The Bill Simmons Podcast - Maye Vs. Stafford, Week 18 Picks & the 21 Best 21st Century Sports Movies With Peter Schrager, Joe House, and Sean Fennessey

Episode Date: January 2, 2026

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Peter Schrager and Joe House to talk about the NFL MVP race before making their Ringer 107 picks (3:06). Then, Sean Fennessey joins the pod to discuss Bill’s 21 best sports movies of the 21st century (01:22:47). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Peter Schrager, Joe House, and Sean Fennessey Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by Fandul Sportsbook. We are also brought to by the Ringer podcast network. I put up a rewatchable's on Monday. It was my 50 most rewatchable movies of the 21st century. It was my list. There were a lot of caveats to it, including they were just movies I had seen the most times because of family, wife, because I liked having just a movie on in the background as I was working, whatever it was.

It was my most rewatchable movies. Needless to say, people had some opinions on it, but I loved it. Anyway, you can check that out on the rewatchables on Spotify, on YouTube, wherever you get your pods. We have another episode coming. I think we have two next week. Stay tuned for two. I think we're going to do a mailbag episode on Monday and then a movie episode on Wednesday. So be ready for that.

Coming up on this podcast, we're going to do Week 18 picks, Joe House, Peter Schrager. we're going to talk about the MVP and a whole bunch of NFL stuff heading into a long weekend because I think most people have Friday off. And then special segment just recorded today with Sean Fantasy, my 21 best sports movies of the 21st century. This was not a me personally. These are the movies I genuinely feel like are the 21 best movies sports movies of the 21st century. As you know, I love sports movies, care about them, have been writing about them my entire

career back when I used to write and have a lot of thoughts. So, Sean helped me do, help me basically react off the top 21 and then came up with a key save for the list. So stay tuned for that. Anyway, this is a very fun podcast. Hope you had a great New Year's Eve. I did as well. I think, I don't know if my wife has showered yet.

She's in rough shape. Shout out to her for surviving last night. Anyway, Pearl Jam's coming up in a second. we're going to take a break, and then Peter Schrager and Joe House. The Bill Simmons podcast is presented by Fandul. Fandle's got it all. Same game parlays, quick bets for jumping in live. They have your way.

Go check out your way. You can build the bet that fits your play, your way. Plus, don't miss out on the NFL playoffs. One of my favorite times of the year all month long. Download the Fandole app or head to fandul.com slash BS to get started. Get ready for the playoffs. Let's go. must be 21 plus president select states 18 plus in dc kentucky and wyomime again

problem called win a hundred gambler or visit rg dash help dot com call 888 79 777 or visit ccpg dot org slash chat in connecticut All right, we're recording late New Year's Day afternoon. There's probably some college football blowout happening right now. We apologize. We can't comment on that. Joe House is here as always trying to figure out our week 18 picks and other stuff.

Peter Schrager demanded to join us. He's in Tampa Bay in a hotel room. You just, you wanted to be on. Explain why. Why did you have the eye of the tiger? We had such a good experience two weeks ago, but the pang in my stomach and in my heart was No Joe House. And I said it there when we were doing the pod after Ram Cahawks,

No Joe House. Well, we go on, we have a great pod. I mean, they have a favorite pod with you that were done. And just about every text I got was, it was good, but no Joe House. So this week with MVP voting, being done midnight on Sunday and coach of the year voting and a full slate and me being in lovely Tampa for the Panthers, Buccaneers, I'll be the sideline reporter. I begged you, can I get more airtime? And you were so kind to open up the door, just a slipper. And here we are.

Always available. Yeah, so you don't have an MVP vote. I recused myself. You did. Why'd you do that? Did you, do you still have one for NBA? Yeah, I love having one. Zach got rid of his and And I call them a wuss about it every year. I love the responsibility. It became too annoying. Like I had a Hall of Fame. I was a Hall of Fame alternate voter and I would get from like family members of and like it was just a lot.

The MVP thing, once I came over to NFL network, I was like, you know, it's just my ego satiated. I don't, I didn't need to do it. So now I could talk freely. I could throw it any hot take and no one's accusing me of bias or anything. Well, House, you don't have a vote. I don't have a vote I think it's wise

it's probably for the best that I don't have a vote but it's the same thing as the NBA I mean it's like and I'm not knocking any of the voters but people think this is some

you know it's not an algorithm it's not it's not like based on stats it's literally guys like me and guys like Kyle Brandt and I think like

Diana has one like it's not it's really a narrative based thing where there's everyone puts work into it but it's Not like it's such a science. They could go anyway, man.

Well, I think, House, I think you would agree with this. It feels like the NBA MVP matters more. I think to the history of the sport, how we remember things, how we remember seasons. NFL, maybe it's just a blind spot for me, but Brady has a bunch of them. Like, I couldn't tell you whether he has five, six, eight. Three, that's it. I think. Manning has a bunch.

Rogers has a bunch. it's just a little different, whereas like an NBA, I know like, oh, Kobe had his MVP season was 08. Shacks was, do you feel the same way, house? I understand the point that you're making, but I think it's still pretty important in the NFL. It does help. I agree.

I think it is important. I just, but from the history standpoint, do you feel like it matters in the same way? I kind of do. I absolutely do. It still tells us. I'll admit I'm wrong then. It tells us a lot.

I will tell you this. You can define the C. And you can remember the year, like, for example, Monday, I was in Atlanta for Rams versus Falcons. And I head over to the Rams Hotel in the morning just to say what's up to those guys. And Matt Ryan's there. And my son's with me, he's nine years old. And what do I identify Matt Ryan as? Not the guy who lost a Super Bowl, not the guy.

That's fair. That's a former MVP. MVP, Matt Ryan. That's right. Yeah, that's fair. I'm an NBA hole. I guess it's just a blind spot for me. Because you think like with Lamar, he's got his too, right?

And it's a big part of the case And there's some I don't even think It's like rampant speculation at this point It seems like there's some serious Lamar Ravens stuff I thought that piece in the Baltimore Sun last week was pretty illuminating

And had a lot of breadcrumbs coming from the Ravens organization sign But you think like Just saying Lamar Jackson's available versus two-time MVP Lamar Jackson is available It does feel like it has more weight Did you believe that story? Do you believe there's real problems there, Shregs?

Mike Preston's been, you know, working in Baltimore for 30 years and is a respected columnist. That was the first negative piece on Lamar that we've gotten, since Lamar has gotten there, especially from the Baltimore media. So look, I think everyone's pointing the finger at everyone, but I believe that organization is fully behind Lamar Jackson as their quarterback. So you don't think he's available this spring? I do not. What do you think, House? Why would he be available? How can you do any better than Lamar fucking Jackson?

Like, what are we talking about? There's like, you know, eight good quarterbacks in the entire NFL and four that are MVP level. And he's one of them. Like, the whole thing is nonsense to me. It seems incredible. Did a leg, did his leg fall off in the meantime? There is some running QB stuff that I think, if you look at the history of this, we have, I feel that, by the way, the same way about Victor Wominjama and tall basketball players.

There's some stuff with the history of the When you think about running QBs Like the hits that they just take the wear and tear Of that position Ralph Samson You know like there's a similar comparison Yeah man Like there's

Carey is the most successful tall guy we've ever had But there's been a lot of tall guys Who their careers were ended up short It's just there's a You know It's like a very tall building That you have to worry about With running quarterbacks in the NFL

You can talk about how Michael Michael Vic eventually went off a cliff. You can talk about Dante Culpepper, like famously, like falling off the cliff. The question will be whether Lamar can be a pocket passer. I would say Cam Newton. I'm just talking about the accumulation of hits, which I think for quarterbacks, running backs, tight ends.

But you could say that would be the case for sacks, too, right, Triggs? Yeah. If somebody took a bunch of big sacks, Stafford's an outlier in this respect. I don't understand why he's all the hits he took in the lions. The fact that he's still kicking is pretty crazy. Yeah, but then there's a bunch of. there's David Carr and there's, you know,

those guys that got the shit kicked out of them early Jim Punkett. And it eventually takes its toll. One more thing on the MVP, I don't know if the NBA is like this, but you have to fill out a ballot one to five and you rank them. And your first place is five points. Your second place is three points. Your third place, whatever, so it goes down. So even if a guy gets a lot of first place votes,

if there's a guy who's just swept all the second place votes, that guy might be the MVP, which makes it interesting because first team all pro could be very different than MVP, which is a head scratcher in itself, same voters. This has happened a couple of times in the NBA, most famously with Charles Barkley, I think in 1990, where he had the most first place votes, but I think he finished third.

Who got it, Magic? Yeah, Magic got it because he had the totality of the votes, I think. But it was the same thing where he just was on more the ballots. I don't mind it. So it's relatively the same though the way they count it. House, you have no dog in this race.

Drake May, after the Matthew Stafford falling apart game on Monday night, Drake May was minus 700 on Fandole one point. Now he's minus 340. And he's going to win the MVP unless they lose to Miami, I think is how this plays out. Do you think Drake May is

MVP house? I disagree with you. I don't think he's going to win in the MVP. I don't think it's a fate of complete. I think it's going to be razor thin. And I do want to take advantage of this moment that we have with Shregs to give us, let's illuminate exactly what we're talking about here. He hinted at it a tiny bit there. It is voters. It's mostly media folks, right, Pete? Yep. Mostly media folks. Just call him Pete. Nobody's ever called him Pete. He's not a Pete. We'll take it. We're boys. We're boys. I feel like I can go a lot of way with Shregs here.

Pete Sampras, Pete Schrager. He's four sitting here together. It's a great, happy New Year 2020. Usually you do like PS or you have like some sort of like, anyway, go ahead. But let's shed some light on this. Because I do think that the voting constituency is important to, I mean, in the first place, the betting odds, this market is insane to me.

The idea that, you know, the implied probability of Drake May at minus 3.4, is like, you know, well north of 80%. And Matthew Stafford, you know, in the whatever, 15. I don't think it's those probabilities line up in any way, shape, or form. Because you said this your own self. It's a narrative kind of vote. Who has Bill Simmons just made the case? Who's taking more hits in his career and still playing at an absolute near MVP low?

Matthew Stafford. This is, if this is going to be an award where we recognize, in a year where nobody's really distinguished themselves a career achievement, then that's Matthew Stafford. Because Drake May is going to have his turn. He's going to have his chances down the road. And when you do the strength of schedule stuff

and you see it all over the Twitter machine, even when you put common opponents, performance versus common opponents, it's a lot closer. When Drake May beat the Falcons and Matthew Stafford didn't, we talked to stuff like that? You mean the missed extra point that the Falcons, the buffoonery, out of the Falcons,

the worst special teams in all of football, yes, yes, that is, that is one difference. I never remember strength of schedule being this important to an MVP race before because there's nothing else you can ding Drake Mayan other than, oh, you haven't played enough people. It's not his fault. He's playing, first of all, how many actual good defenses are there, Shreggs? Well, you got Denver, Denver, Houston, and Seattle. Those are your three good.

And maybe Philly of Philly's healthy, right? Yeah, Philly's pretty good. So he hasn't played those four teams. But other than that, like, if people. played San Francisco, guess what? Drake May would have put up awesome stats against San Francisco. If he had played, pick all the playoff teams,

there's a bunch of them that he would have had really good stats on. You go through the advanced metrics. It's so convincing for May, it's almost like you have to look twice because the other piece that everybody forgets, this is what I was texting you about Shreggs. Not to sound like a Boston homer. I honestly think this is crazy.

His legs. The rushing. May has over 400 rushing yards. He's rushed for four TDs. He's rushed for 35 first downs. He's kept plays alive. I sent you all these EPA stats where Pat's have the number one offense by EPA. May's at the top in every category or in the top three in EPA. And then you look at like protection. And the Rams are top three. The Pat's offensive lines like 26. Mays had to scramble like on 10% of his place. Stafford's had to

scramble like on 2%. Like May is running for his life in a lot of these games. He's threading the needle on these long bombs. He's had 12 of the greatest throws I've seen in the history of the Patriots this season. And Matthew Stafford has Puka Nakua, the best receiver in the league, who catches five-yard passes and runs for 60. He's had Devante Adams for most of the season. He's a much better offensive line.

He plays indoors. He's Sean McVeigh. Like, what are we talking about? If you switch these two guys, if you switch them on different teams, are you telling me Drake May would have worse stats than Matthew Stap? Stafford? Like, are people really think this? So House nailed it when he first said the thing about the betting odds and the lines and the odds makers. Throw that shit out the window. They have no insight on this. None. They can speculate.

But I will tell you this, Monday night, I'm in Atlanta, and I'm doing the rounds, whatever. I'm kissing babies, doing my thing. And some fan comes up to me and is like, Shregs, Matthew Stafford, minus $4.50 for the MVP. This is before the game. And he goes, how much should I put on it? I go, whatever, move on. At halftime, after three interceptions and being down 21-0, he was second in the odds to Drake May, who is now the favorite.

That's how turbulent this is. Now, I would also add- Matthew Stafford sucked in the game. He was terrible. And by the way, not a small game. I'm going to give it to you because of the narrative part. So why I mentioned that thing with narrative. We're all journalists, or it's Boomer Osias and Troy Aikman.

It's people in media who are voting on this thing. We love a story. And as much as you're giving the EPA numbers, and you're saying strength of schedule shouldn't matter, it never has, we're looking for a story. So for Stafford, two primetime games in a row, his team lost. In a game where it was a easy slam dunk, going to Atlanta, his home, you know,

he's got all these friends from UGA, pretty comfortable setting, indoors. 21-0-0-1-5, looked awful. Offensive line was a nightmare, but he got sacked a bunch of times through the three-picks. The voters right there are like, oh, it doesn't feel right in a big spot to say he's the most valuable player.

Now, Drake May has only played really two big games, and he won one of them on Sunday night before anyone was even, like, attuned to any of this stuff. And then when they're up 21-0-0 in a game that everyone's watching, no fault to his own, he dropped the ball. They have nothing to gain

the two of them the next two weeks, the next week. So the next week, so Africa, they're for 6,000 yards against the Cardinals. The pets have something to gain this week because the Miami game is sneaky

and they got to lock down the two seed. Yes, they have the two seed, but the one seed with Trey Lance starting is probably going to go to Denver. So I don't think they have anything more that Drake May can do. And the stats last week against Brady Cook and the Jets,

they look great on paper, but the voters aren't like blown away. The guy that I'm going to insert, right here because it's not a two horse race and on Fanduil or Draft Kings or one of them, it was 500 to 1 last week is the running back out of San Francisco

Christian McCaffrey who in two back to back primetime games has been unbelievable. He's 500 to 1 on Fandle. 500 to 1. So I'm telling you now, don't believe any, if he against that defense in Seattle in a third straight prime time game goes

for like 200 yards, has two touchdowns. We're going to lose House. House is going to leave the pod so he can go bet on this. I'm telling you, I have another screen. Remember this narrative, narrative. Everyone in America is going to be watching that Seattle, San Francisco game. Nobody in America is watching Arizona Rams. The last taste they have in their mouth, whether you think it's fair or not,

is a three interception game against the Falcons. And for poor Drake May, the schedule thing matters in that. It's kind of like, yeah, that's been the story all season, but he didn't really do any slam dunk stuff to us in the big spots. In the one big spot, they go up a 21-point lead. I have a massive counter and everything Shraig said, but I need House's take

on everything Shraig said first. I agree with everything that he just said. Oh, fuck you, House. I don't have a rebuttal. Like, the problem for Drake May is they just played one of the easiest schedules in the last 30 years. How's that his fault?

It's not. It's not about fault. It's a narrative award. That's all. Because they're jerks. All right. If you pumped it into an algorithm and all this stuff,

you might say it's a no-brainer, but you could also say it's a no-brainer for Stafford. The fact of the matter is there is a small window for a door number three, and we haven't given this award to a running back since 2012. And if you're comparing Sequin to McCaffrey, last year Sequin season was better. But Lamar and Josh Allen had historic seasons. Do you think Drake May, I know it's been a great story,

do you think it's an all-time historic season from a quarterback? Well, I've watched every snap of Drake May's career. his team was terrible last year. It couldn't have been worse. It couldn't have been worse coached. The offensive line was bad. He had no weapons at all. He dragged them to 4 and 13.

I don't know how they won 4 games. Going to this season, look at the receivers and the weapons he has compared to the Rams. Like everybody's like, well, he has Stefan Diggs. Guess who doesn't play every down? Stefan Diggs.

Stefan Diggs runs, I think, 22 routes a game. because they've been, he was hurt last year, they've been really careful about how they use him. So his one weapon, the most reliable guy he has, isn't on the field, maybe 50% of the game. Nobody else he has, you care about other than maybe Hunter Henry. Henderson was the running back who didn't do anything for two months

and then finally came on. Remandre felt like he was going to get waived six months, six weeks into the season. And then the offensive line has been really, really rough, and then he lost his left tackle. And he lost his right tackle. And all he's done is just carried the team and been incredible week after week.

And I don't know why that doesn't matter. When you talk about narrative, Shragues, we've had this narrative with like the young QB turning into a guy. Mahomes, Lamar. Yeah, second year. Mahomes at 18. Lamar and 19.

Dan Marino, second year. Rogers 2011, although that team was awesome that year. Kurt Warner 2000 or 99. When we've had the, I'm now here. I'm now one of the guys that sometimes has been rewarded with the MVP. But the bigger thing to me that I can't believe isn't part of this, the Rams are fucking six seed. The MVP always comes from the one seat or the two seed.

We've kind of established that. Like shielded his MVP pod before that. He did another one halfway through the air and ringer NFL. And it's like you have to pick the pool of candidates who will either be the one or the two seed because that's who usually wins. So if the, if the paths are a two seed and Stafford's a six seed, then what are we arguing about? His schedule was tougher and he threw for more passing touchdowns because he's Pooka Naku on his team. And Devante Adams, if you, this is what we use for the NBA.

House and I have used this forever. Switch to players, what happens? What happens if Stafford's on the Patriots? What happens? With the offensive line they have without the weapons, with the new offensive coordinator, does he do as well as Drake May did? I don't think he does. I mean, the argument could also be pushed back to you

and say that last year's Patriots were awful. They also spent more money than any team did in the history of free agency this offseason. Yeah, finally. We didn't spend money for 20 years. I know, I'm not. It's just that it's not like it's the same roster. It's not barren.

Like they're getting Trayvon Diggs. They didn't spend money on anything. Kraft, hey, do you have another $500,000? No, I don't. Sorry. The keg is tapped. I just made myself a coffee so I'm fucking flying right now I'm fired up too I just walked off a plane I got a lot of caffeine going through right now I want to ask Shrek's this

if indeed the McCaffrey thread you know sort of rises to the four who does that hurt more does it hurt Drake Mays candidacy or does it hurt Stafford right we have a third party candidate who's going to siphon away some boats good we both none of us here think that that McAfrey is going to win I don't, I mean, I can't imagine, right? Well, running back, when was the last running back? 2012, Adrian Peterson. It was Adrian Peterson, right. So I think that impacts, so if the Niners win, and we're going to do picks in a second,

the Niners win on Saturday night. Saturday night, right? Yeah, Saturday night. With everyone watching stand-alone game. I personally think that should flip coach in the year. Braybo's the favorite right now. Brabo's been amazing. He took a shit team.

that was really even worse than 4 and 13 and turned them into what he turned them into this year and completely changed it. What Shanahan did with that San Francisco situation is bonkers. Bonkers. This is where I even have money on Brable, and I think if they win the one seat, I think Shanahan should win coach of the year.

And this is like Brable's had done one of the best coaching jobs I've ever seen of any Boston team from a first year guy. I just can't believe the Niners are even eight. in this. It's impossible. I had the Niners two weeks ago in Indianapolis and I had breakfast with Robert Sala at the team

hotel beforehand. What a fucking name drop from Pete. Pete. Sneaky Pete. Doing it again. For Pete's sake. For Pete's sake. Here's a name drop. Did you throw that one at the producers yet? I've been trying. I've been pushing. Sneaky Pete's good. Anyway, I need to go ahead.

Anyway, we need like a sound something from like a radio when I do a name drop. Sneaky P. Yeah. And, you know, he was like so proud of these guys. And then I'm like, yeah, you know, no Warner, no Bosa, no McKell Johnson, who is their, you know, their rookie. And I'm like, I don't know a single player on their defense.

They have Ken White who we gave to them for like a conditional seventh round pick. He plays every down. Like you go, and it's not me insulting. Like, Bryce Huff is their top pass rusher. Yeah. And that's not an insult to him. It is completely the truly no-name defense. And they're not exactly the 2,000 Ravens or the 76 Steelers.

But when they have to, they make a stop. And they did that with the De Winters pick six. And then, of course, last week with Caleb, where I hated the hook and ladder call because it eats up all the clock. And then all of a sudden they're scrambling. But either way, that Niners team has been so ravaged by injuries that I think it has to go to. they were on like backup defensive backs on top of all the best guys

they lost. That guy, Williams was awesome. I bet on him for defensive rookie the year before the year. Did I say Johnson? I met Williams, yeah, or whoever. Well, whatever. And then you have offensive line injuries. You have the quarterback switcheroo. You have some of the close games they've won.

How is this? Like, how much money have you lost on the Niners this year? I actually haven't been once out of the other with the Niners. Yeah. Yeah, that's, yeah, you have been I haven't been jumping in there too much. But Bill, I think there might be like

seven worthy contenders. It's not a two horse race in that conversation. How do you tell, how do you tell like Ben Johnson that, no, you're not in this? Oh, for coach of the year. Yeah. Liam Cohen, the Jaguars.

So I would have Liam Cohen third right now. First year coach, first year offensive coordinator, first year defensive coordinator, first year gym. Rehabilitated a guy that we needed to give it up on. Rehabilitated, And save that man's career.

Save Trevor Lawrence's career. Yeah. Mike McDonald and Seattle, if they're the one seed, after firing the offensive coordinator after one year and bringing in Sam Darnold or like suddenly they're the one seat. It's, and Sean Payton has an argument too with that Russell Wilson salary cap hanging over that team and they're the one seed. It's a great year.

I mean, any other year, there's usually two coaches and it's like the team that came from nowhere to win. This year, I think there's six or seven. Like DeMico Ryan has an argument. It's a good year for it. well also a great year for the new coach theory house one of our futures staples we had jaggs pats don't tell jets fans that no what was the third one there's and uh there's jaggs pat chicago that was the premise for i love the pats every over i like the chicago overs the jaggs were the

one i couldn't get behind because the lawrence and the lawrence that we've seen the last couple weeks we'll see this week this we'll talk about it when we get to the picks this jayette's Aguars, Tennessee game is like pulsating as like a stayway to me. Throw it in every parlay. You feel great. Oh, yeah, and the Jags Money Line. And then, you know, Cam Ward hits somebody for a 78-yard touchdown. Lawrence throws a pick six.

It's 14-0. It's just something scares me. I think you made a really good case for McCaffrey. Just because of the quarterback's not grabbing us. Yeah. Also, like, what he was doing in that last game where he's clearly not 100% either. He's going to be what? Isn't he over 400 touches house?

400 touches? Yeah. That's like 400 plus touches is nuts. A thousand receiving yards. It doesn't seem like he's going to quite get there. He's got 890. Yeah. It's like what we were talking about with the Lamar thing.

Like when you're up on the 400 touches for a running back, whoever, it's just not a long shelf life after that. I remember when Aaron Schatz wrote about that, he called it the Curse of 370 about running backs. That's cool. And the running back that he wrote it about, I can't remember who it was. It was like Priest Holmes, Jamal Lewis, somebody. And he wrote the piece and the guy's career died in like a year. And it was like, we think this is the number. So I feel that same way about these quarterbacks that take big hits.

And then McCaffrey, like he's not going to be playing football in three years. Do you think? Well, see if he's healthy. I mean, I'm watching Derek Henry still run for 200-something yards. He's a physical freak. I don't, can we compare anyone to Derek Henry? Jim Brown. I played Madden with my son, who now can just kick the shit out of me and Madden.

I'm actually going to have to go, it's like Rocky 3. I'm going to have to go back in the lab, get the eye of the tiger back. He put Derek Henry in a shotgun and just ran direct QB draws with Henry, was stiff harming Robert Spillane, who's slower in the video game than he is in real life somehow, and was just cackling as he kicked my ass. And I'm like, Derek Kedry is like eternal as a video game guy, much less a football guy. All right. So you have McCaffrey.

What's your ranking right now? You don't have a vote. So you could tell us, one, two, three. I'd probably go Stafford May McCaffrey. I can't believe the staff. What would you have, House? Same. Same.

Stafford's numbers are astounding. You need both Baltimore. He is Pooka Nuccoon, Devante, Adam. How does that not Trump's strength of schedule? BS, you need Baltimore and Carolina to win. so that the Patriots have three wins over winning teams. Right now they have one win over a winning team this season. We play who's in front of us.

I understand that. That, that's, you know. I hate the strength of schedule stuff too, Bill, but it's literally the easiest strength of schedule in the league. And Stafford has the hardest strength of schedule of all the playoff teams in the league. I hate that it's becoming. It's like the 17th tiebreaker, but they're neck and neck. But here's the thing.

I get confused with strength of schedule versus defenses you've, played, I think, are two different arguments. That's fair. There's only four defenses that have mattered this year. And how many of them has he actually... Did the Rams play Denver? They did? No. They didn't. No. But they played the Texans. They played the Texans.

They played not a huge production game. He played the Eagles. He played the Eagles pretty early. Put up 26 on them. If he wins the MVP as a six-seed, that would be different than anything that's happen with the MVP that I can remember. He's a five seed because that's still in play.

The wild card guys don't usually win the whatever. And here's my last case for my Drake May argument. It's like third and 70 on Monday night. And they have to run a player where they, where somebody catches it out of bounds. Stafford throws it. Pooka Naku is so good. He saves it.

He almost makes the greatest catch in the history of football. And actually makes the catch but didn't get a second foot in. This is who he gets to throw to every week. the play before Xavier Smith was open and Stafford missed them. Yeah. I think Stafford's been good. I would have voted for him two weeks ago. I even thought maybe

last week I would have voted for him. I know. All right. I might change my vote. I might. Honestly, I might. You made a great case. I just think to switch to teams, how does the guy do? I think matters in this. And the fact that May can move around and Stafford can't, you can't say Stafford throws the ball better than May.

You can't. If you watch May all year, you can't say anyone's throwing the ball better than him this year. His completion numbers are insane. He's complete 72% of his passes, but he's

also like nailing deep throws and he's throwing the guys that mostly aren't really open. Stafford also had two awful halves. I mean, that Falcon's half

was awful. And the first half against the Panthers was horrendous. Yeah. It's hard for me to say that's an MVP season. I'm with you.

It's hard. It's so difficult. I'm so glad I don't have a vote. But I also hope that the voters put as much time and thought into it as the three of us are right now

because I don't know if they do. Yeah, this is going to be a two-hour pod now. You know what really annoys me? House pretending he cares about the history of the NFL MVP. House, who won the 1997 NBA MVP? You know it? 97. It was the year after MJ left.

I don't know. Carl Malone. Remember, yeah, Carl Malone one. Who won the 1997 NFL MVP? Nobody knows. I'll tell you right now. Farv, I could do it. Yeah, Farv.

I could do it. Ask me NBA. Who won in 2002? What, NFL? Yeah, NFL MVP, 2002. Manning. Rich Gannon. Da!

That's the thing with the NFL MVP has some stinkers. Oh, come on. Let's be fair. I'll do respect to Rich Gannon, but come on. We have Steve Nash on back-to-back MVP. Matt Ryan, right there. Back-to-back Steve Nash. Shack was in the fucking league.

Let me just remind everybody. Yeah, that was tough. All right, we'll take a break, and then we'll do picks. Shrags, I thought of another name. for your running ESPN segment. Shrags to riches. Dude, I love it. It would be like your name, but two riches,

and it'll be like you as like a rich guy and then a poor guy, just like a pauper. Popper on the street. Shrags to riches. We need two riches. They already have a rich. Eisen. Can you get rich Paul?

There's two riches right there. A bunch of riches. The best one, what was the one we said was the best one? Peter's Principles. Oh, no, there was another one. What was the one where you're doing this? For Pete's sake Can Alabama play defense?

It's like his you've been must For Pete's sake Where's Christian McCaffrey in the MVP odds guys 5001 for Pete's sake Why didn't Mickey Rojas His moment win moment of the year What are we doing? Before we do picks

Any other topics you want to hit? Yes I just watched this Indiana team kick the shit out of Alabama, 38 to 3 in the Rose Bowl. I wanted to... I had money on the house. I want to present two-prong question you. One, what is the comp for what this Signetti has done with the Indiana program? Is there one?

And two, if you're an NFL team, are you not breaking down the doors to get this Signetti as your next head coach if you're one of these teams that are looking to hire a culture center? There's three culture setter college coaches right now, right? We're moving Lane Kiffin because you just took the job. Lanning. Lanning, Notre Dame guy, and then Indiana guy. Freeman's going back for sure. Freeman's already re-upped and did some new contract in.

But those would be the three guys you would go after. Indiana signed Signetti to an eight-year deal, but like the money to me is when NFL Colton's calling, like these guys listen. Well, it's interesting that there's no kick-ass candidate this year. There's not. Because even last year it was like basically you knew the Vrable sweepstakes were coming. Well, Ben Johnson and Brable were huge names.

This year, so I'll tell you, because I talked to these folks, the four names you're going to get are Jesse Minter, the defensive coordinator for the Chargers, Jeff Halfley, the defensive coordinator for the Packers, Chris Shula, defensive coordinator of the Rams.

These are the hot names. And then, of course, you'll get, you know, other guys that have coached before or whatever, we'll go through it. But, like, this is not last year where it's Ben Johnson lighting up the league and it's Vrable and it's the whole thing. So this is the perfect year for a team to think outside the box and say, you know what, fuck it. I just watch this Indiana coach in two years bring this team from the most decrepit program in sports to one of the best coached most disciplined teams. I would, I would, I'm going to go young here. I would throw the bag at them. Well, I would have said Atlanta was going to have a job open,

but Rahim's fighting and keep the job. It's one of the teams that were in a cover. Oh, Lord. Rehams is in control of the NFC South. Here's my question. My question is, who is the last great from college directly into the pros to make an impact on the professional team? Yeah.

And Harbaugh almost doesn't count because he was. NFL quarterback. Chip went to the playoffs his first year, but he wasn't sensational after that. Well, he was sensational this year as the Raiders offensive coordinator, but it's a different use of sensational. Somebody hired him again.

Northwestern hired him. Didn't they watch him work with his magic with Vegas? Yeah, to me, it's apples and oranges. The best one ever with this was Spurrier who took over House this team. That was. Forget what year that was. 2001.

And we knew it was done when it talked about how he worked from May to 4. So you could go play. And he wanted to go play golf. Play golf. Yeah. He had to be out of the facility by four. We were like, this guy's fucked.

He brought in work. He's going to get 60 hours a day. It's over. Very relatable. I understand where Steve's coming from. Yeah. I'm an 84 guy. With the comparison with Signetic,

the name that I thought of, and I bring it to you because you guys are obviously sports aficionados and Bill, especially you as a connect guy. Jim Calhoun with Yukon is what I came up with. Or Gino, I guess, would be the other one. if Gino had done the crossover like Bill Snyder at Kansas State just out of nowhere

yeah that I remember House had another one Leonard Hamilton they hired for the whiz from where University of Miami or somewhere he ended up at Florida State with a tremendous run like a year after year of super competitive teams at Florida State

he just turned out to be as a college guy Jimmy Johnson's pretty good oh shit thinking about those those are yeah they're going way back yeah yeah I think if for NFL, I would rather take a chance on a guy who's two or three years too young than do a college guy. That's your Chris Yula argument. I think there's a higher success. Now, there's always

like Rahim Morris at Tampa where he was like too young. He was 30. Yeah. But there's some other examples of getting the guy early and you'd rather be early than late. Because at least you know, like it's like a 15, six an hour job. What do you think is the best job that's going to be available out of all the jobs? Well, we at the first decide which ones are available because I think there's a couple wild cards right now. I think we know the Giants and we know the Titans. Like, I have no assurance that Atlanta is going to be available. I have no assurance that Mike McDaniels coming back to the dolphins. And I have no assurance that Pete Carroll's out. Well, yeah, that Pete Carroll and then Stefansky, I think, is a wild card tip. Yeah. So out of those teams of the maybes,

and then, you know, if Tampa loses, people here, I'm reading the local newspaper when I was coming down here. I didn't even think of Todd Bowles, where people are like, how could you lose this season? Like, that's a total wild card if the glazers decide, you know what? Let's start anew. We got Baker or whatever. If Todd Bowles loses this game on Saturday,

that's got to be it for him. He's won four straight division titles. I know, but you lose eight of nine to end the year with a pretty talented roster. I don't know. What do you think, house? How does he come back after that? Yeah, and to me, it's not an if. I don't think about Tampa

this weekend as if they lose. You think no chance, huh? Oh, house. They haven't covered in nine games. I mean, what evidence is there? The vibes like bad, Shregs. You're there. Your feet on the ground. Well, we had our meeting with the

Buccaneers today on via Zoom and obviously you're going to get the optimistic team, but Baker said, I don't know if I'm revealing anything. You know, it's like there's rules against what you can share. So here I am. Baker said, he's like, you know, We've had control of our own destiny since week one.

Suddenly we don't. So today's vibe at practice was good. It was like loose. It was like, fuck it. Let's just go and let's go do our thing. Like the pressure of losing that. Finally, they've lost that. Carolina now controls their own destiny.

So they're going to play loose. Hoping to get back, Collijah Cancy, hoping Tristan Werf's plays. And if you know either one of those guys, if they're hoping they're, I imagine they're both going to be on the field, that's a better team than they had last week. I think Baker is like house I'll get this because he's an actual hockey fan

when the hockey playoffs the series ends and the team gets eliminated and it's like Brad Marsham was playing with a torn labrum and five broken ribs you'll find that out after and a herniated disc at his back and it's just like all these injuries you didn't know I can't wait to find out what Baker's injuries were he has at least two

there might be something wrong with both of his shoulders and there's something wrong with one of his legs he can't move anymore and he's not accurate anymore I don't want to be a dick but like you know the gentle response to Baker is it's not suddenly you're you you're two and eight

over your last 10 games it didn't happen all all of a sudden there were many many many winnable games in there wait we're gonna we're doing oh god they were six and two and they beat the 49ers

the Texans and they beat Seattle in Seattle can you imagine they're missing the playoffs and it's crazy I want to get to the picks but when we're talking about the coaching vacancies, let's just assume more jobs are going to be available than you think. Last year, Vrable, who I think could have had his pick,

was like, I want to coach Drake May. And I think he even used the Jets as like, you know, a little bit of a straw man because he was trying to get craft to get to the right place and was using a lot of people behind the scenes to hopefully get craft to see the late. And he did, and it worked out great. What do you think is the best job that might be available? because I think it's probably Baltimore.

Ooh, wow. If the Ravens lose on Sunday night or if they get killed in round one and they decide to stick with Lamar, something's got to change. And Harbao's been there forever. You could argue, new coach, he can see it differently.

I would say Baltimore, would you say somebody else? I know you're going to say this is the bias in me, but there's a team with an elite pass rush, a franchise quarterback, and a left tackle on the roster in New York with Leak Neighbors at Wide Receiver,

you can argue that you step into that and the roster is there and you can be a lot further along than some of these other teams that have salary cap Hill. Another top four pick. Another top four pick, maybe a top two pick. Like, Giants is, and it's that logo and it's that market. People do gravitate towards that.

I mean, Harbaugh and for the Giants, it makes sense to me. And I honestly, Pete, Pete, you know this. I'm calling you Pete, because this is, you. I've never been called Pete in my life. Your boy. Cliff Kingsbury, Maine, I don't know about Cliff Kingsbury here in Washington. I don't know that that's a lifetime.

They didn't sign them to a lifetime contract. Did you see the stat, Washington, the schedule makers gave them eight stand-alone games this year. Oh, and eight in those games. Oh, I'm watched. David, when they do the schedule, And by the way, I would even say this with my own team, although I think we're set up a little better than Washington was, because Washington had an old roster.

There were some predictable pieces about it. But they should take into account the year after when you went from the super easy schedule to, my dad and I were talking about the past schedule next year the other day, and we were like, oh, my God. The check is coming. It sure is. For everything that happened.

Cincinnati's mildly interesting, but they've won our last four, and they'll probably, they're cheap, I can't see them paying two coaches, but I think they'll keep it, they kept Marvin Lewis all those years. I want to go back. So Cliff, you're saying out, you would say he'd be a head coaching candidate or you would say that, what, the offensive? Yeah, because there's no head coaching candidates. Yeah, there's, offensively. Atlanta is an incredible situation. Atlanta is amazing on both sides of the ball.

Holy shit, that's a good team. I couldn't agree with Housemore. I think that's the perfect talent. If they could play any special teams whatsoever. They're the stupidest. How are they not a 10 and 5, 10 and 16 team right now? Who's your quarterback? And they traded next year's first round pick for another pass for. They don't have a first round pick. So who's your quarterback?

Malik Willis. Lamar Jackson. You guys are the best. Two greats. Two great answers. I agree. I think Atlanta has a ton of talent. They're very good on both sides of the ball.

It's ridiculous that they're not going to be the winners of the NFC South. I can't believe they're not going to win it. They don't get a lot of credit as like a fervent fan base. That place was rocking if they just had a team. that could, like, I mean, it was amazing those years when they were going with Julio and Matt Ryan and all that. That place was on fire on Monday night

and gosh, if Lamar was their quarterback and Bijan in the backfield, are you serious? When my team played them, first of all, they were way scarier. Like, to me, they felt like an 11-win team when we were playing them. They beat Buffalo. And we couldn't stop.

Was terrified of Robinson. You know, it just It's just hard to believe. You watched them last week at the Rams. I was scared of that game all week because I had had the Rams in a money line. I didn't have doing a giant hedge the other way, but it felt like just a live spot for Atlanta. And yet they went full Atlanta in the game.

The game was over. All of a sudden, it wasn't. All of a sudden, it seemed like they were going to blow it. Yep. It's classic. I have seven games to discuss for Ringer 107, and I'm just going to list the games. And if there's a game missing, tell me. Bucks Panthers, Falcon Saints, Seahawks 49.

Ravens Stalers. We have to talk about those four. I want to talk about Bengals Browns because I have some hard thoughts on that. Vikings Packers and Chiefs Raiders were the seven I was looking at for picks. Is there anything else house? I wonder about the bills.

So Alan's sitting, I don't know what the Jets motivations are, Mitch Trubisky. Doesn't it matter to the bills, though? Wouldn't they prefer? I think they can go from five to six, right? Or seven? Yeah, wouldn't they, it's a, it's a question.

I'll put it. It's a high line, though, so I don't know even what you do with it. I mean, tease it. That's one thing you could do. I know, but we can't do that for Reno, 107. I, before we even get into it, week one, my old colleague and dear friend Kyle Brandt on a good morning football used to say, week one is a liar. Stay away, no matter what.

You don't know what the hell we're getting. Stay away. I think week 18 is a liar as well. I have no, you have no idea what teams with nothing to gain are going to come out and play with their hats on fire, like the dolphins did to the Patriots all those years and those meaningless, you know, you don't know,

but I like to find teams that have something to play for and play in those parameters. I don't know what the hell to do with Chiefs Raiders. Well, so the case you just laid out is actually the case for this game because we do know what one of the teams

wants to do. That's right. That's right. That's right. And the Chiefs are five and a half. It's in Vegas. The Raiders points the last eight weeks.

They scored 7, 16, 10, 14, 17, 0, 21 in the Houston game, which included a pick six, and then 10 against the Giants. And my question is, is it just Casey Moneyline parlayed with an under 42 and a half thinking the Raiders can't score more than 10 points and the chiefs have Michael Oloa Kandi as their quarterback? Is that just a game we should be looking at, knowing that Vegas is not going to try to win the game? They do not want to win.

I don't want to have anything to do with it. I really don't. How many chief starters on defense are going to stay? That's fine. We'll cross it up. You've also seen these games. I mean, I remember the Jets Rams a couple years ago where the team has nothing to play for it but the number one pick,

but the players don't play that way. yeah but they keep sitting all the players that could impact the game i know they must have cut a deal with pete the other pete the other peterrell yeah they must have cut a deal like we're going to get rid of the rest of these games please let's lose we'll get mendoza next year and you could spend some money you can stay and maybe they'll double cross them i don't think tom brady wants that packers packers locked in the seven seed starting clayton tune yep had to sign desmond ritter yep vikings laying seven and a half.

Let's go. One four straight can lock down nine nine and eight for the year? Let's go get it. That's one. That's one. Love. Shrig,

are the Packers playing anybody in this game? No, and their defense has been ravaged to the bone and they're not going to try to play any of those guys on defense, I would imagine, with a playoff game coming up the next week. They just signed Trayvon Diggs, didn't they? They did. I can't imagine.

He ain't tell you in the football field this week. Can't imagine he's going to be picking any two passes. off. My Cowboys fan friends seemed to think he was like genuinely terrible for the Cowboys this year. Is that true? Yeah, there's a lot of stuff apparently. I don't know all the details but there was off the field and on the field.

Okay. Love the Vikings. Who's playing quarterback? I'm going to bowl the Vikings. Do we know? Is it JJ playing or is it? It's our guy as a Brozmer. Is it Brozmer? Is my man, Brosmer? All right. Bengals Browns.

We're on the same side of this one too. I know already. Let me hear. First of all, Cleveland saw this in Aaron Schatz's thing. Cleveland now has the ninth worst DVO offense of all time. And they have the 10th worst special teams of all time. Let's go. Then you have pretty like frisky at home, not always reliable, but frisky and on the road, one of the worst road teams in a while.

You have no Harold fan in this game house. He was like their one target. since he weighted DVOA which they do that it's kind of favors the second part of the year the last two thirds they're 17th they look good last week

this feels like a run it up let's try to end the season with good vibes you know what sucks is yes we are absolutely positively betting the Bengals I'd lay a 7.5 make it 10 and a half I don't give a fuck we're laying all the points 13 and a half fine

whatever you want let's all what happens if they go up 10 Nothing. The Browns are, how are they going to score? No chance. Zero chance. Yeah, we're all spreading the hell out of that with my real pocketbook. But here's what I hate. Here's what I hate the beginning of next season. When we're sitting and looking at how the Bengals finish the season, especially, their defense got much better. Like, from week 10 till now.

It is. It's noticeable when you watch. They actually have a little bit of a pass rush now. They stop the run. They're different. I agree. I don't know the time. Since 2021, they have won by 20 points, two games in a row. Well, they had that crazy Baltimore 24-0 loss.

Yep. Where I actually thought their defense played pretty good. And Burrow, like, single-handly killed the game for them. And was, like, sad to the Smiths Borough. He's happy now. Now he's happy again. There's some, like, Chase Brown has some incentive stuff in this game. There's some money incentive stuff on the Bengals side that you got to watch for.

All right. I'm going to mark that one. Lockstep. Alt spread. Ravens Steelers. Where do you? It feels like a stayaway, but it's also a playoff game, and I feel like cowards, if we're not betting it.

It's Ravens three and a half in Pittsburgh. Winner gets the four seed. Lamar playing. Lamar definitely playing. Yes. The thing for me, House, is the No Mac Halfpiece. and how impotent the Steelers' offense looked without Metcalf.

It was like nothing in the Red Zone works anymore. Plus, they lost a giant tight end. He broke his arm. That's right. Nothing in the Red Zone works for them anymore. They don't get the Rogers third to nine bailout, wrong shoulder throws to Metcalf anymore. This is just out of the offense.

And all you have to do is basically stop the run. And what are they going to do? I don't, Shriggs, I don't see a case here for the Steelers. Okay, let's hear it. Well, there are underdogs, which is always dangerous. Home underdogs. Rogers fucking lives for these moments. Whether you think he's clutching these games or not,

he's not going to lay an egg here. And they were in the same exact situation before they played Baltimore the last time, came out swimming from the jump, and Baltimore didn't have an answer. Like, this is the season on the line. It's Tomlin, it's everything. And last week was horrendous.

And down the stretch, you know, here's what, kills you down the stretch. In February, you go to the combine, you spend $100,000 sending your entire staff there to do scouting. In March, you do free agency. April, you do the draft. You get Rodgers and May. They signed Valdez Scantling a week ago, and he's getting the pass for three straight plays at the end of the game. It's like they were running the MECAF plays for him. They thought he was MECAF, and he hasn't been on the team, and he hasn't been playing football. So that's what now, it's like, all right, take a breath. We're home. T.J. Watt, we'll see if he plays. the hope is he's back

and after he got stabbed Tyrone Taylor style yeah um so I and here's the other part of it it's such a wide open a FC and I know you're saying the Patriots and we're talking about the Broncos and the Texans

it's like I could see the pep talk before the game rogers looking around the quarterback room of the rest of the AFC and seeing Drake May and Bo Nix and Trevor Lawrence and saying are you fucking kidding me like get me in that dance and let's let's see what we can do I've been there And I, you know, so all this stuff is, could be moot if Derek Henry runs for 200 yards and Lamar's running all over them.

But I kind of like the Steelers in this one. Well, that you're supposed to because in the first place, when the line in this series is three points or more and it's three and a half right now, the underdog is 24, five, and three against the spread. And on top of that, as an underdog against the Ravens, Mike Tomlin, 14, 4, and 2 against the spread when the line is three or more. So you're supposed to like the Steelers here. Man, does it hurt? I don't like any aspect of it.

Might be a stayaway. Can I redo the receivers the Steelers had last week? Oh, give me some Scotty Miller. Give it to me. Friarmooth led the team three catches for 63. Scotty Miller was three for 25. Valdez Scantling, three for 21 with nine targets. Three for 21.

Jay Smith? Jonu. Oh, that's Johnny Smith. Forgot he played. Did Adam Thielen get one? Washington, two for 15. And then he broke his arm. He's gone for the year.

Adam Thielen, two for four, three. There's five targets. And then Gainwell, three for 12. Yep. Are you serious? How are they going to move the ball? For Pete's sake. For Pete's sake.

So, House, can I at least offer you a life raft with not having to go against the Steelers as a home dog? Let me hear how you doing? Ravens Moneyline under 50 and a half points gets us eligible for Ringer 107 stuff. They would have to score 51 points to beat us with Steelers team that has no receivers and a Ravens team that's just going to run the ball with Lamar Jackson. I'm not even sure I want to do that. But I'm just The other way we go is Baltimore money line over 32 and a half if you think the game can get to 33 points.

I don't want to do a combination because we just did this. We just did Baltimore. Yeah. How are Malik Willis and Snoop Huntley going to score 50 points? Well, I guess what's the highest scoring game of the season. Yeah, exactly.

So maybe it's a stay away. Yeah. I saw Shragues on ESPN. in his for Pete's sake segment doing the don't count out Aaron Rogers for Pete's sake. It's true. His MVP last year.

Well, the thing is, if they get in, so Rogers is in the locker, I'm like, oh, if there's win this game. Yeah. We get neck half back next week. Home. We can beat every wild card in the league. Let's go.

So there's a case where everyone has money on the Ravens, like everybody. And it's like the classic, like, January Lamar. Can I request something? Followed by what happens in the future. Can I get Chris Collinsworth from you after a crazy Aaron Rogers touchdown pass in the fourth quarter?

Bill, can I get the impression? Mike. I mean, Adam Thieland should have been out of the league five years ago, Mike. Here he is, catching back shoulder balls in the end zone. All right, we could stay away. Seahawks minus one and a half in San Francisco. Winner gets the one seed.

They played in week one. It was San Francisco 17, Seattle 13. And in the sports movie version of this game, Mike McCarthy watches the video of him being a coward. Mike McDonald. Mike McDonald's. Sorry, Mike McCarthy. Mike McDonald watches the video of him cowerting out

and kicking the field goal when he shouldn't have, when he should just gone for the fucking fourth and one kill and costing the game. Now he has a chance to avenge it. I just want to point out, San Francisco has the 27th ranked defense in DBOA. I know we talked about them a bunch earlier. But if there's ever a team to light the wick on Sam Darnold's candle,

it's this Niners defense. Sam Darnold's been under siege a couple games against good defenses. Now finally some space and being able to see things and they'll be able to run the ball. And they have a really good defense, which San Francisco has not faced in a while. I am leaning pretty hard in Seattle here, Shrakes. Nobody has played quarterback better the last two weeks in the NFL than Brock Purdy. I get it.

This offense is as good as- It's as good as anybody has put on the field the last few weeks. And, you know, Seattle's traveling all the way back from Carolina. They have a short week, have to play Saturday night on the road. There's a lot of things to like about San Francisco. And obviously, Do you feel like San Francisco has a home field advantage in that weird Santa Clara stadium?

Yes, that place was rocking last week. I've never seen a football game there. No, and it's not candlestick. Trust me, it's not. But it's also not met life where you walk in and you feel like you're at a dentist's office. I would say the carrot at the end of this thing is the first team ever to be the number one seat

and have a Super Bowl at home. So it's like if we just can win this game, we don't have to sleep in another bed other than our own the entire way and we could be Super Bowl champions. And that's the message there right now. Like, get through this game. One win at a time, but cheese.

House would be the opposite. House would be like, I'd love to be the seven seat. I'm just on the road for a month. This is great. I love living out of hotel rooms. Four straight. That's four different hotel locations. First of all, I don't think anyone needs a carrot in this game.

It's for the number one scene. You have to play in round one. I'm not trying to guess incentives. I'd also add Clint Kubiak, former Shanahan disciple, Sam Darnold Shanahan had him for the year like Shanahan Revivaled them

Yeah rehabilitated them a little bit So there might be a I mean you could say that Okay that means they're going to be okay But or the Niners know what's What the pros and the cons are of that team? Can I add one thing here McCaffrey looked fucking banged up

By the end of that last game That is such an X factor I totally agree with this Number one reason I want to take Seattle That did not seem like the kind of guy who wanted a 35 touch workload in this game. He was doing. So what do you think, Cass? The plank with the stretches where you try and get your hamstrings into your glutes.

He's on the sideline doing that in the end of the third quarter. The poor man, I felt so bad. House and I are old guys. We know all the old guy, bad back moves. We have done all of them. To hit me in the heart, I am pretty strong on Seattle here. I really think that this defense, that can put pressure on without blitzing

and drop guys back into the middle of the field. Brock Purdy lives in the middle of the field. We just watched, and he's going to have kiddle back. But man, every time they need third and sixth, second, he goes right to the middle of the field. And he is incredible at it. But like if you look at the defenses, the success rate of the defenses,

since he came back from injury, all they've done is beat up on questionable defenses. The two best defenses that they've played were Cleveland, who they took care of with, you know, Cleveland being buffoons, and Carolina, who also had their own sort of version of buffoonery. And there were not incredible, like, yards per play numbers or success numbers for the San Francisco offense against those defenses. This is an entirely different level of defense.

And Mike McDonald now, with his ability to put pressure on, especially with Trent Williams the news doesn't seem good if he's out, then give me Seattle all day. So if kiddo playing hurt, we're probably playing. You've McCaffrey playing hurt. If Trent Williams probably not playing, you have a defense

that I'm looking at the Bears last week. They gave up 38 points to the Bears. And by the way, it should have been 45. Caleb Williams kind of gacked that last throw. He did. The guy was open. One of those touchdowns was

a pick six. So it was 31 they gave up, whatever, whatever. But still, they could have had if they score in that last drive, they would have had six scoring drives, five offensive touchdowns. Yes, yes, yes. And there were guys open all over, Luther Burden, by the end of that game, you thought he was Jerry

Wright. Right. So you have they jumping. He's crying. So you have Seattle who can go, they can go big, they can go smaller, they can control the ball. I don't want to bet on Darnold in a playoff game when he's going against an awesome defense.

I'm just telling you now I'm not doing that. Me either. That is a cross-off for me. No, thank you. But when he's going against a flimsy defense, I don't mind Sam Donald. Sam Donald's put up big stats against bad defenses. And I just think with the health tricks, I think you're getting outvoted on this one. Winning in last year's, if they win against Detroit in a big spot, Sam Darnold's team gets the one seat and gets a week off and then can just rest everybody.

and you remember what happened on that Sunday night to Detroit. I'm not, I am a Sam Darnold fan, and I think he is, I mean, look at his wins the last two years. This guy can play. But Purdy in these games. We're getting the Donald Redemption. Brock Purdy's a robot in these games. He is like from another planet.

He is, he's Terminator 2. I don't know, man. I look at the quarterbacks. I look at the coaches. I look at the big game experience. Give me San Francisco. at home. Pretty good.

Pretty good argument. We'll see who's right, because House and I are jumping on Seattle. Jumping on them. Atlanta and the Saints. Such a fun game. Two best teams in the NFC South. Unbelievable.

If Atlanta wins, Carolina quenches the NFC South. Now, Carolina and Tampa, that's the last game we're talking about. I love the Falcons in this game. When they scratched, I love them before they scratched a lobby. when they scratched Elavis,

he had to be kidding me. Because I've actually watched a lot of the Saints. House and I have quietly been betting Saints games and mostly in the Saints. They lost Veilay, who was actually

really coming on for them. And then everything moved to Alabe, who all of a sudden looked like a top five guy again. Now he's out. I just, there are no weapons anymore. And Tyler Shuck,

it's like, I didn't know how he was doing it to begin with. And then this Atlanta team, this would just be the most Atlanta game ever to beat the Saints. by the way, with the Saints, like, they proved what they want to prove.

They have hope for next year. Like, it actually makes sense for them not to care about this game. I love Falcons by three. This is a classic Falcons game house. What do you think? Shregs, I want you to help us because the only thing that concerns me is that Shuck has played his way legitimately into the offensive rookie of the year conversation. He's winning it.

It's over. He won. Wow. Wow. Well, there you go. Who would be the alternative? Everybody has, it's Ted. You know, Ted.

Ted? No, it's shock. I'm just telling you, like, I'll look at the market while we're talking this through. I thought they were, they're like co-favits right now. Right. This is what I mean. So, but Shreg's tell us. By the way, I left that one case for, I left that one case for Atlanta Shriggs.

Yeah. They're not their first round pick. No, I know. They've nothing to, there's no tanking here. And their coach is below. They literally have nothing to play for. And their coach is trying to keep his job. And they love him. The players love him because he's the nicest guy in the world. Yeah. And I also think they have way more talent.

than the Saints as good as House's on buddy Chase Young has been. You made a great point, though. They've proven what they wanted to. I could see them saying, all right, that was awesome. There also is a big difference between a fourth place schedule going into 2026, 2027, and a third place schedule. That's not like to be dismissed out of hand. There's a bunch of injuries.

You keep seeing defensive guys for the Saints on the injury list. Like, you know, we're doing this on Thursday night. So we'll have to see how that that plays out. Because the defense has quietly been the thing that they're, you know, they've covered five straight games and won four outright. And they've been good in second halfs and stuff too. Yeah, they're like shut down drafts. Yeah.

So I'm looking at the stats from last week. They beat Tennessee by eight. Olavio was eight for 11 targets. The next guy was Joanne Johnson had four targets. Pettus had three. Austin Jr. with five. Madaveo with two. I mean, they got no guys.

If Atlanta can't win this game, give me a break. The other thing, it's just the most NFC South thing ever if Tampa beat Carolina and then got knocked out by Atlanta. It's just like... No, I think it's the other way around. It's just hilarious. They need Atlanta to lose, right?

Who? Tampa needs Atlanta to lose. Yes. But it would be hilarious if Tampa won and then Atlanta won and they got knocked out even though they won but I think the Carolina Bucks game I know where house is going

I'm sorry I have to make sure no we're not messing up if Atlanta wins Carolina clinches the NFC South no matter what happens in Carolina yeah that's right every Buccaneers fan is a Tyler Shuck fan yes that's right that's what I said to myself to get this right yep

Bucks minus 3 Panthers is the last one This is an I'm so stupid game because no matter what happens if you're on the wrong side after this game, you tell yourself how stupid you are. Bucks, we covered all this stuff with them.

We saw this game in week 16, Carolina 23, Tampa 20. It felt like Tampa should have won the whole game and they just kept doing dumb shit. Carolina kept having drives. And then as House loves to point out, House's favorite zigzag team, the Carolina Panthers.

Good and week seven. Bad. Win, loss, win, loss. They've done this for almost three, months. House, you love this when this happens.

Every one of their wins, they have eight wins this season, has come as an underdog. What are they this week? An underdog. It's time to play the Carolina Panthers.

It's an even week. They're unstoppable and even weeks. Yeah, look, this isn't either team could win. You might as well grab the points. Would be. And also like with the bucks,

because I started the week And even, like, started this podcast, you're probably going to talk me into the bucks. But as we laid out how awful they've been for two straight months and how we don't know if Baker Mayfield is healthy, like, it just, this would be an Omfield stupid game if you lay minus three with them. They just lost the Quinn fucking Ewers. What are we talking about? Their playoff life was on the line. Their destiny was in their own hands.

Their defense has been horrendous for 10 weeks. The defensive backfield, which was the strength of those teams, you know, with Brady and the last couple years with Baker, the defensive backfield is just completely ravaged with injury now. I would add, I would add this from the Tampa side of it, just having talked to Bowls and those guys. Let me just say. Oh, he didn't. I talked to Bowls.

On a production meeting call. That's official. That's not now. Stinky Pete. Sneaky Pete. I just talked to balls. I'm here on Steaky Pete. They've got Mike Evans. They've got Tristan Wharf's.

They've got Baker Mayfield. They've got Levanti David. These guys are like vines who have been there and done that. And to just completely shit the bed and let this season go to waste. Like there is pride in that room. And if this is Levante David's last game, there's something to rally around there. There's just. But why didn't they rally the last five weeks?

I know. Exactly. Back against the wall? I don't know. Happened last week. All right. That was my. That was,

I tried. Why didn't that happen in week 16 when they played Carolina? They should have been very. proud to be Carolina. Exactly. That's why this is such a great game because you can totally talk yourself in the one. By the way, I don't really want to

take Carolina. What's so crazy I don't know. I don't trust Bryce Young. They were, you know, remember Abuka was like the rookie of the year? He was the only guy healthy. Everyone's healthy on that receiver's room. Now they got Bucky Irving. They got Tucker. They got, like everyone's healthy

on offense. And they've completely gone into the waistbasket. 17 points against Miami. 20 points against Carolina. Here's my only other favorite this game house. When they played two weeks ago,

Tampa had the ball for almost 35 minutes. Carolina had the ball for 25 minutes. Tampa rushed for 169 yards. Do they just like run the ball down Carolina's throats and just tell Baker don't be crazy here? That'd be my fear. this is why this is an I'm so stupid game Carolina only ran

for 101 yards in that game which if you're going to make the case for Carolina they're going to be able to run the ball McMillan's back this week right yeah and it's an even week I think it has

well let me ask this and Tampa has proven that home field advantage means nothing to them because they keep losing games at home Should we just stay away? Oh. Should we? Because these are two stupid teams.

I mean, we've just established that neither one of them is the best team in the NFC South. But they're playing. If we stay away from this, then that means we have to either take Raven Steelers or Chiefs Raiders. Why are you afraid? That means we just have to take the Chiefs minus five and a half. Let me, why wouldn't, why don't you like Houston? What are you afraid of with Houston? they still have a chance to win

the AFC South and they're playing at the same time as Jackson's the Jags yeah now the Jags have Tennessee and so Houston will be looking and seeing the Jags up 21 points you know you just laid the case why I'm afraid of them because they in the second half they could

just not give a shit about the game but they are also playing Riley Leonard Riley Leonard is traveling to Houston to play football against the Houston Texas I get it the Colts have a lot of good dudes though they still have like talent on offense. I just worry about Houston at halftime going

call off the dogs, time notes, see what we got. Let's save everybody. Fair enough. Fair enough. The only other one I was honestly looking at was the dolphins. Shregg's has a point. Dolphins plus 11 and a half in New England with, I don't know. I just think that line's way too high. I agree with you, but

the Patriots keep covering those big lines. I'm not necessarily around with it. This is unrelated to the games this week, but it is something I've thought through. The Texans, right, now would most likely be the five seed. Okay? Yeah.

The four seed would most likely be the winner of the, it is the Ravens Steelers winner. It's the Steelers hosting somebody. Or the Ravens, right? Or the Ravens. Now, the 4-5 matchup is traditionally

the wild card Monday night game. Yeah. I don't think back-to-back weeks, ESPN is going to get Carolina or Tampa as their Monday, you know, as they're on their slate. They have it this week. Which leads me to Texans Ravens on Monday, Texans Ravens or Texan Steelers.

I tell you this three-minute soliloquy, I think the Shaky's game with the Texans is in trouble, guys. Oh, no. Do you tell Sal? I have not told Sal. I don't think they're playing on Saturday afternoon this year, guys. All right. I'm going to have to make an executive call with one of the picks.

You're allowed. I think we're right to stay away from Carolina. Carolina, it's such a stupid game. All right, today's Ringer 107, presented by a Fandall, and here's what we're going to do.

We've agreed on four of these picks, and then I'm audiblying on the fifth one. Seahawks, minus one in San Francisco. Shragge's made a very strong, enticing case. for the four nineers that was overruled by house thank you because uh we think the niners are too banged up we like the sam darnald against a flimsy defense and the seahawks d and we just think

they're a worthy one seed by the way incredible dv oa team seattle samsisco 27th db oa defense uh so that's one house and i both love the bengals in a smash spot against the browns minus seven and a half against one of the worst offenses in the history of the league now playing without Harold Fanon, and the Bengals just pouring on trying to confuse us for next July as we're looking at their division odds. House, is this your favorite game? I really love it, yes. Okay.

Next one, Vikings minus seven and a half at home against the Packers, and Shriggs's guy, Clayton, too, let's go. Minnesota could lock down nine and eight for the season. They could lock down a five-game winning streak. They could talk themselves into a, oh, if this hadn't happened and this hadn't happened, blah, blah, blah. Maybe we would have won 11 games. If they had a professional quarterback. Right. And Green Bay

locked into seven. They don't care. This is a, let's not get anyone hurt. Let's get the fuck out of Dodge game. So that is one, two, three. Oh, and then we have Falcon's Saints.

Falcons minus three. Can you imagine? It's going to come down to a Falcons game, the most perplexing, maddening, vexing team in the NFL the Saints have just run out of playmakers kudos to them for a spirited second half effort but they have nobody left

for Taylor Shuck to do anything with Falcons this would be the most classic thing ever if Tampa wins and then the Falcons knocked them out of the playoffs but don't win the NFC South Falcons minus three that's our fourth one and then our fifth one

we're going to do the Baltimore money line in a parley that house hates Ravens minus three nap against the Steelers. I don't trust it. Steelers' home underdog, House laid out all the case. I just think the Ravens have a better team. And you take D.K. Metcalf out.

I have no idea how the Steelers moved ball. Shriggs warned us. He begged us. Begged. He told us to listen to him. Technically not listening or not listening to him. Because we're not doing the minus three, five. We're in Baltimore money.

House, you pick. Over 32 and a half. or under 50 and a half. I don't want responsibility for this. Which one you pick? I mean, it's a 13 to 10 game. It's a 13. All right.

So we're going, Ravens Money Line under 50 and a half points. Yeah. How is this game going to have 51 points? How do any of these games do this? I mean, Derek Henry has. New Puntley last week. You know exactly.

Those are the Ringer 107 picks for week 18. All lines are lines that could potentially change unfandle wanted to mention that. What was your favorite pick, Shregs? Cincinnati. I like the Cincinnati. I feel good. Their vibe in the right way. And I think Cleveland had their moment last week, beat the Steelers. They'll get the sack, too.

They'll get the sack, too. Joe B will go down for miles. As an aside, I am getting text from everyone in my life that this rewatchable's top 50 movies of the 2000s that you just sprung on your two co-hosts. 21st century, not 2000s, yeah. The blind podcast. You just blindly dropped on these two cinephiles of yours was arguably your greatest podcast

episode. Oh, wow. In maybe a decade. There's a lot of talk online that you are right now in the zone, like a Steph Curry zone the last few months. Is there HGH rumors yet? No, this is heat check Bill Simmons. And I know you don't

I know you don't respond to the Reddit thing, but they tag me and everything. And the pendulum has completely swung back that they're all in on Simmons. They're all in on Simmons. They don't know that. I gave up sugar. 2026 can be my best year. They don't know that we went to Germany two weeks ago.

Yeah, we met house and then I keep flying in Germany and get in the sneaky Germany. That same credit. What was like blood spinning? Blood spinning, yes. That's my next move after giving me up sugar. He said that I was a splitting image with Lena Dunham last time. I was on the podcast, which I don't know how to take that. I just don't like the meanness.

This is kind of funny. That is funny. I like it too. Wait, when does your no sugar, no, when is all that starting? You started five days ago. Why do you think I've been on fire at this whole podcast? What'd you eat after all the drinking yesterday? What do you mean?

You were on a bar crawl. What did you eat at the end of the bar crawl? You didn't have hummus motherfucker? No, we ate some stuff. It wasn't, but no dessert, nothing. No dessert is fine. I will say, I did have a... I did have a margarita last night, which I think has sugar in it.

Yeah, that's a skinny girl? Yeah, that definitely has sugar in it. Skinny girl. It was not skinny girl. It's good. House, you're just jealous. I am not jealous. I was doing great for like three...

For four years. I was so focused on eating and being careful. House came out in the summer of 2017. We had launched House of carbs, the food podcast, I know it. And we wanted... House wanted to go. all these LA spots, and

House was here, and I gained five pounds in four days with House. Beautiful. Including we went to that pastrami place. Oh, so goddamn good. We went to the paddy mill place. All of a sudden I went off the wagon. It was like the guy in the Sopranos who started gambling again. That was friends of

Christopher Maltesante. Not the guy who's working in the sporting goods store. No, that's another guy who went up the wagon. But yeah, House like, I was doing so well. And then House is like, well, we got to get a milkshake. Well, if we're getting the pastramma,

we've got to put cheese on it. And then I just have never, I've always been focused, but never quite the same. Do you feel like you're having, you're in the zone right now, podcast? I don't want to jinx it like a perfect game,

but you've been in the zone. You've been fucking hot lately. I just think there's been good stuff to talk about. Fantasy, the thing fantasy and I have coming up in the second, we do the 21 best sports movies of the 21st century. It's just good topic. It's pretty good content.

A lot of good stuff. Plus in 2026, football playoffs. The basketball's been great. We got Winter Olympics. I care about the hockey. Yeah. Have you been following the rosters? Yeah, Adam Fox, my guy from the Rangers, did not get put on Team USA.

They left off Connor Bredard. I'm in Canada. Shocked me. Wow. He's on pace for like 100 points. Poor Connor. What do he do? Marshan's on there, but it's like that's, like, that's the hockey is going to be incredible.

Then we got World Cup. We got basketball playoffs. Cup's going to be insane. With WMBA lockout, hopefully they'll fix it. No, it's like that we'll have like labor stuff to talk about. It's like this year's going to have everything.

Plus Lamar Jackson going to be traded the Falcons. Drake May going for a second MVP. Kirk Signetti, the coach of the Giants. Have you talked to House at all about how the wizards passed up Cedric Howard and take Trey Johnson? Don't do that. That's not appropriate.

And Derek Queen. Derek Queen was available. Was he? Literally grew up in the DMV. Should have taken Danny Wolf. My guy on the Nets. My favorite player in the league. I like that.

Trash talk by Jimmy Butler. Called him white boy over and over again. What did he do? That's literally true. How's that an insult? The Nets are like in a panic trying to trade Michael Porter right now because he's ruining their draft pick. Yeah, he's too good to be in the Nets.

He's had a career renaissance. All right, guys. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Great to see you. I hope we win all of our bets. Shranks, maybe for the playoffs. Maybe you could just pop on.

I would love to. Hey, you know me. I am a total glutton for the punishment. I get online when I come on this podcast. Every time I name drop, I cannot wait to join. Sneaky Pete. Thanks, guys. All right, recording this on New Year's Day.

We just finished the first quarter of the century. Sean Fentasy is here. Pops on the rewatchables from time in time. pops on this podcast from time to time, host a big picture, just did his 25 best movies of the 21st century. Always complicated with the 2000. 2000 doesn't count. It's not part of the century.

People get mad about that, but it's just not the case. Well, you know, we did a pod on the rewatchables as well for your favorite, your most rewatchable movies of the century. And you shared that rule, but then you did pick proof of life. And I fucked up. I thought it came out in like 2003. It was December of 2000. So it was right.

cut off line. No, I would have bumped it. Well, Zodiac can go right in that spot because we forgot to put it in Zodiac. So you had social network at number one, which is what I was figuring, because we've talked about that movie a lot over the years. But you had, if you had consulted me, which you didn't, you did the one filmmaker, one filmmaker movie for the list, that's it. You couldn't get two.

So what was the big regret of, did anyone qualify for, they should have had two movies on the list if you were doing it? if you had a two movie rule. I think part of the reason we did that was because I personally would have put like five PTA movies on there and if I was being honest about what were my favorite movies.

You know, PTA, Fincher, Tarantino, you know, like Nolan, Wes Anderson. There's like a handful of people for Amanda, Sophia Coppola who like our favorite filmmakers comprise like a lot of our favorite movies. So we did the one filmmaker thing.

You know, as with all Ringer projects, you know, universal acclaim. We've been told we're the greatest podcasters of all time. Everyone's really proud of our work. And yeah, we're being celebrated today at the Rose Parade. We were on a float. I don't know if you saw a 25 for 25 float and they were really cheering us on like big picture, big pictures. That was great. Oh, congratulations. Everybody just really appreciates these lists and they don't get mad at all. They do. They do. People were really mad at a couple things that my most, even though I explained the premise over and over again in the beginning and people were still

furious that movies like just go with it and a lot like love are on there. Limitless I stand by it at number 16, even though it drew or boreous laughter from both you and Chris. In the moment, it was extremely funny because you were naming you were naming a lot of movies that we know you love

that are like sentimental favorites. And then you were also naming all-time classics, you know, Dark Night and so yeah, Limitless is in that weird nether zone of just like Bill, it's 3.30 on a Tuesday afternoon and he just puts on TNT and Limitless is there and it's like a warm bath for you, you know?

There it is. Yeah, he just started taking the pills. I'm waiting for basketball to come on. I'm ready to roll. One thing I was thinking with the with the century from like not a rewatchable standpoint, but from a best movie standpoint, I feel like five movies are kind of anyone can have their own list. The one that surprised me that wasn't on your list was broke back. Because I felt like the five movies from the first quarter that I just feel like would be on most people's lists are social network dark night there will be blood no country and broke back and then everyone else's list is probably going to look different but I feel like most lists would have that those were the five for me that I think as I thought back and then you start getting into like the spotlight

zodiac op and I mean then it becomes a little more personal preference but then it really social network dark night and there will be blood are probably the three because I think there will Bred had the, as you talked about on the pod, it has the best performance of the 21st century. And then social network is kind of culturally maybe the most significant, and then Dark Night is the most ambitious from IP.

We kind of blinked at the last minute and flipped Dark Knight for Oppenheimer because of the one director rule, but I think they were like neck and neck the whole time. We didn't do broke back. I kind of psyched myself out on that one because Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is the other Ang Lee

movie, and they're like 50-50 to Like, those are two really big movies for me. And, you know, Amanda and I didn't really get too deep into that conversation. But, you know, like you guys just did broke back on the pod. And that's just like a classic movie. It's just an amazing film. So, I don't know. It's tough.

You're right that there's some films that feel like totally canonical. But also we're in our own bubbles, right? Like, we're in our own. Like, to me, the social network, the age that I am, the people who were involved in it, what it meant to, like, what my career was going to become are all feel so important. Other people see that movie and they're like, this. is like a biopic about a dickhead. It's not that important. You know, it is what it is. No, that's the Steve Cohen story. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Hey, we don't know that yet. We don't know

that yet. We don't know that positive yet. Let's see if Kyle Tucker or Cody Bellinger come to New York, then we can say that. I think one of the things when I think of best movies, it's a combination of was this a great movie, but also could this reach a bunch of people, I think is this sweet spot, which is why social network was so interesting because it was such an, awesome movie, but it also could appeal to almost everybody and was also rewatchable. Like, it checked like every, and it was well acted. And it was perfectly written and perfectly executed. And it just, I mean, it was one of the first rewatchables we did. I think we did that in the first year. Yeah, it was. I think, yeah, it was a huge hit. It made like

$250 million. And it was at a time, it's only 15 years ago, but that feels unusual for like a docu drama to make that much money. And the rewatchable thing, we felt that immediately going back for this project because the second I put it on, I was locked in. Like, just put my phone in the other room. Oh, yeah. Just totally focused on it and engaged, even though I've seen it dozens of times. So, but that's a hard needle to thread. So, like, this is a great and important film that is also fun is really challenging.

Yeah, because I thought Phantom Thread was great, but I don't think it has the same legs because I don't think it was for everybody. It's kind of a weird, rewatchable movie, but it's like just impeccable. It's impeccably done. It's perfectly acted. It's really unique and original. There's no movie like it, but it kind of got lost as the years passed. But you think just go with it, just like inches above it, right?

It's a family movie, you know? You'll be watching it with your kid. How old's your kid now? She's four. She's four. She's four and a half. Age seven, watch what happens. And Dana Day Lewis, actor of the first part, first quarter of the century?

I think so. Is he the number one? I think he is, right? Who do you think is the star of the century? I guess the easy answer is Leo. But we talked about that a bit too. Like Denzel has a case, Cruz has a case, you know, Damon. There's a couple of people who had like incredible 25 years.

I would say, yes, Streep had, you'd probably have to break it down with Oscar nominations, box office. Batting average, I think would be big. So it's probably Leo from a batting average standpoint. I think so. Every single movie that he put out either made money, had an audience, was done well done with a good director. He didn't have a lot of, like, those clunkers. Like that Jennifer, what was that Jennifer Lawrence, Darren Aronovsky movie, Mother?

Mother. He doesn't have, like, a mother in the 25 years. It's just, like, all either bangers or really interesting choices or, like, Shunner Island. There's no, there's no, like, weirdo movie for him. Everything had some purpose. They all made a lot of money, too. I mean, even, like, Revolutionary Roads,

probably the smallest movie he made this century, and I think it's still made, like, $80 million or something, because it was a reunion with Kate Wend's, after Titanic. So, yeah, I think he's probably the biggest. For the future, I mean, it's Timmy's time, man. It's happening.

Yeah, it's happening. I mean, he's awesome in that movie. Yeah. And that movie's a hit. You just covered. Movies a hit. People like great performances. They do.

I was thinking for actress, it's probably Streep and Kate Winslet and Emma Stone are probably the three that would be in the combo from success, box office, number of good projects they were in. But they all kind of had different errors. It was almost like basketball. Whereas Leo was like all the way through remained about as relevant and never kind of lost it. Yeah.

None of them, none of those three were like consistent box office killers. Like we did a Cape Blanchett episode at the, I think earlier this year. And it's like she's made a ton of movies, most of which most people haven't seen. But when she's good, like when Tar comes along, right, you're like, well, this is clearly the best actor in the universe. when that movie happened. But she picks a lot of artistic projects in smaller films.

So it's a lot harder to say on the actress side. Well, you're here to talk about sports movies with me. I love sports movies. I wrote about them a lot when my fingers worked when I was at page two and even at Grant Lynn. It was part of when I was trying to figure out what my column would be for page two in 2001, trying to figure out how do I be a national columnist?

Because there was really like no roadmap for it. And it was like, well, do culture stuff. I'll do running diaries. I'll talk about fantasy football. I'll talk a lot about pop culture. And then sports movies, I'm going to try to be like Roger Ebert every time there's a sports movie. I was, I did reviews of like summer catch, like terrible movies. I remember, man. I was reading them. I was reading them. And I was like, no one else is writing about these movies in more than 250 word capsule reviews. Yeah. But then occasionally there are some really good ones. And obviously developed a lot of opinions. It's something I care about,

something we cover a ton on the rewatchables. We've not done all four Rockies. AmC. Rocky Marathon on tomorrow, by the way. So I asked you to come on. I sent you the alphabetical version of my 21 best movies of the 21st century, which goes from 2001 to 2025.

You do not know what the actual order is, but I wanted to at least be a little prepared. And some caveats here. This is not like, the rewatchables list was like, these are just the movies I saw the most. I have no explanation for it. Some of them have to do with my family, my wife, just what was on,

what are like comfort movies. That's a different list. These are just the best sports movies, in my opinion. So ineligible, all the 2000 movies, which include love and basketball, remember the Titans, the replacements, bring it on in 61, which is a really good,

really good HBO movie that I'm throwing in there, directed by Billy Crystal. All right, honorable mention. And you stop me if any of these were like, whoa, he didn't put this on, what the fuck? Sea Biscuit. Million dollar baby. Keep going.

I kind of hate million dollar baby. I don't really like it either. I know it did well in the Oscars, but I just can't believe people weren't more upset about the last 15 minutes. It's just so dark and awful. It is very well made, but it's impossible to get away from that feeling that you had

when she just falls and hits the ring chair. And breaks her neck. You're just like, what the fuck, Clint? And she's in tubes for 10 minutes, and then suffocates her death. Spoiler alert, I don't care. Came out 20 years ago. It's the most depressing movie

I think anyone's ever made about sports. It is a very weird movie. It was a very weird movie in the time. I remember specifically because it came out really late in the year and it didn't play fall festivals or anything. And it came out around Christmas. And it was a big hit, right? It did really well.

And it was like, you got to see it. You got to see it. And so it kind of like came in really late in the Oscars door. But now it's like, it lives for us. as the best picture winner from that year. And I think Clinton won best director that year, too. And it's, you know, it's like a fine sports drama with a, like, a painful twist. If we ever do five-year Oscars, that's one of the first ones we have to redo.

We've always talked about the five-year role for Oscars. That's one where I just don't think that one wins again. And there were other good ones that year, right? The, what did it win, 0-4? It was the 0-5 ceremony for 0-4? I think that's right, right? Is it right after? Lord of the Rings.

Yeah, so it's, I mean, it's not the greatest year in the world. It's the aviator finding Neverland, Ray and Sideways for the other nominees. Oh, well, now if you did that again, Sideways win. Sideways would win, yeah. Okay. Keeping going here. Bend it like Beckham, which I don't know if you've re-seen, and it's a good movie. It came in a time where there weren't a lot of girls' sports movies.

It's a movie I've watched with my daughter. It's a soccer movie. It just has some major sports flaws. the lead of the movie, not Karen Knightley, the other one, is just not good at soccer. Parminder Nogra, yeah.

It just jumps out in every scene and they have to do these cuts and it's like, almost like when they have like a lifetime TV movie or like a bad cable movie or something and there's like a high school soccer scene and it's like they have to like cut it together because none of the actors.

I just have never gone over it. I couldn't put it on the list. Goon is a movie I like, but I've only seen once. It has like has a huge fan base. They made it. a sequel. It's fine. I think it outpunched its cover, outkicked its coverage. I think you underrate this one. I've told you this before. I think this is, this is the one on your honorable

mentions that I'm like, this is the one that I think is, and I'm not even a hockey guy, as you know, but I think it's really funny and really like involving. I think it's good. I think you're right. I already have regrets. Okay. Coach Carter, a movie I've seen at least five times. It's a half hour too long. I really enjoy it, though. It's a high school basketball movie, Sam Jackson, if it's on, it kind of gets sucked in. Big fan is the one with Pat and Oswald as like a crazed. Was he an Eagles fan? No, Giants fan who hated the Eagles.

I like that movie. It's Dark. Invincible with Mark Wahlberg, just throwing it on because it's got a bonkers Elizabeth Banks performance. She's just lights out in that movie. She's playing like a Philly blonde bartender. It's definitely a captain on the Chris Ryan, Throw Your Life Away, All-Stars. I don't think I've seen this movie. I think I just saw Mark Wahlberg as a Philadelphia Eagle and I was like, I would sooner drown myself.

Like, there's no chance I'm watching this. Well, it's one of those based on a true story, and it ends with him blocking a punt and running in for a touchdown, which I'm positive didn't happen. Yeah, sure. Yeah, it's one of those. Wanted to mention The Hammer with Adam Carolla about my friend Hedge, but that movie's

good. Go check it out. If it's ever on cable, Carolla plays a boxer. Yeah, it's a boxing movie. That's a very fun movie. It's a good one. The Blindside, which has a great Sandra Bullock performance, is a ridiculous movie and is now when we do

on the rewatchables dramas that have turned into comedies month I think the blind side will be on it but I've seen it multiple times I seem to recall

thinking it was pretty funny the day it came out but that's just me Yeah, win-win Paul Giambani Yeah, quality wrestling movie yeah not quite enough wrestling in it but I like this movie

The Fire Inside which was a recent boxing movie that we both liked a little underrated I think it kind of came and went around Christmas last year but if people haven't seen it it's a pretty good film

Yeah, I think it's worth watching. Finding Forrester, I guess technically is a basketball movie. Yeah, you're the man now, Bill. Another drama that's now a comedy, but is a surprisingly fun rewatch. And then last one, Gridiron Gang, which, you know, I wrote a column when it came out about this is just what Hollywood's giving us now, comparing Grid Iron Gang and the Wire. Like, Hollywood wants to give us this. Meanwhile, over here is The Wire.

Please Watch The Wire, Not This. But it's still a solid movie. Anyway, Toughest Cuts. of five. Ford versus Ferrari. Where do we stand on this movie now? It came out a few years ago. It's elite, and it's shocking that it's not in your list.

I haven't spent enough time with it yet, and it probably should be on the list. It's extremely good. Now, I know that there are other racing movies that we have to consider for your list, and it would be weird to put, like, several motorsports films on a list for, you know, you're not a motorsports guy, right?

It's obviously gotten a lot more popular given the rise. We talked about this in the F1, rewatchables. I'm not a F1 or motorsports anything guy, but I love the movies about those sports. Always deliver. I think they have the highest batting average of any sport. And they were also really

like an interesting portal for movies in the 60s and 70s too, right? There was like winning and Grand Prix and Bobby Deerfield. There were great star part movies. Ford versus Ferrari is a double star part. It's Bail and Damon, both in like the disguise at the center of this movie. I think it's really, really good. You should check it out again. Yeah, like, I almost had

it. I kept moving stuff around. If I did a top 25, it would have been on there. Two for the money probably wouldn't have made it either way. But from a rewatchable comedy gambling standpoint, we just did it on rewatchables. It's hilarious. It's the definition of a sports movie. It's just turn your brain off and go for an hour and a half. That's sometimes what you want. So next one, Borg versus McEnroe with Shailabuff as McEnroe. I don't know if you've seen this one. I have. It's kind of excellent.

I don't know how rewatchable it is because it's almost like you'd wonder with the documentary of this it just had been better. But I think it's really well done. Oh, I know you have a really big relationship to tennis from this time too. So I wonder if like the amount

that you know about the matches and their rivalry and the way that that'll play out. Who played Borg? Was it a Swedish actor? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I remember seeing it and thinking it was fine, but that's interesting that you had a hard time cutting that one. Hustle, Adam Sandler, the Sandman. Quality. Good movie. I just liked it. Anthony Edwards is great. I haven't spent enough time with it.

There's a chance like five years from now. It might move into the top 21, but for now it's on toughest cuts. And then Blades of Glory was another one that I think I have a couple other comedies over it. I didn't want to have too many comedies, but that was a tough one for me. A movie you like, I think. I do. There's a trilogy of. Will Ferrell's sports comedies

from the 21st century and you got kind of everybody has their favorites but I think there's one that is superior. Yeah, I probably could have thrown semi-pro and honorable mention.

I'm going to do that right now even though we've already done that part of the podcast. I think it's the least of the three. Yeah, it's still watchable though. It's fun, yeah. But yeah, it goes sideways a few times. I have some casting questions.

It's right in that how hard can we go for the hard era where it's kind of like they might have been better off just going PG-13. Farrell's really funny in it, but it feels like at that point he was playing the same character in a lot of different movies. And it was, it just, I don't know, maybe it's age better for some people. Okay. We're going to take, go ahead. Do you want me to share any other that you left off or do you want to wait until we get to the end? Oh, let's do that now,

because then we can take a break. Let me, let me give you your fantasies left off list. Let's go. The Iron Claw. Now, I know you have some issues with But I think if you pulled the universe of recent sports movies, that would be pretty high. I was a very big fan of it. It's not perfect, but I thought it was very effective. So I thought it was well done. I had just huge issues with how they bent the facts. I thought they leaned way too hard and this is a true story.

And then just completely left shit out to the point that I was enraged. somebody who actually knew the story that they were doing. And I could never get over the guy from the Bears, Carrie Von Erick. I thought that was one of the craziest casting decisions of all time. Honestly, it's just bonkers. It's like if

we were doing the Victor Wimbunyama story, and we cast somebody who was like 5-11. It's like, what are we doing? Carrie Van Eric's whole thing was he was this larger than life, kick-ass dude who could go against Hogan and whoever. And they cast the guy from the bear. It's just unbelievable that they

did that. And Jeremy Allen White is like roughly 5-5. He is not a tall man. He was too short to be. Bruce Springsteen. Much less carry about Eric. Good actor. But come on.

What are we doing? I think if you remove, you know, your intellectual relationship to that wrestling history, then the movie maybe works better for you. And didn't they merge together two deaths and the one death? That was another one. They just cut one death out. I mean, that's just how crazy that story is, though. I know.

Completely left one brother. entire brother out of the movie who also died. I don't know. I was like absolutely hammered by that movie. That's why I was left off. All right. Keep going. There were two.

Well, okay, one, I know you hate this movie, but I would a million percent put challengers on. I think challengers is great. I know you and Wesley tore it apart. I couldn't stand it. I never thought you would put it on your list. But for me, I think that's a really great. I thought that was like an interesting modern take on a sports movie.

It was like, this is, we're moving the ball forward. You know, it's like broadcast news, but in tennis. I thought the ending was maybe the worst ending of any sports movie I've ever seen. Also, I mean, to be fair, a couple years later, Challenger's walked so heated rivalry could run. There's a lot going on there. There's definitely some continuation in terms of that. I haven't really gotten it. I only watched the first episode of Heated Rivaly.

I've got to keep going on that. I've skipped it, but my wife, my hungover New Year's Day wife is currently ripping through it right now. And I think is, I don't know if she's showered yet. Anyway, keep going. And then there's two from this year. Okay. One, I don't know if you've seen yet, it's called Ephis,

which is a movie about like a a rec league baseball team, which is a really solid movie, an indie film that came out directed by Carson Lund, which I liked quite a bit, and it's kind of making a lot of the year-end list for the movie fans.

I was okay with it. I liked it. I didn't love it. Maybe I wasn't in the right mood for it, but... It's more of a hang. It's not like a propulsive narrative movie. And then Marty Supreme.

Oh, fuck. You're right. I mean, is this not the, best sports movie since what? You know, I know you have a few more recent films that we will talk about. No, you're right. Marty Supreme should be on here.

Oh, you screwed me up. I was going through, I had all these lists forever, and I forgot to add one that came out on December 25th. You're right. It got it under the wire. It's pretty good. I mean, I think it's a very effective sports movie, too, because when you're engaged in the sports movie aspect of it, the ping pong matches, that to me feels like.

watching a Rocky when I was a kid. All right. You know what? I'm going to have some bad news for one of the top 20 ones. You're going to cut one? Yeah, I got to put Marty Supreme in. It's such a good call. I can't believe I missed that.

I'm glad we're doing this in real time. Listen, we're not perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. No. Admitting your mistakes and moving forward are some of the best things you do. Marty Supreme came out on Christmas Day, 2025. It should be on the list. This is why I'm here on the pod, just to save this shit.

well draft day i'm sorry oh no draft day it would have been funnier to cut maracle because it could have been like the ralph cox thing it's just like wait i thought i was going to the olympics uh draft day sadly is going to have to get cut a movie that probably shouldn't have been in the top 21 to begin with but it's so enjoyable has costern's last great sports movie um it's got chadwick bozman playing out playing what's he playing alvin mac i can't remember the name of the linebacker I have a Macs from the program. Vonte Mac. It's got Jennifer Garner, inexplicably,

as like an owner's daughter, love it. I can't even remember that. But I like that movie. I've watched it a bunch of times. It's not good, though, and I'm happy cutting it out. I think it's absolutely terrible, but it's kind of enjoyable to watch.

Late period, Ivan Reitman. Well, now it's out. Okay. We're going to take a break. Hold on. I have to ask you an important question before you go to the break. Why 21 movies?

Because 21st century. 21 for 21. okay I don't know so one for each century I can cut one more and just make it a top 20 you want to do that it's your list I'm just asking questions

there was a reason why I did the 21 because I wanted to do a pyramid graphic for my sports movie pyramid there it is and it was one two three four five six and it was 21 movies

I thought that looked better and all makes sense now okay we'll take a break and do the top 21 all right the top 21 with some important help from Sean Fantasy, who reminded me that Marty Supreme was eligible. So Draft Day sadly got bounced, as did all the 2000s movies.

We just went through all the honorable mention. Coming in a number 21, Dodgeball, a movie we've done on the rewatchables. I was not on the episode. We let the Fantasy Boys handle that one. Very funny movie. I think culturally it's had a nice tale. People like the distiller piece in this,

and it just feels like it's lived on. It's always on, it's always on a streaming service or on cable. And it's just had a nice shelf life. It's Bill Simmons' history core as well with the Ocho joke. You know, I feel like it's connected to your mythology. And, you know, for me, Peak Bateman, you know, some people might say Ozark, Rested Development, Bateman is elite in that movie. I remember writing a column about it.

I didn't like it as much the first time as I did probably the fifth time, but I remember writing a column about it. and I saw it in Hollywood and it felt like everybody was high. People were just dying laughing. But as the years have passed, I've kind of get it. All right, so that's 21.

Number 20 is the fighter. Came out in 2010. It was a boxing passion project movie, which it seems like every male actor has had except Leo and maybe one other one in the last 30 years. The Rock had one this year. Christian Bill, Mark Wahlberg.

your girl Amy Adams She's fine in this movie She's great I think this is probably My favorite Amy Adams movie Deep Massachusetts Set in Lowell You know we have like the deep south

This is like Massachusetts Lowell is like deep Massachusetts Like you're just Everyone's got an accent Right Everyone has the You think you better than me Look to them

And they do a really good job Of Just hitting Massachusetts In the right way This is when it shifted in the last 15 years of if you're going to make a movie of Massachusetts, use some locals, make sure your actors really know how to sound like they're from Massachusetts and act like it. And this is part of the Renaissance, Sean.

I have two questions about this movie for you. One, do you think Bale passes the Massachusetts test? He's good. I mean, this was another one where he lost a lot of weight. He did. He did. Because he's basically a painter drug dude. The big issue for me with this movie, and I watched it in the last year is they never,

really messed with the Gotti Ward trilogy in it, which I never understood. Just felt like the easiest IP. I remember seeing it for the first time, being so confused that they never dove in there. But it's this a very well-acted, well-done sports movie. And probably, this might be David O. Russell's last good movie. Yes.

It's possible. It's been a fucking drought for him. I'm way more down on this movie than you are. This is like, to me, well, let me ask you this. If the movie was set in Boise, Idaho, instead of Lowell, Massachusetts. Would you like it? So it's a fair question. I think when it came out, it was very well received.

It was. It was. Oscar nominations. It was a hit. I think the acting is so good. I don't think you can have a list like this and leave this movie out and a million dollar baby. I feel like I had to have one. Okay. So that's why I had at 20. You've got other boxing movies on here, though, that are better. I know. But this is like the prestige sports movie. We got to feel like I had a patriot. That's fair.

Number 19, King Richard. This is a weird one because I think this movie has a completely different tale if the Will Smith Oscars thing doesn't happen. This was like his moment. Finally it happened for him. And I think if he doesn't slap Chris Rock, this movie's just remembered differently. It's probably on TV more.

It's just kind of gone. Yeah, you're right. There's not a lot of legacy around the movie itself. And there wasn't as much at the time because it came out during COVID and it was part of Project popcorn and went straight to streaming and all that. I saw it at a film festival. I saw it at Tell You Ride. And, you know, it was like rapturous.

It was like, this is Will Smith's best performance. It's his time. The daughters were great. His wife's great. This movie's good. Yeah. Archine Ellis Taylor is great in this movie. Yeah.

Yeah. I came on the big picture and broke this down with you. They did. A really big picture stages. I don't remember. What was it? 2020. It was 19 or 21.

I can't remember. Yeah. Somewhere in there. But between the slap and the fact that it was like a streaming movie, ultimately is what it kind of what it felt like. It feels smaller. But it's really, really well made. number 18

Talladega Nights the legend of Ricky Bobby just a really good sports comedy that has a little low for this might be a little low except I mean the stuff that's coming here I don't know this is hard it's 21 years of sports movies

Sasha Baron Cohen's great in this movie we haven't done it yet on rewatchables but I think he would win the movie I think you're right is he sponsored by Perrier? I think he is. He's really good. This movie's really fun, and they did a nice job of actually diving it to NASCAR and, you know, using all the sponsors.

NASCAR embraced it very smartly, and it caught Will Ferrell and all these guys at the right time. It's just really good. How would you power rank Anchorman, stepbrothers, and this movie? Exactly how you just said it. Yeah. Okay. Me too.

Next one, the rookie. That's number 17. that's gotten a little lost in the shuffle, it was this stretch from maybe 97 to 2005 where we kind of had these adult Disney sports movies. And you kind of always knew what you were getting when you saw the poster and what star they picked. Some of them were good. Some of them weren't as good. You would have your glory road with Josh Lucas, which was not good. You would have the rookie with Dennis Quaid, which was excellent. I think this was other than Miracle, probably the most successfully executed after I remember the Titans, which I think crushed that blueprint

the best, but not eligible for this list. But the rookie, really good Dennis Quaid, he subments his legacy, is sports movie Hall of Famer first ballot, which I think he didn't even really need it, but he's like, fuck it. No, this is a really, really good performance based on a true story. And to your point, it's not just that this era of Disney original sports movies is over. It's like, Disney doesn't even really make original movies anymore. I remember when they would pretty consistently, was this released under Buena Vista or Touchstone?

I can't remember what the sub-label was, but there was a time when you would get five or six movies a year like this from Disney. And now that's also all straight to streaming. Yeah, this was quite an era. And they all made money. That's why they kept going and threw Grid Iron Gang and Invincible. They kept going for 10 years. They'd spend 15 on it. They'd make 30.

They'd make 40. Sometimes like Blindside would just crush. But you just had to make sure you got your one star. you did a good story, and you go through. I wrote a piece in 2009 or maybe 2010 about, because you could feel sports movies starting to die and we were moving to another era

and I didn't know what was coming, but I was wondering if documentaries were ruining sports movies in some ways that as documentaries were getting better was that can be bad for sports movies. And I think the next 15 years kind of proved that that might have been true. We also might have run out of ideas

is the other thing. Well, sports documentaries are getting shittier, so maybe we'll tip back to sports movies. That's what we're hoping. Yeah, there's no question. Sports soccer players have got way worse. But continuing our now decades-long conversation about movie stars, this is something that like there's not a lane for Glenn Powell or Austin Butler

to make movies like this. You know, like Chadwick Boseman did get his sports movie. Like a handful of these guys got their sports movies. But once you remove this from the menu for what you can do as a young star, like you lose something pretty significant. It's weird because the blueprint, we're still trying even in the 2000s. Like Josh Lucas was like a lot of guys now.

It's like, could he be a guy? Maybe. Here's a bit. And then he wasn't. No. He's a guy who is the voice of car commercials during football games. Right. We have a lot of Josh Lucases now.

Seems like he's been in some good stuff. Next one. Number 16. Air. The Michael Jordan shoe movie, which he's not in. Directed by Affleck. It's a really, really good Matt Dan.

performance and my favorite part of this movie is the Vio Davis performance as Jordan's mom is just great and it's just this is this movie is a really fun hang I you didn't like it as much as I did no but I do like it I don't think it's a bad pick here at all I think it's really good it is really more of a movie about the world of marketing more so than sports like athletics it doesn't mean that it's not a sports movie because it clearly is because you kind of have to know what this milieu is to get the movie and get all its nuances. It's just, it's like, it kind of can decide to me

whether it wants to be really funny or really serious. And, like, Affleck's performance is hilarious as Phil Knight. Yeah. But it's kind of happening in a different movie than the rest of the movie where Matt Damon is giving this really sincere performance and Violet Davis is really sincere. But it is a fun watch. They did a good job of capturing the mid-80s,

even with the decorations in the office. I remember just appreciating stuff with that. You're right. like won the Judd Nelson New Jack City year in a different movie award. Number 15, Hardball, a movie that

was hilarious in the theater for all the wrong reasons when I saw it. I think with Jacko, right after 9-11. It was one of those where it was like, let's go to the theater.

It's one of the craziest things I've ever heard, Bill. Yeah, let's go to the theater. We're both bummed out. But this movie of Zage perfectly. And we already did a re-watchable. G. Baby's death, I think, is maybe the most iconic sports movie death of any of these movies.

On this list? Yeah. Any sports movie in this century. Okay. Not like Apollo Creed. No. Okay. No, Apollo dying in Rock.

Brian's song. You know, there's a few. Although Apollo's death did lead to the end of the Cold War. So maybe he died. Gee Baby died for nothing. That's a really good point. Apollo at least had something good came out of it. What's more tragic, G.

G. Baby's death or the fall of the cold. Berlin Wall. Yeah, it's dead even. This movie is very enjoyable. I also love, and I've seen it a few times and my kids like it. Diane Lane, just being in this movie is hilarious. She's just, she can't believe she's in the movie the entire time. You have no idea why she's attracted to Keanu.

John Hawks is great as like a scumback. Anyway, this is a good sports movie. Number 14, Ali, a movie we have not done on the rewatchables. It's a great movie. It's on the rewatchables, 2026 level. It's weird. movie that could never decide what it was, it tries to basically

hit why Ali was so important, but then it's compressing years together. It spends a lot of time of him trying to not being the champ, but then all of a sudden we skip through fights, but you know, you weren't in two and a half hours. You couldn't cover everything. I think the first 10 minutes in the last 15 minutes of this movie are genuinely great.

I think there are several, you know, chill-inducing moments throughout the movie, and it is man trying to do something a little different than what he usually does, which I really appreciate. I have thought in the past that if Mann and Will Smith made a pact to make a new 90-minute Ali film

every four years, you might have gotten... Oh, like a boyhood thing? Yeah, that you might have gotten like a slightly better version of this movie. Because there are times when it seems like Smith is too old, there are times when it seems like he's too young.

Like, he's an incredible shape in the film, but he's also trying to capture somebody who's uncapturable, right? It's just like the Elvis movie where it's just like, you're not Elvis man. Like the icon of icon, that person was so inimitable.

But Smith is good. You've now got two Will Smith movies on your list, which is quite fascinating. You know, this came out in 2001. I was writing for page two at the time and wrote a big review about it. And it was,

Ali was still so fresh. I mean, he had been, the 70s were only two and a half decades earlier than that. So it was really tough for Will Smith. to compete with that. But he did feel like Ali in a couple scenes.

He had that one thing when he's yelling at the reporters and he just kind of becomes Ali. I think as the years have passed and we have less of a memory of Ali, or at least there's new generations that don't really remember it involved. It's probably better for this movie.

It's really good. And it's Michael Mann. And that's why it would be on the rewatchables this year. Number 13, damned united. Never seen it. Yeah. Michael Sheen. Just an awesome size.

movie. This would be my one if, like, you listen to anything on this list that you hadn't heard of. And you're like, what's that one? Let me mark that down. This one's great. It's like a Rags to Rich's English soccer movie. A Chris Ryan favorite? I know, yeah, I know among the soccer heads. It's a, it's a big movie. I have an allergy to the filmmaker Tom Hooper, who made The King's Speech and Les Mis and Cats. And this is, this is one of his movies. It's a very well done movie. number 12 everybody wants them your guy link later

yeah fucking good not done this on rewatchables yet either uh this is where we all bought glen powell stock we had it for basically when was this 2016 we had it from the beginning of the ringer

we were like Glenn Powell circle him then he was in a rom-com was it 14 I think it was 14 I think it was still in the Grandland days oh one or the other um this movie's great

and uh and it's It's weirdly not a dazed and confused sequel, but kind of operates as a dazed and confused sequel. Yeah. Oh, no, you're right. It's 16. It's March of 16 right before we launched. High school to college, Days Confused, high school, 1976.

This is like around 79 to 80, I think. Really well cast. There's some really good people that went on to do some good things, including Zoe Deutsch. And I forget the lead guy, I don't think, made it. Yeah, Blake Jenner. He was involved in some controversies. Yeah, this was the peak for him. Incredible Wyatt Russell in that movie.

Wyatt Russell is outstanding as the like 33-year-old guy trying to join the baseball team. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. This movie's great. The wrestler number 11, used to be number 10 until Sean reminded me Marty Supreme was eligible. This was Mickey Works big comeback movie. Aronovsky just killing it. It tapped into, if you liked wrestling at all, it hit this. theme that was really important and I think hit way close to home for a lot of either dead

wrestler families or wrestlers that were still alive or wrestlers that were in the business that were kind of headed for this. Rista Tomey's great in it, but this is just an excellent sports movie. I love this one too. Part of the reason I hold this movie against the fighter a little bit where I felt like it was kind of using a similar tone and approach. Even though the stories are different, it's kind of felt like he was kind of glombing on to some of Aronovsky's style in this movie.

But I really like it. And Roark is great. And Roark, he never, you know, he worked again a little bit more, but it wasn't the massive comeback that we were promised. You know, he didn't make like 10 award-winning films after this either. And it's kind of a great document. Also, you've got to think about the shape he got himself into for this movie at the age he was. It's crazy.

The steroids, all that stuff. All right, we're into the top 10. Number 10, Miracle. We did this on the rewatchables as well. Great Kurt Russell, great Kurt Russell's speeches. This also made the first. 50 most rewatchables list. I did not like the idea of them making this movie because this was the most important

sports moment in my life, not in Boston. But I thought it held up. And it's a fun one to watch with the kids or people who don't know what the story was. It's just, it's an eternal movie. It'll be on 50 years from now. I thought this would be in your top five. Yeah. I just had someone's higher.

Okay. Was it in your top five? No, but it's up there. I mean, it is like, it's kind of the platonic ideal of a movie that feels like it came out when you were 11, even though it didn't.

You know what I mean? Like, it just gives you that, that feeling of, like, sports sentimentality, emotionality, where it kind of like just hits you when the moments happen. Kurt Russell's phenomenal in the movie, too. Yeah, I like it a lot.

Sugar is my number nine. This movie's just awesome. I'm not even going to tell people about it. They should just watch it. Baseball movie. Baseball movie. Yeah, it's a baseball movie, and there's never been a movie quite like it.

And it feels like a documentary, but it's not. And it's just a really unusual movie. It's really good. It's kind of came and went. I don't even think it did that well. It was a small indie. I think it was a Sundance film. You know, the same filmmakers who made Half Nelson

and Mississippi Grind, another sports movie. they also made that movie too. I think if you're a baseball fan and you see that there's just, you know, Latino players kind of dominate the sport now and you don't necessarily think about the roads that they have to travel

to get to Major League Baseball. It's a really good insight into what some of them have to experience. Number eight, party supreme. Oh, no, that's number nine. Number eight. Number eight. Nice.

It's a good. spot number eight marty supreme was draft day at number eight no no i i'd bump the wrestler from the top ten for this right we'll see if it gets higher haven't spent enough time with it i've only seen it once um it has this chalemay performance that if you're looking at all the sports movies of this list has to be in the running for a best one and uh all the actors all the the lead actors are pretty good as i spend more time in this movie i'm going to know whether the supporting stuff and some of the some of the gimmicky casting stuff I wonder how I feel about it five years from now

it was fun the first time five years from now and be like, ah, why's this person in? I've seen it twice, and all that stuff held up perfectly well to me because I think it just makes the movie feel a little bit more real. I will say to your point about it being a sports movie, so I lean watched it the other night and I was doing something else, but I told her call me in during the two big ping pong matches

because I want to watch them again. And the last one, especially, I feel like it's just a lot of fun and really effective at this sort of stuff that we're talking about. Well, it's one of those sports movie lessons in general where if you're going to do it, you have to almost be a psycho about the sports scenes. And Safty, you talked about it with him when you did the pot. He was just a psycho about ping pong. Like really cared, really wanted to get every aspect of it right. And most of the movies that end up lasting as sports movies, they go the extra mile. They do. Not throwing shit together. That's why bend it like Beckham, which would have been on here if they had gotten the soccer stuff better than

making. Anyway, go see Marty Supreme. Really good 2025 new IP out of nowhere movie. Do you think that with all this consolidation in Hollywood, there will be finally an opportunity for the sports consultancy business that you've been trying to develop over the years? But waiting forever. Waiting forever.

They just, nobody's come. Even this one, I was waiting to have like a ping pong nitpick, even though I don't know anything about ping pong. but I thought they handled everything really well. I have no, I don't know anything about pink, but there may be like several guys on ping pong Reddit right now who are just like, Marty Supreme is bullshit.

Nobody has that grip. Number seven, Warrior, did this on the rewatchables. It's weird that there haven't been more really great MMA movies when we figure MMA is 30 years old now at this point, and we've had so many boxing movies, and we're still coming out with boxing movies, and we're coming out with boxing movies with Sidney Sweeney as a boxer, and yet we've had barely any MMA movies.

We had the Smasher Machine this year, which did not make this list and did not make honorable mention either. What about never back down? Was that in contention? Who's in that one? There have been like nine of them. The original one,

who's in the first never back down? Sounds so familiar. Was that this century? Is it Sean Farris? Is that the guys? Yeah, John Fitt. Jiam and Hansu's in it, Amber Heard. Remember this in 2008?

This has also been like nine sequels. You never seen these? I probably saw it once, but it did not, in my prep, did not make it. They're kind of terrible, but they're entertaining. Warrior has Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton. We covered this when we did the rewatchables about it. And a really crazy Nick Nolte who's just a, just on the alcoholic scale, it's like a 10 out of 10, even for him, who's played alcoholics in other movies.

Edgerton's really good. And Edgerton's had one of those. he's like a Matthew Stafford type career where it's like just wish he'd been on more 11 and 5 and 12 and 4 teams and then he's in Train Dreams and he's fucking incredible in that movie and there's years where he might have won

the Oscar for that it's not going to be this year no he's fantastic he picked the wrong year to have that movie you know he's a guy who I've always kind of had a little bit of an like an issue connecting to but I think in this movie and in Train Dreams he's asked to do the same thing

which is like really taciturn quiet. He doesn't have to give big emotional speeches. He doesn't have a lot of dialogue. It's all that his presence and him being emotionally open but not talking. This movie would be in my top three. This is one of my favorites. I think it's amazing. I think Gavin O'Connor's a great

director. I had a lot of trouble with these last seven in the order. This was really like the cutoff for me. Number six, Rush. I probably like this movie the most. You do. Ron Howard. Chris Hemsworth. I think this is the best he's ever been.

Daniel Bruill still have his stock somewhere. I think it's in my closet. I always like that guy. He's great. And Gloria's Basterts. He's a great actor. I wrote a long,

I think this might have been the last sports movie column I ever wrote. It was for Grantland and end of 2014. I wrote a long piece about this movie because I loved it and I really connected with it. But it's an F1 movie. It's a movie that I think is,

because it's in the past, Some of these movies are just, like, timeless. This one's set in the 70s, and it's just you can just go and go forever. I love this movie. I love this movie, too. I know you don't like it as much, the way back. No, I like it.

I'm on board with this. Same director is Warrior. I prefer warrior to the way back, but it's really good. I know you love Affleck's performance in it. I love this movie. I love the choice that they make, if you haven't seen it, sorry, I'm spoiling in it.

It feels like the big game is the ending, and it's not and it just goes which is just such a zag but it's it's I think this is the best Afflex ever been in a movie

it's really interesting because I feel like would you say that like addiction and recovery movies are something that you typically enjoy no I don't feel like I hear you talk about movies like that too often

no I there's something I think part of the problem This is in a Gavin O'Connor movie, by the way, and it was written by Brad Inglesby. That's a pretty good combo. Yeah, your boy. Came out right after COVID started. It was supposed to come out in the movies,

I think, a month after COVID, and then just became one of the first VOD test case when the infrastructure wasn't really ready for it. And it came and went a little bit, but I feel like it's having a moment again. It's always on a streamer. It's on cable. It's around.

And I think one of the things I liked about this one I liked sometimes in movies when the real life bleeds over into the character and I feel like Affleck was having so many issues in his own life that it just feels like it just feels like there was an overlap that made it an unusual watch in a good way. Yeah, I love that feeling when you feel like there's like some reflection of the person's real life. That's like that's a Marty Supreme thing, right?

Where it's like, Shalami's trying to be the best. And then you can feel that in the movie. Yeah. Athletics never been nominated for an acting Oscar in his career. And even this movie... This one's outrageous. See, I mean, this is actually like... Makes you wonder, is there like some sort of weird bias against certain actors and actresses? Well, even just dating...

They dated it for March, you know, when it came out in the same month as COVID. And it wasn't taken seriously by the studio to make an awards push for it. Like, if it had come out in October, maybe everybody might have thought about it a little bit differently. But, yeah, it's definitely overlooked. Yeah, so best... was Anthony Hopkins as the father, Riz Ahmed in Santa Meadow, Bozeman, Gary Oldman and Mank, your movie,

and Steve Ewanari. Affle could have snuck in there, I feel like. I just don't understand that. Anthony Hopkins went. I'm just like, you know, I think the father's so overrated. I've said this a million times. I know you liked it.

I didn't get it at all. I only saw it once. I did like it. All right. Mount Rushmore. final four, 21st century. F1, just did on the rewatchables. You love this. I loved it. I loved it. You liked it more the second time. So I talked to my dad. My stepmother had to go to New York for a family thing. He was by himself two days ago. He's like, I need to write a movie tonight.

And I was like, you should watch F1 again. He's like, I never saw F1. I was like, I was like, what? You would love F1. How have you not seen F1? Oh my God. I was so mad. So he saw it that night, we talked the next day. And he was like, F1 was awesome. Like he, he was like, I thought you were kidding. It's just, you know, it's, it's, it could have been number three in my list, but I put it at four. I'm, I'm very pro. I liked it a lot. I think it's a great popcorn movie. I always think Joe Kaczynski is so creative at how he captures, um, these worlds that he goes into. I will say one of my challenges that I popped it in a couple nights ago, the 4K, 4K looks fucking incredible, by the way. I popped it in. And one of my challenges with the movie is it never really

gets over the hump of the first 10 minutes for me when he's in the NASCAR race and a whole lot of love is playing and the fireworks go off. The first time I saw it, I was like, holy shit, this is going to be the best movie of the year. This is amazing what they're doing. And that, and that was just NASCAR wasn't even F1 racing. So I never, because I never could get back up to my excitement around that stuff, and because I don't really know anything about F1, like I don't follow it at all. I found myself a little, not disoriented, because they narrate through every race, like what's actually happening. But I just didn't have as much connection to it.

But there's no doubt it's like amazingly well made. And, you know, Pitt, just really flexing the movie Star Muscle in the movie. Important Pitt movie for the catalog, which we talked when we did the pot about it. Kind of needed it. This is one for the 60s. It was like his Tom Brady, Tampa Bay Super Bowl. Yeah. Which I know meant a lot to you.

Well, it did because then I got to see. say it wasn't Belichick, it was Brady than forevermore. I got to know that it wasn't Belichick. Yeah. All right. Number three, Friday Night Lights, did this one. We've done all these un-rewatchables. Friday Night White's number three. We did it last year and I just forgot how awesome it was and also how overshadowed it became by the TV show. And actually, the TV show never existed. This movie would be talked about even more reverentially. It's the best high school football movie, I think, ever. I don't even know who it's competing.

It's all the right moves and stuff like that. But it's the best. It's got one of the two best locker room speeches ever. It's Billy Bob in this movie and Pacino and Evie Given Sunday are in the finals. It does a great zag at the end where they lose, but that's what happened in real life. And then the way it was cut in 03 were these fast cuts and it was like a little hard. But now it's like, that just fits into the way we watch everything these days. So it actually feels a little more current than it used to.

Great cast. The rare, like, porting over Connie Britton from the movie to the TV show. Love to see that. I was thinking to you as I was watching the family McMullen, which you ignored my text about. Oh, I was busy. Sorry. I haven't gotten into it, but you know, I have, I'm like the biggest guy around.

You were like the number of brothers McMullen guy. Yeah, I mean, Long Island. Irish brothers who are like hate each other but love each other. Yeah. Surprisingly good movie. A couple people didn't make the cut for the...

I mean, John Mahoney's dead, but one of the other brothers just isn't in it. McGlone's there, though. McGlone, but the third brother's not in it.

They just kind of talk about him is like he's not in the room. Maybe I'll fire it up tonight. I don't know. I haven't seen brothers we've fallen sober in like 40 years. Connie's... Connie was available

and ready to come back. Great career for her. Number two. So I thought that I had the seven I knew what they were and I knew what the top four was but then the top two I kept switching back and forth number two. Number two is Creed.

It was number one. It was number two. It was number one. It was number two. I finally put it at two because Moneyball is number one. But I think these are the two best sports movies of the quarter century. I don't really think it's arguable. I'll accept other arguments, but these are the two that they, if anyone's making a list and they're not in your top 10.

It's just kind of an invalidated list. They're important for different reasons. Creed had the degree difficulty of, wait, you were doing this again? What's going on? Couglar, the Fruitvale, that guy's going to do, he's going to direct. Stallone's going to be in it.

What are we doing? And then it was the fucking best. And I'm so glad it happened. But just like the odds of it, were almost insurmountable. And then Moneyball, very similar. They're making a movie out of the Moneyball book? How the fuck are they going to do that?

And then they had 40 scripts for it. Oh, wait. Oh, Brad Pitts. Oh, I heard it's good. And then it's like, whoa, that movie's fucking awesome. You told a story when we did the 50 rewatchables about how you did a big picture blind screening and the music played up,

but the crowd just started applauding. So Moneyball, I think, has resonated in its own way, and so is Creed. Creed's had two sequels. But I think it's Moneyball won, Creed, too. What do you think? So, such a tricky one.

So we had Moneyball on our list, and that's a real shared passion for Amanda and I. She loves that movie, too. But when we rewatched Creed for the live show, I did feel like, damn, this, like, 28-year-old kid paid this movie. Like, how old was Googler when he made that movie?

And he is just able to summon that classical storytelling thing where the way you get invested in those characters that you otherwise should have no relationship to because even though it's based in a world that we already know, it's a whole new layout for Adonis. And also the fight scenes are legit, interesting and new and feel different. You know, like that's a huge plus in that film's catalog, that film's register because it just like,

there have been so many boxing movies. You've got boxing movies on this list. Very rare that you see a boxing movie where you feel like you're seeing it a little bit differently. And I feel like he pulls that off there. Plus, MBJ, him and MBJ, just being Scorsese and De Niro for us, I think is really exciting.

The idea of getting another 30 years of these guys making movies together is really cool. And it's obviously the second time that they work together. But it feels like them syncing up in a way that was very kind of mainstream that a lot of people get excited about.

So its legacy, I think it's going to be real strong. because Sanders isn't going to be the last time they worked together. He really sees him as his guy, like his avatar for his storytelling. So that makes the movie really, really powerful. Moneyball is cool. It's really fun.

It's really smart. It's really insightful. It's bizarrely emotional considering the subject matter. But I don't know. Just talking about Creed makes me want to watch Creed. So you go Creed won Moneyball too. It's a really hard one. It's a tricky one.

They're both great for different reasons. You know, Moneyball is not a movie about getting over the hump and winning it all. It's a different kind of film. It's like a more about an exploration of process and how sometimes you don't, even if you have the right answers, you don't, you don't get an A plus on the test, you know? So that's why there are a couple of reasons I like them as the final two for this 25-year run. Because sports movies basically start with the longest yard in 74, even though they're making them for a million years. It's the first modern sports movie. It's like 26 years of sports movies.

And now you look at the final two that are left. Creed's like a typical sports movie sequel, but it's not. It belongs to like this new era. But Moneyball is about where sports went in the 21st century. Right? So I was thinking about that piece of it that this is a movie that just couldn't have, wouldn't have existed. It's almost like a jigsaw puzzle,

putting it together a movie combined with like capturing some sort of movement that would go on to transform how we watched, followed and you know how teams are put together every single piece about sports and then it's a really awesome movie and it's accessible to people like my wife who would normally not care about it so i feel like the degree of difficulty was probably a little bit higher but i still can't believe a high the degree of difficulty for creed was so it's a good last two money ball is you're 100% right that it is totally sees the future about how we think about sports and how you know you're citing DVOA and, you know, expected points per play on NFL pods now, all because of

that Michael Lewis book and the way that the film kind of elevated its status among kind of mainstream non-hardcore sports fans. But there's also so many other things that happened with Moneyball where it was supposed to be Steven Soderberg. They were really close to production. It didn't happen for whatever reason. It goes to Bennett Miller. It becomes an Aaron Sorkanscript. It becomes a much more kind of romantic and traditional movie because of the Sorkan script. I think it would have been a much more experimental and confrontational, almost documentary style. Like, Sordiberg wanted to make it like

Reds, but for baseball. You know, where he had the real people in it, and there was into-camera interviews. It never would have been on this list if he had done that. No. Unless he nailed it. Like, unless he made something we've never seen before, and it worked. But it just seemed like it was a very high bar. They're both great. I think they're both

incredibly worthy of number one. Well, that's the other thing with this movie. It comes out in 2011. I was in, you know, I was peripherally involved with that early wave of the Sloan Conference, all that stuff. When people are trying to figure out how to use these new wave stats, it wasn't accessible at all. And as you just said, the movie really made it accessible in a way that it wasn't accessible before.

And it saw the future of team building, even though it was about the 03A's. It lays down this blueprint that now seems really obvious when you watch in 2025, but it was not obvious to normal people, I don't think, in 2011. No, I mean... And then it became obvious. Baseball sportscasters, who are the most crotchety old school figures in the world, have to know what OPS Plus is now because of this movie. Right.

You know, like, they have to use that data to communicate with their audience that cares about the games. That's pretty profound the way that it shifted. Obviously, the Lewis book is the biggest, the most significant part of that. But without that book, this, you know, this movie doesn't go to... doesn't become a Brad Pitt-level awareness thing. Creed, though, Creed is just like the hang glider movie, though, where once it starts, you're just like, wow,

I'm flying off the mountain for hours. Yeah, and the same thing where it has a couple like really, really, really memorable scenes, which is the last piece of a sports movie. Am I getting chills? Do I have like a couple hook scenes that I'm always going to remember? Is it about something? You look at the last four, Moneyball, Creed, Friday,

and Oates F1, all capture something that belonged to these first 25 years too. Friday Night Lights becomes a TV show where IP now starts to become confusing with movies and TV and we don't know really what's a documentary, what's a movie, what's a TV show? It's almost like part of trying to figure out what IP is. F1 is the sport that took off this year,

other than MMA, which I think started. But I mean, it took off this last 10 years in a way that no other sport did. It became this mainstream, huge sport. Creed, boxing, all the traditional sports movie recipe, but tied to this different air and the money ball tied to where sports are going.

So pretty interesting top four. Wait till my biopic of Jim Pickle, the creator of pickleball comes out. Then you're going to have to add it to your list. I did sports consulting agency. Does that want to work on that one? Pickle ball's almost dead. It's like 90% gone.

Yeah. What's your beach, man? That's what people, people, it's what I'm hearing on the streets. The streets have told you? Well, you do walk a lot. So I guess you would probably, are you running into X pickleball enthusiasts? The noise, the noise stuff is going to kill pickleball. Oh, how much noise it makes.

That's what's happening? Yeah. The neighborhoods are starting to rebel against pickleball. What happened? Did you like, did some guy, like pick a fight with you the first time ever played pickleball? Like, what happened? I cannot like certain things. Well, I agree, but you have a, you got to be in your bonnet on this one.

think people should play tennis. Okay. All right. Just play tennis. What if you got a bad hit? Try to break a sweat. Then don't play sports anymore. Watch TV.

Then just quietly die on the couch. Sean Fantasy. What's your best prediction for this year? Pain. All right. Good ending. Thanks, Sean. Thanks, Bill.

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Shriggs and House. Thanks to Fantasy. Thanks to Gahoun and Eduardo. As always, I will be back on Sunday night live with Cousin'Sal the last time we would be live on YouTube with the Sunday night podcast. So get ready for that.

It should be a fascinating week 18 with the NFL. And we'll see what happens. See you on Sunday night. Must be 21 plus in president's select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus in president, D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming. Gamble, call 100 Gambler, or visit RG-Helf.com. Call 88879-77777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or MDGamplinghelp.org In Maryland, Hope is here.

Visit gambling helpline.m.m.m.org. Or call 800-327-50-50 for 24-7-support in Massachusetts. Or call 8778-8-Hope. NY or text Hope NY in New York.