The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 171: Friday Rollin' With Bryan Curtis and Mike Lombardi

Episode Date: February 3, 2017

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ringer editor-at-large Bryan Curtis to discuss the emotional roller coaster of re-watching Super Bowls (6:00), Chris Berman's farewell (14:00), the end of the highlight era (21:00), Bill's first time meeting Berman (28:00), Berman's ESPN documentary (34:00), NFL Network's relationship with Berman (40:00), and the "stick to sports" audience in the current political climate (52:00). Then, Mike Lombardi hops on to give his final Super Bowl prediction (1:07:00), explain why the Falcons defense doesn't pose new problems for Brady (1:14:00), and the Falcons' "Nobody believes in us" card (1:20:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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check out all of our written audio and video content for the Super Bowl because there's a lot of it even a piece about the commissioner written by Brian Curtis who's here right now say hi Brian hey um I have some bad news though my Friday mailbag is not going to be part of this great Super Bowl content I got annihilated by strep throat this week. And I have two weaknesses as a writer, Brian. I'm a terrible typist. I type with two fingers. It's almost like

if I was a basketball player, if I had the torn left ACL that was like, oh, he jumped so much higher before the ACL. For me, that's two-finger typing. It just takes me two hours longer to write anything

than anyone else. And I can't write when I'm really sick. I've always been envious of writers who can write when I'm sick. I'm just incapacitated. You're done. And I tried to write a mailbag yesterday, and it was terrible, and my brain wasn't working, and I quit.

I just quit like Roberto Duran. So no piece for me this week. I'll make up for it. Thank God we had so many other good pieces on the ringer this week. And we did post two podcasts this week, Super Bowl Props with Mike Lombardi and Cousin Sal. And we did our White Men Can't Jump podcast for the Sports Movie Hall of Fame series.

That included the greatest hot take of Chris Ryan's career about New Jack City. I won't spoil it for you. It doubled Rem over. He almost fell off the couch. Where do you stand on White Men Can't Jump? Conflicted, right? Yeah, conflicted yeah

tried to re-watch it on some on basic cable the other day and was kind of i was in for 20 minutes yeah first great 30 35 40 minutes and then yeah i beat it up uh today's podcast will be fun we're gonna have a bunch of people talking about the super bowl but first brian curtis um we're gonna talk about the end of chris berman's career and some media stuff and some super bowl stuff and as an added bonus for you guys i'm on more medication right now than brett farve during the And we're going to talk about the end of Chris Berman's career and some media stuff and some Super Bowl stuff. And as an added bonus for you guys, I'm on more medication right now than Brett Favre during the entire 1994 season. So God knows what's going to happen today. Tate, don't edit anything.

Maybe this will be the end of my career. Let's do it. All right. In the office, editor at large for The Ringer, Brian Curtis. Here we are. Here we are. Hi, Bill. Super Bowl. Give us your unaffected take on the Patriots.

I feel like you're a very impartial man. Yeah. You're very not swayed by anything.boys as skip bayless would say your cowboy lost a couple weeks ago i've been kind of you know you know when your team loses you go into super like non-partisan mode right yeah i'm an honest broker here right um i think the patriots gonna win the game i do too i can't talk myself into picking i would kind of personally like the patriots to lose the game i'm gonna be honest but I can't talk myself into the Falcons. I've tried. Can't do it. I tried to follow all the logical steps of hedging in every direction and not trying

to seem overconfident and all that stuff. And I just keep coming back to the fact that every time the Patriots have ever gotten in trouble in a playoff game, it was because the other team just pressured Brady, knocked him down, hit him, got in his face, was able to pressure him with four or five guys and cover everybody else. And I just don't think the Falcons can do it. No. And I didn't think the Steelers could do it.

Ironically, the Texans probably had the best chance of any of the playoff teams because they at least had a front seven that could move some stuff. But if they're going to just be sending blitzes at him from different directions, he's Tom Brady. He stands at the line.

He's like, Oh, you're doing this. All right. He calls a couple of things and totally Peyton Manning was the same way. Rogers is the same way. There's certain guys, if they have a good offensive line and they know what these weird,

you know, gimmick things you're going to do. He's just going to figure it out. So the Falcons are going to have to outscore him. Right. I have this vision, just to be like two years ago, where Julian Edelman is catching four-yard passes and running out of bounds, and they're just whittling him down and whittling him down and going down the field.

And then you look up and go, oh, they're up by 14. And it's in the fourth quarter. And this game's over. That's how it feels. I think this is a good Patriots team. Not having Gronk is tough one it's my one hesitation i may or may not have my dad is in town i may or may not have watched the entire super bowl uh two years ago with him last night which was uh that's the most unsurprising thing ever yeah i put it on i was kind of waiting for him to go no no come on but he was like oh and we watched

from basically when the Pats scored to make it 14 to 7 and near the end of the second half and then Seattle gets this really cheap touchdown at the end of the second half because Jamie Collins screws up on Russell Wilson coming around and we're watching it we're getting mad at Jamie Collins like this game happened do you watch these games are you getting mad at the players that's what i was gonna ask oh my god why is logan ryan so far off this guy did you get nervous again yeah of course right curse catch it's like 60 of what you felt the first time right it's kind of like that's like 80 it's oh it's that high it brings you back it's like you it's like getting like war flashbacks when you're warlike the curse catch is so incredible.

And then everyone's trying to make sense of it. And then immediately they roll out the Tyree clip. And my dad's sitting in his chair. He's got his pillow and his ginger. And he's like, oh, oh, I forgot. Oh, no, why did they show it? And just how fast that went. And all of a sudden, Butler gets the pick.

It's an incredible 10 minutes. That's what I remember about that. You kindly sent me to the press box for Grantland. And I was sitting in the press box in that end zone. And I just remember that whole sequence happening really fast. Incredible. In the press box, the best reporters in sports all being like, oh, what's happening? And then when Malcolm Butler picks off the ball, people just in the press box just screamed yeah like it was like oh my god and you know just i've never heard people scream

in a press box before and everybody just i would say it's is that the most incredible moment in nfo history like the most incredible single moment just like shocking maybe shocking moment right i mean it decided a super bowl. I would just say shocking moment. You go from the curse catch, which is one of the five most incredible catches in the history of the Super Bowl. Just the catch itself, the moment, everything about it. They have to call timeout because it's such a crazy catch, which is weird because then it only left them with one more timeout. True. First down, Lynch runs left side.

Hightower barely gets him. It looks like he's just going in. It looks like he's running on the inside. And I'm watching. When I was watching it live, I'm rooting for him to go in because we had a minute left. All we need is a field goal. Brady's going to come down and win the game. They tackle him.

And then they're showing Belichick. And I'm getting flashbacks to being at Jimmy's house. And all of us are going, call timeout! Call timeout! And Belichick's just looking at the sidelines with that weird... And I swear, to the day I die, I think he saw something. I think he knew there was a timeout. I wrote this a couple days later for Graylin.

And he kind of said, he was very oblique about it, right? But he kind of said that he didn't call timeout to kind of put pressure on seahawks right he saw he said he saw something on the other team on seattle sideline he he saw chaos that they thought the pats were going to call time out and all of a sudden they weren't and seattle only had one time out left and it made sense for them to pass on that play and they had practice against against a certain pass that Seattle loved all week. And there's NFL Films footage of it where they send, you know, they was like, all right,

put in the goal line pass package. They send the guy in. And then when you watch the tape, like Browner's on the left side with Butler. Browner's in front of Butler. He motions to Butler to go there. They know what play is coming. It's supposed to be a pick play,

but when they snap it, Browner just grabs his guy and then Butler shoots for the spot. Like they read the play. It's amazing. I still love Al Michaels' voice. That's intercepted by Malcolm Butler. You know, it's that kind of incredulous, right?

I know. Just saying the name. And Malcolm Butler has been spectacular for the Pats, but the Pats fans will understand this joke. The irony of that interception, him catching it, which he's catching a bullet pass where he's careening into somebody.

I don't think he's caught more than two more interceptions since that. He's had 40 near interceptions since that that he hasn't held on to. And for whatever reason, that was the one he held on. I still think like, I don't know if that's the greatest play held on i still think like i don't know if that's the greatest play in super bowl history but it's got to be the most shocking it's the most

shocking the helmet catches up there but the helmet catch didn't decide the super bowl they still had to go down and score and the pats had a chance to come back play call was shocking play call was not you know we knew eli was gonna throw a pass right right the play call was shocking the result was shocking and then the flip of the Super Bowl result. It was kind of a three-way shocking moment. One of the channels, I think it was ESPN, had the top 10 Super Bowl plays of all time. They're just rattling them down.

I was in Weinberger's office. We're just like little kids watching. So they had the Riggins play. They had the Marcus Allen play. They had Kevin Dyson getting tackled at the one-yard line. The Lynn Swan catch. The helmet catch. It really is like 12 or 13 plays.

They had 50 Super Bowls at this point. There's 12 or 13 plays that stand out. And I just think the Butler play has to be the number one. I think on the shocking list, absolutely. Dyson, that one didn't get enough credit because I think of the teams. It was Tennessee, St. Louis. That was like Dallas versus the Giants. We'd be talking, or Dallas against the Raiders

or something. We'd be talking about that forever. Yeah. But they call this really gutty over the middle play and the linebackers just, and Dyson's reaching. He just can't get there. I remember at the time it was kind of exciting, right? Watching that Super Bowl was kind of exciting.

I turned to my friends like, whoa, we just saw a great. We're all kind of trying to convince each other, right? Was that one of the great Super Bowl moments? And then we kind of like two minutes later, we forgot about it. It was a weird season for football because we were coming off this three decade stretch of like mini dynasties. I mean, the Steelers and the Cowboys and Raiders. Then it moved into the Niners and the redskins and then we had these great individual teams like the bears and the giants sure and then the parcel giants peter out now you have the cowboys now the niners

come back now you have this broncos and the packers and now it sounds like the rams right what is this team and we were getting we were getting used to there's not going to be like this dynasty anymore yeah that's right it's not gonna right it's not gonna happen like that anymore we're gonna get some bucks super bowl wins and some weird ravens one-offs yeah it seemed like we were headed toward a one-off era and then all of a sudden that flipped and then it was like we had this little stretch from 01 to like 04 where it it was like the Pats, the Steelers, the Colts, the Eagles. And it was like the same teams

that were going 13, 3, 14, 2. And then it was chaos again. I think the biggest advantage that the Pats have had, other than obviously having the best coach and the best quarterback of all time, is just that Brady is the same thing with Duncan, with San Antonio, where when he's taking less money and you can put that money toward two or three more guys and they're spending it smartly, they always seem to have these four extra guys that nobody has.

It's incredible, right? It's so maddening if you're not a Pats fan. I know. They've mastered it. We were paying Tony Romo $25 million. Right. Or like New Orleans is paying Breeze $ 26 million or whatever it is the price of doing business and flacco's 20 million and brady's making nine yeah you know and he can do it because

he's tom brady and he's rich but um a huge advantage so dallas i mean we don't have to talk about dallas yeah it was a found money year i'm okay it was good you're a good foundation yeah two good young guys just wasn't that disappointed was there a moment in the in the packers game when you were like romo would have won this no never ever i didn't think i don't think i thought tony romo's name that entire game i really didn't think i had tony romo's name after we i'd only think of tony romo's name when i'd listen to you and sal he was like the last person talking about tony was like the last guy in the bandwagon the bandwagon was on the side of the road it sounds like it was like a motor guy in the bandwagon. The bandwagon was on the side of the road.

It sounds like it was like a motorbike with an empty side. All right. Let's talk about Chris Berman. Let's. So I feel like we're, we're well equipped to have this conversation in a very impartial way. He is somebody that I actually think is underrated. He has become underrated. He became underrated about 10

years ago and I think he's somebody that depending on your age range, you have different feelings about. I think if you're under 26, there's only a certain era of Chris Berman's career you're going to remember and that's going to affect how you think of him. Can we also just note the moment it turned?

Will Leach, Deadspin, You with me leather that's oh yeah what was that 10 years ago 11 maybe more i mean that's that's the moment to me he became a joke that's the moment the rain cloud goes over berman's head and it never goes away at that point right it's like do you think how many people knew how many people knew about that though i do feel like that was a website called with leather right i mean it's like that was that but like my dad didn't know about that no i wouldn't say mainstream but the internet but the internet internet turned on berman as you as we know yep then you're good at that point it's it's tough to climb out of that hole yep it really is but to me that was the moment that was everything turned there's two

moments two moments that killed Chris Berman. That and the internet generally, and then the rights deal in 2005 where ESPN loses Sunday night football against Monday night football and primetime gets blasted in the deal, which is really one of the things that nobody really talked about when they were talking about the end of Berman. Berman was a victim of a rights deal. That was like the most disastrous deal in ESPN history. It was. Al Michaels, John Mad Madden Esikoff and Godelli and primetime all walk out the door right I mean just think of that well and you left out the reason why it happened

go for it Iger could have had Sunday and Monday right right for a pretty I think for like a discount and they had it was coming off year one of Desperate Housewives, which was a massive hit. And they didn't want to shake up their Sunday night lineup. And their attitude was, well, we don't need Sunday night football. We have Desperate Housewives. And it was a misread. And Iger is a really smart guy.

It's the number one rated show on television. Sunday night football. Yeah. But here's the idea move desperate housewives to thursday they'll be fine we'll go find them on wednesday and he could have had a monopoly on football and so it does two things right it saves nbc because at that point nbc is in the post friends end of end of vr kind of spiral and they got out of sports and they were out of sports they get back into sports with a vengeance yeah they steal all michaels they build up they get madden yeah

the last four years of madden and then they get collinsworth and it's like you know and i so that part's a disaster but then also they get the shittier version of monday night football now i said this i did an interview with recode this week and i was talking about i think es pink it's a bad rep for the nfl deal in some respects and the nba deal too because what people don't realize is they get unlimited highlights for tv the web everything and if you don't think unlimited highlights matter try watching nfl insiders on a tuesday if they can't use video clips yeah hey here's a still photo of Zeke Elliott. It's a disaster. So they care about the unlimited highlights.

But the Monday Night Football became kind of the black sheep game of that whole package. And Sunday night was stacked. And it could be flexed. You would much rather have Sunday Night Football. Yeah. And they lost this. I think there's a line in Jim Miller's book where Berman says, I mean, we're going. It dawns on Berman.

He's like, wait a second. we lost primetime in this deal. Right. We lost my show. Yeah. And that was the show. So there's a couple of things with Berman. One is that, you know, and I think this happens with music. It happens with comedy.

It happens with writing. It happens with anything. It's really hard to measure the impact of when somebody was trying to do something new in the moment. Because once they do it, then other people replicate it. People take it to higher places, stuff like that. Like Jimmy Snuka is a good example. Jimmy Snuka's leap. Jimmy Snuka died. Definitely a conflicted life.

And people were really conflicted about it. Complicated legacy. Really great chance that he murdered somebody. And that was a big reason why he never became the champ but uh his leap off the steel cage against bob backlin and then when he replicated again the next year against the magnificent morocco was the greatest two moments in wrestling history and it was like you know unforgettable it opened the sport now it opened the sport up to guys jumping off the top rope

guys doing all the acrobatic stuff sure and when you watch the snooker leap now it's like oh yeah he jumped off the steel cage like mick foley fell through a steel cage 40 feet like it doesn't seem that amazing it was revolution at the time it was the most awe-inspiring thing anybody had ever seen if you watch the crowd when he does it and he turns around, he puts his fingers up the crowd that loses their fucking mind. They're like, Oh my God, he's going to jump. Jesus Christ.

He's going to get hurt. And I, you know, that's what Berman's highlights were like sports TV was so bad in the seventies and eighties. And you know, you had these guys and some of them are still, I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings,

but you'll still maybe in LA, you might see one or two relics of these guys from the 70s but it was like that's right brian a tough day for the angels today as they lost seven to two and here are the highlights and that's how people did sports television they knew nothing about sports and they knew nothing they didn't burman knew knew who the football players were yeah and it's like guess what in the late 80s I love the Berman's nicknames yes we're old enough to remember when that was absolutely revolutionary it was local tv and local tv by the way you had three minutes yeah three minutes right and then maybe you had like the little sports extra on Sunday and here's this dude and he has like hours and he's with you for the draft for hours and hours and hours and hours you know and he was entertaining and you has like hours and he's with you for the draft for hours and hours and hours and hours, you know?

And he was entertaining. And you know, I remember when he did Eric sleeping with B enemy, that's, I remember calling my buddy Gus and being like, Berman just did Eric sleeping with B enemy. That's the greatest one that we're arguing about. What is best?

It was worth a phone call. Yeah. There was some, so the nickname thing is kind of funny, right? Because there's, there's the high level Berman. Oh, to be young again,

McDowell is that that's very quality Berman, eric's sleeping with the enemy yes right and then there's you know like you know frank tanana daiquiri wasn't that one of them right yeah that's just yeah i kind of like that just kind of what about jim two shades under shades or whatever like yeah they got terrible looking around the internet last night i found ozzy like a virgil did not remember that one no it was like a weird it's like weird how much pop culture that dude hoovered up yeah like he was he he was like he was like mr pop culture you know like in a bizarre way right he was you know i know a lot of it was 60s you know making fun of like sergeant schultz and green acres green acres right but that was

the funny thing is his pop culture stopped. But then there was like a Madonna. I think it actually crawled up to like. Oh, you think 82? Yeah. It made like that, you know, first ever mammal crawl out of the ooze to like 1989 and then it died. Right. Something like that.

No, I wouldn't say 89. I would say like 82. To your point about. The Eagles was like his. Yeah. The Eagles. Yeah. The.

Tiege. Tiege. Tiege. One team that didn't take it easy today. Michael Jackson made it, right? With a hee-hee. So at least we're in the 80s there, right? We get into the 80s. Yeah.

A little bit. There was a lot of Cab Calloway, too. So that wasn't exactly fresh. 1989. Sergeant Schultz. 1989. Who get... Hey, do you know who Sergeant Schultz is?

No. Okay. I mean, for Bill and I, that was a UHF rerun. So's barely yeah i barely got it we were at the end of the sergeant schultz yeah i think to your point about jimmy snook is interesting right wrestling but here's why we can i think kind of think about berman wrap our minds around him wrestling is going to go on and get crazier and crazier and crazier into infinity right the highlight era is over yeah by which i over. Yeah. By which I mean, we're still going to have highlight shows, but nobody's going to become famous doing sports highlights anymore. True.

They might be famous for studio show, argument show, whatever. They're not going to be famous for that. So I think we can cap it, right? We can now look back and say we have the whole highlight era behind us right now. Yes. And to me, highlight Rushmore,ris berman keith olbermann and dan patrick and i think it's a three-man rushmore i would say kilburn you think kilburn yeah really did he do it long enough kilburn doing nba highlights at two in the morning when i was

drunk and i was gonna say this is like a sweet spot no there was there he had one year where he's like the poo richardson stuff i i just there was nothing better than him for like nine months so is he our fourth i would say he's the fourth yeah i don't think so i think he was really good unless you put could you put alberman and patrick together so they could be kilbourne and then stew scott is the fourth but i think the first three are are on the on a slightly i mean i just think yeah they created the language in a way yeah those guys created some of the language but i think it was super important for just like hey it's a black guy doing highlights like an espn just wasn't everybody was white it was white nerdy guy was the model yeah right but i think like i just think if you listen to patrick and

albert when we're on this documentary last night that espn ran about which we should talk about but when they talk about like he was a guy who was at ESPN when nobody wanted to be at ESPN. Yeah. And when it was a cult thing. That's a word that Olbermann used. And then they could come in and do their thing. My buddy Josh Levine had a great thing where he said, Olbermann and Patrick were Letterman. Berman was Leno.

True. That's the difference. That's a good analogy. He was mainstream, right? He was right down the middle. Leno was great. Leno was fun in the 80s, right? And we forget.

Yeah. We forget. I still think even when Berman, you know, when he kind of became a rest of development Berman, not the TV show, but literally a rest of development. I was going to say. I still think him doing highlights of a good football game, I still enjoyed more than anyone else doing the highlights. Like even in like 2015, if you said there was this awesome game and there's four minutes of highlights,

who would you want to do the highlights? I'd say Chris Berman. And people were just so mad at him on the internet. Remember he used to be like, what a disgrace that Chris Berman is doing a Monday night game again. Really? You mean the broadcast that Howard Cosell showed up on drunk? This is Chris Berman's going to disgrace him by doing lousy play-by-play? Okay, sure. Monday night game again. Really? You mean the broadcast that Howard Cosell showed up on drunk?

Right. Chris Berman's going to disgrace it by doing lousy play by play. Okay, sure. You know, he should get off that first day of the draft. The draft?

Really? There's going to be some, I'm okay with Chris Berman. I know, but here's the thing though. I was okay with it. I blame ESPN for some of that stuff.

I think they could have protected him. He shouldn't have announced football games. He just wasn't, he wasn't good at it. And people just want to watch a football game they don't care who the announcers are unless the announcers are annoying them but i just think it became a thing to be mad at him for announcing a game were you really that upset no can we get tom brenneman in here i mean really can we get some get a professional well you know me i love when berman did the games because

it was like it was all over the place. He's missing plays. I thought it was hilarious. The Home Run Derby, he did ruin. I mean, he unequivocally did ruin the Home Run Derby. He made it impossible to watch. What was the golden era of Home Run Derby? Who's going to do it next year? Who would you like to see do the Home Run Derby?

That's the thing. The Home Run Derby has always been terrible. This hallowed event with so much gravitas in American life. I'd have comedians do it. Okay. But Berman was kind of like a sportscaster bad comedian. Back, back, back. hallowed you know event with so much gravitas in american life comedians do it okay but burman was kind of like a like a sportscaster bad comedian but and then the draft you know they they did a couple mistakes of them one is that he would know the picks and pretend he did and he'd be like oh

and teach uh we'll see if there's maybe a tight end that they're looking at here. And then the guy would come up and say tight end. I'm like, yeah, because Berman fucking knew already. Wink, wink. Yeah, so I don't know. I thought that was the one place where the NFL network really exposed them

because Eisen was so much better at the draft than Berman was. I think there was a way you can find Berman to the football highlights, the occasional sports center, the Swami, all that stuff, but don't put him in positions where he's going to fail.

And I think they did that a few times. He's a highlight guy. And this, in that documentary last night, it gets to the 30 minute mark and they've just done prime time. They did sports center prime time. And then it was kind of like, there was nothing else to say and that's okay.

But that's Chris Berman, right? That's it, right? That's the legacy. You know, that's who, that's chris burman right that's it right that's the legacy you know that's that's him but part of management is putting your people in positions to succeed right like they did this with me they pti i hosted for a week i was terrified i did not have enough reps to do it i

didn't know what i was doing and i fought through it i took all the hits and eventually i got better at it but that's not how we should have done it i should have done you know i should have gone back to bristol and done oh you know some more low profile shows things like that and i think sometimes when you're put in a position to fail you're gonna fail you know and with berman it's like don't put him in a position to do things he's bad at but it was from a totally different place with him right because he was just like i want to do this that was part of his thing yeah well you that that's the thing is he became so big that nobody could stand up to him yeah and this is another thing we forget about berman that they meant to all of them and mentioned

a little bit last night he was cable right right 80s yeah there was i read an old si profile last night where he was talking about like there was a time i think it was 89 right before brent musburger got fired there are three guys doing nfl pregame shows remember when we're in the only three nfl oh yeah shows remember those remember those days bill brent musburger on cbs bob costas on nbc and chris and he was mr those guys were respectable they were network chris was cable right right he was like bargain basement cable and that was different and now that's it's kind of all one thing. It's all kind of one aesthetic. But in those days like that, he was different.

He felt like he was from a different place than those guys. And I also think when you're in middle Connecticut and you're by far the most famous person there, he's basically like if Jay-Z walked into a restaurant in LA, that's what Berman's like. Anytime he goes anywhere in Connecticut and you get that for 30 years and, you know, you start, your ego gets to a certain point. And I don't know. I think the last 15 years of his career could have been managed better, but I still think he's the most important ESPN person ever. He did an incredible

amount for for the uh charity slash cancer jimmy v all that stuff like was a huge huge asset for them and that stuff and i know it's funny i never met him until the 2013 espys that uh that john ham hosted there's this post post post party at the hotel figure out ever tell you this story no so i have i have a few in me it's like 12 31 o'clock and burman's there and he's a giant guy yeah so i go up to him and first i'm talking to my i'm like should i go up to him i've never talked to him i don't know because i've made a couple jokes about him in a calm he's gonna be mad at me so they're like go up to him he's a good guy go up to him so i go up to him like hey i'm bill simmons and you know me whatever he's like oh so you're bill simmons you start like that i'm like oh god i'm gonna get punched and we just had this great conversation for 15 minutes and i got the feeling like you know i was definitely

like a kiss the ring moment where i was, you know, and I went out there and I was just like, look, man, you know, ESPN's been great to me. This was 2013. I still loved working there at that point. And I was like, you know, I've done a lot of great stuff for this place, but, you know, I really respect all the stuff you did

to help build ESPN to the place where it gave somebody like me a chance to do some stuff. And we had a really nice conversation and I was, and at the end of it, I was like, can I email you? Like, you know,

blah, blah, blah. And he's like, I don't have email. And I'm like, I'm like, what?

Please fax me. Yeah. I was like, I thought that was an urban legend. You, you really don't have emails. I go, I don't have email.

Uh, when I, when I want to get information for the Swami, I just that was an urban legend. You really don't have email? I was like, I don't have email. When I want to get information for the Swami, I make phone calls. I go down the list. I do it old school. They called like Ralph Wilson to get information. I'm looking at him like, I just couldn't believe it. And then in the documentary, they talk about how he's still faxing. It's like, how do you not have email? I think that's like the craziest Chris Berman part. I tried to get him for peace once at espn when we were

at grantland this is a true story it was harder to get berman than it was to get don rumsfeld this is the literal apples to apples comparison don rumsfeld took two days and berman took like a week and a half they did a nice job of hiding him in that stuff but he was just kind of and when you could get him it was on a car phone and he was driving around and he was, you know, just doing stream of consciousness. And it was great once you got him, but he was, yeah, he was inaccessible. It's very funny. We're going to talk about the documentary in one second.

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uh fascinating it was everything i wanted it was if you made the parody version of the doc with like the lonely island guys i think it's the exact same doc maybe they changed two scenes but for the most part it's it's all the same doc. Maybe they changed two scenes. But for the most part, it's all the same beats. You could have predicted every video they used and all the people they interviewed. I was still touched. Yes. That's what it was, right? It was the whole package.

It was amazing. Sometimes you can be touched by propaganda. You know what I thought of? Propaganda. I flashed back to... It was really well done. But it was really well done but it was really well done I flash back

to the political conventions when they did the bio little movies on the candidates oh yeah yeah cause it kinda you know cause those are kinda good

and they're kinda well done but they're also very much saying a mess and when we got to the family part of the Berman thing I went oh it was really like oh yeah here we go

and like by the way will there ever be a retirement video for a sportscaster ever that features Huey lewis and bob seger as like live yeah what it was it was great and i loved it i loved every minute of it i love the nicknames i love finding out that his kids suggested some of the nicknames yes i love any any shot of berman when he just had the mustache young berman with the mustache

was out of its mind fantastic what about did you remember the tom jackson mustache i had forgotten that but they showed like their first year together and tom jackson had a mustache i forgot that tom jackson was good on that show how about that i mean he stayed on a good 10 years too long but young tom jackson was great on that show he He was excellent. They were a vaudeville. Yeah. They were really good. And then all of a sudden, like they started putting the third,

like they had Stu Scott would be there. Robin Roberts, which is weird. Pito. Why did they do that? Just give bourbon a break, but that became kind of a coveted slot, right?

That was when you got to that, you meant you were going places at ESPN, right? Stu Scott. That was a big high profile thing. Absurdly young Stu Scott. Yeah. Last night.

He was good. He was good on that one. But I never understood. You're right. Maybe that was like a whole high profile thing. But it was it was really worth watching. I enjoyed it. And I'm glad they did it.

Yeah. Norby Wibbs had this quote, too, which I wrote down where he's like, you know, nobody. The thing about Chris is he never steps up and says look at me and i'm like really i mean if i think the thing like we can say lots of nice things about chris berman we can also say that he's kind of vainglorious right i mean that's chris right like he he was the guy who hadn't even somebody told me this and i actually showed on the documentary he had a take a ticket machine outside his office in bristol like you get at a deli you know like take a number what yeah like you want to see me take a ticket machine outside his office in Bristol. Like, did you get it at a deli? You know, like, take a number?

What? Yeah. Like, you want to see me take a number? Like, that was actually outside the thing. And I also remember when I was reporting about Chris Mortensen, people told me, I think maybe Schefter told me, it's Mort's the guy who could make jokes about Berman, like his appearance. Like, you know, when they're in that war room all watching the games together on Sunday? And, like, the Geico caveman thing with some, like, hairy guy in a bathtub. Mort would be like, hey, Boomer, it's you. they're in that war room all watching the games together on Sunday. And like the Geico caveman thing would be some like hairy guy in a bathtub.

Mort would be like, hey, Boomer, it's you. You're on TV right now. And Boomer would look up and he would look back and he would big smile at Mort. But Mort was a made man. So Mort could make that joke. Oh, that's interesting. Other people in the room couldn't necessarily make that joke because, you know, I'm not sure. Couldn't go there maybe you know that one of the

criticisms i always had with berman watching the nfl show was that he really thought he was as qualified as the ex-players so when they would do that i didn't really like him that much in the pre-game show because it would go around and then berman would give this minute-long soliloquy and you know well and another thing with Buffalo's defense that we found, and he'd just do this generic thing, and it's like, you don't have email. No. You don't have the internet.

You're getting this off of one phone call with Dick LeBeau. Yeah, and there's no rehearsal, right? He just goes on. No. There's also kind of like people I remember, and I wish I could credit the right, but one of the sportscasters in Dallas used to make fun of this. There was Lazy Berman where he'd kind of go, on the one side, you got Steve Young.

And on the other side, you got Brett Favre and Tommy Sumanalysis. He just wouldn't have a second gear and he would just throw it to Jackson to say something. What about the part of the documentary where he picked the same night he's built a Super Bowl for 10 years? It's great for your credibility. that yeah i totally forgot about that i think if you had done the documentary the way it had like if he was dead and you did the documentary and you tried to do it like in the real balanced way that the angle would be he was probably the least self-aware superstar we've ever had in sports TV. Like he just, just didn't care. He was going to do the same thing that he did for 25 years. He was never changing.

He's, he's basically his, his attitude was, this is what got me here. I didn't use email when I became a star. I'm not going to use it now. I used all these references 25 years. I'm still going to use them.

Like he never tried to adapt, evolve anything. Whereas like somebody like dan patrick who i think has his career has had you know some different twists and turns but he's evolved he's put thought into oh now i'm here now i'm older now maybe i should do that second and third act yeah yeah berman was just like this is who i am and that was it and that's where it's a little bit like the lena letterman thing yeah with berman berman did he did quote sportscasters a lot right red barbara's back That's who I am. And that was it. And that's where it's a little bit like the Lena Letterman thing. Yeah. With Berman. Berman, he did quote sportscasters a lot, right?

Red Barber. Back, back, back is Red Barber. Yeah. Right. And guys like that. But Berman, I mean, Olbermann and Patrick really felt like they were doing a parody of a highlight show. You know, there was a very wink, right? We're doing a good highlight show and also kind of a very self-aware highlight show.

Yeah. Berman, it was like, you know, you know, he was self-aware to a point Berman it was like you know you know he was self-aware to a point but it was probably the point was way back here you know and he was just like we're just having fun baby we're going all in you know you know I remember the first person making fun of him so you said the year with me leather was I thought Norman Chad in the national he drew some blood yeah in 1990 was the first one because I, I just remember cause at that point Berman's so big and like anybody you like,

whether it's a writer or a sports radio host or whoever, like Francesa, I love Francesa. Francesa has little things that annoy you. Like I'm sure I have that for people who listen to this podcast, but, but Norman Chad would make fun of the two-minute drill. And he'd be like, the two-minute drill this week timed in at seven minutes and 18 seconds.

Another failure by Chris Berman. And really took him down a couple times. And this was way pre-internet. I was in college. I'm like, this is the greatest stuff I've ever read. I can't believe somebody's writing this. This is amazing. They're having the fan reaction.

Norman Chad had a huge influence on my column. But everyone in ESPN was so mad at him. Like, Norman Chad, the World Series of Poker, like,

he almost didn't get that job. It was like 14 years later. He burned too many bridges. Yeah, it was like, you're out. You're like, you can never work here.

But he eventually got it. That's how I did a kind of raised eyebrow profile of Berman in 1990 and kind of captured him being silly and off the air. Who wrote it? Do you remember Franz Litz?

Actually, Franz Litz piece. Wow. Vintage SI. Wow. But he did, um, like I think people in print and TV kind of looked at him and thought he was

a total clown. Right. You know, I mean, I think that was probably not nuts, you know, to look at like, what is this guy? I mean, that think that was probably not nuts, you know, to look at like, what is this guy?

I mean, that's by the way, in 89, he almost goes to NBC. He gets this huge deal and goes to, I mean, Matt, that's a weird alternate sports TV history moment.

We know the other huge thing that for him was the NFL network. Yeah. Because that gave him all the leverage he needed from 2002 to 2017, because the moment somebody to his pin, and it probably would have been Mark Shapiro if he stayed because Mark Shapiro was very, he didn't care about past performance. The moment somebody to his pin was like,

you know what, Chris, fuck you. Take a pay cut and you're off the home run derby. He would have been like, okay, I'm going to the NFL Network. And he would have immediately given them unbelievable credibility and a superstar. Absolutely. And it would have been the best thing that ever happened. And I always thought he was going to kind of wind up there eventually. I did too.

If he'd had a bad parting with ESPN. Yeah. Can we do some ESPN, just a minute of ESPN big think about this too? Yeah, let's do it. When all these people leave, I feel like we now have had tariko i've had bayless coward berman going down to the very reduced role a lot of people could chirp back at you and say well you know they left for different reasons you know it's not like they're all going out the door i would just say this about espn if i would be concerned if i were them that people

are like you and me are gonna look at that network and go who are these people now i just don't read there's no tie to the past anymore. It's just basically Bob Lee at this point. I don't even mean 1979, but I mean the 80s and most of the 90s. Tom Jackson, another one, right? You just look at it and you're kind of like, I don't recognize a lot of these people. I just don't know them like I did in Berman even when he was in self-parody mode. It's like, I know this guy.

Do you think they even care? Because I think for them, it's just the rights, the money they make from. On the other hand, maybe they do care because they just gave Mike Greenberg a giant contract. Who are they bidding against? Yeah, exactly. Well, yeah, there's the Mike Greenberg thing or they're branding the Six O'Clock Sports Center, right? The Sports Center Six or whatever it is.

The Six. I think they do want to brand these people. But at the same time, I'm kind of like, I just, I look there and it's like a lot of the people, I just don't feel like I know that well. Yeah. And maybe it's just because they weren't around when I was, you know, younger or whatever. But if I were them, I'd be worried about that. Just there's something to it where everybody walks out the door within a couple of years

and you kind of look at that place like, eh. I think they care about the games and the fact that they have basketball and football locked up and college football, BCS. And that in a world where live rights for games is still one of the few reliable things you have in media, they still have it. Maybe that's it. And all that other stuff. And they care about the web. And so it's fine. And they care about the web. And so it's fine. So we have Trey Wingo and Reese Davis and all these guys.

And we're just like, we're good. We'll just have a pregame show. It doesn't really matter who hosts it. As long as we have the rights, we're good. Yeah. That would be my guess. I don't know. It's almost like pro wrestling.

Like sometimes you got a clean house and just go with some of the new, younger generation people, right? And Berman did break the—he got bigger than ESPN, right? He was one of the few people who did that. In fact, Dan Patrick said that on the radio this week. It's like when he and Oldman come in and Walsh says, we don't want another Chris Berman. And what he means by that is we don't want someone to get that big that we can't control. We don't want somebody to just grow, grow, grow, grow, grow.

And all of a sudden, it's not an interchangeableable part it's a person that's just like bigger almost bigger than the network yeah they got like and Berman was you know the guy who got like you know showed the model to be that guy right I think when uh when I got suspended and that became such a giant story I think that was that was a problem yeah that wasn't great for me kind of wish that never happened in retrospect as long as we're talking about bigger than espn it was like when the view is talking about it then you know something's going on rosie o'donnell's weighing in with her support but uh no i i don't think we'll ever see a career like bermans again and at espn i think we'll see you know i don't think we'll ever see a career like al michaels again

i think there's a chance we never see a career like joe bucks again i think i think so i think buck is the last one in the door of the i think it's gonna be too hard for people to get that opportunity that young to do that many great things and then grow as they get older because... And plus, there's not four networks anymore. Yeah. Right? Buck kind of gets in. I mean, it's obviously tons of cable

by the time Buck gets in, but Buck still has that big network prestige about him. It's one of the four big channels, right? And that was 20 years ago. You start today, you don't have that prestige about you even if you're on the big show, you know? Like Jim Nance lucks out

because Brent Musburger has a contract thing in like 1989. All of a sudden Jim Nance is 26, he gets in there. If Brent Musburger just plays nice for six more years, Jim Nance doesn't get a real chance until he's like 33, 34. If Sean McDonough doesn't burn some bridges at CBS and then the baseball changes and now here's Joe Joe and Joe Buck gets that

job Sean McDonough could have had that lead baseball job for 50 years he could have been Joe Buck yeah yeah so I I just think it's going to be so much harder for anybody and everything's so splintered down um wait what was the other the other the other big thing we wanted to talk about was uh yeah yeah before we do that though our friends at squarespace make it easy to build beautiful websites whether you're planning to start a business change careers or launch a creative project now that 2017 is rolling if you're thinking about any of that stuff you should absolutely be tackling your next move with squarespace widely used by all kinds of people and businesses squarespace gives you the ability

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And this cough syrup that makes you drowsy, which I didn't take this morning. Steroids like really do some stuff to you. Like I was up to like 230 last night watching beverly hills cop woke up at seven i was fine wow a lot of energy i want to go outside and like fight somebody here's the steroids yeah i can't even imagine how the football players feel like i sound hyped up today can you pass some of those out around i'm hyped up today yeah i feel like like wires just the steroids we almost steroids. It'll make my podcast better. Yeah.

What's he doing? Oh, my God. It's just like an open bucket in the ringer office, right? Oh, my God. I got a piece due in a couple of days. Give me some of that, baby. My hair is going to start falling out. Here we go.

Let's talk about the stick to the sports stuff. So this has been a big topic in our office, and I think for a lot of websites about Trump. How does it change your mission when you never really thought you were going to write about politics that much or talk about politics that much? And yet everybody is talking about politics and the new president, all that stuff. We conceived The Ringer as a sports, pop culture and tech site. It's got mostly younger writers that we took. We wanted to work with young, talented people. We have a couple more established people like yourself.

But for the most part, we wanted to build around younger, talented people and build a website that by year three, year four, was kind of where we wanted to be. Never really factored in the politics that much. Jon Favreau was a good friend of mine and brought him in to do some writing and to launch a podcast. That thing took off.

We knew, I thought he was gonna go to CNN or something like that. I just assumed he was gonna have his own 10 o'clock CNN show. After the election, they decided to take that podcast, make it much more activist, turn it into a business. I think it's a great idea. But we've been constantly struggling with how do we weigh in on stuff without angling it too severely, trying to seem balanced?

Where do we find the nuances and the niches? And this is what everybody's dealing with. You wrote a piece about sports writers not sticking to sports anymore. What was the reaction to it? I felt it was a big reaction to it because I think people have been feeling the tension, sports writers feel the tension themselves

about what you're supposed to do. To me, it was amazing. Over the weekend, we had the immigration ban, right? That's what Twitter is about. But it's not just, you know, there's this group of sports writers that are at the barricades, no matter what Bruce Arthur is at those barricades, Richard Dyche, you know, Dave Czar, pal Dave Czar, and all these guys are at the barricades, but Zach Lowe was at, that was going in, you know, and Howard Beck was going in and people like that. And I'm thinking like, whoa, you know, now we'reck was going in and people like that and i'm thinking like whoa you know now we're now we're way past you know pete abraham in the boston globe you know what right

you know like now we're past now we're in a different you left that sage steel she was going from the other side yeah the her flight got delayed yeah it's a real bummer you know the um but now that's it's kind of like oh wow, this is a different world we live in. And sports, you and I grew up in the newspaper era. And that stuff would get into the sports pages. It wasn't totally done, but never like this. And never from an activist, political advocacy kind of point of view at this level that we're seeing now. Especially at ESPN. And when i got to espn

like there really wasn't a national columnist and one of the things i was trying to do with my column was how do i make it appeal to everybody like it was really at that point it was just all local columnists writing to local fans with using local jokes and local references and you had to figure out how to how do i appeal to figure out how to, how do I appeal to somebody in Kansas city? How do I appeal to somebody in Oklahoma? And the way to do it was, you know, humor and, um, everyone gets a good joke about like a game. Everybody gets pop culture stuff. And you try to figure out these little lanes that might appeal to more than just a local base. And I decided pretty early on, like staying away from politics like i i don't think

that's why people are reading this column they don't care what i think i'm not throwing in pot shots and all that's on and at the same time espn was like don't put in politics you know espn was terrified of any politics stuff and that's the way it went until 2008 and then i had a chance to have obama on my podcast in april and thanks to favro actually favro and vitor and uh and it was done we're about to do it and espn squashed it and it was the first real big beef i had with them i just didn't understand it they were like you can't we don't want to sway the election yet so then fast forward to a few months later and like you know Berman's interviewing him and so that's what you know Riley got him right right Riley got him which flip made me I couldn't believe that so I wrote this column I had a column that was supposed to be handed in

for football like that Friday I don't know if I ever told you this no we're getting we're getting the deep cuts today I wrote a whole column about john mccain and it was it was riley did an interview with obama so i wrote about my interview with john mccain which was fake and it just like crushed him for 2 000 words and i handed it in as my column and they didn't run it so i was like all right fine i guess i don't have a column that week but um but you know the way they handled it was that was how they did back then i don't think they can handle that i don't believe so you can't handle that stuff anymore that way and i don't know what they do about trump like what does he do does he pick games with any cats yes so somebody gave me that hypothetical the other day and i think that's fascinating don trump goes to

or steve bannon calls up john skipper and says you know we'd like President Trump to do the NCAA picks, just like President Obama did. What does ESPN say? You know. Sage Taylor did it. I'm the President of the United States. She's all in. By the way, there's a funny, so I think, I'm on record of saying sports writing is like a liberal profession now, basically. Close to, I mean, national writers, pretty close

to 100%. Or at least the ones who are piping up about politics. Sports TV time i meet with an executive i make a little list of like who are the real arch conservatives boy that's a long list it's a long list it's almost and it's almost 100 the other way yeah they're all republicans i know and a lot of them i think are trump friendly i think the older you get the higher the likelihood yeah with the more money the more money you make, too. That's the other thing. Those guys are very well paid.

They don't want the income taxes raised. ESPN's in a really interesting spot because they have people on support. When it was me, or when I was there, I should say, you start talking about politics and podcasts and things like that. I remember I talked with, I had a Donde on a podcast after Obama had his inauguration and it was one of my favorite podcasts I did because he was just talking as a black man,

like what a special moment that was to watch a black president walk down. He was just great. It was the best I'd ever heard him on anything. But now they're in a situation where you have somebody like dan lebitard who gets frustrated by a lot of the same things that i got frustrated by when i was there yeah and he knows now like race and racial issues he can go there on his radio show and what are they

going to do you can't talk about race you can't talk about um the immigration ban it's tough and and he's playing it kind of perfectly like he basically really went after sage deal earlier this week and i didn't think he got suspended no we haven't we haven't heard if he did which makes me mad because like remember when i got suspended from twitter for a week because which which remind me I get him I get confused so Richard Sherman went on first take oh right and they build it up as Richard Sherman versus Skip all right and he went on he just savage Skip it was amazing and however he felt about that show was it was like why why do we have this show in espn where somebody comes on and just savages the espn host and i tweeted like i i just didn't think that was right i didn't think it made either

of them look good it didn't make espn look good i don't know why we did that and they were really mad that i said anything and they suspended me from twitter for a week so now you have levitard says the same thing about sage steel like how. Like, how does she say that? That's the height of privilege. And they're staying away from it because now that race and politics are involved, it's a stay away. Yeah. Interesting.

And also Trump makes it a double stay away. Trump makes it the double stay away because now it complicates things, right? Because we know that Disney, you know, Disney is a company and the values that Disney has, they're not on the Trump train, right? They're not on the Trump train right they're not on the trump train i disagree really bob eiger is on one of those special thingies he's on the same thing that the uber guy was on yeah like that special advisor thing

oh boy you didn't know that i guess i maybe i did i forgot yeah but but i'm just saying like the the values of espn you know inclusiveness know, I always said ESPN was way more Republican than people realized. Maybe they were. I think they were. And I think that was one of the reasons they didn't want Obama to be on my podcast, to be honest. No way.

Really? Yeah. They wanted McCain to get elected. No, I'm just kidding. When that gets cut out and excerpted in a box, I was kidding. I remember that little,

little, little moment forever bill. I was the two of us. I want to see what your reaction i think i was like what the the trump but i think the trump thing makes it hard for everybody but they they don't want it they don't they still don't want people to talk about politics at all on no because it'll drive people away i put that in the piece this week sports tv executive told me here's my idea of a political argument the pats are gonna win the pats are gonna lose that's that's a great political argument on our

on our air and that's all i want i don't want actual politics so it just turns people off so what do you think about the the patriots part of this has been fascinating to me to see how people are written about it trump yeah you you listen to bob craft explain why he's friends with trump and he goes into this long detailed thing. Like I've been friends with the guy for 20 years. When my wife died, he called me every week to see if I was okay. It goes through this whole thing.

It's like, Hey, Trump sounded like a pretty good friend of that guy. And then Brady in the past has talked about, I've known him forever. He's been very supportive. Belichick's obviously friends with him. Sort of. Sort of.

Sort of. Yeah. And I don't totally understand why they haven't at least said, I've been friends with him for a long time. I'm not crazy about a couple of the things he's doing. Which should not be taken as an endorsement of Donald Trump's agenda. Yeah. Which should not be taken as an endorsement of Donald Trump's agenda. Yeah, or I'm a little disappointed that he hasn't made a better effort to unite everyone in the country. It does feel like he's trying to pit people against each other.

However you want to put it, at least get a little kernel out there that we know that you know that maybe this isn't going 100% the way you thought it was when your friend ran for president. They're very loyal to him. They're very loyal to him. I got to say, it doesn't bother me, though. I've written for so many terrible people in sports. I'm going to draw the line now. It doesn't surprise me that rich people are friends with rich people. That doesn't surprise me ever at all about anything.

It just doesn't at all. And it's like when I heard about now, of course, to me, I love Belichick's letter that Trump read right before the election because the letter was so carefully, not an endorsement of anything. It was like, congratulations on running for president.

That was basically the message of the letter, you know, and you tell Belichick was Belichick was, you know, laboring over that. Like, I'm just going to be real careful right here. Because I think Belichick is probably hipper to that, you know, in a that like i'm just gonna be real careful right here because i think belichick

is probably hipper to that you know in a way and of course belichick doesn't want to be tied into any like he doesn't want to he doesn't want to be political he doesn't want he doesn't care in the end of the day like and he may be interested in politics and history but he doesn't he doesn't want to talk to the media but he's not steve kerr and greg popovich and by the way that's the other part of this the coaches i mean pop's thing last night the coaches are are dreading the players but it's kind of weirdly more the coaches at the moment are dragging everybody into that how do you not talk about it steve kerr wants to be it is so clear wants to be asked about this stuff when and by the way isn't it kind of clever because if you're you don't if you're steve kerr pop you don't want to give away too much basketball stuff so politics

kind of becomes this weirdly a safe place to go. Yeah, it's a good point. And everybody loves you for it, right? Like people who are NBA fans aren't going to be mad at you. Like, oh, I'm a Trump guy and an NBA fan. I'm out of here. You know, I think that's a pretty,

that Venn diagram is not huge. So I think it's sort of like. Well, you're also talking about two guys that are about as uniquely qualified to discuss this as anyone because steve kerr the his dad and his whole connection with the middle east and all the different teams he's been on the teammates he's had and people he's coached and life experience he's had and then popovich has coached people of all kinds of cultures and backgrounds and has had such an interesting life

you know and i that was when i when the immigration ban really started going last week my mind because i love basketball that was one of the first things i thought about like how does this affect like yannis wait you know they were greece wasn't on the list but what if someday like everybody's on the list how does this affect thon maker and serge abaca sure where what if the countries keep getting added up and these guys can't fly back out of you know it it was just such a bizarre month like i don't ever remember on a weekend being stressed out about stuff that wasn't work last weekend i'm like looking at twitter like i hope didn't hope something didn't happen

hoped something happened. That was just the way I guess we're going to live now for a while. Yeah. And into your original point about sports writers and us, the ringer, how do you not talk about this stuff? You have to, how do you not?

Yeah. I remember being at the conventions and everybody this summer and people were like, why are you here? And I was like, where else would I be? Right. You're going to be at the Dodger game tonight.

This is what people are talking about. Right. Where else would we be? And with, with, when, you know, you don't have to be politico, right? You don't have to go full bore. You're never going to be on that road. But it just feels like it's all one subject now. One thing I pointed out in that article.

I just feel like everything is like one subject. There's no walled garden that sports over here and political news over here i feel it's just all we're all kind of in this weird moment where as writers we're all trying to deal with everything and write about everything it's funny yeah and everybody fits their own little place whether you're a comedian or a musician or anybody that's just trying to create something some people feel like they have to get all their thoughts out. Other people feel like, you know what? I just want to do good work and take people's mind off whatever's going on.

And then other people are in the middle. And Joe Buck got asked about that this week, right? Yeah. You know, and like, are you going to mention Trump? No. During the Super Bowl broadcast. But how great would it be if he had his Howard Beal moment? Yeah. The third quarter of the Super Bowl.

Because Joe Bucks talked about, you know, potentially maybe wanting to retire at some point soon. What if in the third quarter of the game he's like, Troy, hold on. I got to get a few words off my chest about the Trump administration and just this five-minute attack. It would be the most legendary thing that's ever happened. It'd be amazing. And it would make him polarizing too, you know? Oh, absolutely. That's the thing.

There's such a fear. I think Sarah Silverman felt it this week when she said that insane thing about the military overthrowing Trump and gets this huge backlash against it, which you should have, because you shouldn't say that. But, you know, the stakes are so high now that if you have a misstep one way or the other, it's just this wave of pit bulls coming at you. And there's pressure on you to say something, you know,

it's a pandering. It's the, it's the pain. This is the pandering era, Brian. There you go. Yeah. It's the,

it's a world of, why aren't you speaking out? You know, and, and look, maybe, you know, I mean the state of, you know, it's the way it's a world of why aren't you speaking out you know and and look maybe you know i mean the state of you know it's not it's not nuts to say this is a different kind of state of emergency than we've been in you know and maybe maybe we should you know i mean i don't think

that's i'm not saying joe buck needs to speak out during the super bowl not everybody has to speak out but you know pressuring people to get involved and not be passive while things happen is not nuts you know and it's a weird it's a weird weird weird moment i think having the conversations are really important and it doesn't have to mean i lean on one side or the other but if you read about somebody like steve bannon like that's a guy there's a chance that this is a guy who just wants to create a war now i might be wrong and maybe maybe he just wants to create chaos or maybe he just wants to break the political system but there also is a chance that he wants to go down in history as somebody who created a world war sure it's worth discussing it doesn't mean that you're pro against steve bannon it's like

just read all the articles about him you could be pro pro civil war. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he, who knows, but I think, I don't think people should be afraid to have the conversations and I think people should, you know, try to think about both sides. I think what the thing I think we can all agree on with the first month of everything that's happened. I'm going to try to say this as diplomatically as possible. Here we go. No, I, I think there's been a certain level of sloppiness that, you know, it's really that's happened i'm going to try to say this as diplomatically as possible here we go no i i think there's been a certain level of sloppiness that you know it's really hard to run anything it's

hard to run the fucking ringer we have 65 people trump's running the whole country he has to make all these appointments you're not going to bat a thousand with the appointments and on top of that when you're just doing these bands quickly and you're not dotting all the I's and crossing the T's and it looks sloppy. Or any of the I's or any of the T's. Yeah, or any of the I's or the T's. You know, there's going to be some trouble. And that's the part that worries me is I think when you look, if you're going to be sloppy a lot and you're going to have people fired. Like, remember, I'm a huge Watergate guy.

The massacre was one of my favorite watergate moments because it was like really when nixon lost his mind he was like i'm just gonna keep firing somebody i'm gonna i'm gonna keep firing my attorney generals until i find one that that uh gets rid of this prosecutor and then he finally found a fucking bork but but that was a crazy american moment and now we just basically relived it with the secretary of state sure but what's the what's that secretary of state attorney general attorney general what's the line in all the president's men where it's like everybody thinks they're really smart but these are really stupid fucking guys whatever the deep throat says right you know and there's a little bit of that tension with trump right

because they won an election so we just immediately with Trump, right? Because they won an election. So we just immediately think, well, they must be smart. They won an American presidential election. They must be competent to some level. But we're watching that campaign. We're like, this is the most incompetent campaign we've ever seen. Can't do anything right. Anyone. Couldn't have been that incompetent.

And then we get in there and it's like, well, maybe there's a certain level of crazy like a fox. And then you look at all the sloppiness and go, whew. Yeah. like a fox and then you like look at all the sloppiness and go yeah i'm still trying to take solace in the fact that he wants to be liked i think ultimately that's a good thing for a president now whether he just wants to be liked by one type of person that's another debate but i still think ultimately like you read everything about him and all the things that's like he wants to be think ultimately like you read everything about him

and all the things that's like he wants to be liked and likes to be around famous people how that manifests itself will be fascinating how that manifests i don't know i don't know either um and then the other thing is even like him calling craft yeah after his wife died made me think like well that's something like a good friend does you know that's a human trait that is a positive we may ascribe a human trait to this man

sounds good I'm glad he did that so I don't know I'm an optimist but at the same time last weekend was really weird. And I think it was weird for all of us. I only remember a few times in my life being unsettled by the country.

I remember being in college when, was it 1990, when we bombed Iraq, watching CNN and just the green screen of the bombs and all that stuff i remember like the cold war movie being really freaked out by that 1983 um and this is definitely another one of those eras where it's just you realize like oh fuck now i feel the five hours of the super bowl are the moment when sports will be topic when something other than trump will be topic a when something other than trump will be topic a and it's really the first time uh since november since june i mean when was the last time that was a cape maybe the cubs in game seven or something like that but like i feel like since certainly since the election that really it's going to be bumped off for a couple of hours and then trump is going to tweet something after the game congratulating the pats when they're holding Lombardi trophy. And we'll be back in the, back in the fun house.

Yeah. Hopefully Brady smashes the Superbowl trophy over Goodell's head. And then everybody will talk about that. I still think Lady Gaga is capable of something. That's the Superbowl prop that I want to take. She's got something. There's no way. She's going to let it go by.

Something up her sleeve or up a crevice or something. Who knows what she's capable of. The ultimate pandering. Yeah. She'll be pulling out something. There you go. So who knows. All right, Brian Curtis. This is fun.

We covered, we hit everything we wanted to hit, right? We covered the waterfront. We tiptoed our way around a Trump conversation that... Yeah. Yeah. Only a couple of mines that we stepped on. I think we're okay. Yeah.

I'm missing one toe. This is a huge minefield. Wait, I'm missing my left big toe. What's your next piece you're working on i don't know i was gonna go all right let's go brainstorm all right here we go all right uh we have mike lombardi coming up in one second and then we're done all right we're gonna talk about a perfect mattress that sold directly to consumers let's talk about an obsessively engineered mattress at a shockingly fair price let's talk about supportive memory foams that create an award-winning sleep surface with just the right sink and just the right bounce.

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Use offer code BS. Terms and conditions apply again. Casper.com slash BS. Code BS. All right. Thanks to Brian Curtis. That was a lot of fun. Mike Lombardi, it's time. That was a lot of fun. Mike Lombardi,

it's time. Give us a Super Bowl pick. Well, I was just listening to you do that mattress thing. I think Jimmy Alteri from the Sopranos, he used to have a great mattress before they whacked him. So I was thinking maybe he had a Casper mattress. I hope he didn't. Well, if he had a Casper, I wonder if he could

have returned it after he got whacked on it. Yeah, I mean, you know, I always thought he had a good one. And, you know, going down that road, not to delay the pick, but, you know, the guy Frank Pellegrini, the guy who owned Rayo's, passed away this week, which is a tragic moment. Also in Goodfellas. He's the chef in Goodfellas. Horrible.

But anyway, I like the Patriots 34-24. Okay, so you're sticking with that because you said that on the Super Bowl props pod that we did. Yeah, I like it. The more I watch this week, the more I analyze both teams, I think it'll be a good game for a while, and I think the Patriots eventually will take over. I think the Patriots' defense is better than Atlanta's defense. I think their offenses are similar. But at the end of the day, I just believe the Patriots have more things going for them in terms of what they can do and how they play the style of game.

I like the Patriots. I am taking the New England Patriots 37-20. So everybody's kind of going in the route more than the three, which is fascinating for me because the line hasn't moved, has it? The line hasn't moved. I it? The line hasn't moved. I've looked at it from every direction. I am very self-aware of my own team and what our weaknesses are. And, you know, like the Seattle game, I thought we had a chance to beat Seattle.

Didn't feel that confident in it. I thought, you know, the Super Bowl I felt the most confident about was the Eagles. I just thought that was a great matchup. This is the one that's similar to me to the Eagles. Yeah, I agree. It's similar to me to the Eagles. I think it's, look, everybody, when you pick against Atlanta,

everybody's, well, you never gave them credit all year. Well, look, Atlanta has played extremely well all season. Their offense has carried them. Atlanta's a lot like the Oakland Raiders or the Las Vegas Raiders or the San Diego Raiders. I'm not sure which one they're going to be, but they're a lot like them in the sense that their offense carries them and their defense is still a liability.

And the thing that has to concern you the most is Brady will get to the ball. When the ball hits Brady's hand, there'll be no confusion on his part on where he's throwing the football. Right. And the more I thought about the Monday podcast, the 24 completions, I don't understand how Brady doesn't have more than 24 unless they just take the air out of the ball and he's 20 for 23 in the game in terms of just having less passing attempts. Yeah, I keep coming back to the same thing I felt going into the playoffs, that the success or failure of this Patriots team over the years has come down to whether the opposing defense has been able to keep hitting Brady, to knock him off pass rush, and you need to be super physical, and I just don't think that's the Falcons.

I don't think that's that kind of team. If they beat the Pats, I think they're going to have to outscore them in a shootout, and perennially, we just don't see Super Bowls being shootouts. I think they're more deliberate games, and I think the Pats can keep Atlanta off the field. I hate to sound like a talking head, but I just think the Pats are going to have the ball a lot. I think he's going to have a lot of completions.

And when the Falcons come out, they're always going to have to be, you know, either they're going to have to emulate what the Pats are doing and doing ball control. Like you laid out in your piece on the ringer this week, where the run, the run, the run to set up the play action and then try to get Julio open in space. But if the Pats take a lead, all of a sudden you can't run the run to set up the play action and then try to get Julio open in space. But if the Pats take a lead, all of a sudden you can't run the ball after a certain point and it takes that out. You're playing from behind. And that's what Belichick loves when, you know, if he can make you just chip away, chip away, chip away versus getting those big plays. Eventually you're going to have the third down and four that bounces off somebody's hand, the deflected pass, whatever.

This Pats defense is kind of built for that. They love keeping the teams between the 20s. And I don't know. I just like the matchup for the Pats. I don't know if they were the best team this year, but I think the way it's played out in the playoffs with the matchups has been great for them. I would be concerned if they were playing Dallas in the Super Bowl. I would think that that would be a tougher matchup than Atlanta

because Dallas has got speed on defense. Look, we talked about this years ago, about the blue chips and the red chips and how you had to have them in both offensive and defensive lines. And Atlanta's offensive line, and I don't care what pro football focus grades them the sixth best line, when you break them down on tape, they're a liability. You ask 25 personnel guys in the league,

and they'll tell you the weakness of Atlanta's team is their offensive line. I don't care if they're ranked 6th on Pro Football Focus or not. That's the weakness. And if Alec Mack can't play on a healthy ankle against the best defensive linemen the Patriots have in Alan Branch, and Ben Garland

has to come in the game, then that middle of the pocket, the paint we talked about in that column, really becomes difficult for them to manage, and I think that's where the game... Depth plays a factor in these games. It'll be hot in that stadium. There'll be humidity. I know it'll be closed, but it's going to be a hotter game than you're used to just because of the elements, and you have to have good depth. They don't have good depth on the defensive line. Joe Villano, love him to death, but he's one of their defensive tackles in the rotation. Whether he's active or not, I don't know. But they don't have depth in their defensive front, and they don't have depth in their offensive line. And I think that's where

the game is ultimately going to be decided. And I think it's a better Patriots team than the one two years ago that won in this respect. The offensive line's better. No Gronk, obviously, but the receivers are better. My dad and I watched the Super Bowl last night from two years ago. Brandon LaFell's involved. Shane Vereen, who was terrific in that game, but had none of the breakaway threat that Deion Lewis has. The secondary that the Pats have this year I just think is better. Kyle Arrington had to be benched halfway through that game

because he was a disaster. Logan Ryan was a much worse player two years ago than he was this year. You had Collins, Audubling, and he's the one that got burned on Russell Wilson's little scramble at the end of the second quarter. He's the one that got burned on the wheel route. And the double move in the two-minute. Yeah, and the wheel route in the two-minute. Yeah.

This team, I think he's gotten the defense to the point where they're not making those, just those big screw-ups. Like last year, like Owen Daniels going over the middle, the only pass that Peyton Manning could throw at that point of his career was that over-the-middle pass to the tight end, and we gave it to him twice. This defense isn't making those mistakes. He gave up two plays in that game, that play and then the double move over in the corner of the end zone. Those are the two touchdown passes of the game, and that really was hard. I think there's no doubt. From looking at the talent, remember, look at the offensive

line of the Super Bowl team. Dan Conley was one on his last leg, never played football. Ryan Waddell was on his last leg. They were the starting guards. It was challenging. The two-tackle Solder and Vollmer were really good players, and it wasn't until Seattle got tired on defense that the ball was able to be thrown effectively. Brady took a beating in that game.

I don't see that happen in this game. I think this offensive line—I've said this all year—Mason's a Pro Bowl player. I think Tooney's a good young player. Marcus Cannon has played outstanding. They have enough—this is a much better football team than two years ago. This is a team, to me, when I look at their talent, it reminds me of their talent in 2004, 2005. Nobody really knows about the players, but they're all pretty good players.

And why I think the line hasn't moved, and the thing that scares me about this game, is that Atlanta has a very good offense, and there's a chance that they'll just get hot in this game and they'll score 40 points and they'll just out-shoot Brady. But I think that's how it has to go. When's the last time somebody scored 40 on Belichick? When's the last time that's happened?

I don't remember. That's hard to do. See, everybody talks about that, well, they beat Denver in Denver. They scored 24 points in Denver. If they score 24 points against the Patriots, they will lose. Right. You know, they're going to have to get this game into the 30s. Now, what they're going to have to do is tip ball.

You know, the football gods are going to have to be in their favor, and I think they know it. Atlanta knows that they're going to have to take advantage on some opportunities, and they're going to have to play careless. They're going to have to be the unconventional swordsmen in this fight. Baltimore. And I think they're going to have to play careless. They're going to have to be the unconventional swordsmen in this fight. And I think they're going to have to go for it on Thursday. I was going to say Baltimore like six years ago, I think they won 33-14 in the game that started out

with the long Ray Rice run for the touchdown. But I think Flacco threw less than 10 passes in that game. That scenario isn't going to happen again. You're right. The closest that any teams come to really lighting them up in a playoff game was carolina got really hot in the second half of that super bowl because uh guys on the pats were getting remember i think we had a couple injuries in the secondary in the second half but i think they put up they put up 22 in the second

half so you know that's one of the great stories That game is one of the great stories of all time. So during that game, it's in the two-minute drill, and Belichick tells Romeo Cornell to call a sparrow, which is one of the blitzes. And Romeo says to Belichick in the headset, we haven't run that play right all week. We shouldn't run it. And Belichick says, just run it. And they run it, and they give up a touchdown.

Belichick's point in this whole thing was we needed the ball back quicker so either we got a sack or they got a touchdown oh that's interesting we needed the ball back that's like a video game play that's like when you call the blitz in video games it either works or you lose right and so he needed a play got it then they got the ball back in time to make the field go to win the game so it's one of where, and that could happen in this game. I mean, if it gets into a track meet, but I just don't see how the Patriots are willing to let it go to a track meet style of game.

There's a scenario, right, where this is what scares me. Atlanta gets the ball first. Atlanta goes down, has an eight-and-a-half-minute drive, and scores. Pats get the ball. First down, third and four over Edelman's. Hey, he misses it. Punt.

Falcons get it back. Field goal, 10-0 Falcons. Now they're confident. They have the lead. Now they can run all the Shanahan plays, the play action. They're in the driver's seat. That's the scenario that scares me. And the Pats can't let that happen because if that happens,

they have a really good chance of losing at that point. Yeah, the one thing is what the Falcons need to do is make the Patriots play catch-up and then keep adding to the league. The one thing that both teams are going to do in this game is not rest on a 10-point lead or not rest on a – they're going to have to keep scoring. And when you're trying to keep scoring, you're prone to make mistakes. But then again, it falls back to Brady. Protects the football. He's had his one bad playoff game against the Houston Texans.

And the recipe to beat the Patriots is to harass and hit Brady and force him into situations. Seattle did it through two interceptions. Houston did it. I don't think it's going to happen this week. And I forgot, re-watching the Seattle game, that what's-his-face went out. Cliff Averill.

Remember, he got a concussion. Yeah, that's a slowdown. Then they moved Bennett outside. See, that's when they put Bennett outside, which really helped because, you know, we couldn't block Bennett inside. We couldn't block anybody in that front. Seattle lost Jeremy Lane on the interception in the first half

and put that backup in who eventually Brady just started picking on on the last two drives. And then they lost Averill during that second-to-last drive. But those were massive injuries. And that's the thing. You need breaks.

And that's another thing. I don't think it's a sure thing that the Pats are going to win. What happens if McCourty gets hurt in the first quarter? And what happens if Edelman gets knocked out in the third quarter? All kinds of things that can happen, and Atlanta has a very good offensive team. But I just think the Pats, if it's an equal game and things go each way for both teams, I think the Pats, it's just a better matchup for them.

Right, and that's the one thing. You can't, you know, football's played between the lines, not on paper. On paper, the Patriots should win. The game's going to be played on the field. A tip pass here, an injury here. That's why depth's so important. I mean, we're talking about it.

I mean, the depth of the teams really matter in these games because everybody's playing. There's no resting plays here. There's no brother-in-law going on on the field. You're giving it all on every single play, so you're going to need some time. The receivers are going to need time, but you don't run as many routes as Atlanta does where Julio Jones is just going to be on the field for 65 plays. He's not going to be on there. He's going to come off the field. He's going to be exhausted. So you have to have good depth. They have it on offense. They don't have it in the offensive line.

And defensive lines, they don't have it. So it's going to come down to, look, this is the Peyton Manning game. Only the Falcons have Matt Ryan. I mean, this is what it is. And the difference here with the Atlantis defense as opposed to Indy's defense is they don't have have I know they have Freeney on it, but they don't have a player like Freeney in his prime. They don't have a player like Robert Mathis in his prime. And the experience

of the Pats having been in so many of these things versus the Falcons where just nobody's been in this thing other than Dan Quinn as like an assistant. I think that matters too. Especially if the Pats can get up early and the Falcons, now you're rushing and you got to, but you know, oh God,

we're down 14 to three. We got to make a play. And that's a good situation too. I like this Pats team. I think it would be crazy if they won the Super Bowl without Gronkowski though. Like I just never expected that. I thought when he went down,

I just, just to win without your best offensive player, other than the quarterback, obviously, but it's just so abnormal. Right, but that's why Martellus Benetre was so important for the team, to get him for basically nothing and to have another tight end. Because when everybody comes out with those numbers, well, the Patriots without Gronk are this. They've never had a tight end like Bennett.

Right. And they've never had a receiver really like Hogan or even, you know, what some of the receivers they can do. And so I think it's just the stat you have to throw out. Look, Gronk would be a huge factor in this game, no question. Yeah. But Bennett can be a huge factor in this game, too. If he's healthy. If he's healthy. But Brady's huge factor in this game, too. If he's healthy. If he's healthy.

But Brady's the factor in the game. I mean, this game comes down to Brady's ability to put the ball in the right spot, throw the ball right where he needs to put it, and not turn the ball over. And Matt Ryan's ability to do the same for his team, and who can do it consistently the longest for the game, is going to be the team that wins. And the way Brady played two weeks ago is a good sign for this game. And maybe this will be the walk-off homer of his career

where he's just awesome and he throws for 402 yards. Look, when Brady knows what coverage you're in, when Brady knows what you're in before the ball hits his hand on the snap, when he understands that you're playing cover three or if he understands you're playing cover one with trail technique, then that's when you're at most vulnerable. And if he's comfortable in the pocket and he doesn't have to worry about michael bennett screaming off the edge and he feels really good that marcus cannon can block dick beasley yeah

and the next thing that happens is he's going to be precise with the football right well the falcons that nobody believes nobody believed in us factor scares me a little with the falcons but at the same time the line hasn't moved since they put it up it's been three and it's people are betting both sides i've heard cases for the falcons lately you're hearing a little bit more of oh actually i think the pats are going to blow them out but i think for the most part i think it'd be hard to play the nobody believes in this case because they're three point under against green bay yeah they played that card and that was fair yeah but what's funny is they that card against Green Bay. And that was fair. Yeah, but what's funny is they were favored against Green Bay.

But, yeah, that week was an Aaron Rodgers coronation, and it was insulting because the Falcons had a much better team. And, you know, I mean, even you were very late coming to the Falcons, but even you went into that game thinking, yeah, they're going to kill the Packers. They're just faster. Yeah, because the Packers had nothing they could hang their hat on on defense, and everything resided on Aaron Rodgers being absolutely perfect,

and any time they punted, they were in trouble. And then they're playing on the road, and I think all those factors weighed in. And now, to me, this is a level playing field where the Patriots don't have, the Falcons don't have that advantage. And, you know, look, both teams have done a really good job of protecting the football. I mean, make no mistake about that. Both teams have, I think you can go through, and I mean, the Patriots have 19 takeaways.

They've given up, scored 78 points, and they've only given the ball six away for 27. The Falcons have 13 takeaways for 59, and they have one giveaway for zero points in the last six games. It's remarkable. I have one last question. Really remarkable. I have two more questions for you very quick.

What was your reaction to Bernice having twins? I was really happy. I wanted to know where to send the baby gifts. I was very excited for Bernice. Everybody in my family loves me. Bernice and Jay-Z, congratulations to them. That was great. Who do you like in the Willows versus Brentwood

7th grade basketball championship game today at Windward? 3 o'clock. I think, is Chloe playing for Willows? Zoe, yeah. Chloe and Bernice are going to be there. Zoe, that's right. I'm all in on Zoe.

Great. I'm all in. I think we're favored. I think so. Really? We have a team of all. Where's Cousin Sal's money going? I think he'd bet on the Willis,

but the thing is we have a whole team of sixth graders, and the league is sixth and seventh grade, and the finals are today, and I'm out of my mind. Between this and the Super Bowl, I just, I can't handle it. Just don't mush it. Just do not mush it.

Make sure we don't have anybody there mushing. I won't bet on it and I'm going to try, I'm going to try to behave myself in this dance. Oh my God.

Just make sure you, sit away from everybody. Go Willow. Don't let anybody hear you talk. I was proud of myself. I only sent our coach three emails during the season. I was proud.

The over-under was like 15. All right, I'll talk to you over the weekend. Mike Lombardi, thanks so much. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. All right, thanks to the one and only Brian Curtis. Thanks to Mike Lombardi. Thanks to Stamps.com.

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off code BS. Thanks to the ringer.com. Thanks to the New England Patriots. Thanks to Tate Frazier. Thanks to Pearl Jam. Go to pearljam.com right now to find out all the details about PJ 25. It's their 25th anniversary coming up. Thanks to my dad for coming out here this weekend and watch Super Bowl with me.

Go Patriots. Play us out, Eddie.