NBA Lie Detectors, Duren’s Future, Tomlin’s TV Splash, and a 2026 Sports Media Check With Kirk Goldsberry and Bryan Curtis
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00:43 We did 13 going on 30. We also premiered a hockey podcast. We've never had a hockey podcast, not at Grantland, not at the Ringer. Now we have one. It's the What Chaos Show. It's been around for a couple years. It is the best NHL podcast. Please go check it out.
00:57 The season started this week. These guys are great. They feel very ringery. And I mean that as the highest compliment I can give. I'm hopefully going on there next week or at some point this month to talk a little puck because we now have an 84 game regular season. Somebody decided the NHL season needed to be longer, apparently. WMBA playoffs and full swing.
01:17 You can follow the Ringer WMBA show as well. We'll be covering all the stuff, including the link's already out. Miles got hurt. The Liberty got healthy for a brief second. I think the fact that the league stopped for three weeks probably helped. but they knocked out the links so they're out fever beat the aces tonight and we have a fever aces pivotal game three coming up um let's see what happens so baseball playoffs started today you heard me talk to sal on sunday about how i was not optimistic about the red sox i think he
01:55 thought i was doing like a reverse jinx thing the red sox offense died at some point in augusts This team peaked in July and August with that incredible win streak. They won the city back. They ended up getting the manager. He had the interim manager removed. He became the full manager, Chad Tracy. The GM, Breslo, somehow got an extension through. He was supposed to go through 28.
02:22 Now it's through 29 and 30. Still unclear why he got an extension because if you watch tonight. This team, Raphaela, barely played in September. Contreras, who was hurt off and on for different reasons, the second half of the year and got hit in the hand two weeks ago.
02:40 And he hasn't been the same. Trevor Story died five years ago. Gasper carried the offense for two, three weeks there, and then got hurt, of course, right before the playoffs. So he's nowhere to be seen. Roman Anthony, who was hurt all year,
02:56 came back, was a house of fire for a week, didn't look terrible. started to show signs of life here down the stretch this final week and apparently got hurt again because he left halfway through the game symbolically. But the game was already over because the Yankees had already scored two runs and there was no way the Red Sox were going to score three against Schlittler in the Yankee bullpen. Look, this was a pretty limited Red Sox team that couldn't score and their only chance in this series were one-nothing, two-to-one, those type of games.
03:27 And once the Yankees were able to be able to play. put more runs than that. That was it. I did not agree with the Peyton Tolly decision and take him out in the fifth inning and bring him Miller, who has not pitched well all month. I don't know why they did that. I thought totally, especially in Yankee Stadium in a big spot, I just trusted him to come through. I thought he was going to come through and pitch at least six innings tonight, but Schlittler was amazing. The two best pitchers that I saw this year were him and C-Sin, the Blue Jays, but Schlittler did everything he had to do. Ben Rice, who has turned into a Red Sox killer. They talked about it during the game. He's from Cohasset. Somehow as a Yankee fan,
04:03 seems like he hits the hell out of the Red Sox all the time. So anyway, they won game one. They were supposed to win game one. I have no idea why they were only, I think, like minus 170 favorites for the series because, again, the Red Sox offense is effectively dead, especially Obrayah, who I didn't even mention, who hasn't hit for a month either. So I don't know where the runs are supposed to come from. I said to Sal on Sunday, I probably trusted Anthony and Sogaard the most of anyone in the lineup. And Anthony is now gone and I do not have high hopes for the rest of this. But the good news is the Patriots are disaster. Yeah, if you're doing the Boston sports, what team do I feel best about? I think it's
04:41 the Celtics. Then we had the Pats playing in Buffalo this weekend. This is, you're not going to feel bad for me. I don't expect your sympathy. But this was not a great Boston sports stretch, especially when you think Anthony and Drake May and Tatum were supposed to be the three people basically carrying those three teams and the young superstars all under 30 Anthony and May even younger than that and now have serious concerns about two of them
05:14 can Anthony stay in the field is Drake May where is he mentally? I was driving around my daughter at a game yesterday and I was driving, I was listening to WWI. and they had their weekly Drake May interview, which for some reason he decided to do, I guess he had to contractually. And they asked him about his shoulder,
05:33 and he just gave a non-answer. And then they were like, hey, can you answer this? And pivoted back. And he just didn't answer it. So it doesn't seem like he's healthy. I've narrowed it down to his shoulder and his head are the two things to be concerned about here. And I don't feel great about either.
05:52 They play Buffalo this weekend. We will talk about it on the podcast on Thursday. Coming up on this podcast, we're going to talk to Kurt Goldsbury about a bunch of NBA Media Day opening topics, all kinds of things. And then Brian Curtis, everyone's why I have Brian Curtis on talk about a bunch of sports media stuff. We want to talk about football broadcasters, Mike Tomlin, best, worst playoff, play-by-playing and color guys and all kinds. And we ended up talking about writing and had a typical combo that Curtis and I usually. have, which I really enjoyed.
06:24 Enjoyed the whole podcast. Enjoyed everything except for the Red Sox laying a stink egg in Yankee Stadium today. We're going to take a break, Pearl Jam, and then come back with Kirk Goldsbury right after this. The Bill Simmons podcast is presented by Fandall. The NFL is here and it's the most rewarding season ever on Fandall with the all-time Fandle rewards club. Every eligible bet can earn your points.
06:47 Win or lose, you still get points. The more points, the bigger the rewards you can unlock. head to fandal.com slash BS to start earning with Fandul rewards club. 21 plus select states are 18 plus D.C. or Wyoming, getting a problem called 1-800-Gand-or call 888 7-777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. Her Coltsbair is here recording this part of the podcast mid-afternoon Pacific time on Tuesday. You don't know this, but this is an all-Texas podcast because Brian Curtis is the other guest. Welcome to you.
07:46 Yeah, you went to a game. together recently too. We went to the Ohio State game, which was an incredible moment. I promised my students bill, if we won that game, I would grow a mustache and wouldn't shave it until the Texas football team lost. So after a tight game in Tennessee, I still have this stupid mustache. I thought you were just prepping for November, but no, it was you bet your students. I love it.
08:10 Okay. Yeah. Speaking of bets, Durran on the Pistons is betting that $200,000. million dollars or whatever they offered is, there's more out there. This is turning into one of the weirdest contract stories we've had. I wasn't
08:27 really buying in on this and Jayland Duren actually pushing his way out. And yet, now it feels like he might, there's a possibility he might push his way out. Are you following this story and how real do you think this is? Oh, it's incredibly real. I think when it gets
08:43 the media day and this dude isn't there and he's not on the roster and I have a take. Usually I'm pretty nuanced on this stuff, but I think this young man bill needs to take the money. Five years, $200 million. He just had an awkward playoff run to be kind. To say the least, yeah.
09:02 But I think he needs to take the money. The game has changed. The salary cap system has changed in an era bill where we have this hard cap, and let's call it what it is a hard cap, the second apron. Overpaying top talent is a cardinal sin in the league. And I think some of the league's agents aren't doing a great job of updating their players,
09:22 that this is just a different era. Five years, $200 million at age 22. That's a great deal. Maybe I'm an old grumpy dude at this point, but I think he's got to take it. No, but you're talking about it realistically in a league where I think six centers out of 30 teams are making $35 million or more, right? And out of those six, probably four of the teams regret the contract, I would say. And one more thing. And the guys that are making that money and Bede, Wembeen Yama, Joker, what have they done? Bill, they've completely reinvented the position.
09:55 Yeah. They dribble, pass, and shoot the heck out of the ball. And Duren is kind of old school. That's why I love his game. He's like a big that you and I grew up with. Right. But I think he's got to take this money and move on. Well, you look at the Celtics, right?
10:10 They have Mitchell Robinson and they have Keda, who this year are going to be making less than $18 million, Next year, Kate's extension kicks in, and him and Robinson will be making $28 million combined. And I really liked Dern. I thought he was a huge part. I've talked about this before. I thought he was a huge part of the identity of that Pistons team. But I don't think you, if those two guys together are making 28 and I have to pay Dern and Paul Reed, you know, almost 50 million bucks, I just don't think that makes sense with the way
10:44 the NBA is. I don't think the position is valuable enough and it's too easy to be able to patch unless it's Yokage, right? If it's somebody on that level, sure. Because now it's a superstar thing. I think it's hard with the centers because you can play some of them off the floor.
11:01 You have situations like you had in the playoffs last year. His age is the right age, but it feels like there's bad blood, which is sometimes doesn't go away. This has been a legacy of the NBA where sometimes the staring contest, like 30 years ago, Sean Kemp in Seattle, all of a sudden they were trading them because he was so mad that Jim McOvane was making more money than him.
11:25 And then they had just made the finals a year earlier. And all of a sudden he's getting shipped out. So it makes me think he's going to get traded. Yeah, I think that's more real in the last couple of weeks. Again, since it got the Media Day and the roster, and there is a staring contest, it does feel like a trade is a possibility. who got less than what Durn went. Yeah, they took care of the teammate.
11:48 And it was a better deal than the Duren deal. But I don't think that helped either. How many players are worth five years, $200 million in this economy? In this economy? And again, he went from a 20-point-of-game score in the regular season. Everybody had them all NBA, myself included on my ballot. Yeah. In the playoffs against Orlando and Cleveland, not exactly the greatest teams we saw in the playoffs.
12:12 this dude dropped to 10 point a game and his on-off splits were terrible. Detroit was a much better team when he was off the floor. And look, he should be, I think he should be happy to get this offer. The problem for them is the signing trades
12:29 become problematic. Because in my head, I was like, oh, they should just do a deal with Washington and get Anthony Davis back and picks. And that's short-term, that helps them. Long-term, they don't have to
12:42 worry about this contract being an albatross and they're building around kade and thompson and other stuff they've done the problem is davis is at 58 million right and so if you're sign and trading him i assume you're sign and trading him to a team that is going to offer more than five 200 so the only team dumb enough to do that is Sacramento who of course is in the middle of this and is obviously wink wink to the agent like oh we'd go higher than that which is the old day or more james harden move with the okay C extension in 2012. Well, we'd do five for 70, five for 80.
13:16 They're only offering four for 55. Like, we're at 580 right now, if you can figure it out. Sacramento has to be subonis. And I'm just not doing that if I'm Detroit. I'm just not. He doesn't seem to fit.
13:37 And I do think like the Cade part of it is huge, right? they have a franchise piece that almost any other team in the league would say. So they want to get somebody on that timeline. I think a Sart Thompson fits that too. Yeah. But that's where the AD thing is sort of a hiccup. And the other thing is like Trayson Langdon within five weeks of getting to New Orleans was part of the deal that part of the front office that traded AD to the Lakers.
14:02 So I'm not sure he wants to get back into the AD business. It's not going to work. Because it floated around yesterday with AD, And it's just the salaries don't work. Detroit would have to put another guy in the trade. And it just doesn't make sense. I like it from Washington's perspective. That's a team that's young and could find the center of the future to match their age profile.
14:23 But yeah, from the Pistons perspective, remember, there's number one seed in the Eastern Conference bill. They won 60 games last year. Well, they're not winning that this year. This is just super awkward. I was going to ask you if you could remember, you said Sean Kemp, but it's like I couldn't, I haven't seen something go. this sideways, this fast with a young all-NBA player like this
14:43 for a rising team in a long time. Yeah, usually it's like a Vince Carter type of situation where somebody's unhappy or Team Mac in Orlando. This happened a lot in the 2000s, but the guys already had the money at that point. This almost feels like the disrespect
14:58 is such a huge piece of this. I look at them like, I don't think, I didn't think they had any chance of winning 60. I don't really like what they did this. this off season right even even like i look at the lack of they basically have one shot creator right yeah tobias who is now on san antonio who is always everyone's glass half empty on him all the time but um tobias at least they could go to him and he could hit a shot which especially in the playoffs like when either cade was out or cade was struggling like at least you had somewhere else to god
15:34 don't know where they go now yeah and remember the bread and butter action was the this Cade during pick and roll, which was one of the most spammed actions in the entire league last season. And you look at the most common pick and roll combinations. It's very, very close to the top, if not the top. I don't remember. So even from Cade's perspective, like, this is very risky from the team. From the perspective of the Detroit Pistons, like, that's his running mate. That is Cade's number one, bread and butter action, too. And so if this thing really goes sideways, Cade's going to have to reinvent how he plays, and you mentioned the departure of Harris, you're going to have a completely new look offense in Detroit.
16:15 And Stewart's gone, which it seems like there was a lot of stuff behind the scenes. But I was like Stewart. I thought they had a weird year last year, and the fight definitely mixed it up in the wrong way. But they lost Harris and Stewart and Lavert, who I've never been a fan of. Replace those guys with John Collins, Isaiah Joe, and a Corey. Corey's a rookie. But you're asking a lot. Isaiah Joe, I think we all like as a shooter,
16:39 but never really has played significant minutes on a really good team ever. And then, I don't know, I watched Collins last year, some Clipper games. He's fine. Yeah. I personally think we'd rather have,
16:55 would rather have Tobias. I know that, like, John Collins is an advanced stat. People, there's a lot of positive things behind it, but I don't know. I don't like this. I don't like it.
17:07 I don't like what they did. So the other trade, because obviously Milwaukee just says too many guys and God only knows what they're trying to do. But there's some sort of framework of like hero and where basically some of the guys they got in the honest trade and could they throw other stuff in. There's only one trade that I really like. And I don't know if you were focused on this one. But Atlanta.
17:30 Yeah, that's the one I was hoping you'd say. Tell me more. I just think Akungu and Daniels for, for, and makes a shitload of sense to me for everybody involved, especially when they got the Lou Dort. Yeah. Adding him, he can just basically go in the Daniels spot as another lockdown defender for them.
17:47 And now you're upgrading at center. And then if I'm Detroit, I get out of this. I've split up the contracts. Daniels is at 25 a year, which is probably fair. It's a little high considering that he doesn't seem to be growing offensively at all.
18:01 But that was the only one that made sense to me. And if you look at the pattern in Atlanta over the last couple of years, there's a couple of sort of things they're obviously targeting, which is size and strength and athleticism, which Jalen Duren, more than almost any other player in the NBA checks those boxes, especially at his position, just one of the more physically imposing dominant bigs in the league. And I think if that's what Quinn Snyder is going for in his lineup, it fills a big need there. Remember, this is a team that finished last season before the playoffs, about as hot as anybody in the league. And then was the only team in the East or in the West, for that matter, to take two games from the Knicks in the playoffs. So, you know, Atlanta is the team to watch, in my opinion.
18:48 They've been active. Do you like that crunch time five? If it's Duren, Jalen Johnson, McCollum, Lou Dort, and Alexander Walker. And that's all I'm rolling with, was six minutes left in a huge playoff game. I kind of like it. I kind of like it.
19:05 I still think CJ is running on borrowed time a little bit. They drafted a point card. Well, they have his replacement ready to roll, yeah. Yeah, and so if that kid comes along, and I think they proved it to me at the end of last season and in the playoffs. I don't know if I love it. Like, I like the Knicks five or like when your team was really humming, that five-man group.
19:26 Yeah. But I think it's an upgrade for the Atlanta Hawks in the front court. Well, we'll see what happens. I do not think a center should make $40 million a year up in this current salary cap economy unless it's Yokech or Wembe, but what do I know? They also announced some rule changes that they're going to be looking at. Points of Education. Now they're called points of education.
19:48 Are we calling this to Jalen Brown? Who are we naming that one after? It's basically they're saying you can't use the stiff arm as you're driving. LeBron does it too. I've been a bunch of people that do this, but I'll be interested to see how long they stick to this one, I've heard trainers call it the paddle, the off arm, like, and they're training it now. The paddle. They're training it.
20:07 Yeah, the paddle, like you're dribbling with your right hand, and you can't use your hand as much, but you can sort of maneuver your off arm like the Heisman trophy a little bit, as long as you don't fully stiff arm. But yeah, that came out today. And I count me among the people that are sort of happy that they announced this, a little bit cynical that they're going to enforce it, Bill. We've seen these kinds of points of emphasis now called points of education for years. Sometimes they last a week.
20:33 Sometimes they last a month. Sometimes they actually last. So as an old guy, hand checks were part of the game. Now it feels like the offensive players in this attacking guard era, SGA, Jalen Brown, Luca Donchich,
20:48 are weaponizing that off arm and almost committing like reaching fouls as an offensive player. And I would love to see it go away. You don't see it in college basketball. You don't see it in European basketball. You don't see it in European basketball. an NBA-specific issue that I think is arisen in the last 10 years that has gotten out of hand,
21:07 no pun intended, in the 2020s. And I associate with SGA. I'll go ahead and say it. Okay. I still think Jalen, but it's because I watched the most self-of-the-game. But you're right. SGA probably perfected it. I wonder who-
21:23 Well, Jay-Lam is the example they used. LeBron was sneaky good at it, though. Because he could- You'd be a fool not to. You can use his shoulder. Yeah. If you can get away with that, you should do it. And I'm not insulting SGI.
21:37 If you can get away with that, it's a brilliant play. I mean, but it's kind of the thing if you were playing pickup basketball and you started doing this to people, they feel like, dude, what are you doing? Yeah, stop that. And it's just commonplace. It's funny in Fibba does not work in Fiba and they call it and they get mad when you do it. And then they have to adjust. The other one I'm more excited about is the illegal screening. I thought the screening stuff was out of control of the last two years and really more noticeable in person than anything.
22:02 where you could really see guys were just never set anymore, and it was becoming A, harder to guard everybody, 35 feet from the hoop, but then B, I think real potential for injury and knees knocking and all kinds of bad things. So I see that I'm actually sticking with this. I blame Steve Kerr and Draymond Green, David Lee, and Andrew Bogot,
22:25 and I say that lovingly. The founding fathers? The moving screen warriors. But I think they didn't. deserve credit. And I would always say to people in the 2010s, if you're not getting called for one or two of these violations, every game, you're not setting dirty enough screens. And they really put the onus on the officials. And to this point in 2026, Bill, I think it is fair to say that screens are dirtier than ever and breaking rules at a higher rate. They just haven't been enforced. And in the examples in the videos they show have a lot of guys, you know, pushing guys away, moving into the contact. and disrupting what they're calling freedom of movement on the defender trying to get around a screen. So like you, I think it's an ambitious one. I'm glad they're focusing on it.
23:12 But my question back to you is, do you trust that they'll follow through on both of these going into the new season? I think they'll follow through in the illegal screens. And I think they'll see how it goes with the stiff arms. Right. Because on defense, they're also doing stuff, right? So I don't know. It would be a push and pull. The Bill Simmons podcast brought to you by Fandul.
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23:56 I would stay away from Red Sox Yankees with this because I think every game is going to be like 1-0-0-2-1. 3-2, somewhere in that. I think the Houston White Sox series is a good one for this because I think there's going to be, I know it's a best of three, but there will be a game where Houston scores like nine runs. So I would think about that.
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24:37 CCPpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. I have, I wrote down, I was on a six-hour flight today. I wrote down, I went through painstakingly and wrote down a bunch of quotes from Media Day. And we're going to play a little game called, Do You Believe This? LeBron is the first one. He said, I didn't come here to lose. in the second round. It felt like a slight dig at Embed. Like just a little, Embed's never gotten out of the second round.
25:12 Very pointed that it was the second round. Here's what I thought was interesting about this. Why didn't he say, I didn't come here to lose in the conference finals? Because the way this is phrased, I didn't come here to lose in the second round. So the conference finals, if he loses, that's okay. I just thought the second round thing was weird.
25:29 Wouldn't he say, I didn't come here to not make the final. finals or something like that. But this second round, I thought it was odd. It was even weirder because he said, I didn't leave my family behind or something along those lines. Like, he was very emotional. But I think he really thinks this is one of the best teams in the East. And I think it gives him the best shot of winning. And ultimately, I think if we asked him, Bill, about why he chose Philadelphia, he thinks it's a superior place to win basketball games than Cleveland, which I think was the other big choice for him. I know he thinks very highly a Tyrese Maxie, Jalen Brown.
26:01 our personal friends of his. So I think he thinks this is a great team. And I don't read much more into it than that. I don't think the Cleveland thing worked out because they couldn't get rid of Hardin. The Lakers didn't want them. St. Antonio and O'KC didn't want him. And the next one, the title,
26:20 and Philly turned out because of the Jalen Brown thing. I'd love to know if Jalen Brown, if that hadn't happened, would you have gone there, but we'll never know. Next one. Jermon Green on LeBron. said he passed on the Warriors. He couldn't get over the past, quote,
26:36 which is, I battled these guys over and over again. What is that going to look like for me if I sign there? What type of beating will I get if I go there? That's why John thought LeBron didn't go to the Warriors. So, Anna, do you believe? I actually believe this. I think this was the reason he didn't go to the Warriors. I think that and I think it stacks with the previous point.
26:57 I don't think he thinks the Warriors are going anywhere. And, you know, Jimmy Butler is banged up. Stefan Curry, is he 37 or 38? Whatever. We saw the Porcings news this week. You know, and this is a Western conference that has two juggernauts sitting at the top. They're not passing. Yeah.
27:16 And Nicole Yokic sitting there in third or fourth, Anthony Edwards. It's just a harder path. As much as the East has improved, I still think he just didn't think the Golden State Warriors were going to make a lot of noise come April and May. It was noticeable that in Bede is. in much, much, much better shape, too. I don't know of LeBron how much he had to do with that. But Embed looks like the guy from eight years ago. When he's good, as you guys saw, like the Boston Celtics fans know exactly what we're talking about.
27:44 If he can put it together, he is still one of the top five players in the league. Like, if he looks good, he looks incredible. And, you know, he can't sustain it. So we'll see. I've yet to see it. And you make this point better than anybody. How many games does he play every year? Yeah.
28:01 You know, his body breaks down. He has bad luck. Being skinnier will help him not get injured, is my expert take. How about this? Just emulate what Tim Duncan did. Well, I let's do it. And I love what you said earlier this week. Just play once a week.
28:15 Like, I don't know if they're going to be able to get away with that sparse. But yeah, like with the depth they have with LeBron James, Jalen Brown, Tyrese, VJ. Edgecombe, he can sit out back to backs. Yeah. They can still win games against decent. teams if they program Joel Embed's usage and load management. I think that we could see the LeBron effect for Embed actually being a sustainability for that dude.
28:42 Next one is a tweet from John Krasinski, who does an excellent job covering the Timberwolves. Yeah, he does. Tim Connolly says he's, quote, super happy in Minnesota. He's entering the last year of his deal, but notes he's had opportunities to move in his state says he's focused on winning here. Do you believe him? I think he wants to see what happens with this crazy Lamello risk that he took. And I, for one, am very cynical.
29:07 I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think it's going to work if for no other reason that Lamello ball is never going to be healthy to play 82 games. I think it's the most sort of underreported thing about Lamello is his own injury history, his ability to stay upright. And again, in the context of a brutal Western conference, you can't have any kind of mess-ups. Tim Connolly deserves a lot of credit for building a team to team. in the Western Commerce that have been very good over the last decade. So I could see him going elsewhere if this thing falls apart. I didn't believe that tweet.
29:41 He's had opportunities to move and has stayed. You stayed because you're under contract and you couldn't move to the other opportunity. So I just don't believe it. I think the lamella ball trade was a hail marry to some degree, where you're just basically trying to game the variance of a ton of three-pointers and take some pressure off. and you're going to cross your fingers and hope it works. I said it at the time.
30:06 I thought it was an overreaction. I thought the reason that they didn't succeed, like the way we maybe thought they were because they had a ton of injuries at the wrong time. Yeah, Ant Man was on one leg. Like, let's not forget it. Yeah. And the Randall thing got weird
30:20 because they were trying to desperately trade everybody in February for Durant and whatever else. Next one. Tyron Liu, quote, I wouldn't want to be at any other place. This is my first, I'm a zero out of ten. I don't believe this. There's no way you wouldn't want to be in another place.
30:40 I'm going to guess you'd be at 20 other places. He hasn't been this happy since he's looking up at Alan Iverson's crotch when he was getting stepped over in 2001. That is the biggest bologna sandwich, I think we heard at Media Day, and that's saying something, Bill. Like, this is such a bad situation. And now Brandon Ingram appears to have some really bad injury news, too. partially torn Achilles.
31:03 So there's, this is the, the Clipper fans I know are like, so that is this why they got more than maybe it seems like they should have for Kauai? Because training for a guy who was injured and has a partially, first of all, how do you have a partially torn Achilles? Right. Yeah, I think it's like a small tear. But is that something that comes out in the physical that could have slowed down the trade?
31:28 Is that what you're getting at? I don't know. Or do you, the Raptors didn't know? Yeah, I didn't know he had this injury. They just figured it out. He was said at the end of the year he was hurt last year. Yeah. Anyway.
31:44 I mean that, but yeah, so I think I'd put Tyloo with Tim Connolly, right? These are two really high caliber. Tyloo is a great coach. I'm not throwing any shade at him. And Tim Connolly too, like these are very marketable player or people. in the NBA if they choose to go somewhere else. I think they both will. Jason Tatum, quote, they're asking about what it's like to have your own team.
32:10 It's not a simple thing like, this is my team. Now, it's not just saying it's my team, and I'm not going to say that. I've got 14 other teammates, I'm going to lean on and we all need each other. So this is going to be his tactic all year being like, this is not the Jason Tatum show. This is not my team. I have a little newsflash for Jason. this is your team. They built the whole thing around you
32:34 and they traded Jalen Brown to make it your team. So whether you don't want to admit it or not, this is your team. Well, one of the joys of my summer bill was to be a guest, I would say in the third chair
32:45 of the colonoscopy pod. And it was just electric to be a part of that, that BS history. I'd turn it back to you. I know your fans want to hear you riff more because I know you've come around on Paul George.
32:58 Yeah. What are your thoughts on Jason Tatum, finally being the alpha dog. I mean, I know you've talked yourself into this trade, but can he be an effective leader? Well, I had no choice but to talk myself into the trade because they made it. I do understand why they did it. And the Paul George, I don't know, he's kind of suck him in with his quotes.
33:19 This place is great. I wish I had gotten here sooner. I was like, okay, Paul George, twist my arm. I understand why they did it. And we didn't have this information. during the infamous colonoscopy pod, which I'm sure for you, the colonoscopy pod
33:35 in the Ohio State game being in person for those, probably your two highlights of 2026. Definitely. We didn't have this information, but Brad Stevens basically admitting we took that group as far as it could go and we had to do something. And he said it in so many words
33:50 in multiple interviews that I did not feel like this was sustainable anymore. And that's why they did it. And he had less value than they thought. And I agree. I think the second apron, which we brought up earlier in the context of Jalen Duren, I think is a huge part of this. And Brad referenced it. The more I've thought about it. And he said it exactly something to the effect of we can't have this much usage tied up and this much of our cap tied up in two guys. And I think that's fair. In a league, though, where depth is so important that you can't achieve depth if you have a Jalen-sized contract and a Jason-sized contract stacked on.
34:30 each other. Yeah, you're looking at it. Oh, go ahead. Yeah. It doesn't explain bringing in Paul George, who has basically the same amount of money due to him, but for one or two less years, right? That's why I don't know if it was a, I mean, it was a salary trade for that third year and he's an expire next year.
34:45 So you're looking at this year only plus he's an expiring. I think they looked at it and you add up the stats of those two guys and how much they have to both have the ball, what that comes at the expense of with the rest of the team. and they thought you move Paul George and Hugo and Shireman, you know, give them a lot of those minutes and you spread the rest of the stuff out. And Tatum's going to do a lot of the usage stuff that Jason did last year and that this was the only way we were going to have a happy situation,
35:15 I think is where they landed. I don't know if they're wrong. And Paul George, one of the most underrated part of his games, is he is a knock-down catch-and-shoe player. He can play off the ball really well and he's content doing so. Switches on the D. Yeah, it doesn't.
35:28 Smartest defender on the court. maybe have lost a little step in his mid-30s, but even the Sixers were raving about this dude's defensive leadership and his ability to perform on that side of the court. So you can talk yourself into it. I'm happy to sort of endorse that. This is from Anonymous from Media Day. Ben Simmons is cringe, cringe.
35:51 He's lucky he's fine. Zach Levine is cute, but his personality fucking annoys me. It just seems like he's a prick. Hot mics, baby. Oh, man. Only the Kings. If we did a draft of like, what team will this happen to? What team will have a hot mic controversy?
36:07 The King somehow, even though there's 30 teams having a media day, you just would have assumed it was the Kings. Electric group text moment, that going around. And yeah, like Zach Levine got, I think, thrown under the bus a little bit there by one of the media members who's anonymous. But I feel bad for anonymous, Bill Simmons. I do not. Oh, that's a good Zag. If the craziest shit I said were caught on a hot mic, it would be a terrible day in my career. We all say stupid things.
36:40 Some of us get caught. And I feel bad for Anonymous. Shout out to Anonymous. As far as I'm concerned, you're forgiven. Shout out to Andy Anonymous. J.J. Reddick, quote, there's a reason we wanted a lot of these new guys on our team. They offer something different. and we feel like the piece is really fit.
37:01 Hmm. I'm like a three out of ten on that one. Yeah, they send a lot of resources to get Walker Kessler, another person with severe injury issues. A lot. Who's unproven. They have a lot of offense, and now they are doing this with Matisse Thibel.
37:21 Can you please be our shutdown defender? Because if you're not, we're in a lot of trouble this year. I think they're in a lot of trouble anyway at the point of attack. And we talked about this on the show before. But if you look at the Western Conference guards, who you're playing on a nightly basis, the idea that Austin Reeves and Luca are both on the court, what are you talking about Stefan Curry or Anthony Edwards,
37:42 or Stefan Castle or Sheigel, just Alexander, they're going to be able to pick on something there. And that remains a bright red flag for the Lakers. John Moran on starting, quote, I think winning is the most important. thing for me. I'm going to say he wants to start. I think he wants to start. And I think he probably should start to start the season. I mean, he has a very high ceiling as a player. And there is a world and you and I have been around this league a long enough time for a redemption arc here where this guy
38:20 gets his shit together and starts being an all-star, an all-MBA player. And Chris Vernon is losing his mind in Memphis. But yeah, like I think Portland, who showed some signs last year, and has an awkward off-season story here where Tiago Splitter leaving, the coach getting a one-year deal from Minnesota to come over. It's just an awkward situation, but it could all click.
38:43 We'll see. We got one-year deal, but they gave him a food card, apparently, for like a $300 limit every month. Free chicken tenders on game days. A $300 limit. He can take himself out to lunch every couple of weeks. Oh, man.
38:57 This might be my favorite. John Horst, Buck's GM, on extending Gary Trent Jr. He's an elite shooter. I think one of five or six players to shoot and make the amount of threes he has as a reserve over the last couple years. Only 27 years old was big for us in playoff moments.
39:15 So there's a big belief in Gary for what we think matters and that's elite shooting in the NBA that's hard to find. John Horst. I'm going to give this a zero out of 10. Do you believe? Maybe a minus one.
39:27 That is a C-YA statement. I think would be the technical term. But, yes, some murky stuff at best in Milwaukee with the Gary Trent Jr. stuff. And if you look at the game the way I do, Gary Trent Jr. was a, that's the player he was describing three years ago at 24. I co-sign it. But it has been very bad the last two years. And in fact, his efficiency is a catch and shoot player.
39:51 When Janus is on the court and those opportunities aren't going to come anymore, was very disappointing over the last two years. So kind of, like, I'll just say it was a surprising contract that Gary Trent Jr. got. Not surprising if you knew they agreed to it a year ago. 36% shooting threes last year for Gary. I'm pretty sure there's some guys that did better than that. John Horst is like, please.
40:14 By the way, here's my, here's my, here's money for a year, please. Well, here's my, my Bill Simmons question. I was talking to some students about this earlier. Are we, is the new, the new kind of cheating. Like, remember we went through the doping phase with, you know, Lance Armstrong and all the baseball players. It feels like we're in a new era of cheating bill where we're just talking about financial crimes on the show all the time. And it came through like Manchester City today.
40:38 Right. Got absolutely leveled. And so now we're talking more and more about freaking financial crimes thanks to Pablo Tori, Manchester City. This caps are a convention story in Milwaukee. I'm already sick of it, but I feel like we're just warming up. But the thing is everybody was doing this forever. The reason Joe Smith got caught was because they found a contract that they all fucking agreed to and signed that. Well, because of the agent.
41:06 Yeah, the agent's like the agency he was represented by dissolved and they had discovery and that was the only reason they found that. Yeah. I'm not naive, but I'm just also like don't want to be doing podcast appearances where I'm talking about like the securities and exchange commission and committees looking at financial fraud for the next 20 years. To me, the joke's been made by everybody, but the punishment. should be you have to pay Gary Trent four years, 64 million. Like we've decided and that's what you've got to do. Darius Garland, quote,
41:36 the vibe is immaculate right now. That's his media day quote. I'm a one out of 10 on that one. Yeah, I'll go zero out of 10 because this is on the heels of the Ingram news. What is immaculate about the vibe? They've lost their owner. They lost their GM.
41:52 They traded for a guy who now has a partially torn Achilles. They're over under in Vegas. is 20 and a half wins, and a big chunk of their fans are really disappointed slash despise everything that happened and can't believe they have to watch this team all season.
42:08 Yeah, I think, yeah, it's well said. And did you get an update on your season tickets? Are you able to get out of those? Not an update. Not an update. And by the way, I have not heard anything for two weeks.
42:19 And now I'm going to have to, now I'm going to have to pull some stuff. I don't know what that means, but I don't think the vibes are immaculate. Well, the thing is, if they're not going to take my tickets, then that means I will go to the games. I will just say that. Joe Dumars, quote, this is Deastro Dumas, why he didn't do a lot of moves this summer. I don't know if you notice, but the Pelicans weren't good last year and then just brought everybody back. You can't be reckless with your aggression.
42:54 I am not going to do a deal just to do a deal. So we could say, yeah, we did a deal. And it's not even something you really like. If it's not really that good for us, why do it? I'm like a nine out of ten on this. I think he actually believes this. He's like, I'm not just going to do a deal to do a deal. But the alternative is, well, you're bringing the same team back that sucked last year.
43:19 You realize that, right? And the pieces don't match. And you just gave Sidique Bay $55 million for reasons that remain unclear when you have a bunch of and then you also paid Ben Matherin. What are you doing? Andy has very attractive trade pieces, to your point. We've talked about Trey Murphy for, what, two years, three years in this context. Herb Jones for 14 million a year or something?
43:44 Yeah, so I think a lot of us are bewildered at the state of the Pelicans, and I think we look at a team that has some talent, but clearly isn't going to make a lot of noise in the Western Conference. And so it's almost a what do you have to lose situation here? Like what is Joe Dumas like truth serum? What is the ceiling of this basketball team in his head bill? Do you think Joe Dumars believes the New Orleans Pelicans could be a playing team? Do you think he thinks they could be a four seed?
44:11 Like what is driving his reticence to make some of these moves? You probably talk like if we were running the Pelicans, you probably talk yourself into Zion like at Stockholm syndrome at some point. you do a lot of if only if we can just get Zion going and oh Zion he said that you see this quote he said and you talk to yourself in the reality of if this guy has his head on straight he could be a top 25 guy in the league so we got that but we haven't seen it and he's been in the league since 2019 I don't think it's going to happen yeah I'm with you on that I don't think he has the same athleticism that he had when he came in the league
44:53 So we'll see. Aaron Gordon, quote, when we have all our guys, we're still the best in the league. I admire that he said this and I admire his conviction. But even when they have all their guys, they're not the best in the league.
45:08 So I'm going to have to, I admire that he would say this publicly, but I don't, deep down, he can't believe this, right? Can I respond with the stat? Yeah. So for the first time in NBA history, players 30 and over played less
45:23 than 20% of minutes last year. It's something I've been thinking about. You actually got me on to looking at calf strains and hamstrings, which I think is very relevant to Aaron. I think every basketball nerd loves Aaron Gordon. Everybody roots for him to be healthy. But the combination of aging bodies and the way we're playing this game and how frequently the league is insisting on making these guys play,
45:47 I agree with him. If everybody's healthy, that's a very hard team to beat. but you've been saying it for years. I've been coming around to it. It's like I just don't, I just don't believe that this is going to happen. Like, that's, show it to me.
46:01 And it's been how many playoffs in a row where he just can't stay upright? And it's a bummer. And then Murray ran out of gas last year in the playoffs. And he's had catastrophic leg injuries too. I just, I think once your snake bit, it's really hard in this grueling NBA schedule to sort of get back into your, your full capabilities,
46:23 especially when you're on the wrong side of 30, like Aaron. But that said, I agree with what he said. If they have a perfect health team and you're playing one game to win a championship, I might take the Denver Nuggets.
46:35 That's a hell of a team. The problem is we play 100 of these things by the time we get out the title. Right. Rue Hachamara and why you join the Clippers. Quote, one thing everyone says about the Clippers is how well they take care of players.
46:51 technically true. I don't think he's lying. He also, this is a Law Murray tweet. Rui mentioned that he is looking forward to reuniting with former Washington Wizards teammate Bradley Beale. All right, Rui, you pushed your luck with that one. Yeah, that's a lot of a reunion thing. But maybe it's true.
47:14 Bradley seems like a great guy. Wasn't really miserable in Washington and then when the Lakers traded for him, they only had to give up a second round pick because nobody knew if he was any good or not. And didn't he disappear for an extended period of time? The Wizards didn't. To Japan or something?
47:27 Yeah, the Wizards didn't seem to have any fun during that stretch. He was on the team. Oh, speaking of Zion, quote, I'm not where I want to be. I'm just not where I need to be. And I'm not where I want to be. We agree. Rudy Gobert, quote, the vibes are great. Sometimes I have to turn up the group chat because it's buzzing too much.
47:51 I think I believe that. Yeah, that's just an old guy. Well, they went to Paris and he showed them around. And I do think the vibes are good. And I think the Randall thing was bad last year. I think he was really mad when they, he felt really betrayed when they tried to trade him. And his name was in all the rumors.
48:06 And I think from the moment that trade deadline happened, that team had a weird energy to it. Counterpoint. Yeah. Who did they also send away to get lamello? Yeah, their guy, nice read. Yeah. And I, yeah, fan favorite, culture driver.
48:23 Yeah. I'm really worried about the absence of Nas Reid in that group and that organization too. And I know a lot of Wolves fans and people around that team are too. So it's not just you got rid of Randall and you have this party vibe. You lost Nas Reid, who is what, the third most popular Timberwolf flair of all time, Bill? My note to the T. Wolves fans is as follows because I think we all want to watch this team and we're all excited about it. Just take the regular season carefully. You're going to have a couple nights during the season
48:56 when you score 152 points and you make 28 threes. And it looks awesome. And you're definitely going to have a T&T night. Oh, they don't have TNT anymore. An Amazon night, a peacock night, where you just light somebody up who's really good and the potential of the running gun and the threes and it's just going to look great.
49:19 Yeah. I just want to see. Can Mello play 2,000 minutes? No. But is that, is that allowed to ask? 2,000 minutes? It is for a guy. And when you talk to people around Charlotte,
49:33 2200 minutes would be a miracle? Yeah. So I think that's why they, Charlotte, one of the reasons they got off of them. It's not just the sort of. I think it was the reason they got off of them. They didn't, they didn't feel like he could hold up.
49:48 I think that's right. And so same thing with Aaron Gordon. I don't like to say this, but the older I get and the more I analyze this league, like these dudes are some of them are very fragile and you have to sort of factor that into your predictions and your analyses. Luca Donchett said on Walker Kessler,
50:06 I really wanted him. I do believe that's true. He also said on LeBron. It was kind of sad, you know. Playing with LeBron was amazing. There's a lot of things I learned from him, and we all know who LeBron James is. We spent time together.
50:19 It was amazing. I think that whole team was ready for LeBron to go. If you were reading between the lines of the Media Day thing, I don't think he was really happy for most of the season. And I think they were just kind of stuck with each other. And then they had to all jockey to pretend whatever. But I don't. I think him, Reeves, JJ, they're all fired up for the post-Lebron air.
50:44 It was my take. Yeah, and the Mark Walter stuff. And they've had all sorts of craziness in that organization over the last few. I mean, getting Luca in the first place at a team that wasn't really built for him was a whole sort of just big bombshell move. And then, yeah, the LeBron Luca thing was never meant to work out. But I agree with that. I think I told Zach, like, I think Luca has a ton of pressure on him now because this is 27-year-old Luca Donchich. You, I, Zach, Mahoney, everybody thinks this guy thinks the world of him.
51:17 but he's 27, and you know better than anybody is the sports guy, like 27, 28, 29. Those are prime. Those are the years. And now you're in L.A., it's your team. What are you going to do? That's a lot of pressure for Luca Donchage. Luca had 36 points a game on Fando of 5 to 1.
51:37 Damn. Nobody's done that. Only a couple guys at Hardin did it. Did he get to 36? I thought he got to 36, yeah. 34 was like plus 150. Speaking of Luca, his teammate Austin Reeves, talked about this year's team and said,
51:54 we'll do different things we weren't capable of doing last year. We'll be able to play more free-flowing basketball. It's not going to have to be pick and roll every single possession. Huh. Man, do they get a new coach? No, still JJ Redding. I wonder what's different. Nicole Enochich, quote.
52:13 One more thing on the Lakers. I just want to go on the record here in September before we get to the Okish quote. The problem for Austin Rees, it's not at the offensive end, buddy. It's on the other side of the court. Nicoli Okic, I'm going to sign next year if they want me.
52:27 That was this future at Denver. I believe that. I thought that was the biggest quote out of media day, Bill, because people have been speculating. He is a private guy. Everybody loves Nicole Okic. Obviously, Denver wants him to stay there forever.
52:44 But there was real smoke, and the gossip machine starting. And he's not somebody who just says anything. So there's no guarantees there. But knowing what we know about Nicole Yokic, I feel like that was the biggest news of Media Day and great news for Nuggets fans. I 100% agree with you.
53:06 The number two biggest news was Kate Cunningham said about Jalen Duren. That's my brother. It made me think of Stephen A. Smith and CR doing the Stephen A. Smith impersonation. That's my brother. Kauai said he learned last year with the clippers that, quote, he needs pressure and needs a winning situation.
53:27 Yeah, I think that's true. Kauai, I mean, had the most interesting media day, I think, from the awkwardness. And he sort of was happy and in a vibe that I don't really associate with Kauai, like grinning ear to ear, almost like Magic Johnson grin on his face. I was like, what is going on? It's ridiculous. I don't know where it came from and nobody can figure it out.
53:49 But I'll tell you this, dude, I think Toronto won 46 games last year. I think they're one of the best defenses in the league. They have a great coach. If Kauai has a chip on his shoulder, and I know for a fact that dude loves basketball, and he does want the bullshit to leave, and he just wants to play basketball. Yeah. And if this move to Toronto really clicks, and this dude can play 60 games, the Toronto Raptors are a very interesting team to watch in the Eastern Conference.
54:15 So I thought his media day was fine. It's just weird, right? I'm not doing over-unders with Zach and House for two more weeks, but Toronto really jumped out to me. I thought it was too low. It was like 46? 46 or 47. It was somewhere in there.
54:29 But to me, that's a 50-win team. Yeah. They just have too much length and too much defense. I don't know if it's going to translate to, you know, winning three straight playoff rounds or anything, but they're going to be an absolute bitch to play with all those dudes. That's a team on your calendar. You're like, oh, no.
54:44 You and Mahoney had a great nerd king, Justin Herbert segment, and I texted you guys after the podcast last week. And I was like, we definitely need a nerd king for the NBA. And I think for me, I said it's Chad Holmgren. But I also think Kauai Leonard has a sneaky case here too, because the advanced stuff for Kauai is so insanely high. The same exact numbers that made Jalen Brown look so bad in that discourse. If you look at Kauai and things like estimated plus minus,
55:14 he's number three in the league, number four in the league. The nerdy stuff still points to this guy being one of the most impactful players in the whole league when it comes to winning basketball games. Obviously, he has to stay healthy. But when he is out there, he could be the best player in the Eastern Conference. Like, I know what that sounds like, but he is that good at this phase of his career. Well, his old team, the Quippers, the acting GM, whatever is, Trent Redden, he said, talked about Quipper. fans. We hope to fulfill our promises to them and build their trust. Good luck. Ben Simmons had a really like got passionate about it. He said, quote, all these people talk about I don't
56:01 love the game. That's bullshit. I love this game. I know he's had some physical stuff, but the way he handed himself the year after the Atlanta series with the Sixers, I think speaks for itself. Well, let's do this. Who loves the game? Like, I know when I think of guys, guys who just want to play no matter what, right? Guys who want to hoop. I feel like Durant loves the game.
56:28 Durant is number one. Yeah. There's going to be footage of Durant just playing in some parking lot pickup game when he's like 48. Shoot. Yeah. There's certain guys you know they love hooping. Yeah. And I think I think LeBron loves the hoop.
56:43 No question. I don't think Ben Simmons likes to hoop. I don't think he does. It's the wrap on him until he proves everybody wrong who's coached or played with him. He doesn't like basketball that much. Bradley Bail on taking number three. Oh, quote, it's no disrespect to Chris, Paul. Chris and I are amazing friends.
57:03 I asked the team if number three is available. They talked about it. They came back and said, we'll do it. Have you talked about this on the show before? If you're giving it up, you're not giving up to Bradley Biel, is my take. You're not giving it up. I mean, you're a clipper season ticket holder. Who are the two or three greatest clippers of all time?
57:26 He's one of them, but, you know. And what do we do with those numbers? This is not like, this is not. He played there for six years, never made a finals. I had a lot of disappointing things. I can see both sides. I personally think his numbers should be retired, but what do I know? They don't have a retired number.
57:43 They haven't retired a single number. I think Bob McAdoo. I would retire, Bob McAdoo. I'd retire Chris Paul, I'd retire Blake Griffin. I've not retired Kauai or Paul George. Yeah, on the list of things the Clippers fucked up this year, like the Chris Paul relationship is somewhere in the middle of that long list. Yeah.
58:01 I, for one, yeah, I mean, I think six years, and it's an organization that's starred for any kind of legacy like that, count me on the side of like, what are you doing giving that to Brad Beale? Like, that doesn't make any sense to me. I'm sorry. Last one, Michael Porter Jr., quote, My goal is to definitely be the best off the ball player in the NBA. I thought that was the weirdest thing I heard of media day. I don't even know how he decided that was his goal.
58:26 He realizes he's playing with Agor Dement and McCall, McCall Brown and like, what does he think he's going to happen next year? Julius Randall? Does he realize what's going to happen with Julius Randall? He's another one like Paul George that I think the casual fan doesn't realize just how fucking good this dude is catch and shoot threes.
58:46 Yeah. And he is off the ball. And that's why he was so great next to Jamal Murray, Nicola Oakhich. But you're exactly right. I mean, Julius Randall is a good passer. Yeah. That's right. Yeah.
58:59 But he's going to have to be on ball, too, in that environment in Brooklyn. Because there's not a lot of, there's not a lot of options in that offense. Brooklyn. Okay. Kurt Goldsbury. Anything else before we go? No, that's it. I think that we should talk briefly.
59:15 about the Vegas thing because that. Oh yeah, let's do that. Yeah, so they said between 12 and 13, which means 12. They also said the arena was involved, which is between two and two and a half. So the number is where everybody thought it was going to be. It's going to be nine and a half. There's three groups. I learned nothing.
59:32 They're going to pick between the three groups. They staggered Seattle, hoping one of the two losers with the Vegas bid will then talk themselves in the Seattle because the number is not nearly high enough. Yeah, and that's why. I learned nothing today. Well, we learned that they don't have the Seattle number, I think. Not even close. We knew this for two months.
59:52 They're not even close. So they're going to go 31 teams. And I think staggered. I think it's how they're going to go. And Minnesota probably moves to the east. Yeah, Minnesota moves to the east. Maybe you have 16 East teams, 15 West teams for or. Oh, yeah, I don't know when they would do the move, right?
01:00:10 Oh, I guess it's interesting. The rest teams, yeah. But yeah, that's interesting. I know you've been following this Vegas thing for a long time. I remember when they first started talking about it, the number was like five or six. So it just speaks to how quickly these valuations have changed. But yeah, the NBA obviously wants a new building there. For those who have been to the NBA Cup, the T-Mobile arena is not.
01:00:33 I don't get it. To me, it's an insane number. And there has to be, there has to be, I haven't studied the part of this. where can you fill the arena for 350 days a year? And if you own the arena, is that just a crazy amount of revenue? The Warriors did this when they built the Chase Center. And it seemed crazy how much money they spent on it. But that thing's a cash cow for them.
01:00:57 So they were obviously right. So maybe that's the feeling with Vegas, too. It's not just the basketball team. It's you get all the other stuff too. Yeah. And that's a city where they need that stuff. So, yeah, it's a real estate play. I'm a little bearish on Vegas as a long-term sports city.
01:01:12 But it's going to be exciting. And I think the more interesting thing for me, Bill, is what will they end up doing with the expansion draft? As soon as next summer, we could see players being peeled off of the other 30 teams' rosters to go populate this new team, which is going to be really fascinating for us to go through. So if it's nine and a half just for Vegas divided by 30, that's basically like a $315 million check to every single owner. Matt Ischby is like, can you wire it to me? Any chance I can get that this week? Mark Walker's like, can I have that now? I'll drive to the office.
01:01:54 Yeah, it's not bad though. But that'll be interesting. Do you have a preferred nickname for this team? Have we talked about that? No. I'm just assuming it's going to be terrible and that they'll overthink it and they won't do something relatively simple.
01:02:13 Do you have a preferred nickname? I love the Knights. I don't think they can do it because the hockey team is that. But I think the hockey team did great there. And they didn't lean into the cards or the gambling. Yeah. You know, whatever that sort of cliche might be. I don't know.
01:02:28 I'll be a little more optimistic than you. I think it could be cool. Maybe they lean into the desert nature. But yeah, it's going to be fun just to see a new NBA team pop up and brand and the expansion. I like that they're moving into cities that clearly can support an NBA team, at least Seattle. we know we can, Vegas, hopefully, but I still don't think it solves the problem of some of the other franchises that they currently have.
01:02:52 I agree. They're just kind of looking the other way with that stuff. Anyway, Kirk Goldsbury, good luck with the rest of the Texas season. I hope you have your mustache for the whole year. We're going to break. Come back with your guy, Brian Curtis, right after this. And now it's time for Sports Power Weekend presented by Mazda, which has been named Consumer Reports' safest new car brand.
01:03:11 It's true. All right. So what sports are we looking forward to why? First of all, we're heading into October, which I think is the single best sports month of the year. Sometimes I decide it's April, but usually it's October because of the World Series, college football, NFL,
01:03:27 NHL's kicked off, basketball. There's always a good UFC thing. If you look toward the end of the month, I think it's October 24th. There's no football on a Saturday, but there's UFC, college, all the other sports are in play World Series. Anyway, this week I am the most excited for the NFL because we have the London game going all the way through to the Sunday night game.
01:03:51 It's 14 straight hours of football. I hope I can handle it. Anyway, there's driving and then there's driving with peace of mind in the Mazda CX50 hybrid, which comes standard with a suite of proactive safety features. So confidence isn't an upgrade. It's a given. Mazda, move and be moved. Consumer reports does not endorse products or service.
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01:05:37 Watch NFL Red Zone with Scott Hansen. Sign up today at DeZone.com. limited time offer, see website for details. This segment is brought to you by Uber Eats. My old, old, old friend and colleague, Brian Curtis is here. We've known each other since the 1890s. He hosts a press box on the Ringar Podcast Network. He writes pieces for us.
01:06:00 Rumors of other stuff may be coming. I don't know, maybe. Who knows? Something down the road, maybe, possibly. I have a lot of media stuff for you. And I want to start with Mike Tomlin. because this is the first time I've been excited about a football studio hire. You tell me, since when?
01:06:22 When was the last time we were like, wow, halftime's coming. I shushed my wife at halftime of the Sunday night game and upset her. But I was like, Tomlin's talking. Just like, give me two minutes here. And she's like, it's half time. I'm like, no, no, Tomlin has good stuff. I want to hear this. Then she got mad.
01:06:40 you didn't feel that way when CBS had Russell Wilson? I didn't. Or Matt Ryan? I didn't. These are some of the most exciting people on the planet, Bill. I don't feel this way, really, with anyone who does this, but yet with Tomlin. Tomlin before that Rams game, Rams Broncos Sunday night, like spelled out what was going to happen. He's like, I think the Broncos are in trouble, Sean McVe, and they were up 16-0 at one point, and he seemed like a genius.
01:07:06 But he forgot to factor in the altitude. Anyway, they're using him really, really well. really, really smartly. And I'm, it almost like South said Sunday night, it makes me mad he didn't do this sooner. I agree. And I'll tell you what I loved, especially about halftime on Sunday night, two things.
01:07:22 There was one person there with Maria Taylor. There weren't four people. Yeah. We weren't doing the pregame, pass the ball around the perimeter thing where everybody talks for 15 seconds. And as a viewer, you're like, what did you just say? And nobody listens to anybody. It's just you wait your turn and you say you're 15 seconds.
01:07:40 They're not like, actually interacting. You never have a conversation. No. You never get deeper into anything. And that's my second point, too. What he did at halftime sounded like a football podcast. Yeah. If you remember, he was talking about Cowboys Ravens and he was like, hey, into the game, Cowboys are in this defense. Umbrella coverage needed to be in it. Yeah. Exactly. And they were in man to man. And then he went to the commanders and talked about their offense a coordinator and the plays he was calling in that great game down the stretch. And I was like, you know, the thing that has killed pregame shows, half time shows, everything is a football podcast. Because even normies like you and me, we're not crushing all 22
01:08:17 on Monday morning. But we know way more about football just by osmosis than we did 20 years ago. But these shows never changed. They never met us halfway. And I'm watching Tomlin. I'm like, that's the kind of point we would make on the ringer NFL show on Monday morning. And you and I'd be sitting there listening and go, ooh, that's an interesting point. I learned something. Yeah, it's weird. They try to keep the old infrastructure of how they used to do stuff, and they're just going to go down with the ship for the rest of eternity with it 90% of the time. Like, I was on the East Coast on Sunday night. I mean, all weekend and on Sunday morning, got up early.
01:08:51 It's the first time in a while. I'm like, fuck, the game's don't start until 1 o'clock. It's pouring rain out. I can't even go walking. I'm like, all right, let's put on the ESPN show. And it's just five guys interrupting each other, laughing at things that aren't funny, and doing the whole thing. And I'm like, how are we still doing it this way?
01:09:10 The cast just keeps changing, but it's the exact same show. And I agree with you, the putting Tomlin alone with Maria Taylor on Sunday, we're like, we only have three and a half minutes here. We might as well just ride our best person. Everybody else clear out for Tomlin. Nobody does stuff like that anymore. Nobody. We don't need to hear from Jason Garrett at halftime.
01:09:29 We also don't need to hear from Jason Garrett in the pregame show either, by the way, just throwing that out there. I also think this. Or the pre-pre-game show or any show. Yeah, I'm with you. Really, we don't need to hear from Jason Garrett in American Life, is what you're saying. Yes. I was thinking about that, too.
01:09:43 Remember when Jaden Daniels got hurt right before halftime the other day, and they go to the Fox guys, and they just look like completely discompopulated at halftime. Right. I mean, Howie Long, I mean, just could not get the words out. And you're like, my guy, this is kind of a big moment in the NFL right now. You got to give me something. He's like, well, you know, they built a team around Jaden Daniels. Like, yeah, okay, thanks, man.
01:10:02 I appreciate your help with that. But it's just the whole thing is like people don't watch games anymore. And so when you get a guy like that and you're like, oh, you watch this game. That's not even the game you're assigned to. It's not even the game you're at in Tomlin's case. And you have like a nice, brief, smart take on it. That's all we want. Yeah, you have to have the ability to add lib, but also center in on two, three things during the day if you're going to be on an NBC show, which they've, it's been a failure the entire time they've had it.
01:10:30 You know, whenever they got football and it would. was always Dick Eversal. He loves spending money. He's going to go. He'll pay top dollar. But they never figured out the actual surrounding shows. And the only time I would ever watch it is if I was preparing for the Sunday night pod. And I just wanted to remind myself what some of the highlights were. But they're doing like the last couple of years, they've been doing FaceTiming people in the locker room. Who's that for? Hey, Brian Curtis. Great win today. And then he's just his faces taking up the TV.
01:11:01 Thanks, Maria. Yeah, we had a good win. I just, I don't get it. I mean, last year was probably the nadir when they had those super brief Matthew Berry fantasy things where he's like, I like Jemir Gibbs over nine yards. Back to you. And it was recorded at some strange time
01:11:18 and you can't totally tell when. And then it's going down to Jack Collinsworth. They have like two different shows at the same location. It's like, how about just pick four people or three people and let me know what's happening? So is Tomlin too good is my next question? because sometimes when stuff is too good to be true with TV, it usually is.
01:11:37 Yeah, and this is always a problem with the coach. Yeah. When you get a coach who is not Jeff and Gundy, he always wants to coach again. He wants to get back in the game. And his TV stuff is an audition to get back in the game. And, you know, I was a little bit surprised when he took a shot at the Cowboys for the defense because sometimes coach doesn't criticize another coach. Yeah.
01:12:00 Coach on coach crime. But I'm also like, hey, if you're auditioning for another NFL job, what better thing can you do than criticize another coach? You know, coach isn't going to hire you. GM is or an owner is.
01:12:11 Like, it's actually showing off how smart you are. I mean, isn't he going to be the number one free agent with all the coaches next year? Well, he had the Browns going to Browns thing, whatever he said that.
01:12:21 Every week he said something where you're like, wow. No, you're firing, you're firing shots here. It makes me think he doesn't want to coach. And I'm sure he's having a great
01:12:32 time. Yeah, he's working, he's probably getting paid around the same that he got to coach, right? They had to have overpaid him for the 17 Sundays, a couple of playoff games, whatever. I mean, I'm sure he's near the top of the salary stratosphere. He's working Saturday Sundays. Like, he's flying him maybe on a Friday or Saturday. He's having lunch with the guys the night before. He's in a big booth with TVs watching the games on Sunday, and he's home Monday, right? Oh, absolutely. I did hear, by the way, there wasn't quite. the salary market for Tomlin that some people thought there would be. Just because there wasn't really an opening anywhere.
01:13:08 Well, we didn't know about Romo yet. We didn't know about Romo. So I get that was my third question. What is the best use of Mike Tomlin? Because I think if you're NBC and they always have, there's always one game where like Collinsworth is in there. You have to do the backup crew, however it works out. You've got to see what he's like doing a game, I think.
01:13:31 And I think Collinsworth is as good as he's ever been. I'm not trying to push Collinsworth out. But I think you have to just test drive it or you have to put him in the booth with those guys, which I think would be awesome. And I think Collinsworth is a good enough broadcaster that if you put Tom and in there, he'd be able to play off, you know, and Toriko would know how to handle it. But I think you have to see it at some point this season, right? I completely agree.
01:13:54 I mean, this is the Jason Garrett slot in previous years. He's been in the booth. This is the Drew Brie's slot a couple years ago when he was there at that all terrible playoff game, Bengals versus Ravens, which convinced everybody that maybe he shouldn't be in broadcasting, had eventually come back and take the number three job at Fox just to get back in the game. By the way, it's not bad.
01:14:13 That's the thing. I think he's pretty good. He's been a revelation as not being bad. This is the thing with Fox. They always say, bring him over here. We get you tons of reps. We'll get you really good producers. And we think we can make you into the announcer we want to make you into.
01:14:29 And NBC, he just didn't do a bunch of games. No. Well, we, and we've talked, ever since I've known you, we've talked about this where they just throw these people into the fire, basically, with little Jerome Bettis, the most famous example. I still think he should have been good at TV, but they just pushed him in, like basically off a cliff. Like, learn how to swim and they just shove you. But with Tomlin, I think I like him more in this role. But I also feel like we're not getting enough of him. And I think there needs to be a second piece of it. And maybe this is just a. how much he wants to work. But I, you know, we've seen, like Belichick tried this, right? Belichick's like, I'm doing media. And he was on three different things. And I felt like he played it very safely. You could tell he was holding back.
01:15:13 All the shows were different. Inside the NFL is probably the closest to being interesting, but I didn't go out of my way to watch it. And I just felt like he was tiptoeing. Tomlin's the first one in a while. That doesn't seem to care if he's going to get another coaching job or not. Maybe he doesn't want to coach anymore. You know, he's done it for a long time.
01:15:31 Maybe it's that, maybe that's just it. Bill Belichick went on that tour because he wanted people to like him. He's like, I'm going to convince you to like me. And he convinced absolutely no one to like him at all. People already like Tomlin. I think they would hire him if he was out there. But yeah, maybe he wants to be on the Cowher track. I mean, how long has been Bill Cowher been speaking of guys you don't pay attention to on Sunday mornings?
01:15:52 How long as Bill Cowher been on that CBS show? But I agree with you. I'd put him in the booth. I think the three men is actually the best idea. Yeah. Because, as you said, Collinsworth is great. You don't really have that many games you throw them on unless you start throwing them on like college games, Notre Dame, that kind of stuff, which just doesn't seem like a very good use of Mike Tomlin.
01:16:10 Yeah. But I would just like find a couple of occasions where you're like, just going to put you in here. Even for a quarter, just have some fun. As you know, I hate three men booths and I'm morally opposed to them with very, very few exceptions. This is one where even if he came in second quarter is perfect for this, right? before halftime, you know, you can feel it out for 10 minutes, have him talk about what he's seeing in the game and maybe he leaves. But this is, I can't believe this worked out.
01:16:38 And then the other thing that's happened, Brady's now good. I don't understand how this happened either. He's letting it fly now. He's way more uncomfortable. And he's saying the meatball sub kind of stuff and the piss missiles. That was great. And just it feels like we're closer to what it's like to hang out with Tom Brady during a game. I don't think he's all the way there yet, but this is going better than I thought year one.
01:17:06 He's got interesting parts of a bunch of different announcers. Yeah. He's got Tony Romo's enthusiasm. Like he sounds genuinely, I'm happy to be here. This is where I want to be in the world watching this game. But then he's got the Trey Eggman thing where when he sees crappy football, he's like, I don't like this. Right. He's horrified.
01:17:24 Yeah. And you can always tell with Brady and quarterbacks, like show me a Brady, Jalen Hertz game, you won't find any compliments. You will find grudging compliments. You can tell exactly what, even when he won the Super Bowl,
01:17:36 you could just tell Brady being like, nah, not my guy. Mahomes loves him. Jared Goff loves him. Justin Herbert, who might be in the Hertz column. Yeah.
01:17:47 After the other, he was just like, you can just tell the way, and it's like, this is what we want to know, right? We want to know what Tom Brady really thinks of people. Do you think it's weird?
01:17:54 that he's also owning a part of the Raiders and helping run that team. Extremely. I talked about it last week. It violates basically one of the basic premises of things you're allowed to do in the NFL and media. And somehow everybody's decided it's fine
01:18:09 because it's Tom Brady. I like the listener mailbag I had was it was a deflate gate like kind of payback. We owe you because we screwed you over on this. So we're going to look the other way. But it's definitely strange. But he's, I think, is, is at least in the top three now.
01:18:27 Who do you have for the top three? So it's Collinsworth, Eggman, and Brady. That's my top three. So you wouldn't put Olson in there? It's right there. I don't know. I think I'll go with those two. Those three is my top ones.
01:18:44 I really do. So I have Collinsworth one. I think I have Brady two. And I think I have Aikman three. And then Olson? Probably. I, JJ Wad, I need more of. That was another topic I want to discuss because I think
01:19:02 Nance and Watt have been really awkward. And, you know, at some point, because once they're played by, this happened with Mike Breen too, who I don't think since Van Gundy and Jackson has really found his groove with any partner in the same way when he was, you know,
01:19:18 thrown 99 miles an hour with really carrying Van Gundy and Jackson a lot of different ways. And I just don't think he's, match that since. But I think because it's Mike Breen, we've already decided on Mike Breen. So anytime the broadcast isn't perfect, you always tend to blame the other people, right?
01:19:35 And I think that might be the case here with Nance. Like, the really, really great ones would be able to pull out the J.J. Watt, but a lot of it still feels forced. It's a lot of like, whoa. It's like when we went to that Brazilian place last night, JJ, and the waiter finally tapped out. And it's just like almost like they went into AI to have some like fake exchanges to print out to execute or something.
01:20:01 All the Brazil stuff was so magical because we got steakhouses. Yeah. We got dancing and we got Christa Redeemer. So I also played where in the world is Carmen San Diego. It's a video game and learn those exact facts about Brazil. Thank you guys for filling me in. So you're in Brazil, right? We're in Brazil.
01:20:19 You're in Brazil. Okay. There's some culture here. You're in Brazil. Got it. First time ever in Rio. Yeah. They like field goal kicking here, JJ.
01:20:30 I'm so glad you said Breene is a comp, because that's exactly where I was going to go. You got a guy who's in his 60s in Nancy, 67. You're in the last decade of your career, at least at like that level of calling games, you know, being the lead guy. And all of a sudden, they're like, you know what? Your analyst isn't your analyst anymore. We're changing things up. You felt you were in a groove. And with Nance, maybe it was twofold.
01:20:54 Romo kind of collapsed on him. And now he has to, like, have this new guy. And I'm just like, it just feels, how many times, by the way, did he say J.J. Watts named during that game? Did you notice that after every play? JJ? J.J.? J.J.?
01:21:08 Well, as you know, that's my favorite broadcasting crutch for we don't have chemistry yet. When they, I remember writing about it in my book with, it was Costas, Isaiah Thomas, Doug Collins. It's just like repeatedly just calling each other. Because nobody had, they had such little chemistry. They had to like repeatedly just call out each other so they would know the other person was up next talking. So you know that's bad. Did Costas call him Zique? Remind me. Probably, probably year two, maybe. That was when you're like comfortable enough to call him Zieg. Yeah. The Wad thing is fascinating because I love linemen. We need more linemen in big jobs like that. And if you listen to him, he's really sharp.
01:21:54 He sees the field well. He's got a little of that big galute lineman in him. Yeah. And it's funny, a friend sent me a text day. It was like, it feels like he doesn't know quite how much to lean into that. You know, like he had little moments where he almost sounds like Alex Karris did when we were kids. You know, I was like, I'm a big old guy. Play football.
01:22:14 You know, I'm that kind of lovable lug. But I don't know. He all felt a little downbeat to me. he also started getting really shouty at the end of the game, if you noticed, when things got exciting, he was just, he didn't quite know emotionally how to get there.
01:22:29 Yeah. The thing about Romo, you and I just have whacked Romo, you know, over and over again over the last couple of years, but like, Romo to me understood the emotional parts of football announcing. Yeah.
01:22:41 That was his great gift. All the, oh, Jim, oh, here we go, Jim. Like, it was annoying. But that was his superpower. Like, he knew, like, hey, we got Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow coming down the field in the fourth quarter. This is a big deal.
01:22:55 Like, I need to underline this. I need to jump on this. I need to feel what the viewer at home is feeling. It was the here we go. Here we go. Here we go, Jim. Here we go, Jim. I know.
01:23:05 It sounds corny, but that's what Romo was really good at. And with Watt, you're like, hey, second year broadcaster, he's still learning television, but he just doesn't have that sense of the medium that guys like Romo, Collinsworth do, where you just, you have to get a big moment, you have to just make it feel really big. Yeah, and even when Romo, I just don't think he worked this hard the last couple years and he could feel it.
01:23:28 There's just no question. You didn't know the names of the linemen. Yeah, when they started saying the numbers, Herb Street does this too now because he's just doing too much, too many games everywhere. But like, ah, 78 was there. It's like, all right.
01:23:40 You know, by the way, I'd be a disaster because I wouldn't be able to remember anyone's number. It is a certain skill. But I think when you're, when you're doing a Thursday game and a Saturday game, it's a pretty tall task to begin with. But with Romo, like, I did feel that his superpower was
01:23:58 the more invested he was in whatever the moment or the drive or whatever, it made me more invested. And with Watt, I think he has good stuff. Like, he did the Pittsburgh New England game. And it was annoying because his brother's on Pittsburgh, right? And it's like, there's no way you're not rooting for Pittsburgh. I know you're trying to suppress it. So as a Pats fan, I'm like, fuck.
01:24:21 Like, wait, really? We have to have T.J. Watt's brother do this game. But he did have good stuff. It's just, like, you wouldn't be able to do an S&L sketch about him, which I think is weirdly a part of how to be a great announcer is. You have to almost be able to be teased, like, for whatever your character is. Like, and Brady already definitely has that. Romo had that in spades.
01:24:44 Madden had that. And J.J. Watt, and I think Greg Olson fits in. to this too where it's like they're good at their job. They do perfectly fine job, but I wouldn't be doing like J.J. Watt impersonations on my podcast on Sunday night. I don't know if that matters. What would you parody is what you're asking? He's, he's fine. He does a good job. Yeah. Right? He's like a B or a B plus. He's sound observations. And I was thinking about this is CBS, right? So Romo's in purgatory. He's in timeout. That was going to be my next question. Like, where is he? It's going to be.
01:25:18 Week four this week. Week four, you're David Burson and you're sitting there and you're like, part of this equation, as we know, is not just a moral equation. It's like, do I have a number one announcer that I can just put into that slot and feel good about for the next couple of years or at least the rest of this year? Yeah. And I look at Watt and I'm like, I can see it. I could project it, but I'm not sure he's the number one guy.
01:25:41 Or he's in a three-man booth as a number two guy. I feel like he needs another person. And again, I don't like three-man booths. but it just feels like it needs a little more. There's something to be said about seeing Brady, especially seeing Brady these days, but seeing Brady, and it just,
01:26:01 it's like, that's Tom Brady, you know, Collinsworth has been in our lives for this entire century as an announcer, and it still feels like a big game when he's there. I think Therico's the best he's ever been announcing football. Just in general,
01:26:14 like he's still, I feel like he's still climbing, as a play-by-play guy. His football stuff is fantastic. He's leveling up in front of our eyes, which I didn't think was totally possible. Have you noticed like when there's a weird rules moment before the referee can even talk,
01:26:30 he's diving in to tell you, I know it's not going to be a 10-second runoff here. Yeah. Because the clock would stop. And just like it's this command of small things. Combined with the moment, too. Like he's, if it's a good play,
01:26:43 he's by far the best guy on a big play. You know, and this is what Al used to be great at for, But Tariq's on top of it. He's got the right amount of excitement. But then you're right. He also has that nerd side, which I felt like was holding him back for the first 10 years. He had to be perfect with everything, right?
01:27:01 He had to like, you know, he was like that batter at the batter's box. He had to do his gloves nine times and grab his cup. And now he, I think he lets it fly better. I think he's the number one football play by play guy right now. I don't think it's close. I sat in a booth with him for the ringer a couple years ago for a piece. and this dude came out for the Bengals. It was like a backup defensive tackle.
01:27:23 And Torrico's calling the game, and he pulls out this iPad that he's written all these notes on, and he's calling the game, and he starts going like this through the iPad. This is weird. Television is happening at this point. Yeah. And he finds this note about this guy,
01:27:37 about his usage rate, you know, how many snaps he played in the last couple of games because he barely played it all. And has the exact number of snaps and just like goes all the way and then just puts the iPad away. And I'm like, how the hell did you do? do that. And just watching that, that's not something you can't remember
01:27:51 everything. Right. So you're like reaching for things during the game and looking over here and all that stuff. And yeah, I feel he's really, really, really good and getting better, which is a scary part. He's probably, I would say this generation's Michael's for the ability to basically be
01:28:08 thrown into anything and be really good. And top of the line. I agree. And the interesting part is also with Collinsworth. Because I asked him about this. What's like, what's the difference when calling again with Al and calling again with Mike. And he goes, Al was a little more, you know, snarky, little down here. And so Collinsworth went way up.
01:28:27 Yeah. He felt like he needed to be Mr. Energy. Oh, you know, I can't do the Cousin Sal imitation. But he felt like he needed to be that, Chris. Mike's way up here, right? He's an energy guy. So I think that also allowed Collinsworth to come down a little bit. I mean, remember the great Caleb Williams started on the playoffs last year?
01:28:42 And Tariko calls to play perfectly. And then you just hear Collinsworth just laughing. Yeah. He can pull that laugh out five seconds after the play now. He's got it on command. He summonses it. It's great. And that to me is like the perfect pairing for them.
01:28:56 Collinsworth can kind of relax and be Chris Collinsworth, been with it since 1990 on network television. Yeah. And Mike is calling the game superflu. I thought Luke Kinkley was interesting. But unfortunately, on Netflix, that doesn't get enough games. I almost wish she could get more reps calling stuff during this season.
01:29:15 But that's another one where it's like the A traditional, he was a linebacker, JJ Watson defensive linemen. But I like the perspective of those guys. They always come up with a couple things where I'm like, oh, you know, there was a lot he did a lot of generic stuff too, but for the most part, I thought he was pretty interesting. There was some generic stuff and some stuff that just sounded like I'm supposed to talk for exactly 9.8 seconds here and then I shut off. But he's another guy.
01:29:40 Yeah, give him a full season on Fox or CBS and he could really turn into something interesting. So you noticed the Breeze thing, too. I didn't realize who it was. And I was flipping games around. And then whatever game he was doing ended up with the sound. And I'm like, this guy's good. Who's this? And it was like, it's Drew Breeze?
01:29:59 Wow. I was like pleasantly surprised. But I thought he feels fiestier now. He does. The Fox guys were always like he, we felt like there was something there. Yeah. It didn't get used at NBC. Right.
01:30:12 And mostly it's just doing games. and, hey, you're in the number three slot, you know, until you bring the sound over there. You're not, like, focusing on Drew Breeze like we would be if he had a big, big job. Greg Olson's going to clearly go away. And he's going to be the number two guy pretty soon. And that's interesting. Herb Street. I've been watching a lot more college football this year.
01:30:35 It's really been a Bill Simmons college football renaissance, including the 4-0 UCLA, which is covering. We got UCLA. covering my 50. I've watched every UCLA game. I try to watch the big game in the week. I'm fascinated by the quarterbacks. There might be some wagering as well to peak my interest. But, yeah, put me in the camp of,
01:31:00 if his name was Arch Lewis, I don't think he would be in the top three. Like, I know other people have made that point. I think it's 100%. When I watch all these quarterbacks, they have flaws that do good things, they do bad things, but I personally don't see it
01:31:17 as a top three pick, but you, this is your team. You're a Texas guy. So do you see it? What am I missing? When Kurt Goldsbury and I were there at the Ohio State game,
01:31:26 when it was 94 degrees at kickoff at 6.30 at night, and we were like two old men in a sauna that are like talking to each other in towels, what are you doing here, Kirk? It's just like, he's the most incredibly frustrating guy
01:31:38 I've ever seen. Because I agree with you. If it weren't Manning, you'd be like, I don't think this guy's it. He's just not consistent enough. And the funny thing about him being a manning is I think maybe his best skill is using his legs. He's a really good runner.
01:31:53 It's a traditional manning. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. He's a great runner. And when he's more like a, you know, a lot of college quarterbacks, like, is a good enough passer. But when you combine good enough passing with like a really dynamic runner who can just go to the house all the time, then you can win some games. Yeah. That's arch to me.
01:32:09 I don't see him as like a classic top. five pick because, hey, you know, he's got great pocket awareness. And I mean, he takes forever to get through his reads. He makes dumb throws all the time. How many times, he twice against Tennessee, if you were watching on Sunday, he threw balls past the line of scrimmage? You're like, what? His fourth year?
01:32:26 You're a manning? You're throwing balls past the line of scrimmage? Well, with Herb Street, I just don't totally get it. What am I supposed to get? That's a college announcement. We're not talking about Thursday. We're not even going to NFL yet for the college, because I'm not. I think that he's the most respected college guy, right?
01:32:48 Is there somebody more respected than him? Joel Klatt's probably the 1B on Fox. And I'm not saying he's bad, but what am I missing? Because he seems pretty generic to me. And like, especially compared to the NFL guys we talked about, I just don't think he's in the same class. As a college guy, he's claimed a fame is that he's a human computer. You got way more teams to worry about.
01:33:10 You got way more players to worry about. And the players change all the time. So it's just a completely different job in the NFL when you're coming back. You have 10 years later you're watching the same quarterback that you've games you've called. Well, I will say this. When he does a Texas game, he'll say little things about the roster. And there are things that are not only just like correct, but are the really good take about it. I'm like, oh, that's the stuff I'm reading about in my message board.
01:33:37 Yeah. So he's incredibly well prepared. There's a lot of really bad college announced. So welcome to college football, first of all. And if you're watching UCLA and they don't have like the lead or even like the fourth or fifth telecasts, it gets pretty bad. And you guys are like, man, did you read the program before you started calling this game? I've never caught Herbie in that situation ever. Okay.
01:34:00 Well, that's a good and compelling case. He certainly, like, I haven't heard anybody that I thought was better with them in college. But I also don't feel like it's not like John Madden. I'd have no idea why he's doing these Thursday in NFL games. Now, maybe they just needed a name and it was like just, oh, shit, we have football this year. Who can we get? Who's available? And this is the biggest name.
01:34:22 You do it. But I just think he's a college guy who also like on the side kind of seems like he's following the NFL. And I don't really learn anything from him during the games. And I don't, he says pretty basic stuff. It's not a great experience. You remember when they were looking to fill that job, it was John McVeigh. I think was Choice One, Troy Aitman they wanted. They wanted John Lynch.
01:34:48 Yeah. They wanted all kinds of people for that job. And then everybody was said no or was unavailable. And all of a sudden was like, okay, Herbie. Let's put him with Al. And they could have had Greg Olson, by the way, for that job way back when. That was not somebody they pointed at. It's interesting.
01:35:05 And this feels, I mean, this feels like maybe his life, he's the contracts up this year. And maybe he just goes back and does. Well, now that he has the dog store. Now he's, now he's, who knows, where that goes. That was in Mississippi. Was that what it was? Pop up dog stores?
01:35:19 As you know, I love dogs. You're a dog guy. I've never had less than two dogs since 2004. Love dogs. Wrote pieces about my dogs. The dog stars... Dog stars a little much. Come by a coffee mug with my dog's face on it.
01:35:38 A portion of the proceeds goes to veterinary clinics. What's happening? Like, that is just a heat check. Yeah. That is a classic, like, eh, nobody in your life. Try to talk you out of that one. I have not sat down on the couch,
01:35:55 the psychologist's couch with Herbie, but also when I see him now, like, this is a guy who got the game day job when he was 26 years old. Ooh, like a child actor. 30 years ago. Yeah. He became the host of college game to NSPN.
01:36:09 And he's been calling the games for 15 plus years now. and it just feels like he's in this part of his life, part of his career. We're like, what do I do now? Do I just, you know, roll this out and go to Oxford? And I think he still loves that. Like, he still seems like with college, he seems like he's into whatever is in front of him. But also there feels like there's a little bit of searching going on there, perhaps. I think that sounds fair.
01:36:33 Speaking of searching, Charles Barkley, who said on my podcast a few weeks ago that this was his last year, it wasn't even really a news story because he said this multiple times before and I joked on the podcast that he was the Muhammad Ali of retirements which he took exception to and claimed he'd only try to retire once I let it go in fact check false he said it again this week that this is going to be his last year do you believe him I don't believe him the only thing that made me think twice was the Ernie Johnson part of it
01:37:08 So let's say Ernie does retire, because that's what Charles is saying, right? This is going to be my last year on Inside the NBA and Ernie's last year. Yeah. Could he do that show with somebody other than Ernie? And here's the more interesting question. Who would you put on that show as a host if Ernie does retire? It is one of those things every time it's not Ernie. I'm bummed out.
01:37:35 Agreed. I mean, that's like Ernie's perfect place in the broadcast universe. I don't know if you'd put him on, I think he would have fine if you put him on like an NFL pregame show or something like that, but that show is where he belongs. And if he were to leave and you were trying to keep the chemistry,
01:37:53 which has already been kind of threatened by the ESPN thing, and it's already, you know, everybody felt a little bit weird about it last year. They gave them a lot of time in the playoffs, though. I think my one fear about that the time stuff would screw them up was not really what happened.
01:38:08 ESPN rallied late and gave them. time, which was good. It did. It'll be different this year when McAfee's on the show. Is he doing that too? I don't know. It's funny. It seems like he gets written about a lot. And my attitude on all of it is I don't really care. Like he's not a lot of stuff. They absolutely like him. Like, more power to him. He works really hard. I respect the work ethic. When people freaked out about the NFL pregame show, I'm like, isn't this what you want Pat McAfee doing? Like, football talk, talking ball on the pregame show? He's one of your big stars.
01:38:42 Of course you want him on here. Yeah. I mean, and same thing with college game day. I think the Stephen A. Smith piece of it is fascinated, though. That this was basically how they were treating Stephen A. Smith two years ago and putting them on everywhere to the point that people were getting pissed off about it. And then there's been organizational stuff behind the scenes at ESPN. There's new people in charge of this stuff who are, I would say, it's fair to say, pro-Macophie.
01:39:10 And Stephen A, who got. this new deal and is on two other shows that aren't on ESPN. And it seems like they've come to a little bit of a, okay, you're just going to do first take, maybe pop on a couple other things every once in a while. And that's going to be his ESPN relationship. That was not the case two years ago. Things really flipped, didn't they? Yeah.
01:39:30 Remember writing Stephen A is the most powerful talent in ESPN history became such a cliche that we all stopped writing it? And all of a sudden, you're like, ooh, I don't think he is. anymore. They kept him away from inside the NBA. I don't, did he ever even go on that show? I don't think they, I mean, they really, I don't remember, I thought that was interesting. I thought so too. And now Pat McAfee can do anything he wants. We have to be careful because I don't want him to start his YouTube show tonight saying, Bill Simmons, you and I have always gotten along, but my name was in your mouth and we have to talk about this. Stephen ain't know. We're going to get down.
01:40:10 Stephen I knows I like him. I don't know if you should be on three shows a day. I don't think that's sustainable. There's just a lot of work. I'm somebody who does shows. It's hard to research them and follow everything. And to just do three a day, every day, I worry about him.
01:40:26 I don't know if that's ultimately going to be efficient for him, but I guess we'll see. I agree. He has different things on different shows. You know, first take is still first take, recognizably so, even if he didn't quite have the co-host go-to guy, that he did in past years.
01:40:43 No. But then like the politics thing just seems to be either like him interviewing potential presidential candidates or him just like calling out some journalist and getting into some huge fight with somebody from his past or he was like,
01:40:55 what is this? Yeah, there was a whole thing. I barely followed it, but he went on Jamel and Kerry Champion's show and then didn't like and then it just kept going for a couple days and- and then was doing post the full interview after it was over?
01:41:08 Every time I saw something about it, It was on my Twitter, whatever, but I realized that was on the for you page. I'm like, no, no, this is not for me. And then you go to the people you're following. But yeah, it just feels like you can have a side career just intermittently doing these, they're almost like wrestling things. It's like what we grew up in the 80s where it's like, magnificent Morocco, you had your name in my mouth. But when we're at the Nassau Coliseum on Friday night, I'm going to show you.
01:41:40 you. And that's kind of half of sports media now? Yeah. Yeah. Our Undertaker voice. Kerry champion. Good luck to everybody. Charles Barkley, so you think he is coming back?
01:41:59 I think he's coming back. By the way, remember his retirement? After this year? You think he's back after this year? I think he's back. I think he's back forever. I still, I'm old enough to remember when he was going to retire to go to live golf four years ago. People forget about that retirement. There was the whole, I'm going to retire when I'm 60.
01:42:17 I'm going to retire when the Turner deal is over. I'm going to retire when Ernie retires. But there was also, I'm going to retire to go to the renegade golf thing. Yeah. That just turned out to be completely bogus. He's got back. A lot of money being thrown around. But the live was the all time, wait, how much are you offering? And some golfers took it. Oh, yeah. I mean, Barclay had that quote like, you know, hey, I have a price. There's a surprise that I don't go to live golf. I mean, we've seen that with comics. We've seen that with all types of people.
01:42:48 We have the MLB. We're taping this during the Phillies Braves game. But we have the MLB playoffs, which is always interesting because it always reminds me that we've never been 100% satisfied with an MLB national color guy ever. Who came the closest? Early Macarver. Yeah. I think that's the answer.
01:43:10 ABC Macarver. ABC and then like early like with Jack Buck McCarver like probably until like the mid-90s and then people started to, he was one of the first announcers when I might even made fun of him in my college column but when I had my website just so easy to do Macarver material
01:43:29 and then we had him and Deirdorf at the same time and plus Paul McGuire and ESPN and all the basketball guys were terrible it was like a smorgas board for me stuff to make fun of. whenever I'm reminded like whenever I can play about announcers now I'm like it used to be so much worse yeah they were just always like guys you're like man that dude's doing a national game right yeah they'd surprise us over and over again especially in the NBA and McCarver got cranky this is the thing
01:43:57 why do baseball announcers get cranky the longer they're in the seat oh that Joe Morgan even a more famous example at small has gotten crankier yeah I don't it's not doing it for me they and it's another there's something that's something that's something that's something that's I think about baseball too, where every fan base decides pretty early on that you hate their team. And I think Smoltz probably has the most of these. I don't know, a single fan base who's like, yeah, John Smoltz has been fair to us. John Smoltz, fuck that guy. He hates us.
01:44:28 Everybody thinks he's carrying on these grudges. Like he's Michael Corleone in these games. And, you know, I just think that we've never figured out how to move baseball announcing into the 21st century. you know, I think about it when I obviously watch a ton of Red Sox. And I think the Red Sox stuff is more on the higher end of some of these broadcasts. But it's still, it's a lot of filler. It's a lot of, a lot of babbling. It's a lot of just trying to kill time.
01:44:56 Yes, even with shorter games. Yeah. Killing time. It's funny. I texted a baseball announcement this morning because I knew you know I were going to talk. And I was like, hey, who's the color guy I should be really excited about to hear in the postseason? Ooh. because I can't think of anybody.
01:45:11 And the announcer wrote back, the reason you can't think of anybody is because there's not anybody. How's that possible? Yeah, and I was just trying to think of names like, you know, and I was like, what is it? It's like, is it, you know, Ron Darling and Jeff Rancourt on TBS? Does that get you there?
01:45:27 I mean, that's solid to me, right? That's not bad. Ron Darling, that sounds like baseball. I think Pedro could have done it, but it's easier to do his studio stuff. I think Pedro could have been really good. He's really smart with baseball. Poppy's good in studio, I think.
01:45:41 Yeah. But just in the booth, we haven't had that guy. I mean, I think Lou Merlone is doing the Red Sox Yankees series, right? With Jason Benetti on NBC? Yeah, Lou's good. I actually think as a local guy, he's about as good as we've had. That's not bad.
01:45:57 Yeah. But I'm surprised he's doing our series. Like, if I was a Yankee fan, I wouldn't feel great about that. Oh, but it's also Joe Girardi's part of that, too. So this is the thing with NBC, right? They like the local flavor, you know, get it in there. that to me is not a bad solution yeah it's not bad
01:46:13 it's just strange that we haven't had somebody who mixes like the old school way of how we used to talk about baseball when it was just we were all full of shit versus the new school way using the stats and launch angles and all these different things like there's some
01:46:29 really interesting discussions out there do you think that this is just the network's not paying enough attention to baseball because they've spent all their time thinking about their football stuff probably but the difference is i think the baseball audience is is really going to keep growing this this decade assuming they don't have a lockout coming off the most amazing world series you can imagine red-sox yankees best two or three is just amazing that's that that's happening right
01:46:54 and then we have all these other teams that are in the mix like the cubs and the fillies um i don't know yeah it just it's a weird mystery that they haven't developed especially like one big national you're like, I can't wait to hear that guy break down a game. Because if this is the NFL playoffs, you and I would be excited about Brady and Aitman and Collinsworth and Olson. We'd be like, oh, look, I can't wait to hear what he has to say. Like, that'll be a fun, a fun listen. And I'm just like, who is that in baseball right now?
01:47:23 I think with baseball podcasting, it's been a little similar. Because there's almost two different conversations going on with baseball at all times. And nobody has figured out how to synthesize those for a larger audience. whereas we have 50 NBA podcasts that could probably appeal to whoever. Like even this hockey podcast we just added, though, what chaos guys? They're really good. And it's like the reason we never had a hockey podcast at Grant Laner at the ringer is I just never heard one that I felt like could cover the sport the way,
01:47:57 like how fucking fanatical hockey fans are, but also would do it an accessible way to casual fans. It's like the hardest thing to balance. and hockey and baseball and soccer, I think, to some degree too. You really have to nail both demos, because if you don't hit both, they one or both will go. And that's just how it goes.
01:48:20 It also goes back to what we were talking about with Tomlin. There's a bridge between baseball statistics and all the great data we have at our fingertips now and then appealing to a general audience and being like funny and relatable. Yeah. and emotional. And it's not, it's got to be doable because there's so many football
01:48:40 announcers to do it. Like, you know, Greg Olson does that, right? He dignifies the X's and O's and he's that guy. Like Chris Collinsworth is that guy. You know, they, Chris Collinsworth used to own a data company, right? Like, this can be done. But I just don't know why that person has been found in baseball. And again, I just, I wonder how much they've even tried to develop that person,
01:49:02 gone shopping for it in the way they would with the NFL. Every time you think things evolving, PTI is just cranking out another year as the best half hour sports show. This format that was created in 2000. Yeah, they got that award the other day. You know, there was like,
01:49:17 what was it from, I can't remember which college was going to give them an award. And I'm like, they're just winning, they're into just like, oh, great, we're honored to accept another award.
01:49:25 Here we go, you know. Yeah, it's like the Pitt season 12, just going up there, just getting more Emmys. And that's because they're grandfathered in, right? Like we couldn't create another show on ESPN that would be that, right? I didn't like when Wilbon gave the answer about if Tony retired when he said the thing about,
01:49:46 well, I would do it with Frank Isolo then. I was really surprised he said that. I thought the correct answer would have been, it's my show with Tony. Like, I want to do the show with Tony for as long as he wants to do it. I'm not going to think about what's happening after. It was weird that he had somebody warming. up in the bullpen. I was really, really surprised by that. I agree. It would be really weird to see it just with one of them permanently. It's weird when one of them's gone. It's weird. That's a show
01:50:14 we like that. I know they do fill-ins and stuff, including I sold it was good, but it'd be weird not to have Mike and Tony together. Well, Tony's been retiring for 12 years. On the Charles Barkley plan? Almost at the end of 2026. I'm so old. Nobody wants to look at me. I just don't see him. And the ratings are fine. I saw it the other day they had an hour long show and that was like maybe like three, four weeks ago, which Tony has resisted forever. He feels like that would be the death of the show, the moment it went for an hour. Wasn't not interesting. Like they made the little five good minutes. Those interviews were longer and they figured out a way to string along. You're basically have to do 42, 43 minutes of content instead of 22. I wasn't against it. No.
01:51:02 Sometimes you got to evolve a little bit, you know. I agree. The shortness of it, though, back in the day, was part of the magic because it felt like the length of a column they would write in the post. Right. Remember columns? Remember how short they were compared to everything now? It's not like a substack that just goes on for hundreds and hundreds of words.
01:51:19 It's like, oh, you know, nice and tight. Do you remember those? Yeah, I do. What do we think is the ideal sports column length? I don't know the inches, but I think like around a thousand words. maybe maybe you could talk me into 850 yeah I remember when I was doing the magazine thing I've been thinking about this a lot lately
01:51:40 don't read too much into that but um but the uh I started out with 650 which was just basically putting myself in a car bomb like I had no chance I'm just blowing up every week I couldn't barely say anything at 650 words then they gave me like
01:51:59 it was like somewhere around 810 and that was a little better. Like I could at least have like, here's the premise and race through it, hits and bits and go. But then I finally ended up at 1250, which was two pages. It was like between 1225, 1250.
01:52:16 And I really felt like that was a pretty good length. So I personally think it's somewhere probably between $1,000 and $1250. But, you know, I've seen some stuff I've written, like some of the, not even mailbag things. Stuff I wrote that would be like, 5,500, 6,000 words. I didn't even think twice.
01:52:36 I'm like, people read this. I don't think anyone would read that now. I would have to spend like a month on it to make every single part of it perfect to even put that out because people are just, they're just doing this all day. I don't know how you could capture their attention like that. Yeah. And you're talking about with the magazine stuff that's written, you have some time to do or you're thinking about a little bit. Yeah, 100%. talking about newspaper stuff that you're writing in a press box,
01:53:01 you know, how long, a game just happened. Yeah, fair, fair, fair. Yeah, right, like you got, an hour. A Turner. Sean, I got to say Sean to see, who I've obviously said a lot of problems with over the years, he still cranks out those 850. I have an angle, boom, boom.
01:53:16 Same kind of thing. I mean, Sally Jenkins is probably still, I would say, the best pure calmness for that, although she's not at the Washington Post anymore, but, but there's still a couple of people that still do it. that way. Yeah, it was such an art. It's such, I mean, just in terms of like having ideas and then having to react, you know, this thing happened right before me. And I got to just sit down and
01:53:41 write this baby. And it's got to be great. Those were all my favorite things I ever wrote when I had a limited amount of time to do it. Because I think that's, that's when the degree of difficulty comes in on top of whether you wrote something good or not. But when you have some sort of obstacle and you have to do it. Those are always, like the best piece I ever wrote was after game four, game five of the ALCS, when just coming home from that, having to stay up until five and write something
01:54:06 that I thought it ended up being really good. But trying to capture that, but having a limited amount of time, but also like starting to fade because I'd been up for 22 hours. You know, and I'm drinking like a big gulp coke, trying to get through it. Like, those are like, when you pull those off as a writer,
01:54:23 those are the best. And it's so immediate. Yeah. You're not, you don't get. it in your own head because you can't. You can't. It's just like, what's the metaphor? Okay, I'll take it. First choice, second choice, third choice. Let's go.
01:54:35 You know, what's a good lead. Okay, I'll take it. That's what screenwriters will say that. Like when they talk about advice for screenwriters and it's always like, don't slave over your script. Like just try to bang out in two, three days, the bones of the first draft of the thing and then worry about filling it all the color later, but try to bang out.
01:54:57 to structure all the beats. And you'll hear like people will write the first drafts of movies, like famous movies that we know about in like two or three days. Because they're just like, I'm putting my head down and going and I'm banging all it out and I'm going to trust my fingers and see where it goes. And I have a general idea. I don't know. That became as I got older, the part that terrified me, which I think happens to everybody.
01:55:22 But not to you because you're still writing. Well, and then we became podcaster. So it's all kind of, it's deadlocked. Because it's easier to podcast. It is way easier to podcast. It's way easier. And I still put a lot of the, you know, the beats and the thoughts and stuff I would do. But it's not even remotely as, I don't know, impactful as writing something that people could read, that you're actually.
01:55:46 I think the thing that worries me about some of the writing now is people, I think there's a sameness to a lot of those stuff. And I don't mean that in a bad way or good way. just I think people are so used to writing emails and texts and whatever that when they write, they're like, here are my thoughts. And they kind of put the thoughts and they structure them a certain way. The stuff we grew up with, people would be like, here are my thoughts. They're over here. Now I'm going to figure out how to tell you my thoughts, but I'm going to use some sort of fun innovation or gimmick or thought or I'm going to take these thoughts and twist them. Or I'm going to take the way you thought I was going. I'm going to zag the other way. And that was part of what
01:56:28 we loved. All the great writers were, you know, that we love the sports writers or culture writers or whatever. They all had that second thing. And now you kind of don't need it in 2026. It's like, here's my premise. Boom, I'm going. Someone's a badge of honor to do the Axios thing. Like, here's some, here's some bullet points. Yeah. Let's forget all that fancy lead and, you know, a zag. Let's just go straight down the list. Well, don't you think part of it is a fear. of if this doesn't work, I'm going to be made fun of tomorrow. And it's way easier for a writer to be made fun of in 2006 and really 2020 and 2016 and 11. I guess so. I feel like I don't see the purple pros ridicule as much as I did maybe like 10, 15 years ago. Yeah. Yeah, just because maybe
01:57:17 because there's not that much of it at all. And by the way, what you're talking about what we grew up with than we were doing when we were younger in this business bill. Yeah. Like sometimes you'd do that and you'd be like, wow, that was just, that was terrible. Like, that gimmick I came up with was really stupid. Yeah, but that's the thing. You're knocking about 100% on gimmicks, you know. But it would also sometimes unlock something and be like, ooh, that was, that got to a
01:57:39 different level than I could have gotten to if I'd just told it straight. Yeah, one of the things I used to do on my old website, I used to have these characters Murph and Soie that I would talk about Boston Sports through. And I would just write these dialogues. of the way and I tried to, you know, make it like a bunch of the way I was talking to my friends when I lived in Boston. I would never do that now.
01:57:59 And I don't even know if it worked. But I really liked it. And some of them worked. Some of them didn't. But it's like, fuck it. I'll do another Murph and Soley. And now I don't think I would, it would never even occur to me to do it. You would never do like a fake. You're reading Mike Royko and
01:58:15 Jimmy Brezlin. What's my version? Fake dialogue pieces. When's the last one? I saw you read would. But some of them ends up. But it seems like in general, with, with, especially in the substack era now, you're writing for people who really like you and you're getting that audience. But then how do you pull other people in? It's going to be the big question I think of the next five to ten years. I think so too. And also if you're writing for an audience that likes you, how do you challenge the audience that likes you? Right. They're there because you give them a widget. and what happens when the widget isn't something they want or something they like.
01:58:55 I mean, the old way you work for a paper, you work for a magazine, and part of it was just crossing up the audience sometimes. Just like, ah, you thought I was going to write this today, huh? Right. Bam! Yeah, eat that. Send your letters to the editor, jerk, you know? And you just kind of live with it, right?
01:59:11 And that was part of the way you made your reputation of being a little bit unpredictable and saying, I'm not going to do what you think. I got more pitches here. Right. And I do wonder now if the change up is as common as it was. Because, again, people expect a certain thing, you know, and challenging them in that way. You're like, oh, not like people are going to unsubscribe from the paper because you wrote that column, but they might unsubscribe from the substack.
01:59:36 True. It's true if you piss them off enough. Do you subscribe to substacks more for information or for the quality of the writing itself? A little bit of both. I think what I do is I try to recapture what I liked about the old world in substacks. There's a Cowboys one that I just love because it's just like, here's the Cowboys column. Yeah. That I, that I crave on.
02:00:02 It's like, it's got named Bob Stern. But it's like, you know, here's the one about the column about the offense, column, but defense, the preview for the big game that's like really stat, stat driven, but also like, well written. And I'm like, yeah, this is what I want. This is what I need in my life, right? You can go out and seek out the thing. I, like, obviously, we have a ladder writing on the, The Ringer.com, which I'm very proud of.
02:00:21 I get excited when I see, you know, all the, all the angles that people could come up with have been done at this point after we've been on the internet now for 30 years. But I always get excited when somebody executes the angle, correct. Like, Austin Gale had a piece. He did the take meter with the different things going on. And I read when I texted him, I was like, that was just really good. You should be proud of that. Like, you had the right things.
02:00:48 You wrote them correctly. good jokes in there. Like, that's, that's what we do. And sometimes, sometimes that's, that's, that's, that's the win with this stuff. But I don't, will it ever be like 2011 again? I don't know. You mean the, where we launched Grantland? No, just that era of, of how many writers were coming up, everybody, like the energy
02:01:09 behind it, um, and all the different styles. And I, I just, I wonder if we'll ever have that many writers again trying that many different things. I don't think so because everybody was coming up as a writer. Right. You weren't coming up as a podcaster yet. Well, and also people were reading back then. People were reading.
02:01:28 Maybe reading will come back. Jesselnik book club's happening. You're keeping alive on Instagram. Movies are back. Baseball's back. Readings back. Reading's next. It's going to be unbelievable.
02:01:41 My wife would say reading never left because she loves audiobooks. And a lot of people she knows who get older when they drive around, they either listen to podcasts or audiobooks. So there's those people. I think I don't, I think my reading has bounced back. My young parent years were, we're pretty rough.
02:01:57 Yeah. I could barely write. And that was kind of my first priority, much less sit down and like read something I was interested in reading. But I've bounced back last several years. What was the Brian Curtis book club? What was your book of the year so far,
02:02:09 2026? Oh, uh, regime change probably. Maggie Harriman and Jonathan Swan. Just in terms of like a pure page turner, like, oh, wow,
02:02:17 I just want to read. I want to read this right now. Remember books you just wanted to read right now? Right. That was at time. Yeah. Maybe it'll come back. Maybe a lot of stuff will come back, including Charles Barkley.
02:02:29 All right, Brian Curtis. The press box. Follow Brian Curtis. Who knows? There might be more stuff under his sleeve. You never know what this guy. What's your final Texas prediction, by the way, for the football season? I think 10 and 2 and in the playoff.
02:02:43 We'll see from there. 10 and 2. Even that's pretty bold because, man, the SEC, is loaded this year. It's a bit tough schedule. All right. Great to see you as always. We'll see in the office.
02:02:54 Great to see you, Bill. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kirk and Brian. Thanks to Gahel and Eduardo and Chris from the Ringer side as well. I'm going to be back on Thursday with an action-packed football podcast, but probably a little baseball too.
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