The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 17: NFL & NBA w/ Joe House + JackO RNC debate update

Episode Date: October 30, 2015

HBO's Bill Simmons talks Week 8 NFL gambling plays, Curry's MVP statement, NBA way-too-early to worry about teams and Hezonja's clutch gene potential with Joe House. Plus JackO stops by to discuss his pick for the Republican presidential candidate, Pete Rose's TV presence and A-Rod's ability to convince America to love him again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Start your free one-month trial today. And catch up on all the Curb Your Enthusiasms, because they're amazing, and I've been watching them all the time. Oh, what a great time to bring in Joe House. Hold on. Can I have some music? Oh, yeah. Joe House, can you hear me? Yeah, we're riding.

I call shotgun. Can you picture us rolling? I can picture us rolling, actually, Tupac. We're going to roll right into football picks. How are you, House? Must be Friday. Must be Friday. Tate, I think you mixed that a little too loud.

You blew out some eardrums He's laughing Yeah we're gonna work on the mixing at some point Hey a couple quick announcements We're gonna be on Stitcher soon Probably in the next I don't know couple days It's gonna happen

I like Stitcher it's good The people want that They've been asking for that you know Yeah it's a good one So we got that. Check out BillSimmonsPodcast.com for all the relevant podcasts that we've done. I think we've done 16, including we had guest hosts Chris Ryan and Juliet Lippman preview the NBA season.

We are closing in on 7 million listens for the month of October, which is amazing. We are averaging over 400,000 per podcast, which is great. It pleases me to no end that you don't need a mothership to survive in the mean streets of the real world of creativity. So thank you, everybody, for spreading the word. So friendly. America is so friendly. Yeah.

So that number is going to go up, too, because we keep getting subs and stuff. So I really appreciate it. Thanks for spreading the word. We're trying to. Wait till you start getting some real guests and kick my ass to the curb. Nah. Who wants real guests when you can talk to your friends? Listen, football.

I crushed you last week. We do our best bets every week. I went 5-0. You're pretending you don't even know what your record is. I killed you. I crushed you. You heavy breathing weirdo. I went 2-3 last week. I went 5-0. You're pretending you don't even know what your record is. I killed you. I crushed you, you heavy breathing weirdo. I went 2-3 last week. Yeah.

Well, I have a big lead. But let's talk a little bit of accountability. Because it is something that I think folks would like to know. Yeah. Over the entire course of the season, there is a way to track how we are doing against each other we have the exact same number of wins at this moment in the football season against the spread in real life or in the podcast against the spread in the podcast in real life i

think people care about real life okay good point because here's the problem. We do the podcast on Friday. It's five games of interest, but we kind of click through all the games. And then you take the weekend, and on Sunday you publish an Instagram with your final selection. You could do that too. And you have your own running tally. I could do that. And maybe I will start doing that

as well. Maybe you should do that. You have your own running tally. Instead of watching the Undermans with your son, what's the show you watch with your son? A Nickelodeon? Oh, Thundermans. The Thundermans.

Instead of watching Thundermans, maybe you should be Instagramming your pics. What are your, what are your top three children's shows right now? Uh, Thundermans. My kid loves, he's,

he's, he's all over Scooby-Doo we are re-watching every single Scooby-Doo the last half decade I love Scooby-Doo so Scooby-Doo is number one Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

is high up there still some love for SpongeBob and Thundermans comes on at night that's our dinnernertime walkthrough. My son, my beloved son who turns eight this weekend, started watching South Park on Hulu without us knowing. And I thought it might be okay until he told me to suck my dick in the kitchen. Oh, no.

Yeah, that was bad. Oh, no. It turns out you're not really allowed to say that. Yeah, you're not allowed to say that in our house when you're seven. So his hiney got slapped, and now he's no longer allowed to watch South Park. You might want to cut off that Hulu access altogether. Yeah. So Bob's Burgers and The Simpsons, a little bit safer.

I really want him to have a great sense of humor. I like that he watched South Park, but there are some words that just cannot be repeated in school, and that's one of them. I think you're talking about fellatio is really off limits when you're seven, I feel like. Probably. Yeah, it's one of my rules as a parent.

He has a great sense of humor. He will continue to develop a great sense of humor. He doesn't need the television to help him along the way. Well, what I really like is he understands, even at an early age, to use nudity as a source of comedy, which I really enjoy. Because that's something in college. Nudity becomes really, really important in a dorm. You really have to use it strategically

in the funniest ways possible. Farting, he's been great at. Farting on your head when you're not looking, things like that. He's right in the right places, but I need him to develop the artistic comedy side too. Maybe Bob's Burgers and Simpsons. My kid's in the phase, and me uh when he'll grow out of

this maybe the answer is never yeah he's discovered his penis yeah and uh it's great he likes to use it now yeah so one of the things that that he's doing uh he's climbing on the couch then climbing up to the top of the couch yeah and and climbing my shoulders. And then he's rubbing his groin on my head and say, Daddy, I'm rubbing my penis on your head. Penis on your head, Daddy. Yeah. What? That's great.

Get off of me. Get down. Get down. The penis humor stage is fantastic. I love it. And that's also when my son created the word I'm rubbing my penis on your head. That's also when my son created the word bonus for boner. Which I think really should replace boners as the erection

word, the bonus. Dad, I have a bonus. It's boner plural as bonus. Yeah. Dad, I have a bonus. The kid has an awesome sense of humor. Yeah. Bonus is great. I try to use it in my personal life all the time now. All right. So that was a conversation for mature audiences. Let's get to some football picks. The point is when you have a little boy, it's like having a wild animal. So if any of this

sounds crazy to you, just you'll see if you have a boy. It's like, you know how they talk about like having, oh, we have a feral cat in our our backyard Oh, really? You have a feral cat? You don't let them in that? No, no, but we leave food for them But little boys are like feral cats They're just wild animals They're not civilized Yeah, they're not civilized

Look, poop anywhere Poop anywhere They won't wipe their butt They'll have big streaks on their underwear. They don't care. They're just animals. I love them. Yes, they are.

So anyway, all right. Me too. We're going to go through some picks. Here are the games that we did not pick this week. We're going to run through them very quickly. The Chiefs are four-point favorites at home against the Lions. I like the Lions just because of the two crappy teams playing each other

just take the points corollary. Do you have an opinion? I'm there with you. I will be taking the Lions this week. I've been wrong on every game in London so far, so I expect the Chiefs to win by 30. But I feel like three would be fine. Four and a half is

too much. Do you think they should advertise this as the clock mismanagement bowl? Because this does feel like between Caldwell and Andy Reid, time actually might go backwards in this game. Well, how about this? They put it on the day

that time does in fact go backwards. Sunday is fallback here in the United States of America. It's the daylight saving class. Oh, yeah. It really is. They will stop time, literally. Man, I wonder if Andy's going to be like an hour late

to the game. That would be the ultimate clock management fiasco for Andy Reid, to actually show up an hour late. I can't wait. Wait a minute. Did they set the cocks back in England? What time is it here? Where are we? He's going to wake up. He's going to be six hours early.

I can't wait to watch. I'm going to wake up early specifically to watch Andy Reid and Jim Caldwell staring at each other in complete confusion in the sidelines while Andy Reid's holding a Denny's menu instead of a play chart. All of it's going to be fantastic. I can't wait.

I rarely make emphatic predictions on this podcast, but here's one. This game will be decided by a coaching gaffe. Just flat out, 100%, one of these two coaches will ruin the game for their own team. It's going to happen. Lock it down. So that's yet another reason to take the points. All right.

Falcons are giving 7.5 to the Bucs at home. Atlanta's kind of due for one of those 40-10 blowout games. I don't know if this is the week. I'm laying the points. I don't feel good about it. You have an opinion? I like the Bucs on the other side of it. It felt like too many points.

And Atlanta has been so underwhelming the last couple weeks. I feel like they have reverted to perhaps the team that they really are as opposed to the team that they kind of teased us with the first handful of weeks. I kind of like the extra half point there, the 7.5. Tampa impressed me last week against the D.C. Grudens. They really beat the hell out of them until the inexperience of really the entire organization came to play.

They got anxious, and then they started making mistakes, and it got to be rolling downhill. They still had every opportunity to win the game with a minute left. They just had to make one stop, and they couldn't do it. Yeah, I might switch my pick on that at some point before Sunday. I don't feel good about that game. I don't think the Falcons would look good. On the other hand, you could say they're due for an ass-kick game. They haven't really played well in four weeks.

Maybe they're due. Browns. You sent me that little sheet. Have they had an ass-kick game this year? Yeah, earlier. One. Yeah, earlier in the season they killed some. They had one.

They killed the Texans, I think. The Browns are getting six and a half points at home against the Cardinals of Arizona. Speaking of underwhelming, they have looked underwhelming the last two weeks. They lost to Landry Jones. And I didn't think they looked good last week either in that Ravens game. How do you get a punt blocked when the Ravens can't score and you have a two-touchdown lead? Basically, just get out of there.

It's over. And you get a punt blocked and now all of a sudden, and then you totally blow the game-clinching drive and you're throwing passes on second down and getting intentional groundings and running out of bounds. It was a very sloppy game and they almost blew it. The Ravens almost scored.

That was a trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory kind of deal and that's the kind of thing that crappy 3-4 teams like the D.C. Grudens and the Eagles and teams of that class succumb to, find themselves in. Getting the pump block that lets the other team in, that's Jim Harbaugh college shit right there.

I mean, that's not supposed to happen at the pro level. So come on, Cards, lock it down. I like the Browns. I'm getting all those points. I do too. I almost threw them into my five picks, and then I remembered that they're the Browns. I'm getting all those points. I do too. I almost threw them into my five picks, and then I remembered that they were the Browns. Here's another one of two crappy teams where you're getting more than three

points and you might as well take the points. The Titans getting three and a half in Houston. Both of these teams are terrible. Houston, I think, is particularly terrible. They just lost Arian Foster. We're in violent agreement about Houston. They suck. I don't think they should be favored by three or anyone in the league.

I agree with that under any circumstances. I'm not sure what would have to happen for me to talk myself into taking the Texans. Like getting 30 against the Patriots or something? I'm not sure. That's a fun game. I was really impressed by the Titans against Atlanta last week. They somehow got a cover.

They had, the stupid Falcons had 75 ways to cover that dumb number, and they blew it each and every time. And Zach Mettenberger? What's his name? Metten? Yeah, I got it right. Somehow, you know

they got a cover out of it yeah I will not watch him I will not watch a minute of this game here's a game

I will watch and I'm also excited and teach the Heidi Bull 1969 the Raiders go for a win and watch this

somebody just tell Chris Berman that he's done the Heidi Bull thing for 40 years it's over 69 to Raiders. Good for a way to watch this. Somebody just tell Chris Berman that he's done the Heidi bowl thing for 40 years. It's over. Nobody under 45. No, I was, you and I were the generation that were the generation after the Heidi game. And even we don't care anymore. Raiders plus three at home against the New York Jets,

who are really starting to get respect now as a top seven, top eight team. And I had trouble with this game. I really wanted to just grab the Raiders and make them one of my best five because I like the Raiders. I think they're above average. The Jets scare me a little. I got to say, I backed off. What did you do?

I will be taking the Jets in this game. I really respect the Raiders. They took care of business last week. They really did. That was an awesome performance by them. And they hit exactly the thesis that you advanced. They cashed for the Cubs. I think the Cubs had that as their best bet last week.

So all respect to the Raiders. They're just not at the same level as the Jets. That Jets defense is really impressive. Here's my counter. When are we going to have one of those games where Ryan Fitzpatrick just sucks? Just blows. We had one.er loses the game. The which one?

They I think the Eagles game. Wasn't that our Fitzpatrick special? I like that. I feel good about calling it a Fitzpatrick special. I like that. It's a special. It's scrambled eggs with poop on it.

I don't know. I kind of like getting the points. I think this is a three-point game. I think it's a three-point game, too. Here's the other thing. All right, Raiders are up by four with seven minutes left, and Fitzpatrick's on his own 20. It's like third and 12.

Do you feel good about that? I'd feel terrible. I'm taking the points, I think. I'm okay with it. I'm laying the points. I'm going to probably take the death. I don't know why this isn't one of my best five. Seahawks minus six and a half in Dallas.

I can't think of a single reason why this isn't one of my best five. The only reason that I didn't put it into my best five is, is because all the contrary angles support Dallas here. Dallas on this stretch of, of losses and, and failed covers, you know, that at some point the regression suggests that there will be a,

a cover coming along the way here. And this might be just pull out enough for Seattle. Tell me why I shouldn't throw $1,000 on a Seahawks-Rams tease. Rams at home against the Niners. Tease that down to two and a half. Tease the Seahawks to a half point. Oh, I would encourage that. When we hang up the phone on this podcast

today, we'll discuss it further. I don't even think there's much to discuss. I like that. I like that one. Four bye teams. Buffalo, Jacksonville, Philly, and Washington. You don't have to watch your team this week. This is what Kirk Cousins does. What did he say?

This is what I do? This is what we do? You like that. Did you like that? What did he say? Well, he kind of left out did. But it was implied. It was so vigorous and forceful. You like that?

You like that? I liked it. I liked it. I like having him here. He's throwing some fire. Yeah. Oh, it. KC, throw in some fire. Yeah. Oh, I can't believe you took shit for that. God forbid my quarterback's excited that he just won a game in the last minute.

I want him to be excited. What, do I want him to be upset about it? I thought, well, I'm here in the DC bubble, so I didn't hear about him taking any guff for it. Everybody here loved it, I think. People made fun of it on the internet, but that's what the internet's for. Well, because it deserved to be made fun of. It's funny. Okay, so...

It's an all-time classic vine to send to your friends every time you kick their butt in something. At least he didn't headbutt the wall like Gus Farratt. So, our first game is the Vikings and the Bears. vikings are one point favorites in chicago we both picked this game i should mention i was reading uh the always

excellent dvoa ratings on uh on football outsiders aaron shot stepped it up this year he's really he's really thrown himself into the dvoa ratings this year. I appreciate Aaron Schatz. He pointed out Minnesota has a super easy sked so far. 28th in DVOA. And they've had a ton of turnover luck. They've recovered all four

fumbles on defense and I think they're like five of eight of the fumbles on offense they've recovered for themselves. There's a lot of science here that the Vikings are ready to regress. Who'd you take in this game? I took the Bears. I have the Bears as well. How about that?

I like the Bears at home. They're 6-1 straight up and against the spread in the last seven matchups at home in this series. Yeah. And I also like the fact that Minnesota hasn't won three straight games since 2012. I also like betting on Teddy Bridgewater. I respect Minnesota, though. I like betting against Teddy Bridgewater outdoors on the road.

Makes me happy for some reason. Yeah. All right. And we keep saying, we keep using sneaky good for the Bears defense. And you know what? I think they're sneaky good. Yeah. And Cutler now, I think they had a bye week last week.

Cutler should be relatively healthy at this point. Yeah. I like the Bears plus one. Next game is just me. Steelers laying one and a half at home to the Cincinnati Bengals. Ben Roethlisberger back in the lineup. I would say it's a borderline must win for the Steelers. Steelers are four and three.

They have three straight home games right now. Cincinnati at home, Oakland at home, Cleveland at home, and then a bye week. So if you're in the Steelers right now, you feel great. You're home for a month. You're just in a good mood right now, you feel great. You're home for a month. You're just in a good mood. Your quarterback's coming back. You're playing the Bengals. You hate the Bengals.

One of your least favorite teams. Bengals are 6-0. They have at Pittsburgh this week. And then they have a Thursday game four days later at home against Cleveland. I don't know. I just like the spot. It feels like if the Steelers have any chance to come back in this division

this is the all time must win and in general it's a must win because you know they have a really tough schedule late they go after the bye they go at Seattle Indy Sunday night at home at Cincy home for Denver at

Baltimore on a Sunday night at Cleveland. So they end with two road games. I feel like this is a must-win for them. So I'm laying the points. And what's your opinion? It's not one of your best five, but who do you have? Yeah, I left it off my best five. I like the Steelers quite a bit in this position for the same reason.

I like the spot. The reason I left it off of my top five is because there is this trend that shows that Big Ben, in his first game coming back off an injury, doesn't have a good record against the spread. He's like two and four, which is why I laid off. He's been injured that many times? Easily, easily, easily. Yeah. He's been playing a long time.

Yeah. All right. You have. And's been playing a long time. Yeah. All right, you have... And he takes a lot of hits, so... I like the Steelers. I think they're a pretty good team. I like their game breakers. I like that they have three guys in the field who can go for 60 yards at any time.

And I think this is... Also, it's not disrespectful to the Bengals to take the Steelers here. No. I actually thought the line, now that Roethlisberger's playing, I thought Bengals to take the Steelers here. No. I actually thought the line, now that Roethlisberger's playing, I thought it should have been two and a half. Maybe it will get there by game time, but I think this is going to be a high-scoring game.

That's my other prediction for it. I didn't pick this game. You did. Ravens, three and a half at home against the Chargers. I actually always have liked the Ravens at home, and you can make a case. They could be six and one. They could be one and six.

Every game they've played, with the possible exception of Monday night, they've been in at the end. And even the Monday night one, they somehow found a way to have the ball down eight with the chance to tie it. I had the Ravens penciled in, and then I started thinking about it. I think the Chargers penciled in, and then I started thinking about them.

I think the Chargers suck. Chargers can throw the ball, and the Ravens just give up long passes over and over again. It does seem like Phil Rivers could torch them. So I stayed away. Who'd you take? I took the Baltimore Ravens. It was an angle play.

They've only covered the spread once so far this season, and there's a nice angle that says that teams entering week eight, having covered the spread only once, cover 60% of the time in week eight. So I like the angle. I also, having watched the entirety of that game with Arizona, I was flabbergasted. I was amazed. The Ravens shoot themselves in the foot so many different ways.

They create so many opportunities for the other team to take sort of easy, easy shots at scores, and they kill their own drives themselves, the Ravens. It felt like a little bit. I said, you know, this is what it's like watching my team, the D.C. Gruden's. That's what we do. That's not what the Ravens, you know, it's been the longstanding, you know, running joke here in the D.C., you know, Baltimore corridor about how great the organization is up in Baltimore

and how they've built from within. They have, you know, They build teams through the draft. They don't go out and play in free agency. There's stability there at the GM spot. And they're sort of the model franchise as a foil against the silly D.C. team. But watching that game, that's the first time I've sat and watched the Ravens from the beginning to end. It felt a little like there was some burgundy and gold going on there.

But they've lost every single game this season by a single score. I know, but last week was a fluke. All of their losses have been by a single score. I think they stink. But I also think the Chargers stink, and the Ravens are due for one. But I just like the angle. I'm taking the Ravens minus three and a half in that game, but it's not one of my five.

Here is one of my five. The Rams are laying eight and a half points at home against Kaepernick and the 49ers. I've been on this train for a month now. If Kaepernick's playing a good defense, I'm taking the defense. And I don't care what the line is. And I like this Rams team. And this feels like the kind of game where

if they get up by 10 points, the game's over. There's no way the Niners can come back. Feels like a 30-3 and maybe a Kaepernick last stand type of game, too, where this is the last time he starts this season. I like the spot. And

I think the Rams are really good. I agree. I think the Rams are good. Eight and a half just felt like too much for the Rams offense. I don't quite trust that offense yet to be able to run out to a 30-3

kind of game. I think the defense and the special teams can cover the eight and a half. I think the Rams are a perfect candidate for a T-E-A-S-E-R this week. I really enjoy them in that kind of capacity. Next game, you pick this. I have the Giants plus 3.5 at New Orleans, but did not put that in my top five.

Who'd you have? I have the Giants plus 3.5 at New Orleans, but did not put that in my top five. Who'd you have? I have the Giants plus three and a half at New Orleans as well, and I made it one of my plays purely on a power ranking basis. The Giants are still hovering around the top ten, and the Saints are a decent notch below that in every single kind of power ranking you look at. So I like very much getting points in that kind of context. The Saints, you know, have won and covered at home after an 0-6 stretch.

You know, they used to be unbeatable at home. But 3.5 is too much. 2.5, and I probably would have left this game alone. Me too. It's the extra point that I like the Giants getting here. Feels like a three is too much. Two and a half, then I probably would have left this game alone. It's the extra point that I like the Giants getting here. Feels like a three-point game. And also, if you're the Giants... Yep. Oh, let me do the

Phil Simms. I was working on my Phil Simms impersonation on Twitter yesterday. I'm going to do it here. You did. It was pretty good. Joe, you know, when you talk about the Giants, we've been talking about them for a couple days. When you're talking about the Giants, we've been talking about them for a couple days. When you're talking about the Giants,

you're talking about a team that is talking about trying to talk about coming back and trying to be better, and that's what they're trying to do. And we've been talking about that all week. They're talking about maybe talking about possibly talking about making a run here. Would you like to talk about Eli on the road? Eli. Eli's like, he's like the Black Widow. That should be his nickname.

He's, what was that movie with, the movie from the 80s, The Black Widow, where you can't, the good looking girl you can't resist who she ends up killing all of her husbands. That's Eli. That's Eli for gambling. He's football bipolar is what he is. Yeah.

Anytime he looks good, all of a sudden you're going to be dead in the bathtub because you trusted him. That's right. He's football schizophrenia. He's the embodiment of it. Yeah. But I'm with you. I think he covers the spread.

They're 4-3. They have a chance to pull away in this division a little bit over the next couple weeks because they have at New Orleans and at Tampa. And then the Patriots at home. A game that every Patriots fan, even though we're going to sound super confident about it, we're all nervous. We don't like playing the Giants. Giants get very confident.

So I'm really, really, really, yeah, now I'm really rooting for them to be 6-3 entering that game. It'd be fun. That would make it extra tasty. So I like the Giants. I am taking the Black Widow as well. All right. Let's go to Monday night. You have Panthers-Colts. Panthers

7 at home against the Colts. You picked this game for the best 5. I did not. Who, Jeff? I like Indy getting the points. Indy broke my heart last week at home against the Saints. The Saints? The Saints. I had this whole narrative. We got against the Saints. The Saints? The Saints.

I had this whole narrative. We got on the pod. I talked about how good Indy looked, that Andrew Luck was back, that game against the Pats as a turning point kind of game. They were coming into form. That was the form we expected to see all season long out of the Colts. And then they took a great big dump in my bed, and then they left it right by the pillow so I could be near where I have to be breathing. And all the same, I like them here.

I think Carolina and Indy are not that far apart in terms of the quality of the teams. Carolina has covered the spread in five of their six games. The record of those teams that they have covered the spread against is 15-26. Yep. And they do not have a single win against a team with a winning record. So I think – I mean, I've been very impressed with Carolina. Carolina is built as a playoff team right now. Their formula is kind of a playoff kind of formula.

But that offense, 22nd-ranked offense, not that impressive. Seven just felt like too much. I like Indy. Well, a couple red flags here. One is that it's pretty much a must-win for Indy. They have a lot of turmoil right now. They need to look good in the game soon. Carolina, the line's a little bit too high for what they've done, as you said.

I think everybody's going to have Carolina in a tease, which worries me. Like if you have the Rams Carolina in a tease, you have the Seahawks Carolina in a tease, and you just kind of wait, oh yeah, and then Carolina's going to win. I'm going to win my tease, and then they screw up. Here's the red flags the other way. Indy just looks terribly coached. I think they look top five sloppy, most disjointed team that we've seen this season. So that's one thing that scares me.

Mismanaged. A lot of mismanagement. And I don't like that they keep falling. I mean, Tate and I were talking about this. How many times has Indy fallen behind by 20 points during the Luck era? Seems like that's happened 20 times. So that makes me nervous. Four or five of them this season. Yeah, it's just a sign that you're poorly coached. So that's one problem.

Here's the other thing. I don't think Luck looks healthy. Like during that Pats game, I didn't think he was throwing the ball right. It looked like he was pushing it because like his shoulder was messed up. He just doesn't look right to me. And I don't know if that's something that is going to change. And I don't know. So I stayed away.

I'm probably going to actually take the points, the Panthers, because I think the Pagano thing is reaching a point where he's going to get cans in. We'll see, though. I mean, this is it. This is where you turn your season around if you're the Colts, with this game right here, because after that they go home for Denver, bye week, at Atlanta, home for Tampa, at Pittsburgh Sunday night. But then their last four games are at Jacksonville, home for Tampa, at Pittsburgh Sunday night.

But then their last four games are at Jacksonville, home for Houston, at Miami, home for Tennessee. They could run the slate in the last month. All right, last game. We both have this. It's a classic. Packers, Broncos. Broncos getting three at home.

Peyton Manning getting three at home. I don't know if there's been a bigger slap in his face. He's coming off a bye, too, right? Schatz pointed this out in his piece. Denver is basically first in defensive DVOA and their last in offensive DVOA, which is pretty much unprecedented. Nobody's ever finished that way, and I don't think Denver will either. But the disparity, the only real comparison he could come up with

for a team that made the playoffs was the 91 Eagles, a team that we both remember fondly. Awesome defense, horrendous offense. Great book written about them by Mark Bowden. I think it was called Bringing the Heat, something like that. But I used to like betting on and against that team because you could kind of

figure out when they were going to not score points and when they were and all that stuff. I love the Packers. I just think they're better. I don't think Manning's faults have truly manifested themselves

in a big game. I don't see Rodgers losing to Manning. I just think Green Bay's better. I would feel stupid taking Denver in this game, and I'm sure I'm going to feel stupid when they somehow cover or lose by two or something. Who do you have?

Well, look, I can't quit you, Chicken Parm. Oh, wow. I can't quit you, Chicken Parm. Chicken Parm, you taste so good. I got the Denver Broncos. I love Peyton Manning in this situation. I love Denver getting points at home. All of the factors that you just cited are the counterpoints that make all the sense in the world.

If you just think about this game as which team you think at this stage of the season is a better team, Aaron Rodgers and Green Bay, slightly more impressive along the way here. Denver has been pulling out wins against middling teams, kind of unimpressive wins against teams like Cleveland and, you know, Oakland's on the come-up, but they didn't really beat Oakland, but they let Minnesota back into that game and failed to cover against Minnesota at home after being up by two scores. So I completely understand...

Wait a second. Did I interrupt you? Denver hasn't played a good team yet. The best team they've played is the Vikings, and they barely won, and probably shouldn't have. Who would we say is Green Bay's best W? It doesn't matter, because they have Aaron Rodgers. He's the best quarterback in the league.

I just don't think he's losing in Denver. It's not happening. Tom Brady's mad at you, by the way, right now. I love Tom Brady. I think he's the greatest quarterback of all time. Aaron Rodgers is better than Tom Brady.. I love Tom Brady. I think he's the greatest quarterback of all time. Aaron Rodgers is better than Tom Brady. Even I'd admit it.

I defend Tom Brady more than anybody but Aaron Rodgers can do all the things Tom Brady can do and he can also move around. You know? Now, with that said...

So the Packers' best win is over the Rams. Yeah, that's a good win. If I'm down 10 with 10 minutes left in a Super Bowl I'm taking Tom Brady. That's the difference.

Aaron Rodgers still hasn't proven to me in a time of ultimate crisis in a gigantic spot that he's going to get it done. I'm not saying he can't. I just know Brady can. If I had to bet my life on one of those two guys in that spot, I'm taking Brady. But I think Rodgers is a better week-to-week quarterback. What can't he do? He does every single thing you'd want a quarterback to do.

And you're betting against him like a jackass. You're betting against him. Well, I like Denver at home. I like Denver at home. There's a bunch of nice trends that support Denver in this spot. Teams coming off with a 5-0 record, playing with rest, and Green Bay

gives up nearly four yards a rush on defense. Not great. Aaron Rodgers. I'm just saying, these are my stats. Aaron Rodgers. 12-2 against the spread. I like that number. Aaron Rodgers. 12-2 at 12-2 against the spread. I like that number.

Aaron Rodgers. Denver 14-3 straight up and against the spread. At home after a bye week, I like that number. Now, on the other side, Green Bay has a very good against the spread record with rest. And I like Aaron Rodgers. But chicken parm, you taste so good. All right, here are our picks. I'm rolling with my boy.

I have the Steelers minus one and a half. You have the Ravens minus three and a half. I have the Rams minus eight and a half. You have the Giants plus three and a half. You have the Colts plus seven. And we both have Bears plus one. The Bears. You have Broncos plus three.

I have Packers minus three. So that'll be our head-to-head game. Good times. Let's talk some NBA. But before we do, here's a Jeopardy question for your house. Ready? All right. He's a writer who recently released a book about rap that made the New York Times bestseller list and was named a Pitchfork Book Club selection.

Who is this writer? Yeah. Who is Shea Serrano, the homie? The book is called The Rap Yearbook. Yeah, you got that right. Congratulations. The book is called The Rap Yearbook, the most important rap song from every year since 1979,

discussed, debated, and deconstructed. It's so popular that the book sold out on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. You can't even get it right now. It's not even a preorder. It's like, you have to, it's not even a pre-order. It's like, you just have to order it and hope they print more and you can get it eventually. Uh,

if you love rap, if you love arguing about rap, you like both, you like, you love rap and you love arguing about rap, right? Right. Yeah.

Both of those things. Yeah. And I don't have my copy yet. I had no idea it was going to be out of print already. You like cool drawings. You like cool, really well-done drawings. You love funny writing. You love Shea Serrano.

The comedy book that they did three years ago was awesome, too. I love Shea. You love Shea Serrano, as do I. For God's sakes, purchase this book online. It's called The Wrap Your Book. Get it now. I love Sheaay anyway and he and he was an awesome person to work with at grantland and uh i'm really happy for him he had some great

some great uh showings at at his different book tours um around the country more importantly he knows every line from blood in blood out which is the single most impressive thing about him he can just recite the whole movie from beginning to end, which is never on. It's never on TV, which really bothers me. As I've told you many times, I think there should be

a prison movie channel called Bars with a Z. And if there was a prison movie channel, it would be, Blood In Blood Out would be on all the time. But there's not,

so it's never on and it's upsetting. But congratulations to my man, Shea. Go check out that book all right let's talk let's talk nba really quickly um sure it's really early we've only had three days of games we only had one marathon day on wednesday all right here's some stuff i did like andrew bogut sizing the uh ring for his middle finger and then claiming it was some sort of Australian thing. I think it's a total Mark Jackson thing.

I think it was his last move in his blood feud with Mark Jackson. I love that. I love what Curry did on opening night against the World Series game. So really nobody saw it except the diehard basketball fans. But after hearing about how lucky they were for the whole summer and then the preseason, he came out and he just completely destroyed the first team he saw on national television, which I thought was great.

Did you watch that game? He was incandescent. I did watch that game. I was traveling this week. It was awesome. I made a point of making sure I was in front of the TV at 10 o'clock Wednesday night. It was spectacular. Tuesday night. The Rookie of the Year race is o'clock Wednesday night. It was spectacular. Tuesday night.

The Rookie of the Year race is going to be really fun this year. Okafor's going to put up points and rebounds. He just is. And turnovers. Moutier, who is the definition of when the Natsers gush how they have an NBA body, that dude's going to put up numbers. He's going to put up turnovers too.

He might get some quadruple doubles with the fourth being the turnovers. He's a force, man. He reminds me of Tyreek during Tyreek's rookie year where it's just like the body was ready to be a superstar but the brain wasn't there yet and it's just all over the map.

That was the single most impressive performance of this week so far was Denver handling Houston at Houston. No Dwight Howard. That was impressive. Yeah, I know. No Dwight Howard but still, I agree. This is the point.

We were so long on Houston. We love Houston because they have so many interchangeable parts. I mean, you can't say because they didn't have the one dude. The whole point behind Houston and their success this year is, you know, they're 12 deep. Well, you know, no Dwight Howard and Denver comes into your house and whoops

your ass. I didn't like it. Come on. Yeah, that, it made me mad actually. Yeah, it made me mad at Houston. Like, you're getting thrown in all these championship conversations and things, good things are going to happen is this the year they make the finals can you win the title

and then they just lay a big fart on opening night I didn't like that you gotta come out and win that game 20 point loss to Denver? we might have been off on Denver I don't want to overreact after one game they have a lot of basketball players in that team that I like.

You know? Gallo looked good. Well, they still, the long-term view with them is whenever they hit the stretch that you expect them to hit of a little bit of a rough patch in the West, it still makes sense for them to get young assets for their veteran players and let those veteran players go other places. It's awesome for Gallo to be healthy, though.

I love healthy Gallo. Yeah, me too. I was really hoping the Celtics were going to trade for him last summer. I was very focused on it. And then Denver signed a new extension. But 25 wins was their over-under, and I think that, in retrospect, I didn't realize Moutier was going to be this far along. And let me tell you something.

I'm not buddies with any Kings fans. So I'll never, fortunately, have to be in this situation. But the fact that they took Willie Cauley-Stein over Moutier, that's one of those things like if Tate came in and he's a Kings fan and he just walked in today to tape the pod, I don't know if I'd be able to make eye contact with him. I don't know if I'd be able to even discuss the Kings with him. It's when the Hawks took Marvin Williams over Chris Paul.

It's just horrible. They also passed up Winslow, which was a little more defensible because they had taken perimeter guys the previous two years, too, with a lottery pick. So I'll give them a pass on that. But they had no point guard. They didn't take Moutier just because he didn't work out for them and they were scared to take him. Just take him. Trade him. He had the most value.

He played professional basketball in china last year it's not a guy that you have to guess about he was he was the number one prospect heading into that college season over towns and over okafor mudia was the number one guy everybody said he was going to be he had the most star potential and you know the kings have done just a series of idiotic things over the last couple years but just not taking moody and figuring out later i i i think was egregious if i had been doing that draft and that had happened um i it would have been a minute and a half long monologue in the moment it was stupid was stupid. You're going to take Willie Cauley-Stein now? Who else is taking him?

Denver wasn't taking Willie Cauley-Stein. The Pistons weren't taking him. The Hornets weren't taking him. Miami wasn't taking him. Where was he going? He was going to the Pacers at 11, if anything. So why are you taking him at six? Take Moutier.

What are you doing? And you watch that guy for 10 minutes, and's like that dude's a basketball player he's gonna be really good at some point in his life that he is he is huge and he does stuff and he's just scary how do you not take him great court vision love the court vision oh i'm sorry he didn't work out for you he didn't work out for you go on fucking youtube and watch and watch him on youtube for five minutes what are you doing well he didn't work i didn't work out for you? Go on fucking YouTube And watch him on YouTube For five minutes What are you doing? Well he didn't I didn't get to see him in person

We can't take him What? We have YouTube We have scouting tapes He was in China He was in China It makes me mad And then the Kings fans get mad

The Kings fans are like Why are you piling up on us? It's like I'm not piling up on you I'm on your side. You should be mad that you don't have Moutier in your team. Anyway. There needs to be a little accountability.

You know what? I have an apology to make to you. Who lives in virtual reality? I know. Vivek lives in virtual reality. It's perfect. I have an apology for you and Sal. We were talking about bets before the season.

We made a couple. I swear on my kid's life, I wrote a sentence about Rubio for the assist title, and he was like 10 to 1. And I was like, we should throw a flyer on this. And then I thought you'd make fun of me, and I deleted it. What? Yeah.

I would not have made fun of you. I'm not making fun of anything having to do with Minnesota this season. I think they're going to lead kind of a charmed existence. I think it's going to be, you know, the intangibles that come from losing a leader like Flip. Let's do it. It's not too late. I mean, how much have the odds changed? My thinking was they just, we talked about it when we did our over-under and I took the

over for them because I thought they were athletic and I really felt like Rubio was going to have a career year. Chen and I in our salary cap week, I was pushing him for Rubio and then somebody randomly just took him like three rounds before we thought he was going to go. But if Rubio is ever going to have a career year, it's this year with Wiggins and Towns. I like Towns. Towns looked good in that Laker game. I like Towns, too. Yeah, he's just athletic.

No way that guy's going to fail. Everybody's going to look good against the Lakers this year. If I was a Laker fan, and thank God I'm not, I would be going insane about Kobe shooting 24 shots in that first game as D'Angelo Russell just stood awkwardly 10 feet away. What is your plan? What are you doing? 24 points on 24 shots. It was so good. It made me so happy.

I loved it. 24 points on 24 shots. And then poor D'Angelo Russell's getting, like, bust buzz. It's like, yeah, good luck. Good luck to anybody in that situation. He's a point guard. He needs the ball in his hands. Is he going to stand there and watch Kobe jack up shots?

Dumbest franchise on the planet. I don't even know what to say about that. We have one thing to rectify from the over-under pod. We only came up with seven playoff teams in the West. I know. A couple people emailed me about that. My math was wrong. Let's fix that.

Well, it's somebody from that Phoenix, Sacramento, Portland, all those teams. Yeah. I don't know. Are we going to pick one of them? No. Are we just going to say it's going to be one of those teams. Yeah. I don't know. Are we going to pick one of them? No. Are we just going to say it's going to be one of those teams? I have a controversial decision. I think there's only going to be seven playoff teams in the West.

I don't even think there's going to be an eighth. What? You changed the rules? I don't know. Who is it? Okay. I'm going to give Who is it? Okay. I'm going to give a slight lean to Phoenix. Safest bet.

They were knocking on the door twice the last couple years, even though I think I took the under from them this year. Yeah. Well, you know, I was talking earlier about how New Orleans is in trouble because they have to get to like 47, 48 wins. Maybe they don't. Maybe you just need to get to like 41. Maybe the seventh and eighth seeds are going to have 41 win seasons.

I don't know. So there'll be five teams. Like Dallas will hang around. Phoenix will be there. Portland might win, you know, mid-30s. Maybe Denver's a different team than we thought. I have a really embarrassing question. Are we sure Minnesota can't make the playoffs?

Hmm. It would require a leap out of Wiggins, wouldn't it? That would have to be the thesis. Are we sure he can't make it? We expect Wiggins to be... No, no, no, no. We're not sure.

We are not saying that it's not possible. That eight spot's wide open, man. That's what it would have to be based on. And by the way, Sacramento, it's wide open for them, too. They're legitimately in the mix, and we both took them on the over Denver it's a little bit open for? let's continue that conversation next week

shout out to our dude Steve Nash ring of honor in Phoenix really fun to watch that dude I don't know where I gotta redo the pyramid at some point I had him in the 30s before and that was before he had his little 2010 playoff run i think uh somewhere he's somewhere in the top 35 certainly one of the best offensive point guards we've ever seen and uh two-time mvp of the league

it's too bad he left phoenix think, and you know, he got paid. It's great. Lakers, who's living in LA and all that stuff. But it is a bummer. Everything just didn't end for him in Phoenix. Two more quick things, then we're going to call Jacko. I'm going to call Jacko. I'm going to get rid of you.

Good, good. The new Clippers uniform and logo. Thoughts? Kind of like it. What? Don't hate it. Kind of like it. I don't hate it.

Oh, I think it's an atrocity. It seems like change for change's sake, which is silly, but it doesn't hurt my eyes. The new logo looks like something David Cho would have brought to me in 2012 as a possibility for the new Grantland logo, and we would have gotten an argument in his office. That's how I feel about the Clippers logo. Yeah, I have a soft spot for David Cho. Yeah, I do too.

I'm not saying we would have had lingering bad feelings. I like his sensibilities. Yeah, no, I know. I know exactly what you're talking about. I roll with the Cho sensibility, and it's the Cho sensibility that landed on the Clippers jersey. Rock out with your cock out. I'm on it. The uniforms are terrible.

Okay. I guess the counterargument is anytime you can change a history that's just awful and tortured, you got to do it. Every which way you can change a history that's just awful and tortured you gotta do it but uh every which way you can change the jerseys, change the shoes, change the floor change it all oh I forgot to mention

we were talking about the rookie of the year race we got sidetracked because I mentioned Moutier Hazonia, Orlando was running crunch time plays for Hazonia and he airballed one of them but I was still into it he's the creator of that team buy Hazonia, Orlando was running crunch time plays for Hazonia, and he airballed one of them, but I was still into it. He's the creator on that team. Buy Hazonia's stock right now. It's not a

mistake because he has the confidence. He's not phased. You want the guy with the ball in his hands who's not phased. Now Oladipo had a very good game against my almost bullets. Yeah, I'm super impressed. You told me that I'd be impressed.

Super impressed. You know what I liked about Hazonia? He shot the air ball like a minute left. They had the lead. And normally if a rookie did that, they'd have that scared dog look. Like scared rescue dog look. Like, oh my God, I did it bad. I peed on the rug.

I'm sorry. Hazonia just had it look like, look, I'm going to have sex with somebody tonight. I just want you guys to know. I don't care that I just airballed that. Tonight I'm going to go out in Washington and there's some Spanish girls waiting for me and I'm going to have sex with three of them. So I don't care about that airball at all. That's how he carries himself.

I love it. I love Hazonia. Yeah. I'm calling him unfazed Hazonia. That's going to be my name for him all season long. I'm going to call him, I'm having sex with everybody and I might win the rookie of Unfazed Hazonia. That's going to be my name for him all season long. I'm going to call him I'm having sex with everybody and I might win the Rookie of the Year Hazonia. I think he's getting all the...

He's taking the mantle from Gallinari. Well, you think Nadal probably has settled down a little, right? And Pau has a girlfriend. Every four or five years, there's a new Spanish athlete who just leaves a trail. And I think it's going to be Hazonia. I think he's the guy. I predict lots of supermodels and actresses.

And you just will not see him without a smoke show at his side at any point in the next five years. Well, I welcome it. I look forward to it. Keep doing your thing, Mario Hazonia. And last thing, LeBron's back. I mean, literally his back, like the back part of his body. Not good.

Surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise. Right? Didn't we talk about this? Try not to get fired. Me? Yeah, I was joking. I see. Wear and tear.

Year 13. Five straight finals. Nine straight months of basketball year after year since 2010. And it's not sustainable. At some point, it's... It's an unparalleled run of maximum basketball. It's never happened before. Nobody's done this. Nobody's done this without breaking down at some point. It's unparalleled run of maximum basketball. It's never happened before. Nobody's done this.

Nobody's done this without breaking down at some point. I liked it. You add in the World Games and the Olympics along with it that he has to do. It's funny. To carry the banner. Yeah, and people are talking about Miami injuries, Wade, Bosh, what's going to carry the banner yeah and people are talking about um miami injuries wade bosh what's going to happen but to me cleveland's the injury team because they've already had two of them and they're also asking for another 100 game season from lebron where he does everything and he

does the queen of the chessboard thing again and that's's great. But at some point, it has to end. And we were saying this with Kobe, too, in 2010, 2011, 2012. Wow, this is crazy. How is he doing this? How is he going to keep it at this level? How is his body going to keep doing it? And then he tore his Achilles and he's played 41 games in three years. I'm not saying this is going to happen to LeBron. We said this when we talked about Cleveland.

I don't want him to play more than 65 games this season. The only thing that matters is that team be healthy for the playoffs. That's it. And that's why we both went under for Cleveland. They can win 45 games. You know what I mean? They can win 42 games and make the playoffs in the East.

And it just doesn't matter. They just need to make the playoffs and be healthy. They need to go 46 and 36 and it's fine. I'm with you. I would play LeBron. Fine. Totally fine. I would play him 50 games. I know that's crazy but...

Right. Oh, last thing. And then we're going to call Jacko. Or I'm going to call Jacko. It was really nice having Durant and Westbrook back Kawhi ate up Durant though it was interesting it was just an interesting subplot I wasn't prepared for like Kawhi like it that it wasn't a 10-8 round but it was a hundred percent an easy 10-9 round for Kawhi in that game and it goes back to what we said before this season.

Like, Durant broke his foot. He had three surgeries on it. We have no guarantee he's going to be the same guy. He's going to have to play himself back to that level. All the stuff I was worried about with him kind of surfaced in that game. Well, that's funny. I took it as a – I don't know what the right word was. Not gratified. I liked what I saw that's funny. I, I took it as a, uh, I was, uh, I don't know what the right word was. Not, not gratified.

I liked what I saw out of him. I was happy to see him so far along. I thought, yeah, you're, you're right. There's no question that Kawi, Kawai, I messed that up. Kawi, uh, Kawai, who I am going to look at hard. 50 to one MVP. Yeah. That's, um, he's not winning the MVP.

Stop with that internet. Kawhi Leonard's not winning the MVP. Everyone stop. I like it. No. 50-1 is nice. Stop. He ate him up, for sure.

No two ways about it. But Durant can ease his way into it. We gave him 20 games. We gave him all the way through Thanksgiving. And that's what I'm saying right now. He eas his way into it. We gave him 20 games. We gave him all the way through Thanksgiving. And that's what I'm saying right now. He eased himself into it. Yeah, I'm saying it's going to take 20, 25 games. And I think people were just penciling that, that's the best team.

It's like, all right, let's just check in in mid-December. I don't want to have a conversation about their ceiling yet until I see Durant in mid-December when he works through all this stuff. I just love the pace. It's great. They were awesome pace-wise. And I liked that. It was interesting to see them with a competent coach.

It was a little bit of a monkey wrench. It was like, whoa, he went offense-defense. Whoa! Ho! I thought that was cool. And, you know, Russ, it's just fun having them back. I like watching Oklahoma City. And Oklahoma City Spurs, that's the rivalry of the decade.

It really is. They've played more good games, those two teams. Good basketball. Yeah, it's the best. So true. I loved it. The 20th best Thunder Spurs game from this decade is better than just about any other basketball game we've seen with any other two teams. It's just the styles have worked forever.

Here's my fear with the Spurs. Other than that, man, they look slow when they play Aldridge and Duncan together. I know they'll figure it out. I'm not going to worry about the Spurs. But a little plotting. A little plotting with those two together. But Parkers, we knew this, different stage of his career.

That's just where he is now. Different stage. And it still shouldn't hurt them. They'll adapt. But he's not in a game like that, that was in the old days, that was one of those, hey, Tony, create some plays for us. And this time around, it's, hey, Kawhi, let's create some plays for us it's just not parker's not the guy anymore so all right

that's fine that's okay joe house you're appearing at uh at the comedy yuck yucks on friday night at 9 p.m and then you're at comedy bang bang at uh saturday in dc at 10 o'clock and what your free cheeseburger night at both of those places? comedy special on Netflix starting next week House as always a pleasure check out House from DC his Twitter page

and that's really it because this isn't his real job he just moonlights as somebody who has become a fixture on the Bill Simmons podcast House talk to you soon alright as promised my buddy Jacko As somebody who has become a fixture on the Bill Simmons podcast house. Talk to you soon. All right. As promised,

my buddy Jacko, he, uh, it's been an interesting month for him. His, his team's not in the baseball playoffs and giants up and down political convention. I mean, uh,

the political debate. Yeah, definitely up and down. Uh, give us your thoughts. Give it, get, first of Yeah, definitely up and down. Give us your thoughts. First of all, who is the leader right now? Who's getting the nomination? Well, I hate to jinx it because my predictions so far in baseball have been awful this postseason. And this may be more with my heart than with my head, but I hope and I like to think that the party will be smart enough, although that's a big leap of faith. But I'd like to think it's going to be Rubio.

Oh, Rubio. That's good for me because me, House and Sal, I'll have Rubio plus 650. Right. That was based on my suggestion a while ago. Yes. You know, he's coming up on the outside here. I mean, you know, the party is idiotically flirting with Donald Trump and Ben Carson, who seems like a nice guy, but he's completely not ready to be the president of the United States. So I think cooler heads and wiser heads will prevail eventually and go with Marco Rubio when they see that he appeals to the wide-ranging demographics of the Republican Party

and would make a very interesting general election candidate against Hillary, I think. Younger and newer and fresher, etc. Rubio is the favorite right now, plus 230. This is incredible. Donald Trump is your number two favorite at plus 260. Ben Carson, 7-1. Jeb Bush is 8-1. Ted Cruz is 8-1. And Chris Christie is 18-1 and has to be wondering what happened.

Johnny, he's got to be reeling, Mike. He's just got to be reeling. How is he not winning this, Mike? He missed his chance. His chance was to run four years ago when he was the hot ticket. And that was his time. I think he you know he would i think he would have been the choice of most people and would have would have beaten romney for the nomination and for whatever reason he felt he wasn't ready or what time wasn't right or whatever and you know basically time has passed him by now so yeah i i would say i would say that's an understatement. Yeah. I mean, he was kind of, he had sort of the Trump aesthetic before Trump became cool in terms of like, you know, the bluster and pounding your chest and, you know, being angry. That was like his shtick, you know?

Yeah. And four years ago, that might have sold. And, you know, the Republican Party was angry about the state of the country and angry about obama that was his really his time to grab the brass ring and when he didn't do it you know time has passed him by he's got the bridge thing which i think is sort of a non-controversy controversy but republicans hate him because after super storm sandy he basically like attached himself to president obama at the hip and people thought republicans thought he was sort of overly, I don't know what the right word is,

but overly solicitous of Obama and way too close with him and everything else, and that really sort of tarnished his image in a big, huge way. It wasn't a massive scandal that didn't tarnish his image? Well, a massive scandal. I mean, some people on his staff closed down a bridge. I mean, let's take it easy in terms of a massive scandal. I mean, you know, some people on his staff closed down a bridge. I mean, you know, let's take it easy. There was a massive, massive scandal.

And I don't really love Christie. I don't know why I'm defending him, but that thing was so overhyped and overblown. It was ridiculous. Well, wasn't a big part of it about everybody trying to figure out if he knew about it or not? Because that's always the cover-up's worse than the scandal every time. It always is, yeah. And, you know, they wanted to screw around with some mayor that didn't endorse them. And so they made some traffic on a bridge and, you know, yeah, okay, you shouldn't do that. You shouldn't play around unless the bridge really needs to be

closed, obviously. You shouldn't use government to get even with your enemies, political or otherwise. But, you know, in the grand scheme of things, there's much worse things that have been done by other people. And it's because he was perceived as, you know, a rising political star and the media was, you know, geared to take him out. And so they blew it all up. I'd find it hard to believe, quite frankly, that he didn't know about it. I mean, he's a pretty, seems like a pretty hands-on guy. It seems like he could be fairly aggressive as a boss. So I wouldn't want to be doing things against his will. But I think to date, there hasn't been any proof that he's done anything. You know, I was watching the 70s on CNN and they had basically a whole Nixon episode. The 70s is pretty mediocre, but still totally

watchable. It's every one of them I recommend. I never, you never leave them going. What an amazing hour. I can't wait to tell my grandkids about that show, but they're all watchable. The music one's probably the best one. The TV one's pretty good, but they do a whole Nixon show. And I was thinking like, and you and I both love Watergate. Like we, we both went through our Watergate phases once upon a time. But the part when Nixon starts firing attorney generals.

Yeah. And he fires one and then he wants the other one. He's hiring them because that guy has to go then fire people. But the guy's like, no, I'm not going to do that. So he fires that guy and then he brings in Robert Bork. Robert Bork's like, sure, I'll fire everybody. Well, that was the solicitor general. Yeah. He wanted him to fire the special prosecutor. Yeah. Robert Bork. Robert Bork's like, sure. I'll fire everybody. That was the solicitor general.

He wanted him to fire the special prosecutor. And then the attorney general resigned. And then he was basically trying to find anybody that would take the job eventually. To fire him. And Robert Bork's like, okay. So I get to be the attorney general, right? I was thinking, how great would that be

during the era of social media if that whole thing had transpired that night? Can you imagine Twitter trying to cover that? It would have broken down the internet. There was a simpler time back then. You could do a lot more. You could have made a lot more in the days when there was no Facebook and Twitter. In a lot of ways. That's a good example of the cover-up.

That's probably your watershed example of the cover-up. That's probably your watershed example of the cover-up. Yeah, that's the first example of that. The cover-up is always worse than the crime. Politicians and business executives and whoever else, sports people, never quite realize that that's the... They've never learned that lesson

that that's a lot worse than the underlying whatever issue is. So you have Rubio as the favorite. When you're watching these debates, learned that lesson that that's a lot worse than the underlying you know whatever issue is so so you have so you have ruby as the favorite when you're watching these debates yeah as as you know a devout republican who's right obviously hoping things are going to turn out well for like what is your state of mind like are you drinking during these things are you angry are you by yourself what's going on i was now for for this most recent one, I was with my wife. We put our kids to bed early, and I was kind of flipping between the World Series and the debate,

which is why I had dreams about Pete Rose asking me about the capital gains tax, which was very confusing. But we basically watched most of the debate, more debate than the World Series. So yes, we were drinking wine and I was basically yelling at the TV and drinking. And yeah, it's like a sporting event, basically. Who would scare you more as the Republican nominee, Trump or Pete Rose? I would actually vote for Pete Rose before I would vote for Trump. I like Pete Rose. The rain delay last Friday was one of the random great TV moments in a while. It was just so fortuitous because it was a great game.

And then all of a sudden there's this 35-minute rain delay and kind of America all realized at the same time, like, holy shit, A-Rod and Pete Rose are on live TV just ad-libbing right now. Well, you know what? Really, the transcendent star of this postseason has been A-Rod, who's fantastic on television. He's really good. I mean, fantastic. He's like a pro. He's like a young Jim Nance. Whoever the host is brings him in, and then A-Rod turns to the rest of the panel.

I know. It's like he's got production value. He's amazing at how good he is. And Pete Rose is basically like your drunk uncle at Thanksgiving. He has no idea. He's just babbling. The other night he was berating Raul Abanez because he was on the Phillies team that lost to the Yankees in the 2009 World Series.

And he's just like, did you win in Little League? He killed Raul Abanez because he was on two World Series losers. Abanez looked kind of bummed out. But i get the feeling that they all love pete rose like he must be the ultimate clubhouse guy and he must just have a billion stories and he like loves frank thomas the big hurt he's always turning to him like to laugh along with him you can tell they love pete rose well if you're pete rose you're you're super excited because you just spent like the last 15 years at the $7 lunch place outside of the casino where you've just been gambling for 20 hours a day. And now all of a sudden you're with like human beings who have jobs and a good production crew. And he's just got to be uplifted the whole time by the whole experience.

He's not talking to like Jimmy the Shark. He's outside of the Binyon's horse book. Yeah. Outside of the Binyon's horse book. He's like happy to like jimmy the shark horse book yeah outside of the binyon sport book he's like happy to be anywhere else he's not talking to like jimmy the shark who's eating chicken fingers and spilling barbecue sauce on his tux it's great tv because when they go to him i'm like oh god what's he gonna say because anything could come out of his mouth like he could be completely politically incorrect like given the era he grew up in and yeah living in baseball

club houses so you're kind of excited but you're also kind of nervous for pete like please pete completely politically incorrect, like given the era he grew up in and living in baseball clubhouses. So you're kind of excited, but you're also kind of nervous for Pete. Like, please, Pete, don't say like a racial slur or something. Like, just don't, Pete. Or an F-bomb. Exactly. Like, yeah, I'm always worried about that, too. The producer is like, he must be like on a 25-second delay.

And that seven seconds is not like enough time to react. Yeah, like they'll bring up some hitter and be like yeah that reminds me in 1968 when i was balls deep and like they're just beeping i love pete rose is the definition of and this is a lesson that people have forgotten with sports on television, is that when I don't know what you're going to say, that's always the best TV. If I'm on the edge of my seat because you might cross 17 lines, that's where you want to be as a sports studio show. I think they should let him drink on the show. I think that he should have like a 40.

They definitely should. And Pete would be down with that. You could just see that look in his eye. Yeah, he's something else. Actually, to be fair, Pete probably is down with that. He might have something under the desk. Yeah, there's a flask under his desk. There's no question about it. It was so great on Friday. During the rain delay on Friday, Pete got confused why they were going so long.

And he was just kind of staring past the camera. I said it was like somebody staring at a, watching a blackjack table in Vegas to see if a seat was going to open. He's just kind of drifting off. And as you said, A-Rod's like probably the greatest athlete who's ever done TV. No athlete's ever been more polished right away on TV than A-Rod.

He's like a savant. He's really good. It's scary how good he is. I watched the other night and he was just like, he's a natural. You know scary how good he is. I watched the other night and he was just like, he's a natural. You know, it reminds me of Tom Cruise. Or like Travolta. These people who are just kind of living a lie in their lives for whatever's going on with them.

Right. And they're able to summon this public persona that's, it's like they're playing an actor. So A-Rod goes into this sports TV studio thing, and it's like he's playing an actor who's playing an athlete on television. And it's like he studied the nuances of it, and now he's performing his craft on the show. I don't feel like that's A-Rod. A-Rod the actual person. I don't know.

Is there an actual A-Rod person? No, there's not.'s this athlete that was just he's been so fine tuned by Scott Boris and all of his team and so programmed like what are the good corporate speak answers to give and the safe answers that he's just embodied that now

he's just become that he's like the Manchurian candidate that's right. He's got a chip in his head. He's great at analyzing baseball, though. He really is. The way he breaks down stuff and pitching. They brought him in in the middle of the game the other day

to talk about, I forgot who he was talking about, if it was Cueto or if it was DeGrom. It might have been DeGrom. He was breaking down and it was scary how good he was and, you know, having done TV, the five man studio crew is like the

seventh circle of hell, like they did that to us a couple times on Countdown it's the worst basically you have four people not talking at all times, it's so hard to do and nobody knows where to look and there's no way to have a conversation and you can't jump in and there's no way to have a conversation and you can't jump in.

It's horrendous. And yet, when they had those five guys on, it was actually pretty good. Yeah. Because Pete Rose is like,

he's just a white, he's, as you said, he's like the uncle at Thanksgiving. Like, he doesn't even need to be in the conversation.

It's fun to watch him anyway. And it really was A-Rod and Nick Kowski. Kevin Burkhart was great he's awesome he's joe buck should be so scared of kevin burkhart it's a total jim nance brent musburger 1989 situation just lingering like joe buck's just gonna get the axe and not know what happened but uh but it was the conversation was good and the best part of all of it other than the 27 funniest pete rose moments were when uh at one point they're

talking about the clutch gene with like cosmo and nick did you see this nick kowski turns to a rod he's like in a rod i mean is there a clutch gene and you know he just wanted to say because you don't fucking have it a rod but he didn't but he was thinking it and then america was thinking it it was awesome i loved it a rod is there a clutch gene i mean you would know right because you don't have it well the other part i like about the broadcast is when they bring a rod in and one of the guys in the booth for some inexplicable reason is tom verducci yeah and tom verducci wrote joe tory's book which joe tory then went on francesca admitted he'd never read and it did he referred to he had this whole section about how A-Rod was like single white female with Jeter.

Yeah. And this whole thing about genes and I was just like a stalker and he wanted to be like Jeter, you know, basically like just kill A-Rod in the book. And that was a whole big controversy. It was all over the post in the Daily News and a whole big thing. And now they're like working together like, hey, Tom. Hey, Alex, how's it going? That must be really awkward. That's true. It can't be nearly as awkward as doing TV with a guy who

got banned from baseball for betting on it, though. That's got to be awkward, too. They never can ask Pete Rose, who do you like tonight, Pete? No, they really can't. I've died for it every show. Pete, if you had to, gun to your head, who would you bet on to this one? I like Pete. Pete's so old school. There was a couple weeks

ago where I forget who the guy was. The guy got a concussion. He's like, what's he sitting out for? Get in there. He's the best. I wish Pete Rose was here right now. I do too. You should get him on the podcast. Do you think he'd show up in a tux? I think he would wear his weird all-white Cincinnati Reds hat that he's always seen in public.

He's got this Cincinnati Reds hat. It's like white on white. I would be afraid to do a podcast with A-Rod because even just watching him on TV, I find myself liking him, which is really— You said that on Twitter. Yeah. It's excellent. It's really everything that I never wanted to happen with my life is to like A-Rod. I always felt very comfortable in my, I don't like A-Rod and nothing will ever threaten

this corner. I wonder if Fox would like to buy out the last year of his contract from the Yankees because I'm sure they'd listen to offers. Johnny, serious question. A-Rod and Pete Rose decide they're going to run for the republican nomination a rod as the president pete rose as your vice president yeah would you rather have that than donald trump oh god yeah without a question absolutely i would rather go and get like the homeless guy screaming on the street corner than donald trump i'm not gonna lie you. And I'm not sure there's much of a difference, quite frankly.

Every time Donald Trump comes on TV, it says leading Republican nominee or whatever, leading the polls, I really want to jump out of a window. And you don't know what it's like. It makes me so despondent. Well, it feels like what it was like when Rick Pitino ran the Celtics, but much worse because the future of the country could be at stake. Yeah, and it's like you just – I mean, I don't understand.

Like I said last time on the podcast, I feel like I'm living in a crazy town. I don't understand how anybody could watch him for more than 10 seconds and not see what a complete imbecile and con man he is. Yeah. And yet people – and I watch these people and they're waving signs and they're like actively going to a place to hear him. I just don't get it. I've never felt more alienated from my fellow man or fellow Republican than when I see people support him. I just did not get it.

You could move. You could move to like Canada. You could move to Montreal. They just elected like a half a communist though, so that doesn't really help me out unfortunately. What about Cuba? Cuba's hot. I could get in on the ground. They have actual communists there. I could get

it on the ground floor, Cuba, as it opens up, right? What if Donald Trump said Pete Rose was going to be his running mate? Would that change things or no? That would warm up. Yeah, that would make me warm up to him slightly, but I'm not sure if it would make me warm up enough. I feel like we're going to look back at this podcast fondly because Pete Rose is almost definitely going to get fired this weekend for some terrible moment on television. There's not a question. He's going to drop a C-bomb toward Raul Banez for no reason. Just that's it. Remember the old Saturday Night Live skit where they had Goat Boy and they would have these guys with electric cattle prods standing by, in case goat boy resorted to being a goat.

They must have that right off camera for Pete Rose, right? No question. Two guys with some sort of electrical device, a taser, just to take Pete down. We start screaming obscenities and racial slurs, and it starts cursing Faye Vincent. I think they pay him in scratch cards. I don't even think they give him a paycheck. I just think they give him those $25 scratch cards.

Give him like 100 of them. That's what he does during the breaks when they're not on TV. He just has a quarter. He's just scratching cards. They probably have him on or off screen. It's just like the fifth race at Santa Anita. So he could just look over at that, calms him down. You know, it was a great moment when when uh they said pete was

trending on twitter on friday night and a-rod got off a great joke you did you see that part a-rod's like no they they're like pete rose you're trending on twitter right now and a-rod's like pete trust me it's never good to trend on twitter and everybody everybody laughed. It's like, whoa, A-Rod! The new chip in his head is really working. Oh, my God. It's great to see. America is going to embrace A-Rod again. He might end up with a farewell tour like Jeter had now, you know, redeem himself.

I think the Mets are screwed. I think they are, too. And it's ironic because they made the Cubs look ridiculous with their pitching. And then they ran into a team that's like the best fastball-hitting team in the major leagues, which is really incredible. When you think about it, of all the odds, the one team they play is a team that is unaffected by fastballs. And their pitchers seem like they're psyched out about it because they throw like a— Well, one, I think the statistics have borne out that their velocity is down, so those guys might be getting tired. But I think it's gotten into their heads because the Royals follow off a lot of good fastballs, and they're like, God, I can't throw up by this guy, you know?

The DeGrom game, too, reminded me of the Arietta game, too, in the last series where you just have to win. Like, you can't lose that game and then expect you're going to win the series. They win that, it's 1-1, we're going back to Shea, it's fine. CitiField, whatever the hell it's called now. I really do feel like the announcers jinxed Bartolo Colon in game one, though. Because he comes in, and Harold Reynolds and Verducci were just in a contest to talk about how he could throw all night. But he can do this all night.

He can throw all night. If I was a Mets fan, I would have been going absolutely batshit. I really, I would have gone, I would have been so mad. It's like, why, why do you guys keep telling me Bartolo Colon's going to throw all night?

You know he's now going to give up a run, right? I think they jinxed Familia too. Totally. Because they were just talking about how locked down he was and he, you was and unhittable, and then boom, he gets hit. Sal called that on Monday's pod. It was amazing. You know how you know your baseball team more than your own family and your wife? You just know every fault it has. You're just deep down inside. And Sal was like, I'm worried about Familia in game one.

I'm worried about a bigger stage.'m just it's something about it scares me and I I didn't think it was gonna be Gordon though I didn't think he was getting a homer I thought he was gonna get on base but I didn't I was shocked at that when he just cranked that one well they got a couple guys on in the bottom of the eighth and he got through it I was like well that might have been it he dodged the bullet there and then it's just gonna be he'll shut him down in the ninth of the eighth and he got through it, I was like, well, that might have been it. He dodged the bullet there and then it's just going to be, he'll shut him down in the ninth. They need the momentum win of, they need to win tonight, obviously.

No question. They'll probably win tonight. But they need like a game four, like down 5-2 in the eighth, you know, two guys get on and then like the huge Scott Brocious in 2001 type momentum shifting homer. That's what they need.

Even if the Royals lose tonight, they're not going to be that worried yet. If the momentum shifts and the Royals are starting to get flashbacks to last year, then that's their chance. Yep, definitely. Syndergaard's got to come out and throw a gem. The other problem they have is they haven't they haven't hit it all the mets cespedes has been nowhere and murphy you knew murphy couldn't keep that up that was like a that's a fluky streak hot streak that was great they'll take it they'll ride it into the world series but you knew he wasn't that wasn't going

to carry through in another series yeah no murphy all right johnny we Alright Johnny We'll check in with you When's the next debate? Is that it? I think it's like November 10th I believe Oh That's next week No that's

Well two weeks Alright Yeah my wife and I Will have to get some more alcohol And I'll have to be Get my restraints on So I don't Not screaming and ranting

As much at the TV And it'll be good Well don't forget You There's always the possibility of rodriguez and rose in 2016 i'll keep my back pocket jacko as always a pleasure we'll talk to you soon all right take care all right bye-bye uh before we go i want to thank hbo who is giving me a television show that launches next spring but in the meantime, check out the HBO Now app because it's awesome. And you can now have HBO without having cable or satellite.

You can watch all the new shows as they come. You can get ready for Game of Thrones in March or April, probably early April. And more importantly, all the Curb Your Enthusiasms are on there. And if you don't think I'm having an all Curb Your Enthusiasm podcast soon, because I've been watching them, and the Gilbang episode has a special place in my heart. I might do a whole podcast about that one.

But anyway, enjoy the weekend. Check out BillSimmonsPodcast.com to catch up on all the podcasts that you missed. Stitcher, get ready for that. Coming on Stitcher. Next week, we have a full slate of stuff coming. And... Oh! All right.

Anytime y'all want to see me again. Enjoy the weekend. Rewind this track right here. Close your eyes. And picture me rollin'