The Bill Simmons Podcast - Luka & Jokic Chase History, the All-Time Fun NBA Team, and NFL Burning Questions | With J. Kyle Mann and Benjamin Solak

Episode Date: December 28, 2022

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by J. Kyle Mann to discuss Luka Doncic's 60-point performance in the Mavericks' win over the Knicks (1:56), as well as Nikola Jokic's dazzling offensive impact, and the All-Time Fun NBA Starting Five (23:00). Then Bill talks with Benjamin Solak about his 5 questions for the rest of the NFL season including "Are we supposed to take this Chargers team seriously?", "Did the Eagles peak too early?", and more (1:00:39). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: J. Kyle Mann and Benjamin Solak Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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J. Kyle Mann came on. We taped this after the games today. We were going to do a whole Jokic thing coming off the Kings Nuggets game. And then Luka Doncic decided to casually put up a 60-21-10. So the first segment's about Luka. Then we have a giant Jokic-gasm, including a big thing that we had planned about what is the most fun possible team you could put together of five guys from NBA history.

Not best team, fun team. So we did that. And then after Kyle, Ben Solak came on from the ringer to talk about his five biggest questions heading into the last six weeks of the season, including the playoffs. So that's today's pod. It's fantastic. First up, our friends from Pro Jam. All right, taping this a little before 9.30 Pacific time. J. Kyle Mann is here. We were going to talk about Nikoli Jokic. We had a whole thing planned. But the great thing about the NBA,

there's so many good players. You just kind of never know who's going to steal the spotlight on a random Tuesday night podcast Luka Doncic 60 points 21 rebounds 10 assists not even Will Chamberlain has done that

so let's talk Luka a little and let's talk all these great guys we have now and then we can ease into Jokic I was thinking about Luka during this game he's over 8,000 points now. He's 23 years old. And by the end of this season, he'll be pretty close to 10,000, assuming he doesn't get hurt. LeBron, after five years, was 10,689. He'd had two first-team OMS, two second teams. Luka already has three first-team OMS. Today was the first first day that I was thinking, man, LeBron better keep

playing. Don't wrap it up after you get to 38,000 because I don't know what Luka is capable of. What were you thinking as you were watching tonight? The amazing thing about this game was he had a great game and the flow of it. They were down nine with 44 seconds to go. That's

another thing about the NBA. There's always the FOMO thing where you're like, you're afraid you're going to, you're afraid you're going to miss something. So they string you out. And I guess that's the value of the product, right? They keep you on. But I think the thing about LeBron that you're, that you're talking about is really true. And something I've thought about a lot is just sort of the timeline of the way these like great, great players get better. Like I know you've watched NBA your whole life, so you've seen this happen. It's like guys, when they hit that prime range, very often they will start to add things, little nuanced things in their in their natural thing that like got them to where they were. Like LeBron started to add things around like 2013.

I know we're going to talk about wine bottle earlier. Yeah, I would say 12. Yeah, he started adding a little stuff around the basket that he just didn't have before. And I remember, and we were joking about, you know, Sharks missed this incredible 60-point game. What would he have said? But I remember one of the big conversations he and I had

was just like, Luka's timeline is so accelerated. The things that he's adding at this age are kind of unprecedented. And like Jamal Crawford was talking on NBA TV about like the way he plays and how it's going to age. And he was just saying like Luca plays the way like an NBA player would play if they went to the park and was playing against like teenagers. He's just like, you can't, I don't know if you've ever seen somebody that's really good go play against normies that they just play in like slow just like you can't i don't know if you've ever seen somebody that's really good go play against normies that like they just play in like slow motion and you can't do anything with them and that's how luca plays and it's it's scary to think of like what's he gonna be like when he's 27 28 years old like this is just kind of unprecedented stuff

developmentally yeah yeah so lebron his fifth season was when he made the finals in 07. And he had put up basically years two through five. He was 29, seven and seven all the way through that four year stretch, 48% shooting. Wasn't anywhere close to where he ended up two years later with the back-to-back MVPs. And then he goes up another level, the second and third Miami seasons. And that was when that 2013 Miami season, in my opinion, was peak LeBron, where he was flirting with 60% shooting for a lot of the year. They won the 27 game winning streak. And just athletically, he was at his peak. He was probably either the best defensive player in the league or one of them. Offensively, he was doing everything. So that was when he kind of turned into the queen of the chessboard a little bit, where it's just like, oh my God,

this is the magic MJ with a little bird that we kind of always thought was going to happen. And you're right, Lucas 23, he's not going to peak for at least four more years. I think the difference for him potentially versus LeBron is how is he going to take care of his body? And I know people have talked about this over and over again, but LeBron took care of his body always, always from the moment that 08 series against the Celtics, when he lost that jump ball with

Pierce and Pierce was just stronger than him. He came back the next year, he was different level of strength and his durability and his strength has been one of his calling cards. He's always gotten bigger and stronger, basically from 2009 to 2018. I don't know about Luca. Even tonight after the incredible game, he joked about he was going to go have a recovery beer. At some point, he's going to have to give up all that stuff and any bad food and the sweet tea and the beer and all that. And it's just going to have to be, I'm devoted to basketball.

He might not be wired that way. And that might be what made LeBron like just slightly different than almost everybody else. Yeah. I don't know if you've ever had a beer after basketball, but really there's really not much better. I don't know. That's something I do in the summer all the time when I play, which is probably why I have a belly, but no, I mean, he, yeah, he, he has a different type of strength and i was listening to some people talk about like luca's athleticism i don't i don't know what what it what it is it's gonna finally motivate him to do that i mean i feel like the the like play yourself into shape thing was a little less glaring this year for him but um he just he just has that insane like core like corn-fed kind of strength and as

so long as he like i don't know i don't know how he needs to change his body honestly uh just because you can't move him and i don't agree with people that say he's not athletic because i think athleticism's a little more nuanced than people realize like luca has such crazy micro dialed in control of his body uh in terms of like like how he can start and stop so herky jerky and that's why he's such a matchup problem i mean like tonight you were watching any kind of person you put on him there's going to be a caveat there's only like certain types of guys that can really bother him effectively consistently um and he was bullying those, those Knicks, smaller guards. And when he gets a big guy on him, he just toys with them. I don't know. I don't, do you think he needs to

get into like insane LeBron shape or can he even get into that type of shape? You know, the thing he has at this point of his career that LeBron just didn't have at all, not even close as his bully ball stuff, that stuff LeBron didn't really have to like the second, third Miami season. And even then he didn't really have it until he got to Cleveland. That was when he really filled out and started to develop this power game and was able to mix in the perimeter stuff with the low post stuff. I felt like that evolved as he was in Miami and it was always the great

what if with him, you know, and then started that 2011 finals when, you know, the JJ Bray, all that stuff. And that was when we wondered like, Hey, is this guy, is this guy going to figure out how to solve this? And then by 2016, he had it solved and Luca can already do it. And that's where I'm just like, you know, he's never going to be the crazy athlete LeBron was, but it does feel like he has a little more to his game at this point than I

think LeBron did in year five, you know, and they're basically the same age, right? Luca came in as a baby. LeBron came in as a baby. And by year five, I didn't realize Luca,

I'd kind of forgotten this, that he is four seasons, three first team all NBAs already. It's kind of bonkers. Like even LeBron didn't do that. So, you know, I think nights like tonight are when we really start wondering, you know, you think like,

oh, we'll never see another LeBron again. And Luka is going to be his version of Luka. But at the same time, you know, maybe this is a thing where like every 15, 16, 17 years, a guy like this comes into the league. You know, before LeBron, it was Jordan. He came in in the mid eighties and maybe that's just how this is going to go. I still, the thing I think is the

biggest benefit for him compared to what LeBron had. LeBron comes into the league, it's mid two thousands. They're making all these rules changes, but it really takes like five, six years. The spacing was not there at all. And you can watch the games from back then. And it's really not rough now. Like I remember Tyler Parker wrote a great piece for the ringer about Jokic's passing, uh, last spring. And one of the, one of the points of the piece was like, when you have this much space all the time for Jokic, it's the greatest thing ever for what his skill set is. Now the passing angles, it's almost like a quarterback who has four receivers spread and can just pick the

defense apart. And that's what LeBron didn't have. LeBron really grew up in the worst possible era for him. The game started to space out. Curry comes in 2013. That's when the spacing and the threes and all that stuff comes in. And it's much more fun to play now. And that's when the spacing and the threes and all that stuff comes in and it's much more fun to play now and that's the biggest advantage i think luca has yeah i think so and i think that like you're right about like lebron's body type and i think that kind of gets forgotten to history because we think of him as this big like hulking thanos powerful dude which that stuff really came later like you're 100 right and like his like bullying to the rim and like the finishing stuff he was always a great finisher but when he came to the league he was more of a like spindly like

athletic perimeter guy like that had some of that stuff right he started physically maturing and stuff like that you're right like that that gave him another angle of the floor to to work from and it ushered in some of those small ball lineups that Miami used so effectively. But Luka goes about it a little. I don't know if he's the exact... He's similar to LeBron, I think, in the fact that he can physically get in the middle of the floor and exploit the width of the floor really well.

But I think he leans... Luka's so interesting because for as great a passer as he is, I still think that he leans scoring. He has so interesting because for as great a passer as he is, I still think that he leans scoring. Like, he has a big appetite to score the ball. And it's a little bit, like, the ball doesn't

flow through him kind of the same way that, like, LeBron does. You know what I mean? Especially those early first five years of LeBron. That was the big criticism of him, right?

What does he score more? He's too unselfish. There was the Washington series when he passed up the game-winning shot because he made the right play. I can barely remember. It was so long ago, but that really was a criticism of him. I think the usage stuff with Luka, I don't ever remember LeBron having... Luka's usage rate right now is 37%. This is veering into, like, Westbrook-Hardin territory. And I, you know, I never felt like LeBron wanted to have the ball that much, but he

would, you know, and there were playoff games where he would have to. But for the most part, the Dallas offense is a little more Luka-centric. At the same time, they're in the same position where LeBron never really had any great teammates. And, you know, neither did Luka. Look at the team he's on now. He lost his best teammate is on the Knicks. And you look at the guys now,

he's running pick and rolls with Christian Wood, who every time he rolls, even though I know that's what he's known for, it still kind of looks like a deer on skates a little bit. All the shooters he has

are pretty erratic for the most part, right? Bullock will be terrible for a month and all of a sudden he'll make them for a month and then he'll... So that reminds me a little of the LeBron Cleveland thing too. And he made the finals with, what was that? Delonte West, Eric Snow. Boobie Gibson's always the name that comes up. So that part's a little similar too, but yeah, it's weird. It wasn't until tonight that I really started thinking about year five LeBron and year five Luka. Yeah. I think the superstar sort of like stacking things on is something you can really compare them to. And I was, I was thinking about, um, like the, one of the challenges we've

talked about this a lot, I've made videos on this subject or just talked about this, that like the, one of the challenges we've talked about this a lot, I've made videos on this subject or just talked about this, that like the, one of the challenges of having a floor raising player like Luca or LeBron is that you have to, you kind of have to have a front office. That's pretty competent because you're not going to have a timeline on your team that not that you never, you always need a competent front office, but like, you're not going to be able to build through the draft. Cause you're not going to have like a core of guys that are young that are with him. Because Luka comes in, the Dennis Smith thing obviously is dissonant and not going to work, and it's obvious. They get rid of him, but he immediately is a guy who can lead a team, which we saw that in Europe.

People underestimated it stupidly. I don't know why. He was 18 years old and second best league in the world. But he comes in and they just make they make your team so good that you're just not going to be able to get like the draft capital that you would need to like build a young core. And that's a challenge. I mean, and Dallas has had I've been interested to see how they've pieced this together because it was like people were kind of down on Dinwiddie. He fit hypothetically next to them. They took a chance. It's kind of worked. Christian Wood, same kind of thing, a distressed asset.

It's a jalopy plane that I'm going to be interested to see how long they can keep it in the air. But if you're going to get brilliant historic performances like this, like we got from Luka tonight, I mean, how can you underestimate him? Who are you going to, like, in a series in the West, who are you afraid of if you're Dallas? Who can't you beat? Well, and I think Jokic is similar in that respect. You just don't want to see those guys in a series because you're not going to have the best guy in the series.

You never want to play a playoff series where you don't have the best guy. The Celtics, that happened to them in the finals last year, right? Felt like they probably had a slightly better team, but Curry was the best guy in the finals. The piece with Luka, another thing that reminds me of the LeBron thing is what you just said about

the guy kind of pushes your timetable faster than maybe you expected. And then you feel like you got to make these moves and signings and you're clogging the cap and you can't grow organically because you feel like we have a window now. This guy is one of the best players in the league. We got to win now. And you look at their team and it's, it's a hard team to improve, you know, like they were able to

get out of the Porzingis contract, but they also had to take on a pretty bad Bertons contract in that trade. And Porzingis is better than either guy they got in the trade. I mean, on paper anyway, even though I think that it was a better fit with the guy, but you look at like all the guys that are probably going to become available over the next two, three months and their pick situation, it's just going to be really hard. You know, they have all these protections on all these different picks. It's going to be hard to, to kind of tinker with the team. That's why I was saying a couple of weeks ago, I would have moved on Kyrie

when that 10, as crazy as that even sounds, that 10 days where it just seemed like Kyrie might be out of the league, that was the kind of swing they needed to take. And I would have thought about it if it was like, all right, we'll give you your get out of jail free card

with this Kyrie whole thing. We'll take them. You take Dan Witte and Powell and we'll roll the dice. I do think they need to make a high risk move like that. Maybe they feel like Christian Wood was already the move. But when he's, this guy's averaging 33, nine and nine right now, 33 and a half, nine and nine. You got, you got to figure out like how especially with the west wide open how can you take a swing i just don't know what the swing is yeah i've looked through i was talking with our

guy jason gallagher about this the other day like what would the move be i mean the thing is like and this is where they miss brunson is that like luca is just like a big dude in a canoe like he tips the canoe to his side of the floor like When he reverses the ball and he's a freaking genius at it, the guy who catches the ball has a split second to make a decision on this imbalanced floor. The more of a threat that guy is to score and the higher quality quick decision time, the more ability he has to do that, that's who you're looking for. The problem is in today's NBA that's so spread out, it's kind of like going to a flea market. I know we talk sometimes about buying vintage stuff. It's like going to a flea market. Everybody knows what everything's worth now. You're not going to get a steal on those guys because those are the most insanely, like those quick decision makers that we're going to talk about.

Jokic, the best of the best at that. You're not going to be able to steal one of those guys and they're expensive. So it's like, you're going to have to take a chance on somebody maybe that's undervalued. I don't even know who that would be. Dinwiddie was one and he's a start, but you need another, you know, because I feel like they kind of have some of the big stuff in a place where it's passable, but I think they need that one more guy. And like Brunson was that drinkster like that for them. Yeah. So Kuzma is an example of somebody that I think is going to be available over the next six weeks. It's $13 million a year. But you look at what Dallas actually has,

they owe this protected first to the Knicks that's protected one through 10 in 23, 24, 25. So they basically can't touch it. So they have their own first in 27 through 29, possibly in 26. So they could do one of those. They have Josh Green. They have Jaden Hardy, who they took in the second round. Powell's in expiring and Wood's in expiring. That gets them to 25. You add Bullock, that can get them to 35. They got Bertans, who's on a multi-year that's 16. Dinwiddie is only guaranteed 10. So they can put any kind of, like if Beal became available, they could have the contracts and match for Beal. They just don't have the chips to be like, all right, here are all the contracts plus this. And in their case, this is like Josh Green, an unprotected 2029 pick. It's not really enough,

which is why, like you said, you start swimming in that Duncan Robinson type of pool of, oh, Duncan Robinson, little distressed asset. He's decent, pretty terrible contract, but not too horrible. Maybe we throw Bertans back to Miami, get Robinson on a longer deal. You start looking at those moves and I just think they need something a little more substantial than that. I wish I knew what it was.

The thing is with Bumdama, we're going to see a bunch of teams just say, fuck it. We're going to see, I think, Washington. You could see Detroit, like Bogdanovich might be out there and that's a somebody who could be a game changer for uh for dallas so you know i you know my feeling on windows the west is open you have this guy you gotta kick the tires i just don't know

what the move is yeah don't be conservative but i guess the balance is don't be stupid you know and it's i i'm looking at the types of guys out there you're trying to add playmaking in guys who don't necessarily need the ball uh and those i mean like a josh hart is an interesting guy um yeah like you were saying beal is great but that that's a really expensive swing um i mean they they took a chance with like a super flyer i don't even know flyer is the word on what they did with Kim, but it was just a lark. But yeah, that's going to be the big challenge for them. I don't know where that player is going to come from. Well, we're going to talk about Jokic in a second. Last thing on that 60-21-10, he actually pulled off basketball's version of

the onside kick, the perfectly executed brick free throw that bounced off two hands and went back to him. And then he put it back up. That happens once a year. Is it that often? How often does that two times every three years? And he did it. So on top of this amazing game,

he actually pulled off. It was like if somebody scored five touchdowns in an NFL game and pulled off the onside kick that they recovered themselves and then took it in overtime and won. It was, it was really something for the Knicks. Oh, horrible.

I mean, they have, they've had two horrible losses to Dallas this year. That's one that just sets you back where last week was, oh, the Knicks, feeling good. And now they're back to square one. All right, we really want to talk about Jokic. Lucas somehow hijacked this podcast for 20 minutes.

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So I texted you, Kyle, man. And I said, I want to talk Jokic. I want to figure out if we could grab anyone in history, what would be the most fun five guys we could put together? And the caveat was, I just think Bird and Magic and Jokic have to be three of the five. So who are the other two? And now people listen and be like, well, why those three? What about Jordan? What about LeBron? What about Kobe? We're talking about pure fun. And for me, the basketball that I grew up watching, the basketball that I care about the most is the unselfish guys cutting passes that you could never

expect. Passes a split second before any normal human being could even see the pass. And then at some point, this greater sense kind of arises from the team. I watched that with the Celtics and the Lakers when I was a kid. It's still my favorite kind of basketball. There's been other guys that have floated in and out of that world, like Bill Walton in the 1977 Blazers. I wrote about that in my book. There was a little bit of Sabonis, even though he was washed up on the Blazers.

But for the most part, Magic and Bird always levitated above everybody else with this. There was some sort of collective, unselfish something that those teams had that were just different than any other type of basketball team. And look, there's been other examples, right? I think the 2013 Heat, they hit some sort of thing during that 27 game winning streak that was really, really special. I think the stuff Curry and Draymond do and have done for the last eight years and the way that the Warriors play with each other. And there's an unselfishness with that too. But there's something different when somebody

has freak vision, freak everything, and Jokic has it. And watching Sunday night was the first time I was like, this guy's actually probably better than Bird offensively. And yeah, because he's taller, I think they have all the same skill set. I think Bird was a better- Are you okay? Yeah, I'm okay. I think Bird was a better shooter. Bird, one more. Jokic has a lot to go to catch up with him. I'm just talking about the unselfish passing thing. Jokic is his body and the fact that he's taller than Bird was and he can see over people, it opens up a couple of different things that Bird couldn't really do. His little screen, little things that Jokic can do, and then his ability to pass over the top and find cutters.

And I've just never seen anything like it. This is like Walton had it for a brief time on Portland. He came back with the Celtics and off the bench he had it. And it was amazing to watch. Jokic is doing this night after night after night, 38 minutes a game. When we saw Sabonis, Sabonis was basically washed. This guy is the best passing center ever.

And I really think he is on that level now with Bird of Magic for me as a passer. Whether he's going to win the titles and get there as an actual great basketball player, we'll find out. But as an offensive player, I just think he's as impactful day-to-day, week-to-week, quarter-to-quarter, half-to-half. We watched him today. Our assignment was to watch the whole Kings game. He put up a 20, 10, and 9. They probably missed, what, 10 baskets that he gave wide open shots, layups, three-po 9. They probably missed what, 10 baskets that he gave wide open shots, layups,

three-pointers. It was one of those games he easily could add 22 assists if his team had just been hot. I've never seen anything like it. You, Love, you've gone on a lot of YouTube deep dives. You've gone eras. You've compared guys. I'm not overreacting with this, am I?

I don't think so. I mean, I saw that you called out our guy Van Lathan about his issues with comparing them. I just think if you claw machine dropped Jokic onto those Celtics teams in Bird's Place or you dropped him on, I mean, it's not

positionally a one-for-one. I just think that he adds things. Those guys are propped up. They are fantastic. I worship them as players. They had great front offices and they were in incredible, they were in the smartest front offices in the league at the time. And they built these incredible teams and credit to them. But I just think if you're going to compare them, the things that Jokic does, and there's this simple kind of truth about basketball. and I've been thinking a lot about how cyclical the movements of basketball have been in the past few decades. We had a time where we kind of forgot that the ball moves faster than a person can, and that's the simple thing.

And if that's true, then why hold the ball? And I think that we've seen an era of guys. We saw the heliocentric thing. It started with MJ. So it starts mid-90s, and we just seen an era of guys. We saw the Helio centric thing. It started with MJ. So it starts mid nineties and we just never get out of it. Yeah. There was like an emulative ripple is what I always call it. It's like everybody wanted to be MJ.

We were looking for the next MJ offenses. We're plotting assist rates. We're at like all time lows and things like that. And I think when the pace and the, and the, uh, the player control, like you can't touch players or player movement, freedom of movement movement whatever you want to call it um once that started to to come on in the and the the warriors realized that they had a generational talent who could move without the ball and they they realized that passing the ball was the smart way to go um yokich i think is sort of a manifestation of that idea. Like we're seeing somebody who could

go and dominate. He could go, we were talking about this. He could just choose to score 40 a night if he wanted to, if he was wired more like Luca, but he's more of a conduit. Like he's more than willing to, you know, if you single cover him and he's got a small guy, he has all the offensive stuff to go in. He can hit threes. He has crazy middle game. He's really big. I mean, that's something that people forget. He just bullies people as fumbling and as awkward as he is. But then the other thing is once he starts to do that,

you start sending him help, and he loves to do that stuff in the middle of the floor. He's mastered all the areas. He does this thing I call the temperature dribble where he'll do the one dribble. He's not dribbling to go anywhere. He's dribbling to see what the defense is going to do. And if you watch Jokic do it, he'll take that dribble and see where it's coming from. Um, I don't know. I just think playing with him must be a lot of fun because whenever he gets the ball, his teammates take off running like a flag football team, like,

cause they know they're going to get the ball. And it's just, it's just so fun to watch, man. And that's what reminds me of Bird of Magic the most is the guys know they're going to get the ball if they get open. And when you know, I have a chance to get a layup or a dunk or any sort of anything. If I just move, my guy's going to see me every time that opens up this whole different level of basketball. And I really think out of anyone, it's those three guys. And again, there's going to see me every time. That opens up this whole different level of basketball. And I really think out of anyone, it's those three guys. And again, there's going to be people listening and be like, well, LeBron's a great passer. Well, Steve Nash was a great passer. This is different. It just is. Because first of all, I wrote down, he's one of the all-time what do you do guys? And this is the level Bird got to in the mid-80s. And this was the level Magic got to

when his offense really started to come up in the 87 range, when he added that real low post game where the defense just, you kind of have to decide even going into the game. We saw it with Sacramento tonight. They said with Jokic, you know what?

You're not scoring tonight. We're in a W. We're going to pressure you. And Jokic is like, this is great. I'm going to have 30 assists. But his guys kept missing layups, but they basically hit two points at the half. And they were like, this is our decision tonight. We are not going to let you do whatever you want. We're going to try to make you get rid of the ball. And Jokic is like, beautiful. Thank you. When you're a, what do you do guy? And now you could say Luca is a version of this too, right? But that's more of a, at some point teams decide Luca makes

them 27 footers. Like if you make them God, Godspeed, good luck with Jokic. He is now, and the reason he's different, I know he just went to MVPs, but don't you feel it's a little different this year? I feel like he's elevated in a couple of different ways. He's now so comfortable. I think part of it has to do with his team is just better. This is the best. Murray's back. Gordon is just thriving. He didn't play tonight, but he is just the ultimate. It's everything we ever thought that trade could end up being for Jokic. He's been the perfect running mate. And then Porter has emerged as this, every once in a while, like tonight, can just carry you for a quarter. The bench is better, Bruce Brown, KCP. But I just feel like Jokic, he's 27. I think he knows exactly who he is as a

player. He has such a feel for the game. There'll be times when he knows the pace is wrong and he's the point guard and he'll push the ball up. He's like magic in 1982 as this fast break point guard. Sometimes he'll keep it and he has this rollicking, drives to the basket, does that weird, crazy spin move that always seems like it's going to be a charge. It never is. He can post up. He can drop step you both ways. One of the things that I love about him, now I sound like I'm going to have a yokage chasm. One of the things I love about him is his hands are so soft around the rim. I've never seen anyone around. I guess Duncan might be the only one I can remember where it's just like his hands were just always just kind of

dropping it in. Tip-ins, they weren't even really tip-ins. They're kind of like shots. So he has that. And then the inventiveness with the passes. His cross-court passes, Bird probably had it too, but he has that extra couple inches where he could just zip them across. And I just think he's got it all now.

And it's not like he didn't the last two years, but now it's it's you know it's it's the difference between like an a and an a plus I guess would be the way I put it so it makes sense yeah it does yeah and I think that he there are levels obviously to passing and you know some of this is obvious but it's like when help's coming if you can see someone that's wide open and just fire it to them he has all he has the quick decision you know the the kodak brain thing he has the like i can tip it to a guy that i know is open or the quick touch like the other night he did it he did a really awesome he set a screen for i guess bruce brown he knew bruce brown was good that that's been an incredible marriage by the way which we knew on paper it

would be and it has delivered absolutely but he threw that between the legs pass which was just so like hilariously had so much like bravado on it uh but uh and and it was and it worked but he has that thing too where um i'm pulling out all the like uh comment cliche terms that i make up but like he he crow bars passes open a lot that you wouldn't think are there and he does it with his eyes he's he's really good at like selling something luke is really good at this too is like stringing the fear of their offense to the very end and making the defense respect it like he can get all the way in the air and make the defense fully commit to him and then like throw every pass in the book whether it's like a skip to the opposite corner or it's a dump off or it's a touch pass to a cutter he just he has every angle

to punish you with either hand um and i think that's one of the hallmarks of like the great passers that nash was a master at that of like just stretching you out and and and making you respect his his scoring and then dumping it off at the last minute he's a master at it one of the things i love about this season i've watched a lot of Denver this year I bet they're over they're my favorite West Coast team to watch them and Sacramento which was interesting about tonight, no Sabonis tonight though

his bad games aren't even bad you can catch Luka on the wrong night and he's just like he's firing up threes, they're not going in doesn't seem like anyone's having fun and the Mavs just seem dead. Jokic can have a bad game. Tonight, I guess, counted as a bad game, right? Everything he does is additive. And I'm not trying to compare, oh, I'm a Jokic guy and not a Luka guy. I'll fully admit I love watching Jokic play basketball. I think one of the things I love

about him, he's just so additive. Everything he does, he can have a shitty game, but he can still set picks. He can still get rebounds. He'll still find three different ways to affect the game. And he's still such a threat. I was talking to somebody about it today, a friend of mine. And I was like, he really reminds me of Tyreek Hill, as weird as it sounds, where Tyreek Hill is out there for the Dolphins. And no matter where he is, the entire defense,

they're just thinking about it the whole time. He goes in motion. You see seven guys pointing and they're just terrified of him the whole time. And even if he's not doing anything, he's still affecting the game. And I think Jokic is like that every single play. And that's one of the reasons I love watching him.

It really reminds me of what the mid-80s Celts were like and watching how Bird would just affect these plays and these quarters without even really doing that much. And Jokic can do that. He opens up so much. Everybody who plays with him is better. I saw the stat. Bruce Brown had, I think, 38% open shots last year on the Nets. And this year it's like 54%. So it's like, so it's like, uh, yeah, he's just, he's just getting what? 15% more looks just by being on the same team as Jokic. And you think like, oh my God, like Jamal Murray hit the lottery. I would never leave Jokic. And that's another thing that magic bird had. Nobody wanted to leave those guys.

You're on that guy's team. You're like, I never want to leave this guy's team. This is the most fun I'm going to have playing basketball. So I think this is important to have this conversation now because we're already like, it's only 35 games. People are already talking MVPs and now Jokic can't win again. He won the last two. I just think he's the most important all-around everything player in the league. And there's lots of stats to back this up.

But... Like every catch-all stat has him number one right now. I was looking at it like... All the advance, yeah. I mean, the easiest one is the on-court per 100 possessions, they're 122.8 points per game.

He leaves, they drop to 101. They're plus 11.3 when he plays per 100 and they're minus 13.6 when he doesn't. Now, I don't love those stats because some of it has to do with the bench, but you can watch it in real time every time you watch a Nuggets game. I tweeted tonight that the 189 minutes of non-yokage you could watch this year is as bad as Babylon. The moment he comes out, it's like you're watching a different team all of a sudden. It's like, oh, who invented the 2012 Bobcats? That's what it feels like. The moment he sits down and it just for them becomes erasive. Can we hold on for six minutes

while he's done done and then he comes back in then all of a sudden layups open looks and I just think I actually think people aren't talking about it enough what other stats impressed you with him there I mean there are a lot I mean he like you were talking about and this has

been said the MVP fatigue thing is something that I guess we're just never going to be able to we have a lot of great players right now but like he has posted in the past five years three of the top five all-time uh offensive box plus minus seasons ever and this is what this year is one of them he's right on pace and he's and the crazy thing too I was telling you that like you want to play him as a score he's his true shooting percentage is 68.5. And for somebody who is getting off the ball that quickly, something you go and you look at touch time,

I always say this, if you want to go look at why his brain is a supercomputer, you look at the other guys in the league who have high assist totals, and you look at how long they have the ball, he has it seriously 66% less. I mean, it's like something crazy. He'll have the ball like two seconds it seriously like 66% less. It's something crazy. He'll have the ball two seconds a lot of times

and still put up these things. He saves guys from themselves in a way that helps the team. He just sort of naturally filters out waste in your offense. He sets Michael Porter Jr. up to be a shot maker. That's what Michael... Great. That's what Michael Porter Jr. wants to be a shot maker. Great. That's what Michael Porter

Jr. wants to do. If you look at the way that Aaron Gordon played in Orlando, I'm doing a bar graph with my hands here. Whatever was going on with Orlando at the time, this is what they chose to do. He ran more pick and roll offense with Orlando. When he went to Denver, it switched. And he was like, okay, all of a sudden, you got this big 6'9", athletic, strong guy cutting to the basket. Well, yeah, that's what... And he has a little bit of that passing in there too.

But I think the thing you're right about, guys like Bird, guys like Curry, guys like Luka, guys like Jokic, they automatically imply a certain type of geometry just because of fear. Yeah, because guys are going to be coming into the gap. And if you're smart and you can get off the ball, your teammates are going to be playing in four-on-three, three-on-two situations. And as long as you have good decision makers out

there, you're going to have great offense. And they do right now. They're second in the league in field goal percentage, second league in three-point percentage, second in assists. They have a lot of cutting offense. It's just easy baskets. And it's not all coming from one place that you can bottleneck because he gets off the ball so well. Yeah, and that was with a pretty slow Murray start too. I think they're going to have a run at some point when he fully has his sea legs

where I can see them getting to 125 per 100, something like that. You mentioned the usage rate. It's one of the things I love about him. 28.6 this year. That's when you go back and you look at- The bird magic seasons where Bird of Magic, their usage rate was 24. And people like LeBron and those guys

are always in the 33, 34 range. Curry, people like that, the current guys. Luka, Harden, Westbrook now are high 30s, which basically means you have the ball all the time and the offense has to run through you. It's just not the case with Jokic. He doesn't necessarily have to be involved all the time to be dominant.

You mentioned a true shooting thing. True shooting, it's a stat. I don't fully understand it, but I know if you're over 60, you want to be in the 60s. There's a stat where no one's ever averaged 20 points per game with at least 69% true shooting. Now, this is ever, even during days when we had like Wilt and people like that, Artis Gilmore averaged 18.5 a game on 70.2% true shooting in the 82 season. That's the thing with Jokic. And that's why I was comparing it to the 2013 Miami season LeBron had, where it's just like, there's been a refinement of the skills and an elevation, very subtle, but like everything is just a little more efficient

and you can feel it when you're watching it. So he's right now going into tonight's game, 25.4 points, 11 rebounds, 9.4 assists. So I do think the assists are going to keep coming every game. I do think he'll be around a triple-double by the end of the year. He's shooting 61.6%. His threes are down. He's 33.8 this year. Usually it's a little bit higher. Win shares per 48 is over 3.302. And one of the things I love with the Nuggets, their assist turnover ratio when he's in is 2.32, which is nuts. If you're over two, that's staggering. For the last three years, he's basically 27, 12, and eight. And just looks like he's going to have one of these crazy careers. For his career,

he's 2010 and 6.4. Only other guy, whoever was a 2010 five guy career was Bird. Bird was 24, 10, and six. That's it. Just those two. And if you look at Bird's stats, 85 to 88, and Jokic's stats last three years, they're very similar. Jokic has more rebounds, shooting's a little bit higher field goal percentage, but for the most part, usage, all the stuff, it's all pretty similar. And it leads me to the question well first of all a couple quick yokage things i think the greatest draft pick ever number 41 i think he's the greatest like i i actually don't think that's a debate they got a potential three in a row mvp at number 41 yeah that's unprecedented i don't it's unprecedented there's's unprecedented. Like Giannis would be

in the running normally. It's like, wow, they got Giannis at 15. They got fucking Jokic at 41. So I think that's done. The back-to-back MVP thing, the class of dudes who have done it, Russell, Will, Kareem, Moses, Bird, MJ, Magic, Duncan, Nash, LeBron, Curry, Giannis, and Jokic.

There's kind of no stiffs in that crew. That's already hallowed company. The three-time MVP was Russell Wilford. That's it. He definitely grabbed Walton's most fun center ever title. Sabonis and Walton were kind of right there. Yeah, they were right there, and I think Jokic took it. There's a stat last year.

He threw 5,432 passes, which was 615 more than the number two guy. Oh, that was amazing. Justifiable, yeah. Jamal Murray said about him, his passing is what makes him so different from everybody else. Not just his willingness to pass, but like he wants to pass.

He wants to find you. He wants to look this way and throw it that way. That's the beauty he finds in the game. So when you get the teammates just kind of raving about him, that's another piece. So anyway, our assignment was, if we were just putting together five guys, that would be the most fun to watch.

Not best, not most talented. This is not a greatest of all time. Just like five guys that could create some form of basketball that would be this nirvana for nerds like us. And I think we both felt Bird, Magic, and Jokic have to be three of the five. Because now I'm getting some sort of crazy, psychotic, psychic IQ thing that just is ridiculous.

I'm getting movement. I'm getting people trying to fuck with other teams just with like, set me a pick and then do like a quick sneaky cut and I'll wait and then I'll find you. So let's go 86 Bird, 87 Magic, and 2022 Jokic. So our assignment was, out of anyone in NBA history, who would be the most fun other two guys

to put with those three? So you go first, then I'll go. I came at this, I was trying to think about, and I'll plug Tyler Parker's league pass, entertainment value. I was trying to zag and think of it a different way. What would be fun to watch if I wasn't

doing it in the basketball sense? So I'll say that up top i did consider like would it be fun to just if this team was playing people how would people come at them and i would assume they'd need some kind of enforcer so i was like what are the wine bottle enforcers i was like would it be would it be like oakley 94 i'm trying to think of who the guys would be that would that would that would be the rodman ben our my buddy ben Ben Taylor uh who's a big historical guy he's he suggested Rodman like 89 Rodman would be fun with this group because of his cutting and his rebounding and stuff like that I decided to stick with just sort of like the the ball movement idea here the first one that I think with this team I think you would need some movement. And the thing that this is like the most like over the plate, easy slam dunk whenever. If you put Curry on this team,

they would be the most fun thing to watch in the history of basketball. Just to start with, if we're talking, you know, Curry's wine bottle year, 2015-16, obviously. I mean, he was phenomenal last year. I would go last year. So I'm with you. I had Curry. I think Curry's actually the fourth because all the stuff that makes Jokic fun to watch with Jamal Murray Curry is the greatest version ever of Jamal Murray on his best night that's just Curry

who he is and I think putting that with all three of these guys I don't even know what that looks like and worst case scenario he could just space when Magic and Jokic or Bird and Jokic or Bird, like whatever, they're just doing two-man game stuff. And Curry could just be in the corner like, I'm over here, guys, if you need me. But then he could also do the Jamal Murray and the Curry-Draymond kind of stuff.

But instead of Draymond, it's Jokic or it's Bird. I think he needs to be on the team. Well, one thing I was thinking about if you had this team out here, you got to think of how basketball would be different. If we could use the things that are going on in modern basketball, one of the big things that's happened is just A, short roller. Screeners who have guard instincts, like Bruce Brown is a guy who had some guard experience and then he comes in the league

and you put that guy as a roller who can pass the ball, Magic as a screener is very fun to think about. Now, you could easily, I know what people are going to say. You could be like, okay, LeBron, yes, obviously.

But I think that like, Steph wouldn't even have to just stand in the corner if you thought about what he would do, like just moving a little bit. If he sets a couple off-ball screens, that makes Bird's ISO life easier. That makes Jokic's ISO life easier.

I think he's the obvious thing. And you're talking about ramping up from what Murray does with Jokic. I mean, he's just one of the best passer, best shooter of all time. One of the best ball handlers of all time too. Yeah, so with Magic, it's either 85 Magic or 87 Magic. 87 Magic was a little bit slower, but had the

junior Skyhook game refined at that point. He averaged like 24 a game. It was just a better score. 85 Magic was definitely more like on the go, had the ball more. If you're going to put LeBron on this team, it's probably in that magic spot. Yeah. And I can't lose magic, but I also you could absolutely talk me into putting LeBron

on this team. All right, we'll lock down Curry as the fourth starter. I had a wild idea on this one. Just if we were just doing experiments, like if we were messing with the lineups, because we know Jokic doesn't necessarily have to play center because we know he can shoot threes.

He could space the floor. What if you slid him down to four and put Bill Walton in there? Oh, he could go bigger. Like if we put 76, 77, and then we got like the double, like, you know, the horns, like the dual big guy at the elbow thing. We could have movement. I don't know. I just was thinking like, if you want to see, if I want to imagine, if I want to imagine the best passing team, the best hypothetical passing team ever, I feel like that would be pretty fun.

Cause like I, I didn't experience, I know you were there, but I didn't experience the bird. The bird Walton thing. The bird Walton thing. Like, I remember I was watching some classic game bird Walton thing was the bird Walton thing like I remember I was watching some classic game and Walton just checked in for a few minutes and the chemistry that they had immediately I was like holy shit like I was like I knew it was good but I just imagining that in that context uh even like a lesser version of Walton I feel like would yield some pretty fun moments yeah they really got to a point where they were just kind of messing around with the other teams. That's where you really, and that's part of the point of this team.

You want to get to the point where you're almost messing around with the other team. You're so talented and you're on this different wavelength. It's like the other team almost doesn't matter. With Bird and Walton, they would just do, Bird would do these little handoffs with Walton. Then he would do quick cuts and Walton would just throw it over his head to him, and they always kind of knew where each other were. So yeah, that would be in it. So for my fifth guy,

could go a couple ways. I think you need an alley-oop slash cutter guy to kind of finish this off, right? We have a bunch of passers. We have Curry with some shooting. Bird can shoot. Jokic can shoot. We can go two-man stuff. Fast break, we can go. What we don't have is somebody to fill the wing. Now, the obvious choices would be MJ or LeBron here, right? You could go young MJ. You go 1988 MJ when he was just trying to dunk over everybody.

Or you go 1992 peak of his powers MJ when he's probably a better basketball player and still has the same ups. And you could just put him as the fifth guy. He doesn't have the ball as much. He's running the floor all the time. You could do the same thing with 09 LeBron. If you really want the passing upside,

you go 2013 LeBron. And you really want the passing upside, you go 2013 LeBron. And I think that's where I'm leaning, which incredibly means MJ is not on my most fun team ever, even though he's one of my most favorite basketball players ever. But I think my final answer is 2013 LeBron. That Miami Heat 27 game winning streak version, putting him with Curry and these other three guys, I think that would make my

brain explode the most. In your defense, I would say that we're talking about Michael Jordan really needs a lot of defense in the world and in culture and things like that. This is his first loss in a while. Not making the most fun team ever.

That's what I said about when that trophy came out. I was like, yeah, we need to be giving Jordan his credit. But I think the thesis of what you're talking about is pretty clear here, which is like passing, ball movement, cutting. And Jordan, I still think he's the best ever, but it was a different thing. Well, one of the things I was thinking,

if you're going to put Jordan on the team, you go Bird, Magic, Jokic, and then you just take MJ and Pippen from the 96 Bulls and you just throw them on this team and now it's like, now we have everything. Now we're getting steals too and all these different things. For Alley Oop guys,

1977 Doc, 86 Dominique, 92 Sean Kemp, just as like a toy for these guys. We're like, hey, here's Sean Kemp. He can dunk everything that's at least 12 feet high. Just have fun, guys. And then the other one who has been lost in history now is 2012 Blake. Oh, yeah. Who was dunking over everybody.

And when you're talking about that Aaron Gordon type cutter, so if you gave me Bird, Magic, Jokic, Curry, and then Blake, and Blake, your only job is to set screens and roll to the basket and try to dunk on guys, I feel like he might be the best version of 2022 Aaron Gordon, right? Yeah. I mean, if you put him in situations where he has leverage and a guy is shuffling to the scene to try to contest him i mean it would just be it would be a poster factory basically and it's fun to think about like just the different like if you just put because there would be so much iq on that team the pressure you could you could put guys in there in low pressure situations i was thinking back about like um guys that would be fun like if what if you just threw a random one

like we'll say the ninth man what if you just threw like oh two stroll mile swift out there like i he's one of my favorite players to watch on youtube just the crazy stuff that he would do um i i actually kind of had a another approach that i was thinking about it's interesting to hear that you say that you would pick uh you said you lean towards pippin 96 pippin mj right is that what you were saying i was just saying the two of them together with those three guys would be fun that would be my final pick but that was one option i was thinking of in my head just like now i just have like those two guys fit in from an iq standpoint as well as anybody together and just gave those two as a tandem with these three like what would that look like yeah i mean they were basically defensive terrorists

at that point in their lives. Right, they were. Like, 92... They weren't terrorists like they were in 96. 92, they were younger, more athletic. 96, they were like... Smarter and yeah. Yeah, they were just dismantling teams.

In terms of finishers, I mean, I think 2000 Vince Carter would be really funny. Nah, I'm not allowing Vince on this team. Sorry, Vince. Yeah, sorry, Vince. The other alignment that I was thinking about, 88 Jordan. And tell me what you think about this. I thought it would be pretty interesting because this guy was an underrated passer. The 2003 wine bottle for Tracy McGrady.

If you put him in there, if you put them in there as a duo, because McGrady averaged five and a half assists and he was actually shot 38.6% from three on six attempts in 2003,

which was a lot for the time. I think he would have just slotted right in there. And the thing about this team that I think is interesting, if you wanted to put a super selfish iteration of michael jordan like in 1988 these guys all defer so much like yokich doesn't give a shit he'd be like absolutely go for 40 i'll pass you the ball and bird and magic the same the same kind of thing that's why it's fun to think about

those and those two guys like jordan under i would say, was kind of an underrated passer, too, in that sense. You'd keep some of the ball movement, but you get the big finishes. It'd be an offensive nirvana, for sure. That would be the 0-1 Kobe argument, too. I always lean T-Mac in that area. Yeah, I would rather have 88 Jordan, but that would be the same kind of thing. Two more I was thinking.

In the Curry spot. 07 Nash. Just from the IQ stuff. I think, I think he could hang with those guys. And then I can't believe I'm saying this. I hope I don't get struck by lightning. 2016 Kyrie Irving.

I saw I, when you, that was on the list. I was like, okay, okay. We'll talk about that. So I was thinking about how Jamal Murray clicks with the Oakage and who is the best possible version of the stuff Jamal Murray is good at.

And the answer is actually Kyrie. Like he's a 50, 40, 90 incredible handle, um, and never really played with anybody like Jokic. And I just think if you put 2016 Kyrie with Jokic for like a week, it would be pretty amazing. I wouldn't want, maybe want six years of it, but if you're just talking about a couple games,

that would be fun. And then the only other one I had was 2017 Durant because we saw him fit into the framework of an unselfish team and it was kind of better than anyone thought, but he also has the ability and, you know, all these years later still does of if you need two points,

he can get it. He can run the floor. He can just kind of fit in, doesn't need the ball. The ball moves with him. And I think he's another one that would be a fun one. But I think my final answer is, I think my final answer is 22 Curry and 2013 LeBron.

I think that's pretty fair. And I think that that would be a team that would move the ball really well. I think we're pretty much just talking about offense. I mean, I don't know how well this team would guard people. No, we're saying this is most fun. We're not trying. This is like how they talk about the... What was the team with Krejof, the Danish team

in 1974 that almost won the World Cup and they were like the most fun soccer team ever, but they didn't actually win the World Cup. The Suns were like that in the 2000s too, I guess. But this team would just be pure fun nirvana. I'm not sure they would win the title, although maybe they'd score so many

points that probably they'd be running there's I mean and there's a thing that kind of was here and I were talking about this on the on the show today and it's like there's winning and then there's like the cultural like things that just kind of last and live on it's like no the O2 Kings didn't win you ask anybody

on earth about the O2 Kings and they light up like oh my god I loved it and that's the whole point is the fun and I went through and I was just thinking about Durant was the obvious one and I kind of landed on that too when I was thinking about like the lineage of because I started thinking about like what if you had like 80 George Gervin or like 83 Alex English just like a guy that could just like really low resting heartbeat, just score, score, score, score, score. I think on every team you kind of need to have, and I think that's why Durant was so valuable to that team,

to the Warriors, and why Kawhi was so valuable to the Raptors. You need to have those guys, and I texted you this during that Kings-Nuggets game. It's like when the scheming kind of comes to a gridlock, you need the guys that can go get the big buckets, that can go hit the big buckets, that can go hit tough shots to get you through those dry spells. I think that's who I would pick in this situation.

That's who I would lean towards. But you get that in LeBron, you get that in Curry. Incredible offensive players, no titles by decade. Jokic this decade. Harden last decade. Steve Nash 2000s. Karl Malone 1990s. Dominique in the 80s. Girvin and McAdoo in the 70s. I hope that's not Jokic's

destiny. And I do think they have a real chance to make the finals this year. And I think they might actually have the best team in the West. I don't think there's a complete team. It'll be the team that does their one thing better than anybody else. They might just be better at offense than anyone else in the West is at anything. Especially if you have the Warriors as a 7, 8, 9,

10 seed with this Curry injury. Memphis is starting to look a little worse for wear. Phoenix is a mess. New Orleans can't seem to put three straight weeks together. Clippers can look great when everyone's playing, but who the hell knows who's going to be playing. And I think it's sitting there for Denver. And I think Jokic is that special.

So I'm glad we're able to talk about him. Thanks for staying up late with me, J. Kyle Mann. I can't wait to hear people get mad about our most fun team, even though it was completely arbitrary and came out of a good place. Good to see you though. Thanks for doing this with me. Yeah, thanks for having me.

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We usually do this on Thursdays, but he wasn't on last Thursday, and there's so much stuff going on, we're just kind of cramming it in between the two Thursdays here on Tuesday. I asked you to come up with five questions, not just for this weekend, but we have six weeks left now. This is a six-week sprint, two regular season weeks,

four playoff weeks. It feels like things are more in flux than ever. It feels like more teams have a puncher's chance of at least making round three than we usually have. Your number one question as we head into this six-week stretch. This is a little bit, it's a little bit unfair to ask me this because my number one question is going to be one of my weak points, which is, are we supposed to take this Chargers team seriously?

How serious? I've done a good job not fully drinking the Kool-Aid to this point. The Chargers are sports writer catnip. They're bait for all of us. And over the course of this, they've had a three-win stretch. They've won four of their last five. They've had wins over

potential AFC playoff teams like Miami and like Tennessee. They've played Kansas City twice this year and played them tight. Lost by a field goal both times. Lost to a Patrick Mahomes game-winning drive both times. They felt like they were on the cusp last year, and then they didn't get it done with all the shenanigans of that that raiders game and now this season they got the check mark

two weeks left of the regular season they got the check mark this team is going to the playoffs and when you look at uh what has improved for them over the last month you find defensive performance that which brandon staley was supposed to fix and fix and didn't initially fix has gotten a lot better uh arjun menon, who's a PFF data analysis, since week 10, this Chargers defense is 10th in EPA per play allowed. Or excuse me, since week 8, they're 10th in EPA per play allowed.

This without Joey Bosa on the field the entire time. They have figured out, lose JC Jackson, Michael Davis has stepped in and played better. They've gotten Sebastian Joseph Day on the field.

He's handled the interior for them. Kenneth Murray's playing better. And when Kenneth Murray is playing better, you're doing something right. You're doing great work. And the potential of bringing Joey Bosa back into this team means, alright, defensively they might be what we thought Brandon Cialdi could get them to be. Offensively,

they're still not what you want in terms of a Justin Herbert offense. We've talked a lot about the structural issues and the Joe Lombardi of it all, but with Keenan Allen back on the field now more healthy off of his hamstring injury, I refuse to say 100% because I watched that man try to turn a

corner at the numbers and still go out at the sideline. He looked like me. He just couldn't stop. That was a wide bang for Keenan. I won't say 100%, but with him healthier than he's been all season, dealing with a hamstring injury, and with Mike Williams back from the ankle injury, this offense and this

passing game works a lot better than when it was Josh Palmer and Michael Bandy, and they were just kind of strapping it all together with duct tape prayers and dreams. So I don't know whether or not I should take this Chargers team seriously or not. I won't figure that out over the next two weeks, right? The Chargers don't really have meaningful games.

They're either going to be the fifth seed or the sixth seed. They're going to play the Rams. They're going to play the Broncos. We're not going to learn a lot about them, but they are going to get a beatable Jaguars or Titans team if they end up the five seed. If they end up the three seed, they're going to get a really talented Bengals team.

That Jaguars team that they might face killed them in week three. They are going to enter this playoffs with a chance to win their first round game. And I would love to know whether or not I should actually think that's possible by January. I'm just not sure I'm going to have that information. I had the Colts in a tease post

10.5 last night. And it's weird. They got blown out, but I also felt like they left a lot of opportunity on the field, right? They got a couple turnovers. They got one inside the 20. It felt like it was going to be a three-point game, and they just, Foles was awful. The play calling was awful.

Yeah. They couldn't stay out of their ways. But even like Derwin James goes out in the first half, and you think, oh, maybe they'll be able to throw on them at least, and they just, the Chargers just, they're pretty deep. Feels like they can survive a lot. We did on Thursday's pod with JJ and Schrager,

we talked about which of the three kind of lingering teams could make a run. It was the Dolphins, the Chargers, and Detroit. It was like, we have our five-team inner circle. Could any of these teams crack it? Well, Detroit shits the bed. The Dolphins not only shit the bed, now two is in concussion protocol again. And I want to talk about that in a second.

And the Chargers have now emerged. They got this Rams-Denver combo. And as you pointed out, the five seed in a weird way is about as good of a five seed as you're going to get in a typical year, right? If like Seattle, New Orleans in 2010 was the peak when New Orleans was like a nine point favorite in Seattle, but somehow blew that anyway. But the Chargers are going to be favored over either one of those teams

in the playoffs. And it's all sitting there. I'm with you on the defense. And yet I'm with you like, I still can't get there. I still, I want to see them beat an awesome team, and they just haven't been able to do it in a way that convinced me.

You know how the offensive play calling and decision making just drives us all nuts in general? It's gotten even worse because over the last several weeks, Herbert's sack numbers have jumped up. And if you try to figure out why that's happened,

they're moving him out of the pocket less, right? They're less designed rollouts, less designed boots. They're moving the launch point by design a lot less frequently. And it's because the offensive line's gotten better. They've had multiple rookies out there and Jamari Saylor takes over at left tackle. They've had changes at right tackle, but now Trey Pipkins is set. And because the offensive line's gotten better, Joe Lombardi's gone, oh, okay, we don't have to do the whole move the pocket thing anymore. Great. No, no, no. It's still a bad line. It's better, but it's still not good. You still

have to press these buttons. And with Keenan Mike Williams back, Joe Lombardi's like, oh, I can just run my offense now where I drop Herbert back. Three-step drop every single time. I run the same four concepts eight yards down the field every single time. And Herbert is taking a lot of hits, especially for a guy with a bad rib injury earlier in the year, taking a lot of hits

and they're not getting him by design out of the pocket the way they were earlier in the season. So offensively, there's still so much meat on this bone. What you're looking at when you look at a Chargers playoff run is, alright, is the defense now equipped to make sure the Chargers are in a one-score game in the fourth quarter

such that when Herbert gets to open this thing up, he has a chance to win these games, right? So it's a narrow road to walk because the offense still does not take itself seriously. It's one of those weird teams that they almost feel more dangerous when it's third and nine than when it's third and two. Third and two, it's like maybe they'll run the ball and take the ball to Herbert's hands and they'll get stuffed. But third and nine, it's like, well, somebody's getting open. He's going to find them. I thought he was really good last night

for a game where they weren't. I wouldn't have said they were that explosive. Yeah, no touchdown, one interception. That's a great game. Yeah, I liked all the decisions he makes. But that's the thing. When you, me, and Ruiz, we did the QBs a couple weeks ago.

It's just like he always seems like he makes the right call. Sorry, so they get four or five potentially if they can get the five seed. Jacksonville or the Tennessee, I just am not sold on either of those teams at all. If anything, you could say, if you take away their division records, both those teams are below 500 teams.

And then, you know, the three seed, probably Cincy. So then assuming there's no upset, they know, the three seed, probably Cincy. So then assuming there's no upset, they would play the one seed. What matchup do you like more with them between Buffalo and Kansas City? Because we don't know who's going to be the one seed at this point. By a mile, Kansas City. Very hard to beat one team three times in a season.

And the Chiefs are two up on the charges. You know them. You know what they're about. You know the buttons to press. That familiarity levels the playing field as opposed to the Bills where, you know, you haven't yet experienced recently Josh Allen's speed, Josh Allen's size, Tiffon Diggs.

The lack of familiarity introduces a little bit more of an advantage, I think, for the Bills being the more high-powered team. If you get the Chiefs, okay, we know these guys. We keep getting these guys on the ropes with 58, 59 minutes left. Now we can knock them out of the playoffs. And I said last week, I think this AFC playoff picture,

race, entire process, I think we're going to see upsets. I think we're going to see weird games. I think it's going to be crazy. Chargers-Chiefs is one of those where we end up getting that in the divisional round. I feel like that's the defining game of the last several years of Chargers football, and they're going to come out for that.

I'm praying we get that matchup. I'd love to see it. Are we willing to say the Chargers are the fourth best team in the AFC yet? I'm like 80% there. I could also see them losing this week to the Rams. Oh my God, they suck me in again. It's between them and Baltimore, and we just haven't seen the Ravens with Lamar in a bit.

And I think that makes it a little bit tricky. Though they're similar teams in the sense that defensive improvements have kept them in the playoff picture over the last month so, so quietly. Baltimore's defense, man, playing really good ball. But offensively, they're just knucklehead stuff. So you don't know how serious you can take them.

But it's them. It's the Chargers and the Ravens in that conversation for the fourth spot. I mean, worst case scenario for them, they go to Buffalo. Buffalo, it's the winter from hell, right? Yeah. I'm just going to assume

it's just going to snow every week in Buffalo for the rest of the winter. And they could go there and it could be like that famous, you know, about 20 years before you were born, the famous Chargers-Bengals game when it was like minus 2 million in Cincinnati. And the Chargers had like the most fun

offensive team of the 80s and ended up playing in minus 14 weather. And that was that. Before we move on to your next question, Chargers 14 to 1 to win the AFC on FanDuel. They, right now it goes Bills plus 165, move on to your next question. Chargers 14-1 to win the AFC on FanDuel. Right now it goes Bills plus 165, Chiefs plus 220. No value at all.

Plus 470 for the Bengals. We bet a value, but not a lot because you should just bet them game to game if you're going to bet that. And then Ravens 11-1, Chargers 14-1. It's like a touch of value there because they'll be favored in round one

if they're a five seed. Round two, let's say they go to Buffalo. What's that? Like Bills minus three and a half, minus four, something like that. Chargers are like probably plus 170. And then the KC game will not go more than three and a half, four because they've just been too close.

So maybe there's a little value there. All right, your next question. Yeah, let's actually stay, because we were talking about this a little bit with that five seed, four seed talk. I'm extremely curious to see if this next month of football forces the Titans to blow everything up. I know that's not like the main playoff thing everybody's looking at,

who's the winners, champions, playoff runs. The Titans have lost five straight. They lost two straight, fired the general manager, and then lost three more after that. Ryan Tannehill's out for the season with an ankle injury. Derrick Henry's banged up. They have this week 17 game against the Cowboys Thursday night football, but it actually doesn't matter at all, right? Both they and the

Jaguars are 7-8 at this time. Independent of the results of Dallas Titans and then Houston Jags on Sunday, the Week 18 game between the Jags and the Titans is for the division. So the Titans are in a spot where they might go 0-7 across the end of the season, ending in a season-ending loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars

who beat them for the division. That's about as bad as it gets. Incredible win by me. I had Titans under 9. It's unbelievable. Before the nine. It's unbelievable. Before the season. It's like a freaking miracle. DraftKings, there was a promo that DraftKings had

of like parlaying season win totals. And a buddy of mine has a ticket of like 10 plus wins for a bunch of teams. And the only open team is the Titans. And it's been that way for like three weeks. And he's just sitting on it every week. I text him, how are we doing? How are we feeling? What are the vibes? It's been that way for like three weeks. And he's just sitting on it every week. I text him, how we doing? How we feeling?

What are the vibes? It's terrible. Regardless, the Titans-Jags dichotomy here in terms of this team on the ascent with all these young players, with this new coach, and then Tennessee, who's just cratered after so much good coaching, after so much good luck, puts Tennessee in a very awkward spot.

You look at the Taylor LeJuan contract as an example. He's been injured this entire season. He's a $14 million cap hit next year with nothing in terms of the dead cap. Does he get injured every season? Yeah. Two of the last three seasons, he's had an ACL. He's talked publicly on his podcast about like, okay, maybe I don't want to come back. I don't know. Is the end for me? So okay, the LeJuan cut starts to make sense. And then you look at a Ryan Tannehill contract. Tannehill next year would save $18 million on the cap if he were cut. He's worth $36

million cap if they keep him next season. Derrick Henry, $7 million saved on the cap next season. Both Tannehill and Henry's contracts expire in 2023. So it's just the final year on both of those guys. And you just fired your general manager who kind of started this reload.

He traded A.J. Brown. He kind of put you in this intermediary spot. Traylon Burks hasn't been healthy. You haven't replaced any of the wide receiver production. Robert Woods has been bad. They are in limbo. And when you're in limbo, it's a lot harder to climb your way out by committing to the guys in the building

and trying to resuscitate things. It's a lot easier to just press hard reset. So you're saying if they lose 7th straight, this is a reset, you're hitting it with your fist, you're banging the reset button. I think John Robinson wanted to do a little bit of a soft reset. Like, okay, he didn't sign any

big deals past 2023, let's AJ Brown, while he kind of quietly reload and try to keep momentum while you were doing it. The ownership fires him, which is apparently a message of like, we need to win, we need to keep momentum while you were doing it. The ownership fires him, which is apparently a message of like, we need to win, we need to win now, we need to compete. But they keep losing. And so if you're going to be on the outside of the playoffs looking in, I don't know

how you sit here with all this money you can recoup from a Ryan Tannehill cut or a Ryan Tannehill trade, a Derrick Henry cut or Derrick Henry trade restructure, Taylor LeJuan moving on. They still have to sign Jeffrey Simmons. They have to sign David Long. They have to sign Danico Autry. They are in a very weird spot cap-wise. So the next two games for the Titans matters a lot.

If they win them, if they lose them, make the playoffs, play the Chargers, win a physical game. There's a chance this all gets rosy and you just kind of ho-hum, continue on like nothing happened in the next season. But if they miss the playoffs, it could have massive ramifications in terms of what the core of this team looks like.

We're going to get two weeks of Malik Willis. We're going to get more and more data, more and more reps on this player. It's very interesting to think about Tennessee long term and how the next three years are going to be impacted by these final two weeks. So Fando has Jacksonville minus 250 to win the division. I actually think that's low.

I think Tennessee is done. They're going to lose to Dallas this week. That'll be six straight. Without Tannehill, I just don't, I don't see it with Malik Willis. I'm not saying I'm the all-time quarterback watcher, but I think I'm in like the top 18. I don't see it.

I don't see any piece of it. Raw than sushi right now. Yeah. You know, like we, everyone, the recency bias is always, oh, Zach Wilson

is the worst quarterback of all time. Like, watch Malik Willis for like a half. They can't do really anything with them and it's the same thing.

These guys, they roll out, they have no idea what they're going to do and then it's the guys coming in and they throw it out of bounds.

Like, that should be a stat. I feel like that should be a stat on, like, NFL advanced, whatever, next-gen stats. Just the aimless rollout followed by the throw out of bounds.

Who leads the league in that this year? Zach Wilson's definitely in the top three. Willis had about eight of them yesterday. Wilson was doing it a ton, and then he stopped doing it and started throwing picks. You remember that? Right. They were like, why'd you stop throwing it away

and instead threw picks? And he was like, well, I was just getting tired of throwing the football away. I know it's been helping us. He literally said, it's been good for us, me throwing the football away, but I just didn't want to do it anymore. That's when you know you're in a bad spot.

Malik is like a third round pick. It's kind of interesting. Let's see what it looks like. It's a swing, right? It's just a massive swing at the plate. If we connect, great. If not, it doesn't hurt us. That's why, like, you know,

carrying Tannehill for $36 million next season, it's not that bad. Like, you can do it and be respectable. It's just, okay, if you're paying the veteran quarterback, if you're starting him over Malik Willis and taking away that opportunity for Willis to develop, then you want to see return on that. You want to justify that with wins.

Do they have the pass catchers to do that? Do they have the offensive linemen? No, they're blowing it up. Do they have the play want to justify that with wins. Do they have the pass catchers to do that? Do they have the offensive line? No, they're blowing it up. Yeah. The other thing is their coach is in the sturdiest position of just about any coach of all the younger guys except for Dayball. And if anyone's going to be like, yeah, I'll throw away next year. Let's

reboot. Give me more power. Give me more say. And, you know, we can just reboot in the draft this year and then on next season. I think that's what they would do. And that's what's very interesting about this relative to who fills the general manager position officially or if it doesn't officially get filled

and Braybill just kind of holds the title. Head coaches are notoriously short-sighted. That's the nature of the job. Head coaches try to win now. General managers try to win three years from now. There's supposed to exist intention. There's supposed to be an equilibrium that's dynamic there

that has some conflict to it. When you vacate one side of the seesaw, there's a chance that Vrabel takes the Taylor LeJuan money and just gives an unnecessarily massive contract to Juju Smith-Schuster, some third, fourth-year wide receiver. He's like, if I just get this guy in here

and this tough dude, I'm going to go sign a Patriots free agent because those always work out. I know those guys. Get him in the building, and then we're going to win 11 games. And then it craters. So Tennessee really was trying to navigate a death path.

They had the Robinson firing. I think the vibes in that locker room are terrible. I think there's frustration. I think that this season is going to crater. And then I wonder what happens to them long term. It's been such a well-coached, well-managed team for so long. And things went from 12 to 6 unbelievably fast. Well, and then on the other side with the NFC teams,

like if Tampa, whatever happens with them, I'm sure it's going to be set on fire after the season. New Orleans will be interesting because if Peyton, I still feel like Sal and I talked about this on Sunday, I still feel like if Peyton is actually coming back next year, New Orleans has to be one of the favorites because you'd have to trade to get him. But they feel

like they're in flux in some way. I can't imagine them running back Dennis Allen. And the team that's weirdly I think the most stable is Carolina because I think the most stable is Carolina. Because I think they bring back Wilks. Unless Darnold completely screws it up, he might have bought himself another year. And you could argue for Carolina, like, look, we played really well.

There's an alternate version of the season where we're like nine and six right now. And then I like what Atlanta has too. think they've they have some sort of identity I'm not sure on Ritter he hasn't looked that good in the starts that he's had but for the most part Drake London's been good, I like their running backs I think Arthur Smith's a really good coach, he seems

I think he's affecting the games about as much as any of the younger coaches we've seen in a positive way I would say Tampa is probably the team that's most in flux. Make it lose to Carolina this week. Is their season over if they lose this week? I can't remember. It is, right?

Carolina would have to win the next week. Yeah, exactly. So they're in a bad spot because of the division. They no longer control their destiny. They can also, if memory serves, get into the wild card by an extremely perverse series of events. Yeah, 19 things have to happen. Everybody losing.

Yeah, exactly. The Carolina thing is tricky. What Wilks has done has been great. I just ripped through that film. They've been second in EPA per play since Darnold came back. They're running the football well. They're doing 12 personnel heavy stuff. Ben McAdoo's coaching great.

It's awesome. Bringing the interim, extending the interim, giving him the full-time job, historically has been a shaky proposition. Usually it doesn't work too well. We've seen Steve Wilks be a head coach and he didn't get a fair shake, but still, we have some data on this.

So it's a very weird spot because you generally don't want to bring back the interim. In NFL history, that's kind of like an unsteady seat. However, do you want to go in the open head coach market and try to convince somebody to come and handle this quarterback situation and not have that many picks? It's not like they have a war chest or anything. They're a little bit in a peculiar spot.

I think that they'll test the waters on some of the top candidates. Like, okay, what would it take to get D'Amico Ryans out here? What would it take to get Shane Steichen out here? And then if they feel like they can't land a big fish, I don't mind bringing back Wilks and kind of see a big Lou. Yeah. I mean, if Lou wants to go for it, go for it. Wait, I like your interim thing.

So it's like somebody just had a horrible relationship and then they start dating somebody after who they didn't think they would get serious with. But everybody kind of likes her. You should marry her. She's great. You've been together like four weeks. Probably a bad idea. So you're saying

that's the interim coach, basically. Yeah. The experience of shedding off the old coach, the experience of just getting out of that bad relationship. It's a boost. It's a bump that can't be sustained. And then it's like, what do you bring me? What do you give me? And I think Wilk's like a solid NFL coach.

I just don't think he's on the tier of something like the big fish that might be in the head coaching circles this year. But man, with the Panthers. The flip side is Jeff Saturday, where there's not only a bump, you go somehow backwards here to worst spot. This Saturday thing is amazing to me. Because when they won that game against the Raiders, and Matt Ryan played pretty well in that game

and the defense had a nice performance and the Raiders were terrible. Everybody was like, wow, Jeff Saturday, Jim Irsay knew. Not everybody. People like us were not like that. We're like, wait, hold on. Hold your horses. I got into a big debate with Colts fans that week. I was like, fellas, I need y'all to have a memory longer than a goldfish. I need y'all to think about what this might look like. And here we are. They're outscored 90-9

in fourth quarters under Saturday. Killing teases. Let's take a break and then we'll do the last three questions. Alright, question number three, Ben Solak. What is it? Alright, so yeah, we talked a lot in that segment about the worst quarterbacks, the way the bad guys look, and what St. Donald's's future is and Malik Wilson, Zach long can the Niners withstand, endure, avoid

the inevitable, I promise you, it's like Jeff Saturday, the inevitable collapse that's coming from Brock Purdy. Purdy this season, since he took over. Fifth and adjusted... I don't like this segment. This is my least favorite segment so far, but go ahead. Why is that? You're dousing Brock Purdy with water?

What's going on here? Okay, so listen. I'll frame it to you this way. You're preparing my expectations. You don't want me to be too excited about Brock Purdy. Okay. Right. I'll put it to you this way.

I'm looking at Super Bowl contenders, AFC and NFC, and I want to understand how these guys are going to get there and then what the liabilities are going to be. And when I try to figure out ways that San Francisco doesn't make the Super Bowl contenders, AFC and NFC, and I want to understand how these guys are going to get there and then what the liabilities are going to be. And when I try to figure out ways that San Francisco doesn't make the Super Bowl, I go, okay, number one, Brock Purdy. Number two, and then I can't find anybody.

Kyle Shanahan's big game performance would be number two for me. We've seen him blow too many leads. The depth that they've got in this roster, though, is really something else. I mean, they had Traverius Ward get banged up against Washington, and then they struggled a little bit against the receivers,

but they still hold it down in the red zone. They have Deebo Sambo go down, and then all of a sudden, Ray Ray McLeod's got a 70-yard rushing touchdown. Their offensive line, which was so bad, so bad to start the season, has stepped up every single week. Young players in Burford and Aaron Banks. Awesome to see from running back one to safety four and everything in between. This is a

great roster and it's well coached. Designs offensive, defensively, D'Amico's incredible. There's just this seventh round pick with unmerited arrogance unbelievable confidence this young guy has it's so cool to see brock's just ripping tight window throws over the middle of the field throwing like low and outside to george kittle with placement with timing cover zero blitz taking a hit it is crazy the you would think this guy was a national champion in alabama well he's just playing with gumption in the NFL in his first starts. That confidence, that arrogance, the aggressiveness, it's good. You need it in the Sheenan offense. Point and shoot.

Trust me. Trust me. Trust me. It's going to open up. Just throw it. Eventually, he's going to have like a three-pick game. But when does he eventually have, though? Because he's got Vegas next week, and he's got Arizona in week 18.

So I think he'll be fine through the regular season. Right. And so now it's a question of you play three NFC defenses through the playoffs. And that's the thing that really makes me think the Niners can make this run. Like Minnesota's defense. We saw Dallas' defense against Gardner Minshew, right? The Detroit Lions' defense, the Seattle Seahawks' defense, the New York Giants' defense, whoever it is that gets through. The Giants were a tiny bit in the 3-6, if that's the 3-6.

Just a whiff. Yeah, I'm really excited to see the Giants in the playoffs. Me too. I think Brian Dable's going to do the weirdest stuff imaginable. It's going to be like a really sticky game. It's so fun. I can't wait for the Giants in the playoffs. But there are a lot of really weak defenses in the NFC.

So I really do think, the more I think about it, that Shanahan can marionette Purdy, protect him from his own self, give him the looks, give him the yards after the catch, give him the play action, give him the easy play shots, such that the Niners can do this. I really think they can drag Purdy all the way to the Super Bowl.

What they have to avoid is a collapse game, is a bonfire game. He starts bad, he gets hit early, he gets rowdy, he throws a pick, and then he falls apart. He has that first experience of NFL adversity. That's what the Niners have to avoid. He even reengaged George Kittle, who had been in a fantasy coma for months and months and months

and is now swinging fantasy playoffs. Here's the key for them. They need Green Bay to beat Minnesota this week. They need the two seed. And then it's like, you're just playing a crap, that two seven matchup, whoever you're getting in that matchup,

you're getting Carson Wentz, you're getting Gino and the Seahawks dumpster fire defense. You're getting Jared Goff and weird Dan Campbell, or you're getting Rogers. And that weird Dan Campbell or you're getting Rodgers and that in my opinion a bogus Packers team

I think even that game on Saturday it turns out Tua was concussed probably the whole second half they still should have won Green Bay 65 plays for 301 yards it was like they were lighting on fire

I don't think their defense is that good. I just don't think they're that good. They're 7-8 for a reason. So if San Francisco can get that, they get the 2-7, followed by the Minnesota Giants winner. That's round two. And then you got to hope you either get lucky

with Philly injuries or you get lucky with the Philly-Dallas game because I think Dallas would be a better matchup for them. I mean, you're a Philly fan. You can't feel great about Philly injuries or you get lucky with the Philly-Dallas game? Because I think Dallas would be a better matchup for them. I mean, you're a Philly fan. You can't feel great about Philly right now. No, my fourth question is, is the Eagles' luck breaking at the wrong time? Did they peak too soon?

Breaking at the wrong time. It's just, we did an exercise on Philly Special with Shield the other week. And it was, if you could protect five Eagles, you could protect them from being injured. know not counting hurts he's already hurt like who would you take we like angie brown davante smith darius slay james radbury dallas goddard like a lot of different guys and the one player eagles fans just got an arm engine that was like how could you not protect lane johnson right and then the very next game abdominal tear for lane

johnson yeah yeah we did. It was us physically. They lose Avante Maddox to a toe injury out for a significant amount of time. Nobody really knows what's going on there. That test, they're cornered up. They got Josiah Scott and Reed Blankenship right now as starters because Chauncey Gardner Johnson still has a lacerated kidney. The thing about Josiah Scott and Reed Blankenship

is absolutely nobody knows these names because they're not great players and the Cowboys picked on these guys. Chauncey Gardner Johnson does not have a timetable to come back. He's able to be activated from IR. They can start his window. But Nick Sirianni said like, hey, lacerated kidney. Like we do not know what we're doing here. We're not rushing back.

Mr. I injured a major organ Chauncey Gardner Johnson. Yeah. So no Maddox, no Chauncey. Jordan Davis potentially banged up again, which they handled the run defense issues with him the first time by bringing Linval Joseph and Andomacan Sue back. But Linval and Andomacan are both on the wrong side of 30, and we're starting

to get to the point where they're no longer a lot fresher than their opponents. That was the big advantage when they first signed him off the street, is those guys have fresh legs. They don't anymore. And then you have this Lane Johnson injury. Jack Driscoll's going to take over at right tackle. There's a chance... So how long is Lane Johnson out? Is he maybe not even back for the playoffs? Definitely

no regular season. They are quote hopeful for the playoffs. Oh my God. They have Lane who's hopeful for the playoffs and then you have Jalen Hurts who this is the most, this is the biggest thing. Schefter reported this week that the shoulder injury is a SC joint injury.

This is not an AC joint. I'm not going to pretend I know what like sternoclavicular actually freaking means. But what I know from what the doctors and the people get interviewed for these things and the experts have said is that this is a trickier, rarer, more week to week, what are we looking at injury than like, oh, he's sprained his AC joint. He's back in two weeks. That's the regular shoulder injury. This is not that. And so like, I'm very confident Hurts doesn't play against the Saints, and I don't think

he's guaranteed for the division round. If he does, there's a chance he's less than 100%. We could be looking at like Jalen playing his first game without laying at right tackle against the Cowboys in the division round. The Eagles are in a tenuous spot health-wise. They're going to handle the Saints slash the Giants.

They're going to win their game. They're going to win their 1C. They're going to win the division. Are they? I'm confident in that. Are they? They're well-coached. Are you confident?

The Saints aren't good. Deep down? The Saints aren't good. Saints, I feel great. They're not terrible. They're going to beat the Saints. They're going to build. They'll taste some hell.

I've been talking an unbelievable amount of smack to Saints fans because of the Chauncey Garner-Johnson trade, because of the Coach Olave trade, because the Saints went all in again and they're bad. I really need the Eagles to beat the Saints. Eagles are going to beat the Saints. But after that, they are... To me, I'm not even throwing the Eagles in a tease this week.

I don't trust that game at all. The one thing with the Saints, I don't think they're very good. I don't think they're very well coached. They are physical. They are kind of hard to play and they're weird. And they can have like the Taysom Hill quarter where it's just what's going on. Around the 20, they're weird.

I think they're, I don't know. I don't feel good about that game for you. The other thing is, yeah, the way the Eagles have always beaten the Saints, they played them with Jalen Hurts the past season. You saw Kyler Murray beat this team as the Saints, and Dennis Allen's defense really, really struggles against mobile quarterbacks. Lamar Jackson beat them, had a good day against them.

The Eagles don't have that. They have Gardner Minshew. When the Saints' defense is good, it's good when it's facing just traditional quarterbacks, quarterbacks who don't have mobility. So there's sketchy stuff to it, but I think the Eagles' talent just outweighs the Saints' talent. We need a big Minshew game.

We almost had it. He was sailing a couple passes this weekend. But for the most part, he was good, I thought. No, he looked solid. The interceptions were both his fault to a degree. The second one, it was not the majority his fault. The one that really turned the game. And so there, you look at the box score, you say,

oh, they turn over. Jalen Hurts is so good at protecting the football. Minshew just got to learn what Jalen Hurts already knows. Throw it to 11. Throw it to 6., throw it to six, sometimes throw it to 88. Nobody else, none of those

Quest Watkins anymore. We throw it to these guys. Yeah, that's tough. Well, here's the thing. If somehow you blow this Saints game, which you shouldn't because you're home

and their quarterback's Andy Dalton, you should win this game. The Saints aren't dead. They're in the mix. And then you have the Giants next week who'll be playing for, you know, and I guess then you have the Giants next week who'll be playing for...

I guess the Giants could take care of business this week, so maybe you're good. But who knows? I don't know. I don't feel good about it for you. I just don't. I don't like how you peaked. We've seen it every year with the NFL,

and I'm older than you. These teams that peak in that week 11 to week 13 range and start looking juggernaut-y. And then as we get to the home stretch, that's when the injuries happen. It's never good. They're the most injured now than they've been all season. And that's just, we don't know exactly what it's going to look like. And that's tough. Well, the good news for you is Devonta Smith is now just a sports movie when they throw him the ball. It's like those slow motion, any given Sunday catches. What is happening? The body

control and the catch outside of his frame ability on a guy of that size is one of the more ludicrous things you see in a league full of ludicrous athletes. If there was a game show of the impossible catch, he would be the favorite, right? For him to be 170 pounds and to be

as confident as he has taken hits and surviving contact, it's just like, it feels unsafe. It's magical to watch. He's tougher than A.J. Brown. And A.J. Brown's got like 55 pounds on him. It's so funny. Also like one of the best feet near the sideline,

keeping the feet in guys I've ever seen in my life. And he's only been in the league for a couple of years, but just feels like he always knows where he is on the field, which is, I always marvel at this with the NBA too, with the three-point shooting. These guys that have the spatial awareness at all times, no matter where they are, and he has it.

Like it doesn't, back of the end zone, side of the end zone, out of bounds. It just seems like he always knows exactly where he is. Feel. There's nothing better than watching a player with feel. And when you evaluated Devontae out of bounds. It just seems like he always knows exactly where he is. There's nothing better than watching a player with feel. And when you evaluated Devontae out of Alabama, okay, he's not Jalen Waddell, he's not Jamar Chase, but you just watch eight plays

like, oh, he was Bill's play receiver. He gets it. Well, the funny thing is Eagles fans have had the opposite with Aguilar, who is the master of catching the ball with one foot out of bounds, or Jalen Rieger, who just didn't know where he was on the field, really, at any point.

And now you have this guy who's basically a savant. All right, you got me more excited about San Francisco, by the way. Good, I'm glad. Well, because they're plus 310, and if Minnesota loses to Green Bay, and they're in that 2-7 spot with banged up Philly as really the one obstacle and the one-two. The plus 3-10 is like decent action, I think.

Right. You're not getting a plus 3-10 money line on a Niners-Eagles-NFC championship game. No. You're just... That would be the bet. Unless Dallas crashes the party. All right. Your last question.

Number five. Last question is the big question. It's which of these top-tier elite AFC quarterbacks is going to now, you know, define these next 10 years of football. It's like, in terms of the quality of talent, it's Patrick Mahomes, right? Like, Mahomes already has the Super Bowl win over Josh Allen and Joe Burrow.

In terms of the way he plays, he's ahead above everybody else. He's a cut above everybody else. Mahomes, to me, it belongs in a different tier than Allen, a different tier than Burrow, a different tier than any other quarterback you want to name.

With that said, this really, like this, this Chiefs-Bills-Bengals three-horse race in the AFC is about as close of a contention. These three teams are unbelievably good and these three quarterbacks are playing the best ball of probably each one of their careers.

Burrow certainly is. Mahomes definitely is. Allen is a little bit more of a question mark, but still, it's very, very, very high to your ball. This is the... The AFC is defined by the young quarterbacks drafted in the first round from 2017 to 2021.

All these post-Brady quarterbacks. And Herbert lingering behind them as the number four. Herbert, Lamar, Trevor Lawrence, right? All of these guys were drafted because the AFC said, all right, we're finally out from under Brady. Let's try to get our guy and push. The three teams that were most successful were these Chiefs, these Bills, and these Bengals with Mahomes and with Allen and with Burrow.

When I look for the most balanced team, I find Cincinnati. And I love balanced teams in the playoffs. When I look for the most explosive team and the team to win shootouts and win late games, I find the Bills. And when I look for the team that's been there before, done it before, survived, has the experience, I find the Chiefs. And I don't know where to put my money. I don't know where to put my chips. There's so many

reasons to trust these three teams particularly. I think the Super Bowl champion is going to be one of those three teams. I think the guy who makes it out of the AFC is going to be the guy that takes it. There's ways this gets wonky. Like I makes it out of the AFC is going to be the guy that takes it. There's ways this gets wonky. Like I said, I think the AFC is going to be an extremely difficult playoff race, but the team that comes

out of that bloodbath, I think it's just going to have that final push there for the Super Bowl. So Mahomes, Allen, or Burrow, one of those three, as I sit here right now, December 27, I think is going to get the jewel. He's going to get that in their crown, that Super Bowl win. Either the first one of those guys

or the second for Mahomes. And that's going to define how we talk about this era. Which one of these guys was more consistently able to deliver that championship? So, number one thing I'm watching this postseason

is just who makes the run? Who gets the bounces? And how do we talk about that player relative to the other two moving forward? I feel like the Bengals, I felt a lot better about them a week ago. I don't like the injuries. Their offensive line, they had finally figured it out.

The moment Collins went out of that game, I didn't feel like their blocking was the same in that Patriots game. Yeah. Their backup right tackle is a young man named Hakeem Adanji. Hakeem Adanji had a play for them in the Super Bowl at guard. He played for them in the playoffs at guard. He was a target the entire run. And now he's playing at right tackle.

Film-wise, the second half of the Patriots, yeah, it's the same thing. Burrow's been so much better this year managing the pocket, managing pressure than he ever was. But absolutely, the Bengals have... Everybody who's been in the AFC playoffs knows to look for that young man. They got Hurst is banged up.

Hubbard's banged up. They have Hendrickson's playing with what? A wrist cast? Does he have broken wrist still? I don't think that one got better. And then they lost their best cornerback two months ago. So it's like they're one more injury away from being danger, danger, danger. They're not there

yet, but I think they're at the injury capacity because we've seen some of these teams. Tennessee hit that a couple weeks ago. It's like, we just have too many injuries now. We can't compete. The other thing is that defenses over the last few weeks have gotten the Bengals into the spot that teams got the Chiefs and the Bills last year

where they're just throwing to running backs a lot because they're finding ways to blanket the common concept, take away the downfield stuff, and then because Burrow's playing with increased pace, which is good. It's overall good. There's like a, like Joe Mixon's got like nine targets. You know what I'm saying? Against the Patriots, right?

Samadji Piran had the big receiving game. They've started to throw the balls to the back more. And that was good. And now it's kind of like, oh, we should maybe force it to T and Jamar a little bit more. You got to find where that balance is. And the Chiefs and the Bengals had all, or excuse me, the Chiefs and the Bills had all of last season to figure that out. The Bengals are just getting here. And you wonder, is there going to be a game

they play in the playoffs where the offense only puts up 20-23 and you go and you look back and T. Higgins had four or five targets. And you were like, man, what were we doing? What were we thinking? There's a weird McPherson piece to this too. Because he sucked in that past game. He's had a couple of those this year. Whereas last year, he was their rock their rock right he's the reason they made the super bowl over just

about anything else i worry about him and i worry about zach taylor who also makes me nervous yeah i just can't well i will never 100 get there with zach taylor i'm sorry i just won't yeah i i am nervous about zach taylor in cincinnati i'm nervous about Zach Taylor in Cincinnati I'm nervous about Andy Reid, Eric Biennemi in Kansas City some of the time management stuff this year they're not it's been dated back to Philly they were doing that and then I look at that Bills team and just

offensively their designs are so good Allen is so good that line is banged up it's not playing well when they hand the ball off they still aren't good Allen is their best running back. Stephon Diggs is their only good receiver. They're such a hyper-fragile build, except it's worked for them for so long.

So you can poke holes in all of them, but it's who goes superhero? Who gets that ball with 40 seconds left and no timeouts and makes it happen? Well, I agree with your three, but I still feel like to bring it back to the first thing you talked about, the roadmap is there for the Chargers.

All of those teams are beatable, and Herbert could just be awesome for three games. We've seen, you know, if you're just talking about the history of playoff football, we've seen the awesome guy just be awesome for three games. And I think he could do it against all three of those teams. And I think that same roadmap, it's there to a lesser degree, but it is there for the

Ravens who are going to be in a position where the Week 18 Bengals game is almost certainly for the division. I can't get there with them. Yeah. And so, right, the offense is just so lacking for talent. But we talk about these star quarterbacks and the way they can impact things. You get a home playoff game, three versus six

seed. So you're looking at potentially facing you might get the Chargers, right? You might get since he's in the five seed, I think the Chargers have to be the six seed. So you might get the Chargers. Then you have another home playoff game in the divisional round, potentially. There's a way that...

Where are they going on third and nine? So fourth quarter, seven minutes left. They're down four. They need a drive. Get a holding penalty. Now it's like third and nine? So, fourth quarter, seven minutes left. They're down four. They need a drive. Get a holding penalty. Now it's like third and eleven near the Ravens. Where are you going? You're going to Mark Andrews, who I'm double teaming if I've watched

football a year and on the other team. He's out. You can't throw to him. Where am I going? You're not interested in Sammy Watkins? Back in the Ravens? uniform? I am not. Devin Duvernay doesn't do it for you? I cannot take that team seriously. I just can't.

I don't even think the Ravens fans could take them seriously. I mean, there's an alternate universe to them this season where they have five less wins. You know? I would say they've maximized whatever their record should be.

So there is that alternate universe, but we also have to remember, they lost to the Giants on knucklehead turnover late. They had like an 80% chance to win that game. The Bills, they lost after going for it on the fourth down. Bills drive the length of the field. They lost to the Dolphins on like the 28-point fourth quarter. There's a way that the Ravens' record

is even better than it is right now, because a lot of their losses have been silly stuff. Yeah, true. Really good coaching and a really unique player that's difficult to game plan against. If they can beat the Bengals in Week 18, Lou Anarumo has typically done a really good job against them, and they can avoid the Bengals in the playoffs,

a lot of the defenses in the AFC playoffs have historically not done super well against Lamar. He just presents a different breed of football that everybody else is used to seeing. The sad thing is the door was open this season for the Belichick Pats if it was an old school Belichick team, right?

They had the defense. They had the running back. And what they didn't have was the coaching staff and the quarterback. But it's the type of team that I think would have succeeded in the AFC this year. Like to win like the 20 to 17 games, special teams, don't beat

yourself, control the ball, and they're just the opposite of that. So cross them off. If the Patriots win out, they make it. It gets January, 0-0, wipe the records. Let's do it. Beat the Bills, Week 18. Here we go. I was on multiple Pats fan threads where we were like, would you rather make

the playoffs or would you rather lose these last two, go 7-10 and get the 8th pick? All of us picked the 8th pick. All of us. Not one person were like, would you rather make the playoffs or would you rather lose these last two go 7-10 and get like the 8th pick? All of us picked the 8th pick. All of us. Not one person was like, if we could just get in. Like, this team sucks. They're not doing anything in the playoffs. I pray to the Lord that Kyle will be taking this

clip and cutting it, making fun of me six weeks from now when the Pats win the Super Bowl. But they're not going to be because they're not good. And that's just it. In terms of my viewing experience, I don't think there's a team in the league I want to see in the playoffs less than the Patriots. I just would not enjoy watching them get just

deleted by the Bills and the Chiefs. You'd rather see Tampa? I think Tampa's unwatchable. Oh my God. It's Tampa or New England. It's one of those two. God. Tampa also. I watched that entire Cardinals game and hated myself the whole time.

It was dreadful. So unfun. All right. Ben Solak, you can hear him on the Ringer NFL show. You can hear him on the Ringer's Philly special, which was just one of the happiest podcasts in the world for about 12 weeks. And now it's starting to get a little grim.

It's starting to get a little somber. You can hear the fear in the voices. Good to see you as always. Take care, Bill. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kyle Mann. Thanks to Ben Solak. Thanks to Kyle Creighton for producing.

Don't forget, New Rewatchables is up. Mission Impossible Fallout. And I'll see you on this feed on Thursday.