The Bill Simmons Podcast - Guess the Lines and NFC Over/Unders With Cousin Sal. Plus, Dick Ebersol’s First BS Interview!

Episode Date: September 5, 2022

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal to talk NFL win totals for the NFC (2:28), before they guess the lines for NFL Week 1 (45:29). Bill is then joined by former chairman of NBC Sports and television legend Dick Ebersol. They discuss what Dick believed to be the key to his career, the inception of 'SNL', Bill Russell stories, making deals with the NBA, NFL, and the Olympics, and more (1:26:52)! Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Cousin Sal and Dick Ebersol Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Before we get to the podcast, I want to send our love to our guy, Jonathan Charks, who has been on this podcast many times, who is a huge, huge, huge part of the ringer and a beloved coworker and a beloved family guy and a beloved friend. He's really struggling right now. If you could put him in your thoughts, please do.

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podcasts, Off the Pike with Brian Barrett, New York, New York with John Jastrzemski, The Full Go with Jason Goff, as he's just in a factory of sadness with the Bears, Ryan Rosillo's podcast, I could just keep going and going. Go check all of them out.

Go check out the rewatchables, which is putting up a new episode on Monday on Labor Day. We did Saving Private Ryan. It is two hours. Me, Sean Fennessy, Chris Ryan. Really a deep dive. What an amazing movie that is. Amazing movie to talk about too,

because it's got a couple of flaws. And we had no problem talking about those flaws, but for the most part, wow, what a movie. Still holds up 24 years later. Coming up on this podcast, it is part two of the Over Under podcast with me and Cousin Sal. We're going to run both of these on Thursday and then Donovan Mitchell got traded. So if you missed that Thursday podcast, Rosillo came on last minute. We talked about the Mitchell trade. Sal and I did AFC over-unders. And now here on this podcast,

we're going to do NFC over-unders, which we taped Thursday and guess the lines. Week one, we are here. We have arrived. So we taped all of this on Thursday, but nothing's changed. It is still timely.

The cuz, he's coming up. And then after that, somebody I've wanted to have on this podcast for years and years and years, the great Dick Ebersole. He's on the last half of this podcast. We talked about his new book and a whole bunch of other stuff. Can't wait for you to listen to that.

This is an awesome podcast. I feel like we should sprinkle in some Pearl Jam. All right, we're going to hit the NFC East. I've been waiting for this all week. I can't wait. Your team, the Cowboys. The Philly bandwagon started in mid, kind of mid-July with the Sharps.

I knew we were all in trouble with Philly bets when House went in early on a giant Philly division bet. And the odds have moved. Oh, a giant. I mean, a with Philly bets when House went in early on a giant Philly division bet. And the odds have moved. Giant. Oh, a giant. I mean, a gigantic Philly. Giant Eagles bet. Yeah. So the Eagles' odds, they are now plus 145 for the division.

Look at it. We're starting with the Eagles. Well, I'm going to get to Dallas. I'm just giving you the odds. Over under for them is 9.5 minus 145 action. First seed on Sunday, they were 16-1 to be the first seed. Now they're 10-1. Their playoffs is almost up to 2-1

on FanDuel. It's minus 198. 10-plus wins is minus 130. And they won nine games last year. So the case for them would be, how are they not one win better with all the stuff they've done? They nailed their draft pick, Davis.

They traded for A.J. Brown. They got the cornerback from New Orleans that everybody likes. Another year with Hurts. So, just irrespective of Dallas, I think they are a 10-win team over. Now, the question is, what's going on with your team?

Can I ask the question? Why couldn't they get more than nine? All right. I think it was a stretch that they got nine last year. But go ahead, finish up. Your team. Yeah.

I think Philly gets to at least 10. Your team's over-under is 10 and a half. It is now plus 105 to bet the over-under, 10 and a half. Not a lot of believers. Right. Can your team get to 10 wins? Yeah.

You lost your left tackle until at least December, Tyron Smith. I wasn't crazy about your offensive line before that happened. They've C.D. Lamb moved into the number one receiver spot. What do I care if you were crazy about offense? I don't think you were crazy about it either. It was average. I think it was overblown because I

think like the Steelers defense, the Cowboys offensive line is great for three years longer than it actually is. I think that's kind of it. But you're right about that. Look, the gap is closed a little bit. So I think that's kind of it. But you're right about that. Look. You lost Gregory and you lost Cooper. The gap is closed a little bit. But I still think the Cowboys are better.

Just go offensively, position by position. Maybe the Phillies are deeper. Maybe they got the best Georgia guys on defense to stuff the run and the big hogs on defense. But the Cowboys defense went down 10 points per game last year. Offensively, you'd rather have Prescott than Hurts. You'd rather have the Pollard-Elliott combination than Sanders, right? Sanders is okay.

A.J. Brown, C.D. Lamb, I think is a wash. The tight end, I think, is about... I think I like Dalton Schultz more than a lot of people do. But Philly's offensive line is way better than Dallas' offensive line. That's the one difference. Okay, that's fine. But it was, and they still won 10, 12 games last year.

I know. I know it hurts. Well, so you lost three, three like elite guys from last year. Yeah. Did you add any elite guys? No, we didn't add any.

We took the Tulsa guy who like led the country in penalties. So that's going to be a problem. And it looks like he hasn't learned any lessons. And you also had a coach that everyone thought was going to fire last year. See, that's the thing.

And he's back. Yeah. I can only shit on Nick Sirianni so much when I have Mike McCarthy, right? But I'm going to go Cowboys under. Keep it at 10 and 7. I do think they win exactly 10. And I have the Eagles under also at 9 and 8. That's how we do it.

Okay. I have the Eagles under. You have the Eagles under. You have the Eagles under. No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I have Dallas under. Yeah. I have the Eagles over

and the Eagles, I think is one of my locks. I do worry about the, like Diggs had 11 interceptions and once you dig into it, dig into it. The interception luck. Yeah, that's kind of lucky.

It's kind of lucky. It's a luck. Like the best interception guys have like four or five, you know, and to have 11 is right place, right time or right tip ball, right time. We open with Tampa and Cincinnati, two division winners,

but then Giants, Washington Rams. Cowboys are tied for the easiest strength of schedule. I think they get it together and get to 10. More likely they go 12 and five or Mike McCarthy is fired by week seven. If you have to bet on that. Wow, that's a good one. I just don't think Jair has it in him to dismiss anyone so early. He's weirdly loyal. What the hell's going on?

Does he think he's going to live to, maybe he figures he's going to live to like 105. And he's got this worked out. Sean Payton's going to be your coach next year. Yeah. It just feels like that's where we're going. Yeah. I think he can swallow his pride, Jerry, and hire him already. Yeah.

That'd be good. I have over for Philly. Just FYI. The rest of this division. Can I just say one thing? I really, I'm just not a Hurts guy. I honestly think like, I think Gardner Minshew could win like five games

with this team coming in, mopping up. Like Hurts is like, you could have the best mac and cheese, the best mashed potatoes. You can have the best mac and cheese, the best mashed potatoes, you could have the best sides there, but if you're serving fried rabbit shit

as an encore, that's still, that's still your plate right there, so. I don't love Hertz either and we bet on Tampa in the playoffs

and they just demolished Hertz and it was one of those moments where I think I just checked out on him as ever being a successful playoff QB

but I don't think that matters in the regular season. We saw Tannehill get to a one seed last year and Hurts What is he at?

24 touchdowns 13 interceptions like 24-13 I think is his passing stats and when he runs he busts his ankle it seems like.

I don't know. Our ringer fantasy rankings he was 7 seventh out of the QBs. He was ahead of Joe Bauer because of the rushing yards. So stupid. Washington, we don't have to spend a lot of time on them. I got under for them. Eight and a half

I think is the weirdest over-under in the league. I don't get it at all. Is that what the Browns were too? It's similar. Yeah, you're right. That's the weirdest. The Volts shouldn't be eight and a half. This is a resounding under to right. That's the weirdest thing. The Volts shouldn't be eight and a half. This is a resounding under to me. I like the six or less

wins bet for them at plus 210. I like that too. Wentz, I can't imagine Wentz is in the NFL by the end of the season. I just feel like this would be it.

Isn't last place like plus 250? You could bet on the exact record. I like that too. And I think Ron Rivera, his best years are behind him.

Well, here's another thing. You mentioned the Chargers' lack of home field advantage. Who has a worse home field advantage than Washington? House is calling them the C-words. He's a Washington fan. He calls them the Washington C-words. But every home game, it's going to be just complete apathy or fans from the other team or people who went because

the tickets were a dollar. Nobody's going to those games. The thing is, they do have winnable, If you just look, if you just look at this guy, they have winnable games. I think they have, you know, the three extras are at San Francisco,

Atlanta, and Cleveland. They have four games versus teams where they have a plus three day rest advantage, which is. Yeah, they were a big rest advantage team. Well,

one thing with them, one thing, reason why I was thinking of betting the under with them, they have the Giants in week 13, bye week, Giants in week 15. Yeah, it's weird. So if they're right around that number,

you can probably hedge in some sort of way. And knowing me, I would probably do it incorrectly. But I have a strong under for them. Yep, 7-10 for me. And then the Giants, I got excited early July because it seemed like your team was in trouble. I wasn't there with Philly yet.

I was like, maybe it's the Giants. New coach, Dayball comes in. Right. Just kicking ass. He becomes like this revolutionary,

like when McVay went to the Rams and just flipped them around. They're going to be bad. You think so? I do. I have them getting to eight. You do?

But they've had a weird week, right? Like Thibodeau goes down to that injury. He should be okay eventually. And then like there's clips of Galladay not blocking. So he still sucks. And then what was the thing the other day?

Oh, they carded like Tyrod Taylor off. Well, and then the receivers, because people are like, well, Tony. It's like, all right, if Tony plays eight games, that's going to be a miracle. That guy gets hurt every week. Galladay, who they spent all that money on, people's, people were wondering if he was going to waive. And the Kentucky receiver. We did a big fantasy pod on Tuesday

and I think Heifetz was saying how if he had to pick anyone on the Giants to get fantasy points it would be Wendell Robinson, the rookie.

The rookie, yeah. That's where the Giants are? Yeah, it's rough. This little receiver is going to lead them in receiving? Yeah. So I think under

It's weird when you look at you look the, what is Barkley around 850? All those guys are around 850. Did you get any overs for props this year? No, I'm doing unders. Just do it. I was saying this. If I had a brokerage where I just took hedge fund, kind of like millions of dollars from people,

we would probably waste it on money line parlays. But the smart thing to do, I swear to you, is bet all, especially running backs, but wide receivers, all under their rush total. I promise by week 12, you'll have 20 in already. Right. You do 50 under bets and you'll probably go 35 and 50. Yeah. Something like that. I'm with you. So you are over on the Giants. I went eight and nine. Yeah. seven and a half is a little suspicious, but I kind of like it. I like what they did. And they're at it three games,

or at Seattle and Carolina and home for Baltimore. Knowing you, you'll bet on this, and the Giants will be seven and nine heading into week 18, and the Chargers doctor is going to stab Tyrod Taylor again. That'll be it. He'll get knocked out. He'll be lucky.

They only have four playoff teams from last year they play. And two of them are Dallas and... Yeah, listen. I try to talk myself into it and I just don't think they have

the talent. It's really tough when you miss some drafts. NFC North. I feel bad for my buddy Jeff Gallo, lifelong Vikings fan, because the roadmap is here for the Vikings

to be a legitimate sleeper. And yet so many people are on it that I don't feel like they can be called a sleeper. They've been the go-to, I kind of like the Vikings. Oh, who's got a better offense than them? And so much momentum for that. And Kirk Cousins, who I think is both better than people think, but also not the guy you want if you're actually trying to win the Super Bowl. Right. But, I mean, if Thielen is really as healthy as he's been in four years, which he is by all accounts, Jefferson is the best receiver in the league, unless you want to say Kup is going to do what he did last year again.

They got Cook. I don't know. They finally got rid of Zimmer. Osborne's supposed to be good. Yeah, Osborne. Is this the most favorable coaching change? People hated Zimmer by the end. Zimmer was a fucking corpse.

And now there's O'Connell made Kappa superstar, right? Yeah. So they expect the same with Jefferson, like you said, all these other guys. And Thielen, by the way, he averages almost

a touchdown a game. I know he has to be healthy, but I think he had like 10 touchdowns in 12 games in the year before. We've all had him at this point. Nobody's like, oh shit, Adam Thielen's on my fantasy team.

And so the big thing was getting Z'Darrius Smith from the Packers, right? So that already strong linebacking core is even stronger. I still have them in second place, 10 wins over 9.5. So their over-under is 9.5 and the Packers' over-under is nine and a half and the Packers over-under is ten and a half

with minus 160 juice because people just respect that Rogers infrastructure so much they went 13-4 last year

for them to go under they would have to go be three wins less I didn't know what to do with this because I think both of those teams are in the playoffs

yeah but I think they're closer than the odds well that first game is at Minnesota yeah so if Minnesota what to do with this because I think both of those teams are in the playoffs. Yeah. But I think they're closer than the odds. Well, that first game is at Minnesota. Yeah, so if Minnesota wins that first game,

which I think is a really nice time to catch Green Bay when they haven't totally figured out the receivers, who's the alpha dog, all that stuff.

But, I don't, I just, I get the case for Green Bay where Dylan, Aaron Jones, and just this two-pronged running attack,

Rodgers game managing and kind of bringing these receivers along and a really good defense. And they just kind of do it. But I really think Minnesota's right there with them. And I can't believe I'm saying that, and I hate myself. So I think you're, well, I mean, we're doing, we did the same with the Chiefs, right, with Tyree Kill. Are we going to find out, like, who's better, we did the same with the chiefs, right? With Tyree kill. Are we going to find out like who's better?

Mahomes and Rogers once and for all, like who takes advantage of the shitty or such a losing their superstar? Well, the, the Bakhti area. So it seems like he's back, but, but doesn't always seem like it doesn't.

Can you rely on that dude? He needs like two seconds to throw the ball. Wasn't it? When they went to Arizona on that Thursday night, they had linemen out and it's like, Oh boy, forget it. Arizona was, I think it was 10 and two or 10, they had linemen out and it's like, oh boy, forget it. Arizona was, I think it was 10 and two or 10, 10 and one or nine and one

something. And, uh, and then they just, they wiped it. Like Rogers figures it out. He really just does. If he has to dump it off the Jones or, you know, any of these guys, I think he will. And they like that Dobbs guy. It was going to be that it was going to be Watson.

It was the higher draft pick, but which I don't understand. He had two receptions a game at North Dakota State. But, you know, Dobbs, not that bad. And they'll figure it out the rest of the way. Lazard and Tanya, don't forget. Didn't he have like 10 touchdowns in 2020? He's coming back. I think this is a decent

enough offense to win 12. I'm going slight under. I think they go 10 and 7. Green Bay. I wouldn't bet it. I don't feel great about it, but I'm going to... So the Vikings win the division?

I have the Vikings winning the division. So Vikings to win the division plus 240, but they're over nine and a half. I think that's one of my favorite bets. I really find it hard to believe they can't go 10 and 7 unless O'Connell is a disaster. Right. So he a disaster. Right.

So he might be. Right. You know, some guys, they get the main job and they're just... They need to stay. I mean, it's stupid to say they have to stay healthy. But like Hunter, Danell Hunter and Smith are, you know, those guys are so in and out. And when they're in the lineup, it's so much different on defense. Well, Minnesota also is AFC East, NFC East this year.

Like just if you look at the nine and a half. Those are probably two of the three divisions I want, along with the AFC South. The thing that worries me most is everybody likes it. That's the absolute thing that I hate most about it. So who was that team last year? Was it the Chargers that everybody liked last year, and then they ended up not making it somehow?

Yeah. Chargers were definitely one. I don't like that everybody isn't liking it either. But I do think there's enough of a Kirk Cousins backlash that I feel okay with it. He does take an incredible amount of shit.

He does. What do you say about the whole argument that him and Dak are basically the same guy? Who said that? What is the scenario? I just said it right now. Same guy.

I just said it. No, they're not the... First of all, they're not the same guy. They've had the same stats. They've had the same playoff success. I've seen them on a field together. They've had. They've had the same playoff success. I've seen them on a field together. They've had the same stats and the same playoff success. Yeah.

That's fine. If you covered their names up, you wouldn't know who was who. That's fine. I think you're right. No, it's fine. What am I going to say about the Cowboys quarterbacks? I've defended Romo forever, and there's only a few playoff wins. Did Dak take enough shit for completely fucking up the last minute of a playoff game

that ended your season? I feel like everybody just glossed over that one. They lost that game before then, though. Did they? They were so outplayed. Sure, they could have won

if he hustled up to the line and got the playoff and threw a 35-yard Hail Mary-ish pass. I think people just like Dak. I think they do. I think people make a lot of excuses for that, dude.

If Kirk Cousins had had that moment with the 16 seconds left and not got a playoff, we would have been talking about it for a few months. That's because before the game, he's screaming it. People like Dak. But that was terrible. Right. Deep down, I don't think you trust him.

I want to go after the coach on something like that. Well, you kept him. I think they're a playoff team, though. Me too. Not that hard to make the playoffs did we have any other did you have just the Eagles making the playoffs

and not the Cowboys I'm going to reveal that at the end of the podcast oh man are they before we gloss over are they both 145 now

yeah they are now dead even good I think the Eagles should be favored Detroit over under six and a half they're plus 850 to win the division.

One of my favorite long shot what the fuck bets. A lot would have to happen. 10 plus wins plus 380. Worst record, 12 to 1. So the Lions, they were 3-13 and 1 last year. They were. And I think Vegas' premise with this is they keep the over under within three wins.

They won't go higher than that. For the bad lottery team. Yeah. They're just like, you're not going to do better than doubling your wins from last year. Well, why should they be seven? You think? I have them at seven wins. I think they're like at least an eight, nine. I think they're pretty good. You got the hard knocks. No, I didn't. I didn't watch hard knocks. I watched the first episode. That's it. Oh, you should watch because their coaches are really dumb.

Let me guess. They had some... Their coaches were great. They're kind of dumb. Well, they did the whole... It's all ex-players, right? Oh, Aaron Glenn. Yeah, they are.

Staley. They went all the way through. Yeah. Here's one thing about Hard Knocks. This surprised me because I think we typically just laugh at Hard Knocks teams and think they fall flat on their face

when the season comes around. Only four teams over the past 13 years of Hard flat on their face when the season comes around. Only four teams over the past 13 years of hard knocks have gone under their season win total. Nine and four to the over?

That's pretty good. Only two finished with a worse record than they had the preseason year, preceding year. You know what I like about this team?

They can block. They have a top five offensive line. So at least there's a foundation of like that's something that you know that Goff

right who I think Goff is actually probably better now than he gets credit for this is a guy that with the Rams yeah

I don't love Goff I wouldn't be psyched if he was my quarterback how did you not you didn't watch Hard Knocks you didn't watch it Ben and I were watching and then all of a sudden

he's you know we just have we have two on the DVR and two behind alright you't watch it Ben and I were watching and then all of a sudden he's you know we just have we have two on the DVR and two behind alright you gotta watch it but you're out on Goff well the only thing I'm out on Goff

HBO's out on Goff they didn't feature him at all you think Goff didn't want to be in it he was out for like six minutes could you do that can you say I don't want to be in it because it was all on Blau and Boyle

and both those guys were cut already let's go through quick. Can we get them the seven wins? Philly week one, they lose. Maybe they don't lose. Washington week two win.

At Minnesota, home Seattle. So there could be two and two coming out of that. I have three and one. Oh God, yeah. At New England, I think that's the one

where I think Detroit wins in New England and then it's is Belichick done. And then the Pats will somehow win the next week. And we brought this up, but their last game is at Green Bay, and Green Bay might not need it. And this happens every year. So they could be 6-10 or, you know.

How about this week 10 to week 13 stretch? At Chicago, at the New York Giants, home Buffalo on a Thursday, in the early Thursday Thanksgiving game, which is the best advantage they're ever going to have against Buffalo. You would think. Then home Jacksonville, home Minnesota, at the Jets, at Carolina, home Chicago, and then Green Bay might not need the last game. I think they get to seven wins. I like it. I'm with you. I got seven. Exactly.

Chicago, I do not think gets to seven wins. This over-under surprised me. I'm with you. I got seven. Exactly. Chicago, I do not think it's the seven wins. This over-under surprised me. I don't know why it's five and a half and I don't know who's betting it, frankly. Yeah. It's plus 125

if you want to bet the under on FanDuel, which is insane. How's that not minus 170? Right. I like them to have the worst record in the league. So, should we bet it

and then somehow fuck it up with a hedge where we... But I warn you, Bears fans are out there and they're going to attack you. Why? Because they're very, very... Because you're basically saying

that Justin Fields is going to fail. And... This has nothing to do with it, man. I mean, they didn't build around it. They have a top three worst offensive line and Mooney is their only receiver that could even play

for a top five offense. Nikhil Harry was their big pickup, and he's out now. And then you have Pringle, and you have that Vellis Jones. The Tennessee wide receiver was 25 years old. The Tennessee Volunteers, they're in bad shape. Is it controversial to say that they have the worst skill guys in the league? Quarterbacks except. I looked at Houston as close.

Because Houston has at least Pierce and Cooks and Robert Woods. No, quarterbacks accepted. I looked at Houston as close, but... Because Houston has at least Pierce and Cooks and Robert Woods. Or no, Robert Woods on Tennessee. They have Cooks and Pierce. Yeah. I'm way down on them.

I know some of these big market teams can't have rebuilding years. Yeah. I think this is a rebuilding year. And, you know, Debra Floss is going to take it on the chin

a little bit. They traded Khalil Mack. It'll probably end up being a good move, but in a couple of years. But they're not going to be good this season. Well, just starting out,

San Francisco at home. San Francisco could have like 12 sacks. He doesn't want to play for them. San Fran week one, that's 12 sacks. At Green Bay on a Sunday night in week two, Rodgers is like 42-0 in his last 42 games. So 0-2 to start, and then it just gets worse. I have them like 1-7 or 8.

I don't know. I'm really down on them. Their worst record is the only one that there was action on. Because you know when you can see the lineup of the teams

in order of when the odds posted? Yeah. And I think they were like 10-1 or 12-1 and now plus 7-5. Right. Well, it's not fair to Fields.

Like they didn't build around him like they did for Tua or Hertz or some of these other guys, you know? And that makes me think it's not fair to Fields. They didn't build around him like they did for Tua or Hertz or some of these other guys. That makes me think it's absolutely a rebuilding year. They lose Allen Robinson, who I think is going to be a star on the Rams. Let's take a break and we'll do the other two divisions.

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And the question is this, do you do the teaser? Do you get sucked in? Am I going to break my teaser rule? We're going to talk about that on Guest Aligns with Cousin Sal. I'm trying to get through this whole year without doing a tease. We'll see if I can do it. Play your way. Bet on more than just the final score.

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In Wyoming, or visit 1800gabriel.net in West Virginia. Okay, NFC South. I had the most trouble with Tampa Bay's over-under of anyone in the league. The over-under is 11.5. They're minus 270 for the division. They are

5-1 at best record. They're 3-1 to be the number one seed. They were 13-4 last year. They have a shitload of talent. And that's the case. Even if you're worried about Brady, even if you're worried about how they have offensive line injuries, they're still loaded. And there's a chance that their defense could be elite.

You get very hard to run on them with Vita Bay in there and, and company. Not positive when Godwin's going to be a hundred percent. I don't think their weapons are the same. There's a lot of people just penciling in Fournette to be awesome this year. I'm just never going to totally trust Fournette. Gage banged up. I'm not positive Fournette's be awesome this year. I'm just never going to totally trust Fournette. Gage banged up. I'm not positive

Fournette's not 300 pounds. And we covered Brady earlier, but, you know, not, the thing that actually makes me feel best

is going from Arians to Todd Bowles because I thought Arians looked like a substitute teacher last year. Their schedule, so I said this the other day.

We're kind of going to know after the first two games, right? At Dallas, at New Orleans. And if they're 0-2 coming out of those games, you could see the path toward Brady retires after week five.

Yeah. And the Saints are 4-0 against the Brady-Tampa Bay Bucs. So they could be 2-0 and the Bucs could be 0-2. I don't know. We're assuming a lot right off the bat. I went under. I don't know. We're assuming a lot right off the bat.

I went under. I don't feel good about it. I wouldn't bet it. But there's enough stuff here that just makes me nervous. I think it's really hard to go 12-5 or 13-4 with how long these seasons are

with the injuries. Yep. And I just couldn't get there. What'd you do? I'm with you. I think they're slow out of the gate. I think they win 10 games, which is a full game and a half under 11. And I think 11 and a half

is way high, right? I think 10 and a half is better. I think they're 10 and seven. They get a wild card. I'm picking the Saints. That's my big swing. Well, I have the Raiders actually. So you have the Saints. I have the Saints at 10 wins. So that's another over by a game and a half. So Saints, the over-under is eight and a half. Static action. Three to one to win the division.

I know you don't like Dennis Allen. I know you don't like it. No, but to me, this is like the Tua argument in the NFC

where I'm bringing baggage with the Dennis Allen thing because we enjoyed betting against him so much when he was a Raiders coach and he was just really overmatched.

I was thinking about that when you said that the other day to me and I said, we've lost on every single one of these coaches. I feel like we won on Dennis Allen.

Won betting against him? Yeah. Yeah. But to win, I think you have to lose. We've had some coaches that we rode against pretty hard

and felt pretty good about it. And I think we made a few Dennis Allen jokes during his Raiders run. Well, now we're going to give it all back. You know, he got fired after like week four. Is that what it was? He was a first coach fired winner one of those years. Yeah.

He was really bad. I've not seen odds on first coach fired. We got to find out. Oh, you haven't? You have seen it? I feel like I've seen it. Who is it? Who's at the top?

I think McCarthy was way up there. He's at the top though, right? He was at the top. Is it Rivera? Who would it be? Who would it be? Who would you... Oh, should Kingsbury be on there? Oh, yeah.

Kingsbury's probably on there. He's got to be on there. Rivera, Belichick for sure. Belichick has to be right on there. I mean, he might do something criminal. Yeah, Rivera's probably the leader. I would say he's probably the top guy.

Because all the other teams that suck got new coaches. It would be funny if Lovie Smith, if Houston just fired their coach every year for 10 years in a row. So, New Orleans is,

the one I really like with them as a bet is plus 118 to win the playoffs. Because I had a hard time getting to seven NFC teams. And you can bet Yeah, because getting to seven NFC teams.

And you can bet. Yeah, because there are six NFC teams that have minuses in front of them to make the playoffs. And then it's a bunch of coin flips like the Saints. Yes. Plus 118. So you could just bet the over and say nine and eight is going to make the playoffs and just bet that.

But the playoffs bet is a little better odds. And in my opinion, nine and eight probably makes the playoffs. Look at you. So I'd rather have those odds. Mathematicianals. Thank you. That is smart. Yeah.

A fun bet with them is they're 21 and one to be the first seed. And we've, we've talked about this on my last couple of pods. I just think the NFC is wide open. I don't love any team. There could be. I probably like Philly the most from a talent standpoint, but I don't know what that means.

Cause we have the same concerns about Jalen Hurts. Right. Yeah. So if Jameis lets it fly, I mean, he's only a couple years removed from his 5,000-yard year. Again, there's a bunch of interceptions attached to it there.

A bunch. It was about a 30. A bevy. A cornucopia. That's a nice... If Michael Thomas could play, it's a big if. That's pretty nice, right?

I like a lobby for for offensive rookie of the year I think like plus 850 or something we always talk about Thomas with teams and they have Jarvis Landry they have ifs that I kind of like where it's like if Michael Thomas and it's like well Michael Thomas is really good that's a good if about

if a lobby well he's not going to be suspended like that's nice that's a good offense all of a sudden. Their defense. I mean, you did your red chip, blue chip. You saw the Cam Jordans, right? You saw the Denario Davises. These guys are all solid. Hat tip to Lombardi for the red chip, blue chip thing.

Because that was the first one. I just think that's such a good framework to think about the levels of it. The problem is that now guys are playing so many positions. It hard to to put them like oh he's a linebacker defensive end but sometimes DT too yeah I had when I was trying to separate in categories

Parsons was the toughest one because I guess he's a linebacker but when you watch him it's like I don't even know what position that dude is alright so we both have over for New Orleans

this is this is my weirdest one I kind of like Carolina this year I know you do they're over under six and a half and it's plus 105 This is my weirdest one. I kind of like Carolina this year. I know you do. They're over under 6.5, and it's plus 105 action. 10 plus wins is plus 500.

Playoffs is plus 410. Worst record is 10 to 1. So they're 5 and 12 last year. So I only need two more wins. I have hopefully a healthy McCaffreyrey who I would not draft in fantasy. I think it makes more sense to bet on him in a context like this. DJ Moore is like the secret really good receiver that probably there's never been a DJ Moore conversation ever.

Right. And they have a couple bangers on defense. Burns, Thompson, JC Horn, everybody likes as like to be a possible all-pro. Chin. Well, they lose Redick and Gilmore, right? Yeah. But I don't know what they lost with Gilmore. I don't know if he was the same guy anymore. He's still ranked prettypro. Chin. Well, they lose Redick and Gilmore, right? Yeah. Who did they lose? But I don't know

what they lost with Gilmore. I don't know if he was the same guy anymore. He was still ranked pretty high. Yeah. They added Xavier Woods. Yeah.

To me, it's like people get very excited about Baker and he's in a better situation, but do you remember three good Baker games? I think he had like

four games where he had two touchdowns or more. Right. And forever. So, I'm not sure. Matt Rule, another one for maybe first coach fired.

We didn't talk. That was the other one. Yeah. Well, I think unless they make the points he's getting fired. Yeah, he's 10 and 23. Yeah.

Well, I like a slight over. I think they got at least seven and 10. I got a main nine actually. I'm a little better. I also like a slight over for this next team, Atlanta. They are,

they're overrunners four and a Atlanta. They're over-unders four and a half. Last year, they were seven and ten. There you go. I mixed those up. If you think they can go five and twelve, that's only a two-win drop-off.

It's funny. I don't know how they're much worse than they were last year because I really like Mariota. I just get annoyed with, not you, but I'll like Mariota and you'll like him and then everybody likes Mariota. And then you sit back, it's like, oh, why? Because he ran in a touchdown late in the season two years ago or something. Why do we like him so much again?

He's at least had some success, which I guess you could make the same case for Trubisky, where it's not like Jacoby Brissett last year in Miami was unplayable. That's where you got to draw the line if a guy is actually unplayable. And I really liked Jacoby Brissett, but he's unplayable. It's funny with the Jacoby Brissett thing, and Baker's going to hand him, Baker's like, F the Browns. Oh, week one.

He's going, it's like, all right, but this is not, it'd be better if it was Watson against Baker. Oh, yeah. Brissette's like, what the hell did I do? I do think. What about surrounding with talent, though? Yeah. This is not. Drake London's already banged up. Yeah, I don't like that part.

That Pitts, Patterson. Yeah, well, Pitts is a tight end. But yeah, Patterson. I just receive with the big suspension. I don't know with the Ridley suspension. I don't see them. It could be a team that just receive with the big suspension. I don't know with the Ridley suspension. I don't see them. It could be a team that just doesn't score a lot. So who do you think has the worst offense in the league?

I would say the Bears and the Falcons if they don't get their receiver situation together might be up there too. Yeah, well, we haven't gotten to Seattle. That could be pretty bad. So we're both going. I'm going. I'm going over.

I'll go slightly over. I'm going five because their extras are easy-ish. I'll tell you this. Anyone with Chicago on their schedule, I'm giving a shot at having that over. I wouldn't bet that one. New Orleans, I think, is a fun one. All right, NFC West.

Let's start with San Francisco even though they don't have the best odds. Can I just say something about the NFC West? I was proud of this. The NFC East over under wins is like 36. The NFC West, I think if you add them up, is 34. And now I know it's a product because they play each other and everything.

But this used to be, last year, this was the division. You had to bet, the teams all had to have 10 wins or more for the overs to hit. Right? Yeah. Now it might be like the third best of it. Fourth best division.

I don't like Arizona. I don't like any of these teams. What if Lance is a stinker this year? Yeah. Well, I don't know how to process the Jimmy. How did you process the Jimmy G extension? I think it's a combination of both. Like people get mad if you say, oh, they didn't trust Lance.

Like there is a little of that. There's got to be a little of that. Right? Because it was enough money to think about not cutting him, right? So I think it's right there in the middle. And they have a good backup now, right? Do they have the best backup? I don't like it.

I would have waived him. Really? I think you got to give the dude the car keys. If he's the QB, you got to give him the car keys. Get the other guy out of the car. I think we could say we're wrong on a few things. Does your wife second guess? All the time.

No, dude. You're tailgating this guy. Why are you doing that? That's what it's like to have Jimmy G in the car. I just like driving more when my wife's not in the car, as much as I love my wife. I just don't like when she's in the passenger seat. Eventually get to Disneyland.

You get a fender bender along the way, but I don't know what to think about Jimmy G. He was 10 minutes away from winning the Super Bowl in that one overthrow. And then even last year, like Cooper Kopp had, and I'll say this about the Rams, he had to be every bit of as amazing as he was

for the Rams to go as far as they did. Right? Well, remember the Niners? Well, I remember it because that was my huge bet. But the Niners had the ball, and it was like, if they just had a drive in the third quarter, the game was over. So he was one for six in that last drive. He's bad.

But he's also hurt. Would he have a broken shoulder? Yes, but still healthy. He can get you to the Super Bowl and get you a couple plays away from the Super Bowl and get you a couple plays away from winning it. I don't know if I'm out on him. And same with Shanahan. We will change our minds about Shanahan 16 times this year. 480 Kyle? 480 winning percentage? 475? Is that what it is?

I have him at 43 and 44. Oh, 490? He might've snuck up there. Yeah. I would like this over-under and their odds more if Jimmy G was the QB. Because I don't know what I'm getting with Lance. And somebody did a great breakdown of him. Of Lance? About some of the throws. Maybe it was on the Amazon. Like the Amazon pregame show.

Fitzpatrick, that's who did it. And he did this breakdown of all these throws that Lance didn't make that Jimmy G made last year. I think that's who it was. He chucks it into the turf a lot. It's not pleasant. Well, I still like they're over because they have an incredible amount of talent.

Well, and look at those first two. At Chicago and Seattle. I think those are wins right away. Yeah, 10-7. I don't love that they play the LA teams three times. They play KC in Vegas. They're going against the AFC West.

They are going against the NFC South, which could be bad if New Orleans doesn't show up the way we possibly think they're going to show up. Their added games are Miami, Washington, and Chicago. All winnable. They play Arizona and Mexico City. I think, well, we're going to get to Arizona in a second. I think Arizona and

Seattle are... mean that could be a 4-0 yeah and then if you're 4-0 against those teams you just need to do 7-6 the rest of the way

or 6-7 and you cover that to get to 10 yeah I like that one plus 170 for them then the Rams I had them slightly better

in winning the division me too so we see a lot of this stuff the same way yeah so this is bad for these teams. Always bad for the rest of America. The over-under for the Rams is 10.5. I'm going under on this.

The division, they're plus 125. Oh, you're with 10 wins. I think they get to 11. You do? I'm going under. They make me nervous. I have the Niners winning the division. Oh, so both at 10. All right. I have the Niners winning the division.

I think the Niners can go higher than 10. I'm just saying I know they can get to at least 10, but I think they could get to 11 at 6, 12 at 5. The Rams last year were 12 at 5. The crazy thing about this team is that they're not favored in the Buffalo game in week one, which we'll do when we do Guest Alliance on Sunday. But I just can't believe they're not favored.

I don't get it. I don't understand. They were close to, I think, look, I see some of these lines. I'm going to admit it. We could throw week one out. We could throw the Super Bowl out. We kind of see those lines. But it's the elbow, though, isn't it?

Because it was basically a pick-em until this elbow news came down for Stafford. They still have Aaron Donald and Jalen Ramsey and Cooper Cuff. They still have three of the best 20 players in the league. All you do is look at the over-under wins, right? So the Rams are 10.5. That's how you could cheat. And the Buffaloes 11.5. Yeah, I guess.

I think they go 10-7 or 11-6. I don't think there's going to be the necessity like you're going to have in the AFC. Where in the AFC, you're going to basically have to get to 10-7 to make the playoffs. There's five, maybe six NFC teams that have a chance to be in double figures. It's true. And they'll do the thing. If Stafford's hurt, they'll rest him a week. And I just don't think

they're going to have the pedal to the metal the whole season. Maybe not. They San Antonio Spurs it. Oh, look, I did it. I brought up basketball. How did I do that?

Thanks for doing that. I don't know why they engaged. You know, well, how are they able to get the best defense, defensive player in the free agency every year,

every single year? Like Bobby Wagner. It's like, you might say he's old, like third leading tackler in 2021. He's going to make an immediate impact on that team. 10 and 7, 11 and 6. I wouldn't bet that one either way.

I would bet Arizona. This is one of my locks. Arizona, eight and a half. I don't understand this one at all. What a disaster. They were 11 and 6 last year. So I guess you could say, well, it's hard to go three wins less, but no Hopkins

for six games. Right. What are your favorite Hollywood Brown games? They blow up the first-round pick to get Marquise Brown. Yeah. What are your favorite Hollywood Brown moments? I mean, he'll blame it on Lamar or whoever is quarterback there, but no. I don't think that makes a difference. They lose Kirk, which is whatever. They lose

Chandler Jones, Chase Edmonds, Jordan Hicks, Jordan Phillips. A big, big chunk of this team is gone. They lose Chandler Jones, Chase Edmonds, Jordan Hicks, Jordan Phillips. A big, big chunk of this team is gone. They extend Kyler and embarrass the shit out of him with a homework assignment. They've cratered in the second half of the last two years. That makes me nervous. Yeah, that's the thing.

We kind of know this team, right? We're not going to get excited again with their 8-2. They're playing the AFC West. And they won't be. Is that who they're playing? Yeah. They got all of those teams. I feel like they could go 0-4.

Cheap some Raiders off the bat. That could be an 0-4 for them. And then the no Hopkins for six games is a real thing. Where they go Kansas City, Las Vegas, Rams, Carolina, Philly, Seattle. And Seattle's at Seattle. They're doing stupid things, too. So they don't have the first round pick.

They draft the tight end. They already have Zach Ertz and Max Williams, who I think is hurt now. But what are they doing? You have so many spots to fill here. I think it was a horribly put together thing. And I don't trust Kyler at all.

And I can't unsee that playoff game. How awful that was. Yeah, that was bad. Jalen Hurts, I've been able to unsee his playoff game against Tampa. But the stink of that Cardinals game. It feels like it's still going on. Let me give you six wins or less for them.

Plus 245 on FanDuel. Yeah, I like that. That's pretty tasty. Six and 11? Here's the thing. Because you can bet against that as we go near the end

when they're at Denver, Tampa, at Atlanta, at San Francisco. Do you think they beat Seattle twice though? Because then they only need four the rest of the way. I'm ashamed to admit I like Seattle a tiny bit more

than some others. Really? Yeah. Yeah, I do. Seattle's over-under is five and a half. I'm four to admit I like Seattle a tiny bit more than some others really yeah yeah I do Seattle's over under is five and a half I'm four and thirteen they were seven and ten

last year here's the thing why didn't he quit what's he doing Carol yeah this team's not making the playoffs in the next three years

Carol or Belichick both of them they should have does Carol have his kids working on the coaching staff now or is that just my coach? It's just yours. No mullets to show off.

Two of the three sack leaders are gone from last year. They trade Russ, obviously, for Drew Locke and Fant, who's now career is done in Seattle. They have Shelby Harris. They lose Bobby Wagner. I don't know. What's it like here? I know they play the Giants and Jets.

That's it. Two good receivers, good running back. And, like, what are the odds? They're the most traveled team this year. They go to Munich. What's that Denver line going to end up? Oh, I guess we got to save it for against the Lions. But don't you think that Monday night,

everybody's betting Russ? Everybody. Oh, Russ isn't going to lose. It's on everyone's teaser. He's not going to lose in Seattle. Right, right. Oh, I parlayed them with the Broncos. There's no way Russ is losing his comeback game.

And then it's like, all right, we're back in Seattle. 17-3 Seahawks. A lot of people didn't see this coming. That first Monday night game is always fucked up. It is. Always. Well, they're usually two of them. Yeah, and one of them is always fucked up.

Yeah, right. I'm with you. And again, like we've talked about, Denver going to Seattle, huge home field advantage for Seattle. Denver going to the Chargers, not the same, right? Much better team,

but not even the same ballpark. Literally not the same ballpark. I could just see like Dixon, Dixon just pinning the Broncos on their own end a couple of times. Our Dixon? Little crowd. No, James B. I don't know about Dixon. Dixon just pinning the Broncos on their own end a couple times. Are Dixon? James Bailey. I'm

going slight over. I wouldn't bet it. I'm going under. For my locks, I have... Do you have any that you had two wins more than the over-under? Yeah, Cincinnati, I think. I think Cincinnati has a chance to go like 12-5.

So my locks are Cincy 9.5, Kansas City 10.5, New England under 8.5. Right. Philly over and Minnesota over at 9.5, and Arizona under 8.5. Those are my favorite six. Okay. And I was going to put Vegas under 8.5. You don't have the Browns under? Yeah, no. That could be like a 5, Those are my favorite six. Okay. And I was going to put Vegas

under eight and a half. You don't have the Browns under? Yeah, no. That could be like a five, six. Browns under. They could really fall apart. I'll add that. So that's seven.

I like the Ravens over. I know you don't like it as much. Yeah, I'm staying away from that. And I'm going Raiders way over. I have as playoff locks Buffalo, Cincy, Indy, Casey. And Indy, whatever. Somebody's going to win that division.

Casey, Chargers, Ravens. Those six. Right. And then I really want to figure out my seventh team before next Thursday. Right now, it'd be Denver. Take a few weeks. You don't have to do it by Thursday. NFC, Philly, Minnesota, Tampa, San Francisco, Green Bay, and I think New Orleans is six.

And then that seventh team is going to be weird. And it might be like the Lions. So wait, who do we have different there? Philly? You have Minnesota, Tampa Bay? Oh, I don't have the Rams in there. That's a mistake. Yeah, so the Rams.

Yeah. Okay. So New Orleans will be my seven team in that division then. Figure it out. All right, we're going to take a quick break and then we are going to do Guess the Lines, week one. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this. It's game day. All the

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So why not grab some Miller Lights today? Your game time. Taste like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. All right. It's time, Sal. Guess the lines. You're so miserable.

We haven't lost even a dollar yet. I'm miserable because I feel like you beat me in week one. I hate getting off to a bad start. But isn't that it? I always beat you in week one. I hate getting off to a bad start. But isn't that it? I always beat you in week one. And then I kind of let you have week one. Guys, Kyle, we got to cheat somehow. And then you win. I've never cheated in Guest Alliance.

You've just accused me every year of cheating. That's an unbelievable lie. I won last year too, right? Haven't I won for like five straight years? No. How many years is this? 13? 14? This is our 16th season together.

Yeah, 2007. Oh my God. Yeah, you've won probably, you're probably 14, you're probably 13 and two. We've done every, no, I'm probably like 10 and five, 11 and four.

I feel like I've never beaten you because of all the cheating, but yeah, whatever you think. I learned from my coach. That's right. We've done every week except for the four weeks when the ringer hadn't started yet when i was still under contract at espn oh yeah a lot of work so right for 16 seasons we've been here i don't know what's at least 300 podcasts wow so we guessed a lot People know the drill by now. I send my guesses

to you. You send your guesses to me. Whoever gets closest wins. And we have a Thursday night game. We do. A good one. This is a banger. Rams-Bills. This is about as good of a Thursday night as we've had. The Thursday night history, now

this might be one of those things where you've looked this up and my memory of this might be totally off, but it feels like it's not that advantageous for the home team. It was for a while, right? I think the last few years, it hasn't been. It's flipped, right? The Bucs won. They didn't cover against the Cowboys. Win and a cover on Thursday night, the favorite.

I think your Patriots screwed that up when they lost to the Chiefs, right? Yeah, or we would win but not cover. We would be favored by six and a half and win by three. All right, but this is a small number, so it shouldn't matter. Yeah, so I guess I just thought Rams by three. Of course, they'll be favored. They're home. They're getting their rings, the whole thing.

But that was not how it played out. No. So you said Rams by three. I said Bills by one. Here's the extent of my cheating. I look at the over-unders and I see who's expected to win more games

and I'll typically make the higher number of the favorite, right? Yeah. And then that doesn't really work after week one. And it's plus two and a half. Bills are favored by two and a half.

I can't believe that. I can't believe it. You can't believe you lost the first game? I made the case when we did the AFC over-unders that I actually think the Bills are overvalued. I just think they're getting a lot of hype

based off how good they looked in the Pats playoff game and that awesome Chiefs back and forth game where the Chiefs defense caved two weeks in a row in the playoffs. By the way, the Bills lost the game. They had 13 seconds to go to the next round, and they blew it. And they finished 11-6 for the year.

And now people are treating them like they're the 2007 Pats. I don't get it. I don't know what to say. I don't want to crap on either of these teams, really, because I'm both winning their divisions, obviously. I have the Bills winning 13 games. I think that offense might be too much for the Rams. Is this the year they figure out Cooper Cup?

Like, I mean, he wasn't always a great receiver, right? He had three touchdowns two years ago and then 16. So, eventually, they're not going to be, we talked about it in the Over Under podcast, he had every ounce of his greatness was necessary for them to go as far as they did. Did you go to the Super Bowl? Yeah, I was there.

Did you go? I was there. That last drive when Beckham was long gone and it was clear the Rams, it's like, all right, it's Cooper bust. He's just going to have to get open every play. I was like watching a high school game where it's like we have one guy in high school.

This guy just has to get open. If he can't get open, we're going to lose. And he just got open. And the Bengals knew he had to get open, and he was still getting open. Yeah. I think the 49ers game was even more like that, right? With him just doing what he needed to do.

It doesn't factor into this game. If one team is going to win by a field goal, it doesn't really matter. I love the Rams. You love the Rams? I think I actually might bet that one because I think it's actually might bet that one because I think it's actually a disrespectful one.

And I feel, I hope they feel disrespected. Now you've told me, I tell you who's going to feel disrespected. I feel disrespected because you said you're not betting teasers

this year. And A, I don't believe it. And B, I think you should start right here. Take the eight and a half points. I'm not doing teasers this year.

The Rams plus eight and a half? One drug parlays, that's it. Oh, come on. That's it. Oh, come on. That's it. Straight up bets. No. All the smart bettors.

What's better than losing on a good quarterback? That's what you got to do. All the smart bettors just laugh and scoff at teasers. I know they do. They think it's hilarious that we do them and we're the easy marks. It's all right. Of course you do teasers. You guys suck.

Hey, listen. We're doing something right. This is our 37th year. What'd you say? How many? Since 1974. Okay, good. This is our 37th year. What'd you say? How many? Since 1974. Okay, good. This is our 39th year. 49th year. You know, it's my dad's 50th year as Celtics

season ticket holder. Is that right? Yeah. I feel like they have to have him bring out the ball before a game, right? Yeah, of course. 50 years? Wow. $4 a ticket his first year? Come on, Celtics. That's pretty good. Well Well they need a point guard We got Malcolm Brogdon

That's true Sunday Marquee I have Packers Vikings For this one I think this is the most fun Sunday night games Yeah there's a lot of good games Packers at the Vikings

I think the Packers Will be favored Because people overvalue The Packers I already love the Vikings I don't even know What the line is I guess Packers Minus one and a half I had Packers Minus favored because people overvalue the Packers. I already love the Vikings. I don't even know what the line is. I guess Packers minus one and a half.

I had Packers minus two. I think they're up to two and a half now. Yes. Two and a half. All right. So we have two. So we say this every year, Sal. Yeah.

The underdogs in the first three to four weeks of the year, every year, like first three weeks, it'll be, I don't know, 29, 15 and one. Shit like that. Right. It'll be completely ske't know 29, 15, and 1 shit like that right it'll be completely skewed against the spread

for the underdogs and every year we just say why don't we just bet every underdog and then maybe switch three that you really love

if you love the favorite but for the most part just go chalk with the underdogs yeah we have two underdogs come out of the game both of them are

two good home teams the Rams and the Vikings and do you feel like with this, I'm going to say the same about your Dolphins, Patriots. Yeah. The Vikings could really blow the division here. Yeah. I think it's kind of,

I'm with you. I don't want to say it's over, but this is a must, must win for the new coach and everything. Actually, if you go through the biggest games, I think for a team this week are the Vikings and the Dolphins, where it's kind of like they have to, even though it's week one, they kind of have to win. Yeah. Because it'll

kind of tell them what kind of team they have. He better load up on some ayahuasca, that Kirk Cousins. I don't know. I don't know if they have it in them. But this is a fun game. I mean, that's a Darius Smith switchover we talked about in the Over Under podcast. This is good. I see you teasing the Rams with the Packers

to plus three and a half. Maybe. Boy, we don't have any big numbers. We don't. Well, that's the great thing about week one. The numbers are always low. I have five watchable games. We'll start with Bengals-Steelers.

It's in Cincinnati. It's the first one I put in the Vegas zone. I have the Bengals minus four and a half. We made the case, or at least I made the case when we did AFC over-unders. I'm all in on the Vegas zone. I have the Bengals minus four and a half. We made the case, or at least I made the case when we did AFC over-unders. I'm all in on the Bengals. I'm going to ride them early because I think the lines,

at least for the first couple weeks, are going to be a little low. I like them as a playoff team. I don't want to say they were full of shit, but I think they got further than they probably should have on paper.

But I still have them as a playoff team. I don't believe in this Steelers team too much. I have the minus five. It's six and a half. So I get that one. Wow. I am on fire. Boy, that looks like a good tease. I might break my tease. Cincinnati at home. Yeah. Minus six and a half.

Wow, that lasted. We got a time on that. Wow, that is a tasty tease. Jesus. That's what happens. It always looks good, right? Look, if you like pizza, eat pizza. What the hell is, what do you care what people think about us? Realistically, how many days do you think

I could get through without teasing? Could I get 30 days without a tease? If you bet college, you wouldn't be able to get through tonight. I don't bet college. All right. Week one. You think I'm not going to be able

to get out of week one with a tease? I think what happens is you have, you're going to like Tennessee and Denver. We're going to have lost money early on. I'm definitely going to be able to get out of week one with a tease. I think what happens is you have you're going to like Tennessee and Denver. We're going to have lost money early on. I'm definitely not teasing Tennessee. There's no way that's happening. Kansas City, Denver will be your first teaser. That's possible. I love the Bengals.

I'm all in on the Bengals. I love them in that Steelers matchup. Next one, Watchables. I can't believe this is a Watchables. We have the Detroit Lions and the watchables but I think wow yeah

Philly at Detroit this is another one two very hyped teams for different reasons the Eagles are like the NFC hype train team right

the Lions are the hard knocks team the maybe could they get the 7th seed the Eagles are definitely going to be favored I had the Eagles by 3 alright

I had the Eagles by 4 it's 3.5 so we split that one and I had the Eagles by four. It's three and a half. So we split that one. And I think that's a little bit of an upset there. That's a beautiful line. Maybe people back off all their Eagles hysteria when the Lions and Aiden Hutchinson's putting Hurts into the turf.

So we've had four games so far and we have three home underdogs. Right. I'm bringing Michael Conrad in for the let's be careful. I like, as much as I like this Eagles team, I might stay let's be careful I like as much as I like this Eagles team I might stay away from this

because I like both of the teams next one I can't believe this is watchable but I think it is just because of the Baker is this a watchable

or would you put it in fairly watchable Baker against the Browns sure talking shit yeah again I feel bad for Brissette here

what did he do right yeah Baker's calling him out F you F this yeah Fucking shit. Yeah. Again, I feel bad for Brissette here. What did he do? Right? Yeah. Baker's calling him out. F you, F this. Yeah. I know you like Baker and Carolina here.

What'd you have at it? I had Panthers by three at home against the Browns. All right, you're going to get this. I had four and it's two and a half. This could be one of the last times the Panthers are favored at home this year. Oh, they're begging you to take Carolina. That is like, that two and a half. There might not be enough offense to love that too much.

Well, here's the thing. McCaffrey is healthy for at least week one. So if you know at least going into that, you're going to get 100% Christian McCaffrey. That's true. What am I getting with the Browns? I'm getting Jacoby Brissett and a lot of Nick Chubb runs against eight-man fronts. Right. I like the Panthers.

Chiefs-Cardinals is the next one. This was a more fun game on paper than the thought process I had as I started thinking through it. I guess Chiefs three at Arizona. I wish I had gone three and a half. What is it? Yeah, it is three and a half. I went four and a half, but you're still close enough to win, so you got that. Yeah, three at Arizona. I wish I had gone three and a half. What is it? Yeah, it is three and a half. I went four and a half, but you're still close enough to win, so you got that.

Yeah, I like that. I mean, you're going to have that on a teaser. You are. You just are. So I could do Bengals. Bengals. It didn't even work. It's so stupid.

Well, couldn't, doesn't it make more sense to parlay that? Doesn't it make more sense to parlay that? Doesn't it make more sense to parlay the Bengals and the Chiefs, just money lines? Why wouldn't I do that? Then I could keep

my no teaser rule. That's true. So that would be minus 270 for the Bengals. Plus 106, I think. Plus 106. That sounds great. All right, good.

You didn't violate your teaser rule. Yeah. This is like eating, like eating jerky on Friday and telling your priest, like, yeah, I didn't eat good Friday. I'm still good, right? It's not really me.

I never had a priest. I did not do really any NFL futures this year except for the one bet we made, which was Chiefs to make the playoffs. What are you waiting for? You're not going to bet these player props under? For God's sakes. You know what I'm waiting for? Three starting running backs are going to go out before this podcast posts.

I'm waiting for soccer tournament this weekend. I'm going to be in a hotel room for most of the weekend. You'll knock them out then. One of those nights, Saturday or Sunday night, it's going to be a four-hour future binge. That's fun. And I'm going to do a whole bunch of them. I'll be texting.

Imagine, will we ever talk about our dads like that? This is a parent corner, early parent corner. Yeah, I was at, my father, we were in like. He wanted to go to bed early because he had to make futures for four hours. We watched him DC. We had kind of seen the monuments, but not really. He had to go back to his room to bed on the NFC South.

Sighing Phil Simms was going to go on their passing yards. Last watchable. Your beloved Chargers going against your beloved Raiders. No, you love both of those. You really love the Raiders. I'm a Raiders fan now this year. So I had a lot of trouble with this one

because I think Chargers are better and then it's home field. So it's like it should be Chargers by six, but they have no home field. There'll be more Raiders fans there. So I did Chargers by four. We both got it. Well, we tie.

It's three and a half. I mean, how sad is that? You know what we didn't talk about with the Raiders? McDaniels? No, but Basaccia. Basaccia. That was his name, right? Pipas Rich?

Yeah. The Packers might have gotten the better end of that. Not that it was a trade, but Devontae Adams goes to the Raiders. Was Basaccia. Basaccia. That was his name, right? Pit Boss Rich? Yeah. The Packers might have gotten the better end of that. Not that it was a trade, but Devontae Adams goes to the Raiders. Was Basaccia in the trade? He wasn't in the trade, but he's a special teams coach. Their special teams was horrible last year. Not just against the 49ers. That might be their biggest upgrade.

And he was fun. He knows what he's doing. All I did all summer was research the NFL, and this was not in my research. Really? Pit Boss Rich was part of Green Bay. Now I feel like I would have picked them to win the division. Yeah, yeah. Go back.

The fucking Pit Boss, man. Chargers minus three and a half at home. Wait, did we do New England-Miami? I have that in a fairly watch list. Really? Okay. I don't think you've watched the Pats this preseason. All right.

There's not a lot of watchability. It's watchable in that we announce one team's not going to make the playoffs every week, right? Afterwards. Right. Potentially. I wonder who that's going to be. Potentially,

if that's a blowout. All right. Fairly watchables. Mm-hmm. Saints at Falcons. Yeah. I put this one in here because I just feel like there's a lot of fantasy guys in this game.

Mm-hmm. So, I, both you and like there's a lot of fantasy guys in this game so I both you and I all have at least one fantasy guy in this game in general Saints Falcons those games are usually pretty fun which Falcon are you gonna have

you're gonna you have to get Pitts otherwise what fantasy Patterson could have him have a little Drake London cross your fingers

hope that he's healthy he plays yeah I think this is a classic Saints by three and a half textbook Have a little Drake Lennon, cross your fingers, hope that he's healthy. He plays. Yeah. I think this is a classic Saints by three and a half textbook. You're going to get it. I went much, well, not much, I went three and it's five and a half. You're crawling back here.

It's five, five. Five and a half. That's a lot of respect for the Jameis Allen, Dennis Allen combo. Or Jameis Winston, Dennis Allen. You can learn the names it's week one remember we always talk about QB and coach

yeah if you rank each guy one through ten at their position right if it's like five or less run

Winston and Allen you could argue that Allen's probably a two out of ten as a head coach right Winston's like a four okay

out of ten below average Jameis Winston's below average as a QB. Starting QB. You better reevaluate your Eagles pick to win the division if this is going to be the process. There's so many good quarterbacks now. I don't think either of them are above average.

They are good. Is this the best top 20 quarterbacks we've seen? Because I still think the bottom five or six are as bad as when we grew up. Well, think about this. Here's Rogers and Mahomes, Allen, Herbert, Burrow, Brady, Wilson. That's seven. Stafford, Lamar, Deshaun when he comes back, Carr.

That's 11. Prescott, Cousins, Murray. That's 14. Mack Jones, Tannehill, Lawrence, Matt Ryan. That's 18. Winston's not better than any of those guys. Maybe you could, Tannehill, Lawrence, Matt Ryan. That's 18. Winston's not better than any of those guys. Maybe you could say Tannehill. Yeah, he's better.

I think he'll be better than Tannehill this year. I think so. But he's in that. He's definitely below average. Yeah, yeah. If the average is 16. So who has the worst? We did this. We do this before, like singer, actor.

Who's the best singer? Is it Jamie Foxx? If you're going to give one to five. Oh, yeah, yeah, actor. Who's the best singer? Is it Jamie Foxx? If you're going to give one to five. Oh, yeah. We'll do this with quarterback, coach. Which is the worst combination? Is it the worst combination?

The worst right now. Well, it's probably Rivera and Wentz, right? How do you get worse than that? Can you imagine that? Wentz almost made the playoffs. Isn't Wentz? He's a bottom five QB. I mean, you could say Lovey Smith and Davis Mills,

but you made the point in the over-under pot. Lovey Smith's a 500 coach. He's over. Two games over. 180 games. Maybe it's Kingsbury-Murray. No. Might be saying that. What other bad QBs do we have?

Because Tomlin and Pittsburgh, so they're out. Well, Seattle, it's unfair to say to Carroll. But Carroll's at least like he's been successful what's he gonna do with this team I know no I know you can't can't put that tag on him three more fairly watchables good Dolphins Pats

so this is the only line I saw but I saw it at how could that be I thought it was gonna be minus three sports media right this is the only line you saw listen I value guessing lines. I literally try to stay away from the lines so I can keep this as fresh as possible.

You don't do that. And then you accuse me of cheating. Yeah, you're right. Meanwhile, you're doing, I don't think, I don't know, you're doing extra points pods where you're like week one lines. Well, I have. I talk about games. No, we don't do week one lines.

I yell at people for saying, what do you think, Sal? Browns? Panther? I could lose. I signed an NDA. I could have to write a check for $35 million if I look at this line. I had Dolphins minus three. What'd you have? I think we... Oh, no, you get it. Shit. I said

three and a half. It's two and a half. It's two and a half right now? Yeah, but right now... Yes, right now. And right now. Yeah, two and a half. It's two and a half right now? Yeah, but right now, yes, right now. And right now. Yeah, two and a half. I wouldn't bet this because I would never bet on Tua. He would really have to prove it to me, but I just, this might be the last time to get the Pats on the road

with the home team getting less than three. That's a decent team. There are some strange two and a halves. Panthers two and a decent team. There are some strange two and a half. Panthers two and a half is strange. Dolphins two and a half. If this line was in week five, it could be Dolphins by six and a half. I'm just going to flag it.

Just quickly on the Pats. I tried to not talk about them that much. Why wouldn't this be three? You don't understand how bad the preseason was. This wasn't like, oh, they look bad in the exhibition games. They look bad every single day. They do not understand the offense. They have fucking Matt Patricia calling the plays

and coaching the offensive line. They're also not showing anything. Two Belichick kids. Of course they're not showing anything in the preseason. Especially the Patriots. The one great thing that happened was Thornton, who was just lights out the entire preseason. Then he gets hurt.

He breaks his collarbone. Yeah. You're gonna be fine. I'm not even buying into this at all. Well, listen, it's not like I'm like a

sky is falling guy. Last year I thought the Pats were gonna make the Super Bowl. That's true. That was dumb too. I tried to talk you down.

When we were talking about our teams are gonna play each other, what are the odds? Look it up. But I'm like, yeah, that odds are zero. Yeah.

My team lost by 50 points in round one. And your team ran out the clock with the ball. How dare you? That was not what it meant to be. It was not meant to be because you didn't run a play. You had like a six-week stretch where you gave up like 25 total points. We peaked in week 10. Stupid.

That Atlanta game on Thursday night. Thursday night. We went to dinner. I was like victory laughing at it. What the hell? Yeah. And then it all went to hell. I have Ravens Jets in New York or New Jersey as a fairly watchable because I don't know.

I mean, this probably could have been a poop-fecta game, but I am excited to see what are we getting with Lamar this year? Because I do think Lamar, we talked about them a little in the over-under, but it wouldn't be out of the realm if Lamar was fucking awesome this year and the Ravens were awesome. And you'd be like, of course. Why didn't we realize this? The injury luck last

year. And of course, Lamar won the MVP three years ago. Why didn't we see this? I'm not ruling it out. I don't think it's going to happen, but I also like, this is the kind of game where if he goes in to Jersey week one and they just like light it up and Bateman has two touchdowns

and Dobbins looks good and it's just like, oh, the Ravens. Jesus, where were we? They had 45 guys hurt last year. Yeah. So they win like 45 to 10. Dobbins averaged like

six and a half yards of carry when he was, when he was, before last year when he was hurt and then Gus Edwards gets hurt. It's just ridiculous what happened to their offense and they still ended up

eight and nine, I think. Somebody is going to kick somebody's ass in week one and we're going to overreact. And the candidates are this Ravens game.

This is a good call. The Vikings just killing the Packers. Right. And then, and then the Chiefs killing the Cards. I won And then, and then the Chiefs killing the Cards. I won't overreact to that

because I'm already reacting. Yeah, you're right. Maybe that doesn't count. So maybe those were the two. Oh, I guess Dolphins, if the Dolphins kill the Patriots, that would be an overreaction. Yeah.

Okay. So Ravens, I said minus four and a half for the Ravens. That's too low. It is too low. I said five and it's six and a half. Yeah, that's stupid.

Why didn't I go? I'm not teasing you, Lamar. What am I doing? Six. Six to six. Lamar. I'm not teasing you. Stop staring at me like that, Lamar.

I'm not putting you in a tease. Lamar. Stop it. Go to your room. This is so weird. I'm not teasing you. I know I'm going to end up teasing you. I know they're going to do Ravens-Bengals.

It's going to fucking happen. Ravens-Denver. Ravens-Bengals. God damn it. Lamar, stop looking at me. We do well on teasers early. We do well. You might say the underdogs cover against the spread. We do well, typically, on teasers early. And then we try to double all our winnings and it goes to shit. Do we have any evidence at all that Salah is a good coach? No. So that was another one I was thinking could be on the... For first coach fired?

Yeah. He's got to be top five. Like he might just stink. We certainly didn't see anything last year. All right. Last one that's fairly watchable. I honestly should have put this

in the poop fact. I apologize. Titans Giants. It's in Tennessee. I'm going to try not to watch any of this. This should be in the poop fact. You know what? I'm moving it. It's not too late. I'm going to move it to watch any of this. This should be in the poop fact. You know what?

I'm moving it. It's not too late. I'm going to move it to the poop fact. We can't cover it. No, we can cover it. I'm going to move it. I just don't like seeing it in the fairly watchable. I don't want to watch that game.

I have the Titans by six and a half at home against the Giants. I think I got this. Oh, no. I said five. It's five and a half. Oh, so you won anyway. Yeah, I won that one. Five and a half.

Why wouldn't that line be higher than that? I don't think anyone trusts the offense. But, you know, Derrick Henry, that was a weird over-under last year.

It was like 1539 or something and the year before he had 2,000 and it was an extra game. It's like, what the hell? Why isn't this? And then he was well

on his way to crushing it. But the truth is he was at the season, he was at the league average in yards per carry. So he might kind of was well on his way to crushing it. But the truth is, he was at the league average in yards per carry. So he might kind of already be on his way now. I'm certainly not going to have him on a fantasy team.

Let me ask you this. Who is this year's, they fuck everybody over week after week for five weeks until everybody realizes they're not that good team? Because I think the Titans... A team we think is good that does Oh, because I think the Titans, a team we think is good. That does that. I say,

it's not the Titans because I don't think people have a lot of high hopes for the Titans, but like it could be the Rams. It could be the bucks. Yeah, it could be, there could be a team where just over there, just own five against the spread after five weeks.

I think we're down. I think we're not high on enough teams for it to beat us. I think we've kind of been, uh, we like that. We like the middle class this year. We're the dog that's been hit with the rolled up newspaper

all the time. We just don't trust the owner anymore, so... I think it's a middle class season. Yeah. All these teams in that 8 to 10 win range are kind of the...

Well, especially that AFC West where anywhere you look at has a tough six-game stretch, whether it's in the beginning, Chiefs have a tough start, and then Chargers have a tough middle, and like everyone, the Raiders a tough start and then charges have a tough middle and like, well,

everyone, the Raiders tough start. I'm not betting on that Titans Giants game. Oh, here's a possible tease. Niners. Damn it. The Niners.

Niners at Chicago. Yeah. I guess seven and a half. Is that too low? Too many six. I had six and I think I got it exactly at six and a half. Yeah. Oh man.

That's the one. I'm definitely teasing the Bengals with the Niners. Well, but it's still Lance against fields. I know, but you've done it last year. Would you have done it? The only thing that worries me with the bears is they had like this crazy

draft where they hit on all these dudes on defense, like undrafted dudes and fifth rounders. Yeah. Um, so they might be a little friskier defensively than I think people realize. So maybe this is a team

that's crucial. But let me ask you this. They're the Niners as a team. ZFL that you've been in, the Gus Ramsey's Picks League. John Oaks is in that league. He's had this for 30 years. The how many points

are they going to score game, which I've always joked about. Right. How many points are the Bears going to score against the Niners defense? Like, realistically, 10? I'm with you. Seven? How are the Bears going to score against the Niners defense? Like, realistically, 10?

I'm with you. Seven? How are they going to move the ball? They shouldn't. Fields is going to be running for his life. Yeah. Bosa, Warner, all those guys will chase him down, I think. We hate their weapons.

We hate the Bears' weapons. That could also be a Niners in the under tees. What's the under? They took it off the board. Not enough points. No, 41 and a half. Wow. That's kind of high, actually.

So you could tease that to 47 and a half and just tease the Niners. Could those two teams get the 48 points? Now you're not only violating your teaser edict, but you're teasing in the same game. The important thing is I really believed I was going to be able to do no teasers this year. I really did. I really believed it.

I'm proud of you. I really believed I was going to be able to do no teasers this year. I really did. I really believed it. I'm proud of you. I really am. Washington and the Jaguars in Washington, which means nothing because there will be no fans there. This is an apocalyptic game. Wait, what happened? This moved a lot. I had, I guess, Washington by three are the Jaguars' favorite, though?

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm looking at the wrong week. All right. You get this. It's three and a half. I said two. I didn't think it, Washington by three. Are the Jaguars favored, though? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm looking at the wrong week. All right. You get this. It's three and a half. I said two. I didn't think it would be that high. Jesus.

Three and a half. Wait, now I'm getting worried. I love Jacksonville in this. You have seven. I have eight. It's fun to see you cheat in real time. Come on. Right in front of me versus on set.

Writing things down. Seven, eight to seven. Two left, right? The night games? Three left. We have Colts, Texans, Cowboys, Bucs. Okay. Broncos, Seahawks.

So, do you think there's any world where the Washington team that just lost Robinson for a few weeks, they basically buried Gibson the whole preseason. Now they're like, hey, sorry about, hey, you gonna be ready

to go these first four? Yeah. I don't like this game. I don't know. This game? I just think the Jaguars plus three and a half on the road against a team with no home field advantage whatsoever against Wentz, who they just beat eight months ago. I kind of like that one. The Jaguars lost, wasn't that first game to the Texans last year?

That's when we knew it was going to be weird. Yeah. Colts-Texans is the last one. This is in Houston. So this is yet another home dog. I put this in the Vegas zone. Colts by five.

I like the Texans. I think you went a little low. I said six. I think it's as high as seven and a half. Eight and a half. Oh, that's stupid. Eight and a half.

I'm taking the Texans. Wait, something happened. That went up a point since this morning. I am all in on Texans. I might bet that. Take it easy. You've seen a point since this morning. I am all in on the Texans. I might bet that. Take it easy. You've seen Pierce?

Pierce was incredible. That's the rookie. That's the one we're going to go nuts about. Oh, my God. He's really good. Yeah. I like that team. I like the Texans in general, but why the hell is that eight and a half?

That is scary. Sunday night. Yeah. You're cowboys. Come on. Come on. We have to get treated to them in another night game

I'm just glad it's not the Giants again I hear Mike McCarthy staring trying to catch flies with his mouth as he stares

confused in the sidelines it's so funny that you've just never had a good coach other than when Parcells showed up why does that happen

yeah you grew up with Tom Landry and then after that it was Jimmy yeah and then for that it was Jimmy. Yeah.

And then for the last 30 years starting with Switzerland. And Garrett keeps failing upwards. Somehow he's calling Notre Dame games. What the fuck? With Collinsworth's son. With Collinsworth's son. Yeah.

With Collinsworth's son. How does he keep landing jobs? This is a good sign for my son down the road. I think so. Can I just get my son to Nancy Jobs? Yeah.

We need a good sign for your son. Figure out how that goes. I have the Cowboys favored by one over the Bucs. No. The Bucs are favored. The Bucs are supposed to win

100 games this year. Bucs by one and a half. I had three. So I get it. You did get that. The Bucs are favored. So you won the week. Yeah, that's good.

So the Cowboys are another home dog. I may have to walk away with a week one win. That's got to be. I'm going to be like Tom Brady, retire after week one, guess the lines. So Tom Brady just disappeared for 10 days. Half of his offensive line got hurt. Right.

There's a page six article today that him and his wife no longer live in the same house. He's 45 years old. And everybody looked at this and said, you know who should be favorite in Sunday night the Bucks but let me ask you something how much better would you perform if you and your wife didn't live in the same house

well where do I sign I mean I love her to death but really we thrive work wise we're going to get in trouble here thank God she doesn't listen yeah there's no way she'd listen.

No, this is fair. The only possibility is your mom listening and then mentioning it. Oh, that's true. Which is a total move she would do. That's going to happen.

Shit. Or putting it on her Facebook even worse. don't cut it out, but put it on a loop. No, it'd be a Facebook post. I was listening to Sal's podcast today with Bill

and he said he's better off not living with Melissa and I just want to say I think Melissa's great. I got a hacker. And then she would put like three pictures of the two of you together. Collages all over the place. The thing you really need to do is just take down your mom's Facebook.

How can I do it? You just need to, you go to her house. She goes to the bathroom or whatever. You say, hey, can I use my computer, your computer to send an email? Change your password, leave. And then when she can't get in, say i don't know i i don't know yeah i have to do it because i you have to do every three hours i get like some facebook post forwarded to me from her like about how if i go on an all brussels sprouts diet i'll add three years to my life or something i gotta get i gotta get you have to get rid of right. You have to get rid of it. Yeah. That's my advice. All right. Monday night.

We talked about this a little in the NFC over under. I think I always complain that there's two games. Now I wish there were two games on Monday. I was like devastated that we didn't have two games. Why don't we have two games? I think they figured out they can't get a broadcasting crew there. There's no way to do it. We tried everything. Too many bad number two broadcasting crews. We tried

it. Sorry. We can't just. Jesus. number two broadcasts. We tried it. Sorry. We can't just ditch the game rather than teach them So is this going to be Buck and Aikman, right? It is. So this will be the first time

we've just had an awesome Monday Night crew and that's it on Monday Night. Yeah. Versus like Berman calling it with Paul McGuire. They're going to look

at each other in the second quarter early and be like, did we leave Fox for Seattle? A night game with Seattle? Geno Smith and a banged up Kenneth Walker? I picked Broncos minus four.

I said five. I think it's up to six and a half. It is. Yeah. Wow. I like the Seahawks. That was a good shellacking by me. Congrats. Thank you, buddy. I always let you win weekks. That was a good shellacking by me. Congrats.

Thank you, buddy. I always let you win week one. You kind of do. 10-7. All right, so to recap, here are our home underdogs in round one. Rams plus 2.5. Vikings plus 2.5. Lions plus 3.5.

Cards plus 3.5. Falcons plus 5.5. Jets plus 6.5. Bears plus 6.5. Texans plus 8.5. Cards plus 3.5. Falcons plus 5.5. Jets plus 6.5. Bears plus 6.5. Texans plus 8.5. Cowboys plus 1.5. Seahawks plus 6.5. That is 6, 7, 8, 9.

They did a good job. 10 home dogs. Right. That's not going to end well, I'm telling you, for the favorites. Well, but some we're gonna stay away from like Bill's Rams Bill's Rams we're gonna have to have money on it

because it's Thursday night but can you ever remember a year after four weeks where the favorites were like 35 and 25 I'm gonna find that stuff for you

it's never happened I think it's gotten a little tighter but I think you're right we're good I don't see it I don't care I'm gloating

I won week one just be really careful out there. All right, before we go, we got to do parent corner. We're going to change parent corner to family corner. I don't know. We can't really talk about our older kids anymore. Well, or like I said. I will tell you this.

The parent corner we could do about our kids at the age they're at now would be amazing, but I actually think my daughter would like kill me in her sleep. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. It's rough. It would be a- Like, multiple times where my daughter and I have me in her sleep. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. It's rough. It would be a... Multiple times where my daughter and I

have not talked for two days. We'll let it fly. We could always cut it out. Not bring it out. Not bring it out. No? You go first. What do you got?

You have the more fun parent corner because you have a little kid. All right. But this one doesn't involve them. But now we're in... Let me just say high school football is the best.

I have two real quick. But high school football is the best thing ever. It is the best. I have two real quick, but high school football is the best thing ever. Yeah. It is the best fucking most beautiful thing ever being a parent of a high school football player. Agreed? You love it now. You're now seeing it for two weeks plus practice weeks.

It's the most intense fan experience I've ever been a part of. Yeah. Because not only are you rooting for your team, you root for your kids' teams at a whole other level, but then on top of it... You root for your kids' health. You're scared for your kids. Yeah, survival.

Yeah. You don't want them to let the team down. Right. And so there's just this... You're walking this tightrope every play where it's like, please don't get hurt. Please make a play.

Please don't be the one that fucked up. Yeah, yeah. Don't jump off sides. Don't do this. There's so much there. My buddy Darren's son make a play. Please don't be the one that fucked up. Yeah, yeah. Don't jump off sides. Don't do this. There's so much there. My buddy Darren's son is a quarterback. I know you're referring to that same kind of thing. It's like, I don't even know how he's a college quarterback.

I don't know how you do it. And high school is tough enough. And then I'll just tell the story. I talked about how the Madden, we talk about when a team is up with a minute left, down with a minute left and driving. And when you get to the five yard line, you got all the plays you need. You got 10 plays if you want them there.

Don't hurry to the line. And I see my son yelling, slow it down, slow it down. This is like a 45, 42 game. Like they're scoring back and forth. There's a minute six left. So you feel proud because you feel like because he watched so much football with you, he actually learned what to do. Right. The other side is, oh my God, he's smarter than the coach.

That sucks. I don't like that. Anyway, so they score with a minute left and the other team scores with 30 seconds left and they end up losing 52-48. He plays both ways and a good thing, he gets home like an hour later. He's like, I don't even know where my phone is. I think I lost my phone. You know like when they're in the fog and they like an hour later he's like I don't even know where my phone is I think I lost my phone

you know like when they're in the fog and they don't care and he's like I can't believe how I play and he played well I really think he played well but he's like down on himself

and now in this day and age you get the plays like an hour later they must have some students oh yeah we get that putting them together so I'm watching the plays from 11.30 at night

to 1 in the morning three times each play are you grading them like pro football focus? We kind of are. Like, we kind of look like, okay, here's what you did. I have limited knowledge

of the offensive tackle position, you know, but like we'd watch it twice and then once for the result of the play. But I was like, wow, what a monster

I've created. This is the worst thing in the world, but it's also beautiful. It's like, and I know you have stories about your son just put a touchdown.

Well, this is your last year though. This is it, senior year. Yeah. Yeah, it's incredibly intense. You have three more left after this. I know you have stories about your son. This is your last year, though. This is it. Senior year. Yeah. Yeah, it's incredibly intense. You have three more left after this. I know. Yeah, my son made the varsity, and he started getting reps. There's somebody who's hurt who's coming back,

who I think might come back this week, but it's going to be limited for at least a couple more weeks. And he was just playing. And he's like, Dad, first I went from, I hope I made the varsity. He's like, dad, I think I'm going to play.

Freshman. Yeah. And well, he's big. He's like, you know, he's big and fast. Yeah,

I know, but not a lot of freshmen. You know, it's like a team edict. A lot of freshmen don't make varsity. Yeah. Well, the thing is he's 14 and I wouldn't call him,

you know, 14 year olds. They're dumbasses. Okay. So you, football, there's a million plays and a million ways for things to go wrong

so anyway first game he caught a touchdown in the first half and he made another big catch in the fourth quarter and at halftime in this game

we're up we're up six but we've gotten three turnovers and I'm saying my wife knows nothing like she doesn't understand anything about football so I'm explaining to her

and I'm like this is bad and she's like why is this bad we're winning and I'm like we're is bad. And she's like, why is this bad? We're winning. And I'm like, we're on the road. This team got three turnovers or committed three turnovers and we're, we should be at 20. Right. And if I, if Sal was here, Sal and I would be on some weird gambling set right now, betting on the home team because we're going to blow this. So anyway, go down second half. My son made a really important catch on the sideline and keep this

drive going. We get to the 10, we run it in with six minutes left flagging the play. We would have two scores game over next play pick. Yeah. They come down, they score with the ball two minutes left. We get to like the 30. It was the same thing where we, we, we did the best. We did the ball where you, you, where you intentionally throw it down to stop the clock but we really should run a play 45 yard field goal just left

we lose 45 you're attempting 45 yard field goal we have a really good kicker wow so we lose heartbreaker at the end

and my wife was the most devastated I've ever seen after a spanking she cried when he caught the touchdown because he was like he's our little baby he's 14 yeah so then she cried when he caught the touchdown because he was like he's our little baby he's 14

yeah so then the next week he had the the false start inside the five one of those that knocked us back to the ten

and we ended up like having to kick the field goal and then he had he screwed up one other play ride home he was so upset

just silence for a half hour so we had we had both gamuts we had the ice score to touchdown we had both gamuts we had the ice score to touchdown game week one and then we had the does he have to watch tape on saturday oh yeah yeah he got murdered with a guy right i know yeah that's the other thing like the emotion never ends like all right now i gotta go in and get yelled at a coach by my coach yeah he did why

did we do this to our kids it was this red zone play inside the five he was the outside receiver and he was supposed to bring his guy to the back of the end zone, and the play was supposed to go through our best guy next to him. And he didn't bring his guy over in time, so his guy hopped off and picked the pass. Oh. And I was watching him like, I don't really feel like this is his fault.

And he was like, it was my fault. It was. It's a freshman. You don't know football. It was. And I was like, no, it wasn't. So you didn't fucking play football. So then the next day we go in. I think he's right. You don't know football. I was 10 and was like, no, it wasn't. So you didn't fucking play football. So then the next day we go in.

I think he's right. You don't know football. I was 10 and 7. Clearly after I got killed. So he goes in the next day and they do the play in slow-mo. They're like, this is your fault. I was completely wrong.

He totally fucked it up. But yeah, it's intense, man. He had a play when he got just tackled by two kids, but I could see the safety coming over. And you just have that Baltimore-Pittsburgh 2009 in your head where you're like please don't yeah you know so i guess this is what it's like the next four years oh you're gonna love it and your wife is gonna love it too like mine became a football wife like she has to miss oh yeah this week's game because she's away she's like i'm really bummed out that i have to miss this game it's

like the highlight of my week. It's the best. You know what's interesting? The coming in as the freshmen with the seniors is the other piece because part of the high school is you're like on the total bottom of the totem pole. But at least if you're playing football and these seniors, they're all cool, right? So if they kind of take you under your wing at least a little bit, like you can't even buy that experience on eBay.

These kids are like driving to practice. Although you can't even buy that experience on eBay. These kids are like driving to practice. Although Ben will try to buy that experience. If anyone could buy it on eBay, Ben. He's having a great time. Yeah. But now the homework's starting. So who knows? You know, comes home at seven o'clock and he does four hours of homework and he's like,

this sucks. Nah, let the seniors do that for him. Yeah. But listen, we've come a long way from the kid who is wrestling a sofa cushion in our living room for four, three hours. Well, I think he'll go back to that eventually. Maybe. But this is a nice little four-year period. Would you recommend wrestling or no?

Because they're trying to get him to do it. I think it's great. I think, you know, if you feel like a dick sending your kid to military school, like, this is the next best thing. You get discipline. You learn how to lose weight. Look at me. I have a picture of health. But I loved it.

Wrestling's great. The only problem is he's going to have to play with his weight probably, right? I mean, he'll go in. What does he weigh now? He's like about 160 right now. He could wrestle like 138 or 145.

That's like the very next season. What's 150? Could he get to that? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I mean, they changed the weight classes out. Isn't it funny though? Like, I don't feel like

in 2013, 14 range, it would have been inconceivable, I think so. Yeah, I mean, they changed the weight classes out. Isn't it funny though? Like, I don't feel like in 2013-14 range, it would have been inconceivable, I think, at least for me, to let my son play football. Yeah, what happened? I just wouldn't have done it. That concussion movie,

it's been, it's made its rounds enough that we don't care? Well, one of the things, if you see the helmets they have now are incredible. Like, they do. They are better.

I do feel like there's safer things happening. And also, like, I feel like a lot of these sports are unsafe. Like do feel like there's safer things happening. And also, I feel like a lot of these sports are unsafe. Trust me, the soccer, I think like girls soccer, it's like girls soccer is a mess. So many concussions and broken bones and crazy things. The counter to that is the football players tend to have more violent tendencies with the CTE. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert here, but I think, but I think the thing is, I think they have a different disposition going into it as football players

versus soccer. So it's a certain type of kid that wants to do it. There's, there's a certain recklessness and a fearlessness that I certainly didn't have. Right. I don't want to get hit. Yeah.

And my son's like excited to like, when they put the pads on, he's like, dad, we're going to tackle today. Yeah. We might do the Oklahoma drill. And my son's like excited to like when they put the pads on he's like dad we're going to tackle today. Yeah. We might do the Oklahoma drill and he was like excited about

it. I would have been shitting my pants. We say this now and then they're going to murder us in our sleep. Football.

All right. So that's it. Do your plugs. That was fun. I don't know. Yeah. Against all odds we're going to go over Monday.

When is this air? Sunday? Sunday. Oh forget it. I don't know. Listen to Extra Points odds, we're going to go over Monday. Wait, when is this air? Sunday? This is Sunday. Oh, forget it. I don't know. Listen to the Extra Points Podcast Network, extrapoints.com. It's all there.

All right. Good to see you, Seth. Good job by you. Good job by you. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring,

he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you can still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend that powers your scale with no preset spending limit. More cash on hand to grow your business with up to 55 interest-free days. And the ability to reach further with access to over 1,400 airport lounges worldwide. Redefine possible with Business Platinum.

That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. Okay, so I interviewed Dick Ebersole a few days ago. We're about to run that. Just wanted to give you some context. He is one of the most important television executives we've had in the last 50 years.

Started out at ABC, working for Rune Arledge, who was an absolute icon. Wide world of sports, Monday Night Football, all the boxing, super teams, the Olympics. Rune Arledge was basically the guy that shepherded in the modern era of sports television. And then Dick eventually took the torch when he was at NBC. But during the course of that, he also was involved in the creation of Saturday Night Live.

He took over Saturday Night Live in 1981 when it was about to fall apart. He did Friday Night Videos and worked with Vince McMahon on Saturday at Main Event and brought basketball to NBC. He kept football at NBC, lost it, then brought it back for Sunday Night Football, was involved with really most of the Olympics we've had for the last 50 years

and just has story after story after story, which are all in his book, which I highly recommend. But I want to talk to him about all that. He also had a real tragedy. He had a plane crash in 2005 that two of his sons were on, Charlie and Teddy.

And Teddy was 14 years old and Teddy actually died in the plane crash. So when he references that in the interview, that's what he's discussing. Dick almost died. He got saved by his son. His son pulled him out of the wreckage. His son was really banged up too. And Dick was banged up for months and months and months. I mean, he broke his back. He was in really rough shape and was able to rally out of it as he was putting together the Sunday Night Football deal. He's just an incredible guy who had an incredible career and some sadness too that he was able to turn into some strength, which is what he wrote about in his book. So when he references that during the interview, that's what he's talking about. But it was an absolute honor to speak to him after all these years. I was so glad we did it. Here it is, Dick Ebersole. All right. This took a long time. I don't know why it took 15 years to have Dick

Ebersole on the podcast, but it did. It even dated back to the Grant Linnaeus Pindays. I guess we were more competitors in those days, but he just wrote a book. He's had an incredible career. This book checked a lot of my interests, Dick. You had stories about Rune Arledge, Howard Cosell, Eddie Murphy, David Letterman, Johnny Carson, the history of football on television, the Olympics. It was basically like my entire childhood and adulthood coming to life.

But you were all over the place. What was the thing you were most excited to talk about in the book? Did you feel like there was something that needed to go out there that you needed to correct or elaborate on? Or was there just that one thing that you were like,

I can't wait to get this out there? Well, I think more than anything, I believe in one thing more than anything else, and it's relationships. And I've had a lot of good fortune in my life, but almost all that has stemmed from relationships that I formed from a very young age. Obviously, Rune Arledge is higher as the first Olympic researcher ever, is still a teenager while I was a foreign exchange student in Europe, ranks up with Lucky. But more than Lucky, I turned it into something.

I kept going to more events in Europe, introducing myself to more and more people. When I came back to the States, they put me in all kinds of roles. Ivy League football back in the day when that meant something. I mean, Yale and Harvard, the 27-27 tie or whatever it was, all those things. And I just kept building on them. And having Rune as my teacher, my friend, and somebody like Jim McKay, who was a storyteller the likes of which we've never seen in television media again. And he was a tough taskmaster.

He really taught me how to tell a story as briefly as possible on paper so that he could just look down and see a bunch of words and he could go from there. And Kurt Gowdy was much the same way. I used to come up to Boston. I'll never forget. Nixon resigned, I think it was much the same way. I used to come up to Boston. I'll never forget. Nixon resigned, I think it was on a Thursday night. And I had ruined it, promised Don Oldmeyer and I that we were going to get these big promotions, which were, even in our minds, were too much. They were going to be given the two top jobs in the company.

And I wrote him a note and told him I didn't think it was really the right thing to do. And I didn't think it was going to happen anyway. And I left those notes for him. And I did not know when I would hear from him. And about a month later, I was sitting in the polo lounge in LA, the Beverly Hills Hotel, with Lorne Michaels and his wife. And Lorne and I were celebrating the fact that we had shaken hands on the fact he was going to come work on this show that I had a blind commitment from NBC. I certainly didn't see myself as a great comedy writer at that stage of my life, nor do I now.

But I sure knew he was the guy I wanted to have. As we walked into the polo lounge, he sort of nudged me and he said, isn't that your father figure over there? And I looked sure enough across the room, believe it or not, Bill, were Rune and his wife and Howard Cosell and his wife. And Lorne nudged me again, go on, go on, go on over there. And I went over, and the welcome that Rune and his wife and Howard and his wife gave me was one of the great feelings of my life because I'd grown up there as a kid,

literally a kid, and it was just one more sign that the relationship between Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersole was meant to be, and we went from there. And also that you left on good terms with your old boss. I did. I thought that was another important lesson from that.

That could have been icy. That could have been weird. But I don't know. Over and over again, it seems like you handled everything in a way that there was going to be no hard feelings no matter what happened. That's the most important lesson I can tell anyone about leaving a job.

You cannot afford to leave it with bad blood. You just can't. I wish you had told me that in 2015 when I left ESPN. You're right. I could have told you. I was standing by. Yeah, I should have called you. You know, there's so many good lessons in the book. I love books like this, especially when somebody can write about their career, but also a couple of real things they learned in the book. I love books like this, especially when somebody can write about their career, but also a couple of real things they learned along the way. I always get asked, how do I do what you do? Or how do I get into sports media? Or how do I do this? Or you have some parent who my son really wants to be a broadcaster. How does he do it? And I'm always like, you just got to work

your ass off. And people always seem kind of taken aback. And it seems like a lazy way to give advice, but it's really not. It's like, you have to outwork everyone else. One of the things that was interesting about your book, you're at Yale, which you finished your sophomore year, and you have this chance at ABC and you start working and you basically go to school while also working for ABC and you're a full-time college student or most full-time, but you also have a full-time job at ABC in the weekends, you're flying around. And you just basically did that for three years because you knew it was going to set you up for down the road. I do worry that some people don't realize that sometimes that's what you got to do.

You got to work everybody by 20 hours a week, 10 hours a week. You have to grab every chance you get because you don't know when you're going to get another chance. And the most important other part of that is you have to be there. You got to keep pressing to get through the door. People say, well, how do you do that?

I say you never give up pressing on the door and And people say, well, how do you do that? I say, you never give up pressing on the door and be willing to take on any job, no matter how lowly. And the travel I went through, Bill, was horrendous. I was a student at Yale and I was doing the pro bowlers tour on Saturdays, leaving New Haven on a Thursday, flying across the country, usually to a bowling event. And then on Saturday late afternoon, flying to wherever the NBA game was the next day, which was usually either Boston, New York, Philadelphia, or Los Angeles. And some of the relationships I formed then are the most important ones I ever had in my life. That's how I got to know Bill Russell. And I adored him. And one of the great honors of

my life and i think susan feels the same way as when bill was starting to feel weak about a little more than a year ago he called us up he was going to come to springfield and uh mohegan sun and bill was going to be honored for you know having been made a member of the hall again for being the first coach who did this and the first coach who did that. He'd gotten in as the first black player ever and so on. But he came to stay with us. He wasn't feeling all that strange. And he stayed for about two months. And we'd sit out on this porch overlooking our big lawn and just shoot the breeze. And God, we had fun. And remembering the stories. And there are two that I'd love to tell you.

I think they may be in the book, but I'd love to tell you. We talked about everything under the sun. He reminded me of the very first time we met. Chet Forty was this great college player, really small guy, maybe the smallest MVP of the college basketball season ever.

But he was the producer of the ABC games, and he was a character and a half. And he always would have, Don O'Meara and I had to play him in the horse on the garden floor. We'd get our butts clean because Chet was an unbelievable shooter. But at some point, I went up,

make a jump shot, and I split my pants and I started looking around as to what do I do next when Havlicek said Dick come here and I walked over and he said Beth's back in the locker room, I knew both of them fairly well at the time, just go back there and she'll get a needle and thread and sew you up

so I go back there and she's just finishing sewing me up when Russell turns the corner watching through his dressing in his dressing room. His dressing room. He goes, what the heck are you doing in my dressing room? This is not a stop for some TV guy or something like that. Get out of here!

And so I started to walk out. Just as I got to the doors, the cackles started and I turned around. He was pointing at me and laughing at me. It just put me on. About a year later, I'm living in LA. I've been fired.

I made a habit, I guess, at NBC. I think I was fired three or four times over more than a decade. All for the fact that my track record for producing shows and all kinds of events was not enough always to keep me in the job. There was always somebody there who was jealous or mad at me or whatever the hell it was. But in any case, I decided I had a Porsche and my very first sports car of consequence. And I decided I was going to see if I could drive from the Beverly Hills Hotel to the St. Francis Hotel at the top of a hill in downtown San Francisco and see if I could do it under four and a half hours. Lunacy. Left the Beverly Hills Hotel at about 2.30 and I'm roaring when I get to the turnoff or, oh, I forget what the hell it is. I want to say Bakersfield or

something like that. Going. And I noticed out of the corner of my eye, there's this little car. I can't tell what it is, but it keeps gaining on me. And then I floor it and it keeps coming back and gaining on me. Finally, I notice that I'm starting to see the front part of the car out my window on the side. And the car finally pulls alongside me and this huge face with this tremendous smile. And I can only imagine how loud the cackle is. It's Russell and he's going over 200, 230 miles an hour to pass me. So he signals me, let's pull over. So we pull over on route five and we stand there for about an hour and a half or two hours just shooting the breeze.

And that relationship took us to all kinds of different places. My wife is quite an imaginative person. And when my birthday party took place a year later, she had Costas play Ralph Edwards, This Is Your Life. She'd run it at Broadway Theater. So Costas is up there with the big book and some you know voice will be heard usually it's not uh immediately known who the voice is but one of them was russell's yeah hey do you remember the time we were going 105 cackle cackle cackle up the california five cackle cackle c, cackle. And it was an extraordinary night,

but Russell sort of set the tone and the rest were all these various people, commissioners, people. And I had the time of my life and Russ, through the years that followed, we kept up the relationship. And I felt myself so lucky because he was a hero. I mean, he should be such a hero everywhere in our country, not just among African-Americans, but among whites.

He expanded so many things in our country and brought rights to so many more people. I'm still sad that he passed, not just from life, but passed without truly getting all the honors he deserved. If it wasn't for this younger generation of NBA stars, starting with Kobe and so many others who really brought honor to him in the last eight, 10 years of his life, I don't think he ever would have gotten the honors that he was due. Yeah, it felt like it shifted for him starting in the late 2000s where, you know was when he disappeared, he disappeared. He went to Seattle. He didn't really want a lot of it. He didn't want to protect his legacy because he didn't care. And I think so many other people cared that they were the ones that really started pushing him to be out there a little bit more. I also think the finals MVP was great for him. Just seeing him hand the trophy every year to whoever the best guy was, it just felt like so perfect.

And you could just see the look on the, whoever the best player for that year was on the championship team, that Russell was giving them the trophy. It just, it really, it felt really special, you know? And I don't know, that's one of my favorite things about the NBA is they really do care

about the links to the generations and how the guys from the 50s and 60s led on. Well, I think the number one thing was who was the commissioner? I think Stern was magical. And I think, and Adam is equally magical. They know how to deal with people. And David formed a relationship with Bill he was incredibly close with Bill and that yeah passed on to Adam Adam took Susie and I on a plane from Boston to Seattle two weeks ago for the funeral and Adam was wonderful in speaking.

The person who really was unbelievable, no notes, just from the heart, but just beautifully spoken was Barkley. God, it just blew us away. And so, I mean, Charlie and I, my son and I have gotten close through the years to Charles. And when Adam asked me, who did I want to induct me into the hall of fame? I guess it's two weeks away now. I said, only one person I can think of is Charles.

So I can't wait to see whether Charles treats me kindly or lovingly insults the hell out of me for half an hour. What that, when you were working your way up at ABC, that was a big New York bar late night everybody smoking cigs having drinks was there like a pressure that you had to that was kind of part of the game

you had to play back then if you wanted to be around the right people because it was such an old boys network could you have succeeded if you didn't kind of dive into that whole world? And if you weren't around those rooms, especially as it got later and later at night? All I can tell you is that all of us, if we got a chance to be at one of those hangout places now, because I was Rune's assistant, I got to be at the place where he was. Cause usually I was the

only one in the office who for sure knew where he was but all the rest wanted to be around him I mean the exchange of ideas alone was staggering and as he was winding down he said that Don Ulmeyer and I that he really wanted to make some magic changes this was in the last several months of his life and i put it in the book and i think it'll probably be shocking to some people but he had a conversation with the two of us about i don't know three or four months before he died and said that he wanted he wanted to retire and he wanted to leave all of abc sports in don's name and my name and uh when nothing happened for a while, both of us sort of agreed it probably wasn't the right thing for us.

And that Runa probably felt trapped now that he had done it. So I went to tell him we weren't going to do it. And he seemed stunned by that. And I just felt I had to get out of New York. So I rented a car and I drove to the suburbs of Boston, I think Chestnut Hill, to spend the night with the Goudys because I loved Kurt and I knew him very well because he was Rune's best friend.

And so I poured my heart out to him and what a gorgeous heart he had too. In any case, I did see see the room thanks to lauren about a year later and by then i was able to we we healed whatever breach there was but it was just as well don went on to become sort of one of the best producers in hollywood and i ended up having the life i probably always wanted to have but didn't think I could have it and that was running a major sports network and that was NBC.

What was Roone's greatest quality, in your opinion, for what he did for a living? What was the one thing that stood out the most? Two things. One, he had a ceaseless imagination. I said two things, actually three. The other thing was no sports event should unfold without beginning to tell the story. He was a storyteller. One of the things that had him worked up and a lot of us worked up is when we were lucky enough to get the NBA.

When CBS blew it. All those years with CBS where they couldn't get anything right. And so I just think he wanted to make sure that everybody out there knew what had brought these people to this place on this day or this night. And all of us were kind of on notice that we better have stories and good stories to tell throughout a telecast. He would have been driven crazy. Say if he had a couple of the CBS announcers who should go nameless, who he thought were just blow hearts. He wanted you, he wanted you to learn something every game

that you were assigned to, whether you were the producer or whether you were the main announcer. And that was the A number one requirement. No ifs, ands, or buts. So one of the things I learned from the book about you was some of the best decisions you made were either jobs you didn't take or jobs you realized, wait a second, if I do this, this sends me down this path and I'm not sure I want to go down this path. I think even though that's a better job on paper, I'm probably better off here with this piece of real estate. I think most people don't think that way. Most people, when they're offered a job,

think, whoa, that's a better job for more money. I'm going to take that. How did you have the discipline to kind of instinctively know over and over again, eh, I think I'm better off here. You're not going to seduce me with that. Well, money was never a major thing to me. I grew up in a lower middle class household. There wasn't money dropping from the trees. But I had a father who really was the living definition of take care of your fellow man. He was a door-to-door fundraiser for the American Cancer Society in an industrial town in Connecticut.

And as the years went by, he got more and more involved in it, so much so that after about four years of that, the American Cancer Society selected this small-town lawyer from Torrington, Connecticut, to become the president of the American Cancer Society. And time and time again in his life, those were the kind of decisions that he chose. And he gave up a year or two of his legal practice because he was invited, listen to this combo, Nasser from Egypt and the Shah of Iran both had started to think about making service something that would become of importance in their countries.

And they invited my dad, this country lawyer, to come to their countries and show them what made door-to-door fundraising work. And that's the kind of household I grew up in. And then the most important decision in my life, I won an American field service scholarship to go abroad to live in Normandy for a year. And when my dad came home that night from his legal practice, I told him about it. And he said, well, what do you think? I said, I don't want to do it. I don't want to give up the chance to play on my junior varsity team's one chance they'll probably ever have to make the state small school championship. And I knew in my heart that I wasn't good enough to be anything other than a scrub, but that was the seduction for me.

God, I'd be with my two best friends. We'd have that year and so forth. And my dad never got loud, never got forceful. He just said, Dick, this is the opportunity of a lifetime. You're going to live in the middle of Normandy, not that far from where you lost one grandfather and probably that far again from where you lost another grandfather in a different world war. And this is a chance for you to go get a sense of what made those men want to go do that. And that pretty much convinced me that that was the right thing to do. Now, if you grow up in a house like that, you're not going to be motivated by who's offering the most money. At least that was true of me. That makes sense. In the book, I was really interested to see how you wrote about and discussed your relationship with Lorne Michaels,

because the Saturday Night Live thing is such a big part of your legacy in the show. And then as the years pass, people just think it was Lorne's show. You were involved in the beginning. You basically saved the show when it was about to die in 1981. And then Lauren came back in 85 and he's been there ever since. There's been a bunch of books and magazine articles about SNL. There's a really good book in the mid 80s about the first 10 years. There was a really good oral history about it. Do you feel like your contributions to that show have been captured accurately and treated accurately? Or do you think,

just how do you feel about it in general? I feel pretty damn good about it. I mean, through these last, I don't know, eight, 10 years, Lorne and I have completely renewed the relationship that we had from the beginning as friends. And he was the first to say that I saved the show. He left of his own volition. He just was burned out. And years later, I don't know, make it eight or nine, I was burned out. I told him, so I said, I just don't want to do it anymore. And he said, well, I think I might want to do it. I said, well, great, do it. And he came back and he found that really most important ingredient. He found eight to 10 really gifted writers. And obviously, he continued his record of always being able to find young, a repertory talent. But there was never any ill will between us. I think that Shales and his partner, they thought that would help juice up their book,

but it really wasn't anything in there that was true. And I'm thrilled that Lorne has done so many different things for me in my life. I mean, when Teddy died, four or five people got on a charter jet from New York. And when I woke up from, I guess, a coma, standing by my bed was Lorne Michaels. And the tears rolled down my cheeks. There's no way you can see the relationship as anything other than two guys who really care about each other. So you knew you had breakfast with them

or lunch with them, and you're trying to figure out, all right, what is this 11.30 Saturday night? What is the comedy potential? What is this? And you meet this guy, Canadian guy. No, it doesn't happen that way.

This fellow who really, really was the first one, his name was Herb Schlosser, and I'd met him when he was trying to find... I screwed that up. You're right. Yeah, he wanted to find someone to run his sports department.

I really wasn't interested in it because I just didn't... I felt Arledge would clean my clock. And then also that NBC was not that well set up to be a big successful sports network. They weren't going to put that kind of money suddenly in the big time sports. Anyway, I found Schlosser to be a real engaging guy, and he called me back a month or two later and asked me to come out to Fire Island where he and his wife had a house. I went out and spent a Fourth of July afternoon with him, and he laid out this idea he had for some kind of comedy show that he wanted to replace Johnny Carson's Saturday Night Repeats.

The reason for that being was that Johnny didn't want him there anymore. He wanted them to air on Fridays because he wanted to cut down to another fewer nights of the Tonight Show. And sure enough, a couple of years later, he was back again, wanted to do fewer nights. And they indulged him as they should have. He was the best, um, somewhere in that period of time. So I said no to that. Uh, I kept up the relationship with Schlosser. We talked and, uh, by now, uh, Saturday night live was on the air. Lauren, uh, was doing well with the show and, uh, I still saw him frequently, but I had no formal involvement with the show. And, you know, we'd help each other out when we could along the way.

But there was never this big animosity thing there. As I said, I think the boys from Washington thought that was going to help them celebrate. When you ride transit, please be safe. Yeah, be safe. Because what you do, others will do too. Others will do it too. So don't take shortcuts across tracks. Don't do that.

In fact, just don't walk on tracks at all. Not at all. Trains move quietly, so you won't hear them coming. You won't hear them coming. See, safe riding sets an example. Yeah, an example for me. Because safety is learned. It's learned okay

give it up give what up really really really oh this message is brought to you by metro links when you took over the snl 81 eddie's there yeah yeah i was watching that show i was finally old enough to watch the show when it was on live, probably that last Bill Murray season, so season five. And then season six is a disaster. Eddie and Piscopo were really the only two, I think, that made it out of there.

But you show up and you immediately know. Eddie's almost like a basketball player. Like, let's just put the offense around Eddie. Let's get Eddie 30 shots a game. That should be the show. That was a part of it. But the other part of it, which I think was even more important, was I was consumed with the idea that if I could put Eddie's three best spots

on between 11.30 and midnight eastern time to hold that audience that first half hour and late night and then soon thereafter maybe update or something like that but the idea to to concentrate on giving the audience at that hour what they wanted most of all instead of dragging it out and it worked um it it worked all due to Eddie's incredible strength. And as the years went by, we added more people. And Joe really knew how to go out and get a bunch of laughs when we needed them. His Sinatra, you know, was hysterical. And the show went from there.

And then Eddie said to me at one point, no, I really, really want, oh, by then he had made. Yeah, he was 48 hours in training places. 48 hours. 48 hours. And he and the guy was the head of making films at Paramount at the time, Katzenberg.

They came and sat down with me and said, you know, he really wants to move on. And I said, that's fine. Here's what I'd like. I'd like Eddie in this next summer to tape somewhere between eight and 12 pieces. Tape between eight and 12 pieces. And they didn't say anything about, oh, my God, it'll be on tape and it won't be live they said great so they uh we started off before we've had audience uh there for the regular show we taped a bunch of things i think one of them there was a mr robinson's neighborhood there was

a very famous one about mr robinson somebody's hot tub uh But that was enough to get us started. And then I had a good friend in Robin and Robin, I think, hosted the first show that Eddie wasn't there for. And we sort of built bricks out from there and those things kept the show alive. But it wasn't comedy

magic on my part. I never said it was. It was just the ability to know what the audience wanted and to try to give it to them. And to give it to them at an hour that would work for them as opposed to trying to keep them up

till four o'clock in the morning. Well, grabbing Eddie for that last year certainly fooled me because I just thought he was still in the cast. That's what I know. It was like with the internet back then. So Eddie's like, oh great, Eddie's still on the show.

We didn't realize all this stuff was taped. But yeah, I think he's the one guy that actually became bigger than the show. You're talking about a show now that's been on since 1975. I guess you could say maybe Belushi because the Blues Brothers were so big at that point. But Eddie, it just was so clear that he was going to become

one of the biggest movie stars in the world. And I guess it's like him and Belushi are the only two times that's happened. Well, they're definitely huge in the long-term success of that show, but I'd say that anyone who's ever had any involvement with the show would say that Eddie was the biggest show star, the biggest sensation that the show ever

had. And I know that covers a lot of ground, but he had a magic. I mean, if you let me steal another thing from the book, one of the classic moments of my career is when my assistant opens the door to my office, often Lawrence through the years as well, and came in and said, Mr. Robinson's downstairs in the lobby. He says he must talk to you. Not Mr. Robinson, Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers is downstairs. So that's a little simility on my part. But anyway, he's down in the lobby. He really has to see you. I said, okay, bring him up. So he came up and proceeded to tell me that he just hated the fact that we were making fun of Mr. Rogers. Anyway, he was crazy about it all. He was very polite. He wasn't ranting and raving. I said, well, listen, who are the two best writers through all those mid years. And, and I said,

where's Eddie? They said, he's due any minute. So I said, I'll send Mr. Rogers down to your offices. As soon as he gets here, he went down and talked to him and he was unrelenting.

He said, it's not, I have anything against you young men, but it's disrespectful to what I've created in Mr. Rogers. And I just can't have it. So I went back down and got him and walked him to the elevator and just said, sir, I'm really sorry that we can't find a way to make both of us happy. But just know I'll always be a fan. And I hope occasionally you'll stay up late to see what's happening in Eddie's Robinson.

Eddie. Mr. Robinson's neighborhood, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, again, relationships, relationships, relationships. Amazon just launched their football on Thursday. And they did it pretty similar to how you would have done it if you were in charge of Amazon, right? They went out and they got big people.

They spent a lot of money. They got the best production crew. They got Fred Gidelli, who's the best producer of NFL football in the last probably 15 or 20 years, if not longer. They got Al. And it just felt like real football. I did not feel like I was watching football on a streaming service. I felt like I was watching football on NBC or whatever. It does feel like there's a little bit of a sea change,

and you think like football in the 70s, that was one era. Fox stealing football in 94 was kind of the next era. You recreated the Sunday night football thing, basically turning Monday night football into a bigger event on Sunday night, which you spell in the book that I thought was really smart, where you're just like, all right, what's the problem with Monday night football? All of these games suck the last six weeks because they never know who's going to be good. On Sunday night, we could reconfigure that. We could change matchups. We could flex. And the matchups will actually be great the last six weeks. So you reinvent that. And now it feels like things are getting reinvented again. Well, I'll be boring you in a second. Relationships,

relationships, relationships. The commissioner at the time was Paul Tagliabue. And the head of the television committee was Pat Bowen. And I started off with Bowen, who I had a nice relationship with. I went out to Denver and sat down with him and laid out what this was going to be. You're talking mid-2000s for Sunday Night Football.

It's a year before it happened. Yeah. And I lay out how this thing would work, how, you know, I said, you guys, do you really realize to this point that Monday Night Football has never been the number one program on television? He said, no, I didn't. I said, I guarantee you'll have that. The way the games can be scheduled on a Saturday or Sunday, as late as that for a game to be played on Monday.

And in addition, you can have the A teams from everywhere doing these games. And he grasped it right away. And then I got,, I got, uh, I guess the plane crash was about here and, uh, I didn't talk to anybody for a while. And then finally one night, maybe five or six months after the crash, I was upstairs in our bedroom in Connecticut and, uh, the family was downstairs having dinner and I called Pat. And he heard my voice, and he started to cry. And this was a really, really together guy, but he was just blown away. He couldn't imagine losing the child.

And we talked for a while. And after a while, he said, I do have something I can't wait to tell you. I said, what's that? He said, I've got another vote. And I said, I beg your pardon. He said, Paul is in. So I've got his vote. I've got my own vote. And I'm sure that Robert and Jerry will go along. And that's when I knew that it was going to happen. And it basically changed television because football had never been the number one series on any network at any time. Now, suddenly, boom, here it was. But what changed for you because you let football go in the late 90s?

Because it got too expensive. It got too expensive and we were losing our shirt so what happened in those eight years that made it so football is too expensive to football is now a real opportunity for us what shifted i convinced jack welsh that i could make a go of it financially and thank god i did and the n the NBC Sports Sales Department overperformed because they had to go, you know, some advertising agencies were really skeptical about what kind of an audience you could get after three other games had been played on that day.

And I kept saying, there'll be better games, more times than not, there'll be better games. And that proved to be true and still true to this day. I didn't think it was possible, but it immediately felt like Monday Night Football just switched to Sunday night. And I think that was the hardest kind of hurdle, but within like two weeks, it was like,

oh yeah, all right, this is it. And I think one of the legacies of that was ESPN slash ABC had a chance basically to have Sunday and Monday night, right? And their Sunday night schedule heated up. I think they had Desperate Housewives and a couple other ones. But they basically could have taken it out.

You wouldn't even have been in the bidding, but because their TV lineup was doing well, all of a sudden Sunday night opens up. And I don't know, timing. Yeah. Well, they didn't have the leadership. And I'm not talking at this point, I'm not talking about sports leadership. They didn't have the leadership that really was prepared to go fight the biggest leadership in the cap cities world. And they couldn't get it done. And by the time they did get it done, we'd already made our deal. they were locked in then to uh never having the top game of the week again yeah so you think so sunday night football so that starts a 15-year era

are we in a new era now do you think or can is everybody going to coexist or do you just see everything headed towards streaming next 12 years well two things one i will come back forever to relationships relationships relationships and i think between uh freddie and mark lazarus they'll they'll continue to keep that special bond with the nfl but more importantly do any of us have a clue what streaming is going to be i mean most nights because my wife and I love television. We'll stay up till any hour. We go wandering around and half the time,

how do you know what the hell is there? I mean, it's just, it defies logic. Well, if you can't figure it out, that makes me nervous because you would have been the one, you would have been one of my bets.

If Susan can't figure it out, we're all at a loss because she is the ultimate television savant I've ever known in my whole life. And that doesn't come from her having been a great actress. She just knows television from A to Z.

You know, there's a couple times there like you get the NBA, the perfect time, right? CBS, for whatever reason, doesn't really see that this whole Jordan era is coming in the way it's coming. And it's hard to believe looking back. Can we stop though? Is there a more ridiculous, asinine

thing ever said about television sports than Neil Pilsen saying when they lost that he said, well, the future of the league is Utah and Cleveland. Yeah. This was after two years of those incredible Detroit and Chicago conference finals. Right. I mean, what were they? They definitely weren't smoking anything very strong over there to let that thing get away

and come to us. Right. So you buy in at a pretty good price. You ride them all through the 90s. The money's going up. Jordan leaves. And you get out, I don't know, at a pretty good time there in the early 2000s, right as they're trying to search for new superstars

and the quality of play is going down, stuff like that. And then you're out of the NFL, but you're in on the Olympics. But then you realize you get back in the NFL. It seems like over and over again, you're like this guy at the blackjack table who's like, ah, this table's getting a little cold. I'm out cashing in. Wait, you're doing so well. What happened now? I'm out. I'm out. Cash me out. And then you'd come back to the table two hours later and be like, I'm back in. That's pretty close. But again, Jack Welch, Jack Welch, because he was the one who was backing me to keep coming back to the table. And I never let him down. We never were in a situation where we were left hanging with something for a long period of time. You basically, you effectively retired in 2011. As you've been watching from afar, have there been opportunities

that you've seen in the last 10 years that you're like, man, can't believe they did that or can't believe they're not realizing that this is a bigger asset or anything like that? Do you feel like there was one move that you couldn't believe nobody saw? Well, let me be positive yeah be positive i think pataro at espn began to clean up the mess that that character who got fired what was his

name skipper yeah i mean whoa but pataro witho with the moves he made, bringing back Boomer. I mean, come on, Chris is beloved by almost everybody. And he came back and you just see the enlightenment and the features they do. And there's a really unbelievable relationship that they put together with the Mannings. I mean, all of us have had relationships with the Mannings for a year, and Pitaro snuck in there and he made a good relationship. And he's got some really intriguing stuff. So, you know, you just have to keep putting it out there.

And ESPN for a long time didn't seem, particularly in the skipper years, to know what was going on in the world. But things look to be a lot better at ESPN today. You'd be a better judge of that than I would, though. Well, they did save the football relationship the last four years.

I think was... They did. It felt like it was pretty much cratered. And now it feels like it's in a better place. And you could see with some of the games they were getting. They're getting basically the shit games now they lost are they a loser in this big 10 uh dance i don't know i mean they have so much stuff now yeah and plus with

college i would say like from a college standpoint it's just complete chaos. So what are you buying, right? Like they have the Texas, they had the Texas channel that now is getting folded into the SEC channel. And it's just, I don't know, the college would make me nervous, even though it seems like it's getting the ratings. The crazy thing to me,

I talked about this on a podcast a couple weeks ago, that football, it felt like people were turning on it for a bunch of different reasons. Like because of the, some of the off the field stuff, because of the concussions, people resent like the new stadiums getting built all over the place. And it just felt like the league was a little out of touch with the fans. And there was this whole generation of people that were really going after it, myself included. And then post pandemicpandemic, it just seems like people like having football around. It feels like football is as popular as it's been in 20 years,

which I would not have predicted. I absolutely agree. And I think that all the networks have some pretty good people and their talent lineups that make it good. And I think the NFL is very much aware of trying to even out the schedules between the networks. It doesn't make all of them happy every week, but it's seldom that anybody has a terrible lineup week after week. I don't know. I still like to watch an NFL game on Sunday and an NFL game on Monday. And then now we get Thursday. Hopefully the Thursdays will be a little bit

better. One of the things from your book, I just have to ask this because I'm always fascinated by this stuff. You had this innate sense of where the numbers were going to land. So you have, you told the whole story about the Sunday Night Football and how it landed. And they told you, ah, it's going to be 700 a year. And you're like, well, I'm not going to be able to get there. But you knew like, ah, I might be able to get to 600 a year. So now you're in some room. You're in a room with a bunch of billionaires

who own these different teams, right? Who are in charge of the TV committee. These guys are always used to winning every deal and they're always used to getting what they want. So probably the hardest people to part of people to negotiate with, because not only are you negotiating with all of them separately, but then together they're, they're going to have little alpha dog stuff about,

all right, well, I want to do this. Well, I want to do that. And yet you come out of that room and you're like, yeah, it's probably should be 600 a year. And then everybody just looks at each other and goes, yeah, sounds good.

It can't be that easy. I would have thought it would have taken like five days, but it didn't seem like it did. Well, one of the things that is important in all this is that this is one way you hold on to your affiliates because they participate in sales opportunities in these NFL games that mean more to them than anything else they put on their air. Right. But how do you innately know what the number is going to be is my question. How do you know? That has to be something. Is it just experience or is it just telepathy? What is it? How do you know? That has to be some, is it just experience or is it just like telepathy?

What is it? How do you know? It's, in my case, it's always believing that I have a clue about who the best six to 12 teams will be for five or six years out because you'll be able to work with the league to come up with scheduling that'll work for you. But you've got to know that you're going to be in the game, that you're going to have a little bit less than half your schedule

represent really good teams. So you're looking at the NBA in the beginning of the 2000s, trying to think about renewing them. And you're thinking, what is this league going to look like in 2006? What's this league going to look like in 2007? Down the road, not just what's now. Who are the stars? Who can I build around?

And then you're assessing the price to that. And then what you can sell it for. I knew that ESPN and Turner in particular were willing to throw the national bank to get the NBA at that point. And that was just something I could not bring back to NBC with the amount of money I had them paying out for the NFL at that point and the amount of money that they were paying out for the Olympics and something they had to give. And David and I were really close friends. And we were in L.A. in the middle of the finals.

I forget which one it was. And I said, let's go for a walk. And we walked away from the NBA during a walk with David and I talking. We remained friends. We had a dinner about a week later with our key staff members to show you the sense of humor that I had about it. And they did as well. My gift to David was about 800 feet of coaxial cable with a cord that said, I know you won't be able to watch the NBA games anymore in your car on your way home to Scarsdale. So maybe you can go some distance between hookups. And he laughed.

Everybody in the room laughed. We all hugged each other, and we all went off in our different directions. But I miss him terribly, Bill. He was one of the most extraordinary minds I ever came across. And I've been pulling my thoughts together for what I'm gonna say at the Hall of Fame in a little bit more than a week and a half.

And I think he and Michael and Magic, you know, they changed the game. It wasn't just on the court. It was the leadership that was there. It wasn't just players. It was league officials and it was players. I mean, and the person who sort of orchestrated that whole thing was David Stern

and about five or six really enlightened owners. and the person who sort of orchestrated that whole thing was David Stern and some, and about five or six really enlightened owners. And I believe today, I know there are probably people out there who disagree with me, but I think the NBA second only to the NFL in terms of being the, the most popular league. I think baseball has real issues. You happen to be in a town with unbelievably enlightened readers of leadership and men who are Tom and John have been willing

to put their money out there so often for the team, but that's not true in many cities in the league anymore. Yeah. I was going to ask you, what do you think baseball looks like 15 years from now? Depends on how many more Tom and Johns there are out there, because that's really the key thing. You can go to so many American cities and see how baseball is not drawing the way it used to. And this commissioner, I mean, I don't know him, but ever since that line about they're all competing for a piece of metal, I had my hard time. I've had a hard time getting my arms around understanding where he was coming from with a remark like that. That was so derogatory about the biggest event in the sport. I think Tom Werner would have made a great commissioner, but they, they gave it to the lawyer.

The Olympics was something that became a staple for you for, in a bunch of different ways. And, you know, in a lot of ways, the pinnacle of storytelling, what does the Olympics look like 15, 20 years from now?

And I think it looks, I think it looks pretty awesome for the next decade or so. When you have the next Olympics in Paris and the one after that in LA. That's a pretty good start toward a good run of Olympics. I don't know what the arm would be on those two, but those two alone in Olympics in Paris and then Los Angeles, cheaper. Couldn't ask for more. Yeah, it feels like the Olympics is transferring to some new destiny and I don't know what it is because the internet and the immediacy

of everything made it impossible to do any sort of tape delay stuff, right? Everything has to be live. Everybody has to know right away what happened

and unless it's like on the right time zone for America, it doesn't seem like it resonates. I got tart and feathered many a time by the New York Times, who always was furious when I would tape delay. But we did so much research.

Like on the West Coast, people, when asked, when would you most like to watch the Olympics? They'd say, when we're home to watch it. When are you home to watch it? From six o'clock at night on, probably till 11 or 12. Now, I care more about that research than I ever cared what some know-nothing writer from the New York Times wrote. Right. You wrote about your son's death so eloquently in the book. Was that one of the main reasons you want to write this book? It's a very good question. When the crash happened, I survived because Charlie ran into an incredible, flaming inferno of aviation fuel to somehow be able to pull me away from that plane. But Susan insisted on everybody coming home to Litchfield, our little town in the Berkshires.

And we were there for about a month and a half or two months. And we talked so much, so often, almost joyfully about Teddy. He was this unbelievable character, so funny. He was the one who always wanted to dream up some new activity for all of us to do. And Susan got us talking about him and sharing our common memories of them. When people ask me today, what can you say helped get you through this the most? And I'd say it was my wife orchestrating keeping all of us together for three or four months and us talking to each other all the time. Not Romina. I never ran back to New York to my job and NBC and GD were great. And so many of our other stars and

leaders went back to their homes and we encouraged them to do it. And I think that's the way you deal with a tragedy like that. I wouldn't have thought to do it, but Susie did. And it worked for our family. When you're looking back, you're writing a book and you're writing all these different things that have happened to you over the last 60 years. Did one regret, one professional regret pop up that made you think, oh, I never really unwrapped this in my head,

but now that we're doing this process, hmm, and you go down the sliding doors road thinking about, what if that had happened, or was there one thing? Not really. I mean, I had the career I wanted to have. I never felt I didn't have something. I really didn't have something I really didn't and I look back now as so much

of my life I'm religious but not wildly so but I think my life has been a series of unbelievable unbelievable gifts and then of course I've been lucky enough to pick the right people to work for on many occasions and to get out there and to have parents who

really push me along. I have an older brother that has a different name. His name is Josiah Bunton. He lives in New England and he was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and he ultimately ended up serving quite a bit of his life in the military. He was a general, and he was the commandant of Virginia military, the one who took VMI co-ed. He had unbelievable friends. He ran that incredible war memorial that exists in Washington, D.C. now. I recommend that to any of your listeners.

Go to Washington and see this incredible thing that's been built to celebrate the great soldiers of our history. But I talk to my brother every day of my life, and I get so much guidance from him. And he's only got one problem in his life, and you're going to start to giggle when I tell you what it is. But you can't get by the fact that the Red Sox have to lose this many games this year. I thought it was going to be that they traded Mookie Betts because that's even worse than losing the games.

You were praising the owners earlier. I'm mad at the owners for the Mookie Betts trade. I was biting my tongue. It was tough. It's tough to trade the best outfielder you've had in 50 years. Yeah, but on the other hand, when Teddy died, the first people on the phone were Tom and John

and building that incredible Teddy Eversol's fields and down on the esplanade I mean I can't tell you the number of men who stay at the hotel there now and there's a suite there named after

Teddy presidential suite and these businessmen will write letters about how stay at the hotel there now. And there's a suite there named after Teddy, presidential suite. And these businessmen will write letters about how moved they were by being in the suite and seeing the memorabilia of this kid's life. But most of all, again, people see that there is a way of survival through tragedy like this.

And I'm forever grateful that Tom and John and others work so hard. I'll never forget. I got asked several winners to go by Joe Torrey. What were you and, Oh God, who was the Red Sox manager three or four years ago? I'm sorry. I'm blind.

Alex Cora. No. Terry Francona. Yeah. Francona. And Francona? Yeah, Francona. And Francona, it's like the eighth inning of a Yankee-Red Sox game. Francona comes over by the seats. I guess they were once called the Bennifer seats or something stupid like that. But anyway, he starts telling me the story of how that previous Christmas season he'd spent in the hospital

in Mass Gen having major surgery and feeling sorry for himself. And he'd look outside in the cold December and January winter and the ice and the snow and everything, admonishing himself. How can I feel sorry for myself? This young man is buried in the ground a couple hundred miles away from here. And again, I can't thank the people of Boston and the governor at the time, Mitt Romney, and all those others who chose to honor Teddy and the kids of Boston to give fields to them. Much the same way the Richards family has done the same thing downtown.

And they're a remarkable family, too. I've had the good fortune since they lost their son in that tragic marathon shooting. But they survived, and they've shown the way you can survive. There's a lot we didn't get to in the book. I mean, you had,

people have to read it, but you have Letterman Leno stories, Johnny Carson stories. Basically, you were at the forefront in some way of just about every Olympics that people would remember since 1968. I'm trying to think what else. Oh, we didn't talk about Vince McMahon,

the XFL, Saturday Night Mainid event, which was a huge part of my childhood, and Friday Night Videos, which was another one, which Friday Night Videos seemed like the easiest idea possible, but it wasn't. Everybody thought videos were just on MTV, that's it.

All of a sudden, they were on NBC, and it was amazing. On Vince, though, have you talked to him since he stepped down? We've exchanged some texts. I love Vince, and he was there for me, and I'll be there for him through his tough times. And OJ was another one that is in the book, too. It feels like people, basically everybody

who is famous from the last 50 years in sports and entertainment somehow passed through your vortex. I'm trying to think who, who didn't. Who,

like, I guess you weren't involved with like the NBC Thursday Night lineup, right? You had no, did you have any input in that? No, I didn't.

I didn't. Unfortunately, I did know Trump a little bit, but that doesn't need to be expanded upon. Just take the word unfortunate. You were involved in the Letterman Leno stuff. You were involved with Fred Silverman, the most legendary TV executive ever who flamed out, like had the worst experience ever.

Let's put it this way. He was no Brandon Tartikoff. Brandon Tartikoff is still to this day, the greatest television programmer who ever walked the face of the earth. Fred Silverman was not that. And then the only other thing I had was, it didn't seem like you totally wanted to retire when you retired, but the way it worked out, you just decided you didn't want to work at NBC anymore because of, you go into it in the book, but was it a situation where if it wasn't going to be NBC, there was no more GE, and that was the company that I had come to feel most comfortable with and to love the leadership.

I wasn't ready for the leadership change. I knew Brian Roberts, but I didn't know most of the rest of the Comcast team. But in this particular case, it was. I really had a glorious relationship with Welsh and the GE world. And they were wonderful to me. And I was always of a mind that I was going to leave early rather than later in my career. And I did. The book is called From Saturday Night to Sunday Night.

It is by Dick Ebersole. I ripped through it in a day and a half. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for writing. Thanks for coming on. I'm glad we finally did this. Well, make sure they know that the book has some collection of pictures. They're stunning.

And there are lots and lots of people who you've probably never seen as relaxed or giddy as they are in the pictures in that book. And the opportunity, I mean, how often are you going to see a picture of Richard Pryor smoking a cigarette on the White House lawn at a luncheon that Ronald Reagan is giving for the Special Olympics at which Susan was an officer at the time. And Pryor and I were on the lawn smoking away. Good luck with the book. Thanks for comingor and I were on the lawn smoking away. Good luck with the book. Thanks for coming on. I'm glad we finally did this.

Thank you, Bill. It was a pleasure, a big pleasure. Thank you. All right, thanks to the great Dick Ebersole. Thanks to Cousin Sal. Thanks to Kyle Creighton for producing. Thanks to Steve Cerruti and Dylan Berkey as well. I will be back on this podcast on Tuesday.

Don't forget about the rewatchables coming Monday, saving Private Ryan. And don't forget about the Ringer's fantasy football guide on theringer.com, as well as the Ringer fantasy football show. If you're trying to prep for whatever fantasy football drafts you have, if you're like me,

you probably have them on Tuesday and Wednesday night, getting as close to the season as possible. Anyway, enjoy the rest of the weekend. I'll see you on Tuesday. Yes, we can. On the wayside. On the first side of the river.