The Bill Simmons Podcast - NFL Future Bets, Windy City’s Fields, and ESPN’s Latest Drama With Mike Francesa, Jason Goff, and Jim Miller

Episode Date: August 27, 2021

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by NY radio legend Mike Francesa to talk a little Red Sox and Yankees before running through some of their favorite NFL future bets (1:50). Then Bill talks with Jason Goff about a possible Ben Simmons–Zach LaVine trade before discussing the Chicago Bears and their rookie QB Justin Fields (58:53). Finally Bill talks with journalist Jim Miller about ESPN's turbulent year, the latest on Rachel Nichols, the future of ESPN, how it has changed over the years, and more (1:19:15). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Mike Francesa, James Andrew Miller, Jason Goff Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Big podcast coming up. Mike Francesa, we are talking Little Yankees Red Sox at the top. I just, I had to do it. I didn't want to do it, but he was just beaming with joy, so we had to. But really, I wanted him to talk about NFL futures,

Giants and the Jets, Belichick. So he gave us his favorite bet. So that's our first guest. And then Jason Goff, a name you'll be hearing in ringer circles a little bit more as we head into football season. But I had to ask him, what's going on with Justin Fields and the Bears fans?

Is this an all-time love affair, budding love affair? Where are we? Do we believe in Justin Fields? And Bears fans. Is this an all-time love affair, budding love affair? Where are we? Do we believe in Justin Fields? And then finally, Jim Miller, who wrote the definitive book about ESPN, Once Upon a Time. He's been on this podcast many times before, but so much ESPN drama.

I had to bring him on to figure out what the F is going on with that place. So yeah, heading into the weekend. This is a really, really good podcast. It's all next. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right. Not a lot could bring Mike Francesa to this podcast. I really have to talk him in.

There's got to be something in it for him. There's two things that he loves. NFL futures and the Yankees turning things around. When I was, I was sending, I was texting my Yankee friends being like, we're going to try to go 19 and 0 against you this year. We can try to sweep the series. This is going to be great.

You trade for Rizzo, the rivalry flips. And now we're taping this at three on a Thursday afternoon Pacific time. The rivalry flips. You love this Yankee team. And I hate the joy in your face. I really do. I can't stand it. I hated the Yankee team.

Hated it. I still don't love a lot of these players. Rizzo's already my favorite Yankee, other than Gaudi, who's old. But I love Rizzo is a born Yankee. Absolutely. And lately hasn't even hit that much. But just in the Red Sox series, his glove versus Dahlbeck's stone glove was the difference in one game. I mean, and this Yankees team's transformation has been one of the most startling in-season in baseball history. They went from being a awful, awful to watch, slow, misguided, just unathletic, ugly team that could do nothing right

to a team now that has transformed everything, their attitude, their approach at the plate. They now take more pitches than anybody. They hit and run. They steal bases. They catch the ball. This is disgusting.

I'm going to throw everything right. They do everything right. And it was so bad to so good. It is startling. But let me throw some cold water because of the fact that if they don't get Chapman straightened out, and I don't know that they can, and right now he's not close, they will go out early in the playoffs because they have nobody and underline nobody to close the games. Nobody can do it. I don't think Loise can do it. All right. Wandi's a pipe dream. Britton's gone.

Green can't pitch the ninth inning. They, right now, have nobody to close the games. What's Rivera doing? Can they get him ready in time for October or no? That's their best bet. I mean, that is really their best bet. I would roll the dice, believe it or not. They go out there and say, oh, let's look at Chapman tonight and hope and dream, okay? I mean, they won that game the other night when they went to Wandy with the bases loaded after Chapman had imploded. It was unbelievable, but that's how it's been during the streak. They've won seven

or eight games. They had no right winning. The bottom line is, though, they can't count on Chapman. He's been awful. And I think Loiz is probably the best bet, but I think the Yankees are going into the postseason, and they're going into the postseason. I don't think they'll win the division. I think they'll win the wild card easy. But I think they're going

in without anybody they can count on in the ninth inning. I think Chapman is done personally, or there's something wrong with him. I don't know what's going on with him, but that Atlanta game the other night, which was done, and then Chapman, the sweats pouring out of him. He honestly looks like

Ray Liotta in the last 20 minutes of Goodfellas. He looks like he's honestly having a meltdown. And finally Boone has to just come. He's like, we're just not going to win the game if this guy had to do it they'd do this against the Red Sox too

it's like wow you can't even get a three run save we've got to come get you and the Red Sox the transformation it's almost like whatever the Yankees had infecting them it infected the Red Sox all of a sudden they can't catch the ball they hit every fastball that was thrown anywhere

near them the first three months of the season now they can't get a ball. They hit every fastball that was thrown anywhere near them the first three months of the season. Now they can't get a hit with men in scoring position. They look like whatever was just the Yankees had, but they caught it and the Yankees just repelled it. It's like they've changed places. Yeah, it's like a horror movie where the evil being jumps bodies. Yeah, the games the Yankees were winning,

that was what the Red Sox was doing for four months, including against the Yankees a couple of times. These ridiculous wins where you're just like, how did we, what just happened? But our bullpen fell apart. I mean, two things. We didn't do anything to trade that line and the bullpen died. Whitlock, Barnes, all these guys just ran out of steam. Yeah, your bullpen is not good.

And it was a wish and a dream anyway. And this idea, oh, they're going to get sale at the break. Oh, yeah, sure. That's going to be great. I mean, that's going to be wonderful. Listen, they are a good team. They don't have great pitching. They're not a championship team. The Yankees could be if they could figure

out the ninth inning. I don't think they can. I don't think it's something they really have within their possibility. They figured out everything else. And I'm telling you, the day Rizzo put the uniform on, everything changed. Everything changed. And with the rivalry, it changed because as a Red Sox fan, we were all mad they didn't do anything. But I really think the front office looked at it and were like, we're smoking mares. We're not giving up prospects. Rizzo's not going to save what's about to happen to this team. And Rizzo ends up

going to the Yankees for... The salary's paid for. They did give up a couple lower-level prospects. The Red Sox didn't want to give up anything. They're like, we're good. But you'd think that he's probably been worth a five-game swing because we have nobody who can play first base. Just the attitude he brought and just he is a Yankee.

The Yankees didn't know how to play and they were stubborn about it. They're like, we don't need lefties. What do you mean you don't need lefties? All of a sudden now the balance in the lineup has meant everything. You know, we can win with the home run. No, you can't. Now they run. Now, you know, Wade's been with the home run. No, you can't. Now they run.

Now, you know, Wade's been good and he's been hitting. They put the kid in at shortstop who's like, you know, a made-for-TV movie. And the kid's playing like Louis Aparicio, okay? You know, and what they had was a bunch of right-handed sluggers who couldn't get out of their own way, who were the worst base running team in history. And now they do everything right. They steal bases, they hit and run, they catch everything. It's a complete transformation,

the likes of which I cannot remember in season in my life. It reminds me of the 2018 Red Sox team in the sense that, you're right, the way the American League is, who the hell knows? Like the Yankees, they're playing well. They obviously have an expensive roster with some stars. They're getting lucky with a couple of the frisky guys, but the 2018 Red Sox had this Craig Kimbrell piece where it was just hanging over us that whole year.

We just didn't know if we could get through October with him as the closer. And as it turns out, we made it by like the skin of our balls with him. Yeah. And then he, he, he came back and now he's

an asset again, but it just didn't seem like he could be the closer on a World Series team. And I don't think Chapman can either. I don't think he can. First of all, I've never been a big Chapman guy. I don't like a lot of these Yankees. I don't like a lot of them. I don't like the way they play. I never want to stand anywhere near the team.

Voight now is mad about Rizzo. You know what? It's actually made him hit better. So, you know what? As long as he hits mad, okay. They have got, really, it's been done a little bit with Mirrors because they've got a lot of guys play way over their head the last couple of weeks, but it's working. Everything that didn't work, it's almost like every

bad bounce, now it's a good bounce. And I know it's going to level off and they're going to have a slump again. Actually, that's baseball. The bottom line, though, is it's going to level off. They're going to make the playoffs. again. Actually, that's baseball. The bottom line, though, is it's going to level off. They're going to make the playoffs. This series with the A's is going to be very interesting because they can put them away. And the A's are really cascading quickly. This is a big series starting tonight.

But without the ability to close the game, and they don't have that ability, Green sees the ninth inning, he runs the other way. I mean, he's great any other inning. But put him in the ninth inning, it's over. Britain's gone. You can't count anybody else. And frankly, I don't trust Chapman, even when he's good, no less now,

where he is just impossible to believe in even a little bit. So I think they have really a big Achilles heel. And I think that will keep them from going a long way in the postseason. Do you want to take 30 seconds to make fun of the Mets? Let me say this. The Mets, I was the only guy in time that I saw who made any mention of how bad the Lindor contract was. My point was, nobody ever comes here, ever.

Some of the greatest players in history have come here and never played well in their first year here. Never played well here when they had to justify a contract. He comes in. You knew this. You could predict it, okay? You could have got $100 million off the top if you just did nothing. He wasn't going anywhere. The bottom line is he not only does that,

he brings buyers into Putin in the middle of the season. So now you got two of them. Okay. It is such a disaster if I am the owner and we haven't really seen from the owner yet because he's still learning. He's sitting back. He's real rich and he's real smart and he's got a little mean streak. So the bottom line is, I think what he does now, clean house, gives Theo the two points he wants, brings him in and lets him rebuild and try to win his championship with Theo. He didn't want to give Theo ownership.

He didn't want to give him one point. Theo wants a couple of points. Is that true? Yeah, he wants the casting deal. Theo wants points. No, it's the Pat Riley deal. Theo wants points. I mean, everyone knows that. No, it's the Pat Riley deal. Pat Riley invented that deal. Well, really,

you know, Theo is the answer because I think he believes if I go with Theo, it's the proven commodity. I'm going to overpay. I'm going to lose control a little bit, which he should forget commenting about everything publicly anyway, which he will as he becomes a more veteran owner. But the bottom line is, I think that's the way to go. Now,

I'm not saying I know he, because I don't know the owner. So I'm not saying I know he will go, Theo. I think that's the way he should go. Get Theo, let Theo bring in his band of merry men. He'll overpay all of them. We know how Theo's going to be now. He's going to, you know, basically comment when he wants. He's going to be aloof. He's going to make a lot of money, but he'll win. And over a period of time,

he will get his championship. And what this guy wants, this guy wants to sit there and just drown himself in the adulation of the fans with his family around him one time and win a championship. That's what he wants.

That's the way he can get that if he goes with Theo. Well, that's like those Milwaukee Bucks owners recently, Lazaree and Edens. These guys, they buy the Bucks, and then when it actually works out and you win, you feel like you're a superhero. Right. They won, and let's be honest,

they all won because the Lakers were hurt. If the Lakers weren't hurt, or if the Suns hadn't completely lost their way, I mean, completely lost their way and realized where they were, the coach realized where he was, three or four of the young players realized where they were, and it was a disaster after that. I mean, they got roughed up physically the rest of the series, as we all know, but that team isn't winning any more championships. We all know that, okay? But they got their championship, and now they can bask in that. The owners there,

Mark Lazzari and the guys, they can all bask in the fact that they got their championship. They got their rings. They can show everybody at the cocktail parties now. Wow. I just think you put a giant chip on Giannis' shoulder. Giannis is sitting here thinking, I've moved into the Hakeem, Shaq, Moses

stratosphere. I've got multiple titles and here's Francesa being like, nah, you only won because these other teams were hurt. Enjoy your one ring, you're never getting another one. Let's be honest, okay? All he did was beat up some guys, put his shoulder down,

go to the basket, finally make some free throws. Here's what I'll say about him though. He's got some real real ugly parts of this game. But let's be fair about one I'll say about him, though. He's got some real, real ugly parts of this game. But let's be fair about one thing, and I want to be fair. He played so hard every minute on the court. I respect that. That's one thing LeBron always did. He played his rear end off every minute on the court. This kid played so hard and played both ends of the floor so hard. I give him great credit for that.

But let's be honest. We weren't watching picturesque all-time playoff basketball here when he was just putting his shoulder down, knocking guys down on his way to the rim, either going to the line and making 10 or 20, and then finally having some balls drop in the end of the series. And then Chris Paul remembered, wait, I'm not supposed to ever win a championship. So let me go back to being Chris Paul and get bullied by guys who, you know, a couple of years ago couldn't have played with me.

And that's what happened. Chris Paul got pushed all over the court. The center got pushed all over the building and it was over from there. I mean, and they didn't have enough. They didn't have enough to get past that. And let's be honest, they had one shot to win and they let it get away.

I think you're shortchanging Giannis a little bit. As a two-way incredible athlete, the stuff that he was able to do defensively, the ways that he can help his team, that's not just about scoring. He had that iconic block and the alley-oop. And I just thought his athleticism and how hard he played, which you just mentioned, like the combo of those two things, it's really rare territory. It's like basically LeBron and Shaq in 2000 in the last 20 years. His skill level, though, needs a little work. I mean, he's 26.

Come on, Mike. I mean, he just bulldozed. He just basically put his shoulder down and went to the basketball, which I give him credit for. He finally figured it out, but no one could stop me. But I think if they're playing against the Lakers, if they're playing against the Nets, I have some problems with some of the Nets,

so I don't want to talk about them today because we'll get to them sometime next year. But I'll tell you, if the Lakers didn't get hurt, you know they were winning that championship. Let's be honest. They were winning that championship. Let's be honest. They were winning that championship. And if not, the Nets were going to win it. The Nets and Lakers were on a different level than these teams.

And Phoenix should have had enough. But like I said, you know, the clock struck midnight and they realized where they were and they weren't ready. It was a very weird season. We have them sometimes. 2015 was weird. That first Warriors title where it was like, oh, wait, they're actually going to have them sometimes. 2015 was weird. That, that first Warriors title where it was like, oh wait,

they're actually going to win the title. This is weird. Sometimes you have this. All right, we're going to take a break. And then when we come back, it's time. I don't have the NFL music that you used to play back in the day,

but we're going to do some future bets, but we're taking a break. Come back. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache,

you could still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. All right, NFL Futures, I sent you a bunch of odds from FanDuel. I have been talking about this on my pod. I have some teams I like.

We'll just start here. Your favorite bet. Don't say the Giants. You're not allowed to talk about the Giants yet. Your favorite bet, your favorite future. Is it an over-under to make the playoffs, whatever? What do you like the most? Saints over nine.

I think the number is really low. I think the Saints have really screwed up the last couple of years. And the reason why is Sean didn't know how to get rid of Drew Brees when he needed to get rid of Drew Brees. Drew Brees was damaged goods, couldn't play at all. And it really hurt them. And I understand what he meant to the city, to the franchise, to everything. So it's a very difficult thing to do when you have that kind of player. But Sean was between a rock and a hard place, and it cost him. If he will just put Winston in there, coach him up where you take away

some of the bad throws because he can make every good throw, and then use the other kid as a change of pace and use him on running downs and use him as you don't like to use the secondary quarterback. They are a team that I think can easily win 11 to 12 games. They have a lot of talent on that team, a real lot of talent. And it's talent that has been misspent the last couple of years. I think the Saints will have a big year. All right. They're over under is nine, nine. I don't think that's any problem. I actually think it's a gift. So 10 and seven, they win. They're plus 330 for the division. They're minus 110 to make the playoffs. You know, when you were talking about Breeze last year, it reminded me of the last eight years of Derek Jeter's career.

Kind of the same thing. Just holding on the legacy. You feel bad. You don't want to kick him to the curb. It's really like Jeter from 06 on, basically? Yeah, but you know what? You don't get exposed. You don't get exposed. Even when you slow down in baseball, you don't get exposed like you do a quarterback. Because here's a guy who could not make,

he could not make a legitimate throw that they needed on second or third down. And if he had made one or two, they could have easily won a championship. Easily won a championship. Matter of fact, let me say this. Everyone talks about Tom. And what Tom has done, keeping himself in shape and what he did in Tampa and everything, and what he did when he had to make the certain play. But Tom didn't play really well in the postseason. So matter of fact, if that ball isn't stripped when the Saints are up in the

third quarter and the tight end's running free and the safety on Tampa doesn't strip the ball clean, the Saints are going to win that game and play in the Super Bowl. That was the biggest play in the postseason without any question. Thompson, three picks in the second half of the

title game. You don't win those games usually when you throw three picks in the second half of the title game. You don't win those games usually when you throw three picks in the second half of that game. He got bailed out by his defense when it happened. When he needed to make a play, he made it. And things broke really right, but you can never take anything away from him because he's done it so many times. But I thought the Saints had the best talent last year, and I thought Breeze really held them back.

And I know it was a very hard thing for Sean to deal with. I'll tell you something else that I noticed, Bill. Belichick's on Mount Rushmore. We all know it was a very hard thing for Sean to deal with. I'll tell you something else that I noticed, Bill. Belichick's on Mount Rushmore. We all know that. Okay. There are a couple other really good coaches in the league. Andy Reid, as everyone should have realized a long time ago. I've been telling people for 10 years. Now they all know Andy's a really good coach, although he had a terrible championship

game last year. Terrible Super Bowl. And we can talk about that if you want. But thereof, the coaching in the league right now as the head coach position in the NFL is the weakest I've ever seen in my life. There are so many bad coaches. It's unbelievable.

There used to be a lot of good coaches, 10, 12, 14 good coaches. Man, there are so many bad coaches and it's like now it's unbelievable or unproven coaches. It's amazing how many unproven coaches there are in the NFL now. Well, so if you have somebody like Peyton or Belichick, it's an even bigger advantage.

It does seem like there's more turnover with coaching than there's ever been before. These coaching trees that never work. Yeah, the owners, they get impatient. They used to wait a cycle. They used to wait three or four years. Now a cycle's one or two years tops. And they'll go one year with a guy now if they don't like him.

They'll go one year. If he can't handle the media, they'll go one year with a guy. Or if he does something really stupid, they'll go one year with a guy now. So you'll get those kind of changes. But when you look at coaching, the quality, the real bona fide Tom Coughlin's of the world. They're not in this league right now. You got your stars. I mean, you got Belichick.

You got Andy. They're Hall of Famous. You got Sean Payton, who's a really solid coach. There's some good coaches in the league. Mike Zimmer's a good coach. Not a great coach. He's a good coach. Tomlin's a good, solid coach.

There are a lot of stars, and there's a lot of weak guys. And then there's the Urban Meyer situation. Here is a college god. Here is a man who was not a good college coach. He was one of the greatest college coaches in history. He changed everything any time he put his hand on it. He went 187 and32 with three titles. The man has been a coaching god.

And now it's going to be fascinating to watch. But if he tries to do it with a first-year quarterback, no matter how talented he is, and Lawrence is going to be a great quarterback. He's going to be – the bottom line for Lawrence is he's a 10-year star. That's the worst that could happen. The best is he becomes a Peyton Manning. And I think he will be that kind of quarterback over time. But it doesn't happen in the first year.

Aikman won no games. Peyton went 3-13. It's very hard to win when you try to break in a guy who's going to be your franchise quarterback. Because that means he's staying no matter what all year, unless he gets hurt. And it's hard to win games that way and that's going to be interesting to watch Urban who's trying to win games

and bring the quarterback along at the same time it's a very hard thing to do I had them as a super duper duper only because of the odd sleeper in the AFC South because I think that division is going to suck and then you I actually watched them in the preseason and

they literally can't block. The Urban Meyer thing, new coach, all that stuff. The rookie running back gets hurt. They lose ATN. And listen, when you have this kind of pressure on you as a new quarterback, if you look historically, all of them, when you're talking about Elway, Manning, Aikman, Terry Bradshaw, who wanted to quit in Pittsburgh.

He got benched three different times. I mean, it took him years. These guys who are all-time greats, they don't come out and do it. Dan Marino is the only one who came in and was just brilliant from Jump Street. There are very few of those. It's very hard to do. I think it would be hard for them to win more than five or six games.

Very hard if you're going to play them all year. And they're over under six now. Back to the Saints for a second. I was off them. I actually thought if there was going to be a team other than Tampa, I thought Atlanta was interesting just because they had some bad luck last year.

They got Pitts coming in. I think the Julio... Pitts is going to be great. Pitts is going to be great. Julio was playing eight, nine games a year. New coach, Arthur Smith. So I was like, oh, Atlanta. Two things with New Orleans. You mentioned last year they really were maybe like two or three breaks away from making

the Super Bowl. A lot of those guys are back. I was scared by the Michael Thomas thing. Just the fact that he waited so long to get the surgery, that just seemed like a soap opera. But now they have this kid, Marquez Calloway, who's just like, he's the next Michael Thomas. There's always another wide receiver coming. Especially in the Saints, they always have another one come up.

But then you look at their schedule, they play the AFC East, so they get the Jets. And then they play the NFC East, which is going to be the worst division out of the eight. So you have that plus you have, you know, they get the Panthers, Falcons. They get to play. They have one tough stretch. Week 7 to 10

at Seattle Monday night. Bucks, Falcons at Tennessee. And if they get through that with like 2- two or something, you're right. They could, they should be able to go 10 and seven. I like the thing about them.

And you know, this cause you know, this stuff, they can line up and play with anybody, any day, anywhere, anytime. There's nobody,

they can't be, there's nobody. They can't line up and be 27, 17 on a Sunday, anywhere in the league. They have that kind of talent. They have that kind of talent on their offensive line, defensive line, skill positions, quarterback.

Now, Winston, here's what he has to do. He has got to get 10 interceptions out of this game. If he does that, he's going to have a big year. He is a great deep thrower, but the problem is he throws a lot of bad balls. Winston thinks he can make every play. He thinks there's no play he can't make. You've got to teach him you can't make

this throw. If he can just take one or two throws out of the game plan, he can be really good because he's a great deep ball thrower. I'm pro Winston. The dude threw for 5,200 yards. Granted, there were a bunch of terrible, terrible, terrible interceptions. But it's not like

you're putting in Joe Flacco. You mentioned the Giants before we got on the zoom. So NFC is quickly. Dallas is plus one 30 to win the division. Giants are plus 400 Phillies plus four 70. And Washington is plus two 60. And they have the best over under of eight and a half. I like Washington the most.

I can't get there with Daniel Jones. I just, I've said this before, but I just feel like after two years, I've just kind of decided on you as a quarterback. I don't think you're showing me a lot after two years. You kind of, you are who you are. You might be in a better situation, but that he's just too sloppy with the ball.

I don't, I don't think that's ever changing, but you're more optimistic. I'm not optimistic about the quarterback. I'm optimistic about the coach. I don't think that's ever changing, but you're more optimistic. I'm not optimistic about the quarterback. I'm optimistic about the coach. The coach is good. The coach is the real deal, I believe, from what I've seen, and I don't know him very well, but

they're going to be good on specials. They are really good on defense. I'm telling you, they are going to be better on defense than they've been in a long time. They spent a lot of money on defense. They brought in a lot of players. They spent a lot of money on defense. They spent a lot. They brought in a lot of players. They spent a fortune on guys. Now, offensive line, question mark.

Quarterback, big question mark. Even the health of the running back, big question mark. But it's seven wins. There is not a top team in that division. Nobody's a top team. Every game in that division is going to be a hard-fought game. Every game. Them in Washington, hard-fought games. Them is going to be a hard-fought game. Every game. Them in Washington, hard-fought games.

Them in the Cowboys, hard-fought games. Eagles, I think they're going to need a year. I think everyone feels that. Bottom line is, I think they can easily get to 500. I'm not saying they'll win the division. I take it 400, they're a good body. By the way, there is no 500 anymore. You just need them to get to eight and nine.

I mean, get over 500. Yeah, I mean, you can get over 500. It's seven, obviously. There's no 500. We know that. But my point is, I think it's seven. I actually bet him at six and a half. It's seven now.

I think it's seven. They still go over. And I don't love the quarterback. I'm with you. He makes way too many mistakes. This is a real big year for him. Real big year for him. And I think he has got to take a big

quantum leap forward or his career will be short there. They are going to stick with this coach. Take my word for it. They are going to. This coach was handpicked by Bill Belichick. They are going to stick with this coach. Gettleman, he should have been gone years ago. Eventually he'll go. George is going to be there for a while.

They are committed to him. It's going to be his team. He will not, he will get to, he will get to break in another quarterback with this team. He will not get lose his job because of the quarterback. Other coaches have lost their job because of the quarterback there. He will not. They believe in Judge and, you know, he got, I'm

telling you, Bill Belichick had a lot to do with Judge getting the job there. A lot to do. He's very close with the Marist. He always has been and the Marist listened to Belichick had a lot to do with Judge getting the job there. A lot to do. He's very close with the Marist. He always has been. And the Marist listened to him. He had a lot to say about that. And they like Judge a lot. And everything I've seen from Judge is solid.

He's got his hands on special teams. The Giants come to play hard every week. They don't take weeks off. Their game plan is good. And that's one of the things. There's two things I learned a long time ago in this league you got to do as a head coach. You got to give your team a plan they can win with and then get them to play hard. If you can do those two things, you're going to be successful over the long run. He does that. He does it every week.

The quarterback is a big issue. I agree with you 100%. That's what holds them back where I can't say the Giants are going to win 10, but I think they'll easily get over seven. The other team that I like- Wait, hold on on the Giants quick. Yeah. I like that you said it was a big year for Daniel Jones. I'll say this. He might be on Get Up in two years as one of the co-hosts. It might be him and Mike Greenberg and Marcus Spears. So when you say it's a big year, the ESPN talent scouts are circling him already.

Like, oh, this guy could be our next David Orlovsky. This is a very big year. Wait, can we do the Giants schedule quick? You and Doug used to do this way back when. Give me win-loss for each one. Ready? Here we go. Week one, home Denver.

Win. Win. Okay, we're 1-0. Week two, at Washington, Thursday night, four days later. Lose by a field goal. Week three, home Atlanta. Win. Week four at the Saints.

Lose. All right, two and two. Now we're heading into a gauntlet here. Week five at Dallas. You always win in Dallas and then lose at home. I think they lose. Okay, two and three. Rams, week six.

Lose. Oh, God, we're two and four. Uh-oh. Panthers home. This feels like a win, possibly. Yep, I think. Lose. Oh, God. We're two and four. Uh-oh. Panthers home. This feels like a win, possibly. Yeah. I think they win that. Three and four.

Week eight, at Chiefs, Monday night. No, they're dead. That's over. All right. You're three and five. Then you got the Raiders at home in week nine. That's a win. Raiders, I think, are not going anywhere strong.

I do not worry about the Raiders. Me neither. All right, so you're 4-5. You're heading into a bye. You come out of the bye at Tampa Monday night. No, they'll lose that game. All right, 4-7. I feel like that could be the game where they actually...

Brady throws four picks. 4-6. Right, 4-6. Brady throws four picks. Everybody says Brady's washed up and then he ends up winning every game the rest of the way

I'm not even crazy enough to think they win there although I think Tampa's gonna have a tougher year than people think I do as well no Giants

Brady stuff alright I thought I was baiting you on that one week 12 Eagles home that's a win Eagles gonna have

the worst team in the division alright so you're five and six at Miami at Chargers back to back. I think they split them. All right. You're six and seven home Dallas. Win.

Seven and seven. Now you need one of these next three at Eagles at Chicago home, Washington. I think they can win two of those three. So you're nine and eight. There you go. That's what I'm figuring. Wow. Confident. A lot of people do like that. I didn't give them a crazy win. I don't want to think they're going to win in Kansas city. First of all, I think Kansas city is going to win the whole thing.

Okay. Make the case. I want to hear that. Listen, I think all Andy had to do, he got very unlucky last year. The thing with his son was a nightmare. When it happened was a nightmare. But more than that, the injuries to the offensive line when they happened were things he couldn't fix. But here's where I thought Andy really blew it. Andy went in that game and said, I don't care that we can't block them. We're going to run our offense and Mahomes is going to make enough plays that we're going to break plays downfield and still win the game. You know what they found

out? Mahomes, as good as he is, couldn't do that when he couldn't get any help at the line of scrimmage. And they never made an adjustment. They didn't make an adjustment in the second half. They didn't come out and do the things that we thought they would do to change things in the second half. And even Tampa challenged him to do some stuff and said, are you going to do this the whole game? And Mahomes was on the run. A couple of balls could have been caught. We know he made some amazing throws that could have been caught.

They were dropped. The bottom line is he had a rough day. He thought that he could live with the passing game, even though he had no offensive line. He went out. He spent his whole offseason rebuilding the offensive line. That's all he did. He has skill everywhere else. I think they are impossible to stop. I think Buffalo was the second best team in the AFC. I think I was wrong about

Josh Allen. I admit it. I never thought he was good a player. I did not think he was ever going to be accurate. And accuracy is something a quarterback has to have. He has developed himself into a wonderful player. I admit I'm dead wrong about Allen. I didn't like him like this. A lot of people,

I think, didn't, but won't admit it now. Maybe they will. But I admit that I was wrong about him. That team is really good. I don't think enough to win in Kansas City. I think the Chiefs

will go back to the Super Bowl again, and they will win this time. Chiefs 5-1. Chiefs over-under is 12.5. Chiefs to win the conference is plus 250. I haven't made my best record in the league bets, the one-seed bets, stuff like that. I've been looking at Buffalo a lot, though.

There's two teams in the AFC. Buffalo and Kansas City are a pet above everybody else. Yeah, and maybe if somebody crashes that, I think it's going to be Cleveland would be my pick because I think they have a lot of talent. I know they're the Browns.

I know they have... I don't trust the quarterback to be on that level, to be honest with you. I get it. But I think Cleveland's okay. I'll tell you who I think is going to be improved. I think the Pats are going to be improved. I really do. I think they're going to surprise some people. I get it. But I think Cleveland's okay. I'll tell you who I think is going to be improved. I think the Pats are going to be improved. I really do. I think they're going to

surprise some people. Hold that thought. I don't think they're going to go to the Super Bowl. I don't think they're going to be that kind of team. But I think they're going to be much better. I really do. I'm coming to them in one second because I wanted to give you these Bills bets. Bills to get the one seed plus 470.

Don't like it. I think Chiefs will have the one. Chiefs is 2-1. So you go 2-1 for that. Unless Mahomes gets hurt or they lose somebody like Kelsey or Mahomes, I think that Chiefs will be the one seed. You're not worried about receiver death with the Chiefs?

Bill's best record was 10-1. He's giving you that one as well. Alright. Pats. as well alright Pats you brought up the Pats I'm glad you did that's a pretty good value I gotta admit because I think they only have to beat

one team to do that so I don't think it's gonna come out of the NFC I think it's gonna be Kansas City or Buffalo so I think that one 10 to 1 is a

if you want value that's a hell of a value it really is for Buffalo yeah have best record I agree what achieves to have best record

that's I think 5 five to one. Buffalo, they're giving you a great value on that bet. That's a good bet to make just on value. Thinking if you had Kansas City have an injury. Buffalo, to me, is the second best team in the AFC by a lot. I don't know if you can parlay props on FanDuel, but Allen was, I think, 13 to one to win MVP.

And best record was 10-1. And I feel like those two things would happen simultaneously. I would agree. So you could either do both of those or if you could parlay those, whatever. All right. My beloved New England Patriots and our new Lord and Savior, Back Jones. Pats to make the playoffs, plus 125. Pats over is nine.

There's been a lot of action. That's minus 140. I actually think the over should be nine and a half. Great defense. They're running backs. They probably have the best collection of running backs in the league. They were just able to give away Sonny Michaud. They love this. Rams. Oh my God. He's been a monster.

They improved the receivers. Their offensive line, I think, is high level. Not only can they block, they're really good. And their front seven is potentially dominant against some of these matchups. I really like them. I think it's 11 and six. I think it is, too.

I agree with you. I have no argument. I agree. I think that it took him a year to consolidate everything. I think he understood what he wanted to do. He got the quarterback that he wanted the whole time. I do think Cam Newton will have a good year, and I also think that Jones is going to be very good.

Cam Newton? Cam Newton's going to be off the team in a week. No, I think Cam Newton's going to contribute. I really think so. Really? Yeah, I do. I think they'll both stay. I think they'll both play, and I would be surprised.

I think Cam Newton's going to play well. I really do. I think that they will have a I think they'll both play. And I would be surprised. I think Cam will play well. I really do. I think that they will have a good year out of both guys. I think eventually Cam will turn the job over somewhere probably in the middle of the season. But I think that both quarterbacks will get plenty of action. And I think that the team is going to be vastly improved. And I also think the division, other than Buffalo, still has growing pain. So I think they're going to be vastly improved. And I also think the division, other than Buffalo, still has growing pain. So I think that,

I think they're going to be good. I wouldn't, I'd say 10 is pretty solid for the Pats anyway. I don't know about 11, maybe 10 will be solid, but I think they'll be an over, yes. You know Belichick pretty well.

You've been a Belichick student over the years. Yeah, we don't like each other, but I mean, we don't get along. But I've followed him for 30 years. Yeah, you don't like each other, but I mean, we don't get along. But I've followed him for 30 years. Yeah, you have a legit feel for him. Yes. Do you think he wanted Mac Jones all along?

Yes. And that he did a Kaiser Soze kind of pretending he didn't, not trying to trade up because he studied the board and knew Mac Jones was going to fall to 15? Yes. Or do you think it was,

or do you think it was, they fell into it a little bit, but he didn't totally love it? No, I think he wanted them all along. Okay. I think he wanted them all along. It seems like the Saints were trying to trade up ahead of them and couldn't get there.

So once the center fell to the Chargers, they were golden, it seemed like. I think he wanted them all along. I think it's what he wanted. I think the Brady win stung him more than you think. Explain. Because you know what? It's like a seesaw.

One legacy tips as the other legacy. It's who wins without whom, who does what. He even noticed that his other person in his life made some Tom Brady comments about how he didn't really play that well in the playoffs. Who said that? Belichick's girlfriend said that? Yes, yes, she did.

I didn't notice that. In the wintertime, yes. Wow. And, you know, she was right. The points she made were well taken. He had some rough moments in the postseason. He did have the defense kick in and do some big things. And I think that he'd never admit that, but I think that bothered him. He's human. And he also knows his place in history. They both do.

They're both covered their place in history. You know, Walsh in Montana went this tit-for-tat thing all the time too. And I think these guys do also. And I think Brady does, and I think Belichick does. And they'll never admit it, but I think they do. It's part of human nature. You know that. It's how the great ones keep score. Their score is different.

They keep score differently. And he and Tom, there's a little bit of a yin and yang. He leads them and wins a Super Bowl his first year. It's had its thing. It had its thing. There's no way around it. It's a little like Kobe Shaq where Kobe

was pretty open about it. He wanted to win one more title than Shaq. I think with the Belichick thing, you made the key point. He cares about his place in history and how he relates to all the years of the league, all the other coaches winning

whatever his legacy is. I think way more than people realize. He had documentary crews following them around for an entire year, like midway through it. He cares. I don't think people realize that he cares, though. I think they feel because he sucks in press conferences

that he doesn't give a shit about this stuff. I think he does. Here's the real truth, Bill. They all do. They all do. Okay? I don't care if you're talking about

Krzyzewski, Knight, Parcells, Belichick, Walsh. They all do. They care. They care about whether they are, how they compare. They care. They care about whether they are,

how they compare to each other. They care about where they stack up with Lombardi and Paul Brown. And those guys, they play in different generations, so there's no way to compete against them. But this, you don't think Belichick would like to win one without Tom? He would love to win one without Tom.

Well, I'll tell you the issue with the Pats. Gilmar's not 100% yet. I think he's going to start the year on PUP. They're a cornerback short. It's not bad. It's not like, oh my god, our D-backs are a disaster. But it's the one piece that if they get the Gilmore

thing right and they give him an extension, maybe I don't know how that's going to play out, but they're a shut down corner short. They have depth, but they don't have that one guy until to play out, but they're a shut down corner short. They have depth, but they don't have like that one guy until he comes back, if he comes back. They'd have to get a lot of help from the weather

to beat either the Chiefs or the Bills. They wouldn't beat them on a fast field, either one of them. Well, that would involve maybe trying to top one of them, but you know. Who knows? I mean, they play the AFC South and the NFC South. They have a lot of easy games.

But I think they're going to have a good year. And I think, and I think his edge, when you realize it, I mean, when you look at the coaches, you line them up after you get through the first couple, there's not a lot there.

There really isn't when you look at it. And there's a lot of unproven coaches and he has a big edge every week. And let's be honest, he intimidates these young coaches. I mean, they're looking across the field at a guy they grew up watching. It's like having Lombardi on the other side. I mean, he's worth points just there standing across the field, just being on the field with him. He is that big a coaching legend now. He's that good. Well, it would be really fun if we got Chiefs-Pats

at some point during this whole thing. Let me give you a couple more bets before you go. Worst record? You could just go chalk. You could take Houston. Houston's 2-1. Lions are 4-1?

I don't think Lions for this reason. Dan Campbell is a psycho. I'm telling you. I go back with him. He's a psycho. And you know what? I think he's going to be a good coach.

It's not going to come this year. And I don't like his quarterback. But I'll tell you something. He's a psycho. And he will push his players really, really hard. He believes in that. That's how he's cut. And I would say the whole Houston thing looks like a complete,

let's just get through the year and get the first pick kind of thing. Rams, where do you stand on Stafford these days with a real coach and real weapons and a huge $6 billion stadium and all these things he just didn't have in Detroit. Rams finally have a quarterback, a real quarterback. Stafford, if he's healthy, and he's been beat up a lot, he's got a lot of scar tissue on him, but he is the real deal as

a quarterback. People don't realize how good Stafford is physically. He's a really talented player. He could have had a different career if he had been somewhere else. But they finally have a quarterback. And if they had had any semblance of quarterback, they would have beat the Pats in the Super Bowl. Their quarterback played so abominably in that game, he never got over it. And he shouldn't because he was so bad,

he stunk the house out in that game. He really did. He had open receivers all over the field and never hit them all day. I mean, it was a joke how bad he was in bad he stunk the house out in that game. He really did. He had open receivers all over the field and never hit them all day. I mean, it was a joke how bad he was in that game. They should have won that Super Bowl. Rams 10.5 for Wentz. 2-1 for the division. I'd say over.

I don't love the Rams. And I'm not on the McVay bandwagon as much as some people are. But I think he's solid. I think they'll have a good year. I think the Niners will have a bounce back year, but I think they'll have a good year. All right.

The rookie QBs, that'll be the last thing we talk about. So you already mentioned Lawrence. Yes. Justin Fields on the Bears. They're all excited about him, even though they're not going to be able to block for them we'll talk about Jason Goff for that in a second Mac Jones looks good

Trey Lance I'm sure we'll see him but I don't think he's going to be I think they'll be careful with how they bring him in he's pretty young still Zach Wilson on the New York Jets what is your take? did you like the pick?

do you think he's going to be good? What have you seen so far? What's your reaction? Everybody's saying nice things about him right now. I noticed early last year that BYU was beating everybody by 50 points like everybody else did.

Okay. Which they did all year last year. I didn't see him play a lot last year. So I didn't feel like I had as much of a feel on him as I might some other quarterback at a school that you see more of and better competition against. I'm hearing good things. I think he'll be good.

I think he will be better than, because he's going to get better coach. What went on there the last couple of years was not Donald's fault. I think Donald's going to fit in very well in Carolina. And I also think Rule's a good coach. I think Carolina's going to have a pretty good year this year. I think they had a good year last year.

They played very competitively. I think Rule's a very good, he's an up-and-coming coach. He's one of the up-and-coming coaches in the league. I think he's very good. A lot of teams wanted him. Jets almost hired him. They made a big mistake by not getting him. They almost hired him.

And he looks like the real thing. And I think they will be much improved. And they could go over their number this year, which I believe is seven and a half. I'm not expecting big things from the Jets.

And they've also had a million injuries on defense. So T guys are ready. Jets need to get that offensive line straightened out. I don't think it is yet. They have some wide receivers now, especially good things they're saying

about Elijah Moore being very explosive. I think they'll have their moments. I think Wilson will probably be okay. I think he'll be passable and he'll give people reason for optimism. I don't think he'll be the next coming of Broadway Joe, but I think he will at least, he won't have people

jumping out of buildings. I'm going to go backwards. I want you to see how many Jets coaches you can name in a row going backwards before you forget what the next person is. All right, so we'll start. Sal Azizi, you mentioned him. Gase, you know he was the coach. Who was the coach

before Adam Gase? Man, I'll probably forget right away. Now I haven't thought about it in a long time. It was four years of Todd Bowles. Oh, geez. Todd was there for four years. Who was before Todd Bowles? Can you get this one?

Who was before Todd Bowles? He was there for six years. Beat the Patriots? Oh, Rex. Rex. Who was before Rex? Before Rex was Mangini.

Who was before Mangini? Who never should have been fired. Who never should have been fired. Who never should have been fired. He won two out of three years there. Yeah. Ten games and nine games. And if he could have got along with the owner, I think could have been a longtime coach there.

And I think he's a talented coach. I really do. And there was a lot of talent that he left behind. Do you remember who was before him? Herm. All right. Now it's going to, you may get this actually.

Who was, who was right before Herm? One year only. Algrove. Algrove. Then you're going to Parcell might get this, actually. Who was right before Herm? One year only. Algro. Algro. Then you're going to Parcells. And then Parcells. Do you remember who was before Parcells?

Before Parcells was Thickly Fearsome. No, that's Patriots. No, that's New England. Hold on. Wait a second. Wait a second. Before Parcells was... One of the great...

Oh, what's it called? Rich Cotite. Cotite. Good. All right. Then one year of... Before Cotite. Yeah. one of the great oh what's called Rich Koteit Koteit good alright then one year of before Koteit yeah

it was a one year and out one year before Koteit before Koteit I love the Jets Jets history it should be its own podcast it was your guy Pete Carroll

oh yeah one year oh yeah because you know what? He went 6-10. He lost his last five games. Pete went 6-10. One year.

Right? Absolutely. So he was out. And before that was Bruce Cosler. And then before that was our guy, Joe Walton. And then it goes backwards. Joe Walton, who just passed away. And before that, Walt Michaels.

I mean, that's a lot of coaches for one team. And before, Walt Michaels was probably Charlie Winner. That's a lot of coaches, Mike. A lot of coaches, yeah. And a lot of bad decisions. And it's funny, you know, Parcells was only there three years because the ownership changed. You know, if Leon had lived,

he would have stayed. But he didn't. When he came in, they didn't really hit it off. And Groh took over for one year. Then he went to Virginia. Then they went through the years, obviously, with Herm. You know, Mangini built the foundation. And Rex won his first two years with Mangini's players. And then he saw Jeff and his own players, and he was terrible. And then they fell apart. Mangini was the guy. And listen, I'm not blaming the Jets for Mangini because he was not able to get along with anybody.

And he really didn't even treat the owner with respect. Yeah. He needed to grow up. If he could have been a different person, he could have been

a longtime coach in this league. He went, he won 10 games and nine games in three years there. He should have been there for a long time.

But he needed to grow up. And there's a guy who should be coaching in the league. Too bad he's not because he has a lot of talent. Well, then back to Zach Wilson. Since Ken O'Brien in 1991, here are all the people that led the Jets in passing. Ready? Go ahead.

Browning Nagel. Right. Boomer Esiason. Frank Reich. Neil O'Donnell. I was brought here to win games. Vinny Testaverde. Ray Lucas.

Vinny Testaverde again twice. Chad Pennington. Some guy named Bollinger. I don't even remember Bollinger. Who was Bollinger? Absolutely. Rick Meyer played seven games for the Parcells one time when Vinny was hurt. Chad Pennington two years in a row.

Favre once. Forrest Sanchez. Tua Smith. What Smith was that? I don't even remember. Gino Smith. Oh, yeah. Gino Smith.

Tua Fitzpatrick. McCown. And Darnold. Oh. So they've had, I think, 13 quarterbacks lead them in passing

since 1991? That is that is paying for the deal with the devil that brought them Broadway Joe. That's what that is. That was the guarantee. That's what happens. They got the great quarterback who gave them,

you know, the day at the top of the mountain and became the biggest star in the world. And since then, they've had to live with everything. They had their moments. Vinny went 29 touchdowns, seven intercepts when they went to the AFC title game on the Parcells and led 10-0. And I made the dumbest statement of my life. I am sitting in the first row with my wife, Ro, in Denver. Atlanta has just upset Minnesota, which was 15 to one that year on the missed kick. Okay. Atlanta wins. I'm watching it on the scoreboard. They're backed up tight in from

Oregon. Lots of field goal. They're up 10, nothing now. Okay. The Jets. I turned to my wife and said, Jets will destroy Atlanta. We are going to win the Super Bowl. The Jets did not make a forward game the rest of the game. They got out 23-0. I was in the airport four hours later saying, am I the biggest

dope? I am never going to say anything like that again as long as I live. And the Terrell Davis, the rest was history. That guy was great. I was down with him for Hall of Fame because that guy for four or five years, whatever it was, that guy was unbelievable. The game is 10-0. It's very windy.

Testa Verde's playing great. Elway comes out with a half waggle and throws it 55 yards down the field. It's complete. But they come back and they're moving the ball. Byers fumbles it. Every good jet fumbled the ball. The most dependable players he ever had all fumbled the ball. And it was a nightmare.

And they lost 23 to 10. And, you know, they would have killed Atlanta in the Super Bowl. Would have killed them. Atlanta was terrible. And then Denver went and killed Atlanta in the Super Bowl. I'll never forget that as long as I live. They were up to nothing in the third quarter. It's a really, there's so many of those in sports, right?

Like Milwaukee just had one where they steal a title and the years pass and everybody would be like, Milwaukee wins the title. And you look at KD's foot on the line and that just flips the playoffs, right? You're right. If the Jets just get through that Denver game somehow and don't completely fall apart and they beat Atlanta, then where's Parcells now?

I mean, Parcells is number one. Belichick would have been trying and then finally gotten past them with the Atlanta game probably. But Parcells would have been trying to and then finally gotten past him with the Atlanta game probably. But Parcells would have been hovering over everybody forever. Unbelievable. And I'm telling you,

and he wanted to win because he knew that Mr. Hess was very sick. Yeah. And he knew he wasn't going to be around very long and he wanted to get him that championship. And that was probably the toughest loss he ever had. That or the Ram game that they lost to the Rams in 89,

which they thought they had a Super Bowl team and they went on winning it in 90, but they should have won. The Rams came back and beat them in overtime, remember, in that game. And they played terribly that day. But that all evened out because they never should have won the Roger Craig game.

Right. I mean, come on. I was at that game too and listen they got they made a miraculous play obviously in that game to even get the ball back so you you're right about that and those two have a way of evening it out but you know the jets are due for some luck i don't know what to make of this coach i've watched them on tv jump around obviously like everybody else i don't know him. He's been very, very much out there. He's been at a lot of games.

I was at an Islander playoff game. He was there. I saw him on TV in the Nets playoff games. I heard he got ripped for taking a police escort from New Jersey to the Garden, which you don't do. Yeah. So he's out there trying to be a little bit of a celebrity before he coaches any games.

Let's see how he does. I don't know how he's going to do. What's your thought on it, Jeff's coach? I thought he was going to get the Lions job, and then I heard he just didn't do well in the interview. Everybody says he's a defensive genius, all that stuff. But I

don't know. It's weird to me. You have the defensive genius, but then you put all your chips behind this rookie quarterback I would kind of want the coach that his main job was making the rookie quarterback awesome so who's their offensive coordinator like they're going to have to figure out who the

McDaniels is for the situation now they lost who was going to be coaching the quarterback which is obviously so they've already had tragedy and Now they lost Knapp, who was going to be coaching the quarterback, which is obviously... So they've already had tragedy and they've lost a lot of defensive players. So I think obviously it's going to take them a year. Which one of the rookie quarterbacks

do you think is going to be the best? Lawrence. I think Lawrence. He's going to have his growing pains, though. I get it. But worst case scenario, he's Andrew Luck. I mean, I don't see how he's anything lower than that. One guy that I really believe in who I think is, I won't say who he is, but he has a great history with quarterbacks said to me, I said, what's the downside with Lawrence?

He said, the downside is he's a 12 year starter. And you say, boy, you know, he never was as good as we really thought. He said, the upside is he's Peyton Manning or an all-time great. He said, he said, he's got everything. He's got everything that Aikman had, that Elway had, that Peyton had, you know, and Peyton never had the great arm, you know, Elway and Aikman had arms, you know, Peyton did it without a great arm. He didn't have a great arm. But, and that's what people have to realize. He never had that kind of dynamic arm that the other guys had. Lawrence has the arm. I mean, he has everything. He's grounded.

He's got the whole deal. He's going to be a big star in this league for a long time. It's going to be fascinating to see how – you remember something? Urban Meyer has never lost. He doesn't understand losing. He's never had a losing streak. He lost 32 games in his whole life.

He's 178-32 with three titles. He's a coaching god. He doesn't know how to lose. How he handles losing is going to be very interesting. Lawrence, to me, I'm crossing sports, but it reminds me of when Anthony Davis was in the draft

and it was just like, worst case scenario, this guy is still going to be really good. That's our worst case scenario. He'll make four all-star teams. That's how Lawrence is. He checks every box. Once in a while, a guy comes in the league that just cannot miss the Atlanta tight end.

You can just write it down. He is going to be an absolute stud superstar player from game one. Get ready for it. It is coming. He has got the whole... He's just one of those guys. Cannot

miss. Cannot miss. And it's funny because the legacy of the awesome tight ends, it's like Gronk's the best. Kelsey's getting close. Real close. And Kittles is good. And Kittles is really good too. Pitts just seems like he will immediately go in that class. 80 catches, 1,200 yards, 11 TDs. You can see where it's going. Mike,

it was awesome to see you. Hey, listen. How's everything going? How's life? Good? Everything is fantastic. How's life? Good. Every, everything is fantastic. How's life with you? A lot of golf, a lot of sunshine, playing a lot of golf. Also, you know, whenever you have an exciting young horse, it's good. We have the, it's a little early to rank them, but we have, depending on what you think, the second or third best two-year-old in the country right now. Whoa.

What's the name? High Oak. Wow. He won the Saratoga Special. He'll run the Champagne on October 2nd at Belmont. My partner, Leon Slider, who is the guy who runs Casamigos Tequila for Clooney and Randy, he's my partner with co-owners on him. And we could have two horses in the Bre him. And he's, we have one,

we could have two horses in the Breeders' Cup. We already have one in this year. And he could be our second in the Breeders' Cup. I think he'll be there. But more importantly, he could be one of the Derby favorites. So he's just got to stay healthy. His name is High Oak.

Holy shit. So you could be, that could be them showing you in the Derby. That'd be unbelievable. How nice would that be? Oh my God. Well, good luck. All right. Don't be a stranger. I'm going to bring you in the derby. That'd be unbelievable. How nice would that be? Oh my God. Well, good luck. All right. Don't be a stranger. I'm going to bring you back during the season.

I know JJ loves having you on New York, New York too. How's JJ doing? JJ's kicking ass. He's kicking ass. Great. Glad to hear. He's a good kid. Thanks. He's a really good kid. All right. Good to see you. Be well, Bill. All right. How can you be sure you're making the right decision when choosing a university? The smart approach is to look at the facts. Like the fact that York U graduates have a 90% employer satisfaction rate.

That's because across its three GTA campuses, York U's programs are strategically designed to prepare you for a meaningful career and long-term success. Join us in creating positive change at yorku.ca slash write the future. All right, look, people pick this podcast apart in a lot of different ways. One of the ways is not enough Chicago, too much Boston, a lot of New York, a lot of LA, too much Philly. The Ringer has a lot of Philly people. We just don't have enough Chicago people. Jason Goff is here. You'll be seeing more of him in The Ringer has a lot of Philly people. We just don't have enough Chicago people. Jason Goff is here. You'll be seeing more of him in the Ringer. I'll just say that.

More announcements coming next week. First of all, welcome to the podcast. Good to see you. It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure. It's good to be seen. You know, I've been a lot of places in this media world, so now I can etch it off that I've hung out with Dollar Bill Simmons

for a couple of minutes. Before we talk about the Bears, which is the reason I'm pulling you on because I love the Bears under and I really want to dive into it. Yeah, yeah. I floated a Zach Levine, Ben Simmons trade to you that you initially, you were repulsed by,

you got upset. And then you were like, wait a second, and where are you landing on that now? Because that's still, I think, the second most logical Ben Simmons trade. You know, so when you first threw it out to me, obviously I was like, that's probably not what the Bulls would want to do right now

in terms of taking back somebody who has had some public issues over the last couple of years, especially this last playoffs, where that to me was one of the defining moments of the playoffs. Not one of the best, not one of the worst, but one of the defining moments of him not taking the shot right there for everybody to see. I'm a huge Ben Simmons fan.

I still am one of the six or seven people who believe, like, hey, man, if a 6'10", Jason Kidd kind of player is running around out there, then I don't know. There's a lot of dudes at point guard that I'm not really high on like I am him. The only thing that I would say is Zach Levine is coming a very important time in Bulls history where the Derrick Rose thing happened, the phenomenon of Derrick Rose and then the crash with the injuries, the Jimmy Butler thing happened, the growth of Derrick Rose and then the crash with the injuries, the Jimmy Butler thing happened, the growth of Jimmy Butler, and then them not wanting to pay Jimmy Butler and Jimmy Butler moving on. And then the trade that brought Lowry Marketing and all

these, you know, Zach Levine and all these other guys. It would seem to me that Zach Levine has found a special place where you don't know if he is the number one on a championship team and he probably isn't but at the same time this fan base is looking at it like are you going to get 27 points on damn near 50 40 80 shooting again out of somebody like you know Ben Simmons obviously not but are you going to find that draft that are you going to have that draft capital to get that player? And it's something that you mentioned with, I believe, Russo mentioned it, where 2015, 2016,

you can look back at the top 10 draft picks, and only two of them are with their team still. So building through the draft, unless you have that first through third pick maybe, it's tough, you know, finding that franchise cornerstone. I think Bulls fans and the Bulls organization and Zach have met in a weird position where it's just time to figure out if you can rock with this. If this was any other time, I think the Ben Simmons, Zach Levine thing

would be more of a thought. But right now, I don't know that Arturis Karnaschovas and Mark Eversley know what they have. And I think Mark Eversley know what they have, and I think they want to find out what they have this last year before they have to pay Zach, or before they have to do something else, and I don't know if Ben Simmons is the guy that's going to fit into their game plan. Now, I do know that they love guys who push the ball up, guys who move the ball. Ben Simmons is that, But, you know, I think from what people have seen in this last couple of playoffs, they've soured on it.

I'm one of the only people who haven't. I don't know if I'd pull it off because I'd still be a little hesitant that Ben has to get over something, whether it be in his head or whatever's going on. But, yeah, I'm high on both players. I just – I'm high on them in a different way. And I don't think it's going to happen, but like you said, it's a logical fit on each side because Lonzo Ball I think can play with Ben

Simmons, even though you think that they're the similar players. I don't. I think a lot, like you mentioned, Lonzo has learned how to shoot with regularity from distance, especially the second half of last season. So, and DeMar DeRozan, he's still one of the best isolation scorers, one of the most efficient isolation scorers we have in the game. So Ben Simmons passing it to DeMar DeRozan or getting it pushed up by Alonzo Ball wouldn't be an issue. I think the fit is a little bit better than people would think.

I just don't know if this organization is willing to let go of another player similar to what they've seen over the last couple of years and guys who might be franchise cornerstones, but you got to win something, right? You can't really stake a claim to anything if you're Zach Levine until you win something. I think that's the next step in their journey. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see

if the Olympics helped them at all too. That would be the other piece of that. So I'm a, it's weird. I'm both out on Ben Simmons, but I'm also willing to be sucked back in the moment. He has his own team with a bunch of shooters and offensive guys. And he's,

as you said, could he be Jason kid? Kinda like, yeah, defensively could, could he be like a very unselfish guy who's filling up the box score

and you know I guess the last six minutes is just the piece and we've talked a lot about different people on this pod about it just like

can he get over the hump the last six minutes can he be can he get over being afraid to fail basically because when you take

three shots in seven games you're afraid to fail in the playoffs so can he get over that? Does he need like a sports psychiatrist? Does it need like a, like a, is it like a sports movie? Is this 10 cup too? I don't know. So I, I suffer like when I see certain things happen to athletes on a very,

uh, uh, a much smaller scale. Like I suffer from anxiety, like nobody I know around me. And my lady is a therapist. So I find out about my anxiety and I have found out about my anxiety, especially over the last five or six months or so. And when you see guys in that moment where, you know, I think it's either one,

he, you know, the Showtime documentary, I mean, he talked about those things and we've learned about, you know, the history of what he's dealt with in terms of, you know, imposter syndrome and anxiety and all those other things that people who go to normal everyday gigs go suffer through as well. I just I wonder, too, what part of it is that and what part of it is being forced to take your cool off? We see it how many times where there are awesome teams that just aren't quite forced enough to drop the cool shit and get busy. Like, you can't tell me Lob City shouldn't have been competing in multiple Western Conference finals. Who's going to take their cool off first?

And the guy who they all looked at in Chris Paul as the little tyrant was like, yo, take the cool off because we're going to miss an opportunity. We're going to miss a window, right? I wonder if Ben, you know, in this age that he's growing up in, too, you got to show that, hey, man, I'm cool. Like, that shit don't faze me.

And I'm going to show my Rari. You know? But at the same time, are you going to take your cool? I'm like, if he gets shipped to Sacramento, right? So for De'Aaron Fox or something crazy, say something crazy happens. And you end up in that C-Web situation

where you're like, all I can do now is ball because, you know, the nightlife ain't popping. Ain't nobody coming here to play with me. And the next thing you know, you end up with Mike Bidden and Peja Stojakovic and Vladi Divac and Lawrence Funderburk and, you know, Bobby Jackson and all,

you know what I mean? Like maybe just maybe sometimes you got to get dropped on your head to realize that, you know, you're, you're, you're, you're drop proof, right? Dead cat, dead cat bounce. I think Ben Simmons got a lot of talent. And we're talking about a 24-year-old too, man. I just hope it comes together soon enough for his career, not only to prove the promise that it had at the beginning,

but also for me to be right. Let's be honest about it. I'm simply watching these things to be right. And when I'm wrong, like thinking that Tim Duncan wouldn't be, you know, awesome. And thinking that Keith Van Horn would be a Hall of Famer. Like when I'm wrong, I really don't like to dwell on it too much. But when I'm right, I like to think I'm pretty dope. So I need Ben Simmons to get to that triple-double machine and lead the team to, you know, at least the conference finals on his own before I can do that. Give me 22 seconds on the state of mind of the conference finals on his own before I could do that. Give me 22

seconds on the state of mind of the Bulls fan right now. Especially coming off the last dance, the aborted Derrick Rose effort era slash effort where basically the highlights were the 0-9 Celtics series and

basically having the best record in the league during the year he got hurt. And that's really it. And then there's not joking. No, I guess making first team NBA, but just not, not a lot of fun. And then the weird Jimmy Butler trade and, and, but where are we now? Where are we mentally? 22 seconds. Give it to me. We get, we get it, Bill. We get it. You know, we're, we've been kicked into rocks and we are kickproof seemingly because something is going to be interesting, fascinating, different about this team.

Like whether it doesn't if it doesn't make the playoffs, the the anger is going to be palpable. But the fascination with this team is different than I've seen in a very long time since the Jimmy Butler years. People actually were coming back last year and were let down, but they got enough of a bite of Zach Levine that were like, oh, all he needs is some help. Well, AK and ME, ACME, you know, went out there and did what they had to do. And now you got to sink or swim because – All right, so optimism.

Yeah, no, no, yeah, fascination, intrigue, optimism, and knowing that this is going to look like the cocaine 80s where you're going to give up 130 points and have to win by scoring 135. That should be part of their marketing. We're back to the cocaine 80s. Here we go. 130 to 125.

Let's go. All right, Bears. So one of my favorite bets, and we just talked about this with Mike Francesa, for unders. Normally people go overs with, with NFL. They get, they're like, I like this. I think this is going to happen. And it's like more positive. It's, it's more fun to bet on positive futures. I look at the bears,

the bears over under is seven and a half. They'd have to go eight and nine to beat your bet. They play the lions twice. Other than that, like, you know, they, they play the AFC North. Who's going to have three really good teams. They play the NFC West,

which is a gauntlet. Then they have green Bay twice. They got Minnesota twice. That week six through 11 is messed. Right. So I'll give that to you. Packers at bucks, 49ers at Steelers

Monday night. And there's an at Raiders game in week five before that. Then they go on a bye. And then you have this whole thing with fields who I loved in the draft. I mean, I have our Lord and Savior Mac Jones now, so I don't have any I don't have any

remorse about just the fields, but I really like him. I think he's going to be good. But I watched some of the Bears on Saturday, and you can't block. Nobody can block. That seems important. I don't love the skill guys. It just doesn't seem like a good team.

On top of it, Matt Nagy has to be the favorite for first coach fired, right? So give me the case for the Bears going 8-9. It's nasty because let's start with the last thing you said about Matt Nagy being the first coach that's fired. Or Matt Nagy could have a secret contract extension along with Ryan Pace that nobody knows about because what's happening right now is weird. The Bears might have the greatest quarterback that they've ever had in their franchise's history, and he might have the greatest quarterback that they've ever had in their franchise history and he might be the third quarterback um and what a way to get your fans fired up right well see this is the thing too with kyle fuller uh you know uh leaving and and some other members of this team not being here and akeem hicks you know talking that talk during the off season i was saying to

myself and asking my guys who host local sports radio, like, what the hell are y'all selling? Like, what can you tell people about Bears training camp? And then the draft came and then closer and closer to Justin Fields coming off the board. You said, oh, shit, are they going to do this? And I'll tell you now, they can win five games this year, six games this year. And if Justin Fields, like you said, our Lord and Savior from Mac Jones, our quarterback, if Justin Fields, if Justin Fields can do something that Vince Evans and Cordell Stewart

and Henry Burris and maybe the three or four other brothers that have ever played quarterback for the Chicago Bears could do, there's going to be one side of town that is jumping for joy no matter what, and then there's going to be the other side of town who is just happy because they're Bears fans. Listen, whatever it is, if it's going to suck, it better lead to Justin Fields getting on the field as soon as possible. Because the line, yes, Jason Peters is an older dude, 39 years old, and you're not going to go on the couch and find tackles who can still get it done.

I'm not saying Jason can't, but the injury factor is real. You're 39 years old and you've missed time because of injuries. Now, if he goes out there and plays all 17 and plays at an all-pro level, I'll be surprised. If he plays six or seven games at a really, really high level and gets hurt, I won't be. And then you've got Larry Borum and Tevin Jenkins, who's had a back surgery already as your second-round pick.

If you can't block it, you can't beat it. You can't win. The defense is going to have to win. And there's corner issues. Like, Jalen Johnson is their number one, but he's a young guy. Artie Burns, I think, should be the number two. Kendall Vildor is the guy who they drafted, who they like, who I'm still waiting to see something out of. Their safeties in Gibson and Jackson are two playmakers, but Jackson is a guy who,

you know, has become a playmaker, and maybe some of the subtleties have been skipped. You know, he's a big play guy, but there's some missed tackle stuff that people worry about. And last year, when he didn't force a lot of turnovers, people were asking, all right, so what does Eddie Jackson do? I'm looking forward to him because he's got the weird number two this year. By the way, the weird numbers are going to mess me up all year long. The college numbers, Eddie's wearing four, Damian Williams is wearing eight. And as you said, the skill positions. Cole Komet is supposed to be taking over for Jimmy Graham. Cole Komet didn't get on the field in the first half of the season the way that any Bears fan would have liked.

So how are you going to manage these dudes? Can I interrupt you on Cole Komet for one second? We got, you know, my son collects football cards. We got this awesome Cole Komet autographed, limited. It was like, you know, one of 20. So I was like, man, I hope Cole Komet's good. And then you watch the Bears and you're like, eh, all right. No, he's going to be fine. I hope Cole Komet's good. And then you watch the Bears and you're like, eh, all right.

Right. No, he's going to be fine. He's fine. He's fine. I'm not going to be selling that card on Golden Auctions for a million dollars. I guess that's my point. He's fine. Right, right, right.

He's not like Cole Gates or Cole Gonzalez or Cole Gronkowski. He's Cole Komet. And your running backs are like a C-. The thing with me... You gotta give him the ball, though. You gotta give him the ball. David Montgomery is a player. I think he's a player.

He came on second half of the year. I agree with you. He didn't get the ball. Matt Nagy tried to prove how good an offensive mind he was with a guy who needed him to develop him, Mitchell Trubisky. And that went sideways.

And if you're going to tell me that Andy Dalton's the starter, then don't tell me that competition is the most important thing because obviously the best player and everybody sees it is Justin Fields. If you don't want to put him behind a bad line, fine, but is the line going to get any better

when it's hurt and it's week six? So there's intrigue. Just like the Bulls, there's intrigue, there's fascination. But I don't see this team competing for a playoff spot. And if they do, I'll be surprised. I'll be surprised. And it's probably going to be because of the defense and bringing the kid along.

Because Justin Fields is a rookie. He's going to make his mistakes. But I think he's just as good as Justin Herbert or some of these other guys who we've seen, you know, star in their first year. He just doesn't have the weapons that they have. Allen Robinson is amazing. Darnell Mooney is an up-and-coming star. But after that, I think you got a bunch of special teams dudes.

There's some good stories. Robbie Adams is a great story if you really check out his deal, playing a game for his late mother and just had a kid. But the talent is sparse. Like the talent is on one side of the ball. And then on the other side of the ball, you just don't know what you have across the board outside of Allen Robinson.

Well, the move is you can't start them. We, I'm not the first person to make this point. You can't start them week one in a night game against the Rams with no offensive line. You just can't. Then you got Bengals week two. It would be too easy to be like, just save them to week two. Maybe you try to steal that game with Dalton. You got

Cleveland week three. Maybe avoid that. But then week four Lions seems like the time. That's when I would... Otherwise, you just got to start them and throw them against the Rams and see what you have. I just want to do that. I don't think it's worth it. The Rams could like... You know, that could be like an...

After watching that hit he took when his helmet got knocked off, I'm like, I'm not starting this guy against the Rams. And you know what? That hit was very important because that hit came because he slid the protection and when you slide the protection, there's a hole in the

offense that you can't block. He never looked at the hole and got his head blown up. And in the fourth quarter with 845 left, the same play happened and he stared it down and he completed, which was a eight, nine yard slant or something like that to that hot zone. But in that moment, the same play happened a quarter later and he saw it, he digested it and he determined how to execute a professional play. So, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if you see him in the fourth quarter that Rams day, because I don't think the Bears can block.

Oh, a little garbage time. Well, 38 to 10 fields comes in for a couple of steps. Give me the, before we go, give me the t-shirt Jersey percentage by December of fields. Jersey's compared to everyone else in the bears. What is it like 9 out of 10? It's already that way. 90%? 95? Yeah, yeah.

It's already that way. And the other 10% is wearing Alex Caruso jerseys. He's the grit and grime that a certain section of Chicago really needs to see perform well. You know what I mean? Well, listen, I'm excited to have more Chicago talk on the rigor.

I'll just leave it at that. We might have some announcements next week. We're just planting some seeds here. Congrats on Fields, though. I have a lot of Bears fans in my life. And the fact that I have friends who are in their late 40s who are like, I've never had a good quarterback. Like, fuck you that you had to watch Cam Newton for a year.

I've been watching your version of Cam Newton last year for 40 years. The highlight for us was like Jim McMahon and 1J Cutler a year. Like, leave me alone. So now you have somebody. Congrats. Hey, this is for Steve Stentrum and Peter Tom Willis and Mike Tomzak. Peter Tom Willis. And Moses Moreno and Chad Hutchinson and and all the all the guys who came before him.

I am telling you now, I'm very I was high on Justin Fields last two years in college. I last last year in college, I thought he was the best quarterback in college football, to be honest with you. And now we just hope that Chicago doesn't break him because Chicago is no as Moose Muhammad. As he said, that's that's where receivers go to die. Well, if they're going to die, that means the quarterbacks are out, you know, putting them in the grave. So let's hope that Justin Fields is the quarterback for this team

for 12, 15 years and we take a couple of trips to the Super Bowl because this city needs it, man. 85 was a long time. I'm 40 years old. Okay? I was five years old the last time the team that everybody is under the umbrella of won a Super Bowl. There's Sox fans, there's

Bears fans, there's Cubs fans, there's Bulls fans, but everybody's a Bears fan, right? Everybody's a Bears fan in this city. It would be good to see that position, the most important position in professional sports to be manned with confidence. To be locked down.

Jason Goff, good to see you. sports to be manned with confidence. To be locked down. Yeah. All right. Jason Goff, good to see you. Look forward to seeing more from you. Yes, sir. Appreciate you, man. Take care. All right. Anytime it gets super weird with ESPN, I always bring Jim Miller in. He wrote the definitive book about ESPN. He also wrote the definitive

books about SNL and CAA. He has a book coming out about HBO in, when is it, November, December? November 16th. Yeah. All right. So I texted you. I said, is this the craziest ESPN year ever? And you were like, ha, not even close.

Like you just scoffed at me. What was the craziest ESPN year ever? I mean, I think the big battle with Keith and Dan, because they were straddling two eras. They were still sleepy Bristol, but at the same time, all of a sudden, for the first time, they're on the cover of TV Guide, and they're trying to repress talent, and they're trying to keep everything, like the toothpaste back in the tube. And so it was all over the place with Berman, with Bob Lee and Robin Roberts and Charlie Steiner. I mean, there was a lot going on then. And I think that there were a couple of years in the 90s where it was pretty tough.

The only difference is that it was kept quiet. Until you unearthed all these little nuggets for your book. I mean, some other stuff came out, but way more people watching his pen in the 90s too. That's the other thing. You figure like the cable audience was probably four times what it is now, something like that, I would guess. Ford Center was appointment viewing.

I mean, you couldn't get, you didn't even have a phone to get shit on. I mean, it was just a whole different time, but they, you know, they still were very, very concerned with keeping, you remember Steve Bornstein said it was up to me. We'd rather, I'd rather robots doing the shows. Maybe we're headed that way. That might be a USP in 2030. Without a doubt, AI will be taking over the whole network. Computer generated anchors from the

past doing a sports center and PTI. So a lot happened this year already. We had the Rachel Maria thing, which is in the running for, I think weirdest ESPN scandal we've had. It's not number one, but I think it's a strong, like two seed in the bracket. And then now Stephen A maxes off first take, I guess because Stephen A seems to be like he's gaining power. And then all of a sudden yesterday, Rachel Nichols got blasted out of there. Jump got canceled. She's out.

And both of the principals in the Maria Rachel saga, which overshadowed the finals in some ways, not always because the basketball was really good, but it just keeps going and going. There are new people in charge. There are people getting pushed out. There's talent gaining power. Signature shows, the chemistry and the talent on those shows

is just getting flipped. And you're saying this isn't even remotely the craziest, but what's been the biggest surprise for you this summer? I mean, look, the Rachel Marie is certainly, it's stunning in the sense that so much of it could have been avoided and it winds up being incredibly ironic, right? I mean, now remember, I don't know if it's been reported or not, but five or six months, several months after this recording that started everything off, Rachel got a contract extension. I mean, everything was fine with ESPN and Rachel Nichols. They went back to her and it wasn't even like her contract was up. They went into an existing contract and gave her an extension. And so all of a sudden, some people put together a portfolio for the New York Times, and it drops coincidentally at a key time, both for the basketball programs at ESPN and also before Maria's contract, lo and behold, there's a article and then the world turns upside down. You know, there was nothing new. There was nothing new in terms of what management knew.

It just was a calculate, you know, it's an idea of how their response was. And that's a bit tricky. Well, also how it affected some of the other people involved in the NBA coverage, how it affected black employees who wondered why the network didn't do anything. There's a lot of things, but ultimately it seems like the decision they made to basically not handle it at all and just kind of hope it went away was this very old school 80s, 90s decision that I'm just not sure you could do in the internet anymore. But really, it seems like the decision was made by HR because they're the ones deciding, could she sue us if we did anything? And HR is like, yeah, you probably

can't get rid of her because she could do this, this, and that. And then five months later, give her an extension. So now at that point, if you're reporting that, then now you really can't do anything. But it just seems like a clusterfuck, Jim. I mean, why can't she sue them now? That's a great question. I assume the way all of this came out and she had a tweet right after the announcement that there was some sort of detente that was reached,

but who knows? You're right, maybe she could. I mean, first of all, just in terms of it's a two-party state, right? So you can't be recorded on a phone call without your permission. And then, you know, I mean, she's certainly got a case. I mean, I'm not a legal scholar, but I think that's one of the things that a lot of people are wondering, why she didn't sue before and will she sue now?

You know, that's a pretty big question i guess some people in burbank have have evaluated that or maybe it's part of her separation agreement i have no idea but it's a that that is a that's a big question i mean part of it also is look you know because you used to be part of it. NBA programming at ESPN is like a ground war in Southeast Asia. They just can't get it right. Yeah. I mean, listen, you had Adam Silver turning into David Stern by talking about like a network's programming and how they're handling things.

I mean, Adam has been, you know, the kind, elegant gentleman about all this stuff. I mean, David used to get in there and, you know, fight and advocate for certain things and announcers. I mean, Adam really got upset. I mean, I would have to assume that Rachel will wind up on NBA TV. Yeah, it seems like that's, at some point she ends up there doing interviews

or something like that. Curtis and I talked about this during the finals. Brian Curtis, who does a great job writing about all this stuff for us. He's a smart man. They don't care about countdown, which makes it so funny that they constantly tinker with countdown, change it, pay giant salaries for it, and do the whole thing. But then when you watch the last two rounds of the playoffs, there's barely a show. The pregame show is like all commercials and all four-minute segments where everybody, Curtis wrote a great piece about this. Everybody just basically takes turns

speaking for 20 seconds to go to the next person. The halftime's two minutes long in the finals. It's two minutes. Then after the game, they're immediately trying to get to SportsCenter so they can get the SportsCenter money. So I guess my question is, why even have, first of all, I mean, we can get to the jump in a second, but why even have Countdown? Now they're talking about, oh, it's going to be Stephen A and Wilbon and Magic. Potentially there's all these rumors. Why would they throw more money at a show that they fundamentally don't care about? Oh, I think you're conflating not caring about it with either the revenue stream or just incompetence. Because I would argue that they care so much about it. They paid a fortune for Sage Steel.

They paid really good money for you. Then they paid really good money for Beetle. My money came before they made me go on that show. I already had the contract. They just gave me a little extra. They wet my beak. They gave you extra. They did some beak wetting. They were paying you what you were being paid. They could guilt shit you into going on it.

I think that they cared too much about it. I mean, they definitely did when in the early 2010s, but I don't know how anybody who cares about television, who cares about the quality of it, could watch those countdowns during the finals and be like, man, we're so close. If we only have the right talent fundamentally, if nobody is allowed to have a conversation, how are you going to have a good show? That's the whole point. Like Turner has these nine minute halftimes where everybody actually gets to talk and interact. You're never beating that unless you change the format of your show.

Yeah. I mean, look, they, they try. I think they really are spooked by the fact that the Turner show was such a great show and they know that they, they, they just have never been able to come close to it. Um, I think that's a problem, but I also feel like that show was designed, the architecture of that show was designed to just be as much of a revenue generator.

You're talking about Countdown? Yeah. Yeah. It's commercials with a couple people making random basketball points and that's what they decide to do. If you're going to put Stephen A and Will Bonham Magic on that show, I've worked with two of those people on that show, they don't say stuff in short sound bites. So if you're going to put Stephen A and Wilbon and Magic on that show, I've worked with two of those people on that show.

They don't say stuff in short sound bites. So if you're going to give them three minutes to try to have a segment, good luck. It's not going to happen. They'll be introducing the segment and the segment will be over. No, they will have to totally create a whole new paradigm for that show if that's the case. But do you think, Curtis asked this point in his piece, if Barkley was on that show, the way it's presently constructed,

where so much of it revolves around the host setting up, coming in and out of commercials, and then nobody has any time to speak, basically, would even Barkley be good on that show? I don't know if he would be that good. No, but Barkley wouldn't do the show. That's the whole point. Well, great point, yeah.

He would just say, wait, what's the show? That's the show point. Well, great point, yeah. He would just say, wait, what's the show? That's the show? Yeah, count me out. I got enough fun. Yeah, I get to talk 15 second sound bites? Awesome, no thanks. He would just say no,

which is basically toward the end of your time there, that's basically what you were saying. You didn't want to do it anymore. I mean, it gets so fun. I didn't want to do the second season because I would send them these long memos about here's why the, here's why we have a limited ceiling with the show. It's a lot of it is to do with the structure and how you're approaching like opening segments and stuff. And they just, they didn't care because they want everything to look

like sports center. So it was never going to be a good show. Yeah. I mean, but I would be very surprised if they get those three and keep the show as is. It's almost impossible. It's almost impossible. And then of course, they're going to have another show like The Jump. They just won't call it The Jump. I figured that,

I just thought Malika gets that show. They call it NBA Daily or whatever they call it. All the same types of people that are on the jump, but it's way less built around the host. There's no five minute self-congratulatory monologue at the beginning of it and none of that stuff. And it's just like basically SportsCenter about the NBA. Can we just channel our Bradley Cooper here

with some silver linings? Malika really, I mean, in a story that had absolutely no good news to it, Malika was the silver lining because she not only is a show that it's a meritocracy, but she delivered time and time again under incredibly extraordinary circumstances at various points. And she's like nine years older than my daughter. They threw her under the fire. It's incredible.

I think she's like 25. Yeah, she's really good. I mean, they lucked out big time. Well, what do you do if you're them, like you're covering basketball, you have this unbelievable asset in some ways in Woj because he has all the information, but you're also like kind of, how do you make that work on TV? They've never been able to make Woj work on TV with the information. Twitter is always the best format for him. But then when you have something like the draft

and he's spoiling each pick on Twitter and then people watching the draft are like, why am I watching this? I should just watch Twitter. I mean, I think there's a fair analogy to be made with Schefter. And you see what Schefter does on NFL. I mean, Woj is obviously you know, obviously Woj, but I think that there is a way to incorporate that kind of insight and news breaking into a show.

Yeah. You pull them into the segments or. You pull them into the segments and you have real conversations and then you bounce off of that news. You know, sometimes they would come in, Woj would, you know, say all of a sudden like this and this is going to happen or so-and-so is going there. And then they'd go back to a separate conversation. I mean, that's, it's like, while you're there breaking the news, own that news, talk about the repercussions, talk about how that's going to change either the game you're about to see or, or something else. And, um, you know, and then it becomes fun. I mean, they just didn't integrate him right.

But he's, yeah, I always thought, I always thought he should be like in Woj's bomb shelter. And they just go to it and he's in like an actual shelter and he's just like dropping Woj bombs and then does like a four-minute segment, a lot like the Schefter thing. Because I think Schefter works on the NFL. And they haven't been able to figure out how to make that also work for Woj.

But I don't think it's Woj's fault. I think that they just don't understand how to conduct. I agree with you. I don't think it's Woj's fault either. They have a beautiful violinist. They just don't have a conductor. They just don't have a way of making it all sound pretty. So as we get distance from this Rachel, Maria, this whole thing,

it actually seems like people a little bit are like, wow, that was crazy how that worked out for Rachel. Whether you agreed with what she said, all that stuff, just fundamentally how it played out. It seemed like the pieces that I read from all the media reporters were like, wow, that was just completely effed up by ESPN. What a disaster over the course of a year for how to handle a crisis. And I think that's going to be the legacy of this, right? It's like, how can you handle something this badly for a year? Well, the other ironic part of it is, forget about what's in the papers, people at ESPN who,

let's just say that there were some people who were not big fans of Rachel, even they, even they are saying she got a raw deal and, you know, they can't believe the whole saga. And so I think it's a, it's one of those things where now that both of them are kind of removed from the equation, it still lives and breathes. And the repercussions are going to be both on the managerial side and just in terms of the NBA coverage side. I think it's going to be with them for a while.

It was really sad. It was really screwed up. Yeah, and it's like borderline traumatic. And a lot of people either lost their jobs or they're getting transitioned out. And they brought in Dave Roberts, who was on the radio side, I guess, to run the NBA stuff. And usually when the new person comes in,

they're going to bring in all their own people and kind of do their own vision for stuff. But, you know, it's interesting. Watching from afar as they've screwed up a couple of these things. And look, I think ESPN is in a really hard spot in some ways because of how their business has changed the last eight, nine years. You know, and it just feels like they're constantly playing defense and they're playing

whack-a-mole with crises that come up and stuff like that compared to what it was like, you know, which I think was like the real recent heyday of probably 2009 to 2012, stuff like that. I think what's interesting about what's happened in that company, you have all these cutbacks. You have to get rid of your bench, basically. Think of the whole company as a 53-man roster. So you've had to get rid of some of that. And now you're basically trying to play football with like a 40-man roster. You're putting a lot of responsibility on certain people. And you have these moments,

like what just happened with this Marie Rachel thing, where it's almost like they don't have enough people either in charge or focused just on how everything's going to be like, oh, wait a second. The person who's levitating above and is like, hey, wait a second, this is bad. What are we going to do?

How are we going to fix this? Because they're always like playing catch up, trying to fix stuff. And to me, this is like an eight-year kind of slide. If you're thinking back to 2012, 13, where they are, where they are now. The innovations, what innovations does ESPN do in the last few years other than pulling off

streaming? Think about what the company was like in the 1990s and all the stuff you wrote about in your book in the 2000s, constantly trying stuff. Sometimes the stuff didn't work. Sometimes it would be the phone. Sometimes it would be ESPN, the Gatorade. They would take swings and misses. What are the swings now? Like basically they've retreated and they basically said, we just want to show games and highlights. And I guess that's who we are. Like it's kind of depressing, right?

Well, listen, first of all, on the talent side, I think it's even more drastic than what you suggest because look, at one point they had over a thousand people on camera. It deals with over a thousand people. Right now, they made a decision several years ago and Stephen A was the beneficiary of that beyond anybody's imagination

and more so than anybody else that there were probably, I would say Bill, like 10 to 12 people that they really care about. Everybody else, forget about it. And in fact, if you look at this past year what they've done with a lot of talent contracts they've actually set out a number they've given the number this is the number if you want to stay you can accept this number if you don't then we wish

you well i mean there's really not even a lot of negotiating. There's a whole middle tier that used to be able to, they weren't making Berman money and they weren't making big Stephen A money, but they were making- Real money, yeah. Good money, like two and a half to five. And all those, a lot of those salaries, Van Pelt, no,

but a lot of those salaries have been slashed considerably. Some people on air have taken 35, 40, 45% haircuts. And they just said, basically, we defy you to go someplace else. Or if you do, goodbye. But they've really just made a, that's how Stephen A got to 14. You know, I mean, look, Max, Max has kicked off that show, but they'll probably give max levitard's window or something like that he'll still be making his you know whatever it is you

know four and a half five whatever he gets i mean he gets he makes pretty penny and so i think as a result it's it's like there's just two fundamentally different worlds where you know if you're in that if you're on that list if you're on that list, if you're on that A-list, they're going to bend over backwards for you. They're going to try and accommodate you, figure out a different thing, and keep your salary high. If you're not, forget it. What part of ESPN is growing right now? Because you think about like, they're always adding buildings, building buildings to Bristol. They expand to LA. They do the SEC network like there is going. Like, what are the parts that you think are growing now? Oh, the biggest is the core is saying we should spin them off.

I mean, that's what it basically is. I mean, if you look at the cable bundle, I mean, we knew this like 10 years ago, eight years ago. Let's say 14 and 14, it became pretty clear. But in Burbank now, I mean, you're really starting to hear more and more people, they might have to spin them off. It's just... What does spin them off mean? Like sell them to who somebody who is very very comfortable with advertising and somebody who's not going and who's going to be able to absorb that advertising matrix in a much larger advertising matrix so you don't get hit so hard remember at one point i mean what do you think pixar and marvel and all these things they were bought with ESPN money. ESPN was, you know,

generating $12 billion a year in revenue. Right. I mean, it's like, it's unbelievable, right? I mean, so that's not happening anymore.

And, uh, I think there's a real question about ESPN's future now in terms of, but look, they still spent, they, they spent a lot of money on NFL. They got the best NFL deal they've gotten in a while.

I think they overspent, no offense against Jimmy, for the NHL. I mean, they're still spending money. And so it's not the big kind of growth equations or growth stories that you're talking about, but it's not like they've completely retreated. Well, the way they've grown is they've tried to solidify the sports red stuff. UFC was another great deal. They've put most of their resources toward games,

which you could argue makes a lot of sense. I guess what's been interesting to me, and I don't want to say it's bittersweet. I haven't worked there for six years, but it's just thinking back almost 10 years to when Bodenheimer's last year when Skipper was running content for him and just what a machine that place was and the vision that they had. And just, it just seemed like anything was possible and they really took

big swings. I really loved working there. There's like a four or five year stretch as fucked up as that place was and is where it was like, this is a cool place to work. We really try to do stuff. And we try to do stuff other people aren't doing. And then that really started to shift the last year and a half I was there. And it also became way more dysfunctional the last year and a half I was there. Well, it became very, very big and some people weren't in the right jobs. But the truth is Skipper got Shapiro's job by articulating that vision of live, live, live. I mean, he came at the exact right time. He went and gobbled up. I mean, the first day he had the job, he flew to get the World Cup. He stole that away from NBC the very first day. He first day he was right and then he did it with wimbledon he

did with and then these long deals with all these conferences 27 billion dollars in college football it was the perfect timing because the money was flowing and he was doing nobody was doing eight year nine year ten year deals i mean he he totally transformed the business and then he became like george steinbrenner with talent paying like enormous sums of money to people like Bill Simmons. And I'm just kidding. I deserved it. Skipper never regretted a Bill Simmons contract. I'll tell you that, Jim Miller.

I think that's right. I think that's right. But let's face it, you did raise the bar. Maybe. No, maybe. There was some,. There was somebody. I kept it quiet. Look, it was a really cool place to work.

And it was also really dysfunctional, even when we were at the heights. I mean, I remember ESPN Films, which was a bunch of different names. We must have had four or five bosses over the span of five years, including when we were doing for 30 for 30, our bosses changed three times for that just in the first couple of years I had on the website, I think maybe five people running the website in eight years, something like that. It was John Marvel. Then it was Neil Scarborough. It was John Papenek and Rob Kings in there. And then Rob Kings, like they, things were always in flux. And then on the TV side, same thing. I remember when Skipper flipped Norby, I mean, we're going super inside baseball

here for the audience, but when he flipped the jobs, yeah, he, Wild Hack was in charge of scheduling and Norby was in charge of production. And Skipper's like, I'm going to flip these jobs, which was basically like making a baseball manager. It was like Ted Lasso, who's making, you like making a football coach, a soccer coach. But it just, it was really weird behind the scenes, but it didn't matter because ESPN was killing it and making a ton of money. But as soon as they weren't, as soon as there were cutbacks, all of a sudden this dysfunction becomes way more noticeable. And people are like, wow, ESPN, it's really getting crazy there. It's like, let me tell you something. It was

always crazy. You know it was crazy because you wrote the book. There was never a normal time at ESPN. It was just, they were doing better. I do think that the other big shift was the idea that a lot of the time people kept it quiet. And now, I mean, look, you look at Kevin Draper's New York Times story. I mean, that is the result of people inside talking, talking, talking, putting things together. And, you know, those things did not happen, you know, to a large, to such a degree. And I think that's probably one of the reasons why dysfunction has become capitalized there. I completely agree with you. I mean, I think that it's been a big place. It's been a difficult place to run. A lot of times people were in the wrong jobs.

But I think that what we've been seeing over the last five, six, seven years, and I think that the comms team at ESPN would certainly, I think they would agree that it just becomes unmanageable at some point. Social media made it harder. I think the blogs and the hyper coverage of stuff, which we just didn't have. You talked about Keith and Dan. It was like the early days of the internet. Nobody really knew two thirds of what was going on.

And you might read one story or hear a rumor or hear a third hand rumor or whatever, but just wasn't covered the same way. And then there was also just the idea of like, you can tweet, but you can't do your own personal opinions and you can't conflate anything with sports and politics and you can't say this and that. And finally that became totally prohibitive and they had to let that genie out of the bottle. And that's been its own whole saga now. Well, I remember they were very controlling in the mid-2000s with stuff, right? There's just the upside for content people. Ultimately, they didn't care. They knew where they were making their money and it didn't... The website really mattered, but ultimately, nobody who wrote for the website, they were always going to default to the website over the

person. I think as we hit the social media era and if you're a columnist or you're a sports center anchor or whatever, you're also this person online. And as that evolved over the next 10 years and the interaction people can have with fans, the things they can see in their replies, that opened a whole can of worms. I saw it. I remember doing TV once with somebody who, every time we took a break, would just go on Twitter and read the replies and go crazy. People were saying, and half the time it's bad. But I think all that, I think social media, not to blame, that's like a hacky thing to be like, it's social media's fault. But I do think social media exacerbated a lot of stuff that was under the surface. You know what I mean? I mean, not to sound self-serving, but I think that's one of my

favorite Argent podcasts I've ever done. I did the Argent. You and Skipper helped out on that one. That was the best story because it was just absolutely crazy. It was absolutely crazy. All the rollercoaster, the chutes and ladders that the company went through trying to figure that out. And in fairness, a lot of companies were trying to figure it out, but they didn't have as many people who were going to be... I mean, can you imagine if you had your Twitter platform and they wouldn't let you interview Obama when you got the first time you were able to get Obama? Oh my God. I would have gone nuts. I definitely would have tweeted

about it. I also think people, the first five years weren't as good on Twitter as they eventually became. It was a lot more like I'm spilling my thoughts. It's like a brain dump. And I did it a couple of times where it's like, oh my, I look back now and I'm like, I can't believe I tweeted that the Skip Richard Sherman thing was so awful. Because I watched that and I was like, this is just bad for our company. I was just looking at it as somebody that really liked working for ESPN at that point. I'm like, this is just bad. We're putting our talent in a situation where they look bad. Why are we doing this?

I shouldn't have tweeted it, but I did. And then that led to me getting suspended, which becomes this whole other big deal. But I feel like they were trying to navigate that for a while, but now, now it's kind of like, what can you do? You can't control social media, but at the same time, just people feel themselves. They don't even announce suspensions. I mean, they used to announce, I remember when Tony went off on

Hannah's wardrobe, you know, and it was clear, okay, he's going to get suspended. And the only thing we were waiting for was the announcement, like, was it going to be with pay or without pay? Is it going to be one week, two weeks, three weeks? You know, and of course they would tell. Now there are people in the past couple of years, there have been a bunch of people who have gotten suspended, but they don't even talk about it. They won't even comment about it. And it's probably a smart thing to do from a company point of view, but they just don't care. I mean, they don't want to talk about it. They don't think it needs to be public. And it probably saved them a lot of heartache. I really like Patara. I think he's a good guy. Is that a fun job to have?

I think he, I think Jimmy is a good guy and I think he really likes the job. I think he's always thought about it. I mean, he had his nose pressed up against the window, at least to be number two when Skipper was around, that didn't happen. But I think, I think the thing that you can say about Jimmy, even when things don't go the way even he would want it, is that he loves the job. I don't think he realized how hard it was going to be, in part because you have to be in the chair to realize that. And also, I think just a bunch of shit happened that, you know, you can't predict. I mean, obviously COVID, but other things as well, personal matters.

And I mean, this whole thing with Rachel and Maria, you don't really think that's going to happen. And the other problem is, I don't think he's got a lot of people who can control that. Yeah. Or can manage it until it gets to him. You know, the good news is the bad news. The good news is there's a lot of

important people at ESPN on air who feel like, well, you know what? Jimmy's always said I can reach out to him. I can text him at 11 o'clock at night and he'll respond. And he does. The bad news is that there's a lot of people that feel like they can go straight to the boss. So there's a lot of senior managers who just, they just don't have a lot of credibility or they don't have either the gumption or the portfolio to make a real decisive decision that will save Jimmy from getting involved. Jimmy gets involved in way too many things. Isn't it funny how the talent comes and goes

and it's usually the talent's fault and the talent's always so difficult and those senior managers never seem to go? Especially the senior managers who have put those people. I mean, look, I'm not sure which, you know, rocket scientists sat down and said, Oh, let's put Jamel Hill on sports center six. I mean, I know who they are, but I'm not going to out them, but I'm just saying, I'm not sure what their thinking was. That was just a really bad idea.

That there's, and Michael, there And Michael, there's just nobody. Especially because they had a show that people liked. It was really good. Yeah. It was really good. But you know what? Sure enough, when things went south and that show went sideways. It's a talent spot.

They were gone. They were gone. And the people who literally decided to do that show are still there. I'm aware. This is why the thing that I was, I got the reputation for he's so difficult. He's so demanding.

It's like, I stick up for myself. That was what I did the entire time I was at ESPN when they tried to take jokes out of my column or when they went back on their word on something or whatever. I was always going to stick up for myself. Maybe I stuck up for myself too hard sometimes, but when things don't make sense,

I can't kind of sit around and not say anything. So eventually you learn how to massage it and do it better, but it's just weird that it's always the talent that's so difficult. And then when you look at these situations, it's sometimes the talent just being put in situations to fail. And then if they push back on it at all, then it's their fault, which I just think is a really weird way to think about it. Yeah. There is, look, with some people, and you know who they are, there's a real us versus them mentality. And when you start to have incredible influence,

or at least it was clear that Skipper cared about your opinion, and you had a seat creatively, then, you know, you're a bullseye. You had like 10 bullseyes. You're making too much money. Some people are too popular, more important than the brand.

He's got too much to say. Now he's giving advice. And then there were a couple of times when you gave advice on things that you weren't involved in. I heard about that. Which one? Give me an example.

I don't even remember. Oh, come on. You wrote a memo about, what was it about? NFL? No, it wasn't NFL. Oh, he used to write a lot of memos. It was a memo about stuff

that you weren't on or involved in and that people went to defcon one on that and then of course i'm so happy i don't even remember skipper would ask me to send memos on stuff he would just be like hey let me know what you think about whatever nobody knew about that that he asked you or and then all of a sudden you realize, oh, wait a second, there's going to be a sequel to 30 for 30 and people are trying to take it away from me. I wouldn't want that. Well, that one I did go nuclear on.

Yeah. Yeah, we had like a rival faction just basically trying to do 35 for 35. Like 30 for 30 didn't exist. That was the thing that happened. This is what I'm talking about, how dysfunctional that place is. You had ESPN, you had two sides, one who thinks they're making another 30 for 30 and the other who

thinks they're doing 30 for 35 and that they can kind of topple 30 for 30. It's fucking Game of Thrones. Don't forget the punchline, which is that they didn't even let you guys know they were playing. No, we found out. We had a memo forwarded to us. And we're like, what's this? That thing had been

going on for four months. I know. That also shows how, not necessarily how duplicitous some people are. Yes, of course. Some of whom are still there. Yes. But how big the place is. You can have a whole army working on something and nobody on the other side knows i mean that that was just i mean 35 for 35 is is like epic i mean that is just that is that's a case study in in how they fight back is that going in your book when you do you got to do another you have to do the sequel right oh yeah 35 for 35 is definitely yes that's a that's a hearty perennial because it touched so many different, it literally was a reflection

on so many different facets of the culture and on certain people who, yes, they're still there. Well, and that was also Skipper who was very hands-off with a lot of this stuff and a lot of people acted accordingly and tried to grab territory in real estate and they would nod to territory in real estate and they would nod to him in a meeting.

And then as soon as they left in the meeting, do the opposite. And, you know, that was a big promise. You got to love the fact that sometimes John would explode like a bomb in the middle of something. And he knew there would be collateral damage and he would just walk away. You guys just sort it out. Like, I don't care. I've made my decision. And this is not second grade. I know there's going to be a lot of,

you know, warfare and guerrilla warfare and bad, you know, kind of bad people going at each other, but he didn't care. He just wasn't going to reduce, you know, he wasn't going to get involved in that stuff.

He just was staying at 30,000 feet, making decisions. I guess my point, I mean, of the, of this part of our conversation is like, He wasn't going to get involved in that stuff. He just was standing at 30,000 feet making decisions. I guess my point of this part of our conversation is this place has always been dysfunctional and really successful at the same time. A lot of giant companies, I'm sure Facebook is incredibly dysfunctional. They're successful. Then when things start to turn, you start having issues, that dysfunction starts looking like it's a little more glaring. I think ultimately,

ESPN will be the place that has games. I think the ESPN Plus is going to work. I think they've made the right decisions. I'm not sure really they're competing against pieces of other companies. And until Amazon or Apple just says, we're taking this, ESPN is going to be fine. But the moment Amazon or Apple is like, we're taking this, now that might be eight years from now, but that will be the challenge.

Apple could buy them with the quarters and dimes and the couch cushions. Oh my God. How about with season two budget of the morning show? They could just buy ESPN. It's a joke. It's a joke. But I think, you know, one of the things that we They could just buy ESPN. It's a joke. It's a joke. But I think, you know, one of the things that we've seen

from Tim Cook is Tim Cook is really smart about being disciplined about what they do and what they don't do. And that's fascinating for somebody who's sitting on that much money.

You know, somebody else in that chair would have been on a huge buying spree and would have gone outside their sweet spot. The one thing Apple shareholders know, and I think this is actually pretty cool, is that they want to stick to things that they know. And when they do start to branch out like they did with Apple Plus and Apple, like there's a plan to it and it's connected to something and they understand why they're doing it.

You know, but not to say that that will be the case for a long time. it to something and they understand why they're doing it. But not to say that that will be the case for a long time. They may decide to spend some money. Well, and then on the flip side of that, HBO, Casey, who's just continuing, he's just on a run. Casey Boyce, the guy who makes all the programming decisions for HBO. I'm biased. We have our Music Box documentary there. I love working with HBO.

Casey's one of my favorite people that I think I've worked with, but his taste for shit, you could argue he's the most valuable executive right now. The fact that over and over again, he's just pulling off these water cooler shows for this network that basically they tried to dilute with the, with the whole HBO max. And it was so confusing.

And it really seemed like the brand was in danger and now it seems fine again. And I really feel like it's all because of him. I was asked after Zaslav and Malone bought the company, you know, basically I guess everything's up for grabs. And I said, yeah, everything but Casey Bliss. I mean, there's just no way that David or John or anybody who's going to be involved in that company is going to touch Casey. You know, I think he can certainly write his own ticket. And because he's so loyal to his team, I think his team also has a sense of security that, you know, I think that a lot of places, particularly at this time, don't. I mean, maybe not every department and not every

division at WarnerMedia or HBO, HBO Max, but certainly that programming team where people like you, did you work with Nina Rosenstein? Yeah. Yeah. She's terrific. The thing with Casey, he managed to protect a brand that was in danger. You know, and you see, just look at what's happened to ESPN

even in the last eight years. Like, how many different ways your brand can get screwed up if the wrong people are in charge or the wrong, the wrong thing happens

or all of a sudden you go sideways on this one thing. You don't see something in time. And with HBO is at this point, whenever it was when they got bought, when right when Plutber was starting to stomp his feet a little bit about what they're trying to do,

it was hard to tell how much was histrionics and how much was, Oh wait, he's really worried about this. And as it turned out, he was really worried about it. There was this moment where it seemed like they're just going to turn HBO into just another streamer, just another network. And they've managed to keep the one thing that made HBO special, which I'm sure is in your book. When they really get behind something, the audience expects it to be good. That's such a hard

place to land. And it's such a hard place to keep, you know, where it's like mayor of East town, this is HBO. It's Kate. I bet this is going to be good to just have the audience make the leap versus Netflix, which I think Netflix does a lot of good stuff too, but Netflix they're shooting.

It's like a t-shirt cannon. They're just shooting shows and movies at you every day. And then you'll, they'll, they have the algorithm and it'll figure out what you like and don't like. It's like the Rangers versus White Lotus.

Theoretically, I mean, musically speaking, there were variations on a theme, right? I mean, a bunch of people getting together. But, I mean, the Mike White show just, Mike Lotus just toppled them, creamed them. And now they're going to do another season.

It's such a cool story because he does that thing and it's like, look, this is one season, it's six episodes, there's no season two. And then people just liked it. And then it's like, wait a second, how do we figure this out? Could there be a season two? Yeah, I mean, it's going to be a totally different place and a different cast. But something like that could go on for like 10 years. yeah I mean it's going to be totally different place and a different cast but it'll work

something like that could go on for like 10 years you know it's it's pretty cool and Mike was amazing

the way he managed to pull that off during COVID it's still like those two shows give me faith that as weird as TV has gotten and as many choices

that we have there's still like can be those shows that seem like they turn into a, are you watching dot, dot, dot yet? Have you caught up? Hey, have you watched episode four yet? I want to talk to you about it.

It still feels like it matters. I'm a big fan of, I know everybody likes to binge, but there was something really cool during Mare and or white loads because it was like oh no i gotta be home to watch it like right it was appointment viewing which we hadn't heard of in a long time you know and i think that was another thing that hbo didn't give into uh they kept their construct and i think people really enjoyed it i mean mean, there was, you know, somebody was talking

about they were at a party and everybody, oh no, it's the final mayor. We're going. Yeah, it's almost like a game. Yeah, I bet you'll see another season of that too. Even though they said it was going to be one and done, I bet you they top-taped into it. And Brad Inglesby, who's the

writer of that, is a terrific guy. I bet he comes up with a great sequel. I've already said what I wanted season two to be. She coaches the women's basketball high school team. Season two. Kate, actually, we get to see her practice.

She's such a good actress. She just teaches herself how to basically become like, I don't know, De'Aaron Fox as a point guard. And then there's some sort of murder with the high school team. And now we're back. We're back with the Mayor of Easttown.

I think- You just don't make sure Nicholson's there because she was unbelievable. The thing with, sometimes I, like I can get the screeners, right? Like they sent me the first five Mayor of Easttown. So I saw all the ones up to the big episode where things flipped.

And then I felt left out of the dialogue during the week. And, you know, I love the Netflix binge strategy. I love being able to get all the shows at once if you're in the mood for that. But there's still something about the week-to-week ebb and flow of a TV show. And you could feel it with White Lotus. I talked about White Lotus.

I was at a wedding, I think between episode three and four. And I was in like four different White Lotus conversations at the wedding. And I still, I just like that we still have that these days. And also I thought it was the first time I saw it, I thought, this is a little hokey with the coffin right at the opening scene. It's like, but it was, it turned out to be really smart because every week people were changing their minds about who was in the box. And there was a whole other, you know, conversation going on. And of course, everybody's writing about it as well. You know, week after

week, oh, this is, this is what we learned. Who do you think, how does that impact your, your feelings about who dies? I mean, it really brought all the muscle of a limited series not bingeable to bear. Well, you released the cover for your HBO book and there's like 40 faces on it. And the biggest- 28. 28.

The biggest exclusion, the biggest outrage is Adebisi not being on the cover. I just couldn't believe it. Adebisi, I think, Adebisi and Tony Soprano carrying HBO with Carrie Bradshaw in the late 90s. I felt like Adebisi deserved his just due. Put his headphones on so he could commit a sexual assault against that guy's son. That was one of the most mind-blowing scenes in HBO history. I thought Adebisi should have been on there.

It was really hard. Well, you also, didn't you say to me that you thought OJ should have been on there? Oh, it's first and 10 OJ. I would have thrown him on. Oh my gosh. He was like, that was the first important HBO show. First and 10.

That and The Hitchhiker going way back. I know, but... I know. I get why you didn't put OJ on your book cover. I wasn't going to die on that hill. What do we think of the Sex and the City remake? That's going to be interesting. We'll see.

I mean... They killed off Kim Cattrall. She's dead. They're spending a lot of money on it. And, you know, I wouldn't bet against Michael Patrick King, but it'll be interesting to see whether or not, I mean, I think it seems to me like people are really excited about it and the core audience still wants to see what they're doing.

So, you know, I guess it's coming up, but Curb's coming back and Succession's coming back. Well, Succession, people were like, they'll never have another Game of Thrones and they probably won't. I think to have another Game of Thrones, there has to be some sort of fantasy,

outer space, superheroes. You're talking about in terms of numbers? Just, yeah, audience scale, the whole thing. I think you need some sort of something that's not normal human behavior, but succession is about as good as they're going to do with just the flat out drama. It's incredible. I mean, it really is. And I was worried about episodes two and three. That was a really first season. But once, I mean, the pilot was great and then once they hit season,

episode four and the second season, it just, they crushed it. They crushed it really smart. The ringer was drinking the Kool-Aid from day one

and I would always tell people, just get to episode four. Yeah. It's smooth, smooth sailing after that. Yeah, it's cool. There's good TV right now. I even, there's shows on other networks that I've liked. Like, I that. Yeah, it's cool. There's good TV right now.

There's shows on other networks that I've liked. I like the Heels, the wrestling show on Starz. I think that one's pretty good. But people are doing a good job. There's been good stuff on Netflix, all these places. By the way, speaking of The Ringer, congrats on Jeopardy. I'm proud to say that I read her book in galleys and gave her a quote for the back cover.

She is magical. She is really... Some old school journalism, right, Jim? Absolutely. Took her time, didn't try to beat the New York Times, waited. She wanted to make sure the story was right and then crushed them. And not only that, talk about the Lord's work, listening to all those freaking pods. I know.

I mean, somebody would have given up after five or 10 minutes. She's really good and for people out there who haven't read that book on, I mean, I just thought it was outstanding.

Well, now we have the paperback where she gets a giant epilogue of the Jeopardy book about this whole saga. She did a great job. I think it was a good, because a couple of people, I talked to John Walsh this week actually and he was thrilled by it.

He loved this old school reporting type moment. And we were talking about it. I had nothing to do with the story other than just giving the thumbs up on it. The cool thing about it was the concept of taking your time with the story. Which I'm not sure everybody does anymore. They try to rush. They get worried somebody else might have it. And they just try to throw up whatever they have.

And Claire didn't do that with that one. She waited until she had the entire story and the whole talk to enough people. And when we talked to some of our younger people about reporting this stuff and just how to make it in the business and things like that. It's like, don't call three people, call 10, you know,

like that's, that's how to get ahead. The stuff like that. It's the kind of story where this used to happen a lot more, but she's the only person that could have really written that story. Yeah. She's like the woes of jeopardy. She,

she understood. I mean, I saw it when I was reading the guys that book, she just understood the Woj of Jeopardy. I mean, I saw it when I was reading the guys' book. She just understood the fabric of the show. She knew who everybody was. And so as a result, when there was something to investigate, she was uniquely positioned, particularly given her work ethic, to pull it off.

Well, I'm glad you liked it. Yeah, she did a great job. Before we go, give me two ESPN predictions. Other than we're never going to see Rachel Nichols on ESPN again? Yeah, that doesn't count. I think Max is going to get Levitard's show.

The highly questionable that time slot? Yeah, I think that makes sense to me. I think they they probably do that and uh i'm not sure about who's gonna who's gonna be hanging out with payton i i don't i don't want to say i may be wrong and the person may not want me to jinx it for them but um that's a that's a pretty big slot. My prediction, this is a Norby knowing what he likes with stuff. I predict with Countdown,

one of their A-list hosts becomes involved in that show. Be a prediction. Right? I hope they like basketball. Well, like Rhys Davis does the NBA draft why couldn't he host countdown somebody like that

an old school like the kind of guy the kind of guy Norby is very comfortable with Norby has certain QBs that he likes right if he was an offensive coordinator

you would know who the Norby QBs are I would predict something like that well Reece is a good man. No drama. Or other, maybe, who knows? Jim Miller, it was great to see you. Great to see you. Thanks for having me. And thanks for popping on for 50 minutes. And then we'll have you in November when you're promoting your book. I'll be one of the 40 podcasts you go on. Thank you so much. All right.

That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Mike Francesa. Thanks to Jason Goff. And thanks to Jim Miller. We're back on Sunday night, our last Sunday night podcast before we start doing Guess the Lines with Cousin Sal. So I'll have to come up with something good for that. This one was produced by Kyle Creighton, as always. Hey, we have something really exciting brewing with FanDuel. It's coming

next Friday, September 3rd. And get ready for my million dollar pick segment, which we'll be we'll be doing late Thursday night, heading into Friday every week during the season on the Bill Simmons podcast. Check out the FanDuel or FanDando sports book app. Don't forget about the rewatchables coming on Monday. I'll just, no, no, I'll tell you what the movie is on Sunday night's podcast. I'll wait. You'll have to wait.

Enjoy the weekend. Thanks for listening. I want to see them on the way so I never say I don't have feelings with them. On the wayside, on the way so I never say I don't have feelings with them.