The Bill Simmons Podcast - Mavs Fans in Hell, Bleak NFL Situations, an Oscars Recap and RIP Gene Hackman | With Peter Schrager and Wesley Morris

Episode Date: March 4, 2025

The Ringer's Bill Simmons sympathizes with Mavericks fans after the report that Kyrie Irving will miss the remainder of the season with a torn ACL (0:00), before he is joined Peter Schrager to discuss the NFL combine, Matt Stafford remaining with the Rams, Aaron Rodgers’s next team, several QB-desperate teams, possible scenarios at the top of the NFL draft (8:55), as well as worst-situation NFL franchises, newly optimistic teams, the Bengals' quest to pay all four of their star players, and more (36:20). Finally Bill talks with Wesley Morris about the Oscars (01:07:35), before remembering the great Gene Hackman (01:45:06). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Peter Schrager and Wesley Morris Producers: Kyle Crichton and Chia Hao Tat Get almost, almost anything. Order today in the Uber Eats app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to Bill Simmons podcast. Before we get to the pod, we want to talk about Kyrie Irving, uh, and the Dallas Mavericks in this crazy situation. Kyrie out for the year, Taurus ACL came out today and Kyrie is, I've had a roller coaster ride with over the years where didn't really like them on Cleveland. LeBron showed up, really liked them. Didn't like them as much. Came to my favorite team, uh, was all in. It ended, it couldn't ended worse. worse became probably my least favorite basketball player.

It goes to Brooklyn. That goes terrible. Goes to Dallas. You guys are so stupid. And then over the last two years or last maybe a year and a half, I really grew to like him as a basketball player. I liked the, I liked how he talked about everything, how he took some responsibility. It was like everything I wanted from an athlete.

I really liked watching him and I grew to respect and like him as a player. And, uh, they make this Luca trade. It is the least popular, most shocking, most indefensible trade in the history of the league. It's getting worse by the day. The fans are just, uh, so angry. They are like scorned lovers multiplied by a hundred. They raised the season ticket prices this week.

Everybody goes nuts again. This is the angriest fan base that we've had in a while. And here's Kyrie who's by the way, they're putting crazy minutes on him. He's in the 2010 draft or 2011 draft. He's been in the league for a while. He's a point guard. He's playing the last six weeks, 38.7 minutes, which led the league. So they're throwing this huge burden on a guy who hasn't exactly been Cal Rivkin Jr.

And, uh, and they're talking about how they rebuilt themselves. This was about a title window. They trade for Davis. He gets hurt in the first game. They put this crazy load on Kyrie. He breaks down. Uh, it's after the trade deadline gets hurt in the first game. They put this crazy load on Kyrie. He breaks down. Uh, it's after the trade deadline.

They have their first round pick next year. And what we've seen with this injury over the years is it's, it's almost a two year injury. You lose the guy this year, but even when he comes back, we saw this happen with Jamal Murray in Denver, they're not either, they don't come back the season after when they come back, they're not, you know, not, not the same person. So you almost have to think you lose a year and a half. They don't have control of their own pick from 27 to 30.

And on top of this, they have to watch Luca who's already rejuvenated. You can see it who, when we talk about face to the league, face to the league, like Luca on the most famous basketball franchise we have, all due respect to the Celtics, uh, you can watch the Celtic city documentary, but the Lakers, I think are the, the premier franchise in the league. The Celtics are the most successful. The Lakers are in LA. They've had the most stars.

Luca's in there now. There's an energy that's completely different at these games. And the Maverick fans who already got kicked in the nuts with this trade in the worst way I think we've ever seen in basketball. Now they have to watch this guy blossom as their team already just fell apart. And, you know, I tweeted this earlier today and I really, I really mean it. I went to those three 2011 finals games in Dallas when they came back and they beat Miami.

They actually lost the first game, which was Dwyane Wade, I think, the best game I've ever seen him play. And then they come back, they win game four, they win game five. And a big reason they won those games was their crowd was incredible. I don't know where they rank in the best basketball fan bases,

but for me, they're in the top seven. And, you know, I used to love the Warriors fan base even before the Curry stuff happened. There's the Knicks, no matter how bad the teams are. If you went to a game and they liked the team, it was just a great place to see a game. You could feel the love. And I really feel like the Dallas fans, everything they had built from 1980 on, like had gotten to that level. They really loved this team. They appreciated Dirk.

They really wanted him to come through. And then in those, those three games, especially the last two, and they started to shift the narrative on Dirk and you could just really feel the love and, and the pure euphoria. Um, and then Luca shows up, becomes their guy and they're like, we're in, we have 20 year season tickets for this dude. We'll buy his jerseys. We love this guy. Um, and then Luca shows up, becomes their guy and they're like, we're in, we have 20 year season tickets for this dude. We'll buy his jerseys. We love this guy.

This is our guy. We'll, we'll have some ups and downs. Maybe he won't always be in shape, but this guy's special and we're going to win the title with him. And it's going to be amazing. And the trade pulled that away. They're still pissed about it. Now you have this and this situation is not so bad.

We were joking after it happened that the real reason the family that owns the They're still pissed about it. Now you have this and this situation is not so bad. We were joking after it happened that the real reason the family that owns the team did this is because they wanted to sabotage basketball in Dallas and move it to Vegas, uh, move the team to Vegas because the Dallas team, the Dallas fans would hate them so much that you'd almost have to move. It's almost like there's a precedent of this, like George Shin and Charlotte. He, his name became so bad in Charlotte that he actually moved the team to New Orleans. It's obviously ridiculous. It would never happen, but that, but the Kyrie injury on, on, on top

of everything else is the first time where I started thinking to myself. Holy shit. Like that, that's actually how bad this might get where they might have to be like, Hey, can we have the Vegas expansion team and said, and we'll just sell Dallas and maybe, or make Dallas the expansion team or we'll move operations to Vegas and you can make Dallas the expansion team and the call it the mavericks and keep it the history. That's how bad this is.

Um, and I'm really feeling for the maps today because the combo of that trade losing Davis in his first game and then losing Kyrie for a year and a half. Probably. Um, it's, I honestly can't think of another NBA situation like this where a fan base has taken in the teeth like this. So shout out to them. I think it's a sad basketball day because Kyrie was playing great. I loved watching him.

Um, this really feels like this kills the Mavericks now for the rest of the decade. So wanted to mention at the top, let's get to the rest of the podcast. This episode is brought to you by Nissan. If you're planning on an adventurous 2025, you're gonna need a car that can keep up with you and conquer anything in your path.

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at nissanusa.com. Towing capacity varies by configuration. See Nissan Towing Guide and Owner's Manual for additional information. Always secure cargo. I hope you stayed, because I have football in the Oscars and Gene Hackman coming up next.

We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast network, put up a new rewatchables on Monday night. We did Rocky. That's right. The original Rocky, the Oscar winning Rocky, the movie that made Slice the lone, uh, an A plus list superstar that created the template for all sports movies. That was me and Chris Ryan and Van Lathan.

You can watch that as a video podcast on Spotify. You can also watch it on the Ringer movies YouTube channel. I also, another podcast this week, we did the, uh, episode three recap of. The white Lotus. You can find that on the prestige TV podcast. You can find all the clips and videos from this podcast and the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. And you can watch us.

I hope you're watching us as a video podcast. So we launched the first episode of Celtic city yesterday on HBO. First of nine episodes. You can also watch it on max. Please check it out. Uh, the feedback's been awesome. Thanks to everybody who reached out. Um, you know, this is, if you care about basketball, you care about sports history,

my hope with this stuff is you could potentially get sucked in if something is just really well done. And I think our thing is really well done. And I think the early feedback is that people are like, wow, I learned a lot. This is fucking awesome to watch. When's the next one? So it's once a week. Check it out. Celtic City on HBO and Max coming up on this podcast I'm going to talk to our old friend Peter Schrager What he found out at the combine is their draft stuff free agent stuff who has the bleakest situation the league we're hitting all that And then Wesley Morris comes on to review the the Oscars to talk about the movie year We just had and really to talk about Gene Hackman,

because we had to get in that as well. Though we did a lot of Demi Moore stuff too, and then he's gonna give us his favorite TV show at the end. It's all next. First, our friends from ProJet. All right, taping this on a Tuesday morning Pacific time. Peter Schragger is here. Haven't talked to him in a while. He was just at the combine.

A lot of people are saying he was the one that broke up the Starbucks fight. I don't think he got a lot of credit for that. You were like third man in just trying, trying to keep peace at an Indianapolis Starbucks Combine crazy place. You love it. Is this, is that your favorite week of the year? It's the best. It's the best because you see something on TV and you're like, all right, it's

a bunch of people in their underwear working out and like, it's not even 1% of what Combine Week is. And I would advise any young aspiring NFL journalist, any NFL fan to like go, go for a couple days because as much as it's about the on-field drills, like you will bump into Mike Tomlin at a restaurant. You will see, you know, Sean Payton just, you know, having a private meeting with an agent out in the open and just having a private meeting with an agent out in the open in front of that JW Marriott Starbucks, which by the way is, it's like literally going to like Times Square and starting a fight when it's at Combine. That's like the hub of everything, the JW. So like 10 teams are at the JW, every media member is at the JW. And for that interaction

or that altercation or whatever it means to happen at that Starbucks, you know, obviously the irony of Jordan Schultz, his father being the longtime CEO of Starbucks is one thing, but to do it there in that public of a forum, like I got texts from, you know, NFL coach, NFL GM, three agents, four different media members that like, Oh, there was just something. So, uh, that is the crossroads of all things. Yeah. So it was Jordan Schultz and Ian Rappaport to, uh, to NFL insiders,

for lack of a better word. And it would have been funnier if it was cause Rappaport made some sort of crack about your dad cost Seattle the Sonics. And that was like, it was like way more deep stated, but it just seemed like some insider kerfuffle, um, the big thing I'm looking at, and there's already been some buzz about the giants trading up. I don't know. Do you feel like it was true that the giants could have had Stafford and

they had the draft pick compensation? Rich Eisen reported that yesterday. Do we feel like that is a hundred percent accurate that the Rams were just ready to trade Stafford to the giants or no? No, I think that the giants had the parameters in place and were willing to engage, but the Rams never went down that road in such a formal fashion. So they had conversations. Essentially, Stafford couldn't shop himself to any of these teams. He's not a free agent. So what the Rams did was they gave Jimmy Sexton, his agent, who's a big power, he's Nick Saban's agent, he's Parcell's agent,

like a big agent, the ability to go look at what the market would be. And the giants were obviously interested and the trade- But not for the first round pick though, right? No, no. It would have likely- Probably like a second or third? And I know it from all angles

because of my relationship with McVeigh, but also my relationship with Stafford. So it was, you know, go see what's out there and what destinations could be possible. And it came down to basically the Raiders being very interested in the Giants. And what I think the trade compensation would have been would have been Giants give up their second round pick,

which is the 34th pick. And then the Rams give back a third round and Stafford. But then Stafford would need to tear up the contract and have a massive contract, which would have been paying him close to $15 million more per year than what he's essentially gonna play for with the Rams. And at the end of the day, like they went down this road. And as it dragged on day by day by day, I think at one point,

like on Wednesday, I was like, wow, it might actually happen. And it might actually be the Raiders or the Giants. But then by Thursday, when I got word that like Stafford and McVeigh were having breakfast at 630 in the morning in LA. I'm like, it's done. And this conversation started back at Super Bowl, whether that was some of the rumors. And I got caught in a little bit of shit because I was interviewed and caught off guard. And it was like, what do you think about Stafford and the Rams?

And I'm like, I just know this, that they're gonna have to have conversations and figure out a new contract. But also I know that McVeigh loves Jimmy G. And that set off an entire- Ah, you got aggregated. Got aggregated. But also I know that McVeigh loves Jimmy G and that set off like an entire like, Oh, you got aggregated. Got aggregated.

But if they were to move on from Stafford, which cooler heads prevailed, like they had backup plans, they had Jimmy G and then all the reports are accurate that Rogers could have very well been the next quarterback in Los Angeles Rams. Yeah. I mean, the Giants are so stupid. What's the point in trading for Stafford? We're not going to win the super bowl in the next three years. Like that's, there's nothing. You're going to give up a possible starter slash all pro in the second round

because you want to go seven and 10. What was the alternative? Like they think they're a quarterback away from being relevant. And I don't think it's that far off. Like I look at their team. I mean it, they get Andrew Thomas back at offensive tackle. And then last year neighbors I didn't realize

11 wins the same division with Washington and Philly They're confident that this team is not that far off and that the quarterback play was a fuck out of here. Come on Well, let's see believe that why not you've got a got first round picks all over the offensive line They've got Malik neighbors and then they've got this one of of those first-round picks is Evan Neal, isn't it? Sure. So that's a wash, right? So like, like, like Neal's not the guy. Come on. They have no chance. I would be going the other way and trying to trade guys to get more picks and try to reboot it. You've got Dexter Lawrence, Thibodeau and you got Brian Burns. Like they're not, this is, this is a team that everyone's like,

oh, I can't believe they got rid of Saquon. Saquon wasn't going to do anything with the Giants last year, close to what he did with the Eagles. So what they do instead, they invested in their offensive line and they have no quarterback play. But this is the point. Then talk yourself into Cam Ward if you think he can be a top three pick. I mean, so that this is why I brought up Stafford because the stuff has started today about they're gonna leapfrog to one. They're gonna take them one. It just feels like Ken Ward's going first in this draft. He very well.

I, I, it doesn't mean he's the best player. It doesn't mean it makes sense, but there's three teams right now who just have no idea who their quarterback's going to be. The Raiders have the best chance to probably stumble into one cause they have all the cap space. The Giants, I don't know how they get one that actually make with my case that I just laid out.

How are you gonna make the playoffs? Like you're better off betting on a guy who maybe can become the guy. Here's the case for bringing in a Rogers at 41. For the Giants? Yes, here's the case, hear me out. Motivated, cheap compared to what- Motivated. Motivated, cheap compared to what... Motivated, yes. Embarrassed.

Embarrassed that the Jets said we're good without you. Motivated. Cheap comparable to a Stafford or to one of these, you know, bigger... Definitely be cheap. And then... And you've got Brian Dable, who has had his name from being coach of the year to now being the clown of New York and being considered a joke, like two guys that know football inside and out and like, Hey, let's, let's say screw it.

And let's get over the giant chip of our shoulder and see now look. Well, that was a case. They'd love to get to one. Sure. They would love to get one, but here's the deal. Rogers, as much as you don't like them, as much as Kimmel doesn't like them, as much as cousin Sal doesn't like them, players like them, his teammates like them. The Jets fans didn't like them.

Can we throw them in? Can we throw in how he looked last year? We had no legs and didn't want to get hit and was terrible. I think he had 28 touchdowns, 11 interceptions. I'm pushing the boulder up the hill here. I'm trying, but I would say this, the alternatives of, hey, we can roll out Rogers and still get a young quarterback and you have Rogers as your quarterback for this year and you're not throwing someone to the wolves and saying, Hey, go out there

and play for your first season right out of the gates. That's the argument to make. I would also add that, you know, the Titans have the first pick in the draft. Will Levis will not be there starting quarterback week one. I know that's not necessarily out there. I don't see it happening. I don't think the Browns are going to start DeJuan Watson because he can't physically, but I don't think DeJuan Watson is going to have many snaps, if any, again as a Cleveland Brown in his NFL career.

I'll say that. So that's a second team. Then you got the Giants, then you got the Jets, then you got the Raiders. So this whole- So you have four teams in the top seven basically that desperately need a quarterback. Yes. So Ken Ward- Which is why Ken Ward has to go first. And it's not even going to matter whether he should be the first pick. And usually, what is it? It's 50-50 with a quarterback that high. Those are the odds

from the last 25 years. It might even be like 35-65 for him to be good. Totally. But he's still gotta do it. And look, if you're the Titans and you can, you know, maybe trade back and still get Abdul Carter and Travis Hunter at three or at five or at two or that's fine, but you still don't have a quarterback. Yeah. So, so to me, the Titans and I've done a lot of work and talked to everybody this week, like everyone assumes they're going to go Carter one or Hunter one and they're, or they're going to let someone trade up.

No, like I wouldn't, I wouldn't dismiss cam ward at one, get us the quarterback and then we can figure it out and get a bridge quarterback if we need. And by bridge quarterback, I'm not talking Sam Darnold. I'm talking like a Jared Stidham or a Taylor Heinecke or like one of those guys. Cause last year talking to now, but those are the guys that start off like a Jacoby Bercet last year or a Marcus Mariota in the room. I know, but if you're thinking, this is the Raiders last year, right?

Well, Minshew will be a stopgap. Sure. And then he's just awful. If you get Cam Ward, you're good. And you've got your guy. So, um, and I talked to Cliff and Adam Peters a bunch and it's like the underrated guy in this whole process for Jade and Daniels was having Mariota there because he had a veteran to learn from who had like, that's almost as key as drafting the right quarterback is getting the right room. And last year, Caleb had Tyson Bajent and a couple of undrafted guys and like a bunch of like second, you know, third options as quarterback. Drake may had Berset, which I think was a bonus considering you didn't have a coaching

staff, but at least you had Jacobi Berset. And look at what Drake may has got this year. You now add in Josh McDaniels, you add in Todd Downing, you suddenly have like a real staff around him and guys that have been there and done that. And of course, Vrabel is an upgraded head coach as well. Is there, I was texting with Todd McShea about this this morning. Isn't a likely scenario that quarterbacks go one, two,

even if it makes no sense whatsoever? Cause nobody's been able to explain to me why the Browns wouldn't take a quarterback. They absolutely should take a quarterback. When the Sean Watson isn't playing again, they're absolutely screwed with the cap. There is no possible way they can acquire anybody. And this is their one chance to actually add somebody.

So I don't, what was the, I mean, there's been the Sander stuff and the stories about the stories and the narratives behind the narratives. We've gone in nine different directions and anonymous QB coaches. Yeah. It's going to get worse and worse. And it's also, he's got a famous father who might decide I wanna nudge him toward a certain team and he's gonna know some tricks some other families don't.

Which if, by the way, I think that should happen more often. I think that should happen with Cooper Flagg and the NBA. Like you have the leverage, we always talk about player empowerment with the NBA and pick your team. With the veterans, yeah. Like it's never with the rookie. We saw it with Eli Manning where you didn't want to go to San Diego. Ended up with the giants.

Like I'm always amazed that doesn't happen more often, but if, if Dion is like, I want Sanders on Vegas, that's just how this is going to play out. It would be pretty hard for the rest of the league to stop that. Anyway, I feel like there's a one, two scenario with the QBs, right? Absolutely. And Cleveland very interested in quarterbacks and you look at the free agent crop right now, I don't have a team for Sam Darnold that's given him $40 million. I think Sam Darnold, who had arguably the best 17 weeks of his life, had maybe

the most disastrous and financially prohibitive eight days any quarterbacks ever had in NFL history. You're right it wasn't even two weeks it was eight days. Eight days. It was like a Hawaii trip. It really is like White Lotus. He had White Lotus season four. I've lost 80 billion dollars. Yes, he was like Isaac's, exactly. Saxon, what a name. So you've got the Sunday night against the Lions, then you have an even worse disastrous performance against the Rams eight days later in Arizona.

And it went from being potentially lying around the block of teams to like this week at the combine, not a lot of Darnold love. So can't go back to the jets. Does it sound like the Giants? I don't think the Raiders are doing flips over Sam Darnold. The Steelers seem to be pretty happy and going for Justin Fields is what the latest I've heard.

So now the teams are rather limited. Are the Browns going to break the bank after already paying to show up and now pay for Sam Darnold? I don't know. So Darnold's number one on that list. And then it's like, very quickly gets to Kirk Cousins and Russell Wilson. And, and I said, Jared Stidham, like those are the names.

And it's not exactly previous years where there's this long list of, well, Baker Mayfield might be a possibility or we could do like, you might be looking at for the Browns, like, all right, it's Daniel Jones, Carson Wentz. Or we draft someone at two. And then you're at that point, you're like, that's chilling. Let's draft someone at two. Which is why the Giants would have to leapfrog the Browns at two to get Ken Ward, which is why I think Ken Ward is going to be the first pick. And I'm with you.

And I also think Giants beat the Colts in a non insignificant week 16 game and Lake neighbors had about 200 yards and it cost the Giants the top two picks. And now we're here. Are you talking about the Drew Lock game? That's what it's called now, right? We had the Pats had the Joe Milton game and there was the, but Drew Lock was incredible in that game because I bet on the Colts, Drew Lock was lights out.

I mean, you can make a case like, yo, look at that Drew Lock tape. Maybe we, maybe we have the solution in house. Maybe he's a free agent himself. So, uh, it's, it's, I think it's a very good possibility that despite the fact that this draft class at quarterback is nowhere near last year's, like those one, two, three picks last year, it, those guys, those guys have been talking about for 12 months and it was no brainer, they were going one, two, three, and it was like, if you can get in the top three,

you're getting a franchise quarterback. Now, Bo Nix was not viewed this way. Michael Pennex wasn't seen as a top 10. And McCarthy was like this wild card, which still is a wild card. This year, Cam Ward's got huge upside, but despite the great years he's had at Washington State and Miami,

he's not viewed in that same category as those top three guys. And then it's a giant drop off from what I gather. And then just viewed his prospects, not necessarily how they turn out. Shador Jackson, dart, and then a bunch of unknowns. So you have Shador like next to Jackson dart potentially. Yeah. I've got, I think, I think Shador is viewed closer to Jackson dart than Shador is viewed. Wow. So he could be a drop ship on the shoulder guy.

Absolutely. And you're talking about leverage that Deanna, I don't, I don't know if they have leverage unless they've gotten agreement from a team that's like, Hey, no matter what we're taking him. Don't worry. You guys can, like, he, I don't, can I zag? I'm going to zag. Yeah, come here. Son of a famous person. Tough. Seems like he's smart. It seems like the thing that people are worried about with him is the athleticism more than anything. But he's got the toughness and the competitiveness that they like. And I do feel like as we get closer the teams start talking themselves into the pluses.

Yeah. Because the minuses aren't like, this guy's kind of a wuss. This guy's not a leader of men. You know, they're more like, don't read any of that shit. He's not a diva. This guy chose to go to Jackson state. Right. Um, also, I tweeted this yesterday and I'm sure it was the tweet that, that

signed up a million, no, no one cared. Um, I tweeted this yesterday that the one thing a GM told me, don't sleep on Shador with this, is he is tough as shit. Got the shit kicked out of him the last few years and got up every single time. And they love that. That is now- Leader of men, tough.

Yeah, you don't love the fact that he's been beaten around a bunch, but you do love the fact that he didn't cry about it, didn't whine about it, got up, he was against an inferior off, he was behind an inferior offensive line on a team that was really just like slapped together in the last couple of years and they put together some wins early, but this was not the same level of talent that necessarily a Jackson Dart had at old miss or a Queen of yours had at Texas.

This was the Shidordo and his point at the combine and it rubbed people wrong. The way he was, had some bravado at it is that he changes places when he was had at Texas, this was the Shindora. And his point at the combine, and it rubbed people wrong the way he was had some bravado at it, is that he changes places when he gets there. So Jackson State obviously went from this HBCU that had no resources to suddenly being a national name. And then he goes to Colorado and we had one week where big noon kickoff from Fox and game day were there a week to vying for real estate in Boulder. It happens.

And the Dion thing is real, but there's also a lot of positives to that in that he's the son of one of the greatest football players ever. And he's seen how to handle yourself as a pro. And he's seen how the business works and Shidora has never wavered in that he's a leader and those guys do respect him. There's the other piece of that. When you think about quarterback prospects, cause there's two versions of it, right? There's a quarterback who had the weight

of the college on their shoulders. And then there's the guy who was on an awesome team where the program was kind of the star and they were the quarterback of it. And some of the guys that have succeeded, especially recently, you know, Drake May just, he stayed in North Carolina. He was the whole program.

He took all the leadership responsibilities and it was even though the record kind of came and went, but he was whatever. Bo Nix was in the spotlight in real ways in different colleges. And then Jaden Daniels, same thing. And then he has that OSU year where I just wonder sometimes, is it better to in college? You're really the guy at least for a year. Does that prep you in a certain way to,

whereas you look at like a Trubisky. Like I would study, if I was a team. Hey, Anthony Richardson. Anthony Richardson's 14 starts. Have somebody study like, like the ones that didn't work and like what are the common denominators? And one of them is like not enough starts.

Like that was a Trey Lance thing too. Um, how big was the spotlight? How much pressure were they under on this limited level? And how did that go to the, how is that going to transfer? Sanders had like a giant spotlight on him for three years there, which I think is a positive. Yeah. I mean the Colorado years, but also in Jackson state, they really put a lot of resources into marketing that thing.

And like the fact he decided to go there and they brought hunter there That was a major story for a lot. They were in the limelight. It was those two in Dion It was a real thing and Troy Aikman would show up at games and they had like it became a thing Um, I think last year might have changed the narrative a little bit Bo Nix played 61 games in college He was you know older than every other prospect in that draft He shows up and he was immediately dismissed by a lot of teams. Because we've seen Bo Nicks, there's no upside. And Sean Payton, who you know I'm going to always talk about if I get an opportunity,

he was like, I like the fact he's played 61 games, did it in the SEC, and then played at the senior bowl, and then was in major college games. I like that fact. So this year, you've got this guy, Tyler Shuck, who's not being discussed at all. Watch. He will re rising off draft boards. He was out of Louisville, but was at Texas tech before that. And somewhere else before that he's played a ton of college football is 25 years old.

And in the past, it'd be like, we don't want that Shuck stock is rising because of all the experience he's had. Birdie parallel. Brock Birdie, same thing rising because of all the experience he's had. Purdy parallel. Brock Purdy, same thing. He played all those years at Iowa State. We like that because Cam Ward, we know he went from Washington State to Miami. He started at incarnate word. That was his first school.

Oh Jesus. Zero offers anywhere. But he changed that program, went to Washington State and on a bad Washington State team competed with all of the Pac- 12 heavies and did well. And then goes over to Miami and breaks every school record and ends up with the most touchdowns ever thrown in college football. And it's like, that's, that's a, that's a, that's a resume. That is a, that is life lessons.

That is, that is, that is adversity. That is different offenses. It's going into a new situation, having to meet a bunch of people. And I'm going to be the alpha. Yeah. I know we're a little bit all over the place, but like, can we go back to the experience for a second? Cause I think this is actually the case for Darnold, who I think is now an underrated asset.

He has. He had 27 games at USC, right? Where he started. Yep. And then if you go in as a pro, he started 73 games over the last eight years. He's had a hundred career starts now and looked great until those last two weeks.

Is that a Minnesota offensive line issue? Was it a scheming issue? Was it just that he played two great teams? Like I feel as if we get closer to free agency, there's going to be teams tilting it, going glass half full because if you can get him for less than the Baker, let's say you can get them for 15 to 20. Let's say you can get them to 15 to 20. Yes.

The question is, if you can do that, like that makes 40, but you're talking to the Raiders wouldn't want to spend 20 million a year on Sam Darnold if they couldn't get the thing? That would be Brady just being like, this guy doesn't have it, I'm out. Yeah, that's what that would be. If that's his number and the Raiders aren't in, that's Brady saying, I don't give my vote of approval on this. Look, my, now that we're two months removed, and I think this might have been the case, and I'm going to make an excuse for them.

I think that Sunday night game with so much buildup and so much on the line for the Vikings and the Lions killed both those teams that they. Right. It was like a regular season Super Bowl. It was a Super Bowl. They destroyed each other. They got, they were, they knew what was at stake. You had a home field during the playoffs. The number one seed was in the balance as well. And like it was the most significant football game in the regular season this league has ever seen for both teams. And they both just destroyed each other, put everything into it that they were both completely flat. The next time we saw them and the lions, of course, they lose on the Saturday that follows, but then the Vikings lost the Monday that proceeded that. So Darnold, those eight days and everyone I speak to who's negative on Darnold is like,

well, that's, that's what you hope you never saw again that he erased it. But like there it was that was 35 and 12. I mean, if it's Aaron Rogers versus Arnold, come on. Uh, Kyle's going to turn the Tik TOK camera on because I have a very important Tom Brady point. Okay, let's go. Tom Brady. I love Tom Brady brought me six super bowls. One of my favorite athletes of all time.

This is a dangerous thing where you have him running a football team, thinking he's going to be a great player. brought me to six Super Bowls, one of my favorite athletes of all time. This is a dangerous thing, where you have him running a football team, thinking he knows what's best with quarterback because he was a great quarterback. Because all of the evidence, with the great players we've ever had, named the sport, mostly they're not good at this.

They think they're saying things that other people don't see, and it's not actually rational. Like Magic Johnson, Lonzo Ball got hurt obviously, but Magic Johnson took Lonzo Ball over Jason Tatum. Right? You have, like, Wayne Gretzky ran a hockey team. How did that go? I'm trying to think who was that? I don't have much on the Coyotes. Were they no good? Was Shane Doe not good enough? I don't know.

But Michael Jordan ran the Charlotte Hornets slash Bobcats for forever. The big Sean May guy underneath. Couldn't have been worse. Like steered them toward Kwame Brown, the wizard, steered them toward Kwame Brown over Pal Gasol and those guys because he liked what he saw from Kwame Brown in a workout. Like, I don't know if I trust the greatest players ever on stuff like this. That's an interesting take. Are there, is there the argument against that? Cause you don't want to argue with things.

Jerry West is the greatest evaluator the NBA has ever seen. Jerry West. So there's, so Jerry West is a positive. There's some that win. I'm just saying it's not a slam dunk, but I think part of the problem is if you and I are in that room with Tom Brady and we're like, yo man, we we think Arnold like look at these first 17 and Brady's like, I'm out. I watched that game. He doesn't have it.

I'm out. Why are we going to argue with Tom Brady? Yeah. So it's just you now you be, you know, now it's like this one voice that just sees what he wants to see. Fascinated by the Raiders setup and John's spy tech is the new GM. He was in Tampa for years and before that, Denver and is really a good evaluator. And I interviewed him at the combine

on camera for NFL Network. And I said, all right, you got a lot of voices now because it's not just Brady. Pete Carroll is gonna have opinions. Chip Kelly is the offensive coordinator. And then you've got all these different voices that are now new ownership group. You've got the Melman people. It's like, okay, now we've got all these different voices that are now new ownership group. You've got the Melman people.

It's like, okay, now we've got all this. And whoever this quarterback is going to be, is going to be their first big unveiling of like, here's our group decision. That's a lot of pressure on that quarterback. I don't think they're just going to go with a Minshew O'Connell thing. I think they're going to try to find somebody. No, they're going to get somebody. Could there be some new owner syndrome with this?

Yes. Where they're like, yeah to find somebody. Could there be some new owner syndrome with this? Yes. Where they're like, yeah, we need to make a splash. Got to get somebody really good. Got to get Chip Kelly's offense. Got to find the right person. Nice, mobile, whatever. And I would go through Brady's relationships with some of these guys. What's his relationship with Rogers?

They've known each other 20 years. They've been competitive. What's his relationship with Russell Wilson? I can't believe. They've played in a Super Bowl together relationship with Russell Wilson? They played in a Superbowl together. Is Russell Wilson going to be the quarterback of the Vegas Raiders? Like, do you trade for Gino who has a great relationship with Pete Carroll? If you're the Seahawks and you can get a high second round pick for Gino Smith, and then spend 20 million a year on Sam Darnold for three years and just invest in your offensive line and be like, if we can actually block for this guy with the guys we have,

we can actually do this. I would do that. That's why this is fun. It's such a weird class of quarterbacks because you have these, these potential Hall of Famers and Hall of Famers at the last stage of their career. I mean, Cousins, we don't even know if he can move anymore, but he was going to be available if someone wants to trade for him.

He's more available for TV. Yeah. Russell Wilson. You might be doing TV for him on network TBD in about six months. Don't laugh. Don't laugh. Amy Poehler might have a pod right next to Russell Wilson's if we keep on going down this road.

Who knows? This is it. Who knows? No joke though. This is the last stop on the tour and then you'd hope that you have a young guy that can come in as well. And then there's like this middle tier, I keep on saying Stidham's name.

I think Jared Stidham is gonna make a ton of more money than anyone expects because he's this like 28 year old guy who's been in multiple systems and when he plays, plays well. I need to take a breath. This is it, Patriots fans. If Jared Stidham makes more and more than any than Sam Darnold, what are we doing? He won't make more than Sam Darnold,

but he will be a coveted free agent more than you would imagine because of the dearth of quarterbacks available and how important the position is. At this point, go take a look at Joe Milton's week 18 game tape and talk yourself into that if we're going down to Jared Siddermann. Train for Joe Milton. Don't laugh. I mean, Joe Milton went, what round was he last year? Fourth, fifth, sixth.

Joe Milton could go for a fifth or fourth round pick. Like he was, he was really good in that last game. Let's take a break. I got lots of more to cover with you. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. It's winter or it's the tail end of winter. You can now get almost anything you need for the coldest stretch of the year delivered with Uber Eats.

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Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. All right. So quick tangent that I'm going to bring back to the NFL. In the NBA, the bleakest situations right now are the sons and the Sixers and now the Mavericks who made this catastrophic Luca trade and then Kyrie's out for the year. And it's just, you just look at those and you go, wow, this three, four year window here, pretty bleak who in your opinion, like, especially like being around everybody

last week? Who are the bleak? Franchises other than the Browns we're just gonna grandfather them in the Browns have to be number one bleak But who else is in that cat conversation? The Browns is bleak because their star player also is demanding a trade and they don't plan on trading them So you add on just you know terrible Results in a question at quarterback and then you have the the star player being unhappy. So that's, that's the Browns. That's would you, we say that's the gold standard of bleak right now. It has to be.

Yeah, but they were in the playoffs two years ago and they do have young talent. So it's like, there's always this like, you know, hope Springs eternal. We get the right quarterback. The Browns fans feeling good all of a sudden. They're like shrinks. There's in on the Browns. Yeah. Sure.

I'm in on all 32, as you know. I think, I think the Jets situation is pretty bleak right now in that they feel like they got the right coach and they feel like they got the right GM. But you've got a bunch of young players who are up for giant contract extensions in the next couple of years and you do not have a quarterback and you went down this road with Rogers and now it's like we're sort of a good team with names on the roster, but we have nothing to show for it. And we have a complete X factor at quarterback.

And we're just out of the top five to actually draft one that we could just pick. We'd have to move and be able to do that. So to me, I think the Jets will be in on Justin Fields. I don't know if Justin Fields would leave Pittsburgh to go to the Jets. Now money talks, but even if you get Justin Fields and you like Justin Fields and you think you've seen things from Justin Fields, if you're a Jets fan, are you doing flips over?

Okay, we're now ready to take on Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow with Justin Fields and the Jets. And Drake May. And Drake May, sorry. Thanks. Justin Fields. So you'd have Jets, who else? Because I would have said at least with the J jets, there's a lot of talent there.

There is, but you got to move. You've got a pay sauce and Garrett and all these guys are going to be up for contracts and they had all these first, you know, Breeze Hall, Jermaine Johnson, uh, Garrett Wilson, you gave it. And then of course you mentioned, uh, they all gotta get paid if you want to keep them. Well, they're already letting DJ Reid go, which I thought was kind of shocking. He was good last year.

DJ Reid's a good player. Yeah, come to the Pats, DJ Reid. Don't laugh. I think the Pats are gonna be very aggressive in free agency and I think they're gonna load up this year. Wait, hold on, I was gonna end with the Pats. So Jed Spleek, Brown Spleek, would you throw the Saints in there?

Yes, because it looks like there's still a question with car, like his car, the quarterback and they've got salary cap issues. How much do we hate ourselves? How much do we, do we keep them? It sounds like they've, uh, you know, the comments that were made by, by Mickey Loomis at the, at the combine was that they're in on Derek Carr still. And I thought he would be in that same boat as cousins and whatever. And you could, if you're the Titans and you got Brian Callahan who coached

Carr with the, with the Raiders, it's like, all right, well, give us Derek Carr and we'll figure it out. But I, it sounds like the saints are all in on Derek Carr and they still have these, this bloated salary cap that they can't get out under. So I think the saints is pretty bleak. Wait, when you say he's in the same boat as Kurt Cousins, are you talking about the Titanic? What boat is that? Is that boat still floating?

We say this, we say this and yet there are teams that are going to convince themselves that, oh, well, it's better than the alternative and we'll pay these guys real money. Like that's just where we're at. What happened with the Raiders last year is the point for that. You just don't want to have a season where you're the Raiders last year is the point for that. You just don't want to have a season where you're the Raiders and you realize like by the third preseason game, like, wow, our quarterbacks suck. This is going to be terrible. You got Desmond Ritter at quarterback and week 16 on national TV.

Like that's not where you want to be. Um, saints last year, we're rolling out Spencer rattler in big games. Like it's quarterback is everything. And so the saints, they're going, it sounds like they're going still with their car. That was the comment made, but we've seen these things change. But, um, I, the situation's no good either.

Would you go bleak for the, for the Cowboys? Semi bleak? No. Medium bleak? Bleak in that it feels like the other two teams have surpassed them in their division and they're still going to have to pay Micah Parsons and they've got DAC on this contract and CD and like, I don't know how they're going to pay all these pending free agents that they have

and that it's going in the wrong direction. But gosh, you know, you hire, you don't even do a full search and it's like, we're just going to keep it going with Brian Schottenheimer. It's hard to, it's hard to look at your fan base and say, well, it's totally going to be different. Well, we just elevated the guy who was number two to Mike McCarthy and we're not going to have any new fresh talent besides what we already have. And we missed the playoffs last year.

The question is how does Dak return from injury because he's the highest paid quarterback in the NFL. Right. Well, the off season, especially this part, and when we had an infraday draft is all about how do I convince my fan base to, to be potentially excited about something. And, and to pay out. The Cowboys can be like, Hey, Dak's healthy.

We got Parsons. We have three of the best players in the league. Yeah. We're the Cowboys. I don't know what the the case for the Saints. We have no, we have no cap space and Derrick Carr's coming back. And we hired the ninth coach who got hired. And, uh, we're in the NFC South.

Never know. Yeah. And you're in a market that, you know, it's, it's a good team with a great tradition and a great city, but it's not like New Orleans is due to by the NFL as like the Cowboys or the Giants or one of these premier franchises. Do you feel like it's less bleak in Jacksonville? Oh, dude. Or we just, it's better. Okay. Give me, give me stuff on this.

Well, it can go, this is like a social experiment in a lot of ways. I went out of my way at the combine to meet a lot of these people that I had never met before. That's always what I like to do. I like to put a list down of like, here are 10 names. They're all gonna be in Indianapolis. Get to know them. They're young, they're up and coming.

And then you become friendly enough with them where over the years you bond a relationship and you form. They hired a 28 year old offensive coordinator in Grant Udinski, 28. And I was doing the math in my head. I'm like, all right, I know how old I am. I know where I was like, when OJ was on the chase and Ewing was playing a large one,

he wasn't born yet. And that's where I like, that's my, like this is how young he is. Josh McCown tells me he was with them in Minnesota. This kid's brilliant, but that's your offensive coordinator. Your head coach, Liam Cohen, who I've known, he was with him in Minnesota. This kid's brilliant, but that's your offensive coordinator. Your head coach, Liam Cohen, who I've known, he was UMass's quarterback.

And I wrote a book with Victor Cruz way back when in 2011. And when Victor Cruz is like the sensation, his quarterback was Liam Cohen in college. So I got to know Liam then when we were working on this book and I've seen Liam bounce. Liam is a young, really untested head coach, first time head coach. So you got that too. And then at GM, they hired a guy named James Gladstone, who's 34 years old.

And he was with the, he was at the Rams and he was living in St. Louis while the Rams were in LA. And he kind of was doing the scouting from a satellite office, but he was less needs like number two. And the Rams gave him a lot of credit for these recent drafts, including Puka Naku'a and including some of these, the Braden Fisk and Jared verse. That said, you're talking 34 year old GM, 28 year old offensive coordinator, first time head coach, and then a first time defensive coordinator and Anthony Campanile. So to me, it's like, it's fun. It's fresh. It's different. It's, it's not hiring urban Meyer or Doug

Peterson. It's a strategy. We're young. It is different. And then, you know, Shad Khan, whatever. And then like Tony Khan, I talked to at the, at the Superbowl and it's like, he's talking about wrestling to me. And I think that's his priority is the AEW. And he's like, he writes, he writes every episode. He runs it. It's amazing. He's like Shregs. His eyes are all darting all over the place talking. Shregs, you should do something where you come into the ring and you get hit with a chair. MJF is going to knock you out with a Burberry Scarf on. He's probably trying to book Ian Rapaport and Schultz to have some sort of Starbucks match. He would love that. They can whip lattes at each other. Big sponsor, Starbucks, or in this case, maybe Dunkin'.

But like, I honestly think that it's like this football experiment where it's like, let's just do fresh eyes and young and hire guys. And like, obviously I love that. I love that. I hate going retread. I don't like the fact that we just typically are like, oh, well, this guy worked for this guy. And then we just hire him. Like they're all fresh faces and Jacksonville's fun to me now.

I'm going to give you a possible bleak candidate and you're going to be upset. Why are we so negative? Let's be positive. That's the last one. I'm going to pause in one second. Okay. Are the dolphins in the bleak zone? It was Tyree probably pushing for the trade.

McCart, uh, the McDaniel, even though he got an extension I'm sure he's he's definitely on first coast fired watch. I would think to who knows Salary cut classic salary cap team where they just they had to pay these guys and now it's all fucked up Like I I and they're in intervision with the bills the Pats are gonna be better the Jets won't be better But I wonder if they're on an division with the Bills. The Pats are going to be better. The Jets won't be better. But I wonder if they're on Bleak Watch. Here's where I would say there's a possible turn in that. First of all, a lot of these teams, they show up at the Combine, they do media, maybe Tuesday, Wednesday, they fulfill that and maybe they'll stay Thursday,

then they're out of there. Mike McDaniel, Chris Greer, and Dan Marino were in that Dolphins suite until the bitter, bitter end when the offensive linemen were working out on Sunday. And they were locked in. Dan Marino? What's he doing? Dan Marino's got an executive role right now with the Dolphins, working with the team. And we're talking about former players and Tom Brady and all this stuff now. Dan Marino's, he's present. He's got a voice. They brought him back into the fold a couple of years ago and

he was at the combine and fully engaged with all of it. Now, last year's draft, they hit with Chop Robinson. He was really good for them as a rookie. Yeah, he was good. I liked him. Jalen Wright, the running back. But to your point, when Tua went down, they weren't ready for that kind of adversity and things went off the rails and you saw Tyreek Hill and his comments in that final game about, you know, I, I, it just was like desolate and it was the kind of thing you would never want to hear from a veteran leader. That said, dolphins, they still have a ton of talent on that roster.

And I do think the players still respond to McDaniel. So I'm not bleak on the Dolphins. And I'm not sure I think that, but. Well, what do you think on Tua? Like they paid him. He was injured again. I have real concerns about McDaniel. I have real concerns about Tua and I have real concerns about we're going to wake

up three days from now and Ty Rico's like, I want to be a charger. Yeah. Let's make that happen guys. Yeah. It would be the Chiefs, not the Chargers. He still like, he tweets every other day about how much he loves the Chiefs. It would be the Chiefs? Yeah. Yeah. Is that make that happen guys. Yeah, it would be the chiefs not the chargers He's still like he tweets every other day about how much he loves be the chiefs. Yeah. Yeah, is that even possible? Yes, he's just have an unlimited salary cap. I don't know. Yeah, it's like hey, we're gonna franchise tag our left guard And Andy's magic Andy will trade you away and he will cut you and then you know, the players long you back

Yeah, they want to go play for him again All right, you saw the you saw the John Cena, you know, dropping the mic. You saw that that's, that's my homes this year. That's, that's, that's where he's at right now. I think like he's gone villain. Like everyone just, I think we're going to have a different, this is going to be a fun, incredibly disappointing season by his standards last year. The super bowl was a disaster.

So I hope he's motivated. Um, the anti-bleak watch, the, you go to combine and these teams are like, it's like the sky has opened. It's after it's rained for a week straight and all of a sudden it's the first sunny day and everybody's like, I want to go outside. We don't have to talk about the paths. I talk about them too much. Well, we can do that at the very end, but who else is in that?

Washington. The skies have opened. Washington. It is like, it is like that at the very end, but who else is in that? Washington. The skies have opened. Washington. OK. It is like it is like, oh, like the angels. And last year at the combine, I interviewed Adam Peters on camera. He's a GM coming from San Francisco. First time GM super nervous on NFL Network beforehand. What questions are we going to do like? And then this year comes in all swagged out, has like, right.

You know, he's wearing the polinka jacket. No doubt he's got the jacket. he's wearing the polinka jacket. He's got the jacket. He's got the custom Jordans. He comes in, he's like, ask me anything. Let's go. Let's go. They trade, uh, ask me how great Jada Daniels in about, I love to talk about that. They have a ton of salary cap space.

Everyone loves their coach. Like Dan Quinn's got that Andy Reed thing where like tires just love them. And you know, they just trade for Debo. And I do want to say this. I think people misread the NFL. Like the Cowboys got crushed because they traded a fourth rounder for Jonathan Mingo and everyone's like, how could you, how could you trade a fourth rounder for Mingo and they trade a fifth rounder and they get Debo.

They're taking on Debo Samuel's entire contract. So that's $21 million. The Niners are basically them cutting them. And that was the team that was willing to take it. And Adam Peters drafted Debo in San Fran and Anthony Lynn coached him. And Cliff is like, please bring him like, he'll be motivated and we'll make it work. Can I give you my, can I give you my 30 second Debo take as an intermission? San Francisco being like, yeah, we're good.

Take them. It reminded me of the Celtics with Marcus Smart. And this is where I bring the Celtics into a football podcast. They knew something. Well, it was, and watching him, and this was the case for so long I made on the podcast after that trade, it was like, that dude's body's been through a lot.

We watched him for the last nine years. He took a million charges. He was on the floor all the time. And I think they're getting out a year too early instead of a year too late with his body. So what happens? He goes to Memphis, he breaks down and he has not been healthy ever since. I think he's like, where's he playing now? I saw a picture of him this week. Yeah. He's like a veteran on Washington. So I look at Debo and like you, I watch football every week. Debo took a fucking ton of hits.

The way they used him, he was like a crash test dummy. And I just wonder if they were like, I think we took this as far as we can go. Let if it starts to dip, it could be on somebody else's team. Absolutely. You're right. But in the same breath, like Washington knows what they're inheriting. Like Cliff watched every snap of Debo. Well, that's like, it's like this incredible toy for Cliff

Oh, wait, and he's like, please and also he's gonna have 40 Debo plays Yeah And also he was 20 pounds overweight whatever you want to say like and now he's going to the final year of his contract Give me a motivated like chip on his shoulder and a contract to your Debo like sure so like it wasn't like it was a false It was like you on TV last year. That was the same thing. I just felt like a giant chip on your shoulder. Let's go. You ought to disrespect Debo and Schreger. You're going to get the best of us.

I'll do anything. I'll do any hit. Send me anywhere. Contract here. Let's go. So the Washington thing, the vibes are unbelievable. Unbelievable. Great coach, great GM, franchise QB, most beloved guy in Washington, even

more than Ovechkin, houses like can't even come up with somebody on par with him at this point, you have to go back to like the Gibbs era, uh, who else is the, the skies have parted, give me another team. Did you say Chargers, Rosie, Rosie Chargers or not totally? Season ended weird that loss to Houston. So there's kind of like a bad taste and also like- Boso might be out. Yeah, I wouldn't say Chargers.

I'm trying to think, oh, Denver, Denver, those guys. Denver. They are super high on what they've got. All young players, Bo Nicks. I had a really cool opportunity Friday night, the Broncos do a team dinner at the Combine. And it's everyone from the team doctor to the head coach coach to like the intern, anyone who's in Indianapolis, I'd say 60 people.

And Sean Payton, you know, does a big team dinner. I don't think any other teams do this in this way. And they rent out a room at prime 47, which is the big steakhouse and Payton let me come in and just hang with them at the table. And like, when you feel like good vibes, good vibes team, it's everyone's busting balls. Everyone's laughing. Everyone is like having a great and they have such confidence in this quarterback that they're like, we're set. Like this has been the albatross around this franchise since Peyton Manning left. We finally got our guy and they will be active in free agency and they will get a good running back.

And they have a little more money this year, right? Yeah, they finally have money. They've had no money, but like upfront last year, like Zach Allen had a career year when they're paying him, but Alex Singleton was great. And then they've got Sertan, this amazing corner. They're set. They are gonna get a running back in this draft.

And that's always been Sean Payton's favorite position to tinker with and they haven't had, he calls it the joker. It's like the Alvin Camaro, the Darren Sprouls, the Pierre Thomas, that type, the guy that can catch out of the backfield, run in the backfield. So there's good like high second round running back candidates for that. Yeah. Running back draft and you can sit there and on day two, pick up a guy who's going

to pick up a thousand yards and you know, 60 catches. So I'd say Denver and Washington, both based on the young quarterback and then New England, you don't want to talk about him, but like the optimism is sky high around the Patriots. And also they become me and nephew Kyle. And every time we're together, Kyle's like Kyle's waiting for the Abdul Carter to fall to four because of some amorphous foot thing. And then he's buying the Jersey like that day. It's like it become all of a sudden a desirable place to play too. And the free agent. It's funny how that works when you have a good quarterback and good coach.

It's funny how that shifts. No doubt. You know, the fourth overall pick is interesting for them because Hunter or Carter could be there if the quarterbacks do go in the top four. And even if they don't, I think Will Howard's a real possibility or yeah, the lineman from LSU. Oh, Will Campbell. Yeah. Campbell, sorry.

Not the Ohio State quarterback. No, but they had the short arms. I was on multiple short arm threats. That's okay. He couldn't even get to 33 inches with this reach. How's he going to hold back Mike Parsons with those short arms? The other two names, O.D. Mason Graham, who I think you're high on, right? I'm high on.

Now, I was- I'm on, McShay says there's three lead guys in the draft. And that was how I was feeling anyway, knowing nothing, but doing all the prep and it just feels like, but the thing is with defensive tackle, that's the easiest position to get in free agency. There's a million of them. If you're trying to put together a team of assets, which is what they need to do. That's probably not where you go, but I want an all-pro in this draft.

You have to get an all-pro in this draft. So I'm going to put this out here now because his draft stock is slipping because he didn't do anything at the combine and all that. I don't think four overall is so crazy for this Tetarora McMillan out of Arizona, also known as TMAC. I think they like him. Oh, there's a lot of fans in the league. And you're talking about the comparison starts at Drake London, but it can go even higher. This huge wingspan and this huge upside, six foot six basketball body out of Arizona. Jed Fish was his coach at Arizona.

And Jed Fish is a lot of NFL people. And he has been raving about this guy for years. Didn't do anything at the combine, but interviewed everywhere and apparently is a great kid. Nickname is T Mac. I don't see him in the top 10 of any of these mock drafts. And I know that everyone loved what Matthew Golden, the wide receiver out of Texas did and is like, he's the guy I would be shocked if T Mac falls out of the top 10. And I would think Patriots at four might be a little rich, but if you're, No, that's a trade back. That's you flip picks with the Jets or the Saints

or whoever, or even Vegas. Are you scarred by Keanu, what's his name, by Nikhil Harry of going to the state of Arizona for a wide receiver? The only thing that worries me with T-Mac is the wide receiver class is so bad that when somebody is the best looking person at a party of ugly people, they look fucking so handsome or beautiful.

You should see it, dude. You would walk into one of these steak houses, you would vomit. It is so ugly and it's all over the country. It's all of us in the media and everyone's got the same exact look. It's a button down with an ill fitting blazer and jeans. And like, it sounds great. And like maybe someone trying to have like a cool pair of Jordans doesn't work, but like that's, that's the look. Yeah.

Well, but that worries me. But if they want him, I think you, he's in the eight to 12 range. Um, I don't think they can't take, well the team that I could see taking him is Jacksonville at five, because it seems like it's their decades mission to just keep spending capital on wide receivers to try to talk themselves into Trevor Lawrence. The Patriots can't block. I'm just going to say that they can't take Will Campbell at four because we don't know if he's a left tackle or guard, but I think, I think that moving back into the six to 10 range and taking a receiver tackle, it's hard to argue with, but you'd have

to find a team wanting to move up. It's also like, and I work for the NFL network and I'm going to be doing the draft, like it is not the draft class of years prior. There are, you said three blue chip guys and I think Mason Graham is borderline blue chip, like Travis Hunter. I can see Carter for theline blue chip. Like Travis Hunter. I can see Carter for the Pats though. Oh dude. I think if there's a scenario where people get worried about, well, what's coming out of this foot or any of that shit and two quarterbacks go in

the top three and Hunter goes at like, it's Carter. That would be the dream. It's Carter. It's Willie McGinnis. The 96, all out 95 or 94 or whenever he got him all over again. Did Willie, did Willie fall in the draft for Parcells? No, but we took him like fourth or fifth. Yeah. And it was like, hey, this guy is like going to be our, this guy is going to go chase the quarterback now for the next 10 years for you guys. Yeah. Carter would be a home run and it's him and Hunter are like the two names.

And then you got this other bucket of the quarterbacks where if you're doing an overall players list, they're probably seven, eight, nine, 10. Like if you want to go players list, they're probably seven, eight, nine, 10. Like if you want to go that way, then and then it's just the great unknown. And it's like, what do you prefer? And it's, I mean, truly after like the fifth or sixth pick, it is a complete crap shoot to like pick 38, they say as far as like ranking and stacking these players. So not the richest, but it's also the most intriguing at the combine.

We did bleak. We did happy. Who's the, what the fuck is that team doing team that people were just. Kind of gossiping about, like they were like, you know, the friend in the, the friend in the neighborhood who were like, what's going on in that house? Yeah. Just saw some car out there at three in the morning. What, what Cincinnati is a little bit house? Yeah. Just saw some car out there at three in the morning. What, what.

Cincinnati is a little bit of a question mark just because they have such a big off season ahead and it's, it's really going to be a lot of cap gymnastics, but they have told every agent, they have told every team, like their goal is to bring all three of these guys back. And that's Jamar chase T Higgins and Trey Hendrickson. Franchise tagged Higgins already. They did, but the intention is not to have him play on another franchise tag. The intention for them is to sign all three of these guys to long-term deals. And if I was to stack it, I would say Jamar Chase is their first priority. T. Higgins is their second priority.

Then Trey Hendrickson, who led the NFL in sacks and was second overall in defensive player of the year, he would be probably the third priority, which makes him a potential free agent to be signed. Um, wow. So we always talk about how you can basically afford three giant guys in the NFL, the way they want all three. And if you can pull off four, well, you got to count burrow though. Burrow burrows have this huge contract and burrow.

So if you're doing burrow with the two receivers, that's an insane use of cap. It's insane. And also they just waved Alex Capa too. They waved Alex Capa, which was, although he didn't have a great year, but, but they're losing guys already. They're going to have to, they're going to have to wave guys. And you can't build a team around a quarterback and two receivers. That's going to work. They're going to try.

And they're cheap. They're like the paths. They're cheap. I mean, variables try to change the paths, but Bengals are cheap paths are cheap So on top of at least the chiefs are like spending when they try to do this Bristle at the cheap thing. I think historically they're viewed as cheap So Mike Brown's grand daughter Mike Brown's granddaughter Elizabeth Blackburn who's or Katie Blackburn? No, Elizabeth is the granddaughter Mike Brown. She's now taking over a little bit more. And like, it's all about, let's make this team fun.

Let's make this team marketable and let's spend money. Like let's spend money. We have it. We have to have a cap thing. So like that's their intention. But Duke Tobin and Zach Taylor have a giant, giant few weeks ahead of them right now. And like, he already saw that Jamar Chase is posting things

and T Higgins is posting things. Well, Burrow will be a dick, don't you think? Like if it gets to the point, he will be like an NBA star putting pressure on them. 100%. He already has been publicly. You know, you don't do radio row interviews and talk about company business. He was doing that. So I think Cincinnati, a lot of eyes are on them because historically they have this, this feeling of, you know, small market team, 32nd market.

They don't spend money. It's a family run business. And now you finally have put yourself in this position where like, you have to pay up. There's nothing left. It's, it's not going to be good feelings. It's not going to be, it's going to be money. Are you going to spend the money? And do you have a way to use the cap gymnastics? And they put up 40 points, they put up 40 points every game last year and they still lost. So if you're focusing on offense and you're letting the defensive player of the year, the runner up walk out is where your priority is at. So it's interesting. It's Luis Amarillo's fault.

The Higgins chase when they play together with Burrow, the numbers are undeniable. They're undeniable. And they're also the most entertaining team in the league. Right. But if you're looking at Higgins and she'll had him as his number two free agent, he had Darnold number one only because there's no quarterbacks, but the Higgins thing would be, well, what about the games without chase? Hmm.

And you look at those, what happens when the defense is targeted against him versus I think T Higgins is amazing. I think that'd be my dream. Pat's guy. I wouldn't give up the first pick for him, obviously, but the second pick, the second rounder I would do in a heart. Go watch what he did with Jake Browning last year. It's fucking great.

They were going to T Higgins on every big play against Minnesota on that Saturday game and like Higgins is a true number one. And if they can get both those guys back, great. Back to Darnold really quick. Yeah. If you're Minnesota and they're not franchise time, they're going to hit the market. Okay. You, what does it say to JJ McCarthy?

If you do bring him back on a 25 to $30 million contract, does it tell the rest of the league that JJ McCarthy were not like, this is the bind with Minnesota. Like they don't know what they have in JJ McCarthy. And you could read all the positive press. Like they don't know what they have in J.J. McCarthy. And you could read all the positive press. Like they don't know what they have in J.J. McCarthy. He was injured all last year. He was on the sidelines. Like they haven't seen him play.

So it's not like they know that this guy. If you take a guy in the top 10, he's gotta be your quarterback. Okay. So you let, you let Darnell walk out the door. You don't, you don't say, let's try to hedge this a little bit. Two for 35?

Yeah. Two for four? you have it out after one year Like one of those type of deals and if you're darn old You know, you played your best football with kevin o'connell Let me do it one more year and then I then I can maybe break the bank like I think I think they're gonna make a very concerted effort from darnell. I'm like, by the way, I had covid those last two games Sorry, sorry guys. I was under I can't believe Sorry guys. I was sick. I was under weather. I can't believe you guys didn't get sick. Why'd you make me play?

Should it make me nervous that the Pats are probably going to spend on Ronnie Stanley because I still don't understand why the Ravens would let Ronnie Stanley go as their left tackle? It's the Ravens have a different salary cap situation and different team and Ronnie Stanley can still play. Thank you. I mean, if I'm the Patriots, I'm looking at Zach Bond. If the Eagles led him out, I, I, I'm looking at Josh Sweatt.

I'm looking at Milton Williams. Like I said, they didn't like Josh Sweatt. I think, I think Bond is a real possibility though. Bond would be great and Sweatt is good. And like Milton Williams, good. The other name, I don't know if they like Nick Bolton from the Chiefs, like unbelievable linebacker. Is he available? Oh, he's, he, he can get Nick Bolton from the Chiefs, like unbelievable linebacker. Is he available? Oh, he's the, they can get Nick Bolton.

I mean, it's Robert Spillane. Like these are like real names that can add to this team. Well, the move is what the commanders did last year. Veterans. Getting those guys that weren't the A-list guys, but they were like, it's almost like the white lotus cast strategy. No doubt. It's like, we're going to get Carrie Coons.

Bring me Carrie Coons. She's a really good, yeah, Carrie Coons a really good actress. It's like, we're gonna get Carrie Coon. Bring me Carrie Coon. Yeah, Carrie Coon's a really good actress. Washington just went out and got like nine Carrie Coons. Yeah, so that makes Zach Ertz your Patrick Schwarzenegger. I think so. Yeah, maybe it does. Austin Eckler starring as Leslie Bibb. Yeah, Austin Eckler is Greg Gehry, the evil guy. I mean, that guy's been in all three seasons and I mean, just consistently

doesn't say a word on the episodes. Just look at the camera. Has that and he has, he was the drug dealer 90210. He's got one of the great IMDb's of all time. Yeah. He got, he got Dylan hooked on drugs. Uh, Khalil Mack, what are the chargers doing? Bose and Mack?

Yeah. It uploaded. They lose both. They could, they could. We'll see. That's why I'm not like, I want to wait and see on that. And this is also Joe Hortiz, who comes from the Ravens. It's his first real off season. Last year he was the GM and they drafted well, but like this is now you gotta, you know, it's time to make some decisions that might not be as easy as just drafting and signing players.

Last question. Houston is the most interesting off season team to me because I don't know how far away they are from being impactful. I thought you were going to say that. just drafting and signing players. Last question. Houston is the most interesting off season team to me because I don't know how far away they are from being impactful. I thought they were in the mix last year, especially if you look back at how the season went, how they were able to play against the Chiefs defensively.

What they were missing feels easy to add. I like their coaching staff. I like their division. They're in a great division. That could easily be a 14 and three team next year. You were high on them last year. I was. They had bad luck.

No, they finished strong. I know, but they lost two receivers by the time we got to the playoffs. Diggs will be a free agent likely. He's gonna be gone. Okay. What was really interesting to me was Bobby Slowick was one of the offensive masterminds interviewing for head coaching jobs

two years ago after they had this great sequential season. They didn't think they got enough out of the offense. They fire their offensive coordinator and then they go to the Rams and they get Nick Kaley who was, you know, one Dirk and under Sean McVay. They bring Kaley in and they also, with this offense, like they didn't have, Diggie said, Stefan Diggs, they didn't have tank Dell in the last few weeks of the season. And they still in that chief's game, move the ball up and down the field. If they don't have two botched, uh, special teams plays and a block kick and get sacked eight times. Like they they're in that game.

In retrospect, that was the red flag game for the super bowl. Looking back as I still continue to kick myself for not just having the balls to take Philly. But that Houston game was like, that Houston game was, was a bad sign for the chiefs that they hung around like they did with the, I don't know, block field goals, muffed kickoffs, Like they got everything from the Texans and they couldn't put them away until the very end. So there was some red flags there, but what are you gonna do?

I didn't bet, but I picked the Chiefs to win the Nets, you were both two. And I've heard from Philly fans the entire last month. So it's all good. We have to go. I have to go talk to Wesley Morris about the Oscars. We'll eat no one happens. Oscars, can I tell you?

Probably have not seen any of these movies, now I'll go see one of them. I'll go see Onura. Great move, Onura's good, you should see Onura. Is it good? Yeah. Schrags, we'll talk to you before the draft, great to see you as always.

You're the man, Bill, thank you. My old long time friend Wesley Morris is here. We used to work together at Grantland, he's at the New York Times. Did not talk to him right before the Oscars, although we talked a couple months ago. We were waiting until after the Oscars, which him right before the Oscars. Although we talked a couple of months ago, uh, we were waiting until ask after the Oscars, which was a very strange Oscars and, uh, was dominated by a

movie called an aura, um, I did like an aura, Shalome did not win to me. More did not win. I'm going to start here and we haven't talked. We've only text a little bit. I was so happy. Mikey Madison won. I thought that was the best performance of any movie I saw and I did not see the brutalist yet. Um, but I thought she was awesome.

And this whole, sometimes this will happen in sports too, where they'll just decide, well, to be more, she's been waiting forever. She's got to win. And that was an important movie. And I was just like, what the fuck? Like Mike, Mikey Madison should win. Now, Do you agree or disagree with that? Cuz I feel like you might disagree Well, okay. I disagree with everything I Think what do I okay? First of all, I just want to be clear. I I have no deep visceral

I have no deep, visceral problem with Mikey Madison winning. I actually was, I was happy for the surprise of it. Of those five nominees, I wasn't terribly excited about, I loved Fernanda Torres, and I'm still here. I think that Demi Moore, we can talk about what Demi Moore is doing in the substance that I think made her deserving of an Oscar. OK. But my two favorite performances,

or two of my very favorite performances from last year, their movie's got no nominations. And I just was kind of like, there needs to be an asterisk next to this, next to these five nominees. Who were the two performances? Nicole Kidman and Baby Girl. Yeah, she was really good at that. next to these five nominees. Who were the two performances? Nicole Kidman and Baby Girl.

She was really good at that. I can't believe she didn't get nominated actually for that. That is one of the greatest... I mean, this is true of Nicole Kidman in general in the last like 15 years, but that performance in Baby Girl is one of the greatest feats of psychological acting I have ever seen.

I don't know how, I'm not an actor and I don't know how you simulate any of the things that Nicole Kidman was asked to do. And Harris Dickman, or is it Harris Dickson? Dickinson? Dickinson, I think. Yeah. He is also great.

That is one of the top, his performance is one of the top five performances I saw last year. Would that have been supporting actor for you or actor? Yes, supporting, I can live with supporting. We can talk about category fraud too. Yeah. Because two of our winners, total category fraudsters. And anyway, I think that Mikey Madison is good in that movie.

My problem with the performance is only that the four guys she is working with in this film are extraordinary. that the four guys she is working with in this film are extraordinary all four of those guys is great and Or all four of those guys are great and you know, you're a borislav. I'm so out of practice with these names I I'm gonna get some of them wrong But you know to single him out is right because you know, he's got the scene at the end in the car, which is her great moment as an actor too in this movie. I like Enora.

I like it more than fine, but I don't love it. That's how I felt. I think that... I'd be curious to hear you talk about what you love about Mikey Madison so much. I thought it was a very strange movie year. I didn't feel like a lot of stuff jumped out. And you know, we always talk about how it's a little bit like sports where you look back years later and like, oh, what was that year? Oh, that was the year Nora won all this stuff.

I just thought I didn't know her really at all other than TV stuff. And, um, you know, she was once upon a time in Hollywood, working actress. She was like the 11th person and once upon a time in Hollywood. Um, and I just felt like I like those movies sometimes where she's just like, oh, this person's a star. I'm watching her become a star during the movie. I thought it was a pretty, pretty out there performance. It's a crazy movie that I think has some flaws,

which we talked about in the past. But I just thought it was a really like memorable performance, which, but I also felt that way about Nicole Kidman. If, like if she had won in that category over, I still wouldn't have agreed, but I would have understood it. Here's what I'll say about Demi Moore. I... There's a shot at the beginning, or toward the beginning of this film,

where she has left the set of her aerobics instruction... show, her big fitness show, she's going to the bathroom. And on our walk from the studio, I believe, or maybe the executive's, I don't exactly know where the hallway is going to and leading, I know it's going to the bathroom. But anyway, there are all of these photos

of various versions of Elizabeth Sparkle, Demi Moore's character in The Substance, on the wall. And they're all from different periods of this character's life. And I just felt like I was also watching, like, the hall of Demi Moore. And it's like all those portraits correspond,

at least in my brain, they corresponded to some moment in Demi Moore's cultural life and her movie star life. And then she gets to the bathroom, and I believe there's, like, somebody's cleaning the women's room. So what does she have to do? She goes into the men's bathroom.

That is the Demi Moore's shot or sequence, maybe ever. And this movie is so dialed in in its way, because it's not about America. It's not about, it's like set in a kind of fictionalized Hollywood. We can talk about the kind of Europeanification and the sort of, the ways in which non-American filmmakers and ideas have officially made an inexorable mark

on the Academy Awards and the Academy itself, it's just not going anywhere anytime soon. So we have to think about what the Oscars even are going forward. But anyway, this movie to me, and once she gets into the bathroom, you have the Dennis Quaid character in the bathroom talking about how over the hill Demi Moore is as an actress.

Or, you know, Elizabeth Sparkle is as an actress. And I, from that sequence forward, this movie was as much about the actor playing this part as it was about the character she's playing. And the total, I have never seen... Demi Moore is committed to a lot of parts. I mean, G.I. Jane being maybe the ultimate strip tease, being an ultimate, like, part commitment.

She's never been the strongest line reader. She's never been the most convincing... when her... when she has to hit an upper register, like anger is not something like verbal anger, verbally expressed anger, but she can make her face twitch. Her eyes can do that. Like, um, you know, like they're, they're, yeah, they're, they're like sizzling a little bit when she's, when she's suffering. Um, and, but her lower register, you know, you know, suck my dick that, that, that line and G I J. And I mean, she can sell those lower register rages. Um, but this was something new for me with Demi Moore.

We're like her physical commitment to the part had emotional stakes. You're bringing in your 40 plus year history with her movies and that became part of the performance for you. Uh, yes. And I think that that might have. I think that's fair. I get it. 40 plus year history with her movies and that became part of the performance for you. Yes, and I think that that's fair. I get it. Yeah, but if you're Can I do my history? Yeah, but can I just real quick like if you're an Iranian voter Do you care about 40 years of doing? You don't you're just doing best performance. Right, right, right I went back to to be more in General Hospital Cause I was watching general hospital in the early eighties. That's where she broke in.

Yup. Uh, was with her through the Brad Pack years. It was amazing to watch her. It felt like she fizzled out and then became a big star. I think she was really under it. Like we did disclosure for rewatchable. She's just great in that movie. She's just a 10 out of 10, smoking hot, incredibly confident.

But I swear to God, I think the best scene of her entire career. You're going to laugh. And this is one of my one of my takes that I'll probably take shit for it. I don't really care. You're you. You're used to it. Go when when Rob Lowe breaks up with her in about last night. And he says he doesn't love her anymore. I honestly think that's the best acting moment of her career. The weight. And apparently he ad-libbed it and it wasn't in there, but the way she reacts to it, you

could just see it go through her entire body. I think she's had some really great acting moments over the years. I was just about to say, Bill, there are so many moments like that in her career. Like G.I. Jane's another one, disclosures like that. I think she's good in ghosts. I think in St. Elmo's Fire, she has a couple moments where you're like,

I would run through fiery hell to get this girl to like me, right? And she's a one-on-one, where I don't even know, there's a little Kathleen Turner in there just because of her voice, but she was drop dead beautiful in the 80s and then kind of transformed over the 90s. So we've been there the whole time with her.

But part of what I thought was interesting about this movie, because you're right, it's a career retrospective of her. I actually feel like her career should have been better. I think she could have made... I love this. I think she could have made better movie choices when she had her peak like You think about even like making a movie like strip cheese. That was like a paycheck movie That's like what we get mad at some actors doing right, but you know strip tease wait, let's go

That's like I want to work with my husband that movie sucks. I don't know that movie You're throwing too much at me I know I am me hold it wait, let's wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, But it was also at the peak of her of her demeaness, right? She had a great 1990s she had I mean she was she was one she was a top five box office draw She was in indecent proposal. I mean well, she's good in decent proposal I'm not arguing the success I just wish there were a couple awesome movies in there where she was like going for an Oscar and I don't think that was Even on the radar for her. I don't think she had that in her is the thing. Like think about the scarlet letter. So that's where we disagree. I think I think she had it in her. You what do you think happened? I do.

Because it's not like she didn't get cuts. I don't think she had the right part. What if she was the what if she was the prostitute and leaving Las Vegas instead of Elizabeth Shiv? You wouldn't believe that. Probably too old. It wouldn't no she's too. I mean too old when they when they made that movie no no I think that that's not it because I bet you she and Elizabeth Schiff are the same age I think yeah you're right they probably are I I think that Demi Moore and this is why she's so good in Ghost by the way I think that she presents as invulnerable, right? I mean, her whole thing when she became a real major movie star, where people were paying money to see movies she was in, was just about her toughness, right?

I mean, she's often the only woman in these movies. A few good men, she's the woman. Well, that's her worst part. It's her worst part and maybe like her worst piece of acting because she's kind of seemed secondary to everybody else's priorities. And Rob Reiner is a great director of actors, so I don't know what his side of this is.

Part of the problem is the mid-90s did not have a lot of great female parts. If you go back, even you look at it, you go back and look at the Oscars during some of those stretches. Like, could she have been Sharon Stallings' part in Casino? No. You don't think so?

Why? I mean, I'm sure that, I mean, I can't say no. I definitely would have loved to have seen her play the part. I don't have an argument for why she couldn't have done it. Like, yeah, like cast her into Casino. I thought you were going to go with basic instinct. Which she really could have done. Wow, she would have been too famous for it.

But she could have been one of the, Disclosure was basically her Basic Instinct. Could she have been Annette Bening in American Beauty? No. No. Oh, so you think she's more limited than I do. I feel like there was more there. She also got married to Bruce Willis.

They became a giant celebrity couple and they had three kids so that that that Probably hurt the output of movies. She was making it something. This is why I want to go back to mortal thoughts because Yeah, it's a great combination of the thing. I'm identifying about her that I like which is the strength with these pockets of vulnerability Hmm, you don't believe and the thing about Mortal Thoughts is it's two women, Glenn Headley's the other woman, because Glenn Headley used to be a thing. And wonderful actress, the two of them in that movie.

Or wonder whether. She stuck with Mr. Holland even after he almost ran away with a 17 year old, still stayed there with him. Yeah, did it. Did it all. And this movie, Immortal Thoughts, I think, is it Alan Rudolph directed this movie? Yeah. From 1991?

It's a Tooby classic. Tooby just is always trying to get me to rewatch it. I'm like, no, Tooby. No, not biting. Bill, I fell for it. You did? Tooby sucked you in? I have fairly recently watched it.

Tooby was like, just throwing the fishing rod at you. I re fell for it. You did? Tubi sucked you in? I have fairly recently watched. Tubi was like, just throwing the fishing rod at you. I rewatched it. And there's more going on. It does not ultimately work because it's structurally, it's structurally, it should just go chronologically and shouldn't do all the sort of jumping around in time that it does. And, but to me more... We don't have to spend 10 minutes on mortal thoughts. There's a struggle in here. I know I'm just thinking through like, what,

what is what worked for me and what the surprise was with respect to Demi Moore. Like there's a struggle in her, I think as an actor where she's trying to figure out like what the, what, how to modulate the shell that she sort of moves through movies with. And in a movie like Mortal Thoughts, I mean, some of what's required for that part, she's playing a woman being abused by her husband, they conspire to kill him.

I think I'm getting this right. Yeah. They conspire to kill him, she and Glen Headley, and then they spend the rest of the movie trying to figure out how to get away with murder. It's like a bad Thumb and Louise. It's, oh, whoa, you know what's crazy is yes. And they came around at the same time, yeah.

And that was, the movie didn't work also because you don't believe them as New Jersey housewives or whatever. Oh, they had their accents. Bruce Willis had a crazy facial hair thing going. It's like, come on, Bruce Willis. So what was your favorite Demi Moore performance before this movie?

What was your number one? Because my favorites, I loved her in About Last Night, which as you know, I think is the first modern rom-com. But I thought she was great in that. I thought she was great in Disclosure. I think she's great in Ghost. I listen to you guys talk about Disclosure. Yeah, I know, you don't like Disclosure.

I don't like your takes. I don't like it. I don't think she's good. It's not a good use of Demi Moore. I liked it. If you're just making a random movie and you're just showing up for 11 days of shooting, it's a good one.

I mean, Three Straight Guys talking about disclosure is just... That was part of the gimmick. I know. It just was like... I'm like, there needs to be... But Ghost She's really good though. Ghost, I think, is the number one. That movie was a monster movie.

Number one answer because that movie is like, not so secretly strange, right? It's not just the supernatural parts. Well, it taught us what happens when you go to hell. Goblins come out of the street and they pull you down. They shadow goblins and that's it. You're fucking in hell from that point on. They have the code.

But I also love what she and Whoopi Goldberg get up to. Yeah, they're great scenes. I love her disbelief that the thing that that she's being told is happening is happening to her. I believe her as a woman named Molly, which, you know, that's a huge that's a big deal. And I just think that that movie is so, it's so much about Demi Moore's character and the movie's about her. And there's just, she's so soft in that movie.

And the moments in which she has to, like, put a shield over herself, they work because you understand the movie has given you enough of this, like, this vulnerable, um, you know... woman who just doesn't believe that this magical thing that is about to happen to her is really gonna happen. Yeah.

I just think it's a... I mean, it's strange, because in 1990, who were your best actor nominees? Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Joanne Woodward, Kathy Bates, who won, and Angelica Houston, I want to say, for the grifted. Yeah. I mean, it's not like she was remiss. I mean, Julia Roberts took the movie star part

of the movie star nomination for those five people. Roberts, yeah, you had the five. That was impressive. Um, I don't five. That was impressive. I don't know. That was a loaded, loaded year, Jesus Christ. Any one of those people could have won Best Actress. Holy shit.

And then the next year was loaded too. And then in the mid-90s. Nothing will top her turning on the lights in about last night. Because I think we've been in the dark long enough. Oh wow. That movie has some growner lines. You gotta watch it. She's really great in it though. I haven't seen it in a while long enough. Oh wow. That movie has some growner lines. You gotta watch it.

She's really great in it though. I haven't seen it in a while. Haven't seen it in a while. It's really, really, really an enjoyable romp. How'd you feel about the best actor? Well, I mean, the winner or the nominees, the speech? Just how it played out. So here's my sports angle on Chalamet.

Great career move not to win. Oh, yeah Great career moves. He's way better way better now next movie. This happened to Leo too. This is When's he gonna win you want to get into that? When's he gonna win zone because now it just helps you with the celebrity of being an actor I also don't think it I also it's complicated right? He's probably gonna be one of the last actors to be in this position, right? Where like, he'll just be nominated two, maybe two more times before he actually wins.

Yeah, it'll be like he'll have to be in the Revenant. He'll have to crawl out of a dead bear. Oh my God, geez Louise. He'll have to get the shit kicked out of him. I'm looking forward to Timothy Chalamet as the Revenant because he definitely has it in him The question is like is that script ever gonna come his way? Well, here's the thing connect. Can I throw this theory at you? Okay, I

Think what happened with this Oscars run and with Chalamet in general we always I mean how many pods did Sean do about? Who's the next big star who we always would, we've done pods about who's the next big actor in Hollywood. Are we ever going to have one? It's just, just moving into this. Well, is it, is this ever going to happen again? Does the way this, does the way the system, the way it's structured now, does it just make it impossible because we just throw like some DC comics or Marvel suit on them after they after they become famous I think what happened with him SNL really helped going on college game day

The way he navigates you could feel it in the Oscars telecast to he was kind of in that Leo spot They kept going to him. They kept showing him Oh people were mentioning him and it just felt like it was kind of his Leo early 2000s moment, right? This is a great point, because I actually didn't even think about DiCaprio in that moment, and I thought I went past Leonardo DiCaprio and went to like Streep and Nicholson, right?

Right. Where he was the person, they weren't even making fun of him at some points. No. It wasn't even Conan O'Brien joking. It felt like he had clout. Yes, people were like just shouting him out because they thought he was cool. I think he has about as high of an approval rating of an actor that we've seen in a long time.

I think really since Leo and they're like when Leo was in that aviator stage and we were like, you know what man, this This guy is he's handsome. Everybody likes him. He's a really good actor and he stands for the right things. He wants to work with good directors. He wants to challenge himself. I know, I know Shalime's SAG speech didn't go over a fantastic when he was talking about how he wanted to be one of the greats, but I loved it. I thought it was great. I'm glad he said it.

I mean, as sports people, Bill, I think we just, what we want is a little bit of honesty in terms of people's ambitions. Yeah. And if you think you can go all the way, he wasn't even saying I'm the greatest. He's like, I want to be one of the great. It was authentic, which is all we want from athletes, celebrities, whoever just be just fucking say what you want. Be yourself yourself be yourself. Don't try to be some Manufactured I think people are gonna like this version of me and this will help me if I appear this way like I don't think He's like that. No, I think there's I mean, I think he's not yet. Maybe he'll turn into that They don't talk about you that way I mean think I mean this is not quite fair to the person about I'm about to name But think about a show where like, they would treat Kieran Culkin this way, right? I think that there is like real belief in Timothy Chalamet as more than just like an actor.

I mean, he embodies something that people seem to like. Also, it's important to say that he's just really good at being himself. And I don't know what that is really, but I just enjoy when he shows up on some Canadian talk show, like hanging out in the record store with the talk show host. I don't know if you saw that. Like, I don't even know where I saw it,

but it came to me and I was like, I love this know if you saw that, I don't even know where I saw it, but it came to me, and I was like, I love this guy. He really went along with it. He's the guy who was waiting outside MSG for Maurice Stoudemire to sign a fucking jersey for him. He still has that authenticity, and I don't know, Hollywood beats that out of you sometimes. I hope it doesn't happen with him.

Yeah, I think the difference between him and DiCaprio also, and this is also important, he seems to be fine with it. DiCaprio didn't like it. I don't know that he likes it to this day. Well, he liked some of the accoutrements. He liked the spoils, the spoils, yes. Yeah, he liked the spoils. Right, but he doesn't like the actual,

he's not in it for Jimmy Kimmel, Conan O'Brien, kind of poking him in the ribs a little bit. Yeah. Chalamet, he can roll... He's like... His skin is thick. He can handle it. I gotta say, I think the way Leo handled his career was brilliant. No notes. No notes. I mean, just like... He studied some of the old greats. I don't need to do a shitload of interviews.

There needs to still be a little mystery about me. And he kept the mystery. For better and worse. Because that also allows people to, you know, he's doing this, he's at this party, he has a pussy wrangler. Like that's an actual phrase used with Leo. Oh yeah, that guy's his pussy wrangler. That's an actual phrase used with Leo. Oh yeah, that guy's his pussy wrangler.

Keep him on their toes, right? I mean, he is willing to be the brunt of some brutal jokes. I'm thinking specifically about Tina Fey and Amy Poehler going at him at the Golden Globes. Yeah. He can, he just, he's like, if this is the price, if the price is having two funny people roast me for some stuff they think I did,

or the community thinks I did, I'll take it. I still don't have to do an interview. I like it. Who else, I mean, there's been De Niro for a while. We, he had a real mystery, and then something snapped in the 90s, and we went the in the 90s. And we went the other way with it. What do you mean?

What do you think, what changed? Well he just started doing a ton of movies. He started going on SNL. Part of De Niro, De Niro was this mythical figure. It's like, who is this guy? He relaxed, but does he seem any more known to you? No, he's actually ironically a terrible interviewer. Yeah, I mean he's still mysterious to me.

I don't pretend to know anything. So wait, because I have a couple other things I want to hit with you. So you... Yes. Your best actor was who? Of those five people. No, give me anybody. You even need somebody who didn't get nominated.

Oh, anybody? Yeah. Who is the best male performance for you? I mean, I really... I'm just gonna stick with Adrian Brody. I mean, he was the person who, who when I saw him in the first, in the opening shot of The Brutalist, I was just like, well, this is, we're, we're headed into there will be blood territory in terms of what the acting is due. Um, I just think that this is a guy who, I'm just gonna, I don't wanna talk about the speech.

I can't even, I don't even know what to do with the speech. Yeah, just talk performance. Forget it, he's annoying, whatever. I a little bit understand where it came from, but then it took a turn and then I was like, no, you gotta just, anyway. But he was my, of those five guys, I'll just stay with those five guys.

He was my favorite of the nominated performances. I'll just stay with those guys He was my favorite of the of the nominated performances and he also was the best he was the it was the one of the best Pieces of acting I saw last year period and I think what I loved about it was the the restraint The way he the way his There's something like an, there's an anchor, it's so different from the piano, from the pianist performance, right?

Where that character seemed to be blowing through the narrative, and part of what was beautiful about that performance was just that he was in a silent movie, essentially. And you were watching somebody do, was like a Charlie Chaplin, but under the worst possible circumstances for a human being.

And he just seemed to keep surviving in an almost tragic realist way. And this movie is the opposite, where it's everything about it is internal and how many levers can he keep down on the emotional circumstances, you know, dealing with the Guy Pearce character, keeping his eyes open, you know, there's a wariness and a skepticism about what this character is up against at all times. There's that great scene.

Oh, you haven't seen it, Bill, have you? I haven't seen it. All right, I gotta just, I'm gonna tell you about this one scene. There's this one scene. Please do. Felicity Jones is his wife. She eventually makes her way over to the United States. They wind up living together in this, in this smallish apartment with her cousin.

And these three Holocaust survivors in this little apartment, they haven't, the husband and wife have not seen each other in a long time. And there is an expectation from her that they're gonna do it. And this is truly, this scene between these two actors and between these two characters is like, I'm getting chills just thinking about it. It is one of the most loaded sexual encounters that also is freighted by, you know, watching it in 2024, 25, you know, 60 years, you know, 70 years of history. And the history that these characters have with each other were like, they're just different people now.

This this the Holocaust has changed them. The time they've spent a party has changed them. Her body's different. His his interest in her body is different. It is... I'm not even gonna... I can't be more detailed about the scene because I don't want to ruin for people who haven't seen it.

I wasn't gonna skip it, but I just... That is one of the best directed, best acted scenes between two actors in a bed that I have ever seen. And I will say, as a, you know, parenthetically, not a lot of bed scenes in Baby Girl. So they didn't have a lot of competition. Well, that's, yeah, that's true.

A lot of hotel room carpets. Um, and I want to talk about Hackman, and I want to talk quickly about White Lotus. So any other Oscar thoughts? Because we're going to take a break. Um, we can talk about Hackman. No, well, can I just say one thing? We can save it for after the break.

But I wanna talk about like what these Oscars mean. Cause these are different. Something has changed. It kind of is both promising, but also not, it doesn't feel good based on the way people are talking to me about the Academy Awards. And I'm curious what people in your life and world are saying.

I mean, we can do this now. I just think we've been talking about the Oscars for a while. I think sometimes things morph over time culturally. You know, like when we were talking about all-star weekend, a couple, a couple, uh, weeks ago on the podcast, I think it was, maybe it was van or I can't remember, I'm sorry. I can't remember who said it, but about whether they're, whether it just had a cultural expiration date and things can just shift and yeah, things can shift

and change. I think about people used to care about regular season baseball. And now they just care about their own teams. Like as you get older, you just see like things sometimes run their course. And with the Oscars, you know, whether people care about who wins the way they did in 1982, I just don't know if they do. I don't, especially the younger generation, the younger generation was probably like,

did Chalamet win? Would be the way they could, like my kids, I have a 17 year old, 19 year old who are pretty sports culture, like in the mix at least a little bit because of me, they didn't care about the Oscars. But when we were kids, I'm older than you, but both of our generations,

like we really cared who won. And I just, I wonder if that's just shifted now. But it's shift, man, you know, but part of it is like the NBA issue, right? When they talk about face of the league and in my whole case is like, when somebody really matters, we won't have this conversation because we'll know something, you know, we'll know that person mattered. Like if there's another Titanic, there's another big ass movie, or there's another big ass star with an awesome performance,

people are gonna care if that person or that movie wins. This year didn't have a movie like that, and it's always gonna suffer when that's the case. But I also think that those movies aren't like, that's just, they're not gonna happen. And also the thing about the old way, and this is not nostalgia speaking, this is just, you know, facts. You know, there were, there was a kind of randomness to what

the five best pictures wound up being, or the five best picture nominees. And, you know, there was a healthy movie going ecosystem or one that seemed healthy to like an average could, could seem healthy to an average moviegoer Where like there was a lot of movies to choose from they weren't all trying to win Oscars You know and Sometimes the ones that weren't trying wound up mattering stumbled into it a lot of people we're also we're making less movies There was no confusion between is this something I watch at home on my TV Or do I go to the theater to see it?

We had way less TV competition with the high end stuff. We had all the best actors were just doing movies and now it's like you might see a really great actor just do a TV show instead. So it just feels like it's splintered in a whole bunch of different ways. I still care, I still care about the history and how current stuff relates to it, but I think I'm like an anomaly.

I was going to say we don't count. I don't think. I think that, but, but I'm telling you, you're mentioning your kids. I'm talking to people your kids age and I'm talking to people older than we are. In their, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Who are also like, I'm out. I can't, y y'all y'all got me to see conclave and then pull that shit at the end I don't I'm out like y'all trying to rope a dope me into having feelings I don't want to be having now as a conclave person. I will tell you that that that that dismount is pretty ingenious Conclave supporter, okay.. You don't like it?

I thought it was, the twist was stupid. Aww, I loved it! It is such... I didn't think the movie needed it. I was more interested in... Who did you want to win? Who did you want to... I just like being in the world as they try to figure it out and undermine each other.

Like it was just a classic old school movie. I didn't feel like it needed a twist. I think that that, like what we're going to call a twist was really ingenious because I think the movie earns it. I've heard this case. I just personally didn't work for me. All right, but that's not my point. My point is I talked to so many people of so many different age ranges, like age demographics, right?

Generationally, everybody's out. Like, nobody feels like the movies are for them. And I don't know what to do with that because it's not Sean Baker's fault. It's not the Baker's fault. It's not the substance's fault. Do you think Nickel Boys was out here trying to win a bunch of Oscars? No! This is the story that Rommel Ross wanted to tell about like based on like, you know, quote based on Colson Whitehead's novel. Like he, there was, there's so much risk taken by these movies, these best picture nominees.

This year, they were doing strange, unusual, weird things. And I'm saying this as a person who saw Giamma del Toro's The Shape of Water, which won best picture, a woman in love with a fish. Like, you know, strange things happen to best picture nominees or in Best Picture nominees. But this was the first year where I can understand

what it is the public wants. And what the public wants is movies that not only have they seen, but they want to have, like, a wealth of movies if they're gonna be going to the movies, like, to a physical movie theater. theater. They want to go look at, they want to look at famous people. They want movie stars like Deadpool and Wolverine are movie stars. Like this iteration, this Anthony, Mackey, Captain America to like two people who aren't invested in the Marvel universe, Marvel Cinematic Universe,

he's important and we all know what this iteration of Captain America is and does if you read the comic, et cetera, et cetera. But do people, is Anthony Mackie a draw for people? I mean, the movie seems like it's doing okay, but my point, my larger point is, this is just me saying once again to you, Bill, that the IP is still... I think people are now tired of the IP even.

Right? Like the IP's worn out, it's welcome. We did Rocky for the rewatchables that went up last night. And Rocky won Best Picture. Wait, you guys have never done Rocky? We did 3 and 4. Rocky is now a prequel for Rocky III. That was part of my case. We're not doing it. So Rocky III is the best movie of the 80s.

I agree. But I mean, sort of. Rocky wins. All the presidents, men, network, and taxi driver don't win. And then you go to the best actor. And it's just, you're just looking at it like oh my god And granted it was almost 50 years ago. Oh my god look at the movies. We were making Go back to 2014 right?

yeah, was that the year the gravity and was that the year of Dallas Buyers Club gravity American, American Hustle, Her, 12 years of Slave, American Hustle, Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Gravity, Her, Nebraska, the Wolf of Wall Street. That deck was so stacked that Tom Hanks, giving one of the best performances he's ever given

and Captain Phillips did not get a best actor nomination. Right. Let's take a quick break. I want to talk about Hackman. Okay. Gene Hackman died earlier this week and he was old. It wasn't like a big surprise. Hopefully the details of how he died.

I've heard some things. Aren't too awful, but I have a feeling they might not be great,, you know, he was somebody that had this awesome, awesome, awesome career forever, and then just walked away. And then we never kind of saw him again. He almost did the Johnny Carson, going to Malibu and I'm out, that's it, I'm done. There was nobody really like him that I can think of. It's like he's a true one-on-one.

And, you know, even like in the rewatchables, we've done, I think we did like eight Hackman movies, something like that, where, and you would never think like he would be one of the more rewatchable actors, but he just over and over again with popping and stuff. And what was interesting watching as his career evolved was how the other actors would talk about

what it was like to kind of be in a movie with them. And it was like, almost like you're going against them. And it's, I was trying to think of like how many actors are discussed that way where it's like, I'm with Hackman, I got to raise my game today. I got to raise my game this week. Like he reached that part of it too. There was just nobody like them, but you could go way back. Like downhill racer, which I think fantasy and I are going to do on rewatch was at some

point, it's at some point. It's an awesome movie. It's probably the first great modern sports movie and then it's not totally modern, but he's even great in that and that was what, 1969? So there wasn't a career quite like this. Will we ever have another Gene Hackman? No, because I mean, here's, you know,

you know me well enough to know that my taste in men is eclectic, but I'm just gonna say for the average person, they're not looking at Gene Hackman and going, oh yeah, I'll take it. You're tapping into horny hacks already? That horny side? Yeah, we talk about that in the rewatchable sometimes. He gets a little randy in some movies.

He is, but I think there's something about his kind of average-lookingness. Yeah. Like, you know, he did not wear a toupee. He did not hide his loss of his hair. He always just seemed like he was perpetually 45 years old. Yeah. He came to us 45 years old, and like when he left, he maybe seemed 60, I don't know.

He was like 58 years old. Yeah, he just seemed permanently middle-aged, which is a thing that just will never happen now. I think that- Well, but the other piece with that was it somehow allowed him to play all these different parts. Yes, yes. That he could be like, he could be a basketball coach.

He could be in a buddy cop movie. He could be the bad guy in a buddy cop movie. He could be somebody that's running a submarine. He could be the bad guy in a buddy cop movie. He could be somebody that's, you know, running a submarine. He could be somebody who's the president. He could be somebody trying to be somebody trying to break into the White House. Yeah, he could be somebody who's like trying to figure out the heist and he's in charge of the heist or he could be the person who is like working on the heist. He could be the sports movie coach.

Like he could be the person who is working on the heist. I think he could be the sports movie coach. He could do literally anything. Anything. I think that his... Also that kind of does speak in some weird way to what America is. And I know this sounds cheesy and corny and cheap. But if you are coming to this country for the first time and you want to, like, one of the many things that tells you that you're in the United States of America,

it's probably Gene Hackman, right? This is a person who, in all the jobs that he could be doing, seems credible in them. He's not conventionally good-looking. Like, the idea that he and Warren Beatty are supposed to be brothers in Bonnie and Clyde is just one of the most laughable things I've ever seen. Like yeah, adopted brothers, I don't know. It's comical. There is something also like unpredictable about him. And it isn't so much

that, you know, I think about him in the French connection, right? One of the, if you think of, if you diagram the psyche of, you've diagrammed that sentence psychologically, this is like a terrible human being. He's a racist, like racist cop in New York City, shaking down people in bars just for kicks, basically. Him and Jack Cates in 48 hours are my favorite cop characters that are also completely indefensible. Yeah, but you know, Popeye Doyle never had an Eddie Murphy to come and give one of the

great rebuttals to the racism in the movies, right? Or like to anybody's racism in the movies. Popeye Doyle stands as a singular character because he's never brought in to heal. He's never, nobody ever like wags their finger in his face in a way that means anything. Because ultimately he's looking for what, you know, a movie goer will recognize as a kind of narrative justice. Like he's trying to solve this mystery. And the command, the like easy,

like kind of sexy command that he has in those bar, in those shakedown scenes, you know, he just, it's just a great, dirty, filthy character who in the character works because he's got swag, you know? And he didn't, he could turn that on and he could turn it off, but you really...

No way out was like that. That was another one where he's just kind of sleazy, right? But sleazy, powerful, and you could just kind of see it. The other thing with him that I thought was cool, you could just throw him in other great parts and he makes sense. You could put him in The Godfather. He's just, just be Tom Hagen. You're going to be Tom Hagen instead of Deval. And it's like, yeah, Hackman would have been fine.

This is a great point. Can I tell you how many years I thought the Tom Hagan was played by Gene Hackman? I sometimes have to remind myself that Robert Duvall is not Gene Hackman in that movie. Like could he have Nicholson's, you know, all-time incredible in Chinatown? But could the movie have survived if it was Gene Hackman in Chinatown? Like, probably. It still would've worked. Would've been fine.

Terms of Endearment works with Gene Hackman. Yeah, that's the thing. And that's why I think he's so unique because it's almost like a basketball player that could play like a bunch of different positions and guard a different bunch of it. And it's just like, oh, when we have this guy, we basically can do anything we want.

But you know what he cannot do? And never really tried. He never did crazy. Comedy? Well, he did do comedy and he was pretty, the birdcage, that's the first thing that comes to mind. How about, are you a heartbreakers person? Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love-Hughett. Corny Hacks is out in full bloom.

This is, I mean, I'm already out as like, you know, I've outed myself as being like into Gene Hackman, but it does not take much. But no, his Lex Luthor, his Lex Luthor is- That's how I got to know him, by the way. That was my first Gene Hackman movie. That was my first Gene Hackman. Yeah. My first Gene Hackman was Lex Luthor. Who's this guy?

In the 78 Superman. And listen, he's sexy. He is sexy in that movie. And there's like, and he, I don't know what he knew, but he definitely seemed to understand that Lex Luthor thought he was sexy, and that was good enough for him. Right.

Like could he have done Liam Neeson and taken? I think he could have. Yeah, but he... Oh, wait, but this is my... I was gonna say, speaking of which... He never did crazy. Crazy is the thing he never did. He never played... So he never did like Tommy Lee Jones and blown away just as a crazy Irish terrorist,

blown up shit? Go back to, like, one of his primes. Like, he couldn't have played Travis Bickle. No. You also wouldn't have believed him as Woodward, right? You wouldn't have believed him as Bob Woodward. No, because I would never think he was, I would never think he would not be in control

when I see Gene Ackley. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. He would have flown off the handle way before it was time. Right. And there are just some things, like, this is an interesting distinction that we're trying to make here, which is that I'm saying he's never played crazy, right? He's never played a crazy person, like a psychopath. You know, you can say what you will,

what you want about little Bill and unforgiven, but that guy was just... Evil's not the same thing as crazy. (*JEREMY LAUGHS*) No, you're right. I totally get what you mean. unforgiven, but that guy was just, evil's not the same thing as crazy. No, you're right. I totally get what you mean. But well, the other part is he didn't bring Gene Hackman, the famous celebrity person into the role, that kind of baggage that some other, like I would see

Dustin Hoffman or Nicholson and you're always thinking it's Nicholson. You're always thinking it's Dustin Hoffman. This is a good distinction too. Hackman could kind of blend into the different parts. And where it's like, oh, I love Gene Hackman, but then you'd kind of like, enemy of the state's a good example. He's Gene Hackman, but you're watching,

he just kind of blends in and out. Now all of a sudden he's this weird guy. I don't know what he's up to. And is he going to help Will Smith or not? And you kind of just forget he's Gene Hackman. Think about all the people he's mentored to, right? Oh yeah. I mean, just listening.

And everybody talks about it after, like, whoa. That was, I went to grad school when I did acting with Gene Hackman. But what is it, but what is that though, right? Well, I think it's professionalism. Just going onto the set, knowing exactly who you are, like real confidence. A little bit of charisma.

You're not gonna back down anybody. I think he had some size to him too. Which I think is unusual for Hollywood. Was he 6'1"? Yeah, I think he was... He definitely seemed substantial, right? Like there was a... I, this is part of the thing that I've got for Gene Hackman is he just seemed meaty.

Like there was often some meat on those bones. Like he seemed big boned is really what it was. Like not fit at all, but not interested in fitness, not vain, there's no vanity, right? He just, whoever he's playing, it's just there to do the work. Because often these are working people. All these guys have jobs. And even the guy that he plays in the, in the birdcage,

the, the Senator, the kind of like bigoted Senator who kind of like never changes, but keeps going along with the program. And part of the comedy of the movie is, you fully expect him to like give himself over by like showing up in, you know, coming out of the, some crazy plot twist or something. But instead he's just like, man, this is the world. It's very Billy Wilder of him that, but the approach he takes in the birdcage.

Michael Nichols directed it. So it's not like like it's not a crazy Thing to have a smart performance Like stay in a lane because the director knows the payoff will be there at the end But there's well your your crazy point is good because I wouldn't have wanted to see jean hackman in the shining He couldn't have done it. I don't think I just wouldn't have bought it I wouldn't I just don't think it works, but he doesn't burn slow like that He's eruptive. He's eruptive

Well, what's interesting is like he could play the president He could have played the president's conniving chief of staff Yes, he could have played he basically could have played every part in the White House Could have played the vice president who doesn't like the president He could have played the the guy the military general who works for the president. Just go through anybody that is involved with the president and he could probably have played every part. Whereas like when Nicholson's the president, you're kind of like, ah, it's Jack Nicholson. Like even when Jack Nicholson is in broadcast news and he's good.

Yes. But you could argue Hackman might have been better in that part, right? You know what's interesting? Like even when Jack Nicholson is in broadcast news and he's good. Yes. But you could argue Hackman might have been better in that part, right? You know what's interesting? Because he still feels like Jack Nicholson in broadcast news. I'm not buying him as like a network anchor. The thing... Well, he would have been the president of the network, right?

Yeah, whatever he was. No, no, no. Nicholson was the anchor, but what I'm saying is Hackman, you would have more believed him as the president. Or like the Robert Prasky part. Like he was working with Holly Hunter. Yeah, he could have been that guy. He would not have made sense as any of... He wouldn't have made sense as William Hurt or Albert Brooks. But you know, that same era of Hackman, he has a cameo appearance in Postcards from the Edge. Do you remember this scene? Oh yeah. He's the director of the movie Meryl Streep is fucking up in.

And the Meryl Streep character, this is based on the Carrie Fisher memoir. She's playing this drug addicted actress who bottoms out and she goes through rehab and she, her redemption essentially is going back into this, into the post-production studio to do voiceovers and Jean Hackman's her director. Yeah. And he, the thing that we're talking about with this mentorship, I think it, what a version of what it looks like is this director telling this Meryl Streep character to get her life together.

And, you know, giving her this... I mean, it's not another chance. The movie still needs to be looped. And she's there to do her voiceovers. And it's just this wonderful sequence where you learn something about the movies. I didn't know what that process was until this, until Postcards from the Edge, another Mike Nichols movie. But he's so warm and firm and clear

about what it is that he needs. But he's also got a sense of humor. And he's not, I don't know who this character is, he's Gene Hackman. Right. Whatever that means. One on one. But fatherly and in a really like touching way.

Well, the other thing, you know, and obviously we've done almost 375 rewatchable movies at this point. Part of what becomes somebody's legacy is the rewatchability of some of the movies they made. And he just had such a great instinct for this. And then sometimes like he didn't, he thought Hoosiers was gonna be a bomb.

That ends up being the biggest basketball movie anyone's ever made, right? And lives on forever and ever. He was pissed the whole time he was making it. He was like, nobody's gonna see this shit. No best actor nomination for him in that movie, by the way. Yeah, I think it was because it took him so long to realize, just turn the ball to Jimmy Chetwood.

Clear out. Clear out. Clear out. Don't overthink this. Stop running plays. We don't need four passes anymore. We have a generational star in our team. Royal Tenenbaums. I would say the last great Hackman performance.

Was close to the end. It was one of the last ones anyway. And one, I mean, the thing that you love about, that's the one performance I think anybody's given in a Wes Anderson movie where it felt like Wes Anderson was just giving the enterprise over to this actor. I don't know anything about anything with that movie. I just know how I feel watching it versus watching him in it versus watching anybody

else in any other Wes Anderson movie. That's the one where I felt like Gene Hackman just one overrode the vision. And, you know, most people, a lot of people think that that's their favorite Wes Anderson movie. I think in part because Gene Hackman is the one person who's, the one of the rare people to act in a Wes Anderson movie who feels differently alive from the sort of dioramic project of the film. And he frequently exists on the streets of that city, right?

He does not exist, he's not in the houses that much. He doesn't live in my memory as being an indoor cat. He's an outdoor cat in that movie. And like anything outside, Wes Anderson just seems to have less control over him. Right, he's such a soundstage interior,stage interior design oriented person. And something about Gene Hackman out in those streets is just classic. It's very on brand for Hackman and very disorienting for Wes Anderson.

And the Tenenbaums is greater for it because there's a tension there that exists between his energy and the movie at large, his energy. One great thing about him, he's just in movies with most of the great stars from like three different generations of movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He, I think Denzel might be, I'd be interested to see what the list is.

I was thinking, yeah, Denzel. But we always talk about six degrees of Kevin Bacon. And it's like one degree of Gene Hackman. You could just go through, make a name of star. He's worked with like Redford, like it doesn't matter. You go 50 years or 45 years, however long he was. And he's gonna be in a movie, like it'll be like Travolta was paying homage to him.

And it was like, Hackman made so many movies. What was it? Get Shorty was his Travolta movie. Yeah. But you go through and you'd be like, just shout an actor out. Did they work with Gene Hackman made so many movies. What was it? Get Shorty was his Travolta movie. Yeah. But you go through and you'd be like, just shout an actor out. Did they work with Gene Hackman? And they probably did. Shout an actress out.

They probably did. Sally Field? Am I missing a very obvious one? Because like the two of them seem like they just, Sally Field. It just should have worked. He did a movie with Barbra Streisand. Oh, that underrated by the way all night long all night long

through underrated but he and Sally Field seemed like they would have had a really good connection he did a movie with Richard Gere Julie Christie Kate Capshaw and Denzel Washington and JT Walsh. Can you name the movie? Can you name those names again? Richard Gere, Julie Christie, Kate Capshaw and Denzel Washington as Arnold Billings. What's the year? It was Lumet Power.

Ooh, that's right! Tooby, throw that shit on the main screen. That's like 1981, isn't it? No, it's later, it's 86. I forgot about that. That's early. That's like 1981, isn't it? No, it's later. It's 86. 86, okay. It was right when Hollywood was like, hey, Richard Gere, what's going on here? Why are we making all these, why are all these bombing?

Are you not a movie star anymore? I know we're not talking about Richard Gere here, but like, you know, it's funny because to compare Richard Gere to Gene to, to Jean Hackman is interesting, right? Like, why does it work for Hackman and not for Richard Gere? Well, this raises the second, well, Richard Gere is too handsome. That's part of the problem. Um, but we, we've talked about Richard Gere when, when he taps into an internal affairs and officer gentleman, a gentleman. That's Richard Gere.

Yes. Yes. Hackman, as the guy in Pretty Woman, would have been really interesting. That's the one that they wouldn't make, right? That's the one they wouldn't make, but that's the more realistic one. That's the more realistic one. That's the more realistic one, where he's like an older, dirty fucking guy. What was that original title?

Was it called two thousand or four thousand whatever the her fee would have been? I think that's what the original title. Yes, then they tried whore on the street that didn't work. They just kept trying titles Just going for stuff I mean I feel like there was some Hackman money left on the table if he never did a movie with Sally Field, because that's a no-brainer to me. Murphy's Law, instead of, or Murphy's Romance, sorry, is the Sally Field James Garner movie

that got James Garner his only Oscar nomination. I feel like Gene Hackman could have played that. That could have been a good Hackman. He's making so many movies. Anyway, Gene Hackman, first bout Hall of Famer. Give me your one minute review of White Lotus through three episodes. Are you caught up?

Here's my one minute, here's my one minute three, I don't know how many words it's gonna be. Here's my review of White Lotus season three. I'm watching The Pit. You're watching The Pit. I'm watching The Pit. ER is back. I'm not the pit. ER is back. I'm not watching.

20, 25 years. White Lotus, White Lotus had his chance with me, Bill. This show doesn't know what it's about. I'm watching the pit. Wow. You're into the pit that much. Oh, I'm in the pit. I'm in.

You're in the pit. No, Wiley, you never gave up your stock. Are you kidding? Did I ever own stock? I was like, I should have bought stock. No, you had some stock. Oh, are you kidding? Did I ever own stock? I was like, I should have bought stock. No, you had some stock. I mean, this would have, I mean, the vesting happening here is extraordinary. Are you watching this show, Bill? I'm not. Should I be watching? People keep telling me to watch it. Let me tell you. It's like ER cross with 24.

Y'all can keep your white lotus. You can have it, eat it up. I don't want it. I don't want anymore. I had my fill. Y'all don't know how to feed me. The pit. This show, and it's crazy that like the most excited I've gotten talking to you is about this show

and not about anything else. But you know, I do, if we were talking about Baby Girl, a hard truce which has the other great performance from last year by Mary Ann John-Baptiste. I'd be psyched to talk about that, but we're talking about The Pit. It's such a strange viewing experience if you ever watch DR. I actually would love to know how people feel who haven't watched DR ever to watch it for the first time. Because within, like, five minutes,

you are someplace you know you've already been, even though you don't know where you actually are. Everything about it is familiar. This show is made by John Wells, who is responsible in part for ER. And the structure is basically one hour, like every episode is one hour in this staff, this medical staff shift.

It's 24 across the ER. Basically, yes. That's exactly... You said it, it went over my head because I was enthusing about you watching the show, but you were 100% correct. Formally, that's the show. I don't know how anything that happens on this show actually happens. What are the retakes like? How many takes do they need to do?

Say no more. I'm going to watch. You don't need to sell me anymore. This is... I'm in. The characters. I'm going to watch it. Noah Wiley giving the TV performance. Nobody's going to do better than Noah Wiley on this show. Oh, TV performance. Nobody's gonna do better than Noah Wiley on this show. Oh, I'm so happy. I never gave up on him. I mean, you didn't? Cause I haven't seen him I haven't seen him since 2001.

He's been doing some good stuff. He was on that, what was that movie with the train, the crazy train? I thought he was on that movie that turned into a TV show. Snowpiercer. Snowpiercer train. I think he might have been. TNT Snowpiercer or the Bong Joon Ho Snowpiercer? No, he's in the TV version, I think.

I don't know. Maybe, I don't know. You're right. You say so. I'm glad he's back. He was on TV. He might have been that show actually, you're right. I remember seeing him and being like,

well, I'm glad the checks are still coming in. It's great. This is more than, I'm glad the checks are still coming in. It's great. This is more than I'm glad the checks are still coming in. This is an extraordinary, everybody on this show, even if you're not, even if the acting isn't good, you have to be present in a really interesting way. Like a way that feels new to me for television. And it is just, it's thrilling. It's really gross and suspenseful and I love it.

Anything to plug? Personally? Yeah. I'm working on a podcast. I turned in my book, you'll be happy to know. I don't believe it. Is there video evidence of it? I mean, there's still a lot of work to do, but it'll we're gonna make it. We're gonna make it really good

I think it's gonna be it's gonna work. I can't wait to read it. But yeah, I'm working on a show a podcast It's just it's gonna be me talking to people. I can't wait to invite myself on it you Well, I mean I would have invited you had you not already just invited yourself You know, you're you know, you're invited. All right, Wesley Morris Great to see you as always nice to see you, invited. All right. Wesley Morris. Great to see you as always. Nice to see you too. All right. That's it for the podcast.

Thanks to Peter Schreger and Wesley Morris. Thanks to Kyle and Gahal and Saruti as well. And don't forget Celtic City. You can catch up on the first episode on Max. New rewatchables, Rocky Prestige TV podcast, episode three, White Lotus. Check out thewringer.com, a great website. And I will see you on Thursday on this podcast. Yes, we're in the On the wayside On the first solo I've ever heard

I said I don't have