The Bill Simmons Podcast - Money Grabs, Eli Manning 2.0, NBA Rookie Watch, NFL Nerding, and an MCU Deep Dive With Craig Horlbeck, Danny Heifetz, Austin Gayle, J. Kyle Mann, and Joanna Robinson

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons shares some thoughts on the MLB playoffs and gives his Million-Dollar Picks for NFL Week 6 (1:49) before he is joined by Craig Horlbeck and Danny Heifetz of ‘The Ringer Fantasy Football Show’ to propose some exciting tweaks to the NFL season and make some current NFL player comps (17:52). Then, Bill talks with Austin Gayle about seven nerdy stats from the 2023-24 NFL season (53:24). Next, Bill is joined by J. Kyle Mann to discuss the stacked NBA rookie class (1:12:04). Finally, Bill and Joanna Robinson discuss her new book, ‘MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios,’ and the top five actors whose careers have benefited from the Marvel films (1:49:23). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Craig Horlbeck, Danny Heifetz, Austin Gayle, J. Kyle Mann, and Joanna Robinson Producer: Kyle Crichton  The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming, please checkout theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, NBA, NFL, million-dollar picks, a little MCU, some big-picture sports stuff next. This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. You know me, I can't go a day without sports. I really can't. And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right. There's a new exclusive home for streaming Monday night NHL hockey, and it's on Prime. All season long, Watch prime Monday night hockey

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with all the great beer tastes we like. 90 calories per 355 mil can. So why not grab some Miller Lites today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up new rewatchables on Monday. We did They Live.

I have another movie coming this Monday. Here are your hints. 1993, lost more money than it made. There you go. That's all you need to know. Maybe you'll figure it out. I have on this podcast a lot going on, a little something at the top that I wanted to talk about that ties into what's going on in this

Phillies Atlanta series, which is now over because Atlanta became the latest team to dominate the regular season and then lose immediately in the playoffs. So I want to talk about that. I have some thoughts, million dollar picks. Craig Horbeck and Danny Heifetz coming on to talk about NFL then and now comparisons for players. And then Austin Gale is going to nerd it up with us about the NFL. Oh, wait, there's more basketball. Kyle Mann talking about all the rookies that we have coming into the NBA season in less than two weeks. And last but not least, our friend Joanna Robinson

talking to MCU because she has a new book coming out. So this is really, really a loaded podcast. You should be paying for this. You really should. You're lucky this is free. Free content, my friends. Let's bring in one second.

Taping this on a Thursday morning. I was thinking about my friend James Babydoll Dixon today. Whenever there was a Hollywood deal that we always would laugh at and be like, oh my God, I can't believe they did that or can't believe they took that job. And he would always say, money grab, baby. I'm talking about him like he's dead. He still laughs. What a money grab.

And just money grab has been a running joke with Baby and Sal and Jimmy in my circles for a long time. Who's doing a money grab? All of the professional sports leagues right now are in one of the all time money grabs we've ever seen. Now, I was thinking about it last night with the Dodgers, because on the one hand, the Dodgers get bounced in three games, right? They play this whole regular season. They get this great record and then they get bounced and they're done. And their fans are just irate.

They're apoplectic. They can't believe this happened again. Oh my God, we lost momentum. Now, there's some rational Dodger fans that are also like, you know, we did start playing Kershaw in game one of a playoff series and he didn't make it out of the first inning. They lost Urias during the season, who was their best starting pitcher. And it was a pretty flawed

Dodger team. Actually, I wasn't surprised that they lost. I didn't think it was gonna be the Diamondbacks. But in general, the Dodger fans are like, I just spent six months watching this team, and this season ended in 90 hours. You know, we saw this happen in the NBA with the Bucks and the Heat last, uh, last April. The Heat was an eight seed. The Heat, you know, farted around during the whole regular season and turned it on for a couple of games. All of a sudden the Bucks were gone, which was great. It was really fun. Hockey has had this forever. I had hockey season tickets for a couple of years with the Kings and the regular season was so meaningless and so stupid for a team that knew they were going to make the playoffs that you

almost wondered what was the point? Why am I paying for this other than to see Connor McDavid or a couple other people? The NFL has expanded to 17 games, which all of us love football, but 17 seems way too many, especially with the injury potential. And they're probably going to go to 18. Like they'll just keep the gravy train going. And it's all about the money. And I'm not breaking any new ground by saying that, but at what point do we stop caring? At what point? Because I'm there with baseball, you know, baseball is fun. You put it on every once in a while, but for the most part, if you have a good baseball team and I've had a few, I had the 2018 Red Sox were probably the best start to finish baseball team I've ever rooted for. But ultimately they also could have lost and

round one, it would have been over. It's all about the playoffs now. And it feels way more random than it ever did. And I don't know if it's a good thing. I think it's a bad thing for baseball because people talk about how fun these wildcard games are and the pitch clock. And I'm with you. I've watched a ton of baseball, but I also didn't really watch any baseball during the regular season.

And I'm somebody who grew up loving baseball. I watched baseball my whole life. I wrote a Red Sox book. Up until probably the late 2000s. I love baseball equally with every other sport. And now I just don't care as much. And there's a million reasons for that. But the biggest reason is the regular season just doesn't matter at all. You could win 120 games and it doesn't matter. The other team could just get hot. Like, well, look at the Phillies right now. The Phillies who everyone was like,

they're built for the playoffs. They're built for the playoffs. That seems like the type of team you should just build. Build a team who cares about the regular season. Build it for the playoffs. I think Miami has entered this mode in the NBA just year after year. They don't care.

They're going to be like a five seed, six seed, seven seed, eight seed. It doesn't matter. And they'll just year, they don't care. They're going to be like a five seed, six seed, seven seed, eight seed. It doesn't matter. And they'll just see if they can get hot. It's more fun if you have no attention span at all. And maybe it makes more sense in the TikTok generation. But for what I grew up with and what we used to care about was the totality of everything. The regular season meant this.

It really meant something to win 100 games of baseball. It was amazing if your basketball team won 60 games. You know, there were just these little markers that you had in your head. And all this stuff ties in. The load management piece, which the NBA is allegedly trying to fix. I'll believe it when I see it. Football adding more games so that the sport is more trying to fix. I'll believe it when I see it. Football adding more games so that the sport is more random than ever before.

There's more chance for injury than there's ever been. And there's more chance for just wacky results, which I think is maybe what they want. I'm not sure I want it. I don't like where we are. Like even in baseball, and I think hockey is another one, and I think hockey is another one. And I think basketball is another one.

The home team should get some sort of advantage for being good during the regular season in baseball, right? This five game series, the Dodgers had against the D-backs. Why wouldn't the Dodgers get all five games at home? Like shouldn't the only advantage they get is that if there's a game five where they've just not played for a week and then you get game five at home and that's the advantage. Well, I've watched baseball for the last 25 years. The home field advantage, except for maybe the Phillies, doesn't seem to matter at all. The Red Sox won the majority of their biggest games on the road during the 2000s and 2010s and can count them up. I always felt like the 0-14, the 0-7,

I felt like those teams could win anywhere. The 18 team had that crazy extra, extra, extra innings game against the Dodgers where it seemed like the season was over. Guess what? They won the next game. Home field doesn't matter as much.

So if it doesn't matter as much, at least make it so that in round one, a team is rewarded for winning 100 hundred plus games and all their games are at home. And if you want to go in their house and beat them, that seems fair. But to just make it like it's worth one game.

I felt the same way with Milwaukee and Miami. I think it should have been, Milwaukee gets the first two, Miami gets the next two, Milwaukee gets the next three. They earned it. They got the one seed. So we're heading toward this world

where regular seasons will continue to be devalued. They'll try to cover it up with fantasy and gambling. But for the most part, there's just gonna be more randomness with the results. And I don't think I like that. I don't know if Miami was a better team than Milwaukee last year. I think Giannis got hurt and Jimmy Butler

left his body and then they beat Milwaukee in a series and it was fun. But did that mean they were a better team? What's the point of these seasons? Are we just turning everything into March madness? Feels like we're heading. I'll tell you this though. It's a fucking money grab. Alright, Million Dollar Picks

coming up. Million dollar picks week six. Stay aways for me this week. Ravens, Titans in London. I don't bet the London games. They're ridiculous. You have no idea. It's like betting on AYSO soccer. I have no idea who's going to show up, who's not going to show up, who's jet lagged. I'm out. Kind of like the Titans a little bit, but I'm out. Jags Colts. I like the Jags, and I was ready to back them, but the Gardner Minshew thing, I just can't

bet against my guy Gardner Minshew. We talk about him later on the podcast with Craig and Danny. Staying away. Staying away from Vikings Bears. Two bad teams in bad weather. Sounds horrible. Could be Kirk Cousins' last game. Iing away. Staying away from Vikings Bears. Two bad teams in bad weather. Sounds horrible. Could be Kirk Cousins' last game. I'm out. Cowboys Chargers. It's in LA. There's going to be all Cowboys fans. Monday night, all signs say bet the Cowboys, and yet the lines at Cowboys minus two and a half looks fishy to me. I don't want to bet the Chargers. I don't want to bet the Cowboys

either. No thanks. Staying away. Dolphins, Panthers. Line's too high. I kind of like the Panthers. I actually think they can cover. It's like 14, 13 and a half, whatever it is. Dolphins bet some injuries, but guess what? I'm not betting on Frank Reich and I'm not betting on the Giants getting a million points against the Bills. That line's too high. Monday night, it's a must win for the Giants. Their season's on the line, even though their season's over. The Bills are banged up. Seems like a stay away. Lions-Bucks. I stared at for a long time. I really like this Lions team. I think they're one of the four or five teams that have a chance to win the Super Bowl. A lot of red flags with this game. First of all, Lions favored by three.

Why isn't that three and a half? Jared Goff, outdoors, bad weather. It just looks too easy. There's something about it. As John Jastrzemski would say, it looks like a rat line. Looks like a little Luca Brazzi bulletproof vest wrapped in fish. Like, I'm out.

Here's what I'm not out on. We're going to do four bets, and we're going to up the stakes this week. We are still down $450,000 for the season, won $700,000 last week. So we're in striking distance going into the positive. I have three games we're going to bet $300,000 apiece on. The first one, Texans at home against the Saints. Texans are getting one and a half. I'll take the one and a half because these two teams are pretty goofy. The Texans lost the game that they somehow covered a two and a half point

spread. I'll take the one and a half against the Saints. I think the Saints coming off that Pats game, the Pats make everybody look better than they are, unfortunately for me. We won six Super Bowls, so don't cry any tears for Bill Simmons. I like this Texans team. I really do. And I think they're well coached.

I like the D'Amico Ryans versus Dennis Allen matchup. I think they're going to be able to move the ball down the field on the Saints. And Houston really won me over last week in that game that they took the lead late against Atlanta and then gave up a field goal at the end. But I just think they're a resilient team. They got playmakers.

I'm just in on the Texans. So Texans plus one and a half against the Saints. Falcons, just mentioned them. They're home again. They're playing Washington. They're only favored by two and a half. I like the Falcons at home. I like Desmond Ritter at home.

I like this Falcons team in general. They won me over too. Both teams won me over in the Falcons-Texans game. Falcons minus two and a half. I love it. Win by a field goal. Take me home, Falcons-Texans game. Falcons minus two and a half. I love it. Win by a field goal. Take me home, Falcons. And you owe me from last week.

Last one, Raiders-Pats. I wasn't going to touch this. It was Raiders three. And then it dripped down to Raiders minus two and a half. And I just think the Patriots season is over. I don't see any possibility of anything turning around. If anything, they should be tanking. You saw the Broncos lost to Denver.

The Broncos, they're getting rid of Frank Clark. They're just going to gut their team and try to get the worst record in the league. The Patriots should be joining them, and they're injured on both sides of the ball. They have the worst offense in the league other than the Giants and the first 55 minutes of any Steelers game.

Raiders, McDaniels, Raiders beat them last year. I just don't think the Pats should be getting less than three points against anyone in the league unless it's like the Giants right now with all their injuries. Carolina,

that's probably the list. So grabbing the Raiders minus two and a half. I don't mind the Raiders team. Like they, Crosby, Devontae Adams, they can run the ball. They can, you know, they're not a team that's going to score like three points in a game.

They'll make it interesting. McDaniels always does weird stuff down the stretch of a game, but I just think they have more talent than the Pats, or this version of the Pats. They'll make it interesting. McDaniels always does weird stuff down the stretch of a game, but I just think they have more talent than the Pats, or this version of the Pats. So we're taking that. And then last but not least, the $300,000 parlay that is plus 103.

Seahawks plus 10.5 adjusted against Cincinnati. That line is Seahawks plus 2.5. I love that to be a close game. The two and a half is weird because the Bengals could absolutely win by three. Burrow had a little fire to him last week. I like this Seahawks team. I think offensively

can move the ball in any situation, especially on the road. Not worried about that. Defensively, they're not bad. They're okay. I think the Bengals last week looked maybe a little bit better than they are. So Seahawks plus 10 and a half adjusted is minus 400. Eagles to win the first half and the game against the Jets is minus 160. So the Eagles are favored by minus seven. And I couldn't find a team that I wanted to tease them with.

Ironically, the team might've been the Seahawks teasing them the plus eight and a half. But I just like this one more because I get slightly positive odds, plus 103. I don't see any scenario where the Jets beat the Eagles. There's some bad weather. Maybe that would be the one scenario if the weather's so bad where stuff happens. But you have the Jets coming off that Broncos game,

the worst defense in the league. And we haven't seen Zach Wilson go against a kick-ass defense in a couple weeks. So he's kind of lulled us to sleep on deep down who he is as a quarterback. They also lost Bear Tucker for the year. Their offensive line

is in shambles. This just seems like a horrible, horrible matchup for the Jets. So we're going to take Eagles to win the first half, for the year. Their offensive line's in shambles. This just seems like a horrible, horrible matchup for the Jets. So we're going to take Eagles to win the first half, end the game, combined with Seahawks plus 10.5 adjusted, 300K plus 103.

And then I have one last one. Remember when I used to do underdog parlays? We're just going to throw a flyer in this one. It's 25K. The payoff is over 16 to one. It's plus 1628.

And here's the bet. The Cardinals to beat the Rams and the Browns to beat the 49ers. The Browns, PJ Walker's playing. That line's moved to nine and a half for 10. Bad weather. Could their defense just beat the Niners? Could this be one of those games

that we've been waiting for with the Niners where kind of all hell breaks loose? Maybe one of their offensive guys who are not durable finally leaves the game during the game. Who knows? Jim Schwartz versus Kyle Shanahan. Lombardi's been big on this.

Our friend Mike Lombardi, that that is a bad matchup just historically. And I don't know, could this just be a bad weather? Both teams just running the ball into the line and it's like a 16-13, 13-10 type game? Sure. And then Cards-Rams, who knows? The Cards, you know, we watched them beat Dallas a couple weeks ago. Could they just run the ball down the Rams' throats with these weird backup running backs that nobody knew whether they should pick up in fantasy or not, take it on flyer on it. So 25K on that.

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boosts, and more. Visit FanDuel.com slash BS and kick off the app now. Take advantage of their great special offers, boosts and more. Visit FanDuel.com slash BS and kick off the NFL season. FanDuel, official partner of the NFL. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. First online real money wager, only $10 for supplies required. Bonus issued as

non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at Sportsbook.FanDuelcom. All right, Danny Heifetz and Craig Horlbeck are here. You can hear them on the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. You can also hear Craig on the Rewatchables as we force him to watch movies that he's never heard of, and then he gives us takes at the end. I talked at the top about how my generation grew up with regular seasons mattering. And you guys are younger. You're in your twenties.

So you're getting older. You're, you're eventually going to be in that Keenan Allen zone of like, can these guys still do it? What's going on? Um, but your generation with the regular seasons where it's like, actually the playoffs is all that matters.

And the regular season is just a means to an end and nothing matters. My generation was all these records meant something during the season. It meant something to win 100 games. It meant something to win 60 plus NBA games. Your generation is like,

what happened in the playoffs? That's how we judge you. Do you guys wish it was more like the old way or the new way? I'll start with you, Danny. I don't know. I mean, things change over time. I think what was interesting was when I first started working here, I. I don't know. I mean, things change over time. Like I think what was interesting

was when I first started working here, I like learned a lot more about NFL history and like the playoffs started as an accident. Like for a long time in the NFL, like the team that just won the regular season, you won the league. That's how British soccer still works. The Premier League is like,

there is no playoffs, just who won the regular season. And the playoffs happened as an accident almost because they had to like let these competing leagues do it. Like the Super Bowl is because the AFL was playing the NFL, right?

And then they just merged. So I don't know. I don't know if it's like one thing's better or just stuff changes over time. What do you think, Craig? I don't like the regular season. Maybe I'm too Gen Z here.

But yeah, I'm living for the playoffs. I think baseball's way too long. I think the NBA's way too long. Records don't matter anymore. I mean, look at in football, games change over years.

Now it's like Kirk Cousins and Matt Stafford are going to be the leading passers in the history of the NFL when it's all said and done. So, I wish everything was cut in half and we'd get to the playoffs

a lot sooner. I liked the COVID year. I liked when baseball was shorter. I liked when basketball was shorter. I thought it was better. Less injuries too. That's how, that's how I'm starting to drift toward because right now we're in this middle ground where they need the regular season so they can make as much money as possible. But the regular season has also been totally divided. Like I was talking about the Dodgers, how they just get bounced in three games. And if you're

a Dodger fan, you're like, why did I watch regular season? That made no sense. We just got, we just bounced. In the NFL, at least, you know, you can have kind of a mediocre regular season and still sneak in. But I do feel like with the NFL and the NBA, most of the time, the right team wins. You know, we saw Bucks heat last year was, was pretty strange. And we'll have weird football games where like a big favorite will lose. But for the most part, the right teams are always kind of around in the end. We, you know, other than Heifetz's two giant seasons that continue to, you know, are distressing and awful and to everybody who thinks about 07 or 11. But what?

I guess the question is, is it more fun if the right team wins every year or is it more fun if it's not that way? I think the reason why people like March Madness is because anything can happen. And in baseball, it sucks because it's like the worst of both worlds where it's like you play 162 games and over that course, usually the right teams are in first place, right? But then the Dodgers can come in and have a bad week and now they're out because arizona got hot so right it almost needs to be the other way around like the nba the playoffs are so damn long but because of that usually the right

teams are in the finals but i think the reason why football is fun why march madness is fun is because they're so short and chaotic and you can get hot for a couple weeks and and change the course of a season yeah i i i totally agree i mean also i will say my favorite moment of ever working at this company was you went on a five-minute rant bill about how much the super bowls the giants won pains you didn't realize i was behind you and that was the best time i've ever had working here but the to your question i totally agree like it's hard not to feel that i mean i'm sure you went over the the stats in your intro but what is the top seven teams with the best records in baseball this year out like something insane in the dodgers i just saw that like the first 100 years 120 years of the mlb

there were three times ever that a team was eliminated by the playoffs by a team that won 15 fewer games and the dodgers just did it like three years in a row happened three years in the previous century and so it's hard not to have like a nihilist about it i might with i think all the sports that are a little different baseball the reality is i do agree it's hard not to have like a nihilist about it. I think all the sports that are a little different baseball, the reality is I do agree. It's there's not 162 of anything anymore that is three hours long. Like there's like, there's a reason the NFL is literally a 10th as much. And that, that is the success of the NFL and why it's got the biggest live TV, even though they have the fewest games is everything matters. And I don't know how many people left have watching 140 games, but it's a fraction of

the people I know who have to watch every football game. TV shows used to have 26 episodes in a season. Now they have eight. It's better. And what do we always say about TV? Stakes, right? Like, like amid all this, like, you know, the golden era of TV and all this stuff. It's like, you need stakes to keep people watching.

And that's the football. It makes no sense that the MLB playoffs are designed the way they are, how long the season is it's like it's like two wrong things put together and to the nba bill i'm curious what you think like i know you have a lot of thoughts the nba schedule i as you know covering the nfl like i do i don't mind checking in on the knicks how they're doing all-star weekend it's really convenient super bowl ends i'm like all right let me let me start paying attention to this team. Yeah. They know 70 games is the right number, and they just don't want to give up the extra 12 games. It's 100% about money.

It's not about quality of play. It's not about quality of product. It's not about the health of the players. It's just like we make more money if we do it this way. I mean, I'm surprised they haven't pushed it to 100 games. Cerruti and I were talking after I did the top, and he was saying like the structure of football is one of the reasons that people don't mind that the regular season is probably too long because there's a fantasy gambling,

you know, picks pool, all these different things. And it's just fun. And it's like when week one starts, you go, Oh my God, I got my three fantasy teams.

I got to pick them. And you just get lost in it. And it almost doesn't matter how your team does because you have so many other things and it doesn't feel too long. The last couple of years, the 17, once we headed into January and we still weren't in the playoffs yet, that felt a little weird. Like, I don't think the playoff starts until January 15th this year. Um, and it just seems like it gives more time

for another Joe Burrow calf injury or an extra week for Tua to get just crushed by somebody or another week for the Steelers to pull out yet another garbage win and go 11 and six instead of 10 and six. Sorry, Craig. But for the most part, I think people just like the structure and they don't mind. I actually think they could make the football season longer and people wouldn't care. I don't think you can make any other sport a longer season. Do you think if it was 18, Danny, would you like it? They're going to go to 18. They're going to go to 18 with the CBA the way they did the CBA.

They're going to go to 18. And I will say that's going to push the Super Bowl to President's Day, which means the day after the Super Bowl is going to be a holiday. So that would be incredible. I've been arguing about that in my calm 20 years ago, that that should be the ultimate holiday. Everybody just gets slammered on Sunday watching the Super Bowl and then you get the day off because that's kind of what happens anyway.

They're going to do it. Labor Day to President's Day, it's going to happen. And then I will say, we just recorded the fantasy football show for tomorrow and Craig just actually just spit out a fantastic Kevin Wild's half-baked idea that directly addresses what you're saying about regular season fatigue. What is it, Craig?

Let's hear it. Well, we were complaining that it was Bill's Giants on Sunday night. And we're like, God, can't they flex that? Or why do we need that? Can't we do something else? Here's what I think the NFL should do. I don't think they should announce the schedule

at the beginning of the season. I think you announce who each team is playing every week at a time. So on Sunday night, they announce who every team is playing the following week. That way they can design it. They can pick who they want on Sunday, Monday night. They can move things around.

I don't think we should know who anyone is playing. I don't care about the Steelers schedule. Just tell me after Sunday night, the Steelers beat the Ravens. Oh, we're playing the Browns next week. Great. The only thing, I love that idea. The only thing is I feel like it would leak.

Like people would ruin it. Like the Schefters of the world would ruin it. Well, you'd have to get the Oscars. The Steelers are in Cleveland. You got to get the company that does the Oscars to handle it. Where you make a little show out of it on Sunday night what is it Waterhouse

what is the name of that company yeah Waterhouse PricewaterhouseCoopers yeah it doesn't make sense if you get into like ticketing and who like how would you be able

to buy tickets for the season but let's not talk about that yeah the two LA teams would be in trouble because their entire fan base is Steelers flying in Steelers fans flying in

for the Steelers Chargers game yeah I Steelers-Chargers game. I wonder if you could do the first 10 weeks and then the next six are just like a surprise. They should have soft-floated it during the COVID year when there was no fans. It would have

worked then. That's good. I like the Tuesday. Imagine every Tuesday night was like a LeBron decision and they're just like, all right. And they have all the hats on the table. Like, where are we going next? Yeah.

But couldn't they do a version of that where we just don't know the NBC schedule on Sunday night. I know they can't do that with Monday nights, but you know, they always talk about all the flex and they can flex a couple of weeks, but I just feel like they should flex every week. Like I never want to watch the giants again. I don't want to watch one play of them. I don't want to watch one play of them.

I don't want to watch the Patriots again, and that's my favorite team. Oh, wow. I don't want to watch Carolina play one snap of offense. There's five teams that are just already out. There should be a fan vote where we get to vote what the Sunday night game is at the start of every week. Yeah, like on a Tuesday.

Yeah, more choices would be great. So I brought you guys on because, well, Danny, why don't you talk about your theory about Kenny Pickett and a certain quarterback that you loved once upon a time? Well, so we've texted a lot about Kenny Pickett. And Kenny, you know, Craig obviously is a Steelers fan. Polarizing guy, that Kenny Pickett.

So Craig's a Steelers fan. There hasn't been a more polarizing, shitty quarterback than Kenny Pickett. Craig is a Steelers fan. Polarizing guy, that Kenny Pickett. There hasn't been a more polarizing, shitty quarterback than Kenny Pickett. Craig's a Steelers fan. I went all in on the Steelers this year. I have their over. I have them to win the division. I even put a little on the one seed, and that was like my AFC team this year. And I've just been horrified.

On my way to 3-2. They're somehow 3-2. It's great. They're the Michael Myers team. Go ahead, Danny. And so we've been texting and, you know, Bill basically was like, how is Kenny Pickett, you know, mediocre for 55 minutes

and then just tapping into the matrix for the final five, like over. It's like Kenny Pickett, I think, has eight good drives in his life and six of them are to win a game. And I'm like, well, who does that remind you of? It's Eli Manning. He really is.

Kenny Pickett, I don't know if the skill set the same, but the vibe is identical. It's an incredible, incredible comparison. That throw he had to Pickens at the end of the Baltimore game was the most Eli moment of anyone's career that Eli wasn't involved in. I mean, I'll take it, man. If we're giving Kenny Pickett Eli Manning,

like, I'm in. Where do I sign? I'll take that right now if he's Eli Manning. I do think that there's some, to some degree, he has that dog in him a little bit. I think there was a game last year against Baltimore where he threw that incredible pass to Najee

in the fourth to win, which is like the best throw I've seen a quarterback make in the last year. But I really, I don't know if it's that Kenny Pickett is really good in the fourth quarter because he has the clutch gene or if the only reason why he's good in clutch moments is because that's the only time Matt Canada calls plays that actually push the ball down the field because they have to score. And so it's like they're actually just

running a two-minute offense. And when they do that, Kenny Pickett can actually like get in the flow and pretend to be a normal quarterback because he can pretend to have a normal offensive coordinator. So that's, I kind of think it's a little bit of both. Yeah, it's that schoolyard thing we always heard about

like early in Lamar's career. There's been other quarterbacks where it's like, why don't they just just draw it up as they go and let the guy run around and do his thing. Pickett's not a run around guy,

but he does, you know, you watch it and I've watched, I think, every snap of the Steelers this year. And it's like, first around guy, but he does, you know, they, you watched it and I've watched, I think every snap of the Steelers this year. And it's like first quarter. All right, here come the Steelers first drive of the day. And it's like, gee, I wonder if they're going to run Najee Harris and the seven guys. And it's like, oh, there it is. All right. Second and nine. I wonder if they're going to do it again. Oh no, they did. Um, oh, I wonder if this would

be a bubble screen. That's going to get tackled behind the line. Yep. That line yep that's it and it's just that's how it goes and that's how it starts so maybe they're trying to lull the other team to sleep Craig where the other team's going wow these guys are awful and then they know they have this like little Eli Manning gear that they can go to I don't know there's no other explanation I've never seen a worse offense I totally agree I I mean, again, it started with Christmas Eve last year.

The Raiders, it was the 50th anniversary of the Immaculate Reception Steelers Raiders. I was there. It was negative seven degrees on Christmas Eve. And again, 55 minutes. They did not have a touchdown drive. And then Kenny Pickett, with five minutes to go, they score a touchdown. And now the last... Kenny Pickett now has two wins over the Raisins,

whereas only two touchdown drives were with the game on the line. They didn't have a touchdown against the Ravens. That wasn't a game- a touchdown. And now the last, Kenny Picken now has two wins over the Raisins, whereas only two touchdown drives were with the game on the line. Like they didn't have a touchdown against the Ravens. That wasn't a game winning touchdown. And, but I do think it has to do with the hurry up offense because ask any Giants fan, Bill,

you can ask your friend Hershey. Like every Giants fan knows that Eli Manning would be like in the two minute drill. Eli Manning was one of the five best quarterbacks in the league. Every, like the first, like middle 10 years of his career, Eli Manning in the two minute drill, Eli Manning was one of the five best quarterbacks in the league. Every like the first like middle 10 years of his career, Eli Manning in the hurry up was a hundred times better than stagnant offense. And I think there's absolutely elements of like the schoolyard

thing. I also think it's, it's just kiss, right? It's keep it simple, stupid. And it, you know, and there were plenty of the first 55 minutes. I'm like, is Eli Manning dumb? And then again, I'm just like at the end, I'm like, oh my God, when you simplify everything and you let them just play and you're not thinking about all this, I think there's something about it simplifying. And I also, I know the it factor in clutches, whatever, but I do think there is a certain dog like Joe Burrow has it. I'm impressed that Kenny Pickett, like at this point, we have five of these where I'm

like, all right, that doesn't seem like an accident to me especially with the fact that I feel like he's being hampered by the team that they're calling plays for him It's very similar to the Eli thing in that the teammates loved Eli, they trusted Eli for whatever reason, he would come through over and over again in big moments

for them, you would watch the totality of his games and be like, is Eli Manning good? I mean, I got, I can't remember how many times I wrote about him because it was all during like the wheelhouse when I wrote comms. And it was just like, Eli Manning was one of the most fun people to talk about because the Giants fans were both super defensive of him, but also open to all kinds of debates about whether he's good. And you could always just point to 07 and 11 where he's, you know, he ran the gauntlet. He was great in cold weather.

He was good against like, you know, awesome defenses. He would never get rattled. He would have the shit kicked out of him and he would just get up and he'd never got hurt. He was super durable. And all my Giants fans were like, look, he's our guy. That was always like a big Eli thing. Well, that's our guy, man. You know, look, he's our guy. That was always like a big Eli thing.

That's our guy, man. You know, yeah, he's not perfect, but that's our guy. Maybe Kenny Pickett is becoming the new Eli. It's possible. He's like a family member. You know, we didn't choose him, but we're stuck with him.

He's also, look, he's played like 16, 17 games in his career now, and I would argue he's had one of the hardest matchups runs of any quarterback in the first season. He has played like 12 of the 17 games have been top 10 defenses. He has no line. His receivers are hurt.

He's had a tough go of it. So I think if Matt Canada, if we can send him to space next season, I think things will look a lot better. The one thing I'll say, though, why does Matt Canada just get... There has to be a little blame on Mike Tomlin at some point. 100%! But Pittsburgh's a small town, and the loyalty

factor that Pickett went to Pitt, I think is... That quality of the Eli stuff is totally there. I like the Mike Tomlin... I might adopt the Mike Tomlin School of Management for the ringer. Like, just hire somebody who's just horrendous, and everybody's like, why is that guy in charge of podcasts?

And be like, I don't know, man, he's got a plan. And then everybody focuses like their anger and rage and confusion at this person. And then I look great. Maybe that's what Mike Tomlin's doing. And they're like, wow, Bill, The Ringer keeps making money despite the fact that they have the worst head of podcasts

in media. Why doesn't Bill take over? He'd be so much better than this guy. And I'm just like, by comparison, it's incredible. Craig, who's your favorite now and then comparison? Can you beat Eli and pick it? I think that Sam Darnold has some real Nick Foles potential this year.

Oh, let's hear it. All the stars are aligning. The quarterback, Nick Foles, 2017's hear it. All the stars are aligning. The quarterback, Nick Foles, 2017 Super Bowl year. Look, the quarterback ahead of him was Carson Wentz. Right now it's Brock Purdy having an MVP caliber season. You got the great roster around him. It's a great story. Young QB early on in his career.

Great defense on the Eagles. Great defense on the Niners. Something happens, he gets hurt. Darnold slides in. This is what needed to happen last year, but they didn't have anybody. Darnold can slide in. He's got all the physical skills that Purdy has. No one ever questioned Darnold's physical skills. It was the mental problem, which is kind of what Purdy had in college. But what's great about the Niners is that Shanahan takes that problem away and allows you to just like rely on your physical abilities and you don't have to make a million reads. And that's why Purdy's been good.

So if something were to happen to Brock Purdy, just like we saw last season, Sam Darnold could slide in, win the Super Bowl and be the Nick Foles of this year. Well, Danny, before your time, but that was Hostetler and Sims way back when. Same kind of thing where it's like, we had a decent driver for this car, but it's Hostetler and Sims way back when. Same kind of thing where it's like, we had a decent driver for this car, but it's a pretty awesome car. We can also probably put somebody else in here. Listen, I don't...

The Nick Foles thing, he put up, I think, what, 45 points or 48 points against the Patriots and Belichick, and I still think it's the weirdest thing that's happened in the 21st century in the NFL. Find me as the years pass

and people are going through pro football reference and they're like, oh, what happened this year? And they're looking at it. I think that's going to be the most confusing. It's going to be number one. Other than the Ravens winning it. That might be it. Well, that was the thing, but we never stopped them once.

And then Nick Foles never did anything again um my then and now and i i tipped this off on a pod a couple days ago but it reminds me um it's just it's too overwhelming for me is how much laporta reminds me of grock and i thought grock was a one-on-one and still do. He's the best tight end I've ever seen, and I don't think Laporta is probably going to be as dominant of a blocker as Gronk was. Gronk was a guy, he could have two catches and still be one of the most important guys in the game, but he's the first guy I've seen since Gronk

that he's so big and physical, and he's such a good target, and the way he catches balls in traffic, and he's already doing it as a rookie, that I think as it goes along, he's going to start to get officiated a tiny bit differently. Because that was the thing that made Gronk special was he turned into Shaq. People were mauling him down the field. They're diving in his legs. They were hitting him before he caught the ball. They were grabbing his arms. And the refs would be like, yeah, that seems fair. Gronk is like, physically

it's an unfair matchup for a normal human being. So you're allowed to do that. Just like Shaq. I think Laporta might get there a little bit. He's the one that's changed my mind about the Lions the most because I think especially when we get to December, January, I think he's going to be really important

for them. I've just been blown away by how good he is. So that would be my guy. Danny, did you talk about him on the draft show a lot? Was he the favorite tight end? Who was the favorite tight end in the draft show? So we had different picks. DK was a huge fan of Dalton Kikait and also Michael Mayer.

And Michael Mayer compared to the guy in Lord of the Rings, the Berserker guy. And I love Michael Mayer too. But DK, we talked a lot about how this was going to be the best tight end class maybe ever for tight ends. I think we're already kind of getting there. Laporta has, I think, the most receiving yards and the most catches ever to start a career for a tight end. He seems physically different than those other guys.

I've seen all of them. They're all pretty good, but he just seems at a whole other level. I will say though, didn't like two months ago, you make a rule that no one's allowed to compare anyone to Gronk? I know. That's why it's a big deal.

And I don't think anyone's ever going to be Gronk. I don't think I'm seeing another Gronk. I don't think I'm seeing another Randy Moss. I don't think I'm seeing another Tyreek Hill. I think there's guys that become one-on-one guys, but I do think there's stuff he brings to the table that reminds me of Gronk, which I did not think I was going to see again.

And then that position is so physical and tough and brutal that in two years, he might lose a half step or a full step, whatever. Do you have any other Eli Pickett-type things for you? Yeah, I got a couple. There's two I love. I think Jamar Chase, the receiver from the Bengals,

I think he is just the modern-day Larry Fitzgerald. Those Cardinals teams with Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Bolden were so much fun. And I think Jamar Chase has so much of that. He has a little Bolden too, but Larry Fitzgerald, Anquan Bolden were so much fun. And I think Jamar Chase has so much of that. He has a little Bolden too, but like Larry Fitzgerald, when I think of him, you know, the hands,

like the catching was incredible. He had more like tackles than drops, I think. Chase's hands aren't that good, but Larry Fitz, like he had this ability, like the leaping, the spectacular catches, like every 50-50 ball to Larry Fitzgerald

fell 80-20. I think Chase has that quality of dominance, even though he's a little shorter but jamar chase also has the speed that young larry fitz i think you know larry was in the league so long we forget when he was young larry fitz was fast and he also could take like the six yard slant into a touchdown for 60 yards and larry fitzgerald did both those things in the superbowl a six yard slant that he took 60 yards and a leaping touchdown in the same half. And I'm like, if one guy is going to do that, I feel like Jamar Chase has that,

um, those qualities. He's so fun to watch. It's funny. That's a good one. It's funny about Larry, because I feel like my, our generation,

high fits only knows old Larry. So like when you make that comp, I think a lot of people in their twenties and early thirties are going to be like, really like Jamar Chase is like sexy and electric. And Fitzgerald is like the possession receiver, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Well, Larry was like the ultimate, oh my God, you just felt so terrible for him that he had bad quarterbacks for like five years in a row. He, he was one of the hardest fantasy guys year after year, because you knew he was like one

of the best four receivers, but there was this four or five year stretch where he just had nobody. And it's like, well, what does that mean? How many, and you saw what happened, like his, all of his totals probably went way down. I thought the thing with him that I thought was special that I don't know if Chase has yet is the, uh, just how physical he was over the middle. You know, he almost, there were moments where he would, you know, he could just catch anything in any spot with anybody hitting him, pushing him, whatever. But I like that comparison, though. What do you got, Craig? I kind of think there's some DeAndre Hopkins and George Pickens.

And we're really seeing him take off this year. It's a guy who's like, Pickens is really not that fast. He's not that strong. He's not even the best route runner. He's just incredible at getting open and like making contested catches. And he has like a little F you to him, kind of like DeAndre Hopkins does.

I think Pickens is a little weirder as a person. He's like kind of a quirky dude. But Pickens is already becoming one of those guys where it's like, you don't really know what he does well, but for some reason, he's always open and making plays. Right.

What would he be like if he was like on the chiefs do you think he would be like a 2 000 yard receiver or just slightly better uh i think he would be a lot better i mean look at this point you could put like curtis samuel on the chiefs and he might have like 1800 yards the chiefs need anything they can get but yeah i mean what we're seeing right now with pickens is like, I think a fantastic sign for him and Kenny Pickett. I mean, it could be

like, even if Kenny Pickett can be an Eli Manning and Andy Dalton, we could see Pickens be like the AJ Green to the Kenny Pickett, Andy Dalton. So my next one is

Jalen Carter, who I've just been fascinated by the baby rhino. There's only been a couple guys like him in the history of the league that I can remember that just pushed the line backwards. Solak mentioned this on Tuesday's pod,

and it's been in my head since, where he was just basically like, he's Sue 2.0. And it just feels like that might even be lowballing it with whatever his potential is. And who knows? He might have a five-year career.

He might do something dumb. I have no idea how it's played out. There's a reason he dropped to nine. But on the other hand, he's so dominant already. And you think like, this guy was in college last year. This is ridiculous. What's this going to look like when he's 27? When he's 25 pounds heavier, but has the same agility.

And Sue was the only guy in his prime that I just remember on those weird Lions teams where he just seemed like he single-handedly was destroying offensive lines. So I wonder if that's what they're ending up with him. But that was one. Do you have one more, Danny? Yeah, I will say on that note,

I think Sue's a good comp. I think the single best college football game I've ever seen from an individual person was Dominic Sue. I think his final game in college, it felt like he affected every single play in the game. I agree that Carter and Jordan Davis together, I'm afraid, are going to be the best. They have a chance to be one of the best tackle combos literally ever. It's terrifying.

It's so funny going through my son with high school football. And if the other team, even at that level, the other team has one guy like that in the line, the team's going to win. It's like that guy's just collapsing our entire line, every play. And it's over. And it's weird to think that an NFL guy can do that, but it feels like Carter can summon that.

What do you got for the next one? So I got the, I think Bijan Robinson is what we wanted Reggie Bush to be in the NFL. Oh, like that one. He, I mean, he wears number five for Reggie Bush. I mean, even Reggie Bush has said he reminds him of it, but it's like, you know, Bijan, also these overhead camera angles, the videos of Bijan making people miss are like unbelievable. But the way he makes people miss in space, he's not as fast as Reggie Bush, but I think

what Bijan has is Bijan. It's the efficiency of movement. It's I've never seen someone or the last person I saw do this was Reggie Bush who could make people miss by more by doing less. Like Bijan is doing so little and people are whiffing the video of him. I think it was against the Packers. It looked like a advertisement for Madden, like the way that the running

back was moving. And I was like, this doesn't look real. Bill, you famously gave the take five years ago that Saquon was the best running back you'd ever seen after like two weeks. I feel that way about Bijan Robinson right now. I think he's the best running back I've ever seen. Yeah, it's funny.

And I've changed my take. I've gone back to Earl Campbell as the best running back there was some Earl Campbell montage on Twitter and I was like oh I forgot Earl Campbell was the best running back it was just fucking annihilating guys so the one thing I'll say though about Bijan is I couldn't make

this comparison because I was too young but Bill Bijan Robinson watches a video of one running back every single day for like his whole life. Can you guess what running back it is based on the style? Because I think this is the other person who's like... Walter Payton? Barry Sanders.

Oh, interesting. B. John has watched Barry Sanders every single day for like 20 years. I think Barry Sanders has the craziest highlights of all time. If you watch Barry Sanders YouTube highlights, that will convince you that he is the greatest running back ever. Barry's got a documentary coming out, I think, on Amazon in November, and it's going to lead to this whole Barry resurgence because there's this whole generation of people

that probably weren't a lot focused on the Barry Sanders highlights that are going to be like, oh my God, this person existed. Yeah, he was... Bijan has the same thing Barry does in the sense of you don't understand how his ACLs are going to stay intact with the way he kind of goes side to side. It's like how people meant to do this. Is your body meant to go that way? But he does it. Craig, what's your last one? I mean, look, Bill, you got to tell me here. but there was Brady's whole rookie season and his whole second season. People are like, are we sure Brady's good? Are we sure this isn't Belichick in the defense? Are we sure he's not just driving the car? It was a huge debate in Boston and it was a huge debate in general. And it really wasn't until the second Super Bowl season that when he had better weapons

and he started to blossom. But yeah, people doubted Brady the first two years and they just assumed it was fluky. I think it's the decision-making. That's what reminds me of Brady is just how fast he decides what he's doing, which is probably the number one QB skill other than charisma and a throwing arm,

right? Can you decide really fast what's going to happen? So I think it's very, what do you think? You weren't really there for the Brady thing other than being a kid. Well, it's tough because like Brady, you needed to like see how it marinated and how it resonated over time.

And it's like in the moment, it's like how you say like you shouldn't pick the best picture, picture winner Oscar until five years after the movies come out. It's like, we're not going to be able to know

if Brock Purdy has it until five years from now. But I mean, everything is there. He's got zero interceptions this year. He's undefeated in the regular season. I think Brady went what? Like 11 and three,

11 and two in his first full year as a starter when they won the Super Bowl. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. He's got the luck thing that, what, like 11-3, 11-2 in his first full year as a starter when they won the Super Bowl? Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. He's got the luck thing that Brady had too. Like, Danny remembers the Giants game a couple weeks ago. What did they drop?

Like four Purdy picks in the first half or three Purdy picks? They're just like tip balls that fall into Brandon Ayuk's hand. He just has that horseshoe up his ass. And Brady had a knack for his worst plays. Then all of a sudden, it didn't matter. He threw an interception against Carolina in the second Super Bowl

in the end zone where we're about to win the game. There's seven minutes left. We're going to go up by two scores. The game's done. And he threw it right to the Panthers. And then the Panthers came right down and scored and had the lead. And then Brady brought the Pats back and got the winning,

or they tied the game. And then Brady brought the Pats back for the winning field goal. But that pass was just a race from history. And I feel like Purdy has that quality too. All right, here's my last one. You guys, I don't even really have a name for this.

It's just an entire class of people that I grew up with. The backup quarterback who was just good enough when he played that you thought, why isn't this guy like one of the 10 best quarterbacks in the league? This is Minshew. Minshew just gets thrown into games. And not only do the Colts hold whatever is happening, sometimes he'll even be better. And you can watch two hours of a Minshew, oh my God, Richardson's hurt. Oh my God, somebody else is hurt. Minshew will come in and you'll go,

man, Minshew, I'd take him on my team. Like, why isn't, could Minshew go 12 and five? These are the guys, I grew up with guys like Don Strzok, Steve DeBerg, these people that eventually did in a lot of cases become starters because they were so good as backups. And there are no people like this anymore, except for Gardner Minshew. Well, you know who's another one? 1989.

You know who's another one who just jumped onto the scene is Josh Dobbs for the rest of his career now. Right. But Josh Dobbs is almost like he's another version of that, right? He's kind of like scrap. He got thrown in, did better than you think. Maybe he does become that Minshew.

I feel like is going to be like this until he's 41 years old. I think he's going to be on 11 teams and just consistently coming in and kind of elevating them for two games. But you know, it's not real. This was a whole species of person when I was a kid. I don't know if this is the specific comp, and this might be a bad comp, but off the top of my head, what you're describing reminds me of the second half of Jeff Garcia's

career for Gardner Vinci. That's a good one. Well, there was also that, which McCown was it? No, Case Keenum. Case Keenum was a little like that without the success. But then he had that one year when he was good on Minnesota. And people are like, this isn't real. There's no way they can keep doing this. And then meanwhile, would they make the NFC title game? I do feel like Minshew is going to have a moment like that because he's like Purdy. He makes decisions fast.

He's decently accurate. He carries himself like he thinks he's good. And I don't know. I'm still in on Minshew. I still like him. You mentioned Keenum. Keenum's getting paid, I think, I could be wrong, $8 million to be the backup.

We were just talking on the fantasy show about how Brock Purdy is making $50,000 a week to play. Oh, my God. We were just talking about how he leads. We were talking about we had this EPA per play, and we were like what if you do it by epa per pay like how much expected points out of these guys doing by how much they make like shout out scott barrett at fantasy points he came up with that but the it's not it's if you look out the money like you can austin gale helped me with uh running some of it but basically the niners are paying like four

grand for every point that Brock is adding. Meanwhile, Deshaun Watson's getting half a million dollars for every point he's taking away. Look at that. Brock Purdy would be the 68th highest paid quarterback. He'd be the 35th highest paid backup quarterback. I want to shout out

Davis Mills because I think he has Minshew potential too. I think there's going to be a whole arc with Davis Mills with a beard, some sort of, maybe like bleach blonde hair, and he lands on a second team and then all of a sudden goes 4-1 and people are like, whoa, Davis Mills!

Where did this come from? Backups need to have a look. Backups need to have a look. And Davis Mills has got the weird long neck. If Davis Mills covers up the long neck with a beard, that would do a lot for him. Minshew realized this immediately. Minshew was like, I'm growing a mustache.

My hair's going to look cool. I'm going to have a look. I'm going to look like a biker. Mills needs to stand out. Fitzpatrick, to me, is the... And I should have mentioned him sooner, but he's the gold standard. And once he grew the beard,

it suddenly became reasonable that he would be on the Amazon halftime show. Right? Another guy kind of like this, Taylor Heineke. Yeah, maybe. So maybe he needs like some sort of look. Maybe like a middle part.

Scary movie three, every time the sheriff comes back, the hat keeps getting bigger the entire movie. I want every year Davis Mills comes back, maybe we just make his neck like at one inch longer. He got a Steve Grogan type look. Yeah. The long necks never succeed.

Mike Lennon. It doesn't work. We got to go. Cause Austin Gale's coming in. You brought him up and now he's the next guest. Danny and Craig. Great to see you guys. We can listen on the ringer fantasy football show.

Craig, I will see you on, uh, on Friday as we tape our next 1993 movie that you haven't seen. Do you want to announce it or no? So people can watch? I hinted at it in the intro. Should we say what it is?

Yeah, why not? Give people the weekend. So I married an ax murderer. It's on the Max, whatever that app is called. A Mike Myers classic. Danny, check it out. You might enjoy it. It's a good one. A lot app is called. But a Mike Myers classic. Danny, check it out. You might enjoy it.

It's a good one. A lot of funny jokes. I love Max Murder. I will see you guys soon. Thanks for coming on. Thanks, Bill. Thanks, Bill. This episode is brought to you by Movember.

The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November.

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Sunnybrook is special. Learn more at sunnybrook.ca slash special. All right, Austin Gale is here from The Ringer. He wrote two of the craziest pieces that we've ran in the last year. You counted every fuck off in succession. That was a masterpiece. And what was the one with Saw you just did? Explain the Saw one.

I wanted to rank every trap in the 10 movies on not of like creativity or gore I feel like a lot of people have done that with the Saw movies I wanted to rank them on the likelihood I could personally survive so I watched the 9 movies they're all bad over 3

days which is like honestly the most the worst Saw trap of them all is watching Donnie Wahlberg try to act it's like one of the worst things anyone's put on camera. And then I watched the 10th movie from the front seat of the theater. It ended up being 10,000 words. The editors were fearing for my safety, my emotional well-being, but the piece got up and that's all that matters. Nightmares after or no? Any waking up at three in the morning? Honestly, not nightmares. It's more like you're in the shower and you're like, is someone behind the curtain? Is someone there? Is someone there? Honestly, not nightmares. It's more like you're in the shower and you're like, is someone behind the curtain?

Is someone there? You know, is someone there? I don't know. That's where my head was usually. So I asked you to come on. You've dabbled in the analytics arts from time to time, to put it mildly. Absolutely, absolutely.

I asked you to come on and your instructions were, nerd the fuck out. Put on your nerd suit and nerd it up for us on the NFL season because we have five weeks of data now. So we actually have a real sample size of things to look at. And your instructions were find me five to seven things that you just think jump out for whatever way. It could be a gambling way. It could be a team success thing. It could be a player,

whatever it is. So we'll just go in whatever order you want. I'm teeing you up. I don't know what's coming. Let's hear it. That was one of the best prompts I've ever gotten, by the way. Nerd out. That's me to my core. And I wanted to hit you close to your heart to start here.

And we have to start with what I feel is the nerd MVP for back-to-back-to-back seasons of stats. And that's expected points added, which is essentially efficiency based on game situation down a distance. I'm sure it's been explained a thousand times, but it's every nerd's favorite metric right now. It's good for offensive efficiency, defensive efficiency, and specifically drop-back efficiency. And your guy, Mac Jones, his EPA per drop-, his dropback efficiency is the worst in the NFL. And now you probably knew that.

Everyone watching on the broadcast probably knew that, right? But it's not just the worst in the NFL. It's actually statistically three times worse than it was in weeks one through five last year where people were clowning Matt Patricia, the defensive coordinator turned offensive coordinator. And the offense as a whole, according to that same stat, EPA per play is two and a half times worse, two and a half times worse than the second worst Patriots offense since the year 2000. We will go down looking at the start of this season as one of the worst offensive starts for the New England Patriots franchise. So you mentioned all that, and I'm just going to tell you, it's felt even worse.

I didn't even know the whole case. It felt two times worse than that. So I'm not surprised. I've never seen a worse offense since I was in college for the Patriots. All right. Well, so that's pretty damning because there's been some,

there's some Mac truthers out there that are like, who are his weapons? Can't, they can't block who's calling the plays. And I'm like, all I know is he's thrown four pick sixes or three pick sixes this year. He's had a strip sack touchdown and he's thrown the ball to the other team

multiple times. Maybe the quarter to drop it, but it's one of the worst things I've ever seen. I'm completely out of Mac. There's no coming back. What's your next thing? My next thing is the Miami Dolphins. And I think if you are a nerd and you are a stat junkie like myself, the Miami Dolphins have to be brought up. It's one of the most electric, one of the most explosive offenses that we've seen in recent memory. Right now, the Dolphins are running pre snap motion or shifts on 85% of their snaps.

Now you're like, oh, I watched the games. I watched the games. It's probably 90%. I thought it was 95. I knew it was high. 85% is 5% more than any other team in the league. It's also 5% more than any team in the league has ever done in 10 years. The only team to touch 80% was the Miami Dolphins last year. It's 30% above the NFL average. In my opinion, this Miami Dolphins team is revolutionizing the game. And I want to tip my cap to Mike McDaniel. Honestly, there was a scenario, a range of outcomes where Mike McDaniel, his offense, his philosophies is Chip Kelly, right? Where he comes in, he does some cool things and everyone's like, oh my gosh, this is incredible. He's changing the NFL. And then the next year,

he doesn't add a second pitch. He doesn't improve. He only tries to maintain and everyone's like, oh my gosh, this is incredible. He's changing the NFL. And then the next year he doesn't add a second pitch. He doesn't improve. He only tries to maintain and he falls off and he's coaching college ball like Chip Kelly. He went back into the lab, added this cheap motion thing that Kyle Shanahan is using and the rest of the league is using. I just think that what he's done over two years is as impressive as any coach that has entered the league over the last 20, 25 years. Can you give us quickly the nerd hero rankings right now? Because I know Ben Johnson is up there.

McDaniel has got to be one. I mean, McDaniel is like, he crawled out of the internet to coach an NFL team, basically. It was just like, he's like a proxy for all these different things everyone believed. Who else is there? Ben Johnson? Like, who's in the top five? Mike McDaniel has to be number one, honestly. I think Ben Johnson's up there. I don't know if he's in the top. I think Shanahan, low key. Shanahan doesn't want to be a nerd hero,

but Shanahan and what he's done. And honestly, when you look at the Shanahan tree and what he's been able to put out with Bobby Sloek, a former PFF guy, by the way. I'm a former PFF guy. Bobby Sloek was cooking up stuff for PFF way back when. What he's doing with CJ Stroud, I think, is impressive. That whole Shanahan tree, whether they like it or not, they're all nerd heroes. So Shanahan's like Pearl Jam. He never wanted to be big. It happened by accident.

But he still wants to be considered a smaller band, even though his team might go 17-0. All right, what do you got next? I'm going to go to the Philadelphia Eagles. And we talked a lot about EPA. We talked a lot about offensive efficiency and pre-snap motions in the passing game. Let's get down to the toughness, the grit.

And you want it nerdy. I got laughed out the building at PFF when I came up with this stat. It's called Kavlos. It's contacted at or behind the line of scrimmage. And specifically, I use it for... I love that. I use it for running back measurement, right? How often are you hit at or behind the line of scrimmage. And specifically, I use it for running back measurement, right? How often

are you hit at or behind the line of scrimmage? The Eagles running backs this year have been contacted at or behind the line of scrimmage on 25% of their carries. That's not just the lowest amount in the NFL. That's the lowest amount in the first five weeks of a season and at least the last five years. That's as far as back as our data goes with True Media and PFF. That, to me, is insane for two reasons. One, massive, massive praise being poured on the Eagles' offensive line. It's why they can run the tush-push as effectively as they want.

I know Al Michaels wants it banned. I don't. I think it's huge for what the Philadelphia Eagles are doing with that offensive line. And two, I'm going to pour one out for Rashad Penny, former San Diego State great. He can't even get on the field behind this offensive line and run the football. DeAndre Swift is eating it up.

I can't believe it. I think the Eagles offensive line and what they're doing, any running back can have success, but somehow, go Aztecs, Rashad Penny just can't. So that's that, sacks allowed, and pressures allowed, and that's all you need to know about an offensive line, basically. Yeah, exactly. I think contacted or behind the line of scrimmage,

like that Cablo stat tells you so much more about rushing efficiency and rushing success than even yards after contact per carry, which is everyone's favorite metric or forced missed tackles. That to me is more volatile. What's actually stable week over week is how many yards before contact are you getting and how often is your running back having to create?

Look at Najee Harris. His, since entering the league, his content, his Cablos, how often he's contacted at behind the line of scrimmage is the highest of any running back in the league since he's entered because that offensive line in Pittsburgh has been so bad. So what was your acronym for this? It's C-A-B-L-O-S. Contacted at or, the or is silent, the O is silent, behind the line of scrimmage. So contacted at or behind the line of scrimmage. I called it Cablos. People at PFF laughed at me.

It's never been an official stat, but it's mine. It's mine. I'm going to claim it. See, some of my issues with some of the, as you know, I love the stat stuff, and I was an early champion, but sometimes they mess up the acronyms. Oh, for sure.

There's one acronym where they call it LeBron. It's like, don't name a stat after LeBron like the LeBron stat should be 27, 7, and 7 how many of those do you have in a game like that's don't name complicated stats

after one of the three best players ever I think is there a way to call your stat Carlos because that would be I could look into it I could look into the branding the marketing team

is small right now what was the behind behind behind line of scrimmage. I don't know. We can move some things around. Maybe there's a different R and then you could get Carlos in there.

And then now I would know what Carlos is. I'd have a... It's true. In my head, I would know. All right. What's your next one? I'm going to go to the San Francisco 49ers. I'm going to go to nerd heaven right now.

It's Brock Birdie. And everyone's talking Brock Birdie. Everyone's talking about what would he look like in a different offense. Well, I don't care. Kyle Shanahan, every quarterback that he's coached, going back to even his time at Atlanta, that has played at least 10 games,

Brock Purdy's cumulative dropback EPA, that same stat we mentioned at the top, that nerdy MVP, his cumulative EPA compared to every quarterback Kyle Shanahan has coached is better in the first 14 games that he's played with Kyle Shanahan than any quarterback. That's Matt Ryan, former league MVP. That's Robert Griffin III's rookie season.

What Brock Purdy is doing right now with Shanahan has never been done this efficiently. And now everyone wants to bring up off of that, well, the supporting cast and Brandon Uke and all that stuff. I cannot believe how efficient Brock Purdy has been in this offense. Top five weeks one through five starts since the year 2010 are Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Jared Goff, Aaron Rodgers again, and this year's Brock Purdy. What he's doing in this offense is special no matter how you slice it.

So if you're trying to pour water on it, you would point to Jared Goff and the Rams and be like, oh, system creation. But now Jared Goff is doing well again on the Lions and maybe Jared Goff was a tiny bit better than he got credit for. I certainly gave up on him. I think Jared Goff, the Pat Super Bowl,

I think was one of the most damaging games for one player that anyone's ever had. It's just, he was so bad in that game and the Pats were so kind of blatant talking about it after about our game plan was to just ruin Jared Goff and do all these things, and we knew he couldn't handle it. But he's probably a little... Crumbled his psyche, I feel like.

I feel like psyche is brought up sometimes. It's not really a nerd stat, but I do think that game and the media coverage off of that game just legitimately crumbled his confidence, and that has slowly built back up with Ben Johnson and his Lions team. Yeah, there's something to be said for a QB with a chip on their shoulder who's had to overcome stuff over and over again.

We have seen that. There's basically two types of QBs, right? There's like the Peyton Manning. I've been anointed since I was 12 years old and I'm just going to cruise through life being awesome at this. And then there's the one who's like, people keep doubting me.

I keep having to prove them wrong. And those are kind of the two pass. And I'm not sure where Mac Jones fits in with those two pass. I don't know if he does fit in. Yeah, he probably doesn't. What's your next one? I'm going to go to Daniel Jones and Justin Fields. Now, not surprising anyone, those two quarterbacks have been pressured on their dropbacks at the highest rate right now. Daniel Jones is second to last in terms of pressure rate, and then Justin Fields is last. What people probably don't know is over the last five seasons, or no, 10 seasons,

any quarterback has had at least 600 dropbacks over the last 10 seasons. That's 68 total. Daniel Jones has been pressured at the second highest rate, and Justin Fields has been pressured at the second highest rate of any quarterback with at least 600 dropbacks over the last 10 years. That begs the question, how can we honestly evaluate these two guys? And now I don't want to keep coming back to like, we can't evaluate Daniel Jones. We can't evaluate Justin Fields. We need to see him behind a good offensive line. But 45% of Justin Fields' dropbacks in his career, he's been pressured. That to me is bananas. And some of that's him. Some of that's him holding the ball. But man, he has not had a good offensive

line. Daniel Jones hasn't had a good offensive line. And that continue comes up in the conversation of how good are these quarterbacks. So running for your life tends to affect somebody's efficiency. I think so. I think so. Yeah, it's weird because Jones, I don't know. I felt like they blocked OK for him last year and he was pretty good this year. weird because Jones, I don't know. I felt like they blocked okay for him last year, and he was pretty good. This year, it just seems like he's under siege. I know he lost his left tackle. Fields, I was out,

but it does seem when he has some time, it's kind of interesting. So I wouldn't write him. There's other quarterbacks like Trubisky. I'm like, I'm out. This is never happening. There's no way. Fields, some wouldn't write him. Like there's other quarterbacks like Trubisky. I'm like, I'm out. This is never happening. There's no way.

Fields, some people wrote him off. I'm not willing to say no yet. Cause what is he like 23? And with like the situation he's been in, you throw in the coaching, all this stuff, but I would lean toward out, but I'm willing to think about it at least. What's your next one? I have Bijan Robinson,

only two running backs since the year 2010, this is according to PFF, have had a better force miss tackle rate than Bijan Robinson has right now. And what he's doing in mind- Who are the other two? Marshawn Lynch is the one. And then the other running back is Javante Williams during his rookie year, which showers the stat. And I know it waters down the stat. Javante Williams hasn't looked as good as that undrafted free agent at Jaleel he's got hurt i get it but like what bijon robinson i when you watch his tape i've never been so quick to be like is this our lt is this our new l do we have someone who can be this good again as a running back position i even like adrian pearson

i miss the days and i'm a nerd i know running backs don't matter whatever the contracts all that stuff but like i miss the days where you turn'm a nerd. I know running backs don't matter, whatever, the contracts, all that stuff. But I miss the days where you turn on a game and you're like, I know this running back's going to do something special. And I feel like already we can count on that. As confidently as we can count on Miami running pre-snap shifts, we can count on Bijan doing something special. Yeah, that's why I haven't given up on the Falcons yet

as a possible 11-win team. At least Ritter proved last week at home against a defense that's not incredible, he can be pretty good. There's at least an arrow pointing a little bit up for him. If he can just be solid, combined with

all the weapons they have. I like the chemistry in the team. We'd sound, I talked on Sunday, it's like one of those teams jumping off the sidelines after a big play teams. Um, and then Bijan special, like there's no question.

And then they can also spot him with Algiers. So he doesn't have to play, you know, have 400 touches, anything like that. They can kind of pick his spot. So I think that's an interesting team.

I like them too. All right. What's your last one? Last one. I have to go to CJ Stroud. I think what he's done in Houston, specifically what D'Amico Ryans and Bobby Sloak, the offensive coordinator, have done in Houston,

has been so special. I needed to find a stat that really shows that. And I think everyone talks about, in the first five weeks, he's breaking rookie records in terms of passing yards. Everyone talks about the no-pick stat. What I wanted to look at is EPA per dropback, that efficiency stat, specifically when he has time, specifically when he's kept clean from pressure,

because this offensive line has been dreadful and it's been injury plagued. When he's been kept clean, his EPA per dropback is better than any rookie quarterback over the last five years by double, double the second ranked quarterback. What he's done when kept in perfect situations, right? When now perfect's hard to get,

it's hard to get, especially in Houston. But when he's kept clean, dude can't miss right now. Like dude legitimately can't miss. Just this year, there's only one quarterback better than CJ Stroud in EPA per when he's kept clean, dude can't miss right now. Dude legitimately can't miss. Just this year, there's only one quarterback better than CJ Stroud in EPA per dropback when kept clean,

and that's Tuatunga Bailoa in an offense that's doing everything for him. I think Houston, you're seeing some of that, but it's not at the rate that Miami is right now. CJ Stroud is special, dude. I think of any quarterback in this year's class, I think of any quarterback in the last two classes, CJ Stroud is the best one.

I agree. You felt it the first two weeks. First week, it's like, hey, this guy looks actually pretty decent. Then the second week, it's like, this guy's good. Then by the time we got to him doing the comeback drive last week, that was a real drive. The game seemed like it was over. Then he just brought him down and he just made plays. When you're betting against him, which I did game seemed like it was over, and then he just brought him down and he just made plays. And when you're betting against him, which I did last week, unfortunately for me, because they didn't cover by a half point, the Falcons, but

when you're betting against him, you're like, fuck, this guy's I know he's going to bring them down the field. So I'm with you. I think he has it. I'm glad the stats back that up. I think what's important with him too, right? And when we're looking, everyone's talking about the Shanahan tree. Everyone's talking about Brock Purdy and Kyle Shanahan, Tua Tagovailoa, and Mike McDaniel.

I think CJ Stroud is the most physically gifted quarterback currently working in that Shanahan tree right now. And he's still very young and he's still a rookie and he's still learning. But like in terms of the throw power and his arm talent,

in terms of what he can do as a runner, I do think is better than what you can get from Brock Purdy. It's better than what you can do as a runner, I do think is better than what you can get from Brock Hardy. It's better than what you can get even from Tua Tungavailoa. That to me screams year two massive leap for CJ Stroud. And especially when they start adding things along the offensive line and the receivers. I think Houston reminds me a lot of what Detroit was like a couple of years ago, where you found the coach, you found the offensive system with Bobby Sloak, and maybe even better than what Lions have right now,

you found a quarterback that's young and you can build around. I really like Houston's prospects over the next few years. You know, what you're laying out, it makes me concerned for Justin Herbert, who is the nerd hero for the last two years. And it feels like there's like the young hot blonde at the bar batting her eyelashes. And all all of a sudden the guys aren't around Justin Herbert anymore.

They're kind of moving over and looking CJ's way. I wonder, you think Herbert could lose it? What do you think of the Chargers in general? They're playing the Cowboys Monday night. I'm out on the Chargers. I just don't think they have enough talent. I think they're poorly coached, but Herbert is the great X factor, right? Is he

at that zone yet for you where he's just an automatic 10 and 7? I'm with Ruiz on this. Steve Ruiz, obviously, who does the quarterback rankings for us. I think Herbert's that guy. I think he's that special. When you look at any efficiency metric this year, the offense is more efficient than it's ever been. Justin Herbert's more efficient than he's ever been. It may not look like that because the defense is legitimately atrocious for how many years in a row with Brandon Staley. Everyone wants to talk about these decisions with Brandon Staley. I don't care about those. Why is the defense so bad every year? And they've added Cleo Mack, and they've added this guy, and next guy, and all this stuff. They continue to be not just

bottom half of the league, bottom three in the league, and pretty much any defensive metric you find, that's you, Brandon Staley. That's you. That's what needs to change, in my opinion. Yeah, you're like the defensive guru and your team can't play defense. All right, Austin Gale, this was fun. We got to think of another pop culture project for you. I'm all for it.

I'm already thinking I can't wait. That's like your stealth wheelhouse. Good to see you. Thanks for coming on. Absolutely. Thank you. All right, we had to do some basketball today. This season's starting in less than two weeks. J. Kyle

Mann is here. You can hear him on One Shining Podcast with Taye Frazier. He pops on the Ringer NBA show from time to time. Does videos for us on the Ringer's YouTube channel. And he's been on here a few times. We were talking about rookies. That Chet is a rookie

combined with all the other rookies and we have some older foreign rookies. This seemed like a stacked rookie class, like unusually meaty. What's your favorite thing about it? You're right about, I love that the international guys were sort of this extra sort of bonus

injection to make it interesting like you mentioned you know Sasha Vezinkov with or Vezinkov I don't know what the correct emphasis on that one is with the Kings the big lefty kind of stretch big and then Vasilij Mijic with the Thunder Vezinkov is really funny because I don't know if this is a European thing, but one of the things that really amuses me is when he shoots threes,

he's got a really flicky, quick release, but he's always had this thing where he doesn't have really a follow through. When you're growing up, they teach you to keep that hand up there, but he has this thing where he'll shoot and just put his hands behind his back. It's almost that thing that the dudes in pickup do when they're like, I know the shot's so wet that this is in. But I think he's going to be an interesting guy and add for them. And then Meechish, we haven't gotten to see him play yet

because he's been injured, gimpy with the Thunder. But it's just another casual guy who shot like 45% on pull-up threes and pick and roll. Just throw it on the pile for OKC, another guy. And then, you know, this was a great class compared to the one coming in this year. I don't know how much you want to talk about this year. No, I do want to talk about – wait, OKC, quickly. Did you buy my theory about them going way over from the 44.5

and just buying in on the talent with that team? I think it kind of comes down. It may be a question of they could improve a ton and be pretty good. It's just going to be the available wins just because it's such a slog and such a crowded Western conference. How high did you go? Did you say something like fourth in the West? What was your call on that?

Yeah, I have them fourth. I think they're going to be in the high 40s and maybe even get to 50 because of how much talent they have and the night-to-night feel of that team when you have young guys who can just play every day combined with the fact that they have a main guy and that they have shot blocking and rebounding this year.

If Chet goes down, throw the prediction out, but he seems like he's doing good. But I, I just, I like that team as a regular season team. It reminds me of the Kings last year. The Kings were a really good regular season team last year.

It's, you know, things change in the playoffs, but if you're going to tell me them versus teams like the Clippers, where I have no idea how many games people are playing, or a team like Dallas that might end up just being a mess, I at least know what OKC is. They're definitely going to be better than last year.

Rookie class. So, Wemby, where are you on a scale of 1 to 10 for just fascination, excitement, everything? Or you can go higher than 10 if you want. I think you and I had a conversation about Mobley, was it a couple years ago, where it was like the first few games and we just kind of went wild. I mean, we invoked

a bunch of names like the basketball gods. I was kind of looking to see if I was going to get struck by lightning. Chet kind of, well, I was going to say Chet does the same thing, but Wimby is like I had a couple moments during that preseason game it's preseason but those two teams were playing hard um where my eyes were like beetlejuice bugging out like like it was like stop motion I I had to I was kind of I do this thing I don't know if you ever do this when you're

watching and I was talking to someone about you know you got your like circle of trust that you bounce things off of to get them to walk you back make sure you're not losing your mind I was talking to someone about, you know, you got your like circle of trust that you bounce things off of to get them to walk you back, make sure you're not losing your mind. I was like in a fog. I was like, I'm trying to find the boundary of how crazy this could be. I mean, you mentioned him lunging like an alien.

I had the same thought. I said he looked like a xenomorph. It was like from the alien movies. I was like, a human shouldn't do that at that size. But I just kind of immediately raced to i always thought that he could be a defensive player of the year i thought his defense would be the thing that would like impact the spurs more like apparently immediately like offensively obviously he's he's got all these things that are off the charts for a guy his size um but if you just watch him, I think that you mentioned him blocking

that Jalen Williams layup. From five feet behind. Yeah, and he had his hips turned the opposite way. That play is so insane because he, Williams, he got him. I mean, he's smaller and has kind of tighter movement, but he hit his hips the opposite way. And Jalen, I counted, took like four steps to get to that angle that he was at.

Wimby turned around and took one step and blocked that shot at its high point. And he just does these crazy things where defensive player of the years, I'm curious to bounce this off of you. Like when a guy is a defensive player of the year caliber player, they recalibrate the mindset of everybody on the floor. You know what I mean? It's kind of the difference between like swimming in a swimming pool when you can see the bottom and you're like, OK, I kind of I'm comfortable. I know what's going on and swimming in like a lake with no, you know, with like a bottom that you're not going to touch and it's murky.

You just you're a little not as sure. That's what Wimby does he just if he's going to be stripping balls like that like the accuracy of his hands if he's going to be high pointing shots like that he just changes the entire mindset you'll just it's similar to ad has this effect gobert does too but it's this thing where um you know guys that come into his vicinity it almost doesn't even show up in the counting stats because guys come in and they're just like not doing that. And they just kind of like go around. Right. Um, yeah. It reminds me what they used to say about Bill Russell when, uh, when he started doing all this stuff that he did that, you know, 1957 just seemed impossible and it just would completely change how these other

dudes play. Like, it's like, Oh, like, oh, I guess my hook shot is gone. I guess my running floating layup, I guess that's out. And he would be in their heads all the time. It's interesting. He's 30-1 on FanDuel for Defensive Player of the Year, Wemby. Really?

Yeah, he's like the 20th choice. Or 15th choice, something like that. Chet's 40-1, but there's some guys on here. I'm with you. I think if you're going to make a case that the Spurs are going to be better than people think, which you could talk to them being bottom three worst team. They're super careful with Wemby.

They throw away this season. They just kind of ease along. There's another world where he's so impactful on both ends that they might just win like 35 games. They might just be really hard to play. I noticed the same thing about the intensity of that game because it's weird. The Celtics-Philly game had that too.

It seems like teams are trying more in preseason just because I think everybody's so much more talented. The league is so deep now that these guys go in and they're like, I might not play this many minutes during the season. I'm fucking going for it. Philly had like five guys who were trying. It was like game five of a playoff series.

So I don't know what to... I think the Spurs are the single hardest team to pick. You could tell me 20 wins. You could tell me 38. I have no idea. I'm not going near that one. They really have some quality defenders, too, and they're all young. I mean, you know, like Sohan hasn't even been playing, didn't play in summer league. And you think about that guy being able to roam and wreak havoc next to him. And then, you know, Trey Jones is a pretty good on-ball defender. Vassell, all these guys defend and space something interesting that they were doing um on offense that i thought i hadn't really seen a team do this to this uh to this extent it's almost like

when you have like a i'm not a football guy but i've seen this on kentucky whenever you have like a six seven receiver and you just kind of put them deep and just kind of throw it over the top they did this multiple times like i think at least five that I counted. They kept throwing... He just... He wasn't crashing the offensive glass and he would just leak out. Like, and they would just

throw it high over the top to him and nobody can catch... His catch radius is... Yeah. ...beyond everything. And they kept throwing it to him and he would catch it and either get fouled

or just... He had one where he just turned around and dunked it because the guy looked helpless against him. I just thought that was a really, like, I can't remember another team doing something like that. It's pretty fascinating.

I wish they had Reeves. Everyone thought I wanted them to sign Reeves because I hate the Lakers. I just think Reeves is really good. And, you know, that was confirmed yet again during the World Championships and the way the coaches talked about him. I just wish they had at least made a run.

I think the Lakers would have matched it. but that's a team they're going to be competing against maybe even a little bit sooner than we thought. What other rookies are you fired up about? Oh man, we got a lot of interesting ones. I mean, I think you all mentioned Kaysan Wallace. I think he fits right in with what they're doing. OKC just to amass these just a high you know incredible assets yeah yeah i was talking to somebody the other day about um one of the one of the values that i feel like for me when i'm watching and evaluating um younger guys is just the the ability to process the game and the ability to have a low touch time we always talk about that with Jokic, with Steph, is obviously the master of the low touch time.

The game is so fast and so sophisticated now that even in these pro days, I was watching Kentucky's pro day last night. These are the types of things that don't necessarily pop unless you just watch guys play. Kaysan, he was overburdened last year in college, but he fits right into what they do because he doesn't need to have the ball all the time. Another guy that I think is just going to be an immediate

role player, and I've kind of yapped on and on about this guy, is Jaime Jaquez with the Heat. He's just a typical Heat guy. A lot of good buzz about him with the quotes from the players and coaches were like, wow, this guy doesn't seem like a rookie. Yeah, and he has no waste in his game.

So you throw him out there, you're like, okay, we know he's going to make good decisions all the time. We know he's not going to kill us with his own stupid self-sabotaging kind of agenda that some of these players have. Because a lot of guys are going in there, and there's a lot of things that motivate these things. Like, I got to get my shots because of xyz all these other implications like implications that this has on my career hakez just i said he he plays you know to his metronome and you can't

speed him up like he's just always making the right decisions and like the footage of him uh you know doing like playing post defense against lowry you couldn't hear what they were saying but like lowry was talking to him. I was like, oh, this is just, this is just beautiful. Like he's just going to absorb all the information for them. I love him.

Yeah. They're, they're over under 44 and a half. And the case against it would be, they don't care about the regular season. They lost Struis. They lost Vincent. But what they gained was

it seems like he's going to play. It seems like Hero has a major, major chip on his shoulder. So you have that. Good. You know they'll add somebody else in December, January range.

But I think I'm probably going over for them. And I think they like the fact that everybody's like, oh yeah, you guys are done. You didn't get Dame lowered. It's over. You guys suck.

It's Boston and Milwaukee now. And you're over here at the kids table. And I think that's a team that's like, really, we're at the kids table? And all of a sudden, giant chip on the shoulder. But he's going to be a big piece of that. He's got to be a top eight guy for them, it seems like. Yeah, he just does a lot of different things.

He just kind of nickel and dimes you to death with his good decisions. And I think that's an underrated thing. I think a lot of different things. He just kind of nickel and dimes you to death with his good decisions. And I think that's an underrated thing. I think a lot of times we see these big-time athletes. I remember the conversations we had about Jonathan Kuminga before that draft. And the one thing that really worried me was about his feel in that system specifically and watching him in the preseason. We're having the same conversations we had about him before the draft.

It's just kind of like instinctive kind of basketball. You know, you and I have talked a little bit about our guy Jordan Walsh just quickly. I mean, you know, he's in a way, way, way. Do you expect – where's the Jordan Walsh enthusiasm meter for you? Are you hyped up from what you've gotten to see? I'm high on him because I think he's going to play, and I think they need him. And I think he's going to play and I think they need him.

I think he's going to be really good in home games. That's a guy like you want to put him at home. You want to put him out there with Pritchard and some shooting and one whoever, one semi big and just let him be energetic and let the crowd

get into him and kind of fuel it. I think that's his destiny. If he can make threes at an average NBA level, which seems realistic, on top of all the other stuff he does, he's going to be really interesting. I don't totally trust

rookie energy 3 and D guys. I think Dallas, same thing with Prosper. I kind of need to see it when you're a rookie. That's one of those things that it feels like that blossoms over a couple years, but the buzz has been really good. I mean, the weirdest

thing with the Celtics right now is just bringing Drew, starting him, or not starting him, bringing him off the bench, I thought was just weird and an unnecessary storyline. Just don't. Don't start Al Horford. Al Horford should be playing 57 games and 20 minutes a game

and all that matters is the nine playoff weeks with Al Horford. Just bring him off the bench. He's not going to be playing back-to-backs anyway. Why start this whole... My fear with the Celtics is the Missoula piece. Why even open the door for this storyline? Just start waiting holiday. Those are two of your best players,

you know? Um, but I do think Walsh is going to play anyway. Let's keep going. Rookies. Uh, I mean, the other one obviously is scoot.

I mean, scoot. I watched him last night on, you had to kind of run down the tape of that one cause it wasn't televised, but I was watching them play. Um, he, he looks steady.

I mean, some of the questions, I think people were a little overzealous in their kind of the way that they were talking about the way he defended. I'm still waiting. Like Portland legitimately, watch, they're going to turn around and make me look stupid with this, but they're probably going to be one of the worst ball pressure teams in the league early on. I don't I don't totally trust Aiton to be sort of a mop up guy in that in that sense. Like he's not I don't expect him to be like good enough defensively to mop that up. But he looks he looks really,

really steady. And that's, you know, I was thinking about this this like Portland like group of guards. I was excited to see the Dame thing, if he had stayed there, because it kind of was reminding me, do you remember that Suns team? I think it was 99 when they had Nash, Kidd, and Kevin Johnson. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

We also had that OKC team with SGA and Chris Paul and Dennis Schroeder. We've seen it work. It's got to be guys that don't need the ball a lot, which I don't know if we'll see if that's the case with Portland. It seems like Scoot likes having the ball and the pick and roll stuff with him. I still

don't know who his partner is going to be for the pick and roll. It's probably going to be a lot of Aiton, which would be great for Aiton. You watched a lot. Sharp was one of your guys that you were fascinated by. I'm not sure he's an I don't need the ball that much guy. I think he's one of those, like, I need the ball for like six straight minutes.

Simons is nice off the ball as a three-point shooter, so he fits. But the Sharp piece, I'm having trouble placing in this whole ecosystem they're building. Yeah, I was texting you last year, I think. I think you and Pina I was talking about. I was looking at sort of the path parallels between him and Jalen Brown. If you look at athleticism, if you look at ball handling concerns, if you look at kind of what they're going to be, I just think their mindsets are kind of different. we're sold on his talent. I mean, we know he can get a shot whenever he wants, like scoot through a lob to him the other night that was like, God,

it looked like it was like 12 feet off the ground or maybe it was Simon. It was like their confidence in him as an athlete is off the charts and it should be. But,

you know, the challenges for him, he's still really young. Like we got to see him like develop some playmaking sense. I don't know if you watched him in summer league at all,

but I credited him for playing. Like it was for all the grief he got for not playing over the last year. But he was very, very, very chaotic. So we're still a work in progress with Sharp. Yeah, I'm not positive what he is yet. I think

Portland's going to be probably a safe bet to be the worst team in the West. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to like watching them. And I like everything they did. But you're going to have, Scoot's going to have the ball a lot. And he's 19 years old and he played 20 G League games last year. Do I think he can, there's going to be flashes and it's like,

oh man, look at this dude run a pick and roll. Oh, this guy can run a team just hard it's hard when you turn your entire car and the car keys over to a 19 year old kid yeah and then on top of it you're gonna have eight and look in front of some stats i i've never been sold on chauncey billups as a coach um so i'm a little dubious to that team but i like the assets who else what are the rookies rookies? Tell me about your, give me your Thompson twin thoughts, which Thompson twin, who do you have favored over the other one and guy you're most excited to watch? Uh, I've always leaned. I'm in over us are, um, you know, it's, it's not, you know, a trap door thing where you pick one or the other. I like them both. Um,

I've gotten grief for talking more about, I'm in, it's just because I really, really lean and like the playmaking a lot. And they both kind of, the comps are just kind of wild you know like during summer league i was like if i'm in is going to be this type of guy who's going to be super bouncy the shot's kind of inconsistent but he gives you some point guard skills you know things like that um i was like another player that kind of fits that mold is Iguodala. And but, you know, it's Iguodala is one of those like, you know, don't dare say the name because you might get struck by lightning comps like we're talking about. But then you'll hear people talk about Asar and they'll be like, oh, Sean Marion. I'm like, if these twin brothers are Sean Marion and Andre Iguodala, I was like, that'd be the best brother tandem. I can't think of another one.

I'm in just he comes in and he's an instant value add like he gives you a lot of uh he's he's really good at sort of misdirection in the middle of the floor with like people are so afraid when he's gonna jump that he just has everybody on edge so he has a lot of good like jump passes for both of them uh it's the shot the shot's concerning uh because you know asar has shown a little more like development in his mechanics. And I feel like Detroit mainly has a lot of stuff to sort out. So does Houston, but both teams do. But Detroit just has a lot of guys and you kind of start to wonder like,

is Killian going to kind of phase out at some point? Seems like it. Is the clock ticking on Ivy? Like, you know, watching Ivy this summer, I was just like, well, I don't, you know, he just hasn't totally won me over yet. I like the idea of him and Cade next to each other. There's just so many unanswered questions and how much better is Cade going to be, you know, in this, in this next, this second full year that he's had since, since sitting out last year. I have them as worst team in the league right now. I might change my mind by the time we do

the over-unders next week, but that team just seems like this bizarre collection of assets that don't make sense together. The only benefit for them is the conference they're in. But Houston has so many assets. And we didn't mention Cam Whitmore yet, who not only did he crush Summer League, but is the classic chip on the shoulder. I remember all 19 guys that were picked ahead of me or whatever spot he was in. It seems is the classic chip on the shoulder. I remember all 19 guys

that were picked ahead of me or whatever spot he was in. It seems like he has a little of that. It's just, it's such a weird team. There's so many perimeter guys. Now, Porter Jr., he took himself out of the mix, but I think those were 25 minutes that they were probably delighted to give to somebody

else. But in general, I don't really know what that team is either. And Jalen Green will end up being the swing guy for it. Because everyone's like, Jalen Green, big leap. I saw the GM survey. He was one of the people mentioned. I'm just not sure he's going to have the ball enough. But Whitmore coming off the bench

within these six, seven minute stretches just feels like that's going to be, like, what do we have here? What's this going to look like, you know? I love these rookies that are in the position to just be, like, shot out of a cannon and kind of go balls to the wall. Like, Walsh is another one of those guys.

Like, I sent you that clip of Walsh talking about, I'm not trying to get back on Walsh, but that clip, I did want to mention that clip of him talking about defense. Somebody asked him, and one of the first things he said was, know where the refs are. I just started hysterically laughing when I heard that. I was like, oh, this guy's going to be a nut.

Like, wow. But Cam, same thing. They do kind of have a log jam at that 3-4 spot with Tari. Tari's going to play. He's hard to keep off the floor. And then you think about Brooks, and you think about Amin. It's just they have a lot of guys.

Jalen, I know we're talking rookies, but I think Kevin pointed this out at one point, and I think this is smart, that Jalen has sort of been like, I'm going to develop into one of these guys that's going to work against a set defense. But he's just so thin, and it's really difficult

for those guys to do that consistently at like a high efficiency. I do like the idea of him kind of slingshotting off of Shingun, like, you know, getting it,

getting rid of it quickly, like I was talking about. Like, if he embraces that, he becomes a lot more, he becomes a tougher proposition because he's so athletic, but he's got to buy into that, you know, so, and his shooting's going to have to improve for him to do that too.

Yeah, there's a really... I just wish he was on a different team because I don't think he needs this team and vice versa. I was thinking about... Because they have a top four protected pick, so it's a little dicey for them. They could just end up losing the sixth pick in the draft. But I was thinking Charlotte for him.

What would happen if they called Charlotte and they said, give us your unprotected pick this year and then another pick in 2030 and we'll send you Jalen Green? First of all, would Houston even want to do that? Second, would Charlotte go, oh, LaMelo Ball and Jalen Green, like, in.

Two unprotected picks. We'll do it. It just feels like if you put him on that team, I'm so much more excited about what his future is. You put him with LaMelo and just in a situation.

This Houston team, they just have too many guards and small forwards and people who need the ball. I think, I just don't think there's enough basketballs. Basketball doesn't work that way. Whitmore's going to come in and he's going to want to shoot for five minutes. Yeah, it seems like it's sort of this

amorphous thing that's just kind of trying to take shape. And it's interesting to compare the confidence level we have in OKC, who's in a similar spot to Houston. But OKC, the guys a similar spot to Houston. OKC the guys compliment each other that's what I love about it like they all make sense collectively Houston's like here's some assets yeah and they're really good assets but I don't think they make sense together like yeah in terms of like how this year is going to like play out and what they're thinking

is going to be I had somebody tell me that, and I believe this, that this year is going to be interesting because there is no player in this upcoming draft that's worth sabotaging your season for. I know you love to make up the trauma for Yama, whatever they were, but there's nobody in that range. It's going to be interesting to see some of these lower teams and how they choose to play this. We also don't know because the guys can come out of nowhere and all of a sudden in December, everyone's super excited. As we see every year, the ESPN Top 100 ranking

compared to what it looks like nine months later, it's always weird. So I was like, man, that guy was only ranked 19th? He's awesome. Or like, man, that guy was only ranked 19th. He's awesome. Or like, man, that guy was ranked second. He kind of sucks. Yeah, it seems like I was texting you about this, that it is an interesting thing where I've wanted to do sort of a bigger project about this,

where there are some guys who pop at 21 as opposed to popping at 18, 19. You know, Desmond Bain, a big example of that. There's more of them. Ben Shepard, they're usually skilled guys who need to physically mature. Then you see a guy like, I don't know how much you've seen of Ron Holland, who's playing for G League

night this year. He's an example of a guy who is just a man among boys physically. He bullies. He doesn't shoot the ball super well, but he really pops with his effort. It's interesting. I'm not sure how it's going to shake out because in some years, we go into the year thinking with all this confidence. If you think back about 2015, I think it was, we were like,

oh, this draft's great, and it didn't turn out great, as opposed to 14 when we were't turn out great as opposed to, you know, third or 14 when we were, you know, it had, or no, it was 13, 13,

someone that was really bad, right? 14 was the Embiid Wiggins Jabari Parker one that everybody was excited about. Think about that. Like Jabari ended up getting hurt. Embiid was a huge prize and Wiggins turned out to be good. Yeah. Or we were,

we were so sure that 13 was bad and there was an MVP sitting in the late lottery So it's true We always act like we know going in And we don't, we act like we know the future So that's definitely a good point Alright, let me throw Two more rookies at you Keontae George

Do we think he's going to play in Utah? What's the buzz? He should He's gotten stronger he's got a little better athletic pop um he kind of I compared him if you think about he's got that sort of slinky like he loves his dribble pull up he really got hot in summer league and got had some stretches where he looked amazing um I would just throw you talking about throwing the keys I just just same thing same thing with the Blazers.

I'm all for just like rolling it out there and letting these guys learn. That's the biggest thing. Like grow the decision-making cause, cause he's lean scoring for a while. Yeah. I have a lot of confidence in him. I think, I think Keontae has the look of a lead ball handler in the league for sure.

All right. Last one. Brandon Miller. What do we think? What are we expecting? There's some people are bullish on Charlotte. Like they're over under, I think it was 30 and a half. I don't see it. I just, I'm always going to assume they're going to suck.

But there's a case because two years ago with most of the same team, they won over 40 games and the East isn't that good. But, And then LaMelo, this is a big year for him to prove that he's not just a guy who's going to be in the lottery every year. So I see some of it. We'll see what happens with Bridges and how effective he is. Guys not playing for a year and a half always make me nervous on top of all the other stuff. But it does seem like a big piece of if they are half decent,

if they are in possible playing team, Brandon Miller has to be, I think, better than I think he's going to be. So where do you stand on him? I don't know that there's going to be as much pressure on him to be great. I think that if Hayward comes back, Hayward has looked pretty decent here in the early goings. Granted, we're talking about a very, very small sample size. Yeah, he'll get hurt. Yeah. He'll get hurt.

Most likely, but I don't wish that on him. No, it's just his durability has been the story of the last seven years of his career. He'll look good for two weeks, and then he'll disappear, and then he comes back, back and then he disappears which i think will probably get for miller you think anybody kicks the tires on him as a guy who could come in is that contract too big because they had to pay him a lot to get him to come in the first place what do you think about that i gotta say i was i was wondering about him with harden i thought charlotte was kind of the stealth mystery hardened team oh god hardened well charlotte's so weird like you, you know, they, I never know what Charlotte's doing. They're the spotting onions, you know, spotting dimes, eating onions team.

Um, I could see like a Hayward, Harden, they just throw Philly an unprotected pick five years from now. And that's just the trade. And people are like, Whoa, what the hell just happened? And then Hayward goes to Philly and is actually a pretty good fit for what they have. But yeah, I don't... I'm with you. He's an expiring contract. December, February, January, February range, if they're out of it,

that's somebody that could actually help somebody. He's also a really intriguing buyout guy too. But if he can just stay on the floor in April and May, that's a guy who's a top seven rotation guy. Yeah, I was trying to think of the contenders that could use another guy who can handle a little bit, who can shoot it. Of course, that's a dumb question.

Everyone needs that in the league. Well, Milwaukee is the most obvious one. I mean, if you looked at Milwaukee's two guards and three guards, it's the most grisly collection of guys imaginable for a team with a 55 win over under. Yeah, I've been peppering Rob Mahoney with like bad trade.

I've been trying to trade Dorian Finney-Smith or Dennis Smith Jr. to the Bucs just because when it seems close, I always try to like, you know, I'm more of like the, you know, I'm not quite the, I'm not the Picasso of the trade machine.

I'm trying to be the, what's his nameso of the trade machine i'm trying to be the uh what's his name happy trees i'm trying to be that i'm trying to be some level of uh of that but yeah i've tried to trade them there but the on the hornets the hornets um the most fascinating subject in the world uh the they showed some like defensive friskiness last year like they started to show some of that. They've got some young guys like Mark Williams is a pretty active protector. Yeah, PJ, always liked PJ, and he's still developing.

But I think on Miller, just to sort of put a bow on that, I mean, his big thing is going to be defense. We know he can pass the ball, but can he be more of a dribble pull-up shooter and a penetrator? Can he turn the corner and get into the lane these are sort of like the things that have hung over the discussion about him for a while uh i think he's gonna have to get a lot stronger kind of the same thing with kade kade i think he needs to embrace like just getting bigger and kind of bullying guys to get to his spots because he's just not he's not fast enough to get in the lane off of his first step yeah he seems a year away from being a year away to me as like a real guy

this year will be like you know will he be better than keegan murray was on the kings no yeah i just don't see it murray's interesting too because when we were talking about the drew stuff i thought the kings would be an interesting thing for them just because i think keegan is ready keegan was just dominant in summer league. He gave this look of like, okay, I'm ready to play. It made me wonder if maybe Harrison Barnes could become sort of like a thing that they could move potentially because they kind of could do the similar things. I wondered about that one, but yeah, love Keegan too.

I couldn't agree with you more on the Holiday and the Kings. I thought that was going to be the sneaky team that went after him because they could throw Davey and Mitchell back and a couple picks. I don't feel like the Celtics kind of gave up enough in the trade. Now, they might be able to turn Rob Williams into two more picks, but that's one of those trades. Of course the Celtics were going to do that. Like Brogdon,don Williams and two picks,

whatever. Um, we have drew holiday. Now the guys can be on team USA in nine months. And I did feel like the Kings could have done it. All right. Uh, before we go,

you know, we do talk about this sometimes. So I'm just going to bring it up with the pod. Like we, we, we text each other sometimes thinking like, what would sharks think, think about this?

And this weird goofy Mavs team, you know, that was Charks' favorite team. I always wonder like, what would he have thought of? Luka, Kyrie, Grant Williams, this weird center combo they have. And just, you know, apparently the chemistry vibes are pretty good seth curry's there but uh it's a team that i'm probably gonna put outside the playoffs but what would he have thought of this team it's hard because i was telling you like i know for a fact he would have loved omax like i know that lively i'm not so sharks was like very much of the school of the big guy he was harder on big guys, but he also bought in on big guys

and would really, really dig in. I don't know that he would have liked Lively. I'm not really sure about that one. But, you know, so many – Lively just had such a really weird up-and-down defensive – like, we know he's quick to the ball. We know he has good hands. We know he's super athletic.

It's just like, is he going to be – it's been the question for me. Is he going to be Nick Claxton or is he going to be Willie Cauley Stein? I think, I don't think he's going to be Willie, but they're going to be leaning on these rookies, man.

And like, you know, you talked about the chemistry thing. I don't, I don't know. I feel like that's going to be kind of extra like would this in a,

in a vacuum, even if this team got it along perfectly all year, would they be, would they hit a certain level? They just, they have so many questions because you want to have Luke and Kyrie out there. perfectly all year, would they be, would they hit a certain level? They just, they have so many questions because you want to have Luke and Kyrie out there.

It's like, okay, well that's a defensive deficit already. So who are going to be the extra guys? You know, hypothetically it'd be Grant. You know, you're going to want to put somebody out there that can hit open threes

and guard both ways. It sounds a lot like Dorian finish Smith cough. And then, and then you got, I mean, Josh Green seems kind of like he fits that mold. But Charks, I feel like he would have had a real love-hate relationship with this team because I was telling you that he kind of had moments

where he would even start to criticize Luka. It seemed like he was kind of falling out of love with the heliocentric thing. Like I told you, he famously said that he thought a step back three was quote unquote the loser shot so i don't know i don't know i always thought that was great um but that that was a classic sharks but yeah he i know for a fact that he was more when i was watching that wimmy check game like i oh yeah it's been a little over a year since charks left us uh but i just kept thinking he no one was more excited about that matchup than him i was telling

you that like the the fiba u19 thing sharks never did this but there was like that when they were going to be playing against each other in the in the final france and usa sharks wanted us to do a live show a live podcast. And I was like, what has gotten into you? Uh, he was very excited about it. So it made me, it did make me,

I was laughing. It made me a little sad that he didn't get to see it. Cause I would, sometimes you go to text him and you're just like, Oh, I can't. But, um,

that was, that was one that I was, I really would have loved to hear his perspective on. Yeah. He liked nothing more than when things just got super weird on an NBA court. Like just something that nobody had seen before.

That was like when he was the most all in. Yeah, well, we'll see what's going to happen. I don't have a lot of high hopes for this Dallas team, but all right. J. Kyle, man,

you'll pop on a bunch of times during the season. Yeah. I'm with you on this rookie class. So the biggest thing we learned is that Wemby's 30-1 on defensive player of the year is probably too high. At least kick the tires on that one.

You're the history guy. Is Wilt or Russell the only two? Who are the rookies who have... Yeah, it's pretty rare. The last one I remember that was jarring as a rookie was Mutombo. Yeah, that's true. And that was 30 years ago. But when he came in,

it was like an oddity. And he was more athletic when he came in. We had no idea exactly how old he was, but we knew he was like somewhere in his early twenties. And he was just, he was springy, but he had size. And it was just, it was like, whoa, haven't seen this. Manute was like that too. But Manute was, you know, more of an oddity than Matum it was like, whoa, haven't seen this. Manute was like that too, but Manute was, you know, more of an oddity than Mutombo seemed like,

whoa. Mourning was a monster too as like, I mean, this is like before I was watching live, but yeah, I mean,

he was a pretty feisty room. I mean, Mobley was pretty solid. I mean, Olajuwon, do you remember him as a rookie?

Like how defensively like immediate, I mean, I know he was good, but like, yeah. The thing with Olajuwon was the athleticism with Olajuwon was what...

I guess that's part of defense, but his ability to, like, jump entry passes and stuff like that. There's this sequence in Game 6 of the 86 Finals when he's three steals in a row. He's guarding Bill Walton, and he just, like, completely annihilates Bill Walton for, like, a solid minute.

Young Akeem was the freak athlete at that position probably that whole generation. Mutombo was the one that stood out just because it was like, man, how are people going to score against this guy? Wemby's different

because of his ability to cover the 30 feet of the court versus just like the paint. And when we, he's like jumping out on those side, you know, those side threes

and even what he did the other day. I just definitely haven't seen that. All right, Kyle, man, good to see you. You too. All right.

One of my favorite people is here. The ringer is Joanne Robinson. She's sometimes my Prestige TV podcast partner. We no longer have Prestige TV. It's just gone. It's done. It's over. Yeah.

It doesn't exist anymore. Trying to be like, hey, the morning show. No. Oh, wait. I forgot. The morning show is terrible. Yeah. So maybe with the crown coming in November. Yeah, The Crown's coming. Another season

of Fargo is coming. True Detective. There's a bunch of stuff coming. Yeah. All right. Well, you wrote a book. It's called MCU, The Reign of Marvel Studios. And you wrote it with your guys from your podcast, and you're promoting it right now. And that's not the only reason we're having you. But I wanted to promote the book, but we wanted to come up with some sort of gimmick to talk about the MCU.

So what gimmick did you come up with? Yeah, I know how much you love Marvel and love talking about comic book movies in general, Bill. No, I thought that you might want to talk about the way that the Marvel Universe sort of created some of our last movie stars and the way in

which Marvel bumped the stock of certain actors. So we thought we would count down top five actors who had their stock shoot up because they joined the MCU. Alright, yeah. We'll go sports style and we'll go from five to one. But quickly on the MCU. Yeah. I'm not joined the MCU. All right. Yeah, we'll go sports style and we'll go from five to one.

But quickly on the MCU. Yeah. I'm not against the MCU. I like that exists. The part that concerns, I'm happy it's there. The part that got scary was when the studios were like,

this is all there is. And we just have to go in these. Totally. This is the only thing we should care about to make money. So maybe what happened this summer with a couple of movies that got released, maybe that'll change the thinking a little bit.

But I've always been envious of it because I tried to get into it with my son and it just didn't take. But if he had been like, let's bang out every MCU movie there is, let's go, let's do this, I would have done it and probably liked it. I kind of just didn't have a wingman to get into it.

Well, that's part of what a lot of people are talking about right now because a lot of what the book covers is not just the beginning of Marvel and the rise of Marvel, but also the troubles that it's having right now, connecting with people. And I think part of that is the feeling of homework

where people feel like they need to watch 20 movies to understand what's even going on yeah yeah so that's something that they're they're grappling with actively right now is how do we make our our shows and our movies which the genius of it in the first place is that it was all supposed to be interconnected so it all felt like you know musty tv but now they have to kind of disconnect and make each thing feel like it could stand on its own and you could come in fresh without knowing anything. Otherwise, I just don't think people are up for that much homework anymore,

especially people who are trying to introduce their kids brand new, like young kids into the MCU and they're like, sit down. We got 20 movies and this many TV shows to get through. So that's, yeah, it's a big problem for the studio right now. Plus a lot of stuff that's going on on TV. I mean, there's a lot of things

they're grappling with right now. It's been funny to watch all of it evolve because like when I was growing up in the 70s, we had the Batman TV show, which was like just an iconic show. I mean, that's DC Comics,

but that was an iconic, iconic, iconic show. It was on all the time. Everyone I knew watched all of them. We all had our favorite people in the whole thing and favorite episodes and then when it started to get revived in the late 80s with like the batman movie and we started to move down that world with oh comic books as movies the modern version of it and then they just kind of stumbled and flailed their way through and some of it worked some of it didn't but then

the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man felt like the tipping point for whatever universe we're in now because I was aware of it the whole time they were making it it felt like a big deal that they picked him right and it's like Tobey Maguire the guy from Pleasantville and

you know whatever and he's going to be Spider-Man it's like he's going to be Spider-Man yeah yeah and then the dialogue around it they picked Kirsten Dunst they kind of nailed every piece of it and it seems from that moment on everybody was like you know for better and worse because we've had a lot of a lot of bad ones too but then the Iron Man was when it went to a whole other level well Well, it's the timing of it, right? Because that Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movie comes out right after 9-11. And which is like when Lord of the Rings comes out and Harry Potter comes out. And there's just this like big shift, I think, culturally towards looking to those superheroic stories where we feel like the evil is something we can understand and the hero is

someone who will save the day and make things safe and so yeah you get you get the sam raimi spider-man movies you get those x-men movies that came out relatively around the same time then nolan changes the game again when he starts making his batman movies uh that's dc but that really you know like the dark knight the way that the Dark Knight forever changed the way the Oscar runs its Best Picture category because people were so mad that Dark Knight was nominated for Best Picture. That just tells you where we were culturally

with superhero movies in that moment. And right in the mix there is when Marvel starts making its own movies with Iron Man, which is their very first movie that they make themselves. To your point, there were a bunch of movies that didn't hit, like Ben Affleck's Daredevil or Elektra or Halle Berry's Catwoman. There's a bunch of stuff that's going on that's not working.

And Marvel, at a certain point, says, we don't want to leave it up to someone else, Fox or Sony or someone else, Universal, to bungle our characters. We're going to make our own movies. And then if it flops, it's our fault, but at least we have control over what we're doing. And that's Iron Man on and that just changed. And then it just takes a chokehold on Hollywood for over a decade. And so I kind of feel like with the book, with writing it, no matter how you feel about the Marvel movies, if you like them, if you don't, if you didn't get into them, if you liked them before, but now you don't like them as much. It's an undeniable chapter in the Hollywood story that we wanted to cover from like a business angle, from a fandom angle, from all the...

Because, I mean, this happened. You know, even Marty Scorsese has to admit that this happened and might still happen. But it kind of feels like we're at the tail end of something right now. It did. The tipping. We talked about it on the Iron Man podcast that we did for Rewatchables in advance. That tipping point of that year when you had Iron Man and Dark Knight at the same time, basically. Yeah. And both of those movies were just so unusual and so cool and

just really made you think like, holy shit, these movies are amazing. Like even I was like, I'm in, but it doesn't feel like from a consistency standpoint, they've been able to sustain that. And I look back at those movies now, I'm like, man, those are like two of the most creative movies of the last 20 years. Do you feel like since then, have there been two or three movies that you feel like can at least be discussed in that level in the Marvel universe? Yeah. And with Iron Man, especially, and this is something I really loved learning about when we wrote the book is that they made that almost like an independent movie. Favreau made that sort of like out of the eye of Marvel in general, on a low budget,

improvising the script essentially with Downey, etc. That was a really unusual production in the way that Marvel went on to later make movies. But if you talk about other Marvel movies, I would say Black Panther, definitely, in terms of the cultural moment that surrounded that.

I would say right around that same time, Thor Ragnarok, Taika Waititi's reinvention of the character of Thor. Jeff Goldblum's in that movie, Cate Blanchett's in that movie. That movie works on all levels in a way that the Thor movies weren't working before. And then I would say you have infinity worn end game are sort of undeniable in the way in which, you know, end game was the biggest movie in the world until James Cameron got jealous and re-released avatar. So those are just like phenomenas that you can't.

And the culmination of so many stories, there's just like nothing like it in terms of franchise storytelling where it all built up and built up and built up to a two-parter and however i don't know i would hold infinity war up against the dark knight absolutely not in terms of like creativity but in terms of like spending years slowly getting people emotionally invested in those characters to the point where it almost doesn't matter because you have such a buy-in a deep buy-in on the characters. That's an achievement

I don't think we'll ever see the likes of again. Endgame came out the same, right around like within a week of the finale of Game of Thrones. And it was just this like frenzy of pop culture, monoculture that I just don't think we'll ever see from film and television ever again.

So, I mean- You know what was amazing? Yeah, who? The Ringer during that time. It was like the Super Bowl and the NBA Finals happening simultaneously. I love that. We love content at The Ringer. Is Dark Knight, I know it's extended outside

in the whole nerd culture movie universe. Is Dark Knight the 21st century goat? Or would you say something else? Or would you say something else? Or would you say Endgame? Or what would you say? I think if you asked people, if you asked me,

I would pick Endgame. But I think if you asked people at large or certainly the ringer listenership, it would be either really close or a slight edge to Dark Knight those Nolan movies just like have a real you know and Nolan continues to have a real grip on people's imaginations

Oppenheimer is an insane cultural phenomenon this year wonderful so yeah I watch Dark Knight probably every 18 months do you? yeah I absolutely I'm just in awe of that movie I think it's one of the best 21st century movies, just in general.

I mean, what Heath Ledger does in that movie is just un-I-am-all. Everything about it, the way it starts, just that whole bank scene and just we're off. I love it. All right, do your top five. We'll go five to one. The actors who, what was the exact premise? I don't want to fuck it up.

I think it's like the actors who stock bumped the most off of their involvement in the MCU. MCU stock bump from five to one. Who's number five. Um, I feel like I only have room for two Chris's on this list. So you can tell me, should it be Hemsworth or Pratt in the number five spot?

I would say Hemsworth because I just feel like in another era, he's even a bigger star. He's got everything. I really like him in every movie he's in. He's tall. He's handsome. He's a good actor. He's got a charisma to him. He's funny.

I'm all in on him. There's just an interesting thing. And next on my list, number four would be Chris Evans. Because I think Evans said in a recent GQ article, he's like, Marvel doesn't necessarily make you a star. It makes the character the star. And so when putting this list together, I was kind of thinking about, okay, who comes out of this a star in their own right?

And who comes out of this? Oh, that's Thor. Oh, that's Captain America. And that's sort of where Hemsworth and Evans are sitting, I think. Where Evans has had a little bit more success with it, but Hemsworth has had a tough time getting people to buy in on non-Thor roles for him. You know, Evans at least has like Knives Out and a couple other things. But that's where I would say five and four.

Number three. Wait, hold on. You know what that reminds me of? Cause football is like this where we don't necessarily have football stars in the same way we have basketball stars. Cause they have helmets on. It's the football. The NFL discourages individuality.

So basically it's like my homes, but now Travis Kelsey, cause he's dating Taylor Swift. But for the most part, you're kind of, you put your helmet on. It's like your superhero costume and you're part of a team. The NFL is always the star.

But in the NBA, the NBA is like stars. It's like you could name 25, 30 of them. And the way they promote it, it's like this guy's playing against this guy. And Leo would be an NBA star. But Chris Hemsworth is like, he's an NFL star where it's like, now he's going to. That's just the nature of their stardom. That's so interesting. Scarlett Johansson, who was a bigger star than them going in, but I

think and had a lot of success outside of the MCU, but being an Avenger really bumped her stock. What'd you say? I was going to ask, is she the actress? Because I think the whole nerd culture universe has heard a lot of actresses or set them back or been missteps, but she's the one that it seems like when she

decided to do it, it was the perfect point of her career. It enhanced it. It helped her. It enhanced her star. She didn't compromise any of the Oscar potential stuff. People still respected her equally as an actor. And it just seemed like a win all the way around. I feel like she's kept her portfolio diverse enough. And Black Widow wasn't in as much as the other guys. And so she was just sort of like lightly

MCU committed and then was able to do other stuff to keep people interested elsewhere. And I think it helped that she had such prestige credentials going into the project in the first place, like lost in translation, et cetera.

Well, whereas like somebody like Brie Larson, it felt a little early when she jumped into, into the culture universe. It's like, do like three more dramas and a rom-com and then do it. Yeah. Fresh off the Oscar is not when I would do it,

you know, like stay in that Oscar space for a little while. I'm going to cheat on number two and give you a twofer, which is Tom Holland and Zendaya. That's fair. That's a pairing. Yeah, I'm okay with that. Yeah. In terms of why I would put them above the other

three is Zendaya was a Disney star, but people didn't really know who she was really. And Tom Holland was a Billy star, but people didn't really know who she was really. And Tom Holland was, you know, a Billy Elliot on stage and no one. And the fact that they are now two of the most-

Wait, don't forget about the Tsunami movie. Yeah, with Ewan McGregor. He saved Naomi Watts' life. She lost her leg, but he's unbelievable in that movie. He's so good.

I know, and he like cries. Yeah, he's great. Yeah, he is great in that movie. But's so good. Yeah, he's great. He cries. Yeah, he's great. Yeah, he is great in that movie. But they're two of the most famous people in the world now, right? Zendaya and Tom Holland. And maybe that would have happened anyway with Zendaya, but I don't know about Tom Holland, and it's all down to Spider-Man, 100%.

Yeah, her career blueprint of having, being in this universe simultaneously with the Euphoria universe and, and comboing that off the Disney, it's,

it's unparalleled. Nobody's pulled that off before. No, I mean, I don't know anyone who doesn't love and respect Zendaya. Right.

It's, you know, her brand is unimpeachable, right? Highest approval rating of any actor or actress? It's very possible. And then she and Tom Holland are in this adorable little

romantic relationship that everyone loves. It's a real stock booster. But the king of the stock boost has to be Robert Downey Jr. Because of where Downey was before, where he is now. The fact that I was out to dinner last night with a couple people who are deep in the Oscar race. And they're like, Downey's getting the Oscar for Oppenheimer.

It's a done deal. They're like, no one's touching him. That's happening. It's one thing to say, look at his Oppenheimer performance, which is interesting. But I don't think he gets there without all the goodwill of Tony Stark and the way in which that just generated so much money for Hollywood over the years. And the story of Downey, that was one of my favorite stories to capture in the book is how reluctant Marvel was to hire him in the first place because of what was going on in

his life, who fought for him, how they fought for him, and then how he just becomes the spine of the franchise. And I think a lot of people would say that it's not been the same since he left after Endgame. So, yeah. Yeah, we talked about that during the Iron Man pod because I grew up with Downey. He was in Back to School and Johnny B. Goode and he was on Saturday Night Live for a year.

Then Less Than Zero was this iconic weird eighties movie. But everybody liked him and was rooting for him. And it just seemed like he was going to fuck up his career. Like so many other people did. And, you know, he was like this family member, you know,

they were like, Oh man. Yeah. I was down. He coming to Thanksgiving. I was, he drinking like, yeah. And then all're pulling far. Yeah. Oh, is Downey coming to Thanksgiving? Oh, is he drinking? Yeah.

And then all of a sudden, the switch turned. And then Iron Man happened. And everybody was so happy for the guy. On top of how great he was in the movie, it's really kind of unprecedented. Because I grew up, I lost a lot of people that I loved. Like Belushi was one of my all-time favorites. He blew it. Chris Farley. River Phoenix. You just assume that people are going to fuck it up and they all-time favorites. He blew it. Chris Farley.

River Phoenix. You just assume that people are going to fuck it up and they're going to die, and he didn't. And the fact that he hasn't... There's been no backslide as far as we know. It's just been like what flip that's... He married his wife, Susan Downey, who's incredible. Just made this massive seismic life change.

I think he, he, I think he replaced some of that, you know, whatever he was chasing with the troubles that he had before with like, with work, honestly, you know, that's part of it.

We can relate. So yeah, down the story. Downey is so inextricably tied to the story of the mcu um and again in a world where and we talk about this all the time in a world where we don't feel like we have movie stars anymore it's so interesting to consider him as this star that really tugged the entire mcu behind him to a certain degree set Set the tone. He's an improvisational actor,

so a lot of his quippy, snarky tone, all of that, sort of sets the tone for the rest of the dialogue of the MCU. And then he's just been missing since he's been gone. So, you know, if Marvel's smart, I think they're going to back up the biggest money truck in the world to Downey's house and say, figure out a way, Can you come back? Do something for us, please. Come back. But who knows if he'll want to after

he has his Oscar. I don't know. Downey's like, I can't hear you. I live on a mountain overlooking some ocean and a $900 billion house. Will you offer me more money? What am I going to do with it? Exactly. Are we ever getting my Plastic Man movie or no? No.

Never happening? I'll tell you what, it's never happening because Marvel, I don't know if you read the THR piece that came out yesterday, but like they canned a Daredevil show that they were halfway through and they're being kind of merciless right now with trimming some of their... That's a main hero, but they're

trimming the fat. They're trimming their weird projects out. And I think going back to sort of streamlining the basics, because, you know, as you know, in the streaming wars, in the Bob Iger,

Bob Jacob, Bob Iger era, it just got too much. There's just too much content. They were just throwing everything at us. And that idea of superhero fatigue, which I sort of rolled my eyes at over the years because I was like, sure,

but they're still making a jillion dollars. It really feels real for the first time this year. And I think it has so much to do with, there's just too much. And then the quality suffers. And, you know, so if they can narrow it back down, go back to making movies that people really like or shows that feel solid start to finish,

then there's possible that Marvel could have a rebound after this really pretty tough year for them. Well, I miss podcasting with you. We're going to have to do like a Hall of Fame. We'll have to do like a Hall of Fame episode of some show we love just so we can bang out like 50 minutes of something. But yeah.

So Prestige, we got The Crown. We have True Detective. And then what's the Fargo? Fargo. Yeah. Those are three good Crown. We have True Detective. And then what's the Fargo? Fargo, yeah. Those are three good ones. We'll cover those. Prestige will be back. People are asking me like, where's Prestige?

Did you guys get rid of him? I'm like, what show are we doing? There are no good shows. What do you want us to do? We'll be back. We'll be back. All right. Good luck with the book.

Please check it out. Joanna, good to see you. Good to see you, Mel. Thanks. All right. That's with the book. Please check it out. Joanna, good to see you. Good to see you, Bill. Thanks. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Danny and Craig. Thanks to Kyle Mann. Thanks to Joanna Robinson. Thanks to Austin Gale. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti for producing. And I will see you on Sunday with the cuz. On the wayside, I'm a person never lost. I don't have... Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, and Virginia. You can call 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 in Arizona. Call 1-888-789-777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. 1-800-9WITH-IT in Indiana. 1-800-522-4700 or

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