The Bill Simmons Podcast - NFL Playoff Sleepers and 'Cobra Kai' Season 3 With Warren Sharp and Shea Serrano

Episode Date: January 6, 2021

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Warren Sharp of 'The Ringer NFL Show' to discuss the AFC and NFC wild-card matchups, playoff sleepers, future bets, and more (3:00). Then Bill talks with Shea Serrano about 'Cobra Kai' Season 3, some callbacks to the 'Karate Kid' universe, Season 4 predictions, and more (1:11:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, we have a big announcement this weekend. Immediately following the final game Saturday and Sunday, the Ringer NFL show will be going live. Make sure you're subscribed to the Ringer's YouTube channel, youtube.com slash the Ringer. Make sure you're following at Ringer NFL on Twitter. Saturday night, Kevin Clark, Ryan Rosillo. I know both of those guys.

And then Sunday night, Kevin Clark, Norm Princiati. I know both of them too. They will be coming on live after the third game. We'll be doing my podcast as well. We have you covered for the huge weekend. Let's get to it. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action.

FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then trying to back what you think in those first few weeks and then zag the other way if you were wrong. You could bet on new and fun markets on FanDuel like to catch a pass, same game parlays,

highest scoring game across the Sunday slate, offensive TDs in the next drive. They have so much stuff, it's crazy. The app is safe and secure and easy to use. And when you win, you'll get paid instantly. Plus, look out for FanDuel Squares this season. Here's what you have to do. Visit FanDuel.com to download

America's number one sports book. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit RG-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler or visit RG-help.com. This episode is brought to you by 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 can 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. We're also brought to you by TheRinger.com and The Ringer Podcast Network. If you love The Bachelor, bachelor party came back for the new bachelor season with Matt James and Juliet had Van and Rachel from higher learning. So it was a crossover podcast,

but it was a really good breakdown and Rachel had some good points on, uh, you know, this is the first ever bachelor season with a black bachelor and how they handled some of this stuff. Um, it's a really good podcast. I would encourage you to listen to it. Also, the rewatchables came back for 2021.

We did Bridesmaids, me and Mina Kimes and Mallory Rubin. Don't look away. Listen to that episode. Coming up, Warren Sharpe from the Ringer NFL Show and Sharpe Football is going to help me break down any possibilities for NFL futures as we head into the playoffs and what teams we should be watching, what matchups we should be looking for. And then Shea Serrano comes on to break down the most important TV show of 2021, Cobra Kai season three, which lived up to our expectations. And then some. That's all next.

First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right. Warren Sharp is here. You know him from Sharp Football. You know him from the Ringer NFL show, where he had a very successful season with us. He was doing a midweek podcast with Chris Vernon, and then a Friday podcast with Joe House, who owns the record for longest intros to a podcast at the Ringer.

He owns 12 of the top 13 intro records. But I've specifically tried to not steal him for this podcast during the season because I wanted people to go to Ringer NFL. But now it's the playoffs. We got to bring in Warren Sharp. How are you? I'm doing great. It's the best time of the year.

I think it's by far the best time of the year. And I will say that usually my favorite weekend is next weekend, the divisional round, where the four best teams in the league who had the week off come back. This year, I think this weekend is going to rival that because we only have one team that's sitting and we've got six games. It's going to be a great weekend. This is a don't get divorced weekend. Six games. We've, we've joked about it. We've dreamed about it. We've thought about it forever.

What it would be like if I never understood why the two seed got to buy. I always thought they should. I am not an expansion guy. I am not a let's just keep adding stuff and diluting whatever we have. But in this case, it seemed pretty obvious. There was really no difference between five, six, seven every year anyway, in my opinion. Um, and it was like, why not? And I'm really excited. I'm excited for the three games a day. We, we should probably start with the bills who I talked about on Sunday night, but just the bills have all the momentum now as kind of the sleeper. They're not even a sleeper anymore. People are like, is this just the best team in the AFC? Could this be the best team in football? Part of that worries me because they haven't done anything yet. They

have one playoff loss to their resume. They're being treated as a favorite, even though they haven't won a playoff game. And it goes against my nobody believes in us theory, Warren, where I feel like you need that factor of some team being like, everybody counted us out. The more I look at Pittsburgh, I look at them and I go, could that be a nobody believes in us team? Where they were 11-0, they had to play five games in 25 days. They had some bad injuries.

Everybody wrote them off. And now we're taping this 10 o'clock and on Tuesday morning, Stefanski is out as Brown's coach because of COVID. So they might have an easier round one than we thought. So I'm going to start with this. Who is the, nobody believes in us team this year for you. Um, yeah, if you're looking across, uh, divisions, I would, I would actually have to say the Baltimore Ravens, a similar situation like the Steelers in that they, they, they had a stretch where they were really good. And then the stretch where I think, you know, you and a lot of other people don't really like this team anymore. And so that to me would be the team that is the nobody believes in

us team. They're going up against like if you if you just look at their draw, right, they're going up against the Titans who've beat them twice. They've got the chiefs in their conference who just own this team. So I think anybody's going to look at them and say, I have no interest in taking this team to even make the Super Bowl, maybe not even win this first game as like the Titans could be a good underdog pick. So they're a team, I would say. So when you're crunching the numbers and trying to figure out trends and, you know, inefficiencies and things like that, and you look at the Baltimore situation where they turn things around the last five weeks, but their schedule was awful and you're weighing that

piece in, but you're, you're basically trying to figure out, is this real or is this not real? What would be the indication that it's not real? I think Lamar Jackson has come back. I think his passing, his accuracy, his downfield aggression has turned up a little bit. So that's a positive. And it doesn't really matter the opponent. Yes, he might face some easier pass defenses. But the fact that he's uncorking the ball and throwing it down the field with accuracy, and he struggled to do that a little bit earlier on in

the season, is a positive indicator heading down the stretch. I also look at the fact that this defense, when they played the Titans earlier this season, they were without a couple of key guys on their defensive line. They were without Calais Campbell. They were without Brandon Williams. Those guys are back now. COVID hits people and teams differently. And I think it really rocked Baltimore pretty soundly. And I think that they're probably now finally getting their sea legs under them and getting back on track from that because Lamar was certainly hit by it and he was hit hard. And if you look at that first Tennessee game when they played, I think it was the very next day, their starting center, his test result came back as positive. And if I'm not mistaken, that test was drawn

on Sunday before the game. So he was actually, their center was actually playing the game COVID positive. That's how Lamar ended up getting it. And a bunch of other guys on the roster got it. And we know we traced it back to the strength coach and whatnot. But they played that game and the Steelers game. They didn't have their guys. And since then, yes, they've gone on a good stretch. But the key to me is they're winning the way that you need to win.

I mean, this is probably a thing in all sports. But if you're playing an inferior opponent, if you win unimpressively, then we should be counting that against you. But if you win in dominant fashion, I know the game against the Browns was high scoring and their defense didn't look as good, but I think that they are a team that we should consider seriously here in the postseason. Yeah, I mean, that's the case for Buffalo, right? Where they've looked good now for 10 weeks and people have broken that down ad nauseum. But I think the thing that impressed me the last couple of weeks, they didn't necessarily have to lay the smack down the way they did, but they did week

after week, those last three and the Miami game that reminded me of when the Patriots were really, really good a million years ago, back when I had a good football team, when it'd be a week 17 and be like, oh, they're going to rest everybody. They're not going to give a shit. But then they would play the starters the first half. They would take a lead. The second string would come in. Those guys would extend it. And you're like, oh yeah, this team's really good. They have a lot of pride. It's weird. But I, I thought that dismantling they gave Miami on both sides of the ball was really impressive because they didn't need to do it. I think this team has a ton of swagger. You were on it. One of the smartest things I heard on a podcast all year. I forget

what game it was heading into, but you were going backwards on the last three and you, and they had that chiefs game with the bad weather. They had the weird COVID game that the, the, the date moved around and you were like, I believe in this Buffalo offense. I actually think there are real reasons why we haven't seen it come together yet. They had that strange Patriots game too. And then all of a sudden it took off. What did you see heading into that weekend that everybody else didn't see? Yeah, it was the weekend against the, it was week nine against the Seahawks where they put up 44 points and routed Russell Wilson in a really closely lined game. And it was coming off of like a relatively unimpressive win over the jets 18 to 10. And

then they barely beat the Patriots 24 to 21. And a lot of it, you know, they had two losses right before that. And for me, it was, I was looking at this offense. I understand the way that this offense is designed. I understand what they're capable of doing. And they had three games in that four week stretch where they were playing in poor weather conditions, the game against the Tennessee Titans. I will just say this because they might meet these guys in the post season. They literally did not know if they were going to be playing that game. And they were ended up playing it, I believe on a know if they were going to be playing that game and they were ended up playing it, I believe on a Tuesday and they were planning on, they started game planning for

the chiefs the following week because they weren't sure if that game was actually going to happen or not. And so that threw a big time wrench into what they were doing for the week five game. They play the, the, the chiefs in a close game, but they really weren't in that game very much and just rained the entire game. So it was a combination of weather and then these COVID delays that I think were getting into their situation. Down the stretch, obviously, this team has torn it up. And I agree, that Dolphins game, I didn't know who they were going to start. I didn't know who they were going to play, how long they were going to play these guys. But the one cool thing about that game is it concluded the season for them by capturing

two records that nobody's talking about. Number one, they are just the second team in NFL history to record at least 20 first downs every single game of the season. Wow. The only other team that was able to achieve that feat was the 2012 Patriots. These are the only two teams in NFL history, 20 plus first downs in every single game. They also punted the second fewest times in a 16-game season in NFL history. So this is a team that Brian Dayball, their offensive coordinator and Josh Allen,

I mean, he's improved tremendously from last year. And it's a combination. I always say you can't separate the play caller from the quarterback or the quarterback from the play caller. These two guys are so intertwined. It's really hard to isolate efficiency and just say, oh yeah, well, this was definitely just a Josh Allen improvement here. And these guys are getting the most out of one another with how they're running and orchestrating this offense efficiency on early downs. And they, they're very well built to game plan against specific opponents. They can do a lot of things to, to defeat various different types of coverages and types

of defenses. I think they're the best pick the scab team that I've seen this year where every, every, the opponent always goes into a game with a scab, right? And the best teams that really know who they are like, Oh, cool. Your slot corner sucks. We're going to torture this guy. They do it. They've done it over and over again. And they also, the other thing is when they spread it wide and they have Alan as with no running backs and they just spread it wide and Alan's basically the running back. That's about as unstoppable as anything I've seen this year. If the other team doesn't have all the horses to kind of cover everybody,

they just seem to have so many options in that situation. And he's so much more confident, you know, I, to me, he's improved the most of any guy this year from where he was a year ago to now. And you think of hitting that playoff game where he completely fell apart in the second half,

you know, and you leave that game, you're like, oh man, I can't believe I bet on Josh Allen. I'm going to happily bet on Josh Allen this year. Well, there's no doubt in terms of the improvement. And the funny thing is most people talk about the quarterback can't improve his accuracy, right? Like that's one of the big Mike Leach-isms out there is like if a guy can,

the guy, you give a guy a snowball standing on the street corner, he can either throw it and hit the stop sign or he can't. And you're not really going to improve accuracy all that much. Josh Allen's accuracy has improved a ton. And I think in large part, it's due to some mechanical things that they worked on this past off season, but also the way the Brian Dables calling plays, how, where he's having Josh Reed and the openness of guys. And one of the things to pick the scab theory that you have, like they are very good at, you know, like again, in the Steelers game, you couldn't cover Stefan Diggs.

They saw that in the second half and they were just going to Diggs over and over and over. Make them stop Diggs. If you're not, if you're going to stop Diggs, maybe we'll go to Beasley. You can't stop Diggs. Fine. We're just going to keep going to them. And the other good thing about this team, I like the way, like you said, they strategize to attack the weakness of the opponent. And it's about the quickest path to victory. I always try to work with the teams that I'm working with. I always try to get the coaches to realize, focus on the quickest path to victory here. But sometimes the defense has an answer. You might think you go into a game and you think

you've got the right strategy. There's a counterpunch or your O-line can't handle their D-line. You thought they might be able to, but they can't. That's exactly what happened in the Chargers game, where at the beginning of that game, the Bills end up starting off a little bit slowly. The Chargers are getting some pressure on Josh Allen, but day ball comes up with these quick adjustments and doesn't wait until halftime to introduce the adjustments after the second drive or the third drive, he's bringing in adjustments. They're drawing up plays in the, in the dirt, more or less try to come into attack. These guys, they just have a counter. They have a great jab that they can just jab at you over and over and again, but they also have a great counter punch and, and they're really good if backed into a corner

with some of their adjustments. So they are a very dangerous offense. They could play from behind or they can play from ahead, which I think in January, you really need that. Exactly. And so here's another thing about that theory and about Josh Allen and his confidence, as you indicated, compared to last season. What I find is that teams that are trying to keep the ball out of their quarterback because they don't have a lot of confidence in their quarterback. And so they keep the ball out of his hands and they try to simply let him manage the game and throw it when you need to. Those quarterbacks don't have the same level of confidence.

Those quarterbacks aren't willing, aren't good when you actually need them to be on in a game because they they realize that they're not the key focus of your game plan. But if you come out and you're like, look, you're going to be throwing the ball on first downs in the first half of this game. We want you to pass the ball. They then put more on their shoulders over the course of the entire season. They have more confidence in what they're doing. And this is one of the reasons why the Chiefs are so hard to beat is because any team that gets down in the second half is like, okay, we're going to have to pass the ball now. Well, for the chiefs and the bills who already pass the ball at an extremely high rate, even in the first

half, this is no difference for them. Whereas a team like the Ravens, you get them down and they're like, oh crap. Now we got to throw the football. This is not what we like to do. We don't have a lot of confidence in Lamar. We don't have a ton of plays in our playbook to attack down the field, drop back passing on first downs. And so it's a lot of drops too with the Ravens. Yes. They're not used to cat. They're not used to trying to play from behind and have their receivers come up big in these different positions. They're used to playing from, from ahead in a couple of big splash plays down the field. Well,

what you just laid out is Cam Newton's only defense for one of the worst seasons I've ever watched from a quarterback for the Patriots, because he could be like, look, man, they didn't have confidence in me. And then it started 10. They're like,

I can't make a play. Um, he's, he, he would say that hoping that somebody didn't see a clip of the 150 passes either under or overthrew. Um, I'm with you on, on Alan and I'm with you on how the, how my homes is, is very similar in that respect, right? That's another team that can pick the scab at the same time. I'm confused by the chiefs. There were a couple of games this year

when I couldn't tell if it was championship hangover or maybe their running game just isn't good. And maybe that handicaps them more than I'm, I'm seeing just as the generic guy watching football every week on the couch. But when I watched them, I always think like at any point they can get Tyreek for 45 yards. At any point they can hit Kelsey for 17 yards. They have specific formations, especially that one when they stack the three on the left side, they kind of clear out the right side and he'll just sprints to the right side of the field. And it's almost like a diagonal bomb. They have certain things they know they can do. But yet, as the season went along, it became harder and harder for them to do them. What happened? I think there's a complacency element to it a little bit. I think that this

is still one of the best, if not the singular best team in the NFL, that their best is enough to beat anybody, right? Their best is enough to beat anybody. It's just a matter of turning that dial to 10 out of 10 and playing like that the entire game. I'm hoping just because I love great playoff football and I want to see the best out of every team and I want to see these teams compete on the field and leave nothing in the tank, that they start their first game in the divisional round 10 out of 10, and they play from the beginning. But we already saw last season where the team, even when they were a little bit more consistent last year, struggled to start in some of these games and had to overcome 10 plus point deficits in the second half of games. They were capable of doing it. In some cases, they won big, like in the game against the 49ers in the Super

Bowl. In other cases, they won much more narrowly. But this is a team, like historically, you can't overcome these types of deficits. Like you cannot bet on a team to consistently overcome these deficits, especially in elimination games. So we know teams up at the half win 80% of their games. I mean, this is not something that they're going to be able to routinely do. So they absolutely have to turn it on. I don't, you're 100% correct on the rushing element. I don't know how long Clyde Edwards-Alaire is going to be out for, but I can just tell you-

And he wasn't even that great to begin with. No, he slowed down. Like, he splashed early. He flashed a lot early. But compared to Le'Veon Bell, it still is night and day. I mean, Le'Veon Bell is just, I mean, he's burnt. And so I think that this team realizes that, though, and Andy Reid is probably going to dial up very pass heavy, pass oriented game plans that are great when you're playing from when you're playing from behind. if they do have a lead and they don't have a consistent run game to kind of drain the clock. What happens to opponents like a Tennessee Titans who are capable of throwing the ball down the

field? We saw they came back against the Houston Texans. This is a team that can throw the ball. I really don't understand why Tennessee and Arthur Smith don't start the game a little bit more reasonably with a passing approach, knowing defenses are stacking the box to get rid of Derrick Henry. But regardless of that, there are teams in the AFC and the NFC who can play from behind and pass the ball and get back into games. You're going to need a little bit of a run game late in the game to kind of help stay efficient, stay ahead of down and distance for the Chiefs. And I'm not quite sure, unless they have a layer, if they're going to have that run game. I hate the Chiefs this year because I could see either scenario playing out. I could see the scenario where they're awesome again. And people

are like, God damn it. What were we doing? Obviously they were just waiting to get to January or the scenario where somebody surprises them in round two or round three. And we go, man, they were trying to tell us for two months there that something was wrong. Why didn't we see it? And I don't think there's any way to win. I don't think there's any way to know. And the thing that really sucks about betting against Mahomes out of anybody is you can be right with the pick. I still feel like I was right with the Niners Super Bowl pick last year.

You can be right. And then Mahomes can pull the most awesome play out of the deep recesses of his ass because he's Mahomes and he's fucking awesome. And he kills that Niners bet by making one of the greatest plays I've ever seen in a Super Bowl, you know? And then you're like, so was I wrong? I don't feel like I was wrong about that Niners game. No, I don't think you were either. I think that was a generational game from a generational talent who willed his team back into it. I think that you have one catch. You just need one catch, one throw, one catch that's made by the Niners

in the fourth quarter. And it's probably game over. So I absolutely don't disagree there. There are some bets. But you're going against Mahomes. So the counter would be like, hey, you bet against Mahomes, dumbass. This is like betting against Michael Jordan, you know, 25 years ago. It's true. But you do know that anytime you're going up against my homes by that nature, you're getting a little bit of line value. You're just, you just also realize that there's the potential for him to create magic like he does 90% of his games and get back into it. All right, we're going to take a break and come back and talk about the NFC quickly

and then try to figure out some future bets because I love the future bets. At Pennzoil, we have one job. Pioneering a motor oil so advanced, you don't have to think about your motor oil. Instead, you can think about how your engine sounds, how your stomach feels as the RPMs build, how your wheels hug the curves, and how, with the Pennzoil Platinum Up to 15-Year 800,000 Kilometer Protection Guarantee, your adventures will be many. Pennzoil. Long may we drive.

Available at your local Canadian tire. Enrollment required. Keep your receipts. Pennzoil. Long may we drive. Available at your local Canadian tire. Enrollment required. Keep your receipts. Other conditions apply. See Pennzoil.ca slash warranty for full details. What does possible sound like for your business? It's the ability to reach further with access to over 1,400 lounges worldwide. Redefine possible with Business Platinum.

That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit Amex.ca slash business platinum. All right. So I don't know what to make of the NFC. And I was looking, I always like the, they have NFL matchup odds on FanDuel for the NFC championship.

You can basically be, you can bet on what two teams are going to play in there. And people have learned over the last 15 years to tank the future odds. The books have learned this, the casinos have learned this because we like betting on them. They're super fun. So they're like, cool. Well, we're not going to give you good value on these odds. I had Tampa. I bet on Tampa and Buffalo to play in the super bowl before week 17. It was like 27

to one. And I felt good about that because I felt like Tampa had a real chance to make it just cause I think the NFC is wide open, but you look at these odds now and I mailed them to you. If it goes chalk in round one. So all of the seeds win. That means green Bay has to play Tampa in round two. So if you like Tampa to win the NFC title, you're saying they're going to go in a Lambo and win round two. So if you like Tampa to win the NFC title, you're saying they're going to go in a Lambeau and win round two. I would say the counter to that is they need some help and maybe avoid Lambeau until round three. Well, what would the help be? They would need Trubisky to beat the

Saints. I don't see it. They would need the Rams and John, John Wolford or broken down, broken thumb, Jared Goff to beat the Seahawks. So then you're like, all right, let's say green Bay beats Tampa. Now we're looking at Seattle, new Orleans. If it goes chalk in the other matchup, kind of like, kind of like Seattle. I don't love that New Orleans thing. So Seattle, Seattle, uh, green Bay is plus four 10 for them to play. I don't like those odds. So basically my point is they've now tanked these future odds that the only one I think conceivably that makes sense is Seattle versus Tampa 13 to one that would involve Seattle beating New Orleans around to Tampa upsetting Green Bay in round two. As you look at all this stuff, is there anyone in the NFC that jumps out to you?

Well, I will say just in general with some of those future odds, you will get a better payback on most of the time if you just roll over Moneyline Parlay. So, or just the Moneyline. So you Moneyline Tampa against Washington, then you money line them against green Bay. And, and meanwhile, you're doing the same thing. If you money line, uh, if you like Seahawks, right, you're, you're money lining them in their games. That's going to return better odds to you. Um, and you can always walk away if there's a key injury or a key COVID issue and you decide not to take them. So in this season- Yeah, but Sharp, you're dealing with like me and House,

two idiots who just like, we see the odds, we're like, Seattle, Tampa, 13-1, must take. Like, we're not smart like that. Rolling over is not in our language. I hear you, I hear you. There isn't a definite advantage though this time of year to doing that, especially in this season of COVID where I would not recommend really doing a whole lot and expecting to find value on some of them.

But with regard to that Green Bay-Tampa Bay matchup, you're right that going a cold weather team, hosting a warm weather team, and Aaron Rodgers talking about the advantages of Lambeau. But let's not forget where Tom Brady played is in 20 years. And let's also not forget the earlier meeting that these two teams played where Tampa Bay completely annihilated the Green Bay Packers. Now that was in, that was in Tampa Bay, but Tampa completely thrashed these guys 38 to 10. So why did they thrash them? What did you see? What did you notice? Was that an aberration or was there something bigger going on? Well, there's elements of aberration, right? Eventually it snowballs and it gets out of control. So don't look at the final score and be like, oh my God, this is definitely going to happen again in any stretch of the imagination. But the key is when you can get pressure on Aaron Rodgers and you can somehow try to figure out how to contain his passing game to Devante a little bit, which is easier said than

done. But if you can get pressure on him, you are going to have a bit of success. And we've seen that where he's had these offenses that have struggled in the postseason against certain teams that are capable of getting pressure like the San Francisco 49ers or like Tampa Bay earlier this season. And so you have a matchup that definitely does favor Tampa in that situation, especially with David Bakhtiari going down. And I think there is an edge that you can take Tampa. And the other thing, we were talking on a call earlier today with some of our guys at Sharp Football Analysis about the Tampa Bay offense and how they've made some changes. So I was very critical of Bruce Arians

and Byron Lefkowitz earlier in the season. You were going nuts. I couldn't believe how they were squandering these opportunities to win games by giving the ball to Leonard Fournette on first downs and second downs in the first half of games. And these occur during the bye week because they came out against the Minnesota Vikings the very next week with still a 50-50 run pass split on first downs in the first half. But after that, they played the Atlanta Falcons twice and the Detroit Lions once, and they went majorly pass heavy on first downs in the first half of those games. That's Brady's strength too. He loves that. It gets him

going early, the whole thing. Exactly. And they were also incorporating a little bit more pre-snap motion, which is something that Tom Brady loves. They used up in New England. It helps identify coverages. Anytime you can give this guy who's like just a total terminator, figuring out every little detail possible before the snap, he gets a little bit of extra information on where a matchup might be. Yeah, that's going to help him a ton. So they started incorporating more pre-snap motion. They started throwing the football a little bit more earlier in games. If they can continue that, this is a team that I think could give Green Bay a ton of trouble in that second round game. If they, if the chalk wins in the lower half of that

bracket, like you kind of indicated it might. Do you feel like Brady took the steering wheel a little bit the last four games? I hope he did. Or do you think the coaching staff, because I'm with you. I didn't, in general, he was such a good play action dude from day one. That was when he took over from Bledsoe. Bledsoe was always like, he had a good arm. Mechanically, there were so many things going wrong. And it was the Patriots had turned in this team where you always knew what they were going to do at the line of scrimmage. As soon as Bledsoe got the ball, so he'd be lumbering toward the guy to hand it off,

stuff like that. And Brady came in and he was so polished and just so good. And you just kind of never knew what he was doing. And he's managed to keep that at age 43, you know, and with the, with the weapons they have, and I think he's relied on Brown a little bit more as, as it's gone along. He, he kind of unleashed Godwin in that last game, which I think is a good sign, but just in general, I would want him at the line deciding what to do play to play over being like, all right, uh, four net run left for net run late Ronald Jones, terrible screen pass. Like just let Brady cook, let him do his thing. Even though he's old, he still knows what to do. 100%. I mean, what did you bring this guy down here for? You brought him down here because you thought Byron left, which is the best play caller in the NFL. And we could

just use Tom Brady when he, when we want Byron left, which to use him like, no, Tom Brady when we want Byron Lefkowitz to use him. Like, no, Tom Brady has the experience, the savviness. He's got a bevy of talent at the receiving position. Let him find the mismatches, rely on a heavier passing strategy earlier on in games. We know across the board, it doesn't matter who your quarterback is, it's going to be more efficient than running the football if you're passing it.

So especially with Tom Brady and those weapons, it makes absolutely zero sense to choose the alternative. And that's why I couldn't understand why they were. And in fact, against the game against the Minnesota Vikings right out of the bye week, which I thought, OK, fine, maybe they haven't figured it out yet because they haven't had a bye. And it's the first year working with Brady and the bye so late in the season. It was week 13. There are no more buys after week 13 is the last one you could have. And then they came out against the Vikings and the Vikings defense is terrible. But yeah, they were like keeping the Vikings in this game. It was the Vikings missing field goals and the Vikings themselves running the ball too

much that caused the Bucks to have a nice cushion and a lead in that game. So I'm glad they got things on track. It'll be interesting to see what they do against Washington in this next round in Alex Smith. But if they get past that game, which they are large favorites, but there's a track record, as you may be aware of, for teams that are home underdogs in this round. The teams that are home underdogs of seven plus points are two and oh in the post

season. I mean, it's rare that a team is home underdog, but they've won those games outright. My guy, T.A., if the website tell Marshawn Lynch was one of those games, the Marshawn against the Saints were one of the great moments. Yeah, that was crazy. And then another great gambling moment, Tim Tebow, I believe it was an overtime against the Pittsburgh Steelers. I had their money line on that one. It's one of the great gambling moments of my life. There you go. I might've been the only time he connected a long pass that whole year. Um, so here, here's the difference. I think Washington is terrible. I like, I, I literally don't think they're going to be able to move the ball. I think Washington is terrible. I like, I, I literally don't think they're going to be able to move the ball. I think they're so handicapped at the quarterback position and have been for

the last six weeks. Not totally healthy. Alex Smith having an issue with his other leg, not the leg that's had 130 surgeries. I just don't think he's going to be able to move the ball against any decent playoff team. So then high Heineke has to come in and his Heineke going to be able to move the ball against any decent playoff team. So then Heineke has to come in. And is Heineke going to beat Tom Brady in a playoff game?

That seems absurd to me. Tampa's not losing to Washington. Well, the line certainly says as much right now. I'm certainly not going to sit here and lay the points in Washington on the road. But I will tell you that the key with Alex Smith is he was a huge upgrade, like night and day upgrade over what they were doing before he got there. And once he got his once he got incorporated in the office, I mean, he got thrown in there against the Rams and absolutely blown up and destroyed that first game. But after that, when they started realizing, hey, let's just get the ball out of his hands quickly. The longer he's holding on to the football in the pocket, the absolute worst it is for the Washington offense,

because you get pressure on him and he can't move. He's, and now with this injury, I mean, look, we don't want to dive deep into like whether or not the Eagles or what they were trying to do in that game. But let's just say this, that was a Eagles defense that had a ton of guys down in the game and was completely demolished by Andy Dalton the week before and demoralized to totally demoralize going to tank the game. And, and then, and then here comes Washington, like every

opportunity just laid at the, at their feet and they cannot move the football. They cannot score points. I mean, it had to be maddening if you're watching that game and like you are the Eagles or you're rooting for their draft futures here. What else do you want this team to do? I mean, they've tried to do everything that they could with a personnel prior to this game to say, look, we're going to lay down in this game. It's OK, Washington, you can win this game. We're fine. Um, and, and then they get out there and they just, there's nothing they could do. Washington's just that terrible offensively. I think there is more possibility of a Tampa Bay blowout than there is a Washington even making this a competitive game. Unfortunately, we can bet on this in 2020, but you have like

on FanDuel, you have bucks 25 to 30 is 10 to one, then winning by 25 to 30, 31 to 36 is 17 to one, 19 to 24 is plus 650. So you could bet all three of those and try to get the margin between 19 and 36. That would be kind of fun. You could just do the alternate line, which I think is like, uh, I don't know, Tampa by 15 and a half, something like that. But if, if I was betting the blowout on this, what would be my, what would be my option? Okay. Well, here, here's some data just on this game. My, my opinions here. Number one, Washington has the NFL's best defense at adjusting in the second half. Their halftime adjustments are tremendous. They have allowed the least points of any defense in the second half, I think from like week six onward. And it's not even close.

They're down at like 44 points. And the next closest team is like 65 points or 670 points allowed. So their defense is tremendous in the second half. It's one of the reasons we were texting during the game last week about the second half under just looked like a phenomenal play last week because Philly wasn't really doing much offensively and Washington couldn't do anything. But Washington's defense is really good in the second half. It is going to be tough if you like, like some of my thoughts, if you like Washington to struggle here as this game gets bet. And I'm going to look at the current numbers here.

But as a little bit of the early money is coming in, grabbing some higher point spread numbers on Washington and driving the line down. Wow. You're able to get you're able to get I mean, it was like nine and a half up to 10, and now it's down to eight. You're able to get a team total on Washington now at like under 19 and a half. So you could go for a team total angle. You could also go for, with Tampa Bay and the way that they've been coming out aggressive, the other thing that works against Washington here, as good as they are in the second half, they're very bad

in the first half. And I have some numbers. I won't go through them all, but Washington's defense against passing, rushing, explosive passing, explosive rushing are all bottom half of the league in the first half of games. I mean, they're like one of the worst defense and run efficiency allowed in the first half of games. They allow a lot of explosive plays as well. Tampa's coming out with a much more aggressive strategy, a pass heavy strategy with motion in the first half. The Tampa's offense could have some success here, maybe exceed their first half team total. But then in the second half is when Washington's defense makes some adjustments. If Tampa does have a nice lead, maybe they sit on it. Maybe Washington doesn't have the facilities to come back in the game.

And that's where Tampa, like if they do get an interception from Heineke or something, they can kind of roll forward a little bit. But this does have the feel to me. If you don't believe in Alex Smith's health, he's definitely starting the game, right? I do that. If it's a short week, he doesn't even have the full week of rest because they're playing on Saturday after having just played Sunday night. So they have the last game of week 17 and they play on the first day of the

playoffs. Betting against them in the first half and betting on like an under or team total overall under for Washington in the full game or the second half could be the way to go. Let me just ask you this question. Total narrative street question here. What? Cause I actually did some research on this and you reported this several years ago, Tom Brady's bedtime. It was eight 30. Now I think he told Susie Colbert this year, he was like going to bed at 915. What are your thoughts? How does that factor into a night game like this? Oh, because this is a night game.

Well, he was always good on those Saturday night playoff games. Yeah. I never saw a problem with it before. He's an alien. I never saw a problem with it before. With Washington, they put up 20 points total against an Eagles team that had, I think, one of the three worst defenses in the league by the end of the season, who didn't have Fletcher Cox, who had their coach openly quitting

on the team in the second half. And they still couldn't move the ball. I just don't see it. To me, this feels like Tampa crushes them and gets a ton of momentum for, Oh, you know, who could win the NFC Tampa. And then that pushes the Packers into a nobody believes in us situation at Lambeau where it's like we go in and the Packers are like one point favorites in round two against Tampa and everyone's lining up on the Bucs. And that if I'm a Bucs fan, I don't want to be kind of the spiritual favorite in round two against Rogers, who's just been Clint Eastwood this year. I really,

ever since the Jordan love draft pick and he's just risen to every challenge, except that one time Tampa beat them who it just quickly Seattle versus new Orleans. If that ends up being the matchup, I have not liked what I've seen from Seattle. Second half of the year, though their defense has been a little bit better.

And I, the Adams, they're, they're figuring it out how to use almost like he's an action here on a movie. They've just kind of figured out what scenes he's good at in the action movie. Um, new Orleans.

I don't know what to make of Thomas is coming back. Breeze with his recovered 11 broken ribs. They're kind of all over the map, game to game. And if you catch them in the right half hour, they look awesome. Or you could catch them in the wrong half hour and you're like, what happened to these guys? I don't know what to make of them in general.

It's a weird game. So Seattle to New Orleans, if that ends up being the matchup, is there anything you like about either side there? Well, the one note on this game is the amount of too high that teams have started to play against Russell Wilson to try to limit DK Metcalf's explosiveness and really prevent that from costing them games. Earlier on in the season, they were having a lot more success. Now teams are playing a lot more too high safeties and rolling a little bit of coverage over DK. And Russell Wilson was at like

8.7 touchdown percentage when teams were playing him with single high. That's dropped down to 4.8 percent touchdown rate. His yards per attempt has dropped when he's getting too high. So teams are using more too high and finding ways to limit the explosiveness of the Seahawks. And there's an element of the Seahawks, which also has shifted back away from the let's let Russ cook and let's throw the ball early to let's be a little bit more conservative here. We've got a better defense. Now we trust these guys more. And it's almost like with, with Pete Carroll, it goes to a hundred, right. And you can either have a proportion of, of conservativeness and a proportion of aggressiveness, but it can never exceed a hundred. Like if you have so much

confidence in your defense, then you have to have like only as much confidence in your offense to equal a hundred. You can't say like for Pete, let's just let Russ throw the football. We have a great defense, too. Why can't we do both things for Pete? It's like it's either or if our defense stinks, then Russ has got to carry 90 percent. Yeah, defense is great. Then Russ is going to carry less than 50 percent. And, you know, if they play with that strategy against the Saints, I don't love it. I mean, I love the under I would love an under if these two teams met. But the game itself would be a little bit of a coin flip. The saints defense is really wait, hold on before we get to the saints on your point. I think it's alarming if I'm a Seahawks

fan, how my team has done points wise against good defenses, right? Especially second half of the year, they play the Rams. They get 16 in the first game and 20 in the second, they play the giants. So I'm not even sure had that good of a defense, but they put up 12. They could only score 20 against Washington in the second half. They were basically MIA that whole game. I'm alarmed by that stuff because you look at some of the teams they've played. They got to play Dallas. They got to play Minnesota. They got to play that weird Cardinals team. They played the COVID 49ers.

They had that weird Bills game. They put up 34, but they were way down the whole game. They had to throw the whole second half. I don't know if they can top 20 points against a good team. So the question, I guess, would be, are the Saints a good team? Are they a good defense? The Saints are good. Yes. There's no doubt about that. They are good, but you're right onto your point. If you look at the Seattle defense has looked impressive and that's one of the things we're like, okay, this defense is good. So we don't need as much

out of Russ. But if I'm looking at this game from Seattle's perspective, you have to take an objective look here and say, is my defense really this incredible or is it the fact that we were playing all these terrible offenses? Because they literally played offenses for four straight weeks that were ranked 26th or worse in the NFL before playing the Rams and then the 49ers. So well, look at the quarterbacks too, right? Allen put up 44 on them. Kyler put up 37 the first game. Yeah, the first game they played them,

then 21 the second. But going down the stretch, they're playing, I think that was the last Wentz game. They were playing Colt McCoy, Jets, whoever the hell was playing that week, the Washington Haskins disaster, the Goff with broken thumb halfway through the game, and then last week, Bethard. CJ Bethard, yeah.

If we're saying like, oh, the Seahawks defense looks better, you always point this out in the podcast. Look at the quarterbacks. This is something I used to do when I used to write my football column. Like, follow the quarterbacks. What quarterbacks are you playing? And they're not playing good quarterbacks. This is something I used to do when I used to write my football column. Like, follow the quarterbacks. What quarterbacks are you playing? And they're not playing good quarterbacks. So I do like this matchup for the Saints.

I just think in general, I don't see the Seahawks as a round three team. Even though I like those odds at the 13 to one, if you're just going to take a flyer on a weird thing. But they just don't strike me as a team that's one game away from making the Super Bowl. I'm sorry. They don't. And my opinion on the game is,

if you play this game 10 times, that the Saints are going to have the lead in the fourth quarter on six or seven of these times. What the Seahawks are going to hope is that Russell Wilson pulls out all the Russell Wilson magic when Pete Carroll finally unlocks him and says, okay, now go win it for us, Russ. And Russ is there in the fourth quarter and the Saints are playing a little bit of prevent defense and they uncork Russ and let him start throwing the football down the field

and he can get back in the game and then maybe overtake the Saints. So I absolutely agree with you. I think it's really a coin flip. I trust Russ a lot more than I trust Drew Brees in a situation like that. But the rest of the team around them and the overall philosophy, you got to give it to the Saints. New Orleans, Tampa, 10 to 1 for round three. New Orleans, Green Bay is 2 to 1. The Rams, Wolford. Are we sure he's not like a... I'm not going to say he's better than Goff. But it's not like the offense lit it up last week. He does allow them to do two or three more

things that they couldn't do with golf. They can scramble them out on short yardage, especially like inside the 10 yard line. There's a couple of things you could do with him. I, am I crazy to think I would just rather have Wolford than golf with a injured thumb? That seems like a no brainer. I wouldn't even consider playing golf. To me, I agree with you. And I think the line is reflective of kind of a mixed bag. It's leaning a little bit towards, especially from a totals perspective that golf is not playing. Um, but I tend to agree with you. The one thing about Walford that is interesting is that he provides this element of the running, which just masks so many things when

a pass play is not there, or he can't read the coverage, or he's not getting through his progression well enough, then he can just take off and run. And we see Goff struggle with some of those same things in addition to accuracy, but he doesn't take off and run nearly as much. And so the upside of calling a pass play, which is generally far more plus EV than calling a run play with the downside of that play may not work out because there's coverage or you're not reading it right, but you can still create something positive with your legs. It's just so massive. And I think that that's a definite edge. The longer that Walford gets incorporated, the more Sean McVay realizes what he can do. And he didn't have cup last week too. He didn't have cup last

week, getting back to the COVID for a moment. Like we don't really know some of these guys, like cup can't practice all week this week. And some of these guys, it's hard to say how they come back or will they even, will he even be able to play? Is he feeling well enough? Did he not have symptoms? Like they keep a lot of that secretive, but some of these guys definitely take a couple of weeks. Another interesting stat on this game from the guys over at sharp is the first time starting quarterback since 2002 are 13 and 32 ATS, including 15 and 31 straight up and unders in these games or something like in the wildcard round for a first time starting quarterback, 29 unders, only nine overs. So if you're looking at an angle, this applies to Baker Mayfield in the, in the Browns game, as well as to this game with the Rams. I mean, it's tough for these guys who have never had this experience to come in and try to perform in, in a spot like this against the

Seattle Seahawks on the road. I mean, the deck is definitely stacked against them. That was the staple of my playoff gambling manifesto. I think I had 15 rules, and the first rule was look at the quarterbacks, and the last rule was look at the quarterbacks. Don't get stuck with... I remember one year it was Tavares Jackson

playing in a playoff game, and it was just like, come on. Don't bet on Tavares Jackson. It's the playoffs. This is, these are the higher, these are the high stakes now. So the, the case against, uh, against the Rams would be you're betting against Russell Wilson with John Wolford. What are you doing? And the cup COVID point is a great point.

We're gonna take one more break and then we're going to do the AFC really quick. Life and death were two very realistic coexisting possibilities in my life. I didn't even think I'd make it to like my 16th birthday, to be honest. I grew up being scared of who I was. Any one of us at any time can be affected by mental health and addictions. Just taking that first step makes a big difference.

It's the hardest step. But CAMH was there from the beginning. Everyone deserves better mental health care. To hear more stories of recovery, visit CAMH.ca. Prime Big Deal Days is coming October 8th and 9th with exclusive savings just for Prime members. Involuntary deal squeals can happen, like the deal on new running shoes squeal. The deal on a new blender squeal. Or the infamous deal on a new massager squeal. Save big on electronics, fashion, and more this Prime Big Deal Days, October 8th and 9th.

AFC, I just think it's going to be Bill's Chiefs. I felt that way for four weeks. It's plus 180 if you want to bet on that. Not great odds. You're better off just betting game by game. If you had to pick a party crasher, who would it be? Because as you know, with the national football league, every time we think the matchup is going to be the matchup, something goofy happens. Last year, we thought it was

going to be Baltimore, Kansas city. Oh my God. That's going to be great. Can't wait to see them play. Nope. Didn't happen. Um, who's the party crasher? Well, we got to assume Pittsburgh is going to be able to beat the browns it's a bad matchup for the browns so pittsburgh's advancing um well explain in 20 seconds why it's a bad matchup for the browns other than their coach has covet and can't play and he's been the biggest game changer for them this year the single worst thing the single easiest way to derail the browns because they don't have a very good defense is to get pressure on Baker Mayfield. And the Steelers are a team that's still capable, even with their losses at the linebacker level and their pass pressure that are capable of getting pressure on Baker Mayfield. Baker is going to be down. They lost another tackle today, I believe, uh, due to COVID,

who's not going to be able to play. So in addition to Stefanski, there's another guy who's out. And then they've got injuries along the line, absences against a team that's really good at getting pressure. It's just from that singular perspective alone, it is a bad matchup. There's a lot of questions, though. So if we move past that and say, like, well, what are the Steelers? What really are the Steelers? Because we didn't see them last week.

And the game that we saw before that was against the Colts, right, where they came in with the normal game plan from Randy Fichtner, their offense coordinator, who I think, by the way, is terrible. And then they supposedly went in the second half. Juju claims that Ben started calling up his own plays in the second half and they're bombing the ball down the field. So what are we going to get in both this week and then if the Steelers are able to win in their next round game?

Are we going to get an offense that is a little bit more creative and less predictable that Ben has a lot of say so in? Or are we going to get a conservative game plan that Randy Fichter just wants to pass the ball a lot on all these short passes that the defense can predict? This game will tell us a lot, but that doesn't help you when you're looking to to bet futures. But if they can't, they also can't run the ball. So even if they're up 10 with 11 minutes left, they can't protect the lead. And all of a sudden you're getting the ball back. Right. Exactly. Exactly. So you're assuming they're winning. I do like the Bills. I like the Bills almost as much as you. I think that they're very fundamentally sound.

It's going to be a difficult matchup. I mean, seven points, six and a half to seven points proved to be too high of a number against the Indianapolis Colts. And it was a wrong number. I mean, if you look at the Colts last few games and what they were favored and what their lines were, this line was wrong to be Bills minus six and a half or seven.

So we knew this is what they do. Um, this line was wrong to be like bills minus six and a half or seven. So, uh, so we knew, we knew this is what they do. They bump it two and a half points for people like house. Yes, exactly. It's like when you throw chum in the water, they're just like, why would we make it four? We'll make it six and a half houses, but the bills anyway, a hundred percent for me, it's like, this is a tease. I'm with you. I think the line's too high. The Colts, I think are a good football team that just,

you know, their quarterback against a really good opponent, I just don't trust at all. At all. Not even remotely. And it's one of those things

where you talk yourself into the Colts plus six and a half and then Rivers throws his first pick six five minutes minutes into the game. And you're like, I'm an idiot. This is what did I do? What did I do to myself? Well, there, there are small warts that you can find with the Buffalo bills. Like you can find with any team in football, right? Any team in these playoffs. But the one thing that I've consistently said for a little while now is that the Indianapolis Colts defense is severely overrated. I remember people halfway through the season talking about how great this defense was.

And I was against them and faded them week five against the Browns. And the Browns put up 30. Baker put up 32 points. Now, they know the defense accounted for one of those touchdowns. But, you know, the Ravens had some success, especially in the second half against them. This this is a defense that I think is overrated. I think Buffalo will have some success, especially if they pass the ball on first down, create a pass-heavy approach to attack these guys.

And the main strength of this Indianapolis Colts is, A, their run game defensively. Is their run game where they rank as one of the better run defenses in the NFL, but also their linebacking core. But if you look at their numbers from their linebackers, they have not been anywhere near as strong, particularly in coverage, over the last six, seven games as they were to start the season. I don't know if it's the strength of opponent. They played just crap the beginning of the season, but they have some marquee names on that linebacking core that real football guys love and respect and typically grade out rate pretty highly. But those guys have not been playing well in coverage of late. So I think this matchup does, does favor

Buffalo. And although, although I'm not betting Buffalo and laying the points here, if Buffalo advances and Pittsburgh advances, then those two teams play next. And the winner of the Ravens Titans faces the chiefs. And we already saw this meeting once before with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Buffalo bills. I think you can run on Buffalo. I think part, and I don't care what the stats say. It's just eye test. I watch football every week this year. I think you can run on them. And you look at the success they had the second half of the year. All teams that kind of wasn't sold on their running game, right?

The Cardinals, Kyler could run. And they end up losing that in the Hail Mary. But then Chargers, the Niners who had a ton of injuries with the running backs and stuff like that. And I don't think we're the same kind of running team that we would have expected. Steelers can't run the ball. Denver's just who the hell knows what was happening to them last couple of weeks. The Patriots, that game was done in five seconds. And then Miami was down to like their, what their fourth, fifth string running back. I do want to see what happens if a team says, does the, the old Belichick 1991 bill strategy of, um, we're gonna run the ball 40 seconds per possession. Um,

it's going to be seven, eight minute drives, move the chains, keep you off the field. Don't get Josh out and don't let him get into a rhythm. Then Josh throws a pick early. Oh, now he's flustered. I do think Indianapolis has a team that could do that. Taylor ended up third with rushing yards, you know, and they, they can do a little play action. They have Heinz. I just don't trust Phil rivers, but I do think fundamentally they could run the ball and shorten the game and have like a, you know, 23 to 20, 2017 type final, that would be the outcome. So if you like the Colts and you'd like them to win outright, I would lean toward Colts money line with the under, because I don't think that game's going over if they win. Um,

but I don't trust rivers, but does that make sense? Or am I overthinking? No, it makes perfect sense. Keep in mind that when they played the Seattle Seahawks, this was still in week nine, that they were trying to let Russ cook in that game. And that was, I think, Russ threw multiple interceptions. And that was when Pete Carroll was like, pulled the switch, right? He flipped the switch.

He's like, okay, we're not doing this anymore. But in that game, the leading running back for the Seahawks was DJ Dallas. I mean, all the running backs were injured. They didn't have any of their first string guys. You are a hundred percent correct that the Indianapolis Colts rushing attack should have a distinct advantage. The Buffalo bills over the course of the season rank third worst in the NFL at explosive run defense. So Jonathan Taylor, if you're looking at a prop for this game, I mean, we're just tossing out ideas. It's early in the week, but

Jonathan Taylor's longest rushing attempt over whatever that number ends up being like they are a defense that allows explosive gains on the ground. So the key for Buffalo, this is why it's extremely important. Buffalo's got to start fast and get a lead and force the Colts out of the ability to just run early and often on early downs and control the clock and have very low variance play calls, which you're going to get out of that rushing attack where there's very little negative that's going to be associated with it other than the fact that rushing inherently is inefficient. But against a defense like Buffalo's, when it keeps Josh Allen on the sidelines, and especially if the Colts end up having a slight lead and they can still run the ball, that's a great strategy

to try to defeat the Buffalo Bills. The Colts, sorry, the Chiefs use that similar strategy in the rain, in the mist, in the weather. Earlier on in the season, back in week six, they were just running Clyde Edwards-Hilaire over and over and over against this defense. I hate myself because if the Colts line goes to seven, I'm going to start talking myself into it. And Buffalo is my favorite team out of all the teams to win the Super Bowl. And yet, I think that line is going to be too high. And I do think Indianapolis threw people off the scent a little bit because they barely made the playoffs. They needed Tua to literally take a number two and

they needed the Dolphins defense to collapse at the worst time. But I think they're a much livelier seven seed than say you go to the NFC and you got Trubisky who's just, there's no way he's ever beating a good playoff team ever. It's never happening ever. They are a super lively seven seed. They are a team nobody would want to face in the first round because they do have a good enough offense, a good enough defense, a great coaching staff. The lone problems with the Colts are they tend to get too conservative with a lead in the second half. So if they are leading, I fully expect Buffalo to be able to... Go further with that because you killed them for that on your podcast.

They don't adjust at all. They do the same thing for four quarters. How many times have they been up like 15 points this season? Probably at least half their games, right? Yeah. Yeah. I do not understand

why Frank Reich comes out as conservative. I think it is a, um, unreasonable level of confidence in their defense that he thinks, well, we can just seal this game away by just keeping the ball away from the opponent. And they're really smart about trying to get out to leads in games. I mean, they did that with the Pittsburgh Steelers, right? They grew up 21 to seven at halftime, I think, But and they end up losing that game. The issue is what they end up doing after they get a lead and they get they just bottle it up far too much. And I will say their defense is not as good as what a lot of people think that it is. And that's why I've

I have concerns if they fall behind big to the Bills early in this game about rallying. It's 10-0. It's over. But you look at their season, right? They finished 11-5. First week against Jacksonville was one of the five dumbest losses of the year. They didn't even punt. They lost. And that was Jacksonville's only win of the year. Like, you go back to that, it's like, how the fuck did that happen?

The Browns game in week five was super goofy. It was just a, everything goes wrong. The entire game game, the, the Ravens game, they got their ass kicked the Titans game. You know, it, that was just the Titans being the Titans. But then that Steelers game week 16 was another one of the dumbest losses of the year where that game was over. It's 24, seven. All they had to do is score seven points in the second half that Pittsburgh was going to be able to fight back. So they're kind of maybe a 13 and three team in disguise. Uh, but with that said for the nighttime, I don't trust Phil rivers. I just think if this line gets to seven or even if it's seven and a half by the weekend,

I think it's too high. I think it's like, I don't think the line should be four or four and a half. Yeah. I don't think it's going to be seven. I think there's going to be too much sharp syndicate money. I can just tell you this right now. It's too much sharp syndicate money from what I've seen that is going to take any sevens that are out there. I would be shocked if this got back to a full seven. You may be able to get seven again on the buy, but in my opinion, this thing is not getting back up to seven. Not naturally. Quickly, before we go, you've talked about this with House Inverno about you're involved in some syndicates. You try to jump on Sunday night lines, Monday morning lines,

but then we have COVID this year, which has made betting early in a lot of ways, like a death mission. And I I've even had it the last couple of weeks with trying to do million dollar picks during the holidays on like on Wednesdays. And you're just crossing your fingers, you know? And it's like, Oh, I lost on Arizona, San Francisco, partly because I had no idea George Kittle was going to play.

And I had no idea this other guy wasn't going to play. And you kind of lose that advantage in the COVID era. So how have you tried to, what have been some ways to even up losing that? I've been lucky. There's only been one game this season that i got screwed by going early and it was the what is it week seven week 16 browns jets total where we went over the total and it almost got it almost got there even with all their wide receivers out and other players out but it ended up falling under. That was literally the only game

though, this entire season where I've bet a total early and ended up losing the game because COVID issues arose and it cost me the game. So I've been very fortunate from that perspective. I mean, it's been one of my best betting seasons that I've had in several years. And a large part is getting out early on games and beating the market to the numbers that I want to take. And so I haven't really been negatively impacted by it. I will say we did just one thing I took already. I already took the Steelers minus four. We grabbed that. I sent that out.

And now we got positive COVID issues in our favor in that game because now the line's back up to six with all the Browns issues from COVID. So sometimes we've definitely benefited from it. Fortunately, we really haven't been hurt by it too much. The good thing is if you are betting early and you're betting on the right side of games, you're going to move. Like when I send stuff out and when we bet it, we move the number. And so then we could always get off of it at a better line in order to go opposite. And some books this year are leaving the game up. Like they never even took this game off the board. Some of the games they leave up and then you do have the opportunity to bet opposite that where we got screwed in the jets, um, jets Brown's game is they completely

took the game off the board very quickly. And then when they reposted it, the total was seven, several points lower than, so we, we, you know, there was really not much that you could do at that point. Well, I know you've done well, but somehow it hasn't rubbed off on house. I love that. Maybe that could be, maybe that for next year, that could be one of your goals is, is maybe to have some of that success actually rub off on, on Joe house, the master of you at least taught him how stupid it was to have an anchor team, which I listened to you on to where you have, you have the four bets. You put the one team in the four bets. Cause you like that team the most. And then that team screws you. And then it screws up all your other bets, too. The smart bettors like

to bet either straight up or like a tease with two teams. And that's it. But not spread it around. So there's too many variables. Right. On occasion, there are some very sharp guys that will do like a three team round robin, round robin parlaylay or round Robin teaser, more likely teaser when you're going through some of the key numbers. So it's plus CV in your favor, but that's about it. You know, there's not a whole lot of like, well, let's money line all these things and let's keep one team at the core or the anchor of this, because oftentimes what you are naturally going to be drawn to are the games that you think are the easiest. That's what you're going to feel is the strongest, but there's a reason probably why you think that game is the easiest and it's not going to work out in your favor more often than it is unless you're a very sophisticated sports

better who looks at things that a lot of other people don't look at. I did it last week with, I had the, uh, the Browns, which barely won. And I think it was the Ravens was the other one, the money lines I put with the chargers when it was still three and a half. Cause at that point, people thought the chiefs might play a lot of their guys. It was like, just look at the indie read history. Like he's usually, you know, he's usually going to punt on this week. So that was one of the rare times where a three teamer, I felt like feel good about this one. Most of the time you're just, cause it's fun to just move the line 10 points or,

but this year, especially it's, it's been very Rocky, the people that love the three teamers or the, the money line parlays. We saw the last few weeks of the season. I think every week there was some sort of aberration underdog that foiled it, you know, and let's be careful out there as, as we always say, heading into

the playoffs. So what's your, which I don't want to step on the Verno and house podcast, but, um, want to give a hint. We give, give us the game that you've targeted as your favorite play of the week. But don't say what the team is. Okay, so we already mentioned the cat out of the bag on this Cleveland-Pittsburgh game because we already took it in the line. You love the matchups. Yeah, yeah, all that stuff.

The Steelers, I like the Steelers there. But the other game that I am currently targeting is this Colts-Bills game. And there's something in that game that I like the Steelers there, but the other game that I am, I'm currently targeting is this Colts bills game. And there's, there's something in that game that, that I like, and we'll get deeper into that more with, uh, with house probably. Cause Verno, we're going to think we're going to cover a lot of what the season was and recap some of the things we thought entering the season where we write or were we wrong on them. And then with house, uh, we're going to finish up the week talking all about these playoff matchups in detail.

Awesome. All right. So you can hear Sharp on the Ringer football show. You can also check him out on sharpfootballanalysis.com or just Google Sharp football. It'll pop up.

If you can't spell analysis, if you're worried about your spelling. But yeah, he's going to be cranking it out all through the football season with us we'd love to have you congrats on everything

and thanks for being part of the team thanks Bill it's been a blast alright it's already the most important podcast of the year even though the year just started Cobra Cry Season 3

Shea Serrano is here they dropped this on basically January 1st at midnight. The success of this show on YouTube leading to it reappearing on Netflix and then Netflix saying, screw it, let's keep it going. It's genius. It was the number one trending show.

All the other streamers have to be kicking themselves. And they did a really good job in season 3 I'm going to start here I really like this season A- for me, I haven't talked to you yet I don't even know what your grade is, what was your grade? I'm right there I'm right there with you

they had a lot of set up in the first half of the season and they pay it all off in the last like 3 episodes by the end of the last episode you're it all off in the last like three episodes by the end by the end of the last episode you're like fuck yes let's go so they bring back elizabeth shoe which we figured was going to happen they hinted at it and if you moment of the season best moment of the season and we'll get into how awesome she was because she she came in throwing 102 miles an hour and uh

and was every scene was great. What I didn't expect was for them to dip into the Karate Kid too well. I love it. They brought back Daniel Sutton's girlfriend from Karate Kid 2 and his arch nemesis from Karate Kid 2. I was floored. First of all, the ex-girlfriend looked phenomenal. I don't know how old she is, but she looked fantastic. She hasn't aged two years in the last 20, 35, however long it's been. So it's great

to see her. And I actually thought she did a good job with the acting too. And then the nemesis comes in and you're like, where is this going? And I actually thought they nailed it. I thought they did a really good job. Yeah, it was, it was really great. He was such a vicious bad guy. Like, okay, Johnny Lawrence is the number one bad guy in the Karate Kid universe. The bad boy of karate, Mike Barnes, he was kind of cool in a way, but Chosen was straight up trying to kill people. Right. He was like a murderer. Like a legitimate murderer. He was a swind trying to kill people. Right. He was like a murderer. Like a legitimate murderer.

He was a swindler and a murderer. And they bring him back in and he's just as intense. He's giving you that same face. You know he wants to fuck up Daniel real bad. What do you think that guy was doing for the last 35 years? Basically waiting for Cobra Kai to come back. He was just waiting for this moment and he was on it. He was great waiting for Cobra Kai to come back. He was just waiting for this moment and he was on it. He was great.

He looked pretty good. I beg to differ that he was more psychotic than Mike Barnes because I think Mike Barnes might have been the biggest psycho in any movie that came out in the 80s. He at some point was ready to drop them to their death when they were trying to rescue the bonsai tree. See, that's the difference.

He didn't though. If Chosen would have been there, he would have cut the rope. Wouldn't have been a conversation at all. He hang glided or whatever, paralleled into a tiny island to kill a woman in front of everybody and also kill Daniel. Yeah, they really let the

domestic violence moment in Karate Kid 2, they just kind of threw that one under the rug because the ex-girlfriend was saying, no, no, we're really good friends now. We've worked it out. It's like, okay. I just remember him punching you in front of 200 people

and then trying to kill your boyfriend. I'm glad he worked it out. I don't know what the process was for working that out, but they worked it out. It was a wild moment, a wild moment's changed he started doing yoga um little little tai chi but um but i didn't know where that was going and my first instinct because this is usually my instinct with this stuff is like this is going to be bad this so this is this is where the wheels come off right here when they dip into the Karate Kid 2

and they try to make believe that this dude is now a decent guy. And by the end of it, I was like, great, well done. Pulled it off. I really liked it. I liked him being in Okinawa. Yeah, plus Daniel-san got to go back to Okinawa. I don't know if they actually filmed it in Okinawa. It might have been like Pacific Palisades for all we know.

But it seemed like it. It seemed like they were there, so that was cool. It definitely felt authentic. It felt real. Did you buy that there was stuff Miyagi didn't teach him? There was stuff he held back. There was a pressure point karate, an evil version of Miyagi-Do karate

that maybe he just didn't want daniel son to know about i 100 believed it by the end of the series when he did it when he did it to crease i was like oh yeah okay i'm in i'm in when when chosen was first explaining it i was like i don't know they're pretty close and then more i thought about it you know what there's probably a bunch of stuff that he didn't tell daniel because daniel was what 17 18 years old at the time? But he was still a child. That stuff you don't bring out until you're in your 20s, baby. I think pressure point karate would be a good one for you. I'm all in. If you know somebody, get chosen on the line. Teach me.

Because at some point, you and Brian Curtis are going to have to fight to see who the strongest person at the strongest person is. My only, my only, uh, my only chance is if I can pressure point right under, right under the bicep. Right there. Get right under the thigh stuff with that. But yeah,

they paid off that whole thing. And I really enjoyed the whole thing. It was also, we should mention, um, Daniel was the worst part of season three, in my opinion. I don't,

I really, well, for me, he's become the character I'm the least interested in. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's fair. Because he was the star of the other movies. And they're like, I don't need to see him as much. Give me more Miguel. Give me as much Miguel as you can feed me.

More Miguel, more Johnny Lawrence. More Tori. More Tori. Great turn with Tori. All of it. I was in on every other character and then it was like, oh, they got to work in Daniel

because Machio's the star of the show. But it's like, all right, here's his plot for this year. He might lose his auto dealership. And we're going to do this four episode arc that's going to lead with, oh, guess what? The girl that he saved in the hurricane, the tsunami,

whatever that thing was, she's now a vice president of sales at the car place that revoked their cars from LaRusso Autobots. Connect those dots. I love it. You like that? I love it. I like that he recognized her. He saw her once in a dark rainstorm when she was like 11.

And he was like, Cochibon? It's a great memory. Great memory for Daniel LaRusso. What would you do to fix Daniel-san for season four? I think you just let him be... You know what? You do with him what they did with McNulty and The Wire,

where you just bring him in for a few seasons. He was the engine for the first season. And then later on, they were like, we're going to pull away from him you just bring him in for a few seasons. Like he was the, the engine for the first season. And then later on, they were like, you know what, we're going to pull away from him and just bring him in when we need a couple of points to be made. I think you would do that here because everybody else is so interesting in

there. Like, right. I just, I just, I thought it was really fun the way that they teased out the whole, like, here's the origin story for the name Cobra Kai with the war fighting and all.

That stuff is just so much fun to get into. It's just really, really neat. So let Daniel LaRusso be in the background a little bit. Bring him in 40% less, and let's lean into the rest of them. So you would go season four wire with McDulty, where he's just on a boat somewhere. That was season two when he's on the boat.

No, no. What was that? What was, what was his job in season four when he basically was out to lunch? He was, he, he had gone back to being just a, a walk around cop. Yeah. And then after Bodie died, he was like, I need to go back in. Yeah. I need, I need to step up.

Um, yeah, I think I'm down with that because my fear, because this is now going to go on eight seasons. This show is now phenomenal. My fear would be. I'm praying. Usually when they're trying to revive a character, it's either marital problems or the unexpected baby. Yeah. I don't want either one of those. The unexpected baby would be, yeah, please don't do the unexpected baby.

That would be a disaster. Marital problems, you could talk me into if Elizabeth Shue is part of the cast. This is a good time to talk about her. She comes in. One of my concerns is she's won an Oscar. She's had a really good career. Would she feel like she was slumming it,

doing somebody a favor, maybe in and out? No. No. She came in. She went for it. She went for it. Went for it. She couldn't have been more likable. She looked great.

She had real chemistry with both guys. It made sense. They had great scenes. She clicked with the wife. The wife got along. That could have gone. They were friends. I like that she was divorced. She's not Ally Mills Schwerber anymore. She's just Ally Mills.

Opens the door now for somebody, plus Johnny Lawrence had just gotten it out with Miguel's mom. He's like, oh, maybe this is my lady. Now Ali's back. I don't know if she comes back for season four. My assumption would be, what else is she doing? This is the biggest TV show that anyone has right now.

I think tens of millions of people watch this show. What career move would be better for her than just joining the cast in season four? I can't think of any. Yeah, that's gotta be the move. The thing about her coming back and the thing about them opening up the karate verse, as it were,

is that in that first season, I think they established pretty quickly that everybody involved genuinely loved what they were doing like you like you never got a hint that that William Zabko was only doing this role because he couldn't get other stuff it seemed like he did it because he wanted to do it and they were all like leaning into it so as they started bringing in the other people you felt that energy too when the mom walks into the house you're like whose house is this we haven't seen this yet and then Ali's on the couch and she gets that big old ali smile with those big old ali

teeth laramie and i are on the couch watching this show and i was like cheering like oh my girl ali is back let's go because they teased it out in like the first two seasons or so that maybe she's gonna pop in and then she finally did and you're like all right everybody is committed to this we're gonna see at some point we're going to see everybody. Hillary Swank will eventually show up in this show. She will be in this show. Yeah, they dropped. So I think it was episode nine without any warning.

All of a sudden, Elizabeth Shue is there because, you know, like like you, I binge watch this. I was in Arizona in a hotel room for a soccer tournament. And I was like, great, I'm going to watch all the Cobra Kai's. And, you know, you kind of zone out a little bit as you're watching. And then episode nine starts. It's like, wait, oh, okay. Let's go. And then they do the trip to the arcade and everything with the music again.

Yeah, man, it was great. I think this show is really, really well done The trip to the arcade and everything with the music again. Yeah, man, it was great. I think this show is really, really well done and really smart with a lot of the choices it makes. And one of the things I like is she comes in and she does it over and over again. It was like, oh, that was a million years ago. Or, oh, we were just kids back then. Or, oh, that was dumb.

And it's so important that she does that because for Johnny Lawrence from the first episode, it's like, this guy's still back there in 1984. This was the highlight of his life because that's a real thing that happens. In general, sometimes people peak when they're 17. Sometimes the best moment of their life was when they were the starting quarterback of their high school. And then it's like the, the next highlight becomes their 10

year reunion or their 20 year reunion. And it's like their life just didn't work out as well as it did when they were 17. So he's got that. And then she comes in and she's like, oh yeah, we were so young and dumb back then. And it's, I think it was important. I also did not feel like she had any chemistry at all with Machio, which as you reset the Karate Kid universe in your head, you think like, well, maybe she shouldn't have ever been with Daniel-san. Maybe it was always Johnny Lawrence. Maybe this was the connection.

So as we head to season four, I'm guessing if she comes back, love triangle, right? With Miguel's mom and her. Yeah, that's gotta be the move. I was really excited about how they they laid those pieces there too when she showed up I was like oh I hope they don't do like I hope Daniel doesn't start flirting with her do it was never that nobody wants to see Daniel flirt with

anyone ever no no no but her and her and Johnny and Miguel's mom like that's an interesting pairing that's an interesting group for some storylines because at, at some point Miguel and, and, and Johnny are going to be like the new Johnny increased. Like he's going to have to not like him for some reason. We got to get to there. And then I think that's a,

that's a good pivot point. Well, she looked great. She did a great job. You know, they mentioned in the last episode, the season, the episode episode, the season, the episode 10, the kids were all talking and one of the kids made a WrestleMania three reference

about how, no, no, this happened in WrestleMania three with the, I forget what the tag team was. And it does, it does make me think the people that created this show and write it, I think are big wrestling fans and they understand the concept of heel turns. Yeah. Because we've seen that over and over again, right? Like Miguel was a good guy. Then he had the heel turn and then he breaks his back. Now he's a good guy again.

And then Johnny Lawrence's son, kind of the reverse, right? Good guy. Nice guy. He'll turn. Now he's gone to the dark side. And then Hawk.

Hawk is my guy. That's my guy right there. Hawk's heel turn comes out of nowhere as we have the big awesome 10 minute fight scene at the end, which is somehow in the LaRusso's house. God knows how much damage is in LaRusso. And Hawk

is the leader. We've already seen Hawk breaking dude's arm. He broke his arm. He just broke it. He just broke his arm. And it's like, this guy's gone. He's fucking lost his arm. He broke his arm. Just broke it. Just broke his arm. And it's like, this guy's gone. He's fucking lost his mind. He's got Mike Barnes on us. And then in the middle of the fight,

he's like, no, these are my friends. And just flip sides. Heel turn. Yeah. I love that they brought it. They brought Kyler back, who was like the guy

that was picking on him in the first season. Yeah. And then they bring him in and he's like, you, and he's going to team up with Tori, and they're going to be the new top fighters for Cobra Kai. So you have to do something with Hawk. And to team him back up with Miguel, because they're friends the whole time.

He visits them in the hospital. He cares about him, clearly. He just didn't know where he belonged. I love that they bring him back into the fold. And what's the name of the guy whose arm he broke? Dimitri. That guy, great recovery from the broken. We had a couple great recoveries this year.

In like two weeks. That guy's arm snapped. He's doing karate three weeks later. And then Miguel, who goes from, he's basically Tom Cruise and born on the 4th of July with the giant head thing on. And it's like he might never walk again. And then Johnny Lawrence does this revolutionary spinal care program on him where he's basically just antagonizes him into walking again. Yeah.

And within two weeks, he's doing karate. Who knew? Who knew you could cure paralysis by just calling someone a pussy enough times? He's just like, I'm going to walk. And setting sneakers on fire. Yeah. What's going on? What's going on here?

I love Miguel, but still my favorite character in the whole show. I can't get enough of him. That great moment when him and Kyler are fighting in the house. I believe his name is Kyler. And he's got him pinned up against the wall and he's punching him in the back. Yeah, that looks like it hurt. Oh, my God. And he flips out. Oh, man. It's great. in the back. Yeah, that looked like it hurt. And he flips out and

oh man, it's great. It's great. Well, I know, and we've talked about this before on the pod. You're very protective of the Latino actor corner of making sure everybody is treated respectfully and everyone's given

the right kind of I don't know, push. And at the end of season two, he's going over a staircase and it's given the right kind of, I don't know, push. And at the end of season two, he's going over a staircase and it's like, really? They had to cripple Miguel out of anybody on the show? But he had a good, strong bounce back for him. I think we go like seven episodes before he's up walking around and moving again.

And if I could change anything, I just want him to be the center of the show. After this season was over, after season three was over, I went back and watched the tournament episode of season one, which is like my favorite Miguel. When he's just this bulldog and everybody and standing over him and screaming him.

I love this kid. I love him so much. I like that he was basically doing not a Johnny Lawrence impersonation, but definitely studied the Johnny Lawrence tapes for a couple of years. For sure. A couple of chest things, stuff like that. Well, so this would be something I'm throwing at you for season four.

We haven't met Miguel's dad yet. I know who it is. I know who it is. I called it when season one came out. They've already begun aiming us in this direction. It's Terry Silver. It's the guy from Karate Kid 3. Because listen, they don't give us any information about who the dad is,

except for a part when they're all sitting around eating and Miguel's mom is explaining, like, we don't talk about his dad. He was a bad guy he was like he did some bad things whatever they're from Ecuador and there's a part in Karate Kid season three where where Terry Silver is in a hot tub he's on a cell phone he's got a ponytail and an earring like doing the bad guy shtick talking about dumping some like nuclear waste or whatever in Borneo in South America somewhere I think that's what they're going to do. I think that's who John Kreese was talking to on the phone when he's like, it's been a long time.

It's time for us to link back up. I think that's who they're bringing back. And I think eventually we're going to find out, oh, that's the dad. I'm calling it now. I called it two years ago. That was definitely who he was on the phone with. Yeah. I I'm veering against you on this one.

Go for it. I think the dad gives them a chance to hire our guy, S.A. Morales. Oh, you think so? I would like that. I think S.A. Morales comes back as the dad who, he's made some mistakes.

It's a little Johnny Lawrence thing. Maybe his life didn't work out the way it did, but now he's here to make amends but I'm not sure I trust him why'd you leave the first time then we have the potential love rectangle with

you have Ally back Johnny Lawrence is juggling Ally and Miguel's mom but now Miguel's dad, S.I. Morales he's back and now it's like, what happens here? And guess what?

SI Morales does not like William Zabka. Oh, he hates him. They don't hit it off immediately. He doesn't like the training. He doesn't, there's a lot of stuff he doesn't like. That could be a cool way to introduce like a new fighting style.

You know, everybody has their own individual fighting style and he's like, Isai is like, no, this is a different thing I'm going to teach you. Here we go. I don't know. I don't know.

Also, the other guy I was thinking, we'd have to age him up. Maybe put some white hairs on the sides. But Michael Peña, our guy. Yeah. He could do it. Maybe this is a way to sneak him in. I don't know. He's busy.

He can always do it. You know what little thing I was really excited about that they dropped into season three that i don't think they'd done it up to this point is in the original karate kid johnny lawrence has a very distinctive fighting noise that he makes it's like aggressive yeah yeah yeah but it's but it's like rumbly it sounds like a small chainsaw when he does it i think i think it's the most intimidating fight noise that anybody in any movie has had. And we didn't get him doing it, I don't think, through seasons one or two. But he does it in the last episode of season three when he kicks the door open. And I remember he makes a noise and he kicks the door open.

And I immediately got afraid. It's just such a scary, scary thing. I was really pumped about that. So we both agree that Terry Silva was on the phone. Yeah. I guess I'm surprised they're acknowledging Karate Kid 3 because it's one of the worst movies of the 80s. It's also one of the funniest movies of the 80s.

No, come on. It's a terrible movie, but it's a terribly entertaining movie. I've seen it. My son, who hadn't watched it, and like six months ago, it was on and I was watching it. And he's like, what's this? And I was like, Karate Kid 3. He's like, there's a 3?

I'm like, oh, yeah. And we watched the whole thing and he was mad at me after. He was like, how did you not tell me about Karate Kid 3? And I'm like, because it's terrible. But I was waiting for the right time. Terry Silva, the evil billionaire who decides to basically take a break from his life to destroy a 19-year-old kid in Reseda and rebuild his friend's karate studio. But they build the backstory that actually explains it. And I thought they did a good job. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's clearly the guy who he saves in Vietnam.

That has to be the same guy, right? Yeah, that's the one. Because they talk briefly about it in Karate Kid 3. Like, you know, they were together. No, he says in Karate Kid 3, he says something like, this guy you saved my ass a million times in Vietnam or whatever he said. So it's clearly him. Yeah.

It's so much fun to watch them lay out all this stuff. Like at this point, everybody who has watched the show sort of understands the pacing of it and the things that they're trying to do. And they keep exceeding the expectations each time. It's just so enjoyable to watch. You just turn it on and feel a bunch of emotions for a little bit. We haven't talked any about, we didn't talk Vietnam yet about Vietnam. We haven't talked about Sam versus Tori, which I thought was just really great. So let's do Vietnam quick. Cause that, my son said that was his favorite part of season three. He loved the Vietnam stuff. He thought it really worked and didn't understand where it was going. and then when it pays off with the snake pit showdown with crease man crease just ices that dude um he just he just loved it he thought

it was really good and it gave i wasn't expecting a crease backstory i thought maybe that'd be like season seven but they just went for it and it worked i thought it was good yeah every day i can't think of like a thing that they've missed on yet. They just, it's great. Tori versus Sam. Oof. Oof. So, I'm not sure either of them are that good at karate. And I think they have to be really careful.

Uh-huh. Because I wanted, when they got into the dojo there, Sam runs away, Tori followers are, and I'm just like, Oh, it's on now. Here we go. Yeah. And it was kind of like a, not that sad. I thought it was the worst fight scene of all the fight scenes. I don't know if they're limited with what Sam can do. Um, my wife is on the corner of,

she's just not athletic enough to do some of the, some of the stunt stuff we need to do in the cry thing. I don't know if that's true or not, but, kind of cut that one short, it felt like. See, that's crazy because I'm on the opposite side there. I felt like that was, for me, the most enjoyable fight to watch. Because you like nunchucks. They held it away from you for so long. They kept putting Sam in these positions where she would panic and run away, panic and run away, panic and run away. So by the time they're in the house and they finally confront each other and you're like, okay, please, Sam, stand up to her. And she runs again. You're just like, oh God,

she picks up the stick though. And when she does that, she decides she's not going to run anymore. I'm like, oh, fuck her up, Sam. Now is the time to fuck her. I was really, I was pumped about that. I wanted 30 more seconds and just a couple more blows landed. Did we ever figure out why Tori hates her to the point that it's almost homicidal? Yeah, I think there's just a lot of bad stuff in her life going on. She's just taking it all out on Sam? Yeah, I mean, of course, she's mad, she's mad about the, the Miguel and Robbie and that whole thing. Like it's all very confusing for her there, but there's, it seems like there's

some crazy stuff happening that we don't know about yet for her that has just turned her into this bad person. Can I ask you what would happen if you came home and the Serrano sons had had a 20 person fight in the first floor of your house. You're like, Hey dad. So the surprise came over and got out of hand and everything is now broken. It would, it would, it would be a, a, a hard conversation. But the thing is, I would not be all the way surprised about it. They have their little eighth grade group of friends now that they've been moving together through all the middle school and the, between their group, they have their little eighth grade group of friends now that they've been moving together through all of middle school.

Between their group, they have as a group gotten into, I think, two fights already at the trampoline place of all places. Bounce around place. It's going to happen. Man, that fight was crazy. It starts out with them throwing that one kid through a window. He goes to check

on a cat, comes flying back in through the window. And then he's like, he just is a great line. He's like, there's no cat. Right. You know, it's like,

oh shit, they're going for it here. I think it's cool how they film it where I don't know how they do it. It's so well choreographed where it's like one fight and the camera moves, but it's definitely not edited. And it moves around for like a good 30, 35 seconds of just action, you know? And it's modeled, it's the Warriors,

which I made you watch, which was over 40 years ago at this point. But they had the two fight scenes, one specifically in the bathroom when they fought the roller skating gang. Yeah. And everything's in there. And there's basically 15 people fighting in a small space.

And it just worked. But that's only like 40 seconds. In Cobra Kai season two and then season three, these are like five minute fight scenes. I love a long fight scene. And I love a long shot in the fight scene. Because those are the moments when you can see how much work has gone into this. they're what that's like a five on five fight or something six on six yeah so everybody's got to be moving at all times it's really hard to pin down it's really hard to keep up the energy in a long shot like that that's like a trick that a lot of of fight movies do

like with liam neeson for example it's like quick cuts quick cuts because they're trying to make him look faster than he is or more fluid than he is. But in these ones, they're just leaning into it and showing you a bunch of it. And it's really cool to watch that happen. So for season four, obviously, Daniel and Johnny, their dojos are going to combine. Yes. And that's not going to go great. Not great.

That will have some will, that will have some tension, some conflict. You figure they bring back Elizabeth shoe for season four and there's a love triangle. Miguel's dad, I think comes into play cause they got to extend the Miguel arc. I don't know how many months are passing or what year in high school these kids are. They've kind of, uh, they've kind of skipped over that. I don't know. It's two years past has two months past guys break their arm. They're fighting next week. I don't know how old these kids are supposed to be at this point. I w I do want to shout out the worst scene of season three though,

was the soccer scene. Um, one of my passions, one of my passions is when there's bad soccer scenes in TV shows or movies, because I think, I think directors always feel like, Oh, it's soccer. We'll just have the kids kick around, but they don't understand how bad it looks, especially if it's like supposed to be high school. This was one of the worst one minute soccer scenes ever. It looked like Sam had never touched a soccer ball in her life. And she was like pawing at it with her foot, like a cat with a toy. It was really bad.

I encourage people to look out on a rewatch for that. Uh, Terry Silva is going to come back. I feel like, yes, it's gotta, it's gotta, he's gotta be back.

Yeah. And then maybe the Ralph Macchio, uh, separation with the wife type thing or some sort of tension yeah i don't think that's going to be her her old high school sweetheart is in town maybe that would be that would be fun to see him to see him like have to be a little bit uncomfortable in a situation like that but yeah i think the main things i think i'm really excited about the tournament being back anytime there's a tournament i love it i love it at the in the very end when hawk walks in um and he like stands up on the platform or whatever and

he we they're showing you all of the people who are going to be like the key figures in the tournament and so now the automatically you're like, does Miguel defend his title? Does Hawk come through? Is it going to be Sam? Are they going to let one of the bad ones win again? There's just a lot of really fun stuff. I hope that that's like a two episode thing, the tournament.

That'd be great. I love that Kreese went from, he was literally going to murder Johnny Lawrence. He's going to kill him. And then Macho comes in. And then Macho's going to kill Kreese. But then other people come in and then they're like,

hey, instead of murder, let's settle this in the tournament. It was like, cool. The old fashioned way, baby. The old fashioned way. Let's go. Well, listen, this show's going to keep going and going.

Before we go, I saw a movie on Netflix. What was it? I want to tell you about. Please do. Kind of buried on Netflix. Netflix has a lot of new stuff. It stars Ryan Phillippe.

Uh-huh. I'm already in. Who is kind of... I think he's studied the Mark Wahlberg action movie territory. Where Mark Wahlberg is now too big to just be in like shooter and movies like that. He's kind of transcended that. So there's kind of a territory open. Mark Wahlberg would have been in this movie 10 years ago.

Now it's Ryan Phillippe. He's a Secret Service agent. He used to be the best. You're saying a lot of things I like right now. You're saying a lot of things I like right now. He used to be the best. Guess what? What?

Not really in that life anymore. Yeah, he just wants to unwind. Goes to pick up his son at college. One of his son's close friends is the daughter of a Supreme Court justice. There's some stuff happening there. There's some bad guys who might want to kidnap the Supreme Court justice

and they might be doing it at the exact same time that Ryan Phillippe, who doesn't want this life anymore, is picking up his son from college. So it's like a cross between shooter and toy soldiers, basically. What is this movie called? It is called The Second.

And I'm going to give you the bad guy. It's your old friend Casper Van Diem. Yes. That's a cast right there. That's a cast right there. Yeah. So there you go. The second.

I've just given you a great 90 minutes. It's not a great movie, but I was just delighted that I just want them to keep making terrible movies like that where somebody used to be the best, and now he's got to fight his way out. But, uh, yeah, it's a solid one. I watched the Liam Neeson one. I rented that one.

And the one where he's another one who you want, he's a thief, but he wants out of his life. It's on Apple and all those streaming ones. It's an on demand. And it was, it wasn't that great. I think it might be over for Liam Neeson as an action guy. He had a great run though. I mean, it goes back to 12 years, right? But at some point it's got that great. I think it might be over for Liam Neeson as an action guy. He had a great run, though. I mean, it goes back to 12 years, right?

But at some point, it's got to end. Yeah, let him go on. Ryan Filippo was great in the Shooter series. So I'm excited to watch this. I was laughing to myself when, at the very beginning of this podcast, you mentioned the Karate Kid came out at midnight on January 1 or whatever it was. And then three hours later, you text me,

hey, are you on episode four yet? Because it's like a crazy thing. I'm like, it fucking came out three and a half hours ago. How are you? Listen, I thought you were a fan. No, I liked your response. You said you were saving it for Saturday, but you're getting your family out of the house.

I had to send the kids to my mom's house. We're all quarantining. Go stay with your grandma. I'm going to watch the whole show. I watch it all in one day. Order some food. A great, great time. Give me seven more seasons of this

and then another Karate Kid movie. Fuck it. Let's go for it. I'll tell you this. I had Zapka on my podcast a couple weeks ago. I do think he's really good in the Cobra Kai show. And I do wonder, could he have had could he have grabbed this action turf? Could he have been like an action guy basically in the 90s? Could he have gotten like a rejected Van Damme script and been like

an alcoholic cop who's putting his life back together, but now he's got to foil some terrorist act. I think of the show Cobra Kai, I think William Zabka has had the biggest, I don't even know what you would call it. Not a turnaround revelation. I don't know. But you watch the show and you realize, oh, this guy can do it all. He's funny. He can be intimidating. He can be intimidating he can be good he's just he's

like a genuinely good good actor who can do a bunch more stuff than than you know he looked a certain way in the 80s so they had him be a certain guy but he could do everything like i loved him i love him in this show i tried to figure out a way to say that to him without it sounding insulting and i couldn't figure it out when I interviewed him, where I was, I, I really wanted to ask him, like, you're a way better actor than I think I thought you were, but that's like a hard thing to say to somebody. Oh,

but at the same time, like I do feel like he was a really good actor. And I, and I think he got pigeonholed by those three movies and maybe, I don't know, maybe he didn't want it. And maybe he left. Yeah. Who knows? Who knows what anybody was thinking, I think.

But I know watching this show, it happens in the very first season when he's in the convenience store and he has an altercation with the cashier and Miguel and the three of them together. And when that scene happened, I said, oh shit, oh, this is going to be good. And it's going to be good because of this guy right here.

And then sure enough, you know, he's, he, I think he's the star of the show. No question. He's dusted Machio, but it's great for Machio too. Yeah.

Great. Yeah. He's great for him. He's definitely, they've done it correctly. All right. Shea Serrano. Good to see you as always.

And I'm sure we'll talk to you soon. Yeah. All right. That's it for the BS podcast. Back with, uh, our big round one playoff gambling preview and some basketball as well on Thursday.

See you then. I feel it's within On the wayside I'm a person never once in I don't have to be