The Bill Simmons Podcast - Mayfield vs. Favre, Rams Questions, and the Russell Wilson Decade With Mina Kimes | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: August 23, 2019

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by ESPN's Mina Kimes to discuss Super Bowl LIII, the 2019 NFL season, Baker Mayfield, Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Jimmy G, Tom Brady, joining the booth for Rams preseason games, next-gen analytics, and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tonight's episode of the Bill Simmons podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network brought to you by ZipRecruiter. The best teams start with great talent. Like the New England Patriots. Yeah. I'm only saying that because Mina Kimes is coming on a little bit later and she's going to be traumatized by Super Bowl XLIX when I bring it up. I can't wait.

No one knows the importance of talent more than ZipRecruiter. So effective. 80% of employers who post on ZipRecruiter. So effective. 80% of employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate through the site in just one day. My listeners can try it for free. Go to ziprecruiter.com slash BS. ZipRecruiter is the smartest way to hire. Meanwhile, M&M's Hazelnut. Oh yeah. Take your game day treats to the next level with the new M&M's Hazelnut spread chocolate candies covered in smooth M&M's milk chocolate, delivering a mouthwatering blend of chocolate and hazelnut in every bite-sized piece. Enjoy them on their own or use them to spruce up your favorite desserts.

Like when I went to the movies the other day and I brought a pack and I threw them in popcorn because that's my move. Go hazelnutty. Try the new M&M's Hazelnut Spread Chocolate Candies today. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network where you can find, today we put them up, new podcasts from David Chang and Larry Wilmore, two of my favorites, as well as the Ringer NFL show is still dying to help you with your fantasy.

I know you probably have a draft or an auction this week, maybe next week. Listen to the Danny C Football guys and you can hear all their tips as we get closer and closer to week one, which we're going to talk about with Mina Kimes in a second. She works for ESPN. She has a podcast called The Mina Kimes

Show with Lenny that you should subscribe to if you haven't already. And we're going to talk about football. I haven't talked about football enough. My apologies, America. I should be doing a better job. I can still get better. I'm turning 50 next month. Guess what? I still feel like I can get better. And one of the ways we're going to get better is we're going to talk football for the next 100 minutes with Mina Kimes. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, Mina Kimes coming up in one second.

Wanted to mention some ringer news that I'm fired up about. Mallory Rubin is the new editor-in-chief of The Ringer starting on October 1st. This is something that has been in the works for us for a while. Sean Fantasy, we had promoted him to chief content officer a couple months ago with the plan being we would spend the next couple months trying to get Mallory to do this website. And it's complicated because unfortunately and fortunately for us, she's also one of our best talents and she has binge bowed and she pops on a couple of different podcasts that we have. She was on the rewatchables this week and we just had to figure out how to balance everything. We honestly did look into cloning

because I know people have cloned. I know people have cloned dogs. So we were like, could we take Mallory's DNA? We looked into it. And unfortunately, when you clone somebody, they still have to start out as a baby and all this stuff. So the timing didn't add up. But so she's taking over on October 1st.

Sean will now get to concentrate on being my right hand person for all the content we do at the ringer, which includes the website and the podcast network and ringer films and all the things that, um, that we care about as we keep growing as a digital multimedia company. But, um, I'm bringing this up because I've worked with Mallory, I think since 2012, 2013, something like that. And she came to Grandland. She didn't say anything for like three months to me. And I started hearing rumors that she had this whole personality. And so I would kind of sneak in the office. I would overhear arguing with people. And then as we got to know each other better,

really started to get a feel. And she was just incredible in the office. She's one of the best editors I've ever worked with. Her writers love her. And just kind of grew into a personality. When we were trying to figure out what The Ringer was going to be, we didn't even plan or account

for the whole podcast career that she's had because she just hadn't done them. But it's like anything else. You get reps, you get thrown into the fire. She got thrown into the fire when we did the Binge Mode Game of Thrones project and got just an incredible amount of reps and became awesome. And she is honestly one of the most talented people I've ever worked with. And we're excited to see what she does with the website. And in general, we started The Ringer,

it was me and it was Sean Fantasy and Malia Rubin and Julia Lippman and Chris Ryan, four people that I'd worked with Grantland that I'd really grown to just love working with and just love being with. And that was the genesis of everything we started. Who else did we want to work with? What kind of site and company did we want to create? And I am not surprised that Mallory has now ascended to the point that she could run this website for us. It will not affect the other stuff she does. I'm excited to see where this goes with her and for our company in general. So I wanted to mention

that. I'm really excited for Mallory. Congratulations. One of my favorites and that's it. All right, let's bring in Mina. Mina Kimes is here. We've never done a podcast. That's true. I've done almost every other podcast at this point. Yeah, you have. Is it a record for me? How many have you been on? Okay. Ringer NFL.

Yeah. The Watch? No. Bachelor Party. Bachelor. Yes. Jam Session? No.

Dave Chang Show. That was really fun. Oh, yeah. So this is your fourth one. That's pretty impressive. And you've been on a bunch of ESPN podcasts. Yes. Right. Yeah. You're America's podcast guest. Yeah. My start in audio at ESPN was doing the Bill Barnwell show once a week. Good friend of both of ours. So it was through podcasts. Yes. Did you like it or were you like, what the hell's going on? The Bill Barnwell show? No, just doing a podcast. Podcasting in general.

No, I liked it a lot. I mean, at ESPN, then I transitioned to doing more radio, but it's not always easy to break into radio as a writer. So podcast, I think, gives us writers the opportunity to talk in a way that we wouldn't. Your background, everyone always asks me like, how do you do this? How do I get into this? And the people that make it usually have really weird backstories that have no correlation to what they're actually doing now. And you're a good example. Yes. I feel like I should be an advertisement for Twitter or people who have social media helps you get jobs. Because I was a business journalist for a long time,

a financial journalist, investigative reporter, but almost exclusively tweeted dumb shit about football. And so people knew I was interested in football because of that. How many years were you doing, what was it, Bloomberg? No. So my first job out of college was at Fortune Small Business Magazine. Then I worked at Fortune for a while, writing about Wall Street finance, doing investigations. Then I went to Bloomberg and wrote for Business Week and then ESPN hired me in, it was right after we won the Superbowl. So 2014. I remember taking that hire really personally because I felt like we were just finding so much talent at Grantland and I was really scouting all the time and knew everybody. And then they hired you. And I was like, what the fuck? Who's that? And realized I just had

missed it. And then you came in and I was like, well, hopefully she's not good. And then it was like, oh shit. God damn it. Thank you. I had only written one thing about sports at the time. It was just on my Tumblr about football and how it had brought my dad. I feel so corny to describe your own writing, but it was about how I'd brought my dad and I close together. And some editors at EDS Penn saw that and said, hey, you seem to be interested in sports and maybe more interested in this than writing about finance, which was true.

And that's how they got the idea. Why were you writing about finance? Oh, I just fell into it. I didn't even study econ in college. It was just, I did a timing internship program when I was in college and they placed me at a business magazine. So I just had to learn how to do it really quickly. I liked it. I enjoyed it. I, I don't really miss it except for watching shows like billions as succession makes me miss it. But other than that, I don't miss it at all. What college were you at? I went to Yale. Oh,

so then you end up, you're doing business, but you really love football. Yeah. Back when I was a business journalist, every hour of the day, I was just on football mess. That's how I know Danny B. Kelly, our mutual friend, the most wonderful person. Well, the Seahawks message board community is intense. It's a little dark, but ultimately a place that everybody is joined together in a really intense way. Seahawks Twitter has a very unique characteristic. Kevin Clark and I talk about this all the time, the different fan bases and their different internet personalities. Seahawks Twitter is definitely one of the weirder ones. And I think it has kind of a cohesive nerdy approach.

It's a little bit more analytics driven than some other ones for sure. And you also have the Sonics leave. Yeah. There's one less team and people are pouring. I always feel because Seattle should be a four team city, but they only had two teams for a while. I guess the Sounders count now. But yeah, it was intense. And I didn't really think about their history that much

because they were the NFL basically the entire time I followed football. Would they come in like 1976? Yes. Was Tampa and Seattle? Yeah, it was part of that two-team expansion, yeah. And they had Jim Zorn and they had Largent. They were never on on the East Coast really ever for any reason. They were good in the 80s when they were in the AFC West.

Yeah. So you'd get like the football, the tops cards with the football leaders. And like Steve Largent was leading the league and we're seeing like, oh, he seems cool. But other than just seeing random highlights on SportsCenter, had no history with them. And then, I don't know, it just went through the 90s. They became the Bo Jackson ran through them team and never really had their moment until the Sean Alexander Super Bowl. Steve Largent would have been a great Patriot in retrospect, right?

Belichick probably tried to bring him out of retirement. Do you think he's the greatest white receiver in the history of the NFL? So I've broken this down. I think I even did a white receiver championship belt. He's definitely the best one. Because he was arguably, other than right, he was probably the second best receiver for a couple seasons. He belongs in the great.

It's kind of unfair to put him in a diminished category because he was truly, truly a great. But go back and look at those cards. The Jim Zorn, I want to say there's a card from, that when I was a young girl, like I love JTT, I love Devin Sawa, but man, 1980s Jim Zorn. Right. You got to go look it up. He was beautiful. A beautiful man. Are you one of those Seahawks fans that thinks the Steelers Super Bowl is rigged?

You mean the worst officiated game in NFL history? Yeah, that one. Is that what you're referring to? My dad, when he texts me, I think we have a similar relationship just from listening to you. He kind of keeps me to my biased roots. Like when I get too analytical and neutral, my dad will pull me back in. When he texts me about the Steelers, his phone still auto-corrects to S-T-E-A-L-E-R-S because he's typed it that way so many times. Oh, that's hilarious.

Yeah. My very first day at ESPN. That sounds like my dad. I went to rookie camp, which, you know, is like your first day. You have to learn all this stuff, the corporate stuff. It's intimidating.

I was walking around lost in that. Really, it's like a college campus and it's usually empty, which is a weird thing, especially during the day. And a guy comes up behind me. He's like, excuse me, miss, are you lost? Turned around and it was Jerome Bettis.

And I almost screamed because I had spent so much time cursing his name with my dad and saying how the NFL just wanted the bus to win one. And that's why it was so biased. And he was the nicest guy. And it was a real like, welcome to the NFL moment. Don't change how you feel about Jerome Bettis. He's a really nice guy. Don't let him win you over. He's a lovely human being.

It is funny to meet people that you hate in sports and then they're nice and it's discombobulating. I thought that was magic. Like I spent a year with magic. But even before that, when we did a podcast because he did a 30 for 30 and I was just so diehard bird. Like I didn't want to like him kind of.

I was kind of hoping he was going to be a dick, but he's not. The worst is the opposite though, right? When it's someone you love, a hero. I don't even want to tell those stories, but then you meet them and they don't live up to that. I think those are the ones that really haunt me. Sal has a bad one with that, where Emmett Smith was his favorite cowboy

and they did a Jimmy Kimmel Live bit with him and it just went really badly and it like really traumatized them. And then you're going backwards with, you know, your history with this person, but now it's colored by those interactions. Yeah, you can never really look at them the same way. So do you feel like nobody cared that the Super Bowl got stolen from you or? No. way so do you feel like nobody cared that the super bowl got stolen from you or no they just kind of come and go but if that had been like the bears that's a good point or the or the packers or somebody well you know the i think in most people agree that it was a poorly officiated it's the worst kind of a consensus now at this point uh even the ref, right? So I think triplets. So I think, no, it's so funny because people always ask me if 49 was like the worst night of my life, the Super Bowl that the Pats won over the Seahawks.

I'm aware of 49. And I say no, because Seattle just won the year before. If Seattle hadn't won the year before, I think after 49, I probably would have gotten into hibernation for like a month and just taking a social media hiatus. But once you win, and I think as a New England fan, you probably know this, it kind of, everything's a little bit different once you have that victory. Like if you had lost, I feel, I genuinely believe

if Patriots fans hadn't won this last one, they wouldn't have really cared. Honestly, like maybe it would have hurt day of. No, see, something happened with the Pats the last few years, and especially with the Flakegate and how much people hate the Pats. That it has turned into this us against everybody thing in a way that it doesn't go away. I got to say. I see. Well, for me. It's really- It's a visceral thing now.

Changed everything. It really has. Like when the Red Sox, they won in 04. And I still love them. I watch them. I've cared every time, but it was never quite the same.

We got it. Yeah, I'm not in a coma for a month and a half if we lose. If we had, if the Atlanta Super Bowl had gone, just been a shellacking, I would have been really bummed for a while. Right. Because it would have felt like it was just the end of the whole thing, right? It would have been, what do we do with Brady, Jimmy G? Now it's time for him to take over.

Is Belichick going to stay? Right. And instead that flipped the other way. Well, some of that has to do with the team, like the feeling that, well, this is we're approaching the end for Brady. And so we have to win these last few. This is before we knew he was eternal. Yes.

He's like Edward in Twilight. He's just going to be around forever. Do you feel that way? I do. I feel like he's eternal now. How many more years? I don't know what to expect anymore. Do you feel like he was worse last year?

Yes. Yeah. It's weird to me that people don't really recognize that no people who follow football recognize it right you know you know but it's weird what's it's funny i think because by worse it's it's really like top 10 he was a top 10 he was a good quarterback not a great quarterback last year which is i don't think i think after the manning thing where he fell off a cliff, everyone thought that's how it was going to be right. Okay. These old, this generation of elite, older quarterbacks, when it comes, it's going to come and it's going to hit really hard. And now we're learning, Hey, actually that wasn't the case at all. I mean, Breeze was

playing at an MVP level until the last few weeks of the season. Brady was kind of weird. Cause you got rivers and breeze falling off the end of the year. That's not really how it's been with him. It's like the little things, you know, like, like uh he just doesn't really step in his throws the same way or makes some bad decisions that probably stems from aging and mechanics and not wanting to get hit but he's still an incredible quarterback it's a complicated discussion because i think part of it is he just cares about january and february right so he's not taking he's not staying here for that split second extra to really get,

you know, he's always just going to play it safe. The receivers were bad last year. I mean, he wasn't good in the Super Bowl until that last drive. but that's the thing with Brady is

he still has the ability to flip the switch, you know, and he was able to do that, especially in the Chiefs game. Right. And when they really needed him, all of a sudden, he can kind of lock in. So he can to do that, especially in the Chiefs game. When they really needed him, all of a sudden he can kind of lock in.

So he can still do that, but it's the day-to-day, game-to-game, quarter-to-quarter stuff that he's just not saying. But I also feel like their receivers are potentially just so much better than last year. Chris Hogan was the second receiver last year. He couldn't get open. He wasn't open the whole season. Now they have multiple guys who can get open and catch in traffic.

Gronk was somebody last year that you could take him out of the garage a couple times a game maybe, but you couldn't rely on him for quarter in, quarter out. And now it's like at least they have guys now who might get open. I mean, the combination of Gordon and Edelman, they haven't had that since Walker or Moss. You've got the guy who can win in the middle and get open. I mean, the combination of Gordon and Edelman, they haven't had that since Walker or Moss. You've got the guy who can win in the middle and get open in space.

And then you've got the guy who can win one-on-one on the outside. You haven't mentioned the best receiver in the NFL yet. Jacoby Myers. I have, so I'm in a- First choice, best choice. I'm in a dynasty league for the first time ever. Take Jacoby Myers.

No, I did with Danny B. Kelly. And Danny was so mad that I got Jacoby Myers. He's been open every practice, every one-on-one drill, every preseason game. He's just open all the time. And Brady loved him from the get-go. Winovich makes me angrier, though. Yeah, I don't follow college football enough to understand how big of a steal that was. But it seemed like a steal in the moment because everybody got mad about it.

Yeah, I know. I don't know. How does this keep happening? I don't know. My hottest Patriots, and I really, I don't know how i've been talking about the patriots so much now we can be done in a second um i'm really enjoying this my my my one patriots take that i never get to air out is that um hightower is the most important patriot this generation and i don't know why we don't talk about it he's they don't win these super the last few super bowlsls without Hightower.

Every single game, he is the guy who makes the keep. Huge tackle on Marchand. Honestly, he should have been the Super Bowl. Huge tackle on Marchand. Strip sack. Strip sack in the Falcons game. In the Falcons game. And then he should have been the MVP in this last game.

I mean, I see why they gave it to Edelman, but Hightower is the guy to me. Yeah, it's funny. Edelman, he piled up a lot of those stats, but we only had three points through the first two and a half quarters. The tackle on Marshawn is a good what if. We don't really. Because first of all, how does he tackle him with one arm? Yeah. It's Marshawn. It's like a two string. Yeah. And then then second if he doesn't tackle him there was maybe enough time for them to at least do something

right I mean the reason they threw it I think there was like 45-50 seconds left at that point maybe 50 so I've thought about this a lot and the reason you throw it on that down is to preserve your options on the remaining two downs you understand thank you understand. Thank you.

You understand. I just didn't like the play. Exactly. Roll out. You have Russell. Yeah. Roll out. Anyways, it made sense to throw it.

Just not that throw because you want, if you run it, then you have to throw it on the next down. New England knows what you're doing. If you throw it, you can run or throw on the next down. And they knew that, but they just called the wrong pass. He's, it's not like he's six foot six. Right. You're throwing it just into a massive body.

Like 19 things can go around and get tipped. It could hit somebody's helmet. Who knows? I mean, it's an amazing defensive play. It's one of the greatest in Super Bowl history. I have actually written about this. I truly believe Belichick didn't call timeout. No.

I really do. I really feel like he Jedi mind trick Carol. I do think he Jedi mind tricks people. I think you can see him staring across the field and it's like he just sees something. And we were watching the game live going, call timeout. What are you doing?

Timeout. But he saw something and he was just kind of like, I'm good. Something bad's going to happen here. He makes coaches do things that they wouldn't normally do all of the time. I think, I mean, I went back and watched the Super Bowl going into this Rams season. Yeah. And it is.

When he unpants McVay. It's a masterpiece. Yeah. It's this Super Bowl. I don't, I'm not trying to be football hipster and say it was a good game because it was awful and boring to watch. How dare you? But it is truly, I think this is probably his coaching masterpiece, this last one. I agree.

So I felt like the football community would eventually come around on it. I think football knows that. It wasn't a fun, sexy, awesome, entertaining game. It was an old school football game. It was like the kind of game I grew up with. It was 1979 Vikings versus whoever, seven to six. It just was that game. They took away everything the Rams like to do. Right. And McVay didn't know what to do. And he just had that attitude all year of this is who we are. We do this. Yes. Nobody can stop it. Right. This is our thing. And then

Belichick's like, no, actually, I'm going to take that away. Now what do you have? And they couldn't figure it out. I think what drives me crazy, though, is this supposition going into the season that, OK, look, the Patriots did this. They solved the Rams offense. The passing explosion is over. We've got it.

Defenses can do it. No, Bill Belichick did that with a defense that completely changed everything they did throughout the regular season. You can't, most teams can't do that, can't make those kinds of week-to-week, I mean, it's a two-week period, but week-to-week adjustments on the flight, it's really difficult, okay? If you've got this Patriots secondary

that's been playing man all year, to do what they did in the Super Bowl, to use the linebackers the way he did, you have to have guys who are not only accustomed to playing together and are really smart players, which we know, Oh my God, it's been like 30 minutes. I'm still talking to the Patriots. I didn't want to say anything. But you've got guys who are, you know, we always hear Bill Belichick like smart guys. Yes. But they also are guys that know how to respond to coaching well. And I think that's what you saw in the Super Bowl. We also saw the

Rams not realizing that we could not cover running backs out of the backfield the whole year. Yeah. And I really think if they had played the saints, I think the Pats would have lost by like 20. You think so? I do. I think, I think Camara would have gone just absolutely apeshit on us.

Wheel route after wheel route. You never stop it the whole year, but it was like, we just luck out with the Rams where Gurley's having knee issues right as we're about to play them. They have no real backup for him and they just couldn't take advantage of this fatal flaw we had. I was thinking about that because in the last game,

so when in these Rams preseason games, they haven't played any of their starters, which is a trend that's taking root across the NFL. And I think will lead to some massive changes in how the league approaches preseason, which I'm sure you've been hearing about. But they drafted Daryl Henderson out of Memphis. And he caught- Fantasy sleeper, Daryl Henderson.

I don't know if he's a sleeper, but he had a 27 yard wheel route that just would have destroyed New England and the Super Bowl. And as I was watching in the last game, I was thinking about that. It's funny. They should have known they were going to play the Pats.

And they just, even if you had your third string running back, that was all he could do. That Pats team was really flawed. I feel like we should have, we should have won the Eagles game and we should have lost

to whoever we played in this last Super Bowl. Because, I mean, what are we, 13 points? You win the Super Bowl at 13 points? That's crazy. Also under-recognized

a coaching masterpiece from Wade Phillips. That'll be forgotten. The Rams defense did a lot of the same things. The Patriots defense were, in terms of disguising coverages and tricking Brady. Yeah. He was terrible in the first half. But this is like football.

It's so outcome-based. No one will remember any of that. It was such a limited offense because even there was this article. I'm in the corner that Sony actually wasn't that good last year. Cause I think people are way too high on Sony. And one of the reasons is they just couldn't throw him the ball ever. And there was these stats that came out. Yeah. They're trying to fix that. There were these stats that came out where it was

like, when he was in the game, they ran 76% of the time. Right. And the next highest guy was like 63, like in the entire league. So when he was in, like Kyle and I, Kyle's a huge Pets fan. We'd be watching the games and Sony was in and we were like, oh, run play. Or James White's pass play every single time. Right.

Yeah. So they were so predictable that I was like, I can't believe nobody can figure this out. Right. We have Chris Hogan who can't get open. We have Gronk who's on his last legs. Sony's in, we're running. How are people not stopping this?

And yeah, so now they want him to be able to catch passes. You've been hearing that out of camp. And that's really what the modern NFL is about, right? It's like- Three down back. How can we- Well, no, I was just going to say, how can we just be absolutely unpredictable on every snap?

Right. Which is why the Rams were so good during the regular season. Because yes, they tried it out three wide receivers, like 90% of the time, but they would do crazy shit. Every other, like you don't, you never knew who was blocking. You never knew who was running across.

You just never knew. And it was really hard to defend. The cup thing was a big thing too. That, that definitely, yeah, that definitely take on it. Yeah.

I like that guy. He's really good. He could enter the Pantheon of great wide receivers, white, white receivers. Well, we, I was talking to Matthew Barry last week about could McCaffrey be the first white guy ever drafted one in a fantasy draft? We're going backwards. We figured like in the 90s when people didn't know what they're doing, there was probably like a Brett Favre or Steve Young year where they went first.

But since then, I don't think it's happened. A couple of listeners said there was some Peyton Hillis possibilities one year, but I don't since then, I don't think it's happened. A couple of listeners said there was some Peyton Hillis possibilities one year, but I don't remember that. I don't remember that either. I don't remember him being going first in a fantasy draft. That doesn't sound right to me. Wow.

Before we go off the Rams, what do you think's wrong with Gurley? Because you've been doing these preseason games. So obviously you're around the team and you've done all the research. Because I keep hearing he has like arthritis in his knee. And once you have that, it's over. Like your knee's never the same.

Well, I think there's two ways of looking at it. What does it mean in the long term? And I think that speaks to the medical issues. And then the short term, he looks fine in the short term. He's been practicing every other day. So I've been out to camp a couple of times to prep for these games. He looks fine. I think they will use him differently this year,

but I don't necessarily think that's a reflection of his health. I think it has to do with what we've been talking about, which is sort of, Chamovie is really, really smart. And while I don't think the Super Bowl was a great outing for him, I don't think he's going to try it out

the same offense next year. They're not showing it in the preseason, but you know, with NFL, you can look to drafts. You can look to things like we were just talking about how Sony's being used in practice. The fact that they took Daryl Henderson. I don't think the Rams offense is going to look the same this year than it did previous year.

It was probably an eyeopening event for him. Yeah. Cause I think as Belichick or 33 now, as Belichick has shown over and over again, the wrinkles are what matter when you get, when you're starting to get to weeks, 18, 19, 20,

21, and you can't just do the same thing over and over again. So I think McVay is going to be the next Belichick. You do. I do. And I'm sure, I'm sure this whole thing was a learning experience. I think you could even see in the handshake before the game,

he went into it, you know, like the same way if I met David Letterman, like he had that look the game, he went into it, you know, like the same way if I met David Letterman, like he had that look on his face, like, hi, how are you? Good luck. What an honor to be playing you. And he was just deer in the headlights. You could even see it in the inside the NFL of the Super Bowl.

I think that was what I watched or mic'd up one of those shows. And Goff fucks up with like five minutes left and he comes on the sidelines and McVay is just, he's like deer in the headlights. We're going to be okay. It's fine. We're going to be okay. And it's like, right. You're not okay. Like you just lost the Super Bowl. It's over. Yeah. Well, he immediately came out. I remember cause I was there covering this last Super Bowl and it feels corny to say, praise him for taking responsibility for everything. Cause that's what coaches are supposed to do. But he did he really did the way he said it i was like oh he actually believes he fucked he's really really really putting this on his own shoulders and they love that man i mean yeah i don't want to sound like a stan because i'm doing this ram stuff but he really is a brilliant manager for a 33 year old guy like his coaches love him the fact that he picked phillips who's you know

70 or something and when he brought him in and he was coaching defense mcveigh used to sit down three-year-old guy, like his coaches love him. The fact that he picked Phillips, who's, you know, 70 or something. And when he brought him in and he was coaching defense, McVay used to sit down and just let him do it and say, you know what? I don't know this. I'm 33. I'm an offensive mastermind. Wade's got this. He let Shane Waldron, his quarterback's coach, he's been calling the games in the preseason. And when we asked him about it in the pregame call, he almost sounded, he wasn't upset that we knew, but he didn't want to talk about it because they hadn't had great games and he wanted to protect him. And he didn't want it to be known

because he didn't want him to get accountability for that. Like he does all those little management things that we don't really think about. He's also, I hung out with him at a party once for like, I don't know, 40 minutes. Okay. And he's just a great guy. And it's the recurring theme of anybody I know who's hung out with him.

We're like, that guy's a fucking great guy. Yeah. And I think, especially in football, you know, you have to have some sort of angle as the coach. You either have to be like an awesome, charismatic guy. You have to be an enigma like Belichick. Like you have to be like an awesome, charismatic guy. You have to be an enigma like Belichick. Like you have to have some sort of gimmick and his gimmick is definitely like he's charismatic. Yes. You know, and that can go a long way when you have a quarterback that's not

charismatic. Most quarterbacks aren't charismatic. I, my theory about quarterbacks having like written about some of them and, um, is you either have to believe in God or think you are a God and there's no space in between. Oh, that's interesting. We know where Brady stands. I don't know his religious beliefs, but he doesn't really,

I would say he- He's going to start his own religion. It seems to be going down that path. How do you feel about that? TB12. Because people always ask me as a Seahawks fan, like whenever Russell Wilson does something dorky, they immediately it to me and I'm like I know he's a nerd he's deeply embarrassing but if I was on an African safari with him and a cheetah came darting out I would throw myself in front of his body and take the leg because he's my quarterback

right do you feel the same way about Brady where if he does something embarrassing, you just take it on the chin? No, it's like a family member. He's like Kyle to me where it's like, you know, if your family member does something goofy, you're just like, oh, yeah, that's my uncle or that's my brother or whatever. And Brady really got weird after the Falcon Super Bowl. Yeah, he didn't used to be that.

He's been on a journey. The Falcon Super Bowl, something happened, and he passed some sort of invisible weirdo line and it's fine. I support any weirdo stuff he wants to do, but he definitely got a little weirder. Yeah. The Tom versus time thing is something he never would have done even three, four years ago. He just would have been like, no, that'll be a distraction.

Yeah. And now he's embraced it and he really seems, I've talked about this before, but there is like a tiny bit of a Tom Cruise-ness to him. Tiny bit. Every time I look at a picture of him,

that's what I see. Yeah. But like where he feels like he's stumbled on some sort of higher being. Yes. Interesting. And he really wants to tell us about it? It's like, I just wish you guys could know what I've seen.

I think where it gets interesting to me as an analyst, I guess, is I think it's impacting how long he's playing football because so much of his life now is invested in this religion that he's creating around himself. And he is the ultimate advertisement for everything he's espousing. And if he's not on the field anymore, that disappears. But he knows that. Right. Yeah.

It's really odd. He's really committed. The crazy thing, though, is he is faster. If you watch clips of him scrambling in 2018 versus 2005, he's faster.. He's, he retrained how to like run. He's did all these things. It is a little Tom Cruise-ish. We're Tom Cruise's 58 jumping off buildings in Mission Impossible 9. I love Tom Cruise. Hold on. We're gonna take a break. Hey, let's take a break to talk about Yahoo Fantasy. We've all made some bad choices in life. I know I have. Kyle, I know you've never made a

bad choice. A plethora of bad choices. A series of bad choices? Yes. Kyle moved cross country to get away from all the bad choices he made in his teens and early twenties. But this isn't about us. It's about you. Don't make where you play fantasy football a bad life decision. Play Yahoo Fantasy Football. Yahoo offers up free expert advice. It has the best player experience. They'll never, ever, ever delete your league history like other apps. That's awful, by the way. When I'm sports art, nobody will ever be able to do that. Yahoo also has all kinds of fantasy games like the new best ball. Just draft and you're done. No trades, no waivers, no drama all season yahoo is the number one rated

app by the fsga make better choices america choose yahoo fantasy football back to mina what was it like rooting against tom braden in a super bowl just out of curiosity i'm always rooting for him in this so there's the Seattle ones which is you're not even thinking about the other person you're so dialed in right I the Philadelphia one stands out to me because I was there writing off the game yeah and so I was watching the press box and when I was in the same the end zone where the Philly special happened and I it happens I see it I see foals leaking out and I'm like oh no no no no he's gonna do it he's gonna do it right and when he did it I went I stood up and screamed which you're not supposed to do and I didn't

realize the entire row in front of me was all Patriots reporters so it was so unprofessional and it wasn't I wasn't screaming because I wanted it to happen, although I very much so did, but because it was freaking cool. It was not something I'd seen. And Nick Foles, right? And it was so unprofessional. People always ask me about that

and sort of being a homer and a writer. And then people always say, well, Bill Simmons did it, so he made it so that you can do it, I guess. Oh, great. I paved the ground I'm trying to imagine the reaction of the

Patriots reporters with you doing that not great that fucking lady from ESPN she fucking disgust at tainting the profession

but it was awesome I mean I honestly even when the Patriots do cool stuff in the I can't help myself I can't be dispassionate I can't watch

and not have a reaction if something cool happens in the Super Bowl it's help myself. I can't be dispassionate. I can't watch and not have a reaction if something cool happens in the Super Bowl. It's definitely something that has changed this century. When I was coming in and writing the columns for page two and stuff and the reaction, especially when they became popular and people were like, he's not in the locker rooms. He's a bozo.

You can't do it this way. You have to be neutral. And my whole thing was like, why? Yeah. I don't do it this way. You have to be neutral. And my whole thing was like, why? I don't understand. Why is there one way to do this? And I was always like, I try to stay authentic. Part of what I try to do is these are my teams that I like, but I would still rip my own teams. Some of the meanest shit I ever wrote was about Doc Rivers and the Celtics. Oh, we're way harder on our own teams than anyone else. Way harder.

Yeah. I'm sure you have like a really, really harsh Russell Wilson think piece in you at some point because you've been picking them apart mentally for eight years. I complain about the Seahawks offense literally every day. Yeah. After the Cowboys lost in the wildcard round when they ran it 400 times despite having an elite quarterback and facing one of the best run defenses in the NFL yeah I think I ranted about that on every even if it was like a basketball podcast by the way Brian Schottenheimer I mean I came to ESPN in 2015 I had a Super Bowl tattoo I can't hide it yeah I can't undo it I can't

pretend it's just like a number it's know, 48. So, and I actually, I mean, you know, beat report, everybody is biased in some ways. I think it's only a problem if it affects the way, if you're not critical at all. I think we've seen it go the wrong way more with people who are pretending that they aren't biased when they actually are, when it's like beat reporters are trying to protect relationships. This has happened a lot in the NBA. They're just pouring the company Kool-Aid for whatever angle the company wants. So I don't know if you caught that GQ story on Baker Mayfield that came out this week.

Basically, there was a quote that went viral about him and he was criticizing the Daniel Jones pick. And I saw some people saying, well, a beat reporter, when somebody who's around him, this is a magazine reporter coming in because he doesn't care about the relationship. And I was like, yeah, that's good. Isn't that what we want? It's good to have writers writing about athletes and teams who aren't going to write another story about him. I never go back to the same well when I write about these guys, not that I'm burning them to the ground. You got in early on Baker. Yeah. Because yours was like the first one. Yeah.

Well, you know. Because you knew there was going to be like two months of them, but you got the one who gets there first is always the one that people remember. That was a good piece. Thank you. I've been on the other side of that too. You don't want to be like third. I've been, actually that last summer i did a story

on jaylen ramsey and i was not the first so uh i i've definitely i usually write like one nfl story every summer before i became a has-been that doesn't run anymore um the thing i used to love with that were the angles and trying to get to the angle of whatever before somebody else did, whether it was by a day or a month or whatever. And that was what I enjoyed the most. Like, oh, this might go here. And then when we had Grandland, started trying to send those and we do the same thing here where it's constantly thinking about what could be something that's let's go there before other people do yeah which i think is a really fun way to think about this stuff it's a different challenge now more than ever because there's more people well i was gonna

say also access is worse than it's ever been with athletes right so baker you put in the request and months ago yeah and the browns people they have a meeting they're getting all these baker Right. So Baker, you put in the request. Months ago. Yeah. Yeah. And the Browns people, they have a meeting. They're getting all these Baker Mayfield requests. And they're like, all right, we'll do this one. GQ, he'll get to do a photo shoot. Meenu will write a really good piece. And they're organizing it. And the goal is to be one of the people that they were like, yeah, do this one. So my requests don't usually go through the teams. Oh, so you went to the Baker.

I'm usually going to the athletes because I do my stories in the summer when they're available. You know, I should have, that's how the NBA works now. I didn't realize football. I thought the teams were more protective of football. In the NBA, you have to go to the guy

who's behind the player. It does during the regular season, but with the way the football calendar works in the summer, they're like, I don't know where he is. And it depends on, you know, like like maybe might usually la probably right training somewhere with like johnny manziel i don't know yeah i mean sometimes it depends on the athlete how famous they are like a couple years ago i did a story on aaron rogers um and i've heard of him that yeah so he hadn't done a story in a long time that wasn't through the team at all that was through like 20 levels it's like you know playing a video game and trying to get to

the final boss who's like his real agent and you're like okay i got through this level and i think with that one i she's kind of more god that's how i got him for my tv show i just badgered more uh more i worked at espn for those or well not really I don't know Maura's just a gatekeeper she keeps some gates that one so like he hadn't done a magazine story in a long time

I think at the end I had to write I wrote like a 600 word like here's why I think you should do this with me in particular yeah and got it to

in front of him but usually that's not the case he's a really interesting guy yeah cause he's definitely i haven't felt it talking to him he's completely aware of everything you're gonna try he's very aware he's he's in it and he's amused by it and his default is gonna be you're probably gonna ask or go toward all the same angles everyone else

does, which for me are the most fun people to interview. Really? You feel like it's like a chess match kind of thing? Cause I know I'm going to be able to surprise them and, or, or go down some road with them that they haven't gone. So I want them to be that way.

That's great. I can, I can win with those people. He's very smart. He's very smart. You can, with those people he's very smart he's very smart you can he's calculating everything at all times he he's the first person i had interviewed who taped the interview i remember he put down i wrote it into the piece because it's intimidating if you're gonna do this i'm gonna write about it yeah well he came to my house so that was already

which i i also wrote about this piece was kind of a power play in some ways right because it was like really i felt really vulnerable i've always struggled with that word vulnerable vulnerable because he's like judging your decorations i'm like you're like he was looking at my shit i was like well aaron rogers is looking at my regulation seahawks helmet on my mantle and i feel like a dipshit and you're 24 by 36 Jim Zorn photo. He's like, why do you have that? I was like, he's like, you don't play. Yeah. There was a really surreal moment. So it was a rental. We just moved from Los Angeles. So it was like small. Yeah. So I was already, and there was this really surreal moment where he was like standing next to

the TV and talking. And I was like, shit, I was watching him on that TV. And it was this really surreal moment where he was like standing next to the TV and talking. And I was like, shit, I was watching him on that TV. And it was just like this weird decontextualized, like, you know, when you go to an athlete's house, which is by far how often, how it's usually done or like a restaurant or some corny setup, you're looking at their stuff and you're thinking about them. But I felt like i was on the defensive because we're my he was like what's that book have you read that i was like oh my god stop looking at my stuff and then the worst part was he so this was in i was living in los filas at the time so i met him at cafe vita the coffee shop which was great like cafe vita because he was sitting in there and no one in there knew who he was. And he was loving it. Yeah.

Because, you know, it's like a hipstery kind of spot. And he's like, cool if I park on this street? And I was like, yeah, yeah, no problem. So afterwards, I walk him out, $90 ticket. Felt like the worst person in the world. Oh, no. So shameful. That's why these celebrities like LA, though, because they can go sit at a cafe and nobody knows them.

Totally. That's why all the NBA players come here. All the Rams. There's this weird code here. Yeah. I wonder like how famous I mean for well football players

aren't really famous for the most part. I think Baker has a chance. And he's your quarterback he's got a recognizable face. Some of these guys don't have like

the recognizable when I don't have my helmet on faces but he's especially with like the facial hair and stuff, is distinct looking now. Brady, although he's changing his face. Come on. He's not changing it.

He's just using creams. We have 45 minutes of Patriot's Talk. He's using creams. Have you dried any? He's probably using like dragon creams from the 1700s. I feel like it's stuff from South Korea that I should know about. But look, I mean, you know, I saw a picture the other from South Korea that I should know about. But look, I mean, you know, I saw a picture the other day.

Who did I think it was? It really looked like a different person. How are you enjoying the Jimmy Garoppolo come down? Are you enjoying it? It's a tough one for Kyle and I. You want him to thrive? No, we love Jimmy G. You love him. Yeah, and I bet on him when he got traded to the Niners every

single week and I was all in. I think he got hurt and I bet on him when he got traded the Niners every single week and I was all in I think he got hurt and I think he lost his confidence I'm not willing to write him off but I do feel like we forget sometimes with athletes that especially if they never had a real injury that it fucks them up sometimes he so I watched his last game because the Rams awful the Bronco well he to me he looked like Brady coming coming off the acl in 2009 yeah stepping in throws hearing footsteps doesn't help that he was playing behind a backup offensive line against bradley chubb who decided to make his life miserable um but it is concerning because he didn't look good last season to me i mean i i so i'd be a little bit nervous about him. I like him. This was a Rosillo early corner of like,

we're sure he's good. Oh, who knows? He's barely played. I mean, I find, I like him. He seems just like a dude, right? Like I found the porn star thing really charming. Word. Like.

Kyle. I hope that's your only interjection. No, I was just like, oh, this guy doesn't know better. It's true. Did you have the same reaction? I just felt it was kind of, it was kind of how. Oh, nobody told him. It was like early Gronk.

It was like, oh, he doesn't know. He's so untainted. Also a truly charming human being. But yeah, I was like, oh, like he he's not he hasn't figured this stuff out yet he's just doing it because he wants to but this is like some end of the nba roster shit and he's still at like he's a quarterback and nobody's telling him not to do like to be out in public what happened what what were your feelings on baker just from a hanging out with them charisma standpoint unbelievably charismatic i mean because he's like, what? 22,

24, 24. Yeah. Still pretty young. So young. And like, he just got married. I'm all in on all things Baker.

Are you? I really, I just, I like every, he said every checkpoint for me, I completely believe. And the most important thing for him, the Patriots really did try to trade up for him.

Yes. That was a thing that happened and they kept it stealth and it was going to happen. Do you wish they had? Hell yeah. Yeah. They would have lost Super Bowl last year. Imagine Brady in that scenario. He just would have left.

And by the way, that would have been Belichick's dream scenario. Oh yeah. Thanks for the Super Bowls, Tom. I got you a ride for the airport baker is very seductive like when you're around him you will run through a wall for him he makes guys believe in him um we'll see like when that you know what how that plays out because i haven't been around a young quarterback who has that much bravado and charisma. He's the comp for him in just

about every way, I think. He's a Scott McLuhan. Scott McLuhan, who's this very well-known NFL executive who's been a front office guy with the Seahawks. He was responsible for the great Seahawks draft of the 2011, 2012, 2013. He was responsible for the great Seahawks drafts of the sort of 2011,

12, 13. He was advising the Browns to take Baker. He was the Favre guy. So he saw them as being very similar. And I think they really, their personalities are similar. I didn't let like,

I, I wish he had owned the Jones thing personally. Right. Cause we all felt you can't as a quarterback. I realized that. I don't like this new era we felt you can't as a quarterback. I realize that. I don't like this new era we have where people say something and then. Out of context. Yeah.

It's like. Just say it. You said it. You're basically shitting on the person who reported it and wrote it. A hundred percent. Griffin did that with Jake Fisher at SI. It's like, I like David Griffin,

but like, dude, just own it. You said it. He didn't, he wasn't exaggerating it. It wasn't off the record. And it's something you've David Griffin but like dude just own it you said it he didn't he wasn't exaggerating it it wasn't off the record and it's something

you've said to 20 people privately so just just admit that you said it I think it makes it worse to lie about it but people buy it really

it was interesting watching this last cycle play out over the Jones thing and seeing people say wow out of context media

fake news and it's like we're doing this, really? Yeah, it started four years ago and that's where you can just deny everything now. The Jones thing literally, if I'm Baker, I come out and say, hey, media, you literally all had the exact same reaction.

We're really going to shame me for having the exact same reaction as 99% of the people on earth. I was incredulous. If he had called me for advice, and I don't know why he would, I have said hey just say look no disrespect to daniel jones but i believe as quarterbacks like when you win you win at every level and it's like if if he can defy that and i'm wrong great i'm rooting for him we We root for each other. But I just think performance matters. I'm old school.

Doesn't even have to give a take. Just say, yeah, I was blown away. Like everyone. I don't know. Anyways, but he's a super, he's very tribal. And that's kind of what I wrote about. Like you are either in or out.

That's how I am. Yeah, I've heard that. His offensive line is going to be the death of the season. If they, if there's a death for them this season, I want them to trade for Trent Williams. Cause they are not great. They turned out a first round pick from the Pats.

I read today. Really? Yeah. They wanted more Washington. He's 31. That's when it's been looking good though. I know, but I think they were, I think they're just worried in general about depth.

I think they really feel like they can win again this year. Cause I think they, they lucked out with the receivers and in the AFC, it's like, who, who else are we supposed to be worried about? Not the Chargers anymore. Not the Chargers anymore.

Chiefs. I'd put, I'd say the Chiefs. Yeah. We already beat them. We own Andy Reid. Do you think Dante Skarniecki is one of the four most important

Patriots or coaches or players of the entire history of the team? So this has become a take the last couple of years. Yeah, people didn't really know his name. I mean, he did the ultimate goat thing, which is you show everyone your goat by leaving for a little bit

and then you see everyone sees how it's a great move how good they have yeah such a good move it's a good one would have been a good

ride home move like four years ago just like I'm gonna I'm gonna do some theater in Brooklyn he wants he loves like weird stuff

that's um the producer of a lot of ESPN people know who ride home is oh I don't know I don't know sorry I'm doing the annoying radio thing where and we do that's the producer of a lot of ESPN people know who Ryder is I don't know sorry I'm doing the annoying radio thing

where and we do and something during games where if we say something and I assume people don't know you get worried well no

you come in and say for those who don't know at home that's you know we are referring to this metric and here's what it means it's such a corny thing

we didn't talk about football games yeah I did I announced I think three NBA games and here's what it means. It's such a corny thing. Oh, we didn't talk about football games. Yeah. I did. I announced, I think, three NBA games. And I just loved it. I was the third man in the booth.

And the NBA is so different than football because football, like nothing's happening and then something happens, but then nothing's happening and for 30, 40 seconds and you get to break down the replay or go on some tangent. And in basketball, it's just moving unless there's free throws. If there's free throws, then you could be like, oh, now, but for the most part, there's just action. You don't want to step over the play by play. And my recollection each time was like, fuck, it's the fourth quarter already. Like I'm just settling in. I'm really

enjoying myself, but football, there's a lot more breathing. So what's that like? Cause I've never done a football game. I love it too. There's an adrenaline rush that you don't get doing anything else. Podcast TV, certainly not studio work. It's live, right? Yeah. I mean, the only live thing at ESPN I do, I've done first take a few times. That's live. But I guess you get an adrenaline rush from doing that. Because you're being shouted at. Well, I've never been on with Sass, who you had on yesterday, right? I had on. I love when he comes on the pod because it's like acoustic Stephen A.

That's a tough act for me to follow. No. But yeah, no, but it's like being in a game. It's like in the closest we dorks have to being like feeling like we're yeah suiting up uh so you get you get that high but it's a different the mechanics are just and we're doing a three-man booth um i can't even tell you how many times i've talked up over like up right until the very moment when the ref starts talking which is you can't do i blend make so many blenders i'm not not good at it, but I love it.

I'm really enjoying it. It's just a different animal too in the preseason. All this stuff, it's just reps. Yes. Unfortunately, my reps are happening in front of- No, it's preseason. Come on. Yeah, that's true.

That's true. Especially this preseason. I think this is the year the preseason died. It really is. I don't know what to make of Jacoby Myers because it's like he's going against the 89-string quarterbacks on the other team. What does this mean?

Well, I'd say with a wide receiver, at least you can see, okay, he can win in space. Okay, he's got the speed. Okay, he can track the ball. Yeah, it's a lot harder to evaluate a quarterback who's not being pressured by ones. So there are certain positions I think you can get a little bit of a better feel for in the other direction too.

Like Daryl Henderson, who we're talking about on the Rams, he's getting stuffed, but he's playing behind a backup offensive line at times against the ones. And you have to consider all of that stuff. I like how you're saying the ones, you really sound like a football announcer person. You know, he's with the twos that couple of times, then he was with the fours. The fours. The fours are what we see a lot of. You never, he was with the Twos a couple times. Then he was with the Fours.

The Fours. The Fours are what we see a lot of. You never want to be with the Fours. I'm the Fours. Like bringing me in to call this game. Truly the Fours. I'm doing it with Andrew Siciliano, who's delightful. And Nate Burleson, who's also delightful.

And they are not the Fours, but I am. It was a very smart idea by them because I don't know who's announcing any preseason game ever. And with this one, it was like, Oh man, Nate Burleson. Wow. It actually became a thing on online a little bit, which makes me think that was a good idea. The Rams are, God, I sound like I'm really standing for them. They're really your team now.

I know. We should talk about the irony of you cheating on the Seahawks with the Rams. This is like an affair. You're like Dominic West season two. This is quite a pull. You watched season two

of The Affair? I watched every season. The Affair's amazing. Really? I just did a two hour rewatchables podcast on Fatal Attraction. Oh, wow. Yeah. I went back in.watchables podcast on Fatal Attraction. Oh wow.

Yeah. I went back and I've never seen Fatal Attraction but I've read the Wikipedia page for it and I feel like I should see it. You've never seen Fatal Attraction? It's the highest grossing movie of 1987. So many classic movies that I haven't seen. I'll send you a list. I'll give you like five. It's because my dad hates all old things.

So growing up I never saw the classics. And my mom was born in North Korea. Yeah. So that really creates a hole in your American pop culture knowledge. You know what I just watched for the first... I just watched Pulp Fiction for the first time. Wow. Guys, it's really good.

You should watch it. It's an excellent film. The Rams... So I got into it. The CEO is this dude, Kevin Demoff. I don't know if you've ever met him. So I've moderated these football analytics panels at Sloan a couple of years. He's been on them.

We got to talking a little bit about the Rams drafts. And it was his idea. He's a great guy. And so I think they're just kind of open to trying new stuff. They have male cheerleaders. I'm the equivalent of a male cheerleader for a broadcast. When you go to Sloan, do you need to just be surrounded by bodyguards as one of the three women out of the 2000 people there? It's you and Jackie McMullen. And I think that's it.

Actually two women. Oh, Rachel Nichols. All right. It's three women. I know. It's really all you. That is like the all-time sausage fest that anyone's ever created. Coming from Wall Street and then writing about the NFL. I don't know. I mean, honestly, analytics are great for women

and women in the NFL because it just gives like a way to get in. True. On the Rams, actually, the analytics person I've been around is a young woman. And it just gives you a way in that, you know, you don't normally get into football. Never thought of that that way.

That's a good point. I mean, just taking nerdy approach. I didn't start talking about football until Bill Barnwell started having me on. Who I, you know, I adore forever for that reason. And it really is, hey, maybe we're listening to different voices. Maybe not a former player. Maybe someone who cares a lot about expected points added per play.

I really got into it, football outsiders. I used to have Aaron Schatz on the early days of the pod. He would come on and I just loved the numbers, but for selfish reasons, just because I felt like there were like real gambling advantages because most people had no idea about anything and the DVOA which they had gotten down pretty early and it was a really good indicator and people are just looking at the standings and especially the stuff like for the last six weeks and the skewed ones and all that waited um stuff was was like a legit advantage and then people got caught on to it. That's a subtext of Sloan, by the way,

is like most of the people are gambling people, but it's like, it's an analytics conference. But yeah, usually if you're in sports and you care about analytics, half the time you come from the gambling world, right? Because it has given people an advantage for so long. I mean, Seahawks fans love DVOA because it showed for years

that the Seahawks were really, really good, especially even at the beginning of the Russell Wilson era when in 2012, they finished number one. I found we out of my vocabulary, but the team had finished number one. So fans would say, hey, this metric, it shows what other people aren't seeing. You know, by the way, I was thinking about on the way here, you used to like love Russell Wilson. I remember I used to listen to your podcast and you do that weird impersonation. And I loved it with Seth. But you went out on him.

At some point you had a turn, I feel like. I don't want to call the column iconic when I predicted the Seahawks run, but I think iconic is a fair word of it. It was before the season. And I read all this Russell Wilson stuff. And it was a little like we were talking about with the charisma thing. And they had always been that team that

needed. Hustle and bustle. That was it. Yeah. What happened to that? I miss it. I think when we went head to head in the Superbowl. Yeah.

You really, I think he got too good and you started getting worried. Yeah. He was on my corner a little bit. I, I was always confused with the Wilson thing. Actually, let's take a break. Cause I want to talk. Actually, let's take a break

because I want to talk about this. Let's take a break to talk about CBS Sports HQ. As I've talked about multiple times in this podcast, sports television changing, not always for the better. Lots of yelling, beating topics in the ground, hot takes that you're not even sure the hosts believe. Well, CBS Sports HQ is looking to change that. The coverage is always focused on the game.

All the highlights, news, stats, game previews, game reactions, fantasy advice, gambling picks. That's right, you degenerate game boys out there. I know you're listening. It's all the yelling and the fake debates. No more. It's not happening. Just sports for real sports fans.

Live 24-7. You just turn on, leave it on. Best of all, completely free. Not free for a week or a month or you have to sign up. But no, seriously, it's free for everyone. You don't even need to log in, open the CBS Sports app, watch anytime from anywhere on your phone

or at home on your Apple TV, Roku, or Fire TV. Couldn't be easier. Download the CBS Sports app and watch CBS Sports HQ today. Since we're here, don't forget the rewatchables. We did Fatal Attraction this week, me, Wesley Morris, and the new editor-in-chief of The Ringer, Mallory Rubin. So there you go. All right. So Russell Wilson, the relationship with his teammates, I thought was honestly like

a top four most fascinating NFL story of this decade where this chasm between these two sides of the Seahawks and Pete Carroll's inability to manage it, not really caring for a while, and it just became what it was. It was like every cliche you would have about a football team where it's like the quarterback's got his side here and the defense has their side here, and they kind of coexist, but it's going to be a ticking time bomb. And then that's what happened.

Sort of. Yeah. It's funny. I mean, I think it's all real. Like my colleague, Seth Bickersham did a great story. He's done a bunch of really awesome stories on NFL teams and some of you might be familiar with. But it's, it really drives me nuts when people say, well, the Seahawks struggled because people hated the quarterback or they paid their quarterback. It's like, no, they've struggled

because guys got hurt and they had a few years of bad drafts, like most things in football. We try to kind of retroactively graft a narrative onto- And some injuries and the usual dumb things. Half the LOB got hurt or knocked out with- They had an amazing four-year run, which is what you have usually as an nfl team

you have a four-year unless you're in new england you know you've got your ways of working around it but but the thing with new england is it's been a series of four-year runs that have had the same quarterback all the time cliff april stays in that game and julian edelman goes out with his concussion we're talking about a very different outcome but you know that's neither here nor there um but yeah it's so right? Something as small as that can completely change the way we look at it. We should have lost to the Ravens. Was that that season? No, that was the Falcons season.

I was talking about 49. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no. I'm sorry. I got my Super Bowl titles mixed up. My bad. The all-time we never should have won that game was the Ravens game. They were better than us. And they were pulling the kitchen sink out, having Edelman throw passes and all that shit.

And they just should have beaten us. In 49, so I don't bet on football, but I had looked at the odds right before. And I thought Michael Bennett should be like, I can't remember what the odds were, but I had a feeling. Oh, Super Bowl MVP? Yeah. Super Bowl MVP. And first half, I was like, oh's this is the greatest call of all time and i told a bunch of people because he was just destroying brady by the way michael bennett is on the patriots what

the hell i just remembered that um so annoying but and it's such a patriots move but in any case um yeah this is back to your question about like rus Russell and the Seahawks and stuff. He's just a nerd, man. Like he just is a really dorky guy and came into a team that was extremely cool. Marshawn Lynch is probably one of the coolest human beings to ever walk this earth. And he didn't fit in. And I think now it's like younger guys and they respect him. And it's kind of a different dynamic.

But he was just never like a cool, I don't know. He was just, it's like every other workplace. Like sometimes it just comes down to really normal stuff. Like guys not fitting in with each other. I like your answer. I think you're right. I think it was, had everything to do with bad drafts and just the four year, whatever the team, but I'm just the dynamics of a football team,

like that they resented him, I thought, was pretty rare. Because usually the quarterback, even like Rodgers, who just seems like he's probably a dick, and it's so many teammates leave that situation and like they lob grenades at him, which never happens with our Lord and Savior Tom Brady. It's like two guys. No, it's like 15.

I think we're just hearing from two guys. That's true, on the record. It's two guys who continuously go on the record. Who just are like, hey, Kyle Coward's asking me to come out again. All right. Want me to throw some grenades at Aaron Rodgers? Can you really make a career that way? Like being the former guy who, like what,

how has not a former Patriot been like, you know what? I'm going to be the anti-Brady guy. Because God, you could build an entire career off that guy yeah kyle would just go find him yeah we'd rough him up at least he would the uh the wilson thing though i feel like i've watched a lot of his career because being in la there's two three three late games. Yeah. Right? And it's always like the Seahawks against some terrible NFC West team

or, you know, whatever. And I just think Wilson's terrifying. He's so good. Like to bet against and you're like, you're up 10. There's four minutes left. The Seahawks have done jack shit. Yeah.

And then all of a sudden he's running around doing weird shit. And all of a sudden you're like am I gonna lose this yeah what happened like he's definitely in that in that realm yeah I think that's what's so frustrating about the whole run the ball sort of which is the great debate tearing NFL the NFL yeah and I guess NFL Twitter apart over the last year or so. And one of the great ironies, to go back to the Seahawks fan base being sort of analytically driven, is that we are cursed with a team that seems committed to being the anti-analytics

team, or has been, right? But then the counter-argument is, well, actually, the offense was still successful despite their commitment to, quote-unquote, establishing the run. Yeah, they were successful because freaking Russell Wilson was saving their asses on third down over and over and over and mounting these fourth quarter

comebacks. He is incredible. He's honestly, like I said, cheetah. My leg. Sure. Take it. Anything for him. I love him. I did that. I did a mailbag thing about this after Brady got hurt about would I

have given up my ACL for him? ACL's fine. Achilles is tough to come back from. I haven't turned 40 yet, but my sports career is pretty much behind me at this point. It's like, I probably would have done that because I feel like we could have won that Super Bowl. When are you on your feet?

You're sitting right now. I'm trying to move around. Yeah, I'm sitting now. Yeah, totally. Achilles is really painful and hard to come back from. Achilles, I don't know if I would give it up. I'm trying to move around. Yeah, I'm sitting now. I mean, yeah, totally. Achilles is really painful and hard to come back from. Achilles, I don't know if I would give it up. I wouldn't give up on Achilles. But ACL, you can have. Yeah.

You can have one of them. No question. Patella, you can have it. Patella, well, it's tough to come back from. Rotator cuff? Fine. Take one of mine. I have two.

These days with science, I mean, you've seen Cooper Cup out there. He looks great. He'll be fine. There was this whole thing this week about how he's faster. Yeah. He does look really good in practice. What do you think is the next advanced metrics football thing that is going to be interesting or cool or anything? Like the next thing we're looking at or the next thing that football teams are doing that's cool?

Or the trend that we don't know about yet. Well, I think everyone this year now wants to see what defenses will do, right? Kind of riffing off of the Super Bowl. Okay, well, so offenses finally realize, hey, passing is way more efficient than running, and we should pass on first down. And, you know, there's some little tweaks to, it's not just rolling out 11 like the Rams, but teams have realized passing out a 12 really works because of what defenses have done to counter 11 and yada, yada, yada. But I think for the last three years,

the story of the NFL has been finally recognizing, oh, right, we've got these college quarterbacks coming in and they're trained to do one and offensive linemen. They can do one thing. Let's spread the ball out. Let's cater to their skill sets. Now it's going to say, okay, let's look at college defenses. Let's see what they're doing at lsu or in the big 12 i know that's smart and saying what are these coaches doing uh the problem is it's really complex to execute because i i believe a lot of it is similar to what we were talking about with what the patriots did in the super bowl it's mental it's not just hey let's draft like for years after the super bowl so the seahawks were really good.

It was like, yeah, sure. Let's just draft like cornerbacks with long arms. That'll solve everything and run cover three. Now it's like, hey, let's pattern match. Let's get defensive secondaries who can do what New England in the Super Bowl and disguise coverages pre-snap and rotate and trick Jared Goff.

It's hard to execute though. The Patriots, the new trend is going to be cocaine. So just jump for Kyle. I guess it sharpens the mind. Chung was great in the Super Bowl, man. It's like Chung Van Noy. That's what's so annoying about them. It's like, what the?

Chung, all-time great Asian football player. Want to talk politics? Just kidding. You're in that whole Miami world though. Yeah. I've known Labattar forever. How long? Since I started writing for page two and he called me and he's like,

why are you calm so long? You're going to die. You're going to kill yourself. Do you need an editor? He called me out of the blue. I'd never talked to him before. I was just thinking about him. We were talking about Russell Wilson,

his comebacks because Labattar's thing is how Philip Rivers is always mounting a comeback down two minutes left in the fourth. Yeah. But now he admits that's kind of the Russell Wilson thing. It is. With better outcomes. Maybe that's why they established a run

because Russell Wilson's telling them to establish the whole thing. That's like the Super Bowl conspiracy theory that Wilson wouldn't let them give the ball to him. Yeah, I know. I love that one. There's a second shooter. Nope.

And it's dumb. No one blames Wilson. Everyone blames- Pete Carroll because he wanted his golden boy quarterback to get it. That's like a Friday Night Lights plot. It's not like a real life thing. So the whole Miami thing. Yeah.

You started doing those shows. That's how you got all your TV reps. Yeah. A couple of years ago. You're just doing highly questionable over and over again, getting comfortable. And the radio show. Yeah yeah which is more radio reps but was i mean dan is uh been a great mentor to mine at espn was kind of working with him i guess made me feel more comfortable being myself in all these formats which is not something especially when you're a woman

coming into tv radio that you're really necessarily comfortable doing. What does that mean? Uh, you know, they have certain expectations cause you're a woman that you should not they, but I think the viewers, I mean, historically, most of the women in sports and TV and radio, and not only are in host roles, which is very different, but are really polished yeah um i'm not very polished and at first i was really really nervous about that because i wasn't looking and seeing you know people who are screwing up like me or just kind of being weird and dan who is also i think not very polished and really embraces that was someone who said nope, nope, stop, stop, stop trying to be good. Stop trying to just be yourself.

And it's so corny, but you have to have someone tell you that. He's unpolished and sweaty. He's so sweaty and foggy. His glasses are always foggy. Can't they put the air conditioning on in that studio? What's going on there? It's really cool in there.

He's just a sweaty guy. It's a small space. I think people who don't understand that, but highly questionable and the Levitar CEO is like cramped into a tiny floor on the cleveland cleveland or the hotel and so you've got like six or seven people just bouncing around in this tiny tiny room and it's part of why i think it's so great because there's this unique energy there yeah but it's really sweaty as a result the the reps thing right home was trying to get me to do PTI for a couple years.

And I just wouldn't do it because I was like, I'm going to be bad. And he's like, you just got to do it. You just got to. So I did it, I think, for four days in 2009. And they were like, you're doing great. You're doing great. And I knew I wasn't doing great. Now, if I watch those old shows, I'd probably want to hang myself.

But what really helped me was doing the podcast. And I was getting the reps from that. And then I started to do a little more and a little more. And what really helped me ironically was countdown. Really? Because I still didn't know what I was doing, even with that. But the reps of doing that, by the time we got to the playoffs that year, I was like, I actually know how to do this now.

And then I remember I went back. I did PTI with Tony in like February, March, 2015. It was right before I left. And I did like two days and I was like, and I was telling Ryan home, I was like, Tony's going to be surprised. Like, I know what I'm doing now. And the first day I kind of, I was kind of getting him. And then the second day he came in like he had just been like in in the gulag training for and we just like went at it and it was great it was so much fun but it took me for six years to feel like I could do that because it's just different you have to train yourself to stay still yeah you have to train yourself to get rid of every tick you have and to talk concisely and to sell the other person. And there's just 90 things going on.

I was watching my second preseason game on our DVR did. And I turned to my husband. I said, look, I know we just bought this television and it's really it's from Best Buy. You like it. It's the biggest, nicest television we ever had. But I'm going to go throw it out the window right now. I hope you're cool with that because I cannot fucking listen to myself go anymore. It's nine ticks. You hate your face. Oh my God. I hate my face so much.

It's just seeing yourself in HD. You're like, I hate myself. I just want to. And then you pick up all these things and it really becomes this self-esteem challenge yes and now imagine you have to like rebuild it and now imagine being a woman and on top of all of that yeah the looks that you know people are no um it's crazy I didn't I almost didn't say yes to this one actually so I So I have a long history of almost not saying yes to things and then someone talking me into it. So I was like, wow, Demoff, the Rams guy. I was like, it's super flattering that he even thought,

but I was like, I can't do it now. And my agent's like, you got to do this. You got to do this. I'm like, no, I'm going to be so bad. And it's going to humiliate myself. But you kind of have to humiliate yourself before you can get better. That's the thing.

And a good move is not to look at Twitter replies. I, I thought I, so I didn't look at my Twitter replies the entire time I did countdown. You can't do it live, especially. You can't be like come out of, and I would notice I worked with somebody who would look at them. Like we would come out of the, we'd be at, we'd be in commercial on the set and they were looking at. I'm like, that's crazy. Because why would you do that? I just told my colleague Sarah Spain about this. The first time I did first take, I was going with Dominique Foxworth. He was my pal.

So it was very easygoing. Yeah. And I'm like feeling myself. I'm like, I got these NBA takes. They're great. I've said some, you know, I've made some jokes. I made the mistake of checking Twitter during a commercial break. Coming back, one of my eyelashes started to like fall off my face because I was crying.

Oh, no. You know, a gender hazard, the moisture. And so it looked like a caterpillar had like walked across. It was so dumb. And so I really try not to check. And even if you know, you can always tell yourself, well, I don't take criticism from anyone I wouldn't take advice from. And this is just some idiot. It's still like plants itself in a tiny part of your brain. I think even someone as accomplished and successful as you, like I never goes away.

Right. No. Even if. And by the way, you're never going to be that great at it. You know, I'm not saying you, just anybody, there's always going to be three, four or five things you can do better, you know? But I think the key is to just think of like, you're an unfinished product, not you, but just anybody where it's like, I'm still going to get better at this. I'm not, I'm not going to hit a

grand slam every time I do this, but can I be good? The biggest thing when I was doing Countdown that first year, we needed somebody to kind of drive the show. And initially it was Wilbom, but as the show went along, I had to take a piece of that and learn how to do like throws to commercials and shit like that. So I would write the little intro outro things. And that actually would really help me because when I wrote them, it made it stick in my brain and I got like semi comfortable, but I didn't really feel like totally comfortable until 2015. Do you over prepare?

No, over prepare. I did, but it was, it's bad to over prepare. It's better to just write down the piece of the take, or at least for me, the piece of what I want to say.

That's what you're supposed to do. And then ad-lib it. Right. When I first started doing Around the Horn a few years ago, I used to write down almost everything I would say. And then you're just reciting it.

Yeah. Well, not only are you reciting it, you're not going to recite it correctly. So you're going to be like, well, and then actually is Yardsburg or something. The place to get to, which I feel like I got to,

is you know what you're going to say but you can also ad lib completely if it goes in a different direction or if you think of something on the fly because then once you're listening to the other person the key is the listening to the other people right which you can't do if you're over preparing and you're thinking yeah the first couple years I was doing it's like I'm going to say

this and then I'll say this and you're not the other person is like you're not even thinking I for this Rams gig have 150 pages of notes and that I had taken on like the practice squad. I read a book about the fricking Rams, which by the way, was absolutely useless because they're not running any of it. So I'm like, yeah, if you want to talk about the difference between wide zone and mid zone, I know that and I'll never get to tell anyone on earth.

But I have to admit, I do like having it all like tucked into some part of my brain and then forgetting it when I, I, that's the approach I try to take now. Not always successful though. The three person football booth. Yeah. It's had a complicated history. It has worked a couple of times though,

so we know it can work. But for the most part, it's usually they do it because they're not totally sold on whoever the two people, I'm not talking about the Rams, but just in general. Well, I think it's necessary for us. The first promo was the best the last couple of years.

And it's like, they just wouldn't need a third person. Mata's like, they just wouldn't need a third person. Mata and Summerall, they didn't need a third person. But I do think there's a way to make it work. I think it's really helped like Van Gundy and Jackson, the early years, the way they played off each other. Depends. I think it's like skill sets.

If you want two people who aren't competing. So for someone like me and you or Kornheiser, I think it's useful to pair us with a former player because if I'm with Burleson, he, and he sees a wide receiver, you know, mess up his route or whatever. I'm not going to talk about that. He's much better at commenting

on the in-game action than me. It drives me nuts to watching the rewatch because I see everything on the rewatch or if I'm watching like the all 22, but in the game, no, I don't fucking catch. Like, I catch like I'm not seeing what the guard the guards pulling and he's successful I don't see that in a football game so Nate says something and then I'll weigh in more on like the macro or the trend or the roster and it feels a little bit more synergistic well your your destiny like for people like us as the third person is ultimately the, you have to be the curious person.

Yes. Why did that happen? What's that? Like you're just constantly. Like the stand in for the viewer. Yeah. You're trying to just unpeel information and angles from like somebody like Nate where you're like,

Hey, what, why did that play out that way? Well, it's like, you love reality too. You watch the bachelor and stuff, right?

I've been known to watch a couple of those shows. I always think about like, what would I be like if I was on this show? And I think you probably, let's be honest, I wouldn't be hooking up or fighting with anyone. I would be the person who's just commenting like the narrator, right? The stand in for the audience. And I kind of feel that way when I'm in a game. Like I'm not, no one's watching me and seeing like whether I'm in drama, but I'd like to have a

quip every now and then. So what do you want to be doing five years from now? You don't think about it. I'm kind of like the task in front of me is what occupies my attention. I have a lot of tasks in front of me at ESPN. So I just

tried, I'm like still in the process of trying to get better at all of them. Cause I'm still pretty new to it. The problem with that place is, especially when you succeed there, no, they just, they want you to do everything. And you had learning how to say no is the most important skill you can have there. Yeah. It's like, no, I'm actually not doing that. I don't care if you're mad at me. Well, it's like learning how to say no and yes. Right. Because for the first part of my career, a lot of it has been learning how to do that. And now it's like being a little bit more judicious

about things for sure. I mean, we want to put you in a closet with Bill Barnwell and it's going to be a second screen watch in the dark. I would do that with Barnwell. That's my dude. Oh God, I just gave them an ESPN Plus idea. Him and Danny, man. Those are my guys.

Yeah, my advice would be don't get too attached to Ride Home because I think in three months, that dude could be just like walking the Himalayas and trying to like save sheep. He has really diverse interests. He's taking up drawing. He's a very,

and we are both really into crosswords and every day send each other our competitive crossword results. And when I, at the beginning of it, so I do only Thursday, Friday, Saturday, no big deal. And at the beginning of it, I was just shredding him, you know, cause I'm doing like 15 minutes Saturdays, but he's so smart that he started to surpass me every now and then. And it's really upsetting to me. It's like he could pick anything and become awesome at it. And I hate that. I like that. He thinks he's the Ansel Adams of Instagram. The Annie Leibovitz. Yeah. He has the, he has the fun, the most fun Instagram of anyone I follow. So he's just like,

look at this bridge, but he actually makes it work. He'll see like a child walking alone in Mexico and take a picture. I'm like, whose child is that? I'm not taking a picture of a random child, but it looks good. I'm doing PTI next month. Really? Yeah, with Tony. Amazing.

And I'm so excited to, I'm just doing one day, but I'm so excited to be with those guys again because I love those guys. They had a big influence on what we want to do with Grantland and here too, yeah when i would go there i was just so impressed by how everybody worked together and how kind of collaborative it was and how he was the boss but he didn't seem like the boss and he was he would hear a suggestion from anybody and consider it and he just kind of wanted to put people in the a place to succeed um but not tell them what to do. And I thought, I was like, that's how this should probably work. And we were doing 30 for 30 at the same time. And Connor was a lot like that too.

And just watching those two things together, I was like, that's probably how this should go. All of Eric's shows are like that too. Highly Questionable, Around the Horn, High Noon, which I've gotten to do a few times now. His competitive eating talk show that's coming. You don't know about that? No.

It's called Stuff It In. It's two people. They competitive eat as they do the takes of the day. They haven't found the cast yet. So I was listening to your- Hashtag Stuff It In. Your podcast with Kevin Wilds, you're talking about ideas and he brought up Slow Ride, the Uber. Yeah.

This is a show idea I've had forever for like Vice or something. Duber. Duber. So it's an Uber that drives around L.A. And I don't know if I can describe this in full detail. Why? Well, it's legal in L.A. Yeah.

So it's like hot ones. But instead of people doing interviews, eating chicken wings, they're doing interviews in a car that's like slowly amassing. It's like an escalate, like an escalade. Duber. Duber.

I worked backwards from the name. Duber. I think that's a really, I don't even think that's a half-baked idea. It's a good show, right? Three fourths. I would sell that to Vice.

Vice doesn't. I used to have a thing. I don't even think that's a half-baked idea. It's a good show, right? I think that's like a three-fourths. I would sell that to Vice. Vice doesn't. I used to have a thing that could actually probably happen now about the stoned Olympics, where it was all these events, but you had to be stoned to have to try to do them. But they were a little bit complicated. You had to solve things and things that would just be a little harder if you were under the influence. Yeah. I'm all for. Nobody's really tapped that.

There was one show a couple of years ago where they would get super high and do like a video podcast. But I feel like it was probably illegal. It's like drunk history, right? Yeah. Kind of like that's what I'm working off of. I mean, it only works if you get people who would be funny to watch. Like Charlie's Seren would be great on Duber, I feel like. So you don't like stuffing in?

People, you have to eat like 15 hot dogs as you give the takes of the day. You're like Aaron Rodgers mustache and you're just shoving a chili cheese. Did you see Aaron Rodgers mustache, by the way? I did. He does it every year. That one seemed like very Jeremiah Johnson-ish though. Yeah. With the Canadian tuxedo.

I was impressed by that one. He can grow one. I'll say that. I think my prediction for Aaron Rodgers, it's going to start to get really weird. Like how Brady got weird two years ago. I think Aaron Rodgers' version of weird as he starts to drift toward his late 30s

with the Packers team, that's nothing's going to happen. I just see him going off the weirdo rails. I think they're actually going to be pretty good this year. Why? Make the case. The defense is significantly better. I like all of the additions they made, adding the Smiths as their pass rushers,

Starius and Preston, Adrian Amos was a great signing. I think Mike Patton's a really good coach too. And I think in the second year, they're going to be a lot better. And I'm actually like higher on Matt LaFleur, their offensive coach. He's one of the McVay babies. Yeah. Then most people. McVay babies. The McVay babies.

He's from the litter. That sounds like a disease. I caught McVay babies. I think he's so stupid. I think he's yeah, I think, by the way, I know we joke about the McVeigh proximity thing or whatever, but my proximity to him,

I feel like that's got to help me out down the road, too, right? You feel like you're 10% better? Should I? No, just people are like, oh, she spent some time around Sean McVeigh. I should throw that. I was thinking also, watching the preseason. Oh, like you're saying that as like a sell for yourself. Yeah, for me. Not that I'm going to be a coach.

That's a good idea. But there's nothing better than being a Rams third backup quarterback now. Because of course a team's going to pick up that guy. You know, their fourth is this dude, John Wolford, who was a finance guy who got picked up by the AAF. You know his story? What team's not going to take him? He's been in Mavay's system for months now. Yeah, but that sounds like a Belichick.

I know. And then we're going to do it and we're all going to get upset about it. Yeah. Before we go, what's your favorite reality TV show right now?

I watch every episode of Bachelor in Paradise. I've watched every Bachelor like episode, everything in the franchise. Paradise is my favorite, but I watched it all. The Bachelor is turning into a feeder system for Bachelor in Paradise now,

much like the real world was the feeder system for the challenge. Oh, so it's like ultimately the better show. It's like you see Zion at Duke for four months, but ultimately it's going to lead to his NBA career. That's what Bachelor in Paradise is now. I watched the Bachelor now going, oh, they're going to be great. Yeah. What do you call it? Bachelor Red Zone. Oh.

Because it's all of just the fighting and hooking up and you don't have to watch the boring long dates and the getting to know each other stuff. It's just action. I had a whole argument last night about with my wife. Not an argument,

but a discussion. There was this guy who was in love with Demi, but then Demi had a girlfriend from back home. Christian. And then the girlfriend showed up. Yeah, didn't like that. Yeah, that was aggressive.

And then the guy handled it really well. And I was like, if that was a dude, I feel like that guy would be much madder. 100%. And she was like, and my wife was like, why? I don't understand. It would just be anybody she liked. I was like, I don't know.

It's like, you could talk yourself into, ah, well, I never had a chance anyway. But if it's another guy, it's like, she liked that guy more than me. This is a longer conversation. Yeah. Perhaps about male attitudes towards sexuality. I'm just talking about, I would talk myself into, ah, well, it wasn't me. There's a, it's like a famous episode of sex in the city about this,

where Carrie's dating a bi guy, but then she finds out he's weird about it as well. Like I said, this is a much like a, but you're right. I, by the way, I like how that guy to his,

his mere tolerance of it. The bar is so low for that franchise, he was treated like an American hero on Twitter. People were like, Derek for president. What a paradigm, a paragon of tolerance. He handled it so well. He did. He's on a reality show. That's another thing I think about.

I was telling you, I think about being the quippy narrator. I also think about how good I would handle provocative situations and the things I would say. And that's something where I was like, oh, I'd be so good in that scenario as well. Listen, there's no excuse for a man to cry during a reality show, in my opinion, unless somebody died. Yeah. I mean, I cried during first take when I saw, you know, 43, 2, 4, 5 writing, she sucks. So I don't think I'm one to

shun dudes for crying. It's Bachelor in Paradise. Come on. How do you get that upset? You're all in the aquarium swimming around with the other sharks. Dylan clinging to Hannah G, who my husband calls

Bratz doll because he thinks she looks like a Bratz doll after like three days. I'm amazed when anyone cries on this show. It's like, this is ridiculous. This is like professional wrestling. You guys are actually attached to each other? What's going on? In their defense, I think-

There's no defense. I'm going to mount one. I think the reason they act, and they've said this, the former contestants say this, the reason they act so nutty is they are in a test you know, like a test tube for three days with no access to internet. And so they're just sitting around thinking all

how like me and Debbie. Just being lunatics? Yeah. It's like you're so dialed in and focused on literally nothing else that it's like being at summer camp, right? Where you would fall in love with someone really quickly or get upset about things and everything is the end of the world. Because you're not distracted in any way. You're not thinking about anything else. That's how I think that it literally is like being at summer camp and they're 13 again. I just want to know how some of these people feel when they see themselves crying on camera at Bachelor in Paradise. Have you ever cried on camera no why are you so incredulous cry on camera weird uh me neither i think you're looking back this is one episode of highly questionable i cry in front

of people all the time but yeah i don't think they're thrilled i guess i have lower standards for this show than you do i mean mean, listen, I don't know. You can't really enjoy it if you think of them as actors, even though that's what a lot of them are. You have to kind of suspend your disbelief. I don't feel like they're actors. I don't know if we've come up with the right word for whatever their profession is.

I think, well, first of all, you're right. I think the word you whatever their profession is i think well first of all you're right i think the word you're looking for is dumb like i think they're just mostly not well a lot of them well it's like whatever susceptible rather whatever a short word would be for i just want my 15 minutes of fame you know what they're trying to do like they're instagram famous now i they're like wannabe influencers i've been watching the show for a long time? Oh, yeah. Okay, so like if you go back and look at earlier seasons, I recently went back and I don't know why.

I can't remember. Nothing was working on my TV. So Amazon had like a bunch of old seasons and I watched the first episode of like Dez's season. Yeah. That's the one where the guy she really liked quit early. I like how you did the disclaimer of I don't know why. Like you weren't flipping Amazon.

You were like, oh, this is first season. They all had real jobs. It was such a different era for these characters. And their motivations were different. In some ways, it's more entertaining because I think they were all truly just there to find love. But I don't know. So if you're Derek, are you going to say on TV after Demi dumps you for her girl back home, are you going to say this always happens to me?

Somebody always chooses someone else over me. I'm just not giving that intel on camera. Derek is. I'm sorry. I'm not putting that out there in the world. You're looking for end game, right? Maybe, and I know I just used the word dumb, which was kind of unnecessarily mean, but if you're on there, you're not only are you in that test tube 24 hours a day thinking about one person or whatever, you're thinking about how you're being portrayed on television. I guarantee you Derek was, as soon as that was happening,

was thinking, okay, how can I come out of this looking good what is the best end game for me for this and he's gonna execute it sobbing on camera and saying everyone picks somebody else over me

after that part yeah I don't know I thought the fight the semi fight whatever it was that dude got

body slammed from like the top rope if he had hit like wood I think he might have broken his shoulder instead of sand. He would, there was,

it would be like a Syria. He could have gotten a concussion. Yeah. That was bad. That escalated fast. That was anchorman level. Have you never cried? Brick killed the guy.

Like I know Derek cried on camera, but like the situation, I don't know. If that guy had cried. Oh, well that would have made sense. But no, I just to go back to the's crying on the show thing.

I mean, haven't you cried? Like, because I just I guess I can't get past the Bachelor in Paradise part of just just having that kind of emotion worked up in three days. Do you like to show Euphoria? Oh, yeah. OK, so we're doing the big little lies show. Yeah. But I felt like the whole time i was just cheating on it with euphoria i was just like i just can't wait for this show to i just want to watch euphoria every night and i think the reason i liked it so much was the emotion it really captured that like heightened emotion because like you know as a high schooler this may

come as a shocker but i was not participating in rampant drugs and sex use yeah um and addiction i guess setting aside fantasy baseball at the time but i did feel like everything was the end of the world and i thought that show did such a good job of capturing like the heightened stakes of every single encounter every single thing that happens to you when you're that age it's like the most important thing that's ever happened to you. And it really got that right. And then they put that on steroids and made it the craziest version of it. I thought it was an incredible show. Wesley and I just talked about it yesterday. I thought it was the show of the year. It's so good. Well, this season of Succession is so good too. So that's. I think what was surprised me about Euphoria was just how

affected I was by the characters. Like I was really attached to some of them. The performances. Which is really hard to do. Whereas Big Little Lies, it was gimmicky. I loved it. I watched everything. But ultimately, it just kind of came and went. Yeah.

And it just seemed like an elaborate way to just have Meryl Streep on a TV show for seven weeks. Right. And that was ultimately the legacy of that season, I think. I don't really know. You know, I just thought season one was just trying to do so much more. Season one also just had an incredible plot. And a start, middle, finish. Propelling it forward.

Yeah. And this one didn't. And if you don't have an incredible plot, I mean, I don't think Euphoria has like an incredible plot you have to be invested in the characters and like the feelings and didn't really have that either I still watch Euphoria going I don't know where this is going yeah I mean does it bother you

if your kids are teens no young teens babies my kids yeah my 14 and 11 I would never let them watch that show but does it I'll let my kids watch anything. My kids watch Big Mouth and Good Boys, all that stuff, but not that show. Is Good Boys, are we allowed to, I'm really excited to see Good Boys. I got a screener because my son was badgering me.

He's like, you can get things, just get me this. And he honestly watched it eight times in seven days. And it's his favorite movie ever, and it's really funny. I really want to see it. It's really good. The trailer made me laugh. It's a good date movie. Also, I just think little children cursing will never stop being funny to me.

Like little children doing adult shit. Well, you're going to get it in this movie. Oh, boy. Yeah, it's really good. What I was trying to ask you is, I have friends with kids who can't watch Euphoria because it makes them think about their own kids in those scenarios. Do you not feel that way? No, I'm in good shape so far with these kids.

They're pretty young though. Yeah. With the 14 year old girl, I don't have to worry about her. My son is the one. He's not a baby Nate. My son is the one who will be crawling out the window when he's in the ninth grade and taking an Uber somewhere and we'll never know he left. Like he's one of those kids. Hopefully not the duper. Not the duper. Thanks for doing this. This was fun.

I'm glad we did it. Who's who's winning the Superbowl. So I've got Eagles patched again in the Superbowl. A lot of Eagles buzz right now. A little too much. And I was really early on that. Now I, I don't want to be like,

I don't want to ride the wave. A lot of people raving about both sides of the line. It's one of those, one of those random football things sounds like something I would say they're going to win in the trenches again they're really really good on both sides of the line I think

I'll give it to the Eagles but I think that the NFC is much more stacked this year so much better yeah it's like an NBA style thing

I'm doing over-unders with Sal next week and I'm really every year I try to find this has been going back to since I had my column in the 90s, like the team that come out of nowhere, nobody expected them team. There's a whole recipe for it. And now people are pretty good at just

looking at the first eight weeks of the schedule and all these little things. So now it's like it's flipped even. You have to open in another layer because it can't be the obvious, oh, that's the team. It's got to almost be. And I'm looking at the Steelers, and I can't stop looking at them. Great pick. Totally.

I'm not ready to make it yet, but I keep circling them as like everyone's writing them off. Antonio Brown, incredible Ewing theory potential. Obviously he's completely insane. And just the infrastructure, I don't think their division's very good. Everyone just has the Browns penciled in and it's like, they've won nothing yet. I have no idea if Friday Kitchens is going to be good. So I'm looking at them. I'm circling them I'm not ready to commit to it I think they're a great pick

I think the offense is going to be fine I was worried about the defense I don't think the secondary is good but apparently Devin Bush is the second coming of Bobby Wagner They always seem to find some random receiver out of nowhere who's like, who's that guy?

They're fine, Deontay Thompson I mean, yes they could turn, you know Kyle into the next great wide receiver. And Ben took a lot of shit with the AB stuff. I'm not saying he didn't deserve it. No, but I think the perception now is like he's on the other side of the mountain. Steelers fans and honestly, Steelers beat reporters are luxuriating in America

like quote unquote waking up to AB and oh I know it's kind of a bad look like I know but the thing is I'm going to be doing this

with Kyrie Irving in like April you really are yeah well I we talked earlier just to bring it about players I've met

who I didn't have the greatest experience I you know what I didn't have the greatest experience. I, I, you know what? I don't want to put Antonio. No.

Oh, I just ran a B a few years ago. And I remember walking away thinking that's, that's like, there's going to be a lot of, he's a wild card. Did one of the weirdest things I've ever had happened to me at a dinner. We were at a Ruth's Chris pulled out a thing of floss,

offered it to me. And I. We were at a Ruth's Chris, pulled out a thing of floss, offered it to me, and I felt peer pressure to do it. So we both just flossed at the table after eating together. Why am I telling this at the end? I could have gotten out cleanly without doing this. Kyle's eyes are bulging.

That is weird. It's really weird. Yeah, the Steeler fans, I don't have to deal with them like you do because the Patriots just beat them all the time so they don't really comment the Pats fans Seahawks fans because they beat you in a Super Bowl

I'm sure you'd take a little bit more they're not the worst fan base I would say at all but they are very much enjoying this Antonio Brown thing I think they're going to be fine. I think you're going to be good. You knew it was bad when there was no benefit

to getting rid of him. Like they're paying for him not to play there. Yeah, it actually was really damaging for them to just be like, yeah, we'd rather not have this guy. And that's how they operated. They were like, you know what? This is actually better for us. Well, he was just, he wasn't going to play. He said he wasn't going to play. I mean, who knows if that's how they operated. They were like, you know what? This is actually better for us. Well, he was just,

he wasn't going to play. He said he wasn't going to play. I mean, who knows if that was true, but. There's a lot of fun takes that are just going around now that are just, and one of them is, people forget James Conner's really good. It's like,

no, nobody forgets. Nobody forgets that, yeah. He won just about everybody their fantasy league last year. People know who James Conner is. People forget would be a great. People forget. Yeah.

That is a good one. People forget. That'd be a good segment. Ride Home just created a show. People forget. People forget. 430 ESPN 2. It's after Duber.

Mina, this was a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thanks so much to ZipCruiter. Don't forget to go to zipcruiter.com slash BS. Don't forget about go to zipcruiter.com slash BS.

Don't forget about Mina's podcast with Lenny. Don't forget to watch Mina on the Rams games this week. And don't forget about the rewatchables. Fatal Attraction is up right now. Back next week with multiple new podcasts, including The Return. I don't know how many seasons we've done this over and under for NFL. Me and Sal. Double podcast. Half on mine, half The Return. I don't know how many seasons we've done this over-unders for NFL, me and Sal. Double podcast. Half on mine, half on his.

That's all coming next week. Enjoy the weekend, everybody. ......... I don't have a few years with him on the wayside on the first I never said I don't have a few years