The Bill Simmons Podcast - Nathan Fielder on Life as a Millennial, Magic, and More 'Nathan For You' (Ep. 262)

Episode Date: September 20, 2017

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by comedian Nathan Fielder to discuss the return of 'Nathan for You' (6:00), Michael Phelps racing an animated shark (15:00), David Blaine's magic special (18:00), how to talk about the Spurs (32:00), living life as the original millennial (38:00), developing YouTube videos (48:00), and growing up with Seth Rogen (58:00). Then, The Ringer's Mike Lombardi joins to give his thoughts on Sean Payton's sloppy start (1:09:00), the Falcons' impressive start (1:18:00), and Malcolm Butler trade ideas (1:30:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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She a big fat person. Oh, yeah. We broke that down. This week, we have Speed. That's coming up. It was an honorable mention. It wasn't a Hall of Famer coming up it was an honorable mention it wasn't a Hall of Famer but it was an honorable mention

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That's coming up around the hour mark of this podcast. Right now, Nathan Fielder. But first, Pearl jam. All right. Nathan Fielder is in the office. This is our third podcast. We've done two at Grantland, and then you disappeared. You were attacked by wolves, and nobody saw you for two years. What happened? I was kind of waiting for you to restructure and get things going with the ringer.

I really appreciate that. Yeah. I kind of have loyalty to you, so I wanted to make sure you were all settled. And cause I was also unsure if, you know, it was going to be good. Yeah. I don't blame you.

We weren't either. Grantland was so cool. Thank you. And like such a cool office in the ESPN building. And then, you know, and sometimes people will try things new and it fails. So I wanted to make sure it'd be a success before, you know,

attaching my name to it. I've had that happen too. Yeah. Yeah. 2013? That's when your show launched. Oh, yeah. I think I was the first one on the bandwagon.

I had you on my podcast and nobody knew what the show was or who you were. I don't feel like. You were the first on the bandwagon. I think our first episode aired and you called up Lewis, who's I did my longtime friend. Right. And you were like, I want Nathan on the podcast. Yes.

And at the time, no one like knew what the show was. It wasn't even being like widely promoted or anything. It was not. And I also didn't know who you were yeah because you're canadian i need to grow my canadian audience and i'm also not like a big sports right but i did the podcast and then all these like it was like the most exposure i like all these people were coming out of the woodworks and were like i can't believe you were on bill simmons podcast now oh wow that's nice to hear yeah it was like a ton of people that's great people are more excited about that than the fact

that i made a tv show i swear it was really weird but you were the first yeah i saw one did i know that you represented him lewis i think you were like this is my guy and i saw one i was like what is this i want to see all of these and then i just had to i just knew sometimes you know that was wrong a lot but sometimes but what i was worried about i appreciate it so much I think we even discussed this in the first podcast. I could tell how long it took for you to do eight episodes and how grueling it was. And that was my concern. I was like, I don't know if he can sustain this

to pump out eight to ten every ten to eleven months. So you did three seasons. Yeah, we've done three and the fourth starts this week. Right it starts well we're starting this thursday we have an hour-long special called nathan for you a celebration i watched half of it oh okay yeah i meant to watch all of it but um it's a long story no there's some parent stuff

you don't understand what it's like to have a 12 year old daughter there was some homework that needed to be helped and then i was tired and but i you know i got the gist of it and i had already it was nice to catch up with the characters it's fine yeah and you can finish it anytime yeah i figured out time so anyways that that episode is kind of like we follow up with people and stories from the show in the past and things that have happened behind the scenes since. And people kind of seemed eager to redeem themselves a little bit, just a tiny bit. Yeah.

I guess there was a sense of that, especially the first guy, the, well, the host, well, the host, like to really wanted to clear up the threesome.

Yes. It's hosted by Anthony Napoli, which, uh, for those who have seen the show I did in season one, I did a fake dating show called the hunk and it was trying to like overcome my fear of nervousness around women using kind of immersion therapy by dating a lot of women at once. But I hired some guy to post it and he thought it was a real dating show that he was hosting. Yeah. And so we invited him back to host this hour long special,

but he really wanted to clear up the threesome story. Well, yeah, that was his biggest agenda. He said he had a threesome in the first one and he kind of, and we also felt like even going into this, we were like, well, that's not something we want even going into this we were like well that's not something we want to go into that's like old news and he just launched into it right at the beginning and so um yeah i guess you'll see how that plays out so what did you think was the tipping point for when this show when when the right people were going crazy about it was a dumb starbucks or did it happen sooner well i don't it's kind of been a gradual like a steady kind of increase yeah like different people kind of seem to i mean i don't know if yeah different like you kind of came on

to it early and then throughout season one i think more and more people got into it and then dumb starbucks was a thing where i guess we got lots of exposure yeah that was the biggest press kind of barrage yeah because it was it kind of went outside of the comedy world i guess as well and so we got a lot of attention from that and then but you know then last season there was a lot you know we got a lot i think it just has increased in a nice way i mean our goal with the show is always to like do things where even if you've seen every episode you'll still be surprised right at every turn so that you know that's i i guess our like we don't i feel like we haven't lost viewers we just like keep growing which is our goal we don't want people to get

bored of the show there's not that many episodes which helps right it's it feels like a treat when it returns that's a marketing tactic you know you keep something rare and exclusive like you put out how many you put out an episode every week right or i do i do three and three a week probably i think people take me for granted so yeah so because of that you know no one sees it as that special it's just like oh bill you know here's another one yeah so we have a different approach did you think about the binge watch era and how that might change your show and whether you should just release eight at once to just flood people? That's not my call.

Yeah. Would you want to do that or no? In a different world? I like, yeah, I don't, it's hard to know what is, I mean, it's also, I do think with Nathan for you, like that the show is really dense really dense yeah like there's a lot that happens in every episode so i do wonder if you're watching a bunch back to back if it would be kind of overwhelming see that's my argument like maybe it's nice to have a week in between i think it is binging you can like on netflix you can choose right you can pick if you watch one or not. The best binge-watch shows on Netflix... Like you just watched half an episode,

and you only had one. I'm going to finish it. I saw half, and I'm going to finish it. I've seen every minute of every show. You couldn't binge one. But if you did the Riverdale model for your show, where it was kind of people could half-watch it... What's the the Riverdale model. Well, Riverdale is like there's Riverdale, there's Bloodline, some of these Netflix shows there. What was the 13 reasons why

these are all shows that were eight episodes stretched out over 13. Oh, so you could never, you could kind of half watch and stuff would happen, but you never were like on the edge of your seat. It wasn't like Breaking Bad where every decision for every scene was made carefully. Breaking Bad would have been a great one, I feel like, for binge watching, right? Well, so yes and no, because I caught up late to it. Same with me. 2013. And I watched them all really quick.

But here's the problem. They're too addictive. And you're watching. I remember I was in Miami for the finals for NBA because I was on all really quick. But here's the problem. They're too addictive. And you're watching. I remember I was in Miami for the finals for NBA because I was on the studio crew. And I was catching up, trying to catch up to when the show came back. And I was falling asleep watching them on my iPad. Well, that's a time management thing. And then having crazy dreams.

Because it's like a show about this crazy met they were. And then I like disoriented the next morning that's the argument against binge watching that's one of the arguments yes you'll watch it while you start sleeping right and it'll affect your dreams yeah and i think yeah i think that could bring down netflix um you know because no one wants nightmares it's part of their another part of their motto is they just keep rolling the shows. So you can fall asleep and the next one will start and you can be four in the morning and it's four episodes later and it's just as cacophony in the

background. Anyway, I like, I like the once a week. It's a dense show. It's good. It comes. I'm looking forward to it.

I think it's an old school model that works for this one. Yeah. I think the, the, the ones that are together are like better when it's one story that continues right all right so since the last time we talked you don't want to talk about binge watching anymore no i want i have an agenda um since the last time we talked um you learned we haven't talked since you did the walk across the wire episode right which you trained for nine months yes which i didn't realize yes i figured it was something

because you have kind of weird passions i figured it was something like fancy hobbies magician and you have all these other little things you're good at i figured like at some point you're walking a wire in like the eighth grade and learned how to do it but no well i mean no i'm not very like look at my body yeah i'm i you we are when we were coming up with that episode that was actually an idea we had in um the second season yeah of the show and we didn't really have the resources or time to execute it properly so we like put it on hold and when we started to do the third season we were like okay we knew we wanted to do that yeah so we had kind of thought about it and i started training like very early but in the initial discussions i remember we had

we talked for a while about there's got to be a way to do this where i don't have to be the one wire walking because it's such a waste of time for such a small like it's one part of one episode and to learn this is like everyone we talked to it's they were saying like it takes like two or three years to kind of really do it at that scale where you can do that and so I we couldn't figure out a funnier way or another way to do it so I I just started working at it and I started like doing it while we were shooting and writing I would like train on the weekends. Isn't that what makes the show great though, is that you went all in on this one event that was a small part of one episode and you spent nine months training to do it. And that's kind of the secret sauce there.

Yeah. And it was also in a weird way, cause I'm in my head a lot. I feel like, you know, I'm distracted and when you're're wire walking you can't think of anything else like if your mind starts to wander you'll fall so it was actually really good it was kind of i started to enjoy it as like a therapeutic thing just to be in the moment that's like meditation yeah it was almost like meditation in a weird way and so and it and it became this kind of thing where it's just like, it's so frustrating at first because it seems so simple. Like you just want to get across a small wire that's a couple feet off the ground at first.

And it's, I couldn't do it. Like I couldn't. And it just becomes this thing where it's like a very clear challenge and you just want to get better at it and you see yourself kind of getting better. So it feels like very satisfying because it's like a clear goal so what what other what can come out of this now you have this this skill this unique skill that no i've never met anyone who could do this nothing i can't do anything with it well i think you could walk between high buildings that could be the next

thing well i have maybe you're like the man on a wire guy maybe you mean try to do it at like yeah maybe you just become the greatest who do you have to beat there's like nine people you'd have to beat you're right i guess there aren't that many you're halfway there you did most of the work already who's the guy that does it linda he probably died one of his grandpa died yeah they always show that at the beginning of his specials his grandpa's they show his grandpa died. Yeah. They always show that at the beginning of his specials. His grandpa's, they show his grandpa dying. Yeah, it's on YouTube. I might have watched it. At the beginning, but like when he's doing,

because he did like the Grand Canyon or something. Yeah. And they show his grandpa falling to his death at the beginning to kind of establish the stakes. Is that weird? I think it kind of sets the proper amount of tension. It was like, this guy's family member died, and now he's going to try to do it.

Like, is it, like, should you show then, like, someone getting, like, hit in football, like, getting carried off in a stretcher at the beginning of the game? Like, a NASCAR event? Yeah, watch his car crash before. Yeah, you're right. I guess that is weird. Last time you were on, we talked about magic.

Congrats on everything to him and whatever he's doing. We talked about magic, but this whole like walking a wire and stuff, I've always thought that the daredevil, big stunts the guy i grew up with evil kenevil on wide world of sports and evil kenevil is going to jump over 32 trucks and he's going to try to jump across snake canyon and the stuff always works and they did a v espn did a vegas new year's jump a couple times where the free fall bike jump and they always seem to work and i wonder why do you think they have there's not more of them aren't there they seem to work meaning no one dies or like a lot of people

watch it seems like they be it becomes relevant for an hour yeah i love those big spectacle events we need another evo knievel i guess is my point yeah because they have the tightrope guy and there was well michael phelps just did that thing that was uh he raced the shark i watched the whole thing it was terrible i watched it though so they kind of promoted it like he was gonna race a shark yeah he did it was called like phelps versus shark right or something that's that's what it was called and then the entire special they kind of they're very careful with their wording as to kind of like what's gonna happen they're kind of like he will race a shark's

speed or something like that like they used weird wording and then at the end he just raced a cartoon of a it was like an animated disney shark there was not a lot of fear from the viewer watching it right and they like made it like jump and do tricks yeah like it was really weird yeah and i think it got a good rating somehow which brings me back to my point he was gonna race a shark yeah it's kind of like they've done a lot of those like the the guy with um did you see the eaten alive the guy that said he was gonna get eaten by an anaconda no how did i miss it that i don't know that was like i mean i had like a group get together to watch that one did the anaconda swallow him so the idea was he said like he's gonna get swallowed by an anaconda and then be in its belly that was the special and it was like the best premise for

um any special i've seen i think it was actually happening while we were working on that wire walking episode and uh basically that the snake he got put in all this like hockey gear like so like a helmet you know all that so he's safe. And then the second the snake started to bite his helmet, he was like, oh no, it hurts, and then he stopped. Was it live? No. Oh. So that was it?

He just stopped and the show was over? No, it wasn't live. This sounds terrible. Yeah, and they had all this buildup where they found a snake in the, you know, they always have to fill this stuff with like facts and information because we all want to know more about anacondas yeah but it definitely didn't pay off let's take a break to talk about an obsessively engineered mattress at a shockingly

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Since the last time you were on, David Brayen had his special with the celebrities. Right. He did another magic one. Where he freaked out basically all these famous people yeah and it was fantastic it was one of the best shows i've seen on network tv in like five years yeah i i really liked his last special because he had some those he kind of started to do really the stunts got really big to the point where they you know because he did one where he was like hanging upside down for a few days but yeah he took a break every hour so you're kind of like what what is this yeah but he kind of took it back to kind of this type of magic where it's just

a long shot where the camera holds on a wide shot there's's no like cuts. And I thought it was great. I thought it was really, and he did stuff that's kind of a mix of magic and stuff that he's just crazy enough to really do. The reactions from the celebs were fantastic too. Like it brought out this genuine Will Smith, Jada Pinkett reaction slash relationship where I felt like, oh, this is cool.

This is who they actually are. And I like the people who go on talk shows so after that show happened i was like nathan should nathan was in he said it on the podcast well you did too but you predicted on the podcast will smith react to just a blank face i wonder if it's on his radar will smith i actually learned about like steampunk in the past year i didn't know do you know what steampunk is now so have you seen that will smith movie like wild wild west uh unfortunately once and never again so that's steampunk apparently where it's like old-fashioned but futuristic at the same time yeah and there's a whole world of steampunk um people that kind of create their own things and it's like it's metal it's like you know those goggles like those old

fashioned like goggles yeah and then but it's also futurist i don't know how to explain it but each steampunk i guess has like you're supposed to develop your steampunk personality and it's called your steam sona what is going on i never heard any of this wait do i feel like you're making this up no no will you google um steampunk and just show bill like some of the images they come up steampunk is this you'll recognize the aesthetic but that's what like wild wild but there's a whole world and culture about like this we turn it a little more yeah wait i can't say do you so have you seen people dress like that sometimes or

no it's probably the furthest thing from the sports world. Yeah. I mean, I'm not in that, even that Comic-Con is a little too far out there for me. And there's a steampunk band called Steam Powered Giraffes. And they do like a Rihanna cover. Will you pull that up? I just want to start showing youtube videos to bill so but there this is a whole like world that i didn't even know about and then i started all everyone i worked with knew about steampunks and i started asking i actually ordered a pair of steampunk goggles while we were making the show just for fun because i just wanted to like wear

them and see what it felt like. Was each like the goggles Buffalo bill had in silence of the lambs, James Graham, the night, are they night vision or they're different? They're not, no, they're not night vision, but maybe the people that wear them pretend they are or something.

Right. Cause it's futuristic. I just want to get the definition of steampunk because I feel like I'm, Oh, you do it. That's the steampunk because i feel like i'm oh you do it that's the steampunk music so it's a guy kind of like acting like a robot oh my god so last time you predicted magic was going to have a renaissance now you're predicting the no no no okay i'm not predicting it i think it's been going on okay steampunk is a sub uh

genre of speculative fiction or science fiction that emphasizes victorian well what are all these words so so it's basically like old technology fetish type thing oh it's also used to refer to a trend in fashion and music so maybe i'm like yeah so at what point does this become a search it's from the victorian era but it's they can do like futuristic things what time when does this become a porn search oh i'm sure i'm sure it is now no no no google that i'm sure right i've never googled that i haven't good i'm glad yeah great what is it what's the title steampunk porn videos it's a has its own and you want to pull one out are you not allowed or is this i don't want tate to get a virus we're not at grandland

anymore that's true what do you care they can't fire you so magic so magic do we feel like magic had a renaissance or no it had the david play in special right i did actually because i predicted a renaissance i was like predicting like did you pull one up it didn't look good at least show at least pull up the GIF, the screen grab. This is kind of dirty, right? We don't want to go into this zone. I mean, if I'm listening, I don't know. The listeners can't see.

Google Images. Oh, no. Oh, my God. It's all there. It's all there. I can't see it. I can't unsee it. I'll look it up after.

You know, I guess... So, yeah, I don't know if there has been like a full magic renaissance. We need more magicians is what we need. More magicians? We need more David Blaine's. There are people doing stuff. It shouldn't be all on his shoulders. There are people doing stuff that are um a little more unique uh actually i think the the show i talked about before this guy derrick delgadio who has a show in new york

he's really cool he does and i i used to do magic like so i know a lot of things like so it's very rare that i'll see a magic show where i don't know anything that's going on. But this guy, Derek, who has a show in New York, I went to see it and I don't know what is going on. And it's not even about like the magic, too. It's a lot of I think he doesn't like being known as a magician because magic has such a bad reputation. You know, I mean, it's so corny. So he's trying to do his own thing that's like undefinable or something but uh there's still a lot of like amazing stuff in the show that i don't know how it's done um but i think there's things like popping up and there's but it's tough because you're kind of like magic is kind of it feels a little like steampunk in a way because it's like

so cheesy you know know? Yeah. Yeah. Well now there's so many cool steam. Well, I actually, I don't want to make a judgment. I don't know much about steampunk. So I'm,

it's hard for me to talk about the world. I know it's a big thing in porn. We've discovered and we know it's, there's also like, there's hoverboard porn too. I don't know if you know about that. What? So it's like two people will be on...

This is something. Well, I'm wondering if you would give me a nod. Like, oh, yeah, I know. I think we kind of went from steampunk to this when we were researching this stuff. But it's like two people will be on a hoverboard. those hoverboards yeah they'll like go opposite directions and then go together so it goes in like that like back and forth it's not sexually enjoyable but it doesn't sound it yeah i don't you know i i don't like really pornography pornography is not, you know, it's definitely disgusting and we shouldn't look at that. Has pornography, I can't remember, has that been a theme of an episode yet or no?

For you? Not totally, right? Well, there was like, I did a lie detector test in one of the seasons where the guy asked if I like look at pornography. But he was using a Toshibaiba laptop so the end old software so it wasn't accurate right yeah the results what's going on this season um what are some of the well anything you can give away this season well yeah we the one thing like we have this special one hour special before but then um so we made this we kind of set out to make this some things happen behind the scenes sometimes in the show that we're like

oh this might make an interesting episode like last season we had the summit ice thing which was a jacket company i started because my old jacket that i wore supported the holocaust right or like was pro nazi i think yeah i don't know and then so i created a jacket company that was like to promote holocaust awareness and we give all the money to charity and that was something that really happened like i because i was wearing the jacket in the show and so these things happen that were sometimes like oh this could maybe be a thing and it intersects with the real world in an interesting way and so this year there was something that happened kind of like behind the scenes that we're like oh maybe this could be

an episode or a segment and then it turned into like a two-hour story yeah and so that's like our finale this year is two hours long yeah which is very because we've even had a hard time like making stories that will last one episode because we'll sometimes do multiple. And so this one just took us into like a crazy territory that was very different than anything we've done on the show before. And I'm very curious to see what people think about it because it's like tonally very different than what we've done so you went to comedy central and you said i'm gonna need two hours no season finale no we didn't want to do that we just started shooting and then like kind of near the end of shooting it i called kent alterman who's the president of comedy central and i was like hey so like I know you like I have a contract to deliver like half hour episodes

and I'm like this one's like gonna be a lot longer and he's like well how long and I'm like I think it might be like two hours long and he's like he was really skeptical and he was like okay well

why don't you edit it together and then like show it to me so we did and we screened it for him and he was like okay i see what you mean and he's like they made a two-hour block for us to show it they're the best to work with like kent and rachel olsen's are executive but they really great. Like in terms of letting us do what we want with this show. I haven't, I don't think I've ever had such a great creative experience. Really good. It's not typical. Yeah. I don't know. They're just really cool. And I don't know if you know, but Kent, you know, do you know Kent or? Kent, I know Kent very well and he's a gigantic San Antonio Spurs fan. So if you ever need to really butter him up in some way why san antonio spurs is he from there i can't remember how it ended up happening

but like he's a huge huge huge san antonio spurs fan huh good way to butter him up bring it up be like hey man how about the spurs looking good but then kawaii's looking great and then what's my follow-up you have like five statements you just fake your way along okay so the first one will be like oh how about those spurs spurs looks looking good again then we'll say yeah you've been watching you'll say yeah i think kawaii has a chance to maybe win the mvp this year yeah i think kawaii is gonna win the mvp then he'll be like oh yeah he's been great and then he'll throw something at you like what do you think of the new guy oh love him and he's just like he's been good been surprised pleasant surprise i've never seen someone dribble like that it's like and like and then he's also like he scores like a lot of points

but he also passes too which is like so generous yeah and you don't see a lot of players like that then your last one your closer is my only concern is i just don't see a lot of players like that then your last one your closer is my only concern is i just don't know how much longer popovich wants to do this right right that's the coach because he's older and i'm just gonna like we don't have to talk about the spurs all night but i'll say as a final statement like i just don't know how long popovich is going to want to do this uh because of his health and everything. That brings it down. That brings the energy down. Right.

You can't get sad. And then you move on. Then he goes, so how's the show going? That's good. Right, right, right. Popovich. It's the right move. So Popovich and Kawhi.

Popovich and Kawhi. Remember Kawhi because Kawhi is like an island. Kawhi, Kawhii he's one of the best five guys spelled the same kawaii yeah kawaii and not spelled the same but pronounced the same kawaii okay kawaii and what does he like look like he's six seven um does he still have the the corn rose he's the last guy in the league with corn rose and he's like a great two way offense defense guy. Okay. And Popovich is the old grumpy coach who, when they interview him during the games,

he yells at the sideline reporters and, or gives them one word answers. He's like every, he's like America's favorite curmudgeon sports coach. Right? So Popovich, I'll remember, I'll come up with like a rhyme to remember like Popovich, Popovich.

He's a, but you call Popovich. He's a. But you call him Pop. He's an old witch. Oh, this is. Yeah. Kawhi Leonard. Okay. There you go.

And Leonard is a. You've never done a sports theme episode though, have you? Like with like a professional sports? No. Well, actually this season. Yeah. We do something where we have a, and this is Popovich. No. Well, actually, this season, we do something where we have a, this is Popovich. Yeah.

His mouth is just open in this photo. It's not always like that, right? No, it's usually like that. It's wide open. He's yelling at people. Cool. Yeah. So this.

It seems like sports are really fun. Really? There's a lot going on. Yeah. Yeah. sports are really fun really there's a lot going on yeah yeah uh we actually do something this year where uh we there's like a chili shop that uh was trying to get their chilies sold in like as a vendor yeah hockey arena for the hockey team um it's like below what's the one below nhl ahl yeah and um they wouldn't allow even though it's like known as like a good chili in town they wouldn't allow it in so we

designed like a chili suit that goes under your clothing that holds 40 pounds of chili with a peristaltic pumping system so we could secretly serve it and we'd come up with this elaborate way to sneak it into the stadium so he can sell it kind of like bootleg so that's kind of sports kind of yeah because it's you know a hockey game you want chili when did you finish all these finish shooting all these episodes yeah how long they've been we just sound mixed the finale like um last week so we're still kind of yeah and then when do you start planning the next season well you know at this point are we breaking news right now at this point i'm always like well it's kind of like what you said like you're like how can you do more of these and that's how i feel every year i'm like well how can we possibly do more i'm always like exhausted after each season

but i always want to feel like there's a good reason right to do it like rather than just like trying to deliver and like make up things like it's starting at a place of like oh there's like a good thing that we want to explore that works within the format of the show well you must get offers to do movies and stuff right um probably less than you'd think really nobody wants you to like write a script or no people write a crazy yeah version of your version of a rom-com or all that kind of weird stuff? Yeah, I love romance, so I'm like always promoting that and like eager to... I, yeah, I feel like I could be like, do you feel like I could be in like a rom-com or... Like a modern Sleepless in Seattle type situation? Yeah, I have like, that was Billy Crystal, right? That was Tom Hanks. Oh, what was the Billy Crystal? Can you be a... That was

when Harry Met Sally. Yeah, yeah. So I'm like. Can you be a magician who can't find love? And then when you do the press tour, you're just insisting that this is not based on David Blaine at all. Is that? No, no. Does he have a problem with finding love? No, he's a legendary ladies man.

Right. I heard that. This would be maybe this magician is not a ladies man. Oh, so. Maybe he's. So it isn't based on David Blaine on david that's why you'd be insisting it wasn't him yeah i think there could be like you know just like kind of romance um so what other what other movie ideas are detective i'm trying to think about the

generic movie tropes well you know i yeah detective could be good um i have a partner like a robot dog one thing i do feel like that i've kind of wanted to do is like do you know the show colombo yeah oh yeah so i love those 70s detective shows yes yes i used to jim rockford was my guy though i like rockford files more than colombo really yeah i did vegas was my guy, though. I like Rockford Files more than Colombo. Really? Yeah, I did. Vegas was my favorite, favorite of the 70s ones. I think Colombo, yeah, I guess I never got into the Rockford Files as much. People, you were in one camp or the other. I was always Jim Rockford. But isn't Colombo kind of unanimously seen as the better one?

I think so. Right, right. Not unanimously, but I think more people probably like it. I think it's unanimous. I'll look it up after. Obviously. Not unanimously, but I think more people probably like it. I think it's unanimous. I'll look it up after. Do you remember Vegas, though? Dan Tana, Robert Urich?

No, no. He's in Vegas. I'm a millennial, so I might be wearing different generations. They show the replays a lot. You're not a millennial. Yes, I am. Are you officially a millennial? I was born in 83. The cutoff is 83.

Is that true, Tate? Yeah, give it to him. Wait, what are you? I don't identify. No, Tate's a millennial. What year were you born? Oh, my God. So we're, yeah, we're the same.

I'm proud to be a millennial. Cutoff's 83, just in the cutoff. You're definitely not a millennial cutoffs 83 just in the cutoff you're definitely not a millennial excuse me you're not a millennial why am i not a millennial look at how are you a millennial look it up who said the cutoff was 83 every article written about millennials look it up i am a hundred percent a millennial i always thought you had to be on some things we don't relate you had to be out of high school in the 21st century to be a millennial. I always thought you had to be... That's why on some things we don't relate. You had to be out of high school in the 21st century to be a millennial, right? Or to not be a millennial.

Is he right? We just see the world a little differently than you. Millennials are those born between 1983 and 2000. That's a ridiculous definition I don't agree with that You're the first millennial I'm one of the first Maybe that's your rom-com

You're the first millennial Right The first millennial Or the last millennial it could be called The last millennial Yeah Well now it's Gen Z is the new generation Gen Z?

That's what they're calling it I don't know if it's going to take. Gen Z is basically, they're on Instagram and Snapchat and they're trapped to their phones and they have no attention span. But they also have a great attention span because they can do seven things at once. And millennials is more like

we like rock and roll music and right? Like we love... We play outside. Right. You're sensitive. We grew up playing outside. Yeah, you're sensitive we grew up playing outside you're sensitive you've had the internet for most of your life we have more because there's also that um what is it called the indigo kids or something is that one like the kids that are supposed to have like a sixth sense isn't that a thing indigo kids no it's not indigo it's something like that will you google that indigo indigo indigo children and what does it no it's not indigo it's something like that will you google that indigo indigo

children indigo children and what does it say it's like they're they have a special connection with mother earth yeah new age comes uh uh possess special unusual sometimes supernatural traits or abilities oh yeah that sounds like stephen king area and that's like starting that's like 15 years younger than us i have this they're not real i have 17 signs that you're an indigo child that's what you have up there yeah i yeah i'm not an indigo but i'm i'm Titan. So what generation are you? I'm firmly Gen X. Gen X. I was right out of college when...

I might have even been graduating college when that guy released it. And Gen X was pre-internet, kind of post-baby... The kids of baby boomers, basically. The early baby boomers. And we all came out of college. You kind of left the system. No, it was more like we came out of college and and uh it was harder to find a job because it was pre-internet but we had like the sad music and the sad kind of grunge music but then there was also the birth of rap and hip-hop and um pop culture was super important back then

yeah for for millennials one of our defining traits is that we don't understand the concept of selling out. Right. Do you know that there's this, um, I'm kind of obsessed with this frontline documentary that they did called generation like, and it's about millennials and their value system. I mean, it's kind of featuring uh kids like in high school now yeah but i still see them as a peer because we're the same generation but um they the most fascinating part of it is they ask all the kids like what does it mean to sell out yeah and they're like it's not like you have a bunch of stuff and you sell it all? And the actual concept of selling out doesn't make any sense to millennials because their goal is to be sponsored.

Right. That's like what they want. They're the Kardashian generation. They kind of know it has a bad connotation, but it like glitches their brain in a way. Like it like, or our brain. Well, like it like or our brain well because i need to drop your brain it's it's hard i can't talk about this without um well your generation i think we it's more about you know youtube views instagram follower numbers that's what you guys care about and yeah they have all these like kids sitting around talking about like why a photo got more likes and what they need to do and like to get

more likes it's actually kind of uh horrifying the the frontline thing they play it very straight but it kind of like it's showing these like famous youtube instagram people but then also showing like young kids who are doing it. Yeah. And then the kid's mom, that's like an industry. It's like a seven year old girl. And the kid's mom is like, well, she gets more likes when she wears a bikini or something. So, Oh no. Yeah. Anyways, my kids highly recommend my kids love Logan Paul. Logan Paul is a big, big, big thing with basically third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh grade. I don't know if you've seen his work.

Okay, so I'm like recently learned about the Paul brothers. Yes, Logan and Jake. Jake's the more controversial one. I read that Business Insider profile on Logan. Yeah. Yeah, which is an incredible article. I've actually had a conversation with a parent friend of mine about whether Logan Paul is going to be remembered like the Beastie Boys, like my generation remembered the Beastie

Boys. How do they, how do they relate to that? Or like, what is the... Well, like my kids think Logan Paul, like he's doing really important. How old are your kids? I have a nine and a half year old son and a 12 year old daughter. Right, right. My nine and a half year old son and 12 year old daughter right right my nine and a half year old son thinks logan paul is doing like great and important work like when he does these songs that he creates he knows all the words the same way if you were 12 you knew the beastie boys in 1988 well logan paul did that or his

brother jake jake's the one who's controversial because he did that there was that ktla news story where he was like dennis the menace right he was in his neighborhood yeah he's antagonizing the neighborhood right then he had a feud with rice gum who's another youtube person oh my god and everybody picked sides but a lot of people feel like rice gum won because jake paul backed off right and was rice gum rice comes another youtube guy yeah well that's his youtube identity he does videos oh so it's basically like the east coast west coast rap wars but is that how kids but with smaller internet people and with way less stakes nobody gets shot and killed well the best part about the jake paul thing because he released that um he had that video the ktla news thing and then

he released uh kind of an apology rap or where he was kind of saying like you don't really know me apology raps usually don't work it's incredible yeah it's it's the fail rate of apology raps are 100 because he's kind of saying like you saw that clip of me terrorizing the neighborhood but like you guys didn't report on all the good stuff i do yeah i think he says like where was y'all at when i was like help helping feed kids on thanksgiving poor kids yeah jake paul there's another side apparently and uh yeah I think those two videos like the KTLA and then that rap are the the current best

one two punch on the internet uh right now in my opinion I'm obsessed with this Instagram feed called drunk people doing things and it's just drunk people doing things and it's like uh drunk people deciding it would be a good idea to try to jump across a pool

and not making it. And Funnel's gone wrong. Oh, really? I got to check that out. I'm obsessed with it. And it had a lot of success. It's got almost 2 million followers. So then they decided high people doing things and animals doing things.

But drunk people doing things is the franchise. They can spread it out all they want. Someone showed me this one a a while ago i don't know if it's still around but it was called hot guys reading hot guys reading have you it's all like uh taken on like new york subways yeah or something and it's just uh attractive men reading books like but not their phones like reading physical novels is that still there something like that but then they write kind of like a uh objectifying description of the guy kind of uh playing out their fantasy last summer i became obsessed with this there's this guy named eight booth i mean i'm not attracted to the guys. I just think it's kind of funny.

We're not judging. There's this guy named Eight Booth who was doing these high-risk jumps. And he was like jumping from the eighth floor of hotels. He was doing jumps that were illegal. He's wearing a mask. And he's like, all right, he's jumping from the eighth floor balcony of a hotel

into the pool and then running out and getting out of there before he gets gets arrested and he kept escalating the stakes and he probably did like 15 16 jumps and i became obsessed with the guy and i watched all the jumps my kid and i we were watching him the guy does this hotel jump he miss miss times or misjudges it and his nails his feet on the side of the pool and like shatters both of his feet, crawls out, gets arrested. There's been these stories about him and it's like,

that's it. His career's over. So there's a dark side to this stuff too. Well, I'm actually, I've thought about it. Like YouTube started in 2005. Right.

And at that time I was, uh, 22 and I'm so thankful that YouTube was not around when i was 13 because i know i would have done some very dumb stuff for the sake of like because i was like more reckless i think when i was younger oh yeah and so it's weird now because kids are doing those crazy things to try to get views. And it's kind of there forever. Even if you deleted it, it probably still lives somewhere. Do you have to teach your kids? Do you have to say to your kids?

What do you say about that, like posting stuff? So my kids, their accounts are private. And my daughter really wants her account to be public so she can get more followers and i've had to explain to her why this is a bad idea but um it was interesting my son we put we put this one video of him doing he did like this impersonation of a wrestler and we put it out there and just kind of forgot about it and a year later he's like is that video still up and we looked and it had it was like half likes and half dislikes. And people were like, this kid sucks and all this.

And he read the comments and he was like devastated. Oh, really? And I was like, this is funny. This is what the internet does. But he was like, he really thought it was. And that's when I was thinking like, wow, this is why it's a bad idea for kids to put stuff up on the internet.

Like you just take shit from these random people. And if you're nine years old, it's hard to deal with. Yeah. And you also like then start developing yourself based on like what the internet likes, the likes and the dislikes. Right.

And that's kind of scary idea. Well, that's one of the problems with writing right now is that people, people are afraid to write anything that they might get slaughtered on the internet about. So they kind of drift toward these safe places. Right, right. And so you got this basically everybody trying to write the best versions of the same topics. Yeah, yeah.

And there's no kind of going against the grain. So it's a little more boring. You just have to get more inventive, but it's so easy now on Twitter. If somebody writes or does something and people just like, look, they grab like the one sentence or the one paragraph. And then all of a sudden you're getting slaughtered for two days. Yeah.

You haven't had to have that. You haven't dealt with that with your show though. I don't think you haven't had an episode that was like the controversial where I can't believe he did this episode. Yeah. And you had the outrage culture came after you. No you know i'm always ready for that to happen it's kind of your dream you would love no it's not i don't want to deal with that oh my gosh i don't know we always like we put a lot of thought though into like what we're doing and kind of our

approach it's not super like well at least you know when we shoot we try a lot of things but then the edit we're think we think about like how we approach certain subjects and make sure we're not like yeah i mean we do some stuff too a lot about like i don't want to because i think in general like i am kind of like worried about i don't want to offend you know what i mean i'm not like someone who's like here's my opinion't want to offend you know what i mean i'm not like someone who's like here's my opinion like eat it yeah you know what i mean that's how people say eat it because i i feel like in general i'm fairly like i'm kind of uncertain about things and i'm like oh like some will say their perspective and i'll be like oh that's that's right and then someone

else will say theirs i'll be like oh yeah that's a good point you know what i mean like so i'm like very open to things and i think because of that i do feel like there's always a pressure to like have a strong opinion about something and i don't have that about a lot of things and i think that's like a weird because i think that's the internet too is like people having really strong opinions about like this is what you gotta think or this is how to feel and sometimes i don't but i need i feel like a pressure to pretend i do you know maybe that could be like social pressure yeah maybe your gimmick could be just not that the opinions aren't that strong that what do you mean i don't know they're just just opinions yeah i don't know i feel like cheeseburgers have to be

cooked i feel like the natural human state is like total uncertainty and like not being sure about like anything really and then you're kind of like you develop opinions i there are obviously certain things you feel like strong like you know like oh murder is bad like you know i mean like i have an opinion yeah but then there's you know i think like it's like every little thing that comes out people like the articles you were saying people have to have like a strong view that goes into the safe zone but they're like this is what how things should be i read the rolling stone profile of you and there was one part we were like that's not gonna be the angle is it like you got mad

at the writer i i wasn't mad honestly i think the like a lot of those situations were like a little like misread in terms of like what my experience was yeah the writer was incredibly he was a really nice guy but he was like very, very nervous the whole time. And he was like kind of shaking when he was asking me some questions. So I kept kind of being like, are you okay? Like, why do you want to, like, he was asking about my divorce and he was asking about like, um, certain things with like the show but he looked very uncomfortable so i was like wondering why he was going down this road if he seemed very uncomfortable with it and he kind of said at one

point he was like i was like why did you because he was like oh tell me about your divorce or whatever and i was like oh well i don't like talking about like personal stuff like with like press or whatever yeah i was like you look so uncomfortable asking though why and he was like well because i knew you why'd you ask and he was like well i knew you wouldn't want to answer and i was like well that's not the best reason to ask a question yeah yeah i mean i guess i do that a lot in the show so So I understand you're trying to get something interesting. I've obviously been on both sides of this. Like I've written stuff like that.

I've written features about people and I've also been written about. Yeah. And it does seem like when people do those pieces, they feel like if they don't bring up the one or two uncomfortable things, either they ask you or they write about it, then it would look like they're in the bag for you oh right and i get that yeah and i am i'm like i'm like conflicted too because i like i want something to be interesting like i want people to read it and be like oh this is we're learning about something i mean think of all the stuff we've learned in the

last 45 minutes yeah i'm sure we went on know like all kinds of great things happened yeah yeah i mean i want it to be like people to know how much i'm into hot guys reading um definitely want that to be out there uh yeah so the reality is it's not fun to be written about well you're never gonna be happy with it there's always gonna be one sentence you And you're never going to be happy with it. There's always going to be one sentence. You're like, oh, why is that in there? Well, I want people to watch the show. Right. You know what I mean?

And so, but then you have to feel like, oh, you have to give some of yourself and stuff. And that's cool. But it's like, I don't think I'm very interesting. Like, I put a lot of effort into like making the show a good product so people will enjoy. But I don't feel as myself. I'm like that interesting of a person to talk to. So I'm like probably a little insecure about just doing stuff where I'm like, yeah, this is me and this is my life. Quick break to talk about our old friend, MeUndies. We have been together now for almost two years.

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MeUndies.com slash BS. It is a limited time offer. What are you waiting for? Back to Nathan Fielder. I had no idea you knew Seth Rogen for that long. That was my biggest revelation from that interview. Somehow we did two podcasts. I don't think that came up.

But when I say long, I mean like you knew each other when you were kids. Like you were early millennials together yeah well he's actually a year older so i think he's 82 so he's a different generation yeah that's weird it's amazing you guys got along yeah he's generation x and i have a ledial so you know we we there's always like a bit of a disconnect because like we had different interests so was he somebody that you knew early on was gonna go do something yeah he was always so funny well we did um we did improv together in high school there was like an improv team and he he was doing stand-up in high school age 13 he started doing it and wow kind of like sneaking on stage in these places that they wouldn't even allow anyone over 19 drinking age is 19 yeah and i'm 19 to like get into and uh he was always just the most naturally

funny and then he actually we did the improv team and like he he left the school to go do i think it was undeclared or freaks and geeks one of the two yeah freaks and geeks and uh it made sense i mean he is so he's clearly good to do that for a living yes like i actually think at that time like i was a little because i was trying to do comedy but i wasn't quite like as developed as he was like the type of jokes he made back then i feel like are very similar to like the stuff he does now right yeah was he was he the first person i mean it's better obviously did he introduce you to weed i mean weed had to be a factor back then he was way more into weed than i was yeah yeah i never got into it because okay well the reason i think is because like i would every time i smoke i would fall

asleep right away i so it doesn't in social environments it doesn't yeah that's a bummer yeah and i'm already kind of like sleepy in social environments like i'm not the most talkative and stuff so it's kind of like the opposite effect well now they have but i also haven't tried drugs that do like the other thing like give you pep and yeah what's the one cocaine is that what it does what was it like when you did i've never tried cocaine oh you'd have i've actually somehow never been in the room with cocaine you've been in a room i've never been in the room you've never i've never even seen it i've never seen somebody cut lines up like a bathroom stall i've had a very sheltered life um what what what's the what drugs have you done pot pot that's it nothing Pot. What about shrooms? No. Really? No. I did that in high school.

I had a weird thing, though. When I was 16, shrooms. Second time, though, was bad. Was bad, and that was it. Yeah, so I stopped doing it. Yeah. Not like I would have kept doing it, but. When I was 16, the Celtics drafted this guy, Len Bias,

who was the number two pick in the draft that year. And he was this guy who was going to be our our best player and he overdosed on cocaine two days later and that like legitimately scared me from drugs after that really had like a profound effect on me how old were you I was 16 wow I was even afraid to try pot for a while that's why I realized eventually like pot's fine yeah that's why I'm into kawaii because he's like a clean player like he doesn't do drugs at all yeah we don't know what popovich has been up to yeah yeah so that's why i feel like he's really the best part of this conversation is lewis k just freaking out that we're just openly talking about drugs because you just see his brain

you know one thing about pot now though if you're in california everyone it's legal here right it's kind of like a card it's not a big the uh they have stores in california for pot where you can buy pot that will give you the mood you want to get so if you there's like gregarious pot you could buy pot you could smoke it'd be gregarious you'd actually you wouldn't be sleepy you'd go the other way yeah i had an like i did at one point i don't like maybe once a year i'll smoke a little bit or something but like uh i don't really do it but there was one time i think a couple years ago i was like really anxious yeah and uh one day i just went out to one of the fake weird doctors you know who do the cards and i like got the

license and then it's so easy to get the car store and i bought it and i think they were all making fun of me because i didn't know anything like the two different strains or whatever they were telling me about and i was kind of they're like how do you want to feel and i was like i don't know just like a little relaxed it was really weird but the doctor was like when i went to the doctor to do it he he's like so what do you have and i'm like i'm just feeling a little anxious but i don't like and he was slid this like list towards me with like the conditions that are acceptable to get the license yeah and then he like pointed to the list he's like so what are you feeling and i was like just a little anxiety and then he like

pointed to the list harder again and i was like uh oh yeah i guess i'm like uh of a bit of pain too like hey it's a it's not a real thing right they just kind of like have to do it the new racket with this is emotional support dogs which you've seen on the airplane what do you mean you're allowed to take dogs on the airplane now if you have uh if you if you're like uptight or you need like the emotional support of a dog yeah your doctor can say this just my my patient needs to have a dog to make him feel calm and safe on an airplane and now people are abusing this left and right and it's just an excuse to take your dog to wherever you're going and uh and not have to pay for like a dog shelter or doggy care or whatever right so you go on planes now there's dogs

everywhere and it's like that's not an emotional support dog that's just your dog it's like the the the dsm is like doesn't it grow every year the mental conditions thing and it's like everyone now has something and it's easy to get somebody ready a note these days yeah i had one last thing to mention before we go okay i wanted to pitch one is that why you're in no we're it's almost 12 o'clock yeah oh okay um i don't know how it goes the uh we went longer at grantland since i don't know a lot about sports or I don't like, I used to follow the Canucks and the BC lions a lot. Do you know the BC lions?

Um, but yeah, so when talking to me after I did this podcast, I talked to people about you and they would say like, Oh, he's really good. Cause he kind of gives an opinion that other people don't. And he's really honest with his take.

And people find it really refreshing. That's nice to hear. I hope that's still the case. I think it's nice. Lewis gave me a thumbs up. I mean, I didn't mean it in terms of like, I talk to you for an hour, then I'm like, why do people like this guy?

But no, it seems like you have really loyal following. People really love you. It's nice to hear. Well, I would say the same about you, Nathan for you. What time, when is it? When is the launch? So, uh, this Thursday we have the hour long special called Nathan for your celebration

10 PM. And then the new season starts after that. Cause it's weird sometimes. So check your thing. And then a week later, the new season starts 10 p.m., September 28th. Great. Good luck. This is fun. Third book trilogy is in the books. Yes. Our third one. Yeah. No, I know what that word means. Taking one more quick break to talk about House of Carbs. That's Joe House's podcast. He's been on this podcast a bunch of times. House of Carbs is heating up to the point that famous chefs are emailing him asking to come on House of Carbs.

That's the level of food conversation we have on this. It's a podcast for the hungry, by the hungry. Check it out, Hassel Carbs. And while you're subscribing to Ringer's podcast, Ringer podcast, don't forget about Black on the Air with Larry Wilmore, which has just had a bevy of famous guests and some of the best conversations you're going to get on politics, on celebrity, on race, on news, on sports, you name it. Larry Wilmore, it's fantastic. It's called Black in the Air. Check it out. One more person to plug here, and it's not a person. It's a. It's called Black in the Air. Check it out. One more person to plug here, and it's not a person. It's a website. From a gambling standpoint, we're going to remember the 2010s as the decade when live betting took off. Where you're betting is just as important

as who you're betting on. Here's an idea. Go to mybookie.ag. They've been in the business for years. Their reputation rocks solid. They do 100% cash bonuses. Off the bat, you're making money for doing nothing. They have the fastest payouts, just two business days. In-game live betting, the most rewarding player perks in the business and an all-new mobile site that makes wagering on the go. A breeze. In-game live betting, a new frontier. Check it out.

Lay down some cash. Try to win big today. Join now, and MyBookie will match your deposit with a 100% bonus. All you have to do is visit mybookie.ag. Use the promo code Bill Simmons to activate the offer. You play, you win, you get paid. Coming up right now, The Ringers, Mike Lombardi. Our old old friend mike lombardi is here it's nice to be the ringer's own he's got the gm street podcast twice a week on the ringer nfl show which has been excellent and very useful this year i wanted to talk about uh about um how sloppy it's

been in september this seems like a a trend that kevin cl Clark wrote about it today, about the kind of the unwatchability of the NFL right now. It seems like a September trend that has happened, I would say, three to four straight years. I don't feel like this was the case like in 2012. His theory was that combination of not as much practice time, plus how offenses have changed and just check down check down check down make the safest pass game manage keep it in the game and only a few teams are real new experiment is there anything else missing from the puzzle i think two factors i think the practice time is definitely i think offensive line play because they can't go inside the facility in february and march yeah offensive line play is like a golfer you have to practice your swing every single day

or else you lose it. So we've lost offensive line and player development. So you think it's almost like the short game in golf? Exactly. You've got to work at it constantly. And if you don't have enough time. And so those young guys need to go in there in February and March. So that factor, I think the coaching level has really dropped. I think we have guys that just call offenses and defenses, but they're not truly head coaches. So the preparation of preparing your team is way different than getting your team ready for the season. I think that factor, and I think there's too many times where in September, the players aren't really ready to play. So preseason, even though there's been so many days, teams really haven't utilized preseason effectively enough because they're too worried

about getting their team to the first game as opposed to getting their team prepared for the first game. I think you see it. And I think the conditioning level's bad, pad level's bad. I think that's why the product's bad. They've got to change the CBA or else it's going to keep getting worse. Yeah, I was going to ask you, what do you think the solution is? Because September has now turned into kind of a fancy preseason. Belichick's called September preseason for the last four years. He calls it a continuation of preseason. You know, I

think they have to change the CBA. And look, I agree the CBA, the coaches started having mini camps and OTA days. It's too hard. But offensive and defensive linemen need to go in there in February and March and April and really just work. I think they need to change that or else they won't develop any offensive linemen because the college game is so bad in terms of developing offensive linemen.

They're all in a two-point stance. Nobody run blocks. So you have to almost detrain to then retrain players for pro football. Very hard to do in a short span of time you you were talking about this on my podcast six years ago yeah no i i know it's been it's been a problem you're saying college was eventually going to ruin the pros and it has and i think what you have to do in pro football is take what seattle has tried to do to a degree but they don't have enough time to do it is take defensive linemen and turn them over to offensive linemen

but you can't do it the giants try to do it with with the with the kid this year in camp and there's not enough time to do it you need a full off season to do it you need all that time it can't happen but you're seeing it look the saints are 1 and 11 since 2014 in september i mean and sean payton's a good coach like that's not just a bad that could be an are we sure sean payton's a good coach exactly right i mean because his team's not prepared can lose it jeff fisher was a good coach in the early 2000s and then all of a sudden he wasn't but he was in tennessee with mcnair but clearly he hasn't figured out a way to embrace the new procedures of the offseason yeah of how you have to handle because his team's not ready to play he's won one game it was a home game against minnesota in 14

i mean it's hard to come back what was the stats last night they said it was a home game against minnesota in 14 i mean it's hard to come back what was the stats last night they said it was a 10 chance of making the playoffs when you start oh and two yeah i mean i mean he's always behind the hole he's always now he's got to go to carolina this week and win it that's a challenge you did the blue chippers podcast with tate you did uh offense then you did defense then you did the coaches your top five blue chipper coaches, Belichick, Carroll, Reed, Tomlin, McCarthy, seven and three. Right. And two of them have played each other already. Yeah.

Usually that number is maybe even be eight and two or nine and one. The next group you had, you had the red chippers, Harbaugh on the Ravens, Zimmer, Sean Payton, Quinn, Rivera. I would not have put Sean Payton in there. I think you're more loyal to him because of the past history because he won the Super Bowl. I get it. I just think that team's sloppy, and I think they've been sloppy for a couple years now. I think Gase is a really good coach. To me, he's a top-ten guy now.

I think Gase is a really good coach. I don't disagree with you on that. I think Gase is a really good coach. To me, he's a top-ten guy now. I think Gase is a really good coach. I don't disagree with you on that. I think Gase is a better head coach. Now, look, he got some help with Anthony Lynn last week. Oh, my God. Poor Anthony. Anthony should be 2-0. Anthony should be 2-0.

And the problem with Anthony is he doesn't realize he should be 2-0. No, he's thinking the kicker. It was the kicker's fault. We talked about this on the podcast on Sunday. I hate this mentality. We're going to get in range to attempt the field goal. We have to get in range to make the field goal. So he has a 44-yard kick.

He lets the kid, the kid hasn't made a 44 in the first. He called the timeout with 20 seconds left when they got the first down. Right. When Rivers should have run up, spiked it. Spiked the ball. You have one more play, then you use the timeout. You got to get to like the 38. And that adds to more of this problem that we're having is this game management, situational football.

You see it in college, the Tennessee-Florida game. Horrible situational football by Tennessee. You see it in pro football. I mean, Sean McVay gets away with one on Sunday where he has the ball, and he's got like a minute 17. No, about two minutes to go in the half. And he tries. What does he think? he has some explosive offense? He tries to get it going.

He can't complete, incomplete pass, stops the clock. They run, call timeout. Then he gets a sack, strip, fumble. Now the Redskins get the ball with a minute 17 to go, and they could come down, and they obviously can't do anything with it, but there's a chance. If they would have done that against New England, there would have been seven points.

The game management, to me, when I watch the game from a coaching standpoint, it's not complementary football. That's been a big issue, too. You can't run the game just like, okay, we're going to run a call offense or defense. You have to manage your offense to your defense, and we're not seeing that. I think it's tough. Man, I hate to give the benefit of the doubt to new coaches, but I think it's got to be tough. There's the benefit of the doubt to new coaches but um i think it's got

to be tough there's so much going on those last couple you the whole game you're so locked in you're trying to and then those last three minutes it's almost like i've always said they should have the 14 year old kid who's obsessed with mad and standing next to them but that charger situation was a perfect example there rivers was mad, too, because they cut. Rivers got mad twice. He yelled at the coach when they called timeout. And then he was screaming a coup to get off the field before Miami bailed him out with the timeout. Right.

They would have had 12 men on the field. Yeah. And again, it's a runoff and it's done. Then you look at the difference with the Patriots where Brady, I don't know if it was a good play or not, or he just had so much confidence at the end of the first half where he scrambles, gets tackled with 14 seconds left. Boom. Gostkowski, field goal with two seconds left. I mean, it was almost like he knew, oh, it's fine if I get tackled.

It probably wasn't the greatest play. But they're so good at that. They practice it. That's why I think my blue chip list, I'm convinced of it. There's three really good coaches in the league and i'm putting andy reed in there and then after that then there's a whole section of other coaches regular season andy is yeah yeah there's no doubt i mean his game plans have been great but i think the gap between belichick carol and reed and the rest of the league is really becoming wider and wider and i think that's what you're seeing and

these owners they don't they want to hire these guys to call plays because it dresses up and it looks good that's why I like Zimmer I mean Zimmer runs the team he's tough he tries to match his offense to his defense it's not happening in football it really hasn't been so far I like your dude you called it out you were telling us he was going to be good even after they started trading dudes uh in Buffalo McDermott he's a good coach he's good that team both, both games, was involved. They had a chance to win that game. I mean, if they can complete that pass at the end of the game, I mean, it was there.

They could. I like what he's doing. It's culture. I see what they're trying to accomplish. You can see the plan where some of these teams, like I hate to pick on my man McAdoo. No, I really don't. But you see no plan.

He's just calling plays. He's playing Madden. Meanwhile, the Bills are trying to run a team. Well, especially when you go into the actual season with no running backs, the Giants. We're all aware of Paul Perkins at this point. Yeah. I don't know what they're looking at when they're looking at that one,

but it just seems like it's easy to get running backs. And by the way, Deion Lewis is the four-string Patriots running back right now. Go get Deion Lewis. He's good. If you can keep him on the field for three months, that's a real guy. Yeah. Well, but look, they have institutional problems at the Giants. This isn't just about a player. And I think the whole game plan last night about not protecting the tackles, to me, it was really bad. I was talking to an NFLfl former nfl head coach and he's like hey as long as the giants keep running those protections no matter who they put on the field

yeah they were leaving the left that poor left tackle by himself because they think oftentimes and this is what the guy said to me he said look they think they're in green bay and aaron rogers can get out of all the trouble whereas eli a good stiff breeze he's going down i think the biggest thing i've learned in the first two weeks that i i'm just the biggest thing i've learned in the first two weeks that i i'm just the one thing i've learned as i hit my late 40s is just admit defeat with things you thought going into the season i would always get stubborn and try to hold on for weeks and weeks i thought atlanta was going to have a hangover from that super bowl you made a great point on the podcast on your podcast on sunday it was just like atlanta is one of the two teams in

the league that can say, we're throwing on this down and still complete the pass. And, you know, Devontae Freeman, who I thought was fantastic last year, and he's a real legitimate A-list running back. They know who they are. They're going to be able to score points. It doesn't seem like there was a hangover from last year, and I think they're in the top three or four.

I think they are. And I thought there would be a little bit of a decline between what Matt Ryan, he was sensational with Kyle Shannon. I was with you. It was Sarkeesian. And they've come out, and now they've played. I mean, look, they just smoked Green Bay. Now, Green Bay didn't have Mike Daniels in the game.

They caught him on the right night. Right. And so can they do it again? I don't know. But this is a good team. Now, they lose Vic Beasley for six to eight weeks, so we're going to see how that handles. They signed Dwight Freeney back this week.

That could help them. But I think Atlanta is better on defense. They have more team speed and their offense. If Julio's healthy, they're just really hard to play. They're hard to play because they can play left-handed and beat you. Especially inside because they're in Detroit this week. That's great for them. They're in a dome.

They're going to be flying. Detroit, to me, last night was a good team win for Detroit. But if you really dig deeper back, like that game was, I mean, the punt return sealed the game for them. But, look, that was the perfect matchup for Detroit. Detroit's defensive ends are good players. Those tackles are bad. The game wasn't going to get away from Detroit.

The Giants can't score. Odell was not 100%. Odell wasn't even 50%. I don't know. They're running. It's remarkable when you watch the Giants. I mean, they don't run anything down the field. Like Gruden said last night, they run slants.

They have one-step slants, three-step. That's all they run. Do we think Eli is past his prime or legitimately maybe done as an above-average starting quarterback? I think the Giants don't know who they are. The Giants should call John Harbaugh up and say, you know what? We want to be like you. We're going to win with defense. What are we?

We're going to win with defense. We're going to try to run the ball a little bit. We're not going to expose our quarterback. Not with those running backs. Not with that offensive line. But the formula, really, for the Giants to win is they're going to have to find a way to run the ball and win with defense, try to win with kicking game, because they're not going to outscore anybody. Flacco ball?

Flacco ball. I mean, that's the only way to protect Eli. Just tell Eli to wing it down every once in a while? Do you think Eli's going to withstand those hits that he got last night? He took one last night that it looked like— On the completed pass. Yeah, it was a little reminiscent of the helmet catch, but he took a hit. It was like if his feet had been planted for a split second more,

I think both of his legs would have broken. He's going to go on the road this week to Philadelphia. How are they going to block that front? They're not going to block Vinny Curry. They're not going to block Fletcher Cox. They're not going to block all those guys in Philadelphia. It's going to be a hard thing. Now, maybe they can find a way to do it,

but I just think they should change the way they play. They're going to have to figure out. They have no tight end. They have one tight end they can block. When they put Ingram on the field, we talked about this at the draft. He's just a receiver. What does he do for them, really? I mean, I know he's a big play guy, but what is it?

You can't run offense. You always said when you have somebody like him where he lines up, you know what the play is going to be. You know exactly what it was. Because he can't block. He can't block. He can't block it. Gruden was saying it last night on the TV. When Gruden's calling out your plays, you know you're in trouble

because he barely does anything when he knows his game is in the air. And Gruden wasn't backing down on the fact that the guy wasn't a tight end. I mean, it was part of impressive. I mean, he's right, and that's the way I feel about him. It's almost like he should be used like Aaron Hernandez used to be used in New England. Right, and that means you're a 12 team. That means you're a 12 team and you're moving him around. But he still has to block the backside.

And Ellison's got to be. But Ellison is so one-dimensional in terms of a blocker, it just becomes too hard. Then you know you want to get the ball to him. So I would play nickel against the Giants the entire game and blitz Eli and see what he could do. Can we officially say Denver's the biggest surprise? Well, Denver's the only team that had two home games, and Cincinnati and Denver had two home games to start the season, and I think it really helped Denver. Obviously, it helped Denver more than

Cincinnati because they were home too. Cincinnati, not helped. But Simeon is going to be a better player at home where the crowd noise is in his favor, and I think when he's healthy, he's a good player. You believe in Simeon. You believe in healthy Simeon. Yeah, I don't believe in 16-game Simeon. I like Simeon. I'm not an anti-Simeon. I think Simeon's the perfect middle reliever, but he's not going to be able to close it out. That's the way I see Simeon.

So you didn't believe in Eli. You were born out on that one already. Yeah. You believed in healthy Trevor Simeon. Right. You did not believe in Doug Peterson. I still don't. I'm with you on that one. Yeah. You did not believe in Doug Peterson. I still don't. I'm with you on that one.

Yeah. You don't believe in Jason Garrett. I'm strongly. That was borne out. I'm strongly. We'll talk about this on GM Street today, but I am strongly. Like the NFC East,

like if they had, if there was one blue chip coach in there, they would win the East. Right. We don't have red chip coaches. Or blue chip coach in there, they would win the East. Right. We don't have red chip coaches. Is there green chips? What's a shaky chip? Look, I think –

Vanilla maple? Yeah. I mean, Jay Gruden comes – I mean, he looks like he's one of the better coaches in the East right now. I was kind of impressed with them in the Rams game. Yeah, they – I actually thought he coached a good game in that game. I thought he did, too. I thought he did, too. Because I thought the. I actually thought he coached a good game in that game. I thought he did too. I thought he did too. I thought the Rams might've been

better. The Redskins got the lead, but then they did a couple of things as the game went on. They mixed it up on them. They started pounding the ball in the middle. I think Bill Callahan being on the Redskins is a difference maker because he's so good as a run game guy. They ran counter. They ran a couple of runs against the Rams that were hard to defend. I think Callahan's really makes a difference. I don't see it in Philadelphia. I think Philly, as the season goes on and people start to know exactly what they do offensively,

it'll only get worse. Ravens D? Ravens D is legit. I'm all in on the Ravens. I think the Ravens are going to be a good team. If Flacco doesn't screw it up and Flacco doesn't try to be too much more than he could, they're going to play the way Jacksonville wants to play without a quarterback in Baltimore,

but Flacco can make some more plays. They actually know how to do it. They know how to do it. It would have been interesting if they played that game over again where there's not to do deflected passes at the line. Although Bortles doesn't get a lot of passes deflected anyway. Yeah, Bortles, doesn't he get a lot of passes deflected anyway? Yeah, Bortles is. But if you don't have those and they're able to play

like a 10-7, 10-10, 9-7 type game, they're kind of built for that. Once they're down 10, turn it off. It's over. I think what the Logan Ryan

talked about, he talked about how they know they don't have a quarterback. Yeah. I mean, so when the other team knows this, I mean,

Tennessee walked in there and beat them, I mean, significantly won the game. I mean, to me, that's knows this, I mean, Tennessee walked in there and beat them. I mean, significantly won the game. I mean, to me, that's a telling tale. When you lose at home to a team that you play twice a year, that's not good. Can we say the AFC is better than the NFC this year definitively yet or no? Well, look, the West is really good.

And I mean, the Chargers are 0-2, and I thought the Chargers would compete for a playoff. They should be 2-0. But it's a classic Chargers season where it's like, they're 1-4, but look out. I mean, if Marty Schottenheimer coached in the Chargers, they'd be 2-0 right now. Right. I mean, nothing against Anthony Lynn, but I mean, there's some times where the coach just makes some,

like the whole game plan against Denver was bizarre. And then this two-minute drive down the end of the game, I thought they were really going to let Phillip Rivers win the game for you. I think San Diego's talented. They really are. There's not a lot of talented teams this year, and if they're not one of the 12 playoff teams, that's their fault. Because you look at the AFC, it's like

we got the Pats, we have Baltimore, we have Pittsburgh, we have potentially three AFC West teams, and then whoever the hell's going to win the AFC South. Somebody's going to be the admin out. I thought, look, Kansas City is not pretty on defense. They give up yards, but they play really well in the red zone.

And then I was at the Raiders game this week, and the Raiders are really good on offense. That was another thing I've already given up on. I thought they were going to get nudged out of the playoffs, but they're not. They have too much talent. When you beat up on a bad team, they beat up on the Jets, that tells me you're a good team. They didn't give the game to the Jets. Take care of business game exactly kansas city has weapons which i think is a little different

for them than usual they have kareem hunt's just good i mean he makes they had some stat danny had some stat in his piece today about how uh danny kelly wrote about the rookie running back boom today basically and he was like kareem hunt 38 times when he's he's basically made 14 of 38 guys miss on like straight up tackles or whatever he's just good tyreek hill he's out there you're worried about him the entire time kelsey's good they have real weapons i mean i i think it's legit i don't i don't think this is a oh remember back in september when we thought the chiefs are going to be good like i think this is legit yeah and i thought they would i thought that alex smith would not play this well but he's played i thought the Chiefs were going to be good? I think this is legit. Yeah, and I thought that Alex Smith would not play this well, but he's played.

I thought they would end up going to Mahomes, but they've played way better than Alex Smith has played way better. Couldn't you say, though, he's playing better because he's got weapons? I think he is playing better because he has weapons, and I think they're finally a team that if they have to play left-handed, they could win because you didn't talk about Kelsey, Hill. You can't double everybody, right? So you're going to have to take your medicine,, they could win. Because you didn't talk about Kelsey, Hill. You know, you can't double everybody, right? So you're going to have to take your medicine.

And they just wore the Eagles down. And Hill's going to make – one mistake, Hill's gone. It was like the Stephen Gilmore and McCourty, like not realizing who – and all of a sudden, Hill's running for 80 yards. Yeah, like that was a horrible play. But look, Conley made a play down the field. I mean, they've got guys that can make plays. And one thing about Smith, he can make people miss in the pocket.

He got away from the key third down in the game. He scrambles out of it. They had him sacked for sure. He breaks the tackle, runs for a first down. And then he's been really accurate down the field. He's been impressively accurate. Maybe they needed a light of fire in him. I'll tell you what, the way he's playing, I mean, look,

he could be, like, could he be a good player? If he were on the bills, the way he's playing right now, the bills probably would be two and oh. I always love your takes on running backs. You sniff it out. You always know who the good running backs are. So we have Cook on Minnesota looks tremendous. Yeah, he's really good. Hunt looks really good. Fournette, I think, is a battering ram. I think he's legit. The one out of the top four that I've been surprised by has not made an impact yet is McCaffrey.

Yeah. So what's going on there? Well, I think because McCaffrey, right now they're trying to do plays for McCaffrey instead of just run the offense for McCaffrey. And I think McCaffrey has to come in, and it has to be Jonathan Storch in the game or McCaffrey's in the game. McCafferty has to come in, and it has to be Jonathan Storch in the game or McCaffrey's in the game. But when you start running special plays for a guy

that everybody knows you're running special plays for, then it becomes a problem. Percy Harvin syndrome? Percy Harvin syndrome. Or Tavon Austin syndrome? Is there anything? I mean, if I was Aaron Donald and I watched Tavon Austin on Sunday,

I would just walk up to the GM of the Rams and said, that's it, I'm done. Like, did you? We tried to run a jet sweep with him against minus two. He goes down with one-arm tackles. Like, I can't understand how nobody run a jet suite with him. He gains minus two. He goes down with one arm tackles. Like, I can't understand how nobody in LA isn't going berserk over Tavon Austin being the worst player for 14. That's what I get for 14 million.

Nobody in LA cares. That's probably true. I don't even think they know the Rams are here. But, you know, to me. Are we sure Watkins is good? No, I think Watkins is not. I think Watkins looks slower. I mean, he had two catches for 30 yards last week.

Is he like wide receiver Trent Richardson? And I'm going to riddle you this. Are we sure Des Bryant's good? I was going to ask you if Dallas has a single guy I should be terrified of 20 yards down the field. The answer is no. The answer is no. Isn't that part of the problem with Dak?

That is part of the problem with Dak. If I know there's nobody that can run past me, it's much easier for me to defend you. Now, here's the thing. When they run the ball, they are a completely different team because those skill players on the outside, because of play action, because of all the things they do, they're a whole different team. But if you stop their running game, which the Giants have been able to do

and Denver did, all of a sudden they have to win those one-on-one matchups outside. And that's when – I mean, Dez was covered. Like, if you watch the tape, Dez had nowhere to throw the football. It was, nobody was open. And Dez is not, for 16 million, it's great to have a jump ball receiver in the red zone, but that's, I need a little bit more than 16.

This started last year, though. He wasn't putting up big, you would watch entire Cowboy games and he would just do nothing. Looks like he's gotten so big, he doesn't have any burst or acceleration or any change of speed, not change of direction, like he doesn't have any gears. Yeah.

Are you happy with how the Pats have used Cooks so far? Or are they still trying to figure it out? Here's the thing about Cooks. What I think Patriot fans have to understand is Brady is more comfortable throwing the ball between the numbers. So whenever they get a receiver who plays outside the numbers and makes a living outside the numbers don't think he's going to have seven catches for 140 he's going to have two for 50 or he's going to have one for i mean it's not going to be featured the ball because the ball's coming inside that's where he makes a living so they need a threat on the

outside i was actually impressed with dorsett last week. I thought Dorsett played well. You're preaching the choir, brother. I couldn't believe it. I thought it had, with the history of the Pats, with speedy receivers that they steal from other teams, it's always gone badly. And this actually, he made a couple of big plays. Brady liked him.

Brady went up to him at one point and was like doing the helmet to helmet, slam the shoulder pads thing, which was like his kind of yeah sign of approval and i thought you know now he's hurt this week i don't know how badly he'll play if he can play everyone's hurt to me yeah that's the other problem but we talk about this whole conversation like how do the eagles have four soft tissue injuries in a game like how is it possible to have a hamstring like that does that would be like the calves or any nba team having

hamstring they don't get it to start the season i mean usually if you have soft tissue injuries it's because you're going out too much that's the old wives tale on soft tissue injuries exactly a lot of hamstring a lot of hamstring pulls yeah oh yeah i didn't stretch enough okay yeah that's the old uh yeah right i mean but but we're seeing this i mean look at the injuries in week one look Look at all the soft. You can't have soft tissue injuries. They should not happen. Eagles have four. Two of them to corners that really affected them.

But going back to Sammy Watkins, I don't see a burst in Sammy Watkins. I don't see an explosive. Their best receiver is Cup. And he's an inside receiver. He's good, though. He is good. He catches everything, and they do a nice job of featuring him. And they can.

But once Goff has to come off to the set or play faster, then all of it breaks down. Anybody, would you cross off Cincinnati and Arizona completely? You know, I've been, since Arizona, they have no tackles. Their tackle situation is bad. They make big plays down the field. And Carson Pomeroy, I don't see them rallying. I don't think they're good enough on defense to rally.

When you go in Indianapolis and struggle to win, you know, I would cross off Cleveland for sure. I would cross think they're good enough on defense to rally. When you go in Indianapolis and struggle to win, I would cross off Cleveland for sure. I would cross off Indianapolis for sure. Would you cross off... Hold on, I'm going through the list. See, I wouldn't cross off the Niners. I wouldn't either. I thought they looked good

last week. When Kyle was in Atlanta, he couldn't run the ball on Seattle last year in the air. They won because Ryan threw the ball effectively. They ran the ball. Their longest pass was 14 yards against the Seahawks. If they don't get better play from Hoyer, but I'm not going to cross them off yet.

Would you cross off the Saints? No, because there's – Steve comes back that at least. I think they can outscore people. Like, really, the difference in the saint patriot game was the patriots played better in the red zone the saints couldn't score touchdowns i mean that was they moved the ball on them i mean breeze was good and then they when the game got out of hand they couldn't play catch up i think they did a bad job of roster management with that team

because they constantly do the ingram the ingram peterson combo but then they have this other team going on that they should just be like, Breeze should be in the shotgun, they should be airing it out every down. So it's like their split personality. Peterson's complaining because they aren't featuring him. They were the only team that wanted him. Right. Like, what's he complaining about?

To be honest with you, talking to people around the league, they want the Saints to play Peterson. Like, everybody wants Peterson in the backfield. Right. Because they're one-dimensional, and that's all they can do. Would you cross off? Is he the Dwight Howard of the NFL? Dwight Howard had a better career.

He really did. Dwight Howard was almost the MVP and took a team to the finals. What did Peterson do? Peterson won my fantasy team in 2007, the title. Bears, would you cross off? Yeah, I crossed the Bears off. Because no receivers. I don't know how you come back from that. won my fantasy team in 2007 the title this is better bears would you cross off yeah i crossed the bears because no receivers i don't know how you come back i mean look their first three drives against the against the uh against the bucks they went interception fumble interception like i i

mean at what point and the travisky the game's 26 to 0 at the half travisky didn't get in the game like at some point why don't you put him in the game the bears have no chance no i would definitely i would go the other way if they don't have receivers maybe you don't't get in the game. At some point, why don't you put him in the game? The Bears have no chance. No, I would definitely cross the Bears. I would go the other way. If they don't have receivers, maybe you don't put him in the game. I don't know. He's getting open for them. But he needs reps. I mean, he needs reps.

You might as well get him back out there. Okay. Would you cross off? I had one more. Oh, I'd cross the Jets off. Well, the Jets. I'm sorry. Sorry, Mickey.

I'd cross the Jets off. I'd cross them off in June. Would you cross off the Giants? You can't in that division, right? You can't because they're really good on defense. And I think, you know, they didn't have Jenkins last night. I think when they play Philly this week, they could win the game. I mean, look, Carson Wentz, two more fumbles last week.

He had another interception at the end of the half that ended up being a big play for him that bounced off the receiver. I mean, he's prone to make, and if Doug wants to keep throwing the ball 50 times, then teams like the Giants are going to be able to score on him because they're going to benefit from the mistakes the Eagles are making. The Eagles have to go into the game and manage their team. They have a big back, run the ball. Don't put Wentz in a situation—

I don't think the big back touched the ball last week. He caught a ball in the flat for a one-yard catch. That's why I thought he had one run. He had zero, he caught a ball in the flat for a one yard catch. That's all. He had zero fantasy points last week, which is a problem if you started him because getting a zero is bad.

When you sit in the meeting room on Tuesday and say, okay, we're going to go play the Chiefs. What do we have to do? The first thing you say is we can't make this a 50 pass game

because if we try to throw it 50 times, we're going to lose. And that's what the Eagles try to do. I mean, to me, it's like that's the problem I have. On Tuesday and Wednesday, you have to set up the game plan to give your team're going to lose. And that's what the Eagles try to do. I mean, to me, it's like that's the problem I have. On Tuesday and Wednesday, you have to set up the game plan

to give your team a chance to win. And I'm not saying you've got to go establish to run against that team. You don't. You have to give your team a chance to where you can run it enough to keep them off balance or else that crowd noise is going to kill them. I mean, if Wentz couldn't get away from pressure like he does, he got sacked six times in a game. He should have got sacked 12.

The left guard for the Eagles, I don't know what game Doug was watching, but the left guard couldn't block Chris Jones, okay? He couldn't block him, all right? So at some point you have to say, maybe we should make a change at left guard, okay? It's a Hawaiian name. I don't want to butcher it and say it bad because I always do. But anyway, they should have pulled the left guard out like at some point what game are you watching now if you're mackadoo and you're making checks all the time then i understand that okay i'm

working on my crossword puzzle during the game but if i'm watching the game and there's a left left guard that can't block the guy i gotta change the guy yeah at some point why don't you do that that's what drives me crazy have you seen enough from pittsburgh to feel like they're pittsburgh again or is there anything yet they're not i don't feel like they're pittsburgh yet they've won two games i'm not crossing them off they're top no they've won two games and it hasn't been they fought to win two games i mean that that browns game they blocked the kick for a touchdown they struggled to move the ball and they started talking about how good the browns were on defense yeah okay and then the ravens went ahead just ran it down their throat so wait a minute time out settle down last question

um malcolm butler is he at the stage of his patriots career if he's billy batts is he at the bar there's like a lot of people in the bar or is it there's just five people left and now he should be really concerned i think that tape on Sunday, the Patriots-Saints tape, was about who's been practicing and playing well and who hasn't. And Malcolm hasn't been practicing or playing well. I've seen this play before. Right. Alan Branch hasn't been practicing or playing.

I've been to this production. Oh, wait. You have a contract. You won a big contract, and you're in the last year, and you're not playing that well, and maybe your head's not totally in it, you're gone. He's going to get traded. I don't know if he will because here's why.

They don't have a third corner. They have Rowe, they have Gilmore. Who's the third corner? Jones played well. He made that one play in the back. Do you think Belichick cares? He's all about who's buying in this year. I think they're trying to get him turned around. they have it so at this point does belichick take malcolm butler does he have the one-on-one meeting and be like hey dude i think malcolm come on i

think the volume of what malcolm does needs to get reduced and maybe having him play this role reduces the volume and helps him out i tell you the other guy that would be if they had a better left tackle nate solar hasn't played well all season in the first two games nate hasn't played particularly well now he missed all of camp but i think that game was a reflection of hey fellas the guys who earn the right to play have to practice and play well and you could see because i always go on patriots.com and watch the locker room video after because i'm a loser yeah and uh you know when they got the robert craft and craft shaking hands brady comes in cameraman was told to focus on craft start out with the

crafts brady says his things and then uh belichick gives his little speech and it's basically the same speech every week but you can kind of tell how he felt about the previous week from that week's speech and he was like hey that's the You know, we got a lot of work left. This has got to be an all-week thing. That's what we did this week. Every day leads to Sunday. It's what we do during the week. He gave one of those.

So it was clear, like, he felt like before that KC game that people weren't as focused heading into it. I think the whole thing for him is stringing together three or four good practices in a row. And I don't think they had done that prior to the Kansas City game. And so now the last week, that's the recipe. And then using that as a backdrop, he'll keep telling the team what they need to do. And if Malcolm doesn't play well, he won't play.

I was getting emails from Eagles fans that Butler for Kendrick, that got Kendrick. Oh, the Eagles? The pass rusher? No, he's a linebacker. He played really got Kendrick on the Eagles? The pass rusher? No, he's a linebacker. He played really good last week against Kansas City. I don't know that. I'm not familiar with this word. Michael Kendrick's. He makes a lot of money and I think the Patriots have done their homework on him

and I don't think they're interested. Okay. But you think Butler's going to get traded? No, I don't. No, I don't. Who do you think Butler's going to get traded to?, I don't. No, I don't. Who do you think Butler's going to get traded? Take Frazier to the rigor. Yeah. I'm very worried for Malcolm Butler.

I think they need Malcolm. I like my Superbowl hero, Malcolm Butler. I want him to stay. I want to ring for Malcolm, but I think they need, they need Malcolm to play at a higher level. Okay.

And so does Malcolm Butler. What's my panic button for Gronk this week? Well, he says he's okay on the groin. I don't know what the same. It'd be nice if, And so does Malcolm Butler What's my panic button for Gronk this week? Well he says he's okay on the groin I don't know what the same It would be nice if 75% of the time He got tackled it didn't lead to an injury Yeah that would be really good It just seems like every time he goes down

With two guys on him now he's slow to get up Something happens And he's like double the size of the guy tackling him too It's ridiculous There might just be too much wear and tear I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall in the Saints team room, and I was worried about Gronk, but they have this rookie, 47, from the University of Florida.

I think they drafted him in the third round. At what point do you say, you know, we should put him on Gronk? Right. When does that make any sense to you? Well, we have Kenny Vaccaro. We'll put him on, then we'll put the – like, at some point, no. That's your red chipper coach, Sean Payton. Just give up.

Just retire it. It happened to Jeff Fisher. Coaches lose it. It happens. I think sometimes that you're right. Money spoils all of us. I watch Goodfellas on Friday night. I want to talk about that after we finish the podcast.

Guess what? It's still a phenomenal movie. It's just loaded. It's so good. It is so phenomenally good you can watch it repeatedly and still find something in it i found like 20 things yeah it's it's it's like i don't even know how i would like to have a copy of the original draft to the final draft of that because you know who he lost the best director oscar to no kevin costner for dances with wolves really

yeah scorsese lost the Oscar. When you watch this movie now, I defy anybody to watch Dances with Wolves on cable and compare the two and tell me how. I will be the first to admit I've never seen Dances with Wolves. It's definitely not as well directed. Are you watching The Deuce too?

Of course. Is it good? It's good. A lot of dicks. There's some dicks flying left and right. All right, I have to get on that. Just get ready mentally for it. Mike Lombardi, GM Street on the Ringer NFL show.

And then we've been putting videos up. And then on Fridays, we're messing around with Instagram stories, which I really liked what we did this week, where you're just throwing out Friday opinions on various things. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, you're multimedia. We're turning into a multimedia i like it an asset i like it this is when goodfellas when they when when who is paul servino's character oh the boss uh what the heck's paulie paulie yeah paulie when he didn't embrace cocaine yeah his business really fell

behind this is our cocaine Instagram you gotta embrace all the new stuff I'm all for it it's great I'm all for it you gotta get there Instagram stories I don't understand it

but I'm all for it we just tape it and put it up I don't care what we do I love it Michael Lombardi thank you alright thanks to Lombardi

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always working harder to make your shave better. And now you can get Gillette blades for less at GilletteOnDemand.com. Gillette, the best a man can get. Pricing applies to select products and is at the sole discretion of the retailer. Thanks also to Hotel Tonight, the app that helps you find amazing hotel deals up to seven days in advance, perfect for an unexpected trip or spontaneous staycation. Play it by ear knowing you have the freedom to grab a great place and price.

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But he's who's coming up on Friday. Until then. On the wayside On the first sun Never lost it I don't have To ever forget