanking now oh brown was doing some kick returns last night oh antonio brown yeah i like when teams do that for for the big playoff games when they break out the guns and then the steelers had their basically their first team defense on special teams, which I thought was smart. But again, they played Sunday night.

I'm worried about Brady on a Sunday night if it's like 20 degrees. It's going to be great. It's going to be great. You have to be. How'd you do in Cousins South Shore, I think? My best bet of the year, I put half my stack on it was the Falcons. Oh, nice. It made it a little interesting towards the end,

but that was a win. And then I won with the Green Bay New England teaser, which you didn't need to tease. And then the Chiefs. Chiefs blew it. We hit both of our teases. We did. That was nice.

Yeah. I had to talk you. You had to talk me into it, and then I had to talk you into New England. That was the thing about the New England game. No one thought the Texans would come back, even if it was 11 but because of gambling everyone was locked in for the last hour of that it's like oh well they cover on a two-team teaser whoa they're covering the actual spread this is insane the will fuller drop for a touchdown was

the spread right there would have been 24 20 right and if it if they had stopped us they would have the ball with a chance to win and just right through through his hands. That was Willie Mays, though. That wasn't like he was looking at it the whole time over his shoulder. That was like, I'm going to look up directly into the sky, and I have to catch it right there. Because it was basically the same one Kelsey missed. Maybe we underestimate how hard that catches. Yeah.

Especially in the night games. All right, guys. That's it. What happens? Give us a Romo prediction for your Don Julio second shot of the week. What team? I'm going to say

I hope Houston, but it's complicated if it is. Houston. The $25 million cap hit. Let me ask you this. What do you get for Tony Romo

in a trade? He decides where he wants to go. No, but what does Dallas... You get like a fourth round pick. Fourth round. Because he gets to decides where he wants to go. No, but what does Dallas... You get like a fourth round pick. Fourth round. Because he gets to decide where he wants to go. If he's like, I want to go to Houston, it's like, alright, Houston,

what do you get for Tony Romo? I don't think Jerry gives up... First of all, freaking Sam Bradford got a one and a three for Sam Bradford. We're almost 37. He's had like 40 surgeries. He's better than Sam Bradford for the next three years. Come on. You don't think he gets a two? You think he gets a second rounder? I think so. Plus, if Jerry's going to take that chance, he doesn't wantford for the next three years. Come on. You think he'll get a second rounder? I think so.

Plus, if Jerry's going to take that chance, he doesn't want to lose the state of Texas to Tony Romo, right? I mean, I think he does well by him. Why wouldn't he do Denver? He could do Denver. But like you said, then you're— What about one of the L.A. teams? It's cold, and then you're under L.A.

No, you want to be able to win the division the year you get there. Romo could get a bye with the Texans. L.A LA Rams? Cardinals? I don't know. Should we talk about Superfly Snooker real quick? Yes. Or do you think it's weird?

No, I think we should. All I'm going to say is... We're going long on this. We might have to bump Pete Berg. Oh, that'd be great. What a feather in my cap. Let's do Superfly real quick and then we'll go. Passed away yesterday, 73-year-old.

A little tainted by the probability that he murdered somebody? I will say, hats off to the Lehigh County Police Department for botching that investigation. Otherwise, we never would have seen superfly as we know i well it definitely was a botching yeah yeah i'm conflicted because you know before the before this investigation came out i would have this would have been like oh my god superfly died i had to write a column and now it's like god clearly he murdered somebody yeah it sure seems like the facts support it it's pretty close but i say, when he got on the cage against Backlund and missed in 1982, that was the single most exciting wrestling moment of my life.

Really? Yeah. That was number one for me. Okay. Number one. He goes up. He's on the rope. He looks around.

He turns to his left. Looks around like, should I do this? Yeah. And the crowd just fucking loses it. It's like nuts. Was that the garden, right? Climbs up on the cage and it's like,

the cage isn't even prepared to have, there's like ropes and stuff. He's got to like navigate how to stand on it. And he jumps and it's like, this would be the equivalent of if somebody did that

from a hundred feet now. Yeah. It just seemed, because until like 1977, they wouldn't even let wrestlers jump off the top rope. It was like a now. Yeah, right. It just seemed, because until like 1977, they wouldn't even let wrestlers jump off the top rope. It was like a ban. No, this is,

the X Games before the X Games. Yeah, it's like, oh my, it was just the most exciting thing I've ever seen. And those cages were flimsy. They were so bad, those cages. Like, you wouldn't put dogs in those cages.

And like, there was a ref outside that would open the door. Like, our kids have toy cages that are sturdier than what superfly snooker was standing on i like the uh morocco one where he actually hit well now so that was a year later yeah right so what i found out i was researching yesterday the msg match was in 82 like in the late spring early summer back when yeah back back on snooker and then three months later, same match in Toronto,

same miss from the top of the steel cage. I'm starting to wonder if wrestling's rigged. You know, they used to do that a lot. They'd have a card at Madison Square Garden, and then they'd go to like a high school gym, and I would be there, and it was like exactly the same finish. And I was like, wait a minute. I saw Big John Studd versus Bob Backlund in MSG

and then in Boston Garden and the match ended the same way. The same way, yeah. But it's like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. You know deep down, but you're like, that's weird. I can't believe Studd fell for that again. Twice.

You talk yourself into it. Didn't he remind you? But the Morocco match, so he headbutts, Morocco's the champ champ and you think oh snooker's not gonna be a good intercontinental champ how's it gonna have how are they gonna do this so he's killing morocco's blood everywhere he headbutts morocco who goes flying over the top uh turnbuckle and out of the cage so morocco wins the match yeah that was the great thing with msg they ring the bell like 40 times. Like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

Like, okay, the match is over. He brings them back in, suplexes them, and then goes to the top of the cage and lands, unlike the Backlund match, lands on Morocco, who's like sitting up kind of waiting for it. He's catching him, yeah. It was so high at that point. Yeah, right, exactly. But it was like the legend of the snooker Backlund.

It's a full year later when he does the Morocco thing. So when he goes up there, the crowd loses its mind. Right. That was great. He also had he jumped off Andre's shoulders. Oh, yeah. The Samoans, which was, you know, probably higher than the than the top. Yeah.

Turnbuckle. Right. Oh, definitely. Yeah. Seven feet, six and a half feet up in the air. Yeah. And that's one of the best matches on youtube the afros are incredible snooker andre's in full afro mode

and then the two samoans and they're all not andre but they're all related right snooker the samoans the snooker and the smalls were a little related right all all these guys uh and then the last great one was he had the coconuts. The greatest moment of Piper's career. And before YouTube even, and now since, I've watched it another hundred times. But I had it on a VCR recording of it. And I must have watched Piper

hit Snooker with a coconut like 350 times. Over and over and over. That seems low. Really? Yeah, I would have guessed like 500,000 times. And the way Snooker played it was great. It hasn't aged that great from a racism standpoint. It's very weird.

It's very uncomfortable. That's how they got crowds going. You could just go after a guy's race. And it's like, all right, now you have... Yeah, Jeff Ross and I were talking about that when he was on the podcast on Friday about how racist the roasts were in the 70s where you just start making fun of a Polish person, an Italian person, black. He just went right there.

Sammy Davis Jr. fake laughing over his vodka. They're making eyeball and black guy jokes about him for an hour. Right. So Piper Snuka hitting him with the, here's one coconut, two coconuts. He's counting bananas and Snuka's barely saying anything and then gets the coconut to the side. The other one was Ray Stevens.

Didn't Ray Stevens pile drive him on the concrete? He did. That was before that. Ferdy Blassie. That was before Morocco. That was when he switched away from Albano and went to Buddy Rogers. It was Rogers Corner where he he with the heel turn but the pile drive i remember thinking like he really died like he broke his neck oh my god what happened

it turns out jimmy snooker had a hard head but piper said snooker was never the same after in real life after the coconut hit what do you mean he said his head his head injury like that would be the that's what the n NFL would be talking about now. Like hitting him with the coconut. Oh, like the guy in the Chiefs yesterday who got to come back and won a play? That was crazy. That was ridiculous. He's passed the concussion protocol.

He's back. It's like the guy clearly got nailed to the head. They didn't have a concussion protocol anywhere. No. Nothing. Snooker. That was it. Well, I will say as a young kid growing up in the early 80s

snooker climbing to the top rope was the most exciting thing happening definitely it really was it was like that

Michael Jordan it was all these kind of tipping tipping point moments as we kept climbing athletically and snooker let me tell you

something brother terrible interview yeah awful couldn't really get the title because he was such a bad interview.

But wasn't it for like about nine, ten months they could headline cards with him? Sure. He didn't need to have the title? Yeah, snooker Morocco. Snooker anybody. You thought he was going to kill whoever it was. Very athletic in the ring. Great athlete.

Great wrestler. Cousin Sal's shirt thing. Check in Thursday morning, I think. I'm on a roll. I will have two winners for you. I'm in the black for the season. Nice. Jimmy Kimmel Live.

It's a rerun tonight. Martin Luther King Day. Later in the week, Vin Diesel, Bill Maher, Anthony Anderson, and the brand new L.A. Chargers. Joey Bosa and Phil Rivers will join us. The L.A. Chargers. Feel the excitement. Cuz, good job by you. Good job by you, Billy.

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and spicy shrimp and Korean rice cakes with cabbage and furikake. I think I said that right. Right now you can get your first three Blue Apron meals for free with free shipping. Oh, yeah. Just go to blueapron.com slash BS. Blue Apron, a better way to cook. And also, since we're here, why would you waste 20 minutes finding a parking space outside a packed post office just so you can stand in line that's way, way, way too long while listening to annoying people taking forever to mail gifts and packages? Why would you do that? Why would you do that to yourself? Here's an idea. Just use stamps.com.

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Go to stamps.com. Click on the microphone at the top of the homepage. Type in BS. That's stamps.com. Enter BS the microphone at the top of the homepage. Type in BS. That's Stamps.com. Enter BS. And now, Peter Berg. All right. As promised, the director of Patriot's Day, Peter Berg.

This is like your new genre now. You've created a genre. It's immediate history told in a non-fictionally, somewhat fictional way. And this is now three in a row, right? Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon, Patriot's Day. How did this become your passion? Well, Battleship was the first, actually. Battleship was the first.

That was fiction. I guess you're right. That was fiction. I think probably Friday Night Lights was my first taste of this when I did the film. And I was able to go live in Texas and in bed with a high school football team for an entire season. And that was kind of, I think, my first taste of what I feel my sweet spot is. And that probably goes back to like college when I was taking cultural anthropology courses at Macalester College where we would have to do a two-week assignment where we would study bus station behavior. We'd just literally sit at a bus stop for two weeks, a couple hours a day, and observe human behavior at a bus stop. And that kind of experience got me hooked on nonfiction.

And with Mark Wahlberg by my side, we both kind of realized that these are the kinds of stories that get us going. And it's been kind of amazing to be able to tell these stories so does it keep going is it just these three or you have another one in the works well i i've told him that since i've directed three now where he you know he gets to come be mark wahlberg you know and he's an incredibly hard working actor but you know he gets to go home and make two more movies while I do this that he has to direct me next. And so I'm trying to talk- The Great White Hype 2?

I'm thinking more Last Tangle in Paris 2. Oh, no. A controversial movie right now. Yeah. Well, me and a love story with me and- Erotic thriller. Yeah, like a 22-year- year old french ingenue and we're on the beach and there's a lot of talking and what about basic instinct three you take over

the douglas role i really jennifer lawrence and in the sharon stone or something i have my heart set on um last time yeah i'm the brando role and and we'll figure something out. So Wahlberg, you guys became close during Lone Survivor or sometime before that? Well, we've known each other forever. And Ari Emanuel is our agent. And Mark and I actually used to work out at a Gold's Gym nearby. I think there might have even been a Gold's Gym in this building in Hollywood with the original Johnny Drama, who was Mark's trainer. Yep. And was a really, is a great guy and was a great trainer.

He's not training so much anymore. But Mark and I would work out and we knew each other and we both knew that we were both boxing fans. And Mark had a boxing ring at his house then and I think we both sensed that if we ever did try and spar each other we would kill each other why haven't you directed a boxing movie yet? it would seem like that would combine the two things you love the most in life, right?

I mean, I'm thinking about it what boxing stories left? Dewey Bozella yeah, that was an ESPN documentary no, ESPN Yeah. I think were you involved in it? Not really. It was already a finished product. I've been working on that for a while. Spent a lot of time with Dewey who for anyone that doesn't know the Dewey Bozella story, he was a really talented heavyweight fighter in the 70s who was framed for murder in Poughkeepsie, New York,

and did, I believe it was 24, either 24 or 27 years at Sing Sing Prison, had the opportunity to get out several, at least four times, if he would admit remorse for the crime. And he had too much pride to admit the remorse because he, you know, maintained his innocence and was later proven by two young attorneys from a very powerful law firm in New York to actually have been innocent. He didn't do, didn't do the crime. He was framed by some not, not particularly scrupulous prosecutors and police officers in Poughkeepsie at the time. And I think at 55, Oscar De La Hoya gave him a pro fight. He won the Arthur Ashe Courage Award. I remember.

And he made this beautiful speech and he said that he gave up on his dream, which was to be a pro fighter, but he held on to his integrity and and uh de la joya saw it and and got him a pro fight and it's it's a it's a great story it's a great story and they used to bring you are directing it or you think you're well i've been working on the script i've spent a lot of time with dewey so it's on my list it's not i have a i have a secret short list that i carry in my brain um and it's it's films that just don't go away. Stories that don't go away. And you write them by yourself or your writing partner?

I generally write them by myself. Yeah. Unless you want to help me, I would write with you. I'm available. Pardon me? I'm available. If you want to write when I would,

I, I am a, I mean, the thing about boxing for me, I don't know. I, I love it so much. And I mean, the thing about boxing for me, I don't know, I love it so much. And I feel that it's kind of a part of my life that keeps me sane.

And a long time ago, I decided not to invest in a bar or a restaurant or an amateur baseball team. But with Gary Shandlingling opened up a boxing club. And, you know, that's always been kind of an escape for me and something that I have a tremendous amount of passion for. And I could see doing something maybe in the documentary space, particularly about the just absolutely horrific state of boxing today and how these incredibly talented young fighters are having so much trouble getting any kind of notoriety or making any money. And the business is really being driven into the ground by some petty corporate rivalries.

And that interests me quite a bit. It has no governing body really whatsoever. No. It would almost be like if the NBA didn't exist and Westbrook and Durant just had to constantly figure out how to get games going with LeBron and Chris Paul. It's ludicrous. And there was no league. So you've got, it would be like if there were, anybody in the world could stand up and say, I am the NFL and this is the Lombardi trophy. It's the Lombardi trophy, the Butkus trophy, the Lawrence Taylor trophy. And then people just come together and play

for whatever trophy they decide they want to play for. And the numbers, the separation of wealth and pro boxing between the top tier, now that Mayweather is sort of out of it. But I mean, I remember when you and I went to the Mayweather Canelo fight, and I think however many hundreds of millions of dollars Mayweather made, you never know exactly what he made. If you looked at the undercard, the fighters fighting right under him were fighting for $45,000, $50,000. And that's generally the way the business goes.

But what doesn't make sense is people want live sports more than they ever have before. And you have all these different networks that are just dying to put. You have FS1. You have FS1-2. You have NBC Sports Network, ESPN1, ESPN2. You have Twitter and Facebook and all these different platforms. I would think this would be the best possible chance to get paid to box. And yet it's such a mess.

It's the opposite. Well, you've got these different organizations. You've got Bob Arum. You've got Oscar De La Hoya. You've got this gentleman, Al Heyman. Jay-Z dipped into it for a second. And now Oscar De La Hoya's ex-partner, Richard Schaefer, have started these separate promoting companies. And these guys hate each other's guts and want to do each other in.

So if you have a talented fighter that fights for top rank and who's ready to fight, all he wants to do is fight. He's an incredibly disciplined, well-trained athlete. And the best fight for him is an Al Heyman fighter. These two guys won't let the guys fight. They won't. And then you throw in the rivalry between HBO and Showtime. And it's just a mess. Somebody needs to just take a bulldozer, flatten the entire industry, and restart it.

This is why we need a sports czar. Everything you're laying out. I've been pushing for the concept of a sports czar for 10 years in columns. All sports? The person who's just in charge of the president. Because we have czars and all these other things, right? We have a drug czar. I mean, you go down the line, there's all these different people who are in charge of different- Who would you appoint besides yourself? Because I would definitely support you as a sports czar. I would appoint myself. And I would have a great group of

people around me. And as sports czar, if you were like today, appointed sports czar, first of all, what would we call you? Czar Simmons or czar? I'd be the sports czar. So would you walk in? I'd have to work for Trump, so I'd have to reconcile that to some degree. But when you walked in, we don't call you the sports guy. I still call

you Bill. If you were the sports czar... No, you'd call me Bill. We'd stay on a first name basis. But boxing, I would just be like, look, we're blowing this up. The UFC has created a model that actually for the most part works. We're emulating this. We're trying

to get every up and coming boxer to go this way. So the reason the UFC was able to do that was because you didn't have the Bob Arums and you didn't have Oscar De Loa and Al Haim and all these different guys who they signed these guys young and then they just hoard them and they become assets. And that's what the UFC's been

able to avoid. Now the other, the problem with the UFC is that, you know, they have and this is a problem with boxing too, no health benefits, no unions, no real protection. No players association. Right. No rich lawyer fighting for them. If you, you know,

because one way to reinvent boxing would be if the top 20 fighters, you know, in the world, I don't, you know, depending upon what rank and problem, there's like eight different ranking organizations. But you can pretty much agree on who,

just based on money, the top 20 fighters are. If they all basically said we're unionizing or we're going to form some sort of a fighters coalition and we're not going to fight unless X, Y, and Z happens, you might see some movement there. But none of them speak the same language, the fighters, literally. So that's a problem. Yeah, that's true well you also have the promoters take so much that you think the advantage of starting a federation or whatever and giving the boxers more of the money would actually be an advantage but i just think it's

so crooked and so corrupt that all these different places will throw their bodies and in front of anything you know well i i so you support my canvas and happy. A hundred percent, I support it. I will do whatever I can do. Can we talk about Shanling quickly? Absolutely. So I haven't talked to you since, I talked to you on the phone about it,

but we haven't talked about it on a podcast. Since Gary passed. Yeah. Did you go to the Apatow? No, I was out of town. You were out of town, right? We had- That was one of the. You were out of town, right? That was one of the coolest nights that I spent this decade.

I heard, yeah. It was really, really great. There were over a thousand people there, I heard. Yeah, and it was done the right way. It was like a celebration, but it was heartfelt and it wasn't false in any way. So how did you become friends with him? Through Bob Dylan's boxing gym. Bob Dylan

still has this... A lot of people don't know Bob Dylan's a passionate boxer. I mean, he still boxes. Bob Dylan, the world-class famous Hall of Fame singer. He's a singer, a song and dance guy, from what I understand. I believe he just won a Nobel Prize.

Yeah, I heard about that. And he has a gym in an undisclosed spot in Los Angeles. And I was invited to come work out there. And you never knew who you would walk into at that gym. You literally might walk into Bob Dylan. You might walk into Mike Tyson. You might walk into Oscar de la Hoya. The first time I went in there, I walked into Gary Shandling.

And, you know, for anyone that knew Gary, one of the things I found so remarkable about Gary, you know, we were co-owners of the Wild Card West Boxing Gym with Freddie Roach, and the three of us kind of put that together. And when Gary died, we had a service for him at the gym and that was populated by a lot of uh you know professional fighters amateur fighters police firemen just just basic folks who had no real understanding of gary uh shanling as anything other than Gary from the boxing gym. They had no idea. And he must have loved that. Well, 90% loved it.

He still loved talking about his show. Yeah, but he never behaved any differently, whether he was talking to a young fighter, a cop from Santa Monica, or Tom Petty would be in there, or Jerry Seinfeld would

be in there. Gary would bring in five Tibetan monks. I mean, the eclectic nature of his life is extraordinary. And the common theme was that everybody had their stories you know Gary would find a way to get with someone and take them figure out kind of who they were and what the issues were and what was making you know what what was really the dominant issue in their life and Gary would lock in on it and he would spend hours and we had stories from firefighters cops some of our young trainers Gary would call them at two in the morning and talk for hours um and that became you know his family and i wasn't at the big service you're talking about but i'm sure you felt that totally the amount and i'm i'm sure you had your moments with gary the only real moment i had was that time on the on the plane with that whole trip with you and just

talking to him yeah that's the first time i'd ever really had an extended hang with him and he was totally i could have imagined just us talking to like. That's the first time I'd ever really had an extended hang with him. And he was totally, I could imagine just us talking until like five in the morning because that was kind of built for that. Gary was an extraordinarily complex thinker. And when I was flirting with the idea of doing Lone Survivor, Gary kind of cornered me and he said, I read this book

and I heard your thing about doing it. I read the book. Well, I never told him I was thinking about doing it. So I don't know how he heard that. He went out and read the book and would spend hours talking about why it was important to make that film and what that film was about and what brotherhood was about and what real, real love, uh, and, and, and team meant in these, these, he was so passionate about it and was kind of an inspiration to me as I was making it, would come and watch the different cuts,

was always trying to find a little humor. Even in the middle of 19 Navy SEALs getting killed, Gary would bring his own unique, just brilliant sense of humor and sense of humanity to that. And I really do miss him quite a bit. And he was very close to my heart. And what I love is, we're seeing some people are in the studio with us right now that I guess your listeners can't see who are part of that gym community. and these guys never saw

the larry sanders show they never saw gary i don't think that they knew that that gary shanling was a famous comedian they just knew him as gary from the gym yeah and he never whether he liked that or didn't he certainly allowed that to be um He could be the most argumentative. If he was mad or he was upset about something, he was vicious in his pursuit of what he perceived to be justice. And that was part of his charm. But I'm missing- Do you think, you always hear the word genius get thrown around usually to people that don't deserve it or don't totally deserve it do you think he was a genius

yeah I mean I think that I think that Gary had I'm all about I just refer to people as having active brain chemistry some people's brain chemistry is a little more active than others I have friends that are probably diagnosed as manic depressive or bipolar or whatever psychological term gets

bandied around. And I don't think that person's bipolar. I just think they've got active brain chemistry. And I don't think Gary was bipolar at all. I think his brain chemistry was absolutely unparalleled in terms of how complex whatever neurons and endorphins and things fly around the brain. I've never seen anything like it. And there was never a short, never, um, a short, easy, casual conversation with Gary. If you walked up to him and decided to engage, you had to be ready for a four or five hour conversation, a two hour phone. It was always a, it was always a phone, one of those phone calls until your ear, your phone starts heating up in your brain and you

have to beg to get off. I mean, Gary would, and he would, and he would just keep going. It was, it was almost like a competition. It was, it was a test to see how much of his brain you could take. And he wouldn't stop until you declared mercy. I'm so mad. I was supposed to have him on a podcast and he lives here. So I was like, oh yeah, we'll do it. We'll do it. And it's like, it was, but there was never an impetus to do it. And at any point I could have just said, let's do it. This is the week. And you just think like, oh, I'll do it.

Yeah, I'll do it next month. And it just never happened. And it's like such a regret for me. You should watch. I think it's available on DVD. He did this experimental, I don't even know what you would call it, interview series that he did. One with Seinfeld. Oh, yeah.

One with Tom Petty. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One with Alec Baldwin. I remember with Alec Baldwin, I walked into the gym one day and the two of them were beating the shit out of each other in the gym. I mean, like, because Gary was a surprisingly good boxer, and he was also just dirty, right? So he would, okay, he would, you know, ask for a break, or he would, you know, clinch, or just basically stop fighting for a second,

let you disengage, and then just punch you in the face as hard as he could. Yeah. And you knew when you were sparring with Gary, you just basically just had to assume. You were going to get hit. Yeah, like ignore the bell, because when the bell signaled the round was over, he might pretend like he ignored it. And him and Alec Baldwin were just, and Alec was not in great shape at that particular point in his life.

So I remember being concerned that both of them were actually having heart attacks when I walked into the gym because of the sounds they were making. And they fought till they were exhausted. And then Gary started this interview. That's when the interview started. I think there was blood and sweat and snot and just every human fluid you could think of. And I don't think Alec had any idea how hard Gary was going to come after him.

And Alec had been repeatedly punched in the face by Gary and had to then punch Gary back. And Alec, at the end of the day, is probably tougher. But they did this crazy interview laying on their sides, you know, 55-year-old men having punched the shit out of each other. And Gary then started the interview. And he did. And it was genius, you know. And not to use that word, but it was kind of genius.

He did one with Seinfeld where they just sat on a bench in Central Park. And Gary wouldn't talk. They just stared at him until Jerry started sort of awkwardly to try and— Make conversation. Yeah, figure out what Gary's game was. And Gary said he just wanted to manipulate space and time and convention of conversation and all of that sort of thing. So, yeah, Gary is missed very much by many, by many. One of the reasons I wanted to have you on,

other than I hadn't seen you in a while, I really liked your movie. I took my kids. Patriot's Day. I took my kids on Christmas Day, 11 o'clock. Wow. Nine years old and 11 years old. Wow.

Yeah, and I knew it was going to be, you know, not really a movie for a nine-year-old and 11-year-old, but at the same time, like, you know, I spent 26 of the first 32 years of my life in Massachusetts, and, you know, the marathon thing obviously affected me as it did anybody who ever spent any time there. And my kids have grown up in L.A. I want them to understand Boston better.

And I just, it was important for me that they want to see it. And, you know, there was one part where I had to put my hand over my son's eyes just to make sure. But for the most part, like they were riveted the whole time and it really meant something to them.

You know, they didn't know really what happened. By the end of it, they were like, they went home, they Googled it. They wanted to find out more about the whole thing. It's really compelling. And I got to say, like when I heard you were doing it, I was nervous about it. It felt like it was too soon. Um, I wasn't sure it should be dramatized into a movie and I just felt uneasy about it. I think a lot of people did. I'm sure you felt that, right? It was like, really? You're doing this now? This just happened.

Why are we making a movie out of this? Yeah. I mean, we certainly heard that. Is it too soon? And Mark Wahlberg's quick answer was, I don't think it's soon enough. And I think a sentiment that I agreed with in that my feeling now being a father like you and having a son ask me, what is going on? What is this when you hear about the shooting in San Bernardino or in Florida at the gay nightclub in France. I was in Paris. I was in Nice, Bastille Day, working on a film, a different film, when we wake up and hear that somebody blew something up or some group of people walked into a street corner or a school or a movie theater that committed some just horrific atrocity.

This is the new reality. And what interested me as much as some of the details of the bombing, and because we live in this headline culture where we just don't have the time to really often go beyond the headline. The news cycle is so fast, and the hits just keep coming, that it's hard for us to take an event and actually look at it. You move on to the next one. It's like, oh, now this happened. Now I'm thinking about this.

And so the more I learned about the Boston, the response and the details of those five days from right prior to the bombs going off to the capturing of the youngers, our knife brother, in the boat in Watertown. Although the details I didn't know and I thought were fascinating. And I thought that alone interested me very much in telling this story. But I think the bigger issue was I think it's very hard to process these acts of terror and sort of say, you know, this is why it happened. This is how we prevent it

from happening. I don't know that it is preventable. I don't know that we'll ever understand why. And I don't know that there's ever a single why. But what I found so fascinating about Boston was it is a look at how we as a community can process and respond to these acts. And what people saw in Boston was that this absolutely barbaric, cowardly, just really sociopathic action that was designed to terrify and destroy and to break bonds had really had the inverse effect. And the way that community came together and the way that love ended up sort of flourishing and these bonds were formed between people who never ever would have met was very affirming.

And I felt comforting. And that was a big reason why I think both Mark and I wanted to tell that story. Certainly not to revel in the horror of that day. Right. And we tried very hard not to do that. You know, we believe there's a line of taste that you can't always articulate, but you know when you've crossed it. We wanted to show some of that, but what we really wanted to show was how an event like that hurts, creates extreme pain and grief, but also pulls people together.

And we felt it was not too soon to tell that story. And you captured, in my opinion, probably my single favorite thing about Boston, which is Boston. Everyone in Boston loves Boston. Can't understand why anyone would ever leave Boston. And it's very protective of Boston. And when this whole thing happened, you know, and who knows? Every city is different. But with Boston, you knew that people are going to be like, fuck this.

We're finding this guy. We're running the marathon next year. These guys aren't breaking us. But I think, you know, when people, if you're not from New England, the marathon, it's literally a holiday just for people in Massachusetts. It's one of the few states that has

its own holiday, and it's this three-day weekend, and it's the best day of the year, and the weather's gotten nice again. And whether you're from there, whether you're a college kid there, it immediately means something and for somebody to mess with that four people died

there were roughly 30 amputations leg amputations and that was one of the most chilling things in the movie is when one of the guys one of the terrorists says how they should have put it higher it's like oh man why didn't we think of that one of the guys, one of the terrorists says how they should have put it higher.

It's like, oh man, why didn't we think of that? And I thought it did a good job of, at no point was I, you know, sometimes in movies you root for the bad guys or there's a scene where you're like, oh, I kind of see, this movie did not do that. It portrayed them as who they were, but it never glorified them in any way. And they were villains the whole time, but not cartoonish either. Does that make sense? Yeah, I mean, that was certainly a big challenge.

And, you know, I remember when, you know, when Rolling Stone magazine put Joe Harzard. Yeah, that was a huge deal in Massachusetts. And, you know, and they chose a photograph of him where he looked like a young Jim Morrison. He was a very handsome kid. Yeah, he looked like he's in an indie band that's just about to put out an album. And Jan Werner, the editor of Rolling Stone, took a lot of heat. And should have.

I can remember being upset about it. And I was promoting a film, I think Lone Survivor at the time and I had a meeting with Peter Travers I was doing an interview with the film guy from Rolling Stone great writer very well respected and this was right the week that

Joe Harziner was on the cover of Rolling Stone and I was like what's the deal like what is he thinking and Travers talked about the internal fighting that went on within the editorial department of Rolling Stone. Some people got really angry and some people were all for it. And I remember just not liking it and feeling it was the wrong picture. It was the wrong message. And then suddenly now I'm doing a film and I'm trying to figure out how- And you're on the tail end of that too, because after that happened, I think everybody back home was like, oh, now here comes somebody else who might try to exploit this. I think that you had Wahlberg help stuff.

Yeah. Because he's from there. It did. He gets it. But just in terms of how we present these two brothers. Yeah. It was a real challenge. And we did a lot of research on them. I met with some of the younger brothers' ex-girlfriends, spent a lot of time.

The older brother was a boxer. Do you know this story? Of the two that died, the older brother was a boxer? Yeah. Yeah. It's somewhat interesting. If you look at these two individuals, this wasn't like September 11th, where 19 Saudis basically snuck into America, Mohammed Atta and his guys, and hijacked these planes and then all died.

These were two brothers who were very deeply assimilated into American culture. These guys you see at Starbucks. Well, one guy's selling pot in college. Selling pot. The younger brother's selling pot, had multiple girlfriends, was a wrestler. The older brother was a boxer, and his dream was to represent the U.S. in the Olympics. I think at 160 pounds, his middle weight, was by all accounts a very good fighter. And to earn the right to represent the U.S. in the Olympics,

you've got to basically enter a tournament. And if you win X amount of fights, you get to represent that weight class. He was well on his way to winning those fights. I think he'd won five. He lost to six on a decision. He felt he was persecuted. He felt it was an unfair decision that he'd actually won the fight. But because he was a Muslim, he was big.

And that set him off. Right. And that led to some people kind of getting to him and saying, well, yeah, you should come to this camp in Chechnya and get educated. And that became this radicalization. And then he came back and he and his brother were off and running. And I felt that there was, this was interesting to me, but I wanted to make sure that we didn't, I don't, I see, I don't consider this, these brothers to have been holy men.

I don't consider them to be righteous in any way. I consider them to have been narcissistic. This older brother was embarrassed. Angry narcissist. And that's it. And so we wanted to show some of that, but we wanted to be very clear that we were not putting—we were not in any way justifying this behavior or offering any narrative that was anything other than these kids were sick and cowardly individuals. Was the Wahlberg character 100% based on a real character or a compilation of different characters? Yeah, I mean, that's been a tricky one.

And there have been people that have come at us a bit on the fact that he's a composite, mainly of two different- By the way, most movies that do this always end up with a composite somebody. Well, and there was no single cop that did it all. There were two cops, one named Danny Keeler, one named Bobby Murner. Danny Keeler was there at the finish line. He was what you see Wahlberg doing in the beginning of that film. That was Danny Keeler. And he was the one who, he was the ranking cop at the finish line.

He took control of stabilizing patients, running the traffic. He was the one that was on his knees in that blood helping people. And then there was another cop, but then after 12 hours, he finally went to bed. There was another cop, Bobby Myrner, who was there for much of the second half. Got there at the end of the Watertown shootout. It was there when they pulled Joe Hart out of the boat at the end. We kind of combined those two characters. But you kind of have to, right? I mean, if you're going to sell a movie, like Wahlberg's not taking a part where he's in half the movie and then doesn't get to be in the other

half. Correct. And that movie doesn't get made. You know where he's in half the movie and then doesn't get to be in the other half. Correct. And that movie doesn't get made. You know, there's people. Every movie does. All the President's Men is like one of my seven favorite movies. That has composite characters. Well, of course. It's Hollywood. It happens.

And what, you know, every once in a while we'll get, you know, I'll get a critic who's like, well, okay, I really like this film. I think that this film story needs to be told. But I really take offense to, you know to Mark Wahlberg kind of composite character. Well, if we don't have Mark Wahlberg, we don't have the movie that they like. Well, and also, then just make a documentary. Correct. Correct. You know, and I think to Moneyball is like this, too.

I just was watching Moneyball again because we did a podcast about it for our Sports Movie Hall of Fame series. And Jonah Hill's character is a compilation of a bunch of different people. Is that right? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. It's a fake person. His name's Peter Brand.

He doesn't exist. So I think people have a tendency to watch movies like this and think every person was the actual thing. And the goal is to get the gist of it and capture it. It just, to me, seems like people, so many people who've given the film really good reviews will still take a shot at Mark playing a composite character. And I just felt like we were so open about it.

And out in front, we're talking to Billy Evans, who's the chief of police in Boston now, and Governor Baker and Mayor Walsh. And every cop we met and said, look, we're not going to assign stolen valor to one cop. We're not going to say there's one cop that really did all this stuff, because that's just going to piss off every other cop and fed. And you've already got enough issues with competition amongst the different Boston police departments. And we're going to just be very transparent about it. How did you film?

So you must have gone back and filmed at what, the marathon last year to grab some of the marathon footage? Yes, we filmed at the real marathon. Obviously, we didn't recreate the explosion at the real marathon. For that, we built a big chunk of Boylston Street out at an abandoned Navy shipyard in, I think, Weymouth. And then you restaged the Watertown, because that was Watertown, wasn't it? We used a little bit of Watertown. We used a little bit of Malden, a real neighborhood in Malden.

But then for the actual gunfight, you know. Yeah, yeah. Well, because people would say, yeah, you can come shoot in our neighborhood. It's not a good idea. We're like, you don't understand. No, we don't care. I'm like, no, you really don't. Because once you say yes to us coming, that's, you know, 10 nights from six o'clock at night till six in the morning of us just blowing things up. And you think you might want that in your neighborhood. I don't think that's fine in Massachusetts. Yeah, until about hour one. Yeah.

And then your wife is like, Bill, go shut them up right now. One of the things I loved about the movie is I always thought the guy, the Asian guy who breaks out of the car. Danny Meng. One of the most underrated heroes that we've had in the last 30 years. And you nailed it perfectly. But if he doesn't get out of that car, those guys are on their way to New York. Times Square.

And they're doing more stuff. And I don't think anybody even realizes that. I mean, Danny Meng is, I've been doing this for a while. And I've gotten to interview a lot of people as I'm doing research for movies and meet a lot of people I have never met just a more fascinating courageous

badass kid in my life and he's so sweet he's 125 pounds he's 5 foot 3, barely speaks English came here from China started his own food delivery app, started making money by himself, put his money into this car, this Mercedes that he loved. You know, was in the process of dating a girl.

And these brothers carjacked him, and they took all his money. They took his gas. They filled up his car with gas. They loaded it up with bombs. They were headed to New York. They were going to kill him and dump him on the side of the road on the way to New York. And he planned and executed this escape. Which is the most gripping scene in the movie.

In a movie that has a lot of gripping scenes. But that one is like, your body, nobody in the theater moves for like 90 seconds during that scene. It's like, you just can't think, you know, you have to think of how would you react in that situation? Would you have the courage to do what he did or would you just freeze? I think he was smart and he weighed the math and he was just like, these guys just exploded two bombs in the marathon. Like I'm definitely getting killed if I don't get more of this car.

What he told me was, you know, when he was sitting in that gas station trying to work up the courage to undo his seatbelt, push away this gun, open the door, jump out. He said he knew he had to do, you know, these five things. And he was very scared. And he said, you know, and then he was thinking that they were going to kill him and that this made him sad. And he thought that his parents were going to get a call that he was dead and he knew it was going to make his mother and father very sad. He said he felt very sad. And he said, and then I think that, he said,

I think that they're going to take my car and they're going to steal my car. And he thinks about how hard he worked for that car. He says, I think these two brothers are going to steal my car and take my car. He said, this made me very mad. And I thought to myself, fuck this guy. And I'm like, it was the car. He's like, they weren't going to get my car. Because he had worked so hard for that car.

That car was everything to him. It was his proof of validation for all the hard work he'd gone through. And what's cool is if you ever get a chance to walk through the streets of Boston with Danny Meng, 90% of people just walk right by, and they don't know who he is. But every once in a while, a person spots him and will just run up and hold him and hug him and cry. And I've seen cops do it. I've seen fire trucks pull over. I've seen women with their children walking, and they grab him. But he's a remarkable young man.

You had a couple, I won't spoil the ending, but you had a couple ways to go. One way you didn't go was the night after they caught the second brother, by all accounts, was a great drinking night in Boston. Because remember, they had had the shutdown. What's it called? The shelter in place. Where just everybody had to stay. My dad was like, we can't leave our houses.

And then all of a sudden everybody can leave and Boston just goes out. And it turns into like the Pats just won the Super Bowl, basically. Just a huge release and a really cool night, apparently. Another great experience. Talking to Danny Meng was one. But I got to sit with David Ortiz in the clubhouse at Fenway. It's part of his legacy. And he told his story.

Because the day of the bombings, the Red Sox left for a road trip. And he was hurt. so he stayed in Boston. So he was there with his family throughout the shelter in place, and he talked about what that was like and how his children were scared, and he was scared, and then he was angry. And he had no plan to speak at Fenway for that legendary speech that he gave. They needed someone to say something, so they asked Big Papi to speak. He said, I'll say it. That just came out. It was perfect.

It was the perfect guy, perfect point in his career. And the FCC didn't let it go. You know that, right? They could have bleeped it. They let it go, which I thought was awesome. You have to go in a second, so we have to talk. By the way, go see Patriots Day. It's good.

Thanks, Bill. Just quickly, every time you're in a pod, I always have to ask. By the way, go see Patriots Day. It's good. Just quickly, every time we're in a pod, I always have to ask you. Friday Night Lights, what's the update? Riggins is building a house in Austin. Kind of... This is the fictional update

or this is what's going on in your head? Lila's on Jane the Virgin this week. Tammy is in Nashville. Coach Taylor is in Manchester by the sea doing something. Coach Taylor's gotten a lot of good roles. Yeah, Coach Taylor's killing it. A lot of people owe you big time.

I can't get Jesse Plemons on the phone. Yeah, that guy's a hot actor now. He's been doing phenomenal. They're all doing great. But what does that mean for the comeback show? he's been doing phenomenal they're all doing great I mean but what does that mean for the comeback show it's just gonna be better it's gonna be better than ever it makes me so mad that you

missed the Netflix window by like five years tell me about it you were like right between these two eras with the perfect show that would have been the ultimate Netflix Amazon Prime show that ever was made plus it would have been the ultimate Netflix, Amazon Prime show that ever was made.

Plus, it would have been 11 episodes instead of 22 the first year. You guys are killing yourselves making 22 episodes. It's crazy. I just feel like that show owes so much to you for the support you've given it. What did I do? You were just a great champion of the show from the beginning. And I think the show has maintained this legacy. And the oral history you did of our show meant the world to us. And you were the first one to see Lone Survivor. And we used your quote.

Used my blurb. People still tease me about that. So eternally grateful, Bill. And happy to see you again. You still tease me about that. Eternally grateful, Bill. Happy to see you again. You didn't answer my question. I have no idea. It's very unlikely. I can't get anyone on the phone.

Why can't you just get like a four episode? They won't return my phone calls. They did Gilmore Girls. They're all big time now. They brought back Gilmore Girls. They can't bring back Friday Night Lights for four hours? I think I can get Amy Teagarden. Let me start with her. Amy Teagarden. Dyed her hair. I think I can get Amy Teagarden. Let me start with her.

Amy Teagarden? Dyed her hair? I think I can get her. She's a brunette now. I'm going to try and get her. You can't get Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton for four hours? I can't. Especially Kyle.

Netflix is throwing money around like crazy. Let's come up with a new idea. I think he's... I like Sport Czar. Let's just do a show called Sport Czar. Sport Czar. Let's just do a show called Sport Czar. Sport Czar will do that. But what's the idea for the Friday Night Lights four episodes limited Netflix series that comes out on Friday of Thanksgiving weekend? Because that's a sweet spot.

Gilmore Girls was very smart how they marketed that. It was Thursday night, midnight. Everyone's home. These daughters want to watch with their moms. I didn't even know they did that. Yeah, it was smart. Did you see it? I didn't watch with their moms. I didn't even know they did that. Yeah, it was smart. Did you see it? I didn't watch Gilmore Girls.

I don't either. But I knew people in my life were like, they were more excited about this than Thanksgiving. Gilmore Girls? Nobody in this room was a Gilmore Girl. I'm guessing Alex Salcedo didn't see Gilmore Girls. Four hours. I think Coach Taylor is, there's a wedding.

Listen, we had a whole pitch that it was going to be based on Mike Leach getting in trouble I remember that For, you know, allegedly Doing something that He most likely didn't do This is Coach Taylor, he gets in trouble for something he didn't do

And we had this whole Pitch for a movie And Jason Kadams Work pretty hard on it. And it's still ongoing. Well, that was another issue for years. Jason Kadams became a very lucrative showrunner person. Jason Kadams' business is a good business. That's a lot of, I know.

All right, people are getting to go. Taft, Taft, Thirds Hockey, tomorrow night against, I believe, Berkshire. Be there. All right, come back and we can figure out the sports star stuff. Pete Burke, thank you. All right, thanks to SeatGeek. Buy and sell tickets on your phone by downloading their free app right now. Thanks to BlueApron.com.

Get your first three Blue Apron meals for free with free shipping. Go to BlueApron.com slash BS. Thanks to Stamps.com. Click on first three Blue Apron Meals for free with free shipping. Go to blueapron.com slash BS. Thanks to stamps.com. Click on the microphone at the top of their homepage. Type in BS. You get a nice big four-week trial plus a $110 bonus offer that includes postage and a digital scale. Stamps.com. Enter BS.

Thanks to Channel 33. That's the Ringer's pop culture podcast that features Bachelor Party Jam session the masked man our gaming podcast achievement oriented and brand new sports movie hall of fame podcast like the one we had last week about any given sunday subscribe to channel 33 and all of the ringers other podcasts on your favorite audio platform and if you want to hear more football this week listen to the ringer nfl show we have a bunch of good stuff coming up on that podcast this week. I will be back later in the week. Until then, thank you. We'll see you next time.