The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 165: Seth Meyers and Michael Schur

Episode Date: January 20, 2017

HBO and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by ‘Late Night’ host Seth Meyers and ‘Good Place’ creator Michael Schur to discuss this weekend's AFC championship game between the Patriots and Steelers (3:00), the baseball Hall of Fame and MVP award debates (33:48), and working with Lorne Michaels on 'SNL' (42:20). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's pouring rain episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by SeatGeek. That's our presenting sponsor and the only fan-friendly app for buying and selling tickets for sports and music. Do absolutely everything on your phone. Download the free SeatGeek app, please. They've been our sponsor since 1948. Or go to SeatGeek.com. We're also brought to you by SimpliSafe.

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It's about it. You don't want to miss. The four-night event begins January 26th at 10 o'clock nine central on comedy central and don't miss the live finale on sunday january 29th at 10 nine central to see who gets crowned the king or queen of cruelty for season two and check out the jeff ross and sarah tiana podcast we did recently if you want to catch up on your roast battle history and we're brought to you by the ringer.com that's where i wrote not, but two columns this week, Mike Schur. Two columns.

Is that the first time ever? First time in like two years. My NBA All-Star Game starter bout went up yesterday. The NFL playoffs mailbag went up today. You will go there. You will read the words that I wrote. We also posted a massive oral history of the Pats Raiders snow game from 2001. It's like 12,000 words.

The Raider fans were not happy. There's still 12,000 words of stuff to talk about from that game. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Pivotal game. That was one of the best weeks in the history of the site. Please go there this weekend. Check out our pieces, features, and podcasts.

Seth Meyers and Mike Scherer coming up. Let's roll. All right, we're taping this on a Friday morning. There's an inauguration going on, which is great for all of us, because we'd rather be doing a podcast. Mike Schor. Hello.

Long-time Hollywood showrunner. Veteran Hollywood showrunner. I think it's fair to say veteran at this point. The Good Place. You wrapped it up. Yes. The finale aired last night. The last two episodes aired last night.

Can we get those on Hulu? I believe you can. I think we can get everything on Hulu at this point. If you subscribe to it, I think you can. Yeah. I like Hulu. Seth Meyers, also on the line. It's been a while. How are you, buddy?

Good. I'm also on Hulu. Yeah. You mean right now you're using Hulu? I'm watching Hulu. I wish I could say I was watching The Good Place, but I'm catching up with some other shows. So we have a lot to talk about.

More important than the future of the country, I think, Pat Steelers, AFC Conference Championship. Seth Meyers, longtime Steelers fan. Me and Mike, longtime Pats fans. And I don't feel embarrassed about saying this. I feel like we own the Steelers. Oh, you do? Is that fair?

Why say that, though? I'm not saying it'll matter on Sunday, but I just feel like Brady loves playing the Steelers and the Bills. Those are his two teams. I feel like every athlete has a couple teams that they love going against, and he loves going against the Steelers. He has 19 TDs, zero picks. Against Mike Tomlin.

The last six times. Yeah, he kind of does well against the Tomlin teams. I'm confident. I shouldn't be this confident, right? No, you shouldn't be. It's a huge mistake. I feel like... I feel great because my expectation,

because I completely agree with you, all I can get out of Sunday is a beautiful surprise. You know, it could go the way I expect it to go, and then I'll say it was a great season. I think coming into the season, I did not think the Steelers were better than the Patriots. And to make the Final Four this year was great. And so I'm just going in.

I couldn't be happier. I kind of don't believe you a little bit. That's your attitude. Okay, good. I did say this into the mirror like ten times before I got on the phone. I thought I was rounding into shape, but yeah. I mean, look, I hate everything. I hate how good the patriots are and i hate how steelers games against the patriots pretty quickly reveal themselves to be

but an outclassing taking place so i'm very concerned and i also think everything the texans did last week that made the patriots look vulnerable are not exactly strengths of the Steelers. So that worries me a great deal. I feel like the last year in the AFC Championship game, I sat on your couch, Bill, and I told you exactly what was going to happen. You did? I did. I said, like, nothing good ever happens in Denver.

In a very creepy way, you laid out exactly how the three hours would play out. And I was sort sort of trying to recreate that moment for today and i i the conclusion i keep coming to is this feels to me like an absolute coin flip like it like even in new england given i think if gronk were playing i i'm confident without him this feels like absolutely 50 50 like. The scenarios that I envision are equally likely when I envision Le'Veon Bell and Antonio Brown going crazy and the Steelers putting up 24 points in the first half and just running away with it. And also the Patriots doing what they have traditionally done

against the Steelers, which is just slowly sort of grind them down and win like 27-14 or something like that. I cannot get a read on which one I think is more likely. Well, the Patriots are favored by six. I put up a column today and did the ultimate cop-out, pick the Patriots to win but not cover. Because I feel like this is a three-point game. Yeah. Mainly because the no Gronk thing is going to reveal itself at some point to be a problem.

You could feel it a little bit in that Houston game. It was like, boy, it would have been nice if Gronk just ran down the middle and they threw it to him. But one of the things that worries me is Pittsburgh has a really good red zone defense. And when we get inside the 20, I use Wee like I'm on the team, and we just have these little guys doing crossing runs. I will be using Wee for the Steelers. Okay, good. All right. Everyone's using Weave. It's a Weave-friendly podcast.

But we have all these little guys crossing. They have that Mitchell who's a headhunter in the lines of T.J. Ward, and I just feel like my fear is settling for field goals, settling for field goals, and then the Steelers get that big play with Bill or Brown, down three, fourth quarter. I feel like I've seen this playoff game before in Foxborough. We saw it two years ago in the Baltimore game.

35-31, back and forth. And that's what this feels like to me. It was interesting because Kansas City had a great I think had the best red zone defense this year. I think the Steelers are number two maybe. But that was the Steelers' problem last week. And I feel like everybody was

tearing their hair out in Pittsburgh this week about the failure to get touchdowns last week. But you realize that's a thing. When teams are really good at red zone defense, I think the reality is it probably gets in the head of somebody like Belichick less than it gets in the head of maybe any other coach in the NFL. But you plan differently down there, and all of a sudden you're not doing your strengths and you're trying different things and walking away with six field goals so certainly that would be a best case

scenario for us is is like just shutting it i don't think we're gonna you know have a lot of three and outs in the game but certainly um 12 12 and outs at end and three would be great can we talk about james harrison for a second yeah let's talk about it let's talk about that you will only talk of him with praise and, uh, you know, adoration. What kind of acupuncture is he doing? What's it,

what's it called? I don't know. This $300,000 kind. Look, $350,000 in his body. A year, just a year, just a year.

Okay. So like, like whatever, 20 grand a month or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. I might lose money because I think he's on a, his contract might be less than $2 million.

So if he's paying 300. Was he actually out of football? Am I making that up? He played for the Bengals. He was out of football. He was out of football. Yeah. He retired.

He played for the Bengals. That sounds suspicious. And then in game three or four of the following year, Jarvis Jones broke his hand, and Brett Kiesel called up James Harrison on the flight home. And Ike Taylor and Troy Palamalo, they basically called him and said they needed him. And they said, we'll chip in at 350. It's a wonderful story, and I would love to hear you guys try to tear it down.

Tear down this great man. Well, here's the thing. If this were baseball, everybody would be losing their minds. But with football, nobody cares. Yeah. I have some questions for Seth. Oh, wonderful. Because from a fan's perspective, I'm really curious.

The Facebook Live Antonio Brown thing happens. What's your reaction? Well, I mean, I'd had Antonio Brown on the show earlier this year, and it seemed very in line with my clocking. But the thing I'll say about it is he's not a clubhouse poison. He is joy. He is sort of unfettered joy. And I think it's a mistake to think in any way, shape, or form that he is a leader in that clubhouse. I think that that clubhouse holds a lot of leaders. And he's just, everybody

knows he's this incredibly talented player who is kind of in the clouds a little bit. And so I don't think it affects the team anyway. I mean, look, I think Tom was mad, but I thought he handled it well. But that did not, that did not, I did not panic. I'm more worried that a flu is going around. Well, all three of us are bosses.

If somebody who worked for the enterprise that we run videotaped live a speech we were giving to our entire staff i would have one of two reactions either i hate you or oh it's that guy yeah that's oh oh man that's yeah i should have known and i think that's that reaction the reaction it felt like everyone had from tomlin down was like god damn it antonio yeah come on like he's like a six-year-old kid. Yeah. And the idea that this is like a distraction is absurd. It's not. They forgot about it. They laughed about it. They said it publicly what they had to say.

He said publicly what he had to say. Everybody moved on. I think they're probably laughing way more than they're like being annoyed or shaking It could have been way worse. Like think about the things Tomlin could have said for 13 minutes. Yeah, and Tomlin, it just does speak to, I think, the kind of coach Tomlin is. Basically, what Antonio Brown caught the coach saying was, don't give the other team ammunition.

Yeah, right. Like, keep your heads down. And other than a few curse words that were less than you would expect in 13 minutes after a win in the playoffs. I agree. Like, Tomlin didn't say anything that would lead you to have any lack of respect or worry about it being an issue. No,

if I were the Rudy's, I would be like proud of what had transpired because it was like, it was celebratory. The coach was sort of handling the team in a coach like way. Everybody like they were, he was getting them fired up without, without being too over the top or anything and even like calling the patriots assholes i liked it i kind of did too yeah we'll

take it but also like i think he should he would have called any team they were gonna play next week assholes and it was like it was just like it was a it was a very it was a relatively speaking classy affair and yeah i i think that think that it's one of those things. Thank God it wasn't before the Super Bowl because then we would have had to endure the stories for two weeks instead of one. Well, instead we're going to endure stories for two weeks about Aaron Rodgers

distancing himself from his family. We get that for two weeks. His parents are very upset. If you watch The Bachelor, I mean, you were on this story. I was on this story years ago. Yeah, oh, yeah. Oh, no question. So the flu, that's a bigger concern.

What do you have, like 15 guys got sick this week? It's all going around. It's like when your third grade kid comes home with a cough and then everybody in the third grade gets it. That's kind of how a football locker room works. I think this is good for us. I'm saying us for Mike. Even if you're 5% affected by the flu,

like 95% is not enough against the Patriots. There are weeks where a team can handle the flu. I mean, I don't want to make excuses. I'm hoping it won't be a big deal. Please do. When you hear flu, you have a moment of, oh, no. Yeah, but the flu has going around Monday or something. I feel like the way that these guys get treated,

they're just pumped full of IVs and stuff. I feel like you recover from the flu a lot faster when you have the kind of doctors that the NFL has. It hurt James Harrison's budget because now it's $355,000 because he had to get an IV. All right, here's my third question. Emergency fee. Third and last question.

Are you worried about what you've seen from Roethlisberger? Because I think he's looked a little dicey this season, right? He's looked a little dicey. He looked great in the beginning against Miami, and obviously it was the right coaching call to throw less, run more, when they had that lead. But then, even then, there's just been, over the course of this nine-game winning streak,

the weirdest thing is the best he looked in recent history was that game they lost against Dallas. And then they went on a nine-game winning streak and he hasn't looked that good since. So, you know, on one hand, again, you say, well, this is obviously the right thing to lean on Le'Veon Bell and minimize what Ben brings to the outcome of the game. But you just can't imagine a game where Belichick isn't going to take away Le'Veon Bell and have Forrest Roethlisberger play at his top level. So, yeah, that's the thing I'm most worried about. That was my question. Seth, I wanted to play a game that I knew you would hate, which is given that Belichick famously, people say his approach is to take away the other team's best weapon.

Play a game where you're Bill Belichick and design a game plan to stop the Steelers offense. Well, I think you play man to stay to get closer to the line on any tight ends or anything like that. Just so you have more guys closer to the box. Even though Ben, I think, prefers playing against man than zone. But I would think you just load up the box and see what Ben can do. And you put Butler on Brown, right? Well, I've read some analysis that is kind of interesting, which is that a thing that Pats have done, which they're not alone in this,

but sometimes they put Butler on the number two receiver. And then they put like Logan Ryan and a safety. They double team the number one receiver. And they trust that the, that like, you know, he's going to, I think he's going to cover Eli Rogers Lombardi.

And I talked about this on Wednesday's podcast about Belichick. He singled Brown, the first game of last season with Butler. When Butler's like first replacing Darrell Rivas game. Right. And Butler did a great job and Brown still had like 160 yards. So it was like, wow, Malcolm Butler's been unbelievable.

It's like Antonio Brown has 160 yards. Yeah. So I think they're going to do the thing where they put Logan Ryan, a double team on Brown the whole game. Butler covers Eli Rogers. They stack the front and then they just let Jesse James and all these random dudes.

It's like, if you guys are going to beat us, congratulations. Yeah. I think Le'Veon Bell, I, I'm going to, here's my, I wager Le'Veon Bell has more yards receiving this game than rushing. Ooh. That's my fear. Yeah, I agree. You know, historically I went and looked this up cause I was working on a football

mailbag about how running backs have done in the playoffs against the Pats. The only one who really killed us was Ray Rice in 2010 because he had that long 83-yard run. But other than that, Tomlinson had a good game in 05. He had like 123, two TDs. But remember that game? That was the game when Troy Brown's playing like Nickelback and we won. But I never felt like Tomlinson was dominating us. And the Pats have a tendency of they can kind of control the running back.

What they've always had problems with is the pass-catching running back, which is also what he is, which is why I'm scared. Do you remember Flacco's stats from that game, the Ray Rice game? Okay. He was like – he threw like nine passes. Right, right. He was like four of nine for 70 yards and a pick. That was a terrible game.

And they blew us away. It was 33-14 or something was the final. And that, yeah, that was the saddest game. All right, go ahead. No, go ahead, man. I want to go back to that game, the first game two seasons back, which I think was like 28-21. Yeah, something like that.

That's the last game. That's the one thing that gives me an inkling of confidence is obviously this year it was Landry Jones. That game, even's the one thing that gives me an inkling of confidence. It's obviously this year with Landry Jones. That game, even though the Pats won that game, that was Keith Butler's first game. If you remember, Gronkowski caught two passes where no one even covered him. The Steelers missed two field goals,

and it was 28-21. So that is the one thing, one ray of optimism. Usually when the Steelers lose to the Patriots, there wasn't a thin line of loss and victory. It was very clear that they lost the game. But that's the one that gives me a little hope. When did you guys start working together at SNL? What year was it? 2001, right?

2001. So did you... Yeah. So that was... Because last night on the NFL Network, they showed the two Steelers-Pats playoff games from January 2002 and January 2005. Right.

And I hadn't watched that 0-1-1 in a while. And I ended up just, it was the NFL Films version of it, so it was all the cool cameras and the guy's cool voice, all that stuff. Yeah. Cordell Stewart was so bad in that game, I'd forgotten how bad he was.

Was that the game that Cowher told them all to make their, no, that was the- all that stuff. Cordell Stewart was so bad in that game. I'd forgotten how bad he was. Was that the game that Cower told them all to make their, no, that was. Yeah, no, they made the reservation. So at the end of the game, the Pats, they're waving white towels and they're all screaming at the Stewart's fans like, better cancel those reservations.

Cause Cower let them make Superbowl reservations. Yeah, he said get it all out of the way right now. Make the reservations, dole up your, give out your tickets and whatever. And then Belichick found out, did all the Belichick things. But man, this was early internet. Like we're about year six in the internet, but we don't have sports blogs or anything like that. If somebody did that now, people would lose their fucking minds.

What a huge mistake. I'm just going to jump in real quick and say that I was at that game, which was one of the worst. Oh, boy. The only one of the worst, I was at the Steelers-Chargers game. Do you remember that AFC Championship game where it was, like, I think in that one, maybe Eric Green was the tight end. He was going to make a Super Bowl shuffle. That was the reservation he was making. He was planning a Super Bowl video.

But I will say that was, and that game was like two special teams touchdowns. It was the flukiest game even with, and Bledsoe coming in and throwing a touchdown. Well, so it's even crazier than that because I had forgotten. It's really an amazing game. Troy Brown gets a punt return touchdown. That's the first score. But the reason he gets it is because they punted it out of bounds, but a stealer ran out of bounds.

And you had a left-footed punter. And the first time he punted on the left hash mark and just punted it down the sideline. But then they spotted the ball on the right hash mark. So when he left, he punted it. It actually kept Brown in bounds, and then he ran through and scored. And Cowher's like losing his mind about the hash mark spot. It's like maybe you should worry about the 11 guys

who didn't tackle Troy Brown. So that happened. And then they had the block field goal where Brown lateraled for the touchdown. But he was a forward lateral. And the Steelers had no challenges left. Oh my God, I forgot that. And now it'd be like, if it happened now,

they review every scoring play, they would have brought it back. But the Steelers ran out of challenges. So it's like, boom, touchdown. I will say that Seth and I started working together in 2001 and bonded like on day one of seth i had been there for a couple years seth showed up and i literally remember the moment that he was walking down the hallway towards me and going hey you're a red sox fan right yeah and i was like yeah and then like i like i blacked out and then he was the best man at my

wedding like it was so instantaneous and i i'm not kidding when i say this i remember it as one of the most disappointing moments of my life when i started talking about the patriots and he was like i'm a steelers fan it was it still like hurts me i can feel a visceral pain yeah about the moment also it was steelers fans and patriots fans happily coexisted until about 2001. That's right. Like that was when. Because the Patriots were terrible.

Yeah, we didn't have feuds with anybody. We just, everybody beat us. We did this on the ringer. We did this giant oral history of the, we call it the snow game. Everybody else calls it the tuck roll game. And I think what people don't understand about that game is the Patriots had never won that game in the history of the franchise. Where it's like, oh, we got a lucky break and, oh, we never should have won that game. And it, like, never happened.

Right. And from that moment on, everything flipped. But, like, I remember the Steelers and the Pats played a playoff game during the Bledsoe era. Or maybe it was a game to get in the playoffs. I remember it was 7-6. Yeah. We lost at home. That is the only—7-6 is the only Steelers win over the Patriots in the playoffs.

Right. Right. Wow. And that was like, you know, it's like, I didn't feel bitterness toward the Steelers after. It's like, of course we lost. We're the Patriots. Yeah, we made the playoffs. Yeah, we made, this is great.

Let's make the playoffs again next year. But yeah, and then it feels like the Steelers-Pats feud never really caught on, mainly because they never played in the playoffs enough. It was always like they were different years. Seth, who is the big... Well, we missed this feud because, yeah, like there was all these weird breaks. We should have played so many other times.

Like I think the Ray Rice game was probably the game that cost us the Steelers-Patriots AFC Championship game, right? Sure, yeah. And then there was the Tebow game. We were supposed to play the week after that. Yeah, you lost to Tim Tebow. We did. We lost to Mark Sanchez, and you lost to Tim Tebow. We did. We lost to Mark Sanchez,

and you lost to Tim Tebow in the playoffs. Oh, that's Sanchez was the other one, because we went through Sanchez one year, and that's because of you guys. I can't believe it. I can't believe we lost to Mark Sanchez. Who is the team that the Steelers consider their number one rival?

Is it just the Ravens? Yeah, I was going to say Ravens. Bengals number two? Uh, yeah. I mean, probably, I mean, the Steelers, the way the Steelers perceive the Patriots is pretty close to, I think, the way the Red Sox perceive the Yankees in that it's only a one-way rivalry. Oh, that feels good.

Like it's our hump team. Yeah. Yeah, our rival just shifts. That's the thing. It's like good. Like, it's our hump team. Yeah. Yeah, we, our rival just shifts. That's the thing. It's like the Colts, it's the Broncos. I think it's, I think right now

the team that I hate the most, at least, is the Broncos. Like, I, I hate the Giants. The Giants fans think they're better than us. But we rarely play the Giants.

I know, but still, they feel like they have it. When I meet a Giants fan, I can just see the gleam in their eyes. Well, then I'll ask you this, but a lot of people have been asking me, like if the Patriots made the Super Bowl again,

who would you want to play? And the assumption- See, that's crazy to me. I didn't want to know part of the Giants. I wanted to flip the trilogy and flip the script. But losing to the Giants for the third time, that would never go away. Like I was like, you can't roll the dice there.

I would have way rather played the Cowboys in this theoretical universe. I'm the opposite opposite we've won like nine titles this this century i'm like ben affleck accepting the batman script i'm like i'm rolling the dice i want it all i want everything i don't know i wanted no i wanted no part of the giants at all i would have wow you're afraid of the giants yeah a hundred percent i am, there was two, the only two, what you would consider to be truly bad experiences. And the, like, you lose to the Ravens because Ray Rice goes crazy.

Okay, that's going to happen. You know, you lose to Mark Sanchez. Like, well, that was a great defense. That defense was amazing. Yeah. We should have beaten the Giants both times. And they beat us in exceptional ways. Do you feel like we should have beaten them the first time?

I actually think they, they outplayed us in the second game. We should have told, they outplayed us both. They dominated our offensive line. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have beaten them. It was like, we had the lead with two minutes left. Yeah. And in both cases. Is the New York of it play a big role for you, Bill? Is that an issue? Yeah. I'm just talking.

I want to talk about the New York part, Bill. People have asked me in the past, you know, but hey, do you ever live in New York? And I'm always like, I couldn't have lived there. And they're like,

why? I was like, cause that's where the Yankee fans are. Like I wouldn't, I just couldn't have handled it. Maybe now at a later point in my life, when you have children, everything's in more perspective,

I could live there. But when I was in my twenties, I, there's no way I could have. I mean, you must have gone crazy. Here's the counterpoint for you. Yeah. In 2003, after Aaron Boone, Seth Meyers and I take a long, lonely walk through the streets of New York City.

Yeah. Lamenting our fate. And we get to a corner. And Seth said to me, in one of the most romantic moments of my life someday the Red Sox are going to win the World Series and when they are we're going to come back to this spot and we're going to hug each other and the next year they won that's like sleep with Sid Seattle yes I'm telling you it was incredibly romantic and then the next year when they won I went to his house and dropped off for him a gift I had made him and other people, which was secretly for a year, I had been collecting every email, text exchange, voicemail message, everything in our whole group of friends

about the Red Sox. And I, without telling anybody, I had done this for a whole year, actually more than a year. Cause it went back to like September of 03. And I compiled it into a book and I wrote like introductions to the various chapters and stuff like that. And I laid out the whole story. I went to his apartment in the West Village, dropped it off. And then he was like, hey, I'll walk you to the subway. And we walked. And then I didn't realize it until the moment it happened. But he walked me back to that corner. And in the second most romantic moment of my life, we hugged each other and started crying. And it was a wonderful moment. So to actually have been in New York for that, there was a fantastic benefit for us.

I still think it was a mistake that I told that story on my wedding night and made it like the core of my toast. How'd your wife feel about that? Well, I said, you know, and I hope that I aspire that one day we'll have a night like that. Right. Someday our relationship will achieve these heights wow i don't think i'll ever care about sports as much again as i did from like about six weeks before the boone homer all the way through october 04 i think i just peaked as a fan i think i would i've said frequently 2000 2001 to 2004 is the most i've ever cared about anything that isn't like someone in my family, my wife or my kids.

And it's now impossible to get it back. And Seth, the Steelers haven't had quite the same level of championship success as the Patriots, but they've been in the most Super Bowls they've won. They have won the most Super Bowls. It's been good to be a Steelers fan. Yeah. won the most Super Bowls. It's been good to be a Steelers fan. You've never really you had the four with Bradshaw but then there was never really

a long period of failure that lasted longer than four or five years. Even in the mid-90s you had a run and you almost made it. The Cowher years were good. The back half of Noel, like the 80s were pretty dire. But then, yeah, I mean the fact that Tomlin's 10 years in

had two 8-8 seasons that's the lowest he's gone you just realize how many people would trade for that Pittsburgh fans especially when it comes

to their football are very spoiled because you know there's still too many of them alive that saw them win four Super Bowls in six years

but we have a very very good how do you is Bradshaw when he goes off on Tomlin and does crazy Bradshaw things, is he just like your crazy uncle at Thanksgiving who you're like, oh, God, Uncle Terry?

The craziest thing about Bradshaw, who, again, I had his poster in my room. There's no, until, like, I met my wife. But I have no, I'm never going to be mad at Bradshaw. But there was this Chuck Noll of Football Life on the NFL Network on Christmas night after the Ravens game. I like that one. It's great. But basically, Terry Bradshaw talked about what he wanted from Chuck Knoll, and he kept saying, like, I just wanted a hug. You know, I wanted a guy.

And so he basically said, I wanted a cheerleader for a coach. His description of what he hated about Noel was what everybody else likes about Tomlin, and yet he found his way to dislike Tomlin. Again, Terry's got a weird relationship with the city and the organization, and he did seem to have a very fraught time there. Well, his brains are clearly a little bit scrambled from his football career, because he seems to just go off these tangents.

I think that's a good point that in general we should let – with everything we know, like not saying there's an issue or not, but we should probably just let retired football players say whatever they want whenever they want. I 100% agree. I was – I'd forgotten to put Roger Staubach in this list of like the greatest quarterbacks and something I wrote last week. And a couple of cowboy fans emailed me like, he's got to be on the list. Like he served the Navy for four years. He didn't become a football player until he was like 28. And then he was the best quarterback in the seventies. I'm like,

yeah. So I Google him. And there's this thing about, he retired earlier because he had concussions because he had two in the same season. And a doctor told him, if you have a third one, like you're in trouble, like you might die. So he's like, Oh, that's bad. I should retire. But in that story,

he said he had 20 concussions in six different times where he got knocked out in a game. And you think like all of these quarterbacks were just pinatas. Like even, even that game, I was watching the Oh1 Pat Steelers game, when Brady got hurt. I forgot how he got hurt. It was because some guy just dove at his legs, remember?

Yeah. And the play that's now outlawed in football. But Bradshaw, Staubach, those guys, they were dealing with that. They're dealing with guys clotheslining them and hitting them in the head and pancaking them. The clotheslining thing, when you watch the front line, the steel curtain, guys like Joe Green

use their arms like two by fours. Right. They just swung them around to people. And just with what you know now, it's heartbreaking to realize what those people were going through. Or the head slaps. Yeah.

This was like, there's this unbelievable, this is like Carolla's favorite NFL films moment ever, just from an unintentional comedy standpoint they're emailing or they're talking to Deacon Jones

about the head slap and he's and he says something like if you slap somebody in the head you know that man or woman

is gonna he tries to be equal rights with it it's like no no no Deacon but it's his whole head slap montage but that's what they did back then they would come out of the stance and just hit the guy in the head

as hard as they could the other thing was like my son bless his soul went as Gronk for Halloween that's phenomenal and I got him this like set of like a Gronk for Halloween. Full Gronk uniform. That's phenomenal. And I got him this set of a Gronk jersey and the white pants with the pads sewn in and stuff. And the helmet is just like a thin, crummy plastic helmet. Which is what they played with.

Which is what they played with. When you actually look at the... Their helmets were basically just a sheet of plastic with a little metal in it to keep them from having open wounds on their foreheads when they got smashed by a two by four. Well, that's what they said with OJ. His head was so big. OJ had a giant head.

Like really one of the biggest heads of all time. They removed the padding from the helmet so the helmet could fit his head. Oh my God. So when he played football, he had no padding in his helmet. Oh man. It's insane. All this stuff. But then you think like, oh, it's so much better now.

And then you watch that chief in the Steelers game just get annihilated over the middle. He gets hit in the head, goes off, and they're like, oh, he's back in. It's like, how is he back in? What is the protocol? How is Matt Moore back in? That Matt Moore play. Yeah. There's also the, like, in the Seahawks playoff game, they were talking about in what is the protocol matt moore back in that matt moore play yeah there's also

the like in the seahawks playoff game they were talking about what's the defensive back sheed is that his name i think yeah yeah and they were like this you know this guy stepped in when earl thomas went down and he's played really well and like he's a restricted free agent at the end of the year and like he's you know he's gonna get his shot and then maybe 15 minutes of of real time later you saw him go down with a non-contact injury and grab his knee and it's like oh his career's over like yeah because he's now he's done for next year and he was a free agent and like maybe he'll get a camp invite and maybe he'll like hang on or something but it's the the speed with which things go from 60 to 0

in the league is so terrifying still. And that's with all of the protections that they've laid in. It's very, I mean, it's a tough sport. We'll be back to Mike and Seth in one second. Here's a quick break to talk about one of my favorite companies, Dunkin' Donuts. I moved to LA in 2002. It took me 13 years to work or live near a Dunkin' Donuts again. And then finally, they opened one up on the corner of Hollywood and Vine. We are back. Did you know you could upgrade your day with DD Perks on the Dunkin' Donuts mobile app?

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You can even choose to pay right from your phone with the Dunkin' app. Yeah, DD Perks. Everyone deserves an upgrade. Download the Dunkin' app and enroll today. Speeding past the line may not be possible at all locations. Visit ddperks.com for terms and conditions. Back to the podcast. I want to audible

to something. This week Tim Raines made the Baseball Hall of Fame. Is this the greatest moment in advanced metrics history? I think it might be, right? I did not realize how his vote total was, his first year was in the 20s, right? I did not realize how his vote total was,

his first year was in the 20s, right? Yeah, it was really low. Like, he didn't go from 60 to in. The cocaine thing hurt him. I think the cocaine thing hurt him with old sports writers. And then just a lot of people never saw him play. I never saw Tim Raines play in person. Seth told me, you told me, Seth,

that Jonah Carey was on your show, and you basically let him make an argument, right? He made a five-minute plea. I feel like at the very least what you would say is that it's because of stuff like that. You can directly link it to the sort of advancement of, of like metrics thinking and baseball. Do you think that it's fair to retroactively judge people by what their stats looked like in the eighties compared to what we value now? Because like,

if I'm Steve Garvey and I was the best first baseman of the seventies and my job was just to go up and swing at the first good pitch I saw in drive in runs. It's like drive and run Steve Garvey Play first base, throw the glove around. Nobody told Steve Garvey, like, work the count. Just get on base for the next guy. Like, that's not what he was supposed to do. On the other hand, like, Boston sports writers ripped Wade Boggs like crazy for walking too much. Yeah, it was like, he walks too much. He's selfish. So like- He's selfish. It's ninth inning, guy on second, Boggs gets a walk. How how does that help us so i feel like the game is the game at some level to accidentally

quote the wire uh and it's like and you like you play the game as you play the game a certain way and then you at the end of the day your people look at your stats and it changes it's obviously changed what matters i would say the only thing that could rival Reigns to me was the period of time when, like it was after Bartolo Colon won the Cy Young and shouldn't have come, like Johan Santana had a way better year. And then like in the next couple of years after that, because of the hue and cry, like Felix won and he had 13 wins. He was like 13 and 12.

13 and 12. Yeah. And Grinke won with like 16 wins. And that, to me, was in a weird way. I mean, Reigns getting into the Hall of Fame is a bigger deal. But just the fact that those awards now that people ignore win totals, that to me was maybe as big, if not bigger, a win for advanced metrics, I would say. You know, I have another. So tell me if this is too much that I keep thinking I have a bit of sympathy for the older voters who don't care about advanced metrics.

And I think this is someone who believes in advanced metrics. Me too. And it's hard not to draw a parallel to the election we just had that there is a great shaming, I feel, going on for those who, like, there is a kind of baseball fan who thinks Trevor Hoffman was better because, you know, they watched him. He just came in. He finished games. He was on the mound when it was over. He values closers. And it's an interesting thing going on.

It'll be really weird next year where all the ballots are public. I wonder if it'll, I don't know, make force everybody to vote this one way. Yeah, I agree. Everything's public. Well, I think, like, we saw that with the MVP. I'm a tiny bit old school with Mike Trout winning the MVP. Because his team sucked? Yeah, it's like at some point,

I just think we should change most valuable. Just call it best player. Yeah. Because if you're the most valuable player on a team that went 72 and 90, I don't understand how you were valuable. So your team would have gone 65-97? Well, that's the problem with fame. Because we just said nobody saw Tim Raines play.

Like, nobody saw him play. Like, that was the problem. He was on national TV once. His team didn't make the playoffs enough. So, again, I don't think it's fair to punish Tim Raines. But I get that there are also people who say, oh, no, for me, it's the Hall of Fame. And Tim Raines is not famous enough for me.

Yeah, I mean, I think you could rename the MVP like they have the Henry Aaron Award. Or Most Outstanding Player. Yeah, you could do that. But you could also just say it's the, I don't know, the Willie Mays Award or something. I'm fine with that. Which means like Best All-Around Player or something. In that case, then Mike Trout wins, and you're like, yeah, that guy's like Willie Mays. It does seem like you should get a little credit

if your team achieves anything. I think it's a tiebreaker. It's like if there's two guys who you could say, like, look, this is a coin flip. Boy, you could give it to either guy. It's what happened with Sosa and Maguire in the crazy home run year was Sosa won the MVP that year.

Maguire broke the home run record at 70 homers. Sosa had this whatever was 65 or 66, but his team made the wild card. So they tipped it. It tipped it over to Sosa. To me, that's the correct application of the winning team argument. It's like it's a tiebreaker if it's close. I think for me, the NFL just have best quarterback and then best player. A hundred percent.

A thousand percent. Yeah. They should call it the Sammy Ball Award or something. Best quarterback and then best player? Yeah. A hundred percent. A thousand percent. Yeah. It's idiotic. They should call it the Sammy Ball Award or something. Best non-quarterback award. Yeah. And then you should, the best quarterback and best offensive player, non-quarterback division.

I've said this a million times, but I just, the Hall of Fame to me, everybody has to get in and put something on their plaque. I don't understand how we have a Hall of Fame and Bonds and Clemens aren't going to be in there. It doesn't make sense. I just don't understand it. Yeah. So we're going to pretend they didn't exist?

It's a museum about the history of the game. It's a museum. It's not like something that we're holding this higher standard of life to. It's like Bonds was the best left fielder I ever saw. He should be in the Hall of Fame. And the league doesn't administer to the museum. The museum is an independent thing.

It's crazy. If it were like, this is MLB's official MLB history museum, all right, fine. But that's not what it is. It's an independent museum in a weird town in upstate New York that's about the history of the game. And now Shoeless Joe Jackson, Roger Clemens,

and Barry Bonds aren't in it, which means that the story of baseball isn't being properly told. It doesn't make sense. And I can't stand Clemens. He's my least favorite athlete in the history of my life. Number one. Number one.

He passed Kareem, yeah. Wow. But I think he should be in the Hall of Fame. Yeah. I just don't understand why you would have a Hall of Fame without a Roger Clemens in it. Where do you stand on Schilling?

Yeah, that's a better question. Schilling's a tough one. I would worry about Schilling right now, I think. I think Sch would have a Hall of Fame without a Roger Clemens in it. Where do you stand on Schilling? Yeah, that's a better question. Schilling's a tough one. I think Schilling's a Hall of Famer. I think he is too. You just apply it like his career ends in whatever, 2006, whatever it was, and he gets hit by a bus one day later. He's in the Hall of Fame.

Yeah. It's all stuff like the last 10 years has somehow mortally wounded his Hall of Fame candidacy. I think he could have gotten away. I think that the rise of advanced metrics meant that he was on his way to getting in. Yeah. If he doesn't specifically tweet about how it's funny to imagine journalists being lynched, I think he's fine.

But it wasn't just that he was saying a bunch of stuff that some people might disagree with politically or whatever. He was talking about journalists. Right. The people who vote on the award getting lynched and saying, and whatever it was, it was like so much awesome here or whatever was what he tweeted. And it's like, well, I don't have, I mean, I think he should be in the Hall of Fame,

but I don't have any sympathy. That's an abhorrent stance, first of all. But second of all, hey man, don't just don't keep that one to yourself, maybe, and you'll be fine. If we're going to start judging the character of everybody who wins an award or gets in the Hall of Fame in sports,

we're in a lot of trouble. Yeah, well, Ty Cobb is in. That's the thing you always go back to. It's like Ty Cobb, a terrible human being. Who also led to a terrible movie with Robert Lowe. His greatest crime. Although it's funny, don't you think there should be an advanced

metric stat as far as, like, you know how it's like if you hit a bunch of homers in the 90s, they value it less because everybody hit homers? Yeah. Like, his character war for Cobb is less because everybody was kind of terrible back then. Yeah, good point, good point.

When people are like, he was a racist, you're like, well, when? I know he was really bad at it, but the baseline for what counted as a racist was a lot lower. Although I would say even by racism standards he was pretty exceptional. Even the other racists

were like, whoa. I would also say, though, that maybe then you start saying like, well, he had a really good investment acumen, right? He bought like Coca-Cola stock really early. Maybe he gets a couple points in his favor for that. Like, oh, he didn't realize he did that. He had a good mind for business. Yeah, he was from Georgia, obviously. And he bought like the stories that he bought a bunch of stock in Coca-Cola early on and like made millions and millions of dollars well you guys were still at snl in 04 when trump was there right yeah yeah yeah we wrote a sketch for him oh yeah you said that yeah you tweeted or wrote about that right recently i read something about it yeah seth i was on seth's show and he held up a picture of uh of the costumes still one of one

of as you said one of the most enjoyable writing sessions i think i can remember the best yeah it was so much fun it was so great like he just immediately he didn't really have a take of what sketches he liked and didn't like um he kind of was just trusted i think lauren probably yeah oh well he never got he never understood why it was funny the first time the audience laughed at air, you can see a genuine look of, of like, please surprise. It was a pleasant surprise. Yeah. And he was like,

and he is a heat seeking missile in that way in terms of like adulation. So like, as it, as the audience responded favorably, he then sort of puffed up and got happier. And then the sketch like worked really well because of that, I think. So then weird days these last we haven't been able to watch the inauguration but i think they played that sketch the um the last year or so with snl if they if they could do one thing differently dating back i don't know 14, what do you think it would be? I always hesitate to criticize any. I'm not saying criticizing. I'm saying if they had a do over.

Well, I mean, if they had a do over, I think they don't have Trump on the show, I would imagine. I think that the blowback from that was justified and significant. I mean maybe i'm wrong i mean lauren's thing has always been whoever's in the news is on the show that's and you don't you don't quibble with why they're in the news that's why i didn't mind it yeah i mean it's like it's like andrew dice clay came on the show it's 42 years if that was the strategy yes and and so i don't know i could be totally wrong maybe maybe they do it all over again because that is, the show tries to be agnostic about its sort of stances as much as it can. Not just with life, but with music.

With everything. Yeah. Whatever it is. That's right. And when I was there, it was like, when I first got there in the late 90s, the only music was the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC and Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.

And those are the people who are on the show every week. And all the like disaffected, like comedy nerds to 25 year old comedy guys in the writer's room were going crazy. Cause it was like, there's all these great bands out there. Why are we having NSYNC on the show every week? But that, Lauren doesn't care. Like it's, those are the relevant bands.

Like the show is supposed to be a reflection of the era as it moves through time over four decades. It's a those are the relevant bands. Like the show is supposed to be a reflection of the era as it moves through time over four decades. It's a reflection of the era. And you can go back in time and watch episodes from like the mid nineties and go like, all right, that's what was going on in the culture at this time. So yeah, maybe I'm wrong. Do you think that's a hundred percent intentional or that's just the way it played out?

Because Seth and I have talked about that on a pod. It's amazing if you watch reruns and it's like, oh, Sinead O'Connor. Yeah. She was at this apex of her career and there was this moment and it makes sense that this takes me to this place when I watch it. That's the lifeblood of the show is that Sinead O'Connor,

everyone like is taken back to that moment and she's on the show and she tears up the picture of the Pope. And like, it's like one of those indelible moments. And that's why when you do like the 40 year anniversary of SNL, you literally can't believe how many things there are that have been on that show that you remember crystal clearly. So yeah, I mean, I think, and I think that's his, that's a hundred percent intentional, I would say.

Hey, well, uh, while the whole world was correctly, I feel like celebrating the film spotlight, I was thinking Sinead O'Connor really never got the correct rehabilitation I would say. While the whole world was correctly, I feel like, celebrating the film Spotlight, I was thinking, Sinead O'Connor really never got the correct rehabilitation from society for that incredibly, like, that is the definition of courage. Yeah. Yeah. What she did that night.

And she was 100% right. Like, she was like, it took the world, it took, like, until Spotlight came out for people to completely understand why she was right. But she was totally right. Yeah, she didn't. I just feel like she hasn't been given her day of being this person who risked everything and really kind of paid with everything. Yeah. I would say that's a case where you look at, I feel like we talk a lot these days about, oh, that was going to be a career ender.

And it's not because society has a very short memory. But she did a thing at a time where people had a very long memory for that kind of act. Let's take a quick break to talk about Blue Apron. This is important. Stop wasting money on expensive takeout. You don't have to. Just sign up with Blue Apron for less than $10 per meal. Blue Apron will deliver you all the fresh ingredients you need for a delicious home-cooked meal.

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with free shipping if you go to blueapron.com slash BS. Blue Apron, a better way to cook. Again, that is blueapron.com slash BS. Seth, when did you feel like on your show – by the way, congratulations on your show. I mean it's really like the last year or so. Talk about hitting your stride. Um, when did you feel like you started finding your voice with the closer look and the stuff, stuff like that? I think it, it probably dovetailed pretty nicely with the election. I mean,

it was not, that was not done by plan, but the fact that there was just, uh, so much being churned out by the news every day that, I mean, that's what you kind of need, material. Certainly when you first start doing things like that, it helps to have big, juicy stuff like debates and conventions and things like that. And then I think by having that, we kind of learned the process of how to get them out every day. But we were lucky that it was this kind of election. Did you feel like once you sat behind the desk, the show just fell into place? Yeah, a hundred percent.

I mean, for me, it was just about comfort level, which I think is probably, I'm sure you would attest this for your time working on a late night show. Ultimately the host comfort has 90% to do with how each night goes. Or 120%. I had always felt when I was doing the monologue,

the standing monologue, that I was the warm-up comedian for my own show. Yeah. That it just was, it felt like what you do before you start. And so by moving the startup, we just got more show and it felt more substantial out of the gate. But you were probably, there was probably a little bit with like, you didn't want it to look too much like Jon Stewart, right? The bigger issue, the reason we didn't do it from the start was probably a combination of, one, we didn't want to look like Jon Stewart, and two, we didn't want it to look like Update. Right. Because even with our monologue now, if it's anything, it's Update. You know, I'd say the closer looks are certainly a few closer to what The Daily Show is doing, but the monologue is very Update.

I agree. a hue closer to what The Daily Show is doing, but the monologue is very update. I thought it would look like punting to sort of get this new gig and show up and just be doing a version of my old gig. Turns out, a lot of people aren't good at two things. In a weird way, you might have needed to have gone through the time where

you reset it a little bit. You did a traditional show by standing up and doing a monologue, and then you sat down, and that might have helped in some way, either with the audience or with yourself, that you went away from it and went back. I do think by doing it that way, it was like a test where you had to show people your work. When we did it, everyone collectively agreed because they had seen the journey. Right. Because otherwise I think people would have said,

oh, he's just doing the same thing. But by showing them how poorly I could do the other, they really embraced it. Are you happy now, guys? You're happy now, right?

We're all happy. I think the show, when you started it, and this stuff takes forever when she, you know, to eventually land to where you want to get to. But when you started it, it was a show that felt like it easily just could have run in 1994. And now the show that you're doing is a show that's 2017.

It feels that way, the way you send out the clips and the different cuts and the monologues. And it's just the total package of it. I remember what was, what was one of the first big viral things you did? It was like, uh, it was like a seven minute,

it was a script. It was a scripted thing. Oh, it was like a, uh, like a closer look type thing. No, no,

no. It was, it was like a scripted, it was a parody thing. Yeah. There was a Boston accent. There's something else, but we did a Jon Snow at a dinner party. That was a parody thing. The Boston accent thing? Yeah, there was a Boston accent. There was something else. We did Jon Snow at a dinner party.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jon Snow at a dinner party. But once that stuff, and then you're behind it, and then all of a sudden it was like, boom. This feels like a 2017 show, and it's really good.

It's funny. I do feel like a lot of the, I think comedy writers are very inspired. This generation of comedy writers are very inspired this generation of comedy writers are very inspired by conan and that kind of show which i think when you say 94 is like around that era you know and so like i agreed like we were like everybody was doing what they wanted to do but then you kind of step back and realize oh we're just chasing a thing that somebody else did a lot better than this back in the past.

And it just, the thing, nothing makes me angrier than when Lauren is 100% right. But I remember starting the show and him just saying, you know, it takes 18 months. And I just, well, it's not going to take me 18 months to figure out how to do a show. And I think the day we sat down at the desk, I looked at the calendar and it was like 18 months to the day. I was like, what the fuck is this? And he's still throwing fastballs? Is he still hitting like 96 on the gun? The crazy thing about him-

Is that Lauren? Yeah. The crazy thing about him to me is like, he has a bunch of aphorisms, like it takes 18 months and you think every single one of them is crazy and every single one of them is dead on. His thing about writers is it takes 18 months and you think every single one of them is crazy. And every single one of them is dead on. Like he,

his thing about writers is it takes a year. Like, yeah, I remember him telling that to me and the, like, and it's the identical story of what Seth just told, which is like a year to the day after I started working there. I like,

I was like, Oh, I get it. And I started writing sketches that were actually working and getting on the air. Like he just, I mean, it makes sense at some level. He has such a long institutional memory of late night

comedy just he's done everything so like he's got a thousand data points that he can look at and analyze and figure out like this is how this works this is how it's gonna go so it's not surprising but it is also it's also incredible to me, like how often he's right about stuff like that. This is the most important question I'm ever going to ask in my life. Great. How would you, what if Lorne Michaels and Bill Belichick compare and contrast?

Wow. It's a good one, right? Oh. That is a good one. Yeah, I think Belichick is far more a details guy than Lorne Michaels is. Wouldn't you say that's safe to say? A hundred percent.

That's the biggest difference, I would say. Lorne is big picture. Bill is little picture. You don't think Lorne would be like, do your job. Just do your job. Everybody's got to do their job. Well, you know, you don't, a lot of people don't see Lorne between dress and air,

but he does, you know, he just puts on that hoodie, pulls it off, pulls it down low so he's in shadow. Lorne, Lorne is much more likely to reward you and to be happy by sort of innovation. Like the story about why they traded Jamie Collins is that he was freelancing. Yeah. Like Lauren encourages freelancing at some level. He's sort of like, this is a 90-minute show. It's big and messy and sloppy.

It doesn't do one thing. Like when the Lonely Island guys came along, they were like, this is a 90 minute show it's big and messy and sloppy it doesn't do one thing like if when the lonely island guys came along they were like this is what we do and he was like great keep doing it it's funny and i and it's not that belichick wouldn't have that attitude if like a if so if there was some like new hybrid safety linebacker position or something that someone wanted to invent but lauren stands back and lets you do your thing and then the show absorbs whatever your thing is then the show absorbs whatever your thing is as opposed to saying this is the system come play in the system you know yeah there's not a patriot way at snl snl is everyone's individual way kind of like trying and then where

lauren gets into the details is saturday you know he corrals it then and has all these crazy well as sure said like all these crazy freelancers and he has to build it into one thing but that would be yeah so Lauren would rather have Jamie Collins but Belichick looks at and goes Kyle Van Nooyen makes more sense for me yeah and the other thing is that I would say like Lauren uh you know I don't know. His big picture attitude is by design. You know, it's like he doesn't, you know, the thing that Belichick does famously, which is like after a game that the Patriots win, like 45 to seven,

he sits everybody down and shows them their worst plays. You know, like Lauren doesn't have to do that because your worst plays are your own failures at dress, and there's an audience, and you get an immediate reaction that's like, yeah, that sucked. So he lets the machine run by itself, and he allows you to self-correct and kind of learn on the job instead of, like, sitting you down.

It would be very funny, though, if Lauren sat you down and made you watch a sketch that really tanked at the table or something and like just yelled at you for it has lauren ever time out time the fuck out i love the belichick bill belichick has no appreciation other than brady there's stars mean nothing to bill belichick right right like any of that like just extends aside if it was up to lauren no one would ever leave SNL. His cast right now would be like Farrell, Wig, McKinnon. He would still be on the show. Mike, what did you learn from running your first show, Parks and Rec, to running this show, The Good Place? What are the differences?

Belichick had the worst possible version of this experience where he's at Cleveland. Ran the Browns. He ran the Browns and then they moved and it was a disaster. And then everybody's like, this guy's a dick. He can't be a head coach. He goes to the Pats. But you actually came off a good show. So how do you take that to the second show?

It's a good question. I think that the, like early on, uh, at Parks and Rec, like season two, there was a, there was a week when we had a really hard script and we had to kind of throw it away after the table read and rewrite it. And we didn't finish the new draft until like Friday. And it was kind of complicated, involved a lot of like props and stuff. And so the line producer was like, you got to come in we get we're going to be working this weekend to get all this stuff ready for monday so can you come in on sunday and like approve everything so i came in on sunday and i walked through and the office it was a sunday and the office was completely full of the whole production staff and they were working on the

props and the costumes and the set design and whatever that we needed and i had this incredible sense of shame because it was like these people, it's Sunday, these people should be with their families. Right. And instead they're here. And everyone was very happily working away. And it's one of the things that happens sometimes. But I sort of walking out of the building, I was like, my goal,

my job at some level is to make sure that no one has to work on Sundays. And so everything I've done since then, which was early on at Parks and Rec has been designed to minimize the amount of sort of like temporal and psychic pain that the crew of the show has to, has to endure. That's smart for like five different reasons, but especially like if everybody's relaxing on the weekend, they're going to be better during the week.

A hundred percent. If there'll be happier and they'll like working there more for one thing. And it's also just on a basic level of human respect and dignity. I felt like it's unfair to ask people to do things that I'm, that I don't have to do. And since I didn't have to be there, except to like say, yeah, that looks good. That seemed unfair. And then also just, it felt like if I could achieve that goal, it would mean that I had found in a very like money ball kind

of a way, like I had found ways that there were inefficiencies in the system and I had corrected for those inefficiencies. So that's been the, the main sort of drive that I've had since that day has been to like, make sure that I'm to like be open to the possibility of them doing something that's inefficient and to let people tell me that there's a way to do it. That's more efficient. It sounds like a little advanced metrics. It kind of is. Yeah. And some of that is just the people you hire, like the line producer and the department heads. And if you hire the right people and they're really good, then you just trust them to do their jobs. It's actually Belichickian in some ways,

like do your job. And if they do your job, I'm going to allow you to do your job because I trust you and believe that that will make everything better. Seth, what was your reaction when Mike told you? I should mention Mike's the biggest Cheers fan of all time. Mike's like, I'm doing this new show and it's Ted Danson's going to be in it. I remember I was in L.A. and went to your office. And you were either on your way to meeting him or just met with him. And it was, I mean, it was like goosebumps. And again, I think Michael attests to this as well,

the greatest thing about Ted Danson is how nice a human being he is. Yeah. Because that is the real risk of working with Ted Danson, of anybody that you care that much about, is finding out that they're not on this pedestal you put them on. Do you remember what you said to me is that it was the greatest comment i i quote it all the time because seth knew him yeah and he said i said what's he like and seth said uh he's a wonderful person he's like a kind and generous and thoughtful and wonderful person and if he weren't i would

still tell you that he is because it would be too much of a bummer to have to say that he's an asshole, but luckily he actually is. So I get to tell you that. And it's the truth. Yeah. I wasn't going to be the one to let you know, you got to find that out on your own.

So the journey every man takes on his own. So after this one, I think the next one is the chairs remake. It's time. I don't know, man. Come on. It's been 30 years. It's like, you know, but no one is the Cheers remake. It's time. I don't know, man. Come on. It's been 30 years. But no one's going to remake Gone with the Wind.

I don't think you can replicate that. Switch cities. Switch Sam Malone's job. You got to make it different. All of that is what made it so great, though. Would you want to do a Cheers set in Akron with a former basketball player? No, he's like a former former defenseman for the blackhawks it's not gonna work i don't think that'll ever get i don't

think they'll ever get rebooted and i don't think it should you don't think it'll man i'll believe anything and i'll believe any reboot at this point no you're throwing your body in front of it i kind of am yeah like i would protest i would try to shut it down. 75-year-old Sam Malone behind the bar in Boston. Oh, that's the same crew. That would be, see, that's the thing. If you got the same crew, it would just be depressing. Then it becomes the Iceman Cometh. Or Fuller House.

They just never left. They never left the bar. Seth, did we cover everything? I think we did great. I think it's now time for score predictions right? yeah let's do it alright Seth you go first

I believe that the Steelers are going to beat the New England Patriots 31-27 wow okay I'm going to say

that the game goes to overtime and the Patriots win 26 to 24 on a, on a safety that fly a snap punt that flies over the Steelers punters head. I have 29, 25. It's 27, 25 Roethlisberger going for two. And the Pats get a two point reversion for for the two points to win by four but not cover. Seriously, which is less likely?

Yours or mine? I think yours is less likely. My feelings are genuinely hurt that both of you came up with a way for the Steelers to lose that was even more painful than losing. Alright, Seth Meyers. 12-35?

Is it 1235? I thought it was a late game. Is it the early game? No, it's his show. No, that's when my show's on. That's his show. Late Night with Seth Meyers. I thought you were talking about the time of the game.

All right. And Mike's show just had a very, very, very critically acclaimed season finale. Yeah. The critics were acclaiming. The critics did acclaim. There's The critics were acclaiming. The critics did acclaim things, yeah. A lot of acclaiming. Yeah. If you are interested in watching The Good Place, I would recommend not Googling anything

and going back and watching from the beginning because sort of— I will attest that it is a well-mapped out, incredibly plotted, perfectly arched season. Thank you. Don't Google. You're welcome. Just go to Hulu and watch it. Yeah, okay. Seth, I'm not going to wish you good luck this weekend, but thank you for coming on.

I get it. None to you either. Mike, a pleasure as always. Thanks, buddy. Thank you. See you guys soon. Bye, Seth. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to SeatGeek. Thanks to SimpliSafe. Thanks to Dunkin' Donuts. Thanks to RoastBat on Comedy Central. Thanks to SeatGeek. Thanks to Simply Safe. Thanks to Dunkin' Donuts. Thanks to Roast Bat on Comedy Central. Thanks to Blue Apron.

And thanks to Real Time with Bill Maher. They're back with a rotating panel of guests and more in season 15 of HBO's award-winning series, Dissecting Wall Street, Hollywood, and especially Washington. Watch Real Time with Bill Maher live Fridays at 10 p.m. only on HBO. And if you're listening to this on Friday as we're posting it, it's on tonight. Every week the conversation continues on Real Time Overtime on YouTube. Thanks to TheRinger.com. That's where you can find the two pieces I wrote this week, one about the NBA All-Star Game and one a playoffs mailbag for round three. And thanks to Pearl Jam for letting us use music from their two 2016 Wrigley Field shows for our Little Old Podcast.

Go to PearlJam.com to celebrate the 25th anniversary, which they are calling PJ25. Lots of good stuff coming from them. Get ready. Play us out, Eddie. I don't have.