The Bill Simmons Podcast - NBA 75 Snubs, 2004 Lakers Flashbacks, Million Dollar Picks and Year of the Kebabs With J.A. Adande, Peter Schrager and David Chang.

Episode Date: October 22, 2021

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by J.A. Adande to discuss the NBA 75th Anniversary Team and parallels between Magic Johnson’s turmoil with the Lakers in 1981 and the current situation with Ben Simmons and the 76ers. They also compare the 2004 Lakers and the 2021 Lakers, get into the MLB postseason, and more (2:00). Then Bill talks with NFL Network’s Peter Schrager about the 6-0 Cardinals and the upcoming Chiefs-Titans matchup before making their Million-Dollar Picks for NFL Week 7 (48:35). Finally Bill talks with renowned restaurateur Dave Chang about his new Hulu show ‘The Next Thing You Eat,’ some of Bill and Dave’s food revelations over the past year, what seems to be another painful year for fans of the Washington Football Team, family life, and more (1:39:40). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: J.A. Adande, Peter Schrager, and Dave Chang Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hope you're checking out the Prestige TV podcast on The Ringer. I had two appearances on there this week. Broke down the morning show, mid-season awards. Me, Amanda, and Nora did that one. And then Thursday, Joe House and I did a Curb Your Enthusiasm Hall of Fame episode. We're also covering Succession on there as well on Wednesdays and Fridays. You can hear heading into the weekend, Chris Ryan, Big Wah is doing a pre-cap heading into episode two.

Check it out. The Prestige TV podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet at all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then trying to back what you think in those first few weeks and

then zag the other way. If you were wrong, you could bet on new and fun markets on FanDuel, like to catch a pass, same game parlays, highest scoring game across the Sunday slate, offensive TDs, the next drive. They have so much stuff, it's crazy. The app is safe and secure and easy to use. And when you win, you'll get paid instantly. Plus, look out for FanDuel Squares this season. Here's what you have to do. Visit FanDuel.com to download America's number one sportsbook.

The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit RG-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler

or visit rg-help.com. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day, all the gangs here, you're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're

standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air? Moments like that. Or when you want a light beer that tastes like beer, that's delicious. You don't want to load up on those heavier beers and then you only have two of them. Then you feel tired. Your stomach feels full. Miller Lite, it's your friend. It just accompanies whatever else you're doing. You're super happy with it. Opening an ice cold Miller Lite can signal the beginning of Miller time. Miller Lite is the light beer with all the great beer tastes we like. 90 calories per 355 mil can. So why not grab some Miller Lites today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network and Fan Dual Sportsbook.

Action-packed pod for you today. I have J.A. Adande. We're going to talk about the NBA 75 list and the 2021 Lakers and a whole bunch of it. And Magic Johnson in 1981 versus Ben Simmons in 2021. Really fun discussion. Peter Schrager's coming

on and talking about million dollar picks and the Cardinals. And then my buddy Dave Chang talking about food trends, the Washington professional football team, and a whole bunch more. So that's what I got. The NBA 75 list. So it came out tonight. Turned out all 50 of the 50 of 50 people made it. I actually, I tweeted tonight. I couldn't believe, I was like, why didn't they just roll the list over the top 50? Just have us vote for 25. I had one of the votes.

As it turns out, I guess all 50 of the people got voted back in. That legitimately happened. They did not roll over the list. But ultimately they did the list. They have the 75. And now we can move on with our lives. I'm going to put in pyramid form

my rankings at some point on TheRinger.com this season. I promise you. We're going to talk about the stubs in a second, but J.A. first, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, we're taping this 834 Pacific time back on the West Coast where J.A. Adande used to live. Now he's in the Midwest at Northwestern University. But your Dodgers are involved.

We actually thought this was going to be a more fun podcast today with the Dodgers hanging and the balance and the Browns game. When I texted you a couple of days ago, I thought you'd be in a much better mood because I thought your Red Sox were going to be on the way to the World Series. I know. It's kind of flipped up. Now we're both kicking ourselves. Well, let's start with the NBA 75.

We're around the same age. We've had a lot of the same experiences watching basketball. You were the West Coast version of me, basically. Loving the Lakers. Never missed a game, the whole thing. So then we have this 75th thing. I thought for the most part they did okay. I only thought there were only a couple snubs.

The Dwight Howard thing and Dennis Johnson were the two I think that made me the maddest. What was the most shocking snub for you? Let's start there. Yeah, maybe Alex Inglis. I'm not that bothered by Dwight. I'll get to Dwight in detail in a little bit. It's interesting that they followed the model,

which I would have done, which it seems like the voters decided were starting with the 50, the NBA 50 for the 1996, 97, 50th anniversary. And they just kept that list. And then can we go 25 after that? And that's when I sort of did this exercise with a couple of voters. I talked about it with Jack McCallum and David Aldridge and Sean Powell, guys who had votes. And so that was the moat I took.

They, I think, started from scratch. A lot of people, I think, just decided to start from scratch. I thought it was interesting to say, okay, can we get to 25? You know, one thing that shocked me was that we didn't get the Parker Ginobili-Duncan trio. Obviously Duncan was going to be on there. But I thought the fact that those three guys were the winningest trio in NBA

history and what they meant for the league for so long, I thought you include those guys. You know, Bill, what was your philosophy? How did you define a top 75 guy? So obviously I was born for this. I was ready. I've been ready my whole life. I had been already making my list year by year. I wanted, because I had a vote, when I was trying to figure it out, I wanted to stay true to all the eras of the league. Because I think if you're

just going to say, all right, who are the best 75 players, then you're just going to gravitate. Like Clay Thompson's way better than Bill Sharman. Like you can't do it that way. So I, you know, I was looking at the 25th anniversary team, 35th anniversary team, the 50th, obviously, all the work I did when I did my book and just trying to have a kaleidoscope. That's why I voted for Luka. I have Luka and Jokic on my list because when they did the 50th, they voted for Shaq. Which was controversial at the time, but it was the right move. Unless Luka gets hit by a bus, he's going to be one of the best 75 players of the first. So anyway, I looked at it that way. And that's why I felt like Paul Arison, like, yeah, I'm sure he's not as good as Manny Ginobili was, but for the first 25 years of

the league, he was more important. He was more impactful, you know? So that, that was the way I looked at it. And, and then the other thing I did was I actually ranked everybody in order so I could really like see, and I had levels and tiers and the whole thing. So I ended up, I got 69 of my guys actually made it. The ones that I had that didn't make it, I had Jokic. I just figured he's won the MVP. He's the best offensive center of the past five, six years. He's going to keep getting better and better.

That's a Shaq 96 vote, right? 100%. So I had him and Luka as my Shaq 96 votes. Dennis Johnson, Dwight Howard, Bernard King. So you mentioned the eras. And to me, it's, did you define your era? And that's why Alex English didn't make it. When you think of the 80s, and I didn't know this,

Colin Cowher tweeted, Alex English scored more points than anyone in the 80s. And we all know all the great players that played in the 80s. And he scored more points than any of them in that decade. But when I think of the 80s, he doesn't come to mind. Right. Well, because, well, think about the small forwards, right? He's behind Bird.

He's behind Julius. He's behind Julius, behind Bernard King. He should be on. Yeah. Who? Oh, Bernard was it? Yeah, I mentioned him. Bernard was the... Yeah, I mentioned him. He was the other one that... You had him. I would put him on too.

It's hard for me to think of 75 players in the NBA history ahead of Bernard King. Yeah, and you were saying you wouldn't have had Walton in the 50, but you would have had him

in the 75. And I think for me, the Walton-King argument is a little similar. Like, if you're talking like peak apex where you're either the best player in the league

or you're in the conversation for best player of the league and you sustain that for, you know, a year, two years, three years, it gets a little weird when you talk about Derrick Rose because he won the MVP and people would say, well, why wasn't Derrick Rose? That was a weird year. And he won the MVP mostly because

the two best players in the league decided to play with each other. And we were bad at both of them. But LeBron and Wade were two of the best players in the league. And then Kobe was the other best player in the league, but they were having a weird Lakers season. And Rose kind of slid into that. I voted for him, but I don't feel like he was at the level

like Bernard was at at 19. Bernard almost beat the 84 Celtics by himself. So you start thinking about stuff like that, and it's like, I have to have you on my list. Alex English never had a moment like that. Isaiah itself. Joe Dumars is another glaring absence, I think. Interesting. See, he

wasn't a bubble guy for me. Well, we have to include those Pistons. If you're talking about eras in the NBA, they're just below the Lakers and the Celtics, and, you know, then the Bulls, they just kind of squeezed in between all those eras. And then, Joe Dumars was right there, right below

Isaiah for importance to that team. So... I had my seven bubble guys, and this is how hard this was, because 75 years is a long time. That's the other thing. My seven bubble guys who did not make it. Robert Parrish.

I didn't vote for him. Whoa. I mean, longevity, important part, the trio, him, Bert,

like, like I talked about the Spurs trio. You can't talk about the Celtics of that era without Parrish. I felt like DJ got it. Bert McHale Parrish.

DJ got a spot for me. And the more I thought about Parish. As a finals MVP. Yeah, the DJ thing, we don't have to litigate it here, but when you throw in his three Seattle years where they go finals, finals, conference finals, beats the Lakers twice, he's probably the best two-way guard in the league

in that stretch right before Jordan shows up. And then goes to the Celtics. And like he played 180 playoff games back when we didn't have the 16 playoff teams. Right. Was in a whole bunch of big things. Like he took down Magic in the 84 finals. I think it's insane that he's not in.

But the Parrish thing, like I just, I couldn't squeeze him in. It was like him or Luka Doncic. And I'm like, Luka just had the best three, three-year start to an offensive career of anyone in the history of the league. So I had him, I left off Carmelo. I left off Alex English and Dantley. I left off Monroe and Maravich. I couldn't get there. And then Rodman. And, and then I thought there was a drop off, but those seven and the Rodman, you could see when you watch the Inside the NBA today, the guys, the great players,

they never felt the same thing about Rodman that the fans did, right? You can kind of tell. I'm thinking of your guy, Bill Russell. Somebody asked him about Rodman one time and Russell said, Bill Russell says, that's Rodman. He's a cute little rebounder.

You know this with the great players. They really Rodman, he's a cute little rebounder. Right. He's not even a gimmick. Yeah, you know this with the great players. They really respect somebody like Kyrie, like his ability to, his shot creation. That's the stuff they look at. The rebounding is like effort more than anything. So I think they look down on him a little bit. But with Rodman, I can't get away from the fact that,

you know, helps the Pistons to do championships and then is a part of one of the great teams ever with the Bulls. And there's a difference between them going out in the second round and then winning three straight championships. And obviously a full, you know, fully vested back Michael Jordan in basketball mode again, not stepping off the baseball field, but I can't separate, you know, when you think of the great teams of the early 90s stretch and late 90s, there's Dennis Rodman. Did you have Dwight in? I did. I did. I have,

I have him in my rankings. I have him 64th. I mean, he was, he was five straight first team OMAs. And the piece that, I was,

I looked on Twitter to see what people were saying about it. And the piece that just gets swept under the rug is he went head-to-head against LeBron in 09 during a spring when we were all LeBron, Kobe. We were headed for

this. It was like a summer movie. We were all waiting to go see. Yeah. It was like LeBron, Kobe. It's happening. And his team beat LeBron's team. If you look at the rosters, they're pretty even. LeBron's stats are great in that series. It's like LeBron Kobe. It's happening. And his team beat LeBron's team. And if you look at the rosters, they're pretty even. LeBron's stats are great in that series. It's not like he outplayed him, but he went toe-to-toe with them. And from a defense rebounding anchor of a championship team type thing,

he was there. And then you covered that Lakers series. That was a closer series than I think people gave credit for. It was. And I'll tell you what. I don't really remember Dwight Howard in that series. So that's part of it. A big part of this is, like, what sticks with me?

You know, like, I'm not so sure George Girvin is one of the top 75s. I mean, I know he won scoring titles and things like that. You know, people from that era would tell you he didn't do much defensively, but George Girvin sticks with me. The Iceman. Maybe it's because he called me one time.

He returned my call. He says, hey, it's ice. And that was the coolest thing I've ever been associated with. So here's my theory on Dwight. I'm not sure a single player, the way we think of him, has been derailed by a single shot the way Dwight was by that Dame Lillard shot that finished off the Rockets and eliminated them in the first round in 2014. And I think we think of Dwight very differently.

You know, we kind of pin it on him. Oh, he went to Houston and lost in the first round. Dwight averaged 26, 14, and three blocks in that series. It wasn't Dwight's fault. He balled in that series. And if they win and they go a couple rounds, now we see Dwight as the biggest free agent signing of that year going to Houston

and having an impact. Right? Instead, they're out in the first round. The next year, they go to the conference finals. They lose to the Ascending Warriors in 2015 as the Warriors are on their way

to the first championship. And he's good in that series too. Pretty good. I mean, you know, we remember Harden kind of flaming out with double-digit turnovers in the last game. But again, he didn't make the difference there. They lose in the first round

and then he's just on the carousel, right? Going to Atlanta and going to, where'd he go? Charlotte and the Wizards and Philly and the Lakers and away and then back to, I can't even keep track. But like the second half of his career, he just turns into this nomad basically. Right. And, and just a backup piece. Um, so we never saw him at the time when he was the most coveted free agent. You were in LA, you saw the state D 12 billboards and he goes to Houston and doesn't make an impact and then just starts getting discarded around the league. Yeah. And do we think of him the same? Does that all play out

if they go deeper into the playoffs that first year and he shows that, hey, this is the guy that the Rockets are going to build around. Him and Harden, they're going to be the new Magic and Kareem or whatever. And I really think that single Damian Lillard shot just changed Dwight Howard's trajectory and kept him off the top 75 list.

I think he, I was actually shocked that he didn't make it. I thought he was pretty much the only center that mattered as soon as Yao Ming got hurt for, I don't know, six years there where. And part of it is that the legacy, right?

That we're not currently, we're not thinking of centers. Right. And so we're not thinking of any, like, who's the best center of this era? Does it even matter? You know, Dwight might have been the best center of his era. Now centers are, I think it's a better,

deeper position than maybe it was during, when Dwight was there, he was kind of, he represented like the last old school center and we were moving toward this new world. The real last old school center, Shaq, was always dumping on Dwight. Right. So that's the thing.

Honestly, that's why Dwight didn't make it. I think people just don't like them. You know, and this is, we're selling, I in house did a basketball book, a basketball podcast about it last year about,

it was about this very point. Like his career was, I think significantly better than people realized. Um, but people didn't like him and he was a jackass and he did stuff like the Superman thing. And, you know, in the finals against the Lakers where they had real chances to take control of that series

and he couldn't make a free throw. He was just a really frustrating player. He felt like the kind of guy that had the world at his fingertips. And a lot like how we feel about somebody like Ben Simmons now. Where it's like, get your shit together, dude. You're one of the six best athletes in the league. So, Ben, if we can transition a little bit. Yeah.

So, you sent me that awesome clip of, I don't know if I can even call it a clip, when it's 40 minutes of news reports from LA local TV sports when the Lakers filed Paul Westhead. And, you know, all the speculation at the time was that Magic Johnson go upstairs and have Paul Westhead fired. And I remember that's my second or third, really third year of really being an NBA fan. My NBA fandom basically started with Magic and the Lakers and the 1980 playoffs. And from then, I just jumped all in and Magic's my favorite player ever.

And all of a sudden, he's vilified, right? He's the bad guy. He got booed that first game after Westside got fired. And it was so hard to see my favorite player turn into the villain. And I was thinking, one of the things

that's hurting Ben Simmons is, is anyone in Philly heartbroken by this? You know, did he have like this, this hardcore fan base anywhere that's like, that feels disappointed in him? That's part of the problem. Like, like nobody's heartbroken over this. You know, I get the sense you've got probably more Philly fans than I do in your friendship circle that they're just kind of like, eh, just get rid of him. You know, there's no,

there's no reckoning. There's no, you know, heart rending. No, this guy doesn't want to be here. Let's get rid of him. Whereas for me,

it was so hard to see Magic Johnson vilified. And he got over really quick and they won the championship and then they, they took off. But Ben Simmons doesn't have that.

And I think that's part of his problem. Yeah, he entered the fuck this guy zone, which is a really dangerous place to be if you're a player. The difference is, you know, Magic, his rookie year, they won the title and he played one of the most legendary games of all time. And for that, it's like at least he had a pedigree and a track record. Whereas Ben Simmons' track record year after year has been, eh. But the reason I sent that to you, there's this dude. So if people want to watch this, there's this YouTube guy. His name is NonPlayerZealot4.

That's his YouTube handle. And he just basically has every single Laker clip from the 80s and 90s and 2000s you would ever want to find. And all the Chick Hearn calls, which are great. Like I actually watched the game four 1987 finals, which I went to the Junior Skyhook game. I never heard the Chick Hearn call. It's great. It's really like, it's so, so good. But anyway.

You heard it in the, they always play the Chick Hearn call like on the NBA commercials or whatever. Yeah, but never like the whole, just the, they always play the Chick Hearn call like on the NBA commercials or whatever. Yeah, but never like the whole, just the actual play by play. Right. So this guy put together this 40 minute montage of, and it's, I'm telling you, when Brian Curtis sees this, he might have to, he might need medical attention. It's got Fred Rogan and Jim Hill. Of course, of course, Jim Hill. Jim Hill just has an age. Right.

He's the exact same from 1981. And, you know, when you hear Jerry Buss answering one of the questions and saying, Roy, that's Roy Firestone. Right. And also there's one thing where they toss back to the anchors and CBS and Jim Hill's there. And you hear Connie Chung in there saying, can I say hi to Magic? Connie Chung, who went on to be a national network anchor. Well, you left out the best one. Fred Roken, Roy Firestone,

Stu Nahan. Rocky star, Stu Nahan. You know, from the Rocky movies. And Fast Times at Ridgemont High. All those guys. But it was actually really good journalism. You know, watching as a journalism professor now, that's when local local TV sports, you know, they had, first of all, they had multiple guys. Like you see guys in the studio throwing out to their reporters.

You know, now you've got one person in sports staffs and local news. And I give credit to a lot of those guys because they had done some reporting. You know, you hear them giving informed opinions. And there was so much skepticism about what the Lakers were sending out that, oh, we'd already made the decision and we were going to fire Westhead later and then Magic just happened to speak out. You know, it had nothing to do with Magic speaking out.

Right. And you heard all the anchors saying like, right. The other thing also, it's actually a historic moment because that's the Pat Riley origin story. Right. You trace it all back to that. And then Riley is basically involved in the next four decades of the NBA.

Well, and then West and Riley are going to be co-coaches. And then West in the press conference is like, wait a second, that's not how it's going to play out. It's a mess. The other thing, talking about old school journalism, it really made me nostalgic for the era when the press just was able to talk to players. You see like the players had so much availability for random local reporters. And just over and over again,

there's this one interview where Kareem, who's like legendarily the worst interview as a player of that era. Now he's a really good writer. But back then just had no time for anybody. Now he's a really good writer, but back then just had no time for anybody. And he's given this interview before the game and he's just, he's just so annoyed, but trying to seem chipper and just giving no answers. But that's the thing. You kind of had to play the game back then. But Bill, my favorite part of that clip is that they show

the live time in the screen and it's 6 36 PM. It's like less than an hour before tip-off. Right. Kareem's doing a live television interview. The other favorite things is, so the origin of the story, you know, the Lakers, they win the championship in 80, they lose in 81. And then at the start of the 81-82 season,

Paul Westhead, the coach, has installed this new slowdown offense and they're going into Kareem. As I'm watching this, I'm like, this is really Kobe and Shaq all over again, right? Because Shaq's complaining that they're running the offense through Kareem and they're slowing it down. And Shaq wants to play more up-tempo, which of course Kareem doesn't want to do. He's already in his 30s. He's been in the league like a dozen years at that point. He doesn't want to run up and down the court. And so, you know,

20 years before we had Shaq and Kobe, it's Shaq and Kobe basically. Only this time, you know, Kobe won at the outset. But they, so Magic vents his frustration after the game and basically says, I need to trade. This isn't working for me. I'm in the wrong offense. Yeah. All this stuff. So they fly back to LA the next day. All the

media's at the airport. They're interviewing Magic Johnson and Paul Westhead as they're walking through LAX, which of course you can't do now because of, you know, the 9-11 restrictions. And then the next day, there's the famous press conference

in which Jerry Buss announces that Jerry West is going to coach the offense, Pat Riley is going to coach the defense, or maybe co-coaches. And West gets up there

and says, no, Pat Riley is going to be the guy here. And then they talk to, Riley does individual interviews with all the local stations after the press conference. And so they talk to, Riley does individual interviews with all the local stations. And so does Jerry Buss. And so does Jerry Buss.

And then the next day they're at practice and they're filming practice. You know, they've got full access to practice. And then they talk to Magic and Westhead shows up to clean out his office and they talk to Westhead. And then Jerry Buss does a live shot with Jim Hill before the game

when they play their first game after the Senators. The owner is talking an hour and a half before the game after he just made this controversial move. You think anyone, any owner in the NBA would be doing that right now? It was amazing. So, I'm going to tell you why I sent that to you in a second, but we're going to take

a quick break. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Superbowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Superbowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. So we're talking about this clip

I sent Jay about 40 years ago, ironically, magic and this whole thing, self-combusting and the similarities and differences between Ben Simmons now. And you think about how this Ben Simmons thing is being handled now, right? No accountability at all. He's not talking to anybody. Anonymous sources, anonymous sources, leaks. The person who seems to have some sort of insight into what's going on with him is Sham Sharani of The Athletic, who's been on this podcast, who is represented by Clutch, who represents Ben Simmons.

So he's getting the only Ben Simmons side morsels. Then you have Daryl and his whole Philly side. They're just sprinkling. It's like a t-shirt gun. They're giving morsel to everybody. And we're basically just put together this giant jigsaw puzzle of little, little leaks. We don't know what to believe. Now it seems like Ben Simmons is going to play the, I'm not feeling that great.

My back might hurt. And this is how it leaks out. Back 40 years ago, this thing plays out over the course of two days. Coach gets fired. Magic Johnson gets booed. And then we're off. And then everybody kind of moves on.

This Ben Simmons thing could last three years with us never knowing anything. And we haven't heard from Ben Simmons yet, have we? No. He's yet to talk. We won't. And yes, the amazing thing, Magic talks, Riley talks, Wes talks, Jerry Buss talks, all talk on the record, on camera, just, you know,

and I'm sure they were all talking to the local print reporters as well. Yes, that was stunning to me and the difference. And we just don't get that anymore. And it's never coming back. Literally the access that you had where you could go get guys at the airport, where you could film practices, that was one of the things was that they said- And you're on the plane too. Yeah, you're on the plane with these guys. You're on the plane with those guys,

interacting with them. Oh, how about speaking to people on the record? So they interviewed Steve Springer, who was one of the beat writers. He shows up in one of the reports. And then Jim Hill's talking to Chick Hearn, who's like being as honest as you can be. You know, we think of the play-by-play broadcasters

as being shills for the home team. Chick was never that. But his breakdown of the whole thing was amazing. And then at the end he says, hey, there's still tickets available. Come to the game tonight. So it goes back to being a homer. Shill at the very end,

after he'd just been very candidly assessing the whole situation. The to the game tonight. So he goes back to being a homer. Still at the very end after he'd just been very candidly assessing the whole situation. The whole thing is amazing. 40 minutes. That's the same guy that did the Magic Man highlight. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

15 minutes of Magic Johnson highlights. The first seven and a half minutes, Magic doesn't take a shot. It's just all rebounds and passing. So I went, when we did Mr. Russell's house with Russell and we went to Seattle

and we were hanging with him after. And he told this story about he was at a game right after the magic thing happened when the fans had turned on him a little and he was taking all this shit. $25 million man, bad teammate, selfish athlete.

This is the new generation. And Russell said he went to a game and I'm, I'm paraphrasing. I wrote about this way back when, but Russell said he went up to magic and he's like, Hey man, hang in there. I can see your blah, blah, blah. And he gave him a little pep talk because he could tell like he was carrying this huge burden of this whole thing. And I was doing TV with magic that year. And I went back and I think we did a show a couple of days later and I was like, Hey, Russell told me this story about back in 1981 and magic, like it's the best thing anyone's ever done for me. And it did this whole thing. Like it was like this profound moment. Cause he was like, he had nobody, like he, he just felt like he was a drift

that he was a villain. Everybody was against him. And it made me think with this Ben Simmons thing, when, when you're in that mode, we saw LeBron like that 10 years ago, right? When he was at Miami, he became the villain and he talks about it after he's like, that wasn't me.

I'm like a happy guy. I'm not, I'm not meant to be the wrestling heel. And it really bothered me that year. And I wonder like with the Ben Simmons thing, how does that manifest itself when this isn't your personality to be the fuck you guy? Oh, I'll show you. I don't think that's who he is. So I think if anything, it's going to go the other way where he'll retreat from it and

figure out ways not to play. That's part of the problem is we don't know who is he, right? Is he a selfish guy? Is he sensitive? Is he aggressive? Is he like, we have a sense of who Joel Embiid is, right? We don't have a sense for Ben Simmons. And I mean, to me, it goes back to the fact that his team didn't get into the NCAA tournament when he was the guy at LSU and was considered the best player and the, you know, the top draft pick prospect. It was the same with Burks, but Markel Fultz, right? Yeah. You know, he didn't get Washington

in the tournament either. And two number one picks that Philly wound up taking. So here's another thing that has to be causing a lot of angst in the Philly people. Nobody's talking about this. Remember, Ben Simmons was the prize

for the process. Yeah. You know, like they come off the worst record, the second worst record in NBA history, 10 and 72. This was what the process was all about, right? You're going to pull your team apart so that you'll have the best chance of getting the number one pick.

And lo and behold, it worked. You got the number one pick. And now you got a guy who didn't take a shot in game seven of the playoff series and might not ever play another game in uniform for the 76ers. This is the end result of the process.

Never forget. This is what all that losing got you. Yeah, it's basically Embiid is... As long as he's one of the best 10 players in the league, you at least have something to point to. But when you think like...

That wasn't really the process. You know, they got the fourth pick that year. And the only reason they got Embiid was because there were injury concerns which have played out he's never gone through a whole year and a whole playoffs healthy so there's a reason he was number four that when I think it was four he was three the reason he didn't go one though he was the best player in that draft but there were injury concerns so, let's audible to the Lakers because you and I were talking about, you covered the 0-4 Lakers.

And now we had this conversation. We had this conversation before the grisly opening night Lakers game. The similarities and differences between the 0-4 Lakers and the 2021 Lakers where you have LeBron as the Kobe, clearly. Well, a key difference.

He's not facing a sexual assault charge. Yeah, that's true. Kobe was dealing with a trial possibility there. You had older Shaq versus in his prime, Anthony Davis, but from an impact standpoint, I would still take Shaq,

but it's in the ballpark. And then you have Russell Westbrook as the proxy to this Malone Payton combo of these two guys that were one thing on other teams. And now they're getting shoehorned to this other situation that belongs to these two other guys. So as you watch this, what are the similarities to you? Um,

you know, obviously the, just the sheer volume of Hall of Famers. You know, I mean, Carmelo's top 75. I think he's a lock for Hall of Fame. So, you know, you got these four guys. It was so different. I mean, the fact that Phil is a free agent, you know, in 03-04, and then midway through the year, his contract gets yanked.

His contract offer that the Lakers are talking about, they pull it off the table and then they announce, yeah, you know, we're taking Phil's contract extension off the table. That's not up anymore. And then Kobe says, I don't care. Which to me, you know what? Actually, the Sixers in some way remind me more of that team because when Embiid said something like,

I don't really care about that man or something like that, it reminded me when Kobe said, I don't care whether or not Phil Jackson is the coach anymore. Right. I mean, you had that going on. I mean, it's funny. Meanwhile, Frank Vogel, there's not a lot of pressure on him. I feel like Vogel's a made man.

He got that championship. He's a made man now, so he's good. You know, that you don't have the tension that the Kopi and Shaq relationship had reached its end point, exacerbated by the whole Colorado incident and, you know, which drove even a further wedge between them.

You know, like, I think if we talk about how it can work on the court, I think it can work. So the interesting that the Lakers got off to a great start that year, in part because Phil didn't make them run the offense. Gary Payton was always going to be a bad fit for that offense. And then we can get into whether or not that equals Russell Westbrook. Right. But I'm not really sure what the Laker offense is. You know, the Lakers in 03-04 had the very defined triangle offense and it was very, you go here, you do this.

But Peyton hated it, though. He hated it, right. So at first, he just pushed the ball off the court. He kind of had a pact with the coaches that, like, if I get the rebound and I just push the ball off the court, we don't have to run the offense. So their first game, they come out against the Mavericks. Remember the Mavericks debuted those silver uniforms that

they threw in the trash after that game? They just blow them out. They're running up and down the court. Peyton's freewheeling, running, dishing, having a good time. And then gradually, Phil says, okay, we got to start to run the offense because in the playoffs, we're not going to be able to run up and down like this. And Peyton

rejected it and never was a good fit. I told him before he even signed, he was trying to come to the Lakers. I said, Gary, you in a triangle? You sure this is going to work? He said he could make it work. It didn't work. Remember, he wound up spending a lot of the finals on the bench that year. I don't know how Westbrook fits in.

The whole key is whether or not LeBron's ready to say, here, you take it. Because when LeBron went to Miami, everyone talks about you got to sacrifice this and that. LeBron never sacrificed. LeBron goes to Miami, Bosh and Wade see their usage rate goes down. LeBron stayed the same. LeBron goes back to Cleveland, Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving, their usage rate goes down. LeBron stays the same. So LeBron's never...

You have to adjust to LeBron. LeBron's never been the one that said, I'm going to take a step back and incorporate this and that. No, that's not him. Don't you think, Bill, that he's going to want to save some wear and tear and let Russell Westbrook handle things a little bit more and

initiate the offense, bring the ball to the court, all of that that we saw LeBron do so much? I feel like he's going to be more than happy to let Russell Westbrook do some of that. I think that's what the theory is. I don't see it. We've never seen it. For all the reasons you just mentioned,

and if you go, I'm clicking on LeBron's basketball reference page. What's really crazy about that page and what I think people would be looking at 50 years from now is how similar all the years are where he's basically just 27 points a game and somewhere between 34 and 38 minutes a game for like 16, 17, 18 years where he's 27,

seven and seven over and over and over and over again. And you go and like in the high twenties, right? Yeah. And you go and look at his usage rate and it's always in the low thirties. It's always between 30 and 33. I think the point you made about everyone has to adjust to him is a really important point that I don't think people realize enough with LeBron. There's been very few guys who, even though the team might be enough with LeBron. There's been very few guys who, even though the team might be better with LeBron, who you could say, oh, that guy was way better with LeBron.

Like, think about how Curry with Durant. Curry, his stats, you can go look. His stats suffer. He actually gave up stuff. We've just never seen LeBron. Dwayne Wade gave up a lot. Dwayne Wade gave up a ton. Dwayne Wade gave up a ton.

Including kind of like his team, you know? Yeah. Like, he kind of said, okay, LeBron, it's your team. I'm still the man in Miami, but this is your team. How about Shaq in Miami with Wade? Like, he definitely stepped back 20%.

It would make sense for LeBron to do that, but then when you watch it the other night, it's like, why would you not want LeBron to have the ball? Like, that's one of the two best players of all time, and he still looks great. I don't want Russell Westbrook to have the ball. I'd rather have LeBron have it of all time and he still looks great. I don't want Russell Westbrook to have the ball.

I'd rather have LeBron have it. I will say this. I was watching an opening and there's one time LeBron didn't touch the ball in a possession and you can have a possession with LeBron not touching it

and you're still running a two-man game with Westbrook and Anthony Davis. And I thought, that's something pretty special. You can run a two-man with those two players

and you can just tell LeBron to go stand in the corner for a couple of possessions. So I think LeBron will come to appreciate that. We'll see how Vogel and the coaching staff come to utilize that. LeBron's never had a coaching position to say, LeBron, go stand in the corner for a couple of plays. Greg Popovich used to ask Tim Duncan as they adjusted

and as Ginobili and Parker became more prominent. There was one year I remember Duncan is just like running up and down the court, setting screens, grabbing rebounds. Tim Duncan, he'd already won MVPs at this point. And he just turned into a screener and a rebounder. And, you know, they never ran any plays for him anymore. And Tim Duncan being Tim Duncan, he was okay with that. I'm not saying you need to turn LeBron into that,

but can you tell LeBron to just dribble, pass, and then go into the corner or do a little bit less? Can Frank Vogel say that to him? I don't know. I'm just not positive Westbrook's a winning player at the level of winning four straight rounds. I know it's the first game. I know it's an overreaction. But if the ball isn't with him or around him, he doesn't really know where to go and what to do because no team is going to be afraid of him shooting.

So you'd watch him just kind of he's meandering around and it's like, all right. It's a little like when Rondo's at his worst where he's like, where do I go? I'm going to just run along the baseline and veer out. But I don't know. I just think I just would have rather had Buddy Heald than KCP. I really would have. I think that's a better fit for LeBron because LeBron's not changing at this point. He's been in the league 19 years.

You want to put people around him that make sense for him. I just don't think Westbrook makes sense to them. I don't see it. I thought it was ironic that Westbrook's first game, Mr. Triple Double, Steph Curry comes in and has a triple double in his house. Well, we'll see what happens. The thing with LeBron is if it's not working, we saw it with the 2018 Cavs, they'll cut pay. He got them to trade Wade. Wade, who is allegedly one of his best friends. He got in the F out of there

in three months. I have two quick betting propositions for you. I'm not a gambler, but I know you are, and I know you can plug the gambling sponsor here. Anthony Davis played 466 games in New Orleans. Zion is currently at 85 games in holding. We'll played 466 games in New Orleans. Zion is currently at 85 games and holding.

We'll set 466. Is that it? That's all he's played in New Orleans? 85 games? Zion. Remember, A, there were two shortened seasons, right? Yeah. His first two seasons.

COVID shortened. B, he's been injured a lot. And the number is not going to go up anytime soon. So over under the 466 that Anthony Davis played, over or under for Zion playing those number of games in New Orleans. Is this a trick question because they're going to be in Seattle? No, no, no. Because they're going to be in Seattle in two years?

With this franchise. Well, if they move to Seattle, does that change things? I mean, part of the problem is New Orleans, they're always just going to be hurt by the fact that there's just no corporate support there. Sponsorships or anything, it's a tough, tough market.

And what passion there is down there, the Saints suck it all up. So 466, with Zion who is already making googly eyes in New York, who's on his third coach in his third season already. I'm going under. Under.

Under. And also the injuries too. I was thinking more injuries. 466 is a lot for somebody who's already had, what is this, his fourth relatively significant injury, third or fourth. I don't like foot injuries. One in college.

Two knees, right? Yeah, two knees and a foot. And now another broken foot. Do you think the injury is more than the fact that he doesn't seem to be happy there? We haven't had the guy leave before signing at the very least the rookie extension, right?

It's not going to be him. He's taking that money. Especially if you've had a couple injuries already, you're grabbing the money? It's not going to be him. He's taking that money. Especially if you've had a couple injuries already, you're grabbing the money. What's the other prop? My other one comes off watching the Hawks play the Dallas Mavericks tonight. So Trey is already up 2-0. He's won two playoff series.

Luka has yet to win a playoff series. Who winds up winning more playoff series between those two, Trey or Luka? That's a really good one because I was bullish on the Hawks. I bet they're over. I picked them for a three seed. They're just really loaded. You can see

it tonight. They just have a ton of talent. The Mavericks aren't having fun. I think you could make a case if you're just adding a playoff series and Trey is just banking, how many did he have last year? Two?

So he won two, played three, won two. Luka played three or two? Luka has zero playoff wins so far. Right. He hasn't won a playoff series yet. So it's two nothing right now. You could make a case. If they made the Eastern Finals again,

Trey would be up four nothing on Luka after a couple years. I would say Luka is still the favorite just because I think he's a generational offensive player. And at some point, he's going to end up on a team and just rip off. Have the Mavericks won a playoff series

since they won the Finals in 0-11? No, they've not. That's a good bet. Remember, this is a franchise question, too. So I thought that was interesting. That was something that popped into my mind, this is a franchise question too. So I thought that was interesting. Those are good ones. That was something that popped into my mind. You can plug the sponsor now.

FanDuel. It's FanDuel. Our favorites. Quick, before we go, Dodgers? Dodgers, they stayed alive tonight as we're taping.

It was the ninth inning. Did they win the game, Bill? Yeah, they won. It's a wrap. You know what I realized? I love the Dodgers. I don't necessarily love this team. You know, and it's kind of the reverse

of the way the Lakers were for me. Like the Lakers, I fell in love with that era. I grew up in the Showtime era, was introduced to basically the pro sports through that teams. I loved that team. Magic, Kareem, Worthy, Michael Cooper,

Bob McAdoo, all those guys. The Dodgers, I kind of grew up, like Vin Scully as much as anybody, right? Just the tradition, Tommy Lasorda. I mean, they were just things that were institutions. But like this iteration, it's just been kind of frustrating watching them. Is it because it's such an expensive team? It takes like a tiny bit of the fun out of it? Yeah, it takes the joy out of it.

And, you know, the fact that they're so committed to this stuff, like, you know, you can see the front office meddling, like the decisions of pitch, Urias and relief, and it felt like it threw him out. You know, all these decisions they make. They started Joe Kelly in the game and he's down to nothing and has to come out of the first inning in this game. All these things,

the shift, they're so committed to shifts that I kind of am secretly happy every time the Braves get a hit against the shift by hitting into the open space because I hate the shift. So they do all these things that I'm so opposed to. The fact that one of the reasons they're down a starting pitcher is because

they decided to sign Trevor Bauer for $40 million when everyone was trying to tell you he was a bad guy. And the whole press, that was talk about amazing press conferences, Bill, go watch the video of the press conference for Trevor Bauer. Like, Hey, Trevor Bauer is from LA. We're bringing him back. Here's a big press conference at Dodger stadium. And all the questions are like, like Trevor, are you going to be a better person? Cause like Because you've got a reputation for a pretty bad guy. Asking the executives, are you okay with signing this bad guy? Do you think Dodger fans are going to be happy with this? So you know what?

It's hard for me to root. It's hard for me to talk about, oh, you're overcoming stuff when you put yourself in this position by no one could have imagined this worst case scenario. But guess what? You hire someone who's got a reputation for for being misogynistic. And lo and behold, he gets accused of this. So it's hard for me to really embrace this group. I love Mookie Betts, though, although Mookie is say, I know this is a wound for you, Bill, but like, I'll say this, like he's what's right with baseball, but he's also what's wrong with baseball,

you know, and, and talk about the reasons it's hard to embrace this team. Like I love Mookie, you know, I wish we had more African-American players like him. The fact that a guy is five, nine and can dominate a sport where, you know, name another team sport where somebody five, nine can be this dominant. He's so fun to watch, joy to watch. But it also sucks that the Dodgers are one of, like, two teams that can afford him. Right. You know, like, that's not good for the sport. I feel bad that, like, the Dodgers kind of by default have Mookie Betts because not even the Boston Red Sox could afford him.

That's something fundamentally wrong with their sport when only two guys can have this guy. This should be a guy that, like, almost anyone could have, right? I wish more fan bases could experience a Mookie Betts, but only the Dodgers can afford to pay him what he's worth. I agreed with everything you just said, except for the part that the Red Sox couldn't afford Mookie Betts when they've literally

ten-tupled the franchise value of the team. They make so much money. They absolutely could have afforded Mookie Bet bets. I know. Well, I hope our team survived. My team up 2-1 against the Strohs, but the bats had been hot

for literally two straight weeks. And you just know, especially the older you get, the more baseball you watch. It's hard to keep those bats going for three weeks, for four weeks. at some point you're gonna have to start winning the two to one three to two games and defensively they just they it's really hard for them they're basically a softball team for the window for when your team

wins and you have that grace period where you're not you know you're not torn apart well you went into this year and i know you've been on record for like you were bullish on this Red Sox team coming into the year. You just saw something you liked. But they didn't have to win for you, right? No. Like they did with this. You know, they got to the ALCS.

Like this is a successful season, right? You know, I did the five-year grace period stuff in the early 2000s when I hadn't won in a while. So I was like, here's how it should go. And then you realize the older you get, like you just get into the teams

and it just becomes part of your everyday life. It's hard to be like, ah, well, I won three years ago, so I don't care as much. I'm really attached to this team. I was devastated when Evolve didn't get the called third strike. And then all of a sudden the floodgates open and we've blown this chance against a really good Astros team. So, you know, I still feel like, uh, you know, it's different, obviously when it's, you haven't won in 50 years or 40, like there's nothing like that.

It was a long time for the Dodgers from 88. So like, as they were going through it against the Astros and as the Red Sox that I, I, my buddy, Anthony, my, my college roommate, huge Dodger fan. And I called him during one of those years. And I'm like, why is this so much harder to watch than it used to be? Like I was. It's because we're old. Agony. Exactly.

He said it's because now we realize that, you know, like they won. You know, I started really getting into Dodgers late 70s, early 70s. They went in 81. They went in 88. So we didn't have this long drought. Then they go from 88 until last year. And you realize, like, I just want to get one more, you know, before I croak and we might not get another shot at this. And it was just agonizing to watch. And because they won last year, now I'm just kind of like, okay, you know, like, like I'm like, I'll turn the game off if they're losing. And I just don't want to subject myself to it. You know, like I'm, I'm perfectly content to just, you know, I've got my, my, all the championship gear I bought from last year. I'll just go put that on and bask in that. I've got a Mookie Betts jersey hanging in here in my closet. Like I'm, I'm, I'm good. I'm good. I'll motivate you. That last

year's title barely counted. It was like the COVID title. It's a huge asterisk. It's like one of the biggest asterisk titles of all time. Win a real title. How about that? That'll get fired up. I heard you mention with Jackie, you know, my thing, like it's not an asterisk, but I don't think LeBron and the Lakers win without that two-month gap that they had

for him to recharge in 2020. Right. Now, granted, he beat out everyone. You know, everyone else had that gap and they didn't capitalize on it, but he certainly... But it helped him because of his age. Yeah, he needed that.

I agree with you. All right, we got to wrap up. Before we go, I just got announced the Simmons Family Scholarship is now available at Medill for the Graduate School. You can apply preference for graduates of HBCU. It's a tremendous opportunity. You know, it's really a great chance for us to help diversify and to give some chances for some young up and coming folks who might not have a shot to go to Medill. So I encourage you to go to the Medill website, seek more information. You can email me at ja.adande at northwestern.edu. And I can get you going on some stuff if you're interested,

if you want to come to Medill and we can't thank you enough. And you've been a, you know, a great ally, great friend, a great benefit to us and our program, me personally, and to all the people that you're going to affect. So before we go, I just, I just have to thank you. I can't give you enough podcast appearances i make this up to you no i appreciate it jay no it's it's i'm glad we figured out a way to work together in a real way and we've been talking about it for a while so um no it's good

i'm i'm excited to see where it goes thank you awesome thanks and thanks for uh thanks for having me and including me and all that stuff. But thanks for being on the pod. Hey, Bill. Bill, when I say anytime, you know I mean anytime. You got me. All right. I hope I see you

during the Dodgers-Red Sox World Series. I hope we get to text about it. If the Dodgers go to the World Series, I'm out there. So you'll see me. All right. All right. Sad.

Everybody at Northwestern, talk to you. You got it. How can you be sure you're making the right decision when choosing a university? The smart approach is to look at the facts. Like the fact that York U graduates have a 90% employer satisfaction rate. That's because across its three GTA campuses, York U's programs are strategically designed to prepare you for a meaningful career and long-term success. Join us in creating positive change at yorku.ca slash write the future.

All right, we're taping this part of the podcast. It is 11.15 Pacific time. Peter Schrager is here as always. We're going to do a million dollar picks in a second. We've crushed it again last week. I, you know, at some point we'll get credit from the masses of 1.57 million this year, five or six winning weeks. And this week sucks, which we'll get into in a second. Let's talk about the six and O Cardinals though. Are you a believer yet? I am.

It is, it is an interesting deal over there. So, uh, let me tell you, how would you have handled this if you were Kingsbury last week? So he can't coach because he's COVID positive. He's been vaccinated, no symptoms.

And I was texting him the night of the game and I'm like, where did you watch it? How'd you hit? And he goes, I did not watch a snap. I couldn't handle it.

Like I had no control. I had FOMO and this feeling of that. So he spent the entire game last week, which is this huge win in Cleveland. His boys, they stepped up walking around his block, like in circles, and then just watched Houston Texans film in the second half. And I'm like, bullshit. Like you definitely watched. He's like, I literally could not stomach watching one play from that game because I just, I have too much control over it. Now you're a executive leader in your business. Like, what do you think of that?

I think that's really interesting. Yeah. I remember when we launched Grantland, I was on the road and cause we, I was doing, went to a Bruins game and an NBA finals game and I was writing from the games. So at some point I left and it was just kind of like, you just have to kind of cross your fingers, but I was still reading the site and seeing what we were doing.

And I had input and I had emails to just be cut off like that. Um, at the same time, we share, he was cut off. Do we believe this story? They have all these texting apps where it's like the text disappear in like 10 seconds. Yeah. He could be on signal. How would they know? There are a lot of coaches around the league who were texting me last week, like, that's bullshit that he can't code. I'm like, what are you talking about? Think about it this way. The NFL has a system where in the league office, if there's a pass interference call that they don't agree with, they can buzz an official in Las Vegas, in Los Angeles, in Seattle, and be like, pick up the flag. It wasn't like, we're going to review it. But this guy in 2021, who is vaccinated and has no

symptoms and it should not be punished for a positive test, isn't allowed to communicate with the team at all on Sunday. Now, if you want to say, well, Stefanski did that last year, that was before the vaccine was out. So I think there's this like, and we're going to find it with the NBA, with the Kyrie Irving stuff and how, hey, wait, there's a lot of what if, or what about isms. This guy's not vaccinated, but his state says this. It feels like there's a lot of moving targets and a lot of different goalposts. And I think it's frustrating for these coaches. Why was he punished for that? And guess what? As of Thursday, he still doesn't have, it might be a second week where he can't coach because he hasn't cleared protocol yet. So here's this undefeated team who last week did not have their head coach, their star center in Rodney Hudson, Chandler Jones.

They didn't have their GM on the road. Cam Turner, who's Norv Turner's nephew, is the number two to Kingsbury on offense. He wasn't there. So I thought it was a pretty amazing win last week to go into Cleveland, even as banged up Cleveland was, and to not only beat them, beat the snot out of that team in their building. And now they've got the Texans. I think they're going to just roll over them again. I keep waiting for this Cardinals team to have this massive drop off.

There are some major obstacles last week and they had maybe their best performance yet. Well, and they lucked out sound. I talked about this a little on Sunday where this NFC West juggernaut division that we thought we were going to get, we might not have gotten it like Seattle, which is basically at the,

at the brink here, which we'll talk about in a second, but Seattle looks like they're probably not going to be a playoff team. They have the worst, at least by yards,

the worst defense in the league. Definitely top five by all the other metrics. Wilson's out for a while. They just look like they're off for a variety of reasons. They've had bad luck,

so they might be out. Plus, they're going to have a really tough schedule. And then the Niners thing with, you know, how this plays out with Trey and Jimmy and whether that was worth it, giving up all those assets.

They've already had some injuries. And just that, nothing about that team has looked great either. And then on the flip side, the Cardinals look like an absolute juggernaut with the four receivers. Kyler's healthy. They have speed, you know. Andler's healthy. They have speed.

And I don't think they have the same kind of, maybe that look that Dallas had on Sunday where you watch and you're like, oh, that's the kind of game that a Super Bowl champ wins and we point back to in mid-October. Arizona hasn't had that game for me yet, but they're in the mix, which I was not expecting. Yeah, and the general manager, Steve Keim, did something pretty interesting in the off season and it was deliberate.

They looked through their roster and they're like, each position group, where do we need to get better? And it's not necessarily skill. It's more veteran leadership, which is an intangible that people roll their eyes at. But JJ Watt signed a $20 million deal that no other teams are really banging down his door for. He's been really good and really good in the room. You go to the wide receiver room and it's like, you've got Hopkins and you've got Kirk and you've got Rondell Moore, AJ Green, not a big vocal leader. One year, $8 million has been really good and sets the standard. They're filling in for what Larry Fitzgerald would have been had he stuck around and right down the list, whether even their kicker is Matt Prater now. And it's like, all right, we don't talk kickers on million dollar picks too much, but the anxiety of like, all right,

Zane Gonzalez is our kicker and we need him in a big spot here to know that Matt Prater is a guy who's been around for a hundred years, still has a big leg and is going to kick and get you that kick. It's like there's stability at every position group. And I feel like there's no real holes until this team starts suffering from injuries. And they've had a few with Jones and Hudson, but they look like they're as good as any team in the NFL right now. And it's funny because you go down like the power rankings lists and every website does them. I don't think anyone has them as number one. It's almost like you're reluctant to give this to them because they just haven't been there yet. Yeah. Even on DVOA,

they're second. And you look at the top five with DVOA. DVOA now, you can go to Football Outsiders and check it out, but they have six weeks of evidence now, which is enough. Now this is like week six to 11. I really like DVOA because you can learn stuff about what kind of schedule was team playing. KC's played a really tough schedule so far. I think that matters when you're trying to factor in what happened to them. But DVOA right now, Buffalo first, Arizona second, Rams third, Tampa fourth, Dallas fifth, Baltimore sixth. I think we would have picked those six teams in some order, right? Nobody's missing from that party. I think those are the six teams that have the best chance to win the title right now. Yeah. And you and I talked about it and you and Sal talked about it on Monday. You picked those eight before the season, and it's kind of interchangeable with seven or eight. I don't think anyone had the Cardinals in that eight,

so you're reluctant to buy in on them after six weeks. But I do think we had two NFC West teams. We did. And we assumed it was the Rams, and the second one, I think we thought it would have been Seattle or San Francisco, right? So Arizona grabbed it. Yeah Rams and the second one, I think we thought it would have been Seattle or San Francisco, right? So Arizona grabbed it.

Yeah. And, and I think, uh, even around the league, people still are like, well, let's see how Kyler's holding up in November and December. As in like, he's going to get banged around at some point. And then you're going to see that thing that he does with the shoulder. And you're like, wait a second. Until then you got to give them the credit where credit's due. And I will say, I was one of the, I rolled my eyes at the contract they gave J.J. Watt. I thought paying big money for guys like James Conner and A.J. Green felt

like not desperate, but it felt like, all right, we're just going to collect a bunch of names because in that franchise's history, there is a visual of Emmett Smith in a Cardinals jersey. There is a visual of Edrin James in a Cardinals jersey. It's been that place where players go to wrap up their career on that final chapter. And yet, J.J. Watt is healthy. He looks good. A.J. Green is healthy. He looks good. Those guys are actually playing well. And yet, at the same time, I could see us in early December being like, man, remember the Cardinals when they were 6-0

and then J.J. Watt got hurt and Kyler got banged around. And this season, I know they only had in one week, but it feels like a substantial week. It really throws off my clock with this stuff. When you think like,

all right, we're six weeks in. It's still 11 more. We have 11 to go. Plus four playoff rounds with more teams in the playoffs. And it's such a long haul. That's why I'm trying to not get too crazy

about the Pats being two and four. They're going to be three and four by Sunday night. And at the same time, you look at the cards, six and O, who knows? They could be eight and four

in six weeks or whatever. I don't feel like there's a lot of cross-offs to me. The team that, I think Seattle, I think is at a real danger point because we know we're not getting Wilson back anytime soon and we know that defense has real issues. And I just look at them and I'm, you know, Solak and I talked about Jamal Adams on Tuesday,

how Solak had this great comparison about could he be the Ben Simmons of football where you have to figure out a specific way to use him or he can't succeed. Seattle is a team to me that I'm not sure what they do well. And it might just not be their year. And then you throw in schedule, conference, things like that. Is there another team like that for you

that we're giving the benefit of the doubt, but maybe we shouldn't? Because Seattle would be my pick. Yeah. Seattle, obviously. And I think a lot of people would point to the Chiefs and say they don't play. But then I look at the last 16 minutes of that Chiefs-Washington game and Bill, we had them in our teaser. It was like, oh, something clicked. Like three minutes left in the third quarter, Mahomes hits Tyreek Hill in the back of the end zone and it makes it 17-10. They win that game 31-10 running away. It felt like it would have been 100.

So that's open-ended right now. Yeah, the defense still can't stop anyone, but the Chiefs, it looks like they got their groove and it came in the sixth week of the season, 45 minutes into the game. Maybe that's what it took for the Super Bowl hangover to water. Maybe not. Maybe they just aren't who we thought they were.

Well, think about this with the Chiefs though. Because they are the classic we're going to feel dumb in four weeks probably. Of course. Played one of the worst, one of the hardest schedules so far.

They had some bad luck. They had two games they should have won and they just kind of screwed up. They have 14 turnovers and I've watched a lot of the Chiefs this year. Five or six of them were just kind of dumb. They were kind of like bad luck turnovers. So they're minus eight with turnovers.

But then, Jesus, you look at their offensive stats. It's still amazing. They have, they had like their first and first downs. They're like 61% on third down. No, it's every time they have a third down they have a three and five chance

of getting it plus the big plays and and I honestly think Darrell Williams is better for them than Edwards Hilarious. He looked good last week.

I think he's more reliable and I just could see you know, we could pivot to that Chiefs Titans game. If you want there, they're four and a half. I think it's probably a stay away, but I want to talk it out because you can make a case that Titans defense, which is not good. And they've already lost another person. And are they ever going to stop the chiefs? Like forget, I know

Derek Henry, let's give them, let's give them 240 rushing yards and let's give them two long touchdowns. Does it even matter? Are the chiefs just going to score every time they have the ball? Yeah. And they lost, you mentioned, they lost Caleb Farley, who was finally on the field. And then they lost Christian Fulton, who is a second year corner. So that's your two corners. Their defensive line has not looked good. And they had the emotional Monday night win. Got to factor that in. It was six days before this game. The problem that I have with picking KC or even touching this game is that it is in Tennessee. And it's like, if this was an arrowhead coming off that road win, it's like, all right, let's go. I would say, I think both teams are going to score points.

And I could see this one being an absolute shootout bonanza. One of the fun ones of the weekend. And again, in a week that there's really not many good games, this, to me at least, is one where we get two big offenses. I think the Chiefs could win, but I also could see the Titans going score for score for score with Kansas City because Kansas City cannot stop anyone. They still can.

Well, we have on Fando there's a bet. You could bet on the Chiefs over 31 points. And it's minus 116. Let's go. That's our first one. Put it in the books points. And it's minus 116. Let's go. That's our first one. Put it in the books. Yeah, it's a safe one because

we're not saying they're going to stop the Titans. We're just saying they're going to score probably every time they get the ball. And even if you say they have bad luck on a touchdown that turns into a field goal and they lose four points there, maybe they have a turnover in the red zone, they're going to have the ball seven times, eight times, and they score touchdowns. They're not

messing around this year. They're scoring touchdowns with this score. And could you see, I don't know, four touchdowns, two field goals seems realistic. So I like the 31. Yeah. And it's like Tyreek Hill, he's kill. He lead he's with Devante. They lead the league in receptions. Like, it's not like they're not getting their guys involved. Kelsey has been great. They, they have their stars. They still put up points. They don't punt the ball. I like Kansas city to score, uh, Derek Henry related. They have had success against him. Now he ran all over him in the regular season a couple of years ago, but in that AFC championship game, when he was on that tear and he lit up the Patriots and he lit up the Ravens and it was like, no one could stop him.

They held him under 70 yards that game. And it's like, I don't know if that matters two years later, their defense is even worse than it was that year. But I don't know, maybe mentally it's like we might get Chris Jones back. We have this Nick Bolton who had nine tackles last week that maybe he can do something. Thornhill in for Sorensen. The mere knowledge that Derrick Henry was on a hot streak before. We got the best of him.

We could do this again. Maybe that helps. Just even mentally. Well, I'll throw this at you. What happens if they, that Josh Allen, that incredible play when it seemed like

he got the first down and they probably should have challenged it on third down. And then all of a sudden he did. And all of a sudden it's fourth down. They run a really stupid QB sneak in my opinion. Yeah. Um,

but if they, he just gets the first down, if they, I feel like if they marked that correctly and the bills score and the Titans lose that game, how do we feel about this chiefs Titans game now throwing the injuries to what is the line going to be? I think it's probably

Chiefs by seven. So it feels like just those two plays on Monday night kind of shifted everyone. Oh, the Titans, maybe they're back. Derek Henry is going to run over the Chiefs. And all I know is the Chiefs are going to score points in this. They are. Taylor LeJuan is out. Julio Jones has a hamstring injury. There's a lot of injuries on that. It's almost like Tennessee won that game, but long-term, could they really be feeling the ramifications of that? Real quick, because we'll go through all the games, but the Derrick Henry season he's having,

I feel like last of a dying breed. The last time we'll ever see this, the way the NFL is going. I just want to appreciate it. I know we said there's 11 weeks left, but he's having the best season of his career. He's smashing records. He's on pace to have another 2,000-yard season. And this is a time where his contemporaries, the Saquons, the McCaffreys, the Camaras, the Nick Chubbs, they can't stay on the field or they can't do anything. Are we not appreciating what he's doing enough, or does he get enough appreciation for what

he's doing in 2021 doesn't get enough yeah I this leads me to something I was going to throw at you Chase Stewart on

footballperspective.com who does some really good stuff he did a a piece about the rushing leaders for 10 year spurts every year over the course of history so basically like from 84 to 93, from 85 to

94. So it's like the previous 10 years, who led the league the most? From 2011 to 2020, who do you think had the most rushing yards? So just before you answer that, I'll give you some examples. So OJ, 1966 to 1975, he's the leader. He was also the leader in the 10-year span starting in 67, 68, 69, 70, and 71. OJ, pretty good player. Yeah. For six straight years, he still had the most. Walter Payton was one, two, three, seven years. Dickerson was one, two, three, seven years. Sanders was et cetera, et cetera. Adrian Peterson was our leader from 17 to 2016. And again, from 08 to 17. LaShawn McCoy was 09 to 2018 and then 2010 to 2019. So who was the leader from 11 to 20? 11 to 20, I would still go Adrian Peterson. Is that wrong? It was Frank Gore.

Wow. It was like the biggest wow I've had in 2021. He would have been like my 100th guess. I think he's the fourth all-time leading rusher in NFL history. Quietly, Gore is going to be a first ballot hall of famer. Now, I know he hasn't put all the Super Bowl championships, but he's got the numbers. The other interesting one you mentioned is LaShawn McCoy, because he's not going to get a lot of Hall of Fame talk when he's up. But at the end of his career, he won a Super Bowl with the Buccaneers and the Chiefs. If you want to talk about a ring that... Does it matter what you did for that team, or does having a ring matter? Because he's got two Super Bowl rings and huge numbers as well.

And the running back position, which is where I'll go with Derrick Henry here, it's dying. The numbers fall off drastically. So I said this on Dan Patrick and I got a lot of feedback of like, don't try to be a hot take guy. It doesn't work for you. But if Derrick Henry never takes a snap again, is he a Hall of Famer? And everyone says no right away, but he's led the league in rushing twice. He's taken his team to the playoffs twice.

And I think in his generation, his time, he was the greatest running back for a nice four year span. If you want to write the history books, he's the best at his position for a nice chunk of time. I don't think it's that crazy to say if he finishes this season with 2,000 yards and never plays again, Derrick Henry might be going to Canton.

Terrell Davis had a similar, like if Henry's career stops today. Terrell Davis, I thought, was one of the five best running backs I've seen in my life. And he had to push him into Canton. He had two Super Bowls. He had two rings. He was better in the playoffs than he was in the regular season. That was stupid.

It took that long. One thing along your line on Henry. So if you look at this year by year with how many for the 10 year periods, like Sanders from 89 to 98 was over 15,000 yards. So that's the range is 13 to 15. It starts dipping until we get to like, like the last Tomlinson year was 03 to 12. It was only 10,765. The next year, Stephen Jackson was our 10 year leader, but he was, he was under 11,002. And then it kind of settles between 10

or 11. Last year was Frank Gore at 95, 86. Okay. So when you're talking about the last of a dying breed, Henry for his career, which started in 2016, he's at 66, 43 already. And if you figure add a thousand that 76, 43. So by next year, assuming he's still good, he'll be our guy for like five years in a row because nobody else is going to touch that. With the 17 games, which makes it all walk, like he might even put up more yards. He might put up 2,200 yards if he stays healthy. And I know we always roll our eyes about the player on Instagram who posts the video

and is like off season, like I'm going to do a box jump. And it's going to be the lead segment on Good Morning Football. Check out Juju Smith-Schuster's box jump. And that's what we do. And it's just like, I'm like, all right, they all work out. It's just Derek Henry apparently is like one of these guys that there is nothing in his life other than football. And it's, it's one of those deals where it's all about like body preservation, how he takes care of his body, dedicates to it. And it's like a very unique lifestyle. They remember we used to see the jerry rice like with the hills and all that stuff like

whatever that version is now is derrick henry where like he knows what he's dealing with he knows the hits he takes he knows the carries he takes and he builds his life around that and apparently it's not like he's going to have one of these massive drastic fallouts big falloffs because his body is built and his nutrition is built and his sleep habits are built for the exact style of play that he plays. Sounds Brady-esque. Yeah. The thing is he's already defied all the stats we have about, don't have over 400 carries in a season. You fall off a cliff. He's like, I'm cool. He has, out of any running back we've had, I think in the last two decades, has captured the experience of watching the guy who's too big for the high school game

just running amok. And he's the first NFL guy we've had like that in a long time where it's just like, it kind of seems unfair sometimes. Where it's like, how the fuck is that safety supposed to tackle him? Who else has it been? I don't even know.

Jim Brown highlights. Earl Campbell was like that for a couple years. Bo Jackson? Yeah, Bo Jackson. LeGarrette Blunt? No, I'm kidding. Alright, we're going to take a break and then we're going to do some million dollar picks.

As always with Schrags, we talk through what we're going to do with Million Dollar Picks. Last week, we won $527,000. Nice. We hit the Raiders. We had a really fun underdog parlay of Bears-Raiders for almost 6-1.

The Bears couldn't come through. They tried. They really did. They gave their best, and unfortunately, Aaron Rodgers owns them, as he mentioned. We are up 1.57 million for the season. Since

last year when you started coming out week 17, we are up almost 7 million bucks. Come on folks. Yeah, come on. It is true. People don't. We're like LeBron. Where's my credit? Where's my respect? Where's my respect? Alright, let's start with teasers. The teasers have been good for us.

There's a very obvious two-teamer. The Patriots are minus seven against the Jets. We don't need to belabor this one. The Patriots are, I think, going to beat the Jets. It's weirdly a must win. They can't go two and five. They've already killed the Jets before. I think the schedule they've had throughout the Miami game,

the first game, and the Jets game, but they've gone toe-to-toe with toe with Tampa and Dallas or two of the six best teams. I think they have a better sense of who they are and what they're good at. And I don't think they're going to mess around whether they went by three, seven, 20. I don't care.

I just need them to win by a point. Just 15 seconds. Is there any reason we shouldn't throw them in his teeth? No. And the way they play, they'll beat inferior teams. It's just going to be tough to beat great teams because they play so conservatively on offense and they just hang around.

They're not going to beat many teams by 30 points, but I think they'll beat the Jets straight up. Yes. Yeah. All right. So we got that. Packers are minus seven and a half against Washington. That line might've moved a little bit.

I don't love this Packers team. And now it's gotten to the point where the Packer fans are like, you should like Rogers. It's like, well, he's was kind of a diva this year, but I like money way more than whatever feelings I might have about a certain player.

I'm just like, I thought they could have lost the Bengals game. I don't think there has been a, you know, when they have a team on the ropes, they can kind of finish it, but I haven't seen like an ass kick game like what the Ravens played

with the Chargers last week. We haven't seen that from them from a really good team. Their schedule hasn't been that great. That line is still seven and a half. Okay. This is more a bet to me against the Washington Deadskins.

Talk about it. I agree with you. They just look so lifeless after having that early lead on the Saints and then the early lead on the Chiefs. They fell apart so quickly in the second half and then the third and fourth quarter that Chiefs, and I know it's the Chiefs, but that defense, we've talked about it for now, I don't know if it's a Jack Del Rio thing who's calling the plays. I don't know if it's a Jack Del Rio thing, who's calling the plays, I don't know if it's the players,

but that defense looks unrecognizable to last year's defense. Well, think about this. They're two plays away from 0-6. I know. They beat the Giants by one. What, the guy missed the field goal, right? We had an offside from a 340-pound

defensive lineman on a field goal that gave him We had an offside from a 340-pound defensive lineman on a field goal that gave him a second shot. All right, so there's one. Their other win was that ridiculous Atlanta game that they should have lost. They have, I think, a top three worst quarterback situation in the league. I'm going to admit defeat on Heineke.

He was frisky enough that I was like, maybe, but Fitzpatrick's out. So from a quarterback standpoint, disaster. They haven't had anyone rush for over 70 yards since week one. From a point standpoint, they've had some trouble, except for unless they're playing Atlanta or the Giants who have not great defenses, but their defense, everyone's like, ah, and we've talked about this before. Yeah. Chase Young's really good. I'm glad he's on the team,

but they can't cover anybody. And it just seems like this could be a surgical Rodgers, just, you know, this game is 28 to three by halftime. And we're wondering if Ron Rivera's in trouble. Yeah, and there's a little bit of a, does Bakhtiari get back? Does Marquez Valdez scantling? Like that's all common.

Like the Rodgers Packers have not looked crisp in their victories, and yet they're five and one, and they're getting guys back, like dogs. So I feel like to even be at this point for the Packers, I would expect them to have lost a couple of these games with all the injuries they've had. They're still hanging. I think this could be one of those games where you're right, Bill. I see them winning big on Washington, and it might not even be close. My fear is it looks too easy. So we're just going to acknowledge that and move on. Pat's Packers looks really easy to me and the EZT's has been winning pretty much every week. So I'm just, I'm acknowledging it. I'm marking. Well, I got something else to throw

you. A third team? Sal and I, we're, we're marking down Pat's Jets. We're doing that. So Sal and I were joking on a Sunday Pat's Jets. We're doing that. So Sal and I were joking on Sunday night about, because there's two huge lines, right? We have the Cardinals are favored by 17 and a half over the Texans. The Rams are favored by 15 and a half over the Lions, which in my opinion is actually too high. I was like, wow, I wish we could do a 16 point tease on FanDuel.

And FanDuel was like, you know, our friends at FanDuel, they were like, well, you can go up to 14 points. Did you know? And I was like, I didn't. I didn't know there was a 14-point tease. So if we did a 14 tease with the Pats, Packers, Cards, and Rams, 14-pointer, we could get minus 223. So we'd basically have to do 223,000 to win a hundred,

whatever it is. Yeah. Um, we would move the pats to plus seven Packers to plus six and a half cards to minus three and a half and then Rams to minus one and a half. All of them would have to cover and win. We could also throw the Chiefs in. They're minus 4.5. We could throw them in.

Now we're getting plus 9.5 with the Chiefs, and we're getting better odds. Now we're getting minus 177, so our odds drop. Those are the only five I could see. I didn't know if we wanted to take a flyer on this just for fun. It's fun. I know. Listen, you love fun gambling.

People will be rooting against us, which is always fun too. Cardinals, three and a half still seems like that's not like I think they'll win. Do you feel good that they'll beat the Texans by at least four? I would hate for that to be the root, like for the Cardinals to win by a field goal and us lose on that. You know what I mean? It's in Arizona.

We still don't have Taylor, right? Tyrod's not playing this week. No, no, no. Has he been attacked by the Chargers doctor again or no? If he's going to play, we'll get the Chargers doctor to go after. Yeah. I just, are the cards going to, is that going to be a three point game? Texans cards? I think the cards actually put up a 50 burger on them. This is JJ Watt and Deandre Hopkins against the Texans. I'm like, all right, I think they cards actually put up a 50 burger on them. This is JJ Watt and DeAndre Hopkins against the Texans. I'm like, all right, I think they're going to want to win that one. I think this goes big.

So we can put in the Chiefs and bring them to plus nine and a half, and we could just go minus 177. We could put 200K on that, and if we lose, we lose 177 times two. All right. Just for fun. I love this, Bill. Are you kidding? I love this. This is why we do this. I say Pat's Packers in one bucket. Yeah, that's going to be a bigger one. And then another one where we do this crazy 16 point, whatever you got going on. I can't- Is there any other team you would throw in for giving them 14 points? Some nominees. I'm looking.

Let's hear it. We could have the Bears getting 26 and a half points. We could also have the Bucs getting one and a half points. But the risk would be the Bears beating the Bucs. Yeah. What about the Raiders and the Eagles? So you'd have the raiders getting 11 points are we ready to believe in the raiders or is that like oh you're not ready to so who you believe in on that one i was gonna say is like do you think the eagles can keep it within

two scores of the raiders in a game i don't know i'd stay away from that for now but it's something to consider eagles aren't terrible and the raiders are coming off that really emotional win i don't know. I'd stay away from that for now, but it's something to consider. Eagles aren't terrible and the Raiders are coming off that really emotional win. I don't know. Let's stay away. Let's just go with what you had. I like what you had.

Well, let's talk it out though. We could do the... There's... Yeah, all right. The Raiders, you're right. Stay away. Ravens, we could bring to plus seven and a half. I'm not touching that one Bengals are really good man

I'm with you I'm with you Alright Well we'll mark that down We don't have a 6 team At some point The 6 team would be great Because then we could get the odds down

To like minus 125 Okay So keep that in mind For future things Alright Straight up Bets We have Chiefs over 31 points

We're going to go with that Love that So I agree with you I think Bengals-Ravens Is a stay away All right, straight up bets. We have Chiefs over 31 points. We're going to go with that. Love that. So I agree with you. I think Bengals-Ravens is a stay away. I had Bengals marked down for underdog parlay of the week. Bengals are getting six and a half points. They're getting plus 220.

Everyone is delighted by this Ravens team. It's the classic scenario of they looked awesome last week. Okay, well, Chargers really a little banged up on defense and it was also a terrible matchup for them. I didn't love the stuff they do. I don't... What is going on with them?

Why don't they just throw to Keenan Allen all the time? Like, when is Keenan Allen just not wide open? Like, free Keenan Allen. They're always like trying to, oh, let's get this guy. Let's go. We'll get Parham a pass.

Parham. How about this idea? Just throw it to Keenan Allen. He's open all the time. Let's get Jared Cook involved. Or jump balls to Mike Williams. Yeah. But anyway, it was a weird game.

I thought the Ravens got ahead. And once they have a 10-point lead, they're just death. That's it. You know? That's it. And everyone takes it as like insulting when you're like, well, they're better when they're in the lead

than from behind. And it's the way they play. It's a rolling ball downhill. That's just what they do. So once you get a lead on a team when you play the way they do, it's suffocating

because you don't get the ball back. The Bengals, we took the Lions last week on the expectation there would be a letdown. They blew out the line. Like, they're good. Well, you blew out the Lions. They're good. You know where they're good?

This is their biggest game in years. Their defense is actually good. I know. The stats back it up. The eye test backs it up. They're fast. They play with real pizzazz. It's one of those, when they're on defense, they make a play.

You see everybody on the sideline running out in the field with their fists up, stuff like that. And that's why I, I think they're a better play for underdog parlay of the week for a Bengals plus two 20. Like if we're taking that, I'm going in, I I'm taking them to win. I'm not the plus six and a half.

Cause there's a world there. The Ravens get the lead. And, but if this is like a three point game last, last quarter, they could, you know, chase could make a big play. I thought

on the gambling show on Wednesday, Solak and Sharp talked about this a little and they mentioned how Chase has been running amok against these teams that don't have a cornerback remotely resembling somebody like Humphrey. The Ravens could just be like, we're taking Chase out. Go somewhere else. Humphrey's arguably the most physical

corner in the league and he could just body him up. So that part worries me with the Bengals, but I think their defense most physical corner in the league, and he could just body him up. So that part worries me with the Bengals. But I think their defense can keep them in the game. Yeah. Why not? And Cincinnati, we had Trey Hendrickson, who's their defensive end, who was a big free agent signing and has five and a half sacks, is playing well.

You get the feeling like this, they haven't, since Cincinnati has changed from Marvin Lewis, is that they haven't had a big game. This is their first big game. It's actually the only game on the slate this week of two winning teams. Like I think it's the game of the week. I don't think they lay an egg. I really don't. I think they show up, they might not win, but they're going to keep that one competitive. I would think. All right. So we'll keep them. We'll, we'll consider them for underdog parlay Bears plus 12.5 against the Bucs I'm bringing this up for this reason

Well, first of all I don't think the Bears are bad Like, I actually think they have I would say somewhere between a good and a very good defense Sometimes it looks very good, other times good But it's always at least good I like the fact that Fields I just have liked what I've seen from him.

They're not going to be able to run the ball this game. There's a chance this one gets away. The only reason I mentioned this is I think this line is too high. I think this line should be like bucks nine and a half and you're getting three free points with the Bears. I'm just not sure I want them because this does feel like a game

if the Bucs went up early and it's 10-0 or 13-3. Like the Atlanta game? Yeah. They hang around. And now the Bears have to start throwing every down. I don't trust that they're going

to be able to do that. I will say the Bucs secondary, it's not like this is getting better for them. No, it's not. So my question for you is, can the Bears throw on them? Because if they can throw on them, there's at least garbage touchdown potential. There's at least 34-17. Bears have the ball late. Maybe they can sneak one in. I think this line's too high.

Fields is getting better and better every week. And the uh, you know, the guys in Chicago will tell you that he's also getting more vocal every week where he wasn't timid, but he was kind of like, I'm going to watch and learn. And, you know, and now it's like, he's starting to step into that role as like, all right, everyone get around me. I'll take thing with Tampa is they can just score so quickly. Remember that Miami game a couple of weeks ago, it was in Tampa. It was hot. It was early. And it was like, gosh, like you want to take Miami a little bit because they get no and Tampa just it's a B it's Evan. The games in Tampa scare me because they seem to roll up points in those games. And this is one of those where I'm not sure that they just put a, you know what?

I'm wishy-washy with you. I would say I think the Bears can keep it within 12 points. I do think that. So Chicago's got the seventh defense in DVOA. Yeah. They're better than the Dolphins. That's insulting for me to say that even.

Well, here's who they played for six weeks. The Rams where McVay broke out the kitchen sink a couple times. The Bengals good explosive offense held them to 17 times. The Bengals, good explosive offense,

held them to 17 points. The Browns, everyone was healthy at that point for them. The Lions, that was their one easy win. They played Las Vegas, only gave up nine.

And they played Green Bay last week. Green Bay got to 24. But, you know, they made them work in that game. I think they have a good defense and they have the kind of defense that they can push forward they can make Brady and they'll hit him a couple times

I think it's a kind of weirdly important game for them because I think the Bears think they're pretty good and they're still 3-3 they're not yeah they're not out of this they're in this thing 9-8 might be the 17 too so alright so we both think No, and they're still 3-3. They're not 3-6. They're in this thing. 9-8 might be the 17, too. All right, so we both think that line's too high.

We'll take the 12-and-a-half. I don't think they're going to win, but Raiders are minus three against the Eagles. What do you think of that? I fear a dip, and I know Raiders fans would say, well, F you. We just came into Denver and beat them

based on what we had last week. We're good. I need another couple of weeks of the Raiders to see because two weeks ago, and Gruden was still the coach and it was before all that stuff, the Bears went in there and beat them 20 to nine. I wouldn't touch this game. If anything, I kind of like the Eagles in this one. Just Eagles playing for everything in the hurt situation. I don't know if you saw the Philly Inquirer had a big article, like time to start Joe Flacco. And that's already happening over Minshew.

Not even over hurts over free Minshew. Um, but the feeling is this, they have three first round picks next year. They have the Colts pick the dolphins, pick their own pick right now. Those picks I think would be like two, six, and 15. You either package all that together and you trade for Rodgers or you trade for Russell Wilson or you trade for Watson or you package it

all together. You get whatever college quarterback you want. Unless Hertz wins these games and makes it an argument like we can win with Hertz. Why don't we use those picks for pieces around them? So I feel like there's a desperation here for the Eagles. I fear a huge emotional win last week for the Raiders and a letdown this week. I would either pick the Eagles or I would stay away from the Raiders just on how I've seen these things go year after year of emotional win.

Let's win one for this. And then the next week, like, oh shit, how do we sustain? Can I do a counter? Yeah, please. Do the Eagles care about this season? Because you just laid out the case

and Ben Solak did too when he was on here the other day where it's like, you know, they're playing 35 million less in cap space than everyone else.

This was supposed to be a borderline tank season. They're obviously playing Hurts, even though he's not their best QB, and just kind of seeing is there something here or is there not? I don't think Flacco's

their best QB. I think Michu is. I would die in that hell. And I read some Raiders stuff that was pretty insightful. Like Josh Jacobs had a coach. Who's the new coach? Who's the interim coach guy?

What's his name? Rich Passaccia. And he was like, look, there's just a calmness on the sidelines that I think really helped us. Instead of just having somebody screaming at you, like we just went about our business. I was like, oh, that's like a tangible thing.

They didn't like Gruden. And that was what we were hoping for when we took the Raiders last week. It was like, maybe Gruden's completely overrated. Maybe they didn't like him. Well, it's clear from the stuff that's come out, they didn't really like him. So I wonder, maybe this is for real.

And maybe this is kind of a fuck you tour for the Raiders. Could be. And then I'll be glad to roll with them. The word I got, and it comes from good sources, is that it felt like there was not a stink, but when the first few days they were all freaked out and upset and angry and confused. And then once it settled in that, wait, he's gone, you got to realize Gruden was in every room, every position group in the front office. He had input on every draft selection. Mayock's the GM. Gruden let his opinion heard. And sometimes

scouts would put a year worth of reports together and the draft would come around and Gruden would be like, I'm doing this. Well, what about the stuff where he was on a different floor than Mayock when they were doing the draft? That was jesus so like so you don't even have an inner circle it's just you and you're like the lord of the of the territory and he was empowered with all that where everything to the way they travel the way like things that should not necessarily i was told besides belichick and maybe even including belichick gruden had his fingerprints in more things around this franchise and so when he leaves the initial reaction is like, Oh shit,

how are we going to function without him? And what happens is we're all professionals. And when people leave, other people step up and yes, they stepped up on the field and played emotionally. But now it's like other coaches are like, wait a second. I can coach without looking over my shoulder.

Players are like, I can make a mistake and not have to fear going to the sideline. That could be really liberating. And that could be something that carries this team throughout the season. That said, this team was built in the Gruden mold. This team was buying in on the Gruden stuff. And I'd like to give it one more week before saying that they're just going to go on some torrid run right now.

All right, we're going to stay away. And then I'm going to end up betting this on Sunday the more I think about it. You'll do it with Henshin on the other text chain. I can't resist. That's what happened with the Vikings last week. I ended up betting the Vikings

and it was a freaking rollercoaster. I couldn't do it. We didn't do it on a million-dollar picks. By Sunday, I was like, ah, Vikings, minus two. Panthers, Giants. Giants are plus three

against the Panthers in Carolina. I continue to think the Panthers aren't that good. They are getting, is Gilmore officially back this week? He's on the team. He's practicing. I'm not sure if he's going to play though yet. They're still waiting on the quad.

But as of Thursday, he was in uniform practicing, wearing number nine. Right. I think it's a stay away. I just didn't know if you felt frisky at all about the Giants. The only thing about the Giants, and it wouldn't be a pro Panthers thing by any means, although Darnold looked good in that final drive finally last week. The Giants fan base is so low on this team right now. I came in week one

and I'm like, there's a 9-11 tribute. The Giants have this hype. The Giants crowd is going to lift them. But no fan base is maybe downer on their team than the Giants fans right now. They brought out the 2011 Super Bowl team at halftime last week where they were down 20 points and they were boos. And it's not because they don't love those guys. It's like, stop drenching us in this nostalgia. Not every halftime has to be bringing out the teams from the last two Super Bowl championships. And they're going to be doing it again November 28th when Strahan's jersey is retired. But there's this feeling of exasperation from Super Bowl championships. And they're going to be doing it again November 28th when Strahan's jersey's retired. But there's this feeling of exasperation from Giants fans. And I'm not sure if this thing,

the Panthers get up 7-0 early, if it's one of those games where, and Jets fans have felt it, Giants fans have felt it time and time again, where that fan base, it goes from being annoyed to being angry. And it's no way to play a football game for a team. We had that with the Celtics in the mid nineties when the team just wasn't

good anymore. And it was like the first, you know, it was kind of shocking. They'd been good for almost 14, 15 years in a row. Plus the Russell legacy and Cowans and have a check. All of a sudden we weren't.

And we, and when Reggie Lewis died, we didn't have even a star player. And it was the nostalgia stuff over and over again. It was like Larry Bird night, Kevin McHale night, Robert Parrish night, Reggie Lewis night.

And then it was like the end of the garden, everyone's coming back. And then it's like new building. And it was just, at some point you hit this saturation thing where you're like, all right, cool. Can we figure out like going forward what we look like versus like, you know, it's just standing ovations for guys in their mid forties.

I'll do respect to Amani Toomer and Hakeem Nicks. Like the Giants fan is done. Like I don't need to see Victor Cruz's salsa again. Like we get it. So like they are done with it. So this game has that sneaky, smelly feeling of like, we'll stay away. Exasperated Giants fan.

And that's the story coming out of this game of, of like the Giants being booed at home. One of those deals. Colts plus four against the 49ers. I, I'm not sure if Jimmy G is playing. I think it's a stay away. Um,

I almost feel like I even had it on the board just because we have fewer games. But to me, this is a, I'm going to actually watch this game carefully and figure out my feelings on each team because I haven't watched enough of each team yet. They have not really made the four TV wall that many times for that many minutes. And then the last one,

Seahawks plus five and a half against the Saints. Yeah. This is in Seattle. And we are now officially at this. And we see this happen in football every year where the team gets the respect because of the past performance stuff and the pedigree.

Yeah. But now we're at the point where if they lose this game, they're now one of like the six or seven worst teams in the league. And the Jets have their first round pick because of the Jamal Adams trade. Which leads me to the plus five and a half. It's like, they're not going to tank. They don't have their first round pick because of the Jamal Adams trade. Which leads me to the plus five and a half.

It's like, they're not going to tank. They don't have a first round pick. We have to win. It's like the Saints are that great. But you look at some of Seattle's, their defense is 32nd yards given up. They're less than 33% on third down. And you feel it when you're watching them. It's just really hard for them to move the ball.

They'll get some big plays, but this is not a 15-play drive team. And they just kind of seem caught between a couple different eras. And getting old in some spots, made the wrong bet in some other spots. I think it's probably a stay away. I didn't know if you wanted to make a case for them. They've lost two games now, the Titans one and the Rams one at home, which is so odd for them

before even Halloween with the 12s and all that. So now Saints come in. Your only reason is that you would say that the Saints, this is not do or die for the Saints. And for the Seahawks, it's like, this is it. You're not going two and five and making the playoffs in that loaded NFC. But if you have a choice to stay away, like we, we bet on, we picked the Seahawks last week and they were, they fought their asses off. They can't,

but didn't it feel like such a struggle just to even get to overtime that when they eventually lost to the Steelers, we were like, they weren't winning this game. There was no way they were winning. It was really, Ben was our best asset in that pick. And that was what the biggest reason we probably made it.

But Ben kept us in that game just because he's done at this point. So we should move them into the underdog parlay section, I think. Yes. Seahawks are plus 188. So our underdog parlay is this week. Bengals plus 220. Colts are plus 172 against the Niners. And the Seahawks are plus 188 against the Saints.

When we come back, the million dollar picks for week seven. Give us one let's go. I know the let's go critic was in your head. The guy, who was the guy on Twitter who said you did let's go

eight times? You have a let's go critic now. Let's go. All right. We'll be back in one second. All right. We talked it out. Even talked it out over the break a little bit. Trying to figure out some odds.

The Million Dollar Picks for week seven. To recap, we are up 1.57 million for the season. Five of six winning weeks. Our MVP has been Greg Butler who single-handedly swung. Greg Joseph! Greg Joseph and Greg Butler. Greg Joseph is our MVP.

He swung two games for us. And now, the Billion Dollar Picks for week seven. Give me one. Give me one. Let's go! Teaser. Packers minus seven and a half. Patriots minus seven.

We are going to tease those two together. The Pats have to beat the Jets by one. The Packers have to beat Washington by one and a half, putting 600. Oh, yeah. 600,000ets by one. The Packers have to beat Washington by one and a half, putting 600. 600,000 on that one. We're not done with the Pats and Packers either because FanDuel has five team teasers

for minus 177 14 point teases. We're just going to do it. We're going to give it a test drive. We're hopping in the car. Pats minus seven. Packers minus seven and a half cards, minus 17 and a half Rams, minus 15 and a half chiefs,

minus four and a half. We're teasing all of those games by 14 points. Pats plus seven. Okay. Packers plus six and a half cards, minus three and a half Rams, minus one and a half chiefs, plus nine and a half. All. Rams, minus 1.5. Chiefs, plus 9.5.

All the math to cover. Minus 177. Warren Sharpe is having a heart attack. There's points left off. You guys didn't do this right. No, he's so upset that we're doing this. This is such a bad idea. We're doing it anyway.

And we're going to try to win 200K on that. And if we lose, we lose 354,000. So just marking that down. Okay, straight up. Got two bets. Chiefs. The Chiefs will score more than 31 points.

Minus $116,000. We're going to put $200,000 on this. I like it. That's a careful bet. 32 and up we win. We're for points. 31 is a push. We think. How many points do you think they'll score against the Titans? If you had to guess. I like it. That's a carefree bet. 32 and up we win. We're for points. 31 is a push. Okay. We think, how many points do you think

they'll score against the Titans? If you had to guess, 40? 42. 42, okay. Feeling good about that. Bears. We both kind of like this Bears line.

Plus 12 and a half against the Bucs. We think it's too high. We think it should be minus nine. Yeah. Or minus nine and a half, something like that. Instead, we're be minus nine. Yeah. Or minus nine and a half, something like that.

Instead, we're getting all these extra points. Good defense. Top seven DVOA. We think they hang around. And we also think because of the Bucs secondary, there's some garbage time potential. Sure. For the Bears.

Maybe. A little Khalil Herbert action. Yeah. Who knows? Okay. So we're putting 200K on that. Underdog parlay of the week. We're the ambitious.

We haven't won one of these since week one. Now there's reasons for this. The underdogs have not been winning. It's not like we're picking the wrong ones. We just haven't seen the underdogs. We like to concentrate on the ones between like four points and eight points. The same reason we're winning all these teases every single week is why we're not winning the underdog parlays. Good point. Well said. Raiders, last week we had,

we needed the Bears to cooperate. Aaron Rodgers said, you forgot I pay rent on those guys. Well, this week we're going to do a mix and match of three teams we like. The Bengals to win outright against the Ravens. The Colts to win outright against the Niners, the Colts to win outright against the Niners, and the Seahawks to save their season against the Saints.

Here's what we're doing. 33K each on Bengals, Colts, plus 808. Bengals, Seahawks, plus 783. Colts, Seahawks, plus 684. So if two of those three win, we're golden. If they all lose, we lose 99,000. If you had asked me in August and September, would you ever bet on a Carson Wentz, Gino Smith parlay? I would say I would stay away, but Bill, it's week seven. I'm here for it. I'm in. And I got to be honest, it's a little irrational confidence from us this week

because we've been doing well. We have a five team tease and we have a ridiculous three different versions of an underdog parlay hoping to hit two instead of just betting all those teams straight up. That's why you come to the million dollar picks. And those were the million dollar picks for week seven. Peter Schrager, we'll see you on Good Morning Football.

We will see you on Fox on Sunday as well. And I will see you next week, my friend. I'll be texting you from the airplane on Sunday, freaking out as always. One of my favorite traditions. All right. See you next week. All right. My friend David Chang is here. Just seeing him makes me hungry. Every time we're together, I'm usually eating. This time we're both wearing headphones and staring at each other on a Zoom. You're in some city promoting the new Hulu show. What's the new Hulu show? The Next Thing You Eat. And yes, I am in New York City. I have not been here in a while, and it's good to be back. How's New York City? What's it looking like these days? It feels like pre-pandemic, but obviously not.

It's like 10% away from being back to normal, normal, which was a lot different. Yeah. New York's awesome. It's not going anywhere. It's good to be back.

Really good to be back. Well, don't like it too much. I need you in LA. No, no. You're one of the few people I still eat with. All right. So your new Hulu show, just describe it in 30 seconds and then we can move on to making fun of Dan Snyder. Yeah. Well, we are taking a look at what's around the corner in food, right? All of these changes

and trying to find the hope that's in food, in culture, how technology is making things better and worse, and trying to ask ourselves what it all means. And it's out streaming on Hulu now. I have an idea for you. You and I are going to make this together because you like making products now. Yeah. Pizza, a thing that we all eat and you never finish it and you put it in your fridge, right? And there's always like the two or the three slices left. And we've never figured out the perfect way to reheat that pizza so it can match the magic of the initial 20 minutes after you order the pizza, right? So the options are microwave it. It's going to suck. You get a fork. It's a little gooey, but it's still kind of fun.

Eat it cold like Sylvester Stallone did in Cobra where he cuts it with the scissors, which I always appreciated. We talked about that in rewatchables recently. Or preheat the oven. Get the oven nice and toasty. But now I need like, you need like a pizza stone. Now I need to buy stuff.

If you put it in the toaster, it will melt on the metal part of the toaster. Then you smell it for like a month after, which I may or may not have done recently and my wife's still pissed about it, but I do like the smell of burnt pizza. Here's what we need. A pizza toaster. It's a toaster, but you can put the slices in, but it's got some space so it doesn't fall over and melt on anything. But it's not like the pizza oven that the traditional one, the little mini one, because I don't really like those either. A pizza toaster that is perfectly, it's triangle size so the slices go in and yet it's

not melting on anything. And I put it in and it bakes it correctly. Your thoughts? I want to almost ask Kyle, what am I supposed to respond? I don't know what to do. And I think Kyle, like this is this is at one hand total insanity of an idea and also maybe useful for two or three people. Bill Simmons being one of them. Thumbs down. I'm out. Shark Tank, I'm out. I've been kicked out of the Shark Tank room.

A toaster oven is going to be just fine. I don't think you're going to find somebody or who knows, right? If you go online and you search for culinary gadgets, you're going to find the dumbest shit out there. So I don't want to say this is the dumbest shit I've ever heard. It could really be useful,

but you have things out there that can work toaster. You're right. So just put it on a tray, put it on some aluminum foil. But I think most people seem to have air fryers these days. Air fryer is an air fryer. Yeah. Yeah. And I hate the air fryer. I don't, I will never own one, but I know that it reheats pizza extremely well. Yeah. Kyle, can you pop on for one second? Kyle, you've had some leftover pizza in your fridge from time to time. If you had the pizza-oaster, or whatever we call it, you wouldn't use this?

You wouldn't have this in your house? I got to be honest, the toaster oven changed my life. I don't even use the oven. If it can't fit in the toaster oven, I'm not even cooking it anymore. Yeah, so basically a toaster oven is the way to go. I just feel like, for some reason, I feel like they're a fire hazard. And maybe it's because I had them in college

and we had the cheap ones and they literally were a fire hazard and almost set our apartment on fire. But I always worry about, they're like space heaters to me, where I always feel like there's something about an oven in a little tiny space heating to 500 degrees makes me nervous.

They're amazing. My one regret about where I'm living right now is there's no space for a toaster oven. But I think a toaster oven is one of the great culinary inventions of the past 100 years. All right, you're right. Got it, got it, you got it.

Better for the pizza bagels. All right, you're right. Got it, got it, you got it. Better for the pizza bagels. All right, you shit on my pizza toaster idea. What is the food of the year? We have two months left. What's been the biggest kind of trendy, fun, invigorated comeback? What is it? Well, for me, now living in Los Angeles, living near Glendale, I've been eating extraordinary amounts of kebabs, mainly Armenian kebabs.

And I need to I need to fold you into this because this is some of the best in class eating in all of Los Angeles. It is. I mean, I don't know why people don't talk about maybe people do talk about it enough, but, you know, it's unreal. Mini kebab, hamlet's kitchen there's like 1500 places literally that you can get some of the best food in the greater los angeles area but i think one of the my my prediction overall is you're gonna see more peruvian spots oh interesting yeah it's the food of peru of peru uh a lot of the new restaurants i I think, are going to be messing around with making that a little bit more popular. And it's one of the few areas of the world that I know very little about,

but I know that it's a merger of so many different parts of the world in terms of cuisine, and it's delicious. One of the great things about the kebab is that you can recreate the kebab experience if you have the right grill and the right ingredients. You can get to 80% of what the best restaurant could. No way. I disagree. That's no way.

You never had my wife's kebabs. Alright, 70%. No. I absolutely disagree. There's no way. I think your wife is an extraordinary person and a great cook, but there's no way you can get close to these kebab masters. There's no way.

You can't do it. You can't do it. I can't get to 70% of an awesome kebab. Could you be 70% of Jason Tatum on a basketball court? Well, last night I could have been. Four for 30. Man, what a bad game for you guys. Holy hell.

All right, tell me what the kebab masters, what are they doing differently? No, I think what, first of all, it's the grinding of the meat, the hand chopping. It's the selection of spices. It's the lavash. It's the grilling. It's, again, it seems simple,

but it's deceivingly complex. So I just suggest you go there. One of the things I've learned and discovered about kebabs, it delivers extremely well. It is one of the best deliver foods or takeaway foods you can get. I really, I did not know this

until the beginning of the pandemic. I have had more kebabs than probably any other food in the past 18 plus months. I remember in the early stages of the pandemic. I have had more kebabs than probably any other food in the past 18 plus months. I remember in the early stages of the pandemic, we talked about this. Foods that,

delivery foods, because it was clear we were just getting delivery stuff and about what plays well, what doesn't, and how like chicken parmesan for some reason always played as a delivery food.

Other things didn't. Fish is always a little dicey. You just never know. You can't get fish delivered. You cannot get fish delivered. Sushi is pretty solid and reliable, I think. Well, you know, a specific kind of sushi. We talk a lot about this in the Hulu show.

Most people that eat sushi, I think, think of it as just maki rolls and California rolls and spicy tuna rolls. I eat the shit out of that. But for whatever reason, it delivers really well. Sugar fish. I don't know. I think one of the most delivered foods in New York and L.A. is probably sushi.

Would you have guessed 20 years ago that people would be eating raw fish? No way. No, I mean, I'm old enough to remember when we were confused by sushi why when people would order it like wait a second that's gonna go bad are you gonna get a bacterial infection you know and then eventually then you just give your my stepmother was the first person she would eat sushi put it in the fridge what she didn't eat and for the next four days would continue to eat it and my dad and i would be like, they're going to be removing all of your intestines. But she was always fine.

That's not something you should do. I agree. But people need to know sushi is a lot of, not misinformation, but a lot of sushi is aged. A lot of fish in sushi restaurants is not fresh. Yes, it's fresh, but it's aged. And this is where we go, Bill, because I know you're anti dry-aged meat. A lot

of the best sushi is dry-aged as well. You just don't know. I think, first of all, anti dry-aged meat is a typical mischaracterization from you. You and Cho are anti... I just I just feel like

I wouldn't say equivalent like anti-vaxxers of dry aged beef but you're like in that universe you guys don't like dry aged beef yeah

I like that we're the anti-vaxxers of dry aged meat well here's here's my case they they just add $50 to

whatever the total of the steak is and then it most of the time is going to give you diarrhea afterwards. And everybody's like, oh, delicious. It is delicious. I only had diarrhea for three hours.

Bill literally said he wasn't an anti-vaxxer of beef. But clearly, if you just listen to what he said, he is the anti-vaxxer of dry-aged beef. You just are. You just own it. Just own it. It's fine. By the way, this is what we do every time Chang and I see each are. You just own it. Just own it. It's fine. By the way, this is what we do

every time Chang and I see each other. We argue about food. Does anyone annoy you more with their food opinions than me or is there anybody else in your life?

Bill Simmons is the only person I know of that has goaded me. Goaded me into putting a dish on the menu because he figured out how to get me to do things against my wishes.

See, I take credit for the mac and cheese thing you did too for Majordomo. I felt like I challenged you there too when I was telling you how good my mac and cheese was, which it really is delicious. I will never. I'm not falling for your games anymore. No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not falling for those games. You got me on the French fries and that's it.

That's where the buck stops. You actually have a dish named after you at Major Domo. BS fries. That's it. You've reached the pinnacle. I'm very proud. One of the things you did for me during the pandemic, and this was really from your other show

where you talked about the power of dominoes, which reinvigorated the Simmons family with dominoes. And this is not an ad, by the way. They're not sponsoring it. Dominoes, just really reliable. Even in the pandemic, they're there in 28 minutes. You can really tell you what, and it just comes and it's solid

and it just does the job. It's like a reliever coming in, just striking out the side, taking you to the eighth inning. I job. It's like a reliever coming in, just striking out the side, taking me to the eighth inning. I, I, I mean, everyone's like,

Oh, Domino's must've paid you. If I was smart enough. Yeah, I would have done that, but no, I grew up eating Domino's and that's why we talked about pizza. It's,

it's like, you can really sort of judge somebody about what kind of pizza you say you like. And if my first pizza I've ever had in my life was Domino's and I think it's delicious, you can't like talk shit about it. It's a nostalgia thing. And here's the other thing. It comes extremely fast.

I think I do try to temper this by trying to buy pizza from local shops. But every once in a while, I do sprinkle in a Domino's for sure. Yeah. And it's nice and hot. I think in general, the fast food places have gotten better, you know, much like anything else, much like at basketball,

we got better at figuring out, shoot more three pointers. You'll score more points, stuff like that. There's stuff like some of the McDonald's stuff from time to time, my son will make us go to McDonald's. Like some of their stuff, the spicy chicken,

it's just really good. It's really tasty for fast food. I know it chicken, it's just really good. It's really tasty for fast food. I know. It's hard for me. I get it. You're comparing it to like the greats, but just for a serviceable, whatever.

Joe House was talking recently about how his son's out of McDonald's phase right now. And just like the double, the double cheeseburger, just still really good. I think McDonald's is important for American teens

to get the calories they need as they grow. It's like, what else can you have one hamburger and it's your daily worth of fat and calories? Fair. Want to talk about Snyder? Do we have to? Yeah. God damn it.

I think this is how we got to know each other when I did the Snyder piece about Grant Land. That's right. About what a terrible owner he was. And you were kind of half-jokingly saying you're going to put together a team. Now it's gotten to the point where they're like speed rush retiring Sean Taylor's jersey, a beloved Washington football player. They speed retire it, do it half-assed. Snyder's wearing a hoodie at the photo thing.

The fans for the games now, it's like two-thirds fans of the other team. Nobody from Washington wants to go. And then it's like, well, we're going to build this new stadium and we're going to redo our FK and we'll get everybody back. It does feel like something's broken here that cannot be healed. It's clearly coming from Daniel Snyder. After Sterling, what's his name from the Clippers? Donald Sterling, yeah. After he disappeared,

I think Snyder picked up the mantle as worst owner of professional sports. I think it's very possible. Yeah, very possible. If you're putting together the formula of what are all the ways you can be the worst owner. I mean, Sterling was, you know, he was the Michael Jordan of bad owners.

But Snyder really checks some boxes. Like he's driven away fans. The team's terrible. He sucked the will out of the fan base in the city to like football, which is a really rare thing. It's hard to do.

He seems unlikable. He over and over again makes bad decisions. He's the only owner that was bullish on Jeff George as a quarterback. Just think about that. Just think about that. He's over and over again offended different groups of

people, which is pretty hard to do. Over and over again, the cheerleader stuff with him has been really, really bad. Bill, I can't root for them, and I haven't rooted for them, but I still, when I see the scores, part of me growing up being

a Washington football team fan, going to RFK when Jack Hankook was there, one of the great owners in sports. I still privately root for them, but I can't root for them. It's a weird place. Joe House knows exactly how I feel. Every football fan of this team feels the same way. It's sad. I don't think the only thing that's worse is maybe being a Chicago bears fan just because they're or lions fan,

but they're, they don't have bad ownership like we do. Yeah. There's still like a community. Cause at least they're bonded by something. The Washington fans, I don't even know what they're bonded by. And a lot of the Washington fans I know are just doing more fantasy,

high end fantasy and gambling, like you and House. You've supplanted your favorite team with just things that are actually maybe not great for you as human beings. Things that I love. We are the polar opposite of the Boston

area sports franchises. We really are. I think the Capitals winning and the Nats won the World Series too. Did the Nats win the World Series? Did I block that out of the way? Yeah, you got two. You're fine. It wasn't like a rising tide that lifted all boats. In fact, it was like a sinkhole.

Just everything got worse. I'm so jealous. I will always be jealous of you and the Boston sports teams. It's just, I can't even imagine what my life would be like. I will always be jealous of you and the Boston sports teams. It's just, I can't even imagine what my life would be like. I think I would be actually happy as an individual.

Happier? No, like permanently happy. I don't believe that. You're playing golf again though. A little bit. I picked it up over the summer again and I played a lot not played I practiced a lot

I probably played five rounds and I haven't had the chance to play since the summer ended but it's something I think about and I'm worried that if I go down that rabbit hole you will never see me again ever no I will see you again because I'll be playing with you.

I'm ready. Let's make the leap together like Thelma and Louise. I'm in. But here's the thing. If I do it, I want to push myself to the point where I can play competitively again. Whether it's local amateur tournaments or who knows what could happen. Well, why can't you

be like Kenny G and Jack Wagner? You being the celebrity ones. Your account is a celebrity. I'm too competitive because if I do that, then I have to beat the shit out of everybody. And I think really the best celebrity golfer is probably Steph Curry. His swing is extraordinarily good. And he's got all that torque.

Yeah, he's got the hand eye. He's only 33 years old. He could actually make the tour, I think, if he focused on it. He's just that kind of athlete. So I don't think that I could ever. I don't know. I can't be bad. I don't want to be a bad pro-am tournament golfer.

Have you played in one of those before? No. No. Yeah. Why would you do that? I would have to be really good to want to do that. I would have to be consistently low to mid 80s, playing like four to five times a week.

Can we make a public challenge to each other? Yeah. We choose a date. Can we make a public challenge to each other? Yeah. We choose a date. We choose some tournament pro-am two, three years out. And we try to play. Let's do three years out. I'll be gone by then.

Nobody will even know where I am. I'll just pop out for golf tournaments and that's it. People are going to miss me when I'm gone. I'm telling you. I told you when you had a second kid, it was going to be like the first kid's like a torn ACL. And then a second kid is like a torn Achilles. It's a longer recovery. You're feeling it now.

You have a new child. I have told everybody that same analogy. And I have not torn my ACL or my Achilles, but now I know exactly how it would feel like because that's what is happening. It is so hard. You can still suit up. You can still run through the motions.

You're just completely compromised physically. I don't even know why it's so exhausting. I have no idea why it's so exhausting. And you forget everything. You forget how hard it was. And for us the people that don't give birth like we have really nothing to complain about but still like i don't know like you're not sleeping you got to help out everywhere i i'm not i'm enjoying it but

also i'm like just sort of fast forward get to sort sort of where Hugo's at right now. But Hugo's actually 90% amazing, but the 10% when he throws a temper tantrum, it's very hard. It's very hard. And I'm on full-time Hugo duty most of the time. Well, as I told you, little boys are dumb assholes.

And you just have to factor that in for about seven years. They're just dumb assholes. Oh my gosh. It's so funny because we have a male dog who's just turned one, my guy Murph. Same thing, just a dumb asshole. And it's just like having a little boy. And then eventually, when Ben hit nine or 10, it's like, oh, you're actually not a dumb asshole anymore. But he was now now when he's being an asshole

it's intentional but when they're little kids they can't help themselves it's fundamentally they're dumb assholes i haven't seen your son i saw him recently and i hadn't seen him like since the pandemic started he's like a man he's like a grown man i don't know what happened this is how it goes they hit they hit like nine and then it's like boom they're. I don't know what happened. This is how it goes. They hit like nine and then it's like, boom. They're like, within four years, they're just men.

Then you have to start having the conversation. Could they kick your ass or not? I think he can kick your ass. Oh, I think he could too. I feel like he, I'm still a favorite because I think I know

how to cheat better than he does probably in a fight. But he should win. He should be able to beat me. He's tough. He should. There's no question.

He should. Um, he loves the thing. Um, the, the noodles that you just released. Yeah. Well,

you can get them at target. Um, they're, they're momofuku noodles and there are three different flavors, spicy soy and tingly. Um, this is by the way, an organic plug. You sent us some.

My son loves ramen more than anything. I think a lot of people really love ramen. If you did their food rankings, desert island thing, ramen would be number one for a surprising amount of people. And this is the best. He thinks this is the number one ramen he's had. And it's not ramen. You're calling it noodles, But it's same ballpark.

But what we really wanted to do was treat it like mac and cheese. Like Kraft mac and cheese. You cook the noodles and you add sauce and you're done. Yes. He's been doing it at all hours of the night. Even at like 1130 midnight. Probably the

wrong time to eat the major doughnut noodles. He's a growing boy. He needs to eat calories all. He's a big kid now. He's got to be consuming like 4,000 calories a day. I still feel like I can make better mac and cheese than you. Like if it was just like all of a sudden gun

gun, like you just show up and we just all of a sudden I break out pots and ingredients. I still feel like I can hang with you. You have the home food advantage. You're like, oh, well, let me grab this. And you grab your kitchen. If you were in my kitchen, I just get, I feel like I could, could be very close. You know what I'm doing? I think I've wised

up a little bit. Bill, you're right. You would have, you would be, you would. Where do you stand on potatoes or gratin? Underrated. Yeah, agree. What about when it's made in the glass thing? Where you have to put sticks on the side of the glass? The crunchy bits?

Yeah. It's also extremely easy to make. People need to make it more. And I made it two times in six months, which is like a record. I don't usually make anything twice because it's so easy to make. You just slice some potatoes,

add some cream, garlic if you want, or whatever. Butter, no butter, cream and milk. That's it. Cover it, put it in the oven, 450 degrees. You're done. My mom and Kyle had some for my birthday made us brajals and meatballs, but the brajals were made out of filet mignon meat. And it was out of control. And then I had to like monitor Kyle because Kyle was going to do that thing where he was going to have too much of everything because he just, he becomes like a dog.

He's just going to keep eating. I could feel you watching me. I could. I was monitoring Kyle the whole time. But the Brijals with the filet mignon meat, I thought took it to another level. I was pretty excited about it. I trust Kyle's palate more than yours, Bill.

Kyle, was it extraordinary? Was it a 9 out of 10? It was so good that I was going to go against his, which it was for his birthday too, which is why I did it. But I was just kind of waiting for him to watch, turn back to the midday game so I could go have a couple others.

Go sneak in for like the fourth and fifth meatball. How dare you say Kyle's Palate you trust it more than mine? That's bullshit. You think Kyle's ordering the stews from Koreatown on Postmates and Caviar? No, that's bullshit. I'm so proud of you, Bill. I don't think people realize how much Bill is like exploring Koreatatown on his own and and it's pretty great it's pretty great i i think it took him some time to realize that he's living next to arguably the

greatest eating in america some of the greatest eating it took too much time i agree too much time yeah but now you're doing it and he sends me photos and i couldn't be more proud like he really you know i think there was some debate in the in my art group of friends did that we did we hand bill you know membership in our eating club too early right are we showing him the secrets is he going to actually see is he going to take care of this yeah like we were a little worried that you might be playing like bill i mean uh ben simmons on the sixes you you could have that attitude but we're all wrong care of this. Yeah, like we were a little worried that you might be playing like Ben Simmons on the Sixers. You could have that

attitude, but we're all wrong. You put the work in, you love practicing, and you're ready for the next meal. So we're excited. We got to get that on the book soon. The stews, the stew scene in Koreatown, that's my jam.

People need to know he's not just eating, he's eating sundubu jjigae kimchi sundubu jjigae guys I'm so proud that that's your go to it's amazing there's a weird parallel with Italian food that I can't put my finger on where it's like it's rich

and spicy like if you have like the right kind of meat sauce with spicy sausage in it, and something funky happens, and there's this richness and almost sweetness as it's spicy at the same time, that's where I want to get to with some of the stews. And the Sun Yung Don is the best one for it. And they deliver it.

It's like $100, but it's like this giant, big-ass thing. It's worth it. You get the big stews. You get the big braises. But their soups and stews are really good. All right. As my dogs start barking, we're going to wrap this up. Shank, the Hulu show.

It's out. People can watch it. It's on Hulu. I got a cookbook coming out. We wrote it with Priya Krishna. You can buy that anywhere you buy books called Cooking at Home. And yeah. Thank you, Bill. And the Dave Chang Show.

Don't forget about that. And don't forget about Recipe Club as well on the Ringer Podcast Network. All right, Chang. Good to see you. Good luck with the show. Thanks, guys. All right.

This podcast was produced by Kyle Creighton. I'll be back on Sunday night with the cuz, talking football and a whole bunch more. Don't forget to check out the Ringer Podcasts. Oh, and the Rewatchables, Monday. It's finally happening. Halloween.

Me and Chris Ryan, we're doing it. Monday. Been circling this one for a while. I have a lot of Michael Myers thoughts. I mean a lot. See you on Sunday. See you on Sunday. I feel it's within. On the wayside. I'm a person.

I never was. And I don't have to be.