The Bill Simmons Podcast - Flea on the Lakers, Buffalo’s Big Moment, and Red-Hot Million Dollar Picks With Joe House and Mallory Rubin | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: September 27, 2019

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers to discuss the evolution of rock music (2:30) and the Lakers' hopes for the 2019-20 season (19:35). Then Bill calls Joe House to discuss Bill's 50th birthday and give out some Million Dollar Picks (51:00). Finally, Bill sits down with Mallory Rubin for Mallory’s Most Intriguing, in which she shares her five most intriguing story lines of the week, including Pete Alonso's quest for the rookie home run record, the Jalen Ramsey trade saga, and more (1:33:45). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Hiring can be a slow process. Cafe El Toro's COO, Dylan Miskiewicz, needed to hire a director of coffee. He went to ZipRecruiter, posted his job, found the best person for the role. How many days? Just a few. ZipRecruiter's technology finds people with the right experience and invites them to apply

to your job. Four out of five employers have posted on ZipRecruiter's technology finds people the right experience and invites them to apply to your job. Four out of five employers have posted on ZipRecruiter. A quality candidate through the site within the first day. Right now, ZipRecruiter. You can try it for free. ZipRecruiter.com slash BSZipRecruiter is the smartest way to hire. We're also brought to you by the Rewatchables, where we did the Shawshank redemption this week. It is available right now on the rewatchables feed.

Me, Chris Ryan, my dad, one of my favorite ones that we've done. Obviously it was really nice to have my dad on here. And I love talking about this movie. We argued about the sewage pipe for hours. So you can listen to that. You can also listen on the rewatchables 1999 podcast. Mallory Rubin and I talked about for love of the game, the most flawed movie, flawed sports movie of all time, really just, just fatally flawed.

And yet I love it. And we talked about the balance of just how did they screw this movie up? And yet it's still so enjoyable anyway. So that happened. You can check out the ringer.com for,com for some NBA preview stuff that we started this week as well as NFL and all the all the typical stuff

and the Ringer Podcast Network Rosillo's podcast how many weeks are we in? three? yeah lots of episodes yeah did he do Weird Wednesdays?

he didn't he didn't get weird yet he's been promising Weird Wednesdays but we haven't had that yet but you should subscribe to that one as well, as well as Sonic Boom, our new

podcast on Luminary that's coming next week. Coming up, we have Flea, my old friend from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, is going to talk about the Lakers season and just all of his thoughts. LeBron Davis, the Clippers coming, everything. And then

Joe House and I are going to do million dollar picks. And then finally Mallory Rubin coming on to do Mallory's most intriguing. It's an action-packed podcast. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. Always an honor to have Flea here. It's been a while for us. It's been, you came on my podcast when I was at Grantland. Yeah. And then the Lakers went in the tank and I never heard from you again.

But now the Lakers are good. You're here with the Lakers. That's not why you never heard from me again. Was that like 10 years ago? No, it was like 2012. So, but as I recall, we had a little wager on that podcast. We did? What was it?

Did you forget about that? No. Yeah, are you sitting here and you can straight face telling me that you forgot about our wager? I don't remember what the wager was. What was it? I can't remember specifically what it was. You can't even remember it. No, I remember it because the wager itself, I believe, was who would have a better regular season record,

the Lakers or the Clippers, or who would go further in the playoffs. I don't remember. But I remember that I won, and I remember that you were supposed to wear a Lakers jersey for a week of my choosing. What? Yes.

I don't remember this. I spat all over the mic. Can we bring it up? All right, I'll find it. I'll find it. I'm going to bring it up because I knew that it was going to be like a painful loss for you. And when I won, I was experiencing great joy,

and I was dancing around in glee, and it never happened. Well, now we have to go double or nothing, Lakers or Clippers. I think that's the only answer. Lakers or Clippers, not Lakers-Celtics? No, I think Lakers are going to have a better record than the Celtics. The Celtics have a player that I liked for the first time in like 90 years. Who? Taco Fall.

Oh, that's also my son's favorite player. My son was so fired up they got him. I don't even know if he's going to play. Just the thing when he came out with his parents before the game in the tournament last year was better than anything that happened. He's actually pretty good. No, he is good. He can move.

He actually carried the team. He's actually, he's pretty good. No, he is good. He can move. He actually carried the team. He's like nine feet tall and he's optimistic. So walk me through the decade here because it was rough for the Lakers. Even last year, LeBron comes, still rough. But you, how many games were you going to during the height of the Kobe era? You're going to half?

Every one that I could. I mean, I've had season tickets for most of Kobe's career. I had season tickets. I mean, you know, I mean, there's what, there's 41 home games a year. It depends if I'm on tour or not. If I'm home, I go to every game. Yeah. Yeah.

So I've been suffering. It's been painful for me. So what have you been doing going to these bad games? It's deep emotional suffering. When they're getting blown out and you've got 24 players on the roster, all that stuff? Yeah. when they're getting blown out and you did 24 players on the roster, all that stuff. Like, yeah. I mean the whole, like the Dwight Howard, Steve Nash,

the buckle, the Shaq's gone. Chucky Atkins era. Yeah. The, you know, the smush Parker, Chucky Atkins,

whoever else we had, um, all of those dismal eras. And the end of Kobe, where it's like, Kobe, I would never have a farewell tour. Then he has the huge farewell tour.

And I love Kobe and treasure it every moment. But I was sort of like, well, I mean, I guess that's all we had was to get some joy in a farewell tour. But I hate a farewell tour. Yeah. I mean, I didn't mind Kareem's farewell tour because we won a championship. And it was like he did it, got it out of the way and played. Whereas it was just, you know, it was a losing team

and he was having a farewell tour. And I think if Kobe had been in his early, like hyper competitive winning championships years and someone was having a farewell tour, he would have hated it. I agree. If there was any energy put on anything besides winning the game and doing everything to win.

And the fact that the organization kind of geared the season towards celebrating his past accomplishments, that was difficult for me. So the Chili Peppers will never have a farewell tour? No. I hate farewell tours. It doesn't really work in music. How much money is there in it?

Yeah. Well, in music, they have the farewell tour, then they come back a year later. Yeah. That was the Rolling Stones move. They did it like seven times. Yeah, so the farewell tour in music is like, we're too that was the Rolling Stones move they did it like seven times yeah so the farewell tour

in music is like we're too lazy to make a good record or to make another record so we're just gonna go call it a farewell tour and try to get money by not actually

having a good record out I'm amazed I always thought this would've been a great one for you too because you know they've been

kind of in that mode for a while but they haven't officially said this is your last time you can see us and then just two years later be like hey we've reconsidered Because, you know, they've been kind of in that mode for a while, but they haven't officially said, this is your last time you can see us. And then just two years later, be like, hey, we've reconsidered. We're back.

What, are people going to get mad? Well, in music, it's always like you're so burnt to being on the road and you just want to be home. And you get home and you feel like, I'm done. I'm never doing this again. And like six months go by, a year goes by, and you start kind of missing the edge of touring. Your band's a little different because the friendships. I mean, how long have you known Anthony?

Yeah, the friendship and just kind of the longevity and it keeps going. I've known Anthony since we became best friends when we were 15 years old. And it's wild, and we've know such different people and often like at odds with each other in a variety of ways the entire time but some sort of weird fate keeps us whatever the energy is of who we are like whether there's some sort of like unanswered or un-ill defined promise that we see in each other that there's something that that we don't really

understand that keeps us going at it and i know it's like it would be easy to say well it's money and you guys have this band together we're super successful but i know that that's not it i mean you know we like money both of us like money you know as much as the next guy but that's not the driving force well and you've never had a moment where that relationship was really threatened right have you yeah it's been threatened many times. But like in a way that you were like, we're never going to work together again? I've been so angry before that I thought that.

Yeah? Yeah. I mean, at certain times, yeah. It's tough to imagine. I'm sure he's thought about me. Fuck that little asshole. I know he has. Many times.

It's tough to imagine not being being with your best friend though. Like, yeah, but as you know, I mean, I don't know if you have a relationship, do you have a relationship with any other guy where it's been super tight since you were a kid?

And actually it's been a relationship where you're together all the time where it, there's not times of angst and anger and complete disillusionment and even feeling betrayed. Yeah, I guess that would be a problem. Yeah. Especially when you're together all the time traveling everywhere.

Yeah. And just what it's like to be in the music vortex where... That vortex and all the ego and the vulnerability of having someone, the other guy, not enjoying your creative idea for whatever reason. And it's the same thing of, of what we just talked about with the touring about being burnt out of that one time or not,

or, you know, thinking that you're done with it. But then you get away from it for a while and maybe like go do other projects or go do whatever. And you'd be like, God, even though that's painful over there,

it's home. Right. Yeah. Well, I saw it. I came to, I came to hang out with you guys this summer. Yeah, did we argue? No.

But we will. Yeah, you didn't show me that part. Yeah, we argue and we sulk and we do all kinds of shit. You had this awesome setup in the mountains. Yeah, yeah. Unnamed area, but in the Malibu, Calabasas kind of area. Yeah, it's nice around there. And it was like out of a movie.

And you have this house. Sweet little house. Just basically you can do your thing. The fire raged through six months ago or whenever it was or a year ago. Yeah. And just like all around it, everything burnt down. And our little pocket just stayed up through the fire. I love it.

I love the smell of the sage. I love the trees. I love the birds. I love it. I love the smell of the sage. I love the trees. I love the birds. I love everything about it, the air. And you guys didn't even realize until I told you that it was the 20th anniversary of Californication. Yeah, I don't really pay attention to those things.

Yeah, nobody thinks backwards. Yeah, yeah. I mean, for us to think about anniversaries and things like that, there'd be one every day, I think. Yeah. But that was. I mean, for us, like, to think about anniversaries and things like that, there'd be one every day, I think. Yeah. But that was, I mean, all the stuff that that album did for you guys at that point in your career.

It definitely opened some different doors. I mean, more than Blood Sugar did, or more than even, like, for us, relatively, like, for me, Mother's Milk. Yeah. Like, we made Mother's Milk. That was the first time we ever got on commercial radio. That was the first time, all of a commercial radio that was the first time all of a sudden i could pay rent without struggling like when our first record came out i my baby was born and i pawned my base for groceries jesus you know so by the time

mother's milk came out it was like you know i've got a 500 a month an apartment a big one bedroom apartment i can pay for it And there's food in the fridge and we're cool. Yeah. And I got married. Do you worry about where rock's gone or where it's already gone? Yeah. I mean, rock is such a like expansive term now that means so many things. It's an umbrella for basically like every band that has live drums and guitars, like including funk bands and R&B bands and punk rock bands and experimental, even like ones with synths and stuff. It's such a huge, big thing that I don't worry about it at all.

I mean, things take their course and go where they go. Well, that's my question though. Has some of it run its course? Because you're talking about 55 years now yeah i can't think of a rock band that i've heard do something that sounds new to me yeah really since like radiohead made like kid a and did all that stuff and it was so exciting and new and different um and there might be things that i'm missing but there's good rock i mean i was like you're just like if you're gonna put under rock like

you can go see like cat Power, who I love, or I can go see Rancid, who I love, or I can go see Radiohead, who I love, like these bands who really have serious emotional impact and touch my heart. But I can't say that any of those three that I mentioned are doing something that I've never heard. Whereas, you know, when Iggy and the Stooges made Funhouse, that was like, would blast your face

off and you've never heard anything like it before. And it was like emotional and funky and soulful and completely, you know, unheard of, you know, or when Patti Smith made Horses or when Led Zeppelin made Led Zeppelin 2 or, you know, even when Nirvana came out with Nevermind, like that music, it wasn't new music, but the way that it was presented was remarkably new. And the songwriting was so stellar, it was undeniable. But I definitely don't worry about it. And for me, I really don't think in music in categories like that. It just seems like the creativity has drifted into different genres.

Yeah. drifted into different genres. And in rock, we have a half century of people doing it really well and it's like, where do you go with this format? I wonder, like I look at you guys, the arc that you guys had and the ebbs and flows

of you staying together for as long as you did and all the different checkpoints you hit. I just wonder if we'll see a band that started in the 21st century have that same kind of 30, 35 year arc where you hit all these different ways. Because now it seems like that just happens with solo artists or just hip hop artists that maybe have 10, 12 years max.

I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, because of the age of the computer and that everybody is making music on a computer and it's so much about soundscape and, you know, just like texture and sonic quality and all the tricks that you can do on a computer and electronics, the art of songwriting is becoming much more ignored. And I'm not saying there's, excuse me, there's still not great songwriters out there.

But it used to be with bands that besides rocking the fuck out and like having a spirit and a revolutionary attitude in youth culture music, you really wanted to write, people really wanted to write good songs, like modulations and bridges and verses and dynamics and all these like studying harmony and, you know, the relationships of notes to one another. And that has become less important in youth culture music.

I don't know if it's less important, but it's less prevalent. Do you think people care more about writing a great song or writing a great album? Because it seems like the song... I think people care more about writing a great song or writing a great album? Because it seems like the song... I think people care more about making the most money. Do you think that's what drives you? I think, you know, more so. That's what it's like.

I mean, I guess it's always been that way. I don't know. I don't know, man. But I just feel like the art of songwriting, whereas if you would look at the great songwriters, like, you know, like, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn or Cole Porter or Burt Bacharach, you know, these guys that really wrote great songs. And then you kind of like go down and then the pop songwriters, like the great rock bands.

And, you know, there's been, there were great rock songwriters in the 90s, like, you know, Pearl Jam. A lot of Pearl Jam and, you know, guys writing great, really beautiful songs put together well. And I just don't, I hear them once in a while now, but like, and with electronic music, like I say, it's more, it's these loops and it's, and don't get me wrong, I love grooves. I love getting lost in a hypnotic trance-like groove that grabs me, but it's just not the same. It's not the same as having a push and pull of someone who really understands chord structure and theory and stuff like that.

It's just different. If you guys were coming up, you guys from the late 80s, let's say, and you're just in a time machine, you're put in right now, what does that band sound like? Are there just more things going on than just the basics? You mean like us, how we were then, now? Is that what you're putting right now, what does that band sound like? Are there just more things going on than just the basics? You mean like us, how we were then, now?

Is that what you're saying? Yeah, if it was like, just you take everybody that started the band, but now you're in 2019 instead of 1987. Yeah, I just don't know. I mean, back then, we loved, for one thing,

we just wanted to piss people off and shock people. We loved like fringe arty weird music and you know and we liked funk and we just wanted to like dance and funk and wear our wild clothes and get the party going and stir people up and piss people off and just cause a reaction just make something happen right you know and sometimes it was real nice and fun sometimes we were obnoxious and rude and offensive you know and um i don't know how that relates to now because i'm not that was part of that era too whereas people were starting to push it a little bit and we came out of punk rock

man but that's what it was about like you know the 70s was like all these these great bands but it had become like the virtuoso thing got really pompous and uh if things had become so like the whole 60s revolution went to the 70s became so big and made so much money it became so corporate punk rock was you know this completely fucking off everything that was accepted as you know these guys sort of christ-like figures and pop music you know and wanting to offend and disrupt and and get down to the gritty rhythm of the street. And, you know, now there is that gritty rhythm of the street, but it's expressed so differently

and mostly expressed through computer music, you know, through electronic music and, you know, the, and, you know, rock bands too, but, you know, it's just different, different world, different time. You know, I'm looking for revolutionary spirit in music. That's what I want. I was going to say the concept of offend and disrupt is, is, uh,

it's pretty loaded in 2019, you know, cause you see it in comedy too. Yeah. In comedy. A lot of, a lot of people don't really know where to go and they get in trouble. Yeah.

Yeah. Like I just saw this, this recent thing was like Sarah Silverman, like someone threatening her over something she did that was religiously offensive yeah but it's not her like sincerely trying to say anything it's a character she's making that's what comedy is right comedy takes tragedy and makes it funny you know i mean comedians like like the laughs are about the saddest things always usually

or the most uncomfortable the most uncomfortable Chappelle's last special was like that he's just trying to make people uncomfortable who? Dave Chappelle

yeah yeah same with Sasha Baron Cohen you know like thriving on discomfort and that kind of makes us look at stuff

and understand tragedy and divisiveness and all those things in a more profound way like laughing is a great way to look at stuff. What was the angriest anybody ever was at you guys? I don't know. I don't want to know.

I don't want to know. But let's talk about basketball. Let's talk about CBS Sports HQ, the brand new streaming sports news network, live 24-7, costs you nothing. Sports coverage that's always on, always free. Coverage focused on the game. Tons of highlights, breaking news coverage as it happens. Fantasy advice and something we care very deeply here about on the BS Podcast, Gambling Picks. An

analysis to get that extra edge. You're going to be getting that extra edge of Joe Hassel a little bit. I've been playing fantasy and been gambling for three decades. Now I can confirm, not easy. At least when I go on CBS Sports HQ, I'll see the tips and trends I need to win my bets. It's easy for you to download the CBS Sports app on your phone, Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV, or other connected device, whatever you have at any time to watch CBS Sports HQ. No fake debates. Sports for real sports fans at the great price of... Oh, completely free. No login. You don't have to sign up.

Nothing. Download the CBS Sports app. Watch CBS Sports HQ today. Let's talk about basketball. Yeah, so wait, where were we? We were talking about the Lakers last 10 years. We were talking about you have LeBron and Anthony Davis. Yeah, we have LeBron James and Anthony Davis. You have two of the best eight players in the league. So you have LeBron and Anthony Davis. Yeah, we have LeBron, James, and Anthony Davis.

You have two of the best eight players in the league. So wait, LeBron's going to turn 34, right? I think he's going to turn 35. He's turning 35 this season. He's 34 now. But he's played like the third most amount of minutes

of anybody ever, basically. Yeah, I mean, by the time Jordan paid, how many minutes was he like? He's so far past Jordan. Yeah, so far past Jordan. He's like entering Kareem Carmelone. Kareem Carmelone era, but still, you know, relative.

I mean, Kareem, was Kareem final MVP in his final year? No, but in 87. He was finalist MVP. When was he first finalist? No, he was finalist MVP in 85. Okay. But then in 87, they still went to him and the biggest player of the entire series.

And he won the championship. Yeah. It was last year. What year was he finals MVP in Milwaukee? So Kareem was 71 finals MVP and 85 finals MVP. So from 71 to 85. It's unbelievable. That's kind of one of the greatest notes

in the history of the NBA. And then in 88, game seven, Pistons, which I know I think you were at. Yep. They go to Kareem down one with 12 seconds left and he gets the foul. But the guy's like 40. Yeah.

And that'll never happen again. I wish I could remember that play and I can't. But it seems like with modern training methods and focus and stuff, if LeBron can retain his focus, and I don't know, running around making space jams and stuff, is he capable of doing all the things that and stuff. Is he capable of doing all the things that he does? Is he capable of having the laser-like focus on the game? I only hope.

And I don't really know the answer to that question because a lot of people bring it up to me so much and say, well, he's off making movies and he's doing this and that. This is always the downfall of an athlete when they get that successful. And I always argue, well, not in basketball. The best players are always making movies at their peak, you know, which is kind of true. Well, he's also a dad and he's got- Yeah, and he's a dad and he's- He's got these two sons.

He's going to all their games and stuff like that. He's going to their games. You lose your focus just a little bit. He's trademarking Taco Tuesday. Yeah. So that's the question. He's also defied every expectation of him from the beginning.

Yeah. I mean, from the get-go he was what 18 when he came to nba or 17 18 he was 18 okay he's 18 he was almost the best player in the league right away practically i mean arguably yeah and he's in the top five or six focus he got all that money he's never made a mistake he's done his only real blip on cultural consciousness was the decision thing, which was absurd and which made me dislike him. But ever since then, like everything he's commented on, he's been great. He's played great. He's won championships, but it is, I, you know, I just, you know, I'll defend him till the end of the world. He's a

Laker. And the fact that he came to the Lakers, I'm humbly grateful. And the fact that because he's there, we got Anthony Davis. I'm humbly grateful. You know, I think we have a great team this year. It's absolutely awesome. But if I'm going to be really objective and honest, I don't know what he's capable of doing this season consistently all the way

through to the playoffs. We're going to make the playoffs this year. So that there's no question. Can he be an elite player at the age of 35 with all the miles he's got on his legs? I pray and hope and I believe that he can, but I don't know. What do you think?

Do you feel like he's a Laker yet? I think this year he's a Laker. I mean, I bought in full sale last year. Does he still feel like one of your guys right now? Yeah, he does. Okay. Because last year was weird when he broke the MJ scoring mark and it happened in a home game and the Laker fans were like,

okay, cool, new guy. It was a weird vibe. It was kind of weird, but also he just didn't win. Yeah. He didn't win. Yeah. He didn't win. And, you know, for me, the heartbreaking moment of last year, outside of the injuries after Christmas Day, when he went down, Ingram went down, everybody went down,

Rondo went down, because we had a weird like third best in the West at Christmas. We beat Golden State on Christmas Day. And it was really rough, but we were doing so good. And I thought, okay, they're going to come back. For me, outside of Lonzo not coming back, and I have very high hopes for Lonzo. Me too. And I still believe that it's going to be justified

as him being the number two pick, what he's going to do this year in the Pelicans. We'll see. We'll see if he can stay healthy. I still think that kid's amazing. I'm a fan. I'm a fan. I'm a massive Lonzo fan.

But the thing that broke my heart last year, everybody's back on the team except for Lonzo Ball. We still have the possibility of making the playoffs and they lose to the Phoenix Suns on a game that is crucial. Like if they win this game,

they're like putting themselves in good playoff contention. They beat the Celtics in Boston. boston yeah you know all the anthony davis chatter my team had kind of fell apart you know that that the whole team's on a trading block for anthony davis they go and they they lose to the phoenix suns and that was just like what and i saw lebron's body language he slumped his shoulders he didn didn't get back on D. Yeah. He didn't put his life on the line for the team. And that was the only time when I questioned, is he a Laker?

Because any great Laker, Kobe, Magic Johnson, Kareem, Michael Cooper, AC Green, Kurt Rambis, any great Laker, any Laker that I hold as like a historically important Laker, whether they were a star or a role player, would have bled, sweat, and broke their bodies and pour their hearts, rip their hearts open to win that game in Phoenix. That's right. And that was the heartbreaking moment of the season last year for me more than anything. That was the one where I held my head and like went crying to my bedroom and wouldn't talk to anyone for a week. I think that's a really good point. And that was my criticism of him last year.

And that's why I didn't vote for him for all NBA. It wasn't just that he only played 55 games. There was a level that I felt, from a passion standpoint, he wasn't all the way in. He's so smart with basketball that he's just calculating this whole thing, thinking, even if we make the playoffs,

this team's doing nothing anyway. Do I even want to put these extra miles on myself this season when next year we're going to really need me? And he's just calculating it the whole time. And he's like, this is the speed I'm going to play at. And then getting back on defense thing like that. He didn't play defense at all. I never saw that from him before.

Like when he, when I saw that body language from him last season, I'd never seen that from him. It was like every game, he was the most hyper competitive guy. Yeah. And he just, it's what you said.

He was like, man, he's going, well, we're doomed anyways. And we're not, you know, he did it in Cleveland the year before there was like a six week stretch when he didn't like the team.

Right. He was trying to get them to trade their draft pick. And then he went to the finals. Yeah, and then he flipped the switch because he can flip the switch. He knows how to do it. I guess you can. I mean, the other thing with him and this is why I love the music basketball parallels. He's a performer

and when he's feeling it, there's a performance aspect to it. And last year it was like he never really wanted to commit to that part this year now that he has Davis. And I think he's really going to ride Davis, but you'll see the performer. I think that's really going to resonate with the Laker fans because they love a good show. Oh, ultimately.

Oh, totally. And, and he's, you know, he's an uplifter too, not just in a performative way, like with the, with the crowd, like getting everyone going, but he's always been a player, like a magic type player that lifts up the other players around him and gets them in the right spots and really inspires all the other players. And I didn't like it. There was some of that last year, like it started happening. And then after the Anthony Davis thing, it was gone. Like the disconnect was, and the disconnect was so weird and disheartening. So if we're going to compare basketball players to musicians, what is Kobe?

What is he as a musical artist? He's a solo act, right? He's not in a band. He's by himself. Kobe's the leader of a band. He's like a Pete Townsend. Is Pete Townsend? Kobe is the Pete Townsend of basketball.

Pete Townsend? I would have saidsend? Kobe is the Pete Townsend of basketball. Pete Townsend? I would have said he was just like a crazy or a Springsteen. No, because he didn't write all the songs

but then he had Pow and he had you know, he had these players around and Shaq and like all these guys

and even like Derek Fisher and stuff. These guys like Derek Fisher is, you know, could be the John Entwistle. The Lakers could have been the who. That's a good one.

I like that. Pau Gasol was Roger Daltrey. So who's LeBron? I mean, he's got to be one of those guys who could LeBron do everything in the band. Yeah.

LeBron might be the Jimmy Page of basketball. That's pretty good. It's pretty good. Is that, do you think he- Because he can solo, he can vamp, he can produce, he can lead, and he's like, you know, mysterious and wise and cool. I was going to say Sting. LeBron's the Sting?

Because Sting could be the lead of a band. He could be the solo act. He could also play an instrument as he sang. Yeah, but Sting... He could do all these different things at the same time. Don't get me wrong, because I love Sting. I respect Sting. Not as talented as LeBron?

No, supremely talented. He can sing, he can play, he can write songs. He's one of the most talented guys, and I'm a massive Sting fan and I love the guy. But when the whole, like when the police came out and the whole like punk rock thing and he had his hair spiked up and all, it was just all, he never believed in the like the street value of punk rock or any of that. It was all like, like an image. I'm going to get on this punk rock image and do this to, you know, cause the kids really like it right now.

LeBron never did that. LeBron's always been like where he's from, who he is. That's a great breakdown of Sting. That's true. He played the part, but it wasn't like, it wasn't burning in his soul.

He wasn't like, like, you know, but I, you know, he's a great, great musician, but like he constructed an image

to get the police over and he did it intelligently and thoughtfully. And you could say LeBron constructed some images along the way. Yeah. But LeBron did the Miami comes back, comes back to Cleveland. I'm coming home. Then he leaves. He's controlled his career, but he's always been truly a kid from Akron. And you feel that, that in him and you know, it's him, you know where he's from, you know, his childhood, he bought his friends with him. He's been really true to his identity and his,

his upbringing in a way where it stings like, you know, he's an educated jazz musician. I wrote a piece about when LeBron was at Miami, about how important Chris Bosh was to them. And I was saying how he was like the bass player and And he wasn't necessarily, when coming up in the, he was a top five lottery pick. He was supposed to be the guy.

Then they have this situation with these three superstars. Yeah. And you can't have three leaders of a band. Yeah. You can't have three front people. At some point, people have to play different roles. And he became this crucial third guy yeah but he was more he was an overqualified third guy but that was one of the reasons those miami teams succeeded

yeah well he was willing to accept that which was pretty cool of him that's like one of the sadder stories in nba like his health thing i know because he could have played until he was 40 with the game that he has a blood clot thing right It's a blood clot thing, right? It's a blood clot thing. Because the way basketball moved in his direction. He was on the pod last year talking about this where he's now the perfect stretch five. Yeah.

And he was so great in Toronto. Like those years in Toronto. I mean, he was incredible. He's put up 24 tens. Yeah. Yeah. And like smart and good and a good team player.

What's the vibe of the Laker fans these days? Do you like the crowd? Is it a lot of posers? Are there diehards? It's been so bad for so long. It's like, I don't know. I really, I'm such a diehard.

I mean, you know this about me. Yeah, I know. Since I was a little boy, I follow every game. I'm emotionally involved with every player. I care about them so much i i get so wrapped up in the thing that like anyone who was just you know believes in them no matter what and keeps their like five-year-old spirit about their fandom i relate to those people yeah everyone else who's like adult about it and objective and like well you know they don't like him because this well these guys are much better

this year like i don't you're out yeah i'm out i don't like him because this, well, these guys are much better this year. Like, I don't. You're out. Yeah, I'm out. I don't care. I like over the top childish fandom. Win, lose, or tie, Lakers till I die, bleeding purple gold forever and all of that. I think, you know, it's been weird. They've been terrible for like six years. Yeah.

I've broken every record of badness. This is the only stretch I've had like this since 1959. Yeah. And then being, were they that bad then? No, they were good right away. They were good right away. I'm saying you go back 60 years.

Yeah. They had a couple down years when Kareem got there because they traded so many people away to get them, but they weren't bad for more than- I mean, being so excited last year when we got rid of the dreaded Jim Buss

and we got Magic Johnson and Genies behind him. And then he gets LeBron James. I was on a euphoric, I was walking on the moon. And then it just doesn't work out. We get injuries. Magic takes a powder. And for the first time in my life,

I'm disillusioned with Magic Johnson. He dragged the franchise through the mud. It made me feel terrible. That was upsetting yeah no yeah when he left he did that when he left I didn't like the way he did it but I kind of understood I was like he took on the job he realized he didn't like it I would have liked it if he saw it through to the end of year and sucked it up and just did it and then did work behind the scenes to make it have a great successor and do all that but he just u upped and left. And then even though, whatever,

if his gripes are authentic, I believe they probably are. Like he was unhappy with whatever Palenka said about him or the emails that went back and forth or disheartened with, you know, that he felt that he was being undermined, like fair enough. But to go and talk about it and go on whatever show he was on, on ESPN and say how, and say how Palenka was a backstabber and all this stuff. It was just all that did. He just cared about clearing himself and it just hurt the franchise. It made the franchise look bad and made us look bad for attracting players. And that really kind of broke my heart. It was pretty petty. And the other thing was when he took the job, he made it clear, like, no, I'm all in. Yeah.

This is my number one priority. And then as he was leaving, he's like, I told them I wasn't, you know, I had other businesses. I wasn't going to be all in. It's like, we have quotes from you from a year ago. He's an emotional guy, you know? And I don't,

like I understand sometimes you get things and you really want to do something and you realize you learn what it is and you're like, I can't handle it. It's not for me. Like there's someone better. And he left that like you know i get but i just and i don't even really think it's petty what he did i don't know if that's the right word for it i think it was like it became like survival for him like my standing in the world i need to know everyone

to know that i left for just reasons and it'll come out. But it just didn't weigh the odds. I don't know if it's petty. It's just it hurt the franchise. It's a tough one. Magic's been my favorite sports figure since his rookie year in the Lakers.

Been my favorite sports figure on earth. I have paintings of him up in my house. I have his shoe on top of my TV since the 80s. I have, look, I'm wearing my Magic Johnson shoes today. I got hand-painted Magic shoes. They're awesome shoes. Who'd you side with in the Shaq-Kobe divorce? All the Laker fans relate to the kids.

Always Kobe. Really? Always Kobe. You were just out on Shaq. Three straight finals, MVPs. No, I love Shaq as a player, and I love Shaq as a person too. I just felt that like, that he, he really came down on Kobe

and Kobe was a kid. And I just felt like Shaq could have taken a higher road and embraced Kobe. And I mean, maybe I'm wrong. I mean, I'm not there. He seemed a little threatened by him. Yeah, he was threatened by him. Shaq wanted to be number one.

It was like, I'm number one in a few, but I wasn't there. I can't say in between, but at the time I always took Kobe's side. Yeah. What's been your best Jack Nicholson interaction in the last 10 years? He hasn't come that much.

Yeah, he really has cut down on his attendance you guys are like in the Mount Rushmore Laker fans I don't know if I make it up there but I think you're in there I'm earnest

I think I make it in the Mount Rushmore of earnest if you're just measuring it by the amount of times people have been shown on TV during a Lakers game

you're definitely in there I don't know but yeah no I've never really broke down with Jack you've never really interacted with him no I mean't know but yeah no I've never really you've never really interacted with him

no I mean I have but minimally I'm so disappointed by this I've partied with Lou I had good Laker talks with Lou

oh Lou Ather yeah we did a podcast he's definitely on the Mount Rushmore we went when did we go last year

yeah we went to his house in Malibu and we did a whole pod I mean he's been there for everything going back to like

the 60s yeah he's smart too and can actually remember a lot pod. I mean, he's been there for everything. Going back to like the 60s. Yeah, he's smart too. And can actually remember a lot of the stuff too. Yeah, he's good. Yeah, no, he's great. They need to start breeding a new generation

of Laker fans. You know, you got to replenish the bench. You got to have some young prospects. Maybe like Billy Eilish. Get Billy Eilish in there. Yeah, well, I mean,

these things have to grow organically. And they have to, like, be soulful and win and love each other and, like, really be a team. And that's, like, the one thing when you say, well, is LeBron really a Laker yet? Like, yes, for me, he is, and I buy in 100%. But that feeling of a team, like, that's the sad thing now is, like, there's, like, you know, the Brandon Ingram,

Josh Hart, Lonzo Ball, Julius, like, watching those guys grow, thing now is like those like you know the brandon ingram josh hart lonzo ball julius like watching those guys grow that was the like the golden light in the dismal darkness of suffering and we went through it a little with the celtics where we had these young guys and then they traded all them for kg yeah and then kg showed up yeah and played great was awesome we ended up winning the title with him I didn't really totally feel like he was a Celtic until like 2010 is that when

Paul Pierce and Ray Allen came? yeah well Paul Pierce was there Ray Allen came that year too and that whole team I never

until we lost to the Lakers in 2010 I never really felt like oh these are my guys you know because they kind of just showed up

it's a weird, sports are weird. Now it's like everybody's just switching teams over here. Yeah, they're moving around. And it's like, it's hard on fans. Like, I respect the players for wanting to be empowered and to do what they want to do. And they've been sort of like pawns in the game for so long. And for them to be equal partners is awesome.

But as a fan and like pure fandom, you just don't get to love a group of guys that stick together. The Showtime Lakers, those guys were together for 10 years. And then as they're getting old, they add a couple of new pieces in. But the old guys are Worthy and Byron and AC Green. They stay and Coop. And yeah, and then you get, you know, you got like AC came in. I remember he was like, you know, a late first round draft pick or whatever.

And he comes in and he's the next tough guy and, you know, kind of took Kurt's place and had a jerry curl. See, I know we're both old, but I miss that part of sports. And I feel like the NBA is going to lose that over these next, I think, 10 years. Because I just think there's going to be so much movement every year. We're just not going to have that anymore I mean the movement is kind of exciting too

yeah but I mean we had that in music where you're in 10 bands in 15 years like that's you could have done it I just don't know

at some point when you look back on things what do you remember at least you remember the money yeah I mean I guess

that's like the great thing about being in a band for a long time and going through all that stuff is the the emotional component of just going through it with the same people and knowing each other and trusting their instincts and knowing what they're going to do and all the unspoken the telepathic communication which happens with a great team yeah and someone like like lebron who is so great at that like Like, you know, I love, like, now I have these courtside seats, and I watch these guys so closely at every game.

And, like, when you start to really tune in to, like, the eyebrow raise of the, you know, the backdoor cut or whatever it's going to be that happens, it's so exciting to see. And you see as the season progresses, it gets faster and quicker. But, like, if a guy's together for six or seven years doing that with each other, like, you know, there's like those Lakers Celtics rivalries that we grew up on, like that stuff, man. We just saw it with the world championships, Spain,

which did not have the most talented team, but those guys have been playing with each other for 12 years. Yeah. Well, in international basketball, I always root against the United States. Always. Always. And not so much. It used to be because the United States

had all the best players, the most money, the best training facilities, and then they're playing like, you know, Uganda and these countries that have no money and no expensive players. I couldn't help but root for them. I bet on Argentina

in 2004 in the Olympics and won. Yeah. I hated the team we put together. I'm like, that's it. I'm betting against these guys. Yeah, yeah. It is. Basketball's in a weird spot because I, Pat Riley, when LeBron left Miami,

he did this press conference like three days before LeBron left. And he was basically like, and it was really a speech for the guys. And he was like, look, this is hard. You're not going to win every year. The whole point is you're going to have a tough season. How you bounce back from that? Because he had done it, you know, the 86 Lakers, the 83 Lakers,

where the 84 Lakers, where they blow the Celtics series. That's when you kind of find out who you are and how you rally back from adversity. And now I wonder with the NBA if we're just going to even see that anymore. The Warriors had adversity last year. The team blows up. Durant's gone. Klay's hurt. Now it's like a completely different team.

We only had them for five years. The Warriors actually had a pretty long run as long as we're going to get. And they're still, the three, the Steph, Klay, and Dre. I hope they stay together. Yeah. And it's like that banding together.

You know, when they come together in a court and they hug each other and they get together and you know, it's like they've been through battles together. They know each other. They're yelling. They're fighting. They're like, Dre Man's all crazy. And it's like, you know, I want the Warriors to lose. I'm a Laker fan, but I respect it and love it so much.

The Spurs had it too, near the end with Duncan and Parker and Ginobili, where it's just like they'd been together so long, it actually became a strength. I was saying the other day that Dennis Rodman's greatest seasons were the Spurs seasons. My favorite. Oh, you liked those? Yeah, he was so crazy. Was it one year or two? Do you remember that play?

He took his shoes off in the huddle? Yeah. Do you remember that play where Robinson went down and Dennis Robinson dove through the air and landed on top of him, like horizontally right on top of him while he was laying down on the court? Do you remember that?

Yeah, I do. And like David Robinson was this real square military, like button up guy. And Robin was this wild man, but like that free expression of love. Like at that point, he was kind of in between becoming like sort of a cliche of this character,

but not like the humble kid that was on the Pistons with Chuck Daly. And he was just kind of finding this wild freedom, but hadn't yet like taken it to the next level. And like, that was such an exciting, like it was thrilling. And we don't really have guys like him anymore in the NBA because everybody is so conscious of who they are

and their social media presence and all that stuff. Yeah, the eccentricity is really gone. Remember when Sean Marion painted his hair with shoe polish and his eyebrows? How crazy he looked. Do you remember that? Yeah, I do.

That was so wild. No one does that anymore. No one comes out weird. They might, oh, I got my edgy haircut. You know what I mean? But it's like... Embiid's our only chance because I think Embiid is weird in a good way.

Yeah, but he's smart and funny and savvy. Yeah, but he's also a little weird. I could see him... Kyrie is obviously super weird, but I don't... Yeah, yeah. Any flat-eartherness is really weird. He's already injured, right? Didn't he have like, he hurt his head or something? Yeah, he got hurt in a pickup cam. I think he's going to be alright for this season.

He's going to be alright to start. right to start and durant durant's definitely weird yeah i love durant me too yeah this is like i love a player like you just like feel that sort of vulnerable soulfulness about them and like clearly they're really smart in the way that they express themselves is so unique um and yeah i don don't know. He's thoughtful about everything. We've had him on the pod six times. He's thoughtful about who he is, how he grew up. Yeah, yeah. What people see him as,

as the seven-foot multimillionaire who scores 30 a game. Yeah. You know, he definitely, he's constantly searching for the next thing. But the weird thing about him is I'm not sure he's ever going to find it. I think he always thinks there's this next... You mean, I'm never going to find happiness I'm not sure he's ever going to find it. I think he always thinks

there's this next... You mean, are we going to find happiness, do you mean? Or are we going to find what? Happiness, not just... More with basketball. But isn't that like in that yearning what makes him great?

Yeah. That's what makes him so much fun to talk to. Yeah, yeah. But I think he thinks there's some rainbow at the end. And I don't think it's there. Yeah, no the end and I don't think it's there I don't think it's there for any basketball player

for anyone it's like learning that the process is the rainbow of like trying to get better but with someone like I mean it's his Achilles right no one's ever in the history of the NBA come back from the Achilles they say Dominique and no I don't believe it

nobody's come back is he done? no nobody's ever come back from the Achilles? They say Dominique and no, I don't believe it. No, nobody's come back. Can he come back? Is he done? No, nobody's ever come back more than 80%. Yeah, and always, they always get other injuries afterwards. Yeah, but for him, where he's the best player in the league when he got hurt. The difference. That was

heartbreaking. Even if you knock him down 10%, now instead of the best player, you're like the 23rd best player. Yeah, it just goes from, and then how do you deal with that? It's almost like when a singer, when they have like some throw down man

or polyp or something and all of a sudden they can't, like remember in Elton John, all of a sudden he couldn't hit like that last note. And he, all of a sudden he couldn't hit, like, that last note? And he's still good. He's a great performer, but it's not the same. He has to change every place.

Yeah, the songs are there and the moves are there and all the work you put in is there, but... Yeah. All right. I took enough of your... Oh, go. Oh, oh. I was going to wrap up.

I took enough of your time. Oh, we're wrapping up already? Yeah, because we have other stuff to do with you. Oh, right. Okay, let me just ask you this. Yeah. Two questions. You can always come back, by the way.

You're 10 minutes away. Who do you think is better this year, the Lakers or the Celtics? Lakers. I think the Lakers. Who's better, the Lakers or the Clippers? So that one's interesting. I think the Lakers are going to be better regular season.

And I think the Clippers have a higher championship ceiling. But the Clippers don't have a point guard or a center, right? Really? Or they got Zubats? No, they have creators, though. Beverly's their point guard, but they have guys that can run their offense through. They can run their offense through George or Kawhi.

Is Paul George going to start the season or he's got surgery on both shoulders, right? I know. That's... Yeah. So him and Oladipo are the two that... Oladipo's definitely not starting this season. Yeah. And might not even come back till, like, December. George, I think, is going to be probably on schedule,

but who knows. Right. And then Kawhi plays 60 games a year. So that's why I think the Lakers, I've said this on the pod before, but not to you.

I think LeBron at some point over these next couple weeks is going to start making the push for, we're getting Anthony Davis the MVP this year. Yeah.

Because I think it's important for him to give the car keys to him. Almost like when Magic took the car keys from Kareem in 87 and Kareem was okay with it. Yeah. Like Davis has to be the guy and LeBron can pick his spots and that will be much better on his body.

LeBron is smart enough to do that. And he'll try to get like 22, 10, and 9 every game, something like that. Yeah. And let Davis carry it. The big weird question mark about the Lakers is Dwight Howard. I think he's not on the team in two months. Yeah.

Yeah. You think he's going to, because I've written, like I kind of predicted in my mind that he's going to do all the right things in the beginning. He's going to be, I'm just going to play defense. He's lost like 40 pounds.

Oh, is he? He got really thin. He's skinny. I don't see it. I think the big question for me is the guards. Like who's playing crunch time for you when you're playing a good team on the road? It depends on how Avery Bradley comes back from his injuries.

If Avery Bradley is a good physical kip, you don't think so? I don't see it. I just think he's had too many injuries. Weirdly, Caruso has become important. Well, Caruso's good. Yeah, he was good last year. He's up by 6'5". I just... Do I trust him?

Do I trust him in Golden State in November? He's yet to play really meaningful minutes as a starting point guard, but he could. He could. I'm hopeful. He has fan favorite potential, too. Yeah, he's balding. He looks like he's 42 years old.

He's the best balding guy since Scott Skiles. Scott Skiles balding? Yeah. Yeah. There's been some other good balding guys who just shaved their heads. Like Kobe was going bald. He shaved his head. Yeah.

He would have been bald by the time he was 28. Yeah, no, he was balding. There's another guy. Dad, was he on the Celtics? Well, if you go in the 70s, there was a bunch of balding guys. Yeah. Oh my God. The basketball cards are great.

Yeah. Yeah. Gus. On the Celt The basketball cards are great. Yeah, yeah. Gus. On the Celtics? No, not on the Celtics. Gus. What's his name? Gus Brown? Gus.

I don't remember. There was a guy named Gus somebody who was balding really good. I remember the Van Arsdale brothers were balding. Yeah. There's some good balding guys. What's going to happen with the Rockets? I like them. I've talked to myself.

But who? They both need to have the ball. They're fine. They're just going to stagger them and they're going to be really good? You get 85 shots a game. Are the Sixers going to win the championship? That one I don't see,

but I think... Sixers are really good. I'm leaning toward Milwaukee-Houston. Milwaukee, no way. Milwaukee's the same team. Or Milwaukee Clips. Yeah, but the thing is, Giannis will be 15% better

than he was last year. And he was already almost the best part of the league. The thing is, whoever's playing the best wins the title. It's not rocket science. Kawhi was playing the best last year. They won. So if Giannis goes up a notch, that would be the case.

Well, I'd just like to make an announcement that it will be a Sixers-Lakers final. Sixers-Lakers? Sixers-Lakers final this year. A 40-year anniversary of the Sixers-Lakers final. Sixers-Lakers? A 40-year anniversary of the Sixers-Lakers finals. Let's end it on that. Excellent. Thank you, Flea. Thank you.

We're bringing in House in one second to do Million Dollar Picks. First, guys are terrible at taking care of their health. Studies show 70% of guys who experience erectile dysfunction don't get treated for it. That's bad. Most people don't realize ED is a check engine light for a man's body. It could be an indicator. Something more serious is going on,

like a heart issue or diabetes. Who knows? Our sponsor, Roman, has created an easy, discreet way to get checked out by a doctor and get treated for ED online. It's a one-stop shop. Licensed US physicians can diagnose your ED, ship meds right from their pharmacy to your door. You don't have to wait in waiting rooms. You don't have to deal with awkward face-to-face conversations or uncomfortable trips to the pharmacy. Just visit GetRoman.com slash bill. Fill out a brief questionnaire, chat with the doctor, get real FDA-approved medication if recommended by your doctor, all prescribed online, delivered straight to your door in discreet, unmarked packaging. Go talk to a doctor, guys.

ED is a problem that guys don't tackle, but it's really important. Right now with Roman, it's actually really easy to take care of it. For a free online visit, go to GetRoman.com slash bill. All right, on the line right now. He's on the line doing million-dollar picks with me every Thursday. And we've had a good year so far at Joe House. I don't want to jinx it, but we went $800,000 last week. We are up $1.26 million after three weeks. The Colts have been kind to us. The Rams have been kind to us. More importantly, we have not had a horrible loss yet.

We've had some tough parlay losses, but we haven't really gotten our teeth kicked in yet. I'm worried it's going to be week four. How are you feeling house? Well, I'm feeling good, but not as good as you, buddy. Happy birthday. I mean, let's start this off right. Welcome to the Droopy Balls Club. Yeah, I'm here. Do I get a membership card? What happens? Well, you know, you own it. It's between your legs right now. You don't need a card.

It's your balls. They're hanging down way too low. It's going to be that way for the rest of your life. You know, my Uncle Rick, my beloved Uncle Rick, my mom's only brother, told me in the 1990s when he turned 50, he must have been in his early 50s, and he said, hey, someday you're going to turn 50.

When you turn 50, never walk by a bathroom without going in and never leave a hard-on unattended. That's my Uncle Ricky's advice. Uncle Ricky. Unbelievable advice by Uncle Ricky. Yeah, that's it. feel free to use that as your yearbook quote anybody out there in high school or college never pass a bathroom without going in and never leave a heart on unattended uncle rick on age 50 i think i'm putting that

on my business's website i mean i think that's my new marketing slogan what are you talking about he's um i saw the great picture with, you had your mom and your dad out there in LA with you. Where'd you guys go to eat? You know, I have to always talk about where you ate. Yeah, so we got to do this before we do Million Dollar Picks. So I told you about the wonderful dinner I had at Madeo last week.

So we went to Repub. Yes, you sure did. Republique this week. Oh yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, an OG classic top five or six best restaurant in la and um same thing like just awesome atmosphere great service the food's awesome everything they just know what they're doing nephew kyle ate so much that we had to wheel him out so that was that was very nice of you to include nephew Kyle

in your birthday celebration. Was it tough? Was he the last one to make the list? No, we had table freight. He's always invited. He's always invited. That's Jesus' house. God, Kyle's right here.

God damn it. Jesus. So one thing they have there, they have the 14 ounce porterhouse, or you can go like the 32 ounce or you have to share it. And it's not cheap. So my son wanted to share it with my cousin, my cousin Pete, who was also there and was all excited, ordered it. And they were like, actually, it takes like an hour and a half to cook. What are your thoughts on that house I would say fine

get cooking bro let's go I'm also surprised that means that it's a big thick piece of meat that they cook at a low temperature to start and then must do some kind of a real sear at the end they'd like to call that the

reverse sear yeah you can uncle ricky probably has a view about the reverse sear as well but the uh so that that that's what the time is but you know any dinner where you're with eight people like that it's a celebration dinner it's it's crazy how fast time goes by as long as the appetizers are flowing, the early stuff comes in, you can wait an hour and a half for an entree. Yeah. Well, my son was the wild card.

If not for him, maybe we wait the hour and a half. So what they do is they have the 14 ounce. It comes with these five different sauces. It comes on a big platter. I know you love the big wood raised platters. And it has the steak in the middle. They've already cut it into slices. Yes. They put the sauces all around it.

And then the giant thing of fries in the little bucket next to it. And you really, it's kind of overwhelming. Like you really feel you get it and you go, how am I going to eat this? Which I know has never been a problem for joe house so i'm gonna have to take you there i don't say that i don't say how am i going to eat this but i i understand the sentiment and you know what i would say honestly with that kind of

presentation and that attention to detail and all of that care what it really translates to to me is a beautiful sharing dish like it's already sliced would you like a slice please try a slice look at all these fries this bucket of fries you can pass around this bucket of fries would you like some fries i mean that's that's the nice communal aspect especially of a celebration dinner like this well you'll be happy to know my dad and my mom who sat next to each other who really adore each other after all these years in their own weird way. They actually shared the 14 ounce steak and shared it together. It was great.

What a moment. Yeah. I had like four glasses of wine by the end of it. I was rooting for them to get back together. It was really something. I was like, ah, my stepmother would be all right.

I mean, she wasn't first, you know? No, it's, it's a great one though it you definitely uh it's definitely especially after a couple of drinks you're like hey that's my mom and my dad and they're next to each other this is weird not only that they're sharing a steak yeah

and then they just kept telling me how weird it was that i was 50 and i'm like i already feel conflicted enough about this could uh can you stop telling me my dad's like i can't believe i have a 50 year old son it's like me neither I can't believe I have a 50-year-old son. I was like, me neither. I can't believe it either. Let's move on. I bet that you're still alive, Doc. Just knock on wood and celebrate the day. You made it another day, bro. It was a great day for him. He did the Shawshank Pod with me. We had a huge dinner last night. And then today he's just hanging out at the house because I had to work all day. And we went on Hulu because he watches Chicago PD, Chicago Fire. And there's a third Chicago show?

In Chicago ER, he watches all three. And he was saying how much he loves the shows. Yeah, so they're on for three straight hours. And he said his favorite one's PD, but he loves all three. And he didn't get to see them last night because we had dinner. But the good news is they're on for three straight hours. He said his favorite one's PD, but he loves all three. He didn't get to see them last night because we had dinner, but the good news is they're on Hulu. I set up Hulu for him as I was leaving, and he was trying to figure out,

did he want to go PD first or go in the order of the shows? I was confused. He said they'll have crossover episodes or there'll be plots. Why not? Why not? Why not? We also, we were driving yesterday. We went to Ben's football game and there was a billboard for Bluff City Law with Jimmy Smith's new law show.

And I joke and I was like, dad, that looks like a show you'd watch. And he's like, oh, it's on my DVR season pass. Like he's locked in. It is so funny to know somebody who's the exact audience of all these shows that you wonder who the hell's watching them. It's my dad, and 10 years from now, it's going to be you and me.

Can we tap the brakes on one thing? Why are there three Chicago shows? I like Chicago. It's unclear. Chicago's a great city, but does it really need three shows that revolve around their public services there? Well, I haven't just been to Washington, D.C. I feel like I can ask this.

Why hasn't there been a Washington, D.C. show like that? Well, that's West Wing. West Wing is the Washington, D.C. Yeah, but I'm saying it's always politics with D.C. I would watch Washington Fire or DCPD. Sure. It's a great point. It's a great question.

It's a beautiful city. It would be easy to replicate wherever they film these things. You can try and get authentic with it. Put some Ben's Chili Bowl into it, whatever else. I think Chicago. We're ready. I think Chicago is kind of middle America-y. It's kind of the New York of the middle of the country.

And maybe that's their thinking with Chicago. Yeah, but I mean, I think they must feel like it reaches the most states, basically, with people who are like, okay with Chicago. Whereas like New York or LA, that's got the backlash with certain parts of the country. I don't know.

I don't want to step on our picks, but I really am interested. Does that mean, then, if your thesis about why Chicago is an attractive destination for these shows as the site for where these shows take place, is there a Midwest sensibility? Do they talk with the accent? Are they all nice to

each other? Is that all part of it? I don't know. I can call my dad after we do pics. And first of all, I really want to find out what happened on Chicago PD. I had no idea that the three were in a row. It's three straight hours of PD, fire. What's the third one? I think it's ER, emergency. pd fire what's the third one i think it's er emergency i'll look at er emergency something it's three hours in a row of set in chicago with different things going wrong this is nbc's entire night on a on a wednesday night chicago med chicago med that's what it is chicago med in related news how did nbc do at the emmys did well i don't think they cared they're making money i mean none of the networks win emmys anymore now now it's all the niche shows i think we have a

better chance than ever maybe uncle rick's um amazon show will finally be a major hit well that that's a good segue to the picks because that's the only pick we lost last week. We got hosed on Veep. We got hosed on JLD and Veep. I know. You know, and it was one of those things watching the Emmys. When Fleabag won for like writing or something, I was like, ah, we're going to lose. It was like, if Fleabag's going to win that award, or it's like director. It was one of the ones that wasn't, but it was clear the Academy was aware of Fleabag. And at that point, it was a game over because Fleabag was a really good show.

But we actually did a hottest take, the new podcast we have, which I'm excited to have you on at some point because you have a slew of hot takes. But we did a hottest take this week about, Chris Ryan has a theory that there should actually be two Emmys. It should be a March Emmys and a September Emmys. Cause these shows are so short now. It's almost stupid to just have one Emmys. This is six, seven,

eight episode seasons. Like why not? That's not, that's not a hottest take. That's a brilliant idea. It's pretty good. You know, who would probably go for that?

That's the Emmys, the Emmy people. Like it really does make sense. And you know, you, you for that? The Emmys, the Emmy people. It really does make sense. And you can stick it in on a Sunday night calendar where it's not interfering with whatever the HBO popular show du jour and it's not interfering with whatever. It's just college basketball at that point. NBA basketball hasn't really been ramped up to where there's going to be any conflict.

Sunday night, the Emmys can have two Sunday nights. Why not? Well, my tweak was add a third Emmys. That's just the networks. So Chicago PD could finally get its due. It's never going to beat Game of Thrones, but it might have a chance against

Blue Bloods or Grey's Anatomy. Chicago Med. Yeah. Chicago Med up against CSI. CSI is everywhere now, right? Yeah. So basically the Premier League and La Liga would be these other two Emmys with all the

best soccer players. And then the MLS would be this network Emmys that we'd have in June where it'd be like, oh, it's cool. Hey, Zlatan. Zlatan, whatever his name is. Oh, cool. MLS guys. Hey, we've got a sellout here in Seattle. But it's not really the best talent. It would be the same thing for the network

Emmys. Just get super excited. I mean, it would be CSI, NCIS, Big Bang Theory. Isn't that a show? Big Bang Theory. Right, right. And all the Chicago shows. All Bang Theory. Good Guy, isn't that a show? Big Bang Theory. Oh, yeah. Right, right. And all the Chicago shows.

All that stuff. So that'll be good. Hey, we're teaming up with FanDuel to give you a chance to play fantasy football against me, Sal, the Trifecta, and NotHouse. The winner gets to fly to Puerto Rico to be our official correspondent for FanDuel's World Fantasy Football Championship Live Finals. You get an all-expense-paid trip to enjoy four days' worth of WFFC

events in Puerto Rico, including an exclusive beach afterparty with a live performance by Ludacris. We still don't know what Harry's going to be doing. We might send him, though. Go to FanDuel.com slash Ringer to enter and draft your Week 4 fantasy team before games kick off on

Sunday. House, I finished 39th last week. I actually was in the $15 money range, but here I'll give you two names I'm looking at this week before we get to the picks. And one is tied into our picks. I just put my homes every week. Now they can't make the salary high enough.

It's like, guess what? Guess who's going to throw for 350 yards and at least three TDs this week, Pat Mahomes. So you can try to psych me out. His salary is 9,200 on FanDuel this week. I'm not even blinking. The other one I like, this is a cheaper guy.

This guy, Preston Williams on Miami, who I just picked up in the Fantasy League, my West Coast auction league. Josh Rosen has known him since high school. Threw to him 12 times last week. Unfortunately the four were completed, but he is the only bright spot on this Dolphins team. And he's going for a, a tiny 5.2. So he's almost half the price of my homes, but I think he's going to end up being the one bright spot for the Dolphins. At least that's

what I'm banking on. But anyway, you can play against me, Sal, in the trifecta, not House, in the Ringer Listener League on Fando. It doesn't matter if you missed last week. You can still take home the top prize. Go to Fando.com slash Ringer and enter now. House, if you want to get in this, tell us. At some point. Yeah, I mean, I want in.

Okay, let's talk about football here. So through three weeks, road teams, 31-16-1 against the spread house. Underdogs. Yeah. Underdogs are 27-20-1. So this is a variation of what seems to happen every year the first few weeks where nobody knows who's good

so the underdogs tend to cover more the road teams we always overrate early and you know it just doesn't matter but now we're heading the point where home field starts to matter a little bit more zigging when everybody is zagging starts to matter more

people start to think they know the teams and then that's when something weird happens. I've never been a huge fan of week four. It always scares me. Are you more confident than I am in week four? No, no. I had a very hard time finding two games that I like on this slate. I had an easy time coming up with a bunch of stay aways. I had a much harder time coming up with two games that I like because of what you just described,

that phenomena of, you know, teams identity evolving. And as soon as we think we know exactly how a team is going to be, the script is flipped and they go out. You get this, I'm worried about Kansas City at Detroit. Now, what possible thing have we seen out of Kansas City to suggest that they should be favored by less than a touchdown in this 2019 football season. And yet, that's exactly why I'm afraid of this game. Detroit has played well in its two games on the road,

and it also held serve against the Chargers, a quality team, a team everybody's penciled in for the playoffs. So now all of a sudden I'm looking at Kansas City against Detroit. I love the fact that it's a one score game it feels like value i just can't pull the trigger on it so this is this is that i'm using that as an example of of what i'm concerned about with this week for slate all right i'm glad you brought that game up so the lions two oh and one So the Lions, 2-0-1. Arizona week one, they're up by 18. They blow it late, screw it up, ends up being a tie. Week two, they play the Chargers,

and we did a podcast together that night in D.C. with House. The Chargers just give the game away 17 different ways, including a fumble on the one-yard line, a couple missed kicks, Rivers throws a bad pick on the one yard line couple missed kicks Rivers throws a bad pick at the end the Lions basically are handed a gift and then kind of the same

thing in the Eagles game last week there was a bunch of times the Eagles felt like they were going to come on and shot themselves in the foot, did something bad the Lions did a little more to win that game but you know it's a team that could easily be 0-2-1, 0-3. I'm just not sold on them. And the good news is I think that's why the line is lower

because Vegas is like, is this team good? And gamblers are like, wait, the Lions, they're 2-0-1. Getting seven at home? This is tasty. And I just don't think they're in the same class with the Chiefs remotely. To me, it's like the Chiefs losing this game, I would really have to be suspicious of them going forward. It's indoors. Mahomes never played indoors. They have an explosive offense. We haven't seen anything from them that doesn't make us think they can't score 30 in

any game. And the Lions would have to match firepower with them. I'm not sold on them matching firepower. So why are you afraid of this game house? Just because I'm afraid of them because the Chiefs defense and the Chiefs defense on the road. And

again, the best I can come up with is, um, this just, just this we've settled in to a set of expectations with Kansas city. We've not seen anybody really put up any resistance. Uh, the, the Ravens were, were up to the task over the course of the game. It took the Ravens a little while. They just couldn't get all the way caught up there playing catch-up ball. Yeah. But I don't think you and I put the Detroit Lions in the same class as the Ravens. It's just that we've seen three kind of weird games out of Detroit.

Matt Patricia is an absolute train wreck. That part of it makes it it you know gut wrenching to bet on detroit every week uh wait are you thinking about you are you thinking about betting on detroit because i'm just telling you right now that's not happening no i i i this is the thing though this is like the the the true quandary that i'm confronted with here i it feels like the easiest thing in the world is to just take the Chiefs winning by a touchdown. How can that not come to pass? Yeah, but here's my question.

What about a tease? The teaser basket is nice and full this week because I have that game in the teaser basket. The Rams right now are laying nine to Tampa. So it would have to be a six and a half point tease because you know I hate teasing things to three. I got to get it to two and a half. So they'd have to win by three. I've watched, weirdly, a lot of Tampa the last couple weeks,

including every play of the Carolina game, which Cam lost that game more than the Bucs won it. Cam was just awful. And then last week, the Giants, they couldn't put freaking Danny Dimes away. Barkley goes out in the game. They have a double-digit lead basically the whole game.

They blow it anyway. And now they're going to the Rams. I am a big believer in the Goff is way better at home than he is on the road. And I haven't been that impressed with Goff just in general, but I think that team has a lot of firepower and there's more blowout potential than anything. And I haven't been that impressed with Goff just in general, but I think that team has a lot of firepower. And there's more blowout potential than anything.

But man, teasing them down to two and a half, why wouldn't I want to do that house? Okay, now you're talking my kind of language. This is something I can get behind. If we can bring the Chiefs all the way down into basically you take them from six and a half down to a half point so that that becomes a pick them and you grab the rams nine and a half and get them down to oh wait a minute the rams i see it at nine and a half i have the rams at nine

so you're getting them down to three no i'm doing a six and a half point t's so i'm taking them down to two and a half. Oh, so we have to pay a little juice on this then? No, not necessarily because there's a third piece to this. Oh, you're going to do three team tees or oh Lord have mercy. I'm listening. Yeah.

So six and a half point tease is plus 150 if you hit all three. All right. So there's two candidates for the third spot. Are you with me? The Rams will beat the Bucks by three points. It's a trap game for the Rams because they play Seattle next Thursday.

We're acknowledging that. I agree with you that we haven't seen the best of golf yet. I thought we were going to see a bigger golf last week against Cleveland. I admired, though, the gutsy performance, the gutsy win, and letting Cleveland just beat themselves. I don't know why that game plan couldn't work in L.A. The Rams need their fans to show up. They need that home field advantage to really come through and carry them through.

That's the way that you avoid a trap game. And just go in by a field goal, okay, I'm there with you. So if the Rams complete third and one against the Browns when everybody was wide open and golf scrambling or he could have just scrambled for it and the Rams win that game 27 to 13. So they basically screw up that one play. They would have, they probably would have scored. Let's just say that drive goes differently and they win by 14. Do you feel differently about having any fear whatsoever with the,

with the Rams? Cause I don't. And I actually thought the Rams kind of dominated that Browns game. Their defense is better than I think they're getting credit for. And I also think with those three receivers, 20 points is about as low as they're going to do in a game, you know, because all those guys can get open on any third down

and somebody's going to be open and make a play. And I think this is the week that they start to figure out they can't rely on Gurley anymore. I don't think we see Gurley really... I'd be shocked if we saw him that much this week because they'd want to save him for Thursday anyway. But I would use this week as a week to use Malcolm Brown and Henderson, the rookie,

and just see what I have with those guys, whether I can actually count on them. Well, okay, good. So that's it. I voiced the concern. I'm over it. I'm agreeing with you. We like the Rams. This is the concern of week four. I don't feel good about anything, which we're going to have to talk about whether we can scale back on million dollar picks for a week if we don't love the slate. So the third team, the possibilities are bring the Patriots down no point. Here's the case for the Patriots really quick.

Don't think about the whole the Bills have a good defense thing. Everybody's gravitating toward the Bills. Excellent defense, home field advantage, all that stuff. My question is, I think the Pats have the best defense in the league. And if it's not the best defense in the league, it's in the conversation for best defense. The Bills are not going to be able to run the ball on them. Frank Orr, I saw some stat this week. He is last in the league in tackles broken. I just think he's at the tail end. I know he's putting up stats. You don't have to throw the stats at me. I get it. I watch football every Sunday. This is not somebody that is going to gash the Patriots' defense.

This is the best defense they've had in 15 years, which means they're going to put the ball in Josh Allen's hands. Belichick's going to take away the running game, and he's going to force Josh Allen to make plays. From what I've seen from Josh Allen, even though he has the ability to kind of rally at the end of these games, just the four quarters of consistency and not fucking up, he can't help it.

He fucks up like three, four, five times a game. He'll just make a terrible play. So I think the Patriots defense can cover this by themselves. Patriots offense, James Devlin's out, which is really going to hurt them from a running standpoint. But I also think it's going to make them do a little more like that. James White, Rex Burkhead running back.

So you can catch the ball in the backfield kind of offense. And I think they'll do enough to win, but I think the defense wins this. How scared are you of the bills? I'm not scared. And, and you touched on this with Josh Allen. The Patriots right now lead the league in pressure rate on the opposing quarterback. Josh Allen had one opportunity against the Patriots last year. He wasn't able to play in the first

game. He was hurt. He was 20 of 41 for 217 yards and a touchdown to go along with two interceptions in that game. I expect a repeat of that, that version of Josh Allen that misses guys in terms of, of, you know, the four or five tough Josh Allen plays. The thing that he loves to do is overthrow somebody. I mean, there were many, many moments during that game last week where I thought our little parlay, we had a parlay on the side with the Bengals winning outright in Buffalo. That was a very live play.

They took the lead. They were up. Yeah. It was a live play all the way through. The Bills defense bailed them out. But that is not going to be an option against Tom Brady and the New England Patriots this week. So this is one of the two games that I felt like was worth talking about that I like this week.

I like New England in this position. They are really out there laying down. They're doing this show show me thing, right? Like, Hey jets, you think they're, they're, they're showing the division. They have the, the, the dolphins, the jets and Buffalo all in a row after they whooped Pittsburgh, nobody scored a touchdown against them. It took two insane flukes for the Jets to manage 14 points last week. I mean, the punt thing is just a flat-out fluke.

The pick six was... Yeah, the defense never gave up a touchdown and still hasn't. And I do think that matters to this team. So, whether the Bills can move the ball against this defense I really don't see it and by the way Brady is 30-3 against the Bills lifetime and this is like out of all the teams in the NFL this is the team

he's just kind of owned and I know everybody's talking about huge game biggest Buffalo game in X many years all that stuff but sometimes that backfires again especially teams that hadn't been there in a while where there's so much anticipation and energy. And Brady loves this.

This is his whole career. He's loved games like this of, oh, here's the atmosphere. Great. I'm going to pick a pin in the balloon and deflate it immediately. And these are always my favorite Brady games. I love when he's on the road

and sticking the pin in people, whether they can harass him, whether they can shut down the Pats and turn this into an ugly 13-10, kind of like what that Bengals game was like last week. That's possible, but I like the pedigree of the Pats and I'd be really surprised that they lost. So going back to the three-teamer, I'd be really surprised that the Chiefs, Rams, or Pats lost. The other team is the Colts, who is favored. The Pats are favored by seven and a half. The Colts are favored by six and a half against the Raiders. The reason that line is low, no T.Y. Hilton. I don't think he's playing. They don't have Malik Hooker. They don't have Darius Leonard. So two of their better defensive guys are gone. But if you look at the Raiders side, the Raiders have been decimated on defense. They ran out of linebackers last week. And on the road,

they've been blown out in their last two games. And we believe that John Gruden was this guy all along. There's some trap game potential for the Colts because this is an allegedly, you know, an easy game before they have a couple of big ones coming up. But at the same time, I think because they're banged up, I don't think this game will be easy, but this feels like just a Marlon Mack special. I really think he's one of my favorite guys

in the NFL this year, and they've won us money three times in a row. And I would feel remiss if we didn't at least think about putting them in a tease. So what do you think of them? Well, I'm going to bet them outright to cover the six and a half this week. I have three games that I have conviction that I have a strong feeling for. I like Dallas beating the saints this week in the superdome, uh, in prime time. I know how insane that is. There's a bunch of stats that say that Dallas, uh, doesn't play well, uh, against New Orleans.

I think this Dallas Dallas team is just a class above New Orleans and New Orleans had that, uh, you know, classic, our guy got hurt. Let's rally around, um, you know,

victory in Seattle last week, this week's a letdown moment for them. So I love Dallas by two and a half against the, the, the, uh, saints. I,

um, really, really like this Colts game, uh, at a, at a single-score position. And then the Patriots, I was going to buy a half a point, so the Patriots are only favored by seven. That's my individual action. So this Colts game absolutely fits.

Speaking of outclass coaching, Frank Reich has been terrific so far this season. I don't think that we can, you know, Jacoby Brissett, like what numbers would be the expectation out of Andrew Luck through these three games this season that Jacoby doesn't have? You know what I mean? Completion percentage is right there. Yards are right there. And, you know, moving the ball around,

I love the variety of targets, the way that they're moving it around. Here's the problem with him, though. They just have a lot of young receivers. I know I've adopted the Colts. I've watched all of their games. And with no T.Y., it gets dicey. And these

are guys that might come through. It's just they haven't been in a spot with those guys where it's like we're down four. We need to score. We're going to lose the game. I don't know where he goes on third and nine other than the tight ends. That's the one thing I'm worried about, other

than the injuries in the defense. I don't think it's going to matter this week because I don't think the Raiders are good. There's a six and a half point tease is plus 150. And what I was thinking, we don't have to decide yet. Chiefs, Rams, Patriots, and then Chiefs, Rams, Colts. And doing two different six and a half point teases at plus 150. So file that one away.

Let's do that. File that one away. Why are we filing it away? Well, because I'm not there yet. I like the Jags plus three. They are playing in Denver. I've seen a lot of Denver the first couple weeks. Defense just wildly overrated. Anyone who has them in fantasy can attest.

They just don't seem to have a pass rush. I mean, you could see the first week against Carr and the Raiders. He had all day to throw. And I don't think their defense is good. Flacco is just, I don't know how many more weeks we have to watch that. And this seems like a team that is one more loss away from maybe selling off some parts. My dad has been very focused on Emmanuel Sanders and maybe the Patriots potentially getting him. But it would take one more, I think, bad loss at home for that to happen. With the Jags, the reason I'm hesitant is

it doesn't seem like Jalen Ramsey is going to play. But I watched that Thursday night game last week and their defense looked great. And Minshew's good. They lucked out with your guy DJ Chark. Yeah, Chark. The Jags guy. I'm looking

at Kyle. Kyle was texting. But he looks like he's a player. Four nets on the wrong team, but that's fine. But this just looks like an ugly game where I actually think G. Minshew in the fourth quarter could pull one out. I like that they're getting three. It feels like an ugly game where I actually think G Minshew in the fourth quarter could pull one out. I like that they're getting three. It feels like a field goal game to me.

So I had that one written down. I was looking at Falcons minus four too. Falcons minus four against the Titans. It feels like Mariota were at the tail end, right? Two more starts. One and a half more starts.

He looks so bad against the Jags last week. He's looked bad all season. The only time he looked good was when they got a lead against the Browns and he didn't really have to do anything. He throws the ball like he thinks it's a completion if he lands it within five yards of the receiver. Right. So the Falcons are minus four.

The case against them is, I went and read all the articles about them. Like, they're at a crisis point with Dan Quinn. They lead the league in penalties. There's a lot of stuff like, do the Falcons need more of a leader, more of a hard ass? Is this guy too cushy with his players?

Just what's going on here? And then they lost their safety, Neil, last week, who was a heart of the defense guy. And that was brutal. He's out for the year. So there's a couple of red flags. Other than the Falcons are one and two, it might just be snake bit this year.

But this seems like a line that three weeks from now might be Falcons by eight. And so you're catching two teams where people don't really fully realize yet that the Titans suck. And people are kind of discounting the Falcons because of what happened the first three weeks. But I was really impressed by them

in the second half of that Colts game. That game was over and Matt Ryan was lights out and I thought their offense was cooking and the Colts barely held on and held them off. I was impressed. So Falcons by four, they score the first touchdown. Great. I guess the catch here is then you have money in the Falcons and what's worse than when Matt Ryan is thrown off his back foot and you just get mad that you got talked yourself into that. What do you think? The Falcons are up 10 in the fourth quarter and they're driving to either get a, a, a, a clinching field goal or a clinching touchdown and Matt Ryan throws off his back foot and not that 10 becomes a, a,

a, a three and you lose the bet. That's the concern I have. So here's, there's a couple of different plays with the actual, with the point totals. You can bet the Falcons to win by 22 or more is plus 500. So you're basically saying,

I think the Falcons are going to blow out the Titans. I think this is going to be a blood bath. You could do that. You could also bet Falcons minus nine and a half. It's plus 180. Or you can bet them to win by a touchdown

is plus 143. So you bet 100 you win 143 if they win by eight or more. Do you like any, you win 143 if they win by eight or more. Do you like any of those? Not really. Okay. For all the same reasons. So you'd go with the minus four.

All right. The third one I had written down. It's funny. We didn't talk about this beforehand. I kind of like the Saints. I think the Cowboys look too obvious. Interesting. Super dumb. So we didn't compare notes.

No. Here's my thing with the Saints. Are we sure Drew Brees was that good? Is this like that devastating that he's not the quarterback? Are we doing hottest take right now? No, I'm just like, you know. He's pretty good. If the Chiefs lost Mahomes, I'd be like, oh, well, they're fucked.

With the Saints, I think they have a lot of talent on both sides of the ball. I think they have really good coaching staff. I think they have good special teams. They can kind of absorb this. Bridgewater's a B minus, a C plus, a C, whatever. He's not terrible. He got the game ball last week. It seems like his teammates really like him

and i thought this line was going to be like saints by two it was i was four and a half points off the line cowboys getting a lot of credit for not really doing anything yet they beat three teams they should have beaten yeah but they scored 30 points each time they took care of business that's that that's what you get credit for they took care of business against shit teams now they have to establish yourself yeah but they're now they're in the superdome this is totally different this is like a real game yeah i mean we we uh have been giving the rams credit for taking care of business against crappy teams we're not going to do it for d. But the Rams made the Super Bowl last year. What the fuck has Dallas done? I don't know. That's my question.

All I'm saying is, position wise, three straight games, handling their business. They're one of four teams that have covered all of their, undefeated against the spread this season. Here's the real

knock for me. This is my concern. This is why I don't like the Saints. Last week, they gave up 515 yards and managed, on their own side, 265 yards. There is a

stat out there. I give up a shout to RJ White, CBS Sports. Teams that fit this profile are 2 and 50 straight up when gaining 270 yards or less and giving up 500 yards or more. 2 and 50 is a trend. I mean, that's a good number. I agree that Dallas hasn't really been tested yet. This will be a good test for them. But I also happen to think that they're not bad on the road. They really took care of business against the stupid Deadskins.

I know the Deadskins stink, but Dallas was a little shaky, and then they were like, wait a minute, what are we doing? And then they just hammered them them took them out of the game so I think this will be a better contested than than Dallas versus the dead skins but I like Dallas so Seattle scored 20 points in the last quarter of that game and that is where they got most of their garbage yards actually the game was 27 to 7 after three quarters that That Saints... With 13 of those 13 of the Saints' points were a punt return touchdown and a

punt recovery touchdown. I know, but I'm just saying, Wilson put up that was a lot of garbage time going on. That game was done in the third quarter. Alright, so we'll stay away from that game. Okay. I'm going to stay away from the Jags as well, as much as I want to put something on that.

I don't, I was going to, that would be my recommendation. I don't like going against Denver in Denver just as a basic, you know, it less than that, that three point number. I don't like it.

I'm going to stay away from the Falcons as well as minus four, as much as I like it. I've looked at it long and hard. I just don't. Matt Ryan, you've hurt my feelings too many times. So even though this is million dollar picks, I think we go 200 on the Chiefs Rams Patriots, six and a half point tees plus 150. And Chiefs Rams Colts, six and a half point tees plus 150. So the Chiefs are down to even. The Rams are down to two and a half.

The Patriots are down to one and the Colts are down to even. All three have to win. Chiefs, Rams, and Pats, 200 to win 300. Chiefs, Rams, Colts, 200 to win 300. We're going to play a little safe this week, House, and protect the nest egg. I like it. It's just smart. It's smart gambling

is what it is. It's smart gambling. We built up the bank. There's no reason to blow the whole load. That should be an Uncle Ricky one too. Shout out to Uncle Ricky. We're making this an Uncle Ricky week never pass a bathroom without going in never leave a heart unattended

and never force the same amount of bets in a week that you don't really like so there you go he did it again House always a pleasure we'll listen to you on House of Carbs when's the next one coming out next week I'm sitting down with Kevin Alexander the food critic for Thrillets he has a new book out called burn the ice where he posits that the restaurant

revolution in the united states of america is about to be over oh that's terrible well i mean it's it's it's his theory he has he has some good can on this. Can you give Kevin a middle finger for me? Tell Kevin, here's my middle finger. I love restaurants. No, I'm excited to hear that. Yeah, it'll be a good one. All right, House, a pleasure. As always, talk to you soon.

Don't leave the hard-on unattended. All right, Mallory Rubin's coming on in one second. First, according to the FBI, on average, a burglary happens once every 23 seconds in the U.S. Only one in five homes have home security. Those two numbers don't add up. You know why? Most companies really don't make it easy.

That's why SimpliSafe is my top choice. Hands down. They protect every door, window, and room with 24-7 professional monitoring for just $15 a month. No contract hidden fees or fine print. And with SimpliSafe's video verification technology, which lets them visually confirm when a break-in is happening, please get to the scene three and a half times faster than with other home security companies. For my listeners, SimpliSafe has a huge deal going on right now. Go to simplisafe.com slash BS, get a free HD security camera when you

order. That's a $100 value. And we'll make sure you can take advantage of their video verification technology. You can have eyes on your home 24-7. Video evidence if somebody tries to get in. Get your free HD security camera now at simplisafe.com slash BS today. SimpliSafe with two I's. SimpliSafe.com slash BS. Let's bring in Mal. All right, the mother of dragons is here, Mallory Rubin. Hello. She's off her sickbed. I'm here. I didn't make you sick, though.

Well, you did not. I should note that a cold, you know, the classic early fall cold is going around the ringer. But for now, that has yet to afflict me. Because we taped our For Love of the Game podcast for Rewatchables99 NC-17. And I was sniffling. And at some point, your eyes started to narrow as you regarded me. And you were like, this fucking guy's sick.

It's true. One of your biggest rules in the office is don't come in and stick, stay home. Respect your colleagues, work from home. I didn't realize I was sick though. I think during the podcast, I was becoming sick. And that was at some point I realized, oh, I think I'm sick, but we were like halfway through. We were pretty far in. I will say I did need some personal time after that podcast, but it's not because I was sick.

Okay. Mallory's most intriguing every Every week, she picks her five favorite things from the heading into the football season. Do you want to go one through five or five to one? Some people suggested starting with the big one and then trickling down to number five. I don't know. What do you think of that? Is that because they could sense

that I was going to pick a baseball item for number five again and they just want to be able to not listen to that part? That was controversial. Was it? I think the people were on my side. Here's the thing. You set up the fact that I needed to watch Cubs Cardinals and actually watch the last few innings on Saturday and watch poor Craig Kimbrell's career end.

It's brutal stuff for Craig Kimbrell. You give up two homers. Brutal. What order do you want? You pick. Well, before we do, I have a little treat for you. You're never going to be more excited by an email ever. Oh, my goodness.

This is an email from Zach from Colorado. Okay. He said that, I expressed disbelief at the Browns' consistent misfortune with head coaches this century. Well, that's to point out, the Browns had 10 coaches from 1946 to 96 with a combined record of 421 and 270, 610 winning percentage. The last one is Bill Belichick. As Mallory knows, Lord Voldemort. Is that how you say it? It's not. How do you say it? It's Lord Voldemort,

though you were close. Lord Voldemort. And I think you inadvertently correctly identified that the T at the end is technically supposed to be silent. All right. Well, that guy

who once coveted the defense against the dark position at Hogwarts. That's right. Dumbledore refused to hire him ever since. No teacher has been able to keep the job for more than a year for various horrible reasons. It's widely believed that Voldemort cursed the position.

Yeah, it's true. He proposes. Did this happen when Belichick got fired by the Browns? They've had 11 coaches. First, the team went defunct. They brought it back. They've had 11 coaches in 20 years. These coaches,

the last one being Friday Soup Kitchens. These coaches are combined 96 and 226, 425 winning percentage. He says Bill Belichick is obviously the Lord Voldemort of the NFL. How likely is it he placed the dark magic curse on the Browns? I love this. I figured you would. I think what we have to note quickly is that the implication here, if we extend the logic of that comp, it's not just saying that he would have placed

a curse on the Browns, as Voldemort did with the Defense Against the Dark Arts posting, but that he would have coveted the Browns job in the first place, just as Voldemort coveted a return to Hogwarts in that post, so that he could build his own army, tap into a store of ancient magic, and crucially gain access to the Founders' objects to create a Horcrux.

Do you know what a Horcrux is? I have no idea what's going on right now. It's an object in which you encase. This is a very, very, very reductive, simplified read. If you want a more in-depth explanation, I have 150 hours of a podcast that you're welcome to listen to. I've heard of that. Yeah.

It's an object in which you encase a piece of your soul so that you can be immortal. Tethered to life should your body be eliminated. Is that what he did with Tom Brady? Well, we'll see. There's something here. I think we might be onto something here. There's something here. Married it on that. Next week, you can really give us your full take.

And then the only other email that I thought was worth mentioning was from Adam Gropper with two Ps. He said, I've been listening to Bill Simmons' podcast for a long time. I've never enjoyed something more ever than the Jewish athletes discussion with Mallory. Please make this a recurring thing. It was amazing.

Shana Tova! Shana Tova! Shana Tova to you. So you have those two. We do have some fodder for Jewish talk. What is it? You know, Alex Bregman, he's making a late push in the MVP race.

Oh. I don't want to have this argument with you again, but I do want to note that the modern age Hebrew hammer, Alex Bregman, has crossed the 40 home run threshold. He's north of eight war. By your logic, you'd look at the wins column. The Astros are going to finish

probably with the best record in baseball. He's making a case. He's winning some people over. Trout, of course, injured, sidelined. Just throwing it out there for you. You mean war? Certainly a more compelling argument

than your DJ LeMay heat one. I'll just, I'll say that. I was just throwing out guys on good teams. Yeah, I know. Do we trust war? Because Cole's war is lower than Mike Miner's war. Mike Miner had a great season.

Cole's like Colin Verlander. How do they not have the best war of all the pitchers? I don't understand war. I was right. A lot of people emailed and said, it was great to hear you be so right with the Mike Trout MVP thing. I felt bad for Mallory how wrong she was,

was the common refrain. Were these people that you met in your new AARP group now that you're VP? Here's the best case I heard for my case. Nobody supported your case. No, a lot of people did actually. Okay. It actually does the Angels damage

for Mike Trout to raise their ceiling from 62 wins to 73 wins because all that does is make their draft pick not as good. Right. And why would anyone want that? Like, oh, great.

Now we don't get the third best minor league baseball player or college baseball player, whoever, high school player. Now we have the eighth pick because this fuckhead took us from 63 to 73. Yeah, and they famously

do a great job of building talent in the farm system and developing it. I thought that was a good case. Look, you want to reward losing. I think that's great. You fit in right with the culture

right now in 2019. The participation trophy generation where Mike Trout is an MVP. Congrats, Mike. Your team went 72 and 90. Bill, I have great news for you. Yeah. I've prepared another baseball item for you today.

Great. Let's go. Mallory's most intriguing. I had such a good time chatting with you about America's pastime last week. I just couldn't resist the urge to do it again. Okay. We're going number five? Number five.

Let's go. Can Pete Alonzo break Aaron Judge's rookie home run record? Oh, I'm actually excited about this. You know I love records. This is dope.

This is dope. It's a good one. So, quickly, to lay the groundwork, Pete Alonzo, the pride of the New York Mets, currently, this is,

we're recording this on Thursday afternoon, currently has 51 home runs. It's amazing. Okay. So, he has four games left. He needs to hit one more home run to tie judges rookie record, which was 52 set in 2017.

And he needs to obviously to break it now. Obviously the Mets are not going to make the playoffs. So they were in it until this week, which is an incredible achievement. Despite the overall disappointing season. They've been eliminated officially, right? Yeah. achievement. Despite the overall disappointing season, Alonzo... They've been eliminated officially, right? Yeah.

Alonzo, runaway winner for NL Rookie of the Year. DeGrom in the running again for Cy Young. I can't wait to hear how you feel about that. Nobody turns it on more when their team's out of the race. Is he going to start twice now that his team's been eliminated? He loves the quiet of 10,000 people in a stadium against a bad opponent. Oh my God.

Pete, whether you like the Mets, whether you hate the Mets, whether you care about baseball or not, Pete is unambiguously someone who everybody can celebrate and get behind. Why? Because records and milestones are

cool, right? And this is an incredible achievement. Just breaking the Mets record, which he did when he got to 42. The prior Mets record was 41, Beltran and Hundley. Amazing. Again, he's a 24-year-old rookie. Nickname, Polar Bear. Delightful nickname. Big and goofy. Also plays really well. Charming, loves the game, a very natural charisma and energy. He's going to write up a letter on his notes app on his phone, take a screenshot of it and tweet it to try to get the fans energized and get them out to the park. Wants to be in the spotlight, wants to make you excited about baseball. He's the kind of figure people can celebrate. And then when you consider the historic nature of the achievement,

crossing 50 alone, whether or not he breaks Judge's rookie record, crossing 50 is a titanic achievement. I think it was like 11 or 12 people had done it when I was growing up. We have 46 total 50 home run seasons in baseball history. 46. And that's from only 30 players. Like, this is rarefied air. And he and Judge are the only rookies,

the only rookies, two rookies in all of baseball history who have ever hit 50. Like, this is an incredible thing that is happening. And I don't think it's generating enough interest or attention because the Mets aren't in the race anymore. And also because it's been a dull baseball season and people don't really care. And then I think the other factor,

which was also true for Judge in 2017, is that we're in the juice ball era. And so every home run achievement right now has this asterisk tacked onto it, right? Well, sure, but the ball is juiced. I don't know what to make of strikeouts or home runs anymore and how to put them in any context. Looking at Vertlander and Cole's stats as we're heading to the end, it's like, I don't know what to make of this. Vertlander's got a 0.78 whip. I know, it's unbelievable. But he's given up, what, 35 homers? And it's the weirdest

pitching season I've ever looked at in my entire life. We're totally in the three true outcomes era of baseball, right? We already were. And then obviously the juice ball is a compounding factor there. So we've shattered this season, the overall record for across baseball for home runs, 6,624 currently entering play today. The prior record was in 2017, the judge season, 6,105.

So that is like well above that pace already. Manfred, Rob Manfred, the commissioner, already out there talking about how, oh, you know, the requisite quotes about how they're going to need to examine the ball, make some adjustments, preserve the integrity of the game, whatever. Like, here's my thing about this.

Who cares about whether the ball is juiced or not? Pete Alonso is a star. This is something that people can get excited about. Something happening in baseball that people can celebrate and that can bring you joy is a good and special thing. And I wish we had more things like this right now. And also, nothing in life or in athletics can be divorced from the context of the moment.

Nothing. You can't play baseball in a vacuum. You can't choose what era you're in, right? You can only do the best with what you're given and with what baseball they're throwing your way when you're up at the plate. And Pete Alonso might hit that baseball over a fence 52 times this year.

That's fucking incredible. Can I bring one more point and then we have to move on? Please. Why not bat him first? Well. If he's trying to break a record, my only goal is to get him as many at-bats as possible. And if he's, you know, up fourth in the ninth inning,

he's in the fourth spot and it's like, you got to get five. I just want as many at-bats as possible. I support it. They're out of the pennant race. This is, but even if they weren't, I mean, this is a part of the overall lineup construction innovation in baseball the last few years. Actually, Zach Cram wrote a great piece on The Ringer a couple years ago about this.

When the Astros moved George Springer, one of their best home run hitters, to the leadoff role. Yeah. The logic is exactly what you just laid out. Why not get as many at-bats as possible for the people in your lineup who are going to deliver the most bang? Now, of course, the point that critics of that would raise is, well, you want people on base when a home run hitter is going to be up. But there are going to be people on base every other time.

You're just increasing the sheer volume of the number of times that that person's going to bat. That is objectively a good thing. The move is to bat the pitcher seventh. And to make sure- Seventh, not eighth, because you want two people. Eighth and ninth are actually good hitters in front, so they can't just walk them and get to the next one.

Or better yet. Just turn their bats over. Get rid of the pitcher batting entirely. Yeah. I kind of enjoy it. Bring the DH to both leagues and let's fucking go. It brought us the Cologne home run, which was the most exciting thing

that happened this decade. That's true. And my son still talks about it reverentially. All right, number four. Number four. This one is just for you. Yeah.

And of course, for all the Josh Allen fans out there in the world. Okay. Can the 3-0 Buffalo Bills, I want to be clear here, not win against the Patriots, but can they put up a respectable,

competitive showing against the Patriots? And specifically, can they put a dent in that Patriots defense? Because despite how weak the Patriots schedule has been so far, the defensive achievements are getting to the point where we're going to have to start talking about all-time defensive metrics.

I would love for that to stop as quickly as possible, right? I think most of us would other than you and Kyle. I think it's wonderful and we're still mad at Gunnar for ruining our touchdown streak. Our touchdown streak was great.

No, it's a good way. This is a nice test of Josh Allen. What's he got? Yeah. He doesn't have to be amazing, but it's like, what do you got? This is a nice moment for you.

Let's see it. The Bills are definitely one of the most pleasant surprises of the season right now. Much like the Patriots, the schedule has been weak. So the Patriots have beaten Steelers, Dolphins, Jets.

The Bills have beaten the Jets, the Giants, and the Bengals. Not exactly like stiff competition there on either side. I don't think anyone really thinks the Bills are going to win, but it's just a question of can they hang in? Because if they can, given what the rest of their schedule is, the rest of the way,

they're in line for a potential eight or nine win season, which means they're in line for a potential wildcard berth and a playoff spot. And how they perform this week against the Patriots feels like the kind of game that's going to tell us about what they're capable of the rest of the way. Well, there's only six above 500 AFC teams right now. And then if you look at the one and two and under teams, there's really only another two possible playoff teams. So they have a really good chance to make the playoffs regardless of what happens. The other thing is, of course, this game is in Buffalo.

Yeah. Tom Brady has not had great games on the Brady scale in Buffalo in recent years. But more importantly, what happens when the Patriots play in Buffalo? Bills fans throw dildos onto the field. Okay. This is now a proud, long-running tradition. We had one in Buffalo. Bills fans throw dildos onto the field. Okay. This is now a proud

long-running tradition. We had one in 2016, one in 2017, I believe three. Three in 2018. Triple dildo game. You have all sorts of questions from people.

How are they smuggling them in? Folks, I got news for you. The whole point of a dildo is that you can stick it places. That's how it works. Okay? How are they smoking them in?

I don't know. Will we see more dildos thrown onto the field or touchdowns from the Bills offense against this Patriots defense? That's one of the things I'm watching for this weekend. I would say the dildos are like one and a half favorites over those touchdowns. I'd say at least four.

It's a four Dildo game. Four Dildos? And I would say there are one and a half touchdowns possible for them. So maybe they're two and a half point Dildo favorites. I love it. I love it. The over-under for the actual game is what, 42?

Kyle, I'm laying you two and a half dildos against the Bills touchdowns. Do you want to take the touchdowns? One and a half touchdowns or four dildos? Four dildos. Take the dildos, Kyle. That's a lot of dildos. Four.

She said, I'll take four dildos. All right. Kyle's pretty good. You heard it here. Four dildo game. Kyle's taking the dildos. You heard it here. Way to go. Pro dildos. All right. Kyle's pretty good at the four dildo game. Kyle's taking the dildos. You heard it here. Way to go.

Pro dildos. All right. Can't wait for this game even more than I couldn't wait for it already. Hold on. Before we do the last three, let's talk about Luminary, a podcast subscription service with some of the best content around. I'm excited because it's the only place you can listen to the new upcoming show on The Ringer, Sonic Boom.

The story about how the Sonics were stolen from Seattle and brought to Oklahoma City. Written and hosted by Jordan Kahn, one of your favorites. You love that guy. Look at you, you're moisting up. Your eyes are moisting just mentioning his name. I adore Jordan Ritter Kahn as though he were an actual family member of mine.

Yeah, well, there you go. He's doing this. It premieres next week. Luminary gives you access to a bunch of other, other original shows from innovative dynamic creators, including the ringer, because that's where we do the rewatchables 1999. Right now you can listen to me and Mallory talk about for love of the game,

break it down left and right. We came to the conclusion that all of the Kelly Preston scenes should be cut except for like two. I'd cut all of them if it meant we could get the full frontal nude scene that we were robbed of. We talked about that

in detail as well. Luminary app, free to download in addition to Can't Miss Originals. You can listen to thousands of pods including

Rewatchables 99, Sonic Boom. You can listen to this one. Whether you're into music, TV or film, comedy, sports, sex, whatever you want, Luminary is the right show

for you. Check out all of it. Get, sex, whatever you want, Luminary is the right show for you. Check out all of it. Get your first two months of access to Luminary's premium content for free when you sign up at luminary.link slash Simmons. After that, it's only $7.99 per month. Luminary.link slash Simmons. Cancel any time. Terms do apply.

What's number three? Number three. The Jalen Ramsey trade saga. The continuation of it. What a bummer. I would have picked them this week against Denver, except I don't like the soap opera, and I actually think they really need him.

I mean, do they need anything but the Mississippi mustache? I think you could ask that. But yeah, I mean, Jalen Ramsey is one of the best defensive backs in all of football, one of the most important defensive players in the league. Weird game, weird time for the Jaguars. We are in the middle of what was already a bizarre story from the sideline argument between Doug Marone and Ramsey, captured on film, broadcast to the massive,

clipped for Twitter in week two, right? Followed pretty quickly by the trade demand from Ramsey. The Jags made it pretty clear they were going to demand two first round picks. Basically, they wanted the Khalil Mack level bounty in return, right? They should get it. Reasonable.

Unsurprisingly, basically every single team reaches out to at least inquire. You have a moral obligation as the GM of a football team to reach out if you think you might be able to get a player like Jalen Ramsey. Very few specific offers have emerged, but we do know that the Ravens, I would fucking love for the Ravens to trade for Jalen Ramsey. He belongs on the Ravens.

We know that they offered a first, a second, and Hayden Hurst, and that the Jags turned that down. Whoa. Yeah. They offered Hayden Hurst, too? They did. Who was the first-round draft pick. I know.

Recently. First, second, and Hayden Hurst. They offered a first, a second, and Hayden Hurst? That was the report. So it really seems like, at least for now, Jacksonville's holding out for two firsts. At least for now. But the question is, how long?

I think I would rather have a second Hayden Hurst. Is that crazy? Or am I overrating Hayden Hurst? I mean, I think that Hayden Hurst is probably a pretty valuable... I would say he's absolutely an above-average tight end. Middle-of-the-field target for Minshew, like, instantly right now.

And then also when Foles comes back, the Ravens don't need him. They have three really capable tight ends. Also, the Ravens are never going to be in the top 10 with what we know they're going to be good. So if you're getting a first, second, those are both going to be at the end of the round anyway. If you're getting a second first from them, that might be end of the first round. So who cares? So that presumably might be part of the first round. So who cares? So that presumably might be part of the calculus, right? Is they're waiting to see

if they can get a comparable or better offer from a team where they think the actual level of the draft pick within the draft is going to be higher. The Minka Fitzpatrick trade. Exactly. But so here's except probably double that. So here's what happened this week, though, because that's already how bizarre things were. That's already where we stood. This

week, beginning of the week, Jalen Ramsey's not practicing, leaves the building. Why? He's sick. He has the flu. Then, back pain. Then, a press conference in which Doug Marone was asked about this and couldn't get through his answer without laughing. Subsequent to that, multiple people have pointed out that he was laughing at something else that had happened elsewhere in the presser. And it was still like a jovial mood in the room. Okay, whatever. It's still like, it played weirdly publicly.

And now Jalen Ramsey is on leave because he's going to Nashville for the birth of his second child. Now. Now he's apparently taking 12-week parental leave. He should be with his- He's coming back for the playoffs. He should be with his newborn child. I fully support it. I am dreading how that particular aspect of that is going to become a story

if he's not playing this weekend or for however long moving forward. It just feels like even though the Jags had a good showing on Thursday night football against the Titans last week, won that game, look like things are maybe moving in the right direction. Minshew is genuinely an exciting player that people seem to want to rally around. Just seems like this is totally untenable. And so I think if he's not there Sunday, even if the reason is, again, to be clear, a good one that I support,

it seems like this is going to continue to fester and... Cut the cancer? It's just going to be... Cut it out? It's going to be something that they have to resolve, unless they can convince him that this is a place that he still wants to be. But he's giving interview quotes. He's going on podcasts and saying,

this isn't about anything except for the fact that I don't like this organization right he specifically said it's about a divide that he has with the front office like he and Tom Coughlin don't like each other he stormed out of the meeting they said so you're manipulating this because you want to get him for a first a second and Hayden Hurst you would drive Hayden Hurst to the airport oh happily I'd request his lift for him. If you got Jalen Ramsey, you're legitimately in the mix now. Oh my God. You're one more blue chipper away, I think. One of the... You could fill it in that Chiefs game.

Yeah, I mean, one of the only questions on the Ravens right now, I mean, there are a few, but one of them is the defensive backfield because of the injuries so far already. And who knows when Jimmy Smith will come back and what kind of shape he'll be in when he does. But adding Jalen Ramsey to that defense

would be absolutely incredible. I think he's a really special player. I wish he had the worst of luck. What's number two? Also, quickly, last thing on this. Remember when he gave the famous interview where he was shit-talking all the other quarterbacks? Yeah.

Danny Heifetz wrote a great blog post about this when the trade demand surfaced, basically boiled down to what would the most awkward trade destinations for Jalen Ramsey be based on the quarterbacks he shit talked guess who he loves

Lamar Jackson well he's on the record saying he should have been the number one pick in that draft so smart man

listen it's meant to be number two who was the number one pick in that draft Bill it was Baker Mayfield and that brings us to number two

what new feuds will Baker Mayfield. And that brings us to number two. What new feuds will Baker Mayfield be involved in by the end of the weekend? Because it's getting hard to keep track of how many people he's feuding with at any given moment in time. What's the list right now? Recently added to the list. This week,

one of your all-time favorites, Rex Ryan. Oh, great. Who called Baker Mayfield, and I quote, overrated as hell. Oh, no. On ESPN's Get Up this week. Baker Mayfield, it's a pattern. It's a track record at this point.

Doesn't shy away from responding to his critics, right? That's part of what makes him such a delightfully charismatic sport and media persona. He's always going to give you the soundbite that you want. Yeah, but what's funny is last decade, we used to call these people thin-skinned. Now it's like,

oh, he's... You don't mess with him. It's flipped for some reason. I think part of it is that with Baker, the way that he responds to these things, it's not like they are hurting his feelings. It's just that he wants you to know that he knows. And there's a subtle difference there that makes it not only like defensible, but kind of fun. So he said- Does he respond as he's backpedaling, backpedaling 11 feet and then he throws the compliment off his back foot?

Yeah. For the insult? Part of the reason that he is rushing out of the pocket two seconds earlier than he needs to on every single pass attempt. Part of it is because the offensive line can't protect him and part of it is because he's running after his next critic to fire back.

So here's what he said about Rex. Quote. This is amazing. Rex Ryan doesn't have any colors right now for a reason. Ooh. Savage.

Colors. I've never even really heard it used that way. I know. It's kind of like poetry. I absolutely love it. Colors. So the list of Baker feuds

at this point, I mean, again, this is just some of them. I mean, Cliff Kingsbury famously. Yeah. Coward, Hugh Jackson, Greg, this is just some of them. I mean, Cliff Kingsbury famously. Yeah. Coward, Hugh Jackson, Greg Williams, Daniel Jones, of course, Patterson, all of Ohio State, all of Kansas back when he was in college. Daniel Jones wasn't a feud though. That was just pure bullying.

Daniel Jones didn't really engage in the way that allows us to elevate it to feud status, but I think Baker wanted it to be a feud. So who's on the list next? Well, who are they playing next? The Ravens. Lamar, positive guy, friendly guy. He's not taking any bait from anyone. He says, I feel he's a great quarterback.

He went number one in that draft for a reason. Okay, I respect it. Great. But Earl Thomas is on this team, folks. Oh boy. Earl, he'll a great quarterback. He went number one in that draft for a reason. Okay, I respect it. Great. But Earl Thomas is on this team, folks. Oh, boy. Earl, he'll have some thoughts. I love it. He's talking a lot of shit this week again.

I support it. And he has said in interviews this week that the Ravens, quote, got tired of all the Browns preseason hype. Browns, team of the offseason. We here at The Ringer devoted a theme week to the Browns hype. It's a great reverse jinx. I'm so proud of it. Its, team of the offseason. We here at The Ringer devoted a theme week to the Browns hype. It's a great reverse jinx. I'm so proud of it.

It worked, folks. Tune in next year for our theme week on the Pittsburgh Steelers. Great. I don't even think we need to waste the time. He, Earl, mockingly noted that the media was talking about Baker like he was, quote, the next savior. I think this has the makings of a potentially really great feud. And of course, with the Browns and the Ravens, you always have all of the factors, all the histories. Of course, AFC North rivals, both

playoff hopefuls. You have the history of relocation. I was going to say, I might have led with that. The fact that you stole their team. You, specifically you. Tough for me to lead with it because acknowledging it at all complicates my ability to then speak with great emotion

about Indianapolis stealing the Colts. You're the second wife slash husband. It's important to me that I'm able to maintain that hypocrisy moving forward, and thus I put that third. You stole them in the thick of the night, late at night with the Mayflower trucks. It's tough.

It was thievery. It's tough. Listen, the Colts did it first. Oh no, that was the- The Colts did it first. The Colts with the truck. Middle of the night. Yeah.

Middle of the night, the Browns were leaving. Yeah, I screwed that up. I couldn't remember which disgraceful hijacking I was talking about. The Colts one was slightly more disgraceful. Baltimore, as a general rule, conducts itself with forthright integrity. Can you say so, Indianapolis? It's true.

At least you came through the front door as you stole everything in the house. That's exactly right. The Colts came in the back door. Knocked. Asked if the alarm was on. So Baker, the next step for Baker, because this is always great,

is to do the comeback either insinuating or coming out and saying that Earl Thomas is washed up or he's a has-been or, well, you know,

Earl was great back in the day. Just something with a little and Earl won't like that, and he'll escalate it from there. But that will be how it plays out. There will be something before or after this game. I feel certain. Now, again, what that something is probably depends on how Baker plays, and that's a huge question.

It's only week four, but the first few weeks have been, I think we can all agree, disappointing and alarming. Well, so Russillo and Chris Long, I thought, did a good thing about this on Monday's pod where it's kind of irresponsible

to blame Baker for this, but there's a tendency when you watch it, especially with how bad he played, but, man, I think it's like 90% unability to block. Yeah.

And then the coaching and some of the shit they do, none of their decisions offensively make any sense to block. Yeah. And then the coaching and some of the shit they do. None of their decisions offensively make any sense to me. And it seems like his number one strength is like quick decision, get rid of the ball.

And that's not really their offense, which I don't understand. And he has two receivers that I would think would be perfect for that. Guys who can get open quickly that he could just be like, oh, that guy's going to do this.

I'm throwing it. Yeah. Well, that was so much of the hype stemmed from exactly that. You who can get open quickly that he could just be like, oh, that guy's going to do this. I'm throwing it. Yeah. Well, that was so, so much of the hype stemmed from exactly that. You had an offense that was already fresh and lively and spry and exciting with Landry, with Chubb, with Baker, et cetera. And then you add Odell to it. It's like, what's not to be excited about? I think the fact that Kitchens is already getting questions about whether he's going to maybe give a play calling is so sternly rejecting that idea. You look at how the offensive line is playing, their inability to protect him. The turnover stuff with Baker is a little deceptive because a lot of those have come late and people tend to say, oh, late turnovers, like he's giving the game away.

It's also like late turnovers. It's already garbage time, you know, being more aggressive because he's trying to lead them back. The Titans game wasn't great. They ran out of offensive linemen. They throw the second half of that game away. But at the end of the day, his passer rating is 70.3.

Like, that's not going to get it done. The next-gen stats had a good nugget about how he's throwing into double coverage at a higher rate than any other quarterback. Like, that's alarming. Because that's about decision-making. I know, but you know, but I think a quarterback is like a Jenga stack.

And you start pulling things out and it could push them in the wrong way. But I know that he's still talented because I have him in both fantasy leagues. And people are trying to steal him from me now. And they're giving me these shitty offers. I'm like, I'm not a fucking moron. I'm not trading Baker Mayfield after three weeks. Classic buy low bullshit. FYI,

this is the Beckham breakout week. I hope so. Waiting. As a proud Odell owner in fantasy. Well, he's going against your team. Well, I just hope Lamar scores more,

you know? But I think this, this is the... I'll take one long Odell touchdown for my fantasy points and then the Browns losing in real life.

That's the ideal recipe for me. All right. Well, hopefully that happens. I'm a Baker believer. This feels like Mike Evans last week where it was like, oh, this is stupid. He's not going to keep having bad games like this.

He's due. This feels like a he's due week for. Yeah, it's just like one of those things where it feels like everything is just one degree off and that one degree shifts back in the right direction. Everything will click. You know, you noted things like his ability to scramble his ability to improvise the fact that he's so

exciting and such a gunslinger also can by definition the other side of that coin is it means you can be a little reckless with the ball that's part of his charm that's part of what makes him so exciting the fact that right now he seems to be using that not as a way to generate offense and keep the defense guessing but to kind of respond to his own team's shortcomings because he just seems spooked. So he's leaving the pocket before he needs to. And what happens? Like, think about the geography of the field.

When you leave the pocket and you roll out, you're pretty much cutting down your reads. And so he's leaving himself with then way more often than he should be. Just one read or a couple of weeks instead of being able to scan the whole field. We've only had three games. I think people over, I never like to look at DVOA or any of that stuff until.

It's a really small sample size. Seven, eight games in. He's played six quarters, you know, and that first game, throw it out. He'll be fine. Sunday night was weird and they had a bad coaching plan, all that stuff. He'll come around one of these weeks, I think. I agree.

Let's do number one quick. Number one. A quarterback that no one has ever doubted, not even once. Danny Dimes. Can Daniel Jones continue the magic in his second start? And, relatedly, can Washington from the other sideline resist the Dwayne Haskins pull for another week while watching what's happening with Daniel Jones unfold on the field in front of them? Division rivals, two rookie quarterbacks,

two of the top three quarterbacks taken in the draft. Obviously, Kyler was number one. Daniel Jones famously, infamously, until last week, and now it's famously, went sixth. Yeah. And Haskins went 15th. What is some of the backstory behind the Daniel Jones pick, which was widely derided here and elsewhere

for being not only a reach in a vacuum, but a reach specifically because the Giants had another pick in the first round. They had the pick at 17, and most people said, well, if you really thought this guy was a first round talent, which to be clear, most people disagreed with, but if you really thought he was a first round talent, wait and take him at 17. Why didn't the Giants do that? Well, Gettleman flat out said, because they knew two other teams and it's been reported widely that those were the Broncos

and crucially the Redskins would have taken him first. They thought Washington was going to take him at 15 and they didn't want not only to miss him, but for him to go to a division rival. That was the funniest thing about this though.

Yeah. That the Washington Redskins, Jedi mind trick the Giants into taking Daniel Jones. Oh my God, you got outwitted by the Redskins and now it turns out they might not have been outwitted.

That's the thing. It seemed like that the entire time, right? Like it was this incredible display of gamesmanship. The thing is, we all should have known. Well,

I'm sorry. We think Gruden and Snyder are capable of that level of subterfuge? Since when? Right. Like what? So,

now where are we for Washington? Well, how come were they not to trade Trent Williams? What the fuck are they doing with that? Especially after what

Tunsell got from the Texans. They could have gotten 70% of that. And now look where we are because Melvin Gordon ended his holdout this week and this is now

officially the last holdout in football. When is this going to end? They're completely botching it, unsurprisingly, just like they appear to be botching the quarterback situation. Now, this is no shot at Case Keenum. I think we both

like Case Keenum, actually. But coming off of Monday Night Football where Washington basically turned Mitch Trubisky into Joe Montana. And I don't know that there's much of a greater indictment

in professional sports right now than that. He was average Joe Montana. That defense, which was supposed to be a strength or at least an improvement heading into this year, has really been a problem all season.

Are they going to be able to slow Daniel Jones playing defense like that? Probably not. I think the Jones train Unstoppable. picks up miles an hour this week. The Hogwarts Express. It's headed for a crash,

but I think this is a good week. Folks, it leaves at 11 and you better be on it. That Redskins defense, terrible. So, Gruden, after Monday Night Football, stuck by Keenum, said he wasn't considering a change. And then, basically, a day later, said he wasn't considering a change, and then basically a day later was sort of starting to walk it back, saying that Haskins, oh, he's going to be ready

if we need him to be. And now, Case Keenum isn't practicing. He's in a walking boot. He has a foot injury. Well, at the same time, Colt McCoy has returned from the broken leg he had last season. So it seems like there's a real chance that despite all of the talk from Gruden about how he wasn't going to make a change,

injury might force him to. If Keenum's not ready and they play Colt McCoy instead of Dwayne Askins while Danny Dimes is doing his thing. He's diming him up. I think it will be a moment that is like incredibly painful for Washington Redskins fans to recover from.

I don't, I'm not saying that I think Haskins is ready, but I am saying that I think this is where the sport is. Like we've just moved beyond the moment where you sit Aaron Rodgers for seasons behind Brett Favre.

That's not really what's happening anymore. And now, of course, you still have the rare examples. Pat Mahomes now, legendarily didn't play his rookie season, came in as a second-year player and won the MVP and shattered every passing record.

Not everybody's Pat Mahomes. And Washington is in Kansas City. Like, this team isn't winning. This team isn't going anywhere. Get him some experience. Why not? What are they losing by putting him out there? Can we go back to the funniest thing you just said, that this would be a painful moment for

Washington fans? That's like, we just did the Shawshank Redemption. It's like, talking about when Andy spent two months in the hole, it's like, oh, that one day they didn't have his food. That was a painful moment for him. It's like, the Redskins fans are in the hole. There's no daylight. There's rats crawling around and they're not getting out. But Bill, what else does that movie teach us?

What do you need? Hope is a good thing. You need hope. Yeah, but Haskins, there's got to be a reason they're not playing him yet. Because this would be the week to play him. But don't you think the reason is...

You don't want to play him and have him be bad and have Danny Dimes be way better. I would wait a week. But why? Because they obviously don't think he's ready yet. But do you think... You don't want to put him in a situation that he's not ready for.

How much of that, though, stems from Gruden being on the hot seat and trying to protect his job? How is it protecting your job if you're not investing in... But that's the thing. If he's trying to protect his job, the move is to play Haskins because that's like your Hail Mary, that he might be good. I would do that.

I don't think that's the way he's thinking about it, though. He's getting fired anyway. I would play Haskins. Haskins is like the get out of jail free card that's probably not going to work, but why not? That's what I'm saying.

Guess who's not? Colt McCoy. I'm with you. We agree. Let's do it. We don't agree on Mike Trout though we don't it's true

we don't agree but we do agree on Pete Alonzo and that's all the Sean Fennessey needs you were one of the 72 win teams that's all you need 72 wins that's good enough for you

most valuable I can't believe the Orioles didn't lose enough games to get the number one pick gonna have to settle for the number two pick I thought you were gonna go fucking Tigers

well this Tigers team yeah has a chance to be the third one pick. Going to have to settle for the number two pick. I thought you were going to go... Well, this Tigers team has a chance to be the third worst team in 60 years. It's incredible. Or 58 years or something. Yeah.

Which I didn't know. I mostly just resent it because I wanted the Orioles to do the full-on Astros tank where you get the first pick multiple years in a row. You're basically doing that anyway. When is...

How's Binge Mode Star Wars doing? I have my Porg shirt on. About to go record an episode right now, actually. And yeah, we're in it, man. We're right in that Nubian royal starship cruising around the galaxy. Kyle asked me the other day,

if Isaac mysteriously died, who would be the producer of Binge Mode Star Wars? And I was like, I don't know. Oh my god, I love it. Yeah, he's wearing Star Wars? And I was like, I don't know. Oh my God. I love it. Yeah. He's wearing Star Wars socks.

Send me your Jar Jar Binks takes. Mal, this was a pleasure as always. I look forward to talking to you next week. A delight. All right. Thanks so much to Flea and Joe Haas.

Mallory. Thanks to Zip Crew. Don't forget to go to zipcrew.com slash BS. Thanks to FanDuel. Don't forget to join our FanDuel League. I'm going to beat you. FanDuel.com slash BS. Thanks to FanDuel. Don't forget to join our FanDuel league. I'm going to beat you.

FanDuel.com slash ringer. And thanks to SimpliSafe. When it comes to home security, SimpliSafe, the best choice. They protect every door and window and room, 24-7 professional monitoring for $15 a month. No contract hidden fees or fine print. They have video verification technology

and they have a huge deal going on right now. Go to simplisafe.com slash BS. Get a free HD security camera when you order. $100 value. We will make sure that you can take advantage of their video verification technology. Get your free HD security camera now. simplisafe.com slash BS. SimpliSafe with two I's.

simplisafe.com slash BS. We'll be back Sunday night, me and the cuz. And we're going to hopefully announce who won this crazy auction we did for ALS. $90,000.

Somebody that was the highest bid on Charity Buzz. We were raising money for ALS through the Jimmy Kimmel Live thing that they're doing. And somebody's ready to sit down with us, watch football with us on a Sunday night,

and do Guess the Lines with us. $90,000. I'll go into ALS. We are humbled. We can't believe it. This is so great. Shout out to John Carlin. Have a great weekend, and we'll see you Sunday night.

I hope it's a girl. I hope it's a girl. I don't have.